Dental Guiding Point
To make the business side of dentistry less lonely, less stressful, and more successful — by giving away the practical knowledge, systems, and leadership insights from someone who has been in the trenches, growing from $0 to $21 million a year. The lessons here are real, hard-won, and designed to help dentists thrive — in practice, and in life.
Dental Guiding Point
Hire Fast, Fire Fast: The Dental Practice Hiring Playbook
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Most dentists are losing great employees before they ever make an offer. Dr. Mark Dill and Toria Plank break down their complete hiring system — where to find candidates, how to spot red flags fast, and why hiring multiple people at once beats holding out for the "perfect" hire. Plus: the dark side strategy for finding employees who aren't actively looking.
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We're gonna share this with you. Don't think less of it. It's probably happening to you. You just don't know it.
SPEAKER_00Do you want me to explain it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. This could be something that uh you could want to close your ears for. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Sorry, guys.
SPEAKER_03Hey guys, welcome to Dental Guiding Point, where we talk about all the problems that plague your office, and we offer the solutions that we found that work for us, and we do it for free for you guys. I'm Dr. Mark Dill, and with me is Miss Toria Plank.
SPEAKER_02Hey y'all.
SPEAKER_03I like how I say it. Plank.
SPEAKER_02You you gotta say it like me, though.
SPEAKER_03Go ahead and show everybody how you say plank.
SPEAKER_02Plank.
SPEAKER_03Yep. See the tongue. There it is. All right, guys. So today we're talking about why we hire the unicorn employee and you might lose out on the unicorn employee. And we want to show you how you actually find that unicorn employee and you retain that unicorn employee. So we're going to be talking about, well, where are they at? Where do we go to find these people? What do we do in the job interview? How do we actually offer a job? That's a little bit tricky. Have you ever had like an employee say, okay, well, let me go home and think about it. Let me go home and talk to my spouse, and I'll get back to you. Well, how do you actually avoid that little circumstance? Once they accept the job, once they show up to the job, what do you do? Let's talk a little bit about uh where do you post a job listing? So we we get somebody um that quits, gets fired, you know, moves away, you know, an employer, whatever. We got a position to fill. Where are we going to drum up some business for some employees?
SPEAKER_02Yes, you have your Indeed, your zip recruiter, your um LinkedIns, your Facebook pages. I mean, there's so many different ones that you can use. But the main thing is is see what is like active in your area. Like you can look to on any of these platforms and see like where are people posting at. If that's where they're posting, that's where you heavily want to market for your new employees. Um Facebook social media pages are phenomenal to do that um with. And then on ND and ZipRecruiters, you have paid ads ones and you don't. You pretty much can get the result of either or it's just what you want to really just put time into.
SPEAKER_03I think if we're looking for a dentist, we're probably a little bit more likely to do a paid ad.
SPEAKER_02But if we're looking for typical employees, um Yes, and yes, but if it's like something I need to get filled very quickly, then I'm probably gonna do a paid one because they're going to like drum up a lot more people. Plus, on like Indeed, you can invite people to come in, like apply for the position. So it just depends on how quickly I need that position filled when it comes to posts like that.
SPEAKER_03So one thing I want to say is guys, don't click off of this video because it's not about like, you know, teaching you guys how to use Indeed and everything. This is the very, very beginning, and this is the least important part of what we have to cover, but we have to say it because we have to say it.
SPEAKER_02Well, you gotta know where to start at.
SPEAKER_03Well, you gotta know where to start at because you got to get bodies in your office that are interested in your business. So this is one area, but we get way more creative. And at the very end, if you stay to the very end, I'm gonna go over the dark side.
SPEAKER_02And then local reps. Local reps are like the best to they go in and out of these offices. They see when offices are not fun or um probably a little toxic. I hate to say it that way, but it's the truth. Um, so they're quick to like represent you as long as you took care of that rep. Um, UPS men, mailmen, all those phenomenal. Your computer guy. Um, it's really who you got to look at it who has interaction with your practice that may have interaction with other dental employees. And those are the ones you want to contact with.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so be good to your dental supply reps. I mean, I know we kind of like to beat them up a little bit on uh prices and service and all that fun stuff. And we like to go online and you know, order the cheapest thing that we can, but try to feed your local reps as much as you can because they are a very valuable resource in ways that they can't really charge you. They know all the gossip, they know all the stuff. Plus, they're an ambassador for your business. If you're asking, you know, hey, you know anybody that's interested, or you know, any assistants or any admin people that are looking for a job, they're gonna be like, I would not recommend that my dog come work here. But if you are good to your reps and you take care of them, then they're gonna go to somebody and say, Hey, you know how you were asking me if there's any dentist hiring and I didn't know anybody. Well, this office was asking me the other day, and I mean, this office, I love them. They are so much fun. Every time I go in there, it looks like they're having a good time, and they're, you know, and they're gonna be a great ambassador. So make sure you're being good to the people in your community. I mean, your UPS person, your postman or woman that comes in. Um, make sure that you're good to them because they are in and out of everything. They may have a niece or a nephew or somebody that's you know graduating or wants to get into the dental industry and they're like, well, hey, look, I go into a lot of dental offices, but this is the place I would start. So you can network that way. The second way, or another way, is past resumes. Don't trash them. You know, if you've interviewed them and they're horrible, then you know, put a big X to them. But if uh they were kind of sort of okay, there were just a few things that were off, or maybe you just had a really good applicant pool and there was seven or eight people that would maybe make the cut, uh, but you had to like whittle it down to three, no big deal. You know, start pulling from those other people. Maybe it works out.
SPEAKER_02Um, like Indeed and all those. So we're notorious of putting notes that only us can see. So staff is another one that is really good to finding other employees. Um, because if you have a really good staff and you like them, more than likely their friends are going to be just like them. So them recruiting people in, and you can like bonus them out or play a game with them or anything like that to be able to recruit people in as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So uh pay attention to who your ambassadors are that work for you. So your employees, because you might not blanket it and say, oh, anybody that finds anybody that comes here and works, I'll give a $200 bonus or a $100 bonus to. But you might offer that secretly to like some of your employees that are like, you know, your top employees, because some of the others that are just kind of barely getting by, you don't really want their friends coming in. Um, you're looking for that elite, and it's it's well worth it. Okay, so we've now posted on all of the areas. We got resumes coming in, and maybe we have more resumes than what we want to spend time interviewing people. So we have to quickly be able to sift through these resumes and figure out who are the ones that are the most worthy. And you know, beforehand, before all of this um digital resume stuff, you kind of looked at the paper that these things are printed on, and it, you know, it kind of told you a little bit about the person, but now it's all very standard stuff. So you actually have to look at the content and you have to like get a little bit more detailed on what you're looking at and kind of draw some references as to what it's telling you or what that means. So, what are the things we're looking for on a resume, Toria?
SPEAKER_02Anyone who has like one of those very detailed resumes, um, as far as like some of them now come with our pictures on it and like you can tell they put time in it. I want to interview them no matter what. Um, but if they have our license, I'm gonna need to make sure they have their license like listed on there. If I am interviewing for a licensed position and they don't, I won't interview them. But I'm also looking for like grammar areas or missing information. Um, because those are the things that like if you're not gonna take time to like double check your resume before you submit it, then how are how is your work going to show? So I I will not interview those. Job hoppers. I will still interview job hoppers, but I'm very aware of job hoppers. And so I'm gonna be very acquisitive when I'm interviewing them to see why they haven't sticked with a practice. Um, and that's pretty much what I'm looking for. I'll I love interviewing, it's kind of entertaining for me. Um, and I just have fun with it. Like I don't make it where it's like a burden on me or anything like that. Like I'm like, ooh, let's what's coming through this door now?
SPEAKER_03All right, there you go. So it's uh an OM's playground.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it really is.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so now we've got the resumes. Um, we're gonna start our interview process, and I'm gonna introduce to you guys a term that we use, and we call it higher fast, fire fast. And the reason that you say it fast is it kind of sounds like a firefighter. No. So you've got to do it because we're talking about fast guys. Like we're not getting any younger. Um, we're trying to make some improvements around here in our practice, and we want it to happen now. Like we're motivated, we got things on our mind, we need to get some people in here, get them trained up, get them going, right? I want to give you a little bit of a paradigm shift. So many times we go into the interview and we treat it as if we're like looking for a spouse. Um, it it's it's like you know, you go on a date and you're trying to determine like within the first few minutes. I mean, imagine a 15-minute date and you're trying to determine whether this person is going to be the person that you're gonna spend the rest of your life with. I mean, you just can't do it. So, in the interview, like instead of like thinking about the things you're looking for in an employee, why don't we think about the things that we just don't want to see? So, what if we just did a little paradigm shift and we started thinking about, okay, what are the obvious red flags that would be a no-go? Well, we are a dental office, so having all your teeth would be a pretty big deal, right? Because some of your people are going to be promoting oral health. And I get it, there may be a season of life where people go through like some missing teeth or whatever, but like, you know, we promote oral health. Uh also they need to be hygienic, meaning they they need to look nice because we do, you know, cosmetics and stuff. So if they don't smell good or they look like they haven't, you know, bathed, or you know, they're there's something about their appearance that's wacky, well, um, that would be an obvious red flag. Like severely wrinkled clothes. I mean, I could be sitting here and have like a little wrinkle or something, not a big shot.
SPEAKER_02My shirt's made to look wrinkled right now.
SPEAKER_03Severely wrinkled clothes, clothes that are not supposed to be wrinkled or whatever. Like, you should be looking at that because it's just an indication of like how much pride they take in themselves, how much pride they take in their belongings. You know, we can't really go out and look in their car, but like if you did, is it going to look like a dumpster inside their car, or is it gonna look pretty clean because that's what they're gonna be doing in your office? That's just their natural tendency.
SPEAKER_02Unfortunately, I have interviewed people in their pajamas and uh holes in their clothes and stains all over it, or just mixed match that makes no sense whatsoever.
SPEAKER_03Those are the quick interviews, yeah. So weird behaviors, questions, or comments. Um, you know, if there are there's a time and a place for like certain questions and stuff. So, you know, that saying there is no bad questions. Well, maybe in an educational environment that's true, but in an interview, well, we're judging them on the type of questions they ask. So, you know, or their comments that they make, um, you know, things like how long is your lunch or something like that, or you know, uh just you get into like this, these sometimes these people they they're OCD about certain things, um, and so they have a certain way about them, and it's like, you know, I have to have it like this, or what what uh how do you do your feelings? Well, I can't do feelings if it's not this or that, or you know, whatever the case may be. Same thing with assistants or even hygienist. And it's like, okay, well, like this is an indication of maybe somebody that's being unwilling. So, you know, maybe those are some red flags that you would uh have a problem with. Okay, so now that we've talked about some red flags, if they don't have them, they're pretty good. Like they look, they look nice, they everything kind of matches up and makes sense on the resume. Um, we're gonna talk about the interview process and their questions and stuff. And as long as that looks pretty good, we can hire them right there on the spot. What if another one or two come along? You got other interviews set up, no big deal. People that are high quality employees, the unicorns, they think fast, they act fast. So on the spot, they're ready to go, no big deal. Because doesn't it kind of make sense? Like they're the ones that applied for the job. You have a website, you're a business, they can look you up, they can read everything about you, they know your location, they know everything. Maybe the one thing that they're not too sure about is how much you're willing to pay them. But if you meet all of their demands, like their pay, their requirements for benefits and things like that, what else is there to think about? You showed up here in my office to talk to me about a job, and I just gave you the world. What else is there to think about? They're ready to move. Sensible people are ready to move, they don't have everything in line and go, oh, well, let me spend a few days thinking about it. No, they're ready to move fast. Hire fast, get them in your office, get them going. Okay, now let's jump off to, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about like how you actually want to hire them, though, because there are a few key things that you want to keep in mind. Okay, so when I say fire fast, so in the interview, we kind of went over some red flags. Now they're working for you, and you gotta fire them quick.
SPEAKER_02If you'll watch our other videos, we're gonna go over things like this.
SPEAKER_03You could actually go through two, three, four employees, maybe. And quite honestly, uh now you're almost a year down the road. You only get so many of these cycles before like you're ready to retire. So you're just wasting precious time. Now, what if you interview and there's two or three or four people that don't have any red flags?
SPEAKER_02Hire them all.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Hire them all. That's what we mean by hire fast. You can't determine who's gonna be your spouse in a 15-minute date. You cannot determine in a 15-minute interview who is going to be like your unicorn employee. You just can't because all of these factors kind of have to be put to the test a little bit to see what they can and can't do. You can say, Oh, well, I'm gonna do a working interview. That's fine, whether you pay them or don't pay them and all this other stuff. It just kind of drags out the process. Plus, it's a little bit more headache on your part. If you bring them in as an employee, set them up, let them go. Um, you know, I hear doctors talk about, oh, well, you know, it's gonna up my unemployment and everything. Well, all this gets calculated in that they hardly even worked for you before you let them go. And then the second thing is, is like, okay, so what? Your unemployment percentage goes up a little bit, but that's nothing compared to like how much it costs you to not have a adequate trained staff and an adequate staff in volume, like the number of staff. You can hit the ground running, and you will do far better financially than hanging on to somebody. And in the end, you're letting them go, anyways. So, like, it still affects unemployment, like it either affects your unemployment two weeks later or it affects your unemployment two months, three months later. So, nothing's going to change. You just gotta kind of get on with it. So let's just say you hire three people all at the same time, and you're like, Oh no, I've got to pay three people all at once. Okay, well, one probably doesn't show, and then the two that do show, one makes it, one doesn't. Probably all three of them don't make it, honestly, but at least you know that two weeks in. And then you go through and you hire some more, and you go through this same same thing again. But I can promise you, you find that one unicorn that will outweigh a hundred or a hundred and fifty bad interviews, bad hires, bad whatever. So if you have multiple people that check your boxes, go ahead and hire them. This is how you should be spending um your money when you have a really good month and you've got excess profits. You should be reinforcing your team until you have a super thick team, teams that are really, really deep, but you need a little bit of flexibility to be able to make some decisions. You don't need to be worried about the payroll um of hiring one or two extra people. Um, you use your profits from previous months to be able to like give you that amount of flexibility.
SPEAKER_02I know y'all are probably thinking, like, well, what about if two of them's good out of the three? Great. Now you have a second employee that you can train wherever you may need them. And it's always nice to have that fill-in person, but you never know what they may grow into. So keep them, develop them, and utilize them where you're needed because the practice is going to grow every time you add a strong employee.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's a perfect point. You will never regret unicorns. I don't care. Like, if you need five employees and you wound up with seven or eight unicorns, you will never regret being overstaffed with unicorns. And the reality is that people are gonna call in sick, people are gonna need to be off for their kids' field trips or whatever. So being a little overstaffed is actually a good thing. It keeps you running, keeps you efficient, and you shouldn't be running with like the perfect amount of employees because you never know when an employee is going to move off or you know, quit or whatever. So you should have some reserves kind of in place uh to give you that peace of mind of knowing, okay, if somebody's out all of a sudden, you know, surgery or whatever the case may be, you've got somebody to be able to sit in and fill in.
SPEAKER_02So I keep interviewing even after that person's hiring or after that person is hired, um, I keep interviewing. Now, if they've worked out and they're doing pretty solid, I might not be interviewing every week, but I'm still looking at resumes that's coming in because you never know when I might have to add more people.
SPEAKER_03There you go. Yeah. I mean, that's a hundred percent right. And if you wind up with like being over uh staffed just a little bit, I mean, how many, how many times do you kind of put up with somebody at a little extra time because you don't really have a replacement for them?
SPEAKER_00Too many times.
SPEAKER_03You've got that hygienist, that assistant that just gives you a bunch of crap and a bunch of grief. I want to surround myself with people that make me feel good about me. So that seems selfish, but that's kind of the game we play. If you're watching this and you're a staff member, or if you are an owner, doctor, you know, we're kind of at a level like why would we put up with something like that? You know, people that give us grief when we can choose who we surround ourselves with. You know, as dentists, like we get to choose the color on the walls, we get to choose what we put back here on these shelves, we get to choose what color our chairs are, what equipment we use, and that sort of thing. Um, we get to choose the people that we surround ourselves with. So, like if they're giving you grief, I don't care how good they are, if they're giving you grief, get them out. You will be much happier. So if you've got an excess of really good employees, you don't have to put up with like little tidbits. And then if everything is all hunky dory and you're rocking and rolling, well, guess what? You are going to grow because you have excess unicorns, your office is bound to grow and expand. Get ready for the rocket ride. Let's jump back into the interview though. So we talked about hire fast, fire fast, but the deal is um we don't really want to have to fire fast. So, how can we better our odds in that interview process? What can we do with the interviewee that will tell us something? Well, I have a couple of things. Sometimes we sit down in these interviews and we treat it almost like we're looking for a best friend. Like we ask questions what are your hobbies and your interests? What do you do in your free time and stuff? Oh, I go and I ride my Jeep around the mountains. Oh, I've got a Jeep too. We could go ride together. Like, you know, it doesn't really tell us what kind of an employee. I mean, maybe there's good employees that like Jeeps, and there's also bad employees that like Jeeps. So, you know, are you asking questions that lead to like their hobbies and their interests? You know, a spouse. We kind of talked earlier, you know, about a spouse, but are we asking questions, you know, that is maybe a little bit too steep of a gradient for them? Like, where do you see yourself in five years? I mean, I don't know. Like, I just see myself like trying to find a job that you know suits my needs and that, you know, makes me happy every day. Um, I've I I've not even taken a tour of your office. I don't even know what opportunities. I mean, you know, and I mean, in the end, like dentistry can be kind of a dead-end job, right? I kind of hate to say that, but you know, how many assistants have been working for a dentist for like 30 years, 35 years, just sucking spit and blood day in, day out, groundhog day. You know, that's why, you know, watch our videos and learn how to grow and expand and develop employees and give them like growth and not just it be a stagnant job. It shouldn't be, but oftentimes it is. So uh, you know, we're asking them questions as if we're like trying to, you know, find out if they're the unicorn or the this long-term employee or whatever, and it just doesn't really go anywhere. You know, we're looking for the unicorn, but I'll tell you this much the reason that unicorns exist is because somewhere, somehow, somebody drew it and they put a little horn on a horse and called it a unicorn. It it doesn't exist, right? That's the very point, is it was created. So your unicorn employee can exist, but only through your creation. You can't just hire them, they weren't born a unicorn. Nobody is born a unicorn, they develop either through their own self-development or through the development of a mentor. You are the leader of that office, you are their mentor, you are their vision. If you ask them, where do you want to be in five years? Okay, they'll give you some pretty answer that they probably chat GPT'd. Um but if you want this person to be a unicorn, you have to develop them, you have to create them. They don't come to you that way. And if they're coming from another office and they've had a good past job experience, it's likely that their past job experience was, you know, them being molded into what somebody else wanted. So just make sure that when your mindset is that is this person a person that I can turn into a unicorn?
SPEAKER_02When I'm interviewing people, I always ask them open-ended questions. So, of course, you can do like, you know, tell me about yourself. And I'm listening, and mainly I'm just listening how they are um answering the question. If they're just like, um I don't, I don't know what to okay, like I want some more involvement with that. Um, I was gonna add to your other thing, people who's like, I stay at home and I just binge watch movies, and you will get these all day long, every day. How motivated are they gonna be within your practice? Just food for thought. Do they speak about any kind of accomplishments that they may or may not have or they want? I mean, I just interviewed a girl yesterday and she's like, Well, I want to go back for my expanded functions. I want this, I want that. I'm like, dude, when do you want to start? Like, that's what I want. I want that person who's always looking for that growth for themselves. And then I'm also going to want to know about their past experience, right? Those staff members that is like so quick to bash their their current employee or employer or their past employer, I'm out. Um, if they're gonna bash them that quick, how quick are they gonna bash you? And what damage can they create for you? Um, so just be mindful of those things. Now, if they're like, well, I'm leaving because it just was in a good environment, and I'm like, oh, tell me about it. I'm waiting. I'm trying to pull that out of them. And they're like, well, I don't really want to talk about nobody, it's just not right for me. Great. I'm gonna keep interviewing this person because they're not quick. They're leaving because it wasn't a good fit for them and for whatever reason, and they're not going to bash that other practice. So that's gonna be good for us. If they're leaving their uh practices because location or hours or days or something like that, uh, as long as ours work, like I'm gonna ask them, well, how close do you live to this practice or whatever the reason they are leaving for that practice? I'm gonna see if that's gonna relate to ours. Because if they're like, well, I left because it's Monday through Friday, eight to five, and we're Monday through Friday, eight to five, how's that gonna work out for us? So you just kind of want to know those questions.
SPEAKER_03I would add on the location uh perspective is you know, as you get in really good communication with them and you're asking them about, you know, location and how it's changed and stuff, you're looking for things that are like, is this like a short-term change, or is this more like a life change? Uh so for example, well, we lived in this area of town for you know 10 years, 15 years or whatever, but uh we moved over here for my kids' school. Um, versus, well, I was renting a duplex, and then they decided that they were gonna sell the duplex to bulldoze it down to make a gas station. So I had to move and I moved over here, and I just don't want to have to drive across the dam to go to work every day. But you just never know when they're gonna be like moving somewhere else. So you wanted to be a little bit more of like if they relocated and your office is more convenient, it's not like on a whilm, it's a little bit more of a life decision that they made to be where they're gonna be. So, did you know that there's a way that you could kind of gauge how smart somebody is? And it's there's a little trick to it. So basically, what you can do is you can ask them a question that they should already know the answer to, that they don't have to think about too much, but it has to be a question that isn't confusing. So, like if you say, What is your favorite food? Well, they may say, I don't know, is he asking like Mexican, Italian, American, Chinese, or is he asking like specific food, like my favorite food is pizza, or my favorite food is hamburger or french fries or ice cream. They might be sitting there thinking about the context and trying to figure out like what you mean by it, or they could be trying to figure out why is he asking this question in a job interview for dentistry, like that doesn't really have anything to do with anything. Uh, but in a job interview, what you know is that they drove to get there, right? And it's possible that um it's fresh on their mind because they just drove. So you could ask them, you know, what area of town do you live in? And that's something that's pretty quick. Like what area of town? There's not a lot of like, you know, they may have a hard time describing it because they may be trying to tell you a road, or they may be, you know, maybe their area is not really an area, it's just, you know, I live in Atlanta, I live in New York City, like, you know, so they're trying to figure out okay, how specific should I be, maybe. But then when you ask them, and this is the real question, is well, what route do you take to get here? You're looking for how long it takes them to answer that question. So they may say, uh, well, I I come the interstate and then come up the highway and then down this road. So then they answer the question, you're oh, okay, cool. Yeah, so so how long does that take? Uh, it wasn't bad, about 20 minutes, 50 minutes, whatever. Um, you don't really care about their answer, you're just seeing how long it actually takes them to process the question and give you an answer. Now, the same is actually, you know, true for all your other applicants. So it's really more of a relativity thing. It's it's like there is no like, well, it took them 3.2 seconds to answer, or it took them 6.7 seconds to answer. But the longer it takes them to answer, probably the lower their intelligence is. Is that like a deal breaker for us? No, but it's just something to note. And um, if the applicant pull is very low, then that person may actually like be able to get into our office. But if the applicant pool is uh fairly high, then that's probably one thing that we're gonna rule them out on.
SPEAKER_02The person you're interviewing is interviewing you as well, right? So if you're going into that interview all stiff and like all prem and proper and stuff, that's intimidating. Have fun with the interviews. When we do them, we're not going in there trying to show our titles or anything like that. Like we want to get to know them. Like we're pretty laid back, we're laughing, we're cutting up. And that kind of like helps settle the nerves of people who's like interviewing, because I mean, it is, it's scary, right? And so then they can start kind of feeling you out because they're interviewing you. So when they are, be like accommodating to them. Like, ask, do you need water? Is it cold in here to you? If it is, I can change the temperature. I can get you a blanket if you want one. Um, staff or or employees are like, dang, they go the extra mile for it. Um, we give our people who's interviewing, especially like if they look pretty good and stuff, we're gonna go ahead and give them like a tour of the office. Um, we have little games around the office. Um, you have to watch our other videos to see those. Um, and they see that and they're like, man, this is pretty cool. Um, or they'll see the staff interacting with each other. So you kind of want to be able um to showcase that to them. Just be interested in them, not like what are you looking for the whole time? Like find out what they're looking for.
SPEAKER_03We are selling them, right? So they're they're there, you know, they're nervous and everything, but they're trying to get a good feel as to like, is this a place that I could get along with all day, every day? And so you want to sell your location. So, you know, for me, we've got three different dental practices. The main practice, our flagship practice that I started in 2008, it's centrally located in town. It's close to Walmart and Lowe's and Home Depot and Ace Hardware.
SPEAKER_02And you know, okay, that's all guy stores.
SPEAKER_03Every, oh, okay, so the mall, um, Sephora, DSW, there you go, Lululemon. Uh-huh. Now we're talking. Yeah. Everywhere that you want to run before or after work or at on lunch break potentially, or um restaurants, every single restaurant is within the distance of like a lunch hour. So I sell the location, I sell the office and our technology. And, you know, I don't have a refrigerator in my break room. I've got two. I don't have a microwave. I've got four. I've got, you know, our logo painted on the wall. That logo probably cost us a few hundred dollars to have it painted on the wall. It looks cool as can be. And, you know, it's there for a long, long time. It's not something that I have to spend money on over and over and over. So, like when you do some of these little plushness, you provide some of these things for your employees so that they can come in and they got a place to put their lunch and they can be comfortable and they can sit and they can, you know, enjoy lunch and that sort of thing. You know, make it something that they can put up with and tolerate for 20 years, potentially. Um, and then not only that, but uh you want to sell your staff and like that they are good people and like competent and happy people, and you want to sell the training that you provide.
SPEAKER_02That's a big one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Like, you know, most people are attracted to like training and growth and learning and that sort of thing. You know, so talk about, you know, if you've got any employees that came in right off the street and they're excelling, and you want to, you know, highlight, you know, their story, tell their story. Um, tell any stories of any employees that have worked for you for a long time. I mean, Tori had just crossed the 16-year mark.
SPEAKER_02I did.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I have a story about one of our employees that currently still works for us, been working for us for many years, but I use her story in interviews quite often. I was interviewing for a dental assistant position, and she came on and I I needed somebody with like pretty strong experience because I needed to fill this position pretty quickly. And she didn't have the experience that we were looking for. But boy, did she have it? She had so much energy and she was just happy go lucky. Um, and so at the end of the interview, she said, Well, if you don't hire me, can I come back and volunteer with y'all? And I was like, huh? She's like, so I can get the experience. She's like, I will give out your referral cards. I will do this, I will do that, I'll play your games. You don't have to pay me. And Dr. Dale, wasn't you in there on that? And so she left. And I'll never forget, I was flying out for work that day, and Dr. Dale called me and he's like, call her, hire her position. I was like, where am I going to put her? He goes, I don't know. He's like, we'll make something. He's like, because that's the kind of attitude we want on our team. And this has been what, uh, probably six or seven years ago now, probably.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, or longer.
SPEAKER_02Or longer. And she is still right there with us, still energy, still very promoting our office.
SPEAKER_03Never regretted it either. She's uh she's been amazing. So here's the deal. I mean, we we hire based on attitude and willingness, not uh not skill set. So we weren't gonna hire her because of skill set, but then when we discovered her attitude and willingness, we said, you know what, that's the person that we want on our team.
SPEAKER_02You can train skills, yes.
SPEAKER_03So uh back to um, you know, selling your opportunity to the interviewee, sell your patients, you know, what what are your patients like? Are they fun? Are they older? Are they younger? Are they, you know, hip? Are they like, you know, fairly affluent or high dental like you and interested in cosmetics? Like, what is it that makes your patients desirable and fun that you've attracted? You know, and then when we talk about benefits for the office, don't be boring. We offer one week of paid vacation. It's like, well, we did we used to not do any paid vacation, but then I decided, you know what? I'd like for you guys to be able to go on vacation and not have to worry about your paycheck. So we offer, you know, two weeks of paid vacation at this point, and then you go through it and you you uh sell the benefits and what the what they get out of those benefits.
SPEAKER_02Come up with some cool ones too that is different from others. I mean, we have some really cool ones and staff really enjoy it.
SPEAKER_03The next step is going to be whether or not you call the references. No.
SPEAKER_02And here's why. They are going to have their family or their friends that is going to enter that phone and act like that employer. Or they have still friends with employees that's with that employer and that they feel like they're not lying on that. But even if you actually get to call the employer, they really can't tell you much. They only can tell you if they would hire them back or not. It's kind of a waste of time for me because I can tell when it's their friends on the other line, because I will ask some random, dumb question, and they're like, uh, and I'm like, yep, gotcha. So I don't waste time on that because people are not going to be honest. Uh well, a lot of people's not going to be honest with that.
SPEAKER_03Now you are all the way through the interview process and you're ready. You're ready, you're ready to beg this employee to take a job with you. You've done your job, you know they're the one, or at least one of a few that you want to make a job offer to. But have you ever offered a job to somebody and they go, Oh, yeah, okay. Well, thank you. I really appreciate it, and I'm really impressed with your office. It's so beautiful in here, and and you're so sweet to have offered me a job. But what I would really like to do is go home and talk to my mommy and my daddy, or go home and talk to my spouse.
SPEAKER_02That they know that you're going on an interview with.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like what's the odds that, like, you know, they just woke up, went on a job interview that day, and like the spouse is unaware. Like, honey, uh, you don't work there anymore. No, I haven't worked there for two weeks. I um, you know, took a new job. I've been working a new job for three weeks. I didn't know you know, didn't know that. Yeah, I turn left when I go out of the driveway instead of right. No, like they've talked about that stuff. So, why in the world do they have to go home and talk about that? Now, if there's something like, say, childcare, and they told you a story about, well, you know, your office starts 15 minutes sooner, and I drop my child off as early as I can. And my husband, he told me that he was willing to take the kids, and I love the opportunity that you have here. Um, I just really want to like tell my husband I love it here, and tell him, hey, look, like, are you double sure that you're okay, like dropping the kids off at school in the morning, or you're double sure, you know, daycare, whatever. Um, so if they've got some sort of child care thing that they want to reconfirm, that's a little bit understandable. But other than that, like, why wouldn't they accept the job if you've met everything? So now you are ready to offer them a job. This is how you position that. So, Toria, if you were to be offered a job, are you in a position to where like you would be able to make that decision pretty much now?
SPEAKER_02Uh I would have to go home and talk to my husband about it.
SPEAKER_03I totally get that. Is there something that uh is up for consideration that we haven't discussed today?
SPEAKER_02Uh no, I just like to run everything by him and just make sure that he likes everything that you've told me to.
SPEAKER_03Okay, all right. Is he coming to work here?
SPEAKER_02Can't say that.
SPEAKER_03Uh why can't I say that? I can if I want to. You can. Uh it might not come over too well. Okay. So um you can't say what you want to say there, obviously. But okay. So you're gonna go home, you're gonna talk to him tonight, and then when do you think that you would be able to let me know whether you're interested in this opportunity or not?
SPEAKER_02I can let you know tomorrow.
SPEAKER_03Tomorrow morning before work?
SPEAKER_02I can let you know by 10 a.m.
SPEAKER_03Don't you get to work at 8 a.m.?
SPEAKER_02Um, I'm off tomorrow.
SPEAKER_03Oh, look at you. You're lining up your job interviews for tomorrow, too? That's right. Really? No. Oh. I mean, if you were, I was gonna say, no, I need to know by 8 a.m.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_03Because, you know, maybe I wanna maybe I want to hire you instead of those other people. Okay, so here's here's the thing. Like, you know, we're we're kind of going through we're interviewing and everything, and I like you a lot. And I think that you'd be an excellent fit here. I think that you know, there's there's way more to somebody than just like their skills or their knowledge or their experience. And I think that all the other things, like, you look great. And um the thing is though, is when I make an offer to somebody, then that means that I have to reserve that position. So my thing is, is until I know for sure that this would be an opportunity that you're interested in, I don't want to offer that because I'm pretty much taking this opportunity off the table for somebody else. So, respectfully, what I'd like to do is let you go home, do whatever you gotta do, talk to your husband. I mean, you've got my number. I would love for you to actually text me even tonight and let me know because we're gonna keep going. And if I come to somebody else and their answer to this opportunity is a little bit different, then I may be inclined to just move forward. And, you know, so I don't want an opportunity to go by for you. I want you to be able to do all your due diligence that you've got to do. But I just don't want to type this opportunity for somebody else as well. So let me know as soon as you know, and then I can text you tonight. That'll work. And once you let me know, then we'll get all the details and everything worked out, and uh I will give you an official job offer.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. I can do that.
SPEAKER_03Good deal. Okay, so that's how you do it, guys. That keeps them from like tying your stuff up because oftentimes when you say something like that to them, you know what they do? They say, Well, you know what? When I leave here, I'll I'll just call them and then I'll let you know right away. Or they actually, you know, let me talk to my spouse, and then they get real honest with you and they say, Well, actually, you know, he just wants me to be happy. He doesn't, he's not gonna really care. Like, it doesn't even affect him. And I love it here. I yes, I would I would be ready to make a decision if you were to offer me the job. Okay, good. So if that's what you want to get to, you do not want to throw something out there at them and just let them hang on to it. Also, uh, this helps prevent them from going back to their current employer and saying, Oh, well, I was offered a job at $28 an hour. No, you weren't because I didn't offer it. Um, so it helps minimize this whole like, well, let me talk to my spouse. Because sometimes what they're thinking in their head is, let me talk to my current employer.
SPEAKER_00And they're gonna compete.
SPEAKER_03Yep, and they're gonna get you into a bidding war. And if they do that, they get written off uh because that's just not how I mean it is business. That's fine. You know, I get it. Like I don't hit them as a person or anything, but um, that's not you know how I want to bring somebody onto my team. I want somebody coming onto my team not for money, I want them coming onto my team because they see the opportunity. So give them the value of being an employee in your business, not because of the money, but because of the value that you provide them. All right, so now we've got our employee, but we know it's just a matter of time before we have to start looking for another employee. What do we want to do to build roots deep down into the bone? Ha ha, not really. Roots into the community. All right, guys. So here's how you do that. Get involved with where these people come from. Where do they come from? Well, hygiene school, assisting school. These schools are usually community colleges or just programs that are in the area, and they need help. They need funding. They they're underfunded, they can't charge you know assistants, you know, bucus of money like they're going to dental school or something in order to be able to have all the technology that would be nice for them to have in order to be able to train them up and teach them the way that we expect and want them to be taught. So they need funding. So be present, accept them into your office. Um, you know, with the hygiene school here, we sponsor their entire graduation. I think we're the only people in town that do that. We get our wrapping paper from our office, um, like our office name printed on wrapping paper. And we go out and we buy everybody a pen because they have a long shelf life. We buy all of the hygienists a really nice pen for graduation. And what does it have on it? It's got our business name on it.
SPEAKER_02It's a really nice pen.
SPEAKER_03It's a really nice pen. They're gonna put it on their shelf. We're not looking for a hygienist right now or at graduation, but they always remember that. They'll always have that pen sitting somewhere. It's a it's a memento of them graduating and starting their career. So they will always keep it back and they'll always know who nouga dentistry is. And then when they're unsatisfied with their job and they see nougat dentistry come across as like, you know, somebody looking, or they hear that nougat dentistry is looking, they're like, Well, I don't hate my job, but man, I've always wanted to work for them. Uh, and they've got an opening. I better, I better apply and see if I can get there, get a job. You know, and if they have a sense of urgency, then they're not delaying. And then when they come in and you offer them a job, they're not gonna delay. They're gonna be like, Yes, yes, I'll take it. I'll uh yeah, like I've always wanted to work here. So it's like their dream job. Okay, guys, we're at the end of the video, and we said that we're gonna let you in on our little dark secret. We're gonna share this with you. Don't think less of us. It's probably happening to you, you just don't know it. That is true. And if you already know it, you can tell us about it in the comments all you want. That's good. You're just like us.
SPEAKER_00Do you want me to explain it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. All right. So, you you know, this could be something that uh you could want to close your ears for. I don't know. We'll see.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, guys, especially anybody in our area. There for a while, especially right after I hate even using this word COVID, it was really hard to find employees. And, you know, you would use the platforms and stuff, but not a lot of people was applying. It's like, what is the deal?
SPEAKER_03So she's saying that people weren't putting their resumes on Indeed in all of these platforms because they didn't want their current employer to find out that they were applying or putting their resume out there. And so there was a big drop-off in these people. And so we couldn't get, you know, we couldn't get interviews. We couldn't, there was nobody applying for the jobs. So we had to circumvent and try to go find our own people.
SPEAKER_02So when you're putting your resumes out there, these staff are like, well, I don't want to put it out there because my boss is going to see it. With all this new technology and AI, there's just so many possibilities for people to find out when somebody is interviewing somewhere else. So on social media platforms, you can look up, say you want to look up dental assistant. So you top in dental assistant, and it will pull anybody who has like a dental assistant or a hygienist tied to their name, that that is their career. Well, you click on their profile, you can see what area they are. So then you can private message these people and you can say, hey, I'm Toria. I work for Nouga Dentistry, and I noticed that you're a dental assistant or hygienist or whatever. And I just wanted to see if you happen to know any dental assistants or hygienist that is looking for a job because we have an opening and we have amazing benefits, and we're looking for somebody who wants growth, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not actually asking that person because I really don't want phone calls from these their dentists. I'm asking if they know somebody. Um, and I have hired several people that way. Then you can take it a step further and you can look at the practices, maybe the practices you you are not close to, or the practices are around you, and you can see their employees as well, and you can private message them that way too.
SPEAKER_03Ooh, let me know. So, yeah, you're not you're not poaching the other people's staff members, you're just needing to ask people, just like earlier when we said ask your sales rep if they know anybody. Because the people that work in the dental community, they've worked in different offices at different times. Maybe they left and they went to an office and you sent them a message. Do you know anybody? Well, somebody back at the office they left, has been trying to get out, but uh this office doesn't have an opening. So maybe she says, Yeah, I actually have a friend that works over here, you know. So they left practice C to go to B, your practice A. Well, B doesn't have an opening, so practice C, she wants to leave, so she comes to our practice. So there's a good possibility that when you send out these messages to people that you're going to actually, you know, find come across somebody. Because I mean, just think about it. If you're an employee of a dental office, you know, and you had a friend that was looking for a job, wouldn't you let them know about job openings? Um, so it's a great uh ability to be able to do that quickly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You kind of can see the people, you can see what they look like, you can see you know the kind of posts they're putting on their social media platforms and stuff, like they're cussing a lot or or putting just dirty things on there. And do y'all want that employee? Probably not. But if they're pretty like legit on there, it's like, yeah, I'm gonna message this person. But there's several offices that are doing that now, so yeah.
SPEAKER_03So uh, you know, you might have to get a little bit creative, and as times go by, we'll have to update this video because hiring and marketing are two things that are always changing and evolving and how you go about it. But you know, the reason that we kind of call it like the dark side a little bit is just because um there are times where the actual employee says, Well, actually, I may be interested. And um, so at that point, you have to decide whether you're willing to interview them or not. So, whoever they work for, that needs to be an office that you would be willing to hire from. And if it's not, then you would just have to turn down that interview. So, yep. We've covered it all, guys, from where to where to find them and where not to find them. Well, we probably didn't cover that. I don't think there's any where not to to because I mean with admin, you you can find people in the restaurant industry or Starbucks or whatever.
SPEAKER_02They hired my waitress.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02She still works for me and her husband now, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So uh, you know, admin you can find anywhere, but uh we kind of went over the do's and the don'ts. Obviously, we didn't cover the very normal stuff, like obviously, there's questions from a legality standpoint that you can't ask. Uh, we didn't really cover those because those are pretty typical, those are out there. We tried to cover areas that we see people struggle with and kind of give our perspective on why we do what we do. So, hopefully, this helps uh you and we want to hear your successes. If you've tried any of these things that uh we mentioned, or if anything kind of like is like an aha moment, we'd love for you to send us a comment. I know that some of you guys are in competitive areas and you've got to think outside the box even more. We love to interact with you guys. So if you want to message us, we'll give you our perspective or our our thoughts and feedback. Uh, because we love interacting with you guys. And if you haven't liked and subscribed, you should. And then you should also click that bell because we're rolling these videos out, and we want these things to be stuff that like you can watch or listen to on your way to work. Uh, that's when you're motivated, that's when it's fresh on your mind, and that's when you can start getting these things implemented, guys. All right, too loot for now. See y'all