How to Boost Your Dental Team’s Morale

Shannon: I’m super excited about this show today because it is something I end up talking to a lot of doctors about. And it’s not about marketing at all! (laughter) Weirdly enough, but it’s something that we have absolutely smashed in 2024.

We made some big shifts to handle this problem that we were also having, and we’re seeing it in the dental industry, so we just wanted to share it because I end up sharing a lot of this information with the practices I’m talking to.

I think it’s a great topic to put out there, to help. What’s it’s about? Boosting team morale and really building an A-team, building a team that really can support your goals and dreams for your legacy practices, right?

It got really bad right after COVID. It’s leveled out a bit, but there’s still a big problem.

Arron: Absolutely. I mean, if you’re a practice experiencing a lot of turnover of staff, or maybe having a problem with morale, then this is the right place for you. My name’s Arron. I’m the COO of Marketly Digital. And this is …

Shannon: I’m Shannon, CEO of Marketly Digital. And, why we’re able to speak about this is because Arron is basically the master of taking care of our team of 45 individuals beautifully. He is an absolute expert to me. You know, it’s his British tone. He could just get away with …

Arron: I can just say what I want.

Shannon: Exactly. No, but just brilliant in implementing this and very consultative in how I care for my clients. And we’re definitely having these conversations.

Arron: That’s where I’d like to start, actually, with you on the consultative part of things. When it comes to dental practices and their hiring, where are you seeing that main issue? What’s the number one issue people are facing when it comes to this subject?

Shannon: Well, really, it’s about getting the right talent. And it’s not just, the biggest one is hygienist, right? But it’s in all of the team because the practices that are coming to us, they have beautiful goals, big goals, right?

And it may be adding an associate for patient-based growth or adding a location. We’re having some real serious conversations about that. You need a team to support you for that. Who are the A players? I would say that’s probably one of the biggest problems that they’re having.

Arron: Absolutely.

Shannon: And keeping them happy, keeping them long term. There’s too much turnover, and then they go like this [throws up hands] because they lose a key player, or the right person is not the right person. It can really derail the practice and their goals.

Arron: I think that’s probably something that maybe our startups who are listening need to be aware of—more established practices are definitely aware of—and that is the impact the team has on every aspect of the business. Businesses are run by people. If you’ve got the right people in place in the right seats, you will have a more successful business than perhaps having a disruptive team or a team that’s not buying into what you’re putting out there. Definitely finding the right people is essential.

Shannon: And be excited for this show because we’re going to give you some really easy, simple things to implement into your practice that can help a lot. And it’s no-brainers, but you just have to step back and take a little bit of time to set up these foundational pieces to take care of your team.

You will, tenfold, it will 10X you, what we will give you today.

Arron: Yeah, when we think about team morale and the growth of a practice, it’s basic when you say it out loud. It’s one of those things where you’re, “Well, yeah, that’s obvious.” But implementing it can be difficult.

So the impact that having a happy team in place can have is just not to be underestimated. If you have people who are happy, who are aligned, who feel part of something, they’re gonna perform at a higher level.

Shannon: Absolutely.

Arron: It really is a game changer.

Shannon: Well, it’s like the story you always tell me about Starbucks.

Share that a bit, because that’s such a good example, I think, for everybody.

Arron: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know how many people know the story of Howard Schultz, but Starbucks wasn’t always what it is today. And he was looking at how he could grow, scale, and even solidify his business’s foundations. And he realized it was the people who were serving the coffee, maybe even a little bit more than the coffee itself.

And today, he put it in place that he wanted to make sure that his employees were relationship-based baristas. You obviously want them to create great coffee, but they want people to feel welcomed and at home when they come to Starbucks. He set up systems, set up his team’s requirements, and trained his team to develop those relationships.

Greet people with a smile. Ask them how their day was going. There’s a reason why they take your name. They could just call you by a number, but they take your name to develop that relationship. Those little things can make a big difference to the customer. But the fact that he invested so much time into his team is the source of that success.

That’s something that when we think of dental practices, we want to talk about how you can do that within the practice. Maybe we can talk about some quick wins for the best way of boosting team morale that teams and practices can put into play right now.

Shannon: Well, I think to boost team morale, you have to know what your team wants. You have to know what moves them, right?

Because they’re care providers, too, if they’re working in this industry. They want to be a part of something. You want people who have a growth mindset. What do they want professionally, but what do they want personally, too?

There’s a mission you’re going after when you’re trying to hit targets. It can’t be about just hitting these financial targets and these goals because these people are the ones who are going to help you hit them. You can have these goals and targets, I tell the doctors, that are up here, but you can’t do it by yourself.

These guys can help. They’re paid a certain amount, but if you help them hit their professional goal and their personal goals, that’s what they’re going to hit. You want to tie those goals [to the company goals] and understand them. Meet with them, have these organized meetings to see what they’re about. And then that way, if they’re hitting those things, you have to put their targets on track to where it’s benefiting you and your practice.

Arron: Absolutely. And I think the starting point, like you said, is that mission, that vision. And that’s something that Howard Schultz did is he got his whole team to remember the mission, buy into the mission, feel part of the mission, and benefit from the outcome of that. When it comes to personal, professional, and financial goals, if people understand the mission organically, they’ll start thinking, “How can I contribute to this?”

Shannon: They want to! They want to belong to a tribe.

Arron: Yes. They want to belong to a tribe. That’s the thing. People want to belong to a tribe. And it’s a culture that you will end up building. So the mission breeds into the culture, and then the core values are how you, not contain but guide, the culture. That’s a better way.

You create that pathway with the core values, right?

Shannon: Okay. Let me just interrupt there because it triggered [something] in my mind. They’re coming to us, I think that’s why we have this conversation, because they want marketing and to grow, but then they have some team problems. I say, “Here’s the thing, the first people you need to market to is your team.”.

Arron: I love that.

Shannon: You have to build this mission, the core values. You have to sell them on what you’re doing, and they have to be able to see it. If you don’t have your team in place, and you need more team members or you’re growing and having a hard time finding associates, you’re having a hard time finding hygienists and assistants, once you put good videos out and good brand messaging and your culture, they’re going to call you. They’re going to check out your ad because there are a lot of different ads out there, and they’re going to say, “What are these guys about? [You want to] have a careers page with some fun stuff on there, some great videos—all the things you want to be able to market to them first.

That helps you say, “Yeah, this is my brand.” They’ll see, “They’re fun.” They’re [doctors] finding their brand foundation, and it will help support their dreams, goals, and everything else.

Arron: I don’t think that could be underestimated because people are searching for it.

Shannon: Yeah, they are.

Arron: And even people that maybe are already at a practice, if they’re not feeling that love, that culture, then they will start looking.

Shannon: They [employees] don’t want just to sit there and suck spit. I’m sorry, doctor, you know they do it. We talked to them, and they said, “I think I’m done with dentistry. I’m just tired of doing this.” You give them a mission and a culture, and they’re in it to win it. And they can love it again.

Arron: One hundred percent! It’s all about getting to know them. That’s what’s so good about what you were talking about. Learning their personal goals is getting to know them as a person and spending time with them. There was a study done recently by another podcast. They’re not our rivals, so I can quote them.

Shannon:. Haha, I love it.

Arron: They were talking about when you have employees in your business, what do they value? They [employees’ answers] were interesting. See what you think of these; the top was a relationship and time with their boss or the owner.

Shannon: Especially associates. That’s a huge problem,

Arron: Right? And then autonomy, the ability to make decisions, gives people the morale boost right there, because what does it show?

It shows you trust them. And that’s what people need.

Shannon: They want.

Arron: That’s all we want, even when we were kids. We look up to our parents and want them to value us, trust that we can make good decisions, and have confidence in us. It’s the same when you’re part of a team. You need to make sure you’re giving them the trust and the confidence they need, that they deserve to grow and to help your practice grow, because you can’t do it all by yourself.

You become a bottleneck. That goes into things like investing in them, that was the third one. Courses, for example, sending them to get credits, all those things come through [to the employee].

We’ve already talked about the transparency on goals, and how important that is. That leads into the clear growth mindset, as well as showing them where you would like to take them. Again, showing that you really value them, and you care about them.

And by doing that, you not only grow them, but that will in turn grow your practice because they’ll be performing at a higher level.

Shannon: Yeah, and it’s something. I would have individual meetings with them. At the end, we’ll mention a book they can get and some downloads because we’re telling you to do all these things.

But it’s an easy step-by-step way to accomplish all of this. It’s in the descriptions. We’ll talk about it at the end. It really shifted our business, our team, which we are absolutely in love with. That wasn’t always the case, like with an agency not known for that.

I mean, to know the tech guys and to know that the CEO knows everybody, their personal situation, and their family. I love it. If we have a new hire and I haven’t met them yet, I’m, “Hey, who is that on the all-team meeting? I need to meet with them.”

Arron: Yeah, we make it a goal, and that’s something that all dentists should be doing is setting some time aside.

Shannon: Schedule it like with HR. Schedule it once a month or once a quarter. But also, the daily meeting is a check-in with everybody. A lot of practices aren’t having huddles. And even if it’s just a celebration, what went right?

What went right yesterday? Let’s just give us a win, let’s just live in what went right instead of what went wrong.

Arron: Love it.

Shannon: Do not do what went wrong at the morning huddles. Make it all about happy, bring in coffees, make it a celebration. Because here’s the thing, energy attracts energy and you’re going to get more wins.

The team will start thinking about, “Oh, I need to share a win tomorrow morning. I’m going to find what went right, what was a win, what was a celebration,” and you’ll get more and more and more of those, and you’ll get rid of the naysayers.

Arron: And I would say that’s a great first step. Something simple that you can put into place tomorrow is the short team discussions in the morning, huddles, whatever you want to call them, and focus on the wins. Then going a little bit deeper is some self-examination, reflecting on, “Does my team know what our mission is?” “Why are we doing what we do?” “Who are we trying to target?” “How can they influence that?”

These are things that you can do straight away, which is super exciting.

Something that I’d like to conclude with: you touched on this a little bit. We aren’t talking about marketing right now, but we are a marketing agency. How can we tie back the idea of team morale to marketing? If you have a good team around, how does that influence your marketing?

Shannon: Oh my gosh, it’s huge in marketing.

Arron: We need it in 30 seconds.

Shannon: Okay. I’m going to give it to you, and I get a minute.

Arron: Okay. You can have a minute.

Shannon: Okay, I would say one of the biggest things when we’re looking at reviews. all of our clients’ reviews are, “The team is amazing. The culture is amazing. The energy there is just phenomenal.” They feel that. When your team is on, they feel that the team wants to be there, and they really care about them.

That is an energy, and we’re all about energy, right? Marketing with love and all of that, HUGE.

And when those new patients come in, they’re going, “Okay, I’m in a safe place.” When team members are going at it, and there’s really bad energy, “Well, I, okay, I thought I put that instrument in the thing, I guess I’ll go get it again.”

The patients hear all of that crap. They hear all of it, and it affects them because they’re already afraid to be there or don’t love to be there. If your team loves to be there, then it’s so much more likely that your patients are going to love to be there. This is of the utmost importance to nail this.

And, I have some resources too of people who coach associates, different things like that. Because it really is a big problem, and not too many people are solving this. I’m in this mastermind of really looking at how do we solve these certain problems, because the team is a big one. So, they can also reach out.

Anybody can reach out if you guys want more help with that. I have other resources that can help along with the book in the description, Teamwork by Natalie Dawson.

Arron: Absolutely. And it just shows that to make a big difference with the team, you don’t have to implement big things. Celebrate those wins, spend some time with them.

It can be an informal 15-minute conversation over coffee. We love it.

Shannon: Love it.

Arron: Having our coffee chats and just small gestures of appreciation. Everybody loves to be appreciated. As Shannon said, if you enjoyed these tips, make sure that you have a look at the resources below. Subscribe to our channel.

We’ll always be talking about different ways to help your practice even outside of marketing.

Thank you for joining us and drop any comments you have because we’d love to hear your thoughts on how you have boosted the morale at your practice.