Brett Allen (00:19) Hi, Brett Allen here, host of the Marketing32 show where I connect with leading dentists, dental influencers, industry experts, you name it, to uncover the latest strategies and insights and innovations to help your dental practice grow and thrive. As always, this episode is brought to you by a team here at Marketing32. We are the only dental marketing agency with a performance guarantee that if you don’t grow in 30 days, you don’t pay. So we truly are invested in your growth.

We really try to demonstrate results and value for your practice, otherwise you don’t pay us. It’s truly win-win. So if you need help with marketing at all, or you’re needing more growth or working with an agency, but you’re not quite sure if it’s actually adding value to your practice, reach out to us at marking32.com. Schedule that quick discovery call. We’ll see if we’re both a great fit together. We’ll set you straight. So quick shout out to Joyce Weeks. We recently recorded a very interesting episode with her all about

compliance and regulation and the pitfalls and challenges that practices experience and how you might be exposed in some way if you’re not fully compliant. So check that episode out and let me know what you think. I am super excited to have a new friend of mine on the show today. Shelly Van Epps is the COO and an executive coach at All-Star Dental Academy where she helps dental practices elevate their performance through leadership development.

streamlined systems, and exceptional patient experiences. With over 20 years of experience in both clinical and administrative roles, Shelly brings a unique blend of real-world insight and coaching expertise. She’s passionate about empowering dental teams to communicate more effectively, run more efficiently, and grow with intention. Whether she’s working with dentists, hygienists, or support staff, Shelly is known for her practical strategies and inspiring leadership. I’m super excited to have you on the show today, Shelly, and talk more about that.

Shelly VanEpps (02:16) I’m excited to be here. Thank you, Brett. That was quite an intro.

Brett Allen (02:17) Yeah, it’ll be a fun conversation. Yeah,

gotta thank chat GPT for that. Yes, yes. So let’s…

Shelly VanEpps (02:23) ⁓ nice. Well, it was, was correct.

I love what I do. So I’m excited to be able to share and to talk to you more about it.

Brett Allen (02:32) Yeah, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of wealth of knowledge in the industry and working with teams and helping them do better. You guys at All Star Dental Academy, was looking at your website. Looks like you do a lot with training and hiring, so I’m excited to talk more about that with you. ⁓ Tell us more about All Star Dental Academy. How did you get connected with them? What do you guys do there? What’s the unique value that you guys bring?

Shelly VanEpps (02:47) Yeah, absolutely.

Great question. So kind of start back at the beginning with Alex Nottingham, our CEO. His dad is a dentist, was a dentist and his practice was facing some challenges quite some time ago. We’re looking at about 10, 11 years ago now. And he came to Alex who is a JD, MBA, Tony Robbins coach, background. And he went to him and he said, Hey, help me out. I’m, I’m suffering here over in the practice. Things weren’t going real well. And so,

Brett Allen (03:18) wow.

Shelly VanEpps (03:27) Alex came in and all of a sudden he was driving, the phone was ringing, patients were calling, but nothing was happening. And so he brought in his then girlfriend, now wife, Heather Nottingham, who is one of our co-founders, and he placed her at the front. Her background was in sales and she worked for companies like Kate Spade and Bloomingdale’s and…

Brett Allen (03:35) ⁓ interesting.

Shelly VanEpps (03:51) So she went to the front and started working in customer service and phone skills and conversion in that way. And all of a sudden everything just clicked and it started working and they were able to turn that practice around very, very quickly. And so they thought to themselves, man, why is this not just available for all doctors who are maybe having challenges with phone conversion or with systems and processes in their practice?

Brett Allen (04:13) Hmm

Shelly VanEpps (04:20) And so they started developing All-Star Dental Academy. So at its core, we have an amazing online training program for doctors and teams that focuses with the emphasis on customer service and building relationships with rapport being one of our main components in that we can really start to see that we can help patients more when we know more about them as a person, not as

Brett Allen (04:39) Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (04:49) the phone is ringing and this is a lead. And so really starting to connect with those patients by building rapport. So she coined and trademarked the great call process, which is something that we lean on heavily. And so we’re constantly working with offices on the great call process and working that into a great patient experience. so ⁓ super excited to be able to be connected with them a couple of years ago. ⁓

Brett Allen (05:01) ⁓ cool.

Shelly VanEpps (05:18) so that I could become a coach with All-Star Dental Academy.

Brett Allen (05:21) Cool. Yeah, I know that’s a huge problem in the marketing space. There’s a lot of good marketing companies out there. We’re not the only good ones. but there’s this disconnect that happens from lead is generated to patient gets booked. And then there’s like another disconnect that happens between patient is booked and do they come in and accept treatment? Right? Sounds like you guys help bridge the gap in each of those areas. Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (05:43) Right. Yeah.

That’s our goal. That’s our

goal is to make sure that the whole experience is very seamless from the time when that phone rings and that first person answers and they convert well, starting from the marketing pieces that that brand is consistent. And then what they call, they get, if you were to see an ad and you called somebody and it was completely not in connection with what it looked like you were about to get that’s

Brett Allen (06:02) Mm-hmm.

Right.

Shelly VanEpps (06:13) that’s not going to go very far. So we want to make sure we’re in cohesion with the marketing pieces and getting

Brett Allen (06:15) Right.

Shelly VanEpps (06:18) that out there. Then the phones are being answered professionally and personally. I like to say we take it from the transaction to the relation. So it’s not a transaction anymore. It’s building a relationship. ⁓ And so we’re constantly working on that. And then when they walk in the front door, how do you greet them? What do you do to build a relationship and to take that relationship one step farther before you

Brett Allen (06:30) The relationship. cool. I like that.

Shelly VanEpps (06:42) I’m walking through the great call process right now, but before you engage, you engage and you start to connect with that person before asking for the next thing in their process and then taking that information and moving with it or thanking them ⁓ for coming. So it is quite a process, but when you give it just kind of its basics like that, it becomes so simple and it makes such, it’s such common sense.

Brett Allen (06:45) I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (07:11) but we get so caught up in the, have to do this and I have to do that, that the teams get distracted. And there’s so much going on that they don’t know, you know, the verbiage and they don’t know what to say and how to say it. And so we give them tips and tricks in that way, both from the phones, as well as the case presentation and building that communication throughout the patient experience.

Brett Allen (07:17) ⁓ interesting.

Awesome. Let’s dig a little bit more into the great call process. I’m sure a lot of people are interested. Like what, what does that include? What’s a great call look like? we, on our side, we have some AI call tracking software we’ve developed. I’ve talked about this before on the show. Call cat is what we call it because it categorizes the calls into different buckets based on what happened on that call. It helps the front desk see areas that they’re in the team to see ways they can do better to improve the booking rate.

Shelly VanEpps (07:39) Yeah.

Yeah.

Brett Allen (08:03) ⁓ uses AI and stuff like that. But that platform doesn’t train the front desk. It just shows, hey, the reason this didn’t schedule is because the pricing question wasn’t handled right. Or the reason this didn’t get scheduled is because availability wasn’t great, or whatever. So how do you guys take that data, or what do you guys use as part of your great call process, and what are some tips that you guys…

Shelly VanEpps (08:03) Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So great question. So great. The acronym stands for the greeting, the rapport, engage, ask, and then taking their information and thanking them. And what we found is that a lot of times when listening to phone calls, it’s out of that order. And what happens is that we’re not building a relationship, which then increases trust.

Brett Allen (08:31) employ to improve booking rate.

Okay.

Hmm.

Shelly VanEpps (08:56) right out of the gate and instead we’re jumping straight down to the bottom and we’re taking all of this information and we’re answering these questions and we’re getting into an engage. Exactly. It’s very transactional. So instead what we train is to flip that on its head, get to know the person first, then still answer their questions, still go through the process, absolutely collect all the information that you need in order to schedule the appointment, but don’t do it before you get to know the person a little bit.

Brett Allen (09:02) Very transactional.

Hmm

Shelly VanEpps (09:24) I like

to use an analogy. If you’re walking down the street and I’ll just ask you, so Brett, you’re walking down the street and some random person says, Hey, would you like a piece of gum? Are you going to take that piece of gum?

Brett Allen (09:35) ⁓ maybe like I’d be like, I’d be like, if I don’t know that person, ⁓ I’m, I’m, I’m too nice. I’m too nice.

Shelly VanEpps (09:38) Okay, we need to talk offline. You better say no. If you don’t know that person, you’ve got to say no to the gum. You don’t know them. Okay. You can’t

take the gum. Okay. Are you going to actually chew the gum? You might take it, but I hope that you don’t chew it. So then you fast forward and you’re sitting at a table with a friend and their friend sits down next to you and you get a little bit of conversation going and they say, Hey, would you like a piece of gum?

Brett Allen (09:52) I probably went shoot again. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

Totally, right. Totally different scenario.

Shelly VanEpps (10:07) Totally going to take

that gum. Exactly. Take that one step farther. You have a family member, a friend, somebody who you really know and you’ve known them for a long time. They ask you, would you like a piece of gum? You’re going, why? What’s wrong? Does my breath stink? No, you trust that person. You trust that you can take that piece of gum without question. know ⁓ that they’re not going to do anything to harm you. Dentistry, we need to have trust.

Brett Allen (10:19) Was it? ⁓ yeah, totally.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (10:38) People don’t trust the dentist. How often do you hear, I’d rather do X, Y, Z than go to the dentist. People don’t trust. And so we have to build trust. And we can have the opportunity to do that right at the very beginning. If we get to know them a little bit first, it just starts to bring that barrier down. And then every interaction from then on all the way through their entire experience is built off of that, getting to know who this person is and what is it that’s driving them to the dentist because

Brett Allen (10:43) Yeah?

Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (11:06) a lot of the population chooses to not go to the dentist at all. And so those people who are actually intentionally picking up the phone, which I haven’t met somebody yet in all my years of answering phones in a dental practice, nobody accidentally called and went, ⁓ hey, it’s a dental office. I think I’ll schedule. Nobody does that. They’re calling for a purpose. And so we have to follow that process and please, please, please ask for the appointment.

Brett Allen (11:09) Mm-hmm.

⁓ hey.

my gosh, yeah. I have, I have.

Shelly VanEpps (11:35) How often have you listened to calls? Your tracking has probably,

I’m sure it probably has statistics for you.

Brett Allen (11:42) Yeah, two

things. don’t know what the stats are in terms of percentage of calls where they don’t ask for the appointment, but I have heard several, I don’t listen to the recordings, our team does all of that, but I’ve heard they’ve sent me instances where amazing call, great rapport, everything’s great, and then the patient’s like, okay, so.

Shelly VanEpps (11:54) Okay.

Brett Allen (12:03) And then the front desk is like, yeah, so I guess call us back when you’re, you know, and they totally blew the opportunity. It’s like schedule it, book it. It’s there, book it. Yeah. It’s, it’s a lot. It happens. It happens. And then also you get those practices where Sally at the front desk or whoever it is, is totally overwhelmed and doing so much.

Shelly VanEpps (12:03) It’s just quiet and…

When you’re ready. Exactly. It’s insane listening to calls how often. I thought it was a joke that people made before I started actually listening. I’m like, who doesn’t ask? A lot, a lot. ⁓

Brett Allen (12:32) And that comes across in the call. Hello, this is, this is Denver dental company. What? Yeah. What do need? And it’s like, like get off my to-do list. I’m busy. I don’t have time for you.

Shelly VanEpps (12:39) Yes, exactly. ⁓ I had to answer the phone because it was ringing and the doctor was staring

me down. So I had to answer this, but I really don’t want to talk to you right now.

Brett Allen (12:48) Yeah, or they’re so flustered

and busy that like, please hold. And then they’re on hold for like two minutes and it’s like you lose it.

Shelly VanEpps (12:54) I have to say

I was guilty of that at one point. Like I would look at the phone and say, my gosh, if it would just stop ringing, I could do my job. And then one of my friends, one of my coworkers, she looked at me, she’s like, Chell, if that phone stops ringing, we don’t have jobs. And I was like, it, you’re right. ⁓ But that’s true. And it also is true that the admin team or any of your team is always…

Brett Allen (13:02) ⁓

I mean, yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (13:19) hopefully always doing something. And so they have to know what things are of highest priority. And that’s something that we coach on is the person in front of you is a highest priority for you. And that may mean the person in front of you is the phone. And so we have to determine, you know, if somebody is physically standing right there in front of you and you’re checking them in or checking them out, it’s rude to say, hold one minute and you grab the phone. at the same time, if you’re working on an account or

Brett Allen (13:33) Mm-hmm.

I gotta answer the phone, yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (13:48) doing something over here and the phone is ringing, that is now the patient who is in front of you. And that has to be your priority.

Brett Allen (13:52) How do you, yeah.

What are some tips around that? So I’m talking to somebody who’s on their way out, they’re scheduling their next appointment or whatever, and the phone’s ringing. What are some good tips to, how do you tell that person, hey, hold on, I gotta catch this phone call? Or.

Shelly VanEpps (14:05) Yeah. Help.

I honestly

don’t. For me, I make sure that the entire team has the verbiage to be able to answer that phone. So it doesn’t have to be the person who is quote unquote the front desk answering that phone. Your entire team has to have at least enough confidence in their verbal ability to answer and screen. They might not be able to answer everything. I know I have hygienists who like.

Brett Allen (14:17) The process.

Perfect.

Shelly VanEpps (14:35) break out in a cold sweat when I say that, but like, can’t answer the phone. Yes, you can. You can talk to people. I know you can because remember what are the first two things that we’re going to do in the phone call. We’re going to greet them and you’re going to build a relationship. I know you can do those two things from there. You’re going to transition, ask a couple of questions. And if you don’t know the answers to those questions, then you’re going to say, you know what? Shelly is finishing up with a patient. may be a couple of moments. Can I get a good number for her to call you? Write that.

Brett Allen (14:37) You gotta book the appointment. Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah. So you, you recommend, you recommend then having a process and the team trained up on, if the phone rings more than two times, that means Brett at the front desk is busy. You got to pick up the phone. Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (15:04) That’s it. And so it doesn’t have to be that pill one.

You nailed it. You

have to have a completely cross-trained team in order for that to work really well. But that’s in its ideal state of now I can continue to focus on this conversation. If you have somebody at your front desk presenting a $15,000 treatment plan, the last thing you want them to do is cut, stop talking, and then go, but my priority is answering the phone, which it is. But who’s this person standing right in front of them? And so you have to have a good

Brett Allen (15:40) Yeah.

Right. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Shelly VanEpps (15:52) balance and expectations need to be laid out for the entire team of what that looks like so that it can be consistent. And they need to know when is it appropriate to say, okay, I can best help whoever’s on that phone and this person in front of me by letting that one go to voicemail this time and calling them back immediately. And as soon as I finished this call, I know I’m checking the voicemail and I’m calling them right back. It’s not ideal. That’s not what I would say is default. Let everything go to voicemail and call them back.

Brett Allen (15:52) Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, yeah, voicemail rates not good. Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (16:21) please don’t hear that. But

we need to know what exactly is in the best interest of the patient experience. And so just having clarity on that and having everybody trained up helps that so, much to be able to be consistent.

Brett Allen (16:28) Yeah.

What’s a good, I know there’s so much nuance that goes into front desk training and all the different things that you can do to help a practice, but just for our listeners, ⁓ what’s a good booking rate that you, like a good front desk, if they’re doing everything right and they get 100 calls a month, how many of those get booked into patients?

Shelly VanEpps (16:59) That’s a really great question. And I would say, I see that vary by practice type and what their goals are. And if they’re screening patients or if they’re general practice, they’re PPO, if they’re in network, out of network, like a lot of different variables. I would say probably 60 to 80 % just depending on who I’m talking to and what their goals are. But I would hope that it’s up towards the 80 to 90 % ideally.

Brett Allen (17:05) Okay.

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.

That would be good.

Yeah, think that’s,

yeah, 60 to 80 is probably pretty good. Up to 90 is really good. I’ve heard that ADA, I think they did a study once and maybe we can link it in the show notes, but I think the average practice books about 20 to 25 % of calls. Just the average, which is low, definitely low. But the practices we work with and that use our dashboard, we have significant improvements in that.

Shelly VanEpps (17:29) Yeah, I would.

which is so, ⁓ my goodness. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Brett Allen (17:52) and get them into that good range where they’re booking, you know, 50 % plus. ⁓

Shelly VanEpps (17:57) Yeah.

I would say that would be my, my goal is a bare minimum would be around 50 % of those calls are being converted. And what I’ll, I’ll talk to different offices when I’m coaching and say, how’s your marketing working and get feedback on that. And they’re like, well, my phone’s not ringing. And I’m like, is it because your marketing company is showing us this on their dashboard or on their reports or whatever. And so then we start diving in and we find different things that might be happening. Phone calls aren’t going.

Brett Allen (18:02) You’re right. Right.

Right.

Shelly VanEpps (18:26) aren’t being returned or they’re calling outside of office hours. So it’s hitting against them, but that should still be, the patient should be calling back. Like there’s a lot of different factors to it. And that’s why it’s such a wide percentage. ⁓ But of the actual phone calls answered, my goal should be 60 to 80 % of those are converting. It might not be out of all of your leads though. So that’s a big, a big difference.

Brett Allen (18:34) huh. Yeah.

I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

We’ve talked a lot about front desk and call training. ⁓ I know that’s a huge part. And I the reason it’s so big is because most practice owners and most maybe admins don’t realize what their numbers are and they don’t realize what’s happening. And so just having awareness, just putting some system in place where you know what that booking rate is and you know.

Shelly VanEpps (18:55) Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Brett Allen (19:16) how many of those ultimate, like if we’re talking about the whole marketing equation, how many of those, if you are working with a marketing company, how many of them are actually showing up once they are scheduled? Those two questions are really big when it comes to marketing. I mean, we’re almost out of time, but there’s a whole other ⁓ portion of your agency that you guys do with hiring. Let’s transition to that.

Shelly VanEpps (19:29) Absolutely.

Yeah, that’s, that’s

actually one of the biggest things people reach out and they’re like, I know I need to train my team, but I don’t have a team. And so, well, that’ll be a little bit of a challenge to train them when you don’t have them. Um, and it’s funny because where that actually came from and how we started a training or I’m sorry, a hiring service.

Brett Allen (19:47) Yeah, I’ve heard that. Yeah, yeah

Shelly VanEpps (20:00) was some of our doctors who were members with All-Star would reach out and they said, we can’t find anybody, can you help us? And so Robin Reese, our director of hiring services was a coach at the time. And one of our doctors said, I want Robin to help me find an All-Star team member. And so she went to bat, she has an HR background, she works very closely with Ben Erickson. And so she went to bat and she found them an amazing team member. Well, that doctor told another doctor.

Brett Allen (20:07) Mmm.

Shelly VanEpps (20:29) And then that doctor told another doctor, and now we have this huge division as our hiring services. And what we do, we actually find team members based on what your criteria is for your practice specifically. ⁓ We do all the different positions minus doctors and associates. We leave that to other special companies. We don’t, we don’t have, there you go, there you go.

Brett Allen (20:33) you

Hmm.

Yeah. Shout out to Dennis partner pros, Bob’s field. just had him on the show and brighten.

Go check those guys out if you’re needing an associate, but if you need a hygienist or front desk or admin or treatment coordinator assistant. Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (20:59) ⁓

Janice, admin, sterilization

techs, you name it. Otherwise any support position we’re on it. ⁓ we basically, we, we craft a job ad for you so you don’t have to do all of that. we post it the best part. We’re the ones that get ghosted when we schedule, ⁓ the interviews. So we do phone screenings. We schedule zoom recorded interviews with the

Brett Allen (21:25) Zoom or the interview, yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (21:31) candidates based on narrowing it down for you. After that, the recording is sent to the doctor or to the office manager. They can review it and say, yes, this is a great person. I’d love to meet that person. Much more likely to actually show up when you carve that time out, when they’ve already gone through a couple of steps. ⁓ And so we’re able to put that more ideal candidate in front of you so that you can make the decision on whether they’re the best fit for your practice. So it’s not a placement.

company, we don’t have like a log of people that were like, we’re just looking for somebody for these to work. We’re searching out these candidates for your practice specifically. And so it’s really become a high, high need. And then what’s great is once they’re on board, guess what? We can help train them. And so it works out really nicely when you’re a member of All-Star, because we can just take them right through that whole, that whole process. But

Brett Allen (22:03) You bring the candidates, the qualified candidates.

Good good. Yeah

Yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (22:27) It really

helps allow the doctors and the team to focus on the patients. Cause when you’re short staffed, short on your team and short staffed, the last thing that you want to be doing is searching for another team member when you’re already running around crazy to begin with. And so it really starts to help that, that burden be passed off, but yet you’re not just looking for a warm body because we know that when you’re short on team,

Brett Allen (22:39) Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Shelly VanEpps (22:56) You see that resume and you’re like, okay, I finally found it. You don’t really care. In that moment, you don’t really care if it matches everything. It’s like, I just need someone. And so this takes your emotion out of that and says, okay, but this is really what I want. You tell us what it is that you’re looking for. Our team can help assess that, break it down and then say, hey, we have one. This would match for you. And so it works really, really well.

Brett Allen (23:02) Yeah, yeah, and that’s…

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think a lot of failure

happens in finding team members because we just hire that first candidate or we hire somebody who we like. Right. It’s like, ⁓ they interviewed well because yeah, they, they, connect with them. Well, okay. That’s, that’s one component of hiring a team member. Do they have the chops for the role that you’re hiring for? Right.

Shelly VanEpps (23:29) Yep, exactly. Exactly. You like them because they smile.

Exactly.

Yep. Yes, exactly.

And our entire hiring team has all been in the dental practice. And so every one of them knows what it’s like to be in the practice. They know what questions to ask. It’s funny because we actually had somebody apply for an insurance position. They wanted to be an insurance coordinator for a practice. And our hiring specialist said, so when you get an EOB that is blah, blah, blah. She asked her some question and the person just looked like blank stare.

Brett Allen (23:52) wow, okay.

budget yeah

Shelly VanEpps (24:16) And she said, do you know what EOB stands for? And she said, no, she had no idea. It’s an explanation of benefits. And if you’ve been an insurance coordinator in the past, you should know that. And so, and she had put on her resume that she had experience working with insurance. And so it was one of those, if we hadn’t asked that question, could she have made it through? Possibly.

Brett Allen (24:16) tonight.

I don’t know what that is. Yeah.

⁓ okay. You know. ⁓

Hmm.

Shelly VanEpps (24:39) But they just know the right questions to ask to make sure to validate. And we run resumes through AI. Like there’s a few different things that we can do to help.

Brett Allen (24:41) Mm-hmm.

That’s so helpful.

and find the right people, yeah. Do you guys work, do you work all over the US? Are there specific markets that you?

Shelly VanEpps (24:52) exactly where we’re with background text and all of that.

We,

yep, all over the US, it’s only in the US. We don’t, we don’t go international, but all over in the US, we’ve worked with offices from every, pretty much every state, think, this point. Specialties, yes. Yep, absolutely, absolutely.

Brett Allen (25:02) Okay.

Specialties even, specialties, not just general, yeah. One

thing we hear about is that there’s a shortage of hygienists or there’s a shortage of like, I can’t find good people. Like I hear this on calls too with clients. And so how do you guys help in those situations? Like are you guys getting ⁓ with however it is you’re recruiting?

Shelly VanEpps (25:26) Mm-hmm.

Brett Allen (25:37) Are you finding more candidates? Are you able to tap into areas that practices don’t know about or, you know, yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (25:44) They are.

I, I’m not a hiring specialist, but I know that in hearing all of the different testimonials and the, the wins that we’re having, ⁓ I, know, Dr. Nacho, ⁓ so yes, Dr. Goodman, he could not find a hygienist for the life of him. We came in, we found him three. And so it was one of those things where he was like, okay.

Brett Allen (25:47) Okay.

Yeah, yeah, Paul Goodman.

wow, cool.

Shelly VanEpps (26:12) keep finding me more. And then we had two admin team members and just helping them to grow. I mean, it happens where your team is working really hard and trying to find team members and they’re just not getting there. We craft our job postings very specific to match up through the criteria of how all of these different platforms work, to bring it to the top, to know what time of day to post them and how to…

Brett Allen (26:35) Mmm.

Shelly VanEpps (26:39) like different keywords to put in there to make sure that we’re finding the right people in the right way. Hygiene is a tricky one depending on where you’re located. mean, I don’t even want to say where you’re located. That’s probably one of the top positions that we’re recruiting for right now across all of our different positions that we’re looking for.

Brett Allen (26:49) Yeah.

yeah. It’s weird. Do you know what’s going on?

Is it just because they want more pay? Is it because there’s less coming out of hygiene school? What is it?

Shelly VanEpps (27:07) think it’s probably a combination to be quite honest, but the good news is we’re starting to see a little bit of a flip and we’re seeing more of those resumes in many of the popular, or in many of the geographical locations, not all, but in many, they’re starting to say, okay, it’s getting a little easier over here. It’s getting a little easier here. And our hiring specialists are constantly communicating like, Hey, we had a win. There’s some places there’s an office I work with. She’s in California and

Brett Allen (27:19) good. Well that’s good.

Shelly VanEpps (27:34) the sticks of California cannot, I mean, just cannot find, there’s.

Brett Allen (27:37) ⁓ really? Some markets are just really hard.

If you’re very rural, it’s probably even harder, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shelly VanEpps (27:42) Exactly. So

they’re still helping her though. They’re still trying to find people to potentially relocate and they’re going outside of her area and helping expand that and attracting somebody to her practice. It’s just not exactly, it just might not be right away. It’s, it’s a matter of waiting for that right candidate. Cause she has had a couple of candidates. They just weren’t the right ones. So we help make sure that it’s, it’s the best interest of the practice at the end of the day. So.

Brett Allen (27:52) Mm-hmm.

Some kind of relocation package or something. Yeah.

Yeah.

I’m

sure your team is phenomenal at that. Guys, if you need help with training or hiring, check out All-Star Dental Academy. Before we go, we’re almost out. I always ask everybody on the show if you could give one piece of advice that would have a big ripple effect for their practice, for front desk, whatever it is, what’s that one piece of advice that you would share that really would help our listeners have an epiphany around whatever that is?

Shelly VanEpps (28:12) really cool.

All right. So all of my coaching clients know this one. They can probably repeat it before I say it to them. But ⁓ when I was in my own dental practice and it, Dr. if you’re listening, thank you for this sign. There was a sign hanging in the wall on the wall, down the hallway. And it said, focus on the good, the good gets better. And I believe that very, very strongly that if you’re constantly focused on things that are going wrong, that’s all you’re going to see. But if you focus on some of the things that are going right, those start to come to the surface.

Brett Allen (28:56) ⁓

you

Shelly VanEpps (29:08) You appreciate those things that are going well in your practice. You’re going to start seeing more of that happening. And so that’s my little, whenever we’re looking at something, okay, out of all of that, what is going good? Let’s focus on that stuff and not to say that you’re taking what might be happening in a negative way and ignoring it. You still have to address it, but

Brett Allen (29:10) Hmm.

Mindset shift.

Mmm.

Shelly VanEpps (29:31) at least celebrate your wins when they’re there because everybody who is listening, you’re probably in dentistry, your practice, the doors are open, right? So even if you don’t have the number of new patients that you’re looking for, your doors are open. You’re employing a lot of people. You’re doing great things. You’re helping patients focus on that. And then everything else keeps coming back. focus on the good, the good gets better. That’s my little tagline that I’ve, yes.

Brett Allen (29:38) Yeah.

Yes.

I love that mindset shift. ⁓ I had

a friend of mine, Alex Sharf, and he’s a business coach years ago. We were working together. He told me, if you’re doing things right, your business will always be broken. There will always be something that needs to be improved or fixed. ⁓ We get into business to solve problems. A lot of times we don’t realize that, especially if you’re coming out of dental school and open to dental practice, you may not realize you’re getting into the problem solving business. But I love the focus that you have.

Shelly VanEpps (30:11) Absolutely.

Brett Allen (30:24) that if you just focus on what’s happening that’s well and ⁓ highlight the wins in the journey, that can be a huge shift for you. Thank you for that. Well, so where do we send people? If they wanna work with you, they wanna reach out and get in touch with you, what’s the best, is it the website? Where should we send them?

Shelly VanEpps (30:36) Absolutely.

Yeah.

You can check us out on allstardentalacademy.com. There’s information on both the training as well as on hiring there, or you can feel free to email me at Shelly at allstardentalacademy.com. I’m happy to help in whatever way I can that way as well.

Brett Allen (31:00) Okay, awesome you guys. We’ll put all of that in the show notes if you’re driving, don’t get in a wreck. Thank you so much, Shelly, for being on the show. This was an awesome conversation and thank you. Yeah, until next time, yeah, until next time on the Marking32 Show, everybody have a great day and enjoy the 4th of July. See you guys.

Shelly VanEpps (31:05) Yeah.

Yeah, thanks Brett. Absolutely, was my pleasure.

Bye.