Now, if you want to read his testimonial it says, “I really love Dr. Griffin’s ideas and concepts. They have helped me organize my practice to a high level of efficiency that I could have never done alone. The first day we implemented his system, we saw an immediate great improvement in our effectiveness. Thanks Dr. Griffin. I am now excited about dentistry again and cannot wait to see what tomorrow might bring.” Now, this guy has a great story because he was on the brink of disaster a couple of times, and he has really bumped his practice up to the next level. He just bought a space next to his old, crunched-in workspace. Now, he’s got this beautiful standalone building. He’s got a great story. I hope get to hear this.
I hope you come, and I hope you get to hear his story there. Here it is. So, just go. If you want to be a part of this, go to chrisgriffindds.com, order the practice productivity package, and if you have further questions, you can get a hold of me at chrisgriffin@thecapacityacademy.com or you can call 662-837-8143. Okay?
Alright. So, Lorne, are you still around, man? Do you want to do some Q & A?
Dr. Lavine:
I certainly do. The presentation almost makes me want to go back to full time practice and emphasis on the almost, but this is just great content. I can’t believe you were able to squeeze that much into about an hour. So, I just want also thank you for being so generous with the offer that you and I discussed. Maybe putting together a couple of the systems or pooling them together or 50% off, but you really went well above and beyond the call of duty. So, thank you very much for that. I think it’s truly a generous offer.
Dr. Griffin:
Well, hey. Thank you for letting me be a part of your group, man. I’ve really watched you afar for many years and I’ve respected you. I really appreciate you inviting me in.
Dr. Lavine:
Thank you. So, one of the things that I notice whenever I do a webinar is there’s two criteria that I use to figure out if the webinar was a success. Number one is do we have a lot of questions, and we have no questions, which means that everyone was probably listening intently and taking a lot of notes down. I would certainly encourage it. We have another space in the call for about another 15 to 20 minutes. So, if you have any questions that he’s talked about or maybe just practice management, in general, or anything that you want to pick his brain about, we’ve got him on the line now. Please feel free to ask your questions.
Secondarily, I look at the number of people that are on the call. I actually looked at this before we started. Normally, if I get 10%, 15% drop off during the webinar, I consider that to be successful. We have 100 more people on the call now than we had at the beginning of the hour. So, obviously a number of people have come on the call and have stayed on.
So, we have a couple of questions coming in now. So, what are practice management software are you using, and is there a specific reason why you’re using it as far as efficiency systems in your practice?
Dr. Griffin:
No. Well, look, I’ve used Dentrix since my inception in 1999. So, of course, Dentrix has some cool things. I think one of the coolest things I’ve seen lately is the bridge that they’ve got with this new marketing software that you can use called InfusionSoft, but I mean, it’s okay. I don’t think it’s perfect, but the big three or the big four are all fine.
Whatever it is you have, once you start building your database, you’re not going to go and swap software. It’s going to be very painful if you do. Just make sure that you write down good standard operating procedures and make sure that you have proper training for the folks that are running that software. It took me a long time to be able to maximize what Dentrix could do. I’m sure all the big ones are similar.
It’s like your brain. You’re using a percentage of your brain to just get in there, there are all these cool tools.
Dr. Lavine:
Yeah. I would back it up. Our experience is we usually about 5% to 10% usage of people’s software. So, you hit the nail on the head here. Another great question here, Chris. A lot of us have been inundated and we go to these shows. We see all these companies really focused on dental practice marketing, whether it’s newsletters or flyers or social media. I mean, that seems to be the big bugaboo right now. How do you market your practice? You didn’t talk about marketing once. Why is that?
Dr. Griffin:
Okay, 2008 to about 2010, I average about 150 new patients a month, working three days a week, and that’s a lot of work. I decided strategically that if I wanted to be a happier dentist, I cut my extra market budgeting to about, I started spending about $12000 to $15000 a month. I went down to about $2000 a month. So, now, most of my patients come from direct referrals.
We talked about that. I shared that on that DVD, The-Fly-On-The-Wall, they film me doing it, but I think it’s really important because those patients have such a high value to the practice. When you have 150 patients and most of them are coming from extra marketing, you have to spend so much time figuring out if this person who is actually going to stick to your practice. That’s a lot of wasted effort, and I’m all about not wasting effort.
Now, I like marketing. I’ve got like 1200 Facebook fans. Go look up Griffin Dental Group on Facebook. We’ve get 1200 fans. I’ve yet to make 1200 fans translate into a lot of money. Yeah, it’s cool to occasionally punch a button and make an offer, but truthfully, social media has not been the boom that I thought it would be. The 60 referrals every month, those guys come into the practice. They’re there to believe that you say, and they’re here because a friend or a loved one told them that you were okay and a good guy. They’re there to spend money. They’re not there to be a [01:17:16].
So, that’s the way I do marketing. I will do it. I do do it. I have a whole program every month. My clients get another marketing piece I’ve one in my practice successfully. I’ve done some good ones, but I’ve just come to believe overtime that the real bounty in the practice lies in your hygiene department and your patient base and the right referrals. That’s why we didn’t talk a lot about marketing.
Dr. Lavine:
Great. We just got an e-mail here coming in. So, someone just want to know how they could go about getting the special offer. Do they just go to your chrisgriffindds.com website?
Dr. Griffin:
Absolutely, chrisgriffindds.com, and if there’s something there that you can’t get to work right, you always send an e-mail, or that phone number is just on the bottom of the page right now, the 662-837-8143. You have chrisgriffindds.com. That’s got the special. It bypasses all the regular channels that we’re working through, and it just goes to the special channel.
Dr. Lavine:
Great. I see it now. The Fly-On-The Wall, is that a DVD or is that a book? It looks like it’s one of the Dummy books.
Dr. Griffin:
Well, yeah, it actually kind of looks like that. I actually like those books, Lorne. Hey, I can tell you. Every time I start to use a new software, I go buy the Dummy book for that software at Barnes and Noble, but yeah. It’s a DVD.
We took the DVD, and we transcribed it because some people like to watch DVD and pause it and underline and make notes in the manual. So, it’s just a manual to go with the DVD.
Dr. Lavine:
So, I’ve got a couple of questions here about your practice as far as how many staff you have. Is there another dentist in there? What’s the makeup of your individual practice?
Dr. Griffin:
There is not another dentist here. A long time ago, I thought that I would have this dental empire where I would have multiple practices, but then I decided against multiple practices. I said, “Hey, that’s too much work.” Then, I thought I’d just have one gigantic practice so I built on until I had 14 ops. Then, I decided I’m not going to get an associate because that’s too much work, and I’m pretty darn happy working three days a week and making a nice living in Ripley, Mississippi.
So, we turned several of those options into work stations for when we have visiting dentists. Now, we use those for fun. I work out in the office with three hygienists. So that’s the setup of my practice now.
Dr. Lavine:
Is there a minimum number that you need? We have one of our listeners saying they’re a four chair, single doctor practice with one assistant, one hygienist, one front desk, one sterilization room assistant. Are they going to need more than that to implement your system?
Dr. Griffin:
No. Four ops is good. We used to have one hygienist. You have three chairs. Absolutely, you can use these systems. You would be surprised how much more capacity you have out of a four chair practice with one hygienist. You said you have a sterilization assistant. So, you really have two assistants. It’s just you put one in sterilization. Sterilization assistant can absolutely run one of those color-coded setup rooms.
Our setup room, one half is sterilization. The other half is setup for the next procedure, and a person that’s dedicated to that room can make a world of difference in the amount of production you can get out of that practice.
Four chairs is great. I mean, the more chairs, the more people you’re going to need to man those chairs. I often think, netwise, you’re ahead. I mean, I might theoretically make more money working nine chairs net, but if you consider how much harder I’m working to keep the nine chairs, I like the four chair practice. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You can absolutely do with four chairs.
Dr. Lavine:
You talked about the importance of limiting or reducing your no-shows. How do you feel about some of the confirmation systems out there? Demand is my favorite, the Red Lighthouse, Solution One, like those. Do you ever use those in your practice?
Dr. Griffin:
Absolutely. We do it all, Lorne. I love those. We do the e-mail confirmation. We do text confirmation. I’m not kidding, we do Facebook confirmation. We do every kind of confirmation that you can do, and all of it is automated, pretty much, except for the Facebook. It’s like my office manager goes in and private messages people just to give them a general reminder. That works pretty good, by the way.
Bottom line is even with all of that, we only cut our no-show rate a small percentage, and so, that’s why I started booking that extra column, one more column that I have a hygienist. That’s what really saved the day and solved all the production problems in hygiene forming.
Dr. Lavine:
Okay. The DVDs. How long are those?
Dr. Griffin:
“Fly-On-The-Wall” is an hour and 15 minutes. The “Efficient Doctor” is more. It’s like, I could be wrong about this. I want to say it’s two DVDs, and it totals up to about 2 hours, 3 hours. That actually comes with a couple of manuals and bonus materials. You’re probably looking at 4, 5 hours worth of materials in the efficient doctor system.
Dr. Lavine:
Okay, and we’ve got some nice comments coming in already. People are already buying it, and I certainly encourage people that this is a great special. You’ve only got a few slots for the conference. I would highly recommend that you get on the website and buy. How long is the conference by the way?
Dr. Griffin:
It’s a three-day conference. It’s a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and I believe a couple of people who are on this program are going to be there as well. Dr. Erin Elliot. She’s going to be speaking. Dr. Brady Frank. He’s going to be speaking. Of course, I’m going to do my multiple session song and dance to get more people to be efficient and an easier workflow. Yeah, I think we’ve got a good show.
These conferences are a lot of work, and so I would love for you to come. We’re going to try to put on the best show we possibly can, and one night we’re going to have a band. We’re in Nashville, right? So, we’re going to do it right in the country music capital of the world. So, come on down, guys. I would love to meet you.
Dr. Lavine:
Very generous. You talked about the referral system for your patients. What exactly do you do? You probably don’t have to time to go into details, but what do you do to encourage your patients to refer other people?
Dr. Griffin:
Well, as you probably know, a lot people, a lot of states, a lot of countries, have great difficulty in doing referral program. If you give any kind of amount of money or anything of value to someone, in some of the state boards, you’re going to construe that as being against the regulation. So, I just decided at some people that we’re going to play a completely straight.