Launching into The Future of Dentistry!

Welcome to the future of dentistry podcast. My name is Allison . I am your host. This is the third time I've tried this. And sometimes technology is your best friend, and sometimes it can be your worst enemy. However we are here now. And so this is the very first future of dentistry podcast, and I'm really excited to welcome you to this new iteration of the podcast that I've been hosting for the last two years since starting clarified.

And what we're going to do today is we're gonna talk about where we came from, where we are today and where we are going. When it comes to dentistry in the facets that I find and clear coaching vines, most important to help teams be happier, less stressed, be more productive and take better care of their patients.

That's really what clear coaching stands for and what my mission is. Um, in the industry, I have a very, very big goal. Change the dental industry. Um, if I can be so humble to say that, and that's my absolute passion and mission is to help dentistry be a better place. And so I want to share a little bit about me if this is the first time you've met me or if you're just tuning into this podcast.

So the very first time I want to share with you. Where I came from really why this is a star Trek theme podcast, which I noticed even very random, but it's not. And what we're going to be talking about every single week in this podcast, I'm going to be bringing in guest experts. We're going to have specific topics that we're going to be covering.

And so I want to prepare you for what's to come and get you excited about this information, because I'm extremely excited about it. And I tend to be a very optimistic and positive person. And so I want to share this with you. And so let me start. With where I came from. And so the reason why this is a star Trek theme podcast is because I actually grew up, I went to high school in a town called Vulcan.

This is in Alberta, Canada, and the population at the time was around 1400 people. And so I had a graduating class of 40 people. And our tone with actually star Trek themed. Yes, there is a spaceship in the town. And I, yes, I did work there. So don't be, you know, really be very appropriate in this future of dentistry podcast.

I did have to wear ears. I did have to wear like a shirt and I did host what we call Spock days in Vulcan, um, in, in summertime where a bunch of people that literally the population of the town triples with the amount of people that come in for this really, really famous and important. Where they have like cling on fear factor and they speak cling on to each other.

And it's all sorts of star Trek, themed things. I don't know anything about star Trek. I will have to say I did work at the facility and I'm from the town, but I've never actually watched the show. However, I think it's appropriate to be used as, um, you know, the theme for the show because I really am focused on and everyone on my team is focused on how do we help.

Everyone in the dental industry, see what's happening in the future. What's coming in the future and prepare what they're doing, where they're going right now, so that they can be ready for the future of dentistry. And so. With clear coaching. I started off as a dental assistant. I was 17 when I went to dental assisting school and I graduated and I went right into my orthodontics certification and I fell in love with ortho.

I was picked up by a practice in Lethbridge, Alberta, and they trained me to be an orthodontic assistant and I just fell in love with the transforming. I did really, really want to travel when I was younger. And I was always looking for a way to go live by the ocean or have an experience somewhere else.

And so what I did was I actually got an opportunity for a job in Bermuda. Um, when I was leaving dental assisting school. And so I interviewed, and I ended up getting the job kind of, as I was working in ortho practice in Lethbridge, and I decided I was going to move there. So I'd never been to Bermuda. I actually didn't really know where it was.

I just knew it sounded warmer than Southern Alberta. So I decided that I was going to move there to be a dental. My parents were not thrilled. I was, um, 19 at the time and I had never traveled really much of anywhere on my own at the time I've been to like, you know, east coast, Canada, and Vegas and things like that that are pretty typical and common for being in Alberta, but I'd never been anywhere really far away.

And so I told my parents, they eventually accepted it and I moved, packed up. What I thought was all I needed really just dresses and bikinis. I moved from. Was in for a shock. Um, it's a little bit colder here than I expected, but I moved to Bermuda at 19 years old by myself to start my. And when I got to the practice, I realized there was a lot of opportunity for growth for change.

And I was so fortunate to be working with a doctor that was very open to change, very excited about the information that I was bringing to the practice. We literally sat down and probably within the first month of me being there and wrote out goals that we wanted to have for the practice and the goals included.

Systems, um, putting lockers in for the team members, you're doing more Invisalign and we just systematically started checking off these goals. And I was so lucky to be a part of that team and be able to be given responsibilities really quickly. But there was one thing that I did that I tell all my team.

Was, I actually looked for the opportunities to help rather than complain about the things that weren't going well. So, you know, my doctor didn't really know how to fix these things on his own. He knew he needed some support and help. And as a dental assistant, I could have very well said that's not my job.

That's not my role, but I didn't. And I, you know, put my best foot forward and we created strategies and I grew so fast. And so fast forward. Two years. I became the treatment coordinator. I ramped up the Invisalign systems in the practice. We were doing a lot of Invisalign in the practice and created systems around that.

And then I decided I wanted to go back to school. So when I told my doc I'm ready to go back to the I'm ready to go back to school. He was like, absolutely not. We want to give you, we want you to have the opportunity to be the office manager. So I was 24 years old and I started managing the practice and I had no clue what I was doing, ugly none.

And so he sent me back to the university of Toronto and that is where I got my office management certification. I learned so much made amazing connections, came back and we actually hired a practice called. Um, her name is Robin Ramirez from productive dentist academy. She completely changed, changed the game for me and for the practice.

And so I learned so much from her and I realized I wanted to become a coach. So I wanted to be able to help people grow and overcome their own limiting beliefs, their internal barriers to success, to be able to accomplish their goals faster and easier than ever before. So I ended up going back to coaching.

Through IPAC. And a year later I was a certified professional coach, fast forward to the pandemic. Everyone was laid off in my practice and I started my business in 2020. And so since then it has been a absolute whirlwind of amazing connections, amazing people. I can not describe the gratitude that I've had for the people that I've met in this industry and for the clients that have trusted me to help them with their practice for my team that is growing rapidly.

To be able to just continue this mission of supporting my practices and doctors and you know, everyone in the dental industry on being prepared and ready and stepping into their future and the future of dentistry. And so that's really where I came from and why I'm here today. It's because I want to inspire team members, doctors, everyone, everyone, that I can to believe that whatever future that they want.

It's, you know, we're talking about the future of dentistry, but really I'm talking about your future, the future that you have for yourself, the dreams that you have for yourself, the life that you want to create for yourself, I want to help inspire you and support you to create those goals. To create that vision and to step into it.

And so with clear coaching, we focus on a lot of different things and I've had people say in the past, like, awesome, you're doing Instagram, you're doing leadership, you're doing clear liners. You're talking about team empowerment and high-performance and yes I am. And yes, all of those things are really important to me.

And the through-line for all of them is this is the future of dentistry. The future of dentistry includes authentic and education based. It includes being an ally and a resource and a coach to your patients and your audience through social media platforms. It includes being authentic. And showing your patients who you really are, what you stand for, where you're going and how you can help them.

And so I have a big passion when it comes to Instagram, marketing or marketing in general is to help and empower teams to become authentic and educate their audience on what they do as a dental practice to support and serve. And so that's my passion. When it comes to creating an authentic marketing space and dentistry, we are not salespeople.

We are educators. And we do that through social media today because our world has changed. And the way that we get to influence people is through social media. And so I help practices all over the world, um, be able to step into that authentic market. And that really powerful education-based marketing. We are here to serve and we can serve through social media.

And so that's how I teach my practices, how to market. The second thing that I focus on, and this is in no particular order is high-performance coaching executive high-performance coaching. And this really what this means is to work with my doctors, work with my office managers, then all of my team members into stepping into their highest.

And best self meaning. They established who they are today and where they want to go and how to get there. We just close that gap on how to get there and the things that typically come up for us, aren't usually a skillset or a resource problem. Most of the time we have the skillset and we have the resources to accomplish the goals that we have most of the time.

And I've learned this very clearly in the last two years, working with very incredible doctors and team members. Their mindset. So helping, helping you believe that what you want in your life as possible help you clarify what that is, and then close that gap so we can overcome any internal barriers along the way.

And so. In Harvard business review and a lot of other articles or a lot of other publications, you'll notice that coaching is becoming a buzz word. It's becoming something that's really important because it is so effective. I was coached a long time ago. I still have a coach. I believe so much in coaching personally, every single person on my team has a coach and I coach dentists to be able to.

To have the most powerful mindset possible to have the most ability to overcome imposter syndrome, perfectionism limited mindset, um, negativity, so that they can step into the life, the practice, the team that they've always had. And so the second thing we focus on is high-performance coaching, um, and executive coaching for all my teams.

And this is something I'm so passionate about, and I've been able to create amazing changes in the lives of my practitioners, because we, we just focus on your own self-belief and your ability to change your belief around things that are holding you back or limiting you. It's so powerful. The third thing that I love to talk about all the time, and in many ways, how people know me is clear liner.

Systemization. And optimization and a practice. And so when I was 21, 22 in my practice, I realized that there's this insane opportunity for a general dentist to not only double. Their production using clear liners, but to also provide a more comprehensive treatment plan and a treatment approach to dentistry, utilizing clear liners, many people don't want to do braces anymore.

They just don't and they don't have to. And that's a good thing because it removes the barrier for our patients to decide to move their teeth in the right position before they get a permanent. Implants or crown or bridge or whatever they need. And so I believe that comprehensive and holistic dentistry is the future of dentistry.

I believe that our patients expect more from us. They expect it faster. They expect it easier and they should because the technology and industry has changed so much that we're able to do things so differently than even when I was in school, um, 13 years ago. And so. What I help practices do is change their belief around what comprehensive debt, like what comprehensive treatment planning really means and comprehensive treatment planning around 75% of the time, because 75% of the population still has malocclusion or crowding 75% of the time.

It includes orthodontics before or in conjunction with restorative or periodontal. So I hope practices reframe their mindset and create the ability to understand the protocols, the processes, and the systems that every single person operates by every single day in your practice to allow orthodontics to be a foundational aspect of your treatment planning.

And I find this extremely important because we want to take the best care of right. We absolutely do. And if we're not offering the ability to move their teeth into the right position before we play something permanent, my personal belief is that we're not offering the best treatment. And so there are a million things that get in the way of this.

Like what if this big, this is too expensive? What if they don't, you know, want to do Invisalign before? Or what if they don't want to be referred to another practice they want to say with. There are so many solutions to this, and this is what I help practices with the treatment philosophy and the belief and the understanding that comprehensive dentistry equals orthodontics and restorative at least 75% of the time, because that is the statistic of your patients that are coming to your practice with Malibu.

And then creating the systems, the protocols, the mindset, the skillset, the knowledge to delegate that to your team. So you are essentially running an ortho chair in a general practice. So that's what I love to do when I do that so much for my teams to be able to create that system in the practice.

That's so powerful. And literally I've had practices that I've worked with double their production in a year, literally double it. And I'm so proud to say that. I w I know with that double your production, my teams were also taking better care of their patients. My team members were more empowered to do the work and the skillset and the jobs that they love.

My dentists were less stressed. My dentists got to do dentistry and they weren't doing the clear liner, um, systems that they don't actually need. So that is the other thing we focus on at clear coaching, which also includes the education-based marketing and the high-performance coaching, because we need to have the mindset and the marketing to be able to support that clear aligner.

Systemization the last thing I focus on, which I find is probably one of the biggest topics that I'm seeing in dentistry. Is leadership and team engagement and empowerment. And so I work with Dr. Kelly Tyner, who has become such a dear friend and partner with me in this, who she has a doctorate in organizational leadership, and she's a hygienist and we have come together to create essentially what we're calling a leadership university to help team members and practices have the foundational skills to create an amazing and powerful.

Because what we're seeing right now in dentistry is a mass Exodus of people leaving the industry because they're not happy in their practice. And something that really stuck with me a long time ago, when I was coming into my new practice in Bermuda, I was walking up the stairs. I was so excited my new career, and one of the team members there was like, all right, welcome, Alison it's another day, another dollar.

And I was like, not for me. This can be it for me, this cannot be what I am doing with my life. I want in my life personally, to make a difference, to be passionate about the work that I do to feel like I'm a part of something bigger. And to feel like I'm a part of a team that is creating this incredible difference in our patient's lives and in the world.

And that really stuck with me and it resonated at a very young age. And now. I realized that a lot of other team members are exactly like me in that sense, they want to feel like they're part of a bigger mission. They want to love what they do. They want to feel like when they go to work everyday, it's not just for the money.

It's for something bigger, it's for a purpose. And when we as leaders, which I'm saying, we, and I'm meaning every single person that has ever watched this or is watching this now is a leader. We all are leaders, every single one. Okay. As leaders, we have the opportunity to create those cultures in our practices to help us take the team and the patient perspective and experience two totally different level.

But what I also know is as a dentist and business owner, you have never gone for formal leadership training. When did you have time really? In the eight years that you were learning how to do a root canals and crowns and do beautiful aesthetic, got to, when did you have time to go be com professionally trained in leadership?

It just didn't happen, but it's so necessary in today's world. When you're managing a team of 13, 12, 6, those skills are so critical. And so that is what we focus on is helping practices, Uplevel their leadership skills so that they can take their teams to the next level and help their teams feel like are part of something amazing and have the skills, the systems, the communication tools, the vision, the values of mission, all of those things that are required to have a really powerful culture.

And we have that really powerful culture. We increased team happiness. We increase patient care. We increase production, we decrease stress and we increase longevity of our teams to stay in our practice. And so, uh, a big kind of call for help that I'm seeing. And that shared, I was helped me with my team, helped me keep team, find team, um, motivate team.

And it's so possible. It really is. And I'm here to support you with that. We are here to support you with that. And that is the other thing that I truly do. The future of dentistry is having powerful and different cultures in the dental office. And, you know, the good news is we now have a different tool as we have different abilities to connect with people over zoom have online education have technology that allows us to communicate faster, to help us step into that high level of leadership.

And so this podcast really is going to be diving into all of those books. And helping you learn different tools or technology or skills for marketing, for leadership, for high-performance, um, for clear liners to help you take your practice yourself, your team, into the future of dentistry. And so I'm really excited to be here with you, and I'm excited to be sharing this mission.

And if you're interested in being on the podcast, sharing how you help create and design a beautiful future in dentistry, I would love to welcome you on as my guest, it would be at my absolute honor, and I have been so honored and humbled to have some insane and amazing guests on my podcast in the last two years.

I'm so pleased. If you're interested, if you know somebody there, like Kellison this person, they're all about the future of dentistry. They're very, very passionate about it. Send them my way. I would love to connect with them. Second thing is, if this is something that you find would be inspiring to you, please subscribe, share it, tune in every Thursday.

At this time, we're watching the replay because I want to, I want to help spread this. More than ever. And I think the world is ready for it. And I think it's gonna be fun because the future of dentistry is going to be amazingly beautiful. And I know that, and I want you to join me on that. So if you're interested in being a part of this in any way of watching it, supporting it, please give me a thumbs up, share it to your page charts and your friends that you think this would be great.

And introduce me to anybody that wants to be on the podcast or yourself. If you feel like I want to talk about what I see in the future of dentistry, I'm so happy to have you. And so. I'm really grateful for you to be here with me to be watching this video today or listening on the podcast. I am learning as I go, as we all are.

And so my mantra is progress over pur over perfection. And so I hope that you get to see this podcast just continue to improve. I'm gonna get some like fancy little songs and things that are going on. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. I would love to hear any topics that you want to discover or discuss, and let's step into the future of dentistry together.

My name is Austin Lucia. Thank you for joining me. And I hope you guys have an amazing Thursday or whatever day it is that you're listening to this. And I'm so excited to be stepping into the future of dentistry.