The Jameson Files 104 – Communication, Vision, and Leadership with Dr. Cappy Sinclair

https://youtu.be/CsxT_OzajiY

Carrie Webber: [00:00:10]Thank you for joining us on the Jameson files. I’m your host CarrieWebber and I’m thrilled to once again be having a conversation with Dr. CappySinclair of Virginia Beach Virginia. We’re going to talk about strategy,vision, communication skills and how Dr. Sinclair uses these tools every day tocontinue to grow his dental business. It’s get to sit across the table with youand pick your brain and share some stories about, you know, how you becomesuccessful in the work you’re doing in dentistry.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:00:45]My my journey of success… I still have much further to go but, youknow, it’s great to be here.

Carrie Webber: [00:00:51]We’re so glad you’re here. Thanks. And, you know, so just a recap on onDr. Sinclair you know you’ve been you’ve been practicing in Virginia you havethis amazing story and a very creative story of what we know where he whereyou’ve come from and what led you to into dentistry. But I want to talk alittle bit more about the now, where you’re going and because you and I shareum, a curiosity and a love for the business side.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:01:20]Right. Dentistry is a business.

Carrie Webber: [00:01:22]Yes. And believe it or not it is a business. And when you embrace thatbusiness side and you and you want to learn and refine and grow and focus onyour business not just on the dentistry and that balance. What a difference itcan make. And so I want to talk a little bit about you know vision and gettingclarity of vision and pursuing the pursuit of a vision and accomplishments. Thesteps along the way of planning toward a vision and and you know, I, what wasit three years ago we. Or was it longer.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:02:02]No it was almost three years ago to the day. So we were here at theJameson offices in Oklahoma City. And I had that my husband Jess and I who ownJameson had the opportunity to spend some time with you and your beautiful wifeLauren. The time you weren’t,.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:02:20]We were not married.

Carrie Webber: [00:02:21]You were engaged. Yes and starting to plan a life together. And so a boya lot of lot’s happened since then. Precious little little baby boy now and.But at the time you were coming in to do specifically some vision planning andit was a really cool how that started with thinking one thing and we ended inanother space. And how far you’ve come from there but that was a coolconversation around the table.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:02:50]It was really cool for me because I think it gave me perspective as towhere I was going when I started my practice from scratch six years ago. I knewthat I wanted to have a dental practice but I didn’t really have a vision. Iknew the types of dentistry that I wanted to do but not really who I wouldserve. And so along the way I’ve learned a lot of things like initially I justwanted to be a great dentist that would treat great people. Yeah. That’s prettyvague. When I look at it from hindsight. But having a vision of at firstopening a practice and then as we got more and more successful you realizewhere am I going with this. What’s the purpose where I am I doing what I’m doing.Am I doing it just for me. Am I doing it for my patients. Am I doing it for myteam. Kind of where. Whereas the the meat behind everything. Yeah and so I knowthere’s a lot of buzz talk on like why people do things and the why is SimonSinek talks about for the millennials like that driving purpose is reallyimportant for a lot of people to have. And for me I felt like the biggest thingwas for me to see patients that were looking for comprehensive treatmentinstead of that help style in your marketing and a whole bunch of other thingsthat are really helpful to help focus on. But I hadn’t had that yet until I hadsat down here and so it took a lot of brainstorming. I mean this isn’tsomething that you can sit down in an afternoon and hash out and be like ohthis is my purpose this is my vision it really took a lot of time and and itchallenges you. Yeah. As a dentist and as a business owner like what what am Idoing Where am I going. And originally we sat down and I think I wasn’t reallytoo sure of the vision and it went in a different direction of having multiplelocations and having a business and seeing the scalability of what we weredoing. Yeah. And it took my wife or fiancee at the time a little bit bysurprise. Yeah. And we went home and talked about it and was this somethingthat I was truly passionate about. And that’s what we’ve stuck to for the lastthree years and yeah we acquired another practice. We’ve brought in specialistswe’ve created basically an operations or systems manual that promotes growthand and it is a repeatable process. But it wasn’t built overnight and Iwouldn’t have built it overnight if I didn’t have the vision of where it wasgoing. Yeah. And so I don’t think most doctors that go to start a practice havethat. Nailed down and you don’t have to have it nailed down when you’restarting. But at some point in order to give yourself self fulfillment and Imean if you’re going to spend so much time at work you might as well make itenjoyable. Yeah. So what’s going to really fill your bucket. What’s going tomake you happy and give you joy when you go into work. What’s what’s going tobe your vision for your practice.

Carrie Webber: [00:05:51]You know it seemed like it almost surprised you to when you kind of hadsome lightbulbs go off but it was more I think sometimes do you feel this isthe case. And I think this isn’t in any kind of business. When you when you gointo business as an owner and thank you from our perspective sometimes you youget really caught up in the what you what should be you know that didn’t botherme I’m a I’m a dinosaur I own this business I should I should do it this waybecause that’s what most people do. Yeah and that’s kind of the the point of.But eventually I like what you said of term in terms of you may not have thatclarity from day one but somewhere down the line as as a clinician as abusiness owner you wake up one day and you think is is it it. Is this it. Isthis what I want. And I have a lot of conversations with doctors that are thatyou know reach out and eventually we find that this conversation like I don’teven really know if I ask what’s your vision and they sometimes don’t even knowand I don’t even know and I don’t even know how to retire. Yes. I want moretime. They all they have a lot of goals of what they want but to really thinkthrough not only you know how where do I want to go with this and then talkabout how I’m going to get there. Yeah.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:07:10]And that’s where I think the real power is is not only do I know what myvision is but my team knows what my vision. Yes. So and my team that I had atthe time three years ago is not the same team that I have known. So the peoplethat weren’t or didn’t share that vision. SELF ELIMINATED. So yeah I’m they’veactually left the practice and we’ve gained team members that do support thatvision. Yeah. And a lot of the things I’m one person so I can’t createinitiatives for all of these things that are going to help us grow into a multilocation practice. So having the support of other individuals that again manyare are mightier than the one individual. So they’re able to move along theseinitiatives much faster and it gives them great just satisfaction coming towork and knowing that they’re bigger are part of something that’s bigger thanthemselves. Yeah. Whether that’s treating more patients whether that’s seeingthe before and afters where that’s getting someone over their dental anxietyall of those are just the key takeaways which I really hope all of our team members.

Carrie Webber: [00:08:20]Yeah. Because you know in Dentist and in the dental profession thedentists not isn’t the only one that starts to suffer from burnout. I know. Andyou know when you can create a space that not only is helping you accomplishthat. The creativity or the vision of what you want as the as the practitioneras the owner as the leader. But you’re making space for other people on yourteam that line up with that that believe in that and to give them a chance todo more than clocking in and clocking out and being this like disengaged cog inthe wheel.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:08:55]Right. Because a lot of them probably have visions for themselves too.They don’t want to just be in clinical they may want to get into speaking and consultingthey don’t want to get into the more business side or management side ofdentistry and providing paths and showing your team that like I will supportyou. You just have to share with me what your vision is too. Yeah. And I thinkthat open line of communication with your team is really important.

Carrie Webber: [00:09:18]And I love that you once you kind of once you got it clear for yourselfthat you shared that with your team. How did that go. Was that was thatuncomfortable for you or how did they respond.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:09:29]Was it this oh the cool thing about it for me it wasn’t uncomfortablebecause it was something that I believed in. Yeah I think when you’redelivering that to your team then they see that you believe in something andit’s something you can stand behind then you’re not going to be as anxiousabout sharing that you know that you probably will get some backlash fromcertain individuals so prepare yourself for that yeah portion of it. And againmaybe everyone that’s there with you currently might not be there with you inthree years or five years or seven years. Yeah or or Tuesday the next day or at2 o’clock. Yeah. So but I think coming up with the vision is is hard. That’sthat’s where again you can’t just write down a sentence and be like this is myvision it’s something that’s has some structure around it and then it’s refinedover time. But we’ve changed our vision very slightly in terms of how we’regoing to grow or it’s more like a systems based. Yeah but the vision of stillbeing kind of a multi location practice that’s still at the core beliefs.

Carrie Webber: [00:10:42]And you’re planning all revolves around the little steps along the waythat help helps keep you moving in that direction.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:10:48]Yes. So budgetary things we’re looking at are we going to spendmarketing on this. That doesn’t help our mission or our vision. They’re tryingto buy this piece of technology or equipment that supports multi locationpurposes. And are we. How. What’s the training process for this. So you look atthings with a little bit different perspective rather than like the shoot bythe hip dentist of like hey let’s go to the sea. Course this sounds like fun.Things are really structured so we know what courses we’re gonna be going towhat our expectations are of the information we’re pulling out of it how that’sgoing to implement the rest of the practice or how we will implement that intothe practice. Yeah.

Carrie Webber: [00:11:27]You know I remember when when Jess and I were setting kind of theinitial vision for what where we wanted to go with our business and everythingyou know it feels you feel like oh good job. I have words and I’m here and Ihave some strategy that I’m and some goals set and things and. But you don’trealize it until quite a bit further down the road do you realize when you’remaking some really difficult decisions that while they may be hard they’re notas difficult as they would have been if I didn’t know that the answer to thosequestions if if we hire this person if we invest in this if we go to this placeif we do this thing does it ultimately help us you know in our pursuit of ourpurpose for this company and our vision of where we’re wanting to go. And ifthe answer is no then it becomes very apparent. Well this is the this is thething we need to this is the elephant in the room that we needed to deal withand the more that you get clear on that that kind of thing the the easier eventhe hard stuff becomes because that decision making piece when you don’t haveanything to bounce that off of. That’s why people,.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:12:36]Your in purgatory. Yes sure. You don’t know why you’re making decisionsor what you’re trying to accomplish.

Carrie Webber: [00:12:40]Yeah. And a lot of times you you talk to people and if you talk aboutyou Do you have a hard decision that you know you need to make. What aboutanything in your business more than likely something’s coming to mind. But ifyou don’t have anything that you’re bouncing that off of to help you make thatdecision in the healthiest way possible for you and for and for the businessthen you do you find yourself like paralyzed. Yep. And you don’t make anydecision which is sometimes worse.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:13:08]Yeah I would say the most common experience for us that we have toutilize that is with team members. So we have some really great team membersbut in in certain situations they weren’t in the right position. So we had toevaluate some of our assistance in certain cases and be like hey like you’rereally good at your personal action like would you ever be interested in doingsome business team and you’re shuffling people around finding better fits. Butknowing that some of the individuals weren’t the best fit for where they werelocated and didn’t support our vision. We could make those decisions ratherthan waiting until like well I hope they leave soon or some some point we’regoing to have to let her go. So in postponing the inevitable instead of beingmore proactive yeah just the way a lot of us hope our patients are moreproactive. Yes. Doing dentistry and looking for things you’re you’re againyou’re trying to stay ahead of the game and then waiting for the accidents tooccur.

Carrie Webber: [00:14:11]Well and you kind of leading into this with the patients don’t you feellike when you’re really more in alignment with what you want to be doing whatyou wanna be accomplishing and and that purposeful and wide. Why am I doingthis don’t you feel like that impacts who’s coming to your practice justnaturally because when you’re engaged and and lined up with the right visionfor you that you’re passionate about and then you had the right team in theright place doing the right things believing in that as well then that’s goingto attract patients that believe in that kind of care that want that kind ofrelationship and a had experience immediately.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:14:47]Yeah. Again kind of when you when can answer the phone like are youdoing things differently than other practices might be or are they having adifferent experience.

Carrie Webber: [00:14:55]Do you get that do you have patients that make comments about that orare all locked in as a new patient saying I know that you this is important toyou and that’s important I mean do you have any patients that do that.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:15:06]Well one of the like a really thing for a lot of doctors to do that I’vedone since day one that I’ve helped I think differentiate ourselves. I call allof our new patients the night before. Yeah just say hey this is Dr. SinclairMrs. Jones. I’m pumped to meet you. And I understand that you shared withLindsay that you want to have a straighter smile. And can you tell me a littlebit more about that if you have some time if not we’ll get into somediscussions tomorrow. Yeah. And just taking 30 seconds of your day in a societywhere people have condition themselves knowing that doctors times are valuable.Yeah. And that I will get a limited time frame I mean with my primary carephysician I’m lucky if I get three minutes. Right. Like huh. Yep yep yep. Checkcheck check check. All right. Next. So taking taking that extra time I meanfrom a business perspective it’s I think we have a 5 percent new patient noshow rate which is awesome. But then you’re setting the expectations up frontbefore they’ve entered the office that you’re different.

Carrie Webber: [00:16:11]Yeah. Oh wow. This is it. Oh this gonna be some I don’t even know whatto expect at this. Yeah.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:16:16]And so patients will walk in and be like Oh. I’m so thrilled he calledme last night. I’ve never had anyone do that before. And so they they’realready coming in like this is going to be a different experience and so as anoffice you’re trying to perpetuate that and of course people talk to each otherand in the age of social media you get reviews and and people value reviewsabout your practice just as much as a personal referral. So yeah. And then themore and more people that you attract that are the same than the more more yourpatient population is kind of dialed into supporting your vision. Yeah. Fullcircle.

Carrie Webber: [00:16:51]And isn’t it interesting that you know once you got to get clear on onwhere you wanted to go and who and and the type of values of that team that youwanted to have around you carrying that forward with you. And then to youtaking these little tweaks is a little extra amounts of time the smallestdetails that if you really if you had allowed yourself you go say hi to my guythe last thing I want to do is talk to three people tonight you know for whoknows how long but then you start to think wow that’s really not much effortfor now it’s saving me an effort on the other end. You know if they hadcanceled it they didn’t have that value. If you you know if there was wasn’tthat that building of trust I mean there’s little tweaks that can make such abig difference because you believed in it and you know it didn’t seem like allthis extra you know grudge work.It was.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:17:47]And over time we’ve we’ve gotten the cool thing about is there systemsin place in our office now where I get the list of the patients the night beforewith their phone numbers with their their concerns and all of that shared withme and it’s comes in formats and then I’m calling those patients at a specifictime every day. So things have started again. You’re trying to create a systemthat would help balance everything out.

Carrie Webber: [00:18:10]So so any books that you would recommend to get people on started on theright foot if they say OK OK fine I’ll work on this vision thing. Anything thatyou would recommend from that business perspective that has helped you.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:18:24]So there are a couple of good books that I’ve read. I think one is agreat book that everyone should read if you’re interested it’s owning abusiness especially a dental practice is E-myth. Yeah. Because I think it’s alot of there’s a lot of commonalities that most dentists have being atechnician in owning a business. Not really understanding the concepts that arebehind a business just because we were never taught that in school. So that’s areally great thing is to help identify and it breaks down kind of what you’reyou’re looking at if you’re looking for a little bit more granular detail. Oneof the books that I really have found helpful is Traction by Gina Wickman andthat book really helps break down kind of the entrepreneurial style ofdeveloping all different facets of your business. And on top of just yourvision what systems are required to support it. Who are the team members thatare required to support the systems. Who are your patients required to supportyour vision. So a lot of that kind of goes into much more detail but you’ll getgreat information out of e-mail. I just reread it probably about two weeks agoand I picked new information up then when I read it six years ago.

Carrie Webber: [00:19:40]So when because he we got we’ve got Traction come in to our doorstep anyday now. So I’m excited to read that as well so and so you know what would be.A first step as a simple SAP or a 1 step forward to kind of if there are folkslistening saying that all sounds great but I don’t even know where to start onthat. Well what would be a one step that was maybe one of the first steps youtook.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:20:04]I think the first step and we did this with the associate that I wasthat’s with her practice is really sitting down and seeing what type ofdentistry do you want to be doing. In an ideal world if you could have yourideal day what would that look like. Yeah and then build backwards. What typesof patients are designed to support that and take some time and be honest withyourself. You might find that the answer that you originally thought or why youbuilt the business is different than what you internally think. So being honestwith yourself and really just take the time to sit down and write down writedown a couple ideas of what you have going on in your head.

[00:20:43] Yeah it’s justlike how you recommend for you know ask the patients. Yeah. Sometimes it mightseem like the simplest question ask it of yourself and if you never askyourself that question you’ll be no right answer.

Carrie Webber: [00:20:56]Yeah. You never know the answer you might be surprised. So thanks Cappyfor being with us today.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: [00:21:01]Thank you. CarrieWebber: [00:21:01] Sohopefully this inspires some of you to you know get clear and take that firststep forward.