FlossBites: Behind the Scenes of FlossNYC Moki Goyal

We've been out of town for a while dealing with some family stuff, but we're back! Last time we talked, we were looking to hire a billing coordinator. Good news! We did it!

Normally we use Indeed to hire because we like their tools, but we were getting frustrated with how SO MANY OF THEM WOULD LIE about their dental experience. It was crazy, we'd get all these people with retail experience at Macy's and Sleepy's and others with irrelevant experience. Frustrating, to say the least.

So we took the advice of one of Ragini's friends: He puts a link in the job post that asks them a whole set of very specific questions with actual scenarios. This allows him to see how they would handle these situations.

So we created a survey in Typeform. We asked candidates to calculate copays and write sample emails given a set of circumstances. This was a great way to not only gather specific information about the candidates, but also weed out the ones that were too lazy to carefully read our post.

This saved us a tremendous amount of time. We received 215 applications in two days, but 209 were garbage. Only 6 filled out the survey and of those, we liked 3. We emailed those three and two replied. We did phone interviews and then working interviews and made our selection.

I highly recommend doing this to make your job posts more effective and gather most of the information you need without any effort!

Episode Show Notes:
00:12 - Catchup: we were in the process of hiring
00:19 - We HIRED someone!
00:27 - Hiring hack we learned
00:43 - Indeed.com allows you ask questions
00:58 - People tend to lie on questions
01:17 - Hundreds of applications with no relevant experience
01:36 - Waste of time to even look through them
01:46 - Ragini's friend shared a hiring tip
02:03 - Link to survey in job post
02:12 - Good for two reasons
02:27 - Automatically weeds people out
02:48 - We created an application with Typeform
03:03 - Asked candidates to calculate co-pays
03:20 - Extracted so much info without wasting time
03:33 - From 215 applicants - we whittled it down to 3!
04:24 - We'll use this for all hiring in the future
04:40 - Great way to bypass irrelevant candidates

Last week, someone referred an associate dentist to us. But we didn't need another dentist at our practice, at least not yet. But Ragini decided to meet her and feel her out. Turns out she was great! She's a couple years out of school, has real compassion and might be a great culture fit at FlossNYC.

As we talked about it more, we realized that we have some big things coming up that could warrant having an associate dentist coming on board. At some point, we want to start a family, so having another dentist would allow Ragini to take a comfortable maternity. We're also looking at purchasing another practice so having another set of hands would be huge for us to keep FlossNYC running smoothly. While we don't need her right away, our long term goals will definitely require another dentist.

So we decided to give it a try and hire her on a part time basis for 1 day a week. We hemmed and hawed about it for a while, but then realized that it's not permanent. If it's not working out, we can terminate the arrangement. But trying her out allows us to increase the number of options we have available. It also helps move us towards our long term goals.

We're excited to welcome her to our team and explore how she can help us grow the practice!

Episode Show Notes:
00:04 - Dentist Referral
00:15 - But we don't need one...
00:35 - Decided to meet her anyway
00:36 - She was GREAT!
00:52 - But what about the future?
01:00 - Starting a family, buying a new practice
01:40 - Taking the plunge - hiring her part time
01:57 - Learning - this moves us towards our LT goals
02:26 - LT goals aren't always obvious
02:44 - Want to establish mentor/mentee relationship

As we've mentioned, we cancelled all our DMO insurance plans because the reimbursement rate was too low for us. So the terminations will be going into effect soon and we've been informing our patients through an automated campaign to allow them to click a button and update their records. It's a great way to make the process less manual. That's the good news...

The bad news, is that our new patient rate has dropped pretty substantially since we dropped the plans. We feel it's the right thing to do - long term, because right now, we're working too hard for far too little money. But while we're still confident in our decision, it never feels good to see your new patient count drop.

Our plan is to use our Dental Membership plan to drive growth. I had an idea to appeal to small businesses that might not have dental benefits for their employees. This would be an inexpensive way for the companies to provide a perk for their staff and give them access to discounts at a high-end dental practice. There are tons of shared working spaces all over the city that house thousands of companies. So I'm going to reach out to them to see how I could advertise or host an event to get these types of companies interested.

Episode Show Notes:
00:04 - Termination Notice from DMO plans
00:10 - Emailed patients with options
00:40 - Automated links to update our records
00:48 - New Patients rate is lower now
01:02 - Scary but a good trade-off
01:15 - Want to increase patients through FlossClub
01:44 - Appeal to small businesses via co-working spaces
02:23 - Co-working spaces may have some ideas as well

So Ragini and I were excited to be invited to an exclusive rooftop dinner party in Brooklyn. Farm to table, tour of the gardens - all that stuff. A no brainer, right?

So you can imagine our horror to find out it's on a Tuesday at 3 PM. What to do? We had to take a long, hard look in the mirror... Actually, it wasn't that hard. We decided to go.

Autonomy means lots of things to different people. But when it comes to Practice Ownership, one of the lesser-known benefits is the ability to give back to yourself. It's not just about production and cash flow - it's about being able to take advantage of being your own boss.

Episode Show Notes:
00:02 - Exclusive Invite
00:20 - BUT...
00:36 - The practice enables us to attend
01:00 - Metrics on ownership assessment surveys
01:14 - Autonomy wins by far
01:23 - Traditional definitions of autonomy
02:30 - Lesser-known benefits
03:14 - Not ALWAYS about production
03:41 - Let the practice give BACK to you

I let TWO people down this week! And while I hate disappointing people, it was instructive and also helped me clarify my thoughts around being disagreeable and what it really means. Being agreeable all the time means you are putting others' before yourself. Nothing wrong with that - in the SHORT TERM. But if you're doing that ALL the time, then you're probably falling short of your potential. Sometimes it's necessary to put yourself first to move forward - just be prepared to disappoint. But knowing that I'm prioritizing myself eases that pain.

00:13 - I'm a disappointment on two fronts
00:35 - Disappointment #1
01:25 - Breaking the news
02:00 - Her perspective vs ours
02:28 - Disappointment #2
03:20 - May not have been an easy way out
04:05 - Unwritten social contract
04:35 - Breaking down disappointment
04:55 - Agreeable people are taking a backseat
05:40 - Letting people down is prioritizing YOU

Certainty is something we're all looking for. But the truth is - it DOES NOT EXIST. It's just a lie we tell ourselves based on prior experiences. For future situations, we can NEVER be certain. That's what makes being an entrepreneur so scary. And things that are scary can paralyze you from learning more and realizing real opportunity.

Once you see how ownership allows you to pull levers and affect real change, it's intoxicating. But you don't have to go ALL IN. You can dip your toe in and start learning piece by piece. This helps ease you into being comfortable with risk and uncertainty. And that's when you win.

Episode Show Notes:
00:10 - Recap of consulting calls
00:22 - Fear of Failure is a recurring concept
00:33 - Certainty is a complete fiction
01:15 - My FlossClub uncertainty
02:00 - Certainty isn't in the idea...
02:36 - Steve Jobs' certainties
03:25 - Elon Musk's certainties
04:43 - Practice Ownership is not walking the plank
05:22 - Prove or disprove the idea
05:39 - Envision the success
06:16 - Understand the process