Chris (00:00.974)
Alright everybody, welcome back to the No BS Dental Growth Podcast. I’m your host Chris Pistorius and I want to welcome everybody back. I know we missed maybe a week and a half there, but nobody’s perfect, right? But today I want to talk about, and I’ve got a great guest by the way I’ll introduce in a second, but we’re going to tackle, in my opinion anyway, one of the biggest silent killers in dentistry. And one that’s fairly tough to conquer right now, especially for some specific positions I know, but
And it’s staffing. It’s not marketing what I do, right? It’s not collections. It’s not case acceptance, although those are priorities, but it’s really staffing. And so my guest today is Lisa Marie Capello, and she is the founder and CEO of Smiles on Demand. That’s a nationwide staffing platform built specifically for us in the dental industry, not generic health care, not temp agencies that don’t really understand dentistry.
Now Lisa works with practice owners, managers and professionals across the country, which really gives her a front row seat into all of this stuff. All the important stuff that’s happening right now, like maternity leaves, what do you do? PTO gaps, burnout, turnover, all that fun stuff. But what I like about Lisa’s approach is that she doesn’t look at temp staffing really as a full on strategy, or as a last ditch emergency move.
She really sees it as a strategy. it’s a way to product, to protect production, and a lot of other things in your practice. So with that said, Lisa, thanks so much for joining the meeting today.
Lisa (01:38.672)
Thank you for having me, Chris.
Chris (01:40.436)
Absolutely. Well, now where are you located physically? Here in Massachusetts. So are you a football fan?
Lisa (01:44.486)
I’m in Massachusetts.
no, I mean I am. I’m usually one of those people that like if they go to the playoffs I’ll watch the game, but I’m not typically, I don’t put the t-shirt on and the garb and you know have to sit there every Sunday, but.
Chris (01:52.76)
Who’s your team?
Chris (01:57.326)
Yeah.
Chris (02:02.99)
Who’s your team then? it the Patriots? bad move there. I’m from Denver, so we play you guys this weekend. So right before the AFC Championship. All right. Well, anyway, I’ll forgive you. I’ll forgive you. So let’s just jump right into it. Obviously, we’ve got an interested audience here of lot of dental practice owners and managers and everything in between. Why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about what you do and how you do it?
Lisa (02:05.123)
The Patriots, Yeah.
Lisa (02:10.31)
no. No, thank you, thank you.
Lisa (02:28.144)
Sure, absolutely. I’d love to. I actually have been in the dental field for about 20 years. And obviously when COVID hit and we came back, employees, staffing, it was an issue. A lot of people didn’t want to come back. And then when people did come back, they wanted a lot more money. And I was just, I mean, it was so hard for me at one point when we came back, was doing everything.
You know, I was running the practice, I was assisting and you know, I’d have to answer the telephones. And it’s funny because I would check a patient in, I would seat the patient and then I would check the patient out. So I almost felt like that guy from The Wizard of Oz, you know, behind the curtain. played like every, you know, and so it became like a running joke here in my office that they see me everywhere. So after trying to get like temp,
Chris (03:19.448)
Yeah.
Lisa (03:27.183)
help and whatnot. had a little run in with one of the temp agencies. That kind of rubbed me the wrong way. First off, not to mention the fees that you incur, you know, with it already being expensive, I know that everybody can agree with me. And I mean, well deserved hygienists should be paid well. I don’t say that. I’m not saying no to that at all. What I am saying is, that on top of that, we shouldn’t have to pay a fee to a staffing agency, you know?
Chris (03:37.122)
Yes.
Chris (03:49.888)
Okay.
Chris (03:55.223)
Yes.
Lisa (03:56.965)
So one of the temp agencies, I had met a girl, she came and worked in my office for a while, we loved her. And your patients, they like to see the same person over and over again. That’s why they stick with some of the hygienists. So I don’t like to have a lot of different people in my office if you have a long period of time, like a maternity leave or whatnot. So one of the girls had said, if you ever need any help, give me a call, here’s my phone number. So months went by.
Chris (04:19.821)
Yeah.
Lisa (04:26.647)
I reached out to this girl when I needed her again. She came in and that particular staffing agency started to, I would say, psycho call my office looking to talk to me and also called her as well while she was working. When I finally took the phone call, they told me that they had record of that said person being in my office and I hadn’t posted for that job on their site and they wanted to know if she was there working.
And I said, you know, I’m gonna have to get back to you. I’m really busy, blah, blah, blah. I went and spoke with the hygienist and she said, yeah, they’ve been calling me too. Come to find out if you work for particular staffing agencies, I’m not sure if it’s every one of them. If you have their app and your locations are on, they can see where you are. And they tracked her that way. Yeah, so that.
Chris (05:13.12)
Wow. That’s scary. Well, that’s how you kind of got into all of this then, right? Yeah.
Lisa (05:19.972)
Yeah, so that’s where I kind of that in between, you you post on Indeed. You you put your criteria up and I always say, you you want at least a year experience, a year or two. And I mean, I do this, you’d spend four or $500 for the algorithm, right? You initially sign up and only want to spend 20, but somehow your credit card bill comes back at like $450.
Chris (05:32.014)
Yeah.
Chris (05:43.392)
Yup. Yup.
Lisa (05:44.226)
You know, and then you’re getting, I was getting like, you know, a Starbucks, barista from Starbucks with no experience. And, or you’d get maybe out of the 10, you’d get one potential and you’d schedule them and then never hear from them again. So I was like, there’s gotta be a better way, right? So I started my Facebook group. I started my company, Smiles in Demand, and I kind of tested the waters on Facebook and that grew, you know, pretty rapidly.
Chris (05:58.691)
Yeah.
Lisa (06:14.084)
And I had a plan in place that eventually I wanted to have a website and an app. And because there was so much interest shown in my group, I moved a little quicker than I anticipated. And I launched the app, I mean the website in August of this year. Now the beauty of it is I kind of loosely based it on a dating app.
Chris (06:32.451)
Nice.
Lisa (06:40.289)
Right? So you go on, you create a profile, whether you’re an employer or an employee, it’s temporary. So it’s temp staffing, permanent staffing, staffing, it’s every aspect of dentistry. So there’s lab technicians, specialties, hygienists, assistants, know, it’s everybody’s on there. You go in, you create your profile and then you, you know, whether you’re in Massachusetts or California or you want it within a 25
Chris (07:01.006)
Cool.
Lisa (07:09.912)
you know, radius or you’re relocating, it will work with your criteria to see what, you know, is open in that area, you know.
Chris (07:19.212)
Yeah, yeah, Nice. OK. That makes total sense. It makes it pretty interactive and easy to use for sure. Yeah.
Lisa (07:27.093)
Yeah, and that’s what it was. I wanted it very simple. shouldn’t, every, it’s complicated enough. And that leads to like my biggest part of it is that it’s free.
Chris (07:37.781)
nice. That’s cool.
Lisa (07:38.997)
So dentistry is expensive enough, I know, because I manage my practice and everything goes up. Insurance isn’t reimbursing pretty much any more than they have been. And so I was like, what can we do to make this different? And I was like, let’s keep it free. So I invested all my money into it, my own money to build this platform.
Chris (07:44.003)
Yeah.
Chris (07:52.952)
Right.
Lisa (08:09.091)
And ideally, I would like to continue to keep it free for all of us to take advantage of it.
Chris (08:15.566)
Great. That’s awesome. What do you think? How does staffing look like right now nationwide?
Lisa (08:23.2)
I mean, it’s tough. It is tough, you know?
Chris (08:25.43)
Yeah. Are there any positions that are the, you know, harder to fill? I’ve heard hygienists. Yeah. Why is that in your opinion?
Lisa (08:30.531)
Oh, hygiene for sure. Hygiene for sure, without a doubt. Because I think there’s this, I mean, there’s so much I think that plays into it because you have now that they’re trying to have, you know, assistants, you know, do the cleanings, or you know what I mean? Like all these things that are trying to pass all over the place. And now you have these certain states that are letting hygienists,
Chris (08:50.029)
Yeah.
Lisa (08:57.044)
own their own practice. Like think Maine was the first one. I think New York just did something. Yeah, which is interesting. I think it’s great. But I think my problem is I have to be careful what I say, right? Because as a practice manager, I like to be able to think on both sides. I have to represent my employees, but I also have to look at it from a business standpoint.
Chris (08:57.976)
Yeah.
Chris (09:02.924)
think Colorado, you can do that too.
Chris (09:21.442)
Yeah.
Lisa (09:26.447)
so.
Ideally, I think they are correct in wanting to make as much as they make, right? But I think COVID made it, I don’t even know how to explain it perfectly, but like, think COVID drove it up so quickly that it’s like, where do we go from here? You know?
Chris (09:46.414)
Yeah. Yeah. I know that makes sense. Yeah. All right. Well, what do you suggest to people that are looking, you know, for a hygienist right now? Um, what are any other position really? You know, I guess, what do you do? Do you just offer more money? Do you, what’s the biggest triggers?
Lisa (10:04.865)
I I think you have to be, you have to compensate them, for sure. I think where it gets like bad in our industry is where you have all these people that are posting these jobs, but then there’s all these incentives, right? So sometimes the little people get lost, the little offices that are finding it hard to even offer out what the going rate is. But on top of that, you, you know,
these people are throwing in $5,000 sign-on bonuses, you know? I mean, I think you have to pay.
Chris (10:36.11)
Yeah.
Lisa (10:45.023)
the going rate and I think, I don’t know, I think what’s gonna win them over is your office. I mean, I know that one of my hygienists that I just hired, mean, knock on wood, I have a great staff now. It took me forever to get it because of this whole thing, like COVID and whatnot. that was one of my frustrations is that we kept getting applicants, but.
Chris (11:01.848)
Yeah.
Lisa (11:11.977)
they were like, well, what are you offering? And I’m like, well, I’m not really in a position to offer a $5,000, you know, sign-on bonus, but she came here and she loved the atmosphere. You know, we’re not really like a clinic atmosphere. more of like a mom and pop, you know, we all take the trash out. We all walk out together. You know, I kind of pride myself in that, in the office here. So I think it’s based on your
Chris (11:22.861)
Yeah.
Chris (11:35.298)
Yeah.
Lisa (11:41.427)
office and the individual and what you can offer because sometimes it’s not always about the money either. It’s about the support and you know where they’re going to be working. you know I found it’s funny a lot of the checkmarks you know and interviewing and talking what not was you know like how long do you give for cleanings? You know for hygienists you know they don’t want to do a cleaning in 40 minutes.
Chris (11:47.191)
Right.
Chris (12:03.138)
Yeah.
Lisa (12:09.845)
And a lot of hygienists don’t want to even do assisted cleanings. They like to do their own. So I’ve never rushed that for either side. I don’t feel like it should be rushed for the hygienist and I don’t think it should be rushed for the patients either. So, you know, all my girls get an hour and they are, you know, the doctor does the exam, the period charting and the x-rays. Then from there, they go to the hygienist and the hygienist get 80 minutes for scaling.
Chris (12:22.712)
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Chris (12:32.675)
Yeah.
Lisa (12:38.088)
I let them use their own judgment if it’s a really difficult situation. They can have longer if they want. But I feel like it keeps everybody happy at that point. You know what I mean? So I think atmosphere has a lot to do with it. It’s just getting those people in the door, you know?
Chris (12:48.546)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. You said earlier that, you know, you, you like to hire people or in that particular case, you try to hire people with a year of experience and there, seems like there’s another wave coming in where people don’t care about experience with dental. They care about personality and, you know, just what kind of person, you know, they are, which you, you know,
in perfect world, you’d want both. you know, what do you think about that hiring with no experience hiring based on personality and people are nice and you can communicate well and then teaching them the dental side.
Lisa (13:27.616)
So if you had asked me that years ago, I would have been like, no, I want experience because I don’t have time to train. That was the other thing. Everything’s like, you don’t have time to do anything. You what I mean? It’s like, you hurry up and get started. You know, just throw everybody in. Now I feel like a lot of it has to do with the person and their personality because, and I don’t know if this is maybe like a growth thing for me.
Chris (13:35.566)
Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa (13:56.946)
as I’ve been in dental longer, but it’s, want them to have the best experience. I want them to, from the moment they come in, you know, feel like they’re the most important patient here. Everybody, you know, individually. So it’s important for my staff to treat those patients the same exact way. You know, so that I don’t mind now, you know? Yeah, I mean, my daughter knew nothing.
Chris (14:04.045)
Yeah.
Chris (14:10.574)
Yeah.
Chris (14:18.988)
Yeah, that’s great. I think that’s great. Yeah, yeah, makes sense. What do you think?
Lisa (14:26.665)
about dentistry, nothing. Like she came from childcare and I just kind of threw her in there and she’s much like me, like a people person. So a lot of people, it’s funny in dentistry, a lot of people will kind of be standoffish to new things, like the patients, you know, they don’t like change. like, who’s, know, Lisa’s not gonna be our face at the front anymore, you know, and, you know, but now my daughter Samantha’s there and now they’ve kind of
Chris (14:28.195)
Really?
Chris (14:44.568)
Yeah.
Chris (14:51.97)
Right.
Lisa (14:56.732)
they form this relationship with her and it’s important for me to have that, you know, in my office at least. Yeah.
Chris (15:01.816)
Yeah, yeah, totally makes sense. What do you think some common mistakes at practices make once they are short staffed?
Lisa (15:14.859)
They rush, I think. Yeah, yeah, I think so. That’s why I like the other thing that that kind of even with the temp agency and when I had temps in here, like I said, I never that was one of the other things you never really got to have. I couldn’t say I wanted, you know, Susie Cupcake for three weeks. You know, you got who you got. And, you know, one time I got a girl who, no,
Chris (15:15.916)
Yeah, just hire an able body.
Chris (15:36.878)
Yeah.
Lisa (15:43.423)
I’m trying to this is funny, but it was like she slept in her car that night. You know what I mean? She came in, her scrubs were all wrinkled. She had dog hair all over her. Her sneakers were dirty. And I was like, my God, I can’t, you know, like, it was just not a, it was not a good scene, but I couldn’t do anything at that point because that’s the other thing with the temp agencies, you’re penalized. So I had them cancel on me one day, maybe like seven o’clock in the morning, our start time, 7.30. Okay.
Chris (15:56.227)
Wow.
Lisa (16:13.239)
and I’m supposed to just cancel my entire day and lose that production. Whereas with temp agencies, if you happen to have a snowstorm right here in Massachusetts and I have to cancel that temp, I get charged a percentage of the day. So it doesn’t work both ways. You know what I mean? Which is kind of frustrating as well. So I think rushing in, I found…
Chris (16:27.949)
Yeah.
Chris (16:31.576)
Right, yeah, Yeah, well, I mean.
Lisa (16:38.789)
over time with the hiring process, because I did it. I hired too quickly. I actually, I sat down with the girl at one point and I was like, you exhaust me. That’s what I said to her. I was like, I feel like I have to sit in the room and do every job, every patient with you all day long. And after, you know, three months of being here, I shouldn’t have to do that.
Chris (16:53.73)
We have.
Chris (17:07.469)
Yeah.
Lisa (17:07.634)
It’s almost like your kids grow up and you let them go and become what they’re gonna become in the world. That’s where I was with her and it just, yeah, so.
Chris (17:18.53)
Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, what a lot of practices don’t realize as well is that, you know, going short staffed isn’t just, you know, causing issues within the practice itself, but also it’s, it’s limiting your growth, right? I mean, you’re already short staffed. How long, how long the word are you going to bring on more new patients if you can’t handle what you have now? Right. But, you know, they keep the phones ringing, they keep marketing guys like me busy and then
Lisa (17:30.899)
Yeah.
Lisa (17:35.227)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Chris (17:40.984)
You know, they get this backlog and then all of sudden they get some bad reviews. They get, you know, it just stunts your growth, think, altogether. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what do you think is the best way? You talked a little bit about, you know, when front desk staff turns over, you know, people do form these relationships with these people and they’re used to seeing them. So when somebody does leave or gets promoted or whatever it might be, what do think the best way to
Lisa (17:46.927)
Yeah, most certainly it does.
Lisa (17:56.679)
Yeah.
Chris (18:06.252)
to communicate these staffing changes are to patients or should you even communicate them at all?
Lisa (18:12.67)
Oh, that’s a tricky one. I don’t think you should have to communicate it. I mean, we’re pretty transparent here anyways. I mean, on the flip side now, if you have a falling out, I also think it’s great that you don’t talk poorly of somebody who worked there, right? So my thing is that if something happens, I always tell the…
Chris (18:34.092)
Right. Right.
Lisa (18:39.41)
girls because you know you always get those patients that are like wait what happened to you know whatever I saw last time you know what mean I saw her five years and she’s not here anymore I mean typically I’ve only had to do it a few times but I’m like you know we’ll just say that she moved on you know I had an assistant who had talked about wanting to become a hygienist she’s no longer in the office so sometimes we’ll say yeah you know she wanted to go back to school or she wanted to spend time with her family I never you know
Chris (18:44.834)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa (19:09.309)
I don’t think that’s great either. But I don’t think you need to explain to anybody. And that’s another thing that I try to do in my office too, is that when I first started managing this practice 20 years ago, there was two hygienists, older hygienists, but they owned their patients. It was so bizarre to me, right? And I was trying to like change that up as best as I could.
Chris (19:10.466)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chris (19:18.328)
Right.
Chris (19:33.251)
Yeah.
Lisa (19:39.196)
Because I don’t, you know, they’d be like, why is she seeing my patient? That’s my patient. Oh, my patient only wants to see me, you know? I try to change that culture now so that everybody gets to try each hygienist. You know, I mean, they can have a favorite, but I also, you know, that hygienist might be sick one day and you might have to see the other hygienist.
Chris (19:49.015)
Yeah.
Chris (19:53.868)
Yeah.
Chris (19:59.15)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right there. You’ve got to keep an open mind there and not limit your, know, if somebody’s just really good. I mean, it’s not, yeah, I would agree with that. I think, you know, if they just push, push, push, then yeah, okay, whatever. I think that’s, yeah. Yeah.
Lisa (20:11.739)
Yeah.
Right, I think I had one patient that did that. She was like, I am not seeing anybody. I was like, fine. If that’s the one thing I have to do, that’s fine.
Chris (20:21.902)
Yeah, it’s like my mom. She’s always wants to go to the same person and I’m like, okay, all right, I’ll see what I can do. Right. But yeah. And I think that, not only does like, you know, short staffing hurt in a lot of ways, but one aspect of it also is that, you know, it burns out the rest of the team because somebody’s got to, you know, somebody’s got to pick up the slack. Would you agree?
Lisa (20:42.086)
so bad.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s it’s exhausting. mean, like I said knock on wood I have really great girls who? Step up when they need to step up and And you know they even step up when they don’t have to but I mean that’s I’ve created a culture here And I think they would even agree where we all help one another like it doesn’t matter if you have a degree if you don’t have a degree if You’ve been here 20 years. You’ve been here two years Emptying the trash is not beneath anybody
Chris (20:47.95)
Yeah.
Chris (20:54.723)
Yeah.
Chris (21:04.823)
Yeah.
Lisa (21:13.467)
You know what I mean? We all work together. So yeah, right? that’s every, they never let them walk out alone. We always walk out together. There’s a few times where somebody might leave early, but it can become exhausting when you are short staffed. mean, even having two assistants for one doctor, I think back like when one of them calls out.
Chris (21:13.902)
I do it every day
Chris (21:25.996)
Yeah. Yay.
Chris (21:33.134)
Yeah.
Lisa (21:41.4)
and were straight out, like, God, what did I do when I just had one all the time? You know, like, because I find myself, yeah, it’s crazy. you know, if you have a good team, I think that that makes it so much easier, you know? It so does. I mean, and I make it a point, yeah, exactly. And I make a point to reach out to them individually.
Chris (21:45.23)
Right. did life exist?
Chris (21:56.344)
Yeah.
Chris (22:00.856)
It goes a long way, doesn’t it? People want to show up to work. Yeah.
Lisa (22:10.907)
Like, I mean, I don’t have 40 staff. I mean, I have a handful of girls, but I reach out to them individually, you know, during the week or, you know, the next week, and I always tell them how much I appreciate them. And I thank them every night when we leave, thank you for everything that you did today, you know? And I had somebody say to me once, well, what do have to thank them for? That’s their job. And it’s like, yeah, but people still want to hear that, you know? I mean, I think it goes a long way, you know, nowadays. So I think it’s the culture you create.
Chris (22:12.823)
Yeah.
Chris (22:26.67)
That’s awesome.
Chris (22:33.506)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah. there’s no question. Culture is a huge part of it, you know, but all right, we’re going to wrap up in a minute, but it sounds like you are offering something here that can help a lot of practices. What’s the best way Lisa, somebody can get ahold of you and or take a look at your website. What’s the best way to contact and reach you to do some of the? OK. OK.
Lisa (22:42.703)
You know? Yeah. Yep.
Lisa (22:57.508)
I mean, you can join the Facebook group, is Smiles in Demand. can give you those links or the website, which is Smiles in Demand. SmilesinDemand.com.
Chris (23:05.528)
perfect what’s the what’s your site
Right. Okay. We’ll make sure to put that in the comments as well for everybody. But this was a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time. think staffing is one of those problems that people ignore, you know, because my God, I have to train somebody, you know, how could I ever have time to do this? you know, once it starts hurting production though and morale and patient experience, it’s already too late, I think. man.
Lisa (23:13.444)
Thank you.
Lisa (23:25.838)
Yep.
Lisa (23:34.094)
Yeah, they’re great.
Chris (23:35.438)
Hopefully this episode has helped a lot of you out there when you’re looking at this, you maybe are feeling a little bit of that pinch. And again, if you do want to learn more about Smiles on Demand or connect with Lisa directly, please check the show notes. I’ll be sure to add all of that stuff. So Lisa, thanks again for coming on. And if this episode was helpful, please do subscribe, leave a review for us and share it with someone who maybe needs to hear it. When you subscribe, you’re able to see as soon as we drop our next episode.
So thanks again for viewing the No BS Dental Growth podcast and we’ll catch you on the next one. Sure, of course.
Lisa (24:12.26)
Thank you for having me, Chris. Appreciate it. Bye bye.
Chris (24:16.81)
Awesome.
Lisa (24:18.202)
Was that okay?
