This week on Dental Fuel Episode 14, Ronda Holman, a seasoned dental assistant with over 24 years of experience, exposes a critical financial mistake – PEOPLE.
Join us as Ronda explains how your team can be the ultimate asset or the ultimate demise of a dental practice. Your dream dental office flourishes when your team exemplifies the values you want your patients to see. Get ready for an eye-opening episode!
Ronda specializes in helping to create the ideal DDS-DA relationship. Empowering dental assistants to continue their education so their chair side skills continue to elevate as they learn why they are doing what they are doing and not just what to do.
Once the DA has a firm grasp on the exact needs of their dentist they can bring ease to the complexity of dentistry. Practicing dentistry can be stressful and hard but finding the joy in it becomes much easier when you have a true operative partner. You can find Ronda outside of the treatment room on IgniteDA Instagram and TikTok.
Her influence goes much further than dental assisting with her passion to help recovering oral breathers with over 135k followers on The Airway Champion TikTok account.
🎙️ Listen to Dental Fuel Episode 14 on Apple Podcasts
🎥 Watch Dental Fuel Episode 14
Dental Fuel Episode 14: Financial Mistake Transcript
In this episode, Ronda Holman, a seasoned dental assistant with over 24 years of experience, exposes a critical financial mistake – PEOPLE.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
But speaking on finances that you also mentioned here a little bit earlier, the stark difference, like you mentioned between the debt that a dental assistant likely doesn’t have compared to that of a practicing dentist is huge.
What financial decisions have you made in your life that were a huge mistake or what can what mistakes have you seen clinicians make financially that you feel that we could all learn from?
Ronda Holman
Oh, actually, that’s great. Let’s see. I have so many it’s almost it’s hard to point out financial mistakes. So a lot of dental assistants, I mean, this is probably it’s outside the office usually, we tend to have like side gigs. You know, to compensate, yeah, offset some of the costs.
And sometimes I’ve seen what – hasn’t happened to me, but that doesn’t mean it won’t – I don’t think it will – it hasn’t – and I’m pretty aware of it anyways – you see these lines being crossed in the office.
So let’s say you are approached to be an ambassador of some type of dental-related product, and they say, hey, you get a commission if you sell X product, and then you’re like, oh, you know, I’m in dentistry like I have a basic knowledge of oral hygiene, and then somewhere along the line, you get so comfortable in the sales tactic that you end up bringing it in into your dentist office.
And you say, hey, you know, I was like, they’ve got this toothpaste but I also have a link for this other toothpaste, and that’s, it’s awful like you cannot mix the two because I don’t know if it’s an education level issue or just the basic knowledge of like how businesses run.
And so I haven’t had that happen personally, but I have seen it where the lines get blurred. Like people will promote products that their business doesn’t actually offer, because they brought in their side business, you know, as like, I’m here, their a captive audience, let’s talk about this toothpaste.
And so I’ve seen people lose their jobs over that. And it’s now, I think, more than ever because of all these affiliate marketing things, and dental assistants are looking to stay at the dental system, but they want to offset the living cost.
I myself I had three jobs when I was a brand new dental assistant outside of the military. So I would work at a restorative practice like general restorative practice during the day, and then I would waitress at night, and then I worked at a movie store on the weekends. So I had three jobs I mean, granted, I didn’t have a husband or children at the time, but I mean that kept me comfortable.
Like when you first start dental assisting depending on what state you’re in, and that’s where that whole regulation thing comes in, like I was making $11 an hour, and if I didn’t love what I did, I could have made $2 to $3 more an hour at a fast food restaurant.
And I think for dentists that is something that they forget, is you’re asking someone to learn a lot, to do a lot, to give a lot, and then know that there’s financial opportunities that are more abundant in jobs that make them think less.
And so that is a hard thing to wrap your head around as a dentist. I’m not a dentist but I’ve been around enough of you guys that I see that being a fundamental glitch in the matrix, is understanding that I do, and I did have to sacrifice, you know, if you want me to be better, like you have to compensate for that.
I mean, I hate to say it’s like you pay for what you get. But if I see that new shiny thing next door, and nobody’s investing in my education. I think that’s, that is the easiest way to do it, is to literally do the CE thing. Like take me to a CE, put me on a plane with you put me in a hotel, make me feel like you’ve invested in my education and my future so that we can be better together, and that honestly it’s like the biggest game changer, needle mover for a lot of dentists when they don’t want attrition anymore. They want to find a core team that will stay with them till the end.
And there are like I said, there’s programs and stuff to learn about how to be a better leader. But it’s the people who are the asset at the end of the day, the people are the asset. You could have the shiniest chair, you could have all the prettiest bells and whistles in your office, it’s super aesthetic, you have all the tech, but if your people are rotten or bad or not the image that you want to portray to your ideal patient base, you’re treading water, you’re never going to be happy.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Yes, I think it’s so important to build a team that will help model the vision that you would like to see in your practice, and to do that compensation obviously will definitely help on the flip I think that we have heard a lot of stories of assistants, maybe especially from the newer generation of those who are just coming out asking for a very high number. What are your thoughts on that?
Ronda Holman
Yeah, I so I’m a mentor to a lot of dental assistants, right, and so they’ll come to me and I’m a very straight shooter, I’m like, dude, I’ve been doing this a long time, you have to put on paper, what you bring to the office.
And I’m not talking about like smiles and hugs. How many bleaching trays did you sell last week? How many gloves did you not change by getting up and down like, look, if you want more money, show me where you’re making me money or saving me money.
And that is a thing that I think all dental assistants can grasp that concept. I always tell people like pretend it’s your practice. Pretend you’re the one paying for that box of gloves. Pretend you’re the one who you know has to pay for that denture to be remade if you drop it while you’re cleaning it.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Right? Yep put yourself in perspective of the dentist.
Ronda Holman
And that can be something every new dentist, aged, seasoned dentist whoever, puts in their manual like their job description like, I want you to understand the basics of a small business or even I mean this could be group, PPO, it doesn’t matter, like I think all of us at the end of the day, want to take home more than we spend inside the practice. And there are ways to tweak that. It’s just you as the dentist, you have to set the bar say I expect my assistant to know the cost of running this place when the lights are on.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Yeah, great perspective. Yeah, great perspective. Just overall I think that you know, we want to compensate our assistants and show them that they are valued, but it’s the landscape has just been really challenging as of late, but it’s great to see both sides and I think that that’s wonderful advice to give to assistants to bring those metrics and say hey, like this is this is what I bring to the table. This is how I am helping you help me out a little bit yeah.
Ronda Holman
And you know, we don’t have that same ability like you can with hygiene like you can track what comes out of their room. Sure. But me I’m floating between number three and four five like who knows what I said to who that made them decide to do this or that.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Yes, that’s harder to gauge.
Ronda Holman
I mean, if you are if you are deserving of financial compensation, you have to prove it regardless of the industry that you’re in. So dentistry wouldn’t be any different.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Absolutely. Even for associates, that’s the same kind of same kind of thing.
