Anne: Hi everyone. It's Anne Duffy and welcome to Dental Entrepreneur, the future of dentistry's podcast. I am so happy that you're here with me today. I have a very special guest. Let me tell you a little bit about her before we get started. Julie Friesen is a fresh force. Of change and on a powerful mission to transform the future of dentistry for leaders, teams and patients.
She is Canada's go to coach and author and speaker for over 20 years. Julie has empowered people through a practice coaching online programs and live events. She is a dear friend, a dynamic DeW Julie Friesen. Welcome to the podcast today.
Julie: Thank you so much and it is great
Anne: to be here. Oh, I'm so glad you're here.
We did a podcast for dental entrepreneur woman and I was telling you before we came on that it was the most downloaded podcast of 2020. Three. And I wanna say thank you for your expertise and uh, for those of you're listening, this is how the world works. That afternoon, we had a team meeting. We talked about the team meeting, and then Julie emails me and says, don't forget, I'm, I'm doing the DE podcast with you, and here we are doing it today.
So the world is a good place to be and it's good to have you in it.
Julie: Thank you, Anne. Yeah. The stars all aligned for sure.
Anne: Isn't that the truth? Well, we kind of connected a long time ago and we have such a good synergy with each other This is the title for our podcast, what it takes to lead, hire and retain the right people.
This is so timely, Julie. We know that offices are struggling to keep their teams intact. The teams are struggling to have the love for the practice and the commitment that they need to serve the patients. I mean, yOu're in the trenches you're one of the top coaches in Canada and I think beyond.
And you're seeing a lot what do you think if I ask you, what do you think is holding businesses back?
Julie: Well, I would suggest it's the lack of clarity, clarity is power and you and I are both business owners, right? And like many of the people that are listening to this podcast right now.
So we as business owners need to get clear, get focused or refocused on what we're ultimately trying to accomplish with our work. What are we trying to build? What are we trying to create? What are we trying to share? What are we trying to give? And then also to get really clear and focused on. Who we are, what we stand for and how we're different because it's from this standpoint, this clarity that we can begin to make those decisions when hiring the right people for our businesses for being able to set up processes, our finances.
To this name, a few, but we got to get this stuff out of our head. We've got to get out of the head and onto paper scientifically proven, when we write things down, we begin to remember them. We get more in focus. and this is one of the biggest things that we talked about the vision.
The core value thing, but for those who are listening, stay with us. Don't tune out because your goal right now is to lead, hire and retain the right people and having a clear vision and core values. Well, that's the center circle of that. There's a reason why the top businesses in the world have a clear vision, have clear core values to separate them from the pack.
We're going to do what it takes. but the problem is, is that for most of us. We have made a vision or core values a long time ago, and they're in a book somewhere sitting on a shelf and collecting dust, or worse yet, we can't even find them. So it's our job as an effective leader to keep these alive, but they must be compelling.
They got to be exciting. Our vision and core values have to be vivid to not only us, but to our teams. And in order for it to be contagious, to attract the right people. Keep them simple and easy to remember because it's from that clarity and from that passion that we're able to say when we're interviewing someone, this is who we are, what we stand for, and how we're different.
Do you want to be a part of this? And if they say yes well, now they own it and drive them accountable to it. But if they say no we just saved ourselves time, money and a headache. this clarity is the exact thing that great employees are looking for right now. Clarity is
Anne: power. It starts at the top, right? I mean, It's so interesting, Julie, that you even say this about vision and your clarity of what you want. think that so many young docs graduating don't even put that in place before they dive to their life in their career. because I didn't even know I had a vision or I could even write a vision until I was in my forties.
It didn't even occur to me. I was like one foot in front of the other. And that's why it's so important. I wish you could teach at the dental schools if you're listening to this. Send this to your friends. That is one of the first things you need to do. What would you like your life to look like?
What would you like your career to look like? What would it feel like? What would be the best day for you going into your practice, that you own? Or that you're want to own or that you're working at being a leader because even when you go in as an associate, you are a leader in that practice.
What do you want that to look like? And I think a lot of people don't give enough thought to that. So kudos to you to bring that up right out of the gate. I love that. And I think that. That would make the profession so much better because I think know, you've got so much to give as advice to young and even dentists, if you're listening and you have been around for a while, you could rewrite your vision anytime you want.
Julie: totally agree. And I think it's, you're right, right out of dental school. If we can picked up these or owning a business, we could have saved so much time, money and opportunity. If we had that clarity, that direction right off the get go and many times for most business owners, I'm working with one right now that they did have a vision, but it doesn't apply anymore.
So. Sometimes because we had written a vision statement, what was, uh, happened seven years ago may not be where we are today. So sometimes we have to revamp that because it's, or it's no, no longer inspiring. It doesn't get us out of bed
or
Anne: to work on time. And they don't, they don't even realize it. That's a simple.
Exercise to do that could get you motivated to get out of bed that you can dream bigger. And it's certainly we should all do that every year, I guess, rewrite, what are we going to do in 2024? That's different than 2023 to get us where we want to be at the end the next year coming up.
So a couple of things what's one of your favorite secrets to help attract the right people, because that's what they're all looking for right now, right? People in the bus.
Julie: That's right. One of my favorite secrets is creating an ultimate hiring experience. Yeah, you're exactly labor shortage out there, it's real.
It's getting harder and harder to find great people, to find the right people. So we must stand out. We must be different. And similar to creating our marketing, Campaign for attracting new patients, new clients. We need to do the same idea for attracting great people, the right people into our practices. suggest by creating an ultimate hiring experience within our hiring process. It sets a professional positive, welcoming first impression and that's going to prime the right employees to be more engaged from the job posting all the way down to hiring itself. And that includes keeping a great experience for candidates that didn't make it, that we declined because just because someone isn't a fit right now doesn't mean they're not going to be a fit in the future.
And when we think about that, then we'll begin to do. Um, you know, How do we make things different? So I believe that by creating an ultimate hiring experience by creating more engagement, we can do that in several ways from our job posting how we respond to applicants. what we say in an interview email for that invitation questions we asked during an interview process.
And what is our hiring process checklist like? Do we show up all kind of scrambled and stressed out and organized? that creates its own experience for but these are just some of the ways that we can begin to create a better experience. Stand out from the crowd. So don't miss out on these, things, because they're going to help you attract and gain the right people into our practice.
And I know this is a shorter session today, and we don't have time to go through my whole complete step by step guide on how to create an ultimate hiring experience. experience. There is a right and a wrong way to do it. But if anyone wants to get in touch with me, I'll be happy to help you with that.
But Anna, I want to give this one thing, one thing that most dentists miss that will help to create an ultimate hiring experience for your practice. And this is the one we just talked about vision and core values. So take those vision and core values and infuse them into your job posting. This right away begins to, in the simplest forms begin to attract the right people into your practice, right?
So take a sentence, one or two, and talk about the things in your vision. And then throughout job posting ad, add some of your core values into that. So when someone is reading that job posting ad, they're going to say, yeah, that lines up, they're going to be more engaged and want to proceed forward. and so it's like a screening process.
Anne: some people might say, you know, Oh, that looks like too much. I don't still know if I want to grow or I don't know if I really want to learn new things. that is so true. You know, it's so funny that you're even saying this, Julie, because I remember, know, in the offices that I've worked in all over the years, my 46 years of hygiene if somebody was breathing, they would walk in the door, that would be fine.
And then they were all working until the very end of the day and everybody's exhausted. And They weren't setting themselves up to get someone like you or someone like me or one of the DeWs I mean, We know so many amazing women men in dentistry now just because we're hanging with them and good people find good people.
But the thing is, that's what they're looking for. And so it. Just, it takes a little bit more work than it used to. this is like new like, aha. I think there's a lot of people listening like, Oh, I never thought about that to put the work on the front end to get the right person. I mean, we always feel like, it was easy, but it isn't easy anymore.
Julie: The challenge hiring people right now, real. The labor shortage is real. So we must step up. We must be different. And by creating an ultimate hiring experience, we win the right people. The great people. Because we simply can't achieve practice consistencies without having the right people
Anne: in place.
Yeah. And if you have someone buy into your vision and I say that buy in, but really align with your vision I love my vision and when my team buys in or identifies with it, then we're this cohesive group of people that we love on each other. We help each other.
There's no scarcity mentality. There's no like, Oh, well that's not my job because we're working together. That is so important. And it does start, from that initial offering that the opportunity is open.
Julie: Do you find your team also feels more energized and engaged like that there's more energy because you're all on the same page?
Yeah,
Anne: because the end result, we're all, working toward this. end result. it's a common goal, if you will, excellence all of those things that we know make a good practice. But I mean, once you get there, okay, so we're going to talk about that tool when we wrap up here, but once you get that team member, what do you do?
How do you retain that team member? That's, the thing, because I think a lot of times offices dentists and leaders don't want to pour so much into their teams because they're afraid they're going to leave. So how do you retain an awesome team member, keep them energized, engaged and on board for the
Julie: long haul?
Well, I Suggest is by having an onboarding system. And this is where most business owners where, where we drop the ball, we really can drop the ball in this part. And here would be a scenario. I'm going to give you a bit of an example of what I'm talking about. exactly like you said, you get that new hire.
You're all excited that, the right person in the right seat. And it's a great person. Then on the first day, they come into your practice. You show them the room that they'll be working out of give them some brief housekeeping duties and that's it. Yeah. Bye bye. That's it. And you're left to figure it out.
And there's no onboarding process. There's no set up of who's going to be my direct report. There's no real check and process. It's just go. And the problem is with new employees, what does that make them feel? These great employees that we've waited and we've searched to get, what are they feeling like?
They're feeling lost. Even if they've got experience, they're feeling that, they're maybe even disrespected or unappreciated, even shocked. About the orientation and training and from a business standpoint, not having the tools and the resources to be as productive as they can be quicker
So we don't want to make that mistake. The first 90 days is crucial when you onboard somebody. And according to Forbes Magazine I read Forbes. Do you read Forbes magazine? Mm-Hmm. . I love Forbes. Yes,. me too. So they have a stat out right now, a recent stat that says 30% of people will quit their job in the first 90 days.
30%. And out of that 30%, 43% are quitting due to unmet needs.
Anne: That's huge. Wow. That's a high percentage.
Julie: Yeah, so we don't want to risk losing this great new due to not meeting their needs and having to start that process of trying to find a great person all over again, we need to take responsibility for this.
And one way of being able to implement an onboarding system our business, onboarding system helps to eliminate some of these problems. It gets employee. Up and running, gets them clear, confident, competent an employee will be on the same page more regularly. They will also be more productive, quicker.
And this is the thing too, with an onboarding process, people usually stay longer. They want to make a career out of it. It's a plan. It's a process for consistencies and I like to call it an onboarding success plan. By the way, I love that term onboarding success plan. Yeah. So with this onboarding success plan, we create consistencies with orientation, consistencies.
Who's my direct being able to put in expectations. What do we expect? What does success look like? Begin being able to understand the culture and to have a check in regular check in points, just to name a few. So if, you're tired of people. Quitting within 90 days or shortly after something's got to change.
You got to do something different. And I suggest that an onboarding success plan will help you be able to retain those people and be able to help you move forward to achieve your goals together.
Anne: You know, A couple of things that you said that just really resonated with me is I can still remember when a new person came into the office, Oh, hi, I don't recognize you because I only worked five hours a week.
So I was like, Oh, I don't recognize you. How are you? but there never seemed to be a system, as you say, that was really put into place to make that new person feel like part of the team. that no question that they asked was not a good question.
Any question is real and well, and I can ask that and feel confident that I'm gonna get an answer and I'm not gonna have any judging on like, oh, you don't know that. It gives them a safety net and get some started on the right foot that they could come in the, after the first day.
I'Ve heard so many times the, how was your first day? Oh, but you could make their first day great. And every day after that great, because of, like you said, in very beginning, the clarity that they have of what's expected, who they can turn to. What the bigger goal is other than just their one job as a team effort, what they're doing.
I mean, there's so many good things there that honestly I never really seen put into place in the practice to this extent. And the timing of this Julie is so good because we've lost some of that. It used to be everybody when I worked in the dental office and now, you know, we have lost a lot of that love for, working in a practice for your life and serving patients.
And we need that back. that's about welcoming somebody with open arms, knowing that they're in a safe place, that they're a place that they can grow.
Julie: Absolutely. I love that word. Having opportunities to advance. People want to be a in a place that they have that opportunity. I totally
Anne: agree.
Yeah, it's just so important and it's so important for our profession. What you do is so amazing to me as far as helping practices. Be better than they even dream they could be. I mean, Because there's so many little nuances that you just mentioned today. So if you hope you're listening here and I hope you're going to download some of Julie's materials.
So Julie, you've got something special. Tell us about that. If you're listening and you're saying, oh, I really want to do that and on my practice and I really want to do that in my future practices and, we don't know tomorrow what's going to happen. You might have your lead assistant, has to move.
Because of a spouse moving or something like that, or a lead hygienist that's going to have a baby and wants to decide, Oh, I want to stay home or somebody that just doesn't fit and you have to hire. So what do you got for us?
Julie: Well, yOu know what? I think this is the big part. And you and I, we've talked already about this, that we're both business owners, and it can be a long, hard, lonely path. what I've done is I've, to make onboarding and hiring easier and less stressful, I've put together a hiring and onboarding made simple. Simple package in this package. It's great. It's a step by step guide on how to hire and onboard people That so it has the tools and the components so that you can do it yourself I've put together things like job posting ads scripts being able to have the right checklists in place and the right questions And I sure wish that I would have had this when I was hiring and onboarding people but if you would like to purchase a copy of that we'll have it in the show notes how to get a hold of that because Anne this is the truth.
So many people are trying to do so many wonderful things out there. They just don't have the tools or the resources. They're just struggling because they don't have the tools and resources to lead and retain and hire the right people into the practice. So I just want to be a fellow warrior sister to everyone and be able to help out with that.
Anne: that's awesome because I've seen magazine in the background there. You've got the do life that you wrote that article in, uh, Andrea Froning from actually she's HR with Den Spicerona right now. She was with Patterson at the time, loves Patterson, but she lives in Charlotte and came on board with Den Spicerona.
That cover is on do life's website, do dot life. So go read Julie's article in that edition. You will find it. what is it, Julie? was it spring? No, it was turnaround? Let me see what the it's actually,
Julie: it's autumn. 2021.
Anne: Okay. Autumn 2021. And it's,
Julie: yeah, I know it's so long.
It seems like, so yesterday, yesterday I have to say 21. But the, I, the title actually goes in perfectly. the title is called this will supercharge your impact. It did mine. It's on page 28. It's all about how I created my own vision and core values about making an impact, making a difference and leaving a fingerprint think you're going to love it. So check that out. Well, I think you're
Anne: going to do it because you've been doing it. interesting. It's two years ago, Julie, and look at you now. I mean, this is so cool to be able to have you on. The dental entrepreneur, the future of dentistry podcast is really what you're talking about and what you live for.
So thank you so much, Julie, that you can be reached on a LinkedIn, I believe as well. And I think that's how we found each other a long time ago on LinkedIn. Yes, it was. Yeah. Your energy just came through LinkedIn. I'm like, Oh, I'm just like, I gotta, I gotta meet Julie. am I saying your last name right too, by the way,
Freezing. Yep.
Julie: Just like freezing cold.
Anne: Freezing. Okay, good. I just want to say this. So if, you know, check out Julie on LinkedIn too, because I see you give a lot of great nuggets on LinkedIn as well, Julie. And so, I love following you. I love everything you're doing and congratulations on, uh, the year that you've had and cheers to 2024.
All We're going to do it in 2024. Any parting words, Julie, for our listeners today?
Julie: Well, I just want to say that, you know, I think it is do as it takes. clarity is power make great experiences, get an onboarding process. And I think that will really, really help you be able to lead.
Hire and retain these great employees, these great people out there because they want to be with you. They want a place, they just need a right home to use their talents, experiences and skills. And we know, and we've been out in the industry ourselves. So as always, it's been such a privilege to be here, Anne.
Thank you so much for having me on as your guest today.
Anne: Thank you, Julie. Always fun with you and everybody out there that's listening. Don't forget, keep doing you. Thanks everyone. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye, Julie.
