Daniel: If I were lost in the woods, I wouldn't want a 30-day report to tell me where I was. It offers me no value. What I need is a compass. Tell me what's most important in this moment and where I need to put my next foot to make sure my journey is secure, foundational, and profitable.
Anne: Hello, everyone. It's Anne Duffy, and welcome to Dental Entrepreneur: The Future of Dentistry podcast. I am so happy you're with me today, and I'm really excited because I have a brand-new dear friend joining me today and giving all of us so much information about how to be successful in the dental industry.
But before we get started, let me tell you a little bit about him. Daniel Barsotti is an accomplished entrepreneur and distinguished graduate with an honors degree in business from the University of Alberta. He has spent decades defining new markets and introducing new technologies, from orthopedics to clean tech.
And now, back to his first passion, dentistry. As director of special markets, Daniel is focused on delivering transformative solutions that enhance operational efficiency, empower clinical teams, and improve the patient experience across the DSO landscape. Please help me welcome my new dear friend, Daniel Barsotti. Hello, dear.
Daniel: Hi, Anne. Thank you. What a nice introduction.
Anne: We met each other over Zoom, and then we got to hug each other when we were at HR for Health in Austin a couple of weeks ago. I love it when you get to see somebody in person and just be around their aura, and you've got one. You remind me of me, only you're a man. We both have that energy.
Daniel: The feeling's mutual.
Anne: Yes, we both have that energy.
Daniel: Kindred flames.
Anne: We really are. I love how, with MaxAssist, you represent MaxAssist, and it's a family business that you guys started in Canada.
Daniel: 100%.
Anne: It's been around for a long time. Tell me a little bit about how you got started with that, how long it's been around, and why you came back to dentistry.
Daniel: It's actually a wonderful, sweet story. My father is the founder of our organization, and from the 1980s, he was a dental consultant. My brother and I really had no choice in the conversation about whether we were going to be part of this organization. I think he almost preordained it. Through the course of about 20 years as a boutique consultant working with his own teams and clients, he started building this passion that became an obsession in the documentation of his experience and watching his clients grow.
By the time about 2009 came around, he had to express himself. He needed to get this product out of his mind and really wanted to focus on front-office practice optimization. That was his hyper-focus. In 2009, my brother Jeff, who's now our CEO, joined the organization to turn this mad-hatter idea into an actual product and a real solution for front-office teams.
We entered the space formally in 2012, and we've been refining what is now known as MaxAssist in the market for close to 14, now 15, years.
Anne: Okay.
Daniel: Our whole dental team that supported this growth and transition comes from dentistry. Our VP used to be an RDH. We have so many team members who come from dentistry, whether it's consulting, front office, or the clinical team. We're not a frat-boy formula. This is something that is dear to our hearts. We're really looking to make more friends than anything.
Anne: I love that because dentistry is a relationship business, more so than any other industry. Coming back into dentistry, you realize how great the people are. You've been around for a while, and you have to learn and grow, then re-pivot. But when you have dental professionals working with you and helping you design what they need, that is so epic because you have to have a little dentistry to understand the process. I really believe that 100%.
Daniel: And a little bit of crazy, for sure.
Anne: Yeah, a little bit of crazy.
Daniel: The reason I came back: when I finished university, I was a young little hotshot. This is going to date me, but at the time, XLS spreadsheets were the technology. When I think about getting into the chair for the first time with my dad as a junior consultant, I'll never forget it. He literally sat me down in a physical chair and said, "Add value to our clients, and you don't bill a thing for your learning curve."
That was an interesting deep-end experience right there. It was like, "Oh my God. What I need to do is figure out the systems, the relationships, and the details of my clients before I can start analyzing, processing, providing solutions, or any sort of value." I think that was his covert way of letting me know, "Start studying. Start learning. You're at the bottom rung."
If we rewind the clock, maybe this was one of the first hints of MaxAssist. Around 2001, I came up with an idea that our clients could fax us their daily activity and productivity. I could formulate that into a spreadsheet and show them graphically the doctor production per hour of their team. Then my dad, my stepmother, and his partner, as hands-on consultants, were in the practices day in and day out doing the documentation and the actual people side of the organization.
She would correlate the day-to-day behavior against the numbers, and this is where we could start moving the team together, saying, "The numbers aren't matching the activity. How do we now solve these problems? What were the problems? What was preventing your success for the day and the consistency?" That's a very long story short of how Max has been thinking since day one.
Anne: I love the history of that because it shows that you understand it. Then the sage advice that you have from a father to your family, and the women I know from the DeW Community, thank you for reaching out to them and hiring them. They actually eat, sleep, and breathe MaxAssist because it's such a yummy program.
Isn't it funny how you've had to change because now, with AI, it's all right in front of you? But it's super cool to really understand what you're getting out of it by starting from ground zero in 2001, and now look where you are. It's just incredible.
Daniel: I would describe myself now more as the vessel and the communication tool. Jeff and the team have done such an incredible job redefining industry expectations. From day one, we've always been committed to the service component and the integrity of our industry. We're not here to sell a thing. We're here to develop long-term relationships and grow as partners. We take that very intimately.
What has happened throughout the last 10 years of us being direct in the market and working with thousands of practices across North America is that the product itself is now a reflection of our industry.
Anne: Yes.
Daniel: Every client has given us feedback that has made the product more powerful, more insightful, or more user-friendly. Really, I'm here to commend my team. They have done such an incredible job. Now it's about making friends and relationships and letting them know that a real product and platform exists that was designed for them, that really addresses those pains and aches and the real battleground of our industry, then breaks that wheel and gets back to the love of clinical hospitality.
Anne: I love that, clinical hospitality. How important do you think transparency, culture, and strong leadership are when introducing new technology and changing the way teams work? You can have the technology, but you don't want it to sit on a back shelf and collect dust. Tell me about that. Once they say yes, where does all that come into play?
Daniel: We like to be upfront: we're not another vendor looking to just sell a quick solution. What we do that is very unique is start by giving them full insight into the potential of working with us. Is this enough motivation to make you want to explore the change-management process?
Then what we do very uniquely is align every single team and department member because we understand the change-management process isn't just leadership making the decision or the front-office teams having to swallow the lifestyle change of, "Here's the new shiny object." Right off the hop, our first goal is to develop a strategy that creates adoption, not integration. We want it to be part of their lifestyle.
What I think is very important is two things. Number one, we have to demonstrate the measurables because everyone reports to someone, and we have to make sure everyone has a bank account for vacation, everyone on the team. But then we also need to give team members real tools and technologies that are proven to work, not just a hopeful, "I can show you the data. Now tell me how you're going to get it."
That, I think, was the secret sauce to our platform, where Ron, Jeff, and our team have been hyper-focused from day one. Not only is it about patient connection and making sure we're serving people, but teams have to understand the why and the activity behind the data.
Anne: If not, there's no buy-in. That's so genius, honestly, to stay focused on that, start slow, win them over, and, as a friend, try to help them and get everybody involved because that's going to make your team sticky.
That's a big problem in dentistry today: team members are leaving. They want to stay and feel like they're contributing to something. To bring everyone together is so beautiful, and a lot of people don't realize that. I like the idea that you're not in a hurry. It's a little bit of a slower process, but they're not going to change again. You want these lifetime relationships, which shows in the history of 20 years or longer, how you've pivoted, listened, and changed things because you're getting it from your customers.
That's awesome. I've seen so many things in my career that just come in and you have a disgruntled team, and that's just poor leadership. That's a leadership skill that you're actually teaching them as you're teaching them about MaxAssist and how to use it.
Daniel: The warm, fuzzy core of our whole brand is really about connection. That was the rebranding to MaxAssist. It was exactly what you talked about. I have yet to meet a person who does not want to help another person.
Anne: Yeah.
Daniel: Now, the busyness of the day, the compounded stress, you name something that prevents us from connecting as human beings—those are relentless. But I think, with you and me being in the industry long enough, you can now see this reverberation back into people craving one another.
Anne: Yes.
Daniel: I chuckle. We need automation for convenience, but convenience should not dictate service. I want to compartmentalize those conversations and get back to people who are looking for help, who want service and care, who are committed to the experience, which improves them and their relationship, not the efficiency of time or how fast it was delivered.
At the end of the day, yes, price is a factor. I've never met a person who wouldn't pay a little bit more to feel heard and loved.
Anne: Yeah. Take this off even the front desk so that when someone walks in the door, they've got an extra few minutes or more because of MaxAssist, and they can actually look that person in the eye and ask them how they're doing. So often now, their head is down, and that doesn't make your patient stick. We crave closeness. There is no smell-o-vision. You've got to be belly to belly. I love that.
Daniel: 100%.
Anne: Another question I have for you, Daniel: as dental technology continues to evolve, which you guys have evolved along these years, and that's a track record, by the way, which is really cool. How important is it that practices maintain human interaction and meaningful patient connection, which is what we're talking about right here? All the marketing in the world is not going to keep the patient in the practice if the rest of the relationship doesn't work.
Daniel: Anyone sitting in the chair: do I really care if the curing material cures 15 seconds to a half minute faster? No, I do not. Do I care if the doctor is going to pull down the mask, address me by name, and maybe have a little bit of history and understanding of me without reading the chart? If every experience feels like a first impression, then you don't ever get the opportunity to build the relationship.
It goes back to the clinical hospitality of our conversation. If we rewind the clock even further, and this is where I think our platform just sits in your heart, my great-grandfather was nominated by the Italian Historical Society as the inventor of tiramisu.
Anne: What?
Daniel: Yes.
Anne: Wow.
Daniel: Our family comes from hospitality. That's our center foundation stone. That foundation stone is also in our platform. This is clinical hospitality. We're inviting people into our business home because it feels like home, because that's where we spend all of our time, and we're bringing people through an entire experience.
If we translate that to a restaurant, you love the greeting and hostess team. Then you get to engage with the bartender and sommelier team. Then you meet your setters and the people who are starting to bring you into the experience, then the server themselves, the running team, the expediting team, the dessert—and it goes on and on.
I personally have that experience when it comes to dentistry. I get excited to go. I find it to be a very intimate and warming experience if it's done right.
Anne: Yes. I love that analogy. Then you keep going back. It's your favorite restaurant. The clinical side is really important, but you don't go back to the same restaurant if it's not friendly. It's really special when everybody knows your name, to take a quote from Cheers.
I love that mentality, and I really think it's a trickle-down effect from the pandemic, how we crave that. I love that it's coming back to that, and that you're offering that for your clients, which is really cool. I wish everybody could get on that bandwagon right now. I think the fear is that this is making it easy. We say a lot of times that it's simple, but it's not easy. But to me, this seems like a natural thing for you to be hosting your patients when they come in. You're not thinking like they don't matter, but you're truly hosting them into your dental practice. Stay a while.
Daniel: Stay a while.
Anne: Let us help you out.
Daniel: What is the rush? It's not transactional, and it's not just about a quick X-ray, getting your hygiene, then banging you out the door after a quick diagnosis. I find dentistry to be quite intimate. If you were to ask my wife, she to this day cries every day beforehand. It's just her expression of the anxiety, her fear, and all the imagination she brings to it.
I think if teams were a little bit more aware of that power and that if you could create that nurturing, healthy environment, then also goes away the story making of, "I have to sell a treatment." If a friend of mine shared information with me on why it was important to my health, are they selling me anything? No. How do we create that?
Anne: It's a mindset shift. To gather the entire team in that, everybody is important in that office. That's the other thing I love. I think it's the way your company treats people: all for one, one for all. It's very evident that there's nobody you've ever met that you didn't like. I will say that, and it's lovely. Who wouldn't want to work with you?
Where should dental practices and their teams be focusing as they think about the next stage of growth and scale? I guess this really is lending itself to the DSOs, one practice, two practices. Where do they need to be focused?
Daniel: 100%. Let's get into the technicality of what's going on because I think we've addressed the emotion for sure. We're on the same page.
Here's my opinion of taking a look at the industry and really getting an understanding of what everyone is struggling with. If your teams aren't performing consistently, you're dead in the water. If you've got fragmented technology, fragmented systems, and fragmented ways of your teams solving problems, that has to be addressed.
MaxAssist really fills that gap, and that's one of our claims to fame: the standardization of your workflow productivity for all your team members. That contributes to the organic growth conversation because we're not taking one step forward and two steps back and having all these emergencies, and there's always a reason we're not being consistent. That's the core fundamental that MaxAssist addresses.
The next thing that I think is critical is that this industry has been oversaturated with way too much data but not enough direction. You can tell me which baseball team hit the most home runs on today's date, what the temperature was, what the pressure was, and all that conversation. But I can't clearly communicate to a team member where the gaps are in the schedule and who would be the best patient to fill that.
That's where I think our industry has definitely failed until MaxAssist, which is relevant data that leads to behavior that connects you to patients and actually fills the gap in the solution you're looking for.
The other thing relates to the data conversation, but I believe leaders have been led down the primrose path from day one. It's not their fault, and I think the technology did the best it could for what it was trying to do, but I don't think leaders have ever been given an opportunity to literally clear the mud off the windshield and make effective decisions in real time.
I'm a storyteller, but for me, the analogy is that I don't need more data and analytics if I’m lost in the woods. I don't want a 30-day report to tell me where I was. It offers me no value. What I need is a compass. Tell me what's most important in this moment and where I need to put my next foot to make sure my journey is secure, foundational, and profitable.
That's where I think MaxAssist has really taken the lead. We're a compass. We're the dirty work, the hard work, all the stuff that everyone wishes there were a magic bullet for. There is no magic bullet. What it is, is we have to do the right work at the right time and ensure our teams understand the reason why. That's where we really start differentiating ourselves in what I think the DSO industry has been looking for.
Anne: Tell me a little bit. We're going over now, but I want to understand. Tamara was on a Do Connect call, and she was going on and on about how, "Oh my God, MaxAssist was just phenomenal from the jump." Tell me what they're seeing with MaxAssist. What are you actually showing as the office manager and the team members so that they don't have to think about it? It shows them what they maybe are missing. Tell me a little bit about that sequence.
Daniel: 100%. Without getting into our whole toolbox, I'll give you short examples for each level of responsibility.
Anne: Okay.
Daniel: When we're talking about the front-office level of engaging with patients, there are two things we do incredibly well that the industry has oversight on. Number one, the schedule is always organically moving because humans are human, and they always cancel. They no-show. We have the industry's best short-notice cancellation tool. We make it simple, we make it productive, and we support the team member to solve the problem, not rely on AI or a digital solution. We have a toolbox of those types of solutions that are engineered for what actually happens to the front-office person.
Simultaneously, the doctor walks up to the front and says, "I need more unscheduled treatment. I know I should have more money. Where do I start? Run a report? Use my highlighter and ruler? Do I work the first two pages of the report? What is my decision-making methodology?"
That's the other thing MaxAssist does brilliantly, which is that within two clicks of a button, the front-office person knows where all the organic wins are and where every single patient is in the gap. We do that and a number of things that really fire up the front office.
Anne: Okay.
Daniel: Now I'm an office manager. What I'm looking for is responsibility, accountability, and I need that compass. What's actually going on in my practice so I can encourage and empower my team members? We created an office management dashboard that not only gives them real tools to stay involved and engaged, whether it's a live chart audit, the schedule, a morning huddle, and every tool they would expect to have, but then we just have them follow six KPIs that the front-office person is religiously working on in their toolbox.
If you're talking about connecting the dots, the office manager is only going to hold the team member accountable for what they see and what they do. Then on an enterprise level, and this is where MaxAssist really thought about the regional manager and the leadership teams, they need that same level of scope, vision, and understanding down to the team member. We'll tell you who logged in and who actually made a recall attempt.
They not only need that vision and depth of precision, but they also need the simplicity of the compass as well, which is whether it's 30 locations or 300 locations, I still know where the sweet spot is, the teams that need my help, and where my delegation, communication, and mentoring starts.
Anne: Wow. You're taking a lot of the guesswork out that can be done. It wasn't that long ago that the list was so long, and you had to call everybody, and you didn't even know who you were calling or what you were calling about.
I love that you can fill the chairs. It sounds like it's a pretty easy process to know who to get in the chair and who can pay for the treatment and is ready to have the treatment.
Daniel: One of our flagship case studies, and this is where we're about the proof in the pudding: one of our flagship clients, 50 locations, was suffering like any DSO and practice level would, right? They have their daily challenges and all of that. With the introduction of MaxAssist, within one year, they had scheduled an additional, and I'm not making this number up, 110,000 appointments across 50 locations. Consistent behavior, repeatable results, accountability, and it gets your teams fired up about loving people again.
Anne: I love it. That sounds like they might even be able to take them to Chicago Midwinter and get them some teaching, some learning, and actually pour back into the team a little bit because everybody's meeting their nut, if you will. Then the leader can have a sense of accomplishment and pride in what they're doing and not be scared to death. It's all right in front of them. You've got the compass and also the blueprint. You have the blueprint and the compass.
Daniel: I'm with you. When you have systems and routines in play, that's when people become empowered. They become creative. They start looking for more. We can break the wheel of busy because everyone's busy. But if we could get people focused on being productive and serving patients, I think we would see the best of what is yet to come in dentistry still.
Anne: You're right. The best is yet to come. That's what we all got into dentistry for to begin with, to serve patients and to care for them. That's the biggest reason that if you asked 100 dental professionals, I'd say 90% of them got into it to be able to help people and care for them. You're making it simple.
How do they get in touch with you? I'm sure people listening to this today want to get in touch with MaxAssist. You really opened the United States in the past year, year and a half, two years. Has it been since you opened up the United States in a bigger way?
Daniel: 100%. We're now working on year three. I'm leading the charge of DSO. We have incredible team members across the States. We're all based here in the States as well, so our client success teams, customer service teams, and development teams—we're all dental geeks. Of course, you can find us on our website, maxassist.com. Find us on the socials. If you want to hear more of my voice, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love making new friends. There is no obligation to any of the conversations, so ask us questions. Ask us how we think differently. We're here to let people know that we want to help.
Anne: I can understand that too, because I think you have to build trust first. I know you, and I know many of your team members, and I would trust you walking across the desert. I think we'd have a good time, and we'd get to our destination.
Daniel Barsotti, thank you for joining me today. MaxAssist is the future of dentistry, and I hope you will reach out to them.
And remember, everyone, if you're listening today, we have our DeW Retreat coming up November 12 through 14. We'd love to see you there. We only have a few seats left, but get your seat and please join us because we would love to see you there and lock arms. The most important thing for everybody is to keep doing you.
Daniel, thank you so much. MaxAssist, go team. We'll see you next time.
Daniel: Pleasure, Anne. I'll see you on the road. 331.
Anne: 331. He's a DeW. Don't forget, he is 331. Good number. I love it. Thank you, Daniel, and thank you for that beautiful backdrop. If you're watching this on YouTube, hello. They designed that for us today, and I am extremely honored and impressed. It makes my heart happy.
Daniel: It's such a wonderful office, Anne.
Anne: All right, dear. I'll see you on the road, okay?
Daniel: Yes, you bet.
Anne: All right, darling.
Daniel: Thanks so much, Anne.
Anne: Thank you.
