Are You Invisible?: Ep 010

Welcome to dentistry support the podcast. We are celebrating 10 episodes today. And I can't explain how excited I am. And also the level of disbelief I have that we actually recorded 10 episodes. Thank you for being here and giving me a space in your leadership and business journey.

 I read a quote this week that said, some people are mad at you because you're not suffering the way they expected you to.

 This statement, it encapsulates a complete aspect of human nature that I want you to pay close attention to. The tendency to project our own expectations onto others and become resentful when those expectations are not met. It speaks volumes about societal norms and pressures. Highlighting how you me. And all of those around us. Can feel entitled to dictate how others should experience success. Growth and even adversity. This statement. It is so real in my life. And you're probably seeing it too. And situations where someone's success or resilience defies conventional narratives. And challenges the norms that we've created in our own minds.

 Visibility is not merely a passive state. It's an active skill that can significantly impact your relationships with clients, customers, coworkers, and managers. And this episode. I'm going to teach you to understand that you hold the reins when it comes to making yourself seen. And heard in your professional environment. Your contributions, goals and aspirations should not be a mystery to those around you. 

It is your responsibility to ensure they are known. Whether it's in meetings, client calls. Day-to-day interactions your community.  your job is to always take the opportunity to showcase. Your own visibility. I want you to be obsessed with it. Every time. You make yourself visible to others? You set the stage for what comes next. 

Being proactive in your own visibility leads to increased recognition opportunities for growth, new business ventures. A strong professional network. Generational leadership.  What happens next after you've made yourself visible? That's a great question.

 If you've never heard this before. You may want to write this down. Someone is mentioning your name in rooms. You've never been in.

 It takes on average, one of my clients to commit to working with me about 12 to 18 months. Now have I had clients enroll within two hours of talking to me. Yes. Do I have clients where it took me 4, 6, 7 years to get them to commit to me. Also, yes. But every moment I made myself visible or chose to make myself visible. Led to the business I have today. 

 Business. Isn't just the clients you serve through the type of business that you have.

 Business is also you making yourself visible in ways that you're not even thinking about right now. Like you might be a real estate agent. You sell people houses. How can you make yourself visible other than to the specific client? That could be advantageous for your future growth. Could you connect with your local community? Could you have a podcast? Could you collaborate with another real estate agent to show the world that you're not scared of competition? But instead you embrace the art of community in your industry. What ways can you change the way you are visible to others? So that you can attract and retain the business that you have always been seeking to grasp onto. 

 There are so many points to generation of leadership that I can make. But for this episode, I want you to understand that the whole point of generational leadership. Is that you continue to create.  And that others are able to create based on what you have led them to do. So that businesses and the future of businesses can be better. I have a few examples of things I've done. That made me no money at all in the beginning. But now I make over seven figures a year. Off of these various situations that some might say are a complete waste of time.

 Early on in my career when I built my very first dental business.  I would take every single call a prospective client would have, they could schedule through a scheduling app and the call was about 30 minutes. As time progressed on, I would often think to myself, man, I'm going to hire someone in the future that will take all of these calls because some of them are just such a waste of my time. 

And all of them are not saying yes, so I need to be doing other things that are more productive and getting more yeses, faster yeses. I was in my very first year of business and I tested out the theory of having other people take these calls.  It never resulted in me landing clients. 

Like I should have been, even though when I first started taking the calls, I wasn't always getting yeses. I was still getting more yeses than I was when. I didn't have myself doing it. What I learned is that people believed in my business because I believe in my business. And so I've spent the last 10 years of owning my organizations, taking every call, even the ones that don't result in a client enrolling in one of my businesses. I committed to my business. 

And what that means for me is that I take every call. Even the ones that don't generate revenue right now. 

 I take the calls of the brand new dentist that just got out of dental school and they don't even have a dental office now. But they're thinking about applying to work for a dental support organization. Or a DSO and they want to know my feedback. I take the call from a dental front office team member who just doesn't understand dental billing and wants to know how to do a write off the right way. Now she's never going to be a client of mine and she'll never pay. Any sort of dollars towards what I charge per month for services. 

But I'm still taking the call. I'm still spending my time loving on my community and being visible. Regardless.

I've if I'm actually going to make a dollar from that.

 I'm going to guarantee something for you. And this might rub you the wrong way. You will have haters. Even the people you think are rooting you on.  Likely they are silently not. I don't say this to be a downer, but you are going to have to strengthen your mental toughness.

 Here this. Noah didn't stop building the Ark. To explain himself to every doubter and hater that he had. You need to keep building and let the rain do the talking. I saw that this week and I loved it. When people ask me about business or how I became successful or what I do on a daily basis or how I think of all the businesses that I've created or how I find the time to run these businesses. There are so many ways that I want to answer each of those questions. 

There are so many ways that I find myself wanting to inspire others. 

The way that I chose to work in every capacity. Before I get to some of those stories that I want to tell you today.  I want to tell you that if you want to be successful in business, There are a few key factors that I want you to remember. That are vital for you to reach the next level of success that you have, or that you want to have. The first one is that you have to truly be a leader. And to say that you are a leader is one thing, but here's how, you know, if you're a leader. You are a leader. 

If you bring people with you. If you create a business and there are people that you can bring alongside you that will work with you, that will work for you. That will refer to you. That will recommend you. That is leadership. 

The next thing that I believe you really need to have in order to get to whatever level you want to get to, or create whatever business you want to create. Is to learn to be obsessed. I mean really obsessed.  Not in an unhealthy way, but ask yourself. When was the last time you stayed up 24 hours a day, thinking about something you were obsessed with. That you couldn't take your hands off of. And any time in that 24 hours that you had to take your hands off of it, you found yourself addicted to thinking about it. You were obsessed with making it perfect. 

You are obsessed with doing it, touching it, feeling it. Making money from it. You were obsessed with making everything in your brain. Conjure up all of the possibilities that that thing could be. 

If you want to be successful, if you want to make great money. If you want to reach the next level in your life, you need to learn to be obsessed with something. 

If you don't have the personality that can be obsessed with something, you are not going to be a small business owner. You are not going to be someone who can manage their own time and you're not going to be someone who can get yourself to the next level on your own. You are going to need a corporation to take you there, to drag you there, to get to your next step. 

You're going to need a manager that wants to pull you up so they can be successful because they are obsessed with rowing. 

You're going to need to resort to the annual raises the five-year plans that include the promotions you talk with your boss about, because you're not actually obsessed. You may completely disagree with these first two factors and that's fine. You can, but I'm telling you right now that I have reached success. 

 I have created multiple businesses. I have inspired others. I have become a mentor. I've achieved degrees with Summa. Cume loud status. I have had every benchmark. I have done things because I learned to be obsessed. It is a discipline. Not many people have, and even fewer people will understand.

The next thing I want you to really understand is that if you want to have the most successful life, Whether it be in business, creating an organization, making money, changing the world.  Every portion of who you are as a leader. As a business owner. As a person.  As someone leading generationally as someone who wants to leave a legacy.  Is that your world must be for others. 

If I was writing you an email right now or texting you. When I said that. When I said your world must be for others, I would have capitalized every letter of the word for.  It is very easy to say that you care about a community. It is very easy to say that you're passionate about something. And it is very easy to say that, you know, something really, really well. It's also extremely easy for you to say you're an expert at something. And all the reasons that you care about your community. Or that you're passionate about something. 

It's also really easy to ramble on. And tell people all of the reasons you care about your community, you're passionate about something, you know, something really well, you're an expert. That's why you feel qualified to be paid. 

This is why you feel qualified, that you should have a business. And all of those things might be very true. However. The little gut punch for today. Is that watching YouTube videos about other people being successful and what you think you want to do has nothing to do with you being for others, scrolling your favorite social media platform. 

And so coming to the algorithm that now magically shows you everything about what someone else is doing, that you think you can do better. That you think you can do better, has nothing to do with you being for others. Sitting back and watching someone else be more successful than you and secretly hating them because of it. Or having some sort of jealousy because of it has nothing to do with being for others. Please allow me a moment to expand on this. With a couple of stories without pausing or stopping, listening to this podcast today. 

And 2017, I was gifted with the opportunity of a lifetime. At least for me, it was some of you listening may have had far better opportunities. And this once in a lifetime opportunity for me was the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. It's the most I'd ever been. It's the best I'd ever become. And that moment, it was the highlight of my life. I was recruited and hired to work in Beverly Hills, California. The corporate office was located there, but where I would be was located in smaller town in orange county, about 25 miles from there. 



This position was paying me a six figure salary and an annual bonus. 

I never dreamt, I would ever get. I honestly couldn't believe they picked me out of all of the professionals that existed. They picked me. The most unlikely person with the most unlikely childhood, the most unlikely backgrounds. To be successful as someone earning this salary. A girl that drove the same car for 11 years and paid 30% interest because my credit was so bad and I couldn't figure out my own finances. A girl that struggled with her own a self-worth because someone boosting. A girl that struggled with her own self-worth.  But someone that was always boosting someone else up. It was my first C-suite position. It was a rough in a lot of ways. Because I really had to fake it until I made it. And be far more confident than I really was.  I didn't have the emotional intelligence I needed to, to not stress every second of every day. That somehow some way they were going to fire me and I was not really what they wanted. I lacked the confidence to believe that I really was in the right place. That I was made for this position, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be and deserved this. 

I worked hard for it. I was constantly in fight or flight mode working there. Fast forward six months and I was recruited again to another C-suite position, making $50,000 more than that one. That was wild. Fast forward six more months. My company fired me. I'll never forget that. Drive home. I actually wanted to tell you so many more details about those two positions before I continued this part of the podcast, but. Out of respect for your time and getting through the story. I'll come to those later. That drive home from getting fired was the worst dry for me. 

If I thought I was in fight or flight mode before when I had the first job. 

I couldn't even call my husband to tell him that I had gotten fired on the phone. I just told him that I was pulling in the driveway and I needed him to meet me in the garage ,   I didn't want our daughter to know how absolutely terrified I was. And that we were in a state where expenses were so high, the job was higher paying than I'd ever had. 

And there was no one in our family that made enough money. Like what my salary was to even help us with the kind of bills we had. Our rent was four times that of anyone I knew personally. If I couldn't figure out how to quickly get a job, paying that same salary within two weeks, we would be homeless. We would be homeless. We had nothing saved. 

We had no backup funds with no emergency funds that would give us enough money to save us. 

 I can confidently pinpoint the time of my life, where I became obsessed. In 2014, I thought of dentistry support. Long before I had either one of these jobs.  I had registered the name. I created the business. I designed it. I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn't, 100% know how to execute it. I just knew that the future of the world of dentistry and the business of how it was ran. I was going to be different. 

The future was going to kick it into overdrive in the digital realm and in the way remote settings worked. I knew what I wanted to have happen in the business. But I didn't know how to execute it. 

I got home. And I cried in my garage. I remember opening my car door. And seeing my husband standing there and he knew something was wrong. But I blindsided him. I crumbled. 

And then I got to work. The first thing I did was reach out to everyone. I knew. 

 I was strategic in the order of people that I chose to reach out to. I wanted to make sure I reached out to the people that I had forged, amazing relationships with the ones that knew my track record. They knew how I was a confident business woman. And the ones that I knew I could trust would support me in this journey. 

I was about to get on. I also knew this was a pivotal moment in my career.  I was done working for someone else. And that this was the only shot I had. This was my one chance. To begin a new and to start my business, the way that I wanted it.

I became obsessed. I mean, so obsessed. With working and fine tuning, what dentistry support would be, how it was going to be and the kind of leader I was determined to be for this to be a success. I knew what I needed to do for myself, for my family and the future of what I wanted this business to become for generations of dental businesses far beyond this moment in time. 

When I think about having a conversation with someone and they tell me they work nonstop. I don't know exactly what they mean. But I'm going to paint a picture for you.  Whenever I am gifted an opportunity to speak about my work ethics.  I'm never doing so from a standpoint that I need accolades, or I want you to feel sorry for me. Or that I want you to conjure up or imagine what you think that might look like for me.  When I work nonstop, I literally work non stop. The first six weeks that I developed and ran. And established dentistry support. It was me and one other person. Yes. She still works for me today. I worked 20 hours a day. I slept for four hours. I didn't have a desk set up and I didn't have. Any sort of wonderful technology or a team of people behind me. I'm a true small business owner.  I had a kitchen table, a chair that was really uncomfortable. And I worked and I worked and I worked, I remember taking showers and my hair would just be wet and I let it air dry. 

I didn't even get makeup on or anything. I was just working for 20 hours sleeping for, for getting up showering,  working for 20 hours. It was nonstop. I created the best business. I could figure out how to create. With the rest of the money that I had,  I spent. Everything I had in our checking account and my severance package, which was only two weeks, by the way, on creating this business. Within six weeks. 

I had a client that I was traveling back and forth from to Arizona. And back to California and then to Arizona and back to California. They were paying me $9,000 a month. Six months in. The company was steadily doing $25,000 a month and a year in, we were at $40,000 a month. Today we do well over seven figures a year. And what we do as far as how much we make, has very little to do with what I am telling you today. 

 My name has been spoken in rooms. I have never entered into.  And my name. Is on the lips of many people who want to go ahead and just hitch their wagon to my tailgate.

 About four years ago, I spoke to someone who was interested in starting a business with me, and I was interested in starting a business with them. At the time they said something to me that I don't think they realized I played over and over in my mind and still do to this day. Something that I'm still trying to learn to get over. 

And that has caused me to build up walls around starting ventures with new people. They said, Sarah, Beth, I'm ready for the next thing in my life. I'm ready to change. I'm ready to make my own money. I own my own time. Be my own boss. I'm ready. And I'm calling you because I know that if there is anybody I should try to do business with it's you Sarah, Beth, because you are someone successful. 

And I know you're going to make me successful and you're going to take me where I know I need to go. Some of, you might think that that is a really great compliment.  To me. It's another reason why someone else wants to take advantage of me. And they don't deserve my obsessive nature because they're not obsessed. They aren't ready to be obsessed. If you want to schedule a call with me, you can at any time through my website. I'll talk to you as long as you want. I'll spend the time with you. 

I'll take the time to get to know you, your strengths, your weaknesses, where you want to go, how you want to be successful and how my company can help you get there. 

But you will pay for the support that my company will provide to help you get to your next level. My time to get to know you. To offer suggestions to help you. It's free to my community. It's free to those who want to chat business and hang out. I love talking business and I love to be there for you.

 Confidently, I can tell you how important it is for you to be there for your community. 

But know your audience know who your future customer is, know what your goals are. And recognize the people that are around you, just trying to get a piece of your pie. 

It was 2018. I was about six months into working for myself through dentistry support. We had five employees at the time, and I had a perspective dental office. That scheduled a call with me. 

 These discovery calls were about 30 minutes in length and we went over how their business was handling things, what they needed, different pain points.  If our support would work for them. I was learning to overcome objections. I was learning to create a business that would meet the needs of dental offices that I hadn't thought about. I was learning how to be a salesperson in this business that I was creating a sales person that was for dentistry. I was learning how to be a person that could listen to a dental office or a dentist or an owner. Tell me everything that they needed in their business. And everything that they needed in support.  And then tell me no to signing up with my services because they couldn't afford it.  At the time my prices were 25% less than they are today. 

Yet I have way more clients today than I ever had before. I got a call from the wife of a dentist. I'll never forget our first call. This wife is extremely wonderful. Truly one of the sweetest wives of dentists that I've spoken to, and generally speaking. That hasn't always been my experience. She was all about dentistry support and everything we had to offer. 

She kept telling me how much she loved our website, loved our social media presence. And I actually look back at all of those compliments and I cringe because man, my marketing was not good. Holy cow, I wasn't great at web design.  I had to teach myself all these things because as a small business owner, You really wear every single hat. Her husband was graduating dental school in seven months and they were designing what they wanted their dental practice to look like. 

 They had just firmed up the location. They were getting ready to prepare the build-out , she wanted to talk to me about our services. Some salespeople,  aren't willing to spend the time of day on a call like this. Because if you know anything about a build out and starting a dental business. It takes time and most salespeople are not going to have  time to deal with someone that they know won't have money to sign up. I still wanted to give her the time because any call  was an opportunity to speak about it. And I just wanted to cultivate a relationship. We ended up talking for about an hour and a half. She was sharing everything with me.  She was excited about what we had to offer. She felt like working with dentistry support was going to give them the upper edge and their local demographics. Of not having to worry about hiring people and starting it out the gate with all of their best practices in alignment with where they wanted to go. 

She did share with me that our services were going to be way too expensive and that her husband would never go for it, but she loved what she saw and she thought that we'd be a really great fit for them. 

Once we finished our call, we sent her a recap of everything that we talked about. A year later, I saw that she scheduled another call with me. Of course we hadn't done business together in that year's time. She hasn't given me any money, but we talk again. This time we talked and her tone was a little different. They had gone through some really, really bad experiences. This dental office is one of the crazy experiences I've ever heard of. She goes on to tell me how they had the worst experience in business. 

They've been open for about seven or eight months, I believe at this time.  Another dental practice opened less than a mile from them taking the name that they had named their dental business and trademarked it. What's so interesting about that is yes, it's possible. So if you think of a business name, go get a trademark so that someone else can't steal it. 

This company had strategically stolen their business, . She then goes on to tell me that they somehow got wrapped into being with a management company who was charging them $30,000 a month to market their business, run their business and promise them they would make $150,000 a month. 

And they just couldn't keep up with the expense because they were only producing $40,000 a month. She then goes on to tell me that because this other dental office has stolen their name, they had to rebrand create all new everything from social media accounts to websites, emails, you name it. They had to recreate it. 

 They were considering shutting the business down. But we talked for another hour and a half. Very little about the services dentistry support provides. I kind of felt like her therapist a little bit.  But she's still just wanting to talk and get some advice.  I think she just felt like she could trust me. 

 I'm going to spare you a lot of rambling about my repeated conversations with the wife of this dentist. 

What I'll share is that over the next seven years, I spoke with her. About every nine months to 12 months. Her story continued to get worse. Everything from lawsuits to embezzlement. You name it? She went through it.  It was an incredibly sad and devastating story that she continued to share with me. I never made any money from her. 

 We provided her free training. We provided her advice. I kind of felt like her therapist, like I said, 

yesterday. I landed her as a client. They enrolled in dentistry support after seven years. 

Throughout this podcast. I talk a lot about these similar scenarios where I've talked with someone for 2, 4, 6 years, and they never sign up for services. And then all of a sudden they did. I've gotten a lot of remarks and feedback  about how I am a terrible salesperson. I've had people sign up for support with us within hours of talking to me. And I've had other people just like this that have taken five, six or seven years to sign up. It really just depends. But if I had never taken any of these calls, I had never spent the time talking with these people. What I have ever landed them as a client. You see, every time I take a call and I don't get a client, I'm proving to myself, which is the only person that it matters to that I really do believe. And what I say, I'll do. I really do stand for all of the ways that I promised the world that I'll be for dentistry. 

I am obsessed with making my company better. I care about what others need to talk about. I care about growing the dental industry. I care about creating new leaders. And I am living that out every time I choose to be for the community that I'm surrounded with. So when you're thinking I want to be successful. I want to make a million dollars. 

I want to have a business. 

Or I want to be where that person is. 

Or I don't like that person because where they are is where I want to be. When you're thinking about all of those intrusive thoughts that just eat you alive, when you see someone else's success and you want it so bad. You're going to have to snap out of it. You need to realize that you have to have that millionaire mindset. And that means you have to be so different. Than the other people that exist in your industry. And you have to understand that unless you choose to be for a community. That you want to make money from? You'll never get there. I tried to think about how much money I've made from being for the community. And it's simply not quantifiable. 

I believe that at this point, I've probably. Enrolled. 15 to 20 dental offices just from continuing the conversation. And that probably totals one and a half million dollars in revenue over the years. Maybe, maybe two. I don't know, off the top of my head. But what's more important to me. Is the businesses that I've changed as a result of me giving them my time, my sense of community by free resources. 

There is a lot in sales that you can learn. And one really great thing to learn. Is that when you give something to someone that is free, They always feel like they owe you back. It's a psychological thing. I give a lot of myself for free. Because I know the money will always come. The people will always come. The communities that I'm a part of are fantastic. 

And they will always surround me. I choose to support them obsessively because I know that they will respond. I trust that they will respond. I am confident in their response. Your TGM today. Make your visibility to your clients, customers, and coworkers and managers known.  It is your responsibility to hone in on this skill. You are responsible for your own visibility. 

Are your contributions known by the people you work for? Are your goals known by your community? Don't ever leave a meeting, a client call or any situation in business without making your visibility known. One of the greatest ways you can be encouraged today is this. Every time you make yourself visible to someone else immediately following that interaction sets the stage for what's about to happen in your life. Are you obsessed? Are you for your community? 

Are you visable to the world around you? Are you a generational leader that brings others with you so that you can build. Do you have a generational mindset? Or are you just trying to hit your wagon to the tailgate of someone else  so they can bring you where they are because you think you deserve it. I will end this podcast negative. But I will bring light. To where you can start making changes today. 

Be visible. Before your community, stop focusing on what others do and put your head down and be obsessed with your own future, your business, your growth, where you are going, and I'll catch you on the next episode.