Dental Guiding Point
To make the business side of dentistry less lonely, less stressful, and more successful — by giving away the practical knowledge, systems, and leadership insights from someone who has been in the trenches, growing from $0 to $21 million a year. The lessons here are real, hard-won, and designed to help dentists thrive — in practice, and in life.
Dental Guiding Point
The Office Manager Episode: What They Should Do, What to Pay, and How to Keep Them
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The office manager is the most important hire in your practice — and most dentists have no idea what they should actually be doing. Dr. Mark Dill and Toria Plank break down what a real office manager looks like, how to promote from within, what to pay them, and how to keep them motivated long term.
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But you know this. I mean, we don't do it together, but we both do this. Um what are we talking about? You can if you really wanted to be able to get to know your your office manager.
SPEAKER_03What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01Would you stop?
SPEAKER_04Um guys, welcome to Dental Guiding Point, where we talk about the problems that plague your office and give you our solutions that we found that work really well for us. And you can take them or leave them, but they are there to solve your problems, make you more profitable, and a little less stressed. Actually, a lot less stressed, I would say. Today, what we're talking about is the one, the only, the office manager in your office. How do you pay them and what to look for when you're thinking about an office manager? So we're gonna cover it from both sides: the office manager that you may promote, and the office manager that you already have, and you're wondering am I paying her well? Am I taking care of her? And should I pay her more or am I overpaying her? So we're gonna talk about all of that and so much more. I'm Dr. Dill, and this is Miss Toria Plate.
SPEAKER_01Hey y'all.
SPEAKER_04All right, guys, so let's jump into it. What are you actually looking for when you're looking for an office manager? What all are they actually gonna do for the owner doctor?
SPEAKER_01Well, let's talk about what people think office managers should do first.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so there's a difference.
SPEAKER_01There is a difference. A lot of times when I have interviewed office managers, they will say, Well, I do all the insurance claims and I do all the scheduling and I set up front and post all the payments, and that's it. That's their office manager. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Sounds like a super employee.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Not necessarily an office manager.
SPEAKER_01Agree.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01So, but an office manager, a true office manager that's running the practice should have a whole lot more responsibilities than that and should not be tied to just posting payments all day. An office manager is the person who is driving your team. They are getting people to hit their goals. They are setting up the goals that the doctor has already like created for them. They just have to divide it out by what they're trying to achieve per day. They're the ones who is training your staff in every area. Yes, they're the ones who has to handle like, you know, issues when they come about. But again, that's not just the full office manager's job. I actually just talked to an office and he thought that his office manager should be the one that just handles all the issues. And it's like, but who's who's managing your practice? Who's driving that to get products from each department? And but there's nobody. Everybody's just willy-nilly out there doing it. So that's pretty much what an office manager should be doing.
SPEAKER_04What about like the skill level of the person that's going to be promoted into an office manager? Like what background do they need to have, or what knowledge, or you know, what what are the the main things about the main thing?
SPEAKER_01Honestly, for me, I could train an office manager with no skills. I uh the personality is going to be what I would look for the most. But office people who make great office managers are dental assistants, to be honest. They know a little bit about every area of a dental practice. Um, they know enough about insurance, they know enough of they know everything about the doctor and assisting, but hygiene, they make probably the best office managers. So if they have some kind of dental background, that's a plus for them. If they have some kind of insurance background or um understanding what treatment is, that's a plus. Everything else, you can train yourself.
SPEAKER_04Gotcha. So I guess another uh pro is if they're a dental assistant, they've been sitting across from the doctor um, you know, for any amount of time, they actually kind of get to know him, his personality, his likes, dislikes, and stuff like that on a pretty deep level.
SPEAKER_01Like the back of their hand.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, and then I guess the thing about a hygienist that makes it a little bit hard, just like logistically, is hygienist pay is already pretty high. And it's a little hard to take a hygienist out of the chair and pay them their pay. Now, eventually, a very effective office manager would be able to earn way more than what a hygienist does, but at least initially, it would almost be like a pay decrease, or the doctor is going to have to like kind of eat that pay. Uh, because it would be hard to make a hygienist an office manager and then give them a pay increase.
SPEAKER_01Unless you're in a high range already that you're moving your hygienist in as an office manager.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. So with a with an assistant, you can actually give them a little bit more. And the thing is, an assistant shouldn't really, well, any employee really shouldn't be looking to become an office manager for either a title or pay, really. Uh they should be interested in like making the office perform the right way. That should really be the thing that drives them more than anything else. Yes, there's good, like they're gonna be taken care of financially, but uh, but like if you talk to somebody about becoming an office manager and they're like, well, how much does that pay? That would be a little bit of a red flag for me.
SPEAKER_01Any of my office managers or office managers I have trained, every one of them is probably gonna say, I don't care about the title, I care about the practice, or I care about the owner doctor. Um, that's usually they're gonna make you a pretty banged up office manager.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it's uh they they have a sense of I know how it should be done. Therefore, I want to have the authority to be able to ensure that it gets done that way. And then that way that they want it done is the way that the owner doctor wants it done. So really, um, that's what drives them and what motivates them. More money will come as there's more success. What else do we need to think about in terms of training an office manager? Here they are sucking spit and blood, and then now they're running a practice.
SPEAKER_01So, one, you have to have a pretty solid training path already topped up, written up, as long as it's somewhere that you can have access to start training them. But mainly it's sitting down and talking to the owner doctor and figuring out, okay, what is that owner doctor's goals for the office manager? What areas do they want to the office manager to have control over? Then they need to start training that office manager in that area. Um, and are they going to be like away from a post? Meaning, like, are they gonna be tied to a seat or are they gonna have like free range to walk around in the practice to make sure things are flowing like it should? If it's gonna be tied to the seat, there she's gonna be limited to what she can control, right? Because she's not back there to see what's going on. So once all that is established, then you can kind of start working on your your check sheet of what do you want them to train on and what kind of companies are out there that could even give them more training? I mean, there's so many of them. Um, and continue, you know, with their education with it.
SPEAKER_04Let's talk about getting results as an office manager. So I take somebody, I promote them to an office manager, and you know, I should have some expectations on what they're gonna do for the office. So, what kind of results would we expect that an office manager is gonna create for the owner doctor?
SPEAKER_01A lot. One, it's gonna take off a lot of the responsibilities that the owner doctor has been having to hold, you know, staff issues, patient issues, you know, bills, money, all the all everything except for that doctor needs to concentrate on clinical care, right? Um, and then with office manager's results are figuring out what that owner's doctor's goal is. So let's say you're only doing $80,000 a month and you stick that office manager in that post and she's already been trained by you the whole nine yards, you should be able to see an increase from $80,000 to your $100,000 goal, you know, within, you know, I would say even a three-month time period. There should be some kind of increase, not decreases in what we call stats. Um, so if your collection starts going down, you might want to start looking to see what is it that she's managing. If your um staff are starting to fall off or you're not growing in any way of anywhere in your practice, then that's when that would be a red flag. But there should be tremendous increase when putting an office manager on post.
SPEAKER_04Good. Okay, so let's uh take a little time out here from talking about it from the office manager standpoint. And I want to talk to the owner doctors for just a second. That office manager is your responsibility. When you promote somebody into office manager, you might as well take a bullseye and put it on their back because the staff will come after them. You don't train the office manager to protect the team from a bad office manager. You train the office manager to protect them from the team. They will dump on that office manager over and over and over and over. And it's real easy for us to walk out of the office and go, well, glad it's her, not me. But you've got to be mindful of that because it's easy for the office manager to get overwhelmed. So as the office manager is starting to get results and you're starting to see growth, then you've got to start to train up people underneath the office manager. So if you think about like a business like Walmart or Target or you know, Amazon or whatever, they don't have just a linear structure. They've got all these layers of people, you know, underneath the CEO. Well, the same thing for a dental office. You may have the dentist as a CEO, you know, and then you may have the office manager that's kind of running the operations of the practice and kind of handling decisions the same way that the owner doctor would. But then there's other little minute decisions that need to be made in the different areas, and you need to have some other people trained up to help the office manager out. So you want to make sure that you are teaching the office manager when they're handling upsets with patients, you know, patients mad because they had to wait, or they got to come back because a crown wouldn't seat, or a filling broke, or something. I mean, it's inevitable. Like there's gonna be little things. Um, there's a percentage of the population out there that just want to walk around and create problems no matter what. So you're gonna get those people, you're gonna have an office manager like handling some of the poop of the office, and you just want to make sure that it doesn't get them down. So they're handling that, then they're handling the staff. You know, the staff not, you know, being compliant with the office manager. That, you know, that's that's a possibility, or the, you know, them throwing shade at the office manager and stuff. And so you're gonna be a bit of a sounding board for the office manager, but you don't want to get tied into the drama. These are all part of you developing your office manager, build them strong and give them the tools and the power and the skills that they need to be able to be successful as an office manager.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna add to that, you know, when office managers get put on post and they're already trained, you'll when that office manager has to do their first correction with staff and everything. Guess what that owner doctor is going to get? That staff running to him, that the office manager got on to them, and they're gonna paint the office manager like in this horrible law. If that office manager's already increased your practice and you can see there's already growth in there, have that office manager's back. Like, don't be quick to throw her underneath the bus with the staff member. If you need to investigate it, investigate it. Um, but also protect her or him. Sorry.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, protect the office manager at all costs. Um, and then, you know, no public criticism, no public handlings with your office manager. Do that behind closed doors. And then if they do make a wrong call, that's fine. Don't beat them up over it. Just that, you know, teach them next time this is how I would do it. Um, and then find a way to help them say face in front of your, you know, the rest of your staff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So the question that you guys have all been waiting for, and the question that we get asked often is how do you pay your office manager salary or hourly?
SPEAKER_01So your office manager is going to put in probably more hours than any other um employee. Like you can't pay somebody 24-7. Now, office managers, I don't expect y'all to work 24-7. Um, but they do work a lot of times on the weekends and and after hours talking to staff or maybe even patients. And so they don't get paid for that, right? Salary is the best way to go, um, in my opinion, for it, before that, for that reason. Um, and then on top of that, like they're the ones who's running your practice and stuff. So let's say they do miss a day of work because their kids are sick or something. Like that's a bonus of being an office manager. They still get paid for that. Um, so I am a big believer on salary. Um, I don't know, I really don't know what your opinion is on that, honestly.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna go with door number one, salary. So here's here's my belief and how I look at this stuff. Because I mean, there is no wrong answer per se, as long as like both people feel like they're being taken care of. But um, the reason that I feel like salary makes it a little bit easier is because there is a lot. Like there's gonna be a staff member that contacts the OM at nine o'clock at night and says, hey, my kid's running a fever, whatever, and they gotta handle the text message, they gotta handle the phone call of whatever it is. I mean, we've gotten phone calls at 3 a.m. about like, you know, I'm at the vet's office and my dog is whatever, and blah, blah, blah. So you've you've got like all these odd little tidbits that happen after hours. Uh, it's inevitable for the office manager, which there is a way to be able to handle this to minimize it. But, you know, oftentimes the office manager gets that, you know, hey, do you have a minute? And it's like quitting time. And they come in and they've got a personal thing that they want to share with the office manager. And it could be pretty serious, pretty deep. And the office manager has to sit there, you know, and it's another 30 or 45 minutes, and it has nothing to do with the office, it just has to do with their staff, and you're, you know, the mature one in the office, you're the wise one in the office, and so they're asking for life advice. And uh you become the mother or father, it's kind of part of the territory. So, you know, as far as getting paid hourly, it's kind of hard to say, oh, well, before you respond at text message, clock in and clock out. You can't really do that. So the fairest way to just be able to do it is to say, look, you know, salary with bonuses. So, you know, when we first started converting, you know, we we work, you know, basically eight clinical hours Monday through Thursday, and then we work six clinical hours on Friday. But we would pay for 40 hours a week. That would be what would be considered clinical, and that would cover any little oddball type stuff that an uh office manager may do. So, how you figure out what is a fair pay, at first, you may take what they're making and up it by $1, $2, $3. You know, my gut says probably $2 or $3 per hour, and then uh calculated at 40, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks out of the year, and make an agreement on you know how much vacation somebody's gonna take. Uh, and then that's that. Um, if they have to be out for surgery, they have to be out for you know their kids or whatever. I mean, the likelihood that your office manager is going to take advantage of you is really slim to none because that's how they got the job in the first place. If you pick the right person, then you're not gonna have to address and handle some of those issues. Now, if you do, there's a way to be able to sit down and talk to them about it and see what's going on. That's what I would do. But for the most part, they got to that position because they're pretty dedicated. So if that became a problem, the problem is probably who you picked, not necessarily like having to set rules and stuff like that for the OM. Because if that's their attitude, I'm gonna lay out unnecessarily, then they're probably laying out even when they're at work, like mentally they're detached or whatever. So just know that that would be a red flag in terms of did I pick the right person, rather than well, what if they take too many days off or whatever. It's also a give and take. Yeah, maybe they were off a little bit excessive, but like they also have like worked through lunch or they have like been coming in early for a while to get like meaningful stuff done to prepare for the day, and it's not because they're OCD, it's not because they're just not efficient, it's something that needs to be done, and they just do it. Maybe they come by the office on a Sunday and like clean the parking lot, pick up trash or something. We've had an office manager do that. They take ownership, yeah. They take ownership. So you're kind of like a little bit more lenient, like they're kind of going above and beyond and not even bragging about it or telling you about it, they just do it. So just be mindful that there's gotta be some leniency there. I mean, like with Toria, she works when she needs to work, but if she needs to go do something personal through the week, like get her hair done or get her nails done or whatever, she's welcome to do that because there's plenty of time that she puts in time after hours that maybe she's not able to go do some of that stuff. So she can go through the week if she wants. I give her that grace to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00Office managers only do that if my stats up. If my stats down, that's getting skipped.
SPEAKER_04If an office manager's doing some of these things, some personal things. I mean, when they go and get stuff to tough get going. So, you know, all stat businesses, things like that have to be running pretty good. And not only that, but Tori's not an office manager. She used to be, she's COO now, so you know, there's not things being left undone. When they're out on surgery, I mean, you task them with like, well, hey, let's make sure that while you're out, you know, we have you know good months and stuff. Let's get the team prepared. And so they work hard from before the surgery so that everything goes just right during the surgery and while someone's out, and still include them, like their pay and their bonus and all that because it's all their efforts. They get paid for what the the results they get. They don't really get paid for like the hours they put in, even though they will put in more hours than anybody else, generally speaking. So I'm a fan of salary for that reason. It's just too hard to uh do hourly and thank them for all the dedication and stuff that they will do on a hit or miss basis.
SPEAKER_01Agree 100%. Now, one of the things that people will talk about is well, when do I give them raises? You only give them raises when you see improvements in your practice, just FYI. So if your your numbers are down and she comes or he comes to you and says, like, hey, I want to raise since now I'm taking on more. No, like I won't I will not approve that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there reaches a certain level where a raise is always tied to like improvement in something, not necessarily like taking on more responsibility, because they might not be good at that extra responsibility or they're good at this, but then that goes down. So they got to be competent, they got to be able to do it. So if you give them an extra two or three dollars an hour, put that as a salary, and then with bonuses, then then you're good. So when you have a great month, like you bonus them out really nicely, and then if you have an okay month, they get an uh another okay bonus, but a bonus better than what the rest of the staff do. And then if you have a down month, nobody gets bonuses, including the owner doctor. That's kind of how you you do it. Like your office managers make a little bit more than everybody else, but they make a whole lot more than everybody else through bonuses.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So let the bonuses, I mean, I don't have a problem if bonuses are more than what the salary is at times. Like if profitability is that good, then absolutely and and they're capable of that. They're capable of being able to produce such an effect. Efficient, profitable office that their bonus could be more than their salary.
SPEAKER_01I will say when raises too, if they've uh they've gotten your your stats up and they've done like some kind of achievement with training, say you send them to a different facility or train with a mentor or whatever, then you could probably look at a raise at that point. Um, but I would stick with heavy on the bonuses.
SPEAKER_04What kind of games could you play with your OM that's a little bit separate than um the rest of the team? Because generally your OM is running games and they're not included, they don't get to participate.
SPEAKER_01Of course, you can do the whole shopping sprees, you can do the the spa days, you can do that, you can do Tiffany's, you can do um Louis Vuitton, you can do all these things. Find out from your office manager what is some of her goals. Can I tell them a story? Okay. So when I first became an office manager, um, my dream was to have a Mercedes. Dr. Dills tells me, he goes, Well, go get you one. You're an office manager, you're making more, you're bonusing out really well. Um, like you should treat yourself with that. And I was like, I ain't doing that, I ain't doing that. He's like, just go look at them. And so I went and looked at them. I came back, I told him what it they were. He's like, Well, how much do you have to make to be able to get that? And he had to help me with the math a little bit. Um, and he said, Well, for you to be able to make this, I have to make this. And so then that became my game. And so as soon as I knew that I could hit that, guess who went and signed papers on a Mercedes? This girl right here. And I was the happiest little girl ever.
SPEAKER_04There you go, guys. So, yeah, find out what it is that they're interested in, find out what it is they want. And, you know, you're kind of like hitting the like all their your office manager shouldn't be working their butt off for you and then still struggling financially. I mean, they just shouldn't. This is like the person that's running your million-dollar enterprise or more. So you need to be taking good care of them. They should not want for anything. Well, they might want, they should not need for anything, I guess I should say.
SPEAKER_01We're women, we're gonna want.
SPEAKER_04Yes, their families should be taken care of. All your basic needs, you know, whether it's their health or whether it's their um, you know, clothing and vehicles and uh school, their kids and you know, family and stuff like that, they should be good there. Now, if they just got promoted to office manager, I'm not saying surprise, you got a life of you know, luxury or an easy life now. They have to earn it, but like as you're going through, you bring them up through their needs, and all their needs are then met. Then the wants, well, the wants evolve and change. Um, they keep getting bigger, and so you know, their want could be, you know, something simple like you know, a little vacation or getaway, or a Louis Vuitton purse, or a car. So, having said that, those are many games that you can play with your OMs to incentivize them and uh you know make it separate from the rest of the team. We don't flaunt it or showboat it often. If I gave her, you know, like if we played a game or she got a Louis Vuitton purse or something like that, it was given to her between us, not really like out in front of the staff or whatever. Now they see the Louis Vuitton, and you know, it's not really a big deal. We don't make a simple, yeah, we don't make a spectacle of that, but uh what is it? Hashtag goals. Like they see the OM thriving and they're like, I want to be just like her. You know, and she's got many staff members that would come to her and say, I want your job. She still does have them come to her, and she says, Good, because when I move on up, then I'm gonna need somebody to come in behind me and do the job that I'm doing today. Um better than me. Yeah, that I'm gonna have a job, you know, that I'm doing tomorrow. So yeah, the goal is to inspire those to replace the OM. And when they see the OM doing a great job, it inspires them to want to be like the OM.
SPEAKER_01One of the things that um owner doctors can do in front of the staff is like anniversary gifts, Christmas gifts, any of those, you can showcase that in front of your staff if it's like, you know, not going to be too uh flashy. I guess it doesn't matter if it's really flashy because it symbolizes what growth can get you. And it might inspire some of these other staff members to want to get to that way.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So one thing that I'll say, guys, uh, you know, you may not be a materialistic person, but everybody's got their thing that um is like a symbol of like success. It's a symbol of hard work. And it it could be a purse, it could be a donation to a charity of your choice, it could be a larger bank account, makes you happy when you look in there. It may be your kids going to a private school, it could be, you know, a particular house in an area or a particular house in itself, you know, your car, whatever. And so when we're talking about these luxury items, the luxury item of itself isn't a whole lot of like there's not a lot of like meaning there for that item, but that item is a symbol of something else, which is achievement, success, hard work, sacrifice, all of these things that go into getting to that point of being able to have those things. So it's not a matter of like whether other people have it or not, it's just a matter of I think Louis Vuitton purses look good, therefore I'd like to have one, but I'd never spend that kind of money on one. But if I can achieve something that would earn me that purse, I would do it. So just work with that. Uh, both OMs and owner doctors, knowing that like there are some factors that are at play there because sometimes it's kind of hard for the owner doctor to be able to see it from the perspective of the OM, because maybe the owner doctor's not a super materialistic kind of person, you know. But then on the flip side, maybe the uh OM isn't a materialistic kind of person and um doesn't understand, you know, the doctor and that sort of thing. But everybody's kind of got their thing that they're able to do because they're successful, and all that is is just a representation of something of success or sacrifice or something stuff.
SPEAKER_01That's how I look at all my stuff. And like when I look at my house or my car, um, like I look at it like, you know, I worked hard for this. Um, now let's work hard for something else. But Dr. Dill is very good, and so am I. Like I know all my office managers' goals. I know what they want, I know what their wish lists are, that whole nine yards, but that also helps me help them grow to be able to achieve those. And I'm pretty sure Dr. Dill could spit off everything that I want or my goals. And so you didn't have to give it a look. Um, but those are things that he's like, you know, that's what she's working towards, and let's let's go for it. Sky's the limit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we don't come from money or anything. We're all we're both self-made, and uh all of our office managers self-made.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_04Um, not not that that matters one way or the other, but in terms of you know, having something like this as far as a reward goes, it's it's just a matter of like, I mean, it it could be a bonus, it could be a donation to like that kid's school. Like it doesn't have to be like materialistic like that, it could be making an impact in someone else's life through a donation on their behalf. So you find out what makes them tick, and then that's what you work towards because everybody has a place that they want to go. Um office managers, especially, and owner doctors. Um, we're goal-oriented driven people, and so there is success, and then there's financial kickback that comes with that, and we got to do something with it. It could just be the bank account, and that's fine too, but it could also go to a good cause or it could go to a good item.
SPEAKER_01Can I say, like, oh, you know this. I mean, we don't do it together, but we both do this.
SPEAKER_04Um what are we talking about?
SPEAKER_01You can if you really wanted to be able to get to know your your office manager.
SPEAKER_03What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01Would you stop? Um, you could create vision boards with each other. Yeah, I know, right? Um, you could create vision boards with each other or have, I mean, do it on your own time, but share it with one another. And that kind of can help to see what you're wanting to achieve. A vision board, you can use magazines, you can use Google, all that. Get a poster board, tape on it what your what your goals and dreams are. Okay, so let's get back to this. Have different benefit packages for office managers. Like they may have different swag. They may, you know, get extra vacation days, they may get, you know, uh, if you do free dental care for staff, maybe you want to extend it to their family or something of that nature. Like have different benefit packages when it comes to office managers too that sets someone different from the rest of the staff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because you're gonna, if stats are down, you have different expectations for your office manager. If like you all of a sudden you feel like you need to call a meeting after hours, you wouldn't expect your office manager to just throw out some bogus reason why she's not gonna be in that meeting. No, like that's the one person that you would say nobody else can show up, they will. So the the opposite is true too when it comes to like their needs on the flip side of things and some things that you know, because life happens, they're gonna go through their stuff, and uh as they're going through it, you need to provide them the same amount of leniency and uh make sure that they're well taken care of in any in every way. Agree. Okay, guys, so that is office manager. Now, some of the specific details we might not have necessarily got in it gotten into because it could vary. You are hiring someone that's been an office manager somewhere else, what would that pay kind of look like, hourly pay? I mean, you know, an office manager that is a established dental assistant, um, maybe an extra two or three dollars per hour, flip them into salary, and that should be a little bit of a pay buff plus a bigger bonus. But if you've got, say, a OM that's coming from another office, you know, they may be making uh maybe five to six dollars more per hour than what your chair side assistants are making. I'm not a big fan of uh making expanded function dental assistants um office managers, although sometimes that could be the case, but you try not to do that just because you still you need them over in the chair and they've got you know a better income uh being in the chair than what a typical dental assistant would have. So again, you start to get into that like hygienist situation where they're already kind of up there in pay. So that upward mobility gets a little bit more limited until they're a much more established office manager. So then an office, established office manager might be making about $10 more per hour than your dental assistants. But your office managers could go all the way up to, you know, if they're if they're doing fantastic for you and they've got the practice really profitable and growing and doing good, you know, they they may be making $80,000 to $85,000, but they're also probably helping you run a practice that's doing maybe $1.5 million in collections, you know, or more per year. And then, you know, as you start to get into the two, the three, the four million dollar range per year, you might be having office managers, you know, push $100,000, even all the way up to $120,000. Um, but a large percentage of that is, you know, their bonuses each month, you'll kind of feel your way into it. Now, I would be in my office, I'd be a little skeptical of hiring in a uh uh OM because we're very, very particular on our training. And somebody that's worked in another office just isn't going to fit. We almost have to have a homegrown, personally training.
SPEAKER_01I prefer homegrown.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So for you know, somebody coming out of another office, I have to untrain them and then retrain them. Plus, I have to sit there and convince them that our way is right, and you know, that takes time versus just somebody that's already there that I know is capable, and I can just teach them the right way the first time, and I'm not spending time convincing them, and I'm not spending time unlearning them and getting rid of bad habits.
SPEAKER_01All of our office managers, including myself, none of us went to business school or anything like that. Um, like I started out as a student in a sterile tech um and then became a dental assistant. And actually, all my office managers were dental assistants, and they might have moved around in the practice and then became an office manager. So you don't have to go look for an Ivy League person or anything like that.
SPEAKER_04If they're there, that's fine. Yeah. But um don't feel like you have to. Um, yeah. Your your office managers uh are right there under your fingertips and can be trained. And who knows, maybe one day we'll be able to help with that.
SPEAKER_01If any of you are office managers or you want a specific video that we don't share about office managers, like let us know. But there's so many of you out there that have multiple practices. Um, and if you have a COO, I would love to do a video on that too.
SPEAKER_04Yes. So send us a comment on what you want to see us do a video on. And not only that, but like you've got very specific needs or questions that have to do with your practice. And we want to know who you are. We want to interact with you guys because we're trying to create a community with positivity, positivity with dentists. We want to solve these problems so that you guys aren't out there stressed out with very little profit. We want you to be loving life, we want you to be profitable, we want you to be able to give back. So comment, let us know, be good, be nice. And if you haven't liked and subscribed, like and subscribe. You know, I don't know about the like thing. We're just trying to throw out some free stuff for you guys. Um, but subscribe and then click that bell because you want this stuff coming to you guys. We we want y'all being able to watch this stuff on the way to work, on the way home from work. You're kind of in that mode, you're ready to go, and these are like good action steps that you can put in place. It's things for you to think about while you're busy working. So when we drop a video, we want you to know about it and uh be able to watch it. Hopefully, you guys get where it's like you can't wait for a video to come out. It's because I'm funny. Yeah, because Tori is funny. All right, guys. Doodle for now. See y'all.