Blog - Page 17 of 310 - The McAnally Selling System

Why Capture Every Patient Contact Information

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why does my front desk need to capture every phone number and email a new patient has? Because that patient is a lead, and you only stay in front of a lead if you can reach them. People have more than one number. Do not assume everyone lives on a cell. Get the home number, the work number, the cell, the email, the mailing address, repeat them back, and write it all down on the front end. Here is the leadership point. If that patient does not schedule, every one of those contact paths becomes a way to follow up, check [...]

Why Capture Every Patient Contact Informationjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Leading a Team in Capturing Marketing Data

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How do I lead my team to capture marketing data without making it feel like a chore? Tie it to a question they already care about, which is what actually works. Every time the team asks a caller what search terms they used, or what made them choose us, and then documents the answer, they are handing you the real language of your market. That is gold. Local markets differ, and the words that pull patients in one city are not the same in another. When you show your team that their notes directly shape the advertising and bring in more [...]

Leading a Team in Capturing Marketing Datajames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Building Team Listening Skills on Patient Calls

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How do I build a team culture of really listening to patients on the phone? Teach the hardest discipline first, which is shutting up after a question. Most of us, even outside work, ask a question and then answer it ourselves before the other person can speak. We put words in their mouth. On the phone that habit costs you everything, because you need the patient's own words, their language, their story. So I train teams to ask, then go silent, then wait. Question mark, pause, wait for the answer. It feels uncomfortable at first and that discomfort is the point. [...]

Building Team Listening Skills on Patient Callsjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why a Dentist Must Lead the Phone Slip Review

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why should the dentist personally care about how phone slips get filled out? Because the slip is your daily window into whether the team is doing the work, and your attention to it signals what matters here. If you never look at the slips, never ask about them, never make them part of your everyday language in the office, your people will read that silence correctly. It does not matter to the doctor, so it does not matter to us. That is how good systems die. When you walk by and say let me see how we are doing, let me [...]

Why a Dentist Must Lead the Phone Slip Reviewjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Coaching a Dental Team Through a Long New Process

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How should I coach a team that gets overwhelmed by a long new process? Shrink the target. When something takes a while to get used to, I do not demand all ten steps perfectly on day one. I hold them accountable for the first three. Let's just nail those by the next time we meet. That is it. A team that is drowning in a ten-step process will freeze, but a team asked to master three steps can win, feel it, and build momentum. You are not lowering the standard, you are sequencing it. Think of teaching someone to drive. You [...]

Coaching a Dental Team Through a Long New Processjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why Phone Greetings Shape Practice Culture

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why is the way my receptionist answers the phone so important to practice culture? Because that first step sets the tone for everything that follows. When the greeting is done right, it puts your team member into the correct mindset for the whole call, listening, guiding, closing. When it is done wrong, the rest unravels. I notice this as a consumer too. Call almost any business and the opening tells you whether there is a real system behind the voice or just a person winging it, and the winging-it calls almost never go well. The rare business that nails the greeting [...]

Why Phone Greetings Shape Practice Culturejames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Is Your Front Desk Really Running Patient Calls?

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How can I tell if my front desk is actually using our call system or just faking it? Listen to the calls and look at the paper. I listen to far more phone calls than I ever want to, and you reach a point where you can tell within seconds. When the system is in place, the greeting is right, the mindset is set, the person is actually listening. When it is not, they pick up, they roam, they talk over the caller, and the call dies. You do not need a degree to hear it. On the paper side, the [...]

Is Your Front Desk Really Running Patient Calls?james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Should Staff Personalize Your Phone Script?

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Should I let my staff add their own personality to our phone process? Not in the early part of the training, and I am blunt about this. When a system is new, freestyling is the enemy. I tell doctors the ten steps are required, in order, as written, and it is not up to whether the team feels like it. Here is what I hear on calls when people roam off script. There is no system around them, they stop listening, they answer questions before the patient even speaks, and you can feel the whole call go flat. Personality comes later, [...]

Should Staff Personalize Your Phone Script?james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

What Dental Leadership Accountability Really Looks Like

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

What does accountability actually look like for a dentist leading a front desk team? It looks like presence, not lectures. Real accountability is you reviewing the actual work. Every day you pick up a few of the phone slips and you check whether each step got filled in. A blank slip tells you they skipped the process. A complete slip tells you they followed it. That is your evidence, and it beats any speech. The doctors who fail at this think accountability means an annual sit-down or a tense meeting after a bad month. No. It is small, frequent, and visible. [...]

What Dental Leadership Accountability Really Looks Likejames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Getting Your Dental Team to Accept a Big Change

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How do I get my dental team to accept a big change without resistance? Frame it the way you already framed every other change they survived. When you bring a new scanner or new software into the office, nobody gets a vote on whether to learn it. Everybody stops what they are doing and learns it because that is the job. A new way of handling phone calls is no different. It is one more tool, one more thing to learn, and your people have already lived through harder changes than this. The mistake doctors make is treating a behavior change [...]

Getting Your Dental Team to Accept a Big Changejames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

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