Join John Stamper as he sits down with members of the AADOM Influencer Program to help you get to know the faces behind the influence!
Hear from these inspiring dental leaders as they share their unique stories, career paths, and what drives their passion for leadership in the dental industry. John and the influencers discuss what it means to be a trusted resource in the field, offering a behind-the-scenes look at their roles, insights, and advice for success.
Join us to meet the AADOM influencers and discover what makes each of them an integral part of the AADOM community!
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John: What is going, AADOM Nation? Thanks for tuning in to another episode here on AADOM Radio.
So, we’re going to keep this AADOM Influencer series going. We had the opportunity to highlight several of the AADOM influencers. Heather got to speak with them and kind of have them share their stories to use. Obviously, it’s a program that’s been very important to the AADOM team.
There seems to be, at least there are with these six individuals, a group of people that have been a part of AADOM in some form or fashion over the years, and just we’re very excited and AADOM has been honored to have these individuals get the word out about AADOM, kind of share the value of it and all of that, and what have you.
So, today’s guest—I’m very excited to be with Andre Shirdan. How are you doing, Andre?
Andre: I’m doing good. Good to see you.
John: You as well. And, you know, for the prior one of these, Andre, Heather kind of just got in and started to have everybody share their story. So maybe that’s a good place to start. I’m going to have you get started and then we’ll just kind of lead through a little bit about what you’ve done in dentistry and, most importantly, your story.
Andre’s Path to Dentistry
Andre: Well, my path to dentistry is like a lot of people I got tricked into being in dentistry. My dentist married my sister and it became a family business. And he asked me to travel with him to a CE event, which I had no idea what we were going to be doing.
We wound up at a periosurgery course. I registered for the course as a dentist. They had no idea that I wasn’t a dentist. So, I’m in full scrubs and doing osteosurgery.
And again, never spent a day in dentistry other than coming in to have my regular checkups. And I completed the osteosurgery course, got certified to do osteosurgery from a company called Gore-Tex.
I quit my job and went to work with my brother-in law and learned everything I could possibly learn from the best folks in dentistry. You know, got on the phone with people who now are just the gods of dentistry. You know, Linda Miles–I called her. You know, Tom Limoli–I called him. You know, those folks who I saw in magazines. I had no idea that you weren’t allowed to just pick up the phone and call these people.
So, I did it and built relationships. You know, from there, I’ve been in dentistry 40 years now. So, I built relationships with these folks. And after about five years of working in the practice, started helping some of my brother-in-law’s buddies who were dentists with their businesses.
So, using what I learned before I came into dentistry, training through Disney, through Ritz Carlton, really high end customer service sales—using what I learned outside of dentistry to build protocols, processes for treatment plan acceptance for periodontal protocols for staff training—that’s what I did.
I used that to build about four consulting companies until 2002 when I left the industry for a little while and took some time off to work outside of dentistry. Came back in 2005 and went to work for Patterson Dental, implementing technology in offices.
And that turned into helping people with software integration and digital X-rays and stuff like that. And I retired from Patterson in 2016, and now I do this as a mission. This is literally, since 2016, this has been my mission to give back into dentistry the things that dentistry gave to me. I mean, it’s been an interesting road.
John: You know, there are a lot of us, Andre, as you know, that get out and we present in front of people in dentistry and we have to share with them that we’re not a dentist, we don’t play one on TV. But then hearing you talk about that story and the training that you went through, like, you are a little bit different than most of us that literally.
You know, talk about dentistry, but haven’t been doing that. So, I love that part of it.
I’d love to have you share—can you just talk a little bit about, kind of the early days, like what was it about this industry? I mean, obviously, that’s a great story to come in, like, you know, via family. But what was it about the early days that really kind of, you know, got you excited about, you know, the work that you were going to do.
And then the second part of that is did you see yourself staying in this industry as long as you have been.
Getting Excited About Dentistry
Andre: I really didn’t. I always thought I’d go back into doing something in the fashion industry, into sales, that kind of stuff. You know, it was honestly my brother-in-law, the dentist I worked for—his passion for dentistry. He was a guy who, you know, we did everything in the office from, you know, big technique ortho—you know, bonding and bracketing ortho—up osteosurgery, free gingival graft, in a general practice.
We even did one a week where we did IV sedation and knocked out patients and did full mouth rehabs. And we’re talking about the late 80s, early 90s. So, you know, it was different then, but we were doing some things, you know, that now I look at people who are doing sleep apnea, people were doing TMD—we did that, you know, way back then.
But I just had a doctor who was so involved. He loved dentistry so much that I got hooked. I mean, there wasn’t a procedure that he didn’t say, “Go with me to the CE and you’ll learn how to do the procedure,” or he’d come back and show me the technique, you know, on teeth mounted in plaster or whatever.
When I learned rotary endo, we did it together, you know? But it gave me a different view of dentistry. Like you said, now I understood the coding. I understood the procedure. I understood the timeline.
I mean, so many people that I work with, front office folks, you know, who don’t understand the timeline of how long it takes anesthesia to take. How long does that endo take? You know, to go really crazy, what does tissue smell like on an endo file?
I mean, I had to learn that. So, I understood exactly the timeline it took to do the procedure, which then when I did accelerated hygiene, or if I did, you know, any kind of scheduling technique, I knew how it worked from the provider side. It gave me empathy, which was a different standpoint than I had in any other industry.
I understood it from start to finish, you know?
John: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. As you know so well, dentistry is one of those professions where if you do have the opportunity to spend time in the dental practice and understand a lot of the things that you spoke about, I really do believe, Andre, gives you an advantage. Whether it be, you know, you sold equipment or you worked as a consultant or you trained or whatever it may be. Like some of the business systems.
Like you said—sharing with the teams and they can understand that you knew and understand what they went through in a daily basis really makes a big difference. And I’m sure, you know, as we’ll get into a little while, how that was able to, you know, help you make real impact with those that you worked with.
Andre: Well, you know, in doing every procedure, working chair side—I mean, I have great respect for, you know, what our dental assistants do, you know, they’re the sort of the backbone of the practice in a great respect.
You know, I spent a lot of time sitting chair-side and, you know, helping four handed dentistry with my doctor. Understanding what they went through in my years training for a Schick, you know, understanding what it took to take a full series as a front office person, as an admin person.
You know, I got to understand how all of those things played out, how long it actually takes to take a full series, you know. And not just from the book point of view.
You know, understanding that each person has a different, you know, dynamic. The older patient who’s going to want to talk to you for 20 minutes about their grandchildren while you’re trying to put a center in their mouth, you know?
Understanding those things help you to be able to understand the other part. But on the flip side, on the business side of things, you know personally having to buy a chair—this literally out of my own bank account having to buy a chair when my brother-in-law the dentist could not afford to do it because he was so far in debt at the time.
For me having to buy a $10, 000 chair when I’m used to Amazon and having a chair delivered for a couple hundred bucks—It really made me understand the business of dentistry differently, you know?
And that’s not something that a lot of people there, and I go back to the word empathy. You know, we sympathize for the doctor whose chair breaks down, but very few people at the front office or the admin side of things has ever had to buy a chair.
And I think about how many times I’ve gone in offices and somebody has thrown away a handpiece and it was like, “Oh, yeah, sorry.”
But when you have to buy a $400, $500 handpiece out of your own pocket—and that’s really what it comes down to sometimes in business—it changes the way you see the practice and it changes the way you see the business of dentistry a lot.
John: You know, it’s interesting. You know, so well, there are many, many, many people in a lot of different capacity in dentistry that will bring a new technology or a new system.
And you’ll hear them talk about how this is going to save you time, you know, how this is going to save you money. And again, I think one of the things that’s always gone to my head, at least when I’ve ever, you know, spoke about that or spoke to somebody to that is like, “Okay, now when that dental practice saves that time and saves that money, what are they going to do with it, right?”
And I think to your point, it’s like, unless you really understand the impact that that has, that also makes a big difference, right? Whether you’re, you’re somebody that is, you know, sharing with a practice, like how this new technology or software is going to save them time, there definitely is an element of really understanding and being able to recommend to say, “Okay, if you save this much time, could you do X or could you do Y, right?”
And so, how did that help you as you started to work at Patterson and really kind of understanding the inner workings of the practice than when you were on, like, what I like to call the other side of the desk with the work that you did at Patterson?
The Benefits of Understanding All Aspects of a Dental Practice
Andre: Yeah, well, you know, one of the things is when I first started, one of the tools that I had to be able to talk to offices about is, is CAD/CAM, CEREC, you know? And at the time, we’re talking about the early days of CEREC, you know, it was making teeth with Lego bricks. I mean, it was really that, you know.
And to convince somebody to make a $100, 000 investment in a tool that as a techie, I got 100 percent. But to incorporate that and then to change the dynamic of the workflow, you know, that that hour and a half crown now turned into two and a half hours of learning technique and that kind of stuff.
To make that investment, you had to understand what drove the provider. You know, the first thing I ever did when I walked into dental offices in my sales capacity and my consulting capacity, was to walk in and say, “What do you like to do outside the practice?”
You know, is there a picture on the wall of pebble Beach? You know, is there a Ferrari picture? Are there horses up there on the wall? Are your children’s photos on your wall in the office?
What do you want to spend time doing outside of dentistry? You know, now if there’s a picture of L.D. Black, you know, the professor of dentistry on the wall, that’s a whole different story. We’re going to talk about that one.
But you know, if the whole world is about golf or is about horse riding or is about going to take our boat out, how’s this tool going to get you on your boat? How’s this tool going to get you to ride your horses? How’s that tool going to get you to play at pebble this year? Those are the kind of things that I looked at and trying to figure out how to make those two things work together.
You know, the investment in the tool, the investment in CE, the investment in time away from chairside treatment. What is it going to outcome? How are we going to balance those two things?
And that’s a big part of what I’ve been doing for all these years.
John: Can you talk a little bit about—I’d like to make the parallel between your journey in dentistry and what you have observed in regards to the journey of the office manager.
I mean, I started in dentistry 20 years ago. And as I shared with Heather, like I sold NK handpieces to dental practices in California. And I learned early on that building a great relationship with the office manager, even though, you know, I really wanted to talk to the dentist and the team or whatever, just because I knew, or at least what I had understood as a newbie in dentistry, that they were the ones that would actually make that buying decision.
But somehow, some way, I accidentally figured out that it was great to build a relationship with the office manager. But, can you talk about the progression of—I mean, it’s always been an important position in the practice, but I feel like now we’re at a place, Andre, where like, finally, it’s recognized how valuable.
Just curious on your thoughts on this, kind of, with your journey.
Appreciating the Key Role of the Dental Office Manager
Andre: Well, it’s really funny because when I started, I always thought about what my role at the front desk was. I always thought about it as I was like a gatekeeper, you know. And I would protect my doctor from the salespeople who came in. I would protect my doctor from running late. I would protect my doctor from these things.
And then as I started stepping out of the role, I realized some of those things I protected my doctor from may have been great things for my doctor.
I say this all the time and people have heard me say this a million times in my seminars. If the sky had opened and this hand had come down for my doctor to say, “This is the day I’m bringing you up into the heavens,” I would have gone, “Absolutely not. We’ve got a full schedule of patients this afternoon. There is no way that’s going to happen.”
You know, and for a lighter way, if the people had come in from Publisher’s Clearinghouse with that big check for my doctor, I would have done the same thing. Like, there’s no way he can do this today. Hold that $10 million until Friday at 5:00 pm.
And I realized that I protected him from good, but I also protected him from bad. And I think what’s happening now is more people are becoming office managers who see the world differently.
It’s not just the gatekeeper. It is a bigger picture. We’re working in a different environment. We’re taking on government regulations. We’re taking on payroll information and personnel issues.
It used to be that the doctor would take on a lot of that. And now it’s falling more on the office manager, the admin side of things. The roles have changed a whole lot in the last 20 years.
And post COVID, it’s even crazier because we’ve had a lot of transition at the front office where we have assistants who’ve moved into that position. We’ve had hygienists who’ve moved into that position. Spouses who’ve moved into that position newly.
So, the world has changed and I’ve seen a lot of differences in the people I’ve talked to in the last five years since COVID. I’ve seen 35 years of one way and then the last five years it’s shifted another way.
So, it’s dramatically changing and it’s actually great to see some new blood.
John: So, I ran into you briefly this past AADOM conference in Vegas. We were both kind of running around doing our things and meeting people.
What is it like for you to go to that conference now? I mean, speaking of how things have changed in the last 5 years and you go there and again, like, there’s just—it’s kind of like grand central station, right, for office managers at a conference.
People are going to courses and talking to companies and networking. But yeah, what’s that like? As you look at kind of where the industry has come from, but now to see such a successful, wonderful place every year for these office managers to connect.
The Importance of the Annual AADOM Conference
Andre: Well, I sit in a unique place in my life because you think in 40 years, I’ve been in about two practices a week for the last 40 years. That’s kind of what it’s like. I would say I need to have that sign like McDonald’s, like billions and billions of served.
One of the things I love about AADOM is this is the creme de la crème of the office managers. These aren’t the people who just punch a clock every day. These are people who take on a different level of authority and thought. These are the people who are taking continued education. They’re expanding what they’re doing.
It’s a wonderful thing. And that meeting, the last one in September was just a blast because I got to see a lot of people I’ve known through the years. But also got to see them interacting with the vendors, the people who service us, but at the same time, the questions that were asked of the people who attended were a little bit higher level.
It wasn’t how much is your product? It was: here’s a specific thing that I work on in my office on a daily basis, and I need to solve a specific problem. It was a financial problem. It was here’s what I have. Here’s what I need. And do you do this one thing?
And it had nothing to do with price, which was a wonderful thing to see. Although price is important.
But it was important to see that people were looking for solutions and not just ticking a box.
John: Every year I’ll get a chance to spend a little bit of time with a company where it was their first year at conference and they’ll come up to me and it’s almost like verbatim. It’s almost like I could say to them, “Okay, I think I know what you’re going to say, right?”
I’ll ask him how it’s going. And a lot of times it’s, “Wow!”
And to your point, I never would have expected that we would have had such great questions, you know, about our company, which can be a little odd for companies that maybe over the years have gone to different types of shows where you’re hoping that people will come talk to you.
So, it’s a different type of energy. It’s almost like you’re trying to pull them in. No pull necessary, right, when it comes to office managers and AADOM and the conference. Like you mentioned, they really are interested.
And I love the point that you make, which is: it is questions about how do you solve a problem? Which, as you know, when you’re a company, that’s really what you want, right? I mean, the features and benefits, whatever.
But you really want to get to the sweet spot, which is how can we help you? And when they ask those questions, it goes a long way.
Andre: Yeah, it does. I consult for a lot of these third-party software companies and give them advice. And he interesting thing is I always tell them what I hear. And that’s a beauty of what I do.
I have 17, 000 people in my Facebook group. I have 300 questions a day that come to me. And I can sort of filter those questions down to say, “Here are the problems that we face on a daily basis. Solve these problems, and you’ve got a product that everybody will want to buy.”
John: Can you talk a little bit about—a dentist is listening to this. He or she has heard of AADOM but they’re trying to kind of understand how it could be valuable for their office manager.
What would you say to them with what you’ve learned, and certainly with your experience?
Learn How AADOM Can Help You
Helping Dentists Understand the Value of AADOM for Office Managers
Andre: Well, the worst part about being an admin person in a dental office is you’re an Island and there’s really nobody that you can bounce ideas off of other than your fellow admin folks. And then when you’re talking to people within the office, it just becomes an echo chamber. It’s the same noise.
But when you can reach out to somebody a state away and say, “Hey, John, we’re having a problem with cancellation.” You go, “You know what we are too. Maybe there’s something happening in the industry.”
Or, “Do you know X, Y, Z insurance company has been asking us for this,” or “I’m having a hard time with that.”
You now have compatriots. It’s not just echo chambers of noise. It really makes a difference when you have a group that has information, but they also have resources to fix those problems. I guess it goes back to problem solving.
I think one of the things I love most about AADOM—and I’ve been going to AADOM meetings for forever—is when people get together, it’s not just a gripe session. It’s not, “Oh, nobody puts gloves in operatory four.”
It becomes, “Here’s a bigger picture of things that we need to look at and how can we work together to fix these things?” And that’s the beauty of the organization altogether.
I just wish every doctor knew that AADOM existed, and that’s kind of what I pledged this year to be able to do. I wish the doctors would just make this part of the budget for CE for everybody in the office.
John: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. It’s like with all this excitement and buzz around AI and I see more and more people in their field of expertise wanting to create their own AI bots, I think of this along those lines, right?
I’m a dentist. I’m a practice owner. And we have to solve a problem in the practice. And if I know that my office manager has this network of people that they can literally go connect with where it is relevant, right? Not just let’s go, maybe hope that we can find the answer, but that they know that they can find relevant information and fast. Such a value, right?
As a business, I mean, I think about that right now as a business owner. People that have worked for me where they were super proactive when we had a problem, and they were already going out to their network to try to get an answer to come back and solve it. Super valuable!
Andre: Yeah. I’ve actually thought about how to rebrand myself for 2025. And one of the things I was thinking about, it was just as a joke, my company’s called The CREW Process.
And I was thinking about The CREW Process HI, which is human intelligence, because the wealth of knowledge that we all share is what drives AI. You know what? So sometimes HI is better than AI.
John: So, what are you excited about most? For everybody that’s listening to this. To office managers out there and AADOM Nation, with as long as you’ve been in dentistry, but especially your continued involvement in your Facebook group and all the feedback that you get.
But when you look out at dentistry over the next couple of years, what are you most excited about?
The Future of Dentistry
Andre: I have to go back to COVID. It was such a reset for everybody. And there were about a couple of years where we couldn’t find staff and things were getting a little iffy and everybody was worried about the future of dentistry. Is it going to be all DSO? Is it going to be this that or the other thing in every?
But I think we’re settling back down. I think we’re going to see a new revival. I think what I saw in the 80s with practices—I was around when the first practices hit the million-dollar mark.
I’m seeing where doctors are starting to take what they learned in CE and turn that into a different view of dentistry. I’m really excited about that.
I love seeing offices who are focusing on facial aesthetics, on sleep apnea, on biologic dentistry. I’m a fan of niche. I’m a fan of seeing that people are charged up about an idea, no matter what other people might think about it.
I think I love it when people are charged about dentistry. When they fall in love with dentistry, I fall in love with the business of dentistry.
John: Yeah, and it really does seem, I mean, in the last six months, I’ve had some conversations with individuals outside of dentistry, just people that I’ve worked with in different industries. And it has been pretty exciting when you share with them, or I share with them the time that I’ve spent and their reaction.
It does feel like there’s a lot of buzz outside of dentistry, whether it be more and more conversation about the oral systemic link and that finally, like dentist and hygienist and dental teams are getting their due when it comes to being honest about telling their patients that what happens in your mouth affects the rest of your body.
Along with the technology, right? I mean, there’s been such a huge investment into technology and dentistry, which is fun for those of us who’ve been here for a while.
Andre: One of the things, you know, I love looking outside of dentistry and just walking through a Walmart and seeing the toothbrushes on the wall. And this is just how quirky I am about this stuff.
Seeing the toothbrushes and they’re not just bristle on handle. There’s technology there. There’s levels, there’s plastic, there’s rubber tips and inside the brush. And realizing that people are focusing more on dentistry and home care.
But obviously there’s a level if you look at, you know, QVC and see how many dental products there are there. Our patients dental IQ, which is what we worked on in the eighties, has come up. And that means it’s going to bounce back into the dental office too. So, it helps all the way around.
John: Yeah, no question.
So, I know Heather and the AADOM team wanted to also take this opportunity to have you share with everybody that’s listening to this a little bit about your work. And I think, more importantly, you know, what you do and how they can learn more about you and all that good stuff.
The Benefits of The CREW Process
Andre: Well, I run a company called The CREW Process, and really what my company is all about is getting everybody in the office on the same page. So, the idea of crew is we’re all in the boat rowing, and if you can’t row at the same pace, it’s time to get off, you know?
So, team building done a little differently. That’s a big part of what I do. And because I’m retired, a lot of what I do is giving back. It’s helping people get more out of their practice. If it’s one on one training with an office on technology. If it’s me lecturing about the Disney approach to dentistry. That’s sort of, everybody knows me as the Disney dentistry guy.
It’s really about finding the core belief of the practice and then radiating that out to everybody in the practice.
It’s like you run into somebody and they’re into the Zodiac, you know, and they go, “Oh, you must be a Gemini because you get along so well with me.” When you see that and they believe that, you can see it in their face and you appreciate it.
And to go into an office and everybody in the office is singing from the same hymnal is what I just love to do. So, I do that through my seminars. I do it through my EagleSoft training. I do it through the Disney technique trainings.
All of that is to get everybody on the same page. And that’s all done through The CREW Process.
John: Well, and as you know better than anybody, it is one thing to say how important it is for a dental practice and to everybody to be rowing together on the same page, but it is a whole other thing to actually execute it.
And not only that, but as you know, do it for a while, right? I mean, I feel like there are teams that will go to a seminar. They’ll learn a couple of things here and there. They’ll come back. They’ll get excited. But actually building a system and process that replicates itself year after year after year.
So, much harder to do, I’m sure, than just imagining it.
Andre: And a lot of it is because we go to these seminars and we have sprints to our next seminar. And keeping up the stamina, that sprint, is terrible when it really needs to be a relay. It needs to be, you know, we’re doing this for a little while we need to pass off the leadership to the next person, and then pass off the leadership to the next person.
And then we have this consistency where instead of—sorry, I speak in a lot of analogies.
I love the idea of a dolphin. You just take these little breaths. And then you go back down. And then a little breath. And most offices work like whales, where they’re taking this deep breath, great productive day, and then they dive for hours. And then when they come back out, they just are so spent that they have to take this long breath.
So we really need to think like dolphins and live that way, and really just keep the momentum going so it’s a smooth ride up and down as we go. Awesome.
John: Awesome. Well, we’ll be sure to put any links and all of that so that everybody listening to this can learn more about you. But, while we still have you, what’s kind of the best way for them to learn more about what you’re doing?
Andre: Best website is TheCREWprocess.com and, with that, everything is available right there. I have links right on my website where you can text me, call me, send me a message, Facebook message, whatever, right from my website. Everything’s right there.
John: Awesome. Well, Andre, thanks so much. Always a pleasure to spend time with you.
And I know, like I mentioned, the AADOM team is really excited about this Influencer program. And so, we look forward to hearing from you more as we continue and move into 2025.
Andre: Thanks so much.
John: Alright.
