Beyond the Hype: Turning AI Into Your Unfair Advantage with Lindsay Quinn

Hi, I'm Lindsay Quinn with Heartwise Collective. In today's episode of Ortho Marketing with Dean Steinman, you are going to learn all about how AI can actually work for your practice beyond Chat GPT.

Well, hello everybody out there in podcast land. This is Dean Steinman with Ortho Marketing and guess what? We are back.

Yes, we're back and we have another podcast for you.

So I'm so excited to to be back, we took a little bit of a hiatus, working on some things, but we're really ready to rock and roll again.

So, um, today I've got a really excellent, interesting, charismatic guest that you guys are going to love.

All right, we're if anybody heard of us heard these two letters put together in the last two years.

You're going to learn what the heck is going on.

And if you haven't heard these two letters, what rock are you under?

So let's talk about AI.

Woohoo.

AI.

And we have a really special guest.

I mentioned today I have Lindsay Quinn here.

Lindsay is the founder of Heartwise Collective, she's an orthodontic consultant specializing in operational systems.

Financial optimization and those wonderful two letters, AI.

So, Lindsay.

Welcome so much.

Thank you for joining and.

What's going to have some fun.

So tell us.

Lindsay.

Who is Lindsay Quinn?

Well, where do we even start with that question, right?

Dean, thank you so much for having me on your podcast.

Um, a little bit about my background.

So I I always jokingly say I've been born and raised in dental and orthodontics.

My mom was a dental assistant and I started in a general dentistry practice when I was 16, helping out with sterilization and helping that practice go digital from paper charts.

Um, and then when I was 21, I moved to San Diego.

And started working with Dr. Richard McLaughlin.

And he is um, just a world renowned orthodontist.

Most humble guy that I've ever met.

Um, he's the M and the MBT bracket system, if you don't know that.

Um, and that is where I learned all about orthodontics and systems and operations.

Just had it.

Um, and then I was consulting for 10 years, the last 10 years with Hummingbird Associates before starting Heartwise a couple of years ago.

Nice.

Um, Heartwise, what's that all about?

What does that name mean?

Yeah.

Heartwise.

So, you know, when I was creating the name, I and founding my company.

Um, I I just really wanted to blend the pieces of work and my style together.

Which is really all about creating meaningful impact.

And helping orthodontists create meaning in their life while also bridging it with wise systems, right?

So I think that what makes a powerful high performing practice is heart.

Systems, operations and leadership, right?

Which creates our culture.

And so that's that's how we came up with Heartwise.

Oh, awesome.

All right, so you've been doing this for 10 years now, right?

You're in the orthodontic consulting world.

So, um, obviously, you know, as I mentioned earlier, AI.

And as you you're an expert in it.

You focus on it, you teach it.

So let's talk a little bit about that.

You know, what made you pivot to this crazy AI world that we're in now?

And, you know, and then from there, you know.

Where's the where's the biggest hole in practice for from an AI perspective that you see?

Yeah.

I mean, the the AI piece has been really interesting.

I think much like a lot of the paths I've taken in my life.

Things are kind of um.

Uh, just happen organically.

So with AI, I originally started learning and diving deep into AI to help create efficiency in my business.

So I was really learning it for Heartwise and for me so that we could keep um a lean team.

And also empower our our team to to work more efficiently.

Um, and in doing so, I've spent the last 12 months now in weekly AI masterminds.

Um, and learning and have really discovered the power of AI for all businesses.

And because I am passionate about orthodontics and that is what I work inside of.

It's also been creating AI systems for orthodontic practices.

Right.

So when if you were to, you know, look at an orthodontic practice.

They've got so many different components of it.

There from from marketing to operations to billing to scanning to communications to this and that.

So, um, you know, where where do you.

What's the one thing that practices needs and how do you put us all together?

Yeah.

I mean, that's such a great question.

And, you know, I think where where I'm at with AI and my firm belief around AI is.

There there really is so much like you said, right?

There's this like vast um a source resources of information about AI.

And I think the stats show that there's about 46 new AI tools being released every day.

Um, and you know, I think the real the real power in AI is.

Um, I mean, the tools are cool.

But I think people will drown in in tools if they just start stacking them on each other.

The real power in AI is learning how to actually use it yourself because AI is at a place that you, if you know how to work inside of these LLMs.

And what's that?

And for those who don't know.

LLM means.

Large language model.

Okay.

Right.

All right, so that's that's a guys.

That's a different type of AI program.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Um, and like you said.

There's there's so many.

But the kind of the core ones are Gemini, which is attached to Google.

Claude, which is Anthropic Chat GPT.

Um, and then um, I mean there's there's a few underneath that too.

But those are kind of the main three that we're hearing about.

About now.

I mean, if you watch the Super Bowl.

Right.

You saw probably.

Right.

Anthropic and Claude and.

You know, they're they're high road now is that they are ad free.

Whereas Chat GPT is kind of sold out.

And and they're having ads on Chat GPT.

I know.

They well.

They're they're smart.

Like if Facebook didn't have ads up front at the beginning if you ever watched the movie.

You know, they didn't want to do that.

But now that how are you going to make money?

And you know, there's so many more out there too.

You know, Grock is a great one that's run that's run by uh.

Elon Musk.

Elon Musk, yeah, exactly.

That's that's uh Twitter's or X's.

You know, program.

And there's so many more coming out all the time.

They all have their, you know, they all have their strengths.

Right?

So it depends on how you want to use it.

I mean, one of the the things that I've been hearing a lot lately.

Is Chat GPT is really becoming the consumers large language model.

It's for people who just want to consume things.

Um, whereas Claude is more the creator and developers, um, LLM.

Because it has, you know, coding abilities.

And we've got these agentic um.

Uh, I mean, if we're not if we're still using Chat GPT, if we've not heard of anything beyond Chat GPT.

Chat GPT.

I don't want to go too far in the weeds.

And over people's head.

But um.

Just yeah.

So, you know, so let's talk about a typical practice.

What.

How do we get an orthodontist, dentist to understand that they have to adapt and make change?

Because because everybody is afraid of change.

It's the biggest fear that everybody has.

And, you know, and when it comes to marketing, the same thing, I have to help them understand.

You got to change the way you promote yourself.

This is not 2024 anymore.

Or even somebody that's that's been around for, you know, 25, 30 years.

This is not 2018 or 2010.

Things have changed, the competition is fierce.

You have to have be more efficient, more effective.

So, you know, how how do you help somebody understand or at least embrace that they have to change?

Yeah, I mean.

Like change is a choice.

Right?

But I think this is this is bigger than the the era of going from paper charts to to digital charts, right?

And now, I mean, there was a lot of resistance about that 20 years ago.

But now that hopefully everybody is on digital charts, they could never imagine going back.

And the the the administrative people who went from typewriters to computers.

I mean, could you imagine if we were still living in a world where people on typewriters because that is just what they are used to.

And that's what they're comfortable with.

So I think I I think the way that you you should be viewing this.

Is this right now is the practices that are adapting AI have an advantage.

Right?

It's it's closing, right, because eventually everyone's going to be using AI.

I firmly believe that.

Um, but but the people that are using AI definitely have an advantage right now.

Right.

And so now the next question.

The doctor gets it.

But now having, you know, Mary who answers his phone, who's been doing that for 40 years.

And it's afraid to make change.

And and it's in that how does he get her to buy in?

Because it's it's a necessity.

You know.

And and for my perspective.

I come across it all the time, somebody all the practices on their, you know, staff members have been there forever.

Don't like to make change and and want to embrace, you know, different technologies.

And this is a a big game changer for practices.

So, how would you suggest that to have a doctor learn about it?

And then make sure his staff would actually do it.

Because he can say I'm all in, I'm all in.

But if they're not going to buy in, then what?

Right.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question.

And and, you know, I think like you said, anytime we're making changes.

I think we should just anticipate.

That there is going to be resistance.

Right, even the doctor and the leadership team.

They will feel some resistance.

And they're also the leaders of the team that need to pull the team through this to get to the other side of it.

So I think acknowledging the resistance, but then also just holding people accountable.

Checking in, having systems in place to say, if we do this, are we doing this?

How is this working?

Where are you struggling and really just sitting with people to help them.

Realize the power of it.

Um, and you know, just because we're talking about AI.

AI in particular.

I think um, a couple of things, right, because I've heard this.

There's there's some team members who feel that they're very anti-AI.

Because they think AI is going to take their jobs.

And, you know, my response to that is there's there's a lot that AI can do.

That team members might currently be doing.

But the intention is to never not replace our current team members that are a significant piece of the heart of the practice.

We want to enable them to create more human connection.

Right?

So that's that's the goal with AI.

What can we have AI do, the repetitive tasks that nobody wants to do anyways?

Or the things we're not doing that we could use AI for to get better.

So that our team members can actually provide more human connection and nurture our patients.

Because that's really what we want.

So out of all the systems that a practice has, what would you say are the two or three most important ones to take the baby steps to integrate AI into?

Yeah.

I mean.

Baby steps.

I would do something even as simple as taking a report from your practice management software.

Um, most practice management softwares have a report of um.

Dolphin calls it light bar analysis.

Other people it's just your procedure list.

But it's a report that shows all of your scheduled appointments for whatever time period you're looking at.

The scheduled time and the actual time.

You can take that report, go into Claude, ask it to tell it what the report is.

Ask it to analyze it and provide you with a dashboard view of the stats.

If you do something like that, you don't need a ton of AI knowledge to do that.

You do that and you have this dashboard that now you can be looking at on a weekly or monthly basis.

And saying, hey.

My schedule is not working.

Here's exactly why.

All of these appointments are 50% over time on scheduled or under time.

We should change the length of these appointment types in order to have a more efficient day.

That is an easy thing that every practice could do.

Tomorrow.

Now, do you offer like a, you know, help with this like a library of prompts?

Because you have to teach AI to think like you and to learn how you want things done.

Because it's really not an out of the box kind of thing, even though it's a smart technology.

You know, you know, I'm I use it, you know, nonstop.

Because it and I trained it to be, you know.

Dean on on steroids.

You know.

So how so what how would you teach somebody to just know what questions to even ask or say?

But do you offer that too to them in your help?

Yeah.

I do.

So, um, there's there's a couple of there's there's a few things that we do.

But if it's going to be a a repeated if it's something that you're going to be doing repeatedly.

It becomes a system.

Then what I do with practices is we actually build out what are called projects in Claude.

Or you can do it in in Chat GPT, but Chat GPT is just not my favorite.

Um, but we build out projects.

And the difference with that is you can load it with a knowledge base of information you want it to pull from.

So if you've got scripts or protocols or procedures or ideals.

You put that into your knowledge base and then you build um.

Basically like a master prompt for that project.

So you can go into that project and use it every time and get very consistent output.

And it's going to know exactly what you need from it.

In whatever style that you need.

So.

That's a lot of what I do.

Um, help practices understand how to do.

And, you know, I think one of the biggest hacks for AI is if you don't know how to do something.

And you want to see if AI can do it.

Ask AI.

Talk to it like a human.

And don't use type mode either, use an app like Whisperflow or voice mode within um Claude or Chat GPT.

And just speak to it like you were speaking to a consultant.

Right, speak what's going on.

Here's what I need.

I have no idea where to start.

Please help me.

You can even ask it for the prompt.

And it's going to help you create a prompt.

So it's that's what I mean, like AI is the first tool that can actually teach you how to use it.

Okay.

How hard is it for a practice to actually.

You know, once they take the the baby step to actually implement and integrate it.

Because they've got so many different softwares out there, you know, that they use.

Besides the practice management software.

You know, they have their marketing software or the or the phone system or this or that.

Or the, you know, or their connection to, you know.

I terror or what have you.

Or or.

So how, you know, how do they get everything working together?

Yeah.

I mean, that's uh the the dream, right?

Which I don't think is is an unrealistic dream.

We're just not there yet.

But the dream would be that we actually have these AI agents built in and connected to all of our software.

So that it can it can do, it can be an agent.

Right, like essentially a team member that can do things inside of these different softwares.

Which, I mean, a lot of softwares do already have these things.

But.

Um, I think, you know, AI.

I mean, to kind of come back to the original question.

Those, how do we integrate this?

Well, I think it's actually just as simple as I mean.

How do you integrate Google?

And Google search and computers?

Right, if you can if you're using Google inside of your day-to-day.

There's no reason why you shouldn't be using or could be using AI.

Right.

And just to add on to that, it's um.

I think a lot of practices, I know the mindset and I I live with practices inside of what's actually happening.

Not in my reality.

They're so busy.

That the thought of bringing on something else is so overwhelming.

And I absolutely get that.

But that's also the absolute reason why you should be implementing AI.

Because things that are taking you three hours to do.

Can happen in 10 minutes.

Right.

Right.

So let's talk about that.

Let's give me like a case study.

So, you know, you've been doing this for a while now.

And practices that do work with you and and integrate it and embrace it.

How has it changed their life?

Is it is it made them more money, is it made them more efficient, is it made give them more time to be with their family?

You know, what's the end result?

You know, because everybody want you want to be faster, better.

But, you know, what what what is the main reason that a practice would do it?

And and then from there, what makes them happy?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Um, so, you know, I'm just thinking of a specific practice that they were um.

In the process of going from two locations to three.

And they really did not have a lot of documented systems and quality control pieces in place.

And so what we did is we built out a suite of AI systems for them, AI projects.

Um, a couple of those including an SOP architect.

So I showed them how they could just quickly record themselves walking through protocols and processes.

And how we could use AI to create full SOPs in 60 seconds.

Wow.

So they were able to create documented SOPs.

Standard operating protocols.

Right, for everything so that as they scale to a third location.

They've got systems across all locations.

And then we put in a place um a call a new patient call performance coach.

Where we can take transcripts from calls and run it through our call performance coach, which has been trained at a an elite consultant level.

To score these calls so that now every new patient call is being scored and reviewed.

And we've got documentation.

Um, and an email that's auto generated to send to callers based on their performance.

So, you know, just thinking about practices that are scaling and really need to have systems.

Um, in place is huge.

Is there an option or a way to do this in person as well?

Because you know.

Getting people to show, you know, to on the phone is not the problem.

It's once they get the in the chair, the TCs are not up to snuff on how to overcome objections.

There's so many people on so many options now.

So, you know, so does AI help from that perspective as well?

While somebody's there.

So they could record it.

You know.

And then analyze it there.

Yeah.

So.

Um, yes, we we also have our conversion coach.

Which is the equivalent of um the the TC performance.

So I really built this project out of me being one person who has a three-year-old and does not desire to be on site every week.

Okay, right.

So I can go on site and I can watch exams.

And I can give feedback.

Or I can say, hey, here's our conversion coach that's been trained like me along with some other um top sales and communication relationship experts.

And let's take your transcripts from your exam, run it through conversion coach.

And give them their top three conversion killers.

Score the doctor.

Score the TC.

One of that.

Um, and and give them role play for how they could do it better next time.

And then a follow-up road map to that that's personalized.

Right, so here's how you should be communicating with this patient.

And convert this exam.

Um, now somebody's listening to this and we we want them to take one step today.

To just put their toe in the water.

What what should they do after after hearing this?

Or watching this, listen to it.

What should they do right now?

Yeah.

Um.

I mean, I'm I'm going to come back to what I said.

Right, take a report of your um.

Your appointments and run it through Claude and see what you get back.

Because your mind will be blown.

I mean, like that is enough to say, okay.

This is worth taking some extra steps on and learning.

It's really night and day, huh?

It really is night and day.

Wow.

Wow.

Great.

Great.

So now we're going to do a little self plug here for you.

So and so you have told us a little bit about the uh program that you have that is helping practices learn more and to become experts in it.

Yeah.

Um.

So like I said, I am passionate about creating what I call AI practice ambassadors.

Having at least one team member in every orthodontic practice who is AI empowered.

So they can say, hey, there's a better way.

We can do this with AI.

Right, so so what I'm doing is um.

I have a six-week AI program starting March 13th.

And um.

That's what we're doing.

So we're going to build out the systems that I've been building with one-on-one implementation as a group.

So that people, so that team members understand how to actually build these projects.

What the steps are.

Because once they start seeing that, I know creativity is going to be unleashed.

And they'll have the knowledge, power and wisdom to just run with it.

They'll be able to do so much more beyond that.

So if somebody wants to learn a little bit more about this program, how would they go about doing so?

Yeah.

Thanks, Dean.

So I do have a free master class coming up next Friday, the 20th.

Um, not sure when this is going to be released.

But the free master class is February 20th.

And there'll also be a replay available up until March 10th.

They can go to my website.

Heartwisecollective.com.

There's a pop-up there for the free webinar.

Um, and also the replay.

Okay.

And where somebody because my podcasts are recorded and saved.

And people watch them months and months later.

So say somebody's watching this in July or June.

You know, how would they how you know.

What would be another way for them to to learn more?

Or sign up, you know, down the road.

Yeah, so just visit my website.

We will if if the program is not open for registration.

We will have a wait list for the next cohort, which will probably be in quarter three.

All right.

And one more.

Shameless plug, the website is.

The website is heartwisecollective.com.

Collective.com.

Perfect.

Great.

Um, Lindsay, thank you so much.

This was incredible, you know, eye opener, ear opener, mind opener.

Because I live in this world and you just gave me some great things that I need to to do for our clients.

Here with the marketing.

Just to help them learn more.

So this is great.

That whole thing about putting the port in.

And I never thought of that.

So, you know, that's something that I'm going to be telling three people today to do.

All right.

That's that's that's great.

I really, really appreciate it.

Everybody out there in podcast land.

Thank you so much for always being so interactive with us.

For being loyal.

I'll you know, the thousand people that follow us.

Watch us.

Thank you.

I love you here.

Um, everybody, please be safe and smile.