Who Wants A YETI?Most of our clients are referred to us by other happy clients. That’s why I’d like to offer you a reward for referring your friends and colleagues to us. At Sagester Associates Group we believe that referrals are the greatest form of flattery. If you know someone who is worried about any aspect of their business technology, do them a favor and put them in touch with us.

For the first referral you give us, we will give you a new Yeti 32oz Rambler Tumbler. If you give us 5 referrals, we will give you a new Yeti 32oz Rambler Tumbler and a YETI Hopper Cooler. If you refer 10 friends, we will give you a new Yeti 32oz Rambler Tumbler, the YETI Hopper Cooler & fill it with premium steaks!!!

All of the people you refer will be offered a free network assessment worth $250 (no strings attached and no heavy sales pressure). This free assessment will give them valuable information on how to make their network more secure, reliable, and faster. Obviously they will be under no obligation to buy anything or to ever use our services again.

All you have to do is provide us the name, practice name, and phone number of the people you are referring (feel free to add their address as well if you know it). We’ll take care of the rest! Email referrals to referrals@sagester.com.

Do you look at your inbox and want to cry? If so, you’re not alone. According to widely cited Radicati Group research, the average person gets 120 business emails every day. If you don’t manage your emails, you could end up in another statistical majority. People spend at least 14 percent of their workday on email alone. Is it any wonder that a recent Harris Poll found that only 45 percent of our workdays are spent on actual work? If you’re looking for the solution to your email woes, start with some of Silicon Valley greats.

BEZOS DELEGATES If you want to watch a corporate team start to sweat, see what happens when they get a “?” email from Jeff Bezos. Business Insider reports that the notoriously easy-to-contact Amazon CEO will forward customer complaints to his people and add only a question mark to the original query. Getting that dreaded mark is a little like getting the black spot from Blind Pew the pirate. You know that a day of reckoning

is at hand. Follow Bezos’ lead. Instead of answering all emails yourself, ask, “Can this be better handled by someone else?” Forward it to your team and save yourself the time.

USE AUTO REPLIES You can also use auto-reply tools to manage the flood. Tommy John CEO Tom Patterson did just that after his emails skyrocketed from 150 to 400 a day. He tells Inc.com that “there weren’t enough minutes in a day to answer all of them.” So he didn’t; he set up an auto-reply to tell people that he only checked email before 9 and after 5 — and to please call or text if it was urgent. The result? “It forced me to delegate and empower others to respond,” he says. Suddenly the flow slowed to a trickle.

DO YOU GET MORE EMAILS THAN BILL GATES? And it really should only be a trickle; Bill Gates reports that he only gets 40–50 emails a day. Ask yourself, “Should I really be getting more emails than Bill Gates?” One

“As a dentist, you don’t have time to waste on technical and operational issues. That’s where we shine! Call

us and put an end to your IT problems finally and forever.”

Fred SagesterFounder and CEO

November 2017

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Secret To Avoiding Email Overwhelm

possible cause for email inundation, according to LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, is other employees sending too much email of their own. He writes, “Two of the people I worked most closely with ended up leaving the organization within the span of several weeks. After they left I realized my inbox traffic had been reduced by roughly 20–30 percent.” If you have over-communicators in your ranks, ask them to tone back the digital flood.

SET BOUNDARIES Creating a hard buffer between your email and your life is another CEO tactic. Arianna Huffington doesn’t check her email for a half hour after waking or before going to bed, and she never touches it around her kids. That space to breathe is essential

to maintaining a work-life balance. And if it gets bad enough? Etsy’s Chad Dickerson has a solution: email bankruptcy! He tells Fast Company that every few years, he just deletes everything and starts fresh!

Not all Silicon Valley gurus have it figured out, however. Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn’t get 120 business emails a day. No, according to an ABC interview, he gets closer to 700. He just gets up at the crack of dawn

every morning and starts reading. Hint Water CEO Kara Goldin does the same thing, preparing for a 12-hour workday with a marathon email session. But as you can tell from the other people we’ve discussed, this is an exception, not the rule. Emulate Jeff Bezos or Arianna Huffington instead and watch your email stress melt away.

A strong bond of trust between a dental office and its patients is imperative, and it takes time to establish a solid reputation among the community that the practice serves. All this hard work can be put in jeopardy by just one oversight: failing to ensure your dental websites are secure.

When your patients walk through the door of your dental office, they expect to be treated with respect by your team. When they sit back in the dental chair, they are putting their faith in your professionalism and expertise. They apply the same criteria when they engage with you in the digital world.

Damage to reputation is considered the most harmful impact of a business cyber breach, according to PwC, the world’s leading professional services firm. Most of your existing clients and prospective new patients will be sufficiently tech-savvy to see a red flag if your website shows signs of a lack of security measures. They will probably have read countless horror stories about hackers gaining access to sensitive customer information. If prospective patients don’t feel safe when visiting your website, the won’t respond to a call to action such as making an appointment request.

Why data thieves target dental records

In 2015, a cyberattack on communications company TalkTalk highlighted the ease with which criminals can steal online details about people. The data haul included more than 20,000 bank account numbers and sort codes. In November 2016, a 17-year-old boy admitted his part in the digital raid, saying he had been “just showing off.” (1) The previous month, the company had been fined £400,000 (about $488,000) for the security failure.

It’s not only the online platforms of big corporations such as TalkTalk that are under constant threat of security breaches. Any website without security is a potential target as hackers seek sites that are vulnerable to data breaching as well as for concealing malware. Data thieves are increasingly targeting small businesses such as dental practices, regarding their digital records as easy pickings, compared with the protection afforded by exhaustive security measures taken by multinational companies. (TalkTalk, take note!) Health-care websites are among the most common to come under attack from cyber criminals.

At the start of 2017, Becker’s Healthcare, a legal and business resource for healthcare bosses, said data breaches were costing the US health industry more than $6 billion a year. (2) In 2015, details of over 15,000 patients were accessed from a US dental practice when its computer succumbed to malware. (3)

Electronic health records (EHRs) of dental patients provide a goldmine for cyber crooks—they are a wealth of information, including postal and email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, banking details, Social Security numbers, and health histories. EHRs represent a comprehensive ID package. In the hands of experienced data poachers, a stolen identity can be used to carry out a variety of crimes, including fraudulent insurance claims. Perpetrators of digital ID theft often repeatedly sell patients’ records on the dark web, where transactions cannot be traced. Electronic health records are far more valuable to cyber-criminals than financial information on its own. They can be presented in different packages that are highly attractive to swindlers looking for sensitive information to sell on an ongoing basis.

The importance of website security for small businesses was underscored in an article for the Business Journals by a leading figure in the field. (4) Kirk Hall, a member of the Certificate Authority Security Council (CASC), which comprises leading global certificate authorities that seek to establish best practices in SSL advancements and internet security in general, said that if small companies

failed to prioritize web security, they would lose business as both existing and potential clients looked towards their competitors who safeguarded the private information of their web visitors.

How to protect your website

So, how can your dental practice protect itself and your patients against digital theft? You can ensure your practice’s website is secure by using a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS). These technologies set up a coded connection between your site and the patient’s browser. Your patients will see that your website is protected because your web address will be preceded by the a “Secure | https” tag. An Extended Validation (EV) certificate will show your patients that your website is protected by the maximum level of authentication to thwart fraudsters—your practice’s name will be displayed in green in the browser address bar on your patients’ computers.From October 2017, Google Chrome will display a “Not Secure” message when anyone begins to fill out a form on a page that’s served up over HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) instead of HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure). On the other hand, if you have the “Secure | https” inscription, it will help to boost your rankings in Google’s search engine results pages.

However, SSL and TLS won’t stop direct attacks on computers and servers, so the server needs its own security precautions, and the computer requires strong antivirus software. Because malware can infect both computers and websites, it can damage your patients’ devices as well as your online platform. Automatic virus scanners are widely available and will alert you to any potential problems. As a further precaution, your website software should be updated regularly. Your practice team also need to be aware of the risks of clicking on dubious email links, which can lead to malware assaults and phishing attempts.

A trustworthy website will enhance your reputation

Your dental website may be well designed and search engine optimized, contain glowing testimonials and valuable, informative content for your patients and prospective patients. However, all this will be of no avail if your web visitors are not satisfied that your online platform is as trustworthy as your practice itself.

Ensuring that patients can place their trust in your website plays a key role in the reputation of your practice, and the ongoing wave of web security breaches means that the issue is more important than ever to your online visitors. It’s not enough to know that your website is secure, the point has to be made to your patients, through devices such as an SSL certificate.

The web consists of an intricate network of interactions, with data travelling across many servers before reaching its ultimate destination. If this information is not adequately protected throughout its digital journey, any one of these systems can fall foul to cyber criminals. Trust is vital between a dental office and its patients, and website security is imperative to ensure the bond is not damaged. If your patients feel they cannot put their faith in you online, they are likely to apply the same reasoning to your standards of oral health care.Besides maintaining the trust of your existing patients, dental website security will give potential new patients the confidence to get in touch via your contact form, safe in the knowledge that their personal and health details cannot be hijacked.

October 9, 2017By John Marks Chief Operating Officer, DentalROIhttp://www.dentistryiq.com/

The Crucial Role of Website Security in Maintaining the Bond of Trust With Your Patients

Overwhelm - Cont

Tech Mini-Bytes

Disrupt Yourself: Being The Game Changer

Here’s A Perfectly Legal Way To Save A Bundle Of Money On Taxes, Computer Hardware And Support … But You Have To Act FAST!

When you’re running a small business, you need to stay abreast of every possible money-saving strategy. That’s why, this year, you should look into the Section 179 Deduction small-business tax incentive.

Section 179 allows a business to write off an entire equipment purchase for the year it is purchased, rather than writing a portion off for the next few years. According to the website for the deduction, “all businesses that purchase, finance and/or lease less than $2 million in new or used business equipment during tax year 2017 should qualify” for the deduction. The only stipulation is that the equipment purchased must be “placed into service in the same tax year that the deduction is being taken.” This has the potential to save small businesses thousands of dollars. Just make sure that the equipment is both purchased and put into service by the end of this year, December 31,

2017! Learn more at Section179.org.

3 Ways Technology Can Increase Your Home’s Value AND Save You Cash at the Same Time

Implementing tech upgrades into your home — taking one more step toward the coveted “smart home” — can be a good time, but beyond that, it’ll save you precious time and money every day. With smart lighting, you’ll never accidentally leave a light on again, which will save you a lot more than you might think over time. If you have a smart thermostat, you’ll have that much more control over the temperature of your home, easily making adjustments with the touch of a button and reducing heating and cooling bills. Not only that, but more permanent installations like solar panels can drastically increase the value of your home while reducing your carbon footprint and your utility bill at the same time. Smart homes may seem like a luxury, but in fact, they’re a lot more cost-effective than they appear. Check it out at inc.com. inc.com 8/21/17

Change is a constant. Ho-hum, right? Everybody knows that. But, if you really do expect change, what are you actually going to do about it? If you’re committed to making your best even better, you won’t just react to change. You’ll create it.

In my book The Potential Principle, I encourage readers who want to reach their best to focus on four areas of the Potential Matrix: the performing quadrant, the learning quadrant, the thinking quadrant, and the reflecting quadrant. But there’s one tool that you can use in all of these areas at once to create breakthrough improvement and move closer toward realizing your full potential. The first tool is to disrupt yourself before someone or something else does it for you.

If change hits you from some outside source — say, a disruptive technology, company or nation — you’ll find yourself scrambling to adapt. You’ll struggle to catch up rather than strive to stay ahead. But what if you’re the one bringing the change? What if you’re the one driving innovation? That makes you the game changer!

Think about the habits, practices and routines in your life that need to be shaken up a bit. It’s human nature to become complacent and keep doing things the way you’ve always done them. But people who are dedicated to self-improvement unsettle complacency, combat mediocrity and challenge the status quo, both in themselvesand in those around them. They keep growing, and they keep the people in their families and companies growing as well.

Are you doing things that used to succeed but no longer work as well, if at all? Are you spending valuable time on unproductive activities when that time could be better invested elsewhere? What is the ratio between your “daydreaming” and your “daily doing?” You can

plan and prepare too much if it prevents you from taking action. And sometimes, it’s good to recognize that a daydream is really just a fantasy, and you’d be better off focusing your energy on more important goals.

Maybe you’re spinning your wheels in unhealthy relationships. This can be the hardest area of your life to disrupt. But if someone is influencing you negatively, you might need to change, limit or end yourrelationship with them.

Disrupting yourself will make you stronger. The path to progress and success isn’t a leisurely walk through the countryside. It’s a rocky, steep path of resistance — and resistance develops muscle. Breaking up patterns and unsettling stable but humdrum practices can result in new enthusiasm, energy and opportunities.

If you want to be the best you can be, don’t let someone or something else change your game. Be proactive and disrupt the things that need to change in your life yourself.

Mark Sanborn, CSP, CPAE, is the president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an “idea studio” that seeks to motivate and develop leaders in and outside of business. He’s the bestselling author of books like Fred Factor and The Potential Principle and a noted expert on leadership, team building,

customer service and company change. He holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association and is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame. Check out any of his excellent books, his video series, “Team Building: How to Motivate and Manage People” or his website, marksanborn.com, to learn more.

Shiny New Gadget

Of The Month:

Security Cameras Just Got CheaperThe average American household is packed to the gills with expensive electronic equipment and a startling amalgamation of pricey knickknacks, so investing in home security is an attractive investment. And these days, you don’t have to shell out a sum equal to the stuff you’re protecting to get peace of mind.

Take the Kodak 180-degree Panoramic HD WiFi Security Camera, for example, a high-end security camera you can pick up right now for just under 70 bucks (regularly priced at $149.99). Place the camera anywhere in your house, and it’ll automatically record motion-triggered video clips straight to the cloud with its 180-degree lens, accessible on any Internet-enabled device. The camera uses wide dynamic range to automatically adapt to changes in lighting, ensuring that it doesn’t miss a thing. Perhaps best of all, you can check in on the camera’s feed at any time, streaming its HD video straight to your phone or computer.

P.O. Box 681 | Columbus | IN 47202T: 812-314-6724 | E: info@sagester.com | www.sagester.com

Sagester Associates Group provides dental practices with the latest, most advanced technology solutions for dentists in Indiana, Kentucky and the Midwest area. For over 15 years, we have earned a reputation as the preferred supplier of computer technology solutions for dentists who are serious about their practice.

Sagester Associates Group is focused exclusively on the dental industry. Dental technology solutions are all we do. We are experts at it, and no one knows more. Our superior service and dental practice knowledge is our core attribute and the real distinction that separates us from typical computer

system providers.

Need help? Just have a question?

Call us at 812-314-6724 or email at info@sagester.com.

Sagester Associates Group, Inc.P.O. Box 681Columbus, IN 47202

Inside This Edition:

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Secret To

Avoiding Email Overwhelm