Owning a Dental Practice should have its rewards.
There’s absolutely no point in being an owner if it’s costing you.
And it can be costing you more than money.
But if it is costing you money, then you have to stop and take a good look at why it is and ask yourself the big question:
“Is it really worth it?”
So let’s look at the money.
If you are owning and running a successful Dental Office then there’s income available to the owner on a variety of sources.
Firstly, there’s income from being a Dentist.
As a Dentist in your own business, are you paying yourself firstly for being a Dentist?
Are you being rewarded a percentage commission for your efforts “on the tools” the same as you would compensate an associate dentist?
Because, if you’re not, then you’ve got to seriously stop right here and ask yourself why not.
Secondly, once you’ve separated your Commission for being a Dentist away from the Practice income, what’s left there should be plenty to run the Dental Practice.
The remainder should be sufficient to pay rent, materials, utilities, marketing and salaries.
Easily.
If you’ve not got sufficient left to cover these overheads, and you’re dipping into your own “Commission”, then in reality, you’re paying your practice for the right to own it….
Is that clever?
Also out of that money allocated to the practice there should be adequate funds to pay you as the owner for your administrative roles.
You should be being compensated financially for doing payroll, H.R., admin, marketing. And so on….
Because if you were not performing these tasks, you’d be paying someone else to do them, wouldn’t you?
So why should you be doing them, and giving up your time to do them, without being financially reimbursed?
It makes no sense to be surrendering time for the “honour” of owning a practice if the practice is costing you both time and money just for the privilege.
Finally, and I’ve mentioned this time and time again, there should be money over in the practice to pay you a Return on Investment, or an ROI, on the money you have invested in the practice.
If you had that money sitting in the bank you’d expect a dividend?
If you had that money tied up in real estate you’d expect some rental income?
So why lock it up in a Dental Business and *NOT* receive a dividend for your investment?
There really seems very little point in being a business owner if you’re not being rewarded *APPROPRIATELY* for your investments of money and time.
Yet I hear and read from younger Dentists that you need to take a pay cut when buying your business.
Well if that’s the case, I don’t believe you’re buying yourself a business.
I believe what you’re buying is a lower paid job with a big set of golden handcuffs.
You’re buying yourself a prison sentence.
Now sure, now you’re your own boss.
You’re the boss of you.
You’re not instructed on what you can do and what you can’t do by an employer any more….
Or are you?
What was the big reason for leaving the haven of a secure employment to go “out on your own” into ownership?
Was it purely so you were in charge of you?
So that you didn’t have to “answer to the man” anymore?
Because now you might be answering to more than one man now…
In a well run practice, a good employee Dentist is worth their weight in gold to the practice.
They provide the practice with an additional source of income and collections to add to the collective pot.
And if the principal dentist is on their game then the income from any employed dentists is purely icing on the cake.
The employed dentist is really there as a reward to the owner Dentist as recognition that the owner has built a great business.
And sure the employed Dentist is adding to someone else’s pot.
But at what price?
There’s a lot of red tape and protocol required in owning and running a Dental Office.
And for making that choice, you need to be rewarded.
You need to make sure that you are being rewarded for making that choice.
I recently met a Dentist who employed two “career associate dentists”.
Two dentists who were happy to simply turn up, treat patients, and go home.
Go home without the headaches.
Go home without the hassles.
Just go home…
It kind of sounds attractive?
It kind of makes sense?
Why would you take a pay cut, buy yourself some debt, and a whole pile of headaches?
To be in charge of what?
Being an associate Dentist in a good Dental Practice can buy you a lot of peace of mind.
With a lot less headaches.
And a lot less wear on your heart muscle and stomach lining.
I’ve become a big fan of doing what’s right for you.
If it’s not right for you at present, you need to make some changes.
Well thought out changes…
But change for change sake is not clever.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me at david@theupe.com
Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!
Leave a Reply