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One of the stories I tell about my journey through dentistry is how in 1996 I was unable to sell my Dental Practice.

During that year, I had three dentists come and view my practice and I told them all the good things I was doing to advance the practice along with all the competitive advantages I had over my less than competitive neighbouring dental practices.

And my practice was doing well. In fact, it was collecting double what the average dental practice was collecting in my city.

None of these three dentists made an offer to purchase my Dental Practice.

But so impressed were they with the information that I gifted them about my town and about my competition in that town, and also, I assume, about me not going to be around there, that they each either bought a Dental Practice or set up their own dental practices right there in my town.

The three each became my direct competition.

Kind of makes you want to go and take a shower doesn’t it?

The fact that I was unable to sell my dental practice meant that I then had to make a tough decision.

I had to stay on, and work on my practice and grow it.

To do this, I hired a consultant, and worked with him for six months until the day that I found out that although this consultant was working with me in my business, he was also working AS A DENTIST with one of my direct competitors only nine hundred yards down the road from my Dental Practice.

I was horrified at this complete lack of ethics from this fellow dentist.

It was at this point that I had to make some serious decisions.

I remember going home to my wife, with a one year old and a four year old, and telling her that we needed to sell our family home and go rent for a while so that we could take the equity in the home and put it into the business as working capital to help grow the business.

And so that’s what we did.

We rented.

For five years.

It was 2002 that we then were able to take possession of the keys of the home that we now live in today.

I tell you this story for a number of reasons.

Firstly, to show you, that despite adversity, there can be success.

When all seems lost, when things that are not of your doing have an adverse effect on your plans, your goals and your aspirations, there is a way forward.

So long as you believe that you can succeed, you will.

If you make a plan, and get to work, you will arrive on the other side of the adversity.

One of the things that I did do to succeed and get past my setbacks back then was to find and work with the right Dental Coach who helped me to create the Dental Practice that I had so wanted to create.

The second reason that I retell this story is that history does tend to repeat.

In 2014, I had a dentist apply for a complimentary strategy session with me in my consulting and coaching role, only to find out that he was purchasing a dental practice very close by to my established practice. When he made the application, he used an interstate address. He even came and visited my rooms at my Dental Office.

Time for another shower?

Well, it didn’t really bother me at that point in time. Although I did feel violated, it was at the time that I was deciding to have surgery on my shoulder and my practicing career was at a crossroads.

Still, it wasn’t in my mind the correct way to behave.

Then recently, I was approached to discuss a few consulting issues by a consultant from outside of Australia. Although the questions appeared to be of a general nature, the purpose of their call and intention of the relationship begun was to glean information from me to use directly in that consultant’s business at the expense of my own business. Certainly not an Ultimate Experience for me.

I heard the story of a dentist in the USA who was about to sell his practice to his long time assistant dentist, only to find, at the eleventh hour, that the assistant dentist had set up his own rooms around the corner from this Dental Office. And so the retirement plans of the senior dentist were thrown into disarray as he now had to regroup and rebuild.

A dental consultant that I know helped one of his clients more than double their practice collections in a two year period, only to find that six months after they had stopped working together the dentist client had launched a dental consulting business of their own.

I wrote recently about the specialist dentist who employed a newly qualified specialist, and fed him patients referred to the principal specialist, only to later be greeted with the news that the young specialist was setting up his own rooms nearby.

One of my dentist friends, in fact one of my best friends, often remarks to me at how analytical I am when assessing human purpose and methodology.

Although I am a believer in the “Theory of Abundance” there still exist those whose plan to own the tallest building in town involves destroying all other buildings.

I say “Grow The Pie” and there will be plenty for all.

But beware of snakes.

They will appear when you least expect them.

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My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Chicago, USA on Friday 2nd June 2017.

For more information and to secure your seat click this link here.

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Have you read my book , How To Build The Dental Practice of Your Dreams [Without Killing Yourself!] In Less Than Sixty Days.

You can order your copy here: Click Link To Order

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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

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