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“Is one employee costing you millions of dollars?”

I heard these words, or a derivative of them, uttered eighteen years ago.

And I still remember that moment, to this very day..

I was attending an information evening being put on by a Dental Consulting firm. I was attending as a prospective client.

And the dentist owner of the firm said, in a very brazen sought of way:

“We can go into a practice and find one staff member costing that practice over $200,000.00 a year….”

And I thought to myself immediately:

“That’s *MY* practice!!”

Received the following email from one of my clients overnight…. Names have been changed for privacy reasons*.

“On a more positive note, I have hired a new scheduling coordinator named Martha, who starts on July 8th. She was referred to us by our computer guy who has worked with her at another office. She did a working interview with us and was able to get six patients scheduled in one morning from our tickler file and we have since had five more patients call in to schedule from the messages she left.  We are very excited to have her join our team.!”

Now there’s a piece of great news!

In an economy that’s suppressed, in a city where things are slow, all of a sudden, there’s like a breath of fresh air!

I’ll be interested to see ho Martha goes in her first months. You’d certainly agree that this is indeed a positive sign!

Which gets me thinking…..

Maybe Martha doesn’t know she’s working in a depressed area, in tough times?

Maybe Martha just pulls those sort of results anyway, because that’s the type of person Martha is?

Maybe Martha doesn’t know what a “shopper” is…..

Those eleven appointments made in one morning’s working interview have certainly got to have put a big smile on the face of my client, whose been telling me how difficult her town’s situation has been for business.

I certainly hope that Martha continues to provide these great results from her calling and phoning.

Two years ago my wife had a commercial property she owned become vacant, and stay vacant, for some six months.

She offered considerable rent reduction to attract a tenant, but to no avail.

The property was managed for many years by a friend of ours, and his real estate firm. When it became vacant, after the departure of a long-standing tenant, my wife did all in her powers to assist our friend in finding a replacement tenant.

But to no avail…

I approached another friend of mine, who had a local commercial agency.

He said he would find me a tenant.

With heavy heart, I called my friend, who had been the long-term agent, to let him know we were transferring the property away from his management.

Angrily he screamed down the phone at me:

“It’s the economy!”

Sadly, that day, my business decision for my wife cost me a friendship of long standing, and also a dental patient of long standing as well.

I agonise over that decision, and the frailty of human nature and relationships.

But performance in this case, was paramount.

And it was not being delivered….

In your dental office, how long will you tolerate blaming the economy?

It certainly looks like Martha has come from a part of town where the economy is of little consequence…or has she?

Is it just that Martha gets done what she needs to get done?

Martha has achieved these brilliant results on the phone in just one morning calling existing patients of the Dental Office.

The other thing is that Martha has been hired to replace an outgoing team member leaving in October…

I’d be calling that team member in and granting them early retirement, even if it meant keeping them on salary for that time but still letting them go early.

I’ve seen this scenario time and time again in my office, and in the office of clients.

A dramatic change of results with a change of personnel.

Have you seen this happen in your own office?

To tidy up, my wife’s property was let after one month, with a new very stable long-term tenant. This new tenant asked for no concessions, and completed his own fit out without seeking subsidy from the landlord [my wife].

He has been a dream tenant.

And the new agent has been a dream agent as well.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s not really the economy….

 Correct hiring is one of the many modules that comprise 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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