I read an article recently http://bit.ly/13NXYVe about the common lies dentists tell themselves.

One of the lies that really struck a chord with me was that leadership training does not apply to dentists and dental offices because “we are all professionals and know what we’re doing”.

Gosh, I know this sort of attitude exists a lot in dental practice. For some strange reason dentists believe that the principles of business do not apply to the running of a dental office.

Well let me tell you that is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Any dentist *NOT* running his office as a business using sound business practices and principles is burning up greenbacks hand over fist, for no sensible reason whatsoever.

It’s like golf. Golf has basic fundamentals to hit the ball well.

Grip and stance. Get these right and you’re half way there.

Recently I played with a nice chap who gripped the club like there was no tomorrow. Like an axe. As a golfer he made a great woodchopper.

Golf for this chap was hard. The ball mostly travelled left to way right, sometimes right only, and sometimes left and even way left.

It was predictably bad, and sometimes very unpredictably real bad.

Seriously, the only thing to do was close my eyes so as not to learn any bad habits.

The chap, for whatever reason, had chosen to ignore the basics.

The term “golf swing” was very loosely applied to what he did.

It was painful.

And all self inflicted.

Similarly, too, when I hear dentists espouse that leadership training does not apply to them, then I know that they are choking their own future, strangling their own success, in just the same way that this chap was choking his golf club!!

All the top golf pros have coaches. Swing coaches. Some have mental coaches.

Sir Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods have both successfully rebuilt their golf swings to the betterment of their careers at the time. At the time.

If you want to maximize your dental office potential and returns, then you need outside help. It’s that simple.

Maybe your office likes burning up dollars. Running inefficiently? Not having good systems? Not looking at numbers? Not analyzing?

Maybe you’re happy not having huddles? Not having team meetings on a weekly basis?

Are you sharing your wins [and losses] with your team? Are you letting them know, giving them feedback, as to what is working for the office and what areas seem to be letting the office down?

Everybody needs outside help. Every office needs advice.

There is a lot of good information out there that can help your dental business run more efficiently, and as a result, run more profitably.

I heard the story on the weekend of a dentist who couldn’t sell his office and so kept working well into his eighties.

I was sick to the bone. This can’t have been a wonderful life?
Not for him, and certainly not for those patients of the late years of his practice.

In 1996, I thought my dental office was doing all right. We were collecting twice what the average dental office was collecting.

That was until I met a dentist collecting two and a half times what I was. That’s right, a dentist whose office was collecting five times the average.

I knew then and there, that there had to be a better way. And I knew I needed to find out who could help me, who could teach me that way.

I was fortunate, in the ensuing years, to find the right mentors and coaches that I needed, who helped to mold and train me, with the skills I required, in leadership and management, to create a dental office that was also a very, very profitable business.

The benefits of having a dental office running as a profitable business are many.

Primarily, though, is the reduction in stress, the burden of worry about paying the bills is lifted. We can talk more about this in the future.

So I say to you, step down from your pedestal, take a step back, and ask yourself.

Can I do this better?

Will my life be better, will life be better for my customers and my team, if I do things better?

You know the answer. Seek help. It’s in everybody’s best interests.

The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple easy to implement system I developed that allowed me to build 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: david@theUPE.com

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