One of the great skills in owning a Dental Office is the ability of wearing multiple hats.

At once.

For most of us it’s just enough trying to be a dentist, producing dental treatment for our patients, without being the owner as well, and the responsibilities that go with ownership.

There are two hats there. As the dentist, treating patients is what we are trained to do.

Create health for our patients.

So we wear the Dentist Hat.

But as a business owner we need to do a multitude of things.

We need to *RUN* the business.

As a business.

It needs to firstly, make a profit and be viable.

So we need an Accountant Hat.

Making sure that our expenditure is less than our collections.

And that we don’t get ahead of ourselves.

That we don’t get out and start spending it before we make it.

Part of this means we need to be a good stock controller.

We need a Stock Controller’s Hat….

There’s inventory to manage.

Dental inventory. And stationery. And sundries.

“How much are tissues?”

“And a box of pens?”

There are utilities, like phone, water and power.

“I can’t believe how many phone calls we made last month?”

And there’s wear and tear on fixtures and fittings.

“Why do dental chairs and equipment break down so often?”

So an Equipment Maintenance Hat is required…

And what brings patients in the door?

I suppose that requires a Marketing Hat?

How do I attract a steady stream of new patients into my office?

How do I attract the right type of patients? The ones that I would like to be treating?

And how do I monitor my marketing spend? Do I need to wear two hats at once?

Do I need to be wearing my accountant’s hat and my marketing hat at the same time?

What is a new patient worth to the Dental Practice?

What is the average two-year spend of a new dental patient?

And what is their average spend going forward in years four, five and six?

How much should I spend to acquire a new dental patient?

And of course, there is the age-old chestnut….who will come and work for me?

What are my obligations as an employer?

What can I reasonably expect them to do for me?

How do I juggle different personalities and manage different people together?

Into a cohesive unit?

I need a Human Resources Hat…

And a Payroll Hat.

Who’s going to pay them each week?

Who’s going to guarantee their legal entitlements?

And how do I educate my team? How do I teach them better ways of doing things?

I guess I need a Training Hat?

Don’t they just want to turn up, sit up and get paid up only?

How do I improve my own education?

What’s my business plan?

Where do I want this Dental Practice to be positioned in five years time? In ten years? In twenty years?

As the owner, where do I see myself in twenty years?

The trouble is, after all that study, years and years at college, and education, and after all that money invested in buying and in building a Dental Office, sometimes all we want to do is really just cut teeth only?

And not have to worry about all the hats?

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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