The Real Purpose Of Owning Your Own Business.

Why do dentists start their own businesses?

Why do they become owners of a dental practice?

What’s the reason?

One of the big reasons that dentists want to own their own business is because they want more control of their lives.

But what they often find is that their so-called independence in being a business owner is really just window dressing, and instead of working for someone else, and having to answer to a boss, and having a physical boss, they now have several inanimate bosses.

They have a bank. A landlord. Rules and regulations.

The list goes on….

What they find is that there’s paperwork, and administration, and reports, and all sorts of things to do when running your own business.

And marketing. And advertising.

And while they are still trying to treat their patients and create a wonderful rapport with them, there’s always someone trying to get into the dentist’s back pocket as easy as you please.

Maybe life was better before with just one boss to answer to?

One dentist that I employed thought that the grass was going to be greener out in practice-owning land, despite having a very productive and autonomous associate dental practice within my own office, where all she needed to do at the end of each day was to hang up her handpiece and go home.

After buying her own dental office, she soon lamented that there was a heck of a lot more to do in dentistry at the end of the day [after hanging up that handpiece] than she had ever envisaged .

All of which was energy draining and time consuming.

She told me that she had less money and less time to herself as a result of going out on her own.

Interestingly, some dentists leave employed dentistry and go into their own dental businesses because they don’t like their boss.

But what they find is that once they start working for themselves, they don’t like their new boss either.

How do we make life better?

One of the key things that I did when I owned my own business was to make sure that my dental practice was constantly growing.

Because that growth stimulated interest, and that subsequent interest stimulated more growth.

I tried to make sure that my practice production levels were always on the increase.

I wanted this year to be better than last year.

I wanted every year to be better than the previous year.

I wanted the practice to attract more new customers this year than it did in the previous year.

And I wanted to make sure we were attracting the right type of new customers.

I wanted to make sure that we were answering our dental phone as best as we could, and that our conversion rate of new callers to booked appointments was improving.

And I wanted to make sure that all patients were leaving with a next appointment made.

And that our cancellation rate for booked appointments was as low as possible.

Attention needed to be paid to every patient. No patient should ever be left alone unattended.

I wanted every patient’s visit to be a better experience this time than their previous visit was.

It all came down to setting goals and accountability.

Businesses without clear and written goals, and without accountability, tend to meander considerably when compared to businesses that know what they are measuring, and know what they are trying to achieve.

“What gets measured gets done.”

“What gets measured gets improved upon.”

It’s easier to keep a handle on your weight when you weigh yourself each day rather than when you weigh yourself occasionally.

Maintaining regular checks and balances allows you to keep your finger on the pulse of your business and allows you to see what’s working as it develops, and to correct what’s not working before too much time or money is wasted.

Tracking and monitoring is the new BLACK.

Tracking and monitoring allows you to celebrate your wins and to build momentum on those efforts.

Being accountable to someone for your actions and for executing your business plan is one of the rare adrenalin rushes that a business owner gets to experience.

There is no harder challenge than the challenge of running a successful business.

Omer Reed told me nine years ago that 95% of US dentists reaching the age of 65 cannot afford to retire and have to keep on working to maintain their lifestyles.

That means that only 5% of dentists truly create financial independence in their careers.

I know that having a plan, and being held accountable for your actions and your performances, goes a long way towards becoming one of the truly successful 5%.

The choices are easy.

Staying on track on your own?

That’s hard….

Help is out there.

I can help you.

It’s what I do…

*****

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.