I’ve found, as I look at Dental Practices and Dental Offices, that without exception, they all need help and assistance of some form.
All.
All can benefit from the professional advice from an outside pair of eyes.
When I entered the world of Dental Coaching, Consulting and Speaking five years ago, I was told then, that if we doubled the number of Dental Consultants overnight, there still would not be enough to go around for the amount of advice that is needed.
And that was in the USA, where in most towns, there’s a Starbucks on every street corner and a Dental Office on each corner as well.
And it’s the exact same story Down Under.
Although we don’t have as many people, or Dentists or Starbucks, in Australia, there’s still a great need for “help” in Dental Practices.
You see, *EVERY* Dentist knows, that while he’s got his hands and eyes in somebody’s mouth, there’s a whole pile of goings on going on behind his back, that could do with some improvement and help.
In some cases the improvements needed are palpable.
In other cases, the improvements needed are not so apparent, but he knows that some tweaking of what’s working so it works even better would not go astray.
There is no *Perfect* Dental Office out there.
Just like there is no Perfect Golf Swing out there.
And just like in Golf, the World #1 Golfer Rory McIlroy still has a coach, watching over his swing every day, making sure that that BILLION dollar swing does not accidentally slip into bad habits.
Because in life, that’s what happens.
In life we’re constantly in a battle to overcome Life’s tendency toward Random Entropy.
Left unattended, everything will drift towards chaos and confusion.
Everything.
And that’s why we need to keep on top of things.
And in Dentistry, it’s even more so.
You see in most businesses out there, there’s a level of supervision assigned to prevent and slow down entropy.
In most small businesses, the owner assumes a managerial role in the business, walking the floor, so to speak, overseeing the day-to-day operations and offering guidance.
In a retail shop, in a restaurant, this is often what happens.
But in dentistry it’s hard, because at the same time as being needed to “oversee” things in our Office, we also have the need to be doing what we need to be doing.
And that’s being on the tools.
Hands in mouths.
Foot on the pedal.
Because that’s what pays the bills.
That’s what keeps the doors open.
And every time we take that foot off the pedal to do some administrative work, we’re taking an immediate pay cut to do so.
Yet I see it all the time.
I see Dentists who produce Dentistry on hourly rates of $600.00, $700,00, $800.00 and above, stop doing what pays really well, to do payroll and HR and marketing and training, which they’re not really good at, or passionate about, at rates they would pay someone else to work at, at say $50.00 or less per hour.
And that just makes no sense.
The not-so-smart Dentists out there look at the action of hiring a Coach, or a Consultant as being an immediate expense.
A drain on the bottom line.
Whereas the astute Dentist will look at the Coach’s Fee as an investment, and that the return on that investment, or ROI, is exactly that, it’s a return.
If a coach comes in and helps you discover better ways of doing things that add $10,000.00 to $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 more to your Office Collections per month, would that be worth an investment in that coach of $3000.00 to $5000.00 per month?
When I come into an Office to help out, it sometimes takes me a couple of months to get down and *REALLY* FIND what’s causing that Office to be underperforming.
But when we get down to the roots of those issues together, and make those tweaks and adjustments, the results are truly quite amazing.
But it’s funny.
In some Offices there’s always resistance to change.
“We’re doing that!”
“Already doing that!”
“Tried that. Didn’t work”
Why should we change? What we’re doing now is working fine…”
And of course, the classic…
“That won’t work here, our practice is different…”
And
“That won’t work here, our patients are different…”
A great dental Coach can and will help a Dental Office improve significantly way above the levels that it’s currently operating at.
And it may be just one or two things that really need adjusting.
Or it may be several things, that if done in a slightly different way, when added together, result in significant improvements to the Practice.
Imagine you team saying:
“Well, if you do that little change there, then I can do this little change here, and Karen can do this small adjustment over there…”
And then…
BOOM!!
Things start to really go places.
Minor corrections and changes to the ways that we Handover our patients to each other can see *SIGNIFICANT* improvements in Case Acceptance numbers as well as dramatic reductions in cancellations and reschedules…
But who’s going to pick those needed changes up?
But what do most dentists do when things get a little quiet?
THEY RUN MORE ADS!!
“We need more NEW Patients!”
Minor adjustments to how the phone is answered, can see significant improvement in Conversion Ratios of New Patient Enquiry calls, which sees more New Patients getting seen..
The enquiries are already there….we’re just improving with how they’re dealt…
But what do most dentists do when things get a little quiet?
THEY RUN MORE ADS!!
“We need more NEW Patients!”
And in this case, the New Patients are already there. They just haven been accessed as best that they could be.
Finally, there’s no point in trying to bring in more business on top of poor general Systems and Principles.
And that’s often what’s needed in some offices.
“CAN’T SEE THE WOOD FOR THE TREES…”
Sometimes we get so caught up in the Dentistry and the Doing of the Dentistry that we fail to see that we are in a business, and the business is stuck in second gear.
And it’s often that fresh set of eyes that presents the AH-HA moment back to us, that yes, there is a better way forward, and that the business could run a whole lot better for everyone, if only we had the Dental Mechanic, the Coach, come in and give the business that well needed tune up.
Or we could just carry on regardless, stuck in second, with the handbrake firmly on…
Unknowingly.
Or even, knowingly…
Oh my.
Really?
Yes.
Better is possible.
Just ask.
******
My One-Day Workshop in May covers in greater depth how to address simple changes that create BIG RESULTS.
For more details about my three Australian workshops in May, CLICK HERE.
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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