This message from Howard Farran from six years ago recently re-appeared upon my computer:
“Congratulations to all the dentists who are taking their teams with them to the ADA[congress] in New Orleans.
In the USA the dental market has consistently been split 50/50 for decades, where approximately half of Americans purchase dentistry as a commodity, shop for the lowest price and go wherever their insurance plan tells them to go, but the other half purchase dentistry on a relationship basis, based on trust and respect for the dentist and the dental office team.
In this half of the market the number of years your average employee has worked in your office correlates positively with production, collection and net income. Dentist must hire more slowly, take HR as important as endo and perio, and develop their team members. Congratulations again to all the dentists who are taking their teams to New Orleans.” – Howard Farran 31.10.2013
What do you think about Howard’s comments?
Is it the same in Australia as it is in the USA?
Have things changed in the dental employment environment in the last six years?
What I’ve seen is this:
The cream rises to the top.
When I say this, I mean that the good get better.
It’s always the same dentists, and the same practices that are attending all of the Continuing Education courses.
What this means is that there are also a large number of dentists and dental practices that DO NOT attend Continuing Education Courses regularly.
Attending Continuing Education courses allows us to expand our knowledge and to invest in ourselves and our teams so that we can learn what else is out there that is possible.
We can learn that there literally are no limits to expansion of the mind.
Production, Collection and Net Income.
Howard mentions that there is a positive correlation between the investment in education for yourself and your dental practice team, and the success of your business.
Put simply, you can say:
“The more you learn, the more you earn!”
When you know more, you grow more.
There are plenty of successful dental practices that have grown by investing in coaching and mentorship for their dentists and for their team.
You see, it’s one thing to be educated in dental skills…
But at Dental School, dentists are not taught about systems and protocols, and HR and motivation.
And sales.
When we know more about business, our business grows more.
Some of the best coaching I received for my business was about business and not about dentistry.
Are you investing in the right things for your practice?
There’s no point in learning a whole pile of fancy new procedures if your front office team do not know how to answer the phone correctly.
If the people who answer your phone are BLOWING AWAY potential leads and potential new patients because of a lack of training, and education, then you may as well go down to the bank and withdraw tens of thousands of dollars in cash and then throw it all into the river.
You need a great team.
As Howard said, there is a positive correlation between practice success and team and dentist improvement.
If you want that sort of success for your practice, my thoughts are that you need to find yourself a great mentor and coach.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
Convert more calls into appointments…Click the link: http://www.calltrackingexcellence.com
Call Jayne on 1300 378 044 or email Jayne@theDPE.com for more details.
*****
Have you read my book , How To Build The Dental Practice of Your Dreams [Without Killing Yourself!] In Less Than Sixty Days.
You can order your copy here: Click Link To Order
*****
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