As it stands today, we are under attack by this virus. With so many restrictions put upon you, your livelihood is in jeopardy, at least in the short term.
I don’t know where your mind is right now. I do know that no matter what you are feeling, the most important thing we all have is our health, our families and each other. Now, more than ever, you have to take care of what matters most.
With that said, what I hope you do is: never give up and never give in.
Even if your practice is closed – your business is not.
As a business owner, you have greater responsibilities than just that of practicing dentistry. Of course, you have your team and your patients as your greatest assets. You have the realities of bills, overhead, and your own income requirements for your personal life.
I may sound like a broken record here but one day, hopefully in the not too distant future, you will thank me for it.
Our circumstances that we find ourselves in right now in this moment – they are temporary. We will get through it and we will get back to normal.
And you know what the difference will be…
Some Doctors and their Teams will explode like a rocket ship into their first weeks back in action, they will have the best month of their lives, they will recoup everything they have lost plus gain even more, and they will have momentum going into the future.
Other Doctors and their Teams will stay stuck in the muck, wallow in this thing, and do nothing other than feel sorry for themselves (as if they are alone and the only ones going through it). They will meander back into the practice having done nothing, it will take them weeks to get back up to speed, and they will turn a short term ‘shutdown’ into a long term recovery instead of being prepared.
Ultimately, this stark difference will be the result of what you do now and how you put yourself in a position of success.
Yes, of course, in this moment you have to mitigate damage and loss, you have to take financial and health precautions, and you have to minimize the negative impact.
However, there is another side and that is you must act on the opportunity at hand. It should not be an option if you understand your core responsibilities as a business owner, as a leader, and as a caretaker of people.
As I have been saying for two weeks now (technically it’s what I say every single day)…
What can YOU DO NOW?
It pains me (really to be honest, it angers me), to see grown professionals and usually very smart people act as though the world has ended. You’d think they have been robbed of their careers forever and their business has vanished from existence. They hear a few weeks but act like it’s a few years.
Seriously, you aren’t employees, you aren’t laid off, you aren’t out of work.
You own the deal.
If you follow the NFL at all. They haven’t stopped. They have not given up on the season. They are in the busiest offseason and free agency I can remember.
Moral of the story: Just because there isn’t a game to play, doesn’t mean there is nothing to do. There is always something to do. There is always something YOU can do.
It might not be what you want. Maybe it doesn’t earn you money (in this moment), but there is always something.
I would rather be over prepared to hit the ground running in a couple weeks when the real games begin; than to do nothing but wait around and then having to ramp back up again.
Smart Doctors are protecting their assets right now… their patients, their team, their minds, their money, and most importantly… their relationships.
My great friend and amazing Wealth Member, Dr. Hunt, who I believe has one of the best relationship-driven practices in the country, has his team personally calling every patient to check in on them, reconnect, and talk about life (and of course dentistry, why not).
Now, who on earth do you think is doing that right now with their customers? No one. Who do you think these patients are going to be most loyal to and what do you think they will remember?
I know Doctors turning over more same day dentistry than they ever had in their lifetime. Patients have time, many practices are closed, they have time to talk with patients, and everything is an emergency when you don’t know the next you can get something done.
If you can’t open your doors, it doesn’t you can’t help your patients. Smart Doctors are doing virtual consults with patients when necessary. You may not be able to put your hands in their mouth but you can still be of service.
There are some practices right now that aren’t even answering their phones. They’ve deserted their patients (who will probably be calling another practice next). I would expect this from corporate clinics with no identities, no responsibility, and no morals.
We have a terrible and unfortunate situation on our hands and we don’t know when it will end. What we do know is: we can make the very best of a bad situation and get creative about how to maximize this time.
At least you have to be thinking about what happens when you get back. If you are closed down, you are going to have more demand than before and you are going to need to be prepared to capitalize on that demand.
Your patients will show up. They will. They won’t let you down if you don’t let them down. Be the beacon of hope, positivity, and optimism that is needed.
We always talk about being a ‘dental family,’ well you may not be able to be the ‘dental’ right now but you can be the ‘family.’ That is going to make all the difference when all of this is behind us.
I’ve made lists and given ideas in other places. You can work on your team, your role playing, to call patients, to shoot videos, to create testimonial books, to do all the things that you’ve never gotten around to, or to go through every single aspect of your practice to see what needs attention.
Think outside the box. Start a book club with your team. Do a virtual group book report. There is only one thing you can’t do: nothing.
There will be Doctors that are going to look back on this and see it as the time they made a dramatic impact on the future of their practice development.
There has not been a time where anyone has dedicated time to really go to work “on the business” – aside from a week or two vacation out of the office. When was the last time you had uninterrupted time to really play business owner.
I’m not here to tell you to break any rules – of course not. I want you to do whatever you are comfortable doing and I want you to follow the guidelines of those who are watching out for the best interest of your patients.
That said, what I really don’t want you to do is act helpless because you are not. I don’t want you to ignore, neglect, do disservice to everything you have built and sacrificed your life to create.
And for goodness sake, please remember the news talks about what could happen, the worst case scenarios. They don’t always talk about what is actually happening because there is a lot of good out there. Our country is coming together to get out ahead of this to avoid the devastation that places like Italy and Iran are facing.
Absolutely we have a real threat here. However, in the midst of this crisis, everyone is dealing with different circumstances in their own individual lives and businesses. The only persons reality that you can control is your own.
Personally, I choose to be proactive, responsible, hopeful, and optimistic by not just focusing on life and business WITH the virus but also going to work on life and business AFTER it…
Because there will be that too.
