Break These 4 Time Traps to Instantly Elevate Profits

We’re going to use the power of gratitude and appreciation as our premise for setting you up for your next leap forward – and not just your success financially, also as a clinician, a practice owner, and a leader.  I’m going to show you how to get more significance out of your work and time invested in your practice.  What could be a more worthwhile goal than that.

It begins and ends in a place that you might not first think of.  It is the great equalizer for everyone.  If you live out this practice growth principle, it is the catalyst for everything else.

Here’s the underlying concept (aside from being a humble, kind, respectful, courteous person), I don’t think there is any better way to demonstrate your appreciation for others more so than valuing time.

  
And it happens to be a foundational principle of all success.  In fact, I would go so far as to say you can’t be successful and go against this core guiding principle. 

Any practice that is built on, operates with, commits to, believes in, and makes decisions around a philosophy of time being the most important asset needed to carry out your mission with your patients and to achieve your objectives – is already set up for success.

I point to this right now, while important every day all year long, it is especially relevant as we move closer to the end of the year when day are getting shorter (quite literally with less sunlight), seem to fall off the calendar faster, and a fast approaching end-of-year deadline staring you in the face.

Don’t let this intimated you.  You might be looking forward to it already… the holidays, the end of the year, the fresh start.  But, wait a minute.  

There’s still a lot of time left and every day counts.  

It is the month of Thanksgiving, though it shouldn’t take a holiday for you to think about that.  That’s another practice breakthrough in and of itself.  We’ll get to that in the next few weeks.

Today, I want to draw your attention back to the greatest equalizer in all of our lives and I want to remind you that every breakthrough you will ever have in your practice will come back to the utilization of and increasing the value within your time.

I can also tell you that the most common thing that holds practices back is the mismanagement of time; primarily from a standpoint of prioritization, value creation, being unorganized, careless with minutes, or simply out of order.

Tasked-based focus instead of value-based focus.  Filling time with actions instead of maximizing time for results.  

My point today is a profound one…

If you want others to appreciate your time, you must appreciate theirs.  More importantly, if you want others to appreciate your time, you must appreciate your own time.

And that’s what is often missing.

I’ve yet to meet a practice owner that says, “The last thing we care about is being on time for our patients.  In fact, if it happens it’s on accident because we just really don’t consider it a big deal.”

And I’ve never heard a team member say, “We are just fine with the patients showing up whenever they want – late, early – just as long as they come in, it doesn’t matter.”

  
You agree these statements are preposterous, but does every person in your practice demonstrate a belief in the value of time with every action, protocol, process, and interaction?

If you are careless with your own time, others will be too.  If you don’t value your own time, others won’t either.  If you don’t appreciate your time, nor will anyone else.  Of course, this applies to your team members as well.

If patients walk in and go moments without being acknowledged or greeted, you might consider it rude and it is and you might be busy and that’s true but if you don’t pay attention then with every slight it reinforces to the patient a negative feeling of the value of time.

If you are late to get your patient back or if your patient is waiting for the doctor in hygiene or on any follow-up. It’s just simple… acknowledge, respect, appreciate everyone’s time – all the time.

We’re going to move this to how time affects you and why the hierarchy begins with you.  It always does.  But especially with your value over your own time because your practice has been built around how valuable we can make your time.

So if you are careless with when you arrive to morning huddles or you are slow to turn around treatment plans or you are disrespectful over your teams’ or patients’ time – all of these things have a ripple effect on others’ attitudes toward you and your time.  Beyond that, they have a compounding impact (that you might not immediately notice) in lost dollars, lost diagnosis, lost patients, lost productivity, lost value of your team’s time, lost opportunity, and many other things.

Here’s the thing and the tough love I’m delivering to you here today… Your gut reaction is to go to how your team wastes their time or could use it better.  Or your gut reaction is to go to how your team squanders your time whether through poor scheduling or inefficient room set-up or being behind instead of ahead.

Both are equal and they are important.  However, the place you should go first (if you are going to increase the value and leverage of both of these) is to your own use, organization, orchestration, prioritization, and ultimately value of your time from your own perspective.  

  
It is your greatest responsibility because from it all others follow… priorities, responsibilities, people, patients and everything else.

There are 4 time traps throughout your day where your own times is devalued.  Breaking these also happen to be the four fastest ways to instantly and sustainably elevate your practice production and most of all profit to levels others don’t believe possible.

These are outlined extensively in my new book with a simple and easy approach to apply them directly to your dental business model overall.

You Can Still Grab a Free Copy of My New Book Right Here…

First, you have your clinical hourly value of time which is built by the way you treatment plan and organize dentistry to be done in your schedule.  This can be sabotaged in countless ways beginning with your diagnosis all the way through what you and your team allow your patients to do when it comes to telling you how you are going to practice dentistry.

Second, you have your overall schedule control and mistakes made with it or wrenches thrown into it.  When the flow of the schedule and the value of the day isn’t prioritized it becomes a slippery slope that lowers the value of everything else.

Third, you have all the in-betweens from the start of your day to your non-clinical hours and all the time you invest in your practice and with your team.  If this isn’t managed, scheduled, and built for value then it will be less effective and less efficient.  I always say one of the greatest breakthroughs will be taking control of all of your time, not just your clinical time.

Fourth, really goes to whether or not you are purposeful and disciplined with all of your time and energy for everything else.  Your health, your personal relationships, your other hobbies and interests, life priorities, and your responsibilities as a whole.

What happens when someone is careless with the things ‘outside’ the practice, they never fully feel focused and it robs them of peace of mind.

You get to decide how you live too not just how you practice.  You might need to be more resourceful, more organized, delegate more outside the practice, or prioritize properly in order to set yourself up for success with your time.

Otherwise, what is all the dentistry, work, money, practice, freedom, and independence of being a business owner really for?

Often the biggest downfall and detriment isn’t inside the practice at all, it’s outside where the real opportunity for time value is created.  That will give you the greatest motivation to ruthlessly execute your time values and tolerate less wasted opportunities.

These are all things that lead to a higher value in dollars, in treatment, and in quality of life.  It is what creates the leverage to reduce work, worry, stress, and effort, all while accomplishing more.

Next week, I’m going to give you insights and some tangible strategies that you can’t get anywhere else.  Stay tuned.

If you are looking for the biggest game changer and time leverage creator for yourself to get more out of your practice without having to put more of you into your practice – you’ll find the answers and proven formula for doing exactly that in my book all about engineering the Million Dollar Schedule…

Grab your free copy of my new book Million Dollar Schedule …