More From Less Where to Find Profitable Leverage

Have you thought about your next act in Dentistry?  How you will be ascending to the next level?

For most, it revolves around getting more out of less.  In other words, simplifying.

Fewer days,

Fewer patients,

Maybe fewer everything.

I was just celebrating with a great couple, who are fantastic practice operators, on the transformation they have made over the past year.  And it wasn’t about the numbers you’d expect.

While their collections were on par, that wasn’t the goal of last year.  Instead, it was exactly what they accomplished: a dramatic reduction in clinical hours with weekends and evenings eliminated, and an overall tightening up of the schedule.

This led to the next reduction… people.  Now, it is a smaller, more tight-knit team with more balanced lives for everyone.

The result of all of this – you guessed it – was the same amount of dentistry but a whole lot more profit.  Working less, making more with less stress, more fulfillment.  

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Now, you may need more people to get your goals accomplished, but it’s doubtful.  You absolutely never need more hours; only your hours to be worth more.

The beauty of Dentistry (among so many other things), is leverage… of everything.  That leads to the amazing, and to some even miraculous, growth in the bottom line all while the burden of the business goes down.

I can tell you story after story like this.  Another Doctor continues to crush it after doubling a million-dollar practice in an 18 month timespan all while working less and adding no additional team members.  Simply by being smart and intentional.

Imagine all of the variables being the same yet the business is worth twice as much in just over a year.  If the practice doubles and the overhead stays the same, your profit can triple or even quadruple, if you do it right.

The best news is: we can double your income without having to double your practice. That ought to sound even better to you.

So, where do you start?  Begin with your own clarity of what you want next in your life and practice.  Without defining it, without a target, without a pursuit then you don’t have anything to actually work on.

The primary means to achieve what I have just discussed is the cultivation and conversion of more complete and comprehensive dentistry.  It focuses on having patients accept, invest, and move through their entire treatment plans in fewer visits.

Ultimately, as simple and elementary as it sounds, the greatest leverage in dentistry (outside of having other doctors do the work and better utilization of your team members), is doing more dentistry at one time.

This lessens expenses and most of all lessens the time which allows you to make your days more valuable.

What so many doctors get wrong when attempting to make their days more valuable is this…

They think about moving faster, increasing team members, adding procedures, purchasing new equipment, expanding to more ops, and – worst of all – time with new clinical days and extended hours.  It is always about adding MORE, which of course will immediately mean more of everything you don’t want (stress, expenses, debt, etc.).

Of course, each of these could be strategic investments for certain circumstances.  The real issue is the concept that adding more of anything always means more profit.

For those who desire to make more with less, it comes down to making your patients more valuable.

It also happens to be in complete alignment with doctors, like you, who have a full and complete health focus and actually want to help your patients.

You believe it’s about the patient first.  Doing what is best for your patients is directly tied to making them more valuable.  As I remind you all of the time, you only help those who say yes and accept treatment.

That is why I say you don’t have good or bad patients; you have a good or bad patient experience.

The bottom line is if you align the outcome you want with a patient experience that will create it, then you will achieve incredible results.

The difference between a doctor who does $5,000 or $20,000 in a day (not adding in other variables, only the doctor), is in the patient process and the diagnostic experience which all comes back to the value of their patients.

Plain and simple.

The complicated part of it all is what you do in their mouths, not this.  The math is very straightforward.  The path to getting more out of less is crystal clear.

This may be blunt but why would you want me to waste your time with anything else… is your focus on patients or production?

Of course, your answer is “patients,” but is it really?

How so?  What are you doing to actually bring that to life?

What are you doing deliberately, intentionally, specifically to make them more valuable and better patients for themselves and thereby for you?

Make your list first and I’ll give you mine next week.

Remember this: what is best for you is always what is best for your patients.  When you believe that AND when you stop apologizing for treatment or money AND you aren’t bashful about your goals or lie to yourself as if you don’t actually really want to make more – you will begin to experience a breakthrough.

I know, I’ve heard all of the excuses… “it’s hard,” “I’ve tried everything,” “I don’t want the patients to think it’s about the money,” and everything else to make yourself feel better.

Perhaps it’s not you that’s the issue.  If anyone in your practice is in the way of doing what is best for your patients – then it is in your way too.  If there is any negativity at any point of the patient experience or business process, it is diminishing and sabotaging your patients’ views and value of your purpose and mission.

I’m not here to tell you what you should want and I never will, nor am I ever going to judge you for your own definition of success – I just want you to have one.  I want you to be okay with the fact that you have permission to evolve, to want more, better, faster, different than you once did.

Let’s imagine the life and dentistry you want for your future and then build a business that develops your team and improves the processes to increase the value of your patients to match.

That’s when the real fun begins.