I hope this week’s Profit Report finds you doing well and having a fun, focused, and profitable start to April.
Today I’m going to tell you a brief story about one of my most exciting client success stories over the past 30-45 days. While I get weekly reports from my clients and we celebrate big victories literally every day – this one is extra special.
For one, he wants to win, he plays to win, he wants his team to win and he’s just outside of LA where everyone complains about the market and the patients and everything else – Dr. Sohn has a mindset of a champion and he never ever stops wanting to succeed.
He is always asking me for what’s next, what can I do better, and he is always very gracious which I appreciate above all else. He takes what we discuss seriously and he does something with it.
When his Office Manager Sandy, Scheduling/Receptionist April and himself came to me you could just tell they were focused, serious, and were going to win big, but I must say I was surprised to see how fast they accelerated from 0 to $100,000 growth in the first full month of implementation.
Here’s the thing a lot of Dentists say they want to succeed and do better but most don’t really want to a) listen, b) change, c) eliminate their excuses for mediocrity.
Oh, and just so you don’t think this is some one-shot wonder or artificial growth from reactivation or some bullshit marketing nonsense – not a chance – this is taking the exact same number of patients, days in the schedule, hours, 5 person team, same practice and everything else and achieving remarkable breakthroughs.
They anticipate their first $250,000 month in April…which would more than 3x their average monthly performance in less than 90-days from beginning.
Most Dentists would say…well, you can’t do that, we just need more patients, more patients, more patients, we need more time, I need more help, blah blah blah. They are always talking about what they need or what they can’t do or what won’t work.
These things are not the attitudes and mindsets of progressive, successful, champion dentists.
Just because you haven’t before or aren’t right now, just because you don’t believe it’s possible, doesn’t mean it isn’t. It is. Others are doing it – but – you never will until you are open to it to begin with.
Besides, why would you want to live your life inside of your practice that always looks the same, why would you settle for slow gradual growth? What is it really, you want a job or a business, a same-as-every-other-dentist practice or a thriving experiential fun place to be full of life, energy, prosperity?
Okay. I know you want to understand how they made this happen.
1 – emotional engagement on the phone intake…the relationship begins here…you want to stop getting cancellations, missed appointments, no-shows, WORK ON THIS…work on helping the patient know you really care.
Don’t expect them to give you the benefit of the doubt, you need to prove it, show them, really dig deep on the call to move it from a “shopping to set an appointment” to a “discovery of whether they are the right patient for you and how you can best help them.”
Get one thing straight – in no other healthcare environment on the earth does the patient dictate what happens more than dentistry – that is your fault – not the patients. Stop thinking about care being “elective” it may not be LIFE AND DEATH but if you’re a doctor then you’ve taken an oath to be responsible for making your patients healthy.
If you only want to tell them about it and educated them – write books, produce a TV show, put videos on the internet – if on the other hand you actually want to change lives and transform Patients then do everything possible to …
DE-COMMODITIZE yourself so Patients will listen, respect you, be engaged and committed to their relationship with you as much as you are to them.
ALL of this begins on the phone…this is why I push hard for Practices to MOVE the phone away from the Front Desk, stop rushing calls, take time to get to know the person who is calling. One extra minute makes a BIG difference in the long run.
And if you don’t think you can take more time on the phone…CALL THEM BACK later, or use the day-before or pre-appointment interview call concept that I teach.
Next up…Dr. Sohn’s Team has beautifully crafted an effective Patient Experience and it continues to improve week by week.
2 – complete enhancement of the patient experience inside the office, deliberate, personal, choreographed, resulting in MORE TIME WITH THE PATIENT
I talk a lot about this so I’m going to ask you to do one of two things…revert back to previous Profit Reports or you can get my entire Patient Experience Planning Process and Philosophy inside of my Prosperity Package and Practice Profit Blueprint. www.PerfectDentalPractice.com
One other thing I’ll give you…together with Dr. Sohn and his two Administrative People (which I hate using that word…they are Frontline Patient Service Concierges and Advisors) and myself we restructured, practiced, and orchestrated the treatment presentation and emotional buy-in and financial arrangements portion of the Treatment Conference and New Patient Experience.
3 – modification of the treatment presentation protocol, format, and better management of the financial discussion, avoiding what I call the dropping down to the lowest common denominator.
Dr. Sohn is a Master, Clinically…impeccable. Still if you make it about money or go to fees too early you’re done for, even the best can’t remove the fixation of the mind on money.
This takes finesse, strategy, and careful planning to help the patient fully commit in their mind and see themselves living with the outcome and the benefits that result from your diagnosis and recommended treatment.
Then once you have made the leap and money is on the table…it’s about having integrity, being congruent, and following through with what you said you would do from the first moment you met the patient…helped them get what they wanted.
It really isn’t that difficult. I get so tired of hearing “my patients don’t have any money” or “I just need better patients” or “nobody can afford Dentistry these days”
Really?
Well I can show you the poorest cities in the country where clients are doing amazingly well, and the most competitive markets on the earth and clients raking in patients and money.
Your ability and the patient’s willingness to invest in your services has everything to do with your relationship with them, their belief in you and their confidence and commitment to the results you presented – not about money.
I’ll save this for another day because it’s advanced stuff.
Here’s a tip – if you are making it all about money you’re going to lose. If you are just focusing on the “problem” OR the “solution” instead of the future life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness – what the patients is going to look and feel like AFTER you work your magic…then they have nothing else to do but decide based on money.
Don’t make it about the money. Usually the practices I see are making dentistry like selling a car with line itemed features or a construction worker making a bid on a remodel.
You don’t see other Doctors selling this way. Why would you?
Well. There you have it.
Now you want to know something, guess what…
I have never been to Dr. Sohn’s office. If I told you where he was at you’d think it was not the highest end area, you’d find Dentists all around him struggling to pay their overhead instead of growing like crazy… and we did no marketing.
We met, they went through my Blueprint Process we devised their plan and we took action. They are amazing, they wanted to win, and they gave up all excuses and took the field like champions.
Of course we did everything we always do, got each-and-every team member involved, excited, focused on their positional responsibilities. We built a playbook process flowchart for the Patient Experience and outlined how each person would be a part of it and what their role and our expectation was for this interaction.
I’m very proud of them because they have now, in one single month, reached levels that their size of practice, one doctor, lifestyle-based schedule, small team are in the top 1% of Dentists in North America and they aren’t looking back.
Best of all of this is these changes we made came with zero-hard costs, happened quite literally overnight, and they are repeatable, they are in place, they are never going to revert back because we made structural, systematic, tangible modifications.
Now they can build on top of this and move to much more advanced concepts and strategies for growth and expansion.
You know what I love about Dr. Sohn, among many things, is he was most excited about how much extra money his team members made…the impact it has and will now continue to have on their lives and families.
That my friends is extraordinary and the way to keep the best players on your team, forever.
Changes like these are not miracles they are calculated. They happen because I know how to make the best better, know how to look inside of your practice and really understand your strengths, what you desire to do, what your dream practice is and apply business systems and empowering leadership and performance based positional management…we always focus on the PEOPLE of the PRACTICE – your team, your patients, yourself…and then just like clockwork…the money, the profits will follow.
Dr. Sohn and I began our relationship right here…in one of these reports, he respected my writing and my thoughts and ideas about Dentistry and he did what most don’t do…he acted, followed his thoughts with a decision, and requested my Prosperity Package and talked through his challenges and goals and objectives with me and we made it happen.
Just like you with your patients.
You make it happen. Of course, they have to do the hard part first…they have to show up…just like you and me, I’m here…ready, the question is, are you?
