The 4 Practice Leverage Points That Ensure Lasting Success

Over the past several weeks, we have tackled 4 significant challenges facing dentistry today. The lessons in each of these should reveal one common theme…

You have the power to shape your practice into whatever you want it to be – regardless of what obstacles lie ahead.

This is a remarkable opportunity if you are willing to take responsibility for it. However, it can also be daunting when you realize that any decision you do not proactively and deliberately make, will be made for you by the forces in play.

The conundrum that results is, even if you don’t mind how your practice is currently operating, not taking action now can be devastating to your profitability and even worse to your lifestyle, your wealth, and your peace of mind.

In next week’s Masterclass, I’ll be diving deep into on each of these four threats and help you Future-Proof Your Practice. If you are ready to start building a better business that aligns with your personal goals and passions, then save your seat…

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Today, we’re going to use our time together in this Weekly Report to look at how you combat these trends to prevent any negative impact on your practice. We’ll be taking a look at four leverage points that provide the greatest stability: your fees, your time, your profitability, and your team.

Let’s start with fees and insurance. There are two big mindset shifts for you to make.

First, the mistake is to think that you want to play the middle. You get your little fee guide from one of the supply companies telling you what percentile you are in and you decide what you are worth.

For one, the people in the community don’t have the same list so they have no idea where your fee sit amongst the rest. While there might be a limit to what they would consider fair and reasonable for a crown or a filling or a smile or ortho or an implant or a sleep appliance – that’s not how they make decisions.

Patients accept treatment more by FEEL, less by FEE. If you fully comprehend this, you get everything about life and dentistry.

Now, you might find a little short-term gain by getting patients because you are taking their insurance but you must realize that other doctors are on that same list. The more that are on that list, the less it is of any benefit and the more you are ‘just another doctor.’ It becomes a disadvantage much faster than it was advantage (if at all).

Next up, we are going to talk about the value of your time because this is what gives you leverage in profitability. The simple goal for everyone is to earn more and work less, make more money in fewer hours of time.

The single greatest mistake that doctors and practice owners make is they think that harder work and more hours equal out more patients and more production. Three big problems with this.

First, more patients and more production does not necessarily mean more profit. In fact, in every case the more hours, the more patients, the more team, the more of everything else will reduce your profitability rate.

Second, at some point all time becomes a deteriorating return as the reward you get and the lifestyle you earn is reduced to nothing when you have no time and energy to enjoy it. Perhaps you earn a little more, but at what cost and what benefit?

Third and this is the big one… leverage is found in forcing yourself to solve the puzzle of greater return with fewer resources. Taking a shortcut won’t ever get you to the right destination. Allow less times, achieve more dentistry, and have more time for everything else (which was the point in the first place).

When it comes to the value of your time, there are no limits to the options that you can choose in how you engineer your day to achieve your goals.

You love what you do and the impact you have on patients’ lives but you also have a very full life. These two seemingly competing interest actually work in alignment with each other. When your schedule is properly constructed, you get to focus only on the most fulfilling dentistry which allows you to time and energy to enjoy the rest of your life. In return, you show up to the office renewed and refreshed, ready to do the job at hand.

That leads us into the principles of profit that will help ensure you are doing all of this in an economically effective way.

Your practice is a business and the point of business is to have a profit. That means that you don’t spend all the money. There should be some (or a lot) left over.

You can either let your team, patients, expenses, or CPA decide how much that is going to be (and be at the mercy of your everyone and everything else), or you can decide and build a better business that is engineered for profitability.

Your ability to set your own hours, to hire the best team, to build wealth, to choose the dentistry you want to deliver, to literally practice on your own terms – all comes from your ability to generate a profit.

Most doctors never break free from profit being an accident because they are working just to pay the bills. This becomes stressful and frustrating as robs your peace of mind.

Your income should be factored in just like any other expense. You should be profiting on purpose. You can determine your own income aspirations by following my financial formula to know exactly what makes your practice worth it to you. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is when you have a singular focus and the power of specificity of goals (down to the dollars per hour) to make your practice work for your life.

Finally, we arrive to your team. This is about having the ability to decide who is on your team, to keep the best people, to develop new hires, and to invest in your people. I’ve been writing about the team sport of dentistry in the Monday Huddle for the past few weeks.

The biggest breakthrough with your team is that they have own their roles within the practice. It is your responsibility to put them in a position to win, but it’s their responsibility to perform. Take this seriously as you owe it to yourself and to your patients.

This does mean you have to start with someone willing and capable. The fact that they’ll show up and work doesn’t mean they will be without challenges and problems – we are all human – but it does mean that you have someone worthy of developing. That is why profitability is so important because it will allow you to invest in and keep the very best people by rewarding them accordingly.

When you tap into these leverage points, there are no limits to what you can do. You will find confidence by taking more control and realizing that you can determine your own outcomes. There is a way forward to crafting the future you want and a business that can deliver the lifestyle you deserve.

Next week, I’ll share how to unlock hidden opportunities that exist within your practice. It’s all possible when this one thing happens… To Be Continued.

This is the last call for next week’s Masterclass: Future Proof Your Practice. We are taking a completely different approach to engineering a dental practice that’s insulated from economic uncertainty, protected from rising inflation, unshackled from insurance reimbursements, safeguarded from high turnover, and built to thrive for years to come.

Save Your Seat For The Live Masterclass Now…