We all can agree that dentistry has the capacity for doctors to reach their true potential. Then why is there such a big achievement gap between the ones that struggle and those that thrive, regardless of practice size or location or any other variable.
I’ll tell you.
The biggest challenge that holds back a doctor from getting more out of their practice and achieving greater success can be summed up in one famous quote from Zig…
“You can’t hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.”
That’s it. The origin of success in one sentence.
You have to know what you want, what you are shooting for, and what your target is. Without this you will go nowhere.
For a lot of practice owners, dentistry turns into a treadmill where you are constantly hustling, logging a lot of hours, but stuck in the same place.
By approaching it differently, each of those days will compound and steadily you will be building to your full potential. It is a matter of being more purposeful.
When you think about it, everything from your phone calls to your diagnostic approach to treatment presentations to insurance and everything in between depends on this. How purposeful, how intentional is each and every step?
It is more than just beginning with the end in mind, it’s understanding what the real objective is and then executing exactly in that direction; not just with that intention but with that commitment to the outcome, to the target.
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Setting a target also relates to one of my most valuable little secrets to complete case acceptance shouldn’t be a secret at all. It’s just that so many choose to do it casually or without putting the significance on it that it deserves. It changes everything in the patients’ mindset in how the experience feels and most of all in the outcome.
The very best practices help their patients identify their target before they start any of the patient experience.
At the very beginning of the patient experience we talk about success, what it looks like, why it matters, how it impacts them, and the value it will have on their lives. We go over the values and pillars of health before they start getting diagnosed.
We give the patient a target so they have something to hit so we have something to work for. It’s simply a game changer.
Did you catch that little nuance… so we have something to work for.
We all have to have something to work. For the day, for the year, for your career, for your life.
We are creatures of habit, after all. If you are going to do something different, something more, something better, it takes more effort than doing something the same therefore we need to know why, what is the purpose, what is the end result we’ll experience.
During the Independence Day celebrations last week, I hope you took some time to ponder, reflect, and appreciate all the people, experiences, liberties, and freedoms you have. These moments of gratitude are necessary for what I’m asking you to do next.
Today, I want you to think deeply about what else you want, what else is missing, what else can you attain.
What target have you not yet hit maybe because you weren’t looking, maybe because you haven’t decided it, maybe because you can’t see it, maybe because you haven’t defined it yet.
By the way, we do this same thing with every single team member. It’s important to tie their effort, role in the practice, contribution back to their personal goals, their why, their target. If they don’t have a purpose greater than the paycheck, if there is no meaning to it, it’s just a job.
If you do nothing else from this Weekly Report make sure you are helping your team and your patients set targets for themselves.
Targets for what success looks like and why it matters from their perspective and targets for what success looks like from your perspective. The closer you get those two targets, the more successful everyone will be.
A key exercise to revisit in your Morning Huddles is to review every patient for the day and ask what is our target for them today, what should their target be, how are we going to help them?
It is important to set your targets if you actually want to achieve them. Now, you don’t always hit the target. But you hit it a lot more often when there’s one there and you certainly get closer than you would have – every time. That’s the key to consistency because there is something to shoot at, work for, focus on.
Now that we’ve got all of that out on the table, I want our next target to be yours.
It’s the middle of the year. We’re halfway through. But halfway through what? Just another set of 12 months on a Calendar, the year 2021?
Is the point just to get to the end and be finished? I don’t think so.
We are working to race the clock, beat the calendar, and achieve more than last year. So perhaps you aren’t halfway to your goals, but there is still time.
What targets do you have, what do you want to experience, what do you want to achieve, what do you want to make happen?
I’ll personally guide you on this process during my upcoming 1-day virtual workshop, where we’ll create your customized practice success blueprint.
You’ll discover how the pandemic redefined dentistry by driving patients away from corporate big box clinics and into focused, high-value practices… providing Independent Dentists their greatest opportunity in a generation.
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That’s a lot to consider and if you want me to make it more dramatic just think about how many sets of 6 months you’ve got left in your expected life. I promise you’ll wake up tomorrow with more urgency than you did today.
So, are you clear on your targets inside and outside your practice?
Not just your daily goals and your monthly collections. What about your personal income? Targets are not just money and they shouldn’t just be collections.
You might have clinical targets, bigger cases, getting into sleep or anything else. You also have lifestyle targets… home earlier, one less day a month, one more week of vacation.
This ought to be the most fun and invigorating thing you do. As I have been writing about every day of late, let’s not celebrate freedom a day a year, let’s live it out every day of the year.
The key to freedom is not just to acknowledge it, appreciate it – the more valuable thing to do is to define it, to expand it, to reimagine it, to believe in what’s truly possible.
And that’s the greatest freedom of them all. That you get to choose your targets and reason why they matter. Then move forward like your life depends on it because it does. Your targets should give you more than just focus but purpose and that’s what will lead to achieving even greater success.
