Well, that struck a chord. As it should have. It’s great to see so many get fired up. Last week was one of the most timely Weekly Reports I’ve written.
The bottom line is most sit around playing victim instead of doing what is necessary to become the victor. The most successful people find a way to thrive all the time; not just once in a while during the good times. Sure, things ebb and flow, but winners find ways to win.
Here’s the best news I can share: the principles never change. The strategies can adjust, the verbiage can be relevant to the times, but the principles remain as the bedrock to your success.
Controlling the schedule. Building better patients. Doing more with less. Fewer distractions. Creating leverage. Being on offense. Belief in abundance. Never acting out of fear.
And how about the most fundamental principle of the business of dentistry… you can’t earn more or produce more than you get accepted and you can’t get more accepted than you diagnose and present.
This has nothing to do with the volume of patients or quantity of team or ops or anything else. Some doctors would prefer to masquerade variables as excuses for why “better” is not possible for them.
In reality, if you decide to succeed then you can be determined to no matter the circumstance. Not deterred – determined.
Let’s carry on with our mission here that we began last week with some tactical strategies.
Yes, people are feeling the squeeze on their incomes and soon enough incomes will also be squeezed so they’ll have even less to spend while everything costs more. It will be a double whammy on families.
However, this doesn’t mean that people won’t value their health and in fact they will find it essential to stay healthy because they can’t afford not to be.
You see, that’s the message, you can’t afford not to be healthy. Imagine the financial burden of an emergency when you can least afford it.
It’s easy to sell ‘you deserve this’ when everyone is fat and happy with cash burning holes in their wallets. When it is a little tougher, you sell ‘you really have no other choice – especially right now – because the alternative is far too risky and costly.’ The excuse is actually the reason. The objection is actually the best motivation. The circumstances are the greatest driving factor.
Here’s my five-part action plan to double down and execute on top of the four pillars I laid out last week. All of this designed to keep you on offense and counteract the economic forces – and win.
First, against your gut instinct probably, do not discount your fees. With the rising costs of doing business, you might even need to raise your fees. Of course, you can be strategic and focus on the things that will make the biggest impact. Then, even if you have to be creative with the financing of a patient’s treatment plan (more on that later), you’ll be doing so from a position of greater profitability.
You’ll discount your way to the bottom and just end up with less all the way around if you go the other direction.
Second, tying into number one, incentivize the behavior you want. Faster decisions. More bundled treatment. Pay for it all now. Whatever you want more of, make it easier for the patient. Don’t do one unit when there are two to do.
Yes, choose your battles, but the point was choose ones that you can win. This one you can win and you’ll build more profitable days and patients by simply allowing nothing less.
You get a multiplier effect and you end up more profitable and you have additional cash off even if the number ebbs and flows during the next months or years.
Which means you are focused on the number that matters, by the way, and not judging success by the wrong metric. That in and of itself is a lesson in winning when times might be tougher than usual.
The same goes for new patients, it’s never about the number, it’s about the value. Go to work on the value and you’ll need less of the number. Oddly, it often ends up with more wanting to get in anyways.
And that’s number three…
It’s all about demand. I talk about this a lot but I’m going to say it again. You can’t come off desperate. You must maintain positioning and authority.
Everyone wants to – and especially the team but sometimes even the doctor – start breaking every rule and pandering to patients by letting them come whenever they want or giving in on all the protocols you’ve worked so hard to put into place.
Especially now, you need to stick by your principles. It’s easy to start bending all of the rules until there is nothing left to stand on. Trust me or learn the hard way.
Before you give in on anything, check yourself and make sure it’s actually going to result in what you want more of, not less of. You will make it very easy to fill up your practice with clutter or end up making it harder to hit your goals as a result.
That said there is one place you can consider playing…
Fourth is strategic, somewhat flexible, individualized ‘financial plans’ that coincide with treatment plans for patients’ pathways to health.
I covered this in great detail on our Practice Profit Accelerator call this week. It is the same structure I have been teaching for twenty years on how to breakdown money while maximizing case acceptance and cash up front on comprehensive treatment plans.
It works all the time but it becomes even more critical today because you have less room for error. You might have fewer opportunities to maximize, therefore you have to make the most of every one of them.
You do that be manipulating the money so that the patient can still accept and move forward with as much of the total pathway to health as possible.
Fifth, and finally for today, think through each of these from the perspective of your team.
Incentivize your team even more… double down on your bonus, don’t cut your bonus, you are the one who loses most when they lose.
You don’t have to cut your profit, but increase goals and increase bonus. Come up with more ways to win. Do more, more, more to get the team on offense and believing in abundance.
Reset the team’s mindset every day. Challenge them to remove news and social media from their lives (unless they are using it to promote your practice). Instead, turn inward not outwards. That’s the only way to protect your own principles and values.
Now is the time to strength resolve in every way. No sloppiness, no mistakes, no exceptions, no compromise. We don’t break schedule protocols ever, and especially not now. We don’t give in on pre-payment of treatment ever, and especially not now.
It doesn’t take more to win and it doesn’t take different approaches to win when times are more difficult – it actually takes less of these four things. Which means you don’t need any – more – of anything else you don’t want. In the end, you might actually be more profitable than ever before because you’re focused to on the minor details.
And, it gets even better… when things break back to the easy street, you’ll be in a position to capitalize and grow your practice even further. You’ll find giant breakthroughs and leaps to a level you didn’t even know existed.
All the while, everyone else will be trying to figure things out all over again; rebuilding what was after they dismantled what worked.
I’m famous for saying, “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.” That’s why you will achieve what others don’t because you will do what others won’t – just by following these 5 steps to counteract the economic forces at play.
