Over the past two weeks we have explored this definition of ‘small’, what it is and what it isn’t and the most important thing for you to remember is that a small practice has nothing to do with ‘revenue’, it has to do with perceived potential.
Today I begin our journey through the 8 Myths that have been made-up to get in the way of Independent Dentists. All of the things that have been shoved into the minds of Dentists who have ambition and desires to grow and improve their Practice but who do not desire to become high-overhead, large-building, volume-based practices.
The question I always get is… “Can I still win?” “Are my goals even possible and realistic?” “Is this going to work, to be worth it?”
Resoundingly my answer is always the same –
In Dentistry Today You Can Be Successful In Any Practice Model You Choose As Long As Once You Choose It You Embrace It, You Go All In With It, You Commit To Shaping Your Practice Around Your Vision And Stop Being At The Mercy Of Other People’s Ideas Or Letting Your Mind Get In The Way Of All That’s Possible.
Yes. You can have it all.
Start by getting rid of these…
The 8 Myths That Destroy Potential, Stop Growth, Rob You of Profits and Patients, and above all else hold you back from doing big dentistry in your small practice.
Myth #1 – The Size of my Practice dictates the Size of my Production
Obviously this one sounds almost silly to say. Just plain stupid really. There is no such thing, no rules or regulations that say you can only produce X amount of dollars per chair or per square foot or per team member in our great industry.
This is complete junk that has been brainwashed into your minds. There is no link, no metric, no barrier to doing as much dentistry as possible in a small space with a small number of team members and with a small number of chairs.
You can do as much dentistry per chair as you want. Most of my great Dentists are doing somewhere in the range of $1,000,000 per restorative / operative chair working a lifestyle based schedule which means 3ish days per week taking at least 4 weeks off per year, many as much as one week off per month.
This has everything to do with how you schedule, diagnosis, perform and organize your clinical patient flow between you, your team, and your patients.
Stop thinking size has anything to do with dollars. It doesn’t.
You will make as much money and do as much production as your mind is ready to receive and as your practice model is built to create and produce. When you are ready for your next breakthrough, ready to not be stuck under this plateau, ready to really grow then you’ll take advantage and embrace the Small Practice Revolution I’m bringing to you in the next couple weeks.
Myth #2 – I have to work a lot of hours to make be more accommodating to my Patients if I want to grow.
I hate this idea. Yes, you can have convenient hours. You can. And yes, one of the ways to expand your practice and grow your potential and overall practice opportunity as a business is to expand your hours so you increase your capacity.
Here’s the problem. Most Dentists and Practices aren’t even close to maximizing their capacity in the practice hours they are open right now – so expanding hours only dilutes the same patients and production you have and spreads it over more time.
Unless and until you are pushing somewhere consistently and significantly over $1,000 a clinical hour (and technically that’s still a very basic general dentistry)… you haven’t even begun to hit your stride and maximize your opportunity in the hours you have now and the patients you see today.
Why would anyone want to work more hours or hire someone to do dentistry and give them most of the profit (if not all of the profit, as most Associates make 30%+ of the production and by the way…most Dentists do not earn 30% profit on every production dollar on their own production). Of course you know I’m a big fan and proponent of Associates in the right circumstances when you are ready for them and you have reached your capacity and potential. They can be a legitimate growth strategy – we’ll talk about this in the Small Practice Revolution.
The bottom line is, you don’t need to work more to make more, you do need to be better organized, better disciplined, better optimized for growth and profitability of the dentistry you are doing. You do need to have a schedule that facilitates and is based on your daily desired money goals instead of just time driven volume of patients in the schedule production…that’s called being at the mercy of your schedule, not in control of it and that limits you to small dentistry instead of big dentistry no matter how many hours you work or are open.
Myth #3 – I need tens or hundreds of new patients (and possibly the only way to get more patients is to join PPO’s).
No, no, no, no, no – wait, stop, don’t go. This is one of the biggest problems and the most profit killing destructive idea in our entire industry. Primary myth is the idea that you need more new patients or more patients in general.
You might. And that’s okay because that’s a very easy fix. Far easier than you are going to believe or think possible. Remember it’s not quantity it’s quality and when you position yourself for a highly profitable big dentistry practice then you actually need much fewer patients.
Please whatever you do, never let anyone talk you into the idea that you need to be in the discount dentistry business and that it will someway push you over the edge to your practice growth. There is no way you can achieve profits based solely on volume when we are talking about a time-bound human-based business.
There is a simple truth that you can either believe now or I will prove it to you later. If you can’t make money with a small number of patients or with the patients you already have, you won’t make money with more of the same.
Big Dentistry is not necessary ‘big numbers of patients’ and usually the opposite…because it’s about one number and one number only.
Amount of dentistry per patient…for new patients, 1st 30 days, average value of treatment diagnosis, accepted, scheduled, produced, and collected. Work on mastering that number and you will see your profits grow exponentially.
Don’t worry, I will explain exactly how to do this and you’ll see where you might be going wrong, missing opportunity, or sabotaging yourself. We’ll fix it and you’ll propel your profits with each and every patient and they will be so happy that you are doing more life-changing dentistry with them instead of seeing so many people you can never really get to or have the time for the good stuff; the dentistry that really matters.
Myth #4 – The only way to do big dentistry in a small practice is to do only really big cases and I don’t have any of those type of patients in my Practice. They won’t do it or I’m not capable even if they were.
You know what…this doesn’t even make sense. And it’s a really fun thing for me to talk about it so we’re going to save it for next week.
Know this, in every practice I talk to, every Dentist of all shapes and sizes, age and experience levels, they all say in their city, town, or area none of their patients have any money. Of course they are all wrong.
We’ll pick up here next week.
Let’s summarize the message you are walking away with today from the first 3 Myths.
It’s very simple, I can take a practice doing $300,000 a year and in less than 6 months have them doing more than $100,000 a month or more. A practice doing $700,000 or $800,000 and in under 12 months rise up to $1,700,000 or $1,800,000 or more all by breaking through these myths, all by getting the Dentist out of their own way and removing all the inhibitive thinking that has been crammed into t heir brain.
Same Practice, Same People, Same # of Chairs, Probably the same number of New Patients, Same hours (and actually maybe a lot less) all by focusing on what I call the Small Practice Revolution: how to do Big Dentistry in your Practice without growing your size, space, people, patients, or overhead!
It’s really quite simple. We can have big practice profits in a small practice model when you follow the principles I’m going to be laying out for you in my very special presentation released in March.
There is of course no reason to wait. To begin now, get your own copy of my entire Practice Prosperity Package and Custom Profit Blueprint Strategy right here…
Stay tuned next week for the remaining 4 Myths that are in your way and in your head preventing you from achieving your next and biggest breakthroughs of your life, career income, and dentistry.
