In keeping with our Spring theme, I want to get very specific with you today on how you can best serve your patients. Spring is about growth, renewal, and new beginnings. It is not just about what exists today but nurturing for tomorrow.
My challenge to you is to take this concept as a way to engage your patients. Focus on where they can go instead of just where they are now.
I call this possibility-based dentistry. It’s about three things…
One: their vision for themselves, for their smile, and for their health in the future.
Two: their actual optimal health potential (which they likely are unaware).
Three: the benefits and results they will experience.
Far too many practices stay stuck because they remain fixated on the past and present during conversations with their patients.
We call this problem-based dentistry. If there is a problem we diagnosis it and hopefully fix it.
No problems. No dentistry. Nothing we can do to help.
But that’s just not true.
In all aspects of life, people hope for ‘no problems’ but that does not mean that you have ‘no potential’ where you are void of possibilities for improvement.
In fact, problems themselves are opportunities for improvement but they aren’t the only ones (nor the exciting ones). They are the ‘have to’ address ones. The exciting ones are those that you don’t necessarily ‘have to’ by force but instead you want to because you desire the benefits they bring.
While this is not a new conversation we are having, I figured looking outside and seeing all the green leaves, sprouting flowers, blue skies, and warm sunshine would inspire you (and your patients) to engage at a level that is not just with what is today but with what can be tomorrow.
Despite how uplifting this sounds, most every practice in every conversation with every patient engagement stops short of reaching possibility-based dentistry.
This is why I begin my very first conversation with every team who enters into our Dental Success Today Universe by reminding them whose responsibility it is to show every patient the big picture of how dentistry and health fit into their lives.
You get there by the way of their mind, their vision, and their imagination. They have to see it, feel it, and believe it before they can make the decision, commitment, and investment for it.
Of course, you can still help patients by fixing, preventing, and avoiding problems but you can’t stop there. It’s necessary but it’s not inspiring.
Possibilities, opportunities, potential – people rally around a great vision…
So give them one.
Be on a journey of discovery every single day with every single patient and be able to not just answer but bring to life this question…
“What can I do today to help this person?”
Let the answer be guided by your objectives, clinical philosophy, and standard of care and then go to work making it happen.
I know you are passionate about what you do. So, share, elaborate, inject your enthusiasm, and give your patients the vision of what’s possible for the future.
Think beyond just the obvious problems and take them on an adventure of growth and new beginnings that can be a renewal of health, of happiness, of peace of mind, of confidence, of what they truly deserve.
Just like the seeds in your garden – what you plant (and nurture), you’ll harvest. Plant the seeds of possibility-based dentistry and you’ll harvest more complete health for your patients.
How’s that for a Spring theme?
