We’ve started the year with an all-out blitz with a relentless focus on you achieving huge victories and having a record-breaking year. Just ask the teams still in the playoffs, it takes a real commitment to winning, rather than trying not to lose.
Those four teams prepare as if this is the last game of season (which, at this time of the year, it always could be), they take an aggressive approach trying to capitalize on every play, and they know the outcome of the game before it even begins.
That’s the mentality you want in your practice too. That’s what I bring to you each week right here in some form – a champion’s mindset.
Now, that’s each and every week. However, when I put my effort into an advanced training (like the one I have coming up next month), it must be something so valuable it deserves your attendance, dedicated participation, and intense study. The details will be available right here in the Weekly Report soon, so keep an eye out.
Today, I want to give you 4 components of a Championship Approach that you can use to secure victory in your practice. You probably, in fact I know, aren’t expecting these in terms of dentistry. Actually, you can use these keys to unlock potential, tap into pent up demand, and reveal hidden opportunity.
These 4 success-indicators are what separate the most successful independent doctors who are regularly playing for a proverbial championship from those who always have an early offseason, sitting at home watching the action.
Applied to your own team, they can create more growth, more dentistry, and more profit in your practice in 2023 without adding a single patient or expanding your hours by a minute or increasing your overhead by a penny.
This is the perfect way for us to bring the month of January and the end-of-the-beginning of 2023 to a fast close in order to move forward into the rest of your year.
You are going to succeed at making this year your best ever because you are going to work smarter than ever before and you are going to embrace the 4-part approach I’m bringing to you today.
Short-sighted and ill-advised dentists only know to grow their practices by adding more volume. Cramming more barely-profitable patients into their days without any effective systems in place to create an amazing, educational, compelling, and high-converting experience for case acceptance. They show no consideration for the eventual diminishing return, the increase in team stress, or the poor quality of engagement that results.
On the other hand, clever and entrepreneurial dentists know that they have to create not only quality dentistry but a quality experience, that they must orchestrate not only production but profits in order to call it a success. They pay close attention to the amount of life-changing, comprehensive dentistry being completed, rather than just a full schedule. They know activity is not synonymous with achievement.
Doctors that succeed are in-it-to-win-it, not to just play the game. Victory drives their behavior and motivates them to be the very best. They show up each morning ready for gameday – where points are scored by helping more patients get healthy (the highest priority and only way to win).
It’s not enough to simply show up and go through the motions. You must find ways to keep that competitor’s edge.
How motivated do you feel when you leave the day having WON, with your patients, with your dentistry, with your team, with your income? Of course, nothing compares and you are eager to come back in tomorrow and do it all over again. That’s when you know you’ve tapped into that champions’ mindset.
You think the football teams sitting on their couches watching the playoffs right now are thinking, “I’m just happy we have a break right now so I can sit back and just watch.” Not a chance. They only play to win.
This is what I mean by being IN IT TO WIN IT. Every year, every month, every week, every day – patient by patient with victory the only option. It involves a proven formula for all teams who want to compete and who compete to win.
It’s a 4-pronged Championship Approach that you can implement in your practice to score more points, win more games, and bring home the trophy.
#1: Expectations
Set greater expectations for yourself and your team. Start by elevating your goals and trusting you can achieve them. True belief shows up as more than warm and fuzzies, they become standards. Think back to yesterday when you were with a patient, did you assume they’ll proceed with treatment? Did you expect them to say yes? Or did you hedge your bets, break apart your treatment plan, and go for an lesser victory?
How about when you were deciding your 2023 goals – did stretch for something you could be really proud of or simply repeat last year’s because you knew it’s something you could accomplish?
Every team remaining in the playoffs expected to be right here, right now. No one has ever won by accident, certainly not when it matters most. Even professional athletes often perform to expectations – games they should win, games they should lose.
The first step is elevating your belief in yourself and your team. Raise your expectations and results will follow.
#2: Preparation
Use your pre-game (i.e. Morning Huddles) to effectively prepare for the day. Know what patient opportunities exist, identify priorities for each team member, and orchestrate the day in advance so you can control the outcomes.
If you watched any of the recent playoff games, it was clear that one team came prepared and the other was caught off guard. They understood their team’s strengths and identified aspects of the game where they could capitalize.
It’s about doing the work required to put your team in a position to win, eliminate costly mistakes, and maximize the probability of success. In order to sustain success, you must intentionally master the act preparation necessary to perform and achieve at the highest level. The next time you miss a daily target, ask your team if they did everything imaginable to prepare for the day in advance.
#3: Execution
Execution is preparation in action – did everything that was supposed to happen, happen? However, all the preparation won’t overcome poor execution when it’s game time. Each team member must know their roles and responsibility. It’s truly a performance where everyone works in unison to achieve more than they ever could alone.
In football, it takes eleven players to move the ball. Any one position that is out of place, misses an assignment, or fails at their role and the team punts the ball, forgoing any chance at scoring points.
Lifting up your fellow team members to set them up for success begins by understanding what you accomplish in a day is about more than what you, by yourself, accomplish in a day. There can be the slightest bit of differences between near-perfect execution and merely checking off the task.
#4: Assessment
Where did you excel? Where did you fall short? What can you do to ensure next week is better than last week? Take responsibility by not just believing in but actually living out constant and never-ending improvement through honest assessment over progress, performance, and goals. This is how you hold yourself accountability, refocus of on areas of needed-upgrade, and renew your objectives based on past results.
Football teams have game film where they can watch each play and review break downs in responsibilities. This helps coaches determine what to emphasize in the coming week to make sure mistakes don’t carry over. The best teams get better over the course of a year because of this critical step.
You can do the same review by monitoring key statistics that indicate the direction your practice is heading. Not only historical data (such as diagnosis, treatment acceptance, new patient value, hourly production value) but future-looking numbers (including pre-paid treatment, scheduled treatment, patient referrals, unscheduled treatment for patients with appointments). Review these just like a coach and decide where emphasis should be placed in the coming days to correct any downward trends. You want your team to perform differently (better) in December than January – that’s how you know your assessment if paying off.
There are the 4 steps to ensure your team is in-it-to-win-it… there’s an elevated expectation for the practice’s performance, a focused start to the day, everyone is dialed in with a plan to win individual roles, attentive engagement with each patient, completion of each patient visit with a tangible result, the day’s performance is mirroring what was anticipated, there is the tracking of outcomes when the day is done (not the month or the week, but the day), and adjustments are made to continual get better.
Now that you are armed with this Championship Approach, you are ready to go on offense, score more points by helping patients get healthy, and win the day – every day!
