You can learn a lot from the Holiday Season even from today…Black Friday.
Here’s the biggest lesson I’d like for you to take away.
WHAT NOT TO DO
THE BUSINESS YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE IN
HOW BIG DUMB COMPANIES OPERATE AT THE TINIEST OF MARGINS
EVERYTHING is about desperate, spontaneous, volume driven sales. Not authority, not experience, not service, not even quality. Sales… Discounts… Thoughtless spending.
Oh, believe you me, I don’t mind spending money and I can even be swayed by a good deal; but I’m not one for waste or even thoughtless spending really but hey, it’s all relative and to each his own.
But I can tell you what I don’t appreciate and what no affluent buyer really appreciates – period – is fighting to spend money.
It’s insulting and uncivilized.
Lines. Bargains. People in your way and a ticking clock that says ‘we will give you something if you spend money in the next 24 hours’.
These businesses reward the public for the ‘Black Friday’ behavior… they bribe you with discounts to shop one day a year, they fill their stores with plenty of customer service help, they promise exclusive deals … but what if I show up the week after or a few days early even and I offer to pay full price and I show my loyalty to your company and invest the money I have in exchange for what you sell – I get treated like nothing, terrible service, and none of the perks.
This is called breeding bad customers.
This is called perpetuating bad business.
Do you realize most retail stores have profits only 2 months out of the year, they break even the majority of the time, and they lose money the months after Christmas that they worked so hard to build up for.
Do you want to be in the discount business?
Do you want your patients to make decisions based on price?
Do you want your customer to value what you do based on the time of the year?
We create pick, chose, create, condition, determine who are customers are. You can pick your patients. You can train them on how to make decisions. You can even condition them how to buy.
You know, the most profitable companies are the one not relying on discounting. These brands stand the test of time. They have a cult of customers that pay whatever the fees are and are proud to brag, promote and share with others… They are not the ones participating in the frenzy of discounting, black Friday BS, and big sales efforts.
Dentistry is victim to price shoppers, insurance buyers, volume driven practices that lose sight of the personal touch that creates an individual relationship and worse than that they, maybe even you lose sight of the real value of dentistry, of what you actually sell.
Patients only decide on Price because it’s the only measure they have to make a decision. You give them nothing else to base it on.
When this is happening, it is 100% because your lack of control, confidence, and a structured, reliable, consistent system with a process for every step and variable in your patient experience.
I see so many people get caught up in their fees. When they get on the phone with me during their Practice Profit Blueprint Strategy Call they tell me how many stupid consultants want to know about this fee or that fee.
It’s pretty simple, charge what you feel you are worth. If your patients are questioning your fees, they are questioning a whole lot more than that. Try your integrity, their trust in you, their belief in whether you are doing something valuable.
Sometimes, yes, the truth hurts. When it’s not on your side. But, the powerful point of this is it is up to you.
No big box store can complain at the end of the holiday season about why their sales are trashed and why they have no customers or lots of returns at the first of the year because they did nothing to earn longevity of customer relationships. They did nothing to build their brand and the relationship with the customer. They did nothing to educate them on anything other than “Hey, once a year show up and we’ll give you a hell of a deal if you get in line and we can trick you out of your money.”
Look, it’s fun, it’s exciting and that’s fine. Make no mistake Black Friday is an experience for customers and maybe even you like doing it or your family or your kids. The point I’m making is not about the customers having fun and spending money, it is about the detriment that occurs when you base anything in your business on price, convenience, and volume at the complete expense of control, conditioning, experience, service, relationship and expectation of your patients.
You control your profit, how hard you have to work, how many patients you have to see and how much dentistry you have to do to achieve your goals.
Enjoy the holiday season and all that fun shopping that goes with it. Wheel and deal and experience the craze all you want.
And then stand back and breathe a big sigh of relief and say…
Thank goodness…that is retail and this is dentistry. Gosh I’m so thankful, fortunate, and very very smart. I picked something I can control my own destiny in; and make a life changing difference everyday while I do it.
Hey, you did pick this, good for you.
What you do with it on the other hand…that’s the ultimate question. Whether or not you accept the responsibility you have been given to be in control over your outcomes and be deliberate about your success, your practice growth, your patient care, and your own personal fulfillment and satisfaction.
If this conversation intrigues you at all…then you’ll love this…
The On-Demand Replay: Practice Profit Blueprint Webcast >>>
Next week we’ll have a real uncensored adult conversation and pick up where we left off…go feed the economy with some of that hard earned money you’ve been making all year. You deserve it. Enjoy and study this over the weekend… it’s important to our next week’s conversation.
