Over the past several weeks, we have tackled several significant challenges facing dentistry today. Focusing on how you can buffer, protect, and more importantly position yourself to be immune and prosper regardless of industry so-called trends, economic fluctuations, this year’s political climate, or even global uncertainties.
My point has been very simple: you can’t just see yourself as a ‘dentist’ and be successful in private practice and you can’t just keeping doing ‘the same thing’ while expecting to grow, evolve, adapt, and above all else enjoy what you are doing. That is, until you commit to being a fully aware and responsible business owner.
I tell my doctors you have to ‘practice on purpose’ to consider yourself a professional owner of a business and not just an amateur hobbyist with a job.
That’s why each of the strategies I talk about here in our Weekly Reports are designed, grounded, and founded upon one common theme…
You have the power to shape your practice into whatever you want it to be – regardless of what obstacles lie ahead, what challenges you’ve faced in the past, or what present circumstances you find yourself contending with.
The beauty, magic, and power of being a private practice owner is your unique ability to create a lifestyle practice that is set-up to serve and support, manifest and make possible, enhance and facilitate your desired state of ideal life – right now. If and when you so choose… you can change it, reimagine it, and redesign it based on who you become, where you end up, whatever you heart desires, and your head decides in your future.
That’s the greatest and most remarkable opportunity… if you are willing to take responsibility for it and embrace true independence in private practice dentistry.
However, it can also be daunting when you realize that any decision you do not proactively and deliberately make, will be made for you by the forces in play.
The conundrum that results is, even if you don’t mind how your practice is currently operating, not taking action now can be devastating to your profitability and even worse to your lifestyle, your wealth, and your peace of mind.
In my upcoming Masterclass, I’ll be diving deep into each of these four threats and help you Future-Proof Your Practice. If you are ready to start building a better business that aligns with your personal goals and passions, then save your seat…
Register For The 4-Hour Live Online Masterclass Now…
Today, we’re going to use our time together in this Weekly Report to look at how you stay nimble and agile in your tactics but steadfast in your mission.
As one of my dear friends says…
Flexible in Approach but Firm in Principle
And that’s how you combat these and any challenging circumstances, undesirable trends, and unforeseen obstacles that are just reality in the life and business.
The key is to prevent any negative impact on your practice, your life, your peace of mind, and belief in yourself. You must stay clear minded and rock solid on believing in your own super powers because you know there is a proven formula for success that will never fail you as long as you never fail yourself.
Let’s take a look back at my four foundational leverage points that provide the greatest stability: your fees, your time, your profitability, and your team.
All things you control the leverage and maximization of – not always the circumstances around – but the orchestration all beginning with your perspective and decision.
Let’s start with fees and insurance. There are two big mindset shifts for you to make.
First, the mistake is to think that you want to play the middle. You get your little fee guide from one of the supply companies telling you what percentile you are in and you decide what you are worth.
For one, the people in the community don’t have the same list so they have no idea where your fee sit amongst the rest. While there might be a limit to what they would consider fair and reasonable for a crown or a filling or a smile or ortho or an implant or a sleep appliance – that’s not how they make decisions.
Patients accept treatment more by FEEL, less by FEE. If you fully comprehend this, you get everything about life and dentistry.
Now, you might find a little short-term gain by getting patients because you are taking their insurance but you must realize that other doctors are on that same list. The more that are on that list, the less it is of any benefit and the more you are ‘just another doctor.’ It becomes a disadvantage much faster than it was advantage (if at all).
Next up, we are going to talk about the value of your time because this is what gives you leverage in profitability. The simple goal for everyone is to earn more and work less, make more money in fewer hours of time.
The single greatest mistake that doctors and practice owners make is they think that harder work and more hours equals more patients and more production. Three big problems with this.
First, more patients and more production does not necessarily mean more profit. In fact, in every case the more hours, the more patients, the more team, the more of everything else will reduce your profitability rate.
Second, at some point all time becomes a deteriorating return as the reward you get and the lifestyle you earn is reduced to nothing when you have no time and energy to enjoy it. Perhaps you earn a little more, but at what cost and what benefit?
Third and this is the big one… leverage is found in forcing yourself to solve the puzzle of greater return with fewer resources. Taking a shortcut won’t ever get you to the right destination. Allow less time, achieve more dentistry, and have more time for everything else (which was the point in the first place).
When it comes to the value of your time, there are no limits to the options that you can choose in how you engineer your day to achieve your goals.
You love what you do and the impact you have on patients’ lives but you also have a very full life. These two seemingly competing interest actually work in alignment with each other. When your schedule is properly constructed, you get to focus only on the most fulfilling dentistry which allows you to time and energy to enjoy the rest of your life. In return, you show up to the office renewed and refreshed, ready to do the job at hand.
That leads us into the principles of profit that will help ensure you are doing all of this in an economically effective way.
Your practice is a business and the point of business is to have a profit. That means that you don’t spend all the money. There should be some (or a lot) left over.
You can either let your team, patients, expenses, or CPA decide how much that is going to be (and be at the mercy of your everyone and everything else), or you can decide and build a better business that is engineered for profitability.
Your ability to set your own hours, to hire the best team, to build wealth, to choose the dentistry you want to deliver, to literally practice on your own terms – all comes from your ability to generate a profit.
Most doctors never break free from profit being an accident because they are working just to pay the bills. This becomes stressful and frustrating as it robs your peace of mind.
Your income should be factored in just like any other expense. You should be profiting on purpose. You can determine your own income aspirations by following my financial formula to know exactly what makes your practice worth it to you. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is when you have a singular focus and the power of specificity of goals (down to the dollars per hour) to make your practice work for your life.
Finally, we arrive to your team. This is about having the ability to keep the best people, to develop new hires, and to truly invest in your team. I’ve been writing about the team WORK of dentistry in the recent Huddles.
The biggest breakthrough with your team is that they have to own their roles within the practice. It is your responsibility to put them in a position to win, but it’s their responsibility to perform. Take this seriously as you owe it to yourself and to your patients.
This does mean you have to start with someone willing and capable. The fact that they’ll show up and work doesn’t mean they will be without challenges and problems – we are all human – but it does mean that you have someone worthy of developing. That is why profitability is so important because it will allow you to invest in and keep the very best people by rewarding them accordingly.
When you tap into these leverage points, there are no limits to what you can do. You will find confidence by taking more control and realizing that you can determine your own outcomes. There is a way forward to crafting the future you want and a business that can deliver the lifestyle you deserve.
It really all comes down to what you focus on you get more of. Most act out of desperation and are always trying to triage the negative instead of staying laser focused on solutions and progress towards goals. As long as you see outcomes you will find a way to achieve goals. If you see obstacles, you will find failures, setbacks, and more frustrations than victories.
Challenge yourself to level up, gut check yourself, and own your powers to create and adapt while never settling. Stay in pursuit of excellence and committed to your own state of ideal.
Remember the point and purpose of everything you do and then relentlessly master the business of dentistry through these leverage points.
If you want to take a giant leap forward and save yourself lots of time, frustration, wasted energy, and lost money… then allow me to give you the winning combination to the ultimate lifestyle practice formula in my Pride, Power, and Prosperity of Private Practice Masterclass.
If you are ambitious and ready to discover your potential and tap into the profit stream your practice is capable – then this is for you. Doubters stay home. Achievers step up.
Save Your Seat For The Live Virtual Masterclass Now…
Next week, I’ll share how to unlock hidden opportunities that exist within your practice. It’s all possible when this one thing happens… To Be Continued.
