Oh sure, it happens. Once in a while people fall off the wagon and an entire month goes down the tubes; but it doesn’t have to. Ever.
There are very simple reasons why our practices have the greatest year-over-year growth … because they have steady, consistent, continuous quarter-over-quarter growth … by never having bad, down months where you have to catch up and start over on your goals.
They are laser focused and disciplined on creating opportunity everyday through the production income streams in the practice. They are always cash flow positive over and above production.
Everyone in our practices know what the goal of the day is and they know how to make it happen. They refuse to fail, refuse to lose and stick together so they always win. They never get caught up in going through the motions by producing dentistry but forgetting to create dentistry for tomorrow and build scheduled treatment.
You simply can’t afford to let a bad day turn into a bad week turn into a bad half month turn into a bad month.
Great teams lose their focus. They fall back on their heels and they get beat. Just like in sports, you can lose your edge for one game and then get it back the next one.
Ideally you don’t lose your edge, ever.
This requires cohesive team work and leadership from all levels, not just the doctor, but certainly starting with the doctor. I can tell immediately if a month is falling off the rails by what the team says is the doctor’s level of engagement.
Seriously; it’s not that difficult. Every doctor loves to blame the team, but they are the ones who go through days at a time without even asking what the results were.
Ask yourself this question: How can you end a day with disappointment and not do something about it? How can you just dismiss this, as if it’s no big deal and just move on to tomorrow?
Winners, Champions, Smart people don’t do that. They always assess why did this happen? Why was our day down? Why did we not close treatment, collect money or have any patients today?
It is very easy to see where things are breaking down.
Did patients show up for Hygiene?
Did the new patient experience go exactly as it is suppose to?
Did the Doctor fully engage in a comprehensive treatment plan?
Did they ‘sell the problem’ and get emotional buy-in from the patient before moving on?
Was the triangle of trust establish?
Was a clinical ‘yes’ secured?
Was payment collected the day of scheduling in the largest amount possible?
Was the entire treatment plan secured and scheduled?
And the bigger issues for down days, weeks, months is you have to track and make sure that each team member (each column in the schedule) is emptying treatment into their respective bucket.
They have to be creating production income streams every day, patient-by-patient.
It is really hard to imagine that every person in your practice will have bad days, bad weeks, bad months all at the same time. If you have a bad month, your leadership was lacking. It can always be prevented.
Next week, I will tell you the three (and only three) reasons why you could have fallen off the wagon during a month and not hit your goals.
Now…for this week, the final point is this: stop waiting until it’s too late to wake up and pay attention. If you notice a down day, fix it tomorrow. If you notice an off week, do something about it now. If the month ends and you lost, it’s the one who holds the most responsibility’s fault – the doctor.
You have to learn to course correct faster and in real time. You have to take the ball and score by motivating patients to proceed with dentistry. And for heaven sake, if you have not grasped the most important idea of the business side of dentistry and the way money moves through your practice, then allow this to be a reminder … production has nothing to do with collections. You can turn your cash flow around immediately by asking patients to pay for their treatment. What you produce does not determine what you collect.
You may have up and down months in production, but you should only have up, up, up and up months in collections because you are constantly helping patients get healthy. Making progress towards your patients’ goals will always lead to progress on your goals.
Next week, you’re going to get a little tough love. This is your fair warning, be prepared to step up.
