Scott J Manning, MBA
Weekly Report: Life Prosperity and Practice Profit
This is the fourth part to my discussion about your dental lifestyle practice manifesto. Your Lifestyle Practice Manifesto – Part 4
We’ve all heard the expression “it takes a village” and it really does. In business and in life. Especially in Dentistry.
Now you don’t need an army of people to be successful. In fact, it’s not the quantity of people on your team, it is absolutely the quality and effectiveness of those people that really matters.
I see teams of 5 or 6 outperform teams of 10 or 12 all the time, simply because they are more effective. They perform at a higher level, they expect more, they do more, they are cultivating more meaningful dentistry from appreciating and appropriate patients.
Plain and simple: your team matters. You will only be as good as the people around you.
Over the past several weeks, we have identified three (and now the fourth), key factor in developing and sustaining a Lifestyle Practice for you.
The big question is: “Why would you want anything other than this?”
Your practice should serve your lifestyle, your family, and your personal objectives through the achievement of your professional ones.
To achieve this kind of practice, EVERYTHING must be in balance – and one of the most overlooked aspects is your Team.
I have yet to ever see a practice that does enough for their team to ensure they are capable of achieving the highest level goals established by the doctor.
I can give you cliché after cliché – none of those matter – what matters is what you commit to and that you own the idea that to grow the practice, you must grow your people.
This is the secret to the most profitable practices, to the most stable practices, to the most lifestyle balanced practices. They go to work on the people so that they too understand the significance of what is being accomplished and they also benefit along the way.
There has and always will be a problem in any dental practice of what I call the trickle-down effect. This occurs when the highest level, most valuable information, is known only to the doctor. Then, depending on the doctor’s leadership and dedication to the team (not to mention his/her ability in communicating), the doctor will trickle down some of the information to the team.
But never enough.
This is the reason why Dental Success Today works directly with the team so that we are talking straight to the people who are interacting with the patients.
It’s not enough for you to develop yourself, because your team will act as anchors around you – instead of the opposite, where they lift you up to higher levels of success.
It’s just simple math… there are more of them than there is of you. If they grow, you grow. If you grow, they grow… IF you make that a committed and dedicated principle in your lifestyle practice manifesto.
You might wonder why I place “team” in YOUR Dental Lifestyle Practice Manifesto.
Imagine you want to take a vacation. During this vacation people have to be paid, but there is no doctor there to produce, so there is no money coming in. Even if you practice in a state where hygiene can operate, that doesn’t pay the bills.
On top of this, if there is no doctor to produce, there is no doctor to diagnose.
In other words your vacation is a quadruple whammy. You paid for it, you paid for them, you didn’t make money, and you didn’t create any dentistry in the future.
Worse than that, you have little peace of mind of what is actually going to get accomplished while you are gone. Then, when you come back, you could very well regret even going on a vacation or more likely wishing you were still gone.
Now, I am a huge advocate for you taking time off, having vacations, making memories, developing more dentistry/life balance than anyone you’ll ever meet in your lifetime.
But I’m not in favor of leaving any of those other things up to chance.
The entire point of the Lifestyle Practice structure is that we fit the money you want (and need) into the days you DECIDE to work. Clinical Days are your inventory of how you make your money – of course we have associates and other production income streams, not to mention that the point of owning the practice is to create passive income and profit you can invest in other things to build up your wealth and financial independence.
What I’m telling you is this – you CAN have your cake and eat it too – If and only if you have an Effective Team in the first place. Because your Team has more to do with your ability to have a Lifestyle Practice than anything else.
I want you to think about three things, make a list even…
1. Write down all the ways you believe you could do to better serve, lead, train, develop your team.
2. Write down all the ways you wish that your team would improve and specific things you feel they could do better.
3. And then finally write down what having peace of mind about your practice while you are gone and away would feel like and what has to happen in order to achieve it.
Read that again and pay close attention.
To achieve the peace of mind you deserve while you are enjoying the lifestyle your lifestyle practice has created and afforded and allowed you to have – – –
WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN?
That question you will answer first and then I will be your guide down the path through the plan and formula to actually make it possible – your reality of a Lifestyle Practice based on your manifesto will be achieved.
Next week, we reach the peak, the pinnacle, the principle and pillar that makes all the others possible and count – THE PROFIT.
Get ready and prepare for your Lifestyle Practice to become reality as we explore the most important pillar and principle of them all – one that enhances your lifestyle and allows you to work less and make more and enjoy and be at peace whether you are in or out of your practice.
Access the webinar about your Dental Lifestyle Manifesto here.
Respectfully,
Scott J Manning, MBA
