Blog - Page 25 of 55 - Dr Jesse Green

In this solo episode, we are going to talk about how to have a productive associate in your practice. This is designed for both the business owner and associate where I will give tips on building your appointment book, generating revenue, creating pleasant experiences for clients, getting more referrals, and more to help grow your business.

In this episode we discuss:

01:44: Helping dentists scale their business to a true business.
02:41: Building a team and having an associate/s.
03:00: Having an associate that is busy and productive while making a living from what they love.
04:20: Key points to look for when hiring an associate.
05:13: Key things that Jesse has learned from being an owner and associate.
05:35: For associates – Developing 2 skills outside clinical competence.
06:35: 1st Core Competency: Building an appointment book.
18:00: 2nd Core Competency: Generating Revenue.
20:47: 3 Ways to increase revenue.
23:25: Mentoring.
24:53: Principal dentists handing patients over to associates.

Find out more

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In this episode, Kurek Ashley joins us to talk about how to create a better life for yourself. Kurek is world-known author, in-demand speaker, and coach, teaching private individuals and companies which have produced awe-inspiring results. He is recognised as one of the premier experts in personal and professional development, self-discovery and peak performance.

In this episode we discuss:

02:20: Kurek’s story of how he got into the business of helping business owners and entrepreneurs create an abundant life.
05:03: IIs distraction a key thing that is seen regularly. Are people generally distracted and experience difficulties in focusing?
07:34: How can you focus longer and intently in a practical sense?
12:09: Key reflections after his accident and how he managed to maintain his awareness of personal growth and self-development while he was going through the grieving process and how he got himself outside this space.
17:20: The biggest decision Kurek has made because of his accident.
20:17: Do people continue to engage in unhealthy habits and relationships because it serves them?
24:48: Learnings from the conversation and the importance of having the support of others.
30:52: The importance of having mastermind groups and forward movement momentum.
32:18: Learning how to acknowledge fear and move past it while remaining safe in the process.
38:26: The most interesting thing he has observed about human life.
41:40: Kurek’s Free 10-day course called “Get out of your bad mood.”

Find out more about Kurek Ashley

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The bar for customer service has been set so low it’s almost underground. Giant multinationals like telcos and banks offer famously awful customer service. In comparison, a small to medium-sized businesses have the agility and personal connection to craft a great customer experience. Genuine human interaction might just be one of the ways us little guys have the edge on mega-corporations.

The trick is we just need to know how to do it.

We all know that no one is ever thrilled to sit in a dentist chair and get a crown. But it’s necessary – the same as having Internet and phone service or a bank account.

Dentistry – just like banking and telcos – are a necessity. Offering a wonderful patient experience is a great opportunity for dentists to do something different and stand out in the crowd. Satisfied patients can be your strongest and loudest brand ambassadors. Just like with doctors and car mechanics, once you’ve found a good one, you want to tell everyone you know.

But how do we consistently craft a great patient experience?

Step away from transactional experiences.

So often in today’s modern world, it can feel like we are merely order takers. We’re waiting for people to tell us what to do. Instead of forming genuine relationships with our patients, we are just automatons acting out scripts for each interaction.

Think about purchases that aren’t necessities. Maybe a purse or that nice watch you’ve had your eye on. You form an emotional response to these items. You feel happy when you see it or you like the way it portrays your image to the world.

When anything becomes an emotional buy, the price becomes irrelevant. If you want it enough, you don’t care how much it costs.

The great news is that going to the dentist is already an emotional process. The patient might be in pain or feel fear about a procedure. That’s emotional. If you are able to provide a welcoming, safe patient experience, you can harness this emotional energy into something positive. You can become the place – not where a painful procedure happened – but where they experienced exceptional care.

And it all starts from the moment a patient walks through the door.

Train everyone – not just management.

Each touchpoint that a patient has at your practice can make or break the experience.

Imagine that you have a patient that had a wonderful experience with the receptionist who warmly welcomed her into the practice. Then she has a wonderful interaction with you, the dentist, as you check in before her cleaning to see if she has any concerns. But then maybe the dental technician has had a bad day. Straight away, your patient can sense the tension in the room and their anxiety starts to ratchet up again.

Regardless of every positive interactive she’s had up until that point, this one person has set the tone for the entire experience.

This can be an easy way to go wrong. If there is training in the practice, it might only be focused on a select few instead of everyone that has interactions with your patients.

When it comes to training staff, everyone needs to be involved and understand what is expected as a baseline. We need our team to understand that emotion plays a big part when it comes to buying, selling, and patient retention.

The more times you go back to the same dentist, the more the relationship builds. The more the trust builds. The more likely that over time, the patient is going to accept what the dentist says because there’s a foundation of trust. A good dentist can become an integral part of your life.

But it all starts with a good first impression.

Set your non-negotiables early and reiterate them often.

I often talk about how the actions you walk past on a daily basis quickly devolve into the culture of your practice. If you aren’t demanding a baseline of excellence from your staff on a daily basis, it’s shocking how quickly bad habits can multiply.

Every business needs to come up with their set of non-negotiables. What are the things that we, as a practice, do not stand for? What do we not do when interacting with patients? What do we not tolerate from our fellow co-workers?

All of this should feed directly back into setting up the best patient experience that you can. Even if it’s easier for your staff to set up a contact form on your website, maybe a better patient experience is offering a phone number to call.

You need to set your own parameters. You need to set your own rules.

Commit to 90-Day Plans for improvement.

Non-negotiables are great, but they are nothing but paper unless they’re practised every day. Creating collaborative 90-day plans with each of your staff members is a great way to see constant improvement. Every three months, ask your staff to sit down and write what they are individually going to commit to doing for the business for the next 90 days.

These resolutions can be posted publically in the staff room. Now it’s not just you saying, “Hey, you haven’t done what you said you were going to do.” Other staff members can say, “Hang on – you said you would commit to being here 5 minutes earlier, but you’re still 10 minutes late.”

This helps to create a culture of self-responsibility within your office to ensure that everyone is operating at a high level.

Final Words…

Patient retention is something I’m passionate about (I wrote an entire book on the subject after all!) and pushing to create that sterling first impression is critical.

I truly believe that customer service is one area in which small businesses can outshine global corporations. We can offer that personal touch and lasting relationship that is so often undervalued in today’s world. Not to mention – it makes the world all that more rewarding, doesn’t it?

As always, please consider joining us at the Savvy Dentist Facebook Group. There is some great support and conversation that happens there. Also consider downloading the Savvy Dentist app available for both iPhone and Android to get our whole back catalogue of podcast episodes, additional resources, and more.

In this episode, Justin Herald, a business owner, business mentor, speaker, managing director and bestselling author, joins us to talk about his success in managing his business and growing it from $50 to a million dollar enterprise. He also shares his knowledge and expertise on how to improve your business customer experience to help grow your business.

Justin created Attitude Inc, a clothing brand that became an international licensing success that turned over in excess of $20 million per year. His success was so well noted that he was named the International Entrepreneur of the Year for 2005. He recently was also awarded the Future Leaders Award, which recognises him as being one of the 50 most influential leaders of the next generation in Australia.

He is also Managing Director of Customer Culture, one of Australia’s leading customer service and customer engagement training companies, that not only teaches staff the how to give great service, but more importantly, why it is needed.

In this episode we discuss:

02:00: The genesis of the Attitude range clothing and how it exploded so quickly
04:40: The challenges and growing pains he went through when he created his empire
08:05: The time frame of his business growth
09:20: Dangers of comparisons in products and business
11:05: Why is customer experience is always talked about but never done
16:25: Customer retention and simplifying customer experience
18:25: Recovering when things go wrong in your customer experience and the importance of having the skills to know the personality type of your staff
20:30: What is the initiative gap?
23:05: Why do businesses operate in a transactional way even if it is a relational one?
29:26: How emotions play a big role in sales
30:34: The mechanics for creating a great customer experience
33:15: What are the other processes and trainings beyond the set standards
36:30: The pros and cons of automations and humanisation of your business
40:00: The things that he did really well and the lessons he learned from his experiences
44:10: Why it’s important to be noticed, be different and stand out.

Find out more about Justin Herald

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There are a growing number of people who I speak to who are at the stage in their life where they not feeling truly fulfilled.

Maybe they are looking for external factors for fulfilment, rather than looking internally.

Back in 2007, I owned a very successful practice, on the outside, everything looked perfect. However, I was really unhappy and I just knew I couldn’t keep this up in the long term. I just was not feeling fulfilled.

I had a radical life change. I sold the practice and my house, skipped states and moved to Brisbane to then find what I was truly passionate about.

Now I’m not saying you have to do what I did, but through becoming more conscious you can make small changes to getting back on the right track.

Defining moments

Most people are scared of their defining moments, rightly you should be. Change does not happen without some level of fear.

You need to experience some level of fear in order to have a defining moment.

You need to ask yourself some questions to start to experience a breakthrough.

Ask yourself these 4 questions:

What do I want in my life?
What really motivates me?
What would really make me feel fulfilled?
How do I go about achieving fulfilment?

High Performance

High Performers in the long term are not the best at self-care and continue doing what it is that makes them happy outside of work. This had led to burn out and feeling like they don’t have a work life balance.

In my latest episode of my Savvy Dentist Podcast, I spoke with Yu Dan Shi who part of her work is to study high performers.

She spoke about how Bill Gates, will spend 7 days once per year in a cabin in a forest just reading and taking time out to unwind and not do any work. And that’s where some of the deepest insights can come from, by just doing nothing.

Now I’m not saying you have to take it to this extreme however, I do encourage you to take some time out at least once per week to rest and reflect.

Look for motivation

Look at what got you to where you are today. Look at all of the actions and focus that contributed to your success.

Then really dial in on that so you can replicate it, and discover what it is or who you need to become to get you to that next level.

Remember what got you to where you are today, will not get you to where you want to be. Become conscious of the steps you took in the past to level up.

Final Thoughts

Having a high level of consciousness is a powerful weapon in life and in business. It can sharpen and use to hone your trajectory, your messaging, and your success.

You might be surprised to find what falls into place when you take the time to reflect.

Having defining moments is a journey and typically does not come quickly nor easily.

Finding fulfilment is internal and is not achieved through business success. It is achieved by results in all aspects of out lives.

We need to take time off to reflect on our lives in order to have a greater impact on our own lives, our business, family and the community that we serve.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready …. here are 4 ways I can help you grow your dental practice:

Grab a free chapter from my book “Retention – How to Plug the #1 Profit Leak in Your Dental Practice” The book is the definitive guide to patient retention and how to use internal marketing to grow your practice – Click Here
Join the Savvy Dentist community and connect with dentists who are scaling their practice tooIt’s our Facebook group where clever dentists learn to become commercially smart so that they have more patients, more profit and less stress. – Click Here
Attend a Practice Max Intensive live event Our 2-day immersive events provide access to the latest entrepreneurial thinking and actionable strategies to drive your practice forward. You’ll leave with a game plan to take your results to the next level. If you’d like to join us, just send me a message with the word “Event and I’ll get you all the details! – Click here

Work with me and my team privately If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take your profit from 6 figures to 7 figures …. just send me a message with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your practice and what you would like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! – Click here

In this episode, Yu Dan Shi joins us as she shares her expertise about helping people break through from where they are to where they want to get thru and achieve success and happiness in their life.

Yu Dan is a business mentor, executive coach, founder of Inner Genius, and the author of Come Alive. Her personal experience on losing her passion and motivation in her career in 2008 has led her to this path of searching for answers and becoming a coach & mentor for professionals, executives and entrepreneurs who want to find clarity in their life, career and business so they can focus on what really matters and succeed with joy and meaning.

In this episode, we discuss:

01:25: The story of how Yu Dan started working in this space.
03:51: Does everyone experience dips in their careers?
07:21: Hitting your defining moment and making changes to make your path more enjoyable.
11:55: Beginning the process of working on internal rather than external factors.
18:43: Message for business people having problems switching off.
22:44: Handling transitions and defining moments in your 40s and 50s.
27:20: Key habits and behaviors of the most successful and fulfilled people – the 4 Practices.
36:40: Giving yourself the gift of quiet time and daily restoration.
41:00: Do the inner work now before reaching your defining moment.

Find out more about Yu Dan Shi

Yu Dan Shi Website

Book – Come Alive

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There is a growing sense amongst employees and business owners today that there is more to life than acquiring money and assets. People are becoming more aware of the atrocities happening around the world. We’re beginning to think about what special thing we each can do to contribute to the wellbeing of others.

It is time to start asking ourselves, “What is my passion? What do I love doing? What do I love creating? What was I born to do? How can I use that passion and skill to improve the world?”

This should be done on a personal level, but also on a business level. A purpose-driven business sees a commercial return. There’s a lot of evidence that shows that purpose-driven businesses have more devoted employees and customers. It drives performance, productivity, and profitability.
The truth is that employee engagement in Australia is reported as being horrifically low with 76% of workers disengaged at work. Unfortunately, that means the effects of disengaged staff which includes employee churn, lost productivity, and low morale has impacted virtually every business. These disengaged employees often begin looking for fulfilment elsewhere – in non-profits or other, purpose-driven companies.

Even small businesses can drive purpose.

If you’re saying, “Well, that’s great for big business. I see how that works for global companies like Johnson & Johnson, but I’m a small business. I’m just focused on keeping the lights on.”

When you’re running a small business, it might feel like the lofty ideal of finding your One True Purpose is impractical, or worse – impossible. However, taking the time to nail this down not only costs you nothing, but it can offer tangible, practical improvements.

Every single one of us has something we’re good at that we love, that the world needs, and that we can make money doing. The great news is that your purpose already exists. You just need to find the words to describe it so you can be more thoughtful about bringing it into the forefront.

Why did you become a dentist?

First things first. As a business owner, the purpose comes from you. Finding and living your purpose as a leader makes it so much easier to embed that philosophy into your practice.

You can start with a bit of introspection. Why did I become a dentist? When I decided to study dentistry, what was the catalyst? Reconnect with the reason that resonates with you. The wonderful thing is that even though each dentist follows a similar path, the reasons can be wildly different. The purpose that resonates with you might not be purpose that resonates with the dentist down the street.

You can also ask yourself, “How does my service make an impact on my staff? My patients? My community?”

What you’re looking for is a common thread. What pulls you toward dentistry? What allows you to make the greatest impact with your patients and community? Once you have a framework for your purpose statement, you can begin to filter that into the way you operate your business, how you interact with your patients, and the expectations you have for your team each day.

Look for your and/and.

Oftentimes in business, production is stressed beyond all else. You might outwardly successful, but inwardly, if you’re not living on purpose, it can all feel a bit hollow.

If this is something you struggle with, try looking for your and/and.

What did you want to be before you became a dentist? What speaks to you outside of the office?

You might find that you are a dentist and a stand-up comedian.

This is great news! If you take an and/and approach to your business, you can get creative. Is there a way to incorporate what you love about stand-up comedy into your practice? Can you use jokes to make your patients comfortable? Can you use humour in your marketing?

At the end of the day, purpose is practice. It’s something we need to embed into the fabric of our daily lives. If you find purpose in both dentistry and comedy, there’s no reason you have to pick one.

You can offer this same freedom to your team. If they’re connected to something outside of work, imagine the culture you can create if you empower them to bring their passions into your practice. That level of engagement is gold.

Purpose creates collaboration out of competition.

If the goal of dentistry is to elevate dental health across Australia, then each dental practice becomes a partner in that mission. When the purpose is not solely about money, you can avoid the race to the bottom.
Remember, there are enough people without adequate oral healthcare in Australia to go around. When we find the right messaging (through purpose) to resonate with these people, we won’t need to offer rock-bottom prices as our only incentive.

Final Words…

A purpose-driven business attracts the right people without trying. The right kind of team members will clamour to work there because they resonate with the business’s mission. The right kind of customers (or patients) will be drawn to it because they, too, resonate with the purpose.

Not only does purpose provide powerful clarity for the people involved in your practice, but it offers clarity to you too. When you live your purpose, opportunities present themselves. Even more powerfully, it becomes much clearer which ones are good opportunities for your practice and which are not.

Purpose is a powerful weapon any business can sharpen and use to hone your trajectory, your messaging, and your success. You might be surprised to find what falls into place when you’ve defined the right purpose for your practice.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready …. here are 4 ways I can help you grow your dental practice:

Grab a free chapter from my book “Retention – How to Plug the #1 Profit Leak in Your Dental Practice” The book is the definitive guide to patient retention and how to use internal marketing to grow your practice – Click Here
Join the Savvy Dentist community and connect with dentists who are scaling their practice tooIt’s our Facebook group where clever dentists learn to become commercially smart so that they have more patients, more profit and less stress. – Click Here
Attend a Practice Max Intensive live event Our 2-day immersive events provide access to the latest entrepreneurial thinking and actionable strategies to drive your practice forward. You’ll leave with a game plan to take your results to the next level. If you’d like to join us, just send me a message with the word “Event and I’ll get you all the details! – Click here

4. Work with me and my team privately

If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take your profit from 6 figures to 7 figures …. just send me a message with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your practice and what you would like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! – Click here

I’m joined by marketer Carolyn Tate to share with us how becoming more focused around purpose in our business leads to more satisfaction, employee retention, and a better bottom line.

Carolyn Tate is a marketer with a passion for purpose-digging, writing, speaking, teaching and community building. As a brand and marketing specialist with a 20-year history at Westpac, Merrill Lynch and in her own business, she is uniquely placed to help any company dedicated to building a “profit-for-purpose” entity.

Carolyn is the author of five books; Small Business Big Brand, Marketing Your Small Business for Dummies, Unstuck in Provence (a personal memoir), Conscious Marketing and The Purpose Project.

She is the founder of The Slow School of Business (Slow School), Talk on Purpose and The Purpose Project programs. All her learning programs are highly experiential and transformative for every participant.

Underpinning all her work is a commitment to being courageous, growing in consciousness, operating with compassion and connecting authentically with others in the spirit of collaboration. The company is a Certified B Corporation and Carolyn is a founding member of Conscious Capitalism Australia.

In this episode, we discuss:

01:38: How purpose is becoming one of the key drivers for successful companies around the globe
05:53: How small-medium enterprises can integrate purpose into their businesses
12:53: The difference between success and fulfilment
14:19: Why purpose drives performance in businesses
17:09: How businesses thrive with common unity amongst their staff
18:58: How we find our purpose through doing projects
24:28: What is ‘conscious marketing’ and how you can use it
28:37: How your employees are an untapped opportunity for marketing
34:15: Viewing the market place as collaboration over competition
40:02: How to integrate purpose at a business level and a personal level at your own practice

Find out more about Carolyn Tate

On her website

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There seems to be an easy path in dentistry. If you are fresh out of university, you might be looking at dentists with 10 years under their belt. You see their practices, their fancy cars, or nice house and think, “That should be me.”

And it’s hard not to want to talk the talk. You’ve just invested all of this time and money into university to be a great dentist. Now it’s time to reap your rewards!

…Or is it?

Unfortunately, graduating is just the first step in a long road toward becoming an amazing dentist. Not only do you need to focus on constantly improving your clinical skills, but to have a thriving practice, you need to learn the skills of business. While your schooling might have made you a competent technician, curriculums nowadays rarely – if ever – cover business topics.

How do you build a website? Use social media? Make influential contacts? Learn how to sell? How to bring patients in the door again and again?

Surrounding yourself with the accoutrements of success without the groundwork to back it up can creates problems. As your debt level rises, so does the pressure to earn more.

Before you put the cart before the horse, let’s talk about doing the work, creating a solid foundation, and finding success in dentistry and in business. When it comes to your career, you can’t rush it. You need to learn to walk the walk.

You have to climb the ladder.

Luckily, access to education is easier than it was even just 10 years ago. There is so much information online and new techniques are constantly being developed. Technology is just racing along at a brisk pace.

The information you need is out there to learn, apply, and get good at. But there is still a place for mastery. However when you try to master everything, it’s a recipe to get overwhelmed quickly.

That’s why I always turn to the 80/20 rule. Focus on the 20% of stuff that makes the biggest difference. Focus on mastering what is really going to take you the furthest first.

Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, now is your chance to focus down on your particular interest. What do you love doing? How can you be better at it? How can you master it?

It’s about putting the time in. There’s an oft-quoted figure that mastery comes at 10,000 hours of active practice (meaning you’re trying to get better and not just doing it). If that feels overwhelming, pick something to focus on each year. Just spend a year becoming as good at that one thing that you can.

It’s not about despising the lowest rungs on the ladder or trying to jump past them. Instead, it’s thinking, “I want to be at the top of that ladder and I’m willing to climb every rung to get there.” Invest in yourself. Learn those skills. Develop those skills and know that the reward may not be immediate. Build your skillset and knowledge base now so that you’re equipping yourself for great things higher up the ladder.

Fix problems as they happen.

Problems happen in business and dentistry every single day. Mistakes happen. Issues crop up.

Often, it is incredibly tempting to believe these problems are one-off occurrences. Maybe you have a patient in the chair and the crown’s not ready. Not a fun day.

After we’ve fixed the issue, we think, “Surely, it won’t happen again.”

But then a month later, “Man, that’s the second time that’s happened.” Soon, something that is out of character for your practice becomes a common occurrence. These problems can quickly become business killers. Again here the 80/20 rule applies. If 80% of the visit is great, but 20% is not … What do you think your patient will remember after the fact?

Whenever you’re faced with a major problem, it’s time to sit down and ask, “How can we make sure this never happens again?” Piggybacking off of the first point above, these problems are really opportunities in disguise. They’re a chance for you to practice, hone your skills, and create systems for success.

Final Words…

We only see the tip of the iceberg. If you see someone that looks successful, leading the life you dream of remember that you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. You’re not seeing the late nights at the office, the seminars and conferences, the unpaid work that it took to climb to the top of the ladder. Just like with everything else, you might only see 20% of the work someone puts in while there’s another 80% hiding just below the surface.

That being said, I do believe that putting in the work to climb the ladder might be the single most important piece of advice I can give you. The successful business owners are going to be the ones willing to do the work and improve themselves and their businesses as they go. It’s always going to be a work in progress. If you spend a year pursuing one goal, you might be surprised where it takes you.

Finally, please download the Savvy Dentist app and join our Facebook Group! The app is free to download for both iOS and Android on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store respectively. We’ve got a lot of content for you there and adding more resources all of the time. Our Facebook Group is a great, active group of dentists really supporting each other as we all work toward creating true businesses that can scale beyond us. We do training. We’ve got tools and tips to get you started, and more. Head on over there and join us if you haven’t already.

In this episode I’m joined by repeat guest Dr Tyson Franklin to discuss how to do the work to become successful and create a life you love.

Tyson Franklin is a Queensland University of Technology graduate and over the past 30 years has opened, sold, taken over and relocated well over 20 podiatry businesses. He’s won The Telstra Business Award, written two books, runs a weekly podcast show called It’s No Secret with Dr T., is a professional speaker and currently mentors business owners in the health industry on how to market their businesses and how to set up systems to support their marketing strategies. At present Tyson Franklin lives in Cairns, Queensland.

In this episode, we discuss:

03:26: Is the “easy” path always the best path?
08:52: How the 80/20 rule applies to everything in your practice
11:37: The value of focusing on improving one thing at a time
14:59: Where to focus your energy in business
17:11: Key systems to build in your practice
18:55: Simple tips for improving your induction process
22:57: Simple tips for improving problem areas in your practice
26:22: The value of networking and masterminding outside of dentistry events
28:08: Putting the hours in to learn something new
32:06: Why you can only connect the dots looking backwards
37:48: Building your personal brand in an area through putting in the time
And more

Find out more about Tyson Franklin

On his website

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