Blog - Page 27 of 55 - Dr Jesse Green

Feeling fear is a natural instinct. It’s what helps keep us safe in the world. Sometimes fear can have very practical applications. For example, a fear of spiders, at its base likely stems from the fact that spiders are venomous.

While fear can help keep you safe, it can also be the thing that holds you back. While a fear of spiders might be incredibly practical living in Australia, a fear of success can be problematic for a business owner. Unpacking your fears and what drives them can be a really worthwhile endeavor that can help you to reach new heights, find greater success, and improve the profits of your business.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves Can Be Wrong

You might not realise this, but our brains are very good at making up stories about our world. Imagine that when you were growing up your biggest tormentor was a kid named Mitch. Now you might immediately distrust anyone named Mitch whether you’ve met them or not. This is a story you’ve made for yourself that alerts you to the danger of any Mitch. Of course, not every Mitch is the kid that bullied you. But we are constantly surveying our surroundings and making snap judgments based on the stories we tell ourselves. This happens all unconsciously and in a split second. We might not even be thinking, “Hey, I distrust this guy because he reminds me of the kid that bullied me,” but it’s happening in the background.

The stories we tell ourselves – just like fear – can be incredibly useful. It helps us make quick decisions about our environment to keep us safe and secure. But if the stories are wrong, they can also become harmful.

It’s important for us to take the time to unpack these stories and fears regularly so that we can tell ourselves the right stories that lead to success in both our business and personal lives.

What’s the block?

One of the best ways to begin to break down these wrong stories is to ask, “What’s the block?”

Trust is a big deal, even in the business world. I talk again and again on this blog about creating and nurturing trusting relationships with your patients. It’s also important to have trust with your teammates, vendors, and mentors.

But not everybody trusts everybody a 100%. Some people trust everyone until proven wrong. Some people believe that you need to earn their trust first. And some people never trust anyone.

If you find yourself struggling to trust an employee or a vendor, asking yourself, “What’s the block? What’s stopping you from collaborating? Is there something sabotaging you?”

You might find that the real reason why this is coming up is because of an outdated story that is no longer serving you. Once you take the time to unpack what’s happening, you can begin to fix it.

Give trust as a leader to earn trust.

Imagine this scenario: Mary and James work together. Mary doesn’t necessarily trust James. James picks up on her non-verbal communication without her saying a word. He knows that Mary doesn’t trust him so how is he going to respond?

He likely won’t take what she’s saying at face value. He might think there’s an agenda. He might not follow through on every aspect of his role that he needs to be successful. He might not communicate effectively with her.

Once you’ve done the work to unravel the wrong story you’ve been telling yourself, you can begin to offer trust to your team members and patients. This comes back to body language.

You might be surprised by 55% of communication is through body language. This means that before we even utter a word, everyone is already reading the room and making judgments about the situation based on their own stories of the world.

When you can take a moment to take a step back and think about the story you’re telling yourself, you will also change your body language. If you are feeling a resistance to a person or idea, try leaning into it. Why are you feeling this? What’s happening right now? What’s the deeper truth?

When we can make these small changes, we can become better leaders with teams that are more committed to us and to the success of our businesses.

Biases at play in the workplace.

The stories we tell ourselves can also show themselves in the form of biases. Biases stem from our past experiences, our cultures, our values, and our beliefs.

A lot of research has shown, for example, that we have unconscious biases toward people that remind us of ourselves. This plays out frequently in interview scenarios. If you’ve ever met someone and immediately liked them right off the bat, it is likely because they remind you of yourself. Maybe it’s that they went to your school or college, they have the same culture, the same interest, or maybe even the same name.

This also plays out on the flipside as well. Just like in the above example, if you have an interview with a Mitch, you might find you have a natural resistance toward him. Your natural bias is trying to keep you safe. It’s saying, “Remember what happened to you the last time you befriended a Mitch.”

Of course, everyone has biases. It’s not something we can eliminate altogether, but it is something that we can try to bring to a more conscious level. When you are making decisions, try to unpack the reasons behind your ‘gut instinct’. Is there is a reason you’re reacting the way you are?

Final Words…

Fear is an everyday emotion. It can be incredibly healthy and helpful when it’s targeted toward situations that might harm us. But as humans, our level of risk on a day to day basis is much lower than its ever been. If you find yourself meeting resistance toward new situations or new people, try unpacking the unconscious stories your brain is telling you to keep you safe. Is this a helpful story?

If it’s not, it’s fine to throw it out and replace it with something that will help you succeed.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready …. here are 4 ways I can help you grow your dental practice:
1. 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

2. Join the Savvy Dentist community and connect with dentists who are scaling their practice too
It’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

3. Download The Savvy Dentist App
The Savvy Dentist iPhone and Android App is a great way to keep up to date with the latest Savvy Dentist Podcasts, Blogs, Events and so much more. – Download Now

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

As dental practice owners, being able to lead our team well is crucial to success. That’s why I’ve invited Catherine Plano on the show to talk all about her insights on becoming better leaders in our practices.

Catherine is known in her community as an innovative leader and creative entrepreneur who specialises in helping people achieve their goals and dreams. She is passionate about assisting others to reach their highest ambitions and live a life that is fulfilling and rich. She is a strong advocate and a leader by nature. Catherine thinks BIG, encourages possibilities, and honours individual wisdom and strengths, and is valued for helping leaders build stronger and more effective teams that come to think strategically and engage in meaningful conversations that allow for reflection, change and growth.
Catherine is an International Keynote Speaker and Executive Coach, Leadership Development Professional, Queen of Transformation, a Creative Soul Adventurer, a Theorist and Provocateur of Change, and … an Agent of Philosophy. Catherine Plano has dedicated her entire life to helping others transform their own lives into greatness. With more than two decades of working with renowned companies and touching 100,000 lives through spiritual and mental reinvention.

In this episode, we discuss:

01:31: Why people lead people, not companies
3:35: How to overcome fear when starting or doing something big in business
08:09: How to develop other leaders and lead them
12:33: Shifting your mindset from controlling clinical work to collaboration in the rest of the business
15:20: Why understanding how trust works is key for great leaders
18:07: The power of body language
19:31: The role that unconscious bias plays and how to be aware of it
22:42: Why you need to do the inner work or your practice won’t succeed
28:45: Why comparing yourself to others disempowers you and how to move past it
30:15: Overcome comparison by unearthing your own purpose
30:41: Inspire your team by sharing with them the why, not just the how
31:27: The importance of finding the space to do the inner work
35:51: Top tips for improving your leadership skills

Find out more about Catherine Plano

30 Day Challenge that will actually transform your life…

Getting to the heart of your Business

And … when you sign up to www.catherineplano.com/newsletter you will receive a free online module on How to Create Radical Paradigm Shifts.

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Valuing a business in Australia isn’t a science so much as an art. Without the purchase history that businesses in countries like the United States can use as a benchmark, us Aussies need to do some math to figure out what our businesses are worth on today’s market.

If you are thinking about selling your business now, in three years, or perhaps not for many years, setting up your practice to be attractive to a buyer can do nothing but make your business stronger.

When we talk about valuing a business, one of the largest factors that comes into play is risk. How much risk does this business carry? That means when we talk about increasing the value of a business, it usually goes hand in hand with minimising risk.

How do we determine risk when valuing a business?

When we are thinking about risk, we should be thinking about it on both macro and micro levels. For example, the first level of risk is the country. What country are we in? How much risk does that pose? This is called the market risk premium (MRP) – essentially the stock market is looked at over a 40-year period to see its relation to the bond rate. Usually this number is between six and seven percent.

Next we can start looking at business-specific risks. This will cover a lot of territory and you’ll want to start asking questions like:
• How many customers does this business have?
• Do your customers sign a contract?
• What happens if you lose customers?
• Does the business buy products from overseas? Is there an element of foreign exchange?
• Do they have one business location or many?
• Does the business have a ‘key person’?
• Are there systems and processes in place?

While there is nothing you can do about the market risk premium of Australia, you can take on the challenge to reduce risk within your specific business. Taking the time to do this now can not only help you reduce future disasters for your business, but increase the value for potential investors if you do choose to move forward with selling your practice.

Make your practice more valuable in just five years.

For those of us that might want to sell our practices sometime in the future, five years is a great amount of time to create a plan to stabilise your business and increase your valuation.

Step one. First things first. Let’s talk profit. When most people think about the value of a business, they likely think about profit first. Creating a strong revenue stream is important but creating a stable one is as well. If you can create stable, predictable cash flow for the next five years you’re creating a strong roadmap that tells investors, “Hey, this is what you can anticipate if you buy my practice.” Consistently hitting metrics is a great way to increase the confidence in the valuation of your business.

Step two is to make sure that your financial statements are in good order. Sometimes there are tax minimisation items that fall more into a personal realm. If you can do this in such a way that you can identify it for a buyer, that can be incredibly helpful. Somebody else that might purchase your practice might not be able to use the same strategies as you.

Next, ensure that you are paying everyone (including yourself!) at a commercial level. Often business owners that pour their hearts and souls into their business underpay themselves. This speaks to profitability again. If you are not paying yourself at a commercial level for a dental practice owner, then work toward making sure you do

Minimise your risk and increase the value of your practice without spending a dime.

Now that the financial realm has been worked through it’s time to look at de-risking your business by overhauling your systems and processes.

Essentially, you don’t want your business to hang on the work of a ‘key person’. You want to split duties across multiple people. That way if someone has to suddenly take time away from the business, others can assume those duties and the business carries on. This reduces the liability wrapped up with a key person.

When you are doing this, taking the time to document roles, responsibilities, and what people do can also help reduce risk within a business. When these duties are documented, someone else can step in and see how your practice is structured. They can say, “Oh, so you employ two dental hygienists and their roles are X, Y, and Z.”

Create training for each of these defined roles. What does a new employee need to know to be successful within your practice? What are your policies and processes? Do you operate at the industry best practice standard? This is helpful because it minimises the amount of time it takes for a new hire to onboard and get up to speed, reducing the cost of turnover.

When a business has these processes and systems in place so that the business is its own, sustainable entity where people can come and go and the business itself carries on, suddenly you have reduced a lot of risk for a new owner. They won’t be asking questions about, “What if Susie quits? She’s integral to this operation.” They will know what roles are there, how to hire and train new employees, and keep the business going.

Final Words…

When you look at it in its entirety, it can seem daunting to overhaul a business to minimise its risk and increase its valuation. However, on a five-year scale, you can take baby steps towards a more stable, profitable future business.

3. Download The Savvy Dentist App
The Savvy Dentist iPhone and Android App is a great way to keep up to date with the latest Savvy Dentist Podcasts, Blogs, Events and so much more. – Download Now

In this episode, I’m joined by forensic accountant and valuation specialist Jenny Letts to talk about how business valuations work and how to improve yours.

Jenny Letts is a highly experienced forensic accountant, specialised in forensic and valuation assessment. With 19 years’ specific forensic experience, Jenny has technical expertise in analysis and reporting, and strong communication skills that differentiate the service her clients receive.

Jenny works with personal, corporate and government clients across a broad range of matters including business and company appraisal and valuation, valuation of intangibles, tracing of assets for commercial and family law purposes, and economic loss assessments.

With extensive experience in forensic and valuation methodologies, Jenny has the ability to draw on the most effective methodology to deliver successful outcomes for lawyers and their clients, providing assessment reporting in a timely manner.

As an expert witness in court-related matters, Jenny has a deep understanding of her responsibilities under various Court and Tribunal jurisdictions. Often engaged by both parties, Jenny maintains high standards of professionalism by providing impartial, unbiased and independent assessments, representing all involved parties.

Seeing the benefits for clients in providing specialised valuation and forensic accounting services, Jenny established the firm with the intent to provide a reassuring service to lawyers and clients. Jenny’s passion is for problem solving and she believes that having a clear understanding of the purpose and requirements of the problem lead her to gain insight into issues. With this insight, Jenny can provide simple, concise and elegant solutions. This approach allows for efficient turnaround both in terms of time and costs.

In this episode, we discuss:

3:48: What are business valuations and forensic accounting?
8:26: How do you arrive at a definite value for a business?
12:55: What are “maintainable earnings” and why are they so desirable for your business
15:44: Why it’s important to have documented the duties and roles of the person that owns the business
20:09: How a Capitalisation Rate is measured and how you can improve yours using systems, procedures and operating manuals.
25:37: Other things you can do to improve the valuation of your dental practice
35:22: Common profit and risk factors in a business
36:35: How to dramatically improve your business multiplier without increasing your profits
38:54: Why you should be aiming for stability of profit before growth
And more

Find out more about Jenny Letts

On her website

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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As a group, we humans hate to admit that we were wrong.

It can often be easy to identify when someone else is throwing good money after bad, but hard with ourselves. As medical professionals, we can be especially prone to this dark spot because we are highly educated and intelligent. Unfortunately, the skills that make us good dentists are not the same skills required to make good investments.

But it’s so important to learn when it’s time to cut your losses. In our Instagram world, it can be particularly painful to say, “Hey, this isn’t working out like I thought it would.” We want to wrap ourselves in the security of success.

Not every business venture can always succeed. It doesn’t make us failures as business owners, investors, or people. If you are anything like me, it can be hard to pick yourself up after a setback. How do you do it? How to do ensure you don’t just make the same mistakes all over again?

Reinventing yourself starts with creating a driving purpose for everything you do.

What is your true north?

We hear this again and again lately in business. What is your mission? What is your vision? What are your values?

It all comes down to determining what your true purpose is. What are you hoping to achieve with your business? With your investment? With your time?

Without sitting down and really coming to terms with what drives you, chances are, you are imitating the people around you. You will keep going in a circle, stuck in a rat race, as you compare your life to those around you. If we emulate the external world of others, we become empty ourselves. There is no substance driving our choices except more – faster cars, bigger houses, fatter paycheques.

When you know where your true north points, you can use that to guide your decisions. It becomes a lot easier to say ‘no’ to choices that aren’t right for you. If an opportunity doesn’t serve your purpose – no matter how great it sounds – it’s not the right opportunity to pursue.

Once you have your purpose defined for yourself, you can take three steps to help keep you on the right path and reinvent yourself.

1) Stop lying to yourself.

More damaging than the lies we tell our business partners or support network are the lies we tell ourselves. Without confronting the truth, it is impossible to fix the situation. Even when it’s uncomfortable, the only way to get over something is to get through it.

When we confront the truth of a situation, we have the opportunity for self responsibility. We have the opportunity to own, not just the issue, but the solution.

Sometimes people will find justifications. I will hear business owners step back and say, “Well, I didn’t cause the natural disaster. How can I be responsible?” While there are always factors outside our control, we are always responsible for how we interpret a situation and how we react to it.

Taking responsibility for everything around you gives you power. You can influence your environment even if it feels like you have no control.

2) Find clarity in numbers.

The numbers don’t lie. Taking a good hard look at your numbers can help open your eyes to the reality of your situation.

So many of us focus on the top line of a business. In other words, we love hearing our revenue. And it sounds great to say we’re raking in $60 or $70,000 a month in revenue. The catch is that businesses really function on the bottom line. How much do you have in the bank?

It’s a common theme here on the blog, but cash flow really is the life blood of a business. We need a steady influx of cash to keep everything functioning well. Even if we are raking in profits, if it’s all tied up in investments, we can start to see the business suffer.

The truth is, humans are change adverse. Have you ever walked into an office and wondered, “Why are they doing this this way?” and the answer is, “Because we’ve always done it that way.” Chances are there are examples of the same in your own business.

Sometimes other people taking a peek under the hood can help point out these instances. Why are you doing this? Why are you spending that?

The reality of your business is your bottom line. Without cash flow, you are working for your business and not the other way around.

3) Surround yourself with successful people.

We’re like mirrors. We reflect the people around us. One of the best ways to change our habits or to reinvent ourselves is to surround ourselves with people we wish we were more like.

For business purposes, that means surrounding yourself with savvy investors, smart business owners, and overall successful people. Not only will their drive and ambition rub off on your (and vice versa) but you will have a deep well of sound advice and support.

To create long-term wealth, one of the best ways remains associating with people who have created it for themselves.

Final Words…

The close of a year always feels like the right time to clear away the cobwebs of our professional lives and start fresh. This is the perfect opportunity to make resolutions for 2019 that reflect who we want to be. What do our future selves look like as practice owners, as dentists, as people?

If we make thoughtful steps in the direction of our own true north, imagine where we could be a year from now.

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 too

It’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

Download The Savvy Dentist App

The Savvy Dentist iPhone and Android App is a great way to keep up to date with the latest Savvy Dentist Podcasts, Blogs, Events and so much more. – Download Now

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, I’m joined by Damion Lupo to discuss how we as dental practice owners can work towards greater financial freedom.

Damion Lupo is a financial mentor to Transformation Nation. He is a best selling author in personal finance who focuses on rewriting the rules and plan for retirement. His mission is to free 1 million people from financial bondage.

In this episode, we discuss:

7:17: How big changes in fortune can force us to examine what is true
8:27: The importance of uncovering your mission and your vision
15:20: The importance of understanding your numbers, especially your bottom line.
17:03: What causes us to have such dismal bottom lines in our business
18:43: How to build the foundations of your wealth in a dental practice
20:45: Why you should invest in your own education and financial literacy first
24:46: Tips for how to pay greater attention in your life
32.36: And whether anyone can anyone reinvent their life

Find out more about Damion Lupo

Download your free workbook

Visit his website

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I’ve always believed the key to success in life (and in business) is to try to be a little bit better today than I was yesterday. Success is a constantly evolving target as we continue to grow and change and our hopes and goals continue to grow and change.

But the trick to it is to make these small daily improvements thoughtfully. Without a clear, purposeful trajectory, we don’t know what we are building toward. We don’t usually realize it, but personal development and business transformation often go hand in hand.

To create stronger, more profitable businesses, we must become better leaders that lead stronger teams. To do this, our personal growth should be built on three bedrocks of transformation:
• Transformation leadership
• Transformational teams
• Building a transformational plan for the future
By following these three principles to growth, we can live in a way that allows us to sustain excellence over a long period of time.

Let’s talk about being transformational.

Transformation is where you make a difference and leave things better than how you found them. It’s a simple concept, but can be hard to put into practice. Let’s talk a retail experience as an example.

A customer walks into a shoe store. She notices there are three sales assistants chatting together while one is on their phone. The customer browses around and leaves without any response or acknowledgement from the sales team. The customer decides to leave and go next door.

At the next store, she is warmly greeted by an employee who says, “Welcome to our store. We’re so delighted to have you here. What can I help you with?” The customer walks out with two pairs of shoes and a strong loyalty to this brand.

Transformation is the only true way to make positive change for your employees, your patients, and your business. As we take a look at our three concepts, we will come back to this idea of transformation again and again.

Become a transformational leader.

When I am thinking about how I can be a better business leader and inspiration for my teams, I often go back to the difference between a leader and a manager. A leader is someone that is transformational – they push back against the status quo, even when it’s uncomfortable. They fight for ideas they believe in that will make huge differences in the long term. They are constantly questioning, “Is there a better way to do this?”

Managers, on the other hand, are more transactional. They are creating a list and checking off items as they go. They have a necessary function within each business, as we need managers to ensure necessary business functions continue. However, they are not agents for change.

What is the key difference here?

Create a transformational team with the right vision.

On some level, everyone is a leader. We are the captains of our own ships. We lead our own lives and make choices that align with our personal vision of who we are and where we want to be. But on a team level, whether that’s within a family unit or a business unit, we can apply the same principle.

As a dentist that owns a practice, your business vision should carry passion, a cause, and a rallying cry for your team. The objective, “To be a good dentist” isn’t enough. It’s not just about the service you provide, but the value you provide. How are you changing people’s lives? Are you setting up children for good oral health throughout their lives? Are you offering people an opportunity to smile without reservations?

The moment you can help define this vision for your team, you will find they begin to enthusiastically support the vision. All of a sudden, you might see one of your dental techs saying, “Man, I get it. I’m pumped to be able to help people become happy and confident in their smiles.”

The key to creating a transformational team starts with defining your transformational vision. This should be a conscious choice you make. Once you have a vision, you can begin to improve yourself and your team in a thoughtful way that begins to serve this vision.

Build a plan for the future.

The vision is the direction. A plan is the roadmap. What are we going to do this year? This quarter?

You can use cascading goals to create a strong plan for your practice. Look at your business and say, “Okay, 2019 is coming up. What areas can I improve in my business next year? What does it look like?” We can use our imagination to drive change and create a difference.

One of my favourite questions to ask myself is, “In 2019, what can I do to be really extraordinary?”

Once I have the answers I can begin to breakdown down these goals into smaller, achievable goals.

Every time you sit down to create goals for yourself or your business, your mind begins to think about excellence. No one innately wants to see mediocre goals for ourselves. It is quite easy to imagine a rosy future. This is great news! When we can picture it, we can achieve it, but it’s about the rubber meeting the road. It is important to consistently do what matters to achieve these goals on a daily basis.

This circles us back to the idea of constant, small improvements each day. If we can consistently trying to beat yesterday’s self, those small improvements add up to big change over the course of a year.

Final Words…

Transformational change within any organisation is possible if you’re willing to do the work. As 2018 draws to a close, how do you picture yourself or your business creating excellence next year?

I am very pleased to announce the launch of the Savvy Dentist App. Now you can access all of our content including our blogs and podcast episodes quickly and easily. We will also be adding new features in the next few months so stay tuned. You can download the Savvy Dentist app from your favourite app store including the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Please also consider joining us at the Savvy Dentist Facebook group. We’ve got tips, tools, and trainings waiting there for you. Head over and follow our Facebook Page.

I’m chatting to Steve Shallenberger about being the best that you can be, developing your leadership skills, and building a wonderful team that can support you in your quest to build a wonderful dental practice.

Steve Shallenberger has more than forty years of experience as a successful business owner, a trusted senior executive, professional corporate trainer, and a respected community leader.

After graduating from Brigham Young University in 1976, Steve launched Eagle Systems International, a global leadership and management consulting firm.

He has successfully led companies in four different industries and has a keen understanding of how to thrive in business.

During those formative years, he continued his education at the Harvard Business School.

Steve also worked many years with Stephen R. Covey. As a key leader, among others, he helped build the world-renowned Covey Leadership Center.

He’s taken his lifetime of experience and founded Becoming Your Best Global Leadership LLC, a company devoted to helping individuals and organisations achieve their maximum potential!

In this episode, we discuss:

9:28: The three categories of great leadership skills
10:54: The importance of vision and how to create it
24:10: What does it mean to be “transformational” and why is it so powerful
25:20: How to make rapid progress
30:04: Why the growth of the business is tied to the growth of the leader
32:55: Can anyone improve their leadership skills?
35:00: A simple plan for how to become your best
38:57: Why the opposite of success is not failure
45:46: The importance of having mentors in your life
And much more!

Find out more about Steve Shallenberger

At Becoming Your Best

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The world is changing – and so is Australia.

There are three key factors influencing demographics in Australia. First, we are seeing a massive population boom. In 2006, we hit 20 million across the country and today we are more than 25 million. We’ve increased our population by more than a quarter in just over a decade. And we see this growth most strongly in our capital cities, which means we are seeing apartment living and vertical communities within dense urban centres.

This population growth is due to increased births, yes, but also a healthy rate of immigration. This means that we are also becoming much more culturally diverse. In both Sydney and Melbourne, our most diverse centres, more than one in three residents speaks a language other than English in their home.

The final key factor that defines the trends we’re seeing today is the ageing cycle. In the 2011 census, our average age was 37. The most recent census data shows that has risen slightly to 38. In some states, like Tasmania, the average age is higher even at 42. As a nation, we are growing older. This is great news as it means we’re living longer, but it also provides some challenges as well.

While this information might be academically interesting, what does it mean for dentists that run their own practices? There are practical applications we can find from this data that can help us reach new patients and connect with them. Here are a few takeaways we can glean from what we know about the shifting demographics of the Australian population.

If you don’t have a continuous marketing plan in place, you should.

The average renter in Australia stays just 1.9 years in each apartment. If your practice sits in a high rental area and you haven’t advertised or connected with the local community in over two years, chances are, half of the residents nearby have no idea you exist. The frequent turnover can be a good thing for your practice – if you can learn how to stay connected with your community. It will be a constant source of new business. And don’t worry – satisfied patients have high loyalty. Even when they move, they are open to traveling across the city twice a year for your services.
And of course, this is now a digital world so marketing needs to be more than flyers through mailboxes. Patients today are savvier than ever. With the invention of Dr Google, they can research medical professionals, read reviews of past patients, and make informed decisions about from who they wish to receive care. Make yourself available online so that you are easy to find.

Keep up with technology.

We’ve seen a lot of disruption in the last decade. Organisations that were not able to adapt to changing technologies have disappeared. There are lots of examples with this from even large companies like Kodak and Video Ezy.

Can we keep on the cutting edge? Can we stay relevant even as medical best practices and equipment continue to grow and change? We are being responsive? We are being adaptable?

People place high credibility on technology. If your dental practice is using the latest technology, it’s going to offer confidence to patients who expecting every area to be innovating and technologically informed.

Cultural shifts mean you might need to find new ways to connect with patients.

One in four of us are born overseas. We’re an incredibly diverse country that is now seeing a lot of immigration from Asia, where in the past it was largely from Europe. There are different priorities, value, expectations, and attitudes that come from Eastern cultures than Western ones.

Language diversity is also key. Can you connect with your local community? How can you better reach potential patients that might hold different needs in regard to oral health? If there is a common second language in your community, perhaps hiring someone who can speak that language can help facilitate new patient growth.

Connect with new generations early.

With new generations and young families coming to your practice, there is a great opportunity to lay the groundwork for long-term relationships with these patients. The best oral care isn’t just about this visit or the next cleaning. Regular dental visits are about a holistic approach to health. This kind of approach creates confidence and stability into the future. When you can show, “Hey, this is the foundation we’re bring to your child so that they can stay healthy years into the future,” it will be easy to begin to connect with parents and create a long-term relationship.

Just as these newer generations can be very loyal patients willing to travel to see a medical provider they trust, they also aren’t going to continue to go to the same dentist just because their parents did. They are happy to move on if they find another dentist that meets their needs. So it is important to work with them and connect with them so they will stay with you long term.

Final Words…

Keeping up to date on our shifting demographics can help give us great insight and actionable practices we can institute today to ensure that we are competitive into the future. It can be scary when things change – especially if we’ve been doing the same thing for years. However, with change comes opportunity.

The dentists and practices that can stay flexible and adaptable through these changing times are the ones that will make it to the other side. In the end, these tips are not so different from before. It boils down to offering the best dental care you can and providing a safe, supportive environment that understands the needs of the community.

In this episode, I’m joined by social researcher, Mark McCrindle. It’s no secret our society is changing rapidly, with new technology and changes in population and demographics. But what effect does this have on businesses and those in the health-care sector in particular?

I spoke with Mark about what the changing social trends suggest, how dentists can establish trust in times of change and more.

Mark McCrindle is an award-winning social researcher, best-selling author, and influential thought leader, and he is regularly commissioned to deliver strategy and advice to the boards and executive committees of some of Australia’s leading organisations.

In this episode, we discuss:

6:07: Population growth not just in urban but in regional areas (and what it means for your practice)
13:09: Why people are getting busier
15:13: The transfer of wealth from one generation to the next and what that will look like
18:11: Career trends in the younger generation (and hiring)
20:75: Healthcare trends – and some of the effects of baby boomers living longer
23:29: What the future might look like for healthcare providers
24:34: How dentists need to realise they’re dealing with a digital generation (especially for marketing)
25:23: Trends towards cosmetic services
26:05: How the more highly educated generation requires new ways of communication
27:28: Differences between health care for the younger generation in big cities vs regional cities
29:06: How the younger generation will travel to access services and businesses that they like
30:12: How to establish trust as times expectations change
31:28: The fact that dentists already have high trust in the public eye
33:09: Trends dentists should keep and eye on

Find out more about Mark McCrindle

On his website

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