Do you know how to be your own dental assistant? Can you handle all the jobs that most of your staff members do? What if your receptionist takes a day off, would you be able to pick up the phone and let the person on the line know about your charges for getting a crown fixed or removing a decayed tooth?
Now, let’s lets flip the coin. Would you let any of your reception team speak to a potential patient to sell them a complex treatment plan? These might sound trivial questions. But if you don’t have definite answers for these then that is a great loophole in your practice right there!
Control is good, it enables you to conduct your business just the way you want it, but sometimes, giving up control might offer you greater strength and room to scale. And that’s what I have decided to discuss today. The small things that lead to powerful positive changes in the way you do business and potentially grow.
Importance of Culture
Culture is one important aspect of business that is often ignored. It is something that is usually considered unnecessary or inapplicable for startups or small businesses. The common belief is that it takes a team of say 25 employees or above to develop a healthy culture. I, and most successful game-changers in business are of the opinion that culture is as important for a team of five or ten people as it is for a bigger corporation.
It is something that needs to be incorporated at the foundation. But how do you do it? How do you introduce a culture in your business? There are two ways – internally and externally.
Externally, businesses need to have a purpose; it is how they deal with the stakeholders or the external people. But, more importantly, it is something that everyone from the CEO to the cleaner can buy into. Internally it is the culture between the employees; their values and purpose statements. It is how the team relates to things like ethics. These need to be easy to remember and understand. Again, it must be something that everyone on the team, from CEO to the janitor can buy into.
Internal values really enable staff members from different teams to bond together and create a feeling of belonging and unity; something that is essential to boost their sense of positivity and enthusiasm in the company.
Giving Up Control
This is a tough one, something that not a lot of business owners are willing to, or are comfortable doing. It is not easy to be in a position of power and yet accept that you know less than someone working under you, even if they have five times more experience than you do. Know that doing so is not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of humanity and smart business practice. Also, admitting that you don’t know something will make the other person more willing to help you. So by giving up control, you actually strengthen your position further. For instance, if you are doing a task that generates $10 an hour revenue while you can be doing a task that can generate $500 an hour revenue. In this case, wouldn’t it be better that you give up control of those $10 an hour tasks and let someone more suitable take care of them while you take care of the more productive tasks in that time?
Scaling
Scaling means to grow in a proportional and profitable manner. Scaling is key to great business. But it can be tricky to find the balance between growing and making profits. For instance, if you need to hire two more employees to handle three more patients, then there isn’t a lot of monetary growth, because you are spending almost as much as you are earning. In order to make greater profits, you need to make sure that you are growing without increasing the costs so much.
Do the Job You Want to Get Done
This is essential for any business. It is a strategy most successful businesses apply. You should be able and willing to do the job you want your employees to do.
Market Wisely
Marketing is the art of building trust with a potential customer that makes them walk in through the door and make a sale. Marketing correctly and wisely is essential. The most expensive marketing strategies are not always the best. What works for one business might be ineffective for another. For instance, Pinterest is a great social media platform for marketing products and services with visual appeal like event management, fashion, interiors etc. However, the same platform may not be as effective for services like plumbing and dry cleaning.
Also try to think outside the box. A small white paper animation of your product or services or an educational service message via Facebook or Instagram may turn out to be informative and click-worthy, leading to more leads for your business.
Newsletters are another great platform for marketing if done correctly. The best newsletters are the ones that add value for patients. It doesn’t have to be written by you. Worthy content comes from many places. It doesn’t have to be all about your dental practice. Let them know something they didn’t know already, offer help and suggestions and then close it with a call-to-action. Call to actions guide potential customers as to where to click next or where to go next with all that new found information.
Look for ways to give up control over every aspect of your business and invite other ideas and team input. This will free up your time and head space, give responsibility to others and open up room in your plans for scaling.
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
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. Attend a Practice Max Intensive live event
Our
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