Today I’m looking forward to sharing with you another MAGICAL MOMENT that you can incorporate into your dental office immediately that will set you aside as being dramatically different from all other dental offices in your area.
These MAGICAL MOMENTS are distinct Points of Difference that you can immediately implement in your office so that your clients and patients will perceive your dental office as *THE* dental office that cares, rather than being seen as just another dentist.
These ideas and concepts are just a few of the simple ideas that I have implemented during my practice of dentistry over the past thirty years that have impacted significantly to separate my office from “other” dentists in Parramatta, in Western Sydney.
CHANGE NUMBER TWO.
Welcoming the customer, client or patient into your office.
Once again, I am surprised at how impersonal other dental offices, and indeed, other health care providers can be, and how badly they make their clients feel when those clients arrive for their designated appointment.
Firstly, I am so often surprised when I have an appointment at the doctors’ office that the front office employees see me as an interruption to her day, rather than seeing me as the arrival of a welcome guest, a long lost friend not seen for quite some time.
The arrival of a patient to your office should always be anticipated and expected by all team members, so that when that client arrives, we can greet them by their name, rather than the client having to identify themselves.
After all, you have the list of invited guests for the day! Use that list to your advantage….
For instance, how impressive would it be if when your new patient arrives for their appointment that they are greeted with a bright smiling face saying “Hello, you must be Mrs. Smith. I’m Janet; I spoke with you on the phone. I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you in person. Welcome to our office. I’m just about to fetch myself a cold drink; would you like one? Please make yourself comfortable.”
In fact, every patient should be anticipated, so that they can be greeted with warmth upon arrival, in much the same way you would greet someone arriving at your home for a dinner party. After all, you know who they are, you know that they are coming and when they are arriving. It really is SIMPLE to change the manner with which you greet your guests at your dental office.
Imagine the regular patient’s amazement when they are greeted upon arrival with “Hi Jeff, great to see you today and thanks for getting here early. How has your day been? I’ll let Dr. Moffet know you are here and while I’m out there, can I bring you a glass of cold water or a cup of tea?”
Another thing that welcomes the client at the Dental Office is making the customer feel like a person. As I said last week, it’s not rocket science! Talk to them! After all, they are human too…. If you want to make the patient feel important then talk to the patient about their favourite topic: themselves!!
As I said, everybody loves to talk about themselves and to people who listen attentively. Patients are always impressed greatly when team members start listening to them. Remember, the patient is buying time from you as well as [dental] procedures. This includes time spent out the front of your office! So, give them centre stage!!
Over the next few Tuesdays, I’ll reveal even more simple changes that you can implement immediately in your office to create MAGICAL MOMENTS that will impact on how your clients and patients perceive your dental office as *THE* dental office that cares.
Remember, if you master these simple changes you will find that your office is well on the way to becoming the standout dental business in your area.
Make these simple changes and you’ll have people out there talking about you, because your office is not like a dentist; it’s different! In fact, it’s not like most other businesses out there!!
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In last Friday’s blog http://wp.me/p2c8zv-m I discussed my late in life findings of paying yourself first, as a Dental Practice Owner. As I said, this was one of the best pieces of information that I learned during my career as a Dental Office Owner. Sadly, I learned it late in my career. But not too late!
What this means is that every day, every week, or every month, you should separate physically a fee to you, the dentist, as remuneration for being a dentist. This is distinct from your remuneration that you receive for being a dental practice owner.
Look at it this way. If you were working in someone else’s dental office, not owned by you, then you would more often than not be remunerated by being paid a percentage of your gross billings. This percentage is often adjusted for dental laboratory costs. But you get my drift, right? At the end of the day, as an assistant dentist, you get paid a percentage for drilling teeth. And that’s all you have to do! Nothing else! That percentage is for the act of dentistry!!
Depending on where you work, and your skill level, that percentage can vary. For whatever reason, down here in Australia, working as an assistant dentist you can expect roughly about a 40% commission. Traditionally that’s 40% for the assistant dentist and 60% for the dental office.
Now here’s the kicker!! As an assistant dentist on 40%, here’s what you don’t do….
An assistant dentist spends zero time doing wages, HR, salaries, annual leave, employee contracts, employee disputes or rosters. They don’t do stock control. These tasks are performed, at a cost, by the practice.
An assistant dentist does not buy equipment from his percentage. Equipment, especially new equipment, like Cerecs, microscopes, cone-beams and lasers, are provided by the dental office.
An assistant dentist does not go without during a bad week. If takings are down, he still gets the same percentage, usually. In most cases.
Conversely, on a good week, the assistant dentist does not go out and blow his extra earnings on equipment. His percentage is still the same!
A non-dental mentor of mine advocated taking your percentage on smaller time increments. Daily was one he favoured! If you were paid well early in the day, well he advocated getting that separated into your personal account even during lunchtime of that day!
Sadly, a large number of dentists out there operate their offices the same way I used to. That was, using the misguided belief that “if there’s enough gross around, there’s got to be some net left over somewhere”.
Now, I was lucky…but a lot of dentists out there are not! What happens for them is as business owners they muddy the waters between their own salary, and business expenses. They collect a gross fee for the dental office. From this they then pay their dues, i.e. rent, consumables, staff expenses and insurances etc., and then, they see what’s left over!
So many doctors get to the end of a financial year, and often it’s much later, and then get their figures from their accountant, and work out, then and there, whether it’s been a good or bad year.
This is bad business!! If you want to do it correctly, and by that I mean if you want a better way, then you need to separate your fee for being a dentist. From that fee, you can then run your personal expenses separate to your dental office expenses!
Now you may need to set up trusts and service companies. Advice on this I will leave to those more qualified!!
However, in the first instance, it may just be as easy to separate into two entities. Joe Smith Dentist and Joe Smith Dental Practice and Dental Office.
Separating your personal rewards from the business costs and expenses should be your first step in heading towards your true financial rewards for your studies, your financial investment, and your risks, and also those costs incurred (separately) for your toiling in running the business.
Without this separation, you’ll find yourself spending your whole life running on the treadmill wheel, much like a gerbil…a lot of action but going nowhere!!
So, let’s briefly consider what you do with your 40% you take as a dentist. Take it daily, take it weekly. Transfer the funds, your percentage, into your own separate account, away from what’s left, which is the dental office account.
The amount you leave for the dental office, their 60%, we’ll talk about how that is appropriated next week.
From this 40% amount, you need to separate the following:
An amount for superannuation/retirement planning. Work out your best tax concessions on this. You need to be putting money away for the future. From Day One. And if not from Day one, from today onwards.
An amount for taxation. Work out your tax liabilities on your dentist generated income…then put this away into a separate account.
From what’s left is what you live on. Separate your personal expenses into this part; cars, school fees, living, holidays etc. all go here. Don’t muddy the waters by accidentally or otherwise putting these expenses across (inadvertently or illegally) into business.
The most important idea I want you to take from this blog is the compartmentalization of the dental office income. Appropriating money into various accounts will make life easier for you, now, and definitely in the future. But you need to separate your income from the money the business needs.
Next week we’ll discuss the ratios in appropriating the 60% the dental office keeps.
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One of the best things I learned [sadly, too late] during my career as a Dental Office Owner was to pay yourself first!!
Unfortunately I only learned this in the last five years of my career as a full time practice “owner”. I learned this *pearl* only after the sale of my practice to Dental Corporation in November 2007; only when I had to operate the practice under their financial terms: running it as a business first with strict attention to the numbers. For the prior 21 years, as a sole trader, I did not run my business as a business per se.
Luckily for me, my first 21 years as a dental practice owner were very fruitful and profitable, despite the fact that I did not *strictly* study the numbers…
I must say, from the outset, that I was fortunate in my early career to have good accounting advice. I was very fortunate to be advised to put maximum money away in Personal Superannuation. However, apart from this, I’m ashamed to say that my financial belief for the Dental Practice was simply, to quote or misquote, that “if there’s enough gross around, there’s got to be some net left over somewhere”.
Sadly, this seems to be the way that a lot of dental offices run their businesses….but without the good fortune that I had…
They collect a gross, pay their dues, i.e. rent, consumables, staff expenses and insurances etc., and then, with what’s left, they either lash out and buy new equipment, or they pocket what’s over.
So many doctors get to the end of a financial year, and often it’s much later, and then get their figures from their accountant, and work out, then and there, whether it’s been a good or bad year.
Sometimes, dentists get to the end of their working lives, using the same misguided thoughts and ideas…
I believe, that part of this so called “numeracy confusion” can stem from the existence, or establishment of a family trust and service company entity, which is very beneficial, but in my case, served to confuse the issue somewhat in terms of working out who was paying whom for what, if you get my gist?
However, in the instance of engaging additional practitioners, be they hygienists or additional dentists, the existence of this entity, can be beneficial in running the office as a serviced facility, with the appropriate contracts of course. Separating the facility from the practitioners, including the owner, certainly allowed the owner to separate business costs from his own rewards and exertions.
Separating your personal rewards from the business costs and expenses, should be your first step in heading towards your true financial rewards for your studies, your financial investment, and your risks, and also for your toiling in running the business.
Without this separation, you’ll find yourself spending your *whole* life running on the treadmill wheel, much like a gerbil…a lot of action but going nowhere!!
In future weeks, my Friday blogs will expand upon my thoughts on how to best “break down” your dental practice takings into their appropriate sections… and my thoughts on what best to do with those sections of your takings.
The simplest and easiest and most cost effective way to improve your dental business is to focus on customer service with every customer, client or patient who contacts your dental office or walks through your front door.
Too often I hear dentists bragging about their skill level, their fine margins and the tensile strengths of their materials. Frankly, I’ve never been out to dinner or at a party where someone has shown me the 20micron margins on their recently placed three-unit bridge, or discussed the mean microtensile bond strengths of VITA VM9, Creation ZI, and Lava Ceram …
However, I have been told endless stories as to why people have changed dentist, and it nearly always comes down to feeling not cared about, feeling ignored, or downright apathy from someone in the dental office.
Over the next few Tuesdays I’m going to reveal five simple changes you can implement in your dental office immediately that will impact positively on how your clients and patients perceive your dental office as an office that cares, not just another dentist.
In 2013, and beyond, being a proficient dentist is a given….but your patients want more! They want to feel special. They want your office to make them feel special! In 2013 the dental office that goes the extra mile, that does things differently, that surprises their patients…this will be the dental office that everybody will be talking about!!
If you want to have new patients sitting in your client lounge on their first visit saying “this is like no other dentist I’ve ever been to before!!” before they’ve even met the dentist, then you’ll want to read this blog over the next few Tuesdays…
Welcome to the Blog for the Ultimate Patient Experience. A regular Blog posting for Dr David Moffet and www.ultimatepatientexperience.com
The blog will feature simple low cost ideas that are easy to implement immediately in your Dental Office, impacting immediately on your Patients’ Dental Experiences, and consequently, improving your practice profitability.
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