“Successful people make decisions quickly [as soon as all the facts are available] and change them very slowly [if ever]. Unsuccessful people make decisions very slowly, and change them often and quickly.” – Napoleon Hill.
Think of your own life, and the people that you know?
Are the successful people that you know decision makers?
Or are they procrastinators?
Way back in 1987, when I bought my dental practice that I owned and operated for a subsequent twenty eight years, a dentist friend came to me one day and told me that he was considering buying a home-unit to live in, and he said that I probably would be in a position of being able to buy one too.
It was something that I had not been thinking of, at that time, because I had been focused on settling in to my new role as dental practice owner.
Interestingly, in the August of 1987, I was having my car serviced, and on my walk to work from the car dealership I happened to pass by a couple of real estate [realtor] office windows.
I spotted two apartments for sale in locations I knew to be desirable, and was able to view those two apartments that same afternoon.
Following the viewings, I made an offer the next day on one of those apartments, which was accepted, and so became my home.
Twelve months after purchasing that apartment, at the height of the 1988 Real Estate boom in Sydney, I sold that apartment at auction for eighty percent more than what I had paid for it only fourteen months prior.
And my friend, who was looking at the same time and gave me that sound advice?
He never bought…..
In fact, he said to me that even when he knew the market was taking off, he should have bought in the February and he still would have made some profit.
It was a similar story with my dental practice….
The practice I bought in January 1987 was for sale for $80,000.00.
That’s the amount the vendor wanted, that’s how much I offered and that’s what the vendor accepted.
Sold.Transaction completed.
And the vendor paid an agent a commission on that sale.
At the same time, the vendor had been approached privately by a colleague of mine who was trying to knock him down to $75,000.00.
With no agent fee involved.
As they say in the classics, the rest is history.
In the following twenty years I was able to grow that dental practice and sell it to a dental roll up for what ended up being about $4.15M.
Do you think that haggling over $5K way back then would have been a good idea?
In fact, when the dentist in the rooms next door to me was retiring in 1998, and was wanting to sell his practice, the advice I was given was to buy it and merge that practice in to mine.
I was told:
“Pay him whatever he wants because you will make it up in spades later on”
And wasn’t that the truth.
The patients that came from that practice over the next ten years spent over $1M on their dental needs.
And probably a whole lot more after that.
Finally, let’s talk clothes shopping.
When I go clothes shopping, I find what I need, buy it, and I’m gone.
Quickly.
Others, they will spend all day visiting every retail store they can find, before finally making a decision.
Which they are often unsure of.
In life, I tend to make quick decisions.
Although some have not been successful, more of them have than have not.
Way back in 1997, when I chose to work with a dental coach, I made the decision quickly.
In the following six and a half years of working with them, my dental practice collections tripled in volume.
Do you think that was a worthwhile decision?
What is your experience with decision making?
Do you make decisions quickly? Or slowly?
*****
My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Sydney on November 9-10 and in Melbourne on November 12-13 with Dr Christopher Phelps, Dr Nathan Jeal, Mr Alex Lalovic and Mr Tiger Safarov.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!
Nobody likes last minute surprises, especially when those surprises relate to a change of plans, or to bad news.
If the change of plan is a sudden change of plan that deviates to a path that was never conceived as being possible, or a path that is too different from the original path decided upon, then that will not be good.
For example:
When your dental hygienist calls in sick at 630am on a Monday morning giving you only a half an hour of notice before her full day of patients, what that means is that there will be tears.
There will be tears.
Because you can bet your bottom dollar that her 700am patient has probably already left home and is on her way now to an appointment that is not going to happen.
And it’s also an appointment that this patient has made in good faith some three to six months prior to this morning, and has also fielded a trail of reminder text messages and phone calls from your office to ensure that they indeed do turn up and keep this blessed appointment.
And now the wool has been pulled out from under them.
There’s also a fair chance that the 800am patient has also passed that point of no return….
They’ve risen to the noise of an alarm clock going off at an earlier hour, so that they might be able to rise and shine, shower, and do their hair, and eat breakfast and still go to your dental office on time, and then race in to work and begin all those meetings that they have deferred…. just because of this hygiene appointment that was made six months ago….
AND IS NOW BEING RESCHEDULED!!!
But it could be worse…..
Well it was in my office….
You see, I had a hygienist who twice called in sick and the same patient was inconvenienced twice….
Yes, the same patient had on two instances two appointments cancelled on her at less than half an hour’s worth of notice, by the same hygienist.
And this patient, a very high D type of patient, had driven early morning a reasonably long way in a direction not needed [for any other reason than to visit our office] across the other side of town from whereabouts she lived.
Yes, you might be able to smooth over ONE of these indiscretions as being minor, but making the same error TWICE, in the space of a very short time, well, let’s just say this…..
Our dental office was on a hiding to nothing trying to reschedule for that second time.
It did not happen.
End result?
Valued patient, and loyal disciple…LOST to the practice.
GOOOONE!
All over red rover.
And due to no fault of the dentist, nor the office manager, nor the dental receptionists.
Fortunately….this story has a happy ending.
Really, David?
Well, yes it does….
You see, the hygienist in question decided to relocate herself out of Sydney and back to a dental office where she had worked asa dental assistant, before studying to become a hygienist.
And so, with her departure, also leaving was her poor attitude towards the most important resource in the dental office…
Her poor attitude towards, and lack of respect for, the time made available by her paying patients to see her.
What followed was a succession of three very exceptional dental hygienists who were PEOPLE and SITUATION conscious, who were never ever ill, and who were respectful and respecting of their patients, and of those patients’ time.
And the difference was palpable.
*****
My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Sydney on November 9-10 and in Melbourne on November 12-13 with Dr Christopher Phelps, Dr Nathan Jeal, Mr Alex Lalovic and Mr Tiger Safarov.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Have you ever tried to discuss the workload of school teachers with a teacher?
Working only six hour days… having to take twelve weeks of vacation each year….
And then there’s high school teachers. They don’t even have classes each and every hour of each and every day?
It’s the same for dentists….
They often only work four days per week.
Sometimes less.
It’s not physically exhausting…after all, all they do is sit on their tails all day long?
And they’re never available when you want one.
Here is my reality
No matter how bad the economy is, nobody in the world cares to hear how tough things are for dentists.
Nobody.
Ever.
Nobody ever.
Why do they call themselves doctors?
They’re not real doctors.
They only fix teeth.
How come they call themselves doctors? Dentists charge too much.
I can’t believe what dentists charge…why do they charge so much?
For a filling…how small is that?
And how long did it take?
And an X-ray…. all that for that tiny little picture?
Really?
It’s not like they’re performing brain surgery…
Here’s the truth…
My wife worked in my dental practice on the front desk and as a practice manager for over ten years.
But it was after I left there, and I was working at a friend’s dental practice, that I needed to restore one of her molars with a porcelain crown.
Her first.
Her first ever crown.
And here’s what she said to me at the end of that preparation appointment:
“I didn’t know how much was involved in getting a crown. You really should charge more for this.”
Dentistry can be fairly insular.
Being a dentist can make you the subject of many jokes.
Also, telling someone you meet at a function that you are a dentist can be a real conversation killer.
These two things alone can lead dentists to only ever socialise with other dentists…
In fact I’ve often said:
“Dentists don’t have friends. They only have patients, and other dentists”
Dentistry requires a lot of behind the scenes preparation.
It’s not like pulling beers.
Or driving a taxi.
There’s years and years of education involved in getting the grades to be accepted into a university.
Then there’s the years and years of studying to become a dentist once you are at university.
Then once you graduate, there’s all those years of continuing education.
And there’s the cash investment
It costs money to go to university.
It costs money to build a dental office, or to buy into a dental office.
And loans are not cheap.
Does the general public really have a grasp on these things when they tell you your prices are too high?
And what about the cost of all that fancy equipment?
We’re not talking about a desk and a chair and a few pens here…
There’s some pretty fancy machines in those dental offices now.
“And the chairs look more like spaceships than they do like the old barbers’ chairs….”
“And what about all those fancy hook tools they use now?”
Here’s my thought:
For the way that society perceives dentists, and for all that pain and suffering that’s heaped upon them by applying social stigmas, I think dentistry is a pretty tough game.
Sometimes, employing staff can be difficult.
And sometimes, patients and customers can also be difficult.
One of my mentors, who was not a dentist, said this about dealing with difficult customers, in a non-dental field…
He said, that no matter what EXTRA FEE that you charged those troublesome customers to make up for the difficulty that they cause you each time you deal with them….. IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH.
And he said, that although it is something extra, that extra amount will give you some solace that at least that difficult customer has paid SOMETHING MORE than if they had been treated as just the same as every other regular, well-behaved customer.
Please…
Make sure that you are suitably compensated to make up for the fact that most people’s perceptions are not your reality.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
*****
My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Sydney on November 9-10 and in Melbourne on November 12-13 with Dr Christopher Phelps, Dr Nathan Jeal, Mr Alex Lalovic and Mr Tiger Safarov.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!
“How do I make my staff more customer service oriented?”
“How do I make my staff be nicer to my customers?”
“How do I get my staff to be more attentive to the needs of the customer?”
Nobody is born with a golf club in their hand.
Have you ever tried to swing a golf club?
It is one of the most unnatural actions you could ever attempt.
Yet people do it.
And some people get paid well to do it.
Swinging a golf club is a learned skill.
It takes education, practice, coaching, followed by cycles of re-education, further practice, ongoing coaching, and education.
When something goes wrong with a golf swing, it’s usually because of lack of practice, lack of coaching, poor coaching, or failing to follow the coach’s advice.
Or self-education….
The thing is, with good education and with good practice and with the right coaching, great results can be achieved.
As far as I know, no child has ever been born speaking.
As far as I know, speech is learned following birth.
It is learned.
How to speak is a learned skill.
As is what to say.
And when to say it.
Nobody is born with inherent orator abilities.
They are learned, practiced and developed.
The same goes for customer service skills.
Customer service skills are learned.
They can be taught.
Awareness to providing great customer service is a learnable habit.
It is a habit that you can develop so that it becomes always “front of mind” as opposed to being an afterthought.
How is that possible?
All skills are learnable.
Behavioural skills are more easily learnable than physical action skills.
The mind is a very flexible muscle that thrives on forced expansion.
If you want to add value to yourself in the employment marketplace, in the consumer marketplace, as well as in the social and relationship marketplaces, you will read, watch, and absorb and practice as many customer service skills as you can.
Learning about providing great customer service is seriously addictive.
And once you learn these skills, they become very difficult to unlearn.
Are you up for this life-changing challenge?
Because customer service is highly addictive, once you commit, there’s no turning back…
And that’s the best thing ever.
*****
My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Sydney on November 9-10 and in Melbourne on November 12-13 with Dr Christopher Phelps, Dr Nathan Jeal, Mr Alex Lalovic and Mr Tiger Safarov.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!
