Family Court Judge Judy Sheindlin wrote a book titled:
“Don’t Pee On My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining: America’s Toughest Family Court Judge Speaks Out.”
The title kind of says it all, doesn’t it?
I wish I had a dollar for every time that someone blew smoke up my donkey….
Really, there are that many people out there gilding the lily a little bit too much, and people are buying that trash.
But not Judge Judy…
Have you ever heard someone say:
“The cheque is in the mail.”
Or
“Yes. I will respect you in the morning”
You know exactly what I mean….
“I’ll call you…”
“Let’s catch up….”
Yesterday I spoke to a guy in Florida who was just about to launch his own dental advisory business, helping dentists to locate reliable services such as phone and IT conveyors, as well as try and supply practices with employees, and equipment services..
His new business was born out of a frustration for him that the dental practice that he owned was having frustrations in securing reliable entities to provide these services.
But what got me about this guy was that his dental practice had been a long term client of a well-known dental practice management firm.
So I’m figuring, all this guy is going to be doing is rebirthing and repackaging information he’s gleaned from other sources.
Would you take parenting advice from a childless person?
There’s a dentist I know that offers practice management advice, but has never owned her own dental practice.
Really, if you’ve never had to sweat little brown giblets over how you’re going to put food on your family table, then maybe you’re kind of not the sort of person that should be giving advice to people with their tails on the line?
Recently another “self-made” [supposed] dental guru was publicly balling her eyes out because her dental practice was going to suffer because her overseas vacation had been extended by a fourteen day Government imposed home isolation, and that wasn’t in her business plan.
One of my mentors, Dan Kennedy, used to joke about how occasionally some of his business clients would ask him for some advice on their marital relationships. [Dan openly conceded his own marital track record was not perfect pedigree material].
But who am I to judge?
After all, American relationship consultant Barbara De Angelis, author of fourteen best-selling books, has been married at least three times…
A lawyer friend of mine is horrified that there’s a significant dental online forum being moderated by a dentist who has openly admitted to being a failure at the business of dentistry.
Anyone want to buy some toilet paper?
Recently this year we saw a massive under-availability of toilet paper in supermarkets sparked by an illogical mass-hysteria created panic-buying frenzy.
A good example of herd mentality …
Dan Kennedy said that the easiest way to create a successful business is to take a look at what everybody else in town is doing, and just do the opposite.
Omer Reed’s observation that 95% of dentists in America reaching the age of 65 could not afford to retire would be testimony to the fact that doing what everybody else is doing may not always give the best results.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
What is one thing you can easily do that will add significant value to your clients and have them coming back for more?
What is one small thing that costs next to nothing to implement and will engage your customers more?
This one thing is so easy to do.
But it is also so EASYNOT TO DO.
And that one thing that you need to do is to use your customers’ names when you talk with them more frequently than you are doing now.
Dale Carnegie wrote:
“Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest sound in any language – it is his badge of individuality.”
When we make a point of using a person’s name in conversation with them it raises their awareness, and they pay more attention to us and to what we are saying.
Conversely, when you fail to use someone’s name as often as you really should, this acts as a distraction away from the important conversation that you are trying to have.
But don’t take my word for it…
Carnegie also noted that the using of people’s names during conversation will automatically:
Increase your popularity
Help you in your business or profession
Help you win friends
Give sparkle to your social contacts
The more times that you use a person’s name when you are in conversation with them, the more they will pay attention to you and the more likely they will be to follow through with the instructions that you are sharing with them.
Run your own test.
If you don’t believe me, then run your own test for thirty, sixty, or ninety days.
Conclusively, you will find that the more times you use someone’s name with them in conversation, the more they will acquiesce to your suggestions and recommendations.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
Every dentist hates to hear someone tell them this….
You know what it’s like….
You’re at a social gathering.
Someone asks you what you do for a living.
You tell them that you’re a dentist.
And they say:
“My brother-in-law, he’s got perfect teeth. Never had a filling.”
And then they say:
“And he’s never been to the dentist in his life.”
And you know that you can’t argue with an idiot…
Because as dentists, we all know that no matter how good someone is at brushing and cleaning their own teeth, a lifetime of avoidance of visiting a dental office has got to lead to SOMEperiodontal issues just because of the amount of tartar and plaque that build up naturally over time.
Correct?
And can you just imagine how bad the halitosis is that this brother-in-law has?
And yet he probably thinks he’s some kind of super hero.
And his family and friends marvel at his supposed super powers.
But you know the only thing that happens when you argue with an idiot?
You end up with two idiots.
The idea is to change the subject.
“Did someone say KFC?”
Interestingly….
I was watching a webinar the other night about rebuilding your dental appointment book….
One of the [supposed] questions sent by a dentist and offered up by the “moderator” was:
“I’ve never done any marketing before in my dental practice and we’ve always been OK. Why should I bother doing any now?”
….or something along those lines.
To me that’s kind of like some human being saying:
“I’ve never been to a doctor before in my entire life and I’ve lived this long. Why should I go to a doctor now?”
You don’t know what you don’t know.
If you have no idea of your blood pressure, your cholesterol level and your sugar level, or your BMI, then frankly your body is a walking time bomb.
A time bomb of irresponsibility.
Because these measurements of you can be compared to those of a supposedly “healthy” person to see whether you might need to change your behaviours depending upon whether you want to lengthen your time on this planet.
Or shorten it?
What gets measured can get acted upon.
And we cannot accurately change what we do not measure.
In relation to the human body, tiny changes in behaviour can have far greater implications in extending or shortening life expectancy.
In business, it’s very much the same.
What we measure we can tweak and improve upon.
Minor tweaks may create massive improvements in our business.
When we don’t measure, and make changes based on notions or feelings, we are simply “pissing into the wind”.
Tweaking and making changes based on a hunch, without data, is like trying to choose the winner of Race Five at Flemington by throwing darts at a newspaper.
What gets me….
What gets me is that even when I look at “supposedly” successful dental businesses that have gotten to where they have without any structured professional advice, the amount of wasted opportunity that has slipped silently by because of blind ignorance, is enough to give any healthy human being shortness of breath and heart palpitations.
I’m talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Wasted.
Missed.
Gone.
Forever.
That’s a lot of wasted ground to be having to catch up…
There’s plenty to be said…
There’s plenty to be said for the supposed “self-made success story.”
But there’s even more to be said about the keen-to-learn businessman, who seeks advice, takes advice, and achieves things far greater with the right help, than he could ever have achieved on his own.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
One of the things I train my clients to do, or train their staff to do, is think of ways that they can GO THE EXTRA MILEfor their patients.
And sometimes going the extra mile might only have to be the act of asking a very simple question.
And this question may be asking something that is never actually ever even taken up.
What do you mean?
I’m talking about a process I developed called OFFER THE OFFERTM.
To OFFER THE OFFERTM is a process where we have an opportunity to make an offer, to our patients, that is rarely taken, but the offer of the offer is just as good or if not better than the actual doing of the offer.
“Can I walk you to the door Betty?”
“Betty, can I help you with those bags?”
“Betty, can I come downstairs and sit with you until your transport arrives?”
“Betty, I’m just about to make myself a cup of tea. Would you like one as well?”
These are all great questions with great offers that on the whole are rarely ever taken up.
But just because these offer are rarely taken up, doesn’t mean that we should stop or desist in offering them.
And this is because the spoken offer that is declined, is far more powerful than the unspoken offer that is never uttered.
What could you be asking in your practice, on a regular and more frequent basis, systematically, that would add value to your patients’ visits, and would send a message to those patients, that you really are a dental practice that cares, rather than being a dental practice that couldn’t care less?
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
I remember fifteen years ago when I purchased a nearby dental practice to be a “branch” practice, I thought it might be a good idea to place a sign out the front of that business that read:
“UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT”
But I was advised not to….
The reason I thought it might have been a good idea was that I thought it might attract BACK those customers or patients who had left that practice because of the poor people skills of the previous owner.
And that’s a valid reason.
But it’s not a very good reason.
You see, all that a sign like that does is highlight to the general population that for some reason or another there was a previous problem with this business, and now you’re going to fix it.
But maybe nobody out there really knew that there had been a previous issue….
The other thing a sign like that manages to do is that it alerts those “loyal customers” of the previous business owner that a change is occurring.
Which may or may not be a good thing.
Many years ago I used to travel across town on a regular basis to have my hair cut.
On one visit, the salon owner told me that he was going to be relocating and then selling his salon, as a result of renovations that his landlord had planned for his location.
And so I decided that this was a good time for me to find a hairdresser closer to where I was living and working, and one that was going to be more convenient for me, rather than travelling all the way across town.
Years later I bumped in to someone who told me that my hairdresser across town had never sold up, as he had mentioned.
And so, if I had stayed loyal to that business and had not acted to separate myself based on chatter, rather than on fact, I might still have been a client of that salon.
Who was to know…
Ultimately, the best way to inform loyal customers is not to place a sign, but rather to write a sincere letter from the vendor, letting his patients know that he had decided to sell and move on. This letter would serve the purpose of being a personal introduction of the new owner, from the vendor.
Accompanying this letter should be a short letter from the purchaser, acknowledging the sale, and the opportunity, with sincere thanks.
And that would make for smooth sailing…
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
