Being a business owner is really about making sure that your business reaches it’s true potential, because it really is an opportunity WASTED when a business fails to maximise its true value.
And owning a dental practice truly is a gift, and I want to see all dental practice owners REALISE that gift.
I believe that great dental practices like yours that serve their patients and customers well, TRULY DESERVE to enjoy PRODUCTION CERTAINTY and UNLEASH THEIR MAXIMUM POTENTIAL.
And to do that successfully we really need to realise those three critical outcomes of
Greater profit
Smoother flow
Lower stress
Are any of those three things, greater profit, smoother flow and lower stress, important to you?
The Critical Outcomes.
So, if we think about greater profit and lower stress, the lever that we need to pull to activate these outcomes is really about having WELL-EARNED RESPECT in your community, in the marketplace.
And respect is really about moving your dental practice from having treatment plans that seem to never be believed by your patients to being a well-respected oral physician whose opinion and diagnosis is accepted and TOTALLY TRUSTED.
And if we can do that, we have the ability to improve our practice collections and therefore our profits, as well as reduce stress levels across the practice simply because of the increased demand created for the services that our practice provides to its valued patients.
On the other side of greater profit and smoother flow is the lever for creating a practice that is a WELL-OILED MACHINE, where our dental practice moves from a business that has only limited processes or no processes at all, to being a business created on a foundation of a complete collection of logical systems that allow patients to progress through the practice smoothly and efficiently and effortlessly.
And on the other side of smoother flow and lower stress is our WORLD-CLASS METHODOLOGIES lever. These methodologies are the ideals that we live by that transform our employees from being a chaotic rabble into becoming a truly POWERFUL TEAM who are always in total control and abreast of all situations. A powerful team always operates smoothly and effortlessly and successfully in what is always considered a very low stress environment.
So if our business is a well-oiled machine operating with world-class methodologies we are bound to have a business operating with much smoother flow.
And our World-Class Methodologies along with our well-earned respect we have gained in the community allow our business to operate more freely with dramatically lower stress levels than our competitors.
And it is our well-earned respect in the community coupled with the logical systems that run our business as a well-oiled machine that truly allow our dental practice to operate far more profitably than otherwise thought of.
The well-earned respect that we gain, the world -class methodologies that we use and the well-oiled machine that we create in our business are what we call the three LEVERS that we need to be operating to create the critical outcomes of greater profit, lower stress, and smoother flow, that ultimately allow us to unleash the maximum potential of our dental practice.
Does that make sense to you?
The Accelerators.
We have three key accelerators for each of those levers.
And these accelerators are the things that we use to manipulate those levers to successfully make the things that we need to happen happen.
Well-earned Respect
Well-earned respect begins with belief, and self-belief.
Let me ask you a question…
On a scale from one to ten, how well do you believe and do your team members believe that your dental office is THE dental practice that everyone in your community should be visiting for their dental needs, where the number one is that you don’t believe you are and the number ten is a state of mind where you and your team believe unconditionally that there is no other dental practice in your community that any of your patients should be going to ahead of your practice?
For every dental practice to truly achieve well-earned respect within their community, first and foremost the entire organisation must certainly believe that no other dental practice nearby can be truly trusted by the community to work with their patients for the best outcomes for their patients.
We have a program called the Community Belief Toolset that we use to help our clients to improve how well their practice is respected within their community.
The second lever we have for creating well-earned respect revolves around the establishment of clearly visible frameworks and principles that your patients understand your business operates under and abides by. Where would you say your practice is on a scale where one is “we don’t have a framework” to ten being “our framework is truly world class”?
Finally, the third lever we work on to build well-earned respect in the marketplace is the creation of a renowned reputation, and living and breathing only those actions and principles that strengthen the reputation of our business and all of its employees within our community. We have a specific reputation acquisition tool that helps your practice to strategically build its reputation in the community in the most efficient way.
Well-oiled Machine
When it comes to running a business that operates like a well-oiled machine, the key accelerator that our successful clients use is a structured blueprint that clearly outlines all the detailed intricacies of the practice, along with the patient journey and all of the experiences those patients have each and every time that they visit and interact with your practice. So many practices out there operate without any blueprint whatsoever, and many just have what could only be described as a “back of the envelope” sketch as best.
And the real question is how easy is it for your team members to understand and consistently deliver the true genius of your processes and systems in a repeatable and duplicatable and error-free manner where a score of one is that you have no written systems at all, and a score of ten is where you have detailed processes that are easy to deliver consistently and also easily accessible to reference when needed.
And so The Ultimate Patient Experience that we have created operates under the principle that everyone on the dental practice team can consistently deliver a predetermined set of Experiential Standards to every patient at each and all of the fifty-seven steps or stages that the patient may find themselves in during one of their visits to our well organised dental practice.
And paramount in the delivery of this Ultimate Patient Experience is the edict that our business operates at Zero Risk for all that it does for our customers and patients and that we have a number of detailed series of structured Service Recovery processes that allow our team to seamlessly rectify any accidental Service Defect that can possibly occur during a patient’s visit that might impact unfavourably for the patient on the experience that we are trying so hard to create for them.
World-Class Methodologies
The levers for World-class Methodologies begin with our team’s and our business’s INTERNAL CULTURE and how strongly our team lives and believes in the practice’s SERVICE VISION and its CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ACTION STATEMENT. These drive the reason for each and every team member’s purpose and objective for being an integral part of your business, and serve as a rallying point for each team member that they all share as a common purpose within the business.
How clear are your team members on creating and working with and living by your practice’s Service Vision and Customer Experience Action Statement, where a score of ten is complete certainty and surety, and a score of one is that your practice does not have a clearly defined and written Service Vision and Customer Experience Action Statement?
A truly successful team in the work environment and in the sporting arena understand the importance of trust and relationships and know that each team member and each department have each other’s back, and are working for the solid good of the organisation.
And they know that the relationships that powerful teams create in business and in sport are not only internal, and that they also must be external and between team members and their fans and their loyal and faithful customers.
And the teams and individuals within an organisation understand that long term loyal relationships, both external as well as internal in business, are created by consistently going ABOVE AND BEYOND the expectations of those that we work with and those who we serve to please, and those Above and Beyond Moments are a series of detailed and repeatable WOW FACTORS that a business works hard to create as BEST PRACTICE for their organisation.
Ultimately…
Ultimately, we want our levers to be transforming our dental practices from offering treatment plans that were previously never believed and are now totally respected and trusted.
We are looking for our levers to transform our practice from having no processes at all to operating under repeatable logical systems, using World-class Methodologies that transform our staff from being a chaotic rabble and into a powerful unified team.
The well-earned respect that we gain, the world -class methodologies that we use and the well-oiled machine that we create in our business are the levers we need to be operating to create greater profit, lower stress, and smoother flow, that ultimately allow us to unleash the maximum potential of our dental practice, truly realising the gift that dental practice ownership presents to us.
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday February 24, 2022 in Melbourne, VIC
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.
Before performing, recording musicians, and singers and public speakers always run through a soundcheck to ensure that their equipment is working well and that their voices and their instruments are also tuned, and functioning well.
But what about you?
As everyday run of the mill ordinary garden variety people, do you ever encounter someone who uses a word, or a phrase, that is:
Meaningless
Pointless
Overused
Maybe it’s someone you work with?
Or it’s someone you know personally?
Or it may even be you?
Many years ago…..
Many years ago I won a weekend away on a television game show. When the contestants were interviewed privately after the weekend away, one of my fellow contestants pointed out to the viewers that I had an annoying habit of calling everybody I spoke to as “Pal”.
I can imagine how annoying that continued repetition would feel to other people… but for me, I was oblivious to the fact that I had fallen into this lazy habit.
When we listen to telephone recordings….
When Jayne and I listen to telephone recordings at our clients’ dental practices we hear conversational PATTERNS that we need to address and improve upon.
Often these patterns are simply lazy habits of speech where people are comfortable using CARELESS LANGUAGE rather than understanding the importance of using PURPOSE with every word spoken.
Right up there on the leader board of careless language are the well-worn phrases:
“Not a problem.”
And
“No worries.”
Both these phrases are lazy and contain double negatives.
Alternative phrases that would work much better would be:
“You’re very welcome.”
And
“It’s my absolute pleasure.”
which are both framed in the positive.
And are far better choices.
We’ve even heard a twenty-year-old receptionist calling multiple callers “Love” and “Darls” no matter what their age and gender might be…
In this case a little bit more COACHING of the receptionist was required to address and correct the careless language being used.
Although these mistakes may have been harmless…
Although these careless mistakes may have been innocuous and harmless, it only takes one instance where the careless phrase accidentally offends someone who decides that they will take their business elsewhere, and also tell their friends about it, and suddenly you’re wondering what the heck just happened to your business?
And the thing is…
And the thing is, for every one person that you might find out about, there’s probably another ten people offended who you don’t ever hear from who just take their business somewhere else.
That’s why…
And that’s why every person in every business needs to be open minded to CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIQUE about the language they use and the words they say.
Because anything except BEST PRACTICE is really unacceptable, no matter whether you’re the business owner, a seasoned pro, or the new recruit.
That’s why McDonalds staff have scripts to follow.
It’s because everything affects everything…
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday February 24, 2022 in Melbourne, VIC
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.
Owning a Dental Practice and having a SUCCESSFUL dental practice is really like looking at an iceberg…there’s the piece that you can see above the waterline and then there’s everything below the waterline that you can’t see…
And the piece of the iceberg that is visible is really only about 10% of the iceberg…
Up there in that visible ten percent of your business people outside of your business are typically looking at tools and techniques and training and technology, and those things are important and helpful in owning and running a dental business, but there’s always much more involved in running a SUCCESSFUL practice that most people really don’t ever see….
And the truth is that it doesn’t matter how much wind you have blowing on the piece of the iceberg above the waterline, the iceberg is going to move in the direction of the base, and so it’s really about the things that are happening below the waterline.
And so with your business, just as it is with the iceberg, these things that are happening above the waterline, like the equipment, the technology and the education, are only valuable if the important things below the waterline are secure and in place.
Does that make sense?
And just as it is with an iceberg, with your business we can’t be shallow only.
If we stay shallow, our customers will always want to know our “best price” only, because what they see is the TANGIBLE part of our business, only.
But if we take our customers DEEPER, into the what our customers will experience and also feel, then it will be the INTANGIBLE and the TRANSFORMATIONAL that will have our patients and our customers truly understanding the CORE MEANING of the GUARRANTEED PROMISED RESULTS we can achieve for them and what it will truly mean to them to receive the benefits of those results.
And so we need to be able to go deep at the same time…
So, for the practice owner, immediately below the waterline are some things that are less tangible than tools and technology but are far more important.
These are the results in your practice that you as the practice owner should be promising to yourself, and that anybody working in your business should be promising to you, and those results are:
Demand, and having increased levels of demand and being recognised in the marketplace as an authority.
Increased conversion…being able to convert enquiries to your practice effortlessly and convert at will
Increased control… being totally in control of your dental schedule and activities, and have a deliberate production schedule that you can turn on and off at will.
Do these things make sense to you?
However, as important as increased demand, control, and conversion are, owning a successful dental practice isn’t really just about those three things, is it?
What would it mean for you, as the owner of your successful dental practice, if you had such an on point functioning in your business, that had you in demand and at an authority level, and conversions were effortless and control was complete?
What would that mean for you, really?
The thing is, I believe that great dental practices like yours that serve their patients and customers well, TRULY DESERVE to enjoy PRODUCTION CERTAINTY and UNLEASH THEIR MAXIMUM POTENTIAL.
As the business owner, isn’t that really all you want?
That the production activity in your business is certain so that you can build the rest of your business, and your lifestyle and your future, and your family’s future, with confidence, based on that future production?
We have a blueprint for your business that we’ve created specifically for dental practices to make this happen for you, and I’d love to walk through that blueprint with you if you’re interested?
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday February 24, 2022 in Melbourne, VIC
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.
Jayne and I returned home this weekend after spending a few days in Sydney celebrating our thirty-second wedding anniversary.
During our time in Sydney we dined out a few times [we were there for three days] and were fortunate enough to dine at restaurants where the food was spectacularly superb.
Sadly, at a couple of places, the service did not match the food, and could only be described as “clunky” at best.
The clunky service was simply very ill-timed.
Restaurant service should be easy.
Restaurant service should be easy.
Pace the food out so that it’s not rushed.
Ensure that your patrons have a full glass of whatever they are drinking.
It’s that simple.
But sadly, for a lot of restaurants, getting these two things right is not simple at all.
What generally happens is that the food comes out very quickly, and with minimal spacing between courses. And before you know it, you’re sitting there with your main course in front of you, and you’ve had insufficient time to savour and digest your previous starter courses.
Many times when Jayne and I dine out we have to ask the waitstaff to please pace out our courses.
And with beverages, the opposite occurs…
For some crazy reason, restaurant staff on the whole have significant difficulty in TIMING the delivery of water, wine, and pre-dinner drinks.
When I walk into a restaurant and get seated, the first thing I’d like is a pre-dinner drink, rather than be asked my preference for water.
“Would you prefer still, sparkling, or tap water?”
And I say to myself:
“I’m here to eat. I’m here to drink. And thirdly, I might need some water to wash my food down with.”
And I think to myself:
“PLEASE, just ask me if I’d like to start my visit with a pre-dinner drink!!!!”
They could say:
“Can I start you off with a drink before dinner?”
It’s really that easy!
BUT THEY RARELY DO….
And so we end up with a concertinaing of beverages and food.
The wine is chosen later rather than earlier.
And the pre-dinner drink is ordered way too late after the initial arrival at the restaurant.
Because of this sequence, what we often see is the wine being delivered to the table somewhat later, often arriving AFTER the starters have been served.
This is wrong.
The wine needs to be brought to the table when the pre-dinner drinks are getting low, and before the first course is served.
The timing of the arrival of the wine is what most restaurants get SERIOUSLY WRONG.
This timing faux pas is something that can be easily avoided but is rarely considered important by restaurant wait staff.
And yet the GETTING THIS WRONG that consistently happens is so pathetically clumsy that it looks like really second grade stuff [that’s second grade at school].
And as for the table water…
All that needs to be done is a change of order. The table water preference need not be the lead question. Choice of water would be better asked for when taking the food orders.
Maybe I’m in the minority….
Maybe I’m in the minority.
Maybe the number of water drinkers at restaurants outnumbers the number of wine and pre-dinner drink drinkers?
And that’s why the waitstaff are asking for the water preference firstly?
David, what’s this got to do with dental?
In dental, you can kill a moment if you’re timing is off.
When the phone rings, the way you answer your incoming call, and the order in which you greet and help the caller , and your timing, can really impact dramatically on the EXPERIENCE that that caller has when they phone your practice.
Similarly, back in the 1990s, I had a dental practice receptionist who when checking out the treated patient, always asked for the money firstly and in such an ABRASIVE way that it was the verbal equivalent of holding a cat up by its tail and stroking that cat downwards quickly, from tail to head.
You get the picture?
Yes, there had to be a better way of doing things.
Because we listen to recordings of our clients incoming phone calls we know exactly what is being asked for, and answered, each time the dental office phone rings. This allows us to then coach the dental receptionists on the nuances of the language we need to hear, and the order of events needed that give each phone call a greater opportunity of a far more successful outcome.
The trouble is….
The trouble is that in most cases the owners of the restaurants are not on top of the order and the timing and the serving that is going on in their restaurants, because if they were, they would be addressing this glaring defect, and attempting to correct and improve this dreadful faux pas.
Similarly, the owners of the dental surgeries are not listening to recordings of incoming phone calls, and are not getting the coaching for their front of house team to truly improve themselves.
Because, better is always possible.
But businesses that fail to act, and subsequently keep drifting, multiply the losses that these defects are causing to their income and production.
A well trained team improves exponentially.
An untrained team compounds its losses exponentially….
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday February 24, 2022 in Melbourne, VIC
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.
Having worked with and coached lots of dentists and dental practice owners we typically find that people can be categorised into one of four levels depending on their situation.
Which zone would you say you are in right now?
The Red Zone. CONTINUALLY STRUGGLING.
The bottom level, or RED ZONE, is the least desirable place to be.
When you are in the Red Zone you and your business are continually struggling.
It’s a desperate place, where people may feel lost, or may feel as though they are really struggling with their lot.
This is often caused by the existence of a number of limiting beliefs.
They’re living hand to mouth and they are worried about their practice’s long term viability.
It’s a place without hope. They are inhibited in their ability to be crossing or improving to the next level, and that inhibition is usually caused by FEAR or IGNORANCE.
Dentists in this position always thought that as long as they were good clinicians they could get through anything.
Now these people don’t know if there’s a solution available for them.
And they may be fearful of what might be required of them to get to that next level…
The Amber Zone. HOPEFUL
To reach that next level above them, THE AMBER ZONE, the hopeful zone, people in the Red Zone need to jump across the FEAR LINE.
However, to jump over the Fear Line requires a paradigm shift in thinking for people in the Red Zone.
They believe to improve their lot they need to do more CE…. But what type of CE?
In the Amber Zone there’s a sense of hope.
Things are still not good, but they are not as hopeless as in the Red Zone.
These dentists are learning more skills, they are buying fancy new equipment, and they are working harder, and longer hours to pay for it all.
In the Amber Zone, although the position is on the negative side of neutral, there is hope for these people that things will possible be able to be improved.
The Light Green Zone. COMPETENCE.
Above the Amber Zone is the LIGHT GREEN ZONE, a zone of competence and sometimes confidence, where things are OK.
Here things are not too bad. It’s neutral, or slightly positive, and certainly a better place than the Amber Zone and a way better place than the Red Zone.
These dentists are starting to make a higher income. They are offering additional services, and can [mostly] pay their bills…
Dentists operating in the Light Green Zone are often happy to just SIT here, despite the fact that an even better zone does exist…
The Dark Green Zone. GREATNESS.
At the top of the pyramid is the fourth zone, the smallest, and yet the most desirable zone, the DARK GREEN ZONE, a zone of greatness.
People operating in the Dark Green Zone have a sought after practice. They are winning. It’s a double positive existence.
Their practice is very profitable, well organised, and runs with low stress.
The Dark Green Zone is separated from the Light Green Zone by a line known as THE GOOD ENOUGH LINE. People sitting in the Light Green Zone believe that life for them is indeed good enough, and that the jump into the Dark Green Zone, though desirable, is not worth the effort.
But ask yourself this…
What if Steve Jobs had decided that when Apple had invented the iPod, that this was good enough, and that they would “rest” on their laurels, because inventing the iPod was “good enough”?
If that had been the case, or the thought then, then maybe we would never have seen the invention of the iPad, or the iPhone?
For a long term sustainable business…
Really, to own and operate a long term sustainable business, we need to position our dental practice in the Dark Green Zone, as a business that is indeed winning.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like owning a sought after, truly great dental practice that operates from the Green Zone?
Do you think that maybe it could be worthwhile to take a little bit more time and to look at what things do look like when you could be operating your dental business from a position of Winning, in the Dark Green Zone…..?
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday February 24, 2022 in Melbourne, VIC
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.
You can order your copy here: Click Link To Order
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