Interestingly, this quote came across my desk recently:
“When all else fails, invest in yourself:
I’m an action taker and when I double down on myself I always win. After all, my mind is wired to always focus on the win, and not to focus on the possibilities of losing or failing. I’ve spent over $1M in masterminds, programs and seminars in the last 8 years. I truly believe that because of the investment in myself, I am where I am. Not only have I learned from the mentors and members of the networks, I’ve reaffirmed my self-belief.
When you invest in yourself you tell your subconscious that you believe in yourself. When this happens, your mind releases a chemical that creates confidence and energy. It’s a gift from our divine creator.”
What do you think?
Over the past thirty-five years, as a dental practice owner, I’ve invested in a lot of dental education and a lot of business education.
At an early age, in my practice owning career, I realised that there was a lot about dentistry, and business, that I did not know.
Or should I say that I was never taught about.
So as a dentist, I studied TMJ and sleep dentistry, and airways in particular detail. I invested in C&B education, and I invested in an orthodontic education.
Later in my career as a dental practice owner, but early on in my career as a dental practice coach, I studied with global leaders in dental speaking and dental practice management, as well as some of the greats in business leadership, including Ziglar, Rohn, Hopkins, Tracy, Daly and Kennedy…just to mention a few.
I’ve masterminded dentally and non-dentally in the USA with some of the greats of coaching, and as a Certified Professional Speaker I’ve spoken on stages in Europe, London, Chicago, Miami, Cleveland and Las Vegas, as well as all capital cities in Australia.
Dr. Lincoln Harris once said:
“David Moffet is so knowledgeable he’s forgotten more than most people ever learn about dental practice”
So I tend to agree….
I tend to agree 100% with the thoughts of that quote that came across my desk.
I do truly believe that because of all of the investments that I made in myself, and in my teams, and in my family, that I am indeed where I am in my life as a result of all that time and investment. These investments in education on business have indeed, and continue to, reaffirm my self-belief, and my belief in the value of continuing education.
But it’s a continuing education in a much broader education platform than just dentistry. Sometimes there’s a continuum along a valued tangent, that might not have been possible if it had not just been because of dentistry. For instance, it was at a dental mastermind in Chicago that I was introduced to an international speaker and trainer on Customer Service, and from this meeting evolved my learnings to create the necessary skills in myself to recognize the systems I had created at my dental practice, and to repackage those processes as The Ultimate Patient Experience.
And I agree, the beauty of my journey is that I have not only learned from my mentors, but I have also learned from and built ongoing relationships with members of those masterminds and those educational networks.
I agree whole heartedly that when you do invest in yourself and your continuing education you do in fact tell your subconscious that you are believing in yourself, and your ability to take this education and use it as a FORCE FOR GOOD in the future of your business, and for your life direction, and for your family’s life direction.
And it all began for me by wanting to have a better dental practice, and by investing firstly in the services of a dental practice coach for my practice. And choosing a coach who had had and had built a SUCCESSFUL DENTAL PRACTICE.
That was important to me.
There is a definite energy, and a definite confidence that comes to you when you invest wisely, in yourself.
And also when you IMPLEMENT what you have learned.
Because without implementing, you may as well not have bothered to learn the stuff in the first place.
I know of and have met plenty of dentists and people who take plenty of courses and never implement.
Their brains are libraries full of a wealth of information, but their dental practices, and their businesses, are a museum piece of the “old way” that things used to be done.
And that’s a tragedy.
The difference between those that don’t do and those that do is most often because of the hands-on coaching and mentoring.
Having someone there beside you who has walked the road to success, and knows that road, and has helped others along that same road, certainly makes the journey a lot simpler, and a lot shorter in time, than trying to work out mountains of stuff on your 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.
As you know we listen to real live phone calls coming in to dental practices.
And you would not believe some of the dumb questions we hear being asked by dental receptionists answering the dental practice phones.
Remember, the purpose of answering the dental practice phone is threefold:
1- You need to become the caller’s friend.
And become their friend quickly.
The caller must identify the fact that you are there to help them as quickly as possible, and that you are on their side.
2. You need to solve their problem.
Every caller to a dental practice has a problem that they are looking to find a solution for.
And your job is to help them find that solution.
You need to assume the role of PROBLEM SOLVER for the caller.
Remember, as Jayne Bandy says:
“They haven’t phoned for a pizza.”
Nobody phones a dental practice because they have a spare thirty minutes to kill.
Every caller to a dental practice has a dental problem , that they want you to solve.
3. You need to give the caller hope.
The caller needs to feel that they have called the right place, and that your dental practice will solve their dental problem.
They need to feel that when they hang up that phone, that they are so looking forward to coming to your dental practice to meet you, and they are actually hoping that there may be a change in your dental schedule, and that you are going to phone them and bring their appointment forward.
So here are some of the things that I’ve been hearing on the dental office phones, that need to be eliminated.
With the above three points in mind, the only information we really need to be collecting from new patients calling our practice is their name, their best phone number, and their email address.
Other than these three things, we don’t need to turn the new patient phone enquiry call from being a PROBLEM SOLVING EXPERIENCE into a data collecting phone call.
Yet that’s what I often hear.
There’s plenty of time to do data collection before the new patient attends our practice, either by mail, or by virtual means.
Or we could simply ask the new patient to come to our practice seventeen minutes early so that we can show them around our office and go through any documentation.
Turning a new patient phone enquiry from being a solution of the caller’s problem into a bland Q&A data collection call kind of pours cold water over the warm caring experience that we want that caller to feel when the call has ended.
So here are some of the things that I hear…
“Is that Mrs? Miss? Or Ms?”
Really?
What the heck does the marital status of the female caller have to do with their making of an appointment?
Do we say:
“Oh I’m sorry. Dr Brown, she only sees married patients on Wednesdays. You’re a Ms. You’ll have to wait until Thursday.”
Of course we don’t.
So if it doesn’t matter to the appointment, then why ask it?
How about D.O.B.?
Apart from the fact that the manner that I hear people asking the date of birth question is usually so very impersonal, the actual date that a person is born rarely has any relevance to the scheduling of dental appointments, does it?
I’ve heard dental receptionists just fire out the date of birth question like a machine gun:
“DATE OF BIRTH!?”
A little bit too matters of fact, in my opinion.
I’d prefer to hear it being asked more courteously:
“Could I have your date of birth please?”
But in reality, I really don’t see why are we asking this question at all on a New Patient Enquiry Call?
Do we then say:
“Oh I’m sorry. Dr Brown, she only sees baby boomers on Wednesdays. You’re a senior. You’ll have to wait until Friday.”
Or:
“Oh I’m sorry. Dr Brown, she doesn’t see Sagittarians on Thursdays. You’ll have to wait until Monday. Monday is the day she sees Sagittarians.”
Of course we don’t.
So why are we wasting breath asking it on the caller’s first point of connection with our office?
Which side is the sore tooth on?
Again, does this really matter?
Do we say:
“Oh I’m sorry. Dr Brown, she doesn’t treat left side teeth on Mondays and Tuesdays. You’ll have to wait until Wednesday.”
Of course we don’t. It doesn’t matter to Dr Brown which side the sore tooth is on. She’s going to fix the tooth regardless…
So there’s really no need to ask the caller this question, or any other questions that take away from the three key purposes we need to perform when answering the dental office phone.
And that is:
Be their friend
Solve their problem
Give them hope
When we consider the purpose of answering the phone, and when we consider the desired outcome that we are wanting to achieve from each and every new patient enquiry call, then we need to ensure that every word we utter is because we are attempting to fulfil those three essential requirements each and every time.
Our questions need to be purposeful, and not dumb.
The thing is….
The thing is, that while we drag on a new patient phone call asking dumb questions that are better asked at another time, in reality we really should have finished up with that call. Instead of wasting time asking dumb questions, we really should be answering other incoming calls into the dental office, and be spending time helping those other new patient enquiries with their concerns and problems….
*****
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’ve been trying to remember who made the following statement:
“It takes the same effort to date a guy with money as it does to date a guy with no money, so I choose to only date guys with money.”
Or words to that effect.
I’m not sure whether it was Joan Rivers, or Joan Collins, or Joan of Arc…
In a similar vein, I do know that it was Donald Trump who said, and is quoted:
“If you’re going to think, you might as well think big”
And truth be told, small thinking and a small minded mentality can hold you back, can kill off opportunity, and seriously affect what happens to you and how much success happens to you, in your life.
In dentistry, it takes the same amount of time and the same amount of effort to tell a patient they need a crown on their tooth as it does to explain to them that you can patch their tooth up and see how it goes.
And it often takes less time to present a comprehensive restorative treatment plan to a dental patient than it does to present a detailed tooth by tooth patch up plan.
I quickly learned that most times that I tried to explain a treatment plan in detail to a patient, the patient’s eyes would start to glaze over as if I was speaking to them in double Dutch.
I found that knowing what to say, and how to say it simply and effectively to patients made things far easier for those patients to receive the dentistry that was best for them.
And patients really do want what is best for them.
I consider myself to be a fairly smart person, but I don’t really know and understand how when I flick a switch at home, how the electricity flows from a pole in my street and into my house and makes a light glow so that I can see… but I’m sure glad that I know that I do need a certain number of those lights in my house so I can read comfortably, and move around the rooms without tripping in the dark on the furniture.
So I’m the kind of person who doesn’t need a physics lesson from an electrician every time I go to buy a light globe…
It’s the same when I buy a car. I don’t care what processes actually take place to make the car move [be it by petrol or by electricity]. All I really want to know is how fast does the car go and how smart does it look.
And dental patients are much the same.
Although these patients do not have a dental degree, some dentists feel that they [the dentists] need to give each patient a full dental education before they can tell them about their impending dental treatment…. when a lot of the time all the patients really want to know is how good will they look, or how long will this treatment last, so that they don’t need to come back and have it re-done and re-done.
The real problem is that most people are conditioned to think small and play small.
Even when we are dealing with big numbers, we often still behave with a small-minded mentality. Like I said, it takes the same amount of work to tell a patient they need a crown as it does to explain to them they need a patch-up job. So you might as well do the work that gets the patient the result that lasts a lot longer for them, because you know that a patch-up will never be good enough.
Interestingly, I grew up in a working class neighbourhood. I didn’t have friends whose parents were rich. I didn’t know any business owners. It was all small-thinking people living there….
Fortunately for me something changed in my thinking…. I know that when I started to think bigger, that big things started happening for me.
I know that since then whenever I have lapsed back occasionally and played small [on the very rare occasion] it has cost me. Playing small can cost you more money and hold you back than you would really care to believe.
When you stop thinking small, you will stop playing small.
In reality, it makes sense to always think big anyway….
*****
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.
It’s not that I needed a new shirt, but the fact was I was going out to lunch on the weekend with my wife Jayne to celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary, and for sure that’s a good enough reason to get dressed up.
Truth be told, for the past fifteen years at least, Jayne and I have been celebrating each of our birthdays, and our wedding anniversary, with a lunch at our favourite restaurant in Sydney. It’s a degustation menu, and a long lunch, so we usually get a driver to take us there and back.
We want the day to be special. In recent years, because of our relocation to the country, we’ve still continued the restaurant tradition by staying overnight in Sydney after the lunch.
And we do this because we love going to this place so much.
It’s been a big part of our lives.
So much so, that we’ve been going there longer than most staff have been working there.
But we love it, because the food is always great and the service is always truly world class.
But I digress… let me tell you about my experience in purchasing a new shirt.
The reason for the new shirt is that traditionally Jayne and I take a selfie photo at our table as soon as we arrive there for lunch, and I like to feel that every lunch photo there deserves a new shirt.
So for this lunch, I chose to do my shirt shopping at a local store.
Which ended up being a difficult thing for me to do.
Firstly, I choose not to wear shirts with check patterns. I guess the check patterns remind me too much of the old Pizza Hut tablecloths. And although you can get checked shirts in black and white, and in blue and white, rather than the traditional Pizza Hut red and white, the memory for me still lingers.
Secondly, I’m averse to striped shirts. I just believe they date very quickly. So they’re out too.
Now, for some reason, it seems that shirts with chest pockets are making a comeback.
And yes, I have an aversion to shirts with chest pockets.
I don’t know whether it’s a childhood memory of Amco shirts, or whether it’s simply a memory of accountants with six pens in their shirt pockets, or smokers with a packet of B&H stuffed in their chest pocket… I just don’t want to go back there.
Anyway, with these three crosses to bear, in one store I was able to find three shirts to try on.
And with three shirts in hand as I headed to the changerooms at the back of the store, a sales assistant appeared in front of me and asked me if I needed any assistance.
I told her that I was looking to buy a new shirt, and that I was going to try on these three, which I handed to her.
She immediately looked at the three shirts and remarked back to me:
“You know these are linen shirts?”
To which I replied: “Yes I do”
And then she said:
“You know these are all tapered fit?”
To which I replied: “Yes I do”.
As we entered the change area together, I asked the sales assistant if she could look around her store to see whether they might have any other shirts that I may have missed. I explained to her that I preferred long sleeve, without a pocket, and that although I did not like stripes or checks, I was OK with other patterns, should she have them.
Interestingly, I entered the change area, tried on the three shirts, and left the change area, and never saw this sales lady again.
Had she gone home ill?
Had her shift ended?
I was shocked, because I thought from our discussions that she had opened up a dialogue to try and be of assistance to me.
I found her disappearance to be quite rude, because while I was in the changeroom trying on the three shirts, I was wondering whether or when she might appear with another shirt for me to try on.
I know that at our dental practice we always encouraged any staff who were going home earlier than patients still being treated to come and say their farewells to all other staff and patients still engaged in the provision of treatment.
It’s just common courtesy.
And secondly, at Active Dental, we trained all staff to own their experiences with all patients, and if distracted, to ensure that the patient being served never ever felt abandoned.
The other thing I found strange about this sales assistant was the accusatory tone of questioning she used towards me.
When she said to me:
“You know these are linen shirts?”
And:
“You know these are all tapered fit?”
I really felt as if she was saying:
“You know these are linen shirts, you idiot?”
And:
“You know these are all tapered fit ,and your body isn’t tapered?”
Maybe because I was dressed in a puffer jacket, she thought that underneath I might have had a beer belly instead of my 30 inch waste?
And maybe my puffer jacket was a significant distraction to this sales assistant? Maybe she had never sold a stylish linen shirt to a person wearing a puffer jacket?
Whatever her reasons for prejudging, prejudging potential customers incorrectly can be fatal for any business.
It was a shame that she was not around when I emerged from the changeroom, to see me make a purchase of one linen shirt.
Would you be so stupid as to prejudge your dental patients?
Years ago at Active Dental, a man appeared in my client lounge one morning while I was short staffed and while I was treating another patient.
He asked if it was possible to see a dentist, and I told him that if he was able to wait, I had a vacancy in my schedule and could see him shortly.
The man was dressed ordinarily, in a less than fashionable manner. He was not a patient of record at our practice.
Once I had the man in the chair and in the treatment room, we started to discuss his treatment options.
This man wore a full upper denture that had certainly aged, and he needed some posterior crown and bridgework on his lower dentition.
The man mentioned to me that he was visiting our building to see the hair-replacement studio downstairs, and that he had recently won $10Million in Ozlotto.
I’m glad I did not prejudge this patient on his appearance.
I presented him with best treatment options and he went ahead and accepted all treatment.
Had I prejudged this man, and made him feel anything less than welcome in my practice, the end result for him and for my practice would most probably have been very different.
Customer service is about providing every person, every client, every customer with best options, no matter how they present themselves in your office or place of work.
Prejudging a client or a customer on what you think they can afford, or what you think they might need, and not giving them the option to choose better, doesn’t do you or your business or your customer any favours at all.
Actually, as a behaviour, it’s downright stupid, and downright offensive.
It’s a behaviour that if we have it, we need eliminate from our repertoire.
It’s a harmful behaviour that is not needed.
Ever.
*****
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 recently had a strategy session call booked with a dentist.
That’s a short twenty minute ZOOM call that I do with dentists to see what’s going on at their dental practice, and to see whether there’s anything there that I may be able to help them with.
It’s a no cost call, and although there is an expectation from me that if I can help them fix what’s not working at their practice, or I might be able to help them to achieve their goals more quickly, that they might want to hire me to do those things. But, there is no obligation for them to engage in my services.
So here’s what happened recently with one of these strategy session bookings:
In this case, a dentist had booked a call with me after attending an online training session that I had recently done.
In most cases, attendees of the online training sessions are usually keen to organise and book their strategy sessions as quickly as they can.
But this dentist scheduled his strategy session some two weeks after the original online training.
Anyway, on the morning of the day of the strategy session, I received this email from that dentist. It read:
“Hi David
Not sure if this meeting tonight is going to be a waste of your time. I have 1 staff member (girl Friday), produce about $100K per year. No outside advertising, no web presence. Practice is for sale if I can find a buyer. I don’t have much desire left. I am looking for a quick fix that won’t cost too much. So far everything I have quickly looked in to is going to take about a year or more to show results. Would totally understand if you want to cancel
Thanks Dr. Jones”
Certainly an interesting admission from Dr Jones.
This is because in my presentations, I always specifically say that if a dentist comes to me wanting me to help them to tart up their practice so they can flip it to some poor sucker with little or no idea, THAT’S NOT WHAT I DO.
I help dentists to grow and keep and KEEP GROWING their dental practices into truly successful [and leveraged] businesses.
My focus in coaching dentists is based on providing patients with such a wonderful EXPERIENCE that those patients would never ever want to go anywhere else at all for their dentistry.
Ever.
And so I replied to Dr. Jones:
“Hi Dr. Jones,
Than you for your email.
You’ve probably described a practice type that I choose not to work with.
I work to help dentists create behaviours resulting in long term sustainable production growth at their dental practices.
A “Build and Keep” philosophy.
As I said in the training, I’m not a big fan of tarting up a practice where the owner has lost the desire.
That’s not what I do.
If you were staying on longer I can help you build your practice up again, so much so that my consulting services would actually become a valued asset for the purchaser to maintain my services… that would work.
Thanks for letting me know.
Do you want cancel the meeting, or talk to me about engaging me to reinvigorate you and the practice?
Let me know?
Regards
David”
In saying this, I gave Dr. Jones a couple of very realistic options:
The first option was that by improving the turnover of the practice and also improving the dentist’s attention to the practice and the patients, the dentist Dr. Jones may change his mind and stay on in the practice…
The second option was that by then selling the improved practice, the purchaser would [or should] realise that the coaching services I provide would best be maintained in the practice to ensure a continuity of performance consistency for the team staying on.
Dr. Jones replied:
“Hi David
Since I am looking for a quick fix for me that might not transfer to a new owner, and as you said you are looking for a more long term relationship (which I totally understand), then I think cancelling our meeting later is the best choice.
If I can get a better attitude I will reach out to you if that is OK?
Sorry for taking up you time.
Thanks
Dr. Jones”
It’s a pity.
I would have loved to have helped Dr Jones to reinvigorate his practice…
But, as I said earlier, if a dentist comes to me wanting me to help them to tart up their practice so they can flip it to some poor sucker with little or no idea, THAT’S NOT WHAT I DO.
What I do do really well is help dentists to grow and keep and KEEP GROWING their dental practices into truly successful [and leveraged] businesses.
My focus in coaching dentists is based on providing patients with such a wonderful EXPERIENCE that those patients would never ever want to go anywhere else at all for their dentistry.
Ever.
Long term gain.
Not a quick fix.
If you’d like more information, or you’d like to have a chat about what I can do for you and your practice, send me an email with the subject line “GROW AND KEEP” to drdavid@theUPE.com
*****
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.
