How would it change your life if you could take home a million dollars a year from practicing dentistry alone? Or working in a dental office that runs like a well-oiled machine, with everyone on the same page, working towards a common goal? Would you like to have so many patients coming through your dental office than you know what to do with? Patients that not only accept treatment once but become part of your dental family and refer their family, friends, coworkers, and everyone they meet to you? If any of this sounds appealing to you, read on.
- Determine your practice philosophy and make sure you and your team
are aligned.
First and foremost, you want to know your why. What is it that gets you excited to
wake up in the morning to go practice dentistry? This will be your driving force to
help you get up and keep going when things get tough.
• After you have established your “why,” sit down alone or with your other partner
dentists; if you work with multiple dentists to develop a mission and vision for your
practice, what is it that you want to be known for in your community? What type of
dentistry do you want to practice? For example, are you a “preventative” dentist or
“a wait till it breaks/hurts type of dentist? There is no right or wrong; it’s just what
you prefer to do.
• Define the ideal patient you want to attract to your office.
• Once you have your mission and vision and a clear picture of what your ideal
practice should look like, be sure to share it with your team to make sure your why is
clear to them. This will help the team better support you as you take care of your
patients and take your practice to the next level. Some dentists will have the office
mission and vision posted somewhere in the office; that way, it’s a constant
reminder to everyone. - Grow yourself first
The next step you want to take after you have a clear vision of where you want to take
your dental practice is to grow yourself, starting with growing your leadership skills.
Having gone to dental school, you spent a lot of time building your technical skills. This
is not to say that you do not need to learn new skills or improve your current skills but
developing leadership skills early on in your career is super important. You can be the
best dentist in the world with great technical skills, but if you can’t lead your team, you
will never be able to reach your full potential.
Reasons why you want to Grow your Leadership skills:
o When you start learning how to lead and manage a team, you learn things
such as different personality types and how to communicate with them
effectively, how to show appreciation to your team, holding your team
accountable, how to hire the right individuals for your office that fit in with
your office culture, etc.
o When you are a great leader, you will create a working environment where
people love to be. Your employees will stay longer with you, minimizing
turnover and the need to be constantly training new team members as this
will significantly slow down your growth.
o Great leadership will enable you to communicate with your team and
patients clearly; thus, you can seamlessly implement new systems,
technologies, and clinical procedures. Knowledge alone will not lead you to
success; only when the knowledge is implemented will it bring you great
results.
o Patients also hate having to see a new person every time they come in. It
gives them the impression that something is wrong with the place; none of
the people who work there stay, so why should they? - Never stop growing and learning
William S. Burroughs said, “When you stop growing, you start dying.” So, at the end of
every year, as you wrap up and reflect on how things went and you start setting your
office goals for the following year, be sure to add new skills and technologies you want
to learn and implement in your office or perfecting the ones you already have.
• Listen to what the patients are asking for? Are there services that you are constantly
referring out to other dental providers? If so, it might be time to learn and perfect
your skills in that area. Is there something your patients constantly complain about
having to do? Ask yourself, is there a better way of doing it? Do your patients want
early morning, evening, or weekend appointments? Is there a way you make this
happen for them?
• Be on the lookout for new trends and technologies in dentistry and ways to improve
patient experiences. These days patients are looking for faster, better, and painless,
so be sure to introduce systems and technology that meet these needs. For
example, patients hate taking impressions with the “gooey stuff” it makes them gag,
so why not buy a scanner, so you take digital impressions instead? There are also cavity
detecting lasers that catch cavities earlier when they are small; that way, you can
preserve lots of tooth structure for your patients, making the restoration more
predictable.
• When patients walk into an office with new and up-to-date technology, they will feel
like the dental team is thorough and provides them with the best care and
treatment possible, which will help attract more people to your office.
If you constantly work on the tips above, you will be sure to get results. Results may be slow or not as visible at the beginning of your journey but trust me, you will gain momentum and achieve more than you ever thought was possible.
