By Dr. Bill Williams
In the dental jungle there are 101 stories; this is the third in a series of them. We continue to follow Dr. Alex Middleton, The Guide, as he gives sage advice to his dentist friend, Dr. Blair Bennet, a recent dental school graduate.*
SAME DAY DENTISTRY – SAY YES
Seeing that Dr. Blair Bennett had to take that first giant step for herself as a new dental associate she asked Dr. Alex Middleton, “What would be the first thing you’d do if you were me, given my stage of my career?” Easy question to answer, thought Alex. The need to get busy fast was imminent.
Young dentists don’t generally have a book of patients on which to work. They have no history in the practice. They are basically an unknown. That means they don’t get many referrals yet from satisfied patients. There is no backlog of people waiting to come in. What are they to do?
All new dentists must work on strangers in a nutshell. They have to be creative and be able to handle the dental emergency well. They have to be able to convert a dental shopper into a satisfied patient. With all patients being new they have to learn to “Wow” them on the spot or risk losing them to the practice down the street. Conversion then becomes a vital skill for a new dentist to learn.
Alex expanded on this concept: “One of my biggest mindset shifts of the last decade was focusing on “Saying Yes” and “Same Day Dentistry.” Whatever I can do today, I will. When there is a willing patient and we can create the time in the schedule, we say, “Yes.” Whatever the patient wants, we look for ways to agree.
“Here’s what I might say when I’m in the hygiene room checking a patient, ‘If we can work it into our schedule, Mrs. Jones, would you like to get that done today?’ When I know my schedule before I ask that question and when I have a team that is trained and capable of spontaneous changes in our daily schedule I use this line.”
“We build throughout the day to fill in the holes that show up in our schedules, both in the doctor’s operatories and in hygiene. We work as a team to engineer the best production possible to reach and exceed our daily goals. We take away the ‘Noes’ and replace them with ‘Yeses’. It’s a mindset of abundance and opportunity rather than scarcity and limitations.”
Being patient-focused by saying “yes” results in increased production and return business as well as increased referrals. For instance, the positive side of a patient not having to return again and again to complete a process, but having it done in one visit because your team is flexible in mindset, cross-trained, and has a “can do” attitude on meeting the patient’s need is that over time your referral base begins to grow so that you don’t have to rely on external marketing to expand your practice. Everything is connected. There are no insular events in a well-run dental practice. Once gestalt of the new patient’s experience is understood, the pace of advancement accelerates. Gestalt is a set of things such as a person's thoughts and experiences considered as a whole and regarded as amounting to more than the sum of its parts. When the entire crew of the dental practice has bought into the vision, mission and culture of the practice and utilizes the tools and techniques of good communication, the experience that the patients receive goes beyond what is “normal” in dentistry. It is this perception of excellence that creates the “Wow” factor.
For experienced dentists with a book of patients this opens the door to higher productivity. For young dentists with no patients this is the means to survival. They must make hay with the opportunity before them: recare patients, emergency patients and new patients. Excellence in communications, listening and gaining instant rapport are skills all dentists must learn.
Have you looked carefully at the barriers to delivering dental care today? Eliminate them and see your productivity flourish.
*Excerpt from The $10,000 A Day Dentist Author: Dr Bill Williams Director of the 5M Mastermind
Dr Williams and Debbie Seidel-Bittke, RDH, BS invite you to discover more:
1. Webinar Replay Available Now from our Oct 27th, 55-minute webinar on "How to Create the Perfect $10,000 Day" and the "Say Yes Campaign" by Clicking Here
2. Webinar Replay Available Now from our Nov. 1st webinar on "Best Marketing for 2017", Click Here
3. Webinar replay for our Survival Tactics for 2017 held on Nov 16th. Click here