Owning your own dental practice means that you have to wear many hats throughout each day.
Between treating patients, managing staff, and reviewing your business operations, finding time to target areas for growth and improvement can seem like a pipe dream.
But you can do it.
Over the past decade, I’ve learned to grow my business and thrive both personally and professionally. Finding the time and focusing on what is important isn’t always easy, but I assure you the rewards make it worth the effort.
In this article, I’m sharing the knowledge that I’ve gained in over a decade as a dentist.
Improving Each Part of the Whole
You’ve heard it said that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Each component of your business plays an important role in elevating the success of your business as a whole.
I’ve divided my advice into the three main areas that affect your business success:
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The Doctor (you)
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The Team (your staff)
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The Business (your operations)
The Doctor is All In
To get started, let’s begin with you. As the owner and operator of your practice, you are the face of your business and set the tone for your staff. By improving your performance, you set the bar for everyone else on your team to follow.
So how can you improve your performance and lead the way?
Here are my eight top methods:
1. Be a leader who leads.
Even if you don’t feel like a role model, you are one.
Like it or not, your employees look up to you. As the boss, your words and actions set the tone for your office. It is up to you to define and demonstrate the culture of your business. To inspire your team to excellence, demand excellence of yourself. Keep learning, improving, and adapting to be the best dentist you can be.
2. Become the best advocate for your business.
Businesses collect many metrics to assess their performance. But, at the end of the day, the value of your business is determined by its sales performance.
Understanding and responding to this simple fact will help you position your dental practice for more success. Too many of my dentist friends seem to ignore this fact altogether, believing that if they open their doors, patients will come. But those easy days are gone and why would anyone choose a business if its owner doesn’t seem to care?
If you are proud of your business and the service you provide, tell people. Invest time in learning the art of marketing. Your staff depends on you to take the steps necessary to keep your doors open.
3. Take care of yourself.
As the head of your organization, you should always be at your peak performance. Taking care of your health is foundational. Don’t allow yourself to make excuses to avoid attending to your personal health and wellness. Don’t continually push yourself to accomplish more than is reasonable each day with the promise that you’ll rest later.
Overworking and neglecting your health will eventually have a price.
4. Build strong networks.
Maybe it’s not in your personality to be fun and outgoing. You may even feel awkward or appear pretentious when you try. But, social interaction is an important component to building your business.
Energy is contagious. Take time to interact and share your enthusiasm for your practice with your staff and patients. And, if you are feeling unsure of your social skills, study the topic. There’s lots of great advice about soft skills such as communication and networking available in books and online.
5. Keep things in balance.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is crucial to your long-term success.
Dentistry is a stressful career choice. The dental profession is included as one of the top five occupations that lead to early career burnout and suicide.
I’ve watched as some of my colleagues choose to leave the profession due to stress. Don’t be a workaholic. Be intentional about choosing to spend your non-working hours on non-work activities. Spend time with family and friends and give yourself permission to engage in a hobby.
Relaxation is good for you.
6. Dress to impress.
Taking care of your looks is one of the best things you can do to improve your dental practice.
Why?
Human beings respond to visual cues. Your appearance has a direct impact on your patient’s perception of you. I used to wear scrubs as my official workplace “uniform”.
After about ten years of practice, I began wearing a suit and tie instead. I soon noticed a difference. My case acceptances sharply increased. When I wore professional attire, people began to see me in a new light.
7. Choose your procedures carefully.
Be choosy about which procedures you offer to your patients and refer out those that aren’t a good fit for you.
Keeping up with the latest trends and meeting consumer demands makes good business sense. However, even the most lucrative procedure isn’t worth the money if it causes you and your staff an excessive amount of stress.
When you carefully examine the figures, some of the most stressful procedures don’t have a high-profit margin anyway. It’s ok to say “No” to certain cases.
8. Stand out with service.
Of all the ways you can differentiate your dental practice, price is the least defensible.
Competing on the price criteria is a race to the bottom.
Unless you are running a promotion, don’t throw away discounts and reduce your value. Remember there’s always someone who can offer the same service for less. Work hard and deliver exceptional service. Provide your patients with reasons to select your service that don’t require you to undercut the competition.
Staffing for Success
9. Take the time to get it right.
Your team is a cornerstone of your business success.
Don’t compromise when it comes to finding the right candidate. Be patient, filter, and test before you hire. In my experience, 90% of the candidates who apply for a position are not going to be a good fit. Morale, performance, and profitability all depend on your having the right staff mix.
Finding the right person involves more than just reviewing their resumes or skills. A few years ago I hired a very skilled and talented hygienist. But her personal goals and lifestyle weren’t a good fit for our office culture. In the end, she chose to leave the practice to focus on a different career path.
Quality candidates are usually already employed but these are the people you want to hire. Unless they are truly unhappy at their workplace or an individual just moved to the area, you will not have much success in attracting them.
In your classified ad, give strong prospects a reason to want to join your team, because assembling the right combination of skills and personalities can make a huge difference for your business.
10. Eliminate toxicity in your workplace.
When staff stop working as a team and begin to form cliques, a toxic environment can develop. Gossip and office politics can bring down your business.
Sometimes avoiding this situation is a matter of reinforcing your office culture. But, if there are toxic employees in your midst who aren’t interested in working as a team, you may have to take more forceful action.
I’ve experienced the effects of a toxic employee. While this staff member excelled at his job, he was unable or unwilling to keep his tongue in check. After trying unsuccessfully to correct the behavior, I had to end our relationship. No one employee is so skilled that you can afford to keep them if they bring down the rest of your team.
11. Provide training for your team.
An often neglected area of practice management is ongoing staff training.
Human skills need constant refinement. Providing your team the tools they need to excel at what they do should be at the forefront of your mind.
Instituting a regular training program hones your staff’s skills in a focused way. There will always be a new technology, a new technique in our ever-evolving industry. When you invest in gaining the latest information and skills training for your staff, you gain a competitive advantage.
12. Cultivate a team culture.
There are many steps you can take to communicate your philosophy and business vision to your staff.
One of these involves creating rituals that you and your staff recognize as reminders of your office culture. In particular, many professionals choose to perform a daily ritual to focus everyone’s attention on what lies ahead.
Gathering the staff to discuss goals or review your motivation can give your day structure. One helpful practice we do is a quick physical activity to get the blood going.
At my office, we stand in a circle and throw a beach ball to each other. So much laughter comes from this exercise that it gets the morning off to a great start.
13. Give them a break.
No one works at their best if they never get a chance to rest. Work balance researchers have found that employees’ productivity increases when they have an opportunity to relax and re-energize throughout their day.
Employees are also more effective (and loyal) when they are given adequate time to attend to personal or family needs. What does that mean to your dental practice? It means you should give your staff time off when they need it.
In my office, the best time for a long vacation is during the summer. Summer is our least busy season. But, I also provide for short breaks during the fall and spring. During December to January, we are so busy that it is all hands on deck. Ensuring that my staff is rewarded with time off during our less busy seasons keeps morale high during the winter rush.
14. Create an environment conducive to productivity.
The impact of work environment on employees’ productivity is undeniable.
Your team should be able to enjoy working in your dental office. One way in which you can enhance your staff’s productivity is by creating a comfortable work environment.
Your workplace should provide the tools that your staff needs to perform each task and be designed with ergonomics in mind. Having a comfortable and relaxing workplace can mean the difference between a happy or miserable team. And we all know that a cheerful team can work twice as hard towards a more profitable bottom line.
Focus on Growth
15. Continue your education.
To improve patient satisfaction and increase office revenue, refer fewer cases out by learning the procedures you don’t currently know.
I used to refer a tremendous amount of treatment simply because I did not know how to complete them. As I furthered my education and become comfortable treating more challenging cases, I was keeping more and more of my cases.
Every two years, I brought a new procedure into our office. I started with molar root canal therapy. Then I learned wisdom teeth extractions, followed by dental implant placements, and traditional braces for kids.
My office revenue almost doubled.
To choose the additional procedures that my practice offers, I studied my patients’ needs. With a little research, you too can be a one-stop shop for your patients. You always have the option to refer those services that you don’t want to add.
16. Be Charitable.
Give so that you may receive.
Don’t get me wrong, I like to keep what I earn. But I also realize the importance of giving back to the community.
Others are more likely to be there for you if you’ve demonstrated your willingness to be there for them. When you share your knowledge with others, provide free services, or support local causes and events, it helps others and you.
17. Always have a plan.
Life is changeable, I know. You can’t anticipate everything. But, you can create instruction manuals for your employees, a company playbook, and mission and vision statements.
These documents should serve as the backbone of your business. Don’t operate your business using guesswork. Consider each process carefully and then make a record of how it should be handled. You’ll save yourself time and aggravation.
If you experienced one challenge and overcame it, it will happen again. Next time someone else in your team may be able to handle it. Write how to overcome this challenge.
18. Keep your eyes and ears open.
A multi-billion dollar industry is built around predicting shifts in the economy. Free forecasts and projections are readily available.
Don’t stay so engaged in today’s work that you forget to check on tomorrow’s prospects. Many businesses were caught off guard by the 2008 downturn. You don’t have to be caught unaware. Subscribe to a journal or news feed that will keep you in the loop about financial news and trends and be prepared to adjust.
Successful businesses are agile businesses.
19. Understand your ROI.
Do you know the cost of your chair time?
To determine your profitability you must be aware of the costs for each doctor, assistant, and hygienist for each treatment. For example, if it takes the doctor and two assistants to complete a 90-minute procedure, then each of these costs must be included in the price of the procedure.
Digging into these details and pricing your services accurately is where your profits lie. In particular, consider your hygienists’ time. How will 20 cancellations or empty hours each month affect your bottom line in a year?
20. Understand each patient’s value.
Each of your patients has the potential to yield income for your practice annually, as long as you retain that patient. The amount of revenue you can expect from each patient is referred to as that patient’s “lifetime value.”
For instance, if I estimate that my average patient spends approximately $1,500 per year on dental services, then I can use this figure to estimate the value of that patient over a 10-year service period.
Knowing the value of each patient over the entirety of your relationship with him or her provides quite an incentive to keep your best patients happy and returning to you.
This is also another reason to consider offering those additional services that your patients want. Becoming a one-stop shop is key to building good will and increasing patient referrals.
Take Your Practice to the Top
Operating your own dental practice and realizing its full value requires more than just excellent practical skills.
As a professional healthcare provider and a business owner, you must manage each element of your business well. By staying attuned to your personal development and needs, the needs of your staff, and the changing demands of a modern business practice, you’ll position your dental practice to thrive.
Prioritize and maintain your focus -- you’ll create a business of lasting value, ensuring your success and the success of those who depend on you.