I’ve been there.
A common challenge for many entrepreneurs is realizing the need to focus and put your MAIN business first, especially at the early stages. I passed this advice to my friend and told him, “Put your oxygen mask on first.”
By this, I mean that you need to help yourself first and then you’ll be able to help even more people. When you’re flying and you hear the instructions of the attendant or displayed on the TV screen, you’ll see that they always tell you to put your oxygen mask on before helping others. Simply put, you can help more people by helping yourself first. It sounds selfish and you may think I’m crazy by writing this publicly. This was a hard lesson for me to learn, so I want to share it.
This also holds true in dentistry. You need to get your business operating at a profitable and successful level before you give all your friends and family free dental work. You need to become steady and profitable before your entire team raises. Of course, be fair, but think about the health of your business above all things if you aren’t yet profitable. This is the only way you can create more jobs, provide more quality dentistry to your community and help more people.
Stay focused, set goals and benchmarks and make it happen.