3 Key Principles to Guide Your Dental Practice Success

There are 3 overarching, big picture concepts we use in our dental practice that have been responsible for most of our success. Implementing these principles with purpose and the intention to truly have an impact will affect your practice in nothing but positive ways.

So let’s get right to it…

PRINCIPLE #1

We are in the CUSTOMER SERVICE BUSINESS

Sorry…. some of you may not like this……but it’s true. And the quicker you learn this the more successful you can potentially become. Maya Angelou said it best:
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

In dentist lingo this loosely translates into this: Patients don’t give a crap about your perfect margins, excellent endo fills or amazing technology.

They care about how nice you were to them, that you didn’t hurt them and that you didn’t surprise them financially. If your first thought every day isn’t focused on creating an exceptional patient experience for your “customers”, an experience that focuses on creating real relationships with them – you are missing out on huge opportunities.

Honestly it’s so easy as a dental office to stand out by doing the simplest things to improve customer service – because no one else is doing them. I hear at least once a day “wow your office is so different!” It’s not rocket science – it’s customer service.

PRINCIPLE #2

We are in the COMMUNITY BUILDING BUSINESS

What do I mean by this? Let’s first define community – it’s the lovely people you work with every day, it’s your existing patients to whom you owe everything you have, and it’s your potential patients. Treat these 3 groups like they are the most important people on earth (because to a business owner (not a dental practitioner) – they are!) and it will come back to you tenfold. Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos and author of the book Delivering Happiness explained it this way:

Your culture is your brand.

Ask yourself:

• What is your practice culture?
• Is your team engaged with why you do what you do?
• Are you involved in community events?
• Do your team members fiercely and actively promote you and your office?
• Do you have patients in your practice who don’t just come for you but come for your team – the community you have built?
• Do you have patients who are RAVING FANS?
• Do you get involved in giving back in a big way?
• Do your patients recognize the culture in your office?
• If not, it’s time to start branding yourself…and I don’t mean with a new logo.

PRINCIPLE #3

We are in the METRICS BUSINESS

Simply put – metrics matter and you must know your numbers! Marcus Lemonis from the TV show THE PROFIT and CEO of multiple successful companies says:

If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business.

Anything you track will go up.

Want your hygienists to pre-schedule more –track it.

Want more New Patients – track it.

Want higher case acceptance –track it.

Want more profit – track it.

You get the idea – I have 10 Key Practice Indicators for my dental business which have evolved for me over time.

Every practice is individual and will develop their own best practices but the key is to at least start to track and learn your numbers.

That’s it.

Dental practice success really can be that easy if we focus on the things that truly matter and let the rest go.

Head over to our private FB group to get even more great content bit.ly/dentalbossladies.