james, Author at The McAnally Selling System

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So far james has created 3065 blog entries.

Psychological Barriers Dentists Face With Bigger Cases

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

What's the difference between a real barrier and a psychological barrier in my dental practice? A real barrier is fixed by reality. If I'm 70 with chronic arthritis and I want to play pro basketball, that's a real barrier, and no amount of positive thinking gets me on the court unless I buy the team. A psychological barrier looks different. It sounds like "I want to earn more but I don't know how," or "I work 80 hours a week and I can't see a way to work less," or "I'm a slave to my practice." Those feel just as solid [...]

Psychological Barriers Dentists Face With Bigger Casesjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Need Management Not Marketing to Grow Your Practice?

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Should I focus on practice management instead of marketing to grow? Before you pick one, tell me what you actually mean by management. Standard operating procedures? A binder of courses? Because here's how I see it. Warren Buffett once studied 19 executives he admired and couldn't find a single shared trait, but he summed it up well: great leaders do the right thing, great managers do things the right way. As a dentist you have to do both. You need marketing that creates the right patients, and management that makes the result repeatable. But management starts with self-management, and self-management starts [...]

Need Management Not Marketing to Grow Your Practice?james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Stop Feeling Like a Victim of Your Practice

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How do I stop feeling like a victim of my own dental practice? First, hear how the story sounds out loud: "I have no free time, I never have fun anymore, I'm a slave to my practice, I'm a victim." I've heard it many times, and I'll be blunt, that's a psychological barrier wearing the costume of a real one. It feels permanent, but it's a set of habits and choices you haven't reworked yet. Everyone has the ability to progress. What stops people is the wall in their own head, not the wall in the real world. The way out [...]

Stop Feeling Like a Victim of Your Practicejames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why Your Not-To-Do List Beats Your To-Do List

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why is a not-to-do list as important as my to-do list as a dentist? Every business owner I know, successful or not, has a giant to-do list. That's just the state of things, overwhelmed and full of options. So the to-do list isn't what separates the winners. The not-to-do list is. Deciding what you will not pursue is how you protect your time and your focus from a hundred things that look productive but lead nowhere. Self-management starts exactly here: what are your goals, what opportunities are you chasing, and which ones are you deliberately walking away from? When I plan, [...]

Why Your Not-To-Do List Beats Your To-Do Listjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Don’t Have Money to Grow Your Dental Practice?

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

I don't have the money to invest in growing my dental practice. Now what? You're going to spend that money regardless. It'll go to clinical training, new equipment, more clinical training, or it'll quietly drain away through mistakes and a dozen other things we all spend on. So the question isn't whether you'll spend, it's whether what you buy pays you back. The best investment is the kind that brings in more than it cost, which means it effectively becomes free. A system that generates cases outside insurance, with the ads, the acceptance sequence, and the staff training to run it, [...]

Don’t Have Money to Grow Your Dental Practice?james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why Skilled Dentists Still Miss Bigger Dental Cases

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why am I not getting bigger dental cases even though I'm a skilled clinician? Because clinical skill was never the thing holding you back. I've met dentists with brilliant hands who fail over and over, and dentists with merely decent hands who are wildly successful. The difference is habits and capabilities, not talent. Most of what makes a practice work isn't something you were born with. It's learned, and it gets developed on purpose. There's a quote I love about surviving an impossible situation: you don't need the reflexes of a race driver or the mind of Einstein, you just need [...]

Why Skilled Dentists Still Miss Bigger Dental Casesjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How Dentists Develop Better Habits That Stick

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

What does it actually mean for a dentist to develop better habits? It means the change happens inside, not in your shopping cart. You can buy every external tool there is, the ads, the templates, the courses, but the habits that support a bigger practice are built internally and on purpose. They don't show up because you own more stuff. I think of it like a clinician's hands. Nobody is born able to place an implant cleanly. You drill the motion until it's automatic. Business habits work the same way. You replace the habits that don't serve you with ones that [...]

How Dentists Develop Better Habits That Stickjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why Reading Dental Business Books Changes Nothing

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Why does reading more dental business books never seem to change my results? Because reading and learning, by themselves, are just a nice way to spend time. You can finish every book in the world on growing a practice and still change nothing, because data isn't the missing piece. Most dentists I meet aren't short on information, they're drowning in it. What they lack is a plan and a path that fits them, so the information turns into action. I'd rather take everything you already have, pull the wisdom out of it, and convert it into results. One elegant idea you [...]

Why Reading Dental Business Books Changes Nothingjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Too Much Dental Marketing Stuff But Still Stuck?

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

I already have tons of dental marketing materials, so why am I still stuck? Having a lot of marketing stuff and having the right stuff are two different things, and for cases outside insurance most of what you own is probably the wrong stuff. But here's the harder truth. Even if some of it is right, the materials almost never create the result. Habits do. I own a basement full of manuals, ads, books, a hundred years of marketing information, and I still buy more. The pile isn't the point. What I do with it is. Think of it like a [...]

Too Much Dental Marketing Stuff But Still Stuck?james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Small Practice, No Time for Growth? Start Here

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

My practice is too small and I have no time to work on growth. How do I start? So you can't afford to take time off, in your own mind. Let me ask the obvious thing back. How long do you plan to stay in that trap? If you can never step away from the chair, when exactly will you do the strategic planning and goal setting that lets you step away? That's the loop that keeps small practices small. No successful entrepreneur started with a perfect team. Every one of them wore a pile of hats early on. I did, [...]

Small Practice, No Time for Growth? Start Herejames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

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