james, Author at The McAnally Selling System

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So far james has created 3065 blog entries.

Strengths Over Weaknesses: A Dentist’s Edge

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should dentists focus on improving weaknesses or building on strengths? Build on what you already do well. I learned this the hard way. You can nudge a weakness up a little, but you can multiply a strength by many times over. For some people, fixing their worst weakness is practically impossible, so why pour years into making something mediocre slightly less mediocre? It is a terrible trade. I tend to be an information excavator, a presenter, a solutions finder. Those are the lanes where I create real value, so I stay in them. Find your genuine talents, do more of the [...]

Strengths Over Weaknesses: A Dentist’s Edgejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

The Next Step After a Low-Cost Dental Consult

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What should happen right after a patient finishes a low-cost consult? Never leave the next step to chance. The worst thing you can do in selling is let a patient drift out the door with nothing scheduled. After the free or low cost consult, the doctor wraps up and a real person, your treatment planner or financial coordinator, walks the patient to the front. There you reinforce that it was good they came in, book them for the complete dental physical, take the fee, and tell them plainly what happens next. Always say it out loud. Let me tell you what [...]

The Next Step After a Low-Cost Dental Consultjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What Is Risk-Based Treatment Planning in Dentistry

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What is risk-based treatment planning in dentistry? It is planning around what is likely to go wrong, not just what is wrong today. Instead of cataloguing existing holes, you assess the patient across categories of risk. Functional risk, decay and caries, periodontal risk in both hard and soft tissue, and esthetic risk. From a single snapshot of a mouth, and the experience of having seen thousands of them, you can forecast what is probably coming for this person over the long term. That changes the whole conversation. You are no longer fixing one tooth, you are protecting a future. It is [...]

What Is Risk-Based Treatment Planning in Dentistryjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Setting Patient Expectations Before the Clinical Exam

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How do I set expectations before I start the clinical exam? Say what is going to happen before you ever pick up an instrument. I tell the patient something like this: we are going to look at everything in your mouth today closely and gather what we need to evaluate your situation. I will take all of it and come up with the options that work best for you. If anything comes to mind that would help us know, do not hesitate to tell Mary or me. Then I stop and let them answer, because that yes matters. Now they feel [...]

Setting Patient Expectations Before the Clinical Examjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Take a Lifetime Risk Dental CE Course

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why should I take a continuing education course on lifetime dental risk? Because it will change how you see every patient for the rest of your career. I went through advanced treatment planning training built around lifetime risk, and it reshaped my thinking permanently, even the cases I treated years later. A good course like this takes about a week to complete, which sounds like a lot until you weigh it against decades of practicing the old way. Look for instructors who take no manufacturer money. When someone refuses industry dollars, you know their recommendations are not being bought, and that [...]

Why Take a Lifetime Risk Dental CE Coursejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

The Cost of Skipping Treatment Presentation Steps

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What is the real cost of skipping my treatment presentation steps? You will not usually kill anyone, but you do harm people. A pilot who skips his steps can crash a plane and kill everyone aboard. When you skip your steps in the operatory, outside of something like cancer surgery, you rarely lose a patient. What you lose is the treatment plan. And here is the part dentists gloss over: a dead treatment plan is still harm. That patient walked in needing care, you fumbled the presentation, and they walked out without it. They do not get healthier because you were [...]

The Cost of Skipping Treatment Presentation Stepsjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How the WHO Surgical Checklist Halved Deaths

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How did the WHO Surgical Checklist change patient outcomes? It cut the inpatient death rate by about fifty percent. Let that sit. A short list of basic things that people, positions, and staff confirm before surgery, and half the deaths that were happening stopped happening. This came out of Atul Gawande's work, and it is now used in hospitals worldwide. What I find telling is the reaction. A lot of surgeons in the UK were furious, because the list made them feel like they had not been doing their jobs. Maybe it was not a full fifty percent of needless deaths, [...]

How the WHO Surgical Checklist Halved Deathsjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How to Make a Hygiene Patient Treatment Offer

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How do I offer bigger treatment to my hygiene patients without being pushy? Give them a choice, nothing more. For your hygiene patients the move is simple. Offer them a complete dental physical with a possible fee range, and let them decide whether they want to go on. That is it. You are not closing anyone in the chair, you are handing them an option they never knew existed. Most of them are sitting in your system in various states of repair, ready for a real diagnostic workup, but nobody ever gave them the door to walk through. If you want [...]

How to Make a Hygiene Patient Treatment Offerjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How First Purchase Amount Affects Patient Spending

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does the first fee a patient pays affect how much they will spend later? Yes, and the retail world has the data to prove it. The size of someone's first purchase sets the ceiling for what they will spend after. Make that first purchase tiny and the next ones stay small. Make the first purchase substantial and the additional spending climbs to match it. That is exactly why I do not want your diagnostic exam priced like an afterthought. A 150 dollar exam anchors the patient to small numbers, and then you are fighting that anchor the whole way through the [...]

How First Purchase Amount Affects Patient Spendingjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should You Apply the Exam Fee to Treatment?

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should I apply the diagnostic exam fee to the patient's treatment plan? There is nothing wrong with it, and there is a real reason to do it. When you tell a patient the diagnostic fee will be credited toward their treatment, you have just removed risk from their mind. Patients hate loss far more than they like a deal. Spending a few hundred dollars and then wondering if it was wasted is exactly the kind of loss that makes people hesitate. Take that worry away and they decide easier. This also taps reciprocity. You gave them something, so they feel inclined [...]

Should You Apply the Exam Fee to Treatment?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

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