Blog - Page 37 of 310 - The McAnally Selling System

What Is Patient Dental IQ and How to Use It

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

What is a patient's dental IQ and how should I use it? Dental IQ is just my shorthand for how much a patient already understands about how their mouth affects the rest of their life. Do they know teeth can change how they feel about themselves, that gums and teeth affect the whole body, that a smile changes how other people treat them, that disease can be serious without ever hurting? If they know all of it, the IQ is high. If they do not, it is average or low. Here is the part dentists get wrong: it does not matter [...]

What Is Patient Dental IQ and How to Use Itjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How to Find a Patient’s Real Treatment Motivation

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

How do I figure out a patient's real motivation for wanting implants? You do not get it from one question. You collect it across every touchpoint and then piece it together. Listen on the very first phone call, because the reason they picked up the phone is often sitting right there. Watch for it during the free consultation, both what the assistant hears and what you pick up in your short question period. Then listen again during the exam. By the time you huddle, you have four separate shots at the same target, and you compare notes. The reason this matters [...]

How to Find a Patient’s Real Treatment Motivationjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Your Dental Practice Needs a Morning Huddle

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

Why does my dental practice need a morning huddle? Because it changes how the whole day runs, and skipping it is how cases quietly fall through the cracks. After a big consultation appointment you have tasks to assign, discussions to have, and decisions that need a team, not one person guessing. The huddle is where you catch all of it. You can do it the same day or the next morning, but it has to happen somewhere. This is where you confirm the smile preview got ordered, where you compare what each person heard from the patient, and where you decide [...]

Why Your Dental Practice Needs a Morning Huddlejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should I Send a Personal Note to Every Patient?

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

Should I send a personal note to a patient after their consultation? Yes, and make it dead simple to execute. Have the note pre-addressed and stamped so all I have to do is write a line or two and sign it. The minute the patient walks out, it goes in the mail. Why bother? Because liking is something you keep building, not something you establish once. The easiest compliment in the world is telling them they made a great decision to start investigating their treatment now. Studies going back to the 1970s show compliments move what psychologists call compliance, which just [...]

Should I Send a Personal Note to Every Patient?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

When to Order a Digital Smile Preview for Patients

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

When should I order a digital smile preview for an implant patient? Order it fast, the same day if you can. The smile design service has a lag, often a day or more before the preview comes back, so any delay on your end stacks on top of theirs and pushes the whole presentation back. That matters because the gap between the exam and the presentation is already the danger zone where patients cool off. A digital smile preview is one of the most persuasive things you will put in front of a full-arch patient, because it lets them see the [...]

When to Order a Digital Smile Preview for Patientsjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How Specialists Win More From Referring Dentists

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

As a specialist, how do I get more out of my referring dentists? Bring them inside your system instead of just collecting their referrals. The single best move for a specialist is to take your top five to ten referring doctors and get them trained on the same selling approach you use. Then coordinate your activities on the cases you share. When the referring office and your office speak the same language, prepare the patient the same way, and hand off without the story changing, the patient feels one continuous process instead of two disconnected appointments. That alignment is where shared [...]

How Specialists Win More From Referring Dentistsjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Offer Hygiene Patients Comprehensive Treatment Planning

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

Should I offer comprehensive treatment planning to my long-term hygiene patients? Yes, and you owe it to them. Some of your loyal hygiene patients have been coming for years and have never once been offered comprehensive treatment planning. As you upgrade how you sell, leaving them out is not kindness, it is neglect. Now, this is not about pressure. It is about offering a choice they have never been given. You simply let them know a more complete look at their dental health is available if they want it, and you make it easy to say yes or no. Many of [...]

Offer Hygiene Patients Comprehensive Treatment Planningjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Build a Repeatable Selling System for Your Practice

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

How do I make my dental selling system repeatable when I add associates or new staff? Write it down so it survives you. A selling approach that lives only in your head is worthless the day an associate joins or a new front-desk person starts. The whole value of a system is that it is teachable and repeatable, something you can hand to a new team member and trust to run the same way it runs today. So document the steps between every visit. Who sends the note, who orders the smile preview, who assembles the presentation, who books the appointment [...]

Build a Repeatable Selling System for Your Practicejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Doctor Decision Fatigue and Better Treatment Planning

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

Why does the doctor experience decision fatigue too, and how does it hurt treatment planning? Decision fatigue is not just a patient problem. It is your problem. You walk in already spending decisions on staff issues, schedule chaos, clinical calls, and every notification buzzing in your pocket. By afternoon your own reserve is drained, and a drained brain plans worse, presents worse, and gets impatient with tradeoffs. So the case you treatment-plan at five in the evening may not be the case you would have planned fresh at nine. Worse, a tired doctor unconsciously steers patients toward the easy default too, [...]

Doctor Decision Fatigue and Better Treatment Planningjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Do Compliments Improve Dental Case Acceptance?

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

Do compliments to patients actually improve dental case acceptance? They do, and the research is old enough to have grandchildren. Studies going back to the 1970s show that genuine compliments measurably raise what psychologists call compliance, which in plain terms means getting a yes. That is not a soft, feel-good claim. It is decades of data you cannot wave away. The catch is the compliment has to be real and it has to land on something the patient controls. The best one in dentistry is praising the decision itself. Tell a patient they made a smart move by investigating their treatment [...]

Do Compliments Improve Dental Case Acceptance?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

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