In Dental Practice Advice-the easy days are over for Dentistry
In the dental practice advice series I will touch on why the good ole’ days are over.
The a life saying, “what got you here won’t get you there” has been a pretty good truism for a long time and under the current realities it has become a bottom line fact for where dentists stand with what they face for the coming 20 years of practice….
I’ve talked before about average being over for the middle classes in the U.S. Those not moving beyond average are no longer on the right side of economics in the global age. It is what it is….
For professionals (you) this moving beyond average means not simply an elevation of clinical skills above average BUT of very key critical business skills that include everything from administrative and leadership skill to promotion and marketing…..my program members get this dental practice advice and use my selling and marketing systems to rise above this change.
You can learn more by checking out my #1 top selling book on Amazon.
We’ve just existed a 70 year period where growth in the profession was “always” happening. Along the way, we bought into a lot of variations of “always.”
It was “always” like this. This is “always” did things. Here’s what you “always” do. There’s a real problem with the word “always.”
Language and logic students have an aversion to always because they understand it creates real issues with constructing not just sentences but logical arguments that can stand up in writing, law, and relationships be they personal or business.
As a profession we drank the “always” kool-aid of what we thought was predictable when it came to economical what was expected to happen for the “average” dentist in the business of practice without a lot of effort.
We had a short list of “always” trends which contributed to our 70 year run of gradual economic growth for average practitioners being average at everything.
Those “always” trends got us to 2007 and contributed to a profession wide general consensus that they were trends that would always with with us and continue to get us there “forever.” Now, after a post-recession stagnant period never seen in recorded economic history, most dentists wait for the :”always” trends to return while all the data says it’s not happening. In other words, what got us here ain’t getting us there……
So what were the trends that got us to through the good ole’ days before the recession to end all recessions hit and awakened us to a new reality?
The “golden economic age” for average dentists was fundamentally driven by the following 5 MAJOR factors:
#1. Disease demographics. Those born B.F. (before Fluoride) needed LOTS of dentistry on an ongoing basis. FYI. B.F. patients are entering the R.I.P. cycle of life which greatly diminishes their dental needs.
#2. Rapid expansion of general population greatly outpacing provider number increases.
#3. Rising household incomes (even when adjusted for inflation) equaled always increasing expenditures on elective services such as dentistry.
#4. Employers adding on dental benefit packages during the peak of the economic boom meaning FREE money to dentists.
#5. Higher paying jobs routinely available if one was willing to work contributing to the purchase of more elective services over time.
Anyone with even a cursory reading of demographic, job, and economic data likely sees potential problems with 4 of the things above that brought us……those with a basic cursory knowledge of dental disease trends related to fluoride will also see a potential issue with item #1.
Hardly anyone thinks or even takes actual time to think these days and listen to sound dental practice advice. For that fact, I’ll return to all 5 items next week so it’s spelled out in black and white to limit the cognitive challenges a few will have with understanding.
Now….Is growth still possible for dental practices? Absolutely, in fact, those making very deliberate choices are doing just that. Those with the correct thinking on dealing with the 5 trends still have amazing futures in the profession because even more incredible technology is always in the pipeline.
Here’s an example of what happens based on one’s decisions……
“Dear Colleague,
After about 1 year to the day of studying Big Case Marketing (Master Dentist Academy Principels), we launched our first print ad campaign in two local newspapers.
We had done some external advertising before, poorly organized, and to nobodies surprise, it was not a success.
With our new, better educated and better planned campaign, we had over 100 calls in the first 2 weeks.
Yesterday we had our first Free Consult day, and scheduled 6 cases at $30,000.00 each.
I can hardly believe it, even as I type it.
We are still learning and modifying our process, but we would never had reached this level of success without the training my Team and I got through the McAnally Selling System and Advertising System.
Thank you so much.”
Dr. M. S.
Ottawa, Ontario Canada (2012)
