Independent Dentist-Fighting for What You Want Part III
As an independent dentist and a savvy business owner you must fight for what you want. That means having sales systems and marketing tools in place to attract prospective clients.
Spending a few day sin Montreal Canada visiting friends and family (it’s fall, heading into winter, and I’ll be glad to be back on the beach in Miami in a few days!). Comme toujours, j’ai besoin practiquer mon francais plus!
We had an excellent Elite level meeting in Dallas last week—our members continue to prove that regardless of the new face of the economy (as it SPECIFICALLY applies to the independent dentist) that they can continue to get everything they want out of their practices—because they are literally fighting and demanding it from the marketplace.
This post is the last of my thoughts that resulted from sitting for 4 hours in the Florida DMV last month mulling over why most individuals and many colleagues most of whom are independent dentists never get what they want out of their practices….
Fighting for what you want isn’t easy or quick.
Winning takes dedication, making those daily, weekly, and monthly small decisions that add up, and keeping your eye on the prize at all times. Besides dedication and drive, you’ll need to know how to fight and what to do. That means study and learning (no one loves the word learning but at least with the right coaches it can be exciting and interesting) which means actual work—it also means learning in topics that were not taught in dental school. You are always thought the clinical but never the business side to run a practice successfully as an independent dentist.
Several of our most advanced alumni members last week in Dallas are proof of what can happen when all those small decisions are added up after being clear about what you want for several years in a row—literally taking cases away from national discounters like ClearChoice—that’s power.
The best news is this—no one was born knowing how to sell themselves to others—a key component to getting what you want. They learned it, I learned it, AND so can you.
As science shows, there are very few true prodigies in this world. Almost none. Everyone else that achieves expert status did it by doing one thing and that is putting in time practicing the right things in the right manner.
So, how does one go about all this learning and knowledge development that is needed?
There are many ways to learn but the two most prevalent are:
• Trial and error
• Learn from others who have done it already and who perfected it already.
The choices boil down to either do it yourself over many years or you pay someone else to teach and lead you.
Trial and error learning requires no up-front investment but it’s a hard road to travel with plenty of bumps along the way and with many journeys that simply end in disappointment, ruin, and bitterness. We hear it all the time…..dentists broken and battered because they spent all their time stuck in being an “island” believing they’d finally land on the right steps someday. Matt Ridley’s brilliant new book ‘The Rational Optimist’ points just how ridiculous it is to think that anyone is truly self-sufficient in the modern age and it aptly applies to this scenario of “finding my own way” that many in the profession attempt.
Learning from others who have done it is undoubtedly faster, more efficient, and with much less risk. Those factors out-weigh even the most costly up-front costs simply by the fact that achievement and return is far more rapid. Think about spending 10 years to arrive at just the starting line for the race versus spending a few months to actually be in the front of the pack! Why not look for those who willingly stand on the shoulders of giants that went before and who offer the life lines to speed up your growth and development?
When you wanted to learn to place or restore implants, use that new laser, or cut a veneer or onlay prep, you probably took a course first. You could have just used trial and error but chose the other route for obvious reasons. If you chose the quicker easier route to learn new clinical skills, why would you or anyone resist the same pathway to learning to sell your skills to the public (or how to show the public the right advertising messages) in order to get the procedures you want at the prices you need to charge to avoid compromise? It simply does not make sense but THAT is the way most go about this and will continue to go about it.
For those of you who want to be true business owners and truly compete and win in the marketplace for fee-for-service dentistry, a market whose fundamental foundation and demographics have shifted decidedly against just that (FFS), I recommend you bite the bullet and take action NOW as an independent dentist. I promise to lead and to innovate if you promise to simply show up, be present and ready to follow directions for what works.
Learn to compete as an independent dentist business owner in today’s economy and you truly will be set for a life of enjoyment from this great profession.
To your dental AND entrepreneurial success. Why not go to my website here or check out my #1 top selling book on Amazon.
