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Patient Attraction Episode 1078

Dentistry can be a very repetitive business. Like any business where day-to-day operations are pretty much the same, dentists can let their guards down when it comes to paying attention to warning signs. And that can have long-term implications for retirement because things change outside your practice. After the break, I’ll be back to tell you the 3 mistakes you must avoid if you’re going to make a graceful and well-compensated exit from dentistry. Stay tuned.

– Thanks for watching the Patient Attraction Podcast.

– I’m Colin Receveur, CEO of SmartBox.

– Like you, I’m a business owner.

– I know that a lot of my days are basically repeats of the previous days.

– I’ve found that it’s easy for me to fall into a routine, and to focus on what’s going on inside the business.

– But no business exists in a vacuum, not even dental practices.

– Yes, you make money seeing patient after patient and solving their dental problems.

– If you’re fortunate, you have good repeat business from loyal customers and a good supply of new patients ready to replace the ones who move away or drop out.

– But one of the truisms of business is that what works today won’t necessarily work tomorrow.

– It’s important to keep an eye on what’s going on outside the walls of your practice.

– You need to prepare for changes in the economy and in the industry.

– And those changes are coming.

– Without trying to get political, I think it’s fair to say that the current Administration has introduced a high level of economic uncertainty.

– The safeguards that were put in place to avoid another Great Recession are being whittled away.

– And another recession can put your retirement plans at risk.

– That was proven when the Great Recession of 2008 forced countless dentists to delay their retirements.

– Those dentists wound up working far longer than they intended to.

– If you’re 20 years or more from retirement, you can probably weather another economic downturn and retire pretty much on schedule.

– But if retirement is less than 10 years away, you might be forced to delay it.

– Or you might have to retire with a great deal less money in your pocket.

– There is a way to safeguard your practice against economic uncertainty.

– That’s to stop making the 3 mistakes that can sink your retirement.

– Mistake number 1: Focusing on volume rather than on quality.

– All patients deserve quality dental care, but not all patients represent the same case value.

– If you focus on the prospects in your market who have the ability and the willingness to pay more for the right dentist, you can work less and make more.

– Those better prospects are typically about 20 percent of a given market.

– Mistake number 2: Being “just another dentist.”

– Dentists today are viewed as being competent professionals.

– In other words, one dentist is about as good as another in your prospects’ minds.

– You have to give prospects reasons to choose you instead of a competitor.

– You won’t accomplish that through advertising low prices, specials, and discounts.

– That’s what “just another dentist” does.

– Establishing yourself as the preferred choice for your prospects takes time and a systematic approach to your marketing.

– Mistake number 3: Continuing to drink the dental marketing Kool-Aid.

– Most dentists market for new patients as if it’s still 1995.

– They do postcard campaigns, newspaper ads, and maybe a radio spot or two.

– Dental prospects these days overwhelmingly begin their search for a new dentist online.

– Google says that people consult an average of 10.4 sources of online information before making a buying decision.

– If you want prospects to choose you as their dentist, you ha[...]