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f DT page 2A AD Industry News DENTAL TRIBUNE | March 201030A make more money? Get the right training, skills and resources you need to build your business Look, you’re either on plan, off plan or you don’t even have a plan. If you have been in practice for any significant amount of time and you are not investing heavily in your practice, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re experiencing a plateau in your business right now. You see, if you’re not learning better ways to build your practice then you are just doing the same thing over and over again. How is that going to solve your problem and take your practice to the next level? It isn’t. Get the right employees: implement a ‘no mediocre employee’ tolerance policy With so many people unemployed today, you can find top talent. There is no reason why you have to accept mediocre performance. Remember, you get what you deserve. If you hire mediocre employees or if you keep mediocre employ- ees, then you deserve to get medi- ocre or subpar results along with the gray hair you’ll get for dealing with these people. In addition, it doesn’t take much effort to hire the right staff. In fact, I have a hiring system that allows you to hire new staff with less than 60 minutes of your time. Get a ‘no excuse’ mind-set If you want to shorten the lifespan of your plateau, then you need to stop being your own worst com- petitor. I mean this in the most caring, loving way. You make and accept too many excuses for why How would you like to dou- ble your practice growth? How would you like to double your net income? Of course you would! But what we want and what actually happens are two different things. When you first started your den- tal practice, you felt the excite- ment. You experienced large per- centages of growth for the first few years. Then your dental practice became stagnant. You’re not seeing growth in your dental practice now. Your “adjust- ed gross income” and “net income” decreased to the point where it depresses you to look at the num- bers on your tax return. You have hit a plateau, and it is commonplace for all businesses, including dental practices, to hit a plateau at some point in their life. Many will hit multiple plateaus. I completely understand why hitting a plateau or even a decline in business would depress you. It’s because you’re seriously feeling the squeeze. You discovered that your expenses don’t plateau just because your income has flattened or declined. • Your staff wants more money. • You need more space. • You need to purchase updated and emerging technologies and equipment. • It takes more money to run your practice. Not only do your expenses rise at the office, but they rise at home too. You’ve got kids, private schools, bigger houses, insurance, higher taxes. So how can you as a dental prac- tice owner get off the plateau, take your business to the next level and you can’t get new patients. For example, you blame the recession. Yes, many small and large businesses are failing. How- ever, we’ve doubled our business in this economy. I have clients who’ve been practicing dentistry for 35 years and they had their best year ever in 2009. A few of these top performers are Michigan — one of the hard- est hit states during the recession. If they can get new clients and double their practices, so can you. Yet, you have to adopt what I call the “two-economy system” mind-set that accepts no excuses. I define the two-economy sys- tem as putting yourself in a bub- ble where the economy is good, and keeping everything out of the bubble that you don’t have control over. Thus, unlike most dentists who let all of the negative energy ooze into their office and into their exis- tence, I reject it like the plague. I adopted the policy that you get what you deserve; there are no excuses. I haven’t made an excuse in 20 years. If I get a bad result, I probably deserved a bad result. It’s that simple. So, I don’t make excuses. I just say, “I got what I deserved, and I need to figure out why and how I’m going to fix it so I get a better result next time.” If you can figure out what actions and efforts it takes to deserve more, then “Bingo!” You can get it. If you make excuses about your ability to generate new patients, such as your town or the economy or whatever other pathetic, whiny excuse you might have made in the past, you literally cannot do any- thing. It immobilizes you. Grow your dental practice Three ways to start doubling your growth right now, even if you’ve hit a plateau By Jay Geier About the author Jay Geier says he adds 10 to 50 percent more new patients to his clients’ practices with little or no change to their marketing or advertising budget by simply leveraging their staff and getting them to focus on new patients as their No. 1 priority. To see how your staff stacks up against your competition and more than 10,000 practic- es worldwide when it comes to turning prospects into scheduled appointments, take Geier’s new five-star challenge for free at www.schedulinginstitute.com. Want to start growing your dental practice? Here are your next steps: • Get the training you need. • Adopt a “no mediocrity” toler- ance policy. • Don’t make or accept excuses. When you complain, whine and moan, you take all the power out of your dental practice and complete- ly destroy the mindset of your staff. Remember, it starts with you. Are you ready to grow your dental practice? DT dental health professional shortage area can see $80,000 to $100,000 of debt wiped away over three to five years. Dr. Arron McWilliams practices in rural Crawford County, Iowa, thanks in large part to the Fulfilling Iowa’s Need for Dentists (FIND) program, funded jointly by Delta Dental of Iowa and local business, govern- ment, health and civic organizations. With a population of just more than 7,000, the city of Denison might not have been the first choice of a dentist looking to establish a practice. “If it was not for the FIND pro- gram, Dr. McWilliams would be practicing in another community,” said Don Luensmann, executive director of the Chamber and Devel- opment Council of Crawford County. A similar sentiment is expressed by leaders in other rural parts of the country. “Our health-care providers play a key role in our community’s econ- omy,” said Jeffrey Johnson, branch president of BankWest in Gregory, S. D., a town with fewer than 2,000 peo- ple. “Delta Dental’s loan repayment program is helping ensure that our city’s one dental practice remains open.” “These types of programs are proving to be a win-win-win,” said Volk. They’re a win for the dentist who needs to pay down debt, a win for the local economy and a win for the residents in need of care.” Delta Dental member companies currently support dentist school loan repayment programs in Arkansas, Iowa, South Dakota, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Delta Den- tal also invests millions of dollars in dental education throughout the country. The not-for-profit Delta Dental Plans Association (www.deltadental. com) based in Oak Brook, Ill., is a national network of independent dental service corporations special- izing in providing dental benefits programs to 54 million Americans in more than 89,000 employee groups throughout the country. DT f DT page 29A