ACT Dental Practice Coaching

Traveling all over the world and observing thousands of dental practices operate; we have noticed some very clear trends that are becoming more obvious with every month that passes. Basically, there are two distinct groups in dentistry. There are those who are thriving in practice, and there are those who are starving in practice.

Years ago, you could be clueless as to how to run a business and still make money in dentistry if you had a dental license. That is simply not the case any more. The playing field is now level. Dentists are now fully exposed to the exact same challenges that every entrepreneur has to deal with in growing a business. Dentists who recognize this trend have embraced it to thrive in dentistry. Others who have resisted this trend tend to struggle for the oxygen to keep their practice breathing. The time has come for dentists to whole-heartedly choose one of these two paths.

This month we examine the 9 common characteristics of the thriving dentist:

They Have Purpose, Conviction & Clarity of Vision – The thriving dentist can tell you without hesitation where they are planning to go and what they plan to do once they get there. You almost never see them waffle when it comes to sharing what they believe about dentistry. Procuring this purpose, conviction & vision has developed them into dentistry’s biggest deficiency…great leaders.
They Are Hungry in Learning – The thriving dentist has an intense appetite for learning. Continuing Education has never been an expense. It is actually exciting. They don’t hesitate to take their entire team to a course that seemingly has value. They know that they don’t know everything. Pete Dawson said to me the first time we met, “Be very careful of the dentist who has it all figured out. Even at my age and experience I have never thought that I had it all figured out. I learn something new all the time from my students. It is very exciting.”
They Learn Best By Doing – While being hungry in learning, they understand that the best way to truly learn is to DO. They know that the best way to learn how to swim is to jump right in. Adult learning is most effective experientially. Ken Blanchard said that the “biggest gap in the world is between knowledge and application.” Starving dentists see this gap in application with pessimistic achievability, while the thriving dentist sees it with optimistic achievability and a necessary passageway to fulfilling their purpose. They know that they are “no shortcuts” to becoming the best, and that it may include some great failures along the way.
They Have Great Support & “Touchable” Mentors or Coaches - They have spent a lifetime surrounding themselves with the right people. They found mentors, coaches or instructors that they were able to create significant relationships with and share in a process of intimate learned experience. These mentors or coaches are “touchable” which means that they have an intimate working relationship that includes critical feedback (not just someone they met a few years ago that gets together with them for dinner once and a while). They also (consciously or unconsciously) have practiced what Michael Collins revealed in his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t in which he said, “Contrary to popular belief, people are NOT our greatest asset…only the RIGHT PEOPLE are our greatest asset.” Who they have become in dentistry has been an evolutionary process that has attracted, kept and appropriately nurtured great talent that has fueled significant growth…personally & professionally.
Their Practice is Structured for Success - They have very clear goals and monitor them constantly. The entire operation is very well structured with systems that reflect the purpose that is being served. Ambiguity is an enemy to their practice. Very rarely do you ask a team member in a thriving practice a question about how they do things and you are met with the reply “I’m not sure.” Predictability in daily business operations and predictability in the delivery of technical dentistry becomes the critical component to how high their fulfillment level actually is.
They Understand That “Dentistry is 51% Business & 49% Technical” – This is great quote given to me by my friend Dr. Gary DeWood of the Pankey Institute that is so incredibly true. Knowing how to do the dentistry is not nearly enough to run a successful practice. The thriving dentist knows that cash is to their business what oxygen is to their life. And that living in a surplus of cash is a byproduct of being an extraordinary business….not the primary goal. The thriving dentist has developed a hungry awareness of how successful businesses (or practices) work and would almost certainly be successful in any other profession for this reason.
They Are Excellent Communicators – Thriving dentists have embraced a lifelong journey for significant relationships. They have done this not only in practice, but also in life. They understand that truly effective communication has a lot to do with non-verbal messaging, intense listening and sometimes talking. Some of the highest producing dentists that we coach actually do very little talking (in comparison to their patients) in their new patient experience. They have an incredible ability to get patients talking in a way that they feel excited about themselves. Patients most often end up being the driving force in treatment plans rather than the dentist and teams. The thriving dentist has a confident posture, reflected with great sincerity that procures higher levels of trust and likeability.
They Look The Part – Thriving dentists have taken the steps to make sure that the image and brand they project is reflected with great accuracy in what their patients actually experience. They walk the talk. They are everything other patients say they are. They dress like patients would expect them to dress. The esthetics of their facility reflect what patients would expect to see. Their practice is usually in a great location. You see, people create an image of who you might be when they hear about you. How well you meet or exceed the standards of that picture will greatly determine how successful you are in living out your vision. You would hope that people don’t judge a book by its cover…but they do…and you do to. The other thing to recognize with “looking the part" is that our standards grow higher every month with every new shopping mall, high end coffee shop and brilliant restaurant that opens around us. Consumers’ expectations are growing at exponential rates. It is important that you reflect the image of being “with or ahead of the curve.”
They Do a TON of Marketing – Thriving dentists first of all understand that marketing is not just and external effort, but rather EVERYTHING THEY DO. Their internal operations and how they train patients to refer are very well choreographed. They are willing to take great risks when it comes to projecting their brand. Their website is top notch. Their image pieces (logo, stationary, etc) are very sharp. Their staff clearly reflects their brand. Their ads support everything the patient truly experiences in their practice. The lab they use is the best. They are involved with organized dentistry and most often respected by their peers. Marketing for them is doing everything they possibly can to increase the "top of mind" awareness for anyone who is considering their kind of services.

Where you are in dentistry is a choice. It may be conscious or unconscious, but nevertheless, it is still a choice. If you are thriving in dentistry, and you read these 9 characteristics, it probably supported the beliefs you already have and act on.

You have chosen to thrive.

On the other hand, if you are starving and you read this article, you may have discounted a few of these characteristics as “things I should have done” or “things I can’t do”. In that case, I strongly suggest that you find some comfort in the current state of your practice, because the future will only be a slight variation of what you have now.

Choosing to thrive is something very few people do. We were given this great gift of choice. My hope is that you use it wisely and let it work its magic in your life.

Sincerely,

Kirk