Being a dentist requires a certain mindset and skills, but those skills don’t necessarily translate to a highly profitable, healthy, and sustainable practice. To achieve that practice, you need to make a strategic shift — or more accurately, three shifts — in how you think, lead, and operate!
Shift from Producer to Entrepreneur
As a practice owner, you’re not just a clinician; you’re a business owner, and you must recognize that fact if you want to improve your practice. I’ve seen too many dentists spend 99% of their time focused on producing dentistry, and almost no time intentionally building the business itself. Running a great practice requires balancing your roles, as well as thinking strategically about:
- Leadership
- Profitability
- Systems
- Team development
- Long-term growth
It’s a shift away from simply surviving the schedule every day, and as a result, the practice becomes healthier and ownership becomes more sustainable.
To start making this shift, focus on protecting dedicated time each week to work on the business, not just in the business. Like Kirk says, “you need to land the plane before you can do maintenance.”
Shift from Reactive to Intentional
This shift involves changing your mindset and leading the practice based on data and intentional decision making, rather than emotion, assumptions, and constant reaction. It may feel like hygiene is slow and your schedule is falling apart, but if you look at the data, you may find that hygiene is strong and the real problem is downtime caused by last-minute cancellations. Letting data drive your decisions empowers you to solve the right problem instead of emotionally reacting to the wrong one, which makes leadership calmer, decisions clearer, and the practice runs with more confidence and consistency.
To start making this shift, choose three to five key metrics to review consistently each month.
Shift from Chaos to Clarity
A successful practice requires consistency and alignment, and that’s where this shift comes in. When a practice feels chaotic, it’s often because expectations, priorities, and communication are inconsistent, not because people don’t care. With these intentional communication rhythms, however, the team becomes more aligned, problems are addressed earlier, and the practice operates with more clarity and consistency:
- Daily huddles
- Weekly meetings
- Consistent check-ins
You can start making this shift by evaluating whether your current meeting rhythms are helping to create alignment or are allowing communication gaps to grow. If you aren’t having team meetings, I recommend you start doing so on a monthly basis with the goal of shifting to weekly.
Remember, a healthy practice isn’t built accidentally — it’s built intentionally through leadership, systems, data, and alignment. It may feel like you can take your practice to the next level of ownership by working harder clinically, but the truth is you need that mindset shift to start thinking differently as a leader and business owner. As you start your journey, remember that you shouldn’t focus on all three strategic shifts at once. Focus on one at a time, and you’ll make progress toward your ultimate goal!
To learn more about ACT and how we can help you build a Better Practice and a Better Life, visit us at www.actdental.com!
Tune in next time to learn how strengthening your culture will reduce turnover!
