Dental professionals have heard it all before:

“I forgot my purse!”

“Bill me later.”

“My dog ate my wallet.”

OK, that last one might be a stretch but often when a patient walks into your office for dental work, they have no expectation that they have to pay that day. That same patient would never do this at the drive-thru or at any retail store!

The problem is people have been conditioned by their dentists to PAY LATER!

As dental professionals it may be uncomfortable to talk to your patients about money. Here at ACT Dental we have come up with ways to promote a “pay for it now” mindset.

Never hesitate to discuss money with your patients. Patients need to know you are comfortable with your fees and with money in general. Use clear communication during your consultation to establish important financial boundaries.

Keep in mind you can’t make a patient pay, you can only make them want to pay you!

Solutions for this issue and many...

DING!

The elevator door opens and your ideal patient walks in. You strike up a conversation and BOOM!

They ask THE question:

WHAT DO YOU DO??

You freeze. The words just aren’t there!

“Well uhh…”

DING!

The doors open and your time is up!

You just missed the PERFECT opportunity to express your mission, explain the value of your dental practice and ultimately gain a patient.

So you need plan ahead and come up with your own “Elevator Speech.”

We call it an Elevator Speech because it’s got to be short and to the point. Usually less than 30 SECONDS!

An Elevator Speech needs to BE 3 things:

CLEAR

POWERFUL

ENGAGING

When the person your talking to walks out of the elevator you want to give them a reason to want to take action!

So plan ahead and start preparing your Elevator Speech. You never know who’s waiting on the other side of the door.

Key takeaways:

Prepare a 15-30 second speech highlighting the unique aspects of your company. Express...

What’s the secret to better compensation?

Bringing more value to whatever you do.

Great athletes or performers provide the perfect example. Take Aaron Rodgers or Mick Jagger. Those guys command top dollar because their value tops the charts. Jagger sells a lot of records, Rodgers wins a lot of ballgames. And between them, they fill a lot of seats!

While we all can’t achieve rock star fame, we can look for ways to add value to our own contributions.

As a dental professional, for example, you might focus on keeping good patients in the schedule, or become an expert at fostering internal referrals.

Zig Ziglar put it best:
[Tweet ““When you do more than you get paid for, eventually you’ll be paid for more than you do.””]
In the end greater rewards come to people who provide more value. See what you can do to increase yours!

Key Takeaways: What are you doing in your dental practice to add value to every patient’s experience? The greater the...

When you look at a grave marker, what’s the first thing you notice? The name? The age of the deceased?

There is often one tiny mark we overlook. And it’s the most important mark on the stone.

It’s the dash between the birth and death dates…the symbol that represents the entirety of that person’s life.

Regardless of when we are born and how long we live, we all get a dash.
Everything that defines who we are, what we accomplish and how we are remembered is contained in it.

What are you doing with yours? How does it affect your dental patient satisfaction?

The problem is a lot of us get caught up in the numbers. We tend to measure a life’s value by its length.

The same thing happens when we consider the number of hours we work, or the days we spend on vacation. There is a dash between those numbers too!

Dentists can choose to work whatever hours they want. But what’s most important is what they do with their “daily” dash. How many...

I discovered this after my first lecture in 2006…which happened to be my worst one ever. It was a total disaster!!

I found a great coach who agreed I needed help.

Her first step? A stone!

Written on the stone were the words, “IT’S NOT ABOUT ME.”

She put the stone in my hand and told me to carry it every time I spoke to an audience. It’s a subtle reminder that the key to connecting isn’t what I’m thinking or projecting on a screen, but identifying what’s in the hearts of those who are listening.

One trick is to remind yourself to be interested rather than interesting.

If you focus more on the what’s important to others , you will find you’re more able to make successful connections (and less likely to suffer a disaster like my first lecture!)

Good luck!!