Coaches Need Coaches Too
Having a great business? Hard. Building a great team? Also hard. Putting those two together? Incredibly hard.
That’s why believe everyone should have a coach.
Here at ACT Dental, we walk that talk. Yes, even a coaching company has a coach.
We recently had our coach spend some time with us at the office. It was an incredible experience. With our coach’s help, we were able to:
- Consolidate and present everything we’re currently doing
- Clarify the goals and the vision for this year
- Define useful metrics
- Outline the strategy to achieve our goals
We’re an entire office full of coaches, but we wouldn’t have been able to achieve the same results by ourselves. That’s because we’re so close to the work that it’s hard for us to see the big picture. Goal setting becomes much easier when you have an outsider helping you sort the pieces. It’s even better when that person has experienced the same challenges that your team is...
How To Design Core Values That Change Your Life
Your single most important competitive advantage is your core values. Your core values are even more important than your vision. They guide the behaviors of everything that happens at your practice.
Consider the circle of people you surround yourself with, both personally and professionally. Your favorite people care about the same things that you care about. Your least favorite people don’t care about the same things that you care about. It all comes back to core values.
You’re probably thinking, “Of course my practice has core values. We’ve even discussed them as a team.” That’s a great start, but ask yourself the following questions:
- Are your core values written for the team to see?
- Are your core values a living part of your practice?
- Do you reinforce your core values every single day as you work?
- Do you use your core values to evaluate your behavior and your strategy?
When the answer is a clear “yes,” you will attract the...
Stay In Your Circle
One of the biggest problems in any business is recognizing what the real problem is. Many entrepreneurs and dentists think that the people around them are the problem. What if it’s actually the leader who is the biggest problem in the business?
It’s common for us to brag about how busy we are. We’re all very busy, all the time. As an entrepreneur, a go-getter attitude is what’s gotten you this far today. You’ve worked hard to make it to this point, so of course you want to stay busy. You take on every task yourself to ensure it’s done properly – even when it’s another someone else’s responsibility.
Sometimes being a “doer” is actually getting in the way of your success. You’ve hired team members because they’re great at accomplishing certain tasks. If you try to do their work for them, you become not only a problem for them but also a problem for your business. You think you’re a go-getter, but your...
Setting Goals For The Success Of Your Practice
Goals are essential in every area of our lives As a dentist, goals help align your priorities, plan for the future and ensure you are on the right path to achieve clear objectives in the near and distant future.
Unfortunately, many dentists struggle with goal setting—and their practices suffer as a result. The good news is that there are a few questions you can consider to help improve your goal setting and get your practice on the right track.
What Are Your Goals?
Asking what your goals are might seem like a fairly obvious question, but a lot of practices fail to critically evaluate where they are and where they want to go. You might have a few ideas of accomplishments you would like to pursue, but without clearly defined goals, you are unlikely to have the direction you need to get there. Ask yourself where you want to be in the next quarter, the next year or the next five years, and begin building a list of some goals you would like to achieve in those various periods...
Improving Execution: The Five Ways To Ruin A Team
Once you have a quality team assembled and a solid strategy in place, it’s time to focus on the third component of operating a successful dental practice: execution.
Without proper execution, even the best strategy and the most competent team is devoid of value. As business owners, we must relentlessly do what we say we are going to do—instead of just talking about it.
Execution is the practice of leveraging your team to accomplish the goals you have set in your strategy. As the leader of a dental practice, it’s your job to create a culture in which things get done.
The single-most powerful and valuable people in the business world are those who can take things from idea to execution the fastest. It is paramount that you learn to execute your ideas and empower your team, providing your people with the tools necessary to follow through on the strategy you have established.
There are five key behaviors that can destroy your team’s ability to...
What Every Dentist’s Team Is Starving For And How You Can Provide It In Your Practice
Most dentists want a great team of people who are committed and engaged with the work that they do, but few dentists actually achieve this goal. Many dentists are too busy managing their practice and focusing on patient care to actually invest time into cultivating an engaged team, but this seldom works out well in the long run. Even though it’s challenging to find the time to support your team members and increase engagement, it’s worth it when you consider how much more productive your practice will be. You can work towards this goal of increased engagement by focusing on one simple thing: communication rhythms.
Communication rhythms are regularly established sessions where team members are brought together to get on the same page. These meetings are structured, scheduled and consistent so that every member of your team knows exactly what to expect. During meetings, you will discuss patient care and practice care with your team members in a structured forum that is...
The Hidden Secret To Increasing Your Productivity By 21%, And It’s Not What You Think.
Would you want your dental practice to produce 21% more next year? Of course you would. I think every dentist would answer “YES” to this question.
Your next question would be, “How do I do that?”
And you might think the answer to this question is…
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Expand your capacity and be open a few evenings
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Super-charge your marketing efforts
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Sell more crowns
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Add a few more PPOs
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Add an associate
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Or better yet, add another operatory or two
While these can all drive productivity (maybe), these strategies don’t predict increased productivity as well as research shows one other secret does. Here is the hidden secret:
Higher Employee Engagement
Research shows that companies with higher than average employee engagement levels benefit from 21% higher productivity.
But the cool thing is that the benefits don’t stop there with Higher Employee Engagement. They cascade into a few other important statistics:...
12 Tips For Successfully Using Group Interviews To Hire Team Members For Your Dental Practice
With variable retention rates and Gen Y entering the workforce full-throttle, today’s business owners and management find hiring new team members a time-consuming, but necessary task. The desire to streamline the hiring process is at an all-time high, and while there are many strategies to do so, group interviews are becoming an efficiency trend.
Not only do group interviews provide prospective employees with job information, duties, and company missions, they give tremendous insight into how potential candidates interact with employers, coworkers, and fellow prospects competing for the job.
When you’re in crunch time trying to fill a position, and many prospects on paper have similar educational backgrounds or job experiences, it is critical to pick out the ones that somewhat “mirror” the core values of your practice through a group interview. Here, we’ve provided 12 tips to enhance your group interview experience and ease your hiring process.
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4 Strategies For Transforming Your Front Office Team
Your front office team represents the face of your practice. Because they’re often the first people your patients will interact with, and the communication medium for appointment scheduling and customer service, properly training your front office team is imperative to your office’s success. Read this article to discover how to increase productivity with your front office team.
Improve Your Hiring Techniques
Improving your team’s efficiency starts with the hiring process. When interviewing potential candidates for front office positions, clarify your expectations for short, and long-term development. Outline the specific goals and tasks you’d like to improve, as well as the timeline to illustrate when you hope to achieve them. Before employment, enhancing a prospect’s knowledge-base regarding acceptable insurance plans, training them with company software and phone systems, and bettering their understanding of dental procedures are all ways to...
How To Create An Attractive Ad For The Best Prospects In Your Practice
A collaborative, efficient team dynamic is critical to the success of a dental practice. However, “how” to build such a team is often an elusive concept. One of the most common questions we hear from clients is, “How do I hire the right people?”
In a previous post, we shared some key takeaways from Kirk Behrendt’s recent discussion with Dr. Ken Allen in episode #1 of our podcast. In that episode, Kirk asked Dr. Allen to share some tips on hiring the best dental team members. Here we’ll delve a little deeper, and review a particular step of the hiring process that is often overlooked – writing a great ad. Read on to learn about the structure of attractive job advertisements, and how their proper assembly can draw top-notch potential to your dental practice.
The Anatomy Of A Great Ad
Creative – Don’t restrict yourself to operating within the box of job ad standards – people naturally gravitate toward original...
