Don’t resent yourself or your teams—get help now
The unintentional testing that was the COVID-19 crisis for dentistry is not over yet. But the dental practices I work for have mastered the quality of resilience long before this worldwide challenge. As a strange and unexpected storm that has blown into our lives, there is not a single practice unaffected by it. Here are some samples of situations that I’ve seen:
- Your partner opens a practice a block away and takes half your patients with him. You sue and win (he was in violation of your partnership agreement, after all) but the damage has been done.
- Your office manager leaves to take another position and the office is roiling with stress—no one knows exactly what she did and how she did it.
- The dreaded family illness you’ve worried about has come to pass. Perhaps it’s a grown child or an ailing parent who has had a severe medical incident. You, doctor, have been sidelined for months and your practice is suffering.
The 5 Ps
We’ve all been “acronym-ed to death” in these days of quick texts vs. meaningful talks. If you’re sick of TTFN and TYSM or even SMH, bear with me one more second—these five Ps can help your practice recover from anything—and we mean anything. And I’ve just written a book to explain them. Actionable, no-nonsense steps to, as Larry the Cable Guy says: Get ‘er Done.
- Purpose—you must develop a meaningful positioning of your practice or both you and your team will continue to struggle to get up every morning and tackle the real problems you face.
- Profit—how can your business model be retooled to solve issues now and for the future?
- People-your team is the secret to your success—so what should their roles be and how can you lead them out of the wilderness to be both fulfilled and compensated for their work?
- Processes—you might not believe me but there are only three processes for you to master in our bounce back plan. Can you guess what they are?
- Platforms—this word describes how you deliver your services and how patients experience the office visit. Is it unique and special or humdrum and boring?
Grab this quick read
My new book—Bounce Back from Anything—describes the five Ps in detail. After serving the dental community for 20 years, I know you’ve got no patience for inanimate fluff or the kind of self-help served out glibly from the business book shelves. It’s not just a methodology to get you back to a baseline survival mode. It will, like Tony Robbins says, help you find the big enough why (your purpose) to in turn find a big enough how.
You’ll be able to uncover these signs of a staggering practice and resuscitate to a place of thriving, healthy effectiveness for both you and your team:
- Do you feel like all you do is compromise again and again in response to a kvetching team?
- As a dentist are you in charge of a transformational whole health program or stuck on the drill-and-fill treadmill?
- You have no idea how to translate your team’s work into numbers and let them know how things are going, let alone attach bonuses to the behaviors you want them to embrace.
- You know that the last decades of “selling dentistry” are so out of style and that your best patients want no part of it. But you have no idea how to truly take a stand for your patients’ health and wellbeing and have your practice become central to changing patients’ lives for the better.
Your spirits may be low and your despair may be real but I want you to know—no one is a lost cause, and help is on the way. Get your copy of the book today. Watch one of my webinars, or call me for a free, no-risk discussion at 212-388-1712. You don’t have to go down with the ship.
