by Karah Karah | Jul 10, 2015 | Wealth Wisdom
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
- At the beginning for start-up practices, typically the biggest thing you can do for your practice is work on getting new patients in, upping the revenue for your patients, upping your effectiveness and efficiency. Overhead goes away.
- KPI, if you google it, you will see, the key performance indicator is a financial measure or non-financial measure that goes towards measuring how well an institute of business is doing. They can tell where you are right now and tell where you are going to be going.
- We find a lot of practices really struggle with having their hygiene team be aware of what they to be producing, what they need to be offering the patients.
- We typically say that 75% of efficiency is what you need to be looking at, which means that three out of the four patients reschedules.
- Every business has a life cycle. There is the growth stage, where it will be an upward slope. Most practices will have six months spurts because that is when you see your appointments come back in for a second time and plus the new appointments coming in. There will be the maturity stage, which means you will still be growing, but you are not growing as fast as in the growth stage. And then eventually there will be stagnation and decline.
- We usually say for new practices, the magic number to keep growing is somewhere around one to two new patients a day per working dentists.
- If you are busting that number out of the park, and you are continuing to see your practice not grow, I guarantee that you have an issue with getting people rescheduled back in.
- This [numbers for accepted cases] is more of a mental grasp, or some type of note, some type of shorthand to write on a piece of paper or spreadsheet that you carry around with you all day. If you are really looking at this number, and say I presented this much money to this person, track that in some type of format, come back in six months and see what has happened.
- Being able to tell them [patients] about the problem, and tell them what would happen if they don’t solve that problem, and then offering them the solution is very very important. You have to talk in their terms.
- If you know it is a financial problem, then there are solutions out there: financial payment plans that you can adopt, in house payment plans, etc.
- Another more powerful communication method is by asking questions at the beginning. You would be surprised at how many people can talk themselves into something just by asking the right questions.
- Sometimes it is a software problem where the people up front aren’t entering the information correctly for you to track your AR effectively. If the number is that high, and the software is correct, nine times out of ten it is a process problem.
- A lot of practices will do their billing on Friday, so the patients will get it on Saturday, and then they have two days to forget about it.
- At one point I was looking at a practice, and I noticed how much they were paying on credit card fees. That one practice, just by changing the phone number that that card service calls, basically is going to save almost $10,000 a year. When I saw that I thought that this must be a problem everywhere.
- Ideally, you want five percent so that if there are twenty appointments, only one of them is broken.
- You need to understand your capacity in order to know what you are trying to strive for. If you only have three ops, then your capacity is way different than what a ten op practice is.
- An active patient is a unique patient that has been seen for the past 18 months.
- We really tell most practices to strive for 45% in GP practices for a net take home.
- A lot of people base this (adding new dentists to their practice) by how tired they are . . . The biggest mistake we see is that they don’t know how much this relief is costing them.
- It really doesn’t make sense to bring in someone as a partner until you get to around the one and a half million points. That means you have a strong base and control over your overhead.
- Some fast-growing practices I see spend almost nothing on advertising. At the same time, some fast-growing practices I see spend a lot on advertising.
All of the most successful practice owners I have ever met were master marketers in their own right. They understood that marketing is a very essential part of any business.
- “We always overestimate the amount of change that can occur in two years. We always underestimate the change that can occur in ten years.” -Bill Gates
- Marketing and advertising, there are two facets to it. There is external, which is any patient who has never been in your practice before, and there is internal, which is making sure your patients stay your patients.
- To learn more from Jonathan Van Horn, you can email him at [email protected], visit his website, dentistmetrics.com, or even find him on Facebook or Linkedin.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | Jun 28, 2015 | Wealth Wisdom
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
First, download Jonathan’s gift for our podcast listeners: DentistMetrics KPI Guide
If you are not leveraging your time with your CPA, in order to get the most out of them, then you are going to have to find that time elsewhere.- No one’s ever going to have the absolute pinnacle business.
- We focus on the business in order have that have the maximum amount of returns for the owner because in the end it is going to be what funds everything else.
- There are multiple different approaches you can take with marketing; you can do a shotgun approach, you can do a sniper-rifle approach, you can do a machine gun approach, you can do a lot of different approaches. A lot of this is testing to see what is working.
- In a dental practice, if you are not at absolute capacity, then it makes absolute sense to fill to your capacity.
- Try and set your schedule up like the day that was most productive.
KPI – a key performance indicator. KPIs can be financial, they can be non financial, they can be actions, they can be a lot of different things.
- The main number that we look at is two fold. Number one we look at net productions, number two we look at the total of those wages and salaries plus benefits plus payroll taxes. Then we compare that to the revenues. We do not include family of the owner, we do not include the owner’s salary, and we also don’t include associates in this.
- Startups for the first few months will not really be in these numbers. These numbers really start kicking into gear when you get into around $650,000-800,000 dollars in revenue.
- There are a few universal truths in the world. One of them is that they think they are busy. Strangely enough, everyone also thinks that they are efficient.
- The practice as a whole has to really start heading towards a specific path. They have to be set on some type of system, some type of game-plan to be able to get them to that number. Typically when we talk about that it is going to be a production type goal.
- If you are in a not competitive market then you are probably not in a very good market.
- We have a general rule on five percent on supplies. There are some practices that aren’t going to be able to reach that.
- It is very difficult to trade convenience for money. There are a lot of places that you can buy supplies, and they can frame it in a way that you feel like you are saving money but in the end, if you are paying $26 for a barrier, and you can get it someplace else for $19, then you are paying seven dollars more.
- If you are thinking about saving 20% on your supply costs each year, and your supply costs are $10,000 then you are better off going out and finding three new patients to replace that $2,000 dollars.
Five percent (for supplies) is the number that we always strive for, and for some practices this is not attainable, but you would be surprised at what you can obtain by trying.
- For the hygiene rule of three, the first level we have is that hygiene typically contribute about a third of the production of the practice. The second three is that the hygiene department should typically be compensated at about a third of net productions or collections in some fashion. The third one is that you like to have less than three hours a week of unscheduled hygiene per hygienist.
- If you would like to learn more from Jonathan Van Horn, email him at [email protected], visit his website, dentistmetrics.com, or even find him on Facebook or Linked-in.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | Jun 20, 2015 | Magnificent Marketing
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
- Dentists don’t know what they don’t know, and they are not at fault.
- Don’t have a dark website. It’s gloomy and also a dark background with lighter text in front of it, it’s very hard for the eyes to read the text.
- Get rid of those slider images on the front page. Let’s pick your favorite one, and stick with it.
- Over fifty percent of people searching for a local business are searching on mobile. Find out if your website is mobile [optimized].
The goal of your website is to get a phone call. The most important thing on your website is your phone number.
- Put a call to action to the left of the number.
- The name address phone number has to be the exact same across the web on any occurrence anywhere on the internet.
- You have five seconds when someone lands on your website.
- There is no need to have a big image on a dental website. The main images on the first fold should be one of the dentist, or maybe one of your staff, or even one of your office.
- On the home page, there should be one or two paragraphs on really what is specific about your practice.
- A potential patient wants to see your work. It has to be something that will show you will take care of them.
55% of the average internet person leaving within the first 15 seconds.
- Just imagine a 60-second video. You just got them on your page for 60 seconds. Google is going to like your page.
- Another one is an info-graphic. Infographics are great for they cover quite a large amount of information but in an image format. If you designed the info-graphic to lead them down a slippery slope, that’s going to keep them on the website longer.
- If it [videos] looks too commercial, it is going to turn people off. They might treat it like an ad.
- People need to be led by the hand. There should be a call to action at the bottom of every page. Always put the phone number there.
- The About Us page should have a picture of every one of your staff, and then have them write a hundred-word blurb about them.
- Dentistry is a medical profession and it is a personal profession.
- I want every dentist to think when was the last time they updated their website? There are reasons to update your website on a monthly basis.
If you would like to learn more from Mike Pedersen you can go to www.aznetmarketing.com and even get a free report.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | May 23, 2015 | Magnificent Marketing
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
- “When an underdog fought like David, he usually won. But most underdogs don’t fight like David.”
- The book is all about working smarter, not harder.
- Let’s treat marketing as a system. That’s what Duct-tape Marketing became.
- If you can picture an hourglass, that top of the hourglass looks like a funnel. But what if the bottom half of the funnel became something that opens back up and instead of getting a one time customer at the end of that funnel, you get a repeat customer that also refers customers to you.
The marketing hourglass has seven steps in it, and the steps are:
Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, Refer.
- When you start to think of marketing like this, everything you do in your business becomes a marketing function.
- A strategic partner is another business owner who serves the same target market that you do, but who is not your competition.
- This prospect of a strategic partnership is a long-term endeavor, not something that you can do overnight, and it does take time, effort and energy from both parties to make it work really well.
- When you think of sponsorships, that what you think of, your logo slapped on somebody else’s stuff. And those types of sponsorships are great, that is some that you should do. It is not marketing.
- It is very very difficult to get people happy with your service to take the time and energy to leave a positive review with you online. So the flip-side to that is that somebody who has had a terrible experience, or a bad experience, and who feels like they have some sort of injustice, they are going to feel very motivated to take revenge by going online and leaving a negative review.
- If you have 10 or 15 positive reviews, if you get one, one-star review, nobody is going to pay attention to that.
- You want to build up that positive online reputation so that when the totally unjustified negative reviews come in, it’s really no big deal.
- Whatever you do, don’t get into a public argument with your customers who leave negative reviews, and don’t take legal action against them. The only thing worse than a negative review online would be a story in the media about you suing one of the patients.
- You really need to go onto wherever this review is appearing publicly and respond in a way that’s saying, “I’m really sorry about your experience.” You want to apologize not necessarily for what happened but apologize for that they had a bad experience. Let them know that you would like to do everything possible to resolve the situation, and invite them into a private forum where they can do that with them.
- There are so many people using mobile devices now, in fact, more people in the US access the internet with a mobile device than desktops and laptops combined. Google came out and said, “If your website is not mobile-friendly then we are going to make it more difficult for it to show up in search results.”
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | May 15, 2015 | Magnificent Marketing
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
- It’s near impossible to own a number one google ranking forever.
- Google is upwards of 70% of all searches on the internet. So that’s the one that [dentists] should be focused on.
- Really that map section, or the “seven-pack” should we say, floats on the page. It is never in a set spot.
Dentistry is a real business and you need to treat it like that. You need to have experts in your different areas to make sure that you really maximize your business.
- It’s [your website] your storefront on the internet.
- If you think about your marketing pieces, every single one of them should go to your website, and theoretically, in a dream world, it should go to a landing page.
- Your marketing offline to online needs to be seamless and congruent.
- Number one . . . your google local page should be 100% percent completed.
- You could have the most beautiful bells and whistles website and even your google local, it could have twenty reviews, if it is not on that first page, nobody is going to ever see those awesome reviews.
- Google, on the surface, has no rhyme or reason for how they are ranking.
- You can make some small on page optimization changes and instantly see a boost.
- If you have a website that is static, and you haven’t changed a word on that website for six months, google won’t spider your website very often.
- Any webpage needs to have 400 hundred words or more on it.
- Check out how many times the keyword is on your page. It should not be more than three to five times.
- You have to be really careful how many times the keyword and geolocation is on your website.
- Even a non-optimized website on a tablet looks ok. But on an iPhone or Android, that’s a whole different ball game.
- You can build a free mobile website. It’s called dudamobile.com.
- People are not going to spend twenty minutes reading a webpage on their phone. Now if you have a video that you have embedded, sure they will watch a 90-second video on their phone.
With the last update from Google, a mobile-optimized website is basically a must now.
- SEO is a tough one because depending on the competitive nature of your city, it can take upwards of six months to really get some momentum and some ranking.
- When you are working with someone, ask as many questions as you can just to test their knowledge.
One thing I have learned in the last four years working with dentists, relationship is everything. A good consultant becomes an advisor.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | Apr 25, 2015 | Bold Biographies
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
We are just in the business of dentistry in a BIG way.
- We’ve got a program called the affiliate program, where we basically spend five years with a dentist helping build their ideal practice, and helping them manage and grow it.
- I don’t put up with BS. I don’t play political games.
- Auditing creates lasting implementation and efficiencies.
- I was born in Amsterdam. I moved to the United States in fifth grade.
- I grew up in kind of the opposite of entrepreneurial thinking. But I did grow up with a lot of support.
I didn’t change my thinking until my senior year of dental school. I was going to be an endodontist, because I thought it would be secure income with little work . . . The dental school professor just handed me a book and said “Hey you should read this book.” And that book was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I read that book and thought, “Oh my god why haven’t I thought about the business before.”
- Most of the people in my life are doing things today I don’t want to do. They are living a life I don’t want to live. So in a way, I kind of broke away from everyone else.
- Even today, I am not ready to make a decision I shouldn’t make, even if I am given the right information. I am not going to do the things I need to do until the time is right.
- There comes a point when you start learning something different because you are at a new level, a new size.
- At one point we may be lectured to fifty dentists a year, and now twelve hundred this year.
- It just doesn’t have to be that complicated.
- There were a lot of opportunities to build new practices, so I decided, “You know what? I can’t sit here and do nothing. I’m going to go build more practices.”
- I’ve had several years, where I have lost over a million dollars in cash. I’ve had a ton of failures.
- Not knowing what I don’t know. Being on a path and not knowing something vital [is what I am scared of].
- Having to invent the wheel every time is a major barrier [to success].
- It’s just as easy to think bigger as it is to think smaller.
- Be very methodical and slow with implementation to be sure that it actually fits and it makes a long term difference.
- I think there are three big keys to success, and overcoming those fears and excuses. The first one starts with getting the right information. Step two is then having the leadership qualities to actually do it. To actually pull the trigger and lead other people down that path. Step three is the one that a lot of people often miss, and that is having people force you to do the right thing, having advisors.
- The book that Dr. Scott Leune suggests every dentist to read is The E-Myth, by Michael E. Gerber.
If you want to learn more from Dr. Scott Leune, you can email him at [email protected] or go to his website breakawaypractice.com.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | Apr 17, 2015 | Prescriptions for your Practice
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
- We [Prosperident] are the biggest at what we do, which is investigating embezzlement in dental offices.
- By embezzlement, we mean staff stealing from dentists, and it could take various forms. It could be direct in the sense of stealing checks payable to the doctor from insurance companies or it could be indirect like, to give a frightening example, somebody with a little bit of clinical background bringing somebody into your office after hours and doing dental work on them.
- If I had to give you an educated guess, I’d say that for a practicing dentist, there’s about an 80% probability that at some point in their career they will be embezzled.
- The average amount that we see stolen from a dentist in an embezzlement matter is about $110,000.
- There are broadly speaking two ways to steal from you, one is forcing you to pay out money that you weren’t planning on paying out. And the other way is to intercept money that is coming in from patients and insurance companies.
- If you look at the basic anatomy of stealing, there is the act of stealing and then there is the act of concealment afterward. When we investigate, it is the concealment that we are generally looking for.
- What we have to focus on instead is what we can do to increase detection?
- Who among your employees is displaying an attitude that would suggest to you that it would be relatively easy for them to get to the point of saying that stealing is ok? Do they resent your success? Do they covet your possessions and your lifestyle? Do they over-empathize with patients with financial issues?
They are stealing because they want to, and it is an ego thing. We did an investigation that we wrapped up last year. There was somebody stealing from an office. She was stealing and then she won 3 million dollars in the state lotto. And after that, she kept stealing.
- One of the most common comments we get from doctors is, “That is the last person I would expect to embezzle.”
- If you break the rules, if you take cash payments and don’t report them to the IRS if you cut insurance corners, what you’ve done effectively is hand any embezzler in your office a get out of jail free card.
- Your practice should have an entry alarm.
- Use your practice management software properly. For example, everyone should be using their own unique ID, with their own password, and you should enable the feature that enforces everybody to change their password every so often.
- We have a checklist called the Embezzlement Risk Assessment Questionnaire. And it is designed to systematically take a dentist through looking at staff behavior.
- Whatever you do, don’t let them know you suspect.
- Unfortunately going to your CPA firm, in general, is a waste of money to solve this money.
- We need to vigilant, but at the same time, I don’t think that automatic mistrust of employees is the right plan either.
If you want to learn more or get the Embezzlement Risk Assessment Questionnaire, you can go to www.dentalembezzlement.com, or email David Harris at [email protected]. Questions for the questionnaire go to [email protected]. If you prefer to call them, their toll-free number is (888) 398-2327.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | Mar 29, 2015 | Wealth Wisdom
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
- I have the privilege, like you do, where I get to speak to a lot of our colleagues around the country every week, and I think the mindset today is that it is harder. It is harder to find that freedom, to find that way out during practice year, and to look forward to what’s after those years.
- Nobody really likes to change. We would really prefer to live in an environment that is static where everything is predictable in life. But then again we have to realize that that isn’t life. We have to get to the point where we embrace change.
- Every time there has been a lot of turbulence whatever it is, that’s when often times there is the most opportunity.
- I don’t think that being an entrepreneur is the life for everybody.
Maximize the practice process, break the chains, and create passive income.
- I look at the practice as an engine, the engine that is going to drive everything else.
- I do talk a lot about creating passive income streams out of real estate.
- Make that practice as much as you can to be self-sustainable. This frees you up.
- Create these passive income streams outside of dentistry so that you are more diversified.
- This widget could be a new piece of technology which integrated into the right practice with the right infrastructure, with the marketing, with the right operations in the practice could be the right widget. But by itself, it is going to fail.
- There’s really got to be some integral training for us as small business owners that learn the concepts of building a team with a culture that has the right people in the right seats of the bus, for that is what is going to drive everything.
- It should be 80% you feel that joy, and maybe 20% for those, okay those things will come up.
- I found that single-family real estate when invested in the correct way, I don’t think there is any better capital asset.
- The joint venture model in my mind is the fast track to get involved and not have to deal with all the moving parts.
If you want to learn more from Dr. David Phelps you can go read his book, From High Income to High Reward, listen to his podcast, Dentist Freedom Blueprint Podcast, or on his website at www.freedomfounders.com.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | Mar 19, 2015 | Bold Biographies
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
- If I live to be 120 it won’t be long enough. So don’t waste a day. Don’t waste a day in resentment. Don’t waste a day in disappointment.
- Both of my parents planted the seeds, my dad by example in his career, and my mom just by her example in their life.
- I was hanging out with my friend, whose dad was a dentist, and he was doing lab work in junior high for his dad. And I was watching him and I thought “I think I can do that.” So I talked to his dad and asked him what he thought of dentistry and he encouraged me to get a job at a dental lab.
- Always ask yourself “What am I going to do with my life.”
- Sometimes people will look at me like I have two heads, but dental school was three of the coolest years of my life.
- Plan as hard as you can, but be willing to accept gifts that you didn’t plan.
- I became motivated by the fact that Santa Barbara is an unbelievable magnet for specialists.
- So I thought, “I love the living that I make in endo, but I want to do a little more.”
- All projects end shortly before deadlines.
- At the same time, I started inventing, because I was pissed off and disappointed by what our instruments did for us, how complicated it was.
- Inventing is way easier than licensing. Licensing puts the truth to the joke, how do you become a millionaire through patents and inventions? You start out with five million dollars.
- The most dangerous guy that you can put in the CEO position is the one that has never had a failure.
- You are listening to your own story in your head every day, and if it is all good news, then it is hard to be critical.
It’s a wonderful status thing to train others. It feels good doing it.
- Take a little time for yourself, check your breathing, and meditate for 10 minutes and you are going to have a great outlook.
- I began the 3-D printing business to print training replicas of extracted teeth so that you don’t have to use extracted teeth.
- One of the nice things about being my age is having gone through several cycles of disappointments and perseverances and making it through to the other side. So, now I understand that difficulties are just great opportunities.
- “Play the strength. Find out what you are good at and do a lot of it.”
- It’s a short line. It [what he would tell a relentless dentist] would be to consider future planning as a current event.
- We are among the most fortunate people on earth. Our dentists let us do really dangerous things, the put their-selves in our care so that we can make a living. The relentless pursuit of happiness is open to all of us.
- Dr. Steve Buchanan would recommend every dentist read all Elmore Leonard books for the pursuit of happiness.
If you want to learn more from Dr. Steve Buchanan you can visit his websites at delendo.com or endobuchanan.com.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
by Karah Karah | Mar 6, 2015 | Bold Biographies
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Quotes & Notes:
- Work smarter and not harder.
- E + P = O or Any event that is in your lifetime + your perception = Outcome from The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon.
- But one of the things I hate to say is and it proves my point later in life, about working smart and not harder, is that I told myself I do not want to work Fridays. My dentist doesn’t work Friday, I’m going to be a dentist.
- My mom, she is a lady that always put me in check. When I come home from school I always had to do my homework right away. No TV, nothing until I did my homework.
- If I have to do something, I get it done right away, no procrastinating because it nags at me and makes me uncomfortable.
- My dad said to me, “The world is full of information and it is up to you to learn it.”
- It all comes down to information. And if you take the time to learn the information, whatever risk of situation coming at you, you can abate that risk.
- The whole other aspect of learning to be a leading is so important.
- Address objection before injection.
- You have to want to know what’s going on, and as long as you are not super crazy you can work these patients through and they won’t have the stress and you won’t have the stress.
Going through dental school, grades are important, but no one ever asks you about grades. It’s more about being efficient in what you do, getting it done in the right way. You’ve got two years of clinical dental school. I would have used those years to better learn how to talk to my patients.
- My first job out of dental school was a fee for service dentist and it was all I knew.
- Vision is very important, for if you don’t have a vision of what your goals are, or what you’re true desires are, you never work towards it.
- If you know what your goal is, just go for it.
- Everyone talks about efficiency and increasing your speed, and I certainly agree with that. Now in my practice I don’t have to be efficient.
- “You should do whatever you do that makes you sleep well at night.”
- People always ask me, “Why don’t you work a little harder, make a little more?” I don’t want to. This is my goal. Here I am at it and I love going to work.
- A lot of times when there is a staff management problem, it may be because they didn’t understand what was going on. Maybe you didn’t inform them of your expectations. They can’t read your minds.
- Dentistry is a lot of psychology, it really is.
- If you can read a patient, you can connect with them. You can make them feel more comfortable, and if you can be more comfortable with them then you guys can get on the same level and actually figure out what is what.
- There are three tiers of types of patients. There’s the bottom that focuses on pure cost. There’s the top tier that value customer service. And then there’s the middle tier which is like the PPO tier which is like, “Hey you know what, I value quality but I am swayed by price also.” If you understand the market and the tiers of the market and understand the market, then you can absolutely be a fee for service dentist.
- If I have a failure, or something that doesn’t go as planned, I might be bummed out at that moment, and I might blow on it for a short period of time. But ultimately I view it as an opportunity to find the solution and fix the problem.
- I am scared about being complacent, I never want to be complacent.
- We make decisions every single day of our life. You hold the power. Don’t hold the economy, external forces for your situation in life.
- Dr. Tuan Pham would suggest every dentist read The Energy Bus, and Crucial Conversations.
If you want to learn more from Dr. Tuan Pham then you can visit at www.dentalmaverick.com or send an email to [email protected].
Be sure to check out Dr. Tuan Pham’s interview with Dr. Howard Farran.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love a 5-star review on iTunes:
