Three ways to start doubling your growth right now
even if you hit a plateau
by Jay Geier
How would you like to double your practice growth?
How would you like to double your net income?
Of course you would like to! But what we want and what actually happens can be two different things.
When you started your dental practice you felt the excitement. You experienced large percentages of growth the first few years. Then your practice became stagnant, and you aren’t seeing growth in your dental practice now. Your “adjusted gross income” and “net income” have decreased to the point where it depresses you to look at the numbers on your tax return. You’ve hit a plateau and it’s commonplace in all businesses, including dental practices, to hit a plateau at some point. Many will hit multiple plateaus.
Now I completely understand why hitting a plateau or even a decline in business would be depressing to you. It’s because you’re seriously feeling the squeeze. You discovered that your expenses don’t plateau just because your income flattens or declines. That's because:
- Your staff wants more money.
- You need more space.
- You need more updated, emerging technologies and equipment.
- It takes more money to run your practice.
Not only are your expenses rising at the office, they’re rising at home. You've got kids, private schools, bigger houses, insurance, and higher taxes. So how can you as a dental practice owner get off the plateau, take your business to the next level, and make more money?
Three ways to start growing your dental practice, even double it right now
1. Get the right training, skills, and resources you need to build your business.
You're either on plan, off plan, or you don't even have a plan. If you have been in practice for any significant amount of time and you are not investing heavily in your practice, I wouldn't be surprised if you're experiencing a plateau in your business right now. If you’re not learning better ways to build your practice then you are just doing the same thing over and over again. How is that going to solve your problem and take your practice to the next level? It isn’t!
2. Get the right employees — implement a NO mediocre employee tolerance policy.
With so many people unemployed today, you can find top talent. There is no reason for you to accept a mediocre performance. Remember, you get what you deserve. If you hire mediocre employees or keep mediocre employees, then you deserve the mediocre or sub-par results you get along with the gray hair for dealing with these people. It doesn’t take much effort to hire the right staff. In fact, I have a hiring system that allows you to hire new staff with less than 60 minutes of your time.
3. Get a NO excuse mindset.
If you want to shorten the lifespan of your plateau then you need to stop being your own worst competitor. I mean that in the most caring, loving way. You make too many excuses for why you can’t get new patients. For example, you blame the recession. Yes, many businesses are failing. However, we've doubled our business in this economy. I have clients who've been practicing dentistry for 35 years who had their best year ever in 2009. A few of these top performers are in Michigan, one of the hardest hit states during the recession. If they can get new clients and double their practices, so can you.
But you have to adopt what I call the “two-economy system” mindset that accepts no excuses. I define the two-economy system as putting yourself in a bubble where the economy is good, and keeping everything out of the bubble that you can’t control. So unlike most dentists who let all of the negative energy ooze into their offices and their existences, I reject it like the plague.
I adopted the policy that you get what you deserve — there are no excuses. I haven't made an excuse in 20 years. If I get a bad result, I probably deserved the bad result. It's that simple. So I don't make excuses. I just say, "I got what I deserved," and I figure out why and how I’m going to fix it so I get a better result next time.
So if you can figure out what actions you can take to deserve more — bingo! You can get it. If you make excuses for your inability to generate new patients, like your town or the economy or whatever whiny excuse you might have made in the past, you literally cannot do anything. It immobilizes you.
Want to start growing your dental practice? Here are your next steps.
- Get the training you need. If you want, check out my products and services for those who want to grow their dental practices at http://www.SchedulingInstitute.com.
- Adopt a NO mediocrity tolerance policy.
- Don’t make excuses. When you complain, whine, and moan, you take all the power out of your dental practice and destroy the mindset of your staff.
Remember, it starts with you. Are you ready to grow your dental practice?
Jay Geier adds 10% to 50% more new patients to clients’ practices with little or no change to their dental marketing or advertising budget by simply leveraging their staff and getting them to focus on new patients as their No. 1 priority. To see how your staff stacks up against your competition and more than 10,000 practices worldwide when it comes to turning prospects into scheduled appointments, take Jay’s NEW FIVE-STAR CHALLENGE for free at http://www.FiveStarChallenge.com.