Category: Management Advice

I had a really nice new family in my office on Friday. Their story was a common one. They started orthodontic therapy in Houston about 4 months ago, but the flood and a job relocation has caused them to move to Dallas.  Their 15 year old young son, a star football player, was in my chair with a full set of brackets and a desire for me to continue his care. They were a “yes, sir” and “yes, ma’am” family; Kind, sweet and very respectful. They weren’t looking for anything more than for me to continue care for their child and they didn’t have a negative thing to say about their previous Houston orthodontist, who was fine with the transfer.

So, why am I writing about this?

When I asked how they found us, she replied that we were he 6th office they called, but the first who would accept them. I asked her what that meant. She said that the first 5 offices either said that they “didn’t accept in-state transfers” or, without having seen her, they told her that they would “need to remove all of his braces to start”. This was all based on telephone conversations.  She was so incredibly thankful that we would even see her son for an exam, and this just seemed so wrong and unnecessary.

Before everyone throws the front desk “under the bus”, I have heard those exact two aforementioned statements from the mouths of my colleagues, so I know it happens a lot. I don’t understand it. Why would anyone summarily not “accept in state transfers”? I understand if a prospective patient has a story that includes an orthodontist from down the block, but why would you summarily not accept a transfer from 300 miles away without having examined them or hearing their story? Again, I know that everyone will say that they’ve never heard of such things before, but I’ll repeat that I’ve seen it. A lot.

Remember, her first statement was that they were coming from Houston because of the recent flood. I’d think that might help override some practice policies.

I have no problem meeting any patient. Yeah, my time is valuable, but even if they are in braces from the next town over, or just started, I’ll still see them. It doesn’t obligate me to do a thing, but there are always two sides to a story and a little investigation never hurt anyone. I’ve seen some awful people try to blame a colleague for issues that were clearly their making and I’ve seen cases where a friend orthodontist told me he’d be happy for me to take over the case.

I’ve seen braces placement that made me envious of the skill of the previous orthodontist and I’ve seen brackets placed in such a way that removal and replacement was the most expeditious way to finish. But, if placed properly, are we not able to finish a case with someone else’s brackets?

I rarely take off existing brackets if they look good and I always take new patients from anywhere, if (note the “if“) I get the current orthodontist’s blessing. So, why are scheduling coordinators telling patients that they need to take off all brackets and that they won’t accept in-state transfers? It’s coming from somebody in the office. If that’s not your policy, double check to see if your front desk is saying the wrong thing to prospective patients.

I see tons of posts on social media from orthodontists claiming that they take great care of their patients and others asking how to increase new patient flow. Well, here’s your chance. Policies of inclusion rather than exclusion and a willingness to observe, investigate and help others might just be the thing you’r looking for.

There are a lot of patients out there who are looking for orthodontists for a variety of reasons. I would NEVER recommend “poaching” a patient from another practice or interfering in a relationship in which we don’t belong. However, there are many offices (I know because I’m told by colleagues) that do not accept transfers from within their states, even considering the recent catastrophe in Houston. This leaves a lot of folks (like the ones I met on Friday) in a huge bind.

Most of us love our patients. But what about other office’s patients? That’s up to you.

Wishing you an amazing day,

Glenn

If you want to come to learn more about an amazing business meeting for orthodontists, simply visit OP2018.com . We’ve got a world-class lineup of speakers, amazing food and an ambiance that will make you want to come back year after year. You can always email me at Glenn@OrthopreneursRD.com or message me on Facebook. I’m here to help.

Both my dad and my grandfather were dentists, so I remember what dental practices were like 45 years ago. It was truly a different world. I remember my father telling me how one could actually be “in the black” (making a profit) in as little as a few months, and there was literally ZERO advertising (it was actually not allowed). In case you didn’t think you read that right, he spent no money whatsoever on advertising. In his words, and the words of many of his colleagues from that period, you could “throw a dart at a map”, get an interest free loan from an equipment company, set up shop where the dart landed and  make a living rather quickly.

Crazy, huh? Could you imagine zero advertising today? No Facebook ad, no school sponsorship, no mailers, no gift baskets and no patient reward system. Seriously, can you imagine that?!?! Nowadays, unless you have a very unusual practice, you do need to advertise in some way, even if it’s just subtle. But the real question is: “How much does one need to spend on a marketing budget?”

I have an oral surgeon friend who is extremely successful. He has a huge practice and sort of owns the area where he practices with nobody a close second to him. Every year he invests almost 9% of his gross income to marketing. The more he makes, the more he puts back. If he’s grossing $2million/year, it means that he’s reinvesting $180,000/year into just marketing his practice. One could say that he’s spending too much, but others would argue that’s what is helping keep his practice so successful.

Other specialists I know have chosen to spend a lot of money (up to 10%) in the early years to get name recognition and then have eased back when they’ve become more successful, kind of like an airplane reaching cruising altitude.

Yet other friends have taken the exact opposite approach, borne mostly out of fiscal responsibility. They spend very little early on (1-2%) allowing their practice to grow simply through word of mouth, then growing the percentage lightly every year until it hits a comfortable level and just leaving it there.

The point is that every successful orthodontist I know has a certain amount they spend on their marketing, but it’s done using a plan they’ve developed. They set aside a certain amount with the idea that they will use it in a specific way. Whether you’re a young startup with a tiny budget or an established practice with a marketing team, you need to be judicious in the way you spend every penny and it all starts with a plan.

Forbes magazine had a great article in May 2017 where they offered the following advice for businesses developing a marketing budget:

“Determine your business goals by asking yourself the following questions:

• What are your business objectives for the quarter?
• What are your business objectives for the year? How about three years out?
• How many of those contacts need to be delivered to your sales team, based on their close rates, to impact revenue enough to achieve those objectives?

It’s common for small businesses with revenues less than $5 million to allocate 7-8% of their revenues to marketing, splitting that between brand development costs such as websites, blogs, sales collateral, and promotion costs, as well as campaigns, advertising, and events. Never base your marketing budget simply on what’s left over after covering all other expenses.”

Did you read the last line of that quote? Unfortunately, that’s how many clinicians develop their marketing budget.

The end of the year is coming and it’s a great time to sit down and develop your marketing plan for the coming year. Whether you spend a lot or virtually nothing, it’s up to you, but have a plan, stick to it, then reevaluate it again next year.

Unlike my father and grandfather’s eras, advertising and marketing is simply a part of our lives and we need to embrace that. Nobody is saying that you need to spend $100,000/year to market your practice, but while making my budget I often remember the  advertisement the local movie theatre used to display to get people to buy advertising space there. It flashed across the screen before the feature presentation and read:

“A funny thing happens when you don’t advertise…

Nothing.”

So, go out there and do something.

Wishing you an amazing day,

Glenn

If you want to come to learn more about an amazing business meeting for orthodontists, simply visit OP2018.com . We’ve got a world-class lineup of speakers, amazing food and an ambiance that will make you want to come back year after year. 

As clinicians and business owners, we rely on our team members to serve specific needs for our practices and patients. After all, how can we perform our best orthodontics without someone to help us? We rely on our team members from the moment the phone is answered until the final recall visit.  But, do you view your team members as integral parts of your practice or as replaceable cogs in a wheel that will spin no matter who is there?

I remember hearing someone once say: “If my team member can’t show up for work on a regular basis, I have no use for them.”  I can understand the sentiment, but it has to be looked at from different angles.

On one hand, every member of our team needs time and energy invested into their training. We simply can’t hire someone (or shouldn’t) and tell them to go do the job. It takes time to hire and train the right person and if we view them as expendable, we’re in for a lot of work, while we constantly hire, train and fire workers. Sure, there are a lot of practices out there who view their team members as expendable parts of a bigger machine, but I’ve never looked at it that way.

I’ve always considered my employees to be much more than folks who just show up, work and get a paycheck. They’ve been invited to my family celebrations, they know my kids and wife and I care about them as people, first and foremost. And when the work relationship ends (usually because they’ve moved on to bigger and better things in their lives) we’ve stayed in touch. I invest in them well beyond their job responsibilities. Note the word “invest”. I’m not talking about parties and going drinking with them, but rather, spending the time and energy to help their lives outside of the walls of our practices.

YOU have to make the decision of how the employer/employee relationship will play out, but I couldn’t imagine working with my team and not helping them grow and become better in their daily life struggles because it makes ME a better person along the way.

It starts with finding the right employees and if you spend the time hiring people you know you can count on (more on the hiring process in another post) and let them know that you care about them beyond what they can do for your practice, you’ll create a culture where people feel taken care of. But, you need to “walk the walk”, which means that if you tell your team that you want them to feel like family, but fire someone the second they make a mistake, you’ll be seen as a charlatan and you’ll get back what you put in.

I recently visited the practice of Dr. Jim Stork in Iowa. It’s an example of a successful, fun and team-oriented practice. I watched his team work like a really well-oiled machine. It was evident that a lot of time had been put into training. During lunch I and had a chance to sit with his team and ask them about their jobs. Each and every one of them said that they loved the fact that Dr. Stork showed how much he cared about them and that they knew he wanted to see them succeed. It showed and they were successful because of it. They would do anything for him and his practice was successful because they would go that “extra mile” without being asked. Sure, he could have hired less capable and less positive people and treated them like employees, but he chose to treat them as a part of his family and their work ethic showed his investment in human capital.

Your attitude will show beyond those fun team building bowling nights or holiday parties. I’ve seen teams go through money management courses together and do book clubs as well as having speakers come in to help the team learn skills to help them succeed in life. I remember my dad paying to get a phone installed for an employee who didn’t have one, just because he knew how it would help her in her day to day life.

The less experienced and corporate bosses tend to talk about team members like they’re pawns on a chessboard with no lives outside the office, with no realization that those who have committed to us rely on our practices to pay their bills, take care of their kids and meet financial responsibilities. I’ve always felt a personal responsibility to my team members and while a mean or dishonest employee loses my emotional investment, I often realize that it was my missing something during the hiring process and it was generally my fault. So, I live and learn and keep taking care of those around me, not letting that previous failure ruin it for the rest of my team.

As Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines used to say: “Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.”

In this age of instant gratification, it’s important to remember that we’re put on this planet to make an impact and leave the world a better place than when we got here. If your goal is to take and take and take and not help those around you, I’m sure you can do that, but I couldn’t imagine living like that. For me, the value of my team members goes way beyond anything I’ll see on a P & L and making sure that those who care about me and my success get tenfold in return.

Wishing you an amazing day,

Glenn

If you’re not a member of our geographically exclusive OrthoPreneursRD Facebook page there are only two prerequisites: You’re an orthodontist (yes, you can be an associate) and you want to contribute to a group of like-minded peers who have come together to share our practice ideas and solve our common business, leadership and management issues. Email me at Glenn@OrthoPreneursRD.com or fill out the form below to learn more and to see if you’re region is available.

Contact me for anything you want to discuss related to your practice life

If you’ve ever seen the movie “A Christmas Story” you’ll remember that all the lead character “Ralphie” wants for Christmas is a Red Rider BB gun. He envisioned the fun he’d have with it, but all he heard from everyone (including Santa) is “you’ll shoot your eye out”. Was he overconfident? Were those around him just too worried? What does this have to do with our practices? It’s all about dreams and fear.

When I graduated, I was worried about every possible contingency that could occur in clinical practice. I guessed that everyone felt the same way.  I don’t care how cool you are, or how excited you are to finally be working, when you sit down in front of that first patient who needs your help, it’s got to be natural to be at least slightly nervous. Eventually, experience teaches you lots of lessons and you learn to trust your training, or you go out and get more education to increase your confidence. Some outgrow their fears and others cling to them, but if you’ve ever owned a practice, you understand how many decisions you need to make every single day and the role that fear can play.

When it comes to decision making, we’re all wired differently. Some are “emotional” leaders, while others are “technical”. Some leaders jump into decisions without thinking things through and other never “pull the trigger” because they’re too scared. But most interesting to me is the difference between leaders who see the glass as half full, versus those who see it as half empty.

You probably already know what I’m talking about. How often have you seen a post about an idea and the immediate response is how it can’t be done, or worse, all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it? Someone says they want multiple offices, the respondent says that it’s too much trouble running more than one. Someone asks about giving free retainers and the answers are all about how patients will try to take advantage of you. Mention providing free sports mouthguards for teams and many will talk about the liability you’ll incur or the cost of making them. Negativity seems to hover over the discussions and often squash the dreams of those asking for help. If you’re of a cheerful and optimistic mind, don’t let them get you down.

I was once fortunate enough to attend a remarkable lecture by Dennis Finch, one of the pilots of flight 232 which crashed into the cornfields of Sioux City, Iowa in 1989. It is an unbelievable story of heroism, problem solving and optimism. (The story can be found here.) While the flight did lose all navigation control, they were able to successfully find their way to an airport using thrusters alone, saving 185 of the 279 on board. It was a miracle of an outcome and Dennis Finch repeated, over and over again, that “attitude affected attitude”. Optimism helped land that plane.

Every day we’re faced with decisions about our practices and how we want to treat our teams, patients and communities. We can choose to face it with optimism and hope and make the decisions that we know will help our practices. Or, we can be pessimistic and look for all the ways that others can take advantage of us and never do the things we want. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but I suggest that when in doubt, let the voice of optimism take over.

You went into business because you had a vision of what you wanted for your life. You had dreams and goals and probably lots of debt. It’s scary. I get that. But, when the spark of entrepreneurship strikes and a new idea takes hold in your mind, think first of all of the possibilities and don’t let others talk you out of what you see as a potentially exciting idea or opportunity. While you should always do your due diligence and speak with your advisors for any legal issues, don’t let the naysayers drag you down. People will tell you why you can’t do something and like the overplayed song says: “Haters gonna hate.”

Sure, Ralphie almost shoots his eye out but the final scene is of him fast asleep with his trusty Red Rider gun by his side and a look of absolute peace and joy on his face. The reward is often worth the risk.

Sometimes you just gotta dream big and go for it!

All the best,

Glenn
If you’re not a member of our geographically exclusive OrthoPreneursRD Facebook page there are only two prerequisites: You’re an orthodontist (yes, you can be an associate) and you want to contribute to a group of like-minded peers who have come together to share our practice ideas and solve our common business, leadership and management issues. Email me at Glenn@OrthoPreneursRD.com or fill out the form below to learn more and to see if you’re region is available.

Contact me for anything you want to discuss related to your practice life

It’s hard to understand now, but people were calling Aaron Feuerstein crazy. They said he was nuts. What kind of CEO does the sorts of things he was doing? “That’s no way to run a business!” Of course, the haters were few and far between, but to many of us it was impossible to believe that anyone could hate this guy. What did he do?

It was 1995 and Feuerstein’s company, Malden Mills, was doing great. 1n 1979, they had invented a new lightweight replacement for wool referred to as “polar fleece” and their personal brand “Polartec” was selling very well. It’s important to note that instead of patenting the concept of polar fleece, Feuerstein decided to let it be produced cheaply and widely by many vendors. That’s the kind of guy Feuerstein was. People thought he was crazy, but he did was he felt was right. Then came the fire.

It ruined his production facility and there was nothing left.  He could have taken the check and moved his company to another city with better tax advantages or to another country altogether, which was something that many of his competitors were doing. But Feurstein realized that his company was a huge fixture in the small production town of Lawrence, Massachusetts and with no factory came no jobs. He cared about his employees and the town and couldn’t imagine taking the money and leaving.

What he did next is still being discussed in graduate business programs today.

Not only did Feuerstein announce that Malden Mills would be rebuilding in Lawrence, but moreover, he would personally make sure that every employee received their pay while the factory was being rebuilt. He had no production facility and no new sales of any kind, but he cared about his employees so much that he was willing to ensure their financial viability at a time when they didn’t know what the future held. THAT’S commitment to employees.

Or, you could look at the story of Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani’s amazingly philanthropic owner (whose story of success is so amazing that I will feature it in another post) who believed BEFORE building his billion dollar empire that “…for the sake of our communities and our people, we need to give companies the ability to create a better life for more people.”

So, let’s come back and focus on orthodontics. I know there are a million reasons why we could argue that we’re different, that our smaller practices can’t be compared to these large companies. How we have such tight margins that we can’t just give to our employees. That if someone doesn’t help us, well, we don’t need them around. But is that really a fair way to look at it?

I’m not saying that we need to keep incompetent or overpaid employees on our payrolls. But, how many times has an employee asked for a day off for personal reasons such as  closing on a house or to attend a child’s event and you’ve given them grief before begrudgingly letting them go (or not even letting them go altogether)? How many employees had to beg you for a raise or fight with you over amounts of money that wouldn’t impact you in any way? How many practices get rid of older, more experienced employees to get younger, cheaper labor at the advice of a consultant, throwing away years of honor,  loyalty and relationship with the former employee?

I remember a time, 30 years ago, when I saw my dad (a dentist) pay to have a home phone installed for an assistant because she couldn’t afford one. It was at that moment  that I realized how blessed we are to be in our profession and his example of philanthropy has remained with me ever since. We have the opportunity to help make better lives for those around us who may not have had the same financial, educational or familial opportunities that we did. To our employees, we may be the most successful people they have ever met and we need to help raise them up at every opportunity instead of ignoring or keeping them down so we can better afford them.

I’m not saying (or suggesting) that we be our employee’s best friends, but I am saying that if you treat your team like they were family and give them the respect, credit and yes, love, that they deserve, not only will your practice succeed and have a line of employees waiting to work for you, but you’ll go to bed at night knowing that you’re making an even bigger difference in this world. It’s not about having a drink with them or having a huge bonus system or a big holiday party, but rather them knowing that you care about them as people and that you’re willing to be there for them no matter what.

As my friend and iconic orthodontist, Dr. Anil Idiculla taught me, we can choose to be the socket or the plug. Are we going to be the one giving or the one draining power? Every day I try to create a positive vibe to help those around me and I come home with more energy than I left the house with that morning.

So, which are you: The socket or the plug?

All the best,

Glenn

If you’re not a member of our free Orthopreneurs Facebook page (with over 1600 members as of this penning), there are only two requirements: You’re an orthodontist and you want to join a group of like-minded peers who have come together to solve our common business problems. Click HERE to learn more.