Customer service and phone training because it builds your brand, separates you from the competition, and converts more phone calls into patients ready to accept treatment.

Building a great team that is continuously inspired to perform at its peak is the key to building a thriving practice.

Every dentist should know the numbers of the practice and the STORY the numbers tell.

Create a cycle of care so that the patients are coming back. If you do that, then they are going to refer friends and you really don’t need to do anything beyond that. So stick with the basics.

Treat the practice as a BUSINESS, not simply where they master clinical skills!

Invest in your team. Support team trainings, invite new ideas, listen to concerns and encourage creative solutions.

Leaders have to ensure they have the right people on the bus, and in the right seats…and make sure the wrong people get the chance to ride another bus – but just not your bus.

Build a network of INTERNAL (team) and EXTERNAL (financial, marketing, business, real estate, legal) experts to balance your own strengths and weaknesses. Surround yourself with smart, driven people and learn from them every day.

Doctors need to stop being in the dental business and get in patient business. Existing patient referrals are the key to practice growth without breaking the bank on external marketing. A dental teams primary function is to build an extraordinary report with patients.

Put systems in place that are proven and make sense.

Change your mindset from being reactive to proactive.

People with a reason to be in business that is much bigger than the business itself, tend to make all the money they need. Vision drives everything. What are you doing this for? How does dentistry fit into the bigger plan for your life? Use your practice to build your Ideal Lifestyle, in support of your Lifetime Goals. If you do that, you’ll be uniquely and intensely motivated to build a great practice.

Optimize your dental hygiene department.

Dentists need to develop CLARITY and prioritize their goals, getting rid of distractions to maximize PRODUCTIVITY and develop COURAGE to deal with with challenges and step up to their highest potential.

Thriving dental practices are built on proven systems and processes. When we empower our teams to create and improve these systems and processes the results are incredible.

Business does not have to be hard, but we make it harder on ourselves because we fail to implement reliable systems in our practices, and we don’t take the time to build a strong team and create our unique culture.

Your potential gap is always greater than your performance gap. You should also grow beyond these current performance goals. Reaching to build a bridge to your potential requires being open to how innovation can create breakthrough opportunities… what are we not doing, that could make a big difference? It’s in the implementation of this type of culture and action planning that you’ll truly thrive.

Hire a good coach. Teach the entire team how to “sell dentistry”.. If you can’t sell it you can’t produce it. Building relationships and effective communication.

Become an expert at Leadership. Know, practice and LIVE the Principles of Leadership. The rest will all fall into place. It can’t help but not.

Set a rate for your services that is both profitable and competitive. Understand profit margins, expenses, insurance costs, market value of your skills, economic climate and the value of your competition.

Dentists who understand the relationship between the TMJ, muscles, occlusion and airway will identify signs of occlusal instability and breathing disorders to treat the root cause, solving patient’s dental pain problems. Those practices grow organically through referrals. Effective patient communication skills are also essential to helping practices thrive.

Take good care of the people that work with you. Not only financially, but with emotional support, honest conversations, chances for development, and fostering a FUN working environment.

Developing your “empathy sonar.” Empathy isn’t something you have; it’s something you do to decipher how others are feeling. Developing your empathetic accuracy will help you to understand the psychodynamics operating in your workplace – if not, you will be burdened with blind spots of mammoth and financial proportions.

So many offices expect the team to just know what the doctor is thinking and know how to do things. Investing in the team includes communicating with them on a regular basis, training them well from the first day and continually doing things to show them you appreciate them. When you invest in your team, they are going to go the extra mile to help you grow your practice.

Every aspect of a practice needs some attention and maintenance to continue to thrive. A solid dental hygiene department that includes systems for the clinical and administrative teams to maintain retention of your dental clients.

Be Creative. Choose to be different. Different in the way you present yourself, market to your patients and treat your team!

Leadership & Communication: Through my 30 years I’ve found that finding the key individuals who can display these two most important qualities in a dental practice will lead them to long term SUCCESS.

Invest in your team! Make sure that from the front desk to the back office, your team is ALL in sync with your personal mission for your practice. EVERYTHING starts with the owner of the practice and trickles down from there…proper training is a MUST! Communicate often. Hire thoughtfully, and fire quickly if there is an issue with certain team member(s), keep your team educated, motivated, and tight!

They must embrace their statistics and learn to communicate effectively to their team and patients.

Learn how to create and build a team that shares the same mission and vision you have for your practice. You need to be the coach for your team and lead them on a daily basis.

Maximize efficiency in your office by managing the key performance indicators (KPIs) in your practice on a regular basis. Your KPI numbers indicate the financial health of your practice and help eliminate waste, optimize production, improve efficiency and drive higher profitability. By mastering the metrics that matter, you can give your practice a competitive edge.

Hire wisely; vet well, ask very specific questions during interviews, check references. Surround yourself with your ideal team and invest in their continuing education. Teams who attend continuing education events together have less turnover and higher productivity. They’re happier with their jobs and it reflects in their relationships. Get this right and you will grow five times faster than a practice with conflict and turnover.

Choose the right partner and put time and energy into a comprehensive partnership agreement. A bad partnership is one of the biggest risks a dentist can make in private practice. A good partnership can help reduce your work load, increase the total value of your practice, and help grow the practice and patient base.

Create your practice treatment plan just like you do for your patients.

Many consultants are accused of being numbers driven; however, I am numbers reflective, highlighting what is working and where more energy is required. Treating patients at a 5 Star level AND having SOPs in place, a practice will thrive. Leaders need to communicate their objectives and expectations clearly, provide training and inspiration, and you will have a thriving practice.

Create an environment of authenticity. Be right, less. Look for the good.

Provide your patients with a consistent BRAND EXPERIENCE each and every clinical visit.

Running an efficient business typically means paying attention to “small” details and staying connected to the numbers. Running a scalable business means doing both of those, but in an ever-increasing and effective manner.

Communication: Between the dentist and team members (staff), between the dentist’s office and the patients, and between the dentists and their advisors.

It’s to know the numbers. All of them. If you know the numbers, whether that be demographically, performance wise or practice monthly reporting, then you can make informed decisions. But if you don’t know your numbers, you are making assumptions about the practice and what it needs.

Have systems in place for everything that is done in the practice.

Invest in your staff! They are bridge between the patients and you. They can make you or break you.

Put the right team members in the right position within the organization and put systems in place that are congruent across the board so that everyone has clear directives, but also has room (autonomy) to think critically and make great decisions.

As the dentist, you are the “brand.” You are what patients are buying. Before you do anything else, build your brand: what do you believe, what are your clinical skills, patient service skills, appearance, and demeanor? That is the foundation of building a great practice. Start there!

Consistency. Find the things that are working and embellish them. Tear your systems apart. Create a strategy to make your systems even better.

Invest in professional training!

Don’t be afraid to compensate your employees properly, especially your front office team. You get what you pay for. Far too many practices set themselves back and lose thousands dollars simply because they didn’t hire team members with the proper skill set in an effort to keep staff overhead to a minimum.

Don’t have shiny object syndrome. Make sure the education you are investing in is what your team needs and that you are getting a 3x return on it. There is a disconnect between the P&L, Balance Sheet, and Bank Account – know where your money is going.

Have goals, review them every morning in morning huddle.

The key to building a thriving practice: Relationships. Show that you care! You build any business based on your trustworthiness. That comes from the care you show and not the transactions you engage in. Every person in the practice is responsible for engaging in a way that makes each patient feel honored and valued. Easy, right?