What exactly is success? It is a discussable question if we talk about personal matters, but its definition is relatively clear for business. A successful enterprise – is one that gradually (or rapidly) grows, scales, and increases its profitability, avoiding significant turbulence.
Dr. Tipton's formula of success contains four key skills you need to run a business:
The synergy of these components will help you provide stable growth for your clinic (if you use and develop them correctly).
These skills are just as crucial for clinicians who decide to build their careers as dental practitioners. In that case, you also need to communicate with clients properly, use marketing tools and methodologies to promote yourself as a specialist and apply your clinical knowledge to improve patients' health outcomes.
And finally, an understanding of business processes – is an advantage in any industry that can help you to rise as an employee or employer.
Clinical Skills
In this part, Dr. Tipton starts with the statement: "Knowledge is power," meaning that the more clinical-related information you receive, the more effective specialist you become. There are many sources from which you can obtain that knowledge:
- Clinical experience – the more you work, the more you understand the process details.
- Analyzing mistakes – any troubles at work should be precisely analyzed to find their causes.
- Reading features books and articles.
- Visit lectures, masterclasses, and trainings.
One of the most important things is a complete understanding of the basics, for instance – how exactly the masticatory system works. When you work with a patient, it is crucial to see the "whole picture," not just focus on teeth. You should consider the history of dental procedures and patients' complaints, and basic clinical/biological knowledge will help you put all these factors in a straight line.
Importance of Practice
However, knowledge itself can not cure people directly, so you require so-called hand-eye skills, meaning that you have to understand dental mechanical work in detail. It's crucial to know how to use different techniques like two-handed tooth preparation, speed-increasing handpieces, etc. In addition to your anatomical knowledge, these practical skills can guarantee the best health impact from your operations if you train them often enough.
Additionally, every time you have a patient, you should use a complex clinical approach, meaning that first of all, you have to assess all health situations in their mouth.
Let’s say you have a visitor who requires some restorative treatment (for instance - dental crowns), but you also detected (for instance) a tooth cavity or gum inflammation. Before conducting any restorative treatment, you first have to stabilize the patient treating the problem.
Business skills
The first important step in developing your business properly is to set the correct vision. This means you should see yourself as a businessperson who happens to be a dentist. Once you accept this, you'll be more likely to improve your business intuition.
Next, you have to define your mission – you and your employees must understand what they are working for and what a strategic goal is to do their work effectively. After you finish that, you have to choose particular goals – certain factors you want to reach in the future. So sit in a calm place with a piece of paper and a pen and ask yourself:
- What will my business be like in the next ten years? Once you know what you want, you can start to plan how to get it.
- What should I do in the next 5 years to reach my 10-year goal? To plan your progress correctly, you need to develop rational and realistic steps.
Split this period into smaller parts – three, two, one year – and then you can develop a sustainable plan that can help you reach your strategic achievement. Sharing this plan with your employees is crucial because once your colleagues understand why they should complete their tasks, their work becomes more meaningful.
Team and Scaling
And finally, you need a precise business plan – how your company will grow, which specialists you need, and which role you have in your team. It's important to name your colleagues on the work according to their activity type in the company: Marketing Director, Sales Director, Financial Director, etc. You need to find different people for different roles and not mix their competencies and responsibilities.
Once your business grows, it can run its own teams of managers, sellers, accountants, etc. It’s important to note that your business needs a gradual scaling that will fit your current requirements. There is no need to provide extra staff if you have no tasks for them – your team should have a job to do to be managed properly.
Importance of the analytics
When every specialist knows what they should do, you can reach the next point – KPIs – key performance indicators. All businesses need data to monitor their performance yearly, monthly, and daily to evaluate the effectiveness of the current strategy.
For instance, you must regularly connect with your accountant to receive all money-related indicators, allowing you to define sustainable price policies. If you decide to raise your prices or implement new services, you should assess all possible risks and benefits to estimate the impact of your plan. That clever approach will help you avoid the sudden collapse of your business due to implementing bad-working decisions.
Work priorities
Dr. Tipton referred to Michael Gerber – a famous business writer – quote, "Work on your business, not in it." That means that once you run your own clinic/company, you should not spend all your time working here as a usual clinician/worker – you should develop a marketing strategy and possible ways of promoting your facility.
Let's say that you successfully raised your prices in the clinic, so now you have only four working days instead of five as a dentist. DO NOT spend this time to relax. If you want to succeed, use this opportunity to gain new knowledge through lectures, webinars, or books, visit dental events, meet with industry representatives there, etc. Simply put – invest your free time in things that can potentially impact your business. Once your clinic grows, you can spend more days on specific business development tasks – use this time wisely, and it will benefit your facility.
Communication
At the beginning of this part, Dr. Tipton refers to a famous American communication expert, Tony Robbins. According to him, communication highly depends on physiology. For instance, according to Neuro-Linguistic Programming – a discipline that studies how people recognize each other's physiological signals – when you ask your patient to sit on the dental chair, it is very important to place the patient above your height when you sit. This position helps patients understand that they are "in charge" and control the situation, helping them feel safe.
Also, it's essential to communicate with your patient about the dental problem, how you will fix it, and which sophisticated tools you have. However, you must ensure that the patient understands what you say – use simple words, avoid scientific terminology, and try not to overload the patient with new information.
Marketing
Dr. Tipton was laconic in this part and referred us to Jay Abrahams's quote: "Build your business on multiple triers." That means that you should market your clinic/company on different platforms. Some social media may collapse, and some may be banned, so you should diversify your audience via different marketing channels.
