Issue 11 / April 2014
Lack of Growth
7connections .com
The X–Woman
Do It Good And Well
The Balancing Act
Lack Of Profitability
The Female Principal Part 2.
Excellence, passion & enthusiasm.
Get your balance right.
Get organised around money and profits.
Letter From The Editor direct marketing organisations are like marketing drug pushers, recognising the need and competition for their product and increasing the price all the time. So generally the customer with the deepest pockets and the toughest nerves will win, unless, of course, the addiction kills them because they overdose or gradually lose their business fitness. Not many dentists in that community in my experience.
The New Marketing Philosophy why everything we ever thought we knew about new patient generation is changing I’ve been enjoying an on-line marketing course these last few weeks, offered at a ridiculously low price by one of my professional heroes (and one of the leading global thought leaders on marketing), Seth Godin. In The Modern Marketing Workshop, presented by Skillshare, Seth begins by comparing the “old” method of marketing with the “new”. Old = spend huge sums of money on direct marketing. In the bad old days (think Mad Men) agencies convinced their clients to buy advertising space on billboards, in print media and on the airwaves, whether television or radio. In the bad new days, similar expenses accrue - but now with the addition of on-line direct marketing through Google AdWords, PPC, SEO, then on to Facebook and other social adverts. At its worst, Groupon, yell. com and other forms of virtual mud against the wall - on the basis that if you throw enough, some of it will stick.
The majority start at too low a level of investment (think £2,000 per month minimum) and give up long before they have created sufficient visibility, awareness, traction and momentum to get results. “We tried that for a while and it didn’t work.” Not good news for the drug pushers and leaving a bitter after-taste for the customer that’s you, the dentist. Listen, I work with clients who invest £5,000 £10,000 per month into direct marketing - and get results and a positive ROI - generally, there comes a time when they ask me how to wean themselves off the drug (or ask “is there a better way?”). Sadly, more often I meet the disgruntled owner who invested £500-£1000 per month and got nothing back and who is then convinced that “all marketeers are liars” as Godin would say. So, after all that complaining, what is the “new” way of marketing?
Given you their data (name/email address) in return for something of value (a free download or resource)
4.
Given you permission to alert them by email, ezine or push notification when you have something of interest to say
5.
Been motivated to share your existence with others
The “new” way of marketing is to build and nurture that permissionbase - and the beauty is that they don’t have to visit your premises to join - they can visit your web site, your social media channels, see you at a B2B or B2C event - even spot you via direct marketing (assuming that everything you do points to your web site).
I was working with a client recently who advised me that their existing practice database contained over 7,000 email addresses for active and former patients. That in itself is a record. I meet many practices who may have thousands of patients but they haven’t collected the email addresses, either because they don’t see the need or they don’t believe that their patients have such addresses (or will be reluctant to share them). Numbers in the low hundreds are common. A big mistake on all counts. Back to the client. I asked how many people visited their web site every month.
New = nurturing virtual relationships of trust.
Another record - over 12,000 individual visits, largely generated by a huge direct marketing spend.
Godin uses a word in his video lectures that I hadn’t heard before
Next question - how many of those 12,000 called for an appointment that same month?
Permissionbase
Around 100 - very good result.
Defined as a group of people who have:
Final question - how many of the 11,900 who visited the site and didn’t make the call, deposited their email address in return for a free download and gave permission to receive future alerts by email or ezine?
1.
Engaged with you at an emotional level - meeting you has made them feel better about their future
2.
Recognised that you do things differently - you have changed their perception of the product/service that your industry/ profession delivers
Hey - guess what? It works! The challenge is throwing enough mud - because that costs money - and virtual
3.
Answer - zero. So how do we encourage some of those 11,900 people to do just that? Well Starbucks, Costa and Prêt do it by
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offering me free wifi. Many visitors value that enough to give them their data and permission to alert them about curious coffee and free porridge.
Stories about special events you are organising.
Amazon have earned your trust - enough for them to recommend additional purchases to you every time you buy.
Stories about latest developments in the science and art of dentistry (but fact-lite and feature heavy).
You can’t offer free wifi and book recommends to dental web visitors, so what are you going to give them?
A personal story here from me.
Let’s imagine that you engaged with what’s known as “white paper marketing”. You offer a free PDF download of information that is going to be RELEVANT, TIMELY and COMPELLING. Examples could include: •
10 questions you must answer before you consider
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dental implants or
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aesthetic orthodontics or
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implant retained dentures or
•
any other product/service that is breaking news
Stories about special offers.
I was hired as a business coach by a new client last November. His opening remarks: “I first heard you speak on Paul Tipton’s restorative course in 1996 - and I’ve followed you ever since. I now need help with my business because I’m planning to sell in 5 years.” So that’s 17 years of nurturing - via newsletters, magazine articles, conference speeches, blogs and social media - before it was the right day for him to make contact. Would you be prepared to nurture a prospective patient for 17 years before a trigger event took place in their life and they came to you for the help they need?
delivered at virtually no cost - because you have maintained steady and respectful contact with them over a long timescale. Imagine also that the maintenance of that virtual relationship can be automated in content and timescale so that the nurturing takes place in the background - leaving you and your team to focus on your present-day business of clinical care and customer service. I’m only half-way through the Godin on-line course and it is already making me excited (emotion) about the different ways (change) I can help my clients. I’m on the course because I gave Godin permission years ago to alert me when he produced any new material. I’m sharing the experience with you now. “New” marketing isn’t just the preserve of coffee shops and computer manufacturers we can bring this to dentistry right now - and 7connections intend to be at the forefront of that evolution in the months ahead.
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a retirement
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a wedding anniversary
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an inheritance
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a marriage break-up
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a promotion
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the end of school fees
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part of a wider personal make-over
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a cruise
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negative feedback from a grandchild
05 - Don’t Be A Fool. Set Your Next 90 Day Goals Today Using...
•
a son or daughter’s wedding
06 - The Balancing Act
That’s stories - not facts and figures.
•
down-sizing a property to release equity
07 - Lack Of Profitability
Stories about your patients and how you have changed their lives.
Imagine that you are nurturing a permissionbase of 20,000 people who have visited your social sites over the last 10-20 years.
•
the real secrets you need to know about tooth whitening
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the nervous patients guide to painfree dentistry
And so on - there has to be a little bit of showbiz in your delivery here - not just dry dental stats but a story that I’m intrigued to find out more about. So, over time, you build your permissionbase beyond your existing patient database to encompass thousands of strangers, with whom you are now going to NURTURE a relationship, over time, by delivering stories.
Stories about your team and how working with you has self-actualised them. Stories about you - both personal and professional.
Contents 01 - The New Marketing Philosophy 03 - The X-Woman 04 - Do It Good And Well
09 - Lack Of Growth
If 0.5% of them a month have a trigger event (1 in 200) - that could be the 100 new patient enquiries that my earlier client wanted - but 02
The Female Principal Part 2
Written by Chris Barrow
The X-Woman I’ve come to the conclusion that you don’t do this because you are committed to owning a business – you do it because you are a mutant, whose X ability is ownership – and you cannot help yourself. You are required to have super-powers – to be indestructible. To be Titanium.
I’m reminded of my 2013 hero Walter White from Breaking Bad who, in the final episode (don’t panic – this isn’t a spoiler) says:
The challenges they all faced were simple: •
not enough time
“I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive”
•
not enough money
•
not enough delegation
•
a constant fear of public failure
•
lack of self-confidence
Let’s face it – no reasonable person would tolerate the shit that you have tolerated – for the money, for the prestige, for peer recognition, to perfect their clinical skills There has to be a deeper physiological reason for you doing this – and I think it’s because it makes you feel alive. So – my three Xmas X-Women sat me down and told me their individual stories, of stress and suffering in support of their quest. Not one of them was making a fantastic living – in fact 2 of the 3 weren’t making much at all. They each have beautifully presented practices (it’s a thing that X-Women do) and they know all there is to know about how to run a business.
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So I thought I would take the opportunity of setting out some thoughts that all existing and wannabe female principals might want to take on board for 2014 – bearing in mind my own trepidation as a man offering advice to a fearless and fearsome community of women (head on the block).
Do It Good And Well
written by Chris Barrow
Arriving
in Luxembourg on Saturday evening, I emerged from security to see a big smiling face and waving hand, both of which belonged to Aimen (pronounced eye-men), owner of the TADA Lux Taxi company and regular driver for celebrity chef Lea Linster and her guests. It wasn’t long before we were enjoying a deep conversation about his business (after all, he had been asked to pick Lea’s business coach up from the airport) and his aims for the future. Starting with one cab some years ago, he expanded to a team of drivers – and discovered that his passion for engaging with passengers had been replaced by the drudgery of managing his team. So he sacked all the drivers, trimmed the business back – and regained his passion, his happiness – and a successful “word of mouth” business that includes the Royal Family and key business and political leaders as clients. Hardly surprising as he is a quite charming man. On his dashboard I noticed the post-it you can see in the photograph. It sits there every day – as a reminder to Aimen that his brand standard is “excellence”. Perhaps not the best English (not bad for a Tunisian who has to speak French, German, English and Luxembourgish to connect with his audience) – but “do it good and well” might be a motto for us all. It begs a question – how do you know whether you are “doing it good and well”? May I suggest two measures? 1.
what people say about you and your team when you are not there
2.
the profitability of your business
So making people happy is about the behaviour of you and your team. Making a profit is about the performance of you and your team. Behaviour standards are mission critical. Profit is the oxygen of survival. I meet many excellent behaviourists who simply are not making the profits necessary to support their lifestyle and the requirements of business expansion. Almost always, lack of profit is not due to a leaky ship, bad financial management, poor pricing or a tired building. Almost always lack of profit is about not attracting new patients in sufficient numbers – running a maintenance book with an ageing patient population will have a business gradually spiral downwards.
I loved my time with Aimen, who spent 24 hours ferrying me to and from my hotel and the restaurant – he is a naturally passionate, enthusiastic person – who plugged me with questions every time I sat beside him – and asked me for referrals to good business books and courses. You just know he is going to make it – don’t you?
Excellence, passion, enthusiasm – they are all infectious. Get infected yourself and then spread the condition.
You need new people to treat. That is about marketing, marketing, marketing – and explains why our new MagicBox for Marketing is taking off quickly.
If people love your business but you don’t make any money – you still go bust.
To discover more about MagicBox CLICK HERE.
If you make a shed-load of money but people dislike your business – you will not last.
In the meantime – remember today to “do it good and well”, whatever you are doing.
04
Don’t Be A Fool, Set Your Next 90 Day Goals Today Using...
Written by Chris Barrow
...a unique dental business coaching tool that encourages accountability and results-focused productivity.
Like
all successful business owners and entrepreneurs, 7connections clients will be ready to set their next 90 day goals today. This helps them to align their activities with their desired outcomes and enjoy the satisfaction of achieving milestones that lead up to a major goal. To make this an easy task, we created a mobile app that features a 90-day goal tracker. This allows you to enter and review your goals on your mobile phone or other devices at your fingertips. Across the board, statistics are showing that we are becoming more mobile-oriented in our work and media consumption. In designing our new mobile application, we wanted to create something that would be useful for our clients and also those who may not yet have done business with us or any other coaching company. The result is a unique dental business coaching tool that encourages accountability and resultsfocused productivity. In a nutshell, you get to determine the ‘health’ status of your business, ask important questions, submit progress updates and track your goals using your smartphone.
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Here is an overview of the features: •
Weekly Connection – a weekly progress report (the chance to record your results including gross revenues, new enquiries, TCO assessments, new patient consultations and a summary of your top 5 biggest ‘wins’)
• Altimeter – a business health check (a self-assessment that measures how effective your business systems are) • Oracle – ask a question (your chance to quiz the 7connections team on-line about any topic) • Goals – a place to establish and record your personal and professional goals at the start of each quarter) Click here to download the app today at no cost to you
Pain Points In Dentistry – # 1 The Balancing Act
I never see my kids My partner is always complaining that I don’t spend enough time at home I take work home with me every weekend I never get to play golf/go to the gym/ride my bike any more I used to fit in 30″ waist trousers, now they are 34″ I dare not go on holiday for more than a few days
The language I have listened to for 21 years in dentistry and 43 years in work.
Michael Gerber covered the ground, so too Stephen Covey and a host of other bestselling speakers, writers and coaches. Yet the problem is still endemic. So here is my promise. If you hire a business or personal coach (any coach) and tell them that your “balance” is out…. THEY KNOW HOW TO HELP YOU! But that isn’t the problem. The real problem is discovering whether the pain of being out of balance is greater than the pain of doing something about it. Because I will guarantee that you cannot regain your balance without experiencing some pain, albeit short term. Getting your balance back is like quitting smoking or losing weight – it will hurt, either you or some people around you. Others will not like it – and will create obstacles to your progress and arguments as to why you shouldn’t bother.
Written by Chris Barrow
But I was and I am a regular vacationer — and plan to take more in future years. That’s the version of me that fits in the smaller sized pants, enjoys reading, loves to chat over good food and wine, adores a beach and a suntan. You CAN take more time off and you CAN have it all, personally and professionally – but you need a coach to guide you through the pain barrier first. I remain amazed at how often, when I meet a client on a Discovery Day (often for the first time), we spend time on this subject. All work and no play does make “Jack” a wdull dentist.
Get your balance right. Successful business will follow. IT IS NEVER THE OTHER WAY AROUND!
I was once asked “what was the best business decision you ever made?” My answer, then and now – “deciding in 1996 to take 12 weeks vacation every year.” I was and I am a road warrior – don’t expect me home for dinner.
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Pain Points In Dentistry – # 2 Lack Of Profitability
It’s
easy for the Passionate Principal to work hard when she is making lots of money. However, profit doesn’t just happen – it has to be teased out like the head of a tortoise, ready to pop back under cover at the merest hint of alarm. Working hard when you aren’t making enough money is possibly the hardest “ask” for a business owner. Have you ever arrived home, exhausted, after a day, a week or a month of full-on intensity, only to find that there are bills on the doormat that you don’t know how you are going to pay? Have you ever looked at the date in your diary and wondered how the hell you are going to pay everyone’s wages? Has a supplier ever put you “stop” until outstanding invoices are cleared? Perhaps most dangerous of all – have you ever sat in front of a patient, thinking how much you need him to say “yes” to the treatment proposed because you need the cash in the business? To the outsider or the employee/associate, it might seem like child’s play to reach profit. Surely all that we are talking about here is the very basics of mathematics – money in, money out and, as Mr Dickens famously wrote:
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“My other piece of advice, Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and, in short, you are for ever floored. As I am!” So how does a business owner get into a situation where their experience is “misery”?
have you ever sat in front of a patient, thinking how much you need him to say “yes” to the treatment proposed?
written by Chris Barrow
Here are my observations over the last 21 years: •
Inadequate monitoring
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running the business only by looking at the bank balance every day
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accepting the feedback from bookkeepers and accountants that monitoring can only take place quarterly or annually – rather than INSISTING on monthly
•
•
ignoring key performance indicators and industry benchmarks for lab costs, materials, implant components, staff wages and payments to travelling specialists No future cash flow forecasting and no monitoring of budget versus actual income and expenses on a month by month basis
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Failure to calculate operating costs per surgery per day
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Accepting existing associate % remuneration without calculating the individual profitability of fee-earners.
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Failure to business-manage associates, therapists and hygienists
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Failure to supervise treatment planning by associates – who often under-price, discount and deliver treatment free of charge (note a recent example where we re-costed an associate’s treatment plan from the £2,800 charged to the patient to £4,500 of treatment delivered – profit to my client – zero). Dare I add, failure to be confident with your own treatment planning and pricing!
•
•
Offering interest-free finance without calculating the cost to the business and taking appropriate action Special offers that haven’t been accurately thought through – a recent example was a practice offering short-term ortho at a deep discount PLUS interest-free finance PLUS free whitening – they sold £150,000 of gross treatment value in 3 months and narrowly escaped insolvency
whilst paying suppliers and collecting payments from patients •
Deep discount offers such as Groupon, just to get “punters in the door” who invariably are price-shoppers who flee the business soon after
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Failure to manage the appointment book carefully so that surgery down-time is minimised
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Working too many hours! Surprised? Remember The Pankey Institute “corridor of profitability” – 24-28 hours per week clinical
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Working 5 days a week clinically, instead of 4 days clinical and 1 day of business leadership
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Failure to save for tax
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Living above your means – keeping up with “The Jones’s” by continuing to finance a life-style that you cannot afford
Get organised around money and profits – and your confidence will soar, your sleep will be sounder and your business won’t just survive – it will thrive.
The list isn’t intended to be exhaustive but does represent the situations I most commonly discover when working with a new or existing client who complains of being “very busy but I don’t ever seem to have any money.” You need a business coach to hold you accountable, to insist that you collect, collate and analyse all the numbers every month, to encourage you to take action to bring the profits back on course, to assist you in making the tough decisions that are sometimes necessary. I don’t know about you but I love to work and play hard. Tough challenges are no problem – people like us welcome them. What I can never cope with is either: •
the uncertainty of not knowing my numbers or
•
the certainty of knowing that the numbers just don’t add up
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Pain Points In Dentistry – # 3 Lack Of Growth Aim high and the rewards can be phenomenal.
Does your business need to grow? I hear some feedback from Principals who tell me that “things are just fine the way they are”. So, if your business is performing well financially and the team/patients are happy, why rock the boat? Let’s first of all explore the fascinating “Rule of 72″; something I was taught back in my 1980′s financial services days. Take the number 72. Divide by an inflation or growth rate. The resulting answer is the number of years it takes to double the value of your money. So at a rate of 12% per annum a business, property or investment will double in size every 72/12 = 6 years. At 6% every 72/6 = 12 years. At 3% every 72/3 = 24 years. However, the rule of 72 applies in reverse as well. If your business stays the same size (profit) then the real value of your business will halve in the same timescale.
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Even at a 3% inflation rate, if you do the same thing for 24 years, your business will have half the value it has now. Not an attractive proposition as you perhaps approach the end of your clinical career. The bottom line here is that if you truly want your business to stand still, then it must grow annually at a rate at least equal to inflation. To grow in real terms, clearly you must outpace inflation. The pace historically may probably have been set by your operating and variable expenses….. Materials prices grow. Laboratory prices grow. Utility bills grow (boy – do they). The living costs of your team grow and they expect pay rises. Your own domestic expenses grow. So you may see yourself firmly wedged between a rock and hard place – patients who don’t want to pay more and everyone else, who want to charge you more. Zero growth is actually a shrinking strategy.
written by Chris Barrow
The real problem is the Principal who calls to say that the year end accounts are in and both turnover and profit are down. Calculate the percentage, add inflation, divide into 72 and think carefully about the consequences of inactivity. So what tactics are most effective in growing a business? Let me start by advising you to aim high. There is a psychology around this. If you announce to your team that the target is to grow the business by, say, 10% in the next year, the majority will assume you mean “work harder” and roll their eyeballs. They have heard it all before. They may well also ask “WIIFM?” (What’s in it for me?) and, at that level of growth, the answer will be “not much”. So more of the same is the likely outcome. If you announce a 50% growth target, there is only one solution and that is to do different things, with different people, in a radically different way. Imagine a 100% growth target. If you HAD to double your business next year, where would you start and what would you do? I strongly suggest you take the time to compose a serious answer to that question. It will most likely involve removing the things, situations and people that you are currently tolerating. It is only when you are in that “creative destruction” place that any real evolution takes place.
Aim high and the rewards can be phenomenal. Aim low and you run the risk of apathy. Ask a business coach to help you answer the 100% growth question. A good coach will know how to tease the answers out of you, based on their wider strategy knowledge of the marketplace and their understanding of you. My experience is that the 100% growth business plan can be formulated in a single day. Why not invest in that day for yourself? Growth is oxygen and it isn’t optional.
It is NOT impossible to create exponential growth in a business, provided you are prepared to break the rule book and start again, knowing what you know now.
It is NOT impossible to create exponential growth in a business, provided you are prepared to break the rule book and start again, knowing what you know now.
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With thanks to: Matt Cox - Graphic Design mattcoxmail@yahoo.co.uk Photography:
Make your business stand out from the crowd by becoming a Bridge2Aid Unity Partner. To date, Bridge2Aid has trained 260 East African Health Workers in emergency dental care, providing safe, sustainable access to oral pain relief to an incredible 2.6 million people. But there is still a long way to go, and we need your help to continue our work. Contact: Shaenna@bridge2aid.org to begin a discussion about how your practice can get involved.
www.bridge2aid.org @Bridge2aid
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