Gems Publishing - May 2019

Gems Publishing - May 2019

Self-Assessment Quiz Nos. 11–20

By Dr. Tom “The Gems Guy” Orent

12. MARKETING CALENDAR RE: 6–8 NEWPATIENT STRATEGIES SIMULTANEOUSLY AND CONSISTENTLY DEPLOYED THROUGHOUT THE YEAR Everyone wants (and needs) more new patients. The truly successful practices create a SYSTEM TO ENSURE continuous, robust new patient flow. You need a step-by- step system for adding and testing already known-to-be-effective marketing (see “A” below) and a TOOL with which to consistently plan and deploy your marketing (see “B” below). Ask your Personal Gems Concierge and/or Coach for help on either or both. Would you like to ADD a BARE MINIMUM of $100,000 in the next 12 months through EXTRA New Patient Flow? If your answer is “yes,” reading the “9 Keys” Team Training Toolkit and deploying what you learn in that program could easily be your ticket to far exceeding that $100,000 increase in revenue this year.

This is Part III: the conclusion of the 20 commonalities of the most successful practices. If you have not yet taken the first half of the quiz, go back to the April 2019 issue of New Frontiers for Dental Practice Success and begin with the first 10 secrets to massive success in dental practice. In this month’s article, we’ll cover numbers 11–20. Reminder … write down which ones you already do and which you don’t yet do. Put today’s date on the quiz. Make a note in your calendar to revisit this quiz at least once per quarter year. Even if it takes you two or three years to get 100 percent on this quiz, that’s fine. As you work toward achieving 100 percent on this self-assessment, your practice and income will thrive as a result! Send an email to [email protected] and let me know how you scored on this quiz, both now and in the future. Elizabeth and I are here to help you achieve your dreams in practice and create wealth for you and your family. Taking effective action on the 20 “Gems” we’ve covered in this three-part series will go a long way toward helping you live the life you’ve been dreaming of. 11. LONG-TERM INTERNAL FINANCINGOF THE UNFINANCEABLE (IF GR< 1.2:1) The “Gurus” always tell us “never be your patients’ bank.” Well, it’s some of the worst advice you’ve ever received. Is there risk involved in long-term (8–12-plus months) internal financing for some of your patients’ care? Of course. Can you mitigate the risk and make much more money by offering long-term internal financing for some of those patients who can’t otherwise get financing (turned down by third-party outside financing)? Yep! Between my two practices, we performed in excess of $400,000 worth of care each and every year as a result of this Gem. Your Gems Ratio must be less than 1.2:1 before you consider deploying this Gem. Gems Ratio = True Accounts Receivable / Average Monthly Collection (minus refunds). Deploy this single Gem effectively and you’ll add a minimum of $100,000 per year to your practice starting today … year in and year out from now until you retire!

A. Site Map Advanced Marketing Braintrust 034 9 KEYS TO RAPIDLY AND CONSISTENTLY INCREASING NEW PATIENT FLOW

B. Site Map GoldMine UnderGround Team Training Toolkit 030 16 SECRETS TO CONSISTENTLY EFFECTIVE HIGHLY PROFITABLE MARKETING

13. NEWPATIENT REFERRAL SYSTEM—THE PROSPECTIVE NEW PATIENT GIFT BAG Likely the least expensive and barely tapped source of your best new patients is through existing patient referrals. How do I know you are barely tapping the huge potential of referrals in your practice? Simple. Do the math. Let’s say you have 1,800 active patients in your practice (active is defined as having had at least one visit in the last 18 months) and you’re getting 30 new patients per month. If 15 of those new patients "Taking effective action on the 20 'Gems' we’ve covered in this three-part series will go a long way toward helping you live the life you’ve been dreaming of."

Site Map GoldMine UnderGround Team Training Toolkit 015 HUGE PROFITS - FINANCING THE UNFINANCEABLE

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come from the web, your sign, and any/all other ad or marketing sources, then that leaves 15 each month who’ve been referred.

great teammembers maximize their own success and, as a result, the success of your practice. You may have the very best people on your team, yet if you don’t LEAD them, if you don’t SHARE YOUR VISION, lay out the plan … and if you don’t HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE … you will all fall short. When you went to Dental School (and even most management courses in subsequent years), they skipped the part about leadership. The good news is that you have, at your fingertips, a very short, easy to digest, and easy to implement crash course on leadership. 16. HIRING AT LEAST ONE SPECIALIST This is the second fastest, and by far the easiest and lowest risk, way to VAULT REVENUE by multiple six figures (the fastest way is via mergers and practice acquisitions, but that’s far more complicated). The ONLY reason not to hire specialists to work within your practice would be that you are currently producing and collecting at least $3,000,000 in a single location, doing so with multiple GPs, and referring out little or no specialty care. If you’re not in that category, then hiring one or more “Hired Gun” specialists could rapidly and dramatically increase your revenue. And it’s not just about the money. Working side by side with your specialists and consulting together in the same room at the same time with your patients helps to eliminate often difficult communications and improve the quality of your care. Furthermore, patients love staying in the office they know, love, and trust versus being “referred” out of the practice for a portion of their care. Chances are you are referring more than one or two patients per week to at least one of the above specialties. Almost every detail* of what you’ll need to know to find, negotiate with, and hire a specialist can be found at: Site Map GoldMine UnderGround Team Training Toolkit 014 ADD 50000.00 NET PROFIT WITHOUT LIFTING A FINGER - HOW TO FIND, HIRE AND NEGOTIATE WITH SPECIALISTS * There is one very cool new detail we’ve added since producing the video. After you’ve watched the video, schedule a call with your Coach to discuss including a “Reconciliation Reserve Account” in the negotiations and contract. 17. WHALYAS. Performing care today that was diagnosed today. Yep, I know, you’re already doing these. Well, unless you’ve watched the Team Training Toolkit on this one, I can just about guarantee you’re not coming anywhere near maximizing this patient-pleasing, revenue-boosting Gem! I coined the term “WHALYAS” after hearing my mother ask the plumber to stay and fix one more thing “WHALYA here …” That became, “Mrs. Jones, if you’d like, WHALYA here, we could take care of that filling today and save you the need to come back!” This is perhaps the easiest high-yielding Gem on the planet … even easier than Adult Fluoride verbal skills and it could potentially double the revenue. How much can you anticipate increasing revenue when WHALYAS are Site Map GoldMine UnderGround Team Training Toolkit 029 AN 18 STEP SYSTEM FOR DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE The Math for this One GemWill BLOW YOU AWAY: Specialty Number of Patients You Refer / Week Potential Annual Revenue Ortho 1.5 $500,000 Perio 1.5 $200,000 Endo 1.5 $100,000

15/1,800 = .008 = LESS THAN 1 PERCENT OF YOUR PATIENTS ARE REFERRING TO YOU EACH MONTH! Put another way, each month, 99 percent of your patients are not referring new patients to your practice! Could you improve that by 10 percent? Likely not going to happen. Could you tweak it by adding just 2 PERCENT more? Yep. 2 percent X 1,800 = 36 more new patients month in and month out. Heck, even if you only improved by 1.5 percent, that’s still an additional 27 new patients per month … X 12 months = 324 / year X $4,800 average lifetime value = $1.5 MILLION over the next six years (average stay of a new patient in a general practice). "LESS THAN 1 PERCENT OF YOUR PATIENTS ARE REFERRING TO YOU EACH MONTH!" I created a system for referrals that worked far better than most. Then I met Dr. Chris Phelps … Chris and I are both huge fans and lifetime students of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s principles of influence and persuasion. Chris created a referral system that was like mine … but on steroids! If you want an endless source of the best new patients, watch these two videos and deploy his system! 14. HIRE SLOWLY, FIRE QUICKLY My recommendation? Write those four little words in BIG BOLD LETTERS on a 3x5-inch index card and tape them above your computer monitor! I can’t tell you how many horror stories we’ve heard here on Planet Gems about Doctors waiting way too long to terminate a team member they know to be a problem employee. Of course, you must always consult your HR attorney prior to even reprimanding a team member, let alone speaking with them about probation or termination. That said, act quickly! One of my favorite Dan Kennedyisms is about how you know when it’s time to fire an employee. Dan once shared, “If I wake up more than two mornings in a row thinking about you and I’m not sleeping with you, it’s time for you to go!” In all seriousness, the most common reason we see practices underperforming is the Doctor's refusal to come to terms with the need to terminate team members who aren’t doing their jobs. I could share countless stories but, due to space, I’ll limit to just one. Recently, one of our Gems Family Members emailed me that following the (long overdue) termination of a business team member, the Doctor found envelopes strewn through a desk drawer containing just over $4,000 in patient checks never opened, and untold tens of thousands of dollars in insurance claims never billed or followed up. We tend to hire quickly to fill the opening, always hiring in “crisis mode.” Your highest possible success depends upon hiring far more slowly and firing quickly! A. Site Map Strategic Documents RETREAT PART III - HOW TO TRIPLE NEW PATIENT REFERRALS B. Site Map RETREAT PRESENTATIONS CIALDINIS PRINCIPLES IN YOUR PRACTICE - DR. CHRIS PHELPS

On page 4 in this issue, read, “No Longer Willing to Allow Anyone to Hold Him Back,” the article “From the Desk of the Senior Practice Analyst.”

15. HOLDING TEAMMEMBERS ACCOUNTABLE This goes hand in hand with No. 14 above, however, it speaks to the Doctor’s responsibility to help

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effectively deployed? The average one Doctor, one Hygienist practice could easily add six figures with WHALYAS.

month? If you see on average e.g. 30 new patients per month, there’s a good chance you are missing 60–90 who called but didn’t schedule.

Let’s say you added just one or two WHALYAS per day. 1.5 X four days = six additional services performed per week X 50 weeks = 300 EXTRA treatments. If you’re only doing small things (which isn’t always the case!) that’s, for example, $350 X 300 services = $100,000 per year! At the last Gems Family Retreat, I asked our members how much they had added per year in WHALYAS. Almost every Doc who’d deployed the strategy was performing at $100,000-plus … but the Gems Gold Star goes to Dr. Howie Matt who is performing in excess of $250,000 per year in WHALYAS … and Dr. Cindy Wolt (spurred on by Abbie!) who, with her associates, grinds out more than $500,000 of WHALYAS per year!

Of course, you’re not going to magically convert 90 percent of those into scheduled patients … but what if you could improve just by 10 percent?! Do so, and you’ll be adding an EXTRA 6–9 new patients every month … X 12 = 100 more patients per year! Phone training is not something to be done every year … to be effective and maximize conversion of prospect on the phone to new patient scheduled, training should be ongoing every month.

Site Map STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING BREAKTHROUGH THE GEMS PHONE ADVANTAGE

Start with the video. Then be sure to work through the 20-point scorecard. Finally, schedule a call with your Gems Coach to work with your entire team on these vital skills. Remember, anyone on the team could (and should) pick up the phone at any moment … and everyone on the team must be optimally trained to maximize conversion of prospect on phone to scheduled new patient! 20. HYGIENIST PRE-HEATS CASE ACCEPTANCE BEFORE DOC ENTERS THE ROOM. If you’ve been on Planet Gems for any length of time at all, then you’re likely already doing some of this. If you’ve only recently landed here, then chances are this concept may be “alien” to you! In Dental School, we were always taught that the “Doctor” is the only one who can/ should diagnose and treatment plan. In fact, every state in the Union has laws about this, don’t they? I’m not suggesting you break any laws (ever). However, it’s so important to your patients’ best possible health (and as a result, your revenue) that I filmed a video focusing on just this one concept (see below). "Where we struggle (understandably) is convincing patients of the need for care in the absence of symptoms." WHY is it so important? Simple human nature. 95 percent of the care we render as General Dentists is performed to correct problems in the absence of symptoms. No pain. No bleeding. Not fractured. After all, how tough is it to convince a patient whose front tooth is fractured in half and bleeding from the pulp that they should have a root canal and a crown? In that case, you’d more likely have a tougher time convincing them to leave and come back! They’re gonna camp out until you get them out of pain and place a temporary crown. Where we struggle (understandably) is convincing patients of the need for care in the absence of symptoms. Here’s a typical scenario … Mrs. Jones thinks her teeth are “just fine.” She says all she needs is a “check-up and a cleaning.” That’s because most dental problems don’t have symptoms until it’s nearly too late. She spends 50 minutes with Sheila, your Hygienist, who performs an excellent cleaning, but never mentions anything about problems with her teeth. You (the Doctor) walk in, take one look at the wide-open leaking margins on a quadrant of 30-year-old amalgams on the upper right and tell her she “needs” $4,000 worth of care. Given that Sheila never said anything about this, and compounded by the fact that you stand to gain financially from such care, Mrs. Jones response is, “Doc, are you going to buy a new Mercedes with my mouth?!”

Site Map GoldMine UnderGround Team Training Toolkit 057 $100,000.00 WHALYAS

18. CROSS-TRAINING Have you ever had a fully booked solid day during which one or more team members called out sick? Ever had a crazy day when one or more team members had a family emergency and had to leave early? How 'bout a day when your full team was there but you experienced more emergencies than you could comfortably handle? Oh yeah … how ‘bout when Nancy’s husband gets a totally unforeseen job transfer and gives two weeks’ notice!?

The ANSWER to reduce stress in all of the above situations (and more) is CROSS-TRAINING.

Prior to selling my two practices, we had 35 team members. 90 percent of them were cross-trained in at least two positions. Your two Dental Assistants are straight out helping you treat three patients. Your Hygienists are both busy with patients. An emergency patient walks in out of the blue. Saw your sign. Just broke a tooth and is in pain. How cool would it be if any (all!) of your business teammembers could at least seat the patient, put out a basic setup, and take a bitewing and a PA radiograph, as well as an intraoral photograph of the tooth?! Conversely, the front desk team is slammed. Two new patients just walked in simultaneously while all three phone lines are lit up … Wouldn’t it be nice if the Dental Assistants and Hygienists could figure out the copay, make financial arrangements, get the money, schedule the next appointments, and walk the patient right past the front desk to the door?! That’s exactly what we created in our practices and what you (if you’ve not done so already) should point toward as well. Of course, it will require that your business staff take your state’s (usually just two-day) radiography certification course, but it’s well worth the time and is a very small investment. Beyond that, most of what you’ll need to accomplish cross-training can be done in weekly team meetings, team training team. It doesn’t have to be accomplished all at once, but down the road, you will be so happy you got started today! Ask your Personal Gems Concierge to help direct you to the many resources available to assist you with cross-training your team (e.g. Financial Options, The Generic Estimator to Eliminate Pre-D’s and figure out copayments on the spot, etc.) 19. MONTHLY TRAININGON THE NEWPATIENT PHONE CALL You probably have a good handle on the average number of new patients you see every month. But do you have any idea how many potential new patients … folks who called to schedule but didn’t … you’re losing every

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excuses: because the team works so hard, the patients love Sally, Sue is always on time, Beth knows which tool to hand him even before he asks for it, and so on … but, unlike emotions, the numbers don’t lie. That said, despite his resistance to see how his underperformance could in any way be tied to his team, Bob was convinced there was a mountain of untapped potential in his practice and, to his credit, applied and was invited to join GG12. Over the next few years, Bob and I would occasionally run into each other during the semi-annual Gems Retreats, and although his practice was definitely improving, he felt like he was bumping up against a glass ceiling. After I reminded him his results were a direct result of his team, he would nod and then dismiss the insight. It was as if he had purchased a “first class” ticket but decided it would be better riding with the baggage. Until … I recently received a call from Bob. It was as though someone had flipped a light switch … He discovered, to his horror, that he was working for his team and not the other way around. He was tired of working so hard and taking home so little. He had finally “had it.” After a few questions, Bob mentioned he was done believing the excuses he had been telling himself about his team month after month. In fact, Bob reluctantly admitted over the last few years that he sat back as an average of $250,000 slipped through his fingers — EACH YEAR! That means he compromised on the level of care his patients received, he allowed his team to dictate the level of success he had, and he sacrificed his family’s peace and happiness. He has a new full-time Hygienist, who produces on average $1,800– $2,000 per day. His new Dental Assistant is light-years ahead of the one he replaced. The practice is on fire! All because he finally decided he was no longer willing to allow anyone to hold him back.

By Tom Rich, MBA, GG12 Senior Practice Analyst

If you’re like most Dentists, you’re probably living beneath your potential. There will come a day, and I sincerely hope it’s sooner rather than later, when you’re finally tired of getting less than you deserve. Several years ago, I spoke with a Dentist, Bob, who wanted to improve the results from his practice. After doing some digging into his practice’s numbers, we discovered the primary cause of his underperformance. It wasn’t marketing, location, patients, insurance, etc. After a lot of back and forth, it became obvious it was his team, but he was 100 percent to blame (because he allowed it to happen). During his RoadMap to Success (a critical step in the GG12 Dental Practice Transformation Program application process) we identified multiple >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12

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