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As a Practice Owner life is busy, especially those of you that are dentist-owners, you spend all day looking after patients and most your free time keeping on top of the business all the while trying to juggle a personal life. It's no surprise that many of us fail to remember or simply overlook the little things when it comes to our team.
It's these little things that can make all the difference when retaining your dream team. By remembering to recognise the small things your team will feel more valued and you will be fostering a culture of team work, commitment, loyalty and gratitude. Last week I celebrated a 25 year workiversary at one of my clients practices, it's a practice that I have been proud to be involved with for the past 9 years and I must say they have it sussed in terms of valuing their people! This is shown not only by the amazing family culture within the team but also by the practices ability to retain good people with the majority of the workforce having been a part of the team for 10 years or more! Celebrate birthdays, workiversaries, special occasions, life events, major milestones and anything else worth celebrating! It doesn't have to be elaborate, a card and a small gift are great (wine, chocolates, vouchers, flowers- just something simple), put on a celebratory lunch for the team (with cake of course). Get everyone involved, most people love a bit of party planning and it can be a great way to bring the team together on something other than work! You can also document these events and make them content for your social media! I can guarantee these posts will receive way more engagement than anything else you put on your feed!
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Creating an amazing team is about finding the right people. People who share your values and want to work with you to develop a practice culture that feeds into your vision.
So how do you find the right people? I'm going to be honest it is a real challenge, recruitment seems to be getting harder and harder within dentistry but I honestly believe that employers need to change the way that they view 'filling a job'. As a profession we are so focused on finding individuals with the right skills and experience and it is easy to overlook the personality, ethos and drive of potential recruits. Of course skills & experience are vitally important but with such a highly competitive job market you need to demonstrates what makes you different and give candidates something to really connect with. I believe that as a business owner you will find the right people once you get clear on your vision, your why and your values. This will give you clarity on the type of person that is going to align with you and your business and your search will suddenly become that much clearer. This clarity will help you speak to candidates, to convey your business values and may just attract a different type of candidate. Try crafting your job advert based around the ethos and values of your business, get across to candidates what they can expect from working at your practice. Of course pay & benefits are important but don't overlook the value of a positive team culture and the little things that make your practice special. Give it a try and see what happens!  We all want to take our practice to the next level but sometimes it can seem that we're stuck on a plateau and we just can't break through that ceiling.
Here are my top tips for upleveling your practice and breaking through that ceiling to achieve the practice of your dreams and live your very best life! 1. Believe in your dream In order to achieve the practice of your dreams you need to firstly have a dream and believe in it whole-heartedly! You need to be clear on what you want and be fully committed to getting it! Manifesting your dream is an excellent way to get everything you have ever wanted and if you really commit to it amazing things will happen! Check out one of my favourite books on the subject, The Secret by Ronda Byrne. Don't just build your vision, believe it and live it into existence! Inspire your team to do the same. 2. Recruit & Inspire an amazing team of people If there is one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty, it is that you categorically cannot do this alone. You need to have a team of people around you that can allow you to really focus on your piece of the puzzle whether that's treating patients, concentrating on marketing or finances or whatever else. Your team needs to believe and want your dream on a real level, they need to be passionate and engaged and they need to feel inspired and valued. 3. Communicate your vision and inspire a team culture that supports it An inspired and engaged team can only work towards your dream practice if they first understand their own personal vision and secondly understand your vision, your why and where they are going. Invest your time and efforts into developing a team culture that supports your vision, ensure that everyone is onboard, involved and feels valued. Set an example and treat your team well, a thank you goes a long way. 4. Develop systems that keep your practice running like clock work Systems........my favourite word :) A good system should be developed, documented and implemented to ensure that all the vital functions in your practice run like clock work even when a vital team member is on holiday or off sick. Your entire team should be familiar with key systems and so should you! Systems must be monitored and reviewed, tweak them as much as is needed to ensure the practice is running as productively as possible. 5. Monitor, track and adapt What is measured improves, this is a very accurate phrase. Decide what key metrics are important to your goals whether that be new patient numbers, a specific type of treatment,, treatment conversion, enquiry conversion, UDA's, turnover, profit.........the list is endless and you don't need to track absolutely everything but you should track what is important to you and what is likely to have the biggest impact on your goals. Tracking and monitoring metrics is important but what really matters is the subsequent action you take. If something isn't working, you aren't seeing the desired results, talk about this with your team and discover the root cause and adapt your systems, process or whatever else is needed to turn it around. 6. Keep learning Learning helps to keep your passion going strong, it also helps to keep your team vital and engaged. Never stop learning and developing, it can only serve to further your dream. If you'd like any help in upleveling your team and your practice get in touch to find out how I could help.  Attracting new patients to your practice is a hard slog. It takes a huge investment of time, energy and money. If you are investing any of these things into acquiring new patients you really need to look at the results you are seeing to make sure you are not throwing your time and money away.
Acquiring new patients is a process that needs to be followed through from start to finish. More often than not we focus our energy and money into driving visitors to our website or calling our practice but often we overlook the important part of actually converting the patient after they get in touch. What systems do you have in place to facilitate this conversion? Do you track enquiries and monitor conversion? Is your team trained to handle enquiries, overcome objections and build and nurture the patient relationship? What happens when the enquiry doesn't immediately convert, do you have a system in place to follow up and nurture the lead into conversion? Often I find that these systems are just not in place and I cannot tell you just how much potential business you are missing out on! To address these questions, over the years I have developed and perfected a robust, structured system that has been designed to track and manage the entire new patient process leading to maximum conversion and a phenomenal patient experience that will not only land you that new patient but will help build your practices reputation and attract even patients to your door. What we need to understand is that some people are just not ready to buy, for whatever reason they just don't have the desire to actually come in and speak to you (don't take it personally). How many times have you had a website enquiry come through (usually at some odd hour), someone telling you their story and asking you for a solution. You dutifully respond with a helpful reply and offer of a telephone conversation or even a free consult to gently find out more, days go by and you never hear from them again! I find this is particularly common with dental implant enquiries and I know just how frustrating this can be. It is my belief that these people are simply not ready to commit, they had a brave moment but this quickly passed and now they just want to continue their fact finding and are just not ready to do any more than shop around or information gather. You might assume they are just not interested, maybe they went elsewhere or they might just be complete time-wasters, you might be right but on the other hand maybe they are your dream patient and just need a bit of gentle encouragement? You need to have a system in place to follow up these enquiries and try to build and nurture the relationship with these potential patients. More often than not conversion is a process that happens over time, it's rarely instant and like anything worth having it takes time and effort. If you'd like help designing and implementing systems and training for handling & nurturing enquiries get in touch to find out how I could help you.  If there is one thing that is going to make or break your practice it is your team! In this blog post I will be sharing some of the common habits I see amongst awesome teams.
Habit # 1 Clarity of purpose & direction If you don't know where you are going how do you expect to get there? The same applies to your team. A vision & purpose developed in partnership with your team is an essential step to achieve this. As Simon Sinek says 'people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it'! Make sure your team understands and appreciates why you all do what you do and set a clear vision of what you are trying to achieve. Habit # 2 Clarity of Responsibility Does everyone in your team understand their job? They know what their key responsibilities are and they know when and how they are expected to deliver them? I'm not talking about having job descriptions, of course these are an important tool but don't assume because someone has a job description they understand their job. Once everyone understands the expectations of their own role they must also understand the role of their team mates. It's great to have reliable team members who are great at their job however a back up plan is a necessity. Habit # 3 Empowerment An empowered team is an essential element of a successful practice. Once your team understand their responsibilities and there are clear expectations for delivery of a role give them the trust and ownership to do a good job. Micro-management is a real problem in many practices and it stamps out empowerment resulting in teams reluctant to go that extra mile. Habit # 4 Seek first to understand then to be understood One of the 7 habits of highly effective people identified by Stephen Covey is hugely relevant in building an awesome team. If you are genuinely interested in your team members, you listen to their problems and triumphs and I mean sincerely listen, your team will appreciate you all the more for it. The real benefit is that by demonstrating understanding your team will mimic this behaviour and your team and patients will be feel better understood resulting in improved trust and relationships. Habit # 5 Synergy A team that truly understands their purpose and direction as well as each others responsibilities ultimately leads to better collaboration. A collaborative team works together in synergy, they feed off each other making decisions together. The benefit of a collaborative approach is a more efficient workflow and increased productivity. By working together to achieve a common goal and utilising everyone's skills to full effect your team will be truly awesome. Habit # 6 Prioritise An awesome team knows what is important. This comes from a clear understanding of purpose, direction & responsibilities. By knowing what is important your team will be able to prioritise workloads to achieve success. Habit # 7 System driven A practice runs on systems, good systems are the key to success. Systems should be clear and straightforward and regularly reviewed to make sure they are working. Systems should make life easier and help the business run smoothly. Each team member should be fully trained in all systems relevant to their role and should have a good understanding of all systems outside the scope of their role. Habit# 8 Proactive not reactive Have you ever come into work on a Monday morning and thought 'why are there so many gaps in my book this week'? The likelihood is that the thought will then disappear until you find yourself in that gap because you get 'busy' with the day. The problem with this is that the gap will not be filled. If your team are working proactively, looking ahead to identify gaps and collaborating to fill those gaps the problem is solved. Proactive teams identify problems before they become problems and use systems to beat the problems. If you would like help to build an awesome team feel free to get in touch. We've been quiet for such a long time now, you may be wondering where we have been. I'm pleased to tell you that the company is going from strength to strength and today is a very proud day!
WE ARE OFFICIALLY A COMPANY! Practice Perfection Services Ltd became a reality today when we officially became a registered company in England & Wales. Over the past few years we have been busy building exciting services to offer our growing client base. We are now actively engaged by a number of prestigious clients on an ongoing basis to provide virtual business support. This varies from book keeping to marketing and business development and with a growing team and set of expertise we are continually adding new services to make our clients lives easier and their practices more efficient & productive. Another exciting development is that from this week we will be committed to keeping this blog and our social media pages current and up-to-date so no more long spells of silence! We hope you enjoy our content and we look forward to hearing your welcome feedback! The number of patients on your database is a key bit of information and something that should be tightly monitored and managed.
Patient retention is one of the most difficult challenges facing general dental practices at this time and your success if going to greatly depend upon your ability to win your patients loyalty and keep them attending regularly. I have just completed an exercise involving a database of patients whereby 77% of patients had not attended for 18months or more! I should mention that this practice is doing well in terms of financial success, new patient numbers and profit growth so this figure was somewhat surprising to say the least but one not to be ignored! So we started a lengthy analysis of the patient database, looking at those patients who had failed to respond to recalls and had subsequently fallen through the gaps. Once we had identified those patients that we felt there was a possibility we could reactivate we considered ways in which we could attract them back. We did a trial of a half price exam offer, sent out to 150 of the 'inactive' patients and the result has been amazing. In just 3 weeks we have seen a 11% response and a resulting income of £500 plus an additional £2000 of planned work of which approximately 50% is already in the book! You could argue that offering a half price exam is loosing you money and in the short term you may be right although I would argue these appointments have taken slots of your appointment book that otherwise would have been left empty! You need to look at the bigger picture, you have earned additional income, you have achieved a great initial return on investment and you have generated additional income that you have yet to earn. The most important point to remember is you have reactivated dormant patients and you now have the opportunity to re-develop relationships and convert them into loyal, regular attending, friend and family referring customers! After an initial sceptical response to this initiative the practice involved is now amazed by the response and will certainly be taking the time and effort to extend the offer to the rest of their dormant patients. If you would like help planning and implementing initiatives such as this please get in touch on 07703627873 or email [email protected] Running a dental practice in today's economic climate requires a large degree of business focus.
Ask yourself these questions: 1. Do you know how much it costs to open your practice each and every day 2. Do you know how much you need to make each day to cover the fixed overheads, variable costs and pay yourself? 3. Do you know these numbers off the top of your head? If you answered no to any of these questions you should read on..... Knowing how much it costs to run your business is essential for success. Once you know how much you need to earn to cover all the costs you can plan more effectively and work out what you need to be earning on a daily or even hourly basis. Its also important to know what your 'costs' are made up of, if you don't know what you are spending your money on how can you make sure you are spending it in the right place? I recommend that practices do a full review of their costs every month to determine if essential savings could be made. By doing this it also focuses practices into becoming more aware of what they are spending and paying more attention to this ultimately results in less money being spent unnecessarily. If you'd like to find out how we can help you control the costs of running your business and you'd like to learn ways to effectively monitor these costs get in touch! Do you have satisfied customers?
Are you offering a level of service that your patients are happy with? Have you found out what your patients think of your service? Are you listening to what is not being said? Most practices will have ‘satisfied’ customers but ask yourself this....is satisfied good enough? Absolutely not! Satisfied means they expect nothing more, their standards are mediocre and no-one else is doing it any worse. Satisfied does not create loyal patients who are ambassadors of your practice, satisfied creates patients that are happy with the status-quo but who will jump ship when a better opportunity presents itself. Your patients are your customers and they are buying a SERVICE and to keep them coming back that service needs to be top notch, anything less and that loyal patient will eventually take their business elsewhere. If you are trying to improve your patient experience I would highly recommend a book called ‘Raving Fans’ by Ken Blanchard. We can help you transform your patient experience and give you not satisfied customers, but raving fans who will recommend you time and time again. Call us today on 07703627873 or email [email protected] Welcome to the fourth edition of the 'Practical Guide to Compliance' series. This series is intended to act as informal guidance to dental teams working toward CQC compliance. The contents of these articles are based on personal opinion and interpretation of the CQC framework and other relevant legislation. Whilst the author has full confidence in the suitability and appropriateness of the information contained within these articles, the information shall not be regarded as fact and those requiring definitive information should consult the relevant governing body.
Outcome 4 Care and welfare of people who use the service This outcome is centred around ensuring that you are delivering safe and appropriate care to your patients. What do the regulations say? "People should get safe and appropriate care that meets their needs and supports their rights". - CQC Essential Standards Compliance with this outcome will be achieved through having systems and procedures in place for managing patient care. You will need to demonstrate your process for assessing patients prior to treatment, this could be in the form of a written procedure for examinations/assessments, it should detail what the assessment entails, how you involve the patient in the process and how you identify and take into consideration their individual needs and choices. Every patient should be given a written care plan detailing their individual needs and choices, the detail included within this care plan will depend upon the complexity and nature of their treatment needs however it essential all patients are given a full details of all care and treatment options appropriate to them. The treatment planning process needs to take into consideration a patients indivdual needs and preferences and patient involvement here is key. A treatment planning policy will serve as a means for setting the required standard of treatment planning in your practice. There should be provision within your treatment planning processes for dealing with changes in treatment needs/wishes and how patients are involved in this process. The operation and monitoring of an effective treatment planning policy will not only serve as evidence of compliance to this CQC outcome but will also count towards compliance with the outcomes we have already covered in this series (1, 2 and 3). Educating your patients about their treatment needs is paramount you must make sure that you have made every effort to support their decisions regarding treatment, this could include discussions, providing further information and resources or even offering alternative option where appropriate. It is important that patients are made aware of the consequences of foregoing a particular treatment. All care provided should be done so in line with the appropriate clinical guidance for example demonstrating your compliance with NICE recall guidelines would be considered evidence of this. This can be done by having a Recall policy detailing the criteria for recall selection and subsequent recall interval audit to monitor the operation of this policy. All assessments and treatment planning processes should be operated in line with your practices equality and diversity policy to ensure people are protected from unlawful discrimination. Having the above processes in place will reduce the risk of patients receiving unsafe or inappropriate treatment. By carrying out a detailed assessment you will be obtaining all the relevant information to ensure your treatment recommendations are the most appropriate course of action to address the patients individual needs. This outcome also requires practices to plan for any foreseeable emergency situations. To do so you must be aware of what risks exist in your practice, this will be covered in much greater detail in Outcomes 8-10 but in brief you will need to: · Carry out risk assessments and reflect on the findings · Show evidence that you have learned from adverse events, incidents, errors and near misses · Evidence that you operate a being open policy with regards to patient care, if there an error, incident or adverse event has occurred in the course of patient care that has caused or may cause harm, you should offer a full explanation and the appropriate apology. · Take notice and actions in relation to relevant safety alerts When planning for foreseeable emergencies it is necessary to think about what could go wrong and how can we minimise the effects of such emergency. For example we all undertake annual medical emergency training (or at least I hope everyone does) and we put into practice what we learn. We keep the appropriate emergency drugs and equipment and know how to identify different conditions and how to provide immediate and potentially life saving treatment before medical help arrives, this is an example of planning for a foreseeable emergency. Other types of foreseeable emergencies might include fire or major equipment failure, things that may put your surgery/practice out of commission for some time. How do you ensure patients are provided with safe care and treatment and continuity of care during this time? A detailed business continuity plan will help you put plans in place for these situations as well as many others and it is a necessity to achieve full compliance. Once you have a plan it is essential everyone knows about it and what role they play. Of course the key to all of the above is implementation, team training, monitoring and review. Make sure your team understand all your policies and procedures and are knowledgeable about what their individual role in each process is. Set up systems for monitoring everything that you put in place for example a record keeping audit will help highlight the effectiveness of a treatment planning policy. It is important to review the effectiveness of your policies and procedures to make sure you are using the most up to date methods and guidance. You will now start to see that many of the CQC outcomes are inter-linked in many ways and evidence you have started collecting for earlier outcomes will also serve as evidence for this and others too. If you’d like to know more about how Practice Perfection can help you with CQC compliance please get in touch at [email protected] or call 07703627873 |
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