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1.
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Communication
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2.
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Marketing
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3.
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Operational Efficiency and Excellence
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4.
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Staff
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5.
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Measure
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6.
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Add Services
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7.
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Mountain Building
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8.
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Tighten Your Belt
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9.
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CE at home
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10.
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Mastermind
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11.
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Keep doing what has worked
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12.
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Feed Your Mind
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As it is, I can only do justice to a few of these each time, so here we go.
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Communication:
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Communicate more, not less in difficult times.
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Make your communication more personal, not less.
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The communication can be and should be around everything you provide.
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Write personal notes.
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Make personal phone calls to follow up.
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Organize your communication so it goes out broadly and systematically, whether by email or snail mail. FYI, snail mail is far, far more appreciated.
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A monthly newsletter mailed to your patients helps keep your hygiene busier.
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Marketing:
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Continue to market through these turbulent times. Most businesses cut marketing first; forfeiting the advantages they could have gained over their competition by continuing to get the word out.
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Synergize your marketing so each piece has multiple ways to answer. Your ad or promotion should drive to multiple places; website, 800# or direct to your office.
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Whenever possible, personalize the communication. Niche it down to the specific group you want to address. The more resonant your message for a specific who, the more that specific who will answer you. This applies to groups with similar characteristics and to individuals.
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Employ the new backyard fence - the Internet - to your advantage. Promote positive reviews and recommendations from existing patients to be put up on your web sites.
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Direct mail is gaining in power as there are 14% fewer pieces to compete with and other media channels are becoming further diffused and scattered.
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Create a marketing calendar, preferably with at least one outreach activity per day.
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Do not depend on just one media channel to bring you all the patients you need. The more diversified the channels, the more stable your marketing will become.
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Put someone in charge of your marketing execution besides you! I still recommend that you be in charge of marketing strategy and planning.
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Operational Effectiveness Excellence:
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Operations is the place where the vast majority of dental consultants and coaches camp. Most of their systems are about efficiency. Efficiency is good if you are efficiently doing the right things effectively.
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The missing components I have seen are three: a Speed of Service b. Quality of the Experience and c. Matching the Expectations created by public relations and marketing with operations. And I have NOT given any of these three topics a lot of emphasis in the past. If enough of you chirp up about it, we will.
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Know this: no matter how good your public relations and marketing are, if the implied experience, quality of care and speed do not match actuality, you could have a deluge of negativity rain down in torrents. This rips trust to shreds. And trust is one of your most valued of all practice assets. Trust is the currency of pleasant everyday practice. Where trust is missing, everything is harder. A principle for success: always be worthy of the trust.
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Make the time to evaluate operational effectiveness with these three patient centered facets in mind. This may not be easy. You may find results that you don't like. That is good news: better for you to find them than your patients! Plus you can't fix what you don't know about!
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The better trained your team in delivery of care, practice systems, solving patient problems and how to communicate, the easier operational effectiveness excellence goes. I have yet to see a practice consistently perform really well here for any extended period of time without these four in place. Moreover, these must be consistently worked on and improved. Your commitment to these Dr breathes life into the practice commitment to excellence.
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Just as you cannot expect anyone to say yes to your offerings if you have no one there to present to, nor can you expect those who do say yes, to remain a patients if operational effectiveness excellence is missing. If they do, most are in the market for a new Dr. (Retaining patients is much more than just operational excellence; it also includes communicating on a regular, consistent basis.)
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To bring light to this subject, just think of the last retail experience you had where operational effectiveness excellence was missing. Did you get what you wanted? Did the establishment fulfill its implied promise? How did you feel? What decisions did you make about that establishment? What have you said to friends and family about it? Have you written a scathing review online? Would you if you were given the opportunity? Sometimes we know what we should find by comparing it to what is missing!
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