What are the most important things to have on your website?

This is an easy question for people familiar with web browsing habits. The most important things are the things you look for when searching for a restaurant, local store or gym.

Where are you located? Your potential patient wants to know if you are conveniently located. Put on your address! What shopping center or professional building? A MAP is perfect! What are located near (the mall, 24 Hour Fitness, super market, hospital). Write it out and show it - maps and pictures are great tools.

1                     What is your PHONE NUMBER?

2                     What are your office hours - highlight this if you are open weekends, early mornings or evening hours!

3                      Insurance is Welcomed!

These are the four most searched items when searching for a general dentist - where are you located, what is your phone number, what are your hours and will you take insurance!

All the rest is just extra stuff - remember they know what dentists do :)

Dr. Corey Gold

President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4.ce.com

Professional does not mean No Personality

I agree that all dental professionals should 'act professionally' but some dentists confuse that with acting in a sterile or cold manner. Our patients are more comfortable in our offices when we act like ourselves and show our personality.

This does not mean you run around acting like you would on a weekend away in Las Vegas but it means you should let your humor and caring nature come alive in your practice. You do not need to act cold and dead panned for your patients to take you seriously as a dental professional.

A survey of patients showed that one of the top reasons patients chose their dentist was their connection to them. They stated that they liked their dentist's personality and that of the staff. The survey also said that the lighter the mood of the office the less phobia patients experienced.

You and your patients will be happier when you relax, be yourself and let your personality come out in your practice.

Dr. Corey Gold

President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

The Reward is Doing Quality Work

I remember being a newly minted dentist and getting excited when my work looked great or a procedure worked out just as planned. I also got satisfaction out of overcoming a challenge in the work that I had not anticipated. Heck, in the early days, I got satisfaction out of sending a cosmetic case back to the lab because it was good but not great – I wanted it to be awesome. My patients thought I was too picky – and for me that was a huge compliment.

A lot of dentists lose their “new dentist smell” and the excitement of doing quality work becomes old news. We used to get satisfaction out of the regular, routine work and now it is just Groundhog’s Day. We become stale – the honeymoon is over – the thrill is gone.

The trick to having long-term happiness and satisfaction in your practice is to try to remember why your patients come to you – they come to you because they trust you to use good judgment and deliver quality care. If we are meeting and exceeding our patient’s expectations then we should take great pride in that.

I know a lot of dentist who go build incredible new offices when things get stale and then wind up feeling stale again a few months later. The new office was like a middle age man buying a convertible – we are looking to feel young again (and yes I have a shiny convertible – lol). At the end – the only thing that can make you feel excited again about your work is going back to the mental place you were when you were young in your practice – that is to love doing dentistry and enjoy doing quality work. The joy is in the work being good.

By the way – I am not saying not to build a new office – build your new office and enjoy it, just don’t expect it to make you happy if you weren’t before you built the new office. As for convertibles – I love them J

Dr. Corey Gold

President – advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Themed Offices – Yes or No?

You may be surprised but I am going to give a big thumbs UP to themed office – with the proviso that the theme you choose is something you are passionate about.

If you are a huge Dodger fan, or a golf nut, or a photography expert, or a lover of modern art – it is super to decorate your office around your passion. Your office should be an extension of you. It is fun to let your personality show through at your office.

A themed office opens the door for lots of questions and makes you feel at home in your daily environment. People will like the office as long as your theme is not wacky.

I do not advise creating a themed office around something you are not passionate about. I know a dentist who opened a deep sea fishing themed office and he doesn’t fish. When patients ask questions about fishing he looks bored. The theme does not work because it is not his passion.

I’m a tennis nut – I should have opened a tennis themed office – old rackets on the walls, pictures of past champions, put tennis nets across the walls. It would have been fun and when anyone asked me if I liked tennis – I would light up like a Christmas tree. I love talking tennis. It would have been an authentic theme and would have worked.

Themed offices only work when the theme fits you.

 

Dr. Corey Gold
President – advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Quit Doing Procedures You Hate

I know lots of dentist who don’t like doing endo or oral surgery but continue to do these procedures for decades. My advice to you, for your happiness and your patient’s quality of dentistry, is for you to STOP doing procedures you do not like to do.

If you dislike a procedure I doubt you are taking a lot of continuing education in that area of dentistry. I doubt you recommend that procedure as much as you should when doing treatment planning. In general we do not do our best work when we are not happy or we are resentful.

I know a dentist who still does endo and they openly tell me they are not good at it. As a patient, I would prefer that you send me to another dentist who is good at it – I deserve that referral.

My advice, you have two choices when it comes to dental procedures you do not like to do; (1) get lots of continuing education in that area and get super good at it (you tend to like what you are good at) or (2) refer all procedures you don’t like doing or feel you are not good at to a specialist.

At the end of the day you will be happier and less stressed when you refer out the procedures you truly don’t want to do.

Dr. Corey Gold

President – advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Staff Taking Advantage of Your Friendship

Being a dentist can be tough when it comes to staff relationships and I will admit that I have been exceptionally lucky over my career. On one hand you are the owner of the practice (or the boss) and on the other hand, you are a co-worker and an active part of the daily work flow.

Most dentist become very close friends with their staff. Luckily, most staff members treat the dentist as both a friend and still respect them as the boss at the same time. This fine line between the dentist being a friend and the boss can sometimes get strained.

The dentist is put into an awkward position of having to enforce his authority as the boss if the staff member tries to abuse the friendship relationship. I know a number of cases where experienced, long-term staff members have turned from respectful staff to taking advantage of their friendship with the dentist. The staff member starts to come in late, leaves early, takes longer breaks, doesn’t pull their fair share of the work load – in essence, the staff member starts leveraging their friendship with the dentist to take advantage of the long standing rules. The dentist typically responds by very low key requests for the staff member to go back to the correct behaviors. In some cases this is enough to redirect the pattern but in many cases it is not enough.

When friendly requests for the staff member to get back in line with their job requirements fail it is a tough moment in the friendship for the dentist and the staff. The dentist must now put on their ‘boss’ hat and have a serious talk with the offending staff member. This is a challenging conversation because the two have not needed this type of chat for a long time. The dentist must say how much he likes and values the staff member but that the individual must get back into the required office norms. You must say that this is a tough conversation for you to have but that you feel it is a talk that had to be had and that you expect a change in behavior.

Often this talk ends with an apology and a change in behavior – the staff member might even feel bad about taking advantage of the relationship once it has been pointed out. Other times the staff member is not at open to the coaching session and we learn during this conversation that the individual has many other issues they want to address with you and that these behaviors have been a sort of passive aggressive conduct. If the staff member’s complaints are legitimate – then it is an opportunity for you both to take corrective actions.

At the end of the day, you need to have your staff members follow the established rules of the office. In most cases the staff member will go back to their regular and positive working format. In the odd chance that the staff member continues to act against the rules of the practice it might be time for you to let that staff member go. Their acting up even after a conversation about the poor behavior might be their way of forcing your hand in ending the employment.

Sorry – no one ever said being the dentist / boss was going to be easy.

Dr. Corey Gold

President – advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Encouraging Referrals

Dental offices often spend tens of thousands of dollars a month in marketing efforts. While I am a big fan of external marketing for new patients, I am even a bigger fan of marketing for new patients INTERNALLY.

Nothing says more about the health of your practice than your office receiving patients from happy current patients!

Happy patients referring new patients should be the life blood of your business building efforts. I would spend lots of time and money in encouraging internal referrals and thanking patients who help build your dental business.

In my office we gave out Starbucks cards to our patients as a thank you for referring new patients. My patients loved them and my staff enjoyed sending them out. Very often my patients would bring me a coffee when they came for their visit and said they used the gift card we gave them.

Be creative. Find ways to thank your referring patients. Send thank you cards, gift cards, movie tickets, just do something!

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Retention is the key to long term success

Most dental offices are very aware of how many new patients they acquire each month BUT most dental offices do not know how many patients they LOSE each month. When doing consulting for many dental offices I often found that offices with good new patient acquisition numbers often had a NET NEGATIVE patient flow!

Can you imagine paying large number of dollars in marketing to acquire new patients only to be losing patient base size each month? It happens all the time and the offices are blissfully unaware basking in the high number of new patient data – not realizing that they are actually shrinking in size.

The least expensive patient to acquire is the ones you already have. Let me say that another way – the most important part of the growth plan for your practice must be to keep your current patient base satisfied and STAYING with you.

Keeping patients happy is inexpensive and the easiest to accomplish practice growth thing you can do for your office. I know offices that spend over $10,000 a month on new patient marketing and don’t spend $1 or one minute on maintaining their current patients – a bad strategy and bad math.

A focus on current customer satisfaction is the key and most important step in growing and maintaining your practice size. Read other articles on this and other websites about customer satisfaction ideas and start implementing right away.

Dr. Corey Gold
President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems

www.aces4ce.com

Would You Choose Your Office For Dental Treatment For Yourself?

One of the hardest and most revealing questions I often pose to owners of dental offices is, “would you choose your office for dental treatment” if you were just a regular person shopping for the best office in town? In other words, “are you the best office” in your area? If you can take the emotions out of the question, the answer to the question is quite revealing about what steps you need to take to improve your office.

When people are looking for a new dental office they want to choose the best possible office for their family’s needs. What constitutes ‘best’ is often subjective. We can look at the quality of the dental work, pricing, office facility, staff quality, friendliness of the office, ability to offer financing, location of the office, hours of operation, services offered…. the list of qualities to measure is quite extensive and subjective.

But ask yourself… how do you measure up to your competition in some of these metrics? Is my staff as welcoming as they could be? Are my hours of availability patient friendly? Does my office look clean, modern and what a patient would expect to see in a quality dental office? Does my staff make navigating insurance and financing easy? Are we offering the most up-to-date treatment care? Be honest in your evaluation!

A while back a friend of mine asked me to honestly evaluate his office. I came in as a pretend patient and went through a cleaning procedure. I took mental notes and wrote a ‘to do’ list for my friend afterwards. The list had a lot of action items… many of these items he agreed with and he fixed immediately. Other items he did not think needed adjustment and he made no changes. He said over the next six months he saw a 50% increase in new patient traffic without any additional marketing. The improvements that he made gave his current patients the confidence they needed to refer their friends to his office.

I suggest, at minimum, you take a personal survey of your practice from soup to nuts. Better yet, I suggest you have a dental friend make a list for you of areas they think you could improve. Then put your ego down, evaluate the suggestions, and make improvements to your office. The benefits will be staggering!

Dr. Corey Gold

President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems

www.aces4ce.com

Professional does not mean No Personality

I agree that all dental professionals should 'act professionally' but some dentists confuse that with acting in a sterile or cold manner. Our patients are more comfortable in our offices when we act like ourselves and show our personality.

This does not mean you run around acting like you would on a weekend away in Las Vegas but it means you should let your humor and caring nature come alive in your practice. You do not need to act cold and dead panned for your patients to take you seriously as a dental professional.

A survey of patients showed that one of the top reasons patients chose their dentist was their connection to them. They stated that they liked their dentist's personality and that of the staff. The survey also said that the lighter the mood of the office the less phobia patients experienced.

You and your patients will be more happy when you relax, be yourself and let your personality come out in your practice.

Dr. Corey Gold
President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

School Fairs and Local Events

I LOVE doing school fairs, city events and participating in all the local happenings in my community. We buy booths, hand out tooth brushes, healthy candy and all kinds of fun things that people actually like. We educate, we participate we are part of our community.

I know a lot of offices that don’t participate in these types of community events because they do not see a direct path to a revenue source. They do not see where the short term ROI on investment is going to come from.

Yes – events cost money. You spend to sponsor the booth, you hand out free items and you might even need to pay your staff for their participation. All this takes time, money and planning. If you are looking for a short term boost in revenue this would not be your promotional vehicle. These community participations are about LONG TERM office building. You are making an investment into the community and building your reputation as a member of the greater community.

My office was always known for doing all the elementary school hygiene instruction courses and giving out goodies – the local principles would know they could count on our office to be a willing participant. We could be counted to participate in every street fair, park event, local race, just about any event that had booths or needed volunteers. We were physically a present member of our community.

Over time, we became known as the ‘dental office’ of our community. People thought of US first because we were a friend to them over the years. So my advice, you can’t participate enough in your community events – do them all. They are fun and over time you will become the dentist of your community – that is amazing long-term ROI.

Dr. Corey Gold

President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems

www.aces4ce.com

Integrating New Staff Members Into Established Offices

One of the often overlooked elements of hiring new staff members is integrating them into the social aspects of the dental office. This issue is even more challenging in more established offices where many of the team members have been working together for years.

We are aware of the need to show the new staff member how the office operates and specifically how to successfully fulfil their new duties in the office. Emphasis is placed on the technical aspects of their job and we can quickly bring qualified staff members up to speed – so they can successfully work with patients and contribute to the office’s mission.

While we might think that once a new team member is trained and able to perform their assigned duties in the office well that our job is completed in the integration of the new team member – this would be not be true. We often forget that the dental office is also a cluster of people working in close quarters and that when staff members feel out of the social mix they often are unhappy in their work – and this will eventually show in their work.

It is important that we take active steps to integrate the new staff member in the social flow of the office. I suggest setting up lunches with the new staff member and the existing team members. Let the team get to know the new hire as a person. Also make sure that you speak to the entire team about the importance of making the new hire feel welcome.

While friendships and community usually develop organically between team members, it is important to be aware that this process is occurring as it should. In older offices where staff have been together for sometimes decades, new hires often find it difficult to break into the social flow. In cases of more established offices, go out of your way to make sure to go out of your way to encourage the staff to invite the new hires into their ‘club’.

For an office to truly be healthy, it takes a cohesive and respectful community of professionals working together. Part of this community is that each member feels fully included.

Dr. Corey Gold

President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems

www.aces4ce.com

Paid Search for Your Dental Office

Have you ever wondered why there are specific websites recommended on the top and side of the Google and Bing searches?

The answer is that those businesses pay to be shown when you make a specific search. Every time a person clicks on one of these recommended links, the advertiser pays a fee for that traffic.

Dental offices can use Google (AdWords) and Bing paid search to make sure that their office websites are being seen whenever someone types in a specific set of search terms. You can pay for very specific searches. For example if your office was in the city of Anaheim, California the you could pay for the specific search terms such as: Anaheim Dentist, Dentist Anaheim, dental office Anaheim, etc… Your website would only be recommended when those specific terms were entered into the Google search box and you only pay when someone clicks on your specific ad – this is highly target advertising – you are only getting viewers for people looking for your office.

You want your search terms to be very specific. If you were just to ask Google to send you traffic for the search term Dentist then you might get 100,000 viewers to your website but 99.9% would be from over 100 miles away from your office and not legitimate potential customers. You would also have to pay for 100,000 clicks on your ad to Google which would be a ton of money. You must be specific – you want to pay for targeted viewers.

Setting up your Google and Bing advertising is very simple but learning how to use the marketing features takes some time. You shouldn’t just set your marketing up once and never return. You should go back on a very regular basis and adjust your bids and make other adjustments to your online paid marketing campaigns.

You might be best off to pay your website designer to help you set up your marketing if they also offer that service. It will cut down on your learning curve.

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Look for New Patients - Door to Door

When I first started my own private practice, I was short on two important things: cash & patients. I knew I had to do networking to help develop relationships in the community but that was going to be a long-term project. In the short-term I needed to do some form of advertising to get patients in the door.

Short on money, I used the one resource I had plenty of – time. I decided to print a free check-up and X-ray coupon and walk door to door in the area near my office. My marketing plan was not to just leave the flyer on the door but rather to knock on the door and personally deliver each flyer to the occupant.

Every day after work I would walk for about an hour and knock on doors. I would tell the people that I was a new dentist in the community and if they did not currently have a dentist that I would be happy to give them a free exam and X-rays for their entire family.

I figured I could knock on lots of doors each day but I found that I wound up talking to a lot of the people and only got a couple of dozen out each day. I had moms & dads ask me all kinds of questions and about dentistry for their kids. I had seniors ask about dentures and implants. I got all kind of questions. I started to hand out tooth brushes (with my name and office number on them) at the houses I visited.

The door-to-door marketing was working great and I was getting a lot of new patients. I even had a few dentists call me and ask me to stop soliciting their patients. I politely told them what I was saying as I went to each door and that I was truly not trying to take patients away from other dentists rather reach the 50% of people who did not have dentists. I also pointed out that other dentist flyers and other advertising went to my patient’s homes and that they did not seem to be bothered by that. I was marketing my practice – they were free to walk the streets too.

Although no other marketing project ever brought me more solid, long-standing patients than my walking campaign, I only did it that one year. Although many years have passed since my street-walking marketing campaign – the marketing would still work today. People WANT TO KNOW their dentist and people love to ask questions. If you are short on patients you might want to consider going door-to-door looking for them.

Dr. Corey Gold

President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Praise Staff Publically

If you want to develop a loyal, respectful  and competent staff, make sure that you take time to praise their accomplishments publically. Just as important, make sure that when you need to speak to a staff member about correcting behaviors or mistakes – that you do this discretely and privately.

As dentists and CEOs of our businesses, we are all very busy. We often just expect our staff to do things right. We don’t stop to think about praising them for correctly “doing their job”. We only notice our staffs when they make mistakes or act out of step with our practice philosophy.

Try to catch your staff doing things right and publicly praising them for doing their job as you expect. Your staff will feel very positive about being praised in front of patients and other staff members. It might feel foreign to praise people for simply doing things as expected but it will start to feel good to do. Your staff will love you for noticing them and for telling others that they are good at what they do.

On the other hand, try with all your might not to criticize your staff in front of patients and other staff members. Keep your cool when things go wrong and make note to talk to the staff member privately later about the mistake or issue that needs to be corrected. Never talk down to your staff, never make your staff feel incompetent – rather reinforce that you like them as a person and just want to work on one area of their performance to help bring it up to the expected level.

After advising a staff member on how to correct an area of problem, look for reason to praise them in their performance in the next few days. Especially look to see if they are working to improve the area you spoke to them about. Make sure you mention you notice the improvement and appreciate the effort.

Staff members are people with feelings. We all want to feel we are doing a good job and appreciated. We all want to avoid being publically embarrassed. As dentist/CEO it is up to you to set the tone for your practice. Look for things your staff are doing right and let them know you notice and appreciate their competence and professionalism.

Dr. Corey Gold
President  - Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

ACT Like You

I know a lot of dentists who try to act like dentists. What I mean by that is that they believe that they need to modify their personality in the office to be more ‘doctor’ like. Instead of being themselves, they try to act in a manner that they think that people expect a dentist to act like.

I advise you to act like yourself! If you have a big personality and enjoy sharing jokes – be yourself. If you are quite and enjoy listening to music while you work – listen to music and be yourself. Over time you will attract patients who like YOU how you are.

It is no fun to try to have a personality that is not really yours. Joy comes from doing a profession you love and being yourself each day.

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Don't Pre-Judge

The most important thing I learned was to not pre-judge patients and to present the very best care option to every patient. I know a lot of dental offices that pre-judge what they think a patient will be able to afford or desire and then present treatment options to fit that perception. I know that I would be angry if I had a bad knee and I went to an orthopedic surgeon and he pre-judged what treatment option I might pick and only presented that option. I would want to hear the option with the most opportunity to make me well.

I often say, “if you were my mother, this is what I would be doing” – and then I proceed to present the very best option to the patient (the one that I would do for my mom). It is okay for patients to ask about less costly or less invasive treatment options – I am happy to give my patients all their options. The most important thing is that they have been told by me what the best treatment option is and why it offers them the best long-term outcome.

I understand that dentistry can be expensive but that is no excuse for us not offering the very best treatment plan to each of our patients. Present the dental plan that you would want presented to you – then let our patients decide if they want to move forward with the ideal treatment plan or to ask for alternative plans. Don’t pre-judge your patients. Let them decide for themselves.

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Volunteering in the Local Schools

I am a huge believer in having all the members of the dental team volunteer to teach dental education at the local elementary schools and pre-schools. In my office we actively book times for myself or staff members to go to every local school and pre-school each year. We do not wait for a call from the school – rather we call the schools and set up the visits.

At the visits, we give away tooth brushes, tooth pastes, coloring books and a sheet for each child to bring home to their parents on hygiene basics for elementary school children. We also give them a one-page sheet to give to their parents on what to do in case of a dental emergency. This last piece has practical information for the parents as well as our office phone number – we tell the parents that they are free to call and ask questions to our office – even if they are patients at another office.

Over the years our office has done a lot of good work in educating the children in our community and we have also built a much bigger business. We are regularly getting new patients who say they learned about our practice from an education visit to the schools. Some parents say that they called us after having the emergency dental sheet on their refrigerator for years.

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Spark Plug Employees

Every once in a while I interview a person for a dental job and that person has a BIG personality. They are happy, smile, make jokes and generally are vibrating at a higher rate than the typical person. I almost always hire this kind of person on the spot.

I love to have employees that are simply fired up and give off positive energy – that smile and laugh and make the entire office more fun – more fun for the staff and more fun for the patients. I can teach an RDA to become better at some of the technical aspects of their job but rarely can I teach a highly skilled person to have a bigger personality.

I look back upon my many decade career and can point to the years where I had spark plug employees as some of the most fun and highly productive segments of my career. I know some offices that try to shy away from hiring employees with big personalities and tend to hire more vanilla/quite types. I say – GO BIG! Hire people that have personalities and like to chat with the patients. Yes – the person has to be mature and know the bounds of professional conversation – just set ground rules

I have been blessed with having a good number of spark plug employees over the years. I want to surround myself with employees that are fired up, alive and happy. I want that energy permeating my practice.

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Are You Negative?

I have been asked to observe many offices and make recommendations on ways that the office could be more productive and to increase the flow of new patients into the office. I would assume that the dentist inviting me into their practice would be on their best behavior when I was observing. Maybe they were?
What I have observed all too often are dentists who are very negative. They are unhappy and seem to be on edge. As the leader of the practice, the dentist sets the tone for the entire office, if the dentist is negative and down – the staff will follow. No one wants to go to a dental office that is down and no one wants to recommend that office as well.

Sometimes the number one recommendation I make for dentist in the coaching session is simply to smile, laugh and chat with people more. Just have a good time – enjoy the staff – enjoy the patients – enjoy the work! Be an attractive force within the office. Catch people doing things right and compliment people more. Compliment your staff in front of patients and compliment your patients as well.

I have seen dentist office increase sales by over 30% in a few months by doing nothing more than actively focusing on being happy, giving compliments and taking a sincere interest in their staff and patients. Sometimes we have just been doing dentistry for so long that we just forget to enjoy each day and the people we spend our day with. Just actively working on being a positive person and giving off happy energy will improve your practice.

You patients rarely know the quality of your work but they do know the experience of being in your practice. Patients will return to your office and refer you to others when they feel that they are in a positive office and the dentist takes an active interest in them as a person. Sometimes simply being nice pays off.

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Set Your Own Goals – Don’t Let Your Goals Set You

I get a lot of questions around New Years from doctors wanting to set goals for their offices. The first things I tell them is that they cannot set their goals for their offices in a vacuum – that their office is a part of their overall life. They can only set their office goals in conjunction with setting their personal goals (family/travel/community service/religious/physical/office/etc…).

If someone tells me that they want to spend more time at home with family, more time in the gym, more time taking vacations but they also want to double their office sales – they are probably setting off on an incompatible course of goals. You can’t simply double your time allocation everywhere – you have a finite amount of time. We can make improvements to your office with the time you have – but to double sales takes a major effort that includes more time

When planning your goals for your office – figure out what you want your life to look like for 2014. Do you have high school tennis matches you want to watch for your kids? Soccer? Orchestra? Mommy & me? What things are important to you that supersede your office goals? Is it eating dinner at home with your kids? Is it Thursday night date night? Is it Wednesday bible study? Is it one hour in the gym with a trainer? Block all these important times out of your schedule!

Now look at your calendar – that is the time you have to open your office and make the practice magic happen. You might find that your available calendar does not provide the best opportunities to produce the income you desire – simply not enough hours to work. When you find your work calendar and your ideal calendar don’t mesh – look hard at what you will be giving up to gain more dental office hours. Is it worth it to make more income but miss dinner with the kids? Is it worth it to miss your kids tennis matches at high school? Only you can decide the answer to those questions. The one this that I do know is that you can always make more money – but you can never make more time.

Be wise in choosing where to invest your time in 2104.

Dr. Corey Gold
President
www.aces4ce.com

Does My Office Need a Website?

Probably the most common question I get asked by dentist is “do I need a website for my dental practice”? In 2012, the answer is an emphatic “YES”!

Today, people go to the internet for almost everything. Whether we are surfing the net on our computer, iPad or phone – we are all internet crazy. If you are still paying for a Yellow Pages ad and you don’t have a practice website then you have it backwards. People look for a local dentist much more often online than in the local phone books.

In future posts I will discuss what features that you should have on your website and what features actually are liabilities for your website. For now, the important concept is that you must have a website.

Another quick tip – unless you are a legitimate website designer, DO NOT try to build your own practice website.  Nothing will send a prospective patient running to another dental office faster than a practice website that looks amateurish. The prospective patient will think if your website looks crummy then your technical skills might be as well. Your website does not need to look all tricked out it only has to look professional and clean.

In future posts, I will also discuss the benefits of hiring a local website designer to build your site versus hiring a company that specializes in creating dental office websites. Both options have advantages but I do prefer one option over the other. Your website does not need to be expensive to be effective for your practice.

There will be many dozens of future posts about how to make the internet your practice’s best friend. Don’t worry – you don’t need to be an internet wizard to make the web work for you.

Dr. Corey Gold
President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Is Your Office Google Friendly?

Where do you look for items you want to purchase or services you need? Well, the answer for most people is that they look on the internet!

We are an internet crazy, iPad loving nation and that trend will not be reversing.

Knowing the internet is the place you need to be seen, the question you need to ask is, “how easy is it for LOCAL area people to find me on the internet”?

When someone types ‘dental office my city name’ into their Google or Bing search engine – do you pop up near the top? Is your dental office on the first page for your city search? If not – YOU LOSE!

Although the internet is worldwide, you are really only working on marketing to the area local to your office. You need to focus your marketing of your website to target the people who are looking for your services.

It is NOT expensive to tune your website to draw viewers from local area, both in organic (free) traffic and in paid traffic (Google AdWords & Bing/Microsoft Search). Paid traffic is very inexpensive because you will be targeting a very small demographic area.

In future posts – we will talk about how to accomplish these vital marketing steps. You MUST be near the top in web search for your area – any less is a huge financial loss for your office.

Dr. Corey Gold

President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems

www.aces4ce.com

Am I Pollyannaish?

I received a few notes that my previous post was Pollyannaish. The people said I was minimizing the need to make money and provide an income for the family.

I was not minimizing the need for each dentist’s business to be successful – to provide great care and make an income. Rather, I was asking questions surrounding balance and priorities.

Each year I speak to dentist who own highly profitable offices. When I ask them what their next goals are they invariably include more production and more profit. While I love bigger and more successful – I always ask that dentist about their non-dental life and happiness.

Funny thing is that most of these dentists see themselves as being two separate people: (1) the non-dentistry person and (2) the dentistry person. They don’t see that they are one person and by keeping moving the bar farther on building bigger practices that they are taking away time from the other parts of their lives.

I simply ask dentists to see themselves as one person and that they can only allocate each hour once. How big is big, how much is a lot – I tell dentist to start seeing their practice as a conduit and part of their building a perfect life. That a well-run and managed practice can provide them with both the time and money to enjoy the life they truly want.

If you goal is to have a larger top line income and bottom line is simply to break records – consider at what cost. I know my kids are happy I make a few thousand less but at am at all their sports games, musical performances, school parent nights and that I know their friends and do their homework with them… WHAT IS THAT WORTH?

Dr. Corey Gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com