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

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