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