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

Do You Treat Your Team Member’s Evenly?

Dentists are only people. It is hard for us not to have staff members that we enjoy more or who we favor.  Sometimes we will be more forgiving of certain staff member’s errors than others or get angrier at the transgressions of another.

Very few things can bring more disharmony to a dental team than for the dentist to treat the members with varying degrees of accountability, discipline or attention. No matter how difficult, the dentist CEO must be viewed by the staff as being even handed and fair to every staff member.

Favoring one team member only makes life more difficult for that individual as the other team members resent them. Uneven compliments or attention makes team members not want to give their best as it will not be fairly recognized. No one wins when the playing field is uneven.

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

Looking 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

Make More $ with Cash Up Front Discounts

One of the best income and cash-flow generators for your practice is offering a discount for patients who pay for their entire treatment plan before the first session. The discount needs to be strong enough for patients to want to pay for the full treatment in advance. In my practice this was a 10% discount for complete prepayment.

There are several great reasons why accepting less upfront actually earns you more money and a smoother practice operation.

1                 Having the patient pay upfront ensures that you will be paid on all your treatment and greatly reduces your aging receivables. Your discount ensures that the patient waits for the insurance company to pay their share not you. It also means that you are always collecting your co-payments.

2                 Dentistry can appear expensive and everyone likes a discount. A reasonable discount percentage encourages people to seek the proper care and opt for the more complete treatment plan.

3                 Scheduling is a synch when most of your patients are fully paid in advance of their appointments. The patient simply calls and sets their times on your calendar. There are no more sticky phone calls between the staff and the patient before the appointment can be set up due to money issues. 

4                 You save considerable staff time and mental aggravation chasing past due accounts. Some dentist’s do not realize how much staff time it takes to collect money from people on payment plans. Not only does this staff time cost you money but it also means your staff is not working on other projects such as customer service, retention and other vital aspects of your practice.

I strongly suggest you consider giving cash up front discount for patients who pay in full for their entire treatment plan before the first visit. It is good business for you and represents a value to your patients.

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

Leading by Delegating

One of the biggest mistakes made by dental CEOs is that they tend to micromanage their office staffs. They believe to be in control of their practice that they must be part of every aspect of their practice at all times. They want to make all of the decisions on every aspect of their practice. Not only is this management style counterproductive but it is also exhausting.

The best management style on every level is to hire talented people, share with them what you want them to do and then let them do it!

In no way am I saying that you are not going to be coaching your staff as they need guidance or corrections but you must empower your staff to make decisions within the scope of their job description. Talented and mature staff want to know what you expect of them and then to be trusted to do their job.

Avoid the common management mistake of only correcting your staff when they make errors – while this is important – you must also look to praise your staff for doing what you entrusted them to do. Praise goes further than criticism.

The most effective management style is to create an office of talented and responsible staff members who manage their areas of responsibility. Great staffs are full of members that respect each other and encourage each other to do their very best.

You are free to concentrate on your patient’s dental care when you know that your staff is professionally handling the other aspects of the office’s needs. Also, as the CEO of your practice, you are free to pick aspects that you want to control as your assigned areas. I liked to keep marketing, internet presence and continuing education as my areas of responsibility (aside from being in charge of the dental care).

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