ule One in human relations is that we teach people how to treat us. From how we speak, to how we interact with others, we as individuals demonstrate how it is that we want to be treated by those we encounter in our daily lives.
 
As such, the first thing we need to recognize is that, from a business perspective, dentistry is a most lucrative and excellent profession to enter:  
Dentists are highly respected by the population. They rank much higher than physicians, bankers, clergy, teachers and public servants in poll after poll. Only pharmacists achieved a higher profile for integrity than dentists. 

• Dentists are the fastest learners of all the professionals we have ever worked with at Planned Marketing. Compared to practitioners in other health science fields, even those in internal medicine, dentists work with much more dedication to remain contemporary with the latest advances in research.

• Dentists now have, from diagnosis to treatment, proven methods to respond with 100% predictability to every aspect of a patient’s oral health. With today’s technology, a dentist can take the most bombed out and decayed mouth — one with TMJ disorder, bad gums, bone loss, missing teeth, a bite about as lopsided as a junkyard dog — and restore it to an almost ideal condition of health, balance and appearance. Compared to the trial and error dentistry of 50 years ago when an adult was lucky indeed to reach middle age with a mouthful of teeth, this is nothing short of a revolution. 

• Dentists perceive one of their problems is the competition that they face with one another. However, the dilemma is not one of too many dentists; in fact, we are told that the number of graduates coming out of dental school is down. The situation, in reality, is that dentists are not exploring, nor breaking into the untapped market of patients needing dentistry.

1. Cancellations. This is at the top of the List of Unacceptable Behaviors. Your patients need to know your policy regarding lateness, absenteeism and cancellation and your dental team needs to know how much money that empty chair is losing! The practice’s overhead does not disappear along with the patient who fails to appear. Remember Rule One? We teach people how to treat us. Graduates of our Boot Kamps regularly report that our methods reduce over 80% of their cancellations. 

2. Approval Addiction. Fear of rejection has turned many dentists into wimps. No one’s gum disease, for example, will go away because you are too afraid to tell them about it. Fear of getting shot as the messenger of bad news has turned some dentists into accomplices to their patients’ deteriorating oral health. We find this unprofessional and unacceptable. We teach the people skills dentists need to raise their “deserve level” to communicate effectively to their patients. 

3. The One Stock Deal. Patch-&-pull, drill-fill-&-bill dentistry is not only bad for the patient (and ultimately more costly), but it undermines your professionalism since dental health is a relationship sale based on trust. The basis of that trust is your diagnostic excellence. Consumers don’t know an occlusion problem from an impacted molar. They want to buy what you tell them they need. We estimate that 90% of dentists in practice today are handicapped in the most basic of dental procedures, giving the patient a full comprehensive examination and then communicating the actual and complete work he or she needs. Dentistry works best as a preventative health care science. Our Boot Kamp graduates learn how to create closure and deliver what the patient came for — optimum oral health. 

4. Coup d’Etat From Staff. Many dentists come to us because they are no longer running their practice — their practice is running them! A lack of leadership confuses everyone — doctor, patient and team — and creates a vacuum, one that gets filled by a dental team member taking over the operation. The dictator who emerges from this leadership gap has no real power, commands no real respect and knows little more than anyone else, turning the mood of the office into one of suspicion, gossip, finger-pointing and in-fighting. We teach the dentist how to take back the practice. With strength at the top, it means not only that the team will have no fear in promoting the dentist for whom excellence is the standard by which every procedure gets done, but staff members themselves will want to learn more and perform their functions better. The office becomes a great place to work.
   
   A Business Without a Marketing Director.It never ceases to amaze us that dentists expect large numbers of people to flock to their practice just because of their clinical excellence. Even for the most gifted professional, it’s not automatic that patients will line up at the door. You need a marketing director. We’re not talking about someone outside your own dental team. We mean someone you can count on who is already on the team now. Rather than make that person responsible for the task, make that person accountable. That means reporting on progress at weekly meetings, getting everyone on board to vibrate violently with vivid vision, sharing strategies and integrating feedback. In this era of cutbacks and computers, downsizing and outsourcing, it’s good for dental team members to realize that the hardest person to do without is the one bringing in the business. 

6. Activity Without Productivity.The road to ruin is paved with busy people spinning their wheels and getting nowhere fast. A failure to delegate can make the team uninspired as well as bury the dentist. Instead of working longer and harder, we think the answer is to work smarter. Write down your goals, look at them every day. Make sure that you, as well as your team, ask yourself: am I doing, at this moment, the most productive thing that will bring us closer to the goal and purpose of the practice? 

7. A Wait-&-See Attitude Toward Managed Care.The only way managed care will eat your lunch is if you allow your practice to straddle the fence too long. Indecision creates a divided practice. You cannot provide Bloomingdale’s quality at five-&-dime prices all under the same roof. Trying to be everything to everybody may find you becoming nothing to no one. 

8. Letting Price Stand in the Way of Health. The truth is that price is rarely the real issue. Most objections to treatment are really requests for more information. No one likes to be sold anything. We say: stop selling dentistry and start helping people buy solutions to their oral health problems. Help them get more of what they want (to look good and feel good) and less of what they don’t want (loss of healthy gums and teeth). With our Permission Statement and Objection Formula, we train the dentist to hear what’s really being said and to understand the patient’s concerns NOT as obstacles but as opportunities to expand a dialogue in getting patients to accept the treatment they actually need. 

9. No System. Dentistry relies on procedures that are tried and true. Predictability of outcome helps insure that dental work performed lasts a lifetime and is maintenance free. What drives dental practices nuts is not the doing of dentistry, but the number of non-dental emergencies that can crop up on any given day. We believe most of the calamities which result in stress, confusion, low production, high overhead and disappointment stem from not having a system. That’s why we teach systems. There’s a method to running a team meeting, a method for weeding out the 20% of your patient base who give you 80% of your headaches, a method for dealing with patient complaints, a method to gaining control of your appointment book, a method to marketing the practice, to building rapport, to increasing self esteem. If we hadn’t developed a method, we would not have succeeded on our previous business ventures. Why dentists do so well with our material is that they are already trained to think systematically. 

10. An Unbalanced Life.In a recent Planned Marketing survey we asked dentists to name their Number One issue. Overwhelmingly, they responded with the desire to achieve harmony, to balance their professional and private life. Dentists are highly vulnerable to a kind of tunnel vision. We want you to see your practice — and the opportunities it presents to enjoy a fulfilling marital and family life  — with an eye on the Big Picture.