Data allows for action

Data is all around your office and it is constantly changing. In order for you and your team to keep your office moving forward it is important for your team to analyze the data. By taking a look at the numbers it will allow you and your team to know where they are headed and what they need to do in order to make positive financial decisions for the office. It will also help the team determine if they need to complete more re-care calls, or focus on new patients.

For example, you might decide at the beginning of every month you need to work twenty days. While, your hygienist will need to work twenty-three days.  Your front office will need to collect eighty percent or more of the patient portion and you will need to seat at least four crowns, and fifteen root canals. This amount will allow you to pay your bills plus put some aside in case of a bad month. Now, you and your team have a goal to reach. Each of your team members knows what must be done in order to meet the monthly goal. 




You should have your team meet often in order to figure out where your numbers are at and to problem solve when your office is not close to meeting the goal and celebrate when your team is on track. No team should head down a dark path. You cannot hit a goal or a target if you do not know what the goal is. 

Do not wait till the last minute to find out you did not bring in the intended monthly amount. By then it is too late for the team to do anything. You want to give time to course correct if it is needed. The end of the month should be the time in which you and your team celebrate your success not bask in failure.

  

Great teams take effort. Take time to work on your practice regularly to build quality communication and strengthen your results. For more information and to read other articles, please visit us at www.saltdpm.com.

One Month

About a month has gone by since your office made their new goals for the new year. Or those tired and true New Years resolutions were made. Can you remember the day? Were you standing in front of your bathroom mirror and you made that solumn promise to yourself that this year you would turn your business around? Or did you look your office staff in the eye and say this would be the year of lunch everyday and ending on time?

And one month later are you still keeping that promise to yourself and your office? Well if not, take the time to evaluate why not? What can you do to pick it back up? Or is it time to tweak it because the change was not working the way you wanted it to? What ever your answer is to this question, don't give up. Now is the time to pick back up the momentum and bring about those needed successes for your business.

If you are still on track to reach your resolution, congratulations. Keep moving forward.

However, if you are not, do not worry you are not alone but that doesn't mean you have to wait till next year to see change.  Make a new plan, reevaluate your goals, write down the steps your going to take to achieve that goal.  You might need to meet with your team and discuss what has happened or why you reverted back and make a new plan with them.  Success is waiting for you and your team and you do have the power as the leader of the team to take it in the direction you want it to go. Just don't give up.    

Positive Dog-Opportunities vs. Challenges

 








At some time in our life we will all face challenges. We have to accept this fact. When faced with an inopportune problem however, you can see it as a challenge or an opportunity.  Opportunities provide, "favorable juncture of circumstances" while challenges halt progress. Opportunities give you solutions while challenges build mountains.

When we hit an adverse situation we need to dig deep and look for how it will help us grow instead of allowing this problem to hold us back from the true opportunity that is waiting for us.  

"The Positive Dog," suggests asking yourself three questions to help turn your situation into a positive situation. 
  
                       Jon Gordon, "The Positive Dog."
1. What can I learn from this experience?
2. How can I grow from it?
3. What do I do know?

          

It is what we do with the information and the situation that turn your life around.

 "Rich and successful people are solution-oriented; they spend their time and energy strategizing and planning the answers to challenges that come up, and creating systems to make certain that problem doesnít occur again."  

                  T. Harv Eker

 Find Salt Dental Practice Management on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Salt

Visualize your future

It is easy to lose sight of what you are working for when you come into work everyday and spend your time putting out fires. Or if you are just trying to get through the work day. 

In order to improve your office, vision or your job in general you should try visualizing your dreams everyday. Spend time thinking about what you want. Create a collage and place it somewhere you look often to remind you of what you are trying to achieve and where your future is headed. 

Visualize yourself achieving the goal. Lee Iacocca said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind,"(Lee Iacocca).  

When you're tired, frustrated or unfocused use your collage to get you back on track. People who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them. Create pictures of what your life will look like when you achieve your goals. How will it feel? What will be different in your life?

Commit to achieving the goal by writing down the goal. Lee Iacocca said, "The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen."

Writing your goals down helps you become committed to the goal. It holds you accountable and helps remind you of what it is that you are working towards. When you first create the goal you are attempting to achieve you need to create a plan. Your step number one should be you writing down your goal on paper. 

Keeping the Horizon in Sight

By: Debra Quarles
Salt Dental Consultant
Part 2 of 2

The vision should be one that all team members agree to. The easiest way for that to happen is for you all to work together to create it. Write down all the great ideas everyone has for the future. Compose a story that utilizes each idea. When writing a vision statement use descriptive details, and use all of your senses. What do you see, feel, hear, and smell when you visualize the practice of your future? How is the office positioned in the market place? What tools and equipment does it contain? What educational opportunities are you preparing for? What does your team accomplish daily, weekly and monthly? Have each member review the story and underline anything that they personally can not agree to for any reason. Rewrite the vision and then get a verbal commitment from your team to pursue it. If team members are not interested in heading the direction you want to travel – it may be time to find other team members.

This step is about direction – not motion. But once you’ve verbally committed, (why verbally? Because people generally keep the commitments they make verbally) the next step must be about focus.

Are the things you are doing today taking you closer to your vision? If your vision is to have a practice of people who love and appreciate you, are you asking today all such patients currently in your practice to refer you their friends and family? If your vision is to create a practice where patients are accountable for their appointments – what are you doing to establish that accountability today? If you want to be known for something, what are you doing to create that recognition? While the vision is about direction – start taking the necessary steps now to implement it. Remind yourself and your team frequently to take a breath, refocus and review what they’ve accomplished each morning, each afternoon and each day that is moving them toward the vision. Your actions today are what will enable you to realize your vision.

Your brain when you start writing down your vision may tell you this is silly, you can’t have that. You will fail. Our brain wants us to minimize stress, avoid pain and pressure, and consequently resist change. Play safe so we don’t have to worry about failure.

Do not listen to that part of your brain. It was designed to protect you from lions and tigers and bears, oh my, but now it may prevent you from enjoying the idea of accomplishing impossibilities.

Think about all the impossibilities: Man will never fly. Man will never go to the moon. There is a need for no more than 5 computers in the world. No one will buy a computer for their desk. Who would want to carry a phone with them all day? Who would pay for overnight delivery of a package? These were all ideas that were thought to be impossible.

Impossible is not a fact or truth. It really is only an opinion.

What are the impossibilities that you see for your practice? How far is your horizon? Five years? Ten years. Twenty or 100?

One team I work with as a coach developed their ten year vision, but the team members were so excited about the vision that they asked their doctor if they could change it to a five year vision. How’s that for team commitment?

Remember, like the pilot flying the helicopter, always keep the horizon in sight.

If you would like more information, please contact us at info.saltdpm.com

Join us on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SaltDentalPracticeManagement.

This article was originally published by Tri-County Dental Society Bulletin