We help dentists grow their practices and achieve their dreams.
I thought this article on Social Media might be helpful to all Dental Offices. ~Darren Kaberna
Do you need a guide to ensure that you don’t miss the crucial elements of a successful sweepstakes promotion?
Are you planning to run a social media sweepstakes to make your business stand out this holiday season?
Habit 1 Be Proactive Within Your Dental Practice
When looking at your dental practice you can choose to be Proactive in your approach or Reactive in how you handle things. Too often we tend allow the world around us to push us into Reactive behavior. This might sound silly and too superficial but how we respond in life is predetermined by how we think on a daily basis. Hence why the type of language we use and how we think is important. Let's explore more of what I am referring to.
The reason why this programing is important is when something happens to you in life, there is a very brief moment where you have the ability to respond before you see the outcome of that event. An example might be, you see a car accident. Immediately you have the ability to do a few things. Do you run over to the car and help, do you stay where you are and dial 911 or do you do nothing and just keep going about your business. We all have the ability to respond to everything in our lives, the question becomes, what do we choose. Another example I hear in dental offices all the time, "The economy stinks and because of that my business is struggling." I would argue that you are allowing the economy to negatively impact your business. Have you heard of the Lottery Curse? About 70% of people who win the lottery within 5 years declare bankruptcy. How in the world is it possible to take such a great problem and end in such tragedy? Poor decisions is the answer. This is why I believe even with a tough economy you can make great decisions and have a positive outcome.
There a three areas of your Dental Practice that absolutely must be managed impeccably. By managing these areas you increase profitability. Most Dentists have a tendency to focus on New Patients in hopes of achieving the goal of profitability. In fact, having new patients is not always the resolution. The 3 most important systemic areas of your Dental Practice are: Cash Flow, Hygiene, and Case Acceptance. Let's discuss how each area impacts your profitability.
Cash Flow affects your Dental Practice in an imperative way. This area must be managed in a healthy manner. The adage from every business school is "Cash is King." Without great cash flow, not much else matters within a dental office. The two best places to examine the health of the dental practice from a cash flow perspective are, Outstanding Patient Balances and Outstanding Insurance Claims. This is where all of your cash flow comes from. Watch these reports regularly!!
Social Media is the biggest trends in today's Dental Marketing! One of the hottest resources in social media is Facebook. Facebook is an excellent social networking platform. By platform I mean that it allows you to connect with your dental patients as well as family, friends, team members, other dental practices, as well as businesses. Let's begin by creating a Facebook Page for your dental office. It is important to select more than one administrator when creating your Facebook Page. By having more than one administrator it will allow more than one perspective.
Once you have created your Facebook Page keep these 3 underlying components in mind. Each component is important in forming a balance that is attainable in reaching your overall goal. The first is to keep the posts entertaining. When updating the page...add some dental specific humor or entertaining news related to the topic at hand. Second, continue to educate on your Facebook Page. Third, offer promotional tactics that will allow a return. An example is an in office special or referral incentive that your dental practice might be offering at this time. By utilizing these areas you will allow proper balance and measurement of tracking. There are various ways to keep your audience intrigued. Brainstorm with your dental team and patients when deciding on topics to be posted. Be certain that your content is timely, relevant, and more importantly FUN!
How Best to Handle the Competition of Your Dental Practice
This is one of my favorite topics to write about and discuss. My first question to everybody regarding this topic is, “who do you think your competition is?” The range of answers is interesting to say the least. I hear everything from "all the dentists that have moved into my area," to "Apple and other companies." My personal opinion on the matter is that your competition is any and all discretionary spending sources. Letʼs face it, people have less spending money in the past 5 years or so than they did before. If you have ever sat through one of our programs then you have seen the evidence that many consumer product companies are doing surprisingly well. In fact, recently most all are doing well, as is shown within the stock market. In late 2008 the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a low of 6626 and, as of writing this article, had hit a high of over 15,000. For those of you unsure of what that means, it means lots of companies are doing very well within the stock market. Of course to do very well in the stock market, they are selling lots of stuff. What this means for you is people are spending money again. They are being more discerning than they used to for sure.
