The dental profession is definitely a technical and even demanding one. Nevertheless, it’s fairly easy for dentists to stay abreast of changes in the equipment, materials, and best practices of dentistry.
That’s not to say that some training and study aren’t required; for instance, the use of lasers for restorative preparation is very different than using a drill. But that learning occurs in a context that the dentist is already familiar with.
The multitude of disciplines required to attract, convert, and retain new, quality dental patients – to grow a dental practice – are not in a familiar context for dentists.
Moreover, those fields – website design, search engine optimization, local search optimization, paid media, content writing, social media, offline marketing, online reputation management, and more – are constantly evolving. It’s beyond the abilities of all but a handful of dentists to stay current on those changes. And frankly, there are good reasons why dentists shouldn’t try.
How Do You Make Money?
All the disciplines described above are necessary for dental practice growth, but not one of them directly makes a dentist one dollar. For that reason alone, dentists will do better to focus on the activities that do make them money – seeing patients and solving their dental problems.
Quite a few “do-it-yourself “ doctors resist that idea, arguing that they can’t afford to hire outside vendors. In a few cases, such as a new practice owner with high levels of student debt or practice purchase debt – that argument may hold water. For almost everyone else, the revenue lost by managing your own practice growth efforts outweighs the investment with a qualified firm.
Besides the lost revenue, those dentists are also losing opportunity. It’s the rare do-it-yourselfer who can come close to matching the results in new patient opportunities that skilled professionals can provide.
But hiring multiple vendors is a recipe for frustration and even failure. Communication issues, working at cross-purposes, and wasted funds are the frequent result. And the poor dentist, who just wants to do what he or she does best, is left to try to coordinate efforts and clean up the messes.
Do The Dentistry. SmartBox Will Do The Rest.
SmartBox is a practice growth firm providing the full spectrum of services and products dentists need to grow their practices on their terms.
Dentists want different things out of their professional lives. Some simply want a healthier bottom line. Others are interested in expanding their practices and services. Some dentists want to increase their practice valuation with an eye toward selling. And others want higher average case value so they can work less and enjoy a life away from the practice.
Our dentists typically spend one hour or less on practice growth matters, and that’s to have a monthly call with their dedicated Client Success Manager. Their CSM serves as a single point of contact as SmartBox handles virtually every aspect of practice growth internally.
SmartBox dentists can focus on actually doing the dentistry and making money. And grow their practices as they wish and with a specific end-goal in mind.
If you’re interested in seeing the outstanding results that SmartBox can achieve for your practices, schedule a Practice Growth Call.