By DRBECK

That’s a question that every dentist asks.  And the answer is often disappointing.

It was a life or death question for me in my practice.  I had to learn the hard way how to dramatically change my approach to new patients in order to survive.

And what I discovered that saved my practice can mean big profits for you …

Did I mention that I’m not a Dentist?  I’m a Chiropractor.  But you and I have the same problems in getting and keeping patients.  Let me explain …

Early in my practice, I was a failure at bringing in enough new patients to grow and make a profit.

I tried all the normal stuff. Seminars, marketing gurus, practice management groups, yellow pages, Val-paks, money mailers, ad displays, health fair and convention center booths, newspaper ads – I even sunk so low that I went out knocking door to door.

My frustration with getting quality new patients was agonizing, often making me depressed and bringing me close to tears on more than one occasion.

After throwing countless hours and dollars at my “new patient problem”, a few new faces were trickling in. But many of them were not very interested in long-term care, and their conversion rate was terrible.

The problem was that almost none of the marketing approaches I found really worked. Most of them were overpriced, outdated or too sleazy.

Let’s face it…we have this in common.  Whether you are a chiropractor or a dentist, marketing is a brutal – and very time consuming – challenge.

It’s not our fault really.  We weren’t prepared for this.

None of us learned about marketing with our medical training. After spending four years and over $100,000 on my education, I didn’t have one class on how to use effective advertising to grow a profitable practice.

So, I was in a fight for survival. Two years into my practice, I was only averaging 3 new patients a month and only collecting about $3,000 a month – with an overhead of $15,000!

Describing how bad things were would not even do it justice. We had lost our house.  My pregnant wife was struggling up three flights of stairs each day in our new “apartment home” – sometimes having to lug over 50lbs of groceries with two toddlers in tow.

I was so fed up with marketing, “pushing” patients to refer, hard-sell tactics – honestly I was ready to quit the profession entirely.

It wasn’t that I hated my work … I loved it. It was that no one could show me an effective way to market and grow my practice. I had spent thousands on marketing systems and coaches, but to what point?

I had no time to “hope” something worked. I needed a solution fast!  So, I began to look outside of my profession for answers.

Just like in the movies, at the “eleventh hour” (barely in time to save my practice) I discovered a different marketing approach from a surprising source.  With nothing to lose, I put it into place. Imagine my relief when it began to show results almost immediately.

Within 6 months, my practice volume and income had increased by a multiple of 10! I was up to $30,000 a month and could finally afford to take one day off a week to spend with my family. Later my practice continued to increase as I tweaked these new marketing and conversion procedures.

Now $30k may or may not sound like a lot to you per month, depending on where you’re at now. But that’s not the point. The point is the change from $3,000 to $30,000 in such a short time span.

What this meant for me was that my kids could have a less stressful father, who spent more quality time with them. My wife could worry less about buying groceries or clothes. And we could go on that family vacation we always talked about.

What would your life be like if your income increased by a multiple of 10? What would change if it just doubled? And what would that mean to you – and to your family?

If you want to get more new patients … if you want to keep the patients you already have … if you know that you are not effectively marketing your practice, don’t wait.

This “almost failed” Chiropractor can show you how to surpass your dreams for your practice, just as I did with mine.

Click Here to Grab Proven Dental Ads

by DRBECK

I saw a survey the other day asking dentists about the treatment of TMJ syndrome (Temporomandibular joint disorder)

Now you may or may not treat that particular condition … but the thing that surprised me was when the survey asked how much each respondent charged for their TMJ treatment.  The answer ranged from $500 to $40,000.

How could one dentist charge $500 and another dentist charge 80 TIMES as much for the same procedure?

Obviously much can be explained by the severity of the condition.  And we have no idea of the range of services included in those prices.

But I think there’s a lesson here for all of us: There is much more leeway in pricing than most of us realize.

Let’s take a look at how the typical dentist prices his services.

We usually ask ourselves: How do I keep fees competitive in my area? How much room do I have to raise my prices?

All of us, no matter what services we have in our offices, should be asking these questions on a regular basis.

How you answer can either ‘make you or break’ your practice. You may be the best dentist and the most well-liked person in a 30-mile radius, but if you fail to set your prices correctly your business will suffer … and so will your quality of life.

I have found that most practices set their fees either based on insurance schedules or local competition. Neither of these is a smart way to do business. Let me explain…

-   Insurance Schedules.  Insurance companies are notorious for cutting what they will pay down to the lowest possible fee schedule. If you are setting your fees to match an insurance company’s schedule, your fees are much too low.

-   Local Competition.  The other common way to set your fee schedule is by finding out what your competitors charge and trying to beat them with lower prices.

This is the wrong way to set your fees unless you are a non-profit clinic. What if your competitors are much lower than they should be? What if they still have the original prices they opened with 20 years ago?  It is important to know what your local market is charging, but not so you can undercut their fees.

You want to know the range of your competitor’s prices so you can set yours near the high end. That’s right, you don’t want to be the lowest in your area, but the highest.

What other professional service is praised for their low fees? How about sending your mother to the cheapest surgeon? Would you use the cheapest attorney to represent you in a court case? Do you want the bargain CPA representing you before the IRS?

Here’s a case scenario. The highest price for a particular service in your area is $55, the lowest is $35 and the average is $45. What are your fees going to be for that service? At least $55. But there’s not enough information here to effectively price your services.  Additional questions must be answered like:

-   what other services will you be doing on an average visit

-   how much will you be charging for these other visits

-   how much time will be spent doing all the services a typical patient needs

-   how many people do you have on staff and how much do you pay them

-   what is your overhead

-   and most importantly, how good is your marketing?

If your marketing is good, you can charge a higher fee because you have plenty of new patients coming in. One person leaving because they are “shopping for a deal” won’t affect your business if you’ve got 30 more new patients waiting to get in this week. And this is fair, as prices are mostly based on supply and demand.

There is only one exception to this rule of being at the top of your market’s price range.

When you make a special offer, don’t quote the most expensive exam and x-rays in town. This will only deter people from responding to the ad.

Without seeing your office, meeting you and your staff, having their problem explained to them, etc., prices will speak loudly. So be sure to give them a good special offer to come, but make sure they understand it is a special price and this isn’t what all your fees will be like in the future.

by DRBECK

I came across an article in The Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA), written almost 30 years ago.  It summarized the findings of a study on “Dentists’ Perceptions of Problem Behaviors in Patients.”

Let me quote from the article:

Our sample of 376 dentists in general practice provided a number of useful insights into the problems that dentists experience with their patients.

For general problems of patient cooperation, the frequency of occurrence and annoyance to the dentist were related. High on the list in both categories were maintaining poor oral hygiene, missing or being late for appointments, and not paying bills. Not providing an accurate history ranked first in bother to the dentist but appears to occur infrequently.

When specific chair problems were considered, an inverse relationship was found between frequency of occurrence and bother to the dentist. Showing fear was the most frequent behavior but ranked lowest in bother. Grabbing the dentist’s hand ranked first in bother but last in frequency of occurrence.

Some annoying patient behaviors, such as those that devalue, criticize, or question the dentist’s performance, are attempts to cope with anxiety. Viewed in this fashion, the incidence of fear-related behaviors may be higher than actually perceived by dentists.

What are your thoughts?  Have we made progress in these past 30 years? What will dentistry be like 30 years from now?

I welcome your comments below.

byDRBECK  

I recently came across a survey of dentists, and the results tell us something troubling about the state of dentistry today.

This survey looked at how dentists feel about marketing.

10% feel that a good dentist should not need to market at all

25% said they don’t like marketing, but think it’s a necessary evil

25% said they wished they could take advantage of marketing their practice

Only 40% said they believe marketing provides great opportunities to promote their practice

Add it up.  60% of all dentists are not interested or able to take advantage of the power of marketing to build their practices.

So … what does this survey mean for you?

First, let’s make sure we agree on what marketing is.

Simply put, marketing is the action or business of promoting and selling products and services.

Marketing is the story you tell your customers. It is your promise to your customers of the kinds of services you offer and the benefits you deliver.  That’s the heart of your marketing message.

If your customers don’t know who you are or what you do, your practice cannot realize its full potential.

Every time you pull out your business card, mention your dental office, or speak in the community, you are marketing your practice.  The sign on your door is marketing.  Asking your patients to refer their friends is marketing.

But there’s more.  The stories your customers tell about you are marketing. That’s word of mouth.  Are people saying good things about you – things that will grow and strengthen your practice?  If not, why not?

Don’t you see?  Like it or not, every dentist markets his practice every day.

Now to the good stuff.

Do you smell opportunity?

According to this research, three out of every five dentists in your area are not putting effort into marketing his practice.  They are either not marketing at all … or they are doing a poor job of it.

Think how that affects all of those patients out there.  These are people with real needs who are not being fully educated about the choices they have for dental care.

These people need to know what is available to them.  They want to find a dentist they can rely on.

Shouldn’t you be the dentist who reaches out to them with the facts?

Speak directly to those who need your services.  Tell them why they should come see you.

Marketing is your answer to getting more new patients … and to keeping the ones you already have.

If you use marketing that focuses on offering solutions for people in need, you will have more new and satisfied patients than you can handle.

Here’s the bottom line:

If you really wanted to help people get better, and to make a good living doing it, wouldn’t you use whatever ethical and moral tools you can get your hands on to accomplish that task?

Have you ever heard the analogy that says “the more marketing poles you have in the water, the more fish you catch”?

I think this analogy suffers from a few major errors. Let me tell you why.

First, let’s look at what’s true about it.

It is certainly true that you want to have more than one dental marketing strategy being used in your office. And seeing as many dentists struggle with solid marketing strategies, I can see why so many marketers are teaching this analogy.

In fact, many dentists expect there to be one magic pill that fixes their marketing woes. Relying on only one marketing strategy in your practice, even if it works great, is a recipe for failure. With that said, let’s look at the fishing poles analogy a little closer.

More fishing poles is always better, right?

Are more new patients always a good thing, or does quality factor into the equation?

I don’t know about you, but I’d take 10 referral new patients over 15 newspaper ad patients any day of the week. You see, quality of patients is a big factor. Therefore, all marketing methods are not created equal.

I realize when we start talking about patients (people) having a measurement of quality associated with them, it’s going to make some dentists uncomfortable. I hope you realize I’m not talking about the way they dress, talk, or even act. Truth is, there is only so much time in the day. I would rather spend that time working with people who really want help and are willing to pay full price for it.

Back to our fishing poles analogy. After hearing it, you might think, “if having more marketing strategies is always better, why not 50 of them? Why not 100? Why not 500?” and so on.

I grew up fishing. My grandparents fished the rivers of Texas for centuries, pulling out and eating anything with fins. My parents still fish the lakes every summer. By the time I was 18, I had eaten more catfish then most people do in a lifetime (and catfish is not the healthiest fish either!) I still like to go with my kids, when I can actually get away.

And there’s one thing I know about fishing…there’s a limit to how many poles you can handle at one time. At most you can hold one in each hand, then maybe have 4-6 in holders on the boat if you’re really good. What do you think is going to happen if you try and add a couple more?

It’s very likely you’ll spend all your time just trying to keep your lines baited. If you get more than one fish on a line at a time, you’ll be in a bind, and maybe even loose one fish or both.

Now you could hire a “fishing pole” manager, akin to a marketing manager. And now that person can handle 8-10 poles while you can still handle your 8-10 poles. But the manager has to check with you every few minutes to see if she’s doing it right. Plus, you still got to tell them what kind of bait to put on the line, how long to leave the line out there, how far to cast, etc.

And what happens if you get a line tangled up? Now you’ve got to go mess with that and clean it up. Are you seeing the similarities to your practice yet?

Here’s the point…

You can only handle so many fishing poles at one time. That’s not being pessimistic, it’s just being real. It’s much better to have 8-10 really strong ones, shaving off the bad ones and adding news ones as you go along.

Perhaps over 5,10, or 20 years you can build up marketing strategies that can be left alone to work. By using the internet you can plug in many marketing methods which will run on autopilot, taking up a very small amount of time. But getting 100 strategies set up? Not likely.

That’s why you’ve got to make sure your 8-10 are working well. I recommend doing niche specific marketing like teeth whitening, crowns, fillings, etc. You should do marketing in the newspaper, on the internet, through referrals, in office marketing, snail mail, email…even the radio and TV as your budget allows.

New patients are the lifeblood of any dental office. Without them, the your practice will quickly dwindle in services and revenues. Today I want to give you my top 7 proven ways to bring in more new patients every month. Let’s look a the first 4…

#1. Pay Per Click.

This refers to the ads you see when searching for keywords on the major search engines. The best pay per click ads are Google Adwords because they get the most views. These who up on the right side of the page when someone searches for keywords. When someone clicks on it, you pay a fee and the person lands on your website. Yahoo and MSN also have pay per click ads that are less costly, but Google will send a lot more traffic. Make sure you set it to geographical limits, so you aren’t getting clicks from people 10 states away. When setting up and using Adwords, be very careful because it can be costly if done wrong.

#2. Blogs.

A blog is what you are reading now. It’s basically a website that makes it easy for regular updates to be posted. Search engines love blogs, and will rank them higher than static pages on the same topic because blogs are new content. And Google especially likes fresh content. While blogs take some work to set up, they are very easy to use. If you can send an email, you can post to a blog.

#3. Articles.

Submitting articles to free article directories are a great way to generate traffic to your site. When writing articles, you want to keep them within 500-800 words. Make sure you include your town’s name and special “dentist keywords” you want to get like “dentists” or “dental” in your article. Also you will need a resource box with a short bio of you and your website’s link. A great directory to submit to is http://www.ezinearticles.com

#4. Videos.

Vidoes are rather easy to make today. And since most people have high speed internet, they are great to use. You can do a short 2-5 minute video educating prospective patients on your services. Uploading it to the major websites like Youtube and Google Video will get you a lot of traffic. Make sure to submit it with your website link embedded in the video. Also mention your town in the description when posting the video.

#5. Press Releases.

Press releases can be submitted online (for free) to many of the press release sites. This will get picked up and listed on the major search engines news, like Google News and Yahoo News. Make sure you write it in a “newsworthy” tone and with a good news headline. There are many free press distributors online, like www.pr.com. Also, you can pay a site like prweb.com to submit it to the news directories.

#6. Link with other businesses.

If you know other local businesses in your area, you can trade links to your sites. This not only allows for more traffic, but will help drastically in your search engine rankings. Make sure to make your link keywords like “Yourtown Chiropractor” instead of just your website address.

#7. Mail postcards and run newspaper ads.

This is the most costly of all the above list. However, it also could have the highest return on time and money. Get a list of homeowners and send out small or large postcards, with a headline, some copy and testimonials. Make an offer for a free report on some problem and tell them to visit your website. Expect to spend about .40 cents an address.

Of course once you get visitors to your website, you need a proven strategy to convert the visitors to new patients. In my next blog post, I’ll recommend tips for doing just that because getting a return on your marketing is essential.