Flying Lessons and Dentistry-Dental Practice Advice

Dental Practice Advice

In this dental practice advice series lets talk about how critical it is to review how you go about how you present your cases with a check-list and how you have an advantage over other dentists who have not learned how to use them.

Would you personally try to fly a plane (or land it!) without flight lessons?

What about a multi-engine plane with your entire family on board? What about a Gulfstream jet?

Here’s another one…..Would you go flying as a passenger with someone in any of the above planes if they never had a single lesson?

Most of you will say “NO!!”  That’s crazy. Yet, you probably do the equivalent of this on a daily basis when it comes to in-person (face to face) sales process with your patients and your staff is probably doing it right now in the front every time the phone rings with a potential new patient call.  This is the equivalent of believing that you can be very successful at a very complex process with zero training.  Is it any surprise that most dentists and their teams crash and burn when the case sizes goes above a certain amount?  Why? Well…..because they all skipped the lessons!!  Now…back to our flying analogy.

One of the biggest reasons we have a super-safe aviation industry in North America is not only lessons (pilots train in simulators again and again) but also because our ground crews, mechanics, and flight crews use CHECK LISTS.

How important is those check-lists? Well, if you are a commercial pilot, you LOSE YOUR JOB if you don’t use them! Check-lists also matter a lot in dental practices.  Most use them for procedures, a lot use them for administrative systems BUT few use them for dealing with sales process.

So, few use them for sales but how important are they really for that?

Well, sales process check lists are only important if you want your phone staff to have the ability to reach through the phone and pull someone into a consult slot (or to get a credit card over the phone for a diagnostic visit).  They are also only important if you want to hear a lot more yes than no with your “big” treatment plans once you are face to face with patients in the consult room.  If you ever want to predictably do a lot of full arch care at full fee,  they are important beyond belief.

Yet, even with all of those details being evident, 95% of the profession doesn’t have them nor do they go out and obtain a check-list for either sales process.

Those who get these kinds of check-lists have a decided ADVANTAGE over everyone around them.

So, what’s up with you?  Are you going to continue to “fly” with zero lessons and continue to “crash” more often than necessary by ignoring the need for check-lists for your phone sales and in-person sales process? Or will you get an easily obtainable advantage?

If something has finally clicked here, let’s talk about 3 different options that make sense for your specific practice that address both “flying” issues.   You can get a time here.

P.S.  Even if you are 100% PPO, I promise you there are “big” cases in your patient base right now.  At least 2-3 five figure ($25,000) every year. Why not unlock those cases and help those patients? Check out my sales system here.