Dental Practice Advice-Why worrying about your competitors is a big waste of time and energy.

In my dental practice advice series I tell my dentist members that worrying about your competitors is a waste of time and does not accomplish anything.

Since there are practically two dentists on every block, it is very tempting to pay attention to what they are all doing.

For “fun” some dentists drive around on their day off looking at how many cars are competitor’s parking lots or in big buildings full of dentists seeing how many patients are in other their waiting rooms.

Or, maybe you are a bit more bold and have someone call to find out what their fees are… or you’ve peeked through a window of another practice after hours to see what things look like inside.

Perhaps you’ve studied all of your competitions’ on and offline marketing.

I’ll be the first to tell you and my dentist members as my dental practice advice that not only is 99% of this a waste of time, it is extremely dis-empowering and does little for your internal drive to do what’s needed on a weekly and ongoing basis to do well in a professional service business like dentistry.

NOTHING your competition does or doesn’t do has any bearing on your practice or success.  In fact, every hour you would waste doing “any of the above” simply removes an hour you have to do what you NEED to be doing.

Focusing on your competition can even be harmful.  Without living inside the other business, it’s impossible to fully understand your competition’s business and anything you do to try to emulate them is likely to fail and along the way rob you of your confidence and specialness in the market place.

I take my own dental practice advice for example, I NEVER read Dental trade journals. While I belong to a few associations, it is kept at a base minimum. Besides a few very select educators and companies, I intentionally ignore what others do for and in Dentistry.

Most discussions are not a true representation of what the real world looks like.

So, if you want to have a much more sane existence for the long haul in a wonderful profession WHEN you have your act together (clinically and in promotion and selling), I recommend focusing on what you are doing and should be doing.

Take responsibility for your practice and realize that YOU are the only one that can make things happen.

You can start here by getting my #1 top selling book on Amazon. Or to further empower yourself you can join my dentist members on my website.