Dental Practice Management:Pricing–Avoid the Herd PLUS Leveraging Pricing Part I

In dental practice management and fees-avoiding the “rush to cheap” can be a real challenge since it’s easy to get caught up in “retail mentality” as one watches the majority of the retail world heading there.

This something to be aware of and position yourself away from that game.  If you weren’t aware of the fact that there has been no long term retail discounter in the history of business you should seek out information on that subject versus believing that “discount is king.”

[Don’t reply, “but what about Wal-Mart” since in business terms it’s still a very young company.  Long term in business means 100+ years.  Furthermore, do you honestly believe you can really out Wal-Mart Wal-Mart with a dental practice’s economics?  Good luck……]

In dental practice management of fees-here’s a good rule on pricing and who you should watch and pay attention to:  You can be guaranteed that if 95% are doing X (i.e. racing to cheap), then it’s actually more important to look at the 5% doing Y (selling a premium prices).  The 5% likely are in on a secret the 95% do not understand.

A great example last year was how high end retail greatly limited their supply and sold out of pricey merchandise versus what happened the previous 2 years while they were slashing and burning to move the stuff.

None of us have the financial base to learn this kind of foolishness on our own with painful “personal experience” so when someone blatantly shows you how to stay profitable and they are in the 5%, even if it is in another industry, retool it for your use

I re-visited a real world “pricing structure” mismatch when I was in Vancouver BC last week.

After one of my many meals going “hog wild” at Vij’s in Vancouver, B.C.

I’ve discussed this example before and some doctors will already be familiar with the example but it provides a continual lesson each time I go.

One of the world’s best fine cuisine Indian Restaurants, Vij’s, (www.vijs.ca) makes its home in Vancouver.   No matter how many times I’ve eaten there, I can instantly make myself hungry by thinking about the food and crave the food there enough to visit Vancouver twice a year just to fill that craving.  (I’m assured by Dr. Irfan Atcha one of our Elite alumni that there are even better Indian restaurants in Chicago and I will eventually take him up on his offer to have a taste test!)

Vij’s takes no reservations.   The wait time on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night at 7 pm can be up to 3 hours.  Even when we’ve went at the “blue-hair” hour of 5:30, there have been 30 people on line.  On this last visit, a Thursday night, the wait was a mere 75 minutes.  As it was a sunny, warm day which also tends to “kill” restaurants in this part of the country since in a region where one only gets a few weeks of summer, going indoors to dine is low on the list for many.

It goes without saying, the food is always good.  They do a great job with making sure you have many choices of wine by the glass and they bring Indian finger food around all the time you wait to keep you happier and to keep your taste buds anticipating the great meal to come.

The problem going on at Vij’s certainly isn’t the creation of demand or food quality.

Pausing to look around between bites….

It is actually too much demand with some valuable customers seeing the lines and leaving which I’ve observed on multiple occasions over many years.  If they are a new customer, they are likely to never attempt a second trip.

What Vij isn’t aware of, that can help him out, is what a Harvard study revealed, many years ago and that’s exactly what we’ll go into next time. In your dental practice management of fees and pricing, there are ways to make you stand out from the crowd and elevating yourself above others in  your market.

Want to learn more………….check out my website or take a look at my #1 top selling book on Amazon.