South Carolina Dental Coach Archives

Best Dental Coach | Create a Patient-Friendly Environment

Dental offices can be intimidating for patients when they first walk in the door. New patients may be faced with a busy office phone ringing non-stop and the sounds of dental equipment in the background. Some of these situations can add to the anxiety new patients may be facing. Here are three strategies that your dental office can use to create a more patient-friendly atmosphere.

Friendliness on the Front Lines

The first person a patient interacts with at a dental office is the front desk team. Not only will that team member be providing the first impression of the practice, but they will also be the one interacting with patients for future appointment scheduling and monetary matters. Having a friendly and polite employee at the front desk can go a long way in creating a positive first impression for patients, while alleviating any additional concerns they may have. Being assisted in a courteous manner will show patients how easy it is to work with your team and build patient loyalty.

Have a Presentable Waiting Room

The waiting time after arriving at a dental office can be nerve-wracking for anxious patients. Creating a presentable and welcoming waiting room can help lessen their stress. Amenities as simple as comfortable chairs and reading materials can help a patient take their mind off their visit. Creating a play area for children will keep them occupied, while also helping to keep the noise level of the area down.

Communication is Key

Patients can become frustrated if they feel they have to ask numerous questions to get answers. Good communication can remove frustrations and keep the patient in the loop regarding their oral health. Additionally, you’ll be able to build a strong doctor-patient relationship. Strong communication will benefit your entire team, from the front desk to the treatment room. Review all the options that a patient has for any needed treatment, cover different payment methods, and discuss easy ways to schedule appointments. Good communication will keep your patients coming back.

Provide each patient a great experience at your office. Not only will your patients be happy with their dental care, but they can become referral sources for new patients. With these three strategies, your office can take a step in the right direction for creating a patient-friendly environment.

To see how our team can help you, contact us.

Consultant Near Me | 4 Ways to Attract Millennials into Your Practice

Are you having trouble attracting new patients to your office? Technology and busy lifestyles have changed the way we attract new patients. Every business including dental practices have to evolve with each generation to gain their attention. Below are strategies that you can use to attract new patients to your office.

Use Technology to Get in Touch

Our society has moved into a tech-savvy world. Calling to schedule an appointment is not as convenient as allowing patients the ability to set up an appointment online. Confirming appointments and sending patient reminders through text messages is easier and quicker.

Practice Search Engine Optimization

Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to help patients find your office more easily. High-ranking dental offices on search engines are going to be seen more frequently by prospective patients, and therefore attract more business. Being near the top of search engines can help patients find what they want quicker without having to scroll through multiple pages of search results.

Be Active on Social Media

Using social media is an excellent way for patients to learn about your dental office and the services you offer. Regular postings on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram will reach a broader audience. It will also showcase your team members, satisfied patients, and other attributes that make your office unique.

Get a 5 Star Reputation

Once you get patients in the door, you will want to retain them as referral sources. By providing exceptional service, your patients will be more inclined to post positive online reviews. People respond to authenticity and want to read personal and true testimonials. When looking for a dentist, patients will be more likely to choose one with a positive online reputation.

Gain the attention of possible leads and current patients by utilizing technology while highlighting authenticity. By using the tips provided above, you will have the capability to reach more new patients and grow your business.

Dental Office Coach | Think Before You Buy New Equipment

It’s inevitable. Eventually, your dental equipment will need to be replaced. Sometimes it is because newer technology has made your equipment obsolete. Purchasing new equipment is an investment that should be taken with caution and critical thinking. Here are a few tips to help you get started on making an informed and practical decision regarding your office’s equipment.

Take Your Time

Never rush into a purchase as crucial as new equipment. We strongly suggest you meet with our team to discuss the implications a purchase might have, particularly on your practice’s taxes. There may be an optimal time of the year to make a purchase.

Consider Its Use

How often will you utilize this equipment? Where will it fit in your office? Carefully consider how this new piece of equipment will be used in your day-to-day operations. If you are struggling to answer these questions, it may be a sign that the new equipment is not needed immediately.

Will This Help My Practice Grow?

Ask yourself if investing in new equipment will allow your practice to grow. Will it expand the available services you offer your patients? Perhaps it will improve the comfort, efficiency, and amount of time it takes to treat or serve patients. When marketed effectively, these can be excellent sources for driving new patient numbers or improving loyalty among your existing patients.

What About Cost?

You should never buy equipment if you are unsure how you will receive a return on investment from it. Consider how your pricing structure will offset the costs of the investment. Can you still be competitive in your market if you must raise costs?

Your office equipment plays a central role in allowing you to deliver quality care for your patients. New technologies are constantly making the patient experience more comfortable and safe. Before you rush to purchase new equipment, it is vital that you consider how the investment will impact your business.

Our team is here to help you make these decisions. For a consultation, contact us today.

Dental Consultant | Manage Your Calendar to Balance Your Life

Appointments and continuing education consume most of your time. How do you manage to live a happy, well-adjusted, balanced life when you simply don’t have time? The key is in planning. Do you use a calendar to manage your time or do you simply make agreements and arrangements as they come up? Here is how you can balance your schedule by managing your calendar.

Set Clear Boundaries

The first step to achieving a work-life balance is to consider your basic responsibilities and obligations. Set aside blocks of time in your calendar to meet with patients, hold team meetings, and attend organizational group meetings. Your calendar should be your primary time-management tool.

Time Off Means Time Off

You need to set aside time for activities unrelated to work. When you decide to take a day off, make sure it’s in your calendar. If it’s not in there, your time off is likely to be consumed by an emergency patient appointment, unexpected meeting, or other business-related expense. Make your scheduling priorities clear with your office team so they are not left with the burden of how to handle unexpected situations while you are away.

It’s Not Just for Work

Your calendar doesn’t need to be exclusive to work. In fact, it may be beneficial for you to regularly include your other commitments. From your children’s school activities to anniversaries and birthdays, seeing these events alongside your work schedule can help you make better scheduling choices. You’ll be more reluctant to accept an invitation to a meeting or convention when you know it will conflict with another occasion. By including other events on your calendar, you minimize the risk of dealing with a stressful schedule conflict between your work life and your personal life.

Never let your calendar run your day. You have the ability to schedule your day by using your calendar as a tool for time management. Start by setting clear scheduling boundaries by blocking the time you need for your main responsibilities. Don’t be afraid to take time off, but always make sure it is a part of your schedule. Also, consider including other life events and activities in your calendar to better manage your schedule.

For more tips on effectively managing your work schedule, contact our team today.

Dental Consultant | Building a Better Team

Recruiting employees can be a time-consuming, stressful, and sometimes costly endeavor. When you’re looking to build an optimal team, it can be tempting to hold onto old employees for too long and hesitate to hire new ones until you’re confident you’ve found the “perfect” fit. However, both of these common mistakes can be damaging to the efficiency and culture of your business in the long term. Building an ideal team can take time, but keeping the following tips in mind can help ensure your business is able to thrive.

Out with the old…

It can be hard to let go of any employee. Ideally, everyone you bring to your business will become a valuable member of the team. Unfortunately, that’s not always going to be the case. If an employee is displaying any of the following signs, it might be time to consider letting them go:

Bad Attitude: This includes eye-rolling, snide comments, complaints, confrontational tone, and passive-aggressive speech or actions. An employee that disrespects their co-workers won’t have the best interests of the team or the business at heart.
Lack of Engagement: Whether unfocused at work or unresponsive during meetings, an employee that’s not mentally present can’t give their best to their work.
Dishonesty: Whether this involves refusal to accept accountability, blaming others for mistakes, or outright lies, dishonesty is harmful to your business and your team.
Poor Performance: While it’s expected that an employee in a new role may need an adjustment period, if that employee shows an ongoing inability to grow professionally or meet the expectations of their position, it might be a harbinger of even bigger problems down the road.

In with the new…

Whether you’re looking to replace current employees or meet the demands of a growing business, you want to do everything you can to make sure you’re hiring the right people for your team. Here are some tips that can help streamline the hiring process:

There’s No Such Thing as Perfect: When looking to bring in new employees, it can be tempting to wait until you’ve found the “perfect” fit. However, that can unnecessarily slow down the process and cause you to skip over individuals who might become great assets for your team in time. Keep in mind that a good employee is one that grows and performs well, and look for individuals that possess the qualities needed to thrive long-term.
Follow Your Gut: Instincts exist for a reason. If something about a prospective employee isn’t sitting right with you, it could be a sign that there’s a deeper problem you’ll have to address in the future. While you shouldn’t necessarily make quick decisions on feelings alone, it’s worthwhile to take them into account.

Listen to Your Team: The members of your staff will often be able to offer good insights into how the company can grow. Whether a trusted employee is revealing the poor performance of a co-worker or a team is asking for another member to help manage their growing responsibilities, it’s worth seeking their input when making decisions.

Though there’s no exact science to building a successful team, there are proven strategies you can use to help the process be as painless as possible. By holding current employees to a clearer standard and exercising discernment with new and prospective employees, you can make the hiring process operate more smoothly and increase the overall productivity and happiness of your team.

For more advice on building a better team and managing your practice growth, contact our office.

Dental Consultant Evelyn Horne Url: https://evelynhorne.com/ (803) 667-3958

Dental Consultant | Schedule Blocking: Finding More Time in Your Schedule

Time is a limited resource. Schedule blocking is a way to plan your day visually by designating blocks of time for specific tasks. This strategy is particularly helpful for arranging your schedule to fit a variety of tasks–both inside and outside the office.

Redirect Your Focus

As an office manager or business owner, finding more time in your schedule will allow you to focus on the business. You’ll be able to have a better handle on the health of the business, including growth goals, finances, your team’s efficacy, and patient experience, to name a few. Being successful takes deliberate actions, it doesn’t happen passively.

Time Budgeting

Utilizing schedule blocking allows you to delegate your time and energy for specific tasks. By setting aside a set block of time for different tasks you’ll optimize productivity and can your team a good idea of when you’ll be available.

Stay Organized

Organization is easy! It’s easiest to practice schedule blocking using an online calendar. Time block schedules minimize the need of keeping track of important notes and tasks on paper or needing to commit them to memory.

Many find using a color coding system to differentiate tasks helps them stay organized and keeps their schedule easy to read at a glance.

Sounds Great! How do I start?

Take a few minutes now to jot down your goals for the next few days. As you prepare to put them in your calendar, review some of these tips to help you get started with blocking your schedule:

Set Goals and Due Dates

With your list of goals for the next few days, take some time and set deadlines for each task. When you have a written set of goals with due dates, you hold yourself accountable to getting them done. It’s a lot harder to push something off that you have a written, visual deadline for than something you’re only mentally keeping track of.

Make Every Minute Count

Schedule your whole day and include everything–from morning emails to closing procedures. When you schedule your entire day it helps you get more done and leaves you with more free time. By accounting for all the tasks–big and small–you’ll find you have less stress throughout the day knowing you haven’t forgotten anything.

Prioritize

When reviewing your schedule for the day, prioritize the most important tasks to be done. Schedule blocking helps you prioritize tasks based on what’s most important. And by color coding, it’s easy to stay organized and arrange your schedule based on levels of importance.

Maximize Your Schedule

Set realistic time goals for your daily tasks. If you know a task usually takes one hour, you can allocate an hour by blocking your schedule without worrying about where you’ll find the time for the task. Time blocking prevent overbooking yourself and affords you the appropriate amount of time to finish your tasks each day. Time blocking also reduces the amount of time you spend planning for a task and offers you more time to execute the task.

We hope these tips help you take control of your day instead of allowing your day to take control of you!

If you need help with schedule optimization in your practice or other practice consultation services, please contact us to learn more and to get started today!

Aberdeen Dental Consultant | Organization = Efficiency

Organization is a vital part of what keeps your practice growing and thriving! Every aspect of the patient’s visit, from the moment they step foot in the office until the moment they leave, must run smoothly in order to insure the patient’s satisfaction and encourage a return visit. It all starts with the organization your office.

Tips for Optimizing Office Organization:

Clear the Clutter. Keep the receptionist area near the entrance and free of clutter. Patients need to be able to complete and return paperwork as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to for the office to run smoothly. Having a clutter-free lobby and front desk helps ensure the patient a comfortable experience. Be in the habit of cleaning these areas regularly to boost productivity and reduce stress.

Don’t overcrowd. Make sure your patients are comfortable in your waiting area, and don’t overschedule patients. You don’t want to have an unexpected surge of aggravated patients sitting in a cramped lobby. Each patient should feel like they are being treated like an individual, not made to feel like they are lost in a crowd. Also keep extra room available to accommodate a sudden patient overflow.

Smooth and seamless. Organize your office to ‘flow’ in one direction. From the time a patient enters the office throughout the entirety of their visit, they should remain moving forward in the same direction, never doubling back where they’ve already been at any point. Ensure exam rooms are easily accessible from the waiting area, patients should move seamlessly from one station to another.

Clear Digital Clutter. Make sure you have a system in place to help organize and filter your emails and digital files, in addition to a system for paper documents. Learn to prioritize different types of emails so you can easily and distinctly separate what’s important and needs an immediate response, from what’s less important or junk.

These are a few ways that organizing your office can insure a more enjoyable experience for your team as well as your valued patients, leaving them eager for a return visit.

If you’re ready for a practice consultation or other helpful tips, contact us for more information.

Dental Coach Near Me | Boost Your Case Acceptance by Connecting with Patients

For many dentists, treatment acceptance can be a difficult topic. Nobody enjoys feeling pushy about a service they provide or a product that they offer, and the same concept holds true in dentistry. However, did you know that you can improve your case acceptance rate by simply reworking the way you talk to your patients? Learn how to have two-sided patient communication in our latest blog.

Help Them Understand the Benefits

When approached with an important decision from an outside source, people tend to be on the defensive — especially when it comes to something as intimate as healthcare. That’s why you should rethink the way that you handle case acceptance.

Your patient needs to understand their situation, whether it is a cosmetic issue, a preventative measure, or an urgent oral health concern.
Patients need to be able to follow your reasoning for why the service is necessary and how exactly it can change their oral health for the better.

Once they have a true understanding of the ‘problem’ and the ‘solution,’ they will feel more compelled to accept the treatment they need.

Stop Speaking and Listen

During your patient appointments, don’t simply run through the checklist of explaining their treatment. Patients want to feel that they’ve been listened to, not talked at.

Ask what their goals, needs, and concerns with regards to their oral health, confidence, and quality-of-life. Then, let them speak. Giving them the chance to voice their own opinion shows you care about them and how they feel, both before and after their treatment.

Educate and Elevate

Patient education is important. While there is a fine line between explaining and over-explaining, you should do your best to educate your patients about their oral health. Avoid judgment and being too graphic, but provide a thorough explanation of their current dental and oral health.

If they are curious about tiny cracks in their teeth, explain craze lines. If they want to know why their gums bleed when they floss, explain periodontal health and how to prevent it. When patients feel that you are invested in not only their wellbeing but their education, too, they feel more confident in the care you’re providing.

You can increase patient acceptance by having a two-way conversation with patients and including them in their oral health. These conversations will ensure patients understand their problem and are given a solution, are allowed to discuss their own concerns and goals, and are educated on treatment and services. Patients will feel that your suggestions are being given with their best interest in mind — that you care about your patients as individuals, not just as a mouth to fix or a goal to meet.

Schedule a consultation with our team today to discuss more techniques on how you can boost treatment acceptance and improve your practice.

Dental Consultant Near Me | Shimmer & Shine

Perhaps in the past, you’ve gotten by in business by your good looks, excellent personality and stellar reputation. In 2018, it seems like everyone and their mother is now a dental consultant. Things have changed drastically even in the past 5 years. The good news is that many dentists are now embracing the services you have to offer. They’ve come to accept that achieving clinical excellence and business excellence is more than a full-time job. They’ve realized with the right consultant, they can have a more cohesive and communicative team.

Have you considered marketing, but fear the sticker shock that comes with a custom-branded website? Perhaps you’ve considered having a strong social media presence, but just don’t fully understand how that’s going to work to bring in new business for you. Whether you’re starting a new business or looking to catapult your existing brand to a new level, we can help.

Since starting our dental marketing company in 2009, we’ve decided assisting dental consultants with their brand, unique selling proposition and marketing materials is the best marketing we can provide. Why not help our fellow consultants achieve new levels of success and impress their pants off in the process? This only leads to both of our long-term success.

If you’ve considered growing your business, but feel a bit unsure of where you should start, contact our team. Our team will do all we can to make your marketing shimmer, shine and stand out! You’re not in this alone.

Dental Coaching | The Costs of a Toxic Employee

Dental Consultant

Hiring is time-consuming, stressful, and sometimes costly. In some cases, this causes business owners to avoid firing an employee long after it has become clear that the person is damaging the overall work environment. Finding the right person for your office can be challenging. However, continuing to retain a toxic employee can be far more costly for you and your business.

What is a “toxic employee?”

A toxic employee is easily recognized for exhibiting several, if not all, of the following behaviors:

Bad attitude: This includes eye-rolling, muttering, snide comments, complaints, confrontational tone, and passive-aggressive speech or actions.
Lack of engagement: This can include work-avoidance, lack of enthusiasm, unwillingness to accept responsibilities, and being inattentive in meetings and huddles.
Dishonesty: Whether this involves refusal to accept accountability, blaming others for mistakes, or outright lies and thefts, dishonesty is harmful to your business and your team.
Poor work performance: While a new team member may experience a learning curve at first, the toxic employee never rises above the bare minimum of what has been explicitly listed as expected. In many cases, they may not even be fully or properly completing work. They are uninterested in feedback or training and unwilling to work to improve.

Do you recognize anyone in your office from these descriptions? If so, it’s time to pull the plug.

When you continue to keep a toxic employee on your staff, you may avoid the headaches of the hiring process in the short term. However, you are creating a host of other problems for yourself that will cost you a great deal more time, money, and energy to solve in the long term.

One toxic employee in your office can cause:

Loss of new customers: If a toxic employee is interacting with potential customers, they are creating a negative image of your business, which can lose hundreds or thousands of dollars in revenue.
Loss of existing customers: If your clients are treated poorly even once, they may choose to take their business elsewhere – and they may tell others.
Loss of your best team members: Your best people want to work in a positive environment where they feel supported and appreciated. By tolerating the complaints or shoddy work of one toxic person, you risk losing team players to a company that maintains a better atmosphere.

Don’t compromise your business or your best team members by refusing to fire toxic employees. For more strategies to improve your business, contact our office.

Evelyn Horne, Inc.

Phone: (803) 667-3958

Exploring New Heights

Tag: South Carolina Dental Coach