Dentist Story – Dental clinic to Dental Chain
Today I am going to tell the story of my friend ‘ANUJ‘.
My friend Anuj is a very laborious dentist. He enjoys dentistry a lot. He had done a lot of effort during his graduation and after that, he had done many courses to improve his skills. His dream was to become a famous dentist. To fulfill his dream he thought to do the job as a somewhere. By finding for jobs he got his job in one of the leading dental chain. Till now, Anuj had never worked in a clinic. After some time he started providing good treatment. One day he thought to open his own new clinic. He thought to keep his charges low and provide the best treatment and in this way, he could save few money too.
He shared his idea with his parents and friends. Everyone liked his concept and he opened his own clinic in a sub-urban place with the help of his parents.
In the starting, he suffered from the problem that very few patients used to come in his clinic. Being having good price and treatment quality no one knows about his clinic.
Then he realized that marketing is very important and he started putting double effort. He became active on social media and after that, some patients started coming to his clinic but that wasn’t sufficient. He distributed Pamphlets, hanged hoardings, started doing camps by saving his money. He got the benefit of this and the number of patients increased after that my friend Anuj became busy and marketing was stopped.
An increase in the number of patients lead to new difficulties. Anuj was not capable to handle all the work alone like keeping cleanliness, scheduling patients, delivering good treatment, doing marketing.
So finally after seeing the profits, he hired a BDS staff. She was a BDS fresher female who wanted to work because she does not want to sit at home until she gets married. Now my friend started thinking that he is a businessman now. He transferred his many of the patients to his junior dentists and he transferred some of them to practice management.
Everything was going well but suddenly a problem occurs. Complaints started coming in treatment. The right diagnosis could not be made by young BDS. Patients management was also not good. Actually BDS who was hired by Anuj was very lazy. She does not have more interest in treatment. After teaching her so good no change could be seen in her. That is why patients were not happy and some of the patients always used to ask for treatment from Anuj only. Some patients walked out due to unsatisfactory.
Anuj wanted to do marketing and handle his business on his own that’s why he was not able to give his focus on treatment. So, when profit started decreasing Anuj decided to treat the patients by himself and refused his junior dentists to do the treatment and again he started doing everything by himself.
Now my friend has extended his work so he became busier. Now he uses to do a job in his own clinic from 09:00 am in the morning till 10:00 pm at night. In between, he just takes 3 hours break for lunch and he is not utilizing that time properly.
He is not earning more money.
Neither he is giving time to his family nor enjoying anything. Now, he is just doing a highly demanding job in which salary is also less. Slowly my friend became frustrated. Now he doesn’t enjoy doing the treatment and he just wants to leave everything and run away.
After seeing all this my friend Anuj decided to keep an experienced dentist who can make his life easier. And finally, he got a talented, energetic BDS employee. Now Anuj’s work has decreased a little bit. After sometimes work has increased more and Anuj thought to hire one more employee and this time Anuj was determined that he need a talented employee only. After searching a lot Anuj kept an employee who used to see dental clinic’s marketing and patients management.
Now everything was going right.
But after doing this much profit margin started diminishing. After taking out every employee’s salary, rent, lab bill, material bill, Anuj was left with nothing much. Anuj thought to increase the charges but due to that customers get reduced and overall it doesn’t change his profit margin much. Now Anuj is running in a type of rat race trap in which he is doing the job in his own clinic and not many conditions have changed in the last five years.
Such types of problems occur during running a successful clinic.
Due to these problems, many of the clinics close or can just survive because doctors know nothing else to do and clinic is in their own property so they don’t have to pay rent too.
Research has revealed that after having much knowledge about their own work 8 out of 10 businesses fail in the starting 18 months only.
And this is not the failure of luck. Behind this there are some myths, reasons, misunderstandings which lead to failure.
Michael E Gerber tells this thing in a very good way in his book The E Myth. Today I will tell you some of his things.
If you know how to do good dental treatment then it doesn’t mean that u can run a dental clinic in a good way. And this is the biggest reason for failure. To run a good business and to be a good dentist are two different things. The entrepreneur makes a new house and starts thinking about another house too and the manager makes a house and lives there for a lifetime.
If you want your clinic to be successful then it’s necessary to have three qualities in an owner or you will need three different people to run the business.
First an entrepreneur
Second a manager
Third a dentist
Entrepreneurs are those who give vision to a company, decide big goals, make plans for the future of the dental clinic, and keep his whole team charged. These things are important for the dental business. The entrepreneur basically focuses on the future.
The manager is those who run the business in proper order, manages patients and employees and take responsibility to keep everything in order which gives a consistent outcome. A manager learns from his old mistakes and analysis after making his new strategy. The manager keeps the company in the past and learns from it.
The last and third person is a Dentist who manages the main work which means a dentist solves the problems of customers in a dental clinic.
My friend Anuj is a dentist but neither an entrepreneur nor a manager that’s why he was stuck in a rat race trap.
So for a successful dental clinic this three-person entrepreneur, manager, and dentist are needed.
If you can’t hire this three-person separately then you have to play the role of these three which was not there in my friend Anuj.
Just like Anuj, people who start a business they do this mistake and think that treatment is only the thing that they need to know.
My friend Anuj is 70% dentist, 20% manager, and 10% entrepreneur but to run a successful business all three qualities should be 33% respectively. So friends you also have to put all these three qualities in you. In my next video, we will see that how can you convert a small clinic into a dental clinic chain. And how my friend Anuj got out of this rat race.
Dentist Story – Dental clinic to Dental Chain Part 2
So we were talking about my friend Anuj. Today I will tell some of the things that Anuj used and changed his life. Every business has three phases.
The first phase is the INFANCY STAGE
Most of the business starts at this stage. In this phase, work is done according to the owner’s wish not that which is best for the business. At this stage, the dentist uses to do all the work.
For example:- when Anuj had opened the clinic he himself was a dentist, manager, and entrepreneur and this happens with most of the people.
IF EVERYTHING GOES RIGHT THEN COMES ADOLESCENCE STAGE
This stage comes when the business starts growing and dentists realize that he himself can not run the business. That’s why they hire other people or make partners so that their business can improve.
For example:- when Anuj had hired the Junior BDS this stage had come. Everything was good but problems occurred after this too.
After coming to this stage we usually get three outputs.
FIRST ONE IS BACK TO STAGE 1
When the dentist has to give his work to his junior then he has to come out from his comfort zone. After that the work which the dentist thinks that he can do better, he has to give that work to someone else which doesn’t suit him and he can’t handle that. And even they don’t like the treatment of junior dentist too so they come again to the first stage. This has happened with my friend Anuj too when he again had started handling everything on his own which was actually not a good option.
The SECOND OUTCOME MAY BE THE INSTANT GROWTH OF DENTAL CLINIC
Dentists and employees both together also cannot handle the expectations of patients and things get out of control. Then the clinic suffers a bad name.
The THIRD OUTCOME BECOMES A BIG BATTLE FOR DENTAL CLINIC
Here they have to put all their efforts to run the clinic in a stable way. Due to which dentists can neither enjoy anything nor took the business on the next level.
And on this stage, only my friend Anuj had stuck. Years passed but the situation doesn’t change.
These all three outcomes are useless and this doesn’t let the business go on the next level which we call maturity level.
NEXT AND BEST PHASE IS MATURITY hird
This is the ultimate level of a business. All the big companies come under it. If you want to earn billions of rupees you have to bring your company’s level to this level. And to come to this level you have to take some steps which I am briefing here in 1-2 minutes.
First one thinks like a Franchise
When most of the dentist open their clinic they think like a dentist only which is very short-term.
They don’t know that after 2-3 years the clinic will be on which stage or what will happen after ten years or in which direction they want to take their clinic. They have only one goal that a large number of patients come to their clinic so that they could earn more money. And the same thing does not let them move forward.
If you have to create a big business then you have to think like a Franchise from starting only. You should think of the clinic as a Franchise Phototype which can be scaled.
The second one is clinic should be system dependent, not doctor dependent
Macdonald is not such a big company today because it makes the world’s best burger. But that’s because they sell the most burgers in the world. This is because they have made their rules so good and simple so that a college student without any experience can also get a job in MacDonald and make a burger and they don’t need any expert too.
This is the advantage of making a good system which is important for Franchise and you can see this thing in any dental chain. For example, let’s see about clove dental chain. They have more than 300 dental clinics in India. They hire young dentists in which many of them are freshers but they have made their system in such a way that they can provide treatment to all their patients similarly.
Most of the dentists make their clinic people dependent instead of system dependent. If a doctor leaves a job his experience also leaves the clinic with him. If he is the main doctor then he can’t go on holiday. Because if he exists the clinic exists and if he doesn’t exist the clinic will also not exist.
Now many of my friends must be thinking that it is not possible to make a system-dependent clinic from starting. But I want to tell you that when your business is on the infancy stage, you have to start preparing your system from that time only because you know all the things of your clinic either it is financial or marketing. You have to write all the steps and all the important things.
After that start hiring people for those places where you don’t feel confident. Like if you can’t manage the things properly u should bring a manager first.
The third one is work on the business not In the business.
If your clinic completely depends upon you then you are not doing business Instead you are doing a high demand job with less income. Dental business means you can live a life with a good lifestyle, not a job that won’t let you enjoy your life.
That’s why all the small works also should be done in documents and create processes after which we will call it system. Do not work on patients in the clinic randomly. You have to create a model that can give you Consistence, predictable and excellent output.
10 mistakes In Opening Dental Clinic
How does a young dentist can open his own new clinic and make it profitable in a short period of time??
I had opened my first dental clinic in 2011 and at that time I had made ‘TEN MISTAKES’ which took me many years to improve. Today I have come to tell you those mistakes so that you do not mistake the same. This is a hard fact that dental business is a profitable business if u do it in the correct way. Establishing successful dental practice in comparison to earlier is a big challenge in today’s time. Everyone wants to open their clinic in cities and nowadays cities have become crowded from clinics. And because you have got a dental degree. You can’t even change your field now. And this is why you will get many friends, seniors talking negative things. So listen to their things, learn from their mistakes and stay positive because nowadays thousands of dentists are earning crores in dental professions.
Let’s go on my first mistake without taking any more time.
1. DID NOT KNOW MY CUSTOMERS
If you have no idea about the population of the place where you are going to open your clinic then you are definitely going to be in loss.
I will make you understand from my own example.
When I had opened my clinic in 2011, I wanted to keep Rs 1200 as the charge of RCT but due to financial restrictions, I had opened my clinic in the lower-middle-class area where the monthly income of the patients who were coming to me was Rs 1500. Because of which I felt them costly.
But there were some people whose monthly income was more than Rs 50000 and they could easily give me this money. That’s why I tried my marketing for them. But then also they don’t come to me because my competitors whose clinic was larger than me, older than me they also used to charge Rs. 1200 for RCT. So they have no reason to come to me.
In short, I don’t want the patients who were coming to me and the patients whom I wanted were not coming to me.
And by the time I understood this, my precious time had come.
So, I suggest you define your ideal customer. You have to know before opening the clinic that how is their financial status, they are educated or not, they have nuclear family or joint family, more of the people belongs to which religion and at which type of clinic they wanted their treatment.
2. NOT DECIDED WHERE TO OPEN THE CLINIC
There are no businessmen in my family. So I don’t have the knowledge where to open the clinic. In 2011 I only knew that the clinic must be in the market place. And many of my friends have opened their clinics in their house or any of their own property which was not even visible from the road.
Where u are going to open your clinic? This question is about writing your future.
I will make you understood from my own example.
Gradually, some people started coming to my clinic and my charges were a mass practice but there were fewer patients so there was no mass practice. Suppose that I used to save Rs 25000 as profit from my clinic and that money used to go to the house d/d expenses and EMI because this amount was very less according to the city so I was not satisfied with it and I wanted to open one more clinic. But I did not have the answer to a question that if the new clinic will give immediate profit or not, I will sit at the new clinic so how will my expenses go? And there is not so much income that I can hire a Well-qualified dentist. Also, what is the guarantee of a new clinic too?
So, friends, it is a big question that where are you going to open your clinic. So, think before taking the decision.
Here are some tips for you:-
The width of the clinic is more important than it’s the length.
Space for two chairs is necessary.
If you want the patients/people from the middle and upper class then the parking area is too necessary.
The clinic which is visible from roads can save your money from advertisement.
If you are targeting lower middle class Or lower class then the large clinic will scare them and if you are targeting middle or upper-class people then the small clinic will repel them.
3. NOT DECIDED ABOUT MY SERVICE PRICE
Friends, product and service price can make and even ends a company. For example, nowadays Xiaomi company have its customer due to its price but the price of Apple phones are 10 times more than Xiaomi but then also they are sold and demanded in the market.
If Xiaomi will increase its charge then a disaster will come and if Apple will decrease its charge then also a disaster will come.
So now let’s go to my own example, I put my price of service according to my sir. His charges were Rs. 1500 so I had put Rs. 1200 as my charge and I did not think that his customers and my customers are different.
Consider about four factors for deciding your service price.
First one is:- YOUR COST
You need to know this thing while giving a service that how much cost is needed for giving that service like rent, employee salary, consumable material cost, labor cost, marketing cost.
Second is:- COMPETITORS PRICE
You should know about your competitor’s price too. You can keep your charges 10-20% less than your competitors at starting but not much because you are not Ambani too.
Third is:- CUSTOMERS INCOME
Charges should be that much that your targeted customers can afford to it.
Fourth is:- PRICE ACCORDING TO VALUE
While deciding the price you need to consider these three things only.
4. DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT MY COMPETITORS
Suppose an army goes for a battle and they have no idea about how big and strong the opposite army is, what are the strategy of the opposite army and what is their weakness. So will that army win? Your simple answer will be NO.
I had done the same mistake.
I had opened the clinic but I only knew the name and running situation of my competitor’s clinic which is not sufficient.
You should know about your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses,threats from them and you have to find out any opportunity due to them.
5. NOT UTILISED FINANCE PROPERLY
Everyone has their own budget. Some are rich and some are poor. Someone opens their clinic in their own property some took it on rent. Some will keep one chair setup and some will keep five chair setup. So everyone has to define their budget and divide it into three things. But before this let me tell you about my mistake.
At that time my budget was Rs5 lac. I had used more of my money on wall tiles and POP due to which I had to reduce my dental instruments. At last, I had even no money for the board to hang outside. So due to less money I had to make without a light flex board and run the clinic.
We always want to make a clinic with the latest designs and beautiful due to which many times some important things remain.
So first, you decide your so that you do not have to face problems in the future.
You can decide like this:-
Interior budget
Dental instrument budget
Marketing budget
Back-up budget
6. MARKETING MISTAKE
I was in the wrong belief that if my treatment will be good then patients will come automatically.
But at starting no one knows that my treatment is good so they don’t use to come.
When I came to know then I had done some marketing by collecting money but marketing was not continuous so it keeps on failing.
So you have to decide your marketing strategy and marketing budget beforehand.
For that, you can watch my previous video ’10 laws of dental marketing’. The link is provided in the description.
7. NOT ENOUGH CLINICAL SKILLS
I had opened my clinic just after 8 months of passing. I had not even done a short term course too.
I used to get stuck in a lot of cases at starting due to which I had to call my consultant.
Because of this consultant used to take my profit and patients used to see me as incapable.
Now just because my clinic was not running well so I didn’t want to spend my money on education.
My biggest mistake was not to upgrade my skills.
So, if you have doubts about your skill then do not open the clinic.
Whether you are a specialist in any field but if you want to practice in India you must have the knowledge of basic dental procedures.
If you don’t find a place where you don’t be taught by holding hands then be confident because you can join me in that case. My number is given in the description.
8. NOT PREPARED FOR WAITING TIME
When we start a clinic it won’t immediately start running good. And if there is cut-throat competition then it is possible that it can take many months to give positive results. Everyone has the idea for this but we are not prepared.
When my expenses were not meeting then I took many of those cases in my hand whose prognosis was not good or at that time according to my skills I was not able to manage them.
Due to this, I got the short-term profit but because patients got unsatisfied and a long -term loss occurred to me.
So it’s good that you have six months back up of expenses. So that you don’t feel tempted for wrong things. It’s better to say no if you can’t handle the case or call the consultant.
9. NOT HIRING RIGHT PEOPLE
When we start a clinic we do not have enough money so we look for cheap employees or even sometimes we used to avoid assistant also.
I had also done the same thing.
At starting my employees used to be uneducated and between 17-20 in age. They used to work only for their pocket money. So the biggest problem that used to occur was when they understand the work it was time for them to leave. So I won’t rely on them, they were not committed.
Employees are there to help you out so that you don’t need to take tension of small things and if it’s not like this then what is the use of employees.
10. DIDN’T KNOW THE IMPORTANCE OF OLD PATIENTS
At starting I use to spend all care, all labor and all money on calling new patients. As soon as someone started treatment with me, his importance was reduced for me.
And this was one of the biggest mistake of my life.
Your old patients are your asset and you should take care of your assets. These old patients will only be loyal patients. These old patients will spread word of mouth. These patients will give you a referral. You can sell your costly service on these old patients only and these will only be 80% part of your income. So, from the very first day find the way to stay connected with them.
5 Things To Know About Your Fellow Dentist
Welcome to Dental Board, Dr. Rohit Sharma from GDS.
Constantly growing dental clinics is a very challenging task, for this, you will have to learn new things constantly and will also have to do a lot of adjustments.
If you just keep looking at yourself then you will not learn much. Therefore, the competitor is also necessary for growth and you cannot ignore the competitor.
Army Plan For Attack
For example, if the army plans to attack, then they are very careful about how the officer is strong or weak.What is his strong point, what is the week, in the same way when you make a strategy for your clinic, you have to keep your competitor in mind, otherwise your strategy will fail.
If you know who your competitors are, what service they give, what is the value of their service, then yourChanges can be kept according to the competitor. You can answer the marketing campaign of your competitor.
You can create your marketing strategy with all this knowledge, take advantage of your competitor’s weaknesses. And you can improve your clinic. If a new clinic is opening, then you can estimate the loss from it. With all these things you will know the reality.
5 questions to ask
So here are five things on the topic of today’s video that you must know about your competitor.
The first thing your competitor does is everyone who can stop your customer from coming to you. And the competitor can be of two ways.
The first direct competitor means the dental clinic that has services like yours. So your competition is dental clinic run by corporates or doctors or quacks
The second competition may be an Indirect, which you do not see, every clinic faces a competitor even if you are your only clinic in each other’s village. Here you can have a competitor chemist who gives pain relief medicines to the patient. Or it may be the creeps that end the pain by biting the nail into the tree. And our competitor is also Colgate Sensodine which advertises and gives a sensitive toothpaste to the patient.
By knowing which type of competitor you are dealing with, you can create a message or develop your marketing strategy by communicating with the patient.
How competitive position himself
The second thing that you have to keep in mind is how your computers position themselves. The service of an RCT can be presented in many ways. And for this reason, a lot of clinics exit while providing the same service. Let’s see from an example,
A clinic that is on the main road is a clinic bigger than 200 square meters. He has spent lakhs of rupees on the interior. He is targeting the premium customer and charges premium money.
There is a clinic that has two dental chairs, has an average interior and provides good treatment ie this clinic is giving value for money.
A clinic that also works at Very Cheap Price is very crowded in its clinics which does not have quality in treatment ie this clinic is targeting lower income group and the man earns by practicing.
So this means that you should know it well, who is your competitor among these three, together these three cannot be your competitors.
So you should know very well what kind of population your computer is targeting, whether it is providing only a party cooler service, they are giving luxury service or are giving list like a sold side as much as you are competitive The more you know, the stronger you will become.
Competitor service price
The third thing you should know is that you must know the price of your competitor.
The reason for this is that you will get an idea how much money the market you want to target wants to pay.
If you know this thing, then maybe you bring a better pricing model.
My point to you is that your price can give success to your clinic and can also be drowned. See from an example if you keep your price lower than the competitor, you will get the advantage but you have to tell them that the quality is absolutely If not good, then the low price shows the interior quality. If your price is higher than the competitor, then you have to tell what you want. States are and that you Loyal Passion must also be added value patient will also be moved competitor do.
With the price of a competitor, you can decide the right price for yourself.
Competitive strength
Yes, you think it is good, after all, we have to beat our competitor and give good service to our patient, so it is important to know their strength, you have to know what the customer likes about them. Batter two, you are giving the service you are giving, why not give something extra to win the customer.
The last point you should know is that you should know what field you want to improvise in. Competitor Weekness is the biggest reason that you should know the competitiveness weekness. Know because he is ratually inbuild; By knowing the weekliness of the competitor inside you, you will know your stength. You can attract him or include it in a marketing message.
Many times you will also see that the week of a competitor is the same thing, so you may not even think that you can not remove this friend in your clinic, their weekness is an opportunity for you, many times the week of a competitor will be a common problem. With all of us here, you have to be creative. You have to search for new solutions. I hope to go to see the competition’s position in prize in strength. Electricity knowing necessarily the whole thing and apply to have been out stand Hundred Percent Competition.
If you have any question in your mind then ask in the comment box below.
10 Tips To Increase Dental Patient In 2023
The success or failure of every dental practice depends on the number of patients visiting it . In all the new professional dental set ups,the initial months are always tough.The financial viability of a new or old dental practice is decided by the new people who visit the practice in a week or a month.if the number of new patients is more ,it is a sign that practice is growing and gaining popularity. But if frequency of new patient is low or declining, then its indicative that something is wrong.you have to identify the problem and fix it.no dental clinic can run long time with very less new patient.
so without further delay,lets jump into the topic.
Its better to open a clinic in a place where your clinic is visible.
Outside aesthetic of your clinic matters a lot,take a look if your outside area of your clinic is not clean,or your board is faded away or your neighbor shop has encroached your area.
Have few hoardings or your ads near by your clinic ,which make your clinic easy to find.
Parking -Anything you can do to provide parking is a plus .Consider making some spot reserved for patient.
2.Digital Marketing .
Have a professional website.it doesn’t have to be the most beautiful website in India ,but it should have information about your clinic,services provided,timings,contact number and photographs of you & your clinic will be good .
These thing will make new patient feel comfortable making first call.
Its not just important for new patient but even for old patient who did not save your number.
make sure you have updated business listing on google my business.
In, today’s world you cannot ignore gogle map listing. After ads , this is first thing to come up in
search result and patient can see your review also so,regularly update it and ask review from patients.
Update other business listing like Just-dial /Practo/India mart/Bing/Apple maps/Sulekha. Google listing are great & must ,but a portion of your potential pateint may be looking or other platforms as well.so,its good idea to update these too.
3.Promotional activities
Marketing is key to success of any business and dental practices are no exception.
This is no particular way of promotion which can lead to success.
Copying marketing style won’t lead you to success.
A marketing strategy which is working for you today ,won’t work tomorrow.
You might get to know what your marketing stopped ,but sometime you may not.
You have to constantly look for new ideas of promotion weather its online marketing or offline marketing.
You have to choose wisely your marketing medium,other write you will lose your money.