Top Ten Recession Beating Strategies for Dentists

This article was written by Simon Hocken of Breathe Business and first appeared in their newsletter. You can subscribe here.

The bad news keeps coming from many financial institutions, household names, both here and across the pond. A case of many chickens coming home to roost and hindsight being a wonderful thing. Interesting times. I don’t know (yet) what we are supposed to make of it, I just know that we find ourselves daily in the front line of our businesses, charged with the responsibility of making our business work and inevitably this means making sales.

So, here are ten strategies (already proven by some of Breathe’s client base) to help you make sales at this time:

• Maintain your Confidence (and that of your team.) The question is not whether there is going to be a recession, the question is whether you are going to take part in it? Be relentlessly positive and abundant. There is still plenty of business for all of us, still plenty of customers with good jobs and an income to dispose of. Still plenty of recent divorcees looking to improve the way they look and feel. Make sure that they choose you and your team. “Optimism is true moral courage.” Shackleton.
   
• Add (lots of) Value. In a recessionary environment buyers want a “deal”. So make sure your offer stands out and immediately distinguishes you from the competition. Our clients are making offers such as (time limited or number limited): White for Life, (free tooth whitening for life) “Whitening     for lovers” (buy one get one free), Incentives to refer a friend, Gifts such as Ipods when committing to starting a big treatment plan, Hotel Chocolat subscriptions for 12 months, Free electric toothbrushes, with free replacement heads for life etc when signing up to a membership scheme.
  
  
• Membership Schemes/Members Only Practice. A recession will test your client’s loyalty. It’s easy to postpone a check up or a hygiene appointment until the stock market starts going back up. Unless… your patients are all (or mostly all) on a membership scheme and committed to your practice. It much less likely they will cancel a standing order.
   
• Reactivate dormant patients, dormant treatment plans and create a robust and effective internal referral system. My coach, Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach has a phrase I use a lot, “All the money that you need for the rest of your career is in the pockets of the patients that you know and the people that they can introduce you to.” Every practice I walk into has patients who have cancelled appointments and not re-booked them. Now is the moment to contact them, make then an offer, make them welcome (don’t scold them for their absence) and reactivate them as clients. This is so much easier and more cost effective than marketing to attract new clients.
  
  
• Improve your “Patient journey”. Find new ways to wow your patients all the way along the client journey, from their first contact with your practice through to the end of their first treatment plan and beyond. This is what distinguishes you form all of your competition. Make this a system that you reproduce time after time, consistently.
  
  
• Create A Niche and then Diversify! No, not as paradoxical as it sounds. Create a niche that is your patient demographic and then diversify the offers that you make them. For example, some of the more progressive cosmetic practices we work with have brought in new services that address the same demographic that they already attract. Such as laser skin resurfacing, laser hair removal, facial aesthetics including skin peels and cosmetics. Even life coaching and hypnotherapy for smoking  cessation and weight loss.
  
  
• Easy ways to pay. Make your services affordable. It’s not about the ticket price, its about making it easier for your clients to afford it. Interest free and interest bearing credit is easy to set up through  providers such as Medenta. Give discounts to clients who will pay up front. Have a team member trained and dedicate to have these conversations with your clients (not you). These offers and having someone take the time to explain them, in private, will make it more likely your clients will say yes.
  
  
• Web Site and Internet Marketing. There’s an opportunity here! To date, not many practices have commissioned a professional, state of the art website. And even fewer have noticed that it has to be search engine optimised so that your site comes up visibly when potential new clients surf the net looking for the services you provide.
  
  
• Create a “Diffusion Range” of Services. You might be the best clinician in your practice with the most experience and a whole set of post graduate courses under your belt. You are certainly worth every penny of your fees. However, do your clients really need to see you to have a simple filling replaced and pay £120 for the privilege? Could your new associate, with 5 years clinical under his belt, offer a service that allows this patient to buy the same filling for £75? Top retail brands create a “diffusion rage” that allows access to their goods for less, but with all the cache of their brand. You can do this to.
  
  
• Incentivise your Team. Enlist the help of your team to sell your practice’s services. Reward their success with a clever bonus scheme. You will get more of what you reward. I suggest you pay bonuses for: new Membership Scheme sign-ups, New Patients who book a new patient consultation and big case treatment plan acceptance.