Prologue
My Story
A rowdy childhood in Dallas, two damaged front teeth and years of dental visits led to Meharry Medical College, and from there to mission dentistry in Nairobi.
The Issue
Fall 2016
Contents
Getting Started
The Best Time to Get a Map is Before You Go On a Journey
Opening email in the first hour costs about 30 per cent of a week's productivity, because you start on someone else's agenda. The same trap, applied to a whole dental career.
Getting Started
Optimal Image, Optimal Success – Let’s Do This
Twenty-five years of consulting suggest dental teams under-represent their skill through poorly chosen uniforms, and that patients respond to appearance before advice.
Getting Started
The Benefirts of a Small-Town vs. Big-Town Practice
Nine in ten young buyers want a practice close to a city. The competition, overhead and PPO pressure that come with it, weighed against what a small town offers.
Business Fundamentals
Beyond the PPO: Why Going In-Network is No Longer the Only Option
Reimbursements fall, restrictions rise, and patients delay treatment over plan maximums. The case for in-house savings plans as an alternative to going in-network.
Business Fundamentals
Service Brilliance
Service quality shows up in financial results, not just satisfaction scores. What Nordstrom, Starbucks and Ritz-Carlton do that rote service standards never produce.
Business Fundamentals
The Case For Disability Insurance: It’s Impossible to Predict Tomorrow
The ADA puts a dentist's chance of substantial disability by age 40 at 45 per cent.
Practice Builders
Marketing is Your Life Blood so Don’t Let it Run Dry
Most dentists know they need to update their marketing and have no plan for where to begin.
Practice Builders
Why New Dentists Need to Take Advantage of Scripting
Scripting is the third step after targets and systems, and the one new dentists skip. Why learning it early raises productivity fastest for a practice still taking shape.
The Power To Succeed
Fear
The youngest of six on a modest Iowa farm, told he had choices his parents did not.
The Power To Succeed
Ignite DDS
A case for the KISS principle in dental school: three missions to accomplish before graduation, and why the degree is the thing everything else depends on.