Welcome to blogging 101.
A world that can be terrifyingly simple. Grab a few thoughts and a microphone and blab away.
Create a Youtube channel. Flip on the “LIVE” button on your Facebook or Instagram TV. The world wants to know your thoughts.
If you hit the right buttons at the right time, you may strike your 15 minutes of fame. Be aware, however, it can be a lonely life. The life of trying to create that which cannot be duplicated.
Many of us, including myself, would rather just lock themselves down in a soundproof room and drown in polytonality. Using our creative juices to self entertain. Wishing it would feed more than our souls…that it would actually create the beautiful life we write and sing about.
Perhaps it can. Perhaps you get unhinged in a demented cacophony symphony. Maybe you depart the consciousness for a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility that achieve the three paths of action, knowledge, and devotion…
Maybe you just get up and write a blog which gives your brain that temporary release of attention deficit only to begin that dark ascension to the light for the next one…..
Maybe you decide to start a podcast and maybe gather another 150 souls into your realm….
Welcome to blogging 101, welcome to social media, welcome to the new world.
TIMEfactors
Approximately 20 years ago I wanted to develop a simple formula to keep dentistry affordable.
“Afford” is relative. Being able to bear the expense of something, as mentioned in previous blogs is relative. In order to survive, we all find ways to “afford” food and shelter. The type of food and shelter is relative to “ability”. There are millionaires living in a shack next door that drive a 20 year old car. There are many more that live like millionaires that live in mansions and drive cars owned by the banks.
Relative.
Interestingly some people with the supposed “ability” to buy a new television, take a 4 week vacation in Belize, and drive a hot sport car find no “affordability” in paying for dentistry. Or investing in time to eat healthier. Go to a health club. Read a book.
TIME is the largest investment we all make. William Penn said “Time is what we want most, but we use worst”.
TIMEfactors,,,
#1 – Good for the patient.
The techniques and products used in TIMEfactors must be PROVEN. PROVEN scientifically, PROVEN independent of the manufacturer. PROVEN with street credibility in time and volume.
That means just because Dr. “GURU” says it’s good doesn’t means it’s good.
The “BIG” company that gives you a shiny piece of marketing materials showing bar graphs and magnification may only mean they are good at photo shop.
TIMEfactors is about “never believe a salesman”. It means you have to do your own research and ask for referrals. It means you have to understand what is good for your patient – because they trust you.
#2 – Good for the business.
Health care is famous for developing products that are miracles. The big companies are good at marketing – finding the “GURU” that they “sponsor” with their “better than sliced bread” product. Creating incredible marketing materials where .01% better looks like 30% better on the graph with magnification.
It’s great to have all these things – but the bottom line is, regardless of how “good” the product is. Even if it’s proven to be better – it HAS TO make sense for the business.
The latest and greatest products come out, and very few in health care take the time to price the product out profitably. They integrate the latest, overpriced product (relative to the current fee) and suddenly it’s not really “good for business”.
UNDERSTANDING “good for the business” is critical if you want to “stay in business”.
So here is a fact, and you know it.
The majority of expense for almost any business is labor.
In Dentistry it’s about 25 – 30% depending which guru you ask. Most businesses are at the bell curve and in the high range of this by the way. You can see the “averages” published regularly so you can compare yourself. Everybody likes to talk about this, but the goal seems to be the reverse of what is actually human nature.
Let’s cut expenses. You need to pay less for everything, and charge more for what you are doing…..
Really?
Maybe that’s what patients think too. Maybe that’s what insurance and benefit companies think too.
The whole thing is a spiral into a worse situation for health care overall!!
NOBODY wants to make less. NOBODY wants to have worse service. NOBODY wants compromised materials that are cheaper used on them.
The future of healthcare, the future of any good business is TIMEfactors.
Creating a product with superior results in less time. Simple.
If labor is 30% of your cost of making bread and flour is 8%. Negotiating to “grade b” flour may get you to 5% flour costs. How does this look exactly.
$100 of bread.
$30 labour
$8 flour
Gross profit $62
Using Grade “B” flour
$100 of bread
$30 labour
$6 flour
Gross profit $60
The problem is there was a compromise on the quality of the end product which resulted in some customers going elsewhere to get the bread that tasted better. The consumer doesn’t care that the business saved a little bit – they simply didn’t have the same experience.
A wise baker learned to use a new “premium” flour that created the same, proven taste. The flour still costs premium price, but can make twice as much in the same time. Many taste tests and several years on the market have proven the product. Other bakers have told him about it. He has read many stories. Millions of successful loaves….
He decides to try this in his own bakery. Even though the product is technically, and proven scientifically to be healthier and tastes better – he is able to maintain the product cost.
$100 of bread
$15 labour
$8 flour
Net profit $77
Instead of a focus on cutting costs and going against every human beings nature….where are the entrepreneurs? The people who say we can create a better product, a more predictable outcome, and a better experience. Patients LOVE to spend less time in the chair. They LOVE that you now have time in your schedule to get them in on short notice. Your team LOVES that the business is more profitable and everyone gets dividends.
BOLD TRUTHS
I’m just a cotton roll broker with a little extra experience in a few thousand offices over the last 110,000 hours of time invested of my life.
No matter what I say, most of you will simply ignore this or fit in a couple of little things, or maybe just hit delete. The truth is that I have SEEN offices that have happy teams, that produce triple the average out of the same dental chairs as you have. They are likely across the street in little old Saska-ville. Many of these people are so proud of what they do in little Tim-Buk-tu that they write about it. They blog. They try to share the knowledge of how it can be done.
Every one I read, it always comes down to all the principals of every successful business. Continual improvement. Hard work.