Interviews
Jeff Palmer, dental practice in Erie, PA.
Jeff Palmer is the office administrator for his father-in-law's practice near Erie PA. Despite being in an area particularly feeling the recent recession, their practice has grown 35% this year. The Erie area is a mainly manufacturing and agricultural community and has been hit pretty hard by the recession in terms of unemployment.
What have been the key components of your recent success?
Promotion and selling. Making sure the staff is applying organizational fundamentals and that we are all working as a team toward the same goal. Providing optimal dental health for the patient.
What would you recommend to dentists whose practices have experienced a drop in new patients recently?
Get the word out. You have one of two options. Join insurance plans and cut your fees by 10-60%. Or spend 10% of your income on marketing and promotion. You just have to make sure that you can get people to commit once the phone rings. You also have to make sure that you and your staff can communicate the value of your dentistry and be willing to talk money.
What types of procedures have you been selling?
Bread and butter dentistry, crowns, bridges, dentures, inlays, onlays and scaling and root planing. We have been doing about 2 Invisalign cases a month, mostly on adults for cosmetic purposes.
Has the current economic situation affected your practice at all? If so, in what way?
Yes. More people come in who have lost their jobs or they apply for credit and get denied.
How have you been overcoming this?
We have been overcoming this by increasing the promotion and marketing and seeing more people. Better odds this way.
What other tips do you have for overcoming this difficult time?
Another successful activity has been to motivate the staff with incentives for meeting practice goals. Also, make your practice a happy place! If you have a TV in your waiting room turn off the news and don't leave a newspaper lying around. All the gloom and doom does not have to affect you, your staff and your patients’ health.
- Jeff Palmer
Interview with Joel Benk, DDS
Joel Benk, DDS has a fee-for-service practice in Atlanta, is an advanced CEREC trainer and has been a client of Gilleard Practice Marketing for the past two years. His production income has been steadily increasing throughout that time and even recently includes several highest-ever production months.
What has been the key component of your recent success?
To have an abundance of new patients by carefully investing in effective marketing. I have proven over and over that regardless of the economic situation if you market effectively you can get new patients calling you. There are plenty of people looking for dental services you just need to reach them with the right message and medium.
What would you recommend to dentists whose practices have experienced a drop in new patients recently?
I recommend that they quickly come to terms with the idea that they are businessmen and realize that in order to not get caught in the downward economic wave that some businesses are experiencing they need to do whatever it takes to drive more new patients into their offices.
What tips do you have for overcoming these difficult times?
Generate an abundance of new patients through effective marketing and then really sell those patients on treatment plans to restore health and maximize esthetics. And if you are not doing these then you need to as this is the only way a quality fee-for-service general and cosmetic practice can survive.
What types of procedures have you been selling?
We have been selling veneer/cosmetic makeovers; implant reconstructions, multiple/quadrant CEREC restorations and soft tissue management programs.
What would be your final word to your fellow dentists?
In times that are economically unstable a certain segment of the population will fall on harder times. The solution is to a) reach the people who still are employed and doing well and
b) improve the effectiveness of your marketing and salesmanship so that those who are uncertain about spending money realize that they do have a necessity for dental work.
For example, just today I had a patient come in from a magazine designed for my practice by Gilleard Practice Marketing. Instead of going to a free clinic she scheduled for expensive crowns. Between good marketing and skilled sales we were able to help this patient get crowns that will be esthetic and durable, and contribute to keeping our practice flourishing!
“Joel Benk, DDS”
