Even if You’re Careful, You’re Going to Get a Reputation

Posted on December 19, 2017 by Fred Joyal

How many times have you heard someone say “My reputation is at stake,” or even “We’ve built a reputation as (fill in the blank)?” But how can you really define “reputation,” and how is yours created?

The truth is, your reputation isn’t what you do; it’s what people believe you are going to do. And there’s a huge difference there. And given today’s headlines, I don’t think I have to tell you that your reputation is constantly at risk.

What you do and how you do it may be the foundation for your reputation. However, the propulsion, the spreading of it, the required active engagement in the media, is what exposes it to the world. That is what gives it life.

And that exposure and circulation is happening all the time, with or without your permission. Certain media, whether you like it or not, are creating and building that reputation. Yelp, Google, Facebook, Healthgrades, Instagram and many other sites are gathering opinions, ratings and reviews about you — all the time.

So the real question becomes, how are you actively “controlling the story?”

It’s understandable to think, “I’ll let my outstanding work speak for itself.” But it’s not really enough to be good. In fact, it’s not even enough to be the best.

The truth is, the marketplace is littered with products and services that were “the best,” and yet the second- or third-best version wiped them off the map. Why? Because they were more actively and expertly marketed. The best product, although superior, failed to take control of the conversation and paid the price.

And I know what you’re probably thinking right now, “I’m a medical professional. I shouldn’t have to be involved in all that sort of behavior.” The problem is, your competitors do involve themselves. And your impression about social media’s lack of respectability is mostly misguided. The reality is, consumers are hungry for information about you, even if it is only someone else’s biased impression. And consumers’— your prospective patients’— easy access to this information only increases their appetite for it exponentially.

Which is why, again, you need to take charge of your reputation. Fortunately, there are several ways to do just that — most of which involve actively engaging your patients in the process. Here are a few steps to consider:

Create video patient testimonials and distribute them via your social media, email, and website. Letting someone else sing your praises is a lot more powerful than having to do it yourself. And using video lets you show, not tell, prospective patients what your practice has to offer.
Claim your social media. Check out your profiles on Yelp, Google, Facebook and Instagram. Is your information accurate? Have you included everything that makes your practice great?
Counteract negative reviews. What are people saying about you on Yelp, Google and other review sites? Don’t let negative reviews just sit there working against you, respond. But when you do, make sure you are positive, professional, and above all, compliant. Need help? Click here to download our FREE guide to handling negative online reviews.

Net-net, your reputation is still based on what others say and think about you, but you are not powerless. You still have the ability to monitor what’s being said, acknowledge it and counteract it with information that you control. So in the end, your goal isn’t so much about making sure you don’t get a reputation, as it is about owning and shaping the one you’ve got.

The Devastating Impact of Indifference

Posted on August 30, 2017 by Fred Joyal

With the ever-increasing influence of social media affecting every business, it is more important than ever to be hyper-vigilant when it comes to the perception by your patients that you care about them. They need to feel that you care about them more than money, more than efficiency, more than your own sense of importance.

And understand that the opposite of caring is indifference. Think about how quickly and easily you perceive when someone is being uncaring or indifferent to you? How little did you like it? And did you post somewhere about it? Did you feel compelled to tell someone? Or did you just not use that service anymore?

It doesn’t matter if you’re not feeling particularly caring that day or toward that patient (and I’m talking about everyone on the dental team, not just dentist). What matters is that they perceive that you care. Which means maybe you have to act like you care, even if you don’t feel like it. Because that’s the job.

This blog was inspired by a recent post by Seth Godin, whom I normally find extremely insightful, but this post was more akin to wisdom, and relates directly to creating a remarkable patient experience (my favorite theme!), so I’m going to quote it in its entirety here for you:

The Toxic Antidote to Goodwill,

by Seth Godin

Anyone who has done the math will tell you that word of mouth is the most efficient way to gain trust, spread the word and grow.

And yet…

It only takes a moment to destroy. Only a few sentences, a heartless broken promise, a lack of empathy, and it’s gone. Not only that, but the lost connection can easily lead to lawsuits.

Doctor, the surgery seems to have gone wrong!

It’s not my fault. I did a perfect job. Tough luck.

Architect, the floor is sagging, the beams were put in the wrong direction!

I don’t care. There’s a three-year statute of limitations, and even then, it wasn’t my job to ensure that the work met the plans.

Airline, my two-year-old can’t sit in a row by herself, and the agent on the phone said you’d work it so we could sit together!

It’s not my fault. If you don’t want to get on the plane, don’t get on the plane.

In all three cases, there are significant operational barriers to magically fixing the problem. But that’s not where the breakdown happened. It happened because a human being decided to not care. Not care and not express anything that felt like caring.

A human being, perhaps intimidated by lawyers, or tired after a hard day, or the victim of a bureaucracy (all valid reasons) then made the stupid decision to not care.

By not caring, by not expressing any empathy, this individual denied themselves their own humanity. By putting up a brick wall, they isolate themselves. Not only do they destroy any hope for word of mouth, they heap disrespect on someone else. By working so hard to not engage (in the vain hope that this will somehow keep them clean), they end up in the mud, never again to receive the benefit of the doubt.

What kind of day or week or career is that? To live in a lucite bubble, keeping track only of individuals defeated and revenue generated?

It turns out that while people like to have their problems fixed, what they most want is to be seen and to be cared about.

Of course you should use these fraught moments to reinforce connections and build word of mouth. Of course you should realize that in fact people like us get asked to recommend airlines and doctors and architects all the time, but now, we will never ever recommend you to anyone, in fact, we’ll go out of our way to keep people from choosing you.

But the real reason you should extend yourself in these moments when it all falls apart is that this is how you will measure yourself over time. What did you do when you had a chance to connect and to care?

Sometimes the only option is to reach deep into ourselves to offer up caring even when we feel we are too busy, too annoyed, too frustrated or too frazzled. But this is when it makes all the difference. And if it’s just a performance, so be it. Because what happens almost every time is that other person responds positively, warmly, humanly. And suddenly you feel yourself genuinely caring. And find a way to solve the issue.

Cracking the Insurance Code

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Fred Joyal

I’m not talking about treatment codes here. I’m talking about how to stem the revenue erosion that many practices are facing by accepting dental plans, and I’m doing it in a webinar with my good friend Bernie Stoltz, the CEO of Fortune Management. His company has helped more than two thousand practices solve this challenge and build strong practices with happy patients.

We will go into alternative methods of satisfying your patients needs without compromising your profitability, and how to make choices about accepting plans as part of an overall strategy. If you’re hoping to thrive in the next decade, this webinar is a must!

It happens on Tuesday, July 11th at11 am PT / 2 pm ET. Click here to register.

Here’s what we know already: “Insurance” is now the #1 reason people pick a new dentist. This game-changing consumer behavior is hurting profits at practices nationwide. Join me and Bernie and learn new, better ways to leverage your insurance and dental plan offerings to maximize production and patient satisfaction. Here are some highlights:

Why insurance is your #1 hidden marketing expense
Best insurance strategies for 2017 & beyond
Tips on choosing the right plans for your practice
Smart new alternatives to traditional dental insurance

Don’t miss this informative, fast-paced presentation followed by a live Q&A session. And as always, if you register but can’t attend, you’ll be sent a link to the recording of the session. See you online!

Why Do Patients Choose You?

Posted on April 11, 2017 by Fred Joyal

We recently did a survey here to determine what’s important to patients these days when it comes to selecting a new dentist. Because we are such clever marketing people we put it all into a nifty infographic.

I think you’ll be surprised at how some of the patient thinking has changed from five or ten years ago, like their attitude toward insurance and their interest in technology. It’s good insight for all practices as you plan your marketing and make other practice decisions.

To get the infographic just click on the image below and it will send you to our site.

Alert: We are having an issue with Chrome not downloading this properly. Use another browser if you can. We should have it fixed by 2pm PST.

The Three R’s of Building an Invincible Team

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Fred Joyal

Over the past 35 of my business life, I’ve seen many different approaches to team-building. In our own business we refined the process to a very simple philosophy, which I call the Three R’s, which are Retrain, Repurpose or Replace.

We have over 250 team members at 1-800-DENTIST, and many different skill sets and levels of income, but this approach works throughout the company. I’ll explain them each in detail.

RETRAIN

The first step for us when hiring someone is to make sure that they are a cultural fit for the company. Once we determine that, and believe that they can do the job, then they are hired. We then monitor them throughout their career, coaching them, evaluating them and giving them feedback. Sometimes you get an employee that is a terrific cultural fit, but they are missing some key skills, or they have let some bad habits slip into their workday. That’s where retraining comes in.

A typical example would be an operator in the call center, who is a great employee, liked by everyone, and has been doing a great job for years. And then suddenly his productivity falls off. Since we record all their calls, we can listen to see where that team member might have drifted from his training. This is when you put them through retraining, refreshing their skills and reminding them of the fundamentals of their job. And usually within a week that team member is right back to her old level of productivity.

The same thing can happen with a salesperson, or a customer service team member. Over time it’s easy to drift from the essential behaviors, skills and verbiage that work best, and eventually it shows up in productivity. The manager’s responsibility is to observe this and put the person through retraining as quickly as possible.

Also, to really grow employees, you and the individual team members need to be willing to look at their gaps in skills, and offer them the opportunity to close those gaps with education. Retraining then means “more training,” to broaden their skill set and make it possible for them to keep up with the changes in the marketplace as well as develop the skills to advance.

In a dental practice, this could mean regular seminars to maintain peak team performance, reminding your team members of the importance of fundamental skills and introducing them to new ones. Or it could mean that the practice has added CEREC, and the assistant needs to learn how to do as much as possible with the new technology, and how to talk about it to the patients.

REPURPOSE

Sometimes you find a team member that is an excellent cultural fit for the business, and is a diligent worker with a positive attitude, but they are just not thriving in the position they were hired for. No matter how much retraining or coaching you do, they remain a “B” player, so to speak. What we do then is try to determine if they would fit better somewhere else in the organization.

Why do we do this? Because great people are hard to find. And experience has taught us that most people want to do a great job, but are just better at some activities than others. We have repurposed employees hundreds of times over 30 years. Let’s say someone on the sales team really believes in the product, but just can’t seem to consistently sell month after month. We’ll might then try them out in the customer service department, and suddenly they excel at their new job.

We’ve also graduated many people to higher positions. This is another part of repurposing. Some team members may be slipping into lower performance because the job is not challenging enough, and they are not working to their full potential. At that point, their manager could realize their capabilities, and promote them, or another manager could “steal” an employee for her department, when he believes the person is a great fit and would excel in the new role.

Now you may be saying, “Fred, this doesn’t work in a dental practice. You can’t repurpose a hygienist, for example.” Really? Maybe she would be a much better treatment coordinator. Or maybe she’s just bored, and if you assigned her the social media responsibility as part of her job she would get jazzed about coming to work every day, and take on an important role. You can even repurpose the dentist. Maybe he or she is not great at case presentation, and is never going to be, despite retraining. Time for that treatment coordinator role again. Do you start to see the possibilities?

REPLACE

It’s expensive to find new employees, and it’s expensive to train those employees until they get up to speed in their position. But sometimes that person has got to go. Short of some sort of misconduct, this is our last resort. But we’re not afraid to pull the trigger. If they can’t be retrained and there isn’t a better position in the company for them, or they’ve not succeeded after being repurposed, it’s time for them to work someplace else.

As a side note, the hardest team member to let go is a B player who, no matter how you try, is not getting better and will never become an A player. Letting go of C players (and F players!) is easy by comparison. But if you want everyone functioning at an A level, you have to be strong enough to eventually face the fact that this person is never going to give you all that you need. And also–and this is critical to understand–it is not fair to all the other A players to keep that person around.

And of course, an invincible team is all A players.

For more thoughts on why it’s important to be comfortable letting an employee go, check out my previous blog, “Why Firing Someone is an Act of Kindness.”

I know that employee management is even more challenging in a dental practice, where there is a fairly small number of team members. This is why I recommend two key resources: Dental Post.net and HRforHealth.

HRforHealth is a program that, at its most basic level, does all the things that keep you fully compliant with regard to employee laws in your state. But beyond that, it systematizes the review process for your employees, so that if you need to retrain or repurpose them, you’ve already made it clear what your expectations are of them in the position and the practice. And if you do need to terminate someone you can do it without being at risk of litigation, because you’ve laid the legal foundation properly. With HRforHealth, you can easily take advantage of all the human resources tools that large business use, at a very low cost.

DentalPost.net is a job search site specifically for the dental industry. It doesn’t cost anything for a potential employee to list him or herself there, and for a reasonable fee the dentist or office manager can search for the best fit for the practice. I recommend it because practices can be very clear about the type of practice they operate, from culture to philosophy to clinical approach, and this makes for a much better hire. The site also does personality testing, so that you can see what type of individual you’re bringing into your team mix, and where they are most likely to thrive and contribute to your invincible team.

I hope you find the Three R strategy useful as a guiding principle in building your stellar team. We’ve found one of the biggest benefits is it makes your business a great place to work, which means it is a whole lot easier to attract the best people. That’s a big bonus!

[Full disclosure: I’m on the advisory board of both these companies, which I only do when I believe a company is exceptional and I can contribute to their serving the industry better.]