How to make eight figures in dentistry

10 Apr How to make eight figures in dentistry

Money matters, and you need it to stay in business. Many leaders increasingly recognise that if you want to keep making money, how you do it may matter more than ever. Here is why.

As a dentist, you are privileged to have a license to provide a service. Because not everybody has a license to do what you do, the customer has no choice but to get the service from you as a licensed supplier. Sometimes, and in some markets, the central government subsidises the service.

There is a difference between those who elect or volunteer to buy the service and those who do so less willingly or begrudgingly; this may be why there is an awkwardness and a public perception about dentists making money. I doubt patients care so much about dentists making a profit and more about how they make it.

Ultimately, any business’s fundamentals of supply and demand are the same. Still, when the supply of essential services is narrowed by the customer having no choice but to purchase from a licensed supplier, it changes things and can create antipathy. We see this with utility companies, for example, which have some of the same characteristics as dentistry, such as regulation and licensed suppliers. Unsurprisingly, we see frequent commentary about utility suppliers making too much money or excessive profits. Often, professional services get labelled as expensive or a rip-off, perhaps because the barriers to entry and the costs of ongoing regulation and compliance are both simultaneously invisible to the customer and paid for by them.

Many people in the UK perceive that the public is entitled to dentistry at zero cost, just as most people access their healthcare. Therefore, it is no surprise that it can be interpreted as crass when dentists flaunt how much money they make, particularly in a world where consumers can and will judge suppliers immediately and publicly.

Healthcare is different from retail, hospitality, or most other businesses. Although dentistry has learned how to provide better service and understand the commerciality of dentistry by looking at what works well in different sectors in recent years, it has also, in my opinion, rather clumsily adopted the failed, rejected, or inappropriate activities of, including those that other professional regulators have called out.

Dental practice owners’ commercial interests have become better served using commonplace business-wide practices. To make a profit, you need KPIs, spreadsheets, and what I describe as ‘digital measures of success’.

We also have to redefine profit by recognising that our sustainable profits will be achieved by acquiring them in a way that consumers trust and are comfortable with. Emotions matter in healthcare, and your business’s success will always be impacted by what I describe as ’emotional measures of success.’ Measures such as these will provide insight beyond tweaking your services and how you present them.

Emotional measures of success look at you as a leader and make you accountable for how you make a profit. As a leader, you get to shape that conversation in your business.

Returning to where we started and how to make eight figures begins with emotional measures of success. Within our leadership and business development group of practice owners, we’ve recognised the eight emotional measures of success that will provide you with the most insight, peace of mind, and financial results. We’re sharing them with you for free, along with some guidance on how to develop them. Take the culture test and get instant results.