Big Case Dental Practice Marketing Blog
Kodak, Dollar Stores, and Your Choices
I’ve watched the series of plunges and gradual descent into economic hell by Koday Corp since the dawn of the digital camera. In corporate time lines, it’s been a very quick race from market giant to ineffectual pipsqueak.
There are some serious things to learn from this for every dentist out there. Yet, most will barely pay attention to this headline or to other even more pertinent ones that apply directly to their livelihood.
Even fewer will spend time thinking about what’s underlying the headwinds they continue to feel “post-recession.” They’ll head into the office another day and simply think about what bur or scalpel they’ll start the day with or when that next (insert special interest here date/activity) arrives.
Kodak’s leader’s realized way too late in the game that it’s model got moved. Lots of smart very highly educated engineers and business men were paid well to be vigilant and to “think strategically” but Mr. Market and Mrs. Consumer changed the rules in broad daylight while a the brains were tending to the company’s well being.
At Koday, quick changes were needed but they didn’t happen. Half-butted attempts at printers and cameras were launched. Sitting in my desk is a pretty darn good HD portable video camera branded/sold by Kodak with a battery life of about 5 minutes. I like it but it needs a power cord at all times to operate it. Sort of removes most benefits of use. THAT was to innovation as what throwing gas on fire is.
Fortunately, for dentists, none of us are behemoths like Kodak, we’re not big and lumbering. We can choose quickly to be smart OR dumb.
We can, when economic conditions or patterns change, make very quick turns and changes in response to the marketplace as long as there is a cash flow and debt service either in the business or personally isn’t out of control.
The first catch is we have to realize things are changing. The second catch is that one must realize that clinical leaders, professional organizations, MOST business consultants, will either be just as ignorant of what’s afoot or see what’s happening and refuse to point it out becuase by oding so they must offer solutions. It’s simply easier to distract everyone and hope that things go back to how they used to be.
When was the last time ANYTHING went back to the way it was? Answer: N-E-V-E-R.
Right now, the most important change underway for your practice, future, and livelihood, has absolutely nothing to do with technolgy.
The biggest trend and change you need to be concerned with is the shrinking income and buying power of the vast majority of your patients and potential patients.
The dental insurance gravy train is ever more like a drying up crusty train. That fact isn’t changing.
Put these two together and the long show up to work and it always gets better for the detnist boom by simply floating with the trend (ever growing and rising middle class size, wealth, and insurance coverage) is retreating as quickly as Kodak’s sales of TMAX film did.
A quick perusal of the best and the worst performing highly visible and talked about businesses invariably would include Apple on the best side and Best Buy on the worst. Apple targeting the affluent AND those so motivated by the cult they’ll find a way to buy what they want. Best Buy selling to the shrinking middle just like the average dentist.
The latest data on Best Buy shows that on a profit margin per square foot basis, their performance is as good as an average dollar store.
Ultimately, this consumer parable, visibly effecting the good and not so good fortunes of the big guys, also means you have some choices to be making.
Will you continue to sell to a shrinking, poorer, middle consumer or will you move upstream and target those with enough real dental problems that they are motivated to find ways to pursue treatment (I’ll find a way to buy an iMac no matter what!) or actually target a more affluent patient and deal with what that means.
If you’re going to keep targeting the drying up middle class insured, I strongly suggest you start to earnestly study the dollar store model very very carefully as that is where you will need to focus your attention related to marketing, selling, and managing your overhead related to quality of facility, staff and technology.
If you plan to fight the trend and move upstream, I suggest you focus on creating and communicating why you are different from everyone else and address all the facets of selling and promotion. Only those things can take you out of the way of the sea change underway.
The choice is yours…..upstream or dollar store…..
If you choose upstream, and would like some help getting there, you can go and get a selling and promotion education for free by hanging out at the local book store (if it still exists). Cancel your weekend activities now…..
If you’d like specialized help (and speed), we’re ready to give you the first step in going upstream which is a solid foundation in ethical selling so you can begin moving further away from Dollar Store land. To get going, simply click here.
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Would you look at this…..WSJ yesterday…..
NOT a Big surprise……big discounter Best Buy continues to head for the inevitable as they ignore the discounting tactics that always put a discounter out of business. Increasing volume on decreasing margins.
Are you aware that there are solid laws regarding thinking about fees, margins, and then addressing this as part of your practice operation?
Did you know that we provide help to our members so they understand the danger with discounting and how to approach it so it makes sense?
These rules on fees and margins are contained in two member only presentations.
As a preview, here are the top 6 things that damage all dental practice margins…..of course in the presentation, we address what to do with these 6 items as applied to a dental practice.
In these presentations, I also go into why “context” is a big deal with whatever you are selling. If you don’t think so? Just ask Apple, Starbucks, or Williams-Sonoma.
They’ve got this nailed and the lessons are there for everyone to apply.
The two presentations combined, are designed to put $60K in added revenue into an average practice within 60 days after application.
Their history is having been designed to return our top level consulting program (Elite) member investment ($60K over 20 months) to those in that Program shortly after enrollment.
Now, thanks to the ability to control who sees the presentations (Members only controlled log-in), I’ve included them in Session I and II of the Maximum Case Acceptance online Program. Yep, that means you can access them if you choose.
FYI: In case, you didn’t get the memo, the world has changed a lot, everyone is accessing information differently.
As an example, current Wall Street types get up at 2 in the morning to monitor the real time data coming from other parts of the world so they are ahead of everyone else when the opening bell sounds in NY.
While there’s no need for any of us to change our sleeping habits, there are a lot of things that have moved on that must addressed in each and every practice’s communications and how it sells itself to prospective patients and patients.
Practices who aren’t in the process of fixing this NOW do not have a fun future ahead……
As part of our adapting to technology, we’ve made our foundational training in ethical selling available in this unique format. It’s become our most popular Progarm. It’s also the best thing I could ever do for the profession, so I’m proud of making it available 24/7 to every corner of the globe…….
By the way, the two fee related presentations return the first two month’s tuition for the online Program 60X.
How many clinical CE courses every offer such……….zilch…..
So……Best Buy in the ditch or appropriate margins. Do’er and adapter or lame and lazy…….
Choice is yours……
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Newton (MA), Miami Beach (FL): Dentistry Today, one of dentistry’s most widely distributed and read trade magazines has named Dr. James McAnally, CEO, Big Case Marketing and President, Master Dentists Academy as a top consultant. This marks the 5th year, in a row, that the publication has named Dr. McAnally to its annual list for his expertise in marketing and promotion of professional practices and in ethical selling professional services. 
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From time to time, things from some of our best clinical post-graduate educators catches my eye like this ad from Dr. Frank Spear.
Kudo’s always go to these folks for providing a wealth of clinical information that puts their attendee’s on a different plyaing field at least in a THEORETICAL sort of way. [By the way, on this kind of subject matter (occlusion that drives most treatment decisions and helps manage health/risk, attemptint to piece it together from a whole bunch of 2nd tier experts is not recommended…..go to one of these reputable educators).
Kudos to Frank for realizing that education is headed down the distance path very quickly. The number of reasons to get on a big plane are fortunatley shrinking with each passing year.
Now….back to what’s not right about this proposition. The flub here is saying that magically you’ll “earn” more because you “learned” or some variation on that theme. (I’ve heard Dr. Kois tell his attendee’s a disclaimer about his courses delivering $$……kudos for that kind of honesty).
But….no disclaimer here. In fact, big promise. Bravo to them for using that message as they certainly understand some fundamentals about a lot of us in the profession. No kudos to anyone signing on who doesn’t have a grasp on what reality is related to selling occlusal based services.
Here’s the reality, as soon as one leaves anything that is emergent or one or two tooth treatment based insurance dollars, it is not simply “learn and then earn.”
Things like worn dentition and occlusal disease often times have a minimal next step of several thousand dollars for some device that takes considerable skill to deliver after astute diagnostics. And then definitive treatment can be $40K, $50K, $60K…..etc. There’s NO WAY to have the “snowball’s chance in you know where” to do those kinds of cases without approaching promotion and selling very differently than 95% of the profession. Thus, to get the little “sold” sign on the case….you need much much much more than this DVD or an entire Spear-Pankey-Kois-LVI-Dawson program.
By the way, we’re one up on Frank, our version of digital learning, isn’t a DVD, it’s immediately available as soon as you sign on for our online training in ethical, behavioral based selling (the Maximum Case Acceptance Online Program).
Here’s what Dr. Abbott (began using the System in last 2010….in a very post-housing bust, broken consumer world) had to say from Phoenix recently: “Just wanted to let you know that October was our best month ever in my practice. This month we have already beat that and are scheduled to do $30,000 in the last next few days. Thanks!” In his case, heavily insurance based practice but selling more effectively and ethically as he diversifies for success in the new reality that all dentists live under…..
Oh yeah…..if you plug into ethical selling, you really will earn more while you learn. In fact, it’s something I put into writing as a guarantee. No clinical CE educator does that….no one……
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Holidays are great. The downside is that when your role is to monitor a large stream of information that effects your member doctors there is a BIG backlog when one returns.
I’ve just “digested” my backlog from Thanksgiving (and will literally finish off a delicious smoked turkey courtesy of Greenberg’s in Tyler Texas–god bless the internet–today….
And here are some sobering numbers, gathered up from a number of sources, that any dentist not heeding has trouble in store (sure as shinola)…..
40 Million Dental Patients Stuck at Minimum Wage Level Not Buying Dentistry
Millions of Dental Patients with Limited Future Wages due to College Degrees but NO Technical Skill
Middle Class Dental Patient Income and Real Disposable Dental Patient Income Retreat to 1973 Levels
Millions Under the Age of 45 Need Almost ZERO Dental Services
These things are the signs of the dental times. You, being of the more astute variety of dentist (that’s why you requested our emails), likely already noticed this shift.
For the astute, ethical selling (influencing behavior in ways that help consumer buy things that are good for them–yes that means your services) is a fundamental for practices expecting to do well under the current conditions which are going to be around for a LONG time.
Why is ethical selling so important right now? The answer can be found in what most in the profession won’t “get” which is: There will be NO return to the post WWII growth model of an always expanding, economically rising, dentally insured middle class that easily fuels practice growth! It’s NOT a political party thing (democrat, republican, socialist, communist, greenie, naderite, paulian….does NOT matter). It is a global efficiency (thank you Mr. Microchip) and cheap Cheap CHEAP labor elsewhere thing.
What do I mean by “don’t get.” A great example is found at any number of the Facebook or “Townien” groups that I periodically drop in on where if you point out these ugly beasts appearing in the real data one (literally) gets back total silence–all the dentists congregating there are too scared/terrified to talk/think about such things. BUT…..if you talk about CT scans, spherical amalgam, beer, or someone’s cat falling off a couch or farting……then you’ve got an audience and a roiling debate. That’s what I mean by not “getting” what’s important related to being in business and thriving two years down the road or NOT.
Like it or not, all of the above numbers are realities for YOUR customers and you must choose how you will deal with their reality because patient reality plus your choice becomes YOUR REALITY.
In case you missed the memo, we’ve made learning to ethically sell by way of a real systematic, step-by-step process, easy for you and your team and you don’t have to deal with TSA b.s. to get it….
More….here…..
P.S. Our member’s who enter the online Program automatically become part of the Master Dentists Academy. Credentialing gets you access to member only promotional tools (i.e. ads) AND more one of a kind power to be above your competition…….one more reason to put this foundation in place…….
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Happy Thanksgiving! Still one of my favorites even though I now enjoy it with frozen margaritas and cold smoked turkey on the beach. No snow, no leaves to pick-up, and no funny pilgrim suits.
THE END IS NEAR
2011 is rapidly closing out. In spite of the changed economy, in which most generalists are suffering, our members upgrading their ethical selling abilities are having some record months. If one only viewed their world, it would be a much happier one than most dentists in the Western industrialized world currently enjoy. [FYI: We’re unveiling a credentialing process where more promotional ads/strategies will be made available to those doctors who get a solid foundation in our ethical selling Program—now available online.]
By and large, the momentum, ANY practice has for the last 6 weeks of the year is related to what happened 6-10 weeks previously. October-November requires specific annual action to made December-January excellent months.
Annual planning via the calendar is a key to making this annual transition a good one. Making time for planning requires a commitment to doing this and it certainly helps when one is selling at the right fee levels so there is breathing room for very important activities that must occur during administrative time.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ECONOMY
Bottom line: we aren’t producing services or products with rapidly rising demand or value that drives jobs or wages. As a side-effect, we’re simultaneously consuming less which creates a negative feedback cycle.
No one at the national level want’s to say that the end result is that the middle class wage earning is “S.O.L.” but that’s the reality of this show. To see through the smoke-screen of “business as usual and we’ll eventually get back to the way things were in the boom years,” you simply need what Napoleon Hill wrote about years ago which is called ‘accurate thinking.’
The same holds true in dentistry. There are practices, quite a few of our members, having their best year yet because of the decisions they made and continue to make. The most successful dentists have one word completely missing in their vocabulary—blame.
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