In this article, dental practice management consulting adviser Ed O’ Keefe will share to you about a critical element called “Association vs. Disassociation”. The dental practice management consulting adviser will share to you how important this critical element is in your dental practice as you use it in offering your dental patients the treatments that they need to have. And this is something that the dental practice management consulting adviser focuses specifically at their dental practice management website!

Here’s what the dental practice management consulting adviser will share to you about this critical element in your dental practice…

In your dental practice, when you get the patients in your practice and offer them the dental treatment that you have for them, as a dental practice management consulting adviser I would tell you that there’s something called “association vs. disassociation”. So when people have problems and they’re really emotionally affected by them, they’re very associated to the picture as well as they’re very associated to the event. When I got trained in a lot of the mental stuff that I teach my clients, I learned how to cure phobias in just around 15 minutes! And people tell me “Well, there’s just no way you can do that!”. And I tell them, “Trust me, I mean, if you got a real phobia I can help you get over it really quickly!”. So for people who are always having nightmares or those who keep going through the same problems over and over again in their past, the first step in all of it is that I tell them: “I know what the problem is… you’re re-running the same movie over and over again.. but this is the difference: you’re in the movie, and you’re seeing it through your own eyes!” When I work with athletes, the first thing I tell them is that when they visualize, they can’t see themselves on the screen; they got to be in the movie, imagining that they’re playing that thing over and over again.

And it’s the same thing in your dental practice. Just like when you are practicing a case presentation, you don’t watch yourself on the screen doing it… you go inside your head, and pretend like you’re looking through your own eyes talking to a dental patient. That’s good when you’re trying to learn something new or feeling good about something or visualizing your future; getting in the movie, and feeling the feelings. It’s bad when you are experiencing negative feelings that are holding you back, right? So as a dental practice management consulting adviser, I always tell my clients that the first thing we do is we have to disassociate people from whatever is holding them back. So the way you do that is you pop them out of the picture. So say there’s somebody who’s got some mental thing going on, I will say: “Just pop yourself out of the movie!” Also, you have to ask your dental patients questions that associate them to their pains. If you ask questions like: “Why are you not happy about your current situation?”, and with this, you’re creating pains. I want you to associate them until they make the decision for their pains. I want to disassociate themselves from their objections, because I don’t want them worried about the price, when we’re looking out for their overall treatment! So we tell them: “ Set that aside for a moment…”, “ We’ll go beyond that for a moment…”, or “Push that off for now. Let’s talk about this…”. And you can give them this question: “After we’ve gone through this, just tell me what it would be like; and if we went through this whole thing and we got you the goals, what would change in your life?”. With this, it disassociates them from other objections and puts them in the future, and associates them to what we want them to associate with!

As a dental marketer, you should find helpful ways in promoting your business. In your practice, you should get more dental patients. For this, you need to have a recommendation from a dental practice management consulting adviser. In this article, dental practice management consulting adviser Ed O’ Keefe would like to give you the ways to achieve success in your dental marketing business. What the dental practice management consulting adviser recommends is for you to follow these ways all the time in your business.

1st Recommendation: Sub-Niche Your Practice

The first recommendation that the dental practice management consulting adviser would give you is to sub-niche your practice. You can start by promoting other services. In the adviser’s case, they are promoting an “Invisalign” for patients who needs whiter, stronger teeth. He asks his patients what their ultimate goals are, and he has Invisalign as a solution to help them get straighter teeth. But if they want to get straighter, whiter teeth right away, then they can present the whole treatment plan to the patient immediately. So start by sub-niching your practice. Go after your patients with dental problems and have dentistry as the solution for them.

2nd Recommendation: Go For “Lead-Generation”

The second recommendation that the dental practice management consulting adviser would give you is to “lead-generate” through advertising your services. With this you can actually help people identify you as a good dentist by overwhelming them with “before and afters” proof, wherein you can educate them through DVD’s, powerpoints, and online. You can educate your dental patients through seminars, local workshops, or online.

3rd Recommendation: Open The “Floodgates” To Your Dental Patients

The third recommendation that the dental practice management consulting adviser would give you is to open the floodgates to your dental patients. A lot of doctors,with their associates, open the floodgates to their new patients; and the patients just keep coming in to their dental practice. Then 1 out of 10, or 2 out of 10 patients that came in are going to want cosmetic dentistry or more of high-end restorative dentistry. Remember, your objective here is to get that dental patient in your business.

These are the ways that the dental practice management consulting adviser would give you as you go with your business. First, start by sub-niching your practice, then “lead- generate” by advertising, and then opening the floodgates to your new dental patients. Go with these recommendations, and you’ll gain more patients in your practice, and become successful in your business!

How do you nurture your existing patient base? In this article, dental practice consulting adviser Ed O’ Keefe will share to you the ways on how to nurture your existing patient base in your dental practice. The dental practice consulting adviser will also share to you the importance of these ways in your dental practice. And this is something that the dental practice consulting adviser focus specifically at their dental practice website!

How to nurture your existing patient base:

What a lot of people don’t realize is that the number 1 most important asset in your dental practice is actually your existing patient base. Those are the people who are going to come back to you every six months, refer to you, and choose more treatment and care going for the rest of the time that you are in your dental practice. So what I find often is that so many of our clients spends so much time focusing on getting new patients, yet what’s happening is that people are going right up the back door and they don’t even realize it! As a dental practice consulting adviser, one of the metrics or the strategies that I have our members go through when they first become members is answering this question: “How healthy is your practice?”. And another thing that I ask them is “What is your referral ratio?”. So in here, I will determine how many people are referring to their practice on a monthly basis compared to how many active patients they have. And then another thing is that I ask them this question: “How many people are keeping their 6-month and 12-month appointment with your practice?”. It’s because that will tell me what experience they have with your dental practice or the relationship that you’re building with your dental patients. And there’s so many different ways to build relationships.

One of the best ways to build relationships with your clients is through mailing them dental patient newsletters, and this costs very little. As a dental practice consulting adviser, I tell my clients to do this monthly minimally, so as to keep the channel open between them and their dental patients. This is a very effective tool in building your relationship with them so that you can update them with whatever new things you have in your office, promote more services, etc.

Another way to build a relationship is to let them know about the events that you have in your dental office. As a dental practice consulting adviser, I would advise you to update them on important things. You can update them if you are conducting any Invisalign Open Houses. You can inform them about the different dental seminars that you have for your patients. You can also tell them about Patient Appreciation Events that you’ll be offering to your dental patients. And the list just goes on and on.

So, as a dental practice consulting adviser, I advise you to give your patients dental patient newsletters, update them with whatever kind of events that you’ll be having in your dental practice… and through this you will be able to nurture your existing patient base who will always pay, stay and refer in your dental practice!

In this article, dental practice management consulting adviser Lloyd Irvin will share to you the importance of “traffic” and “conversion” in online dental marketing. The dental practice management consulting adviser will share to you the definition of traffic and how getting it to your dental website is a must in online dental marketing. And the dental practice management consulting adviser will also share to you the definition of conversion and how to find your conversion rates in online dental marketing. And this is something that we focus specifically at our dental practice management website!

Here’s what the dental practice management consulting adviser will share to you about traffic and conversion:

On Traffic:

What is “traffic”? Traffic refers to the number of people coming in to your website daily through the Internet. Before, people use the yellow pages to look up and search for things they want to buy. Today, although some people still use the yellow pages, there’s an entire sector of people that if they want to go and buy things that they want, they go to the Internet, use search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, wherein they type in whatever they’re looking for and they spend time just trying to find out what they’re looking for, and they do their research online! As a dental practice management consulting adviser, I would tell you to understand this fact: traffic=real people! Hundreds and millions of people are searching for things online every single day. Online, they look in for Cosmetic Dentistry, Implant Dentistry, dental terms, etc. People are searching on the Internet because they have problems, desires, and want them fixed/achieved right now! In online dental marketing, your job is to make sure that you get these people into your dental marketing website, and into your dental practice as well!

On Conversion:

What is “conversion”? Conversion means that the people visiting your website becomes your new patient (and this should be your goal for your dental marketing business!). As a dental practice management consulting adviser, I would tell you to structure your website in a way that you get people to enter their name, contact number, and personal information, and then they would call your office and they officially become your patient in your dental practice! Now, conversion rates can be found in four areas:

Website Opt-In Rate: If you have a website and you are collecting names, e-mails, and full contact informations, you can track down and see what your conversion rate is with this. If you are using postcards or any other kinds of media, you can track your conversion rate for your online traffic.

Website Call-In Rate: You can also have conversion using call-in rates; wherein potential patients call into your office through your website, and in the process, they become your dental patients!

Office Appointment Rate: For this, as potential patients are calling into your dental office, you can get your staff to have useful “scripts” that they can follow so that there’s a big chance of getting that potential patient into your dental practice. And having these scripts will definitely make a big difference in your practice!

Auto-Responder Conversion Rate: Now, a lot of people have heard about the auto- responders, but are the e-mail that are in the auto-responders converting? If you have a 10-step auto responder that is automatically done, what is the percentage of people that call your office after they get e-mail#1? Or e-mail#2? Or e-mail#3? Or e-mail#4? You should also be converting these. Imagine this, if you track your results, you found out that 40% of those people got email#4 and called; and only 5% called from e-mail#1; 15% called from email#2; and 20% called from e-mail#3. With this, you can move e-mail#4 to position#2. In here, we’re trying to get them in as fast as possible! And while there in your auto-responder if your email#4 came in one day into position#8, but on that same day people are on Google looking for a dentist, and if they also opted into your competitor’s website, and your competitor’s first e-mail got them, then you’ve lost them! And if losing them is worth, say, $20,000.00, you should be concerned and worried, and you should be interested in how you can improve that!

Now, given these facts, as a dental practice management consulting adviser, I’d tell you to get as much traffic as you can into your website, be mindful of your conversion and track it down always, and increase both your traffic and conversion in order for you to make more money in your dental marketing business. Always remember and keep in mind my “magic formula”: Traffic + Conversion = Cash!