While personal resolutions are becoming less and less common as the years go on, it’s important to use the new year to set some targets for your business. Use the beginning of the year to do an inventory of your medical or dental practice, take stock of what is working or not working, and begin to implement better business practices and set goals to ensure a more profitable and enjoyable year ahead. If you want to increase profits, here are five tips to help you get the year started on the right foot.
TIP #1: DEVELOP YOUR SUPPORT STAFF
One way that you can increase profits is by thinking of ways that you can generate an income for your practice that is not reliant on you as a doctor or dentist. An effective way that you can do this is by investing in your support staff.
Think about what work you can delegate to your hygienist or nurse. What skills would they have to develop and what training would they need to be able to take on some additional responsibilities? If you can identify these areas, this means that you are not the bottleneck of your practice and you now have the time to focus on other areas that will grow your practice.
TIP #2: KNOW WHAT YOU WANT YOUR PRACTICE TO STAND FOR
What do you want your practice to stand for? What is the current quality of care in your medical or dental practice? Take some time to create your vision for your practice as only when you know this can you realign your focus and make effective changes.
If you want to be known for exceptional patient care, then focus on improving engagement with both existing and potential patients. Happy and satisfied patients often lead to more repeat clients and patient referrals which naturally helps you to increase your profits and build a positive reputation.
TIP #3: BUILD A TEAM AND CULTURE THAT ALIGNS WITH YOUR VALUES
Do your team and culture stand for what you want from your practice? Staff can make or break business growth so help them support your growth plans by communicating and rewarding.
Share your vision and goals for your practice and get your team engaged. Highlight that you have an open-door policy if they ever want to talk and think of ways that you can motivate staff. Could you potentially organise a friendly competition between team members such as a reward for who gets the most positive patient reviews every month? This would ensure that your culture is always aimed at improving patient care.
TIP #4: KNOW IF YOU ACTUALLY ARE MAKING A PROFIT
Do you know how your cash flow looks? Are you actually making a profit from your practice? If so, where is this profit?
It’s essential to review your annual financial data from the previous year to know what position you are currently in and what changes need to be made to rectify this in the year ahead. Only when you look at the numbers can you make effective changes to increase profits so set aside the time and do this at the beginning of the new year.
TIP #5: CREATE A REALISTIC PLAN TO INCREASE YOUR REVENUE
What is your strategy for the year? How will you increase profits? Having clear and realistic targets that you review regularly will ensure that you have a much more profitable and enjoyable year as you are always moving forward.
Ways that you can increase your revenue include:
Focusing on your existing sales process – how much revenue is being lost simply because leads are not being properly managed and followed up?
Improving patient engagement – how can you improve patient communication? Can you automate the review process and send out newsletters to stay front of mind?
Reducing marketing expenses – reduce the amount of advertising and focus on how you can increase the quality of your ads. How can you track this? (Maybe it’s time to create an effective budget plan?)
Focusing on automating as much as possible – what time-wasting tasks can be automated? It can be tempting to not do this because it takes up time to put these systems in place, but these will ultimately save you and your staff time to focus on the things that really matter – like improving patient care.
HAVE A PROFITABLE AND ENJOYABLE NEW YEAR
To ensure that you start the new year right, spend some time thinking of what your ‘why’ is and then plan to make this the core of everything that you do. Review your past year, invest in your staff, get them on board with your vision and create a year plan that you will regularly review. When you do this, you can be sure that your year will be profitable and enjoyable for everyone in your practice.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE SOME ASSISTANCE WITH YOUR PRACTICE BUSINESS PLANNING, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME VIA MITCHELL@AFFLUENCECA.COM.AU