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Branding and Identity Defined
I’d like to clarify very simply what a brand is and what an identity is. By the time you finish this article you should understand quite a bit about what a brand is and why a brand and an identity are not the same thing. In its most basic form, a brand is a promise of excellence that is earned through reputation and built over time. A brand can be built the right way or it can be built the wrong way. Brands take time to build and they also take time to change or repair.
An identity is a combination of the visual and tactile things that represent your brand. Your name and logo are the most basic components that make up your identity, while secondary things like your reception area and your office manager also come into play.
What Does Your Brand Say?
It's easy to explain how Coke has become a brand after 100 years of advertising and marketing efforts, but sometimes, it is very difficult to explain how a dentist creates a brand with relatively few resources, in just one community, and in a short period of time. It always starts with a great product, a great location, and a great in-office experience. Unfortunately, many dental practices with all of these necessary requirements, (and they are all necessary) never really build a "brand.”
As a dentist, don’t be so concerned about the term “brand building” and instead focus on the concept of building a loyal following of believers in your dental services. We may even refer to them as patriots, fans and advocates. As a dental professional, you may not relate to actually building a brand, but you do think a lot about the group of people that prefer your products and services – your patients.
In the simplest of terms, brand building can be boiled down to the fact that brands are belief systems. Once you think of a brand as a belief system, you automatically understand the things that giant companies spend billions of dollars trying to obtain: trust, quality, vision, values, leadership, and on and on.
Don't become another generic dentist.
To the general public, it can be difficult to differentiate one dentist from another. This difficulty has been magnified for decades, by dentists who offer no special competitive advantage or unique approach to dentistry. The shame is that with the cutting edge equipment, procedures, and high tech dental philosophies in place, it isn't very hard to be special. Especially, since only a small percentage of the dentists in the industry seem to understand the unique opportunity that is before them.
Update your old equipment. Become comfortable with cosmetic dentistry. Invest in a laser and digital radiography. Spend some money perfecting your front office with one of the many invaluable patient education systems available. Expand your hours. Hire a practice management consultant and perfect your craft. Then, when you have done these things and more, shout it from the top of your roof!
What is Brand Equity?
Another term that gets tossed around a lot in the business world is “Brand Equity”. Although experts have written lengthy books on the subject, it is something that can be explained very simply. I’ll use Coca-Cola to illustrate the concept. Although there are dozens of brands of cola on the market, no consumer would ever pay as much for a grocery store brand as they would for name brand Coke. And, although some generic brands may even rival the taste and quality of Coca-Cola, our society has embraced name brand Coke as the leader in value. Consequently, the other brands have to compete on price ad price alone. Nothing else matters. This is Brand Equity at work.
Now, in a dental practice Brand Equity is expressed in the form of consumers choosing your practice for their care and accepting treatment with little or no regard for price. Many dentists struggle with patients who seem to always shop for a deal or hesitate to accept treatment. These dentists have not created sufficient Brand Equity and some of them will struggle their entire career without really understanding why consumers buy or why patients accept treatment. When I hear a dentist complain about price shoppers and cheap patients I know immediately that there are other problems in the practice that are not related to price. A shabby dental office, a rude office manager, a slow schedule or any number of other issues unrelated to cost of treatment will always cause consumers to make negative assumptions about the practice. At this point, the only defensive tactic for the practice is being lower priced than the competition; just like generic cola.
Your Identity
As I’ve already mentioned, your identity is a combination of visual and tactile components that tell the world who you are or who you are trying to become. Although consumers develop an impression of your practice from many visual cues, it is important that you make a polished and professional logo the anchor image of your identity. Unfortunately, most dentists either have no logo or use a logo that is tacky or inappropriate. Fortunately, this overall lack of sophistication within the dental industry leaves the door wide open for smart dentists to create a remarkable and memorable identity in their market.
All this theory and observation by myself, and dozens of other marketing experts outside the dental industry all boils down to a simple concept – “choose to be excellent”. Choose to be excellent in your service, your patient experience and in the way you tell the world who you are. Cheap, cheesy, tacky, boring, plain, and average are not words that should describe your practice in any way shape or form. Words such as polished, elegant, unique, exceptional and remarkable are words that are associated with excellence. Choose excellence today and excellence will follow tomorrow. That is the magic of building a brand.
Interested in knowing more about how to market your practice? Click Here
To reach Joel Harris Email him at Joel@thedentistsnetwork.net
Interested in having Joel speak to your dental society or study club? Click Here
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How to Effectively Integrate Your Associate
For those who are considering hiring an associate, here are a few tips you should take to ensure your relationship will become most effective.
Patient Reactivation
As we’ve mentioned in previous TDN columns, reactivating patients is a key ingredient to successfully integrate your new associate. If you have an excess of patients and find that you are booked 6 to 8 weeks in advance, you are probably suffering from saturation. Saturated practices, as we’ve stated previously, typically have retention problems, meaning, patients are not participating on a regular basis in your recare program. So, it’s logical to assume that if you reactivate patients your new associate can become the initial contact upon their return and hopefully become their new doctor.
We recommend that the associate provides the initial reactivation hygiene services. This is the perfect opportunity to allow your associate to get to know the patient in a more relaxed setting and spend some low anxiety time with them. If treatment is needed, it can then be scheduled with the associate. Moving forward, however, future hygiene services will be provided by a hygienist.
Scheduling Templates
We strongly recommend that you design a scheduling template for your associate. This template should incorporate a set number of reactivation hygiene appointments for the number of weeks/months necessary to meet the needs of the reactivation patients. We typically recommend no more than four reactivation hygiene appointments be scheduled per day, thus allowing the associate time to perform and meet the necessary production goals that are needed to offset their financial requirements, particularly if you are paying them a guaranteed day rate or salary at the outset. Usually, our production goals vary anywhere between $1,000 to $1,500 based, again, on the experience of the associate and your fee schedule.
The reactivation hygiene phase typically takes two to three months, based upon the number of patients available for reactivation.
Staffing
It is imperative that the associate learn how to do things the right way the first time! Therefore, we strongly recommend that you assign one of your top dental assistants as the associate’s assistant. Since you will have to hire a new dental assistant, especially if you are recruiting a full-time associate, the most logical person to train the new dental assistant is the practice owner.
It is important to utilize experienced staff to indoctrinate the associate into your policies and procedures, especially in the clinical area. This relates to tray set-ups, use of instruments, use of dental supplies, etc.
The final and most important reason why we believe this personnel assignment is necessary is to maintain quality control. There are several reasons why we make this recommendation: observe associate’s patient management and communication skills; ensure proper record keeping protocol. Your experienced assistant will be your best ally in these areas. We have documented cases where issues arose regarding the associate’s lack of technique or patient management skills, which, if not detected early on, could have led to problems in the practice.
Marketing Plan
Proper introduction of your associate is key for their initial success in your practice. It’s important to have business cards prepared, signage modified for the practice, updating of your website, as well as other marketing literature. Introducing the associate through your practice newsletter gives your patients a more thorough approach on a professional and personal level.
We do not recommend that you announce the associate’s affiliation to your entire patient base during the first 60 to 90 days of their employment as we typically recommend a probationary period. So, in the unlikely event that the associate is not the right candidate for the position, only a handful of patients will be introduced, not your entire patient base! That only raises more questions if they are gone.
Verbal communication, therefore, will be the key ingredient during the probationary period. When staff place calls for reactivation appointments, create a story line for your patients as to reasons for hiring a new doctor attempting to build new confidence in your patients as they are scheduled with the new doctor. The same holds true if you assign your associate for an emergency appointment or schedule them with a new patient.
Doctor Communication
Weekly Meetings
One of the common reasons of failure for associates is a lack of communication between the owner and the associate. We recommend weekly meetings for the first six months of your relationship, particularly, if the associate has limited clinical experience. The purpose of the weekly meeting is to discuss treatment planning, scheduling issues and clinical matters. We also urge that some “over-the-shoulder” training be encouraged for the associate to observe more complicated procedures.
Monthly Meetings
We suggest that monthly meetings also be scheduled without fail. The purpose of this meeting is for you to review your associate’s production and collection statistics, to discuss staffing issues, and gradually get them more involved in management aspects of your practice. It’s also a good idea to review ways to attract new patients on your associate’s efforts. Developing the habit of scheduling regular meetings will bode well for the future when you eventually become partners.
The Snyder Group provides comprehensive employment agreement contract templates. Please visit our website for details.
Interested in having Dr. Snyder speak to your dental society or study club? Click Here
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