May 10, 2016 by bettyhayden

Act As If You Are Happy

Hello Friends,

The following is an article that I shared a while ago on my Bacon & Kids blog ( a blog for working parents). I thought you all might appreciate it as well…

Act as if it is the happiest day of your life. Easier said than done, right? Especially if you’re having a bad morning, day, week, month, or year.

Why pretend? Why act as if? Why put a smile on your face, even though you don’t feel at all happy?

I’m not having a good day!

Research shows that even a forced smile can help to boost your mood and spirit. Did you know that if you’re smiling, other people will consider you as being friendlier and more approachable?

Along with a smile on your face, your appearance contributes to your happiness.

Clothing ~ Look the part. If you’re wearing clothes/or uniforms that are dirty, wrinkled, too big, too tight and or damaged it will only add to your bad mood. Wearing clothes/uniforms that make you feel good will help

Hair ~ CLEAN hair shouldn’t be a luxury. You may not have much time to style it but make sure your hair is clean. Although, taking a few minutes to style your hair will make you feel & look more confident and “put together.”

Nails ~ I’m not talking about your hands, we all know that the nails on our hands should be clean and polish free or clean with a fresh coat of nail polish. I’m talking about toenails. A silly, non-important thing right? Wrong. Have you ever been embarrassed when you caught someone staring at your feet, particularly your toes? And not just staring, but staring in disgust? Then you know what I’m talking about. Clean, trimmed, moisturized toenails is a really good thing. (Ladies, painting your toes may be the last thing on your already too full to-do-list, however, having a pretty colored, chip- free polish on your toes gives the appearance that you have it together and well, sometimes it’s all about appearance 😉 )

So now that you have a smile on your face, and are looking pretty good too, what else can you do to help make you feel happier?

Do a good deed ~ It’s a scientific fact, it makes you healthier & happier. Must be why the scriptures tell us “there is more happiness in giving than in receiving.” But, you might be thinking: “I don’t have any time to do a good deed.” Not so, here are some things that you can do that take just a few minutes.

Be friendly. When running errands think about the people who serve our daily needs, say hello, thank you, have a nice day. You just might make their day a little happier.

Send a text to a friend (or friends) telling them you are thinking of them and hope they have a great day.

Be spontaneous, hold the door for someone, pay for their coffee, help with the groceries, bring your neighbor’s garbage can up from the curb, etc.

Clear the clutter –

– Do you have any books you are no longer reading? Drop them off at your local library.

– Clothes or household items you no longer need or want? Drop them in a donation box or to a charity of your choice.

– Any extra non-perishable food items in the pantry? Take them to a local food bank or shelter.

– Recycle – Do your part no matter how small, to prevent waste, and help keep our world clean.

Instead of focusing on and being consumed by the negative things in life and our own personal problems, focus on what you can do for others, and do good deeds as often as possible without asking for anything in return.

So you might need to start off by “acting” to create your own happiness but when you do before you know it, you’re no longer acting, you truly are happy.

A happy day!

Have you signed up to receive my complimentary dental marketing and practice management ideas that are sent right to your email inbox each month? If not, take a second and sign up. This way, you won’t miss a single idea!

P.S. Please stop by and say hello to me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

February 24, 2016 by bettyhayden

Earn The Privilege To Serve Again

Hello Friends,

Loyal patients, isn’t that what we want? Loyal patients that return year after year, accept your treatment recommendations and refer their friends, family, neighbors and co-workers. They are loyal to your dental practice because they like and trust you. You’ve earned the privilege to serve them not just for a moment but for life.

Is it really a privilege to serve them? Absolutely! Any office that struggles with getting and keeping new patients, struggles with getting patients to accept their treatment recommendations, struggles with the hygiene department’s continuing care reports and Swiss cheese-like appointment schedules, struggles to keep up with all the record transfer requests from patients and their new dental office, will learn (hopefully quickly) that having loyal patients in your practice is an earned privilege. The aforementioned struggles are greatly reduced or eliminated all together.

how to get more dental new patients?

How do you earn this privilege? By consistently exceeding patient expectations. Here are 12 ways you can do this (in no particular order)…

Pre-Op Calls – Doctors and Hygienists start building your relationship with a new patient before they step foot in the practice. Call and give a warm welcome, let them know you are looking forward to meeting them at their appointment. It’s unexpected, takes only a few minutes and will really make your new patient feel special.

Post-Op Calls – Call your patients in the evening to see how well they are doing. Call anyone that received anesthetic and new patients.

Acknowledge and Reward Referrals – For every patient you must have a referral source, how else will you be able to track what marketing works and what doesn’t? Especially if you want more referrals from your current patients, then reward the behavior that you want to see more of. Acknowledge and Reward your referrals. If you don’t already have a protocol in place, make a plan as soon as possible. When and how will you ask “How did you hear about us?” or “Whom can we thank for referring you?” How and where will you record that information? Be specific when recording referral sources, internet isn’t a good enough source. Where on the internet? For example, Facebook?, Twitter?, Yelp?, Instagram?, Pinterest?, WordPress?, Website? Google search? Etc. Who is responsible for tracking these sources? How will we acknowledge them? With a thank you letter or card, signed by the doctors and team? Send a thank you gift? Just please do me a favor and avoid sending the same exact thank you to the same patient every time they refer someone… no groundhog day thank you’s. Change it up. While you’re at it, set a new patient goal for each month. Consider offering a bonus or some type of incentive for employee referrals. Get your team out there in the community, excited to talk about the great office they work at and invite the people they meet to schedule an appointment. (Tip: Personalized Business cards for the team members with a special call to action invitation on the back of the card will make passing out office business cards much easier and more fun.)

Sending Cards – Keep Sympathy, Anniversary, Welcome, Congratulations, Thinking of you and Get Well cards on hand to send to your patients. As a team work together to be alert to opportunities to surprise your patients with a card.

Answering the Phone – This one is key to your success. All of your marketing efforts lead people to the phone first. Don’t waste your money by losing the potential patient or aggravating current patients due to poor telephone skills and habits. Your entire team should be trained on how to properly answer the phone and handle the call. Answering the phone is a privilege and a great opportunity! Here are a few tips:

Smile before you pick up the phone
Answer the phone within the first couple of rings.
Answer the phone with a thank you for calling, identify the office and give your name. (ex: Thank you for calling Dr.Smiles, this is Betty. I can help you)
Do NOT let the caller go to voice mail during business hours (including lunch hours). People hate leaving messages. Oftentimes, they’ll hang up and call the next office on their list.
Get the callers name and use it often. Find out how they heard about your office. “What type of insurance do you have?” shouldn’t be the first thing you ask. In fact, let the caller bring that part up. Your goal is to build a relationship with the caller, to get to know them and their expectations.
Offer an appointment. Sounds obvious right? You might be surprised to know how many office’s I have called as a “shopper” and was never offered an appointment.

Stay on Time – If you’re often running behind schedule, investigate as to why. If you know why, change whatever is causing you to stray from the schedule. Running behind schedule sends a message to your patients and your team that you don’t respect their time. Arriving to the office with plenty of time before the first scheduled patient, expecting your patients to arrive on time, never wait on hygiene exams, calculating the actual amount of time it takes to do procedures, controlling the schedules, these things will help you stay on time. Avoid working through lunch hours… everyone needs that time to recharge their batteries.

Treat your employees the way you want them to treat your best patient – Communicate your goals, expectations and vision with your team. Ask for their thoughts and ideas during your team meetings (speaking of meetings, be sure you’re having a daily morning huddle). Reward the behaviors you want to see more of. Be friendly, grateful and respectful even on the days when you don’t want to be. Do not share in or tolerate any negative gossip about team members or patients! Have FUN at work and on occasion, outside of work with employee appreciation events. “Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.”~Simon Sinek (Tip: Invest in your entire team with continuing education courses, training for your computer software, telephone skills, social media sites, dental terminology, protocol, procedures and technology.)

Stay in Touch – Find ways to stay in touch with your patients via telephone calls, continuing care postcards/letters and on your social media sites. Keep your name in front of them.

Deliver exceptional dental care – Give your patients the best care…always! With your team, celebrate with your patients their new & healthy smiles – (If a patient comes in for in office teeth whitening, let other team members know so they can compliment the patient on their smile. Let your patients see how much you and your team value the care you provide).

Maintain a safe and clean office – Outside & Inside your office you want to send a positive message about your care by keeping your office very clean, well maintained and welcoming. See Improve your Office – First Impressions for tips and suggestions.

Be my Guest – Treat your patients as a guest in your home. Make them feel welcome. Come in to the office as a patient. Experience what they see, hear, smell and how they’re cared for from the start of the appointment to the finish. (Consider, Patient Appreciation Gifts)

Honesty – #1– Be honest with your patients regarding your fees and treatment. The quickest way to lose a patient is by them perceiving they’re being taken advantage of. Clearly explain the cost to do the treatment and the cost of doing nothing. Estimate as closely as possible the patient’s financial portion for treatment. Some will tell you that you should never quote fees over the phone…I strongly disagree. Why? You’ll lose many of your shopper callers by refusing to answer their request for a quote on a fee. They’re calling because they need/want a particular service. They’re ready! Make it easy for them to choose your office by honestly answering their question. Because you can not make an actual diagnosis over the phone, it’s impossible to know exactly what their cost will be, give a range of fees and offer for them to come in for a complimentary consultation.

#2 -When you mess up, admit it. No excuses or passing blame. Say you’re sorry and make it right. Consider keeping gift cards on hand to give to your patients when something doesn’t go as planned. (ex: lab case error, scheduling error, etc) Oh, if you find yourself apologizing a lot… see what you can do proactively to minimize future mistakes.

There are no short cuts, if your goal is to grow your practice with patients that are not merely satisfied but are delighted with your service and remain loyal to your practice, then you must remain loyal to your goals, your mission and your promise.

Are you receiving my complimentary Practice Management and Marketing Ideas in your email inbox each month? If not, please subscribe today. Feel free to tell your dental friends all about us so they can start benefiting from these dental ideas too.

I love hearing your comments and ideas, please continue sharing them with me. Remember, I’m happy to answer any questions and concerns you may have.

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

P.S. Please stop by and say hello to me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

January 29, 2016 by bettyhayden

Dental Practice Management and Marketing Idea’s for March (2016)

Hello Friends,

The month of March is your opportunity to end the first quarter of 2016 stronger than ever. If you haven’t done so already, put down in writing your practice management and marketing plans for March. I will give you several different idea’s to help get you started.

Note: March is an especially important month for any of you that typically struggle with your schedule during the month of September. Be sure to pre-appoint your March hygiene patients for their 6 month continuing care appointments. (If this isn’t already being done with your hygiene patients, make it your goal to schedule their next appt. while they are there in the office.)

~ Dental Practice Management Idea’s ~

March is Employee Spirit Month
If you want to increase employee trust, creativity, teamwork, engagement and productivity, then it’s time to have some fun, commend more, improve communication and huddle up!

– Have some FUN! – Games, contests, competitions and food are all great ways to have more fun at the office.

Lunch: Every one bring a dish to pass or doctor orders lunch in for the team.
Excursion: Bowling, Dinner Out, Shopping, Painting, Spa, etc
Trivia Questions: Play a trivia game about procedures, office policy, telephone verbiage, etc. Winners earn prizes.
Prizes: Gift Cards, Cash or PTO
Video: Make a fun music/dance video with the team.
Employee of the Month: Each month, vote for team member of the month.

– Commendation – Commend a fellow team member when you catch them doing something “right”. Commendation boosts morale. (Tip: Employers, commend & reward the behavior and actions that you want to see more of.)

– Communication – Reduce employee frustrations with excellent communication. When new procedures or technology is being introduced be certain that every team member is made aware and educated. Employee expectations and Office changes should be clearly communicated to the entire team… no more, “I didn’t know” or “No one told me!” Share your office goals for production, collections, new patients and marketing plans. This helps to keep everyone on the same page and working toward the same goals.

– Huddle Up – The morning meeting is essential for a successful day. If you tried in the past to have a morning huddle and it didn’t work out… try again! However, this time, please follow these tried and true suggestions & tips for morning meeting success.

Hygiene Continuing Care Opportunity:

National Cleaning Week: 27-4/1 – Is it time for your dental spring cleaning?

~ Dental Marketing Idea’s ~

National Write A Letter of Appreciation Week: 1-7

Send appreciation cards to your favorite loyal patients, your favorite referring doctors and your favorite local businesses.

National March Into Literacy Month –
Host a book drive for your local library, schools or families in need. Ask your patients and people in the community to drop off their new or gently used books. Submit a press release to the local newspapers and TV news. Run this event for a few months.
Or check out these other ideas here: Dental Marketing Idea for your local library -1 and Dental Marketing Idea’s for your local library -2

Educational Opportunities:

National Kidney Month – Good dental health isn’t just about preventing cavities and keeping your gums healthy. Both tooth decay and gum disease can lead to infections that can cause problems for people with kidney disease. A study in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology reported that people with kidney disease and those on dialysis are more likely to have periodontal disease and other oral health problems than the general population.

Root Canal Awareness Week: 27 -4/2 – How to prevent a root canal.

There you have it… several idea’s to assist you in ending your first quarter successfully!

So what do you think you would like to do to help make March a great month in your office? Comment below, I would love to hear your idea’s. If you are interested in having me help your office create a custom marketing campaign that includes ideas for special offers, office fun, patient give-aways/drawings, community involvement, cross marketing with local businesses and recare/incomplete treatment scripting, please contact me today at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com

Are you receiving my complimentary Practice Management and Marketing Idea’s in your email inbox each month? If not, please subscribe today. Feel free to tell your dental friends all about us so they can start benefiting from these dental idea’s too. Thank you!

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

P.S. Please stop by and say hello to me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

November 2, 2015 by bettyhayden

Tips to Improve Your Dental Office Part 2 – Make a Change!

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” –

Albert Einstein

Hello Friends,

End the insanity – If you’re unhappy with your production & collection numbers, toxic team members, the schedule always falling apart, not enough new patients and a run down, out dated practice… now is a great time to make a change or 20 changes.

Remember, “If you don’t like how things are, then change it! …you’re not a tree.” – Jim Rohn

The following suggestions were taken from a recent email from The Madow Brothers regarding change…

“In your next team meeting, identify something that you have been doing for such a long time that it has become part of the fabric of your practice – but something that needs to be shelved, stopped, or radically changed. Review everything you do with one question in mind – “How can we make this better for the year 2016?”

Don’t be afraid to throw away traditions that are no longer working. Remember that the phrase “we’ve always done it that way” is the enemy!!”

Great advice from The Madow Brothers!! If you don’t currently follow them, I highly encourage you to visit their website. Here is the link: www.madow.com.

So let’s get started!

Areas to investigate for Possible Change: (Note: This is not a fully comprehensive list but it will get you started in the right direction.)

Current Protocols – Hygiene Continuing Care , Incomplete Treatment Reports, Confirmation, A/R-Collections, Greetings, Patient Hand-off, New Patient Welcomes and Referral Thank you’s, etc.

Paper Communication Materials – Intake form, Letterhead, HIPAA forms, Financial Policy & Postcards

Job Responsibilities/Descriptions – Have every team member write down a detailed list of all of their job responsibilities. This is VERY helpful in determining more effective ways of doing things as well as finding out what is NOT being done.

The Team – Under/over staffed, Uniforms/Dress Code, Attitudes (adjusting or removing the toxic, crabby & lazy ones AND) acknowledging and rewarding the positive, happy, hard-working ones), Employee Benefits and Expectations, Team Meeting/Morning Huddle Effectiveness and Frequency.

Office Appearance – Furniture, Wall Decor, Lighting, Window Treatments, Smells, Cleanliness and Curb Appeal on the Exterior (See also Part 1 in the Improve Your Office Series)

Equipment/Technology – Computers, Software, Internet Speed & Access, Printers, Copiers, Telephone Systems, TV’s, Postage machines, including…dare I say, type writers? and all other “must have” Equipment/Products that were purchased at dental seminars or from sales reps. Check treatment rooms, lab, closets, shelves and work stations for any equipment that needs to be updated, repaired or tossed! While you’re at it, if there is anything that isn’t be used properly due to lack of education/training, go ahead and schedule time for continuing education/training.

I’m sure as you were reading this list you thought of other area’s to investigate. Maybe you knew right away of things that have been nagging at you for a while now, things that are driving you insane. Change them. Don’t wait. You will be so happy when you accomplish these necessary changes.

Change isn’t easy, it can be difficult and uncomfortable but know this…

“To Change is Difficult. Not Changing is Fatal” – William Pollard

If you feel like this is all just too much for you, or that you would rather focus on taking care of your patients, I’m here to help you. I happen to LOVE helping Dentists and their Team Members make changes. Contact me for a Complimentary Consultation – email: bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.

Please keep me updated by sharing your success stories of change. Or if you have any questions, comments or concerns, I’m happy to help.

Are you receiving my complimentary Practice Management and Marketing Idea’s in your email inbox each month? If not, please subscribe today. Feel free to tell your dental friends all about us so they can start benefiting from these dental idea’s too.

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty