Sally McKenzie

There are few things as satisfying as setting a goal and achieving it, whether it's simply completing a mile on the treadmill or qualifying to run the Boston marathon, whether it's learning to boil water or fixing a fabulous gourmet meal for friends. There is great satisfaction in identifying your own personal summit and setting a course to reach it.

That couldn't be truer than in effectively marketing your practice. You dream of a flood of new patients all clamoring for your care. You imagine treatment acceptance like you've never experienced. You can envision not only meeting your profitability goals, but exceeding them.

Unfortunately, what you and too many other dentists don't see is what needs to happen behind the scenes in your practice before that grand marketing plan will ever achieve anything more than average results. The fact is marketing isn't a sprint it's a marathon. While it may not be as complicated as preparing a gourmet meal, it certainly requires more effort than merely boiling water.

The most effective practice marketing takes place long before the "campaign" is launched. At its foundation is preparing your entire staff for their individual roles as key members of the marketing team.

It begins with examining each position in your practice and together with your team evaluating its role in the overall practice marketing process. Let me assure you, there is no one on your team who doesn't play a role in marketing. For example, your assistant should be doing far than merely passing instruments and turning over treatment rooms. For starters, s/he's a champion of treatment acceptance. S/he should regularly emphasize the excellence of care provided. S/he is to build positive rapport with patients and look for opportunities during conversation to mention other practice services, such as whitening, veneers, implants, etc. S/he should readily provide educational materials to patients that clearly convey the practice brand.

Do more than just talk marketing, incorporate specific marketing duties into staff job descriptions and evaluate those during performance reviews as you do other duties. Most importantly, if staff struggle with their marketing roles seek training and assistance. Their confidence and success is critical to your "campaign" and your ability reach your marketing goals over the long-term.

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Kristen Isaacs

Currently, there are 3 routes you can go when deciding to create or upgrade your practice's website:

1. Pay a developer for a highly customized website - very expensive and unnecessary for anyone besides big corporations.

2. Purchase a website template, pay a large upfront fee and continue to pay a maintenance fee - less costly than a custom design, but you still commit to a monthly cost, while locking yourself down to current technology.

3. Subscribe to a website service - a flat monthly fee and access to ever-changing technology.

Why Subscribe

Technology changes quickly. Faster than fashion, faster than design, faster than cars...Fast. Remember VCR's? The days before iPads? If you take a second to think about it, it really has been in the past few years that technology has been soaring. So, if there was any time to subscribe to a web service instead of paying to build one, the time is now.

By now you've probably heard - cloud computing is revolutionizing business. The good news is that you've been doing this for years - any time you click a link or send an email, you're operating 'in the cloud.' Moving your practice management 'to the cloud' means doing your business computing via the internet instead of downloading software and accessing information directly from a computer. Along those lines, subscribing to a website means moving your website management 'to the cloud' and is one more easy way you can save costs and reduce hassle.

How does this Save Money?

In short, a subscription saves cash because technology is changing so quickly that it will be less than 2 years before you need a new website. So, when that time comes, you can either re-invest a large sum for a refresher, or just flip a switch for free in your subscription service.

Katherine Eitel

My boyfriend, a 5th grade school teacher, has 10 weeks off every summer. "How fabulous!" you say? Yes, it is. And yet it's a funny thing... absence does make the heart grow fonder.   After spending what many would say was an idyllic month up at his rustic summer cabin in the Sierra Mountains in Northern California, I came home rejuvenated and relaxed and... realizing I am nowhere near ready to retire! Before we left, I was counting the days until the snow had melted enough so we had the 'all-clear' to drive up there and after four weeks an interesting thing happened... I missed my work. I missed my friends. I missed a little bit of me.

It is important to find ways to unplug, relax, recharge, and reclaim the natural rhythm of your life and it's also important to carve out time to nurture your primary relationships to keep them strong and vibrant but maybe more important is finding balance. A lot of people give lip service to the idea of true life balance but few actually achieve it for an extended period of time. And I'm convinced it takes different forms for each of us. It requires first that we know what is really important to us; what we'll look back on from our deathbeds and be glad we placed in a position of importance in our lives like love, family, friends, work, health, home, traditions, exploration, hobbies, spirituality, and peace.

I'm so glad for my time at the cabin this summer in that beautiful, pristine mountain setting ... mostly "unplugged." And while I've had moments where I wished I could go there or stay there forever, I'm glad for the opportunity to remember that there are many things in my life that I value. By the time I was back home and Tom was back at school, I realized I missed my own routine. I wouldn't trade my time with him or summers at the cabin for anything and I'm also so grateful to have a home, work, family, and friendships to which I look forward to returning.

I've not mastered total life balance just yet but this summer served as a great reminder that I like the stimulation and satisfaction that the variety of interests in my life affords me... and it's up to me to continue to find the right mix and claim (and reclaim, if necessary) my own happiness.

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