Sally McKenzie

Typically, when dental teams talk about marketing the practice, it's in terms of a one-time or occasional activity - advertising, promotions, printed materials, special offers, etc. In actuality, marketing is taking place in every interaction that the dental team has with current and prospective patients. It is in the very infrastructure of your practice systems. And it is here that teams need to focus their creative marketing efforts, before thousands of dollars in practice revenues are poured into the next "big advertising campaign."

Start by examining the new patient experience in your practice. Pay attention to how patient phone calls are handled. Does your office come across as warm and friendly? Or does the calling patient feel as if they're a bother to those answering the phone?

Next, send all new patients a packet of information about your practice within 24 hours after the appointment is made to welcome them and educate them about the office. This includes information about the doctor, the team, the practice, as well as specific forms the patient can complete in advance. It also includes a brief letter from the doctor indicating his/her commitment to providing the best possible care for patients and emphasizes specific qualities about the practice that set it apart from others, such as the extremely high infection control standards, dentistry for the entire family, painless dentistry techniques, cosmetic dentistry, a commitment to never making the patient wait more than 5-10 minutes, etc.

Pay attention to the patients. New and existing patients want to know that you and your team have the time to listen to their concerns. It sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed how many dental teams overlook this marketing detail. Treat each patient as the most important person in your office from the moment they walk in until they leave. Be prepared. Patients expect you to have immediate answers to basic questions. Track the common questions that patients ask. Take steps to ensure that every team member is prepared to respond.

Never ignore a patient. Acknowledge their presence immediately regardless of what you are doing at the time. It takes just seconds to look over at the patient let them know you will be right with them. If you pretend they are not there, you tell the patient that they are not valued. Remember, every patient interaction is an opportunity to effectively market your practice. Make the most of them.

Invest in a website. According to the Internet World Stats Usage and Population Statistics, as of June 2010 nearly 80% of the U.S. population was actively using the Internet. It is the telephone of the 21^st century; it's essential you are connected.

Steve Steinbrunner

The lead story in the money section of USA Today earlier this year was that Exchange Traded Funds just topped 1 trillion dollars in asset value. Exchange Traded Funds are traded on stock exchanges much like individual stocks, and they track an index, or try to mimic, virtually anything: the S&P, Gold, particular market segments. In addition to being easy to trade and generously diverse, they tend to be very inexpensive. The growing interest in this flexible and low-expense investment is a suggestion that people are starting to take investment expenses - often carefully hidden - very seriously in 2012.

Just as dental offices are not all alike - cosmetic, restorative, holistic, spa, dentures, etc. - investment firms are not all alike. Most financial advisors are commissioned-based, earning fees when investments are bought and sold. Others might charge an hourly rate mixed with a commission platform. A very small percentage might be a pure "fee only" model, charging a percentage of the total portfolio value and are tied to the success of the client - or lack thereof. Firms are often very discreet about the cost of their services and various offerings are are not required to disclose them. One of the more problematic elements of the entire investment process is a lack of cost transparency, and at worst, costs that are really concealed. An unfortunate reality of many investments is that the fees are either not clear or not fully evident. When we analyze a dentist's portfolio in an attempt to advise them, we pull the curtain back to reveal a complicated, and often very expensive, investment world.

Invisible Costs 

Most mutual funds are pretty expensive to run. There are managerial fees to pay the folks deciding what companies make up the fund. There are so-called "soft dollars" paid to service providers, compliance fees, and marketing expenses that all add up. Not to pick on the big boys, but somebody has to pay for all those Charles Schwab and Fidelity commercials. Ultimately, these are all paid for by the investors. This means that as much as 4% of what investors could hypothetically be earning on their investments is going out the window. Investing in annuities, variable annuities, hedge funds, or private equity can skyrocket those expenses two or three-fold. Unfortunately, in many instances, these costs are not visible to investors entering these investments. It is also important to understand generally how the mechanics of cost work.

The industry sells performance and does not talk much about cost. The reality is that the two go hand in hand; good investment performance is eroded by high costs. Of course performance is important, but what you really earn from your investments is performance minus cost. It is unrealistic and dangerous to view the process any other way.

Many banks and brokers like to sell hedge funds and other sophisticated investment products. While both these investments have a legitimate financial place in many portfolios, the fact remains that they are particularly lacking in transparency and plentiful in risk. Low transparency can be associated with high costs so buyer beware.

Think about this. For a dentist that is saving a very respectable amount of money, they also bring a ton of unnecessary risk. It is also very easy for investors to not worry about cost if the investments seem to be doing OK. You can argue that as long as the bottom line is nicely in the black, all appears to be well. But that is not always true. For example if a cost-laden portfolio is earning you 6% a year, a more efficient one might earn you 9% or more. Even a 1% difference in an annual rate of return can make all the difference between an early or comfortable retirement and a constant struggle into old age. When you reduce investment expense 5% over 20 years, you will have double your money in retirement.

If You Can't Beat Them, Make It Cheaper

Some investment literature will argue that on average, financial managers who try to soundly beat the market indexes generally do not succeed over time. This means that investment success really depends on reducing cost. After all, you can argue further that even those select few brokers and fund managers who really do beat the market will do so only by a couple of percent over time. Over the long run (durations of 15 to 25 years) few, if any, outperform their respective benchmarks. You are more likely to achieve benchmark-beating returns if you lower investment costs by that same couple of percentage points. If you add up redemption fees, brokerage fees, back-end load fees, management fees, inactivity fees, 12-B1 fees, transfer fees, commissions, and the hidden marketing expense within funds, you might be 6-7% behind the market at the starting line.

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