Understanding business – dental coach reveals the tools of success

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Understanding business – dental coach, Andy McDougall from Spot On Business Planning reveals the tools of success[/caption]At Spot On Business Planning, when we meet a new client and undertake stage one of the business planning process – answering the question, where are we now? – we frequently find that dental practices cannot access the information we request.It isn’t extraordinary data, just the sort of thing any well-run business would have to hand. So how are these dental practice principals and practice managers currently running their businesses?

If you have a mind for business how are you going to get a grip of your dental business?

Your management information is unique to your dental practice. Your numbers are like corporate fingerprints. There are so many variables that relate to your dental practice and your dental practice only.Let’s consider just a handful of them: your brand position, ability to set fees at whatever level, your services, location, fixed cost structure, people structure and people, your income stream and how it is split between NHS, dental plan and fee per item, just to name a few.

“Averages can’t possibly be truly meaningful when your dental business has so many unique variants so dental industry ‘gurus’ suggesting otherwise constantly astound me,” said dental business coach Andy McDougall from Spot On Business Planning.“Then there are claims of 100% improvement in sales and profit – now for those who understand numbers, that’s an intriguing claim. It seems with numbers, limited knowledge is dangerous.”

Setting up a dental business for success requires a different approach

At Spot On Business Planning our team meets new clients who have paid vast sums of money for the wrong advice. Our advice is: be very careful how you sift through the claims of some advisors and take care to investigate their pedigree. If a novice read a book on dentistry then started work as a dentist, what would their chances of success be?At Spot On Business Planning we do not make claims that can’t be substantiated; integrity is key. So choose carefully – caveat emptor – let the buyer beware.

To find out more

Your numbers can talk but do you speak their language? Learn a lot about your dental business with a free consultation with Andy McDougall. Send us your last three years of financial accounts, Andy will analyse them and visit you to explain the strengths and weaknesses he reads in your numbers, so that you can gain a better understanding of your dental business.