Part 4: The Finish Well Manifesto

Number Five: Build

A high performing team is a necessary requirement for the highly successful practice. The practice that will help you finish well.

The mindset here is creating a team of tens, across the board.

Everyone becomes a 10.

You may recognize that on a scale of 0 to 10, not everyone on your team is there yet. You’re working towards finishing well with a team of tens.

It is your responsibility as team leader to maximize the potential of each team member.

You might feel the challenge of having two’s, three’s, and four’s on your team.

What do you do?

Anything below a seven is unacceptable for the team to function well.

What do you do with people who are under-performing if they are a five or six? You must ask yourself if you can train them to be at least a seven or greater.

Give those who are 6 or less time to develop but once you have given them the opportunity to become seven’s and they have not risen to the occasion then you must immediately make the decision to move on.

You set the stage to launch them into their next opportunity.

Holding on to them out of concern and care is natural. You’re in the business of helping people. However you are not helping create exceptional team culture by keeping them around.

The number one challenge we see when developing team performance isn't the inability to help people reach their maximum potential. It's the inability of the business owner to make decisions to move on from people who hold the team back.

Launch the under-performing team member for the benefit of the team.

Take the opportunity to bring in a new team member and bring them to the level of seven or above – aiming to develop a team of tens.

(Let’s Review For A Moment)

You have your target - your strategic plan. You have your 90-day action plan that you’re consistently creating and updating every three months. You're building systems that create trust. You’re feeling your emotional health, being able to understand how you interact and connect to the world around you when you get angry, when you get frustrated when you're sad, when things aren't going well, you're able to check in and make decisions that support the future of where you want to be even if in the moment you're challenged by how you feel. And you are recognizing that creating a team of tens starts with self-leadership and the ability to lead others.

Number Six: Generate

The average patient looks at dentistry and they see a commodity.

That’s right. A mass-produced, unspecialized product.

They don’t see the world of dentistry you see.

Whether you like it or not, the world around you doesn't understand what it is that you do and how you do it in a way that makes you unique. We can talk about Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) and we can talk about taglines, we can get glitzy and glamorous and we can try to be smooth and sexy but at the end of the day, the general public will always see you as selling a commodity.

I can go a block down the street. I can go three miles down the road and I can find somebody who does the same thing you do.

You might say that's a bleak future you're painting for me in the career that I've invested thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars into to be able to offer as a service to people in my community.

What I want to remind you here is that you are selling a commodity.

You don't win patients over by selling a commodity.

You win patients over by the stories you tell.

The stories we tell about who we are, what we believe, what our team believes, what our patients believe, and the way that our stories weave together is what people come to us for.

It is how we as humans bond together in any setting. What makes us share in the story. How can we connect with each other?

If you want to be the low cost leader in town and you want to knock out dentistry consistently, boom, boom, boom, boom - you can do that based on the story you tell.

If you want to do, high quality, intensive makeovers with fees that are above average, what stories are you going to tell that support that narrative - what environment are you creating that's going to support you presenting, selling, and closing cases for that specialty of dentistry.

It's the background story. It's the origin story. It’s where you've come from to get where you are now. What's the story and what have you had to overcome to be the best at what you do?

What do you believe about dentistry and how you care for patients?

What are things that are entirely not related to dentistry that you love that you believe in, that you fight for, that you stand for, that when you share that with patients they go, “Oh, wow. Me too!” Or they go, “I didn't know that. That's amazing!” Maybe, they say, “Wow, thank you for caring. I didn't know that but I see that in you now!”

The same goes for your team. What stories are they telling? How are they connecting with patients in and out of the practice?

Everyone will see you as a commodity until you decide to tell better stories that bond you to the community around you.

Number Seven: Maximize

It's the stories you tell that sell the dentistry you present.

Maximization is all about strengthening engagement – the bond. When you find stories that work, both internally and externally, you're able to double down on your marketing and advertising. You have increased your understanding of messages that connect. Now, where are you going to send these messages?

Is it direct mail? Is it radio? Is it physical letters in the mail? Is it magazines? Is it TV? Is it digital ads? Do I have the budget for all the above?

When you learn to tell stories that bond, test the engagement to strengthen the bond.

Number Eight: Book

What does your ideal day look like?

You should know this from creating your vision in number one.

When you know what your ideal workday looks like you're able to book and schedule for performance.

Too many dental teams operate without an ideal day. There is no structure to what your team is building.

You show up each day hoping to have a good day. Yet your team has no benchmark for their daily performance.

When you schedule to goal you set the expectation for yourself and your team.

Do you have a scheduled goal have a $10,000 day as a practice with combined production from everyone?

Is your personal goal to produce $10,000 a day, plus the team goals?

If you schedule the day with intentionality, you are able to train and rehearse how to create and build that specific day. Day after day with consistency even when the schedule falls apart.

Please click here to learn how you too can Finish Well!

Stay tuned for Part 5 of The Finish Well Manifesto

To contact Dr. Williams about the next 5M Mastermind see Solstice.Academy