As the owner of a dental clinic, part of your job as a leader is to make sure your staff feels heard, supported, and invested in the future of your practice. The biggest issue most clinic owners face is STAFFING, as hygienists, front desk admins, dental assistants, office managers, and dental associates leave for other practices.
Offering them more money, flexibility, profit-sharing, and time off can help…but there are deeper and more powerful ways to make your staff feel so good that they won’t look for a better offer.
I’ve been a business owner for 14 years and have scaled my own company to $10 million in revenue with a team of 230 staff servicing tens of thousands of students a month through LIFT Enrichment My newer venture “Clinic Assist” is about sharing all my hard-won entrepreneur tactics with dental clinics, a field I’ve spent a year plus in the US and am now focusing on Dubai, where I live. We’ve helped practices grow their revenue by 40,000 AED a month through our efforts and are looking to help you.
Here are some ways to better invest in your team
1) Discover their 5-year plan
Sit down with each of your staff and ask them this, “Where do you want to be in 5 years professionally AND personally?”
Ask them some follow-up questions and try to help them clarify their vision, even if they don’t have a fully formed one yet.
Some answers from my team include:
“I want to run a multi-million dollar location-independent business.”
“I want to have happy children, a beautiful wife and a thriving restaurant that I own and operate.”
Their “dream” can involve your clinic, or not. It doesn’t matter, because your focus is to show how their role in your company will help them get there.
For these examples, I can go into how working in their position will help them build very valuable skills in management, finances, marketing, leadership, sales, etc., that will help them on their journey. I truly want them to achieve their goals, even if working with me is a stepping stone along the way.
One of my staff even went up the ranks from operations coordinator to manager to president just by expressing how she wanted to learn and grow as a leader.
Write down their answers. I put them in a shared google sheet with my key team members so I can refer to it during monthly or quarterly one-on-ones.
Then throughout their week show them how their role in your clinic helps THEIR 5 year goals.
2) Have a VISION AND BIG GOAL for your clinic that is shared with the entire team
Now you know your team’s key 5-year goals…but what’s your goal for your clinic?
Don’t say, “To make more money!” That’s not specific or inspiring.
How about, “Our goal at ABC Dubai Clinic is in 2030 to have 3 locations that generate 20 million AED per year and help 10,000 patients a year.”
That’s a goal people can get behind!
Or it could be something like “Our goal at ABC Dubai Clinic is in 2030 to have a team of amazing dental associates, so the owner is not the main dentist, and can focus on growing the company with a goal of hitting 8 million AED in revenue.”
The clearer the goal is, the better.
You could aim for 10 years, but I prefer 5 years as it feels more achievable.
You can also talk about the STRUCTURE, which could include
- A lead dentist that isn’t the owner
- More vacation time for everyone
- Better hours
3) The Team Meets for a Daily Huddle to Connect and Share
The Daily Huddle is a POWERFUL way to improve the way your office communicates.
My teams in both companies (LIFT Enrichment and Clinic Assist) both have Daily Huddles that are dialed in.
They take about 5-15 minutes and happen at the same time, 5 days a week.
Here’s how it works.
There is a Huddle Leader who asks everyone to start on time and then ends the meeting.
“Happy Monday! Let’s begin the daily huddle”
There is a pre-set order to the huddle.
Each person shares 3 things
Priority: What’s your priority for the day?
Challenge: What’s your challenge or something you’re stuck on?
News: What happened yesterday that you’d like to share with the team?
Here’s My Example:
Priority: Write one LinkedIn post and share across all platforms
Challenge: The rebrand is requiring changing a lot of internal and external mentions and we need to doublecheck some things
News: The Tri-fold brochure is ready to be printed
A bad example is something that’s a vague Priority: “To do my work!” What exactly do you want to get done TODAY that is important?
Or Challenge: “I have no challenges” Really, everything went smoothly? Think of something that’s been bugging you
News: “Yesterday went smoothly.” Really? You worked for 8 hours yesterday, and nothing of note happened? Maybe you had a happy client or an annoyed one. Share something
You go in the order of the huddle and then the Huddle Master says: “Does anyone have any questions or need to talk to the team?”
Answers might include “Yes, I need to talk to the Office Manager.” or “Yes, I have a quick update for the front desk admin.”
The huddle happens at the SAME TIME everyday: Ideally it’s in the morning. One of my huddle is at 9:15am. Or right before lunch. Just keep it consistent, and everyone must attend unless there’s a very good reason not to
4) The Team Has A Weekly Meeting With KPIs
I’ve written about KPIs in the past, but let’s go over the basics.
Each team member has 5-7 “Key Performance Indicators” that they review every week.
Most companies have no “number” that if a staff hits each week shows they’re doing a good job. They just try to see if it “feels” like their job is going successfully or not.
Everyone needs numbers (including you the owner) and a Weekly 60-minute Team Meeting helps everyone stay on track.
5) Your Team Has Fantastic SOPs that make their job easier to accomplish
Imagine a front desk admin earning 8,000 AED a month and has two dental clinics to work at:
One has a fully built handbook with SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) that show exactly how to answer the phone, schedule patients and greet patients in the office.
The other clinic has none, or very few SOPs, and most of the training will just be the very busy Office Manager explaining things over a few meetings.
If this front desk admin can work anywhere, the clinic that has a fully built system with SOPs will be a more attractive offer.
(Btw, we can help you build your handbook, it’s a key part our service.)
Make your ability for new people EASY to succeed by combining 1 on 1 training and great SOPs.
If you’re a dental clinic in Dubai and you’d like to learn how we can help your clinic grow by 1 Million AED during an in-person “lunch and learn” consultation with our owner, Eric Horwitz, at your clinic. Book a 10-minute consultation with our team to see how we can help your practice grow.