I have two friends whose dads are dentists.
Both have been in business for 40+ years. One of them just sold his dental practice for $2 Million dollars, and the other has been buying out other dental practices (as a way to grow and acquire more clientele), and will most likely sell his dental practice for a few million dollars in the coming years as well.
If you’re an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur who is trying to start and grow your own business, you can learn two valuable lessons from great dentists like these two men.
First, great dental practices (and all great businesses) are built over time, one client/customer/patient at a time. They are not overnight successes – no successful business is. Every successful business developed a product or service that a group of people needed or desired, and over time, more and more customers came to this business to get the solution/product/service they needed or wanted.
Second: The really good dentists know how to retain clients for life, which makes their dental business stronger and more profitable.
How do they retain clients for life? By being kind, providing great service, building trust and likability with their customers, and having a business model that inherently requires repeat visits/purchases (checkups 2x a year), as well as upsells to higher priced services (cavities, root canals, etc.) Retention is inherently built into dental practices, but if the dentist isn’t likable or good at the work he/she does, customers will go somewhere else.
Before my wife and I moved to Kentucky, I went to my dentist for 15+ years. There were a plethora of choices for dentists in the town I lived in, but my dentist was kind, likable, and good at what he did. He wasn’t pushy or overly ‘salesy’, which made me trust his advice and gladly purchase dental services from him when I needed something done. Because of this, my family and I have spent thousands of dollars with his business for dental work, and always refer people in our hometown to him when the opportunity arises. (I would link to his website here if he had one, but he doesn’t. Which is pretty impressive, considering he’s been in business for 20+ years! Good job Dr. Murphy.)
Learn from great dentists and their dental practices. Patiently grow and acquire clients/customers/patients over time – one by one – and do your best to retain them for life through kindness, likability, a quality product/service, and a business model that has retention built into it. If you can build retention into your business – through repeat visits/purchases, or ongoing management/usage – then your business will be even stronger.
Time and patience, one customer at a time.
Recurring revenue through retention, keep it in mind.
Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation.” – Proverbs 3:3-4 NLT
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