Us dentists like to get things right. The thought of going through a process where we try and fail multiple times scares many of us.
I agree that we don’t want to do experimental treatments on patients. But, if you aren’t failing regularly with marketing and business ideas then you aren’t innovating enough.
Years ago, when I started a new practice from scratch I knew very little about marketing. I just tried a lot of ideas, many of which were unsuccessful until I eventually hit marketing gold.
One of my failures was when I spent just over $2,000 printing a flyer for a letter box drop. I felt sure it was going to be a winner. After paying hundreds more dollars to distribute half the print run I got zero response. Nada. Based on that it wasn’t worth paying to distribute the rest so I dropped $1,000 worth of printing into the bin. That stung because my practice was new and every dollar counted.
It was, however, a valuable lesson and, in the long run, I don’t regret it. It showed me what doesn’t work and changed my direction for future marketing. The next flyer I tried went in a completely different direction and scored a home run.
There’s a famous saying about advertising that goes:
“Half of everything I spend on advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.”
If you don’t keep trying new things and innovating your practice will inevitably decline.
I had a colleague who graduated in the 1970s. In the 1980s they were very successful and got too comfortable. They stopped innovating. For the next 40 years, until they retired, they kept practicing in the same way they did in the 1980s. The world passed them by and their practice became mediocre. In truth, probably less than mediocre. Yet, they still stuck to the old methods.
Bottom line is this.
In business it’s very hard to stay still. You either go forward or you go backwards. Try out some wild ideas in your practice. You will have some failures but you will have some successes. Doing that will keep your practice fresh, interesting and on the leading edge.
If you’re bold and keep innovating you will attain excellence through guesswork.
