26. If Your Incentive System Falters, Please Don’t Give Up…Fix It! ................................................................................ 121
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Your Great Incentivization &
Compensation System Is Your Best
Practice Manager!
A great incentive compensation system is an ethically correct way of stimulating & proportionately rewarding positive staff behavior…especially when the manager or doctor-owner is away!
It is at the heart of your very real opportunity to spend more time away from your office…on vacation…or with your family…while earning more.
Your incentives must be simple. But ONLY paid AFTER the growth occurs. You can’t lose. Understood by all & always visible… & updated multiple times per day, the most optimal incentive is precisely focused & targeted at the exact behavior you are intending to elevate.
In all cases where chrisad is actively marketing, there is an INVISIBLE WALL of MASSIVELY increased new & returning patient demand…the BEST & most of which will ONLY accept hygiene exam appointments that do not require them to take off work or school.
So the trick is simply opening the conduit through which these WORKING & BEST new & returning patients must pass, are properly appointed, make it in the chair… & are retained in hygiene two times per year for decades.
Please cast aside any preconceived notions of what a dental practice “should be”…or what you were told the practice of dentistry would be like when you were in dental school…or what 5
friends or family…who enjoyed some degree of success in the past…told you practice would be like.
The world is not always the world the way we want it to be. We must understand & accept it for what it IS! The world has evolved… & will continue to evolve. We must then take advantage of the realities of TODAY’s dental marketplace opportunities. Many of these amazing current opportunities will ABSOLUTELY not be around forever!
We must also view the practice environment where staff work… & the practice hours…as part of a great incentive system. It is clear that…increasingly the hours that the BEST SUPER PATIENTS
want & need to come in (especially for cleanings) are directly opposite from the hours that most staff expected or wanted to work.
So creative schedules, workplace cultural environment & compensation systems must be engineered to offset this staff inconvenience.
A properly configured incentive system can be your best practice managerial system. Who needs a bunch of questionably competent managers when your great incentive system DRIVES
better team BEHAVIOR??? Optimal compensation systems & incentives produce a WONDERFUL POSITIVE & quantifiable GROWTH & PROFITABILITY outcome that otherwise would not have occurred!!
Most of us have learned “the hard way” that with staff, hygienists
& associates, we cannot “push a rope uphill.”
But what if these staff knew with certainty that they would make more money in direct proportion to how well they exceed your patients’ expectations… & profitably grow your practice? Would you need micromanagement? Would you even need an office manager? Would you need to be there??
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An outstanding compensation/incentive system WILL NEVER
upset even the most conservative of accountants. Rewards are PAID ONLY IF… & AFTER…the practice has grown in one or more of the critical incentive areas… & the practice FIRST
received FAR MORE INCOME than likely would have otherwise occurred…had there not been an incentive. How can anyone complain?
Again, it is ABSOLUTELY impossible to PUSH A ROPE
UPHILL!! Many outstanding practitioners appear to be convinced that the way their practice CURRENTLY IS defines the nature & limits of the practice. However, the concept of “No Limits” is far more than a catchphrase. With a great incentive system in place at your practice…you will soon see what we mean.
There really are no boundaries…but managing practices the way that they always had been…or the way your father or another friend, GURU or relative BOASTED that they managed theirs to great success…is rarely appropriate in light of today’s RAPIDLY
evolving dental practice marketplace environment.
We find that too many practices are based on FALSELY
embellished & fatally misleading success models. Saving face, many such friends, family, “experts” or GURUS greatly exaggerate (often, they are liars)…or enjoyed success in an advantaged marketplace environment long ago…or far away…that no longer exists.
The systems that we are suggesting below are the product of three-plus decades of extensive incentive related research…with further fine-tuning & perfecting in thousands of practices located in every U.S. state & many additional countries. This is additionally based on our past & current (today!) regular monitoring of the behaviors of around 20,000 dental employees.
The information suggested herein is not otherwise available… & is based on chrisad’s unparalleled & unique ( & unbiased!!) 7
perspective. As I edit this book, I have been in 30 practices in three states this week. Over the past year, I have been in around 1,000 offices in four nations.
In addition, we have more dental practice managerial data…over a longer period…than any entity in the world.
And versions of these incentive systems have been used at chrisad for the past 43 years of continual & uninterrupted quarter over quarter growth (except the COVID period).
Optimal incentives have been part of the growth process of virtually all of our fastest growing & largest practices…with some growing to the $70 million a year level… & with many up to the $1 million per chair per year levels…with the owner/doctor (obviously) mostly or totally out of the chair.
The more precisely targeted & immediately paid your incentive system is…the more new & returning SUPER PATIENTS you will have in your practice.
Be careful what you wish for!
So, here’s to your incentivization journey! It’s all extremely counterintuitive…but well worth it. Problems or questions? Please remember that we are ALWAYS here to help! jc
OVERVIEW: If You Believe That
There Is a Work Ethic, YOU Are
Likely Being Fooled!
At chrisad, since 1980, it has been our passionate dedication to elevate your personal & practice welfare. We want you…as the 8
owner of the practice…to earn more while enjoyably being away…without being physically tied to the practice or the chair.
We want you to stay healthy, travel, relax & spend more time with your friends & family!
However, in this evolved new world, this goal is far less likely to be achieved in the absence of powerful staff, hygienist & associate doctor incentive systems that will cause the practice to grow & prosper in your absence.
In today’s workplace environment, if anyone in the western world believes that there is a work ethic among employees, they are likely being fooled. It is universally the case that all employees will perform at higher levels when paid more to do so.
And for the employer, this additional incentive or bonus amount must amount to pennies relative to the HUGE incentive stimulated gains that…WITHOUT THE INCENTIVE…would NOT have occurred!
Many have read books or attended seminars…usually promulgated by idealistic authors who have never owned a business or succeeded in business…that suggest a “kumbaya”
(socially happy employee) approach will motivate employees on its own.
However... singing songs & DANCING by the campfire…or various additional social events…ALONE…has been long documented to NOT have much of a positive impact on business growth.
You can’t pay your mortgage or rent…or get a new car…by winning a team-building sack race.