Many owners of small businesses pursue their passion by turning it into a career. To do this, they either start or purchased a business that is the vehicle for achieving their objectives. In the process, they became entrepreneurs, operating their businesses “by the seat of their pants.”

Dentists are no different. While all are smart and have trained extensively as clinicians, there’s often a distinct gap in education and skill when it comes to how to most effectively apply marketing to a dental practice. Dental Wealth Partners helps you to plan for the right outcome in the same way you would for a complex dental case.

Most dentists and small business owners hear the term “marketing” and think it means the same as “advertising” or “promotions”. They don’t realize that advertising and promotions are very small pieces of what marketing actually is.

You may have friends and colleagues who truly feel they have built their practice “without any marketing” and proclaim they “don’t need it and will never do it”. They don’t understand that they’ve been doing many of the critical aspects of marketing without realizing it was marketing. They’ve differentiated their practice in many ways – name, services offered, location, decor, prices charged, types of patients acquired, how they’ve treated their patients, and a myriad of other ways as well. All of these are marketing activities, and the perception of patients and non-patients has been influenced and molded not with specific objectives in mind but haphazardly. Yet their “brand” – what they stand for in the eyes of current and potential customers – may not be helping the business grow optimally.

Marketing includes branding, positioning (e.g., cosmetic, Medicaid, family, etc.), pricing of services, services offered, services promoted, acquiring and retaining patients, getting patients to appoint and pay for recommended treatment, and a myriad of tactical promotional programs. Marketing strategic planning is a process that starts with setting objectives, then laying out the steps to be taken to achieve the objectives. It sounds simple, and therefore easily done. Yet it’s easy to understand why it doesn’t get done – either the dentist is too busy taking care of your patients and fighting fires, or assumes intelligence and reading about “marketing” can substitute for expertise and experience to generate equivalent results.

Dental Wealth Partners can provide you with the framework and guidance to create a strategic plan for your business. By providing the discipline, the company helps you crystallize what’s important and where efforts should be focused. It also helps identify areas of weakness that could prevent achievement of your objectives if not improved, while also providing a path for improvement.

Learn more about the DWP StratPlan℠ and Digital Marketing by clicking on the links.