Stop, Start, Change – It’s our cycle living through life events
I’ve written on this topic a few times. It’s one of my favorite management systems and something my husband reminds me is critical to success in an industry and life that is constantly changing.
Now, more than ever, we are seeing changes in our industry. On top of modifications due to the COVID climate, we are seeing dentists start to connect in many ways. The rapid emergence of group practices and the increase in DSO’s cannot be denied. More communities, companies with practice support services, franchises, and buying groups than ever before means no one can deny the fact that dentists are uniting for greater opportunities for growth. This has created changes in my speaking and training business. I began my strategy for change about four years ago as I saw a shift in my audiences. In addition to this and a health scare I was forced to take a look and ask myself; what is the best and highest use of my time?
When we go through these seasons in life, I am reminded of how my husband has described this cycle for years. We all experience life events both professional and personal times when we must just STOP. We START a different way, and this creates CHANGE. We believe that life is made up of stop, start, and change cycles. Sometimes we choose this, like merging a business for growth and opportunity. While other times we become a part of it due to circumstances out of our control like the Coronavirus, medical issues, divorce, job loss, and even death. I can assure you from someone who loves the podium… that I wasn’t ready to STOP speaking and delivering current content the way I had done it for years. These variations and a health set back STARTED my process to create new ways for me to deliver my content. It made me rethink and CHANGE the methods to deliver a more affordable, scalable and duplicatable way to train entire teams.
However, after a couple of years of these new deliveries, I’m finding that equipping and training team leads or operations team members with systems easy to track and execute is actually more fun that I thought possible. Most of the groups or even study clubs I work with are not excited to shut down the moving ship and pay an entire team for a full day or even two days. Part of the new deliveries made me create ways to have shorter full team and doctor meetings with systems to set up the leaders or operations team to implement over the course of a few months before another shorter (often live) training session with me or my team. We all get what we want. They get the content and delivery tools to implement in short team meetings at individual team meetings and I still get the thrill and energy needed to bring passion to the content. It’s truly a Win-Win and we are loving it.
Systems help me stay focused and keep me in a more productive state of mind.
If you have heard me speak or read anything, I write you know, I LOVE SYSTEMS! My personality and creativity can follow bright shiny objects if I am not careful and on track. Systems help me stay focused and keep me in a more productive state of mind. It was always part of my speaking to offer systems for success in the practice. Time has just changed the delivery method a bit. Now it is a mix of live or live-streamed short trainings and workshop learning for team leads or operations teams. This is then followed by brief, specific, prescribed online, short segments that make it easy to execute until the next opportunity for live training presents itself.
Today getting an audience of three or four generations to sit still and consume information is like drinking water out of a fire hydrant. It is not happening!
I love giving so much content that the audience feels satiated in the first half of the day and then they are in a “content coma” all afternoon. I did this for years. As professionals or masters at our craft, we all adapt to how we provide our professional services. My father-in-law never used an autoclave or had a hygienist. If he were still alive he couldn’t imagine how expensive it is to provide exceptional care with today’s technology and team. As a certified speaking professional and published author, I recognize many things have changed.
STOP, START, CHANGE in my business has been an expensive endeavor but the thought of not being able to inspire dental teams to greatness is something I’m just not willing to give up on easily. An early mentor of mine shared something that I have never forgotten. I had shared that I thought I might get out of the seminar business because the expenses had become so great. He said, “Majors, always remember, you can’t get out of something you ain’t never been in.” You see, I can’t really get out of this business unless I’ve done what it takes to be in it today.
I can honestly say, I am in the part of the stage where it’s hard to say what is next. The part of the cycle that control-freaks hate. The part of life that overachievers don’t want to be in, much less share with the masses that they are in it! At least not until they are on the other side and have a success story to share. I’ve always been an open book and shared highs and lows with the audience because I am really in dentistry, and I live where you live. When I began writing this blog post I hadn’t had 10 speaking engagements cancel. I also had not had so many requests for webinars and practices wanting to understand what content I had available online due to travel issues and costs. All in all, this is a process I’m not walking away from because as the spouse of a dentist, I understand uniquely what is happening in our personal and professional life. This experience is mine and it is real. It will only enhance what we want to do to deliver more content in a better, more efficient, affordable, and scalable way because it is what we would want and how we want to be treated. We can’t stand price gouging because someone is in need!
ACTION ITEM: Think about your office. You’ve probably had to STOP practicing recently due to Covid-19. Eventually, you will START to practice again. How has this changed your thoughts on dentistry? What will you need to CHANGE in your systems? Watch this video and let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you to so many of my readers, past clients, business associates, friends, family, even audience, and airplane acquaintances who are now in my circle on social media. It has been my pleasure to be in your circle, space, inbox, prayer list… whatever and however we have connected.
Stay tuned, who knows what’s in store when life is in charge, and you are not. We’re still here and still ready to help. I’m still on the road, but like many of you, I’ve slowed down to a crawl for safety’s sake!
See you on the road (and the web!),
JoAn
