Military Planning Procedure For Your Dental Practice Marketing

With 2008 half-way over, it is time to start planning for 2009. Planning in any business is an essential function that all too many times gets overlooked. Lack of planning leads to playing defense for a whole year and being reactive, not proactive in your success.

Think about it this way: When you go into a dental procedure, you have all your tools laid out on the tray ready to go. Why not start the year with all your marketing tools laid out ready to go, and knowing exactly when you want and need to use them?

In my four years as an active duty Marine, I learned time and time again that planning would lead to success. We even had a saying "proper prior planning prevents poor performance," and we were given an acronym, B.A.M.C.I.S., to help plan missions...

B.A.M.C.I.S. (pronounced bam-sis) has to do with leading Marines on the battlefield and is used to plan for every mission. B.A.M.C.I.S. stands for Begin the planning, Arrange for reconnaissance, Make reconnaissance, Complete the plan, Issue the order, and Supervise. These simple six steps apply to any task or operation you will take on...

Before you start the B.A.M.C.I.S. process, you will need a mission. For the sake of example, your goal or mission is to increase gross revenue by 10% in 2009. It's a little vague, but it will work for our purposes. Now, let's go step by step through the B.A.M.C.I.S. process...

1. Begin the planning: The first step is actually beginning the planning (duh). You will approach your goal, and figure out the methods to best accomplish it. In this case, to increase your gross revenues by 10%, you can either find new patients, or, you can do more dentistry on your current patients, or a combination of both...

Also, you need to do is take a quick inventory of your available resources like staff, equipment, and old marketing (brochures, business cards, etc). This will let you know what you can include in your plan, and will help in the next step...

2. Arrange For Reconnaissance: In the second step you arrange for your information gathering. In the Marines, this may include requesting maps, video surveillance, or even planning another mission to gather information on the terrain and enemy positions...

For your practice, it means taking an information inventory. Do you have production reports and patient reports by month for 2007 and 2008 to date? Where do you find marketing results? What do you need to do to get those reports? Gather as much information on the last 12 months as possible, and then move on to the next step. Check also with local government, competitors, and local media to see what events are coming (Wal-mart, parades, dentist down the street retiring)...

3. Make Reconnaissance: Now that you have all of your information, you have to sort through it. Figure out your worst month and your best month, what marketing was out those months, and how many new patients resulted from the marketing. What is coming up this next year (anniversaries, trade shows, community events)? This is an information finding step, not a planning step. If there are months where incomplete data was kept, recreate those months in this step...

Create your 2007-08 report with all the numbers you need for 2009. Include production by month, new patient flow, cancelled appointments, average production per patient, new and current, and completed treatment plans. These numbers will all be great when it comes to the next step. Many times your practice management software can pull these numbers just by clicking the mouse a few times...

4. Complete the Plan: Now, apply all of the information you have gathered and create your plan. Take your monthly reports and use them to figure out when to up your marketing. If you know July is slow, pump up the marketing in June. If there is a big anniversary for your practice in the summer, plan a patient event...

Hint: Use reverse planning. If you need patients calling by August 1st, subtract 3 days for mailing, 5 days for fulfillment, and 5 days for printing. If you want calls in your office on August 1st, you need to have the project to the printer by July 14th at the latest. Plan all marketing projects like this. If you need patients on August 1st, July 30th is not the time to start the project...

Don't forget a contingency plan for emergencies... flood, fire, theft, etc. These things happen, and it helps if there is a plan just in case they do...

5. Issue The Order: Have a meeting and lay out your plan to your team. This serves as an "order" for them, to let them know exactly who, what, when, where, and why you are doing this. Make sure to leave out no details. If Jane at the front desk needs to be in charge of postage purchasing, tell her how many stamps you need and when to get them. Lay out the year for them, so there will be no surprises when you announce the need to sign Thanksgiving cards for your patients...

Then, in your daily/weekly huddles, you can lay out what needs to happen that week/day. Who needs to call the marketing company? Who is working on the copy for the newsletter, and deadlines for each project? This goes back to reverse planning. Give yourself and your team notice of any problems, and what you need to do to get them handled. How do you know when there are problems? Check the next step...

Supervise: I cannot stress this enough. Supervising is the most important step to your planning since the plan is useless without implementation. This does not mean just supervising people, but also processes, situations, and external vendors. This allows you to know if things are going according to the plan, as well as when to take action steps to fix a problem. Look over your weekly plan and make sure things are on time, what needs to be ready for next week, and who is in charge of doing what. Do not micro-manage this step. Trust your staff and external vendors to get things done (they should be trustworthy, you hired them)...

If there is a problem, use another military acronym, OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act). As you supervise or observe the implementation of your plan, you will notice problems here and there. Orient yourself to these problems. What needs to be adjusted or changed? Make a swift, firm decision, keeping the mission in mind, and acting on that decision. The Marine saying is, the quicker you act, the less time the opposition has to prepare defense...

If you supervise correctly, you will catch all problems early. This makes them easier to solve, and makes certain they have less effect on your mission. Rather than walls, they appear more as speed bumps. There are few problems that prior planning could not resolve...

Planning can and will help your practice run smoother. It is often ignored in business today, and comes to haunt many business owners. If you lay out a proper plan using the information you have gathered over the last year, you will surely create a smoother running practice. Remember, proper prior planning prevents poor performance.

About the Author

James Erickson is the President of EMC Dental Marketing which gives Dentists a resource for turn-key dental marketing programs and dental practice marketing education including new patient attraction, and internal marketing systems. Visit www.EMCdental.com and get a free practice
building kit sent directly to your home or office.<

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2009 Instant Gratification Promotional Delusions: Did You Get The Memo?

Do you ever wonder what the difference between a crook and a liar is?You can spot the crook a mile away, but you have to flash your keen eyes even more this year in order to avoid the countless lies internet marketing promotional promises that are soon to be readily available in many Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign specifically and many organic search engine results in Google, Yahoo and MSN when you hit a search.

There are many varieties you can spot right now as the moment of this writing.Just go and hit a search on your favorite search engine and see many of the advertisings and promotions listed both in free advertising and pay-per-click spotlights.You will get from copycats to the latest million dollar secret to become the next Oprah on the internet.

There are effective ways to keep safe in the next months, this year and in the next ones as more people flock to the net craving for the latest quick buck.Some of these suggestions might seem common sense, but with common sense a click away might be identity theft or scam artist trying to rip you off.

Be responsible and do your diligence when you decide to make a purchase.Sure, the more popular the business gets, the easier it is to recognize legitimacy and election of purchase.One of the important memos I wrote for myself and one that many customers on the internet believed as I confirmed once again over an intriguing business talk about commercial use over a Borders walk was that many of us intend to buy books in order to get the latest hope in quick-fix solutions when it comes to internet marketing.

The big fat reality is that in moments of uncertainty, instant gratification quick-fix financial solutions are a delusional hopeful option.There are many quick ways to make money, make thousands of dollars on eBay per month and certainly live from home by offering tangible products and combined services.But one of the delusional thoughts many of us need to eliminate, delete and crucify is the desperate need of instant gratification.The credit card industry is the greatest example of all!Instant gratification seductive pleasure for a price you could not afford.That is at least what I can read.

The same goes with internet marketing products, self-help packages to learn new things and every other dominator that reads jackpot in your mind.There are the exceptions based on recognition, time and proof.However, be aware of the desperate promotional attempts you are going to see from today top marketing gurus to squash $1,000s of dollars from your wallet!Again, there are few exceptions for some.But why pay thousands or hundreds of dollars, right now?

Guard your money and be smart.Absurd promotions of instant gratifications are being promoted over and over in hypnotic ways.The last one me and a few other saw was when a top marketer talked about how the traditional marketing methods that work are all a waste of time and his latest higher percentage solution is the latest magic pill.That one needed an added popcorn bonus, and you might get to see plenty of the marketing and self-help giants doing the same in eloquent ways.

Be smart, make a plan and do not distract yourself this year with fancy hopes.Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is!Planning to start your very first internet store to make great money?Make planning a priority!

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Choosing The Right Freelance Business

When you are considering working from home, there is a set of decisions that must be made. First, you must decide whether or not working at domicile is by the book for you. Subsequently, you crave to believe anything class of book at dwelling house job you will be doing. There are a couple of happenings for freelances out there, both offline and off. Producing a flourishing freelance vocation starts along furthermore analyzing your own progress and necessities in a job and then locating the right match.

At times the prudent place to pop out as well as your freelance vocation is where your out of the domicile vocation finished. A number of women dig up that they can transform self sustaining contractors in the part that they already worked in. You can use your prior textbook affair as a launching pad for your freelance career. A handful of the ways to use your incident to your vantage are: ascertaining a organization that hires people in your sphere to textbook loves homestead, via your previous occurrence to develop into an "counselor-at-law" creator in your sphere or starting up a interest appropriate to your ahead of aspect.

Although, one or two workers look at their freelance careers as a way to aid out of their old job. If youd resembling to try something utterly numerous, there are a great deal of circumstances for entry-level textbook as an independent contractor. A couple of of these professions pact in addition to cell phone or surf the net client provision. Anytime you textbook as a customer package agent take pleasure in your home, you effortlessly need a definite Cyber web connection and a working phone. Organizations also sign up homeopathic transcriptionists, log entry professionals and virtual personal assistants to telecommute.

If you want to commence your own affair, the happenings are extraordinarily immense. You can pop out along furthermore a contiguous sales bureau and promote it products delight in an analyzed class to friends and neighbors. Youll make commissions via your sales and likewise off of recruiting different workers to retail it to you the goods. There are hundreds of contiguous sales companies that furnish everything take pleasure in aromatherapy goods to candles to cookery compilations.

An extra choice for initiating your own problem is bestowing a package in your group. Day affection workplace operators, florists, professional organizers and hairdressers all understanding the selection of functioning at abode, in the middle of a few peculiar professions. Of course, starting off a interest in your neighborhood most of the time tool that youve had a handful affair in that part. Excluding, there are a handful adolescent problem plan that can be started without much incident at all.

A few ladies spin to the World wide web for a originator of at home proceeds. The World Wide Web gives a excess of job events. You can award your services browse cyberspace as a freelance web dressmaker, person responsible or virtual coworker. You can similarly pop out an on the internet stockpile that vends wareses that you variety yourself or labor under the rights to resell. A couple of freelances conclude their businesses online by by the use of one of the universal auction places, corresponding to eBay. In addition others obtain a abode in internet commercial, by directing web business to a online page and then recommending definite goods and services.

Determine originally whatsoever type of job youd love to do and afterward textbook savours there. If you are really a workers human being and need to get out each day, quick sales or a local package problem can be appropriately for you. If you are the make of mom who lives surf the net and is comfortable as well as the Web, try discovering a job or beginning your own affair on the web. If you corresponding to the relief of evoking a publication paycheck, look into telecommuting views.

As youve concluded whatever breed of job youd akin to, do a handful examination on whatsoever it removes to be flourishing at that make of business. If you sense admire you are attracted to one exact affair or firm, at that time sit on your choice for a week and see how it feels. Consider what your subsistence will be equivalent to as you stock on the obligations of that job. More or less importantly, be convincing along furthermore yourself just about how a lot of episode you can devote to your affair. Finding out the right contrast isnt firm anytime you methodically believe your alternatives.
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