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The insipid effect of ‘holding steady’

Recently someone who works for me went, as a patient, to another dental practice for treatment. It’s a measure of the person themselves that they continue to go to their previous practice and don’t expect their treatment to be carried out here but I’ll have to explain that that’s an entitlement of working here, not a bad thing!

The person in question though returned back to a practice where they’d worked previously to undergo treatment having spent some time now at our practice as an employee and was staggered by the way their eyes were opened to what their previous practice actually looked like.

When this individual sat in the waiting room the wallpaper was peeling off the walls and the magazines were still the same, even from when they were there some years before! This is a private dental practice in a nice part of the City with a relatively young team.

My colleague then chatted to other members of the team and they said that they were down on staff but that the boss refused to interview for someone new and that they were very much encountering, as they put it, “the same old S&@t”

So what does this experience point towards or indicate, particularly in view of the fact that my colleague noticed that the Principal had a new car?

I fear this is not a unique situation in dentistry, or in small business at all for that matter, where the boss and owner-operator expects a maintenance of level of income and standard of living regardless of how the business is performing. There’s no question it’s become harder to become mediocre in dentistry and to continue to make what, could be considered, to be an overinflated income for provision of something which isn’t that great. That seems to purvey throughout the industry to a large degree.

The world does not owe us a living and where rewards exist for people who are exceptional and work extremely hard to be better at what they do, the ‘rewards’ that are returning back to people who are mediocre and maintain a standard of mediocrity are reducing overall.

This is, I guess, right and proper but the simple equation that exists here as we enter into the finance module of our business course this week is that if practice profits fall then the bosses money falls to the same degree or more. To fail to protect your team when things are difficult is to lose a large degree of the loyalty that you may have gained over the years. To fail to continue to invest in your business is a sure fire was to slow, insipid death in a painful way. To maintain your own income above everyone else’s, or even above decorating your waiting room, is a sure fire way to kill yourself in business i’m sure.

The opposite is to link your wages or any wage rise you get in line with the success or otherwise of the business and this is what we’ll be talking about this week on our course. Set your business at a reasonable level which allows you to re-invest, in your team, your premises and your equipment and as the business starts to do better then by all means pay yourself more until you reach enough. Once you have reached enough (the earlier you can get to that the better) the more money you can leave in your business to make it a more wonderful place to work.

Lifestyle versus legacy again.

By Colin Campbell on 29/03/17 18:00