It's Go Time!—4th Quarter Dental Strategies by Jay Geier

Make big plays in the 4th quarter to end 2021 strong and start 2022 off right

by Jay Geier

• Tie into Veterans Day or Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day to honor veterans by offering something special for them. Better yet, plan a free Veterans Dental Day as a charitable event. In addition to giving back to the community, you’ll be giving back to your bottom line with qualified deductions, as well as getting exposure within the community as a generous office.
• Send a reminder that time is running out to tap a flexible spending account, and patients need to call for an appointment ASAP. For example: “Daylight saving ends soon … and so does your opportunity to use your flexible spending balance.”
• Encourage existing patients and attract new patients by offering a coupon for whitening or other cosmetic services in time for holiday parties, family photos and end-of-year social media montages. Or, tie a discount into the craziness of shopping. One example: “Shopping will bring you a weekend of gratification; investing in a whiter, brighter smile will bring you a lifetime of self-confidence!”
• Keep the momentum going through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Instead of thinking of them as slow times and/or allowing your people to be constantly distracted, channel the team’s positive mood and holiday spirit to intentionally drive business.

• Present a memorable giveaway or appreciation gift throughout the entire quarter, not just at year-end.
• Hold a patient appreciation event in October or early November so you’re not conflicting with all the other holiday events on people’s calendars.
• Run a contest for patients where they could win Christmas shopping money before Christmas—all of the parents in your community would love that!

• Take steps to retain your good people and ramp up their engagement. A few ideas: Schedule training—don’t just plan to do it, but prove you’re serious by actually getting it on their calendars!—create development opportunities, live a culture of recognition and appreciation, and offer a competitive compensation package.
• Add (or replace) team members. Despite the “great resignation” being experienced in a lot of areas, people are bound to get progressively more worried about a lack of income going into the holidays. Don’t take undue advantage by underpaying people, but you should be able to attract and hire good people without having to pay as high of a premium as you might have earlier in the year. Look to the hard-hit hospitality industry for people in search of jobs who already have a desirable skill set.

• Prepaying for first-quarter training is a tax-deductible investment that will provide considerable return on investment early next year.
• Prepaying for first-quarter marketing pieces is a tax-deductible investment that will keep end-of-year momentum going strong into the new year.

Jay Geier is a world authority on growing independent practices. His passion is turning practices into businesses, doctors into CEOs, and employees into high-performing individuals and teams. He is the founder and CEO of The Scheduling Institute, a firm that specializes in training and development, and coaching doctors on how to create a performance-based culture that drives business results. To hear more from Geier, subscribe to his Private Practice Playbook podcast at podcastfordoctors.com/townie.