As my followers on Twitter know, I had the distinct pleasure of having 2 teeth removed last night. Let's just say, I don't do pain. I tell my wife, Cate, who had both of our children naturally — the second one at home — that, if it were me giving birth, we would be talking about why I couldn't have drugs in the 33rd week.
However, as the oral surgeon waited for my mouth to numb, he and the dentist who owned the center started talking in the hall (loudly) about how incompetent the office manager was and how the dentist owner always felt like she had to check up on her. The dentist owner said, "She is the office manager, after all, isn't supposed to be her JOB to know how to manage the office?".
All I have to say is that God works in mysterious ways, because other than the Ipod blasting, I thought (and thought) about what the dentist owner complained about and the procedure was done before I knew it.
Why write about it here? Because there is a huge lesson to be learned. Sort of another take on my last post — whether you are in a vocation or running a business. When I asked the owner dentist if she thought she was running a business, she said no, this was just her running her own practice. Wrong answer.
She created a beautiful space with 5 treatment rooms (big rent for sure), a slate of dentists, and all of the headaches that come with a business — operating procedures, payroll, cash management, etc. It wasn't just her and a rented chair with a common receptionist. Her office manager was actually a very nice lady, but there was no operating protocol in place. So every potential patient that called or came in (me included) was like starting from scratch. Because there was no process, I was left wondering what was next all the time. If it wasn't an emergency, I probably would have considered not coming back.
My dentist will have to learn (hopefully, not painfully) that hiring managers does not relieve her of her duty to structure her business how SHE wants it to run — from the moment a patient calls or comes in, until the work is done (btw, there was no follow up call today to see how I was doing). Her office manager can then design the flow that she thinks will work and take it from there. And my dentist can focus on what she definitely does best — being a dentist.
There's no greater thrill than watching your vocation expand to the point that it can become a business. But, before you leap, know you will have to expand your skill set to go with it. The business that you and maybe one or two people ran in your home office or tiny studio, will now need customer service protocol, and operating manual, cash flow management, branding/marketing strategy, etc. You can hire all the staff you want, but if you do not have a grasp on how it should all go when you make the leap — neither will they. You have to write the outline, they get to fill in the blanks and then work off the script. Otherwise, you will waste energy everywhere, be exhausted and exasperated, with not nearly enough at the end of the day to show for all of your efforts. Just like my dentist.
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Great post Sean. Years ago I was working at a hotel in Hawaii & listened in on a conference going on. It was someone teaching dentists how to look at their practice as a business & how to give good customer service, how to sell, etc. The speaker was saying that most dentists do not have any training in this area & are horrible at it & that it’ll be the death of them. It was very interesting even for me.