Scarcity vs. Abundance: The Mindset That Builds or Breaks Your Dental Practice
For many dental practice owners, particularly younger dentists who are new to practice ownership, there is a pervasive mindset that feels restricting. This feeling stems from a scarcity mindset, a way of thinking where you constantly feel “there is not enough money, time, opportunity, or resources.” It’s a mindset that compels you to “hold on tightly to whatever you got“.
This mentality often causes owners to spiral into a doom and gloom scenario of simply just “treading water” and eventually burning out. It’s a mental exercise that is primarily driven by fear of loss.
It’s a noble cause for dentists to intend on “running lean and mean” handling multiple responsibilities themselves. While this may seem like a responsible financial mindset, it prevents practice owners from stepping back and being more objective. This often means they sacrifice valuable time that could be redirected towards high-impact resources like marketing or strategies for future growth.
The Scarcity Mindset: Focusing on the Lack
The scarcity mindset is characterized by the constant feeling that there is not enough. Not enough money, time, resources, or opportunity. This view often leads to short-term gut reaction decision making. The focus is solely on survival and it’s driven by fear of loss. Dentists operating in this mindset are often trying to hold on tightly to whatever they currently have.
When living in scarcity, a dentist might default to just “getting by” with fewer employees, sacrificing scalability. The problem with that is, you find yourself working harder and making less. That’s when the fear becomes a reality. Dental practice overhead percentage benchmarks give you a baseline for assessing your overhead costs and potential profit. Talk with NEXT LEVEL CONSULTANTS coaches to evaluate your overhead costs and determine a strategy for increased profits.
Letting Dollar Amounts Dictate Decisions
The challenge with scarcity decision making manifests itself most apparently in small financial decisions. Owners start to question if they can afford a $26 per dental assistant, exhibiting genuine “fear of overcommitting”. Does increased compensation lead to greater output? That’s the real question we should be asking. Or said another way, can this assistant handle more advanced cases and increase production with expanded functions?
When dentists start looking for ways to cut cost in their practice, it’s almost always too late. Because they haven’t been paying attention to the things that matter most! The fear of not making production this week tailspins doctors into a fight or flight response. They begin desperately looking for ways to save on supplies or cut back on marketing!
Furthermore, a scarcity mindset can hinder important investments like marketing. Even when your marketing tactics are proven to work, docs hesitate cutting that check on the next campaign. That initial anxiety to writing a large check can stop practice growth in its tracks.
Scarcity also presents itself in clinical settings. Doctors and hygienists may underdiagnose (such as not diagnosing periodontal disease) or “patch and watch” because they fear that presenting the ideal treatment plan will cause the patient to dislike their assessment and go elsewhere.
NEXT LEVEL CONSULTANTS‘ hygiene growth program can help practices look at things that improve revenue with training and systems. The investment in consultants can turn your practices profitability around when given attention and dedication. Check out these other articles that discuss how to improve revenue in your practice:
The Abundance Mindset: Focusing on Possibility and Growth
The abundant mindset is the exact opposite way of thinking. Abundance is where you believe there is enough opportunity, resources, and success to go around. The focus shifts to possibility, long-term thinking, and trusting in the process of growth development, and investment.
Moving from scarcity (being stuck just treading water) to abundance requires strategy and the willingness to invest. When a dentist decides to operate from abundance, they begin focusing on how to grow a dental practice, how to elevate their team and patients, and how to improve the overall experience.
Leadership as a Core Tenant
To escape the “treadmill” of self-defeating mentalities. A strong leader must pivot to an abundant mindset. This means focusing on possibility and actively trusting your ability to produce, and inspire growth as a leader. This shift is crucial because the practice will grow but only if the leader lets go of fear and commits to abundant success!
You know you’re in the abundance mentality when you start asking “how-to” move beyond simple paycheck amounts into purpose, motivation, and accountability for yourself and your team! Creating strategies to involve your team in setting goals. Also, when you start asking “Why?” instead of “What if?” This slight shift in framing questions defines the trajectory for achieving more.
The desire to move from dentist to CEO. Recognizing that being a great clinician is not enough to differentiate, scale, and eventually exit. By asking the question: “What does dental practice leadership for visionaries look like?” It includes shifting to tasks like delegating, empowering, setting the culture, scaling, planning, innovating, etc… Ultimately, a visionary leader builds an organization whose value is not tied solely to the owner’s production hours. Working with an experience dental consulting firm like NEXT LEVEL CONSULTANTS can provide docs with strategies, foresight, and answers to create a extremely successful legacy as a business owner.
Leveraging Metrics and Leadership
Regardless of mindset, in all respects, effective decision-making requires good data. Making decisions based purely on gut feeling is generally highly discouraged. Without properly tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), team performance, decisions regarding cutting costs (like firing an employee) like the impact on patient experience, rather than focusing solely on the immediate wage cost.
KPIs for Dental Practices
KPIs are vital metrics for assessing a dental practice’s health, revealing operational, profitability, and performance details. While Practice Production is a vital KPI, it only offers a generalized snapshot of the full picture. Production data, along with other top dental KPIs like Overhead, Accounts Receivable, Case Acceptance Rates, and Active Patient Count, must be consistently monitored to identify potential areas for growth.
Effective analysis of your dental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is crucial for turning raw data into actionable business improvements. Organized records and capable practice management software streamline data collection on daily production, new clients, collections, and overhead. An attentive business leader will use the numbers to pinpoint areas that need attention.
For example, a collection rate below the ideal 98.5% indicates a need to refine billing strategy. Prioritizing average production per patient, not just patient volume, boosts profitability and annual revenue. Using data tools that show the numbers translates directly into informed, essential, profitable decision making. That’s why working with a coach or consultant can really help dentists take their practice to a whole new level.
A Vision for Success & Beyond
Finally, a key component to abundance thinking in leadership is vision. A dentist must be the leader and visionary, and the team will follow their marching orders. To transition your team into a culture of possibility and growth, dentists need to set bigger goals. Goals inspire team to react and perform.
A prime example is creating exceptional patient experiences. After that develop a streamlined, personal request process to secure five-star Google reviews. Putting effort into identifying truly satisfied patients, especially after positive visits like cleanings. The most effective strategy is to ask them in person to share their experience. Provide an easy, straightforward link to your Google Reviews, sent via text or email. This easy straight forward approach minimizes friction. Finally, setting team goals with incentives transforms review collection from an afterthought into a proactive, reputation-building system for success!
Final Thoughts
Start noticing what you’re saying to yourself! Rather than asking yourself “How will I survive this?” Rephrase your questions into “How can I make this happen?” By understanding your practice’s metrics, dentists can begin to overcome the scarcity mindset. Start with a vision, then ask “How can we make this happen” focus on the exponential growth that comes with strategic, abundant thinking. If you need help getting some perspective and guidance NEXT LEVEL CONSULTANTS is always here to help you with these things!