Consistency is a crucial factor in achieving success in any field, especially in business. Establishing a routine can be a game-changer for Dental Practice owners who are looking to reach their financial goals. As someone who previously managed dental Practices and for the last 15 years works as a consultant, I have observed firsthand how some Practices cut corners, while others disregard the concept of consistency altogether.

Is the chaos of recent years bleeding over into your office Routines? (That is, if you still have any!)

If so, while understandable, realizing that consistency drives success in business, let’s discuss the importance of establishing routines, and ways to implement them.

Why Consistency is Important in Business

Consistency is essential in business for several reasons. Here’s the bulleted list; read on for the expanded information:

1. Routines guide the productivity and efficiency of Staff.
2. Routines enable consistently delivered, high quality services, which creates a positive reputation, and builds credibility and trust with customers.
3. Routines instill confidence in your analysis of Practice performance and adds assurance that profitability can be maintained or grow over time.

Creating effective routines requires reflection, assessment, and decisiveness. To achieve Practice goals you must assess current resources and the work environment, while keeping your goals in focus.  You must understand how to prioritize, while ensuring your business hours adequately support all required business activities. The fact that businesses face multiple constraints every day (it’s not just the clock you seem to be fighting) is another important reason to have effective routines.

How to Create Effective Routines

Assess…

1. Current Resources: Place, People, Tools (explaining in detail is too much, and too important, to squish into this small blog post)
2. Work Environment: Staff, Customers, Regulations, Competition (same here).

Determine…

1. Priorities: Knowing how to prioritize is a science and an art. Start by identifying your key service activities and performance metrics (profit, anyone?), aka…goals. This will help you focus where and how to use resources.
2. Goals: long-term goals broken down into smaller, achievable stretch-goals with milestones.
3. Communication: Goals, Roles, Expectations and Deadlines.
4. Schedule – All Business Activities. According to priorities. Allowing for true emergencies.
5. Review and adjust: Review your routine regularly; adjust as necessary for true changes in priorities and major goals.

It is possible that this information created overwhelm just by reading it. Research shows that implementing and following routines will reduce stress and overwhelm while increasing productivity, and can be the foundation of your dental practice’s long-term success.

Creating routines that work for your unique Dental Practice will require thoughtful planning and consideration on your part, but I believe is well worth the effort.  If it becomes a struggle for you, be sure to reach out. We can make creating routines easy for you.

And, by now, you must know…we think you should:  Get Routine! So you can Get Results!