Practice Management Toolkit Power of the Brand Roger P. Levin, DDS, MBA What is branding? It is a creation of your practice image. It is the description of what you do and why a patient should take advantage of your services. Dentistry itself has a brand. We are known as people who take care of teeth, are trustworthy, well-trained, tend to cause some level of pain or discomfort (whether it is perception or reality) and are generally nice people. Dentistry has one of the best brands imagined in terms of public respect. So why do you need a brand for your specific practice? Because dentistry is getting more competitive with more procedures than ever before. What will a strong brand do for you? Strong brands bring a steady stream of patients you want. While every practice cannot be branded as the ultimate cosmetic practice, you can certainly be branded as an excellent quality practice worth above average fees in your community. Levin Group has worked with hundreds of practices that became higher end practices and grew by 50-60% in less than one year by focusing on increased average production per patient and more comprehensive procedures. We have seen dentists go from no savings to putting away a significant amount of money by motivating their patients to be educated and pay fees. Branding is almost magical. It takes approximately one to three years to develop, but once you do you are ensured an outstanding position in the community. Your practice will attract a new type of patient interested in health, well being, anti-aging, and possibly even dentistry. It is our job to then take those patients forward into the realm of comprehensive, cosmetic, or implant dentistry. When establishing a brand ask, What do you want to be known for? The answer should relate to outstanding customer service, outstanding quality, superbly nice staff, excellent interpersonally skilled dentists, or a terrific experience. Don't make the mistake of always being about treatment. Take some time to think about how you want to be known. Write it down so you can verbalize your brand in a 60 seconds or less. It can be very time consuming and frustrating to devise 60 seconds of verbiage. However, in the end you will have a much better idea of what you want to be known for the first step to creating a brand.
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Levin Group is the nation's leading dental practice management and marketing
consulting firm, building practice profitability through advanced
management systems for 15 years. In an effort to address the issues
that are important to the dental profession, Dr. Levin welcomes your
practice management questions. Please fax or mail your comments to
Dr. Levin at The Compendium (fax 732-656-1148).
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