Business and Dental Practice Failures: Hard Work But No Financial Success

Note: Whether you are a dentist or a restaurant owner or a lawyer, being successful in your field is not about only mastering the skills needed in your profession. How about areas like sales, business or dental marketing?  You must invest time and money to learn all areas of management and marketing. 

 People who work the hardest don’t necessarily make the most money  . Why is that? Is this even true in the first place? After all, one has heard for eons that hard work will eventually pay off!  One has also heard that getting a good education can increase one’s chance of success. 

It is all true, but the hard-working people and the well-educated people who make it have a few other trademarks which are getting unnoticed .  Please note that I am at this point and in this issue, only talking about financial success. 

 Let’s say you are a doctor  . Doctors have a great education and the observant patient  who gets a doctor visiting him in the hospital at odd hours knows that the doctor also works hard  . 

So, why are so many doctors considering themselves (despite the general and out-dated belief of the public) not even close to being financially successful as they set out to be when they enrolled in medical school?

Because they are greedy and have no shame on how much they want to make and only consider themselves poor but they are rich? No, not really. The doctors I know have quite moderate goals, which always include being a good doctor for their patients (which is hard work!!) They don’t mind  working hard  , but someone as educated as they are should get some financial rewards also– so they think! 

So let’s get to the basics of why hardworking and successful people do not necessarily reap the benefits of such valuable commodities.

The world has changed and there are many things which one cannot control. Yes, times have changed but you have not!!  You did not adjust to the situation . Well, in truth the correct thing to say is, you did adjust to the situation – you are “perfectly satisfied” that this is how it is, that times changed, and that you will have less than you set out to have some 20 years ago.  

Hmm – great adjustment, just not the one I am talking about . I am talking about adjusting the skills needed to handle the “changing times.” Once you have the skills to handle the surroundings and the change of times, then you will not have to adjust yourself to the new times, but will adjust the times, situations, and the environment to you instead!!

For example,  any good cook in the world knows that to have a nice Thanksgiving dinner, he or she needs to put the seasoned turkey in the oven first, and then work on the other side dishes in order to have a nice turkey dinner and this sequence does not change no matter where you are in the world.  

It takes more than just knowing how to season and cook the food just right. It takes timing. It takes knowing what efforts it will take to do any given task!  Hell, it even takes knowing what food certain people might prefer depending on the day or season. The knowledge goes way beyond just cooking. 

Many well educated and hardworking professionals think that what they know about the specific profession should be enough. Working smarter, not harder, only means  be willing to learn on topics beyond those covered in the textbooks of your profession.

In other words, a business person or doctor in private practice (or any other hard working and well-educated person) better learn a wide range of other stuff , especially if he or she finds themselves not getting to their original goals as fast as they want to. Dentists who are only good in their craft but not in dental practice management will find themselves working very hard till old age but there is nothing left over to be financial independent. 

There is no substitute for knowing one’s way around the labyrinth of business. Business or management skills include marketing, advertising, public relations and human resources knowledge. The simple knowledge of  what kind of marketing to do is as important as being a good doctor. 

In fact, something widely underestimated is the time and effort it takes to create customers, patients, or clients.  Assumption and hearsay, and what one thinks it should take to create patients (or what it did take), are used instead of new and up-to-date knowledge, or simply an honest look at what effort it really does take. 

If customers are not coming to you in the quantity you want, you have underestimated the effort it takes, and that you have not done enough correct actions in your practice. You are not supporting those actions with other marketing activities. You HAVE to increase your expertise in the marketing and management areas and then do what needs to be done! After all, the most money you will ever lose is by not making money. 

There are other corners of knowledge one has to explore and learn  , such as how to hire and train employees, why they leave, and how to make such an unpleasant task like looking for new employees a rather routine one.

Not having enough knowledge to master such things usually paralyzes any organization and makes them overworked and underpaid.

But as with our chef who planned the turkey dinner accordingly, if a business owner does not start learning how to use any and all ways of marketing, one will have a dry, somewhat stale, unpalatable financial life. 

It does not matter how experienced you are in perhaps the otherwise most important areas of life!! Just look at all those overworked underpaid doctors. It will matter less and less and less every year from now on. The writing is on the wall . 

You see, there is a huge difference between “knowing about” and “knowing enough” to actually use such knowledge to one’s advantage. Implementation, or the lack of implementation, has everything to do with enough knowledge on the subject or not enough knowledge on the subject.

So, go and get it. Start looking for this knowledge in all places– take classes, associate yourself with gurus and, yes, do not mind paying money to those people. 

Remember: It isn’t all about what you already know in your profession. It is about learning and constantly sharpening your skills in business management, sales, marketing and even learning the latest high tech tools. For eg, a dentist must learn everything he can about the internet to stay competitive in his dental advertising or his business might just be wiped out by the next tech-savvy competitor in his area. This applies to all professions. 

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