Veros Dental

I am frequently asked, “What good is a dental practice annual budget?”  about as often as I suggest that a practice put one in place.  Sometimes setting a practice budget can be overwhelming.  And an overwhelming task without a clear purpose equals an uncompleted task.  A budget can be used in many ways and can provide various financial measurements.  Goal setting is a great start for those who regularly budget, but also a good introduction for the previously known non-believers.

If you have difficulty finding the usefulness in a budget, let’s start small by thinking big!  I find the practice annual budget is a great mechanism to set goals for the year.  But when you don’t have a budget to start with, you can still set goals.  I’m going to suggest that you carve out a whole hour of uninterrupted quiet time between now and the end of October.  During this hour, set four goals for 2012.  Think big.  What’s been troubling you most with your practice’s finances this year?  Where do you see grand opportunities?  What has worked very well that you can further capitalize upon?  The target is to resolve to improve in 2012.

If you want some ideas, believe it or not, I have some.

Maybe cancellations are killing you, financially and mentally.  Let’s say you have a 15% cancellation rate.  What would you like it to be?  Take out all of your head trash and skepticism.  Set a big stretch goal.  Done.

Have your monthly new patient numbers taken a dive?  What’s your ideal new patient figure for a month?  Set a big goal to do at least that number every month.  Check.

Just finished a website rebuild and getting great feedback?  Go big by enhancing it with a blog entry once a week.  Got it.

So what’s the trick?  There is no trick.  Just set four goals.  One hour is all you need.  Post them where you can see them.

What are you big goals for 2012?  After spending your one hour, take one more minute and share one with us as a comment below.

I’ll be posting PART II in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned!