An interview with Dr. Howard Farran

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 • When should get an associate dentist for your practice ?

I would get an associate dentist for my practice on day one. It’s a failed ideology to say that I’m going to have a very non-available dental office that is barely open evenings and weekends, and when it really grows and becomes successful, I’ll make it a really nice office, open on evenings and weekends. The average American works 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and for half of Americans it is frowned upon if they leave their small business between 8 and 5 in that time period to go to the dentist. So you need expanded hours, you need to be opening your office at six6 or seven7 in the morning for the people who want to come before work, you need to be staying open until six6 or seven7 in the evenings for people who want to come after work. You need some Saturday hours. There are 168 hours in a week, so once you paid your fixed cost of rent, mortgage, equipment, build out, computers, insurance, professional dues – if you are only open 40 hours a week, then you are closed 128 hours a week, it doesn’t make any sense. If you’ve already paid your rent, and you’ve already bought your equipment, the more hours you have it open of those 168 hours in a week, the more efficient you are going to be utilizing your fixed costs.

• Was there ever a need for you to sack an auxiliary staff/associate ?

Of course. People are extremely complex. People have very complex brains – , a 3.5 poundlb brain, they have with a trillion circuits. You don’t know how they were genetically made, you don’t understand their diet, their shaping, their parental deals, their situation changes… your attitude determines you altitude, not your aptitude. So yeah, humans are incredibly complex, and in 25 years, on the one hand, I’ve still got my first assistant I ever hired, Jan, who has been with me 25 years. Then I have a dozen employees that who have been with me a decade or longer, but yeah I’ve got new employees too. So absolutely.

• How much should be the growth on professional receipts & profit margin year after year ?

That’s a tough question. I would say that historically it tracks the economy. When you look at the economic data for dozens of countries, when the economy is contracting, so does healthcare, when the economy is expanding, so will healthcare. There are only so many dollars in the economy; you can’t suck blood up out of a turnip. So a lot of that is professional receipts and profit margin growth have to do with how is your economy growing. Number two, what about new competitors? I mean, I’ve seen dentists open up in a small town where they were the only dentist, and then one year four dental students move in there after graduation, so in your macro economics you go from one dentist in a small town to five dentists in a small town. So there are many, many factors, so there should not be any generalizations of how fast you should grow your receipts or profit margin.
• HELP!!! There are now 43 dentists in the locality.

I would tell those dentists that if the locality sees 43 dentists as all identical and sees no difference in them in price or services or hours or convenience, then that is going to be tough. But when we look at car companies, the world knows the difference between a Mercedes Benz and a Smart Car, even though they are owned by the same company. They see a difference between Honda and Toyota and Chevy and Chrysler. I think some of those dentists should be very high cost, very low volume and focus on a Mercedes-BMW business model. I think the majority of dentists should focus on a lower cost, higher volume business model, like a Chevy or a Smart Car. I think some should focus on cosmetics, some should focus on sleep medicine. I would just try to advertise in your locality and try to brand a unique selling proposition, and once your locality determines your USP (unique selling proposition), you should be successful.

• Does your practice run a newsletter for your patients ?

Yes. We’ve had newsletters from our practice patients since 1987, but they have moved from a printed, glossy paper mailing to now a digital e-mail happy gram through our website. So we e-mail it.

• Some tips to make a website for a dental clinic.

I think that, again back to the 43 dentists, I wrote a column on this called The SWOT Analysis, and what I think you should do on your website is first try to tell me who you think you are and what you do. Some people who tell me that they are really focused on cosmetic dentistry, and then I go to their website and I just didn’t get that feeling. What I would do, is I would spendt 15-20 minutes on every website of your competitors and I would develop a SWOT Analysis. And you might know these dentists and you might think one thing of them, but you are not a consumer who is meeting these dentists on the website. I’d do a SWOT Analysis – what are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your dental office compared to everyone you compete with in your locality versus how you feel about them over on their website. And a lot of dentists have strong conversations with me about everything they are about, I then log onto their website and you just don’t get that feeling at all. So your website should reflect who you are and your unique selling proposition.

        

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