There are many ways to organise and run your practice – and it’s a decision unique to each and every practice owner.
How you choose to structure your business will depend on multiple personal and professional factors, but there are certainly a few common models we see in dentistry.
Here are the four key practice business models, and for a bit of a fun twist we’ll be explaining them using some music analogies I’m sure you’ll all be familiar with…
1. Lady Gaga
This is a model based on one star performer. Consider how Lady Gaga gets onstage alone and does the whole performance, singing and dancing.
She’s not out there carrying equipment and driving the tour bus, running the show – she IS the show. Because of this, she’s allowed to charge high, premium rates.
In a dental practice, this would look like one star-attraction practitioner who charges top dollar for premium work, and then has others helping with the running of the practice.
They have their one specific, income-generating activity, and they do that expertly.
2. Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band
In this model, you have one primary performer but a few others who are also able to carry the load. This allows you to create a fair bit of leverage – you still get to use your star quality to attract patients, but it’s not all up to you.
You might have yourself, a couple of associates, therapists, hygienists – and this allows you to delegate to others and free up more time and energy. It’s a really common model, and works well.
3. Travelling Wilbury’s
This is a super-group of dentists, a collective of high-performers in their own right who have banded together. This might involve having a team of highly skilled clinicians, and perhaps you even have specialists within the practice.
It’s about each person being a star performer in their own right, but coming together to create a one-stop-shop of excellence. This means you can create a high degree of revenue as well as a high degree of leverage. The drawback is that it can be tricky to find the right people – superstars don’t grow on trees.
4. Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein is famously the manager of The Beatles and many other bands.
In dentistry, this looks like a multi-practice model, and you’ll typically have one practice that far out-performs the others.
Don’t worry – the others are still good, but not necessarily standouts.
Regardless of which model you choose, it’s important to know yourself and know how to get the best results out of your model.
Depending on the degree of control you like, how hands-on you want to be, whether you enjoy working with others – the model you choose is highly unique and there’s no right or wrong option.
It’s important to play to your own strengths. We see practice owners who see other peoples business models and believe that’s the “correct answer” and try to emulate that – and it just doesn’t work. There are of course pros and cons to each, so just consider what the best fit is for YOU.
P.S Want to scale your dental practice and take your profits to 7 figure success?
Me and my team can work with you directly to get you there! Simply book in your FREE 1:1
strategy session, and we can get started on a game plan for you and your practice.
