Developing and implementing strategies is a crucial part of success in business. There’s been a lot written on the subject, and it truly is a mammoth topic.
In order to create an effective strategy for your practice, there are a few things you need to get clarity on. While this isn’t a linear, step-by-step list, it is crucial to consider the following elements when developing a strategy for your practice.
Long term outcomes
The first key ingredient is the simplest, which is to know your long-term outcomes. Ask yourself, “what’s our 10-year vision, what are we striving for?” If you don’t know where you’re going, then you’re simply wandering aimlessly.
Whether it’s the vision for your practice as a whole, or specific to marketing, culture, or finances, you need to identify the destination and you can work back from there.
Medium and short-term goals
What are the medium and short-term goals that underpin that long-term outcome or vision?
Once you know what you’re working towards, it’s important to understand whether your current infrastructure supports those long-term goals. This is where you think in terms of five years, three years, one year, even a few months ahead. Think about the projects, activities, and objectives that need to be carried out to incrementally bring you forward to your long-term goals.
The Be/Do/Have leadership model
Perhaps I believe the most important (and overlooked) part of a strategic plan, is understanding how you need to step up as a leader to drive the strategy. I’m a huge proponent of the be/do/have model that implores you to consider; who do you need to be and what do you need to do in order to have the things you want to have?
This framework really encourages you to focus on the habits, leadership, skills, and training that you need to develop within yourself to be able to execute the strategy you envision.
SWOT analysis
It’s crucial to include a SWOT analysis in any strategy, which encourages you to explore your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
What this allows you to do is develop a sustainable competitive advantage based on your unique features and attributes.
This might be your ability to recruit top-tier dentists, the way you generate patient flow etc. It’s going to be whatever you do best, and whatever you can consistently deliver regardless of competitors and external circumstances.
Risk analysis and mitigation plans
In business, it’s easy to look at the upside and the potential pay-offs. But realistically, it’s often more important to focus on the potential risks and downsides. What we need to ask ourselves, is “what are the potential losses here, can I live with them, and how do I mitigate them?”
Risk mitigation is all about reducing the likelihood, minimising the impact of, and gaining greater control over potential negative factors. Things won’t always run smoothly in business, but we can give ourselves the best possible shot at managing curveballs that come our way.
These are five crucial elements to consider when developing a strategy for your practice – and it will serve you well to check in with them from time to time.
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.
