Farmers and dentists aren’t really talked about in the same sentence. You are probably wondering about the correlation between these two careers! Today I am talking you through strategies a farmer uses from the process of sowing a seed, nurturing a plant, to identifying and weeding out the hazards and then harvesting the fruits of labour with patience and diligence. So yes, farmers have a lot to teach us about hard work, growth and wealth creation.
The Crop Mix
Some crops take as little as three months to get ready, some as much as even two years or more to fully grow. A smart farmer knows how to invest a little in each crop so there’s a healthy cash flow through the year, and also understand the climatic and even economic conditions to select the right kind of crops. Your investment portfolio should be similarly diverse. As dental practitioners you need to have a healthy cash flow from various sources. So that in case, for any unforeseeable reasons, you aren’t able to practice, you’d have a stable backup.
Sowing Diamonds- Have a Goal
But before you run off to the market to get seem seeds to sow, you need to have a plan. I talk about planning ever so often, and it is only because the most profitable of investments, without proper planning, is as good as flushing money down the toilet. You need to understand what a healthy cash flow is for you? The number for a steady income and savings is different for everyone. You need to define that number for you. You also need to understand the timeline for the ROI. Can you invest in mutual funds and forget about them for the next five years or do you need a steady cash flow within the next six months? Having a plan and jotting down the steps makes it easier to follow those steps and achieve your goals.
Learn to Hold the Tools- Start Small
Bitcoins are all the rage. Some really smart investors have made really smart choices with bitcoins and yielded great monetary benefits. However, the story is not the same for everyone. There are just as many, if not more, stories of loss and resentment associated with the cryptocurrency. The fact is, any investment is as good as your knowledge of it. You need to learn the trades and take it slow. Initially invest as much as you can overcome by the end of the day. The good thing about small investments is, the struggle and methods are the same, just that you learn the trade at a lower cost. It is like playing at low stake poker tables. You learn to understand the game play, but without losing a big pot. And once you understand all the ups, downs and decision making processes of your choice of investment, you can make higher leaps.
Planting Season- Have a Process
This is considered to be the most crucial step of any investments. A farmer needs to plant the seed at the right time in order for it to grow properly. If he plants the seed too soon or too late, the weather conditions would no longer be in his favour. Similarly, investors need to learn about the markets and wait until the time is right to invest. Timing is considered to be one of the most crucial components of smart investing.
Don’t Let the Wind Blow You Away- Be Persistent
From politics to weather conditions to even a tweet by the President of the United States could affect markets greatly. Does that mean you start buying or selling haphazardly? No, it means you need to learn to hold your horses. Understand the situation and make smart decisions. Do you when the best time to invest in a market is? It is when the market is bad; when novice investors, driven by fear and greed, make hasty decisions.
Let it Grow- Patience is Key
Unfortunately, we live in times when hundreds and thousands of people lose hundreds and thousands of hard earned cash on get-rich-quick schemes and the same number of people still wait in line to lose their money to similar schemes dressed in different avatars. It is like sowing one strawberry seed and expecting it to grow a hundred plants of bamboos or diamonds. Investments take time to grow. But we all wait for a compound effect and double the money every passing minute. The odds are highly against such riches, it’d be wiser to ride the tide and make some cash rather than work against such unfavourable odds.
Weed Out the Over Confidence
The good thing about farming is that the weeds are fairly visible. You know when the crop is leading to infestation or unnecessary weeds growing in between the crops that would suck out the necessary nutrients from the primary crop. In investments, these weeds are difficult to identify and pull out. One of the biggest ‘sucker’ of investments is overconfidence. More so, because when you are so involved, you don’ know whether it is your experience making the decision or your overconfidence. It is like are you investing because the odds tell you it’d be a good decision or because you don’t make bad decisions as a rule. If it is the latter, you may want to spray in some good old humility to get rid of the infestation before it sucks the life out of your crop.
Read the Weather Forecast
It may seem like the farmer looks up at the sky to pray that all goes well with his crop; but he is smarter. He looks up to check the weather conditions to make decisions accordingly. If it looks like it is about to rain, he may avoid watering the crop, or even if the wind is about to blow, because the wind would flatten out the crops if it has been recently watered. So even if the crop needs watering, it is smarted to wait out the weather conditions in order to mitigate risk.
Same goes for investments. You may believe that you ‘need’ to make decisions based on your personal concerns, but the market conditions may not allow you to have desirable outcomes.
So there you go! Some really valuable tips from professionals who sow a small seed that would gradually grow to a beautiful and valuable crop. If you want to learn anything about risk management, process and patience, you just have to look at a farmer at work!
P.S. Whenever you’re ready …. here are 4 ways I can help you grow your dental practice:
1. Grab a free chapter from my book “Retention – How to Plug the #1 Profit Leak in Your Dental Practice”
The book is the definitive guide to patient retention and how to use internal marketing to grow your practice – Click Here
2. Join the Savvy Dentist community and connect with dentists who are scaling their practice too
It’s our Facebook group where clever dentists learn to become commercially smart so that they have more patients, more profit and less stress. – Click Here
3. Attend a Practice Max Intensive live event
Our 2 day immersive events provide access to the latest entrepreneurial thinking and actionable strategies to drive your practice forward. You’ll leave with a game plan to take your results to the next level. If you’d like to join us, just send me a message with the word “Event and I’ll get you all the details! – Click here
4. Work with me and my team privately
If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take your profit from 6 figures to 7 figures …. just send me a message with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your practice and what you would like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! – Click here
