Growing your practice is more than a goal...

Jay Geier

Growing your practice is more than a goal . . . it’s a change from everything you’ve known before. When you start to think bigger, your perspective changes, and that changes everything about your practice. Incredible breakthroughs happen when you make the decision to change. Are you ready for change?

. . . it’s a change to your decision-making process

When you are making incremental changes or percentage increases, it’s often hard to make decisions. You may ponder things—such as getting a new space, new uniforms, or adding a team member—for weeks, months, or even years! When you have a big goal that really forces you out of the routine, making decisions actually gets easier. All you have to do is ask yourself: “Do I need this to go bigger?” If the answer is yes, you know you need to make the investment in order to reach your goal. We’ve noticed that even dedicated clients whom we’ve advised for years have suddenly made decisions once they made a commitment to think larger—and by doing so have significantly increased their practice’s growth.

. . . it’s a change to your team

Does your team have goals, or are you the only one with growth goals? Are they 100% clear about what is expected of them as team members? Most doctors have goals and a plan, but we’ve found that team members often do not have a clear understanding of their roles in the practice and what they need to do to support the doctor’s goals. Growing larger not only makes all of the goals clear, it provides team members with individual targets so they know exactly what they need to do in their roles to help the practice achieve its goals.

Growing larger forces significant change. To grow, you need a solid team behind you. From month to month, you may see big changes in the composition of your team. You may lose some individuals, but if you move closer to a great team, it’s worth it. Set expectations, give clarity of purpose, and teach them to be growth-minded. Your team will grow larger, and the right players will work together. Both will make your team better than ever.

. . . it’s a change to your family

When growing your practice, you must consider how your family will experience the change as well. Some may think that such a large goal will take a lot of your time and effort and that there will be nothing left for your home life. We actually teach the opposite. Instead of working more or harder, we teach you how to make sure that you are working on things with a higher impact and only on the things that you do best and enjoy. Everything else has to be delegated. This will result in your having a stronger presence in your personal life and will give you the ability to really work on creating “experiences” for those you love.

Keep in mind, when you are doing well at work, you typically take that success home—just like if you were doing poorly at work, you would take that home. So why not set a huge goal and improve not only your practice but your relationships as well?

. . . it changes you

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing what you are doing or how set in your ways you are; a commitment to growing your practice will inspire a change in you as well. Though many changes can be made in a practice without the doctor’s involvement, growth requires you to have your head right to achieve success.

When you take a person and significantly increase his or her focus, goals, clarity, intention, and training, there’s always a dramatic change. With the right goals and plan for how to reach those goals, you really can do anything. You will begin to change as a human being and realize that what you do has the potential to greatly impact your patients and your community. With a renewed sense of purpose, you will really start to think about what you are dong to create a legacy that will remain beyond your years.