Dentaltown September 2020 - 12

howard speaks
column

The Whole Is More Than
the Sum of Its Parts
Sometimes, one plus one equals three. That's what
we're seeing in the new business model of dentistry,
which is a one-stop shopping approach.
Three hundred years ago, retail was all shop houses,
where the butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers
all worked in an area about the size of a garage, and
lived upstairs. Then, the next-generation business owner
said, "I'm going to buy two shops and combine them,"
and the store went from 200 square feet to 400 square
feet. Then it was 800 square feet, and kept going until
it maxed out around 250,000 square feet for today's
big-box warehouse stores.
Eventually, Walmart told Wall Street that its stores
had actually gotten too big and their overwhelming square
footage had become a negative. I can easily see what
they mean: I would rather pay more to get my milk and
bread from the convenience store where I'm filling up
my car with gas than walk into a giant Walmart-it's
like walking into a stadium for an Arizona Cardinals
football game. It's just too big, which doesn't make it
convenient.

There's safety in numbers
Mom usually gets saddled with driving kids to
their dentist appointments-but 60% of moms today
work, so they've got to take time off to get to that
appointment. Now, what happens when it's time to
consider orthodontic treatment?
Let's go back to the old retail days. You go into a
store to pick up some bread, and when you say you'd
like to buy some meat, too, the answer
would be, "Oh, well now you've got
to go down to the butcher. He's two
doors down." The store that sells
fresh produce is another place, even
farther away. Inconvenient!
A typical grocery store today has
all those things in one place - bread,
produce, even a butcher on staff. The
whole becomes greater than the sum
of its parts.

Without a doubt, the fastest-growing pediatric
dentists have an orthodontist in house. If one pediatric
dentist sets up shop with one orthodontist, that one plus
one equals three. [Editor's note: To read about such a
practice, turn to this month's cover profile of Dr. Christine
Chu, a pediatric dentist who opened a practice with her
orthodontist husband, Dr. Howard Chu.] Periodontists
who place implants should be setting up shop with
prosthodontists so one can place the implants and
another can restore them when the time comes. A total
one-stop-shop implant solution under one roof.

Take a hard look at your practice
It's so hard for dentists to be patient-centered! They
always believe they are, but when they say it, it's very
hard not to laugh out loud. Between 85% and 90% of
dentists all practice only between the hours of 8 a.m.
and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday-the same window
during which an estimated 100 million Americans
aren't able to visit them because they're working at
their own jobs.
Are your hours patient-friendly? You expect restaurants, grocery stores, dry cleaners and malls to be open
on weekends, but you're not offering the same options
to your potential patients? You think that "treat other
people as you want to be treated" applies to everybody
except you?
Remember, you're a service provider, even if that
service is better dental health. You've got to make things
as appealing as possible for your patients-same-day
service, one-stop convenience and patient-friendly hours.
Especially now, your business will depend on it! ■

by Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, publisher, Dentaltown magazine

SEPTEMBER 2020 // dentaltown.com

DT0920_Howard-Speaks_MM.indd 12

8/19/20 10:22 AM

http://www.dentaltown.com

Dentaltown September 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown September 2020