September whispers: What’s next? But the next shiny object may be the last thing your practice needs. Before you expand, stabilize, optimize, maximize—and get a strategy.

The September Trap

How Dentists’ Programming Works Against Us

A dentist recently sat down with his accountant and got news he didn’t particularly want to hear.

The practice was busy. Revenue looked respectable.

But profit was shrinking.

Payroll had crept up. Supply costs were higher. Write-offs had grown. Collections had softened. The practice was working harder while keeping less.

The accountant was concerned.

The dentist listened, then told him about his solution.

He’d found a CE course teaching a new laser technology. The course looked fascinating. The technology was impressive. And once he learned it, of course, he’d need the laser.  And that would mean a tax credit.  He thought the accountant would reward him for proper tax planning.

More than $100,000 by the time training, equipment, financing, and implementation were included.

The dentist saw growth.

The accountant saw something else.

“Before you do that,” he said, “let me tell you something I heard years ago that has helped a lot of my clients.  

“If I remember, you have 4 dental chairs.

“Think of your practice as a four-cylinder engine.

“If one cylinder isn’t firing, you fix it. That’s stabilization.

“Once all four are firing, you tune the engine so they work efficiently together. That’s optimization.

“Then you ask how much more performance you can get from the engine you already own. Better fuel. Better tuning. Better utilization. That’s maximization.

“Only then do you add the supercharger—or decide you’ve outgrown the engine and move up to the V6.

“That’s expansion.”

Then he looked at the dentist.

“Your engine is misfiring. And you’re talking about buying a supercharger.”

The problem wasn’t the laser.

It was the sequence.

He was already standing in a shallow hole.

And the laser was a very expensive shovel which would deepen the hole.

Why Dentists Keep Reaching for the Shovel

I see this all the time.

Profit declines. Payroll rises. Collections soften. The schedule is full, but the bank account doesn’t reflect it.

And almost instinctively, the dentist looks for something new.

Why?

Because stabilization, optimization and maximizing aren’t sexy or exciting.

Expansion is.

Nobody takes a selfie next to an improved A/R report. There’s no shiny box delivered when the morning huddle finally works.

But a new laser?

Now that feels like progress.

The Root Cause

Dentists aren’t foolish for falling into this trap.

We’ve been trained to.

Dental school taught us how to diagnose and treat disease. We learned to repair, restore, replace, extract, reconstruct—and continually add new clinical skills.

What most of us were never taught was how to think strategically about the business we would eventually own.

So when something isn’t working, we reach for what we know:

Learn something new. Do something new. Add something new.

And the CE system reinforces it.

Dentists need continuing education. But much of dental CE exists in an ecosystem supported by companies selling stuff;lasers, implants, scanners, materials, software, and devices.

That doesn’t make the education bad or the products unnecessary.

It simply means we need to recognize the environment.

You may enter the room asking:

What can I learn?

Someone else may be asking:

What might this dentist buy?

The more important question is:

What does my practice actually need next?

There aren’t many CE courses devoted to that question.

There’s not much to sell when the answer is strategy.

The September Sirens’ Call

And September may be when we’re most vulnerable.

For nearly 20 years of our lives, September meant new—new teachers, new classmates, new courses, new professors, new clinical skills.

“What’s next?” became part of our programming.

So when September arrives and the dental world starts singing about the newest technology, technique, or opportunity, the song can be almost irresistible.

I call it The September Sirens’ Call.  As it’s now August, you’re probably already hearing it.

New is exciting.

Stabilizing, optimizing, and maximizing what you already have isn’t.

That’s exactly why we need to resist the Siren’s call.

Strategy Before Stuff

The difficulty is that strategy is hard when you’re sitting inside the engine.

You know why every system evolved the way it did. You remember why you joined that PPO, hired that employee, bought that technology, or structured the schedule that way.

But circumstances change.

And sometimes history becomes an excuse for continuing to do something that no longer makes sense.

That’s the value of outside perspective.

Your accountant can tell you profit is shrinking.

Your CE instructor can teach you what the laser can do.

The salesperson can show you what it might produce.

But someone still has to ask:

Should you be doing this at all—and should you be doing it now?

That’s increasingly the role I play.

I don’t begin by asking what we can add.

I begin with where the practice is, where the doctor wants to go, and what’s preventing them from getting there.

Rarely is the first answer expansion.

More often, I’m trying to rein in the urge to expand.

First, stabilize the cylinders that aren’t firing.

Then optimize the engine.

Then maximize what you can get from what’s already under the hood.

And only then ask whether you need more horsepower.

But more horsepower doesn’t help much when the engine is misfiring.

So before you sign up.

Before you finance the equipment.

Before you add another monthly payment in the name of growth:

Put down the shovel.

Maybe you don’t need another thing.

Maybe you need a strategy.

Let’s Talk