Develop Your Core

This is all about gravity. What? I thought this was about dentistry. Nope it’s about gravity. Gravity is a force that pulls to the center of the Earth. It pulls to the Earth’s core. The core is the reason for the gravity. Your practice and your career are no different in dentistry. Without a core business product vision, values or brand there will be no force toward your practice. This is the starting point for becoming a dentist. Hell, this is the starting point for becoming anything. Notice I said becoming a dentist. I didn’t say being a dentist. We all go to school and learn the technical skills of how to diagnose and treat a patient. But until you have your core, you haven’t become a dentist.

First off, if you don’t like what I have to say, screw off. Stay trapped in your own ignorance. I am huge movie fan. You are either a subconsciously willing loyalist of the Matrix or you know the world just isn’t right and you are burning to learn what’s real. So, before you keep on reading, decide if you want to take the red pill or the blue pill. Now, this is an obvious reference to a great movie, but the ultimatum is real. You need to open your eyes and claim your Core. What’s the Core you ask? Ah, well the Core is everything you need to succeed. You may have learned some skills to learn how to do dentistry, but you been duped into thinking that’s what the dental business is.

During this fast paced era of content addiction, dentists have bought into the culture of jumping on anything and everything that could attract a patient. What’s the next shiny object I can put in front of patient that will make them come in? Well, I am here to give you permission to take some solace. To take breath and just relax. Let’s go into a virtual room and shut the door to all the noise out there and look inward. Here, we are going to take a step back so we can plant our feet firmly to push forward even stronger.

You see, in dentistry, we have forfeited control.

We have empowered marketing vendors to define who we are which has made us easy targets for their products. We have abandoned our best potential asset, our our brand. We have allowed our identities and even our services to become commoditized. Dentistry should be the farthest thing from commoditization because there are so many variables that define the success of a practice. The fact that we have allowed outsiders to steal that from us is shameful. We have allowed them to blur the line between product, marketing and advertising.

What’s the point of creating gravity when there’s no Core? You need to break free of this and own your core. Own your core vision, values and brand. If you’ll allow me let me make another comparison to another kind of core. In exercise we are all focused on building our core. Why? Because it enhances the complete strength of your body. With a strong core, the rest of your body benefits and follows in kind. Buying media without a foundation of knowledge will limit your potential and be a waste of money. Like working out your arms only. Advertising and marketing need to serve your core, not define it.

You need to break the vicious cycle of being fooled to believe that you and your practice are a product of the advertising. I am sure you can understand why marketing vendors don’t want you to this. It’s not in their best interest for you to make decisions grounded in what’s best for your core vision and brand. They want you to continue to following their playbook in a game and rules they have created. They have successfully conditioned you to believe that you are in the business of just generating leads, but a lead to what? That’s ass backwards! You may have learned dentistry, but you are about to become the dentist you really are.

Dentists spend silly amounts of money to generate and attract leads to a weak, undefined product and then have no idea what to do with the leads once they get them whether they convert or not.

When you control your Core, you ground your decisions about who your patients are and how you attract them. The Core then dictates your marketing needs, strategy and actions. This is the essence of the Core Buildup. You create the vision, values and brand that establish your “product.” Only then can you define your target market and how you attract them to your brand. It’s actually pretty simple, but somehow this has been lost in dentistry.