Last week, I outlined a few exercises that I use with my clients in goal setting sessions (catch Part One of this series HERE). Hopefully they inspired you to do a little pre-New Year’s Eve planning work of your own.
If you’ve evaluated last year’s goals and unintentional wins and bid farewell to that old to-do list, you’re ready to tackle the last two steps in this process.
Exercise 4: Set New Goals for the New Year
Create a new list that includes your big goals for 2015. Do you want to improve practice production / collection numbers? How about treatment acceptance? Do you want to increase hygiene pre-appointments? How many new patients will you bring in this year? Remember, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, there are only three ways to grow your business: increase the number of customers, the unit of sale, or the frequency of purchases (read more about that HERE), but there are many other areas of the practice where you can set goals.
Do you have a vision for systems improvements (front desk phone skills, paperless office, etc.)? Do you want to add a new technology to the office to improve patient care? With all your goals be very specific and remember to establish ways to track your progress (What will we measure? How will we know we are taking ground?), so that you can really examine the finer tunings within your practice.
Most practices don’t do a lot of measuring... but that’s where the real win is.
Next, look at each of your goals and ask yourself how long you think they’re going to take to achieve. Thirty days, sixty days, six months? Be reasonable, but push yourself. Once you have a sense of the timing, you’ll be able to create a plan of attack around each one.
Exercise 5: Create Your Action Board
One of the most common mistakes people make with goal setting is that they take a kind of “one and done” approach to the process. They might write their goals down (although most people don’t) but they fail to attach completion dates to them. Without completion dates there is no way to assess progress.
Also, these goals should be in your face all year long. Create an Action Board and bring it with you to every meeting. Your Action Board should include a description of the specific tasks or projects associated with each goal along with the completion dates you just set.
Assign, or better yet, have a team member volunteer as the Champion for each goal / project on your Action Board. Generally, your Champion will coordinate the efforts of the team charged with hitting this goal. They may not be doing all the work, but they are responsible for the ultimate outcome of the project.
Spot-check how you’re doing. Bringing the Action Board in to every meeting will allow people to give updates, make requests for support, voice concerns and keep the process flowing and the projects moving forward.
Remember, none of this is really any different from personal goal setting. The key is to write all of your goals down and create a system that stresses progress and accountability. If you haven’t already started this process, get going now.
Make 2015 your best year ever.
What are some goals you’d like to tackle in the New Year? Share in the comments below.
Start out 2015 right! Join us for our next Virtual Academy! |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Click Here To Learn More About CEODentist Virtual Academy | |||
SHARE THIS POST