Last month, I covered how to set your personal goals. Now it’s time to look at your business goals. It makes sense to consider these next as the personal
influences the business. Once you have set your personal goals you can establish what you need from your business. It’s your chance to determine the role you play in it. This is a vital process. It stands to reason that if you don’t set and achieve the right business goals, the chances of meeting your personal goals are slim to nil.
The questions you need to answer include:
? What is your current business income?
? What would you like your income to be? Think about any financial gap you have identified between your current income and the income you want to live on now and in the future
? Is your personal goal to work more or fewer hours?
? Do you enjoy the role you current have in the business? If not, what would you prefer to be working on?
? Are any changes in the business structure required or delegation of further work?
? Are there any team or organisation issues?
? How many sites and surgeries do you want in the future?
? What is your end game?
? To sell the practice? For how much and by what date?
? Succession to family members? Which ones?
? To stay in business as long as you can?
? Is systemisation of the business required?
? Is the financial function robust enough or do you require management accounts in order to make better, well-judged decisions?
? What type of work do you want the business to offer?
? Is specialist training or recruitment required to provide this work?
Your personal goals may directly impact your business goals. If, for example, a personal goal is to reduce your time from a five-day to three-day working week, while a business goal is to specialise in implants, recruitment may be required to cover the routine dental work.
Align profit to goals
Setting your business goals enables you to establish a business structure that divides the practice into three separate areas or
‘businesses’:
? The work you do as business owner & principal.
? The work conducted by your hygienists and therapists.
? The work conducted by your associates and specialists.
In each of these separate ‘businesses’ there are various services which are fulfilled by separate roles and have different profit margins associated with them. The chances are, as you don’t pay others to provide the service, your profit when you carry out certain treatments yourself can be as high as 80-90 per cent.
So from a purely profit point of view, you can adopt a principle of allocating treatment which increases the amount of high value work you do. You make a reduced level of profit on the treatment your hygienists/therapists carry
out as well as your associates and specialists. Again from a profit perspective, you can look consider whether you are using all the capabilities your hygienists/therapists offer. Is there further lower-cost work you can delegate to
them? The lowest profit margin you make is likely to be on the work carried out by your specialists. You pay them a higher rate. So profitwise, you can consider where you can stop money going out the door. For instance, could you release time to place any crowns they currently place? This is the process of matching revenue to your profit
and whenever you can do it, it will improve your bottom line financial results.
But any decisions of this sort need to align with your personal goals and the role you want to play. If your priority is lowering your working hours, you will need your business structure to reflect this. Do also bear in mind that situations change and the demand for dental services alters with them. So your business structure needs to be flexible. For example, the demand for cosmetic services can vary, so be prepared to make alterations to the work mix in each area when necessary.
SMART goals
When setting your business goals, ask yourself: “If I fail to achieve my goals, will I feel unfulfilled?” If the answer is yes, make sure you don’t set yourself up to fail. It’s crucial your goals are not impossible to achieve.
You can make sure your goals are attainable by making them SMART. Consider each goal you set against the following SMART checks:
? Specific: Make it well-defined and focussed
? Measurable: You need to be able to keep track of progress
? Achievable: Dream big but keep one foot in reality
? Relevant: Consider the existing conditions and climate
? Time-Based: Set a time frame.
When your business goals are SMART, you can look at a strategy for achieving each of them.