Last updated on September 26th, 2024 at 01:52 pm
And What Makes an MGE Power Client Successful?
I regularly have conversations with bankers, supply reps and accountants of MGE Power Program clients. The conversations generally have one theme: “What in the world have you done with my client to explode their numbers?!” And of course, I love these phone calls! They are stunned by the results as, one-for-one, they’ve “never seen these kinds of results before,” at any point in their career. I also hear things like, “I’ve never seen consulting work like this!” For the most part, the conversation inevitably steers to questions like:
“What kind of doctor does the Power Program?”
“Who is your prototypical client?”
“Are they at a certain level of production?” and
“What’s the average number of years your average client has been in practice?”
In other words, what are the common denominators for dentists who do the MGE Power Program?
Pulling this all together after a closer look was interesting to say the least! With so many dentists looking for an edge or “pearl” to make their practice more successful, I thought what I found could be useful for more than just internal company purposes. So, I made it the subject of this week’s article!
What is the Power Program?
The first thing to know is that the MGE Power Program is not consulting. We do not send MGE staff to a doctor’s office to run staff meetings, tell them what to do and talk to them once a week. This is way beyond that. At MGE we teach our Power Clients the business knowledge they need to run a successful practice to achieve their goals; not to make the practice look like somebody else’s vision of what the “ideal” should be. In one sentence, we teach our clients to consult themselves.
The Power Program teaches a client how to make solid business decisions and create the kind of practice they have always dreamt of. It puts the doctor in control of their own future.
Thus, the Power Program has to be incredibly comprehensive. We cover:
- Marketing
- Case acceptance
- Organization
- Management by statistics
- Staff hiring
- Training & teambuilding
- Leadership
- Executive basics
- Profitability
Basically… we teach our clients how to handle any business situation they find themselves in.
We teach in three ways:
- Courses—We have 27 training manuals that MGE Power Program clients study. There are essays and practical exercises on each course that make the data immediately applicable to whatever is going on in the practice. The essays are graded and returned for any correction. The passing standard is 100%. Our five-man Quality Control Department insures that each client’s progress is monitored and any errors or misapplications are corrected. (By the way, about one third of our clients have English as a second language, so we also deliver with course materials in Spanish, Russian and Chinese.)
Seminars—We have thirteen seminars that are delivered throughout the year on a rotating basis. They are delivered by the partners and staff that have knowledge and experience as to how the theory in the courses is applied in real-life on a daily basis. If a seminar is missed due to a date conflict, it can be made up in just a couple of months as the next rotation begins.- One-on-one apprenticing—We have staff that have a full understanding of how to apply what the client is learning to the infinite situations that can arise in running a dental practice. Throughout the program, Power Clients regularly meet with and talk to their Power Program Practical Consultant. This is not consulting in the strictest sense of the word, where the consultant is telling the doctor what to do. The job of the Practical Consultant is to apprentice/correct/guide the client so they can apply the data on their own. It’s similar to how we were trained in dental school: the instructor would guide us through a clinical procedure and look over our shoulder until we could competently do it on our own. The Practical Consultant will lend whatever the degree of assistance is necessary until the client can stand on their own two feet.
- Internship—This comes at the end of the Power Program. Before a client is considered completed on their training lineup they must provide evidence that they can competently apply the data. One requirement is that a client’s Production, Collections and New Patients statistics are on a long-term uptrend in an entirely new range. They must also be profitable, relatively stress-free and have achieved the objectives of the program. If they can’t satisfy a requirement, we correct and handle prior to graduating. The bottom-line is that the client isn’t done with their training until they get approval from Quality Control. It’s kind of like having to pass a Board exam without all the stress and consequences.
Now you can appreciate why our clients do things that their supply guy, lab man, banker and accountant have never seen. They have knowledge and skills that their “competition” doesn’t have. Imagine how easy it would be to succeed in your town if you were the only one who knew how to prep a crown. You would have no competition, and success would be like falling off a log. This is like that. Power Clients have business knowledge that their competition doesn’t have so their success is actually quite easy.
The program takes one or two trips per month for twelve to eighteen months to complete. That sounds like a lot, but there are orthodontic, advanced restorative and implant training programs out there that have similar time frames and commitments. Also, considering that a Masters in Business Administration degree from a university takes two to three years to complete, our clients are turned into “business masters” in a relatively short period of time.
So, What kind of Doctor does the Power Program?
You would think with all of that that a Power Client profile would fit some kind of general averages: e.g. been in practice for ___ years, making ______ income, on ______ days per week, wanting to achieve _____ etc.
Looking closer was a big surprise — there is no common denominator along these lines. Our Power Clients are pretty much evenly male or female. They cover the entire demographic spectrum—from big city New York, Miami, and LA to the suburbs of Chicago, Dallas, and Detroit to small farm towns in just about every state.
They all come from very different backgrounds and have very different goals. We have Power Clients who are associates and haven’t opened their practice yet all the way to a doctor who signed up for the Power Program last year at age seventy-seven. There are Power Clients that want to increase by 20% and there are those that want to have multiple locations.
There are however, two common denominators that we have observed that every power client has:
1) They aren’t happy with one or more non-optimum situations in the practice and are unwilling for it to carry on any further, and
2) They are willing to make a decision to do something about it and not wait any longer. They are at the end of their rope in one regard or another. They are ready to get the practice under their control once-and-for-all.
That’s their attitude when they register for the Power Program. But what makes them successful while doing the program?
Industry Leaders: MGE Power Clients – Their Key to Success
Once they’re on board, there are three specific traits that every MGE Power Client has that makes them successful:
- Teachability—On our program, the clients have to study and learn through reading the training materials and attending the seminars. No one comes to their office to tell them what to do. They have to put their nose in the books and learn. That is not for everyone, but I think most dentists are professional students and like to learn. So every successful Power Client is teachable.
- Willing and able to think outside the box—At MGE we routinely teach things that many dentists haven’t really heard before. An MGE Power Client can think outside the box and is willing to make decisions without having agreement from their friends or advisors. It takes courage, but every successful Power Client has it.
- Hungry, driven and motivated—Once a Power Client has the knowledge, they have the drive to go apply it to achieve their goals. Power Clients apply what they learn. The more they learn, the more confident they become and the faster they move. It’s common for the average Power Client to move slowly at first, but their confidence builds as they move through the program. Kind of like a crown not taking as long now as the first one you did in dental school.
Now just as you wish your restorative dentistry of crown and bridge or implants never failed, we wish every single Power Client achieved their goals. Our success rate is about the same as that of crown and bridge or implants. That being said, what is the common denominator of Power Clients who don’t achieve these outrageous results? It’s very simple: NO APPLICATION. They don’t do what they were taught. We do our best to help them apply, but if they aren’t teachable, are unwilling to think outside the box and change or are not hungry and driven there isn’t really a whole lot we can do about that. So we don’t paint MGE like a day at Disney World. It’s real life, but it’s as close to Disney World as you will find in all of dentistry.
So the bottom line is that MGE power clients are not ‘found’ – they are ‘made.’ There are definite common denominators of their success and occasional failure; but the truth is that every Power Client who wants to succeed does so. We have created the program and system so that any doctor who is teachable, ready for a change and driven will do so. It’s a very workable system that gives everyone the opportunity to succeed.
If you have more questions about the Power Program that I haven’t answered here, simply give me a call at 800-640-1140, and I will personally help you. You’ve been thinking about doing this. Make the call.
