Rather inconsiderate, if I may say so, to issue the press release on the Friday morning that I’m frantically attempting to complete my task list before departing for a Northumberland coastal cottage, having committed to one lady and two excited hunting dogs that I’ll be off the grid for a week.

Now, the biggest sacrifice I make when I hit the “off” button will be missing the rest of the Facebook thread I’ve started on the story and all the other comments that will be flying around the cloud in the coming days.

Ah well – I guess it will all still be there when I get back.

The arrival of a global healthcare provider with no shareholders would appear to be good news for patients.

Ultimately, the biggest impact for you and I may be whether or not this deal attracts or repels private equity from the UK dental market. I fear the former.

Anyways, what I was going to say to you this morning was:

• this blog is taking a vacation and will be back on 28th
• thank you to those who have responded to my call for 5 new clients from March 2017 – there are still places but I’m encouraged by the positive feedback
• my best idea to pass on to you this week from client meetings is as follows:

SCRTM

I was working with a practice this week who are very keen to get more patient referrals and grow their business by at least 30% in the shortest possible time – they asked me how best to do that.

I asked the practice manager to print off next week’s appointments from Exact (for 4 clinicians).

With the owners, the manager, the front desk manager and one of the nurses, we then discussed EVERY SINGLE PATIENT NAME IN NEXT WEEK’S DIARY and I asked the same 5 questions about EVERY APPOINTMENT:

1. is there an opportunity to get a SELFIE?
2. is there an opportunity to ask for a CHECK-IN on Facebook?
3. is there an opportunity to request a REVIEW?
4. is there an opportunity to ask for a written or video TESTIMONIAL?
5. is this a good time to introduce the practice MEMBERSHIP plan?

What surprised everyone (except me) was that:

• sometimes the nurse or front desk manager was better informed than the clinicians;
• sometimes the nurse, manager or front desk manager were better placed to ask because they had a better relationship with the patient (this practice doesn’t yet have a TCO);
• there were far more opportunities than they expected

So we have decided to replace their morning huddle.

Everyone is bored with it because it has become a meeting about ONNT (operational niff-naff and trivia).

In it’s place, a weekly SCRTM review of the following week’s calendar and then each day a morning SCRTM reminder to make sure the everyone knows who is asking which patient about which opportunities that day.

That’s how to grow your business 30% quickly – it’s not about throwing more money at marketing.

By the time you read this I’ll be off to a cold, wet, windswept beach with icy waves crashing onto a deserted shoreline – can’t wait.