Generally speaking it is VERY difficult to coach a client unless and until you have visited the practice, met the team, seen the premises.
Dentistry is like dance.
The steps are the steps – a waltz is a waltz.
But the actual performance can depend upon:
- the choice of music
- the musicians in the orchestra/band
- the venue
- the type of audience
- the capabilities of the dancers
A dance teacher teaches the steps but its the director who brings the performance to life.
I’m generally against putting people straight into any coaching programme – Digital, Mastermind, 1:1, The Twenty – unless I have had the chance in a Discovery Day environment to really get a feel for their individual circumstances.
Otherwise I’m always choreographing blindfold.
I’m going to confess that there are some clients I work with whose practices I have never visited – my advice to them is always theoretical, based on commonly accepted principles. The steps in the instruction manual.
One day in practice, however, can make a huge difference.
Last week I visited a new client in Douglas, Isle of Man – we had never met before I arrived at the airport.
A huge leap of faith on their part but they had checked me out via testimonial and on the web (web site and Linkedin profile as it happens – watch your Linkedin profile carefully and you’ll see lots more people there than you might imagine).
8 hours, a tour, lunch with their lead associate and nurse – and a lot of coffee later, I had taught them quite a few new dance routines – but together we had rehearsed how the dance would be presented at their theatre, with their cast and to their music.
Incidentally, a very different music to the traditional as they have a flourishing medical aesthetics business.
The Discovery Day is entry-level coaching as well as potentially the beginning of a lifetime friendship.
The dance of dentistry begins…..with the first brave step into the unknown.
