You’ve probably put a lot of effort into building your dental career. You went to school, got a medical degree, got patients to trust you, and built a client base over time.
The question is, do you stay where you are now or expand to start your own dental studio and build your own business?
Starting a new practice is the ideal result for many dentists. However, there’s much more to it than treating patients. You need to have a mind for business if you want to find new patients and grow your practice.
Let’s look at how you can start your own dental office and make it successful.
Table of Contents
Create a Comprehensive Business Plan
You shouldn’t wing a business plan with a dental practice. You’re entering a high-risk business with high startup costs. You may struggle to gain traction if you don’t chart a path to success.
A business plan gives you a path to go on. It helps you determine your business goals, understand finances, find the right patients, and more.
Spend time laying out as much of your business plan as possible. Start with your end goal and determine what steps to take to reach it.
Your plan doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to give you a starting point and offer enough room to adapt as conditions change in the future.
Understand the Cost
You will need a reasonable budget to start a dental studio. You must cover your office, supplies, equipment, employees, and more.
Make sure you determine exactly how much you’ll need to start. Once you have this number, you can determine your monthly costs like utilities, salaries, and other regular expenses.
This information will tell you your initial startup costs, ongoing expenses, the best tax strategy to minimize expenses, and more. Click here for more about tax strategy and how it applies to a dental practice.
Next, set aside any money you have for this venture. If you don’t have enough, you’ll need to look for financing from banks or private lenders.
Do the Legal Paperwork
Once you have a plan and budget, you can start the process of incorporating your new practice. To do so, you’ll need to set up a company.
Many dental practice owners will set up a corporation to do this. This business entity will give you the tools to manage business finances, hire employers, and other essential tasks.
It may be smart to consult a lawyer during this process. A corporate structure has a lot to it, and you want to ensure you set up your business entity correctly. This is even more important if you have business partners and want a fair contract with the other partners.
Find Suppliers
The right supplies and equipment can make or break a dentist’s office. You need to ensure the supplies you have on hand are of excellent quality and that you get resupplies quickly.
The same is true for equipment. If you want to offer all the services your patients need, you must have the required equipment to offer those services. Here is some common equipment you’ll need:
- x-ray machine
- operating lights
- sterilization equipment
- patient chairs
Take the time to research equipment sellers carefully to find suppliers that sell quality products. Doing this will ensure you don’t suffer equipment failure and have coverage in case anything goes wrong.
Pick a Great Location
Location will play a role in how successful your new practice is. You want the location to be in an area people frequent. When people see your office when traveling, they will remember your dental name and consider it if they need a new dentist.
It’s hard for this to happen if you aren’t in a more central location. When looking for a place to set up, try to find an area near a lot of activity, and that’s easy for your ideal customer to make it to.
Yes, you may be able to make it work if you’re more out of the way. However, you may need to work harder to find new customers in this situation.
Find a Great Team
You may be a great dentist. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll see success with a new practice on your own. You don’t have infinite time, so you won’t be able to check customers in, market your business, handle patient overflow, manage finances, and do countless other tasks.
A great team is what makes a great dental practice. Spend time looking for potential employees for the tasks you aren’t great at doing yourself. You’ll need receptionists, janitorial workers, IT, and eventually other dentists.
Don’t skimp on quality when doing this, either. Find people who will do the job well and give your customers a positive experience.
Create a Marketing Strategy
The final piece to the puzzle is to create a marketing strategy. A marketing strategy will give your new practice visibility, both online and offline.
Start by setting up a business website. Work with web professionals to create a dental logo, business website, and branding material. Once online, you can set up Google My Business to establish your presence there.
You also have the option to advertise your new practice on social media. Sign up for a Facebook account and post dental material to attract visitors.
Start Your Dental Studio Right
Starting a dental studio is a big step in your dental career. You don’t have another practice to fall back on and have a lot of money on the line. Even if you do everything right, there’s no guarantee of success.
But you can set your dental practice up for success by taking the right actions. The guide above covers everything a new dental practice owner should know when starting. Follow it to put yourself in the best position possible to succeed.
You will need to do more than start correctly to keep your practice operational. You’ll need great customer service and business development. Learn what else it takes by reading more posts in the business section.
