This week on Winning In Business, Angus Pryor the Practice Growth Specialist will be sharing with you part 2 of reasons why your business might be crap.
Last week I had an introductory talking about if your business is crap. I mentioned about things like success leaving clues, and about taking action. And I guess the third part is being really clear about what it is that you want. But in part 2 today, I want to go a little bit deeper ’cause if your business is not where you want, you know, let’s say that you do take action, that success leaves clues, that you are living a life that’s consistent where you’re implementing, and you’re clear on what you want, then let’s go a little bit deeper today.
The first thing that I wanted to talk to you about, and I’m going to, abbreviate this term, here we go, which is around your marketing. And I need to tell you something, you know? If you are leaving your marketing to chance, then chances are you’re going to end up with a business like this. But what I find is if you’re, if the businesses that are going well, you know, symbolised by this larger picture that they take their marketing seriously.
And, you know, you might say, “Well, Angus, of course you’re going to say that because you’re a marketing agency.” But, there is so much evidence of this. I read a report recently from the Harvard Business Review that said that, a practice, a business that markets more actively can have something like a 65% advantage on those that don’t. So, are you taking your marketing seriously? That would be the first thing.
The next thing that I’d say, and this is one that frankly in the dental industry, I see a lot of practices struggle with, which is leadership. And what I found with leadership is, you know, I mean the truth is a lot of people get into dentistry, not because they want to be leaders but because they’re scientists, they’re technicians and they, they like doing great dentistry.
But if your business is not going well then I guarantee you leadership is a factor there. And part of that means coming up with a vision for what you want and then leading the team towards that vision. If you’re a person that just wants to skulk away in the surgery and just do your dentistry, then this is part of the reason why your business might be crap.
Now, the third one that I wanted to talk to you about is ownership. And the idea behind ownership is do you think that the fact that your business is crap, are you responsible for that? Or are you saying, “Oh, it’s because of my team. It’s because of the clients, it’s because of dot, dot, dot.” You know, there’s a great book on this topic called “Extreme Ownership.” I think it’s by a guy called Jocko Willink, I can’t remember his partner’s name.
Fascinating book, that if I were to sum up the entire book and these guys were like US Marines and so they’ll contrast a piece of action during the war, and then they take the message out of it and then apply that sort of principle to business and leadership, great book. But one of the things he basically says is, “If you’re in a leadership position, then you need to own everything because everything’s your fault.” I mean, if the team’s not performing well it’s because you’re not leading well, it’s because you’re not driving them towards a vision and et cetera.
So marketing, are you taking your marketing seriously? Are you taking your leadership seriously? And thirdly, you taking ownership seriously? ‘Cause if there’s a problem, actually it comes down to you. I hope that’s helpful. If we can help in any way, get across to anguspryor.com.