Blog

It's the morning of Sunday March 15th, 2020. It has not been a good week. We mourn the loss of thousands of lives lost worldwide to the new enemy of humanity: the Corona virus we all now know and hate. The stock market saw significant disruption and turbulence this week. Travel plans are being altered. Events are being cancelled, postponed or modified. Life as we know for the next 12 days, 12 weeks and 12 months will be different. The pandemic is changing how we work. Some of the changes are going to stick with us for a while, may be for life.

When I worked as a community TV reporter part of my interview training involved sessions with a very experienced crew member named “Mel”.  Mel was a memorable teacher who schooled us on asking open-ended questions that encouraged the interviewees to talk about themselves. Mel told us  “everyone has a story,  it’s your job to tease it out.” It constantly surprised me to find seemingly ordinary people who had the most interesting or unusual stories.

Chances are you’ve  heard the buzz about  Instagram and have decided to set up an account. If you have a business – you’ll want to set up an Instagram business account.  Why? In a word – analytics. Although Instagram calls it “insights”.  Insights are basically an analytics tool that track data on follower demographics and actions.  It also compares content so you can see how your posts are performing.  Additionally, an Instagram business account allows you to post ads and link to your social media business accounts.

Dr. Evelyn (a fictitious character) has been out of dentistry school for over a year.  At first, she tried to do some of the advertising/marketing on her own but  quickly realized she didn’t have knowledge or the skill. She found between managing her practice and trying to keep up with her hobby of running  Ultra-Marathon’s learning the in’s and outs of digital marketing simply  wasn’t feasible.  

But I’m a dentist – not a writer!

Does the thought of writing a story about you or your practice give you the willies? You’re not alone! The good news is, there are a few simple techniques you can follow to get your creative juices flowing. 

One of the most popular methods of building rapport with your audience is called “The Hero’s Journey”.   If you’ve listened to inspirational speakers within the last 10 years, there is an excellent chance their speech is based on this formula.

If you want to attract a deer, would you put a bowl of warm milk on your doorstep?   By doing  specific research, you would easily discover that a block of salt in a treed area would do a much better job of attracting a deer.

What is SEO?

SEO or search engine optimization uses a complicated set of processes, steps and rules to rank/index your website in internet search results with Google, Yahoo or Bing.  Over 255 factors are utilized to assess the quality of your web page and the SEO process and algorithms are constantly changing and evolving.

Let’s face it – who wants to see the dentist? For most people, dental visits conjure up both physical and financial pain.  Early childhood memories stick. My earliest recollections of our family dentist were of a tall, austere looking man in a white dental coat, who had little to no personality and could never pronounce my name even after 15 years of visits.  I lived in a small town with a total of two dentists, and he was the more personable. His receptionist, however, was a sweetheart, she always remembered our conversations and took a genuine interest in me.

Misapplication of Economic Value Added Concept
Many companies have embraced the notion that the economic-value-added concept is superior to the traditional performance assessment measures based on traditional accounting.

Economic value added, known by the acronym EVA, is a financial measurement metric that considers the relationship between the enterprise’s profitability and the cost of the capital employed to achieve that profitability. The idea behind EVA is that managers should be evaluated in terms of how effectively, productively and profitably they employ capital in the business. To evaluate profit alone without considering the cost of the capital employed to achieve that profit can be very misleading. But if the relevant content and timing factors are not appropriately considered, EVA calculations can be as distorting and misleading as traditional profitability measures.

Ignoring the Stock Price
Companies that ignore their stock price do so at their peril.

While it is crucially important to concentrate on the basic business of the company, if a company is not mindful of what happens to its stock price, it may find it is in for a rude shock. If the stock price falls too low, investors may lose confidence in management, and critical investors may sell out. If the stock price falls too low, a takeover may happen. A company needs to pay attention both to its basic business and it its stock price.

Ignoring the company’s stock price is a mistake.