An old joke says that bad employers treat employees like mushrooms: they keep them in the dark and feed them bull crap.
An article in the January 29 issue of Time magazine addresses workplace stress. It mentions that job stress used to be blamed on high workloads or lack of control on the job. Apparently, more recent studies have shown that unfairness and a mismatch of values between employees and their companies are increasingly to blame for workplace stress. According to Christina Maslach at the University of California, Berkeley, where the research was done, “Probably one of the strongest predictors [of employee stress] is when there’s a vacuum of information–silence about why decisions were made the way they were.”
That sounds quite a bit like keeping employees in the dark (we’ll bypass the diet at this point). Are you doing a good job of communicating with employees about key decisions? This doesn’t mean you have to explain every corporate policy or make excuses for every decision. What it means is if your company is taking a new direction, divesting or acquiring, launching a new product, altering its corporate image, or making a major organizational change, it may be worth your while to put some thought into how you present the change to your employees.
Change is nearly always unpopular, but letting employees know that a lot of thought went into the decision and giving them a little insight into the big picture can go a long way toward reducing stress and increasing morale. Remember what it felt like when Mom said “Because I said so.” It wasn’t very satisfying was it? As an employer, you owe it to your employees to treat them as adults. Explain where the company is going and why management is heading in that direction.
For a website filled with useful tips and information, go to www.lifehacker.com. Edited by Gina Trapani, a productivity expert who has just published a book: “Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tips to Turbocharge Your Day,” the site (and probably the book, although I haven’t read it yet) offers practical, easy to follow advice. The site’s motto is “Don’t live to geek, geek to live.” It is a decidedly non-geeky resource for those of us who struggle to stay in control of our electronic apparatus and prevent the hardware from getting the upper hand.
Not too long ago, the dental industry was a rich tapestry of companies, from individual entrepreneurs to huge corporations. A tightening market and aggressive M & A activity have produced a consolidated marketplace dominated by huge, broad-based companies. This has made it increasingly difficult for small, or even medium-sized, businesses to compete successfully. Unless you have a well-defended niche or a unique product or technology, the light you see ahead may be an oncoming train.
One road to survival may be finding the right alliance. Sometimes referred to as a “strategic collaboration,” partnering allows smaller companies to form alliances that benefit both companies. As Ed Rigsbee, consultant and author of Developing Strategic Alliances, says: “…it’s impossible to be good at everything, so the key is to look for partners with core competencies that fill in your gaps.” In the dental industry, this can mean anything from a joint venture to an exclusive distribution arrangement. It may even mean partnering with your competitor. If you are competitors because you share the same goals, joining forces may help you both.
Marketing partnerships are great for companies that have complementary products products or services, such as a cabinet manufacturer and a chair company. It is becoming particularly difficult for one-product companies to succeed, but by partnering with a company with product lines that fit, that product may get twice the visibility at half the cost.
So if your sales growth is beginning to flatten, give some thought to finding the right strategic partner. Set some time aside at the Chicago Midwinter Meeting to stroll the aisles and see who is doing what. You may find the alliance that will make all the difference in your company’s future.
If you have ever watched William Shattner’s character on Boston Legal, you know he ends his closing remarks to the jury with three words “It’s that simple”. In devising your programs, sales presentations, promotions and new product introductions for 2007 it is not bad advice to take. Too often the message gets garbled by who we are and not what we have to offer. Our message usually go to different audiances, but the end result should be the same. Customers need to understand what they are getting when the deal is done.
It’s that simple!
The Yankee Meeting is right around the corner, so another year of dental shows begins. Meetings have become a drag on marketing expenses over the past few years and it does not look like things will get any better in 2007. Rather than standing around talking with other vendors about how bad things have become, or telling stories about the 1967 Virgina meeting, figure out what can be done to improve things over the long show season. Promotions, new product introductions, sales meetings and show specials are a few of the things that make meetings pay. If you don’t think any of those things will improve the outlook, it is not to late to reduce your 2007 show budget and allocate the funds somewhere else.
“Invent a better mousetrap…”
Actually, there are quite a few better mousetraps out there, but they don’t sell as successfully as the traditional spring mousetrap most of us have used from time to time. Why? Because the mousetrap works just fine. And it’s cheap.
We’ve had clients come to us with newer, better, (usually more expensive) versions of products dentists or hygienists use routinely. Unfortunately, like the better mousetrap (or the better paper clip, the better pencil, etc.), these product are a tough sell. Unless dentists or hygienists are profoundly dissatisfied the existing product, or the replacement is cheaper, it’s tough to get customers to change their habits.
Which brings us to Steve Jobs’ inspiration for the iPhone. “Everybody hates their phone…there’s an opportunity there,” he said. Jobs likes things that are “broken.” He doesn’t just make improvements to existing products and hope they sell. He reinvents a “broken” product or creates something new that does the job significantly better (think iPod).
When developing a new product, look for those products that are broken. Talk to dentists and hygienists about products they have problems with or procedures that are difficult because the right tools aren’t there. You may not end up with the iPhone, but you will have a better chance of success than if you create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Danaher’s recent purchases and Kodak’s sale means changes in the x-ray , digital imaging and cone beam segments of the dental market. It also means bigger customers for bigger dealers. Our industry started with small family-owned dealers until consolidation swept many of them away. It may be time to consider the local full-service dealer as part of a distributution strategy. Too often they are called “trunk slammers” but they offer a vital service to dentists who may not want to deal with the large chains for all of their purchases. As long as pricing and discounts are fair, and that service is a part of the mix, the smaller dealer may be just the ticket to fill in voids in your sales plan for 2007.
If you have not discovered podcasts, I suggest you go to: http://www.apple.com/itunes and download (free) the itunes software (PC or Mac) onto your computer (you do not need an ipod). Once you have the software installed, you will have access to the itunes store, from which you can subscribe to podcasts on virtually any subject. You can also purchase music, but the podcasts are free. Search the keyword “dental” and you will see that there are already podcasts on dental subjects, including some forward-thinking manufacturers that are using this medium to reach tech-saavy dentists with educational content.
Podcasts allow people to listen to informative sound (or even video) recordings at their leisure. If you have an ipod, you can download the podcasts and listen to them when on the road, during lunch, when jogging, while in a doctor’s waiting room, or during any other free moments. Podcasts entertain and educate, can provide timely information (most sources issue podcasts on a scheduled basis, such as weekly), and are free. Pretty tough to beat.
Podcasts range from a few minutes to an hour or more. The best are free of overtly commercial content, informative, entertaining, and organized in a way that allows the user to access just the topics of interest. They should be produced professionally, or at least using good equipment, so that the sound quality is acceptable. By offering brief but insightful segments on a scheduled basis, a company can build an audience of subscribers who look forward to each new podcast.
While your company may not be ready to launch its own podcast, take the time to learn about them. You may find yourself discovering or rediscovering hobbies, interests, or activities.
2006 finished pretty strong for a lot of manufacturers. 2007 looks promising when you consider that patient loads and dental office throughput remain high. The key questions for next year will be the recovery of equipment sales, the advance of technologies such as cone beam, the continued strength of whitening products and any further industry consolidation that may occur. It will take some smart planning to realize above-average growth goals in 2007.
In future blogs I will take a harder look at some of these issues. Good luck to everyone this year!