Hiring Outside the Orthodontic Industry

When it comes time to fill an open position in your orthodontic practice, where do you look first? Most orthodontists look inside their industry for new talent. You post an office manager position and in the required experience section you note that candidates need at least three previous years of dental or orthodontic experience. This process makes sense on the surface, but when you start a job posting with a stipulation like that, you will immediately limit your talent pool from the thousands of potential office managers down to just a few candidates with relevant industry experience. 

As you searched for a marketing and coaching company to help grow the success of your business, you didn’t think to search inside your industry, no, you went straight to the coaching and marketing experts. What we do at New Patient Group is the perfect example of going outside of your direct industry to receive advice from the experts. We may not be experienced orthodontists or dentists, but we are not advising you on straight teeth or healthy gums. Our job is to show you innovative ways to market your business so you stand out from the orthodontist down the road, or from the other dentist in town. 

Because our New Patient Group team members are skilled in coaching and marketing, we can show you how to be everyone’s first choice when they’re searching for an orthodontist. People searching for new dentists and orthodontists call at least three businesses before they decide where they will spend their money. If each business offers the same speech about orthodontistry, there isn’t much draw from one to another. But if one office provides the inquiring individual with a sales pitch, using all the right verbiage, impressive presentation skills, and warm hospitality, they will be the one to land a new patient time and time again. 

The American Association of Orthodontics represents approximately 19,000 orthodontists throughout the United States, Canada, and abroad. Orthodontics can seem like a commodity these days with its ever-growing popularity. Most Americans will receive orthodontic treatment at some point in their lives, so orthodontics is seen by many as a normal part of life. We encourage our clients to realize they provide more than a commodity. Orthodontists, and those that work in an orthodontic practice, provide and sell an experience. How can you ensure the orthodontic experience you’re providing is better than all the other practices around? Hire talented associates who are trained and skilled in providing the best experience around. 

Hiring outside of the orthodontic field might seem like a forward-thinking concept, because it is, and that forward-thinking is the best way to hire talented associates capable of providing stellar orthodontic treatment experiences. It might seem counterintuitive to hire individuals without an orthodontic background because you will have to teach and train them the industry basics, policies, and procedures. Seems like a lot of work, right? Wrong. If you think about it, teaching someone the orthodontic industry standards is a much simpler task than teaching someone the soft skills required to be a great salesperson. 

Candidates who are experts in sales know how to communicate with potential customers in a way that wins them over. They know how to talk to future orthodontic patients and to show them your practice is the right practice for them. These candidates are experts in sales and will do the best job of selling your practice to others. They treat each inquiring new patient phone call like a first date. They know how to charm future patients, how to build rapport, and ultimately, how to guarantee they will call again or schedule that first visit. These are the individuals you need on your team. They know how to speak the customer’s language. Those soft skills are incredibly difficult to teach. 

When you restrict your candidate pool to applicants already inside the orthodontic industry, you severely limit the number of possible applicants. Our advice is to open that candidate search up to anyone with position-relevant experience, even those outside the orthodontic industry, and you gain thousands of potential candidates. Not only should you keep your client pool open, but you should also keep a floating position open at your office. You don’t want to do anything that will limit your client pool, especially in this economy. Keeping a floating position or job option doesn’t mean you have to hire anyone, but it keeps your client pool open. You won’t ever have to turn amazing talent down, and you won’t miss out on interviewing an incredible candidate. 

Remember, as a business owner, you are always making impressions on potential customers, and you should always be looking for potential employees, no matter what you are doing. Every time you interact with a sales professional, or a worker with exceptional customer service, have a business card on hand and let that individual know how impressed you are with their service, then invite them to interview with your orthodontic practice. If you find good talent, give them the opportunity to work for you! Any interaction can turn into an interview. 

Here at New Patient Group, we take pride in providing each of our clients with transformational coaching and marketing techniques so they can take their practice to the next level and to streamline their practices. Hiring outside of your industry is a great tactic to gain new patients and keep those patients from searching for other orthodontists. Continue to listen to our podcasts and blogs for more tips and tricks to secure the best candidate talent, win over more patients and increase your business success.

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