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Succeeding as a Dental Entrepreneur

Over the course of the last 15 years, the dental sales market has been increasingly favouring a more entrepreneurial mindset, with individual buyers and micro-consolidators coming into their own, gaining more and more traction in the last year.

An entrepreneur is an individual who creates a new enterprise, taking responsibility for all the risks as well as benefits. The goal for most entrepreneurs is to find or initiate a business that can grow in value over time – either to optimise profits for resale, or to provide an income and expand the business. Once in business, an effective dental entrepreneur is always learning, and looking for ways to enhance their services to patients, as well as the viability of their practice, ensuring their business flourishes in a competitive market.

Dental entrepreneurs don’t need to reinvent the wheel to succeed, and it’s never too late to develop an entrepreneurial spirit, or to breathe new life into an existing enterprise by developing the appropriate knowledge, skills and approach.

Laying the foundations

An entrepreneur is always looking for imaginative, innovative ways to add value to an enterprise, and there are many ways to do this. Whether building an entirely new practice from the ground up, or investing in an existing one to enhance the delivery of profitable procedures, the entrepreneur needs a solid business plan to map these ideas out, detailing how they will be realised.

An excellent business plan will include relevant in-depth research, and outline a clear vision, along with achievable goals and actions. The plan will benefit from including details on specific measures of success – monitored through key performance indicators (KPIs) – and how the enterprise will remain agile, adjusting strategies to meet challenges where needed.

Personal qualities

Qualities of brilliant leadership – having the courage to make decisions, the ability to motivate the team, as well as to listen and communicate – are important attributes for any entrepreneur. Contrary to popular belief, to be a great leader, you don’t need to be born with leadership skills. These can be developed through learning and experience, just like any other skill.

Adopting the principles of a growth versus a fixed outlook can be highly effective in leading and inspiring a team as a leader. A growth mindset is belief in the principle that talents can be developed, and good strategies can solve problems. This can be particularly effective when facing challenges, criticism or when experiencing failure.

For a business to thrive under your leadership, there should be a focus on positive problem-solving, strategies for attracting and retaining the best talent, demonstrating to your team that you trust and value them, and paying attention to specifics around risk management.

A resilient enterprise

Positive problem-solving is vital to improve systems or processes that don’t serve the business. For dental entrepreneurs, this may involve looking inward – perhaps looking at corporate culture, working on improving digital systems, or planning some relevant team training. It is just as important to look outward and assess your business against external variables. Developing a robust strategy that takes all the factors involved in running a successful new business into consideration is an art as much as a science, and is an ongoing pursuit.

An honest appraisal of your business can help direct positive change, and ensure you are able to withstand challenges. Management tools, like SWOT and PESTLE analyses, are useful if done regularly, and if they are accompanied by genuine efforts to steer strategic action. They can help you understand how to get back on track if you’re not meeting your target KPIs, and can form a great basis for future evaluation.

Help is out there

No entrepreneur works in isolation. Whether at the start of your journey, or expanding a current enterprise, there’s help out there to ensure your goals are achievable. The complexities of setting up a new dental enterprise, or of acquiring an existing business are such that a specialist team is an invaluable asset.

Dental Elite has dedicated teams with decades of shared experience to help entrepreneurs meet the strict regulatory frameworks of the dental industry, as well as finding the right funding to realise their dream. The whole team has an unparalleled understanding of the dental sector and works closely with all clients, whether they’re ready to buy or ready to sell a practice.

It is a very exciting time to be a dental entrepreneur. Setting up brand new practices, or taking on existing ones, providing fresh ideas to help your own business – and patients – flourish can be a real pleasure and privilege.

For more information contact
the Dental Elite team on 01788 545900
https://dentalelite.co.uk/