In my previous articles I have discussed the practical aspect of marketing in a recession. Ways of boosting referrals, effective use of the internet and case presentation. When implemented, these and all the other marketing advice my team and I spend our waking day providing, can make profound differences in the performance of your practice and in turn the quality of your life.

As with most things in life there is no mystery to effective marketing, it is highly pragmatic and highly predicable. So why then if this knowledge is so freely available do only a very few practices implement such initiatives and maximise the financial rewards from their career? Billions of dollars each year are spent on weight and fitness programs, yet everybody knows that less calories in and some form of regular exercise is the answer to maintaining your perfect weight and a feeling of vitality. If life and business are truly so simple why do some many of us not implement proven strategies for success that will so obviously and significantly enhance our lives?

The answer is simply, our beliefs. Changing our beliefs however can be a difficult process for some, so the starting point is trying to truly understand our beliefs and where they come from. In his book ‘The Biology of Belief” Bruce Lipton Ph.D. explains that it is now broadly accepted by the scientific world that the subconscious mind is one million times more powerful than the conscious mind and the conscious mind is only running the show about 5% of the time. It is the subconscious mind which holds our deepest beliefs and this was programmed very early in life.

In fact it is now proven that from mid term of pregnancy the subconscious is starting to determine who we become and by six years of age, most of the job is done. If your early childhood was full of messages such as “you don’t deserve it”; “no you can’t” and “who do you think you are?” this is going to play out in later life.

In my own life, my father said to me to just about every day “Son, you have to work hard for a living”. Now, I know what he was trying to project was some sense of moral work ethic and although I truly consider myself to be living a blessed life, I still find myself at my desk at 6am every morning and often do not get home until past 7pm.

Our subconscious beliefs also have a massive effect on our relationship to money. This is true for all of us, but I see acute examples of this within the dental and medical professions. Somewhere along the road you decided to become a ‘healer’ and to serve the community through this wonderful profession we all work in and around. It would make perfect sense to me that if you are to be financially rewarded for helping people achieve healthy, functional and attractive teeth, then the more people you help to achieve this, the more financial abundance will flow into your life.

Yet as I visit practices around the country I meet dentists who are so obviously struggling to attract more than a basic income, whilst a colleague who graduated from the same class has gone on to achieve far more in terms of personal wealth and in the process has helped more people in society. The doubting Thomas’s will say that this second Dentist is over prescribing, yet with the very rare exception we all know this is not the case, the difference is purely down to mind set.

Okay, so how can I effect the changes in my practice and in my life I want to see? Well, unfortunately there is no one line answer to this and how you achieve the changes you desire is a highly personal path.

So spinning this article back to its original subject matter, the talk of economic downturn and recession is just an excuse for those looking to fail. If you implement the practice marketing principles I have written about in every edition of this magazine since Volume 3 in 2003 your practice will expand at a time when others contract. But it really does All Start With You!