“When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Winston Churchill
2018 is less than two months away, and the time has come to start planning for the new year. Do you know where to start? Read on for a few tips to help you create an ironclad budget that will set your practice up for success.
Define Your Practice Goals
The first thing to do is define your practice’s goals. Are you looking to increase your patient base? Do you want to foster patient loyalty and reactivate existing patients? Be sure that your goals are attainable: set SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) and be sure to evaluate them mid-year.
Assess Your Sales and Expenses
The easiest way to get started is to use past sales figures as a starting point. From there, you can determine your total costs and expenses. The SBA (Small Business Association) breaks costs into three categories: fixed, variable, and semi-variable.
- Fixed: these are costs that stay the same for your practice, such as rent, insurance, leased furniture, etc.
- Variable: these correlate with sales volumes, and the cost of materials you need for dental exams, x-rays, dentures, etc.
- Semi-Variable: these are costs that can be variable if influenced by the volume of business. This includes marketing, salaries, etc.
Determine Your Profits
This figure can be determined from subtracting your costs from your practice’s revenue. This figure can help you determine if you can purchase new equipment, hire new employees, or increase your marketing budget.
Allocate Your Marketing Budget
Now that you know your practice’s budget, you can develop your marketing budget. Opt for low cost marketing techniques like digital marketing, which can easily be integrated with your existing direct mail strategy. Be sure to develop a realistic and robust budget since marketing can bring in new patients and help reactivate existing ones.
The team at BlueWing Dental has years of experience with assisting our clients with goal setting and budget planning. For more information, or for a consultation, please contact us today.