The Align Technology team in Brazil recently launched a brand-new educational offering: the ‘iTero On Demand’ podcast. Each week, their invited guest specialists address some of the most diverse topics related to modern digital dentistry in an easily digestible format – providing forward-thinking dentists with a weekly insight into some of the most relevant topics for their clinics right now.    

In May 2020, Christian Coachman was invited to be a special guest on the weekly podcast, joining host Dr Livia Moretti, Manager, Clinical Education for iTero LATAM, to discuss how we can turn the current crisis situation into an opportunity for our dental clinics as we emerge on the other side. 

Sharing ideas and inspiration for dentists and clinic owners around the world in these unique circumstances, they reflected on the importance of forward planning to strengthen our future initiatives, the value of the three-week strategy, and how to reconcile ourselves to the fact that there is no more ‘comfort zone’. 

Listen to the full discussion in Portuguese in the iTero On Demand Podcast or read their conversation below.

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Dr Livia Moretti: 

“We all know that we are living in a situation of global crisis in the most diverse sectors. Thinking within our area – dentistry – how do you see the current crisis impacting a dentist's daily life and how can we create opportunities within this difficult scenario?”

Christian Coachman: 

“It is a very difficult time that has caught everyone by surprise and it affects our profession directly. We know that situations are different in different countries – in Brazil unfortunately, due to a lack of general leadership perhaps, the problem is even more serious in terms of the recession and public health as well. 

Independently of all of this, I think the first step is to control it. I believe it’s more a psychological and conceptual step. I think the first step, as I said, is to control our emotions or understanding in order to not spend too much time on concerns or thinking about problems and things that we can’t control. 

So I think the first big challenge for a clinic owner is to separate problems into those that are out of your control and those that are within your control. Then, the goal is to spend as little time as possible on problems that are out of your control. Obviously it’s impossible to not spend any time at all thinking about these because the concerns are real and the problem generates a great deal of fear and anxiety, but try to stay calm and invest your time in the problems that you have control over. 

Don’t only try to put out the fire as a clinic owner and take care of the emergency actions that have to be taken, financial calculations have to be done so that we can make decisions based on metrics and not desperate emotional decisions. After making these emergency financial decisions as a business owner, also invest time in differentiation strategies. I think this is the key point: we need to understand how to increase our chances of success as soon as we start working in the ‘normal’ way, or as close to normal as possible.”

Dr Livia Moretti: 

“Do you believe that thinking in advance about these changes that we are going to experience within clinics and the possible difficult scenarios could strengthen the future initiatives of these professionals?”

Christian Coachman: 

“There's no other way; the only thing we can do is be the best strategist possible and understand the reality. I think two behaviors that help are: 

• being a pragmatic realist – not sugar-coating the facts and being naive 
• but at the same time being a strategist.

It means trying to ‘read’ the future like with a crystal ball to foresee what’s going to happen. These are simulations and projections, but the more we study the trends and the sooner we have our antenna out, the more we hear the people that we should hear and don’t hear the things that we shouldn’t hear. 

Focusing on solid information makes us see what’s likely to happen in the future more clearly. This is what every successful business man does; he focuses on attempting to create a future in his head and begins to understand the trends and start to create strategies to increase his chance of success. 

In these new trends, one thing I always say: think that we will go back to work as dentists at some point, because regardless of how this ‘new normal’ will be, people need to go to the dentist and will continue to need to go to the dentist. So when we start working again, there will be new rules, new behaviors and new competitors.

The main thing is to understand that in this new scenario, some dentists are going to be more successful than others. In 5 years’ time we will look back at this crisis and we will understand that the dentists who did ‘xyz’ achieved success while the ones that didn’t do ‘xyz’ were less successful or, unfortunately, had to close their doors, start over or work for someone else. 

We know that every crisis has its winners and the big challenge is to find out what will make this difference. Out of ten dentists, maybe five will go out of business, three will have financial difficulty and two will take advantage of this crisis to grow. In all markets there are people, companies, providers and professionals that during times of crisis come out stronger than they were before the crisis. 

So we have to understand that the opportunity exists and the challenge is to understand which strategy increases the probability of success. There is no perfect recipe, there is no way to know exactly what will happen, so it’s not a matter of ‘If I do this I will succeed’ or ‘If I do that I will not succeed’. 

It is a matter of probability and the only thing we can do is to increase our probability. Even if we do not succeed in three months because of external factors, the important thing is that we have done the best we can to intelligently assemble the best strategies possible. I think this is our great challenge: to be smart and build this strategy.”

Dr Livia Moretti: 

“I think strategically, plan, create opportunities through this crisis, and I prepare myself in a different way for a new market that we don't know about yet. Talking about this strategy, Christian, I have followed you on social media and I’ve heard you commenting a few times about the strategy of ‘three weeks’. Could you share with us what this strategy is and how our audience can apply it on a daily basis?”

Christian Coachman: 

“This is a strategy that I learned from a colleague, a consultant. I really liked it because it has a technical and a psychological benefit. In Spain, we are going into the final phase of the lockdown. It was very serious, we spent over two months 100% locked down at home, all the country locked down at home. 

Just to give you an idea, in two and a half months I left home I believe three times for very specific things and my wife left once a week to go to the supermarket, that's all. We are now in the final phase. 

Brazil is probably entering a phase where the leaders may need to choose to do something similar, that is to say that there will be a period ahead of us where the clinics will be totally closed. Only emergency services that do not generate income for anyone, it is not a business model, it is simply helping those who have emergencies. 

So the suggestion is that we divide and make a projection from today until the end of the year. I think if you’ve put together a technical and financial strategy to December you’re fine. You have to find a way to survive until December and hopefully next year start to recover business. From these phases of today until the end of the year, I would divide the time into three moments:

• The moment of lockdown – practically zero income and the costs of keeping the clinic as small as possible. 
• Then, hopefully, in a month or two months, the return moment which maybe will last another month or two as we start working in this new environment.
• After those two months of starting over again, the last phase is the recovery phase. This is when we start to see the numbers growing in terms of production. 

So an important thing here, in the lockdown moment, is that people should enjoy this time in the smartest way possible to increase their chances of success by creating practical strategies. In this way, as soon as we get back to work we can surprise our possible patients with an adequate structure, an appropriate message, new services. We have a lot of homework to do during this lockdown. 

If we have a financial plan that guarantees that financially we will survive until December, it takes our attention away from this and takes away the stress so we can think strategically. At DSD, for example, we managed to develop a strategy in which we can survive until December even in the worst scenario. At that moment my anxiety calmed down, my tranquility took over and I started to open my mind. From that moment on I calmed down and got prepared to be a leader and to reinvent myself as a professional during this time. 

This financial strategy is so important in this lockdown period for you to quickly turn the key and become a leader with new strategies and think about how we can act in this new ‘normal’, and understand that everyone is in the same boat. There is no excuse, everyone is the same in this new ‘normal’. There’s no use wishing that the old normal would come back; there is no ‘let's get back to normal’. The world is and will be impacted and all great thinkers are saying exactly the same thing. 

The world will be different and instead of complaining that it will be different, I will specialize in this different ‘normal’ and I will be a success. Because if it were only different for me I would be at a competitive disadvantage against others, but no – it’s a different world for everyone. I can guarantee you one thing: there will be extremely successful high-class, middle-class and low-class dental clinics in all corners of the world. And in this lockdown moment, I have to set up a new business strategy based on my view of this new ‘normal’. 

When creating this strategy, you should consider: 

• New ideas
• New offers
• New technologies
• New treatments
• How to manage patients who are afraid
• How to approach people with fewer resources
• How to become successful in a market in recession
• How to reinvent the treatments you offer
• Which treatments your patients will consider essential
• Which treatments will be postponed or less valued. 

You need to create a clinical and biosafety strategy that is focused on surprising your clients and that is better than your competition. And then comes the three-week strategy, which is as follows:

From the moment when I have a vision of the things that I have to improve, I take action by activating my staff: I should try to keep as much of the team as possible as they are already trained and will be key to help you to come out better after this. If I have analyzed my financials and made my plan until December, I know exactly what I have and understand my debt so I can look for the money if needed to break even until December.

From that moment on, I get into the three-week strategy, which is to plan in detail what my first three weeks of work will look like when I start working fully again. We set up this three-week strategy because the moment we think about those first three weeks of work, we already start to experience a positive psychological effect. 

So for example:

• I have to connect with my patients: I have to say that I'm ready and I have to explain why it is safe to go to the dentist and the changes we made for this reason.
• Why are treatments important? What new treatments are we offering? 
• Do I have to prepare my team? Do I need to retrain my team on biosafety and cross contamination control?
• How can I use technology for virtual consultations? 
• How can I improve the patient's path in the clinic during my first consultation? And at reception? In the waiting room? 
• How am I going to handle the fact that I can't have more than two or three people at reception? 
• How am I going to see fewer patients per day, with longer intervals?

If you imagine that we are going to open next week, all these logistics have to be planned now – all of this has to be ready. Do this mental exercise: pick a date and write down everything that needs to be done – call the patients, book the patients in, train your staff, organize the new protocols and then, with this project ready for the first three weeks, wait for the authorities to allow you to reopen. 

By doing this: 

✅ Your team will be motivated and ready

✅ Your patients will be aware of the process 

✅ Your first few weeks of work will probably be much more efficient. 

This will be training time for you: if you just bought a scanner then now is a great time to create strategies. Think about what technologies you can implement and create better strategies for the future now. Use this time to train, learn and implement. Perhaps the only good thing about this time is that we can study and improve as a human being, as a professional, as a leader. That’s why I call it the planning strategy for the first three weeks.”

Dr Livia Moretti: 

“Very nice Christian! It makes total sense: people who do not prepare and do not think about it will be forced to do it when they return to the office. Whoever has planned it will already be out in front and will come out ahead as you said.

Thinking about this and also technology, do you believe that when these people are back in the office, the ones who work specifically with digital dentistry in general will be a few steps ahead when it comes to attracting and engaging the patients than those who are not yet actively working with this technology?”

Christian Coachman: 

“We know that we will face a recession in the next 12 months at least. What does this mean? People have less money in general, plus a fear of contamination and of the virus that will be around us for at least another year. A vaccine or treatment for it will hardly be found in the coming years and smart companies are already working with the idea that they will have to create a business model that will simultaneously survive this fear of the virus present in society. You have people with less money and people with fear, that is, the competition will be much greater. 

The dentists who will be successful will be the ones who can attract this smaller portion of the population that is still able to invest in selective dental treatments. So, to be a dentist and survive in this moment of recession you will have to differentiate yourself. 

The two words we always speak about on DSD courses are efficiency and differentiation. Everything we talk about on DSD courses is more relevant than ever during this moment of crisis. It has become even more important to do what we should already have been doing before: investing in efficiency and differentiation. 

Unfortunately, dentists who have very good intentions but who don’t have this vision and training in terms of business, differentiation, marketing and communication will struggle. And unfortunately, and I say this with sadness, we will have a very high rate of clinics closing worldwide and especially in Brazil. Clinics and dentists will have to close their doors because I believe the crisis is going to be ugly. 

Some people will go out of business during these months of lockdown and I say this from knowledge of colleagues - good dentists with good clinics who were like any other good dentist - who are going to have to close their doors because they didn't have savings, planning, or a strategy. They didn't have business preparation or they made a very large investment just before everything happened. Unfortunately, we will see a lot of people closing their doors because of all that.

Technology makes processes more efficient and differentiates you, and we can see that in the psychology of society in the possible consumers. There is research that shows that regardless of your clinical quality, if you have modern technology in your clinic it gives the patient the feeling that you are a better and safer dentist. Technology also brings another factor which is facilitating biosafety: not only technically but also psychologically – it generates greater comfort and a better sense of safety as well. 

So as I have always said - even before the crisis - we don't need technology to do excellent dentistry and we have been delivering excellent dentistry for decades without any technology. Technology simply makes everything more efficient and everything more special in the patient's eyes. 

So the two basic words from our courses - efficiency and differentiation - that were already vital, become even more so. And of course, all technologies, when used intelligently, are fundamental factors to generate efficiency and differentiation. A scanner is the best example in terms of generating efficiency and differentiation.”

Dr Livia Moretti: 

“Our main point of our conversation today was to create opportunities and I believe that we don't create opportunities when we don't reinvent ourselves and when we don't challenge ourselves. 

What does it mean for you to get out of your comfort zone? How important is it that we think outside the box in general?”

Christian Coachman: 

“For those who want to have their own business, this is the basic rule of the modern world. Nowadays there is no way you can own a business being comfortable, which was possible in the past. For example, for a pharmacy owner or a bakery, over time the convenience stores have come and destroyed the bakery or the bakery franchise comes and destroys the bakery. As I always say, in the near future within dentistry and the world of clinic owners, there will be no more space for amateurism in the management of clinics. 

We are experts in dentistry and amateurs in managing dental clinics, and the time in which being a good dentist is enough is running out. This crisis is only accelerating this. It was already a trend and is now accelerating more and more. We will start to have an acceleration in its growth, dentists will have to create a cooperative system to compete with these networks with the advantage of being a little bigger and the advantage of having a bigger structure. 

We will have to change the way we treat patients, we will have to change the way we advertise, we will have to implement new technologies to attract new patients and the dentist will be in total discomfort. The dentist was already uncomfortable before the crisis with all the digital talk, and at the DSD courses we taught the ones at the end of the pyramid, who were already becoming aware of the need to be outside the comfort zone. However, 90% were in their comfort zone trying to invent excuses not to change. 

This moment is one of the most dangerous moments to be in your comfort zone, before the crisis it was already dangerous, so imagine now. The best strategy is that you have to comfort yourself with the fact that there is no more comfort zone and that we now have to be constantly researching and always one step ahead. 

You have to change before you need to change. This is the smartest strategy at the moment for business.”

For more advice on adapting yourself and your dental clinic to our new reality in a post-Covid-19 world, read about the biosafety advantages of the iTero Element 5D intraoral scanner and Christian’s advice on how to become an expert in our new ‘normal’.