Because we often get comfortable in our networking routine, we often forget some of the basic rules of relationship building. Find out how you can become a more cognizant and effective networker.
How to make the time you spend networking even more productive involves a little extra effort to reap the rewards. This article is a simple and effective way to improve your networking performance.
Networking is an art form practiced by many, mastered by few. In its simplest form, networking is about building a strong web of relationships. This article offers essential tips for successful networking.
This is part 12 of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions. This month find out how DAMAS can improve quality at your laboratory.
Providing resource support for your clients helps differentiate you from other laboratories and pure commodity providers of restorative products and services.
Whether you use the traditional style of interviewing or the behavioral style, you can ask questions regarding safety performance that will give you a better insight into how the prospect will follow your safety and health rules, use your equipment safely and assist in improving your safety program by identifying unsafe conditions.
Your Web site needs to do more than make your company look good. It has to support your overall business operations - customer service, sales and marketing and collaboration. The following checklist and the associated answers will facilitate the analysis process of designing and building the Web site that allows your company to turn the corner.
Have you ever wondered how some Web sites manage to appear on the first page of a Google or Yahoo search? This is not a random coincidence. A technique called search engine optimization is what helps to get such remarkable results!
Content rich means different things for different individuals, because what one person finds useful, another may not. Content rich is all about providing information considered valuable to your target audience. Information that visitors might find useful could consist of product or industry facts, statistics, reviews, tutorials or educational information.
This is part 10 of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions. This month find out how to become a DAMAS certified laboratory.
It is important that every profession and industry step up and guard the health and safety of those they serve. They should not and can not put profit before patients.
"We've always done it this way" is a pathetic answer to the question "Why do we do it this way?" Great businesses never utter those words. David Balaban helps you break the cycle and promote greatness in your laboratory.
The norm today is change, and not just changes to your firm's way of doing, but also significant deep changes that demand of your organization to fundamentally reexamine and redefine it's basic purpose, it's sense of identity, it's core values, and it's very ways of thinking. Linda Kaye shows you how to create a culture of change in your laboratory.
Stanley Cherkasky explains how companies of all sizes can benefit from a variety of local, state and federal funding assistance programs to improve their quality management systems and upgrade employee skills.
This is part 11 of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions. This month find out how DAMAS has affected laboratories in England where it was created.
We come full circle in the lessons I have preached and their ultimate application in the field. If the business model we have chosen and executed is a high touch, relationship based, partner styled dental laboratory with impeccable quality, then the customers may place the high value we hope for that allows us a fair fee increase.
Small businesses may be the most vulnerable in the employment of workers with substance use and abuse as they are less likely to have programs in place to combat the problem. According to information from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in 2005 17.2 million Americans were illicit drug users and were employed.
Brochures not only inform your target audience of your laboratory's services, they help you increase sales. The use of brochures as an advertisement material is a key strategy in order to generate positive results and responses.
If there's one thing that makes direct mail a reliable method of drumming up new business, it's the ability to test different versions of your mailing piece to see if one has a better return on investment.
This is part nine of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions. This month find out how DAMAS can help your laboratory be more productive.
More than 90 percent of us have an unpredictable plan for maintaining our lifestyle and income fully at age 65. In a profession and industry that generates our levels of personal income, this is unforgivable.
Laurie Hayes helps you adapt your body language to improve rapport, build credibility and strengthen relationships all of which will have a powerful impact on your laboratory's bottom line.
David Lawrence puts to rest worries that becoming DAMAS certified will result in an FDA inspection. This is part eight of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions.
Besides giving our gray matter an exercise, it's reminding us that there are so many ways to reach our audience, and keep their attention, and make doing business with us fun.
Brian Strachan believes we develop weaknesses when we carry strengths to an excess. Self-confidence is a trait we admire, we strive to have, and we count as a strength. If we carry the strength of self-confidence to an excess, it becomes arrogance, and a weakness.
Wayne Messick wants to know if e-mail is your company's friend or foe. It depends on how you use it, how important new customers are to you, and how much you value existing customer relations.
David Lawrence explains how much it costs to become a DAMAS Laboratory and what return you'll see on your investment? This is part seven of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions.
In 2001, Kris Volcheck, DDS, started Cass Dental Clinic for the Homeless in Phoenix, Ariz. Since it opened it's doors, the clinic has provided an estimated $5 million worth of dental services to the homeless. That wouldnÃt have been possible without the help of the 120 laboratories listed here that donate labor and materials to meet the clinic's patients' needs.
We are observing mal-distribution of assets, limited recourses and a shortage of talent in dental laboratory technology that is changing the face of our profession and the face of dentistry. Mark offers ideas about how you can retain talented technicians.
Summer brings about activities at home and in the community that can, and in many cases do, result in unintentional injuries. When workers can't work, it affects the employer in several ways. Mary helps you cope with non-work injuries.
They say a smile can get you only so far. Leave it to this flight attendant to prove, that a smile and a great attitude can take you a lot further. Mark outlines how he rewards the exceptional.
Bob Schneider, DDS, MS, professor University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics calms your fears about one of the greatest challenges in today's dental community - staying current on the status of the fabrication and science of implant prostheses.
Todd Fridrich CDT, FNBC discusses how complex laboratory work has evolved from tooth borne restorations with attachment retained removable partial dentures. To fully comprehend the clinical-laboratory divide, he argues, we must look deeper than minor discrepancies in color and contour.
David Lawrence outlines the top three reasons why a dental laboratory should become DAMAS certified. This is part six of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions.
If you have a teen family member who will be working for someone else this summer, you can help ensure their safety by inquiring about the safety training that will be provided to the young worker. Mary helps you avoid child labor laws this summer.
You hired the right person. Does that mean you can ignore him or her? The answer from Mario Churchill is a resounding no as he explains the seven things you need to know about employee motivation.
David Lawrence explains how DAMAS won't force you to operate your laboratory in the same manner as another laboratory owner. This is part five of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions.
In December of 2002, Peggy Morrow wrote an article describing her ten commandments of customer service. Using that as an outline, let's adapt that example and her language to our dental laboratories.
American's faces are getting wider and longer. Find out what this means to the dental laboratory that has specific job tasks requiring the employee to wear a dust respirator for protection against silica exposure.
In order to safeguard and assure clients that their sensitive information is being handled properly, it is the responsibility of the business owner to take the necessary steps in getting a thorough background check on all their employees.
David Lawrence explains how DAMAS can improve your relationship with your dentist clients. This is part four of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions.
So I am going to tell you to how to become more proud of your fees. I challenge anyone who reads this JDT Unbound article to hold a short afternoon workshop with your key employees. Divide it into three sections.
If you receive a visit from OSHA, you may find the inspector focusing in on this aspect of your equipment, therefore, you would need to be able to provide confirmation that you've have tests conducted on the equipment at least semi-annually.
You've always known that you can be, and do, whatever you really want. Sadly, very few people know what they want. Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I'm one of them, but until just recently, I wasn't aware of that fact.
What Reynolds Challoner finds is that owners of small to moderate sized laboratories just don't plan ahead in most cases until two to three years before they want to sell their businesses. Waiting until the last minute reduces their returns, not to mention their peace of mind in retirement.
Elinor Stutz explains that first impressions are critical and it's imperative when you approach others that you watch their behavior. It's a great learning tool. You will easily learn the wrong and right ways of conducting business to improve your business image.
David Lawrence explains how DAMAS can save you money. This is part three of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions.
This convergence of collaborative tools and technologies is not the beginning of the end that some would have you think. Rather, it is the end of the beginning. You see, this information technology, this information at the speed of thought, this massive conversion of techno tools, are all here now.
There are basically two types of emergency situations - one is Evacuation of the Building and the other is Shelter-in-Place. Arguably, there are other emergency situations that can affect your business that can occur outside work hours, but for the sake of this article let's focus on these two situations.
David Lawrence explains how DAMAS can help you operate your laboratory better. This is part two of a 12-part series answering some of the most common DAMAS-related questions.
Jim Clemmer believes the key to changing your laboratory's team dynamic is to make sure that you are leading by example. Find out how to improve productivity and your laboratory's environment by changing yourself.
Dr. Viji Kumar of Coimbatore, India, was in the United States for an Academy of Microscope Enhanced Dentistry meeting and a learning visit to Precision Ceramics in Montclair, Calif. Kumar took the time to chat with JDT Unbound about the state of dentistry in India and what information she will take home with her about dental laboratories in the U.S.
Jansen Ozaki, Dr. Waldyr Romo Jr., Dr. Eduardo Kian and Siro Kiatake expand on their February Journal of Dental Technology article Recovering Self-Esteem with Ceramic Restorations on Anterior Teeth to give you an in-depth look at how the ProceraÆ System worked in that case.
Dr. Sergey Chikounov and Klaus Muterthies, DT, explain their philosophy of the dentist-technician-patient triangle as exemplified in their article in February's Journal of Dental Technology.
NADL Co-Executive Director Ricki Braswell, CAE, explains how dentists can determine competency in dental technicians. E-mail this article to your dentist clients.
Develop ideas, initiatives, and marketing projects that primarily help you be seen as a resource to your doctors. If your clients develop a relationship with you that support their growth, development, and success (both emotionally and financially) your laboratory will be perceived as much more than a commodity supplier.
Most of you probably have an Emergency Action Plan as a part of your safety program, however, does it include all of the components that you need to ready you for the types of emergencies that our country is facing today?
The single, most powerful entity that honestly has perhaps the greatest influence on our whole industry is a privately owned business, that started from a one-man operation just more than 30 years ago, yet today can change the direction of dental technology in a matter of weeks or months. They are NADL members and advocates: Glidewell Laboratories, CDL.
Every month, David Lawrence will answer questions about DAMAS, helping you to understand the purpose of the system and how it can improve your laboratory. This month he explains what DAMAS is.
The goal would be to create activities or systems that support the development of a higher level of employee engagement so that once we do find the right people and put them in the workplace they are less likely to want to work any where else.
Most dental laboratory owners offer the Hepatitis B Vaccine to all employees and this action is to be admired as it is going above and beyond the OSHA requirements. The actual requirements under the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard is that employers offer the vaccine to employees who have the potential of exposure to bloodborne pathogens.
And, I'm afraid I see too many of my laboratory owner friends who forget about the real important things. The things we take for granted until we get some kind of a wake up call. The kind I got.
