Dental Marketing - Tyson Steele Associates - Advanced Dental Marketing Concepts

Written By: Tyson Steele on 2010-05-18

The government and media made a big deal of last month's jobs report. "290,000 new jobs in April" read a few of the headlines. Unfortunately, thanks to "more people looking for work" the unemployment rate increased from 9.7% to 9.9%

Now, I'm no mathematician, but I find it odd that the numbers don't correlate. So taking a closer look, it turns out that of the 290k supposed new gigs, 66k were added as temporary census workers, and another 188k jobs were counted using the dubious birth/death model used my the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Don't ask, it appears to be something like one of those machines in the old arcades that would determine if you were "hot" or a "cold fish.") That leaves us with a real increase of 36k in jobs for April.

Given that the country lost something like 8 million jobs during the Great Recession, that 36k gain seems to be rating somewhere in the "cold fish" category.

As for dentistry, reports from our clients seem to show few green shoots in local markets. Tough areas are still tough. And it looks like it may still be a long haul back from the abyss for most communities.

Fortunately, our clients who are actively marketing their practices are consistently doing well. In fact, 93% of our clients either maintained their dental practice revenue or increased it during 2009. So, if you're feeling the pain of a rough local job market, don't let the lack of new gigs get you down. Stay focused on what you CAN control -- great patient relations, consistent marketing, and providing the best patient care you can. After all, if your patients consistently rate you as "hot" you can gain ground even in this rough economy.