Lockdown Leadership - Part 4: Communicating with your referring GDPs

It's time to stop consuming the conversation and start creating the conversation

It's Friday and we have all had another whirlwind of a week.

Here at Extreme Business we have deluged you with information on Covid-19, lockdown, furlough, redeployment, financial management, PPE and a host of other issues.

So I'll keep this brief and to the point.

The next community you can lead in lockdown are the dentists who have historically referred patients to you.

Let's be authentic about this, when we return to the new normal, sending patients your way may not be at the top of their priority list. Even worse, it may take time to restore old habits, including you.

In the meantime, those referring dentists may not be as well connected as you are to dental information channels, they may not have your resilience and confidence in the face of an uncertain future and they may be suffering right now.

That represents a golden opportunity to be remembered as the professional colleague who reached out, who put their own challenges aside for a moment and extended a metaphoric helping hand to ask "can I help you to get through this?"

How can you stay in touch? Well it really is a rinse and repeat of some of things we said before coronavirus happened and have said about how to connect with other communities right now.

Here's a list which isn't exhaustive but will give you and your non-furloughed team plenty to think about and do:

• If you didn't already have a private Facebook Group for Ref Dens then get one started now and send out the invites, then post regularly and encourage a dialogue;

• Arrange some very informal Zoom coffee mornings and invite Ref Dens to attend and chat openly about how they are dealing with lockdown;

• Establish or maintain a regular email newsletter in which you continue to talk about case studies and post-graduate education plans after the all clear;

• Use the your Zoom platform to provide ongoing postgraduate education now;

• Create a video blog in which you can give a weekly update on where you think things are and even invite guest speakers along.

Stay connected!

I have one client, a large orthodontic practice, who asked me which platform we use for The Extreme Business Academy.

I connected them with our friends at ClickLMS and they have created their own e-learning platform that automatically generates CPD.

Yesterday I gave a 40-minute vCPD training session to over 30 team members. They can use the same platform for their Ref Dens.

Use your time wisely to cement the relationship with the GDPs who have supported you.

As part of The Extreme Business Regeneration Programme, we will be guiding our clients on that communication with their Ref Dens during lockdown.

This morning we have 59 dental practices who have joined the Regeneration Programme and who will be working with me and helping each other over the next three months.

We begin our journey on Monday morning 6th April 2020.

Come and join us - a community who are going to stay ahead of the curve during lockdown and emerge ready for the new normal.

Details are HERE.

In part 5 of this series, I'll consider how best to communicate with your suppliers and lenders.

Please share these posts and spread the confidence in these uncertain times.