How Can Joining a Mastermind Group Help You Grow Your Dental Practice?

Running a dental practice is a lot like rowing a boat. There are tons of different “oars” in your business—your goals, marketing efforts, your staff, and so on—and, if you want to win the race or make any progress, those oars all need to be rowing in the same direction. And I think one of the best ways to get your oars going in the same direction is by joining a mastermind. Mastermind groups for dentists can be a game-changer for practice growth, offering numerous benefits of dental mastermind groups that can propel your business forward.

If you’re unfamiliar with what a mastermind is, it’s basically a peer-to-peer mentoring group used to help members solve their problems with input and advice from the other group members. You meet on a consistent basis to brainstorm, use each other as sounding boards for business decisions, encourage one another’s ambitions, provide moral support, and so on. There are free masterminds out there, but I encourage you to join a paid mastermind group—people always take things more seriously when money’s on the line. The investment in mastermind groups for dentists can significantly boost your chances of achieving dental practice goals with peer mentoring.

The DIY approach can only get you so far in the entrepreneurial life.

Let’s continue with the rowing analogy. By collaborating with fellow business minds and involving them in your journey, you’ll effectively be adding people to your boat. On one hand, that means you’ll be learning new “rowing” strategies from them that can serve you. On another hand—just like in a real rowing race—simply having more people in your canoe will make you go faster (so long as everyone is paddling in harmony). This is how mastermind groups help dental practices thrive and achieve dental practice growth with mastermind support.

I see so many dentists set themselves up for failure because they stubbornly believe they can DIY everything under the sun. They think they can craft their own website, manage their own marketing, make their own legal contracts, and so on. And it makes sense: dental school churns out high-achievers, and we go through so much rigor that we feel like we have the capacity to become an expert on anything we set our mind to. However, mastermind groups for dentists can provide the collective expertise needed to overcome these challenges.

You’re going to hit some large waves when rowing your boat, though, and the DIY approach is going to increase your likelihood of capsizing when those stormy swells inevitably come. The more people who are with you, the better off you’ll fare; a mastermind group can provide ballast to your ship and help you muscle through those big, scary waves. This is why dental practice growth with mastermind groups is so effective and why mastermind groups help dental practices navigate turbulent times.

A mastermind will help you to make more logical decisions.

You have so much invested in your dental practice. It’s hard to not let emotion get the better of your decisions. Including other pairs of eyes who don’t share that same emotional investment will help you to take a step back, use logic, and make more pragmatic decisions. In other words, a mastermind can help you remove subjectivity from the equation. You’ll replace “rose-colored glasses” with a microscope you can see objectively with. This is one of the key benefits of dental mastermind groups.

For example, perhaps you’re looking to have a practice with no more than three associate dentists. One day, you find a practice that’s up for sale and it really piques your interest. It only has three operatories, but it’s located exactly where you want it and is going for a great price.

If you let your emotions get the better of you, then you might go ahead and buy that practice even though you really shouldn’t—it’s just too small for a total of four dentists. A member from your mastermind who is on board with your vision will know that this practice is going to be too small for you. They may help you to remember that you ought to think twice about going through with the purchase. While you might get over excited about the other appealing aspects of that practice, they can offer a more objective perspective. This scenario illustrates how mastermind groups help dental practices make better decisions.

A mastermind group can hold you accountable.

Not only will you stay more objective because of a mastermind, but your peers can help you to stay accountable. You don’t want to remain stagnant or grow complacent and have five years go by without much progress. Surrounding yourself with fellow dentists can help you keep yourself accountable to making the progress you want to make. Achieving dental practice goals with peer mentoring becomes much more attainable when you have a support system in place.

This accountability can happen in a direct way or a more indirect way. Directly, they can call you out about how far along you’re actually getting with the goals you set out for yourself. Indirectly, you might give yourself a kick in the butt when you see your fellow business owners accomplishing the same goals you want to cross off your list. When they tell you about all the great stuff they’re doing, you might say to yourself, “Why aren’t I doing this right now?” This is how mastermind groups help dental practices stay on track and foster dental practice growth with mastermind support.

You can only get so much from podcasts, books, and CE; collaborating with other business owners will expose you to more of the world.

You could listen to all of the best podcasts, read libraries of business books, or take every dental CE course known to mankind—you’ll still run into problems you never have even heard of. By surrounding yourself with other business owners—especially those who are pursuing similar objectives—you’ll be running into a wide variety of curveballs together.

In other words, you’re going to diversify the amount of problems you’re exposed to. They’ll be able to come up with creative solutions to these problems that neither you nor those resources could have come up with, and you’ll become more prepared as you learn how to implement their newfound tactics. This is a prime example of how mastermind groups for dentists can provide practical, real-world knowledge that goes beyond traditional learning methods.

A group mentality can be a powerful motivator.

Think about running a race and looking around to see no one else running it with you. It’s much easier to lose morale when you don’t have that sense of camaraderie to keep you going.

When you know others are going through the same struggles and facing the same challenges, it helps you to have a different perspective. It just feels easier to keep pushing on as a team, especially when you can support one another. Likewise, you’re going to burn out a lot easier when you’re pushing yourself by yourself. It’ll be tough to keep the engines on and go 100%. Like running a race, it’s a lot easier to quit the grind when you’re going at it alone. This is why mastermind groups for dentists are so valuable for maintaining motivation and drive.

The group setting can also create friendly competition. You want to beat the guy in the race and, likewise, you want to be more successful than another practice owner. That said, you want to keep it friendly. Otherwise, you’re toeing the line between a scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset. Optimally, all ships are rising higher—yours is just rising the highest. This friendly competition is one of the benefits of dental mastermind groups that can spur dental practice growth with mastermind participation.

Don’t row upstream without a paddle.

Rowing in the right direction is all about building inertia and stacking your momentum to move more smoothly. It’s much harder to stop a train with multiple cars behind it than one car going the same speed. Likewise, when you surround yourself with similar people and work with one another to go in the same direction, you’re much more unstoppable than you would be going by yourself. This is how mastermind groups help dental practices build momentum and achieve sustained growth.

If joining a mastermind sounds like too big of a step for you to take right now, joining an online community could be a great alternative. I run a community full of dental professionals you can brainstorm with; join the Nifty Thrifty Dentists Facebook group and reach out! People from across the globe will be happy to let you in on their two cents. It’s a great way to start experiencing the benefits of dental mastermind groups and work towards achieving dental practice goals with peer mentoring. Remember, mastermind groups for dentists can be the key to unlocking your practice’s full potential and driving significant dental practice growth with mastermind strategies.