From Discounts to Dignity: Mastering Your True Worth (Part 1)

What if you’ve been undervaluing your skills your entire career? Join us in this compelling episode of the Hood to Hooded Podcast, where Dr. Shon unveils the secrets to recognizing and charging your true worth as an entrepreneur. Through a tapestry of personal stories, including her progression from a teenage hairstylist to a seasoned dentist, Dr. Shon shares crucial lessons on pricing integrity and the peril of excessive discounts. Discover how the COVID-19 pandemic and economic shifts have underscored the need for dentists, and entrepreneurs alike, to fully grasp their value and ensure their businesses remain profitable.

Listeners will gain indispensable insights into the world of key performance indicators (KPIs) and their role in business sustainability, especially during the critical first year. Dr. Shon highlights the importance of reducing overhead, understanding the true costs and benefits of discounts, and the critical role specialization plays in standing out in the market. With a focus on financial literacy, entrepreneurship education, and giving back to the community, this episode is a treasure trove of practical advice for anyone looking to build a successful and sustainable business. Tune in to learn how to teach your clients to value your skills without compromising your pricing integrity.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Price Is the Price
• 10:26 Importance of Key Performance Indicators
• 18:49 Value Your Worth, Avoid Discounts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone, this is Dr Shon, and I am back with another episode of the Hood to Hooded Podcast. Today's title is Key Performance Indicators for Business Success Charging your Worth Without Discount. One thing that I have learned in this first year of the journey into entrepreneurship is that you must charge your work and sometimes it's OK to give discounts, but you must make sure that your business is doing well before you join forces to give discounts. You always hear people say well, the price is the price. It is so serious nowadays, in 2024, not only because of the economy, but this is post COVID, and things are, I would say, at least five to 10 times higher than they were before. I don't know if that's really like an exaggeration, but that's how it feels, just coming from a dental standpoint. Before COVID, a lot of people were really invested into masks and gloves and PPE personal protection equipment. Now this is something that people had to get to stay safe during the pandemic, and the prices for these items have literally skyrocketed. All right, in today's podcast, I just want to make sure that we are giving our business a chance to succeed in knowing what you're worth and charging what you're worth.

Speaker 1: 1:45

I came from a background of doing hair as a teenager and I would do some bomb hairstyles for 10, 20 that they would normally charge 100 to 200 dollars in the shop. But I was a kid, I didn't know my worth, I was just really talented and to me at the time this was like, oh, this money is good. I was just really talented and to me at the time this was like, oh, this money is good, it was better than no money. But at the same time I didn't know. But if I would have kept going in that direction, eventually I would have to charge what I'm worth, because you have to make a living and the people who will want to invest in your business, they will understand that and they will want you to do well and they will want to pour into your business. All right that it is being invested in your business and finding others customers, patients, supporters, subscribers who will also see your vision, see what you're trying to convey, see the value that you provide and also invest in your business.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Okay, today we're diving into a topic that's essential for any entrepreneur knowing your worth and charging accordingly. I'm Dr Shon and I'm here to share my journey of dental entrepreneurship, highlighting the importance of setting prices, understanding your value and sticking to it. Now, this is partly economics, because economics is about supply and demand. Business has a lot to do with that. In this episode, I want to talk about something I learned during my first year as a dental preneur the price is the price and you must know your worth. When operating a business, you must know the bottom line, what is your overhead, what are you in the red for every month, and make sure that you are doing and charging the prices that will help you not only cover your overhead but also make a profit so that you can take care of your team and also yourself, because you have to eat. So this realization of the price is the price, knowing your worth. It did not come easy. In fact, it took me a whole year to fully grasp the significance of this concept, and this is why it's so crucial, because, number one, this is the reality of business. Okay, business isn't personal, and it took me a whole year to fully understand that Setting your price, knowing your worth, are fundamental to your success.

Speaker 1: 4:40

Okay, many customers will receive heavy discounts and sometimes often fail to recognize the true value of the work that you provide, in my case, dental work that you provide because they look at it as something that's cheap. They don't value it, they don't appreciate it Right. So the discounts can undermine your services and make patients or customers undervalue the effort and the expertise that is involved. Now listen, when you go to school 12, 14, 15, 16 years you have to put some respect on that expertise and know that the price is the price. Now there are so many and especially in my industry of dentistry dentists that are getting out of network with insurances because they don't value the expertise and the effort and they don't value the overhead that's involved. When they want to pay fees, fee is $400, they'll give themselves 80% discount and say, okay, your fee is $400, but we're only going to pay you $90 something dollars, because later on down the line this is when you can give back, you can get the charity, but you can't go and not pay yourself. That is so crucial and not pay yourself, that is so crucial, okay.

Speaker 1: 6:05

So for me, having to go a whole year and a half just not being able to really pay myself is very difficult. But I had to realize something that the price is the price and you got to charge what you're worth. Okay, it can't be all about. You got to charge what you're worth. Okay, it can't be all about business. You have to really make it worth your time. All right, and going into a contract especially for new dentists or dentists who are part of a corporation insurance is like their standard. But sometimes you have to be a unicorn and say you know what. I really believe in my skill. I believe that I can do this and step into something greater where I can feel like I value my time. I know my worth and I set my prices and I know the people who need me and when to do things for charity. But at the same time, I also have to know the people who appreciate what I provide and don't take it personal. You know what I'm saying. Just know what you're doing in your company and know that you're not cheating yourself. Like me when I was a teenager, doing the $10 hair styles, feeling like I don't want to do hair anymore because this isn't worth my time with hair anymore, because this isn't worth my time. All right.

Speaker 1: 7:29

Now the second thing that we are going to discuss to help us understand why knowing your worth and charging accordingly, and knowing the key performance indicators for your business success and how they can help you do. That is the discount trap. It's so easy to fall into the habit of trying to help everyone by offering discounts, especially when people move or, in my case, patients move from one clinic to another looking for the best deal. But this approach is unsustaining, is unsustainable. You must remember that patients are not just paying for the procedure, but for the 12 to 15 years of education and the experience that have brought you to this point to be who you are. Given the current economic climate and rising overhead costs, this is more important than ever. You want somebody who has experiences. Okay, you must remember why customers are coming to you for services. This can apply to any business. You want to really know what you're worth, charge what you're worth and stand on business. This can be the thing that separates people who are going to make it past the one to five years and the people who may not make it. You have to just really do the numbers, crunch the numbers and make sure that it is literally worth your time and not going to make you go homeless or in the red or not being able to survive. Sometimes, discounting things is a good way to bring in customers. For example, we have a Smile Club membership. You get a discount that we control versus the insurance controlling it. That will bring in new patients but also get us out of that insurance web of deceit.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Okay, number three lessons from the change healthcare cyber attack. Now, if you don't know, in February there was a cyber attack on the health care industry and it was with Change Health Care. It was a wake up call. They processed payments for about 50 percent of providers, including dentists, pharmacies, hospitals, mds including dentists, pharmacies, hospitals, mds and it helped me realize that we need to slow down the rapid pace of this first year of business and reassess our insurance policies and their fee schedules. Some insurances were setting fees that left us in the red before we even saw the person. We had some tough decisions to make, including reducing the staff, going out of network.

Speaker 1: 10:26

After this happened, deep dive into our key performance indicators KPIs revealed that we could no longer afford to offer discount. Ok, because by offering those discounts, we had to have more manpower just to manage those discounts on the front end and on the back end, with the risk of these other third party companies being hacked. That's a wake up call. Especially for a first year business. This could, like sink us. So you have to really move smart, really decrease your overhead and buckle down Like you have to buckle down and really pay attention to the key performance indicators. For example, I use dentistry as the example because I am a dentist, but you can apply this key performance indicators to any business. How many new patients are we getting? What marketing are we doing? How is it converting into the practice? How many people are we rescheduling? So, especially in our systems, we can see these performance indicators that kind of help us guide how we're performing. Are we hitting our monetary goals? Are we scheduling the proper procedures and really doing what we need to do to overcome this big dent? Ok, so the fourth part of this is understanding those key performance indicators and managing your overhead. All right, so key performance indicators, or KPIs, are critical for any business, and this is something that you want to learn as an entrepreneur. They help you track your performance, manage your overhead and understand your true numbers.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Many businesses fail due to a lack of KPIs and poor management of overhead. I learned this the hard way. I went an entire year without paying myself, investing all my earnings back into the business. While this wasn't the smartest financial decision. It taught me a very valuable lesson about sustainability and business management, because I had to slow down and say, hey, we're going fast, we're seeing a lot of people, but how is this converting? How is this impacting our KPIs and what are the KPIs trying to show us about the business plan that we went with? So for me, just being an associate saying other people's business plans, I already have a little idea about how this process should work. But what I didn't realize is that every business person, every entrepreneur, can set up their business in their own mindset.

Speaker 1: 13:27

Now, the fifth segment is the importance of specialization. Now, this is very important. When you're an entrepreneur and a business owner and you really want to stand out, you have to specialize. And there's something in dentistry that I might say I do regret is not going forward to specialize. But when you come from poverty and you're coming from the hood, the most thing that you're ready to do is to go to work to make some money. Okay, because you're like I'm sick of being homeless, I'm tired of being tired, I'm tired of being broke, right, but you want to specialize.

Speaker 1: 14:10

So this year, for example, taught me that I really don't enjoy all dental procedures, especially dentures and partials. This is something that I really didn't enjoy making in dental school. Didn't enjoy making in dental school. I often had to get the assistance of the professor this class makes to help me finish these procedures, because I just didn't like them. But understanding what you like and what you're good at is vital to your happiness and to your time. It helps you focus on areas where you can excel and provide the best service, which, in turn, justifies your pricing, because if you can specialize in something, you can charge more because you have more knowledge in this specific area. So, for me, implants is a way for me, as a general dentist, to specialize and do something that I would really love because I love oral surgery. I love the idea of replacing teeth and just giving patients a different outcome that they could have never expected. I did just read a story on the internet about how in I think I don't want to get the place wrong but researching growing teeth. So that's something that they're planning on having available by like 2030, which is very close. So to me as a dentist, that is bizarre. I'm interested to see how that works.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Number six teaching people to value your expertise. Now, this is going to be key because you could be a specialist but people may not value it. Get them to value it by allowing them to know that this is the price, because I'm a specialist and because you're getting a quality job. If you're not putting quality in it, then you got to charge a real price. But if you're going to school, getting your overhead the education that you're getting and also leave you a little bit happier on the pocket side, all right. So that's how you teach people to value your expertise. You have to teach people to respect your skill, your knowledge and your experience.

Speaker 1: 16:41

If you consistently offer discounts, you risk devaluing your services and, worse, your happiness. Remember, discounts can lead you down a path of financial instability. So you have to do this when your business may be doing better or if you're trying to actually target marketing wise, like holidays, but it has to be for a specific reason, otherwise you really need to know your word. Discounts definitely shouldn't put you in the red. Having been homeless three times, I could tell you that's not a place you want to visit or revisit.

Speaker 1: 17:20

There are certain steps to success and I want to ask you this question what are the tangible steps to ensure success in the first year of business, all right. So the first one is to set clear prices. Determine your rates based on your expertise, your education and market standards. You want to do your market research, see what other people charge in, compare expertise, education and then, just if you're different and you give that quality, you deserve to charge the price. That is your price. You want to know your worth, understand the value of your services and communicate it effectively to your track.

Speaker 1: 18:07

Your KPIs Regularly monitor your key performance indicators. This is the numbers behind your business your overhead, your profit, your loss. How many new customers? How many are returning? How much are they spending? What's the average that they're spending? How many people cancel their order? How is your scheduling looking? Your productivity per hour? It's a lot of different KPIs that you can find. Which ones help you the most right? So KPIs when you monitor those, they help you manage your overhead and make informed decisions.

Speaker 1: 18:49

And another thing is avoid unnecessary discounts. Stick to your pricing and avoid the temptation to offer discounts all the time. Specialize, focus on the procedures, the products or the area that you excel at and enjoy the most. Educate your patients or your customers. Help them understand the value of your work and why it's worth the price. By following these steps, guys, you can build a successful and sustainable business. Steps, guys you can build a successful and sustainable business. Remember your time, your expertise and happiness are worth it.

Speaker 1: 19:31

So for me, going through this first years, having a history of just fighting and fighting for my dreams, I know that you have to charge the price that you are worth. Okay, you can no longer get into network with companies, businesses, people who devalue your price and will drive you to be out of business, and I know for me as a dentist in this first year, I had to really understand that insurance might have been good back in the day, but nowadays it will almost literally put you out of business when you actually track the KPIs. Some insurances are quality and they do pay a little bit more to make it worth your time, but a lot of them are like spit in the face. Nowadays it's literally like a spit in the face and there is an insurance crisis. It's harder to provide care, with things being sky high when it comes to overhead, and this in turn creates higher prices for patients and providers such as myself. We have debt we have to pay off.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Once, a dental school was over a half million dollars and then when you come from poverty, you already start behind the marker because you're not going to be set up to apply for those scholarships for college. I'm thinking in college, I just got to get in. I'm not thinking about scholarships, I'm already working a job. The only thing in my head is the work. So that's why financial literacy, that's why learning these things when you are younger, about entrepreneurship, the reality of it, the thing that you need to look out for how to be successful, are important to pass back to the youth, because without it it's a blind journey and that's the only way to go from hood to hood is to give back the knowledge, even if it's just a little teensy bit that can help someone. You want to give it back, especially your networking.

Speaker 1: 21:45

In this space, in the dental space, I have a unique point of view because I'm coming from such a specialized area and not a lot of people who look like me are in this space that have came from poverty to something of this magnitude.

Speaker 1: 22:10

Something of this magnitude and just to be able to give back my input, my advice as I grow through this, as I go through this journey, adversity along the way, and just to be able to say you know what you can do. This too. My journey, even to this day, this exact moment, this exact day of me recording this podcast, is so full of adversity, so full of difficulty, so full of test, but I keep a smile on my face because it's business. I had to realize that it's business and you got to keep it moving. It's just an experience that you can use. You can use the knowledge that you gain to be better and grow every day, and know that you can always pick yourself up and learn and start over if you have to. Ok, pay attention to those key performance indicators for business success charging your worth without discounts. No-transcript.