5 Business Boosting Tips

"We don’t have a fixed turnaround time for our products; instead we schedule our workflow based on return date. The dentist puts the patient’s delivery date on his instructions and then, as much as workflow allows, we try to batch all the work for that doctor to minimize our shipping costs;...

"Retaining clients is the best way for my small lab to stay profitable. Here are three of my tried-and-true strategies for building client relationships and keeping communication flowing: 

"Get to know the staff, especially the assistants! As a former assistant of 13 years, I personally know the...

"A decade ago, everyone was at a 10-day turnaround time, but in today’s market you have to do better. In 2013, we conducted a time study for every product we offer to determine how long each step should take. We then tested the numbers to be sure everyone was comfortable with them and entered the...

"To expand our laboratory, we recently secured substantial bank financing and, with that extra flexibility, we now negotiate with vendors to buy in large quantities for significant discounts. For example, we may only use 150 pucks of zirconia per month, but our last purchase was for over 1,000 pucks...

"We have a monthly budget planning meeting where we sit down with our accountant, go over our numbers and see where we can cut costs or improve performance. For instance, because we were spending so much on zirconia staining liquids, we decided to switch to pre-shaded zirconia blocks. The pre-shaded...