Recurring revenue is the holy grail in any business. Once you figure out how to generate it, managing your practice becomes easier and more enjoyable.

This leads me to a story that will change your mindset and help you efficiently operate your business and understand the power of systems and recurring revenue—the Parable of the Pipeline, by Burke Hedges.  

A long time ago two friends, Paul and Bruno, lived in a small city. They had dreams of becoming wealthy and were willing to become educated and work hard to become successful. All they needed was a good opportunity and they would be set. One day their opportunity arrived. Their village needed to hire two men to haul water from the lake to the water well in the middle of their village. Each man would be paid for the amount of water he delivered.

They were given two buckets and they started going back and forth from the lake to the water well. Day in and day out they hauled the water back and forth. They were exhausted from carrying the large buckets of water, but they were grateful to have jobs and earn some income. “This is our dream come true!” Bruno said.

But Paul was not so sure. He was sick of feeling exhausted. He dreaded going to work, and he started to think that there must be a better way. He promised himself that he would think of a better way to deliver water from the lake to the village. He thought of a plan and shared it with his friend: building a pipeline from the middle of the lake to the village.

But Bruno replied, “A pipeline! What a crazy idea. Who has the time to build a pipeline. I don’t want to waste my time building a pipeline.”

Paul decided to build the pipeline by himself. He worked hard and dedicated himself. Once he finished the pipeline, he had a system that worked for him, instead of carrying buckets manually everyday his system did it for him while delivering water to the well and getting paid automatically every day.

We can learn 3 things from this simple metaphor:

1. You need to have efficient, automated systems

2. The benefit of predictable recurring revenue

3. Being persistent and working hard to make it successful.

Are you a pipeline builder or a bucket carrier?

Your dental membership program is your system to help you generate predictable recurring revenue. The problem is that too many offices manage the program like bruno, carrying buckets back and forth day in and day out. You need a better system. If you don’t have an automated system these scenarios could happen:

1. Office manager quits or is fired, the system is in their head so your membership program fails once they leave.

2. Team member is sick or on maternity, they are out of the office, your program will most likely slow down or even fail because of neglect.

My point is that you need to have an automated and scalable way of marketing your program, signing patients up, managing patients, running credit or debit cards, benefit tracking and auto renewals for your membership program. Membership is a volume based business model, When you do this manually there is a lot of room for error and you can’t grow it successfully. When you do this manually patients typically lapse between 3 to 6 months, wouldn’t it be better to have a system to help collect membership fees and have consistent recurring revenue? I would encourage you to check out BoomCloud as we have helped practices create this system so that you can enjoy predictable recurring revenue and have the pipeline builder mindset.

Action Steps:

1. Read the Parable of the Pipeline, by Burke Hedges.  

2. Schedule a demo to see how BoomCloud works

3. Send me and email and update me on your progress – jordon@boomcloudapps.com