Dentist scenario

[_MonkeyNumber9]

I’ve got some Seventh Day Adventist relatives and I know that in their dealings with people in the world, when possible they prefer to associate with other Seventh Day Adventists. Their kids go to SDA schools. They frequent SDA-run businesses. They predominately socialize with other SDAs. I understand the reasons why: People tend to prefer dealing with people with whom they’re most comfortable, and people are generally most comfortable around people like themselves. Plus the whole church-networking thingie.

Same goes for Mormons, I should think.

Scenario 1:

Let’s say you’re a Mormon dentist, and a good one with a busy practice. You live in an area with no major scarcity of dentists, including other Mormon dentists. Your customers are predominately Mormon. You see many of them regularly at the temple or meetings or socially. It’s like this for years and you’ve had a successful career. But then gradually people start noticing that they’re seeing less of you on Sundays. And at meetings. And no one has seen you at the temple in 6 months. You’re not out with your disbelief, but yeah, that’s what’s happened — eventually you just couldn’t keep up the facade any longer and go through the motions of being a good TBM. But you are not being a jerk about it — it’s a private matter for you. But people do start to talk.

Question:

Does your dentist practice just dry up and die?

[_Themis]

I would guess one would lose some of their business. The non-religious don't seem to care what their dentists personal beliefs are, but a number of religious people do. Some people will attend certain religions in order to better fit into the dominate view of the community to get and maintain business. Leaving that will probably have some negative affects on business.

[_cacheman]

I owned a small business when I left the church. My business was in a very small Utah town, where you could count the number of non-LDS on one hand. Although the bulk of the business was with governmental organizations outside the small town, I had done a fair amount of business with ward members. I had also made a number of material donations to the ward, members within the ward, and even to a local church pageant. Once I discussed my disbelief with the Bishop.....all local business dried up. I never had another customer from that town. Three years later, I sold the business and moved out of Utah.

The lack of local customers didn't take too much of a financial toll. But, after a while, I realized how conditional my relationships with ward and town members had been. This happened despite the fact that the only people I had discussed my disaffection with was family, the bishop, and online people (I was an infrequent ZLMB poster at the time). I was not a vocal critic at all.

cacheman

[_GameOver]

With good marketing techniques, one can minimize any fallout. Things like handwritten Thank You Notes for being such a good client you love to see, discounts for specific services, Christmas cards, Birthday Cards, a phone call after treatment as a follow up, etc.

Almost no one does these things anymore, and they go a long way in maintaining relationships. Word gets around because it’s so unique to have a professional be this personal and caring in addition to providing excellent work.

If someone asks you why they haven’t seen you in a while, or gives you the “We’ve missed you” line, you can say something like “I’ve had to alter my normal attendance schedule to deal with extended family concerns”, etc. Nuff said. No further explanation required.