[00:00:00] What about the actual the picture or video of the ad? Have you found one? Some things work better than others.

[00:00:07] Yeah. Without giving too many gold nuggets away. What I would say is having a picture of a patient with a treating dentist really helps. Having a picture of the practice and having the picture of the practice with nearby common things. So I don’t know if there’s a really statement shop next door, put that in or saying, Oh, we’re right next to X, Y and Z. So that really helps. That really gets a lot of engagement.

[00:00:34] So you don’t you definitely don’t recommend like a stock photo of something.

[00:00:39] That’s not really definite enough.

[00:00:46] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:04] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Paul Miller onto the podcast. Another dentist from Leeds. Leeds seems to be a bit of a hotbed for amazing new practices lately. Loads and loads open. We’ve had loads of guests on the podcast. We’ve opened Super Dippers in Leeds recently, so we’ll go into the reasons for that. Paul’s kind of become an authority figure in Invisalign open days, another with another hat. He’s a marketing company with his brother, expert media tech. On top of that, Paul works in London at Square Mile with Nick and Sanjay Sethi, great friends of this podcast, Amit Patel, Elaine Mau, all of them. They’ve all been on this podcast. So we’ll get into what that will move was about. And then to add to all of that, I’ve done my research. Paul, the first guest to have been on Britain’s Got Talent on this podcast of a dancer. Actor.

[00:02:02] Yeah.

[00:02:04] We’ll get into that. It’s lovely to have you, buddy. How are you?

[00:02:07] Oh, no, I’m very good, thanks. Thanks for having me today on on a nice bank holidays. Good way to wrap up the weekend. Yeah I have done done quite a bit I’ve had my hands in a few things. But you know, dentistry is where my passion is at the moment for sure.

[00:02:20] So as as a child, I mean, this acting thing is quite different, right? So as a child, did you have that moment of saying, am I going to go all in on showbusiness or am I going to be a dentist? Or was that never a Yeah.

[00:02:33] So do you know what I did? I did ask the question. So when I was about 16, that’s when I first went on Britain’s Got Talent. When I was about 19, I got through all the way to the stage before the semi-final and it’s because I break down. So our body pop with a bit of Punjabi dancing as well. So I was, do you know, for me it was a hobby and it was always going to be a hobby because if you think about dentistry, there’s security, there’s loads of things attached to that. Whereas with body puffing you can’t quite, can’t quite do much with that, to be honest. It’s probably like a one in a one in 10 million kind of make it so. But someone like an agent saw me on Britain’s Got Talent and they needed a body popper for that Disney TV show. So they got me in for an episode and we got on so well in season two. I got drafted in for five out of 12 episodes, so I did that during uni during my third year of uni like summer break.

[00:03:26] So time how did you get into body popping at your age? I mean, that’s more like people my age used to do that.

[00:03:33] Do you know what it was? Yeah, just. Just started doing it. I didn’t have a mentor, I didn’t have anything. I just was just dancing in front of the mirror, almost watching a few videos, just picked it up and just really enjoyed it as a as a side hobby. So, yeah, that’s how it came about. Nothing. Nothing special.

[00:03:51] So, Paul, tell me about what kind of a kid were you?

[00:03:55] So I was I was a bit of a cheeky kid, you know, I was one. I love my video games. I wasn’t the greatest worker in the world, but I loved to play sports as well. So I was I was quite sensible, you know, within my family, you know, we’ve got a lot of dentists, probably half the family dentists. So for me, it was all about that stage of getting into dentistry. So making sure education, you know, your, your hobbies to put on your CV or your personal statement was all on point. But yeah, so and also then obviously the dancing and the acting thing as a side. So I tried to do as much, as much as I could with the opportunities.

[00:04:31] Yeah, but outside of dancing, were you always going to go into dentistry? Women who’s a dentist in your family is that you’re very close family.

[00:04:38] Yeah. So I’ve got I’ve got a cousin who’s a professor of paediatric dentistry, my sister, my sister in law, both dentists. I’ve got about ten, 11 cousins that are all dentists. So the dinner chats are very dental orientated, a bit boring actually sometimes.

[00:04:54] So with you having so many dentists in the family, would you say that’s been a massive and. Advantage to you because, you know, Dipesh Parmar does our composite course and yeah, he’s, you know, I mean, he’s undoubtedly one of the most talented dentists I’ve ever come across. So he’s got he’s got talent. But his older brother, who’s many years older than him, is dentist. And then his next brother, the middle brother, is the technician. And, you know, I can just tell the insight he’s got or had. I knew him very early on, just as in vet. I met him and the insight he had into teeth and dental practices was so much more than I what I had. So would you say that’s given you a massive advantage?

[00:05:41] Yeah, I think I think definitely that’s one of the reasons why my main hub is Leeds, because the majority of my family is from Leeds. So in terms of the connections that you get, the networking and even before I even started dental school, my sister in law had a practice, my sister had a practice related to Prem Semi as well, who’s had X amount of practices. So being able to kind of hear how they’ve done it, what works well for them, as well as big mentors of mine at Jen and Kisch as well, and they help me with that. So I think what family does is it gives you a network of support and mentorship and they can’t really say no to you. It’s quite nice. So you can bug them as much as you as you feel.

[00:06:22] Related to them.

[00:06:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit of a further relation, but yeah.

[00:06:28] One of those everyone’s related to everyone’s story.

[00:06:30] So that’s one of those. Definitely one of those. He helped me out. He helped me out a lot in the early days as well.

[00:06:39] So he’s a giver for sure.

[00:06:43] He’s very much.

[00:06:43] Together. So, okay, where did you study?

[00:06:46] So I studied in Sheffield, so that was started in 2013 and then graduated in 2018. And I actually had two cousins in Sheffield Dental School while I was in dental school.

[00:06:57] What kind of a dental student were you? You were sort of the studious type or the party type.

[00:07:01] So if I’m being honest, probably the party type. For me, I didn’t really I’m going to be honest for me. I didn’t really have a passion or I didn’t really enjoy dentistry up until fifth year where one patient changed my life. So it was just a normal, odd clinic. And before then I didn’t really know what was going on clinics wise. I didn’t. I was always late to clinics trying to get out of seeing patients early. Then this one patient came in. I remember I was trying to go away from the clinic, you know, maybe watch a bit Game of Thrones at home. And she came in to force me to kind of see her. And she goes to me, Paula, I’m not smarter than that yet. And I just you know, I start to question why I didn’t smile. And then she had a lateral incisor. And then in my in my eyes, I thought, well, there’s nothing really I can do about that because we’re in dental school. What is that something that we can do in hospital? And I was lucky, my tutor at the time because, well, there are quite a few options that we can do for this patient, even though it’s not technically for health, but it’ll help her mentally at least. So he said, Let’s do it. That’s true. It is a case, you know, you’ve done your targets.

[00:08:08] So all of a sudden I was doing some research of how I could do. I could kind of restore the smile in a way. And he gave me a lot of information, emailed me things like gold and proportion and how to get the right length to with ratio for this to make it look symmetrical, to do a wax up. And all of a sudden I just gained a huge interest. So I really wanted to pull this off for her because I knew how much it would mean for her. So suddenly I was the first person on clinic I was really enjoying because I was really taking on board what the lecturers were saying. And I did the composite with a wax up, you know, something simple. And I took about one and a half to 2 hours, and when I showed her the mirror, she swore out loud, she screamed and everyone gathered around. She was just so happy. She was crying of happiness. And I just thought, Wow, I did that for this person. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. You know that moment where you go, what you were born to do? That was that moment for me. And it’s from there where I really, really gain the passion. But before that, definitely the party side was was who I was.

[00:09:13] It’s interesting. Yeah. Because, you know, her reaction maybe was the final push to make you realise you can change people’s lives and all of that.

[00:09:24] Yeah, I had no idea that you could do that within dentistry. I had no idea how much power dentistry can have on someone’s life. I mean, you might be the reason why someone has the confidence to go for that job or to meet confidence to talk to that special someone then, you know, and it comes down to what you did. So that was when I thought, I need to go down this path.

[00:09:46] I remember I was pushing myself to go into cosmetic dentistry as quickly as possible, and that doesn’t seem like a big thing to say now, because everyone’s doing it now. But. But back then it was. Very bad. It wasn’t a very common thing at all. But but but the reason I was doing it was because my brother had a genesis imperfecta and he went off to the iceman and he was a child. He was like 11 years old or whatever. And they did a they did a full mouth rehab on him. And this kid went who had no confidence or whatever, came back and smiled. And I remember that magic moment to see Jesus. What they they’ve changed his life completely. I was a nine year old or something, but but it stuck with me. And that’s why I pursued cosmetic industry. But the point I want to make was, yeah, the patient’s reaction. But let’s not forget that tutor. Yeah, that tutor.

[00:10:43] Oh, 100%. I mean, if it wasn’t for that tutor or dismissed.

[00:10:47] The tutor who, who went out of his way here to say, okay, there is something we can do here, who supported that? You could be the guy to do that and to hold your hand through that process, not only change that patient’s life, but then change so many other patients lives because of now the person you’ve become. And it shows the importance of teaching and what a massive thing effect you can have as a good you know, we all remember our best teachers from school and all that, but go, don’t shout him out. Who was it?

[00:11:17] So it was Miss the mother. He was one of those that kind of only came into the hospital once a week. And I think because he worked in general dentistry, he almost because it definitely wasn’t hospital guidelines to do that sort of work within the clinic setting. But I think he appreciated how much this patient needed that after we went through a history of presenting complaints. So yeah, I know I owe a lot to so I really appreciate that.

[00:11:42] So then what happened next? You went to VTI?

[00:11:44] Yeah. So I went, I had the summer and I went to vet just kind of nearby the release date at home. But for me, I spoke to my vet trainers. I said this is the type of dentistry I want to do. But they sensibly told me, Look, well, what you need to do is you need to focus on your bread and butter first. You need to be able to do removal care as well, be able to do a simple filling. Well, then you can think about these things and then we’ll teach you a little bit more about these things. And I really got that because dentistry isn’t just, you know, the majority of dentistry comes down to that bread and butter. If you’ve got good foundations, you can then build on that. I mean, and the only sad thing is today you can look on Instagram and you can go, Oh, all these people are doing amazing things, but you don’t see that graft to get to that level. It takes a lot of years, a lot of courses, a lot of mistakes, and some, especially for me, I grew up like when in dental school with Instagram, social media and dentistry all kind of blowing up and you think you can do that sort of work straight away, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. So I was really lucky that my PhD train has really grounded me in that regard. And then I went to the TUBULES conference in Vito and a competition for that. So I was allowed to go and I drew a lot of that as well. Very good guy. I he introduced me to gin that’s shaped a lot of my career knick that day as well. That obviously gave me the job at Square Mile. So from there they both with small clinical group and Square Mile really kind of mentored me to go forward.

[00:13:15] Yeah, you did luck out there because you know some of them.

[00:13:20] All on the same day.

[00:13:21] Well, you know, that’s the other thing about going to conferences, isn’t it? The soft benefits, the they outweigh the hard benefits. Yeah.

[00:13:30] Yeah. I mean, a lot of what people think about conferences is that you’re going to learn or, you know, you’re going to see that lecture. But a lot of it comes down to networking and sharing experiences and learning from other people’s.

[00:13:41] Experiences because, you know, again, we do our course, right? And we have this dinner during our course and we really try and get and obviously some people have got kids and they can’t come to the dinner and all of this, but really try and get people to come to that because, you know, the structured learning is one thing, but talking to each other, there’s so much more in that. And I’ve had people in that dinner say to me, Oh, I’m looking for a private job and I’ve introduced them to someone. And, you know, it’s important to understand that about about education in our setting in our world, that there’s a lot more to it than what the lecturers put on it. Of course, pay attention to the lecture.

[00:14:21] So that is also important. Yeah, of course. We can’t discuss.

[00:14:26] And then implement. Right. Implement. Tell me this dude, are you naturally sort of the confident kind of guy who you know, you go on a you mentioned Robbie Hughes before you go on an avant garde course. Do you then go and put that into practice straightaway so that you don’t forget and and, you know, what’s the difference? Why do you why are you that cat? And then why are there so many others who go on a course and don’t ever put it into practice?

[00:14:51] I think the most important thing about courses, especially when I first did my first few, I realised that if you don’t have one or two patient. Lined up for that treatment, then you’re going to forget exactly what you were meant to do. And then you don’t eventually you don’t have the confidence to do it and then you don’t do it anymore. So I think the key thing is and Invisalign do this, to be honest, I think this is why a designer being so successful because a line tells you to have three patients. Now, I think it’s five patients ready with a contract and you can’t go ahead with the course unless you’ve got them ready. And I think with me, especially, I did Robby’s six month mentorship course with Millard and that really helped because you get about six courses in one, but you get that mentorship. So I had a WhatsApp group between me, Robby and Millard, and I would send him complicated cases. They told me, Actually, Paul, do you know what? This to me is probably outside of where you’re at right now. You will get there one day, but maybe repair this on someone else. And then just having someone tell you that just makes you think, actually, now I know where my boundaries are. So I think that’s kind of the difference there. It comes down to connecting with the people that are teaching the course.

[00:16:01] Yeah, but still there’s an element of confidence in going ahead and implementing. Would you say you’re a competent person?

[00:16:08] I would say I’m always willing to take a calculated risk is the best way to describe it. So I will do the treatment as long as I know that all the other variables are controlled. Obviously the variable of pulling it off isn’t going to control, but as long as everything else. And what I mean by that is, is the patient’s expectations relatively low because it’s the first time you’re doing it. If their expectations are high and your skill set is quite low at this point, then you’ve got a bad combination there. But if your skill set is maybe medium low to medium, but the patient’s expectations are very low, then it’s okay because you know that they will give you time to learn that skill set through and we’ll be adaptable when things may not go as well as you’d hope. And but they’re not going to kick off if something goes wrong.

[00:16:55] Yeah, that’s a good point. Very good point. So then tell me about what you did next after VTE.

[00:17:02] So about six, I went straight into a part time private job and about five months later, so five months after I got the call from Nic and he offers me the job at square month. So I was very excited. I was definitely not ready if I’m being honest because five months after beat working at Square Marlborough, he said, Look, come down for two days a week, we’re going to mentor you to give you a simple case as best. And I thought, what better way to learn than to learn from them? So I actually left my jobs. But unfortunately, now you’re going to laugh at this. Unfortunately, I left my job in February 2020, and then we all know what happened in March 2020 COVID hit. So unfortunately, I had no job during lockdown because I couldn’t start in London and then anywhere where I tried to find another job or a locum. Nowhere was hiring because there was no point for them to, especially with the 20% contract, etc.. So at that point I thought to myself I had a lot of ideas, I learnt a lot in terms of the way I thought dentistry is going with aligners and orthodontics.

[00:18:08] So I did a lot of training in that regard, so that’s when I decided to buy my own practice. So during the first lockdown I actually went to go view the practice that I ended up buying. And I knew because it was COVID that I’d get a really good price. I got 35% off the asking price, and so I kickstarted that process off. But without having a job, I then was starting to money was coming up and money wasn’t coming in. So I ended up working as a test and trace for about four months am till 8 p.m. just to make sure that, you know, that is a steady stream of income. And then that practice I took over took about 13 months, 14 months to complete because no bank would ever I didn’t really trust someone that was only 6 to 7 months out of PhD with no assets or anything. But I managed to persuade a bank to do it and it was a high deposit, but then took over the practice, called to passion, renamed it to dental and kicked off.

[00:19:07] Where did you get the money from?

[00:19:09] Just the work. So test and trace and that six months of work because the practice is valued quite low so I only needed a relatively low deposit percentage was high, but it’s technically a relatively low deposit to surgery practice. So yeah, I managed to just when I took over I only had £150 left in the bank.

[00:19:29] And did you sort of strategically buy a place that was that you thought had potential and you were going to buy a cheap place that you were going to build? Or was it just the only one you could afford? Why didn’t you wait?

[00:19:43] So yeah, I think you said it right. What I thought was I just need a staple point. So I wanted to change everything within a practice. All I needed was the goodwill. So what I found was a practice that was very rundown. I mean. Now doing film X-rays, etc.? Well, no digital dentistry whatsoever. And but they had a very good work, good will. They had about eight or 9ka month of capitation income. So then plan income coming in. And I thought, well, here’s a practice where you have stable income that can pay the bills and then anything you add on top of that can allow me to grow. And I within a year introduced CBT implants and with all the endo kits have gone into dentist as well, Treo scanner orthodontics, computerised system. Eventually everything changed it all refurbished, it all made it look really modern. And we’ve only just finished the refurbishes.

[00:20:41] To the patients and the staff, not sort of run for the hills when they saw all these changes happening. Like, you know, I mean, traditionally people talk about evolution instead of revolution when you take over a practice. But there are other there are other models. You know, we’ve had Def Patel on here and his model is to smash the place down completely and start all over again. And, you know, he’s kind of a he almost believes in that as a way of a break with the past, did you get pushback from patients and staff when you started changing everything?

[00:21:12] Yeah, great question. So I think with both patients and staff, you have two categories of people. You have those that you know are very set in their ways. And it doesn’t really matter what age they are because some people say, oh, maybe they’ve been there for a lot of years, they’re not willing to adapt, but either you’re willing to adapt or you’re not willing to adapt. And those that were not willing to adapt to a happily let go mutually and because it wasn’t the right place for them anymore, I wasn’t going to let anyone impinge on my vision. I wasn’t going to let anyone hold back on what I thought the future of dentistry would look like. And I’d say the majority of staff said, and only about 2% of patients left, and that’s because they came from different places. I felt like we we offered an experience that was so when you come in, it’s all about the experience for me. So, you know, they’re greeted very nicely. Everything is digitised for them so they can fill in their medical history, etc. They come in as a TV on the ceiling and a lot of the patients, they were excited by this new technology. It was almost like they were waiting for this change to happen and they were also on that journey with me. So yeah, I didn’t get much pushback from that.

[00:22:18] I’m a little bit surprised by it. I mean, it’s I’ve heard I’ve heard stories of people mourning their previous existence, you know, like the staff particularly. I mean, are you good at persuading people? Did you did you sort of sit everyone down and say, this is my vision? And and how did you manage to not come across as sort of some upstart and.

[00:22:38] Yeah.

[00:22:39] You know what I mean? Are you are you naturally good at that?

[00:22:42] No, I, I wouldn’t say I’m not sure. Good at. I sat down and I explained I had to explain that what we did was we incorporated everyone. We said we incorporated everyone’s ideas and created one vision. So it was about making everyone feel valued. So, you know, if my my lead nurse made a suggestion, I suppose, you know what, let’s let’s set it up like this or can we design it like this? I would take that on board. And, you know, half the time I would implement it if I thought it was right. So I think making your staff feel very valued and also with patients, we were constantly asking, you know, what do you think of the changes? You know, well, what do you think of the new Chaz? Are you happy about this? And I think they felt valued as well because a lot of them have been there for over 30 years. So for them being a part of that, basically, including everyone in the process, makes them feel valued, which then allowed us to grow exponentially.

[00:23:36] Did you have what happened to the outgoing principal? Did he stay on a bit or so?

[00:23:41] He stayed on for three months as a transition. That was a bit difficult because we had we were on like we were poles apart at this point. But he was ready to retire 70 years old and he was ready to retire. And and luckily for me, you know, in my eyes, he was a great dentist. Great dentist, and he did really good work. So really, again, I feel really lucky to have taken over from someone like him because it can be it can go the other way. It can be a bit of a disaster class. So I think Fortune just gave me that.

[00:24:12] So what I think I think people underestimate the value of local knowledge. Yeah. You have, you know, you have these sort of stories of. Oh, yeah, I sat down, looked at where there were fewer fewest dentists and most patients or where there was the most need or which high street was best. And I strategically put my practice there and it sort of ignores local knowledge as far as, you know, the nuance in your you’re, you know, Leeds born and bred, right? You’ve been in leads from the year doc and you’ve got all this family all around leads and so forth. The nuance in you being able to take your staff with you and take your patients with you. An outsider might not have been able to carry that off. You know, it’s not as simple as find the right location and go for it, you know?

[00:24:59] I think being Leeds born and bred definitely really helps. I went to school in Leeds and you know, you can relate even even football. Everybody’s big Leeds United fans. So you can you can always find common ground with a lot of the patients know a lot of the patients live nearby me, golf, etc.. So I think having those common things with patients and that happens from local knowledge really, really helps. I think if someone to come in from a different city and go, okay, I’m going to make this work. It could have been a different story.

[00:25:29] So tell me about maybe big mistakes you made along the way.

[00:25:33] I would say I’m probably one of those that I made the most amount of mistakes, but I’ll always learn from them and I reflect on the biggest mistakes. Everyone’s going to make clinical mistakes here and there about how you what you do after that kind of is what counts. And I think my biggest mistake was basically thinking that it was quite easy to take over a practice during COVID and, you know, thinking the time frame of it will happen the way I thought it was going to happen. So when I was trying to take over, the process took so long. It was very mentally challenging, very, very mentally challenging. There were some really bad days in terms of what’s going to happen. Is it going to happen? Is it? There were points where the practice was never going to go through and I think I was quite cocky at the start where I thought, okay, this is easy. You look, you’ve got the deposit, there’s a lot more that goes into it. You know, hiring a dental orientated solicitor is definitely the key. I did not do that. I wish I had done that because that would have made the process a lot quicker, a lot easier for me, and probably would have saved me money in the long run. But I obviously won’t buy this kind of thing. That’s basically why. So I think if you’re going to take over the practice, you definitely need the right team around you to do it and don’t cheap out or don’t get someone that’s maybe less expensive but doesn’t have any dental experience because that’s going to go against you in the long run.

[00:27:01] Yeah, it’s similar to, you know, some people won’t use a broker to sell their practice because of the one or 2% the broker takes.

[00:27:10] Yeah.

[00:27:11] And you think if the broker can’t add one or 2% to the price you’re going to get, I mean, of course he’s going to. So it’s a good point. What about clinically? I mean, even your clinical. I’m not.

[00:27:23] A broker. It’s so important.

[00:27:25] Yeah. I don’t necessarily want you to tell me about. You’re too young to have made that many clinical mistakes. Yeah, but at the same time, your trajectory has been quite steep. So clinically, what were things that you wish you knew earlier or things you wish you hadn’t tried so soon? Or some give me some some, some, some insight clinically into going from zero to Invisalign. What are you, Diamond Apex boy. What, what, what were the what were the highlights?

[00:27:57] Yeah. Do you know what it is again? I think anyone can learn from their mistakes, but a wise person learns from the mistakes of others. So anything that I try, I always have quite a mentor that’s already on that level. So for example, restorative early I had Kish, Nick, and if there was ever a point where I had any doubt about how this case was going to end up, then I would ask them. I’d ask him or go, Look, what can go wrong here? What should I think about? And a lot of the time Nick stopped me from doing cases where he’s gone actually, mate, because Nick’s quite humble. He would go, Actually, I wouldn’t do this myself. I definitely wouldn’t recommend you to do it because of this. This could happen. So even with Invisalign Bhavin Bhatt, Sandeep as well. Kumar They’ve been mentors of mine and you know, Bhavin especially, he taught me what cases can I do, what cases can I not do? And those were I thought, kind of do this. You just mentor me through it. Same with Elaine. She helped me with that as well. So I think clinical mistakes, things could have gone better and I’ll always reflect on that. But having the mentor has really allowed me to negate or lessen them.

[00:29:08] I mean, how do you go about getting so many great mentors?

[00:29:12] Did you most of them happen on that same day in TUBULES conference day.

[00:29:16] What a great day.

[00:29:17] And then we just really connected. What was it? You know what? That’s probably when I look back, that’s probably my highlight day. That’s better than a birthday. So I think just also if they took, for example, Jen and Kash, I remember the first time they ever gave me an opportunity. I said, Look, we’re doing the I think it was a BDA conference and they’re lecturing and they said, Look, Paul, come down, come me to the hotel. We want to talk about something with you. And I just went down I just went down to Birmingham all the way from Leeds. I just chatted with him for half an hour and that was it. But I think when you show a mentor that you’re willing to put in that effort, they will put the effort back into you. So even now, fast forward three years with Jen and Kash. We’re looking to buy a practice together, I hope, with that Dental Academy in Manchester. So we set that up up north where we’re running quite a few courses there for dentists and therapists. I lecture on a few of their courses as well. So if I hadn’t put in that initial effort, even though I had pretty much nothing to gain from it, monetary or anything, then they may not have put as much effort into me.

[00:30:23] Yeah. I mean. But still, there’s a talent in looking for mentors and accepting mentors. It sounds like you’ve got so many there, so many good people that to go to, and I find often this very easy advice to give. It’s like, you know, get yourself a mentor. But, you know, I was I was quite a shy sort of associate type here. I wasn’t the type to go up to someone and say, Hey, you help me with something unless, you know, something happened. So to, you know, it’s not as simple as go get a mentor, is it? You know, it’s it’s a skill in itself.

[00:30:59] Is just good. But you’ve got to also put yourself in that situation. If you don’t go to the course, if you don’t go to the conference or then you’re never going to put yourself in that situation to find a mentor. So I think the key thing there is keep going, keep connecting, and eventually you’ll form a connection with someone where you know, it can it can hopefully turn into that sort of role. Yeah, certainly. And also even on the flip side, you know, I’ve been given a lot. I also try and mentor people that are younger than me as well, you know, through the courses and those are newly graduating because I think whatever you receive, you should give back as well.

[00:31:34] Certainly. Let’s get in on the leads, dude. How come? How come Leeds has got so many new practices opening?

[00:31:41] Which was crazy. It was crazy, but it’s not. Over the last two years there’s been a lot of private squats opening in Leeds and they’re all doing extremely well I think. I think with Leeds there’s been a huge shift, whether it’s local or I don’t know if it’s happening nationwide, but huge shift from NHS to private industry and I don’t know what it is but there’s a lot, it’s quite something in the water.

[00:32:07] Like, yeah, you’re right, private squat, super branded, beautiful places.

[00:32:11] All happening to me. Well, I would say it’s the capital of the north. It’s like London, but without the hassles of London.

[00:32:22] You know what? I’ve spent some time in Leeds and you know, what I like most about it is the people. People are like, straight up on the easy to talk to. But you guys, you guys have a lot of fun. I’ve noticed up there. There’s, it’s, it’s like it’s different to Manchester. It’s got a different kind of vibe to Manchester. But of course you’re biased.

[00:32:43] Yeah, it’s it’s funny, you know, we do the academy in Manchester. I think people people are very, very friendly in Leeds. And there is, it’s like work hard, play a hard mentality. But I also think maybe as opposed to Manchester or maybe because I’m not from Manchester, I don’t know. There’s a really strong Leeds Dental community where a lot of even the most renowned dentists within Leeds will come to the meetings, they’ll lecture. So like I find my team, they all lecture regularly to all the dentists within Leeds is this kind of really big community feel and I think that also contributes towards everything. Whereas I don’t know well being in London, I didn’t really feel that. I’ve not heard of that in Manchester. So I think that could be the difference there.

[00:33:26] Yeah. So, so okay. Let’s talk about the marketing journey because your practice, we were talking off mic, your practice has grown exponentially since you bought it, you know, a year ago. Sounds ridiculous. A year ago. Just, just run, run, run those numbers by buy by the audience quickly.

[00:33:48] Yeah. So I can be open, honest. So I bought it for 175 and now I just got it recently valued for literally just under a million. And that was after a year. And the biggest reason for that was marketing. And that’s why I kind of started my own marketing company with my brother. We both actually got covered at the same time and Christmas and we were just chatting and I just said to because I did loads of insider like alchemy, I did myself, I did everything and I just, I said to my brother, I think I know how to do this now, can you help me do the tech side of things and can you help me manage the ads, etc.? So he did it for me. And then all of a sudden we got a message from a local practice manager who got Paul, who’s doing your opening. And all I said was, my brother goes, Oh, what company is it? And so I said to my brother. Then I said, Well, here’s a great idea. Why don’t if we can do it for me, then why can’t we do it for other people? If we can help them grow, then there’s nothing better than that. So we create expert media tech where we design websites. So the main thing is like open days, which is. Invisalign open days. And in the space of seven months we’ve gone, we’ve got about 20 clients now continuously up and down the country. We do it for the small clinical group as well. They trust us with their marketing and yeah, we’re just flying with it really. But I think the best, the best part about it is when we do it for a squat practice. So we’ve done it for about three squat practices and then them telling us, Paul, we were a bit worried here. We’re not being able to fill our diaries as, as we would have hoped, then being able to run their ads or do their marketing for them and kind of get them to where their expectation was and really seeing them grow as well and becoming stabilised is really satisfying.

[00:35:44] So what I’d really like to do here is to get you seem to have sort of super specialised into this idea of Invisalign Open Day, right? I’d like to break it down to what’s Paul’s sort of cornerstones for a successful Invisalign open day, super successful one. And I probably want to probably you’re better at this than me. But, you know, there’s the let’s face it, there’s all the work you do before the open day. There’s the day itself. And then there is all the work you do afterwards. Right. Let’s break it down like that.

[00:36:21] Let’s break it down. All right, cool. Let’s break it down. Let’s get into story beginning, middle, end. So we’ll start with the beginning. First thing is the practice has to be aware that they have to be all in. If you cut it halfway, you’re not going to see the benefits and you’re only going to see the expensive side. So the key.

[00:36:39] Thing being set wise.

[00:36:40] Why? Because it accumulates. So when if, for example, you only do one open day, then you would not get the result of four open days within a five or six month period. So it’s the fact that you have to trust the process and trust what we’re doing. And kind of what makes us unique is that so many marketing companies or even dental agencies, they outsource it to marketing companies now where we ourselves are the marketing company with a dentist involved. So what we do is we don’t only just do, okay, here’s the ads, here’s the data, here’s the leads, you do it yourself. We do the whole process for you. So we start off with running the ads and we get the right people to help us within the practice. So we need a treatment coordinator, we need a practice manager and we need the treating dentist. What the TKO will do is we’ll provide the leads. Now, whether you have a TKO or not TKO job is to convert and get a deposit from that lead. So let’s say we expect about a 760 to 70% conversion rate. If you don’t have a TKO, you use X TKO and we do it for you, obviously for an increased fee.

[00:37:49] Once we’ve done that and we manage the list, what we do is we make the day special because nowadays Invisalign is almost we call it Invisalign, it’s not even a clear aligner treatment, but patients know it as Invisalign and they’re shopping around, you know, they’re looking at about five or six practices. You’ve got to make yourself special, so you’ve got to wow them on the day. You’ve got to give them the best treatment plan that’s suited to their needs. So you’ve got to really listen to them. And what a lot of mistakes that I believe practices make is that they think the clearer line of treatment is the only treatment that should be given to that patient. That patient will have pre orthodontic restorative treatment, orthodontic orthodontic treatment and post orthodontic restorative treatment. So you’re looking at don’t think of it as only, I don’t know a23k treatment plan and spending increases heavily because a lot of things when that patient comes in they’re looking for the whole works. Once the physio has got everyone in, we send videos beforehand to patients getting them excited for the open day. You know, it’s a celebration when they come in on the day.

[00:38:56] The practice manager with us organised little gifts, decorations, all sorts to kind of make the day special. And then on the day itself, you’ve got a while, you’ve got to give them experience that they’ve never had a dental practice before. So you’ve got to be digitally scanning, you’ve got to talk them through what no one would have mentioned, to talk them through their occlusion as we talked about that pre treatment, that post treatment, tell them why certain options are more suitable to them than other options. Really why them on the day and then what after the day is all about the aftercare as well, because some of them might not necessarily sign up on the day. So you want to be able to do follow up messages from from your team. And then when you get them in, you start it off. Once you’ve done that, that patient base will then refer. So you may need this initial marketing, this adds, but then when they start referring, you may not even need it then, or you may want to do both. And that’s how you grow exponentially, in my opinion, right now, while Invisalign is a gateway to. Treatment.

[00:39:59] So break it down. Break down some numbers for me. You mentioned the 67% conversion. Is that from from lead to appointment someone is going to turn up, is that what you mean?

[00:40:08] Yeah. So I would say leads to appointment. I would say it’s about 60%. Yeah. That’s deposit included. And then from that I would say at least half will convert. So let’s just give you an example. One open day 12 patients, the Invisalign average price is three K, take the label off, let’s say average price is one K, that’s 24 K for one day organised. Now a majority of the time you double or triple that because they’re going to need other things. And then if you, if you can get them on a plan scheme like a Dem plan or a practice plan afterwards and then locked into the practice, that’s also going to boost. So I think from one day you could easily get £50,000 from an open day eventually.

[00:40:53] Yeah. Let’s go into nuances of it. Right. So how important is the offer? Do you talk about the offer from from the ad stage? Is price a key point or do you does it depend on the particular practice? And you sort of have to think about this practice going for quality, that practice going for price or what?

[00:41:13] Yeah, you have to adapt it for every practice. Now the same is pretty much everyone does the same offer. You know, everyone’s I have pre widening pre retainers. What makes you different is kind of researching the local area, what the patients want. And I learned this from my smile’s quicker, better, cheaper. That’s what they want. That’s all the patient wants for Invisalign especially. But if you want to go for kind of quality, then what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to show that quality. So your practice should have a lot of high tech equipment, should be quite luxurious. Then people buy into that. But if your practice maybe doesn’t look like that or doesn’t give that feel and you put your price as high, then it’s going to be very difficult to kind of pull off. So it’s about going with the practice environment and the local environment will set the price.

[00:41:59] What about things like copy? Is that important? Like how are their key sort of statements use? Did you know types that would let me know? What kind of things do you say?

[00:42:10] The words are very important. The words are very important because that’s the first thing they’re going to see. But what all of these are with you, I mean, all the patient wants is that they’re getting a good deal. Everyone loves a good deal, even though technically you are probably because at the end of the day, you’re probably going to give retainers, you’re probably going to give the whitening included in the package. You will probably going to do the scan for free. But if you can show the patients that actually this is what we’re doing, then they’ll also think, Oh, I’m getting a good deal here. So if you package it up, well then patients really appreciate that. If you’re just going, okay, we do Invisalign, then there’s absolutely zero incentive. And you’ve also got to add you’ve got to add a reason why in your ad you have to have a reason why. So we’re celebrating our one year anniversary or we’re celebrating the refurbishment. Then patients can get feel like they’re getting involved within that celebration that are they’re doing it for this reason. It may not happen again.

[00:43:03] Yeah. Okay. What about the actual the the the picture or video of the ad? Have you found one? Some things work better than others.

[00:43:12] Yeah. Without giving too many golden nuggets away, what I would say is having a picture of a patient with a treating dentist really helps. Having a picture of the practice and having the picture of the practice with nearby common things. So I don’t know if there’s a really statement shop next door, put that in or saying, Oh, we’re right next to X, Y and Z, that that really helps. That really gets a lot of engagement.

[00:43:40] So you don’t you definitely don’t recommend like a stock photo of something.

[00:43:45] That’s not really definitely not. Absolutely not. It never works anywhere near as well. I mean, let’s say I don’t know you’re going to go for, I don’t know, some skin treatment. Right. And when you’re looking and you know what treatment you want and you’re looking at these different ads, if you’re looking at a stock photo that gives me nothing now, I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t I don’t trust this thing. But I’m looking at a patient that’s happy with the treating clinician. I know that I’m going to be in that position. With that treating clinician. It’s not almost bills. That element of rapport and trust before you’ve even started.

[00:44:21] It’s interesting, man, because I don’t know. I haven’t been a dentist now for ten, 12 years or something. Yeah, but I remember back then I definitely wasn’t looking for okay, for want of a better word, bargain hunters, you know.

[00:44:38] So it’s changed. Yeah, well, I didn’t.

[00:44:42] I wasn’t interested in having bargain hunters as my patient. Now, maybe. Maybe I was wrong to do that. Right. But there is I think the space there is space for for, you know, of course, no one wants to feel like they’re being done over. Right. But the space for the creative. Having something other than you’re going to get a great deal. Of course you’re right. Beautiful practices and all of that. But I remember perhaps I did one. It was like it was like it was like cheap invisalign. You were in the wrong place. Was the was in the ad. Yeah. And and that’s that’s what that’s what they were pushing that that particular practice was saying with the most expensive Invisalign in town. Yeah. And, and you know that was their angle. It’s an interesting way that the market’s turning though, and I think recession coming on as well is going to affect all this. Have you thought about this question? Recession?

[00:45:37] Yeah, I. I’ve thought about it a lot. I think there’s been an Invisalign boom ever since COVID. You know, people over Zoom, they’re looking at their teeth. And I believe that Invisalign has gone from a high value treatment or clear aligners going from a high value treatment to a or most people are shopping around for it. So I think five, six years ago it would be quite a high value. You know, only few people would get it within the local community, but now it’s become very mainstream and that’s why the price has come down as well, because, you know, simple economics, even though the demand is high, but a lot of people provide Invisalign now, so there’s a huge supply of it. That’s why I believe the price has come down in terms of what’s going to happen with the recession that’s going to that’s going to have a very soon, I believe that people will still spend money on their teeth. There will be a bit more careful where they go. I think word of mouth is going to be it’s always going to be a big trigger, but ads will work less. But that’s where dentistry will always be needed. So that’s where SEO and other things are going to be really important for practices. You know, they’re going to be Googling with emergencies and we do emergency ads, for example. So it’s about adapting to the way the time is. So if during a recession, for whatever reason, the clear line of treatment just starts to decline, something else will start to come up in its place. Everything before clearing line as it was been, is that it’s clear. Line is something else will come in its place. It’s about jumping on the trend before it becomes a trend.

[00:47:10] Yeah, I think dentistry generally does quite okay during a recession and you know, I’ve been through a few recessions, so I can tell you it’s not the end of the world. It certainly feels like the end of the world for a little bit there. But I think one thing to sort of be wary of and not only for what you’re doing, but there’s going to be a bunch of dentists who, you know, credit is a big part of their sort of, you know, I don’t know. You must have the numbers on this, right? There must be some practices where way more than half their income comes from credit. And if credit dries up, what happens next? And we went through this enlightened for a while when we were having dentists were buying Enlightened on credit. And I remember thinking, what if credit dries up? Well, how is this going to work? And at one point at one point, we actually implemented it ourselves, right? We said, okay, we’re going to have this group of people we’re not going to even offer credit to, and we’re going to have them do a part payment type thing themselves without a third party. And then it happened. It happened credit. We couldn’t get credit to buy it anymore. And thank goodness we’d put that in place, you know, that it was it’s a worry. The market, I think, you know, people talk about, oh, yeah, implants won’t be affected, composite will or it’s impossible to know for sure what’s going to be affected. Yeah, although you’re a bit too young to have lived through the 2008. Well, you know, as being in business during the 2008 recession, it is shocking when it actually happens. Right now we’re in this sort of we’re sort of summer holiday feeling. You know, everyone’s enjoying the last few last few of us. But but when it happens and it’ll be over something totally like they’ll say, oh, yeah, some, some some students in America can’t repay their student loans anymore. And that’s the whole global system collapsed.

[00:49:00] Yes, I can see that happening.

[00:49:02] You know, you wouldn’t be surprised that it doesn’t matter what they tell you. Yeah, they’ll tell you. There’s been a war. The Chinese attacked Taiwan. That’s why the whole global economy, any of these stories will be plausible, right? Because we all know it’s kind of a house of cards anyway. We’re all waiting for it to fall down.

[00:49:19] It’s going to fall. And it’s about kind of maybe putting measures in place to to help that fall not affect you as much. So I think my advice to practices and one thing that we really implemented is if you’re getting patients who are new patients, get them onto a capitation scheme. And that’s what really helped people private practices, especially during the lockdown period within COVID. So get them onto a plan scheme, get them onto a practice plan scheme. I believe that’s going to be the key over the next few months. If you’ve got a good amount of income coming from that, I think you’ll be safe and stable.

[00:49:52] So poor you didn’t really have much NHS experience at all, did you?

[00:49:57] I had about I. I did part time. Nhs and I also look on the NHS. For me, my, my biggest issue was like I was learning from Nic and Sanjay Sethi and you know, take your time with everything, make sure you follow all the steps correctly. There’s absolutely no shortcuts that can be taken from you. The NHS is that you see 30, 40 patients a day and I couldn’t give that time and that quality that I wanted to give to those patients. And that became very frustrating and very dissatisfying to me. So almost not wanting me to I didn’t want to do that type of dentistry. It wasn’t making me happy at all. I felt a bit lost when I was doing that. So for me it was a no brainer to try and do everything I could to make the switch and do the type of dentistry that I know I enjoy. I’d rather see six, seven, ten patients in one day spend a little bit more time with them, get to know them. Because in NHS, I mean it’s a wonderful system, but time is not on your.

[00:50:54] Side, but it’s not a wonderful system. I mean, let’s listen.

[00:50:58] Let’s be very politically correct.

[00:51:00] Let’s not try to sugarcoat. Here is not one. I feel I feel the same as you. Yeah, I felt the same as you. I got out of the NHS as quick as I could. I didn’t want to be an NHS dentist. I didn’t. I didn’t want to be that. I didn’t want that career at all. But but what’s your advice?

[00:51:18] Do you know what the Payman what’s interesting is that I know dentists that are fantastic at doing that, you know, they love seeing, you know, 30 patients a day and they can they can do it very well. And that’s what kind of makes them happy. So I think to any dentists, you just got to ask yourself, how do you like to work? What do you want to gain out of your career? And that will answer which side to go on for you. But I think more and more as time is going on, people are definitely heading towards more private than NHS.

[00:51:47] So what’s your advice? I mean if if I’m on the wrong side of that equation right now, if you’re a young NHS associate and I agree with you and I want to go more private, but I’m not an expert on Invisalign, I’m not an expert on Invisalign open days. It scares me when someone says they want to be. I have heard that someone say to me, Look, when someone says they want to be a private patient, I’m too scared to treat them. What’s your advice? What’s your general advice? Go on. Cause it’s gone. What else?

[00:52:20] Yeah. So the best advice I can give is you just got to take the plunge. That first private patient that you’re scared of will be very scary. I remember my first private patient like it was yesterday. It was a very scary experience. I made a denture for them. It was okay. But, you know, it’s just about you will grow into the role the more you do it. If you don’t take that plunge, then you’ll never be ready for that step. So I know some people that are, for example, 36, 37 and they still say those things where, you know, I don’t think I’m ready yet or, you know, I’m not sure whether I can take that first step. So I don’t think age is of a concern. If you feel like you’ve got a base good clinical knowledge going, that’s what I mean by go on the courses, get a mentor then and you’re afraid to take that step. It just means that sometimes you’re heading in the right direction to just take it and see what happens.

[00:53:13] Yeah. And also bear in mind that you weren’t trained to be an NHS dentist. You were trained to be a dentist. You know, that’s to me, sometimes it makes sense to go back to our training, doesn’t it? I tell you, would train to be a dentist. It happens that you’re working in this system now, and so much of it is about the soft skills in private. Did you.

[00:53:35] Communication?

[00:53:36] Did you actively go out and learn communication or were you always naturally good at it? I suppose it’s an actor type.

[00:53:43] Yeah. So I believe I was good at communication. I probably not in dental terms, so definitely one on courses for that actually latter for one Ali from the small dental academy as well was a big help. And what they make you understand is that, you know, people can be categorised into different personalities into the way the way they think as well and the way they process information is different. So if you can get on their wavelength, then you can almost build better rapport and better trust with that patient and therefore have better communication with them. Because I always say, you know, no one’s ever going to sue someone that they like so you can get the patient on board and comfortable, then you should be okay from there in terms of communication.

[00:54:27] How much does it weigh on you that a patient might sue you? Because I know the younger generation very, very anxious about this these days.

[00:54:38] It’s a great question. I think the fear of that litigation is probably the biggest worry that young or newly graduated even that I think I think overall throughout the profession, actually, it’s probably the biggest fear. Fear of litigation. But the way I think about it is if you have good intentions for that case, that patient, then it doesn’t matter what happens with the outcome. You still had a good intention about it. What I mean by that is let’s say there’s a tooth and, you know, carries very, very close to the nerve. You’ve explained to the patient that it might be a root canal, money taking out. There’s a risk of this. You’ve explained all the risks. And but what I want to do is I want to try and see if I can do this without heading into a root canal. That, to me is a good intention, because if you can do that, then you’re elongating the longevity of that, too. So and if, for example, you do that and three weeks later the patient comes back, severe pain, you know, it’s your fault, then it wouldn’t matter to me what happens from there. So if the patient decides to sue me or whatever, I know I’ve good intention that I was trying to do my best for that patient so I can hold my head up high. That’s the way I think of it, and that’s the way I try to do all my dentistry.

[00:55:51] It’s a really good way of looking at it. But have you ever had a complaint like a legal complaint?

[00:55:57] Touchwood So far I haven’t. But I also think that comes down to if someone’s not happy to deal with it straight away. I think a lot of the reason why people are unhappy is because they’ve not got what they expected to get. So what I would say in that regard is try and set expectations straight away. And worst case scenario, if that’s not the case and they’re still kicking off, they’ll want something. You know, they they want something for what’s happen. Just really understand what they want. If you leave it or you let it fester, or if you go try and go to formal, even then, I think that’s when patients get annoyed and they want to take it further. Don’t anger the patient even more. Just really listen to what they’re saying. Don’t ignore it. Don’t think I did the right thing. You know, I was all like the patients making this up in the head. You know, it might not even be your fault, but just listen to what the patient’s saying and really adhere to that. All patients want to know is that they’ve been listened to and that they’ve got some sort of good outcome from it and touchwood hopefully nothing can escalate from there, but it is. At least you tried your best.

[00:57:05] Yes. Good way of looking at me. What tends to happen is if something does happen, people take it quite personally and and you mustn’t do that that that is the error, taking it personally. And it’s difficult, too, because we’re always, like you said, your intentions are good. You’re trying your best for people. Often the people who do end up causing these problems for you, the ones you tried the hardest for, and weirdly so.

[00:57:30] It does.

[00:57:33] Questioning everything.

[00:57:35] Yeah, yeah.

[00:57:37] Tell me about stuff on this journey where you’re, you know, your staff must be watching you grow this business. Huge. So do you incentivise them today? How do they feel like they’re coming along on that journey with you? Did you manage career progression already in this short time for your staff?

[00:57:57] Yeah. So what we so we basically when I first took over we had a it was the Fiona principal, lead nurse and receptionist. Yeah. Now we have 11 staff members and everyone is on the right seat on the bus if that makes sense. So the bus flows well, drives well because everyone where utilising their major skill sets into that position. So we create a new position such as new patient coordinator, slash receptionist. So what I need for someone for that is someone that’s very good at sales, you know, knows their dental treatment inside and out. And then we have a patient care coordinator who’s very empathetic, you know, willing to offer that sort of 24/7 service. So I think putting people in their best positions allows them to feel a little bit more comfortable and allows them to grow even more. What’s good is I’m always explaining the vision, so we’re taking over a second practice, five surgery, one, which should happen at the end of this year, and we’re getting them involved in that. I’m saying, look, we’ve been through all of this development. What I want you to do, if you can, is let’s train up the next practice. You know, I want you to be involved in that.

[00:59:08] Don’t. What my philosophy was is that we’re always going to grow together and that, you know, it’s a we it’s never a this is me, this is I, it’s we’re all growing together. And I think that’s what’s really helped build this kind of good morale. We don’t have any drama. Well, very little drama. And everyone just gets on well. And also parties. Parties is key. And I said we we hit 55 Google reviews. Let’s celebrate. Let’s go for a dinner. Let’s do Christmas party. If we hit X amount of target, then we will do this. So that also incentivises them. And I also have bonuses for new patient conversion for my NPC, those little things, it depends what kind of drives that certain staff member. So if a staff member is driven by monetary value, then give them a monetary bonus body. But if a staff member is driven by, you know, other things like reaction or they want a tree or they want maybe an extra day off, sometimes I do that. If we’ve done really well, you can have an extra day. And if they appreciate that more than that. So they’ll be giving you work hard, you get the reward.

[01:00:14] All of this seems to come very naturally to you, but. You know, you seem to have a wise head on your young shoulders. Do you have a lot of business in the in the family? You know, you’ve seen examples or what has this happen?

[01:00:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do. There’s a lot a lot of my family, especially my dad, you know, he’s owned a textiles company. So there’s a you know, a lot of my family are kind of within the business sector. So my dad owns a business sister, sister and brother and a lot of cousins, I think as well. In terms of business, I’d say Gin and cash really, really helped me in order to how to grow and what to build as a team. They taught me a lot, especially when it comes to financial accounting, what works, what doesn’t work. So it’s just about not being afraid to ask those people that have done it.

[01:01:03] Turkish helped you with the finance side.

[01:01:06] Yeah, definitely help me with the finance side. Call me up sometimes in the middle of the night, you know, and we’d have a chat about it. And we’re just talk through some practice accounts and watch out for this. You know, this has happened to us before. What’s up with this? It’s invaluable and you gain nothing from that. So he did that because we’re good friends now.

[01:01:25] So yeah, but both those guys are particularly cash. You know, you can if you don’t know them, you can think they are. They’re just like sort of fun party people and like, you know, like going out. But when you meet them, you realise that there’s a lot more to them than that.

[01:01:42] They have a wonderful balance.

[01:01:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s your plan for the group? I mean, for a group is to practice, but. But what would you like? What would be your sort of ideal situation five years time?

[01:01:57] Yeah, for me, I want to be able to be in a position where I think way my group is, it’s a little bit reliant on myself. So I think the veto group will only ever be two or three or three or four practices. What I’m looking for is now like JV as well. So I think joint venture partnerships is going to be the the next stage within that’s already happening actually. You’ve got models like you mentioned before, Deb’s model. So I think the JVP and other models where, you know, it can function by itself without me being there, but it has my stamp on it. I think that’ll allow me to keep the balance right without growing too much with something that’s too reliant on myself.

[01:02:40] Yeah. So, so then of the things that you do, you’re doing a bunch of clinical stuff, you’re doing a bunch of teaching, a bunch of marketing. I don’t know if you’re dancing anymore which, which, which is a bit, that’s really got your passion. Which, which bit really, you know, what really turns you on.

[01:03:01] And that’s what really turns me on. It’s a great question. I think it already does. But what really does is the Academy. So being part of the small dental academy, can you watch these dentists that come in at the start and you watch how they grow? And what’s nice is they will talk about the issues that they’re having and then they realise that actually, you know, you’re not the only person having these issues. Pretty much 90% of the dentists, they’re having some sort of similar issues. So to be able to kind of talk to them and even I learned so much from other dentists just being there as well. So I think that’s what really gets me going and it also allows me to grow a lot. So not only are they growing, but I’m also growing. So I think the clinical side is fantastic and I love seeing patients and I love being able to perform treatments that are life changing. But seeing how a dentist grows is also very, very satisfying.

[01:03:59] Something you said in passing before you said, Yeah, I met Nick Sethi at this conference and then a few months later he called me up and said, Do I want a job? Yeah. What happened in between those two?

[01:04:11] That’s what happened was I wish I was so busy. He was running a course, a composite course, and we hit it off. And I was just telling him, you know, I’m in this struggle when I was in the composite, a sensitivity graduate. Do you know what? Come down on the course and we’ll sort out because you’re an M.D. and, you know, come, come learn. So we did that and I had a great time. I learned so much, an incredible amount. And I said, here’s my number. If you have any cases that you’re not sure about, just WhatsApp me and I’m happy to help you at any point. And so, so I sent him a few cases, obviously a patient permission and it gave me some good advice. And I was also sending him my work where he would then critique it. Sometimes I thought maybe a bit unfair. I think it was very good, constructive criticism. Very, very good, constructive. I allowed me to go, but there came a point where there was a position available and luckily I was the first person that I thought of. And even though it was all the way in London and I work there, so I work in London Thursday and Friday and. In these Monday to Wednesday. I’ve been doing that for about two years now. Go down, up and down. I just thought, you know, taking the phrase, you move for the right job a bit too literally. But it was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse.

[01:05:31] So what’s your arrangements? You stay one night in London.

[01:05:34] So I stay two nights in London Wednesday and Thursday night just at a hotel nearby. And then I come back on the Friday or there’s sometimes something going on on the Friday night, Saturday within in London in terms of the academies, etc.. And I just try and help out as much as I can.

[01:05:50] That’s a busy life, right, with your own practice as well.

[01:05:54] It’s a very busy.

[01:05:55] Busy, busy life going up and down the country every single week. But, you know, you’re right. You’re right. You’re right about the opportunity to work with those guys because, you know, that’s not that’s not something that’s going to come around very often with either of those guys, whether we’re talking gin and cash or with the settees, how do you omit, you know, him from the from the practice?

[01:06:16] I know. I know. I’m a three square man. So he works. He’s he’s one of the owners at Partners of Square Mile as well so as me next and Alain and recently and and then recently joined them and Keith.

[01:06:30] All right, man. Let’s let’s let’s let’s wrap it up. You said you were a listener to the podcast, so you should know these last two questions. I’ll start with mine. Perhaps on holiday, I’ll start with mine. Fancy dinner party. Cool. Three guests. Dead or alive. You going to pick?

[01:06:52] Great question. Well, I’m a big football fan, a big Liverpool fan. So I’ve got to say Steven Gerrard is the first one. Got to say it.

[01:06:59] Not least.

[01:07:00] Second. Now, I’m not at Leeds. I’m a big Liverpool fan. Actually, I should. Sometimes I pretend to be at least fan in clinic, but now in terms of maybe this passed away, Mahatma Gandhi would be very interesting to listen to and his values. A third one, this one I’ve been thinking about a lot. I would say someone that was really, well, highly respected within dentistry and recently passed a new money. I would love to work into it because he definitely created a legacy.

[01:07:33] Yeah, certainly did. Had a lot. Had you never met him?

[01:07:40] I never met him, no. I never had the pleasure. But I heard really, really great things about him.

[01:07:45] So not a good guy. And perhaps final question. It’s a bit weird. Deathbed someone. What are you, 28 on your deathbed. Nearest and dearest. Around you. Three pieces of advice. For them, for the world.

[01:08:08] The first one would be life as a balance. So try to not prioritise even even your career or anything. Just make sure you’re really enjoying each moment. If you try and prioritise a goal in on one thing, you’ll find that you may lack it a lot later. So it always try and find a balance. You know, take that holiday, take those time off work patient. Your patients will still be there, so don’t worry about that. Secondly, I would say is just really cherish those highlight moments that you have, especially within dentistry. You know, capture that reaction or video of where, you know, you change someone’s life or capture those moments that you’re having a highlight within dentistry. And then the final one is, yeah, just work hard, play hard. So again, just don’t forget to, to enjoy a life in the process.

[01:09:04] I feel like that’s only two and a half. I think the.

[01:09:10] Last piece of advice I would give is, okay, I’ve got one. Never do something that you wouldn’t do for yourself. So if you’re looking at other dancers or you if you’re looking at patient care and you think, Oh, okay, I’ve recently gone on a course, let’s do this, let’s do this for this patient. But you don’t feel like you would have that treatment yourself. Then don’t do it because you will always morally, consciously not feel right about it.

[01:09:40] That’s a very good one. That’s a very good one. Brilliant man. Lovely to have had you on. And super impressive. Super impressive. If someone wants to get in touch with you, I guess it’s on the usual channels. Paul Miller and it’s expert media tech if they’re interested in in the marketing.

[01:10:01] Yeah, yeah, definitely. Either they can message Dr. Paul Miller, video group expert, media tech. And I’m happy to answer any questions that you may have.

[01:10:12] Amazing, buddy. Thanks a lot for doing this.

[01:10:14] Pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[01:10:18] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

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