But it is a communication tool largely. But I think what is a big deal about it as well is when you sell like patient to mock up is the fact that you can import the DSD mock-up into Invisalign because they’ve got a partnership. So you can actually then move the teeth to the position you sold the patient to.

So it’s that.

You? Yeah, that is the actual biggest thing about it because you can otherwise patient can try on the teeth. But how are you going to move to that position exactly. If you can’t import it into Invisalign.

Now now I can now I can.

Say.

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 selling cake.

Hey, guys, This is our first recording of 2023, and we’ve had a little technical flaw after 100 plus episodes of Dental Leaders and for some reason the recording switched off just on Payman partway through the podcast. But Dora’s still answered the questions, so as pay would say, super duper. Unless Carry on, you’ve lost 15 golden moments of pay. We’ve lost 15 golden minutes of pay. And those were his best 50 minutes of 2023. Let’s go. Let’s carry on. It gives me great pleasure to welcome everyone to the New Year at Dental Leaders. Well, this was probably going to go out six weeks time, so it probably won’t be as as as as current as I thought it would be. But the lovely bit of it is we’ve got Prav on the podcast together. We’ve done several on our own path we have, but together for the first time in a while. How you doing, buddy? I’m good, buddy. I’m good. And just so everyone knows, it’s the 2nd of January today, right? It’s the day before we go back. I’m doing well. I guess the reason why we’ve been doing podcasts separately with various guests is just the hour. You’re an efficiency freak, but that’s buddy. That’s efficiency. Let’s not let’s not sugarcoat. You’re an efficiency freak. That’s what you are. And pays the kind of guy who’s available anytime, any day, any place. Right. So I’ll tell you that story. I could be seeing a client in London at 3:00 next Wednesday and pay won’t even know I’m in London. And I’ll say, Hey, buddy, I’ve just finished with a client.

You free for lunch? And the answer will be sure. Sure. Yeah, let’s do it. And it doesn’t matter what day of the week is, I wouldn’t have, unfortunately. I just wouldn’t be able to do that for you. You should know, not everybody gets that service for me either. And so and so I guess I’ve just been busy and so I’ve squeezed in some guests myself. Pay You’ve been doing your own thing and here we are back again. And it’s an interesting time of the year, you know, Christmas, New Year, that sort of thing is the time I really get to switch off. I mean, truly switch off. We get summer holidays, go away with the family, all the rest. But this time, I don’t know what it is about this time. Right. Is that first of all, all of my team are off and I actually forced them to take time off between Christmas and New Year’s. We don’t operate during that time. We don’t come back. I think it’s great for them to switch off as well. So that that’s a must. Although one or two of my team members will still put a stint in in between Christmas and New Year just because that’s the way they’re hardwired. But for me, it’s that time to switch off and then it takes me a bit of time to get back into the groove. Buddy. You know, I’ve done I’ve done half a day in between Christmas and New Year, I think was a couple of days ago.

I did a couple of hours this morning just sort of pruning my inbox, and then tomorrow would be my first day. But that first day will be an easy day. You know, I’ll ease myself in. I’ll have one or two client calls and then ramp things up during the week. It takes me a bit of time to get stuck in. I don’t know what you guys daura pay what it’s like for you between Christmas and New Year and what that time of year means to you from a work perspective and switching off. Well, for me it’s, it’s, it’s normally I’m away. Usually I’m in Beirut for Christmas and this year I haven’t been and last year actually. And it’s really lovely not going away you know because when you go away, I mean it’s a different thing going to the Maldives or something. I would do that. You know, Father Christmas on the beach sounds like amazing, like an amazing idea. But when you go away to the same place and to our in-laws and, you know, up to Christmas, the dental calendar seems to speed up. Now, these days, I’m going to a lot of events and then to then straight away, pack your bags and get on a plane. Busy airport, customs Beirut or, you know, it just seemed like a lot of hard work. Whereas this now I kind of get that slow down feeling and I’ve been able to catch up with some of my school buddies and and, you know, just do the usual thing people do Christmas.

But when you say I’ve done a bit off work. Prav Yeah, like I spent the four nights ago between sort of midnight and 4 a.m. only thinking about Enlightened. But I was thinking I now I see that as work. Yeah. Because so when I say I truly switch off buddy. Yeah, it is literally so. So So you said you go away during Christmas, right? I do the same. Right. So the kids. To Lapland and thought I’d get that in. Whilst they still believe Santa exists and sorry for our younger members of the audience who still believe that sorry, Depeche Mode. He doesn’t miss it, but I’ll go away on holidays. Summertime, right. I’ll still be thinking about Christmas New Year. I don’t know what it is about that time. It’s the only time of year where I totally don’t think about work. It’s actually healthy because that’s when you come up with the best ideas, when you stop thinking about it. But for me, I wasn’t thinking about it, except I did three nights ago, you know what I mean? And then the crazy thing that the one thing I do, it’s like my annual clean up, right? I go to my downloads folder on my Mac. Yeah, Yeah. And I delete everything that shouldn’t be there. I clean my Mac up, I purge my files, I go through this. It’s almost like a spring clean on my computer and my files and stuff. It’s like a ritual I do. And that’s what I’ve been doing today, right? But then I find stuff that little projects like Think I forgot about that forgot about this little idea here or there or whatever.

Right? And I start organising things and start planning and stuff. And the one thing that’s going to change this year is I’m going to tell my team this first week back, it’s all about getting organised, It’s not about doing, it’s about getting organised. And then after that we go go full steam ahead. My, my, my moment of clarity was your big tip that I, we’ve listened to phone calls and enlightened before, but, but I happened to hear again some bit of a podcast that came. You know what happens? I could, I could sleep with a head with a headphone in my ear and sometimes wake up to the voice of Prav talking about listening to phone calls. Beautiful, beautiful. And and the point about once or twice isn’t enough, you know. And so my my sort of New Year resolution at Enlightened is once a month we’re going to listen to phone calls together with the sales team. And you know, just on that one, Dora is a new practice owner. Right. And if I could give her one piece of advice for the growth of her practice and ongoing consistency in Dora, we’ve we’ve you know, we’re engaged to introduce door to door at places. Great pleasure to introduce Dora Lengyel to the podcast. So there is a new practice. So know she’s worked with Prav and with me a little bit as well. But lovely to have you, Dora.

Thank you. Well.

Dora, welcome to the podcast. I said to my daughter today because now it’s back to work, right? So my youngest daughter, who’s who’s I guess I’m her favourite and she’s, she’s my favourite of the favourite flavour at the moment of child because she’s because she’s always in love with me, right. And always like Daddy, daddy that right. But she goes what are you, what are you doing today Then I said, Oh, I’m interviewing Dora. And straight away she said, Dora the Explorer. I’m sure you’ve heard. I’m sure you’ve heard it.

Dora the Explorer.

Too.

I know.

It’s lame. Excuse it. With the kids, the kid, patience.

Yet one of the parents said once and I was like, I’m so using that. Yeah. So I’m from Hungary and talking about Christmas. I go home to Hungary every single year, take at least one week off, and I’ve done that this year as well. It’s the only time I see my family all together, so it’s very important time for me. So where I’m from in Hungary, I was I was brought up in Budapest, but my family’s all over the place, so my uncle and aunt, they live in Germany, my parents live in Kuwait, and my sister lives in a states and I live in England. So it’s the time when everybody meets. So it’s really important time to see the family.

You all go back to Hungary, everyone congregates back.

There except my sister couldn’t because it’s something to do with Visa and also because in America they only have two weeks holiday and it’s just really tight.

So do you switch off between Christmas and New Year, especially being a fresh new practice owner? You know, it’s not quite a squat. We know that, Dora, But but but you can tell us more about that later. But as someone who is in their first year of practice ownership, what was that like between Christmas and New Year for you?

Oh, well, to be honest, I did switch off because because I normally don’t, even though I’ve been to a business growth course and you said like, take time away, but I don’t normally switch off. So I did this time because I was like, I need to switch off sometimes. So I did get to focus on my mom, mainly good at my grandma.

But the change Dora from being. Associate to being a principal. What surprised you the most?

That things just keep coming at you. That you had no idea that. I don’t know. I never even expected that. Being a practising lawyer, is this stressful? Like, do you want to hear the story? Basically, like on my first day, the x ray machine stopped working. My brand new scanner stopped working the week before. You know, like a few weeks ago when it was like, minus six, my boiler broke. Like, just keep things keep on, like, coming at me, and it’s just never ending. So it’s a lot more than dentistry. I thought it would be dentistry, but it’s just all these other things that you don’t expect. And being a practice owner is so much more than dentistry. I had this kind of idea that, like, if I have my own practice, I can do like, my own sort of dentistry. It’s kind of true, but it’s also the fact that, you know, if you’re in the surgery working all these other things going on that you need to focus on.

But I know when principals say that and you hear principals saying that all the time, did you not believe them?

Well, it’s more like it was a well-oiled machine. You know, by the time I was in any practice, it was a well-oiled machine. But when it’s not kind of a well-oiled machine yet and you already have to be in a practice and you have to build your line. Right? Exactly. The building of the machine is the hardest.

We often ask practice owners, especially those who’ve been been in the game for many years, If you could speak to your younger self and give yourself some advice or do it again, what would you do? I guess if you could rewind the clock even six months or just before you bought in and look at what’s happened now? What would have you done differently?

Maybe look at the due diligence more because I’m quite an emotional buyer and it’s a bit like I’ve just been on a course. What maybe we can talk about that the DSD course as well, which is all about emotional dentistry and people buy big things emotionally. I kind of bought the practice like that and you know, not not what was it?

Was it about it that you fell in love with? Was it the building?

Well, there’s a lot of things. It’s close to my house. It’s small enough. It was already doing the sort of dentistry that I wanted, the building that every time I was there, I just loved being there. I just just had this vibe about it and I was just like, Yeah, whatever. I want to practice, and that’s it.

And so what would the surprise is when you say due diligence, what was going through? Give me the top three surprises that you absolutely weren’t expecting. Due diligence wise.

Well, I mean, maybe how up to date the books were because like, there were active patients on there who haven’t been for like four years or three years or, you know, that’s not really active patients and, you know, like not looking into the fact that, you know, oh, yeah, the fire the fire risk assessment is in and it’s not expired or anything, but actually it’s all read and nobody done anything about it, you know, things like that. But you know, you don’t.

Or if you knew all of that, Yeah, the number of expired patients or the number of active patients X, Y and Z, what do you think would have happened? Do you think you’d have still gone ahead and bought the practice? Do you think you’d have been able to negotiate harder on the buying price? What would you have not bought it at all?

And I guess I would have negotiated on the price a bit more. I still would have bought it.

But it’s not. It’s definitely not worth losing any sleep over because because in the long term, when you look at where you’re going to be in five, seven, ten years time. Right. Having paid whatever it is more right, it will pale into insignificance. And I promise you that many of my clients who are who I speak to today or who have bought Grown and then sold it the other side, what they paid at the beginning, whether it was ten, 15, 2000 K more or even more than that, right. It becomes irrelevant. It really does. It’s not worth. It’s definitely not worth beating yourself up about, that’s for sure. So you definitely made the right decision, that’s for sure. Right. Because you would have done it anyway.

Well, so far, I think so. Good.

You weren’t there at all. Had you worked there at all before you bought it?

No.

So when you got there on day one, did you make a speech to the team like what you liked about the direction of travel? About what or not?

I actually made a little speech to the team before that. We went out for dinner in advance.

Before you bought it?

Yeah. And I. We kind of talked about the core values. And to be honest, I was kind of involved in the interview process, and I kind of set out like, this is what I want my practice to be. It’s not there. You know, you guys know this is going to be a journey. And I only want you on if you are happy to go on this journey with me. And it’s going to be hard work.

What did you say? What core values? What was missing? What did you.

Say? So I feel like in in health care, generally, dentistry included, we became a bit like, you can’t get hold of a GP. You might be able to get like an appointment on the phone like in six weeks time and dentistry the same, like in and out. You can’t get an appointment. And people, I feel just really hungry for someone to really care about them. And maybe I’m thinking about it still quite naively, but I just really wanted to kind of do more patient centred care and not just like Tesco checkout sort of dentistry. I just didn’t want to be involved with that.

So were you thinking more Marks and Spencers or were you thinking more like Selfridges or were you thinking more like Harrods or Fortnum Mason or Lidl? Or were you thinking.

Probably Marks Marks and Spencers? Yeah.

Because that’s an important point. You know, the positioning of your product, right? You know, I’d say perhaps product is marketing product that’s at the higher end. It’s more I’d say it’s higher, higher up than in Marks and Spencers. We do more than madagascan vanilla in our. I know. Yeah. And same with Enlightened. I’d say enlightened is of the higher end although although there comes a thing happens in in any business year where you start off with a sort of an early adopter and then the mass market comes in after that, but you position it when you say Marks and Spencers, I guess you’re not talking about sort of the teeth are you, You’re talking about the service element.

Yeah. Give the people the time they deserve and really listen to them. I listen to a kind of web thing that Christian Coachman did with the line and that was quite kind of life changing in my head, like comprehensive dentistry and things to look. And I just felt like I want to be part of I want to be part of something bigger than myself, if that makes sense. I know it sounds a.

Bit going life changing.

Go on well in life changing in the fact that I wanted to have my own practice, whereas beforehand I never did or I didn’t think I did. Although when I said it to the treatment coordinator I’ve been working with last couple of years, I said, Oh, by the way, I’m going to leave. I’m going to have my own practice. And she said, Oh, well, it’s time now. I knew this was going to happen. I was like, Really? I didn’t. She’s like, No, I could tell that’s where you’re going because I’ve got so many associates here. I knew that was going to happen, whereas I didn’t realise that until, you know, everybody has like something that pushes them to.

Yeah. So sometimes in life it takes an outsider to tell you who you are. You know, I found my, my, my 12 year old daughter sort of asking me who she is. You know, she wasn’t saying. She said, Hey, you tell me who I am. But that’s what she was saying. That’s what you were saying. She wanted feedback on what kind of person she is and all this. And and in life, generally, sometimes it takes an outsider to tell you who you are. On the other hand, you do get the people who are planning and all of that. And and they’ve got a very clear sort of way forward. But I think, you know, I think all of us have these three or four different brains in our head, and one of them is the clear planner, and then the other one is is the dreamer and all that I wouldn’t worry about. That, although. Are you saying that you sort of weren’t ready? I mean, who’s ready? Who’s ready for their first practice? No.

Well, that’s the other thing I was thinking. Who’s ever ready? I just wasn’t happy where I was. And when I looked at my evaluated my options, I was like, do I go to another practice and start from the bottom again? Or do I just and, you know, it’s like the third time, or do I just go for it and build something? The things I the way I wanted them to be.

So in your in your existing practice that you were in, was there an element of customer service, listless focus on that for now that you wanted to provide, but you couldn’t in that setting?

Well, the thing is, I could want to first went there, but, you know, as as the practice was getting busier and busier after COVID. And then also my as I developed as a dentist, then I was doing more complex stuff. I changed to who I was and what suited me. And I was like, I can’t like have, I don’t know, wisdom, tooth extraction and then like a Botox and then like, I don’t know, a full mouth rehab in the next appointment, you know, it’s like just too much, you know, like I need to be in charge of what’s going on a bit more. I just I don’t know if I’m explaining this Well.

Yeah. I mean, you’re kind of talking about the way that they do your scheduling, right?

Yeah, exactly. Because every time there was, like, a ten minute gap, they’re like, Oh, you can see a patient in here. I’m like, not really, you know? So you see what’s it like in front of it and behind it, You know, I’m going to need some space. Can we just greyed out? And they’re like, No.

Yeah, but I see, I see, I see, look, I see that sort of thing. But but going back to this patient experience that you want to provide for your patients. Yeah. And I know, by the way, I know you’re probably nowhere near providing the thing that you want to provide. Yeah, but. But let’s just sort of project, know, two years forward and say now you’ve managed to sort out that member of staff who wasn’t quite onside and you’ve managed to carve out that time and done that course where you’ve got this new skill and give me a little sort of forward looking. What would it look like to be a patient at your practice? What would be those elevated sort of bits of it that would stand you in a different situation to go into another practice?

So exceeding expectations. So the practice, like the patient comes even sometimes we offer them a glass of water. They’re like, Really? And I’m like, Is this a big deal? You know, someone to be like hosting at the front and having a chat with you? I mean, at the moment I’m looking at reception desks and I don’t want ones that like cover the receptionist so they can’t talk to you because the whole point is like, I want the receptionist to talk to the patient, like put them at ease, and then they go into another room that’s not dental. It’s like with the TCO, the TCO, having like, sometimes patients get surprised if I ask them about like to get to know them and they’re like, What do you want to know about me? What what was this new thing? What do you want to know about me? And they’re surprised, but they obviously like it. And then I already scan every patient. But in the future, like I want to scan every patient and then kind of it’s getting quite popular in dentistry at the moment. But this kind of like get to know the patient, build trust with them first, scan them, give OPG or, you know, thorough radiographs and then give them all their options and let them choose what they want.

No shortcuts. Don’t cut do shortcuts for them because they they need to own their answer. Like, do you need to know, like, what happens if you don’t provide if you don’t do something properly or you know, everything? I don’t know how to explain it, but everything in dentistry is related to another thing. If you think, Oh, it’s just this one too. So I’m like, No, that one tooth is a problem because of the other tooth. And you know what I mean? Just a more comprehensive approach is what I’m trying to say. Yeah. So that’s basically and then what I’m thinking about for the patient experience. And so far so far, to be honest, I’m pretty happy with how my practice is going because every new patient is like, Oh my God, I really feel like I’m listened to and, you know, like it’s the most thorough check-up I’ve ever had. And I understand all my options. They may not go ahead straight away, which is not a problem, as long as they understand that somebody actually listened to them and have their best interests at heart.

How do we measure that? I was just about to ask a question. It probably in and around that. Right. But but the one question I’ve got around that is Dora, this patient who you’re talking about, who’s like, Wow, I haven’t had a check-up as thorough is this. And then you said, Oh, they just go ahead. Right? Are these existing patients of the practice that have now had a better experience and. Now saying, Do you know what? I didn’t know that you offered this, this and this. Less rock and roll. Or is it completely fresh blood?

Mainly new patients. Because the dentist I took over from, he he did like comprehensive dentistry and he kind of did most of them. There’s a few existing patients who who were kind of saying, I know what you you know, you said to the old owner that I know that I need this stuff, but I’m not ready. And now they are ready. Mm hmm.

But the conversation that you’re talking about is a new patient experience, what I refer to as. And maybe I shouldn’t call it fresh blood.

Yeah.

And it’s when. When someone completely new comes into your business that has never stepped into your business before, and they’re saying, Wow, what an amazing experience. And then they take treatment and patients question is, well, how do we go about measuring that, Right? No, no, no, no. I wasn’t saying that I was She was saying patients were really happy. Yeah, there was it was a new experience for them being listened to and all that. And my, my, my thought was, you know, we go around measuring KPIs, but that’s not the KPI is interested in. Yeah, the numbers one’s the KPI she’s interested in is this satisfaction, satisfaction or love? It’s above satisfaction and it’s exceeding the nearest thing that we’ve measured to that and stuck a number on it with no net promoter score. So Net promoter score, something like this, you know, patient comes in, has a consultation, patient comes in, has treatment, whatever it is. At the end of an experience, you send a two question questionnaire to that patient and the first question is on a score of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our service to your friends and family or whatever, based on the experience that you’ve just had on a score of 1 to 1010 being like, Absolutely, yes.

And one being not a chance sunshine on your bike. And so what Net Promoter Score does is it allows you to to to put an aggregated score for that. So a lot of the big companies, the Googles, the Amazons, or they they measure satisfaction, engagement, whatever you call it, by net promoter score. But the second question for me is more powerful, right? And the second question is why did you choose that number? So why did you choose seven? Why did you choose ten? Why did you choose three? For me, Net Promoter Score is less about actually getting a metric or a KPI on how well your patient satisfaction is. It’s a great tool for being able to deal with complaints before they happen and a great way of being able to share with your team the eight, nine and ten is that your patients have given you and the whys they they’ve given you eight, nine and ten. It’s almost like reviews, right? But they seem to give you a lot more in this little two question survey. So a lot easier to respond to an NPS than it is to log into Google, put your account details in, blah, blah, blah and all the rest of it.

So, so so how you would measure it? Nps for sure, but for me, I would rarely use NPS as that sort of measure of satisfaction or rely on it too much, but more actually, if someone’s giving me a three, why did they give me a three? Holy shit, right? What I need to do is jump on the phone and get this three sorted out and that may be that three may involve you converting another patient, right. Who for some reason scored you differently and it might have been something totally obscure. And then the ten share with your your your team and we’re talking about your monitor that you bought from Apple. And the one reason you bought it was the camera that follows you around. And then you probably bought this like £6,000 on it, how much you paid. There’s a cheaper one in it works. But, but either way they’re all very expensive monitors. Yeah. And the reason he bought it was because the camera moves as you move. That’s it. I mean, of course it’s an apple. All of those things. Yeah. And then he’s always talking about the cookie he gets at his Doubletree crappy hotel.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Lovely, lovely biscuits. Right, But. But then I was telling him this. You know, sometimes we should. We should find Fedora. Like, what is the cookie that, you know, that’s really the key thing, isn’t it? These people who are overjoyed to see you and that never been talked to like this, what is what does it come down to? Because Net Promoter score idea how likely I am to tell someone else to come and what’s the reason that really is that right? I guess you could be like profit and just be scientific. Just ask, right?

I think. I think. What do you think? I’m. I find at the time, the time and the care, you know, like when you really care about someone’s answer and, you know, like someone is really, like, worried about that.

We can talk. We can talk to 100 dentists or 100 of them will say, I’ll give my patients time and I’ll give them care. But you know. But what do you mean by that? Because what do you.

Mean like that? They’re not just booked in for 10 minutes where you’re like, I’m running late. No, no, no, no, no. I have, like, my 2 minutes to talk to you.

Super private dentists. Yeah, all of them have the time, and all of them want to care, but. But each one is different. Like to you. What does care mean?

Like get to know the person. And I think I think also this scanner, since I’ve started scanning everyone, I don’t know how I was a dentist without scanning everyone.

Really? Yeah. I feel like I can.

Yeah. I love the scanner. Like, I love like, showing it to them and they are like, Oh my God, I’ve never seen anything like it. And it’s just I can really explain like what’s going on in their mouth and I can feel like they don’t have to just, you know, some voodoo I’m doing in there. And, you know, you have to, like, guess or take my word for it. I’m like, You build trust because you’re like, Look, I said, it’s here. You can see it even say to them, like in black and white, but actually it’s in colour. It’s there as clear clearly. So I’m not making stuff up.

Let me trust us. Huge in dentistry, isn’t it? It’s gigantic. That’s why I kind of like the idea of those digital x ray, you know, diagnosis tools. I the x ray diagnosis tools that are around that, you know, of course it helps as well, Right? You’re not going to miss any miss. Do you miss things less? But the main thing for me is you show the patient, the computer said you need a filling there and you need a filling there, you know, and, and and it’s a big thing. But I think the combination of you’re saying what I guess what you’re saying there is the combination of being a really sort of caring human plus the tech that that’s helping you both look high tech, but also to explain things to patients and give you trust that that’s what you’re enjoying right now. Did you not have scanner in your previous practice?

I did, but I didn’t have time to use it.

Oh, you were. You were scanning the ortho cases only.

Yeah, only like. Yeah, exactly.

It’s interesting. Just thought back to, first of all, the, the thing I was going to share at the beginning of this podcast, but also just thinking about, well, how do we summarise what, what, what door is saying here and wrap it up into what does it revolve around. Right. And the cooking. And it’s, it’s just, it’s just communication. It really is. It’s just communication. The level, the type, the detail, the nature, the voice, the tone, the care behind that communication, all of that sort of stuff. Right. And how do you measure that? Right. Well, Dorie, you’ve got your own measure of that because you set your own standards. You’ve already said coming from the practice I came from to open my own revolved around delivering better communication, giving patients more time and delivering them treatment options that they that I feel that they should be allowed to explore given the time that you’re giving them. Right. But how do you ensure that that communication or that level of depth, detail and quality is happening? Your team because before they get to see you. Yet there’s a gatekeeper in your practice, and that’s the person who’s answering the phone, either outbound and picking up the phone and speaking to potential patients, essentially selling to them or pitching to them or inbound. When a patient calls and is interested in booking in a check-up or consultation or whatever it is. Right. And that for me, that piece, that little piece of communication there, your person on the phone, whoever they are, yeah, it’s that communication that you need to keep your eye on, that you need to measure.

And it’s the one thing I’ll tell any practice owner either experienced, inexperienced, new squad, whatever. Monitor that. Measure it. Review it. Listen to it. Do it on a monthly basis and you will learn more about your business than than any coach could possibly teach you. Because you learn about your customers, because you learn, in their words, the type of questions that they ask. The communication that comes. And then you can arm your team with the answers. Every patient doesn’t have the standard. I can sit here and do you a session on the ultimate sales call or something like that. Right. But that is following a logical pattern of what a patient would say and what a receptionist would say in the to and fro. Right. But the reality doesn’t present itself like that. The reality is that we patients throw different questions, different tone of voice, receptionist having a bad day that day and her tone of voice is off or whatever, right? So my, my biggest tip to anyone is that take 5 to 10 phone calls inbound and outbound 5050 mix, pick them at random, download them, make sure you’ve obviously got a recording platform in place and then listen.

To them.

With the team. And share your feedback and allow them to share their feedback. And if you did that every single month, they end up coaching each of them. The first time you do that, they absolutely shits a brick and there’s every excuse under the sun. But what’s really important is the way you present this, right? And if you present it to the team, look guys, we’ve got this cool recording place. We’re listening to it because we want to improve. And the reason why you’re not at where I want you to be is mindful. And I’m going to change that now. And we’re going to listen to this together and I’m going to help you get better at doing what you do right. And really, really appreciate that. If you take it from the view of hell, what the hell were you thinking when you said this to a patient? You’ve just lost us X, Y, and Z, right? Takes a different different do that. Although, although I would say you say. You say what you just said. Yeah, but I would say that if Dora has a thing for her practice that’s built on. I don’t know. Let’s, let’s just say for the sake of the argument, respect for people. Yeah, you hear disrespect for people on that call that needs to be brought up and and and come down on to to set as a new owner, as a new owner provider, as a new owner to set the culture for what what what you’re saying as a as a as a new owner you do, if you do hear something like that, you do need to point it out.

Point it out. Yes. But it depends on what type of leader you are. Right. So come down on. Yeah, well it depends on what’s said doesn’t it. Depends what was said. Yeah it depends. It depends. I’ve heard it all, mate. All right. I think, I think we’ve listened to in excess of 10,000 calls over the last 13 years or whatever. Right. We’ve heard it all. But so yeah, I mean, maybe come down on it. It depends what was said. Right. But that is you want to try and get your team on your side through, of course, on this piece. And when you do they go from a from a point there’s a switch and it usually happens by about session four or five where they go from fearing that session and feeling anxious about it to actually looking forward to them and the fact that they know they’re being recorded. And you’re going to have a session soon, they’re on their A-game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are on their A-game. And the other thing is when it comes to the training sessions, they start thinking, I wonder if that amazing call I did on Wednesday, the 23rd of January is going to be in the training session because I smashed that call.

And, you know, and this is something I used to do for for my practices. I still do for a couple of the practices that I own. And my team are always saying to me that I did it. I hope that all I did on that day, I really want to listen to that because that was amazing. And what’s really important is when you get down to it is that you you say to those team members what went really well about the calls as well as what didn’t go so well. And it’s really important to point out that, oh, well, you answer the phone really clearly, really succinctly. You dealt with that objection really well. The way you talked about money was brilliant, Right? But at the beginning it sounded like you didn’t care. And this is what I got from it. Right? And so if, like what they call a shit sandwich is something like that, Right? Just just, just some good stuff on either side and the bad stuff in the middle. But really point out what what the good and the bad was in the call. I cannot recommend any other strategy beyond that. This is powerful as that for growing your business and learning about your patients. Excuse. Move. Should we move on? We should. Let’s go. Let’s. Let’s. Let’s now go to the way we normally start this podcast. So tell us about your upbringing. Where were you? Kuwait. Where else were you?

So. So I grew up in Hungary, and when I was 15, my parents took me to Kuwait against my will. And, you know, not ideal time to go to Kuwait, which is completely different culture and go to. But I couldn’t really speak good enough English like, you know, just land in English school where you have to learn everything in English and GCSEs, A-levels and, you know, it was just really hard. The first, like in the beginning, I didn’t understand anyone. I was just like, they always thought I was the quiet person and I’m like, the quiet person. I’m just stuck inside my body. So I say, Yeah, that was like my experience of, of being in Kuwait. And then as I was in a British school, I applied to England because they said, Oh, who wants to UCAS forms? I’m like, Yeah, me too. Me, whatever. And I was going to go back to Hungary, but when I got I got into university at Kuwait. I mean, in England, I was like, okay, well, I guess I’m going to England, but I wasn’t going to I never planned to stay here. It just happened.

How did you feel? How did you feel when you got to the UK from Kuwait? What was your sort of first feelings? Was that as you expected, it was better or worse? Was it?

Well, first of all, I did zoology first as well as a degree, But how I felt is again, it was another culture shock. I was like, Everybody is drinking so much, not wearing much clothes. I’m not used to it.

Because of.

Kuwait. Yeah. And what else was weird?

Where would you come? That was. Was it Bristol?

Bristol. Yeah. Bristol Uni. And it was quite hard, you know, just like I didn’t really know anyone and just be pushed into like you’re in a different country. I’ve never even been to the UK before. Actually came to say. Wow, Quite tough. I made a friend on a plane and she kind of supported each other. She was also Hungarian and she was doing a PhD in English. So kind of, you know, she was feeling the same way even though she was older.

So was that a three year degree?

Yeah, three year degree. The reason I don’t know I wanted to be is I wanted to be a vet originally, and I wanted to I didn’t get in. And then I thought after zoology, I can get into veterinary honest. I don’t know why I even. Anyway, I wanted to go into veterinary and then I found that if you already have a degree, you had to pay international fees. I was like, okay, well, I definitely can’t be doing that. But as I was finishing zoology, it was time like, you’re going to have a job. And I’m like, I have a job. I haven’t learned to do anything. And also, I always like horses. I always wanted horses. I’m like, I can’t see what job I can do with this that would let me have a horse. So I heard about this graduate entry program, and I did work experience as a dentist and I loved it. I just from the start, like I as I look at the work experience, I was like, please let me do it. I loved it. I loved everything about it.

So did you have to pay for an fees?

No.

Well, how come? How come you did? How come you did for a vet, but not for dentistry?

Well, because I don’t know. It was just like that at the time for veterinary. Even British people had to, if they already had a degree. But I think they changed that since. So yeah, that was the difference. And also because I got into graduate program, it was a brand new university Peninsula. I was like the first ever cohort. So I’m like, I’m not shy to start things that are new.

And I heard you found as you found your feet, that you found your feet in Britain a bit more by that time, surely, right?

Yeah. In fact, I really wanted to stay in Bristol for Bristol, but I really liked Peninsula’s course. Yeah, but as I didn’t get into Bristol, I actually had to go to Peninsular India. And anyway, so yeah, I really felt like I wanted to stay here and yeah, I really liked it.

So what were you like as a dental student?

I kind of separate, I guess we.

Were you Miss Kuwaiti or were you Miss Liberal British? Pretty like what had you had you brought the culture from there or had you adapted to the culture or were you conflicted in.

Probably conflicted. To be honest, I was probably just pretty quiet to start with because I was just shocked. But then pretty quickly by the second year, I was like, Yeah, I’m I’m European, I know how to do this. You know? I was like, I could pretty quickly got into how to be British student.

And so what was what was the university like for you both, both studying? Were you quite studious and diligent where you do have an active social life? What was, if you could summarise, door at university? What was that experience like?

So in my first degree, I was involved in scuba diving club. Mm hmm. And I was like, social secretary and vice president and that sort of thing. And that was my. I’m kind of not none of them. Like, I wasn’t too studious and I wasn’t to partying either. Like, I went. I went out. But yeah, balanced, I guess. And the only problem with me still is the problem. I’m quite last minute.

Last minute.

Yeah, Like studying this stuff.

Yeah, me too. So then what was your first job like? Did you.

So. Yeah, I did the two year bit in combo because best friend I made at Peninsula was going to combo. So I was like, Well, I guess you’re going that way. I’m going to go that way. And also we had a peninsula. We did some. We were at Truro for a while and I really liked it. So I was at trial and I worked at the hospital afterwards for Royal Cornwall Hospital for a year.

So then so then you’ve lost the university bit. You’re out in the big wide world. Did you feel that loneliness that many feel at that moment? You’re like, Is this it? You’re in that room and you haven’t got the sort of university life? Or did you really take to it?

I didn’t feel that straightaway because, you know, like there’s 12 people in one group and in Cornwall it was pretty much all my uni mates for the first year. It was like extension of university. I’m like, Oh, this is great. All my friends are here. We can go to the beach. Oh, cool. And as they were like slowly leaving Cornwall, that’s when I was a bit like, Oh, wait a minute, everybody’s left. I’m almost the last one standing. And that’s when I kind of started feeling like a bit lost. And that’s when I moved to Wiltshire.

Wiltshire? That’s where. That’s where you are now, right?

Yeah, that’s.

Right. So, you know someone who grew up in Budapest, was it.

Yeah.

And then Kuwait. Did you not feel like being closer to like the big towns, big cities, or is the life of life with horses sort of override all of that?

I actually really loved the countryside, the country living in the UK. That’s like the main thing. In fact, especially after Kuwait, like everything was brown. As soon as I come here, I was like, Oh my God, it’s all green. Everywhere is green. And I can go out. Like, especially as I had a horse, I knew I can’t be in like a big city. Truro. It was pretty ideal actually, because it was a city and there was stuff going on, but I could easily go and see my horse, which was not that far.

So you actually don’t just ride. You don’t just ride sort of leisurely. You just sort of compete.

With, Oh, well, I did, but I did. My horse is got arthritis and isn’t right at the moment so I’m currently not competing her but low level competing. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that kind of gave me like an extra purpose I guess. I’ve had my same horses like for eight, eight or nine years. She’s like my friend.

I mean, when I, when I spoke to you, I got the feeling horses were like your absolute sort of passion. Yeah. Did you have a horse when you were a kid as well, or was was UK the first time you had a horse? Kuwait. They’re into horses too.

I’ve been riding in Kuwait and I started when I was eight years old, but because my parents were doctors, they were like saying, well, you know, we understand you want a horse, but we don’t want a horse. So I guess you’re not going to have one because we don’t want one. But they said as soon as you have your own job and you can afford a horse, you can have your own horse. So that was kind of like as soon as I finished university, I went into like a horse sharing the first year. And then and then I had a horse after that. So I’m really into horses and I had to at some point. But that was too much.

Was it involved? Wasn’t like, I mean, the logistics, if I want to buy a horse, would I have to do.

I don’t I wouldn’t I wouldn’t straight away buy a horse. I was learn to like, know them a little bit and listen. Right.

What’s involved in owning one? You have to have a you have to rent a stable. What do you have.

When you’re a busy dentist like me? You obviously pay for full livery, which means that the horse is looked after and taken out to the field and all that stuff. But if you like want to do competing, you still have to have a training plan, you know, like the horse has to do, like packing this day, the next day like training, and you take them galloping and you go and do this competition and you know, it’s a lot of thought around it. It’s a bit like if you if you like, train yourself for competition or for marathon, you have to go out week after week and several times.

And do you do that or do you have somebody does part of that prep for you when you come and do the fine tuning or how does that work?

I tried getting someone else to do it for me, but the problem is, if you are going to compete a horse, you have to kind of not become one with the horse. But, you know, they’re kind of, yeah, born with the horse. Like if someone it can’t be done by someone else. Even though like looking after the horse it can, but nothing is replacing you in this. And also, to be honest, I find it quite a good like going riding and focusing on competing or even just going riding. It’s like I’m in the countryside, my mind is clear, I’m enjoying being here and I just feel like I really need I need it. When my horse was off for a while, I just felt like my health was going downhill, my mental health was going downhill. I just I don’t know. I just need.

It. It’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because Dora gets that from her horse. You get that from the gym or whatever. I was just you. What? You just took the words right out of my mouth, right? Is that this whole. We all have our thing right? And for me, definitely, I have a love hate relationship with the gym. Yeah, but. But when I’ve got that love relationship with the gym, I’m in my. I’m in my happiest place. Mentally, physically, work wise, everything right? And when I’m out of love with the gym, mentally, physically, everything. I mean, I’m in my darkest place right now. I’ve got friends who who have horses, who have described a similar sort of relationship with their horses. And, you know, and some of them are more involved with, you know, you have to excuse me. Right. But but the but the jumping thing, the showjumping is is that what it’s called?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So jumping this one.

Is that what you do or is it, is it.

I kind of did everything I do fun rides, which is like going on these organised rides and there’s just jumps you can jump. Then there’s eventing is like the ultimate where you have dressage. So jumping cross-country.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I started. Yeah, sorry.

Go on, carry on. Sorry to go on.

So you started going to say like I started with dressage to start with, but actually dressage is quite I know this is not a horse show, but it’s quite self when you get to know yourself, you know, because you want to get better, but you can’t because your body is not listening to you and you can’t tell the horse. You know what I mean? You get frustrated with yourself. It’s a real self-discovery.

Okay, okay. But but yeah, irrespective of which type of horse thing that my friends have done, the one thing is that they describe as that relationship and that bond. And a lot of them say to me that they wake up early in the morning before they go to work and do the they describe it as the mucking out. Yeah, I don’t do that. But but yeah.

I did at some point. But yeah but it’s.

That whole I think is whatever you’re doing right, it’s that ritual of going, waking up doing that thing, having that time with the horse, you know, doing whatever it is you’re building routine in your life, right. That gives you some kind of mental stability. And it’s the same with me in the gym and training and stuff, right? Just similar to that. It’s really interesting. Where are you at in your horse world right now with practice ownership?

And to be honest, I bought a practice now for a reason because I had two horses last year. Yeah, and that was too much. And then I decided that I’m going to sell the one that was taking the mickey out of me and. And just focus on the horse that I’ve had for a while. And I really have a good bond. And now I’m going to focus on practice instead. And that’s why I’m not competing at the moment.

Do you get patients? Do you get patients from the horsy world as well?

To be honest, no. But in wheelchair, like if I have a picture of my horse or start talking about that like any nurse like who works with me, they’re like any patients, like coming in. They were like, writing. Like, Dora is running late because she’s talking about the horse. What we’re talking about is the horse holding or like horses in general. Like, every patient knew that, like, Oh, how is your horse? And I used to do this like everybody in Wiltshire, like, had something to do with horses. Well, not everybody, but it’s quite common.

Yeah. So it’s helped.

In that sense. Yeah.

Yeah. So now. Now practice ownership. I want to know about the moment before you decided to buy this practice. Yeah. I want to hear the sort of the fears. I want to hear the process of getting the money. Did you save up? For how long did you save up? Did you know how much you had to save? To buy what? These sort of questions.

So it was only a year ago, actually, that I decided to buy this. Well, no, I know. Not true, because I’ve been looking at like, what was an offer like for last couple of years, but there was always a breeze around.

And you decided you were not going to move for the practice. The practice had to be near you. Yeah, that. That was decided because I.

Yeah, well, because I like this area. I like. I like the area. I like the people here. Yeah. I loved. Yeah. I didn’t want to move for so I had to, I was kind of waiting around to see if the right practice came. But also it kind of coincided with, like, too much pressure being put on onto me, and I just was working too much. Okay, this sounds a bit bad. I didn’t buy a practice so that I work less because it’s actually not what happened. That’s what’s happening. But it’s different sort of work that’s.

Been control of the work here. But go on. Were you aware of how much practices cost? Were you aware of how to look at books, profit and loss when you like? Did you understand the profit and loss statement? Did you know what percentage of the cost of the practice you needed before you got a loan? All of this stuff?

Well, basically, like all these dental companies, when you like, inquire, they will get you in contact. Yeah, they get you in contact with the finance person who will tell you who will look at your health or your savings and what outgoings have you got and see if you can afford a practice. That’s kind of all I’ve had.

So you you say you kind of knew the value. You weren’t going to buy a seven surgery practice. You kind of knew the value of practice that that you wanted to buy. Yeah. And then and then just before doing it, Just before doing it outside of, okay, should I buy this practice or that practice? Did you have fear?

Oh, yeah, all the time. Like, all I knew is I didn’t want to do NHS, which meant that I didn’t want to buy in any practice, which kind of cut down practices quite a lot. I only had to be close enough so that can’t cut it down even more. And then I even thought about doing a squat completely, But I didn’t. But I did kind of look into that, and I didn’t have enough money for that because they don’t loan you as much money. If you can’t prove that you’ve either been a practice owner or or that’s what I found anyway. Or, you know, you had to show, like, somehow you’re going to make it work, if you know what I mean.

So, Dora, I’ve been looking at your cases, and they’re nice. I like your hand, if you like. I like. I like what you do to smiles. But most of it looks like Invisalign based sort of line bleach type work is that if I was to characterise your practice or your ideal practice, would it be mostly AB and then some Botox? Is that is that how you would see it? As if you could fill up, fill up the day with that? Would that make you very happy?

Yeah, mostly around Bridge Bond and I recently started a digital smile design as well. Pretty much a month ago, which is what I’m starting to focus as much as on as possible and going to the course to Madrid. I feel like it’s really transformed my way of looking at dentistry and teeth and my stupid question Do guys know what DSD really involves? Because I have heard you talk about it before, but most people think it’s just lines and stuff, but it’s so much more.

Lines and curves right.

Now.

I would say to you, what stresses you.

Is basically showing the patient the ideal treatment plan of how their smile would look best or function best, because whatever looks that functions best. A lot of people think DSD is actually like aesthetic, but well, there is a aesthetic element in there. But DSD is mainly about function. It’s a it’s a full mass rehab digitally, so that whatever you show to the patient and they kind of have a trial experience as well, which I really enjoy your 3D print their outcome. So you’re 3D print like how they’re going to look like after Invisalign and bonding so that they know like what they’re going to look like themselves. So you video them before and you video them with their mock up and it’s called like emotional dentistry. So Christian Coachman calls it, and then you tell them how you’re going to get them there. And the DSD lab or DSD planning centre kind of follows you, kind of helps you get there as well. So they have specialists, orthodontists and all sorts of specialists, really periodontist, and they will tell you all the things you need to do to get the patient there. So you kind of get as much out of DSD as you want. You can ask not to get their opinion, but it’s extra. Basically.

That’s what practically when, when, when when you say I’m doing more DSD, does that mean you’re doing more sort of indirect work? Or what does that not mean?

Well, I mean, obviously, as having started my practice a few months ago and still just sold the cases. But it’s basically, as you are right, it is more Alan Bond, but it’s more the fact that the patient can really see where the end point is. I always tell them like it’s a bit like if I build a house, I don’t just start putting bricks down and see what happens. You want to know exactly how you’re going to look like. You want to know what the end product is, because most of the time the end product is only in our head.

So do you feel like there’s an element of diagnosis in it as well as communication?

It often is actually diagnosis, so it kind of like I find it really helpful doing Dswd because sometimes like the way I would set up an Invisalign case, they they kind of already say they kind of give me different ideas and be like, Oh yeah, I never thought about doing that. You know, like you always show the patient the ideal and if they want to compromise, they’re happy to compromise. But what I’m learning at the moment with this DSD as well, but they keep on reminding me, like Dora, remember, this is what they show the patient the ideal, if they don’t want the ideal will replan the case for you, but just show them the ideal so that they have their option.

So was it a one weekend course? What did you do?

Well, it was three. Was it three days or four days in Madrid? Residency one. It’s called With Christian Coachman. He does it kind of all around the world. But Madrid is where the planning centre is, and he talks about why dentistry is where it is, if that makes sense. It’s a lot more than just it’s not it’s not technical course. It’s more about how to think about the patient, how to elevate the patient experience, and how like when we buy stuff like I talked about, buying the practice is when it’s a big deal. It’s an emotional decision. That’s how people buy things and that’s how then you have to kind of make the whole buying experience more emotional. And he talks about how a lot of there’s a lot of like aesthetic dentistry that actually isn’t improving function. And any dentistry that you do, you should kind of think about how function has to be better, not just how it looks and things like that.

Sounds like it really changed you.

Yeah. Yeah. I really want to build my practice on this concept because I feel like, I don’t know, I just feel like everything Christian Coachman says. Like, it just makes so much sense to me.

When he says it in such a lovely way. Doesn’t he say it’s easy? You could say whatever. You’d be into it, right? Because. But. But, but, but, but, but. But he’s been. He’s been doing it a long time, and he’s the pioneer. So you’re not. You’re not, by the way, you’re not the only one who has been sold on the idea. Although when I speak to I don’t know if you heard my talk with Sandra, who’s Garcia, who’s a dswd person, or who else was I talking to her about it? Neil Gerard, Neil Gerard. And both of them both of them were saying it was it was a communication tool, not it didn’t particularly. Now maybe they’re very experienced and we’re all at different stages in our dentistry, right? But I remember Neil being very pretty sure that it didn’t, it didn’t help him in his diagnosis. It was just it would have helped him in talking to the patient, but it wasn’t helping him as a dentist. But that’s not your expertise actually helping you as a dentist.

Well, sometimes they come up with things that I didn’t think about and I’m not. I feel like because I’m on my own in the practice, I feel like it’s a it’s like an extra, extra thing like that. Another specialist looked at my case and how it helped me looking at it differently. But it is a communication tool largely. But I think what is what is a big deal about it as well is when you sell like patient to mock up is the fact that you can import the DSD mock up into Invisalign because they’ve got a partnership. So you can actually then move the teeth to the position you sold the patient to. So it’s not like, you know, either. Yeah, that is the actual biggest thing about it because you can otherwise patient can try on the teeth, but how are you going to move the position to that position exactly. If you can’t import it into Invisalign.

Now now I get it. Now I get there’s a big difference. That’s a big difference.

Exactly. Because before this method, I sometimes have done like some format cases and then and the patient said, well, it’s not exactly like the mock up. And I’m like, Yeah, you’re right. It’s not exactly like. Why isn’t it? And now that there’s a better way, as I said, this Invisalign collaboration with DSD is, I think, the big thing that sold it to me.

Stork patient journey. Why did you manage to do anything new that you you can definitely do going forwards? For me, for me, it would be like calling my patients after a day of dentistry. I find that really nice. Lovely for me. And then very quickly, I outsourced it to my nurse to call three, four patients every day. Have you done that?

No, I haven’t done that.

It’s a stunner and it’s an easy one to do. And me and Prav went on a course once, wasn’t it? And the guy was calling his patients before they were coming in and saying, hey, this is doctor. Whatever. Just just want to just want to say. And it wasn’t even a dentistry course. It was it was a marketing course. There was he was still calling his patients. Yeah, he was calling patients before they’d even come in to new patients and saying, this is doctor, whatever, but just want to see if there’s anything you needed before you come. Anything in particular you want me to do or want to be aware of before you come in? It’s massive. It’s massive.

I mean, I get my DCO to call them, but it sounds like this sounds better.

Listen, there’s a guy in. You know, the name escapes me completely, right? But there’s a. Do you know what I. You know what I think it is? It’s that guy, you know? It’s the same name. I’m bringing up the same trick. You say talk triggers. Yea. Yea. Yea. Yea. Yea. Forget it. Let’s move on. What’s your what’s your what’s your ideal In five years time? And then in ten years time, what would be your future plans in dentistry?

Um, so one thing that I want my practice to do more is, as I said, to change a patient journey, as Christian Coachman said, so the patient doesn’t go straight into surgery, but you kind of do the first appointment in a non dental environment.

Yeah.

And then I want to empower more nurses and more of the support staff to be more involved. The therapist like I want to get like a therapist to take things off me that are more routine so that I can do more things that I want to do and I want to get my practice to be known more for comprehensive dentistry, although I don’t think people really know what that means. No. And but more like, well, we’re going to look more holistically.

But do you think do you think you’ll always keep it as this very small sort of boutique setup? You therapists like that, or do you think you’re going to bring on associates grow?

Oh, I definitely need I definitely need to bring in an associate, which is a challenge.

But each of these is a nightmare, right? Growing three associates is a whole other management nightmare. You know.

Sometimes I.

Say no.

Yes, no, I need to get one associate. But what’s going to be really difficult is getting someone who who’s really bought into the practice ethos, which is why I don’t want to take on an associate at the moment because I need to build with a threat to is first. And once I kind of got the winning formula, then it’s time to replicate it. That’s kind of my idea.

Are you thinking Replicate as well? Are you thinking more than this one practice?

Possibly. If it works, Yeah. Yeah. Probably more than one practice. I don’t want, like, too big a practice. I’d rather have more than one small that has the same ethos. That’s what I’m thinking at the moment. But it’s early days.

I mean, you’ve got to examine why that is, right? Why are you thinking more than one practice? You have to think about that. Why? Because if if it’s a if it’s a case of access to the brand, that the guy lives in Chippenham and lives in Bristol can’t both get access to that brand, then. Okay, But the brand has to work in both locations without you there. And as far as running a business right, one big centre is way easier than for small ones. Like way easier. So be careful of that idea. See.

It was access to the brand. That was my idea. It’s quite difficult to scale businesses, especially if the principle isn’t there. I guess the principle would have to be there. You see.

Sometimes I see this all the time and I often have excited, excited phone calls from clients of mine who’ve got, say, practice number one. And it’s almost like they’re about to announce that they want to marry me because they say, Prav, I’ve got some really exciting news for you. And then there’s a bit of silence, and then they say, We’ve just found a practice and we’re going to buy it. And and I’m usually the the guy who talks them out of doing it. I’ve talked more people out about setting up practice number two than I have given my blessing to say go ahead and do it right. And the question that pace is really important, why it’s really important, why you’re doing this right. And then we get involved in the conversation. And the why sometimes often revolves around not necessarily access to brand, but money building business and building the value of the practice to whatever the end goal is going to be. Right. So then we talk about all the different areas they have not explored with practice, number one. And I can see that with a client of mine who’s done incredibly well. We look to first of all, you’ve got a dental chair that’s open from 9 to 5, right? What’s happening? What’s happening with that chair between five and nine and what’s happening with that chair on weekends? Could that be optimised? What’s happening with everyone’s hourly rate or the type of treatment or whatever, depending on what your goal is? Right? You have the same the same doesn’t apply to everyone.

So it depends on what their why is. But let’s say it’s the money thing. But what this client did is they changed their pattern of operating to shift work. So eight till to two to late. So they’re open from 8 to 8 every day now and that’s how they manage to stick another X number of 100,000 on their turnover without practice. Number two and 8 to 9 months later, we’re now having the same conversation, you know, hey, private practice number two, And I’m like, with my blessing, my friend, let’s go for it, because now we know we’ve hit maximum potential. But the other thing is, I know a lot of practice owners, I know a lot of multiple practice owners and practice owners have gone from 1 to 2 to 3 to 2 to multiple. And the one thing that’s really clear is practice two does not mean to X and practice three does not mean three X immediately. And just because you’ve had roaring success at practice, number one, it’s a lot harder to replicate that. And a lot of what you’re doing, whether you’re delivering the dentistry in doing it or not, it’s your presence that drives that growth is your presence is your leadership, it’s your direction, it’s that that drives the growth more often than not. And that’s something that’s really important to consider when you’re thinking about location number two.

Yeah, So, yeah, I have. Thought about this shift work situation. And you’re right, that’s probably the first step. But because the building is smaller, I have thought about the fact, like at some point I will hit capacity and that’s the time when I need to make a decision whether I’m going to move it somewhere else or or have another location or just be like, No, this is it. I don’t know. I don’t know this to anything.

Of course. Okay. Well, it’s been it’s been a fascinating chat in between the technical troubles with this, but we finish it on the same questions. Every time. Sidora. Imagine it’s your your last day on the planet. And you are surrounded by your loved ones and those that mean the most to you. And you had to leave them with three pieces of wisdom. What would they be?

Find your passion and follow it. Believe in yourself because you can do anything. I believe in that. You need to believe in yourself and you can achieve great things and then always be genuine and treat people like you’d like to be treated.

Brilliant. Brilliant.

Okay. And we also have the dinner didn’t dinner party. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. See, now she knows they match, you know, Fancy dinner party. Sweet. Yes. Apart from apart from problem payment, who else would be there?

Elon Musk would be one of my number one. I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk and everything he does for us. I think he’s like, super human and I’d love to meet him. How he achieved what he achieved. And I guess number two is David Attenborough. Because again, same thing like what he’s he’s seen and and at his age he still wants to help us save the planet.

You can he must be the most loved person. Genuine person.

I know. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I want I wanted to be David like. Like David Attenborough since I was a child. That’s why I did this degree.

I Yeah.

But then the third one, although it’s Christian encroachment.

Christian, Christian, Christian could be the answer to my, my third question, which I’ve got a new question. Go on. Your dream guest on this show. You can have him as Christian coachman as that as that if you want, unless you have a different guest.

Oh, me?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Christian quarter.

Okay. So that’s going to be your third. Who’s going to be your third dinner party guest? We’ve got we’ve got Ellen and David Attenborough hanging out together.

Mm hmm. Someone like Leonardo da Vinci or someone who’s, like an inventor who sees a world differently by. I love people like that.

Excellent. Excellent. It’s been a real pleasure. It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you, Dora. Thanks. Thanks for doing it.

Thank you for inviting me.

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.

Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it. If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.