Month: May 2021

[00:00:00] Someone’s coming to you in pain, you’ve got them out of pain at a time when you didn’t have space to do it, and then I might do something weird, just be like, you know, don’t worry about it. Don’t don’t pay for it this time. Just bring me someone else. Just random things like that. And they’re already shocked. Amazed, like they’re always like, oh, this is incredible. You’ve done so much for me. I’m so happy. I mean, I’m out of pain. And then you kind of just like, you know what another element of it, if I wanted money from you today, I’ve just I’ve done that before. If you want as an example of something that will just give you something to talk about. But then off the back of that, I’ve had patients. I’ve had I know I’ve had people come to me, I’ve had gifts given to be I’ve had concert tickets, all these sort of things come off the back of just making someone happy, you know, just doing something different.

[00:00:50] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging Leaders Dental Street. Your heist’s Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki

[00:01:07] Gives me great pleasure to welcome the other Payman from Dental Payman Kabani young dentist is making waves from, from my perspective, seeing your wonderful work on Instagram and and your wonderful work on the DJ decks. But he is

[00:01:24] A pleasure to have you both. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.

[00:01:27] Tell me about your brother’s highly accomplished sort of Harley Street and the dentist. Is that the reason why you became a dentist?

[00:01:36] I probably wouldn’t say it is that I think he definitely had an influence on my choices career. But it was actually when he sent me to his friends so I could get braces that made me want to be an orthodontist to begin with, which is funny because now is my least favourite thing to do. However, it it definitely started something by seeing what he was he was achieving and what he was doing gave me an idea. But I kind of always wanted to be maybe a few different choices, you know, when to be a plastic surgeon. I still want to be a plastic surgeon. I still think I’d be great for plastic surgeons. But I think that with being an architect. But it was only when I really went to have my braces that I thought, yeah, dentistry is for me.

[00:02:17] Where did you study

[00:02:18] Study in Leaders class of 2012 qualified. Yeah, and it was it was a great time. Needs was I say I feel sorry for people that didn’t go to Leaders. I think everyone feels that way about their uni. But I think all this kind of student cities, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, all those places where people have real fun at uni. And I think I always highly recommend people asking me where to go. I always say get out of London and go to places like that.

[00:02:46] When you go up north, did you feel like an outsider being from London at all?

[00:02:52] I think there was there was a lot of Londoners that I think went there. And and Leeds is a city that is run by students. It’s you’ve got like two or three hundred thousand students, I think through five or six different universities is kind of you know, there’s a lot of different units there and it’s a huge one. So when the students aren’t there, there’s no one there. So, you know, people coming from all parts of all walks of life or different backgrounds, which is why I guess it’s such a fun place to be. Feni.

[00:03:21] Rove was very similar, actually, when when when the real students used to leave, when we were left there, when we were the longer terms. Exactly. You could feel the town just just go down

[00:03:33] Because it

[00:03:33] Was such a big part of the population. I’m sure Oxford was very similar to Prav.

[00:03:39] And I stayed there when a lot of the other students went home and it was just like bicycle’s chained to railings, left there for like six weeks or whatever, and it’s a ghost town. So that’s why my my friend Circle was always what we refer to as townies and then students. Right. So I had had quite a varied friends circle and, you know, and that was the reason why really, because when the sued most of the students, it called. I was still

[00:04:06] Hanging out there. So, yeah. What were you like, the Dental stupid. What was I like as Dental student? I think much the same as I was throughout school, throughout everything. I was just plain average, I think. I don’t think I was you know, I’ve never really excelled anything academically. I think I was always middle ground to the point where even though I actually I actually failed my A-levels, I’m one of those retake chemistry guys. It was never natural to me to be a science based person. I think I was always very English literature. I did for A-levels. I did art for a little while. And so those two were easy to me. I didn’t I didn’t struggle with those. That was something that but in the biology and chemistry, that was kind of like, OK, I need to spend some more time on this, but I never really wanted to. But I knew I wanted to be a dentist, I guess because of the art side of it, which made more sense to me as to anything else.

[00:05:02] Do you think now, like we were talking about kids and, you know, you haven’t got any kids yet. But let’s let’s project forward. Your parents were sort of the first generation immigrants, as were mine. And, you know, first generation immigrants tend to push their kids into these sciences sort of practical degrees. Do you think now you as a second generation, you know, fully established kind of kid, if your kid was more arts and literature based durcan, you’d push them into, not push them, but allow him to be a movie maker or whatever?

[00:05:35] Yeah, I think absolutely. I think I sometimes the back of my mind, I think what if I just did that path and see see what had happened and all that I was ever that great at. It was just something that I think came more natural to me than the sciences. But I think that for sure, if someone if you know, if my kids were into that and I think I’d want them to be into that, I’d want them to I I’d hope they were a little bit more into that bit more that creative side and a bit more. You can get more out of that. I think in some ways dentistry is is is great, but you’re kind of stuck as a dentist. I think that’s that’s what you know, there’s no there’s nowhere else you can go. I always kind of intrigued to know these are the degrees other people take up. The other courses are the degrees and they they go down different paths and start new careers. Everyone knows where dentistry is. No one knows what you do. If you end up doing something like arts or something that you end up you can go anywhere else with that, you know. So I think I would I would I would encourage it for sure.

[00:06:31] And your brother, I mean, when you became a dentist, he was already fully established on Harley Street.

[00:06:39] Exactly. It was.

[00:06:43] So you were kind of accelerated into that world?

[00:06:45] Yeah, I think I was. I don’t know. I don’t know how many people came out of dental school into Harley Street. I think that was that was that that was your. Well, I did vte. I did. And elsewhere. But towards the end of my Betsie, I’d already started working there. I didn’t even allow the things that we to go to like May. I think he went on holiday and he was like, you know, let’s see what you can do. And I remember he said that he was on our graduation day. Actually, it was always in his mind. I think that that would be the plan on my graduation day. He just said, let’s see what you can do if you fly or swim in that environment. And I went straight into that after towards the end of VTE. And, yeah, I’m still there. I’ve been there the whole time. And it was it was a gift, I guess that, you know, I always say it that way. It was always very fortunate to have been given that opportunity very early in my career. Some people come to me asking advice and what they can what they should do and what path they should take to get this job. And I’m like, you know, you’re probably not asking the right person because it was it was given to me. And which is a different situation to most, but I had to fit the role. I think that was that’s the difference as to where I had to go through my head to the game so I could fit in with that crowd, I guess.

[00:08:09] I mean, it’s a Prav, it’s his his brother’s practise is one of the most beautiful Praksis I’ve ever been to. It was stunning. Anyway, those buildings are stunning, aren’t they? Anyway, he’s done he’s done something wonderful with it as well.

[00:08:23] We’re moving we’re moving on to the new one next month, removing. Oh, really? Really. So we’re moving two to one to seven, which is opposite. He’s expanded the surgery there and he’s just in the midst of the build for that. So literally across the road. But that’s going to be an amazing practise. I mean, if that was anything to go by, which was 12 years ago, this is going to be a, you know, referral centre is going to have all the top equipment. Everything has been put into this place. So I’ve kind of went to see it when he first got the keys and I said, I’m not really going to go back until it’s done. And I’m kind of involved in my room and the planning of that. But I just I don’t want to see it. I’m just going to want to kind of just walk in and experience it. That’s kind of where I get that one really proud of me for doing it, especially at times. And I like to think I helped along the way maybe to get it to the point where it had been there for eight years. I like to think that it my baby on his say. But yeah, it’s exciting.

[00:09:24] Having a brother in the field is super useful. I mean, I’m thinking of Depay. She’s got one brother who’s a dentist, one brother’s technician. And are you aware of that? Do you do you feel that or not? You know, you could have any questions answered straight away by someone who’s fully experienced.

[00:09:43] I’ve tried to always keep that in the back of my mind that I’m lucky to have that. You know, I didn’t let that slip away from me. I think he was always a clinical dentist. Does he’s a clinician first and foremost as a as a mind over being a business owner or being a practise owner. But I think having him as a mentor from that perspective of clinical dentistry was one thing. But also, I think what I learnt way more than that, even from him is, is management of of patients and his staff for sure, because your staff are incredibly loyal to him. But management of patients has what I think is really stuck with me and how to speak to people and how to understand them and how to do things that they they don’t expect in order for you to stand out from the crowd. Give them give them a reason to talk about you, I think is at dinner. That’s what I always do, something that day to make your patient go home and tell their wife about you. Not just that. I went to the dentist today. I went to the dentist and you did this and it was my blue, like that sort of thing that was really strange. And expect that that’s what I’ve always seen him do day in, day out. And that’s what I think stuck with me and made me able to treat patients the way I do.

[00:10:56] So can you give us an example of either one thing? You brother, you’ve done the sort of things like stand out, you know, is it is it shock and awe service? Is it is it going above and beyond? And just some specifics in terms of what are you delivering that makes that patient not only say, hey, you know, I got my teeth fixed today, I’ve got a beautiful smile, but something else that sparks that conversation, I think

[00:11:19] I think we don’t have an opening line. We don’t have a closing time. I think that’s one thing. If you have an issue, you will be seen, I think is, you know, if you call us up and you say, listen, I’ve got this problem, I need to be seen by someone, we will accommodate that. Firstly, I think that’s because of our patient base, our patient base of ninety five percent, probably 90 percent Katari. So we’ve always worked on the basis of these guys. I’m going to be around. So you have to do the work when you don’t. But in the sense of what we may do for that patient is, you know, typically things that we you know, I personally had examples where a patient may come in excruciating pain first. They have accommodated them at the end of my day and maybe they’re two, eight, nine p.m. and then they always find a root canal example was really good. That’s probably why it’s been successful for him, is because someone’s coming to you in a lot of pain. You’ve got them out of pain at a time when you didn’t have space to do it. And then I might do something weird, just be like, you know, don’t worry about it.

[00:12:17] Don’t don’t pay for it this time. Just bring me someone else. Just random things like that. And they’re already shops amazed, like they’re always like, oh, this is incredible. You’ve done so much for me. I’m so happy. I mean, I’m out of pain. And then you kind of just like, you know, another element of it. If I wanted money from you today, I’ve just I’ve done that before. If you want as an example of something that would just give you something to talk about. But in the back of that, I’ve had patients I’ve had I know I’ve had people come to me. I’ve had gifts given to be at that concert tickets. All these other things come off the back of just making someone happy, you know, just doing something different. I don’t recommend it was not a great business model, but it’s a good way to kind of just because, again, for our practise, we’ve never we have never had a website. We don’t have a website. You won’t find us, really. And it’s. Always been like that is purely word of mouth, purely word of mouth, Payman.

[00:13:12] What is it about the point where there must be some energy in the room or something for you to turn around and say, no problem, buddy. This one’s on the house, right? I remember when my dad had the cornershop, he gave the old musbah away. Right. But what that was usually a connexion, right? Whatever it was. What is it about? You go through that treatment you did. And he said, you know what, buddy? Don’t worry about it.

[00:13:36] It’s I think I think it is Mitry that I think sometimes I just like to shock and surprise. And I think I think it’s when you’ve obviously had that rapport with them, you can tell that they’re really happy with everything. You can tell that they’re already going to talk about you. And it’s just adding that little extra thing sometimes that, you know, again, I could probably count on one hand, some have done that, but I know off the back of it and I think it’s just in that room, you just that patient is already so grateful that already you’ve already done everything that you needed to do to to to get them to the point where they’re happy with the service that you provided. But it may not still be enough to for them to talk to you about the talk about you over dinner with their friends on a Friday night. Just, you know something, just if I went to this amazing practise and it’s not going to be voicing that they had something for free, it’s going to be more waisting. I went to this beautiful practise. I saw dentistry. Listen to what I said. I didn’t experience any pain. It’s all those things that I expect they’ll remember and then then express to others.

[00:14:44] And just just the clarity of the business. Right. Is this a business that you control with your brother? Are you an associate there? What’s what’s the special?

[00:14:53] I’m an associate that practise. And this there’s been talks of of of things potentially in the future. But I’ve never seen it as that for me or, you know, I’ve seen it as my brother’s practise. I, I think if it was an opportunity or the right time, the right opportunity came across. Maybe, maybe that what would make sense down the line, I think it could well go that way. But I’ve done something else by my own practise separately to that to kind of just be like, you know, this is also there is another opportunity, something else that I can do.

[00:15:28] So question for you that if it wasn’t your brother’s practise, would you still give treatment away on the house?

[00:15:35] Yeah, no, I think that’s that’s what he would do. I do things that I. I see how he’s done it. All of these things are just kind of like what he’s done before. Yeah. I don’t think it’s these things that I’ve probably come up with by myself. It’s things that I’ve seen and it may not be that and it’s not always that, but there’s just things that we that we would we almost all our patients on my business call has my personal mobile number. Every patient after that will get that personal mobile number and they never call. You know, it’s not always like always giving that away. You know, it was going to bother you. I’ve been giving that call out for eight years and very rarely do I get any message. Sometimes I get like a happy birthday or something like a someone complaining about anything or any issues. But it’s that you see that in their eyes when you done that and you’ve given them that number and you said, that’s my personal number. And if you’ve got you can call me directly. You face something like, oh, wow, taken aback by it. And it’s just I think it’s an extra blanket of support that they know they have. Having been to that practise

[00:16:40] Payman a couple of questions. How did it end up being 90 percent Katari and how how does it differ from treating patients who don’t live here and, you know, the cultural issues that were there.

[00:16:56] So initially it came again, this is Leaders on perfectly to this because this whole business model came from one patient. So there’s again, that whole model comes from treating that one patient correctly who happens to be connected to the Qatari embassy. And that’s what we still see. That patient, my brother still sees him. And, you know, by having done that, he’s gone back to where he’s worked to be like, oh, we need someone to refer to. Let me send you all our patients. So then the embassy pays for their treatment mostly. But it’s like NHS. They won’t pay for some things. You know, there’s there’s an implant dentistry, the basic dentistry. I generally don’t pay for it. So if they want that treatment to be done, then they found that themselves and now they get it. Things change over time. They start to pay a little bit less. They start to prove less patient. But that patient base is difficult because they’re coming in with translators. So you’re only ever as good as your translator. They’re coming in with medical histories as long as your arm. I don’t know what it is about some of those countries, but it’s like, I guess some Iranians, they just don’t really you know, they sometimes I just think they can pay their way out of it or there’s someone that can pay their way out of it for them. So there’s long medical histories and they don’t know their medical history. They don’t really know what’s wrong with them, even, you know. And then you’ve got to have this whole conversation is to like you need all this work to be done. You’ve got two weeks to do it because they’re about to leave the country. You’ve got to get approval from the office for the treatment to go ahead. And they expect that they can pay for that. They always will pay for everything. So they like. Yeah, doctor, I want Hollywoods my. I can’t give you that, my friend.

[00:18:45] You say we consider that if you consider setting up a little branch in Doha.

[00:18:50] Yeah. That’s that’s you know, I always watch this space sort of situation with that one with me. It’s always, always had that in the back of his mind. And it’s and he goes there a lot. You go there every every six weeks or so to see patients are really six weeks to maybe six weeks, two months, something like that. You’ll go there to see patients. So, yeah, it it makes sense, I guess, but it’s weird. It’s become like a brand, you know, Savani, because we see so many of the patients and we see a lot of that. They’re important people let’s say. So I think they become a little bit of a brand. People want to come to see Savani. Just it just

[00:19:33] It just goes to show, doesn’t it? Prav, I know this would be resonating with you, that sort of hand-to-hand combat of the beginning of business where you haven’t got enough customers, patients, whatever, whichever business it is, and you’re going out of your way for every single one, you know, surprise and delight, shock and awe, whatever you want to call, just doing everything you can for the few customers that you’ve got and and that one customer patient becoming the source of twenty years. But instead of you know, it just goes to show how how important that human touch to service element is. Absolutely.

[00:20:14] And I think that’s that’s why it’s been so. For me, the other thing is I kind of I for everyone knows this because I’ve always been in it. I think it was always something that I thought that it’s just every practise does it this way. And so you realise that it’s not like that. And, you know, as I’ve bought my own practise, I realise that you’ve got to you’ve got to show people that you’ve got to train people to to have that mentality and to do things in that way, because it’s all about that patient journey. Right. From how it is when they pick up the phone to how it is when they they’ve left your practise and they’ve got your mobile number as a as a as a blanket, I guess, of, you know, is that sort of touch with things is I thought everyone did. And then I really realised it wasn’t that way.

[00:21:05] And, you know, that sort of high end level of service that you deliver, you know, not having in a close in time, for example, or just going above and beyond. Right. Or perhaps when you’re in someone’s mouth and you see something, I actually think, you know, I’ll just tidy up a while I’m here sort of thing, and I just go that extra mile and, you know, if I’ve just got my business head on right. And I’ve just got my numbers head on, I look at and I it’s not scalable as a business model.

[00:21:32] Right.

[00:21:33] But from the other from the other side, I look at it and think you’re providing a level of service that nobody else does. Right. And that and that’s your USP when you’re looking at, let’s say, the growth of your practise or the growth of your business or the growth of you moving forward, because staying open till 9:00 pm every night isn’t scalable either, especially when the kiddies come along. And although Payman might tell you to delay that process,

[00:22:01] He’s got his hand on. He said, I’ll get these days to get out right now.

[00:22:10] And what is what is the plan? Is is it to deliver like just the highest and service that’s delivered by you and people come to see you? Because I can’t see you having a team of six, seven, eight associates who will deliver what you deliver unless they come with the same family. And this has got to come from family values. Right. And unless they come with them, it’s going to be hard to find and replicate.

[00:22:36] Yeah, I think I think that’s definitely true, and that’s what I’ve always kind of said to me, just to like, what’s the plan? Like what where where is it going? Because he’s he’s 20 years old and he’s in his fifties now and he’s just building another practise and he’s thinking of you thinking this and that. And it’s like, where does it kind of stop? Where does it where does it go? Where’s the end up? I think we’ve got you got better as time’s going on. I think we go through periods where we call riding the wave. I guess if there’s if there’s an influx of patients here, then we will see them. So it’s not always like that in times we skate it back and we were less busy and, you know, we have more normal lives. But you’re totally right in that sense of where does it where does it go from here? How do you sell that sort of thing on which I guess one of the reasons that I started looking at other things in terms of what if I’m looking at a business perspective, it didn’t make sense to me for, you know, going in and buying that sort of practise is where does it at the moment? It didn’t. I think what I needed to do was to maybe get a little bit of a business experience in a little bit of money behind me or something that I could actually afford to run a practise that way, because I would like to I think ultimately I’d like to come back and have one practise that I work in and is run that way. And I don’t really mind about what’s going to happen later on. I think that’s how he’s he’s done it.

[00:24:10] Do you see this as a business sort of centred around your lifestyle, your values, what you want to deliver, rather than this machine that you want to multiply and grow and scale? Because at the end of it, you are the business, right? Payman.

[00:24:26] So absolutely, I think but I think that goes to say for pretty much all of the practises on Wall Street or or, you know, it’s it is that way. Holosuite practises are very One-Man Show. There is there is everything generally coming to see my brother first and foremost and he’s busy. So that’s kind of how it really works. But it’s but it is that show and it’s always it’ll always be generally is that game. And I think every practise that there is is a little bit that way. No one’s got multiple practises on Wall Street or has some history as multiple other ones, because it does take up a lot of your time to to grow a practise like that.

[00:25:08] What about when you bought your Bromley practise? The difference, I mean, that must be a totally different type of patients and probably did you buy it when you started?

[00:25:20] So I’m one of the Dental D.C. partners with with death. Oh, yes. So they’ve I’ve known them for for a long time, mainly for Amet. And a couple of other friends who I met were quite good friends at uni. We were at its wedding when I’ve known that before. But we got it. We started speaking about it really. And it kind of just made sense on the basis of the fact that if I am a clinician, I love clinical dentistry and I but I’ve always wanted to own my own practise. But I also feel like to do it in a in a way that I know makes business sense as well. I don’t want to just kind of put all my money into it and work there and not really get anywhere. I’d like to hit the ground running, I guess. And that’s what Dental beauty as a group will will allow, allows clinicians that a good dentist. Fundamentally, there are a lot of good dentists. What exactly this all this coming on board that that I know of. And it’s a movement that’s happening and it’s because you have that clinical freedom to do what you want to do and you can do it completely your own way because it is your your practise. But I wouldn’t have chosen you or you. They will do the practise with you if they didn’t think you were up to the standards.

[00:26:32] And that was important for me. I wasn’t I didn’t want to go in as a a corporate and be told I can’t audit this. I can’t do that. I wanted to be given complete clinical freedom to do the dentistry that I want to do, the way that I want to do it and the way that Dental butI know that I do it, which is why they chose me or wanted me to do the practise with. So there was an appreciation there that I felt which made sense. But Bromley is as a place it was it was it was a practise that they were already in the middle of buying. And it was it just made sense. It was it’s a big practise. If you’re going to do something, do it properly. So it’s six surgery practise with room to expand to eight, nine surgeries. If we going to it’s got legs to keep keep going if we wanted to. And the patient base is that’s what it is I didn’t know about before, but that’s what made me so happy being there is that, you know, just nice people. And I think it’s probably because I’ve been speaking in broken English ta to page to pay so much, so much Arabic if a fruit working with with with the Qataris.

[00:27:39] But I’m doing it in my hope. My whole console is so in between the two. But just it’s just nice to be able to sit and have a conversation with someone for forty five minutes for an hour and get to know them as a patient and to get them to experience what I’ve learnt through working with my brother, which they may not have seen the dentist that were seen by before, and then also to get the appreciation from those patients which I didn’t feel I was getting from some of the patients that I see in the west end of the street is not you don’t you don’t still get that if you go above and beyond for one of these patients, it’s a whole different story. And if you go above and beyond for a, you know, one of our patients on High Street, because it’s almost like they expect it, they expect they’re coming there, they expect that level. Whereas if you do it for someone in Bromley, it’s kind of like, oh, well, I’m going to go and tell everyone about you. I’m going to write you Google reviews. I’m going to I had a patient cry in my console because she was so happy about being the type of pricing.

[00:28:44] I always found it when when you go from a practise that’s cheaper to practise, is more expensive for about two days, you’re like, what the hell? The prices are high here and then you get used to going the other way. Let’s be difficult. All the prices lower.

[00:29:01] That’s that’s the other thing about I think generally the other good thing about Dental parties is because they know that delivering a certain level of quality, the prices aren’t that. You know, we all the prices generally have around about the same sort of price point, pretty much all of them. And because all the services, the way we do the I mean, just look at next as a dentist, he’s not going to be doing things. How fast is it? He’s going to be doing it every possible way it can be done. So he’s going to charge for it. And as we all do so, our price point isn’t that much lower. It’s expected to be a little bit lower. But, you know, I don’t I don’t I don’t see I don’t notice a massive, massive difference from that,

[00:29:43] You know, your other life as a DJ. So those were that whether that stuff

[00:29:55] I was deejaying from, what year of school was I like twelve, thirteen years old. And I was always I was like a garage deejay, like, you know, making mix tapes of. My friends, I’m seeing thinking we’re super cool, and then I went to uni and one of my biggest regrets is just not doing it for you and I was an idiot. Why would you go to uni and not carry on doing what you kind of always enjoy doing? But it kind of got to the point where I was, like, so annoyed that I didn’t do that at uni that I came out of uni and then went really hard into it. During my first few years after after Dental school, I did like a three month programme, which was like just to kind of catch up with what I’d missed over the last five years. I’m very much like that, by the way. I’ll do a course on something. You know, if I don’t know something, I’ll do a programme or something about learning about it. So I did that. It was like 12 hours a week after work that I’ll go, you know, three, two or three nights a week. And then I just started doing my, my, my, my brother in law. He’s got a couple of clubs and restaurants. My wife’s brother. So you tell him this. He says that I probably killed one of his venues. I started to, but I started doing that, started doing a couple of venues with that. And then I got in contact with Millard’s singing dentist lot again for a number of years since when he was like fifth year of uni. And I was a kid. We had family, friends that were similar. They were they knew each other.

[00:31:31] So I got in contact with him. And then he was like, yeah, OK, I’ll start deejaying together. And then we started doing like secret brunch parties and things like that. And, you know, we had a couple of paid gigs here and there. And then he got too big for me. I guess that he he did mention on this podcast that I was the first one to post this video. I did listen to that. He did shout me out there. So he he gives his success to me. Thank you. Thank you. He urged you. But, yeah, that’s that’s what it is. I think it was kind of it was a lot of it in like 12, 14, 15, 16, something like that. But then I realised that it’s kind of hard to side of the brain thing again. You know, it was I couldn’t do it. It was that that dividing those tunes and having one life that was doing the whole creative deejaying, taking and doing the other side, which was the the work and the clinical work I needed to eat. I needed to make some money. So I took the I took the road to dentistry and I this all those things that, you know, there was always things we always around the crowds of people that I could have taken it a little bit further but were never going to be massive. It was always a hobby. You know, it was always mainly me that I still love the music. I still love the scene. A little bit too old for it now, but I’ve had two years in lockdown, so I’m thinking I’m going to get back on it. But it’s it’s you know, it’s been a hobby of mine more than anything else.

[00:33:01] If you’re that first flight to be far away,

[00:33:04] There’s a couple of times a year we got married. There we go. It’s a very we were thinking of moving there last year. We’re not done. It’s one of those things even crossed our mind. But, yeah, it’s that’s and that’s like a second home.

[00:33:20] And the whole Dental beauty thing, how does it actually work? Did you Coleby a practise together? What was the what was the set when when you got involved with that process

[00:33:30] So that they were this practise they had already kind of put an offer in? Yeah. Normally how it works is if you if you know, it depends if you want to be partner. Yeah. Then approach them and then there’s like keys. As soon as you show any interest or anything with that view, you straight away beyond the most organised person I know you cuz you up there. And then I’d find I struggle to find how much time in the day to do things that he does, but he will call you there and then, and then he’ll get to know you get the information from you and then see where you want to have a practise. Fundamentally that’s the first and foremost thing I think he asks is where where do you want where are you? Where do you want the process to be? And then straight away and, you know, as soon as he finds something, he’ll go in together. You can view the place. If it works, the numbers work. And that’s where I needed the help with I don’t know what I’m looking at these sheets and I don’t know what the numbers mean. I don’t know where it relates to is, although I don’t have the buying power in the sense that when you’re going through a group like that, you’re more likely to get the practise that you want because the backing behind you, you know, there’s your easy ways. It’s easier to get the practise if they think you’re more serious. So as me going in, they don’t know who I am, they don’t know what I’ve got. So I thought, you know, if I did this on my own, it’ll probably get me take me two years to get to the point of just getting the practise to start with. Whereas with these guys, everything was just way faster

[00:35:03] And one foot forty nine. Fifty one model.

[00:35:06] Forty nine. Fifty one. Yeah. Yeah. So and I was fine with that. I did push back on initially but then I thought it makes sense if I was doing it, if I was them that’s how I would do it. You wouldn’t want someone to stop you doing things. You know this. Forty nine. Fifty one. But your decision share is still is to equal. They won’t do anything that I would say I wouldn’t want to do nothing to, but I still feel like the buck stops with me. I still feel like this is your practise. How do you want to run it that will give you advice on things and say, you know, so this, this and this reason when you’re looking at the numbers, this doesn’t make sense. But if you want to do it, go ahead. I guess. And that was important to me from the start.

[00:35:50] The forty nine. Fifty one, just for clarity. They own fifty one percent of the practise you own forty nine percent of it. And in terms of what you bought in, you paid for forty nine percent of the shares or. Exactly. Pound for pound. Or was that like a minority discount.

[00:36:06] It was a, I think it was, it was, it was pound for pound I think. Yeah. We went in that way in terms of getting finance so we didn’t put all the money up is it. Was I put up forty nine percent of the deposit, they put up fifty one percent deposit and then we get bank finance for the rest.

[00:36:23] And then as a as just more on the business side of things as well as you working in the practise doing dentistry, do you get remunerated as a standard associate. REI do you take a salary. How does that

[00:36:35] Work. Yes, initially we didn’t and now we do. So now I get paid as an associate, so it works really well. So, you know, you get you get an associate payout, you have a business. You know, as you do these things, you learn that actually you might not want as much of an associate there because it affects you are the sort of things that have an impact to the valuation of your practise. If you were looking to go down that route, you got to do some sort of things that you learn as you go through. And these are things I wouldn’t have known if I’d done it on my own. So yeah, but yeah, it works really well in that sense that I get associate pay, I get dividends if there are any. And yet the stake in the company, of course,

[00:37:20] And at the Top End, you’ve got this whole machine supporting you in terms of who you are and marketing and all of that.

[00:37:27] Exactly. So you kind of do as much of you as you want to do. You know, they give you autonomy in that sense that if you want to do it all, by all means, by all means, do it. You do it your way. But if you you want the most the people that they take on, as I said, a clinical Dental, if they genuinely just want to do the work and they want to, but they want to do it for themselves. So that’s my main focus is at the moment, my own clinical dentistry, but also kind of getting I’ve got younger dentists that work for me and I guess Kahu Instagram thing. I get a little bit of an Instagram following of younger dentists, you know, somebody who’s Instagram superstars. But there’s there’s people that want to know how I’m doing things. And a couple of those guys messaged me say I I’ll be lucky to work there. And you see that I’ll be a nice way of kind of mentoring a couple of people. Associates in the practise, and that’s what I’m doing now, so I’ve got a couple of younger dentists that I’ve set up, know Dropbox folders, we share photos, we share cases. I make sure that I’m always available if they need me to block of time to see a patient with them. If they want to do a case with me, I want to do that because that’s that’s how I spend my time rather than spending it on, you know, all of the other things that you don’t want to really be doing when you’re running a dental practise. I want to spend it on the clinical side and getting others to do the clinical side the way that I think it should be done or the way that I would like for it to be done if it was done on me. So that’s what I’m kind of doing at the moment. The practise is just showing people the ropes in that sense, I guess.

[00:39:04] And so what do you look for in an associate?

[00:39:08] If I was looking for an associate, I don’t I don’t think I have any interest in what your credentials are of your name. Personally, I think those days from my perspective, I think those days have passed. I think we can we can get top quality dentists now that are driven enough to just do things differently and not do things through the academic way of it being done. So first of all, it’s great if you’ve got those things, but if you haven’t got a portfolio to show me, if you haven’t got a picture, if you if you haven’t taken a photo in the right way of doing what I always say, I’m going to plug it here because it makes a difference. Menasche is caused on photography that focussed course, and the way that he styles the photos actually matters massively to me, because if you can take a photo in that way and you care enough to take the photo in that way, even if the work isn’t quite there yet, it shows you’ve got something to get it to that point where it needs to be because you care, you care about it being done in that in that right way. So I want to see that’s what I’ll be looking for fundamentally, is you show me a portfolio of work, show me how you’ve done it. I don’t actually really care if it’s done that that well at that stage because that will come. It depends on the age of the dentist, I guess. But if you show me the hunger for it, you show me the desire for it. Show me that the eye that you can align the photo in the right way, that that sort of stuff I think matters. I don’t know. I’ll make you go my own on that. But it does make a difference.

[00:40:38] I agree with you. I mean, I interviewed a dentist the other day. Well, shall we say, you know, went through the whole application process. I always say, can you send me your three best cases and and just send me some information about what happened? Not not on the clinical side, but on the emotional side. Yeah. So I want to I want to know, can they communicate and B, do they photograph their work well, et et cetera. And and this one one one lady that stood out and she laid them out properly, she’d cropped the images the way you’d expect them to sit side by side, just the basic stuff. Right. And then the emotional story was this lady came to see me and this is what she couldn’t do. This is what she struggled with. This is what she suffered with. And this is the after piece. And for me, totally in agreement with you is that actually I wasn’t really interested on what courses or postgrad education she done. Right. She was able to show off some some really good work, describe it in a way that was very human.

[00:41:43] Yeah, I think absolutely that. And I think I think that’s fundamentally one of the things if you if I’m looking at what there’s where there’s potential for someone is what I’m doing in that sense. But then it comes to I guess it’s always going to be that communication and how they’re going to be speaking to patients. I think if someone’s coming in to say, I want my teeth whitened, the question back from that should be, why do you want your teeth licence? It should always it shouldn’t be OK. This is what we can do is getting to know that patient and putting the time in to understand why they’re in your chair and why they’ve why they’ve come there, what happened in their life for them to want their teeth to be whitens. You know, that’s that I think is important to having that conversation and being able to hold that conversation and take and keeping it very personal to that patient rather than going down the route of this is how it’s done matters quite a lot, I think. And I think that’s that’s I guess that’s kind of like the latter thing and all of that. But it’s it’s I think it’s more than that. It’s just General. General, I guess you can’t call it sales, but it’s just general patient understanding, you know, knowing how to communicate with people. And influencing is what I’m looking for. I think it’s just generally being able to influence people.

[00:43:07] I guess it all comes down to the good old wolf of Wall Street, less of where the guy says, sell me this pen. Right? Yeah. He doesn’t want an answer where you’re talking about, well, you know, this is a ballpoint pen and this is a fountain pen and this shiny silver. And all the rest is more about, you know, why are you in the market for a pen? Why do you need a pen? What benefits would you get out of this? And just learning their motivations in the ways and that is ultimately I know in dentistry, they call it, you know, it’s not sales, but it is sometimes seen as a dirty word.

[00:43:39] And Prav believe that if we’re

[00:43:42] Right on

[00:43:45] The other side of the coin, where you’ve got the dentist jumps into the clinical hair and tries to explain to the patient the full value in a classically I want my teeth whitened old starts showing them syringes and trade and all of that. So even though you’re saying sales, this could just as well be service, you know, understanding patients, understanding motivations and connecting with people as opposed to just treating teeth.

[00:44:17] Yeah, for sure. That is that is 100 percent what it’s about. I think when I’m looking at now even dental practises and what I see is what should be a successful practise. I’m not going to look at other dental practises. I’m going to look at hospitality. I’m going to look at hotels and look at and I think that’s a lot of guys are doing now, Robbie Hughes and all of these that I know which are doing it that way. And but it’s still not enough. I don’t think I think there’s there’s still a huge market, huge gap for other practises to to do the same thing. That’s the best thing

[00:44:48] You could do for your staff in Bromley, is take them for a weekend to an amazing hotel to show an amazing

[00:44:55] Service. I can’t wait to do that because they you know, a lot of them have been to those places. I haven’t seen those sorts of places. It’ll be a pleasure to do that. I think that’s that’s that’s really what would be a lovely thing to do, especially after all of this stuff, because it makes a massive, massive difference, because, you know, I think that’s where the other aspects of you think everyone knows it. But that’s only because you may surround yourself with people that mean, you know, you hang out with people that go to the same places as you or you eat the same restaurants and things like that. So you see that sort of thing all the time. So you think it’s normal, but not enough people have experienced that sort of thing to to be able to deliver it to someone else, you know?

[00:45:38] And, you know, there’s also a kind of person who wants to be of service and a kind of person who thinks it’s demeaning to be you know, this is the kind of person thing, you know, when you said, how do you what do you look for in an associate outside of work? You mentioned some of the clinical stuff. That’s what I would look for is is it the kind of person who takes pride or pleasure, pleasure in being of service to other people?

[00:46:06] Yeah, yeah. It is key, I think, to the point where, you know, as a Dental beauty practises have an element of what a small my practise is, got a very small NHS contract. But if I’m seeing and I haven’t said that I won’t see NHS patients even though I haven’t seen any patient for a long time, because when the NHS patient comes in, I’m giving them that hour appointment, I’m giving forty and I’m doing it in the exact same flow because then that patient sees that level so they may not have experience it. They may again, they may not even be in the restaurant, but you can be the person that delivers it in your dental practise that converted. You know, you don’t have to then go through the the conversation that no one wants to have about this service. And they already see the difference. They already know they’re already kind of they’re like, yeah, OK, I get it. I see I’m presenting in front of them on a big screen with the photos that are dutifully taken, all of this sort of stuff. And, you know, they already they’re already on board. It’s just delivering it, I guess.

[00:47:11] Afterwards you said you can enjoy orthodontics, Invisalign so much. And I see your composite work on online a lot. Is that the kind of work you enjoy the most or is that just good for Instagram, what you enjoy?

[00:47:28] You know, a fallback is that you a lot recently in that I, I would have originally said, you know, it’s quite sexy sounding like you’re saying to people, I’m a cosmetic dentist, but I don’t actually think I am a cosmetic dentist. And that’s not what I do if I’m doing what I do day in, day out is general dentistry. And that is probably because I like doing general dentistry, not because I do like doing the composite stuff. It does the artistic side. That is enjoyable, but I love a root canal. I still do. I still do my own root canal. Generally, I think is what I said is, is that generalist thing? I think that is what is what I really enjoy just covering as many angles as I can, but doing them all well. And, you know, if you can do that, if you can do it all well, then why not write a note saying, I cannot, but I’m aiming to. I think that’s what I would I would love to be able to do. Well, I love to be able to do all right and be that kind general. And that’s probably what I want to be down the line. And that’s why I’ve started implants. And I again, I went full steam with that.

[00:48:38] I Fazila, your your your previous guest, she has been like a best friend to me, the froufrou the last three or four years. However, she was on I listen to her podcasts and I think how she came across on that is is how she is. She’s hot on the sleeve. She will do anything for you, you know, that has helped me massively. So mentoring is is key for any young dentist is find someone that you can have that relationship with physical. It took me under a wing and I went I took a day off work for two years before I bought the practise. I was there every Wednesday. I’m paid as my own choice as to take one day off and just to stand by her. Doing surgery was a great thing to do that that, you know, for any aspects of dentistry that you’re into, if you can find someone that will let you do that, she’d always take that opportunity 100 percent because those are the guys that have been through it. Again, seeing how she speaks to patients. And that it just resonated with me is we have a great understanding with each other. She she trusts me a lot. I think I think she’ll let me do her teeth.

[00:49:47] So, you know, all of this sort of stuff messes. And when you have that relationship with someone and you go with someone that way, whether it’s a friend, whether it’s a mentor or whatever, you know, you’ve got to you’ve got to ride that wave. You’ve got to you’ve got to find someone that you can do that with. But, yeah, dentistry is another thing that I’m trying to add to my bone physical because she’s very cute. She will help you. She will guide you, open all the doors for you. But are you going to make the step? Are you going to make the leap to do the work? But she you know, she’s she’s allowed me to teach the little stuff that I do know on her on our implant course, which is it’s a great course because it’s it’s not easy. There’s always there with infinite knowledge. But it’s good to be also shown the ropes by people that have just done it a couple of years earlier. To you, with her backing behind you, you say she is run by her, but it’s great for us to be able to input the little knowledge we have. Perspective, I think is a good thing.

[00:50:42] Payman, how did you just sort of approach Fazila and say, hey, I want to come and hang out with you every Wednesday or whatever it was, and I’m going to do this for two years or whatever was that? Was that the connexion with your brother or an introduction or.

[00:50:56] I think I said it’s another funny story. You speaks about her with her, about it. She was putting on a lecture. I didn’t want to go. It was a friend of mine that I’d put on the lecture and that she was she was doing I was I’m not that interested in parts of the outcome because, you know, we’re going to marry Shafter. So we just up I did like Charles. Like, oh, this is actually quite interesting. I was and I sat next to her at dinner. And for her, if if she if she sat next to someone, she would always make the effort to talk to you, get to speak to you and be as friendly as she is. So we got talking. Two days later, I signed up to a course and that’s how it all started. But then after that, to get to the point where, you know, she let me see her patients or to let me shadow her next to her patients. We became friends. We I was through her whatever her GDC thing, all this stuff we would be with, I was there for her. I wanted to be there for her. So we were we became good friends, I guess. And as a result of that, we are where we are,

[00:52:05] Right place, right time, serendipity

[00:52:07] And all that sort of thing as well. Again, I say to another thing I say to two other dentists or younger dentists is to expose yourself to as much as you possibly can, because I think she said it in her podcast that you want to listen to where she said that, you know, people do what they can do or what they know about. That’s what the dentist we only provide. We may only provide the care that we can personally deliver. But if you don’t know what is out there and what is possible to do, you’ll be very limited by what you can do, because what you can provide is a drop in the ocean as to what can be provided. So exposing yourself to as much as possible not only brings you contacts, brings you networking, but will also give you more knowledge even if you can’t provide it yourself. You know, there’s some that it can be done. I think that’s a different thing, that some some some sometimes take things like gum grafting and all this sort of perio stuff that I didn’t even know could be done. So I was slapping composite on that. It was like, no, actually, that’s not the right thing to do. You’ve lost gum in that area. Why am I putting composite there? You need gum. So let’s let’s send you to this guy to to do that, because that’s what you actually need say. And that’s, I guess, the the whole general thing. Again, people like Cora do that. People will do that. People like to do that. But it’s you know, it’s exposing yourself to as much as possible. As early as you can see that you’re aware of these things is is very important.

[00:53:42] How did you find. Look, I had this issue when I stopped dentistry, then came back to dentistry, and then when I came back to the industry that we didn’t need to be a dentist, it was I was just doing it because, you know, I was a dentist. Yeah. And I thought, I’m not going to do anything that isn’t to my top of my knowledge, as in as if there was someone better for the job. That other person should be doing that job and as well. But then there’s always someone better than me being a little bleaching, a little bit of it’s a difficult one with a patient.

[00:54:24] It’s a great question. There is always someone that I’d say you’ve kind of just made me think, oh my God, what am I doing? Anything you need to go somewhere, like what is going on? It’s probably I you’re you’re very right. I think definitely do things within your scope that is obviously very important, but not to the point where you limit yourself completely as well. So you get scared of everything. You know, I think that that’s that’s a massive thing as well. I think you’re always going to be a little bit a little bit brave and have the confidence in yourself. And if you don’t have the confidence, then get the confidence by getting the mentors and getting the experience. And, you know, I think my post is if you’re talking about my composite stuff, which I guess is what I guess is still what I’m best, that is pure in the numbers. You know, like I’m quite ashamed to say, I haven’t I haven’t done your course. I haven’t I haven’t done one cause I’ve done one composite course. And I don’t think that’s the right way. But I’ve done numbers. I’ve done a lot of composite work, you know, and that was because I had carries on carries with these patients that I’ve had with the embassy. And I’ve had the time because that’s the other aspect of it, is a lot of these younger dentists don’t have the privilege of the time to spend that day and told how long they can spend on a patient they’re being dictated to in terms of targets. So nothing takes away from having to do the work you’ve got. You’ve got to have done those cases. But I would still I would still send things on, though. I’m composite stuff, probably won’t. But, you know, I’m still not doing that many of my own implants I still get nervous about. I still think that way. More people that can do this better than me restoring them, I’ll do them very well. I do

[00:56:21] A comprehensive research form format, three apps and that sort of thing

[00:56:26] Formats the format. Rehab’s the the Fazila way, which is not which is the better way, which is, you know, the short span bridges, that sort of stuff. And, you know, I know you’re probably going to ask my, my, my clinical mistakes, but, you know, those are the cases that that sort of stuff I’ve noticed happening is those cases where I’ve taken on too much. I’ll take it, you know, and it’s case selection because both of those cases were my mum and my mother in law. They’re both the most by far the most complex cases I’ve ever even attempted. They were done with with Fazila. But a lot of the restorative element I kind of took on myself and Zyda probably laughing at me for doing it. I go and then if you could. But I think it’s one of those things that those cases, the ones that you really learn from this is like, OK, but it’s still doing it. You know, having done that, once I pick the right case because it was on the moment, not going to take me to the easy, at least I hope not. But, you know, those sort of cases, I’ve learnt massive, massive things about just just you know, the best thing about temporaries and stuff like that is that the hand skills from that came from those cases of just being able to to deal with those sorts of things. So you need to do them. You need to do the pick the right people to do them on that aren’t going to go you too many headaches and too many sleepless nights.

[00:58:01] What have been your biggest clinical mistakes?

[00:58:05] Biggest clinical mistakes, I think. So my answer to that question was going to be about it was going to be done, we’ve done we’ve done it all. I’ve put roofs and sinuses cafecito. I’ve just I’ve done you know, I’ve done the whole a patient can’t just decide to swallow on me as I’m like with forty thousand, I’ll be in my Gromit’s and Lingley and then suddenly you just in your seven time loop see the frenulum wrap around this thing. Will what happened that all those nasty things that that have happened

[00:58:40] To this one, something you’ve learnt from a mistake but you know you can help others with.

[00:58:47] Learn from a mistake. I was always is always going to be case champagne, I think is always the key thing for me is always just knowing what your limits are and what you learn from it is getting through it. I think having having done that, having messed that up, what can I take away from this is that we got through it. The patient still OK and assorted. The problem that, you know, you’ve got to if you can’t do it yourself, you’ve got to find someone who can help you do it. And once you get past that situation, then you don’t have to do it right. So that’s what you can take away from it because you’ve done it. You messed it up. You found out how to fix it and you fixed it and now you know how to do so. Carry on. You know that that’s the process. There’s that cycle that we go through every day. I think as young, younger than this, I think that’s that’s what we go for, at least the ones that are doing things. You know, I think the ones that are making any moves or that sort that we have, we’ve made mistakes because we’re brave enough, I guess, to attempt it in the first place. I don’t want a lot of people to go out and start doing things just to try them out now, but do it within your scope. But it’s that that, I think is what I’ve learnt in terms of

[01:00:04] Business Payman any business mistakes.

[01:00:07] You know, not not yet, because that’s because I’m not as experienced yet, I think actually, yes. One thing we have with with a practise like a group like Dental, butI. Is that we bought the practise we took over the next day, the day after that, we had builders in, right, because they had they know the model that they got in. And I know that having looked into this, more people are saying that for the first six months you shouldn’t do anything. You should just learn the business, learn the people that work for you, speak to the people that I’ve come into a practise that was 40 years established, maybe longer. I think we have wait even longer than that. But the people that had been there had been there for 30 odd years. A lot of them. Right. A lot of people have been there for 30 odd years. So you’ve got this new guy come in, come into the place and just destroy it. If these guys were saying that it was like a bereavement, that’s how they described us coming into this practise, because that’s that’s all they know. That’s that’s you know, you’ve come in so that you’ve come into their front room and you’ve just woken up and you’ve just trashed the place and you haven’t even really spoken to them about it. You’ve just come in and done that. So from a business perspective, is management of those people fundamentally is being able to communicate with those guys and be like and reassure them, show that everything’s OK. I don’t think anyone should go that quickly, but that’s how it’s done with NBC because they know how it’s going to work and it does work for them.

[01:01:47] And now we are six months down the line and we’re doing very well as a practise that the staff are getting on board. But we’re still not quite there because you’ve got an inexperienced guy as a manager coming in to deal with people that sometimes almost twice my age. Not quite. But a lot of people have been there for a long, long time, being almost told what to do by someone who they think hasn’t got a clue. So and they might be right. So it’s it’s a case of knowing the people that you’re working with, getting to know those people before you, making any drastic changes before you go in and really understand their concerns, understand what they’re what they’re worried about and address those concerns. I think that’s what I’m a lot more and that’s what I’m supposed to be learning in the role that I’m in as a clinical director. I suppose as Dental future. I mean, I’m more of a management position of managing the clinical aspects of that business. But also I’ve got to be there for all the staff. And that that aspect, I think is is probably what I’ve learnt the most about what I’ve done. And, you know, this actually came from this how much I suppose I’ve listened to this podcast at the time. I think it was Mark Hughes. He said, I’m quitting this podcast, Dental Leaders hearing

[01:03:16] Previous episodes keep coming

[01:03:21] Back in November 2010 when we

[01:03:25] Should citations list at the end of every podcast.

[01:03:30] He said he said that he wished you did an MBA. Right. So I was like, OK, that’s interesting. I’ve always thought about doing an MBA and I’ve just bought a practise. And he said that that would speed things up for him so much. So I was like, OK, the first thing I did, I bought the personal MBA book that I a very good book, recommended highly personal and be a contributor. I mean, it’s really good. But then I also start searching MBAs, and that’s not unless you do a short course, 10 week MBA essentials. And I’m seven weeks into that maths and I’ve just signed on to that

[01:04:07] One, seven weeks of it

[01:04:09] In two weeks. And this is intense.

[01:04:11] This is as a help with the Dental practise.

[01:04:14] So again, last week was the whole leadership management influencing all of that sort of stuff. Then it’s going to go on. Then it goes on to, you know, reading, finance, reading, accountancy, all of these sort of things that are the essential things that you need to. And I don’t I don’t I don’t know. Maybe some people will say you need an MBA is a Dental practise. I don’t think you don’t. But I think it was good to do that and to be in the process of it because I’m just relating everything back to the practise and being at it right at the beginning where I’m just kind of looking at it like, guess this means this, this means this. I can relate this to this. I can go in and start doing this and try this out as made an impact. I think I think that it made me more confident. I think I felt like a bit of an imposter.

[01:04:58] The thing is the thing is, did we as dentists, we think we need to do a course for everything. Yeah. Some of the some of the top business people in the country are corner shop owners and then in the course. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Listen, man, I’m no expert, but business is looking after your customers, looking after your people, looking after your suppliers. That that is the. That’s it. Absolutely. Do you do an MBA? Sure. Do an MBA. Yeah, but but you know, it’s not going to be the answer. Then the answer you’re looking for is Dental. We just think we have to keep doing courses like as if you want to do bone grafting, go do a bone grafting course. You know, when you look look on the high street man, there’s a restaurant. That guy didn’t go on an MBA to run his restaurant.

[01:05:52] It’s all right. So whatever whatever you’re learning, you have to apply it almost immediately.

[01:05:58] But I could see it’s a massive change for you to go from being an associate at your brother’s place, a tiny place like that, to basically the principal at this huge place.

[01:06:10] Yeah, I mean, we need to pay for staff.

[01:06:13] Yeah. What about the practise managers, the practise manager, an incumbent, or is that someone Dental but you’ve imposed.

[01:06:19] Yes, she came, she joined with us basically say yes. Yes. This year we added her. I have to I guess I have I have an existing practise manager that was there before. And so all the

[01:06:32] Staff issues she deals with is all right.

[01:06:35] Yes. I mean, they’ll go through her at times. At times, I think we do it all together. I think it’s going to have a meeting with everyone today, even just to say that I want everything to be done together. This is not just me telling you guys how my vision is for this practise. You’ve been here for this long. You’ve been here for a long time. Me and Sophie, as a person as you have just come in here. I want suggestions from you. I don’t just want problems. I want solutions to those problems. Are you going to give me a if you have a problem with something, I would like to know what your opinion is, how to sort it out, and I’ll give you my opinion on how to sort it out and then we’ll get to some sort of middle ground that we both understand and then we move forward from it. I think that’s how I’m trying to deal with it. And that’s how. Yeah, any staff issues or anything at the moment. I want to try and deal with as we as we go ahead. And these are things that I’m learning, these things that I’ve picked up, that it doesn’t work for me just to tell you this is how it’s going to be done, because that’s not going to make you committed to making any changes. It’s going to make you compliant. It’s going to make you say, OK, but then go away and then actually make a change and do things for the practise, for the benefit of the practise.

[01:07:49] Would you get up to if you got a half a day to yourself? No one I run, yeah,

[01:07:55] That’s my new thing, I guess, like lockdown thing, massive running at the moment. I’ve got a half marathon coming up, training quite intensely for. So that’s if I’m being good. If I’m being not so good, then it’s a different story. It depends on which side, which, you know, what time it is. What what type of day is that we can’t be talking about here or it’s

[01:08:20] Just that

[01:08:25] I think of myself. Yeah. I mean, normally at the moment it’s running in the morning. I live in a lovely place at the moment in lovely area. So, you know, there’s everything’s on my doorstep. I go to games and get a get a coffee and across, you know, I’ve got a nice Italian deli that I might go and get some nice stuff for lunch. Just general things. Now, I guess, you know, I’m enjoying the that side of life a little bit more now, I guess. Slowing things down a bit.

[01:08:55] And a DJ set up already in your house, like in your flat,

[01:08:59] If it’s a depends on what time of day you’re talking about. Again, the decks, the decks on sets up, there’s no enough space. It basically sets up. But people come around at the moment, of course. But you know well, previously, how we would normally do it is that people would have come round and yeah, we’ll get the decks out and some and some drinks out and we’ll have I’m looking forward to getting back to those times, you know, getting getting back to some sort of normality with that

[01:09:28] Prav likes to end it in the same way every time

[01:09:32] Payman seem strange asking Payman.

[01:09:35] And every time you say, is Prekop

[01:09:41] The old

[01:09:44] Legend, it’s your it’s your last day on the planet and you’ve got your your loved ones around you. And what three pieces of wisdom would you share with them?

[01:09:58] Yes, I thought about this one. I think all of these things are things that I would hope that I become more of rather than actually these things that I currently am. I think they’re just things that are important. And one thing that I’m noticing, more moment being comfortable, being uncomfortable is a is a good thing. I’m noticing that you came from running that one that says that that’s one of those things that taught me.

[01:10:22] I got the same one from my personal trainer.

[01:10:25] Oh, yeah, definitely, I think it’s yeah, I think yeah, it relates to a lot of things. I’m noticing that a lot more now. I think I spent a lot of time being comfortable again with the job that I was always given. Kind of kept me happy, just plodding along, doing what I was doing every day until I kind of just made that step to be like, OK, I now want to own my own practise. And it was an uncomfortable thing to do. And I’m uncomfortable every day, but I feel better every day as a result of that. I think that that was quite important. And living in practise, not Dental practises in live life in practise of whatever you’re doing. Never think that whatever you’re doing is the end, is always a process, is always learning, learning more every day. So you never perfecting anything. It’s always practise and always getting better at it that way. One one percent at a time. Right. And the other one that I put was form follows function. That’s one that I think is one that I would like to do more than I currently do. I do things now when I feel like it’s perfect to do them. Rather than starting and seeing how things go, like I guess that’s the whole course thing, right, because it’s like if I’m going to run a business, I need to do an MBA and be perfect at running a business. But it’s very much make a start and see where it takes you. I think that’s what I’m trying to do more of. It’s not natural to me to do that, but I very much think that that’s where people become successful in anything that they do. Mm hmm. And even even to form friendships to whatever, you know, raising a family could have just just do it. Have that baby. Don’t delay. That’s OK.

[01:12:29] And how would you like to be remembered? What would you like to leave behind as your legacy? So Payman was Dental to complete the sentence.

[01:12:41] I think there’s nothing better than being inspirational in some way. I think it’s. Whatever whatever you whatever we’re doing with it is nothing. There’s no bigger compliment. Then having inspired someone else to either do the same thing or to make a move in something. So I think that’s what I would like to achieve, I think I’m not there yet. I think it’s a long way to go to get anywhere near the. But having been inspired by so many throughout my life from, you know, my brothers, from mentors, from whoever, to be able to then be someone that inspires others, I think is will be beautiful.

[01:13:27] Lovely. And finally, she had 30 days left and you had all all your faculties intact, your health, and there were no budgetary constraints or would you be doing in that 30 days?

[01:13:43] I think I would do yeah, I think I think I’ll keep it simple. I’m not I’m not one that feels like I need to go and travel the world and see all of these extra things. I never really been and probably not a good thing, actually. But what I like to do if I’m going away somewhere, I like to be on a beach in a nice restaurant. Beach Club vibe sort of thing, kind of sitting there with my body. Rosie, I think I’m just like a basic bitch. But I think just being in the environment with my friends in the sun, having a good time listening to good music, taking over the decks. Yeah, 100 percent. I think that is that is very much my happy place to be.

[01:14:34] 30 days in the beach with it. Yeah.

[01:14:37] I’m just trying to not save us.

[01:14:41] Twenty four to six days in Formentera

[01:14:45] To come up with this. Yeah, I think it’s just I mean, the main point of that, though, is not the environment. Whatever it is, the people that I’ve had those memories with and spent time with, you know, I have a wife that had been with for 16 years. We’ve grown up together from me to spend that time, continue to spend that time with her would be a blessing and to be around the people that we have, the friends that we share. And all of that is in the family that we have to be so lucky to have would be, would be, would be ideal.

[01:15:27] As lovely man. Beautiful. It’s been a real pleasure having you, buddy. It’s been a long time coming.

[01:15:34] Thank you.

[01:15:38] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with Emerging Leaders Street. Your house, Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[01:15:54] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, 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

[01:16:09] 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.

[01:16:19] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] Some of them don’t know what their talent is. Some of them say to me, I’m a dentist. I’m like, but what’s your talent? What’s your talent in dentistry? Do you have an artistic class in the composites, in the cosmetic? What’s your talent? You’ve really got to know yourself. So that’s one thing I look for. Do they know themselves where their talent is? Do they understand that? And how much do they have passion and respect for that? How much are they willing to thrive on that? Like, is it a passion? And I always say, are you obsessed with it? Because, like, I’m obsessed with what I do, whether it’s healthy or not healthy, it’s an obsession. And sometimes the best people that are the most successful are the ones that are really weirdly obsessed with what they do. And I want to know, are they obsessed with what what is what makes them tick about what they do?

[00:00:51] This is Dental Leaders podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders and dentists. Treat your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav.

[00:01:06] Solanki gives me great pleasure to welcome Zabor Shaikh onto the podcast. Sabre’s the founder of Dental, which burst on the scene a couple of years ago. You obviously have a few other things going on, but even more impressive. But you’re fresh from giving birth to a child. Yeah, it’s been difficult to even the age because I couldn’t believe that you even could make time for us to come. It’s a pleasure to have you. Thanks a lot for

[00:01:38] Thank you for having me.

[00:01:40] This book was about trying to get to the to the crux of the person behind the sort of the persona of folks a little bit about your early life childhood. Why did you choose Dental Street, that sort of stuff?

[00:01:53] Ok, so I was born in northwest London. I grew up in a joint family set up. So two brothers married, two sisters. So we all lived in one household and my grandma lived with us as well. And my uncle had six kids and my dad has five. So I’m the eldest of all 11 kids. So it was a very busy household. And it was it was nice because I’ve always had two sets of parents. I’ve had two father figures, too, mother figures. So I’ve I’ve been very blessed in the family set up. We had strong values instilled from a young age. My grandmother’s story, you know, she came from Kenya. Settle down here. She was widowed at twenty eight with four young kids. So I saw my dad and my uncle really graft. They started off in a laundromat in Hounslow. They live above the laundromat and it was a real graft. My dad went to uni, but my uncle didn’t. And it’s how he grew as a person and my dad that really shaped us as kids. That’s what I feel, especially for me being the eldest. I saw a lot in the in the early graft of their careers and their whole life and how it shaped. So I feel like that’s where it really starts for me in terms of the journey of who I am and the characteristics that I have, I, I do believe it stemmed from my grandparents were extremely close to our grandparents, both of my mom and my dad’s side.

[00:03:28] And I think that’s where my work ethic really grew. And then going into dentistry, I always knew I wanted to go into healthcare. My dad’s business was in care homes, but I always enjoyed the sciences. It was never for my parents. It was never a pressure on what to do or have to go into specific industry. It was always just, you know, do what you enjoy and just that support go into something you enjoy, be a profession or, you know, just have something you have passion in. So I really explored the sciences, more medicine, dentistry, pharmacy. They were kind of the things I explored. But I went into dentistry because I saw the flexibility in it. I saw the interaction with the people more than in the medicine. I felt that I could interact with people close to clinical and non-clinical. And also the business side was what really was my main goal. I always knew I wanted to go into business. I from a young age, I was probably really exposed to property business and how to run and grow brands. And I used to do that with my dad in my own case to see a lot of it. And I was looking at piano as I was looking at CapEx sheets. I just understood that business first hand. I didn’t you go to business school or anything like that? I learnt to quite young, so I knew that I wasn’t going to be clinical.

[00:04:55] I knew that I was never arty type of person. And that’s one thing in dentistry. I have complete respect for my clinicians because they’re actually artists, they really all are. They have such an artistic flair and mindset and creativity to them that I knew I just didn’t have and I knew that from the start. But I went into it knowing that I could create something different because everyone else that’s going into this wants to do it for the dentistry, whereas I’m doing it for the business. And I felt that that was my USP. So I always knew the brand that I could grow would be already unique to all the other Dental brands, because majority 80, 90 percent of dental practises or brands are built around a 100 clinician. And that would be my complete USP because this brand is not built around the primary principle being what known handed. So I got excited by that. I already knew that in my heart that’s what I was going to do. And then I went to Birmingham, studied that, and then I did my VTE in London. I worked in mixed practises for a couple of years. And then that’s when I got my first practise in Fleet Street. And now I’ve got three clinics, so Fleet Street, Notting Hill and Manchester. So that’s our latest clinic that just opened a year ago now.

[00:06:12] So your first prognosis, how long after qualifying sober?

[00:06:16] Four years. Four, five years. Yeah, so I qualified twenty fleet free opened 2015 and I was five months pregnant, so I had to joke with me. Every time I open the clinic there’s a baby somewhere. But you know, I always say to them, one of my biggest lessons from my grandparents and my dad is they had so many kids and people used to say the same thing. And my dad used to say that for every child that’s come into the world, there’s a moment that that child came in, was like the best opportunity or business opportunity that came at that time was like the biggest blessings came within that moment. And I really believe that because I see that coming down, because I see that every time I had a child or even as a child, as some of my people that’s walked in the clinic, Lindsey, when she had a baby, I’ve seen that those children were brought so much. We’ve had peaks in the business when those kids came. Things that happened that I never thought would happen are happening in those times. So I truly believe the blessings of family life and doing things holistically in your life, not just having work and then personal life. It’s about the balance of both, which is always the thing that everyone debates. How how can you have us stable?

[00:07:29] This business of your dad started with that one laundrette turned into a gigantic business we talk about in dentistry. Do we want our kids to be dentists and all of that? Yeah, well, they’re not. Did you not think, well, why don’t I just take over that business rather than doing your own brand?

[00:07:46] Yeah, I mean, the thing with my dad was he never pushed us to do what he was doing. I think he wanted us to learn the principles of what he was doing. If I wanted to do that and wanted to go into the home business and things like that, I think he would have been really happy and he would have been like, yes, one of the kids, it’s good to be here.

[00:08:05] We actively decided you didn’t want to go into the business.

[00:08:10] It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it. I did do a lot of work within it early on. Might not like actual work, but I used to go into the cabins a lot. I used to see what they were doing. You know, my dad would always take us when we would have to be there for certain reasons. But I didn’t really I think I didn’t always think how I could link them to straight into the home because of special care dentistry. And I saw that was a big gap within that industry. So I thought that it could be something that I merge. But I just had an appeal with dentistry on a different level. I liked the clinical aspect as well, that clinical science behind the dentistry in the care home business. I feel like that would have been if I went into more of a medical way, then I could have. But then as the dentistry evolved, I did it really go in special care industry. I really just enjoyed the business so much that that’s really what I wanted to do.

[00:09:02] And so when you go through, you have to learn the basics of dentistry and what was the vision always in your mind, say the First Fleet Street clinic or whatever that was going to be on your radar, working towards that goal of owning your first practise? What was your vision at that point?

[00:09:20] Yeah, one hundred percent. I always wanted to I always had the thing like this is temporary. Like I didn’t enjoy clinical at all. And my trainer, he was so amazing, but he was so patient with me and he was just like it was it’s not that great. It was it was fine because I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I knew I wasn’t that wasn’t my thing. But I was there and I was putting in the graft and I was learning everything that I needed to learn, because to be honest, if I didn’t have that experience as well, I wouldn’t understand a lot of what happens in the Dental practise as well. So I always had the vision of the practise, but I was always looking for the opportunity and the opportunity didn’t just come straight away. That was a lot of things that happened that I tried to acquire a practise. Then I tried to set up another practise. Then I tried another thing and all of things fell through. It wasn’t like I just got Fleet Street and then that’s it. It was like happy ending. It’s not. It took time. There was a lot of, like, bad moves on my part, trying to acquire something that didn’t work. And then looking back on it, they were like big moments in my life when I was like, oh my God, I’ve lost like, I’m never going to do this. I was like, rock bottom. Here we go again. Carry on working clinical until you can do it. So it was a craft. It was hard to get that right, a clinic and the right setting that I needed. It wasn’t easy at that time to be looking at practises, you know,

[00:10:43] Was it did you set up the clinic in Fleet Street or did you buy it?

[00:10:47] Yeah, they’re all squat practises and practises that also said.

[00:10:52] So when you opened your practise back then, four years post qualification, how did you get those patients through the door? Obviously, your marketing strategy now is is something the I think with Dental industry, a completely inaugural’s and everything you do from the content creation to everything is just spectacular. And what was what was your strategy back then in terms of getting patients through the door?

[00:11:18] It was basic strategy. It was we knew what we needed to do, but that was nothing different. There was nothing that no one else was doing. And it was hard. We didn’t have patients waiting at the door. We didn’t have our phones ringing at times when my team would say to me, the phone rang once today and we were losing money. We were losing a lot of money every month. And it wasn’t easy, especially when I was five months pregnant and I just had my first baby as well. First baby is very different to the baby, number two and three. So, you know, that was hard work. And there were times when I would say to my husband, I don’t know if this is ever going to do what we wanted to do. And he used to say to me that the day that this clinic makes profit will be the best I have. You know, it was so hard and I don’t think that there was anything that we did to tip it. It was just time. And there were certain things that were key moments within the journey that started to tip that. And that’s what when I saw those things come into play from the right dentist to the right, but just the right branding, the right dentist and then the right people that worked in the clinic, you know, one of the key members of staff coming in, she changed the whole journey. So the journey changed for people as well. And then that everything just came together. And slowly, slowly, you know, when that clinic first started to make profit, you know, it took it took a long time. It wasn’t easy to be.

[00:12:54] When you first opened the clinic, what was what was the set of? Were you hands on then clinical doing loads of what was it

[00:13:01] That actually I was I wasn’t doing loads of hours. I was just there to help Buffer. And that’s a when we didn’t have the right dentists or, you know, the dentist we wanted in that clinic. So I was that buffer when Lindsey came on board as well. She was my right hand woman in terms of like they would just do it, just get the patients in and you can do it and give me confidence to do clinical. But I knew in my heart that’s not where I was going to be and that was temporary. But yeah, I did I did have to do a bit of clinical in the beginning.

[00:13:31] But and then moving on from there, from the point you opened the doors to the moment you spun a profit for the first time. What we talk in in terms of time, scale,

[00:13:41] I think it was roughly around. A year, a year, over a year, I’d say, just before we rebranded. That’s what I think the reasoning of the rebrand was around, that I felt that the rebrand would rocket up. It would just I just knew what needed to be done at that time, in that moment. And that’s why we did the rebranding in that sense. So I could have that risk to take on myself to say this is what I want to do. And it was a risk. I was doing it on my own and rebranding to major clinics, but I just knew I had the right people around me as well. I had a fantastic marketing team and advisors who now have grown with me and it’s just grown massively. So I think that that tying in with the rebrand just changed everything quickly.

[00:14:35] But when I think of Dental, I think of, you know, talent, you see, you seem to be able to attract the kind of the big names, if you like, and in cosmetic dentistry to come and work there. Having said that, I mean, I’m sure some of them you’ve developed into big names while they’re working. But the other thing is I’ve had contact with some of you people with your courses and all of that. There’s a general feeling from them that you are such a great motivator. And so often when you talk to staff and all of them without without exception, I know a lot of young people from Mattie Parsons, who teaches on our course to some of you support. So all of them without without exception or people saying that she’s brilliant, she’s going she’s motivated. Is that something that you’ve sort of looked into or is that just the natural way you all you’ve learnt from your parents? What is it?

[00:15:36] I think it started off definitely something from my uncle, my dad. I saw how they worked well. And what were their biggest assets to them as Leaders in their businesses? I saw what worked really well. And after 20, 30 years, those people, the way they used to, they still speak about my parents and my uncle and my grandparents, the way they speak so highly of them and they’re connected to them. I learnt from a young age how that was so important and valued the time and effort that my dad and my uncle give is unbelievable. And they they scaled up massively right now, but they still are able to touch a lot of people within their companies. So I learnt that from a young age and I think that was naturally in me. I just naturally have that kind of personality. That’s what I thrive off, really. That’s what I that’s what I see is my main job role. But then I did invest into it further. I do have a massive interest on the psychology side of things and behaviours. And I trained for two years in personal coaching like life coaching and mindfulness, and that I trained to become a coach for the purpose of a business business properties with my within my own clinic. And then I started to do coaching within the team on team levels. But then I realised when I was doing it, it was opening cans of worms within my teams with each other in terms of things that they didn’t want to say in a team environment.

[00:17:08] So now I do a lot one to one. A lot of them probably don’t know. I do it as not having like a coaching session or a session. It’s my kind of tools and my like, kind of just my toolkit on how to deal with people and how to speak to them. How to listen to them in all is just one to one mainly. And that’s done with everyone. I don’t just sit with them and sit with everyone every week. It’s done throughout the week through phone calls, even interactions. And I just passing by. There’s tools that I use that naturally is just to help me to really engage with different types of people, from patients to my nurses to my teachers to my directors, to high level business ambassadors, things like that. And it’s about being able to interact with everyone and engage with everyone. And that you have to learn. I think you have to really invest in understanding that that’s not something that you can just I didn’t have like that deeper understanding, but there’s there is things to look into. And I think just being conscious of it is the first step. But just to be conscious of it, sometimes we’re just not conscious how we walk past someone or how we just even look at someone. Even your physical language says everything, and especially as your boss, like they say, you know, that physical language is everything to your staff before you even open your mouth because they have an assumption about you straightaway. So I think that

[00:18:38] Speaks to some specific sabr, some examples, specific examples. Maybe I’ll know something you or your dad did with. With someone and then something’s specific examples of stuff that you can help someone can learn from.

[00:18:51] I think it’s one of the most important things I would say that I think I still don’t do well enough as well. Like Red’s always knows this and he’s always, like, pinching me, as I remember. But is the listening and the way to listen, because you can listen to someone and you can hear them out, but you’ve already made your judgements about what you feel. And it’s the open minded listening. It’s listening with an open mind, whereas a lot of people within the workplace that have already made up their mind and they’re right and you’re wrong and that’s it. And they have all the reasons why they’re right and they probably might be right. That’s not that we’re saying they’re wrong, but the way you listen to the other person and make them feel about their opinion, that is a massive I’d say, plus, because the way you can listen to them is shows that how you can explain something to them, because if you want to explain your point of view, you can explain it away. They can have understanding, whereas explaining your point of view in a way that you’re attacking them, you’re never going to get them to understand. They’re never going to change their mind. Whereas I feel like if I can really listen to what that person is saying and empathise, I put myself in their shoes and their rights. This was a big deal in their eyes. This did happen. And a lot of people just say, well, she’s lying or she’s doing this and I’m not. I never look at people in a negative light. I’ll always give them the benefit of the doubt, saying actually for her that was a big deal for him. That was that is on. And then I don’t put my opinion on that. I will listen to that and then give some sort of advice. But if I need them to understand what I’m saying, they do listen. Then they turn around and listen to me because I’ve given them their opinion, respect and I think respect to the massive thing.

[00:20:34] Lovely thing. It’s a lovely idea. And obviously, you’ve got to feel that way for it to be real. But give me the tactic. What’s the tactic for you? Do you repeat back to them what they say or something like that?

[00:20:47] Yeah, I think what I would do is engage in what they’re saying more than I’m saying. I think a lot of people talk and they only talk about what their point is. But whereas I would repeat that point. So if someone says this is how something made me feel and this is the reasoning, I’d be like, you know what, I understand your reasoning because I’m from your point of view, it looks like this. I’m from you in your shoes. It’s this, this, this. So I can understand. You’re right. Then I always agree that they’re right, because that’s an opinion you can’t say to someone that’s wrong, whereas and then I’ll say, well, can you understand from either my perspective or the other person’s perspective that this this this might have been their ideas and they don’t actually see what your ideas are. And from that moment on, that person’s like, yeah, I can see that they now are in agreement with you. They’re not attacking each other. They’re in agreement. And they’re like, OK, we can agree that we’re all seeing things in different lens. But then how do we come together, guys? How do we come together and think, is there a solution or is there something we’re missing? Are we just looking too much inside what we think or is that we need to think about the greater picture? I feel like in this setting, everything in the Dental practise is so intricate and so micro environment that the bigger picture is always missed.

[00:22:02] That’s one of my biggest things. When I come in, I’m always talking bigger picture because I’m not in the micro environment. I’m not in there with them. So I respect their environment, I respect what they saying. But then they also respect that, oh my God, she’s opened our eyes like she’s looking at it from a completely different way. And I think that excites them because they want to know what I think they want to know. A lot of them will call me straight away or text me and say, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Because they respect that I’m coming from a different lens to them and I’m not trying to tell them that that is wrong.

[00:22:34] Baby emissions, you’ve undergone quite a bit of coaching yourself and learning. And you listen, obviously, you mentioned that you use various tools. We have to talk about specific courses that you weren’t always a part of the Dental County School or what was it?

[00:22:52] To be honest, it was something that my mom and my auntie were doing. They were doing a life coaching. It’s called the inside out. I think it’s from from America coaches in America. And it’s a personal development. It wasn’t actually something that they were doing for business perspective. They were doing it for personal development. And then I decided to do it to figure out my work life balance. I was struggling with the mom girl with my ambitions. And, you know, I was struggling with how do I juggle? Everything can be the best at everything. So I did that for myself. And it really helped me in the first year, helped me change my plans in terms of looking at things from a positive approach and realising that a lot was coming from my thoughts and not the reality of what was happening. And I was missing a lot of being in the present with my kids and being in the present with my businesses and being in the present of enjoying the journey. As well, so that changed my perspective and I saw that me changing change the business and changed my staff without me even doing anything. It was just because I changed my actions and my intentions. I didn’t enforce on anyone. I just changed myself. And I feel like that’s what makes you a good leader, is because they see what you’re doing. It’s not telling them what to do. They see Microsoft. They see what I do. I don’t do they see how much effort I put into it and my passion that I think the passion really gets them. And then they generally, most of them, all of them that work and they all have passion. They all have that. So I look for that. I look for that when I interview. I really look for the passion within themselves and the career, because then my job is easy, because if they’ve got passion, I just motivate a mentor and coach and the rest they do.

[00:24:36] So you’ve attracted these wicked dentists. Let’s say if I was a young associate looking to work through. Yeah, OK. You said you want someone passionate. Yeah, well, I mean, literally, if that’s if that’s what I want to do, I want to welcome you advise me to do as a young associate who wants to be part of that team. Do I have to do courses. What have to do.

[00:25:05] So if you step back, what I’m trying to create with the dentist is what my husband’s taught me. And in building a football team, that’s basically how his analogy of what I’m doing is. And if you just see that and I’ve always looked into the best sports coaches and how sports coaches really work, because that’s really inspired me in terms of their journeys and how they attract talent. And it’s not about them, it’s how they combine the talent together. And that’s really what my ambition is with. Drew is combining the talent. So my first thing when I look for is what’s that talent? Is that talent what we’re looking for? And do they have the talent? Is it that a lot of dentists, they are general restorative Dental. That’s absolutely fine. And that talent is in that. And we need those. We need different. But what is the talent of some of them don’t know what their talent is. Some of them say to me, I’m a dentist. I’m like, but what’s your talent? What’s your talent in dentistry? Do you have an artistic class in the composite? It’s in the cosmetics. What’s your talent? You’ve really got to know yourself. So that’s one thing I look for. Do they know themselves where their talent is? Do they understand that? And how much do they have passion and respect for that? How much are they willing to thrive on that? Like, is it a passion? And I always say, are you obsessed with it? Because, like, I’m obsessed with what I do, whether it’s healthy or not healthy, it’s an obsession. And sometimes the best people that are the most successful are the ones that are really weirdly obsessed with do. And I want to know, are they obsessed with what what is it? What makes them tick about what they do? Do they enjoy that? And then I would look at why do they want to go with it? What’s their intention for being what? Where do you want to go with it? Is it that they’re going to value add and bring something that someone else doesn’t have? That’s what I’m looking for.

[00:27:00] If you’re coming into RWD, just to replicate another another one of the dentists, that’s not a value add value add is someone that say to me, Zabor, this is what you are actually missing. This is what I can bring to the table. I might do things this way. And it’s there’s loads of ways to do that in dentistry. A lot of dentists to me, but I’m a cosmetic dentist. I’m like, yeah, those are some of my dentist are into composite bonding, somewhat into different things. Small Macon’s in a different way. Some people are into the injectable mould, composite techniques, the different techniques. Tell me what what is it that you’re into? So I’m looking for that flat and it’s quite deep. And I can tell straight away if it’s Dental, that has no idea because I haven’t even thought of those things. That’s not really questions they get Austin normal interviews. So they go back and I’ve had dentists go back, think I have more experience and come back to me and say, actually, we know now who we are and then I like you already to because I want them to value-add. It’s not I always say we was in the training ground. It’s more ground when you’re saying, I’m looking for my Stryker’s, I’m looking for those elite clinicians, and that’s what I want it to be about,

[00:28:09] Say you interviewing all team members and you’ve got a relationship with all team members at every level, right? Well, I do well.

[00:28:20] And Koshy do so at the moment. I have like managers and stuff that kind of triage and filter through. And when I recruit, then I will try and meet everyone before that final decision of hiring someone or me or Lindsay or I’ll try and zoom them. So in the last couple of months when I’ve been off maternity, there’s a few new people that I hadn’t met. And so that. My first thing that I need to go and do is meet meet them, because I’ve heard so much about them and that that is really close to me. That’s really important to me to meet them and and get to know them.

[00:28:55] And then you spoke about people bringing the value to the business. I mean, one of the things that’s so, so clear about many of the clinicians, that is the Instagram presence, right? Yeah. They all they all share in common. Is that something that you can look at and forth and is checking out their social profile a big part of the recruitment process?

[00:29:19] So it is and it isn’t. So we do check it so we know where they might be like sitting in terms of their work shows a lot of that portfolio as well. So if they have a strong Instagram presence, it does show their portfolio of work, but it’s not a criteria. I would say that they have to have a strong, strong following or they have to be strong. And that’s not because I have some dentists that work for me that don’t they didn’t have that in the beginning and they don’t want to grow that or something. But it’s naturally evolved that way. I would say I would say that a lot of the patients and the demographic of people we’re attracting is within that kind of demographic of Instagram. So we do say to the dentist that it does help because we put them on our Instagram as well. So it helps

[00:30:07] And help them grow their Instagram as well. It looks like the content you’re creating for the brand with room is some of the deal as well. You’ll help them grow their social presence if they want to.

[00:30:22] Yeah, I mean, we want to grow our social presence. So our marketing is very strong and they are our brand as well. So our marketing is based around them. Video creations for the dentist, video questions for the staff. But they then utilise that content on their platforms is absolutely fine because we want to have a synergy. We don’t have we don’t want to say that you can’t grow yours and grow ours. One of my closest Dental has to mean she’s grown with me. Slaney she is a strong Instagram Dental. But when we both when she started out, we were both growing. She was growing in her Instagram platform and we were growing in our brand. And we’ve always said to her we’re not against each other and we have a synergy. And that was so different for her because she said, Majoras, the principles are the same to me. You can’t do this and you can’t post this about us and you can’t post that. And you have to write our logo on that and our logo on that. And I was never like that. I just said to her, will grow you and you’ll do well. And she ended up being full time with us. And she’s trying hard right now.

[00:31:23] And Kathleen is lecturing for me tomorrow. See, it’s a small makeover for four amazing marketing. Amazing. But you know what impresses me, Zabor, is that you mentioned this. There’s a degree of vulnerability in having your associates having such a big presence because they could take they could take their patients away with them. But you don’t see using that as an opportunity.

[00:31:51] Yeah, I Dental. Yeah. And I always say to business, well, we don’t ever see it that way. We always say that we just have confidence. And also there is a confidence in what we do and a confidence in our brand that we’ve seen that the dentist, once they’re in and they experience and touch and feel through and experience the journey with me. I mean, a lot of them, I just feel like the journey is a long term journey that they’re and they’re both in and they feel that it’s not fake and they know that. And the ones that have left or I’m not saying everyone stays with us, it’s all been positive. There’s a reason they want to grow in a different direction. And we’ve been there and I haven’t said or felt your patients are going with your patients. I’ve never felt that. I always feel that that’s enough for everyone. And I don’t need to no one needs to step on each other’s toes. I just have never needed to to feel that.

[00:32:49] I do think that what I see about the brand is that the brand is beyond recognition. A bit like what you said earlier, you didn’t want to build a brand around. A Western defence is right. And I definitely see the the although although the dance is truly inclusive in the market signable, know that the brand is bigger than the clinician, so to speak. And it’s the brand that is front and centre. Yeah, definitely what I see when I see the visuals, the creative and things like that.

[00:33:19] And that’s the intention. I mean, you see big brands out there like, you know, Emirates, business class and Chanel and all these amazing brands. And there’s great people that work behind those brands as well as celebrities that we can endorse those brands. But those brands stand strong for what they are. And that quality and that I feel is unique and not done in the Dental industry. I feel like a lot of the Dental. Principals have had to be handed and their passion is that as well. So there’s a passion of having a lifestyle practise versus a brand, and that’s what I wanted to create. I wanted to create a brand that was scalable and able to withstand that 20, 30 years and say that’s a scalable brand and I still have a strong business portfolio behind it because it’s every sentence has always asked me or we’ve always known associate that says don’t make profit. And I’m like, that’s rubbish because it’s about a brand. It’s not about associate led. Perhaps it’s not. But that’s just the wrong terminology. It’s because because dentistry has never been business let because dentists haven’t been trained as businessmen, just that we’re not trained in business. So unless you are and you then invest in that, I just don’t know how someone can work six days a week clinical and do both. I just think that’s just impossible.

[00:34:40] So what’s the vision moving forward in terms of growing the brand, multiple clinics, 20, 30, 40, some overseas expanding in the U.K., have you got the big audacious goals or anything like that in terms of the big picture vision?

[00:34:59] I mean, to be honest, the vision I had for it evolves every year in a different way because of the business opportunities that come. So I never kind of have a rigid saying this is what I am going to do because some opportunities have come my way. And I never thought I would be doing the Manchester was one one of those. I never thought I would be going into Manchester. The furthest I’ve been is up north is them. So I hadn’t explored much. I didn’t think how can I manage a clinic in Manchester and things like that. But the opportunity with Andy and just knowing Andy and getting to know more and more and the opportunity that came for both of us, you know, it was in the right time and it happened because it was meant to. And I just think that was the best thing that ever happened to me is is meeting Andy and going down that way. So I would say the bigger picture, it’s a lot of clinics. It’s not saying I want to be a Mini Cooper at all. That’s not my intention.

[00:35:55] I want to be a strong brand. And if that means a strong hold of, you know, 10 clinics internationally, nationally, for me, that quality of the clinics is what I want to strive to do, quality and brand and clinical dentistry and to achieve that and have a strong business portfolio, a serious business portfolio behind me, because I’ve seen people come with Dental business plans. I’ve seen people come with other industry plans, you know, in the restaurant industry and retail industry. And I know what a strong business looks like. And I want my practises and my view to have that bond presence. And it won’t just be from the clinics. I do want to broaden it and go through into the consumer brand and look at the academy is launched. So there’s different divisions of Varu that I will probably want to expand more into. A lot is I really enjoy philanthropy and doing things through charity, but want to expand the brand into that way as well. So there’s a lot of things I would love to do, but let’s see how it evolves naturally.

[00:36:55] So there’s about the academies, but we have a couple of guys on yesterday from the small Dental Academy about how that evolved. And then the academy evolved actually around mentoring and training their own Dental from within. Yeah. And opening up to the to the industry. What does your academy do? What’s the plan for it?

[00:37:14] I think the Academy naturally started off because conversations with Andy, I think he was actually doing his own courses. And what we learnt very quickly is the dentist that we do are extremely talented and they love to teach their talent. They love to share it. They want to pass that on. They want to they also have a good time doing that. You know, it’s a break from the clinical industry. And I felt that it would be it’s good to teach and give back. And I feel like we need to be able to have young people reaching out to us and saying, can we shot at your dentist? Can you teach us this? Can you tell us what equipment you’re using and things like that? So I felt like just the demand and also the having the talent of dentists that love to teach as well. It just was a no brainer to say how can we make it work and a good structure. And he’s done teaching before and sometimes the structures worked and hasn’t worked. So he’s had the trial and error and the know how of how to do things. And alongside Kerry, who you know, well, you know, she’s got a lot of knowledge and dentistry and teaching and and how to, you know, where that industry’s going. And so I think that combination is where we went with the teaching. We want it to be different. And the USPI for our academy is not just around doing courses. It will be around, you know, having a database and creating a platform, especially now with covered everything, being more online. We want to have a strong kind of digital aspect that will be part of the academy. And I think that’s what that will be a bit different to. What what we’ve seen that before

[00:38:55] Is a massive asset to you. You know, obviously a lot of interaction with a. Yeah, you know, you talk about a brand so much. What’s your favourite brand?

[00:39:06] What are we talking like, shoes, bags, what we saying?

[00:39:10] I mean, it doesn’t the other than the one you you shop the most from the one you admire the most.

[00:39:18] I would say journey wise, I think the journey of the Emirates brand is really interesting, I think and Virgin that stories and I always look at hospitality industries massively. So their journey and what they’ve done in evolution of business class, first class and all of that, that’s really interested me. So I do admire that. And I do find the other industry is it is a lot it’s really weird, like my husband laugh when he hears this, but the football industry and how I’ve got into, like, learning about how the marketing of that is done and how the coaches work, I mean, that industry in itself is really also interested me, which I didn’t expect to

[00:40:01] Have a favourite brand.

[00:40:04] Yeah. Yeah, of course it through buddy.

[00:40:08] You know, we have some great people working with us that work with Apple and Facebook. And and that was really interesting to hear what Apple are doing as a brand and what they’re going to do. And being at the forefront, I think of tech. One thing that is very different from IFIL is being at the forefront with digital technology in-house and marketing. So we’ve invested heavily in how to make sure that our structures are more digitalised and seamless, as well as, from a marketing perspective, bringing in some of the industry’s best people around me. So I’m working with great content creators as well as, you know, digital strategy. I’ve had someone working for me who did the rebrand with me, who has literally just gone into the depths of it with me in terms of how we can improve from a digital aspect strategically and then bringing on people like you’re saying from great brands like Apple, who’s looked into our analytics and said this is how we should be doing Google, this is how we should be utilising Facebook and Instagram and Ticktock and all these things. And that in itself is so interesting because you have to bring in what other industries are doing because dentistry is behind,

[00:41:20] You know, that’s true. But, you know, being at the forefront, SABERA, you said in the forefront of this, by its very nature, I mean, it’s you end up making some mistakes, right? Of course. And, you know, we have a section in this podcast where we talk about clinical errors, but you’re not doing much clinical errors along the way. What have you learnt from them?

[00:41:42] I think working alongside some of the best people around me has helped me navigate so that I don’t make as many errors, I suppose. And they’re the best in that field and everyone else strengths. And it’s recognising what everyone’s strengths are and utilising them. But I think some of the mistakes that I’ve made maybe in digital as well, is, you know, I worked really closely with the marketing team and we got really excited. And we’re like, this is going to go into this. We’re going to do this. And sometimes their expectations and their knowledge of it isn’t as good as mine. Like, I don’t know, the digital industry. I don’t know how tech is created or how long it takes to do X, Y, Z. So I think my sometimes my mistake is just thinking that my pace is one thing that everyone that works for me you will hear them say is just ridiculous. Like, I will just expect things to think, OK, we need to make a website, let’s do it. It should be done by next week. That’s it. And then I’ll just run with that. Everything I do is run. Those were my mistakes. I learnt on that, set the expectations and understand the timelines because I don’t think my entrepreneurial pace and flair will ever go. And my teams are constantly saying, oh my gosh, she’s on the next thing. But it’s the realistic expectations of other people and what what we need to be doing and then obviously building in my cashflow and my finances around that. So I think that made some mistakes around that. I would say that I’ve learnt just

[00:43:07] What we were talking yesterday with the guys from the small academy and Prav talk about this all the time. Well, you know, the balance of your head has to be in the future. An amount of your head has to be in today. And it’s almost like no leadership and management or whatever operations and in a business development or whatever. Yeah. How how much of your head is in the day to day running of the things is that sounds like not that much of it. Like you’ve got people taking care of that. And how much of it is thinking future what you want to achieve in.

[00:43:43] I think actually you’d be surprised that a lot of it is in that is in the now and I’ve learnt that being the president is everything because that really shapes what’s going to happen. But I think that a lot of my head is in the in the entrepreneurial growth of where I want to be. But actually from a day to day aspect, I’m not doing that every day. I would like to do more, but I think, like we said before, you know, really still in its infancy and the team need me and I I hope they need me more. So but the fact that having a short maternity and just getting back on my cause and being there, you know, that value-add for me, I feel is definitely needed every day and wanted as well. I do see that that I am part of the brand and that the team needs that. It’s not just, you know, patients are so important and giving the patients that flavour of your brand and your quality is everything. But actually for the team, what they need from the brand is me, really. So I’ve got to do that every day in terms of that that leadership, I think that’s so important.

[00:44:50] So how often do you have those conversations with them? I mean,

[00:44:53] So at the moment I probably the structure runs where we now have we’re doing everything now over Zoom’s as well as meetings, but we will meet with different levels of teams. So I would say managers meetings are weekly. Then you have board meetings with the group level. Teams are kind of monthly, but actually group level members. I’m probably speaking to them three or four times a week. So it’s very informal. I’m wearing too many WhatsApp groups and Dental we really need to relax with those. But, you know, we’re always in conversation with them. I think I have a really good relationship with all of them that it’s very informal. It’s like Sabr, we need you for this X, Y, Z, and I’m there.

[00:45:37] It’s so interesting. One thing you said that you’re looking at the 20, 30 year long term kind of goals of two, three years. And now, I mean, we were saying before, it feels like you’ve been around for longer than two does. There was the knee injury, but just as a brand, just as a brand, really just seems like it’s been there a long, long time. Yeah. And that’s testament to the quality of the I guess, the content to mean at the end of the day and Prav of seeing the content more than anything else. So on a operational basis, you’ve got this so many things going on. And you mentioned Lindsey, you’re right. What you reckon is going to happen. I mean, is it scalable to have one one to one conversations with with so many of your staff members so often? I mean I

[00:46:34] Mean, no, I mean, the Internet is there’s elements of I’ve seen that with my dad growing. You’re not going to get to a point where you’re in a scalable position and doing all of that all the time. That’s not a realistic expectation. And also it’s not healthy. I wouldn’t be able to have a good balance between being a mom as well, but I feel like it is scalable for the right people. You know, I call them my jams at group level and they really are my gems. All the girls and all the team members, they all have a value add. And that’s what’s scalable, because once I find those little gems and they have their little strengths and they all work together, well, that’s already starting to scale. We didn’t have that. We had one person and me and then we had three people and me at group level. Now we have six, seven people at group level and that is already scaling and we’ve got three clinics. So then it’s just and then it’s also bringing in industry experts, other industry experts that we don’t need in-house. We have a marketing team that’s strategically built around people that are not in the industry, but they are value adding massively and are heavily invested into the clinic. So I do see it scalable. I think obviously it’s certainly want me, but their value in their passion and their belief in now, you know, once they have that, then they’re scalable in themselves.

[00:48:02] Say they’re just going down to basically you day in, day out. I mean, what’s what’s a day in the life time you wake up? I go to bed. What happens between a typical week time with the kids? Yeah, like cold and Zoom’s of meetings and strategy and all the rest of it. Just just walk us through what it’s like living in your shoes.

[00:48:26] I mean, every day is different, isn’t it? When you’ve got three little kids and three practises, you don’t know what’s coming your way. You know, especially the clinics and the kids is so unpredictable. But I like to have my structure. I have structure in my routine. My kids need that. And also I need that. So I I suppose. My main thing is my fight. He’s only five, Ryan and Zachariah will be three and nine is only five weeks. So within the boys, they have a good structure in their routine. So my day is revolving around what their routine is, but I create their routine. So it works around me so that once they get to school, if I’m I’m going to the clinics, it’s a different thing. If I’m at home and working from home, it’s different. So my calls roughly will be going between 10 and three and

[00:49:15] Four times a week.

[00:49:16] So I wake up not early enough, but with an I am up like five thirty six, so I’m up. And then, you know, it’s all a bit different because I’ve got a newborn and I’m nothing at the moment. So it’s all a bit up in there. But I try to wake up so that the kids are prepped and ready to go for school. But I have a fantastic support system of my husband and my nanny around me. So I can’t just say I do this all by itself. It sounds way too crazy and it’s such a hands on dad, so it really helps me. So our life is actually revolve like a tag team. When he needs to be in the clinic, he’s clinical. I’m doing the morning shift stuff and then he’s out and vice versa. So it’s always one of us doing the kids and then yeah, between ten and I’d say two, three. That’s when I’m pretty much heavy on cause. And it’s not just clinical cause a lot of my calls are legal financial investor calls. So I have a lot of business stuff. Like you said, the brand grew very big in the short space of time that, you know, all these things and structures from a business and legality perspective, I’m now literally just putting into place because we didn’t need them before. So there’s a lot of that going on in what I do.

[00:50:29] And then I will catch up throughout the day when I’m with the kids, I try to be present with the kids and not be on my phone. I think that’s one learning thing that me and I both are trying to, you know, that’s something that’s an error. And we need to fix in terms of how do we have to work life balance, because when the team need us, we might be with children and, you know, our attention is not there. So it’s a bit of that. And then, you know, kids are coming home at three o’clock. By that time, I’m with them. So I try to keep up with them once they’re asleep by seven. I have about two, three hours. That’s when I get back on my laptop and finish my work. So I’m usually my follow ups are done in the evening. So a lot of my team at all the emails, maybe 12:00, 1:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m. and they’re like, oh my God, what she’s doing don’t need to reply. Some of them have actually replied, no, you don’t need to reply. I’m just doing it when I can do it. So my routine is is very different. And it just has evolved because we’ve had to be a tag team and have young kids waking up. You know, my kids are really bad sleepers. You know, it’s just hard.

[00:51:32] See, from about 6am to midnight. One o’clock.

[00:51:36] Yeah, probably Brisas earlier. He’s like, oh, about five and he’s like five AM club. So he’s like, you’re really not waking up early enough.

[00:51:46] There is also involved in the management side or is he more clinical.

[00:51:49] He’s more clinical. He’s heavily clinical. He works in the clinics, all three clinics, but he’s kind of the right hand person for me in terms of mentorship and advice. He knows everything, the ins and outs with the clinic. But I always get his perspective because it always helps me because he knows the clinical perspective. So managing perspective and business is very different. So it works well. So he’ll always have that advisory input. But via me, all the girls, you know, he’s quite close to the group level team as well. So he hasn’t got much time to do both. He’s so clinical.

[00:52:26] You seem so confident with it. I mean, I don’t mean your demeanour. I mean I mean just the moves you’re making, the way the way you’re going forward. What keeps you up at night apart from the babies? I mean, what worries you about the business? Which what’s your worst nightmare?

[00:52:45] My worst nightmare is myself, what I can give, because my ambitions and my an entrepreneur like blood even worries me. And I’m like, why am I doing this to myself? You need to relax. And that’s what like I say, because, like, I am obsessed. Like I can’t sleep at night because I’m thinking of the next big thing. I’m I’m not even the next big thing. I’m thinking of the next thing. And I take it so personal, I take it to heart. There’s something that’s happening, even if it’s like negotiating deals with certain things, even if it’s a clinical thing, even if it’s a patient problem, you know, those things affect you because when it’s your own business, they do keep you up at night. They do

[00:53:26] Sleep. But element of I’ve got some friends with super successful parents. There’s an element of you you need to prove yourself. Because because, you know, super successful, I’ve

[00:53:38] Never had that from them, though, like they never did it for me. From you, I think it’s probably for myself that I do want. I think I was in awe of my dad and uncle, of how they did what they did and how they did it and the buzz that it gives. It’s a bit of an addiction and it’s I can see it in my dad now. He moved. He’s moved. He lives in Dubai now, but he had to move because he couldn’t stop. And he’s working there now. And he’s expanded Khattak in Dubai just to be able to retire in Dubai. So I just think there’s an element of you are addicted. It’s it’s an obsession. And that buzz that you get, I think it just wrapped up for me. And I wanted to have what they had in terms of that, that because of what they got from what they love to do. And if you love what you do that much, your journey is so fun. It’s just so fun. Like it’s not work. It’s really not work like me. And I have to say to each other, let’s stop talking about work. We really need to consciously do it because it’s we don’t see it like that.

[00:54:48] You mentioned your mom was was taking the personal development course. What was her role in growing up and was involved in the business side as well.

[00:54:58] So she wasn’t she my mom actually got married when she was 17. So she actually left halfway through her A-levels, I think. And she then had me at 17, 18, something like that. So she had me young. So she was at home with us. It was a massive household. So she was running the household and it was my dad and uncle that really were the breadwinners and did that. So I then had also a double edged sword because I wanted to be so, so good at my ambition and my career and do all of that. But I had that amazing role model of my mum and aunty who had five, six kids and were amazing mother roles and the way they did that. And then I wanted to be able to do that as well. And I was like, I wanted to be both. And that’s where I was. I really need to find my own way because, you know, my mum always said to me, I didn’t go to uni. I didn’t have work so I could give X, Y, Z, and I’m trying to do everything. So it’s just I have to find my own way as well.

[00:55:59] It’s like, you know, these days we were talking about Sophina Ahmat before these days with technology and one of the things about owning a business and running a business and all three of us in that, you can kind of fix the business around your your lifestyle. Yeah, but but one thing I would say, why is it is a woman thing to many women really beat themselves up over perfection, wanting to be the perfect mother, the perfect businesswoman, you know, all of those things. And for me, it’s like, you know, you were talking about knowing yourself, self-awareness, self-awareness and understanding your imperfections. Yeah, 100 percent knowing knowing what you’re not good and being cool with that, you know, in a way you don’t just improve. But I notice too many, too many women beating themselves up on this subject.

[00:57:01] Yeah, I mean, it is and it’s a massive thing with women, especially like post natally and postnatal depression and mental health for women at the moment is a massive topic and it is massive. But I feel like women put that pressure on themselves more. It’s from themselves. You know, I’m so fortunate I don’t have a husband that’s putting that pressure on me at all. And, you know, it’s all if I’m doing what I want to do. And he’s there to support that. But I think nowadays there are forces that supported by it genuinely from the woman. And I don’t know why we are that way. I think it’s about being the best we can be in ourselves

[00:57:43] As opposed to admirable, right?

[00:57:45] Yeah, I think it is. You know, when you have a child, you know, you want to be the best mother you can be. Yeah. So I said,

[00:57:53] This lady come and lecture in Belfast. She’s about to go on a second maternity. Yeah. Immediately agreed to it, arrange flights as she’s coming in lecturing and going out same day. Yeah. And you know, it’s massively applicable. It is my.

[00:58:10] Yeah she’s great. She you know and I think that strong women around you like me with my maternity and how I am and other women are Dental that work with us Saxenian and I’ve got Lyndsey and I’ve got loads of women around in the room with our working mums. But it’s the passion for what we do. It’s not because we have to do it and it’s not because we will feel like we fail. If we do it, it’s because we enjoy it. And like I said, it’s it is the addiction. And also I feel I’ve always said I feel like I’m a better mum because of what I do, because I feel like I’m a strong role model for my kids and what I do, that work ethic and drive and that graph that they see me do. And also I feel like I’m a more sane person. I have no shame in saying that. Like, I enjoy having my own time, like I want to go out into the world, have grown up conversations and come back to my kids and still have. So it doesn’t make me a bad mum. And, you know, it’s accepting that a lot of women find that hard to even accept, to even say, I want to go out and do something. I want to go out and, you know, and come back and have that time. And I think it’s mentally healthy to you know, some people don’t need to, and that’s okay. But I genuinely, for myself, I need that. I need my mind to be somewhere else and engulfed in something else. Otherwise I’ll be so obsessed with the kids and in an unhealthy way, being too worried about how long they’re eating, sleeping with that. It just it just

[00:59:49] Love that them love that very much. So look, we always end these podcasts on the same on the same note. It’s really around legacy. You’re way too young for this question.

[01:00:03] It makes me feel depressed.

[01:00:06] But several people have pointed out, as you never know in life. Right. So, yeah,

[01:00:12] Of course, you don’t know what’s around the corner. I some

[01:00:14] Final question tends to be Prav

[01:00:17] Or three Zenga. Imagine it was your last day on the planet. You’ve got the other children around you and you need to leave the world by giving them three pieces of wisdom. What would those pieces of advice be?

[01:00:35] It’s really weird because this is the question that I asked my grandparents before when they were quite sick, and I think it would be the same advice that they gave me that I would want to give to my kids, and that would be live every day with your presence. So live happily every day. Don’t ever go to sleep, you know, upset or anything like that, you know, live happy and sorry. I just don’t get emotional. I’ve been thinking of them saying to me, but yeah, I’d live happy and be in your moment and then think, you know, one thing that my grandparents always said is stop overthinking, stop overthinking, stop thinking of things that aren’t happening. You know, the president is actually fine. You’re thinking of things that actually haven’t existed. So that’s one big piece of advice. I think the second piece of advice I would give them is always have respect and love for each other and be close to each other. I think the unity of the family I’ve seen in my own family has been the strength of the whole life. The unity within family bonds is so strong that you don’t really realise the wisdom of what that is and how that really shapes us people.

[01:01:53] And I would give that advice to my kids as well. Keep your unity within your bones strong and just be good to the outside world and just be good people, be kind, be caring and always think of others. I would definitely say that I always think of others and give more without expecting a return. Give more and don’t expect things that you give out of your heart and out of good intention and leave the rest, leaves the rest. If we believe in God, we say I say leave the rest to God. Otherwise leave the rest to your karma and always give more. Give more. If you think you’re going to give and charity, give a little bit more. And if you think you’re going to give someone advice, give a bit more. Just go out of your way to give other people more, because I do feel that that comes back on you. So that would be my advice to my kids.

[01:02:38] A lovely place.

[01:02:40] Thanks for sharing that. And what would you what would you like to see if you were to complete the following sentence? Zabo was don’t how would you like to be remembered?

[01:02:53] Um, just a great mom, a great daughter and a great wife. I think my three major important roles. And then in myself, I would say also to be remembered as an inspiration, inspiration to other women, to other just to everyone, to anyone. That’s part of my journey. Just I’ve touched you. I’ve inspired you, motivate you in some sort of way. So, yeah,

[01:03:22] If I’m on my final question, Xaver, and I know your answer is going to be very different to the boys that we spoke to yesterday. Yeah. I just want you to know that if you have thirty days left, how would you spend it?

[01:03:44] Good, that’s hot. Um, I don’t know, I think I’d want to spend it around my close family. I think you want to be around your family, friends. And, you know, I’d obviously want to spend it in Ruu as well and making sure that that’s all, because I want that to grow and not be because of me. I want that to be strong and a brand because it because of how good that is, not because of the person.

[01:04:15] I can only say it has been inspiring to that and just listening to you, how you handled the whole work life balance, the three kids, the three clinics, and so admirable at such a young age, such

[01:04:30] A young age. I mean, we’re an old Prav, but at such a young age to be doing as much as you’re doing. It’s just it’s just super, super, very inspiring.

[01:04:39] It makes it exciting where we’re going.

[01:04:40] Payman, lovely to have you.

[01:04:44] Thank you so much for having me.

[01:04:46] Thanks so much for doing this piece.

[01:04:50] Dental Leaders the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging Leaders Dental Street. Your house, Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[01:05:05] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, 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

[01:05:20] 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.

[01:05:30] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] Obviously, when it comes to implant dentistry, it’s a very critical field if you place your implant one millimetre to labial, the whole thing going to fan and you’re going to get Middleville recession. So it makes or break the case, the correct implant positioning. It’s like domino effect. If the first block isn’t drive, everything else would be wrong. So when it comes to implant dentistry, it’s all about plotting, planning, planning, planning and sharing that plan with your mentor, discussing double checking and having no ego whenever you get ego playing. That’s when things go wrong.

[00:00:44] This is Dental Leaders podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders and dentistry. Your heist’s Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:01] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Hassan McGeary onto the podcast, one of the foremost authorities on implant ology and the country teacher. Been a long time. I’ve watched Hassan from a distance for a long time. Your reputation is growing and growing, but lovely to have you on the show. Hassan, you know this podcast, we try and get to the back story. So let’s start with that. What was your childhood like? Where were you born? What were you like as a kid? Was the first time you looked at dentistry?

[00:01:32] Thank you so much. Payman Prav for the kind invitation privilege to be one of your guests on Dental Leaders podcast. I was born in Malcolm Lancaster, and when I was two or three years old, my parents moved back to Jordan. My dad was a urologist at the time, having his training in England and Scotland. And then I grew up in Jordan, did my high school in Jordan. And I’ve always wanted to be like my dad because for me, my dad is my hero. He’s the one who’s been there for us. He’s the one who’s always, you know, even in the extended family. He’s the one people come to him for his advice. So I’ve always wanted to be a surgeon like him, a urologist even. And I remember when I was 15, 16 years old, I would go and join him in his theatre just to watch him operating. And I did my high school and I’ve applied for medicine and I had to go to university, is accepting me one in Cairo, in Egypt and in Belfast, and obviously I wanted to come to Belfast. And my mom at the time, she didn’t want me to be far away from her. So she sort of convinced me to go to Cairo because it’s only an hour flight from Amman, Jordan, where I grew up in Jordan. It’s a funny story. I landed to Cairo and then the procedure was for me to go to the Jordanian embassy, get my paperwork, and then go to the to the medical school so I can start my journey. Funnily enough, I went to the embassy and I found my papers prepared to go to the Dental school, not medical school.

[00:03:23] And I was a bit upset. And I remember making a bit of a scene in front of the ambassador and the counsellor and even accusing the ambassador of being corrupt person, taking my position in the medical school, passing it to someone else of his relatives and moving me to the Dental school. So the ambassador at the time, actually, he was really nice kind person. He sort of let me talk and talk and talk for long, five minutes. And then at the end he said, Have you finished my son? And I said, Yes, I have. And he was like, Right. Your dad called me two days ago and asked me to move you to the Dental school. And I did this because of your dad’s request. And I was like, oh my God, I literally wish the Earth would just open and swallow me. I’ve felt so embarrassed because I was there full of passion, talking and shouting for five minutes, and then realised that it was my dad who put the request behind the scenes that I’d be moved to the Dental school, not medical school. So I went back and called my dad and said, Dad, why did you do this? And obviously for me, dad is my hero, so I always trust him. But I felt so bad about him doing this behind the scenes. And at the time, he talked to me and he said, Hassan, I know you very well, you’re not going to do well in medical school. You don’t like long surgeries. You are you’re an artistic person. Because when I was young, since I was young, I always like to draw and craft things.

[00:05:04] And, you know, my dad watched me being an artistic person and apparently my dad’s best friend was a dentist. And my dad always admired the lifestyle of that dentist. You know, my dad would be called in the middle of the night to go and see emergency patients and hospital and all that. And somehow I felt he envied his best friend, the dentist. So he made that decision. And obviously, in the Middle Eastern culture, you would respect your dad’s wishes. And John Dentistry in Cairo University, but I always loved surgery, so the first thing I’ve done the moment I finish my dentistry, I’ve sort of written and sent my CVS to Max Fox units in the U.K. and I started my oral surgery training because I wanted to come back to surgery. Funny enough, I worked in hospital for three, No. Four, five years as senior house officer and then as a staffer, great. And I reach a point in my life when I realise I don’t like hospital life. I felt bored. I I felt there was no challenge for me. You know, I didn’t like the fact I had the boss. I don’t like the fact that it’s like six hours. I need to give six week notice before I go on holiday. And I felt that’s not me. So I told my dad, he said, Dad, you know what? You were right. I’m going to go back to my dentist. And the guy just shows you that, you know, parents. No, no. You know, they know us very well. And this is my story.

[00:06:52] What a great story. It’s really interesting what you say that has done. I think me and Payman have been having conversations about bringing up children. Right. And also as a 20 something year olds thinking we would like. Yeah, the whole thing. And Dad would say to me, don’t do this, do that. I’m doing this for your own good, whatever. Yeah, but but then we thought well I thought at the time he was just being an arsehole. OK, that was my brother. In our culture we’ve got the respect and we follow whatever I guess. But looking back, you see all the reasoning behind it and why you’ve ended up where you are and all the rest of it and now is having that conversation with our kids new generation. Things have changed through and you kind of think, I do know that. But for me, I’m thinking they’ve got to figure it out for themselves. They’ve got to make their own mistakes, even though we know what’s what’s right. OK, and in ten years time, I’m going to say I told you so.

[00:07:55] I know. I know. But, you know, I think somehow my dad wanted the best for me and he knew me very well. And interestingly enough, I have my youngest brother. His call on my dad encouraged him to go to urology and he’s now urology urologist, consultant in Germany. So somehow my dad knew that Hasan is better as an artist, as a dentist, while Omar is better as a surgeon, as a urologist. And I respect him for that. I really respect him for that.

[00:08:30] So how sad. By that time that was your move to the UK, right? Doing all that. All surgery.

[00:08:34] Yes. Yes. Back in two thousand and two thousand and one.

[00:08:39] So then were you when you when you thought I’m going to leave hospital dentistry, were you thinking implant surgery, was that a predetermined thing or did you go and start doing some scale and polishers.

[00:08:52] Interesting. One thing, one thing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, when I did my junior training, I did it. I told Royal Infirmary in East Yorkshire and I had an amazing consultant. I still remember him. Chris Blackburn, he was the most human Max Fox consultant you would ever meet. And I enjoyed that. But then I started shadowing one of the other consultants doing Dental implants. And that’s when I start to like doing dental implants. And I remember going back to Jordan in the summer attending some dental implant courses because believe it or not, Dental implants in Jordan were so much more popular than UK in the private practise. And I remember I was very young doing my first dental implant for my mother under supervision of a mentor over there in Jordan. And I thought, this is what I like. You know, the beauty about dental implants. It’s a mix of everything, proper treatment planning, which is to do with dentistry, prosthetic work and then surgery and then a bit of perio management and then bit of mechanics and a bit of prosthodontics planning and such as finishing the cases. So for me, that made sense. A mixture of everything. I like everything. I loved art, dentistry and oral surgery. So yeah, I was kleve. And that’s why the moment I finished my hospital job, I went and joined my MASC at Manchester University. We were the first cohort at the time where we had two fantastic course directors, Paul Coulthart, who’s a maxillofacial surgeon, and Marco Esposito, who’s like a big figure in the world of evidence based implant dentistry.

[00:10:49] You know, people do good things and people marqués positive things when it comes to implant dentistry. He’s written more randomised controlled trials and implant dentistry more than anyone else in the world. So I was lucky to have them both, but I had a clear vision, I now remember my first day in my MCE were going to introduce myself to Marko telling him, Marco, I’m your student in this two year MFC course. And he was like, Hello, my son. And I said, I’m not here for the embassy. I’m here to be like you. I want to be a lecturer. I want to publish. I want to do research. I want to be someone who’s teaching in dentistry just like you. And this is day one, MFC. And he looked at me top to bottom. As a kid, you haven’t even started what you’re talking about. But then this is the thing behind the scenes. Even when I was at high school, I would always go. I was very active as a scout and I always had a passion for teaching leadership. And I love that I used to go and teach English for the younger people. I used to go and teach science. So teaching being been part of my passion all the time. And for me, to be honest, MASC was not a target as much as just a little step towards achieving my passion. And that’s why I did my M.S. and dentistry.

[00:12:21] I had to play some implants and hospitals already or not.

[00:12:25] Yes, but it was completely different to what we do now because, you know, we’re talking about two thousand and five where even Maxford surgeons would just follow the bone. Obviously now implant dentistry is completely different. It’s all about what we call reverse treatment planning. You find the prosthetic envelop, you decide where it’s the ideal position for that perfect restoration. And then you check the bone and the body’s in there. You grow the bone. While in the past it used to be like put an implant wherever the bone is and send best wishes to the prosthodontics. It’s different. It’s different nowadays.

[00:13:08] Hassan, you spoke about your international sort of exposure to implant ology in Amman. And I remember once at the Dubai show, I saw you lecturing there and there was a massive fall. I wanted to have a chat with you about to wake. Wait, I know

[00:13:22] I remember that

[00:13:24] Because so many people were coming up to you, but you’ve got kind of a global angle on implant ology. Where are we now in the UK? Because last time I saw ElectraNet, we had fewer implants going in per head than Germany, France, all of all of Europe. Have we caught up on

[00:13:42] That through my personal

[00:13:47] And we have good with it is what do you guys see as the future? I mean, on the one hand, people are living longer and so they’re going to need more input. On the other hand, people aren’t losing t is implant ology something that’s going to get bigger or smaller ultimately for me?

[00:14:04] Yes. I mean, my personal opinion that UK is still behind compared to the rest of the world when it comes to the number of implants being placed per population. And that’s to do obviously, I think, with the fact we don’t have enough courses training younger people in implant dentistry. The undergrads have very little training on implant dentistry as part of their five year curriculum. And I think people in the UK for a long time being very conservative when it comes to implant dentistry. Having said that, more recently, you could see things are changing. Now, we have great figures in the world of implant dentistry in the U.K., the level of aesthetic implant dentistry is picking up and starting to compete on a global level. And that’s from the quality point of view, from the quantity. Yes, I totally agree with you. We still have huge, huge space for more implants in the UK market. And that’s why I think a young dentist who has passion for surgery to do is to get into implant dentistry and, you know, go to Germany, Italy. Every single practise will have an in-house implant dentist. I don’t think we have this still in the UK. And therefore, I you know, I think for a long time in the UK implant dentistry is going to be a very popular field of dentistry. And also not to mention like people lose teeth, like it or not. And because, as you said, people are living longer now. People are thought to be more aware of their health. In a recent statistics from the American Academy of Dentistry, they said about 70 percent or 65 percent of people who are of our age in the in the early 30s.

[00:16:10] Right. Will this number of people, 65 percent of people in their 40s will lose a single tooth? This is in the States. And I think we could apply the same in UK, if not more. And people are more educated. I start to get people coming to me and say my dentist wanted to give me a bridge. I don’t want to have a bridge. I want to have an input. And you know what? GDC makes it clear, even if you don’t place implants, you should mention as one of the treatment options, otherwise you could be in trouble. So I still believe UK is one of the best places to start and dentistry. And what I like about employing dentistry in UK, unlike Italy, unlike Germany, that we’re focussing on quality, we’re still expensive. So as a dentist, you can still charge more and spend more time with your dentist, with your patient and focus on quality. And actually implant dentistry is much, much cheaper. And obviously, when you do things cheaper, that means you cannot afford giving a lot of time for that specific patient because you have to just do things quicker and that’s where things start to go wrong. Now, I have heard that UK is maybe after Netherland, the second most expensive place to have an implant as a patient, which is good news for us as dentists, because, as I said, it allows us to focus on quality and give our patients the time they need so we can achieve top standards and dentistry.

[00:17:56] So so hasn’t the whole thing about us being behind on implants, the two things that are bouncing around my head and one, you’ve just you’ve just brought to the surface, which is price. And could that be a factor as to the number of implants going into people’s heads? And the second thing is something that resonates with me all the time in any aspects of my life is you don’t know what you don’t know. And so there’s so many dentists out there who see a missing tooth and the only thing they know to prescribe is a bridge or a partial. And this whole thing about actually there’s a lot of dentists out there that don’t even know that’s an option. And certainly in my own clinic, we see a lot of patients that come in with loose dentures. Right. They don’t even know implants exist yet. When you explain to them that you could have an implant, assisted denture or fixed teeth, it’s like you just won the lottery in terms of the excitement on their face, in terms of the possibilities of being able to eat food again, the possibilities of being able to throw away actually. Yeah. How much of how much of this do you think relates to people not knowing, dentists not knowing what they don’t know, patients not knowing what they don’t know and then expense.

[00:19:13] Prav, this is an amazing point, and I’d like to build on this and say it is not an excuse nowadays you cannot be a dentist without building some knowledge about implant dentistry. OK, even if you if you know, it’s not for you, you’re not a surgeon. You don’t want to get involved in implant dentistry. You need to at least build a minimum level of knowledge about implants, dental implants, because as we said, and I know this is a true story, friend of mine, young graduate. So this patient giving him a fantastic three unit bridge, this patient goes down, like to meet his friends in a pub and apparently one of the other friends had an implant. And it’s a true story. Patient comes back after a year complaining to that lady why she didn’t offer him an implant and bless that lady decided to keep it in-house because she knew if he goes to the GDC, she’s in trouble. She decided to pay me to give him an implant instead of his bridge. So it’s happening, you know, so it is not and it’s not an excuse for the dentist, not to mention dental implants nowadays. Now, on the other aspect, I think what’s happening, though, is that people are not comfortable mentioning or talking in detail about dental implants because there is a fine balance between offering to the patients what they need and being. And you don’t want to be seen as a hard sell person. You’re not you know, with dentists we don’t want to sell. And that’s is where things go wrong. I’m talking about over dentures.

[00:20:57] I’m in the middle of preparing a lecture for part of my implant course and it wasn’t over dentures. And whatever you update the lectures, you go on the research. And I found some interesting research showing that, well, number one, we had what we called Magal consensus. So a group of prosthodontics more than ten years ago met in McGill in Canada on a global level. And they decided or they came up with a consensus that the absolute minimum standard of care for someone with a Dental, a lower jaw is to implants and over densha. So between two brackets, giving them a conventional lower Dental is inhuman. This is according to make it now, you might say, oh, these are Canadians. These are Americans. Now, the same group met in York a few years ago and had the second consensus with the British society of prosthodontics, and they confirmed these findings. So I said as a dentist, you should not be offering, according to the Dental literature and evidence based research, he should not be offering lower dentures, conventional dentures to our human patients. That’s No. One further. Furthermore, interestingly, they did a research comparing conventional dentures with implant dentures. And this research basically based on patient satisfaction and meeting expectations. And they found people with lower implantable dentures will have better quality of life, better stomach, better ability to chew and believe it or not, better ability to enjoy sexual activities. So they asked him about that and they said even sexual activities, kissing and all that has improved with people who were restored with improved dentures and a

[00:23:00] Sign

[00:23:02] That, well, the patient surveys, they go to them and they literally they ask them how many times in the last week you you’ve slept with your partner compared to those with conventional dentures. This is evidence based research implants, man, dental and dental implants, nothing else.

[00:23:27] Hassan, I’m just about to change my entire marketing strategy around me.

[00:23:33] I’m happy to share that research with you. And it’s part of my lecture. So, yeah, it’s there.

[00:23:40] Let me ask you something about two things. You’ve got you’ve got you’ve got the students who you teach now. Yeah. And you’ve got the people who like me as a dentist. When I was a dentist, I had absolutely no interest in becoming a surgeon. And that’s the reason I went to dentistry so that I wouldn’t come across surgery. What was the idea? I do. I don’t want to be that guy. So of those two categories and you said especially what you said about the GDC and dentists having to know the basics of implant ology, what are the. The things that a lot of people don’t know about Implant told you that they really should. Let me give you an example in my world. There’s a common myth. All bleaching gels are saying, yeah, yeah. I mean, if once you try three or four or five with 20 years experience, that’s absolutely not true. But on the surface of it, you might think that because they’re named by percentages. So what in your world, first for the group, the choose implant allergy and come in. What’s one misconception they’ve got? And what about the other group who don’t choose it? And what what, what? For instance, I don’t know about grafting teleportation. Is there enough bone there or not.

[00:24:53] So pay if I may just divert the question first into what do we expect from a general dentists in UK to know about implant dentistry? All right. I would like to look at you as a dentist. You have a choice of one out of three levels. Level one, which is the basic minimum level, is to know that dental treatment is a treatment modality and speciality. It’s the treatment option should be mentioned to every patient before having your tooth out, OK, because the last thing you want is coming to you and say, should I have known the implant? Is that expensive, I wouldn’t have had that tooth removed. So it’s something you need to mention even before taking the tooth that OK, you say, right, Mr. Smith, you’re having this, too, that today and your treatment options are Densher pros and cons adhesive breg pros and cons, fixed breg pros and cons, Dental and pros and cons. And there are all or nothing. Exactly. And there are courses out there, whether they’re online or one day or evenings, which will provide you this level of knowledge. OK, so it is not an excuse not to know this. And then level to say, you know what, I have a restorative dentist, I enjoy being a multidisciplinary dentist, but I don’t want to do surgery. So you can choose to restore dental implants and be involved in the planning for dental implant as part of a multidisciplinary case.

[00:26:40] And then level three is to say, do you know what my patients like me, my patient, trust me. And I do mostly every aspect of the of dentistry. So I want to keep my implant patients in-house. And then you could then attend one of these courses, which will teach you from A to Z, like the course we run at the Barrett Academy. We take people assuming they’ve never done a flap or suture in their life, and then we go through an intensive one year course where we go, then take them from basic level to the advanced level, because according to the international team of entomology, which is the biggest global organisation to do with dental implants, the cases are classified into simple or straightforward. Sorry, there’s nothing, nothing simple. Let’s call it straightforward, advanced and complex. The moment you move to the interior region, it’s called advanced. And you and I know most of our patients in the United Kingdom will be more worried about a gap if it’s in the anterior region. So I go and tell my delegates that the bread and butter of dentistry in the United Kingdom at the moment is advanced cases in the anterior region. And that’s why in the course we teach straightfoward an advance in one year, OK, because it’s not fair just to know the straightforward and then struggle later on to learn the advance.

[00:28:15] Now, when we go to your questions, if you go back to your question, people need to understand that the success criteria for dentistry has completely changed since they were first introduced in the mid 80s compared to what we have now in the mid 80s. If their flight is fully integrated and it’s not causing pain and there isn’t massive bone loss or pus discharge, that’s success nowadays. It’s all about the peak. It’s all about the peak aesthetics around the dental implants. So if anything doesn’t look natural and doesn’t integrate with the surrounding soft tissue and bone of the natural teeth, this is failure. And to get into that, you need to follow a strict system. You don’t need to be super experienced to tackle these cases. As long as you have a system you follow without cutting corners, without compromising. And this is where we go. And plus are not all the same, 100 percent in all the same. You know, there are premium and plus systems which have good surfaces, good internal connexion. They give you less leakage and there are cheaper systems which basically you cannot maintain the bone level around them and you cannot maintain healthy soft tissue around them. And obviously there are many other factors such such as patient selection, such as plotty prosthetic, reversible of planning and all these aspects, like

[00:29:51] That’s something that I’m just going to go back to the basic requirements of the GDP. I think what you’re saying is really, really important and it really resonates with conversations I’ve had with a completely different discipline. Orthodontics, right. He says that he will not sit in your chair for a Check-Up unless you have a reasonable basic understanding of orthodontics and how to move all the time. Not not that you can fit Sprocket’s in wires and all the rest of it, but that you will understand the basic concepts and also you understand the teeth are always moving, etc., etc.. And I think you’re probably saying the same thing, that as a general dentist, there is a responsibility to at least understand treatment options, the basics of treatment planning, even if you can’t carry it out. Now, that’s clearly not that’s not happening today. Even a lot of dentists that I speak to today, you mentioned the word orthodontics and instils fear, right. That’s an orthodontist job. You mention the word implants and that’s blood and surgery. And it creates fear amongst some dentists. What do you think needs to change with the curriculum? Make maybe even before postgraduate education right in your site in order to create what I would deem to be a. Complete GDP. OK, well rounded, complete GDP, who would come to the surface to know that actually, you know, if you’ve got a missing tooth, as you said earlier, these your options, if you’re missing all your teeth, is meant to do this. Yeah. What do you think needs to change curriculum wise? Does that need to be like in your one year postgrad fundamental training? Does something need to be introduced at Dental school, a basic level? What are your thoughts on that, being a teacher in the field? What do you think needs to change?

[00:31:53] To be honest, Prav to be fair. I mean, I know the curriculum varies from one Dental school to another. Let’s make that clear. And I know some Dental schools start to integrate more sort of lectures, more focussed on Dental influence. But definitely as a dentist, forget about treatment options. Let’s say, you know, anyone can say, yeah, you’ve got a job, I’m going to send you to unemployment dentists to have a look. But imagine let’s have a scenario. You’re doing a Check-Up, right? And as you do the Check-Up, there are two Dental implants in this patient’s mouth. And somehow you have a duty as a dentist to check is everything OK or not? Because the idea of the check up is prevention better than cure and just pop things at early stage. So you as a dentist, you need to somehow have the knowledge of. Right. What is a successful and what looks like and what is an unhealthy implant looks like. And, you know, it’s a huge debate. Do we probe, do we not probe the how do we know this is Pierrepont Mucositis or per implant itis? Is that implant crowd fully seated or not fully seated? Is it loose? You know, there are so many things as a dentist you need to work on to be able to provide the absolute minimum. And it will be really nice, as you said, if this is a straight forward information are incorporated within the undergrad curriculum,

[00:33:38] Let’s do our bit. Let’s do our bit to to redress that. What do you do? Do you prefer that you are OK?

[00:33:45] This it it depends on which school you belong to. OK, now there is one school which says you should probe because probing is one of the most important things to double check whether the patient has some sort of gum disease about your implant, because bleeding on probing is one of the early signs of disease around the dental implant. Now, the other school says, well, actually, we know that the sulcus around that implant is a very weak sulcus with no proper dates. So if you if you put a carrier probe that you might initiate a trauma and introduce bacteria into the area. So personally, the way I do it, the way I’ve been doing doing it for a long time and teaching, I say we need to use the Perry probe, but rather than go and sort of go epically, I would just get my period in the initial part of the sulcus, which is the one millimetre, and then start to move sort of in circumferential movement, because by doing this, if the gum is not healthy, it will bleed. And that would be a sign. But without needing to disturb the energy he made this Muzzammil attachment or the sort of deep connective tissue attachment. Having said that, what I also do if I see there is a bit of bleeding and I’m a bit worried I would remove my crown and then I will get my period probe and I start checking for loss of attachment around the implant itself in a direct vision. OK, because there is no way you can probe and implant with the tooth on the top or what you do. Are you proposing a metal abutment? Unless you have a fibre optic flexible Perrier probe which goes around the emergence profile of your apartment. So for that reason, nowadays there is a huge shift into screw retained restorations which are easy to retrieve. And then you would go and check the loss of attachment around your Dental itself. But then according to that

[00:36:03] At the top and my qualified to do that or not. Well, this is probably the glass and I refer

[00:36:10] I would say that if there is a bit of bleeding, I would say go to the patient, say, all right, we have. An early sign of gum disease, I think you definitely will need to go and see your dentist, and if anything, I tend to educate my referrals to say, you know what, your life safety net, you just spot things go wrong or just spot things that early stage and leave it for me to treat and manage. Because usually this sort of management is going to be offered complementary to my patients who come on regular basis. So it doesn’t cost us much, but the earlier we intervene, the better.

[00:36:56] And what about what about the maintenance from the hygiene perspective? Do you believe in metal instruments or plastic ones or what?

[00:37:03] Let me tell you something, and this is in agreement with Marcus postictal and another perfect friend and mentor, Crowfoot Bain, who’s a professor I’ve met in Dubai. He used to be the head of the department in Dubai and now moves back to Glasgow. And I’m proud to have him as one of the speakers on our birth course. What we say we would rather have is scratched and clean abutment rather than polished and dirty abutment as simple as that. So for me, cleaning is priority. OK, yes, we do have now a titanium hand scalars which are good. But sometimes if you need to use ultrasonic, I have no issues with using a proper ultrasonic, even with a metal tap. Nice.

[00:37:55] When you have these people on your course. How many was the cohort number.

[00:38:00] Well, I mean, interestingly enough, we used to run one cohort every year and we would go from 15 to 16. And during the lockdown we noticed lots of dentist has made the decision to upscale and all of a sudden our courses start to be such a huge demand. So now we run to cohort’s and we have 20 dentists on each cohort. So we’ve improved the infrastructure. We improve the number of mentors, we increase the number of mentors, and we are running to cohort’s every year. And yeah, we do it one in October, one in January. Usually dentist needs to book one year in advance because our October cohort is fully booked and our January 22 is now half booked.

[00:38:53] So what’s the worst investment in time and money?

[00:38:58] Well, that’s a good question, because there are different courses and one of the main issues, like people want to learn and plans and they don’t know where to go. And for me, you either start right or you don’t start. So there are different courses who have different durations. And then we can talk about another question, MSE or one year course that we can talk about in a few moments now, because, as I said, I made a decision to incorporate straightforward and advanced skills in the one year because I personally feel to be successful and dentists in the private sector, you need to tackle entier cases properly, because what happens is some people go and do the straightforward courses and then they don’t have the skills to tackle anti-terror cases. They still do that and they have failures. So our course is nine modules each module three days, so twenty seven days over a nine month period. And in our course we will provide our delegates with patients and Implats. So as part of the course, each delegate will be allocated patients to treatment plan and then later on to place in place for them and then later on to restore these cases. And then they document the cases and they present it in our final exam, which is an exam we do in front of an external exam.

[00:40:27] Every year we will invite one of the deans, one of the authorities, and implant dentistry in UK as an external examiner just to add validation to the course. And then we have an optional module ten, where we go to Athens for the weekend. And once they develop the knowledge they want, if they want to increase their experience, they come with us to Athens, where each dentist plays more than six to seven, plus get involved in another twenty five implants altogether. On top of that, this is the most important part we have in nationwide mentoring scheme because pay one thing, developing the knowledge and one thing getting the theory and having initial training, unless you start placing importance in your practise, you will never be a successful employer dentist. So we strongly believe in providing mentors who will visit the participants in their own practise, help them to sort of plan, start an entire career within that practise and then we mentor them. Depends on how many level, how many visits they need until we feel they’re safe to go solo.

[00:41:43] So we have this problem now on a composite course that some of the people who come on the course go on and become some of the composite people in the country and others don’t even start their first case. And I see it as a failure of ours, actually, because, I mean, influences are much more involved thing. But if a guy’s been on, by the way, it’s only a two day course. Right. But because being on a two day course with a spend that amount of time with us and then never really took it on, I feel like we made an error, rather, of course, this responsibility on both sides. But what percentage of people are like that with you, dude? What’s it for? Twenty seven days with you. Is there anyone who says, man, it’s not for me.

[00:42:29] I have to be honest with you. We’ve been we’ve been running this course for 11 years now. So this is something we started actually 12 years. We started 2009, as you know, when we started the course. It’s something I started myself and the story came out like I finished my masters. And I have passion for teaching and sharing my knowledge. And I realised there are lots of colleagues who want to learn and plus without going into assignments and thesis. So I started this course with literally five dentists, OK? And then gradually the course starts to grow and it grows by word of mouth. And I have to tell you, so far I only had one delegate who had two in the 11 years to pull out because she had to have the wedding and travel with her husband to another country. So she sort of she didn’t half way through should not continue. But out of the people who continued the course, I can with confidence tell you. Ninety five percent of them are placing implants. And I know this because we follow them up and we have our own WhatsApp group where all our dentists as part of the group and I have it’s in my passion. I keep calling them and checking on them how many cases you’ve done. And we also do every two years like a reunion. So all our best graduates come together for a full day when we do a full day symposium, when they present their cases. And it’s it’s a bit of fun. And when we meet together and we sort of try to develop a community where you finish the course and you get what’s the after sale service, and this is the most important part is the follow up, the encouragement, the mentoring. And, you know, we even try to contact companies and get them special offers. Like that’s the thing people invest in your course, the company or the importers, and they think this is it. They don’t realise, well, actually, they have to invest even afterwards with getting proper care, proper instruments, marketing skills. And that’s what they need to understand. It’s a journey.

[00:44:44] It’s the beginning of the journey.

[00:44:47] Not exactly. Exactly, but with the bird, because we’ve been there for 11 years now, people start to sort of acknowledge the brand and companies come to us and say, right, how we can help you. So like, for example, I’ve got here already offering more than 50 percent discount on our microsurgery kits for our delegates. We’ve got Woodpecker giving us a discount on the merchants. We’ve got Stralman, our fantastic supporter, giving us implants at discounted rate for the bed graduates. So the only way we teach them, but we literally support them to start the career because it is in my best interest that every delegates of my course become a successful dentist. And this is our passion. And this is, I think, what made us special.

[00:45:38] Your passion for this is is obvious, is palpable. You also have the same passion for practise life, of course.

[00:45:47] Yeah.

[00:45:48] Which one do you prefer?

[00:45:51] It’s literally like having two to two sons girlfriends. Yeah, exactly. Because for me I wouldn’t be able to be a good lecturer without a dental practise and I wouldn’t be able to practise well if I wasn’t lecturing. So both motivate me to be a better person because you don’t pay when you lecture, you somehow have this in your subconscious to become a very good clinician because you need to practise what you preach. They go to Dental and if you lecture, you need to have great cases to present. So you know both ways encourage each other.

[00:46:38] Hassan, recently we had a few conversations and what screened out to me, which is totally normal to you, is the way you operate with patients as a team. Right, and associate with an associate lecturer, stroke instructor who has a right hand. I was about to say winchman, but its wing woman and co-pilot, co-pilot, Batman and Robin, as I called it the other day when we spoke. But I guess what really struck out to me is every patient that you treat gets to implant Dentists’ for the price of one, OK, two sets of eyes, et cetera. And I spoke to so many dentists over the last 15 years, I’ve never come across this concept before. So what I’d like you to do is, first of all, tell me about how you met this doctor, right? Yes. Yes. And what really, really struck out to me is that you going up to your mentor when you were doing your mouth and saying, I want to teach, I want to research, I want to do this. Is the story similar? And then how did you become pilot and co-pilot? And sometimes you are a co-pilot, right?

[00:48:03] Oh, yes. Yes, please. So basically, you know, the whole thing goes back to the bare dichotomy, OK, you know, as I said, when I teach, I teach because I want to spread my passion. This is my number one. If you speak to any of our delegates, I’d like to think and they tell me they come and tell me one thing they get from the courts is the passion, OK? And to be honest, what really motivates me to to lecture, to update my lectures, I could be up till midnight, just going to research, to update my lecture. What really motivates me that some of these delegates, they drive all the way from Edinburgh or from Exeter or from Devon to Leeds, so they drive six hours just to come and join my cause. And this is something they do twenty seven times every year. So that motivates me a lot. But then when you find someone who’s willing, not only driving 200 miles. No. To fly like thousand five hundred miles or even more, twenty seven times, that sort of shows you how motivated that person is. And this is the story of Victoria. I mean, we have Victoria and we had other people flying from other countries. But Victoria, the story started. I was lecturing in Bulgaria and she was there as one of the audience and we were talking and she said she wants to become an dentist. And, you know, me being nice, I said, yeah, I’m running an import course and leads by all means you could join. And this conversation was in December, September. Afterwards, she joined the chorus, so she moved to UK and she decided she moved specially to do this course.

[00:50:03] And then she tends to be one of the bright candidates we had. So I offered her a job to be my associate. And at the time I thought, you know, what? Would it be nice to have a younger dentist who can restore my cases? That’s how it started. But then as we progress, I’ve divil of discovery that she’s very good in her perio, in her surgery, as well as her restorative work. And she told me that she loves implants. So now we reach a point where literally we are pilot and co-pilot and we swap that sort of these roles. So sometimes we always do the consultation together. And by doing this, we brainstorm behind the scenes about the best treatment plan for that specific patient. When we do the surgery, we both there. Sometimes she places and I retract and other times I place and she retract. We do the GBR together, we do the soft tissue grafting together, and then we would continue restoring the case as a team. And people like people like it because as you said, somehow they feel safe. They feel comfortable having two dentists discussing the case and getting the best treatment plan for them. It’s a concept, you know, at the beginning, people say, why would you do that? And to be honest now, I highly encourage every single implant dentist to look into this. And this is what we do with Berendt Academy. Now, I encourage all my delegate. To see who is the nearest another bird graduates in their city and do the cases together because the margin of error or the risk of error becomes less and less and less, and it’s a win win for everyone.

[00:51:53] So let let me turn that right. I mean, I think it’s absolutely amazing. And, you know, if I was to get an implant placed in my head to have two highly experienced surgeons, two sets of eyes, two brains, you would just think you’ll get an exceptional value for money. Right. As well as feeling incredibly safe. Does it come at a higher cost than I would go and sort of pay for somebody else in Leeds, for example, to have an implant? I don’t know. We can have the whole conversation about value and everything like that. But let’s let’s treat it like a commodity for now. And I hate doing that. Yeah, that’s a good price.

[00:52:32] Should be higher than delegates for.

[00:52:35] Well, to be honest, Prav and pay. I’m not I’m not the cheapest employed dentist in Leaders. We we we look after our patients. We have special interest in cosmetic and dentistry and we spend good time in surgically managing the soft tissue and prosthetics, managing the soft tissue and getting things look as natural as possible. And because of that, you know, we like to spend good time with our patients. Were never interested in what the efficient implant industry or Quicken 23. Now we like to cook on a slow mode for things to work really well. Having said that, we do immediate loading. So don’t get me wrong, patients sometimes have their immediate loading done and I have special research and rather controlled trials on immediate loading. So I believe in the concept. But what I want to say will not ship. That’s number one. We are good and I’d like to think we are one of the best, but we’re not the cheapest. We’ve never put our prices up because there’s two dentists. I think we’re just more efficient between us to we work at 150 percent efficiency. So sometimes I will be working in one practise and Victoria would be working another practise like the restorative work. But the planning is always done together. And the surgery, we do it together. So if anything, if you want to ask me personally about my records, since my associate joined, my numbers went really doubled, if not tripled, because we are more efficient.

[00:54:20] So Hassan just has to put numbers to this single tooth implant in the back of the mouth, and then they’re going to say it varies from patient to patient and all the rest of it. Just give us a ballpark.

[00:54:31] Ok, I’m going to be honest the way I do it and will happy be happy to share this little tech. I was watching a panorama on BBC and it was to do how restaurants make money. OK. And that changed the way I sell obviously ethically to my patients. They they brought a plate and on that plate they had a bit of rice, beef, chicken salad, bowl of peas, and then went with this plate in the streets to people and say how much you would pay for this meal. And everyone was like 15, 18, 20 pounds. And then they went, they got a tray and a tapas system, like a little plate with rice, little plate with chicken little plate with the same content, but in small plates. And then they went to people say how much you would pay for this tray. And everyone was like five pounds per plate altogether. Five dishes. Twenty five pounds. So that sort of struck me in a way, you know what, you could offer better service and justify what you’re charging. And this is what we do now when we have whenever we want to present a treatment plan, we sort of break every little stage. If I was a patient, I would like to know what I’m paying for. So we do of planning. This will cost much study. Modern Surgical Guide. When it comes to implants, I go and I’m honest with my patients and say, do you know what implants. They’re just like cars. They come in different, makes different prices. And I go and say in the U.K. market there are more than two hundred and make having said that, to keep it easy for our patients, I tell them I’ve shortlisted three systems and I go and say there is a budget system and this will cost fifteen hundred and then there is a middle of the range system which is seventeen fifty, and there is a premium system which is two thousand.

[00:56:29] And then on top of that they will have to pay for the GB ah if needed the soft tissue graft if needed. And the final Quraan which we charge eleven hundred. So I get my patients to get involved in building the case and then them sort of knowing how much they’re paying and what for. And to be honest with a bit of education, I would tell you, ninety five percent of my patients come to me and say, give me the premium system. I don’t mind paying the extra five hundred for the premium system. It’s all about getting them involved. You know, one thing I’ve learnt in implant dentistry, new care, this is what I love about UK. It’s all about involving the patient in the whole journey. You know, I mentor and I mentor internationally as well. Not only in UK. I get invited to mentor in Dubai, the Middle East and sometimes in Croatia, Bulgaria, different countries. One thing I love about UK, the about involving patients in the treatment plan, and this is how it should be. So, yes, for a single molar crown, it can be around three thousand five hundred. For an interior, it can be five hundred. Depends on the case.

[00:57:49] And for me, the what I would look at is two levels rather than three levels. Because with three levels, people tend to go to war for the middle. And, you know, we get this in all sorts of areas and then street. But I like I like what you’re saying there. And how much of your work is actually placing and the clinical side, how much of it is research, how much of it is teaching and how much of it is pre covid travelling? Because I know you travel all over the world lecturing, right?

[00:58:22] Yes. I mean, this is what I used to do, pre covid and this is what I miss travelling and, you know, just meeting different people, learning from different people. Don’t get me wrong, I still attend courses. I make an effort every year to go at least one or two courses myself to learn. So this is very important. And this is you know, I feel it. It’s my responsibility as a teacher to learn more, to bring this knowledge from different countries to my delegates in Leaders or in the U.K. I would say at the moment or three covid, I would say 60 percent to 70 percent towards clinical work and 30 percent between teaching and research. Now, I think it’s the same because the only difference I’m teaching more in the UK compared to what I used to do before. So before I would teach 50 50 International you. Now, just as I said, we have to cohort’s with having more courses running. So covid helped bend. If anything covid made better the better academy so allowed me to focus more on Berridge Academy.

[00:59:42] Cozart, you have a tick account.

[00:59:45] No, you know my daughter has one.

[00:59:48] So you have Instagram.

[00:59:50] Yes, I have an Instagram and

[00:59:53] The social media and Yeoval.

[00:59:56] Oh yes. Social media is like a double edged sword for me. Social media, I have to be honest. Social media helped me a lot and helped Barrett a lot because literally, believe it or not, for the last two years, the the bird academy work tripled at very little marketing needed because thanks to social media, whenever and if the dentist’s girls say, I’m looking for an implant cause my delegates have the passion towards the cause, they go and start to write about the cause. And I people say, will we join your cause because we feel the passion from your graduates. It must be really good for them to write that. So social media helped me a lot. Having said that, social media did hurt me a few times. I know I am an opinionated person when it comes to implant dentistry. I’m a biology driven and dentists and I believe in certain things and I believe in research. And and I’ve noticed sometimes we have what we call now the University of Facebook, where people show things and mislead others. And I don’t like that. And sometimes I put my opinion and people don’t like it. Another thing, you know, sometimes, you know, as any other business, you will have some differences or some disagreements. And what happened over the years, more than one occasion where the other party decided to take their disagreement to social media and the problem with social media, it’s given a platform to people to write anything they want without being questioned. And obviously, it is a common mistake where people jump to conclusions. So, yeah, social media did hurt me a few times. But you know what? It taught me to have a broad shoulders be above it and not go down to the level and start sort of arguing and all that. And, yeah, you know, it’s it’s just so it’s a double edged sword for me.

[01:02:08] I said, let’s take this conversation to work life balance and just more about who are you, what do you do, what’s your typical day? What time do you wake up? What’s a typical week for you? You mentioned your daughter earlier. How does this all feature in in the busy life of a Olympian’s surgeon like yourself who’s teaching and running your clinics, et cetera, et cetera? Just tell us a little bit more about you.

[01:02:34] I’m a person who sleeps very little. I usually go to bed around midnight and wake up around half past 6:00 in the morning. So this is somewhat this what I’ve been doing for a long, long time. Wake up in the early morning and an idea of what I would do some work. I haven’t done any recently, but that’s what I would do. I have my little son when he’s eight and usually me and him are up before everyone else in the house. So this is our half an hour time or our one hour time where we spend time together either on his Lego or him showing me what he’s done on his YouTube channel or whatever. He’s very, very clever young boy. So this is one hour we spent together. And then obviously I go to work and I’m lucky because I have my associate. I don’t need to be there always like nine o’clock sharp. So sometimes, like today I’m going to be there at ten o’clock. It’s OK because I know my patients are safe with my associate, Victoria. I work till eight, maybe around seven.

[01:03:46] And then the evening I try my best to keep it from my family. And this is where things go wrong sometimes because, you know, by the time you want to read research or update the lectures, you know, I feel I’m not giving enough time to my family. And if you ask me one thing I regret and I want to change and improve is to give time to my family. I have two daughters as well. One of them is 18, doing her A-levels and another one is 15. The eleventh one is autistic. She DROs, she paints. She’s amazing. Lana and Janša, she’s into sports. She plays for netball, leads a netball Yorkshire. So I go and watch her playing a few times. So yeah, this is my family and obviously my wife who’s who’s an ex dentist. She made a decision not to practise and just focus on the family. And if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing. I’d like to think I’m balancing things, but I know I need to spend more time with the family husband.

[01:04:53] Tell me about a situation where this balance really came, was really, really loud to you in your mind or your head or whatever. I’ll give you an example and just see if it resonates with you. And it’s the for me, it was the social media side of things. Right. And I was I was watching TV with my daughter, but I wasn’t. And I had my phone in my hand. Yeah. And I was responding to a message that someone sent to me. And that message was so important that it was more important than watching TV with my daughter. At least that’s what I thought. And she touched the phone out of my hand and said to me, Daddy, put your phone away. And I said, 3:00 a.m. telling me that right at my house. Yeah. That’s when I realised actually what I was doing. And it’s a constant challenge trying to strike that balance when you’re running businesses, when you’re trying to provide a service and be responsive to people. Have you got any examples like that that you could share with those of similar episodes where where the work life balance is just sort of struck a chord?

[01:06:02] This is the painful part, is that, you know, we all are guilty, you know. Yeah, I would be having dinner with them. And, you know, people who know me very well, they tell me I’m addicted to my phone. And this is you know, it’s a disease. I think it’s a disease. I get my my best friend’s, my wife, my children. They tell me, Hassan, you’re addicted to your phone. And I would be having dinner. And without even me knowing or noticing, I would be checking my phone and just a couple of times my little own, he would hide the phone from me, literally hide it. So if I press my phone and then everyone would start laughing at me and say, oh, have you met your best friend or something like that? So you’re right. I think I think it is a big mistake and it’s something I’m still guilty of and I need to work hard on, you know, getting that balance right. But then. You know what I’m sure you share with me? We have this passion of giving and being great and doing this, you know, we’ve got energy inside us and that sometimes disturb the balance.

[01:07:21] And, you know, I struggle with that right a lot. And the counter argument is that there are times where that energy and that passion and everything needs to be directed to the people who will be there for you if you were ill and if you were in hospital or whatever that is, those people who would be there caring for you. And so I still do. I have techniques to to help me with it, but I often falter as well as it is some quite passionate about because I’m just like you, quite guilty of doing what you’ve just done.

[01:07:56] You think you don’t need to punish yourselves about this anywhere near as much as you are Prav Prav especially not punishing myself. Let me go. When you when you were a kid and you were having dinner with your dad around that table and he didn’t have a phone here, I’m sorry to have to break this to you now, Prav. He wasn’t one hundred percent thinking about you. Doesn’t have a phone call about other things to

[01:08:26] Somebody, you know,

[01:08:30] Listen to love.

[01:08:31] So let’s let’s blame it on technology and on the era. We’re living in

[01:08:35] An orderly manner and get through.

[01:08:41] And, you know,

[01:08:43] Guys, it’s.

[01:08:44] Yeah, yeah. No, no. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, you’re right. You’re right,

[01:08:48] Alhassan. It’s nice to hear from someone who’s so accomplished as you that you’ve made some mistakes and we’ve all made mistakes. But but on this show, we like to talk about the clinical errors and what other people can learn, what you learn from a clinical error and what obviously other people can learn from that. Can you think of.

[01:09:07] Yeah, I obviously we all majorettes, we wouldn’t be humans if we didn’t make errors. And, you know, one thing talking about the pilot co-pilot concept is all about, you know, what can we do to make it better for our patients? And I again, you know, if I want to take one, send one take home message to my friends and colleagues is please think about working as a team. It does help. It does help. You know, let’s put our egos down and think, you know, working as a team. One thing I really regret and it really hasn’t hurt me for a long time. I treated this lady. She was my number two patient in UK, in the private sector. And I had a mentor and I invited someone who I used to think he’s a great person because I was very young and he was very popular. I paid him from my own share as an as an associate to come and deal with me that Saturday. And I treated this lady. And now, you know, fifteen years on, I realised that that mentor was literally standing there doing nothing. I he sort of supervised my errors. I placed and put in the wrong direction a place in place to labial. And the patient ended with recession and with metal display. And it sucked because I thought I had my safety net behind my shoulder and I realised now that he didn’t do a good job.

[01:10:51] So that sort of, again, motivated me. When I accept to mentor someone, I take it there seriously. I’m there 100 percent as if this is my patient. And that’s what every mentor needs to do. You know, it it saddens me to see people claiming to be mentors when they’re not ready to be mentors. And when I say ready to be mentor, not only clinically, but you need to have the passion and the patience to be there as a teacher, which is harder than being just a clinician. So that’s something I would, you know, I would regret doing, not knowing the right people to teach me and learning and then teach me how to do things at the very beginning. Obviously, when it comes to implant dentistry pay, it’s very critical field. If you place your implant one millimetre to labial, the whole thing in a film and you’re going to get Middleville recession. So it makes or break the case, the correct positioning. It’s like dominoes effect. If the first block isn’t right, everything else would be wrong. So when it comes to applying dentistry, it’s all about plotting, planning, planning, planning and. Sharing that plan with your mentor, discussing double checking and having no ego, whenever you get ego playing, that’s when things go wrong.

[01:12:17] So, I mean, do you forgive me for not understanding things correctly, but in a surgical sense? Yeah. Does that when you when you when you use that, does that mean the placement now is taken care of?

[01:12:30] Well, provided the planning was done right. Surgical guide, if it’s surgically if it’s ready, graphically designed or digitally designed. Yeah. It’s literally a sleeve showing you where to put the implant as per your virtual planning.

[01:12:45] So I go

[01:12:47] And mentor people where virtually they plan things wrong. So the guy is going to show them I’ll make the place implants wrong. So so it’s all about the biology, the understanding and then sort of planning things. Right. And obviously decision making that implant dentistry. We can have a full hour talking about which bone graft material you need to use. Are we going to use the one which Facebook recommended or the one which evidence based research showing it works? And for what uses there is no one magic powder you could not use. You know, how do I know that this person isn’t a good employee, dentist or not? If I go and see that they have one bone graft material and one implement design in the cupboard, you know that this person has developed a proper knowledge in implant dentistry.

[01:13:45] It’s different levels, isn’t it? This is as you get to that higher level, you know, um, well, we like to end this on the same question every time as I know you’re pushed for time.

[01:13:59] Prav guy I get away with Passan.

[01:14:04] Imagine it’s your final day on the planet and you’ve got your you’ve got your kids around you and you need to leave them with three pieces of mentoring, advice, wisdom. Call it whatever you want. What would they be.

[01:14:21] Right. OK, my first one, and this is something I’ve been telling my daughter now who’s just turned 18 and my friends as well, you need to be the reason of your happiness. Never, ever allow anyone to be the reason of your happiness. Because the moment you start relying on other people for your happiness, this is when. You might get disappointed in life and then I’ve seen people getting too close to to giving up because they get disappointed by others. So you need to be number one reason for your happiness. That’s my first advice.

[01:15:06] Great advice. Great advice.

[01:15:09] Number two advice. Be humble and kind. You know, ego will do nothing other than just destroying you and making the nice people run away from you. So, you know, just no need for ego in this life. And number three, be an honest person, you know, just be an honest person. And it doesn’t cost much to be kind.

[01:15:38] Very nice.

[01:15:40] And how would you like to be remembered? So Hassan was and then complete the sentence. What would you like your legacy to be?

[01:15:52] Can I be honest with you, because I’ve been listening to your podcasts over the last few weeks and I have seen, you know, you always ask this question to people and, you know, different people give you different answers. Sure. But, you know what? Would it be bad if I say I don’t care?

[01:16:14] You can I can

[01:16:16] Say a lot of people will remember me. I don’t care how would people remembered me after I die, I would care more how people feel about me when I’m alive. This is what I want to do, you know, I think I think I want to be good to people now when I’m alive, I really don’t care what they think of me when I’m when I’m dead.

[01:16:42] And so I just you know,

[01:16:46] I just, you know,

[01:16:49] I like that. So while you’re here, what would you like people to see?

[01:16:58] I like them to know and I like them, I like them, you know, I like them to know that everything I do is out of passion, of honesty and out of kindness. I mean, sometimes I’m human and, you know, I do errors. I never aim to upset another person. I never aim to fall out with another person. People fall out with me for stupid reasons, and I reach out and say, listen, it’s not worth it. But then their egos top them, you know, accepting that I’m really you know, I really don’t want to fall out with people. I don’t want to upset people. Life is too short to worry about that. I think we should all be happy and kind to each other.

[01:17:50] Oh, lovely hustle. And I don’t think that resonates with these three pieces of advice that you’d give out. Right. Is that is that’s pretty much how you live your life and want to want to be known. Now, imagine you have 30 days left and you had your health and everything in sight for those 30 days. How would you spend it?

[01:18:12] I would spend them with the people I care about and the people who care about me the most, my mom, my dad, my family and my best friends. I would I would be happy, I, I would do everything to make them happy and just enjoy life, I might do one or two lectures because I love lecturing. When I do this as I am, I do this one last implant case because I enjoy my clinical implant dentistry

[01:18:47] And I like that.

[01:18:50] But I know what I would have my fun with me as well because I’m still addicted.

[01:18:57] Need to have some beautiful eyes and thank you so much for your time. It’s been incredibly insightful, not just not just on the personal level, but also the unique way you do things. Right. And the bits of knowledge you’ve just shared with us today, I think would be very useful for anyone listening. So thank you. Thank you.

[01:19:15] So thank you. It’s a great privilege to be here with you. And thank you so much for the kind invitation. It means a lot. Thank you so much.

[01:19:22] Thank you very much.

[01:19:25] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders on the street.

[01:19:36] Your house, Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[01:19:41] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, 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’ve got some value out of it

[01:19:56] 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.

[01:20:06] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] The thing is, with a lot of these a lot of young dentists, they sort of sometimes want to get on the practise ladder just to have that sort of practise underneath the belt and just say, I own a practise and we’re trying to try to help spread the knowledge and say, look, guys, it’s about you have to your wife has to be really, really on point when you’re buying a practise. You have to do it for the right reasons. And, you know, I’ve I’ve had a lot of friends who bought practises and paid a lot of money for practises and are sort of in those practises six days a week, eight to eight, you know, and struggling. So one thing we say is, look, we’re here will help mentor you. Be that just for advice or if you want to come on board, come on board. Because we like doing things with the people together. We will go on a journey. Everyone grows at the same time.

[00:00:46] This is Dental Leaders podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders and dentistry. Your heist’s Payman Langroudi, I’m Prav Solanki,

[00:01:03] It gives me great pleasure to introduce the founders of the Smile Dental Academy on the small clinic group Djenne Encash. We originally thought you two were brothers, but just correctors. Who’s involved in this group? How did this relationship start? Mioshi BackStory. Fantastic. Thank you. To pay Prav for the invitation. This is something which have been planning for over a year now and it’s kind of nice to get together, even though it’s virtual to catch up. And again, the whole small group of small Academi side near the university where I met K’iche So you might as well be my brother. The amount of time you spent at my house in Camden and the three of us and most of myself and my real brother, three of us involved in the whole group itself.

[00:01:45] Yeah, that’s right. So myself and Jin met on the very first day of university back at King’s College, London, nearly 18 years ago, and he was pretty much the first person I met within a minute. You know, Jin Jin can talk, he can talk a lot. And within a minute he told me that he is a DJ and that he does not drink. So I was like, listen, I’m about to embark on my university life. This guy can get me into all the clubs I’ve got guaranteed right home as well. So, you know,

[00:02:15] We kind of hit it off. Right? That’s funny, because I met my partner on the first day of university as well. So thirty years ago, time flies, but so where did you grow up?

[00:02:29] So I grew up in central London, in Camden and spent all my life in London. And K’iche was in northwest London.

[00:02:35] Yeah. So since I have been there my whole life

[00:02:40] And it’s the first time you thought I would be a dentist.

[00:02:45] I actually do. I mean, back when I was applying for university and thinking of what did you career wise, we had a dentist to does love in Camden and every day, every time you drop in a new car and all energy and bouncing around. So I went to work experience with it and absolutely loved general practise and what he was doing. I actually love the fact, you know, the variety of stuff you could do. And that’s that’s where it hit me. Look, I thought let’s combine the whole art side, which I loved the creativity with the science side, which is instil in Asian community. And I went on the journey of let’s apply for dentistry. That’s how it started for me. Was there any parental pressure in there that, you know, going into medicine, dentistry or accountancy mean for my dad? It was you know, it was better. You could be one of three things I got without it. He goes, you could be a dentist, doctor or a failure. And I’m like, all I appreciate that, but let’s pick the right one before he beats me. But again, I mean, look, as we all know, in the age of many parents of pharmacists and there was a lot of, you know, sciences and that kind of pressure when we side up and not education, which which which is sort of help me keep focus growing up in Camden kept me away from any wrong crowd as well. And that was for myself.

[00:04:09] Yeah, but it’s similar to, you know, my parents, pharmacists as well. And I think back then it was the case of, you know, look, you’re going to either go into some sort of medicine, pharmacy or dentistry or you’re going to have an accounting background finance. So I was just going up between the two. And, you know, I remember this very clearly. I had a conversation with my cousin, who’s about four years older than me, going through a similar process. He ended up going to the pharmacy and he goes, look, you’re very good with sciences, you’re good with maths. You’re also very artistic. I think dentistry is the right career for you because, you know, once you qualify as a dentist, there’s a whole world of opportunity, not just being a clinician, but also, you know, going through in terms of business teaching. There’s a whole variety of stuff you can do. And I remember that very, very clearly. So I have him to thank for sort of guiding me through that time

[00:05:04] Was always was always that sort of you just talked about business teaching. All of that was that was that very early on part of your game plan. It wasn’t just something that came about. You knew when you were going into dentistry. I’m going to teach. I’m not my own practise and this is going to be my career. You didn’t just think I’m going to be an NHS dentist.

[00:05:25] Not 100 percent. I think we always like to look at the sort of the the biggest picture possible and try and dream as much as you can to sort of achieve as much as you can. And whilst being a being a clinician is a great achievement in itself, you know, I like to sort of diversify. And again, it’s exactly the same. And that’s why we sort of hit it off so well, because our visions are aligned right from the beginning as to where we saw our careers going.

[00:05:51] When did you decide to do business with each other? Was it literally before qualifying?

[00:05:56] So we looked at was a first car. I mean, I sat next to my two group competed as often as well like you. And we I think our journey started with a whole small clinic group of small Academi when we failed. So a lot of people probably don’t know we actually failed our finals and the story I remember on the final day when the results come out at King’s College, those, you know, New Hampshire house, they used to display all the results on the board and in all you this about over two hundred and twenty of us in our yard kings. And in the morning when you get the results all excited. And then I’m looking for my name on the board and I can see it. I could hear someone down the hall call out, Jingjing, come over here, you name it down here. And I thought maybe I made the distinction. Water owners, little did I know the feeling. And I’m finding that I mean, those you know, me from uni, I did used to party law, you know, four nights a week. So me not getting through finally year was probably expected, even though I did work hard. But Keisha’s name was a shock and he always dragged him down. But seeing his name on the show. So it was one

[00:07:11] Of those things on the vacation, you know, is one of those things, I think, you know, you go through something like that and it was it was a big shock. You know, you kind of always expect to just get through the last hurdle. And, you know, you see a lot of your friends graduating and qualifying and then you don’t. But the fact that something felt together, you know, I think I believe it very, very firm. Believe everything happens for a reason. And I think that’s when we sort of sat down and had to re-evaluate and sort of say, look, how are we going to play this and what can we make of it, considering we were set back by six months,

[00:07:47] Just taken taking us back to that day. You saw your name on the board, both of you together. Did you feel like you had to sort of go back and report back to your folks? What was the. Was that a daunting experience in itself? Just just talk us through what was going through your mind at that time, from the moment you got it? What was the first thing that went through through your head? For me, if I failed an exam and had to go back and tell my dad, I mean, look, if I got 97 percent in my maths test, my dad did say what happened to the other three Prav?

[00:08:18] You cannot afford an exam, so you don’t need to worry about it. Tell us, what did you say to your parents? What was the first thing happen?

[00:08:27] Well, I remember quite vividly just getting on the phone and say I just said to my my parents said, look, it’s not good news. I didn’t I didn’t make it. My my mom and dad were when I say we’re really, really shocked because I’ve never felt a single exam during my whole university life and they said something must have gone wrong. I said, listen, this is this is this I didn’t I didn’t make it. So I’m going to be here for another six months. And to be honest, fair play to my parents and my grandparents at the time. You know, I remember very vividly sitting down with them and all that said, listen, this is just a minor setback. You have your whole life ahead of you in life. You’re going to be there’s going to be failures. Not everything is going to go to plan. It’s how you adapt and change and take on that situation that will help you grow. And I remember my grandma said this to me, and it was it was probably the best bit of advice that someone could hear at that point in time because it automatically just lifted me up, made me feel a lot stronger. And I realised that, you know, that’s not that’s not the be all and end all.

[00:09:33] So you did qualify eventually. What happened next? Did you did you end up getting a house job? That’s what I did. It was like a consolation prise in in Cardiff. I mean,

[00:09:45] I think Keesha job lined up. Yeah. If he actually had passed, if both of us would have passed, I don’t think any of this would have been here in our small clinic group, Small Dental Academy, the whole network in the small dream we’ve created, none of it would have been here because Keisha was about to embark on a house job like you pay. Whereabouts was.

[00:10:06] That was up in Elsberry. It was one of the old DPT schemes, so it was a two year, one year community and then another house job. And, you know, I think we would most of them, June would have been a very different pathways if I had gone to plan.

[00:10:20] So then what did you do first? Did you do that?

[00:10:23] Yes. So we were we ended up on the bonus scheme with a great adviser and some great mentors. And fortunately, myself and Jane were placed in two practises with incredible mentors that helped sort of shape our career going forward, you know, and I’m still I still work at that same practise even to this day

[00:10:44] For you both that practise. No, no. Not one to hold the call about who the mentors. And it was the adviser.

[00:10:54] Yes. So I mentor Samir Khan, who again, without him as a mentor, I wouldn’t be here now and again. Look, if I if I pass first time back then, we had our jobs lined up. We had to send our service to every practise. I get a decent job lined up in London, lost. Then I have to do the speed dating, a way of applying for PhD training and ended up in Somalia as practised in North London. By far. The best thing that ever happened to me ever and to me was my trainer and Davinder pal CUNA was our TPD or advisor and again, great mentors, very good friends, and still to this day, helping us, supporting us through our journey as well.

[00:11:36] What were the key lessons you learnt from him?

[00:11:39] The key lessons I learnt was we continue growing, the main advice I gave me was invest in yourself and invest in yourself as a Ph.D. I wasn’t too fast about doing further exams back then or doing a PDF. And you could invest in yourself because that is something which no one can take away from you. And since then, every including some courses continue growing, whether it’s UK, US is competing courses and building up our education. And I think that’s been a phenomenal thing things to us, especially with kishkes mentor as well.

[00:12:14] Yeah, so my mentor, Niccola, go again right from the outset, she shaped my career. She was like, hey, look, you know, you’re going to be working on the NHS. You’re going to be doing private work. One of the most important things that she taught me very early on was, you know, treat your patients the same, whether the NHS private, give everyone the same amount of time. Because, you know, I think that’s that’s sort of something that’s not done in practise as much as it should be. And, you know, you speak to patients, treat them as people. You’re not just focussing upon the teeth. And again, as you said, similar to, you know, Nicola was great in terms of pushing me, saying invest in yourself, keep growing as a clinician, but also explore other opportunities. And one of the most important things for me is that she’s just got an incredible energy, always smiling no matter what happens in life.

[00:13:07] I know she’s a

[00:13:09] She’s got a great energy and positive person. Very, very positive. And that’s one of the most important things that I picked up from her. Just always remain positive no matter what happens.

[00:13:18] I know that you guys now you guys include a bunch dentists and so on. Do you feel like you’re having that down to them or is that something that’s part of your group? Like to get all the people educated, your own people educated properly?

[00:13:32] One hundred percent. That is the main ethos. And main culture we’re trying to create within our group is continue growing. And that’s not exactly the whole academy for AIDS and how we can growing the small group as well with our clinicians.

[00:13:47] That was the first time you put a practise.

[00:13:53] So during my FDA, I means to me was quite instrumental. Show me, you know, the right path and how to grow. And this to me, I used to own a couple of practises used to teach law, was doing a master’s, and I thought, I like this. It’s a nice mix. I like general practise. So let’s see what we can do. So in my FDA, we start viewing practises. So we see Phoenicia VTE study days on a Friday, Saturday night viewings booked in. And I bought my first practise six months after F.T. training with them at six months off their three year old together. Or was that that was the first one I bought with Sowmya and my partner in crime. Had we both got together, three of us. And I know a lot of people thinking you must have known your staff and know your numbers and finances are. But clearly, the bank manager came to the practise to sign the paperwork. Möbius, you walked in a three sits down and Richard goes to be so Geneina what kind of rate you want, variable or fixed? And I genuinely looked at it. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Where do I sign? And again, it was one of those things I any opportunity that I just grabbed it and I was fortunate. I had the right support from the right mentors and just grew on the job.

[00:15:15] Did you get involved?

[00:15:16] Yes, so similar to Gene, I was looking at practises during my FDA, again, as Jim said, like viewing on Friday evening, Saturday, Sundays, and then I speak to Jim Clancy. I knew that this was going through in the background, that we were just talking and we said, look, we should just buy one together. And then a couple of years later, the right opportunity came along and that was in Harro and we ended up buying that one. But again, it took us a little while, just before the right one came along, because it wasn’t just a case of there were so many practises not for sale and it was just picking the right opportunity at the right time.

[00:15:49] What were you looking for, guys? I think that we were quite clear we didn’t want to practise for the sake of having a practise and Prav an umpire, both of rum practise in Paso, the are running them. You want to make sure it makes sense. Now, that means it fits in with your vision of how you want to grow. We used to view practises, beautiful practises that just didn’t fit in with our model of what we’re planning. Some that were made no financial sense. I mean, I might as well open up a corner shop and do that would have been more money. So we had a clear vision how we wanted to grow the practise side and even then the NHS. I played a big role. I mean, we always just a mission. We wanted to grow that side. So that’s what we’re looking at when we first started. And I still remember calling cash up when the Harrow practise came along and I said, look, I’m going into business with your friend and your best friend is something which I would be cautious with. But those, you know, myself and our personalities are like total opposite. And it’s a bit like a yin and yang where Kishwar along and we saw fit so well together. Touchwood Till this day, it’s been the best decision ever. Working together. Yeah.

[00:17:03] Yeah. I totally agree with I think that we had that we had that conversation. I remember it quite clearly and we said, look, this is we’re going into business, but we’re best mates. We do not want this ever to sort of be an issue going forward. And we have very clear sort of open air talks about it all and said, look, we’re going to do this journey. But the most important thing is not about the money. It never has been. It’s about it’s about the journey. It’s about having fun along the way and just trying to be the best that we can be and trying to grow as much as possible. And I don’t think we were so aligned in our vision. We still are that that has been has been just a blessing and it’s been a great journey so far.

[00:17:40] I get asked quite often, you know, June one, you by the practises yourself, why do you do yourself? I’m like a I wouldn’t be here probably myself. No offence, you boys probably wouldn’t have as much hay on my head.

[00:17:52] But the journey

[00:17:55] Has been fun and it’s been jokes. And the thing is doing the journey with your best man, your brother along the way. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not plain sailing all the way, but doing it in a team is where the support’s been. And we can manage our stress levels because we all know, look, Dental Street is super stressful doing in a team of us. We can actually delegate well and grow even more as three business partners. What are your strengths? So like, let’s say in your unique abilities, whatever case yours is in your brothers, what roles do you play differently? Where you play to your strengths is just good. I mean, my main role is growth. I got the energy and I want to see things grow. So I’m pretty much involved with the growth side of the business acquisitions growth internally within the business where my weaknesses, I am not very good at the detail of the finance side, and that’s where cash comes in, making sure the finance side we are on point and making sure it’s all taken over. And then my brother is the best, making sure the whole operation side is working on a daily basis. So my I’m always thinking three steps ahead, looking too far. And then I’m like, OK, we need someone who’s focussing on what’s going on currently. And this is where in a nice way, all three of us come really well together and support each other. So we never feel like we’re trading on each other’s toes, but we literally are filling in the gaps within each other.

[00:19:20] Yeah, I couldn’t agree more with that. I think, again, it’s a case of we all could have kind of understood what our skill sets were and are and and how we can sort of help grow the group in the academy together. And as Jim said, you know, he’s always thinking three to four steps ahead. His head sometimes is focussing on about a thousand different things to sometimes someone’s got to bring him back down and say, listen, listen, we’ve we’re going to focus on this and do this and do that. And I think that’s where this relationship works really, really well, because when all three of us are together, we’re we’re unstoppable. You know, it’s it’s just it’s a force that we you know, we’re going to keep growing. And it’s just fun as well, because we’re not as Jim said, we’re not treading on each other’s toes. And who’s got an incredible ability to sort of manage to the day to day the finer details is, you know, without him, I think pretty much his whole operation would fall apart.

[00:20:14] So these practises, how many of Dental

[00:20:17] We’re on, ten about to complete our 11th and 12th one now.

[00:20:22] These 12 practises, would you say that they’re all similar to each other?

[00:20:28] No, I would say that it’s a mixed bag. I mean, initially, you know, we were we bought a few NHS heavy practises as the group has grown and we’ve got a mixed bag now. So we’ve got mixed practises, fully private practises, one practise that essentially is similar to a squat practise. So this is a mixture.

[00:20:47] And I think when we first started, our vision was, yeah, let’s make every practise feel the same. Look the same will we soon realised is the culture and each practise is values. And then how it all works is totally different. I mean, one of our practises in Felixstowe will never be the same as a practise in Harrow as opposed to practise in Norwich. So what we’ve done is sort of OK, we know what we want from our teams. We know what kind of stuff we want for our patients in terms of care and high quality of care. But we need to adapt that within each site as well. And then some of our practises, you know, we’ve got one of our sites, over 60 members of staff. Now, again, within that is like a little micro community, which you need to manage so you can never make everything the same. And that was one of the things we’re quite conscious about. And hence this whole small clinic group name how it started. We never wanted to lose the practise his original name. So when we took a practise on one of the large ones will staff a large Dental group. I never wanted to go in and make your case a small clinical practise. I wanted to retain that staff a lodge name, wanted to retain the history behind it so patients don’t lose that connexion with the history and the staff there. So we could name the staff a small clinic and that’s how the whole thing started off. It’s a bit of fresh and a bit of the old as well.

[00:22:10] Yeah, I mean, one thing we never do is we never go in and just sort of wipe the slate clean and practise and put our own stamp on it straight away. I think the most important thing is that sometimes when you buy a business in a practise, it is very tempting to almost treat it as a business right off the bat. But what you said, what you don’t realise is that there is a community there and that community is is is so important and we have to nurture and grow a culture within that community and sort of help it help it grow to where our vision is. And so that’s one of the most important things for us, is to retain each practise has its own identity. Even though it’s part of the group, it’s still got its own identity.

[00:22:53] So I’m interested to find out what’s the sort of I guess you’re looking for practise undervalued, you know, compared to what you think you can get out of it. Right. You’re talking about growth. Yeah. So that’s one one aspect. But I mean, but on the other side, you’re talking about the evolution of it rather than revolution, right? You don’t go in there and start changing everything, which makes a lot of sense, which is supersmart. I completely get that. But what is your sort of degree of involvement? How what’s the structure of the place? You’ve got a practise manager, I guess. And then what is it, one of you, or is there like another person before you guys?

[00:23:35] That’s a good question. I mean, if you asked us a year ago how many of your lordship

[00:23:44] For last year, this time last year for

[00:23:46] So we’ve had tremendous growth in the last year with that. And the beauty is with the whole business side, we work quite closely and we’re good friends. You’ve got large corporates who was advising us of how to deal with it. And the biggest struggle is making sure you’ve got the right team. And I think that’s one of the most important things. So we made sure, you know, we’ve got every such practise manager. We’ve got our obsoleted my brother who looks after it. And then we’ve got two younger dentists who we’ve taken on board who are, you know, without them, again, the support they’ve given us and the growth aspect is supporting us on the operations. None of this would function. So we’ve grown a whole subletter, our team with the marketing finance. So we can also you can earn Smash-Up.

[00:24:31] And I remember I remember speaking to Gin Gin. It was March last year. Right. Just as we picked up as a fourth practise. And I said to listen, we’re going to have to grow the team because myself, there’s no way that if we’re going to buy normal practises that will be able to sustain this. You know, there’s only so many hours in the day and we can only be in so many places at one time between the three of us. So we just took a view that we have to keep growing the team. And one thing that we built within each practise is layers so that there is a sort of a chain of communication all the way right through from reception, all the way through to us. And even though that there’s all those layers that everyone has our number, we’re always we’ve got loads of WhatsApp groups with each practise so that any issues, you know, we’re still seeing it. We have that to help and support the whole team. Even though we went from four to ten practises and everything we kind of put into place was when we had a small number of practises so that we could just then apply that as we grow in size.

[00:25:32] What were the growing pains going from, let’s say, for. To tell, right, most going from one to two, you know, I remember, you know, you look at practise one and you think, well, just go and buy practise, too, and I’ll just do double what I’m doing. Right. Just replicate that formula if you go and then you get the biggest shock of your life when you realise that isn’t the case, and then you go to three and so on and so forth. What were the biggest pains that you guys experience going from, let’s say before that you had in the space of the covid pandemic, almost tripling the size of your business? There must have been some some serious growing pains during that time.

[00:26:09] I think there’s a very, very good question, and I think the hardest thing for us, especially breathing during the covid sort of period, is not being able to go physically to the sites. And I think that we’re very hands on in that respect. And I think generally agree with me when I say this is that one of the practises we bought was a fairly private practise was literally we completed one week before Lockton. And we had plans to go up, but they didn’t materialise because of lockdown and obviously we couldn’t meet the team and we could do whatever we do on Zoom. But back then, everyone was still getting a feel for Zoom. And it’s just not the same feeling as going in and sort of having that team meeting, that practise meeting to introduce ourselves what we’re about. So I think that was probably one of the hardest things, not being able to physically be there initially.

[00:26:59] But I just miss giving everyone hugs.

[00:27:02] No, you see, I mean, we

[00:27:09] Were a bit old school and I like, you know, face to face and people feel that energy and vibe when you were there. And when you’re growing to a certain size, you can’t be at every practise. I mean, you can’t clone yourself and go there and do it. So trying to put in structures and processes in place where everyone knows you are there and approachable, but they don’t feel like, you know, going into the practise, that’s things something know, we struggle with along with time, trying to make time to juggle all this and also balance everything with home life, wife, life, kids, everything as well, which for myself, in case the balance of life is super important, I think trying to keep that all in place,

[00:27:50] I, I don’t I’m not I’m not currently running any Dental practises yet. So the three of you can help me with this year. But this isn’t it better to take your four practises and double the output of those four to eight.

[00:28:05] Yeah, yeah. I think you’re right. One of the things which make a good point and I would say is it’s about focussing on making sure your bottom line or your EBITDA net profit is increasing. And that’s one thing we’re quite conscious with, making sure each practises output is increasing. But on the flipside, if a good opportunity comes along, we’re going to take it. And that’s how is a balance of both.

[00:28:31] And again, I totally agree with you pay. I mean, we and so we had four practises for about eight years. So it was one of those things where we really sort of delve straight into all of those practises and, you know, try to make them as efficient and profitable as Jim said, in terms of the bottom line, as much as possible. And only once you’ve sort of been able to do that, that’s when you then feel like finally you’re ready for the next the next step, which is exactly what we decided to do.

[00:29:00] Did you find the pandemic presented opportunities? Lots of opportunities that will happen.

[00:29:06] Yeah, did make it was a super difficult time for all of us. I think the first three or four months and uncertainty and CDO business, whatever happened. But I think once it all kicked in, a lot of the dentists who were already considering retirement coming out of the whole practise. So they just sort of done, you know, secrecy was one issue. And it’s just another issue now is covered. We’re back in. So we sort of thought, look, this opportunity, if we want to grow and the right practise come along, let’s get in there, view them. And that’s what we did, I think you presented. And it still is preventing a lot of opportunity on the practise side because a lot of practise is still up for sale and people wanted to move and shift within the market because when when covid hit and then a few weeks later, the practise is sure. And you said you completed just before on the practise, on the private practise and then shortly after assuming you shut the doors. Yes, I most of that must have been a shocker. Right. And I remember sitting there talking to my co owners of the practise and thinking, holy crap, what the hell are we going to do? How long are we going to be show? Fear just kicks in. Right. And I use. Are you telling me that actually you look at you you when that happened, you guys sat back and thought, right. What can we do during this time? How can we grow? And you essentially triple your business in that time, right? Well, just tell me just talk me through the little conversations you guys were having at that time, because we without putting too fine a point on it, we were crapping ourselves.

[00:30:44] We were the same. I remember that very, very, very vividly speaking to June twenty third of March last year, and we were shut down and meet him just on the phone while Boris Johnson was announcing it. And we was like, right, what are we going to do? And I think, you know, again, we were very fortunate in terms of that practise. In particular Prav the old owners really, really stepped up. And whilst they had sort of, you know, sold the business, they came to the fore and sort of, you know, kind of took the team on board and said, look, we’re here. And they were very, very helpful in terms of guiding the practise during that time, considering that they sold it. But again, at the same time, I remember speaking to Jim and saying, look, you know, this is a very difficult and challenging time for all, but we’ve got to try and make sure two things. One is that we make sure that we look after our staff, which is the most important thing, and our patients. So whatever decisions we make is with their best interests at heart. And at the same time, we’ve got to look forward. Look, take it as an opportunity to sort of look at our business and see how we can modify it, how we can make it better. And if there is an opportunity to grow, if there are opportunities which came along later on, then we we will take those opportunities, but only once we have fully looked after our staff and our patients first.

[00:32:07] Yeah, that was the biggest stress on being spoken with, like. If we got no income coming in, how are we going to pay our staff and I was just passing reference to the families, I’m thinking of their families, kids, bills and stuff. That’s the main stress we had. So I think we’re quite fortunate the way, you know, the furlough scheme and the NHS, I was dealt with, it helped us out. But that was a stress education. The main thing, their life, they stay healthy, their life. Let’s not get too complacent with this covid. And so, Jane, you mentioned earlier about the both of you the balance of work life, family health is super important to both of you. Just talk me through that and how you how you how you manage that with not just the dozen or so practises you’ve got, but with the whole teaching academy and all the rest of it. How do you make that divide? And sort of for me, the hardest thing is being present, right? Because there’s always something going on. And, you know, my little girls want daddy and they don’t care about what’s going on in the business. Right. And the one hundred percent daddy in the room and being present is probably one of the things that I would say I struggle with the most and I make a conscious effort of doing that right.

[00:33:27] And putting things in place to make sure I am present. Just talk me through how you guys make times without that balance. And if you employ any strategies or anything to to bring that old into line, I think I think with what’s happened within our own lives from a young age, the whole practises and academy money was never part of it. And that’s just one of the key things for myself. Missing my brother is never been about money. Money will come if you do things right. And I think from our upbringing, I mean, my parents worked hard and it’s a very traditional Asian community, probably the same. Would you pay as well where they were thinking one day will retire, will enjoy life. And then at the age of 50, my dad’s kidneys went and the kidney transplant mom ended up donating a kidney to I just watching his life and our parents life. And look, we wouldn’t be here without the sacrifices. I mean, we can’t even compare our lives compared to their lives and what they went through. But seeing how they dealt with what happened, I’m like, look, I’m not going to save my energy and save up for one day when I’m 50, 60 to enjoy it. My thing is keep the balance right now in the present. So that means work hard now, but play harder right now as well.

[00:34:42] And that’s something which we’ve sort of instilled within our practises and within the academy. We make sure we’re sending that message where, you know, work hard, but make sure you join life, make sure you’re playing harder. And at the moment, none of us guys are playing hard. I now is a no going out, but you’ve got to make sure you’re enjoying life and making sure your hobbies, whether it be, you know, musical instruments, music for myself or hitting the gym, make sure you get your timing yourself. So one of the things for myself is for me to give energy off to kids and family. I need to be a bit more selfish first, which means I need to be 100 percent recharge 100 percent. Then I can give my energy to other people like a power bank, because what I find is in my family, you know, the three kids, wife, my parents, a lot of you know of the practise are a lot of people want energy. So I need to be one hundred percent before I can give that out. So that means I need to have systems and processes within my day to make sure I get my and I make sure I get my time out my gym time. And I think she’s is very similar. And even he went through a bigger transformation compared to me as well.

[00:35:53] Yeah, I could not agree more. I think that having that time to yourself is hugely important. And as Jim said, so I was I was bordering on one hundred and two CG about five years ago, and I remember this very vividly. I was taking money out of

[00:36:09] Five dollars that was wasn’t pure mask.

[00:36:12] That was a disqualification. But you.

[00:36:21] But look, I was carrying my six month old daughter up the stairs, and that’s when I go out of breath and I said, I can’t live like this. I’ve got to be around for them. I’ve got to give 100 percent, 200 percent to my family. So I went through a whole sort of physical transformation, a physical process, got my training on putting on my diet on point. But that process allowed me to Solanki gave me more structure to life. They sort of gave me the ability to say, look, I can create time, make time for things that are important. And it just sort of helps not only physically, but helped mentally as well. And I think that was a huge thing and sort of making that time for yourself. Sometimes you have to be a little bit selfish in the sense you’ve got to make time for yourself first so that then you can then give that time one hundred percent to others. And that was a huge part of it. And training is still still a huge part of that work life balance for us.

[00:37:13] What does your week look like? Do you still practise dentistry?

[00:37:18] Yes. One of the things we look we’re passionate clinicians. We’ve done a lot of stuff academically as well. So one of the things you want to make sure is to an extent, we continue the clinical and that way we relate to our workforce. So we both do work one day a week at the moment. Currently, the rest of the week is a mixture of teaching and predominantly a management of the practises going through things. That’s pretty much the whole week.

[00:37:44] Yeah. And again, that’s only been possible, though, because we invested very heavily in ourselves as clinicians over the past 13 years, both myself and done master’s in restorative dentistry, done a lot of postgraduate courses, not only in education, but in sort of aesthetic dentistry as well. And that’s allowed us to sort of maintain a level of income as a clinician, but on a like a reduced time frame during the week, because at the moment, neither of us, we don’t draw any sort of wages from the practises. Everything is reinvested in the practise to help the practises grow. So all of our sort of personal earnings go go on our personal life, kids, family life.

[00:38:26] So we have no says what? 13 years ago you finished university. That was 2007. It’s admirable, man, so thoughtful from the practise side was vision.

[00:38:41] The vision is to grow. Yeah, we’ve got to grow. We want to hit about 40 practises in the next few years. Which we’re going to continue. They always say when you dream big, so we dream big, or at least I do, I think it gets a bit more scary, like you come back to Earth and I know we’re going to go for it. Let’s continue on the stage.

[00:39:05] And that’s the beauty of it. Right. So like we said, 40 practises. But again, at the same time, it’s got to be grown in the right way. We’re not just going to buy practises for the sake of buying practises. We only buy practises where the ethos of the seller fits with our ethos in terms of, you know, patients will always come first and their quality of care has to be to the highest of standards. We’ve actually pulled out deals where, you know, the our ethos hasn’t aligned with the seller. I lost quite a lot of money on it. At the end of the day, you know, we want to make sure that when we take over practises, everything is in a similar sort of fashion as to how we would operate it, because, you know, a lot of the sellers still stay on with us. And I think that’s the most important thing. So whilst we have that vision of, you know, 40 practises in the next four years, it’s going to be grown in the right way with all of our practises. Put that patients first

[00:39:55] And you look looking for particular geography or you think in UK, why do you focus on a certain area at the moment? So currently, I mean, all the practises of Southeast London, Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, now we are expanding, going north as well, looking at Birmingham, Midlands, what’s happened in the last, you know, of the young Dental is approaching us saying, look, guys, we really want to buy a practise. Can you support us? Can we get involved? And so that’s something which we’ve now taken on board. Like, I wouldn’t be here without Simeon helping me on my first practise. So one of the things we’ve done quite important is we are open to taking on partners, on board supporting even if someone wants to buy a practise. We recently did a clubhouse talk with a couple of people and we had over one hundred and fifty people in the room. One of the girls was looking to buy a practise. She goes, Guys, you know, can you mentor me looking to buy a practise? I’ll pay for it. I said, Look, I’ll help you more than happy to help you out the next week on the phone to her. And she’s looking to buy a practise. I think it was it was

[00:40:55] It was a story that was thoroughly

[00:40:57] And will help you out, because we’ve learnt a lot of stuff. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. We’ve lost some money as well. Some money comes and goes. I want to make sure everyone learns of each other and they don’t make the same mistakes we did as well.

[00:41:10] So the thing is, with a lot a lot of young dentists, they of sometimes want to get on the practise ladder just to have that sort of practise underneath the belt and just say, I own a practise and we’re trying to try to help spread the knowledge and say, look, guys, it’s about you have to your wife has to be really, really on point. When you’re buying a practise, you have to do it for the right reasons. And, you know, I’ve I’ve had a lot of friends who’ve bought practises and paid a lot of money for practises and are sort of in those practises six days a week, eight to eight and struggling. So one thing we say is, look, we’re here to help mentor you. Be that just for advice or if you want to come on board, come on board, because we like doing things with the people together. We will go on a journey. Everyone grows at the same time.

[00:41:52] You have coaches with you guys. The collaborative side of it is strong. You know, you don’t even though you’ve got a very strong kind of identity. By the way, is that on purpose? You sort of dress the same as this. If that was a strong identity, you haven’t done the thing where you sort of geek out, like keep yourself separate from from the rest of the community that you really do. You’re very collaborative. And that’s really that’s really a good thing to do. It’s really a good sign. A lot of people don’t do that. A lot of people sort of sense themselves off a little bit. Tell me where that came from. And then the other thing we were talking about mistakes. Let’s talk about mistakes. I like mistakes.

[00:42:39] So the whole thing, the Dental world is small. And I would even say the UK Dental world, the international Dental world now is even smaller. And if you want to grow within the Dental market, whether it’s in the academy site or practises, you need to get to know Dentists’. I mean, you need to get to know each other. So one of the things and I think in university, I mean, being a DJ and throwing parties, the networking site came easily to me. I made sure even as VTS we were quite active with Royal College FDP, we used to go to lectures just to get to know people. And, you know, a lot of people inspired us and we looked up to you so that we can, you know, build upon that. And I think that’s quite important to us. Plus, it’s great to see other people grow that I love supporting other clinicians are the businesses within the industry. If someone’s got an idea, we love to see growth and working together with people. That’s what it’s about, because as we say, that money will come and go. And it’s not about that. It’s about the journey with the right people around you and having fun along it.

[00:43:44] But it was one of those things, I think, again, that goes back to sort of mentors when we were in F.T. again, similar sort of ethos, both similar Niccola, great passion, great energy. And also the networks were huge at the time. And again, we sort of without their networks, we wouldn’t be here today because we used we kind of grew those networks ourselves from from them. And I think that from that perspective, they kind of gave us that sort of vision to say, look, you know, don’t do this by yourself, go out, collaborate with people, help people grow, nurture young dentists and help people. Most importantly,

[00:44:20] That’s to stop mistakes. Now, I want both of you to give me one clinical mistake he made and something you learn from that and then one business mistake you made and what you learn from the different. When do we start

[00:44:37] With the critical mistakes? I mean, I’m just all I can think about is my FDA and we used to go out quite often, used to come in the next day. I don’t drink. So luckily I was intoxicated. But whilst drilling, I did put the bar to the floor of the patient’s mouth, slipped, went for the floor, the patient’s mouth. Yeah, that was quickly learnt the importance of a strong finger. Luckily, look managed to do well and to me was there to save the day. But my FDA was full of mistakes. I think clinical mistakes. I mean, you did too many to go through. And I think that the main thing is, as you’re doing in your younger days, have the right support so people can step in and help you out when you do make the mistake and help you and help you grow as well. I think the Freudenberger from the floor of the mouth that was

[00:45:27] Done now for his clinical setting, you can think about your business mistake,

[00:45:33] I think sort of clinical mistake. It’s not so much clinical, but I think one of the most important things I learnt was very early on was assessing the patient. And I think, you know, we can all do treatment to X amount of standard. I think patients always are aware of what’s going on. But for me, I very vividly remember I just started in a in a private practise squat practise. And I was I was pretty I was pretty much it was in my after year and it was one of the first patients that seen I think I got a bit too excited, you know, charging 200 pounds for a composite and the FDA. And and I didn’t really see the patient side of it as much. And, you know, did the work really quickly. Patient walks out and says, how can you charge 200 pounds for that 40 minute appointment? And he was in my mouth for about 15, 20 minutes of that. And what I didn’t realise is that back then and again, this is something that my mentors taught me, is that you’ve got to treat the patient as a whole. You know, it’s not just about the dentistry, and I love that very, very early on, so now it’s and again, it’s never about the money, but you have to we have to understand that for the patient that you’re offering a service, they are paying for that service. And that was the lesson I learnt very, very early on.

[00:46:42] That’s a good one. Let’s move to business and take

[00:46:46] Can

[00:46:49] I you to take, but

[00:46:56] I’ll give you a bit of business mistake. Not so much a mistake. I think circumstances are what they are, but one of our practises we ended up buying in Norfolk and we had a really sad situation where one of the old owners was diagnosed with cancer and one of the major, major providers of the practise. And, you know, the practise sort of went from turning over close to a million pounds to go to half of that within the space of a year because we just couldn’t fulfil the NHS contract side of things. And I think one of the mistakes that we made was probably not having that vision to create contingencies or planning ahead for that sort of situation. And some of it’s out of our hands. We couldn’t obviously you dealt with the cards are dealt with, but I think we probably could have dealt with that better make some contingencies. But again, it’s all about learning from those mistakes. So now one thing that we have got is contingencies across the board to make sure that we are fulfilling the NHS targets, but making sure that patients have that continual access, regardless of whether someone’s there or not. There’s always someone to help fill that, fill the boots.

[00:48:11] Another. I mean, my what I would say is if you’re going to a bank manager’s meeting, there’s about a million quid, they’ll be useful to get the right back manager’s name and the right by name right

[00:48:28] Out

[00:48:30] Already there with our financial director. I walked in obviously 15 minutes late, as I usually do. I assumed it was virgin money because I saw the logo outside walking. I go with Richard Branson. I’m here to get his money. Little did I know it was a totally different bank robbing bank. Romney Yeah,

[00:48:52] Because I’ve done a lot of the chat before then.

[00:48:54] So let’s talk about the academy. What’s what’s the what’s the sort of where did it start and where we are now? How many people you’ve got going through your many, many different causes. I see.

[00:49:10] Yes, I mean, look, we’ve got over one hundred and fifty delegates now enrolled in our courses and the majority of our courses are longitudinal diplomas and it all started in twenty. Eighteen. All right.

[00:49:22] Twenty nineteen and twenty eighteen.

[00:49:26] It started around such a long time.

[00:49:30] We had a number of back then. We had about fifty associates used to work for us and they’re all asking us, Genki, you’ve done a lot of course is what you recommend. Would you recommend. And we’ve done some fantastic courses and I still recommend them based education on let’s try and put something together for our dentist because we’ve got the network back that was meant to be predominantly us teaching it. But then I said to them, you know, why don’t we take it one step further? We’ve got a lot of good contacts with big lecturers, international lecturers. Let’s get them involved. The next thing you know, we thought it’d be quite nice to give the delegates some sort of recognition in terms of let us off the name, some sort of accredited diploma. So we went down that path and that’s how it all started and initially was meant to be just our own dentistry sort spiralled out where we are. So many people wanted to get role. And since that, we our first call was March twenty nineteen Fusako of Diploma of Restorative Anaesthetic and we were on our seventh one now with the implant diploma orthodontic one and don’t daunting one. And what I’m proud of and I think these guys don’t get enough credit is our Dental therapist one, our Dental therapists. I mean firstly fantastic to work with, but the clinical skills shocked me. Some amazing unity.

[00:50:53] We find that on the news for me, Cooper. The therapists are better than the dentists. It’s I don’t know. I think it’s self selecting. The kind of therapist who decides to save the money and come and do the course is really, really key. Yeah, maybe that’s the problem. This place where the people coming from, is it is it like, OK, word of mouth and all that. But, you know, advertising, is it to do with your sort of personal brand and people want to be close to you? Don’t just tell me what you think.

[00:51:28] Yes, I think it’s a mixture. So a lot of it is word of mouth. A lot of it is through the brand itself. And social media has been has been great as well in terms of sort of people sort of seeing myself in a lot of that. The lectures are up to and again, sort of our passion for what we do and how we sort of approach dentistry. And it’s just all about being positive. And most important thing for us is having fun while still learning. And I think that’s a key element for us.

[00:51:56] We get asked of did you know, I mean, there’s so many academies and so many university courses and so many programmes, every one of them is fantastic. It just depends what kind of learning style you like, what kind of education you like, and it’s that environment you fit in with. So that’s why I say, look, try to see what other people do in every one of them has got their own styles, how to do it. And ours is slightly different, whereas, you know, play harder. And that’s how we want to get across to everyone making learning fun. That’s the best way of

[00:52:26] Explaining it to me then. I mean, I know it’s got in the way, but explain that to me. How is you? Of course, more fun than the next one.

[00:52:33] I don’t even want to say fun. I mean, look, we try and make it fun as possible. We got music playing. We’ve got a social happening as well. But our lecturing style as well and our energy that we bring in. So those of you know myself, K’iche, Ali, as well, we’ve got our own style of lecturing as well, which, you know, it’s not for everyone. And that’s the thing I remember being doing our masters and some lectures you warm to some you know, you find it quite difficult. We can all relate to teachers at school as well. You know, those do we can relate to. And it’s about finding who are you going to learn the best from? And one thing we always say is don’t do our courses or any course for CPD or for letters after your name do. So you can really apply the skills and knowledge. The next day I get on many small Makov. You learn composite Monday morning, apply it. And that’s the most important thing, stuff that you can apply that’s relevant to your practise. You have to make it. You know, you should apply.

[00:53:28] Yeah, I mean, every, every sort of Monday night we run like a case clinic for all the delegates, for all the diplomas, for the employment diploma, for the orthodontic diploma, the restorative and also for the therapists. And the reason why we do that is because we really, really want to encourage them to implement what they’re learning in practise. And the only way by doing that is by bringing cases that you’re going to treat and helping support them on planning those cases and executing them. And that’s one thing that we’re very passionate about and we are very adamant about that come on the course. But make sure that you’ve got enough cases that you’re going to get this work so that everything that you’re learning, you’re able to implement in the next day.

[00:54:08] Yeah. So put a bullet point

[00:54:11] When you guys buy a practise and you’ve got a whole bunch of new clinicians on board in the group, is the training part of the package, so to speak, in terms of elevating the standing of that practise? So let’s say I was a dentist working at a practise that you just acquired. Do I get to benefit from the diplomas, et cetera, et cetera? Is this some kind of a deal or is it mandatory? What’s the relationship between the two businesses? That’s good. Mean look, we’ve got certain things that are mandatory in terms of we do our symposiums where four or five times a year we’ve got courses going on on the weekend where it’s composite courses could be a rubber dam course, variety of courses running where, you know, any Dental to come along and learn from from the other side. Would you separate the academy side is something which, you know, delegates do want to do for the education. They’ve got the opportunity where some can do at a discounted rate and some if they go on a salary package, they it could be included as well. So we’ve got a variety of options. And that’s sort of in a way helped making sure that the clinical standards within each practise are to the maximum that can possibly be. And plus all our, you know, clinicians are seeing each other on courses and the continuing growing as well.

[00:55:26] Yeah, just just to go back to that point about a symposium for us that was a really, really important part of of the group and the ethos in terms of the clinical standards of dentistry that we want to try and achieve, because that’s free for the fall of our associates. They come on at four or five times a year. But also it’s really important. It’s sort of a networking event for them as well, because, you know, the practise all over the country in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, London, Hertfordshire, and we know that sometimes dentistry can get isolating. You know, you’re in your practise six days a week. You don’t get to go out, socialise with other dentists as much as you can, especially if you’re not going on other courses. So one thing for us that was really important was to sort of create that culture within the group where everyone’s on board with sort of investing themselves, learning and trying to excel as a clinician, but at the same time also network together have a little bit of a social life to the day and just to get to meet other people and to share experiences. Hence why we decided to do these small tight-Knit group symposiums every every two or three months.

[00:56:29] How did you manage to trademark smile as a word? How does that.

[00:56:35] I think we trademark these. If we trademark smile. A lot of small things out there.

[00:56:42] Basically, it’s one of those it’s a funny one to pick a as a brand name in dentistry. And my hat’s off to you literally. You’ve. You’ve pulled it off for the the code of practise small groups. How many employees do you guys have now? Over three hundred. Three hundred thousand.

[00:57:16] Yeah, it’s great. It’s great.

[00:57:19] That’s a hell of a beast.

[00:57:21] I’m just like the Christmas party was. And Boris really messed it up for us. I’m looking forward to this one.

[00:57:30] Should be good. What we’re looking to do a here. Right.

[00:57:32] You understand if we’re going out to. So business confidence come from guys,

[00:57:39] What does the confidence come from? I think it’s when you feel like you’re doing the right thing and you’ve been on the right path. Learning dentistry is the one thing I would say is that when we started this, I wanted to know dentistry inside out. I make sure I learnt the clinical we know how practises work. We know the NHS, how the system works and how clinicians work, how the patients see it. So we made sure we learnt everything we can within dentistry. And I think once you’ve got the knowledge that helps with the confidence within it as well. I think our education that we’ve spent a lot of time and money on has helped us with the confidence side as well.

[00:58:14] There’s lots of people, lots of Dental education, right, but they haven’t got three hundred employees. I mean, this notion of we’re going to grow, we’re going to keep going, we’re going to keep loads of people think that. Yeah, but actually executing on it and having the option to keep going and wanting to trace it back to you was to be the confident guy, to become a deejay and all of that. Right. But both of you. Can you trace it back to why didn’t you just buy practise until

[00:58:47] You hit it? Well, I think it’s two things. One is having that growth, but you want to do big things and drive, drive, but you also need to execute properly. And that’s where you know, where privacy avoid the drive always had to drive. Even as university. I was talking to my friends I about 16, 16 year, lowest high school and high school, and we were throwing parties for university students. So we used to go flying disco to kings and throwing parties for university students. So that drives always been there. But I think when K’iche came along, it was the execution part and I think both need to be there. Otherwise, one person is you’re dreaming and planning, but nothing ever gets executed. And I think when both came together, I think that’s where it worked for us.

[00:59:33] No, I couldn’t agree more with that. I think the the beauty of it is that we’ve always said, look, we’ve always got to dream big, but we’ve also been able to execute what we’re dreaming about and sort of and it’s all about timing and execution. But not only that, I think part of the confidence comes around from having the right people around you. You know, I think that’s the massive part of the journey and both myself and just been blessed to have the right people around us at every stage, every stage of our career, not only clinically, but also in terms of business. We’ve had great mentors and military people that sort of lean upon for advice when needed. And that’s still the case. And, you know, we always say whenever the finished article, we’re always learning and that will never stop. So both of us look to the embassy some point again now that we’ve sort of got our clinical side to invest lot of clinically, we’re now looking to grow the business side. And to do that, you have to go through the process of education as well.

[01:00:30] Recommend the NBA guys, if you speak to people who have done them and they want to run GlaxoSmithKline when they come out of it. I just want to work with everyone who’s done what has been done with it. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people have been happy with it. Even it’s it’s actually brilliant, man. And it’s great. It’s obvious you’re enjoying it. Would you enjoy the most and what benefit would you rather. I know it’s obvious. One of you likes one thing, the other likes the other. What’s your favourite bit of itching? The acquiring.

[01:01:12] Yeah, I mean, I like the growth side, so I love, you know, the whole academy teaching side. I mean, I’m teaching this week in Ipswich for Health Education in England, next week for Birmingham College of Medicine, Dentistry, etc. next week as well. But I like seeing people grow and I like working with people. I like the whole site and I love the acquisition site. That’s predominantly where you know, where my head is that in the with a passion and enjoyment comes for myself.

[01:01:37] Yeah, similar to Jen in terms of acquisition and the growth and also sort of forging relationships, I think that’s been a massive part of being able to do and being able to grow, I think forging relationships with not only sort of banks, but also solicitors and people outside of the clinical remit within dentistry. I think it’s been amazing. And that’s the part that’s something that we both are very, very passionate about. And I really love that part of it, because you meet people of all walks of life and the experiences that you can gain from them is immense.

[01:02:09] Casey, you spoke about your transformation earlier, coming down from a hundred and two kilos, you touched upon confidence, right? I certainly know myself if I’m on my game when it comes to training, eating, diet, if that is bangle my entire life, like my performance in life, whether it’s time with my kids, whether it’s in business, whether it’s talking to clients, whether it’s meeting people, it focuses in centres around a couple of things, Wii and Armatrading. Right. And if those two are in line, everything else and I’ll put my success down to that. And it sounds like a crazy thing to do, especially when you’re talking to someone who the idea of Jim is just foreign. Right. And it just just doesn’t enter into that. So you talk to me about you went from a hundred and two kilos to whatever you are now. How did that transform your life in terms of business, family life, confidence? Socially?

[01:03:08] It was it was huge, had a huge, huge impact. And I think I know General has seen that sort of first hand, the confidence it gives you very much the same Prav if my training is on my diet is on point. Everything else just fits into place in life, not just for work, but most importantly for the family. Your head is in a much better space. And that that gave me a huge amount of confidence. You know, it was one of those things that had been in the back of my mind for such a long time, you know, and being at that sort of that sort of weight and not being in shape, it does affect your confidence 100 percent. You know, it’s one of those things. And it just got to that point for me where I had to make a change and making that change, going through that process gave me a different sort of mental toughness because it gave me the sort of approach in life that I can achieve, anything I put my mind to. And no matter how big that dream is, I can achieve it. Hence, you know, if that’s in business and family, whatever it is, that has been sort of a huge impact on my life personally on that.

[01:04:14] And that trigger was just walking up the steps with you, with your baby feeling just some out of breath. How am I going to run around with my kid,

[01:04:23] You know, pizza three times a week and all that sugar was not doing any favours and let you walking up those steps. And I got to the top and it wasn’t it wasn’t like a long flight of stairs. And I just thought, this is just I cannot live like this. You know, I’ve got to be around for a lot longer. I’ve got a lot more to give. And that’s just what I just needed to make a change.

[01:04:43] I was it black and white for from the moment you made that decision, it was like you did turn to switch on a hundred percent. You can’t go in another direction. Or was there a bit of moderation in between? What was going through your head?

[01:04:55] Now, I’m very much if I put my mind to it, I want to get it done. And for me, it was a three month process. You know, we went through I mean, I started losing a little bit of weight initially, and then I got in touch with with a personal trainer through a company. And I just made a decision that I just wanted to achieve the best physical shape I could possibly achieve and in the shortest amount of time possible. So we did it. I think three months start to finish. But it for me was just a switch, just black and white, just wanted to get it done

[01:05:26] And so forth. Practises on what what’s the next stage? Any physical transformation, Mr. Olympia? Do you think we’ll do

[01:05:40] It together, Prav Keisha’s

[01:05:43] Transformation is on his Instagram if anyone’s not seen it, and I think she’s on only fans as well now.

[01:05:51] Always depend on you for the. But, you know, again, you know, putting that that picture up on Instagram was not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. But again, I wanted to put it out there because it was more to sort of inspire people to sort of if they’re ever struggling with anything, if you can put your mind to it, you can achieve it. And it’s just about telling them, you know, your wife has to be strong enough. And if your wife is strong enough, you can achieve it 100 percent.

[01:06:19] Well done, trust your justice project of yours might end up with an exit, right? I know you’re way too young to be thinking of it, but but, you know, there is that question. Like, if if there was an exit, let’s say let’s say someone came along and gave you money on your dreams to to walk away. Can you do next?

[01:06:47] That’s the question we keep asking ourselves pretty much every day. I mean, the exit is going to come one day and I’m a bit unpredictable at least. And if the fun goes for me, I might be out tomorrow morning because this process for me has to be fun and enjoyable. If I’m not enjoying it, I’m out because we one thing we asked ourselves, why are we doing this? And for me, it’s about enjoying the process. But I want to live long. For me, it’s not about the money. It’s about living long.

[01:07:14] What can you do? What do you do?

[01:07:17] What else would we do? I know you play a lot more golf and improve his game.

[01:07:25] I think I think I think we’ve always got to have an exit strategy. I think whatever you do in life, you’ve got to plan ahead. So I know for both of us, we love we love property. That’s always something that we’ve been talking about for a long time. I know Jim wants to own a nightclub one day because he loves the giant party. So I’m pretty sure that’s on the cards. But who knows? Who knows? And is it the most important thing for us is it’s got to be enjoyable. Whatever the next is, it’s going to be enjoyable. Even this whole process we’re on, we’re having fun. And as Jim said, once the fun stops, then that’ll probably accelerate the exit plan.

[01:08:00] I like them, our guys will put Prav has these questions he asks at the end of each of these podcast

[01:08:10] Guys, you probably know what’s coming next, but I’m going to flip flop between the two of you. I’ve got three questions. So Jim, starting off with his self imagination last day on the planet, but you’re going to live long and have a lot of fun along the way. But let’s say that day comes and you’ve got you’ve got your little ones around you. What three pieces of wisdom would you leave them? For the rest of you, going down from a deep 60 up propertied may not ice, it’s three pieces of wisdom, I would say. Firstly, dream big as big as you want you. Whatever you want to do, you can achieve it. Secondly, enjoy your life, enjoy meaning, enjoy every process, every step of the way. Don’t put too much pressure, but don’t overdo it as well. Education is not everything that makes you do that. And lastly, I would say is the last bit advice for the kids. Difficult one, I would just say support one another, keep the family, keep keep the unit together. I think family is everything and I would say tell them, you know, support each other as you guys. You they’ll be my advice. So I dream big, happy, happy along whatever you want to do and support each other. That’s said. It’s nice and safe for you. Three pieces of wisdom.

[01:09:32] Yeah, so exactly what my grandma told me when I was growing up is that, you know, never, ever, ever chase funny because the more you chase it, the further will run away from you. I think that’s one of the most important things in life. You know, whatever you do, similar to Jim in the sense of family is always going to come first. So make sure you’re supporting each other, not only just but you kids are going to go out and not just yourselves, but the bigger family. One thing I grew up with was a great network, a support network within the family where all of us were very close. And that’s one thing I would always say to them is just try and make sure that you keep those bonds and grow them, make them stronger. And the third thing is just don’t take life too seriously. You know, it’s not all about achieving grades. It’s about being happy and living each moment to the to the max that you can you know, you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. So make sure you enjoy each day as much as you possibly can.

[01:10:33] It’s lovely, Jane, back to you and. If you had something written on a tombstone, say, Gene was an. Finished, finished off, what would you would your legacy be? How would you like to begin involved? Dude was jokes that Gene was joking, was jokes, it’s. And Keish.

[01:11:10] It’s a good question.

[01:11:16] Got to get straight.

[01:11:19] I was going to say that I was going to say

[01:11:23] It doesn’t have a single word of

[01:11:27] It, that let’s go with the

[01:11:29] Prav disappeared again. But his final his final final final question. And again, it’s a long way away for you guys, but let’s say you knew you had 30 days left, yet you had your health, but you knew you had 30 days left. How would you spend those 30 days?

[01:11:49] Ok, I’ll go first on that one, I mean, for me, it would be with my kids, my family, the whole lot, and I would just take them away if money wasn’t an issue. I just take them away somewhere where, you know, you could have a different experience every every day or every week. So travel around the world.

[01:12:06] Where’s your favourite place even?

[01:12:08] My favourite place was probably Bali.

[01:12:12] Beautiful, beautiful, sunny. How are you to decide I’m

[01:12:17] Going to fly straight to Vegas, but you want to join me

[01:12:23] For a business in Bogota? I’m on a

[01:12:27] Flight to Vegas. I say Pakistan unstable. That’s where we’re going, 30 nights

[01:12:34] For three nights straight

[01:12:36] Paid for by small ethnic group

[01:12:41] Respec. Could see amazing guys. It’s been lovely having you on

[01:12:47] Now, but thanks so much. I appreciate it.

[01:12:49] I appreciate it. Thanks so much, guys.

[01:12:53] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders, the history. Your house, Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[01:13:09] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, 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

[01:13:23] 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.

[01:13:34] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] Dentistry that I just didn’t really know existed, and we were working hard at this really nice practise in Lancashire. We thought, what, we can do this for ourselves. We don’t we don’t need to do this for someone else. It wasn’t a massive desire for us to have our own practise. It just seemed at that point that was the natural thing to do. And a lot of that was based on the fact that we wanted this around and we wanted we wanted to deliver this level of dentistry that we thought wasn’t available in the region at a time when there was big practises in Liverpool and Manchester and London for us. We looked and thought there isn’t really a landmark practise in Newcastle that was offering this really, really high level service. So from the start, our vision was, let’s just do unbelievable dentistry, let’s do dentistry, let’s have a surrounding that that looked like Harley Street.

[00:00:59] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging Leaders Dental dentistry. Your heist’s Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:16] I t gives me great pleasure today to welcome Andy Darrow to the Dental Leaders podcast to Dental to the clinical directors of the Cosmati Dental Clinic, an exclusive group of practises in Newcastle and Durham. I met you guys probably 15 years ago, and I think we both, all three of us started our journey together in business at that time. I remember driving to it must have been Liverpool. Yeah. Meeting you guys in one of your apartments and you telling me about your love, the idea of this amazing new cosmetic clinic that you wanted to launch in central Newcastle, you about superexcited. And the journey all started there, really. And I think from memory, you probably met me through my brother who you met on the Paul Tipton course, if that’s right. That’s right. They all started there. But if we take a few steps back, obviously, you guys as best friends back then, how did you how did you guys meet and get into the industry together? We were at university together and then decided to practise together. Just tell us the story of how you guys came together and then culminated in this launch of this practise. Yeah, so first of all, guys, thanks for having us on the podcast today, we’ve been listening to your podcast for the past few months. It’s been exceptional. And we do feel as though when Larry Rosen tells Hotseat today. So thanks for thanks for joining to join in today. So, yes, so is Nighty Night six Newcastle Dental School. First day I remember sort of going into where everyone signs on and looking around and sort of the case and everyone’s seen what everyone was like. And I remember seeing this lad with like a long blonde Bob with with a with a Scouse accent. And and yeah, that was the first time I met Darren.

[00:03:23] And I wish I still have that long blonde. But to be honest,

[00:03:28] He moved from Liverpool.

[00:03:30] No, no, I’m the Scouser family since, as Andy just said, thanks again, guys, for inviting us on very much. Appreciate this. But it was my apartment back in the Albert Dock of Liverpool where I first met us. But yeah, Andy and I first met Newcastle Dental School. And you know what it’s like on that first day. You look around for people like you think you’ve got similarities to people are going to have similar interests to you other than what your main reason of being there is. And I think we did very early doors.

[00:04:01] What was your first outlook when you set eyes on them on Monday? Was it was it love at first sight? Was there anything like the equivalent of the long blonde bulb that attracted you to him?

[00:04:10] I thought that there’s a lot that would look a lot better if he had the long blonde.

[00:04:15] But I also remember Darren had the eye wall one thing, but that was that was a vast array of YSL shirts in every single colour, which in nineteen ninety six, if you might remember, what were the things to have in literally every colour under the sun. And I was just, just a normal, hardworking northern lights. So, you know, I was just there to get my head down and do the study.

[00:04:44] Fashion was the thing in Liverpool still is very much a thing in Liverpool, obviously just hadn’t hit the the sunny sides of Sunderland just

[00:04:51] To know she was upset and threatened with Newcastle at the time. And so just moving on from there, did you guys become so obsessed, maybe start hanging out together from that first day? Yeah, I mean, I think Darren is both experienced of university was the same in that I think we were Newcastle University undergraduates rather than Dental school undergraduates. We spent a lot of time in the Dental school, but also the Dental school doing other stuff. I think we mixed with people from Northumbria Uni. A lot of my friends were in sports teams, rugby team, golf team, that sort of stuff. And there was a lot of people that were just completely focussed on going into the and doing dentistry where I think we were a bit more focussed on on having having an experience the university as well and exploring other avenues. And I think that’s where we became good friends, was that we actually like to do a lot of stuff that wasn’t related. And the further we went through university, we both realised that the clinical side of it was where we excelled and the clinical side of it was where we actually got the enjoyment out of it in the pharmacology books was something we all had to do. But it was when we got to the clinical Hands-On side that we both got found that that was where we got the most enjoyment and where our skill sets were as well. Did you use to talk to each other about setting up a practise together while you were students?

[00:06:19] I don’t think at that point we didn’t think it was more about enjoying life or getting through Dental school. I think there was there was that side of it that we concentrated on. I think as the years passed and we done more and more clinical work, I think we both were from a very similar mindset. Long term, I don’t think either of us ever wanted to be just driller’s and philes. You know, there was a certain type of country that we wanted to go into which our eyes were open to more and more, probably more postgrad times. But I think we just shared so many similar interests, whether it be sports, whether it be girls of Newcastle, whatever it may be, it was that side of things that probably made us connect initially.

[00:07:03] And so just give us a give us a summary of what your life at university was like in terms of we we have kids that would from last minute four exams just scrape through. And you were passing through. How was the balance? Payman? He’s got a question. He’s got his hands up. I saying, yeah, that was me.

[00:07:23] Well, I think it’s fair to say, well, I can certainly say for myself, I don’t think I’m one of life’s most academics, but what I am is somebody who’s willing to put a shift in. I’m a grafter. And so it didn’t necessarily come naturally to to me once I got to to university levels. I didn’t really struggle much through taxes and A-levels. But at university, I think trying to find that balance between uni life and study was was a challenge. And I think we certainly partied hard when we were able to party hard, but we were also the ones that would be first and at the library to get our heads down and and get through the undergrads, you know, study like we needed to.

[00:08:07] So, you know, people people say don’t go into business with friends and family. And I did. I went to business with the guys. I live with the university for five years. Yeah. I find actually you end up knowing each other really, really well. And there’s a level of trust that you have when you’ve known when you’ve grown up with someone because it doesn’t have a trust that you have. What’s your position on it? I mean, did you worry about the

[00:08:33] The bottom line is, I think what we’ve been asked that question so many times over the years, some people have said, you know, how have you managed to maintain friendships and business relationships for 15 years plus? And I think, as you say, it stems back from the start. Our relationship started out as a friendship and it’s still, to this day, very much a friendship first and business partner second. And Andy and I were still very different characters. You know, when as we grow and as we mature and life takes you in different ways from a family perspective, you’re inevitably going to change by way of character. I’m one of these people. I’m probably the stress head of the two of us. I’m the one that wants everything done to a certain standard yesterday, whereas the as has got a skill set where you can be much more laid back, you can turn things on and off as and when he wants to, which is, I must say, a skill that I’m envious of. But I think together we complement each other. And I think trust is is a massive thing for us. You know, we trust each other implicitly. People have always said with a fiver for that sort of people. But the nice thing about us is, is that we’re in a situation where when there’s decisions to be made, you know, we’re there to listen to each other with to talk to each other. And usually in a short space of time, we can come to a resolution and a solution to move things forward. And 15 years later, I wouldn’t say we’ve done too much of that

[00:09:59] In 15 years. Have you ever had any massive disagreements, post ups, sort of difference of opinion on how you should do things? And then if so, how did you come to sort of resolve? Yeah, no, we haven’t really we’ve done extremely well. I mean, when you think about it, that’s a lot of years to not have a big argument from the start. We really try to set things up to be more of an experience place. I know. I know. Now, that’s that’s a very popular thing to do to set up a dentist practise to be experienced. But that was really what what we try to do from the start. And we wanted to set it up to be somewhere that we lot we wanted to work. And we actually got enjoyment out of the day to day going in the building, using the equipment, using the technology. And we’ve been very aligned on that from the start. Our direction has always been to try and build and move things forward or to not not to do that too quickly, to take it at our own pace, to be maybe a little bit more cautious than other people have. And I know we’ve had chats in the past Prav way. You’ve said you can do this, you can do that, can do that, and we’ve done OK.

[00:11:07] But we’ll just take it at our pace. And we’ve always been quite aligned on that. It hasn’t been one of us. Let’s go and open five practises tomorrow. It’s always been let’s let’s just take a little step. Let’s be sustainable. And as well, I think going back from the university days, we have a friendship that is not Dental, first of all. So, I mean, a lot of the time we spent together at university was not sitting and studying. It was going to watch the match, are going to be a sports day or something like that. And I think having that background still is still relevant, that if we just talked about teeth all of the time, we’d probably have a lot of arguments it and being able to just sort of at least say, OK, do you want to watch the Liverpool match this week? I’m just not worth watching. So so we tend to watch Liverpool. That’s that’s. I’ve been a big thing. Indulge me, tell me about that first day you met Prav. How did you come across? Because I think we met I met Prav similar time to when you guys met him.

[00:12:15] Well well, I can take you back to it because it feels like yesterday, to be fair, despite having all of you years ago with obviously Andy and I had this idea. We knew what we wanted to do. We knew what we we felt. We knew what we needed to do to achieve it. But one big thing we found is that look at all of the practises that we’re in and around the Northeast, because at this point, we’ve decided the Northeast was where we wanted to go. So we tried to do our research and see what was out there. And there seems to be quite a lack of websites. So we basically needed someone on board who could enlighten us as to what we needed to do. So Andy was doing the Tipton course over the Caliche at the time. So Andy Cohen said to me, well, if I’ve heard from Kay that this is somebody that we can work with at that point, we knew it was Kay’s brother. And then before us, we arranged a meeting at my house. It was my first home in the Albert Dock in Liverpool. And Prav turned up in a Ford car, I think is his car choices somewhat changed in recent times. And yeah, I was proud of her. And we we all sat down together and and worked out what we needed to do.

[00:13:28] So it was it was at that point we’re talking 15 years ago, it was like to have a website. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was really quite strange how it all came about, as David was saying that I was speaking to coalition with and I think he would just sell Chris Dental at this point. And I was saying we’ve got these big ideas of this big fancy practise in Newcastle, but we need to be digital. We need to we need to get something on the on the way. And I said, well, I’ve been using a really good guy is he’s really experienced, knows what he’s talking about. He says, no, maybe you should hit him up. And the funny thing was that when we opened our practise, first of all, we did well. When we when we launched the business, we had a website that provided a great deal of design and we had a wreck of a building in Newcastle that you couldn’t even walk in because the rain came all through all five stories of the building. And we literally did interviews for members of staff in the Malmaison Hotel in the Cup and the key side of Newcastle. So actually, the first thing we actually had was was this website from Prav. And that was going to generate as thousands of patients and get the business kick started, including the one you’re in now.

[00:14:44] It’s the same building. Yeah, this building came up at this point. We made our decision, not Newcastle was the place to be for us. And we searched and searched around the area and then stumbled across this building, an old Heldon square, which we fell in love with immediately. It was at the time it was on the buildings at risk, rich buildings at risk register. So we were hoping that there might be some sort of grants available for this grade to list listed building that might help these two young whippersnappers to, you know, to develop a practise within it. Funnily enough, the minute we paid the deposit for the building, it disappears off the building, got rich register. And so it was almost to to pull it round. And to be fair, there was times during that first 12, 18 months where we were worried that we’d pay off more than we could chew. There was five stories of this building that was in quite a poor state of repair. And the other interesting story was that on the morning that we just paid the deposit for the building, that was the first time we met English Heritage. It was to have a meeting on site. And the first thing the guy said to us was, do not buy this building to this day, which we never really knew why they were advising us against this. But they say in life that you need a little bit of luck to go along with hard work. And two or three days after this meeting, we opened up the centre pages of the the local rag, the Newcastle Chronicle, and there was a plan set out to redevelop Old, Old and Square. So that reinstated for us that it was the right place to be. And it’s a beautiful old Georgian terrace, as I say, five stories tall. And it was a labour of love, you know, to get this building restored back to its former glory. And now is a place where we really do enjoy going to work on a daily basis and

[00:16:42] Just take us through the process of having that lofty vision at this superduper practise. And obviously mindful that you didn’t rent this building, you actually went all in and bought it. Right. It’s great to list the five story buildings, your first wall and you’ve bought. Ebola free hold, right, just take us through the whole process of what it was like having the idea. All the way to probably one of the most successful cosmetic properties in the Northeast. So the idea at the start was, first of all, we’re both working in Lancashire to really good practise down there, which was Mike Booth’s practise and Phil Broughton with that, two amazing clinicians. We’d seen a lot of unbelievable work. It was very technology driven. It was driven at this time. We just got into the ICD as well. And I think I got back from my first conference in Vancouver and was literally just blown away by what is possible in dentistry. I saw dentistry there that I just didn’t really know existed. And we were working hard at this really nice practise in Lancashire. And we thought, what, we can do this for ourselves. We don’t we don’t need to do this for someone else. It wasn’t a massive desire for us to have our own practise. It just seemed at that point that was the natural thing to do.

[00:18:05] And a lot of that was based on the fact that we wanted this around and we wanted we wanted to deliver this level of dentistry that was that we thought wasn’t available in the region at a time. There was big practises in Liverpool and Manchester and London for us. We looked and thought there isn’t there isn’t really a landmark practise in Newcastle that was offering this really, really high level service. So from the start, our vision was, let’s just do unbelievable dentistry, let’s do dentistry, let’s have a surrounding that that looked like Harley Street. And I think that was that was when we fell in love with the practise, was that the building itself looks like a Harley Street practise the floor to ceiling windows, the 18 30s architecture. It looks like Harley Street. And that was our vision from the start. And we just couldn’t say no to this building. It was too much for us. We couldn’t run and we had to buy it. And we just looked at it and thought, well, what’s the worst thing that could happen if we lose our deposits and we go and get a job somewhere else? And our mind set for the first three or four years was what’s the worst thing that could happen? So we were young, we didn’t have dependents.

[00:19:21] And we thought, well, if we’re not going to do it now, when we’re going to do it, we might as well go all in at this time. Just focus on the dream, focus on our how we want it to be focussed on the street. And I think our mindset was if if we do the dentistry that we want to do, people will come and people will see it will we knew quite a lot of people in Newcastle already, so we knew we could lean on a few people and just say, OK, let’s get you in, let’s wait in your teeth and go and tell everyone about it. And it was very much word of mouth at that time, and that’s how it snowballed. And we went from to start off with I worked two days a week. There were two days a week. We had one receptionist and one nurse to remove the full time. We got a couple of more members of staff. We then did another floor of the building. We got some more dentists in and we just build a bit by bit. And now we’ve got nine surgeries over the two sites. We’ve got, what, eight clinicians is it now?

[00:20:23] We’ve got six associates, three therapists and hygienists now.

[00:20:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see the difference there that Darren was just like we’ve got six associates, three therapists, blah, blah, blah. And you were talking earlier about how one of you is just so laid back and the other one is just the detail. And you just saw that this is

[00:20:50] What you know. Within that, though, Prav is why this is work for us over the years. Absolutely. We are very different characters from very different backgrounds, but we both bring something to the table. And I think, as I say, the nice thing is, is that we complement each other to push things forward. And I think that the bottom line is, I’m sure this times throughout this journey where I have drove on the absolutely mat and similarly and vice versa, it’s coming the other way. But the beauty is that together, irrespective of where we’ve come from, we both seem to have the same business and Dental goals we’re aligned with.

[00:21:26] Top of that, I think, as well, was we knew that each other had clinical skills, that we weren’t going to be let down by the other member of the team. So through Dental school, we knew that our work was at the top end of our group. And when we got into private practise, we knew that we could deliver really good quality dentistry. And I think being able to to trust the the person’s clinical ability has always been good. I mean, even as the practises grow, the type and the quality of dentistry that we’ve been able to do is is always been comparable. And it wasn’t that I could do something and Darren couldn’t or vice versa. We’ve always been able to to rely on each other’s dentistry, which has been a massive help.

[00:22:06] Absolutely. And people very. To talk about and I’ve listened to it on the podcast where people talk about mentors and as daft as it might sound, I feel, yes, we’ve both done so much postgrad work. We’ve gone on different courses. We’ve gone all around the world doing research. But we’ve probably mentor each other because we’ve done it together from from the get go. We’ve always turn to each other to share knowledge and make each other a better clinician.

[00:22:34] Just go back to Mike Booth. I remember hearing stories about Mike back in the day that as a clinician, he was absolutely phenomenal at speaking to patients and just had this natural ability to be able to, we say in the most ethical sense, cell treatment of cells, big cases. So Broughton’s always had a great reputation as well. What did you learn from those guys back in the days when you were at the clinic in Lancashire? I mean, it was it was a fantastic opportunity to go work at that practise. At the time, I was working at an oasis practise up in the north east and a position came available at that practise. And I had no desire to go and live in Lancashire. And I went to work at that place 100 percent for the dentists who were there and for the technology they had. And I took over a lot of Mike’s list. So I was able to see all of his work, sewage treatment plants and really picked up so much knowledge on the way from that. I mean, he did a lot of really big, complex cases, did a lot of big bridgework, lot of big small crown veny work.

[00:23:38] And and the standard was really, really high. And it was probably the first time that I realised how much sort of volume was possible in dentistry as well, because he he worked at a very quick pace and he got work done. If someone needed a full mouth rehab, you could turn it round in and next to no time and sang with fellows. Well, while some of the some of the composite work that Phil used to do was amazing and I was blown away, I’ve never seen that sort of quality of composite work before. And just actually being able to recall these patients and see it first hand was was like the best quality mentorship that anyone could possibly have at that time. Because, you know, when I’ve come to your practise, one thing that I’ve noticed is that the team seem really happy. Is that process of managing a team and and creating culture in the practise, you find that easy or is that something you’re constantly having to work at?

[00:24:39] I think well, when we first started out, it was funnily enough, we bumped into a guy who was in our year group is named Paul Thapar, and he owns a number of practises at quite a young age up in the Northeast. And we bumped into him in a car garage of all places, and we realised we were coming to the northeast and he said to us there. And then the biggest problem you will have during your career is practise practitioners is stuff. And we were sitting there at this point feeling really quite chill with ourselves because it was just me and the nurses and the receptionists and life was going just fine, OK, but we knew that as we needed to scale up, we had to build a reactor. We had to build that ethos to the people that were coming to join us. And I think early on we Andy and I did everything ourselves from the business management side of things, the recruitment side of things, the business management side of things, as well as being the dentists. And it was all baby. And we didn’t want to really hand over and delegate to others in case they weren’t taking things in the same direction as what we were.

[00:25:47] But once we got to a certain size, we realised that it really just wasn’t possible. And so we really did invest a lot of time and effort in finding the right people to then bring things forward with us. And I think the key to that in more recent times has been finding the right practise manager. And we have a practise manager, Lisa, who works with us now, who we, again, trust implicitly with our baby. And she helps now with recruitment side of things, business management, side of things, while we can focus on dentistry and grow in the brand. But I think, yeah, you’re right, it’s it’s not something that comes naturally to you. Nobody teaches you this Dental school. And it’s something I think, between the pair of us learns along the way. And yes, there’s been mistakes along the way in terms of recruitment. But I think that’s the only way you can very often learn. But the team that we have there now from clinicians all the way through to admin teams, you know, is a team that we’re extremely proud of and we’re keen to push forward with.

[00:26:47] Just talking about mistakes along the way, either hiring the wrong person or maybe getting rid of the wrong person or for the wrong reasons. Can you just enlighten us to a couple of experiences along the way, maybe having to get rid of someone who did the firing, was it or was earning? And where we did we did have a big sort of blip a few years ago that we more recently, our practise fund manager is just absolutely amazing. Dental, Prav. That’s really what we managed before the manager, before it turned out that she’d been up in the hands in the till a little bit. And when it came to light, it was quite a few quit and it got very serious very quickly. And that was our biggest mistake on the way. And looking back, it was horrendous and it really escalated and it turned out to be something that went a long way. But as an experience for us, we learnt so much about what we should do and what we need to keep our eyes on and and and things that can happen. We’ve always been so trusting. We trust everyone. And I think that was a big turning point where where we realised that, yes, we can trust people. And yes, we should always give people the benefit of the doubt, but not to not to to a point where we’ve taken our eye off the ball a little bit.

[00:28:14] So, I mean, that was probably the biggest bump in the road that we’ve had over the over the fifteen years. And I still look at that and think there was there was a lot of positive that came from that. It didn’t obviously turn out well for her. And, you know, we didn’t do so well financially that year. But I think that has actually pushed us on to the next level and we wouldn’t be where we are today if we hadn’t actually had that experience. So what was the process of obviously discovering? Not the initial shock of it all. And then I’m assuming you guys chat it through with each other. How are you going to approach her? Who was going to have the conversation with what you were going to say? Maybe repeat the conversation in your own head a hundred times, and then what would you talk about the hiring and firing process? It’s always one that induces quite a bit of anxiety, and especially with something like this where, you know, it’s been motivated by by by theft, I guess. How did you just approach that problem?

[00:29:15] I think we approach that one like we approach most things. We did it together. And it was one of these where we’ve, you know, with the type of people that like to face things from the on. And so it was one of these ones being brought to our attention, really, as to what might be happening. It was just straight into our office, sat down across the table from her and tried to establish what on earth was going on. And, you know, the. Particular person was very much in denial. But the facts were there, you know, this was this was taken on by by the police in the end. And this patient’s story, this person got a custodial sentence as a result of all of this. But, yeah, like everything else, we take these things head on together and we work our way through these things, thankfully, hired and fired as a as a general rule within the practise that the firing squad has been very limited. We’ve got a lot of team members that have been with us there for a very long time. So that side of things is not something that we’ve had to do on a on a routine basis. The hiring side of things is, again, something that we very much get involved with, particularly nowadays. It’s probably more for the clinician side of things. And we have Lisa and the management teams underneath her that do the rest of the staff. But we’re very much heavily involved in choosing the right dentists and therapists and hygienists to come and join us, because, again, in protection of our baby, we want to be involved at that point to ensure that the people will bring an end to upset the apple cart that we’ve worked so hard to achieve and to make sure that they’re going to follow the same ethos that we want our practises to work.

[00:30:51] What qualities does a clinician need to earn a place at your clinic? I mean, it’s evolved quite a bit over the over the past few years. At the start, when we were at capacity, we were looking and thinking, how are we going to get someone else in? What level do they need to be on? Do they need to be the finished article to the need to be just full of passion, to the need to be full of energy. And we have a really, really good senior associate that works with us, who’s been with us for quite a few years now called Neil Hare. And and he came in and done some private dentistry award stuff. He came in with a big portfolio of work, which back then people just didn’t have. And we always just looked for passion and a bit of a work ethos. I think that was that there were the two main things that we’ve always tried to look look for. And from that, that’s probably the last time we’ve advertised for a job. But the practise since then, we got a lot of CVS and I think we’ve been extremely lucky to actually being able to attract a lot of the Dental talent of the north east. We’ve got some amazing guys there at the minute, as you know, and is very much a team effort. And every single clinician has been picked on. Yes. That can do a great clinical job or to have the right work ethic. Are they brought in with our cosmetic Dental clinic ethos of of quality precision care? I mean, those are the three core values that we’ve had from the start, and that’s really how it’s evolved over the years.

[00:32:25] Our last few associates have literally just budgeters for so long with CVS and cases of the case of isn’t the case. Obviously now it gets a bit more digital and it’s a bit more getting tagged in Instagram posts and things like that. But I mean, that that just shows to us how passionate these people are. And that’s that’s what we that’s what we really have tried to grow in the practise. We’ve always preferred to bring on younger dentists that just have that fire in them rather than someone that’s been doing it for years and years and years. And they just look at it picking up the paycheque. And yeah, I can churn out so many whatevers and I can earn some money. We’ve we’ve always wanted it to be a career progression from people. Let’s start we’ve done a couple of mentorship staff contracts with dentists as well, where we’ve had them under our wing for a year and we’ve talked them through Invisalign and could ontology and some of our practises, Thorstein, and now they’re just flying at practise. And it’s been such a great part of the process to be able to see these guys grow from where they started coming to as an age for twenty or thirty two to to actually where they are now. These were the nicest things about a business is seeing people grow, isn’t it? There’s so many other problems and issues with that.

[00:33:45] That one thing for me is one, the nicest thing about owning because you’ve been a long term and you can see long term, what happens is how do you divide the work between you? I mean, who takes care of one? Because one of you will naturally go one way and one with another who handles Prav, for instance? That’s always a three summate. Who handles Prav? Yeah, work is definitely a double double heads when we’re dealing with there’s too many ideas for minutes. We have to write it all down. What not naturally the clinical work divides itself. OK, solved and the flow of patients into practise naturally gets divided up. And we’ve always, as we’ve gone along, as the jobs come in, we might have ten jobs on the table. We’ll just say that’s five for you, that’s five for me. And Robyn is trying to use. All of our energy to the both of us have to do these 10 jobs, we’ve always just tried to split it. So I trust you to get those jobs done. I’ll do those jobs and then we’ll just report back. So I think actually having the partnership along the way has really been able to help us to grow and to get to be to be a lot more productive. And we try not to cross over too much and allow the other person to get that job done so that we can do something else a bit more productive with our time as well.

[00:35:06] And I think it’s fair to say when we are splitting up these jobs and we are delegating to one another, that’s something that you learn through time. You learn who’s better at what role, you know. And so I think it sort of happens quite quickly, quite naturally, when the jobs but will always still turn to each other ultimately for the final decisions, because this has been a joint effort from the start and it will continue to be.

[00:35:30] Just just in terms of making sort of big decisions, like, for example, you recently opened the Invisalign Centre within your practise, so, for example, buy in the new clinic in Durham. It was not like an idea that came together. Or did one of you have the idea each other? How did these conversations come about?

[00:35:52] Well, the Invisalign Centre one or Invisalign, so to correctly phrase, this was brought about, quite interestingly, really going back many years ago. And then I had an idea for the third floor of the cosmetic Dental clinic. And at that point we were I’m going back to probably two thousand eight, two thousand nine. And we invited one of the top guys, the head guys from Invisalign up for a meal. And we said to him, look, you’ve got a number of practises offering this service. You’ve got your people on the ground who were going out to visit these practises, but they’re only delivering a few numbers of cases. Why don’t you allow us to be a regional centre of excellence, in essence for Invisalign and allow us to be the Invisalign centre again, despite our wining and dining? It was a no no, but we tried. And then rather ironically, some years later, Andy and I had been recruited by Dan Splicer Sorona to teach dentistry over and across the GCC or from there were from Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, how to use Sirico Software. And while we were out in Dubai, we found and trust to come across a site which was in essence an Invisalign centre.

[00:37:07] So we were like, surely this can still be done all these years later. So that was something that I think we always felt we wanted to try and implement into our clinics. And then by weird twist of fate, it wasn’t long later that I approached by an Invisalign representative, coincidentally from Dubai, who pitched this idea about an Invisalign dedicated area within the practise and by which stage we’ve been delivering Invisalign for 15 years, plus something that we had a big passion for. And so we said, if anybody is going to do this, we want to be the first to do it. And so that decision come very easily to us and everything just sort of aligned to make sure that that sort of happened and it was the right thing for us to do. And I think the room was very it was no different to that. We’ve always just had these ideas together, which we we bounce off each other when we’re in nonclinical times, and then we’ll usually run things by the likes of yourself. Prav you think it’s a good idea?

[00:38:05] I remember that you said, will you come down to the practise? We’ve got someone to tell you. I was like, what is this? And you just told me you’ve got this new clinic in Durham and there’s a massive opportunity there, blah, blah, blah. And it was a bit like, you wait, you watch Prav got to say, what, what, what are we going to do about it? And it seemed like the natural progression for you guys to just sort of get practise number two. But I would like to know, because I’ve had this conversation with numerous people who’ve got multiple practises, what additional challenges of is to present compared to what you were expecting. So a lot of people think, oh, well, practise one is doing well, I’ll just buy practise to multiply it by two and it cannot be all right. How did you deal with that whole process of first of all, if you divide the time, one of you being in Durham all the time, one of you being in Newcastle, getting the new team up to scratch, et cetera, et cetera, how did you handle that transition from one to two? What obstacles came in the way? Well, I think it was probably quite different how other people approach it, because I think other people would would have gone and bought an existing practise with existing patients and they would have just either decided to rebrand or not rebrand and just really take over with all of its issues and with all of its positives where we just looked at it as winding the clock back to what we did in Newcastle.

[00:39:28] Rather than doing that, we were just going to find some space and we were going to just start from scratch again. And we were at full capacity at Newcastle, but we had quite a lot of patients that would come up from the Durham area. And again, going back to twenty six. When we looked at Newcastle, we looked around the city and we felt as though there wasn’t much, there wasn’t many practises that were trying to deliver really high quality cosmetic Invisalign implant dentistry down there so we could have opened up next door to the Newcastle practise. But we thought maybe it’s time to branch out. But we approached it very much that. Right. We’re going to this is going to be a squat again. We’re going to do the same process. We’re going to learn from the process that happened over five or six years in Newcastle. And we just try to accelerate that. And with your help, that’s sort of what we did. We obviously knew that a lot of our our reputation was there already and a lot of our traffic came through.

[00:40:27] The fantastic website that you put together for. Over the years, and we were fairly confident we were going to get people through the door because we could push people around, so initially we did it in a very same way as Newcastle, that I went down a couple a day and a half a week down, went down a day and a half a week. We then built I hope we got some extra associate days in the book down there. And gradually we’ve sort of crept back from it a little bit. But I’m still down there. One full clinical data we can dance down there, one full clinical day a week. And we’ve got two soon to be three associates down there the rest of the week with therapists cover as well. So we really use the resources we already had and we just stretched out a little bit. And that that worked so much better than buying another practise for as I think and I think it just fit in our model better to do it that way rather than to look at trying to change someone else’s practise. And we were in control of all the variables by doing it that way. So moving on from there, guys, what’s the plan? Practise three, four, five. Be happy and safe. What’s the what’s the big goal?

[00:41:38] This is a question that the accountants keep asking us. You know, thankfully, things are all moving in the right direction. Even despite the year that we’ve all had. We used covid could have been such a dark and bad time as as it was for so many and is for so many. But on reflection, if every cloud has a silver lining, covid was an opportunity for us to take a step back from the usual day to day. And we use that opportunity to look in at the business from the outside and realised where we could make changes to move things further forward. So we’ve come back from the Kova Times and yes, OK, we’re still working on all of these restrictions. But, you know, the team is on board. We’re pushing on we’re moving things in the right direction. Financially, things are bouncing back. And so it comes to saying to us, right, guys, when’s the next one open and where are you going to go next? Well, we’re realising now that, you know, down this line, we’re not getting any younger. There’s now dependence that we have to think about this. There’s more of a necessity to try and strike a work life balance, which certainly from my own perspective, I’ll say I’ve failed miserably for all of these years.

[00:42:50] But now with young ones in tow, it’s something I’m certainly conscious of that we need to we need to improve upon because we’re not going to get these years back with the little ones. So the thought of opening of a practise on paper looks like the right thing to do. What have we got? The energy at this time to do is have we got the time to do it at this point in time? Probably not at this point, but that’s not to say that can’t happen again in the future. But at this point, as Andy alluded to earlier, we’ve always done things incrementally, slowly but surely, because we’ve literally we’ve got ourselves to fall back on, too. So we didn’t want to go making any too big leaps of faith. And I think we’re comfortable where we’re at at the moment. Nine surgeries across two sites keeps us busy enough. And I think for the time being, that’s where it’s going to be asked. But who knows? What’s this

[00:43:42] Space? We’ve definitely got some more projects to this. And I think in our project is to is to just push through on that little bit further. And we’ve always looked at it from the very start of what’s the worst thing that can happen if you’re hoping something for all of a sudden that that dynamic looks a little bit more scary, there will be more that will do that might be practise three. It might be practise five, it might be practise ten. It might be something different, but it’s not on the horizon at the minute. We’ve always wanted just to have the growth first before we we sort of overexpose ourselves and we’ve never wanted to try and stretch ourselves to the limit that we lose focus on the day quality dentistry that we do. And I suppose one of our our major issues over the past few years is just we love to actually be in surgery. And it would be a lot easier for us if one of us said, look, I’m not going to do anything anymore. I’m just going to do business development. I’m just going to do staff training. But we both actually really like that part of the job. And we’ve got a real kick out of that side of the job. And that’s probably been at the detriment of of how many practises we’ve we’ve got. If we didn’t love it so much, we probably have ten practises by now. How do you guys cope with the work life balance? So as you start it off, as young single men who launched this practise and I guess puts everything into it, looks flat and says you could work eight hour days if you wanted and nothing mattered, and then family and kids came alone. How did that how did that change things?

[00:45:17] Well, I think there was one big advantage of of growing a team and growing trust within a team is that you can then ultimately start to delegate things off. We’re not these type of principles where we demand that we see all of the new patients coming through the doors, as Andy said earlier, which we distribute those out, but we are in a situation now where we know we need to generate time and we’re surrounded by very capable pair of hands as of hands that we can delegate certain elements of the work to. So that is something that we’re definitely working on. And I think, you know, trying to free up time to ensure that the businesses continue to move forward while still maintaining the same standards of dentistry whilst then balancing a home life is something that is going to need constant work. But again, I think we’re getting better and better. That is times going on and it’s something that we’ll continue to work with.

[00:46:17] Just talk us through both of you. How does that play out in your own personal lives? So it’s different than the typical week. What sort of hours you work and where most of the time you get for the family, what time you get into bed for you in the morning and on your way to work? How does that come out for a busy couple of practises like yourselves with the workload split between you? So I we both work three and a half days. Wednesdays are our days for admin and we’ve got a little bit of flexibility in the week to to pull in big cases if we want. I’ve got an eight and a 10 year old and I try and do four or five trouble can pick up pick ups a week. I’ve tried to be present and that’s that’s the hardest bit. You speak to anyone that’s got a business and a family, that’s the hardest part, trying to schedule it. And then the week also over the last few years, it’s been trying to pencil some time into exercise and looking after ourselves as well. And we’re not getting any younger. We need to look after the engine. There’s no point flogging ourselves to to death and not having any health left at the end of it. And it’s definitely something that we’ve tried to work on weekends is watching my son play football, picking up the golf sticks, some golf balls, just trying to relax, trying to keep it simple. My favourite part of the week is still coming back on a Friday, Friday afternoon, switching off, seeing what the kids have been up to and just relaxing for the weekend. It evolved so much over the last 15 years and it’s still going to be something we need to work on trying to get that balance.

[00:48:01] And I think it’s fair to say that’s something you’re much better off than I am. You know, I yeah, I’m a I’m a workaholic. And I think it stems back from the work ethic that certainly my father instilled into me. I feel that and I’m guilty of feeling guilty if I’m not sitting at a laptop when I’m nonclinical on, this is going to be to my detriment. So let’s make changes to this. I certainly don’t make enough time for exercise in these sorts of things. The things that I know I’ve got to push forward on. I feel as well with some of the changes that we introduced as a result of covid. There’s so many more things now which are cloud based that we do. On your advice, Prav, we changed our in-house software systems. So now I feel that, yes, I might be reduced to my clinical hours, but there’s not that many more things I can do working on and in the business from home, which you can get sucked into so easily. And I feel particularly at this time, because there’s not a lot that we can do outside of work because of the current restrictions that the world is under. I’m finding myself opening up that laptop far too much on Saturdays and Sundays when really I should be spending that time with family. And I’m hoping as the the world is unlocked with all of the with Boris’s plans, I’m hoping that will instigate further change for me to try and separate work and home life for some time conscious. I’ve certainly got to work on it to punish yourself then. I mean,

[00:49:31] If that’s your natural position, if you if you thrive in that situation, then you should lean into that. I think it’s like it’s like me trying to get myself a diary and organise my week, find me the most expensive diary in the world. I still not going to use it. And your kids, from what you’re saying about spending time with your kids, when your kid sees that you’re working hard and you’re obsessed by your work, that will be a lesson you learnt, just like you learn from your dad is.

[00:50:03] No, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that’s the most valuable lesson I have ever learnt from my parents, is that hard work and determination is what is what gets you where you need to be. And I’m very grateful for that lesson was taught to me and I’m, you know, hell bent on ensuring that my daughter picks up on those traits as well. But at the same time, I’ve also got to realise that I’ve got a wife who also. Works extremely hard, and I’ve certainly got to keep her sweet because she’s a divorce lawyer, so I’ve yeah, I’ve got to realise that it’s not just about me. And I feel as a business owner, as a dentist, you can become quite a selfish individual in an effort to strive and achieve as much as you possibly can. You know, I know you’ve asked people in the past about dark days in business. And my wife would definitely say that her darkest days of being with me was when I took on a Masters because I would literally not long been engaged. And then there was a wedding and a house move to organise while I was taking myself off to the office. Every given opportunity. And I do have to consider these people. And, you know, we do have to realise that there’s more important things necessarily than than teeth and businesses. While you’re right, you do have something inbuilt within you. You do have to embrace that. You do have to consider those around you to expand.

[00:51:29] Well, if you weren’t a dentist.

[00:51:32] What would we be if we weren’t dentists?

[00:51:35] I would I would I would have loved to be in sport, and so my grown up, I would have loved to be a pro golfer wasn’t good enough, but it was always it was always hands on things for me. I would make cupboard’s I would be enjoying the outdoors. I would be a carpenter. I would always be making something with my hands. I would absolutely hate to sit in an office 9:00 to 5:00. It would drive me absolutely crazy. And we’re getting quite a lot of work and a house in a minute. I’m quite happy gardening for a full week and I’m quite happy. Make something, make a flower beds. I don’t know that that’s the sort of thing that I would as long as it’s outside active and making something, I’d be happy.

[00:52:18] And I think that’s probably why we both excelled really at the more the Dental surgery sides rather than the academia side of it. When we were at Dental school and people very often asked me that question of why, why did you become a dentist? Because again, I just growing up wanted to be my dad and my dad is a car mechanic and all. I wanted to be with him and I’d done everything in my power to boogum and pester him going into his garage, passing them the tools. And he was hell bent on me not becoming a car mechanic. He always said to me, Son, I appreciate you want to work with your hands, but you’ve got a better head on your shoulders than I have. Can you please fix something else? And it was as simple as this. He took me to a Dental appointments. Mr. Philippos was the dentist and in Krosby in Liverpool. And I was sitting there whilst my sister was getting her examination and he said to me, come on. So what is it that you’re going to do? I’m not allowing you to get underneath cars like I have. It’s far too hard to trace. Can you not fix something else? And at that point, he said, can you not fix teeth? And no word of a lie, I’ve never changed my mind since I thought that was something that I could go about doing. I did a picture of Mr. Philippos on his mantelpiece in his surgery of him and his family on a boat. And my dad tried to convince me that that was his boat. To this day, I do not know whether that was his boat or not, but I figured I could fix something and that would enable me to make money to do things in life that we might not have been able to do earlier on.

[00:53:56] We ask a question about clinical errors so that we can all learn from them from that sort of black box thinking in. What would you some of what some of your clinical errors made over the years and what can we all learn from the. I honestly don’t feel as though I’ve made any massive clangers, thankfully. I know some people talk about the wrong tooth and that sort of that sort of thing, although I Dental possible as an undergraduate, I did try and take a take. I think it was a long way out and I managed to bring out the adult tooth underneath it, which are probably straight back and quite quickly. But yeah, I don’t I don’t think clinically because we’ve always tried to work within our limits and I think I get a bit frustrated nowadays when I see dentistry and not work within the limits and try and do stuff that they shouldn’t be doing. And they’ve seen it once on YouTube and try and try and give it a crack and would never try and do that. We’ve always tried to get the knowledge, take little steps, work within ourselves and always be cautious. And that’s something that we really try and get over to our younger associates that we need to work within our limits and we shouldn’t be doing stuff that that is outside of our box and outside of our comfort zone. And I think that takes you a long way. I can’t really think we’ve always had cases that don’t quite go to plan and bridges that the porcelain chips, but nothing that’s really disastrous and nothing that we didn’t plan for failure before the start. I can’t remember any big climb.

[00:55:35] Yeah, I’d say likewise from my side of things. But there are two cases which I do often reflect back on. And not long after a qualified I was lucky enough to go and work in a VTE position in a in a lovely Big Ten Sadri practise in southpaws and my VTE training, which was great to me. And he really let me just get stuck in and I feel a lot of the new graduates these days probably don’t have that level of autonomy to be able to make those mistakes early on and learn from them. But I always remember, you know, fresh out with the books and the textbooks. So it’s, you know, studied about the Dahl effect. And I remember this guy comes in to see me quite an advanced work case. And I thought to myself, right, I’m getting stuck in on this one. The VTE trainer allowed me to go gung ho and I took the decision to have fabricated a Kobol Chrom Dalle appliance, which I like bonded to the ills of the upper arch with Pineview. Now, thankfully,

[00:56:39] This job,

[00:56:40] It served its purpose, but that was two hours of my life that I will never get back drilling a Cobalt Grumdahl appliance off the rails. So that was a that was an eye opener to be very early on. I think the second one that always jumps to mind is I there was a very elegant lady come into this surgery and Southport and she needed a bridge remove. And now, thankfully, this bridge was lower right quadrant. And I was introduced to the first time to a crown and bridge remover. So I took to this bridge with it and unfortunately managed to decolonise one of those lower abutments. And in the 20 years since, I have never gone near a crown and bridge removed.

[00:57:25] Is it one of those spring-Loaded ones or was it one of those wait wait things?

[00:57:30] It was the weight is the weight, and it still sends shivers through my spine. Now that I would like to try to remove a bridge with one of those. So everything’s been sectioned since I was a less well earlier.

[00:57:41] You guys have been in that practise for fifteen years. You must have seen some of your work that you’re not one hundred percent sure that you would repeat that work. Now, you know, things have moved on,

[00:57:53] That sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, certainly, yes. The year we know that Dental trends have changed, you know, early on there was probably a lot more ceramic work done. There was probably a lot more longer span bridges done with more training that’s been done. We’ve probably look at things in a different light. There’d be a lot more implants placed into those scenarios. Now, we might use adult orthodontics much more so now than what we would have done back in two thousand, seven, two thousand and eight. But one thing that is nice to see, though, as you look back at old ceramic cases and when they’ve been done properly, they do well and they tend to give you a lot less headaches than a chip and composite can might do these days. You know, but, you know, was it the right thing to do then? Is it the right thing to do now? Well, opinions will differ, OK, but I think we’ve always wanted to learn. We’ve always wanted to move forward with the trends and with the Times, but also tried to make sure that what we were doing is clinically the right thing to do for that patient.

[00:58:59] So I know you listen to this podcast. So the final questions. And I’ll start with you. But it’s your last day on the planet. You’ve got two kids with you and you need to leave them with three pieces of advice. Will they be? First of all, I think I think honesty is is something that has always been really important to me, and it’s one thing that frustrates me when I don’t see honesty. I think if you try to never tell a lie, you never have to try and explain yourself, because you never have to try and remember the truths and the lies that you’ve told. I think you should always be honest with people. Sometimes you have to hold your hand up and say, I got it wrong. But it was coming from a place of honesty and it was it came from the right place. I would always want my kids to be, to be honest. The second thing would be hard work. And, you know, this is a phrase that hard work pays off and you can outwork most people. Some people are always going to be cleverer than you. But you can can you can you outwork this person in a lot of the challenges in life is just how many hours are you willing to do? How many can you repeat the same thing? Ten thousand times to say if you if you repeat something ten thousand times, you become a master of it.

[01:00:29] That’s a bit of a philosophy with dentistry. But that’s that can be transferred over to kick in free kicks or a driver or whatever you want to be. So the second one would be would be definitely be hard work. And I suppose the last one would be the ethos that we’ve talked about a bit today is is what’s the worst thing that can happen? Go for it if you think, well, the worst thing that can happen is that I can go back to what I was doing before. Well, that’s not a bad place. I’d like to think I was going to have my kids back. So if they tried a big elaborate scheme and it fell flat on the on the face, I’m always gonna have a spare room for them. So don’t be frightened to fail. Give it a crack going back to two thousand and six. That was our philosophy of if this bomb’s within a month, we’ll just go back and get a job somewhere. So those are probably the three things I would say.

[01:01:24] And I think it’s fair to say again, my sentiments would mirror exactly this. But what I want to pass on to my family and young ones, you know, and I think the only things I would probably say in addition to that is yet we know sheer hard work and determination is something that will get you everywhere, you know, and always just do your best on that front. And I would definitely want my kids as well to do what I’ve done, surround themselves by like minded people, surround yourself by people like you can learn from. And that will only help you grow as an individual and push things forward. But I think the other thing I would desperately want to pass on to my little girl is I’m guilty of one thing. And my mom told me this since day one, and it comes definitely from my father, is that I’m guilty of not being able to see the wood for the trees. And that’s what she’s told me for a long, long time. And I think I’m always one of these people who strive in for the next thing and wanting something to be bigger and better than what it was. Whereas I think you really do need to be able to step back and enjoy the here and now. And that’s something I definitely want my daughter to be competitive. I wanted to have drive, but I also wanted to enjoy every step of the journey and appreciate what she’s achieved along the way. And I think that’s something I would I would definitely like to change in her from what I have learnt locally.

[01:02:46] And that even if it was your last day on the planet and you passed and then somebody spoke about you, what would you want your legacy to be? Darren was complete the sentence.

[01:03:00] I would say as a dentist, I want Darren to be regarded as the clinician who doing everything he possibly could for every patient and not just to deliver the best possible experience and the best possible treatments. As a friend, I would like to be regarded as the person who my friends could turn to. And as a father and a husband, I would like to be the person that they needed the most and done what he could when he could to provide and deliver and to be the lovely.

[01:03:34] And what about you? And they how would you like to be remembered? I think first and foremost, as a someone that wasn’t too serious or could get it done, that was relaxed or can lose it ends, you know, someone to try to enjoy that the time on the way as well, someone that didn’t get too caught up with the little nitty gritty and just try to take a bit of a bit of a step back. But someone that you can always rely on, I suppose someone that if it was ever needed, I would step up, I would do what’s required. I wouldn’t be frightened to get stuck in and go that extra mile if it was really needed. And let’s say tomorrow, somebody said to Andy, you’ve got three days left. And you had your health and everything in place. What would you do for those 30 days? I would I would get on a plane if we could. I’ve always loved to travel. I’m fascinated by seeing different places. I’m someone who just likes to walk around and see different stuff. I get bored sitting down on a beach and my wife just loves to go and sit in the sunshine and chill. And I’m pasternack. Come and go and do this. And I go and see that. I love to see different cities and places to go to South America, um, probably Australia. I took about four months out after I worked for about a year and a half and three friends went and travelled all the way up the East Coast, went down to Melbourne. Just just there was no tomorrows. And for that one time in your life, having no tomorrows was something small. No idea. Don’t let tomorrow get in the way of today. Let’s just absolutely kill it today. Do whatever we want whenever we feel like it’s just such such an amazing mindset to not have to worry about tomorrow. And, you know, my four months in Australia was definitely not tomorrow’s, and yet we didn’t leave much in the tank of that four months of work.

[01:05:46] What about yourself? We are in 30 days left on the planet. Full health. I think I would do my damnedest to get to fill a plane with all of my nearest and dearest, and I would be jetting off to the sunshine and I would be doing everything in my powers to have the best possible signoff. I’d want it to be just one hell of a party and then being able to relax, chill again. I think the whole idea of tomorrow not being of concern would be an absolute ideal. But to be surrounded by your nearest and dearest and a sunset setting. Yeah, that would be where I would want to be. I’d probably throw in some sort of fast cars into that as well with me being a little bit of a petrol head and still have a car mechanic. I’d want that to play a part in that too. But a family would definitely be at the forefront of that.

[01:06:37] And friends for guys, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today. It’s been great.

[01:06:45] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging Leaders history. Your house, Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[01:07:01] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, 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.