Speaker1: We get some dentists have it and some dentists don’t have it. Right. And we all know that you could be the most fabulous clinical dentist in the world. If you can’t communicate with the patient, they’re not going to think that yet. We also all know dentists that do like crappy work. And I’m like, wow, how’d you get away with that? The patients are like, oh my God, that is the best dentist in the world. And I don’t know, man. I guess this is, I think maybe how you’re raised. I was very lucky that again, my parents, they work hard and I think that they are very like [00:00:30] down to earth people. So around that, you meet people from all different walks of life, so you learn how to communicate with them. And I think that, you know, if younger dentists were ever to say or they do say to me, they’re like, you know, give me some advice for how to grow my career, you know, to become a good dentist. Yeah. You’ve got to put your you’ve got to invest in yourself to learn the academia by that camera, to spend the time to put rubber dam on, not earn as much money for a few years because you’re learning [00:01:00] to perfect your skill. But once you’ve learned to perfect that skill, you need to be able to do that on patients by communicating to them their problems. And this is how we do it, right?

Speaker2: This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your [00:01:30] hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Speaker3: It gives me great pleasure to welcome George Cheatham, aka George the Dentist onto the podcast. There’s been a long time coming. Thank you very much. Um, it’s. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for coming all this way. Thank you.

Speaker1: It’s a pleasure. Nice to see you, Camden.

Speaker3: I’ve been I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time now. But, George, for anyone who doesn’t know, is one of the coolest dentists around. And, uh, definitely one of the most accomplished. Probably the top of your game right now, George. It’s [00:02:00] a it’s a it’s a wonderful thing because I’ve been asking loads of dentists what’s your favourite Instagram page? And yours is always in there, always in that list. And you know, you inspire so many people with the work itself. And, you know, if I was you, if I was as cool as you, I’d have myself all over it. But but you don’t feature that much. Um, and the work features and the work speaks for itself. And it’s a nice thing to see that, uh, young dentists. I’m talking to newly qualified dentists. And she was saying that one [00:02:30] of the main reasons she wants to do what she wants to do is your page, and you get like a second, third order effect that comes from something you’re doing that touch someone you’ve never even met before.

Speaker1: Yeah. I mean, thank you. Thank you very much. It it means a lot. And when, um, people do message me stuff like that, it it really, really does mean a lot. Yeah. No it does. And like, I don’t think we should be judging success off of popularity on an Instagram page. And there are so many other, [00:03:00] much, much more amazing dentists than I am that kind of just sail under the radar and just get on with what they do. Right? But yeah, and on the point, I don’t feature on it a lot. I don’t really love, I don’t you know, it’s not I’m not doing an Instagram page or social media to get popular or for people to know me or want to come and see me. Right.

Speaker3: So so we’ve got the you’ve got the classical reason why someone might do something like that is to attract [00:03:30] people to a course or something like that.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: But you have it feels like with you there’s no agenda whatsoever other than share your day. Yeah, but the learning points, even for me, who gave up dentistry 12 years ago, I kind of keep my sort of keep in touch with what’s going on clinically. Partly through your page. Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s a I feel.

Speaker1: Like a responsibility now.

Speaker3: It’s a weird thing. It’s a weird thing, man. Like jazz Galati’s podcast. Yeah. That for me, that’s a real sort of amazing bellwether of what’s going on.

Speaker1: Incredible in [00:04:00] the world.

Speaker3: And even if it’s a subject that even when I was a dentist, I didn’t give a damn about, like sleep apnoea or something. Yeah, he just has a way of teaching.

Speaker1: And yeah, I agree, he’s an enthusiastic individual, very charismatic.

Speaker3: And you too, dude. Yeah. Like in your own way. Yeah. You’ve really hit some hit on something and it’d be interesting to see where you take it.

Speaker1: Thanks, man. It’s just, I like since I started it because there were a few people that were starting the whole Instagram thing. I think we got in pretty early. [00:04:30] Right. And my, um, it was my practice partner. My first practice partner. Aaron was like, look, dude, you should start on Instagram because I think it’s going to be good for growing the practice initially. So then I remember driving in my car and it was like, oh, what should we call it? It’s actually him, Aaron, who was like, just call it like George the Dentist. I was like, all right, sweet, let’s do it. And then, like, if you look at it initially, the kind of posts are more about like me or whatever, but I very quickly got bored of that, realised that that’s not what I wanted to do. [00:05:00] So just literally shared my day to day work because it’s stuff I’m doing every day, taking photos so I can share the content. And people started to just like, like it a bit. And one of the main things that I like about it is that it makes my dentistry get better a lot quicker, like when you look at the quality of the photos or the work that I did from when I started the Instagram to what I do now, you know, it’s gone up leaps and bounds like more in that time frame than it did many that [00:05:30] time frames beforehand. Just keeps.

Speaker3: You accountable.

Speaker1: Keeps you but your your your quality appraising all your work. So you’re taking these photos of a case from start to finish. And you look at them on the screen after and you’re thinking, that’s shit, basically. Or you’re seeing something that there’s a flaw and you do a few cases and realise it’s the same thing. So then you’ll be like, well, actually, how do I fix that? And then you fix it for the next photos and you’re like, oh, that’s one less crappy thing in that series of photos. And then like, gradually [00:06:00] you work to get it like a bit better. And then so your dentistry gets it gets better and it keeps things interesting. It means that, you know, when I, when I have my camera at work and I take photos of the work that I do, I enjoy work, but at times where I just can’t be bothered to use my camera, I’m a bit rushed or the flash is broken or something like that. I’m like, oh, I didn’t really have a good couple of weeks there. It was a bit boring because it’s like it made me realise that it’s directly related to kind of. Quality of praising my [00:06:30] own work.

Speaker3: George, you know, with this podcast, we we tend to kind of start with the backstory. Where were you born? All of that. But what I found is sometimes there’s a burning question that I’ve got and I’m almost like papering over all the other bit. Waiting to get to the song straight to my burning question will answer that burning question, and then we’ll get back to the where were you born question? Yeah. So do you remember a time when you went from whatever you were, which we’ll get to in a minute? What were you whatever [00:07:00] you were to this guy who’s just, like, looking for excellence. Chasing excellence. Or do you still do not see yourself as someone chasing excellence? Yeah.

Speaker1: No, I do like. I think I’ve always triggered it. I think I’ve always wanted to provide the best that I can. So it’s always been something that I’ve wanted to do. But it’s just that as time goes on, you kind of create. You need time to create more of an environment to be able to provide that excellence. Right. And [00:07:30] that’s not just going through further education to become better. It’s putting yourself in the situation where you can put that academia into use and try things a thousand times, so you do actually get better at it. It’s finding the clinic that works for you to be able to, you know, provide you with the rubber dam, provide you with the good nurse that don’t limit you in terms of, you know, finding that practice owner that works with you. But, you know, the way that I’ve gone [00:08:00] on as well is that because I’ve been able to build my own practices, I can kind of forge that exact environment that I want. So nothing’s slowing me down. So I’m like, my nurse is trained, I’ve got the equipment, so I’m my only excuse, but then I’m not going to be. No dentist is going to be good at everything. Like you get some very, very talented dentists, right, that are good at, you know, they put the implants in, they do the perio soft tissue, soft tissue grafts, whatever. But I don’t do that. I kind of limit [00:08:30] my dentistry to what I do. And if there’s something else, like for example, like an endo or superior or the implant work, I have hired or formulated this team that are just so good at what they do as well, that we can provide that very conscientious care to our patients for that whole whole experience, which takes a lot of time. You know, it doesn’t you don’t just fall into that. It takes a lot of time and a lot of hours of persistence [00:09:00] into getting there.

Speaker3: But were you always that cat?

Speaker1: So no, no. Uni like I think that people go into dentistry. They don’t really. I mean, who knows? They want to be a dentist when they’re 1617. You don’t like your mum tells you basically, right. And maybe you’ve got that scientific background.

Speaker3: Is that what happened to you?

Speaker1: Yeah. So you do work experience in veterinary medicine, dentistry. You’re like, ah, dentistry is all right. And you know what? It was. So I did work experience and all of those because I was like quite sciency, right? My parents aren’t my dad. [00:09:30] Well, my dad’s a builder. My mom’s a nurse, right. General practice nurse. And I did lots of work in medicine. I said, I don’t really love this. I did loads of work experience in veterinary because my mum was like, you’re going to be a vet from like ten years old. So work experience, honestly, since I was like 11, 12 every week. And then my dad took me to a veterinary open day. Actually, there’s one in Camden. Yeah. That’s it. It was, it was there. We’ll call it the road right up the road. [00:10:00] And then there was this woman giving this lecture at the front. As she goes at the end, she’s like, look guys, you’ve you have to be the best to get into veterinary need like all A’s. And you’re going to come out and every year this is what you’re going to going to earn. And then my dad just like grabbed me by the scruff of my leg. He’s like, we’re out here, mate. You’re going into dentistry. So anyway, did dentistry work experience thought it was all right and kind of. Yeah, just just got into it.

Speaker1: And at uni I wasn’t hugely conscientious. Like I’d say I probably scraped [00:10:30] through uni from year one to year four. And when things started to become clinical in year five, that’s where I did like quite well. And. Came out with a really nice grade. Right. And then when you go into vet year. Again, vet year, I nearly actually got thrown out of it year before. Not for like fairly for grades, but being like misbehaved on these kind of nights out that you do. But anyway and then really like things started to [00:11:00] have to become a lot more professional at that. And I was focusing on work because I just hated coming home being like, I just don’t know what what the f I’m doing right? I don’t know if we should take that route out of her postgrad in it. I don’t know this or that. And you kind of at nights, you’re not sleeping in that world because you’re worrying about things. You’re worried that you’re just like, bad at this job. And, you know, it is it’s almost kind of tear provoking hours at work. I think most dentists have had that. And then so I [00:11:30] just started doing courses, getting better and started enjoying it more, just want to come better. So I think it comes it comes like mainly after uni. It was a thing that came.

Speaker3: Let’s get back to where was it you were growing up?

Speaker1: So I grew up in Surrey, in Ewell, Banstead, around there, Epsom and I went to senior school at King’s in Wimbledon. So very lucky that good school. My parents, um, gave up a lot of their own luxuries [00:12:00] and worked extremely hard to be able to send me to a school where they thought the opportunities would be apparent compared to elsewhere.

Speaker3: You said you did. You did the shadowing bit work experience? Yeah, yeah. You have jobs as well. Did you work? Yeah, yeah, yeah, work for money.

Speaker1: From what? All I get when I guess when you’ve got parents that are working a lot of hours, childcare becomes an issue during the holidays. So I would tend to work, just go to work with my dad [00:12:30] and well, like, you know, Labour. But I guess I was probably more slowing him down, like messing around. Right? So during holidays I’d do a little bit of labouring like that. And then when it got to kind of 15, 16 year old 16, I got a job as a waiter. I used to work at a restaurant called Tootsies in Wimbledon Village and just serve burgers. And I worked at a like a carvery, like a Toby Carvery. That was it.

Speaker3: The reason I asked that.

Speaker1: I worked there. [00:13:00]

Speaker3: Because so many of the people I’ve spoken to say that a lot of their sort of people skills. Yeah, um, work ethic has come from working as a child.

Speaker1: I don’t think it’s important. I think that if I ever have children, I would definitely get them working at a kind of minimal pay job because you do realise, you know, you kind of work your balls off for however long that shift is and you come out and you at the time you’re like, oh, that’s £60, but £60 for you. You’re [00:13:30] like, oh wow, I can get like a pair of trainers, I can get a pair of jeans. And that’s like absolutely amazing, right? Whereas if you don’t have that value of how hard it is to work or for some people to have that much money, you know, you don’t appreciate how the finer things come. So I think that that is really that is really important.

Speaker3: I was a spoilt 17 year old, okay. And my parents said, look, you’re working. Yeah. And they said, just go get a job in, in Oxford Street, okay.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And I got a job [00:14:00] in this suit shop.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: And I hated my life so much. Yeah, yeah, that I was a kid. Yeah, I used to. I used to take a taxi to work. Yeah, and a taxi back. Yeah.

Speaker1: And. But then that will give you the appreciation of, like. Actually that was like an hour and a half work. Yeah.

Speaker3: I spend the whole day. Yeah, yeah. In the taxi there back and my lunch. Yeah, yeah. And it really made me realise that some that some people’s lives. Yeah. And of course I didn’t have to take a taxi. It was a really. I was still a spoilt bitch. Yeah, [00:14:30] but you know what I’m saying. The reality check of it. Yeah. Is kind of, I guess, what you’re alluding to. Yeah, 100%. But I’ve got a 16 year old now. Yeah. And he’s done. He has volunteered a lot. Yeah, but he’s never done a real job. Yeah. And the way it’s, it’s weird to hear because he’s saying five A levels and working his arse off getting to the gym. And, uh, and, you know, the question of a job hasn’t yet come up then I’ve had so many of these conversations [00:15:00] that I’ve realised, I mean, Prav my co-host. Right. You know, Prav. Yeah. Puts all his success down to the corner shop. Yeah, yeah. He used to work at. Yeah.

Speaker1: I mean, when you see it, don’t we? I mean, we’ve all had these patients that are from different ends of the spectrum, whatever practice you’re in. Like if you’ve been doing I did a lot of NHS work. You see a lot of people that come in are very, very hard working, like kids that have jobs and stuff. And then you have your like now it’s more of patients that I get that a lot of them again, are like super, super wealthy, but [00:15:30] they do appreciate it. But then a lot of super, super wealthy and are just like, think that you’re almost like a labourer for them. And they. I have no appreciation that that crown that their mom’s paying for, or that root canal because they’re not brushing their teeth. Costs like your whole summers work if you’re actually working for that. And not everyone gets that like opportunity, these.

Speaker3: People skills that you’ve got that we just walked around enlightened. And every single person you made direct contact with and said hi to [00:16:00] face to face, were you always that, that or did that grow up? I mean, because it’s a brilliant thing. If you you can see your clinical skills on, on, on Instagram or however much we can see of them, we can see it there. If you’ve got the people skills that you, you know, you do. I know from knowing you, you know, the ingredients that go into being a brilliant dentist comes down to, you know, thinking, seeing, you’ve planning and then people.

Speaker1: It’s actually it’s a it’s a huge point. I think people skills [00:16:30] are against some dentists have it and some dentists don’t have it. Right. And we all know that you could be the most fabulous clinical dentist in the world. If you can’t communicate with the patient, they’re not going to think that yet. We also all know dentists that do like crappy work. And I’m like, wow, how’d you get away with that? Yeah, the patients are like, oh my God, that is the best dentist in the world. And I, I don’t know, man. I guess this is I think maybe how you’re raised. I was very lucky that again, my parents, they work hard [00:17:00] and I think that they are very like down to earth people. So around that you meet people from all different walks of life, so you learn how to communicate with them. And I think that, you know, if younger dentists were ever to say or they do say to me, they’re like, you know, give me some advice. For what? How to grow my career, you know, to become a good dentist. Yeah. You’ve got to put your you’ve got to invest in yourself to learn the academia, to buy that camera, to spend the time to put [00:17:30] rubber dam on, you know, not learn, not earn as much money for a few years because you’re learning to perfect your skill. But once you’ve learned to perfect that skill, you need to be able to do that on patients by communicating to them their problems. And this is how we do it. Right? And yeah, that’s going to go a few ways where some of your patients are going to listen to you and they’re going to say, okay, we have that treatment.

Speaker1: That treatment might not always be exactly the same because [00:18:00] of the patient’s economic situation, right? They might not have the time or they might not have the money to pay for what you want. So it might be that, you know, you need these onlays, but for now we’re going to do some composites because you can’t afford it, right? One day we’ll do those onlays. And so you’re going to listen to you or they’re not going to listen to you. And if they don’t listen to you, you’re like, well, that’s absolutely fine. It’s your choice. You go somewhere else. And that’s the I think in that situation the best thing to do. And I think it’s, you know, another bit of advice is that I always think that it’s very [00:18:30] important that dentists aren’t pressured into doing something that patients want them to do if they don’t think it’s actually the right thing, because that’s when things do go a bit tits up. Right. So for like a small example of that, we had a patient very recently at my pastor’s green practice that has come in for her implant consult because she’s been referred in Implantologists has said, yeah, great, but we can do all this. You need the perio consult first. You’ve got perio goes to the perio consult. You spend ages with the perio, consult [00:19:00] with the periodontist. Said, look, you’ve got perio. And then we get this like long ass, not a complaint, but like a kind of semi complaint that’s like, oh, you’re just trying to be a gatekeeper, trying to force me down the road.

Speaker1: So I spend loads of money before I get the implant right. And then you have to waste a load of time with the emails back. And it’s like, at this stage now I’m much more happy to say, look, have your money back for the console. This is wasting my time as it is. You know, you don’t say that to them, but you know, like, look, have the money back [00:19:30] for the consult. I’m sorry that, you know, there’s been this breakdown in communication and you’re not happy to follow the practice protocols, but we’re not going to compromise on a treatment because you don’t think you’ve got perio and you want you don’t want the perio treatment. It’s not I don’t want extra money here. I’m actually sending you away. So I don’t want to treat you. It’s not the money at all, but much better to get that bad Google review early on because you’ve told them to f off basically in a nice way, rather than [00:20:00] put that implant in. And then when that fails, they are not like associates come to me all the time. They’re like, oh no, they told me they followed me. They really wanted it. They really wanted it to do it. They really wanted to do the treatment. So I did it. And I’m like, that’s wrong though. You should be saying no to them, because what happens is that patient will very quickly forget that you’ve told them about the risks, and it’s not the perfect thing to do when it goes wrong. And they’ve forgotten those risks that you’ve said. So don’t get like forced into that, you [00:20:30] know.

Speaker3: On the situation you just mentioned, right. The of course, there are some patients who’ve had some some. Experiences or have got some sort of preconception or, by the way, walking into your parson’s green practice. Beautiful practice. Someone might think this place is just about making money. It’s on guard. Yeah, for that. But let’s put that to one side. Say, what was the error in that situation? There was a communication error somewhere, right? Whether the periodontist, the person who [00:21:00] sent them to the periodontist. Yeah. That the touch points in between. No.

Speaker1: 100%.

Speaker3: We have to take responsibility for even that situation 100%.

Speaker1: And now you look back and think, well, actually, maybe it was a point of the between the implantology. Yeah, exactly. Between the implantology and the periodontist. Maybe it was more of a, you know, this is definitely like thing you need to have this sorted. And the reasons for this is because this implant was fail and we don’t want to waste your money. Right. Maybe in that [00:21:30] situation that’s where you come to. And then maybe we could have given out like another like leaflet or something like that. Right. But then again and we do try to have every single. The patients are going to complain about anything if you tell them they need a filling and they haven’t got symptoms because you believe they need a filling, if you do the filling and it gets sensitivity, they’re going to complain. But if you don’t do the filling and you haven’t informed them that they need the filling, that’s [00:22:00] the worst thing. Because I think that in my history, the the mild like complaints that I’ve had are more they’re kind of more the undertreatment rather than the overtreatment thing. It’s not like you have put those crowns on. It’s more like, oh, actually, you know, that infection there has got worse now that didn’t get treated initially. And I’ve lost the tooth and you’re like, well, you know, sometimes you try to be too nice to patients and it’s you’ve got to really inform them about everything. [00:22:30] But at the end of the day, your patients are going to moan. That’s just what they’re going to do. And that’s that’s what they do. You can’t be right in every situation. And I think as time goes on as well, you start to learn it, to learn to take it like less personally. And you’re like, well, look, that’s just what they’re going to. You’re out to moan, right? And I just think that at least I’m not married to you. Yeah.

Speaker3: Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right. We need to, I think, especially in the environment [00:23:00] now, um, we need to think of even being sued as part of the job.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Because because, you know, plenty of people are getting sued for no reason. Yeah. At the same time, a lot of the younger dentists are kind of real disabled by their fear.

Speaker1: Yeah, I.

Speaker3: Agree, and we need to get it out there as well. Yeah. That that, you know, the fear of messing up is the thing that makes you mess up. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker1: And it also means that the fear of messing up actually means that you’re not going to develop [00:23:30] in your career. Because if you’re worried that your root canal is going to fail every time, yeah. You’re not going to start to practice root canals at the beginning. If you’re going to worried that you’re going to refer everything, you’re just going to become like basically a treatment coordinator, right? Yeah.

Speaker3: So there’s a balance, right?

Speaker1: There’s a balance. I think that people are going to complain. And that’s just what it is. And whoever you are, if you’re the best dentist in the world, people are going to complain. And it’s just learning that actually trying to trying to learn [00:24:00] to not to take it personally, which is a very hard job to do, that you’re always going to take it personally, but we all get it.

Speaker3: So look, we normally get to this darker part of the show a lot later. But while we’re on the subject, yes, let’s just get straight to it based based on black box thinking, right? Where, you know, if a plane crashes, they share with the whole community what happened, what went wrong, so that the whole community can learn from that mistake? Yeah. In medical, we tend [00:24:30] to hide our mistakes a little bit because blame becomes the main subject. Yeah. And no one wants to be blamed. Yeah, yeah. And not talk about the subject because we feel, I don’t know embarrassed. Yeah. By mistakes. And hence I never get to learn from your mistakes you know. But to go against that on this pod, we like to say what comes to mind when I say. Big clinical mistakes in your time.

Speaker1: It’s it’s [00:25:00] back to that exact point of saying no. And I think that in the past I’ve been pressured into things thinking, oh, this is just quick. We get this done. And like, okay, so example of this. So I had a patient this was a couple of years ago now at my Wimbledon clinic. She came in. She had like beautiful teeth. She’d have orthodontics elsewhere. I was like, wow, you got lovely teeth. She’s like, I want cosmetic bonding. I think the problem is now is that people come in to with the whole social media thing. They come into your practice and [00:25:30] want they want composite bonding, even though they don’t know what it is like because they think that, oh, it’s just that thing that’s going to make me a bit better. It’s like that, like facial treatment or whatever. It’s like, well, you’ve got nice teeth. They’re really nice. And line. There might be the odd like kind of little edge that’s not so neat. But she’s like, yeah. So anyway you’re like, okay, we’ll do it. And then you’re like, well do a mock up, tiny little mock up. And she’s like, yeah, I love it, love it. I’m like kind of questioning, should I be doing this or not? And then you get round to that appointment of doing the bonding. [00:26:00]

Speaker1: And I remember doing this bonding and I only do I do minimal bonding. I’m not one of these people that does lots of composite veneers, because I don’t like the kind of I don’t necessarily think they’re reversible. Right. So did a little bit of bonding at the end. She like looks in the mirror and I kind of face drops and she goes downstairs to pay the bill and she comes out the bathroom and my receptionist is like, she’s just in tears here. She, she like really like hates the work you’ve done. So I’m like, I say this to every patient I do bonding on. I’m like, now I’ve learnt my lesson from that. [00:26:30] I’m like every time I do bonding on a patient, I say, well, first of all, now if a patient I really doesn’t don’t think it’s going to make that much of a difference. I’m like, you just don’t need this. The amount of maintenance that you’re going to have, this far outweighs the benefits that you’re going to get. And it’s better to have that disappointment or that appointment rather than that disappointment at the bonding appointment. Um. So I think like saying what happened.

Speaker3: Okay.

Speaker1: So. Oh and oh because then what happens is I’m [00:27:00] like look. And what I learned and what I say to patients now I’m like, when you look in the mirror, you are not going to like this bonding. And I don’t think. You know, you see again, these things on social media, these reveal appointments where everyone’s like, oh my God, I love it. I’m in tears. It doesn’t really happen like that. Well, maybe mine’s not that good, man. So that doesn’t happen to me anyway, right? Uh, you need some hype for that now. Um, and then basically I was like. So I said, look, live with this, right? We can make some minor adjustments now, [00:27:30] but what we do in, like, we’re going to come back in two weeks and then we’re going to adjust. And so now the way that I approach it, I say to patients that you’re not going to like this. You’re going to think they’re too big. You’re always going to think they’re too big, because most of these patients you’re doing bonding on because they’ve got wear, so they’re used to their shorter teeth anyway, right. So you’re not going to like it.

Speaker1: But then tomorrow you might like it a bit more. Two days time you might like it a bit more three days time. You’ll probably like it. In two weeks time, you’ll come back and tell me that I was right about the appointment. I mean, it didn’t go down quite so like that, this [00:28:00] girl. And in the end, you end up doing an adjustment. You end up doing another adjustment. And by the end that you make her happy. She’s pretty much exactly like she was when she came in in the first place. So she’s happy in the end. And look, it’s fine, because I’d also say to patients that this is additive, this is bonding. We can cut it back after. This is all, you know, I can sleep knowing that we can get you back to where you came in. Whereas if I cut those teeth down for irreversible work, I think veneers are a great option for a lot of patients. But, [00:28:30] you know, if you’re one of these people that are very quickly to chop into teeth, then you might have a problem, right?

Speaker3: And I feel like I feel like that’s I hear you about that case, but I feel like that didn’t really go very badly.

Speaker1: Yeah. I mean, I guess it’s not one.

Speaker3: That went badly.

Speaker1: I don’t know. I’ve kind of like I’ve had endings that have failed, you know, I’ve tried to build up teeth that at the end I’m like, hero. Hero? Yeah. You try to do the hero antics and then at the end, you’re like, kind of. You regret it because a couple of years later, again, [00:29:00] although, you know, you’ve tried to fix the tooth that has got a terrible prognosis, you’ve told the patient and then it fails a few years later and the patient’s forgotten about that. They’re like, why didn’t it last as long as the old crown? You’re like, because that first crown was placed when there was like a bunch of tooth tissue there, right? Um, so, like, it’s not like I know that’s not they’re not disasters and they’re like kind of mini things, but, you know, I, I’ve avoided implants, so I haven’t gone wrong with surgery. I haven’t put implants in a sinus. So it’s, um, you know, a lot of the time is, [00:29:30] is, um, it’s like patient expectation, like the odd when I had, I had, like, a complaint once that I was seeing this kid. And this kid was like a fucking nightmare, like always came in eating like sweets at the appointments, you know, they come in, I’m like, look, you’ve got a bit of demonisation there.

Speaker1: It’s like, do we start trying to treat now with this kid’s like running up the walls. And then you say to them, mum, look, you know, let’s try and fluoride, let’s try the brass, let’s try to change the diet. Six months. But then that kind of went on a bit long. [00:30:00] So a couple of years later you’re like, look, you definitely need fillings now, but I’ve got refer you because I can’t treat you went to see a pedes dentist in a place before I had the pedes dentist came out with their, like, foreground treatment plan because, you know, if you’ve got you’ve got a kid in the chair and you’re sedating them first, the sedation costs. Second of all, if you’re going to be treating those teeth, get them all treated at the same time. So then you have then I had the dad kicking off, being like, I’m going to sue you because they need loads of work and you’ve never told me. And I’m like, well, look, you know, your kid’s like seven [00:30:30] years old and they’re their first molars need fillings. So have you forgotten the fact that that tooth’s only been in the mouth for, like, six months to a year or something? But, you know, parents forget when they’re little kids in the chair. You had a.

Speaker3: Letter.

Speaker1: Had I actually didn’t. Yeah. No, I think I had the letter for the, um, like from the solicitor or whatever. But then fortunately I had the notes. I had the x rays, I have an Intraoral camera that I take photos pretty much of every single patient [00:31:00] that comes in and in my notes, like looking back, I’m like, thanks, fuck, I wrote those things. It was patient, came in the chair and was holding like a chocolate bar or and then another appointment. I was like, patient came in and her sister, his sister said, oh, he’s always eating things. So you in the end you’re like, well, you know, what can I do? Like, it’s not like kind of this is more of a. Behavioural parents thing rather than what I do. How did.

Speaker3: You get. How did you get out of.

Speaker1: Just sent my letter back with all [00:31:30] of that. But by the time I’d written my letter or had helped writing my letter from my defence at the end of my writing that letter, I was like, yeah, it’s kind of not my fault. I was like, actually, you should be the one in front of like, social services or something for not listening to me and coming in. And then I didn’t get a reply after that, so I didn’t. It’s not like it hasn’t gone down the lines where, you know, it’s like a serious thing.

Speaker3: We’re so in it. Yeah, that we forget that like sometimes if that’s happened to your kid. Yeah. You obviously are going to blame yourself. [00:32:00] Yeah. There’s many don’t. Yeah. And so you look you think, well I’ve been sending my kid to the dentist. I can, you know, in a way I can see it happening. I get it from their side as well.

Speaker1: I get it, especially when it’s like the father who hasn’t been to any of the appointments. So they haven’t seen the seen what? I’ve said. He’s just paid the bills and then. And then. Yeah, exactly. And not seen the kid running around like opening up drawers and chucking shit everywhere. And it’s like, oh, maybe you’d understand if you were like, see these things. But again, I get it. Like everyone has this [00:32:30] like, uh, reply attitude. Everyone has a response to something, right? And they maybe have got very heated in the moment and replied before they’ve actually thought about it. And unfortunately, working in a public sector, we just have to deal with that.

Speaker3: On reflection, would you have done anything differently with this case?

Speaker1: Referred it earlier to a specialist, and as soon as I kind of start to see a small issue, we I think as dentists, we want to be too nice to patients sometimes and we get worried about the fact [00:33:00] that we’re like, oh, you need a crown. It’s going to cost X amount or you need a filling. Oh, and it’s another one because you need one another a year ago. Oh, it’s another one. You need one a year ago because you kind of feel a bit like almost embarrassed that you think that you’re just trying to get the money out, money out of them. Right. But actually it’s like, look, you’ve got a problem here and you’re probably doing a this justice. Yeah. Or like an injustice. That’s the word, um, saying that, you know, kind of being like, oh, we give it another six months if it gets worse. So if you start [00:33:30] to see that little issue, you know, it’s about communicating the real problems that that patient has and saying, look, you probably will be better down. You’re going to see a paediatric specialist. And then it’s I think it’s.

Speaker3: That you’re right. Because that sort of comprehensive, not even treatment planning, but I think I had Costas on and he was saying, you know, Frank spear always said, do you want your cardiologist not to tell you the full story? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so but you’re right, there’s this feeling [00:34:00] because our profession is so trust based. Yeah. And I think, I think intraoral cameras are the most important piece of equipment in a dental surgery for that reason.

Speaker1: Yeah. I agree.

Speaker3: Um, when when I was a dentist, I used to adore the idea of this filling doesn’t need changing, but do you want to change it? Um, to make it look better? Yeah. You know, like a stained composite. Yeah. On the front. Simply because the question of trust wasn’t in there anymore. Yeah. You know, and I used to just get off on that, like to.

Speaker1: I think [00:34:30] it’s like. So the intraoral camera is amazing once you get a scanner. Yeah. That. And if you have your own one in your room, that’s amazing because like some of these scanners now take photos of everything. Right. So every single new patient of mine gets scanned. I have a one hour new patient exam. And at the end I sit them up in the screen in front of them. I’ve got their x rays on the right, I’ve got the scanner, and I just walk them around the mouth and I’m like, look at that black bit, look at that, look at that, look at that. And I think it’s really the important thing is [00:35:00] trying to work out and having that discussion of. What kind of patient is this? Is this? And I literally asked them. Sometimes I’m like, are you a proactive patient that really wants to deal with everything and don’t take any risks? You know, and then we might end up doing like the quadrant dentistry, right? Because actually, if you’re doing a filling on the five and the six got a bit of a crappy amalgam, maybe it’s better to do the six at the same time, because when is there never caries under amalgam, right. There’s always carries underneath it. You say to the patient, look, you’re numb. The rubber [00:35:30] dams on it actually only takes you ten minutes more to to deal with this. And you know, that’s not going to be a problem for a while.

Speaker1: We don’t have to do that though. We need to hit the five because it’s got like this open carries or whatever. If you’re happy to accept the risk of leaving this six for a bit, you know we’ll kick that can down the road and do it a few years later. Yeah, exactly. And then when you kind of walk around the whole mouth like this, this is when I find when a lot of patients that come in to see. Like [00:36:00] to see. I’m lucky now that patients come in to see me, right? So they kind of trust me before they even come in. A lot of these patients end up having more comprehensive care because time is the precious commodity for them. So they don’t want to be in that chair every six months having like another filling. They’re like, just get the quadrant out of the way, get the quadrant out of the way, and everything comes with risk. You’re like, look, you might pulpitis you might need a root canal, you might do crown, but you can see on this screen, you can see on that x ray where these problems are. And at the end, usually I just write them a little kind [00:36:30] of letter to be like, you know, it’s if you’re more proactive, if you’re not, we do this. And so they can always reference back to that to know that I’ve talked to them about it in the first place.

Speaker3: So your particular superpower then. Would you say it’s in the in the treatment room? Or would you say it’s, uh, yeah.

Speaker1: I think with.

Speaker3: The team and.

Speaker1: I definitely don’t think there’s any form of super power thing coming on. I think it’s like just trying to. Like, I enjoy work now because I [00:37:00] have tried to set up, try to eliminate all the things that might lead to like a bad sort of treatment. Right? So I’ve spent a lot of time getting the team right, getting the equipment right, putting the hours in and just focusing on what Dental kind of like to do and what I think. I’m all right. Uh.

Speaker3: Yeah. But what gives you the most sort of fulfilment or pleasure? Is it is it you sort of zone out during a treatment, okay. And, and all that and meditate in that zone. Or do you love meeting people for the first time and [00:37:30] you’re really good with them, or do you like making plans and plotting and opening a practice?

Speaker1: So what gives you. So when I’m when I’m doing my clinical work, I like it when it’s an afternoon where I’m doing like a quadrant, right, where patients got rubber dam on, they’ve got their earphones, they’re watching the TV, they’re numb, and I can just spend 2 or 3 hours doing a few composites and on prep or something, right? Because I’m like at the end I’m like, I did everything as best as I could. Photos look good. I’m happy with that. And they paid their money. And actually that’s been a decent [00:38:00] afternoon of cash. But what? As the years go by, what I start to get more enjoyment of probably is seeing like the growth of the business and the practices and looking at, you know, getting another treatment room, getting a nice chair and seeing like we had our Fulham Road Dental Christmas party on Saturday at the clinic. And it was nice seeing just so many people there, just having such a laugh together. And, you know, they’re all drunks. They’re like, [00:38:30] I love working here or whatever. So I actually think they probably do love working there because they come there and everything is set up in the right way for them. And also as you grow, you start to build this business that one day is going to be, you know, sellable for more money, basically. And that money doesn’t drive me. I’m very happy with simpler things. I don’t have a car, I cycle everywhere, but one day I do want to have the luxury of being able to go [00:39:00] away for a month and not be hassled and not have to work, but money still coming in from the business.

Speaker3: It’s more than that, isn’t it? You want to realise your potential?

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. I don’t like wasting time.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah. Um. Because money. You know, the thing about money is you can buy things and things are ridiculous. No, there’s no.

Speaker1: It’s a cosmetic around the.

Speaker3: Single thing that’s, that’s going to be useful for you unless it’s like a helping someone thing. Yeah. And then you can buy experiences which are, which [00:39:30] are fun. Yeah. Experiences are good. I’m all for that. But money’s limited, isn’t it? No, but essential question. Yeah, that’s really important. I, I think that’s a really important thing. Like I you can you can feel at the end of that time when you go for your month in Maldives. Yeah. You can think to yourself, did I live up to my potential. Did I, did I really do everything that I could have done. Yeah. Or didn’t I, you know. And then what are the reasons I didn’t, you know, because some people want an easy life. Some people want, you know.

Speaker1: They’re I [00:40:00] get it as well. And I think it’s like, you know, you work so hard and put the hours in to build the business so you can have that month off and go and explore or have a nice experience, or go for lunch with someone and not worry about getting up at 8 a.m. the next day for work. But then again, you know, completely on the flip side of that, if you experience life with like a hippie life where you’re travelling and you kind of are living on a shoestring, you don’t need that. Yeah, exactly. Right. Maybe I think I think.

Speaker3: About that all the time. Yeah, yeah. Because [00:40:30] I know a lot of people, you know, busy, busy. Not even in dentistry. They’re busy in the city or whatever, buying back their happiness. Yeah. In in three weeks of the year. Yeah. And the other 47 days or whatever. We’re just not happy. Yeah. And but at the same time, you do seem to carry it off insomuch as it seems like you’re really enjoying yourself. Um, yeah. I mean, I seem to do it effortlessly.

Speaker1: Yeah. I mean. I think I work a lot of hours [00:41:00] and I do like kind of when I’m up, I’m generally I’m always doing something like I still clinic wise, I’m in the clinic most days, 8 to 5 still. And bear in mind, you know, three practices and a dental lab to run. So when you’ve got that many people comes the admin. So when’s the admin happen? The admin happens at weekends. Admin happens in evenings. It’s recruitment. It’s HR it’s this and that right. Well like you’re quickly checking an email when the queuing lights going or something like that right.

Speaker3: What’s [00:41:30] the role you play. You’ve got partners in each of these businesses.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah I have great role.

Speaker3: You play.

Speaker1: I have great partners and it’s just kind of fit in with where we did. Let’s just say my place in Wimbledon that my partner is Aaron Yusuf, that I’m extremely lucky to have as a partner. It’s like we just kind of muddle in with everything. I don’t really deal with the accounts or anything like that or the money side of things, and you just try to chip in where you are. And historically, I spent a lot more time at the clinic, so a lot [00:42:00] of it would be kind of ironing out the patient issues, right? Patients, you know, the retainer hasn’t arrived or blah, blah, blah. And then when I’ve gone into business with Mark, which I went into business with like probably three years ago now, he was actually a patient of mine and he was in private equity. And he read something that said, if you don’t have a business by the age of 43, you’re very unlikely to ever have your business. Right? So he was approaching 43. So he was like, actually, I want to start my [00:42:30] own business now and get out of private equity. And one thing led to another, and I just ended up going into business with him. So now we’ve got two clinics and a, um, a lab. And I mean, I’m like the medical side of things. So I’m the recruitment, you know, the equipment, knowing what people want and trying to iron out those things. Whereas he’s more like the financial and that the accounts and growth of the business and the marketing and that kind of thing. Right. But, you know, you gel [00:43:00] and it’s just you work out what you need to deal with and you just try to deal with it without taking any glory for solving that problem. And hopefully it works.

Speaker3: And so with his with his private equity background, is there like a plan to open 100 of these?

Speaker1: You know what it is. It’s like initially like you were talking about before, right? We had the idea that maybe you just open 4 or 5 at the same time at the beginning, right? Yeah. That’s where during that time I was like, man, I’m quite nervous about this because already I’ve got one. [00:43:30] And suddenly if we just open these or take over, you’re taking over a huge amount of problems. And and that is just going to be manic for a long time until you iron out that management structure. Right. And then in the end we sort of like actually maybe we open a squat and then it ended up being like, let’s just open the squat thing so we can build the value of the practices rather than having to pay someone, you know, a couple of million quid for and was after whatever it was, it was actually kind of like during Covid. Covid. Yeah, during Covid, [00:44:00] because we were when we were building this place, we were like, actually the kind of ventilation systems what you’re putting in now, there are no answers for anything during that time. But, you know, I am extremely, extremely lucky to have fantastic partners that are understanding. They they’re just like so enthusiastic about the growth. And also, you know, when you’re looking at a problem to deal with, it’s a lot less of a problem when you’ve got someone there to discuss it with. Because even if you’ve got [00:44:30] a great idea or a good idea, you’re always going to doubt yourself. Whereas you’re like, oh, I think we should do this. And they’re like, yeah, you’re like, yeah, it’s you get enthusiastic about it. But you know, the team wise, it’s not just in terms of the partner, it’s building that structure underneath it. So your managers, your reception, your marketing, the support staff, the the clinical team, that is like a huge part of it. And everything just works. You know, it takes a long time to get that to work together to make [00:45:00] this successful practice, hopefully without any problems, that starts to make money.

Speaker3: On the subject of co-founders partners, right? I’ve got partners and enlightened, but I know some people. Can’t deal with partners. They want to they want to be alone in the endeavour and just tell people what to do in hiring. Yeah, that the skills. But for me, I’d have serious trouble starting a business by myself. I agree, I feel like number one, what you just said, very important because the business is all about problem [00:45:30] solving and. Yeah, problems. Right? Yeah. And problems shared with your partners is so much better. But number two, I just think that I’ve got several proper blind spots. Yeah, that someone else needs to fill in.

Speaker1: I’m not good with financials at all. And so I’m like, let’s deal with the figures like but which also takes a lot of trust, right? When I trust my partners. Absolutely like 100%. But I could easily get mugged off with something like that because I just trust so, so much that these things work like by [00:46:00] vice versa. I remember when we were setting up our first squat for the road Dental we had, we looked at the sea, we were like, okay, we got to get this axi sorted. And you look at this list and you just open this folder of like, you try to build this list of stuff you got to sort. And I remember looking at it being like, oh my God, what the hell are we doing here? But then, you know, you, you take things one by one and you start ticking it off and building a dental practice. I don’t think it’s necessarily the hardest thing in the world. It’s just quite, a quite a lot of stuff [00:46:30] to just start ticking off. It’s not that hard. It’s just quite a lot. Well, well.

Speaker3: Well what you did well I mean I live there, right? I live very I go to that Gail’s like okay. Yeah. That’s where me and my family go for coffee. Yeah yeah yeah. So but you know so I was watching I was watching practice. I didn’t know if it was yours to start with. Yeah. Yeah, but it’s a busy practice very quickly.

Speaker1: Yeah. I mean it’s in fact touch wood that carries on where we go. I mean, it’s been two and a half years now and it’s [00:47:00] starting to get very busy, which is you can tell.

Speaker3: It’s a, it’s a busy there’s a lot, a lot of people working there, a lot of people coming in and out of there. Yeah. And that is hard. I think you’re right. It’s not. In the end, it’s not hard to find a building seacc if you’ve done it, especially with you, you’ve had enough experience to get the right team in to build. And by the way, your dad, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Very general experience. Yeah. Experience with your dad. Yeah. Um, but making it successful now I want to dig into that. Right.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: What did you do on day one? No patience. [00:47:30] So what?

Speaker1: So what’s different with. So all three practices have been a slightly different setup, right? In fact, that number one, Ridgway Dental I had worked there. I started working there a year out of, straight out of, in a private practice, just doing like a day a week. Right. His associate wasn’t that busy, it wasn’t that well set up and that kind of thing. But as time got on, 4 or 5 years in, I was like, we kind of started talking about me taking it over because they wanted to get out of dentistry, [00:48:00] and I ended up basically taking it over with Aaron, who was my boss at another NHS clinic that I was working at as well. And then we’ve basically grown that thing like organically over. I know how long we’ve had it, like eight years now or something like that. Right? So that’s more being like a kind of slower, steady growth seeing patients there you go and tell their mate they’re happy. So they come in and see you. And additional slow traditional slow burner. Right. Fulham was like a bit different because it [00:48:30] was a complete squat. So day one there aren’t any patients but because Wimbledon isn’t too far away and I have this list at Wimbledon where I’m just fucking like just slammed. I’m like, I’m at Fulham on that day, just come and see me there. Right? And they come and see me there. They might need an endo, they might need an implant. They go and see them there.

Speaker1: And again, I have to be very understanding, like Aaron has been so understanding of that. And he’s not like she’s not getting it. He’s not. Yeah. He does not get anything. But he’s like I just see the patient there. You know, if we [00:49:00] can’t get them out for if we can’t do the extraction here for four weeks, get it done at Fulham, it keeps the patient happy. But then Aaron has other practices that are quite local as well. So we all we it’s we just understand this right. And because patients the Instagram are like blowing up a bit a lot of patients wanted to see me. I could kind of see them at Fulham because I didn’t have a waiting list there, whereas it’s like a few months at. Wounded. So that kind of helped the growth of that. And then once patients come to me, I could refer them in-house for other stuff. Right. But [00:49:30] then your associates that you hire there, especially when you’re hiring specialists as well, have got to also be very understanding. You’re like, look, don’t worry, we’ll get there. I’m sorry, there’s only one patient today or no patients sometimes. Right. But we start we also started to put our foot on the gas in terms of marketing at the very beginning. And we spent a huge amount, but enough for a consistent period that we got our website rocking that, you know, people type in for the dentist. Yeah, the whole Google thing [00:50:00] as well.

Speaker3: Um, like paid ads.

Speaker1: Uh, no.

Speaker3: We, I think we did that.

Speaker1: For a small amount, but we didn’t do that much like social media stuff, because I found that when we started to go down that line, you know, everyone gets sucked problems with dentists, it’s sometimes they really undersell themselves. And I think that it’s a race to the bottom. Everyone’s like, well, I do Invisalign for three grand. I do it for two and a half grand, and you get like three retainers and a back massage and it’s like, come on, guys. Like, if you do that, someone else is going to do that. And then so you start to do these like Invisalign free consult days. [00:50:30] And a lot of the patients that you get in are just so they’re not just so they don’t they’re not going to spend that much money or appreciate that the work that they’re doing, because they’ve got three grand they want to spend on everything, and they don’t want to fix that broken tooth at the back. They don’t want to get that root canal treatment done. So you don’t attract the patients that really care properly around their mouths. So we didn’t like focus on that at all.

Speaker3: I mean, what you’re discussing there is positioning.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: How is the [00:51:00] surgery positioned the business position. Yeah. In your you know something I talk to Adarsh about quite a lot. Right. That you know in the, in the area when any area there’s, there’s a bunch of people going on price. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. It’s not anywhere near as many people going on quality. Yeah. Generally. Yeah. And so the price end of the market tends to be quite, quite busy. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Um yeah. At the same time you know, it’s a different way of working. Right. It’s a [00:51:30] but I think it’s just as difficult being cheap and there’s expensive.

Speaker1: Yeah. And there’s, there’s, there’s your, you have your NHS dentists, you have your specialist dentist and there’s everything in between. And it’s what fits that person right. Yeah. So then Fulham we kind of started like that in house referrals. And then you start to get your reputation. And this is actually probably what social media has had the biggest effect for me. And I didn’t even realise this when I was starting to build it at the time. It wasn’t that I get a lot of patients through it, but you’ve seen [00:52:00] it right? It’s very Dental. I know patients want to see like bleeding gums and all that kind of stuff, right? But what it helped me was recruit and it helped me get the right dentists and specialists that want to work with me because they see the environment, they see the standards that you uphold, and they also start to see the team that you’re building and they’re like, oh, actually, that guy is fucking wicked at implants. He does auto transplantation. I’d love to do endo at that clinic to work on cases with him. [00:52:30] Yeah. So that really helped the recruitment. And then with my social media, because I have such a big Dental following, it starts to build the referral list as well. So you’ve got this like three pronged attack. One, you’ve got your own patients coming in, two, you’ve got your referrals. Three you start to build a pretty good website that people start finding you through that.

Speaker1: And then after that, that fourth prong is that you start to get that organic growth and then, you know, you can almost start to cut back on the whole, like marketing [00:53:00] thing once patients are coming in just because their mates had a good time there. Yeah. But then the third practice, which is Direct Dental in Wandsworth, that’s going to be a bit of a different approach. Again, because I’m not working there. I don’t have the amount of days in the week. So we’ve got a few dentists that are amazing associates, starting at more of like a kind of general list that are also going to be very understanding at the beginning. It’s going to be a bit quieter, but then we’re really trying hard with the website, with the marketing to [00:53:30] get you kind of high in Google rankings and stuff like that. So it’s just that we’re going to have to rely on that to get that initial growth to patients. And then once those patients start coming in again, you get the good reputation, the good Google reviews people come from that. That will be a slower burn to Fulham because, you know, the kind of principle of the practice isn’t working there. Um, but I think if you want to scale and you want to grow and have ten practices, 20 practices, you’ve got to get that last model probably right, because [00:54:00] it can’t be everywhere.

Speaker3: Is that the plan?

Speaker1: I don’t know, I mean, I mean, I would I would like to yes. And it’s an option. Well hopefully it’ll be an option if we don’t go bankrupt first. Right. And I think that that is what I would like. I would definitely like I would feel disappointed if I looked back. It didn’t try that and I hadn’t made the most of it and I hadn’t had more clinics. But it’s getting that balance of growing at a responsible rate where you can uphold standards as well, because I don’t want to suddenly open ten practices and. You’re [00:54:30] not controlling the quality of work that’s coming out there. And also it’s like growing businesses take just so much money. It’s like building a clinic is not cheap. So, you know, the money that the first practice starts to make gets all invested in that second practice and you’re taking loans and stuff out, and then it takes a while for that to start to earn a bit of money. And then the third one comes. It’s all like it’s, you know, you never really get a breath and you never really, [00:55:00] you know, it’s always a few.

Speaker3: Qualified 13 years ago. Yeah. So you feel like you’ve been running all that time. You haven’t had a chance to. Yeah. I guess the real benefits of it. Yeah.

Speaker1: Oh, yeah. No, it’s definitely not building that business. I think reaping those benefits probably comes in like. Well, I’m hoping it comes. I’m hoping it’s in a couple of years, but I think it’s more like that kind of 20 years mark, rather than going into a practice and expecting it to be all like [00:55:30] great at the beginning. And anyone who’s opened, bought a practice or opened a squat practice like will realise this quite quickly. And they’re like, actually, damn, this is costing so much money. It takes a lot of money to make this work. And it’s a different model to buying practices, because if you’re buying practices that are already running, you know, you might be able to just take on a load of debt and just buy a ton of practices. But are those practices going to be exactly with the values and the environment that you [00:56:00] want that practice to be? Probably not, because you’re working with what’s already there, rather than actually sculpting what you want to grow as what you think is a beautiful, beautiful place. Yeah.

Speaker3: Industry is interesting, isn’t it? Because you’ve got dentex, for instance, that owns many, many 80 or 90 private practices that all have different names. Yeah, different principles, different ways of doing things. And then you’ve got, you know, my dentist that’s got 600 doing exactly the same [00:56:30] thing. Yeah. Um, but if you were thinking of scaling, wouldn’t it made sense to sort of brand them? Correctly. You weren’t thinking about that? No, I.

Speaker1: Mean, this is the branding wise it I quite again we’ve got I’ve got options. That’s the thing. That’s the thing. I’ve got options. So if we went down the way of the whole point about the direct Dental was that it’s almost like a sports direct thing, right? That at first that we hire [00:57:00] we have a marketing guy that just works with us now. Right? And I was like, look, don’t you think it sounds a bit like Sports Direct? And he’s like, boom, perfect, we’re going for it then, because I was like, I see that as like a shitty thing, right? But he was like, you know, people remember that. That’s what we want to go for. So, you know, the next practice might be another direct Dental, not Wandsworth Direct Dental wherever. Right. But then, you know, you’re also like, well, the Ridgeway Dental and the Fulham Road Dental if you had a problem where you’re being referred for a specialist [00:57:30] root canal, do you think that you would prefer to go to a place that’s called like Fulham Road, Dental or do you think if you went to direct Dental you’d be like, actually, does that sound a bit cheap? It’s I don’t know.

Speaker3: About expensive name there if you wanted it to.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: Well it’s branding. Branding is such a funny thing. Yeah. There’s no hard and fast rules about it. But, you know, it’s interesting because because you’re within with the guy, you’d expect that, um, the dreams are bigger in a way. No, but.

Speaker1: We talk we talk [00:58:00] about this. And again, it’s just this it’s responsible growth at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. And the initial conversation that we did have when we first started this, we were like, let’s just go five, we go ten, we go 20, we go 30. And it’s not a discussion that we don’t have in the fact that actually if we get this third one right, do you go and take investment and do you take a few million quid that you could probably get? No, I don’t think it’d be that hard to get that now and then be like, look, we can show that we can do it here and here. [00:58:30] So boom, we’re going to open three at the same time. But then when you open that it’s going to, you know, your percentage in the company is going to go down because you’ve taken that investment and maybe you can buy that back at some point or whatever. But that’s not a point we are quite at yet. And bear in mind, we only started that two and a half years ago. Yeah. So it’s very.

Speaker3: Very early days.

Speaker1: So it might it might go that way and it might go away where you end up having 30, 40, 50. And you know, I know people that have also having that number of practices [00:59:00] as well, when you don’t really know about it. If someone went to me when I was less experienced, they’d, oh, I’ve 30, 40 practices. I’d be like, oh my God, you are balling. You must earn like millions of billions, but you’re like a load of debt. You could be investing anyway.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah. But you know, I had gin and kirsch. Yeah. I think they made 25 practices now. Yeah. Paying themselves as associates.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re making that much money. And you know, again [00:59:30] people say to me now when I talk about the wedding or something like that or just being on like a bicycle, they’re like, well, you can afford your Tesla. And it’s like, I actually can’t. And just because I have three practices, it doesn’t mean that I have money in. But, you know, I’m building these assets. I’m building these places that I love going to work. And look there, you know, the first two are worth hopefully quite a lot now, but you don’t get that until you sell the place or.

Speaker3: Listen, listen.

Speaker1: Or stop growing.

Speaker3: We are spoilt in dentistry [01:00:00] insomuch as you can have a conversation like this and say, you’re two and a half years in and you’re not losing loads of money. Yeah, yeah. Most businesses, they lose money for years 100%. And we lost money. Yeah, longer than that. And I think.

Speaker1: A lot of practices are the same. I don’t think a lot of practices will be earning a lot of money until like many years after they’ve opened. Right.

Speaker3: Especially a squat because that’s the whole point of this. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah, exactly. But you know, now if we had an open, direct Dental and if I said, look, I’m happy with the two, [01:00:30] you can start to kick back a bit. You don’t have to do those clinical days. You’re like, actually we’ll go on holiday and it’s all good. But I do see the growth and I do want to have more of a kind of legacy behind it.

Speaker3: It’s an interesting thing. And I was talking to Andrew Darwood, um, on here in this room. Okay. Yeah. You know.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah. Well, not personally, but yeah.

Speaker3: Yeah. And, you know, he could have opened a massive chain if he wanted to. And he was talking about standards. Yeah.

Speaker1: And maintaining the values.

Speaker3: How do you [01:01:00] maintain standards across multiple sites. And then I was talking to Robbie Hughes and I mean he hasn’t yet done the multiple sites thing. Yeah. Yeah. But but but he was making a point I think it was like you know like Louis Vuitton and Sydney. Yeah. Is a similar experience to Louis Vuitton. Yeah. La or. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it’s possible to maintain. No I know and.

Speaker1: I think what he’s what he’s like kind of protocol based nature is something that will probably be very relevant to that.

Speaker3: Yeah. [01:01:30] Exactly.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: And I guess, you know in the end you end up doing whatever it is that makes you makes sense to you, right? And for someone like you, it could well be like for you. Beautiful. Yeah. Perfect businesses. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Why not? Yeah. I mean, if it’s a perfect. We know we never get to perfect, right? Yeah, yeah. Is that a constant pursuit of perfection? Yeah.

Speaker1: It could.

Speaker3: Keep you happy forever.

Speaker1: I completely agree. And people you know will forge this business around with what they want. And, you know, you get these [01:02:00] when you look at the values of these practices that come in that, you know, they come to your email, this is a sale. This is for sale. You know, a couple of years ago, I was a judge on this, um, you know, these dentistry awards, right? And you look at the practices and some of these practices are quite open in what they’re earning or what they’re taking. And some of these like, like mini hospitals that are like putting in implants in and stuff like that, the money that they’re taking is like the same as like ten other practices. [01:02:30] So it’s and they’re doing beautiful dentistry. So but to your point that you say it’s yes. Where does it go.

Speaker3: So we’ve done it all the wrong way around now. But now I want to go through okay. Yeah. What job did you do. So you had the job with Aaron.

Speaker1: So my my VCE year I was in Banstead which was I found like close to.

Speaker3: Your associate job.

Speaker1: And then my associate job I went into [01:03:00] I used to really like endo and I thought I was pretty good at endo. Right. Because you win Endo prize at uni I won enterprise when I first came out. But you look back and you’re like, that was endo. But you know, I was enthusiastic about the endo. And then I started looking for jobs. And the way that I found jobs was that I got a little USB put on a load of x rays on it, the endo that I’d done put on, some crappy photos that I’d taken thinking they’re all right, and basically just went into practices that weren’t even that were in like a relative [01:03:30] local area that weren’t even advertising for an associate. And I was like, look, this is what I can do.

Speaker3: Well, you’d walk in.

Speaker1: You need to pretty much send him an email, like a range or like it’s just Wimbledon. I literally just went in it and then just and then it was just like when you go in, when I went into my Leatherhead practice that Aaron owned with colleague Jonathan Lee, they were like both endodontists. Right? So like just had a great conversation. They’re like, yeah, we need an NHS associate. So let’s start day or two, [01:04:00] start a day or two for them. Then Aaron was like, actually, I need a job. I got someone got chair in Stretham that someone needs to do some NHS work. So. So I ended up working in two NHS jobs and doing like a day in private practice. Right. So you see the scale of things. I think NHS is an amazing place that shouldn’t be knocked for that ethical training ground where you start to learn what caries is, you learn how to just get quicker, taking out amalgams for a certain amount of time. So you get that experience, learning [01:04:30] how to deal with things. And then over time, the way that I’ve done it is kind of got like done less of that and done more private to the point where you just go fully private.

Speaker3: Yeah, well, I always laugh when people say, sort of, um, learn your learn your skills on the NHS in a way that’s sort of it’s almost okay to mess up on the NHS.

Speaker1: I think it’s an ethical training ground. That’s that’s how I think. Why is it ethical? I think it’s in a way that like, [01:05:00] you know, this patient comes in and their tooth, their molar is fucked and it maybe needs to come out. But you know what? I’m going to try and do an endo on a crown on there. And the patient’s exempt. So they’re not paying anyway. They understand that it’s a poor prognosis and you’re trying really hard. And that patient is fine with you trying really hard. So they might have the times they’re not worried about that. You’re not really doing bad for them because it’s just got to come out anyway. And they’re kind of not paying for it. Or if they are paying for it, it’s like [01:05:30] a couple of hundred quid that they are well worth the risk, or you’re doing like a composite on a, on a back tooth because you think onlays are better than crowns. In worst case scenario, it pings off. You just put it back on for free, prep it for a crown. Right. So it’s you’re not cutting stuff. You shouldn’t be cutting. And the patient kind of isn’t paying for it.

Speaker3: I get it, I get it. So all right, now, you know, if you had a youngster asking you what should I do? Yeah, I’m taking it. You’re that’s the kind of advice you’re going to give. You’re going to say [01:06:00] do a couple of years on the NHS, just get experience.

Speaker1: Yeah, definitely. I definitely think the NHS is a good place to to get the numbers under your belt.

Speaker3: What I was going to tell you is, you know, that seems to be standard advice here. Yeah, a lot of people say that. Yeah. But you get to us and you ask people in the US what.

Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker3: That is not the advice in the US. Yeah. The advice in the US is specialised ASAP. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I know someone I think we could talk about it but he’s hasn’t qualified yet. Yeah. And he’s got himself [01:06:30] into a fixed price program in Harvard. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah.

Speaker3: And so you know you know what I’m saying. There’s different two, two routes.

Speaker1: No I. I completely agree. And I look I look back and I’m happy with everything that I’ve where I’m going with things. But I do also think that the younger dancers as well, I agree with that. They should be thinking about, or it’s beneficial to start to think about specialising, even if it is at the same time, because you can do, you know, specialist course doesn’t just mean that you’ve got to do full time. A lot of these courses, [01:07:00] you know, you can do like a distance learning thing at the same time as your as your in practice.

Speaker3: Yeah. At what point in your in your were you in that associate job when you thought.

Speaker1: That was only a I think that was like 2 or 3 years out or something that I was like, actually, you know, I kind of want to get better at this stuff. So you just kind of I didn’t really even do that much research into it. It was just because a friend has done it, doing it and done the research that I decided to do it with him. And another mate came and did it as well. Um, so that was more of a [01:07:30] kind of luck than judgement thing.

Speaker3: The program was a King’s. Yeah, it.

Speaker1: Was a king’s led by mainly like severe Banerjee’s like amazing dentist. Like, what have I, uh, I very much look up to him. Yeah. So you basically go and do your, like ten days or two weeks, like intense clinical hands on, and then you’re in your practices most of the time. And when you’re in your practices you’re taking photos of your work, sending them in as case reports. You’re also doing a lot of online learning and a lot of like, case presentations and [01:08:00] stuff and coursework like that. So at the time, it was like, I know, like 9 or 10 grand a year or something for three years. So, you know, at the time I could just about afford that, but not have to take the time off of work. That has to pay as well. Um, and, you know, I know orthodontists now that have gone over to Poland for three months to do a course or they’ve done it that way. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be that you go and do an McAlinden for three years, full time or five years, whatever it is, but [01:08:30] I do I do think that if you specialise or become a lot better in like a more of a limited field in dentistry, you’re going to enjoy your job a lot more because at the end of the day, dentistry, if you’re going to be a dentist for a long time, you know you want to be coming out at the end of the day thinking that you’re happy with the work that you’ve done, and you’re very confident that that work isn’t going to quickly fail. Or if it does fail, it’s not, you know, there’s patient factors due to that rather than yourself. [01:09:00] So, you know, you can feel good about the work that you’re doing and charge accordingly for it.

Speaker3: So okay, so you did that. You did that course that that course. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then you told me you did lots of other private courses. Yeah. Of the ones you did, you said you did. You said an Invisalign one because you were doing more Invisalign you wanted more information on. Yeah.

Speaker1: So I did the Invisalign course because our practice we did ortho right. We had a specialist, but we only had like a specialist like 1 or 2 days a week. And I [01:09:30] think that if you start to become this Invisalign practice, you kind of need someone there every day. So you’re like, I’ll get you in for the consult tomorrow. Yeah. So it made sense if I did a lot of the Invisalign. So that’s why I did the Invisalign course. You know, that’s only a weekend at the time you start doing it and then you’re like, oh, actually, I kind of need to know what class one is now a class two, because I can’t really be doing Invisalign not knowing what that what an overbite is. Right? So then just did like a year diploma that I knew enough that, you know, I think that when you learn as well, [01:10:00] I think everyone should almost every dentist should do like an ortho diploma, just so they know what they can treat and what they can’t treat, because otherwise, you know, you get these associates and I’ve been guilty of it as well, where you have associates that come in and I’m like, fuck, are you treating like this should be going to the orthodontist, or this patient should not be getting veneers or, you know, it’s knowing what you shouldn’t be doing as well as what you you should be doing. Yeah.

Speaker3: But of, of of all the other courses that you’ve probably done, what are the, what [01:10:30] are the ones that the formative ones, which ones stand out to you.

Speaker1: So the formative ones are probably the ortho diploma biomimetic mentorship, which was a year long thing, which was. And the master was that.

Speaker3: Uh, online.

Speaker1: Right. Yeah, it was an online thing, but he’s basically read like 150 articles, really tear them apart, learn about bonding and gluing stuff. And I think that which course was it? It was it was with the Alamans. It was like a mentorship. Yeah, exactly. And I think that courses are a thing [01:11:00] as well, that you shouldn’t take everything that you learn on a course as being absolute gospel, because the people that teach in those courses, that’s what they do. Yeah. So, you know, you’re gonna that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t put a full crown on things just because you could be bonding and onlay on it doesn’t mean that actually, you know, you should be sitting there for five minutes scrubbing a self etch or a total etch. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Sometimes I think that you can almost take it too far in the fact that you’re not, [01:11:30] you know, you’re not appreciating the patient factors involved in there. Like it’s if you put an amalgam. Then you’re not going to get struck down by the biomimetic God. And I think it’s just going doing all these courses throughout your time and learning what works for you and what works for your patients and what you want to do. Like I, for example, don’t love composite veneers because I think that there’s so much more maintenance that people ever say, and cutting these things off isn’t as easy as people say it is. But [01:12:00] then if you live in an area where everyone has composite veneers and wants composite veneers and they’re happy with that maintenance or happy that it might be a bit destructive, then who am I to say that they shouldn’t have that? So when a patient comes to me of something, I’ll be like, look, I’m not the man to do that. Go somewhere else. They can do that really well. Like they will do it better than than I do it for you. So yeah.

Speaker3: 100%, 100%. I fully understand what you’re saying there. And, you know, composite veneers a funny thing. Yeah, because they’ve totally exploded.

Speaker1: Yeah I know, yeah. [01:12:30]

Speaker3: Um, you know, we’ve been teaching composite for 15 years, but only in the last three years. Yeah. Everyone’s become a thing, I need them.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: Um, and as you say, it’s it’s the most unforgiving material we use. Um, you know, you’ve got to be very, very, very good.

Speaker1: Very good. It’s so technique sensitive, these things.

Speaker3: That’s the thing. Um, when you when you look back on your progress, what would you have done differently? I think, like if [01:13:00] you could go back knowing what you know now.

Speaker1: When we opened Wimbledon. I think about the growth of that place and think we could have almost pushed a little bit harder at the beginning of the growth and thought that actually, let’s not be so risk averse. Let’s put those two more surgeries in. Let’s get a loan to do that. Let’s get the orthodontist in. Let’s get the periodontist in. I would also learn that as soon as you start kind of doubting someone. That works for you. Everyone [01:13:30] is replaceable. And we I mean, personally, I’ve always given everyone the real benefit of the doubt because I’d be like, look, actually, I need this role now. Actually, this person can do that role and she could do those days or he can do those days. So I’m just going to hire them. I’m sure they’re amazing. But then sometimes it’s like, actually, maybe there is someone better out there. And when they’re in that role and start to do things not as well as they should be doing, maybe it’s having that discussion earlier [01:14:00] that there’s, you know, they should be looking for a different job and maybe you’re not the company for them because there might be a better role for that person. But as they as they start not doing things how you want to, then, you know, it’s just being it’s being open upfront discussions with people. And I much prefer are.

Speaker3: You the type of person to tell that person I.

Speaker1: Haven’t been, but would you.

Speaker3: Run away from that?

Speaker1: I’m I’m starting to learn a bit. That’s that’s the thing that I would do different. I’m starting to learn how to do that. And I think that, you [01:14:30] know, you learn that people’s positions in life change. They move house, they break up with people, they get with people. They need to move away. Their lifestyles change. And I would much prefer that people would just upfront with me about those things or problems that they have, so we can deal with it in a very like, you don’t have to be so emotional about fixing that problem rather than being like, oh, I’m worried about upsetting them, or because it’s just a slow, slow problem solving down.

Speaker3: Yeah, definitely. I [01:15:00] mean, I’ve had situations where I, I’ve let someone carry on for years. Yeah. Because I didn’t want to face the conversation.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And I didn’t do that person any favours by doing that. Yeah. Um, I’ve tried so many things. I talked my partner Sanchez, the financial guy. Yeah. And, uh, I said to him, if I could give someone four months, five months pay, um, I would have got rid of people years ago. Yeah. Because I don’t want to be the guy to ruin their their their mortgage or something. [01:15:30]

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: You know, there’s so many like. And you know that question of do you run the business like a family? Um, which I used to, I used to think was the goal. Whereas the real, you know, the Silicon Valley people, they talk about a pro sports team, you know, the best person and the best job. Yeah. Whereas the family situation we let people get away with. Yeah.

Speaker1: And different things. And it’s balance. Right. Because the end of the day I think that most people want to you want to be a good human and you want [01:16:00] you take people’s emotions and you want to understand. But then if someone’s there, I think, you know, you will have people that work for you that do also manipulate the situation where it’s like, actually, you know, you’ve got to have this conversation at some point.

Speaker3: So on that side, are you the one who fires people?

Speaker1: Um, that I’ve been quite fortunate. The fact that my partners are saying all this now, I need to get better than that. My partners are the ones that have generally had the conversations in the past with, [01:16:30] like, firing people. You know, I’ve done it like a couple of times and you have that conversation that they might be like best off elsewhere. But yeah, I have to say, I’ve been lucky that sometimes I didn’t deal with that.

Speaker3: You’re the one hiring people a lot of the time, though.

Speaker1: A lot of the time, yeah, yeah, hiring a lot of the time, yeah. Clinicians are generally come through me. Right. Because yeah. Yeah, a lot of.

Speaker3: Do you think you’re quite good at sort of being able to tell whether someone’s going to be a great associate.

Speaker1: You never know. No, you never know. [01:17:00] And you can put down a certain amount of parameters like you look at their clinical work or thieves, I think are pretty much pointless. I think you make what what I say to everyone is that build a good portfolio and make sure it’s your own work. So I’ve had portfolios that have come in are not their own work as well. I’ve reversed Google image them and people lie. Man. It’s very bad. Um, but yeah. And you think I know you meet them. How many times do you meet this person [01:17:30] before you end up hiring them? So I think that it’s not much, is it? Yeah. And people can put on a pretence, but you don’t know how time efficient they are. You don’t know that. That photo. That’s good on Instagram. Yeah, that’s a great photo. But that doesn’t mean that the work around it is any good. It’s like.

Speaker3: Let’s get to it. You let’s say you’re chatting to this guy. Yeah. Are you mainly looking for like a sixth sense around. Is he a good bloke. Like, is he going to be talking to my patients? Well, yeah. You have no idea on the clinical skill [01:18:00] or you or you probing with questions.

Speaker1: No, it’s not really clinical because I think by the time I’m meeting them, generally I’ve sussed out the clinical because through portfolios and that kind of thing. Right. So it’s more like are you going to get on with patients? Are you going to be able to, you know, work your treatment plans around that patients economics and time and money, you know, are you going to be able to. But but then again, what I also think is that what I started. The thing is that when patients when I have people that come [01:18:30] and work for me or I have clinicians, they’re not that finished product and potential, their potential is there. And they might be that rough diamond that. You know, you realise a couple of things. You’re like, oh, actually, maybe you could do this with the patient, or maybe don’t give them a treatment plan that they need 25 fillings at the beginning. Be like, look, these are the worst ones. Maybe then down we do that, you know, try and do these things and you get these associates that really grow into people [01:19:00] that do a lot more treatment and make a lot more money than they would have done at the very beginning, because we all grow together.

Speaker3: I hate asking this question this way because like the word hacks, yeah, I think hacks are one of our biggest problems. Yeah, because you want to do something well that follow the damn steps and don’t hack a step.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker3: That said, what are your hacks regarding regarding, uh, running practices [01:19:30] like what’s what. We’ve got the clinicians. You’ve got the non clinicians. You’ve got the patients. You’ve got the partners. You’ve got your investors. Yeah. Give me some. Give me some. You know someone who’s open three practices and is working at the level that you’re working at. What comes to mind when I say the key things.

Speaker1: Yeah, I mean, the team is definitely. But I guess you’re saying don’t mention that. That the team is a big thing and you’re like practice manager as well. And having people in your team that can, it’s make making you a lot more time efficient. [01:20:00] Like for example.

Speaker3: Would you say that’s the most important person in the practice is the practice manager?

Speaker1: It’s definitely one. It’s one of for sure because it’s like, say if the time in the day, right? If I have an HR issue or I’ve got a nurse that’s like crying because their boyfriend’s dumped them or whatever, and they want to like cry and talk to someone. So I don’t really have that half an hour that someone can that I can, that I don’t have the time to listen to that. Right. So if you’ve [01:20:30] got like the practice manager, generally they will be the one that keeps everyone kind of in line and, and happy. And it’s you’ve got that structure. Like you might have your head nurse that keeps all the nurses doing what they should be doing. You’ve got your manager, you’ve got your kind of marketing leads, you’ve got. So it’s all it’s basically breaking those up into divisions and trying to have someone that like deals with that. But it changes and you lose people and then you’ve got to get recruit again. And recruitment is a tough thing and [01:21:00] I definitely have so much more to learn. And, you know, people shouldn’t listen to this and think, oh, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Because you change, you change, you grow. Yeah. You learn a lot more. And but I think that what I’ve also learned to do is that to take less offence as well, because you’re going to have someone that just starts and they’re ill and you’re like, well, are you ill? Or maybe you saw you out on Instagram boozing last night or this or that, and it’s like, actually, I used to get really offended because [01:21:30] I’m like, I’m the one investing in this practice. I should be doing this. But now it’s like, this is this, this is people, right? This is humans. It’s what what they do.

Speaker3: Yeah. You’re mellowing a little bit.

Speaker1: Take less offence. Yeah. Yeah. Try and do and also. Yeah exactly. And and like you know maybe doing those two extra hours at the end of the day isn’t so important. You know, is it going to make a big difference in the grand scheme of things. So timing wise hopefully I’m at the point soon where I can start to be a bit more flexible [01:22:00] and have a bit more time off, because otherwise life goes by and you’re like, shit, it’s uh, time goes quickly and we’re done. So.

Speaker3: So, George, you were saying off Mike that you’re not really teaching, and you told me that, you know, the number of hours you’ve got to work. It just doesn’t fit in. Yeah, but I reckon, I mean, I reckon you’ve got a lot to teach and thank you. And teaching is fun. So do you think it’ll come?

Speaker1: So we’ve done like, the odd, like little course. [01:22:30] And I did some stuff for Invisalign. I’ve done the odd like uni thing but it’s like and lectures as well. I always get asked to do lectures or talks at places. Right. But at the end of last year, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to basically start saying no to things just because I didn’t have the time. And I’d always find that, say, if I had a lecture coming up, I would always put a lot of pressure on it to say, if you were like, George, come and do a lecture in front of this many people [01:23:00] in two months, every night or every lunchtime, I’d be thinking, how can I change the content for this? What can I say during that? What what picture can I put up? Yeah, too much though. Too much that actually that picture at the front probably doesn’t mean that much compared to what you’re trying to get over to it. And I just I didn’t love the pressure of that. Like, yeah, that that stuff was very topic depending. Right. Once the prep work’s done and you’re doing the repeat stuff, [01:23:30] it’s a bit of a different matter because it’s just it’s so much easier. And actually, you know, teaching wise, I think if I was going to do it again, it would be like setting up my own course of just something that I love doing and this is how I do it. But I also think that in teaching, you tend to get criticism by more of the older generation of dentists because they’re like, well, you’re teaching, so you should know absolutely everything about this, this and this, which I get it, because if you’re teaching, you should be [01:24:00] you should know everything.

Speaker3: Although although by the by the standards of today, you’re, you’re an OPI teacher I mean yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Thank you. Thank you for that teaching.

Speaker1: No, no, you’re right, actually, you are right. Um, but then, you know, there’s the other way that you see a lot of people’s work. And if they’re doing that work a lot and they’re showing it off via Instagram or whatever, you’re like, well, actually, you know, I can see that those things that is really nice and that is something you’re doing all the time so that you know how to put a rubber dam on if you want to go and [01:24:30] run a rubber dam course. Great. That’s really great because people are going to get a lot better from that. But then again, timing wise, it’s if you want to run a course, I mean, a lot of dentists, they probably want to do that over like a Friday and Saturday or something. How often do you do that? Is that one weekend a month? Is it two weekends? A. Aren’t you still doing a phase five clinical days during that time? We’ve done like a few like little courses at the practices, but at the moment it’s just there are different fish to fry. [01:25:00] So I’m not saying it’s like completely off the table. Look, if someone came to me and everything was prepped and they were like, you can use all your photos here it is, this, this and this, then, you know, it’s an easier thing. But I also think prepping this stuff and writing lectures and that is so boring, I find it so boring. And it’s like course work. And I’m like, I just can’t be bothered to do it.

Speaker3: I know what you mean. I mean, I was the same as you. Anytime anyone asks me to speak, I’d really try and make it better. Yeah, but [01:25:30] then you know what got me? What gets me is you look at your presentation, your existing presentation. You look at a slide, and the first thing your head says, that’s that picture is too small or too big. Yeah, yeah, whatever you mess about with it. Yeah. After all the messing about, you realise. Oh, why did that way the first time it’s like, oh yeah, I go round this sort of weird circles of like design circles. It’s weird.

Speaker1: I think there’s also the like there is always [01:26:00] a slight worry of critique as well. Like if you have 100 people watching your lecture or in the crowd, you know, you’ve got to remember that actually 99 of them are probably learning something and they’re looking at it being like, oh, that’s like, this is day to day general stuff that is very applicable to what I do. You’re going to get that one person that’s like, oh, I can see like a gap between the rubber dam or I can see that actually there’s like a tiny, tiny, tiny little bit of flash or an overhang there.

Speaker3: But why don’t you suffer with that perfection paralysis on [01:26:30] Instagram?

Speaker1: Oh, I just post what I do every day. It’s not.

Speaker3: Why doesn’t it bother you that someone’s going to think?

Speaker1: Because. Because now I’ve got to the point where it’s like you’re not.

Speaker3: Being a teacher.

Speaker1: I don’t have to. Exactly. I’m not out there branding myself as a teacher. Yeah. And like, if you actually look at all of the posts that I’ve done and all the comments and you read them, first of all, you realise I actually don’t do that much of it anymore. It’s mainly stories that I do because I again, can’t be bothered, but actually I’m like, this is how I do [01:27:00] it. I’m not being like, this is how to do it.

Speaker3: It’s such a funny thing though, dude, because I’d say you’re one of the pre-eminent teachers in dentistry. Yeah, if you take it from what people are learning from people. Yeah, it’s a weird thing.

Speaker1: Well thank you. That’s that’s very kind. You’re not calling.

Speaker3: Yourself a teacher, right? Yeah.

Speaker1: No.

Speaker3: No one’s paying you to teach.

Speaker1: I’m sharing my work with how I do it day to day. And it’s like, look, if you like it and want to look at it, great. Don’t, don’t. And [01:27:30] it’s like, if you want to critique me, telling me I’m doing it wrong, I’m like, you’re fine. But I’m not saying this is how I do it. Like so thank you for the tip. I will try to do it different next time.

Speaker3: I want to get to two other main areas. Right. Number one sort of day in a life. Like what time you go to bed, what time you wake up and so forth. Yeah. Number two, patient journey through, let’s say Fulham Road. Dental because I’m so because I’m so familiar with gilding and all that. Yeah, yeah. Let’s, let’s let’s get to. Yeah. Let’s start with the second one the patient [01:28:00] journey. Yeah. So all right typically so a patient comes to you from word of mouth. Yeah.

Speaker1: So exactly that so that they are they’ve got a problem generally or they’ve had some dentistry elsewhere that might have gone wrong or they’re not quite happy with it. So they’ve like they’ve been advised to come to me by their dentist or friend and they’ve like rang up and the patient’s booked a new patient exam. I basically zone my diary. So certain times of the day I can have exams. [01:28:30] The rest is like treatment because otherwise you just get overblown with like crappy exams all the time.

Speaker3: If anyone she asked that patient to send them to you, or if they’ve asked for you, that’s something.

Speaker1: So any patient that rings up the practices that don’t ask for me, don’t get booked in with me because I’m also trying to get the other associates busy. Right? So I’m like, put them in with anyone else if you can. If they’re having to see me book them in to see me. Right.

Speaker3: Or sometimes straight in with a specialist.

Speaker1: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah [01:29:00] I know. Absolutely. But and then we get a lot of referrals for specialist work that goes straight through. But basically we set up a portal, right. We spent quite a lot of money on this. So you go online, you’re logged into our portal. You refer the patient and you send the x rays in an email comes up on my phone that says like referral received, right? It’s all like GDPR. Whatever, right? I will look at that, open it up and kind of work. If it’s something obvious. The team are well equipped to be like, oh, it’s going to go straight to Endo, right? But I pretty much check like [01:29:30] every one when it comes in just to check the x ray, because a lot of the time, you know, a dentist is sending in for an endo. It’s got like subgingival caries. That’s like near the roots. And I’m like, then you’ve got to send a reply being like, well, do you want us to do the restorative as well, or are you going to see it first? Or it would be for like.

Speaker3: It’s incomplete in some way.

Speaker1: It’s incomplete. So I’ve got to kind of price it. And a lot of time goes into that triaging. Right. You almost need someone to triage. That’s their job. But also I have to [01:30:00] be very aware that I don’t want someone coming to my implant surgeon who is very time poor as well. That’s coming in, that’s got a load of perio, or they’ve got a load of thing, and they haven’t been warned about that because it’s like, well, I just done this consult and they’ve got taken caries everywhere. So a lot of that triaging happens to go to the right dentist a lot. If patients are coming in and they they want to come and see me because of social media, they see what I do, whatever. Then it comes to see me. And generally it would either be, when is.

Speaker3: Your next available [01:30:30] appointment? Is it months ahead or is it? No, it’s not that.

Speaker1: It’s not me because I do like because I work a lot of hours and it’s um, so it’s and we always get cancellations and it will there will be like waves. Right. For a certain time it might be like three months, but then it might only be like 3 or 4 weeks. But you’ve got to kind of zone those diaries well enough that that can happen. I also think if you’re too cheap, you’re going to be booked up for a very long time, which is a kind of like [01:31:00] not justice to yourself. Whereas when you’re hitting the right price point. I mean, personally, I think I’m actually quite cheap for what I do anyway. But like if you’re and I’m proud of my prices, I should say, right? I think the patient’s getting a good deal and I am too. That’s what I would say. But then, um, so it’s getting that that balance, right?

Speaker3: Yeah, absolutely. Look, if I was a patient and I saw that building and I want to see you and I can’t see you within a month, but somehow, [01:31:30] like a problematic in itself. Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker1: Yeah. Exactly. Absolutely. So they’re like and then what I will often do, I kind of build in buffers. Right. So Wednesday I don’t actually open up a clinical day, but I keep that day that I can go up.

Speaker3: You could if you.

Speaker1: Wanted to, I could go up to the lab or if that patient’s getting married in three weeks, I’m like, well, you should have left this earlier, but we can deal with it. Or actually, I’ve got pain. I can get you and deal with it. If it’s someone that doesn’t need to see the endodontist or whatever. So it’s I will work around [01:32:00] things. I will stay at the end of the day. We’ll work through lunch to make sure that patients get seen for obviously it’s not an emergency. You’ve got to kind of triage it as well. It’s tiny little chipped tooth. It’s not a problem with see you.

Speaker3: So back to back to patient journey that that patient makes the phone call. Yeah. The the team the way they answer that call. Yeah. Have you got them on that thing where you know they know they know the usp’s of each of the dentists. And they’ll say you should see Doctor Cheatham. He treats lots of no.

Speaker1: Yeah, exactly. And they that pattern when they come in and they, they [01:32:30] learn with they and again it’s very hard for a receptionist as well because when they come in they might not even know the most about dentistry. And they’re suddenly they’re supposed to know you should be seeing the denture guy. You should be seeing the implant, you should be seeing the gums. But if they have if they don’t know, they’ve got a specific problem, a lot of the time they might need to see a general dentist first just to then or, you know, receptionists say, look, you’ve got to have the general exam first and then we can book you in with the periodontist. And as long as that [01:33:00] dentist knows that from the beginning, the patient knows that, then they’re not offended that they come in and it’s not the periodontist, because they know that actually they’ve booked in the general and they’ve booked in the perio. And if patients don’t like that protocol, maybe they are better elsewhere.

Speaker3: Um, and does do all the dentists do a one hour initial appointment or is that just.

Speaker1: You know, no, no. The general dentists at um Fulham were all an hour the general associates, if it’s a general check-up [01:33:30] at Wimbledon.

Speaker3: It seems like a long time. An hour man. What happens do you do you spend the first 15.

Speaker1: But you have to remember that a lot of these patients that are coming in specifically to see me have a lot of issues, or they’ve got things that are fucked up elsewhere. Yeah. And then, you know, it doesn’t always take me an hour. A lot of the time I don’t mind having a coffee at the end, and I’m not trying to cram my days to get as much like money and clinical is impossible. So I prefer to have that 20 minutes at the end spare [01:34:00] where you can just.

Speaker3: At the end of.

Speaker1: A problem.

Speaker3: Right that hour, you’ve got a good understanding of what that patient.

Speaker1: Wants, exactly that.

Speaker3: What he’s willing to do. So if he’s not.

Speaker1: Willing, that’s exactly it. And I’ve had that discussion as well to judge whether they want to treat every single little bit of caries and maybe possible carries, or do they only want to do the big cavities and see them again in six months? Then it takes me that time to work out what that patient wants. If they want to have the full mouth, tell them that they’ve got [01:34:30] to go and see one of the specialists for something. And then what I will generally do is that a lot of the time I don’t book them in straight away. I’ll say that I’m going to send you a plan later on, and I’ve got plans from like yesterday that I’ve got to still do right where I’ll send them a treatment plan with the pricing, with just a few paragraphs of blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just kind of just a bit more explanation. And then generally they just that then the reception team will ring them about booking appointments [01:35:00] in. If they don’t book it straight away, they might say, I’ll call back or they call them back in a week.

Speaker3: So that plan, do you try and get that done?

Speaker1: Usually within like a day or two. I like to get it done on the same day. Some days I just email it and like again, a lot of the patients. It’s different from a clinic from my perspective, because, again, a lot of these patients have kind of waited a bit to see me, and they’re sold on having treatment with me before they’ve even seen me. Right. I’m just confirming their thoughts when I’m there [01:35:30] so I can send that plan a week later and they’re still going to get booked. Whereas really in our clinics we try to. You’re much better off if a patient comes needing that endo. They’ve had that CT scan, they’ve had that consult book it on the way out because otherwise they go outside, their dental pain goes away and they’re like, oh, I just look at when that pain comes back. So if you can get that ortho patient booked for records, if you can get those things booked straight away, it’s much better. But sometimes you [01:36:00] can’t do that if it’s a more complicated thing, and especially when you start to see like these, these rehabs that come in and these patients are spending like, like tens and tens of thousands and you’re like, well, you know, we’ve it’s a very delicate thing sometimes.

Speaker3: And so you said you give the plan some go ahead, some don’t. And there’s some follow up on the ones who don’t. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah. That’s not necessarily that’s not so much with mine, but it might [01:36:30] be for like different like associates that whatever. So then it would be these are all tracked. So we have trackers right. So we look at the amount of incomplete plans that we have. There might be like 50. And then through the week we look at those 50. And there’d be someone on the team that actually rings them. And then again it might be in a couple more weeks and there’d be a reason saying, oh, doesn’t have the finances wants to do in Jan. Will there be a reason like, [01:37:00] oh, they’re in Barbados the next month, or are you using software or that like CRM software? Um, we use yeah. Yeah. Again, that’s not really my kind of side. Basically the practice manager and Mark deal with a lot of that stuff, and our marketing team do. When someone calls up at the moment we actually use for Fulham and Wandsworth, that goes straight through to Moneypenny, right? Because that gives us a much because they actually write down everything has that patient. Is it a new patient. Has it [01:37:30] come from there. So the legit you can look at those logistics a lot more. Whereas to expect your reception team to write down all that information it doesn’t really happen.

Speaker1: And then from Moneypenny it goes through to reception. So everything you can work out how many calls are missed throughout the day, because it might be that actually most calls are coming in from one till 130 when we didn’t have a receptionist where it might be that actually the receptionist was, we realised that she was going downstairs to speak to a dentist and then had missed a call. And it’s like if [01:38:00] you are at the beginning of opening a practice, doing paid campaigns and that kind of thing, if someone’s clicked on something and spent five, you’ve spent £5 to get them through and you’ve missed that call. You want to know that why that’s happening? Like we actually realised when we started using Moneypenny that a lot of the money that we were wasting on paid campaigns was because it was just current patients, like clicking on the sponsored post just to get. Yeah, just to get the phone number because they hadn’t saved us. And you’re like, well, if 50% [01:38:30] are like that, that’s just not do the paid campaign. But you can’t work those things out unless you’ve, you’ve got you’ve just looked. Yeah. You’ve got some way of working that out.

Speaker3: So what about on the sort of the softer side of the patient journey. Are they offered a drink when they walk in?

Speaker1: Yeah. They come in. You like got some water and a coffee and that kind of thing. And it’s trying to you know, sometimes if I’ve got like sweet old dot that broke a leg, I just send a flowers or these little touches, [01:39:00] these follow up phone calls to make sure that they’re okay the next day if they’ve had treatment for over an hour, I want them called the next day, or if they’ve had an extraction or these little things. That’s a message the team do that not nurse but yeah like reception team. Right. So and those little things make such a huge difference to people. And it’s like if patients want to speak on the phone about a plan, you know, I used to hate doing it. I still don’t love it because it’s still talking about your day. But if you ring a patient, you’re like, oh, Jeremy, you want to question that? Thank you so [01:39:30] much for calling. And those little things are real practice builders.

Speaker3: I think the patient call I used to have my nurse. Yeah. First of all, because it was, you know, it wasn’t it was years ago. Right. It was like 15 years ago. The nurse would circle 3 or 4 names in the day sheet, which we had at the time. Yeah. And, and then she’d show me like, these are the 3 or 4 and very soon it would be like obvious who the 3 or 4. So you wouldn’t have to show me.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And then. But what I used to love about it was the pleasure [01:40:00] she used to get from making that call. Yeah. And she always used to say, oh, he was so happy that I’d called. Yeah.

Speaker1: And they are. And all the time it’s like 1% that actually do have a little bit of problem that just you just give them some advice on the phone. But every single one are generally like very. Very, very like thankful and look that it would be amazing to be able to have one of these dental practices that are like your kind of Michelin star restaurants that are looking up what their favourite colour is, or what they like on [01:40:30] the TV, or what their favourite scent is when they come in. And it’s nice to try to look, you know, at that stuff. But it’s I mean, realistically, when you’ve got so many hundreds of people coming through your thing every day, there’s a balance. You’re not going to be able to go too far because you end up spending so much money that do that, that you’re not going to be able to run a business. But if you can get those softer side of things like the practices now, if you have a bit of space or you know these things, I remember you.

Speaker3: Posting about putting a speaker in the bathroom. [01:41:00]

Speaker1: Yeah, I probably wouldn’t do the same now.

Speaker3: I think it’s cool.

Speaker1: It’s cool man. But you know, it’s cool. It’s cool if you if you’re if you’re that practice principal that is going to be working at the practice, that’s really nice because you get to see these things. Is that really going to change things from like a business sense? You know, maybe not. Also if you start to set up multiple practices and it’s an extra like, I know, 30 grand to put Sonos in the toilet ceilings, I don’t know if [01:41:30] that has as much value as being able to have like a better comfortable chair for the patient or, you know, it’s balance.

Speaker3: And what do you like as far as equipment? So you said Intraoral camera.

Speaker1: Scanning is absolutely essential for my workflow, and I cannot really see a new patient without having that scanner because in terms of patient communication, it’s essential for me to be able to show them everything so they know they need, they know why [01:42:00] they need that treatment. And also as records and every patient you still scan now like, oh my God, that’s amazing. It is amazing.

Speaker3: It’s still impressive. Yeah, yeah. Which one do you like. Three shape.

Speaker1: So historically I have been itero because I was doing a lot of Invisalign. Right. But we actually had so we’ve got like a, I don’t know, 4 or 5 of these things now, but we had a three shape arrived today because my implant ologist who does like some really like an outstanding work, just [01:42:30] loves three shapes. So and he was like, I just need he’s like a Spanish guy. I need three shapes. I’m like, okay, I’ll get you three shape. Um, because he’s like, not so much now that it’s just it’s going to keep him happy. Like when you have all of these specialists that work for you, they all have a slight diva side to them. But I appreciate why they do because they’ve spent like 30 years in full time education to become so good at what they do. They don’t want that crappy scanner or they don’t want some lab work not arriving. So if [01:43:00] I can provide that environment where they’re very happy, they are going to give me the days where they can work for me, rather than go to a practice up the road where they get a better deal. Yeah.

Speaker3: That’s losing. Losing stuff is the most expensive thing you can happen to anybody.

Speaker1: It’s just long, isn’t it? And then recruitment and then finding someone and then it’s just. Yeah, exactly. It’s it’s just long. Um, so do.

Speaker3: You do something special regarding, you know, when she said, oh, it’s so much fun to work here. Anything [01:43:30] special for your team or not.

Speaker1: Like it’s. No, it’s not like I’m one of these. Perhaps as soon as that starts to buy everyone like Louis Vuitton bracelets and turning up with cars for them, man. But it’s, um, it’s just trying to provide that environment that everyone at my clinics work very hard and they work very hard because they see everyone else working hard. And I think that everyone should be provided the environment where they, they see their boss or the [01:44:00] principal as almost giving back and putting everything into their to make that environment good, be it, be it the equipment, or be it flexibility with time or schedule, or taking their thoughts on board and changing something because you know they want something changed. And I think when everyone starts to feel that everyone like grows together. So it’s it’s it’s it’s providing the right environment where everyone has the same values. I think.

Speaker3: Was the other thing I was going to [01:44:30] ask you about the two things, patient journey and.

Speaker1: Patient journey and yeah, good point. That was the second thing, wasn’t it, because you said there was the first one and then we were gonna come back to that.

Speaker3: Impact. We hope the audience hasn’t noticed.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Maybe we covered it and, uh, other, uh uh, other thing. Oh, life’s like eight til.

Speaker3: You get a day in the life. Day in the life. So yeah. Tell me, tell me about that. What time do you [01:45:00] go to bed.

Speaker1: So I go to bed quite early. I’m between like ten and half. Ten, 11 between 10 and 11. I generally write, generally write obviously Psalms later, Psalms earlier. Yeah. Um, and I do try to have like A78 hours sleep. I get up generally my clinical day work starts at 8 a.m., I get up at like seven and I’m like, shout! I’m very efficient in the morning. I’m like out the house within 15 minutes. And that’s like, shower changed. [01:45:30] Everything’s ready from the night before Wimbledon. I live in Tooting. Oh, Tooting. And I get on my, um, I cycled to work because again, I get to work, be it Fulham or Wimbledon, within 20 minutes. And it’s good for like, you know, if I’m cycling there and back every day, that’s another like 40 minutes of exercise. That kind of keeps me healthy. Right? So I’m first patient is at eight. I do eight till one hour lunch break generally try to crack on with some admin and I do two [01:46:00] till five. So clinic finish clinic at five, generally cycle back and then go to try to go to the gym like most days. Most days after work started. Um jiu jitsu six weeks ago. So I’m still real amateur, but I’m trying to like basically try every day. I’ll try to do like either like gym or jiu jitsu, like five as much as I can. Right? But you know, if you have life, you know, you’re going out for [01:46:30] a meal, a restaurant, whatever. Like you’re still quite sociable. That can kind of you got to do that instead. But on a general day.

Speaker3: So you leave the practice at five, get home, or do you go straight to a gym?

Speaker1: Usually I’m home by like half five, I get home, I will come get changed at home, go straight to the gym, right, go to the gym for like I don’t go for like ages, maybe like 45 minutes. And then I’m back, which is just around the corner because I’ve cycled throughout the day. And so it’s just enough to do what I think is right. [01:47:00] I’m I’m very lucky. My beautiful wife, like cook most days. She’s actually a great cook. She’s a dentist as well. So I have some nice food. We’ve got a puppy now. Puppies like had that for a couple of months, so I know now.

Speaker3: Screenslaver was your puppy.

Speaker1: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Why not? She wouldn’t be offended at that.

Speaker3: She’s cool.

Speaker1: Yeah. Um.

Speaker3: But. Okay, so. So we’ve pretty much got it up to, like, seven, eight, have dinner and.

Speaker1: Yeah, like, have dinner sometimes watch like a little bit of TV. We do like to chill out for like an hour or two sometimes. [01:47:30] But then what’s happening is that I’m like answering emails or through again, but that’s like kind of throughout the whole day, even if at the gym, I’m like looking at, you know, like I was saying, I’m checking all the referrals that come in or sending messages and.

Speaker3: On on the equipment, like on the running machine or whatever. You. Yeah.

Speaker1: Or like you do some weights. Right. And then between check a quick email shoot off and you take like a lot of emails, I only take like 30s to look through and quickly reply. But throughout the day as well, I will. Every day there’ll be calls [01:48:00] with Aaron and Mark from the practices just to be like, oh, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Because these quick calls that take a few minutes, you’re like always solving problems. And throughout the day I’m always chipping away at something. And what we try to do is have cool scheduled on Wednesdays. If I’m not doing clinical with scheduled calls, like this morning we had a like a Fulham Road Dental call with me, my head, my chief marketing guy, my [01:48:30] practice manager, and Mark and we’ll we’ll crack on for a few things that we want to grow or change throughout the week. After that, we had an hour call with the lab for exactly the same thing. So, you know, I’m realising that you need if you want things to change, you need to schedule this kind of white space every week to just come up with your ideas. And you need to reassess that a couple of weeks later and be like, oh, has that been done yet? Why not? How do we do it?

Speaker3: And you generally good in sort [01:49:00] of meetings, setting people expectations, following up on whether they did it or didn’t do it or are you bad at that? Um, again.

Speaker1: I get kind of pushed by my principal, my partners around. I think my partners are better than I am at doing that at some things, and maybe I have fortes in others, but you just work together to make sure it like it happens. Basically, weekends wise, I don’t do any clinical, but I will do [01:49:30] admin usually Friday in the morning I actually go for like a PT session like once a week generally before work. So then I’ll work. That’s Friday night. I am quite sociable as well at the weekend, so Friday night might be out for like a meal or some drinks Saturday, like maybe out with friends, like lads or maybe the wife or something. And then Sunday again, chip away at a tiny bit of admin, but go for a roast or walk the dogs. See the family, something like [01:50:00] that.

Speaker3: If you had if you had half a day to yourself. No, no expectation of you from anyone, what would you do? What’s it like?

Speaker1: It’s very easy to become lazy, right? It’s very easy to just be at home and just, like, sit, sit on the sofa and watch a film or something. Yeah, I probably watch like quite a lot, loads of TV, but I quite enjoy that. Like watching a a short film or something. Yeah yeah yeah yeah, exactly. Or like I’m not amazing by myself working the pace.

Speaker3: You’re working. Yeah. I [01:50:30] expect you need something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah I don’t mind like say I would like after this, right. Yeah. I wouldn’t mind actually just on the way home because I’m like, oh, Camden, have a little wander around Camden, just go and sit in a pub and have like a pint or two or something. Yeah. Maybe actually like. If I didn’t have anything to go home by, like, maybe even, like, have some food or something. Um, if I didn’t have stuff at home to do.

Speaker3: What’s your guilty pleasure?

Speaker1: Probably shouldn’t say that on screen. [01:51:00] People admit it. No, like like like like like my partying days have gone down a lot because, like, you know, as you get older, you modify life, you get married and that kind of thing. Um, but then, I don’t know, should it be a guilty pleasure, like going out, having fun? Probably binge drink too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Yeah. Let’s get it to our final questions. We always. We always finish the same [01:51:30] way.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: Fancy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive. Who do you have?

Speaker1: So not like I’ve as I. Get older, I become more interested in like the sciences and physics. Right. And I do think it would be. And these are, these are answers that are so boring. Right. But like so like, oh my God, if everyone says that. But it probably would be someone like Einstein to. [01:52:00] See the way that their mind works and how like out the box thinking like. You get these scientists, they’re just so incredibly they think in a different way, and they’re so clever to come up with the ideas that they have done. Yeah. Whereas now you might look at an idea and be like, oh, I still don’t understand that, but it kind of makes sense. Whereas when the idea wasn’t even a thing, you’re like, well, how the hell was that? Yeah, an idea, right? In terms of like kind of people that I do think would be fascinated [01:52:30] to sit with as well. Again, I know that this is such a like, cliché answer, but I do think it’d be awesome to sit down with Elon Musk, because the way that he is pushing humanity, I think in terms of space travel and combining it with business growth as well, it would also be fascinating to speak to him because you listen to podcasts and you listen to ideas where it’s like money now for him is just not even a thing, where you’re almost sacrificing stuff [01:53:00] to try to build in efficiencies to your life where, you know, it sounds like it almost prefer to just live on a mattress in the office rather than a mansion down the road. So I think that those ideas would be, um, I mean, that’s always going to be a fascinating meal, right?

Speaker3: Who’s the.

Speaker1: Third? Um, obviously my wife or Salma Hayek for that.

Speaker3: This is interesting what you say about Einstein or Elon Musk. Yeah. Because, you know, like, [01:53:30] what’s that? What’s that kind of, um, where where the people are on a spectrum and they’re really good at one thing and. Yeah. What’s that called? Um. Uh.

Speaker1: Yeah. Like what? Some. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Like Rain Man thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s interesting because, like, if there’s some kid who can look at a photograph of something and then paint it or paint it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, exactly. And his mind works in a different way to the rest.

Speaker1: Fly over a city and be able to paint the chimneys.

Speaker3: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. [01:54:00] What was the date on the 12th of January, 1937. That was a Tuesday, right?

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker3: So I reckon people like Einstein or Elon Musk for that matter. Yeah. Have got a bit of their brain which is over developed. And yeah, in that sense.

Speaker1: I think that there’s a lot of people out there on the spectrum. Right. And I think that some people might have had that classical diagnosis that their OCD or whatever. Yeah, autistic whatever. But that’s because of that diagnosis as well. And that must be very hard to [01:54:30] actually quantify. Yeah. Whereas there are probably a huge amount of people that are slightly in that grey area, but it’s just not not diagnosed.

Speaker3: Yeah. Not being given a name. Yeah.

Speaker1: Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker3: Um, let’s let’s get on to the final question. It’s kind of a deathbed question. Yeah. On your deathbed, you’re surrounded by your friends and family, your loved ones. Maybe by that time, your children or whatever it is. Or three pieces of advice [01:55:00] you’d leave them with.

Speaker1: I mean, um. Okay. So I think that. The whole topic that I was talking about earlier, about learning to say no to things that don’t help be a people pleaser might not be like for your growth. Like, it’s very easy to try to say, oh, I’ll do that to keep that person happy, or I’ll do that lecture because they’ve asked me. But actually like only speaking to like, your no. Minesh Patel. Right recently. [01:55:30] And he was he came with his theory. He was like, look, very quickly now if someone comes to you about something, I’m a very, very quick yes or no. And I would only say yes if it’s like a definite yes and I want to do it, otherwise it’s just getting a no. I was like, oh that’s, that’s uh, quite a nice. Approach. So I think learning to say no is a very important thing. I think that again, I’m criticising myself with this because I probably don’t make enough time for outside [01:56:00] of work. And as time goes on, I do want to do that. But I do think advice that people probably commonly say as well is like, stop focusing on the work and make time for outside. And I am trying to do that now, like next year.

Speaker1: I’m trying to find more days where, you know, I try to go on a ski holiday with the lads or try to go away for a weekend with the wife or go to Italy with parents or something. So I’m trying to actually schedule those things in so they actually happen. [01:56:30] But saying that, you know, it’s usually you do need a bit of money to be able to to do that and pay the mortgage at the same time. So you need to make the money for that. And third, I don’t know, maybe trying to stay healthy, I guess, because I think that in times where I have spent more time trying to go to the gym or trying to exercise, I feel a lot happier as well. And there was a time that when you get in like a new relationship [01:57:00] or something, when I was when I’m with my wife, after a couple of years, I just turned into like lazy, whereas it wasn’t working out, eating too much. And at the time I felt, you know, I look back and think, oh, you know what? I was actually a lot happier when I start to exercise again. So I guess trying to keep healthy mind and body.

Speaker3: Which says your darkest day. From a work perspective. I mean, obviously, yeah.

Speaker1: Good question. I [01:57:30] think. You know what I think it was? I think when I was starting with the idea about going into business with Mark to build a new squat practice. When he wanted to do like a few practices at the same time we were having this discussion. I remember I’d been out on like a night out or like or know what it was. We’d had like a load of cocktails at home because it was like during Covid or something like that. I remember the next day I was so hungover [01:58:00] and just everything just seemed like so like I was just I just felt like anxious. I was like, shit, is this what, like anxiety is? This is what people have to deal with, like every day because it’s like unbearable. Right? And it gave me an understanding of that. And I was just so anxious thinking like to do this because I was going to have to put my Wimbledon practice into the pot to be able to pay for the new practices. And I was like, if I go and buy three practices all at once, I’ve put [01:58:30] Wimbledon into the pot. If that go tits up. I haven’t just lost all the money and like the future that I’m working so hard to build. But I’ve also lost a reputation because I’ve put so many people out of a job and dentists have lost their receptionist lost it. So I was like, this is like for me at the time, it was either like a kind of all or nothing thing.

Speaker1: It worked out a little bit differently over time, but I remember that was a day or like a couple of days where I was like, just feeling like so, like paralysed by this. Yeah, yeah, just like [01:59:00] worrying about worrying. And that was, um, that was a thing. And we have these clinical things where, you know, someone’s had braces and a tooth gone non-vital, or you’ve done a deep filling, and the patient thinks that you’ve gone too deep and caused them a root canal, and you have these patients that come and moan and they complain that what happens is for a week or two, you really, really, really worry about that. And then it like goes away and the patient’s fine and that is [01:59:30] very consuming at the time. But I think that the worrying is like a funny thing, because I think that humans are almost driven to worry about something until something bigger comes along and you’re like, well, what the fuck was I worrying about there? Because that’s like so minor compared to what is going on in the world. I almost think that it would be good for people to wake up and watch, like a five minute program at the end of the day about what really is going on in the world. So they gain perspective about that. Maybe it’s not that bad of what your life is.

Speaker3: It’s that sort of [02:00:00] sort of threat level that you your brain is designed for a Neanderthals. Yeah. Threat situation. But we’re living it now just like everything else. Right. That’s that’s why I want to eat apple pie instead of eating lettuce. Because apple pie gives me more energy than lettuce. And the Neanderthal goes back to something.

Speaker1: Yeah, he never had his apple pie, though.

Speaker3: Um, it’s very interesting, though. It’s very interesting that that’s what you’re saying, that your darkest day was a day of [02:00:30] just worrying about worrying.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Interesting.

Speaker1: And it’s, you know, I think that we are very, very lucky. Well, I’m very, very lucky to have the opportunities that I do have. And it’s trying to personally I try to change that mindset more now to like we’re coming here. For example, today my wife was at home with her sister getting her hair done right. So there’s time event and I on the way out there like, oh, good luck. And the hairdressers like this hair guy was like, [02:01:00] oh, good luck. And I was like, what do you mean good luck? I’m just coming to like, talk. Right. And I think of it more as, I’m very lucky to be given this opportunity to come and chat to you and see this place. And people might listen to this. And that’s such a I’m lucky to have that rather than worrying about that.

Speaker3: I think that gratitude is a big thing as well. Yeah. Like if you force yourself to be thankful for things, you realise what a what a great situation you’re in. Yeah. About you in this in this 13 year story of [02:01:30] growth and risk, did you have a situation where you had like a cash crisis and.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the it’s been all, all all the time. And it’s like because.

Speaker3: It’s so easy to look at you from the outside from, you know, for someone who doesn’t realise what it takes to start. Yeah, yeah. Start and grow a business.

Speaker1: No man I never, I never have like in my bank account, there is never there’s always a balance between like when it hits zero and there’s always like I need some money in there to pay for that next thing. [02:02:00] Yeah. And this is the growth of a business, right? We bought our business with a loan at the beginning, and the practice was only 285 grand that we got as our first one. 13 well, no, eight, nine years ago. And at the time that’s a lot of money, right. For you’re like, oh, I need to find 15 grand as a 10% deposit. And then you like grow and then all the money that you’re taking go in to add the two rooms or make a better, or change the toilet or get a microscope right. And then you start set the [02:02:30] squat and you’re like, fuck, we need to find like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds here because you can’t get a big loan on that because it’s a new squat, right. And the bank aren’t going to do that. So you find it was the Covid loan that I could get. I found some other money. I found some just beg. Borrowing and stealing, basically. But then when you open that clinic every single month, you’re losing money and having to find more money to pour into that. And then it gets the point where you’re like, oh, actually. And [02:03:00] then the tax bill comes and then tax bills Jan the tax bills July. And you’re like, that’s even more money. Where am I going to get this from. And then wait for the.

Speaker3: School fees to come in man.

Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah exactly. And what the hell. And then you get to the point where you just start to be like, okay, another practice, all right? Or or the lab or lab needs another five grand every month from every person and or whatever it is. Right. So there’s always and at the point where you start [02:03:30] to think that you’re like, oh, actually I can just like, chill for a bit and they’re like, oh, sting, you need another thing. But that is the growth of a business. If you want to have this business that has that extra scanner, that has the CT scanner, that thing, until you get to that point where it just gets easier because then if you’ve got if you’ve got five practices that are doing well and you open one practice, you know, as a percentage, yeah, it’s a percentage, it’s nothing. Whereas if you’ve only got one practice, you open another one. It’s such a huge [02:04:00] practice. So I do like I can see that end in sight from the kind of worrying perspective if things hopefully carry on touchwood on the same trajectory of of where they are. But if you want to grow, that’s what happens for years. For, for years.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah, that’s a real, real talk. You know, because it’s easy to look at the the bling.

Speaker1: Yes, yes.

Speaker3: Yeah. And assume it’s just a walk in the park. Yeah. And it’s not man.

Speaker1: No [02:04:30] it’s not.

Speaker3: And I think worthwhile is a no.

Speaker1: It’s and it’s hard. Especially if you haven’t got that you haven’t been gifted that practice because your parents have a practice or do you know what I mean? Or you’ve got that family money or.

Speaker3: You know, those guys have their own nightmares, right? Because they get no benefit of that. No one thinks that anything they do is worth anything.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: I met a guy. His his dad owns 100 practices, and nothing this guy does will be attributed to him. Yeah. Nothing.

Speaker1: Yeah, [02:05:00] yeah. Oh, your dad had that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I also do think that, like, when you’re growing a business at the beginning, even doing something like changing that toilet that didn’t flush properly or getting a new light fitting, you’re like, wow, that’s like amazing. And you get such like enjoyment out of those, those things like such enjoyment. Um, whereas as time goes on and you grow, it’s less, more about the light fitting rather than like, you know, the five [02:05:30] or Dental chairs or something like something like that. Right?

Speaker3: I’ve really enjoyed this, George.

Speaker1: Me too man, thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker3: Thank you. Um, all the best luck to you. Thank you buddy, for the for your.

Speaker1: You’ll see it hopefully.

Speaker3: And George the dentist. Right. That’s if anyone wants to find you. It’s George the dentist at.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: Darren’s idea. You do TikTok. No.

Speaker1: No, I did it for, like, a short amount of time during Covid and made, like ten videos, but it took me like three days to make each one. [02:06:00] So like, no, no, no, I’ll just, uh, stick to there. Checking the referrals at the moment.

Speaker3: Amazing, man. Thank you so much for doing.

Speaker2: This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts. Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Speaker4: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank [02:06:30] you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Speaker3: 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.

Speaker4: And don’t forget our six star rating.