[00:00:05] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging Leaders and Dental Street. Your hosts, Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:00:22] Today’s episode of Dental Leaders brings together some of the very best content from our practise owners who shared loads of insights into practise ownership, different ways of managing run in the business of dentistry, the highs, the lows, the hints, the tips of running businesses. If you’re an aspiring practise owner or even an existing practise owner, the loads of content here, there’s going to be so valuable to. The Leaders who share content on this episode include Adam Thorne from Harley Street Dental studio.

[00:00:57] It’s become a bit of a cliché to say this now, but I see a lot of people working long, long hours. Should we be in a mindil, mine and so forth? But how do you feel? I mean, you’ve recently cut down so much or.

[00:01:12] Uh, yeah, I mean, I’ve cut down sort of a couple of years ago, but I think it’s it’s time, you know, and like you said, I think you can say that, you know, even the six year drop in income and give you the time and you do need time to sort of sit back and think. And that’s true from the initial patient consultation as well. And I think a lot of people try to rush and see as many patients and as almost like a badge. Hey, I saw 40 patients today be much more productive if you see maybe between five and eight, spend some time with them. People people want to be understood to be heard. And they feel if you’re spending time with them, then then they’re more likely to invest in their teeth and and take up the treatment.

[00:01:52] So what’s a mistake you made that, you know, you would give yourself, if you could, to talk to someone else who’s been to this process and he’d be your competitor. But but but what’s a mistake that you made that you wouldn’t make again?

[00:02:06] I think sometimes A, been too ambitious and sort of take on a bit more. And I think when we moved into we where this great vision and it was a vision to move into this new site in 2013, we spent a lot of time planning it, but we were then sort of almost like you, you and trying a budget and then that sort of goes out the window. And I think we should have been a bit bit more focussed and strict on nailing down the costs and building costs, building costs and leases and squeezed suppliers a little bit more, because I think we we overpaid on some things. And it’s almost like sort of when you get married, you have a budget. And then you the last week alone, you had done so.

[00:02:48] Alfonzo Rao, who set up a mini corporate, the Apollonia Dental group of funds. How did the whole practise ownership come around?

[00:02:58] I it is another story that I wanted to do because the time it was working in a mixed practise in Bristol and there were three expansion and I was hoping to buy into this expansion of practise. But then there were arguments between then one day, one of the afternoon when there was a night and thought, I’d like to chat some somewhere to work in the way that I realised that I was not really keen to get involved in that type of situation. And why then I. I resigned in the last time I was working as a visiting front of James Hull. And then, Joe, you know, that is my partner. Now, some of the practise, it was working in one square, the practise. Now I own and unfortunately, the dentist on the practise at the time, he had some problems. So he was on welfare. So he was off. So they’ve asked me to just hit them as a law because I had some spare days because I was kind of in between jobs. And then unfortunately, it was not really able to get back to work. And I was there and I had like a really good relationship with the practise manager, with the staff, and he offered me to buy. And then I just bought the practise at the time. But I mean, this domination that you’re doing in Bristol feels like to me feels like you in my old pal to Razavi playing up all of Bristol. Was this a plan from the beginning? Oh, no, definitely was not allowed in the seven practises that you own now.

[00:04:43] Is that right? Yeah, correct. And not only released and now we are able to get a hold of and for all we know. Well, yeah, probably is the way that we would like these Dental clinic project. And we’re moving from ideally from Canada moving to London. I know to where you are as well. Yes. We it’s nice because we’ve got a good relationship and a respectful relationship with each other. So we are competitive. We’ve got really nice relationship, which I really liked but was not never been the plot. The plot of the original plan was I by my own practise, at least I can be my own boss. I said I’m not really going to be told what to do. And then I start to realise how many excited having one practise and know what if I have three, I probably feel the same and but then having more practise but then was not the case. Now I try to say, OK, if I have seven, this is I don’t plan on getting any better. I don’t know the answer. Yes, but yeah we see. But up until you talk about headaches, I tend to get old, although we both spoke about many stresses that you have of practise ownership and dealing with certain individuals, you tend to handle stress quite pragmatically. And quite simply, I think as a business owner, some people really let it get to them both.

[00:06:10] Your way of just handling these stresses to practise these three practises up to seven. And then you’ve got this idea and you can sort of by later growing this empire. Right. But how could you let these things not get to you and just just click it off your shoulder the way you do? You know, it’s one of those things that we had this conversation. I don’t know. I think you’re getting a little bit my background. I try to do things with the in terms sometimes I stop. And I think what’s important in life is family has these at least like my kids, my wife. And I’m lucky I’m lucky that I do a job that I like. I’ve got almost everything in the world and that is what is really important. So I always try to kind of think things in proportion and understand that, yes, there are a lot of these things that are complex and they can cause stress. But in the promotion with important things in life, they are just like things that they can annoy everyone. But I don’t think that should really affect my health or my my nature. And this is always try to manage that. And yeah, I have a lot of people that make comments on how I can be so relaxed with all those things. I don’t know. I honestly sometimes look at my phone and I’ve got twenty five message, hundred email or something. I don’t

[00:07:38] Have such Dental,

[00:07:40] But I was looking at the list of practises. You’ve got a practise in somewhere Orpington. Why there’s a manager there.

[00:07:50] So that practise at the moment is part time. So three days a week is one of the other ones, one

[00:07:56] Of the other ones that is working.

[00:07:59] We have we have quite a lot of really great stuff. We have a head of finance, we have head of marketing, we have a great PM. We have some senior receptionists, nurses that really help and support us. We’re not as corporate as maybe we should be or we could be. But I think we’re really, really lucky. I mean, I’m looking over. I’ve got a couple of lifeboats just literally behind you in case the majority of my work. So we’re just planning management structures now. We’re rejigging things. We’re planning to go into a bit more ruthless and thermic. So try and get promoted internally and recruit new things for for some other positions. But yeah, no, it should be it should be fun.

[00:08:38] So that head of marketing and head of finance, a centralised like head office people, they really do.

[00:08:46] So I think our PM is somebody who does travel between sites, but she’s usually based out of one. But no, we only have three of what we call potentially management people. We’re really lucky. We have. So the nurse that I work with, just a lot of our ordering, a lot of stock control helps me with a lot of my admin support. And we have business again, that helps team. That really helps. So we really share the responsibility. So we don’t have a huge management team. A lot of our it’s a lot of the dentist. If there’s a problem, they’ll just come and speak to me directly and the team will message me directly. So we don’t really have a hierarchy. We don’t really have a structure where they feel removed from us, not too dissimilar from where you’re at. And their team can just walk up to you and say, I have a problem, and then you kind of empower them to fix their own problem rather than saying, actually, that’s not so. My bike, go and speak. X, Y, Z, because otherwise, I think the team doesn’t really grow. They don’t feel the pain of, oh, I need to learn more information, I need to do something new. So that’s that’s what we found works well. I’ve heard a lot of the other podcasts, and it’s different in a very different way.

[00:09:53] What’s the head count for how many people work for Dental, Dental

[00:09:56] Group and dentist and all that? Yeah, 70 for a lot of people. We’re really lucky. We’re really lucky. Again, like, again, my mom’s very much involved in the business. So she my dad got involved. So she’s to be an accountant. My dad got involved, does everything from sedation. So she’s sedation at 3:00 to PM Rose. So again, we’re we’re very much family run. We don’t have this massive corporate mentality down canal.

[00:10:28] And Andy suffered from the cosmetic dental clinic in Newcastle. And Durham is talking about mistakes along the way, either hiring the wrong person or maybe getting rid of the wrong person or for the wrong reasons. Can you just enlighten us to a couple of experiences along the way, maybe having to get rid of someone who did the firing, was it or was earning?

[00:10:51] And where we did we did have a big sort of blip a few years ago that we more recently, our practise fund manager is just absolutely amazing. Dental, Prav. That’s really what we managed before the manager, before it turned out that she’d been up in the hands in the till a little bit. And when it came to light it was quite a few quid and it got very serious very quickly. And that was our biggest mistake on the way. And looking back, it was horrendous and it really escalated and it turned out to be something that went a long way. But as an experience for us, we learnt so much about what we should do and what we need to keep our eyes on and and and things that can happen. We’ve always been so trusting. We trust everyone. And I think that was a big turning point where when we realised that, yes, we can trust people and yes, we should always give people the benefit of the doubt, but not to not to to a point where we’re taken our eye off the ball a little bit. So, I mean, that was probably the biggest bump in the road that we’ve had over the over the fifteen years. And I still look at that and think there was there was a lot of positive that came from that. It didn’t obviously turn out well for her. And, you know, we didn’t do so well financially that year. But I think that has actually pushed us on to the next level and we wouldn’t be where we are today if we hadn’t actually had that experience.

[00:12:25] So what was the process of obviously discovering? Not the initial shock of it all. And then I’m assuming you guys chat it through with each other. How are you going to approach her? It was going to have the conversation with what you were going to say, maybe repeat the conversation in your own heads a hundred times, and then what would you talk about the hiring and firing process? It’s always one that induces quite a bit of anxiety, and especially with something like this where, you know, it’s been motivated by by by theft, I guess.

[00:12:59] How did you just approach that problem? I think we approach that one like we approach most things. We did it together. And it was one of these where we’ve, you know, with the type of people that like to face things from the on. And so it was one of these once we being brought to our attention, really as to what might be happening, it was just straight into our office, sat down across the table from her and tried to establish what on earth was going on. And this particular person was very much in denial. What the facts were that, you know, this was this was taken on by by the police in the end. And this patient, sort of this person got a custodial sentence as a result of all of this. But, yeah, like everything else, we take these things head on together and we work our way through these things. Thankfully, hiring and firing as a as a general rule within the practise, the firing squad has been very limited. You know, we’ve got a lot of team members that have been with us there for a very long time. So that side of things is not something that we’ve had to do on a on a routine basis. The hiring side of things is, again, something that we very much get involved with, particularly nowadays. It’s probably more for the clinician side of things. And we have Lisa and the management teams underneath her that do the rest of the staff. But we’re very much heavily involved in choosing the right dentists and therapists and hygienists to come and join us, because, again, in protection of our baby, you know, we want to be involved at that point to ensure that the people will bring in a to upset the apple cart that we’ve worked so hard to achieve and to make sure that they’re going to follow the same ethos that we want our practises to.

[00:14:37] Work to Dev Patel from the Dental Beauty Group.

[00:14:42] Tell me about the practises then, and it’s quite an interesting, unique kind of business model, isn’t it? You kind of partner up with go and tell me to listen.

[00:14:51] I think it’s I should pay something for us, to be fair, because I’m always I spent a good year and a half out there, pretty much back and forth. And what I realised was Dentists’ shouldn’t actually be when I say shouldn’t. It’s very rare for them to have clinical and business typically like that. So that’s what I trained for five years to do. And probably number five is more military officer. So that’s what I’m good at. And when you start looking at how they’ve won, I’m sure you I that really poorly run businesses, most of them trying to get to the parts of you have pretty bad even if you look at business and you think, what are you guys doing? That’s why people like I started just when I talk to people, it’s like life changing. I’m like, guys, this is not rocket science. You want a business in a normal way. And it’s pretty straightforward stuff. But you don’t get all this stuff at university by a dentist. That’s it. And I think what I realised was in the US design model is as a backoffice, who does the business side of things? Marketing, compliance, accounting, lampblack, fundraising, accounting, side of things. And you’ve got the dentist to up to the practise, the technical guys on the ground in a practise who actually know what clinical is about. The is the practise in terms of the team. That is why and that’s the whole US model, the whole US which is like one hundred thousand pieces. And we have this competitive model which is obviously broken because all the big groups have all failed over the last whether or not able failed financially.

[00:16:21] If you look at all the big names, names, because I will them, but all the big, big groups have failed in some form. And the main reason is because of reputation, culture. And you get this kind of negative connotation with a group being like a factory. Right. You get told what materials to use, lack of freedom. You don’t get the same level of care and quality as an owner would be if you were there perhaps on the ground and never said his clients have always been. My basic level kind of thinking have to have the best quality at any cost we do because we don’t have quality. You will lose patients, lose teams, you lose all time. And that’s the worst thing for any business. That’s why of many is because eventually at some point we have like ten lines before the head office can do anything. And in each year you’ve got non dentists to do from like to saying, hey, your dentist, I know what I’m doing because I said last ten years, use this implantable cheeba. Do I say that’s kind of that’s kind of patchy. And I just thought, what is going on? This is not how health issue one. And look, if you look at next to me, not Tom as well, I’ve got this model as well. It’s very much franchised back office. That’s the front of head office staff offices, the health professionals. So I just thought, why is not done this research into. And I thought, OK, let’s start doing it. And also, at the same time, a lot of dentists in my age group from network as well have been asking me, hey, I want to buy factis, how do you do it? But my first practise in twenty fifteen double the time of a year and a half one of your boards.

[00:17:55] And I think and as a result of that, people like you kind of understand this now and then want to know how to do it. So I said, no, I can help you help yourself friend. Anyway, I always will. If you want my full, full time attention, I need to do this as an investigative. So I partnered up with a couple of close friends at a time who obviously want to buy a practise and expensive. And fortunately I did quite well a couple of inches and the first couple of years of working to have enough savings to them to invest with them alongside them so we can buy books together, which would normally be very difficult to do within five years of university because you just have the cash these days. I mean, you’re looking at paying eight times whatever it is these days, the market you’re paying in hundreds of thousands initially just to block out just what I did anyway. And no one’s not not not not maybe we’ve got kind of cash. So you’re going to have a partner and the banks can back me in terms of knowing I can do it once and the few times you got much better facility lending. So that was also a big reason why it makes sense for Con initially.

[00:19:02] So you’re getting fifty fifty with them. Yeah. Yeah. Fifty fifty fifty one point fifty one for those. Are you looking

[00:19:09] At me when I say fifty fifty we have like it’s literally I would say is actually up my round was. I hope his team works well because in the end I, if they’re happy will make money because they are the ones who develop the pots and grow them. So we always say, look, if you want four times more of a structure for the group and financial lending banks actually in real life and actually on paper to if we have not many big. It is a complete partnership, which is what it should be, because that’s where you can go

[00:19:42] And go through the stuff that you take care of from head office, is marketing part of your responsibility?

[00:19:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’m hoping, like, initially when we first the first few days, it was very much made my partner, Arjuna’s, with my father in law and maybe one or two of our kind of really good and managers who was help us one whole group and was really fortunate to get a few partners within the first few months. So we had, I think, a possible end of the first year and we only start by the beginning of twenty 19. So we actually had eight what years. So people pretty quickly, but I think once had the blueprint and the backing financially in terms of lending, it wasn’t difficult because actually just like out the same model each time franchise, initially we did all of that so we would do this development, business planning, our recruitment contracts, marketing, compliance, finance, payroll and everything. And then. Bloody hell.

[00:20:46] Elaine Howley, famously known for the Cherry Bank Dental Spa, one of the original cosmetic practises that really brought patient experience to the forefront of dentistry. And so moving from that job to owning your own business, obviously, if there was entrepreneurial and, you know, I guess it was probably written in it in your life or sort of in your blood, so to speak, that you were going to own your own business. At what point did you say, well, I’m going to create my own

[00:21:16] Practise of my own

[00:21:18] Patient journey, my own vision? Because I remember when I first got into dentistry probably 13 years ago, 14 years ago now, Cherrix Bank was that practise that you just looked upon and everyone spoke about the experience, the service there and everything. To me, to me, I don’t know whether they did speak about the actual dentistry

[00:21:43] Itself, but the the one big stand

[00:21:47] Out saying the one big standout thing that was on everyone’s radar was the service and the level of service and people who went there to visit. And I think you were at the time you were doing some kind of training programme with James management going around practises and almost like injecting Chemie Bank into multiple practises. Right. So what how did that sort of evolution come about from obviously working as a dentist for someone else to saying, I want to go out of business and create this experience patients?

[00:22:19] Yeah, I didn’t last very long working for anyone else, I think I have I have learnt that by about myself. There’s a certain, you know, would you say control freak? I don’t know what it is, but there’s a certain you know, I have ideas unless and I want for me, freedom is really, really important. The freedom to be able to put my own ideas into practise. So I I was very young when I started my practise. And my first job as an associate was great big NHS practise. I learnt a lot, but I went on a course and I can’t even remember the name of the course. And there’s a few key dentists that we all know that work on that as well. But it was basically an accountant, but he was almost running a course for associates saying you can do this by yourself. And I hadn’t actually considered it at that time that I would be able to open a practise of my own. I was just kind of going with the flow. There wasn’t VTE. I was just ahead of the curve. So, you know, my first to two and a half years in practise, I was self taught. I realised very quickly I didn’t know enough. So I immediately enrolled on the programme. I went on a lot of courses and then I was working down in England and decided I wanted to come back to Scotland. And I just couldn’t face the thought of signing on as an associate again for another practise. So fortunately, I had the support of my parents, but I just decided to open a school practise. I did a fair amount of research into where would I want to live and where did I think they would be space at that time. But yes, I was only two and a half years out of uni and I opened a school practise and.

[00:24:06] Is that you?

[00:24:07] Edinburgh one

[00:24:08] Perth. That’s where I’m sitting

[00:24:09] In Perth with your first one.

[00:24:11] So this is my boy you’re sitting in right now? Yeah. He’s going to take us through this.

[00:24:16] We will be opening this school was quite a bit of a tough thing to do, but then people didn’t really open sports.

[00:24:24] I mean, of course,

[00:24:25] Some did take us through that. I mean, are you the kind of person who jumps into things with full confidence or did you have anxiety about it using your parents money?

[00:24:36] That I didn’t use my parents money, not that they offered, but what we did want to do is guarantee. So they had the guarantee, you know, they had to act of the guarantee for the loans from the bank. Yeah. And. Do I jump into things I think I think I logically look at the pros and cons, I had a plan and I just took it step by step and kind of didn’t I’ve never particularly worried too much about what other people think, although then sometimes it comes as a shock when I realise people do think things. And so I got a lot of a lot of stick for opening a practise in a city where I wasn’t known. And I actually got some quite nasty letters from some of the the dentists. I was quite naive, I suppose. I did write to everyone saying I was opening a practise single handed practise. I was going to be charging privately for the first examination. It was just the contract. So change the year that I graduated. So there was a big move in England where I had worked initially for dentists coming out the NHS. Scotland wasn’t moving in that way. So before that, you weren’t allowed to mix private and NHS. And I, I started by charging for the full examination and then giving people options. And that was practically I would be really angered a lot of people by doing that. But I just I kept my head down and stuck to my guns and realised very quickly I wasn’t going to survive and an NHS environment because I wanted to be able to offer my patients the best. The dentist you had to offer, that’s always been I want my patients to have the choice of the of the best not to say that I’m the best clinically. That was never my that was never my goal. But to make sure that I understood all the different options and to be sure that people had choice, that’s what was important to me.

[00:26:32] My beloved brother, Kylie Solanki, who shook up Manchester back in 2005 when he launched his Dental.

[00:26:41] Because I’m producing I’m hoping not lots of means, but I want to produce people that are not scared, that understand dentistry is something that needs to be provided, passed a basic level, but happy to provide it because he knows I’m his mentor. I will help him. I will go through that with him and I’ll go through every journey with him. I check his preps, I check his arms, I check his final fit.

[00:27:06] Are we supposed to talk about treatments to talk about this? Yeah, we should talk about is, you know, Prav and I have talked about you. I mean, you introduced me to Prav. Let’s start with you and Prav. And I have talked about you a lot. And, you know, Prav does marketing for hundreds of dentists. And and he says that in the end, you are the one of all of his clients who converts the most. And then this question of is it just okay, some people have an X factor and they can do things or is it teachable? And now you’re telling me it’s teachable, you know, which is which is different to what I thought. I thought, okay, caliche, a special is, you know, since you were saying you were grossing and and looking people’s socks off from VTE. All right, you’ve got something. But the idea that it’s teachable, that’s beautiful, you know.

[00:28:00] Yeah. Like from my side, I honestly believe that in three to four years time, I’ll have a team of these guys that will do super well for themselves but will do it well. Guess Dental as well know building a team. I always think of, you know, people like Alex Ferguson when Ebele United or right from the start. And I’m not a massive football person, but I understand his ethos. I understand his athletes understand. You know, actually, I’m not going to buy all these people at real big money. I’m going to invest right from the start. It’s going to take time and energy. And I’m happy to pull that time and again because I know I will produce these superstars because I know he’s teachable. And both of those two guys that I’ve already taught it to a testament to that you see all these people now, you know, two years they’re going to practise. All of a sudden they’re given out business advice like this. And business gurus and like guys are kidding me. Like, I’ve run three practises for fifteen years. I’ve been through recessions, I’ve been through floods, storms.

[00:29:03] But to be fair, you were doing the same when you were a new boy as well. You were, you know, but it’s a lot. But it was it is people were happier. You would do the same. Yeah. Came out of Dental school running a straight course. I remember that’s when I first met you. There was a double.

[00:29:20] Yeah, but what I’m saying is like understand like your you know, your mentor has got to be it’s got to be this has got to be some value in what you’re gain.

[00:29:31] It should take us back to where now. I think it’s back to when you decided to do this Dental.

[00:29:38] Ok, so so Kiss Dental was basically born from me once in a clinic. And I’m very impulsive, very, very impulsive when I purchase things and my shoe collection will tell you that is about a thousand pairs in there and you’re not joking. So I kind of think I’m not joking. Unfortunately, I’m not joking. I wish I was actually, you know, and

[00:30:01] I don’t have a knife. Traders know me.

[00:30:04] Yeah, I know. That’s the reason why I wish I wasn’t joking. And so so basically, I kind of wanted to wanted a clinic and there was a clinic on the market. And it was funny, actually. I had a really close friend at the time who was a dentist. And I said to him, think about buying his practise. And he said to me, Oh, no, don’t buy that salwan a lot. My friends have been to look at it. He already owned a clinic in Manchester Mad. And he said, Oh, don’t buy that. It’s a lemon, you won’t do any numbers are poor on it and so on and so forth. So I kept looking at it and and in the end I thought, you know, screw it, I’m going to buy it. I didn’t actually have a lot of money. I had sold the business. I had about 50 K at that money. That works a little better, but I’ve been spending. So it was what it was. And I put a business plan together and managed to get funding from the bank. Back then we talk talking two thousand and four or five. They were giving you money for old rope. They were giving you like one hundred, ten percent loans. So it’s happy days. It’s got five hundred thousand pound loan. But this clinic had a I think it had something like one hundred thousand two hundred thousand pounds a building and three hundred thousand pounds of goodwill.

[00:31:16] I lost pretty much all the goodwill day one. So now I had a 200 thousand pound built in Riverdale could well and and I decided to spend about four hundred thousand doing the place up. So I was in debt for about Brincat on a mil. I even open the doors yet, but I had brilliant Brandyn, I’d call it Dental, I’d I’d read I’d got these designers to did everything. I got a website before I bought it. It was called Woodsen Circle Family Dental Practise, and the population base was like sixty five to 80, all coming in for the little klinz and polishes. And that was there and I was saying I’m going to open this fantastic cosmetic clinic in Manchester and we’re going to provide all this on the outskirts and people are going to travel from the city centre and so on. And that was my business model. We would close to the network links. We were close to the train station, were close to the motorway, and we were close to the traffic centre. And from my point of view, they were landmarks. People would come to us. We just needed to open our doors and cracken.

[00:32:21] Kishen Jin, who owned the Smile Clinic Group, we made sure, you know, we’ve got every going to practise manager. We’ve got our

[00:32:29] Obsoleted my brother who looks after it. And then we’ve got two younger dentists who we’ve taken on board who are, you know, without them, again, the support they’ve given us and the growth aspect is supporting us on the operations. None of this would function. So we’ve grown a whole subletter, our team, the marketing, finance, so we can also go and smash it up. And I remember I remember

[00:32:52] Speaking to Jin Jin. It was March last year, right. Just as we picked up as a fourth practise. And I said, hey, listen, we’re going to have to grow the team because myself and there’s no way that if we’re going to buy normal practises, that we’ll be able to sustain this. You know, there’s only so many hours in the day and we can only be in so many places at one time between the three of us. So we just took a view that we have to keep growing the team. And one thing that we built within each practise is layers so that there is a sort of a chain of communication all the way right through from reception, all the way through to us. And even though that there’s all those layers that everyone has our number, we’re always we’ve got loads of WhatsApp groups with each practise so that any issues, you know, we’re still seeing it. We’re there to help and support the whole team. Even though we went from four to ten practises and everything we kind of put into place was when we had a small number of practises so that we could just then apply that as we grow in size.

[00:33:52] What were the growing pains going from, let’s say, for. To 10, right, it most going from one to two. I remember, you know, you look at practise one anything. I’ll just go and buy practise too, and I’ll just do double what I’m doing. Right. Just replicate that formula if you go and then you get the biggest shock of your life when you realise that isn’t the case and then you go to three and so on and so forth. What were the biggest pains that you guys experience going from, let’s say before that you had in the space of the covid pandemic, almost tripling the size of your business? That must have been some some serious growing

[00:34:26] Pains during that time.

[00:34:29] I think that’s a very, very good question, and I think the hardest thing for us, especially during the kind of sort of period, is the. Not being able to go physically to the sites, and I think that we’re very hands on in that respect and I think generally agree with me when I say this is that one of the practises we bought was a fairly private practise was literally we completed one week before Lockton. And we had plans to go up, but they didn’t materialise because of lockdown and obviously we couldn’t meet the team and we could do whatever we do on Zoom. But back then, everyone was still getting a feel for Zoom. And it’s just not the same feeling as going in and sort of having that team meeting, that practise meeting to introduce ourselves what we’re about. So I think that was probably one of the hardest things, not being able to physically be there initially.

[00:35:19] But I just miss giving everyone hugs, you see, and there we were, a bit old school. And I like, you know, face to face seeing people feel that energy and vibe when you were there. And when you’re growing to a certain size, you can’t be at every practise. I mean, you can clone yourself and go there and do it. So trying to put in structures and processes in place where everyone knows you are there and approachable, but they don’t feel like, you know, going into the practise, that’s something we struggle with, along with time, trying to make time to juggle all this and also balance everything with home, life, life, life, kids, everything as well, which for myself, in case the balance of life is super important, I think trying to keep that all in place. I don’t I don’t I’m not

[00:36:11] I’m not currently running any Dental practises, yes, so the three of you can help me with this year, but some this isn’t it better to take your four practises and double the output of those for them to operate?

[00:36:25] Yeah, I mean, look, I think you’re right. One of the things which you make a good point on and I would say is it’s about focussing on making sure your bottom line or your EBITDA net

[00:36:36] Profit is increasing. And that’s one thing we’re quite conscious with,

[00:36:39] Making sure each practises

[00:36:41] Output is increasing. But on the flipside, if a good opportunity comes along,

[00:36:47] We’re going to take it. And that’s how there is a balance of both

[00:36:51] Real Doshi, who owned, grew and exited from the Perfect Smile studios, and today is the clinical director of Dental.

[00:37:01] Maybe you ended up buying buying ash out. I did. And how many years after that did you sell the practise?

[00:37:09] I bought Ashot in 2010 and then my practise joined Dental in 2017.

[00:37:17] How did it feel? I mean, we’ll talk about it, but how did it feel selling the place? Did you feel that sense of loss that people talk about then Texas model is that you’re still

[00:37:27] Kind of involved. So actually, the only reason why I joined Dental was not to sell. So that’s an important thing. I did not join to sell or to leave dentistry. I, I wasn’t thinking of exit. Dentists were offering me to actually grow the number of practises I had. So they were offering me a way of growing off, not just having one practise, but actually having multiple practises, which they would have. And my role I joined in Texas what was called a regional partner. You will be earlier. I’m one of the earlier people, so I was working with ten practises in Dental, I think nine or ten, but I can’t remember the number. So you

[00:38:06] Transition from what you had to working with ten

[00:38:10] Practises, what period of time and

[00:38:12] Within a year. Within a year or two years.

[00:38:14] And were you just sort of honing in on your experience of what you’d done in your practises and distributing that, or did you come across new challenges that you hadn’t come across before?

[00:38:24] The reason why I joined Dental exposed to grow and and at that time to do still current with my clinical dentistry. And I want to be totally left alone in the way I did my dentistry. If I worked for any other practise, I’d be unemployable because the way I practised was so unique to me with a team that I practised in the way I worked in my environment. I did not want anybody to tell me what to deliver and then allowed me to do that. So when it then came to growing ten practises as opposed to a single practise, because I’d been doing a fair bit of coaching with Bhavna, my wife, and growing other practises, I had that experience with her. So we joined as a team to then Texaco and we then were able to grow many practises with her only because of the experience we’d had in growing other practises previously. And every practise is different and practise that we’d grown previously had its own challenges. So we were literally just using the same knowledge that we’d gained in and putting into Dental

[00:39:26] Just like muscle memory. Really. You’ve experienced the challenges and you kind of say, well, we’ve come across this problem before and that’s how I fix it. Absolutely. And so and it

[00:39:36] Went so well that then they put you in charge of eighty something practises

[00:39:39] Well. So Dental now has seventy one practises and yes, I’m the clinical director. So my, my title is sort of cloak and clinical development strategy director. So it’s about growth of these seventy-one practises clinically and in other ways as well.

[00:39:57] Samir Patel from Eleven Dental. So what you’ve what you’ve just said there really makes sense in terms of, you know, everything that you’ve put together. But you came from this cricket playing dentist who’s worked in a few practises, has been given a bit business knowledge. What was the actual journey to get from an associate oasis to having this multi award winning practise with super talented clinicians?

[00:40:23] If you just put that out there and you think about

[00:40:26] Another dentist out there listening to this is such a lofty

[00:40:30] Goal, how do you how do you recruit these super talented people? What is it that you

[00:40:34] Attract them with? And then how do you get to that point? So what was your journey from the point that you were an associate to where you are now?

[00:40:42] So from Twyford, again, I believe networking is so important and thankfully I enjoy networking. I said to you earlier, you know, the people side of things I really enjoy. And I went to the b’day local committees and would listen to the lectures in the evenings and ended up being the chairman and the chairman for the GDP, a guy who Steve reduced our practise in HENNELLY and. He approached me and he said, look, you’ve got a good reputation, I’m looking for somebody to take over my practise and the partnership, and so I went to see him. And it’s this wonderful Georgian building in the middle of Hanalei Street. It’s a beautiful building, great you listed. And I was just blown away by it. And then I walked in and it was just, do I belong here? This is so nice. And my two partners were 10 and 12 years old and the mayor, respectively. And I thought, well, this is going to be a great training ground for me to to work and and now go to the next step. And I was so excited to own a practise. And I remember Shivani, who was always so supportive. It’s like, how are we going to pay for that monthly expenditure that we have to put in the fall? And I said, you know, I think you’ll be OK and you have to take that leap of faith. And then I joined it.

[00:41:58] But interestingly, when I joined it, it was actually very difficult because the vision of my partners was not my vision. And so finding TrueNorth had not been found at this stage. It was a tough and quite a few years where I was in this place, the vision of where everyone how they were working, where I was working, the way I wanted to work, the way I want the practise looked like I was I was a little bit claustrophobic. And at that stage, I had now given up playing county cricket and I was just playing club cricket for Ealing, which was great, but I was training quite hard still. And then Anthony, who’s my partner up in London, and he’s an orthodontist. So I really respect the way that you talk in the way you work and the way you’re doing stuff. And I’m an orthodontist. Would you have got this? Would you like to do something together? I said I loved doing something together because I don’t feel I’ve really found what it is that I want to find here. It was I hadn’t found my true north and at that stage I didn’t know what it was. And he had found an orthodontic practise in the West End. And when we did all our due diligence, it was very clear that 90 percent was coming from the Internet and 10 percent was referral. And so I said, come on, let’s give it a go.

[00:43:10] So we remortgaged our houses, we put all our savings and we put it into 11. And we were both had our own practises and we started. So Shibani Nice and Anstee started that two days a week and so. Well, that’s grown now. Then it was then I brought the then this building blocks. This is all building blocks. So then it was about general dentistry and then we got another audit done. Since they were busy. I brought Peterle in who’s my first associate I brought in there’s a general dentist and now were 18 of us, but that’s grown just three blocks of getting busier. And if I can share with you how we started at 11 again, it started Prav. As you said, it didn’t start with clinical dentistry. It started with Accenture coming in to come and tell us how a business should run before we started it. So we had KPIs and the orthodontics was divide. It was they were given three options. You can have a match at that stage with metal, metal, metal, ceramic, ceramic, ceramic. And that was their option. And he said, Starbucks, do it. You give them three options. They’ll pick the middle one 80 percent, pick the middle one. So now what you want is 80 percent. Pick that middle one. So we were like, OK, that’s what we’re going to do. And then we built in what our overheads were and then we built in how many patients we want to see how how we were going to market, how we had to increase our marketing to get those numbers in.

[00:44:30] And then we achieved the target. And, you know, a lot of it is knowing your numbers as a leader. And from the beginning, I knew my numbers and so happy to say we’ve grown that business six hundred percent since we’ve owned it. But it was from understanding that my staff this is my numbers, this is what we’re doing. And then having a plan and having a name. And every year we would have an aim of this is what we want to try and do. It doesn’t mean that we’re selling more stuff. It just means we need to open the top on marketing a little bit more now because that’s not happening. And again, talking about where that comes from, it comes from us being stable and having incomes from our other associates, our other partner jobs basically. And so therefore, there’s never drive to make eleven a money spinning machine or it was just about having dentistry and we tore down the whole of dentistry and made it the most remarkable customer experience that we we thought was possible. And we did that with Accenture. To start with a couple of questions. When you say CPI’s OK, we’ve got, I don’t know, top line. Bottom line.

[00:45:40] Did you focus on one of those two? Firstly, no. Well, which one of those two?

[00:45:45] We basically had KPIs. Just understand what our aim was as key KPIs that you were looking at, large number of bonders, for example, because it was all it was just orthodontics at that stage and that’s all it was. And then we got the lease for upstairs. So at the same time of our profits, we were trying to refurbish upstairs. And you’ve been upstairs to my room and that space there. And again, it’s it’s an environment where it’s conducive to people wanting to have dentistry and opening their mind of seeing what is possible. So CPI’s a number of Bundaberg, a number of new patients seen, and it was very simple. No leads, number of new patients booked in. A number of people went ahead with treatment. That was the journey at that stage.

[00:46:31] Sandeep Kumar, founder of the My Small Group.

[00:46:35] So how are you? How are you adding volume to that? And it’s just back then,

[00:46:39] Could you do it? So back then it was the fee for service, like there was no Yoda’s or anything. Like you just do you just do the work. And I was bored, became a workaholic and even at that time. So it was literally my principle and my philosophy those days was same and even today they’re the same. Do not say no to the patient if somebody turns up in a practise in pain. My simple instructions to my team was to not say to the patient that they can’t see you as long as they’re willing to wait. We will see them before the end of the day what time they cannot promise and pay. I still remember before we open for lunch, there was a 220 people standing outside sometime. And in 2003, I was the only one dentist. In 2006, there were six dentists in the face just to learn that practise. So how many? That is my background.

[00:47:34] Is that now? Is that the same six six

[00:47:36] Six six six surgery and it runs beautifully. I still take a lot of pride to go there every week. I feel home and I go there.

[00:47:47] Ok, so let’s talk about when did you decide to go for number two?

[00:47:51] So number two was 2006, the contract changed to UDS, so from 2003 to 2006, for me it was you know, I never came out one day, but I’m going to do this, this, this and this. It just happened. But 2006 contract, the growth was literally stopped. You can’t go of business. And I’m sitting there thinking, that’s no, I’m used to what I’m doing. Anybody can come into. And that’s going to start exploding what’s happening outside in the Dentistry for Dentistry Board instead of that boastful dental practise? Let me just go out and explore what’s going on. So I still remember I joined this battle programme that time. I think he used to run some clubs or something. And I speaking to Chris and I said, you know, I’m thinking about to open another practise, but I don’t know what to do. And they have to go. And I still remember he connected me with Zachy. That could come on and I can. Kanzaki and Chris was good friends. So I think Chris called Zacchaeus said, you know, this guy, you want to you want to have a look at what’s happening in private industry. Can you can you have a quick jeopardy? Because I came back to London one day and I thought, you know, I’m going to go to his practise.

[00:49:08] It’s going to set me in his office and he’s going to tell me a little bit about private practise, how that both. I can still remember that day I turned up the he or something. Give me half an hour. Just wait here. Let me just finish what a couple of things. There’s a long lunch lunchtime, and that guy has taken the rest of the day off for me. And he said, let me show you how to play the flexible. So they took me to Dental, where he used to work. It took me to London smiles, but he took me to Bow Lane. And I’m thinking, wow, this is another side of dentistry, you know, which I never, never leave. All I know is. Well, all I know about is about is that it is so expensive to four or five hours with me on that day and, you know, told me everything introduced with these guys. That’s the first time I met a and a couple of other guys that time, and that was it. So I came back and I got a bug and I said, you know what, I’m going private. I need to find a dentist who can do what I do

[00:50:14] And see my friend desk. Only a couple of practises, one in college and I believe one in Wimpole Street. But then your Baker Street practise. Was the majority of your new business come in because you had a shop from.

[00:50:27] Yes, definitely. Is there any marketing? Did I do any marketing? I did. You know, I did a lot of brochures. I did a lot of leafletting. I did some adverts in the local newspaper back then. Foolishly, I wasn’t doing any websites. I wasn’t doing any marketing through websites. And I didn’t even understand the power of how that would work. But, you know, just through local advertising and local marketing and having office, keeping the cost of the consultation, keeping the cost of the initial examination low, and with my relationship with Enlightened, you know, having teeth whitening offers certainly helped bring in the walk in trade.

[00:51:07] When was it? So you started lecturing for us? I remember. When was it in that time that you opened the Baker Street? Remind me.

[00:51:14] I opened the Baker Street one, if I’m not mistaken, around two thousand and two. And we started working together in the initial days was a 2004, 2005, five, five, five, six.

[00:51:29] So your big street to explain this to me, you spend some money, you set the place up. There’s no patience, no patience. How long did it take before it was busy?

[00:51:38] Two days a week? Not long. A few months. But I did have a lot of offers. And, you know, I’ve done a bit of homework. There weren’t that many practises in that region. It was a bit further up from Baker Street, up on Gloster Place. I don’t know if you know it. I think Francis Collins Junior School has a branch there and not a walk in. Trader was it was good. And I think the whole thing about teeth whitening was really expanding. It was pre the home kids. So it was all the the light activated ones. And because I could offer it at what I felt was a discounted rate, it brought in a lot of patients through the promotions that I would have through leafletting and advertising in the local newspapers.

[00:52:23] Sophina Ahmed, who sets up a dental practise focussed around delivering dentistry at convenience night Dental delivering treatment all the way up to midnight,

[00:52:36] And something I’ve studied entrepreneurship, leadership, any of that? Do you read books or try to read?

[00:52:43] I mean, this is definitely

[00:52:45] A pure bred entrepreneur, you know, like you’re an entrepreneur.

[00:52:49] It’s so, so in your blood.

[00:52:51] I observe, I observe, I observe and I take everything in and I look at what I didn’t do.

[00:52:57] And I mean, how old were you when you started? You were young.

[00:53:00] Thirty three.

[00:53:02] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:05] I to start when I was twenty four. What are you talking about. But yeah.

[00:53:09] Yeah, yeah. What’s your dream come true outcome.

[00:53:14] I don’t know.

[00:53:16] For years I’m not,

[00:53:17] I’m not going to lie. Yeah. Yeah I’m not going to lie. I have sliding door moments where I’m just like you know what I could have. Instead of spending two hundred thousand on that Democrats I just sat back. We make a decent money. My husband was making good money and I could have just spent his money and being a housewife and bought shoes and handbags and gone to the coffee shops. My friends and I do think, wouldn’t that have been a better life? And I do. I’m not going to lie. I have those moments where I think, what is this for and what is it worth? And there was there’s nothing why the why and control. And I don’t and I’ll be honest, I maybe I will have more of an answer in five years time. But I do go through this. I do go through those moments where I’m thinking, oh, goodness, like, what have I done? Like, why do this to myself? What did I guess what do you

[00:54:07] Think you’re trading in for business in your life?

[00:54:12] Well, you know what? I my kids are still at home. I’m with my kids. I don’t have a nanny. I don’t have home support like that. I do family support. Yeah. So I do look after my children. I know I breast feed my children. I think that is really important to me.

[00:54:31] More person. One hundred and fifty.

[00:54:33] You know, I hired do you know what I hired? I hired a personal sister, so I hired a sister and I thought and that’s what she does. She filters my calls. So she filters like things like she’ll say she’s very ruthless. She’ll just say. We need to deal with the issue, just make those decisions for which is exactly what I needed, and that’s made a big difference to me. So for me, I don’t want I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having a nanny, by the way. Like, I know people who are homemakers and have nannies and is completely fine that I don’t have, like, it’s what suits me and that suits me. And it was really important for me to not, you know, what is this, some life I don’t want to feel. What I’m doing is compromising my family and my my children. And, you know, I think it’s overcompensate

[00:55:19] Getting tired of being a woman than the man.

[00:55:22] Absolutely not. No, not woman generally, but maybe a woman in the field. I do, absolutely. Definitely being a woman and business. I love your mother because because I’m a mother. And you know what? I have faced so much vitriol. I have faced I mean, the things people have said about me and that we

[00:55:44] Don’t look like the classic classic entrepreneur

[00:55:48] Young. Exactly. Exactly. And and that I get so much backlash from and I did. I mean, I think things have definitely settled down, but especially at the beginning, I had people causing these people trying to sabotage me. People badmouth me, people judging me before they even started. And there was a lot of horrible, horrible things being said about me. And and it was all and I was trying to figure out where it came from. A lot of it was because people were genuinely scared, like they they have a stereotype of a girl. And I’m an Asian girl, Muslim girl, female, wears a headscarf. I’m like, if someone sees me, they’ll think she’s she’s not capable. She’s the stereotype me into being that placid, timid, can’t think for herself kind of person.

[00:56:32] Try and prove that wrong.

[00:56:33] Absolutely. Definitely. Yeah. I love that’s

[00:56:37] Why.

[00:56:38] That’s the reason why I don’t believe that. Yeah. Maybe it is. Maybe it is proven that we’re completely capable and we are completely you know, we can do this and we’ve got this some intelligent women, we’re independent. We think for ourselves we’re not. We’re not. And I think there is definitely an element of trying to prove people wrong that it does drive me when I hear because I have 70 Dental and pretty much all my Dental seven of the job because of the hours we work and they’ll come back and I hear what’s being said about me. And people don’t realise, you know, when things are being discussed about me, that it does come back to me and it totally drives me so completely drives me.

[00:57:17] You coie her practise in central London, London Smiley. What’s a typical day for you? You showed that in the life of times you wait for it all star.

[00:57:30] Work, yeah, a typical day normally wake up about 5:00, so if I sleep around 6:00, like that’s a lie in not feel behind the I wake call, I’m a Christian, so I pray. I try and stretch because my back is having issues. And if if I’m lucky, I can do all that. If I’m unlucky, a little person comes in like she’s a nun but says she normally wakes up between five and six as well. So right at the moment we would spend about half an hour together. So she be reading I’d be reading to her. She just wants to watch something, but I don’t let her. And then I will leave the Prav leave home about seven blocks past seven, come to the practise. I like to have the first hour for myself. So to just catch up on stuff and determine what

[00:58:27] Does the money come in at that point or does she live with you

[00:58:30] Know, she, you know, has made me more resilient because before that I’m not I don’t want anybody living with me and all the rest of it. And then I used to come in. But me and the four year old for all those months, I’m sorry, it was hell, I kind of like like it was just so intense. And because she said so, she wouldn’t leave me alone. Like those, you know, all these people having all these conference calls and all CPD things, I didn’t get to do any of that at all. I just like I say to others. So she’s she’s she lives with she’s in there with me. So that’s really helped. So I leave, I come here. We have a morning huddle. Normally the team would have sent me the night before, like it would do what’s called the day lists and minuses. But like, I have a list of things, the occupation, what happened the last time they came in or they’re coming in today. Any problems? So I read first beforehand, then we have a morning huddle and then the day starts and it just each day is kind of different sometimes.

[00:59:40] What time to go home again?

[00:59:42] I try and get home, but now I try and get home by six thirty. So my job is to, you know, it’s fun have changed. I used to be like, I have to get home in time to give them a bath, but that’s actually really boring and I’m tired. So now does the bath and I read the story and put her to bed and then collapse three times. You could have been. Usually about midnight, well, 9:00 to 5:00 a.m. every day. My dad growing up, I’ve always done that. My dad used to say sleep was practising death. You have eternity to sleep. So we’ve always like in my house growing up, no matter what time you went to bed at six a.m., morning prayers, everybody dressed, seated for breakfast things. So friends didn’t like coming to my house.

[01:00:42] Zabor, SHAC founder and owner of Ruu Denzel Seabury, are you interviewing all team members

[01:00:51] And seems like you’ve got a relationship with all

[01:00:54] Team members at every level, right?

[01:00:56] Well, I do well and

[01:00:59] Koshy do so at the moment. I have like managers and stuff that kind of triage and filter through and when I recruit, then I will try and meet everyone before that final decision of hiring someone or me or Lindsay or I’ll try and zoom them. So in the last couple of months when I’ve been off maternity, there’s a few new people that I hadn’t met. And so that was my first thing that I need to go and do is meet meet them, because I’ve heard so much about them. And that that is really close to me. That’s important to me to meet them and and get to know them.

[01:01:33] And then you spoke about people bringing the value

[01:01:36] To the business. I mean, one of the things that’s so, so clear about many of the clinicians, that is the Instagram presence, right?

[01:01:45] Yeah. They all they all share in common. Is that something that you can look at and forth and is checking out their social profile a big part of the recruitment process?

[01:01:57] So it is and it isn’t. So we do check it so we know where they might be like sitting in terms of their work shows a lot of that portfolio as well. So if they have a strong Instagram presence, it does show their portfolio of work, but it’s not a criteria. I would say that they have to have a strong Instagram following or they have to be strong on it. That’s not because I have some dentists that work for me that don’t they didn’t have that in the beginning and they don’t want to grow that or something. But it’s naturally evolved that way. I would say I would say that a lot of the patients and the demographic of people we’re attracting is within that kind of demographic of Instagram. So we do say to the dentist that it does help because we put them on our Instagram as well. So it helps

[01:02:45] And help them grow their Instagram as well. It looks like, you know, the content you’re creating for them and their own brand with room is part of the deal as well, that you’ll

[01:02:56] Help them grow their social presence if they want to.

[01:03:00] Yeah, I mean, we want to grow our social presence. So our marketing is very strong and they are our brand as well. So all marketing is based around them. Video creations for the dentist, video questions for the staff. But they then utilise that content on their platforms is absolutely fine because we want to have a synergy. We don’t have we don’t want to say that you can’t grow yours and not grow ours. One of my closest dentists to me and she’s grown with me, Slaney, she is a strong Instagram dentist. But when we both when she started out, we were both squirming. She was growing in her Instagram platform and we were growing in our brand. And we always said to her, we’re not against each other and we have a synergy. And that was so different for her because she said, Majoras, the principles are the same to me. You can’t do this and you can’t post this about us and you can’t post that. And you have to write our logo on that and our logo on that. And I was never like that. I just said to her, will grow you your day. Wow. And she ended up being full time with us and she’s trying hard right now.

[01:04:01] Interesting. Kathleen is lecturing for me tomorrow. I see. It’s a small makeover for four. Amazing marketing.

[01:04:08] Amazing. But you know

[01:04:10] What impresses me, Zabor, is that you mentioned this. There’s a degree of vulnerability and having your associates having such a big presence because they could take they could take their patients away with them. But you don’t see that using that as an opportunity.

[01:04:29] Yeah, I don’t. Yeah. And I always say to business, well, we don’t ever see it that way. We always say that we just have confidence. And also there is a confidence in what we do and a confidence in our brand that we’ve seen that the dentist, once they’re in and they experience and touch and feel through and experience the journey with me. I mean, a lot of them, I just feel like the journey is a long term journey that they’re and they’re both in and they feel that it’s not fake and they know that. And the ones that have left or I’m not saying everyone stays with us, it’s all been positive. There’s a reason they want to grow in a different direction. And we’ve been there and I haven’t said or felt your patients are going with you or our patients. I’ve never felt that. I always feel that that’s enough for everyone. And I don’t need to no one needs to step on each other’s toes. I just have never needed to to feel that.

[01:05:27] Xavier, see who owns Synergy Dental clinics.

[01:05:32] The thing I find about Xibalba, I mean, you meet a lot of dentists like me and Prav me, a lot of dentists all the time and a lot of people. It’s kind of fashionable now to say I’m opening a chain. Yeah, but the way you executed and how for me how effortless it looks now and I know it’s not, but I know it’s not. And there’s a lot of planning and execution. But but but you are definitely enjoying your life. You know, it’s just it’s obvious you’re enjoying your life and it looks like you that you’ve managed to balance this out really well. Would you say, you know, obviously what you said about your sister, who’s a great friend of this podcast and the Bendel’s and that massive structure? You said that, but would you say there’s something about you that’s more ambitious than the next man, more structured than the next man? I mean, what you know, parents who work in a factory now you’re talking about opening 100 practises out of the blue. You know, where did it come from as a kid, whether you like that or that, these guys depend on that to sort of open your eyes.

[01:06:43] No, no. So I’ve been brought up in a community where, you know, 90 percent of the children never had the opportunity to go to university, and even if they did, their parents probably discourage them all working class. And, you know, the ethos at the time in the 80s and the early 90s was, you know, you go to school and you go to work. After that, I started working at the age of 12, something like that lamp factory to Nappi, factory to Sock’s factory to you know, Morison’s earning two point fourteen an hour to Sainsbury’s. I’ve always worked and I’ve always earned for myself and I’ve always been. That means I never I never got a penny of my parents for anyone. OK, and the same with my siblings and the same with my friends around. It was it was just the ethos in the in the in the community. So one of the things that resonated, resonated when I was a child, is actually seeing so many intelligent, really, really intelligent guys. I’m not the most intelligent, I can assure you, really intelligent guys. But they got to go into work and they’ve lost that ability to progress. And then, I mean, what I’m talking about is you would know from on on on one hand, the guys that went to university in the communities that we live in. So, you know that that kids going to university, that is going to invest, you know that. OK, so that to me was this has to change. I need to inspire. You know, I need to do something that you can do this and you can’t do that. And you don’t need to just to go to war, can you don’t you don’t need to drop everything else.

[01:08:28] You can balance it. And life is a balance. So I guess one of the biggest drivers for me is to inspire and only not mentioned this earlier. The only kid in my entire family, my first cousins that I’ve ever gone to university. No, no, my first cousins. I’ve got a big family. We’ve got a huge family. Right. So the first thing is I’m I’m not going to be looking to buy them because they’ve I’m one of the younger guys in the generations. But I’ll be able to inspire the next generation and they inspire the generation. That’s coming up. Right. So, um, how do you do this? You got to do it yourself. So, you know, through school, through, um, you know, I did well. I put my head down. I was not a child. I got into trouble loads because of the life that we were living, naughtily we were very naughty, very mischievous. Whenever we had a complaint at home. Father used to I used to say, what do you do outside? Stays outside, never, never bring it home. Right. So I went through school, did well, straight A’s, straight A’s, etc.. Again, a big, big drive was motivating others, went to a college sixth form. And I actually wasn’t going to do dentistry in the first place. I was going to do law. And I don’t know how I ended up in dentistry, but the people around me, those that were very ambitious, they all around me. So like I said, for example, my friend who’s in the optical field is over 250 practises, my very close friend, online pharmacies in America, Europe, UK, another very good friend of mine.

[01:10:07] These guys have been brought up together. I was got chain of pharmacies. And then you’ve got the the euro graduate brothers. And there’s other stories, very successful story. And other guys were the mindset that we had was how to inspire the community, you know, drugs, mental abuse, mental condition, suicide rates. All this was very prevalent and it still is. And we have to do something which allows people to focus on an end goal. And we have to do ourselves for for for us to inspire others. So be inspired and inspire others. And I guess Anil and AMRRIC were sort of sort of booster’s to that same philosophy. That’s why I love these guys. And Anil was my mentor for my four implant’s. When I first started in twenty seven, he used to come all the way from Birmingham to live there. And we’ve been snowboarding together in in Worcester and I’ve invited him across. We’ve been to the American flights alongside Americans from Bolson again of sportsmen. I’ve seen him grow up in a few. If you remember Sajid Mahmood, the cricketer, the fast bowler for England cricket. He was in my year in school and all that very sort of successful Indian rights. But the the work that goes behind it, no one sees the. No one sees what it takes to get there and everyone just wants to shock, right? And this is not the right. It’s not the it’s not the culture that we, you know, we try to share.

[01:11:40] Jemmy palliate from tree line Dental.

[01:11:44] So, Jemmy, just tell us firstly, prie covid what your practises were like, the sort of the size of them, the number of people, the buildings, the kind of things you were doing

[01:11:55] In those four.

[01:11:56] And then three of those became urgent care centres, urgent Dental centres.

[01:12:01] So really what I’d like to know is what it’s like. First of all, how did you do that? Why did you do that? Why do you barbecue like the rest of us and then what

[01:12:09] It’s like working

[01:12:10] In that environment? OK, so let’s take a question that time that’s going to be a initial group of practises that we had. We always want to mix models, so we’ve always run to mix. I’ve always felt that was the most suitable model for us. I think it worked well for us. I did a background in getting NHS dentistry in most of my career doing that, and then obviously always had one eye on private as well. But we’ve always approached it as a sort of a sort of expressive dentistry through that sort of model. So not high end Michelin star and not McDonald’s. So kind of fitting in the middle. And we’ve always kind of sat at that sort of position. So we’ve always felt the foxes were awful really into that sort of position where we have a steady NHS income and then also have the private on top.

[01:12:57] When did you have your first one and how old were you when you started that?

[01:13:00] And then when did you have the next three? So we bought the first practise about ten years ago and we put it, you know, pretty standard set out to buy practise of it, often a practise over there. And then they where they sort of ran it as much more and more of an NHS type practise. And then we sort of added more services and expanded the practise and so on. And then we sort of went through the tendering process or from unhatched contracts, and that’s how it sort of expanded over the years. So we expanded over the last few years to more sites in order to sort of just essentially be able to treat more patients and just have a bit more activity going on and obviously taking that original philosophy into practise to create that sort of mix model.

[01:13:52] And Jemmy is as a practise owner, and I see a lot of practise owners who have mixed practises and then grow personally from a clinical point of view.

[01:14:01] Did you adjust your split? Did you start doing more private work or move at any point shift towards being exclusively private and then get the associates in to do the NHS? How’s that been during the whole period of time that you’ve grown from, say, your first practise? Up to four. So, yeah, I mean, obviously I was doing a lot more NHS work beginning because a young couple buying the practise essentially put the graphic grit and determination to sort of a few years. I’m sure everybody will say the same thing. And then as we as we had more conversation, the patients been stabilised. Elbaz, we can start talking to them about private work and then obviously introducing various clinical systems into the practise. So witling being one, for example, and implants and also sort of ended on taking over surgery and expanding into that phase and then just making sure that we cater for all needs. We try to keep everything under one roof. And that’s probably what the majority of practises are doing or aiming to aiming to do and then back into the natural platform to then expand on. And that’s what we’ve done. And so

[01:15:08] You as a clinician personally, do you do any NHS work now if you’ve shifted to be primarily working on the business plus private, or do you do still do a little bit of

[01:15:18] How does a structure work now? So, yeah, I probably do more private work now, like you said, work on the business. So the problem solving and all the other aspects of running a business, I’d like to do a little bit of NHS because that’s where my roots are and I don’t mind doing a little bit. I think in certain circumstances NHS is very suitable properties, obviously suitable in the circumstances. That’s just about giving people choice and they’re not prejudice against one or the other. I’m quite happy to give them both an army.

[01:15:46] So who owns Brookfield’s Dental Care operates in as a father and son.

[01:15:51] See, to tell me, how would you would you bring to that side? Does that come naturally to do you feel like, you know, being the boss is something you like being?

[01:16:01] I think a lot of people I’m not I’m not great at business. I never have. And I think if I was quite a business, I wouldn’t be a dentist. So it’s in dentistry. I think it’s very

[01:16:17] Hard to be excellent

[01:16:18] Clinically and also an excellent practise owner or principal. I think it’s very hard to do both because both require time.

[01:16:27] So I decided to go down the

[01:16:29] Clinical because, again, I love working with my hands, I love my job and OK, I could go and go the opposite way and own 20 practises, and I wouldn’t have that of a crown ever again in my life or fitting ever again. But I actually love doing clinical dentistry. So I wanted

[01:16:48] To get into practise ownership

[01:16:51] Just because the fact that I wanted to always take over my dad’s practise,

[01:16:55] Which is his baby. There’s an element,

[01:16:57] There’s element of like legacy

[01:16:59] There.

[01:16:59] And of course and I really want to take that to the next level. He’s done to a great start at the last sort of three or four years of being really involved in the business of marketing and looking at the figures and getting a team on board.

[01:17:16] So I’ve done a lot with that. And then we’re square mile. We’ve we’re very clinically there because you got Sanjay make a line.

[01:17:25] Pull myself, I do think is one of the best clinical teams in London. Yeah, excellent clinicians there. However, the marketing the branding is not correct there. And that’s something that needs to be sorted out. So and the guys understand that. And that’s why I’m coming on board, because I do think that places have got something special about it. The locations are fantastic. The the the work the Sanjay does is unbelievable. You know, one of the best dentists in the UK and, you know, his work is absolutely sublime.

[01:18:05] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging Leaders history.

[01:18:16] Your house, Payman,

[01:18:17] Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[01:18:21] Thanks for listening, guys.

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