Category: Podcast

[00:00:00] Does it get any easier for you?

[00:00:01] Martina It might sound bit harsh, but yes, it does get easier. And you know why? It’s because I now know you do no one any favours by having people on your team that are disruptive, that do not work hard or lazy. And you soon realised when you get rid of those people swiftly, what a favour you’ve done for your team, because afterwards no one wants to recommend to you that you should fire someone. But when you’ve done it, suddenly all the stories come out, all the reasons why you should fire them, come out and you realise that you’ve actually done your team a massive favour because when you have people like that on your team, it frustrates those really, really good team members and you don’t allow them to do their job properly and you’re hurting your team by allowing that behaviour within your team. So I’m actually really quick to fire now.

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

[00:01:17] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Martina Hodgson onto the podcast. Martina is a multi award winning, multi practise owning now that she’s just opened her her squat very publicly on on Facebook. Having having everyone watch your opening. Martina Inspiring women in dentistry a lecturer really quite an inspirational person. I mean, I met you, Martina, the first time the minimalist conference and I want to think and just watching you over the last four years, how far you’ve come in that period. And I know it’s one of those iceberg kind of things that you’ve been working at it for years and years and years. But it’s great to have you on the show. Thanks. Thanks for doing this.

[00:02:00] Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be on.

[00:02:04] So we normally start with you kind of backstory. Where were you born? What kind of kid were you? Why did you choose dentistry?

[00:02:14] And so I was born in Colchester, in Essex. I’m a six girl and I think as a child I would say I was very I was quite driven as a child. I was very conscientious and I worked incredibly hard at school. I wanted to do really, really well. But I come from a very, very normal background. My, my mum was a housewife and my dad was an engineer for BT his whole life. And so I was the first one in my family to go to university and I decided I wanted to be a dentist. When I was about 13, I had braces and I actually really thought the whole experience was really, really interesting, really loved going to the dentist and decided that I was either going to be a dentist or a violinist because I play the violin. And so I think I got to the point where I was applying to dental school and to university and kind of weighed up the pros and cons of each and decided that dentistry was probably a more sensible career. And that’s the way that I went. So so that’s me in a nutshell, really. It was it was just kind of I’ve always been very independent, wanted to make my own way in life with a little help from other people as possible, which isn’t a very good idea. And, and that was, that was me really so quite focussed from quite early. I knew what I wanted to do and just I suppose that is me really just I get an idea in my head and then just go for it.

[00:03:51] Are you the oldest? I am. Have you? How many siblings we go by?

[00:03:57] Younger brother.

[00:03:58] So this thing about independence and doing your own thing. Where do you see that? When, when? When was the first sign of that? Why? Why are you that, Kat?

[00:04:08] Why? Why am I like that? Yeah, I asked myself this question. I’ve never had therapy.

[00:04:15] To start right here.

[00:04:17] I do know. I just know it’s going to come to me right now. It’s quite nice, actually. I just think it’s in me. I think it was from day one. I’ve always been like that. I just think it’s in me a lot of the time. I wish it wasn’t. It’s got its plus points, but it’s got big negatives as well. Being so driven, it’s I actually think it’s an affliction, to be honest.

[00:04:45] What are the downsides to being so driven?

[00:04:48] Martin I’m so single minded that everything else falls by the wayside, including a family, which sometimes which isn’t good because I. Just a lot. I get so engrossed in what I do and I love doing what I do so much and I want to achieve all these amazing things that like pop in my head because for fun, just because, like, I don’t even know why I do it. I just have this innate drive that is getting worse. And you said over like the last four years, I seem to have kind of really come from nowhere. And I think that when I hit 40, it was a watershed moment for me. I think as a woman, my confidence kind of came into its own, and that’s when I think my true potential started to to flourish.

[00:05:42] Have you got an addictive personality, Martina? Are you one of these people who sort of like all or nothing I’m going tunnel vision into this thing or.

[00:05:51] I wouldn’t say I have an addictive personality. No, I wouldn’t, actually. I’m quite I can do everything in moderation. But I think when it comes to work or achievements, I think it’s almost like I find it fun to come up with these stupid ideas and then follow them through, like opening a squat practise.

[00:06:13] Would you say Martina would say you’re better at the ideas or or the following them through the operation?

[00:06:19] To be honest.

[00:06:20] Because it’s rare to have both, you know.

[00:06:22] I think it is I am an ideas person, but I very much follow through such a thing. Yeah. And I think I start like things like opening a squad. Like the idea came to me and you know, for me while I can tell that story of how it started. But once I start going on something, you get to a point where there’s no backing out as much as you want to. You’re in too deep and you have no choice sometimes, but just to keep going and going for that goal that you have in your head.

[00:06:51] So let’s just let’s fast forward to the squat quickly, because it’s so recent, because it was last week that you opened it. What was the thinking behind a squat when when you, you know, you shown your successful at the other way of doing things. Well I guess you bought the other practise right? You bought part of it and then.

[00:07:13] Yes, yes. What happened with. So I came up to so I studied in Leeds, I qualified in 2001. Yeah. And then I went back down south for four years and I was living in London, working in London and I met my husband who is from Leeds and he, he said to me when we met I would like to go back up and live in Leeds. And I said, well that’s cool, I really like Leeds, I know lots of people up there. I’m up for it. So we got engaged, we moved up to Leeds and I went for this interview for an associate. So I was a young associate, you know, quite newly qualified. And I went to this interview in this village in Wakefield, and it was a couple of terraced houses not together in a working class coal mining village in the Triangle in Yorkshire. And I loved it. It had this lovely vibe about it as a lovely family practise. It was a private practise and I’d never worked in a private practise before. And the next day I had an interview booked at There used to be an optical express, you remember they used to do dentists and it was next to Harvey Nichols in Leeds, which was the only Harvey Nichols outside London at the time. So it was very glamorous and exciting and I had an interview booked there and the guy at the practise in Wakefield who offered me the job, I said, Well, can I let you know tomorrow? Because I’ve got another interview tomorrow and I really wanted this job.

[00:08:40] It’s like 90 grand a year working next to Harvey Nichols. And he said, Why do you want to go and work for another corporate? And I went, I don’t, actually. So I took the job. And then after a couple of years, there was two partners that a man and a woman and he belly ate at me for two years to buy him out. And I had no aspirations ever before this to be part designer. I was quite happy being an associate, but he banged on at me to buy him out, so I bought him out. And when I look back now the of money that I borrowed from the bank, just, you know, at the time it was so much money to me. And now I look back and I was like, I got a bargain there. And then I had so I had a business partner, a woman for about 12, 12 or so years, and then she retired. So I bought her out. So it’s a very organic kind of process into practise ownership and it was a really nice way to practise ownership. And I’ve been there 17 years now and I think it’s in my heart and soul that places that some of the staff are still there that were there at the beginning.

[00:09:46] How many years, how many years have you been the sole owner?

[00:09:49] I think about four or five years now.

[00:09:51] 35 years. Did you make big changes?

[00:09:54] Yeah, massive.

[00:09:55] So. So was that something that you were. You were having some issues, the wrong word, but. You weren’t you weren’t having similar direction of thought with your partner.

[00:10:04] Because she was a completely different generation of dentist. And I had all these ideas, but they were all quashed and I wasn’t allowed to express myself. And I think the first six months of full practise ownership, I, I think I had anxiety, but I didn’t know it because I didn’t know how to be a leader. And it was suddenly the spotlight on me. And I used to get like these palpitations. I remember like, just sat watching TV, and I was like, I’ve never had this before. And it was because of this sudden burden on my shoulders of of being the leader. And I’m the only one responsible for these people and for these patients. And so I had to start to learn what being a leader meant. And so that was an incredible that has been an incredible journey for me. And it’s not anything that you ever stopped trying to learn how to be a leader. But my watershed moment in that I think we’re going off course the topic here. But I think my watershed moment for me as a leader was lockdown, the first lockdown when we got flung into shutting our practises. In fact, I shut my practise a day before we were told to. I made that decision and suddenly I had to start making very hard decisions very quickly for the good of my team and for the good of my patients. And there was a lot of people have very different ideas about what I should be doing. So very prominent dentists, people that I look up to and respect were telling me to sack staff. This was before furlough came out.

[00:11:40] They were saying, you’ve got to you’ve got to get rid of. You’ve got to shed, you’ve got to shed. You’ve got to keep your head above water. You’ll go under. And I suddenly started believing in myself and being true to myself. And I was like, No, I don’t want to do this. And I remember standing in front of them the day I closed the practise and saying, I’m making a promise to them. And I said I would never I’d never heard of it before. And I promised them all their jobs, and I promised I would keep the business going. And I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew that I had to and that I would. And then Rishi came out and announced furlough, and I think I nearly cried that Friday. You will remember all nodding. It was a Friday evening, and I think I burst into tears because it was like, Oh, I’m going to be okay. It’s going to be all right. And I think then I learnt the true meaning of leadership. And to me the true meaning of leadership is being true to yourself and your own values and being authentic. And when you when you understand that and that clicked in my head, like I literally felt the penny drop in my head then. It’s easy after that because you’re just being authentic to yourself. And I have to remind myself time and time again to listen to my own instincts and my own heart on that subject of leadership. But we did go off track there. Sorry.

[00:13:01] No, no, that was.

[00:13:03] My leader. What kind of a boss are you? If your team were to describe you as a boss, what do you think they they’d say about you?

[00:13:12] I think they’d say, I’m infuriating. I think they would say, let’s keep up with I think I’m fair. I think I’m loyal. I think I make decisions for the good of all of the team. And sometimes it can be hard decisions, but then you realise afterwards that you did everybody a favour. I think I’m a very supportive boss. I love to push my team. I love to see them grow. I love to get them on courses. I love to progress them as far as they will let me. I’d say there’s people that want to be like that will really flourish with me.

[00:13:56] But when you said.

[00:13:56] It may sound really annoying as well.

[00:13:58] When you said that being a leader is being true to yourself, that implies a set of sort of. Basic principles that that you run your business by. What would you say those basic principles are? I mean, would you say that they’re different for you than they are for the next day? They should. They should be. But what would you say they are? I mean, if a situation presents itself that hasn’t presented itself before, like like lockdown, often the thing to do is to go back to your basic principles and check against those. What would you say yours are?

[00:14:35] This really is like therapy, because these are the sort of questions which you never even ask yourself. And I think that I would always. First and foremost, my team and my priority. Financial gain has never been. Anything I’m particularly interested in. And I know that sounds strange for a business owner. But the less I worry about the money and more I worry about my team and my patients and providing a good experience for my team and my patients and giving them the best that I can possibly give the more financial gain by REAP as a result. And I see too many practise owners focussing on their profit and their bottom line and not focussing on the really important things that I think are really important, which is looking after your team and looking after your patients.

[00:15:37] So what is the experience of working for Martina? I mean. How does it differ to working at the next place?

[00:15:45] I mean, I don’t know of any maximum practise, like most of my life and. I hope I’m fair and I hope I’m supportive and I maybe I’m not always present because I spread myself too thin.

[00:16:00] Let me give you an example, MARTIN Let me give you an example, because I like to think I’m a real touchy feely boss. Yeah. And generally, whenever someone asks a question, which is outside of the norm, can I take another half a day off because my mom is sick or something? One of these. My my general answer is always yes. Sure. But. Sure. And the experience I want to provide to my team is one of family experience.

[00:16:25] Absolutely.

[00:16:26] But my partner, he’s very clear on this idea of fairness. And he’s very like consumed by fairness. He’s like, well, you told that person they can have half a day off. What if 43 of them, there’s 43 people in there? What if 43 of them ask for half a day off? And he’s very much into policies. You know, what is and what isn’t and the rules and regulations and all of that. And I guess between us we get an answer. But, you know, for me, one of the benefits of a small business, one of the few benefits of a small business is that flexibility of being able to let people, you know, do things slightly, ask a question of the boss, something you couldn’t do at Microsoft. But but where do you sit on that? I mean, because it’s difficult. Someone asks something. Maybe it’s the course they want to go on. Maybe it’s a holiday, maybe whatever it is. And you and you want to give that person the thing. But the implication then becomes favouritism on the staff. With the staff. Did you have to juggle that?

[00:17:25] I think you’re right. And I am probably that person whose instinct would be to go. Yeah, of course. But then there’s people around me in my management team who are on the ground, who are working with the nurses day by day and working with the receptionist, and they will soon bring me back down to. That’s not fair, because if you do that for her, you’ve got to do it for everybody else. And they’re right, actually. And you’re not doing your whole team a favour by, you know, the ones that have got the, you know, the courage to come to you and ask these things. Yeah. You know, some of us might not want to ask you that. And you aren’t doing your team a favour really by working in that style. And I think you do have to. And the bigger your team becomes, the more you have to kind of stick to your rules. And that doesn’t rules are there to be bent and broken like we know that and no one’s going to blame you for extenuating circumstances. But I think in general, you have to try and be fair. I do think that.

[00:18:27] Due to the hiring and firing Martina.

[00:18:32] Sometimes it’s becoming less and less. So I like to I think it’s really nice. You know, as my team grows, as my management team grows, I’m quite happy they know me, they know the kind of people I want on my team. So I’m quite happy for them to hire, unless it’s obviously a really very individual role or quite senior role. I would be happy for them to hire a nurse and they do regularly without me even meeting the nurse. However, when it comes to firing, I don’t think it’s fair to get your team to do that and I always think I should be there. At least I should be there when someone’s fired.

[00:19:15] Does it get any easier for you, Martina?

[00:19:19] It might sound be harsh, but yes, it does get easier. And to know why, it’s because I now know you do no one any favours by having people on your team that are disruptive that, you know, work hard or lazy, that the and you soon realise when you get rid of those people swiftly, what a favour you’ve done for your team. Because afterwards no one wants to recommend to you that you should fire someone, but when you’ve done it, suddenly all the stories come out, all the reasons why you should have them come out, and you realise that you’ve actually done your team a massive favour, because when you have people like that on your team, it frustrates those really, really good team members and you don’t allow them to do their job properly and you’re hurting your team by allowing that behaviour within your team. So I’m actually really quick to fire now.

[00:20:15] If you have you ever hired someone and then maybe like this has happened to me quite a few times, I’ve hired someone in I thought shit like three or four days in. Right. And you think they’re not quite right but I’m still going to give them a chance. Right. And then a little bit later, maybe a week or two later, you realise, right, this person’s got a goal. And then you say to yourself, Well I’ve got give until the end of the month, it’s only fair, give them a month and then it drags on a little bit. Have you ever been in that situation where you’ve had somebody in the business where you think, I’ve got to let them go? But but the nerves and the anxiety of building up to letting them go, how are you going to let go? What conversation are you going to have with? Because I find that’s that for me, it’s been one of the hardest parts of running a business. A finding the right people. But once but then you. Sometimes I find.

[00:21:03] People and they turn up at work. Then the person you interviewed, you’re like, yeah, sorry. The same person. Very. I mean, I had this quite recently. Now I am quite you can tell, you know, at that point, if they’re not going to work hard on week one and try and impress you what they’re going to be doing it in and everyone can see it like everyone will come to you or they won’t necessarily come to me or that comes to my manager. And you know, if all your staff are complaining about a new employee, it’s not going to work. Just get rid, do everyone a favour, let them move on.

[00:21:42] But let’s say it’s not that all your staff are complaining, but sometimes we’ve all got this spidey sense, haven’t we? This, this, this feeling inside us where you got tells you maybe they’re not right. But but everyone’s saying give them a chance. Have you ever been in that situation?

[00:21:58] I think that my team are better than me at knowing whether someone’s right for the practise or not. To be honest, they’ll tell me before I even spell it sometimes.

[00:22:09] So when it comes to hiring, what are you looking for? What? What do I need to be to work for you? Who do I need to be?

[00:22:18] Well, what’s that saying? Hire on. Is it aptitude? Or you can teach anyone with the right attitude and personality. Anything. I would hire an attitude any day over qualifications, you know, skill, you know, their CV. I think if you’ve got the right person with the right attitude, it’s absolutely worth its weight in gold, to be honest. And it’s much it’s very hard to find those people, I have to say.

[00:22:50] And how do you tease that out during an interview process? Attitude Have you got any specific questions or tasks or anything that you.

[00:22:59] I think it’s just so like I say it. I think people can be very different in interviews and I’m seeing a lot of this at the moment that they’re coming across amazing in interviews and they’re answering all the questions correctly and you’re thinking, wow. And then they turn up at work and they’re lazy and you’re like, Where did that person go? So I’m starting to think that we should be definitely doing trial days with people. But yeah, I mean, you’ve got the standard set of interview questions that you can download from anywhere, but at the end of the day, it’s the gut feeling for me and I know, you know, you know, within seconds I think whether you’ve got a winner or not, you’re not always right. I Yeah.

[00:23:49] I’ve been wrong loads of times.

[00:23:53] What’s the structure of the Dental studio? So when you say senior management, what have you, what have you got? The the non-clinical team, who are they?

[00:24:02] Well, because I’ve just opened a second practise, I now have an operations manager, so he works across both sites. So below me it’s the operations manager. And then I’ve just promoted my head nurse at the Wakefield Practise to practise manager. So she’s in training. So my operations manager is going to be working closely with her. And then we have like a management team, so we would have head nurse, your practise manager, you had receptionist and you had TKO. We have a meeting every week. On Monday morning we’ll go to the local coffee shop and we just look at our heads together and they kind of report back and any like feedback and you know, we knock ideas around and problems and that’s really great because as you grow, you need to have those key people in charge of each of their departments. Even if there’s only two receptionists, you need a head, one, I think, who just wants to keep everything ticking over because the more you grow, the more you have to step away and you have to let that control girl go to other people. And if you’ve got people that you really, really trust, which I do, my management team, I really, really trust them that they have the best interests of the practise at heart, then it’s very much easier to step away and let them do the day to day running of that practise. And so that’s that structure is well in place in Wakefield and Leeds. We have a similar structure that we don’t yet have that practise manager in place. But eventually, you know, we have that pathway, that career pathway, but we do have a head nurse, we have the head TKO works across both sites and we have a head receptionist as well.

[00:25:40] What about as a dentist? How do you come across? I mean, I know most of your work is clear, aligner now. Is that right?

[00:25:49] Yeah, but for a very long time I was just a general dentist. I had a demo panellist two years ago. Same panellist for 17 years. So how do I come across to my patients as a dentist?

[00:26:01] Yeah, I think I do. One thing I’ve realised is that many dentists actually have totally different styles, you know. There’s some very relaxed ones and then there’s some very formal ones. What’s what’s your what’s your sort of the USP of of Martino. If I come to you for a for a consult.

[00:26:19] Yeah, well, we have some banter, definitely all about having fun, but being professional at the same time. You might. Those two things aren’t exclusive to me. Yeah. And I try and instil that in all of my team. You know, I want patients to come and have a nice time and be comfortable and relaxed. I’m a quick worker, as most principals are. I work very quickly, but I think you can work very quickly to a high standard and be efficient and be fun and have fun. Make your patients relax because but that comes with years of experience. That becomes knowing your trade so that you’re not even thinking about how you’re doing that treatment plan. You’re just doing it at the same time as listening to a dirty joke or something. You know, I mean, it just it takes a long time, I think, to achieve that where you can get that balance right. But yeah, I think if you came to see me for a consultation, you’d have fun and you’d come away with a great treatment plan and feeling really confident that you were going to get the outcome that you wanted. And that just comes again from 20 years.

[00:27:25] How do you how do you how do you get it across to them that you are, Martina? I mean, at the end of the day, the patient’s a patient and they walk in and they don’t know your level of experience. Do you make that clear?

[00:27:38] I don’t think I need to. I think they can tell from my demeanour.

[00:27:46] Do you know what you’re talking about?

[00:27:47] Confident with the work I’m carrying out and that is just 20 years of experience. I wouldn’t have been that person at 23. Yeah.

[00:27:58] And how does the TKO beat work? I mean, what at what point is the TKO? Does the TKO do the initial consult?

[00:28:07] Yeah. So we our patient journey say for example, with Invisalign, we have a new patient coordinator. So she will be the person that deals with the leads that come in. So we would be running Facebook ads, Google ads, you know, interested people coming from social media. And she will be the person initially to to speak to those patients, to build that initial rapport, to give them those basic facts about Invisalign, and to qualify that patient and start that consent process for that patient. And her role is to book that patient in with the treatment coordinator. So she works very closely with the treatment coordinator. She’ll take a £20 refundable deposit. So that agreement with a TKO and then the TKO will run that consultation with the patient, where she’ll go into more detail about what Invisalign is, how it works. We use a software called Smile Mate, and every patient that’s booked in with a TKO is sent this link. Or it’s actually a whole the whole process is automated now, actually, but they’ll get sent a link where they can upload their photographs onto Imamate and it will use artificial intelligence to generate an oral health report for them, which is fine, that’s great. But more importantly, I review all the photographs that come in and I will then make a note to my TKO and I will tell on the notes. It will. It will tell her, is it a light case? Is it a full case? How long do I expect it to take? Can I see tooth? Where do they get any composite? So if they got missing teeth, have they got baby teeth? Are they suitable for Invisalign and the ones you know, the odd case that looked like they’ve come from a different partner or something.

[00:29:57] I’ll send them to my mate. Up the road is a specialist. She loves mix so. But it’s good because they don’t even have to come in and waste that appointment and waste that time. So we filter out the ones that aren’t suitable, which is very rare. But so by the time that patient comes to that treatment coordinator consultation, they’ve left knowing how long are they suitable, how long is it going to take, how much is it going to cost me and all our USBs as well to go along? So they leave that consultation ready to go. So they the next step would be to book in for the assessment with the dentist. And by the time they’ve looked at that point with the dentist and paid £100 deposit for that, they’re good to go. They’re ready. It’s not a question we can’t even ask in surgery. Do you want to go ahead? It’s more of like decided already. So it’s it’s a process that has taken years, a lot of hard work, a lot of refinement and tweaking. That process never ends. We always trying to perfect our patient journey, and it’s something I’m very, very proud of and it works for us really, really well.

[00:31:03] Martina, do you know the front end of this game? Obviously you’re generating lots of enquiries through your marketing campaigns. What’s the qualification process that happens before they get in with a TKO? Because if we let everyone in with the TKO who enquired Utico would be busy with a lot of tire kickers or kickers as I as I tend to call them. But I call them shit kickers. Yeah. And you know, I guess for me, certainly in my team it’s the lead ninja who’s, who’s definitely the most talented person in the team because they.

[00:31:42] Believe in it for sure. It’s the new patient coordinator. That’s her job. Yeah. And we had a management meeting this morning and our TKO, I think in the last two weeks it converted and it was 18 out of 21 of her consoles.

[00:31:56] Wow.

[00:31:57] Yeah, but that is testimony to our lead ninja and the job that she is doing qualifying those patients because that’s an incredible conversion rate.

[00:32:07] So can you share with us what it is? What are the sort of what you need to do to earn an appointment with your TCL? That’s what I always say, is that for you to step into my practise and have an appointment with a TKO or a dentist, you’ve got to earn it as a patient. Do you have some criteria that they need to meet before they I mean, that 20 quid or 30 quid deposit, whatever it is that that’s incidental, it doesn’t really matter. But what boxes do they have to tick to get through the door?

[00:32:37] Firstly, you’ve got to find out, is it actually Invisalign they want or need because half of them think it’s an implant or a veneer or they’re going to get full set crowns. So they need to understand, is that consent process really starting, isn’t it? It’s understanding what is Invisalign, it’s understanding their kind of key questions that they want answering. Is it her? How long does it take? What does it look like? Can I leave my life normally? And it’s, you know, where do you live? Can you get here? Do you know where we are? How old are you? We don’t treat patients under 18. Have you had braces before? Have you got braces now? You know, it’s all these things. But I find it interesting the way that you put the question across, which was what? How do you earn the right to come and see my Mitsuko? It’s an interesting.

[00:33:26] You didn’t actually say that to you. Who? Me, not you in the practise. Don’t say.

[00:33:32] No. But that’s what that’s what I do as part of our training. So I always say to my team that they need to earn a place in the practise. Right? So we have I have minimum criteria that they need to hit. And Martina, obviously you’ve got all your ups there, but no one should be, like I say, the most expensive part of a patient stepping into your practise is someone walking through the door, not having a clue what they’re there for and not having a Scooby Doo of a price range. Yeah, I don’t believe in this whole. You can sell them the value when they walk through the door. Like if they think they can walk in your practise and get their teeth straightened for 750 quid, you’re wasting their time. You’re wasting your time, you’re wasting everyone’s time. So I just sort of say, in order for somebody to earn a place in my practise, they need to know where the star in price is. And it needs to be realistic. We need a little bit of history behind them, their motivations when they’re looking to get started.

[00:34:35] Is this something they’re just looking into in the future as it’s something they’re motivated to get started with fairly soon? What do they know about the treatment? And then they shouldn’t step into the practise without knowing. You’ve got 20 years experience, you’ve straightened so many sets of teeth, you’ve got a gallery of X, Y and Z. We’ve got over 200 Google reviews with five stars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like I say, successful phone call is when all of those have been hit by our lead ninja. And if they still say at that point, I don’t want a book, fantastic, you’ve done a great job because you’ve just pushed someone away, was going to come in and waste our time and then vice versa. So yeah, I kind of like flip it on its head that you may never have thought about it like that, but your process must be pretty slick for your SEO to be converting 18 out of 21 patient. So you’re leading in just definitely doing something right and qualify in the patients that were coming through.

[00:35:33] Definitely. And it’s you know, it’s an educational process for that patient. You know, it’s important. It’s our duty to educate them on price, on time, on what is Invisalign? What does it look like to take it out? You know, that’s her job. They should be coming in with all the basic facts. And why? Why are they picking us? They should know why they’re picking us. And you have your list of USBs, say, like you reeled off, you know, here’s my USP.

[00:36:02] So, Martina, can you see I’ve got a gut here. I’ve got.

[00:36:07] Yeah. I’ve got my glasses on. You need an implant?

[00:36:10] I’m in. No, no, no. Definitely not an implant. But I’m interested in getting my teeth straightened with you. Why should I come to see you?

[00:36:18] No, I. No, no, no, I don’t. Whatever. You want me to tell this to my. Now I’m going to do that.

[00:36:27] You’re going to just sell yourself.

[00:36:29] To selling myself? I don’t mind other people selling me. I’m not selling myself.

[00:36:34] How would you? How would you. How would your team sell you? What would they be? What would they say?

[00:36:40] That’s why you’re going through press practise training programme.

[00:36:47] It’s pretty. It’s pretty neat. I said, I’ve got some receptionists out there.

[00:36:55] And.

[00:36:56] It’s nice. It’s nice when you can start two boxes and it takes a long time to earn all these USBs that you can start telling your patients that we’re a diamond provider and a top provider in Leeds and Invisalign Diploma with Dentistry Top 50, all these, you know, awards, blah, blah, blah. It’s all, you know, it’s all just guessing, isn’t it?

[00:37:22] It’s a lot easier for somebody else to. I was going to say I’m low. You’re very.

[00:37:26] Uncomfortable. This conversation you said at the beginning, is there anything you don’t want to talk about?

[00:37:32] Let’s let let’s move on. Let’s move on.

[00:37:36] Now.

[00:37:37] Martina, there’s been quite a lot of talk about Invisalign as as a as a partner and people saying, you know, we’re working for them and you’re making the brand stronger than your own brand. You must know what I’m talking about. Yeah. Do you how often do you look at alternatives to Invisalign or are you just, like, completely head? I’m not not I’m planning to bring out an alternative, but there are loads of alternatives these days. Yeah. How often do you look at those or have you not? Are you single mindedly behind.

[00:38:11] Because that other people do that? So people that I respect, people that know what they’re doing. If they want to try Karolina Systems, I’ll ask them about how do they get. They will go back to Invisalign though. So to me that says it all. The big, well respected orthodontists, they mainly use Invisalign and there is a reason for that.

[00:38:33] But do you think that reason is the way it works, or do you think the reason is the brand, or what do you think the reason is?

[00:38:39] No, I wouldn’t use Invisalign just for the brand. I don’t think I need to. I don’t think it’s it’s just a name that’s become a household name that people use to refer to clearer lines. They, they’ll, they’ll ring any practise and ask for Invisalign but they don’t really care. I don’t think if they’re getting Invisalign or not as long as what the, what they’re saying is they want clear aligners provided by a professional dentist and.

[00:39:06] You know what I mean, that if you walk into Harvey Nichols and you want to buy a coat, there’ll be a kind goose coat there. And there’s a reason why they’re stocking Canada goose and not the number to whoever the hell that is. You know, there’s people walking in saying, I want to use.

[00:39:21] Yeah, I suppose. I mean, it’s a massive brand name now, but that doesn’t really sway me as the reason to use it. I think there would be loads of other ways you could market clear aligners without having to use the word invisalign and still do really, really well. I use Invisalign because I believe in it as a product. I think it’s predictable. I know how to use the system, I’m comfortable with it and that’s why I use Invisalign, because I know I’m going to get the results. I know the research that they put into it, the continuum of development that’s more important to me than the brand name. Maybe, maybe someone who’s like a young associate that maybe doesn’t have much of a profile, maybe it might be important to someone like that. I don’t know. I don’t know.

[00:40:10] I mean, Prav you work with a bunch of different aligner companies with is, right?

[00:40:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I work with a lot of clients who are top invisalign providers. I work with Claire. Correct. Directly. Sure. Smart, sure. Smiles SPARC who’ve been around been around for a long time. I mean, you know, I’m not the guy to ask, you know, which one’s better than than the other and all the rest of it. Obviously Invisalign, they’ve got more volume behind and more research and much bigger company. Right. And I’m not a clinician, so I can’t really comment on that. But you know, you speak to various people out there, they have their reasons for using, let’s say, Invisalign or not or having an alternative, whether it’s a business reason, whether it’s a clinical reason or whatnot. Some people are looking for, you know, I speak to some practises or a top Invisalign. Eighties, but then look at it from a profitability point of view, say, well, they’ve hit this status and now they’re going to move over to, let’s say, spark or clear. Correct as a share of wallet because they know their lap fee is going to be less with that. And they still believe clinically they can get the same or similar result. Right. So there’s loads of different ways in which people, I guess, mix it up. I don’t think anyone can deny that, you know, a Invisalign is the market leader and the number one brand out there. However, I do feel that Invisalign is becoming commoditized in the industry. You only need to flick your Facebook up, open on your phone, wherever, whichever city you’re working in, and you get bombarded with Invisalign ads. And it’s a combination of roll up fee free consultation, will throw in some retainers, will throw in a bit of free whitening, and we’ll do a bit of free composite edge bonding while we’re at it, all combinations and permutations of that.

[00:42:05] And what I feel is that with that type of marketing, what we’re what we’re seeing is almost like it being commoditised, commoditized, like whether you go to get a tin of Heinz baked beans from Waitrose, Tesco’s or Morrisons, it’s the same tin of Heinz baked beans. And people are not looking at Invisalign, for example, based on the fact that you’ve got 20 years experience, you’ve got awards, you’ve got you’re a diamond, whatever that is, right, is patients are just looking at Invisalign like a product they can buy off the shelf rather than the skill that sits behind it, the treatment planning, the the ability to know what to do when things go wrong, whether it’s refinements, adjustments and all of that sort of thing. And, you know, that’s my problem at the moment with, with the marketing of Invisalign at the moment is everyone’s getting on that bandwagon, everyone’s doing an open day, everyone’s got a Invisalign offer. And whether it’s tooth whitening worth £300 or tooth whitening worth for 50 or retainers worth 300, or whether you’re talking about varied retainers or fixed retainers, blah, blah, blah, it’s a combination of that. And I know recently, Martina, you’ve got a little bit of stick online. I think there was a post that went up and then was deleted because you’re opening Invisalign off, right? So I guess first of all, let me know your thoughts and how you feel about Invisalign as a commodity and then just tell us about your opening offer and the generation of cash flow for your new business. And and just give us a bit more insight into this.

[00:43:42] And I agree with you, so to an extent on it being seen as a commodity. But I think that you underestimate the IQ of some of a lot of our patients. Maybe I particularly attract those with a high IQ, I don’t know. But I do think that people search me now and and I do think a lot of people do their research. And there will always be patients who just want the cheapest treatment, who just don’t really understand what it is and the skill behind it. The same as for composite bonding, it drives me up the wall. The DMS, I get saying, what’s your price for composite bonding? Because I’m shopping around and I’m looking at prices and I’ve still you’ve got a way of like me explaining to them that not all composite bonding is the same. Please tell me without sounding like I’m trying to like push them to sell it because I’m not. But I just want these people to realise that not all composite bonding is the same and they think there is a cohort of patients who think that all dentists have the same level of skill and experience and everything is the same.

[00:44:59] Like we’re robots and it’s not true. And don’t ask me to do a root canal and don’t ask me to do a surgical extraction because it’s not going to happen. It’s going to be a screw up, it’s going to be a massive screw up. And the dentist down the road is much better off doing it than me. Right. But I am better at doing clear aligners. And some will do their research and some will specifically say, I’ve looked on your Instagram, I’ve seen the work that you do, and they will come to you and they will find you. And they’re the best kind of patients, obviously, that we like. But it does frighten me when I see the level of skill of some of the dentists that are providing Invisalign. It frightens me a lot is that they don’t have the support. They are blindly going into some of these treatments and I think it honestly gives me the heebie jeebies and they might be charging more than me, but that’s fine. So that’s how I feel about that.

[00:46:00] Regarding that, do you think this this Invisalign should spend a bit more time and a bit. More skill and effort on treatment planning.

[00:46:09] I think at the end of the day in educating.

[00:46:14] Know well you know that clean check that comes back.

[00:46:16] You see they should be responsible for the treatment. No, not not legally.

[00:46:20] But, you know, nowadays people are saying, well, look, the clean check that comes back from Invisalign, you can pretty much ignore. And you have to do your own do your own treatment plan. And then there’s a bunch of people outsourcing that.

[00:46:31] Yes. Yeah. No, no, I do my own. But I think the clinician should be responsible.

[00:46:40] Because the Clinton is is responsible legally. But my point my point on it is Invisalign is by far the most expensive product. Right. It’s the product that’s been there the longest. It should one of the value ads of Invisalign should be that the treatment plans are done really well. Yeah.

[00:46:56] But it’s that technician who’s producing that clean check going to understand what’s going on with the bio type and gingival recession and bone levels and TMJ function and occlusal trauma and all these things that we take into consideration when we’re planning on our treatment plans, short routes, all these kind of things. They’re not they’re not there to do that, and that is our job.

[00:47:21] But I think these guys who are going off the rails, are you saying some of the bad treatments you’re seeing? I guess they’re guilty of trusting that technician.

[00:47:29] To prove like it’s. There you go click approve. Yeah.

[00:47:35] Just says yes. Let’s let’s talk about let’s talk about that thing. Let’s talk about that offer now.

[00:47:44] So we sidestep that.

[00:47:45] No. So what’s the offer? What was the offer? You might as well for people who don’t know the story, just just tell us go through what was the offer and why did you get. Stick over it.

[00:47:54] And the Alpha. I loved that I got sick over that, by the way. It made me so happy because I thought, I’m doing something right. I’m getting under people’s noses. This is great. The ulcer was ending Invisalign, so we had like four, four, two, four, nine five, including whitening and with errors and a hygiene. And the stick that I got was I wasn’t quite sure what their beef was other than it was like, how are we supposed to compete with this? And da da da. And I thought, well, how you can compete is you can work your absolute arse off for 20 years to get to the position where you are, you know, getting a nice big discount from Invisalign and people want to come and see you and you can still do that and make a really good profit. And by the way, you can spend years refining your patient journey and recruiting the right people, getting your lead ninja, getting your TSO, getting other dentists to come in. Oh, you can by the way, you can spend another few years training all the other dentists that you got to come and work for you to learn how to do Invisalign. And you can do a diploma and you can learn how to teach Invisalign. So when you can do all that, then you’ll be in a position I’m in to be able to offer Invisalign at two, four, nine, five and still make a profit.

[00:49:16] What’s the what was the profit do you mind sharing with us.

[00:49:19] If I break it down? I think it was I think it was it was over 1000 times profit still, I think.

[00:49:25] Oh, really?

[00:49:26] Yeah. This is it, you know. And it comes and sees, right? I’ve got a brand new squat practise and you bums on seats I’ve got mouths to feed and they seem to practise loads and loads.

[00:49:37] Loads of people, loads of people jump to your defence as well. Let’s be fair about it.

[00:49:41] Yeah, it was really nice. I loved that. You know what? That post didn’t upset me at all and I was quite pleased that I was creating a bit of a stir because it made me laugh.

[00:49:50] And and I guess if you do in a fixed price for four light and fold, you’re taken into account. There’s going to be a proportion of light where your margins are going to be higher and they’re going to be a proportion of four way imagine will be slightly less. And it all works out in the mix, right? So if you get more lights through the door, you’ll know more than anyone else what proportion are going to be lights versus full. Right. In terms.

[00:50:13] Of, you know, I have a business model that makes sense as well in terms of the way my set up was with my associates and the way that they get paid for the cases and the support that they have from assistant dentists and the support that we give them in terms of education and study clubs and support with the clean tech planning in house, everything’s in-house. And you know, I’m here as a mentor, as a teacher to these people, but I’m then able to attract those dentists that are willing to work for less of a wage. But in return, they’re getting experience, they’re learning the growing, they’re getting support. So I got myself into that unique position, which.

[00:50:54] Is that £1,000 is then split with your associate.

[00:50:58] No, that’s not my business model. That’s my profit.

[00:51:01] That’s your as the owners profit.

[00:51:03] Yeah. So they, they get paid on a case rate. Yeah. And then I have like we have levels of dentists, so we have like a level one dentist who does the IPR and the attachments. Then you have like a level two dentists who’ll be in charge of the case. They’ll do the, the planning. You know, they are they start the case and finish the case. They’ll do the refinements, all that. But they can refer to the level one, dentists, things like attachments, IPR, simple fillings, and those level one dentists are on a day rate. So the set up of the whole practise allows for me to be profitable from that case.

[00:51:39] And what’s in it for the level one dentist that he’ll eventually become a level two dentist? Is that the idea?

[00:51:44] Just a pathway to growth to learn, to grow, to become a good dentist? And that is the whole ethos behind my new practise. Is that really that whole education pathway that grows pathway for associates to come through and learn to be really, really good dentists with the support that they wouldn’t get anywhere else.

[00:52:06] So let’s let’s talk about the squat, the Dental guy, the architect. The Dental architect. First question why did you decide to change brand? Why didn’t you say another one?

[00:52:17] Yeah, why didn’t I keep my. So the other practise is called the Dental Studio. It’s a completely different beast. And I obviously I did think about keeping the brand and having a sister practise, but it’s just not the same. Like it’s my wait for practise is Heart of Yorkshire, you know, farming community combe, old coal mining community families, very, very long term loyal patients. The dental architects is slap bang in the city centre is compared to Wakefield, which is a couple of terraced houses not together. It’s a beautiful grade two listed building, it’s an old leather warehouse and it’s just, you know, the whole demographic of our patients is different. It is office workers, it is students. It’s a younger kind of generation of patients. So the branding that I have for the dental studio just didn’t fit with what I wanted for here.

[00:53:25] And how long was it from when you said, Right, I’m going to do this to the day that you opened your doors?

[00:53:31] Do you think it was about 18 months, I think.

[00:53:35] And take us through some of the. For someone who’s never done a squat.

[00:53:38] Yeah.

[00:53:39] Take us through that process.

[00:53:42] Well. I mean, how it came about was. My husband is a property investor and I don’t really take much notice of what he does for a living. But one day he invited me to come and look at a new property that boy needs. So I was like dragged along. And I walked in and I wasn’t looking for a second practise, something that had been on the back burner for maybe ten or so years but had kids. I never really made much of it. And I walked into this completely derelict building, which is on a really, really busy street and leads literally a minute’s walk to the train station. And I just it hit me like a ton of bricks that this was going to be this should be a beautiful dental practise. I’d just taken the grout. I was just going to have the ground floor. In the end, I ended up having a ground floor in the first floor. It’s a five story building. And really that was that was it. And I said, I have stupid ideas. And then I get in too deep and it’s too late to turn back. That’s what happened. But it was, I think to me when I reflect on why I did it, why, you know, why did I do it? I asked myself that question a lot. I think a lot of me did it just because I could. I knew what I wanted. I knew what I could do. I had the experience of running a practise. And I knew what I could create and I could see more important than all of that. It was that I saw the opportunity and I took it. And that’s what happened. And at the end of the day, I think this practise because it’s mine from very the roots of it I think it’s been an expression of me actually was I was quite sound quite deep but I think it’s my creative expression of my values, of what I’m about, the aesthetics of it.

[00:55:43] So is this your magnum opus? Like every dentist, every dentist has this dream of like this ideal practise, I think is this is this is this what it was for you?

[00:55:54] Yeah.

[00:55:55] Amazing.

[00:55:56] What did the name come from? Well, you know, when when I when I’m approached by either wannabe practise owners or people who are in that discovery phase, like, you know, there’s there’s every spa, studio, spa, studio, smile, spa, smile, practise, smile, clinic. All the names are gone, right? And so picking the name is you can go and then you go look at domain names and all the rest of it. It all goes through that process.

[00:56:26] You know. Well, picking the name is actually if I was to write a book on how to start a squat, I would say the first thing you need to do is pick a name, because until you pick a name, it holds up everything. You can’t do your branding. You can’t do your interior design until you’ve done your branding. You can’t design your final build until you’ve got your interior design. It’s like until you’ve got that name, nothing else can actually follow. Yeah. So the name is obviously one of the first things that I did. I had this really good branding consultant I work with. She’s called Car Abandon. She deliberately all the people that I’ve worked with throughout this whole project, apart from like very specific dental supplies, mentors that I’ve had have got nothing to do with dentistry. They’ve never done a dental practise before because I didn’t want it to be a cliché name, I didn’t want it to be a cliché brand. I wanted it to be very, very special and unique. And she, she we did have that whole kind of discovery process of a name. And in the end, I did spend a whole afternoon with her on this whole discovery process and the name and everything. But that name had been something that I’d already thought of before that process. And I’m glad, I’m glad I still went through the process with her to know that that was the right name, but it was my favourite name and a lot of people said they didn’t like it, they couldn’t spell it and all of that, and I just stuck with it. And it’s like one of those things where I was like, No, I’m going to go with my gut. I really like it and I’ve had so many compliments ever since on it. And the architect, the name architect kind of comes from the building itself, the beautiful building. But the fact that, you know, we we are the architects of smiles. So it was all kind of stuff really.

[00:58:15] And I think the branding and everything just flows beautifully when when you think of the name, just the logo, everything that you’ve seen in evolution on social media is your brand and your and your. We’ve all shared that. It’s almost like we’ve been on that journey with you, right? Because we’ve seen all the little steps and the little reels and the images and stuff like that, that, that, that whole brand has come to life. Yeah. And you right, you nail that name and everything else has followed after it and the brand is so suited to what you see.

[00:58:51] I always felt, I think before as I was starting the project, I felt like the name was like a bit of a luxury to be worrying about the name. But looking back on it, it was so important to get that name nailed and be comfortable with it. Right at the very beginning, because if you change the name, then your branding changes and then everything else changes.

[00:59:10] And what’s been your lowest moment in this whole journey of launching the Dental architect? You said you. You said you found the building. And then you got into deep and then you thought, Right, I’m in now, so I might as well figure out whether I’m going to sink or swim. Were there any sinking moments during this journey?

[00:59:33] Yeah, there’s multiple sinking moments. That was the build is starting work before I even had the funding. So, you know, I said about, like, holding your nose. Oh, man, I held my nerve. I walked into that building site every day, not knowing how I was going to pay the builders. I was like, I’ll call this mine. So for a long time, I didn’t have the funding. I think my, my, my, my absolute lowest moment was a clash I had with one of my the people that I was that was providing me a service for the bills. And we had a very big clash. And I was literally ranting and raving down the phone to him and bawling my eyes out and crying. And because everything had just got so much and everything was being delayed and it was like day after day after day, a new kick in the teeth. And it really has been an exercise in getting kicked, knocked down and getting up again and just doing the same again. And it takes fucking so I don’t know if I’m allowed to sweat balls and it takes grit and I’m not picking myself off it. I’m just putting it out there so everybody knows.

[01:01:05] What’s in it. Give me a bit more detail. Go on. What happened.

[01:01:08] About this?

[01:01:10] Yeah.

[01:01:11] Confrontation. Yeah, I don’t I don’t want to know because I don’t want to badmouth anybody in the industry.

[01:01:19] Don’t, don’t mention the name.

[01:01:21] Well, it’s like, I think if I tell you what it was about, I might give it away. It’s a company that I worked with, but it was just it was a big clash. And, you know, it was just it was it was about you can get over building problems and problems with the QC and staffing problems and all this kind of stuff. Funding problems. I can’t even think of the millions of things that held me back on a daily basis. But it’s that really it’s the relationships that you have along the way. And when that breaks down, that’s what really kicks you in the gut.

[01:02:00] Yeah. Is it a trust thing, Martin? It was. It was it that there was there was some kind of trust there that was broken or a promise that was made?

[01:02:08] I felt that that. I mean, there’s two sides to this story, but I felt like I’d been let down big style.

[01:02:15] Martin Are you the kind of person who works on a handshake or are you the kind of person who sets out the sort of the milestones of what’s going to happen? So if, for instance, for the sake of the argument, if you’re going to have a website, which would you say right by this date, I want this done by that date, I want that done, or are you more intuitive? And if you trust the person, let them get on with it.

[01:02:38] You have to have a timeline. When you when you’re building a practise, you have to have a timeline. And the timeline becomes I’ll tell you why. The reason I got upset with that person was because I was letting down other people and it was delaying the opening of the practise. And, you know, when you’re hiring associates, they need three months to you know, you need to give them three months notice. So you have to pick a date and you have to go with what you told within a day. You know, and what I got so upset about was, yeah, okay, the employees can’t start yet. That’s fine. I can pay them. I don’t care that I’m losing money and I’m, you know, handing the notes and they’ve left the job so I can pay them. But it’s so since you come on and I was just so gutted that these people had left their jobs and followed my stupid dream and believed in me and trusted me. And I felt like I was letting them down. And that’s why that is why I was so upset at that point, because I knew it was going to delay the opening. And I forgot your question. So so in terms of you have to have these timelines, if you do, you do you have to be quite organised. You have to plan in advance and you have to say, right, my landing page needs to be ready now because I need to start marketing now because my TCO needs to start doing virtual consultations now. So I need this, this, this, this and this in place before my TCO starts doing virtual consultations. And so you do have to.

[01:04:02] Be so how much how much ahead of time? How much ahead of opening were you doing virtual consultations?

[01:04:07] Well, in the end, we did. We were supposed to just do a month that we did six or seven weeks because we opened late, which was no bad thing because it meant we got more patients in the chair when we opened. But yeah, so we started running, so we started doing the consults. Now if I did it again, I probably would say six weeks before opening, and then we started running the ads a month before that. So my lead ninja, my new patient coordinator, was booking in with the CEO for the virtual consults for that month before.

[01:04:39] I mean, how involved do you get in the creative? For instance, they’re putting ads out on social. Yeah I help who comes up comes up with the words. Is that you.

[01:04:49] Yeah, I do. Yeah, I have I definitely have a lot of input.

[01:04:55] But then, you know, the process, how the process is where I mean privacy expert. Right. But the process where they try lots of different words and try lots of different pictures and split test.

[01:05:03] They can do that. I’m not that’s that’s for the professionals to do.

[01:05:07] So you give the basic tone of voice. Yeah.

[01:05:10] Yeah.

[01:05:12] Yeah, I get it.

[01:05:13] I think because I think I’m a little bit I’m okay. Like, if I thought it was a bit crap at it, I wouldn’t do it. But yeah, like you say, I’m not going to be A and B testing the arts. That’s for the professionals to do.

[01:05:24] Yeah. And plus, it’s a reflection of you, right, that’s going out there.

[01:05:27] It’s my voice, isn’t it?

[01:05:30] Yeah, it’s. It’s got to be it’s got to be close. I mean, it’s interesting, because sometimes someone else can do your voice better than you. It’s interesting. Perhaps I’ve got a guy. He’s he’s.

[01:05:41] A podcast. I can’t remember the name of the guy. He’s he does loads of implants and stuff. It’s quite a young guy. And then you were talking about. No, no, it was it that one. No, you it was one of your podcasts about building a website and you have a guy that writes everything for you. Just crap. So it sounds.

[01:06:00] Amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:06:02] Word ninja. I feel like everyone’s a ninja word. Ninja.

[01:06:08] Just that phrase.

[01:06:10] But this guy, Martin, this guy, for instance, when he’s writing, he’s writing copy for the owners website here. You can literally hear his voice onto he wrote it and write it, the particular thing that he’s written. But you can hear Ronan’s voice. It’s like you can hear it in Ronan’s accent and voice. And then when he’s writing copy for Enlighten, it’s not my voice. It’s enlightened voice comes over and it’s the same dude sitting there saying, Yeah, yeah, I guess that is a pro, right?

[01:06:40] It’s you. Sometimes other people can express you better than you can express it.

[01:06:46] Just just like right now. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t sell yourself.

[01:06:50] No.

[01:06:53] Well, let’s stay on the dark side.

[01:06:55] Well.

[01:06:56] What’s been. What’s been your darkest day in dentistry?

[01:07:00] Oh doc dentistry.

[01:07:04] If you want wrap it into your biggest mistake clinically or you’re the patient that that complained the loudest or caused you the most pain or any of those sort of things.

[01:07:13] Yeah. You instantly think of something when you say that. You think of that patient, don’t you? Yeah. I don’t think we did any. It was yeah, there was a really, really horrible patient and she complained about literally all the dentists in the practise. And she made me feel anxious for months. She was a lawyer.

[01:07:34] Oh, God.

[01:07:36] It was horrible, horrible, horrible. I haven’t had many, honestly. Oh, mistakes. A million. Of course. Of course. But you know what’s so important? You know, if you would tell young Dennis, what’s the most important thing you can do in your career? The most important learning point is to build those relationships with your patients, because when you do screw up, they’re a lot more forgiving if you’ve got a relationship with them. And of course, yeah, I made hundreds of mistakes. Yeah, but I haven’t had many dark days and I’m sure I’ve had a wonderful career. I love my career. And have you.

[01:08:12] Never had a member of staff let you down big time steal from you? Something like that?

[01:08:18] Not still, no. I mean, I’ve had just. Incompetent members of staff. And just looking back fondly. So. But no, I’ve never had. Yeah. I’ve been very lucky.

[01:08:37] I’m not buying it.

[01:08:39] Well, the gnomes have stolen from me.

[01:08:41] No, no, no. You’ve never had a dark day.

[01:08:43] I can’t. I would say this.

[01:08:46] How can you go 20 years without a dark day?

[01:08:48] No, not so dark days, I’m sure.

[01:08:50] Come on. What stands out? What stands out as dark days?

[01:08:54] Oh, I don’t know. Patience can be annoying and all that and horrible, but I think for me it’s the relationship with your team and I think that would be the thing that upset me the most is if I upset a team member or hurt a relationship with a team member or broken a relationship or done something wrong like that, that’s more important to me. I think with patients, you can you can get over it a little bit, I think.

[01:09:20] I feel like this dark story you’re not telling us honestly.

[01:09:24] I’ll think of one. Ask you is I’m sure.

[01:09:27] All right. All right. When it comes to you.

[01:09:31] I’m never I don’t want to say that I’ve not ever had been sued or anything because then I’m going to get sued. It’s about the way you do allegations, isn’t it? Yes. In dark days.

[01:09:42] It might not just be a patient thing, right, Martine? It might be something unrelated to patients, but it’s in dentistry, right? But I see dark waves manifesting themselves in two ways. Have you ever seen the movie Falling Down? Michael Douglas.

[01:09:56] Yeah.

[01:09:57] Walks into McDonald’s and it’s 5 minutes past breakfast time in the world. Give him his breakfast. Right. So he pulls out his machine gun, pulls out his machine gun and goes batshit crazy. Right. Because he can’t get breakfast. Right. So that’s one that’s one way of manifesting your dark day. And then the other. The other way I see is just crawling into a corner and crying and thinking, what’s the actual f? Why? Yeah. Can you relate to either of those moments, either a falling down moment or just burying yourself?

[01:10:31] I’m sure there’s many days I wanted to get my gun out and shoot everybody in the process. And all the patients and. So like you said online.

[01:10:51] No, no, no. Okay. Doesn’t matter. Let it. Let it. Let it. Let it marinate.

[01:10:55] Dark days that have been dark moments.

[01:10:57] Let it marinate.

[01:10:57] Let it let me.

[01:10:58] But let it marinate for a while. What’s your biggest weakness?

[01:11:02] You. I do know that I’m very good at making plans and things happening in my head and not telling anyone else about it. So like with my team, I would be, you know, I come up with all these ideas and all I have conversations and I’ll agree something with a team member and then not tell anyone else about it. Because I, you know, I just think that they can read my mind. I’m really moody, but I try work, I try and you know, you put on a show, don’t you? But at home, I’m really moody, very quick tempered.

[01:11:41] Really. I will ask for one, but keep going.

[01:11:44] I know I can keep going. Yeah, I think it’s really annoying to my team sometimes.

[01:11:51] What’s been your biggest mistake?

[01:11:55] In life or in life?

[01:11:57] Both.

[01:12:03] I don’t really believe in mistakes. Or like grapes. I think everything in life should be a learning experience, but I do wish I’d had the confidence I have now. But when I see all these young dentists out there doing crazy, amazing stuff and achieving all these amazing things, and I think, oh, this I’d have that confidence 20 years ago. Imagine what I could have achieved.

[01:12:33] Yeah, I know what you mean. I interviewed a fourth year dental student for this show, and he’d figured some stuff out that I figured out last week pissed me off a little bit.

[01:12:48] I think that, like, these young dentists are so different to how.

[01:12:54] Yeah, but they’re big stress heads. They’re big stress heads. Well, I was going to go on to the empowering women in dentistry. Yeah. How did that come about? Was that was that kind of this thing that you found yourself? You found your confidence, then you wanted to share that with other women.

[01:13:12] So what happened was I went into this into Costa Coffee and Weatherby, where I live, and there was this. Amazonian glamorous women stood in front of me in the coffee cake, and I looked at her. I was like, Oh, it’s Andrea Eby and Andrea Eby. I’d always this top 50 dentistry failure, like every last 20 years it’s been coming out. I’ve been reading it, and she was always in it. And she was she was quite the trailblazer, you know, in terms of marketing and all this kind of thing. And I’d followed her for 20 years, never met her. And so I introduced myself. I said, Oh, hi, I’m a dentist. And we just hit it off and we got chatting and then we met up again and we sort of both female practises, owners of which obviously we are outnumbered by men in terms of practise ownership. It was it was a real delight to to speak to another female practise owner. And we both really enjoying our conversation and the way that we approach running. Our practises seem to be different from maybe the when the way that men do it. And we felt like there was this big need out there for women to come together in dentistry because we recognise this huge lack of confidence amongst women and this kind of imposter syndrome, this feeling that you’re never, you’re not what people think you are and you’re never going to achieve what people think you can and all this.

[01:14:44] And it’s huge. It’s a huge problem that I’ve always suffered from as well. And we just felt like it would be fun. It was like, Yeah, it’s just one of those stupid ideas. Again, it was like, Oh, wouldn’t it be fun if we just did a conference and got loads of women together and got some cool female speakers in and just tried to be a bit inspiring to women and tried to help other women in the way that we were helping each other and that Andrea was helping me and growing my confidence. And so we did. And so we started doing it and we got this really amazing response and through lockdown and everything, it was really incredible. So that’s how it came about, really. It was just seeing that kind of opportunity and seeing this thing that was missing.

[01:15:26] Who spoke at the conference.

[01:15:29] What we had. So we had mind Ninja Lady, we.

[01:15:35] Had Maro.

[01:15:38] Lawson. You have Sally Garneau. She was like our keynote speaker. That was amazing. She took us through that whole mindset of how she won gold at the Olympics, at the 100 metre hurdles. And that was crazy, like the way she rehearsed that in her mind thousands of times before she did that run. And she just every set, every step was rehearsed in her mind. And it’s that a whole kind of visualisation. And I think successful people do that a lot this visualisation of of what it is you want to achieve because you naturally think about your goal all the time. So inevitably it becomes something that’s going to happen. But yeah, we had some amazing speakers. It was a fun day.

[01:16:24] Would you say juggling motherhood and business ownership has been a challenge to you?

[01:16:32] Yeah. It’s a challenge because it’s a psychological challenge to me. I have huge working mother guilt and I have a massively supportive husband without whom I couldn’t do achieve what I have achieved. He’s very flexible in his job and he’s very willing to do a lot of the childcare. But every day I struggle with my guilt of not spending enough time with them or not being present enough. But this comes back to this, and I think I do, by the way, I do think I do spend a lot of time with them, but I’ll never stop feeling guilty. But then that drive side of me knows and my husband knows that if I was to give it all up, which, you know, I want to do every day sometimes, but if I was to give up doing what I’m doing, I would be miserable, depressed, very bored person.

[01:17:34] I was I was reading I was doing some research on you. And I came across some article in dentistry where he said, every Sunday I go to the spa and recharge Sunday evening. And I think it’s such an important thing because too many ladies in particular, I think I’m sure there’s some men like this too, but too many ladies in particular are sort of martyrs to the everything that they do, and that leaves nothing for them. And there is some there are some particularly sort of more, I call it enlightened or forward thinking people who realise that that there’s like if you’re not taken care of, you can’t take care of anyone else. When? How long? How long ago did you do that? He’s still doing that. He’s still going to do that.

[01:18:23] Excellent. Let’s go to something I like. I cook some more dinner. We’ve had a nice weekend, and then I just go off to the spa for 2 hours, and I just sit there and think about stuff, and it’s the only time I get headspace sit and think of. Unusually, I think about work, my next idea. But yeah, it’s just my headspace, really.

[01:18:44] And would you would you would you say more people should do more of that? I certainly think so. I mean, whatever.

[01:18:48] It is that gives you headspace, it might be fishing, it might be running.

[01:18:53] Yeah.

[01:18:53] Whatever it is you need, you need that moment. Like I’m addicted to my phone, mainly because I just sit on there and actually probably don’t think for half an hour. Which is also good for you.

[01:19:08] Definitely. I think we’re coming near the end of our time. I do want to ask you about the future. Have you got plans? Are there going to be many more of these architectures? Are you going to start teaching this process? So. Oh, God, I bet it would work. I mean, if you put on a course on how to do a squat, I’m sure. I’m sure people would want to to check that out. But, you know, putting a course on, it’s hard work, too.

[01:19:35] Yeah. I mean, I’ve never been someone that has long term goals. Actually, I’m an opportunist, I think. And I like to grow organically and go where my whim takes me, whether it’s teaching or speaking or building a practise, whatever it is. I just like to be passionate about what I’m doing and enjoy what I’m doing. And so I don’t make long term plans. And, you know, you never say never right now I’m saying never, never again. I think I mean it, but I’m just going to carry on with that journey and spotting those opportunities and and going where those opportunities take me.

[01:20:24] And you said when when when you had the stick about the offer kind of made you happy. Which is kind of counterintuitive. A lot of people would have said, oh, that was horrible. But but but there’s sort of this mischievous side of you, I guess. Does that come from.

[01:20:44] Because I thought. Well. If people are sitting up and taking notice and getting annoyed by this. It must be because I’m doing something right.

[01:20:57] But why would you say that? I mean, a lot of people would say it must be because you’re doing something wrong.

[01:21:02] I don’t really care what other people think. Like, I just I do my own thing and I never really compete with other practises or, you know, I look at, I still look at what the practises are doing and stuff, but it’s my thing, it’s my practise. I’ve got no interest in competing with anyone else. All I want to do is fill my clinic. So I do really care what other people think about what I do as long as what I’m doing is ethical and I’m not hurting anybody and I’m giving these patients an amazing service, like it’s somebody I tell them, I’m like, This is incredible. You won’t get this anywhere else. I’m not just saying, you know, and you’ll get.

[01:21:43] What I mean. It’s clear that that’s the kind of person you are. But why?

[01:21:47] Gosh. It’s just the depth to me, isn’t it? So I.

[01:21:53] You know, you know this thing about women and confidence. A lot of women would would would be very scared about that that level of attention. I know why I’m saying women, but it’s true, right?

[01:22:06] Yeah.

[01:22:07] And and and yet you you go on and you love it and you come out and say, yeah, I am doing it. And you go and set up the Women in Dentistry Empowerment Group. Why? Why? How did you become this cat? Like I want to do. I want to. I want to teach my daughter.

[01:22:27] You can’t teach. You can’t teach it. I love having the drive that I have. But sometimes I wish you could just take it away. And I could just be. And I could just sit and I could just be. And I could not constantly want more and bigger and better. And I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had a wonderful childhood. I have wonderful, supportive parents. I’ve never had trauma in my life. I’m was going to say blessed to that word, but I am. And so there’s no kind of there’s no yearning in me for something that I’ve missed out on in life. It’s just a me. There’s no I don’t think there’s a secret to it.

[01:23:11] What about what about an inspiration? Did you have someone?

[01:23:15] Oh, I’m always inspired by people I love seeing. So like, I don’t know, I was seeing I got into Invisalign and then I was seeing like these, these speakers for Invisalign. So one day I was like, I’m to be Invisalign speaker. And that was, you know, in my head I wouldn’t do that. So then you just make it happen. You do what it takes, you take the steps and you make it happen. And I saw what they would do and I was like, What are they doing? How did they get there? I’m going to do that. So. Yeah. I’ve gone off again. I don’t know what we were talking about, but.

[01:23:55] Okay. Well, I still I still think you owe us a traumatic story.

[01:24:01] But I think of it. I miss you.

[01:24:04] Yeah.

[01:24:06] I mean, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to start. Yeah, right. Oh, excellent. All right, here you go. Excellent. So I was born dysplasia. So it’s where your hips deformed and the. My finger was deformed and the peri acetabulum, which is the bone that goes around it. Right. And I didn’t really realise it was problem until I was in my early twenties. I was living in London and I was walking around and my hip kept falling out my hip socket. So I’d be walking along and I’d collapse. And for some reason I just thought, this is normal. Don’t know why. I just got too busy. I was like hanging with stuff, so and it really started to happen. It’s awful in London cause you have to walk everywhere, so it’s crippling. I became really crippled with it and I could hardly walk. So eventually I went to the doctor. They took an X-ray and like, Oh, he’s got hip dysplasia now. Oh, okay. Well, at least it’s a thing that I’ve got. And so I, I had to go through a lot of surgery and it was big, nasty surgery and I had quite a few of them and I had my hip, my femur. They cut it in two and they re angled it and then they stuck a pin in it. And then the first time I remember like three months later, I still couldn’t lift my own leg. And I had this horrendous limp and I remember my best friend coming to visit me. I was like, Look at me walking. I was so I was so pleased with myself. And she was like aghast. Look, she’s like, What’s it to you? Well, I was doing quite well.

[01:25:45] So I got to the doctor and he took the X-ray and the two parts of the femur were completely separate. And I’ve been trying to walk around on these broken legs for three months, so he had to then redo it. And then that really didn’t help my symptoms and I was still quite crippled with it and I couldn’t really walk, I couldn’t do it. And I was in constant, constant pain. And this went on for a couple of years and it really affected my life. And then I had the final surgery, which was the peri acetabulum, so it’s your hip bones. So they took a big chunk out of my hip bone and then re angled that and I was laid off in bed for three months and I was getting married. And I organised my whole wedding from back from my bed and my goal was to walk down the aisle without crutches. That was my goal. So I kind of even hired the band without hearing them. I did everything. The Internet hadn’t been around all that long, but I had a laptop and I did it all. And what was really interesting about that period of time for me was not only firstly finding out who my friends were, the people that were there to support me and my husband who supported me all the way through and my family and going through that crippling period of pain for three or four years, not knowing if I was going to be able to walk at the end of it or if I was going to be in a wheelchair. They were. Yeah. There you go. There’s some dark days for you.

[01:27:18] I forgot about that. That qualifies.

[01:27:22] But I got there and well, that was nearly 20 years ago now. And I can’t run and I can’t walk very far. But I can get on my bike and I can day to day I can get by and I’m not in pain. And every every day I am grateful for the body. I’m in the ability it has to get me from A to B and for me, you know, the opportunity that that gave me to be grateful for for every breath that I take, because we take our bodies for granted until something like that happens. And to go through that when you’re quite young and you’re out clubbing and all this kind of stuff and you can’t do it. It was really hard when you’re 23 now, but I’m forever grateful to that surgeon who who fixed me and it’s still working.

[01:28:17] What an inspirational story, Martina. Just the whole story. Not not this justice, but the whole thing. You seem you seem to carry stuff off with relative ease. And I don’t know, I guess it’s the way you put it over, because nothing, nothing significant is easy. As is never easy.

[01:28:35] Not all.

[01:28:37] Let’s. Let’s end it with the customary final questions.

[01:28:43] Martina. She stay on the planet. You’ve got your kids, your beloved ones around you who’ve been there, supported you, and you’ve got to give them three pieces of wisdom, parting pieces of wisdom for life. What would they be?

[01:29:03] So. The first piece of advice that I would give is. If you want to be successful, if you want to grow and you want to become a better person, I think you have to spend every single day out of your comfort zone. And that is why I do. And, you know, it’s not always a pleasant place to be, but very great fun things can come out of that. My second piece of advice, I think, is something that I we talked about earlier, and it is to be true to yourself and to learn to trust yourself and your own values and your own instincts and learn. And it’s a hard thing to learn, but to learn when to listen to other people and to when to when to listen to yourself. And if something doesn’t feel right and it’s not comfortable to you. Then it’s the right thing is is to do what is comfortable to you and how that you treat other people, the work that you do and and the people that you surround yourself with. And what would be my third piece of advice? I wish I could take this advice myself, but I would. Just to learn to be. Just to be. Sometimes. To sit and look around everything because it’s a wonderful, wonderful world. And I’m incredibly lucky. And sometimes I think I take it all for granted because I’m too busy trying to do more. Just be.

[01:30:54] Lovely. Lovely.

[01:30:56] Especially that last piece.

[01:30:57] That last piece. But and also what you said about comfort zone. It’s quite interesting that being comfortable outside of your comfort zone sort of it’s a cliche, but what you said about interesting things come from it. I think that’s a key point because you’re you’re bloody uncomfortable. Right. So that’s an uncomfortable thing. But then when you when you’re looking forward to the interesting things that are going to come from it, at least you’ve got you’ve got that and then interesting things always do come. I remember when me and I said, let’s do a podcast. It was bloody uncomfortable. But then once you’ve been out of your comfort zone a few times and then you know, some interesting stuff is going to go, you might not know what that stuff is yet, but some good stuff’s going to come from it, and that’s the best way of getting into that position.

[01:31:42] Exciting. Yeah. An exciting place to be and to say yes to things even though you don’t know how you’re going to achieve them or do them.

[01:31:50] Yeah. And they’re stopping and stopping and spending the roads is certainly. Yeah. So my final question. Fantasy dinner party.

[01:31:59] Yes.

[01:32:00] Three guests, dead or alive. Who would you invite?

[01:32:03] Right. My three guests. I would have Professor Brian Cox.

[01:32:12] I like him.

[01:32:13] I love him. I just could listen to him talk about black holes and dark matter. And I have no idea what he’s saying. Yeah, I could just. I could. I understand it at the time, but then if you ask me to repeat what he said, I would have no idea if I could listen to him. I would just love to listen to him talk all night about dark matter.

[01:32:37] Is such a cool dude. Used to be a pop star as well. Yeah.

[01:32:39] He was endearing. Yeah.

[01:32:40] Amazing.

[01:32:42] He’s such a cool dude. I’ve seen him, like, twice live.

[01:32:45] Yeah, I speak to that pretty good.

[01:32:48] And my second guest would be, I think I just Tom Hanks because he’s my favourite actor and I just. I just love everything that he does. And I just think he’d be really, really interesting and I just think he’s got a really lovely way about him. So I’d have Tom Hanks. I don’t think my identify, I guess exciting. Really.

[01:33:12] What’s what’s your favourite Tom Hanks movie?

[01:33:15] I really like. Is it, Captain Ways? One way.

[01:33:23] So the desert islands. He’s on a desert island somewhere.

[01:33:26] Oh, no, not that one. That’s what with the ball, Wilson. What’s it called? That one.

[01:33:33] Castaway.

[01:33:34] Captain Phillips. Captain Phillips. I really like that movie. He lands a plane on the Hudson River, doesn’t he?

[01:33:42] Yes.

[01:33:43] Well, that’s really good.

[01:33:44] Yes. Brilliant. And the third.

[01:33:46] Guest. And then my third guest. It would be Freddie Mercury because. Yeah. You know, you asked me, like, what am I, you know, you didn’t ask me regrets. I think one of my regrets is never having seen Freddie Mercury live. And I really, really wish I’d seen Freddie Mercury sing live. I know you can go see Queen now. It’s not Freddie, is it, to have been at Live Aid? Wouldn’t that have been a thing? I remember watching it at the time.

[01:34:17] Yeah, yeah. Incredible. Once that was.

[01:34:20] Yeah.

[01:34:22] It’s been so nice to have you. And I know how busy you are. And the fact that you found time for us is really, really feels like a privilege. Thank. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[01:34:36] You would help me. Thank you. So I really feel like I’ve had a good therapy session.

[01:34:41] So many lessons in all of your loads to be loads. Thank you so much, Martina. Thanks for doing. Thanks for me.

[01:34:49] 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.

[01:35:05] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say. Because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:35:20] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:35:30] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] And with their infrastructure, the things that they’ve already got in place, their existing head office and allowing me to create my own head office, my own infrastructure as well. I just felt like, although yes, I’d lost majority share of my business, I gained the ability to grow a much larger business. And I felt I’d rather have a smaller piece of a much bigger pie as such. She’s, I suppose, the old saying but you’ve got to think bigger picture. If you’re going to do that, then kind of say I’ve got three highly profitable clinics, which I had with a very, very good EBITDA, which I had, and I could sell the whole thing. One hit for a big figure, but then where do I go again? And so this, I’m hoping, allows me to partially exit, partially exit again, partially exit again, but in a business that I love in a bill.

[00:00:57] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:15] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Kaley Solanki back onto the podcast for his second visit. Since the last time we had Kaylee Sean A lot’s happened for for him and you know, we’ll perhaps brother, I think that regular listeners will know that Katie has gone through a process of investment and now looking to grow. How you doing, buddy?

[00:01:39] I’m good, thanks. Hey, how are you?

[00:01:41] I’m good. Good. Good to have you back. So the last time we spoke, I remember there was a lot of tears. Hopefully there’ll be some more tears this time as well. But I remember Prav asking you, so what’s the plans for the future? And you said, look, I want to I want to spread my knowledge. I want to get some more people to do the things that I can I can teach them. And what you’ve done is you’ve sold Dental or sold a percentage of it.

[00:02:14] Yes. So obviously, when you guys had me on the show last time, I mean, it was it was great to be on it. And we were going through a really kind of strong transition of kind of rebranding the clinics I was in, not just probably the maturity of our Academy programme where we were teaching. I think by that point we kind of had four or five vets come through our kind of dental private system. And to be honest, business could have never been better really. You know, the clinics were booming, we were out in chairs and growth was going up, profit was going up. So everything was going in the right direction and kind of where I wanted to be and how we discuss things and the last show and kind of moving forward, we wanted almost like an educational platform and we created KIS courses, which was really well received. And you know, we run I think 12 or 13 courses last year and we had we had full uptake of every single day. It was small groups, but it was really nice. It was great to kind of lecture again and be on that side of the table.

[00:03:29] And so, yeah, it was, it was kind of I felt like everything was going in that, in that direction of how I’d kind of envisaged it going. But you get to a point like in anything where you kind of run out of time, run out of not not energy is thought. It’s just time and it’s just the ability to kind of keep on pushing stuff. And so a decision kind of had to be made on What do I do? Because as we discussed last time, I do a lot of clinical dentistry, I then do the teaching, I’ve got the vets and try to have a bit of private life as well, try to socialise every now and then on the MSN course with you. And you know, there’s all these different little avenues that I do, but at some point you kind of think it’s 11:00 at night and I’m not stopped and I’ve not stopped for months and months and months. And so I kind of really wanted to just evaluate where I wanted to be and where I want it to go.

[00:04:26] So you sell to dental, dental beauty partners or you sell, what, 60% of your business to dental beauty partners?

[00:04:32] Yeah. So kind of what happened was probably pre-COVID before I decided to grow and rebrand and so on and so forth. And there was some offers on the table from, from other corporate groups at that time. I kinda was a little bit down and out about dentistry. I’d been doing it for a long time and I think I’d just worn myself out and for many reasons, some not due to me, others due to decisions that I made. And none of those deals kind of went through. And I think in my heart I just didn’t want to sell the whole business. I just didn’t want to be the guy that sold and then worked out for three or five years. And then for what I do now. And then Dental Beauty came about by a broker called Max from Pluto Partners that basically I was quite tight with. And he kind of came to me, he said, I think we’ve got a good deal on the table here where you can sell it. You know, you’ll have to sell a majority share of your business. So 60%, which is what was on the table. But they want to then look at using you as a vehicle in the northwest and really expanding your brand and pushing dental out and and doing all the things that you kind of want to do, but just, I think don’t have the infrastructure, our energy to do.

[00:05:51] And so, so yeah, it kind of just fitted far better for me because I was at the time 41 I still feel I’ve got a lot to give in a role where I feel a need to be kingpin of the of the of the clinics that I run and. Have a lot of kind of knowledge to give to the younger clinicians, and I didn’t want to lose that at this point. So it was just really important that the deal structure had to be right. Which which men then, you know, dental beauty or a large group now 30 practises, I believe in the South, but mainly mixed practises that their idea is by mix practise and revamp it, let it grow, double the turnover. Bosh You’ve got more profitability and we move on to the next one. And Chris essentially is fully private, no NHS. We are aiming for very high end dentistry. We aim for those patients that are very like discerning patients who really want that, that top end treatment.

[00:06:56] Our model is more squats, our model is more built from from the ground outwards, but using our our heavy branding and marketing to really push those clinics forward. So we weren’t going to step on each of us toes. And I think it was just going to be a very, very good fit. And with their infrastructure, the things that they’ve already got in place, their existing head office and allowing me to create my own head office, my own infrastructure as well. I just felt like, although yes, I’d lost majority share of my business, I gained the ability to grow a much larger business. And I felt I’d rather have a smaller piece of a much bigger pie as such. She’s, I suppose, the old saying, but you’ve got to think bigger picture. If you’re going to do that, then kind of say I’ve got three highly profitable clinics, which I had with a very, very good EBITDA, which I had, and I could sell the whole thing for one hit for a big figure. But then where do I go again? And so this, I’m hoping, allows me to partially exit, partially exit again, partially exit again. But in a business that I love in a bill.

[00:08:10] I think when I was when I was speaking to you about this pro and we were having conversations of what next? You were entertaining conversations from the usual suspects or the different offers on the table. And it was like, okay. Sells. He gets a large sum of money in the bank. But you’ve got you’ve got something that I definitely don’t have at this age right now. You have just got a crazy amount of energy and it almost felt too early for you to do your big exit now because you’ve got so much more to give, so much more ambition to grow. And, you know, I think there’s one thing that Max told me right at the beginning when when we were talking about our exit and it was, you know, the right deal has got to be the right deal for the right person. So the right deal for me was getting out of the game. The right deal for you was, I think, doing what you did, you know, getting some money, getting some cash in through the door so you could sort of, I guess, have a nice cushion beneath you. But then having that vehicle and that infrastructure behind you to just go again and I’ve seen it myself, you know, it’s almost like the drive you had back in 2005, 2006 is back again. That’s what I am saying. I’ve seen that that clash with that drive, that ambition, that that, you know, new start of ambition you had in 2005 and six with a degree of aggression is back.

[00:09:39] Yeah. Can I kind of.

[00:09:41] Kate what do you think they bought. I mean the brand I get that but you write I mean these these these ten, ten clinics you want to open.

[00:09:53] Yeah. I mean.

[00:09:54] What’s going to I mean, have you discussed what’s going to be the different roles and what’s going to happen? What’s Dev and his team going to do and what you’re going to do to spell that out for us?

[00:10:02] Yeah. So I think to answer your first question, you’re right. I think, you know, they as the as the as the dance team told me, like a 16 page dossier about me specifically to Nordic Capital and EDG, who were the fund they’re funded by on the basis that they wanted this deal. But I think essentially when you break it down, they kind of wanted me. So it’s one of those that I kind of think to myself, you know, that’s great. But there’s still that degree of pressure on because, you know, you’re in that situation now where you are now saying, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do the ten clinics and I’m going to, you know, in the next 12 months. And I want them to be profitable, as profitable as my existing businesses are. And that’s what this business plan relies on. So for me, there is some pressure. But then, you know, Devin, the team that’s really helped me. So the helping with finance, the helping with HR, the helping with payroll, the help him with, you know. The ability to just sometimes bounce ideas off people that are in the in a similar situation and kind of get their take on how we can progress and how we can build. And sometimes that little bit of information is pretty invaluable.

[00:11:22] Yeah. What would you say is the difference in the approach of dental beauty to what you would naturally do?

[00:11:31] I think I call both both clinics. Both groups are very aligned to like wanting patient care to be there and which is why they they use the partnership model. I really think the partnership model for kids is going to hopefully work super well. But I think like the difference is I suppose are because there’s so much more ahead in respect to I suppose what they do number of clinics, number of partners, infrastructure, you know, a lot of it is is kind of geared by numbers and by spreadsheets and by, you know, all the kind of business stuff that goes on with all of that. And at the moment, KISS is in the infancy of that. And so aspects of it I love because I can kind of now see kind of what our KPIs are or what they should be and what what our targets are and how are we going to be driven and, and how, how infrastructure in a larger organisation works. And I love that because it gives me a thought to say, well we need one of them or a need and integrations manager and I need an operations manager and I understand the reasons why we need these things now.

[00:12:48] Whereas I would just generally get one of my existing staff and stick them in a different role, and you do it because you trust that person. But maybe that in might not be the right person for the job, but then you don’t want to really bring someone else in. And recently we’ve just brought an M&A manager in for KISS and she used to work for BUPA, but she she’s come as an external. But I believe we need that to grow and to find sites and to find existing practises. And so it’s kind of what I really like is as opposed to differences. The main difference, I suppose, is their business strategy or them strategy and how they grow against the strategy and how this is going to grow. But I think everything else we can really work together to to hopefully produce a really strong secondary group in the north, you know, in my view, is to really combat the Northwest, whether it be Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Yorkshire. Those are the kind of key areas that I want to be in in the next next year to two years. Really.

[00:14:00] So. Okay. Did you go through that traditional thing that entrepreneurs go through when they sell their business? I know you haven’t sold it all and I know you’ve got plans for the future, but that that sort of sense of loss that people talk about.

[00:14:13] Yeah.

[00:14:14] You do know you’ve been you’ve been working at this for 15, 16 years now.

[00:14:18] Yeah. It’s you know, it’s a tough thing because when it’s all yours and you kind of feel like, well, I can do that. I can make that decision because it’s my decision to make. And if it goes well, then amazing. And if it goes really badly, then I’ve only really got myself to blame and kind of moving forward. It is tough that when you sell because you have this relief. I remember when I first set up the very first kiss, I think I had 900 or £800,000 worth of debt tied into that first clinic. And then you get to this point where your debt you’re a debt free business, which we were and we still are. We did big numbers and made very good money yearly. And, you know, life life is good, but, you know, life is good because you look at it at a snapshot in time. And, you know, we go back two years and every clinic in the country was closed. Then it was COVID and life was not good and things still needed pay in and this needed to be done. And, you know, to be brutally honest with you, to have a decent lump sum in the bank so that you don’t then need to stress about things is is a really important aspect of why I considered to pull some cash out and do a partial exit now. But yeah, it is sad because it’s sad you feel like you’ve lost a little part of your baby. But, you know, I kind of was was also excited because of the way it went down. And I think if it didn’t, wasn’t this deal, it wasn’t this structure. I genuinely feel like I probably would have lost my mojo pretty quickly, whereas now I’m probably working harder than I ever. I’ve been because as I’ve said, I’ve got that almost that fight back to to ensure that this next level this next step for Chris Dental is a is a really successful one.

[00:16:18] What have been the challenges to you? But I know we’ve we’ve just brought the concept of grief and loss and that that letting go, you know, you’re a control freak. You like to be in control of things and now you’ve let go. You’re not you no longer in control. I guess you’re in control of certain elements. And so what’s the plan for the next part of your growth in your ambition for what? For what you’ve got the fire for? You know, the two groups are different, the kiss and the dental beauties you’ve identified. But what is the plan now moving forward and what and what timescale do you want to achieve that?

[00:16:54] And I think I suppose like control is, is one of those things that you feel like you’ve got or you don’t have in any business. You know, we laugh and we joke and sometimes look at what’s going on around me. And I’m sure most practise owners can can kind of sympathise with me. But you sometimes go into your practises and you think, who’s made all these decisions because they’re terrible, you know, and things are going on around you and the place is falling apart. And then other times, you know, you kind of things are going amazingly and you’re like, Yeah, of course this is all me. And so I think control is like very, very perceived, perceived by many in very different ways. I never really was that control guy though in KISS majority of his staff, if you spoke to them, said, yeah, you know, they respected me when I made decisions. Those decisions were definitely done. So the hopefully, generally the great good of the business. But I do believe that, you know, because I’m still there, because I’m still CEO or clinical director or whatever you want to call me, I’m still the boss there. And to be honest with you, that day to day running, that decisions that we need to make to make sure the business stays successful kind of Dental be a pretty cool they like.

[00:18:14] K You just do what you need to do and you make sure it carries on doing what it does. But then if we talk about me personally and my ambition and my my drive and what I need to do and actually I need to do less than industry. And that is the long and the short of this whole next chapter of my life. Because as much as I love doing the teeth, I kind of need to drop my clinical time down to probably two days a week, really in the next year. I’ve already dropped down to three as soon as the deal went ahead. And that’s hard because you’re right. I’ve got the biggest thing for me is not business control, by the way, is actually clinical control, wanting to do the big 24 veneer cases or the full mount rehabs or the all the armfuls of dental. That’s what I want to do. I want to control that and I can’t, because if I carry on doing that, I will be working solidly in the business. And as the old saying goes, not on the business.

[00:19:14] And unfortunately, it’s really pinnacle imperative that I now work on the business to to grow it and grow it well, really support my new partners that we’re going to be taking on board. So they grow their businesses as well. And I can’t do that if I’m starting my surgery five days a week. So that’s, I suppose, the biggest loss of control. But then for me, ambition wise, the biggest ambition is to be that next leader, not the leader in clinical dentistry, just the leader in both the clinical side still giving support and ensuring that standards of care and showing that dentistry is done to exacting kind of standards and quality, but also making sure the groups, the teams that we build now are going to be super happy and kisses. The brand stays as that happy, friendly kind of brand that people come and see because they love the staff and they love the environment. And you know, everyone smiles and that kind of thing. And, you know, pay has been to our clinics many a time and he always comments like stuff just lovely me. Then I tried to hire the people I think I can get on with and I don’t want those things to change.

[00:20:29] What are the challenges you face as a different type of business owner? So you’ve gone from this guy who’s like super clinical and it’s almost like you’ve changed as a business owner. You’ve had to adapt and develop new skills, whether it’s interviewing new partners for these next ten clinics or having meetings or having structured, I guess, working on the business more so than you ever have done before. What are the changes and adjustments you’ve had to make and adapt as a business owner?

[00:21:00] I suppose it’s like it’s like anything. When you start going more into business, you’ve got to understand numbers, you’ve got to understand spreadsheets, you’ve got to understand balance sheets, you’ve got to look at projections, business plans. And to be honest with you, when you start looking at these things, I’ll be honest. I just wanted to go back to doing teeth because I’m like, Fuck is all this, you know? And people are like, like sending me like, right. We’ve muddled up this clinic that we’re going to be setting up for our partner in Bolton. And I’m looking at it and I’m thinking, just where’s the bottom line? Where’s the bottom line of this? But really not the be all and end all, because I’m kind of seeing how it needs to be modelled out and I need to then actually sit down with that partner and be able to explain this business plan to them and explain this is how we get to these figures. This is what we’re expecting to spend. These are the reasons we’re expecting. And to spend it. And if you do what you say, telling me you can do and we market as we’re going to market these the numbers on a month on month year on year basis which is why you’re going to get this dividend and it’s why you can earn this money and it’s why you’re going to at some point exit for X.

[00:22:13] And that was the probably the hardest thing for me to comprehend and get my head around and kind of now it’s almost like second nature to me. So when someone sends me, you know, at the times and the financial team had done CBC will send me business plans and and models I’ll I’ll scrutinise them and I’ll say I think we’ve got this bit wrong and I think this is this needs to be increased because I think we need to spend more here or I think, you know, this associate actually who’s going to be a partner can grow better than that. So we need to have this. And so yeah, I suppose understanding that which was a, which is more difficult for me because I’m not geared that way. It’s probably been the hardest kind of change to what I do, you know, talking to partners, talking to dentists. I just genuinely believe that I can do that. I’ve done it all my life. I do genuinely believe I’m passionate about something. People are passionate around me about it and they kind of want to be in with that which is which is great because I genuinely believe bringing partners in and, and the right partners to partner up with our new clinics is not going to be the most difficult thing.

[00:23:22] It’s finding the right ones to ensure that everything is met. Quality, looking after my team, looking after the staff, looking after the patients. That’s the most important thing for me. So those things I think have got that skill set already. But it was more the kind of business side which was which was hard to get my head around initially. I mean, death is like a frickin numbers genius, so you kind of sit and chat with him. He talks so fast, it talks like a million miles an hour about and this manoeuvre and I’m like just going way over me and I’m like, You need to slow down, dude. Just simplify this for me. Tell me what’s going on. But that’s him because he is very much more geared as a businessman, I would say, you know, it’s more natural to him. He can look at numbers and accounts and stuff and he’s like that on it. He’s just quick, but not everyone’s got that skill set. But as long as I learn that and I can understand it and I can compute it in my own time, it allows me to then at least be on the same level as these guys.

[00:24:24] Okay. For this for the partners that you’re you’re going to choose, what would you say is this? Let’s start with the minimum skill set that you think a partner of kis dental would need. And then give us what would be your ideal partner? What how many years out, what doing or what kind of work? What kind of person?

[00:24:47] I kind of want partners who can do an all round level of dentistry. So, you know, and I talk about a lot and I genuinely believe the world is going Invisalign bleaching, bonding, mad, which is fine. I believe it’s a very good treatment modality. I’m super happy to provide it. Obviously our practise is provided in a very high, high amount and with all our clinicians, but that isn’t the 8 to 8 is at a dentistry. And so I want my partners to be able to almost be a leader in themselves. So be the guy that if if someone says I’m who’s a little bit maybe less senior than that person, what you think about this? What would you do? Like let’s talk about treatment plans. Let’s talk about this. You know, sometimes you can’t just throw Invisalign. That’s it. And that is something that I need them to be able to do. I want them to be an all round clinician that can do ceramics, that can do bonding, can do orthodontics with Invisalign fine, even if it’s fixed and fine, you know, but can do also general work and understand the more complex stuff. I’m not asking them to be able to achieve that. We’ll have clinicians at different sites to be able to refer to, to be able to do those things. I don’t want them to be amazing implantable objects or anything like that, but also understand the concepts of implant ology.

[00:26:16] So dentistry, I just want them to be decent. All rounders don’t want it. I don’t really want superstars. I don’t want the guy that grosses 200 grand a month. It’s lovely to have that guy. But all the clinics I’m trying to set up a partnership clinics. And what that genuinely means is that guy who can do that 200 grand a month or 150 grand a month or whatever they grow, which is very big numbers, by the way. That guy can keep on doing that the rest of his life. And his options are. He carries on because why would you buy? How would you build a clinic or buy your own clinic? You’re doing that kind of level with no hassles, no problems. Probably walk around with over half a million quid a year with no stress. So option one is crack on and keep on doing it for the rest of your days. But you are it is labour intensive. And I know that because I’m one of those guys and I’ve been doing it for 16 years and you get knackered. And then your next option is do what I did. And bye bye clinic or set clinics up. Back in 2004 2005, believe me, market was different, marketing was different, and there wasn’t many people doing it and doing it well. So I hit the ground running, really doing that now with a squat and trying to get that level of new patient influx and gain turnover and stuff.

[00:27:49] It’s going to be more difficult. Now, this guy that’s doing 200 K is probably pulling 100 K a month just on overheads. So the only way he now makes is half a million quid a year plus is get more dentists in, build a big machine, have to spend more money on marketing. And it’s almost like this vicious circle. And what does he do then? All. The third option is kind of what I’m offering, which is like, you know what, let me go into a clinic which is already well branded, which has got all the infrastructure, which has got the marketing machine behind it and, you know, not telling anyone things that they don’t know. Kiss brings in 300 ish private patients a month. Now, from my point of view, we all have a level of marketing and that will just increase in the areas we set up. So now you’ve got bums on seats straight away. You can still do your decent numbers, but if you don’t want to go so hard. That business should still accrue some money for you. So, you know, 16 years down the line, you’ve got an asset. You’ve earned good money still. You’re probably still doing your half a million quid a year. You can exit for a decent wage at the end.

[00:29:10] Kate. Kate. The kind of guy who’s who’s grossing 100, 200,000 a month has got many, many options. Yeah, you’re right. He’s he’s doing very, very well already. But I’m more interested in the kind of guy who, by the way, I know in your world, doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who’s grossing 40,000 a month. That’s a decent gross. 2000 a day. 20 days. Yeah.

[00:29:36] Yeah.

[00:29:37] Are you interested in talking to that guy or you’re not interested in talking to that guy?

[00:29:40] Yeah. 100% interest in talking to that guy. Would that guy straight away be a partner for us? I think what I’d want to do is bring him on as an associate. To start with, I believe, a guy that’s doing about 40 to 50 a month. Gross I can probably get them up with some education, and that’s not dental education. That’s not me telling them how to drill teeth or whatever. That’s education and understanding how to treatment plan more methodically, how to get better uptake and and just understand what I think cosmetic dentistry sometimes requires. I think at that point then that person will grow to 60, 70 a month easily. And then we sit down and we then say, I think you’re at that point now, I think well rounded. You’re doing good numbers. Let’s consider a clinic for you and bring them then on as a partner for a new clinic. And I think that is kind of that process. But you don’t want the guys, if I’m being honest with you, pay that, do those massive numbers because you’re also asking them to run the clinic. And so they’ve got to cut down their clinical time to be able to really put energy into looking after the staff and looking after the team and understanding again the numbers and making sure targets are met and all those different things that a good partner would do.

[00:31:10] But you’ve got to support them to do that. So the guy that’s doing those super, super big numbers, all they’re thinking about is I want to create this vehicle with kis dental to just be able to do those numbers there. And I’m kind of educating them and saying, listen, dude, like you don’t need to do that all the time. Like it will kill you in the end, like. Gross Like, if you’re doing big numbers. Gross 100 K, do three or four days a week, really concentrate on that business, grow that business with all the guys that you can teach because you have got an exceptional skill set. You’ve got a skill set that patients trust you, you do good treatments and you do good numbers. So now teach the other guys how to do that and and pull back some dividends at the end of every year. And now you don’t have to work at that. And no, Dennis is going to say hand on heart, five, six days a week solid. They love it.

[00:32:03] They’re doing 12 hour days. It’s hard. Graft is it’s labour intensive. And so from my point of view, it is genuinely important to kind of get them out of the mindset. You know, I’ve got I’ve got a really good associate, you know, he’s my cousin Caution. He grosses really big money. And I’ve said to him, I’ve said like coach, like, dude, this is great and you are exceptional at what you do. His work is beautiful, so it’s not like he’s quick, fast and shit. He’s quick, fast and very, very good at what he does. And that’s how we can do the numbers he does. But ultimately, I said to him, Are you still going to be doing this in ten years time because you are breaking your back, doing what you’re doing now, you can’t physically do any more dentistry. So at some point you want something else which is going to give you an out, which allows you to just still love what you do. Because the guys that do that level of dentistry, genuinely, I believe that don’t just do it for the money. The money just comes because they’re great at what they do and they actually love doing the dentistry.

[00:33:07] Yeah, yeah. Kate, I actually want to get to that. Yeah. Because I remember you when you started. Yeah. If we, if we go down the sort of the purpose led part of dental, your purpose back then was to change the face of dentistry, to turn it into something exciting and, you know, fun and all of that. And what I’m getting from you now is your purpose now is to teach other people. Would that be right?

[00:33:37] Yeah, I kind of I say to all my associates and obviously all my sales is super younger than me. And I kind of say, listen, you can guys can do what I did. I did it. I’ve done it for 16, 17 years. And don’t get me wrong, they all know I’ve led a very good life and I’m very thankful for all of that. And I’ve done amazing things and the profession has allowed me to do all of that. I was like, But wouldn’t it be really nice that in five years time, which I’ve never had in five years time, you can earn really good money every year, and then in five years walk out with a couple of million quid in the bank, solid set. And I was like, When are you going to get the opportunity to do that in dentistry? Staying in dentistry and I, I understand there’s, there’s dentists out there that are businessmen and they have all the other things in all the pies and all those different things and make a lot more money from those things than they do in dentistry. But what we got to understand is the majority of dentists, they’re not like that.

[00:34:41] The majority of dentists are dentists. And that’s all they know. That’s all they understand. And it’s the only way they can make money and make a living. And so it’s a matter of for me getting them to understand that yet you can keep slogging your bollocks off and you can keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll earn a good living. But if you get ill, if something happens to your hands, if something happens to your registration, you’re in a bad place. Whereas with this ideal, you know, I’m trying to create something which is going to give you a real nice nest egg at the end of it. It’s going to allow you to carry on doing the dentistry you want to do in an environment that I believe is still all those things I wanted them to be in 2004 2005. Exciting, fun. You know, vibrant and with our new branding and and kind of just re revisiting everything that we do at case I do genuinely believe we still have all those qualities at all our clinics.

[00:35:44] So what does the next ten years look like for you, bro? Is that you? Out, done and dusted.

[00:35:51] No like kisses. Kisses obviously evolved. We started off, as Pei said, as this clinic, which was like, Yeah, I would probably say super fun at the start, you know, completely different to anyone else had done. The marketing was completely different and blew people out of the wall and they didn’t like it really. And now we are aiming to do that on a much larger scale across more areas and more platforms. But my ideal is to just keep growing it. Like, you know, I’ve got probably I’m 42 today, by the way. I’m doing this podcast on my birthday.

[00:36:29] Happy birthday, bro.

[00:36:31] Sorry.

[00:36:32] But it’s kind of one of those things that. Yeah, of course, I just want it to grow now. I want it to be successful, you know? Edg The European Dental Group have, you know, expressed interest in, in the excitement of the model that I’m proposing, but also expressed a little bit concern and worry because it is very bullish. And so we got approved that right now we’ve got to prove that that model works. I believe it can. I believe we can do what what I’m going to set out to do. We complete on our first partnership practise today as well, which has been super I’m super, super happy about. And it’s with a really close friend of mine and Dr. Randy McLean, who is going to be our first clinical director, our first 5% shareholder of our first partnership clinic. So, you know, things are going in the right direction for me and I just really kind of want to now like build on that and grow and grow and grow. And even if like old P firms flip in the next two, three, four years, if I have the ability to stay on and carry on building my business and building my empire, that’s kind of what I’m going to do because I haven’t done this to then exit in a couple of years time and be done.

[00:37:49] Otherwise I might as well have just been done. I could have got a decent pot of cash if I wanted to and sold the whole thing now. But that’s kind of not my my end goal. My end goal isn’t really, really about the money. Believe me, I’ve got everyone has a number and I’ve got a number in my head where I want it to be in five years time. And and if that is good, then, you know, that number is life changing. But ultimately that’s by the by really. Like I’m comfy now. I just kind of want to make sure I can I can grow this baby and I can make sure that I just want it to be about like, obviously I’m probably quite precious about it, but I want it to be everywhere. I want it to be in most cities. I want kids dental to be the known clinic to go to for cosmetic dentistry, and I don’t think that’s unachievable. I genuinely believe we’ve got the strength in the brand and with our branding team, with our marketing team, we’ve got a really strong in-house team now. We’ve got a really strong external team headed up obviously by to help. So there’s a lot I just think, you know, all in all it can be unstoppable really.

[00:39:01] Can you set up you set out what it means for the partner. I’d kind of like to go in a bit more detail about that, though. First, is the 40%, the deal that you’re going to do with everyone, is that is that the way it’s going to be that the partner will have 40%?

[00:39:17] Yeah. So ideally for us, because what we do in the moment is we set up squats, what we what our aim is between myself and Denzil Beauty. We will we will hold 60% of the clinic and the partners would hold 40, I think, kind of giving.

[00:39:34] And so the cost to me through the costs part, so the squat is going to cost X to make to build and all that.

[00:39:43] Yeah, if we just talk basic numbers, let’s just say a squat was going to cost half a million quid to me.

[00:39:49] Yeah.

[00:39:49] Then on the basis of that cost because there is no there is no business there per say, it is all equity that goes in to ensure that that that clinic can be built and so on. On the crude is the terms you probably looking at the partner putting in a couple of hundred thousand myself and then still putting in the 300,000 and we’ve got the money then to kind of get this clinic off the ground. That clinic.

[00:40:19] And then what about the. What about the the the the the working capital?

[00:40:24] Yes, the working capital goes in generally by the by the group. So we would generally levy a little bit of debt for working capital and things like that. And that would come from ADG, like the European Dental Buying Group and Dental Beauty, essentially. And so the working capital would be considered all build costs of furniture costs, all equipment, cost, marketing spend. Everything is considered even down to staffing, recruitment, the full, the full.

[00:40:55] As the partner as the partner I’ve put in my 200 grand. Yep. Is that it or do I have to put in more.

[00:41:01] No, no, no, no. So you’re done. So is the partner you you now your 40% you’re 200,000 you’ve invested in. You get the full kiss dental machine. That’s what you get. So you are now clinical director of that clinic. I tell every partner you are responsible. I am not here to kind of I am there in a way to hold your hand if you need it, hold it. But essentially we will train that partner. We will ensure that they are well versed in in all the basic aspects of running that clinic. It is on them the decisions they make, the staff they hire, the offers they run. The marketing may be internally that they want to do. It’s on them, but we will support them along that way. We will support them with the main external machine, both in respect to integrations, operations, marketing, payroll, everything, HR, the lot. And they don’t pay. They don’t pay anything.

[00:42:02] Let’s say let’s say three years in my circumstances changed and I’ve got to off I’ve got to move, move country and go somewhere else. Now I want to sell I sell my 40% to a new partner. Is that how you envisaged it?

[00:42:17] Generally, the first consideration is no, that’s not how we envisage it. So it’s usually a five year deal. And so the five.

[00:42:26] Years, let’s say so after five years, let’s say after five years, I want out, I sell my 40%, which is now worth a lot more than it was on day one.

[00:42:35] Yeah.

[00:42:35] To a new partner. Is that the way you.

[00:42:37] Yeah. So the way that it works is actually, we would look at buying you out at that point and we would give you a guaranteed seven times multiplier on your on your value share as long as you are what we would classed as a good lever. So you just need to ensure that this clinic isn’t solely which is again going back to why I don’t want the superstars grossing 200 grand them on. I kind of need that partner to to almost have signed out of that clinic. They’re kind of earning the dividends from everyone else working and it is generally associate led and if it’s not associate led at that point, take 12 months, get it, associate led because if you sign out now I got back to you in and what you do and take that out of my calculation and what I’m going to pay you times seven times seven. So ultimately it’s in your best interest to ensure it’s a very associate led very quickly. And if you look at the model in dental beauty, that’s why if you look at the majority of partners with Dental Beauty, they own two or three clinics. And why do they do that? Because they understand that actually I’ll do one day a week. They’re one day week, they’re one day a week. They’re clinically. But then enjoy the time. I want to run these babies to make them super profitable so I actually make my money without doing a great deal for my dividends per year. And when when I do want to exit, I can exit quickly, cleanly and actually to a high, high level of profit.

[00:44:09] All right. Now, let’s take the other scenario where, I don’t know, dentists or my dentist or someone comes along and buys dental beauty partners. And I’m one of the partners. What happens there? I still own my 40%. And this this new buyer owns the other 60%. Is that how it would be?

[00:44:28] Well, kind of when when the actual P firm flip so if you imagine European Dental buying group now decide to decide to sell. We all we all have faces. Yeah. They all we all basically have an initial push. The initial kind of push is is 20%. So everyone at that point has to relinquish 20% of their shares. Yeah. Yeah. And so that’s across the board. That’s myself. That’s all the partners of Dental baby. That’s all the partners of KISS that all of us. And so what we what we left with. But when we do sell that, do that sell. Whatever that EBITDA is, they’re getting seven times guaranteed. If they put in 200 grand and now they’re I don’t know, the day’s worth 200 grand. I’m going to get seven times that minus that 20%. You know, a lot of these a lot of these deal structures, the walking out on the first push with a clean million quid.

[00:45:34] Yeah.

[00:45:35] And then they’ve still got 20% in skin in the game to ensure that they are still running that clinic, pushing that clinic, getting dividends yearly on that clinic. And then it’s their decision at the end that five years to carry on, is it just making good money that they’re one day a week it’s been run by everyone else? Or did it say, actually, I’m now in a position and kind of want to sell out and get get rid of my remaining 20% and they’ve got the option to do that.

[00:46:02] It’s interesting.

[00:46:04] So it’s not a lifelong commitment. Well, it’s it’s a real nice way to from their point of view, to do what they’re doing now, to understand the running of a dental practise, which I think is a growth in itself for a person, and hopefully to accrue a decent level of capital over a short period of time. And if you put in 200,000 in and at the end of it minus your earnings, the business does well. And you and you come out with, let’s say, 2 million quid plus what you’ve earnt, plus your dividends. You’re essentially looking at a ten times multiplier on your money, which over five year period, if I offered you that deal, you take it, take it. You know, and so and that’s the deal. That’s generally or at the moment on the table. And I genuinely believe the numbers I’m talking to you about at this point. That’s those are realistic numbers. They’re not inflated numbers. They’re not picked out of the sky. They’re numbers that we’ve methodically gone through price per patient, new patients coming through the door. So how many are coming through the door per month, on month? How does that increase to get to a turnover, to get to profitability, to get to an EBITDA, to then say we’re going to go for a multiplier of that and that’s how you’re going to get to that ten times or 12 times or seven or eight times your initial investment at the end of that five years.

[00:47:38] And then pro, what about existing practises? So we’ve been speaking about slots and you know, a partner say putting 200 grand in they they become a squat and whatnot. But what about a practise that’s doing okay and not breaking any records? And they say, you know what, I’d like to rebrand 16 or I’d like to become a kiss dental. Is that an option in your mind? If that is an option, what’s the what are you looking for in that practise?

[00:48:08] So firstly you’ve got to look for Expandability. So you look at a clinic, if it’s a two or three surgery clinic, and there’s no ability to expand it. And we look at run rates. So if we look at the run rate of the three chairs that they’ve got and the run rate, the chairs are at 400 grand each a year. You know, the business is doing 1.2 mil. I mean, how much more can I grow that I might able to grow two of the chairs because one of them’s going to be a hygiene chair. I’m going to probably grow two of the chairs to maybe five or 600,000 a year. I might get a super associate and grow one of the chairs to 800 grand a year. But ultimately, I haven’t got the ability to put a fourth or a fifth chair in to get my run rate higher and to get my growth higher. And also a practise like that, I’m buying at a quite a high rate because because dental practise is going for decent money at the moment. So on the basis of that, it’s really difficult to then say I’m going to buy that on the basis on the basis of it’s just mulling over because yeah, I can increase fees, I can introduce treatments, I can get better clinicians in. How much more is that clinic going to grow? Whereas if I then look at a clinic and things like that, but there’s expandability of four or five chairs, then we start to speak, then we start to think, okay, there’s an ability, because even if we stay at £400,000 run rate per chair, but now I’ve got five chairs running at that.

[00:49:44] I’m already winning. And then on top of that, I’m looking at the partner who is the guy that’s going to be running this place is the existing principal running it to the ground. So he can’t be the partner here. Does he want to stay on? If he wants to stay on, is he going to be cool with me bringing someone else in and saying this guy is going to run the show from now on? Or can I maybe speak to that principal and say, if you’ve got the belly to run this in a different way? And so it is more difficult with existing clinics, as everyone knows, you buy existing clinics, you buy existing baggage. And that’s unfortunately the nature of that beast. And I’ve done that myself personally. And sometimes the gold mines, if you can get past that and get through that. But that’s why I find the squat model more attractive. I’m none of my clinics that I’m setting up are going to have any debt. So when we do go to flip, when we do go to sell, the actual level of that business is going to be much stronger. And so I’m not saying no to existing clinics, and I’ll be brutally honest with you, in the last three months, I’ve probably been to look at 15 existing clinics in the north west, and I pretty much turn the majority of them down.

[00:50:58] A lot of them are old houses that have been converted into practises. You know how difficult it is to convert that into something that flows and that works with the how you want to now create a patient journey and a patient flow and and kind of get them to integrate through with a coordinator and with a, with a finance team and all these different things that you want to try and guide them through to ensure that patient feels special. You can’t do that in a tube down. It’s just physically impossible. And so can I. Then look at that site and go, actually, 2 minutes down the road, there’s a beautiful commercial unit which is 3000 square foot guaranteed to put five surgeries in it. And I can produce the most beautiful clinic there. And now I don’t have to buy a clinic for six, £700,000, but I’m still in the same area. The only thing I don’t have is that existing patient base. But if a market well in that area, does it matter? And so for me, that’s the reason the squat model for me works better. I understand why the existing clinic model for the dental beauty team works really well in the South, but I’m not interested in buying mixed clinics. And so for me it’s got to be high and private clinics and the majority. I already run a decent rate anyway.

[00:52:23] Okay. What about the patient offering as. As a patient? Why do I choose kiss dental?

[00:52:30] And I think in the Northwest now, you probably choose kiss dental because it’s it’s known it’s a well known brand. We’ve been treating patients for 17 years. So the majority of people I had three consultations today while I was working actually, and all three came because someone they know has had dentistry, a kiss. And so the growth of that is just exponential. Over the years, it’s just been something that has just increase and increase and increase. And then on top of that, they come to kiss because it’s the visuals. Why did we rebrand? Why did I spend last last year over £1,000,000 rebranding my three clinics? I did that because now when we run our social media campaigns, when we run our videos, our stories, all the different levels of sort of marketing. It’s a beautiful environment to be in. And if it’s a beautiful environment to be and people want to be a part of that and people want to be at the latest launch, they want to be at the best restaurants. They want to be in the nice shops. They want to shopping Louis Vuitton, they want to do all those different things.

[00:53:40] And why? Because it’s attractive. It’s very it’s a very nice thing to be done. And when someone says, where did you get your teeth done? You want to be aligned with that. You want to be the kiss. And so that’s what we’ve aimed to set up. And so the patient offering from our side is the quality of dentistry. We showcase our dentistry on a day to day basis, and the dentists that I hire, the dentists I train, I genuinely believe they produce some beautiful work in the note and some of the most beautiful work in the north west. And I stand up to that. You know, there are clinics in the north west that are, again, really well marketed, but, you know, dentistry wise and not not on par. And so dentistry for sure. But then secondarily, I do generally believe marketing is a big pull and then reputation is the third pole. And I think those are the three things that we are we are wanting to utilise to really push forward in the new areas and I think patient offering is going to be I want to be a part of that.

[00:54:47] You know, marketing has always been a centrepoint for Kiss Dental, whether it’s the brand, your socials, the content creation, the team that you’ve now got internally. But one of the evolutions that I’ve seen or the changes that I’ve seen in KISS is that you’ve gone to this call centre model, right? You’ve taken away the hustle and bustle of the practise away from the practise so that the the patient experience is just that. And the back end or the back office, the, the chasing, the leads, the lead management, the.

[00:55:21] Tko.

[00:55:22] Management, all of that is now in a separate location. Just tell it tell us a little bit more about that process, how you’ve gone about putting it together, the team you’ve put together, and how that’s go with. Because it’s still early days, isn’t it?

[00:55:37] Yeah. I mean, to be honest with you, it was something I wanted to do about I would probably say about six or seven years ago. I genuinely believe that the worst thing on a reception is a telephone. I think the second worst thing on a reception is a telephone. And I think the third worst thing is the telephone. It’s a nightmare, isn’t it? Because you want your patients to have a very bespoke experience and they’re waiting because someone else, your receptionist is on a call with someone else. And that call could be talking about all sorts of stuff, inclusive of private stuff, monetary stuff, and you kind of just feel like this is really bad and just I just feel I feel for the patient. And what I wanted to do is create a reception desk actually to just be me angry. I welcome to this demo. Let me take you where you need to be today. Have a seat. Do you want a drink? Give us a bit of time. Then she’s going to see shortly. Job done. And that is essentially what a receptionist should do. And for me, we’ve really invested hard in our reception team and not from the dental sector. We’ve taken it from hospitality and recently we’ve hired managers from like the Ivy and and really good quality hospitality institutions to ensure that the people that are our meet and greet guys and girls are very good. But that’s all they do. You’ve then got the team in there in private zones. Are you receptionists, your CEOs or whatever you want to call them that then will look after that patient from that point and they will take money in a private area. They will talk to them about treatment and they will book appointments.

[00:57:26] And that’s literally all that happens front of house in a dental practise from my point of view, because everyone else passed that. We have set up a head office in in Greater Manchester and in that head office we’ve got a team that just looks after new patient leads. So all calls go to her or to them all Instagram enquiries, all Facebook enquiries, all email enquiries, all internet enquiries, all go to them. They then talk to those patients, discuss treatments, discuss ideas and consultations, and get consultations booked in. We then have patient care managers that once those consultations have been conducted, we track them. We know if they’ve gone ahead and at that point they get introduced to their patient care manager again, who is remote, who has a personal mobile number, a personal email address, and they then look after that patient’s journey from start to finish. And then we’ve got the social media team that at the end of that journey will then talk to them about what they’re would be happy to do in respect to marketing. And the journey is over and they go move on to maintenance. But all of that is done remotely. All of that is away from the clinics and what it does, apart from taking calls, the odd call in the clinic, in the back offices about maybe an ongoing treatment or making some call work. Everything else is done in the head office, which allows us to really take away that that level of hustle and bustle in the clinics, and it allows it to be much more patient focussed. And so that patient offering, again, that payment was discussing, becomes much more personal and much more private.

[00:59:16] Okay. A couple of things.

[00:59:18] Yeah.

[00:59:19] You’re your day to day in managing this group of it’s 13 next year you’re saying and who knows where it might go? It might be 26 and I might be 132. Who knows? Yeah. But your day to day, your day to day is going to be very different from what it is now. You talked about reducing your clinical days and your, you know, your daily activity. Some of it will include. Looking out for these partners and looking out for these clinics and making sure everything’s working. And you do see it sometimes where an amazing I think of it from my own experience is like this amazing cafe in Hampstead. And then they, they branched out and they opened loads and it changed. It wasn’t as good.

[01:00:09] Yeah.

[01:00:11] It’s a real danger. Something you need to really, really consider. And the fact that your life and your skill set are going to have to be tested again. And this whole new discipline, I guess I guess the word is discipline, isn’t it? You’re obviously disciplined at what you do clinically. You’re obviously disciplined in the gym and all that, but it’s a new discipline that you’re going to have to put towards this. And the question the question is when it’s going to happen to your idea that something’s going to happen at a Dental that is going to break your heart, you know, so someone’s going to, I don’t know, not return money to a patient who deserved it or something, something you definitely would have done, you know. Are you are you thinking about that? You prepared for that idea? It’s going to happen. Is that the screw.

[01:01:04] That’s yeah. And I get that. And and that’s that I suppose loss of that degree of control again. And I suppose why it’s so important to me is, is the growth is important. Like obviously I’ve got numbers in my head, I’ve got targets in my head and I’ve got to be that way to ensure this is going to fly like I want it to fly. But then there is the other side of it, as you rightfully said. And for me, it’s going to be so important to to cut down my clinical time. So I’ve got the ability to support on those levels. You know, I’ve said to every partner that comes on board, you know, and my first few partners, fine, I’ve got Andy. As I’ve discussed, he was our first partner, Will and Jade, who are going to be our second partners in our Alderley Edge site. We’ve got Coach, my cousin, who’s me, a third partner in our Liverpool side.

[01:02:01] Of course, moving to Liverpool.

[01:02:03] So he’s not he’s going to stay in Manchester. I think he’s going to carry on working at three sites in Manchester at the moment. He’s going to do some work also in the Liverpool site, but again keeping it relatively associate led. So we’re going to gather all the clinicians in there, the decent clinicians that are going to help to start to really drive that Liverpool clinic. But yeah, he’s going to be the clinical director, the shareholder in that clinic and he’s going to it’s a lovely clinic. It’s, it’s a lovely road, beautiful location. So I’m super excited actually about that clinic. But going back to what you said, the reason I’m telling you that is these initial partners have all done a stint at KISS. Yeah, they kind of understand the ethos and the ethics. I go by how I want the patients to be looked after and how I want the brand to be respected. And genuinely, if I’m being brutally honest with you, pay like I’m going to hope that I can keep doing that with with my new partners coming in. And I’ve kind of said to them, I’ve got a couple more partners that that want to be part of this. And I say to them, Give up where you work. You come full time with me for six months first while your clinic is being built and these clinics are taking 4 to 6 months to be built, because I would need you to understand what I expect of you, and I need you to understand what Chris expects of you. And I think that’s really important. And I still don’t think genuinely it will it will stop what you’re saying. But I hope it will take it much further to a point where they will they will think about the decisions they make. They might even ask me and say, okay, what do you think I should do here? And I’ll always.

[01:03:52] Be. Definitely. It’s definitely doable. It’s definitely doable. You walk into McDonalds in New Zealand and you get the same experience as you walk into McDonald’s in Moscow. Right? Money. More Moscow but somewhere else. Yeah, it’s it’s definitely doable. But, you know, it’s a case of executing on this.

[01:04:11] Above.

[01:04:13] Many other things because like I say, what did he buy? He bought the brand and he bought you and, you know, and valued that huge amount of money. And, you know, he put a lot of emphasis on on getting the brand and getting you. And so it’s something that, you know, my my worry for you is this thing that you said before about you were the kind of guy or you are the kind of guy who makes the decision about a person. And if it’s right, it’s right. And if it’s wrong, it was your decision. And being able to have that freedom to do those things. And I know Dev is a very practical guy. He’s the kind of guy who’s going to leave you alone because, you know, he’s got a lot of pies to other pies to be, you know, taking care of. Yeah, but in this area, yeah, this area of keeping standards going in these multiple sites, the managers will be key. I mean, you’re right about the partners, but the managers will be key to set, you know, like you said, get managers who’ve done a stint at KISS, the main kiss.

[01:05:18] And that’s what we do as well. All the new managers are actually trained up at our core three, and we’ve also got regional operations managers and regional integrations managers, and both of them have worked for us for over ten years. And so for me, they’re going to be first line support for the for the new managers and also first line support for the partners with me. And so as well and I’m not saying we’re going to do everything right and it’s going to be a super learning curve, and I genuinely believe that. And there’ll be some ups and downs, I’m sure, but I think in principle I’ve got my masterplan in my head how I want it to be executed. My team completely understand it. And you know, and with me, they’ve been with me for ten years plus and they want to be with me on this new journey. And I honestly believe we do have the team and infrastructure in the north west to to kind of execute this to a good level to ensure things as a map, standards and map, but more the partners and stuff understand really what what this is about. That’s the most important bit for me.

[01:06:27] I like that. Well, I think we’re coming near to the end of our time. It’s been. It’s been. It’s been less emotional than the last time. Sure.

[01:06:40] No, no, no tears.

[01:06:43] You, buddy, you’ve changed. You’ve become a business like a proper business, dude. You know.

[01:06:48] I don’t think. I think any more about three times.

[01:06:52] Yeah. I did it last time. The count was like 100.

[01:06:58] So, yeah, I know.

[01:06:59] You’ve become a corporate. You’ve become a corporate dude, man.

[01:07:03] Well, I’ve just had media training. Now you say, let’s have media training. I feel like the first time was like David Beckham when he was 17. And now, you know, now he’s like a trained animal when he when he gets in front of a camera, kind of like what I’m like now.

[01:07:21] Did I tell you partying in Manchester without you did feel weird. It did. I mean, you know, I still manage to have a good time, but. But it feels weird, buddy. It felt weird, dude. Not being. No, if I took your job at MSB and I did the lecture. But again, next time you go to.

[01:07:40] I’m still here, brother. I still. I live for those nights. I live for those nights.

[01:07:48] It’s been a pleasure to have you again, but and really good luck with it. And what I hope is we do this one more time in a year’s time, see where we are and the 13 clinics are in place. Yes, the 13 clinics are in place. The partners are in place. And you know what you said about one partner taking on several clinics? Yes, I think that would be the ideal, you know, like maybe five, six partners who’ve got one or two or two or three each, you know, something like that. Close, close knit.

[01:08:17] Yeah. And I think if you educate these guys well and I don’t mean not in a condescending way, I just genuinely believe, like said, dentistry is great and people that do it and do it well, I know love it, but it is hard. It’s hard on the body, it’s hard on the eyes and it’s hard on the brain. And I think if they’ve got an ability to still do what they love, choose the cases and and also have have a business at the end of it, which which will give them a nice a nice earnout. Then you’ve got the best of both worlds in a profession that is still loved by many. And that’s kind of what I want to try and achieve, really.

[01:08:58] Amazing, buddy. Thanks a lot for doing it again, buddy. Cheers, bro.

[01:09:02] All right.

[01:09:03] Guys. Enjoy the rest of your birthday, Arket.

[01:09:05] And our curry time now. Lots free time.

[01:09:09] Hope you have a nice time. All right. Take care.

[01:09:15] 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.

[01:09:31] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:09:45] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:09:56] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] We knew an awful lot.

[00:00:02] We didn’t know much at all when we started, but we we just built something that people wanted and thought we did. It took us a while to get there. And then, as I said, once we got our first customer, it’s like a snowball effect and we didn’t realise just by listening to people and watching the media, we learnt so much. Yeah. So the first two years was pretty slow. I think we had a to attempt as soon as Martin came on board. It was a few weeks, I think to the next customer and then it carried on from there. There’s this big snowball effect from that point and.

[00:00:28] And like I think I’ve said this before, but I just I can’t tell you how much our customers have like made a difference in, like, we try and listen to everything our customers are saying, everything our dentists are saying to us, but they are as much responsible for like the direction that the product has gone in, more so than we are, because it’s their feedback and then being generous with their time to tell us what they need from the product, which is what what has led us to this point. So yeah, it’s been a process.

[00:01:02] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:20] Gives me great pleasure to welcome Hannah Burrow and Jay Shah onto the podcast. Hannah and Jay are co-founders of Karaoke, a platform, a platform that aims to save dentists time by kind of writing their notes for them as it listens to what they say. Sounds crazy and impossible. But I first met Hannah something like three years ago when she was pretty much starting this business. I guess you were one year in, and when she said it to me the first time, I thought, this can’t can’t be real. And now it’s a fully fledged business. So lovely to have you both.

[00:01:58] Lovely to be here. And I’ve got one slight, slight a caveat there, which is we no longer actually focus on the voice technology. We do actually automate record keeping. Everything else was was right. But we do it through kind of different technology these days. So one, one, one change over the years.

[00:02:19] To what you do now.

[00:02:21] So now Kyriacou learns from how you’re entering your notes, what you’re doing over and over again. And then it makes suggested changes to your to your crew who workflows based on that. So it is learning to the individual over time and it allows the dentist into the notes in a really easy kind of clickable way. But it’s also doing all of that learning in the background.

[00:02:44] So what happened with voice? Was it too complicated?

[00:02:47] So it was actually kind of a variety of different reasons. I think the thing that I was always kind of awestruck by was the quality of the technology that Jay built. And I say Jay because I had nothing to do with it early doors. But I think the thing that we actually found really challenging was in a loud clinical environment like dentistry, where you’ve got the chair and aspiration and everything going on. It was so, so difficult to get good quality audio through and therefore actually any, any cool technology you built was was reliant on that. And then that was kind of one area of challenge and then another area was each dentist, even if we’re kind of following a similar flow, still has a unique way of doing things. Might use certain acronyms and a certain structure, so it needed to be a little bit customised to the individual. And so we created the platform that allowed that. And as soon as we did that, our dentist just found that with this kind of really clickable, easy to use workflow, they actually didn’t need the voice anymore. So it became something that our user users led us away from.

[00:03:51] Voice Yeah, we realised there’s a huge element to, I guess control of your notes where with the voice system you didn’t have full control because it was almost like magic in the background. And there’s a huge trust element that if your notes aren’t perfect 100% of the time, then you start to take away the trust and they start reviewing their notes. And that takes even more time than writing them from beginning. And with this new way, it’s completely their input and what they want to have.

[00:04:17] To walk me through it. I’m going to do a Crown Prep. What happens next? I’m going to write my notes at the end. Right. You go. Yeah.

[00:04:25] Well, because everything is kind of clickable and you’ve already got this structure for your note entry. You all actually your nurse can just go through and knows what needs to be filled in. So one or either of you will just go through and click the relevant things. And the example might be, okay, so you’re doing a Crown Prep on an Upper Six, let’s say. So automatically you could make an assumption that you’re going to use a certain type of LA, you’re not going to be doing an ID block, you’re going to be doing an infiltration. So it’s able to then populate that information for you. So rather than you having to type all of this information, make these decisions, it’s just guiding you through that.

[00:05:05] So go on, though, literally. Walk me through it.

[00:05:08] Okay, fine. So you’ve got okay, you’ve got a clickable option for a patient has got no complaints medical history you select no change tooth that we’re treating today X risks that we’ve been through and you can click through as many as irrelevant.

[00:05:23] They’re already there.

[00:05:24] Already that exactly so you don’t have to think because everything is there for you. And then let’s say that you are routinely using a certain material, using a certain lab. It will learn that for you. So we’re doing a restoration on a posterior tooth. You only use Emacs, so then it’s going to input that in for you when you’re doing an immaculate only using X lab. Okay, it’s input that for you. So you’re not having to go through and think all of these things that yes, are very repetitive but still take your brainpower. And so this is just so easy. You click through and notice it would take minutes. Take seconds with Heroku.

[00:05:59] Yeah. And everything’s customisable. So if a dentist prefers one way and another dentist prefers another, they can customise their templates and the system will learn over time to make it more and more personal to them.

[00:06:10] And then how do I input that into my software programme?

[00:06:13] You don’t need to. So we’ve kept it as simple as possible so it runs in Google Chrome. This doesn’t need to be a practise wide decision. You just open Google Chrome, you go to the website and you’re able to do your full notes on Google, and then you’re able to just export it into the text box of whatever Dental software you’re using.

[00:06:30] We’ve got a button on one platform. You click that button and it’ll copy it to your clipboard.

[00:06:35] And you see like a copy and paste.

[00:06:37] Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:37] Exactly.

[00:06:38] Perfect. Actually, quite sort of the simplest thing.

[00:06:41] Yeah, exactly. We’ve kept it simple because funnily enough, it’s just not something that actually causes our dentist’s much of an issue. So we’ve kept things as simple as possible so that the dentists, the autonomy of whether they want to use a new software, whereas if we create creating integrations and things like that, it has to be a practise wide decision and that can be limiting to me.

[00:07:02] Back to what were you doing, Jay, before you met Hannah or where did you guys meet in the first instance?

[00:07:07] So yeah, we met about five years ago now. I was at university, in fact, so I studied computer science. I was here in London and then I went to study Natural Language Processing, which is an arm of artificial intelligence, where they focus on language and how machines understand language. And then after I graduated, I was trying to figure out what to do in my life. I had a few options for carrying on for a PhD or to had a few offers at banks and like bigger firms. And then this programme came along called Entrepreneur First. That’s where I met Hannah actually.

[00:07:38] And yeah, so an accelerated programme just for context is a programme that you can go through where they provide you with individuals who’ve exited large companies before, basically people who’ve done it before, and they can provide mentorship to starting a business, particularly sort of tech technology businesses. And if they believe in you as you go through this programme, they’ll provide investment for you as well. But the most important thing is they actually find 80 other individuals who want to start a company and have got these very interesting backgrounds. So you actually have the opportunity to meet people who you might start a business with. And so yeah, that’s where, that’s where we met. Yeah.

[00:08:18] So I guess I got quite lucky there because I met in the first few weeks, I knew nothing about the industry at that point and Hannah provided me kind of all the realms of dentistry. And how about how dentists hate taking notes? And I think that’s a huge part of it. As a patient, you don’t really see you don’t see all the background work, all the screen facing stuff when you are a patient, but also what happens at lunch time and off the work. And then I was quite lucky that I focussed on a similar problem at university and yeah, we put the two together and we started working.

[00:08:48] So that’s like they call it an incubator. Is that what that is?

[00:08:52] Yes, exactly.

[00:08:54] So then they give you funding as well as know how.

[00:08:57] Yes, exactly. Is that what happened? They don’t. Yes, that is what happened. So they don’t kind of promise to fund everyone. But if they if they believe. Yes, exactly. Then then then they will fund it.

[00:09:10] And so, you know, you went into that with the idea.

[00:09:14] Yes. Actually, no, because I went in with just a knowledge of certain areas of inefficiency within dentistry. And honestly, the thing that I was focussing on when I first applied for the programme was actually quite different. It was a way how could you provide consistent preventative advice to patients when we’re not actually kind of incentivised financially as dentists to do that? That’s what I was thinking about is kind of the area of inefficiency. And actually then I went through the process and I realised two things. Number one, that isn’t that meaty a problem to solve. And then the other thing was actually that wasn’t the biggest problem. And I went and interviewed so many dentists and what, you know, what is the biggest problem? And, and I was so biased to the answer as well because they were saying, oh, it’s note taking. I spend so much of my time doing no taking. I hate it. And I was like, Are you sure it’s not giving positive advice? And they were like, No, no, it’s definitely no, it’s not like, okay. And it took interviewing so many different dentists for it to finally drill into my numb skull. And that is kind of the the as we came to the problem and also by that point as well and you knew Jay’s area of research and so I knew that there was actually a solution to it. So it very much was born out of the kind of environment that I discovered that in as well. And meeting Jay.

[00:10:36] To be honest, even when he told me about the problem, I still didn’t believe it. And we did a survey, I think, to about 200 dentists to ask how much of their time did they actually spend taking. They came up with much higher than I expected, 20% of the day.

[00:10:49] 25%.

[00:10:50] 25% of the day.

[00:10:51] When you were adding it up from there, I.

[00:10:52] Couldn’t believe it. I can believe 25%.

[00:10:55] Yeah. So it was significant.

[00:10:58] The thing is, around the time you guys started, when was that 2018 or something?

[00:11:02] 2017, actually. End of 2017? Yes.

[00:11:05] 20 around that time was when when it became that you had to write essays for your notes.

[00:11:10] Exactly.

[00:11:11] And when I was a dentist, it was literally, you know, two lines and that was that. Yeah, actually, I bet abroad it’s like that too. Which limit the size of your market a little bit.

[00:11:22] Surprised actually it’s it’s.

[00:11:25] Actually in some country more.

[00:11:27] Widespread of an issue and increased like all countries seem to be going in that direction as well that it’s getting increasingly litigious and they have to write more and more detail within their loans.

[00:11:38] Yeah, I get it. So, so then so have you done other languages or is that not yet?

[00:11:43] So actually we’ve had our dentist translate it into different languages themselves. So we’ve got German dentists. We’ve got Danish dentists on the platform, but they’ve actually just gone through the Heroku workflows and they’ve translated it for themselves, which is pretty cool.

[00:11:56] Oh, nice. And so when was it from the moment you two met to the moment you got your first customer? How many how long did that take?

[00:12:05] So. I like customers. My first customer here so we.

[00:12:08] Don’t pay some painful price.

[00:12:10] Yeah. So I guess our first non-paying customers in a couple of weeks and that was for that initial voice product. And then I’d say our first actual customer that was paying us.

[00:12:19] Actually the first I don’t think I should say the name because I don’t know if I’m allowed to, but it’s someone who’s been on this, on this podcast, who was our first paying customer and who was loyally supported us from the get go.

[00:12:31] I think.

[00:12:31] That’s the name.

[00:12:33] I do know. I don’t know if they would be annoyed.

[00:12:35] Go. Can’t say the name and then we’ll edit it out.

[00:12:37] If it’s fine. It’s Martin one day.

[00:12:39] Oh, really? Yeah.

[00:12:41] I’m next, in fact, as well.

[00:12:42] Actually, I’m not completely, completely. Both of them. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.

[00:12:47] Actually, they did.

[00:12:49] That in 1980.

[00:12:52] Yeah. So because we were spending all that time focussing on voice and because it was so difficult to get that product to a point where people could actually use it effectively. Really? We didn’t start any proper commercialisation until we had the product as it is now. So that was more like 2019. 2020.

[00:13:09] Yeah.

[00:13:10] So so in that period where you have no customers and you’ve got I guess a team of developers, right? It’s not just you is it. I mean it must be low.

[00:13:20] Gravity versus not. Yeah.

[00:13:22] Yeah. Then, you know, did you get the points where you were running out of money and runway and all of that or I mean, is that your side hammer raising money?

[00:13:32] Yes, I suppose it’s both of ours. But yeah, I think we’ve we’ve been through a we’ve raised money a couple of times and actually, no, we’ve never been like dangerously close to running out. We’ve been extremely lucky in that we’ve got people who believe in us as people. And I think that’s ultimately what it comes down to, because when you’re that early in a business, they’re not investing in metrics or anything like that. They just do. These people seem like people who are actually going to do what they say they will. And so the thing that was most challenging, I would say, in that time was without any feedback from customers, you’ve got no you’ve got no understanding of whether you’re spending your time on the right thing. And I think motivating yourself when you’re getting no positive or even negative feedback, that that was the most difficult and challenging time of growth for me when we were putting effort into something and not understanding it was just like shooting in the dark.

[00:14:24] Yeah, I’ve been there. I know how that feels. And you know, there’s things like what they call it, they call it product market fit, right? Where you’ve got this brilliant product and the market just doesn’t want it or the price is wrong or or whatever it is. Did you know from the beginning that it was going to be like the SAS model?

[00:14:46] I wouldn’t say we knew. We knew an awful lot.

[00:14:50] We didn’t know much at all when we started, but we we just felt something that people wanted and thought we did. It took us a while to get there. And then, as I said, once we got our first customer, it’s like a snowball effect and we didn’t realise like just by listening to people and watching the media product, we learn so much. Yeah. So the first two years is pretty slow. I think we had attempt to attempt as soon as Martin came on board. It was a few weeks I think to the next customer and then it carried on from there was this big snowball effect from that point.

[00:15:16] And, and like I think I’ve said this before, but I just, I can’t tell you how much our customers have like made a difference in, like we try and listen to everything our customers are saying, everything our dentists are saying to us, but they are as much responsible for like the direction that the product has gone in, more so than we are, because it’s their feedback and then being generous with their time to tell us what they need from the product, which is what what has led us to this point. So yeah, it’s been a process.

[00:15:45] But they haven’t randomly been contacting you, have they? I mean, it’s part of your process to contact them and get the feedback right?

[00:15:52] Absolutely. I mean.

[00:15:53] I think it’s a bit of both really. So for example, last week we’re at the Media Showcase and so many of our customers just came up to us and some of them were asking us if we can log into their account. So they want to show us specific parts that they they’ve built on our platform. Some just want to give us see about there and then. So yeah, it is a bit of both. Yeah. I think the part that we can control is how we take that feedback and what we do with it.

[00:16:16] And I think also trying to I mean, I always try if I’m speaking to a dentist who you need to scroll you to make it absolutely clear that we want this feedback so that they know that it’s well received if they’re giving it. And I hope that helps.

[00:16:31] You do fine once you only find customers that once you act on their feedback, they’re willing to give more. Because I think they know changes. Change will happen. Yeah.

[00:16:39] Yeah. Very true, man. Very true. I remember once early on, Enlightened, someone said something about our leaflet. I think it was.

[00:16:47] Yeah.

[00:16:47] And I changed it and he came back to me and said, you know, anyone who’s ever listened to my feedback. And he became one of the key guys, actually, Julian Holmes, who unfortunately passed away. One of the key guys who used to give me advice in the. It’s early days. Tell me, Hannah. You know, you could have just been a dentist. Yeah, like, you know, wet fingered dentist. What made you go on this particular tangent so early in your career?

[00:17:20] It’s such a good question, and one I don’t have a very neat answer to because I’m as surprised as anyone that I’m not a full time dentist. I did dental school. I did my love dentistry. Like, no part of me is not doing dentistry because I don’t enjoy it. But I think.

[00:17:39] When you study.

[00:17:40] At.

[00:17:41] Bristol, Bristol.

[00:17:42] Bristol Dental School and then did my feet in central London and did my teeth at Barts. So I’ve been in London for a while now. I think there was a couple of things where I could just see that things were being done in a really inefficient way. And I think, again, to go back to your point of that was the time when the notes became kind of essays. I think I was graduating in a time when that was happening, and we were constantly being given lectures from indemnity companies or from our from our university, saying that basically the message was no amount of detail you’re going to include is enough. You’re going to get sued. So just buckle up and write down.

[00:18:21] It didn’t happen. All of that.

[00:18:23] Yeah, exactly. All of that. And I think that just that just like put me into a work environment that was always more stressful because it just felt like either you were prioritising patient care or you were prioritising looking after yourself from a legal perspective. And I think that kind of frustration or resistance is what led me to think surely there’s a better way of doing certain things.

[00:18:50] And then here but Hannah, I mean, every single dentist is frustrated with some aspect of that. You know, I don’t need to tell you. Oh, wow. Bloody Matrix Band is ridiculous, isn’t it? So ridiculous, right? The fact that that hasn’t been I mean mean we all get frustrated every day. I get frustrated with almost every day. I’m frustrated with this microphone right now. But it takes the type of person to, you know, get up and do something about that. I mean, what was it in your sort of outlook on life that said, I’m I’m going to change the world? You know.

[00:19:28] I definitely I couldn’t possibly say that. I was like, I’m going to go out and change the world. I think what I did think was this feels like there’s something that could be exciting here and something that is going to I’m going to expand myself as a human, even if in six months I’m going back to dentistry. And I also thought and honestly, this is my entire journey with career. I’ve always been like, you know what? I’ll do this for three months. And then when I fail that, I go back to dentistry and it’s all good. And that’s genuinely and then, you know, when I actually met Jane, we had a company, I was like, okay, cool, we’re going to do it for another six months and then we’ll see what happens. And it’s just extended because I genuinely felt if I don’t do something different now, I’m never going to do it because then I’ve got a dental salary and it’s a double edged sword because it’s so well paid. So it’s addictive. Exactly. And if I don’t do this, I’m going to get a mortgage and then I can never make this decision to do it. So I was like, I’m going to do it now. I’m going to see. And I think the thing that actually drove me to do it and this can make me sound quite selfish, was not I’m going to change the world. It was I want to I want to widen my own skills. I want to learn more about myself. And so that was kind of a thing that pushed me towards.

[00:20:42] You had an influence, though. I mean, you must have had an influence on you, whether it was a friend or family or, I don’t know, some famous businessman. You must have been influenced by.

[00:20:52] Something, I think. I don’t come from a family of doctors or dentists. I come from a family of technologists. So my parents are retired programmers. My brother works at Google. My other brother’s an actuary. So I think I was I was like, okay, there’s different things out there. And and I also got all the reasons coming out now, but I also did a year of public health. My role had a mix of public health. And I think that just gave me a view of, okay, this changes that you can make that actually affect hundreds of people rather than an individual, like doing an individual feeling for an individual person. And I think that was also something that was slightly addictive that I was like, Okay, yeah, exactly. What can I do that causes a bigger impact? Perhaps that was an element of it as well.

[00:21:38] Jay, what about you? You could have gone and worked in Google or whatever with your skills. What made you go down the entrepreneurial sort of Start-Up route?

[00:21:46] Yeah, kind of similar to how to be honest. It’s poor people selfish to improve my skills, I would say I always go back and get a job and that was something that entrepreneur first convinced me on. They said, If you really want job, go in six months and get one. You might as well try this out. And I think I’ve always been interested in the entrepreneur part. So I started a few. I was in very small business as well as at university, at school, and then I thought, This is great, this is fine. And I think I would particularly like a project like Out of Hand. I think when I started it was, you know, Yeah, we’re just having fun, let’s see how it goes. And then as we started it, we’re like, okay, this is a bigger and bigger problem than we thought initially. And the skills I was learning, what I was learning was unbelievable rate. And I still am. You know, the day never looks the same for us. Right. And I think as you get comfortable in what you’re doing, something changes and you learn something new. And I think that’s kept me going over the last five years. Like, I feel quite lucky in the fact that I’ve got the job that I’ve always wanted and that sense.

[00:22:42] So I get the basic picture. J You were Chief Technology Officer and you’re CEO. I guess Hannah is right. So, so day to day, what does that mean? Does that mean that you’re taking care of all the IT brains and hands, taking care of the commercials?

[00:22:58] I’d say on paper, probably, but in real life, I think we’re both just founders at the moment.

[00:23:02] Yeah, I’d say it’s like they are kind of titles, but ultimately we’re both just doing you’re doing.

[00:23:08] Everything we’re.

[00:23:09] Doing. That’s exactly it. And we’re doing we’ve kind of managed to find a balance of certain things. It’s like one of our strengths and certain things that might be another. But really we both have a hand in a lot of it right now. I think as we grow as a team, that might change and probably something for us to be aware of. But right now it’s kind of all hands on deck.

[00:23:29] So how many people are you?

[00:23:31] So we’re our full time team is seven. So we’re not we’re not massive. We’re a small team, but we hope to be growing over the next three months.

[00:23:40] Yeah.

[00:23:40] Did you have an outsource team as well?

[00:23:43] No. So all of our developers and everyone’s in-house. What we do have, though, is it kind of part time Dental team. So a lot of in fact, a lot of them are early customers, Heroku, and they just reached out saying they want to be involved. And we’ve got kind of a way of bringing them in where it’s flexible so their full time jobs is being a dentist. But a couple of hours a week they help us in what we’re doing, give us input, feedback and help with some of the customer support and new features that we’re building. We’ve got about, say, about 7 to 10. Yeah.

[00:24:14] And so do you run that sort of classical sort of iterative process of, you know, sprints and all of that?

[00:24:20] Yeah, yeah, we do. So I think one of the things that we’re quite proud of is a lot of the software in dentistry I found is very old school. Yeah, we can do this. We can move fast, like faster. And most of the companies are already out. And the way we do that is we’re a small team. We can talk to each other, we can do like the first 50 customers. I would probably speak to them personally and so would Hannah. And now we try to talk to as many as we can, and we can feed that directly to our team and get something out within weeks.

[00:24:48] And I know this kind of thing is never really finished because you you have to keep on improving it. But how long will it be before you sort of I’m sitting back as the complete wrong word for it, but where you’ve got a version of it that you don’t doesn’t need more and more developing for a while until the metaverse comes along or something.

[00:25:11] Then I think again, it’s just kind of how long is a piece of string because parts of it we’re now not embarrassed of, but most of it we still are. And and so I think it really is it’s just like pushing it’s pushing a rock up a hill, basically. I don’t think I don’t think it’s going to we get to a point where we’re like, it’s ready. But yeah, there’s the core product I think we’re not cringing at anymore.

[00:25:44] And you know, in that in that sort of period where, you know, you said that sort of frustrating period where you’re not. You can assure if you’re asking the right questions and you’re working your butt off and you’re not making money, you’re spending money. What is it that keeps you going? I mean, do you have that sort of mission focussed? I want to make the world a better place now. I mean, you both look like you’re enjoying it. You’ve got kind of smiles on your face. When I was when I was at your place, I was hating my life because I was expecting something different to what I got. I mean, maybe in that entrepreneur’s first thing, they train you to understand what the process is. But I don’t have any of that right. I was just like working my butt off and losing money, and I hated it. We never raised any money. Of course, it’s a bit different. What keeps you going? Do you have that sort of purpose led sort of idea?

[00:26:40] I think for me it’s kind of two things. There’s the big mission of what we’re trying to do as a company and yeah, leader from the beginning. And that’s to obviously I’m not a dentist, but I am a patient and I’ve seen the impact that our system has on patients. And, you know, I’m quite proud of this year is that we’ve been seen by a million patients. So a million appointments have been done through. And I think that’s for me, that’s great because I’ve obviously received the care from a dentist or a doctor and you can tell the difference when somebody is giving you attention and focussing on you, your of, you know, what’s actually wrong with you compared to somebody who’s on the screen. That’s the second part. It’s much more than just a team I’m around because they definitely had a the rest of the team is is fantastic. I’m surrounded by people that inspire me every day. So it keeps you going quite easily.

[00:27:26] Conan I would say kind of like very similar, I think. I believed in what we were trying to do because I could feel myself that it was a problem that needed to be solved and also team and being around people that you like to work with. I think also for me and to my detriment as a person, sometimes I actually don’t know when to quit and sometimes I will do things when it’s actually too much pressure on me. But I just I don’t see quitting as an option. And I think that really sustained because I do genuinely think during that time when you’re not getting that feedback and you are kind of spending money and the the way that that felt to me as an individual then was not frustration, it was actually just self doubt. And it was it was I’m not good enough for this and I’m not spending my time on the right things and I’m being too lazy or whatever it was. And so they were the voices that I was finding quite difficult to, to contend with during that time. And then I think as soon as you then get that feedback awake, someone’s actually appreciating what you’re doing. That is the thing that kind of passed me through that.

[00:28:36] It’s very true because, you know, I bet they talked about this in the incubator because in the end, you know, you can bring in an expert. You can you can change as the early founder, you really can pivot. Right? I mean, pivot is a big thing. I guess you guys did pivot right from the voice to the voice. And I find sometimes what you said before about, you know, your preconceptions of what things should be like compared to what they’re actually like. And being stuck to those preconceptions can cause a lot of delay. A lot of delay. At the same time, what do you think about that sort of Steve Jobs idea of you can’t ask people what they want?

[00:29:19] I think only Steve Jobs can do that. To be honest. I thought about asking people what they want you to build. It’s asking what the problems are. Yeah. And then need the solutions to get to you. Yeah, I think it’s a thing of constantly testing your solutions as well. I think it’s a book that we try to live by which is this sort of yeah, it’s an idea is obviously iterative development. Don’t build something that takes you months and release it. Yeah. In stages where you validate validate what you’re doing the quickest way possible.

[00:29:53] I also have another book recommendation actually, which every dentist who’s ever kind of reached out to me, I think I’ve sent it to every single one of them, but it’s called the the mom test. And it’s kind of in complete agreement with that, that Steve Jobs quote, which is if you ask people if they like your business idea, they’re inherently nice and they’re going to say, yes, that’s a great idea. You should definitely pick you should definitely build a tinder for dogs or whatever it is. And instead what you should say is, okay, does your dog have an issue meeting other dogs? You don’t even say that. You really need to just go super broad and say, okay, what are your dog’s main issues in life? And you just go very, very broad and allow them to lead you to the problem. And again, like and yeah, I highly recommend that if there’s anyone who listens, who wants to explore a business idea.

[00:30:42] What was it called?

[00:30:43] It’s called the mom test.

[00:30:45] The mom.

[00:30:46] Of my.

[00:30:46] Mom. Which is why I said just. Yeah.

[00:30:50] Yeah. I mean, I think I listened to someone who was it? Some, some venture capitalist on some podcast. I was saying. He was saying, yeah, if you ask people about your idea and everyone sees it and everyone gets it, then it’s a really bad idea because there’ll be loads of competitors. Yeah. And if it’s such an obvious problem, there will be loads of competitors. He was saying if you ask people and no one gets it, that’s also a bad idea. Yeah, that’s going to be very difficult to convince that you were and he was saying this is in between where some intelligent guy might get it or some some thinking out of the box person might get it. But he was saying as a general, when everyone thinks it’s a good idea, it’s just too much competition. Yeah, if you had any competition.

[00:31:40] So yeah, we actually have. So more recently we’ve got other companies that are trying to do kind of similar stuff to what we’re doing. And yeah, I suppose it’s just something that we just need to keep our head down and we need to keep listening to our customers and make sure we’re building something for them that is actually genuinely solving their problem. Because that’s the thing that is going to best protect us from any competition.

[00:32:03] Is that IP in this environment or is that.

[00:32:07] Ip is actually quite a difficult one because I think a lot of a lot of people will quite often say, you know, do you have a pattern and things like that? But actually patent on software is very difficult to enforce.

[00:32:20] Building something is very flexible in the way you can do it.

[00:32:23] Yeah.

[00:32:23] And there’s a million different ways you can code something and do something.

[00:32:26] Exactly, because if you’re applying for a patent, you have to say, this is what we’re doing. And then as soon as you’ve made that process public. You know, just a different way to skin a cat. Someone else can just do things in a slightly different way. So I think the thing that can best protect us is actually just having a product that is genuinely solving our customer’s problems and always striving to do better. As I said, I think that’s like the best equivalent of a patent we’ll ever have.

[00:32:49] Yeah, I agree. I agree. It’s strange with competitors, though, because, you know, sometimes there’s a there’s a place that a part of the market that you’re calling your own and a competitor will jump into that. And then then it’s like your communication strategy has to change. Also, you know, tell me this. How many users do we have now?

[00:33:12] So we’re in the thousands now.

[00:33:14] Oh, wow. Really? Wow. That’s quick. So. So how did you manage to sort of distribute it? I mean, what’s the mechanism?

[00:33:24] So I think over I think we really took off over the lockdown period. So we we set up the first commercial kind of launch was, I think October ish. But we were really slow at the beginning. And then in March, we just started to release kind of a payment model. And then about two weeks later, the pandemic hit. And we were just like, well, it’s unfair. Nobody, nobody’s working, so they shouldn’t pay. So we just made it free for everybody during the pandemic time. And I think.

[00:33:49] That’s a great move.

[00:33:51] Well, it was like we genuinely didn’t do it as a move. We genuinely did it because it’s what felt right. Yeah. And I think actually probably we only did it a week or two earlier than other companies, but the response from our customers was so positive that they felt really moved that we had kind of proactively made that decision. And I think that really bought a lot of goodwill with our customers.

[00:34:14] What was interesting, we thought, great, the pandemic’s hit. We’re going to be out of business, like just can’t use our products. We’re not going to get any customers, we’re not going to get the traction we need. And weirdly, it was the exact opposite where our product needed a bit of time investing. So like we tell anybody when they sign up, you need to spend about half an hour and you can do this at home, just learning the system, making it perfect for the way you do this, and suddenly you don’t have a lot of time on their hands. They were at home, they weren’t doing much. And so so we had a huge uptick in sign ups over that period where people were really trying out. I think it was around June, right. When people start to get back into work. Yeah. And our numbers just shot up reading thousands of women’s every day after that.

[00:34:52] Yeah, but how were you. I’ve seen you’ve done some paid ads on social. It was that the main way.

[00:34:59] So, so that is a channel we use but I think our strongest channel is actually just word of mouth, our dentist talking to their friends and colleagues about how they find it. And really that is that is the strongest thing that we have in our favour. And I mean, we’re already as I said, you know, other people have translated translated it into their own languages. We’re not just in the UK as well. And again, that’s happened purely through word of mouth of dentist telling each other and it kind of spreading internationally in a small way still. But but from that point, yeah.

[00:35:32] Hmm. That’s lovely, man. That’s that’s quick growth. That’s quite good, considering you said the final sort of your first customer came about two years ago.

[00:35:42] Yeah.

[00:35:43] Yeah, yeah.

[00:35:44] That’s quick growth, man. Let’s go a long way. Continue. How do you charge for it? So how much is it?

[00:35:50] So it’s for basic, which is the kind of product that we’ve talked about. It’s $24.95 per dentist per month. We charge per individual clinician and then we also have a pro tier. And largely, I suppose the most notable thing within that is the ability to automate your follow up letters. So particularly for our specialists who do lots of referral letters back to referring clinicians and to the patient that is entirely automated from their career notes as well. So that product is 69, 95 per clinician per month.

[00:36:26] Well, that’s a big job.

[00:36:28] It’s a big job, but it’s a lot more work that has to go in from our team. And it’s also an order of magnitude more time that we’re saving those users.

[00:36:37] Although, I mean, obviously you’ve done your research or you’ve got your your position on this, but for me, the £25 products too cheap.

[00:36:45] In terms of the amount of time we’re saving them. And what that equates to is I think I think I’ve worked out quite recently and it’s 100 X return on investment for our customers. So you could argue that in terms of the value that they’re getting and what they can do with that time, it is.

[00:37:02] But is there something in SAS that says that’s the magic number?

[00:37:06] No, not at all. And actually, I wish that there was something magical, in fact, that told you that. But it’s absolutely just figuring it out on the go. And us, we shouldn’t ever see pricing as something that is fixed. We should see that as something that we’re testing out and changing as well.

[00:37:20] But for me, if I was forward thinking enough, if I was a dentist, number one, if I was forward thinking enough to be the dentist who was going to try something like this in order to save me time, and then it’s saving me loads of time. I just think I should charge more. Let’s just say so.

[00:37:40] Dentists about half an hour per day. And so you can work out what that equates to. It’s a significant amount. If they wanted to fill that time with more patients, it’s extremely significant financially.

[00:37:54] It’s very impressive. So so to 70, the bigger what would you call that product to the pro? It follows up on referral letters.

[00:38:06] So if a specialist is filling in, let’s say a correctly workflow is about them doing a period console, let’s say.

[00:38:18] They’ve seen a patient, they want to go back to the referring.

[00:38:21] Exactly. They filled in their set of notes. And then actually what what these dentist are having to do is then spend 15 to 40 minutes after the appointment writing up the letter specific to that patient with karaoke. That is a click of a button. So they’ve done their notes. All of the relevant information is populated. Populated.

[00:38:41] This was, I guess, a by-product of of main product. So we what we actually do is we structure notes. So that really hasn’t been done before. So we structure the way somebody should write notes. We know what sections they’re in and how, how somebody writes it time and time again. And what that’s allowed us to do is a one click translation into a letter, and that’s really translated into humanised English that can be sent to the patient or to the referring dentist.

[00:39:05] And again, you might not want the language that’s in your medical record to be what goes out to the patient, you might say Upright six, but that doesn’t mean anything to a patient. So the thing that you want to go at in your letter is the upper right first molar tooth, and that’s fine because you can do that translation because it has that intelligence built in.

[00:39:22] Is it is it limited to notes and medicolegal or is there some sort of marketing application?

[00:39:30] I mean, right now, in terms of our areas of focus, probably for for the near term, we really are focussing on the no element and the and the actions that we can take based on that. So if you are sending follow up material consent information to patients and things like that, how can you very, very simply export that? So you’re not wasting your time on that. So we’re focussing on what actions can be taken from the conversation you’re having with your patient.

[00:39:57] So I guess the whole business is around taking away those repeated things that you do every single day. So your brain is focussed on that 10% of the day where you actually spend it on a unique case or, you know, a unique part of your notes even. Yeah.

[00:40:12] It’s what you see occurring.

[00:40:14] I mean, number one, I clearly don’t like to look too far ahead, just like to to keep doing what we’re doing. I think we’re increasingly believing and getting more and more belief that this is a business that can grow. And we want to provide it to as many dentists as we possibly can, both in the UK, but also internationally. And I think also an element that really excites us is eventually the technology that we’ve built doesn’t have to be limited to dentistry, it can be applied to other areas of healthcare, it can be applied to other professions where they might waste their time writing notes as well. So that’s how long term we see this business developing.

[00:40:58] Is that your pitch at the next funding round?

[00:41:03] Did if it sound like it turned into a robot to this.

[00:41:07] That.

[00:41:11] My eyes glazed over.

[00:41:14] Yeah. That’s quite early on that I seen as like it’s for me, the whole dental work is very new. But since we started releasing as dentists, we have a lot of GP’s coming up to us. Yeah. Yeah. We spent even longer than dentists writing notes. Why aren’t you building this for us? And the process is one step at a time.

[00:41:30] It’s one step at a time. And it’s making sure we don’t try and do too many things too soon and not actually focus on our customers. But yeah, long term that’s that’s what we see.

[00:41:40] I mean, yeah, if you could, if you could solve the GP thing, but I don’t know your experience with GP, but when I’ve been to the GP they’re not even looking at you at all.

[00:41:51] Exactly.

[00:41:52] They sort of kind of quick glance up. Quick question. And then and it’s mad because because you think like is he originally listening to the he’s you know, because we kind of know something about it, right? He’s kind of busy covering himself.

[00:42:14] So true. And I think something that genuinely, like moves me emotionally is with the thing of being a dentist or a doctor. If you could actually just focus on the the fantastic, the empathetic part of that conversation, actually providing care, actually listening to your patients and allow the repetitive things to be done by computers, then that is that for me is a human’s time when well spent, whereas us doing repetitive things, doing it over and over again, that is actually where a computer is so much better than us. So why not delegate that away?

[00:42:50] Yeah, I think what we found from correct a lot of customer sources that the end of the day they just had a bit more energy. I think the more we look into that is because of decision fatigue. They’re tired of making that same decision every single time and it does take that away from you.

[00:43:07] Yeah. With those sort of things you don’t, you don’t realise how stressed you are about them until they are taken away sometimes. Yeah. You know that. That’s very true. Let’s, let’s move on to the darker sort of side of all this we’ve got. I don’t know, if you listen to this podcast, we tend to move to the dark side around 40 minutes. What’s been your worst day at karaoke, each of you?

[00:43:33] What a good question.

[00:43:34] Then I think one day comes to mind. This was like two years ago or something where? We were fundraising. So like I said at the time, we would get for money, but we were excited by the idea of what we could be doing next and I think we had about three. So with fundraising, this is the first time we were raising money. You expect 90% rejections, so and all for different reasons. But we didn’t know that at the time. Right. So we were crashing. So I hadn’t I had about, I think three emails in a row on a monday morning and it just like, yeah, we’re not investing, we’re not investing, we’re not investing. And in that moment where we looked at each other and I think we wanted to kind of shelter the team from that side of things. So that was that’s the one that comes to mind straight away. We were just like, Let’s go for a walk and stretch ourselves up.

[00:44:22] Let’s go for a walk and have a cry.

[00:44:24] How many how many meetings did you go to? How many how many pitches did you do?

[00:44:28] Oh, God, I couldn’t count. Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was like 100 like.

[00:44:33] 190 said no.

[00:44:35] Genuinely, that is. That is that’s what you need to expect. But it doesn’t. You gradually get thicker and thicker skin like the longer you’ve done this. But it really is like for me, I’ve always found fundraising difficult on an emotional level because I find it quite wearing.

[00:44:50] And it’s tough. Like you’re, you’re getting rejection off and it’s for completely different reasons. Some, you know, some just might not believe in your vision or some might not believe in you or your team or and I guess another thing is back to what I said, I’m getting feedback. It’s really hard to get true feedback and that’s the most part, the hardest reason you don’t really know what the reason of the rejection is.

[00:45:10] How do you even set up these meetings? How does that.

[00:45:13] Work? Luckily, we’ve got really good network through through the incubator that we went through. So they have like created these they’ve made these introductions to begin with. And now you kind of you’ve got that network and you can reach out to those investors. But you also then because we’ve now got other investors that are invested in Kroger, they really are extremely powerful in terms of making more introductions, meeting new investors, and it really is just kind of back to back meetings, talking through your business, talking through, answering any questions they have. Quite often it won’t even be that they don’t believe in your business. It might just be that they aren’t the right investor to feel like they’ve got the knowledge to support you. But all the same, you do feel it. I think actually my day would be quite different of my my most difficult day of Kroger and it would come down to team. And when we had an employee who handed in their resignation, which happens, you know.

[00:46:09] It just wasn’t a good day.

[00:46:10] Though. It’s just part of part of the process. But when there’s someone that you really, really respect and they’re not continuing to work with you, even if it’s because they’re going to start their own business or they want to be exposed to a different type of technology or whatever it is, that.

[00:46:26] Sort of thing.

[00:46:27] Exactly like that for me felt like a huge failure of leadership or communicating vision or being effective at listening to not even sorry, not customer employees. So that was for me a really that was kind of a tough time.

[00:46:46] I definitely agree with that. I remember that day.

[00:46:49] That’s only happened once.

[00:46:51] So it’s not that we’ve only had one one resignation ever. We’ve had more than that. But quite often, you know, they’re coming. But it wasn’t even the first one, actually, it was just a particularly difficult one where we didn’t see it coming, whereas a lot of our resignations, we’ve known from early doors that they’re considering starting their own business or, you know, it’s been a conversation and I think it being unawares felt like a huge failure because it’s, you know, that is you should have been able to pick that up sooner.

[00:47:18] What would you say is your biggest weakness, Hannah? To the classic interview question.

[00:47:24] I think my biggest weakness and I’m giving you a really classic answer because I’m going to give a really I think I’m not going to say that because that’s just not true. But I think my biggest weakness is probably also a big strength of mine and is that ability not to not quit, not to give up, because I think sometimes that’s allowed me to have real grit. But I think sometimes I have put myself in situations where it’s not returning what it should anymore. And I haven’t called it because I just didn’t even consider I should quit. That would be a failure.

[00:48:00] Yeah, I’m the same. I’m the same. And you find a lot of times your biggest weakness is your biggest strength. Yeah, but I’ll give you example of that moment when you just would not quit.

[00:48:12] I think for me, actually, this is going to sound really like but like not a big deal. But I think it was just when I was I was working in a practise on Saturdays as well as doing Kokrokoo and to say it was 9 to 5 as is not the truth. So like doing a very kind of intense job and doing every Saturday and did it for two and a half years. And I think I just got to a point where I actually just wasn’t going out and seeing my friends. I wasn’t going out for dinners because I was just always so, so tired. And I eventually got to a point which was like, Why am I doing this? It just I hadn’t even considered that I shouldn’t be doing that anymore. And even if it was just kind of changing when I was doing it, you know, it’s not even that I’m not doing any clinical work these days, but I think that for me was me just doing the same thing over and over again and not considering that I could I could change it.

[00:49:00] What about you, J.

[00:49:02] You know what? As you ask that question, I thought I’ve asked this so many times to people. I never thought to ask myself.

[00:49:09] What your answer.

[00:49:10] Is. I’d say maybe sometimes paying too much attention to detail rather than just stepping back and. I think that’s know, I’d want to if I see a process, I want to know every single thing about it. I want to know how it works, what’s going on. But I don’t have time to do everything. And as much as I’d love to try and figure out every line of code and everything within view. I think part of it is actually just stepping back and realising that other people can do a great job better than me at that and letting go of certain things.

[00:49:40] Yeah. And you know, that sort of perfection paralysis thing and delegation paralysis will slow you down. Big time. Big time.

[00:49:49] Exactly. And I’ve learnt that a lot I think recently where there are times where I’ve done the opposite, where I’ve actually just left something and I’m like, Wait, no, we can run. Like it’s actually running a lot better than what I would have done. Yes, it’s kind of just.

[00:50:04] What I found. What I found is at the beginning, you’re doing everything. And then what happens is as you start to delegate it, someone does one little thing not quite as well as you would have done that thing. And that makes you go berserk and you forget the fact that they’re doing all of this other stuff. I tell you, though, it’s funny, because if it comes down to trust in a way, doesn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. And there’s no way you’ll grow if you don’t trust, right? There’s no way at all.

[00:50:34] Exactly. I think I’ve learnt that where we the biggest thing we can do is have the right people. I think the biggest impact we can have on Heroku and what we do is just hire the right people. I think we’ve made really good decisions at the moment with our team.

[00:50:46] I think we have and I think there is more that we can do there because I think quite often I allow myself to be overly busy when actually if the thing I’m doing is making myself more scalable, making myself slightly redundant, that’s actually a good thing for the business. But quite often it leaves you feeling slightly redundant. And I think a lesson that I could develop and I think I would be in a better place if I learnt this quicker, is actually I’m okay not to be really busy all the time. I just need to find the right people who can do this better than we can.

[00:51:17] Yeah, you know, you should take. I’ve learnt something recently and you know, don’t, don’t let it take 20 years for you to learn this. This message is that in a way if, if you’re doing anything, then you’re doing something wrong. In a way I’m not saying don’t do anything, but if you have to do any little thing, then why? Why is it that you’re doing that thing? Why isn’t someone else doing that thing? You know, and it’s an interesting idea because it sounds ridiculous, but but when you actually examine examine it, you know that you want they want to sell this thing, right? Yeah. And and you really want nothing to do with the day to day of it at all. At all. You just want to be leading the sort of the zoomed out plan. And the zoomed out plan means not doing anything at all. Yeah. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m doing I’m doing things. Don’t, don’t get me wrong. But the thought process, it’s quite empowering.

[00:52:20] If we if we aim for that, if we aim for doing nothing, that’s probably doing nothing but not being required for like decisions. I think that’s probably the right thing to aim for.

[00:52:32] And I think it’s really timely advice, to be honest, because now our team is growing and we’re at the stage now where we do have to take a little step back and bring in other people that can actually do this day to day things.

[00:52:42] But there is one big problem with it in that, you know, it sounds all well and good. Hire a guy to do that job, but that guy needs managing and then whoever’s managing, that guy needs managing. And in the end, that comes back to you again. And it’s sort of the difference between finding outsource people and having people in-house. Yeah, because there’s there’s benefits to both. But one of the biggest benefits of outsource people is that you don’t have to hire and fire in the usual way. Yeah, it’s a difficult one. What would you say should be been your biggest mistakes?

[00:53:18] Wolf. So many to pick from.

[00:53:25] To think of this one.

[00:53:30] It’s a bit early because you haven’t had time for, you know, to reflect, really.

[00:53:35] I mean, I try I try and reflect frequently, actually. Clearly, I’m not doing it well enough.

[00:53:41] What comes to mind, actually, is I think almost every company hears this at some point, which is start charging earlier, because I think the moment it came hand to hand, when we had our first customer feedback and charging, people automatically assume you give value to what you’re doing. And if someone’s for free, they’re not valuing it right. They’re not running it, but they’re starting to get feedback. And I think as soon as we started charging for our product, we got feedback instantly and then it kind of spun off from there. So that’s one that comes to mind right now. Whether you call that mistake or not, I don’t know, because I think it worked out.

[00:54:18] I mean, the voice thing was a mistake.

[00:54:20] Again, I find it hard to call it a mistake because I don’t think we would be here if it wasn’t for the voice. We stumbled upon the new product because as a consequence of the voice, it sells other ways to get here. Yeah, definitely.

[00:54:31] I think, again, it’s not like one clear mistake. I wish we’d got to that conclusion quicker because I think we would be know 6 to 12 months ahead of where we are now if we if learn those lessons sooner. But equally. You know, with first time founders, we didn’t. We’re learning this as we go. And I don’t really know what we could have done to have done that much faster. But but to me, if there’s one thing I wish we’d been able to do, it was drive for customer feedback far earlier however that was and realise that that was the problem.

[00:55:06] Without, you know, antagonising investors. What kind of role do they play as far as the day to day? Do they take a position on the board and advise and interfere?

[00:55:19] And I actually we have we are so lucky with our investors and actually genuinely, I would never use the word interfere. I would only use the word support. Yes, they might have a board seat or a board observer. See. So we will have quarterly meetings with them where we present what we’ve been up to. But largely they are there when we need when we need them and they in different ways. We’ve kind of got two main investors in different ways. They get very, very different types of information and support and feedback. And I couldn’t be happier. The people that we have as partners to build Heroku, they they are both supportive and wise and holistic in their in their advice.

[00:56:08] Well that’s that’s nice to hear because you do hear some horror stories.

[00:56:11] Yeah, you do. I think I think that because of the horror stories we were so careful in, I guess who we picked. Quite lucky, to be honest, in a way as well.

[00:56:18] I think luck.

[00:56:20] Is a huge amount of luck.

[00:56:22] But then every time, every time you raise more, you’re going to have a new person to deal with. Is that how it works?

[00:56:27] Exactly. And the unfortunate thing is, again, it’s like suppose it’s like hiring someone. You don’t really know what it’s going to be like. Work alongside them until you’re actually doing it. Except with an employee, if it’s not right, you can kind of do something about it. With an investor.

[00:56:41] You can’t really.

[00:56:41] There’s nothing you can do about it. So you have to pick right and try and try and maintain a kind of filter from your side. Even if you do, you do want the investment you need to make sure they’re the right investor.

[00:56:55] Tell me a couple of stories that your customers have told you. About using. You know, something something that’s changed the way they work.

[00:57:07] I think that it’s like one of the things that is just repeatedly said is like, I’m home. Like this is completely changed. I used to have keys for the practise and be the last person.

[00:57:20] Oh, just writing up all the crap.

[00:57:22] Exactly. And now I am the last person to enter in the morning. I’m the first person to leave in the evening. And I’m able to actually have dinner with my family and I’m able to pay attention when patients are talking to me. So it’s again, it’s so varied because different people use that time different ways. A lot of people actually just want to get home on time. A lot of people wanting more patients. A lot of people want to actually just pay attention to their patient.

[00:57:48] But I think for me, the idea of an idea of somebody getting home has been mentioned time and time again that before they would you know, I spoke to a dentist, in fact, last week that I built a little four day work every day at five in the morning to write letters, but with curfew. Well, now they get to sleep. So it was interesting, home and time, but nice stories were good to hear.

[00:58:14] Generally, we asked this question at the beginning of the podcast, but with you guys it just felt like the wrong time. Tell me about where you grew up, what kind of kid you were.

[00:58:25] I grew up in the countryside outside of Manchester. As you can tell from my accent.

[00:58:33] And the south or the north.

[00:58:36] South Manchester kind of peak district, the area so very, very kind of rural. But I went to school in central Manchester. And what type of child does I am the youngest of three siblings. I have two older brothers. And so I very much embodied the little sister character. I don’t know what else to say. Really gone. Very lucky. Lucky with my parents and lucky with the support I’ve always had from my parents.

[00:59:03] And your parents were it people you said?

[00:59:06] I think people. Yeah, both. Both programmers.

[00:59:10] But were they entrepreneurs as well?

[00:59:12] And no, they both work worked within kind of bigger corporations. My mum gave up working when she had us and so I know that she always missed her work because she was doing so well and I think it just came at a time when she was having kids. So I know that for her she’s kind of always instilled in me that find something that you love doing and don’t stop doing it because you have to have family or don’t do it unless you want to. I think she wanted to give up work.

[00:59:42] That’s fine. You hurried. Get this thing sold, kid. Where did you grow up?

[00:59:56] So mine. I was. I’ve been born and growing up in London. Yeah. For example, the accent kind of is very standard today. There’s not a huge amount. It like great parents. I was. I was in a state school. So, you know, for a variety of people, we had three, 350 people in our year. And there’s a variety of people from people that became athletes to entrepreneurs to a bunch of other stuff.

[01:00:23] Where did you study, Jay?

[01:00:25] So I was at University College London for my undergrad, and then I went to University of Cambridge for my first read.

[01:00:31] The what the I stuff.

[01:00:33] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:00:34] What was it like being in Cambridge with those brains?

[01:00:37] To find out. Just, I guess going from a state school. I thought I never wanted to go to Cambridge because I thought I just wouldn’t fit in. So I thought I’d literally go have no friends. Everybody would be very posh and I wouldn’t be able to click with anybody. And it was exact opposite. It was just a group of really smart people that love what they do. And I think as you get to post-grad you realise that a lot of people have chosen to do something in underground. Often you do find a lot of people that are in the, you know, studying for the sake of study, studying for the sake of somebody told them to. And it’s a good way to do things. I think when you go to post-grad, people will love what they do. And I find that really fascinating.

[01:01:12] Because you’re 18, aren’t you, when you go to university, I mean, it’s a child. What made you decide to be a dentist when with all these technologists around you?

[01:01:23] I liked sciences. I thought I wanted to be a doctor, probably because I’d grown up watching Scrubs. I did my work experience in a hospital and realised, Wait, this isn’t like Scrubs. And actually being on a geriatric ward is really, really sad. And so my school organised work experience in a dental practise and I remember my mum being like, I don’t know why you’re doing that, you’re not going to enjoy that. And I loved it. I mean, I was in work experience with the dad of someone who I went to school with and he was just a really, really nice, relaxed guy. And I think I just kind of liked his attitude and I just really liked that. It was like craft on a tiny, tiny scale. And there’s, yeah, there’s so much pride to be taken in doing that well. And I think I just thought that would be a good fit. Yeah. And like I said, I never regretted studying dentistry. I really, really enjoyed it. Just sad not to be doing construction on a tiny scale more these days.

[01:02:22] And Bristol, such a fun, fun city to be studying and it’s such a fantastic city. I was in Cardiff, but I love Bristol. I really.

[01:02:32] I.

[01:02:32] Love I.

[01:02:33] Love Bristol as well. I’m just waiting for the day where I can move back to Bristol.

[01:02:37] Really.

[01:02:39] It was honestly, it’s just it was so fun. It was really a good mixture of like good music. Yeah.

[01:02:47] Just great art scene.

[01:02:50] Exactly. There’s just a really nice mixture of culture and and it being a beautiful city in its own right.

[01:02:56] Absolutely.

[01:02:58] Yeah. I really, really enjoyed Bristol.

[01:03:00] Is your office London based now?

[01:03:02] Yes, we’re based in Moorgate.

[01:03:05] Oh, really? In that little hub of technology.

[01:03:09] Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[01:03:10] Well, they call it silicon something.

[01:03:12] Yes, Silicon Roundabout people roundabouts.

[01:03:16] It is kind of spread out now, isn’t it?

[01:03:21] In Cambridge, they call it silicon fen that bit. One last question before our final questions, which are always the same on this podcast, if this imagine, I don’t know, some company Microsoft came along and give you a billion. To walk away. Yeah. What would you do next? It’s hard. It’s hard question to answer.

[01:03:47] Is this what what would you do when they offered you or what.

[01:03:49] Would you do once they sold it? You walked away. You walked away. We can deal with yourself and and you listen. Everyone says the same thing to this. Yeah. They say charity holiday. Yeah. So outside of charity and holiday day to day.

[01:04:06] I think because I don’t think I would do charity, I don’t think I’d do like loads of holiday. I think the thing that excites me and I think maybe because I went from doing clinical dentistry to doing quite a different career, the thing that would excite me is like, What’s next? I’m only going to live once. Why not jump back several careers into one lifetime? And like, what else could I learn and start from scratch again? I genuinely think I’d kind of want to.

[01:04:30] I’ll just I’ll probably start your business and whatever I say, I would drag her into as well.

[01:04:35] So yeah, I don’t know. It’s so exciting that like you could, you could do a whole different thing. I definitely wouldn’t just.

[01:04:44] Take your money behind you so you can kind of do what you want with it as.

[01:04:47] Well. You wouldn’t take holiday. I like that. I like that very much. Let’s just end it with the same question. We always end up with the same question. It is it’s difficult with people as young as you too, but you’re on your deathbed. Yeah. You’ve got your friends and family around you. Three pieces of advice you’d leave for them.

[01:05:12] I’ll let you go first.

[01:05:14] Those are the ones. The ones that I thought of is this one. I really do try to live by it, which is just enjoy the journey. I think you never know what’s going to happen, especially both in business and in life, really. Just enjoy every day and what you’re doing and find a way to make yourself happy with it. Second one is follow your instincts and trust your gut. I think whenever I’ve done that, it’s always worked out somehow. So keep doing that. And then the last one is just live life to its fullest. Try and avoid being lazy and just realise like, you know, again, life’s short. Try and make the most of it.

[01:05:45] Lovely, lovely bits of advice on your death.

[01:05:48] What about you?

[01:05:50] I would say one is very important to me, as is stay silly like I do. I don’t want to grow old. My my grandmother. You actually like in the last couple of years passed away was like the most mischievous soul I know. And she was 80. She was 92, and she was just so silly. And so I would always remain silly and laugh at ridiculous things. That would be one. The other one would be, again, this is so like so generic that it’s almost pointless would be just be kind because you have to leave the world in a better state than you arrived in. And for me, that’s just how you treat the people around you. And if you just strive to constantly be kind in every interaction you have, if feel like you’re doing, you’re doing the right thing, you’re moving in the right direction. And the final one, I’m not sure. I think you’re going to have to think this one on the spot. I think this is this is rather than yeah, I suppose it is advice, but this is more just kind of me saying something that I’ve taken huge value from, which is immerse yourself in other people’s stories. And by that I mean I personally am an avid reader of novels, and the reason I do that is because I love getting perspective on other people’s lives and situations. I wouldn’t I haven’t been through myself. And so whether you choose to do that in the form of reading or watching films or listening to stuff, I think constantly prioritising, getting other people’s perspectives will widen your world and widen your your reaction to things as well, how you perceive the world.

[01:07:34] And of that walk in other people’s shoes, sort of.

[01:07:37] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, probably. That will help you with the kindness one as well.

[01:07:43] But I like that. The fact you know, this question, it’s not my question, perhaps question. It tends to give many of the same answers. But those three or kindness comes up a lot but Cillian shoes that they’re good ones they my final question is it’s to do with a fancy dinner party. Yeah three guests that are.

[01:08:07] Like I’m going to hand it over to you first.

[01:08:09] This is a question I always ask and always avoid giving my answer.

[01:08:14] I think. When do you ask this question?

[01:08:17] I think when things get a bit silent, the three to I said one is Sundar Pichai, who’s the CEO of Google. I think his story is just amazing that he grew up from nothing and now.

[01:08:31] He’s the current CEO, isn’t it?

[01:08:33] Yeah. Yeah. And the next one just has to be Steve Jobs. Yeah, I just I’m obsessed with Steve Jobs a bit too much. But, yeah, I had to pick up on this. And the last. I’m a massive Arsenal football fan, so it has to be Thierry Henry. I’m yet to meet him. It’s a one day.

[01:08:54] It’s an interesting dinner party going on.

[01:08:58] And I’ve actually only got two answers to this. I did actually try and wrack my brain, but two, two came to mind very easily. So I’ll actually just answer answer those. The first one is my grandma from my dad’s side, because I was so young when she passed away that I actually never got to interact with her. My dad speaks so highly of her. I think that would be so lovely to actually understand more about her life and therefore probably understand more about my dad and therefore probably understand more about myself. So that would be one. And the other one that instantly came to my mind is Anne Boleyn. I don’t know why I love the Tudors, but also I’d want to. Anne Boleyn for me, as someone who’s the way that she is told in history, is with a very, very sexist perspective and angle. So I would love to meet.

[01:09:49] The first wife.

[01:09:50] Second wife. She beheaded, beheaded yet, but clearly caused massive change to to England and history. But I feel like I’d want to understand what she was like as a person because she sounds like she might have been quite a powerful, impressive person.

[01:10:10] Yeah, I think I’ve had one of the answers was Henry the eighth, so you might as well invite Henry the eighth, all your other grandma. That would be the third guest.

[01:10:20] I mean, I’d love to.

[01:10:22] You can come. You can come back. Grandma did.

[01:10:27] Well, it’s been a pleasure. And I know I only met you for that 10 seconds in dental showcase, but. But. But, Hannah, you know, I really understand why investors, customers, employees are inspired by you. Just you give off this energy of sort of enjoying everything you do and really listening. I really do. I really do.

[01:10:49] That means a great a great, great deal, especially from you. Yeah.

[01:10:53] There’d be sitting but it’s just, you know, I know again, we’ve met each other twice. Twice, but both times. Both times are very, very, very impressed with you. So I’m sure your work is going to go from strength to strength.

[01:11:05] And thank you so much for having us.

[01:11:09] Yeah, thanks very much.

[01:11:10] It’s been a long time coming.

[01:11:13] 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.

[01:11:29] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:11:44] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:11:54] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] I think the essence of the business is its culture and therefore the people coming in need to mould to that culture rather than the other way around. And that sort of drives itself and it moulds and develops people because in order to fit in at FMC, you’ll have to try hard. You’ll have to be fairly accommodating of your of your peers and contemporaries, and therefore they become FMC people. I’d say that’s why the momentum continues to be good, because the ones that don’t fit you probably never got to know payment because it just didn’t work. The ones that do fit stay long term and add to the culture and develop the business that way.

[00:00:45] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:03] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Ken Finlayson onto the podcast. Ken is probably one of the most influential people in dentistry. The man who came up with the list of the top 50 influential dentists. But maybe actually I think I think you used to feature on that list yourself sometimes, Ken. But the last five or ten years, I haven’t seen you there. Media mogul, maybe the biggest publisher in dentistry with 40 titles. How many titles, Ken?

[00:01:34] There’s a few. There’s a few. Not as many as they used to be. But yeah.

[00:01:39] Notably dentistry magazine, private dentistry magazine, clinical dentistry, Irish dentists, loads of education awards events since since I started Enlightened may be the most influential person in my early career for sure. Was Ken and you started this company when Ken was it 25 years ago?

[00:02:04] Started the company in 1994. And it’s a little bit depressing, frankly, to say that I used to be I used to be an influence to you and no longer. But yeah, it was a while back, in fairness, and there’s been a number of things happen since then. But yeah, it was a long time ago. Kicking off with the magazine called Dentistry in the days before the Internet, in the days before digital media. And it was pretty popular.

[00:02:32] It really was, I think, when we started in light in 2001. But I was a dentist since 95 and even then, so between 95 and 2001, at that time, we forget we forget how how much things have changed. I remember the independent was it called independent dentistry at the time? Not not private dentistry, the magazine?

[00:02:57] That’s correct. Yeah. It was in those days, private dentistry was a dirty word. It was something that people were afraid of financially. And there was a sort of class resonance to the title Private Dentistry. Yeah. So we coined the phrase in a general sense, independent dentistry, which reflected the fact that it wasn’t solely based on NHS practise and it gave people, it gave people the options to, to think about with regard to non NHS treatment.

[00:03:29] I remember reading independent dentistry as a young dentist and just thinking, God, this there is a world out there outside of this sort of situation that I’m in at the moment and you know, being inspired by the quality of the quality of the print, the quality of the editorial, the the stories that were in that magazine. This podcast normally starts, Ken, with sort of childhood. Where did you grow up? What kind of a kid were you?

[00:04:00] What does it normally start that way? But not this time.

[00:04:03] Not this time. This story started with this is how we started with independence.

[00:04:08] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just very briefly, Scottish. I’m Scottish. I moved to South Africa aged 14 years old. And that’s quite a tough move because if anybody knows South Africans and we all know many of them, they typically big people. So coming from Scotland to South Africa at that age was quite a challenge. But they’re so entrepreneurial and so go getting by nature. The South Africans, it was it was very significant in my life ultimately coming back to UK and getting into the publishing world. And I was looking for an opportunity. And I was lucky enough to bump into a legend called Les Paul, who was the grandfather of private industry in the UK. And I had a title called Dentistry Magazine, which was doing well. But in speaking to Ellis, there was an opportunity to create something more oriented towards the options in dentistry away from the NHS. And he was the forerunner of that whole movement and a phenomenal person that inspired me and many, many people. Yeah, for a quarter of a century thereafter, just through the work that he and I did, and he’d had a huge career before that. So he certainly is the guy that deserves most credit for the whole of the private dentistry work that we did, and I’d like to think helped a lot of people along the way. But he was the guy that really inspired the whole thing and deserves the credit for that.

[00:05:52] But how did you get into dental in the first place can.

[00:05:56] Dentistry? Well, I ended up working for a medical media business. So medical media comprises magazines and events typically around hospital medicine, general practise medicine. And that was the essence of the business that I was involved in. We did look at the dentistry area as well, albeit it was the small relation in the business and I was learning the ropes. I always wanted to be my own boss and felt that it was more of an opportunity to if I was going to do my own thing in the dental space because it was less sophisticated in media sense than medicine and there were less players operating in it. And quite frankly, payment, it was less expensive to get involved in the dentistry. So I decided to develop an idea in dentistry. I went to the US and investigated what the media was doing in the US. At that time. Everybody viewed American dentistry as ahead of what we were doing. The American smile was quite well known even back then, and their thoughts on cosmetic dentistry, on the brighter, whiter smile, on what they could do for people outside of just helping them get through pain, was was a big difference to what we were doing in the UK at that point and the media reflected that as well. So I then essentially took the ideas that I saw in the US, package them together in a more British style and launched Dentistry magazine in 1995. And at that point of time, amazingly, I was probably more amazed than anybody else, but we actually launched with huge success. I expected a very slow start, but in fact it did seem that there was an appetite for a less academic take on dentistry going forward, and a more accessible media, which threw up business ideas, looked a lot at the product opportunities that there were and different types of treatment.

[00:08:11] So before you hadn’t worked in any other dental before you started your own dental magazine?

[00:08:18] Well, I was with a medical media business that did have oh that didn’t work in dentistry. Yeah. Albeit was quite small. So that’s where I really got my experience and I could see that there was an opportunity there that was less intricate and less expensive to get involved in than the dentistry area.

[00:08:36] So, so dentistry magazine in a way, if you had to sort of position it as in the, in the normal sort of newspapers and magazines sort of way, it was, it was kind of it would be where would it be? It would be like sort of the on the sort of the I don’t know, it’s the wrong word because tabloids got such such such bad connotations these days. But on the more on the tabloid end, because up to that point, there was you know, there was there was journals, there was BTJ And I guess the probe existed.

[00:09:06] It Yeah, I mean, the the analogy doesn’t really ring true, as you say, with tabloids. Yeah. However, even in 1994, tabloids were very evident and not particularly well thought of, albeit there were very, very popular. The Sun newspaper in the UK was the most popular newspaper in Europe and a very powerful reader base. It had two. So what we launched was not down-market, but it was accessible and populist, and that’s something that I really wanted to do so that if you were practising in a high street or in Scunthorpe or anywhere for that matter, you could dip into the title and get things out of it that that you could implement into your practise. And that was really what we were trying to do. Whereas titles like the BBG, phenomenal, globally renowned media that it still is to this day and was then it was a little esoteric, article wise, and many of the articles wouldn’t be that valid to the average practitioner at any one time. And so we wanted to be more populist, more accessible, easy to access. And the reaction we got from day one was quite phenomenal actually, that it did seem to resonate and people were reading it in their thousands and we had huge responses. There were used to be back in those days, a card system that you put into the title. So for example, if people wanted more information about.

[00:10:49] Such and such an ad or whatever, yeah, I remember.

[00:10:51] Yes. A product or a product news story. Then we would get. Thousands of these every week sent back to us. And it was a very good feeling and very nice.

[00:11:02] What were you thinking regarding sort of business plan wise? I mean, did you have already lots of contacts, as you know, in the in the industry for advertising?

[00:11:14] Well, the plan was that it’s a fairly straightforward approach insofar as we we knew who the Dental companies were. And we had a list of I say we, me and one other person that was the organisation and I was doing that side of it was really I had a list is there was a list of the companies and you call them up and suggest that we have a large audience and if they want to promote their product through, through that, they could. So it’s, it’s quite unsophisticated insofar as getting to the customer base. You didn’t really need to have a lot of contact as such. You just needed to know who the companies were. And of course it’s quite evident by going to a practise, you can see the products that are being used and there are other magazines around that you could also look at to gather who was promoting through through those media. And we basically just contacted them all. The claims of fame we had at that time is when we launched in 1995. It launched as the biggest launch that there’d ever been of a Dental title, and that was because the industry really liked the idea. And even though we didn’t have an audience, insofar as nobody had actually seen the title until we launched it, the industry was very much behind it from day one.

[00:12:39] And the plan always from day one was you were going to send this out for free?

[00:12:43] Yes. So that was the model at that time payment in media for getting dentistry for a second meet. It was a very popular notion in the British media world that you create a good product, i.e. title for the set to your targeting. Give the group that media free of charge so that they read it and enjoy it. And then there’s an audience to market to.

[00:13:12] And did you have massive start up costs? I mean, in the end, you have to publish. You have to you have to print thousands of of these papers. Did you did you have a backing to start with or did you not know you’d lose money to start with or will you know immediately?

[00:13:29] Well, the title launched extremely well. The great thing about media back in those days and still the same, I suppose, with the digital media, but you don’t incur any costs of any significance until such time as the printer starts printing the title, then ultimately have to pay for the paper, the postage, the printing costs themselves. But by that time we already had the advertisers in there. So as soon as it produced it was profitable from day one. And it was it’s a scary place to be because day two we didn’t have another title. So we have to reproduce the magazine again for February and then for March and so on. So it was it was very, very uplifting and a great time in my life. But there was a great fear, as anybody who runs a business has, about how are we going to manage tomorrow? Will the customer base leave us? Will it be well received? Everybody has these experiences and I was no different. But from day one we were. I remember having the champagne when we got the first edition in the door and it was a celebration because we knew that it was a profitable business from from the outset.

[00:14:44] When I think back to my start and I think we lost money for four years at the beginning and the pain that we went through in that in that four year period just to get to profitability and to hats off to you must have ruffled a few feathers as well, though.

[00:15:05] Yeah. I mean, one of the issues that irritated my competitors and not naming them because it irritates me further. But the one of the things that was galling was the fact that we did get such a fast start. And even in media it typically takes quite a while to build enough traction that the industry will support you. So we did seem to to be of our time and that really, really rankled with the existing media who would be quite disdainful. I mean, I’m a very old man now payment is you know that that cared.

[00:15:45] How old were you when you saw started?

[00:15:46] I was 28.

[00:15:48] I was 28. Amazing.

[00:15:50] But the I was viewed as a very young man at the time against my peer group. And they really didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all.

[00:16:00] But, you know, that mantra is, is it was it Gandhi said, you know, first they ignore you, then what is it? Then they eventually and then you in what? First they ignore you, then they attack you or whatever it is.

[00:16:13] Yeah.

[00:16:14] You know, you know what I’m talking about, right?

[00:16:16] Yes, I do. Yeah.

[00:16:17] Yeah. I find it interesting because in that in that early phase, when people ignore you is actually a time to grow and, you know, to, to, to make moves that when they finally notice when compared to finding notices you, it’s then too late for them to do anything. Whereas you must have had people actually acting against you straight away because you made such a disruptive move. Did you was there any of that? Oh, no.

[00:16:44] Well, there was there was just a level of nastiness in a I’m sure I sound naive saying it, but that’s how I felt. People were just nasty about it. But the in the bubble payment, as you will recognise from your own business development, you’re just running as fast as you can. There’s a modicum of celebration and that’s momentary. It’s really a question of we need to keep running fast, trying hard, and don’t take anything for granted, which was the way that it worked. And I didn’t really pay too much attention to to the establishment’s views, albeit I knew we weren’t that popular.

[00:17:38] How long did it take before it moved on from one publication? One one title? When did you get your second title? How many years?

[00:17:47] Well, through that first year, I met Alice Paul, who I mentioned earlier. Yeah, I mean, we had a great start payment, so there was sufficient profitability to consider options and we staffed up immediately as well. And then Alice was just this inspiring character from Manchester who was running the show in what was called independent dentistry back then. And I approached him in a car park and just outside Manchester and stalked him and said, would he possibly be consider being editor of a new title I had an idea for and he’s such a great guy. He jumped at the notion. He ended up moving down to London because I couldn’t believe, because he was so established, so famous, you know, he would have been top of the top 50 back in the day, although it didn’t exist. But and just such an enthusiast for calibre things and leading people and thinking more deeply about subjects and teaching that, you know, he he made that a phenomenal success. Also payment. He was a guardian and a custodian of the title. So he really cared deeply and was very, very focussed on the level of calibre and the breadth of articles and such things. So the independent dentistry, which was our second title, had a different cachet to the populist dentistry magazine. And in fact we asked the audience to pay for it, which they.

[00:19:28] Did.

[00:19:29] In their thousands as well, which was another great success for us back in the day. And as I said earlier, the Alice was without a shadow of a doubt. The man who made that title and inspired you and many, many other people, it’s it’s amazing, actually, how often people come up to me and say, Oh, you were so instrumental in my early years of private industry and so on. And I think to myself and I didn’t actually do anything and Alex did the lot and really has had an impact in that upper half of the age group, I would say in UK dentistry today. He was, he was very, very pivotal.

[00:20:08] Can you say that you’ve operated this, this organisation. I remember even in the early days, I mean I think we’d got this bank loan, I think we borrowed £80,000, something like that. And there was a dental showcase coming up and I knew nothing about anything, right? So I thought, Alright, I’m going to buy some ads before this event. And I just went everywhere and bought ads everywhere I could find, just didn’t think was understanding what I was doing at all. Just put ads everywhere I could find. But all of those advertisers, your organisation was the only one where a human being then turned up. At my office it was an office. It was my flat where we were, where we were running it. It was actually Kimberly. Yeah, your late wife. But you’ve always had that, that and even as the years went on, that human touch of a relationship with the person that the other magazines didn’t have. And were.

[00:21:12] You.

[00:21:12] Because you were part of the industry before and you knew something about it, was that a conscious move that you were going to sort of that whole people buy from people thing? Because it must.

[00:21:22] I don’t think it was spamming. I don’t I don’t think it was a conscious decision. It is just my belief. People by people, as you say, and we will lie, Avis, try harder to make sure we make our points to to the potential advertiser or company that we link with and make sure we just do the best job we can. And I do feel and in any walk of business that our success was heavily linked to the fact that we give it our best shot. And it’s quite satisfying in any business, again, to look at competition and think, well, I know they don’t really give it their best shot and therefore that’s an advantage that we can bring to bear, given that they’re there pacing it a little bit and we’re going to give it our best shot.

[00:22:14] And then the next thing you guys did, I don’t know if it’s the next thing you did, but the next thing you did that really sort of resonated with me. That affected me was education. And I think back to those early days of independent seminars where you guys would bring a speaker from the US who not even I’m not even talking about the big names, but, but the big names as well. And on occasion there’d be a 600 people at this event that the guy was just talking. There was no, there was no hands on, but the guy was just talking. And more than that, I mean, I remember some of them were gigantic events. How did you first get into education? Was that were you looking at is that is that a standard playbook for a publisher? Is that what is that? Is that what happened? Did someone tell you, look, we haven’t got enough education because we certainly didn’t?

[00:23:09] Yeah. I mean, the the education went the same way that the original title did in that I went to the US and I followed the lead insofar as what were they doing that was working well? And I suppose the thing that typifies my approach to things is I appreciate, I don’t know best, so I’ll try and learn from the best guy I can and typically in the sector. Uk Dental Communications it’s not one of my rivals. So we’d go to the US and we’d go through every speaker we could find, go to the big conventions and watch who’s really pulling an audience. Where are the audience really engaging? Where do the the approval ratings look the highest? And we would bring those people back to the UK and many of them had never been seen in the UK before. A few of the pioneering early adopting type dentists would go to the US for postgraduate education. But Payman they were there wasn’t there weren’t many of them, and certainly not guys in the younger half of their career. And so we would bring these speakers across. They were honoured to be brought to the UK. They were very expensive but they, they pulled in a big audience and we were viewed to be innovative and, and connecting the audience with, with progressive thinking and different clinical techniques than were present at the time.

[00:24:44] So again, I think in the communications world it was a pretty typical playbook. But the way we did it, it was more my tried and tested approach. Go to the biggest market we can find and see what they are doing. And yeah, that’s there was a procession of global speakers actually that we brought to the UK in a time where the NHS dominated, where major league speakers weren’t really coming to the UK. So we became well known for that attitude and the stakes were quite high. Payman So if we could get 600 people in the room all paying, we could afford it. But if we didn’t, obviously it was a typical business risk that that would end up hurting. So again, and it’s really something that played out many times over the years, us against our rivals. Our rivals just wouldn’t do it. It was too much of a risk where I would do it every day of the week if I could. And, you know, I’m a risk taker and want to push to the boundaries and it went really well.

[00:25:55] So when you look back to those events, the couple that spring to mind that I was at was there was a Larry one. Rosenthal one that was packed. It was completely packed. It was I’d never seen an event that big in the industry before. And then I remember one of those world aesthetic Congresses that just I can’t I don’t know how many people there were, but it was it was a two or three days or something, wasn’t it whack? Was it two days or three days?

[00:26:24] Two days, two days?

[00:26:26] And it was it was an expensive ticket. I remember thinking that’s like that’s a new price for a ticket at the time. And there was hands on. There was there was five rooms of hands. So on it was like it was something bigger than a standard kind of BCD conference that you might go to today. It was it was a big, big, big event with excellent, you know, a V, your staff uniform, did a good food little drink at the end. And, you know, there was a moment there where I remember thinking, you know, we’d started doing a few events here and there, and I was running around sweating. And I remember looking at you and you were just totally calm and cool during these events.

[00:27:10] Yeah.

[00:27:11] Thinking back to those days, what are some of the highlights in your head? I mean, those in my head.

[00:27:15] But I think we share those moments. So they were great times and my philosophy in people is invest in people, support your people and let them let them do their thing. So in those moments they ran the show and I was just there enjoying it. So that was terrific feeling mean. It was a great feeling to feel that we were leading the line in terms of original speakers and a little bit of sex appeal was a bit of showbiz was coming into the sector. That just wasn’t evident before. People were also obviously getting a buzz out of it, the delegates that is, and didn’t begrudge spending the money which was. Expensive for a day, but it was really a lovely yeah, it’s a great period of time and certainly in my development it was it was great to see the team that I’d put together, use their individual skills to make these things really special. And I think the more I got involved, the worse it would have become. So I just stood back and enjoyed it. Yeah, and that’s really how it works.

[00:28:21] Ken, would you say you said you’re a risk taker. But where do you think that comes from?

[00:28:28] I think in Scotland it’s quite a conservative country by nature. So those of us who who are a little bit more in are not many of us as a percentage. But if you if you want to really sort of self-selecting, if you want to move on or try something different, you have to just take risks. The markets are too small in most sectors in Scotland to get anywhere. And therefore I just think I just have a competitive appetite to push myself. And leaving home, leaving. I live in South Africa when I first came to Britain on my own. I’d just like to try really hard and it just becomes part of the territory. I don’t want to have a conservative easy life. I just don’t. I want to do the best I can do so. But why? Just think it’s an instinct. Payman.

[00:29:21] You know, I mean, was your dad in business or something?

[00:29:24] My dad is in business. Yeah, he he was in corporate life. He’s a director of a large international company. And then he founded our family business, which is still going to this day.

[00:29:37] What was that?

[00:29:38] It’s a hospitality, training and restaurant business based in Australia. So he is an entrepreneur, very corporate to start with, and then entrepreneur then it’s just something that we like having a go at things and just I think very competitive by nature, just an instinct. I mean, I still play sport to this day and sometimes I ask myself, why do I do it? And it’s not for the love of the sport. It’s just I just like the challenge and winning, if possible. Frequently, not frequently. Not winning, but I’ll always have a crack at it, and I always believe I will win even when I don’t. But it’s quite a shock to me when I trudge off a loser having thought I win to the very last minute. But yeah, I think it’s instinctive. I do.

[00:30:27] How important do you think that is? I mean, it’s weird because you can’t it hasn’t got weight. You can’t hold it. It’s not it’s not a it’s not a it’s not a tangible asset. Confidence is kind of what you’re saying, right? That sort of. But at the same time, it’s so super important when when you when you’re doing something, the idea that that sort of optimism is one way of putting it, but it’s more than that. It’s confidence that you’re going you’re going to win it. This thing. How important do you think that is to have that attitude before you start a thing, a venture of any sort? I mean, when when you guys said you’re going to do education, I can imagine you saying, okay, we’re going to win it this year. How important is that moment, that that moment when you think that.

[00:31:10] Well, I guess it’s pretty damn significant. You don’t think it, though? I mean, you just I mean, my mantra internally would be, we will approach this and we will give it our very, very best effort. And the belief is it will work. You know, that’s really how it goes. I suppose the Avis we try harder notion pretty much sticks with everything we do. You know, we try harder, but we like to think the idea was strong to start with. So if you marry a good idea with a lot of effort, it should work out well. And I’d go into pretty much everything thinking that.

[00:31:46] Yeah, but, but you know, the kind of person who has a good idea isn’t necessarily the kind of person who organises for, you know, massive effort and efforts. A funny word, but you know what I mean. The ops guy isn’t usually the same person as the ideas guy. So which one of you are you both? Were you the ideas guy?

[00:32:06] I’d say. I’m not very creative in my ideas are always pretty basic and likely to work and I take them from from the experts so I suppose I’ll put it into practise. You know, you mould it to the sector, but the idea is pretty damn obvious to start with. And I suppose I’m a practical thinker, not an original or creative thinking. So it didn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with the idea, but in order to make it work, you had to really graft. Yeah.

[00:32:39] Even even in the when I, when I pay attention to the way you guys operate in terms of the copy, when, when I say copy, I don’t mean the editorial copy. I mean, I don’t know. You’re trying to sell me something. Yeah, that that that never works. We’ll talk about that later. But but the copy, the follow up process, process wise, yeah. I’ve noticed over the years the people might have changed. There’s some now there’s some young kid doing something. Yeah, but the process is actually the same process as you are following before. It’s a tried and tested process. So you, the guy who sort of was the architect of that process and do you get involved in the very words themselves or or as they’re someone else? How how did it all come about this this this thing?

[00:33:35] Well, there’s about 40 of us in the business right now. And, no, I don’t get involved in the processes at all. And I don’t even understand them. I don’t really understand them, frankly. And I don’t, you know, a bit like you saw me at the conferences. I don’t really understand exactly what’s going on. Yeah. I mean, I really believe in people and try my best to support them and make sure that they can be the best of themselves. So if they’ve got the role of producing things, then they’ll make that process for themselves and and hopefully excel at it. I would say there is a fairly significant evolution there. I don’t quite know what it is, but it’s certainly more more digital and tech oriented than it used to be. A lot of it’s automated, whereas it never was before. But it’s really again, that that’s one of the reasons I think why we’ve managed to hang on in there as long as we have, is that the people really drive it through their own areas, not it’s not me and I just want to make sure that I keep them as upbeat as possible and support them as best I can so that they want to do that. And then it’s their effort and initiative rather than mine.

[00:34:50] Well, you’ve always attracted good people and kept good people, and I guess, you know, developed good people. What’s what’s what’s your view on recruitment and how do you pick these people? Where do you find them and what are you looking for when you’re hiring?

[00:35:04] Well, I think I mean, we’ve made many mistakes, too, but hopefully, on balance, the recruitment process works. But with your business payment to all businesses that survive, I think the essence of the business is its culture. And therefore the people coming in need to mould to that culture rather than the other way around. And, you know, that sort of drives itself and it moulds and develops people because they in order to fit in at FMC, you’ll have to try hard. You’ll have to be fairly accommodating of your of your peers and contemporaries, and therefore they become FMC people. I’d say that’s why the momentum continues to be good, because the ones that don’t fit you probably never got to know payment because it just didn’t work. The ones that do fit stay long term and and add to the culture and develop the business that way.

[00:36:03] But how much do you get involved in in I mean, at what level is Ken going to you’re going to meet Ken in an interview process.

[00:36:12] No. The answer to that? No, no, not.

[00:36:16] Even if you’re buying that, you’re getting yourself ahead of sales or something or you internally promote those guys.

[00:36:21] That guy’s been there for years. Yeah, but the. No, I mean, again, I mean, that’s really, I’m sure in practises across the country, certainly the ones I’ve met and what I do in my business too is it’s I just really back to people to make the decisions. So it’s no need for me to be there or to, to get involved in that and it doesn’t work very well in it. I’d be too strung out and meddling with people. People that in that work with me will will make their own decisions and hopefully get it right.

[00:36:59] Well, I mean, it’s interesting that, you know, you say culture. I find culture as a thing that just happens in a way. It’s like it’s such a buzz word, isn’t it? That’s sort of for me, though. The culture ends up being what it is. It’s I don’t go and sit there and say, Oh, I the culture here will be X and then make that happen. You know what I mean? I feel like it. It’s a reflection of who you are in a way.

[00:37:30] I think there’s a lot to be said for that, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I’m from I can still remember there’s early days of me sketching out how the company would look. And I am quite a planner in that sense and work ethic, you know, compatibility with one another, you know, going the extra mile, you know, trying to innovate on an ongoing and constant basis. They would be hallmarks from day one, I would say. And they still are, hopefully. And the people that fit the business will will work with those principles too.

[00:38:05] So I visited an office before your current office. The house.

[00:38:12] Yeah.

[00:38:13] Was that your first ever office or was there one before that as well?

[00:38:16] No, that was the first ever office. It was it was next to the funeral parlour, just across from Mill Hill. Broadway. Mill Hill. And. Yeah. And you know, you remember those first.

[00:38:29] You were bursting point when I first got there, so maybe that would have been.

[00:38:34] 2003 or something. We would have been happy to leave. I think 2000 won.

[00:38:42] You left in 2001?

[00:38:44] I believe so, yeah. I mean, the I had a picture in my mind’s eye of a basic rundown dilapidated office in the London postcode area. And that’s exactly what I got and that’s exactly what I wanted. And it really served us well. And I passed that office all the time. I have huge affection for it. The windows didn’t actually open at all and it was cheap and it served us really well. So yeah, that was lovely times there and it was a great triumph to leave though. And we bought our own offices in next to the Arsenal training ground in Hertfordshire and felt like we’d come of age, came in and we’re still there.

[00:39:28] And Ken, along the way you’ve sold this company and bought it back a couple of times.

[00:39:33] Yeah. I have. Well, as anybody who who set a business up knows, it’s a daunting process and you’re always in fear of it going pear shaped for whatever reason. And I’m no different to that. So basically we had a lot of success one day. I had four children at the time. I’ve still got four children, actually, but they were all under five and it’s very expensive and exhausting and all the things you get. And somebody offered me a significant amount of money out of the blue for what they thought was a burgeoning organisation. And in the moment I initially said we weren’t for sale as I read in the book, that’s what you’re supposed to say. And shortly afterwards I capitulated. But but it was really through fear, frankly. You don’t know what the future’s going to hold in store. And and I regretted that. Thankfully, I managed to stay in the company as an employee and did a management buyout the year later, which was an interesting exercise. And then I developed the business further. And a few years later, tragically, my dad died in Australia. As you know, running a business takes a lot of your time up and here we are 8:30 on a monday night and I felt very guilty that I let my dad down and that I hadn’t been there enough for him, even though he got on extremely well.

[00:41:02] And I thought to myself, I don’t need to put this level of effort in anymore. So I decided to sell the company again through an emotional connexion. And it was very, very sought after by the major media businesses in Britain at that time, and I didn’t think I’d ever come back payment. And then a few months after that I’d gotten over my dad’s passing and realised how much I regretted selling the company and was lucky enough to be able to repurchase it, which is where I am now. And that’s probably those two are regrets I have in business. You know, there’s no need to do that. You need to take a deep breath. You need to maybe go away for a bit. And which is what I did in my last tragedy, which, you know, you need to take a bit of time out that you don’t need to panic with the business. And I certainly learnt some lessons over the years this time.

[00:41:55] That was the time you sold to Springer Group, right?

[00:41:58] That’s correct, yes.

[00:42:00] So the process of selling to a giant organisation like that, though, I mean, that’s that’s a proper you must have gotten corporate finance people. I mean, they don’t buy companies quickly, do they. They kind of do do all their due diligence. And all that was it was it was a purposeful process. It wasn’t like someone just made you an offer you decided to sell.

[00:42:20] Yeah, it was a calculated process on my part.

[00:42:24] But I don’t think it was. Once you’d sold it, you felt like you made an error.

[00:42:28] Well, as I do in most things, it was a process, so I thought about it. Enlisted corporate finance. As you say, we did a beauty parade. It was all it was all planned and organised. And I’m delighted to say that nearly every major media business was interested in us at that point. And we finally sold to Springer, which is a multi-billion dollar organisation based in Berlin as a headquarters, but they’re all over the world. But the. Yeah, and quite frankly, I mean it was a, it was a seamless exercise. It just just went exactly like we’d hoped and planned. And it was a smooth process, actually. It’s only afterwards when you realise you’ve got nothing to do and no real purpose that you realise maybe that was a little premature and I’m much happier now.

[00:43:22] I fully understand the derisking thing that you’re talking about because a lot of times the business you’re teetering on the edge of becoming a multi-millionaire or becoming bankrupt at the same time is kind of a weird, weird feeling in business that you have because like you say, you take another risk even even even when things go very, very well, you can ruin it all with a very, very big risk. That was miscalculated. Right. So I do get that that sort of idea of sort of de-risk take some money off the table. But but I’ve never sold the company, so I don’t know how it feels. So is it that cliche thing that people talk about? Is that what it was that you felt empty and all that? And if it was, why didn’t you do something else? Like, why didn’t you open a restaurant or something? I know you’re not a restaurant guy, but you know. You know what I mean? Why? Why the same business again? Because you loved it so much.

[00:44:14] Well, the interesting thing there is I actually started multiple businesses after leaving.

[00:44:20] Oh, you did? Yeah. Go on.

[00:44:22] I realised how incapable I was at that over the course of some years. So you go back to what you’re good at? Yes. I’d had a lot of success and I enjoyed it a lot. I really do enjoy what I do. I mean, I have a lot of social time within the industry. You know, the great awards nights are great fun and and I missed all of that and I always had fairly good earnings as well. Over the years the company’s been been well positioned and profitable for a quarter of a century. But but I didn’t need much of anything and my life was just a lot more dull. So I started up by businesses. You know, some of them are still going, but.

[00:45:08] What would you call them? What did you do?

[00:45:11] Well, I started a. If you’ve ever.

[00:45:15] Heard of me.

[00:45:16] Pimlico Plumbers.

[00:45:19] Yeah.

[00:45:20] I didn’t start that. But I looked at the model really carefully and I decided to start a company called the London Tree Company.

[00:45:28] A tree surgery, I remember.

[00:45:29] Which is it was branded tree surgery for the the London brand, whereas much like Pimlico Plumbers did that for Up-Market London, that’s really where we’re going. We had contracts with Wembley Stadium and other aristocrats in the area, so but I realised how dangerous it was. The idea actually did work very well but it was a hell of a danger. So I decided to get out of that and on it goes. There’s a number of different things. I did an advertising agency, a PR company, some other things, and they were unfulfilling for me. I think for the people I was working with, it worked quite well and I’m very happy to that. But for me it wasn’t, quite frankly, I wasn’t a significant in what I was doing as the experiences that I’d enjoyed within the dentistry world. And and I really yearned for that without even realising it.

[00:46:25] Over the years, Ken Phelps’s had some stick over awards. Sometimes, I don’t know. You’re probably not part of the Facebook groups that I’m reading where these things come up, but I’m sure someone’s pointed it out to you where people worry about what’s it? What is it? They were, they weren’t. They worry about who says this practise is the most innovative practise or that that whole thing that people worry about with awards.

[00:46:53] Yeah, well, there’s a lot of Chinese whispers and talking in the corridors about it, and I understand that they really understand it just out of interest. The idea came from the media industry where FMC has been a regulator as well. We’ve entered the awards. We believe in the notion of being judged by our peers and and it’s a great feeling and uplifting for an enthusiastic business to get that accolade. And so we believe in the notion of it. So I introduce it to the industry because of that. And I knew the impact it could have on someone with, with, with a mentality to, to want to be appreciated, if you like, and to learn. And I realised also when we entered the Media Industry Awards that when you have to look at the entry forms and actually put down what you have actually achieved and what your standards are, then it does. Sometimes it’s quite an illustrative experience experiment where you think.

[00:48:03] Holds a mirror up to you, doesn’t.

[00:48:04] He? Yeah, that’s a great way of saying it. Payman You think we’re not as good in that as I thought we were? We need to try a bit harder to. I believe the process is one that benefits whoever does it, and I don’t care how good people are. If you really are looking holding the mirror up to your face and really examining the creases and cracks in your face, you might take some more action and maybe stay out of the sun a little bit more. But the you know, you learn from from the experience then then I mean, as you say, I hardly do any social media, I’m glad to say. But the I do hear time to time and people are entitled to their opinions. It’s absolutely fine. I go to these occasions, not always, but usually I go to the awards nights, the ecstasy on people’s faces and the practise enjoyment that they get. It’s just lovely to be part of and people enjoying their work and they’re their colleagues and enjoying the success that they feel they’re getting is lovely to be part of. And I feel quite. Listening for them, then I know the process as well. It’s where the zealots for making sure the process is above board. Several times. I mean, many, many times, to be honest. I’ve heard people saying if you don’t buy a table, you don’t win, and all that sort of stuff.

[00:49:32] And where does that come from? Well, I mean.

[00:49:34] But I think it’s just a misunderstanding. I mean, people just guessing that’s the case. And maybe a few people quite enjoy putting us down and stuck sticking that into the mix. And I’ve certainly seen that on LinkedIn and other things where people, some of whom have got a significant amount of influence, will see those sorts of things to try and do us down or get some sort of competitive advantage. They think it’s a shame though, because we don’t do that. And if anybody, for example, was to turn up to the private industry awards judging day, when something like 38 different luminaries from the sector are there poring through for hours on end the different submissions they’ve received, and if there’s any conflict of interest, they have to eliminate themselves and so on and so forth. It’s a it’s a tough process to do these things. And at the end of the day, Payman, you know, does the practise is it definitely the most innovative practise in Britain? Probably not. However, it will have tried hard and it will have innovated and it will have have progressed itself. And therefore, if they’re getting a positive reaction for that, I think is a great thing. There’s really no no harm done by it. And.

[00:50:55] Well well, I think we do need to in order to understand this. Yeah, we do need to separate the sort of the ridiculousness from the what could possibly a reasonable person be worried about this? Yeah. So the ridiculousness. I totally agree with you. I mean, the notion that you would try and fix this event from a from a business perspective is a complete, ridiculous idea. Why would you bother with that? It makes total sense for you, for the organisation organising the event to have nothing to do with picking the winner. Just it just does that, that separation just makes much more sense financially for a business. If profit is your only motive even. Yeah, but I guess what people are saying is something around patients. You know, patients are being misled by practises claiming they’re the best, whatever, be best young dentist, London or whatever. What do you say to that? I mean, I don’t even want you to refute it. I want I want you to understand it.

[00:51:56] Yeah. And I think if professionals are intent and hell bent on exaggerating their skill set to people and making a deal of it, they’ll do it. And the Instagram’s awash with such things and self-appointed experts or whatever that type of immoral approach happens, whether we do anything about it or not. If the guys win it through us or girls win it through us, well, at least they’ve gone through a rigorous judging process. And in the case of young dentists, there’ll be it’s probably the most popular area there is to enter. So in order to win in that area, you have to work very, very hard at your submission, if nothing else, and fooled a lot of people who are experienced and focussed on making the right decisions. So yeah, I mean we, we can’t go in everything and ensure that, that it’s, it’s the best it can possibly be. We do our, our utmost to, to judge it appropriately and zealously. And anybody that knows David Houston, for example, is a hell of a guy that cares the private industry awards. Nothing gets through that net unless it’s complied with every single thing that we can put their way. And as I say, if people want to be unscrupulous about anything and lie and cheat, they can.

[00:53:25] And they’re probably wrong for lying and cheating. I mean, they on their website say winner of London’s best young dentist, that’s not lying or cheating.

[00:53:34] That’s no. Well, if they’re one, then they’ve got through a rigorous process payment. And one suspects that in order to fool that many people, if that’s what they’ve done in other ways, either they are a very good dentist and they did win it and therefore they deserve that accolade because they did or they’ve duped a whole lot of people to get the accolade in the first place, if you see what I mean. I mean.

[00:53:55] I agree with you. Look in so much as far as the harm this might be doing. Yeah. When, when I walk past a curry house in, in Manchester and it says winner of the Curry of the year, whatever. I don’t think to myself this is the best. In the world. Yeah. Don’t I think. Well, this must be kind of a good curry because he’s won something. Yeah. Yeah, I think what the, the sort of the criticism that people level is that patients are in a, in a in a situation where, you know, they it’s a more important decision than than my curry. And they’re in a situation where they haven’t got any information at all or enough information because it’s a scientific subject and it’s a different lingo and all of that. And so patients come to rely on this instead of relying on other variables. But the thing is, you know, what other variables? What else is there a sensible person, if they’re going to find a new dentist, will talk to a friend who’s been they get a recommendation, right? That’s the right thing to do.

[00:55:00] Well, I say I mean they go through a rigorous process to Yeah.

[00:55:05] To withdraw the award in the first.

[00:55:06] Place and one surmises that the people that really aren’t up to it wouldn’t enter in the first place. It is a little self-selecting. That’s how it works in media as well. We don’t bother putting some of our things into the publishing wards. We know it’s not going to win, it’s not good enough. But some things we do think are good and we’ll self-select the best elements we have and sometimes we don’t enter, you know? So I feel that goes on to the other side of it is, is, yeah, you know, people will go on a myriad of different routes to make the decisions trustpilot and all sorts of other things. I don’t even know what they do, but you know, it’s a free country.

[00:55:46] I think it’s interesting as someone who who who would want to put themselves up for an award, it’s there’s a lot of downside here because unless you win. You didn’t win. So know you have to have respect for let’s say ten people put themselves up for best practise north or whatever it is, whichever the category is. Nine of those people are not going to win that and they’re going to go through the process and not win. And so the winner does deserve something, you know, some accolade there in beating those nine. But but for me, taking the risk in the first instance to even go into that thing, knowing that the chances are you’re not going to win it, you know, that that’s that’s the important thing. Let’s go on to the other controversial thing, which I think was your idea, right? The top 50. Was that your idea? Ken’s own idea. It was a bit controversial, too. Yeah. Do you understand the reasons for that?

[00:56:47] Yeah, I understand the reasons for it, and I also understand the level of misunderstanding that it throws up every year. And people believe they understand the process and they don’t. And somebody’s grandmother sister told them, this is what happens. And, you know, it’s not that at all. And then and then obviously, you guys on social media, you know, love throwing, you know, ridiculous notions out there about it. You know, some some people do. Anyway, the the reality of the history of that just, you know, was the Sunday Times. Yeah. The most popular edition of the Sunday Times annually is The Rich List. So I was inspired by that. I saw I was fascinated by it. And, and, and then I thought, well, how could we do that within our sector? You know, and I thought through a few areas and then I came up with a brainwave. I say that slightly sarcastically, the naive notion that we would just ask the dental world to vote for who they figure was having the best or most significant impact. And we could create a list through that. And I naively believe that to be an irrefutable way forward after two or three years. And I would always meet the person who came out top and it was it started off a few hundred people. It ended up being thousands and thousands of votes. It became probably the most popular thing in the dental media all year with that list. Love it or loathe it.

[00:58:22] Anyway, everyone’s going to read the list, aren’t they? Every that day your website gets the most hits or whatever they do. You mention also.

[00:58:31] Payman. You know, to a certain extent our job is to create audience and to create, you know, traction with people. You know, people can take from it what they will. But we need to build as big an audience as we can, and we want to do it appropriately. But if some people don’t like it, it’s not not a disaster for us, frankly, anyway, the I must say the funny side of it. So I would take the winner of the list to lunch every year. I mean, they probably didn’t even want to do it with me, but they usually go along with it anyway. So I remember meeting one of the winners in the early years, and I believe in this list 100% at that point in time. And then over lunch, the person who obviously shall remain nameless said to me, Yeah, I worked really hard to get that. I said, You worked hard. How did you do that? I said, Well, I spoke to as many people and wrote to as many people as I could to generate the the and I had no idea that this was going on. And it became evident to me that it was corruptible. And frankly, that wasn’t used to me at that point. I thought before that it was just an innocent sort of reaction from people. So we’ve been evolving it ever since and trying to to cut out the sort of people using, you know, IP addresses from abroad and all sorts of stuff that goes on and lobbying and all sorts of stuff. And at least as it stands today, payment, I believe it’s out very shortly. We actually.

[01:00:02] Am I on it but.

[01:00:03] You you you might be. I’ve not been to the office for many months. For all I know you are on it. I might as well.

[01:00:12] We should do though. You should. You should, you should. You should make your own note. Did you used to do this? That was it. Like there was the top 50 and then these were the next 50 GS to do that?

[01:00:23] Yeah, I think we did do that.

[01:00:25] We expanded out, make 50 more people happy as well, you.

[01:00:28] Know what I mean? Well, we meant well, but now, now just for the record payment and I’m quite happy to say this to the however many hundred people listen to it, but the the the one coming out shortly is, is really it’s our view as dentistry where where we spend our lives listening, watching, seeing who’s creating an impact, seeing who’s coming through. We mean well. And there is no ranking in the list anymore. It’s 50 people who we feel have made a big impact, some mostly for good reasons, some through infamy. But but the idea of the list now is, oh, is it changed?

[01:01:09] It’s not a it’s not a voted thing.

[01:01:11] Well, people can vote, which gives us some currency to look at. But the editorial board and the office, I mean, I’m not part of it, but the office themselves sit down and think about whether payment Langroudi should be on that list or not. And I don’t know Payman I actually have no idea. As usual in my life, I don’t know what who’s on the list, but I know, I know the positioning of it is, is, is around some fireworks going on is is who’s made an impact. And it’s 50 people who we believe deserve to be recognised for having that impact. And if anyone’s going to criticise it, they can say it directly to us because we’ve picked it. We’ve been helped by people out there in the UK saying We think this person, we think that person and they voted. But but we’re making it clear that it’s it’s not just the list. It’s not just about it.

[01:02:06] I mean, can any time you do anything significant, there’s going to be some sort of unintended consequence of that. It’s just you just take that for granted once you get.

[01:02:15] Your head above the parapet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:02:18] Even even a simple, I don’t know, a simple performance related pay scheme that I put in for my sales people in. In the end, that itself produces some unintended consequence. Sure. And then you try and address that and then it produces a new identity because like anything you do does have an unintended consequence sometimes in media. I guess one of the things is that you’ve got you’ve got a lot of people who feel like they can attack it. You know, that’s I guess.

[01:02:49] Exactly. And I suppose if you’re trying really hard, you’ll have a few more people having a puppet you than than if you didn’t. I mean, there are media out there that I never hear people complaining about anything they do, and I don’t seek it. But if people are making a deal, if the industry 50 list is not necessarily a bad thing payment and I know our heart is in the right place, we’re trying to help and I think generally speaking it does have a positive impact and that’s as good as we can do, but we can’t always get it 100% right. But we’ll try our best, but also to innovate. You know, the old thing about let’s do some market research, let’s ask people what they want. They don’t know what they want. We have to take a gamble and and.

[01:03:35] I’d say that was a very successful gamble. Is it can.

[01:03:38] Yeah.

[01:03:39] Mostly, yeah. Tell me about mistakes you’ve made and things you would have done differently. You undersold it twice.

[01:03:48] Yeah, they’re the biggest mistakes. I thought about that over the last night when I was considering this podcast. I didn’t need to do that. I lost a few years of my life in the wilderness as a consequence and actually Payman in a candid note, when I wasn’t in the sector doing, you know, I worked pretty hard and I don’t go to the office anymore, but I’m still working all the time. It is I wasn’t as purposeful in life in general and the consuming world that I live in with this small organisation that I’ve developed, it takes a lot of concentration and is a good thing for me as a human being. I think so. I do. It’s the biggest mistake I made. I don’t regret it, but it was a mistake for sure. No need for that.

[01:04:36] What would you say? What would you say is your biggest weakness as an operator?

[01:04:41] I’d say. It helped me hugely through my career, but I’m a hell of a tolerant guy.

[01:04:50] I’m the weakness.

[01:04:51] Yeah. I’m the most tolerant guy I know. Now, you imagine being in the same job for 78 years or something like that. Payman If you’re if you’re a very, very tolerant person, as I would say I am, then that that can that can cause trouble. It typically works, but it’s it’s you know, it can’t be construed as a weakness.

[01:05:14] No, you’re right. I mean, a lot of times your biggest strength is your biggest weakness as well. Yeah. You know, you could say, hey, I’m a kind guy, but then two kind in work doesn’t work either, does it? Yeah, that’s the thing.

[01:05:26] So I’d say that. Yeah.

[01:05:28] I want to talk about what you think is going to be the future of dentistry and the sort of the short to medium term. You’ve got a unique sort of position if you’ve watched it, do what it’s done in the last 25 years.

[01:05:43] I’m really excited. Payment for the sector. I’m really excited. I think if you look at the per capita spend on dentistry in UK compared to Germany, compared to Spain, compared to Italy, compared to France, we are way down. I know that the NHS has played a significant role in that, but I believe that the population is prepared to invest more heavily in dentistry and that throws up huge opportunities for for dentists and dental professionals. And training is going to play a huge part in that. Skill development is going to play a huge part in that learning and listening to the innovations. But, you know, it’s just it’s a really exciting place to be. When I look at my children, all of whom are in their twenties, they all have dental work in progress. They’re all their peer group. Their friendship group has. And I think me at that age and my friendship group, we weren’t doing anything in that area. And it’s and they love it and they’re enjoying these developments. And I think there’s so much to be excited about in terms of of private and cosmetically oriented dentistry. There’s a huge demand I know the Conservatives are in in terms of type of person. I don’t particularly like that notion, but I think consumer demand is massive for that and appropriately done and ethically done. You know, dentists can help even more people be more happy and more confident in life than ever. And there’s good revenue to be had there too, if done really well.

[01:07:24] See, can I get where you’re coming from? Regarding, I don’t know. A waitress in a bar was, was, was offering me a drink and she was wearing Invisalign. Yeah. And, and that’s a £4,000 treatment or whatever it is. And you’re right, 25 years ago, no waitress was spending £4,000 on her teeth. No way at all. But you grew up a bit in South Africa and you recognise what I’m saying about in some countries because there hasn’t been an NHS or for whatever reason it’s clear people save up for their teeth or they buy insurance for their teeth or you know, that people think I’m going to have to spend money on braces for my child. It’s in the culture, it’s there. Whereas here that you feel like, you know, it translates the fact that that waitress is buying the cosmetic thing. Do you feel like now we’re at a sort of inflexion point where more of the population will will actually think that I’m going to save up for my teeth? Absolutely. You know, we’re not there in health care and I actually don’t want it to get there in health care necessarily. But in dental, you think there is that inflexion can happen?

[01:08:39] That is my take on it and the research that we do amongst the profession to ascertain what are the trends, what are you being asked to do more of, what are people coming in and asking for all points towards that as well? There’s going to be geographic differences and variances for sure. But I was in Edinburgh yesterday, my daughter’s at Edinburgh University and you know, the brighter, whiter Smile was very much in evidence there. And I went to school in Edinburgh too for a bit and it wasn’t, it wasn’t evident then, but the I can assure you, and I feel that there’s a lot of doom and gloom in the world, in Britain and everywhere about, you know, after the pandemic. And it’s going to be terrible and things are going to go back. And I don’t see it. I just think that I’m very excited about what’s going to happen in UK dentistry over the next few years and see me through my career. I believe that it’s going to be higher up the priority list in the population and you know, there’s great opportunities for dental professionals and media for that matter in that development and I can’t see any other options. I can’t see going the other way.

[01:09:46] I mean, one thing we can be clear on overall. Covid was very good for the professional. It’s a weird thing to say, but it’s true. And so you’ve been through how many recessions now? 2001, 2008? There was one before that, wasn’t there? You’ve been through you’ve watched the profession go through three recessions, at least. And if there is one around the corner, what’s your view? What’s your what’s your advice to young? I mean, there’s going to be some dentists who’ve never seen recession, right?

[01:10:20] Yeah.

[01:10:21] Well, as a profession, we seem to fare okay in a recession. Do you agree?

[01:10:26] I’ve not seen the same major problems in dentistry the whole time I’ve been in the sector. Yeah, frankly, I mean, we hear in the national media, but dentistry has never been particularly hard hit. It’s as far as I’m aware. And my thinking in terms of young dentistry going forward is the diversification of offering. So segment the local community into different types and target those different groups rather than specialising in one element is to offer, you know, the older people such as myself our type of care, the younger 20 something group, a different type of care and so on and so forth. So by segmenting the options, I’m just convinced that there’s a fantastic ethical and business model for young dentistry better than there ever was. And more satisfying to the amount of dentists that’s spoken to me is that, you know, I still much prefer the way it is now because I can implement skill set skill levels that when I just used to do NHS dentistry I just couldn’t do and it’s much more fulfilling, is nice to hear. So I think it’s a blend of that, but I think it’s, it’s very good times ahead.

[01:11:40] When at the end of our time can. I do want to talk about Kimberly, your co-founder, your wife in many ways the heart and soul of FMC, who was taken by COVID, one of the first UK citizens to be taken by COVID before the first lockdown.

[01:12:00] Yeah.

[01:12:03] Was losing her meant to the to the company and then with the family, the kids and all that.

[01:12:10] Yeah. I mean, losing Kimberly was an absolute. In a disaster for us in every element of her life, business, personally, the children and so on. Her memory lives on, though. You know, we talked about culture earlier in our Kimberleys. Culture runs right through the middle of that business to this day. It’s a very generous, very creative individual. And, you know, we still are inspired by that on an ongoing basis, you know, and I think that like it would with me, I think payment, you know, if I was to to pass away tomorrow, I think the business would be fine for the fullness of time. But the the it’s hard the children very, very hard. She’s terribly missed. And the there’s not much more you can say but in the business and what we do there, I think her effect will be there for the long term. One of the things I’m very proud of, though, you were a great support of this payment. Many, many people were. Is that in communities memory, we managed to raise a significant amount of money and her memory has has has meant that we’ve been able to purchase a significant bus for Dent Aid, which will have Kimberly’s name on the front of it and will help homeless people, people that need dental treatment across the country for many, many years to come as well. And that’s very comforting for me and the children, the people at FMC as well, that that.

[01:13:51] Kimberly’s.

[01:13:52] In essence of her, we’ll be driving around the country helping people as she did when she was alive.

[01:14:02] I’m sure she’ll be missed. I’m sure she’ll be missed. She really was a life force. Was. That, as I say, the first person I met at FMC. Yeah. And, you know, I hope your kids are managing. We end it with the same questions every time can. You open your mind to some fancy dinner party? Three guests. Dead or alive?

[01:14:33] Dead or alive? Well, you mentioned him earlier. A huge power in the world. Spiritual force. Gandhi. I think spending time with someone like that would be amazing and inspiring and. That’s that’s something I also really enjoy and enjoyed. I don’t know if he’s if he’s on as much as he used to be. There’s a rabbi called Jonathan Sacks, who and.

[01:15:01] Another rabbi, Radio four.

[01:15:04] And again, I just love the thinking. I love the the way the way he sees things. And any time with wise people of that nature, it’s just. Inspiring. And the third one would be I’ll just take Kimberly back for that moment. And she’s such a humorous, wise, fun, energetic, lovely person to be around. I think we’d have it nailed with those three.

[01:15:38] Perhaps. Final question. On your deathbed. Three pieces of advice for your loved ones.

[01:15:47] Well, I felt like I’ve been there, but I managed to get away with it. But I’m still I’m still here. So. So the mantras that I try to preach to my kids are you. Be you. Just be yourself, but be the best of yourself. So make sure you just leave your imprint. A favourite one for me. Payman. Which again obviously I do talk to my kids all the time and as a single parent is really key at this time to do that. But the I don’t like the notion of worry at all either. Don’t worry about anything. Take action where the problems are. And lastly and obviously I’ve had the pain, as we all have in life, losing people and so on, and just love the people around you and love the day you’re in because you never know what’s going to happen. So make sure you show them and enjoy them. And even in yourself, make sure that day is a winner and you take a lot from it because we all take things for granted and there’s no such thing as perpetuity. So we need to make it make it work.

[01:17:06] Well, that’s lovely, man. Ken, thank you so, so much for doing this. You one of the biggest inspirations in my career. You continue to be as well. I really, really enjoyed that conversation very much. And thank you. Thank you for being so open about everything.

[01:17:24] It’s a pleasure payment and about that art deal that we’re talking about.

[01:17:28] Yeah, yeah. Find me on that. Yeah.

[01:17:34] Make sure that I got you say yes. You said a clear yes there.

[01:17:40] Yeah.

[01:17:41] Well, thanks for having me on payment. It’s been great. And you know, I’ve got everything to thank the dental world for and I have a great life and lots of, you know, I enjoy myself as much as I can. And in my work time and my evenings with with the with the profession and is everything to me. So it’s great to be featured.

[01:18:02] Absolutely, man. Real inspiration. But thank you. Thank you so much for doing this.

[01:18:08] 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.

[01:18:24] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:18:38] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] And I think for me as a student now and obviously for even for the next ten years, I’m a young dentist and longer than that. But the amount that it’s opened my eyes to the world outside the dental school and bonded on days and by or by dentistry and just like it’s it’s absolutely ridiculous. And even just the little hints and tips you get, like inverting the rubber dam how to do a floss, floss tie. Like, you know, I just love it and all these things, you know, because it’s not that dental school doesn’t teach you dentistry. Well, I think for a little while I was kind of in that mindset that like the dental school doesn’t know what they’re doing and obviously they obviously do. But there’s just stuff that happens in the real world that dental school you can’t do or it doesn’t happen. And it’s nice to just have an appreciation and an understanding of that to prepare yourself for when you do get that.

[00:00:57] This is dental Leaders the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:15] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Adam Lawson onto the podcast. Adam has the questionable honour of being the first ever Dental student on this podcast. Hopefully we’ll get some more going later on. Adam’s come on to my radar because of his positive small club content that he puts on Instagram where he’s actually been interviewing some of the top people around himself. But what I really love about his content and your content, Adam, is, you know, it’s very sort of bite size. It kind of hits the questions, kind of the opposite of this show of where where were you born or whatever it goes and gets right to the point, you know. And it’s actually it’s one of my favourite pages. I actually go to it whenever whenever I see it, I definitely pay attention to it. So I just want to talk to you about that, but also about what it’s like to be a dental student today, particularly with COVID as well. Another another another angle on it. Welcome to the show. But, you.

[00:02:20] Know, thank you so much for having and I really appreciate that that feedback and the idea I have masses of I guess imposter syndrome right now being the first student but also really excited. And you know, as I said, I listen to this podcast religiously, so to be to be on it is amazing. So thank you for the invite.

[00:02:38] My pleasure. Really. My pleasure. So tell me about. I know we normally start with where were you born and all that, but what’s it like right now to be a dental student? What’s what’s what what are some of what’s what’s on your radar? I know you’re not a typical dental student because you seem connected to a lot of dentists already. But what was going through your head?

[00:02:59] It’s difficult. I mean, I’m in my fourth year now and I speak to the rest of the people on my. Yeah. And we’re all kind of of the opinion that we’re behind where previous fourth years would be. I mean if I give myself as an example, I’ve taken no impressions on patients, I’ve never done a crown, I’ve never done a root canal, I’ve done no dentures, I’ve done three fillings. So, you know, I think we’re all feeling fairly behind and we’re all expecting a very difficult and intense final year because, you know, the usual three or four years of clinical experience that you get are all being squeezed into that final year. And the uni kind of like shoving you out the door and then you’re the the PhD practises problem and I can’t say that for every dental student in every university, but I have, I do speak to some of the students at other universities and they are also experiencing similar things.

[00:03:50] Is the university got a plan in place for giving you more experience in the final year or not? You an idea?

[00:03:58] I mean, because we start outreach soon. Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to be too difficult on them because they are in a difficult situation. But, you know, we haven’t you know, we haven’t got afternoon or evening clinics or weekend clinics and we haven’t been told. But yeah, I think for the for the yeah. Below me they’ve actually started on clinic and some of them in the, some of the people in the block kind of getting ahead of people in our Yeah. That people are getting a little bit miffed about but I think, I guess they have to get it back to normal at some point. And I think I guess our year and the year above really the years that have been the worst affected.

[00:04:32] Yeah. So exactly how much did you miss. I mean talk me through it. Tell me through when, when, when lockdown happened, you guys went home. Was the university equipped? Obviously was wasn’t equipped to give you online lectures yet, was it or did it do that straight away?

[00:04:49] No. Yeah, of course. The outside, they were fairly quick to act, I think. So. Obviously, lockdown hit in March and that may be March to the end of that year to July. We didn’t do a hell of a lot, but Pulse starts in third year and we were back in Leeds, I was back based in uni and we were going in for labs. We had maybe one or two half days of labs a week and then we were given online lectures, online exercises. But I guess the main thing is the examinations have been different, so we haven’t had an in-person exam since first year and now in fourth year. And I think, you know, you can imagine the differences between an in-person exam where it’s being invigorated and one at home where no one’s watching. You can use your notes and the uni knows that we’re using our notes. So I think the level of understanding as well and the kind of exams and the stress of that for sure to learn.

[00:05:39] So what happens? They send you the paper and you can in your own time do I think we’ve just answer it without any of.

[00:05:46] The usually time the usually time time limit it assessment so it’s it’s an hour or two but up to now, all of them, it’s kind of been fair play to to use all the resources. So, you know, I think you kind of know for your own sanity going forward that if you’ve coasted all the way up till now, you’re going to have a really difficult fifth final, which you’re going to be on your arse a little bit, but it’s definitely possible to have done that.

[00:06:11] Uh, is anyone feeling as if you are passing?

[00:06:15] I think that. Well, well, it’s been very difficult to fail so far, but I think in the next year for finals, obviously finals have to be invigorated. You have to be up to a certain standard. Yeah, that’s what we’re all not kind of worried about. But it’s yeah, it’s definitely there’s definitely concern that people are not reaching the totals. People, if they are reaching the totals or maybe not feeling confident in themselves to go out and be a good PhD. And you know, but I guess the more I speak to PhDs and graduate dentist is kind of the thing that people say about passing your driving test is that you learn to drive once you’ve passed your driving test.

[00:06:51] So it’s true, but it’s true it over worry yourself. You worry yourself because you know, in the first month of PhD, you end up one ends up doing more clinical dentistry than the five years before. So it’s the same it was that, that that feeling was there for all of us. I get why you’ve got a bigger problem than the rest of us who didn’t have COVID. Tell me while we’re on the subject of COVID. Socially. What’s it meant? I mean, I’ve been thinking this question quite a lot. Yeah. Like who’s been worst affected socially and clearly your group. I mean, I remember thinking, God damn, if I was in Union Year one or two or three, it would just break my heart.

[00:07:36] Yeah. No, I mean my year. Luckily we so we kicked off towards the end of second year. So we had a full freshers year. We had quite a lot of second year. But I think the main thing it’s kind of done is really kind of when I was at the dental school, when I first started, it felt like the whole dental school was together the first years, the fifth year, second year everyone knew each other. And now because basically the first year and the second year is, you know, some of them. I mean, I think they have some of them haven’t even stepped foot in the dental school because if you’re not in if you’re not in labs and you’re not in clinic, there’s no lectures anymore. No one kind of knows each other. And I think that’s been the main impact is that and also it leads what used to happen is the second year is used to assist the fourth years, the third year used to assist the fifth year. So everyone knew each other through that as well. So I think that is kind of sad and obviously then it affects the social element in terms of like when you go out over the years kind of stick to each other because people know less people in the other years.

[00:08:29] Yeah.

[00:08:29] And obviously you learn from each other as well.

[00:08:31] You haven’t been able to go out as much. Right. And uni, that’s a big factor in your life where you want to. You know, it’s funny because it’s not. Yeah, it’s not, it’s not only about going out and getting drunk and all of that, you know, you find yourself in those, in those moments, right? I mean if you if you put your mind back to when you were 15 year old and then when you were a 17 year old, and then when you’re a 19 year old, there’s re-invention happening in each of those moves. And the one at uni is almost the most important one, isn’t it? Because you can literally reinvent to whoever else, whoever you want it to be, but if you haven’t had the opportunity, that’s tough, man. It’s tough. That said, difficult. That said, I was talking to different people. I was thinking about my parents. You know, the end of their life they’ve got every day is super precious. And yet two years have been taken away. And I was wondering about this question and you know, who’s worse off? And we’re all valley of whatever. And I spoke to one of my customers and she said she’s got a two year old baby. And she said, oh, he’s ever known his covered from the day he’s been born. He’s seen masks, you know, and you think, what’s that going to do to to to that baby?

[00:09:48] Of course. Yeah, 100%. And almost, you know, we almost kind of felt a little bit privileged as as dental students. And the fact that during COVID, we were still able to go into the building they still put on, you know, the older years were in clinics. We were still in labs. We were still able to see maybe 15 to 20 people. Some of our friends, as everyone else at the uni was told to go home, don’t come in. And all of that work was online. So, you know, we were hit, but, you know, we were a little bit lucky in some ways as well.

[00:10:19] Tell me about Buddy. Take me back to childhood. Where were you born? Where did you grow up? What kind of kid?

[00:10:24] We so I grew up in Bury North Manchester. I had, you know, and obviously I had to fill in this this question was coming from less than. But, you know, I did I had a really loving, supportive childhood. I think I was quite a gifted child. And I think in my own head was growing up a little bit more because I didn’t go to the best schools. So, you know, there wasn’t many kids who academically or, you know, picking things up were at the same level as me, who had the same aspirations of me. So, you know, I think it gave me actually gave me a lot of confidence in terms of like if I put my mind to something, I can do it and, you know, have big aspirations and, you know, you’re kind of more able than the other kid. So, you know, you can do stuff and do do something with your life. So, you know, I didn’t see it as a particularly bad thing.

[00:11:11] Wow. How young were you when you first thought that? Thought probably like.

[00:11:16] I can imagine. I can remember. Sorry, in like year one, like knowing like my whatever two or three times tables quicker than the other kids. And we used to like play games against each other. Who can get the answer fastest? And I think really I did clock like, you know. Yeah.

[00:11:30] And which kid are you? Are you the oldest faster. The youngest. Youngest. So did you get like.

[00:11:36] Yes, I’ve got I’ve got one sister.

[00:11:38] Did you get like positive feedback from your parents? Like, you know, with with parents, you sort of you start pigeonholing your kids, you say, oh, he’s the clever one. And then the kid sees that and then, you know, decides it’s going to be more clever and try harder. As you say, she’s the funny one or he’s the sporty one. Did your parents support that? Was it did it go on the agenda? He’s an achiever.

[00:12:01] I think possibly. I think that that could be the case. I mean, my sister, she just she qualified as a dentist. Oh, really? But she was more the hard worker. So we both ended up really getting the same grades in the end. But I was always the smart one and she was the one who had to absolutely graft and. Like You cannot teach us. But the teachers loved her. She did her homework. She spent hours up in a room doing work while I was kind of stuck playing on my X-Box. But yeah, I think it could definitely you could have bought into that.

[00:12:28] So how is it you both ended up in dentistry? Do you have family? Connexions?

[00:12:33] Yeah, I mean, that’s the question. When I tell everyone, that’s the question I get all the time. And now we don’t we don’t really have anyone medically related in the family. I think my grandfather was an optician, but and the thing was that even like although we both ended up doing well in education, my, my mom is like it was education was like, you must do this. You must do a certain profession. It was kind of like, do what you want. And you know, even if I kind of didn’t do my homework, my mom wasn’t like, you need to do this. You need to do this. I think, you know, and we were quite lucky that both of us kind of applied ourselves and wanted to work hard and do well.

[00:13:09] And you like what you’re saying. Your parents didn’t push you hard, like this normal story we hear on this podcast.

[00:13:17] No, no, I love that. Not at all. Obviously, like.

[00:13:20] Yeah, it was good. Tell me then explain it to you. Just what happened, did you decided yourself you were going to try and be really good? I love that.

[00:13:30] Yeah, I think for me, I think I think part of it was probably validation from the other kids. Like, I wanted to impress the kids, I wanted to impress my teachers. And I also I wanted to, you know, do do something impressive myself. And I think, you know, that’s where it came from. And I’m not saying my parents I wouldn’t say my parents were pushy, but they also were very supportive. Like, for example, my sister used to play football for Man United as a kid. I was a squash academy in Manchester and they they and my parents and the rest of the family kind of drove us all up and down the country, watching us, taking us to training three or four times a week. So, you know, we had a lot of support, but we were never pushed to do sports, never pushed to do well academically.

[00:14:13] What would your parents do?

[00:14:15] My mom does not control. I think they make a company, they make firemen’s uniforms. And my dad is an office manager at a law firm.

[00:14:29] Oh. So, listen, man, when looking at your content that you put out on on on Instagram, you’ve got an obvious fascination with self improvement. And, you know, that whole genre and there are books and there’s, you know, I guess you’re brought up on YouTube or whatever it was. Yeah. When when did that start? Was that in childhood? Was that before university? Was that was that during is that very recent thing?

[00:14:56] No, it’s difficult to say. It definitely was early on. I think I always wanted to improve myself. And as you say, I think not that I never fit in, but I think I always had this feeling that like and it maybe it may be due to a wanting kind of validation from other people, but just wanting to improve myself, wanting to be able to do better. And it kind of ties into the reason I wanted to. I ended up choosing to do dentistry and obviously my sister did it and she said, Oh, I’m enjoying the course and it’s a good profession. But like I wasn’t anyway the most naturally extroverted person. I’m actually not very naturally good with my hands and I was very aware of that before going into dentistry. But you know, I wanted to have that growth and I wanted to challenge myself.

[00:15:39] I bet you didn’t say that in your dentistry interviewed you?

[00:15:43] No, I didn’t know. But, you know, it’s like, yeah, I just waffle wheel full of heart. I mean, we had there was an origami station at my dental school interview and and it was at Leeds and I have no idea how I got in because it just ended up as a massive spoonful ball of paper and it was meant to be a penguin. So I thought that was clearly obvious as well.

[00:16:03] So was it that your sister had gone into? She was happy. Was that the reason why you picked dentistry? What were you thinking of? Something else.

[00:16:10] I mean. So, yeah, I don’t think I would have considered dentistry if my sister hadn’t gone and done it. And, you know, she looked like she was enjoying it. But, you know, it was it literally was. And I remember thinking at the time, like, I was fairly confident that I’d be able to get the grades that I wanted. And with that, I could do anything I wanted. And I wasn’t being pushed by my parents to go in a certain career direction. I could choose one. I remember really deeply thinking about what I want to do with my life, because this next decision was really going to determine where my life went. And as I grew up, I was always told, No, you’re really good at maths, you should do something to do with maths. And you know, as I thought about, I realised that if I did the maths thing I don’t feel like I’d have fulfilled my potential as a person. You know, the people you kind of get on a maths degree is very different to the type of people you go on and then instead of going into it like that, I’d have become and stayed that kind of more reserved nerdy guy if I’d gone down that degree. And I think also I and I also kind of realised in my job I wanted to directly contribute to something. I mean I looked at like maybe doing a stock, being a stockbroker or an actuary, but like I didn’t in 20, 30, 40 years time, you know, what have I actually contributed to? And, you know, who were who I hoped. And that that for me, I think also was a big factor in kind of going like, you know, doing that it should be would be really cool.

[00:17:32] Were you the kind of guy who then then went and did the due diligence and talk to dental students? Because for me, what I thought it was going to be compared to what it actually was completely different. I’m sure, you know, it’s a shock for everyone. It’s a surprise for everyone to to some extent. But it was nothing like what I thought. I had a brother in medical school, so he mentioned dissection and anatomy and these sort of things. But how different was it for you? I mean, as an expectation? I mean, it’s such a first thought. I thought university was going to be a whole different story, like something out of the movies, cool kids with cool orange cars and guitars and, you know, just a childish view of what that was going to be like. And then when I got to uni to dental school itself, it was like 50 times harder than I thought. Yeah. How was that for you? What was your expectation and what did it end up?

[00:18:28] So yeah, I mean, you know, as I was saying, it’s easy for me to have the idea that, you know, I’m going to be a dentist and I’m going to get all this personal growth. And, you know, I’m going to be a great communicator and I’m going to then become fantastic at working with my hands and all of this. And yeah, no, I stepped into labs in second year and I was the worst person. Yeah. In the laboratory every single week. And, but also, you know, that did actually start to really affect me. It affected my confidence. I’d be like really stressing if I’m going to pass these tests, if I’m actually in the end, if dentistry is for me and if I’ve made the right decision and you know, really it lockdown came for me as obviously all the terrible things that’s happened, but it kind of came as a blessing and kind of pulling me away from from that pressure and that environment and giving me time to learn more about dentistry and figure out my space and dentistry. And that was really important for me.

[00:19:22] So when was it that you first thought you’re going to start putting content out? I think like in.

[00:19:29] Me, I’ve always like like at school, like at school, even though I was quite quiet, I had like the lead roles in the school play. So I’ve always kind of liked like doing stuff and like making things and people kind of watching what I’m doing. But it was kind of, it was in that time of being in them labs and struggling and stressing and thinking, you know, there’s dentists out there who might have been in the same position as me and I’m not currently managing my stress very well. But, you know, there are dentists doing the job now who have similar, if not more stress levels than me. How are they managing their stress? Who do they listen to? Who do they look up to? You know, what books that they read? What is their advice, mindset advice. So that was really the the beginning of it and you know what as ended up becoming five questions with them positives Marg club was really just something that I wanted to know the answer to and then me realising that, you know, there might be other people in a similar situation and this stuff is actually valuable, valuable stuff to be shared.

[00:20:26] Yeah, but did you not worry about what people would think about you?

[00:20:30] Yeah, massively. And that’s why it took me from March 20 to like well before March 2020 to to be having these ideas and then all the way till I didn’t start the page till November and I didn’t tell. I think I spoke to one person about doing the page. I didn’t tell any of my friends. I just popped up saying, Look, this is my page and this is the first video and that’s it. And I didn’t tell anybody because even I think to some of my closest friends, they didn’t know I was that into like the mindset stuff and the psychology. And, you know, I’d say I’m pretty not a closed book, but I know I’m not that open with that many people.

[00:21:08] Yeah, by the way. Would you agree with me that it’s a lot harder answering the questions than asking them?

[00:21:14] Oh, 100%, yeah. No, I mean, especially with me. I’ve got I’ve got I’ve got five, five questions to remember and then, you know, a few others that I think of. Yeah, this is a different experience, but I’m enjoying it.

[00:21:25] Whatever, whatever I’ve been on, I’ve been a guest on the podcast at the end of it, I’ve been so tired and I properly like what the hell. That was really hard. But it’s honest I think, because you can say whatever can eat your head. So that’s interesting. You’re saying you’re you’re an introvert in one way, but an extrovert in another way. That combination is interesting. I mean, I find we do this composite course, by the way, you should come, come and watch or whatever. Actually let students come and watch. We’ll be in Manchester next weekend. Do we do this composite course and we ask them there’s this bit, there’s this marketing bit, and you say, Oh, who’s got a Dental Instagram page? And I know some people are shy to put their hands up here, but most of the time it’s like out of the 30 people in the class, it’s like maybe five at the most we’ve got one. And then I scratch my head and think, Well, most of the guys on our on our course of younger dentists, you know, they’re maybe 5 to 10 years out of out of dental school. And I think, wait a minute, these guys have grown up with it and yet they’re not doing it. And then when later on we’re having a few drinks or whatever, and I asked them, you know, what’s going on, man? I mean, it must be something you should do. Everyone worries about what people will think of their work, what people will think of the way they come across. And by the way, I totally get it. I mean, I hate cameras myself. The reason why I’m doing a podcast is because somehow I can be myself with audio, but as soon as there’s a camera, it I’m rabbit in headlights. So the fear of actually doing it is the thing that stops people from doing it. What’s your advice, dude? You think you must you must have you’ve grappled with this yourself. But my advice generally is that no one’s paying attention. Just. Just do it.

[00:23:26] Yeah, I think that’s I think that is a really important part. I think at that time I was kind of reading a lot of like kind of like positive. And I think that’s why I ended up going positive smartly. But I didn’t a lot of like positive psychology books and like, you know, you got to believe all that like, really, like believe in yourself and like, you know, like think victory and succeed and all this type stuff. And it, you know, it’s kind of like I kind of also got to the point where I saw this as, you know, as an opportunity not just to answer these questions, but also to, you know, for my career’s future career prospects and, you know, the good it could do in terms of that as well. And also for myself to grow. And you know, that was I think one of the main drivers for me is that, you know, I’m in dental school. I can’t go into dental school. I can either, you know, the exams. I don’t really have to do that much work to pass them. To be honest. I can either sit on my arse and and do nothing or I can chase that growth. I actually wanted to go into dental school for the in the first place to do so. You know, I think you got to step outside your comfort zone and and do it, I guess. And, you know, the longer way the you know, it’s one of the best things. But yeah.

[00:24:35] But you could have could have you could have gone and become the best badminton player in the world or something, you know what I mean? You could have you could have done a lot with your time, but you decide to go down, down, down this tree. It was. Did it surprise any of your friends?

[00:24:50] I’ve not really had that conversation directly with them, but I’m sure it did in some ways, because I also don’t think they were aware of like I think I’ve got quite an obsessive personality, but how much over before lockdown, I wasn’t enjoying my dentistry and over lockdown I came across, you know, tubules this podcast, the Jazz Jazz Colitis podcast, all these incredible people. And I started developing this passion for dentistry that I don’t think I’d really shared with many people. So I don’t I don’t also think they were aware of how much I don’t want it on my model for dentistry.

[00:25:25] The thing is, look, there’s a moment when that happens for a lot of people. Yeah. Like for me it was in, I think that that moment happened for me that I suddenly went from the guy who was just going to scrape through to the guy who wanted to be really good at stuff and wanted to find out what’s going on. And, and for me actually, it coincided with reading my first personal improvement sort of book, which is, you know, Seven Habits, Stephen Covey. That really resonated. If you asked me that question, that’s that’s the answer I would have given that my favourite book because it was the first one I think, I think I had some. Yeah. So so was what was the first was the first self-development sort of book or video or thing that inspired you in self development?

[00:26:14] And I mean, I think.

[00:26:16] To be honest, I.

[00:26:17] Do remember like watching a lot of YouTube videos. It was like there was a page called like Charisma on Command and stuff like that. And he had really kind of useful videos about just kind of communication and you know, like how to talk and how to, I guess, be be more charismatic. But I guess the first one is pretty standard. One is Dale Carnegie, and the name of the book Just Lost My Mind. But it’s the one.

[00:26:40] How to win.

[00:26:41] Friends. How to win friends. Yeah. Of course, that was I think I can’t remember how old how old I was when I read that. But I think also my mom is similarly I think she’s quite into the the mindset type of stuff. I remember just picking up a book off the bookshelf once and it was all about having a growth mindset. And I kind of read it and was like, Oh, I already had like, this. Is this not obvious? Like if you try, you can get the other things like, but I think How to Win Friends was, was the first one. I remember thinking, oh, like, I can use this in, in life. And it’s, you know, it’s a really practical, useful book.

[00:27:14] And you’ve got a six part, six part post on, on, on how to win friends and influence people on your pages. So it sums it up, right? So turn that into bite size as well. Actually, for those who don’t know, we should go through what is it? What are the five questions that you ask people go on and I want I want you to do is I want you to answer them as well.

[00:27:36] Oh, gosh. Okay. So the first question is life changing book for me. And again, the name the name of the book is Just Lost Me. But it came at that time of of lockdown. And there’s also the Tony Robbins Tony Robbins book. It’s like The Power Within or something. Awaken the Giant Within. Awakened the Giant Within. That’s it. Yeah.

[00:28:02] That was one of my I read the book once.

[00:28:04] I read that, that book and this book and I start when I was mentioning like a proper American style, like, you know, you need to believe in yourself. There’s no difference between you and that other man down the road, except he believes in himself more. And, you know, but all of that. But that was after like coming out of a time where I was failing and failing a hell of a lot, that that was kind of what I needed and that kind of like positivity and, you know, to kind of rebuild my self belief in myself. And so that then two books, if I can find the name, I’ll let you know. But they were really the life changing books.

[00:28:38] Then what’s the second? First, the first question is life changing, but what’s the second question? Yeah.

[00:28:42] A favourite quote or motto. Gosh, that is a difficult one. Things I used to have.

[00:28:48] Have you never been asked these questions before?

[00:28:51] I have not. You know, I used to have a lot of quotes that I that I had. And I’d like some some of them I’d like read like read every morning. And it’s not even very probably positive can do attitude. I think.

[00:29:06] It’s.

[00:29:07] It kind of puts you in that state way you know if if you know for example even being invited on this podcast, you know, I could have gone, no, I’m not ready. I’m a student, you know, I’m not sure I’d be able to do it. And what again, what would people think of me? But, you know, I think just being I can do it and just being positive and, you know, taking that, it kind of helps you take that step outside of your comfort zone where you might go, no. And show up and you know, you can kind of move forward with that. So I think that will be my answer for that.

[00:29:35] So that sentiment.

[00:29:36] Yeah, that sentiment. The next one is the next one’s. What is inspirational figure?

[00:29:41] Yeah.

[00:29:42] That’s a difficult one. So who inspires me? I mean, the standard answer I get is, is family. And, you know, my family are great and they love, you know, I love them a lot and they give me a lot of support. But I don’t know. I get inspired by a lot of people, even a lot like I know you had Zayn Rizvi on this on your head recently and even just seeing other young dentists who are absolutely pushing the boundaries, the doctor one day people who are going out there and you know I think if the people like Dr. you one day didn’t go and they were kind of the first people to do it then you know there’s me and there’s plenty of other now dental students with platforms and who make content. But you know, I do find them on a just in terms of what I did. They they do inspire me to kind of do things that I haven’t done before by dental students.

[00:30:35] Nice. What’s next?

[00:30:36] The next one is mindset advice. And I guess the the positive. Yeah, the positive stuff works. I think, you know, recently and this is very recently, I’ve kind of got a lot more into meditation and being present and you know, not getting too because I think I am someone who definitely overthink things and analyses things. And you know, I’ve done that ever since being a young child and really, you know, my brain’s going like a million miles an hour. And I think I’ve found a lot of benefit from being present and just, you know, being rather than always being being on the go. So I think that would be that would be if no one’s kind of discovered meditation yet or gotten into it or giving it a go, you know, I’m trying I’m doing it like two or three times a day now and I think I’m really enjoying it and finding benefit.

[00:31:25] How did you how did you get started on it?

[00:31:27] I listened to a podcast with Jay Shetty. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. He’s like the guy who used to be a monk and he was on a Stephen Bartlett podcast and he was talking about recently Benefits of meditation. Yeah, recently. That’s how recent. And I just downloaded Calm the app and just like tried it out and you know, before I have tried meditation before, but it just never clicked in this time I felt I just felt something change and I’ve just felt a lot calmer recently. So yeah, it’s been good.

[00:31:58] It’s crazy how it just I mean, I’ve tried meditation here and there and you try and put your finger on what is it? And I know. And in the end. It’s breathing. It is. It’s amazing how important breathing is. Yeah.

[00:32:17] I I’ve just bought a book about breathing.

[00:32:19] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s it’s so important, because if you sit there and breathe for 30 seconds, breathe properly, it changes a lot. And I remember people telling me this before I even tried it, and I’m thinking, Well, what are they talking about? Yeah, but. But it’s real. But you know what? I found that the thing that got me deeper than anything else was a float tank. Have you ever tried that?

[00:32:46] I have. No.

[00:32:47] It’s I don’t know if that’s still allowed post-COVID, but it’s like this. It’s this, like massive bath full of, like, a very salty water that you float on. And then it’s at it’s a body temperature and there’s a cover over the top of it. So it’s totally pitch black. And in this one hour session here, I was floating in space upside down, like by just lying there because, you know, you just you just and and so sometimes in meditation, I’ve gotten maybe one quarter of the way to what happened in that floating where I didn’t even realise that’s what was supposed to be for, you know, someone bought it for me or something.

[00:33:29] I’m going to have to I’m going to have to source.

[00:33:31] One last question was question.

[00:33:33] The last question is, most of all on social media page or person.

[00:33:38] Go.

[00:33:38] I’d say also if there’s any I mean, obviously they’re listening to this podcast, but only then shooting out though is listen to this. And I’m not just saying that cause I’m on it because I’ve found the insight and people’s stories incredibly useful. And more people should be listening to this show. Yeah, this show.

[00:33:53] Yeah, this show.

[00:33:56] I think I like a lot of what Stephen Bartlett puts out. I always I always listen to his podcast.

[00:34:01] Me too.

[00:34:03] Huberman lab I’ve gotten to recently. He’s like a neuroscience guy, I think at Stanford. Huberman Lab is the name of his podcast, and he’s like a neuroscience guy at Stanford. It’s he covers a lot of things, but I think brain health is probably underrated and I’ve learnt quite a lot of interesting things from him about that. So I think he had no science was something I considered rather than at the time because because of this kind of thing about mindset and development and all of that. But yeah, he chose dentistry instead.

[00:34:35] What about dental pages that you follow.

[00:34:38] Oh, so many. I mean, I think the, the, the biomimetic guys in terms of education, the like, they’re opening eyes. I do like to follow like some deft people just, just to like just to see their standard. And then also there’s some people at DFT who like producing and like, like Zane Rosevear. I think he’s a few years past that now. But, you know, the standard of work through, you know, the education on Instagram and even podcasts like this and the amount of resources available now. And, and I remember you said design like 20, 30 years ago, it would not be possible, but, you know, it’s it’s super inspired and, you know, really good to see the quality of these people’s work, you know, even two years ahead of me.

[00:35:20] Yeah. You know, you’re right. We were talking with Sane about how much you can learn from Instagram, which did I don’t know before. I mean, you won’t remember this, but five years ago, if you told people that people, dentists or dental students or dentists are learning from something like Instagram, people would have shot you down. People would have shot you down for even suggesting that that’s a possibility. But I remember seeing the first time I saw beautiful dentistry or whatever it were, I might have been at a conference in America, you know, like I had to get on a plane and go somewhere to see it for the first time, think, Wow, that looks amazing to get inspired that we were talking about. What inspires you? Yeah, to get inspired to say, hey, it’s possible to do a composite that’s that’s invisible. You know, you can’t tell it’s a composite. Yeah. Something as simple as that. That said that said there is a downside to you kind of feel like you’re not good enough all the time, you know, in the same way some some pretty girl might think she’s not thin enough or whatever, you know, because that whole that whole thing. Do you reckon that’s the thing? Because I’m not practising anymore. But if I was practising, I’d worry, man. So I see all the all the rubber time and beautiful work and, you know, output the output of the work. I was I was with Adam Burgin, the CORNISH dentist. Do you know him? Yeah. Yeah. At the weekend we were first I never met him. And I was I was saying to him, you know, the amount of output of having to post and all of that can bring on stress in itself. No.

[00:37:00] Hundred percent. And I think that’s.

[00:37:01] The crazy.

[00:37:02] Thing. I’m lucky in the sense that as a dental student now, there isn’t a pressure on me to create a portfolio and to post any work that I’m doing. You know, you don’t you don’t have to post work, but it’s it’s it’s a it’s a nice thing to do. But I think for me as a student now and for even for the next ten years, I’m a young dentist and longer than that. But the amount the it’s opened my eyes to the world outside the dental school and, you know, bonded on those and bio bio in dentistry and just like it’s it’s absolutely ridiculous. And even just the little hints and tips you get like invert and the rubber how to do a floss, floss tie. Like, you know, I just love it and you know, all these things, you know, because it’s not the dental school doesn’t teach you dentistry. Well, I think for a little while I was kind of in that mindset that like the dental school doesn’t know what they’re doing and obviously they obviously do. But like there’s just like stuff that happens in the real world that dental school you can’t do or it doesn’t happen. And it’s nice to just have an appreciation and an understanding of that, to prepare yourself for when you do get the.

[00:38:11] Definitely, dude. I mean, dental school does what dental school does. Right. There’s no we should talk about what it should do better, though. I mean, that’s that’s a worthwhile conversation, you know, because. Definitely could do better, I think. But one thing you shouldn’t forget as well as you as you’re going forward and you know, first you’ll learn the basics of rubber dam, then you might do that one to dentistry. Then as it goes on and on and on. Don’t forget the soft skills. Yeah, the communication skills. I mean, probably just as important as the hand and eye skills and brain skills are the communication skills because it’s you’re too young to have had loads of medical problems or had to go to doctors when you’re under that stress of a medical problem. But as you get older, you start meeting a few more doctors for friends and family and all of that. And in in that moment that you have a problem, a medical problem. Yeah. Crazily, the guy’s reputation, the guy’s, you know, or what he’s achieved in his career. And obviously we’re in the field. If I if I need an eye surgeon, I can talk to my brother to find an eye surgeon or whatever. All of that stuff becomes secondary to, Did I get on with him or not? And in dentistry where it’s not, you know, it’s not exactly life and death. Yeah. The do I get on with him becomes the most important thing. And a lot of that comes down to kindness, empathy, these words that are never going to come up in your in your dental exams, you know, but you know, learning those. Yeah, I think there’s some of that which is innate for sure. But, you know, if I were you, I, I guess how to win friends and influence people. Is that is that. Yeah.

[00:40:06] And I for a while I became really obsessed with like someone like Barry Elton. Do you know.

[00:40:11] Barry? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:40:13] Yeah, yeah. So like, I interviewed him for the page and I’ve watched a lot of his lectures. I got the opportunity to go onto his course as well. And you know, that really kind of cool. My kind of interesting, kind of even just like flipping it onto the, you know, the patient wants, needs, hopes, dreams for the next 20, 25 years. And yeah, dental school doesn’t never mention that. It’s kind of like prescriptive treatment. Like you have to have this because you need this and it’s kind of like, oh, so you know the patients, you know how they think and what they want and that, you know, that really matters.

[00:40:48] Definitely, man. Definitely. And, you know, different people translate that in different ways. And I don’t know if it goes down to what you Dental experience you had as as when you were a patient. You know, what your dentist was like with you. But I’ve had friends, you know who I thought, I know them really, really well. And then we’ve had some sort of interaction where we don’t know. We worked in the same practise because he was visiting and the doctors or whatever it was and watching him talk to patients. Completely different person to the one that I know. And I don’t know why he thought, oh, maybe it’s the right thing to do for all I know, dude. But he thought the right thing to be as the end. Adonis is the expert and to sort of have that sort of a barrier between him and what we’re telling the patient. And when I was a dentist, my position was completely different and I didn’t realise my position was different to someone like him, you know. So, you know, we need to have this conversation in the profession because I’ll tell you one thing, but when I talk to my big users, the big, big private dentists, the ones who’ve got multiple clinics and everyone at your stage, not your stage above your stage is saying, how do I get a private job? How do I get a private job? All of them all of them prioritise communication above everything else. You know, almost like that can’t be taught, so everything else can be taught with that card, you know, I think it can be taught. But my point is, while you’re busying yourself with rubber dam ties. Yeah, don’t forget that side. You know that that’s even more important in many ways. You know, let’s move on to darker days. Yeah. You must have heard this part of the podcast before. Of course. Of course. What would you say is your biggest weakness? For.

[00:42:45] What would I say is my biggest weakness? I. I think I think I’m definitely an overthinker and I think that that can hamper me. I think sometimes I think I like to have my own way. I think definitely I don’t tend to get on with authority very well. I did as a child up to a point. And then I guess I don’t always like getting told what to do and how to do it and can think I know better, which I guess isn’t isn’t always, always ideal. So yeah, I’d say that probably the.

[00:43:21] Overthinker and problem with authority. Tell me about the overthink of it. What does that mean? Like. You don’t take things on face value. You try and find other explanations for why. Some things?

[00:43:33] No, I wouldn’t say that. I think.

[00:43:35] I guess.

[00:43:37] I think I do have, as I said, a little bit of an obsessive personality. And just like that, even every interaction I have in the day and like everything, you know, I’m just always thinking. And I think that’s why the meditation has been so helpful, because I’ve actually sat and just realised like, you know, you don’t have to be thinking about everything all the time, you know? So it’s that type of thing.

[00:43:58] What about feeling? Do you do you feel stuff as well?

[00:44:01] No. Yeah, no, I think so. Yeah. I think, you know, I do sometimes get probably more anxious maybe than other people. But, you know, I think as I’ve got older, I think when I was younger I didn’t manage it as well as I as I do now.

[00:44:15] So when you when you think about the world, you think about the world as it’s really quite funny or do you feel about the world? Like It’s really quite tragic.

[00:44:23] I’d say quite funny. Generally, yeah. I like to laugh most things.

[00:44:29] Because they say there’s a phrase it says For those who think the world is funny or for those who feel the world is tragic.

[00:44:36] Oh.

[00:44:37] What are those? Well, I mean, it’s a joke point. No joke. I don’t know how real it is.

[00:44:43] So that makes sense.

[00:44:45] So what would you say is your darkest day in dental school?

[00:44:49] It will have been like just before COVID was hitting and it was when I was considering, you know, I was considering whether I was going to quit dentistry and like, oh, I’d have to go and ask for more support because, you know, at the time I was I was just fading labs week after week and I think they were letting me through. But there was a kind of shared understanding the you know, this wasn’t good enough. My composite look terrible. I was hitting all the teeth, like and you know, mentally as well, you know, I couldn’t keep phantom hair. Yeah, yeah, phantom head. But, you know, I couldn’t I couldn’t keep keep up like that because I, I wasn’t a high achiever in everything, you know, in squash. I was good. But at the level I was at, I was probably one of the worst players. So I was used to losing and failing and dealing with that. But I was also then obsessed kind of thing with how am I going to deal with this? And at the time I was quite into stoicism and I was racking my brain and how, you know what, you know how to manage the stress and you know, what can I do? And I was kind of coming to a loss and that’s when I was like, right, like, what do I do now? So I think, you know, without the lockdown, I probably would have asked for more support and who knows what would have happened then. But luckily I am not not luckily, but you know, lockdown came and I was I was pulled out of that situation.

[00:46:09] And then why did lockdown help? Just because you had time?

[00:46:11] Yeah, I had time. I wasn’t going into labs every week. And, you know, I mean, what can dental school do better? I think we were getting examined like from the first week on our composites and our on our. And I covet your prayers. And it was always it was straight in the mouth from like the first day. And I was just like completely thrown off. So I feel like they could have taken it a bit slower with those. But at the same time, there was maybe a few of the people who have in similar problems to me and you know, not not everyone was. So. Yeah.

[00:46:44] So. Right, let’s let’s talk about the Dental course. Okay. That’s one thing you’re saying, right? You’re saying it was too intense, too quick. Yeah.

[00:46:53] Possibly. I know what you’re saying. Yeah, possibly. I think, you know, we should be we should get more practical experience through funding, through funding heads, through patients and clinic. And obviously, COVID has affected that. But, you know, for example, and I’m not the only student who’s ever said this and I’m sure most of my friends, but like having access to the phantom headroom when you’re not meant to be in there, like go in and at lunch or going in in an afternoon when you’re not allowed, you’re not meant to be in. That would just that would just be so, so helpful. But the uni just so against the.

[00:47:24] Neck is going to make a mess.

[00:47:25] And all that. Yeah. I mean I went in one week to do so. We have a grounds test. I went in to do a grounds to to pass my grounds test and then I went in said, oh, can I just do an extra, an extra crown to practise doing a crown prep? And the guy was like, oh no, you’re wasting uni resources and I’ve got other students to deal with, go home. And you know, I’d gone in, I’d got changed and he got ready and he’s like, Oh no, you know, you’re going to coat one plastic tooth and that’s too much resources. And I was just like, you know, I stayed and I did the crown.

[00:47:55] But did you? Yeah. So then you’ve gone through some of the course. Now you’ve got you’re in your fourth year. Mm hmm. Is there something that you wish they were teaching you that they’re not? I mean, let me give you an example for me. I mean, the basics of running a business. Someone should there should have been a week on that in dental school. Right. It’s the very basics of recruitment, finance, marketing operations. Yes. Because the vast majority of that class are going to be eventually either working in or running it, running a business, a small business, and it’s not acknowledged at all.

[00:48:39] So, yeah, 100%. 100%. I mean, there’s just there’s obviously the stuff on on money. And obviously as young people, we do graduate and we do end up earning a, you know, a fair sum of money and managing that taxes or all of that. Yeah. Yeah. Could be covered in a lot more detail.

[00:48:58] Even school, man. I mean, imagine all those hours you spent in school doing differential equations, and no one ever once said, Yeah, this is how you get a mortgage or, I don’t know, save more than you spend or more on careers in school. Like more. Right. But in dental school, I think hopefully by your time it’s changed a bit. But we had one day where the guys talked about what can you do afterwards as a dentist? What are the different, different avenues you could go down? Did you have any more of that or is that next year or you don’t know?

[00:49:38] I think that I think the fifth is maybe get one lecture, someone from the BDA comes in. But I think nowadays and probably in your day as well, it’s kind of a find out for yourself and or attend certain conferences. Like if you go to the BCD conference, if you go we have the PDSA, so if you go to them, you get all these different talks from all these different people. But if you if you’re not attending these conferences, then, you know, I don’t think you are getting as much insight.

[00:50:08] Has anyone mentioned teeth whitening in university.

[00:50:11] Please? Very briefly, not a lot, obviously. It’s obviously it’s not not on the NHS, but yeah, no, I don’t think we’re giving lectures about it. We’re definitely about.

[00:50:22] Digital. Scanners.

[00:50:26] Yeah. It’s mentioned in passing. Typical answer is you’re aware of it, but you don’t. It leads anyway. You don’t get any experience of it or how it can be used or why it might be better or worse than taking a lab impression and stuff like that.

[00:50:46] And is there a scanner on the on the clinic at all? Or no.

[00:50:50] No, not as far as I’m aware.

[00:50:52] So that’s interesting that there must be one, right? They must use it for postcards only.

[00:50:59] Yeah, I guess, you know. Yeah, we’re not told anything about.

[00:51:04] What about what about ortho? What’s your awareness of ortho?

[00:51:09] It’s it’s ortho digital with P. So it’s kind of like the IL ten. And when the different teeth come through and obviously stuff about occlusion that kind of ties in but there’s nothing on aligners or even even brackets and orthodontics. I think it’s a fairly poorly understood subject as taught an undergraduate level.

[00:51:39] And what about things like composite anterior composite veneers, these sort of things that aesthetic composites does that? Yeah. To be fair to.

[00:51:51] Leads like we have in this show, actually over just in January, we’re in the labs and it’s called Complex Adult Dentistry. And we did a composite build up with all the different layers, like the dentine shades and the translucent, oh, nice incisal edge. So, you know, to be fair, you know, we did actually do a nice composite build up and, you know, they were kind of teaching us about that type of thing. So I can’t I can’t complain in that regard.

[00:52:17] What about amalgam to use amalgam at all?

[00:52:20] Yeah, we do. We were taught it in labs. I’ve yet to find a tutor to tell anyone to do it. I actually have placed it amalgam, but I don’t. We don’t use it often to be honest. I think it’s yeah. If you can place a composite and you can get moisture controlled and then do that and if not JIC.

[00:52:39] And what about Ramadan?

[00:52:41] Yeah, it’s it’s encouraged. And I’d say.

[00:52:47] So if you’re doing it, if you’re doing an MOT on the clinic, you’ve got to use a rubber dam or it’s encouraged to use the rubber down.

[00:52:54] It’s encouraged in terms of I think I’d encourage it. But yeah, I think to be fair, if you tell if you’d spoke to the tutor and said, I don’t want to use your arm, I’m going to use cotton wool. I don’t think they’d have a problem with it, to be fair, even if you didn’t even try to clamp on the tooth. Yeah. Not. Not. Not for photography. I think, to be fair, I’m not in outreach yet, so I think when you’re in the so we have we do not hold on Bradford and other places when you’re in them clinics, you take the photos yourself and you do learn. But within the hospital you take to photography, you warm the mirror up and then the. But yeah, we’re not taught like how and that is the different. Every dentist I speak to is like as soon as you can, as soon as you graduate, buy a camera, learn how to take photos, reflect on your work, build a portfolio. So, you know, it’s something that should be should be mentioned more for sure.

[00:53:53] Yeah. I mean, the thing with photography, I had someone asked me this weekend, you know, she was saying, I want to move to London, I want to get a good job. What do you think? What should I do? And for that purpose, definitely photography. But yeah, just to teach yourself, just to show your patience. And there’s so many reasons why you need to learn photography. What about occlusion?

[00:54:16] I think occlusion is fairly well taught. I think it’s such a difficult subject that I think it may be well taught, but still, you know, understanding my understanding and isn’t isn’t great. I’ve even done lectures outside of uni on occlusion. I’ll hopefully spend my weekends watching, including lectures, and I still don’t really understand exactly what it’s meant to be or how it’s meant to be. But yeah, I don’t think that, you know. Yeah.

[00:54:49] It’s not like no, it’s not that no one does. But there’s plenty of people ten years out of school, 20 years out of dental school who don’t know. So I wouldn’t worry yourself. I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it. It’s interesting. But so let’s let’s get onto what’s been the reaction of the audience to your to your content, to your positive smile club? Have you had people tell you tell you that it’s inspired them to do something or to follow someone or get a job or anything? Because it always surprises me when when you said when you said you listen to this podcast, it just surprised me. It’s always surprised me when someone says they listen. How does that make you feel?

[00:55:30] Well, when someone tells me that they listen to mine.

[00:55:32] Yeah, yeah, it’s.

[00:55:35] Yeah, it’s, it’s class and you know, to be far I’ve I’ve been now to a few student events like, like PDSA and all the things and you know.

[00:55:44] Getting recognised, not.

[00:55:45] Being right but being recognised and like obviously you know, speaking to other people who are doing similar things and there are, you know, there are a fair few other people now who read their own pages and kind of just. Networking and just meeting them. And, you know, it’s a really nice atmosphere. God, I like what you’re doing and I’ll say what I’m doing. And, you know, but yeah, you know, it is when people have also engaged with the content and listened and gone, Oh, like that episode with Richard Porter. Like that was Richard Porter also.

[00:56:14] That was good.

[00:56:15] Yeah. Yeah, he’s he’s he’s a crazy guy. I also feel like, you know, to a lot of my friends, like I’ll and I’ll say to them, oh, you know, I’m interviewing, I don’t know Chris McConnell tonight. And they’ll be like, who’s who? Like, you know, you know, like Chris said. So I also feel like, you know, it’s kind of introducing people who might not be as into it as I am to these people and to potential career pathways or know, you know, and that’s this that’s what your your podcast does for me as well. It’s like this person’s had a career like this and they, you know, they’ve done this and this and this is, you know, this is a possibility of what I could do. And this is also like the work life balance. And this is, you know, how they see the kids and raise the kids and, you know, all that stuff I find really insightful. So I think, you know, I kind of feel for some of my friends and the people around me. I’m kind of introducing them to people I think are really cool. And, you know, they should also have a doctor as well.

[00:57:16] And what’s your process? How do you how do you approach these people? Just DM Simple as that.

[00:57:22] Yeah, yeah. The emblematic of the start. I have to give a massive shout out to, you know, these people, especially at the time I had, you know, I’d never done anything on camera, I’d not done video edit in the page at the time. I had like 150 followers or something. And I think I’m just guilty. I’m Drew Short and, you know, just out of the blue and, you know, the nicest people in the world, aren’t they? But, you know, they came back, I think Charles replied to me, replied to me like 3 minutes. And and I obviously explained the concept and how much I love their content as well and tubules and I genuinely do. And you know, just like love the concept that I think he was isolated at the time let’s do it tomorrow and then you know, I kind of put my pants a bit and it was like, oh, like tomorrow I’m speaking to jazz and I’ve got, you know, for what I’m doing. But yeah, and I think from once I had some more established names on it, obviously it gets easier and people kind of don’t go, Who’s this random kid messaging me? They can kind of see know this person’s been on, this person’s been on. You know, it’s the more likely to to want to get involved.

[00:58:27] I think Chaz Gulati is is. If you’re interested in teeth. Teeth themselves. My next guest calling if you’re if you’re interested in teeth themselves like you want to know about teeth. I think jazz glasses, content. Some of the best stuff ever, man. Some of the best stuff ever. And yeah, what I love about it, what I love about it is the enthusiasm of the guy. And he knows a lot about. A lot? Yeah. Or maybe he’s one of that. I don’t know if you saw him on this podcast. He was top of his class or whatever. And so maybe he does massive research before he gets someone on, but he adores teeth himself and it just comes through. And, you know, dude, I no longer need to pay attention to, you know, I don’t know what kind of splint to use in a TMJ surgery. It doesn’t it doesn’t affect my life anymore. I don’t have patients anymore that need to listen to that anymore. But his enthusiasm just it just is so infectious. And then in that one hour, the amount you learn. Compare that to to, you know, that’s what dental school needs a bit more of, doesn’t it? It needs that sort of punchy, enthusiastic, sort of, you know, and it’s so interesting because he’s only seven years out of dental school himself. And I know to you that must feel like a long time. It’s not a long time. It’s not a long time at all. Seven years out of dental school. And yet I’d say as far as influence goes, like influence on on education, he might be having more influence than some professor of whatever. You know, I really admire him, Andrew. I think of Jews like the Jesus Christ of 10 million. Yeah. The guy who sacrificed himself for the profession, you know?

[01:00:24] You know? And I can’t speak with.

[01:00:25] A halo or something.

[01:00:27] Yeah. Yeah. And I was lucky enough to go to the The Tubules Controls conference in Brighton this year and you know, just the amount of love that he has for people but also get shown back to him. And I was just so happy to see that because you know, I think tubules that that was one of the first things that he kind of turned it around for me like it’s such an amazing platform and he’s been really generous to me for through a lot of things. So yeah, I can’t speak highly enough of them.

[01:00:57] Yeah. Great guy. So when you’ve now now that you’ve had this, you know, you’ve you’ve you’ve been reading and watching content. Yeah. But now you’ve had the opportunity to directly speak to some of these people, like the likes of Richard Porter or, or Drew. You know, I saw who else you had, Simon Chard. I saw you had you talk you talk to these people. And you’ve listened to so many of the stories on on this show. What’s your view now that what’s going around your head about the kind of dentist you want to be? I mean, are you are you more inspired by I don’t know. Martin One day who’s a who’s amazing implant ologist? Or are you more inspired by Dev Patel, who wants to open 100 practises this time next year? Which which one? Which one, which one sort of making you interested?

[01:01:49] It’s difficult one, I think.

[01:01:50] I think the.

[01:01:52] I think I want to do high quality work. And that’s why the kind of the the biomimetic people kind of I think I really interested me in kind of the science behind that. But I think I like kind of like Dev Patel was saying, I’m quite interested in patient journey and I know it will be important as his whole thing is improving the patient journey and that’s always been something like like and he was saying it seems so obvious and I’m like it is so obvious like in from like being practise. Like there’s so much simple things I feel like could be improved. And so if I did have my practise that that would be something that I’d, I’d really want to focus on and just create a place where people want to come and that, you know, the patient journey is kind of is top notch. So I guess in that way, the kind of own in a practise is is appealing. But I also like it kind of like invisibly said, I kind of just want to be the best general dentist that I can be as well.

[01:02:48] For now. Sure. For now you should. For now. That is the main. The priority for now is to learn, right? Learn, learn. And for the next five years as well. You just learn and be good. Don’t forget the soft skills, like I said for sure. But I think you’re in a privileged position now. I guess you put yourself in that privilege. It’s the wrong word. You’ve put yourself in a in a strong position whereby you probably know more about what’s going on out there than most PhDs, let’s say. Yeah. And or your or you’re part of that conversation there. And I don’t know, people people always say the general advice they give younger dentists is, you know, just become a generalist first and then get good at everything first and then decide what you want to do after that. But if there was some aspect of dentistry that that got you excited for the sake of the argument you implant, if you were that cat. Yeah, then for me the sooner the better know. Because if you know, if you set your sights on implant ology and you now being you, you could give me a call and say, Hey, can I go and sit with Martin one day for two days? And him being him, you’ll say Yes you can, and suddenly you propel you in implants. And I get that thing about try a bit of everything. Yeah, but actually I think the sooner you decide, it doesn’t even matter what the thing is, it really doesn’t matter. You could say implants, you could say endo, you could say business opening 100 practises. You could say any of those things. Yeah, but the sooner you make your mind up about those things, the sooner you start to set goals and and get to those places. And I find a lot of time people worry about, what if I’m making the wrong decision? Don’t worry, man. It’ll it’ll it’ll show itself later on. It’ll be fine. It will be fine. Yeah. So I’m a bit concerned for you now. Go on, go on. Going on?

[01:04:55] No, that’s something I’ve always been interested in, is having dentist opinion on that. Like, should you specialise? When should you specialise? Like, if you should specialise at all, like when? When do you choose what you want to do? How many years before you can go to private practise? How what’s the transition to private practitioner that you do mixed and then this know it’s.

[01:05:15] There’s no right or wrong way there’s no right or wrong.

[01:05:17] Way. Yeah you get a million different you get a million different opinions. Pretty much start where you ended up. I end up where you started.

[01:05:24] I mean, I was I was interested in patient journey because not because I was said I was interested in medicine, but I turned up to my job and I just couldn’t believe it. I could not believe that’s what it was. You know, dentistry is this. And by the way, I had a great boss. He was a very forward thinking boss. But I don’t know. It just wasn’t the way. It wasn’t anything like the dentist I used to go to when I was a kid. And then. Then you’ve got two choices, right? Your choice is fit in and do do whatever you do or this thing about actually make a change and make things better. I don’t know. If you listen to the Robbie Hughes episode, that’s a good.

[01:06:03] Idea for a guy who wants to.

[01:06:05] Change change the patient journey. But it is a little bit concerning with you do dear, because of what you said about what Covid’s done to your experience. What’s the consensus like? Are you guys all saying the same thing that it’ll just work itself out in the wash? Are you going to try and get extra? You know, some somehow get some extra experience. What do you do?

[01:06:33] I mean. Yeah, for me, this is kind of my way of my way of dealing with it. You know, as I said, like lockdown and content, just. Yeah. Like speaking to people like you, speaking to the dentist, kind of getting my name out there, doing everything I can if I can’t be in clinic.

[01:06:49] Good.

[01:06:50] You know, watch. Watch. Tubules lectures. I’ve watched. I have the thing in Australia, right? Global like content. Look on Instagram, learn, learn as much as I can. And you know, the, you know, obviously the, the biggest part of dentistry is seeing patients and doing that obviously with the soft skills as well, but doing the treatment, doing them to a high standard to get a good enough, you know, the best jobs, you know, you do have to to have a certain ability in doing these treatments. And if we’re not getting the experience as dental schools, you know, it is difficult. But I guess I’m trying to do as much as I can to to to kind of negate the fact that, you know, we’ve you know, the clinical experience I’ve had so far has been has been extremely little.

[01:07:42] You know, I don’t know if you listen to Kunal Patel, he studied in Czech Republic and he qualified dental school having done six fillings and he was saying qualifying Czech Republic made him not so worried about everything. Like people who qualified here, not worried about the GDC, not not worried about anything because they didn’t tell him to worry. And, and he said he’d sort of came and just started working and all that. And, you know, he’s now he’s about I don’t know if you follow him love teeth. He’s he has one super. Practise, one super duper practise. Yeah, but what he’s doing is he’s going from 1 to 7 in, in one year. He’s like, well and so and my, my point is he qualified with seven fillings. Yeah it’s a don’t worry. Don’t worry. But you do worry to the point of trying to, trying to do your best now. Right. That’s that’s all there is to it. All right, man, it’s been a real, real pleasure having you on. You know how we always end this year? Yeah, perhaps. Final question and my final question lately. Should we start with perhaps? Uh huh. Have you prepared?

[01:08:59] Yeah, whichever. Whichever. I’ve got some notes. Yeah. I doubt in.

[01:09:03] My deathbed it’s really difficult talking to a 12 year old about deathbed. Which year were you born?

[01:09:13] 2000.

[01:09:14] Oh, my God. I was five years old. Terrible deathbed. Nearest to see the three, three, three pieces of advice.

[01:09:30] So yeah, the first one I came up with was be kind and have good intentions and I think it’s fairly vague advice. But I remember I had a chat with my squash coach and I couldn’t have been I wasn’t, I was maybe like 13, 14 and it was kind of getting really deep with me about like what, you know, what I want from life and what I want it to be. And I kind of, I think the word that I came up with was good and not just like good as like, don’t be excellent, be good, but like just a good person who didn’t cause harm to anybody. And, you know, it wasn’t just like I did something good and positive to the world. So I think that would be the advice that I’d give as the first piece of advice. The next one would be to live your own life and kind of don’t let other people’s opinions. Or, you know, I guess if they were my family, like whatever my opinion was to stop them doing what they want to do because, you know, I feel like I didn’t have any choices forced on me, you know, growing up. Like, I wasn’t, you know, you have to do this. You have to work, work hard or do whatever. And, you know, I feel like everyone kind of should be free to kind of do do do what they want and it’s their life at the end of the day. And the last one, I guess also I felt as if I was kind of dying and I didn’t have long left. It would be to tell them to be grateful and be present for every day, every minute, you know, everything that they’ve everything that they’ve got. Because, you know, you know, and I’ve been thinking, you know, especially with some of the meditation recently, it’s like, you know, you live in so much anticipate in the future that, you know, you’re not present and you’re not enjoying the now and you’re not grateful for for what’s going on right now. So they’d be my my three things.

[01:11:06] Yeah it’s nice man I mean that that live for the now thing is a bit of a cliche everyone talks about but but living is actually quite hard is it.

[01:11:15] Yeah.

[01:11:16] I get annoyed when people worry about the past quite a lot. Like an annoyed too strong man. But. But you know what I mean? Like, forget the past. But. But I. I do find myself constantly into the future and. And not in the now. Constantly imagining what if, what if, what if, what if, what if and and and you forget now as the only real thing is.

[01:11:41] Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Yeah. The future doesn’t exist. Like.

[01:11:45] Yeah, what about pace. Final question. Fantasy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive.

[01:11:55] Yeah. So I’m really bad at this question. Anyway, I’ve, I’ve not that I get asked it all the time, but, you know, I just don’t know who to choose. The first person I chose is. Is Li Li Mark is you know Li. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t comedian. Yeah. I just love, I just love the guy. And, you know, I listen to Russell Howard’s podcast, not his podcast. He was on Stephen Butler’s podcast and I remember he called like LAUGHTER The Lubricant for Life. And, you know, it kind of just made me appreciate, like, you know, comedy and laughing and how how great he is. So Li makes me laugh more than than any other person. So, yeah, I love him. So. Yeah. Li Li Mark would be the first person.

[01:12:40] Cool after that.

[01:12:42] I was. I know he kind of got a bit more difficult for me, but I was going to say Kanye West. But I think recently he’s is kind of gone a little bit not not himself. But I was watching the genius documentary recently and like Kanye West 20 years ago, maybe I think, you know, he is is is a genius. So I’m not going to choose Kanye West then, but I’m going to choose Jay-Z because I think I’m not I’m not I am a big fan of rap music and grime music, but I’m not a massive Jay-Z fan. But I think the label that he’s built and I think he’s got like a marketing marketing company and just kind of the life he’s lived. I think he’d be a really interesting person to ask a lot of questions. And I think he’s, you know, he’s not just a rapper, he’s bigger than that. And he’s one of the most influential people of of of current times. So that’s why I chose Jay-Z. So one more and the other last person. Yeah, one more. The last person is kind of like a homage to my not not homage I present to my younger self. And that was John Cena, the WWE wrestler.

[01:13:50] John Oh.

[01:13:56] I used to love him going off on again, like he’s risen to the top of the profession as in his work ethic is maybe ridiculous and he seems also just seems like a very charismatic guy. And yeah, I think younger Adam would be very excited to meet John Cena globally.

[01:14:17] And one final thing I notice you’re not on Tik Tok. Yes, positive smile club. Why is that one?

[01:14:26] Mannix. I can’t.

[01:14:27] Dance. But you make an error. You make an error. You make an error in the same way as in the same way as my generation was making an error when we didn’t move to Instagram. Yeah, you’re making an error there because it’s it’s powerful. You must be on it. You run it yourself, right? Oh, no, I.

[01:14:50] Well, I try and avoid it just because I spend a lot. I actually have delete just delete it off my phone as well. But I used to my my phone time, which used to be like 8aa hours a day, like around like every day. So I’m trying to stay off it, obviously get work done, be more not necessarily productive, but do better things with my time. So I take it like on top of it it would have just been a catastrophe. But yeah, I think I guess, I guess dentistry. Dentistry tick tock is definitely a thing, but I still like still, I still feel like Instagram’s where a lot of the dental stuff happens, but, you know, I feel like, I guess I could use TikTok just to put content out there. And rather than actually taking in any content, I guess you’ve got to use the platform to understand what makes a good.

[01:15:33] Tik tok Yeah, I mean no one’s really worked it out so I can’t think of a tik tok page Dental tik tok page. That’s really amazing. But that in that is the opportunity itself. Yeah. And that is where the opportunity lies. Exciting. All right, man. Lovely. Really lovely.

[01:15:51] To think.

[01:15:51] About it. I’m sure we’re going to be seeing a lot more of you and let me know if you need something for sure right here. It’s been a real pleasure to have you. Check out Adam Naughton and Positive Smile Club. Right. If someone wants to to connect to send you a DM on their right, post a small club on Instagram.

[01:16:11] Yeah, 100% positive. Small club and. Yeah, no. Yeah. I’ve really, really enjoyed this and I think I’m going to listen back to it and kind of not. It’s going to feel very surreal to be on this podcast and just hearing my voice for once on the set of Every time I listen, I kind of think of what I’d say to these these questions. And yeah, it’s I’ve really enjoyed it. So thank you so much.

[01:16:33] You’ve been very buddy. You’ve been brilliant. Thank you so much.

[01:16:38] 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.

[01:16:53] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say. Because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:17:08] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:17:18] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] For me, it’s the ability to plan to work out what you’re going to do when you see the patient. Because to me, you’re not going to however good your hands are, have a good just all the other things that are. Unless the person says yes to going ahead, it’s not going to happen. So for me, I think it’s the planning and then the trying to explain it in layman’s terms to the to the patient so that they go ahead, then all the other stuff will come later. You know, all the other stuff will come later. But I think to me it’s the planning part of it is the working out, being able to work out the simple to the moderate, the complex, just the fact that part of it, I think to me is key.

[00:00:47] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:05] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Martin Whalen down to the podcast. Martin I’ve known for years and years and years working with them for years. I know Prav works with them to super cool cat implant ologist teacher principle of a multiple award winning practises and examine them. Is that right?

[00:01:25] In some respects, yes. Yeah.

[00:01:27] Lovely to have you, buddy.

[00:01:29] Pleasure to be here. Finally. Yeah.

[00:01:31] Welcome, Martin. Welcome.

[00:01:33] Thanks, Brian. Thanks. Bye.

[00:01:35] Martin, you grew up in Uganda.

[00:01:36] Yeah.

[00:01:38] Tell me about your childhood. Was it was it was it like a privileged upbringing by Ugandan standards or not?

[00:01:44] I think when I look back at it, it relative to many other people around me, definitely 100% because of where my parents managed to, you know, my parents basically managed to work their way up to be able to educate us. So we had a nice house. We have still my mom still lives there. Most gardened, you know, got to do lots of things. So in general, I’d say yes compared to many other people, but we lived alongside many people who didn’t have as much. So it was made really, really clear. I don’t know if you’ve grown up anywhere in the Third World or in the developing world, but when you grow up, it’s really, really clear the kind of the the haves and have nots. So I was always very aware of it and very pleased that my parents were able to provide that for me and for my brothers and sisters.

[00:02:30] What did your parents do?

[00:02:32] Dad not with us, but he was an MP politician and Mum ran her own businesses for a while or ran businesses with my dad and also worked with things like the World Bank, etc.. So she has a really some really quite, really, quite interesting career actually did lots of very, very interesting things. And I was a woman in the sixties, seventies and eighties and you know, in Uganda at a time when society was, I think, a lot more male dominated, you know, she managed to break through. I think one of the interesting things she did is microfinance. So helping kind of young helping female farmers, kind of rural women get access to money and loans so that they could develop themselves.

[00:03:13] And you must have, as your dad is an MP, with all the political turmoil that Uganda’s been through, you must have seen some things.

[00:03:22] Yes, I.

[00:03:23] Think he must’ve seen something.

[00:03:25] I think everyone that grew up in Uganda at that time, so saw some things because I mean, interesting. We’re part of a generation. If I look at my kind of counterparts, a lot of us have left Uganda and live abroad. If I look at the generation ten years younger, my nieces, nephews, cousins, they’ve all stayed and they’ve all stayed because they enjoyed much more stability than we do. Because at the time, you know, I grew up in Uganda, say I won’t remember it, but, you know, Idi Amin came in and we had to leave. We lived in Kenya as refugees. Parents had to kind of abandon the house, pack everything to a car, drive us across the border, you know, move to a different country. Had to suddenly make a life in Kenya with the help of friends and family. Then a certain age, we packed everything back up and drove back to kind of Uganda, which, you know, it was where we’re from. And suddenly it was kind of we had just been through a civil war. So there was potholes in the road. You couldn’t get basic goods. I remember you couldn’t get margarine, you couldn’t get sugar. Then one week you could get margarine, but you couldn’t get something else. So I just remember growing up with that in and around that time and just, you know, also security was an issue at that time, you know. And so we lived through that bit. And then from that bit, then, you know, there was another, you know, there were some elections where my dad was involved or mum was involved, interestingly, on different parties, which was, you know, you know, at the time my dad carried on with the politics, my mum didn’t and went more into kind of the sort of stuff with the World Bank and, you know, more of a kind of corporate style life in Uganda. And so witnessing.

[00:04:59] What your dad left leaning and your mum right leaning.

[00:05:02] Didn’t really work like that. You know, parties here are left and right parties. There are probably allegiances between different tribal groups or, you know, so, you know, for instance, there was Uganda People’s Congress and the Democratic Party. They I couldn’t tell you what the differences were between their policies, but you could say that this guy is from this tribe and supports this this other guy’s from this tribe and supports that. So it doesn’t really work like that. And so yeah, and I watch my dad kind of deal with politics, which is, I don’t know, it’s not a life for me. It’s not something I would have chosen to do. But, you know, trying to get things done, trying to improve the life of the people around him, coming across issues, political issues, corruption, you know, people with their own agendas, you know. So yeah, and I watch that and I decided I didn’t want to do politics.

[00:05:57] Politics as we. Think of it here, like media attention or is it different?

[00:06:03] Interestingly, he got quite a lot of media attention because he would always he always would write he would always write columns and express his views in that. So he was actually reasonably well known for these columns. Whatever, you know, in there. But there wasn’t the same sort of you. No, not not in the same way as here. So it wasn’t like you were papped or followed around in any way, shape or form. And also because many lots of other people were involved in of our friends and family, were involved in life at that sort of level with politics or with kind of government jobs or base or, you know. So it wasn’t unusual in terms of where we were.

[00:06:42] Reminds me of the stories my dad used to tell me of when he was in Africa as well, and similar sort of thing that they they had to flee and they left with nothing, right? They have nothing, but they left with nothing and came here in the in the late seventies. But back to your margarine and that sort of story, I remember my dad used to say to me that, you know, when my granddad had had a good day at work, he’d bring home some margarine and jam and that would be it, you know, that would be a treat for the whole family. And it’s really interesting to, you know, the I guess the picture he used to paint because my grandfather was a shoemaker, so he used to make shoes, shoes by hand in a place called Tarboro. I don’t know if you if you know where that is, but south of Uganda and Mwanza.

[00:07:32] Yeah.

[00:07:32] And remember, he used to say they used to sit on this step. And, you know, when my granddad came home and he’d sold sold enough shoes that he could he could get a loaf of bread, some margarine and some jam, and they had jam sandwiches and that would be the equivalent of a luxury meal for that. And then and then came over here in the late seventies. So when did you you come over here, Martin?

[00:07:57] I came over in 1985, so I kind of came to to go to school, you know, because I was at school, I was at sort of a boarding school in Kenya, in the highlands of Kenya. And that was a very nice place to be. I really enjoyed my time there. And when I left there, I you know, my parents decided, you know, at the time, where were we, 1985. So there just been a civil war we’re just gone through. And I remember at the time being sat outside our house, which is in Uganda, which is overlooking a valley when you overlook the valley. I remember I sat there with my dad and his neighbour and you know, they were having a beer. And this was the time when Museveni’s troops were taking over, you know, the Civil War was coming to a kind of a conclusion and watching kind of smoke and bombs in a column of troops walking through the middle of the valley and, you know, and then trying to leave the country at the time to go to school, you know, multiple checkpoints at the time where there’s a lot of child soldiers, they are called Dogo. So they’re kind of young kids, you know, ten, 12, 13, holding, you know, AK 47 kind of questioning you and, you know, getting away from that environment and, you know, kind of happy to get to the airport and then onto the plane. And then arriving in somewhere had never been never left East Africa. You know, I’ve been to Uganda and Kenya, never been to the UK and then suddenly, boom, you’re plonked into north London. There you go.

[00:09:22] What was your first impression?

[00:09:25] First impression was just, I think. Slightly confused, and I think they would just seem to be so much stuff. You know, the shops seem to be full of all this stuff and, you know, you couldn’t figure out how society works. You know, you’re just trying to get around your go on the tube. You’d come up here, you know, it hadn’t seen an underground or overground, you know, public bus in those ways. So just getting your head around all of that stuff, you know, for about a week. And then then going to a school which was a boarding school and then, you know, at that point in time that that was the real shock. Suddenly you’re faced with kind of kids your age who come from a completely, you know, completely different background, North London, you know, other people from Greek or Asian backgrounds. And, you know, suddenly you’re trying to get your head around all of this change. So I think it probably took me a good six months to start to understand how things work and to understand how people work. Because I think I grew up probably slightly naive and friendly with everyone that came around and then, you know, people with different agendas and, you know, and ways in which they worked and operated and what was an acceptable joke and not what was funny, what was not, you know, all of that stuff. You’re trying to get to grips with the 30 year old. So. Confused, confused, not understanding. Grateful, I think for the opportunity. Grateful to be away because of what I just left and what I left behind. And I thought, you know, I’ve got to make the most of this, whatever, you know, whatever happens.

[00:10:57] And where did you slot in in your class, so to speak. So. 13 year old new kid. Welcome, Martin, into this class. He’s just come over. Where did you slot in both, let’s say socially and then also curiously academically as well. You’ve come from a different system straight into this system. Like, were you sort of did you did you have to sort of learn that or were you way ahead of the class where you’re just thinking, right, this is.

[00:11:26] This is these high in Kenyan boarding schools? From what I’ve.

[00:11:29] Seen, people I mean, to be honest, I mean, one of the things is I would say that, okay, I’ll start off with the socially I was I was lucky that there was two other boys who were from from Africa. So we immediately kind of one one from Sierra Leone. Okay, fine. Okay. You can understand what I’m talking you understand the jokes and everything else. So that that really helped. And I think. B And so first you kind of like a little group. You’re probably a curiosity to everyone. And I won’t forget you. And I had a very strong African accident. Everyone was always kind of mimicking me, copying me just to kind of say a word, you know, that sort of thing. You know, you had to go through the change of, you know, you learnt to speak differently just because you were, you know, every word you said, everyone in the class would suddenly kind of burst out laughing or whatever. So there was all of that. So you were kind of curious outsider, you know, for a lot of these things. But what really, really hugely help was sport, actually, because I loved playing sports, I was reasonably good at it.

[00:12:32] And, you know, a lot of those barriers were broken down for me once, you know, you started playing an a rugby hockey athletics suddenly like, okay, okay, we’ve got a common thing here now and okay, we can get to grips with you now that, you know, if you’re on our team, you’re okay at the sport, you know, what about academically, academically? I’d say average maybe above slightly above average in that, but always prepared to do the work. You know, that’s one of the things so slightly above average in terms of that. But you know, it’s one of the things where I’d gone from a small school, whereas at the top of that school to come into a bigger school where suddenly, you know, the standards are were higher because there was more kids and more bright kids. And I think what I couldn’t ever really understand was the people who didn’t put the effort and the work in. So from my perspective, I think average to above average, slightly higher than average is where I put myself.

[00:13:32] I feel like with immigration, it kind of takes ten years from when you arrive to feel at home, because in the first five years you definitely don’t feel I mean, like you said, you don’t know the system, you don’t know people, you don’t know anything. Right? Okay. You start to learn that. But also in the first five years, you no longer fit back at home anymore. It’s this sort of weird moment, you know, where you’re half there and half your one foot in each camp sort of thing. I see it with our staff as well. They come from all the different places they come from. But then after ten years, which in your terms would have been the end of dental school? I feel like people people have this feeling of, okay, now this is home, you know, that probably you feel like you belong. Did you were you accelerated in that sense or did you feel like it took that long or.

[00:14:26] I think I think I think you’re really right, because I would agree that I’d agree with you entirely, because one of the things I think I. I realise it’s when you actually got through the first winter without moaning like hell about it. I hated winter. I hated, you know, every time we’d be like, why? Why does this happen? You know, freezing cold, you know, your fingers are cold or thumb. You don’t know how to dress the first winter as well. You’re not being gloves, you’re not putting layers. So all that stuff is going on. So and that was one of the things. But I think there’s always an element I think of you end up being neither, but both is is what I would say. You end up being I’m neither Ugandan nor British, but I’m both Ugandan and British. And you’re kind of a curiosity in you know, you’re slightly different in both places rather than a native of both. But I’d say in terms of it did it did take ten years. And it also, I think, making the real lifelong friends and the people who you’ve attached to and finding the people who kind of understood that you came from a really different background and sometimes you wouldn’t get the joke, that reference a 1960s cartoon that was on TV, you know, that when there were kids, you know, you just sat there going, What? I don’t understand. So it took a little while to get to that point. And I think the other thing was also, when you’re part of a cultural shift, that happens. So when you’re part of, you know, for instance, you know, the eighties or the nineties, when that change happens, you’re part of that. You’re there at the beginning, you’re there in the middle, you’re there. Then you then have a common kind of thing with everyone that you can then link with. And I think that’s probably the time. I think.

[00:16:09] Something like Live Aid or something like the shift in the way people.

[00:16:14] Think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:16:16] When did you think I want to be a dentist? Was that early or was that, you know, were you one of those didn’t know what you wanted to do?

[00:16:25] Well, it was quite a good story because I always kind of knew because my dad and mum worked in offices and what they would call the office is not, say, an office that you get here in the UK. I remember my dad had the room he was in, he had a secretary, it was in front of him and the same with my mum. She had another office in a different part of town. So whenever you go in you would arrive and they’d say, okay, you speak to the secretary, the secretary put it down, would knock, walk in next door, speak to him, he’d be on the phone, he’d be dictating a letter. And that’s what I thought office work involved. So I thought actually that that seems quite boring. I don’t want to be sat here just, you know, sending the secretary in and out and dictating letters and doing whatever. So I thought, I don’t want an office job. So then it’s also part of that kind of at the time there was, you know, let’s call it five choices. You’re a doctor, a dentist, an engineer, a medick, you know, you know the story. You know, you come from that sort of background. You have to come out. You have to do something. So out of those choices, I thought, right, I’m more interested in the medical staff things. So in the medical setting, I thought, okay, let me have a look at all of these things. So at one point I kind of run around and said to my mum, Oh, look, I’m interested in in anything medical.

[00:17:38] What do you think I might be interested in veterinary science? So they said, okay, alright, if you’re interested in veterinary science, I’ll take you along. So at the time she had a farm, a pig farm, this was maybe an hour outside of Kampala. So I said, okay, I’m interested, I’m going to come along. So I went along to the pig farm and I’ll never forget the day they opened the silo and you kind of walk in and there’s the smell of all of those pigs. It took about five, 9 seconds for me to realise that I didn’t want to work in that environment and I was I was not going to be a vet because the reality of what a vet evolved suddenly dawned on me. So then I thought, okay, maybe I want to be a doctor and do medicine. I went along and I kind of spoke to my sister, my older sister. She, she, she’s a medick and she at the time she was considering it and she kind of said, well, if you’re going to do this, you need to be really dedicated. You need to really want to be a doctor. It needs to be a drive and a passion. Unless you feel that maybe, you know, don’t do it. I thought, no, I don’t really have that passion. I don’t really kind of have this urge when you see people to kind of fix them and make them better, not not in the medical way.

[00:18:46] So I thought, no, no, that’s not what I wanted. And then I thought, okay, let’s have a look at dentistry. And my uncle, Uncle Martin, Alec, who was he’s a dentist and kind of went along to see him at work one day. And when I went along to see him, I thought, I see this. I like this environment environment’s quite nice, you know, he’s doing something that’s not an office that’s kind of medical based and it seemed quite nice. He had quite a nice car as well, quite nice house as well. I thought, okay, out of the three of these, this seems, you know, the one that I’m most interested in. And I talked to him a little bit. I also went and did another bit of work experience in Kampala. At the end of that I thought, okay, now this is it. And this was probably, I think when it wasn’t early, it was probably maybe 15, 16 when you’ve got to make those choices. I was always going to go down the science route, but. When you have to make the choices that are going to then lead to the next thing. So at that point, I’m as I can. I’m quite happy with this. I’m quite happy with dentistry. This looks like a good part. I think I can get into this. And that’s where it began.

[00:19:47] And where’d you study?

[00:19:49] Bristol.

[00:19:50] Oh, yeah, of course. Which year was.

[00:19:53] That? 85. 85 to 90.

[00:19:58] And what’s what sort of a dental student were you, Martin? We were really geeky. Had in the box kind of guy. Or were you a bit of a party animal?

[00:20:06] No, I think I think what I would say is that I realised fairly early in dental school, having talked to people, that whether you got 51% or 99%, you got the same degree. Right. So suddenly, you know, A-levels, it’s ABCD, everything else is graded but here and they explained that one person might get the distinction and there might be a merit somewhere, but the rest of you will get a straight pass. So at this point I thought, well, actually, you know, I’ve worked my way up to here. I’ve worked my way through the A-levels and, you know, secondary school, etc.. And I thought, okay, that’s as long as I get to the point where I pass. That’s the important part and as long as I take the most important thing. So I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly geeky or academic. Bristol at the time was a really good city to be in. There was loads of really interesting kind of music happening. There was loads of really interesting kind of. There was a very interesting art scene going on. I also was working one evening. I had holiday jobs. I was also working one evening at a bar. And at this bar, you know, I ran this bar where people would come down and deejay on a Thursday night, etc. and we met. Tricky massive attack, you know, just Portishead. Okay. So all of that time that was all going on around the time. So amazing. Yeah. So, you know, I think the Friday morning period was probably the one which I think we attended because I used to work every Thursday evening at this bar and it was you’d work, I’d get free food, I’d get some free beer as well. So Friday morning period sessions were probably my worst attended of anything, you know.

[00:21:46] Did you find you were hanging out more with dentists or not? Like, were you more with the townies or were you more with non dentist lawyer types or whatever?

[00:21:55] I think I think it was probably not really with dentists because I had interests. So, you know, interest in all of the other things going on and it was just the people who happened to be there and they happened to be on a variety of different degrees, etc. Lots of people who lived in Bristol who I met through working, you know, because I had a job where people come, Oh yeah, you’re the guy from Cosey. So yeah. So you just met people who lived in Bristol and lived in and around Bristol. So I ended up, I think probably sadly, a lot of my social life wasn’t around a lot of dentists, it was around lots of other people. But everyone who shared a kind of common interest in the things I was into, really.

[00:22:34] Did you not consider staying there? Because once, once you were in that position that you’ve just described, that’s almost like a level of acceptance here that you hadn’t had when you went to boarding school. And, you know, early on and what I was said about the sort of the ten year thing was probably starting to happen. Once you become once you become the guy having a night and people recognise you and all that, I’d imagine you’d start thinking, Well, maybe I should make my life here. Did that cross your mind or not?

[00:23:03] I don’t think it did, because.

[00:23:04] Were you always going to come back?

[00:23:06] My family was all in London, you know. Family was all in London and friends were all in London. You know, when you did a five year degree, everyone sort of three years in, picked up and moved to London. So when they moved to London, you know, there was a whole thing waiting in London. Once in my head, once I got there, it was it was all there. And also so so that probably drove a lot of my decision to kind of leave and move, you know, sister, brother, you know, aunt, uncle, cousin, all in London. So I would have felt slightly at a limb there.

[00:23:40] And have you always been in the same part of London?

[00:23:42] No, no, no. School, North London and Goldsmith School, as it did. Mill Hill. Oh, Mill Hill. Yeah.

[00:23:50] I broke my arm there once to one of those Camp Beaumont things.

[00:23:54] Yeah, that was the Belmont down the road.

[00:23:57] No, no, it was Mill Hill. It was New.

[00:23:58] York. Okay. All right. That patch, after you there.

[00:24:05] It was a nice school. Lots of fields, grounds and all that.

[00:24:08] Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, really? Really. Apart from when it was cold. Very nice school. No.

[00:24:14] You didn’t. You didn’t see it. Did you see him often? He went there?

[00:24:17] No, no, I didn’t.

[00:24:19] Same sort of time as well.

[00:24:21] No, it depends. There was a real distinction in there, boys and boarders. So if there was a day, boy, I probably would have known if it was a boarder because you all hung around in the evenings, the weekends and all the other stuff. Then we would have known one another.

[00:24:34] What’s what’s your view on boarding school in general? Because you’ve spent most of your life in boarding school, your childhood life. What do you think about it? Do you have kids?

[00:24:42] Do you to.

[00:24:44] Persuade them to.

[00:24:45] Go? Younger one goes. Older one doesn’t. Interestingly.

[00:24:50] So what’s your view on it?

[00:24:52] I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it because I remember the first time I went stage seven. Bear in mind, I’m done before of five. So my older sister had gone to this place. Rather had gone to this place. Sister above me had gone to this place. And so suddenly when it says, are you going to go to that place? You know, basically half your family, more than half your family there, most of your families there. So and when you’re there, you know, having the time to spend with your friends the whole time, you know, what you do lose is probably is the time with your parents. But at the time, you know, as I said, Uganda was difficult. So actually being away from that in some way, nice and idyllic, especially the first boarding school, it was the highlands of Kenya. So no mosquitos. The temperature is such that it’s like a warm summer’s day every day. And it just it just it stays in those boundaries. And so, you know, with loads of facilities, you know, lots and lots of space. So I really enjoyed that, you know, playing sport, eating well, having fun. I enjoyed that. Boarding school here was a slightly different thing because I think you then ended up in a different a different headspace. There was a lot more boys growing up. It was a boys and boys in there up until, say, 15, and then girls in sixth form. So very, very different experience. But nonetheless, I still enjoyed the time I spent with the people that I knew from that and also having the time to really spend on on I think on sport as well, which I really enjoyed.

[00:26:25] And so what? Martin What about your kids? You’ve got one in and one not just talk to me about the thought process, decision making process. I mean, it’s it’s 180 degrees from what I would do. And I’m not sort of saying, you know, one way or the other, whatever is it’s just my personal thing. But curious just to learn sort of your your view on that and then also why one in and one not?

[00:26:52] I think why one in one or not? I think it’s because of how they are as people if I’m on it. So the older one wouldn’t like know when we spoke about it, you said, no, you wouldn’t like to go the younger one, particularly because of, you know, the school when we’re looking for schools for and we were looking for a particular type of school that would suit him and suit his needs. And actually, the school that happened to suit his needs was not round the corner from us. It was not in south east London. It was an hour and a half away. And it did have you know, it was a boarding school. So we went along, had a look. He kind of spent a couple of nights there, came back. He said I said, how is it? He said, I had a great time, really enjoyed it. Would you be happy to do that? Yeah. And since then, he really enjoys it. You know, he comes back. How was your week? He goes weekly. So it’s not like you send him off and then see, mine was at the end of term. So every Monday you get dropped, every Friday you get picked up. So every weekend we see one another. So it’s not you know.

[00:27:54] It’s not months on end. So, you know, catching up on the weekends and stuff. Yeah. Having that family time, right.

[00:28:00] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:01] Well tell me about your tell me about your early jobs. You’re, you know, your early mentors. When was the first time you saw an implant?

[00:28:10] Oh, my God. An implant would have been. That would have been probably a very. Probably been 1990. So 95. Probably about three or four years in. And it was actually it was first first corporate job. The first time I saw an implant being placed. Yeah, actually I remember once my first job I had was I had this weird pathway where I finished, I finished dental school. I couldn’t go into vet directly because I didn’t have a British passport, so I had to apply for British passport and residency and all these things. So this meant that I missed the kind of vet cycle and I had to spend six months out. I worked as a waiter for those six months, which was with a dental degree, which was always very interesting because when people would say that to you, your fellow waiters, Oh, what do you do? You don’t want to know. You won’t be doing what do you? So that was always quite an interesting conversation. So when I started, I then the only the job I could get was being an assistant and that while I was an assistant I was at a practise in Hays and getting Lane sort of travelling out. And there there was a patient that came in and this patient had had an implant and everyone was like, Oh, they’ve got an implant, they’ve got an implant. Everyone was kind of gathering around it, you know, looking at it with, with great. Oh, and I happen to, they happen to be coming in to see me, you know, just by instant.

[00:29:36] That’s the first time I came across one. But in terms of early mentors, I’d probably say, you know, the first guy who took me on for BT because it was taught here early and that was he was based in Croydon, sort of in Crawley. And when I worked for him it was quite interesting. He took me on when I did the kind of VTE rounds and in doing the vet rounds I thought that after six months of working as an assistant, knowing the game working, you know, I knew what to do. I’d had to kind of self taught. I didn’t have, you know, a vet mentor at that time and I thought I’d be the most valuable vet on earth to anyone because I could hit the ground running and obviously make my train a lot of money. But the the guy who took a punt and I got one offer was was Tiger Ali. But I was very lucky because he was trained in dental practise. So that made him really, really kind of interesting to work alongside. We also worked in a really high needs area, so what I didn’t realise at the time was, you know, with his guidance we’re actually ending up as ending up doing what you call rehabs now, you know, full mouth of crowns and root canals and bridges, you know, with the odd, you know, partial denture attached to it. So that was. Yes, yeah. Yeah. That’s when the prior approval days, you know. Yeah. You could you could.

[00:30:55] Over £200 in my day. It was something ridiculous.

[00:31:00] At the time it was something like £800 and they dropped it. During my time it was, it was a reasonable amount you could do on the NHS and so, you know, working in his practise he obviously helped me with treatment, planning, putting these things together. It wasn’t just, you know, and in some ways I saw what it was like not to be a single tooth dentist, you know, through working alongside him. So that was probably the earliest mental beat and I ended up staying there for probably another sort of 18 months afterwards. So that’s driving from Battersea down to Crawley every day and back, you know, and. But he was one of the earliest.

[00:31:37] When did private dentistry come on the scene for you, Martin? Obviously, the transition from where you were there to to the level at which you operate now. When was it that you first got into sort of what you considered to be a sort of a higher end of private industry?

[00:31:52] It was a little bit of a battle to get into private, private dentistry. So from that job, I kind of worked somewhere else. That was the Waterfall Dental practise, and when I worked there, as I was working there, that was quite an interesting job because at the time it was private if you’re an adult or an NHS, if you’re exempt. And that worked really well. Did that for a bit, but then the whole practise change, it became massively NHS and then I ended up hunting around for different jobs and there always mixed jobs. But the mixed jobs I think in some ways were. I always felt I wanted to do more. And at every point I think you’re hampered by like a list of NHS patients. And I ended up, ended up, you know, at a certain point moving to James Hull. So I was kind of working one day in my practise and this and I got a call saying, Oh, you’ve been headhunted. And this was the promise, the big promise of kind of private dentistry that I’d wanted, because at the time I’d say it was mixed. And I think mixed is very different to what I do now and the sort of work we do now. So when I went along there, you know, that was promised as fully private, etc. and it wasn’t. And it’s, it’s a, it’s a problem. I had I’ve been chasing this private job all the way and I hadn’t been able to, to actually find it.

[00:33:06] So in some ways the private job came when I realised I was going to have to create it for myself really. And that’s when I started, you know, looking for premises, looking to start squat. This was maybe sort of, let’s call it mid 2000 to 2003 to around that sort of time. And then Nick and I hooked up and, you know, started ten dental at the time. I remember us considering taking on an NHS contract, but they were changing the contract at the time to, you know, from fee per item to this other thing which we didn’t know. So we just thought, you know, let’s open and see how we get on privately. And then that’s when that part of it began. And then once I started that, I realised that I was really going to have to level up and scale up a lot. And that’s when I started doing a lot more courses, and that’s probably when BCD came along, when I kind of met you guys at courses and things like that, that was the first time. So I’d say the other time I was doing the work, but not necessarily with the same foundation. And that came by, I think of course with Paul Tipton actually was I did his kind of year long restorative course that worked really well for me.

[00:34:14] Same as Kailash and Martin. How did you and Nick meet? It’s always interesting to learn how business partners got together, you know, were you buddies beforehand? What was the story? And then and then you decided to obviously, you know, settle your business together.

[00:34:30] Nice and easy. First day of dental school.

[00:34:35] Me and Sanjay met. First day of dental school, too.

[00:34:38] First day of dental school, same year, you know, birthday, two weeks apart. He’s two, two weeks older, you know, same year. And I think when we really probably became, I’d say, you know, really kind of bonded was when we did our elective together. When we went to the States, we went to Harvard and spent some time together there. That’s when we really kind of bonded and got it together. So from there we’d known each other and have drifted in and out. But when it came to starting a business, you know, I’ve said, you know, that’s when we hooked back up again and said, actually, we’re probably at a similar stage in life, about to have child wanting to work privately. You know, our current practise is not giving us what we want. So we’re going to have to create the job, the environment, the equipment, all of that. We’re going to have to do this ourselves because it’s what we want is not out there being offered to us or wasn’t being offered to me at least.

[00:35:33] But was it was was like while you were at dental school, was this some kind of dream that you both concocted up together and sort of said one day, or was it that you’d both gone in your separate directions and then you’d you’d stayed in touch, reconnected and said, let’s do this?

[00:35:49] Yeah, we’d completely gone the other way. And the time that I kind of, you know, it wasn’t a plan or a thing that we plan in any way, shape or form. And it’s actually when I was working for James, you know, the job, I told you where we got headhunted and they used to have this big kind of meetings and bashes and whatever. And at one point I bump into Nick and I’m in the practise, which is, you know, which I’m struggling to get a single bit of of whitening out of the patients. And here was in the Soho flagship, you know, so he was in this side of it actually. So that’s when we met up again and had a chat and, you know, rekindled kind of the friendship at that point in time.

[00:36:30] And so was that first practise that you said 2004, 2005, was that what we now know is ten dental?

[00:36:36] Clapham Yes, yeah, it’s, it’s the old premises, so it’s around the corner, it’s on the pavement then the pavement, dental health.

[00:36:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so shopfront. That was the shopfront too.

[00:36:46] Yeah it was.

[00:36:47] So that was back then. That was quite quiet. I suppose you’d been in JD and seen shopfronts. Was that was that something to you? Because that was that wasn’t very common to have shot. But was it squat as well?

[00:36:59] Yeah, it was.

[00:37:00] It was a shopfront with a squat. Did you not worry about the risks and the costs?

[00:37:06] Of course. Of course. You know. Yes, we were.

[00:37:11] Sometimes. Sometimes you don’t like. What you don’t know is important, isn’t it? That you can. Just like if you told me what I had to go through with Enlightened, I would definitely wouldn’t have done that. I mean, and that’s a cliche, but definitely not.

[00:37:28] Well, was there an element of that? Sometimes, you know, you’re already swimming. You know, you can’t get out of the water. That’s it. You just have only one way to go. But but I think where that came from, you know, you talk about the shopfront there was I’ve always been really interested in design and graphics and I’ve always I think at around the time there were a few people doing kind of spa type, dental type things, and I had a look at them and I thought, they haven’t done that in the way. And I had friends who were graphic designers and people who did branding and marketing. And I thought, you know, with Nick and I thought, let’s put something together that’s very different so that if you’re walking along the road and, you know, we had leaves and we had kind of a whole kind of the photographs of kind of trees and plants and a whole kind of natural look going on. But with that premise, we just thought if we have something that’s so interesting to look at and doesn’t look like a dentist and feels very different, then we thought it would work and there wasn’t a dentist along that high street. I knew the area really well. I’d worked in around the area. I’d walked up and down there and I just it yes, of course there was the fair and that there always would be the fair. But I think some way, some of the times if you have a good fair, because what that’s going to do, it’s going to make you work harder, plan better, prepare more, you know, do all that stuff so that, you know, at the time you open, you’ve done everything you can. And hopefully it will then be a success. But there weren’t that many shop fronts in that day. You’re right. There weren’t and there weren’t that many designed like that in that at that time. So that’s something that we really, really enjoyed doing and putting together and still do.

[00:39:14] First marketing campaign back in the day. Was it the shop window? Was it was it the fact that it was it was something that sort of piqued people’s curiosity where they just started walking in because of the way it was designed and set up. Or did you have some campaigns set up back in the day to.

[00:39:32] Well, what I remember was the time I looked at the amount of rent, and I had a friend of mine, Neil, who was fortunate. He worked in kind of small business stuff. And when I was looking through stuff, he would talk to me and explain different things when I said, Oh, this is so expensive. He said, Think of this as your marketing budget. Think of your shopfront as your marketing budget. Make sure it looks really nice. And that way people walk in. So that was the that was the first thing was again, having a nice shopfront, having a good receptionist on the front and name was Hayley. She was she was brilliant. Having her on the front then I think around that sort of time is when Google was kicking off. And around that time you could load up with your credit card because Google Pay pay per click was quite simple at the time, wasn’t it? It was Google AdWords. So I remember entering the thing, looking at the area, putting in some keywords. It had some suggestions as to what you could do, put my budget on there and basically put the Google keywords budget and then sat there with the email address and went, Oh, someone’s booked. And I think at the time it was, it was you think about what was then and what is now. What was then was so empty. You just put something up saying, we’re a cosmetic dentist on Google. People are, Oh my God, there is a cosmetic dentist. I’m going to go there. Whereas now it’s a very, very different thing. It’s much more complicated. So was that was.

[00:40:53] That the positioning from the get go cosmetic dentist as opposed to sort of family or general or specialist or.

[00:41:01] I think it started off as Nick and I doing all of the dentistry and, you know, and then gradually after a while, you know, one of our team members are hygienist. Just Oh, look, I know you guys don’t really you know, you don’t love Bender, a friend of mine, and then the dentist would would you be interested in talking to him? So we talked to him then he had a friend who was a periodontist, so we talked to him and then we were getting into doing implants at the time. So we thought, okay, now there’s a periodontist, there’s an end of dentist, there’s a couple of guys doing implants. Oh, we might be called a referral centre. So, you know, we’re a referral centre now and then. So there wasn’t a plan to do that and it didn’t. But it just I think it was more every time you tried to see what the public wanted. At the time it was the age of veneers when everyone wanted us, you know, same day, smile, smile. So there was a lot of people looking for that sort of treatment. You know, after a while that sort of faded and people started looking for another thing. So a lot of it sometimes is driven by trends in the marketplace, especially if what you’re trying to do is keep your kind of young business going, you’re going to do whatever. So that’s how that part evolved.

[00:42:10] How do you take to being a business owner? Compared to a worker and someone who works in a business. And you to take to that naturally. I mean, what kind of what kind of a boss are you? For a start.

[00:42:25] I think it would depend on who you ask. Different people would have different things. I think what I would say is I probably I would like to the type of boss I’d like to be the sort of boss who actually when you come in, you’re going to have a good time at work. We’re going to have a laugh. And if you do your work, you do your bit, actually, you’ll find that in a certain respects I will be happy, happy go lucky joke around with you, you know, talk to be interested in you. But it’s when people cross that boundary and they start trying to they perceive your your friendliness as weakness and try and take advantage of that. That’s it. Then then a different person kind of comes out at that time. But I, you know, I like to prefer to be the first type because that’s much easier in terms of taking to business. I that’s when I learn how to use Excel. I just had to spend the time sat there going through crunching the numbers. It just took a lot of time and you know, you learn different skills at different times. And I remember just going through having to learn that, sit through, learning all this new stuff. I didn’t mind it. And I think at the time I met you guys, I was probably doing a lot more of the the kind of, let’s call it the back office stuff within the practise than I am now. I was doing a lot more of that and of paying the wages, doing this, uploading that, figuring out how to use the software, big change. But I think a lot of it’s funny because it happened so long ago. I’m so used to it. It’s almost like a frog in water. I’ve been in the water so long, whatever the temperature forgotten what it was like before I jumped in. You know, it’s been that long.

[00:44:01] It’s interesting during that transition, Martin, I think I think we all go through it right where you where you’re the bookkeeper or the guy who pays the bills and all the rest of it. And for you, you know, I’ve seen ten Dental go from certainly from the early days of what it what it was to what it is now. Right. And fortunately, you know, we’ve we’ve had the opportunity to sit down and look at your business together. And, you know, I’m privy to information where I can see that it’s a roaring success, you know, from the patients who were coming in and having the type of treatment that you share on social media. That obviously looks incredibly beautiful to all of those referring dentists, trusting you with their work, something had to happen mindset wise or mentally for you to shift from becoming, you know, that, shall we say, that small business mentality to I pay all the bills and I see all the receipts and that. So you just sort of say, right, I’m now running, you know, from where you were then to where you are today, what would you attribute sort of the biggest mindset shift, not like tasks or whatever, but just mentally for you to be able to say, right, okay, I’m going from first to fifth gear or whatever that is. And this is the reason why.

[00:45:22] I think a lot from my point of view, it’s probably been driven a lot by, I think, family and responsibility. So first practise, first child needed to step up, pay the bills, look after the family, do all of that stuff. Second practise, interestingly, you know, second child realising that there’s going to be a lot more needed. And I think at the time it’s one of those things where when you once you make the decision to do it and you make the decision that you’re going to go for it, I’m I’m fairly determined once I start something to kind of complete it and to keep going with it. And it also comes from, I don’t know, seeing parents, seeing family members. So sister, mother, fathers seeing, you know, in general what everyone else has had to do and realising that actually in some ways, you’re just going to have to get on with the work, you’re going to have to put the time in. You’re going to have to make some sacrifices to get there. And it’s, you know, in order to to make those steps and to do it. So I think part of that also comes from, you know, playing sports as well. You know, when you see the benefit of kind of hard work and you see it work for that work, work for it, and you achieve it. So it makes the hard stage of that a little bit easier if you kind of know that there’s an end site. And it also helps when you get the rewards, you know, you get the recognition, you get your first referral, your first kind of happy patient, your first Google review, your first rehab. And, you know, all of those things reinforce it and just give you the energy and the strength to carry on and to keep going.

[00:46:55] But just in terms of the shift in so so for me, for example, the hardest part, the thing I struggle with is the letting go a bit, right? Is I can be a bit of a control freak, but every time I’ve let go in my own businesses, it’s, it’s resulted in, in really positive things happening. Right. In terms of. Performance or team performing better and whatnot, but I struggled to let go and my mindset shift. I think it was a moment where I was, you know, I was being coached by, I think, Dan Sullivan at the time. And it was he said these words which which I’ll never forget is not the how, but it’s the who. Right? And the moment that sort of became clear in my mind, I didn’t really need to know how these things all happen. I just needed to find somebody who could do that thing right, who’s my guy, who can sort the the finances out from from that that side of things. Right. And it’s a bit like I heard a story about Zuckerberg one day who say walked into Facebook’s offices and said, today, guys, we’re going to focus on messaging. It’s all about messaging today. Right. And so for you, there must have been some kind of mindset shift to where you’ve just described that hard graft from your parents, from sports and everything. And I’m not saying the amount of graft has changed, but something must have happened for you to let go of those things.

[00:48:23] I think a part of it comes for I’d say there’s a couple of things. The first is when I, for instance, we talk about paying the bills and understanding how that side of it works. Once I understand how something works and then happy to let it go once I’m sure I’ve gone into it, I’ve looked at it, I’ve gone through the nitty gritty. I spent hours with the Google sheet looking at how this thing works and understood it once. Once I’ve understood it, I’m then happy to kind of happy to step back and let it go. And it also is easier because there’s two partners, because within the two partners what we do is we try and split that. So some parts are Nick does it and in some ways he will let me know he’s done it and that’s fine. Other parts, he will give me the same free rein. So having two partners also helps. And I think the other bit that helps is also having two people check every decision because we’ve done some things that you would look back and go, that wasn’t a great decision. But actually if two of you have made a bad decision, if there’s two of you looking at everything, that makes it a little bit easier in terms of, you know, you hope that someone if you come in with come in with something really dark, Nick is going to go, look, actually, that’s not going to work.

[00:49:34] We’re not going to do that. I’m saying now, you know, I’m pulling my veto on that one. So but it did take a while to let go. And I think a part of it has also been finding the right people. You know, once you find the right people that you can let go to, that makes it easier. And there are certain things which I still struggle to let go because I’m not sure, you know, if I’ve managed to train people in the right way to get them to do it. But once you find the right people and I think that’s very liberating. You know, some people that work in the team that you say, you know, you give them a five line email and it’s done and there’s other people with who need a little bit more guidance. So the right people has been key. And if I could find more, you know, it’s one of those things that you could find more of the right people to take different things then that that would help but. In essence, I think that there’s some things I don’t still let go of, which maybe I should.

[00:50:32] One of those things, Martin.

[00:50:36] Some of the. I think there’s some of the things like, for instance, some of there’s some tasks I do which. For instance, that there’s things I do with to do with my own admin that someone else could quite easily do. You know, there’s the expense out here where I’m really sure if I’ve trained the right person, they could do half of this stuff, you know? So it’s things like that. It’s things like that. And I think that would be one of my aims is to actually kind of slowly, you know, find the who to relieve me of those and give me more time to do the things that I enjoy.

[00:51:12] And what in terms of you and Nick, what’s the balance? Do you both have your own zones of genius where you’re better at one thing than him? Or do you split your responsibilities up in certain directions where you say, All right, I’m going to one marketing, Nick, you’re going to own HR or whatever. How do you work together as a as partners? It’s a little.

[00:51:33] Bit like that where, you know, there’s there’s five or six duties that are in terms of management that we have to do. He’s got two. I’ve got one and a half. And then there’s other things that we have to talk about and work out. So that’s how we try and we try and stay away, not always successfully from each other’s different zones, but, you know, there’s always going to be a bit of overspill that’s that’s worked for us so far. And we’ve had times where what’s interesting, we’ve had times where we’ve done the other jobs, you know. So he’s done one bit and I’ve done the other side of it. And then we’ve come back to a point where, you know, it’s over. Yeah. So you kind of understand what they’re going through. You know, if you’ve done that job and you’ve done that role, you know, you have a lot more sympathy because, you know, you realise what it involves. So that that’s that’s how we do that part.

[00:52:22] You have clashed. Have you ever sort of come to a sort of headway thing? I totally disagree with with what you’re saying and vice versa. And have you dealt with that?

[00:52:32] Yeah, we have. We have. And I think it’s you know, he always said it. And I think that having a partnership is almost like having a marriage. You know, it is. It is. It’s a long term relationship that you’re in and you’re going to be in and you’re committed to. And there’s bits of paper and everything else around it. So the times where it’s been difficult, you know, I think we’ve you know, my partner’s been an apology is needed. I’ve had to give it at times. Maybe he’s he’s had to say that part or it’s part. But we have clashed. And I think there’s times when because we know each other so well, I think when I see that he’s getting to a red line, I’ll back off because I realise, okay, we don’t need to cross that and fight our way and bash and he probably does the same to me and maybe you approach the same subject in a different way or in a common area. You know, if it’s a decision like that you’ll have to provide some kind of, you know, if it’s like, I want to do this, you’ll have to persuade me, not just by your words. You’ll have to go and do a little bit more work around that to demonstrate that actually it is a good idea or it’s not. But generally we’ve been lucky because I think a lot of times we’ve been aligned in terms of our approach and what we’ve wanted and how we’ve wanted to approach things, you know, from when we started. And there are times when, you know, you have you have to lose. Sometimes in a partnership you have to lose, you have to lose some arguments. You have to kind of give in. You know, you have to that’s it. And he feels strongly about something. I disagree. He feels that strongly. You know, I’ll have to say okay on this one. Let’s see how it turns out.

[00:54:11] Prav you’re in loads of partnerships. Yeah. And I’m in I’m in a partnership. And it’s interesting one because you have to have complementary skills, you have to be opposites in many ways. And yet on some base principle things, you have to be fully aligned.

[00:54:29] Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah.

[00:54:31] And, and one the one that I find the most important to be aligned on, I think a couple, one is like how, how do you treat people that I think that’s really important because it can really great in a partnership if if the company is treating people differently to the way you as one of the owners would treat people. That’s cool. I think another one’s risk profile. And it’s there’s no right or wrong in risk profile, you know? I mean, one person can want to take big risks for big returns. Another another one could be more measured and some but those that does need to be aligned. Whereas, I mean, it’s really important with partnerships that you’ve got opposing skills. As well. You know, it’s like I was talking to Prav earlier that there are there are things that Sarge takes care of that I would never have a hope in hell of.

[00:55:27] Taking care of.

[00:55:29] Different types of people.

[00:55:31] Yeah. Would you? Vice versa and vice versa. Pay for you, right? You know, there’s stuff that’s. Yeah.

[00:55:36] Yeah. Essentially, like people.

[00:55:38] Yeah.

[00:55:43] What do you think? What do you think about that? I mean.

[00:55:46] To me. I think that’s true. I think, you know, I think you’ve got to have your basic goals aligned. You know, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? What’s our direction? You might have different ways of approaching how you get there, different pathways of doing it. And that’s probably where the difference happens, you know? And in terms of the letting go bit that’s hard is I wouldn’t do it that way, but you are doing it that way and he probably has a ton of stuff in that way. So I would never do it that way. But just just, you know, I’ll ask you how it went at the end. So that’s the part of letting go. But I do think there’s different bits that, that, that and I think in order to keep ourselves in different silos, we try and stay away from the other person things. But interesting I think over the years you end up a little bit more aligned because you learn from each other. You know, some aspects I’ve watched and I’ve said, okay, that’s, that’s interesting that work, that’s interesting that and actually some things are no he’s better at. So I’ll say, look, I know you’re really good at this. This is what I’m trying to do. How would you go about it? Right. So that’s that’s the easy way to do it. And then he’ll say this. If you follow that, generally, it will work out better than if I went into it my way. So that’s where I think you try when you have something that you know, the other person has very good skills at and is very good at, ask them first. So this is what I need to do. How would you go about it and listen and then see how that works out?

[00:57:10] Prav. Kim, you’ve got you’ve got your main businesses, not a partnership. Yeah, but you other ones are partnerships. Correct. What’s your thought?

[00:57:20] So I think I’ll reiterate what Martin said earlier, which is the general direction in the vision in which you’re all going in. Right. And if that isn’t aligned, I think you need to pull everyone in that direction or be pulled in that direction, especially when there’s multiple partners. You know, there’s a business I’m involved in where there’s I think there’s more than five people involved. Right. We are all pulling in in the same direction. We all want the same goal. We’ve got we’ve got the same, shall we say, exit strategy in mind. However, however you put that right, we have definitely got differences of opinion of how we’re going to get there. Without question. Right. But like you said, Payman, I think we’re all very, very much aligned as human beings and not not just how we treat our team members, but what’s really important is how we are with our families. And I think if I was to look at all our partners and how they are all with their their children, their partners and whatnot, we’re very, very much aligned in the way we list and conduct ourselves. And I’m not saying that that’s that’s important for business, but it can help. And then, yeah, in terms of how you treat your staff and whatnot, but I think in terms of having the skill sets, complementary skill sets 100%, otherwise you may be just fighting for the same job, right? Or you may you’re both sort of aces down one thing and perhaps you can just split that duty.

[00:58:55] But every partnership that I’ve been involved with, I’ve definitely had a skill set that’s complementary to the rest of my team. And the rest of the team have definitely had skill sets where I couldn’t touch it, not not in a million years. And and that’s worked really, really well. But the one piece of advice someone comes to me and goes, Hey, I’m thinking of going into business with my best buddy. There’s a book called the Partnership Charter. It is a wonderful book. It’s a really old book and you don’t even need to read the book, flick to the back pages, and there is a contract in the back of that partnership charter. And whether you choose to use that contract or not, it’s up to you. But there are some probing questions in that partnership charter where it explains all the uncomfortable conversations to have with that person before you jump into bed with them. Right. Some examples. It’s really all right. What happens if you and Carla got divorced tomorrow? What’s going to happen to your shares? Okay. What happens if you die tomorrow? Payman, I don’t want to deal with your wife.

[01:00:07] I agree. All of that from the beginning, huh?

[01:00:09] Agree. All of that from the beginning. Right. Because the whole the whole purpose of this contract is it makes us think about the uncomfortable stuff. Hopefully it never happens and we get that stuff out of the way so we can focus on what did we have at the beginning, the vision. Yeah. And so that book, I don’t know how old it is, but the language is old and it is an old book. But, but forget about reading the book, but that contracts at the end. It’s beautiful and it makes for a it makes for a very engaging and probing conversation between partners. And you learn a lot about each other during those conversations as well, like what their responses would be to those those type of questions. So that’s that’s my piece on partnerships.

[01:00:56] Martin Tell me about moving from one practise to multiple practises when you start, for instance. That that’s a good question, isn’t it? When you started out with Nick, was your stated goal to have multiple practises?

[01:01:09] No, no. Our stated goal was my. We did. I suppose we didn’t really. We just wanted somewhere that we could practise dentistry the way that we wanted with the equipment we wanted, with the, you know, with the environment that we wanted. That’s where, you know, that, that’s really where that started. Then I think the second practise came along because we were sat, they were very busy in the one practise as well as being very busy in the one practise. We kept noticing that a lot of our patients would move from Klapa to Ballan, so you’d be, say, a renter in Clapham and you kind of you’d be in your shared household and then at a certain point you would meet boy meets girl, then you’d buy a house in Balham, and then you’d have a family home. So that kept coming from Balam to Clapham and we figured, I think there’s an opportunity there and we kind of went along and found a building and when we found this building we had to kind of do all this stuff very quickly to suddenly decide we’re going to do it. So it happened really quite quickly from us thinking about it to it actually being okay, you have to do it now and huge amount of time to think about that.

[01:02:22] Another squat.

[01:02:23] Another squat. Yep, another squat. And that that was I think in some ways it was a really, really hard build with digging down with basements, with mud, with, you know, all sorts of things like that that made it complex. But on the other hand, it it we kind of peaked out where we were. And I think the other thing that happened is I think it also we were both in the same place, both there at the same time, and actually we could both do more. We’re also doing a lot of you know, you talk about partnerships, you talk about, you know, having different skills. But one of the things that’s probably unusual is we’re both doing the same sort of work. We’re both in Scientologists, both partners are in ontologies, where he was a orthodontist and as an implant ologist, there’d be a lot less clash right here as a cosmetic dentist. So I think we thought, well, we just we need more space. And rather than have more space here, let’s have space down the road in Balham. And so that was the thinking behind behind starting that. And we also had a group of we’re very lucky because we had a group of great young dentists that were working alongside me. Ojo Your hand is badly on, you know, I think Shiraz was Shiraz was a little bit later, but he was about to come along. So we had this group of really talented young dancers. We didn’t have enough space to do all the work, so it helped that we’re able to kind of move somewhere else, open up, have a little bit more space. And also, I think all the mistakes you make building your first practise, you know, you don’t make those mistakes building the second you make different mistakes instead.

[01:03:52] So was it simpler, though, to transplant the systems over that? Much more confident the second time?

[01:03:59] Right. And we had a great practise manager at the time that was really, really, you know, that was really useful in that. So yeah, you know, you talk about letting go, having someone that was able to really, really help with that was really, really handy. So again, once you had everything in place and also it was down the road so it didn’t feel like it was too far, you could get there in 15 minutes and back. So it wasn’t like, you know, I know people who’ve got one practise in Scotland and the other one in Cornwall. It wasn’t anything like that, you know.

[01:04:27] What year was that? Was that four or five years after you started the first one?

[01:04:30] That was that would have been 2008, 2009. So for four or five years. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:04:39] And then the third one was then.

[01:04:41] One was a purchase. Someone who was a basically was a referring dentist. They wanted to sell. We had just bought then it just started the second and they said, actually, you guys are looking like you are going to expand. And at the time we’re thinking about expanding and multiples and doing more practises and it just it’s probably an opportunity that arrived rather than we went looking for. So that was quite a that that was how the third practise came along.

[01:05:12] I mean, tell me. So you mentioned a few of the names of the people who’d worked there. And, you know, there’s quite a lot of associate super associates, people who’ve gone on to do greater things who’ve come out of that little camp of yours. And I’m sure you know, in the future there will be. Actually, I know one of your Jessica who who who started became an Army bomb maker, but she was a dental student and already putting out wonderful work. You know, do you guys have like a formal way that you’re training the associates or is it just that you love teaching? We love how sharing knowledge. Why is it your associates all go on to do such wonderful things?

[01:05:57] I. I would say ask them. One of the nicest things, I think when Shiraz left, he kind of gave a very nice speech on social media about what had happened. But I think what it comes down to in some ways is, you know, I’m Maya’s my own worst critic when it comes to what something looks like. Is it right? Is it good enough? Nick’s also his own worst critic. So when, you know, once you get past that, I think what we try and do is try and instil a sense of, you know, what it looks like to do work like that. And, you know, one of the things is in going to conferences, going things like BCD for years, going to barge, you know, travelling abroad and seeing some of the work that people do. You see things and once you see something at a certain standard, when someone comes up to you said, Oh, look, this is the work I’ve done today, what do you think? And that’s really the moment where I think the change starts and the people who are able to kind of gain from it, the most of the people who are able to listen to what you say, take on board the hopefully constructive kind of criticism and feedback you give them. What helps sometimes is you’ll have maybe a case that you’ve treated in the past that’s like that. So you can show them saying that This is what I did, this is what you do, this is how this works. And then the next time you have that, before you start on the day, come in and see me. Let’s talk through it before you start. When you’ve got the professionals on really important, come and talk to me with the provisionals on and I’ll say No, you need a bit more there or a bit less there or a bit more there. And that’s it’s just a gradual process, a gradual, iterative process of continually, I think, learning to show your work to other people and accepting the feedback when it comes and then changing it and then doing it again and then doing it again.

[01:07:39] Instilling that culture. I mean, I speak to associates. They say, my, my boss doesn’t ever say one word to me. Susie, it’s very I’ve been I’ve worked in a practise myself where, you know, literally we just like we happen to be in the same building.

[01:07:55] But, but.

[01:07:56] But there was no discussion on cases, nothing. I mean, just like, you know, that culture of of of teaching. Within a practise, you know, unless you’re telling me, you know, it just comes. So it just just came naturally and it just it just evolved by itself.

[01:08:12] Yeah, because we we both, you know, we both did study clubs. We both have taught and trained. And and I think you probably pick certain things up. And I think one of the things that’s probably been the thing that’s helped is understanding different people’s learning styles. You know, some people, they just, you know, you have to be really gentle and talk around it and kind of get to the point, gradually show loads of evidence around that go online. Other people don’t get it that way and you have to be really quite forceful to get the point across. And then they’ll go, Oh, okay, fine. But as long as you get to that point where something clicks in their head, then it helps. And I think it’s also a lot of people, you need to see it to understand what you’re trying to do. Unless you’ve seen it and you can see it, then it’s really hard to get up to that level. So that’s where I think there’s been a huge advantage of travelling, seeing, you know, courses and also, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, we’ve been doing this a little while so, you know, picking up hints and tips from different people at different times.

[01:09:16] I seen some of your presentations, Martin. You know, you’ve got a definite style, you know, very beautiful sort of looking slides and things that you make. And this question of teaching and I guess it kind of goes hand in hand with the question of sort of super excelling at something in order to be considered a teacher at it. I mean, some people will not touch implants, others will restore them, others will start placing them. Others will do loads of them. Others will do grafts, others will do sinuses. You’ve taken implant ology, you know all the way. You do continue to take it pushing further and further and further. What is it in you that makes you that cat?

[01:10:02] It’s very kind of you to say, first of all, pay. Well, now, that’s much appreciated because you’ve seen this, you know, for many, many years. I think a part of it comes from I would say. You know, before I left. So age 13, leaving Uganda. Last talk with my mum, you know, she was sending me off to a foreign land and she kind of said, look, you’re just going to have to be much, much better in order to get the same place. You know, you just have to accept it. You’re going to have to be much better. You’re going to have to work harder. You’re going to be much better that that’s just the truth because you’re going to look different. You’re going to talk different. You know, that’s not you know, it’s not your country. You’re going to so you have to if you accept that as the baseline, that you’re going to have to be better, that sets the tone for what you have to do. And I think that that’s probably the driver. It’s that understanding that actually you’re just going to have to work a little bit harder. And what you get out of that at the end is actually the stuff that you talk about, you know, that that comes through the iteration, the process. I’ve talked about iterating better and better and better. You know, keep going, keep going, keep going. And within that, you see someone else who’s very good and you think, I want to get to that. That was an awesome case. And and so it as much as you see that there’s still things I look at and I think, how did he do that? How do I get to that point where I’m doing that regularly, you know, and achieving those results regularly? So there’s still the drive in there to do more and to get better. But it does come from from that. I think that acceptance that you’re just going to have to do more. You know, you’re going to have to do more. You’re going to look different to many other people you meet.

[01:11:45] Well around that subject of race, I guess. Do you think we’re now past that? I mean, we just had the Black Lives Matter thing recently. It wasn’t long ago. And for me, it was that whole moment in in social history, if you like. It was almost like I feel like, you know, these days things are a lot better and so forth. But in that moment, the polarisation of different people’s thoughts kind of came out that things that I thought that were gone then came out in that moment. Well, tell me your views on the evolution of what it’s what it is to be a black man in Britain. I mean, when you first walked in, when he first came compared to now, you know, highly respected surgeon. And do you do you still feel it now? And and, you know, your thoughts around this was okay.

[01:12:40] I mean, I’d say the what I remember first coming and, you know, people would shout kind of insults at you, things out of cars, vans, you know, just randomly, randomly. And also, you know, when you’re playing sports, people would call you names and do things like that. That part of it I don’t experience anymore. But what in some ways what sometimes feels like I don’t know my experience of it. It’s probably been very different to most. It’s been very different to most black men because I’ve come from a privileged background, I’ve got an education, I have a degree. You know, I talk in a way that will be very different to many people that they may have met. So within all of that, my experience is probably slightly different. But I think, you know, when Black Lives Matter and everything with George Floyd kicked off, what you realise is, you know, you may have succeeded or have got to a certain point or have got beyond a certain point, but there’s still many other people underneath you. And as part of it we did this quite interesting kind of webinar and talk with the at the time it was the HDCP What’s now the CG. They started the whole project and as part of that, different people submitted what had happened to them and talked about that. And you talk about things like for instance, if as an example, if I’m walking along the road, people will still sometimes be wary that there’s a large black man walking beside. They won’t think of this as the implant. That’s what they’ll see.

[01:14:15] They won’t think that way. I don’t think. Or aren’t you the implant ologist who did this? That and they. Aren’t you the guy who was on that website and I’m paying Prav. You know, you just said so. You know, people’s perceptions until they know you are always probably going to be in some ways slightly negative. Having said that, you always have an opportunity when you meet people and you talk to them and you engage with them and you break down their barriers and you show them nice work. And you, you know, they might have perceptions that you you’ve always got a chance to get in there and break those up and really challenge their thought process by not behaving or being what they thought you might be. And that means that if they can broaden their view of what a black man is like by you being very different to other people you’ve met or being in places I haven’t met, then that will make them think twice. The next time a large black man is walking beside him, we might just. Just be going home, you know, to his family, you know, to do whatever. So breaking those things down, I think, is a constant battle. And in some ways, it’s it’s something that I noticed probably a lot of a lot more people have become aware of it. And there’s still things that happen to do with it. But I think I’m fortunate in terms of my position is fairly privileged, but it will obviously still affect me in certain ways.

[01:15:36] You get dental students, younger dentists. Of colour kind of contacting you and saying, you know, you’ve you’ve been an inspiration to me. Does that happen? That must happen.

[01:15:48] That and that’s that’s very kind when people do that. And I always you know, if anyone’s listening, I always you know, I always reply. I always reply.

[01:15:57] And thus.

[01:16:00] Martin Just sort of during this whole journey of, say, building your business, getting to where you are today from where you started. We talked about earlier on what have been your. Darkest moments where things really hit rock bottom. Whether it was a combination of sort of family work and everything all coming tumbling down at once. You know, nothing ever happens at the right time, does it? When when stuff goes wrong but never is a right. Can you think of a of a time where where you were you had hit rock bottom in all of this. And and what was that?

[01:16:38] Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean. Oh, the one I’ll pick is, there was, there was a time where financially it was difficult not not necessarily because of what was going on at work, but because of decisions I’d taken outside of work. And when you are really kind of properly watching the pennies at home and then you’ve got people at work who may not be, you know, it’s not their business, it’s not. And during those times I was going through, I think, quite a hard kind of personal financial time because of decisions not related to work. Work was going fine. It wasn’t to do with that, but that that was and it’s not something that I wanted to share at the time because then, you know, it’s not anyone’s business. But that that was that was quite hard. And I think during that time losing it was around that time that I lost my dad. So, you know, there’s certain times when, you know, there’s no joy in the world and there’s, you know, there’s nothing to look forward to. So the darkest times have come when work is in. And interestingly, around that time, it’s the work that probably kept me sane, you know, just the going in doing that something to occupy because you kind of knew it would pass, but you just had to go through this. You had to go through this six month period where it was just going to be hard. It was just going to be tight, it’s just going to be tough. But actually having you know, that was one of the things that was probably just kind of kept things level for a while.

[01:18:11] We’re in the we’re in the dark zone of the podcast now, so I’ll continue. What would you say of your biggest mistakes? Well, you know, some of some mistakes that you’ve made. I want I want to hear both from a business perspective and definitely from a clinical perspective in a mistake someone else can learn from.

[01:18:32] From a business perspective, I think there are times when we’ve probably tried too much at the same time without the right team in place. And there was a time we were trying to start a facial aesthetics practise and keep the dental practise going with just built this this fantastic new practise that we had in Clapham and there was just too much going on that was just too much. And I just at that time it was, it was just, just difficult. It was just difficult at work, difficult on all sorts of things you built in your practise, all the stuff to do with that. You’re trying to start a business in an area that we didn’t know at the time, I didn’t know very much about. And that was I would say when we look back at that and how, you know, I think Nick Nick was instrumental in extricating us from that, how we got out of that. That was important, you know, at the time. Clinically. I would say the one the one that I think still kind of haunts me today is I went on I went on a kind of course where there was an observation element to someone working. And when they did that, they used a type of a type of kind of synthetic block graft, which was, you know, I’d done BLOCK Cross before I’d done them, where you take part of someone’s jaw, you know, and you kind of trim it up and you put it themselves very comfortable with that part of it. But sometimes it’s this great synthetic. You know, there’s this great synthetic block. And I thought, okay, I had a guy who came in, he was petrified of the procedure. And I said, okay, tell you what, instead of doing it the way I’m used to, I’ll use this this other way of doing it.

[01:20:13] And it was like, okay, fine. And I did the procedure. It all went really well. And I was thinking, Oh, this is great. That’s a really nice, easy way to do it. But the issue happened because, you know, what I didn’t fully appreciate was when you use the material, the material behaved very, very differently to what I was used to. So instead of going back to try and put the implant in, in normally three or four months, you’re supposed to go back in in about six or nine months. And I was very just routine implant placement. Put the implant in. I thought, Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s all worked out nice and easy. You know, I’m the donor and everything else. And then it just started to fall apart, you know, because the material wasn’t ready. I lifted a flap, it wasn’t fully integrated. And over the course of a few months, gradually bits of this just came apart and came out. And he was the guy was incredibly patient with me. I’ll be forever grateful to him, but literally just picked it apart and in the end had to take the implant out and just do it again and start again and do it properly. And not. Not properly, but but do it with that conventionally. Yeah, but it was an understanding that, you know, if you’ve got a thing that you know, works, you know, you have to think very carefully before changing it and you have to understand what you’re changing. And at the time, I don’t think I gave enough consideration to what I was changing and.

[01:21:41] So was was there any form of complaint or.

[01:21:44] Incredibly, fortunately, no. I think that with all of these things, the first thing was, you know, and again, I’ve got to thank someone called Nigel Jones. You know what? If I you know well, as you talk about influences, I’ve got to thank him for this. Just take money off the table. We’re going to fix it. Don’t worry about the cost. Everything’s going to be fixed. Everything’s taken care of. Just, you know, that’s it. So that was the first thing to happen. I think once you take that off and you fix it, that that deals with a lot of it, you know, because someone’s going to have to fix it. And these and in some ways, if it said at the time, I don’t want you to do it, I want someone else to do it. I would have happily paid someone else to do it and said, Right, there you go, go see them. So it’s ready to take the money off the table so that the person gets the treatment they deserve.

[01:22:29] The level of work you’re doing. There must be complications. I mean, there must be there must be a case where, you know, you feel like. Not not, not, not. I’m not saying that you let the patient down, but where the patient felt that, you know, something wasn’t done right. And how you handle that situation.

[01:22:51] I would say that.

[01:22:52] Because the last example you gave, obviously, from a management perspective, that was a massive success.

[01:22:59] Well, no, but it’s double the amount of time, loads of procedures.

[01:23:03] You managed the guy and you managed the situation well. But can you think of one where you didn’t manage the situation quite as optimally as. This one.

[01:23:15] I think interestingly, it’s probably it’s been the ones where it’s most of those things have come where generally at a certain level you reach the point where you can can you when you get a complication, you can manage it. You know, I’ll get complications. Everyone will get complications, but you know what they are and you can manage it and you can get around that and you can do it again or do something else. And you’ve got a way around it when you know you to extricate yourself. But I’ve found that the times when people haven’t wanted to be managed and potentially when there’s money involved and they feel that, you know, it costs too much, why I’ve had to come so many times. So generally those times have been when it’s been about, you know, no money, really what it’s come down to people wanting money and that’s that I think that’s a sad thing. But in terms of. I think. I think you’re making me worried now. I’m knocking on wood over here at the moment, but I think a part of it comes down to, I think, the conversations you have with the patients and we’re a lot more of the issues come is not necessarily in the patient complaining. It’s the patient having an unrealistic expectation of what you can do and you not realising at the beginning that you’re dealing with someone who you’re never going to 100% get it right. Whatever you do in their mouth and you realise this once you’ve done, you know, removed tears, removed implants, rebuilt bone, rebuilt soft tissue, you go, Da, it looks fantastic. I go, I don’t like that little bit. So the majority of what I’m trying to do now is trying to find those people. And when I do just really, you know, in some ways saying no, saying no.

[01:25:09] When when you get referred to patient, in a way, the referring dentist has presold your expertise and your level of knowledge and skills. But when you see a patient who hasn’t been referred to as the patient, a person. How’d you get over to him? You know, you’re you and you’re not. You know what I mean? I bet you charge more than the average. Do you charge more than the average implant? I hope so.

[01:25:39] I should put the fees up after that.

[01:25:41] Well, you’ve got you’ve got I mean, I was having the same chat with Basil Mizrahi and he was saying he takes it takes him three examinations. Before he works the patient out in the patient, works him out and so forth. But, you know, if I sent someone to Basil or I’ll tell them a massive story about how he’s one of the best in the world and all of this. Whereas if a patient walks off the street or a word of mouth referral comes in. These ought to know your Martin weren’t there is just you’re the dentist. Do you have a way of confidence about you or do you tell a story or do you showcases or what you do?

[01:26:16] I think it’s a combination of all of those things. The first thing I think is sometimes your body language and the language you use with someone, and if someone walks in and you go, Oh my God, this is really complicated, everything’s going to go wrong. I’m going to tell you about 15 different complications before I talk. Whereas if you say, of course I can sort you out, this is no problem. I’ve done this before and you begin the conversation with that because that comes from having done it many times, having spotted the issues. If you begin like that, that’s the first thing that people are reading your language the whole time. You know, they’re reading your body language. They’re reading how you’re talking to your nurse. How, how how does your nurse know what you’re doing when you say, I want an X, x, x and Y? Does she spring up and immediately get it or look at you confused? All of that stuff that’s going on is, I think, hugely important. And I think the other thing is, you know, if they really I’ll generally showcases and I’ve generally got a case like you very similar to you. Sometimes I’ll have a case like you with a video from the person stating, you know how happy they are and everything else. So that actually you’ve not only got the teeth, you’ve got the person who’s happy to give a little video to say how happy they are and what happened and how it how it went through. And I think the other thing is, you know, the other part of that is I think the team around you and I say that because if when they answer the phone so I’d like to get an implant, please, I go, oh, you know, you’re going to see Nick or Martin are. They’re really good at what they do once they start the team, build you up, you know, when they’re then the treatment coordinator on the way out, you know, they, they, they help with all of those things. So making sure you’ve got that team around that believe in you and are prepared to kind of help.

[01:27:56] And training them to say those things. Right.

[01:27:59] Well, I hope they come naturally in some way, shape or form, but part of it is you do talk to them and a part of it, you know, probably the most important thing is in some ways when you when I started this is making sure the team had confidence that I could deliver. And once the team have confidence that you can deliver it, they can then do that other part that maybe the referring this dentist was going to do for you by saying authenticity. They’re right. Yeah. You really want this guy to your implant?

[01:28:24] Honestly, I have teachers teaches this to receptionists all the time, but I do. Regarding whitening, you know, it’s almost like that vanilla ice cream in Marks and Spencers and vanilla ice cream as it’s madagascan vanilla.

[01:28:42] You know.

[01:28:44] Do you do white.

[01:28:45] With the little with the little black vanilla flakes like little.

[01:28:51] Little pods make. Yeah.

[01:28:53] Do you do whitening. We’re a regional centre of excellence for whitening. You know that, that, that, that thing. So yes we do or no we do.

[01:29:03] Followed by a price.

[01:29:05] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:29:07] It’s it’s interesting that that whole topic. Right, because you know Martin, you’ve been doing this for years, so it comes naturally to you and you talk about how you present yourself your body language, you know, a lot of. Telling everyone I am. Martin And this is who I am and this is my experience comes from the confidence that you project and the way you speak and that that comes with time. But when when you’ve got other people doing your job for you, I TCO or you receptionist you always believe that whatever they say to a patient needs to be memorable. And that is the most important part of any training that I give or anything that I say to a CEO or someone on the phone. Right. Make that conversation memorable. And what do I mean by that? That patient was probably going to ring another three or four practises. And my goal is if they ring my practise, I want my conversation to be memorable and memorable for the right things. Do you do dental implants? Yes, of course we do. They’re £3,000 and we use a stromal implant called. Do you do dental implants? Yes, of course we do. And you’ll be glad to know you’ve arrived in the safest possible hands, because Martin not only teaches other dentists how to do and place dental implants, he’s got decades of experience doing this. And it’d be like, and I’d be delighted to invite you into the practise to come in and meet Martin to see what he can do for you, give you an idea of the cost, and we’ll be able to spread you, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[01:30:46] Right. About how much you charge for reception. Well.

[01:30:53] I say to Prav, where did you learn this stuff? Like in the corner shop, mate.

[01:31:00] But honestly, the only thing is. The only thing is I just digress, right? It just has to be memorable, right? And it has to be one element better than the guy they’re ringing next door. Right. And the beauty about your practise, Martin, is you’ve got lots of memorable stuff to share, right? You’ve got the USP, you’ve got you’ve served the time, you’ve got the credentials, you produce the beautiful work. You can invite them to read your Google reviews and see your Instagram before and afters and all the rest of it use it. And I think I think that’s where a lot of practises let themselves down.

[01:31:41] Martin If you had to distil and it’s a ridiculous question, but just humour me. If you had to distil the skill of what it takes to be a top implant ologist. What would you say? So I asked this question of Andrew Dawood and he said, spatial awareness. I asked him for a hand. He said, Access. Access. Make sure you’ve got plenty of access. Niklas said something about suturing.

[01:32:15] I would say with me, it’s. To me, it’s the ability to plan, you know, to to kind of to work out what you’re going to do when you see the patient and then try to. Because to me, you’re not going to however good your hands are, have a good just all the other things that are. Unless the person says yes to going ahead, it’s not going to happen. So for me, I think it’s the planning and then the trying to explain it in layman’s terms to the to the patient so that they go ahead, then all the other stuff will come later, you know, all the other stuff will come later. But I think to me it’s the planning part of it is the working out, being able to work out the simple to the moderate, the complex. Just that part of it, I think to me is key. Or it’s maybe it’s the part I focus on in the part I enjoy more, you know?

[01:33:09] Yeah. I mean, talking to so many implants, just, you know, I’ve never put an implant in myself, but the planning seems like it’s the key. Key part of the thing. What’s what’s the most complex one you’ve done? I mean, do you do the schematics and things as well?

[01:33:25] I wouldn’t. That happens. I call Guy McClellan and he comes in and he puts them in the cheek. The most the most complex ones then end up probably there was a lady who I’ve treated and she ends up, you know, featuring on on some of my presentations where she hadn’t had teeth for so long. The top and bottom teeth had completely collapsed in and out. And she had just very poor access, no bone anywhere. But I think with her it was it was because, again, through just breaking down her case step by step. And also she was very fortunate because I saw her pre lockdown. So all the way through lockdown when I had nothing to do, I got to sit here, you know, and you know, one of the things that was work out.

[01:34:12] Exactly.

[01:34:14] How I was going to get how I was going to do this. And that’s the way I realised actually if you do this, that and the other, you can do this. And then suddenly there’s a way. There was certainly a way to do this case. There was a way and I thought, right, bang, okay, we can do this. And then once you’ve figured that out and you’ve kind of gone through the steps and stages, but what was nice was being able to take it from that to something that is I don’t know if, you know, it’s called an PFP one restorations where the teeth are coming out of the gums everywhere. And you know, when she bites from having nothing to bite on, everything collapsed to everything kind of interdigital ing nicely. That was probably, I think, the most complex, complicated one that that was a really tough day in the office, you know, because it was top and bottom, both complex in different ways, lots of things up in the air. And I had one shot because she’s so nervous. It was like I had one shot to get it right.

[01:35:02] So did you do course on that as well? Right.

[01:35:05] Yeah, we do. We do. Which has been that’s that that came about because I called online actually and called Paolo Cavallo and we realised that we’re doing very similar treatment, which is this thing whereby you get people when you do full arches rather than doing them with the pink and white, which I do do and is appropriate in some cases. It’s not anything against that. But you could do an all white solution. So we figured out, you know, after figured out how a way in which I could do this consistently and started doing it consistently and came across him and he was doing that. And so when we met he came across to the UK when I was doing a course and at the end of the course I said, I think we should start to teach this and train this. So we’re him. And with Nick we then do this course over two days and it’s quite it’s quite good because we’re now getting to the point where we get people coming in from from the States, from Vietnam, from Romania, as well as from the UK. You know, to come and learn this and you know, it’s.

[01:36:01] Something who’s a candidate for that course, someone who’s already very experienced?

[01:36:04] No, no, not necessarily very expensive. If you’re doing some sort of immediate loading of implants of one or two implants, that’s probably the entry level that will take you. If you come in and you just start an implant ology, then I would say to you, there’s many other places you should go first rather than than coming on this because you need to learn some other stuff. Because if we start with you, after the first 2 hours of the first day, you’re going to really be struggling to take on everything that’s there. So if you’re an implant ologist that’s doing immediate implants and you want to find a different way of doing full arches, that’s one type of person. If on the other hand, you’re doing full arches and you want to find a different way of doing it, that doesn’t involve removing bone, because sometimes you feel that actually there’s a niggling doubt that you could have done this another way rather than pick up a big bear and chop all the bone away, then, then we’ve got a way of showing you how to do it consistently. That’s what the course involves.

[01:37:01] And what about referral practise? What would you say the sort of the cornerstones of a successful referral practise? Because I remember when I was a dentist, there were some people referring to them as an absolute pleasure, and they would sort of do the work, of course, but build you up back and stay in touch and you could call them any time and all of this. And I imagine as as your referral business grows and you’ve got large number of referrals, it’s much harder to keep that number of people happy. I mean, you’re known for being one of the sort of major sort of referral centre. Did you win a prise for it.

[01:37:42] I can’t remember the prise for that practise. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:37:46] So give us some. If someone wants to go shift their practise a bit more in that direction, where do they start getting the first referral and then how do they sort of we call it in marketing, we call it farm. How do they how do they keep those people happy?

[01:38:02] I’d say, you know, you know, there’s that I’ve forgotten what the book is, where they talk about your first follower being the most important person they come across. So there’s always, you know, I’ve still still got mine. I still remember him daily and I’m still in touch with him. And but the first person he said, right, I’m going to trust you, I’m going to refer to you. But it once you’ve got that in that person, you learn. I think it’s about relationships with the different people. You’ve got to be prepared to give as much as you take. And I think sometimes it involves people want different things, so some people want you just to do everything. You know, there’s the patient, you do everything. Other people want to restore the implant. So fine, that’s brilliant. We can help you with that. We’ve got a course. We’ve got a way in which we’re going to take you through that other people want to do some simple surgery, but for you to do the complex surgery, so you’ll do the sinus graft or the block graft for them and they’ll put in the implant and restore it. And other people want you to help them as they begin their journey and, you know, doing implants or slightly more complicated implants. So I think it’s about making sure with each of the people you work with, certainly from the implant side, that they’re getting something from the relationship and you’re prepared to give it if they want it.

[01:39:12] So it’s having that it’s a two way thing because as I say to people when we meet them, it’s a referral is a referral relationship. You’re going to have my number, you’re going to call me on WhatsApp, you’re going to sometimes say, Can you help me? This has happened. And you’ll find that. I’ll say, Right, fine, send your patient along, we’ll put them in. But it’s, it’s, it’s, it is the relationship is the individual relationships you have with people. And, you know, I know it’s, you know, there’s many people that are referring to ten Dental some of them really enjoy referring to, for instance, our and the dentist or our periodontist or some people work with just neck. Some people work because just maybe some people don’t mind who the patient goes to. But what we try and do is very regularly and pandemic has stopped that have referred evenings very regularly have I think you you you’re supposed to come ten does TED pay you’re supposed to you’ve done what you’ve done you’ve done you’ve done one of our ten does Ted haven’t you.

[01:40:04] You have a Ted one. I’ve been before but I.

[01:40:06] Haven’t Ted one. I think those sort of things really are useful because actually, you know, you’re, you’re a name on a sheet, you’re a voice on a on a podcast, but actually you’re a person as well. And, you know, you have good days, bad days, good things, bad things. And then really understanding that it, you know, you’re really there to help and support them in whatever way they choose to use your referral services.

[01:40:32] By the way, I hope you I hope you’re paying your money to the TED Foundation. We’ll cut that one.

[01:40:45] Out slightly differently. Ted? You know, this is the Irish spelling.

[01:40:57] We’ve got to take it to an end now so we could end it with our usual questions. Shall I start privately with you?

[01:41:06] I’ll start yours are happier questions pay. Usually, usually happy questions. Let’s end on a positive. Well, it’s all positive. But hey, Martin, imagine it was your your your last day on the planet and you’re surrounded by your loved ones and children, and you had to give them three pieces of wisdom for life. What would they be?

[01:41:32] I think the first would be to be kind and to treat other people the way that you would want to be treated. Because I think if you just if you follow that thought process and that doctrine and you use that with some of your interactions with people, that that really helps you in lots of ways. I’d say just be kind and treat people the way you would want to be treated yourself in all sorts of circumstances. The other part is, I’d say to be a combination because I heard this iteration, this really, really struck a note to be humble but be confident, to be understand where you’ve come from, understand your luck in life. Understand your privilege. Understand your benefit. And be humble enough to appreciate that. And when you meet people and they help you to recognise that actually there’s a few people I should name checked on this podcast, but I will do it when I put a little political thing on it. And you know, I do appreciate those people, but also be confident in your own ability so that you know that that will give you enough drive to get through some of the tougher and harder time. So that combination of things I think is quite important. And I think the other part is enjoy the ride, enjoy your time at work, enjoy your time with friends, you know, enjoy it, enjoy it. You know, just someone who tends to, I think, worry less and kind of I’m an eternal I’m an optimist. I’m not sure an optimist. So I think just just try and enjoy wherever you are. Enjoy is not always going to be amazing. It’s not always going to be good. But just try and enjoy your life and enjoy the ride. Beautiful.

[01:43:15] Martin How would you like to be remembered? Martin was and then complete the sentence.

[01:43:19] No. That’s a hard one. I thought about this because I knew this was coming, but.

[01:43:33] The lovely ontology.

[01:43:36] That. I think someone who gave to others and made the most of his opportunities at the same time.

[01:43:47] Lovely. Beautiful.

[01:43:50] And my final question.

[01:43:52] Mm hmm.

[01:43:53] You might not have you might not have heard this one if you haven’t heard the latest episode. That fantasy dinner party.

[01:44:00] Oh, okay.

[01:44:02] Three guests. Three dead or alive?

[01:44:05] Only three. Yeah. I’m gonna fuck you. I’d have to go with Martin Luther King. Namesake. Lots. You know, just too much to talk about. But he would be in there. The other person probably put it in place so he would, you know, lots of political discourse. Interesting conversation. Fela Kuti, you know who Fela Kuti was? Fela Kuti was an African musician who put African music on the map, Afrobeat. He invented a type of music. He was absolutely fearless in terms of his approach to life in front of just massive intimidation with the Nigerian government. Just, you know, just once once you read I mean, his funeral was a state occasion that was not a state occasion. So just just he was unconventional. He married 29 wives at the same it just just when you read about it is just I.

[01:45:05] Just Fela Kuti with.

[01:45:05] Ak Kuti. Fela Kuti. He would he would be in there. So I’d put him in. Then the other person I put in, because I’m always very interested in that would be a guy called Chris Ofili is he’s an he’s an artist. I came across him when he did the paintings, which were kind of a combination of blaxploitation with elephant dung and everything else. So I’d put him in because I think that would be a very, very interesting evening with those interesting party.

[01:45:37] Amazing man. Thank you so much for doing this. But it’s been a wonderful conversation, so much to learn from that. And, you know, I’m really glad we got this down. They’d be chasing you for such a long time for this.

[01:45:49] Really, really.

[01:45:50] Happy. We had this conversation.

[01:45:52] Thank you. It’s been a pleasure. I know it’s been a while to kind of get this nailed down. It’s been a pleasure talking to you guys. And yeah, you know, you’re doing great work with this podcast. I really enjoy listening and hopefully people will pick something up and, you know, enjoy this one in some way, shape for sure.

[01:46:09] Thanks a lot. Thanks, Martin.

[01:46:11] Thank you.

[01:46:13] 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.

[01:46:29] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:46:43] 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.

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[00:00:00] And then I think the third thing as well was probably thinking about putting yourself in their shoes because I think a lot of times dentists have got this lifestyle in their head of how, you know, why they’re so upset that they get paid on time. Nurses live off £5 extra in the month to live off. They get paid on time. They just can’t even survive. So you need to put yourself in their shoes and bring yourself down a level. I think some associates even get too big for their boots and start like, you know, treat the nurses as if they’re just some sort of like just person in the corner, but they don’t realise how important that person is for them to actually get their job done.

[00:00:37] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:00:54] It is my great pleasure to welcome a previous guest back for a second time, Dev Patel, who our regular listeners will remember from episode 68 where he went through his upbringing and his various businesses. I mean, a definite serial entrepreneur Dental circle, his adventures and misadventures with Brush Link and in the US. And then finally his Dental Beauty Partners Group, the DSO group that he set up. And I think last time we spoke, Dev, you had just gone up to, I know, 14 practises or was it more was it 20 something about a year ago? And the reason I would say the reason why, why Dave is back on is because so much has moved on for him in this one year. And I like that idea of someone moving so quickly that in a year he’s got a lot of news for us. So it’s lovely to have you, buddy. How are you?

[00:01:54] Yeah, thanks for having me again. And all. Good, man. Exciting to be back again.

[00:02:00] So recently Dental Beauty Partners invested in Leicester Solanki Extraordinary Kiss Dental. And obviously we know Kailash Kennish is perhaps brother. You can hear Kailash his whole story on episode 55. So tell us, Matt, what’s what’s been going on since since since we last spoke.

[00:02:19] Yeah. I mean, as I said, a lot’s gone on. We’ve taken dental beauty partners from 14 sites originally with the first probably 600 partners to over 15 partners now and 30 plus practises so doubled in size and practises. And as a result of that just growing really fast from our head office point of view and also just support networks and some of the things we’re bringing to the group. So yeah, really exciting times. As you mentioned, you’ve recently invested into KISS Dental work as a partner. I’m looking to take their brand across the Northwest. So I think his dream has always been how do I take this amazing, you know, many group of practises of 2 to 3 practises to other cities where he’s got patients travelling hours and hours to come see him. And I just expand that and scale it up because I think a lot of questions I have to do one, two, three slides. You can still go between all of them clinically, between all three of them have a physical hold and management over all three of them. But when you start getting to four or five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten plus sites, then you start really thinking about delegation management structures, back office structures, so that you don’t fall flat on your face. And yeah, he’s just obviously one of a couple of actually other many platforms that we’ve recently invested in who are just looking to take next step now and to start growing more.

[00:03:40] So this is a new model for you basically. I mean, the last time we spoke, we were talking about sort of practises that weren’t doing the best or weren’t weren’t weren’t managed optimally. And then you coming in with your very energetic associates are into new treatments and cosmetic treatments, implants, whitening, whatever, bonding and doubling the turnover of these practises that had potential. But Kailash is practise I mean it’s a whole different story isn’t its full potential is it. So so this thing about growing and I guess a funding story, right?

[00:04:18] Yeah. Look, I think the fundamentals of our model. Yes, obviously one of the parts of the model which is bread and butter, is buying those undervalued practises that have got potential to double triple with a small contract nse around the suburbs of M 25. That’s been our core model, but I think the fundamentals have actually been investing in partners and people. And that’s no different to Kailash, right? I mean, all we’re doing here is rather than buying a new pattern of buying into existing ones and then buying more with him afterwards. So it’s about investing in people, investing in the right partners, the right ambitious partners who want to do bigger and better things and have the right entrepreneurial spirit, really. And there’s no one else, I think, who can say Kailash is not character enough and got the spirit to take it to the next level really. So I think it’s really important where the right partners and typically you’re right we never would look at pacts like this one where it’s probably nowhere near anywhere we can ever get to it in our lifetime because it’s just so well, well run. And, you know, it’s the best the best in the country in terms of how much it does per chair. So it’s typically one that you can’t really grow much more on the existing chairs, existing sites. But actually when we’re talking about getting from 3 to 10 sites in a year, then actually becomes a lot more interesting for us. And, you know, it’s a different market. We’re not looking at a mixed practise model, which is like family based around suburbs, talking about that high end brand, bringing the really high end restorative dentistry, multidisciplinary care in one place and just bringing that to other parts of the country which haven’t got that yet and having that huge follow. On social media and just that brand, really. So yeah, we invested in him and the brand and we believe in him and we think that will take us to.

[00:05:55] So what? Walk me through it, but walk me through it. You guys want to open one in every town in the northwest, let’s say.

[00:06:03] Yeah.

[00:06:04] So who’s going to be responsible for, you know, that Kiss Dental brand? I guess you have both of you. Right. But what are you going to do and what’s he going to do going forward when you open one in Liverpool?

[00:06:17] Yeah.

[00:06:17] What’s going to be the story? You’re going to have other partners in there?

[00:06:20] Yes. So basically if you think of Kiss as a subbrand of its partners, it’s basically its own brand, its own CEO, which is technically going to be closed and obviously he’ll have his own partners and he will essentially manage the his own organisation, his own really company within our company. But from his point of view, you know, trying to develop a back office, head office where you have to start doing those functions like HR, recruitment, contracts, wages, payroll, finance, even funding, all these things. You need a lot of time and effort to do it. And I literally went through that whole process myself, like a good two years when we first went from 2 to 10 sites. And you can spend probably half your time just doing that, maybe even free all the time, just doing that side of the business. I’m actually focussing on getting the patient journey right, getting those conditions right, do the training of clinicians. So I think it’s a bigger version of our current model now, which is just doing one or two or three sites with each partner. But it’s just thinking about does he have the right partners, does it have the right conditions, the academy and it has all that already. So it’s not like it’s going to be a difficult scalability point of view from the, you know, the locations and the dentists and more about how do we get the back office right for him, which you already have in place anyway, so you can do it very quickly. But I’m doing that over the next 2 to 3 years and get it himself. So it is about speed because we can get to ten sites in a year rather than him do over the next ten years, you’ll investments be much better for everyone. So that’s basically the kind of underlying.

[00:07:54] Who’s your funding model changed since we last spoke?

[00:07:57] No, not really. No, it’s it’s still pretty much the same same as last time. I think the key thing is it’s pretty much 51% for 9% or sometimes a bit more or less depending on obviously the partner and how much they want to invest with us. But it’s the same thing. You know, we we want to make sure that we are adequately able to fund our partners to get their dreams of buying the first practise, the second practise or third practise, doing what clinicians do and kind of keep growing. And I think our private equity partners have been really positive on that. They’ve seen our journey. We still do when we said first time round and still doubling turnover all batches since we first did the deal with in January last year. So the numbers are good and the model is working well right now. It’s now just taking that next level from going. You know, I personally was literally speaking to all the partners, 1 to 1 every single week and having weekly meetings them. And now it’s taken to bring in another management team below me who have now gone out to speak to those partners and manage them to make sure they can still support them as much as I was doing for the first seven or eight sites. So that’s the next challenge really with the growth part of it.

[00:09:02] But explain to me the relationship with the private equity. Is it is it that it’s the same people doing the investment all the time or are you taking it out to different groups?

[00:09:12] Yes. So the private equity firm called Nordic Capital is based in the way they fund the group. We’re part of the European Dental Group, which is second biggest group in Europe. And we just literally it’s like you call them up and they money comes next day. It’s when the size of their group it doesn’t make a difference of what we do in the UK is like a very small.

[00:09:33] Small part of a big organisation.

[00:09:35] Yeah, exactly. They’ve got I think revenues of like 70 million right now, so they’re probably bigger than 98 in terms of size. So yeah, they’re really good from that point of view because they all said everyone’s a dentist CEO and the group is dentists as well. And we all understand the same language about patient care and really growing patient journey to make sure that that’s the focus rather than worrying about life saving costs here and there and how we can cut costs in other areas, which is not actually best for patients. So it’s all about investing in our dentists and clinical journey, really.

[00:10:07] So tell me about you must have run through some problems as you grow in this beast. Yeah, you know, there must be. Talk to me about the thing that you sort of least expect it. Something that hit you out of the blue that you didn’t understand would happen. It happened.

[00:10:25] I don’t think we’ve had like a scientific aspect. I mean, I think if I was looking back on where we are now two years ago and said did I think would be here at this pace of where we are now and obviously that it all worked. Exactly the plan. Obviously not. Nothing happens a plan if it’s gotten better than plan for the growth. But you know, I think the thing that I learnt the most and the thing that I would say that shocked me the most is just how different people feel, the different types of companies, right? So as an example, you could have three practises and have a great person running the three practises like, you know, like a manager or manager and you can have 12 practises to have someone who needs to be a bit more obviously, you know, on the ball and bit more kind of like commercial and obviously start to think a bit more about bigger and bigger picture. And then we get to 20, 30 sites. You need someone completely different. You need someone who’s got an MBA like not an MBA, but that can an experience of understanding culture, understanding operations on a much bigger level where you can’t do it for yourself. I think that’s something that I’ve had to personally learn myself, but also have to shape my team around me as well on that basis.

[00:11:41] Because, you know, as much as I would love to have the first five people that we have hired for my first practise with me for the rest of my life, but actually they would fit within the right organisation of our size we want to get to. And I think it’s also one of those things where if you don’t do that soon. You end up having to have this negative growth from the team point of view with the practise growth. So practises might be growing really quickly and you might be getting all the acquisitions going in over a team are thinking ahead of the next two, three, six, ten months, you’re not going to be able to grow as fast and actually think ahead the curve. And I think that’s really important and I still am not perfect, but it’s really hard to get that right because you’re growing so fast. Hockey stick, right? So in advance of that, with the people that like mindset before you even get there and it only lasts for six months for it to get someone else is even bigger and better as well. So it is hard.

[00:12:34] I think it’s one of the maybe the hardest thing in business is having that conversation with someone who really has worked their butt off for you and is no longer in the right position. Like you said, you got an ops manager for ten practises. It’s totally different to an office manager for 50 practises. It’s a different skill. If you had to have those sort of uncomfortable conversations with with your core, you know, your existing, your first team. And say to someone that, you know, you don’t fit anymore even though you laid your life down for me.

[00:13:06] Not not yet. But I think it’s moving people in that position of where they originally were, in one position that made sense at time and then moving to another position where actually it’s a lot less responsibility, but a different department where actually they’re probably better suited. That’s what we have done because I don’t like to get with anyone unless they literally don’t want to be with us anymore, which is another story I think we naturally I know my first business partner, but father in law step back as it was doing a bit and then we’ve had a few members of staff leave. It’s normal, so you know you’re going to get that. But I don’t think that there’s ever a scenario where as long as they understand that I fit that role and I don’t fit the needs of the business, it’s okay. The issue is when they think they can still do what they’re doing two years ago or five years ago or ten years ago in that same role and think that that’s still okay when it’s not. That’s the issue. I think people, as long as they understand that actually you’re not fit, you’re not fit for purpose for the role anymore. Basically saying else, that’s fine. So I think that’s the kind of way that I see it, like rejigging the team, but constantly every quarter thinking, Oh, I need to redo the team now because these guys are actually better at this, just that and actually want to move around. It’s like having a football team, you know, having different players and moving around all the time and just working out who’s the best position. I mean, you get Ronaldo sometimes playing in midfield or fighting or whatever, but they can be placed in the right positions and they might like it, but actually it’s best for the company. So it’s just about moving jigsaw puzzle round really.

[00:14:40] But not always possible, right?

[00:14:42] Not always possible.

[00:14:44] If it’s obvious with I know where you’re coming from, with with operations, with practises, with practise managers and all that, they can be moved around right when you’ve got, I don’t know, a head of marketing, where’s that person going to go? There’s still for that person to go.

[00:14:59] Yeah. And I think it’s the thing, I think it’s sometimes it’s not like a complete change of Oh, it’s more like we’re bringing someone above you or we’re that kind of thing. So I think so far touchwood, it’s been good. I do think that our current size, we are we’re in a good place, but I do think that might change again, you know, and it probably won’t just be me, but, you know, the company will actually demand to have like, you know, other people with C-level positions or other really experienced and build guys have done other industries and bring them in. So, you know, it’s a constant change. But then obviously it’s hard because you’re constantly thinking about what do I need to bring in for the next two quarters of growth and you grow that quickly. We’re going to be at 50 sites by the end of the year. You went from 1240 boxes to 15 factors in a year. Like, you know, you’ve got to think, what do you need in advance? And then that takes a few months to hire them and then trained up and they’re like, you know, I think it’s unlimited ongoing problem for any company. I don’t think anyone’s ever solved it because it’s a hockey stick. You get the growth, which is great, but then you get a higher above the curve of spending too much money too quickly and make sure that gets right in the right timing. So it’s it’s tough.

[00:16:13] And, you know, the big challenge I always find the big challenge is do you hire someone super experienced and pay them loads knowing that.

[00:16:20] They’ve got.

[00:16:22] Or do you develop. Yeah. And that’s even a combination isn’t it. You’ve got to you’ve got to do both things, you know.

[00:16:29] Yeah. And I think it’s also like getting the right person because I mean, you know, the recruitment market right now, there’s no like magic wand up there. I mean, I don’t know if it was easier 20 years ago or I was just now, but it was like literally you hire people, they say on paper, they’re great, great interviews. And then they come in and you think you should lie about all your stuff, like you got no idea we’re talking about and you’re not, as you said on an interview, I think that’s another challenge right now, just getting good talent because our industry is very niche. Right. We don’t have I always say this to our team right now, I’m like, why have we not got this Goldman Sachs effect where we have nurses lined up once to work for us? You know, why is that for interview stages? For someone who works for Goldman Sachs and for us we have to like cut the big nurses come work. I mean, you know, it doesn’t mean I mean, I know there’s a shortage, but I don’t understand why our industry is so, so niche. I think we need to disrupt that and actually change the way that nurses, receptionists, admin staff feel about working for our companies in dentistry. Because there’s actually I think you can have a really good career in it, but they don’t see it as a career. They just think of it as like two or three years and and change profession, do something else afterwards. So sometimes I think maybe long time ago it’s different, you know, 20 years from what I remember. So yeah, I think we just need to really flip it. On terms of the recruitment piece.

[00:17:44] I think you’re right, I think you’re right. I think culture has a lot to do with it, but it’s difficult to maintain culture as the thing grows because you know, Kunal Patel, good friend of mine, he made a superb culture in his first practise. Now he’s going from 1 to 7. And and I told the first thing I told him was, look, be careful. You have to keep the culture because it’s not easy to go from 1 to 7 and keep the culture. A big part of the culture is the boss on site, spreading his enthusiasm or whatever. And for your group, I mean, you’re growing at such a rate that it’s going to be hard for you. Have you thought about how to do that? How do you make working at Dental Beauty Partners a branded experience? You know, is it is it fun to work at Dental Beauty Partners? Is there more money? Is there progression? What do you want it to be and how do you make it happen?

[00:18:42] I think that the answer to that question, which is a very good question, by the way, it’s not just put out by like every group in the country, same problem. Like they grow too quickly, they just grow too big. They don’t have that local level of support. Right. That’s the whole point of our model. We have a partner with equity on the ground in the business every day or most of the week at least. So they actually get to physically speak to someone. So that enthusiasm, leadership, which should in theory happen on each practise. Now practically that won’t happen every single time to send as my first practise because different people have different levels of leadership skills. But we’re now trying to create a programme where we have some of our good partners who have already shown their skills of leadership and management and obviously growth to help the newer partners get trained up on something that they’ve done to learn from them. And hopefully they can then copy that same level of leadership in practise. So you still have that culture being kept high, but it is really, really important for me to keep that because you’re right, if you don’t have the right culture, you lose talent, you lose talent. You’re back to where you were before. We’ve never known there. So it’s really, really important to keep that. And so far so good. We had our Christmas party in December. We had like four new people come. It was a great big fire, you know, I know a good way. Got a bit messy in the end as always. But yeah, look, I think it’s one of those things where that kind of level of engagement and on that evening must have like 100 would say like love working for you guys.

[00:20:08] It’s the best thing ever. I don’t think if you read a book review you probably get like 50 people in a whole organisation even, you know. So it is I think we’ve got a great culture because the partners are there, their teams get on with them really well mentored, they get hands on training and you don’t get that these days in terms of like principles and they actually get given cases from a principle given to associate to do some of the work and actually go, Oh, right, this is your first visit. I’ll walk you through it with you. And I think that’s the key thing. As long as we’ve got good partners with good clinical skills to help expand that training and mentorship in practise, I think we’ll be okay. But it is hard for like, how do we make our our practise? The nurse the nurse place to go like the best for nurses or the best receptionists. What do you say? I mean, there’s only so much you can pay them bonuses, so much of health care insurance. It’s like, what more can you give perks wise for them? And it is hard. You know, there’s only so much you can do. And hopefully they feel valued enough and supported enough that they enjoy working the practises. And I can see some cool treatments not just for NHS, so I think there’s enough there for them, but I think the problem is, is that they come in, I don’t think as a career it’s like a do a few years and I just like I was afterwards. Yeah. And mindset which is the problem of the Gen Z.

[00:21:20] But if it is possible. Yeah. I mean famously Virgin pays less than the going rate. Yeah. People don’t leave. People want to, people want that job and you know, he’s got 45,000 employees and he’s I mean, it’s nice talking about the winners, right? Talking about Goldman Sachs and and Virgin, the absolute.

[00:21:43] Winning.

[00:21:45] And you’re right about the industry and I’ve said this for a long time about career progression for for non dentists in dentistry it’s always and it’s strange dude because it’s not like we’re low margin business particularly. Yeah. It’s, it’s not like we have to pay minimum wage, you know, it’s possible to get people but it’s just, it’s just the way it’s worked out. Dentistry is so dentist centric. Yeah. You know, it’s a funny one.

[00:22:14] Yeah. No, I agree. I think we are I think we are above market in terms of what we pay our staff. I think the issue we have is just the whole investment piece. Right. You buy a practise where the guy’s been paying his staff like less than minimum wage or whatever for like last 20 years, really tight margins. And he wants eight times he would die for it. Are you just buying that and then put the wages up by 20% the month after it? That’s it. That’s the issue. I think it’s getting worse and worse with more and more of these like older principals who are now retiring, running a really tight ship for many years and then trying to flog if the highest amount possible in the market, because then it becomes even more unfeasible financially to buy business. Or that, you know, I wouldn’t mind it if we had a no kind of huge cost. They won. But you do unless they’re doing a squat. So it’s a tough one.

[00:23:07] Do you have an element of performance related pay for down to that level, or is it only managers that get that or not even that?

[00:23:15] Yeah, I mean, this is actually a good question. I don’t really believe in bonuses.

[00:23:19] Because I.

[00:23:20] Just think about it logically. Right. If you if I paid you £1,000 more than the year for doing my job, why don’t do the job first in the first place? And I think the thing is right is everyone who’s focussed on bonuses is basically saying to the employer, I will do what you want me to. If you pay me a bonus, otherwise I won’t do it. But my way of saying it is actually doing really well. I’ll give you a pay rise, which is a fixed thing. Not going to just be a one off thing. I’ll give you a pay rise for doing a great job. And actually, that would be a lot more valuable to you for many reasons if you just do your job. But I don’t I don’t think a bonus is a solution to performance. I think if you do well, you’ll get paid just because you’re doing well. And that will actually be more net net over the year and for your future. And actually in our company, because we’re obviously quite a fast growing company, you can move up as much as you want to in the chain because it’s like opportunities in head office and managers and operation managers and other areas in operations like stuff. So it’s not like you’re limited to only one practise if you’re doing really well and you show the potential. So I think, you know, any nurse even can eventually become someone at work in head office if he wants to work hard and they show they’re really good. But yeah, I’m not a big fan of bonuses, to be fair, because I sort of feel like you should be doing that anyway if that’s your job.

[00:24:37] I take your point. But what about. What about? I know when you were an associate.

[00:24:40] Yeah.

[00:24:42] If you were paid an hourly rate compared to a percentage of you, you can see the you know, the motivation.

[00:24:51] Yeah. But if you’re an associate, you work for yourself, you’re self employed. So the more you work, the more you get paid.

[00:24:57] But one of the things you understand the motivation for an associate. But but when it comes to others, you don’t understand the motivation.

[00:25:04] I do and I don’t. Because I think if you’re getting a fixed salary where you’re in one day, if you’re getting paid a salary to do a job, you should get a job done. And that has certain performance targets linked to the job. Then it is what it is. If you do better than that and you outperform, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t give a bonus. I’m just saying that it shouldn’t be the reason why you do well, if you want to do.

[00:25:26] Well, I get that. Yeah.

[00:25:28] If you want to do better and do well, then we’ll give you a pay rise. And therefore it’ll be reflected in the fact that you done well. And we’ll pass on some of the fruits of our success with our key people in the company. I think associates, you know, is a different level of mindset because when you’re self-employed, you only get paid for what you do. And, you know, it reflects and obviously level of training, the amount of money and time it’s putting to themselves. It’s not I wouldn’t compare like you wouldn’t say to a nurse, you do really well, give you double your salary like they do in the banks. Right. Because just physically can’t justify that. So I do I do think it comes into how much time and effort you put into your own training yourself and the costs of your you know, it’s been thousands and thousands of pounds of courses and all that other stuff. Right.

[00:26:14] Yeah, I get that. But what about hygienist, for instance?

[00:26:17] Yeah. I mean, look, I did the same thing. I think if you think about hygienist who gets paid an hourly rate, if they do really well and they’re performing really well and they’ve shown that they can be efficient, they can go quite patient with pull. You know, they’re doing great clinical work. There’s no reason why would increase hourly rate by 28%. 40% if we need to.

[00:26:37] Yeah, but look, the reason I’m asking you is this. Yeah, that dentists come to me and say, come and train my hygienist to sell more whitening. Yeah. And we can yeah. We’ve got, we’ve got ways of for hygienist to do that and what’s the best way for hygiene is to bring up shade with every patient and all that. Yeah. But to expect your hygienist to bring up shade with every patient when most dentists don’t bring up shade with enough patients. Yeah. And the hygienist is generally busy cleaning up. And, you know, some of them have nurses, but I haven’t met hygienist who’s got time to expect that to happen without an incentive.

[00:27:17] Is fantasy, not fantasy.

[00:27:19] As far as I’m concerned.

[00:27:20] 100%. But I think the difference between that is that that’s not part of their job. In terms of their job. Yeah, the core job. I think that in that scenario, you definitely get the percentage of any sales they make because it’s like outside their job. If I told like for example, we incentivise our receptionist, if they can get more people on hygiene plans, like the ones where you get you pay monthly for them, they get literally like I think 10% of that yearly plan given to them. So that’s how.

[00:27:51] They do that sort of thing.

[00:27:52] Yeah, that’s kind of different. I think we’re talking about outside of your core job of what you’re doing. I’m not saying that if you’re a manager managing the practise, you’re hitting your target as a manager. You get paid for that. And if you do really well, you get paid more next year. I’m talking about like if you talk about hygienists directly, you give them a percentage of that 100%. I would actually give them like 30, 40% of any of the sales they make because then they. You’ve created work that wasn’t there before.

[00:28:17] Yeah. So I could.

[00:28:20] Tell you what we’re trying to talk about in terms of.

[00:28:24] How is your head office changed since we last spoke? Because I remember from the last podcast you started out with four people looking after something like eight or ten, ten practises. And then last time we spoke, you just taken an office? Yes. Yeah. And you expanded the team in London Bridge, was it?

[00:28:43] Yeah, it was London Bridge originally for like about four, six months. And then we moved it because we got too big again the station because we have a really big office now. We’ve got around 30 people in that office total. Some are scattered around on the road. Some are based in Bristol, some based on other parts of the world. But I think generally we’ve got a pretty big team, which is good. We’re not the biggest team, I would say, compared to other groups of our size. Some people have. I mean, some groups I know we’ve got like 50 people for our size, but I think we’re at the right size. What we need because of the model of partnership, where the partners can actually have the.

[00:29:22] Influence.

[00:29:22] Level but need to have like ten managers running one practise, one more practise, kind of giving support. So yeah, I think we’re, we’re at a good size right now. We’ll probably keep growing.

[00:29:33] What’s the structure? What’s like the org chart?

[00:29:36] Yes. So we’ve got a marketing team which is comprised of two different sections. One of them is the sales team who are on the phone all the time talking to new leads that we get coming in for head office. So we get loads of new clients, patient needs. Yes, exactly. So that all goes through Salesforce or gets tracked. And we have all these we’re about for about four girls now working non-stop on the phone, just literally taking calls all day long, booking tons of patients followed by clinics. So those are all the new leads. And we’ve got another four girls to do social media, SEO, Google ads, advertising, marketing in terms of actual marketing. And then we got a head of marketing above that. So that’s the marketing team and growth. Then we’ve got our UPS, HR recruitment team that sits on the head of ops and that’s basically comprised of the HR team who do all the kind of contract variations, know payroll with finance and all the documents and the compliance and bits and bobs that you need for each staff members, which obviously is something that most clinics like what we’re doing, because I just think it’s not normal. But then actually you do need to have that secrecy and just it can be a headache. We also have a recruitment team who’s doing recruitment and make sure that we have bums on seats for interviews, ready for any vacancy we’ve got in the group pretty much within a few days. And then we have ops team which have central ops team that there’s a lot of kind of day to day, you know, really important core stuff in practise like tracking leads and making sure that all the systems are working. Okay, make sure that we’ve got finance companies being set up for new practises. Make sure that we’ve got pretty much any system you can think of that tracking how many phone calls per day, how like how well we’re tracking in terms of performance for clinics that just kind of central ops team to kind of keep the kind of the heart of the operations team kind of running. But more how many.

[00:31:25] People is up how many people.

[00:31:27] How many to I think tend to ops. Then we have two operation managers who go on the road looking at managing 15 clinics each and go go to church every Sunday on site to help them. And that’s more operation against up on the ground and above that head of UPS and we have also just put on so that’s pretty much it. Yeah. For the ops team. And then we’ve got our finance team which has got most of its back office in India. We’ve got ten guys there, work full time for us and then we’ve got in the UK too more people full time and our CFO, we have a M&A team who is based out like three people from doing kind of execution acquisitions and conversions for the point of us going to practise viewing and actually getting it over line. And then we also have a head of M&A because of that. And then we also have. Team. So whenever we find new practise in choice manager, go in there for like 6 to 8 weeks, hold the hand for the, for the new principal, the partner we have. And literally like we’ve got plan of adding in four chairs with averaging the whole thing that the whole thing through plan the whole thing out, get whole thing done and it’s like hassle free for the manager, for the partner basically because it should be done by that team and that’s a team of four people as well. So that’s kind of the structure, but it’s kind of like you think from when you looked at practise, actually the whole the whole journey, it should be covered by that different teams.

[00:32:48] And how long does it take from from the moment of practise comes on on your radar to the moment it becomes a dental beauty partners branded operation.

[00:32:59] It depends.

[00:33:00] So it depends on the sale, right?

[00:33:02] Yeah, it depends on the style, depends on the practise type. So if it’s fully private, we can probably do a deal with three months. If it’s mixed, could be 4 to 5 months. So it’s typically pretty efficient. But the good thing is that we see all parties before pretty much anyone else in market because as you can imagine, all the brokers do love a group that’s got lot money. So before anyone else could actually see it, like the bonds or the gold, people like whatever they get different memberships is, we’ll see them first typically. So it does make it easier to get the deals done for us to start doing auctions and other stuff. And yeah, I mean we’ve got a great relationship with the brokers. They all really appreciate the fact that we are pretty much assistant in, if we want to say, offering, offering. We like it when we agree on it. It’s a done deal. It’s not like we’re going to mess around and tip prices at the end like other groups do and try and mess some of the vendors around. We kind of do what we say. I think that’s really important because in the M&A world and with brokers, only five brokers out there, you’ve got reputations, okay, that that they can kind of tell the vendors and the practise of the last 20 years is there a lot baby that is why the buying in these guys mostly around you know there’s other groups out there who’ve got reputation for like plus shipping last minute just so they can get deal done and you kind get your hands tied about it. We spent five months doing a deal when he just pulls through last minute. So we are kind of, I would say like pretty much straight guys when it comes to getting deals done. And we’re pretty efficient because we have a good team. You can get stuff done really good. That takes time.

[00:34:24] What are you most focussed on when a practise comes in front of you? I mean, okay, so you’re saying you’re not going to have penny and dime the thing.

[00:34:29] Because.

[00:34:30] You focus on speed more than focussed on those pennies, right.

[00:34:35] It’s about potential. So like, you know if we say the difference is if you’ve got practise payment and your one’s in great practise and have such an example, you’ve got practise and both for other people look at it three groups and and us right that were groups you’ve got one model I buy a practise keep it as it is and make it tick along for next five, ten years hoping that you’ll be tied for five years at least and you’re going to go anywhere. So it’s just quite straightforward model we buy. If we look obviously like that one on the potential, we’re going to add three or four chairs and grow it and bring a partner in so we can say, buy my payment. See late on day one, if you want to go tied in like a like a prisoner, you can say you want to say, great, we love your state, but we’re not.

[00:35:19] Would you rather I stayed and become on it?

[00:35:22] Depends on how how important you are. Now, once again, if we’re looking at practise thinking this is not that great, we can do a lot better, then surely you probably haven’t done what you should be doing in the first place as a principal or partner, because I wouldn’t look in the first place and potential’s there. So it’s probably more likely than not. You’ve done a great job clinically. You’ve got great patient base there, no marketing, no branding. You don’t really know how to really maximise capacity, etc., etc. from the growth. Therefore, happy days you can retire, take the money, go home or good and we’ll bring in a partner who’s got the right mentality and entrepreneurial spirit to actually practise and deliver the it should be. And that’s what it is. So, you know, if we like a part like hey, for example, we bought one recently in Colchester, great partners both in the forties or 40. Yeah. And they’ve still got a lot of energy left to keep kind of growing and developing, but most time it is displacing the old principle and bringing the new one in. So that’s why we don’t worry about the pennies, because actually if I can see it being doubling in a year, who really cares about eight times? We’re looking at four times net net. So it’s fine.

[00:36:31] Yeah. And so what have you got a shortage of? What? Like what’s your biggest frustration? I mean, if you were God for the day, what would you change? What would you tweak? Have you got more, more partners waiting than practises or.

[00:36:45] Yeah, yes. I think you know what it is, it’s we’ve got a really long part in the pipeline which is great. Obviously it starts to spread more and more as we’ve got more partners of great experience of us. They tend to friends join us as well, which is really nice to see because that means that something is going right. At least the bad thing is, is just is very, very linked to location of where they are and when particular market at that exact time. That’s the right practise you see. So I don’t want to buy a patch because Payman lives in in north. And therefore perhaps on the market and it’s rubbish. I would buy it. I’m not doing that. I’m not going to buy the right ones where I know that they’re going to get the most value out of that for growth and that we’re going get more growth. That could take time. It could take one month, it could take six months, could take a year. So that’s the frustration from having these really excited people who like, yeah, going to do this. But to go for all the details of you, we love it.

[00:37:37] We want to buy back together and not having them exact perhaps I wish I could go from here have a fact is potential price but the market is a factor as well like you might have a really prompt release, you might have an issue the landlord like all these things can can block a deal from happening in the first place. So, you know, trying to get all those things aligned is difficult. And then the shortage, I guess, is just some nurses. And, you know, I mean, it wasn’t that bad before, but since then it’s been a nightmare. And I just wish that we could have I mean, it’s not stopping our growth in any way. It’s not stopping us doing what we’re doing. We’re still getting by and making sure we can make it work. But that is annoying because it means that you just don’t have that peace of mind, that you can just buy a practise and add four chairs tomorrow and get four nurses. That isn’t a problem. That’s a problem. Which is annoying, right?

[00:38:20] Yeah. The squat model that I suspect some of these you’re going to do with cartilage are going to be squats.

[00:38:26] Yes, yes. Yeah, definitely.

[00:38:27] So are you interested in that model more now so you can tell this guy you’re in Hampstead? I’ll sit up in Hampstead with you.

[00:38:33] Yes. So I think you know what it is. It’s there’s two different ways of looking at it. A squat is more risky. Yeah, of obvious reasons. But with the right brand and the right model, it can work. Our model has always been about acquiring under-utilised sites and making them better and then doubling it and making it a kind of we know what we’re doing in that model, but that’s what it’s doing with a squat model. It’s done a few times already. He knows his model work well, so I think he knows model. That’s what we invested in really. And I think that’s an area that we wanted to get into rather than finishing ourself, trying to do it ourselves and trying to build our own brand of getting leads from day one and spend a lot of money on that, it made more sense. Someone who knows what it’s doing and just make fun of it, really. So yeah, we’re going to do some squats on that and see how it goes to, but exciting time for that because I think that’s gonna be a big opportunity for us.

[00:39:20] You last time we spoke, I remember you saying something that really sort of impressed me. I wasn’t I wasn’t expecting you to say it because sometimes when when you talk to someone like you, such a sort of business guy, that the sort of the the patient side of it kind of gets lost. But you said something like, you know, I’m not as interested in the money as you might think. I’m more interested in having impact impact on dentist lives and and on all those thousands of patients lives.

[00:39:53] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:54] That’s that sort of mission centred approach and I don’t know exactly, you know, we all have little stories we tell ourselves, right? Yeah. You know, the ego side that says, you know, Dev Patel, you were always going to be like an entrepreneur from the moment, you know, I’ve met you the first time. But the motivation remember the last the last podcast was actually called What’s Driving Dev?

[00:40:20] Yeah.

[00:40:21] And not just the motivation, but also how your role must change so much since a year ago. And then since three years ago. And it’s going to change again going forward. And that sort of that that chameleon that the CEO has to be. Talk to me about all of this.

[00:40:41] Yes. So I think that the mission of us being able to transform the UK patient journey hasn’t changed. I’m still bamboozled. Why no one? If I look at other practises and some ones that actually go viewing, we go to viewings like regularly and we see what they’re doing. I just don’t understand why they haven’t thought about what make this practise the best, practise possible patient journey. And that’s really, really key because we live in a consumer environment and I maybe I don’t know what my passions I’ve had dentistry since I first graduated, but after going all the courses and thinking it’s a huge opportunity in the UK where 90% the country are still thinking about, I’ve got a contract of unlimited patience. Why do any marketing, why do anything? I practise differently. I can make it run and just keep living off the days because I can do it. That’s changed and COVID has accelerated that more now, which is great, but I want to see hopefully us having 100 practises by the end of next year. That could be a target for us to be able to treat, you know, potentially 200,000 patients and have that amazing journey for them, not whether they’re private NHS, except I don’t really care. I want to feel like, you know what, this is a clean, good practise. They treat it properly. I don’t get told that amalgams are better for me than doing the right thing for that for their mouth.

[00:42:02] They’re actually helping them out and give them all the options they could possibly get within a practise rather than just saying, sit down, 10 minutes in and out. That’s it, three days done. So I want to I want that’s our aim and our group as a European and a group treats 1.1 million people a year. So it’s great. I’m really glad that we’re part of that, a good organisation and I want to just keep that going really because I think there’s millions of people out there who’s being literally abused by the NHS system where people just doing things to make targets done but I think is a criminal really. And yeah, my job is always constantly changing and you know, is hard because I didn’t do an MBA, I didn’t get taught how to run a group, let alone a group of our size now with like 1000 employees or something that way. So you need to constantly evolve. But I’m learning a lot always will doing and keep hopefully humble enough to know when I’m wrong and when to, you know, bring the right people in to do a bit. That I’m not good at. So yeah, it’s hard. I’m not saying I had to get paid, but I’ll let you know if I worked out.

[00:43:04] I mean, you have, you haven’t got any great grey hairs to see, but tell me about some of the grey hairs, man. A thousand employees is 1000 issues, isn’t it. I mean, per week.

[00:43:17] Yeah, but I think that the good thing is that it’s not just like my problem. I think our partners are fully aligned, our teams are fairly lines that everyone takes on as if it was their own practise. So I think we’ve got a good model. It’s not like we’re a 100 owned by one person. That’s it. So I think our model works well from that point of view. And locally, the partners do manage their teams really well and lead our teams really well. But it’s just about the strategic thoughts of how do we, as you mentioned, become the place to go to for work. How do we make that difference for a nurse or for receptionist or for managers say, I love them, a beauty, and we’re constantly reinventing ourselves to think, what more can we do? What more can we offer? Do do more courses, do more training, do we do more socials? What is it that that kind of gives them that culture and keeps them happy? And that’s something I don’t think any companies are, but some of the virgins of the world and as you mentioned, you know, some of the Goldman Sachs have done really well. But I think the good thing is that we’ve got I would say 70% of that already worked out now, which is like extra to take us to the next level to make that curve as we get bigger and bigger, keep that going. Because I think any group can be great up until practise. I think the next step is the really important step from 50 to 100. You can keep the quality going and keep everyone happy even though what they should really.

[00:44:39] And what are your responsibilities compared to your brother in laws?

[00:44:43] My brother in law is sold out. Sorry.

[00:44:46] He’s not involved.

[00:44:48] Obviously more so. He’s in last round. He’s kind of doing family stuff, but yeah. No. So it’s just myself.

[00:44:57] It’s just. Yeah.

[00:44:58] Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously we’ve got some really key managers in the group. We’ve got a head of M&A and CFO, head of operations.

[00:45:06] And you have you got these people from other corporates?

[00:45:09] No. Well, one. One of them, yes. I’m not big fan of of hiring people on corporates, not saying anything bad about it. But if I just said to you, go back a step, I said to you, I want to change the whole model of corporate in the UK to make it a dentist led, patient led and focus on getting stuff done like a. Entrepreneur and none of the other groups do that yet. So therefore if you hire for them, you’re bringing the wrong people anyway because I was be in the first place. So you need to actually find people, get them trained up or get them other industries to bring them in to hopefully deliver that kind of mission. It’s very hard to try and change someone. It’s been at my dentist’s for 20 years doing needs to start saying how I patient how do I help day care centre like are you saying this is the wrong person, the wrong fit so you need to make it. I think everyone’s pretty much come up from come from other industries apart from maybe like a couple of people within our head office who have come from other kind of groups, but generally we try not to take up.

[00:46:08] What do you find that challenge though, with people from other industries to sort of train them up into dental think or you don’t want them to be into dental think? Is that what you’re saying?

[00:46:16] No, because you know what? There’s not really much dental related things from a senior management point of view for head office, there are certain nuances for sure. But like finance, for example, finance is finance. You know, you get someone for any industry, they do numbers, they do panels, they balance sheets, they do any of your accounts. Right. It’s the same thing. Yes. See what that is? Pay. Yes. You got to work out differences between, you know, paying some of implants or not. But you learn that within a few days. It’s not rocket science. Hey, chart very similar. Not much difference in it. Yes, you might learn a few things about nuances of different roles. Otherwise, same thing marketing, same principles. Really. What’s different between doing what we’re doing and doing veterinary or doing other health care? It’s the same thing. You just try and track patients to come in in your practise. So a lot of the different I like people think dentistry is very specifically ask me, but actually I would rather have an expert from like a great brand that everyone loves and knows that great marketer to bring them in and let them do what are doing in that company into our company and try to break the mould. I might try to have disrupters and people doing different things, so I’ve been doing the same thing over and over that it’s not working because I look to other groups in marketing, they don’t bring patients in.

[00:47:25] The market is basically putting a brand in the door. That’s it. So I actually bring in leads and basically tracking them to the point of every single part of that journey and they’ve been booked in yet. What was opposed, what was accepted, what was the conversions, what was paid hasn’t been booked in half of that for the final treatment. That’s how level of detail are marketing. It’s not like, Oh yeah, we did some branding this month and I know personally because I work not the companies in industry that I’ll circle and they sponsor us and I’m thinking, you guys find money, no idea what you’re doing and you never know what returns you get afterwards. But they do it because they think, Oh, like, you know, we can do it. So I think it’s really important to be fully engaged to the level of like actually what is the result of the marketing and how is it work? And that comes from really good other industries out there that can be able to do the same things.

[00:48:10] That’s Dental circle sponsorship messed up. Well.

[00:48:15] Maybe. I’ll tell you what. The ones who really do engage and understand what they actually are doing. It’s fine.

[00:48:24] I’m joking, buddy. A lot of times.

[00:48:26] A lot of times who don’t actually know about doing.

[00:48:28] A lot of times, though, these sort of things happen because relationships, you know. Like, if you could ask me to sponsor something, whatever it is. Yeah. And I do it because we know each other. Not necessarily because of the cold, hard facts of the return on investment I’m going to get from that particular sponsorship. There’s plenty of times I’ve done that, you know, because because somewhere along the line I felt like, oh, this. I really like this guy. Or somewhere along the line, you’ve done me a favour or something like that, you know? So. So I. I hear what you’re saying, though. It’s an interesting question, because last time I spoke to you, you said that external marketing wasn’t really at all your focus. You were really focussed on internal marketing, but now you’re telling me you’ve got a four man team on the phones taking calls from leads. So is that something you’ve changed since we last spoke?

[00:49:20] No. You know what? I wouldn’t say we’ve changed. I think it’s the next phase of growth, because once you maximise your internal marketing from when you buy a practise, you have maybe your backpacks are three chairs. It’s got 2000 patients in the books, right? Three or whatever you go first. Those patients, you bring them in again. You get the new journey, a new patient experience that’s been done. How would you then take that to the next level of adding more and more every year? You have to do marketing eventually, but I think for the first year or two it’s not a really big focus because you’ve got so many patients to see anyway. They’ve already paid for that goodwill. Then it’s the next level of the marketing. And as we’re growing at a certain pace, the first 15 chapters need more marketing than the next 15 years, kind of integrating and still kind of find their feet, find the teams and maximise their own practise with their own patient base already. So it’s a different phase of when you need the marketing for you. And I think from our point of view as well, we are looking at how do we get that growth journey for maybe two years doubling to like 12 months or six months. So the more you can do, the more you can grow faster. But it will be so good to try and make things more efficient, more secure every single year, and just trying to make that whole machine even more, more better.

[00:50:33] And have you got targets from above, from the Nordic group that you have to meet?

[00:50:38] Which is really good, I think. Yeah, yeah. No, no. The answer because the good thing is because we’re a small part of a really big group. And I mean, obviously, the more we do, the better. But they don’t have like a fixed target. And I think what they originally said that it would be good to have we doubled that anyway in the first year. They’re like, Really? Well, don’t worry about it. It’s all good. So we have fixed targets of growth and I think that’s really important because we’re not pressured. I think a lot of other priority groups who are small platforms, I’ve got one priority backer on that, only on that one group only in the UK means I have to hit targets. They’ve got a three year timeline and then the flip, right? So they have to pressure themselves constantly to grow and then get a big pipe exit. And then it’s like, as you probably know, they’re selling right now and they go to the market in the next few weeks. They’ve been smashing the M&A and buying into perhaps in the market recently. Just I can get stuff in the pipeline.

[00:51:28] So when I sell they look like they’ve got really big deals. They can get a good price and everyone just goes off in the mood right afterwards. So, you know, it’s different type of backing for private equity, which is really good for us because I personally love that because it means that I’m not having to worry about targets and deliver exactly what’s right for the company. If it’s good opportunity or do it. If it’s not, we’ll pass it. I think a lot of groups get caught up with that whole pressure, having to buy stuff to hit targets and then just by ship, which the problem you have and then you realise half the portfolio is rubbish, half of them are good and the bad ones and then the whole thing down after 5 to 10 years because they start losing staff, the locations aren’t great and you have that same issue that you have with people. So it’s really important to have a very relaxed kind of approach to M&A, not being pressured to buy stuff because they are being hired. It’s just put on paper.

[00:52:18] Yeah. I mean, it’s one of the biggest issues, isn’t it, because the, you know, this question of sort of multiple of orbit, it actually applies to massive groups as well, isn’t it? I mean, the and that pressure that you’ve you’ve just been talking about has meant that massive groups have kind of inflated prices. And and like you say, I’ve been I’ve been going to some corporates recently and actually quite, quite pleasantly surprised with some of the morale that I saw, because I saw some terrible morale at corporates as well. I mean, maybe they’re sending me into their sort of key branches and, and all of that. And, and I was talking to the management and asking them, you know, what do they think is the reason that some of them have got such high morale and then. Some of them don’t. And they they were putting it down to the practise manager and the treatment coordinator, but then they don’t have partners in place like you do, you know, like dentists who are proper clinical directors, if you will, in place. Have you identified what makes a successful partner partnership or practise and what doesn’t? What are the what are the warning signs? What are the red flags?

[00:53:33] I think if I was a manager of myself in the reception issues or a nurse, I think the four things I would really want to have to be in a happy practise and be, you know, have good memories, someone to go to, open door policy, like physically, like, you know, the principles out there don’t talk to their staff. Ever go to work, go home. And I’m like, Don’t even talk to your team. They’ve got problems by leaving. You don’t care. And that’s just their mentality. I have an open door policy which is communicate properly is number one. Listening to our problems, finding out about them, like knowing your team is important. Number two is just being a good person. I think there’s lots of old school dentists, even some young ones who just got this very weird mentality that they can basically be a dick and get away with it in the practise and accept people. Just be like, I’m the boss and therefore it’s my way or the highway. I think you have to be pretty complex. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you can’t work and hit your targets in good practise or even get good in it without a good team. So you’re in the same boat, whether you’re principal, dentist or associate or nurse. You can’t work about each other. It’s like it’s a it’s a mutual relationship. So I think you need to be a nice person generally and actually be approachable because a lot of staff are going to like the guy, don’t want to talk to him like why do you go them for your principal? Like you pay the bills like you should be able to talk to the guy and have a chat with them and a woman just they’re not going to buy.

[00:54:56] And then I think the third thing as well is probably thinking about putting yourself in their shoes because I think a lot of times dentists have got this lifestyle in their head of how, you know, why they’re so upset that they get paid on time. Nurses live off £5 extra in the month to live off. They get paid on time. They just can’t even survive. So you need to put yourself in their shoes and bring yourself down a level. I think some associates even get too big for their boots and start like, you know, treat the nurses like if they’re just some sort of like just person in the corner, but they don’t realise how important that person is for them to actually get their job done. And yes, they’re making those money, they’re doing really well. But actually that nurse, they couldn’t do that. So I think you’ve got to put yourself in their shoes and think how they would think too. And sometimes they don’t get enough. First time round must repeat yourself ten times the nurse to get the one job done. But remember then these guys aren’t working. You know, they come out of school, probably they got A-levels and they’ve just come to nurse review. They’re not, you know, triple A A-level. People have gone to university for five years and learnt stuff. They’re not going that same mindset. So you’ve got to take a step, step back a bit and just work out how do you communicate that person properly and put yourself in their shoes? And I think lastly, just, you know, pay your staff, right? Be a market leading kind of practise owner where all group where you are actually thinking about the values of what you’re doing, why you’re doing it for as in clinically, but also paying your staff.

[00:56:19] Right. I think I’ve seen a lot of practises over the years where they get the whole team to leave every six months. It’s a great practise on the front of it on Instagram. Looks amazing. Everyone thinks is the best practise in the country. When you go there, you look at their things going to term. It’s so high. What’s going on here. They think that’s too good for the rest of the team and therefore they can just pay what they want to pay and it is what it is. I think that’s a really bad way of thinking. I think you should be thinking more about how do you retain the staff? If it costs more, do it and make more afterwards. Don’t keep losing staff just to keep bottom line small as very old school way of thinking and many opinions. But just generally it’s very old way of thinking about like, you know, how do I keep my costs really tight and don’t worry about anything else. Like think about culture and team. It’s not easy to recruit talent these days, right? And I think if you get those things right, you can be a good partner. And then if you’re good partner, you can make lots of money to so or principle. Not just to principle.

[00:57:11] Yeah, I agree with you. There’s got to be some sort of focus on earning more by making people happy than trying to always cut costs. You know, you know you’re in business, but in business both are important, aren’t they? But it’s just that sort of people don’t realise how quickly they can ruin a relationship with a human does taken years and years and years to build up. And it reminds me something Zeba Sheikh said that just simple body language, you know, acknowledging people waive all of that, all of that means something, you know, when you when you’re the boss and we forget that sometimes, then we I’ve seen that as enlightened, grown, and we’ve got more and more people that getting to getting to know people has become a harder thing. And now you’ve got 1000 to think about.

[00:58:09] Well, not mine. Father’s death certificate. I mean, I’m not I don’t get to know all the members, the staff members themselves, but I try.

[00:58:18] Tell me about the practise in your group that you’ve got least knowledge of. Is there one is there one that you bought without? You didn’t see it. Someone else handled everything.

[00:58:29] Yeah.

[00:58:29] Because that’s going to happen du jour. If you go to 100 by next year, that’s going to happen a lot.

[00:58:34] There’s been a few. There was one that we bought. I don’t know the names of it, but it.

[00:58:40] Was absolutely.

[00:58:41] It was in Hertfordshire. I didn’t get to view it. I just bought it. I went there the first time after it was completed, after a few weeks when I did the refurb a team. But I think it gets to a certain point where I’m actually going back to it anymore, because if you’re going to if you’re going to buy a practise, take out the principal, the numbers of numbers, premises, the premises. The rest of it comes down to the right partner coming in and keep them out of work. And if it’s not all the normal kind of bits that we might like in terms of a small contract, blah blah is what it is, man. It could be any practise anyway. I don’t make a difference to me. As long as it’s not million miles from London, I can make it work. So yeah, we are know because it takes sometimes 2 hours, two viewings and then 2 hours to come back and just waste half a day to do a viewing, whereas our team does anyway. So it’s nice though to meet dentists and stuff because I do like to get a face to face like see something that and say like what you’re selling to us because you get a lot of stuff from inspectors and don’t look in the prospectus and it looks amazing when you go there, you think this guy is dodgy. I don’t want to the fact that it’s got like a ticking time bomb here, but I think our team knows now what’s kind of some red flags to hear when they’re saying that they’re just doing £500 a month. I’m like, Hmm, that sounds interesting. It must be working a lot of days. Oh, but one day a week. That sounds really good. Yeah, really, really good. So, yeah, I think, you know, a few red flags, but yeah, I think we kind of know what’s right, what’s wrong. Our partners go there as well. So the dentists, they kind of know what’s right, what’s wrong as well.

[01:00:11] And are you still doing this thing where you’re just ripping the place apart and rebranding straight away?

[01:00:17] Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[01:00:19] Is that part of do you think that’s actually important to sort of rip the soul out of the old place and, you know, like.

[01:00:26] Yeah, I mean, I think if it’s a good perhaps of a good soul, it’s fine. But once again, we’re buying patches that just don’t these guys don’t care. Like most of the time they just like, I don’t work here working 2 hours a week. I let it run itself down for last five years ago and down every year. My turnover is cut contract by doing it by it not having and they have no marketing and branding. It’s like the dentist in Hampstead. It’s got no actual brand behind it, no website. These are ones that haven’t got anything anyway in the first place. It’s got a great band like Kiss, for example. That one bought recently in Colchester, North West. What’s that.

[01:01:00] One called?

[01:01:01] North Hill Dental North. Yeah. So what would impact is that great brand locally? People know it. Make good reviews on Google. You wouldn’t get with the brand, you keep it. So it’s just about working out if it’s the right brand to keep or lose and like at ten times to lose because they haven’t got anything in the first place. So why buying it right as potential.

[01:01:22] I remember payment, the other beautiful payment saying things. Somebody saying that some of the some of the staff felt like they were mourning the loss of their their building because like where it is now, the toilet or something. Yeah.

[01:01:43] I mean, I think there’s there’s two of things, right? There’s the actual physical premises where you’re updating it and making it look nice. And there’s the brand of like, you know, if you had a generally a great brand and it was really good and it worked well, we never lose it. We would keep it. But I don’t think anyone now after tours are buying that many Baptists can say it wasn’t the right thing for the parts because actually they’re all doing great now from 3 to 6 chairs that were really busy. You know, I think it takes some time for change and it will be a big initial kind of like jerk reaction. But after seeing it and the where everyone involved, for example, we bought one in Beau, that was for 70, 80 years old. And literally it was, you know, the physical premises wasn’t up to scratch of what it should be for three factors in both. We did a refurb that took six months, found asbestos in there. Like, you know, you never see that stuff in advance. You find these problems. We do refurbish and is what it is and the team like there’s dust everywhere, there’s mess everywhere. Like builders are making noise all the time that it and off they saw the refurb finished so I went in there when they’re all grumbling about how annoying it is with the refurb happening and there I went there afterwards actually last week and they were like, you’re right. Like you guys were fully on point with what you’re doing. It makes sense now. I love it here. I can see the vision of it now, but at the beginning we couldn’t see it. We just thought, you guys just coming in here doing X, Y and Z. So like. Is hard to show a practise of a team for 20 years the same team they’re what’s going to look like never end until I see it and they be in it. That’s pretty different.

[01:03:19] It’s very different, man, because I constantly give advice to people by and practises to not do this. Yeah. To evolve not not revolution. Evolution makes sure the team and the patients don’t think anything’s happened when you first buy it and and you’ve taken that and put it on his head and just destroy. Which it’s interesting. It’s working for you. If it’s working for you, it’s working.

[01:03:40] Yeah. No, I mean, I did the same thing as well, to be honest, if you like my first practise and same thing, I didn’t change anything at the same team, the same team, the same everything apart from a rebrand. And it was a worse I could have done because actually I could have easily understood quicker by bringing the right team and the right conditions and the way everything I wanted to do, they won. And actually it is a bit more ballsy to do it, but if you do it and you’ll see that patient go back a step by your potential and your patient going in there, if you can see it being rebranded with a nice brand, you know, a nice new paint on the walls, new flooring, new desk, the reception area, new patient flow scanners. You would probably want to spend more money there. It’s quite straightforward. You’re not going to get much growth out. Perhaps if you don’t change the team, you haven’t changed your practise. And if it’s not great from day one, how are you going to grow it? What you do differently? You’re not going to do anything differently apart from the price itself. I think it’s hard to then tell patients, Oh, what’s a double now? But we have a lot of different objectives, so you have to do one or the other. And I think it’s either you do it later or you do it slowly or you’re doing one go. And the whole plan depends on how bad it is in first place. If it’s a nice practise, you’re right. Keep it as it is, evolve it slowly and do it a bit. But if it’s not a great practise from day one, then you need to just crack on. Man, I have a.

[01:04:56] Question. I want to ask you some darker questions now. We’re known for our dark questions. All right, well, I’ve got three. I’ve got three for you.

[01:05:05] Okay.

[01:05:06] What’s been your biggest mistake in this venture?

[01:05:11] Biggest mistake would be sometime. Well, I’m not to name names or what happened, but bringing on. The wrong people in the business. For the sake of convenience. Yeah. So what I mean by that is, you know, I haven I’m going to bring you in for X, Y and Z job in the organisation. And because you’re the first one I’ve seen in the market or because it’s easy, you’re there an opportunity is there or the jobs are available. I need someone now. I just bring you in to make it easier for myself. That’s been a bigger problem because mistakes, I say, because by doing that one person in it has a negative effect on the rest of the nation, either from head office or perhaps level or whatever. And then that to fix that takes a lot longer than it was just to wait for a few weeks to find the right person. So I think it’s important to wait for the right person and the right fit for the company rather than rushing it because it’s convenient and easy.

[01:06:21] Except when you’re growing quickly. Sometimes you have to. Right. That’s that’s the way it is.

[01:06:27] I mean.

[01:06:28] You want to expand on that for us a little bit?

[01:06:30] No, I think.

[01:06:34] All right. Let’s move on to my next one. What’s your biggest weakness, your own personal, biggest weakness? It’s like an interview question.

[01:06:41] And sometimes sometimes I’m too quick to jump the gun. You know, when you move as fast as we move and I fast, my mind moves. My gut instinct is probably what I always go off. Every single time just comes out of my mouth. Don’t even think it’s just no filter.

[01:06:58] But when you say something inappropriate.

[01:07:02] No, no, no. It’s not saying it’s not decisions. So if you say what I do because my job now is making decisions, all I do I do is go to work, make decisions every day. That’s it. Go home and actually physically do anything to make the right decision and think I’m like a little couple in my head thinking through every scenario of what the decision is and say yes or no to it or whatever. Right. And I play chess when I was younger. And I don’t know if you ever play chess before, but you can get timers of chess. You can do 50 minute chess games. Right. And in that game, you play a game blitz chess. So you have to make decision, do it and hit the clock and move on to next one. I ain’t got time to think. You got to do what you think is why. Quickly and bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. So that’s how I literally run the business right now. Like, I’m literally thinking my head off. I think I’ve only got like 12,000 days to work or 50 hours a day to do work. I need to get all the stuff done in 15 hours. Bah bah bah bah, boom. And sometimes I will rush into it, but actually take a step back and think about it and give a decision to that and not actually think, you know, I should taken about another day to think about that properly before I did my decision on it. And I wouldn’t say that I’m wrong all the time, but I am wrong. Obviously, no one’s perfect, so I think I should just take a deep breath sometime. Just take a step back and think once I can, I’ll tell you 5 minutes me right now, because that hot potato mindset, it’s hard to think about some straight away, think about it first and then do it because then I’ll change position afterwards and oh shit, I should have said that the first time around.

[01:08:25] I find a partner is very good for that, for for balancing. At the same time with a partner, sometimes you have to it slows you down as well. Right, because you can’t make every decision you want to make.

[01:08:36] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:08:37] My final nasty question. What keeps you up at night regarding this business?

[01:08:47] I’ll tell you what it is. The honest truth is keeping the quality of what we had in the first practise the same. Every time I want to deliver that 100% patient journey, 100% partnership to our partners, 100% to our team, the staff morale, culture, the award winning kind of mentality and doing that without becoming the next honestly, because that’s the biggest fear you’re going to have, right? Getting so big that you lose that quality. And in theory, it shouldn’t be happening because you’ve got partners there. The things we mentioned over this whole call, but it is a fear because I don’t want to be the next massive quote, but that’s just got a shitty reputation for having a high staff turnover and churn rate. I want to be like the same as what we had the first time around. Like a virgin at the next 2000 employees that come on board, I want to all feel that same level of support and emotion for the job and love working for the company.

[01:09:47] Yeah, but what else keeps you up at night? I like that, but.

[01:09:51] I didn’t really know anything.

[01:09:53] What keeps you up at night? What you said there was kind of more, like, aspirational, which I like. Yeah, but.

[01:10:01] I mean, it.

[01:10:01] Worries the hell out of you.

[01:10:06] Seem pretty good these days, man. I mean, look, I think I think look, I mean, the obvious thing is obviously hitting targets in terms of like.

[01:10:14] With the grid is what keeps what keeps some dental associate up at night, GDC hearing whatever. Something like.

[01:10:21] That will.

[01:10:22] Keep him up at night. What keeps you Dev Patel up at night? Like what would be a bad case scenario that you’re worried about? You want to talk about it honestly? Right. Well.

[01:10:32] I tell you what it is like. If you ask me, it’s two years ago. I’ll have 25 things and I’ll tell you what they were like. It was like, well, the bank has financing for the next part or will we be able to hire the associates for that? Perhaps because we’ve got bums on seats we haven’t got ready to go? Well, we’re in a position now, when I say we, I mean myself personally, where I’m really comfortable. I’m not stressed out anymore, like generally because like personally or good families or good health or good. That’s number three. Three things. Then off that comes the business. And I mean, we haven’t got any major red flags, but I’m like, Oh shit, this is going to be a complete shit show tomorrow. I’m stressed out. But because we’ve got great teams, we’ve got great people in practises, I’m not just saying I’m being very honest now, like I don’t actually think I’m a huge one because in the end day everything’s aligned. Like if I was on my own with no partners, I’ll be stressed out like, Oh my God, how am I going to make sure that was employed happy all the time. But we’ve got great partners on the ground level doing their job, we’ve got great teams are back and doing their bit and managers now doing bits for me before I was doing myself where I was stressed out.

[01:11:36] Now that I’ve got people below me doing all the different department heads who are reporting to me, then it’s actually a lot easier to run an organisation. And both there we think we’re double our targets, what we’re meant to be doing from our backers because that could be stressful as well. I guess if you weren’t hit a target as an equity backing group, then you’d be stressed out. You think I’m totally going to buy 10,000? You have only bought five. I’m stressed out because we are ahead of a curve, both on our point of view, growth point of view and M&A point of view. It’s not stressful. So I think it’s stressful for new for the first time and worrying about your team makes you happy. There’s always a stress for me because I’m like, I want everyone’s happy in my team and I do that job, but it comes down to that quality level. I want everyone to be happy, so I don’t actually have like a general fear. Like if tomorrow everything went to shit and I had to retire, I wouldn’t really care. Like, is what it is like. Be upset. I’ll be upset by what.

[01:12:31] Seems like you’re in a good place right now. Seems like it’s all going to get disturbed when you add another 50 practise, but well done, buddy. That’s nice. Nice to hear that, because I remember last time you were a bit like running, trying to change the tire in a racing car, as you were myself.

[01:12:46] Yeah. That’s the difference when you when I was actually on my own doing everything on my own, I was doing it by myself. I was doing everything myself. And it was a one man team. Now I get to around me, it’s a lot easier and I think that’s like a really blessed position to be in because you’re not having to do everything yourself anymore and you can delegate to other people who can do the well the job better. You can actually and have more time to do it properly rather than try and do 120 1010 things in one day. And actually I can do more shooting things now, which I think is, is really nice to be able to do.

[01:13:15] Let’s finish it with what you think the future’s going to hold both for dentistry and your group. I mean, how do you see the macro economy? Does that help.

[01:13:24] Keep. Yeah, yeah. Once again, I think it’s I’m not saying that, you know, there’s obviously things that can affect dentistry, but we are quite a niche industry where we’re not affected as much by the macro economy. It’s like you train more like you think, Oh, that’s going to have a huge impact on many things on the world. But actually dentistry is not affected in any way, most likely in the UK. So there’s like, you know, big things in the world going on. It’s actually going to happen for sure. But will that affect us that much? Probably a bit here and there, but not a huge amount, because once again, if you’ve got a great service, people need to get the teeth done. They’ll come to us. It happened during the last recession, too. So I do think that there are factors that would affect a practise owner now in the industry because of macro economy. So like for example, interest rates are going up for sure. That’s going to affect people’s loans. That’s going to mean that’s many more repayments, less profits, less cash flow. So, you know, these things will happen. But for us on our side as a group, I won’t affect us in any way. We’re like we’re just like in our bubble with terms of our financing and stuff. So, you know, will there be any have a major effect on the industry? Yes, I think we’ll start seeing our wave of dentists go out of NHS and go into private a lot more than we’ve recently seen over the last five years. We’ll be like ten, ten times more prominent in the next 26 months to a year. I think we’re going to start seeing perhaps is not hitting targets anymore and given that the is just don’t wanna do it anymore which would be a big shift generally for contracts and how could they happen over the years?

[01:14:54] I think you see the private market turning into like the super high end private market, like dental and then middle and then like. Do you see that?

[01:15:03] Yeah. Yeah. I think we’re going to start seeing a major shift in the mid-market of a general practise. That’s mid-market. No more associate. Sorry, no more patches around the M 25 belt or just suburbs of cities going from 50%, 5% NHS to maybe 80%, five, 20% NHS. And if they don’t hit target like oh well guys and I don’t really care anymore kind of thing I think we’ll see associate. Applying for jobs only mainly private and not heavy on. So rather than that 6000 per year per chair, it might be 4000, 3000 now. So that’s gonna be the new norm. And I think we’ll, we’ll start seeing a lot more squats being built up, greenfields where people are taking the punch of it’s been great for the last two years of private let’s kind of give it a go. Risky that would be most likely to be some failures there, too. But I think it’s definitely another big push right now. And then finally, I think it’s gonna be a big change of recruitment have to happen from either India or Australia or somewhere around the world. It’s gonna be an influx of them coming over once we eventually jettison standards out, actually allow them to over quicker because there’s not enough dentists right now and nurses and staff to actually accommodate for these perhaps that need the help in expanding rural areas around the country. And so I think those are a bit of bigger changes but we that everyone knows WEDI and for us I think it was just going to be keep doing what we’re doing. We might look to strategically buy some other kind of platforms in other cities where we’re not in right now. So we can keep growing in other areas that we’re not in, but staying to the core of big cities, good affluent areas that we know we can do good part of industry. And it’s kind of cool of what people really buy. There’s so many good things out there who could be partners for us as scientists and to meet them and speak to them and see if that could work and we can work together.

[01:16:51] Really amazing. Since last time we’ve changed one of our final questions. So you answered the ones before, but there’s a new one. Guess it’s about fancy dinner party.

[01:17:06] Okay.

[01:17:06] Three guests, dead or alive.

[01:17:11] Am. Okay. Elon Musk.

[01:17:17] Jay-z Yeah.

[01:17:21] And. It’s tough on them. Probably my uncle.

[01:17:31] Your uncle?

[01:17:32] Yeah. It was quite a close part of how many people I passed away, and it was like kind of the reason why it’s in the first place. So. Yeah.

[01:17:41] When did he passed away?

[01:17:43] When our second study at uni.

[01:17:47] Who’s that? Your dad’s brother.

[01:17:48] That’s brother. Yeah. Similar kind of a typical Indian story came from East Africa, came over here sort of business and did loads of material things. And yeah, I kind of work on entrepreneur flair in the first place, so.

[01:18:03] If you think he was the one who maybe put the seed in you. I mean, look.

[01:18:10] We’re one of the ones that I know as well. But not as an entrepreneur. But like, you know, when we were kids, we weren’t, you know, playing Xbox and stuff we’re doing doing the accounts for our company. Some of that, like we’ve been looking for that when I was five or six years old. You learn these things by doing this stuff with these guys and going to meetings and you know, back then it was weird, like, you should be sitting there, we’ll have a business meeting and you’d be like told to sit there and talk and about these things in a way that you probably should be learning. But, you know, it’s a good way of doing things.

[01:18:42] Yeah, you got some by osmosis, man. Lovely to have you, buddy, for the second time. And really good luck with this. And I’m sure I’m sure you’re going to flourish, but it’s been really, again, really nice having you.

[01:18:56] Thanks for having me back again.

[01:18:57] Buddy. Thanks, man.

[01:19:00] 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.

[01:19:16] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it. If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] The moment I graduated, I knew that the moment I graduate people would be like, You know what? He’s just come out of Dental school. He needs to just kind of go into any old job and just he needs to spend five years just upskilling. And I knew that would be the argument because it’s the argument in other sectors as well. Like, you come out of doing an economics degree and people are like, Oh, you’re only a year out, like just, you know, grind or work hard for a bit. And I think for me, it was not. It wasn’t that, oh yeah, I’m going to get a private job straight out Dental School, but it was more just I want to be that or knowing as that person who works really, really hard on their dentistry and wants to get better and better and better. And I think that was the priority for that was, first of all, to prove that to myself that like I’m putting in this work and to feel good about myself that, you know, I’m putting in those 10000 hours that you hear about sort of thing. And then I think, yeah, my hope was that at some point somebody would come along and be like, You know what? That Zane, he’s been doing this since Dental School. Like he he’s got his head screwed on. And I know that if I take a punt on him, he might not be the finished project project product yet. But eventually he will get there because he’s got the right attitude and that’s the most I can offer when I’m one year out of Dental school. There’s not anything else that I can guarantee.

[00:01:11] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:28] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Zain Risky onto the podcast. Zain first came on on my radar when I randomly watched a YouTube interview with him. I think I think you were just a Dental student at the time saying, Yeah, I remember thinking this kid’s got his head screwed on. And then later on, I saw you win some prise as I don’t know what it was like. Top Dental student in the world twice and then again at BCD wins some prise. And then by that time it was I was paying attention. And so I do see your feed. And, you know, just as so many things that you’ve done in such a short period of time. So it’s it’s it’s a massive pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks for doing this. But how are you?

[00:02:14] Thank you for having me. You know, I’m good. Thank you.

[00:02:17] So then you said you listen to this podcast. We usually start with the back story. Yeah, kind of kid. Were you?

[00:02:25] I was critical, cripplingly shy, to be honest. I was like the kind of kid where someone, you know, when I was like five, six years old, someone would come up and say, hi to me and I just hide behind my mum and like, grip her very tightly because I was just very, very shy. Always quite kind of cautious, well-behaved, never really got in. Much trouble growing up. Yeah, quite quite quiet. Kept myself to myself. I would describe myself as introverted, whereas I feel like when I tell that to my friends now, they’re just like, No, that’s not true at all. You do so much kind of in the in the public domain and with people and that sort of thing. But I would say, yeah, quite a shy child and grew up in a very kind of loving, well supported sort of family environment. My parents, both very dedicated to their kids, kind of weak.

[00:03:09] What do they do?

[00:03:10] So my dad qualified as a chartered accountant, but he’s he’s got a very interesting career pathway because it’s a little bit like me where he kind of I don’t know if it’s kind of impatience and boredom, or if he just likes to do lots of different things. But he actually quite early. Early on, he left chartered accountancy to basically start running his own businesses. So part of the reason I actually grew up in Leicestershire, I was born in London, but when we were seven, we moved to Leicester. And the reason for that was because my dad took over a failing hotel, which is kind of so outside of what his comfort zone was. And he took on this hotel and he ran it for a couple of years, and that’s why we were based in Leicester. And then because we were quite settled, we stayed there because of our schooling. And he moved on to different things. So like nursing home restaurant and they weren’t all at the same time. It was kind of periods of five to six years, but in a way I kind of got exposure to like lots of different industries and businesses and how they run, you know, good and bad and the kind of life involved. So a lot of that kind of location and relocation revolved around my dad’s work. My mum kind of she’s she didn’t go to university. She kind of left school after A-levels, and she was very good with people. So she took up a lot of jobs in kind of in banking as a cashier. She used to work at Heathrow Airport with Singapore Airlines as well. So she’s always been quite customer facing. Currently she works. She’s still at NatWest, so she’s a cashier there at the moment.

[00:04:34] So as a student, as a child, I mean, as a as a school person, we always like top of your class and all of that.

[00:04:42] And I wasn’t ever top. I was in that kind of really frustrating zone where I was good and I never really was kind of bottom of the class or there was never any concern about me failing exams and stuff. But I was always in that kind of good, but not amazing or not perfect. And whereas my sister was in that kind of top of the class perfect type child, so I was kind of that middle ground. But yeah, never really any concerns. My mum and dad never really had a problem with me at school. Neither the teachers they just used to say he needs to come out of his shell a bit, which was always kind of on the report card.

[00:05:12] So do you do you remember a moment where you came out of your shell because you’re definitely out of your shell right now? So yeah. What was the inflexion point?

[00:05:20] It was really distinctive, and it was really interesting because my parents had such different views on my kind of lack of confidence. So my mum was always really worried that, oh, like, what if he never comes out of his shell? Like, it’s going to impact him a lot. He’s so shy, and my dad was like, He’ll grow out of it. Like, Don’t give him space, let him develop, let him explore, you know, just protect him, basically and support him. And then when I was, I think in year six in my primary school, I got appointed head boy just out of the blue because again, you wouldn’t think this shy child would be the one that would be appointed head boy because he doesn’t have any kind of speaking skills. Or, you know, he doesn’t seem like the guy that would volunteer to do a speech at speech day or whatever. But I don’t know if it was the teacher that I had at the time or what, but they saw something clearly and that year that I had as head boy, I was doing every kind of couple of weeks. I was giving a speech on a lectern in a cathedral or a church to a bunch of parents and students and stuff.

[00:06:14] And I remember being so terrified, but again, like my dad, you know, it sounds kind of a little bit lame now that I think. Actually, it was so important as growing up, like my dad and I would kind of rehearse at home for the speeches that would be coming up and he would, you know, if I mumbled or stumbled or wasn’t speaking loud enough, he’d be like, Right, start again. And we kind of practised and kind of almost moulded me into someone who was quite comfortable, public speaking. And I know for a lot of like my friends, for example, public speaking is like one of their biggest fears, whereas for me, it’s just like, Yeah, I’ll go, I’ll go do it. I’ll go say it. Or, you know, if someone needs to be a spokesman for something, I’ll do it like, I have no problem with it. Just kind of water off a duck’s back now. Whereas I think at that time it was like, Oh my god, I can’t do this. My knees are shaking. Voices kind of trembling, that sort of thing.

[00:07:04] So then tell me about university, you’re a grad, so you did a degree before dentistry.

[00:07:10] Yeah. So at school, I was again had like a couple of options available to me. I was really into politics, kind of English literature. I was really strong at probably my best subject. I really wanted to do. Journalism really followed a lot of journalists as well at the time, and I think combination of kind of like gentle advice and counselling from my parents about kind of like, right, what are your career prospects going to be if you did something like English or history? Like, do you have an actual plan or a route? We’re happy to support you to do it, but do you know what you’re going to do? And I was like, No, to be fair, I don’t. I just know that I’d enjoy studying the subject, and then I guess I’d just go from there. But I was also really strong in science and biology, chemistry, that usual sort of thing, and I could see quite a tangible pathway into dentistry. Medicine was on the cards, but I think I was more keen towards dentistry and I knew we had family, friends who were dentists. And so I kind of from a complete picture and I’m not really shy of saying it. But like in terms of kind of financially work life balance, I was someone a bit like my dad were like, I have a lot of interests outside of my immediate career, and I knew that medicine was never going to cater to that. I was going to have to be all in. So dentistry was kind of that, that balance where I could, you know, pay the bills, enjoy it. But then also, I could do so much more outside of it if I wanted to.

[00:08:22] So that was always on the cards. The reason I went and did Biomet Imperial actually was not because I applied, didn’t get into dentistry. I had the grades at A-level. It was mainly because I was playing cricket to a really high standard at school, and I actually my dream was to go and become a professional cricketer and play for England. So the way I saw it, I was like my kind of peak where I can enter into the professional set up would be about 21 years old, so I need a degree that will just get me out of uni at twenty one and maybe whilst I’m at uni, if I got into Oxbridge, for example, they have a set up at certain unis where you can actually study but but play full time as a professional as part of the university set up. So it’s kind of like a pathway that England have created so that you can actually get a degree and become professional and you don’t have to sacrifice one over the other like they used to in, like the 80s and 90s. So that was what I was aiming towards, ideally at Oxford, but in the end I ended up going to London. Imperial was great and I really did explore that kind of non-clinical side of things, the interest I had politically and all of that stuff. So I think when I got to the end of that, I was like, Right, I think, you know, cricket’s not going to go where I want it to go.

[00:09:32] So now when was the moment when you realised cricket wasn’t going to be the thing?

[00:09:36] I think I always there was a part of me that knew, deep down that look like I’m I am good relative to your average club cricketers like amateur amateur players. But when I would on the occasions that I’d be playing against boys that were playing for England under 15s in England, under 16s, there was like a big gulf between me and them. And I was like, OK, maybe if I work hard, if I keep training, I will get to that point. And it kind of just never came. And it was always that kind of hope inside me that, OK, I’ll trial with this academy or with this county, and I was still doing that at university. I was trialling with Surrey, and it just never would get past that point where I’d always be on the fringe, but I’d never be someone who’d be the first name on the team sheet. So my dad always used to say something to me. He’d be like saying, like, as much as you love cricket, I’m here to support you. There’s only 11 people that get on the teamsheet. No one cares about the 12th person. So you know you might well be that 12th person, so you should have a backup for being that 12th person if that comes, if it comes to that, and that is kind of where it was at. So I think when I got to the end of Imperial, I was like, Look, I’ve spent three years in London. London’s got a big cricket scene. I’ve been playing for my club. I’ve been in contact with certain counties and it’s not really gone anywhere. I think now at 21, you know, I’m young enough to still do a career and thrive within it. So let me turn my attention to dentistry.

[00:10:55] And so what is it? What does it involve if you’re if you’ve got a degree in biomedical? Does that mean you don’t do the first year of dentistry?

[00:11:02] Yes, they drop you into two straight away if you get onto a grad programme. So I was fortunate that I got into a four year grad programme at King’s, so I just got really hard to get on to. Yes, so I can’t remember the ratio. It was something crazy and I didn’t actually. I didn’t even know that that was how competitive it was until we got there. And it was kind of like we had a talk by the dean and it was kind of like a back scratching exercise, although like you’ve done really well to get here. And, you know, don’t don’t mess it up, basically because you’re one of 20, you know, who have gotten in. And there were, however, many I don’t know the actual figures, so I’d be talking, but there were a lot of it was very, very competitive. And then I think once I got in, I was actually very grateful and thankful that I don’t know how I kind of managed to get into this, but I better make the most of it now

[00:11:46] And in university and imperial. Your political. Sort of mindset. I mean, it’s funny, isn’t it, when you go from school to university that there’s this sort of you’re not quite a man? Yeah, you’re certainly not a boy anymore. Yeah. And you sort of have the opportunity to redefine yourself that you just sort of there’s this moment where they’ve got all new people. Yeah. And so did you. You defined yourself as a sort of political guy. It’s a guy who’s going to be on beyond boards of things.

[00:12:17] No, it wasn’t specific to political, but I agree with you. I think I got because I was also living out. I was my family home was in Leicester and I’d come to London to live out and study. It was like a big city. First time I’ve lived out in London, all I knew of London was like when my cousins were in Hounslow and it was just like, That wasn’t really London. So living out, yeah, like I remember Freshers really distinctly. I was so far out of my comfort zone, but I was like my parents. My dad is very kind of growth mindset orientated, so he would almost be like, You’re not coming home or like, he discouraged me from kind of coming home in the weekends like some of my friends used to. They just used to go home after on Friday night. But I know, like, live out, make friends, do you know? And the temptation is when you’re outside of your comfort zone, I just want to go home because I just feel a bit, you know, shy. I don’t really know anyone here, but I think within three months to kind of just forcing myself to stay there and kind of embrace the change. I then just started thriving and just I joined so many different clubs and societies, even ones that I thought I could never see myself doing this long term.

[00:13:16] Like, I started playing hockey as a sport, and I got really good at it because I don’t know if it’s hand-eye coordination or whatever, but I got involved with like a really large, large type hockey crowd, which I never would have associated with before, you know, going to sports night and doing tables and all this sort of stuff. And and I was just like, This is so not me. Like, I don’t drink. I don’t I don’t really go out and do all this stuff, but I can still thrive in these types of environments. I can still make friends with these types of guys, and I still kept in touch with a lot of these guys and I still play well. I used to play hockey a lot more than I do now, but it was like it just gave so many different strings to my bow. If that makes sense and politics just became one of those things I explored and it went somewhere. So yeah, I think that’s what Imperial was grateful for. It was just kind of exploring,

[00:14:00] Where did it go? What did you do?

[00:14:02] So at Imperial I in my second year, I ran like a really big campaign where there was there was a position of open for student trustee of the student union. So it’s basically an elected student who sits on the board of trustees that governs the whole of the student union. Most of those people on there are like the union president and then there’s like appointed board of trustees who are usually, you know, people in their forties and fifties managerial roles who kind of govern governance the way the union works. So I ran a campaign against, I think it was ten other people. And I guess like in the context of a whole university, nobody really knew who I was. I ran. I remember the campaign. It was quite it was like a very kind of tongue in cheek, quite kind of social media savvy, quite visual type campaign with a bit of kind of seriousness to it in terms of promises and all that sort of stuff. But I think I kind of read the room quite well in that most students, they they are interested a little bit in student politics, but not too much the kind of vote for the guy that’s quite quite funny, quite entertaining. Yeah, you know, makes them laugh. And they kind of like, that’s the kind of person that actually gets voted in, rather than maybe the person who is the most clued up on political issues. Yeah. But I think for me, I always knew that I could deliver in terms of being clued up and I could always go, do my research and make serious arguments and that sort stuff. But I didn’t think the campaigning and the election was the place to be doing that, necessarily because the larger proportion of the population just wanted like memes and, you know, funny quips and quotes and that sort of thing. So, yeah, I got like,

[00:15:31] You calculate you calculated all of that, did you?

[00:15:34] I didn’t calculate it. I think similar to the way, like I run my Instagram. I think I just know exactly what people who follow me are looking for naturally. Yeah. And I think I just use my brain. I’m like, OK, what do I? What would I like or what would I vote for realistically? And I’m quite realistic. I’m not like idealistic or, you know, this is who I want to be, and it just kind of completely far removed from what most people think is normal. So, yeah, I think I just kind of thought, OK, this is the way to approach it. And you know what? You have fun doing that kind of thing, like making funny posters, posting them on your social media, people liking it, commenting on it, sharing it. You’re kind of it makes you feel good and you enjoy the process and kind of just kind of snowballed from there. And then I actually ended up winning, which I didn’t. Obviously, I wanted to win and I believed I could win. But, you know, to run against 10 people in the whole university, you never think that it’s actually going to be you at the end of the day

[00:16:22] Because it gives you sort of I would never be that cat. Yeah, I would never go and try and do something. But it must give you some sort of experience in sort of running stuff, right?

[00:16:34] Yeah, I think at that stage, it was like the biggest thing that I’d done from a like an election or political scale. I was just like, I almost took myself aback when I thought when I think about it in terms of I just kind of jumped into it, and I’m someone who generally to most opportunities, I would just kind of say yes without kind of. Thinking and then afterwards, I oh, that was a bad idea, or that was quite a good idea. So I’m never I’m always open to an idea or like a proposal if someone comes to me with it and then I’ll think about it and go, whatever. So yeah, I think it gave a lot of skills that I didn’t realise it would at the time. And in retrospect, all of this stuff kind of makes sense. And you know, I got this and that from it. But at the time, I was just like, Oh yeah, I really want to do this and see what it’s like to be on a student union and be elected and to run a campaign and it be really cool if I win it. That was probably the most thought I gave it, really.

[00:17:25] So then, OK, you finished biomedical. Did you already know you were going to go to dentistry after that?

[00:17:30] Yeah. So so I knew, like when I in my freshers at Imperial, I was like telling people that, you know, people would ask, like, What are you gonna do with biomed? Like, you know, you can do medicine or did you want to do medicine? I’d be like, No, I’m going to do dentistry. I’m going to apply for a grad course and also to TA. I went into dentistry straight after finishing at eight p.m. There was no break between the two unis, so in order to do that, I had to apply in my second year of Imperial’s so pretty much a year after my first, you know, a year into my degree, I had to start getting UCAS references, all my applications, ready interviews, all of that sort stuff was happening in second year to start in September, finishing after finishing my third year. So I always had that plan and that was always my plan. And people always used to be like, Wow, like, you really know what you want and what you want to do. And I was like, Yeah, like, like I said, I always wanted to do dentistry. It’s just that because of the cricket thing. And I did buy it because I wanted to juggle a couple of other things just to see where it goes. So I was pretty kind of, you know, head screwed on in terms of looking towards dentistry.

[00:18:30] I mean, someone’s looking at your Instagram and the first post on your Instagram is as your fourth year dental student. Yeah, yeah. On this on this account, anyway. Yeah, yeah. And it’s like a phantom head post. Yeah, well, the first few are phantom head posts. Yeah. And it got me thinking, you know, there’s so many dentists out there who would never. Yes. And yet there you were in the fourth year posting your phantom head. Yeah. Is that because because you’d had the experience in Imperial that you were so comfortable?

[00:19:06] No, I actually don’t

[00:19:07] Think you should be wearing.

[00:19:09] I think it’s is. It was so much easier at that point than it is now, because now there’s like an expectation or, you know, and also because I’m now in the actual Dental world, I’ve got something to kind of lose if I’m posting rubbish stuff. But back then I was like, No one knows who I am. I’m I think I don’t know how I started following Dental stuff on Instagram because it’s not. You don’t really know how you get into it, but you just start following pages. And then I made a separate Dental Instagram, not with the intention to make it my Dr Zain Rizvi account. At some point it was more just okay. I want to pick up tips and tricks that I’m not learning it. Dental School Bad was actually the kind of entry into that, but that’s kind of a separate, separate sort of story. But off the back of going to a couple of those events and the young dentist sort of days, I started following a lot of these people and it start off by being like, OK, how can you improve your rubber dam stuff like really simple stuff that we were already doing at Dental School, but we’re just struggling with and we had so much time to practise it. And then I think aside from that, I got into this mentality a bit like I do with sport where I was like, right, in order to be good at dentistry and get better at dentistry, I need to put in more hours and work harder than anyone else to get to a level before anyone else. So what I started doing was in dental school, it’s a bit of a joke. You see so few patients because people don’t show up or someone’s not booked in because the admin staff didn’t book them in whatever you’re, I think 50 percent of the time you rock up to clinic, your patients are not coming.

[00:20:33] And most people will just go home, have an early kind of afternoon off, or they will go to the go out with their friends or whatever. I still used to do that stuff. I still had friends and I’d still be going out and doing those things. But during the nine to five, if my patient didn’t come in the morning or didn’t come in the afternoon, I’d be like, Well, this is the time for me to be working and practising. And so I kind of almost got known to be that guy in my year who just be carrying a phantom head up and down the lifts in Guy’s hospital, because more often than not, these patients wouldn’t be showing up. And I’d just be prepping teeth like I’ve been doing rehabs, full house rehabs on these phantom teeth like like almost every week, to be honest, because at some one or two of my patients wouldn’t show up on it, even if it was a Perrier clinic, I’d still be prepping and doing composite work, and I think I just used to post it to keep myself accountable, to get some feedback, that sort of thing. And also, to be honest, to show people that I was doing this in dental school so that I’m actually I’ve been putting in this work since day one. I think knowing that I am working on my dentistry rather than just kind of cruising at dental school, I think that was also something that I did consider at that point. I remember when I was when I was posting. But yeah, at that point,

[00:21:39] People, which people were you hoping to potential employers?

[00:21:44] Yeah, potential employers, to be honest, because I knew back then, yeah, because I knew what would happen, but I’m not. Yeah, the moment I graduated, I knew that the moment I graduate people would be like, You know what? He’s just a dental school. He needs to just kind of go into any old job and just need to spend five years just upskilling. And I knew that would be the argument because it’s the argument in other sectors as well. Like, you come out of doing an economics degree and people are like, Oh, you’re only a year out, like just, you know, grind or work hard for a bit. And I think for me, it was not. It wasn’t that, oh yeah, I’m going to get a private job straight out Dental School, but it was more just I want to be that or knowing as that person who works really, really hard on their dentistry and wants to get better and better and better. And I think that was the priority for that was, first of all, to prove that to myself that like I’m putting in this work and to feel good about myself that, you know, I’m putting in those 10000 hours that you hear about sort of thing. And then I think, yeah, my hope was that at some point somebody would come along and be like, You know what? That Zane, he’s been doing this since Dental School. Like he he’s got his head screwed on, and I know that if I take a punt on him, he might not be the finished project project product yet. But eventually he will get there because he’s got the right attitude and that’s the most I can offer when I’m one year out of Dental School, there’s not anything else that I can guarantee. So I think for me that that was what the attitude was and that came from seeing

[00:23:03] My questions a bit. My question is a bit rubbish. Yeah, because in these situations, you get the sort of the hard benefits of that sort of behaviour. But the soft benefits of it is where it’s really at. You know, the things you don’t even realise, you know, I mean, for all we know, you’re you’re sitting here in this podcast right now because, you know, because of some of that work that you put in. Yeah, now there’s no way that you were sitting back then thinking, I want to be on the know some podcasts, right? But the soft benefits and it’s not only like this sort of benefits that going to push you forward benefits of people, you talk to things you learn. Yeah, I’m quite interested, though, saying it’s kind of obvious what what the upside is of this sort of thing. You know, competitiveness. Yeah. What’s the downside of it? Did you suffer with the down? Right on this as well.

[00:23:54] Yeah, I think I feel like most dentists say this, but I’m quite hard on myself more than like when things have gone wrong and obviously they have gone wrong in the past with patients or whatever. I’m actually harsher on myself than the patients ever been, to be honest. Like, like the patient can say, OK, I’m not happy, whatever. And yeah, that will get me down and I’ll be like, really apologetic and I’ll manage the patient fine and you’ll make me feel bad for a little bit of time. But I think the lingering feeling of disappointment, humiliation, frustration that comes from me. And the only way I can kind of compare it or express it is like when I’ve been playing cricket, for example, and I’ve made a mistake in the match and it’s made us lose the game or it’s a team member down. And the thing in sport is, is that people let you know quite directly that you’ve you’ve messed up. It’s not kind of like patting each other on the back and being like, You know what? Don’t worry, it’s better. You’ll get someone literally shouting and swearing at you and being like, Why did you do that? And obviously it’s just a game at the end of the day, but no one says that in the moment, in the moment, it’s like the worst thing that could have happened, and you kind of just have to face that humiliation. That’s shame and also make a promise to yourself that, OK, that won’t happen next time. And then, yeah, at the end of the game, you’re like, OK, fine relief. It’s not. It’s not anything that actually matters. And I think those are the soft skills that I’ve taken forward, not just into dentistry, but just into any area of my life where as soon as you have any kind of upset, you kind of just manage to absorb it.

[00:25:22] Yeah, but I’m talking about, you know, the downside of it. So, you know, are you are you over competitive? Yeah, we worry about other other people’s achievements, that sort of thing. I’m not saying it’s necessarily going to be that right? Yes. The best way of being good at something is not to worry about other people’s achievements.

[00:25:40] Yeah, yeah. I think I think I I wouldn’t be being honest if I didn’t say that. Yeah, I think there’s I’ve trained myself and I counsel myself a lot better now than I used to. But there’s definitely a part of me that’s like, I want to be the best at amongst my peers sort of thing. And there’s that’s never going to be something that I will like necessarily always be content with, and that will never have only an upside that will have inevitable downsides. And I think part of part of making it a healthier dynamic is to be like trying to kind of be happy for other people’s success, but also using it as motivation to push yourself on rather than resenting or being jealous. At the same time,

[00:26:19] At the same at the same time, yes.

[00:26:21] And so I would say that definitely is a downside. But like, like you’re saying, there’s never really only an upside to any kind of personality trait. There’s always anything. Yeah, it’s always a double edged sword.

[00:26:33] Very interesting, man. So tell me about the seed, how that affected you.

[00:26:40] So this was a really interesting one. So in third year of Dental School, we had a consultant called Rupert Austin, quite a young consultant at King’s really forward thinking, and he organised like a careers day and Dental school. And I remember when we got the email about it, it was kind of compulsory for everyone to attend, but it was a bit like lectures where some people rock up and some people don’t. So I went to that and I was like, OK, let’s see what this is about. And it was all about kind of alternative careers with your Dental degree, which was really cool to me because I was like, Yeah, that’s what I’m about, you know, politics, cricket, whatever. And there were people who came from like, I think, GDC, some defence organisations just kind of talking about that kind of stuff. And then Samir Patel from eleven, he rocked up and he gave a talk on the business of dentistry. So it was nothing clinical and

[00:27:26] That crickets are two

[00:27:27] Massive crickets are obviously straight away. When he mentioned his cricket like he like he always does, my ears kind of perked up and I was like, Right, I’m missing out. And he gave such a good lecture at such a good talk. There was so many takeaways he gave, like a reading list that I remember reading every book on that list that he recommended rich dad, poor dad, financial freedom type stuff got really into investing into stocks and shares off the back of it. Obviously, at the end of the lecture, I was like, I really cringe with networking in the concept of networking. I’m just do want to ask anyone for anything. I want to be my own. I want to achieve stuff on my own merit. I hate kind of the concept, but because his talk actually really spoke to me, I was like, I need to say hello to this guy because it was actually such a good talk. And I just introduced myself and I was like, Hi, I’m Zane. Got talking about cricket, obviously. And then he was like, Oh, why don’t you come down to 11 sometime and we’ll just spend like a day together. He’s really generous with his time, and I know he does it with lots of young, young dentists. So we went I went to that. It was amazing Clinic’s beautiful event

[00:28:27] That blew

[00:28:27] You away. It’s so nice. And I was like, Wow, like, this is high end stuff like like

[00:28:31] Surgery of his upstairs.

[00:28:34] And he’s so casual as well. And I’m like, He’s so, you know, if you go into that kind of surgery and you’re met with someone who’s quite pompous and like, you know, I am the best dentist in London, that type of personality puts you off a little bit, whereas he’s so laid back, so chilled out, so calming and so good with his patients that I was just like, Wow, like, if he can do it like, so can I sort of think it was like properly inspiring and off the back of that, he was like saying, You need to get into the back, like get involved with them and kind of the way things work timing wise. They just launched their young dentist day for the first time ever because it used to just be kind of conferences and kind of study clubs. So they launched like a young dentist day that I went to, and I remember Richard Field getting up. And obviously he’s he’s a phenomenal dentist. And the lecture that he gave like full of tips and tricks like stuff that I was like, right on Monday morning, this is going, you know, I’m putting my rubber down on this way. This is how I’m doing this. This is I’m doing my composites. And that really gave me the bug because I think prior to that point, I was just like, Oh yeah, dentistry is going to give me a chilled out life, and I can just kind of do whatever I want with it. I wasn’t really that into the clinical stuff. Obviously, in the third year, you barely have had any clinical exposure anyway, but I think it just everything just timed itself really well. That backdoor educational stuff tied in with my first couple of patients or clinic. And then I started really like right, I need to get better and better and better and better. And my focus became really clinical and becoming the best clinical dentist I could be.

[00:30:01] For what? So you started attending Bhakti as a student?

[00:30:05] Yeah, I mean, I mean, to be honest, there was that young dentistry and then that was kind of it for the kind of short to term. And then I started applying for that kind of some of the awards that they put out for students. And I won the essay competition, which then meant that I went to the conference and again, that blew my mind like. I saw, you know, Maurice Semenza, the guy who perhaps like his hands, are like a milling machine, like, it’s crazy how nice his work is and you just see so much quality dentistry that you are just like so inspired by the time you leave there. And obviously, coming back to a Dental school environment, that kind of stuff, only a very small percentage of people are kind of interested in it or aware of it exposed to it. And so you already feel like in that kind of elite sort of group. I wasn’t in an elite sort of group, but I just felt my mentality was such that, Oh, I’m going to be that kind of dentist, like, I’m going to be in that top one percent in the UK, in the world, whatever. So it kind of sets your sights quite early doors more than any. Very good

[00:31:02] Point. Yeah, it’s a very good point. I mean, if I was going to give advice to a student, it would be to go to a proper conference and see, you know, the kinds of presentations that are out there. And I mean, it’s not not to say that in Dental school, you don’t have great teachers. You do, you’ve got some of the top people, right? But it’s just a different sort of way of presenting. Yeah. And because in Dental school, you’ve seen it, you’ve seen that. You’ve seen that one side, the the other side. I know, you know, Dipesh Palmer, who I work with a lot. One of the reasons why he was so good, so early is that his mentor, Louis McKenzie in Birmingham, put put some of them through nine days of hands on composite. Yeah, during Dental school, you know, and then you think, you know how many dentists have had nine days of hands on composite? And I remember when I met him, I was giving him a prise for best composite and he was in VTi. And I looked up at the case and I just couldn’t believe a vet had done that. He remembered what I was doing a vet. So you’re right, early on, being exposed to high level stuff for the right person at least is going to is going to inspire them.

[00:32:20] I remember I remember sitting in on a Tony Rotunda hands on. I don’t know who the hell Tony Rotondo was. I remember sitting in the room going, I think he’s pretty good. Like his composites look pretty good. And I remember like trying to note down tips and stuff, but I was just like, Oh, this is just one of those little workshops. He’s just a dentist like from the UK or something, just kind of quite good. And then later on, I was like, Oh my God, I was setting this workshop with him, and I just didn’t pay enough attention, like it was just so good. And it’s that kind of stuff where you just don’t realise how, how much exposure you’re getting.

[00:32:50] So then I noticed you wrote a book. And published it the day you qualified.

[00:32:56] Yeah, right. That was a lockdown project. When I say it like that, it sounds it sounds very like presumptuous, but honestly, it was it was just it was again like a timing thing. We were gearing up to sit our finals when COVID hit in March, and we got an email like a week or two after lockdown being like, Yeah, your finals have been pushed back to like the end of May. And I was like, Well, what am I meant to do now because I was like, are gearing? We were all in full revision mode and we were ready to set it, to be honest. And then I was like, Right, I’ve got like two, two and a bit months just sitting around. And the way the first lockdown was, it was just like, you could do whatever you want with your time. I was like on the PlayStation. I was watching webinars like it just felt a little bit unproductive. And I think that’s a negative trait that I have, which is that I have this like urge or constant need to kind of somehow feel like I’m being productive, which really does hinder me because you can’t always be productive. And sometimes it’s downtime is good. But I think in that first lockdown, it was always going to exacerbate that tendency that I have, which is that, oh god, I’m not really doing much here am I? I’m just wasting wasting hours in a day, and it just felt like Groundhog Day, like every single day.

[00:34:03] And then I thought, Oh, a little bit like a lot of stuff that I do on social media is that I was like, Oh, like, there’s a lot of people that I’m speaking to younger than me, my age that, you know, they’re asking for help on this specific topic here or there. And I just thought, Oh man, like, I’ve really always been into English and writing, I really love writing, why don’t I publish a book like that? Be such a cool thing to do to, like, actually publish a book and be an author? Because that’s like a dream of mine that I probably won’t achieve being a dentist because, you know, I’ll be doing Dental stuff. So I was like, OK, I’ve literally got two and a half to three months. I can write every day like five hundred words, maybe a thousand words every day. That’s not a big deal like for me to do because I enjoy writing. And also, when you’re writing about a topic that you’re passionate about, i.e. you’re giving advice to people, you know you can you can write for ages and ages and ages. Whereas if it was like a literature review or something like boring, you struggled to get to the word count.

[00:34:56] But so I kind of just set myself this goal, which was more for me than anything else. And I was like, Write, I want to write at least 500 to 600 words a day. I’m going to keep doing it until I cover all these topics that I’d kind of outlined very briefly. And then it became like, you know, like one hundred and something page book. And I was like, Oh, I’ve actually got something quite special here. And even if I hadn’t published it, I would have been quite proud of what I’d put together. And then Amazon is amazing. Like, I self-published it via Amazon, and the process could not have been easier. They have like a publishing self-publishing house, and I did it and I also had lost my uncle like very recently. So I actually made it into like a charitable project, which also really meant a lot to me. So, yeah, it kind of tied up really nicely, and I actually coincidentally finished it shortly before I got my results. So I thought, why not just publish it on results day? Because it will. It will. It will break up the kind of monotony of, you know, doctor’s own reality. You know, I graduated, I

[00:35:56] Think, did you get that confidence from year to think that you could write a book and put it out there? I mean, like, did you have had you already won the prises? I never said that you. I never said it was a good one when you did. Yeah, but then but then but then like, if it was me, I’d be even if I was as good as you, which I definitely wasn’t. Yeah, but even if I was as good as you, I’d worry that, you know, maybe I don’t know enough about this. And yeah, what will people think? And yeah, how come you haven’t got that voice in your head?

[00:36:26] Yeah, my other half is very similar to you in that sense. Like she always she’s so good at her job. She’s she’s a medick, but she’s always got kind of this imposter syndrome, which a lot of friends that I have also suffered from. I think for me, I don’t think I’m perfect. I don’t think that what I’m doing is is amazing or special. I think for me, I’m just like, You know what? Let me just push it out rather than get paralysed by this perfection. Someone recently when I published this online course was like to me, Oh, you know, you’re a really good example of this concept that I’ve read in this book called Show Me Your Work. And the point was, it’s just to put stuff out there, even if it’s not the finished product, because it eventually will become the finished product through refinements, through feedback and all this sort of stuff. I’m sure running a course is a bit like that as well. You kind of just get it out there first. The first cohort is not going to be, you know, the most benefit like the best one or the most perfect one, but slowly you just refine it over time. And I think everything that I do is like that. Like, I know my Dental work, even the stuff that I post now, people my age might be like, Oh, that’s great. But I know dentists who are like five, 10, 20 years older than me are thinking, Wow, that is rubbish. Or, like, you know, he’s missed a spot there or he’s missed this. And I know that people are thinking that it just doesn’t bother me because I’m like, I’m not going to learn or improve if I don’t push this out there. So I don’t have that fear of failure because the way I see it, it’s more of a failing to not get it out there in the first place, because then you’ve definitely failed, whereas at least putting something out there, you know, you’re definitely right about that.

[00:37:48] You’re definitely right about that. That paralysed by perfection is one of the worst things in the world. And, you know, looking at your output, the idea that when you say when you say I qualified during. It just makes me laugh. It’s a it’s a it’s just unbelievable. You know, someone who’s qualified then is producing this stuff now. It’s kind of beautiful, dude. I mean, I kind of love that stuff, you know, because back in my day, man, there was no way there was no way this could have happened in that time frame. I mean, you know, do you agree with me about social that we learn a lot

[00:38:21] From that 100 percent hundred percent. I I remember at uni we used to get people like professors, lecturers being like, Oh, like, don’t don’t, don’t do Facebook dentistry, don’t do Instagram dentistry. And I’m like, I’ve learnt half of my content from these places. And it sounds trivial because it’s like, Oh God, what is a professional health care professional doing learning from YouTube or Instagram or Facebook? But actually, it’s just we’re so connected that I’m learning from people in Australia. You know, there’s just so much sharing and stuff that you pick up. And to be honest, I view the onus to be on me, the student to like but verify if this works or look up the evidence behind it. You know, I’m not dumb enough to just look at something on Instagram. I think, you know what? This is going to work perfectly in my hands tomorrow. Like, I’ll look into it, but I plan around it. But you’ve got to try at the end of the day as well. Like, I’m not afraid to try things. It won’t always go to plan, but sometimes it will. And you’ll be like, Wow, I’ve just figured out an easier way to do something.

[00:39:15] Tell me about number ten.

[00:39:17] Yeah, this is. This was probably the most surreal experience I’ve ever had, to be honest. Like, probably meant the most to me from a career point of view as well. Long story short, I did another thing that I just applied for, and I thought, why not in my first year of dental school? I came across this programme called this young Muslim leadership programme. I posted about it recently and basically initially I was like, Oh God, I don’t want to go on this. It sounds like a faith based retreat and like, I am practising and I do believe in practising faith, but I just didn’t think that I wanted to go on this sort of cap for two weeks. But then I looked into it further, and it was actually not really much to do with Islam, apart from the fact that they were looking to get people into public sectors like politics, like journalism, traditionally underrepresented sectors. They wanted more Muslims to be involved in these sectors, and they were happy to facilitate that. And I was like, That’s right up my street, like, that’s what I want to do. I’m going to do politics. I want to harbour political ambitions. So I went to that for two weeks. It was amazing. I don’t know why this has happened, but someone from number 10 came on one of those days and she kind of said, Oh, I worked for the Cabinet Office didn’t really specify exactly where in government she worked, but made it out. She was for civil service and we had like these little small breakout rooms of discussions around health care, infrastructure, housing, education and what our opinions and views on these things are.

[00:40:44] And I remember just again, like not afraid to speak up. Just thought, you know what? Let me get my opinion out there because I’m in this room for a reason. I’m not going to sit quiet and not say anything, because what’s the point? So said a couple of things. Not by not. I wasn’t dictating the conversation by any means, but I just said a couple of things that I thought were true, in my opinion. And then she came up to me and she was like saying, Do you have an email address or something like that? And I was like, Yeah, like. And that that whole two weeks was so it was all networking, like my worst nightmare, but I was OK. Another person that probably just wants to send some sort of something over to me gave her my email and got an email a week after finishing the programme being like, Zane, can you send a CV? Because I’m based in number 10 and we we’ve got some policy making roundtables that we might want you to get involved in. And I was like, Right, that’s cool. So obviously put loads of work into that CV that I sent over and had nothing to do with dentistry on that CV as well. So obviously, try and tailor it towards politics. And then she was like, Why don’t you come to number 10 and we’ll just have a coffee? And I was like, Oh, that’s so cool that I’m going to number 10.

[00:41:46] And that first that first meeting was just unbelievable. I was just like, we discussed nothing to do with the actual job at hand. It was just like a tour around number 10, and I was like, This is even real. Like, I was just kind of blinking, you know, I couldn’t even believe my eyes and had a coffee in the canteen downstairs, got a picture by the door. You know, all the kind of stuff that you think as a tourist, I’m going to do when I go to number 10. And then then had radio silence for like two months. And I was like, Well, that was fun whilst it lasted. And then I got another email being like Zane were meeting on December. Whatever, whatever, twenty seventeen you and a couple of others we’ve picked out to basically have some discussions around Theresa May and her policymaking unit, some of their decision making and policies around young people, especially at university. Also, like young Muslims and that sort of thing, as well as component of that to it. And we’d like to be involved and I was like, Great. Yeah, and we kind of had six or seven of these types of meetings throughout the year. So there would be times where I’d be at Dental School and I’d have to leave clinic like a couple of hours early because I had a meeting at Downing Street at four or whatever. It was crazy.

[00:42:51] But what do they want? What do they want with you? I mean, what was it? Yeah.

[00:42:54] So I mean, technically, technically, I’m not meant to go into specifics, but I didn’t sign anything either. So it’s not necessarily completely forbidden. But it was effectively they just wanted. It was like a focus group. They had some ideas and they wanted to know what young Muslims and students in healthcare and other sectors, depending on what the policy was, what they thought of it and what other people in their demographic might think of it. Objections, arguments against arguments for I think it was more of like reaching out to people that were trying to target with our policies and get some feedback before we introduce this policy. So that was basically the job description. And then eventually, I think that contact that was facilitating it, she had to rotate into a different part of the civil service, so she actually had to leave the policymaking group. And also, I think there was a change of government. So I think Theresa May left and Boris Johnson came in or whatever. So obviously with the new new prime minister comes new staff and infrastructure, and so the whole thing just changed around. So that’s kind of where it kind of tailed off. But I still got an invite to their like ed reception or whatever that they have once a year. So that’s where I got that picture with Theresa May and, you know, talking to her and stuff like that because that was quite cool.

[00:44:03] And what are what are these people like in in government? I mean, are they like, vastly impressive? And we, you know, on on on the outside, you just get the sort of salacious headlines. Yeah. Or is it the opposite? They’re not as impressive as you might imagine.

[00:44:18] I imagine. Yeah, I think I think they’re quite ordinary in terms of like when you speak to them, it’s just like speaking to any other person, even Theresa reason. Just like very I always said that she she reminded me of like a secondary school teacher, like that’s the vibe I got from her. She was just so yeah, it was just like non non intimidating it, which is like I’ve been speaking to like one of my history teachers or something. And yeah, super normal. Super nice. I think they do definitely have this sort of bubble mentality. So like I remember in a couple of discussions, I was like, Do you guys not see this? Because it’s like really obvious on the outside. And for them, I don’t think they do, because they they’re obviously I think the diversity of thought isn’t always there. Sometimes a lot of these people are from the same sort of backgrounds, and so they think in very similar ways. On that note, there’s actually I actually once did an internship at the Bank of England in like a finance capacity. And one thing that they were really big on in their hiring process was to employ people from different unis, different backgrounds, different ethnicities. And the whole point of that was to try and avoid a financial crash again, where all the economists are just thinking like each other because they’re all Oxbridge educated, think exactly to avoid groupthink. So I think sometimes in that specific situation, there was a little bit of that which was like, Yeah, this must be a great idea or a great policy, because for all of us who have been working on it for six months to a year, it makes sense and we’ve covered all bases and I’ll be like, No, you didn’t cover this. Like, how are you going to address that? So I guess that was the point of us being there.

[00:45:45] That’s the reason you were there.

[00:45:46] Yeah, exactly. So so they were addressing it. But as to whether they took our feedback on board or not is another story.

[00:45:52] You don’t sometimes get the feeling that you want to get involved in dentistry, politics,

[00:45:58] To be honest, not really. Of recent. I think most of the stuff that I see about dentistry politics is like on Facebook forums and CDO did this and this statement by the BDA or whatever. And I think it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s like dentists have kind of I don’t think they’re apathetic about Dental politics, but I think they’re very cynical and they have good reason to be. And also, I think they just have given up on elected representatives actually having their back. And so I think that kind of also just makes you lose interest as as a young dentist because you’re just like, well, a lot of these people aren’t very interested in being political and the ones that are kind of again in that sort of bubble mindset where like, I think I’m important, but actually in the grand scheme of things, I’m not making much difference at all. And the people that are having a say are usually not within dentistry, and they actually view dentistry as a very small proportion of the NHS. So, you know, I think I get frustrated when I see people making a lot of effort and there’s very little impact. And whenever you’re in politics, bureaucracy is something that you will obviously red tape and that sort of stuff. You struggle with a lot whenever you’re in any kind of like leadership role. And I think that really turns me off quite quickly, which probably isn’t the best trait if I wanted to go into politics. But I’m quite impatient as well. And I think right now, when I look at dentistry and dental politics, I’m a bit like, Oh, this is really frustrating because it feels like people are banging their heads against a brick wall. Having said that, though, I think if I see an opportunity where I feel like I can actually make a tangible difference, I would 100 percent get involved with it. It’s just that at this point in time, I haven’t really seen that sort of opening or that opportunity. I would I would see it as more token, which I don’t particularly feel like I want to do.

[00:47:48] Indeed, you’re right about apathy because, you know, we’ve done a couple of episodes where it’s been, you know, the elections or something, and that the episodes that are least listened to. Yeah. So you’re right that a lot of dentists aren’t interested, but at the same time. We need people who, you know, have got that sort of experience and the energy and that sort of ideas, fresh ideas to get involved and have a go. Yeah, it’s all well and good for me saying teeth whitening company, why am I getting involved, ED? You know what I mean? I get it. I totally get it right. You’ve got you’ve got a whole lot of stuff going on, but something needs to happen in the industry, man. And and you’re right. You’re right, you’re right. The impact question is a very important one. Mm-hmm. Would you say impact is a big factor in your life? You want to leave a legacy, leave an impact, have an impact or change things?

[00:48:49] Yeah, I haven’t thought too much about legacy, to be honest. I think it comes into the question when you think when you talk about impact, I think I think just in general in my life, I think I want to only kind of commit my time and effort to something if it’s going to have an impact and it doesn’t have to be like, I have to change the whole world’s thinking or actions, even if it’s just one person I help out. But if I help them out in a useful way and actually a way that’s made a difference, I’m happy and it’s really satisfying. And that that is the kind of stuff that daily on my Instagram, I’ll get a DM on a story that I posted, and it will be it’ll be a Dental student. It’ll be a dentist in my year or whatever, and they’ll be like, Oh, how do you do that? Or like, what do you mean by that? And I just do this, this and that, and they’ll be like, Oh, thanks, that’s really helpful. And I’m like, That is satisfying. It’s a buzz. Yeah, it’s a buzz. And sometimes with less people, you get more fulfilment from it. Whereas if you’re trying to, like, put out a generic message to hundreds and thousands of people, there’s less of that kind of tangible impact that you have sometimes. So, yeah, I think for me, that’s the buzz, just helping someone actually properly.

[00:49:52] Yeah, but when I say impact as well, you know, going forward, it feels to me like you’re going to be the kind of guy who’s going to choose career paths that have some sort of I don’t want to make it sound like, you know, in a way, like you said, look, I thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to be an author. Yeah, because I’ve always want to be an author, so I’m going to write a book. Yeah, so so career wise, you know, what are the things that are you think are going to be a good idea? I mean, because, you know, from where I’m sitting, it would be great idea of saying, got involved in politics, you know? Yeah, it really would in Dental politics. Yeah, but but but I hear what you said about that. So where do you see yourself going in the next, you know, short, medium and long term? As far as you know, you seem like a guy who wants to make impact.

[00:50:44] Yeah, someone someone asked me recently on my Instagram like an old dentist actually said, Where do you see yourself in 10 years? And I was like, to be honest, like at the moment, my focus is very clinical orientated. Like for me, as loftier goal as it is, I want to be the best dentist in the world. Like, I know it sounds ridiculous, but like that’s when I say best. It’s it’s a very generic term and whatever. But clinically, I want to be excellent and in that kind of one percent like that top sort of dentist. And that’s like where my passion and my ambition is at the moment. And I think when people start talking about like Dental politics or, for example, buying a practise and becoming a practise owner, all of those to me at the moment just seem like distractions which may not always be the case. Like, I also don’t see myself necessarily being a dentist at 60. I don’t see myself retiring in dentistry, necessarily. But at this point in time, I see myself as like, OK, I want to be the best clinical dentist I can be. The people that I look up to right now.

[00:51:39] I like the basil Mizrahi is like, you know, those kind of elite dentists that even dentists think, Wow, like, that’s someone who I would I would have my teeth done by like, that’s kind of where I want to head towards, at least in the mid-term long term. I don’t know what happens. Like, I remember listening to your podcast with Tom Youngs, and he kind of talked about like, when you get there, there’s just like that come down where you’re like, what now? And I really agree with that. And and that’s something again that I’ve experienced through sport, which is like, you work towards this goal and the journey is actually the satisfying part. And when you get there, just like this is this actually isn’t that great of feeling. And so I don’t know, like if I ever get to that point where I’m happy with my clinical skill and my clinical ability, then I guess I’ll just turn my attention to the next thing that interests me. But at this point in time, that’s kind of what I’m heading towards. I may never get there, but that’s kind of makes a lot of sense.

[00:52:29] It makes a lot of sense at this early stage in your career to be thinking that, yeah, for sure. But you know, you’ve got so many strings to your bow. I mean, there’s definitely I feel an entrepreneurial side to you as well. And in so much as you know the impact you want to have impact, you want it, you want to talk to people, you want to organise things. That’s that’s that’s that’s running a business, you know? Yeah. And it’s so and you know, you said your dad had this sort of, I guess, entrepreneurial journey as well, and he seems to be a big influence on you. Have you done anything entrepreneurship before? Yeah.

[00:53:07] So have you. So, yeah, I mean, a couple of things I did because I’m more out of desperation. So being a grad, your finances are so limited because you do get student finance and it’s just bursary stuff. But it’s not enough to be like putting yourself through four more years of Dental school, like you’re always living kind of penny penny. And I didn’t really want my parents to help me out, even though they they they would happily, but I was like, Come on, I’m twenty four. Like, Come on, I need to, like, support myself a little bit here. I can’t just be asking mum and dad for money. So I was like, Right, how am I going to make money? I need to basically launch some sort of business that gets me some passive income whilst I’m spending my day at Dental School. And it sounds great. It sounds cute, but execution of that kind of thing is obviously really difficult. So I started off doing what most Dental didn’t seem to do nowadays, which is just sell loops from from eBay or Amazon, did you? Yeah. And I made and to be honest, that taught me how to build a website. It told me how to, like, put an online store via a website, take transactions, taught me how to import stuff and dropship it, that sort of thing. So I started doing that and that was decent, but it was never going to, you know, sustain me in terms of it was kind of margins of like a hundred pounds here or a hundred pounds there.

[00:54:17] So I thought, right, I need to do two things. One, I can’t do this all by myself because like even website designing and launching a website takes so much time up. And I was like, Even I don’t have this time and I’m a student, so I was like, Right, let’s do something teaching orientated because I really like teaching, tutoring a lot of my friends used to tutor, and it’s quite lucrative in terms of your hourly rate. As a student, you can charge, you know, 20, 30, 40 quid an hour in London quite comfortably and you’re even A-level kids. Yeah, I didn’t do this, but that was my thinking of going into a business to do a teaching. So I spoke to a friend at uni who was my age and I was like, Right, why don’t we launch a taste? Of course, for people thinking of studying dentistry at Dental School because you’ve got loads of these kind of CV, apply UCAS type courses for school students where like, you know, we’ll make your we’ll check through your personal statement, we’ll interview you whatever. And I was like, That’s a saturated market. So why don’t we do effectively like a two day work experience, but in like a hotel room or a conference room, and we’ll bring like a study models will bring to waxing. Equipment will bring composite, you know, stuff like that and just show them a good time like this is what the industry is, because when you’re applying as a student, you just think, Oh, dentistry, yeah.

[00:55:23] Good money, good work life balance like I did and you go into it. And then maybe in third year, if you’re lucky, you’re still there and you’re still interested and you’re like, Oh, actually, this is what dentistry is hands on and patients and all that. So I was like, why don’t we just do that for these 16 year olds? And it was really popular. It took off really well. I don’t know how we managed to do this, but we hired out the University of East London, one of their rooms, and they never charged us a room fee for it. And then overcovered, they kind of went bust, so they never really got back to us. So we basically didn’t have any overheads apart from equipment, which was like from eBay. So and really the biggest struggle was just marketing it. And we would me and my friend Tariq, who launched it with me. We’d go we made T-shirts which literally had like, ask me a question on and we stood outside the universities on their open days. And obviously people would ask us thinking, Oh, they’re from Barts or they’re from kings, whereas this building? And we were like, It’s over there. But have you heard of our course like blah blah blah? We’re doing it for people are replying and thinking of studying of dentistry dentistry at university, but we’re not affiliated with the uni. So like, we made it clear that we aren’t affiliated with them.

[00:56:29] So you knew you knew it was the open day for dentistry.

[00:56:31] Yeah, we found out. We looked at up

[00:56:33] And you go and stand outside and say and talk,

[00:56:37] Yeah, leaflet, talk to people. We’d have these big, bright blue T-shirts with a question mark on it.

[00:56:41] So audacious. Yeah, audacious.

[00:56:44] Yeah, we needed the money. So.

[00:56:47] So then you filled the course up doing that.

[00:56:49] So we did one course in the first January, so within three months of setting the website up, we had a full course of twenty five kids, although admittedly the last sign up came the day before the course. So we were very much, you know, full just about before the first course.

[00:57:03] And then were you charging? What are we charging for it?

[00:57:05] So we started charging something ridiculously cheap, like 60 quid for two days, something something really cheap. And then anyways, we then that. Then we did too. We did it the course as well, which was in March and that filled up within a month of finishing the January within a week of finishing the January course. So we were like, Wow, this demand here. And then what we did was we started, we increased the price to £120 per kid and then it kept on filling up. And so we ran two courses on in Easter. We ran, I think, a two more in summer and it just kept going and we were actually making really good money because, like I said, there were very little overheads. And if you got like 30 kids each paying, you know, wherever you can, you can do the maths. It’s not a bad take home for two students, basically. And yeah, and like that, actually you. I bought my loops with that money, to be honest.

[00:57:50] Well, did you not continue with this business?

[00:57:52] So we did. And then COVID really screwed us over a little bit because obviously couldn’t run anything over COVID. It meant that also the traction that we were getting, which was like a snowball effect of people recommending to the year below them and people showing interest that kind of stopped for a good year and a half to two years. And then we recently did another course, I think, last January and the summer before, and they did fill out, but it was really a lot. There was clearly a lot more effort that we needed to do in marketing to get them full, and we’d also both start jobs at this point. So there was definitely less time in our hands. And then also the money started becoming less lucrative and attractive because actually working as a dentist for a day, you probably make more than you would doing this weekend, Saturday, Sunday, and there was a lot of organisation and stuff. So really, what I was looking for was someone to do the marketing and also so much the logistics. And we did actually get some Dental students to help out and we pay them a carton and that sort of thing. But I think because of COVID, it just kind of backtracked everything quite a lot.

[00:58:50] I wish it still exist in my notes and my 15 year old, because he’s saying, he’s saying I’ll do anything but dentistry.

[00:58:57] Oh, well, we’re still we’re gauging interest. We’ve got a couple of people on a waiting list. We might do something in Easter, but we’ll see what.

[00:59:03] You’re not charging enough, dude. That’s your problem. Yeah, it’s the positioning. Yeah, yeah. You need to charge for this course. You need to charge £250.

[00:59:12] Yeah, we had there was like a competitor who used to charge about two hundred, but they definitely had they had like a ten year track record compared to us. So. But yeah, because,

[00:59:20] You know, if I want to get my kid into Dental School, £250000, nothing, right?

[00:59:25] Yeah, I get what you’re saying. I get what you’re saying. To be fair, though, we would. We had a big we had a lot of kids coming from low income backgrounds as well. So we actually introduced a bursary scheme and that sort of thing. But yeah, it’s about kind of catering for everyone at the same time. Like, there’s a lot of widening participation arguments I actually agree with to a certain extent to get kids from low income backgrounds into Dental school and not unfairly disadvantage them. But yeah, you know, it’s a point. It’s a point because it doesn’t make it worth it, in our opinion, if we’re not charging enough,

[00:59:53] Just, you know, stuff has a price, right? Yeah. Yeah, the correct price. Let’s move on to darker days. Yeah. Tell me about your dark, stained industry.

[01:00:04] Oh, there’s been so many, but when I say dark days, I mean, I don’t mean like like, really, really ugly. But I mean like mistakes like humiliation, frustration, like the kind of stuff that everyone goes through. And especially when you’re young and you’re a student, you’re still learning, so you make so many mistakes. But one example that I really remember was. And so I was in final year and we did like we do outreach firms and final year. So you actually just go to a clinic and you actually have your own room, you have your own nurse and you’re very minimally supervised. And I remember this guy came in and he just had Kerry’s everywhere and I was like, great, like composites everywhere. And I’ve got like my whole year sort of doing composites on this guy. And I was like, Right, let’s start with the worst tooth, which was like his low left seven or something. And I was like, look, you know, steep filling and might turn into a root canal. But you know, I’ll try my best setting all those expectations, doing everything that we talk to. And he was like, Yeah, cool, really chilled that guy. So started put rubber down on drills basically found it was so deep that it was it was an exposure. And so it was going to become an endo. So I was like, All right, let me just temporise this.

[01:01:06] I extirpated put some ihrem in and as I took the rubber dam off, so I released the clamp from from the tooth. I heard this massive crack. The whole tooth just basically collapsed because it was so undermined with caries. And so we went from a situation where and this was dead on lunchtime, so I had no time to rectify the situation. Everything that was going wrong could have gone wrong. And he was like, What was that? And I was like, Oh, like, basically your tooth is, you know, how I said that it might be deep and you might need a root canal. Yeah. Well, right now it looks like the tooth is actually split in half, so we actually really need to take it out. And at this point, I was already feeling like really humiliated because I was like, Wow, like, I didn’t even tell him about an extraction. And for a lot of people, including myself, taking a tooth out is a big deal. Losing your tooth is a big deal, and he came in for a filling and he’s losing his teeth. Yeah, so started on the extraction in lunchtime. So I’m running over. I know I’m not going get a lunch break, my tutor or we’re also understaffed at this point. So we usually have two tutors between like 10 or 15 students. At this point. One of them’s sick today, so we’ve only got one tutor.

[01:02:05] He’s busy with someone’s endo, so he’s not even in the room. Start trying to take the tooth out. Obviously, the tooth doesn’t move at all. I’m just like crumbling and crumbling and crumbling. It’s breaking everywhere, and I’m just sweating and sweating and sweating. Tutor comes in. He tries to take it out, tries to section it, and he’s like, Right, Zane, it’s pretty much the end of lunch time. I’ve got other students to go to. We’re going to just have to send him to Denmark Hill, and he’s going to have to go to oral surgery there, and they’re going to have to take it out. So I literally left this guy with like a mess of a tooth crumbling everywhere. He was still in pain and I was like, I’m going to have to basically ring up oral surgery at another site and be like, Can you please see him today and not make him wait the weekend? It was a Friday. Can you please see him? He was. The patient was so chilled out, so calm was really not bothered. And I was like, I don’t know why he’s not more bothered, but whatever. Like, I got away with one here because if this was like someone who was really agitated and really nervous, I’d be in a lot of trouble. But anyways, yeah, he he went on his way and I think they took it out and he was fine in the end.

[01:03:04] But he obviously cancelled his next appointment with me, which was also a bit of a like punch and punch in the gut. But I remember after that, after that day, I went home and I actually bawled my eyes out. I was so upset. I was like, It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve cried and I was I was really, really upset. And it was nothing to do with the patient and their reaction because like I said, he was so chilled out and he really didn’t. He wasn’t even bothered. He didn’t. He didn’t mind. He was like as long as it comes out at some point. But it was more just how much I messed up and I was just so humiliated that I was so close to graduation and I couldn’t even tell if a tooth needed to be extracted or if it just needed a filling. And I was like, What would have happened if I was on my own here in practise? And I remember just thinking those thoughts being like, I’m going to be on my own next year. What is going to happen then? And I’m protected right now because I’m in dental school. But what if I was in practise? This person would have sued me if they were like, you know, all these thoughts to start running through your head? And I was just in a really bad way.

[01:04:01] And I remember like thinking that, wow, this kind of thing. I think my dad said this to me to be on. I don’t think I should cancel myself. I think he was like, This sort of thing could put you off doing this procedure for life because you’re so you’ve had such a bad experience the first time you’ve done it. So. And he was like, The thing is, though, you shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t be scared of failure and you shouldn’t be afraid of failing. And the only way to get better is to go back outside your comfort zone and put yourself in this kind of situation again and just try not to make the same mistake twice. But but don’t be scared of the procedure or the actual situation. And that was really good advice because even now, when I mess up and I’ve done stuff even in the last like even recent history, I’ve done stuff where I’ve made mistakes and I’ve just been like, All right, saying it’s annoying that you messed up, but just don’t make that mistake again. Learn from it, and then that’s an acceptable failure for me if I’ve made that mistake once. Ok, fine, I’m learning. But as long as I don’t make it again or I approach it differently next time, then I’m happy. Well, yeah, that was.

[01:05:03] Well, first, the first of your dad sounds like a very cool dude, man, because everything you’re saying about him. He seems like a really good, good dad. Good, good guy to know. But when you reflected on this situation, was there something you did wrong? Because, you know, all of this could have just happened?

[01:05:20] Yeah, I think I think for me, it was like stuff like not treatment planning properly. So first of all, like if he’s got carries everywhere. Why am I going in and just drilling and filling everything? First of all, let’s get his carries. Let’s get his diet under control. Let’s get his gums under control. Let’s stabilise the guy because his that was anything. Don’t own your patients problems like he’s come in in this situation. I’m here to help. But his problem is not necessarily my problem at this point. And so I shouldn’t I shouldn’t make it my problem. I shouldn’t be more invested in his teeth than he is. So that was the first thing. Second thing was stuff like reading radiograph like, you know, assessing the fact that this tooth is hopeless prognosis. It’s not set. It’s not salvageable in the first place. So don’t say to him it’s fulfilling. Be like, Look, this needs to come out. And that should be the starting point, really. But those things do happen even now. You know, you look at something and you think, Oh, I might be able to save this and you

[01:06:06] Can’t, but you’re also so inexperienced to that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How many times did you even seen a tooth that needed to come out? Yeah, yeah. Nice. Yeah, it’s better, isn’t it?

[01:06:17] Because because when you speak to someone older, they’re just like, Oh, that’s just water off a duck’s back. It’s not a problem, but when you’re in that situation, you’re like, Oh man, like, I thought I was getting better. I thought I was on that trajectory going up, actually. It’s that kind of slope that you see, like a line going up and then you go down, then you go up and then you go down. So I think it was just coming to terms with the fact that like, I’m not as good as I think I am. And even now, that rings more true than ever because on on Instagram, no one ever dislikes your stuff, even if they think it’s crap, they never really messaged you being like, that was awful work. They just they just like it, or they just scroll past it. And so you get this positive reinforcement. So I never like get lulled into this false sense of security. Well, yeah, I’m so good because I’m one year out and I’m doing on and overlays everywhere, and it’s like, it’s looking great because I know it’s not. And I also know that I have failures. I just don’t share them at this point in time because I’m so young because, you know, you don’t want to build a reputation or whatever. But yeah, that was an important take home, which is that you’re not you’re not as good as you think you are, and you probably never will be because there’s older dentists I speak to who are amazing, but they even think, God, I’m not as good as I could be. Like, You know, I’ve had a failure after 15 years. What am I doing? Sort of thing?

[01:07:20] I mean, listening to you, talking about that case, I stopped practising 10 years ago, and it just brought back a PTSD sort of moment for me there. But when we did dentistry, when it goes wrong, it goes wrong. Some know the time pressures. Yeah, keeping your cool. You know, it’s a big thing when it when it goes or your dad’s advice is absolutely right. It’s a bit this thing you said about, you know, not as good as you think you are. It reminds me a bit about, you know, like driving. Apparently, everyone thinks they’re better than average driver. Yeah, 100 percent. They think they’re in the top 50 percent. And and then she probably suffers with that. And you know, you don’t know what you don’t know. Famous cliche. And and and definitely the thing that TIFF talks about, you know, failures, seeing your own failures, learning from those because you know exactly what you did on that patient and then watching it fail. Yeah, I remember I remember smoke, you know, staining on composites and, you know, seeing how early it can come on if you don’t do it right? Yeah. On A.. All right. Well, that’s all good stuff. I think we’re coming near to the end of our time. We tend to finish these with the same sort of questions, which I’m sure you’ve heard before. Let’s start with perhaps death bed. I know it’s a bit unfair for someone your age. Yeah. Friends and family all around you. Yeah. Three pieces of advice.

[01:09:09] And so I have thought about this, obviously, because I listen to the podcast, so I’ve got I’ve got three that I thought about, I think. And these are things that I think I try and live my life by. So like one thing for me is I always I always try. I always try to do the right thing, and I always think that’s a really good bear. It’s always a really good rule to keep in mind when you’re confronted with the situation where you’re not quite sure what to do. There’s a lot of grey. I always I always say to myself like, OK, what is the right thing to do here? It’s not. It might not be the easiest thing. It might be really difficult. It might be self-sabotaging. But like, what is the right thing to do? And nine times out of 10, choosing that option means that there’s less repercussion for myself more often than not, and you generally kind of are better off for choosing that option. So that would be my first piece of advice. I think my second piece of advice comes back to that kind of thing that we talked about, like with impact, which was kind of being the change that you want to see in the world. And it sounds cliche and it’s like a very common thing. But I think a lot of people and sometimes myself included, I think we’re quite happy to kind of sit back and just complain and criticise and just be like moaning, moaning, moaning about X, Y or Z.

[01:10:20] But I think very few people actually just get up and do something about their situation. It’s all very well complaining about the state of the practise that you work in or the NHS or whatever. But it’s like, Well, OK, if you’re unhappy, then you know, try your best to do something about it. It’s not always possible, but, you know, try and be the change that you want for yourself. So that’s that’s the second. And then finally, this is it’s a really famous saying in Islam, it basically translates to from Arabic, it translates to be like the flower that gives its fragrance even to the hand that crushes it, which it sounds very elaborate and very poetic. But basically what to me, what that means is that there will inevitably come times where other people try and drag you down, or you get into a situation where you know you’ve not come out of it very favourably, but a lot of the time the way that you react in the way that you respond to a situation that’s often most reflective of your character. And so if you can try and react as you know, politely manfully respectfully in these sorts of difficult situations, I think that goes a long way in terms of the reflection that other people have of yourself and your character. So I think that would be my third sort of piece of advice, which is, you know, be like the flower that gives us fragrance even to the hand that crushes it.

[01:11:44] It’s a beautiful thing. Yeah. Do you mind talking about religion? Yeah. So a two questions for you. Ok. Number one, where do you see, you know, it looks to me like you’re at the sort of the evolution end of Islam here, where it’s Islam, by its nature, isn’t supposed to evolve. It’s it’s the word of God. So, you know, it’s a bit stuck in in those in those words. How do you I mean, it’s clear that you’re on the evolution end of it. You know, you’re trying to see different ways for how do you how do you square that circle and where is it going to go with a religion? And when is it going to go to another place, in your opinion?

[01:12:30] I think the biggest problem or misconception with faith generally is that obviously the faith is the thing that we’re told to follow and the lessons that we’re taught to take from it. I think unfortunately and understandably, the followers of the religion don’t always do justice to the actual faith itself. And that’s the same not just with faith, but with any kind of concept that you’re trying to adhere to. No one ever follows it perfectly. And so what the outside world sees is kind of these followers of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, whatever you want to call it. And so that’s one portrayal of the religion, but actually distilling and taking the time out to kind of learn about the religion itself to me anyways, the way I understand Islam is that in a society and that is always changing, it’s very fluid. Things are always going out of fashion and coming into fashion for me. Faith provides that kind of anchor that you can hold onto, even when everything around you is changing day on day on day. And that doesn’t always have to be controversial issues. It can be non-controversial issues, but it gives you a little bit of a blueprint. My dad always talks about blueprints when it comes to faith. He’s like, Faith is a blueprint. It’s not a script that you need to go, you know, line by line to adhere to necessarily. There are things that you know, you should your advice to practise. But the beauty to me about my faith is that it’s it’s it’s very logical to me and the way that I understand it, and it’s very a lot of the rulings and decisions that are in place. They are quite understandable and there’s very, very specific nuances and context to them. It’s not as simple as do this, don’t do this, it’s not.

[01:14:09] It’s never black and white. If there’s something that someone’s situation, whatever, I can give you a good example, I think it will make it more tangible. We’re told to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, for example, in your lifetime, you need to do the Hajj now that’s prescribed on every Muslim. And initially you might think, right, well, I haven’t got the money to go to Mecca. Like, you know what, if you’re really poor, you’re from a really low income background. You can’t afford the plane ticket and the journey and the cost associated with flying to Saudi Arabia doing your pilgrimage, which is really, really expensive. But Islam has nuances to that. That ruling where it will say, Well, obviously, if you’re someone from a poor background, then it’s you’re exempt from this, this condition that’s been imposed upon you. It’s not that you know someone’s going to be waiting for you at the gates of heaven, cracking a whip on you because you did do this or you didn’t do this. It’s a blueprint by which to live your life. And obviously, there’s nuances to around it, and no one is perfect. But forgiveness is a big part of religion as well at the same time and compassion and love. So without trying to give you too wishy washy an answer for me, the way I summarise it is that for me, religion is a blueprint. Obviously, everyone takes it in a different direction and people agree and disagree. But that isn’t the central central tenet of of the faith. The faith is there to guide you and guide your life and add meaning and purpose to your life. It’s not there to be like a script that you just kind of stick to and don’t deviate from at all.

[01:15:35] I get it from a personal perspective, but, you know, from a macro macro, you know, I don’t know, you get you get some, some places where or where is it Turkey, where Islam is translated in one way and then you get the the hardcore somewhere in Saudi, some Wahhabi guy, which it’s not. But. So they’re right. There is two different versions. Yeah. And and you know, it takes it takes these little changes for things to move along. Yeah, but but with Islam, you’ve got we’ve got this basic tenet. You know, it’s evolving within the book, you know, and it’s a super interesting thing because the second question I was going to ask you, how do you feel? You know when? How old? How old are you at nine 11?

[01:16:25] I was six, 21 six.

[01:16:28] Ok, fair enough. I remember this is before before. Yeah. Well, yeah, of course you were. But, you know, since since 9-11, the way the way Muslims have been portrayed. Yeah, maybe the whole reason why you were invited to number 10. Yeah. To make this thing to square that circle. You know, the pendulum swung a bit too far one way and they were trying to bring it the other way.

[01:16:52] No, I actually think that that was a big component to it as well.

[01:16:56] Yeah. And, you know, some of the stuff we’re seeing about Ukraine today, and people have been pointing out, you know, why, why, why weren’t you outraged when, when bombs were dropping? Yeah. Tell me some of your tell me some of your thoughts around that.

[01:17:12] Um, yeah, I think I think double standards exist everywhere. I. I these sorts of arguments about kind of Ukraine versus, you know, Syria versus Palestine-Israel or whatever. I view them very much through like a political and geopolitical sort of lens rather than a religious one, but there are overlapping things. If, for example, the whole argument about Muslim terrorists versus like extremist or right wing extremist, for example. But yeah, yeah. Lone wolf. Yeah, Lone Wolf. And you know, you see that Family Guy graphic where they’ve got different shades of skin colour and determines, you know, who’s going to be a Muslim terrorist versus just an extremist or a lone wolf. But no, there’s a valid arguments, and I actually do I agree with them. I definitely have personally. I do think there’s a time and a place in which to raise these things. Personally speaking, I’ve always, for some reason, I felt uncomfortable that, you know, if there’s been a really big atrocity in Ukraine, for example, for me in the acute period, my priority is like empathising, supporting the actual people affected in that specific conflict.

[01:18:20] I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t know why, but I just feel uncomfortable with like using that as an opportunity to point score about my own agenda elsewhere. That doesn’t mean that Syria, Palestine, all these places aren’t important. But I just think maybe I know what the rebuttal is, which is people will be like, Well, if this isn’t, this is a good time to discuss that kind of thing because it’s prominent in in topical news and stuff. And I get that. I do empathise with that. Personally, just my own opinion is that I don’t find that that’s the right opportunity to show what my agenda is. I prefer just to show through my own kind of human kindness that this is what my faith truly is, that I am capable of showing kindness, support, love towards these people. And I want people to be like, Oh, you know what? Zayn’s a really good guy. Zayn is really supportive. He’s really loving Dental also Muslim, and he’s really normal. So I think that’s how I try and spread faith rather than,

[01:19:12] Like, actually be detached. Like you said, Yeah.

[01:19:15] Be the change rather than I think a lot of these things are implicit. You know, people looking at you and how you behave and then drawing comparisons to your face from that.

[01:19:26] I mean, do you have a Twitter and you. You know, I say what you think

[01:19:29] About this stuff. I was more I was more vocal on Twitter at school and stuff. I do have a Twitter, but now it’s just looking at memes following cricket, following current affairs. I don’t actually, I don’t actually use it how it’s meant to be used. Like most people my age, I just use it for like a newsfeed and finding funny content like Tik Tok. That’s kind of what Twitter’s like at the moment. So. So yeah.

[01:19:52] Let’s get back to a final question, yes. Diversion pace, final question. Fantasy Dinner Party three guests dead or alive?

[01:20:00] Yeah, I know everyone really struggles with this. I did, too, but I’m going to keep it topical because this is in my acute period of time. This is what I think is my my choice. So I’ve recently finished Will Smith’s book his autobiography, and it’s really, really good. And also from reading it and also knowing and having watched Will Smith growing up like he would be a great dinner guest. So Will Smith be my first one second one? I don’t know if you’ve come across him, but Imran Khan, he’s the current prime minister of Pakistan Cricket X cricketer. So currently Prime Minister, a big hero of mine and my dad’s growing up, literally, to be honest, my passport growing up was like, I want to be like him, you know, do do biomed at Oxford, become a cricketer and then go into politics. You know, that was my do philanthropy that was like my goal. And I’m not shy of admitting that because I think we all have role models in our life that we look towards to kind of emulate. So he would be great, I think, because I follow followed him so much over the years, and the third would be obviously Muhammad Ali. I think just kind of loads of people would say that he’d be a great great then, I guess. And I think also those three would interact really well with each other, which I think is important. So that would be a cool dinner party. I’m also excluding family members from this because there’s so many relatives that I would love to have there, but this is non non-family.

[01:21:20] So, well, it’s been it’s been a wonderful conversation, and, you know, I’m particularly impressed with how frank you are, thanks open, you know, with yourself, honest with yourself. It’s a it’s a trait a lot of people don’t have, or even if they have it, they don’t say it. You know that that takes a degree of confidence, right? To say, if I’m being honest and it’s absolute pleasure to talk to you, and I’m sure we’re going to be seeing a lot more of same people, whether you become the best dentist in the world or whichever way you end up spinning it. Yeah, I’m sure we’re going to see a lot more of you. So thanks. Thanks a lot for doing this, buddy.

[01:22:03] Thanks so much for having me.

[01:22:06] 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.

[01:22:22] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you’ve got some value out of it.

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[00:00:00] And my parents and sitting me down and saying you will fail in life unless you achieve and you have to. Anyone can achieve. You just got to work hard. Talent doesn’t exist. Talent doesn’t exist. It’s hard. Work exists. So go in your bedroom every night and study. And I did it. I went and studied and studied and studied, and I saw I’m moving up the sets. And but I did that because I saw my parents struggle. So I saw how hard they grafted, and I didn’t want that for my life. I didn’t want to. I was happy to graft, but I could see they were grafting really for nothing. And they would say, Look, we have to work so hard, but then we can only afford X, Y and Z, so go and study food. Your brain becomes something of yourself. And then when you do work hard, at least you’ll be able to afford things that we can never afford.

[00:00:51] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:09] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Ashcan Hitch forth to the Dental Leaders podcast. He’s the owner and CEO of the South Dental Group, which started off in 2015 as a single Dental practise and today comprises of 23 practises across the south of England, with over 300 employees and clinicians working for him. Ashcombe, welcome to the podcast and legislator, as we always do in these podcasts and just learn a little bit about your backstory where you grew up, what what your upbringing was like, and then how you eventually found your path into dentistry.

[00:01:49] Well, my father’s English mother’s Persian. And as with a lot of the cultural backgrounds, they gave me only three options either to become a lawyer, a doctor or a dentist. And in our culture, you have to do what they say. So I’m not very good when it comes to literacy. Reading wise, I can’t read for more than a few minutes without getting bored to the lower options out of it. For the doctor option, I was a bit concerned of being a GP and what could be presented in front of me. So by default I had to fall into dentistry and when I’ve done my A-level duties, A-levels and managed to secure a place at Guys Kings and St Thomas’s then studied the the full five years and in year four met Dr Lalami, who co-owns the whole group with myself and we then qualified. Both worked as associates in various practises across the south while we were learning and trying to see if we were business owners and providers and principals, how would we change things and how would we do things? I kept on going to various practises trying to buy one thinking I really wanted to go into this whole vision of just owning a practise. I didn’t want to own a group. We just wanted to own one. But we kept getting rejected because we were first time buyers either or we didn’t have the funds or we couldn’t go in there and say, Look, we can do this quickly.

[00:03:16] So it was just one hit after the other. And then in 2014, we got an opportunity where I was able to buy half of a practise in Crawley, which we still own, is outside the group. It’s got a huge NHS contract. I think the largest in the south coast of England, we managed to purchase half of that, which had various issues going through that in terms of obtaining finance. And then in 2015, after we’d own that for a period of about four months, we then purchased our first practise ourselves. So not co owning it, just just myself and Dr. Lalami. And then we then grew the group from 2015, and it was a we didn’t expect it to hit the number of practises that we have now. It was more of a organic growth where if the opportunity was right, we purchase the practise. If the opportunity wasn’t right, then we we walked away. And because we are the only two owners, albeit Dr Lalami, allows me to make a majority of the decisions on my own. We don’t there’s no ulterior motive or objective. We don’t have to go to a private equity or anything like this and hit certain targets, hit a number of practises per year. So if we expand, we expand. If we don’t, we don’t. But the key is to keep going after.

[00:04:34] I mean, you know, you sent me a summary of what you’ve achieved in that time and, you know, the number of practises. Three hundred employees and clinicians and turnover figures, et cetera, et cetera. Right? And just the summary of what you’ve told me that it must have been a hell of a journey. But before we dig into that and I’m sure there’s there’s loads of questions I’ve got for you just digging into, you know, how you got there when you went from practise one to three to four and and how you visualised from saying, Hey, I own half the practise to now fast forward and then you’ve got 300 people under your belt. It’s it’s it’s phenomenal looking back, but just digging a little bit more into your childhood. What was your upbringing like you mentioned, you know, your traditional sort of cultural background where you given three choices as a career? Yeah. What was it like going to school? Were you a high achiever? We always top of your class.

[00:05:34] Yeah, I was. I was very in school. I was very artistic and I did like sports. But I mean, I’m only five foot eight basketball, believe it or not. But no, I was very much into doing art and graphics, and I really remember coming back in year nine and saying to my mum and dad, I really want to be an artist, the graphic designer. I want to maybe become an architect. And and then I did a mock GCSE in year nine and four science and. The classic things you need coming back with CS and DS and BS and my parents and sitting me down and saying, you will fail in life unless you achieve and you have to. Anyone can achieve. You just got to work hard. Talent doesn’t exist. Talent doesn’t exist. It’s hard. Work exists. So go in your bedroom every night and study. And I did it. I went and studied and studied and studied, and I saw I’m moving up the sets. And but I did that because I saw my parents struggle. My parents were both nurses. They hospital nurses. They will work, and they never used to see each other. They’re retired now, but they throughout their 40 year marriage. I don’t know how long how it lasted, but they never see each other when one was at work. One was then coming back and their working night shifts Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s. They were constantly working and then they were. My dad at the time as well was if he wasn’t working in the hospital, he was also then buying properties and going himself and doing them up, installing kitchens and bathrooms himself. So I saw how hard they grafted, and I didn’t want that for my life. I didn’t want to. I was happy to graft, but I could see they were grafting really for nothing. And they would say, Look, we have to work so hard, but then we can only afford X, Y and Z, so go and study food. Your brain becomes something of yourself. And then when you do work hard, at least you’ll be able to afford things that we can never afford

[00:07:28] And just want to put myself in. Just sort of picture myself as you as a kid growing up, seeing both parents work in sort of passion, passing ships, so to speak, and working incredibly hard and siblings.

[00:07:45] I have an older brother who is 13 years older, and he again did dentistry. He focuses now on the Botox filler side of the business, so he hasn’t gone into the routine. Dentistry hasn’t gone into the business side, he just completely does that. But he he is very he was completely different to me. He was academic and academic genius. He wouldn’t study and he came out with eight stars and A’s and everything like that, and I would have to study everything. So he was very he was highly intelligent.

[00:08:16] So, so, you know, I’m just picturing myself and my brother growing up. We didn’t have much growing up. My dad worked in factories, was a taxi driver, ran a corner shop and you know, me and my brother saw him graft and in the same respects, as you’ll say, for very little. And the overriding message from my dad when we were growing up was along the lines of I’m working this hard so that you don’t have to. I do not want you to do. I do not want you to do what I do. I want you to have a better life than me, right? And that was always a constant message in the background that motivated both me and my brother. And then finally, funnily enough, what you should say, I was the equivalent of your brother. So I was naturally, I just did very well at exams and talented. I worked hard, but academically, I was. I was far more talented and my brother would say the same. He scraped through his exams and all the rest of it. What made it through? But we’ve both got a very, very similar work ethic. What about your parents? Were there ever any any messages or overriding pieces of advice from your parents in terms of, you know, seeing what they’re doing and what they wanted for you as a vision?

[00:09:30] Exactly to say I was very similar to what you said. I mean, I remember my my mum always said to me, no one has ever drowned in sweat before. You’ve just got to keep going and keep working. And if you get knocked down, just keep standing back up and eventually you just stand around your feet. You can always there’s nothing you cannot achieve. She kept on saying, If you want something, go for it. The door to success says Push and just keep pushing, pushing and pushing. And if you keep pushing, you’ll eventually get there.

[00:10:05] And so moving on from there, Ashleigh, obviously you you sort of got your grades. You did your exams, you got your A-levels, got into Dental school. What? What sort of a student were you? Let’s talk about your university life and what that was like.

[00:10:21] Well, I’m well, unfortunately, unfortunately. But I was I was just in the library all the time when I first started, because the thing is, is that I came from a state school. Yes, I got 10 hours to eight foot seas and three days at A-level. And when you get to kings, everyone’s from a private school or a lot of people are, you know, like, I’ve got six days at A-level, and I just thought, Wow, I’m going to have to compete with these people. And so you’re that whole kind of instinct of competition came in. So I thought, you know what? I’m going to just study. So I did. I just literally spent all my time in the 24 hour library that we had at the AIS and studied and studied and studied. And I study so much so in the first year achieved the highest score out of all the students, which I was really pleased with. I was fantastic. I’ve proven now to myself that I didn’t have to go to a private school or state school was find a more intelligent and therefore surely I’m superior than everyone here. And then I remember going into the second year and the first day of second year, they introduced 30 graduates postgraduates into theme and I thought, Oh, do you have to compete with these guys now? I have to prove to myself that I’m better than graduates.

[00:11:33] So then again, I just went and studied and studied and studied and again in the year to achieve the highest mark in the whole of the year again, so won the award for that. And again, that proved to myself fantastic went into third year. Thankfully, there was no there was no more entries. No where do you need to compete with? So I didn’t do it. And that’s when I started getting involved in going to the gym training and things like this third year and fourth year of university. But no, I was very much dedicated to my studies. I didn’t really party. I didn’t really go out and I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t do anything like that. Even now, when I come back from work, it’s it’s come back home that I don’t. After I’ve been to the gym, I can just sit down and watch a episode of Jonathan Creek or Midsummer Murders or Last of the summer wine only fools and horses. Something so simple, just very humble and very like, I don’t. I’m not. I’m not out clubbing, I’m not out drinking, I’m not out socialising too much.

[00:12:34] You were through and through sort of student and geek, and look, I remember that and funnily enough, I’m going to ask you about pressure. When I went to med school, a very similar thing happened to me in my first year, and I spoke to Payman about this a few times. Don’t know if you got it, but we got this. We got this sheet, a photograph with all the students on it right in our year, right? And I would literally see every single one of them as my competition. Yes, and and I would argue, got yeah, I I’m better than these people in and after me, I can I’m better in pharmacology than these. That one’s really got to do, you know what I mean? And I got really competitive. And similarly, I did really well came top of the year right at the beginning and then did that twice. But I’ll tell you what. It created a lot of pressure for me because almost like when you’re there and you almost feel like that, you have to perform right. There’s a certain standard. There’s expectations not of just your tutors, your parents, your fellow students and create a lot of stress for me that what about you? Did it? Did it create a lot of pressure for you when you’d sort of hit that score and then you thought, along come the graduate now and have got knocked them off their peg?

[00:13:49] Yeah, it does a bit. But then once I’ve achieved it, I’m of the mindset where I then achieve something. Close the book and move on. Yes. You know, you’ve got your three things. You’ve got the past, the present. You’ve got the future. I never look at the past. Why worry about something that’s already happened? I never also worry about the future, because why worry about something that might never happen? I just look at what’s happening around here right now. So, yes, I was able to say I achieved it, done it. Move on. And then a third year, if I didn’t come the highest and I didn’t in third year, I was able to justify to myself I did it and I can do it again if I wanted to. But now I choose not to because I’m going to focus my efforts on something else. It’s like, essentially when we left university, I could have gone and become an academic, become a professor of cardiology or being the best implant ologist there is in the UK. But I didn’t want to do that. That’s something I don’t want to do. But without sounding arrogant, I think I would have been able to do that if I wanted to. I would have put my efforts and your mind to it. But my mindset to you and anyone can achieve that, not just me, anyone

[00:14:55] Going to just dig a little bit more into mindset Ashton and just bring the conversation to bodybuilding. Those of you who are listening to this podcast obviously can’t see what I can see on my screen, but Ashkan has got biceps the size of my head and and when when we connected and I looked at his Instagram, I could see that. Obviously, he puts a lot of time and dedication into into bodybuilding, something that I was really passionate about sort of back in 2005 when I when I was really involved in it. And it requires a certain mindset, dedication and commitment to train as hard as you do eat as well as you do, I assume. So talk us through that journey. When when did that start and what impact do you think weight training or bodybuilding as you practise now and did previously has on your mindset as a business person?

[00:15:48] Well, it had I mean, it started in third year of university where I was living in Camberwell and everyone was. It was, it was. It was like the Bronx. It really was a it was difficult, you know, walking back from university at 10:00, 11:00 at night from the library. It was scary. It really was. So I decided, you know what? I need to maybe look a bit more menacing, look a bit more puffed up so that I can detract people coming and thinking I’ll mug him. So that’s where it started.

[00:16:19] Did anything ever happen? Did you did you ever witness anything or see anything? Or was it just you were surrounded by sort of people or situation where you felt threatened?

[00:16:27] Or it was just one time when I was walking back as I used to live in Evesham, walk in London, and there’s this alleyway you had to walk through to get to eat and walk. Would love walk completely pitch black. It wasn’t lit up, so I was walking through this alleyway again. It must be 11 o’clock at night and I just had footsteps coming up from behind me and getting faster and faster and faster and faster. And I looked around and is this guy who looked like he was going to attack me running towards me and I just closed my eyes. I just shut my eyes and thought, If this is going to be it, let it happen. And then he ran past me. I thought, Oh, thank God for that. He’s just obviously

[00:17:03] He just needs to go.

[00:17:05] But then the next day I I stopped off on the number 40 bus, which took me from Camberwell to London Bridge. I stopped off at fitness first in London and I signed up and then I started reading about how to weight train, how to go, about pinning on some sizes and muscle, and did that for two years. But then, because fifth year was so intense and I really wanted to make sure that I passed my finals. I stopped in fifth, so I did it for two years, grew to phenomenal size, but stopped it. And then I didn’t do it for about 13 years and I’ve only in the last 18 months picked it up again. But what bodybuilding teaches you is it teaches you discipline. It also teaches you that every day you put yourself in an awkward position. You put, you put yourself, you take yourself outside the comfort zone in order to build muscle, build it successfully and shape your muscles. You have to be. Able to lift things that you couldn’t lift, you can’t lift, you have to. It’s that fear of I’m lifting something that potentially will rip my bicep, my tendon from its bone. You just have to do it, so you have to continuously push yourself. And then that’s what’s happening in what happens in business that continued day to day thought of not being satisfied, continually pushing yourself, continually working hard, taking yourself outside your comfort zone, putting yourself in positions or areas where you where you don’t know anything, but you just learn.

[00:18:35] And if you fail, you fail again. You keep on standing up, you keep on going through a big thing. As well as that, a lot of people in the business side or in dentistry, they say, well, in any walks of life, it’s all about the wind. It’s all about the taking part that counts. Don’t worry if if you don’t win, don’t worry if your second best to be humble, don’t be a monster. But the thing that bodybuilding teaches you to be is it teaches you to be a monster. But then learning how to control it. And that’s the difference. So you go there and you’re an animal in the gym and you’re. I walk into the gym and forty five minutes, I’m I’m grunting, I’m sweating profusely. I’m on the floor. And then I crawl out of the gym. I’m literally dying. But then you learn to control that outside of the gym, and then you’re humble outside of the gym and you make good decisions and things like this. So, so, so yeah, it does. Bodybuilding has a huge impact into the business side, and again, it always relates back also to the discipline of being able to make sure you’re sleeping for a certain amount of time. You’re not over sleeping, making sure that you’re eating and certain amounts of the day you’re eating the right things. So, yeah, huge, huge impact.

[00:19:45] Do you like, for example, you know, it sounds like we mentioned just before this call, you follow quite an intense methodology of training where it’s, you know, just short, sharp bursts of was what you referred to as Dorian. This style of training going in, doing it forty five minutes, hitting it really hard and then crawling back out, as you say. Does anything change from the moment before you step into the gym to the point where you get in there? Do you change as a as a person or a mindset? Is there a is there a switch that goes off where Ash, before he steps into the gym, is a different person to the guy in there? And does that ever translate into work?

[00:20:27] Yes. I mean, what I do is I drive to the gym, I’ll set my car and then I don’t just get up my car and then walk into the gym and then chat to people, Hey, how are you? Fist bump people and then crack on. I sit in my car and just almost as if you turn a switch, you turn your switch from being who you are before. Whether it’s that, whether that was because you’re playing with your kids at the time or just before, whether that was because you just stepped out of an NHS meeting and you were saying to NHS England how you’re caring for patients and you’re thinking about all this and etcetera, etcetera and improvements you can do for patient care and quality. You just home any turn of switch to almost as if you’re focussing, pinning your mind into the muscle. And that’s really important as well, because a lot of people will. We’ve all done it. You will bend over, lift something really light or just twist and then you pull your muscle. And that’s because you’re not thinking about your muscle that point in time. So you’ve got to be able to put your mind into the muscle that you plan on training that day. And then I put my headphones in my music in and I walk in. I don’t say hello to anyone. Most of them get a nod from me, and then I then train and focus training and everyone knows don’t come and talk to me because I literally just nod and I’ll crack on. If you want to chat to me and chat to me after the gym, after I’m asking for help

[00:21:47] To walk again.

[00:21:49] In terms of work day, that’s the same thing with work. So I tend to write the office between 7:30 eight o’clock every morning and then I have two or three minutes where I just it’s almost like meditation, almost well. I’m just thinking about what I’m planning on doing that day. I have a list of things that have to do in front of me and again, putting myself into that mindset because the mindsets are different to whether you’re going to be chatting to an associate, whether you’re going to be chatting to a supplier, to whether you’re going to be chatting to a bank, to whether you’re going be looking at figures that day to whether you’re going to be looking at architectural plans for a new practise, you have to have a different mindset in all of those aspects. So then you’re essentially just changing what you’re thinking about. And then after you’ve changed that, then you just crack on.

[00:22:31] Really, I find it fascinating that the parallels between training, bodybuilding and business, if you’ve not been there, especially that may be the level that you’re involved or, you know, many years ago, I used to remember stepping into the gym and the guy I used to train with it. He used to call it flicking the switch. And when you step in there, you were talking about a monster, you literally turn yourself into a monster and you’re not interested in talking to anyone. In fact, you turn on a level of aggression that is channelled into making that mind muscle connexion that you were talking about. And it just becomes about that. And nothing else matters. It’s like you’ve got tunnel vision and the rest of the rooms are blurred. And then how that translate into business for me is that you can take those lessons and and focus with with a great deal of intensity on the task at hand, whatever that is, whether it’s H.R. recruitment point, systems and processes together and so on and so forth. And I think there’s a there’s a lot of parallel parallels there and it’s interesting to talk to someone who’s been or currently in that position and seeing those parallels, but moving on from there.

[00:23:46] So you bought your first half a practise, which you still which you still have. Do you still own half of that or have you, you know, you still own half of that? Yeah. And and then you went onto just what I want to get my head around is how you went from half to your first one. Then she second, then your third. And all of a sudden today you start twenty three with 300 people under your belt. And how your role has changed. You’re in that whole process of want you to slowly talk me through that journey and I might interrupt you along the way just because I’m curious and want to know, you know, what happened here and there. So talk me through practise number one. You acquired it with how you went about finding it. What was your vision at that time of? We just want to buy one practise and this is going to be our baby and we’re going to grow it and it’s going to do really well. How many days a week dentistry were you doing? Just talk me through that whole process.

[00:24:42] So when we bought our first practise, myself and the other co-founder, we were doing well, seven days to be there. We were working round the clock just as associates as much as we could. So we would start at eight o’clock in the morning, worked through to six p.m. and would be myself or the other co-founder would end up doing an emergency dental service shift at the local hospital till 10 o’clock, and we would take it in turns. We pretty much said that five days a week and then also did that in the evening weekends as well. We did that. Yes, we did love dentistry. We also did that as a means to an end because we needed to raise cash in order to invest when we bought half of the first practise. Soon realised that it’s great, but you have to. In business is fast. It needs to be quick. So we realised that because the other owner spent a lot of time in Manchester up north, we couldn’t make decisions very quickly. If I if I want to appoint a hygienist, I had to wait for the next time he was down. So myself and the other co-founder, we thought, you know, let’s just do it ourselves. Let’s get another practise ourselves again. As a safety net, we’ll just have one. So we bought the practise, which was just a two stage practise in hand cross in 2015 and April, and that was all great. We bought it for four hundred and eighty six thousand pounds. We had to because we already borrowed a million, one point one million only about five months before. I then had to try and raise finance for that, which was raising it off of rate setter JD.com, which was an internet platform that gave money to dentists. So each took out 200000 topped maxed out and we were literally up to up to our eyeballs in debt at that point in time. It was scary, but again, that’s where you take the risk and it’s a calculated risk as well.

[00:26:28] At what point was this in your careers? You’d qualified from Dental School, you did an associate job. How far after qualifying was this? How long after qualified

[00:26:38] Qualified in 2009? So 2014 was when we bought half of the practise in November of that year and then 2015. So we’re looking at five to six years later, right?

[00:26:47] Ok, which

[00:26:48] I always say to associates my own associates. You have to wait five to six years. Don’t go and buy your first practise a year afterwards because you need to learn. You need to learn your graft. It’s like going back to the gym you start training for. I hate it. I hate it. Honestly, it really irritates me when a guy’s trained for like two months, and then all of a sudden they’re wearing tight shirts. No, you know, don’t don’t buy small and medium because they’re small and medium, so they make you look big. You know, you have to train for a year or two. And then when your arms are bristling through an extra extra large triple extra large, then you know you’ve got size. It’s the same

[00:27:26] Thing

[00:27:27] And it’s the same thing with dentistry. Don’t, don’t jump into. You’ve got to learn if this is not a race. Life isn’t a race. So don’t treat it as one. Be consistent. Anyway, so here we said. We brought that one in April 2015 and we did everything we could to it, you know, push the private rope. In his six days a week, we installed an extra extra chair in there, so we maxed it out. We couldn’t take it any further than what we take in it. And then in December of that year, a colleague of mine that knew my mother approached me and said, Look, I’m looking to sell my practise to shall we do it off of the record? So it doesn’t, you know, doesn’t go on line because it was a private guy and this was an east born. And I came here, I look at it, and then we agreed on a deal. And that was practise number two. And then again, we did the same thing. We maxed that out with promoting the private and turning it from just, say, 100 percent in its practise to a 60 percent NHS, 40 percent private. Is the same sort of business model. And then a third person approached me because they knew the second person and said, Look, you sold to that person. And because that went well and for the for the first two to three years, it was word of mouth.

[00:28:41] That’s what we did. We didn’t buy practises on the market as it were. It didn’t enable us to get a good deal from them because we always would say, even now I say to the people that approach me and say, Would you buy my practise? I say, We’re going get it valued first. Yeah, not by Christine Co. or the former valuations, but just by like Dental Elite or Frank Taylor. And then come to me if what you want for it. I’m not. I’m not trying to get the cheapest price from you, but it just enabled us to actually have the opportunity to buy these and what we used to do in order to raise capital because we were able to take on a practise to like the first practise in handcuffs that we bought. We bought it for four hundred eighty six thousand. But by the end of the year, because we promoted and improved so much when we revalued it, it was worth seven hundred and fifty thousand. So the equity enabled us to borrow more to then buy the second one and the second one because we did that again, the same model, the equity enabled us to buy the third one and then we bought the third one. They were able to lump it all together, move from Metrobank at the time and then we moved it to another bank and then so we kept on.

[00:29:42] That’s how the business model worked by creating more equity in the business and also switching between banks. So he moved from Wesleyan to Metrobank to Santander. We able to then almost create more. We able to the loans were better. There were points in time when I would view a practise and I would go to the bank and I would say, Look, I would like to buy this practise. I don’t have the cash to buy it. And they would decline. They would say, You know, you don’t want to make yourself out, you don’t want to overstretch yourself. This one’s not quite fitting into your business model. The NHS may be a bit too high or you’ve never done that before. It’s in an out area. So I would then go and just borrow much money as I can from online platforms, whether it be rate setter or things like this, because I knew it would work. And then when I did that, I let that particular practise run for about a year. Go back to the bank and say, Look, I did it by ACH. Done it, a successful refi. Can you refinance me? And they were like, Okay, that’s fine. Then they will approach their underwriters and say, Yes, this this man, this is these guys. They know what they’re doing, and they won’t then refinance.

[00:30:51] How did you role change in the you went from you doing your six to seven days a week of hands in patients mouths? Are you are you all wet fingered dentists now or purely businessmen running the practise in the group?

[00:31:06] So I stopped clinical dentistry in 2019 marks April 1st of 2019. So for the last two years, two or three years, I haven’t done clinical dentistry, but in the beginning again, we’re working again seven days a week. But then as we grew, it cut down and it cut down to three days clinical and then the rest running the business. And that’s when we had 15 practises. I was still doing three days a week and then I said, You know what? This is too much because as I was treating patients, I remember, you know, doing an amalgam or doing a wax bite or taking out a tooth. I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. It was second nature, but I was just thinking about cashflow forecasts and I was thinking about this employee that was bugging, bugging us or something like this or thinking about this thing and this thing. So, yeah, there came a point in time I said, You know what? I just need to, I think, walk away from the clinical side now and just focus purely on the business side.

[00:32:06] And what did that feel like? Just giving up dentistry all of a sudden and just just sort of, you know, Payman doesn’t practise dentistry anymore. Neither do neither do his business partners. Just just your process of I’m assuming at some point you were doing a fair bit of NHS dentistry yourself. Maybe you then pivoted towards more private, I’m guessing. Yeah. And then to nothing, then just sorting through that was a difficult decision to make. Or was it? Was it quite straight? All of it.

[00:32:32] I mean, it was because you get you get that it’s the run of the mill when you’re doing something every day, the same thing for 10 years, you think, Well, what if I stop? Will I do skill? Do I need to keep doing this? But then I mean, my accountant turned around and said to both of us, both of the founders had said, guys, because what I said to our thinking about stopping, but I’m not so sure it was like the amount of clinical work you’ve done because you’ve done so much. You’ve actually had a 30 year career, so you find to stop, you need to stop. You have to stop because you get to become ill from it. So when he said that, I thought, You know what? That does make valid sense because we didn’t, we didn’t. We never did. Just four days a week. We never just did the bits. And then plus as well. As well as doing that and the business, I was then taking on extra hours by being an NHS clinical adviser, you know, PhD trainer working for the LDC in West Sussex. So it wasn’t just it wasn’t just just just just a practise in the business, it was then everything else. So walking away was and also it was tough because I stayed in the same practise for all that period of time towards the end. And you get to know the patients and they get to know you. And they also kept on saying, every time you’re not going to go private, are you or you’re not going to give up, are you? And you kept them kept alive through my teeth and saying, Yeah, of course not want to be here today. I’m like 60. Then back and I’m thinking, I’m going, I’m going next week.

[00:33:54] But yeah, when you stopped clinical, how many practises were you at? And then what happened after that? And I’m guessing you were then able to 100 percent fully focus on whatever the mission or the growth plan was there?

[00:34:07] Yeah. So we got to 11 when I decided to stop and then as soon as I stopped, we then jumped because we took on four practises in one hit, so we got them to 15. Then when we went from 15 to 23, was when I was when I was not practising at all. We won also that process, as well as buying practises. We’ve won six of them through tenders, so two in Wiltshire and then four in Kent, Sussex, which was hard. It was hard bidding for them and writing the responses and going through the processes and then building things. So that was quite tough. And then we’ve also bought some practises from Corporates Coliseum and ones that were failing. They just wanted to give the NHS contracts back now Coliseum headquarters opposite our head office in Crawley. So their builder came over to do some work for us, their contractor. And he said, I’ve just stepped out of a meeting down. I overheard they’re talking about closing the practises. So as soon as you said that to me, I just walked over the road and said, Look, I need to speak to someone and they’ll talk about what. And I just said, just can I just speak to someone that’s involved in making decisions here? And then I just said, Look, don’t give them back, don’t give them back to NHS England. We’ll buy them from you. At least it gives you money for them. Don’t close them. I know you can’t recruit for them, but we will get to do. We’ll do brand you. And then we did. Wow. So we saw the opportunities and then we we just went for them.

[00:35:30] And so during this whole process, there must have been I mean, obviously there have been successful days and growing these practises and increasing the turnover and all the rest of it. What’s been your darkest days, your darkest moments whilst building this empire? You know, I always say that the most complicated part of growing any business is people, and you’ve got a lot of you’ve got a lot of people. You know, what have been your darkest moments during ruling this whole thing? I look at it and you know, the numbers scare me in terms of how you leverage yourself upon this war and then you get the other one, you get another million quid and you do this and you do this and you do this. And obviously, the only reason you do in that is because you’ve got confidence in yourself and what, what, what you’re capable of doing. There’s a lot of pressure on you as well, I’m guessing. What have been the the sort of darkest moments of business during the last few years?

[00:36:27] I think it’s been it’s been tough dealing with personalities from people. I’ve realised in business that it’s everyone’s got the ability to do what you want them to do, but you’ve got to be able to draw it out of them and try and deal with that. Deal with that personality. And eventually, somewhere deep inside that person, there will be the ability for them to do that and to give you that product that you want to give them or to do what you need them to do for the business. But it’s it’s trying to work around round dealing with those individuals. Some individuals could can be very tricky and you’ve got to kind of just shake hands and say goodbye. But thankfully, touch wood, we’ve never had anything horrific happen to us. We’ve just tried to just run with it and just just be as good as good as we can in terms of other dark, dark kind of moments. I mean, COVID was quite tough when everything just seemed to collapse in the end of March and patients appointments were being cancelled and just thinking how unless I can, because I didn’t at that point announced that they were going to pay, you guaranteed pay. So I’m thinking, what about if no one gets paid anything and how am I going to service these loans? And thankfully, the NHS came, came through and came forward.

[00:37:41] That helped us as an organisation. That was pretty tough. There’s been moments as well because as a as a provider, I get sent anything from the GDC and anything from the GDC just comes. There’s a there’s attached file or most of the time it’s 99 percent. At the time it’s about an associate. You think, Oh, thank God for that, but then your heart sinks when you think I was just one for me, is this about me? Because it’s just it’s just a hassle dealing with process as it were. So that’s that can be tough. And but I mean, it’s just it’s just there’s not been horrific dark times. I mean, most of it is sacrifice, really, which as I get older, I kind of regret slightly sacrifice family. There’s been many times where I’ve missed out on birthdays, events, Christmases. I remember, you know, it’d been Christmas Day and I’ll be in another room making a business plan, talking to a broker. Things like this. So so missing out on things and those sacrifices is a bit tough. And when I look back at it, because you can’t get that time back. I try not to look back at it, but it is what it is, is, is reality.

[00:38:54] And what about clinically? Have you ever made any one? We always ask this question is, you know, what’s your biggest clinical mistake? And it could be anything from communication right through to yanking the wrong tooth out and realising what I’ve just done. Have you made any sort of major what is your biggest clinical mistake and how could you learn from it?

[00:39:13] I say to my associates, any mistake you’ve made, I’ve done it and I’ve probably done it tenfold, better. I’ve I’ve I’ve made every single mistake you can possibly think of drilled drilled out the wrong side of the tooth, put a pin in and it has come out the other way. You know, you’re working on the floor of the mouth and the patient then swallows and the tongue comes up and the bird gets wrapped around in the floor and then you. You then try and pull the bear out, and half the patient’s tongue comes with it, taking out an upright and then all the tube porosity, plus all the soft palate coming away with it. And you’re looking at it and thinking, Great, this is great big hole I can see and then thinking, I’ve got a suit to this thing and trying to remember how you would talk to do suturing back the university and thinking, How the hell am I going to do this? So, I mean, the most memorable thing for me was and I didn’t have it wasn’t me causing the mistake. But a patient of mine came in and he had a full on cardiac arrest in the surgery. He just came for a denture stage and his dentures, so we didn’t give him anything, but he just arrived at the door and then just collapsed.

[00:40:17] His head smacked the floor. I ran over thinking and it was like a five o’clock ended. The day I was thinking, Oh Jesus, here we go. We’re all going to be late now. But I just thought it was a feint. And then I went down and I tried to say. To him, you know, hello. Everything, all right. Don’t worry about it, and my nurse knows I’m going to get the glucose, and I remember looking at my nurse and saying he is dead because there was nothing. He wasn’t breathing. There was no pulse. There was nothing there. And we then pulled him into the waiting room. And again, I thought, No, no, no, this can’t be happening because again, you double check. And he was you could hear a pin drop. There was nothing, no breath coming out of his mouth and then just thinking, Right, here we go. So you go into the chest compressions. Everyone started running around, you know, bringing the oxygen, the d fib. We had a trainee nurse that started that day. She’s sitting in the corner, crying her eyes out. You had conditions that are like 10 years experience. It’s just sitting there not knowing what to do. So it’s just me and my nurse and we just literally just cracking on cutting people’s clothing and cutting this guy’s clothing and everything.

[00:41:21] And then we put the DFB on, and then it shocked. And then again, we restarted the compressions and it shocked again. By the time the ambulance turned up, we just revived him, which was good. He was then taken to hospital and he survived. He lived two years and then passed away, but enabled him in that two years. So obviously make arrangements and say goodbye to his family. But I remember when I was doing his chest compressions, my basic life support had run out a week before I was thinking, If this guy dies, you know this patient dies. The coroner might say, You know what? You know you are. Maybe your basic life support was out of date. You know, you should have redone it and you know, you just you just all these things go through, as well as the fact that obviously this is a life as well. Of course, it was worrying. It was worrying and it was horrific as well. You know, there was there was vomit everywhere, phlegm. You know, it’s not a pretty sight. It’s not what they teach you. It’s it’s pretty bad. Well, that was a I was a bat bow, wow, wow.

[00:42:23] And so on the on the brighter side of things in the more positive side is obviously you’re running a successful business now. You’ve got, you know, you’ve got a lot of people working for you and I’m assuming you’ve got managers in place now. What’s the structure of your business? And with the 23 practises, every I’m calling it, every corporate and adult, whether you class yourself as a corporate or a mini group or whatever is then must have their own values or their own vision or what they’re trying to achieve or how they operate. Do you have is every practise almost like an independent or do they feel like they’re part of the group and you all operate in the same way? Have you got some practises that are fully NHS and some that are fully private and some that are sort of halfway down the line? What’s the overall

[00:43:08] Structure? So we we like to refer to ourselves as a community of practises. We’re not big enough to be I don’t think we’d be enough to be a corporate, even though we do get referred to as a corporate. Mm. Hopefully, by the end of this year, we might hopefully get up to about 40 practises that might change things. But we like to have a personal touch. So we do have a head office team which is based in Crawley and Gatwick Airport. So that’s obviously you’ve got myself as the CEO. Then you’ve got we have clinical directors, we have HR managers, assistants, finance managers and their assistants, clinical governance team that does all the clinical compliance. And then we have area managers and then individual practise managers in each of the sites. And then from there, then the dentists, receptionists and nurses. And we try to appoint lead clinicians in practises as well, which is kind of easy if we’ve taken over a practise where the principal stays on because they by default like to actually take that and to take that role. Yeah, most of the practises function as a community, as a group, we we like to do things together, have a consistent approach throughout every where we like to have quarterly management meetings where we call the managers up. So we like it to be uniform and structured rather than each practise operating completely different policies and models. And things like this is much easier from a compliance point of view to do it all in one in terms of the the way individual practises are structured.

[00:44:37] We have some that are 90 percent NHS and they tend to be in the in the places like Margate. In some places, Southampton, where it’s pretty damn the demographic is pretty poor. We have some practises that are 50 50 where we have big NHS contracts, but then a huge demand contracts and huge private pay. As you go ones, we do like to promote private. We don’t own any fully private practises because it doesn’t fit into our business model, our business model, such that we have to have guaranteed income coming in in order to service our loans and debts and in order to have that peace of mind that we’re not going to have income of how many million per year, one year. And then all of a sudden it drops down because we have had issues with maybe some private dentists moving on, moving somewhere else. So that’s where how kind of we structured attractive things we’re at the moment buying a freehold premises in in Crawley, which we’re going to. So we’re going to renovate for our own head office and we’re going to have there a training facility, phantom head rooms in order to be able to put on courses for our associates. And because it’s right next to Gatwick Airport, it’s really easy to to get to. So it’s going to be huge. It’s going to be like a university school. So sort of thing is going to be conference rooms and things like this.

[00:45:58] And at what level are you involved in with your team? So obviously, with such a large team assuming you can’t have a connexion with every one of them, right? It just wouldn’t be practical. So if we look at the look of the structure, is it you working with, I guess, the higher level people in the head office plus you meet in the managers on a quarterly basis? How how does that work in terms of you as a business owner and your input at what level

[00:46:27] Where all the associates and the hygienists know that they have clinical directors to go to, but they can always come to me, so my phone is always there for them. So I chat to some in an evening, we talk about cases. I deal with their contracts and I do their own appraisals and things and peer reviews and things like that. Like, obviously, we need to renegotiate rates

[00:46:46] With all your clinicians,

[00:46:47] With all our clinicians. If they’re happy to talk to the clinical directors, that’s fine. The clinicians do that, but a lot of them don’t. They like to talk to me. Yes, they do with the clinical directors when it comes to complaints and governance and things like that, because for me, I find it very tedious and boring, but the exciting things I do with them. So there is that direct kind of line they all have with me, the associates which they enjoy and I like as well. I then communicate, like you said, with the the head office team and most of the managers, but then I just don’t have the time and effort. You need to communicate directly with like receptionists and nurses, albeit they’re they’re an integral part of the team. But I just couldn’t do it. So they tend not to contact me themselves. They tend to go through managers and their gets passed on to H.R. and that all gets usually dealt with. And I only get involved if there’s a huge decision to make like a significant pay rise that needs to be made or or a change of contract or relocating someone or various things like that

[00:47:45] In terms of just transitioning from one to two to five to 11 to twenty three and then soon to be maybe 30 or 40. Have you had any formal training in business or have you just figured this out as you’ve gone along that OK, right? I’ll need a head office now. I need a HR team, I need a compliance team. How to structure that, where to put the how to sell the management structure. Where did that come from?

[00:48:14] Just because when you have one or two or three practises, even up to 10, you’re doing yourself, you’re doing it yourself. Pretty much you’re sleeping in your car. I remember once I went down to practise in Southampton because I was doing my own, you know, had, you know, up up of frames myself and it got to like 2:00 in the morning, I thought, I can’t drive back from Southampton to Crawley now, so I just slept on the floor in the surgery. And then at six o’clock, got my car and then went home. So it comes to a point where you can’t physically do it and then you think, Right, I need someone else now. So it came to a point where I needed someone to do with H.R. because I couldn’t physically do it myself. So then you then just researchers think, OK, what’s an HR manager? What’s their role involved? What was their pay structure like? How how are we going to do this? How are we going to do that and do this? So whenever I come to a point where I physically can’t do it anymore, I then make a role and then obviously do that. So now I’ve had no formal training. The only thing I’ve done is read books or maybe some management and business, but otherwise it’s just it’s just learning from your mistakes. That’s the best thing. Just failing cocking things up and then thinking, You know what, in order to me not to cock up again, I’ve got to do X, Y and Z. That’s the best way to learn. The best way to learn is to make mistakes, because you’d never do it again.

[00:49:28] What’s your biggest business mistake you’ve ever made? Oh, absolute absolute clanger, where you thought shit, I wish I hadn’t done that. And if I could do that again that I could have fixed a whole load of problems that that maybe would have helped me grow quicker or whatever that is. I did because I

[00:49:51] Fail every day. I think a huge mistake we did is, as you might not might know and listeners might know, there is three lists. These are GDC lists, your performers list and actually a list on the BSA. Now, a lot of people, in order to in order to check if they’ve got an NHS, perform a number of you check to see if they own the GDC, register a dentist and then you just check on the BSA if your name comes up on campus. When you’re entering onto the entering that petition onto your card form, you think, Oh, great. So one year I did that. Check the GDC, the guy who said he’s been working in the NHS for 15 years, Paul Grey, pin him on the contract, and he’s working away for nine nine months. And I’ve got a phone call from the NHS and said, You do realise that guy that’s working on the NHS who’s transmitting claims and claiming for you isn’t on the performers list. I said, no, I mean, I checked that I checked the BSA list and the dude here. Right now, the performance is different. You can actually hear it. He was actually removed from the performers list like five years ago because he left the country and then didn’t do many years.

[00:50:59] But we just didn’t. You just forgot to remove him from the BSA list. Thankfully, though, because I was able to prove to NHS England that genuinely I didn’t know that they accepted all of his claims. They put him on the list. They said, Look, just don’t do it again. I said, I’m really sorry, but that was tough because he’d done all those udas. They paid him for them as well. So I could and say to him, Can I have the money back? Yeah, you know, because I need to give back to the NHS. Things were very good to me at the time and said, Don’t worry because we understand and you’re not the only person that’s done this. And yes, we need to provide more clarity. But that was a huge thing because I was sitting there thinking and I might have to end up giving back about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to NHS England. Wow. Plus the fact they’ve already paid out. So yeah, that was that was a pretty big clanger.

[00:51:45] Where’s your business going? What’s the big, hairy, audacious goal that you’ve got in mind because, you know, looking at it now, you’re already incredibly successful. I’m assuming you could sell it and retire tomorrow if you want it to, right? And there’d be plenty there. You’ve already we’ve already spoke about perhaps taking it to 30 or 40 clinics, perhaps this year. What was the ceiling for you? What where are you taking this?

[00:52:14] I don’t think. I don’t think there is any ceiling. Oh, you’re right. Yes, we could sell it tomorrow to a private equity or something like this and live on a yacht. You know, both the co-founders would be well looked after, but the the thing is, is that it’s never been about money. We haven’t done this for money because if we if we were doing it for money, we wouldn’t. We wouldn’t have. We wouldn’t have a chain of Dental practises. We would do something without so much red tape. And so it’s much more profitable, you know, maybe a chain of restaurants or nightclubs or God knows what you know or investing in like stocks and shares and all this kind of stuff. So it’s not it’s never been about funds and money. It’s more just about a vision of just trying to be a really good group of community practises. We I would like to grow to get to 100. That’s a that’s a nice number for me. It’s very even it sounds good.

[00:53:12] It’s a nice round number.

[00:53:14] Exactly. But then, as with again, going back to bodybuilding, it never stops. You know, when is when is too big or big enough, where there isn’t any. So if we ever got to 100, maybe would then say we’re about 110 120. I think the best I think the for us is I just keep doing this until I until I’m dead. I think that’s the point for me. If I’m not around, then it can’t be done.

[00:53:44] So there’s no there’s no big vision in your mind at the moment to say, you know, when the business gets to this magic number that I’m going to walk away, walk away from this thing and, you know, sail off into the sunset and I’d consider it done. You just see yourself doing this all the time.

[00:54:05] Yeah, at the moment, yes, unless things change. But also as well as that, we’ve developed incredible relationships, friendships with head office team members that I don’t regard and managers and dentists and associates. I don’t regard them as employees colleagues. I regard them as friends and not say it family as well. I don’t think I’d be ever be in a position where I could turn around and say, You know what? I’m tracking this in. And whoever takes you over will so be it. If you’re then out of a job, you’re out of a job. If they decide to take the company in this way and relocate the office to here and it causes you trouble, then Serbia. I don’t think I could ever do that to these people that have been putting not only they put in blood, sweat and tears into into this vision, that is our vision, the co-founders vision. But they’ve they’re running with this as well.

[00:55:01] She feels like you’ve almost got a sense of responsibility to your to your team. Stroke, should we say family? Yeah. That you’re almost there sort of providing for them, right? That yeah, through your creek, through your ecosystem. And I look I look at my business like this actually, is that through the ecosystem, you know, when I sit down and, you know, sometimes I’ll say to my wife, she’ll say, Well, why are you working so hard? You don’t have to do this and you have to do this? I’m putting food on the table for a lot of families. Yeah. And that comes with a great deal and sense of responsibility, not only my family, but those of my my colleagues, right, and friends and other families, so to speak. And is that how you feel about your organisation, that there is this overwhelming sort of sense of responsibility that actually this is your family now and you would never hand your family over to someone else?

[00:56:02] Exactly. Yeah, you just can’t. And I mean, when I wake up in the morning, what I mean, you know, when we will wake up and we’ve we’ve rotting a cold or we’ve got a mild fever. I drag myself into work through the responsibility of knowing that it’s not my mortgage. The to you paid. It’s three hundred mortgages need to be paid because I know that if I don’t go in for a day and make sure that this business is successful and I know if if I take a month off, it’s truly successful, but it’s just that it’s that thought, then it terrifies me to think that it’s going to affect someone else. And you just you just can’t do that as a morally, as an individual, you can’t. And I think you learn that over a period of time of growing a business and building it from scratch, if you put into a position of responsibility, you might not appreciate that. But because you’ve you’ve grown that and you’ve worked with these people and you know, and you hear their frustrations every day in their hardships and you know them coming to you and saying, I’m struggling with paying for this and you know, my cars, you know, you look at their bump hanging off their car and you’re thinking, Oh, God, you know, that’s that’s horrific. And you know, that’s that’s bad. It’s, you know, it’s it’s that it’s that level of responsibility that you you just take and you have to honour almost.

[00:57:21] It’s amazing you talked about obviously, the impact of working so hard and what it’s had on, you know, missing out on, say, Christmases, you know, maybe there were kids parties and things like that that you couldn’t attend and whatnot if you had the chance to do it all over again. Looking back, what would you change or what would you advise your younger self?

[00:57:43] To make sure I always attend because you still achieve what you think, you’re going to achieve, what you want to achieve by attending those things because you will get it done. And you have to put family first and friendships first. And you still get to where you going to get to. I did see it as a race at the start. I’ve learnt over the years and I’ve changed as a person changed. My values have changed and and those type of things. But I would I would make more time for the people that I’ve had to almost dissociate myself. And it goes back. I remember watching that pumping iron via an assault snigger. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Documentary where he said, You know, I think his father died and he got a phone call and he was like, I’m not coming to the funeral, I’m going to. I’ve got my limpia coming up and then, that’s it. And that was the frame I had in business. It was, I mean, yeah, I missed. I’ve missed funerals before and I just I regret that. I feel ashamed. I’ve missed very important events that I can never take back. If I were able to do it again, I would put that first.

[00:58:52] Definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:58:55] And there’s a few questions we usually ask towards the end of this obituary. Listen to a few episodes. If it was your last day on the planet and you were surrounded by your little ones, your loved ones, those important people in your life and you to give them three pieces of advice or wisdom. What would they be?

[00:59:24] Number one, don’t. Don’t die with dreams, die with memories. And whatever you want to achieve, make sure you achieve it. Don’t dream about it. I’d always say work hard. And work hard, stay focussed. And then the third thing is always take care of the people that take care of you because then you’ll be forever taken care of. So you always give back. Mm hmm. So those are the three things I would try to try to. My pearls of wisdom were lovely.

[01:00:04] And how would you like to be remembered? So Ashkan was. Dot, dot dot. Finish the sentence.

[01:00:17] The biggest, the biggest dentist in the UK. Oh, it’s a tough one. Just just a just a successful businessman that the patients first, but also put the employees and the the workers are contractors and the same level as well. Mm hmm.

[01:00:46] Locally, and then this question comes from Payman, which is this fantasy dinner party question, so imagine you could have a fantasy dinner party, three guests dead or alive. Who would they be and why?

[01:01:06] Well, it has to relate back to. My passion, which is training, so it would be Mike Mintzer, who was a nineteen eighties, nineteen seventies eighties bodybuilder who started the whole high intensity training concept, I love to have dinner with him and talk about the concepts that he is now ingrained in in training. Mm hmm. I’d also like to chat to some high profile business CEOs. I look up to Warren Buffett. I remember him saying once that any, every every business that he takes over is essentially like a cigarette butt that’s only got one puff left in it. And that’s all we’ve done. You know, we’ve taken over those kind of seen ones that no one would give a chance to. But there’s always one drag that you can you can smoke and we’ve picked it up and had a good puff and turned it around. So that would be the second. And the third one? Oh, that one’s a tricky one. Oh, that’s a tough one. Third one. I was going to probably say. My father in law, but I didn’t want to start crying. Yeah. Yeah. No longer with us, not. I didn’t know you’re going to make me cry in this Prav.

[01:02:48] I didn’t know we were both, you know, we were both going to be crying at the end of this, Oh, we’re

[01:02:52] Supposed to be strong men, we’re supposed to be immortal, you know, soldiers, warriors and we’re both we’re both bored to tears. Yeah, no. Yeah.

[01:03:04] Yeah. Cool. Well, on that note, thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. It’s been inspiring. Just listening to your story of coming where you have from today and the story of your parents. You know, it’s always inspiring to hear where you’ve come from. And you know, we can we can sit here and make our parents proud, right? Yes. Not not having to do what what they were doing right is. It’s it’s a huge thing. And even so present day, you know, those words from my father resonate with me today. Yeah. And drive me and inspire me to do what I do. You know? So yeah.

[01:03:49] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Yeah, it’s been great.

[01:03:56] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry.

[01:04:07] Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki. Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you’ve got some value out of it

[01:04:26] If you did get some value out of it. Think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:04:37] And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] I prefer the dentists being able to work independently as much as I love patients and being able to change lives. For me, ultimately, if I’m able to pass on a skill that I have onto another clinician and they are then able to do what I do, get the results that I get, that’s the best feeling in the world and people appreciate that I help them. That’s great. But I don’t want that. I’m not looking for that. It’s great that they see. Thank you, sir, and thank you. Messages are grateful. But it’s like an internal thing for me that I helped you. I passed on a skill job done next. It’s a really nice feeling.

[00:00:40] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki

[00:00:58] Gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Friend Ahmed onto the podcast first carved himself a nice little niche in immediate loading situations where there’s not much bone. And I was looking through some of his talks and my goodness me, not not not the kind of industry I would ever venture into, but hopefully he’ll tell us his story on how he got there. Absolute pleasure to have you for him.

[00:01:26] Thank you so much, Payman. Thank you so much, Prav.

[00:01:29] Yeah. Great to have you.

[00:01:30] Prav Welcome. It’s good to be back. It’s good to be back as the dynamic duo and our first guest back in the new year hand. We know we’ve spoken in the past and. Just before we get into that. Just give us a little bit of info about your back story.

[00:01:47] So I suppose the back story really starts with my dad. He came over from Pakistan when he was nine years old and he came over with his uncle. And life was tough. He was at school away from his parents. Can imagine which he had, you know, scary moving away from your country, from your family, from your siblings, from your parents. Yeah. With a family member. But coming to somewhere new and really the man that he is has really shaped the person that I’ve become in good ways. And I suppose there are negatives to that as well. So my dad came over to the UK when he was nine and he didn’t get a bit of an education but came out and he was a shopkeeper and he’s a shopkeeper today, and so he has a newsagent in the south side of Glasgow. And growing up, I was one of five children and growing up in an Asian background, but the Scottish culture was there in Glasgow. I was very lucky to have a diversity at home. It was quite traditional outside. I wasn’t restricted in any way. I embraced Scottish culture. I feel Scottish. I am Scottish and I like any child we buy for our parents attention. As one of five, I had two ways of doing that. I could have been an arse and got into trouble, or I could have been like the golden child. And for me, I was the golden child. I was someone that really tried to get my parents attention through academic success, always being the child that did his best, you know, sort of teachers, type of person. And so that was me. I’d go to the shop with my dad, helping me do the best I could

[00:03:37] Be the oldest firm.

[00:03:38] I’m the second oldest. I have an older sister and so I really kind of, you know, really studied hard at school trying to appease my parents, specifically my dad. He didn’t get an education and knew that that’s what he wanted. He wanted us not to go through what he went through a working in the shop. He wanted us to have the best life possible and that was through an education. So I worked hard. I did well. And like any typical Asian family, you’ve got three choices really when it comes to deciding on a career, you’re a doctor or lawyer or a failure. And I always wanted to kind of stand out. Stick out, do something different. So I did dentistry. And it’s as simple as that. I did dentistry because it wasn’t medicine, and I went to dental school and there was a quite a few of us in my class. At school, we all went to classical dental school and dentistry was fun. It was really good fun.

[00:04:37] Yeah. What was it like growing up? Did you grow up in the shop? Did you live near the shop at the back of the shop above the shop? Were you in there? Do you do cash and carry the stock with serving customers? Talk to me about the shopkeeper life.

[00:04:51] So my dad owned the shop with another gentleman to my uncle and to develop partnerships with the demand and the family wasn’t as high. Mm-hmm. But the profound memories are Friday. I’d finished school and my dad had come home for a lunch break. The shop was about half an hour, 40 minutes away, and then we drive to Airdrie, Coatbridge and Lanarkshire, just outside Glasgow. And I remember getting stuck in traffic on the Kingston Bridge. I remember going to the shop. It’d be cold and my job on a Friday afternoon evening was to pack. Potatoes into bags into £3, £5, £7 bags, and we used to pack washed and dirty potatoes, and I remember growing up I couldn’t lift the bag of potatoes, I think maybe 20 kilos. Then as I got older, I could start to lift and go into the store room next door and bring these bags of potatoes. So that’s my strongest memory. And my dad never told me we’re going to make 10 10 big bags and I’m going to put them into packs. I just they just kept coming. They just kept coming. And that’s my memory of that early life working in the shop. And then the other really strong memory I have is Christmas time. It was an off licence, packing the van with tenants we couldn’t export Buckfast and hooch. All these alcopops were coming in to Kreis and then unloading them into the store warehouse, packing them up. I mean, I brewed our national drink is just piling them up, taking them from one side of the shop to the other delivering leaflets. That’s my memories of growing up.

[00:06:30] The shop found it so, so sorry to interrupt you, mate. But you know, obviously that probably taught you consistency and hard work and all that. But talking to Prav and Kailash, whose dad also owned a shop, both of them put most of their success down to that shop and the relationships that, you know, they had to be able to talk to different types of people. And both of them are amazing speakers. Now when you when you talk to them and you know, it’s surprised me that a bit, did you did you have that experience too? Do you feel like, you know, you can connect with people more because you have to connect with the whole public?

[00:07:08] Absolutely. From a young age eight, nine, you’re behind the counter, you’re you’re talking to people and then naturally, people come in and customers come in and they want to speak to you. Who are you? Whose son are you? And you start to build a rapport and its regular customers. One thing leads to another, and absolutely, it’s probably the earliest experience to sort of communication relationship building that I had. But then growing up, I had that connexion and still working in the shop. To this day, I still have to cover my dad at the shop and I do it reluctantly, but I have to cover him at the shop. Sometimes it’s life, it’s just the way it is, and he appreciates it. And so I absolutely have no problem doing that. But then sort of in an early age, I always had a job. So not just the sharp end of people around. I worked at next. I worked at TJ Hughes, I worked at the bank, I worked at KFC and it’s working in teams with people from different environments that exposes you to building that confidence and building relationships and getting on with people. And I’ve always felt that one of my strongest qualities as being a people person and being able to adapt and get on with people. And it’s fortunate. It’s just my experience and my environment has allowed me to do that. But then I would say, Yeah, I’ve got a foundation there. But dentistry was good and it was fine. But it was really in medical school where I really learnt more about psychology and empathy through the training through medical school, which changed everything. And that allowed me to really take my communication skills and understanding and listening ability to another level

[00:09:01] And double qualify.

[00:09:03] Yeah. So I did dentistry and qualified in 2005 and then did medicine in Liverpool 2008 to 2012. So I really do my grind of an education, but it was like I finished dental school and I went into hospital. Max Max and I saw these like individuals that I aspire to be like, and I was like, I want to be like them what I need to do. And I was always like continuous pushing myself, What can I do next? What’s next? So the next natural course was medicine. So I went to Liverpool, moved away for years in Liverpool, and then I came back up to Scotland to do host jobs. And then at that point I had to make a decision. They go and follow the route as an exemplary surgeon or do I come out and go into practise and develop as a surgical dentist or surgery sedation implant industry and an opportunity arose? I was able to invest and get involved in a Dental group and a partnership that were growing, and that’s what I did and the best decision I ever made.

[00:10:06] How did the two compare medicine? Dentistry is courses.

[00:10:10] I don’t have a mate. I’m not a fan of medicine, as in I just it’s just tough. It’s just tough. It’s just chews you up and throws you out and a wee. But it’s different because, you know, I was 30 year old as a junior doctor and an environment is challenging. I think for me, it’s hard to really give an opinion on medicine. It’s just I was glad to get out and the thought of because during this pandemic, I got my registration back. So I’ve got like partly registered on the GMC. I’ve never come off the register. And then during the pandemic, I was allowed to go back on and if I was required, I would have. I would have gone in. No problem. However, if I was basically to put it, if I couldn’t work as a dentist, I wouldn’t go back to medicine the way it’s it’s just it’s just tough.

[00:11:05] Would you would you rather buy got fifty five pound sacks of potatoes into five pound bags?

[00:11:12] I I wouldn’t do that, but I would rather open a coffee shop. Yeah, yeah. I’d like to see our people coffee. I like the smell. I like the taste. And I like the conversation, background, music and just smile.

[00:11:29] Were you actually you actually considering staying on as a hospital max fac?

[00:11:34] I did medicine because I want I wanted to improve, and I want I had this ambition for more knowledge. I didn’t do medicine to become a maxillofacial surgeon. I just wanted that degree and part of me, probably from early childhood and the environment and the culture I grew up obviously had an influence that there was something attached to being a doctor or qualifying as a medick. And I was like, Well, I’ve done that cool on my two years as a junior doctor. Yeah, cool. I’ve got that. Got that badge. What’s next? And that’s what I’ve discovered about myself because I’ve been on a journey of self-awareness is that I’m an individual that looks good, right? Cool. I’ve done that. What’s next? So did dentistry cool? What’s next? I did medicine to the doctor. What’s next? Then oral surgery? That’s cool. What’s next? The implants? Cool. What’s next? Then more complex implants. Cool. Great. What’s next? Start teaching this stuff OK. Yeah. Cool. And now it’s like, What’s next? What’s next? And so I really look at my life, and I think we should look at life as chapters.

[00:12:40] I don’t believe in retirement and it’s like it’s chapters, and I’m always looking for the next chapter in my life. What am I going to do and lay off off? We were chatting about. I’d hate to go to get sixty six, five seven think go, yeah, I was a dentist for 40 years. I’d like to look back in my life and go, Yeah, I was in. I did dentistry and I loved it and I did that and I did the best and then I did medicine, and I did that for a while and and I still use my medical training, so I’m so glad that I’ve done it. There’s no regrets. And then now, presently, most of my work is training and education mentoring. Amazing. I love it. I see myself as a teacher, as an educator. It’s so satisfying. But I can’t be doing this for the next 10 to 20 years. I have to see what’s next. And I’m just always looking to discover what that next step will be. And I’m open. I’m really open to trying things, seeing what happens.

[00:13:35] I find that it’s kind of the the the advantages of that mindset are kind of clear, right, because you’re constantly improving. I’m quite interested in what’s the disadvantages of that mindset. I mean, are you someone who gets bored easily?

[00:13:51] You, it’s not bored. It’s like, like, I don’t feel like I’ve achieved anything. You don’t feel like this is enough. It’s not. Yes.

[00:14:01] You didn’t find peace and contentment.

[00:14:04] No. Like, I’m content. I’m very fortunate. And you know, I’m a big believer in practising gratitude that I am content. I’m happy. But inside there’s a niche. There’s a coin like, do something else, what next? And this is not enough. Like, I can’t. I can’t be satisfied to the point where I was in a partnership and Dental Dental practises. But I’ve never been like an entrepreneur by myself, so I was like, Well, OK, I’ll buy my partner and practise. I would write in Edinburgh right till now. My job is, can I turn it into that one two million pound business turnover business within the next twenty four months? And I want to push myself, set targets and go, Can I do this? And I’ve done it. Yeah, I did it right. What’s next? And it’s like looking back to I don’t know if you follow Tim Grover when he talks about Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, the all time greats of basketball. They were never satisfied. They got the rank and then they were like, OK, next, next. They were never satisfied. And I don’t know if I just because I’m around this environment and I’m fortunate. But for me, it’s like, Cool, what’s next? You had a good year. What’s next?

[00:15:19] Yeah, but but you know, when I said this advance is like, I know a bunch of super successful people who don’t see their families at all. And so, you know, that obsession mindset that you’re kind of putting out. There’s always a negative to to to to these positives. Just just the example that we were talking off air and you were saying your wife’s very understanding and all that, which is amazing. Someone who, you know, lets you get on and do all the things you dream of doing. But did you find another like a competitive mindset that sometimes hurts, you know, something like that? Because I love it. It’s beautiful. And as a positive person, you probably not very confident, comfortable talking about negatives the way I’m framing it.

[00:16:04] How do you balance everything and you don’t you? It’s impossible. You never balance it. It’s going one way or the other, and something has to give. And naturally, it’s family life. But then you also have to remember I didn’t see my dad much. Yeah, I didn’t see my dad. You know, he got up five o’clock in the morning and he’d come home at 10:00 at night. Young kids, we didn’t see my dad much. And so that feels normal. It feels normal. It really does feel normal. And I’m like, I try to do the best for my children, give them like as my dad worked hard for us to give us everything that we know, never wanting for anything. He sacrificed his well-being and everything in his life to give us the best. I’m like, Well, I’m just being the team. And we turned out OK. I’m one of five. There’s two teachers, two teachers, a lawyer and another dentist. And we’re not we’re not perfect like a lot of we’re not far from it, but we’re OK. We’re OK.

[00:17:06] I’ve got I’ve got a question for you, Fran. What do you think? Is that your children want?

[00:17:14] So my kids naturally want my time. Yeah, but so this this is and I’m open, I to talk about it, but I also have to think about who I am as a person and we need to be the person I am. I need to be allowed to do the things that I need to do for my own sanity, my own well-being, like I need to get up early, I need to run. And that’s I don’t. I need to do it like my wife got. She was unwell recently and she was in hospital and she was like, You calling me and you’re out for a run? I was like, Yeah, but for me to be the father, for me, to be the husband that you need, I need to be in the right place to. I need to be able to push myself in this work and do this and do this and be able to travel abroad, abroad to teach to do these courses, get on Zoom and chat to this. I need to be able to do this. If I don’t do these things or restrict myself, then I’m I’m going to hurt myself. So, yeah, we’re not perfect.

[00:18:15] But no, no, no, I I’ve been in that situation where, you know, I’ve done the last, what, 15 years, 12 to 18 hours a day, six to seven days a week. And the story or the narrative I’ve been telling myself is, I’m doing it for them, OK, I’m doing it to give them a better life. I’m doing it to give them a better future. But actually, if I look inwards, yeah, it’s mostly for me.

[00:18:44] So I completely agree. Prav Yes, I’m doing it for them, for them, but ultimately I’m doing it for myself. I am completely honest with myself. This is for me. I need to run and I need to do all this.

[00:18:57] Yeah. And so I asked, I asked my daughter because we always talk about birthdays that come up now. My birthday was on Christmas Eve, and I’ve just had an intense sort of three or four months of work where I’ve withdrawn from family life, right? And so it was just my my birthday and then my my youngest daughter is on Valentine’s Day, right? So she’s now giddy because daddy’s birthday is over and her birthday comes next. So we’ll have these conversations and I say, So how many? What do you want for your birthday? What would you dream up your your dream day? What do you want for your birthday? I said, Dream anything you want. And she goes, Daddy, all I want for my birthday is loss of daddy time. That was it. No toys. No presents nothing. Lots of daddy. So, yeah. And that kind of hits home that, you know, sometimes you do have this self-talk right where you kind of convince yourself you try and justify to your partner, your wife, whatever. I’m doing it for you guys. Yeah, we’re in fact of this part of it. You’re doing it for your own self progression, your own ego, whatever it is. Yeah, that the benefit is that you give those people who’ve allowed you to sacrifice that a better life.

[00:20:16] I think I think there’s teaching in it as well, though. Yeah, there’s certainly an example, you know, of course. Of course, it’s not just, you know, let’s say you do your next big deal and the million dollars drops in your lap. Okay? You can give that to your kids and and they can split it between them, and they might be able to do something they couldn’t do before or whatever. Yeah. But I think watching dad make some sacrifices to be the best is a great lesson to learn for a kid in the same way as and watched his dad make sacrifices. Absolutely. In his own way right back in the day to make that shot work, you know, he learnt lessons that have now got him sticking implants through the sinus. You said, you said trans sinus. I was like, Sure, that just music comes near the sinus. And then I watch the thing and it goes through the sinus and comes out in the nose. Yeah. Blew me away, man. I didn’t realise that was a thing. Let’s let’s move on, buddy. So you did your medicine, did your dentistry, did you the other way around? What was the first job you did? Were you thinking straight away? I’m going to be doing implants. Was that was that the plan?

[00:21:33] So, so after after medicine or finishing as a junior doctor? Naturally, all my work and training had been around surgical dentistry. So taking the first step and you just don’t start and implants. So it was very much surgical dentistry along with surgical dentistry. It’s a very symbiotic relationship. Naturally, a lot of sedation because that’s when I was very comfortable. So I was looking after the oral surgery services for the practise group. And then I did a lot of kind of visiting sedation work, really built up a network because I was visiting so many different practises as a visiting sedation doctor. And then naturally. I suppose the progression as you look to improve, improve and try new things and improve your financial situation, financial situation is you start to get into dental implants or from single multiple, more complex implant work bone grafting. It was a natural progression over years, over a different mentors, different courses and a lot of travel. And sort of if I look back, I left medical training in 2000 2014. It’s been a seven year journey to get to where I am now, but I would say that it’s been pretty rapid. I to you know, I’m very fortunate I’m doing a high level of implant dentistry, and it’s really thanks to the environment I’ve been around and the people that have helped me. I’m here because of them and the exposure I’ve been there.

[00:23:07] So who are some of those mentors

[00:23:09] Who were the mentors? Yeah. Oh, so first of all, my business partner is Abbott Fakir, and he’s well known implant dentist, former ADA president. So I was very fortunate. It was his interest in his interest to treat me as an implant Dental. So that was great. So I got that first exposure and then on a on a random and life, you know, it just just shows you it’s important to go out there, put yourself out there, meet people who chat. So I was in this implant course in South Africa, and I’m a colleague called George and we hit it off. And when we came back, he allowed me to come and visit him. He put a lot of time. Effort to treat me really allowed me to develop my skills as an adult, don’t a complex implant surgeons who are doing a lot of the work. And he spent a lot of time, effort, no charge, which I’m forever grateful for, and that those two individuals are bad initially and then George have been instrumental. And then obviously, there are so many other people that have directly or indirectly influenced my implant career. And to this day, I feel I’m influenced by the clinicians I teach and mentor and hopefully vice versa, because we’re always learning. It’s always a journey. I never feel that it’s complete. It’s it’s great. It’s not. It’s always constantly learning, trying to get better or perfect the art.

[00:24:41] And then how did you get into teach him first, and I think it was around the sort of lockdown COVID time that you you definitely broke out into the social scene and I didn’t know who you were before then, but then all of a sudden you were on every feed that I was seeing and doing these, you know, webinars and little snippets of content and stuff like that. So talk us about how that came about.

[00:25:05] So I suppose. I remember when the pandemic or lockdown happened, I remember being in my surgery in Edinburgh and being scared for my family, for the business. The patients we had to close up and one mentor told me there’s a gift in every situation and it’s our job to find that gift. And for me, I thought I sat at home just where I am now because I turned my morphed into an office. What can I do now? You know, this is my time to shine, or I can just sort of recluse into a ball and just do nothing. And for me? Covid was the biggest gift because it allowed me to. Connect with so many people and make that decision, I’m going to put what I know and help try to help as many people as I can, and really, I sort of developed a real ambition and target to educate and make an impact. And I knew that it doesn’t matter how good an implant surgeon I am or how many fill arches are limited by my two hands and if I want to have a bigger impact as possible. Well, there has to be education, so there’s only so many people I can rehabilitate with by myself. Only so many cases I can do a year. But if I can teach one hundred dentists a year to predictably reproduce good quality for large implant treatment, then my impact is bigger. And so starting the journey to for me to just this drive this obsession with impact, and that’s where there is now, where I want to have a big a bigger impact as possible, and that can only happen through education, training and mentoring.

[00:26:55] Tell me about how you got to doing this complex stuff, I mean, was it because of those, those mentors that you had?

[00:27:02] I suppose it is. It absolutely directly related to the mentors. It’s also my background and experience in maxillofacial. My natural environment was the first open job in U.S. it opened out tone being cut free flaps. So I was very comfortable with big surgery and also, I suppose that inner drive to just keep pushing, pushing to the pinnacle or to the extreme of the of the speciality to it. All these three things combined then drives you into a certain area. And yeah, I’ve been very fortunate to. I do. Yeah, conventional implants and then ekstrom implants are put in implants in less conventional areas because it’s just from an anatomical point of view. I’m very comfortable exposing those areas and certainly implants into them because I’ve had that exposure from early on.

[00:27:55] So talk us through. I mean, I watched I watched a video, but talk, talk, talk us through as well as you can without showing it the process of, I mean, I saw one where you’d printed off the maxilla, but then you weren’t using a guide. A surgical guide for the for the drill was, is that because you could see perfectly because you opened everything up so much?

[00:28:16] Yeah, absolutely. So I’m a big believer in access. Good visualisation. The whole process starts at, you know, pre-planning to when I’m working with clinicians, it’s about trying to get them to really visualise the whole process in their head. And so we print out 3D models so they can do a rehearsal of the surgery beforehand. It’s very much like because one of your guests on a previous podcast and I really resonated with it was the Samson sisters talked about The Queen’s Gambit and how I’ve gotten slides in the band, and she just sees things before and the chess pieces is moving in the sky. Honestly, that’s what I try to do in front of me. I see the jaw. It opens up in front of me and I can see every single step that I’m trying to make, and I want to try to give that to another clinician. And because that’s just the easiest way to do it, you’ve got to try to get the picture in your head and see everything in front of you. And so that’s that’s a process. You’ve got to have the knowledge the skill comes, but you’ve got to have the knowledge and the theory behind a specific technique. Then you have to have the radiographic imaging to start to begin the visualisation process and then a 3D model and surgical rehearsal really works. And it’s that and then it’s practise like anything is practise, practise, practise and knowing that you may feel and it’s not unusual to feel and have problems and failures, you just need to overcome them. And it’s that ability to overcome failure when you’re doing this type of work, which allows you to push on. And it’s the resilience.

[00:30:01] I think something you said on on on one of those things was, you said it’s simple surgery in a complicated area. Yeah. And it’s very true. It kind of resonated with me because in the end, what is an implant? You drill a hole and stick the implant, right? But in your particular field, you know, with the terrible territory and the just the longer ones that you’re using, it’s all about the angulation. There’s no second chance.

[00:30:26] But is there a lot at the time? There’s not a second chance. Absolutely. And it’s a really good observation, but it is. It’s simple surgery in a complex territory, but it’s important to for me, especially as someone that’s educating. I got, I got I have to be able to transfer that simplicity or break it down to the essence of a process and give it to someone I can’t put put it to them in a complex manner, although they won’t get it or they’ll be put off by it. But it’s my responsibility and my duty to simplify the whole treatment process. And if I can’t simplify it, that’s my that’s a deficiency in my knowledge. And so I always start off when I’m teaching people, this is simple. If I can do it, you can do it. Never think you can’t do this because ultimately surgical dentistry, and that’s all I can talk about. It comes down to self-confidence and the belief in yourself. That’s what fundamentals is belief and confidence and mindset. That’s finding your footing, having to do.

[00:31:32] You’re finding actually having to teach that as much as you’re having to teach the clinical side.

[00:31:37] Yeah. And hence I wrote the book. Well, it’s course, I genuinely believe that. A lot of what we do comes down to how we think of ourselves, our belief, our confidence, our mindset, so it can be any, any part of clinical medicine, dentistry, cosmetic implants, whatever. We’ve got to have the belief in ourselves. We’ve got to have the confidence. We’ve got to have a growth mindset. And you will you’ll always win if you keep at it, you’ll always win. I don’t think that’s what sad is. I had to discover that for myself. I guess I wasn’t taught about this at Dental School. Yeah.

[00:32:22] Yes, I was going to ask that question. Was there a time where you weren’t so driven and did you start on this path of sort of you’re going to have to call it self-development sort of path.

[00:32:31] I’ve always been driven and then I’ve met certain people that have supercharged me a lot, something in me that’s that’s phenomenal. And then, you know, it’s no one sees you the average of the five people around you. I’m very conscious of surrounding myself with the best possible people that left me up. I try to stay away from negativity or people are just going to bring me down, and I’m in a fortunate position at this moment in time. And so, yeah, the drive is greater than ever. And sometimes it’s like, Wow, you know why you’re not you’re not driven in your article. Why are you still driving? No, why? Like, you’re financially better now, but your drive greater? And I suppose I don’t know if you’ve read Napoleon Hill think and grow rich. Something happens in the fourth decade of your life. I’m not there. I’m just about to enter the fourth decade of my life. But something happens in the fourth decade of life. Don’t know what it is, chemically what. But I’m more driven and hungry than ever before, so I’m just embracing that and I’m not resisting it. I’m going with the flow. I’m trying to balance it all, obviously with family life, personal everything. Two things don’t get carried away naturally, but I’m riding the wave.

[00:33:51] For him, if I’m an average implant dentist who just sticks the ones and twos in here and there, and I want to start doing the full act stuff, how do I go about like, you know, turn up to a one day to day six month course? I mean, I’ve I’ve seen what you’ve done with one of my clients. So I know that when he started with you, he placed his first full match with you. Well, I think he assisted you and then almost like you, you took your unchained him right and let him loose on his own progressively. Is that a standard pathway for someone to go under when they want to go for him and increase their confidence to go from place in a single? You know, doing them confidently to then say, Right, OK, now we’re going to go full out. We’re going to go immediate. Whatever delayed loading or longer implants? Yeah. Is that the standard approach where you’ve got someone who is sort of steering them in that direction because I don’t see too many mentors and training trainers bouncing it up and down the motorway one day and leaves next day in Northwich, next day in Glasgow, next day in Edinburgh, the next day in Manchester. Do you know what I mean? Literally all over the place? Is that quite unique in the way you operate in terms of the way you hand off and train dentists to progress to the next level?

[00:35:13] I suppose it’s it’s probably two things that coincide with each other. One is I’ll just work as hard as I need to outwork anybody. I love work. It’s everything to me. The work to be nimble. When someone trusts me with their education, it’s a huge responsibility. It means the world to me that someone’s actually paid me to go right and me signed up to my programme and say, Yep, fair hand, I trust you to teach me for large. It’s humbling. So it doesn’t matter what it takes. You know, after fly, you have to stay two nights, whatever. So I travel a lot, and that’s just a journey that I’m in in terms of the training side of things. When anybody comes to join the programme, it’s quite a I feel it’s unique. You can’t just join the programme. Now I need the right people, because it’s the community that makes it what it is. And so when they want to join the programme, I have a Zoom call with them. And if we’re an hour, an hour and a half, I need to get to know them. I need to know what their background is, where they are, where do they want to get to because they may not be the right person and I refuse people entry into my programme. And it’s not because it’s exclusive. It’s not. It’s just not for them. Maybe at this moment in time and I give them the advice that this is what they should be doing.

[00:36:30] So the question is, who’s the ideal candidate or the individual to join a programme to really excel in a specific area with an implant industry? I want people that have experience in implant dentistry and they see themselves niching into just implant dentistry. You know, I I don’t have any kind of ownership over. And then or a guardian or any, yeah, people on me think, Oh yeah, I do a lot of it fine, but I’m just giving my opinion and I feel that when you’re doing this level of work, you have to devote the time and effort and give it the respect. And that’s all I ask what I I devote all my time to this. So I want people that respect it. And what I look for is people that see themselves developing into an implant dentist, a surgical dentist with a with a a career that is focussed in that aspect of dentistry. And that’s all. And so I want individuals that are saying to me, if I’ve started implants have done a basic course and I’m ready to take it to the next level. I’m in the right place. I’m in the environment where the work is going to come in and I’m willing to do whatever it takes. Then you can join my programme. Because like I said, you know, I want to be around people that are motivated and hungry, and because I both of them, it forces me to be better.

[00:37:58] Can you spot talent? So, you know, when when they come on your course or whatever? Can you just sort of pick someone out and say they’re going to be a great implant surgeon? They’re going to be middle? Is that something you can just pick up?

[00:38:13] I think what you can pick up is the is the mindset, the hunger. Your client. I mean, as you know what he’s done with his business, he’s hungry. He’s got he’s just switched on. He’s got the right mindset, the skill that can be learnt. You know, maybe it takes five cases to to to start developing any kind of competency, but someone who maybe takes 10. But I’m very clear it’s we’re all on our own journey. Stay in your lane. Forget the outside noise. You might need five pieces you might need. 10 is irrelevant, but I’m here to support you. That’s it. And it might be two or three. And when I let them go and start doing cases independently, it’s in a very structured manner. So we’ll do virtual planning and we’ll go through it. And it’s a very specific case that they would be allowed to do independently. And then we start building from that. And it’s just a very step wise process and there’s a lot of trust. They have to trust me and I have to trust them. And I’ve had situations where commissions have independently done a case and I’m like, What the like? I’m you’re, you know, you’re on the programme. There’s no charge. Call me would get on Zoom or plan the case. We’ll discuss it. We’ll discuss if it’s appropriate. We’ll discuss the planning. But you’ve just went rogue. I say that’s not on. That’s not acceptable. There is like what was going through your head for you to think or just. The mind it’s mind boggling, because I’m here to help you support your day to you and you’ve not asked, do you think you don’t need help? We all need help. I look to the people that I work with in my community to get reinforcement that what I’m doing is right, that they agree with what I’m suggesting or treatment plans. I don’t think I’m right all the time, far from it. Nobody is beyond having some sort of check in terms of what we’re doing. But you know, it’s a process and we make mistakes and it’s important to learn from them.

[00:40:18] Brandon, what about the mindset of switching from regular dentistry to this sort of high ticket dentistry? Because, you know, at the end of the day, I bet there’s plenty of people thinking, you know, in my practise, there aren’t the patients for this kind of dentistry. Is that is that a thing?

[00:40:39] So I don’t I don’t believe that’s true. I think the patients are everywhere. There’s an abundance of patients. It’s if you mark it correctly. If you’re in the right environment, the practise supports your development, then there’s an abundance of patients so that that doesn’t exist in terms of the sort of high ticket. I’ve never looked at it as high ticket law Typekit. I don’t know. For me, I do this work because it’s impactful. It changes lives. I do believe

[00:41:06] You touched on marketing, you touched on marketing. So you know, you’ve got you’ve got to get the patients. So give us some hints on that subject.

[00:41:15] I suppose I mean, I’m no, I’m no Martin, but I suppose it’s sort of building your brand. I suppose it starts with, you know, if you’re a practise principle, it’s a lot easier because you’ve got so much more control. You can control the marketing, you can control the team, you can adjust the prices to get the patient to do a number of cases at cost price. You’ve got relationships with patients, etcetera. Apart from that, it’s a big part of it because so often the discussion with clinicians as they joined the programme is Are you in in an environment that’s going to support your development and growth and implant dentistry? If you’re not, you need to move. If you’re don’t one place, it’s going to be hard. Look, I I worked in my group for practises. I worked all over. I travelled, did clinics in in Yorkshire everywhere to build them my experience because ultimately developing is all about practise. And as a practise comes the self-belief, the confidence comes and everything grows with doing more and more numbers. And you need to be in a place where you’re doing this work on a regular basis. Otherwise, it’s a skill that you just will not be able to refine. And I mean, my implant dentistry has gone to a whole different level in the last sort of two years. It’s because I am doing so much. The only reason I’m doing this volume of work is I’m prepared to travel, and I have over a hundred clinicians on my training programme that need mentoring from me. And so I do a lot of this work. But would I get this level of work being a practitioner in Glasgow? Not a chance. Not a chance.

[00:42:51] Yeah. So, I mean, the and this this hundred people, if they only come around in the last since since COVID,

[00:42:58] Yes, I’ve got I’ve got about 100 conditions on my theological training programme and then I’ve got about 40 on my starter and flight training programme. But yeah, Olsen’s since the pandemic.

[00:43:08] That’s beautiful, man. And where did they come from? To talk us through that sort of model,

[00:43:13] I suppose how, however, to initially you have to get yourself out there so you can’t be scared being on social media, trying to build your brand. And I don’t appeal to everybody, but I appeal to some people and those people reach out to you. And I was fortunate. Obviously, I had some exposure to teaching and a network prior to COVID. And so I had some people that obviously knew about me. And then it’s just word of mouth, word of mouth. When you sort of overdeliver on a promise, word of mouth is an amazing thing. And then it’s clear when I go around and I help people and then they get the results and it’s just like complete devotion to their development. That’s all I care about. You know, when people come onto my programme, my whole focus is about them doing this work independently. That’s all I care about. That’s the goal. It’s not. I want them to do this. No, it’s like, how can I get you working independently? Because it’s like, next, because I’m one person, there’s only so many people I can help. And I’ve got a lot of people that I want to help, so I need people on. The programme switched on good getting through the programme, listening to the advice, get in the cases, upskilling, practising and working independently, and then trying to build a network of mentors and build a real community where we’re supporting each other to growth. Because, you know, for the real benefit of this whole community for me has been when you teach people you get better, you’re forced to get better, for sure. That’s why I love teaching because it forces me to be better. But we also learn better in a community. So we’ve got a WhatsApp group and we we’ve we’ve got each other’s back. That’s so important to me. We have to be able to drop everything and help the help. The next person doesn’t matter. We’re the community. We’re a family. We have to look after each other, whatever we need. And and that’s the kind of ethos of the group.

[00:45:16] I think the lovely part about that is that dentistry has always been that way. Historically, you know, we were we were apprentices originally and, you know, learning from each other, such an undervalued sort of thing these days. I think people want to just get letters after their name, don’t they? Let’s move on to darker days. You know, this is high risk work, which is, I guess, a lot of people don’t do it because it’s high risk work. Can you think of a situation where things went badly wrong or patient management went wrong? Or some, some some situation that someone else can can learn from? Let’s start clinically and then secondary. Ever think about something in mentoring where it went wrong?

[00:46:03] So it’s was from clinical. Every important dentist has been there where you’ve tried and tried and it’s not worked and things have not gone to plan and and the communication hasn’t been there with the patient. And there’s just been a mismatch of what you were hoping to deliver and what the patient was expecting. And I think the key for me is I don’t want to be in those situations because they really do affect me. They keep me up at night and I want to. So I suppose looking at two situations once I used to. When I started off, I used to do a lot of orthodontic oral surgery and I used to do canine exposures and I left little cotton wool all under the pallet. And the patient came back and four weeks later there was a swelling and I was like, Well, and I don’t know what’s going on. Give antibiotics and stuff. And then maybe a couple of weeks later, the mom came back and this was in Edinburgh, and she’s like, This came out and I’ve been to the orthodontist. And they said to me, that’s a cotton wool rule, and that should be left behind. Did your heart sink? Yeah. Heart sank, and I was younger, much younger then, and the experience wasn’t there. And I don’t know how I reacted, but it affected me, everything actually affects me a lot. I get really affected by failure or whatnot.

[00:47:30] But what did you do?

[00:47:33] I just say sorry, that was. It couldn’t do anything else. It was done. And she did, did she? No, nothing. Nothing. She just was unhappy. And that was it. No, nothing came of it. Thank God. Then more recently, three or four years ago, I had another gentleman. He just wasn’t happy. I had a number of them. Platinum repeated failures of implants. I just said, you know, I can’t give him his money back. But he was just a real difficult patient. Grumpy, never happy. But I’m always open. I don’t. I don’t fight. I don’t resist. I’m like, Sorry, my hands up money back. That’s it. And I don’t. I just try to move on because these failures or difficulties are far few between. And what I would say and what I implore with clinicians wanting to join and start implant dentistry, it’s really flipping. Forgiving implant dentistry is really flipping, forgiving. Implant work and the work, the majority of time, and if you stick to some basic principles, it’s really relatively easy.

[00:48:36] Look, looking back on those two situations, like the first one. There’s not much you can, I guess, learn from that because it went OK. But the second one, when you reflect on it, is there something you could have done differently from the management side? I mean, you know, there are cases where implants don’t don’t integrate right in patients.

[00:48:54] This this particular gentleman kind of elderly people disease. It was an over Dental case. So I took out the teeth and moved the ball a little bit, putting implants and then give the patient a danger. What I should have done in hindsight is stage the treatment. I’m a big believer as soon as there are any degree of complexity, maybe psychologically from a patient point of view or a patient’s medical history or a challenging case, I love to stage my treatment. So in an ideal world for a lot of the patients that I manage and rehabilitate will take out the teeth adjustable and put the implant to give teeth an idea. Great works, the vast majority of time and the vast majority of patients. It’s appropriate and this is what we do. But it’s the real skill is knowing the patients to slow down treatment, take out the teeth, give them a denture, take them back psychologically. See how the heal, how they respond. It gives you time to build up that relationship with them. And often these patients are often new. Patients are referred patients and you don’t know them. You don’t have that relationship, hence the pretenders historically. And so they’re just presenting any defects and you’re like, Cool. So you don’t want to just jump in and it’s having that experience to know when to slow things down and when you can charge on ahead. And that’s what I’ve really been able to hone over time. And so that’s what I then try to pass on to the clinicians I teach. Sometimes it’s cool to charge on a head. Sometimes you go, Whoa, let’s stop. Let’s take everything step by step and see how the patient responds psychologically and clinically to each step. And so I’d encourage that to anybody and more.

[00:50:37] It’s an excellent point. It’s an excellent point, isn’t it? Because if the patient has no teeth, historically, he hasn’t been looking after his teeth, and now you’re going to put this massively complicated thing in his mouth that he’s got to look after really, really well and differently. And that mindset shift is going to you’ve got to you’ve got to know that that’s there right before going ahead.

[00:51:00] Absolutely. And a lot of especially for large rehabilitation, immediate lord is making the patient aware of exactly what they’re having done. Patients have no idea. And you can explain and explain, but ultimately they have no idea. They don’t unless they’ve seen it in a video on YouTube. And yet some of them do do that. But really, they do. They don’t know what’s going to happen, and they don’t know what to expect. They can’t really relate to what, what’s going to happen, what, what, what they’re going to feel in their mouth. So taking some time to really make sure that they understand that they’re going to have something that can feel different, the speech is going to change. They’re all going be able to eat what they want to eat. Trying to give them the best idea. But for some patients, you can explain all you want them. Just navigate it. And that’s just life. We’re not. We have to accept that things can’t be perfect. We have to do our best. And that’s I go to sleep knowing that I tried my best. And that’s I think that’s ultimately the most important thing that I will always, always try my best. And I’m happy to hold my hands up and say, sometimes I feel, and sometimes I don’t meet the patient’s expectations, but that’s life.

[00:52:12] What about what about mentoring fail? Maybe in your early days when you were mentoring? So I don’t know something. Let me you mentioned the guy who went ahead and did it without calling you.

[00:52:23] And the only reason you showed me the case was because it wasn’t great. So I wouldn’t class that as a mentoring field that was just someone being so broke. I had nothing to do with that, and I said, this is nothing to do with me because there’s a big responsibility on my part when people join the programme and say, Oh yeah, I’m being taught by Farhan and he’s mentoring me. I like, right? But there’s a lot of responsibility and a way it’s good because the what they’re doing is a reflection of my teaching and my ability. But also what they’re doing, if it’s not great quality is a reflection of my ability, my training and me as a clinician. And if there’s anything that I really give a shit about is my reputation. I’ve worked over 20 years to be where I am, and I’m very evident that it can be brought down like a house of cards instantly. So I take a lot of pride and ownership on what I’m putting across there and home, helping other clinicians. Any particular mentoring? No, I’ve not, because I’m very, very careful. I don’t sit in the coffee room, I’m right by their side. I hold their hand and

[00:53:33] Today they today go on to place. Do they, you know, you know what I mean? I’ve see it as a failure on many small make over course that a good chunk of them don’t go on to become composite bonding people. You know, and I see that as a big fail on our part. So does that happen? Do you get people to come on the course, do the one case and then never do case too.

[00:53:56] So I don’t see that’s a feeling a failure because they learn they become more aware of a treatment protocol if they decide it’s not for them, that’s cool. It’s not for them. And maybe sometimes they feel it’s going to be for them. They want to get to that level. When they get exposed to it, they realise, no, it’s not for them or they’re not going to get the the case volume to really upskill. So I wouldn’t see that as as a failure. Yeah. So I would encourage. I think it’s important to be aware of the treatment modality. Maybe you don’t need to be on an extensive year long programme with me and having mentoring, etc. Maybe you can do the more bite size programme now that I have available. But no, no, I would really feel it if there was an issue because I’m right by their side. I don’t let them, you know, just do whatever they want. I’m very conscious. I’m aware, you know, I’m on edge, but I never let them see that I’m on edge when I’m doing a mental case because it’s an amazing feeling, actually. And to be in that position, you’re by someone and you’ve got the knife and you’re like, and you’re like, and they’re know who you are or you’re like, Oh my God, you removed this much more. No, no, no, no, no, no. And the patients they are. So you get the patients aware of that.

[00:55:10] They get mentored, but sometimes they’re sedated. Sometimes they’re not sedated. So, you know, it makes you better. I’m a I’m a much better clinician. It’s took me to a whole different level and like the self-belief that I have in myself to give you an idea. I’ve done about a hundred celebrities mentored over the last year and a bit, and that’s a good number. And when you’ve been able to and immediate lord, a lot of these and someone else has done it and you’ve stood there holding their hand or just directing them, it gives you a lot of confidence. So I’m very confident in my training and and ultimately thankful for the people that taught me this treatment protocol. Then I’m now able to pass it on to other people. It’s a nice feeling. It’s a nice place to be. It’s very fulfilling. You know, I sleep all thinking and then I get messages from people when they’re doing cases independently. You know, thanks, Farhan. I did this case and I feel on top of the world. And one of the best feelings that I experience is that look and that sense of euphoria when the clinician does his first launch. Yeah, I tell you what a great feeling that is for me to see them so happy because I remember the first time I did a full. I still get pretty euphoric when I do surgery now, I get pretty excited. It’s interesting.

[00:56:31] It’s interesting because, you know, people will call that the light bulb moment or whatever. And when you speak to lecturer’s, a lot of them are driven by that light light bulb moment. And you know, why is that? Why is that? Is humanity just goes to prove that humans are corporative animals, you know, at the end of the day?

[00:56:51] Absolutely. I think we want to be able to feel loved. It’s one of our human needs. We feel loved, appreciated, feel that we’re actually making an impact. We’re contributing to a couple of the human needs contribution growth. It takes a lot of these things education does, and that’s what it’s what I’ve been able to haul into. So, yeah, and I encourage anybody, you know, to get better or teach other people. And so when people are on my training programme and I’m lecturing, I want them to engage the process of learning as if they were to teach. And that deepens our emotional attachment to the whole process. It really does. So when you listen to a lecture, put yourself in the frame of mind, right? I’ve got to teach this to three people tomorrow. It changes everything.

[00:57:40] Ok, let’s let’s let’s talk about mentoring and outside of clinical mentoring, so the way the way I saw post who was it was saying, Oh, I called my my mentor friend had a conversation, changed my career. So, you know, that’s very interesting because it’s palpable. You’re you’re sort of enthusiasm for surgical dentistry, you know, that just comes out, but you’ve got

[00:58:05] This other side. Yeah. So that’s a particular clinician who’s who’s a cosmetic clinician. Yeah. Early on, not that I spoke to this clinician. I said, Why are you limiting to yourself? You know, one thing I’m really driven by or obsessed with is I speak to dentists and they limit themselves to earnings and what they do. And they’re like, Oh, and I speak to a lot of Dental, but no and not satisfied. I flippen love dentistry. I love and I’m honoured and privilege that I am a clinician, that I help people and change their lives. And it’s given me such an amazing life and hopefully another 30 40 years. And when I see people not like excited about dentistry or being able to help people, it makes me sad. And I’m like, Why can’t you do that? Why are you not doing that? Why are you not pushing yourself? You could be this. You can be that. How much are you earning? I’m really open. I love asking how much you earn, what, what you want to earn. So what’s stopping you? Why are you not doing that? Why are you not putting yourself out there? You know, why don’t you have these ambitions? Why are you working for someone? Why are you not owning your own practise? So I love that. Why do you want to work for someone? What you can do for yourself, working for someone in the process, you want to get to the point where you work for yourself?

[00:59:22] Well, at the end of those questions, you get to a core situation, a core sort of lack of confidence that you then address that one thing after asking all these questions.

[00:59:33] Ultimately, it comes down to self-belief, competence and a self-awareness of who you are, what makes you the person you are. And when you go on a journey of discovery and trying to really understand who you are and what drives you, it changes everything and that’s being around the right people and consuming the right content constantly. And it’s like exercise. If you if you’re not doing it all the time, you’ll you’ll jump off the wagon. And so I listen to podcasts constantly. I like I’m addicted to self personal development podcasts. I’m addicted to reading books. Learning from other giants in leadership and business. And personal development like obsessed. And that makes me the way I am. I have to be charged and then like, I’m involved in business transformational life coaching circles as as a coach. And if I’m not energetic, enthusiastic and pumped, then what impact am I going to have the people that I’m going to be coaching? That’s not good. So I have to be like, hyped up, ready. Let’s go.

[01:00:45] You said you said you don’t want to be known as just the dentist. And it’s as interesting for someone who’s so in it to say that because I remember asking Andrew Dharwad, you know, like if if I gave him a billion, would he would he would he keep on putting implants in? And so when you say that, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? What do you want to be known as?

[01:01:07] I feel I feel that ultimately again comes down to impact. I don’t think my impact is as big as it could have been. I wouldn’t have reached my potential if I stayed or a stay as a dentist. Ultimately, it’s for me, it’s about trying to achieve my potential. And that’s not. There’s no end point. It’s constantly pushing and being a dentist. I don’t think I’ve fulfilled my potential. I feel there’s so much more to me than just being a clinician. And so in this chapter in my life, it’s education, training and mentoring, and I’m excited to know or learn what the next chapter will be. I’m excited by a lot of things business, entrepreneurship, writing, the corporate world investing. I don’t know what it will be, but I’m open and I’m open to try things. Maybe Prav will give me a job in his marketing agency.

[01:02:02] So when you you talked about two things that really fire you work on, one of them is those light bulb moments or those moments when your mentees do their first full large case and send you those words of gratitude or picture of the case. And then those times when those patients that you treat can bite into an apple for the first time or, you know, function or just go and socialise for the first time in, you know, a decade or two, which is which do you prefer?

[01:02:35] I prefer the dentists being able to work independently as much as I love patients and being able to change lives for me, ultimately, if I’m able to pass on a skill that I have onto another clinician and they are then able to do what I do, get the results that I get, that’s the best feeling in the world and people appreciate that I help them. That’s great. But I don’t want that. I’m not looking for that. It’s great that they say thank you and thank you messages. I’m grateful. But it’s like an internal thing for me that I helped you. I passed on a skill job done next. It’s a really nice feeling. I can’t describe the feeling. It’s just immense.

[01:03:19] And then you touched upon them, which kind of got from the earlier conversations is that you’re are you in the process or want to create mini mes so other mentors within your circle so that you can scale because obviously you’re supporting a hundred now, right? And then what happens when the next hundred come along or so on and so forth? So how how do you scale that?

[01:03:41] So there’s about a hundred in the community, but actively supporting them at this moment in time? That’s far too many. So that’s not how many are actively supporting, but nobody gets. They’re not chopped off the community, it’s a family. But altogether, and more people join such ever growing. But I suppose if like anything, if it’s to be upskilled, there needs to be people that are sort of approved mentors through through through the programme. That’s one aspect. But then I think that’s always challenging and a difficult aspect to develop the programme. Ultimately, what I’d like to do is bring more people in the bottom level, give them the, you know, some of the enthusiasm, the energy I have, but the large and the balls that you can get from doing this type of work. And if you ask me, what would I like to do this year, it’s it’s reach out with the borders of the UK, try to pass the message on a wider field Europe and America and get people really energised around for large and doing that and getting the results that I’ve been able to get. That would be ideal if I sort of just try to focus and try to build a network of clinicians that are mentoring other people.

[01:04:53] Yeah, that’s cool, and I probably will do that. But my focus is to grow another way on a sort of lower level and communicate virtually with them and with the development of AI and VR. I think that’s going to become a much easier as we move forward. We are maybe in virtual worlds we’ll be able to be much closer to each other and engaging with each other to give the best educational experience. The real, yeah, you know, mentoring one on one. That’s that’s that’s the ultimate. But if I just focus on that, that’s limiting my impact. And so there’s only one of me. I also appreciate the young family and the sacrifice that my wife has to make and the children in terms of time. So I can’t continue driving up and down London to the north of Scotland trying to help people. I need to be able to scale the whole process but not have such a. For that to have such an impact on my time. But that’s that’s a big challenge going forward.

[01:06:00] And you talk about your Scottish identity. What does it mean to you? I mean, there’s now all this debate about Scottish nationalism. It’s weird, man, because I every Scot I ever talked to was was probably a bit of a nationalist. And then when it came to the vote, they decided not to break away. What does I mean? You don’t have to get into that, but what is your Scottish identity mean? What is being a Mancunian mean to you?

[01:06:31] So being Scottish and being identifying as being Scottish means everything to me. I mean, if you think about my wife is from Yorkshire and I remember, you know, Typekit coming to a time when the kids were nearly coming out. I was like, You’re not leaving. My kids need to be born in Scotland. And I think the biggest thing is that although I’m from an Asian background, I’ve never, ever felt that I’m not Scottish or different. I’ve always identified as being Scottish first and then Pakistani background origin second. So it means the absolute world world to me that I am Scottish. And I think the other thing is it’s it’s had such an influence on my life, the fact that I’m Asian and Scottish, and it makes me stand out and different when I’m out and about in England, working or further afield, communicating with people. And that accent, the sort of culture that I’m familiar with and associate with in terms of Scottishness and me has always helped me. So it’s just everything about it is positive seeing that I wasn’t in favour of independence and I’m all for United, all the United Nations team together, so I wouldn’t be voting for independence if and when it comes up a for another vote.

[01:07:59] I have to try and be completely silent during this conversation for him, because the questions are so it’s a bit odd for me because I can’t interject, but that was good. That was good. So tell us about the name of your book. What is about? Where can we get it?

[01:08:17] So the book is called Being Unstoppable The Mindset of a Great Clinician. And there’s that old saying that that when you’re ready, the teacher appears and who it was that time for me where I failed, I had time to sit down and write and someone just randomly came about and helped me do that. It’s a book that I’ve been able to put together. It’s a good three or four months to sort of bring it all together, but a year for me to sort of edit and and get it self-published. Or it’s sort of looking back 20 years of my professional experience in dentistry and medicine and this generation of what I think constitutes a great commission beyond titles, formal education and technical skills. I’ve sort of looked at through through the book mindset, confidence, leadership and other things, which I feel are sometimes overlooked, but I feel are really important stepping stones that we need as clinicians to really progress and further ourselves. So the whole purpose of the book was maybe it would have an impact. Maybe I could inspire people in some way that, you know, sort of reflecting on my career, and I only really became aware of a lot of this stuff in the last sort of five years, although I was progressing well and I thought I was quite driven.

[01:09:39] But when I really delved into the personal development side of things and mindset, I’ve certainly been able to supercharge my career a lot more. And so if I just put that that into writing and I can get it out there, then you know, I’m sort of impacting as many people as possible. And so that’s what the book’s about. You can buy on Amazon and download it on Kindle. So it’s available now from Amazon. Not not all good bookstores, just Amazon and Kindle and all the profits of the book go to charity. And the purpose there is that I’m hoping to build a Dental clinic in Kashmir. I’m fortunate I’m a trustee of Dental Aid Network and we are looking to build a Dental clinic in Kashmir and I’m hoping to raise £50000. It means I have to sail around nine or ten thousand copies of the book and I’m up to about a thousand. So I’ve got a bit to go, but I’m determined

[01:10:38] Just just 10 times. Obviously, this isn’t going to make it through, but it’s like doing a doing a 10 mile run and you’re a mile in May. You just got nine miles to go. You’ll get that body. And where did you drive come from? And I don’t know why always put this or where does your drive come from? And do you have more over time?

[01:11:01] So really, I feel my drive comes from my father and constantly him pushing me growing up to study hard, work hard, not end up like him working in the shop 18 hours a day. And it was constant daily reminders. You don’t want to end up working in the shop. It was cold. It’s horrible. My hands, it’s a hard graft. And then after a while, he I remember when I got to, I got my higher grades and I got into Dental school. He never said it again, and I was and it didn’t dawn on me for a while. My parents are pushing me any more. They just let me go. But because it was so ingrained in me growing up, it’s it’s just continued. It’s become a ritual. It’s a habit now that I just keep pushing myself, pushing myself. And I think a lot of that is also that I know this is what my dad wants me to do. Just keep pushing myself to be better. And I like to achieve things and then tell them about their achievements. And that’s from, you know, sort of getting the degrees, getting a publication, writing a book, getting myself into a magazine. Even what I’m earning my earnings are going up. The fact that I’ve got a practise, all these little things that I do go to my dad and because I really feel that maybe, you know, he he would have loved the opportunity of an education and a life as a as a doctor, as a clinician, helping people. And he never really had that opportunity.

[01:12:38] And so maybe he can gain a little bit of that joy satisfaction through what I’m doing for myself. And so that does really push me, and the drive is quite interesting. You know, you ask, is that drive getting greater? So I’m 40 this year and I feel in the in the last two to three years, my drive has really notched up a number of levels, not one level, but a number of levels. I don’t know exactly why that’s happened to me or why I feel that way, but I feel more driven than I’ve ever driven. I mean, there’s the book Napoleon Hill thinking grow rich and it talks about our fourth decade of life where we really do come of age. And is that something significant and significant about being 40? Probably not. It’s just you’ve developed. You’ve got that experience and practise and you start to think halfway through life, potentially. And what have I done? And you start to question a lot of things. So maybe that definitely has a part to play in it, but I’m more driven than ever and more focussed on being as productive. I value my own time more than I’ve ever valued my time and and I really do think it’s important where I’m spending my time and and trying to be as productive with it as possible. So, yeah, the drive is greater than ever before, and I feel I’ve got a lot to tick over the next 10 years. A lot more to do.

[01:14:14] I think the reason why you’re your dad stops giving you grief when you got your qualification or got into university was you knew you wouldn’t have to be bagging those twenty two fifty five pound bags of spuds again.

[01:14:30] Yeah, yeah. But I didn’t tell you to say no. But since then, three weeks ago, my dad got knocked down walking in a park and he’s got tibial plateau fracture until he’s in a brace. Not have to have an operation, but he’s sat at home and it’s tough psychologically. This guy walks 10000 steps a day. He’s not the fittest guy in the world, but walks a lot and walks in the shop, still standing all day. And now he’s at home and it’s tough. Psychologically, it’s tough. You know, I think I often think about Shawshank Redemption and my dad or or one of our elders in the shop, poldi and that whole lifetime in a shop. My dad doesn’t know anything else. He I don’t think he he would cope if he wasn’t in the shop. It’s like a jail to him.

[01:15:24] Let me tell you a story, right? It’s a sentence. Let me tell you a story, mate, because that was my dad for I don’t know how many years, right? And there came a time where we, as in me and my brother, were earning enough. That he wouldn’t need to work in the shop again, right? And they came up where my dad kept saying to us, Son, I just don’t want you to do what I do, right? Whatever happens, you’re not going to be a shock, you’re not going to be a taxi driver. I want you to be better than me, right? So when the time came where we both knew that actually we’ve done it now, we’ve made it in whatever, whatever, whatever that means, right? But we made it to the point where we could look after dad now, right? So we said to that. She’ll shop. Stop working, and we’re going to fund your lifestyle now. So till the end. Right. You don’t need to work another day in your life. And so he found somebody to lease the shop. I bought the premises of my dad, so gave him a gate, gave him a, you know, a chunk of money for what what the premises was worth. So I own the shop now. And you know what? The one thing I will say about him being lost because you mentioned that. Is that now he does a lot of admin for me in my own business. And if he didn’t have that, he’d be lost. Yeah, he needs that drives that work, that purpose to keep him active.

[01:17:07] So it’s just my dad is I don’t know about your dad in terms of literacy and things. He just, you know, because I’m like, you know, come and get in the back something you have to do something. Yeah, he’s in a partnership in a shop. And until someone else is running it, running it, it’s very passive. My dad, he’s never stood up for himself. He’s never been. He’s always been in the back seat. Got, Yeah. And he’s just, yeah, I feel I feel I’m a bit worried that with this situation, how it’s affecting him psychologically, that he really needs to go there and be in the shop or do stuff.

[01:17:46] And he’s still that age. My father in law during COVID, his business just went pop. Ok. And one of the things I’ll say about him is that he’s a different person to what he who he was prior to when he was running the business, right? And so he can’t go back down that route. And now he spends his entire day watching Netflix or, you know, going for walks and all the rest of it. And I can see it in him. He just looks lost. Yeah, he’s got to that age in his life where he’s been used to wheeling and dealing all his life since he left school. And now he’s just stopped. And his sense of purpose as a sort of disappeared and you can see that’s drained out of him. Yeah. So it’s a tricky one, but you know, something to keep him occupied, keeping him engaged interesting. But he needs to feel like he’s providing value. Not not. Ok, I’ll just give my dad something to do because I can. Yeah. But it’s not there is that there’s value for him. I think they really need to feel that they’re making a difference. It’s a tough situation. And so is he at home at the moment?

[01:19:04] Yeah, yeah.

[01:19:07] Leaders cross he gets gets better soon.

[01:19:11] Yeah. Mobilises and then sort of gets back to things. But for the poverty forum? Yeah. But it just shows you, you know, walking in a in a big park. There was some work van that just boom reversed into all these kind of really damaged his the shoulder ligaments, but not broken anything there. But yeah, really shaken up. Wow. Yeah. Got to keep his spirits up. But yeah, that is. It can really resonate with you when you see that about your father and

[01:19:44] I’m a father in law. Yeah, yeah. I think it’s a lesson for us when we get older, right? We’ll always need that sense of purpose.

[01:19:54] Yeah, it’s interesting because I talk about this and I spoke to someone by Van Vicario. Do you know him above?

[01:20:03] And Victoria Baltazar big time implant surgeon, right?

[01:20:07] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he right character, right? And a great way to. I met one, of course, and I went running with them and I lectured them and I said, Don’t you ever let anybody tell you to retire? You’re not retiring. You’re you’re just going to another chapter in your life. And I think it’s good that you probably want to leave dentistry at sixty three, but you don’t need to think, you know, he’s a multiple multi-millionaire. When I say, don’t alright.

[01:20:34] Yeah, yeah, yeah,

[01:20:35] He’s done all right. Yeah, but I said, Don’t ever let anybody. You buy all your fucking your wife, your kids, you’re not retiring. You’re on to the next chapter of your life because I’m telling you this will kill you off when the people start talking to retire. No such thing, but we’ll want to see at sixty five. No, no next chapter. Then the next chapter is just another chapter in your life. And whatever it is, you’ve got to keep your mind active. I said, Look at you what you’ve done through your life. You’ve achieved so much you can’t just stop now. That’s it. You need to find something next. Chapter is like, You know what? I’m going to write that book because I started writing a book. I’m going to write that book because I was talking about my book. I said, Really write this, but it’s really important we can’t retire. We’ve we’ve got to just find other things to do.

[01:21:25] And yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head there. You know, my wife always says to me, Look, if you didn’t have work, I don’t know what purpose you’d have, right? And with the greatest respect, it’s where I get my drive. It’s where I get my passion from. Yes, I’d spend time with the wife and the kids and whatnot, right? But I need another sense of delivering value and purpose in my life, right? And what I’m doing in 10 years time. It definitely won’t be what I’m doing today without question. Yeah, it won’t be what I’m doing today, but it would be, like you said, a different chapter. Take the next junction on the motorway and we go in down a different path, you know, and it’ll it’ll involve less stress. Maybe, you know, there’ll be different motivators. Maybe finance will be way low down on the on the priority list, right? Who knows? We need that. Yeah, I digress. I digress. Fantasy dinner party, three guests. Dead or alive, who would they be and why?

[01:22:31] So I listen to your podcast, and I know that the questions at the end, so I prepared, I’m not going to deny it. First one. Nelson Mandela someone I’ve always looked up to from school age when I was learning about what he’d been through and I’d love to pick his brains, what where did that drive that resilience? How did he keep motivated fixing everything? How did he come through at all and inspire our nation and the world? And then Elon Musk, someone that exists now innovating, creating his fingers in so many different ways and always, you know, one man that’s taken a company and made it so influential. And when he can tweet, he can really rock the stock market and cryptocurrency in an instant. How did someone become so influential? I’d love to have him on a table, and I’ve read his autobiography and he’s quite the character. And then Kevin Hart, just to add some humour to to to the dinner party, I find the guy hilarious. So that would be my theory.

[01:23:40] Brilliant, brilliant, if it was your last day on the planet for one hand and you had your loved ones around you. What would the three pieces of wisdom be that you would leave to them?

[01:23:54] Firstly, I’d see. It’s so important to have belief and confidence in yourself. I think fundamentally, that is essential. You have to believe in yourself and you have to have the confidence in what you do and how you present yourself. And if you don’t have that in yourself, then how can you then expect others to have it in you and often working? I’m always bringing this up with clinicians as they’re speaking to patients that you’ve got to believe in yourself, and it’s clear that you don’t. You don’t have confidence in the treatment and you do believe that you’re the right person to do it. So we have to take a step back and really work on that. So that’s what I would see now. Yeah, it’s taken. You know, it’s a journey of 20 years. I have super duper strong self belief and confidence and who I am and what I’m able to achieve. So that’s the first thing. Then the second thing is, you know, always look to help other people in general. And that said, you’ll get everything you want in life if you help enough people get what they want. And I’m a foreign firm believer in not do just go out there and help give give give. And the way the world works, they’ll all come back to you in abundance. And then the last thing I would say is don’t be scared to feel failure has certainly been one of the biggest lessons in my life, being able to experience failure to overcome it. And I see the positives in the failures and then learning. And from that, I’ve only become stronger and stronger and better at what I do. So, yeah, they would be. The three have self confidence and belief. Go out there and help people and don’t be scared to feel.

[01:25:34] So I’m finally. How would you like to be remembered? So fair hand was finish the sentence.

[01:25:44] Farhan was happy. To simply happy. For hand in Arabic means happy. And it’s really important to me that constantly I’m looking to do things that make me happy and. More importantly, to be actually good idea and make trying to make other people happy through. My training programmes through my mentoring, through the work I do and the treatments I’m able to offer patients and then hopefully now and in the future, maybe by contributing through charitable endeavours, whatever it is, I love to be able to to see other people smile and be the the reason that other people smile. That’s really, really important.

[01:26:31] 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.

[01:26:46] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you’ve got some value out of it

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