August 17, 2025 • 47 mins
Get a free audit of your indemnity cover here >>> https://quote.allmedpro.co.uk/dental-indemnity-2025-new-proposal-dwi/
———————————————————————
Collect unlimited free verifiable CPD for UK Dentists here >>> https://www.dentistswhoinvest.com/video/1
———————————————————————
Ever wondered how some dentists manage multiple thriving practices while others struggle with just one? The secret lies in systems, delegation, and understanding your unique value proposition.
Dr. Chetan Matthias joins us to reveal how he built four successful dental practices (three associate-led) performing 700+ implant surgeries and 460+ clear aligner cases annually. At the heart of his approach is a carefully designed patient journey that maximizes efficiency while delivering exceptional patient care.
The conversation begins with marketing fundamentals—why establishing a clear USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is essential in today's competitive landscape. Dr. Matthias shares how one patient video testimonial from 2022 continues generating leads years later, demonstrating the power of authentic patient stories as marketing assets.
What truly sets his practice apart is the systematic patient journey he's created. From a dedicated Patient Growth Coordinator who responds to leads within 30 minutes to Treatment Coordinators who conduct initial consultations, each step is designed to deliver consistent experiences while limiting the dentist's involvement to only essential clinical tasks. By the time patients meet Dr. Matthias, they've already been pre-qualified, requiring just 5-10 minutes of his time.
We explore the science of team building—how personality assessments ensure team members' natural strengths align with their responsibilities, creating a high-functioning environment. Dr. Matthias shares insights on establishing KPIs, maintaining accountability, and conducting exit interviews to continuously improve practice operations.
Looking toward the future, we discuss embracing technology and AI to improve efficiency while reducing staffing dependencies. For dentists feeling overwhelmed, Dr. Matthias offers practical advice: start with just one system and build from there.
Whether you're an associate or practice owner, this episode provides actionable strategies to increase profitability, improve patient experience, and create a dental business that runs smoothly even when you're not present.
———————————————————————
Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. Investment figures quoted refer to simulated past performance and that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results/performance.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr James (00:00):
Most dentists out there want to understand how
they can make their dentistry alittle bit more profitable so
that they can have a little bitmore take-home remuneration at
the end of the month.
What that means is they can usethat money to buy back their
time, be able to invest a littlebit more or also just maybe
just go on holiday.
This comes for both associatesand principals.
We also want to guarantee thatthe patient is having the best
experience possible.
Because of that on the DentistsWho Invest podcast today, I
(00:22):
have a phenomenal clinician withme, Dr Chetan Mathias.
He has four dental practices.
He's managed to get three ofthem associate-led.
Over the next 50 minutes, weare going to talk about how
Chetan achieves that.
That's what we're going to talkabout today on the Dentists Who
Invest podcast.
The idea is that everybody outthere, both associate and
principal, can take this stuffand implement it into their own
practice and obtain results andaccelerate their own journey.
(00:45):
Chetan, you've been able to doamazing things in your dental
practice, and it's all relatedto what the title of this
podcast is, which is withregards to systems and processes
.
This is the only true way toleverage, and we thought we'd
make this podcast into a littlebit of a story today so we can
lead everybody by the hand andallow them to understand what
the patient.
The only true way to leverageand we thought we'd make this
podcast into a little bit of astory today so we can lead
(01:06):
everybody by the hand and allowthem to understand what the
patient experiences from startto finish, when they enter your
dental practice, or even beforethey enter your dental practice.
So the patient journey, so tospeak.
So a great place to kick off, Ifeel, would be the marketing
side of things.
Chetan, what do you dodifferently in your practice?
Dr Chetan (01:26):
James, thank you, thank you.
You know what this, this bit,is so important and often
overlooked, and what I findthat's happening quite often
nowadays is obviously because ofthe number of squat practices
that are being opened, thenumber of before they were this
legacy nhs mixed practices.
But if you look at the numberof squat practices that have
opened over the last one year orso, it's been the highest
number of squat practices openedin a single year.
(01:48):
That was last year.
But what that means is whatthat means is your marketing has
to be up there, because now thecompetition has increased.
But one very important thing inmarketing what people don't
realize is you can't do the samething, what the other person's
doing.
If you do the same marketing asthe 10 other dentists are doing
the same ads, the same Facebookads, the same Google ads what
(02:10):
tends to happen is you are justlike them.
You need to have adifferentiating factor.
So, rather than just copyingwhat I do, it's trying to
understand what's your USP.
Why should a patient come toyou and not to the other
dentists down the road, right?
So patients are educated thesedays.
(02:32):
Right, they already know abouttreatments.
People know about aligners,people know about anivisaline,
people know about implants,people know about dentures, but
what you need to do is try anddifferentiate yourself from the
next guy down the road, and thatcomes down to your USP, and
understanding your USP is soimportant and crucial.
And then designing your wholestrategy behind it is very
(02:55):
important.
So with marketing, I broadly saythere are mainly two types.
Right, so obviously have amarketing agency and get advice
from them.
But obviously you've got to bethe driver.
You've got to tell them exactlywhat you want and who you are.
Because James say, for example,you have a practice next to me
and if both of us go to the samemarketing agency and you say
you know what, what Chet does dothe same marketing for me.
(03:17):
And if I say what James does,the same marketing for me, how
confused the patient going toget.
Why is the patient going to goto your or not to mine, you know
?
So you've got to be different.
So you've got to ride the boat.
So you've got to tell yourmarketing agency.
Obviously you're a dentist,carry on with dentistry but
you're a business owner and abusiness leader as well.
So this goes for both, practiceowners as well as for
(03:37):
associates, and I'll touch up alittle bit for associates as
well.
There, there's some really key,important points here but for
practice owners as such, becauseyou're in the driving seat,
you've got to tell yourmarketing this is my USP, this
is me, right, there's only oneof me, and this is what I stand
for, right?
Yes, you have the mission andthe vision and all that, but
this is what I stand for.
(03:58):
Then your marketing gets dividedinto two parts organic
marketing and paid marketing.
So these are the two main typesof marketing, right, and then
there's a whole lot behind itbut I don't want to confuse the
listener on this but mainlyorganic and paid marketing.
And organic marketing is kindof like free marketing.
Uh, though, there's nothinglike free marketing, but it's.
(04:19):
You don't pay for it, right,and you're constantly there.
And then you have paidmarketing, which is targeted
marketing, which is amazing,right?
I remember the days when I usedto spend hundreds and thousands
of pounds on radio ads.
What was my roi that?
I didn't know, but it did helpme with brand awareness.
Nowadays, it's so much simpler,cheaper and measurable with
(04:41):
doing, um, you know, socialinternet marketing, so, whether
it's google or whether it'sfacebook, so you do your paid
marketing throughout.
So I do both organic marketingand paid marketing and I try and
make sure that my presenceacross all the available
channels, because you've gotlots of channels right, it's
(05:02):
only facebook, you've gotfacebook, you've got instagram.
You've got lots of channelsright, it's only Facebook.
You've got Facebook, you've gotInstagram.
You've got TikTok.
You've got Google, you've gotTwitter, you've got LinkedIn,
all these channels.
You need to make sure that youhave a kind of presence across
all these channels, again,depending on the type of
audience you're targeting.
And that all comes down to yourUSP, because if I was targeting
mainly aligner patients, mytarget audience is going to be
(05:24):
totally different, whereas if Iwas targeting implant patients,
my target audience is going tobe totally different, right?
So I could go on for a coupleof days on marketing itself,
right, and what your strategy isand how you should look at it.
But in a nutshell, that's themain thing Try and be different
and try and understand marketingrather than just going to a
marketing agency.
Listen, I need more patience.
Dr James (05:49):
It doesn't work like that.
There's more to it than that.
Nailing the usp is key, then,and I want to know how many
businesses out there haveactually done that, even though
I suppose that's possibly dayone of of of business school,
isn't it?
You really got to dial, youreally got to dial that in, and
it's almost like it's it's kindof a lot of this stuff is.
It's really it's almost obviousand we kind of know it, but do
we do?
It is completely a differentthing.
Can you give me an example ofany campaigns that you've run on
(06:11):
the ad side, of things thatwere unique and did really well?
Any stories on that front?
Dr Chetan (06:17):
oh yeah, yeah.
So I have an ad that I ran in2022 and the lady's name is
Leslie, so she wouldn't mind metelling her name.
So we came in and there was agood story behind it, right?
So people love stories.
I love a story, you love astory, and so does our patients.
(06:39):
They love a story as well.
So Leslie walked into mypractice and most dentists have
heard these stories.
They walked into the practicelow on self-confidence, low on
self-esteem, really nervous.
She had a full arch implantsurgery done at the practice
Right Now.
She had someone with her tospeak to me about her treatment
(07:00):
so she could speak.
She could understand she wasmore than capable, but she was
so nervous she couldn't evenspeak.
Right, she finished hertreatment.
She finished her treatment soshe could speak.
She could understand she wasmore than capable, but she was
so nervous she couldn't evenspeak.
Right, she finished hertreatment.
She finished her treatment.
She had full-arch implantdentistry and we gave her for
those implant dentists out there, we gave her an FP1 prosthesis,
which is an implant-retainedrestoration on zirconia.
(07:20):
Finished, she came in for areview.
Now this lady is totallydifferent.
Now she's coming on her own,she speaks, she waves at
everyone on reception.
She's talking.
She's talking about what shedid yesterday.
So we wanted to capture thatstory and get it on social media
.
All right, and can you believeit, James?
(07:41):
Now this lady, even for herconsultation, she never came on
her own.
She went on to social media andwe started shooting a video on
her and we created the story.
So, in the time when peoplehave static Facebook ads, we had
a video Facebook ad of herjourney on Facebook Right, and
(08:02):
that itself, I think, over Idon't know the last metrics, but
it, though I did it in 2022it's still running because it's
constantly.
It's still giving me leads.
It's still giving me leads.
So you know, you don't have tochange something if it's working
fine and it's working fine.
I've done lots of campaignsafter that, but that's working
fine and still giving me so manyleads, so many full-arch
(08:23):
patients from that ad campaign.
Dr James (08:27):
And you know what was a big reframe for me whenever I
started running my own ads?
It was to understand thatwhenever you get a real runner,
these things are assets in andof themselves.
People are so fixated oninvesting in property or having
gold or having stocks or an ISAor whatever the hell right.
These are literally assets aswell.
It's just that people don'ttalk about them as much.
(08:49):
Naturally, there's a little bitof digging you have to do to
get a good one, but that processnever starts on.
Dr Chetan (08:54):
The last you begin is another way of looking at it.
I understand and you know whatit's not rocket science, and so
what I spoke so far in the last10 minutes is not rocket science
.
It's there, everyone knowsabout it, but you just got to do
it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to take the firststep.
Go back, step back a little bitAgain.
One more thing A lot of peopleare so involved in their
(09:15):
business they're not able totake these big decisions by
stepping outside their businessand taking these decisions.
They almost have to stepoutside their practice and look
at their practice from acrossthe road and say what does my
practice stand for?
What do I stand for?
What does my team stand for?
Does my team know what I standfor?
Right, it's not just a dentalbusiness and if you nail that at
the start, then you got anevergreen dental business.
(09:37):
Not a dental business that thisruns post-covid or dental
businesses runs on aligners andbonding.
You've got an evergreen dentalpractice because people buy from
people, right?
Dr James (09:50):
they do, and that's why testimonials yeah hit, they
hit home.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talkabout what happens next.
So they saw the compelling ad.
The prospective patient yeah,they now want to reach.
They presumably sent you a leadform from facebook.
They fill in or meta orsomething, or whichever ad
platform we've used.
The prospective patient yeah,they now want to reach.
They presumably sent you a leadform from facebook.
They fill in or meta orsomething, or whichever ad
platform we've used.
You've got their details.
(10:11):
At this stage where they've gotyour details, what?
What happens at that stage?
Do you?
So, let's say?
Let's say, they pick up thephone, right, wherever, however
it happens, either they call youor you call them or, however,
right, what do you dodifferently in your practice to
really dial in that experience?
Dr Chetan (10:28):
okay, so one of the rules in in marketing is from
lead to from lead inquiry tocontacting the patient.
It should be done in under 30minutes.
It's okay to do it over twohours, but that's right.
So there's no point having alead coming in on a Monday and
you're not calling the patienttill the Thursday.
(10:49):
It's not going to work.
It is pissing money down thedrain.
Dr James (10:54):
Because they're in proverbial pan, right In
emotional pan.
They want that problem solvednow, right, right.
Dr Chetan (11:02):
And if you don't respond then the next person on
the road is going to respond.
So quite early on I didsomething called as a PGC.
I created a PGC position in mypractice.
So PGC is like my patientgrowth coordinator, because
she's key, instrumental to thegrowth of our practice.
So I wanted someone who canhandle the leads.
(11:23):
Obviously you have yourreceptionist, but, James, I
don't know if you know thestructure of my practice we're
large practices, right?
So I've got like sixreceptionists in one of my
practices, got 14 dentists.
But I wanted someone toexclusively, exclusively work
with this lead and have the timefor it.
So I had to literally take itout of the practice, out of the
(11:51):
hustle and bustle in thepractice, and just concentrate
only on this lead.
That's all that I care about,right?
So the lead comes in eitherthrough a call, through a
message or a phone call, and mypgc patient because all she does
is talk to these patients,develop a rapport with the
patient first Spends close to 30minutes with each patient.
Now, in a busy, mixed practice,you can't expect your reception
(12:12):
to do that Right.
So I felt that that was key andinstrumental in the change.
Also, it helped me to reduce mymarketing cost.
Why?
Because my cost per lead wentdown, right, because every lead
that came in was converted or Ihad a higher conversion, so I
(12:36):
didn't need to spend tons moreto get more leads, right?
So every lead that was comingin was looked after straight
away.
So my PGCE looked after thispatient, spoke to the patient,
developed reports, and there arefive, six things that I go
through and I go through this onmy DPM event.
There are three things andthere is a script that she goes
through and on this script shementions she speaks to the
(12:59):
patient, gets a report built inwith this patient and once this
is done, so I divide the patientjourney in kind of like five
parts, right?
So we've done the marketingside, then the bit where my PGC
speaks to the patient.
Then the next bit is when thepatient walks into the surgery,
right?
So now the patient's you'vedeveloped rapport, patient's
(13:22):
happy.
You've taken a deposit of thepatient very important.
You've taken a deposit of thepatient very important.
You've taken a deposit of thepatient and the patient walks
into your practice.
Dr James (13:30):
I see so that's a non-negotiable for you that at
that stage where your dedicatedteam member reaches out to them
off the back of an ad, there'salways some sort of transaction
there.
Dr Chetan (13:43):
There is a transaction and the way I put it
down is a transaction, and it'sthe way I put it down.
Is a refundable deposit?
Right, it's a refundabledeposit.
My consultations, or theconsultations in our practice,
are free, right, but you have topay a deposit to secure your
place, which is refundable onceyou do come in or you don't turn
(14:05):
up.
Once you don't turn up, youdon't get it, the deposit's gone
.
But if you do turn up, it isrefundable.
Obviously, if you want to goahead with treatments, then you
can encash it towards yourtreatment, but now you've
developed contact andwillingness from the patient to
(14:25):
go ahead with it.
Dr James (14:28):
And you know they're serious right and they're
serious exactly, and they'reserious about the treatment.
But yes, anyway, I didn't meanto interrupt you then.
You were just talking about thepatient whenever they first
walk into the practice.
Yeah, so now this is done rightNow.
Dr Chetan (14:41):
This is done.
Now the patient walks into thepractice.
The patient walks into thepractice.
Okay, the patient walks intothe practice and basically,
whatever the patient saw onsocial media, on your video, the
patient talked with your pgcand the patient walking on to
the practice has to be allconnected.
They need to have a similarexperience throughout.
You cannot have differentexperience and that's why your
(15:04):
usp in the beginning, yourmission, your visions, should be
defined before you do this.
So this is a continuation.
Otherwise, the minute a patientwalks in like, oh my lord, is
this what I was, is this what Isigned up for?
Right, first impressions.
Right, first impressions arethe key.
So your patient walks in andmeets your reception.
(15:24):
Once your patient meets yourreceptionist, then they sit down
and then they get booked in andthey go in for their
consultation right now.
When the patient comes in foryour consultation, now, there
again, there are differentstages to this right.
So it's very rare I do anyconsultations.
I don't do any consultations.
(15:46):
The consultations are done by myteam.
Again, there's a method to itand there's a system to it,
presumably by a tco, a tco, yeah.
So we've got five tcos in ourpractice and the consultations
are done by the tco.
So you see a lot of that.
Oh, the consultation has to bedone by the dentist, because how
(16:07):
will you know if thetreatment's right if the
treatment's not right?
But before you understand ifthe treatment's right or not,
you need to understand if thepatient's right and if the
patient actually understandseverything about the treatment
right.
So that's what happens.
And then the TCO signs offsaying that yes, you can have
this treatment done, as long asDr Samathas looks at you and
thinks it's suitable for you.
Dr James (16:29):
I love that.
Dr Chetan (16:31):
Right.
So I've created another layerthere.
So the patient has seen my PGC.
Now the patient has seen my TCORight, pretty much approved it.
Then the patient sees a dentistin my team to confirm that that
patient can have the treatmentor not.
Dr James (16:52):
And this is they're on their way to meeting you at
this point, or do they now?
Oh, they always come to you.
Dr Chetan (17:00):
They still not met me yet, Right, Right.
And the dentist looks at thepatient and says yes, everything
is good.
We take your CT scan, we takeyour.
If it's an implant case, we doyour CT scans, check your habits
, check your gum profile.
They have a list of things thatthey need to go through and
everything is confirmed.
Once that is done, then thepatient comes and sees me.
Dr James (17:23):
By the way, can I just jump on one tiny thing that got
me excited then, because thisis the sort of stuff that how
can I say it gets me excitedthese days, at the age of 33
checklists?
Dr Chetan (17:34):
so important to have right.
You know why, James.
The thing is you have twothings right you have systems
and you have your mindset right.
Both are very, very, veryimportant.
But a lot of people think thatI get up every morning saying,
yeah, let's go and smash the day.
Man, I'm human at the end ofthe day, right, and I'm
(17:54):
reportable to such a large teamright, we've got close to 150
staff members on my team.
I need to be the best I can tothis team.
But mindset can go up.
You could be motivated one day,not motivated, motivated one
day, not motivated.
But if you have systems inplace, then your systems is what
(18:16):
carries on and helps you withyour growth.
So it doesn't matter if you, ifyou are not motivated a day or
not motivated, but it's yoursystems that keeps carrying you
on kind of reminds me of asaying, and I'm not sure who
this saying is by.
Dr James (18:31):
It's definitely not by me, so I can't take any credit
but anyway the saying goes youdon't rise to the level of your
ability, you fall to the levelof your systems.
Dr Chetan (18:40):
So true, so so you nailed it on the head.
You, that saying is actuallynailed it on the head.
People need to understand itright and spend time developing
systems in your practice right.
Dr James (18:51):
Otherwise it's just going to be chaotic it's so
important and I genuinely didn'tthink it was that.
I didn't.
I knew it was important but Ididn't appreciate its importance
until I'm going to even saylike six to twelve months ago.
And then I started doing it inmy companies and you, you get
your time back, like that is alittle bit of effort to set them
up and make sure exactly, butit's worth it, but anyway, but
(19:14):
also sorry James, sorry.
Dr Chetan (19:16):
Also, what it does is it gives consistency, which is
the key, right?
When a patient walks in it, youneed to be consistent in your
approach, right?
It's not just the first timeyou give them this wow
experience.
It has to be consistent,consistent, and the only way you
can stay consistent is byhaving systems in place.
You don't have systems in place, there's no consistency at all,
(19:39):
and the patients can see it.
There's nothing like havingamazing customer service the
first.
Imagine going to a five-starhotel and you've got this best
experience, like, wow, thisplace is amazing.
Next year you go back and like,oh, the guy who served me isn't
there anymore and the customerservice is like boom, dropped
Right.
You need to be consistent, andthen that's where the fifth part
(20:00):
comes into play.
But let's go back to VVV.
Dr James (20:04):
We were just at the stage.
We were just at the stage.
We're going on little tangentshere, but I feel it's worthwhile
, because we want to jump onthese things while it's fresh.
Dr Chetan (20:12):
Yeah, because I don't want to miss out on anything.
Dr James (20:14):
Where we were was.
You were just at the stagewhere you were explaining that
they see the TCO, then they seethe associate and then they go
on to see yourself.
But that's not every patientright.
Dr Chetan (20:32):
I imagine the associate will see some
themselves and some they'llrefer to you exactly, exactly
right.
So it all depends.
It depends on the type ofpatient, type of skill set and
what.
What happens in that like.
So we do close to I do close to700 implant surgeries a year,
right and around 400, and lastyear we did on 462 clear aligner
cases.
So those are my main 40.
Yeah, we do veneers and rehabsand everything, but we have a
bigger team that handles it.
But this is for majority of ourworkflows.
(20:53):
All right, now the patient'swalked into my surgery and the
patient's got 10 minutes bookedin.
That's it.
The patient's got 10 minutesbooked in.
In the 10 minutes I've alreadyhad a look at all the patient's
records, all the conversationsthat's happened.
All I do is see, confirm andthe patient gets a chance to see
me and then I just walk out andmy team look after the patient
(21:19):
and books their next appointment.
At that stage, if the patientshave any questions they can ask
me.
So it's literally 10 minutes.
Most of the time we finish itin like 5-6 minutes.
Dr James (21:29):
UK dentists, if you are just starting out on your
investment journey or you'realready investing and want to
know if your strategy is 100%foolproof and optimized to
reduce fees and maximize growth,then you might like to know.
I have teamed up withindependent financial planner,
luke Hurley to create theDentist who Invest Academy.
The Dentist who Invest Academyfully documents the process that
(21:50):
a financial planner wouldnormally perform for a client
behind the scenes and reveals itto you.
This means that you canimplement it into your own life,
therefore pulling yourfinancial freedom date forward
by years.
If you wish to set up andmanage your own investment
portfolio, then this is designedto give you all the tools and
knowledge you need to performthis properly.
This means that, when viableand appropriate, you will have
(22:11):
the know-how and skill requiredto build and manage your own
investment portfolio, plusensure that it is 100% optimized
.
If this sounds like your thing,then keep an eye out on the
Denison Invest mailing list,where we'll be announcing the
details of the next intake verysoon.
So those in effect, what thoseappointments are after they've
(22:32):
been referred to you throughthose layers that you talked
about a second ago.
That's your assessment, youropportunity to meet them, and
then you will then, at thatstage, perform the treatment
afterwards so effectively,effectively, for all that work
in terms of your time,effectively, all that work for
the exam appointment isliterally 10 minutes of your
personal time, yeah literally 10minutes that's scaling right
(22:57):
there right because I realized,James, few, few years back, that
I've reached my peak, right.
Dr Chetan (23:05):
I reached my peak and I can't grow anymore and I was
like what's the point doinganymore, like I can't grow
anymore, and then I realizedthat the only way I can is if I
empower my teams and take, helpthem to go to the next level
right and delegate.
So important, a key, a scienceon its own, again, something I
go through for at least half aday on our dpm program.
(23:27):
Delegations are so important.
You know and we as dentistshave got this OCD we want to be
perfect, right in everything wedo.
We are perfectionists and wealways think that and this was
me included, right for manyyears that no one can do it
better than me and I have to doevery stage of it right.
Dr James (23:46):
But the minute you delegate and do it properly,
delegate properly then you willfind exponential growth and, in
turn, profitability in what youdo you know, the moment I let go
of that belief as well, Irealized that actually, instead
of us trying to do 50 differentthings, if you have one person,
whether or not they're naturallymore capable at a specific task
(24:10):
or not is actually irrelevantafter a certain amount of time,
because if they're literallyjust doing one of those 50
things all day long, they'regonna get so much better than
you very fast, exactly.
Dr Chetan (24:21):
Yeah you nailed it on the head, right, so that that's
like, because all they do islike zone in on that one
particular job, and that's thereason we have teams for
everything.
So I have my own building team,we have our own nursing team,
we have our own tco team and allthey do is go down that funnel
to try and become perfect inwhat they do.
Right, constantly, constantlyimprove, cut copy paste, improve
(24:43):
, improve.
So that way you've got anexpert at every different part.
You've got an expert at theconsultation stage.
You've got an expert doing thescanning.
You've got an expert at everydifferent part.
You've got an expert at theconsultation stage.
You've got an expert doing thescanning.
You've got an expert taking theCTs.
Rather than you doingeverything, you just concentrate
on doing the thing that youhave to do.
Right, just concentrate ondoing the things that you have
to do.
That's all, nothing else.
Dr James (25:03):
And I think what is really worth remembering as well
that these patients are havinga great experience at your
practice too.
You know they're coming back.
You get referrals, word ofmouth, and that leads me on to
the next thing I wanted to ask.
Obviously, part of the patientjourney is ensuring that there's
follow-up and reviews and thatthey're happy and everything's
positive on that front.
(25:23):
So how does that look for you?
Good?
Dr Chetan (25:25):
one, right.
So the patient journey doesn'tend with the patient having the
treatment in our surgery, right?
So I spoke about so liketreatments again, different
treatments.
We have different workflows.
We have aligner workflows, wehave implant workflows, um, and
we, we've incorporatedtechnology into a lot of
technology into all of this.
Treatments complete.
(25:46):
We've delivered on what we said.
We're going to deliver.
We have a quality checklist tomake sure that it's all done.
Because you can have a largeteam, right, so they need to
have checklists and KPIs onexactly, and we need to check,
right, we need to constantlyaudit our patients when we
finish, what's the level ofquality?
(26:07):
And because delivering on yourpromise is the most important
thing, right, especially inpatient care, and giving them a
high quality result is so, so,so important.
You could do all this, but ifyour dentistry doesn't last,
there's no point, right, andthat's where people
underestimate the power of wordof mouth, because you can do all
your marketing, but if yourword of mouth isn't great, then
(26:29):
it's about and a key for for theword of mouth referrals to
increase is doing good, highquality dentistry.
But also to audit the qualityof work that's being done right.
Audit the number of implantsyou're placed, audit your
aligner cases anyway.
Treatment's finished.
Then the most important part ofthe patient journey happens,
right?
You want your patient to firstthing leave you a review.
(26:58):
You want your patient to beyour raving fan and you want
your patient to invite otherpatients to your practice.
Imagine, say, for argument'ssake, that lead costs you 10
pounds, 20 pounds, whatever thepatients come through the whole
cycle the patients paid what?
Three grand, four grand fortreatment.
Patients left and got you twoother patients.
(27:21):
So what's the cost of your lead?
Right, it's negligible, exactly.
And the more that happens yourlead goes down.
So a lot of people try and fillthe bucket.
But you need to make sure that,before you fill your bucket,
close all the holes in yourbucket, because you can keep
filling a bucket that has gotholes in it and it is never
(27:43):
going to get filled up, right.
So follow up after treatment'sfinished to make sure the
patients leave.
Great reviews, referrals andjust kind of letting the patient
know that, listen, you knowyour journey doesn't end here.
If you have any issues orproblems, we are here to help
and you're going to havefollow-up appointments and book
their follow-up appointmentsbefore they even leave, right?
Dr James (28:08):
I believe the terminology is it's your cac
number, your cic cost to acquirecustomer, right?
Yes, and if you're, what willhappen with time is if you're
constantly marketing but theproduct is no good, it's going
to keep costing you more andmore to get customers and then
eventually the business will diebecause the cost to acquire
customers more than they'reactually making, unless the
product is good, in which caseyou get some of those customers
(28:30):
referring their friends, whichis free.
So it keeps your cost, youraverage cost to acquire customer
at a certain level, yeah yeah,it's uh, you know, you nailed it
on the head.
Dr Chetan (28:41):
So you've got to look at the whole picture, the whole
picture in a whole right.
So, from your marketing all theway till till the patient
leaves the practice right,you've got to look at every step
of your journey right, and thisdoesn't have to be only for
principals.
As an associate as well, you,you need to understand this,
because one thing that we speakon our associate mastery when
(29:02):
we're in, it's exclusively forassociates is how can you become
an asset to your practice rightand help your practice
principle and help your, yourteam, build up in the practice?
Because, at the end of the day,the practice is doing well.
You as an associate are doingwell, you as an associate are
doing well, the team is doingwell, the team is happy, there's
(29:23):
good energy, your practiceprinciples, everyone wins.
It's a win-win.
The minute you start thinkingabout it like a team approach,
everybody wins right.
So I think one of the biggestthings is systemize.
If you don't have any systemsin place, don't panic, right,
you have to start somewhere.
But for this year, you knowit's 2025, new year, new me, new
(29:44):
practice.
Put one system in place and Ipromise you, in three months
time you look at that and you'llbe like shit, can I have
another system in place and canI have it?
Don't go and put 10 systems allof a sudden.
Dr James (29:56):
Just put one system in place and see how that works,
monitor that system and see howthat works right before you
introduce the next system and abig part of what is essential to
what you're talking about isgetting the right team around
you, as in people who believe inthe common goal, overall vision
(30:17):
and objective.
How have you successfullyachieved that?
What wisdom can you offer onthat front?
Dr Chetan (30:23):
yeah, so again, this is going back to what I said
before, right?
So a few years back, quite afew years back I used to be just
associate me and my nurse andwe used to generate quite
substantial sums.
Right, we used to see a lot ofpatients and which generate
quite substantial sums, but thenwhat I realized is, if I want
to see a lot of patients and weused to generate quite
exceptional sums, but then whatI realized is, if I want to have
a bigger impact and treat a lotmore patients, I need to have a
(30:45):
bigger team around me and Ineed to concentrate on things
that only I need to do, which iswhat I mentioned.
So I need to develop this teamand build this team around me.
So now we have close to 150people in our team.
But there is a science to it,James.
You won't believe it.
Most of my time now is spent onlooking at CVs and recruiting.
(31:07):
I don't hire everybody, butlook at CVs and recruiting
Because it's simple, right?
If me, as a dentist, and I'mpracticing and I'm looking at a
bigger team and I want thisbigger team to grow, the better
my team, the better I look,right?
So where would you spend mostof your energy and time,
(31:31):
obviously looking at recruitingthe best team.
Right.
If I spend time now and energynow recruiting the best team,
then I know in years to comeI'll be fine.
I recruit my own dentist.
I like my own hygienist,therapist and senior management
team.
Yes, the new nurses that comein.
I don't do much of recruitmentI used to do it but done 100 so
(31:51):
far so my practice managers goahead and do it.
Right.
But then also understandingpeople, which is so important,
right.
If you have you have the wrongperson in the wrong position, or
if you have the right person inthe wrong position, it's not
going to work.
Right.
And there's a lot of books outthere.
(32:13):
There's a lot of science behindtrying to recruit the right
person.
At least 70 to 80 percent youcan accurately predict the type
of person you want and try andfill that position up.
So I had to do it one at a time, right.
And then it comes down to trustand loyalty, right.
(32:36):
So it's everything.
Unfortunately, it's just notone thing.
It's everything right.
So I go on about differentpersonalities and colors with uh
, with my delegates, with my,with other clinicians I work
with and most of my team knowthis right that you have to be
of a certain so say, for example, I'm recruiting for a tco, so I
(32:57):
need my tco to be friendly.
I need my TCO to be what's theright phrase, not
over-analytical, right yeah?
Dr James (33:08):
people-oriented maybe.
Dr Chetan (33:09):
Yeah, people-oriented , nice, jovial.
So that comes under a yellowpersonality, right?
I've divided them into red,yellow, blue and green, like the
book surrounded by idiots,right?
So it's the system, right?
Disc, yes, yeah, I'm not atthis system, it is.
It is a system evolved from thedisc system.
It's a very good book,surrounded by idiots, oh I see,
(33:33):
oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeahit's a really good book, right,
and I've read it like two,three times and that's what we
incorporate that into our teams.
So simple thing like if youhave someone who's a yellow
personality.
A yellow personality is, say,someone like you, you know,
everyone should be a friend.
You're a lovely guy, you're anice guy.
A red personality is likesomeone like Donald Trump.
Dr James (33:58):
That's a good red actually.
I would have struggled to thinkof one off the top of my head.
But that is a good one, that'sa good on red right.
So, and not not just becausehe's a republican we should
mention because republicans,yeah yeah, by the way, no shade
to donald trump, whether youlike him or you, not so much,
we're just commenting on hispersonality on the personality,
right, and and this, everypersonality is good, whether
(34:19):
you're red, whether you'reyellow, whether you're blue or
whether you're green.
Dr Chetan (34:22):
But the problem happens is if you put the wrong
people, the right person, in thewrong place.
That's when disaster strikes,that's when you have problems,
that's when you have you knowissues, that's when you end up
in front of a tribunal andthat's where you have, you're
struggling to recruit stuff,right, because a lot of people
are struggling to recruit stuff,and as we go on in the, in the
(34:46):
next few months, it's going tobe all the more important to
understand your team, right?
Um, and one more thing I needto add that it's no good having
everyone of the same color,right, right, because it's just
not going to happen.
No, no, work's going to be donethere's having everyone of the
same color, right, right,because it's just not going to
(35:07):
happen.
No work's going to be done.
There's going to be a lot ofclashes.
Color like red, blue, yellow,green.
Yes, yes, yes, sorry, yeah,yeah, yeah, that's what I meant.
Yeah.
So red, blue, yellow, green.
So you've got to have peoplewith different colors, right,
like a leader, it's got to be adifferent color.
Someone who's on your backoffice analyzing your data, or
you know your data analyst, hasto be of a totally different
color.
Your receptionist have adifferent color.
Your TCO has to be of adifferent color.
Your dentist has to be as muchas possible for different color,
(35:30):
right?
So all these personality colorsare very important and this is
just one of the tools among somany other tools that are there
to help you recruit.
Just one of the tools among somany other tools that are there
to help you recruit and makingsure you get the right person
for the right job.
Second thing sorry, James, but Ijust wanted to add this there
are two more things that theyneed to have and it's very
important as part of recruitment.
(35:51):
One is kpis.
Right now, you, your team,won't know what they have to
achieve if you don't tell themwhat they have to achieve.
So you need to set up keyperformance indicators for every
team or for individuals.
I have it for teams rather thanindividuals, because we have a
(36:13):
large team.
And the final bit isaccountability.
You have to be accountable foryour actions.
You have to be accountable.
Yes, you hit your KPIs, that'sgreat.
You don't hit your KPIs.
What happens?
Right, and having communicationconstantly with all members of
your team, even if it's forthree minutes, even if it's for
(36:35):
three minutes a week, that'smore than enough.
But try and make sure youconstantly communicate with your
team on a daily basis.
Right, you can see, I'm reallypassionate about this because
it's so important.
Because the minute you get thisright James right your practice
just changes.
I know practice owners, so manypractice owners, who've come to
practices.
(36:55):
They just go, sit in their room, work and they walk out.
They just don't want to speakto the team, they don't want to
mingle with the team, they don'twant to interact with their
team, and then they go out andsay, oh, I want to increase the
number of patients, I want toincrease this.
Oh, my TCO doesn't this.
It's not one thing, it'severything.
And it's about stacking allthis together, right?
(37:15):
So, having your right marketing, having your right system,
having your right marketing,having your right system, having
your right teams, having goodfollow-up systems, having the
right people in the right place,all this adds up together to
give you the best results.
Dr James (37:25):
So not one thing, but it's everything and just uh, to
add to what you were sayingabout the principal, who how can
I say this?
Yeah, they've got a very theywant to grow their practice, but
they want to do it on theirterms and not really talk to the
team or just get more patients,or I don't know, have provide
more high leverage treatmentplans, as in more costly
(37:47):
treatment plans, and what haveyou?
The stuff that you're talkingabout it's not like it's kind of
optional, like we do it thisway or we do it this way or we
do it this way.
The stuff you're talking aboutis not a way to go your practice
, it's the way right.
Yeah exactly yeah, so.
So if you're not that person, itwould really help to become
that person who does exactlyright.
Dr Chetan (38:05):
Yeah and, and the thing is, you've got to be aware
, right, you're doing it, you'vegot to be aware of me.
So what I've found is general.
This is generally speaking andthis is through coaching other
dental businesses and clients.
There are generally two wayspractices are run in the country
.
This is specifically to the uk.
One is the traditional approachand one is the modern approach.
(38:29):
Right in the traditionalapproach you could get away with
being, uh, super red, or beinglike a, or being like a really
dominant personality.
Dr James (38:44):
Like overbearing.
Dr Chetan (38:45):
Overbearing.
Yeah, yeah, you could get awaywith that, right, and practice
could still run.
Because you've got to rememberthe type of workforce that's
coming into our practices at themoment.
In fact, this year, anyone bornthis year, they are the alpha
generation, right?
So if you've got the Gen Zscoming in, the question you've
(39:09):
got to ask yourself is is yourpractice ready to accept these
Gen Zs into your practice?
Are your systems in yourpractice ready to accept them
into the practice?
How do you deal with them?
You cannot deal with how youdealt with the baby boomers,
with the gen z's.
You don't want to have anystaff and then you constantly
(39:29):
can't mention that.
You know what I keep trying.
I keep putting ads, but I don'tget people in.
That's the reason, right?
So what's your staff retentionrate like?
Not Not only patient retention,this is again coming into
hiring and team building andeverything.
A lot of people concentrate onpatient retention.
Look at your staff retention,right, how long do your staff
(39:49):
stay in your practice?
And sometimes you've got toquestion yourself, right?
I know there were some figuresthat were thrown out.
They're like okay, an averagenurse lasts three years, an
average.
That's fine, right, but you'vegot to question yourself,
sometimes critically, and acceptwhat comes out on.
Exactly why have they left,right?
(40:09):
Maybe there is something youcould.
So we have exit interviews inour practice, right?
An exit interview is this oncesomeone has left, we sit down
with them and say, okay, fine,thank you, you know, for your
time.
Time.
Can you tell us what we can doin our practice to improve?
You're leaving the practice,right.
You can tell us exactly whatyou want, right, rather than
(40:31):
telling them so.
Previously, when someone senttheir resignation across, I was
like you know what?
Yeah, thank you, bye-bye,that's fine, gone, just deal
with it.
You'll get your p60 or whatever.
But nowadays you know that'spowerful, right?
Imagine getting feedback andbeing critical about your
practice.
That's the best feedback.
That's the best feedbackbecause they have nothing to get
(40:51):
, because they're leaving thejob anyways it's it's it's it's
a very powerful way of lookingat things.
Dr James (41:00):
It's seeing it as an opportunity to improve the
business.
That is which is really cool.
I love that.
I love that, and you're right,people from even millennials and
gen z as well.
They don't really respond tothat direct, authoritative
management approach that maybeworked.
I don't know.
I wasn't alive in the 80s and70s, so, James you, remember
(41:21):
that far.
Dr Chetan (41:21):
It was 10, 15 years back when I started practicing
oh, it was geez.
Okay, wow, you're talking about2004, 2005.
Those times it did work.
Dr James (41:30):
They like I've been in practice like that and it was
just it was not I.
At the time I was like what'swith them, right.
But now I look back on it and Ikind of see things a little bit
more high level and I was like,right, we just didn't click in
terms of a that was, that wasmiscommunication, right there.
They thought that that was howthey communicated to somebody to
get them to do something, whereit was actually it's the
(41:51):
opposite.
You can't, people will justpeople from millennials and gen
z, they'll just resent you, man,they'll just they'll not
actually follow through, whereasif you have a little bit more
of a emotional, intelligence,receptive approach, uh, well
then it's going to help.
Let's, yeah, it really workslet's talk about the future.
You're right, dentistry, becauseall the things we've talked
(42:13):
about so far.
We've been talking about humancapital, but it's becoming that
much harder to have a lot ofhuman capital in your practice
with regards to what carestammer has brought in or will
be bringing in, uh, over thenext few months, and what have
you.
So, really, if there's anythingthat we can do to reduce our
human capital from the point ofview of making the numbers work,
(42:33):
or certainly not have tooverextend ourselves in that
front, at the very least, well,that's going to be a valuable
thing.
So how is your businessadapting to that?
You know?
Dr Chetan (42:43):
very good question.
The thing is, not many peoplerecognize what's going to happen
.
Right, if the rules changebefore april, then fine, but if
they don't change and if theystand in the way they are, then
we have, as a business, we'llhave to make some big changes in
our, in our.
So one of the things is AIright, the big buzzword that's
(43:04):
there everywhere.
But understanding how to use AIin different parts of your
business, right, and how can youincorporate that into your
systems.
So utilizing technology andputting amazing systems and
improving efficiency in yourcurrent team is what's going to
(43:25):
help you in the next stage.
So these are like three broadwords right, so you can use AI
like you have AI these days inyour PMA systems.
You have AI in your phonesystems, right.
Monitoring everything right, Ikeep telling you've got to
measure everything.
You don't measure, you don'tknow if you're going up or
you're going down.
You've got to measure, measureeverything on a daily basis.
(43:48):
So one is having technology.
Second thing is by empoweringyour team right, and making them
a lot more sleeker.
Right, in the sense that muchmore efficient multitasking I
know in the previous thing I didmention about like currently in
my team, I have one person justdoing this, right, but as we
(44:11):
move forward, you need thatperson to do test this and a
second role which will take 10of their job, right?
So they do one job 100 andanother job role that's probably
20, right?
So you almost have to do thatto reduce the amount of human
capital that's there and that'sthe only way.
(44:33):
That's the only way forward,right?
I don't know if people still mix, mix alginates and mix
impressions in their practice,right?
Just think about the time whenall we did was mix ingin.
Now, if your nurse doesn't knowhow to mix an alginate or
doesn't know how to put putty in, or you know whatever, get one
of those dispensers forimpressions, it's fine, because
you got scanners and whetherJames, whether you scan, whether
(44:55):
I scan or whether my 9 year oldson scans, you're going to get
the same result, right.
So you see what technology hasdone.
It's got a predictable sameoutcome, right, and an amazing
outcome.
In fact, it's got a lot morebetter.
We know the difference.
We don't have to keep going onabout difference between
alternate impressions andscanners.
12, 13 years back, when I usedto speak, I used used to talk
(45:18):
about this a lot, right?
What's the difference betweengoing digital and having analog
way of running dentistry?
That's non-negotiable.
Now you have to be all in onthis but also accept the new
technology that's coming there.
It's like you got AI these daysfor your note-taking.
(45:38):
There are lots of note-takingapps.
You got AI these days for yournote taking the lots of note
taking apps.
You got AI for yourradiographic interpretation.
You have digital x-rays.
You have scanners that are likeamazing.
I mean you have on the implantworld.
You have extra oral scans thatnot necessarily have to be done
by you.
That could be done by yournurses.
(45:58):
So incorporating technology inyour practices is the key.
Most dentists out there want to understand how
they can make their dentistry alittle bit more profitable so
that they can have a little bitmore take-home remuneration at
the end of the month.
What that means is they can usethat money to buy back their
time, be able to invest a littlebit more or also just maybe
just go on holiday.
This comes for both associatesand principals.
We also want to guarantee thatthe patient is having the best
experience possible.
Because of that on the DentistsWho Invest podcast today, I
(00:22):
have a phenomenal clinician withme, Dr Chetan Mathias.
He has four dental practices.
He's managed to get three ofthem associate-led.
Over the next 50 minutes, weare going to talk about how
Chetan achieves that.
That's what we're going to talkabout today on the Dentists Who
Invest podcast.
The idea is that everybody outthere, both associate and
principal, can take this stuffand implement it into their own
practice and obtain results andaccelerate their own journey.
(00:45):
Chetan, you've been able to doamazing things in your dental
practice, and it's all relatedto what the title of this
podcast is, which is withregards to systems and processes
.
This is the only true way toleverage, and we thought we'd
make this podcast into a littlebit of a story today so we can
lead everybody by the hand andallow them to understand what
the patient.
The only true way to leverageand we thought we'd make this
podcast into a little bit of astory today so we can lead
(01:06):
everybody by the hand and allowthem to understand what the
patient experiences from startto finish, when they enter your
dental practice, or even beforethey enter your dental practice.
So the patient journey, so tospeak.
So a great place to kick off, Ifeel, would be the marketing
side of things.
Chetan, what do you dodifferently in your practice?
Dr Chetan (01:26):
James, thank you, thank you.
You know what this, this bit,is so important and often
overlooked, and what I findthat's happening quite often
nowadays is obviously because ofthe number of squat practices
that are being opened, thenumber of before they were this
legacy nhs mixed practices.
But if you look at the numberof squat practices that have
opened over the last one year orso, it's been the highest
number of squat practices openedin a single year.
(01:48):
That was last year.
But what that means is whatthat means is your marketing has
to be up there, because now thecompetition has increased.
But one very important thing inmarketing what people don't
realize is you can't do the samething, what the other person's
doing.
If you do the same marketing asthe 10 other dentists are doing
the same ads, the same Facebookads, the same Google ads what
(02:10):
tends to happen is you are justlike them.
You need to have adifferentiating factor.
So, rather than just copyingwhat I do, it's trying to
understand what's your USP.
Why should a patient come toyou and not to the other
dentists down the road, right?
So patients are educated thesedays.
(02:32):
Right, they already know abouttreatments.
People know about aligners,people know about anivisaline,
people know about implants,people know about dentures, but
what you need to do is try anddifferentiate yourself from the
next guy down the road, and thatcomes down to your USP, and
understanding your USP is soimportant and crucial.
And then designing your wholestrategy behind it is very
(02:55):
important.
So with marketing, I broadly saythere are mainly two types.
Right, so obviously have amarketing agency and get advice
from them.
But obviously you've got to bethe driver.
You've got to tell them exactlywhat you want and who you are.
Because James say, for example,you have a practice next to me
and if both of us go to the samemarketing agency and you say
you know what, what Chet does dothe same marketing for me.
(03:17):
And if I say what James does,the same marketing for me, how
confused the patient going toget.
Why is the patient going to goto your or not to mine, you know
?
So you've got to be different.
So you've got to ride the boat.
So you've got to tell yourmarketing agency.
Obviously you're a dentist,carry on with dentistry but
you're a business owner and abusiness leader as well.
So this goes for both, practiceowners as well as for
(03:37):
associates, and I'll touch up alittle bit for associates as
well.
There, there's some really key,important points here but for
practice owners as such, becauseyou're in the driving seat,
you've got to tell yourmarketing this is my USP, this
is me, right, there's only oneof me, and this is what I stand
for, right?
Yes, you have the mission andthe vision and all that, but
this is what I stand for.
(03:58):
Then your marketing gets dividedinto two parts organic
marketing and paid marketing.
So these are the two main typesof marketing, right, and then
there's a whole lot behind itbut I don't want to confuse the
listener on this but mainlyorganic and paid marketing.
And organic marketing is kindof like free marketing.
Uh, though, there's nothinglike free marketing, but it's.
(04:19):
You don't pay for it, right,and you're constantly there.
And then you have paidmarketing, which is targeted
marketing, which is amazing,right?
I remember the days when I usedto spend hundreds and thousands
of pounds on radio ads.
What was my roi that?
I didn't know, but it did helpme with brand awareness.
Nowadays, it's so much simpler,cheaper and measurable with
(04:41):
doing, um, you know, socialinternet marketing, so, whether
it's google or whether it'sfacebook, so you do your paid
marketing throughout.
So I do both organic marketingand paid marketing and I try and
make sure that my presenceacross all the available
channels, because you've gotlots of channels right, it's
(05:02):
only facebook, you've gotfacebook, you've got instagram.
You've got lots of channelsright, it's only Facebook.
You've got Facebook, you've gotInstagram.
You've got TikTok.
You've got Google, you've gotTwitter, you've got LinkedIn,
all these channels.
You need to make sure that youhave a kind of presence across
all these channels, again,depending on the type of
audience you're targeting.
And that all comes down to yourUSP, because if I was targeting
mainly aligner patients, mytarget audience is going to be
(05:24):
totally different, whereas if Iwas targeting implant patients,
my target audience is going tobe totally different, right?
So I could go on for a coupleof days on marketing itself,
right, and what your strategy isand how you should look at it.
But in a nutshell, that's themain thing Try and be different
and try and understand marketingrather than just going to a
marketing agency.
Listen, I need more patience.
Dr James (05:49):
It doesn't work like that.
There's more to it than that.
Nailing the usp is key, then,and I want to know how many
businesses out there haveactually done that, even though
I suppose that's possibly dayone of of of business school,
isn't it?
You really got to dial, youreally got to dial that in, and
it's almost like it's it's kindof a lot of this stuff is.
It's really it's almost obviousand we kind of know it, but do
we do?
It is completely a differentthing.
Can you give me an example ofany campaigns that you've run on
(06:11):
the ad side, of things thatwere unique and did really well?
Any stories on that front?
Dr Chetan (06:17):
oh yeah, yeah.
So I have an ad that I ran in2022 and the lady's name is
Leslie, so she wouldn't mind metelling her name.
So we came in and there was agood story behind it, right?
So people love stories.
I love a story, you love astory, and so does our patients.
(06:39):
They love a story as well.
So Leslie walked into mypractice and most dentists have
heard these stories.
They walked into the practicelow on self-confidence, low on
self-esteem, really nervous.
She had a full arch implantsurgery done at the practice
Right Now.
She had someone with her tospeak to me about her treatment
(07:00):
so she could speak.
She could understand she wasmore than capable, but she was
so nervous she couldn't evenspeak.
Right, she finished hertreatment.
She finished her treatment soshe could speak.
She could understand she wasmore than capable, but she was
so nervous she couldn't evenspeak.
Right, she finished hertreatment.
She finished her treatment.
She had full-arch implantdentistry and we gave her for
those implant dentists out there, we gave her an FP1 prosthesis,
which is an implant-retainedrestoration on zirconia.
(07:20):
Finished, she came in for areview.
Now this lady is totallydifferent.
Now she's coming on her own,she speaks, she waves at
everyone on reception.
She's talking.
She's talking about what shedid yesterday.
So we wanted to capture thatstory and get it on social media
.
All right, and can you believeit, James?
(07:41):
Now this lady, even for herconsultation, she never came on
her own.
She went on to social media andwe started shooting a video on
her and we created the story.
So, in the time when peoplehave static Facebook ads, we had
a video Facebook ad of herjourney on Facebook Right, and
(08:02):
that itself, I think, over Idon't know the last metrics, but
it, though I did it in 2022it's still running because it's
constantly.
It's still giving me leads.
It's still giving me leads.
So you know, you don't have tochange something if it's working
fine and it's working fine.
I've done lots of campaignsafter that, but that's working
fine and still giving me so manyleads, so many full-arch
(08:23):
patients from that ad campaign.
Dr James (08:27):
And you know what was a big reframe for me whenever I
started running my own ads?
It was to understand thatwhenever you get a real runner,
these things are assets in andof themselves.
People are so fixated oninvesting in property or having
gold or having stocks or an ISAor whatever the hell right.
These are literally assets aswell.
It's just that people don'ttalk about them as much.
(08:49):
Naturally, there's a little bitof digging you have to do to
get a good one, but that processnever starts on.
Dr Chetan (08:54):
The last you begin is another way of looking at it.
I understand and you know whatit's not rocket science, and so
what I spoke so far in the last10 minutes is not rocket science
.
It's there, everyone knowsabout it, but you just got to do
it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to take the firststep.
Go back, step back a little bitAgain.
One more thing A lot of peopleare so involved in their
(09:15):
business they're not able totake these big decisions by
stepping outside their businessand taking these decisions.
They almost have to stepoutside their practice and look
at their practice from acrossthe road and say what does my
practice stand for?
What do I stand for?
What does my team stand for?
Does my team know what I standfor?
Right, it's not just a dentalbusiness and if you nail that at
the start, then you got anevergreen dental business.
(09:37):
Not a dental business that thisruns post-covid or dental
businesses runs on aligners andbonding.
You've got an evergreen dentalpractice because people buy from
people, right?
Dr James (09:50):
they do, and that's why testimonials yeah hit, they
hit home.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talkabout what happens next.
So they saw the compelling ad.
The prospective patient yeah,they now want to reach.
They presumably sent you a leadform from facebook.
They fill in or meta orsomething, or whichever ad
platform we've used.
The prospective patient yeah,they now want to reach.
They presumably sent you a leadform from facebook.
They fill in or meta orsomething, or whichever ad
platform we've used.
You've got their details.
(10:11):
At this stage where they've gotyour details, what?
What happens at that stage?
Do you?
So, let's say?
Let's say, they pick up thephone, right, wherever, however
it happens, either they call youor you call them or, however,
right, what do you dodifferently in your practice to
really dial in that experience?
Dr Chetan (10:28):
okay, so one of the rules in in marketing is from
lead to from lead inquiry tocontacting the patient.
It should be done in under 30minutes.
It's okay to do it over twohours, but that's right.
So there's no point having alead coming in on a Monday and
you're not calling the patienttill the Thursday.
(10:49):
It's not going to work.
It is pissing money down thedrain.
Dr James (10:54):
Because they're in proverbial pan, right In
emotional pan.
They want that problem solvednow, right, right.
Dr Chetan (11:02):
And if you don't respond then the next person on
the road is going to respond.
So quite early on I didsomething called as a PGC.
I created a PGC position in mypractice.
So PGC is like my patientgrowth coordinator, because
she's key, instrumental to thegrowth of our practice.
So I wanted someone who canhandle the leads.
(11:23):
Obviously you have yourreceptionist, but, James, I
don't know if you know thestructure of my practice we're
large practices, right?
So I've got like sixreceptionists in one of my
practices, got 14 dentists.
But I wanted someone toexclusively, exclusively work
with this lead and have the timefor it.
So I had to literally take itout of the practice, out of the
(11:51):
hustle and bustle in thepractice, and just concentrate
only on this lead.
That's all that I care about,right?
So the lead comes in eitherthrough a call, through a
message or a phone call, and mypgc patient because all she does
is talk to these patients,develop a rapport with the
patient first Spends close to 30minutes with each patient.
Now, in a busy, mixed practice,you can't expect your reception
(12:12):
to do that Right.
So I felt that that was key andinstrumental in the change.
Also, it helped me to reduce mymarketing cost.
Why?
Because my cost per lead wentdown, right, because every lead
that came in was converted or Ihad a higher conversion, so I
(12:36):
didn't need to spend tons moreto get more leads, right?
So every lead that was comingin was looked after straight
away.
So my PGCE looked after thispatient, spoke to the patient,
developed reports, and there arefive, six things that I go
through and I go through this onmy DPM event.
There are three things andthere is a script that she goes
through and on this script shementions she speaks to the
(12:59):
patient, gets a report built inwith this patient and once this
is done, so I divide the patientjourney in kind of like five
parts, right?
So we've done the marketingside, then the bit where my PGC
speaks to the patient.
Then the next bit is when thepatient walks into the surgery,
right?
So now the patient's you'vedeveloped rapport, patient's
(13:22):
happy.
You've taken a deposit of thepatient very important.
You've taken a deposit of thepatient very important.
You've taken a deposit of thepatient and the patient walks
into your practice.
Dr James (13:30):
I see so that's a non-negotiable for you that at
that stage where your dedicatedteam member reaches out to them
off the back of an ad, there'salways some sort of transaction
there.
Dr Chetan (13:43):
There is a transaction and the way I put it
down is a transaction, and it'sthe way I put it down.
Is a refundable deposit?
Right, it's a refundabledeposit.
My consultations, or theconsultations in our practice,
are free, right, but you have topay a deposit to secure your
place, which is refundable onceyou do come in or you don't turn
(14:05):
up.
Once you don't turn up, youdon't get it, the deposit's gone
.
But if you do turn up, it isrefundable.
Obviously, if you want to goahead with treatments, then you
can encash it towards yourtreatment, but now you've
developed contact andwillingness from the patient to
(14:25):
go ahead with it.
Dr James (14:28):
And you know they're serious right and they're
serious exactly, and they'reserious about the treatment.
But yes, anyway, I didn't meanto interrupt you then.
You were just talking about thepatient whenever they first
walk into the practice.
Yeah, so now this is done rightNow.
Dr Chetan (14:41):
This is done.
Now the patient walks into thepractice.
The patient walks into thepractice.
Okay, the patient walks intothe practice and basically,
whatever the patient saw onsocial media, on your video, the
patient talked with your pgcand the patient walking on to
the practice has to be allconnected.
They need to have a similarexperience throughout.
You cannot have differentexperience and that's why your
(15:04):
usp in the beginning, yourmission, your visions, should be
defined before you do this.
So this is a continuation.
Otherwise, the minute a patientwalks in like, oh my lord, is
this what I was, is this what Isigned up for?
Right, first impressions.
Right, first impressions arethe key.
So your patient walks in andmeets your reception.
(15:24):
Once your patient meets yourreceptionist, then they sit down
and then they get booked in andthey go in for their
consultation right now.
When the patient comes in foryour consultation, now, there
again, there are differentstages to this right.
So it's very rare I do anyconsultations.
I don't do any consultations.
(15:46):
The consultations are done by myteam.
Again, there's a method to itand there's a system to it,
presumably by a tco, a tco, yeah.
So we've got five tcos in ourpractice and the consultations
are done by the tco.
So you see a lot of that.
Oh, the consultation has to bedone by the dentist, because how
(16:07):
will you know if thetreatment's right if the
treatment's not right?
But before you understand ifthe treatment's right or not,
you need to understand if thepatient's right and if the
patient actually understandseverything about the treatment
right.
So that's what happens.
And then the TCO signs offsaying that yes, you can have
this treatment done, as long asDr Samathas looks at you and
thinks it's suitable for you.
Dr James (16:29):
I love that.
Dr Chetan (16:31):
Right.
So I've created another layerthere.
So the patient has seen my PGC.
Now the patient has seen my TCORight, pretty much approved it.
Then the patient sees a dentistin my team to confirm that that
patient can have the treatmentor not.
Dr James (16:52):
And this is they're on their way to meeting you at
this point, or do they now?
Oh, they always come to you.
Dr Chetan (17:00):
They still not met me yet, Right, Right.
And the dentist looks at thepatient and says yes, everything
is good.
We take your CT scan, we takeyour.
If it's an implant case, we doyour CT scans, check your habits
, check your gum profile.
They have a list of things thatthey need to go through and
everything is confirmed.
Once that is done, then thepatient comes and sees me.
Dr James (17:23):
By the way, can I just jump on one tiny thing that got
me excited then, because thisis the sort of stuff that how
can I say it gets me excitedthese days, at the age of 33
checklists?
Dr Chetan (17:34):
so important to have right.
You know why, James.
The thing is you have twothings right you have systems
and you have your mindset right.
Both are very, very, veryimportant.
But a lot of people think thatI get up every morning saying,
yeah, let's go and smash the day.
Man, I'm human at the end ofthe day, right, and I'm
(17:54):
reportable to such a large teamright, we've got close to 150
staff members on my team.
I need to be the best I can tothis team.
But mindset can go up.
You could be motivated one day,not motivated, motivated one
day, not motivated.
But if you have systems inplace, then your systems is what
(18:16):
carries on and helps you withyour growth.
So it doesn't matter if you, ifyou are not motivated a day or
not motivated, but it's yoursystems that keeps carrying you
on kind of reminds me of asaying, and I'm not sure who
this saying is by.
Dr James (18:31):
It's definitely not by me, so I can't take any credit
but anyway the saying goes youdon't rise to the level of your
ability, you fall to the levelof your systems.
Dr Chetan (18:40):
So true, so so you nailed it on the head.
You, that saying is actuallynailed it on the head.
People need to understand itright and spend time developing
systems in your practice right.
Dr James (18:51):
Otherwise it's just going to be chaotic it's so
important and I genuinely didn'tthink it was that.
I didn't.
I knew it was important but Ididn't appreciate its importance
until I'm going to even saylike six to twelve months ago.
And then I started doing it inmy companies and you, you get
your time back, like that is alittle bit of effort to set them
up and make sure exactly, butit's worth it, but anyway, but
(19:14):
also sorry James, sorry.
Dr Chetan (19:16):
Also, what it does is it gives consistency, which is
the key, right?
When a patient walks in it, youneed to be consistent in your
approach, right?
It's not just the first timeyou give them this wow
experience.
It has to be consistent,consistent, and the only way you
can stay consistent is byhaving systems in place.
You don't have systems in place, there's no consistency at all,
(19:39):
and the patients can see it.
There's nothing like havingamazing customer service the
first.
Imagine going to a five-starhotel and you've got this best
experience, like, wow, thisplace is amazing.
Next year you go back and like,oh, the guy who served me isn't
there anymore and the customerservice is like boom, dropped
Right.
You need to be consistent, andthen that's where the fifth part
(20:00):
comes into play.
But let's go back to VVV.
Dr James (20:04):
We were just at the stage.
We were just at the stage.
We're going on little tangentshere, but I feel it's worthwhile
, because we want to jump onthese things while it's fresh.
Dr Chetan (20:12):
Yeah, because I don't want to miss out on anything.
Dr James (20:14):
Where we were was.
You were just at the stagewhere you were explaining that
they see the TCO, then they seethe associate and then they go
on to see yourself.
But that's not every patientright.
Dr Chetan (20:32):
I imagine the associate will see some
themselves and some they'llrefer to you exactly, exactly
right.
So it all depends.
It depends on the type ofpatient, type of skill set and
what.
What happens in that like.
So we do close to I do close to700 implant surgeries a year,
right and around 400, and lastyear we did on 462 clear aligner
cases.
So those are my main 40.
Yeah, we do veneers and rehabsand everything, but we have a
bigger team that handles it.
But this is for majority of ourworkflows.
(20:53):
All right, now the patient'swalked into my surgery and the
patient's got 10 minutes bookedin.
That's it.
The patient's got 10 minutesbooked in.
In the 10 minutes I've alreadyhad a look at all the patient's
records, all the conversationsthat's happened.
All I do is see, confirm andthe patient gets a chance to see
me and then I just walk out andmy team look after the patient
(21:19):
and books their next appointment.
At that stage, if the patientshave any questions they can ask
me.
So it's literally 10 minutes.
Most of the time we finish itin like 5-6 minutes.
Dr James (21:29):
UK dentists, if you are just starting out on your
investment journey or you'realready investing and want to
know if your strategy is 100%foolproof and optimized to
reduce fees and maximize growth,then you might like to know.
I have teamed up withindependent financial planner,
luke Hurley to create theDentist who Invest Academy.
The Dentist who Invest Academyfully documents the process that
(21:50):
a financial planner wouldnormally perform for a client
behind the scenes and reveals itto you.
This means that you canimplement it into your own life,
therefore pulling yourfinancial freedom date forward
by years.
If you wish to set up andmanage your own investment
portfolio, then this is designedto give you all the tools and
knowledge you need to performthis properly.
This means that, when viableand appropriate, you will have
(22:11):
the know-how and skill requiredto build and manage your own
investment portfolio, plusensure that it is 100% optimized
.
If this sounds like your thing,then keep an eye out on the
Denison Invest mailing list,where we'll be announcing the
details of the next intake verysoon.
So those in effect, what thoseappointments are after they've
(22:32):
been referred to you throughthose layers that you talked
about a second ago.
That's your assessment, youropportunity to meet them, and
then you will then, at thatstage, perform the treatment
afterwards so effectively,effectively, for all that work
in terms of your time,effectively, all that work for
the exam appointment isliterally 10 minutes of your
personal time, yeah literally 10minutes that's scaling right
(22:57):
there right because I realized,James, few, few years back, that
I've reached my peak, right.
Dr Chetan (23:05):
I reached my peak and I can't grow anymore and I was
like what's the point doinganymore, like I can't grow
anymore, and then I realizedthat the only way I can is if I
empower my teams and take, helpthem to go to the next level
right and delegate.
So important, a key, a scienceon its own, again, something I
go through for at least half aday on our dpm program.
(23:27):
Delegations are so important.
You know and we as dentistshave got this OCD we want to be
perfect, right in everything wedo.
We are perfectionists and wealways think that and this was
me included, right for manyyears that no one can do it
better than me and I have to doevery stage of it right.
Dr James (23:46):
But the minute you delegate and do it properly,
delegate properly then you willfind exponential growth and, in
turn, profitability in what youdo you know, the moment I let go
of that belief as well, Irealized that actually, instead
of us trying to do 50 differentthings, if you have one person,
whether or not they're naturallymore capable at a specific task
(24:10):
or not is actually irrelevantafter a certain amount of time,
because if they're literallyjust doing one of those 50
things all day long, they'regonna get so much better than
you very fast, exactly.
Dr Chetan (24:21):
Yeah you nailed it on the head, right, so that that's
like, because all they do islike zone in on that one
particular job, and that's thereason we have teams for
everything.
So I have my own building team,we have our own nursing team,
we have our own tco team and allthey do is go down that funnel
to try and become perfect inwhat they do.
Right, constantly, constantlyimprove, cut copy paste, improve
(24:43):
, improve.
So that way you've got anexpert at every different part.
You've got an expert at theconsultation stage.
You've got an expert doing thescanning.
You've got an expert at everydifferent part.
You've got an expert at theconsultation stage.
You've got an expert doing thescanning.
You've got an expert taking theCTs.
Rather than you doingeverything, you just concentrate
on doing the thing that youhave to do.
Right, just concentrate ondoing the things that you have
to do.
That's all, nothing else.
Dr James (25:03):
And I think what is really worth remembering as well
that these patients are havinga great experience at your
practice too.
You know they're coming back.
You get referrals, word ofmouth, and that leads me on to
the next thing I wanted to ask.
Obviously, part of the patientjourney is ensuring that there's
follow-up and reviews and thatthey're happy and everything's
positive on that front.
(25:23):
So how does that look for you?
Good?
Dr Chetan (25:25):
one, right.
So the patient journey doesn'tend with the patient having the
treatment in our surgery, right?
So I spoke about so liketreatments again, different
treatments.
We have different workflows.
We have aligner workflows, wehave implant workflows, um, and
we, we've incorporatedtechnology into a lot of
technology into all of this.
Treatments complete.
(25:46):
We've delivered on what we said.
We're going to deliver.
We have a quality checklist tomake sure that it's all done.
Because you can have a largeteam, right, so they need to
have checklists and KPIs onexactly, and we need to check,
right, we need to constantlyaudit our patients when we
finish, what's the level ofquality?
(26:07):
And because delivering on yourpromise is the most important
thing, right, especially inpatient care, and giving them a
high quality result is so, so,so important.
You could do all this, but ifyour dentistry doesn't last,
there's no point, right, andthat's where people
underestimate the power of wordof mouth, because you can do all
your marketing, but if yourword of mouth isn't great, then
(26:29):
it's about and a key for for theword of mouth referrals to
increase is doing good, highquality dentistry.
But also to audit the qualityof work that's being done right.
Audit the number of implantsyou're placed, audit your
aligner cases anyway.
Treatment's finished.
Then the most important part ofthe patient journey happens,
right?
You want your patient to firstthing leave you a review.
(26:58):
You want your patient to beyour raving fan and you want
your patient to invite otherpatients to your practice.
Imagine, say, for argument'ssake, that lead costs you 10
pounds, 20 pounds, whatever thepatients come through the whole
cycle the patients paid what?
Three grand, four grand fortreatment.
Patients left and got you twoother patients.
(27:21):
So what's the cost of your lead?
Right, it's negligible, exactly.
And the more that happens yourlead goes down.
So a lot of people try and fillthe bucket.
But you need to make sure that,before you fill your bucket,
close all the holes in yourbucket, because you can keep
filling a bucket that has gotholes in it and it is never
(27:43):
going to get filled up, right.
So follow up after treatment'sfinished to make sure the
patients leave.
Great reviews, referrals andjust kind of letting the patient
know that, listen, you knowyour journey doesn't end here.
If you have any issues orproblems, we are here to help
and you're going to havefollow-up appointments and book
their follow-up appointmentsbefore they even leave, right?
Dr James (28:08):
I believe the terminology is it's your cac
number, your cic cost to acquirecustomer, right?
Yes, and if you're, what willhappen with time is if you're
constantly marketing but theproduct is no good, it's going
to keep costing you more andmore to get customers and then
eventually the business will diebecause the cost to acquire
customers more than they'reactually making, unless the
product is good, in which caseyou get some of those customers
(28:30):
referring their friends, whichis free.
So it keeps your cost, youraverage cost to acquire customer
at a certain level, yeah yeah,it's uh, you know, you nailed it
on the head.
Dr Chetan (28:41):
So you've got to look at the whole picture, the whole
picture in a whole right.
So, from your marketing all theway till till the patient
leaves the practice right,you've got to look at every step
of your journey right, and thisdoesn't have to be only for
principals.
As an associate as well, you,you need to understand this,
because one thing that we speakon our associate mastery when
(29:02):
we're in, it's exclusively forassociates is how can you become
an asset to your practice rightand help your practice
principle and help your, yourteam, build up in the practice?
Because, at the end of the day,the practice is doing well.
You as an associate are doingwell, you as an associate are
doing well, the team is doingwell, the team is happy, there's
(29:23):
good energy, your practiceprinciples, everyone wins.
It's a win-win.
The minute you start thinkingabout it like a team approach,
everybody wins right.
So I think one of the biggestthings is systemize.
If you don't have any systemsin place, don't panic, right,
you have to start somewhere.
But for this year, you knowit's 2025, new year, new me, new
(29:44):
practice.
Put one system in place and Ipromise you, in three months
time you look at that and you'llbe like shit, can I have
another system in place and canI have it?
Don't go and put 10 systems allof a sudden.
Dr James (29:56):
Just put one system in place and see how that works,
monitor that system and see howthat works right before you
introduce the next system and abig part of what is essential to
what you're talking about isgetting the right team around
you, as in people who believe inthe common goal, overall vision
(30:17):
and objective.
How have you successfullyachieved that?
What wisdom can you offer onthat front?
Dr Chetan (30:23):
yeah, so again, this is going back to what I said
before, right?
So a few years back, quite afew years back I used to be just
associate me and my nurse andwe used to generate quite
substantial sums.
Right, we used to see a lot ofpatients and which generate
quite substantial sums, but thenwhat I realized is, if I want
to see a lot of patients and weused to generate quite
exceptional sums, but then whatI realized is, if I want to have
a bigger impact and treat a lotmore patients, I need to have a
(30:45):
bigger team around me and Ineed to concentrate on things
that only I need to do, which iswhat I mentioned.
So I need to develop this teamand build this team around me.
So now we have close to 150people in our team.
But there is a science to it,James.
You won't believe it.
Most of my time now is spent onlooking at CVs and recruiting.
(31:07):
I don't hire everybody, butlook at CVs and recruiting
Because it's simple, right?
If me, as a dentist, and I'mpracticing and I'm looking at a
bigger team and I want thisbigger team to grow, the better
my team, the better I look,right?
So where would you spend mostof your energy and time,
(31:31):
obviously looking at recruitingthe best team.
Right.
If I spend time now and energynow recruiting the best team,
then I know in years to comeI'll be fine.
I recruit my own dentist.
I like my own hygienist,therapist and senior management
team.
Yes, the new nurses that comein.
I don't do much of recruitmentI used to do it but done 100 so
(31:51):
far so my practice managers goahead and do it.
Right.
But then also understandingpeople, which is so important,
right.
If you have you have the wrongperson in the wrong position, or
if you have the right person inthe wrong position, it's not
going to work.
Right.
And there's a lot of books outthere.
(32:13):
There's a lot of science behindtrying to recruit the right
person.
At least 70 to 80 percent youcan accurately predict the type
of person you want and try andfill that position up.
So I had to do it one at a time, right.
And then it comes down to trustand loyalty, right.
(32:36):
So it's everything.
Unfortunately, it's just notone thing.
It's everything right.
So I go on about differentpersonalities and colors with uh
, with my delegates, with my,with other clinicians I work
with and most of my team knowthis right that you have to be
of a certain so say, for example, I'm recruiting for a tco, so I
(32:57):
need my tco to be friendly.
I need my TCO to be what's theright phrase, not
over-analytical, right yeah?
Dr James (33:08):
people-oriented maybe.
Dr Chetan (33:09):
Yeah, people-oriented , nice, jovial.
So that comes under a yellowpersonality, right?
I've divided them into red,yellow, blue and green, like the
book surrounded by idiots,right?
So it's the system, right?
Disc, yes, yeah, I'm not atthis system, it is.
It is a system evolved from thedisc system.
It's a very good book,surrounded by idiots, oh I see,
(33:33):
oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeahit's a really good book, right,
and I've read it like two,three times and that's what we
incorporate that into our teams.
So simple thing like if youhave someone who's a yellow
personality.
A yellow personality is, say,someone like you, you know,
everyone should be a friend.
You're a lovely guy, you're anice guy.
A red personality is likesomeone like Donald Trump.
Dr James (33:58):
That's a good red actually.
I would have struggled to thinkof one off the top of my head.
But that is a good one, that'sa good on red right.
So, and not not just becausehe's a republican we should
mention because republicans,yeah yeah, by the way, no shade
to donald trump, whether youlike him or you, not so much,
we're just commenting on hispersonality on the personality,
right, and and this, everypersonality is good, whether
(34:19):
you're red, whether you'reyellow, whether you're blue or
whether you're green.
Dr Chetan (34:22):
But the problem happens is if you put the wrong
people, the right person, in thewrong place.
That's when disaster strikes,that's when you have problems,
that's when you have you knowissues, that's when you end up
in front of a tribunal andthat's where you have, you're
struggling to recruit stuff,right, because a lot of people
are struggling to recruit stuff,and as we go on in the, in the
(34:46):
next few months, it's going tobe all the more important to
understand your team, right?
Um, and one more thing I needto add that it's no good having
everyone of the same color,right, right, because it's just
not going to happen.
No, no, work's going to be donethere's having everyone of the
same color, right, right,because it's just not going to
(35:07):
happen.
No work's going to be done.
There's going to be a lot ofclashes.
Color like red, blue, yellow,green.
Yes, yes, yes, sorry, yeah,yeah, yeah, that's what I meant.
Yeah.
So red, blue, yellow, green.
So you've got to have peoplewith different colors, right,
like a leader, it's got to be adifferent color.
Someone who's on your backoffice analyzing your data, or
you know your data analyst, hasto be of a totally different
color.
Your receptionist have adifferent color.
Your TCO has to be of adifferent color.
Your dentist has to be as muchas possible for different color,
(35:30):
right?
So all these personality colorsare very important and this is
just one of the tools among somany other tools that are there
to help you recruit.
Just one of the tools among somany other tools that are there
to help you recruit and makingsure you get the right person
for the right job.
Second thing sorry, James, but Ijust wanted to add this there
are two more things that theyneed to have and it's very
important as part of recruitment.
(35:51):
One is kpis.
Right now, you, your team,won't know what they have to
achieve if you don't tell themwhat they have to achieve.
So you need to set up keyperformance indicators for every
team or for individuals.
I have it for teams rather thanindividuals, because we have a
(36:13):
large team.
And the final bit isaccountability.
You have to be accountable foryour actions.
You have to be accountable.
Yes, you hit your KPIs, that'sgreat.
You don't hit your KPIs.
What happens?
Right, and having communicationconstantly with all members of
your team, even if it's forthree minutes, even if it's for
(36:35):
three minutes a week, that'smore than enough.
But try and make sure youconstantly communicate with your
team on a daily basis.
Right, you can see, I'm reallypassionate about this because
it's so important.
Because the minute you get thisright James right your practice
just changes.
I know practice owners, so manypractice owners, who've come to
practices.
(36:55):
They just go, sit in their room, work and they walk out.
They just don't want to speakto the team, they don't want to
mingle with the team, they don'twant to interact with their
team, and then they go out andsay, oh, I want to increase the
number of patients, I want toincrease this.
Oh, my TCO doesn't this.
It's not one thing, it'severything.
And it's about stacking allthis together, right?
(37:15):
So, having your right marketing, having your right system,
having your right marketing,having your right system, having
your right teams, having goodfollow-up systems, having the
right people in the right place,all this adds up together to
give you the best results.
Dr James (37:25):
So not one thing, but it's everything and just uh, to
add to what you were sayingabout the principal, who how can
I say this?
Yeah, they've got a very theywant to grow their practice, but
they want to do it on theirterms and not really talk to the
team or just get more patients,or I don't know, have provide
more high leverage treatmentplans, as in more costly
(37:47):
treatment plans, and what haveyou?
The stuff that you're talkingabout it's not like it's kind of
optional, like we do it thisway or we do it this way or we
do it this way.
The stuff you're talking aboutis not a way to go your practice
, it's the way right.
Yeah exactly yeah, so.
So if you're not that person, itwould really help to become
that person who does exactlyright.
Dr Chetan (38:05):
Yeah and, and the thing is, you've got to be aware
, right, you're doing it, you'vegot to be aware of me.
So what I've found is general.
This is generally speaking andthis is through coaching other
dental businesses and clients.
There are generally two wayspractices are run in the country
.
This is specifically to the uk.
One is the traditional approachand one is the modern approach.
(38:29):
Right in the traditionalapproach you could get away with
being, uh, super red, or beinglike a, or being like a really
dominant personality.
Dr James (38:44):
Like overbearing.
Dr Chetan (38:45):
Overbearing.
Yeah, yeah, you could get awaywith that, right, and practice
could still run.
Because you've got to rememberthe type of workforce that's
coming into our practices at themoment.
In fact, this year, anyone bornthis year, they are the alpha
generation, right?
So if you've got the Gen Zscoming in, the question you've
(39:09):
got to ask yourself is is yourpractice ready to accept these
Gen Zs into your practice?
Are your systems in yourpractice ready to accept them
into the practice?
How do you deal with them?
You cannot deal with how youdealt with the baby boomers,
with the gen z's.
You don't want to have anystaff and then you constantly
(39:29):
can't mention that.
You know what I keep trying.
I keep putting ads, but I don'tget people in.
That's the reason, right?
So what's your staff retentionrate like?
Not Not only patient retention,this is again coming into
hiring and team building andeverything.
A lot of people concentrate onpatient retention.
Look at your staff retention,right, how long do your staff
(39:49):
stay in your practice?
And sometimes you've got toquestion yourself, right?
I know there were some figuresthat were thrown out.
They're like okay, an averagenurse lasts three years, an
average.
That's fine, right, but you'vegot to question yourself,
sometimes critically, and acceptwhat comes out on.
Exactly why have they left,right?
(40:09):
Maybe there is something youcould.
So we have exit interviews inour practice, right?
An exit interview is this oncesomeone has left, we sit down
with them and say, okay, fine,thank you, you know, for your
time.
Time.
Can you tell us what we can doin our practice to improve?
You're leaving the practice,right.
You can tell us exactly whatyou want, right, rather than
(40:31):
telling them so.
Previously, when someone senttheir resignation across, I was
like you know what?
Yeah, thank you, bye-bye,that's fine, gone, just deal
with it.
You'll get your p60 or whatever.
But nowadays you know that'spowerful, right?
Imagine getting feedback andbeing critical about your
practice.
That's the best feedback.
That's the best feedbackbecause they have nothing to get
(40:51):
, because they're leaving thejob anyways it's it's it's it's
a very powerful way of lookingat things.
Dr James (41:00):
It's seeing it as an opportunity to improve the
business.
That is which is really cool.
I love that.
I love that, and you're right,people from even millennials and
gen z as well.
They don't really respond tothat direct, authoritative
management approach that maybeworked.
I don't know.
I wasn't alive in the 80s and70s, so, James you, remember
(41:21):
that far.
Dr Chetan (41:21):
It was 10, 15 years back when I started practicing
oh, it was geez.
Okay, wow, you're talking about2004, 2005.
Those times it did work.
Dr James (41:30):
They like I've been in practice like that and it was
just it was not I.
At the time I was like what'swith them, right.
But now I look back on it and Ikind of see things a little bit
more high level and I was like,right, we just didn't click in
terms of a that was, that wasmiscommunication, right there.
They thought that that was howthey communicated to somebody to
get them to do something, whereit was actually it's the
(41:51):
opposite.
You can't, people will justpeople from millennials and gen
z, they'll just resent you, man,they'll just they'll not
actually follow through, whereasif you have a little bit more
of a emotional, intelligence,receptive approach, uh, well
then it's going to help.
Let's, yeah, it really workslet's talk about the future.
You're right, dentistry, becauseall the things we've talked
(42:13):
about so far.
We've been talking about humancapital, but it's becoming that
much harder to have a lot ofhuman capital in your practice
with regards to what carestammer has brought in or will
be bringing in, uh, over thenext few months, and what have
you.
So, really, if there's anythingthat we can do to reduce our
human capital from the point ofview of making the numbers work,
(42:33):
or certainly not have tooverextend ourselves in that
front, at the very least, well,that's going to be a valuable
thing.
So how is your businessadapting to that?
You know?
Dr Chetan (42:43):
very good question.
The thing is, not many peoplerecognize what's going to happen
.
Right, if the rules changebefore april, then fine, but if
they don't change and if theystand in the way they are, then
we have, as a business, we'llhave to make some big changes in
our, in our.
So one of the things is AIright, the big buzzword that's
(43:04):
there everywhere.
But understanding how to use AIin different parts of your
business, right, and how can youincorporate that into your
systems.
So utilizing technology andputting amazing systems and
improving efficiency in yourcurrent team is what's going to
(43:25):
help you in the next stage.
So these are like three broadwords right, so you can use AI
like you have AI these days inyour PMA systems.
You have AI in your phonesystems, right.
Monitoring everything right, Ikeep telling you've got to
measure everything.
You don't measure, you don'tknow if you're going up or
you're going down.
You've got to measure, measureeverything on a daily basis.
(43:48):
So one is having technology.
Second thing is by empoweringyour team right, and making them
a lot more sleeker.
Right, in the sense that muchmore efficient multitasking I
know in the previous thing I didmention about like currently in
my team, I have one person justdoing this, right, but as we
(44:11):
move forward, you need thatperson to do test this and a
second role which will take 10of their job, right?
So they do one job 100 andanother job role that's probably
20, right?
So you almost have to do thatto reduce the amount of human
capital that's there and that'sthe only way.
(44:33):
That's the only way forward,right?
I don't know if people still mix, mix alginates and mix
impressions in their practice,right?
Just think about the time whenall we did was mix ingin.
Now, if your nurse doesn't knowhow to mix an alginate or
doesn't know how to put putty in, or you know whatever, get one
of those dispensers forimpressions, it's fine, because
you got scanners and whetherJames, whether you scan, whether
(44:55):
I scan or whether my 9 year oldson scans, you're going to get
the same result, right.
So you see what technology hasdone.
It's got a predictable sameoutcome, right, and an amazing
outcome.
In fact, it's got a lot morebetter.
We know the difference.
We don't have to keep going onabout difference between
alternate impressions andscanners.
12, 13 years back, when I usedto speak, I used used to talk
(45:18):
about this a lot, right?
What's the difference betweengoing digital and having analog
way of running dentistry?
That's non-negotiable.
Now you have to be all in onthis but also accept the new
technology that's coming there.
It's like you got AI these daysfor your note-taking.
(45:38):
There are lots of note-takingapps.
You got AI these days for yournote taking the lots of note
taking apps.
You got AI for yourradiographic interpretation.
You have digital x-rays.
You have scanners that are likeamazing.
I mean you have on the implantworld.
You have extra oral scans thatnot necessarily have to be done
by you.
That could be done by yournurses.
(45:58):
So incorporating technology inyour practices is the key.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.