Dr James, 0s:

Does setting up a squat still make sense in 2025, even after Keir Starmer went and flipped everything on its head when it comes to business taxation? Well, joining me today is Dr Bobby Bandell, a dentist who set up an unbelievably successful squat in the Birmingham area. He has since went on to coach and mentor other dentists when it comes to setting up their own squat practices. We're going to talk about what you need to know in order to make your squat a success in 2025. And also, in addition, to make your squat success in 2025, and also, in addition, that even if you have a dental practice and you're not interested in squats, some very useful things that you're going to be able to employ into those as well. Do squats still make sense in 2025? That's what we're here to figure out today with squat success expert Mr Bobby Bhandal. Bob Bobby do squats still make sense in 2025?

Dr Bobby, 48s:

110%, they still make sense in 2025 oh yeah, oh, I'm intrigued to hear.

Dr James, 55s:

I'm intrigued to hear and what is? Your. What is your? Listen, I, you know, I asked that question in a way that made me sound slightly skeptical. I still believe. I'm still a believer as well. I think you can make it happen if you've got enough willpower and knowledge and support and guidance. Why do you say that, though?

Dr Bobby, 1m 11s:

That's what I'm interested in hearing, because I say it for the fact that there is a huge amount of evidence base out there that it still works Just what we were talking about before we jumped on. We're having our best month ever. So I don't really understand when practices say that january is quite a month for them. So you know, we pretty much hit records for everything this month new patients, turnover, um yeah, big treatments and we're absolutely flat out inundated. And the previous guys on the course, who all opened on the back end of last year, are absolutely killing it. I mean, they are run off their feet, two of them both putting in their third surgeries within four months of opening Third surgery Absolutely insane. And people think that it's hard. There's no patience. How do you get patience? And you know we're here to tell the story that you know. If you know what you're doing and you do it properly, the opportunity is there.

Dr James, 2m 14s:

See, this is my take on business, and not just business, but also investing as well. Listen, there's always going to be an element that's random chance, right, like luck is a factor. We cannot argue that right. But what mitigates the risk of you failing as much as possible is how much you know in your skill to me. So you max out the things that you can max out, which is how much effort you put in, how much you learn and how much you're willing to listen and be mentored by others. And then if at that stage it still doesn't go your way, that's just bad luck. You know, you just have to cut your losses at that stage and maybe go again or something along those lines. But it's that much more empowering. When you look at business and investing like that, you think to yourselves right, what can I do to maximize my odds? And the rest is just fit yeah, you know it's funny.

Dr Bobby, 3m 5s:

You say that because, conversely, I've spoken to, uh, quite a substantial group of dentists over the last three or four months who have set up squats and are unfortunately not doing very well um, you know, not doing well at all. And then you know, if you take a bit of a deeper dive into you know, what were the reasons around that and what's going on. And you know it's just really a few things. So you know, first one you know serious lack of business acumen. You know it's just kind of gone on a whim. Um, you know, I've seen a place. You know I think it will make a good practice, let's just set up there. You know no real kind of thought basis business planning. You know gone into it. Um, second thing is, you know, massive misunderstanding around marketing Either non-existent, not marketing correctly, or not having a real understanding of who they even want, you know, in their patients. And then the third thing is just not understanding money. You know not understanding money whatsoever. So you know cash flow is huge and you know it's something that dentists don't think about enough when they're setting up their practices. And then I think the fourth thing actually I would add to that is retaining a team. You know having a solid team like the importance of that and growing up practiced it can't. It can't be understated amazing.

Dr James, 4m 21s:

So you think, those, you feel. Those are the key differentials between the people who are yet to taste success careful with my words, because it can still happen and the people who are doing extremely well yeah, 100.

Dr Bobby, 4m 33s:

And then there's one overriding factor that goes into that, and that is absolute hunger mentality. So the ones who are killing it, the ones who are smashing it, are just so hungry that they don't care, like they know that crap is going to happen. You know things might not go the right way, and then it's just a case of okay, how do we counter that right? Something's not, you know, not quite right. Jump on the phone, speak to whoever it is our own group, you know we use that a lot for that and but how do we get over that? You know we've got a hurdle. What do we do? Uh, it's not like sitting there dwelling on it, you know, whereas the ones that haven't been that well, they've almost like kind of crawled back into a little bit of a hole and kind of, you know, kind of lost themselves and then let the fear take over, whereas the ones who've been really successful just don't care. It's just like on to the next thing. You know, we tried, it didn't work.

Dr James, 5m 22s:

Let's learn, boom off we go you know, there's a saying that I absolutely love you either win or you learn, and if you can make that your mantra, you're never losing at any point. You're either learning or you're winning, and it's such an amazing reframe. I'm like man. This feels not good, but I need to reassociate that feeling with me learning rather than me failing. Yeah, very powerful, very powerful.

Dr Bobby, 5m 47s:

Even the people that are doing really well and succeeding, you know, even for them they have massive problems, but they're just different kinds of problems, because you know problems are growing too quickly brings a whole set of another problem that you've never thought about, I never come across yet. So you know it's not the fact that you know they're doing really well and it's all really nice and easy. You know they're still having problems and issues. But those are better problems to have than you know not doing as well.

Dr James, 6m 13s:

This whole illusion where we're wishing not to have any problems. That still happens, even when you're successful. They're just different types of problems, so you should really just see that as part of the journey at all stages. Bobby, you were able to fill your practice with quite a lot of patients pretty fast whenever you opened. What did you do differently?

Dr Bobby, 6m 31s:

Yeah. So I mean, the first year was actually pretty slow. It was when I started really understanding about marketing and started doing a lot more video content and taking a lot deeper dive into the demographics and who we wanted in our practice January this year, so we actually rewrote all of our scripts, videoed a whole set of new ads, new content and, you know, the best thing we ever did actually, we removed all offers. So you know, you can go on Facebook right now and you'll see so many different things 500 pounds off Invisalign, you know, free retainers, this and that and it's just the same thing on every single ad. And we just flipped that on its head completely and it was a little. We want these type of patients and how do you make the ads speak to them? So when they're listening to it, they're reading that, thinking that's me. If they're reading an ad that says discounted treatment, 500 pounds off this, that they're not reading that, thinking that's me. They're reading that, thinking, oh, this is cheap. And then they're going to get bombarded by loads of other ads after they've clicked that, all offering the same thing and then it's the case of which one's the cheapest. So we actually flipped that completely on its head and the response has been absolutely sensational. So you know, to date, you know we've taken well over about 70, 80 patients so far this month, new patients, but that is all predominantly for big, high value work, sedation implants, small makeovers, and it is not slowing down. It's absolutely crazy. And if you asked you, you know 10 dentists who own practices, who are running ads, stuff like that, to do that. I can guarantee they'll say no, that they're scared because that's what they've always done and we need to offer this, this, this and discounts to get them through the door.

Dr James, 8m 30s:

And I can tell you, hands down, no, you don't have to but this, what you're talking about right now, is gold dust, right, because we're effectively talking about advertising, to call traffic, as in people that. Well, there's different definitions for it, but one definition is people that haven't given us permission to contact them, where they're literally just scrolling through their Facebook or their Instagram and then they see an ad. But how can we get their attention? And it has to. You have to speak to them in a slightly different way. So can we just delve into that a little bit? How do you talk to them differently, like, how did you switch around your copy over the last few months, which has led to you seeing so much more success in that front?

Dr Bobby, 9m 7s:

yeah, I mean the copy. You know the way we speak to them is. You really gotta put yourself in their shoes, so you gotta really think you know. One of the things that I realized is that you know, no matter what, there are so many people, no matter how competitive it is, that need dental treatment. One dental treatment haven't been to a dentist for years and years and years. So one of the big things for us was doing a lot around patients who were nervous and anxious and we're really well set up for that in the practice, with sedation now as well, and these patients need a lot of treatment. They haven't been for a long, long, long, long, long time. So the first touch point you know when we're speaking to them in the videos is just letting them know that we know who you are, we know that you're nervous, we know that you're anxious, we know that you haven't been to a dentist for years. But hey, this is us, this is what, what we do, this is what our patients say about us, and then it's not just a matter of the ad working as well, because then the next thing that they do is they click on that and then they go on your website or they type in on google and then they start reading your reviews and then it's just all the little touch points that back it up, and then they ring the practice and then they speak to somebody on the front desk who's really nice and lovely and understands them, and then it follows through then in surgery. So it's yeah, it was a very different way of trying things, but it's something that I'm really excited about and we're going to do some more more filming next month and that one I'm really excited about because now that we know it works and it's almost like fun and it's like how creative can we get with this, uh, and I'm talking like props and all sorts and, you know, make it really, really engaging, attention grabbing, and yeah, it's, yeah, it's different very different.

Dr James, 10m 52s:

Interesting, because correct me if I'm wrong and obviously you'll be better placed than me it's not like you guys have like a mega organic following on instagram or facebook, do you, do you?

Dr Bobby, 11m 4s:

no, we've got about one and a half thousand followers, something like that.

Dr James, 11m 7s:

It's not huge so what that goes to show for me is it's like everybody has. A lot of people have this perception that you have to grow a huge organic following to be able to get loads of traffic from your or to get loads of leads from socials, but that's completely not the case.

Dr Bobby, 11m 24s:

No, it's not the case whatsoever. But what you've got to make sure is is that your socials align with who you are in your practice. So what you don't want to be telling is a different story. So you don't want your ads to be saying one thing and then they land on your socials and they're seeing something completely different. So one of the biggest factors for our success is the fact that when they see the ads, they see us, then they go on socials. They'll watch patient video testimonials, whatever it is, and then they come in and meet us and the thing that they tell us all the all the time is is that you're exactly like how we thought you would be and it's exactly like what people said in the reviews and you're exactly like how you were in the video. And you know where the mismatch comes is when you're forced and doing something that doesn't really align with who you are, what your practice stands for, and you're putting something on like an act just for ads or what an agency might have told you to do. But then when the patients come in and it doesn't match anything else that they've seen and it's like hang on, that's not what I saw, that's not what I signed up for, and how do you get your staff singing from the same hymn sheet to such a high level? this is this what I'm interested to know as well yeah, so that that's the thing I'm still trying to understand.

Dr James, 12m 34s:

It's a work in progress, but you've made progress by the signs of it. You've got somewhere.

Dr Bobby, 12m 40s:

So, yeah, the thing with that, the funny thing with that is, is that with there, and it's fantastic and it's amazing and they are, but I still need to rewind and unpick in my own head how I've made that happen. If that makes sense, I need to take a deep dive and you, you know there's loads of things that we do, but I guess the biggest thing is the fact that I just spend so much time with them. You know, I literally treat them like my family, I look after them and you know, whatever they need they get, and you know they, they go above and beyond. Um, you know, I train them myself. I'm not really massively interested in, you know, having loads of external people come in, because what's the point? You know, it's my practice. I set the vision, the values and the standards. You know, one of the best things I ever did was, uh, about three or four months ago. You know, I closed the whole practice down for the whole day. Um, we've had a whole training day and I just led it for the whole team. So we did loads of stuff on phone calls, we did role play scenarios. Um, you know what the biggest thing was? I just actually sat down and told them the whole story of about really how I've got to where I've got to, um, and all the things that I've been through, and you know the hardships and you know they cried, um, you know, when they listened to that and it was really powerful because it gave them a sense of understanding. Now, actually, you know we don't just work here for a job. You know we work here because of you and it's like you know, wherever you go, we're going to go. How many principals do that kind of stuff?

Dr James, 14m 10s:

You know, fair enough, you might lose a day's worth of income, but you know if you multiply that what you get back out of your it makes sense because you know, when someone knows your background, it makes so much more sense why you do and say the things that you do and all of a sudden they're that much more aligned and it's just an efficiency thing. You don't have people pulling in different directions, they instantly get where you're coming from yeah, 100, and we're lucky because we're a smaller team.

Dr Bobby, 14m 42s:

It's very close knit. So, you know, I guess the hardest thing is, as the team gets bigger and bigger, is, you know, keeping that alignment. But you know, I'm a strong believer that it's doable, it's just a matter of how I'm working out.

Dr James, 14m 56s:

I've got a question. I'm interested to ask this In your experience helping people on their squat journey, naturally, you're going to have seen people who start squats that are based around various treatment modalities. So it's going to be like, yeah, implants, uh will be some, some will be restorative, some will be like nhs, mixed or maybe even majority nhs. I'm just curious. You know what I'm interested in. Do you think that one has the edge over and above the other, or can you make them all work? But there's certain things that you need to be aware of with each modality. I'm just curious.

Dr Bobby, 15m 31s:

Yeah, no, you can make them all work. So you know, in our practice we do everything Sedation implants, full arches, clear aligners, smile makeovers, full mouth rehabs and the work in the practice is becoming more and more. You know that kind of stuff rather than general dentistry, which is great. So we're we're really like an all-rounder type of practice and it works. But some practices don't, you know, they're geared towards invisalign. So a lot of that's led by the individual dentist who sets that up and generally their kind of niche and what they want to want to push um and you know, if it works for them, brilliant. But you know, from my point of view, you can make anything work as long as you understand why you're doing it, who you're doing it for and how to bring those patients in I'm gonna say I'm gonna go out on a limb here.

Dr James, 16m 19s:

I don't know this for a fact. I'm gonna ask it. I'm gonna say the majority of people who you seem to connect with and who want to set up squats are younger, maybe 30s, late 20s, something like that. Yeah, I'll say the majority are probably early 30s. Interested to know how many of them go ahead and set up mixed practices in 2025.

Dr Bobby, 16m 39s:

Uh, absolutely zero really at that level. Yeah well, it's quite funny actually, because I actually, if anybody says that to me, I I tell them I'm not the right fit for them. Um, me personally, you know, after working in the nhs doing what we do now, it's just two worlds apart. So don't get me wrong. I've got friends, very successful business models got you know. You know NHS contracts. They have big mixed practices doing a lot of private work. But I think if you're building a practice from scratch unless it's got a specific NHS contract, for example, author or MOS, I think it's very, very difficult, you know, to make it work and for me it doesn't make financial sense. Why would you want all that extra headache or the hassle for doing a lot of low value work when you can build something of value, see less patients and ultimately earn more and provide a better service?

Dr James, 17m 34s:

Do you know what's going to not necessarily help things whenever it comes to setting up a new business in 2025? Whenever it comes to setting up a new business in 2025, the way that tax is going to be switched around very, very, very soon. What, if anything, have you done to account for that and what are you saying to your delegates that they should do in advance to prepare for that?

Dr Bobby, 17m 58s:

Yeah, so there's two big things around that. So the first thing is efficiency within your practice. So that comes to your team structure and your leverage, and also a really deep dive at looking at expenses and costs. So one of the biggest things with new practices, even existing practices, they focus so much on the turnover and the profit but they actually neglect the fact of looking at the expenses. So you know something that gets overlooked. So there's not enough work done in that area. That's one of the biggest things. And then the second thing is really looking at your pricing. You know, without a doubt, for most practices you've got to have a detailed financial analysis, but you've got to look at your pricing structure. You know everything's going up. National insurance is at your pricing structure. You know everything's going up, national insurance is going up, and you know you've got to work out exactly what that's going to cost you for the next year and then you can start to look at your pricing strategy. You know more effectively, um, but obviously you've got to work with accountants, you know generally to to work all of that out. But yeah, two biggest things look, look at your expenses, efficiency. Sorry, three things. And the third one is looking at your pricing. I see Pricing is a big one because people are very scared to put their prices up. We put our prices up pretty much every three months and we don't really get any objections whatsoever. Like I said, even now we've removed all offers based off. We don't do any of that discounts and we're busy as ever and people are coming in, paying, you know, 13, 15, 20, 25 grand and no issues.

Dr James, 19m 32s:

Price is so much more elastic than people realize. It's like this thing. There's this explainer that I saw once, and it was like why most businesses don't make as much money as they'd like? And it's basically because people are businesses don't make as much money as they'd like. And it's basically because people are making the pricing decision out of emotions rather than anything else, right, because think about it, right, you know what's your greatest lever to make more money. There's loads of them, right? But one of the main ones is price, right. So it's like people will. You have the turnover of your business, so you have the outgoings and the profit is the part in between. Most people will only actually put their prices up when it gets. Their outgoings are close to their turnover, so they're at that point of maximum pain where they have nowhere to go. So, regardless of the fact that they find putting the price prices up emotionally painful, they're still going to do that over and above not making any money. So they'll do it just enough to make a little bit of money, right? But then inflation and outgoings will come right along and maybe six months a year is down the line. They're in exactly the same situation. Whereas, if you recognize that that's the thing and just grasp the bull by the horns and just go ahead and do it in the right areas. I don't want to oversimplify and just make it out to be something that is like grossly business, to be something that's grossly easier, simple to do, but what I do want to reiterate that actually that is one of the best places that somebody can look, and being aware of that little psychological phenomenon is massively helpful yeah, and ultimately, you know, even if you get some patients who say you know that you have outpriced them, you know generally it's not a big issue because you put your prices up so you actually need to see less patients anyway.

Dr Bobby, 21m 10s:

So you know it doesn't have a huge impact and you know the fact of the matter is that most patients just won't object anyway If you're doing everything right. You're looking after them well, your communication is great, your team is great. You're giving them a great experience.

Dr James, 21m 23s:

you know most of them are not gonna not gonna query it and the thing is, of the ones that do query that sort of stuff, are they even necessarily the patients we want to be appeasing anyway?

Dr Bobby, 21m 35s:

exactly, exactly there. You know, if they are and there's a big issue for them, it's fine, but maybe we're not the right fit for you. You know you can find another practice Understood. Yeah, we got no issues with saying no to people. I'll tell you that now.

Dr James, 21m 51s:

Well, I think it's the right energy, because if you don't say no to someone at some stage, you're trying to keep, you're trying to say yes to everybody and that's just not possible. It's a basic rule of society that you can't keep everybody happy, but that's whilst. We acknowledge that. That's basically what we're saying, unless we say no to people effectively.

Dr Bobby, 22m 9s:

Yeah, yeah, you're asking for trouble. Um, you know those patients are going to be the hardest patients they're going to be in. They're going to be doing your head in. They're going to make your team's life hell. You just don't need them in your practice. You don't need that energy.

Dr James, 22m 22s:

There's plenty of other patients out there that happy to pay for what you're offering tell me this apart from us talking about tax just a second ago, is there any other ways that the landscape has shifted for squats in 2025 that we should be aware of?

Dr Bobby, 22m 38s:

yeah, so, generally, I think the biggest thing for squats is, um, uh well, the first thing is, I still think the opportunity is huge. No matter what, no matter what anybody says, there is huge, huge, huge opportunity. The second thing I think that's the biggest thing that's going to change in 2025 is really looking at technology within your practices and how well you utilize technology. Everybody is talking about AI the big buzzword of you know the year technology. Everybody's talking about AI the big buzzword of you know the year, and it'd be very interesting to see how that migrates into dentistry. But I think that is going to be one of the biggest levers for the next year. It's so, so, so early. It's so in its infancy. I've seen some stuff which is good. I've seen some stuff which is terrible, um, and I just think at the moment, like I said, we're so early in.

Dr James, 23m 28s:

Nobody really knows what's going to come out or how it's going to really impact, but it will to some extent, because I know that you and I caught up about this one other time and it's now possible to get ai, which listens to your phone calls between you and the patient, or the lead, or whatever it rates the phone call based on your ability, how well it feels it went from the point of view of rapport, your ability to communicate and then also your ability to convert them into a paying patient. It certainly has metrics. You, you'll be you'll be able to describe better than me.

Dr Bobby, 24m 6s:

it's something like that, right, yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly right, that's all with care stack and their phone system, and they've taken it a step further now with with the ai bots and the way they speak to patients and triage them. Um, so I won't say too much on it because we don't actually use it yet, but we will be at some point this year. But I've seen some of the data and it's pretty phenomenal. So it's been tested in some practices. Um, and yeah, the amount of kind of weight that takes off the front end, uh, and ultimately the thing with ai is really the whole thing with technology in general is you just want that to take the weight off your people so the people in your practice can really just do the thing that they're meant to do, and that is look after your patients, you know, not doing stuff that they don't need to do. And then the other thing is that comes into the efficiency. So it's like how efficient can you make your practice and how much team do you really need and how do you restructure that once these things come in?