Dr James, 0s:

People talk about early retirement, and certainly one way you can retire a little sooner than expected is to get your business to such a stage where it runs itself and generates you some lovely residual income, ie what's known as an associate-led practice, and that's why we welcome Dr Hema Dhingra today on the Dentists Who Invest podcast, where she's talking all about her journey in dentistry, becoming a principal owner operator before gradually moving along her practice to the stage where it now runs itself. She's going to share the best lessons of her career in dentistry with us today and we're looking forward to the anticipation to learn, as ever. Welcome back to another episode of dentists who invest podcast, and I've got a remarkable lady in front of me today, Dr Hema, and we're here today to talk about Hema journey, because it's a bit a little bit well, that's an understatement, it's more than a bit of an inspiring one, and that's coming from me, who's been very lucky to interview lots of people over the years in the Dentist who Invests podcast, and this was one that I wanted to share. Dr Hema, maybe a nice place to start out is for you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Dr Hema, 1m 7s:

Yeah, sure, James, thank you so much for having me on as well. And what an introduction. I don't know if I live up to it in that sense, but yeah, so basically, I graduated in 2001 from Cardiff, and what a great city. You know, they work hard and play hard there. They work hard and play hard there. Um and uh, I really enjoyed my time there and when I was there, actually one thing that did stand out to me was that a lot of the cohort in my year were from families who had dentists in their background, and just for my situation, I didn't have that. So I quickly learned that, um, I was probably in the minority from that point of view, but I had a great time and I went from there to working doing my VT. So we had to. In those days we had just one year of VT, so it was quite, it was quite easy, and I then went to work for a corporate and again, in those days there weren't many corporates around. The corporate that I went to was called Dencare, which is now being taken over by Oasis, and I was there for three years and quickly became clinical director there. But as much as I had a great time there. My parents were based in Newmarket so I thought, you know, I'd like to move closer to them. So I started looking around for practices in their kind of area. But also at the back of my mind I could see and we're talking 2002, 2005, something like that where dentistry was going more and more towards private practice and there wasn't as much private practice in those days. So I thought you know what? I think I'm going to try and find a private practice. And in the back of my head I wasn't even thinking any of am I good enough, anything like that. I just thought no, I'm just going to go and find a private practice. So, like there always, always is, there was a huge shortage of dentists and I was fortunate enough to get like it was ridiculous, I was getting 20-30 interviews went to all these practices, which were predominantly NHS because, as I say, there weren't many private practices and stumbled upon this amazing private practice in Biggleswade, bedfordshire, walked through this practice doors. It was run by two men where they both partners in this practice. It was actually a seven surgery practice, but they had lent the top floor out, which had chairs in it, and converted it into almost like a flat and they were just running it as a three chairs in it and converted it into almost like a flat and they were just running it as a three or four surgery practice and it was only like three or four dentists in it at the time and I was replacing one of the associates. So I fell in love with it and I had said to them at the interview is there any possibility of becoming a partner here? And they said well, unfortunately not, there isn't. But I thought you know what? I'm just going to take a punt, I'm just going to give it a go because I just love the town, I love this, I just love the place so much. Let's just see what happens. So then, after many years of persevering, seven years later, in 2012 so they were called Bob and Jim, and so Jim came and said to me you know what, Hema, I'm ready to retire. Would you be interested? And of course I jumped up and down and I was like, yeah, of course I would love to. So I purchased the first half in 2012 and, like everything, all things happened at once. I found out I was pregnant and I bought the practice, but half of the practice worked until a week before my son was born, and then went back to work six weeks later essentially and then COVID happened. So to skip a few years forward, you know, I was co-owning the practice. We were just running it as a three, three or four surgery practice. I didn't want to change anything. I was with, I was with my business partner. At the time I thought you know what? I've just had a son. Let's just keep things going. Covid happened and then my other partner decided to. He said he'd had enough. And, fair enough, he was slightly a bit older than me and he he thought, yeah, I've had it. You know, I just want to. I want to hand the reins over to me. So I bought the second half in uh, just after Covid and with everything. With Covid, all the team became disillusioned. The whole team essentially left and I was just having to start from scratch. So I built a new team and I created, quite frankly, a new culture because it's always hard, change is always really difficult and grew the business. So I became the sole owner of the practice in 2021. And from there I basically grown the practice from having four associates to now 15 clinicians and all the surgeries are being used. So the seven surgeries that we have are all being fully used and we have tripled the turnover in the space of three to four years. And yeah, it's a completely different practice. We've rebranded, we've refurbished, we've got a new ethos, we've got a new culture. I think it's unrecognizable. And on top of that, because I really enjoy the business aspect of things, I decided to try and make it as associate led as possible. So now it's pretty much an associate led run practice.

Dr James, 6m 52s:

Wow. Well, listen, hats off to yourself for what you've done, because a lot of people would aspire to be in that place. Business assets, some of the best assets whenever you get them functioning and firing from the point of view of the cashflow that they can give you, of course. And you know what? In that story that you told just then, I bet there was lots of learnings at each and every stage and I'd be so keen to jump in with those because I know that there'll be much value for the listeners in the podcast whenever we share well what happens and what you gain from it effectively, because they can accelerate their own journeys, which is a big part of the mission of what we do here. So I'm interested to know, just to recap 2002, you qualified right 2001,. Bought the practice in 2012,. Right, that's right. Yeah, bought your half of the practice in 2012. That's right. Curious to know. You know, for those 11 years, do you feel like and this is an interesting question to ask you from your perspective was there always that fire inside of you to go and run your own business, or do you just feel like it was a bit of a slow burner and you started to think to yourself. Actually, there's a lot of perks to me not being an associate.

Dr Hema, 7m 58s:

I'm interested to know yeah, I think, James, I was always very keen to have my own practice and it's really interesting, I don't know why, uh, particularly because I didn't have any dentists in my family who owned a practice, who owned a business you know, I'm the first business person in my family and but I've just always had that fire and I think, for me, I love the business aspect. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do like the clinical aspect too, but for me, my passion has probably been a bit the opposite to the average clinician. I think that I just love the business side. I love, I love people, I love growing, uh growing something and uh expanding. So I've always had that burning desire to always just want to be my own boss, if you like, um, but what I noticed is there wasn't that I will. At some one stage I was looking for some kind of female mentorship and I found that there wasn't as much out there, there wasn't as many female owning uh dental practice owners there as there probably could be, despite there being so many women within dentistry.

Dr James, 9m 7s:

I see. So you very much felt did. Did you have any sort of formal mentor at any stage throughout that process?

Dr Hema, 9m 13s:

no, I pretty much did it on the wing in the prayer. So, uh, I didn't have anything, so I used to. I basically just always was going on my gut instinct and also, at that time there there wasn't really such a thing as a business coach, or certainly particularly the world there may have been, but perhaps you know, it was wasn't within my financial grasp because this was all bank funded. I did it all off my own back. So, yeah, I just did what I thought I could.

Dr James, 9m 44s:

Well, we've got to remember. This was 2012. And we just take it for granted that we use social media as much as we do nowadays. We always did. Actually, people really didn't back then. You know, that was four years into the growth of Facebook. People didn't even realize that you can find uh, you know coaching was well asked for thing back then.

Dr Hema, 10m 2s:

Right, yeah, yeah and and yeah and this sounds ridiculous, but you know, at that time I'd barely got a mobile phone. If you, if you think you know we we didn't have. I remember starting as an associate at this practice and I've been at this practice now it'll be 20 years this April, so not exactly enthralling CV, but I remember at that time that I didn't really I didn't have a mobile phone, and the mobile phone I did get they didn't have the internet, they didn't have anything.

Dr James, 10m 27s:

So you're absolutely right, James interesting because obviously, if someone doesn't have formal, well, the point of a mentor is to speed things up right, but you know they have to. The person that they work with already has to have the characteristics or what's you know, the kind of fundamentals there, right as in. They need to have a certain sort of character or they need to have a get up and go-ness about them or a resilience. And I'm just interested to know what traits do you feel carried you through in that day? What traits do you feel that made you compensate, I suppose in terms of not necessarily understanding what you could do or not necessarily having any tutelage. How do you feel that balanced out? Or you overcame that?

Dr Hema, 11m 14s:

I think if you've got the drive, I think you've got to have the drive that you really want to earn the practice. It's not for everyone and everyone doesn't have to earn their practice, but if you do have that drive, you know I had that drive and I just persevered, along with resilience. You've got to be resilient. When I first uh took over during COVID, you know everybody left and yeah, I had to pick myself up and think, yeah, it's okay, you know I can get a new team on board, kind of I've got this. And if you can believe in yourself, I think that's all you really need people. That's what.

Dr James, 11m 52s:

That's that's what how I did it anyway you know what I'm gonna say, something just out of interest. I heard somebody recently describe as the mindset necessary. Describe the mindset necessary to run a business as you almost. You have to be optimistic, obviously, but so ridiculously optimistic, almost to the point where you're semi-deluded because you're slightly detached from reality yeah and the reason why that helps is because if you believe in what you're going it sounds a little airy-fairy, but it's true if you believe in what you're doing way more, way like to, you know, to a crazy amount, then, come what may well you're giving yourself. It doesn't mean you're guaranteed to succeed, but because you believe in what you're doing so much, you'll do it with such conviction that you're more likely to succeed. So, really, that adjusting that mindset increases your odds more than anything else, and that's why you can intentionally craft that set of beliefs yeah, well, 100%, James.

Dr Hema, 12m 42s:

So I akin this to and this is going off tangent from dentistry. But I ran the London Marathon in 2019 and I am not a runner and all I did up until that point of running I did nine months of training. I had to take some time off from just one or two days off here and there, and at that time I was working five days a week as a clinician seeing patients. But what I did was exactly what you just described. I got my mindset in the right place. I was reading books all about getting your head and just believing that you can do it, and I think all those kind of things really make a big difference can we talk about how you took a grand total of seven weeks off for your maternity, Hema?

Dr James, 13m 25s:

and whilst we'd never want to romanticize that or we'd never want to say, okay, this is what we got to do, ladies out there, naturally there's going to be some lessons that you learn through doing that and some maybe inspo in a way yeah, yeah, I mean, as you said, James, everybody's different and it's not for everyone, but I think when you take on their practice, it almost becomes another baby.

Dr Hema, 13m 52s:

I know that sounds a bit bizarre, but you are taking on something which you are responsible for and you have to look after. So, in my mind, I almost had two babies in one go, so I had to look after one at home, but also I had one at work, so I had to basically divide my time and my son, who was born at the time. He was in a nursery nearby so I used to go and sit with him at lunchtime for an hour. So I've tried to look after both my babies. So I think you know it's not for everyone, but it can be done. So if you are thinking about doing it and often women, we have a lot of guilt and there's always guilt, guilt. Am I looking after my children? Well, I'm looking after the practice? Well, I'm looking at my staff? Uh, it's all about just believing that you're doing the best that you can do and forget about the rest love that boom, and that's coming from the lady who's been there and done that as well.

Dr James, 14m 47s:

I just like to add, because you literally walked in those shoes yeah, yeah and.

Dr Hema, 14m 51s:

And women often will talk about guilt and I think guilt we carry around. Guilt we carry around because we try to do everything and I think sometimes it's not helpful to have that guilt. And if there's any way that you can just put that to one side and just think, yeah, actually we're being role models for our children when we go to work, we are being role models and showing them that, yeah, you can. It's not about having it all. I don't think it's about having we are. We are just showing them that we can be a well-rounded person. We don't have to choose.

Dr James, 15m 24s:

Well, I think there's a lesson in there, massively from the point of view of perspective and mindset. I heard somebody describe mindset as it's the pair of glasses that you put on every moment, where you put on some shades, where you're pessimistic about everything, or when you put on some rose-tinted spectacles where you've got an optimistic outlook on life in general. And I feel like almost any situation. Yeah, you've got the common narrative that's around it and the common narrative might be okay. The common narrative in business is you're sacrificing your life to make the business right, like we're all kind of ingrained to think that way. But what if you can see certain aspects of it is actually conducive to living that best life and being inspiring for people around you. And then all of a sudden it's like okay, cool, I don't actually think there's a tug of war here between my family commitments and my business commitments. Actually, I'm going to succeed in business because, number one, whenever this thing works, I love all the time in the world for the kids. And then also number two, I'm being a role model to them as well.

Dr Hema, 16m 21s:

Yeah, and dentistry is beautiful in that way. I mean we are so lucky, we're on the Dentists who Invest podcast and what a fantastic podcast this is, as a female dentist, for all the female dentists at least we can say, which is such a beautiful thing to say that it does allow us to have a great work-life balance in some shape or form. So we are really fortunate. And dentistry can be tough, tough. It's not an easy career, like many, and it's quite an intensive career, but at the same time sometimes it's quite nice to be able to zoom out and, particularly as a female, see that you can do multiple things at one time and not have to sacrifice family for work let's talk about what happened next, and that was basically you acquired half the practice and then we're fast forwarding to covid. Now, right, and it sounds there was almost like this exodus, right, I think it's fair to say, and that came from the leadership, the remaining leadership and then also the team around you as well yeah, yeah, so mass exodus all around, um, but uh, and it was scary, a scary time for me, but I thought you know what, I've just got to go with it if I, yeah, I've got to do it. So, uh, I, when I became the sole owner, there was three or four of us at the practice and I thought, you know, right from the beginning, when I stepped through those front doors, when I had that first interview, I thought what a fantastic building. We've got seven surgeries here with room for further expansion. Essentially, why not use all seven of the surgeries? Because at the time only three were being used? So we are now. We went from three general dentists to now six. We have every speciality under one roof because we originally were referring a lot of patients out. So we have all the specialists in in one place, so nobody our patients don't have to go anywhere else. They can all come to us. And on top of that, what I've done is we also now accept external referrals because we can offer all the special needs treatments under one roof. So we've, as I say, we're now 15 clinicians and don't refer anything out.

Dr James, 18m 47s:

So really in the rear viewview mirror. Do you think that it's fair to say that that was a positive overall the fact?

Dr Hema, 18m 53s:

that all the staff left and you had to rebuild from the ground up yeah, and I think it's always tough when you it's like anything, if you, whenever anybody buys a practice that's not from squat. So when you're taking over from someone else, change is hard for everyone um, including the staff, so inevitably there's always a little bit of change and movement with the team and so, but I think it's always for the better, because then, as a new owner, you can come in and instill your own culture and ethos.

Dr James, 19m 24s:

What an opportunity, though, to rebuild with a culture that is conducive to your overall vision. And what was that? I'm sure, whenever you're in a place where everybody basically left at the drop of a hat and you thought to yourself, ok, cool, how can I rebuild this and build this back better. What did you have in mind? What did you envisage at that stage?

Dr Hema, 19m 51s:

you envisage at that stage. So, going with my theme, it's all about family. So really what I wanted to do was create a create a culture of being a part of a big family where where, from the even from the beginning of having a cleaner who was treated as the same as one of the associates everyone was seen as equal. And to really include everyone in kind of the decision making process, as much as we do have to be leaders, but at the same time communicating, perhaps, why we might want to implement something and trying to ensure that everybody is on board with what we're trying to do, so really trying to lead it as a family. And that's really what's been my main ethos for the practice, and I feel like the staff have really enjoyed that.

Dr James, 20m 37s:

And you said that you went on to triple the turnover, which is obviously quite the achievement and that's what's given you the ability to step away from clinic. And listen, if we're going to be pragmatic about this I know that obviously you know we're in healthcare and we don't just focus purely on the numbers. There's more to it than that. But pragmatically, from the business's perspective, the one biggest thing that's going to allow anyone to do less dentistry is better cash flow. Right, because you can just use it to buy back your time, like if we're just purely looking at the numbers, that's an objective fact, right? So obviously you've achieved that and that obviously you've achieved. The practice becoming fully associate led you fully stepped away.

Dr Hema, 21m 19s:

Well, pretty much I do one full day a week.

Dr James, 21m 22s:

Okay, so it sounds like it's optional for you at this point yeah, it could be, yeah. So in a way, I think I would deem that associate led because you're doing it because you want to, rather than you have to is the way I would look at that. So I'm interested to know do you fully the fact that you went from where you were, you know, in the clinic four or five days a week, presumably? yeah, five days a week, yeah, five days a week down to one which is an optional one. Do you do you think it was the culture shift that fully accounted for that, or was there other things surrounding that?

Dr Hema, 21m 50s:

I think it was a bit of both, James. I think having the right team in place is crucial and it's a bit of a cliche, but business is all about your people and certainly I've been fortunate enough to really build. I can't even praise them enough such a fantastic, beautiful team of people around me. Praise them enough, such a fantastic, beautiful team of people around me. So it's partly them and partly purely the numbers, as you say. I mean, you've got to be able to have those numbers coming in in order for you to kind of step back, particularly, you know, if it's not bankrolled by family and you've got financial commitments.

Dr James, 22m 27s:

you've really got to keep a close eye on those numbers as well so would you say that's the biggest in terms of you shifting from owner operator to associate led, would you say. Having a keen eye for the numbers is was one of the biggest shifts in terms of perspective, in terms of, in terms of, from a practical sense, what you did or what you do.

Dr Hema, 22m 51s:

Yes absolutely, that's the biggest thing, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, I think, having a close eye on numbers and knowing where you want to go. So, for me, I always wanted to be able to focus much more on the business rather than in the business, and I knew if I wanted to do that, then I would need to keep a close eye on those numbers.

Dr James, 23m 10s:

Was there anything that you moved around, from the point of view of maybe more the practical stuff that you did in the practice as in, did you start offering certain treatments, did you make certain hires that could perform certain procedures or anything along those lines, as well as a culture shift and knowing your numbers, obviously?

Dr Hema, 23m 26s:

Yeah. So I think, if you, knowing your numbers, obviously, yeah. So I think, if you and again I don't I I think if you want to purely get have general dentistry, that's great. But for me we already had that cohort of general dentists. So I was really looking to implement the, the specialist endodontics, the root canal treatments, the perio. So we've got an endodontist, we've got a periodontist, we've got two oral surgeons, we've got a prosthodontist, we've got an orthodontist. So I was keen to introduce it all to the practice so that anything that. So it was much more of a holistic approach. So our general dentist will do the general dentistry and then they will then be triaged to whichever they need to go to and then come back, so they really get everything done by the, by the specialist dentist and the general dentist done by general dentist makes sense.

Dr James, 24m 17s:

So everything under one roof, because then you don't have to refer people out and what have you?

Dr Hema, 24m 20s:

and all the cash flow remains in the business, which is amazing, and your practice is fully private, right so we are pretty much 80 private, and so we do have a small, we do have a small nhs contract as well I see, okay, is the game plan to shift fully private at some stage? At some stage. That would be brilliant, I think. Yeah, I think we all know the difficulties of the nhs, uh, but at the same time, I think we have to serve our community the best that we can. So it's all about.

Dr James, 24m 53s:

Do you think having some NHS commitments helps or hinders a practice being associate-led?

Dr Hema, 25m 2s:

Well, that's an interesting question. It's a difficult one to answer. James, that's a tricky one. I don't quite know that answer yet. Let me tell you in a couple of years.

Dr James, 25m 13s:

Okay, we'll do the next episode, the sequel to this podcast, in a few years and we'll find out. I actually think my listen. I've never been on the dental practice. I think it helps yeah, yeah, yeah I think not sure, I'm not 100 sure. I think you could probably argue it either way, couldn't you? Yeah, depends. I've seen print, I've seen, uh, I've seen principals who are associate, led with both basically. But I mean, the one thing about about NHS is it's good for parents who have kids, because obviously you can put them on the NHS, which you might well do, and that's a bit of an appeal basically for private patients. But yeah, I mean there's various other ones as well. Ask the accountants, they'll know the numbers.

Dr Hema, 25m 55s:

I'll tell you what helps with both NHS and private is the and this is another top tip for expanding your practice is the Google reviews. So we're now like 520-something Google reviews.

Dr James, 26m 9s:

How many sorry?

Dr Hema, 26m 12s:

526, something like that Holy guacamole. In three years. So that is another big top tip to help expand your practice, to really focus on that.

Dr James, 26m 22s:

Can you tell us what your secret is in that front, because that's a lot.

Dr Hema, 26m 25s:

There is no secret, James. I used to think this three years ago. I used to think how do these practices do it? There isn't a secret. It's basically just ask your patients and they will be more than happy to tell the world how great you are.

Dr James, 26m 39s:

Interesting. Wow, it's as simple as that, because people have a bit of a hang up on that, don't they?

Dr Hema, 26m 45s:

Yeah, we're not even very fancy in that we don't have in-house referral cards. We don't have any of that. There's no discounts offered. It's just purely. It's just to ask your patients because you've got a great practice. All of your listeners, I'm sure, have got fantastic practices out there. All you need to do is just ask them and I'm sure they would be delighted to help. That's how we've done it. Nothing magical there.

Dr James, 27m 11s:

Really so you don't incentivize them in any other way, apart from just to say would you mind if you did this?

Dr Hema, 27m 16s:

Yeah, that's simply it. That's all we do.

Dr James, 27m 22s:

Wow the other way, apart from just to say would you mind if you did this? Yeah, that's simply that's all we do. Wow, and for a lot of people, people do have a hang-up on that. Even though it's so easy, they feel like reluctant to do it, like you know, as if they uh, there was an ulterior motive to them treating them so well on that day. I don't see it like that. I just say it's like hey, I've helped you. You know, is it okay if you do this, if it's's cool? And yeah, I don't think the patients perceive it that way either. I think it's just us dentists who sometimes think like that.

Dr Hema, 27m 42s:

Yeah, I think and you've touched upon this previously, I think you know we get so hung up on, you know, asking them, but actually we're asking them to help others Nine times out of 10,. Patients are always very anxious when they come to dental practice and if other patients who are thinking about joining your practice read reviews from other patients who are already anxious genuine reviews they'd be more than happy to help out. I think if it helps others, they're more than happy and, as I say, there's no magic recipe. It's just simply just being genuine and asking them honestly magic recipe.

Dr James, 28m 19s:

It's just just simply just being genuine and asking them honestly and I'm interested to know does your practice have much of a social media presence on other practice, on other, on other platforms, as in? Do you go hard on the content or whatever, or does it purely seem to be the google reviews that have driven a lot of your success?

Dr Hema, 28m 33s:

so we I think we do do a bit of instagram and a bit of facebook, but nothing major. I do think it's mainly Google reviews because, like all of us, you know, when you look up anything whether it's a holiday, a hotel you Google it and you read about other people's experiences, and so for us it has purely been on Google reviews and I'm really proud that people our patients feel that they have had a great experience and they're willing to write about it. But I don't think it's unusual. I think every practice could do this and it doesn't involve any special formula. You just need to get out there and ask them.

Dr James, 29m 10s:

Hema, thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and knowledge. Tell me this just as we wrap up what does the future look like for Dr hemmer? More, more dental practices, perhaps?

Dr Hema, 29m 19s:

well, maybe, if the right practice comes along, James, um, I would like to even consider growing our current practice because there's still believe it or not, there's still room for growth, there's still room to add another one or two surgeries in there and, um, yeah, maybe maybe buy another dental practice. Who knows? Let's see if the right opportunity comes. But I'm really happy with what I've got and I would like to grow that and expand the referral, referral services. But all I would say is, if you're thinking about buying a dental practice, particularly as a woman, you can do it, and if you need any help or advice, I'm here.