Dr James, 1m 43s:

What's up everybody? Been looking forward to this podcast episode for quite a while. I have sat in front of me an incredible guest today. Dr. Ashkan Pitchforth. Dr. Ash has achieved a notable feat of growing his business to 20 different practices. We learned today, how he did that, the journey, and also the things that he's learned along the way. Because there's a lot of stuff that goes into this that is massively counterintuitive. And that's the sort of information that we want to give our time to on the Dentity Invest podcast because people just do not know these things. Looking forward to this podcast episode as ever. As ever, you can claim your CPD for this episode within the official Dentists Who Invest Smart Money Members Club. Smart Money Members Club also includes multiple mini courses and webinar series on finance for dentists, including how to become as tax-efficient as possible, as well as understanding investing. All of this content counts as verifiable CPD, and you can download your certificates there and then upon completion of each lesson. In addition to this, we also include a whopping 10% discount on your dental indemnity and a 5% discount on lab bills for dental principals, amongst other perks and discounts for members. Please use the link in the description to claim your verifiable CPD for this episode. Dr. Ash, absolutely thrilled to have you today on the Dentists Who Invest Podcast. I've been looking forward to this episode for a little while because obviously when you go from zero to twenty dental practices, you learn a few things. There's a reason why only so many people ever get to that stage. And you know what? Of course it's about of course it's about the learnings, of course it's about the wisdom, of course it's about all of those things. It's about determination, it's about uh groundedness, I would say, as well. Like not getting too high on your own supply, I suppose. Yeah, you know, remaining uh grounded, I would I would say is part of that as well, because you want your team to continue to be behind you and everything along those lines. Um it's it's about all of those things, but it's also just about the really niche learnings that how can I say this? I I think tell me if you agree with me or not, right? I think in business, a lot of the best business people I've met what a big limit of belief that I had was back in the day was I conflated progress in business with somebody being far smarter than me and far more capable. You know what I mean? I the more I've been in that world is the more I've realized that actually it's about the know-how and just knowing little niche tiny things that people don't necessarily realize that you can apply to your life and use. And all of a sudden, for me, it stopped being less about uh me putting these people on a pedestal. I I I felt like I was more similar to them, yeah. And I felt like I just had to go out there and find the info, and that's the point of the Dennis and Veg podcast and the point of what this conversation is today. What are your thoughts on what I've just said? What do you think? Yeah, it's true.

Dr. Ashkan, 4m 38s:

Yeah, I mean, what we do is not rocket science, so it's not. Yeah. Um, and uh yeah, it's um if you break it down, it's actually quite simple, but it's but a lot of people don't see it. I guess um a lot of people focus on a problem rather than the solution, and they don't see what everyone else sees or what some people want to see, and and what people choose not to see all either through ignorance or laziness or just conformity. So you've you've got to I always say in in in our in our office, I I always say to people when there is a problem, just don't focus on the problem, always look at for the solution. Because if you focus on the problem, you'll never find the solution. Um and that's what we did growing this business and and developing it and founding it um uh from from from from back in 2015. Um we started off with one practice. Um, and then when I say we, I refer to me and my ex-wife. Um, it's always been a 50-50 um um I think you call it synergy, um, almost. And she the thing with my ex-wife beautifully is that she plays a significant role, but is not the face of it. Um and you've got to have the way I look at it is you've you've gotta have someone that is I would say I'm I'm creative, and but then she's she's like kind of the um she's the dragon out of dragons then. So I would pitch my creativity to her, and because she's got the sound, she's got a um uh you know she's uh a voice of reason, she would then tell me if something's good, rubbish, or absurd. Because if you're creative, as a if you're a creative person, you can't tell with whether your idea is good or not. Um a lot of people would then turn around, you just can't get in. It's because because that's why you're creative. You come out with ideas, and some of them uh useless and uh and also great, but some of them are perfect and fantastic. But you need to almost have a relationship with someone, like a business partner, who turn around and say, Yeah, that's great, that's not great, this is great, and then you can then run with it. So she has played a significant part. So that's why when I refer to as we, it's me and her. Um, and I would say that if you look at the business, she was probably the founder. So, what happened in the sense that like it was her idea to to have a dental practice, and also it was her idea to be like, okay, maybe rather than having one, we can have two. Um, so she founded almost that concept of we can have more, but also also when we were had the first practice making sure it was perfect in every way it could be before we then upscaled it. And then I would be the alternate, I I'm essentially then the entrepreneur that came in, then was like, okay, so now we've got the basics and I can now scale this thing and grow this thing. Um, and then you need obviously then at the end of it a CEO or i like a corporate structure that then runs it. Um, because if you don't have the corporate structure that runs it, then it's gonna fall apart. So you should have your CEO, your CFO, and all that kind of stuff when it gets to a certain level. So the way we'd done it really was just the standard route that everyone else does it. You you know, you you find a practice that you want to buy. Um, you could you could have set it up by squat, but we did an investment first. Um, you raise a deposit, um, so you put the deposit down, you borrow money from the bank, and then that gives you your first practice. But then the key thing is then how do you go from one to two? Because usually when you have one practice, the bank will be quite strict in its covenants by saying you can't borrow a certain amount within a certain period of time, and you need to make sure obviously that your your cash in the bank or your cash flow, obviously your cash flow is at a certain percentage of a turnover and God knows what, or your leveraging, and all those various types of factors, which not many people realise is actually written in the kind of spawn print. Um so the way we kind of done it was when we bought our first practice, which was the hand-crossed one um for £486,000. Um, and we put in like you know, like the classic 20%. So obviously we had we had bank debt in there. We in in one year we turned that practice from generating to turning over at that time, it was turning over like 300,000. So it was worth 486,000, but it was turning over 300 odd thousand to then turning over 900,000 in this first year. So almost tripled its turnover. Then I was able to go back to the bank and say, right, now we have more equity in this. Okay, we release more equity to then buy our second one. Nice. So that's how we managed to buy the second one. Then when we wanted to buy the third one, I went back to the bank again after then doing that with the same with this the second one. Um, you know, turning over, but then they said no. Because obviously, we for year one we did one, and then year two, obviously, we had the second one, but then in in kind of like middle of year two, I wanted to buy a third, and now no, you can't because you're leveraged too much, you're maxed out. Plus, obviously, we had some rental properties and our own house we're living in, etc. etc. So then I thought, okay, well, how can then I raise money to then buy obviously the third one? So part of it is when you're going through businesses, you have to be tight. So everything you you you earn essentially, if if you're looking to scale, looking to grow, you need to keep cash in the business. So you have to live a modest lifestyle. You can't have a luxurious house and drive a luxurious car and go on luxurious holidays. You have to scale it all down. And I remember at one point in time we were living in a in a one-bedroom flat. Um, we didn't even have Sky TV. You know, it was it was the free view stuff. Our direct debit was very, very low. Driving around then a clapped-out Honda Honda that was falling apart. Um, so every cash that was being generated remained within. We were then working as well as clinicians, uh, not inside those two practices, a little bit inside those two practices, but then outside as well. So we're able to draw money into the business. Very similar to Alexandre McQueen, who I love is a very, you know, the late great Alexandria McQueen, who's one of the British uh darlings of uh uh fashion. Um, in order for him to grow his McQueen company, he actually worked as the creative director for for Givenchy. So the money that he earned uh from Givenchy, he then obviously was able to put into McQueen. So that's how he then grew his McQueen business. So essentially that's what we did. We were working for other people to draw the money in to then put into the business, obviously, to keep that cash. And then we actually then at that point in time borrowed money off of it was a I don't know if it exists anymore, but it was an online platform called Rate Setter. Okay. It was like so you just went on there, and as a dentist, we were each able to get £200,000 each. Okay. You just went on there, you didn't have to say what it was for, it could just be for a yacht. You know, all you were all they wanted to know is you're a dentist and they wanted to see money coming into your bank account every month, which we could prove.

Dr James, 11m 21s:

And just a quick question on that, because I'm I'm listening with intent. I'm gonna say the interest rate, and that was very ridiculous.

Dr. Ashkan, 11m 27s:

It was I think like 21% it was I remember looking and thinking, this is ridiculous and it's crazy, but this is the only way we can raise almost like the the shortfall in order to buy the third practice. Then was able to buy the third practice with that loan, and then and then the and then and then from that point I was like, I need to now clear this loan because this would you know an interest rate is absolutely ridiculous. Um then the fourth practice obviously came up, and um, but then I was able to go back to the bank, and what I will what I did is I switched banks. So um, so rather than so at the at the start we started out with Wesleyan, I was then able to move to Metro Bank for the fourth dental practice purchase because I was able to then so the the best thing to do is to if you go back to the same bank, they almost like will know your history, but then we'll say kind of like their computer says no, you know, we can't do anymore. But what you want to do is then if you go to a if you go to a different, a completely different bank, and maybe banks also that think outside the box, a Metro Bank at the time, and I think I still think to this day they do it, their their landing criteria is very different to say your normal conventionally like Barclays or Lloyd's, which have all these tick boxes. So um I was able to go to and say, right, look, look what I achieved. Obviously, with the first two practices, I was able to raise bank debt through Wesleyan. I've then obviously got myself this huge rate setter loan, but I've plowed all this cash in. Now we've got three practices, we've got a fourth one on the horizon. I really want to buy this fourth one. Can we look at restructuring and refinancing the whole gig? So you take over the Wesleyan, you buy the Wesleyan debt, you buy then the uh um the rate set of debt, bundle it all together into one major bank loan, which will then allow me to have really some more equity because those prices are cash generating as well, and they're increasing their turnover, which is what they like to see, plus the eBIT DARs there, um, to then buy the fourth one. Um, and that's what we've done. Well, the fourth one, we then refinanced everything then with Metro Bank. The fifth one then was bought purely on cash because it was a smaller purchase, um, it was just like a two surgery, and then again, then when we went to buy the sixth one, which was a bundle of a sixth and a seventh, we then again refinanced that whole thing with Santan debt. So then we switched to another bank. So again, doing the same concept. So I think for the listeners, really the way I done it was you live, you don't live a Lavis lifestyle, you have to cut back personally everything. We started the business in 2015. My daughter, who is now 14, was born in 2012. So we started this business, our first patch practice was 2015. We didn't actually go away on a family holiday until 2018. So for three years, we never left the UK.Yeah.We didn't have a holiday. That was it, we just didn't have a holiday. Yeah, I feel guilty now because obviously my daughter did wasn't able to go away and have the you know time abroad, and I and I feel that and and my my ex-wife wanted that, and I kind of stripped that back from her and said, no, no, no, we've got to be sensible, etc. etc. But but can you see you've got to you've got to have those sacrifices. So you've got to live a you don't live a lavish lifestyle, you've got to plow your cash back into the business or just don't take it out. Another route is working again for someone else and then drawing the money in, which is good because you're putting money into it, because your your own business can only generate a certain amount. But if you're working as an associate for someone else, then you're drawing it in. Um, and then again, it's just pla it's just it's just it's just jumping from bank to bank to bank um when you're refinancing. Um, and then that's how we're able to grow to that level, and then throughout that journey and that growth after that, all the other purchases were either cash, so we stuck with Santander for quite a while, we either cash purchases um or we then um set up our squat practices but from NHS tenders. Um and then at one point we then bam back to Santander when we we'll buy another, I think when we're like a 15 and we want to buy like a 16 and 17, then we were able to then refinance more and raise more capital. Um, and then we moved from being a conventional high street client to being a corporate client because there's a certain point in time when you have that crossover. So generally speaking, you would deal with your local business bank manager, you know, either a Nat West or one of these high street banks, um, and your your business banking. Um, there'll come a point where probably you're at between practice, kind of like I would say 12 to 15. Certainly going above 15 when you then have to convert to be almost like a corporate client. But then when you're converting from 15 and above, that's when that's where they want to see all the structures in place. Like you have a you know, you have a full finance function and full finance team, you have HR processes in place, whether that's whether that's that that's inside or outsourcing it. But just so that you have all those systems and those structures, so you're not gonna cock it up, because you could essentially, you know, if you're not if you if you're if you you know if you get if if HMRC, you know, um um find that you're not doing taxes correctly, then you're stuffed and you you've grown something else, and then you don't really hit with a huge tax bill and then it'd be a disaster. Um so so that's that's that's kind of that's kind of the the growth in a nutshell of how kind of we done it. Sure. Um in summary. Um and of course, yeah, along the way there was it was uh there was ups and downs. It wasn't an easy, an easy ride. It was um points in time when it was disastrous, uh almost. Um but I think also you've got to know what you're going in for. That's another thing. Like you you've got to you from the outset, like the way I look at business is that a business can be successful based upon what you want to get out of it. Like you can't say, oh, this business is more successful than that business because we have a bigger turnover or we've got more sites. Because you might only want to have a business that only has three practices, it's only gonna say turn over three million pounds a year, and that's maybe gonna give you, I don't know, an income of say half a million. If you're content with that, then that's what you need to from the outset, that's kind of where you need to know you're going with it. Because that's gonna that those decisions are gonna govern or or or or that plan will govern obviously what the decisions will be. But if your intent is actually no, I don't want to limit, or I want to get to 20, or I want to get to 50, or I want to get to, or I want to sell out as well, like you've got to know what your intentions are because that's the important thing. If your intention is, you know what, I'm just gonna buy and build almost, which is a which is kind of like a business model. I'm gonna just just get into a lot of debt, build, build, build, build, build, and then I'll get to say 11 practices, and then I'm gonna then sell to PE. And that's a similar essentially how Portman was built by Sam. You know, he he he he I think at uh uh 11, but that was his intention from the start is to exit a PE at a very early stage, is that then you've got to obviously be thinking about your EBITDA as you go along. Whereas if you're like us, there was no there is no intention to say we own the whole thing. Uh when we were growing it, we weren't too worried about EBITDA. So the EBITDA dropped down a bit, we weren't too fussed as long as again it met the the banking covenants, um, so it ticked all those boxes. But I think from the outset you've got to know where you where you are. Um and if you don't want that, if you wanted to have a really good lifestyle, you do it. That's fine. But then appreciate, then you're not gonna maybe get to practice number six or practice number seven. Because if you're spending 200 pounds a day topping up your your Rolls Royce then uh with petrol, um, you know, then you're not gonna have spare cash that you're that you're you're constantly drawing money out of the business. So it's it's you're gonna know where you're going with it. Sure.

Dr James, 19m 16s:

And and you know what? Uh it's timeless lessons like that. Even though that is, I I guess, how can we say this? Uh it's intuitive, isn't it, to think like that. We struggle to do it. It's like, it's like going to the it's like staying slim, right? You eat less and you go to the gym, right? Easier said than done, right? And it's the same uh when it comes to your finances and what have you. You know, it's just it's just really hard to cut back, and that's what keeps people in the rat race, so to speak. And I I really like that you're saying that because you're living proof that you know there's there's some logic to that austerity in the early days and just powering through. And um I I I heard I love this saying, right? I heard this saying once, and it was capitalism is jammed today, or more jammed tomorrow. Yeah if you can if you can if you can hold back, you know what I mean? If you can kind of preserve your simoleans and you know do something with them. Uh but no no look, listen, I I I love that. And um, I guess when I was listening to you talk then, there was loads of questions just swirling around in my head, but like, oh, what about this and what about that? So I'm gonna try to concentrate right now and maybe ask uh some of the best ones that I feel came to me, because really we could go anywhere with this, couldn't we, right now? And I guess the first thing to ask would be, and I feel like this is where a lot of people struggle, is what was your criteria insofar as selecting the practices that you'd like to purchase again and again and again? Did you have a practice profile, or were you just like lick your finger, put it in the air? That one looks good. I don't know, something along those lines, a little bit of both.

Dr. Ashkan, 20m 44s:

100% we had a we had a criteria. And the criteria was it had to have an NHS contract. And the reason for that is because I knew that the NHS contract would then pay essentially the loan. Because that's important. If you the thing is, is that if you don't pay your suppliers, you're gonna piss someone off. But it's not the end of the world, you know. You should do, right? And maybe you can delay one month and you get a little bit behind, you catch up. If you don't pay your bank return off, you're stuffed. And you're stuffed today, but you're also stuffed next year. Because the problem is that you've broken that relationship and that relationship will continue with you. They will see that you've had a bad credit. The thing with an NHS practice is it guaranteed NHS practice, we had a NHS contract and UDAs, it guaranteed you every single month you'd get one-twelfth of that, of that. So then that as long as that was enough, obviously, and then you've taken off the expenses of the associates, things like that. To service the loan. So serviceability is really important. To service that loan, then that that that that fitted into our model. So the way we would look at it is say, for instance, you had a a practice that was being sold and it had 30,000 UDAs, I would look obviously the NHS contract, if the NHS contract would say nine, a million pounds, for instance, you know, faction in the associate costs, materials, all that kind of stuff. If that if that then left £150,000 at the end, pure operational profit, the cash, cash profit, it's an off bogus profit, actual cash profit, you know. Um and then the bank loan per year, so the repayments per year, capital and interest, so combined together, was say 120, so then it left a 30,000 kind of like leeway, that would work. So that meant that when we were looking at buyer practice, I'll be thinking, okay, so therefore, therefore, therefore that that functions. I can that can service the loan. And if that then then I extrapolate it the other way. So then I'll look and think, okay, so if the loan that I'm paying off is 100, if my loan repayments are saying 120,000 per annum, what actually therefore am I borrowing at the start? So therefore, then you go backwards and then that will say, okay, therefore I can borrow £2 million. So then I would look and think, okay, is that practice being sold for £2 million? If that practice was being sold for £2 million or less, I would then go and buy it. Because I know that I could then service that debt. So it had to have an NHS contract. So all of our practices have NHS contracts. And then what I did is that during the growth phase, is the thing is with NHS contract, they're they're capped. Yes, you might be able to go back to the ICB now or back in the day, it was called NHS England, or the local area teams or PCTs, wherever you want to call it. And oh, can you give me an extra couple of thousand UDAs? They might be able to wing you 500 UDAs here, there, but you couldn't really get anything more. You NHS contract is pretty much capped, hence why you NHS practices do private work to top things up. But the way I did it is is I did two things. Is the number one, I would look down the GDC register, uh, hearings. And I look down and I'll think if anyone's got a hearing, I would see if they Owned a dental practice and then obviously if they owned a dental practice, did they own an NHS practice?

unknown, 23m 48s:

Right?

Dr. Ashkan, 23m 48s:

Which had an NHS contract. And was that NHS contract near where one of my practices were? And if it was near one of my practices, then I would actually just pay them a visit. Sometimes I'd send them a letter, a really nice written, handwritten letter, so they bloody open didn't actually read it because a lot of time you know they just assume something's junk and chucking their bin, or I'd actually just go and knock on the door and I'll say, I'm really sorry, you know. Heard obviously you've got the GD GDC issue. Um and to be honest, if you cut to the chase, you know, you've got an HS contract, it's worth something now, but if God forbid everything goes peat tongue, you're not a registered dentist and you're pretty much stuffed. So maybe we should do a deal now. And then what I did is then I would essentially buy the NHS contract from them and then I then moved it into my practices. So then I would have a practice that say started off with 10,000 UDAs, but then over time, when I'm moving NHS contracts and buying them off from other people from other practices, um uh I convert it from having 10,000 UDAs to having maybe like 50,000 UDAs. And we have sites now that have 65,000 UDAs because we literally bought all these NHS contracts and moved them in. And a lot of people don't know they can move contracts, you can. There's a way to do it, it's hard to do it, it's not easy to do it. Um, but again, during the process of business, and again, it's it's it's like uh you've got to have time just to sit down and learn. And you've got to be got to be willing to look in the mirror and say, you know what, I'm a dentist, okay? And you might be a bloody good dentist, but just because you're a dentist doesn't mean you're a businessman, so it means you know everything. Um, and just because you went to dental school doesn't mean you know everything about dentistry. You know, a lot of people sorry, and you know everything about business. A lot of people think that just because they went to dental school, they know everything about everything, you know, they can then become a bloody musician, they can sing a song, they can go into a gym and build muscle, but a lot of the time you don't. Okay, what you need to do is learn. So you learn obviously by read. I'm not very good at reading, but what I did is obviously I would I would I would look online and watch YouTube videos, things like that, and I learn about cash flow forecasts and I learn about everything like that. What I did do, one of the only books I actually have read in my life was actually I sat down and read the whole GDS contract, which is roughly around about uh it has it has uh up to like 400, 500 clause in there, it's roughly around about 150 pages. I read through it literally clause by clause, and then I read the dental policy handbook, um, which accompanies that, and then that taught me how to then move those contracts around. Subcontract things move the contracts around. Because you need to know that. And then I went even further and I thought, you know what? I read this bloody thing, okay? My business relates to NHS and bringing in contracts. I need to know exactly how the NHS works from the inside out. So then I applied for a position to become a dental advisor to work for the NHS.

Dr James, 26m 27s:

Oh, right.

Dr. Ashkan, 26m 28s:

And I was successful when I was appointed that. And then when I went in there, I remember our first meeting. I sat down and they said, right, you know, there's some newbies here and there's some old school dental uh uh um uh advisors here. Who wants to do practice inspections? And everyone put their hand up, yeah. Some people, yeah, well, okay, we you can you two can do practice inspections. Who wants to focus on complaints? Yeah, you can use it. Who wants to sit on like the judging panel, obviously, to you know, like essentially like a mini GDC within the NHS and people do that. No one, no one put their hand up for dental contracts. And then we said, Who wants to learn about dental contracts and NHS claims? And I was like, Gotta be me. And they was like, Really? That's the most boring thing. And I'm thinking, it's boring, but that's where the money is. And therefore, that's that ended up becoming my speciality is the dental contracts and claiming and UDAs and the UDA system and policy handbooks and things like that. And so that's and then therefore, for three years, I worked inside the NHS. I was able to learn from the commissioners. It wasn't something, you know, I was open and honest about it, so I wasn't doing anything untoward, but I was learning. I learned how to mark and write tenders for the NHS. So therefore, when I was able to then apply for tenders on my own, you can't unlearn something. I got that knowledge, so therefore, I was able to then, when I then applied for a tender and I bidded for a tender, I was able to win the tenders. And one year there was two tenders released in Marlborough and Westfrey in Wilchie, and we won both of them. 100%. Not many organizations win 100% of a tender that's released. And then when it came in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, we won over 50% of the tenders again, because I knew I knew the you can't unlearn knowledge that you learn. Sure. You learn to process. So then, yeah, so then so that was another thing. So it is about actually just being humble and actually saying, you know what, as a as a clinician, as a dentist, I don't know stuff, but I've got to learn it. And if you I'm gonna sit down and learn it by the hard way, by maybe reading or doing it kind of the way I did it, is just learn it from people. Put yourself in that if you want to in the NHS organization, shove yourself in it. Go to an LDC, learn from things, sit down with practice owners, other people learn it. Listen to these podcasts, you know, you're gonna learn a heck of a lot. Um, link up with the people after the podcast and say, look, can you please help me? Can you look at this cash flow and give me advice? And a lot of dentists out there and clinicians, you know, um, sorry, practice owners and business owners might might do that. Might be like, you know, I'm I'm even gonna do it because I just want to do it because I like it, as opposed to charge a fee for it. But then there are other companies out there that will help and broker things and all this kind of stuff. But um, yeah. Um, so yeah, so that's um that's another another way we kind of grew the business and uh uh is um it's just just just willing to learn and to adapt. Yeah.

Dr James, 29m 12s:

Wow. Well that's um how can I say this? It takes uh a lot of humility to go and get a job like that whilst you're still whilst you're a business owner as well. UK Dentists, Dennist Who Invest now has an official platform where you can learn about finance and obtain UK compliant, verifiable CVD at the same time. The only platform that exists on which you can do both. The Smart Money Members Club has hundreds of hours of mini courses, webinar series, and live day recordings on all things finance slash tax efficiency for UK dentists. This includes complete courses on how tax works for UK dentists, finance so that you can invest and grow your own money, business so you can improve your profitability as an associate or principal, and for those out there that want it, there's also a mini course and how you can responsibly enter the crypto space using measured amounts of capital. I've gathered this content from the best of the best I could find in each respective area so that you know that this is how people at the forefront of each field advise their clients. The Smart Money Members Club also contains discounts on common things that UK dentists need to pay for on a regular basis. This includes a whopping 10% discount on dental indemnity, the offer to beat your income protection deal no matter what you're paying, and for the principals out there, 5% discount on lab bills and 10% discount on practice insurance. These are designed to offer hundreds, if not thousands, in annual savings. The purpose of this members club is to not only boost your monthly income but also manage your outgoings as much as possible and therefore create more profit. To celebrate the launch of the Smart Money Members Club, and given that the CPD deadline is coming up soon, I've decided to offer the first month of this platform entirely for free. This offer will end in the coming weeks as soon as the current CPD cycle is up. To collect your CPD for this podcast episode using the Smart Money Members Club, feel free to use the link in the description of this podcast.

Dr. Ashkan, 31m 12s:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was tough. And then but then again, that's where the other partner, Mana, came into play because she was able to um be a fantastic mum to our daughter at the same time, but also worked as a clinician. She continued to work for, you know, over that 10-year period, 11-year period where we've grown this business, for over 50% of that. She worked as an as a clinician for someone else, and she plowed every last penny that she had into growing the business. You know, didn't take any of it, you know, wasn't the type to say, you know what, I need a Gucci handbag or I want to go on a luxurious holiday. She was like, you know what, I'm going to give everything to this. Um, and and that's why it's nice that she's able to then benefit from it now, obviously, where it's become obviously more stable. And and and again, that goes back to those three key people founders, entrepreneurs, and like your CEOs. And she is the ultimate founder, you know, where she would we should found an idea, plow everything into it. Um and I'm I'm just very grateful actually that we that um we we we had that business relationship as well as obviously a marriage, you know, during that time. Because I I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for her. Definitely definitely wouldn't be. I actually wouldn't be alive if it wasn't that she she saved my life numerous times. Um I wouldn't be seeing it. And that's again what we depict in the film that actually the documentary we had made, um, The Cliff Edge is what it's called. Um we worked with uh um a film production uh company and um they they just filmed um basically what it was is that is that I just said to them, look, I want to do some online videos in the corporate world. I don't want to I don't want to do any for patients because we don't have trouble drawing NHS patients in because as long as you've got you know put a sign outside saying I'll say to NHS patients, they'll come like flocks. And I said, I just want to do some weird stuff in the corporate world and maybe put a put a video here, there on LinkedIn, and uh uh found this amazing film production company who we currently still work with, Diego from uh uh Saquado, Saquada uh Studios. And um he was just filming and then he's kind of like he was like, Oh, let's just let's just have a chat. Like let's just actually sit down and just tell me your life from the start right to now where we are now. And you know, he took me in very dark places, and then after like a three-hour chat that I had with him and motions, uh you know, one point I was happy, one point I was crying my eyes out, and then he was like, you know, we've got a story here. This can make a fascinating documentary about how things have gone because it's not just about it is about the business, but it's about the people around the business, because people make businesses. Um, and then he was like, let's just let's just let's just do this and have fun with it, and actually just put it out there and and we can show the corporate world like you know how how how you're able to do this and and the ups and downs that we had, and and that's and that's and that's what we did. And and we filmed it. And it's not film to release, to almost like to be like to showcase and to show off, look, look what we've achieved. It's not about that. We we selected uh an audience that we wanted to show it to, and basically just said, look, um, we want you to understand our journey, our vision, uh, what we stand for. Um, and the hundred of people that came to see the premiere, you know, they all turn around and said, you know, it's almost like that light bulb moment where they're like, I get it now, I understand everything now. I understand. Um, and um, because there was a there was a point in time where the business suffered for two, three years, we went through a bad patch. And obviously, when you go through a bad patch, there's reputational damage and there's people that talk about stuff that is not the reality, it's not the truth, because there's gossip and it's rumour, and we were just able to put all that to bed and actually put put our story across. Um, but it's in the future, maybe we might just we might release it. But the thing is because I don't really want to release it to the public because actually it was it's almost like me where my heart on the sea, there's a lot of personal stuff in there that I think is personal to me and my ex-wife, you know, uh the founder, that I think we would have to probably strip a lot of that out out of respect for her and and respect for our kids, things like that. And then I think if you strip out a lot of that, then the story kind of then doesn't get told. It doesn't have that meaning, is it? Because it is very much a our journey is very much a story of two people that have gone along and been blessed with so many people on the way that have joined us for this journey and and and building a business is not just about the finances and raising capital and doing this lot and investing, it's about who you bring along with that as well, the people behind it. And we've had such great people work for us that still work for us. Uh, you know, we have three core core people like that were helped start and grow it. Rachel, Charlotte, Greamer. But now we at the opposite end of our journey where we have a corporate team now set out where we have some of the greatest people in the dentistry that work for us. Um, John, Chelsea, Katie, um uh another John S, Gus, like these are like the and then with our own team, it just makes with the originals, with those three originals, it just makes a fantastic um head office structure.

Dr James, 36m 32s:

You know what? And actually that kind of sinks into something that you I guess uh I was gonna ask initially earlier, because this is part of scaling, uh, and it seems like a nice point to bring that up just now, and that is recruitment, right? Yeah, because recruitment, we've forgotten the reason I was inspired to ask that earlier was basically when you started talking about NHS practices, right? And have you ever seen, right? There's this there's this meme, and I've seen it on like a dental forum once, and it's something along the lines of it shows this dental student, right? And it's like a picture of a dental student, and they were like, it's it's something along the lines of um you you had me until I heard you say UDA or something like that. Right, right. And he's off, yeah, and then he's off, right? And he it's he's he's like there, he's like an intern. He's like got this picture of an intern, but like some dental goggles on, or like a dental, you know, mirror and some probes or something, something like that. But anyway, it's poking fun at the fact that it's hard to recruit for NHS these days. Well well, or at least that's the narrative, let's just say that. That's the narrative for sure. Um, so there's that component, and then there's also the backroom staff as well, which you've also managed to find too, because you know you've got a lot of positive things said about these people who've been able to assist you uh to get to where you are, and no CEO is the full package without the right people around them, right? Um so yeah, kind of two questions wrapped into one. Maybe we can talk about uh finding NHS dentists first. Have you struggled there? And then we can move to the backroom staff.

Dr. Ashkan, 38m 4s:

Yeah, I mean, so the way I look at kind of the structure of a business is almost like a tree. Uh so a tree needs to grow in two ways. It needs to grow up and it also needs to grow down. It needs to grow down to embed the roots. That's your as you refer to as your back office staff. Um, those are the I refer to them as my support team. People say head office staff or whatever we want to call corporate structure, but they're your roots. They're the people that will work in the dark, in the shit. They wade through, be in the in the damp conditions, and they'll be they'll be doing everything to make sure that the people that's sitting on the tree, which is your clinicians essentially, your receptionists, the people that people see, is it's a nice tree. Because without the roots, your tree isn't gonna grow and it's not gonna look green and leafy and fantastic. So it's important to have the support staff, it's important to have the top staff. So going to obviously the issues obviously recruitment. So the way we tackled recruitment really was the first thing is getting people in that believe you have to have you have to have a long-term five-year plan. And and because I think Charlie Chaplin's closed Charlie Chap Charlie Charlie Chaplin, the famous actor, you want to call it, said that um a life is a tragedy in close-up and comedy in a long shot. Um if people just believe in the close-up, when it's ups and downs, you have shitty times, they're gonna go. They have to see the longer picture. Um because that's the one that's gonna keep them when the times are tough. So when we select our clinicians, we're very selective on if you fit into our vision and and and what we essentially believe in, which is obviously in the standard stuff, obviously, like, you know, you know, putting patients first, but also like, you know, where do you want to be, where do you want to get to? Like, so when I do a clinical interview, I don't ask the I don't ask the clinician, okay, yeah, how long does it take you to do a crown prep? Or, you know, have you how many cases of composite bonding have you done? I don't ask those questions. I'm like, I'm like, do you own a car? Do you own a house? Do you have a flat? Do you want to own a house? Where when do you want to own a house? Do you want to do you want to own a flat in London or Penthouse? Or do you want to like do you want to have like a have like a yacht? Like, what do you want to have? Do you want to have these things? Because then if they turn around and say, Yeah, I wanna, I, I wanna, I wanna invest, I wanna, I wanna own property, I wanna I want to have a lovely thing, I'm like, well then you want to work for me then, because I will teach you how to be that person. I'll teach you how to earn good money, be a good clinician, be ethical, stay on the GDC register, safeguard your career, but take home a good amount of pay. And I will promise you, if you join this journey, I will make sure that by year two, which you've said you want to own a flat, a penthouse in London, we'll do it. And I can promise you we'll do it, and we will do it. That will secure that person rather than let me show you our decon room and look at my CBCT and look at what a scanner that you can wave around and hit a patient's head with something like yeah, that's what usually people do when they try to get an associate or a clinician to come and work for you. They'll be there'll be like, listen, let me show you the practice and then faff around and be like, look how good this scanner is. Like that's how we recruit. So so number one, that's the difference, is that I go along with their journey. I I embedded into their five-year vision if they embed into my five-year vision. Um, so that's that's number one for clinicians. Um, and then you'll find NHS clinicians that will work for you for that. Okay. And and also you don't also need to necessarily get them full-time. You could be like, you know what, you go away and do your private stuff, you know, go in Harley Street, and you know, you can faff around and do your do your stuff for th three days with them, but give me two days. Give me two days, and I can guarantee you the money is the thing that drives you, you'll be earning more in those two days with me than you'll be earning three days there. And then you make sure you prove that and make sure you teach them how to do that. Okay. Um, so there's that. The other thing is our business model is very unique. So we have a a business model where we do a skill mix. The thing is, is that if you go to a restaurant in the in the kitchen, there's not 13 chefs that are picking your food. You probably might just have one head chef that is at the pass that's taking the food, checking it, puts it on the pass, goes out to the waiters. You're gonna have your trainees, you're gonna have your you know, your sous chefs, you're gonna have a whole team. So a mix, and that's what we do in our practices. We have a skill mix where we have dentists, we have therapists, we have hygienists that work on the NHS. So we do the whole skill mix model, which not a lot of practices do, especially to our level, to our to our size. We were the first group of practices in 2023 to implement the dentist therapist model. We then spent three years tweaking it, changing it, analyzing the data, working with NHS England, showing it to our uh current uh chief dental officer, Jason Wilman, saying, look, look what we've created, look how good it is. And and and basically, if anyone can try and flaw this model, tell us, and then we then tweaked it again. And then when I went to America and I took their model as well, because the thing is in America, they use a usually in a week go to uh a dental office or dental surgery, they call it dental offices in America, they have like three hygienists and just one dentist that will go between the three surgeries. That's how they do dentistry there. It's not three dentists in a in an office, it's usually three hygienists and just one dentist, and they will just rotate almost and the hygienists do a lot of the work. They don't have therapists, but the hygienists do a lot of the work. So again, I took their model, integrated with our model, and then by having a skill mix model just means then recruitment is easier because then you're not then looking to recruit in a five surgeon's practice five dentists. You know, maybe they need to recruit one dentist, three therapists, and a hygienist, and you're done. And there's more of those people in the sea that are available to want that work. This makes sense. So then that's how that's so that's how we've overcome NHS recruitment. We've ticked it off, we don't have a problem with that, it's not an issue in our good practices. You know, we're pretty much 95% recruited. We have a rolling thing going on as well. Like we keep recruiting people to like see, you know, are you good? Let's test you out. And if you're good, we might then go to someone that's not so great and that maybe's not aligned with what we're thinking. But like, look, maybe we shake hands and say goodbye and then replace them with someone that is good. So that's your top staff, that's your leaves, essentially, of the trees. Beautiful. And then the roots, the roots, uh, the roots is is where I come into play. Exactly what you said. You know, the CEO doesn't do everything. You've got to have every single part of it. You've got to have your CFO, you've got to have your operations director, you've got to have your HR director, you've got to have a decent underneath the CFO needs to sit a decent finance manager, an account uh almost like an account accounts manager as well. You need to have a data analyst in there. We have tried and tested working abroad, you know, by outsourcing to India and overseas to do that and felt it didn't work. You need those people to be here. We need to be able to speak to them, you need to be able to see them. So they're here in offices in the UK. Um, and and yeah, though they are the uh the roots. They're the people that wade through the stuff. They're the they're the ones that I have a good and close relationship with the clinicians. I do have that. And some most of the clinicians I know very personally and and often I'll say friends with those roots, those people that work in head office, you know, I would probably die for them. You know, we have such a a tight relationship because you have to, you have to when the time is tough. Um and we recruited those again. By the same concept of just say, look, this is our vision, this is what we want to do. This is our five-year thing, our three-year plan. And either you come along with that ride, or if you don't want to, you don't have to. And then there's another job out there for you. If you want to do it, it's going to be fun, it's going to be good. Um, and then we've just been grateful for the people that have come on and then just respect them, respect what they believe in, give them time. Every week I all say to them, and I and some of them do it and some of them don't. I'm like, you need to have at least one-fifth of your working week needs to be, I call it bath time reading. It's basically where you just turn your laptop off, you sit in a bath, and then you think. That's how that's how I describe it like that. Or you can go on a golf course and think about it, or you can sit in a toilet, or you can sit on the sofa, or go and have a massage and think, but I just need you to think about ideas and be creative, and then come and tell me what you've thought about. And then rather than just doing this, the general everyday you're just answering emails, doing that, doing that cash flow thing, you know, looking at that spreadsheet, linking that together, making those payments, or God knows what, or you know, doing this policy document. You've got to step back and just think. Think what you want to achieve, think, be creative, paint, do what you want to do, and then those ideas will then mean that we keep on evolving. And that's why, like, even look at our website. I mean, our website is I think the most unique website in the industry. It's the first 3D website there is in dendrist. Oh, cool. Um, doesn't go up and down, but it goes left and right. So it spins all the way around. And you can even zoom in to say we've got a skull there, you can zoom in to the skull. Um, it's you know, check it out. I mean, again, that comes from being creative thinking.

Dr James, 47m 16s:

Yeah.

Dr. Ashkan, 47m 16s:

And that's probably one of the best marketing moves we've ever done. That is something that we kind of thought about, not we went to someone who then says, This is how you should do it because we're a marketing expert. Your marketing expert might be great for that person, but it's not great for us. So, um, so is that so so yeah, that's that's the whole point of being creative in terms of what we what we want to try and do and what we're trying to achieve.Yeah.

Dr James, 47m 39s:

You know, can I just say one thing on that, right? I used to be the guy that was very much just like, okay, here's where I am, and my goal was at that time was to be as wealthy as possible as soon as possible. So when I was a young man, right, and um uh I was like, right, well, it's just it's input output, right? The more inputs is the more output, right? So stupid. It really is, right? Because you see people, if that is your goal, and I'm not saying that that should be, um, but should it should that be the case, uh, providing that you do it ethically, I think that's fine. Um, but if you look at like let's take Elon Musk as an extreme example, right? And I'm not talking about politics, I'm not talking about anything like that. Leave that at the door. I'm just like, look at this guy, okay, and what he's done, right? The guy's a trillionaire, right? Now that would very easily be explained if he had more hours in the week than the rest of us.

Dr. Ashkan, 48m 31s:

Yes.

Dr James, 48m 31s:

But he doesn't. It's kind of a law of physics, right? But he doesn't, right? So what has he figured out? He's figured out how to get more out of each and every hour, right? Now, if you're blindly there, just going through the motions every single day, okay, you are in a zone where you're trying to maximize your outputs by maximizing your inputs, right? But for the same, for the same input as you, you know, he's he's figured out how can he get more out of each and every input. That's basically what he's figured out, right? And to do that, you need to think. And I'm completely opposite now, right? Yeah, some of my most productive days are when I go to a cafe, um, eat something, have a matcha, maybe, you know. I've got into matcha recently. It's all right, it's all right. It's not it's it's a little bit overhyped, but I quite like them. It's a healthy alternative. Um, you know, and just have one killer idea. And sometimes I can think about certain times where I had an idea that was far more productive than me just sat there even working all day, you know, and that completely eradicated that belief in my head. And it's kind of the Google philosophy, isn't it? Like this is literally what they do in the Google offices. You have time every week that's sectioned off, it's cordoned off, and that's your creativity time. And whatever idea you come up with, if you come up with some new IP, Google keep 50% of it, and you keep 50% of it, right? And this is during this time, and it might even be more than 20% now, but they were very uh they were this whenever they created this philosophy or this philosophy that is embedded into their business, you know, I think a few decades ago, this was very avant-garde, and it still is to be fair, right? And it sounds like you've benefited from that as well.

Dr. Ashkan, 50m 8s:

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, very cool. And we use art as a way to try to encourage people to be creative. I mean, because I love art. Um so if you go into offices in Crawley, you'll walk in the door, and the first thing you'll see is a s is a statue, and is a it is a skull. It's a it's a it's a metallic skull, which is an imprint of that's just my skull. So we had a we had a metal artist come in and take an imprint of my face, and then he made a skull from this, and then impressions of my teeth, and then our ceramic um um uh um the labs we usually work with, she um rand from from from the the lab technician. She made my teeth in gold. And so we have that. So and the and the it's not that we have that because we just think it's good to just have a skull, but it's like people look at it, and then it's like saying it's almost like sublinear saying to them, but just sublineally saying to them um the message of just just think outside the box, think differently. Just you know that that's all you gotta do. And then you walk around the corner and you've got some graffiti on the wall. Again, it's the same thing. It's not because we just fancied having a street art on the wall in our office, but it's the whole concept of just think differently, just just try and try to be creative. Um I think that's important that you you've gotta have in in any business. Um because we we're all doing the same thing. If you think about it, the business of dentistry is it's not like we're trying to invent a new atom, you know, or or you know, some sort of molecular science and then take us to the moon. We're doing everyone is doing the same thing pretty much in dentistry. But if you try to just be a slightly bit creative and think outside the box, just that slight change will then probably be completely different. And that's what happened, obviously, with our business model. It's different to other business models, and that slightly changed and produces the results and fantastic results that we are proud of.

Dr James, 51m 57s:

And I'm gonna say, just go, because obviously this is the Dentist Inverse podcast. So uh part of what we well, one of the one things we focus on through this podcast is the commerciality and that side of dentistry. Um, I'm gonna say, just to go back to your model a second ago, when you have the dental practice, you've got the one uh dentist, okay, you maybe got the two, three therapists working under them. Um, and you know, maybe you've got a hygienist in there as well, something along those lines. I'm gonna say, and tell me if you're I'm well, to be honest, I mean, uh I'm sure you'll be all right to answer this. I don't think this is gonna be a secret or not. But part of the dentist's remuneration is when they quarterback the fillings down to the therapist, that what boosts their paycheck is they get part of a cut of the UDAs. Is that fair to say? Is that how you structure things?

Dr. Ashkan, 52m 44s:

No, because oh that's how people look at the the conventional therapist model by going down. Well, what we did is we flipped it the other way around. I'm so glad I asked. I'm interested to hear. So that's that that's that's where that's so so this kind of like model dentistry that we have that has five key elements. We never reveal what the five is because if you because you reveal what the five is and you give you you give a secret sauce away. We're happy to give one or two bits, but you and no one's ever been able to connect the dots to make sure they know what the five is. Uh and even like internally, no one knows what the five is. The only person that does. The coke recipe right here. It's it's a KFC recipe, you know, for the for the chicken. Gotcha. So the way kind of it works, the way we're able to do it, is we're able to is it's direct access to the therapist. So you as a patient, you don't go and see the dentists. You will firstly see a therapist because the therapist can, and they are bloody good clinicians, they're trained to do this. They can examine you, diagnose, take radiographs, you know, get to a certain point. And most people that go to a dentist, again, our model of dentistry is family dentistry. We're not jumping those um fashionable waves of composite bonding, and then 10 years ago, 15 years ago, it was veneer's, and then you know, all this implant stuff, which is great, great stuff, and it does fit into a business model, but it goes through peaks and troughs. You know, you will have a down month in December because people are not probably gonna be doing because they want to spend money on uh um their um Christmas presents, and you might have an uptick in January where people obviously want to change their smart. But with our one, with family office dentistry, routine general dentistry, that's going to be steady all through the 12 months of the year. So all for all the seasons, you're gonna be stylish and it's gonna be steady, okay? So the way we so as a gen as a patient like you and me, we don't need to have a root canal done every six months when we go see a dentist. When we go and see a dental practice. And if we are having a root canal trium done every six months, something must be wrong, you know? We're not always gonna be having an extraction every six months, and we're not gonna be needing a crown every six months. Our routine dentistry can be done by therapists. 85%. And we looked at the data, we looked at the NHS, BSA data, and this is why it's really important to look at the data. And again, something that other groups didn't do and other groups don't do. We took our data and we analyzed it, and then I went to the BSA and I took all the fucking data about all the dental practices and I analyzed that as well. And I'm talking about analysing it not with AI by the nitty-gritty looking at a spreadsheet and looking, you know, do lookups and all that kind of stuff. 85% of the dentistry that is done in the UK can be done by a therapist. Wow. Because it's routine dentistry. You go, like me and you, where do you go every six months, and we need is a checkup, maybe a scale, and maybe the filling. We're not needing to see the dentist to do the crowns and the bridges and the root canals and everything like that every six months. So that means then we're able to then uh have our clinicians working, and it means then that we have dentists that work for us that actually do the dentistry that went into university for. Because when I was a dentist, so when I was a um looking to become a dentist, and I think this is where burnout comes from. Burnout doesn't come from the treadmill the NHS UDAs, burnout comes from because you go into practice every day and you're doing a bloody checkup and a scale, and it's a band one. And then the next pay pay the next patient is an examination, bite wings, a scale, and then and it's a kid examination, fry varnish. Then like mid-morning, you're just bored. Whereas imagine if your day was root canal, crown prep, bridge prep, dentrofit, dentitry. It's like shit, this is exciting stuff because that is what that's certainly the dentistry I went in there for. Then it's an extraction before lunch. So you're you're as a dentist, your days are flying by and you're just focusing on the dentistry that you wanted to do. So we have an uptick on our dentist being happy with the dentistry they want to do, but also you're then as a dentist almost you become you become a specialist in your own right. So you're just doing the top-end stuff. So therefore, you your remuneration, therefore, is going to be high. So you're not giving away any you any of your any of your any of your uh UDAs, you're not giving away any of your money because you're you end up being the last cog in the turn if needed. So the therapist do end up giving away their band ones, almost their examination and their fillings to you. You could essentially say, So as a as a dentist, patients are almost presented to you as a package and saying by the therapist, right, here's Mrs. Jones, I've already done the examination, I've already taken the bite wings, I've already taken the periopicals, I've done the fillings that she needed, I've done a perio. She's now the perfect patient. All you need to do is the upper right, upper left fore crack uh root canal and crown. And you look at it and be like, no, I don't want to do it because I can't do it, it's too complex. Let's refer to a specialist outside of here, or I'll do that, and then you just do the end of it. Hello, Mrs. Jones. I mean, you said to do your root canal and your crown. So you do you you're satisfied, you're just doing your dentistry, and then you get as a obviously in NHS dentry, you get your 12 UVAs, or what a lot of our dentists do is you use the opportunity to do the root canal on the NHS, and then you can upsell a lovely zirconia crown, and therefore you're then doing private dentistry. So then you're so your earnings therefore. So as a clinician, where we just need say five surgery practice, we have maybe one full-time, their earnings as a dentist is through the roof. You know, they're earning above 150, 200k a year as a NHS dentist. Okay, and also we're able to then offer them preferential UDA rates where we don't have to give them 13, 14 pounds a UDA. Some of our associates want 18 pounds a UDA as their net to take home. And that's not because we're desperate to keep them working, but then we can pay the therapist a little bit less. But then it still fits into their model of what they expected to earn. So as a therapist, you'd expect it to earn anywhere between £40,000 and $70,000 a year. That's kind of like your UK standard, whether you're a private or an NHS therapist, that's what you've gone into therapy work to do. So as long as you're taking home that, it's your quid's in. Obviously, what we do is we train our therapists to be better than that. So they're earning $80,000, $90,000, even $100,000. Some of our therapists are earning $15, $20k a month. So they're in the really top end.That is true.Then that's can you see now how the models work? Can you see how like the pin is now dropping, you're thinking, ah, because he's flipped it around. It's not, it's not the patients come and see the dentist, and then you refer the shit to the therapist, because that doesn't work. Because all that does is a dentist would see a patient, say, Oh shit, I can't be asked to do this, give it to a therapist, who then gets a written treatment plan, it's looking and thinking, well, that's a deep feeling, that's gonna be in the bloody pulp. I don't want to do that, and then end up the patient's being ping-ponged back between the dentist and the therapist. We stopped that by having a different model and implemented it, and then it works. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Dr James, 59m 33s:

That's yeah, fair play, mate. Um, it makes complete sense. It's I've just I've just never thought about it like that. And it's it's it's leveraging direct access, and you're basically funneling uh the more high-end uh technical stuff up to the dentist. And you've you've kind of got three people who are quarterbacking it, maybe three, four therapists who are quarterbacking everything to the dentist. Exactly. And then the dentist's time is leveraged, but also so is the therapist because their time is not being wasted, basically.

Dr. Ashkan, 1h 1s:

Uh wow. So everyone's got 100% diary fill. Working seven days a week on all of our practices. So everyone's happy. And also the the conditions that we take on, so so the therapists obviously work for us. A lot of them are your dentists in waiting because they're doing the ORE exams because they're international dentists. So for them it's really good because they almost start off in a level where they can be a therapist and do this, do the do the basic stuff for which they, you know, before they start doing it, but then they can liaise with the dentist to learn from them. So when they're when they're presenting a patient, that like I you know, the I see it because I watch it. The dentist, the practice will sit down with therapists be like, look, you know, I'm not being, you know, you told me, can I take this tooth out? Have you seen that this is an eight? You know, look at how the ID ID, you know, the ID nerve, you know, canal is wrapped around the bloody root. That needs to be referred to at all surgeons dealt with in a hospital because it's gonna be a disaster. So then the therapist is then, oh, I'm learning, okay, I'm learning that. Okay, I understand that. You know, uh, or or they might say, okay, I think this patient can have a crown. The dentist will get you, look at the margins on the bloody root. You know, it's down by the cortical bone. No one's gonna be able to get, you know, a margin down there. So that is unrestorable. So that needs an extraction. And then the therapist then are learning. So it's all it's all like a learning thing as well. Again, it goes back to the vision and the concept of me saying also to the therapist at the start of their interview, where do you want to be in five years' time? I'm taking my exams and I want to do my exams to be a dentist. And I'm like, Well, you want to join on this train then? Because I will not only be able to give you a really good income as a therapist and you'll be developing and homing your skills, but also in five years' time, I can guarantee you'll be a dentist and you'll be the best bloody dentist because you're gonna learn day one, and you're gonna be literally working side by side with a clinician in a practice, and you you're gonna work as a unity in a team. And again, so that goes back again to the concept we talked about about retention, recruitment, and then obviously retaining them as well.

Dr James, 1h 1m 53s:

Well, I mean, all I can say is something must be going right because it's got to where it has. Are you with me with regards to retention and recruitment? And that's the thing that people struggle with. And I love how you found a way to make the proposition as to what your practices can give to these people so juicy and valuable that retention and recruitment isn't an issue. And this is part of the you said that there was a secret sauce there. I think there's multiple secret sauces here. I think there's actually a lot of things to unpack here. Ashgan, I'm just so friggin' conscious that these podcasts are usually like 40, 50 minutes. And I feel like we're no no no no no need to apologize, right? Because this is this is gold dust. And you know what I think we should do. I think we should do this, okay? We should shake hands, all right? That was a dap for anybody who's listening to this podcast. That was a dap and a handshake that we're gonna commit to shooting podcast number two at some stage. But in the meantime, I just wanted to say, on behalf of the Dennis Who uh Invest audience, thank you so much for your time, Ash, your wisdom, and your knowledge. Flipping unbelievable, one of the best podcasts. I feel fired up having listening to you talk. Uh, we definitely got to commit to that part too, and I'm looking forward to making that happen. But in the meantime, mate, thanks so much for your time, and we'll speak again soon.