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Dentists Who Invest

Podcast Episode

Dr James: 0:41

Fans of the Dennis who Invest podcast. If you feel like there was one particular episode in the back catalog in the anthology of Dennis who Invest podcast episodes that really, really, really was massively valuable to you, feel free to share that with a fellow dental colleague who’s in a similar position, so their understanding of finance can be elevated and they can hit the next level of financial success in their life. Also, as well as that, if you could take two seconds to rate and review this podcast, it would mean the world. To me, what that would mean is that it drives this podcast further in terms of reach so that more dentists across the world can be able to benefit from the knowledge contained therein. Welcome.

Jabir: 1:18

Welcome to the Dennis who Invest podcast.

Dr James: 1:23

Welcome back everyone. We are live again, coming straight out of Leeds. This is, of course, the Dennis who Invest podcast, episode number two, and they’re coming thickened fast these days. I quite enjoy doing them. I have to say, whether or not we’ll be able to keep the intensity up at this rate for the foreseeable future I don’t know, but we’ve got plenty of content, plenty to get through. Investing is a huge subject and there’s certainly going to be loads to flash out, so I’m really looking forward to see where we can go with this. I really hope everybody enjoyed the first episode with Dr Harry Singh. I think that was quite the coup, I suppose, to pull off for us being the well, the page isn’t small, you know, but he’s quite reputed, well-established property trader. He was more than happy to come on the show, so I’m absolutely thrilled. The bar has been set high. I think we’re going to at least match that today. We’ve got another tremendous guess. You may or may not have heard of him. I’ve actually been on his podcast not so long ago as well. His podcast, his Facebook, his YouTube live, sorry, and you may or may not be familiar with his work. Maybe you are inadvertently, but you don’t realise the man behind the page and the social media presence. He runs a page on Instagram. It’s not a small page by any means. It’s got 40K followers. Wow, it’s massive. It’s called Dentist of Insta. You may or may not have seen it on Instagram. He also runs the Hot Pult podcast. Because he runs these two quite big social media vehicles, he’s going to have a load of insight on content creation, growing your social media presence, things like that, things that are all relevant in this digital age. Regardless of your field, be that dentistry, be that anything else it’s almost necessary to be able to do these things. At this point, I’m going to stop waffling now. His name, in case you haven’t heard of him, is Javier Kazy. Welcome to the show, javier.

Jabir: 3:26

Hi James, how are you doing? I’m tremendous.

Dr James: 3:27

Thanks, man. The shoe is on the other foot, javier. You had me on your show not so long ago, but thankfully, javier was a very good host and he’s very kind to me. I don’t have any grudges to bear, so I’m going to be a lovely host in return. I think that’s the least I can do. I’m always nice. What can I say? I’m a nice guy. Anyway, javier, you’re well today. You’re smashing.

Jabir: 3:47

Yeah, yeah. Always busy these days, but good to take time out to do something and get someone’s ball rolling with a new podcast and get some interesting ideas out there.

Dr James: 4:00

Oh yeah, I’m very grateful to have you here. I’m thrilled, and what was I going to say just a few seconds ago? Yeah, this is actually another thing that Javier and I were just talking about off camera is just quite how much work there is that goes in behind the scenes. It’s that hour of content that takes five hours to shoot, or it’s those times where you’re getting in front of the camera, you’re trying to get your words out. It’s not just flowing and maybe that five minute video winds up taking an hour. And this is another dimension to content creation that maybe people who are not necessarily as old as with it or don’t really tend to do it so much Certainly it wasn’t. It was something that I wasn’t aware of until I got in front of a camera, not even that terribly long ago, maybe eight weeks ago. I was anti YouTube. Until about eight weeks ago I thought it was, you know, just a bit self fulfilling, or maybe it just wasn’t really for me. But maybe now I’ve changed my views on it and I see it from the other side and I’m more understanding and I maybe see the merits of it a lot more, and this is why I thought there’ll be a lot of people out there who had my mindset, and that’s not to say they’re right or that’s not to say they’re wrong, but that is to say that there’s scope for change and really, because of all these things that I think are positive, that have happened to me and I’m sure have happened to Jabir as time has went on, a lot of those doors wouldn’t open, have opened if we didn’t think about these things or we weren’t really interested in that. Jabir, what are your thoughts on that? Does that seem? Would you agree with that, or would you say that you’ve had a similar journey or perception of it?

Jabir: 5:43

In terms of how long it takes to create a video.

Dr James: 5:47

Yeah, I’ve said quite a lot there, so yeah, the time bit will focus on the very first. As a first thing, what do you think of that?

Jabir: 5:54

Yeah, I mean, for example, if you throw out I threw out a three minute video as one of my first Instagram tips videos. I remember it took me an hour and a half to shoot, another hour and a half to edit, and then you know color correction, all that kind of stuff getting the audio right. So you’re looking at a three minute video, taking you three, four hours to actually get out there.

Dr James: 6:15

Yeah, it happens.

Jabir: 6:17

So there’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that you know. If you were someone who’s really really self-absorbed or something you know, you’re probably not going to waste your time sitting in front of a camera and doing that for three or four hours and there’s probably better things that you can do. So you really have to have some sort of passion behind what you’re doing and the stuff you’re creating to actually spend that time and do it, because it’s slow, you don’t get anywhere very fast for sure. And then I think it’s definitely all about the personal growth behind all these things.

Dr James: 6:56

Javier has just touched on how it helps a lot to have a passion about what you’re talking about, because that generates the energy which will force you to get up. Be proactive, put yourself in front of a camera every day, because when? My experience now I’m going to obviously ask Javier. Javier has been doing this for a lot longer than me. He’s got a massive social media following my experience would be that to date, you know there’s no one pouring over your shoulder, as there may be in a job, or there’s no expectation. It’s totally fluid as to how much time and effort you can put in. So therefore, you have to draw a lot of your own inspiration and motivation from yourself there’s no third party there and to be to find something, to find a subject that you’re interested in and you’re energized on, and you want to share that message. That helps so so much. Whatever that might be, whatever that might be and maybe lots of people don’t even necessarily know what that is for them yet as well, and that’s fine too. Would you agree with what I’ve said, javier? Quite happy with that?

Jabir: 8:08

Yeah, it’s completely different to a traditional job. I mean, I wouldn’t even call what I’m doing a job at the moment, even though it probably takes up a similar amount of time to do and to get all the stuff out there. There’s no one who’s, like you say, looking over your shoulder. It is entirely down to your own self-respect about what you’re putting out there. If you put poor quality out there, then it reflects back upon you, like how you are as a person. That’s kind of what. It’s. One of the things that drives me to improve video quality, audio quality, the when speaking guest quality although that’s kind of down to the other person, obviously but filtering through who’s coming on and preparing them in the correct way, or at least letting them know exactly what’s going to go down, because some people might not be up for a podcast like mine. Just going on to the podcast side, because it is completely unedited, completely raw, done live. There’s no cutting bits out, which is a different way of doing things. You really have to be a really good conversationalist and someone who can think on the spot, because, yes, it’s centered around healthcare and dentistry. But if you, for example, seen some of the ones we’ve done, like Bloody Teeth Guy. The other day we didn’t speak about dentistry unless we had a question asked about dentistry. We were talking about motivation, we’re talking about life skills, all these other things. So for me, I think I may be gone on a little bit of tangent there- but it’s all relevant, that’s great. It’s completely different to a normal job, for sure, and it comes down to you if you’re going to put that effort and work in to keep the quality levels as high as possible and that quality levels. There’s so many different parameters of that in different aspects that you kind of got to look at.

Dr James: 10:06

Self reflection and it being a journey was also something that you sort of touched upon there, and it’s important to remember. There’s a saying in the business world that if you’re happy with your very first product, you’ve waited too long to release it. Do you know what I mean? So when you release your first one, you have a new fond appreciation for people who stand in front of a camera or news reporters, because they can just get their words out so well bang, bang, bang. And it looks so casual and so natural. But the trouble is, if you want to get to that level where you’re able to articulate your message really clearly to that point, it’s practice, practice, practice, practice. And I look back at my. I’m by no means an expert, by any means at all. I’m sure Javier knows 100 million things more than me, but what I do know is that for me to improve, I had to put myself out there at the very start and I will add, to actually remove some of my old YouTube videos the other day, because there was so embarrassing, there was so terribly edited, I didn’t even know how to edit. I had to do them all in one take, but you know, it. It made me obey with how I might get them up there. But anyway, I’m going to do a lot less talking now. I want to hear about you, javier. I want to hear a little bit about you. You’re because you are a dentist. Of course, I’m correct in saying that you’re not you know it’s on high. It’s on high, it is. Yeah, I just want to know a little bit about your journey, where you grew up, your where you studied in dentistry and what led you to this point.

Jabir: 11:43

Yeah, so I mean I grew up, I was born in Halifax, grew up there, still live here. After university as well. I went to Newcastle University to do dentistry, had a bit of an up and down ride through there. I’m sure everyone can kind of appreciate the difficulty of dental school, moving out of away from home for the first time, all those kinds of things. I passed as many exams as I failed during dental school all but one, down to my own kind of lack of wanting to work, to be honest. But you get through it and it’s. A university is a strange place because it’s a difficult place to find yourself in, where I think at 18, 19, you don’t really know who you are as a person and what kind of a life you want to live, what kind of things that you want to be involved in. So I think that again we’re talking about personal growth and that direction. It definitely gave me a sense of where I want to go, going through that particular kind of situation within university. So I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say there, but it I went to Newcastle. It was great, but it wasn’t easy at the same time.

Dr James: 13:02

Yeah Well, I think the essence of what you’re saying is you learned a lot and you grew.

Jabir: 13:07

Yeah, I think that’s the thing Whenever you mess up, you’ve got to take something from it, and luckily I messed up a lot and took a lot from that particular example of my life.

Dr James: 13:17

And then you graduated. You’re a fresh face in a young chap, so you graduated not that long ago, I’m presuming 2017. Just a year after me, then Awesome yeah, and then, since that, since you’ve qualified, what’s your relationship being with dentistry? And where did this social media thing arise from? Real quick guys. I put together a special report for dentists entitled the seven costly and potentially disastrous mistakes that dentists make whenever it comes to their finances. Most of the time, dentists are going through these issues and they don’t even necessarily realize that they’re happening until they have their eyes opened, and that is the purpose of this report. You can go ahead and receive your free report by heading on over to wwwdentistinevestcom forward slash podcast report or, alternatively, you can download it using the link in the description. This report details the seven most common issues. However, most importantly, it also shows you how to fix them Really, looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Jabir: 14:33

So if I talk about the relationship with dentistry first, I’ll maybe hit that off, because it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

Dr James: 14:41

Maybe they’re not quite separate. Okay, fair enough.

Jabir: 14:45

So I loved all of the clinical work. Going through dental school Hated the academic, obviously, because who loves that? It’s a bit weird if you do. And then I came out and I’d failed finals. I did the reset in November, which I’m sure you know means that you’ve got to wait till FD September time or March. I thought, well, march sounds really really crap time to start because there’s going to be a small cohort. So I went with September. So I had a good long break. Okay, in that time I was able that’s kind of when I started Dense of Insta, which I’ll skip over for now but in that time I was able to speak to loads of people and kind of get a feel for dentistry within the UK, outside the UK, different systems and different ways of doing things. And then obviously we go through FD, which again, I’m sure everyone who’s been through FD it’s a bit of a mixed year. You go in, you realize you don’t know shit. Really You’re a pretty poor dentist. You just about can get through a simple treatment plan and then you’ve quickly, rapidly improve and I had two really good trainers who challenged me and I probably challenged them quite a lot as well, having been someone who was on Instagram seeing a lot of things and saying why are we doing it like this? You know, in a standard NHS practice like yeah, yeah. And I probably gave them a bit of consternation. They’re saying well, I can save this tooth because I know it can be done.

Dr James: 16:09

I like that as well though Sometimes they’re just like James just give over. We’ve done this a lot longer than you, and so I do have to take that on the chin. Sometimes. You can be a hero a little bit too much, can’t you? Sometimes in dentistry, trying to save a tooth.

Jabir: 16:23

But yeah, but I mean, if you look at like Rizal Risky, he’s the guy who’s what? 32 years old, early 30s at most. I can’t remember exactly how old he said he was, but he’s a young dentist and the work that he’s able to pull off and essentially save teeth from the death is just insane.

Dr James: 16:42

Awesome.

Jabir: 16:43

And he’s working under a very tight budget because people can’t afford care and it really made me. Yeah, I mean he’s in what? Malaysia, indonesia, you know the Far East people aren’t rich out there. They can’t afford expensive ceramic onlays and crowns and things. So he’s doing a huge service to these guys and you know, if we’re in the UK, we’re just whipping those teeth out and giving them a partial denture or something. He’s saying Rafi, I’ll save this tooth, you’ll get a few years out of it and you might be able to. You know, if you save enough money, come back and we’ll stick crown on. So that’s kind of that’s kind of thing that I saw. That caused some friction, I think, between myself and my trainers. But so, yeah, I do have this kind of love hate relationship with dentistry and I think it is because we’re in this UK. Mindset of UDA bashing.

Dr James: 17:40

Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I’ll tell you one thing, jabir Sorry to butt in, it just sounds like it sounds like your heart’s in the right place. I’ll say that no, it is. No, it is. It’s true, because you’re you’re, you’re not willing to accept that dogma. You know you’re, you’re kind of wanting to look a little bit beyond these sort of boundaries or borders that maybe restrict other people’s views. So far enough, you know which is good.

Jabir: 18:04

I think that’s part of it. Yeah, and so yeah, I do. I do have this love hate relationship. I mean, I love seeing these patients because the people who are, you know, having a difficult time. But at the same time you go through five or six or seven, six and a half years if you’re me of dental school and you get taught to do things that the goal standard and then day one you go, you got to put corners and that that caused some real issues in my head and I was going what was the point of all this training that I did for, for, for nothing. If they won, I’m just going to de skill. So yeah, I love hate relationship with dentistry. Everyone knows that I kind of I like the endoside of things and if I continue within clinical work, that’s probably where I’ll end up.

Dr James: 18:51

So Okay, Cool yeah, and then, right, awesome. So you flashed out your sort of journey through dentistry quite well at this point and you sort of skirted over there. This the makings of dentists of Insta. I just wanted to learn a little bit about that as well, and what inspired it, how you created it, things of that nature.

Jabir: 19:13

So I mean, throughout university I was someone who was really into the gym, as you can see and if you go on, if you go on into there’s loads of feature pages or there was back then of people who go into the gym and you could send in your, your video to be, you know, of a lift to be featured and stuff like that. And I was like, well, I finished uni, now I’ve got nothing to do for nine months. I’ve not seen a dental page like this. There was stuff for medics, you know doctor pages and stuff like that but there was nothing around dentistry and I was like, well, I’ve got more time than I know what to do with, so I went ahead, just created it. I didn’t know what I was going to do anything Actually with the page at that point. And then I just started reaching out to people saying that’s a good picture, I’ll feature that and hopefully something comes of it. So I remember it was on my 8 cram. Specialist ender from Australia was my first post and you know he’s an amazing guy. He runs a special crow’s nest specialist Facebook tips page. I’m sure loads of guys have seen that and it’s really helpful with like finals revision and stuff like that. So he was the first guy and then from that some other people messaged and I got a few more features and I was messaging everyone who’d liked the picture seeing if they wanted a feature. And I did this for months. Everybody who, everybody who followed, everybody who likes picture, everybody who comments, has got a direct message from me saying, hey, what’s up, where you from during a picture to be sent in and featured. So it was a lot of like heavy lifting legwork probably sent a couple of thousand messages maybe at least at that point.

Dr James: 20:59

Yeah, rare is the social media kind that grows completely through its own momentum. There usually is someone there behind the scenes who’s at least pushing it to a greater or lesser degree. And it sounds like you’ve. You know you’ve got this page, but it’s not like you haven’t earned it a little bit. But naturally speaking, as well you know people don’t subscribe to something unless it gives them some value. So you have to take some credit on that front. It must. It must have piqued people’s interest.

Jabir: 21:29

Yeah well, people are, by definition, nosy. If you walk down the roads walk down the roads, you know, like a residential street you’ll see people walking and as they go through, past every drive yeah, I do that. People are nosy by definition. They want to know what other people are doing. They want to know you know, intimate details about people they don’t know. Just because this is the way our world works and I’ve kind of tapped into that mentality, I think quite a lot.

Dr James: 21:59

So so you reckon it is understanding psychology as well. Yeah, Okay, fair enough, and that’s what has helped the page grow as much as what it has done. That was really the only thing that inspired it. Then you kind of just set it up and then you realise that it was sort of a self-perpetuating thing that people had interest in, and then, no, it’s just with time, it’s just went from there.

Jabir: 22:24

I mean there were, like other reasons that I kind of wanted to do it. I mean not initially, because I just did it for a bit of fun to start with. And then I think that was December 2017, like 12th of December I started something like that. And then, about a couple of months later I think it was mid-January, mid-february time my friend gives me a call and he goes look, I’m going to Sri Lanka, do you want to come with? I said yeah, fine, yeah, because I’ve got, you know, nothing to do, as we know, for the next nine months. So I said, yeah, fine, I’ll come down. And I was thinking, well, I’ve spoken to a guy who lives near my grandparents in Kuwait. I’ll go visit him because, you know, on the way back, I went to visit grandparents. You know, you take the opportunity to do, you know, to see family and stuff like that. So I meet this guy and he, we basically sit down in his dental office, his patients canceled and we sit there for three, four hours, go for a coffee, just chat. And at that point I was like, well, this is great, I can do this wherever I go from now on. So then it becomes it’s fun, isn’t it?

Dr James: 23:32

Just being able to? Your work is decentralized. That’s fun because you can put in a little bit of effort here and there. The downside is that it’s a black hole and it never stops until you say it does, but it works.

Jabir: 23:45

Well, yeah, that’s the thing. So I then it became my my kind of like one man crusade or whatever, to basically know someone everywhere so that whenever I go somewhere, whenever I want to go for a meal or something, there’s someone that can either give me a recommendation or there’s someone who’s going to be like, yeah, I’ll come down and I’ll visit. And while we’re there, actually I booked a ticket to Australia. Like off the bat I was like you know what? I know a crap load of people in Australia, some guys from uni who’ve moved and some guys that I’ve connected with via the page, and that was at three months in. So it wasn’t huge at that point. You know there’s a couple of thousands. So from that point we just kind of like got a bit bigger. And actually when we were there in Kuwait with with Roger he’s a Queens Belfast grad we actually said we’re going to start a podcast. So it was really early doors that the podcast was kind of we knew we were going to do it basically. But you know, things happen and obviously it’s a long way for me and him to actually run it both at the same time. So I’ve kind of taken it up and he comes on every now and then from Instagram lives and stuff like that, but he’s a busy guy, so between me and him we had the idea and I’ve taken it to the next level.

Dr James: 25:08

Brilliant. Wow, that’s amazing, and one of the things you just touched upon there which I’ve noticed and will probably elaborate on at some point further down the line in this podcast it’s the people you meet as well, the number of friends you’ll meet. I’ve easily doubled my number of contacts and friends over the last few weeks because I’ve put myself out there, and maybe this is one of the other merits that I didn’t really appreciate, and it sounds like that’s happened to you to a degree as well, jabir, so this is one of the positives, I suppose.

Jabir: 25:40

Yeah, I actually chased that.

Dr James: 25:42

And there’s still so much people. I think Facebook it does. It gets a bad rep not on rightly so, but there’s still a lot of positivity on there too, you know.

Jabir: 25:50

But yeah, I’ve not been a fan of Facebook Well, other than things like your pet, your particular group but there’s a couple of groups that I’ve been on that have been less than pleasant. But, yeah, I find that the community on Instagram is much more self selecting the people who, like you, follow you, so you get a much more positive outlook, right yeah, rather than people who are on open forum.

Dr James: 26:14

Yeah, there’s still a little bit of that, but less so rather than the people that feel negatively towards you and your, your cause and your, your group, who just happened to stumble across it. Yeah, I think that’s what you mean, right.

Jabir: 26:27

Yeah, yeah, I guess.

Dr James: 26:29

Brilliant, right, cool. So you’ve talked about hot pulp. You’ve talked about dentists of Insta both pretty big followings, I have to say. I just wanted to talk about dentists of Insta first of all. So you’re someone who is coming from the other side where a lot of people will be starting out. They’ll have smaller pages, they’ll have X, y and Z number of followers, but you’ve been through that, you’ve pushed through that. You’ve come to the other side where you’ve got a fairly big following. Was there so those people can understand what sort of journey that they might possibly have in front of them? Was there this one viral post that made it one day just go boom? Or was it like a post here, a post there, a post there, blah, blah, blah, something like that?

Jabir: 27:18

No, I mean one viral post is wishful thinking, but for the most part, yeah, I think it’s possible if you already have a background in photography and video editing and stuff like that. But for a page like mine, it is consistency over time and volume, especially because I basically say anybody can have a feature. It means that I’m not selecting for the most attractive dentist, although a lot of people who send things are very attractive and very beautiful people and stuff like that. If anybody sends me a photograph which is half decent, it goes up. So it’s purely. It’s purely a keep on chipping away at the block thing. A singing dentist doesn’t happen every week. Right, yeah, because it was a social association wasn’t he.

Dr James: 28:12

Yeah, I hear you. Okay. Well, I’m living proof that you don’t have to be attractive to be on Jabir’s page. So there you go, guys. You have it right here, anyway, so that’s. I think what we’ve just established is that, generally speaking, it’s about graft and it’s about man hours behind the scene, so in a way that actually places the power into a lot of people’s hands, because yeah, which we don’t like.

Jabir: 28:39

Yeah, you’re not well, you’re not.

Dr James: 28:41

You’re not messing about, you know, thinking that the barrier or the hurdle between you and having a huge following is to get this post. You know very difficult to achieve viral post. It’s just about being consistent and putting hours in and out of your contacts, jabir, that you know doubt have in the insta world and people who other who also have large followings, would you say that’s a similar story, that’s the general theme that they’ve all just grafted really hard to get to where they are.

Jabir: 29:11

I mean yeah, I mean, the only people that I can think of who’ve gone viral and gotten their following that way is singing dentist and maybe Michael Appa Again, the only two that I can really think of.

Dr James: 29:27

Versus. Maybe did it similar to the rest is yeah.

Jabir: 29:31

The rest is like you know, you’ve done a thousand posts.

Dr James: 29:35

Right, amazing, interesting, cool, and what we’ll do at the very end. We’ll just come back to this topic about how Jabir grew his page and we’ll just touch upon Jabir’s top tips for growing a social media presence, because I know a lot of people right there, yeah, top tips for a beginner. Top tips for a beginner. Yeah, because I know a lot of people out there will be listening to this and thinking what are his secrets or how might I grow my page? So we’ll definitely come back to that. I just don’t want to derail the conversation too much at this point because I would love to come on to the Hot Pop podcast Now. You’ve already mentioned how you started it, so it was very much just inspired by this conversation between you and this chap that you just met in Malaysia, if I remember correctly.

Jabir: 30:22

Quite. Yeah, so he’s. I think that’s one of the one of the early times that I’ve mentioned it. I know that one of my friends, lorenzo, he texts me a while back and he goes. Actually I’m going to be talking about this stuff in uni, so I think there’s always been an idea that I can, that I have certain skillset that makes me ideal to do this kind of work. But in terms of first concrete, yeah, we’re going to do it. That was probably the time. So, probably three months into the Instagram journey was when it started. I have a lot of friends from outside of the dental world who are pretty successful with their own podcasts and YouTube channels, so they’ve kind of given me inspiration and ideas on how to get around things. And it’s the same thing that they say really like I mean those guys from football. So if you’ve ever seen full time dealt with, you’ve heard of Andy Tate.

Dr James: 31:18

Can’t say I have.

Jabir: 31:20

He went viral a couple of years ago in the moist season trying to get rid of him. But I know a few of the guys could go to the game from those channels and they just said, look, we started off really small. It was just consistency. Same thing just posting consistently, being as open with people who message you. If you can reply to all the messages, reply to everybody and ask you a question Up until a point, obviously you’ll get to an area where there’s just too much, but that’s kind of how you get going.

Dr James: 31:54

When you’ve grown the page. We’ve touched upon already that it’s just about graft. The Hotpult podcast is something that you enjoy. I just wanted to know, as far as procuring people to come on the podcast with you guests, is that something that people will come to you? Are you inundated with these messages that people say I’ve seen your podcast, I love it, I really want to be on it, or is it more the other way around, or is there a ratio? Maybe it’s like 25%, that 75%, this, I don’t know.

Jabir: 32:26

I have an idea of what I want to bring on to the podcast, so there is a lot of me going. I’ve seen this person’s post for six months.

Dr James: 32:36

I see.

Jabir: 32:36

And I like the tone, I like the way they’re doing things and I like the effort that they’ve put in and I like the story behind them, because I probably already know a little bit about them, having featured them usually. So I’ll bring someone in on those kind of merits and most people are happy to do it. Some people aren’t confident in front of camera, which is fine, so maybe they don’t go with it. And then there are a few people who do message and ask to come on and that becomes a bit more 50-50, because you generally want to. I do a lot of these, but I don’t want to bring on anybody and everybody because it needs to be entertaining towards the audience. Like, there’s a lot of people who want to do oh, I can talk about getting onto a program, but that’s kind of not what the podcast is about. That’s great for an Instagram Live, a Q&A, something like that. The podcast is much more about who you are as a person, your journey and the almost entertainment value you can bring. So the podcast is very different to the Instagram, although it’s kind of derived from the same thing.

Dr James: 33:47

Did you just sort of set out and say, well, I think this might be fun. Was it mainly that? Or was it mainly that you thought that you thought there was a lack of cohesion in dentistry and you wanted to create this community Dentist of Insta? Was it a little bit of both? Or did you even necessarily process these things before it happened? Can you even recall? I just wanted to know. We’ve kind of touched upon this earlier a little bit.

Jabir: 34:13

Yeah, a little, I think, in terms of Dentist of Insta it was. I wanted to know how things were done elsewhere.

Dr James: 34:20

Right.

Jabir: 34:23

I mean we touched upon NHS earlier. I wanted to know the way that people were creating patients and the way the systems worked and stuff like that, from an idea of, okay, we work with insurance, we work with fee per item, and how it kind of works in different offices, specialist led or whatever. So that was interesting to me. So that’s kind of maybe where Dentist of Insta started the podcast. I think I would probably point towards my friend well, now, friend Stephen House and Adam McCollough, the guys from the United Channels. So they’ve got their own podcasts that you know, if I’m bored I’ll tune in and they’ll cheer me up and you know, because you know they’re quite amusing, they’ve got interesting opinions and they bring on different, different people to talk about football. And I thought, well, there’s absolutely nothing like this around dentistry that isn’t super clinically focused and very, very dry and kind of, how do I place an implant or how do I do a root canal? How do I do an impression? You know it’s always very heavily clinically based and I think within dental profession there’s this horrible bubble that means we just take it all home with us. I kind of want to burst that a little bit.

Dr James: 35:43

I like that. So it’s for the well-being, the well-being of dentists as a sort of cause or a greater. That’s your greater mission or objective, or at least that’s where the sympathy from that created. The reason that you wanted to start the group arose from.

Jabir: 36:01

Yeah, I think there’s a huge gap for entertainment around dentists or around dental lives, because there’s a lot of really really interesting people Like Jason I spoke to, like yourself, like a lot of these guys, even people. You don’t have to have a massive following to be an interesting person. You don’t have to be an amazing implantologist to have an interesting take on life or whatever. So that’s really interesting, that’s kind of what I want to bring out.

Dr James: 36:30

Fair point, Fair play. My next question I wanted to know people talk about content creation. What do you think are the best merits or the biggest advantages to putting yourself out there a little bit and getting yourself online? What do you think are the greatest positives that have happened to you personally in your life because of this?

Jabir: 36:56

I think the biggest thing that I would probably point out is I wasn’t a good. I mean, I had done public speaking before, but I wasn’t a confident public speaker. I could do things in small groups, I could do things, you know one-on-one quite well, but to actually be able to sit in front of a camera in one take and reel off a 15-minute video.

Dr James: 37:18

It’s a skill in itself.

Jabir: 37:19

That takes a huge amount without going and like filler words and this and that which I’m still not amazing at. I probably dropped a few in already in this podcast episode. But I think I’m completely different to two years ago. To three years ago People who knew me at university were thinking he’s more eloquent, maybe or he’s, you know, gone up to another level of his self-confidence and certainly people from school will be like well, this is a completely different guy. First of all, I put 20 kilos as well, so I was a skinny little guy. That’s not true? So, yeah, it changes your idea of what you can do as a person and what you can actually bring to the table, and how you can set your own rules and live your life.

Dr James: 38:09

So I’m going to say all these ways that you probably never even envisioned, when you start out that this has personally helped yourself growth.

Jabir: 38:19

Yeah, I mean, you probably have a similar thing where you never would have thought, where you said it already you never thought you would be doing things on YouTube, things on Facebook.

Dr James: 38:29

Anti-YouTube, anti-youtube, anti-facebook. I just thought it was silly, a waste of time, and I was totally wrong to think that. And this is why I wanted to get you on, because this is actually something that’s so useful to know and actually changes people’s lives. And it changed me definitely, and that was where the sentiment that born that question that I just asked you, because I just wanted to change it as well.

Jabir: 38:54

Yeah well, I mean, don’t take this like in a negative way, but I think that kind of idea that some people have about people who put things online is kind of ridiculous.

Dr James: 39:06

Totally. It is ridiculous. I hold my hands up. I was stupid to think that. And maybe there are others who maybe not as severe as me, but they think along those lines, and this is why I wanted to make the video, because if I can change my thinking on it, there is hope for anybody in this world.

Jabir: 39:23

Let me tell you Well, this is the thing that I, that kind of it’s one of the things that really irks me a little bit, because even before I started all this and I maybe done some gym posts when I was back in uni, so I had a little taste of, you know, negativity because I was posting. And, especially, if you think about it, if you need to learn how to do something, where do you go? You go to YouTube, you go to all these different platforms and someone’s got to put it up.

Dr James: 39:50

That is a really good point, because it is a total paradox, because I would be. I would have been the first person to look something up on YouTube as well. That is a really good point. It is a total paradox, is that? So, yeah, fair enough, and maybe in a sense I was slightly hypocritical to think that. So fair play.

Jabir: 40:07

Without without being like blaming people are listening or anything. You’ve got that particular thought process. I don’t, just a bit weird to me.

Dr James: 40:14

No, because I represented those people not that long ago and I’m not. It’s not like I’m looking at, like I’m think that I’m kind of looking down my nose at people who think that. No, I’m just saying that there is, there is other possibilities out there and maybe it’s helpful to have an open mind. That’s all I’m saying. You’ve been doing this for a while now, jambere. You were you’ve talked about how you were maybe one person who thought certain things beforehand. Now you’ve you’ve developed, you’ve grown, you’ve evolved. How do you think that content creation has changed you, if?

Jabir: 40:49

I think I think at the base level, you know my, my values and the way you know the things that matter to me haven’t changed on a on a base level. You know the, the reasons why I do things and and the the kind of deep core set beliefs I have are pretty similar. I think that will be evidenced by my friends, you know. They just say that you oh yeah, he’s just like really busy now. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on, but you’re the same person when you go out for a meal. I’m still relatively quiet in a big group. You know that kind of thing. So on a base level, I don’t think I’ve changed that much. The things that maybe have changed are the way. The way that I present myself is very, very different and that’s almost a facade. It’s not really a facade, but it’s. It’s like it’s everybody’s got the choice in the morning of what clothes to put on, put it that way. You can choose something that’s a bit slovenly, or you can choose something that’s a bit more proper and a bit more like a suit and tie and that kind of thing. And that’s maybe the only way that I could explain how I’ve changed is I’ve got more of an idea, more than the appreciation of how to look a bit better when I’m out and about and and how to present myself well online.

Dr James: 42:03

Well, self projection, I mean, that’s a skill, isn’t it? Yeah, that develops with time. Yep, fair enough. So you haven’t changed fundamentally who you are, but you’ve improved, and it comes back to this growth thing that we were talking about earlier. And maybe just taking the plunge and maybe more strings to the bow, most drinks to the bow, there we go, there’s a good for us to sink where we can put it fair enough, cool, excellent. So you’ve answered that question really well. And the last thing, one of the last things I wanted to ask just before we come on to your top tips about growth off your channel. The very last thing I wanted to ask was have you got any? Now this has happened to me and I speak the this. These experiences generated this question have you had any real-world opportunities where people have offered you something, maybe a job, maybe, maybe some amazing opportunity that you just wouldn’t have otherwise had because of your social media presence? Hmm, is?

Jabir: 43:02

I think probably yes, but it’s a very difficult in terms of an actual job. I think it’s hard to quantify because I started this before I was in the position of applying for jobs, right? So maybe everything that I’ve applied for, everything I’ve applied for, has been with the background of always. Really, you know, he’s got this following on Instagram and stuff, although maybe, if you speak to my TPD mark, I think we got on really well because I was someone who put my thoughts and views out there on things you know, during sessions and he he helped me get a job in the practice that he worked in. So Probably, yes, I think it set me up for for success in that way. And Then, I think, outside of that, I’ve had opportunities to lecture at Manchester University, dental research Society.

Dr James: 43:51

That’s amazing.

Jabir: 43:53

Which again is on social media, so it kind of old ties yeah. So yeah, it does give you some, some doors opened. I wouldn’t say that I’ve made money off of all of this stuff. If people are thinking, oh yeah, you know, I guess this question like, oh, how much do you make per post? I was like nothing.

Dr James: 44:15

Yeah, I mean, I so wish.

Jabir: 44:17

Yeah, and so there is that maybe misconception. It’s more for me. I’ve been looking at creating a community around what I’m doing and Around like-minded dentists and stuff like that. And well, not even dentists, it could be health care professionals. So maybe, yeah, I think I have had some, some doors open, but I think I’m still Probably at step maybe 10% of where I want to be, so it’s early doors for me.

Dr James: 44:48

Wow, so you feel like you just getting started as well.

Jabir: 44:52

Well, if you look at the well on a pure numbers base, if you look at the larger pages on Instagram around Treatment of dentistry and stuff like that, you’ve got I dentistry with half a million followers. So On a pure number basis and pretty small.

Dr James: 45:06

Wow, because I would look at a page with 50k and I would think, whoa, that is a lot. But it’s all relative and I do hear what you’re saying. You’re not content to stop, you want to keep going and see where the sky’s the limit effectively.

Jabir: 45:20

Yeah, I mean, as long as I have the passion for it, I still, I still do, I’ll continue it and hopefully evolve. I think a lot of my folks will be around podcasting now as opposed to just posting on the Instagram, because that’s pretty, that’s pretty much set up and rolling. So Focus, it shifted a little.

Dr James: 45:39

Nice one. Well, I wish you all the best on that. So it just goes to show that there’s always somewhere else you can go. There’s more growth and the sky’s the limit. It’s just about putting yourself out there, getting the ball rolling and setting things in motion. Yep so that was all excellent, by the way. Thank you so much for that, jabir. So I think a lot of people watching will find out of use, definitely maybe those out there who their inclinations are Maybe necessarily a little negative Towards social media certainly me. I fell in that camp for a long time in my life. Hopefully it’s made you see that there is possibilities there and it’s not all bad or it’s not all necessarily the way you perceived in the first place and then as well as that. Yet you give us some tangible, realistic expectations or tips on what to expect. I suppose because I think a lot of people out there have that Misconception that it’s the people who have big follow-ins have that one viral post and the people who don’t they just really rare and a viral post will.

Jabir: 46:50

Yeah, a viral post will net you what 10, 20, 30 followers max.

Dr James: 46:56

Okay, maybe more. Yeah, brilliant, it’s all about. Yeah, and we touched earlier upon your tips For growing a social media presence. You’re the man in the know. You’ve been there, you’ve done it, you’ve got experience on the subject. If you were to give us your succinct few tips Into growing social media presence, whether that be on insta, whether that be more broadly, what would those be?

Jabir: 47:21

So I mean, I kind of take this question from a very basic level and the main Mistakes begin as a making, so we’ll start from that kind of a frame of mind. The first thing that I Genuinely generally see is the profile picture is just terrible. You need to know who you’re following, why you’re following them. It needs to. You need it sets the tone for who you are, because if your name comes up on a notification, people are gonna remember that image and that’s gonna be the image that they Mentally associate with you right. So if it’s some blurry picture, you’re thinking this is a blurry guy. All right and you, you’re rolling down that that hill already right? Maybe not. And people have this weird thing and I mentioned this yesterday on my Instagram profile reviews last night If you’ve taken a blurry photograph, people think that your treatment is blurry.

Dr James: 48:21

Yeah, yeah, true so.

Jabir: 48:24

Compensants isn’t, isn’t equivalent, but it’s that self, self-realization or self actualization. When you put something out there. If the qualities poor, they think your dentistry is poor. So you need to put your best put forward and if you haven’t got that great picture, don’t post something. So that’s kind of the first thing that I would say and that that comes from the profile picture. So that’s, that’s step one. The step to is the bio. You need to be able to say who you are, where you are, what you do and Get all the information that you need. That whoever your target audience is has a look at your profile and goes, yes, I know who this is, I’m gonna follow, I’m not gonna follow it. So that’s kind of step two. Very, very simple I know, but a lot of people aren’t doing it brilliant.

Dr James: 49:16

So those are the two main things that you would that’s the first two things and you can.

Jabir: 49:21

You can jazz it up, you can put in emojis, you can put things into to make it more colorful. But location who you are, what you do Well, where you know those, what, where, when. Those kind of questions need to be answered in the profile. And then again story highlights. That’s the third thing that I see. People have got Random pictures of story highlights. If you’re gonna do story highlights, put on a cover. It’s all about the aesthetic of a word when you first land on the page, because when you land on a page, it’s this maybe 60% of the screen is taken up by your bio and your image on the top left and that needs to stand out and be enticing. After that, you’ve got first nine posts and that needs to show who you are and what you do again, so that someone who lands on there is gonna understand who your, your reason for being on surround and your your reason for the reason why they might follow you, the reason why they might go after your services, if it’s a service you’re providing.

Dr James: 50:21

So it sounds. I mean, I think a lot of people would watching, would think that sounds obvious. But a lot of people don’t do this correctly and I’m totally on. I’ve got room for improvement on that one. So I’m listening. I’m listening to that with interest, if I’m honest. And then the other thing. The other thing that you touched on earlier was how much graph there is behind the scenes as well. That’s another theme that perhaps people over yeah she likes band upon that a little maybe.

Jabir: 50:49

Yeah.

Dr James: 50:49

Yeah, do that. Yes, please, yeah, let’s hear that.

Jabir: 50:51

So I mean the graph I I’ll go from again the mistake that people make, mistake the people make from my point of view as they go on Instagram and act like they’re a brand. Yeah, one, I Still don’t do that and I’m day 900 or something. So I’m three years in and at no point am I acting like I’m a brand or something Like that. You’re not Nike, you’re not Coca-Cola or Pepsi or something like that. You can’t just throw things off and leave it. You’re. By making a, by making a social media profile. You’ve got to engage with every single person who sends you a message, unless it’s a spam message or something CD or whatever. It is actually funny, funny little thing. Here I post a lot pictures of Beautiful people and I get some weird messages, weird, weird message in the DMs. I’ve got a Twitter thread of screenshot Blaming these people.

Dr James: 51:46

Yeah.

Jabir: 51:49

Yeah, haven’t. So the people who are following me and on Twitter is just like lol, who is this weirdo? That’s been message in these pages. Yeah, so it’s just. Yeah, I just remembered that I’ve done that. But yeah, that’s the thing you need. You need to be engaged and you’re part of a community. Just imagine you walk into a room. You’re not gonna stand there like this, like you know what I mean being normal person and getting, get interacting with people. You’re not gonna grow if you just act like a big deal. Yeah, I know what you mean that’s true.

Dr James: 52:24

Actually, that’s a nice parallel to draw, because people will walk into a room, be quite unassuming, be you know, just themselves.

Jabir: 52:33

But then make the rounds.

Dr James: 52:34

When they, when they come to create a facebook or an instagram page you’re quite right, they’re jumping at the deep end. They have this brand that they presume How’s traction? And there is a lot of hard work that comes before that. To get yourself recognize before brand will have that Perception in other people that maybe necessarily don’t share that with you and I’ve been guilty of doing that as well, so I’m not gonna get on my high horse.

Jabir: 53:00

I mean it’s good idea to have a watermark. It’s good idea to have a watermark if you got photo photography. Yeah, that’s a must. So that’s maybe one thing that you can do straight away. But I know guys that stick on, I don’t know, like like a logo. Is that profile picture? I’ve no, I have no idea what that means.

Dr James: 53:20

I’m laughing because that’s what I’ve done, but I’m gonna do is I’m gonna have a second look at my instagram page after this conversation, so thanks for that job.

Jabir: 53:30

But yeah, I mean there’s, there’s, there’s lots of ways of doing things and lots of ways to skin the cat, but you need to have. Everything has to be deliberate.

Dr James: 53:38

I’m laughing because I think I’ve committed basically pretty much every green horn mistake that you’ve listed there, so I’ve learned something today. Hopefully everybody else has Job. That was so interesting. I think that whoever’s listening is gonna really take a well out of value from this on how to grow their social media presence. Is there anything that you’d like to say?

Jabir: 53:59

just to run things off I think we’ve covered a lot of the things that you know a beginner needs to hear in a lot of my story and things like that, I’m sure I mean. Anyone who’s seen my podcast knows I can easily talk for three hours, so we probably six things as possible. So no, I think we’re pretty tied up in the content there. I’m pretty happy with what we put out.

Dr James: 54:24

Happy days, good stuff. What I wanted to mention as well is what job is done. Is he’s giving you a little bit of a taster about what he’s about, about his knowledge Insofar as growing an instagram channel or insofar as growing a social media presence he is. This is the the little tiny snip of about three years of maybe Whatever experience graft it’s went on behind the scenes job actually helps people grow their social media presence. So if anybody listening is interested in that, whether they be in the group or not, the group that I’m in, the group that I run, is called dentists who invest community group for dentists who enjoy trading. It’s available on facebook case anybody’s listening haven’t heard of that you can jump on there and when you’re on there, javier kazi is more than happy to help you on facebook. You’ll be able to find them on my group if you’re interested. As well as that, javier does, of course, run the dentist of insta page. He runs the hot pot podcast. He has his own private javier kazi Instagram page. Am I right in saying, javier, that if anybody was interested, they’d be best off getting in touch with you via javier kazi the instagram page? Is that what you prefer? Or, or? Either, or.

Jabir: 55:46

Yeah, I mean, all my notifications are turned off but I do. I go through them once a day to check out what’s going on, who’s message and stuff like that. And if you’re someone who wants a community feature to get involved with in the dental community, head over to denser vins to you can send in a picture and a caption. Make sure it’s a nice picture, guys, anyone can get featured. But you know, send a nice picture and not something blurry, and we’ll get you up there pretty soon. If you’re interested in Instagram growth tutorials and stuff like that, you probably start off with the youtube series that I’ve been doing, going through step by step how to, how it sets up your page and go for success. If you want something which is a bit more bespoke, then I do one on one sessions, as you mentioned there, and that’s why some people the patreon group where you can get involved. So that’s it. And finally, the other thing that I have is the youtube channel hot pot podcast, which I use to like I did with James interview interesting members of the dental community and from further afield. We are looking at some medics and some other guys as well to get some interesting information out there. We are aiming for 1000 subs by the end of the year. We’re pretty much going daily until the end of lockdown, so head over, usually about 8pm on UK time, will be live. Get involved in the comments and it’s a bit of fun.

Dr James: 57:11

There you go, guys. Really interesting stuff. Job here has been an absolutely great guest day. He was one of the original people that inspired me to launch this podcast, so I have to say, oh, huge thanks to him and anybody else who enjoys the podcast. They will feel similarly. He was only too good to me as a get, as a as a host. I was one of the very first guests on well sorry, that was one of my very first podcast that I did. I was a little bit of a long time Adir and headlights but I think we did all right and I’ve hopefully returned the favor today. Job here has been an absolute pleasure. I’m sure everybody who’s listening will be very thankful. We’ve learned, we’ve given a lot of knowledge today and part of a lot of information, and I hope to see you again soon. Job here.

Jabir: 57:57

Thank you, mate, been a pleasure.

Dr James: 57:58

Smash and see you soon, buddy. If you enjoyed this podcast, please hit, follow or subscribe so you can stay up to date with information on new podcasts which are released weekly. Please also feel free to leave a positive review so others can learn about this podcast and benefit from it. I would also encourage any fans of the podcast to sign up to the free Facebook community from which the podcast originated. Thank you for your time.