Dr James, 0s:

In another episode of the Dentists Who Invest Podcast, we're here to talk today about why lots of dentists don't really feel like they're being remunerated to the standard that they would hope for. As to why that happens, I'm joined by Mr. Shishir Khadka and Dr. Barry Oulton, and we're here today to talk about the science of boosting your income, what you can do to be more profitable. Not that it's all about money, but of course it's nice to feel valued for what we do whenever it comes to our clinical dentistry. Looking forward to this one 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. Well, as we were saying in the intro to this podcast, we were here today to talk about the the I word in verticomas, which is income. And we need to normalize talking about this in dentistry, I feel, because really, when we know that we are correctly remunerated and hitting the right income number, that means that we don't have to sweat it about our bills, about all the things that are going on at home. We can be your best self at work. So we have to talk about it to some level. It's not about that, but it is an essential thing, it is an essential component to our dentistry. Dr. Barry, thoughts on what I've just said? Agree?

Dr Barry, 1m 49s:

I think it's a hundred percent. Absolutely. I mean, even for me, when I owned my practices for like 20 years, um, I didn't have it the finances dialed in. I think, you know, my my phrase is it's really hard to cock it up in dentistry, right? Most of us earn an okay income despite our inability to have our finger on the pulse of our finances. And so I always had financial stress. And what I'm finding now is that, you know, I'm really good at helping my clients to increase their gross revenue, but actually, you know, uh Sashir Sashir to me and my clients is like um a BPE perio probe is is now that you're aware that a business has financial periodisease, you can't ignore it. And so everything I'm doing now is bringing Sashir in because he's the master of plugging the holes in the bucket. Whilst I'm pouring the water in and helping them to build it up, he's actually plugging it, which means he's gonna be responsible for leveraging profit as opposed to just me leveraging production.

Dr James, 2m 56s:

Well, well, you know what, just on that, Sashir, because it'll be interesting to hear your thoughts as well. I mean, what I've always found in business is that a lot of people focus purely on increasing their turnover, so to speak, right? But that only provides you some level of comfort if you have no idea what's actually going on under the bonnet because you will be uncertain how much you actually need to hit that break-even point and to manage all your outgoings and take some profit out. And that is also not a nice place to be at all, and you'll still be operating out of fear and just trying to earn as much as possible.

Shishir, 3m 34s:

Yes, James. Uh, it it reminds me of uh one of my clients. Um, I'll tell you a little story that a few weeks ago, one of my clients uh he's like 52 and he has some kind of arthritis problem, and uh and he messaged me saying, Sissy, can we postpone our call uh to the next one? Uh because I'm gonna have to see an implant patient. Because that for me that is like an immediate £3,000 money coming into my bank account. But after the call, after uh after a week, then when we reschedule a call, I asked him, like, uh, how long do you think you can keep on going like this? I mean your body can handle like this for you know, like you already have an arthritis problem. You see, that's the problem because with that money that he would have saved 20% margin of something like that, but he was never ever ever going to get back the the three hours of his time that he already invested making this treatment back. So you can get your money back, but you can't get your time back. So if you're hung up on the production game, you lose because you don't know what to what what sort of leverage that you can have in the business and you're missing out on. And that's the issue that most uh dental practice owners game that I come across that are so hung up on the production game, saying, I just want to see the production of mine, production of my associates, and things like that. As long as I'm hitting the processing target, I'm there, but it doesn't really work like that. Business is like an intellectual sport, you know, like you have to play the game, you have to play as win as a team. We have team members in different areas, you know. We're talking about football, you're talking about strikers, you're talking about defenders, all have a job to do, you know, like and if if you're only solely relying on strikers to just win matches, it doesn't yes, you may win a match, but you don't you're not gonna win a championship, and that's the problem.

Dr James, 5m 25s:

You know, it always when I hear stuff like that, it always kind of reminds me, it's like I can't I don't know the exact name of this experiment, but I'm sure we've all seen it. They have these, you know, back in the day when they were learning about psychology and animals and things like that, there was they basically hooked this rat up to this um electrode in its brain, right? Okay, and the electrode stimulated the pleasure center of its brain, and they give this rat the butt a button to press, okay, in its cage, okay? And the rat would just push the button like like ah like this all day long because it felt so good for the rat. And even though the rat felt really good, okay, the rat literally eventually just uh died basically because it it forgot to eat and drink, okay, because it was having so much fun in the moment by doing this, right? Anyway, to relate that back to what we're talking about, I think business is a lot like that sometimes, because oftentimes there's these things that give us, you know, people like to make money, right? We we can say that out loud, that's fine, you know. It's it gives us a dopamine boost in our brain, right? And it's like people will chase that short-term dopamine hit versus sitting on a zoom and thinking about these things with yourself uh Sishir, which which may not give that immediate dopamine hit, but it's probably worth far more to them in the long run. And I always try I literally always try to visual that to my visualize that to myself. Am I chasing the short-term hit, or if I sacrifice that, how can I make things so much better for myself in the long term? And that that that that little uh I guess visual description just it it it kind of always sticks in my head. I can't remember where I saw that, but anyway, we're trying not to be that person.

Dr Barry, 7m 5s:

We're trying to think about these things strategically because I think I think James that something that's in parallel with that is I think a lot of dentists confuse busy with successful. Firm is that is that when they are super busy and they have long days and they've got stress, they've got reactive decisions, constant firefighting, that doesn't equal high margin strategic growth and freedom. And I think we often can get so busy being busy that we don't take the time to sit on a zoom and have a conversation and go, oh, there's another way of doing this. So I think that's kind of like the rap pressing the button is that they're so busy pushing the button that actually they forget that there are things going on that they could they could move some levers and actually have a huge impact.

Dr James, 7m 54s:

There we go. Exactly, it's exactly analogous to that. And that allows us to segue very nicely on in the next part of this podcast is how the heck do Dentists actually do what we're talking about. And this is great that I have you both on the podcast today because it's kind of two angles that we're gonna come this from. One is, I mean, we have to think about boosting income to some level, there has to be something there to optimize, right? And then the second part is okay, what do we actually do? How can we actually look at what we're bringing in forensically so we can ensure that we're actually making profit and we've got a real handle on our numbers, which is more Sishir's remit. Maybe if we start with yourself, Barry, a little bit on boosting income, what you believe is important.

Dr Barry, 8m 36s:

So I I mean, what and I spend five minutes just giving you some of the high-level things that I will look at and work with with my clients, and then actually we can get Sashir to be the guy that starts looking at where the holes in the bucket are. Because for me, there's a number of levers where we're able to increase production and profit um without looking at the spreadsheets. And then the the next level is when you actually really understand the finances, that's when things just take off. So for me, um often dentists can undercharge, often emotionally, fear of rejection, fear of being too expensive, identity conflict, imposter syndrome, things like that is that helping them to communicate with themselves better and with their patients. Second one is they don't control their diary, they have random scheduling, they have too many uh exams and recalls, and they are not looking at the daily production, they're looking at again how busy they are, and so we zone the diaries beautifully for maximum production. They have poor case acceptance. I've got clients at the moment, uh, I won't name them because that would be very unfair. I have a client who has a two surgery. This is gonna shock you, right? I I have a client that has a two surgery practice, and I said, because he has dentally, I went, let's just jump on, let's run a report. I want to find out about your recalls and your outstanding treatment, treatment that has been diagnosed, presented, and not accepted. And I said, let's do it for 24 months, right? Two surgery practice. What is the treatment that he has diagnosed, treatment planned, presented, and has not been completed? How much do you think that is? Two surgery practice. A mail private?

Dr James, 10m 33s:

Yeah. So basically treatment plans that he hasn't closed, in other words, in is another way of saying it. Um two hundred thousand.

Shishir, 10m 47s:

I was gonna say something could be like two hundred eighty-nine like beautiful around thirty percent. Are you both sat down?

Dr James, 10m 58s:

Yes, yeah, I'm holding to my chair.

Dr Barry, 11m 7s:

No, how no way. Look at the two of you, look at the two of you. You don't believe me. Oh, I mean, I could I could go into that, but hey, what an amazing opportunity because they're doing quite well. But oh my god. Two surgery practice, 2.4 mil. And then I had another conversation with another client of mine, and uh, they were only able to get results over the last 12 months, they couldn't get anything before, uh, and they were 489,000. So this is a big problem, right? One isolated case, I mean two points four is off the scale. One isolated case is one thing, but actually, there's an awful lot of this, right? Poor case acceptance, poor follow-up, poor follow-up. I ran a I ran a training yesterday on follow-up. Uh, my daughter, who's now working for me, has just put together a 30-page document on reigniting and bringing patients back in, how to do that, the language skills, because we've got team members that that feel awkward about phoning somebody up about outstanding treatment. So there's that, you know, there's overheads without strategic control. Honestly, most people that own a business avoid leadership, they're really good at dentists, being dentists, they were taught how to be technicians. Um, and so there's a load of things, but ultimately no financial targets, so on and so forth. So I I could go on about this forever, but what's recently come into my life is this gentleman here who I have plugged him into my clients, and the difference that he's making is phenomenal in their financial education and understanding, and actually how that's shifting some of the very important decisions that we're making as businesses. It's even helping me become a much better coach. So I think actually, you know, it it's the stuff that people like me, I own my practices, but I didn't I didn't have my finger on the pulse lights as she does now.

Dr James, 13m 2s:

Interesting, and that yeah, that brings us on to the second part of this conversation, which is how can we master numbers, which is super duper duper important.

Shishir, 13m 13s:

Uh James, the uh in in terms of mastering the numbers, and from what I've come across working with dentists uh since 2019, is that uh if they're not actually passionate about this topic, and this they want to avoid this trend this topic as much as possible. And it's it's a bit like uh think about the moment, like you know, when we have really uh no money in the bank account, we don't really want to look at it because because they could you don't want to have that kind of feeling, you know, like and it's the same thing like when you don't understand in finances, I don't even want to talk about it because that will make me feel bad, you know. And and and I think it's the first thing that I would say is that you have to love your business, you know, to love your business, you have to love your numbers, regardless of how bad how uh how good it is, and you you wouldn't do it to your child, would you? You know, like you know, like and my son is so bad. I don't love him, I don't think you would do that. You know, like why would you neglect your finances, you know, in your business? And the first thing is to love your numbers, you know. I would start with that with first, you know.

Dr James, 14m 20s:

Yeah, let's do it. I'm all ears.

Shishir, 14m 24s:

And and and the secondly, secondly, once you know that you know you you you got to love your numbers because this is what I've learned from my business coach that uh this is the guy who uh is not an accountant, but he's a brilliant um per uh you know in what he does. This is the guy who took a business from five hundred five hundred million dollars to five billion dollars in five years' time. His name is Sevan Srivasta, and uh and he this is what he said to me. CC like the thing is like if you don't know your numbers in business, you lose because you don't know what to focus on. It's simple as that, and me coming into like me as an accountant and saying, like, yeah, I get it, but you know, my clients they don't get it. And this is what you have to to show them, you know, like show them, and and so yeah, so not understanding mass and the economic like the the the timing aspect, the logical aspect of all of this, it just keeps them like of uh financially paralyzed. That's why I called it, and they're like, should I do this, should I not do this? And they're stuck in this analysis paralysis for a prolonged time, and they are stuck, and it's like uh they are stuck while the competitors are moving forward much faster, and they're making decisions based on data, and they're moving uh and making good choices in terms of saying this shouldn't be treatment pricing, or the conversion is not good enough. This associated performing not performing well, this is actually performing well, actually. Let me reward him so that he doesn't move away to another practice. You see, like small, small decisions like this makes a huge difference. Imagine that a a good uh associate like who's really performing well and he's not being rewarded, leaves. Now you have you go with so much problem. You have to find a person, you have to train the person, it is so much a headache, and and you're risking so much. So, so you can only do this when you have financial clarity in place, you know. I call this like clarity breeds focus. So we need the financial clarity first.

Dr James, 16m 26s:

Love that, love that. And where I guess the first question to ask is in your wisdom, Seshir, we would break this down really simply for Dentists, because I I think I feel having been a dentist clinically myself for many years, that I guess the thing that really gave me analysis paralysis was I just didn't know where to start. Like, what is I get that you can go to like version 10 and have all these metrics that you can analyze? What is what is version one of that look like for dentists? Like they're very basics, they're very, very, very basics.

Shishir, 17m 1s:

Yeah, so I call this like a uh like a level zero to like level five that that I have for that.

Dr James, 17m 7s:

Oh, I you've already thought about this. I love this. Great.

Shishir, 17m 10s:

So so that you understand, like you know, so when you when you go into this uh you know the power BI reports, like analytical software tools out there, and you'll you'll come across this level one information, James. Like it tells you what your average daily production is, it tells you what your average uh you know profit is per associate and things like that. That's great, uh, but you have to go it's much deeper in in terms of uh why it's happening, what's happening, you know. These are the critical things that answers the importance of uh of of how you actually make good decisions. So when you come back to the level level zero, we're talking about the you know uh you're you're talking about the what is the production based on what is a gross profit, which is just after cost of delivery, and that needs to be at a certain percentage, and anything anything below 50%, and you you're risking it that there is not uh you're you're losing money on that front. I I I came across a client uh other day and he was on 30.37 percent gross profit, it's it's purely 95% private, it's a small bit of NHS. And they're like, Paul, you're on the 30.3 percent, assuming that the data is right, you know, like you know, he's right. We can I can bring you up like anything like over 45 percent and imagine that you're doing like 1.5 million, and think about that 17 like 12, 13, 14 percent gap that you already have, you have extra profit just by just optimizing a few things. Nice, and and so I would say like the first thing you you look at is the gross profit margin because that is the key driver of the business. Because uh once the business cross over 800,000 pounds production-wise, the most of the fixed expenses that happen in the business are recouped uh and can be consumed by uh by this the turn-up itself. So anything over that one. So, what I've seen is that even you go to 1.5, you are relatively spending much less on overheads, the expenses. This what you paid just to open the door, clinical door in the practice, and you'll have a better leverage. So, we'll be looking at gross profit and the overhead spend on the on on the production side. Then we're going to break down all these overheads. Um, James, we're going to like level two kind of territory, and and uh, but I'll be looking at for the first thing like it is like a biking x-ray. I'm just looking at saying, okay, what is the production, how many chairs, and uh how what is gross profit with the net profit margin. At this level, they should be on this level. So I know instantly that there's some some like the holes in dental practice, just like holes in teeth. Yeah.

Dr James, 19m 56s:

Boom. I see what you did there. I see what you did there, but yeah, 100%. Okay, cool. And maybe hey, to take that analogy one step further, it's like maybe things can look clinically fine, but you take the x-ray, the radiograph, and they don't look radiographically fine, yeah. When you do your special tests or your your further investigations, and um yeah, I just coined that right then, but I think it works.

Dr Barry, 20m 18s:

That's where the BPE comes in, mate. Is this kind of listen?

Dr James, 20m 21s:

You guys can use that one if you want, because I I I I think that would work quite well. There you go. Anyway, okay, cool. So that those are I guess what we want is the yeah, the absolute basic. So you think that's the best place to start for Dentists this year?

Shishir, 20m 35s:

Yes, and you start with the PL. But here's the problem, James. You know, like uh most dental practice owners, they're just stuck in this profit loss game. This look at uh they just look at production and just look at in profit loss in zero, and this is where this is where they actually um uh they finish the journey and look at all my business is profitable, but it doesn't tell you the whole story of your business. Uh because it's it's it's a bit like uh uh it's a bit like you know, you need healthy teeth, you need healthy gums, you also need a healthy level of bone levels, right? Then then only the oral health is fine. So uh in in in a dental context, in terms of finances, your teeth are your uh teeth are your profit and loss, because that's what is making the money, and and your cash flow is like your gums, because that actually holds the teeth, uh, you know, hold the business. Because you pay by cash, you don't pay by profit, you know, like you know, and then your bone level is like a balance sheet. You that everything is whole there. And here's the big problem, James. That I say, you have you heard of this phrase like in in marketing, like uh you know, you can even hide a dead body in in the second place of Google because hardly anyone goes there. Have you heard of that?

Dr James, 21m 53s:

Uh I haven't, but yeah, I I I hear you.

Shishir, 21m 57s:

So I can say the same thing to dentists, I can even Hide a dead board even dentist balance sheet because no one goes there. Or how do you anyone goes there?

Dr James, 22m 5s:

Fair enough. Yeah, that is true. Yeah.

Shishir, 22m 7s:

Because the the most important part of the finances are held in the balance sheet, not in profit loss. Because the the most important component of profit loss, which is the profit made in that current year, is already the part of the balance sheet. And the balance sheet is simply part of what you own and what you owe. And if if what you owe is is much higher, then you have a problem. But if you're not seeing that, then you don't know. And then then you come to like, okay, I have 10,000 pounds in the bank account, I owe the taxman 20,000. Um I have a problem. Yes, my business is profitable, but it's not liquid yet. So you have to look at from this angle as well. So these are like level one kind of thing I look at. Like I do something called balance sheet stress test. You know, like if we were to have no income, say for the next two weeks, like how long can you pay your bills? Because you have to pay for the materials, you have to pay for lap, you have to be associates, yeah. Your subscription is going on. Maybe you have to be also EMI and for loan uh higher purse, things like that, you know. It's called a stress test, and yeah.

Dr James, 23m 16s:

And you know, the tax one, just to home in on that, that's a really common one for dentists, right? And that applies to both associates and principals, and it's like people just put away a certain percentage every year because they'll they'll want to save, but they don't know exactly how much they owe, right? And I actually have this problem a lot, right? Where um I put away money for VAT and I put away money for corporation tax, right? And I actually find myself in a place where I'm usually oversaved way more than I need, right? And that sounds good. It's like, oh, you get this little bonus, right? But actually that's a bad thing as well, because that cash could have been doing other things for you, you know, like you that could have been cash that you could have invested in something, and it's I see I see liquid cash in your bank account beyond a certain level. Um, beyond a certain level, obviously you need your six months uh emergency fund and maybe a few months of turnover in the business or however you want to do it. There's different ways of doing it in your company, uh, just as a cushion, okay? But after that, it's literally just wasted potential, like it could be doing something for you business-wise, or it could be invested in an asset that's going to appreciate with time. But anyway, so what you're saying is how can dentists get better at that? Like, how can they have some sort of met what what are the methods that dentists can use to estimate how much tax they owe properly? That is really valuable, right there. UK dentists, Dentistst 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.

Shishir, 27m 48s:

And then the next phase is if you want to have a really good driving experience, then you look as further as possible. Why? Because you can spot the hazards and uh hazards uh, you know, any potential problems up front in the in the same way the controlling having this cash flow is in the same way. First, you learn how to manage your your what's in and what's out, or in like what should be in, what should be out, how much should be in, how much so you have a control on your receivables and on your collection wise, and you also have a control on the payables. You'll see that in you when you see the supply invoices in zero, like you'll see that. So you know that. Then you able to analyze the information of cash flow, like uh you know, on and I go through like a four-step process on this one. I call it the tips technique. Like we look at we are looking for trends, we are looking for irregular activities here, and we are looking for uh we're looking for patterns and we're looking for spikes. So I call this the tips technique. That the first things that we do this and we're starting to analyze the cash flow, like um, and then we look for projection. So, because it's just like the further you look ahead while you're driving, that uh you know you can do uh you can plan for whether you want to change the uh the the the lane or not. So you if you can plan for your cash flow, uh then you'll have a better control on your cash flow. And here's the thing here's what I believe like when you have control in your cash flow, you'll have control in your business, period. Because um from what I can see, like uh from most uh dental business owners, they feel like their business is controlling them rather than their controlling the business. They're forcing to make uh sometimes I come across a dentist saying, Oh, sorry, Cecil, I even had to skip my lunch uh just to uh just to fit in, you know, like I'm trying to do different things. So you want to have a control in your cash flow so that you can have a control in your business.

Dr James, 29m 50s:

Nice, and then that leads on to the taxing as well. So it kind of comes back to cash flow. Have I got that right?

Shishir, 29m 55s:

Yeah, so so then uh then the uh then like when you can project your future cash flow, uh uh what cash person that you will be on, and if you don't have uh cash to to pay the tax, and maybe you need uh some kind of you know tax loan in place, or maybe uh maybe you can generate enough cash flow to pay on time, but it's all it's all down to numbers, you know. But you can act much faster, and you can make a decision based on that.

Dr James, 30m 26s:

I hear you, so it it really all comes what you're saying is that these common pain points that Dentists have, will I have enough money, which is literally the title of this podcast, right? Or well, it's another way to paraphrase it, um, or the the whole tax thing, will I have enough, won't I have enough as well? It basically comes back to being able to understand cash flow and understand your outgoings, it's all a permutation of that. Is that fair to say?

Shishir, 30m 59s:

Yes, and that's uh that's a big chunk of that, uh part of that is yes, and and uh and I I like the fact that well when you uh when you said James that you know if you're setting aside say 30%, uh 35% like that in terms of paying taxes in like a tax port and like uh like do. And uh uh you correctly to mention that you know that money is like park, that means I'm not able to use that right now. So like today is like 20th of February 2026. Uh as a self-assessment, you would pay the next instalment on 31st of July and the following one on the 31st of Jan. So you might have a limited company saying a 31st of March, so you might have paid your corporation tax at the end of December 2025 for the previous year. So when you know these dates, how uh when it is due, so and and so what I come across like uh a smart dental practice owners, they're saving money to pay as a taxpayer. Uh but uh but we both agree that actually the cash in the business is the resource, it is the fuel in the business. So you want to invest in now, not park it to be paid on 31st of July. Yes, but you just need to know understand like how much you need to pay. You don't have to pay today's money, like you know, I don't you don't have to pay like with today's money to say you tax me 30,000 pounds, so you so you you save 30,000 pounds is parked there. You don't have to save it now to pay uh on 31st of July. You can pay the money that you have on 30 30th of July, 30,000 pounds you can pay on the 31st of July. But you have utilized, you have used, you have used the resources, money is the is the energy, is the fuel in the business for 30,000 pounds in different marketing campaigns, something now you're generating extra income from this extra income. You're utilizing that one to pay on 31st of July. So we so but you can only do that when you have a clear, accurate financial visibility of your finances.

Dr James, 33m 2s:

Nice, and once upon a time, we used to just this was all written uh down, right? But I believe now things have evolved in 2026 in that we have software solutions that can handle this as well.

Shishir, 33m 18s:

Yes, so um so here's uh you know, like because uh because mostly I've been working as a CFO over for different businesses, and and uh and by uh like uh like mid 2023, James, that I came across like so many uh like financial planning and automation, not automation, uh, analysis software like data roles and things like that. Uh, they are just using Microsoft Powered BI reports uh like that to create this uh dashboards and things like that. Uh, but what I found is uh dentists they are like a different beast on its own because this NSS contract, this and some SSC working two days a week, uh but they plan to work three days a week, they're doing extra hours. There's a lot of complicated uh bring around this ones, so uh so so they needed a uh a customized software solution just for them only. So, so so yeah, so we we build a financial software um when we call and uh it's called dentals, and uh uh it's it's purely about uh improving finances in the business, and we find uh the hidden gaps in the in the business, and and first we ensure the accuracy of data, and then then we help them with the cash flow, profitability, um, and taxes, financing the business. These are the areas that we that we cover, we cover.

Dr James, 34m 42s:

Excellent. And you know what? It sounds good that it's taken until 2026 to someone for someone to uh create something like that. Um if I'm honest with you, because it sounds like it's just so obvious that this might be needed uh for dentists and dental.

Dr Barry, 34m 58s:

Is it worth touching upon? Can I can I jump in and say, is it worth touching upon this this idea that there are things that are already out there that we're assuming work the same, but they're not, because they're AI based? So Shea, would you be able to just share what you told me about the difference between what is out there in terms of AI and actually what Dem Pulse does? Because it's significantly different, right?

Shishir, 35m 25s:

Yeah, um the the the main issue here is the uh the accuracy of data because uh uh when when I when I started first developing this, Barry, uh three and a half years ago, I started creating with the power BI reports, just like what we have with current seeing in the market. Uh it just gets the data from different sources, then it gets passed on to AI to clean the data and present with it and present with the with the dashboard. But Barry and I were like we we've seen that with with our own clients there the the source of accounting data is wrong in the first place. So when you you so you cannot you can automate, but you you're automating the wrong information, wrong data in the first place, you know, like this this is what the problem is. So we uh so uh in this in a sense I call this financial data integrity. And and it it's uh if the data integrity is is not there, then the decisions are based, uh it doesn't it's not really meaningful. If you still have to have someone to make it uh you know manual process to make a decision, then it's not much of a value, you know. As opposed to if you're automating decisions, then that's great, as opposed to automating data. And and and uh and and also what we do is just like uh James, we're talking about this balance sheet being you know, putting the dead body in the that no one goes there, and uh what the software does is it goes through the balance sheet and looks at the whole picture, like you know, you're not only doing a bite-wing x-ray, you're you're doing a fully city scan you know of your mouth, and and uh you're going to every single aspect of your profit loss balance sheet cash flow and figuring out where the gaps are and what you need to do as an individual owner, and that's more that's more holistic approach, you know. And and that's what's needed rather than just saying, Well, I fixed my teeth, but uh and I uh my my my but my gums are not healthy, and that that's not that's not uh that's not where we want to be as a patient, you know.

Dr James, 37m 34s:

Sure. Or another way of saying it is the sign or symptom of the disease, if you will, is that you feel like you don't have enough money or you feel like you don't have enough to pay the tax man, but the actual treatment is to understand your cash flow and how that works, so that you can make decisions that will allow you to not have those problems uh based off the back of clear data. I think that's a basically another way of saying it. So it's kind of like dentists know when the patient comes to us with toothache and we diagnose what's going on, right? A lot of the time we have financial pain, I guess you could say, or financial financial signs of financial disease, if you will, in that there are uh symptoms that we would observe that we don't have enough money, right? And this is literally the treatment, you know, is the remedy. You go just like you go to a dentist uh to sort your teeth problems and to diagnose what those issues are, you j you might go to someone like yourself, uh Sisher or Barry uh to diagnose the exact cause of these issues that people are having. And uh, as you were saying a second ago, it sounds like the very first stage in that remedy every single time is the cash flow side of things, and it's interesting that you should mention what solutions exist out there these days are are brand new, and obviously that's part of what you do as well. Sishair, is it fair to say that to start off that uh treatment process that you'd be able to offer some sort of checkup, I guess, if you will, or a diagnostic appointment, like an examination when someone goes to the dentist? Is that is that how that begins usually?

Shishir, 39m 7s:

Yeah, so I I just send them like a two-minute uh of uh of a diagnostic uh test in terms of where they are in the in the business journey and in the what the problems are, and I I give them like uh his what's your wealth score and um wealth score wealth score. Um because the the whole idea of uh setting up a business is that they want to build a personal financial wealth that lasting, and uh uh if they are just focusing on profit only, uh um only, and then you're missing out on huge opportunity, but not by looking at cash flow, by not looking at the balance sheet as a holistic approach. Uh so so yeah, a two-minute um you know, questionnaire would would actually reveal so much about them, you know.

Dr James, 39m 52s:

Nice, okay, brilliant. And how can someone get that questionnaire that we talked about just a second ago?

Shishir, 39m 57s:

Yeah, so I can I can provide you the link and you can uh you can share that with the.

Dr James, 40m 2s:

Yeah, let's put it in the podcast description. That's a great idea. That's actually a really good idea.

Dr Barry, 40m 6s:

Again, can I uh just jump onto this for a little bit? Is that um I think you know I I jokingly said that uh Shashia is is to my clients what uh a BPE in a period probe was to dentistry uh 20 years ago. Uh which is you know, patients would would walk in and uh even the dentist would say, Oh, you've got a little bit of bleeding, and nobody really acknowledged that it could be quite serious disease. And I think that's the same with the finances, is that oh, you've got a bit of stress about your your tax, or you've got a little bit of a cash flow problem. And because it's so common, because we've always had it, no one's really going, well, hang on a minute, let's just take a look and see what's the bone support like? What's your balance sheet like? What's really going on here? Is this something that you're gonna end up in the in the deep doo-doo? Or is this something that you would just come out of? So, yes, there's the two minute report, but I think because there's so much in the financial side of dentistry where we don't know what we don't know. One of the things that we're doing together, Sasha and I, is regular live workshops where we take people on a three-hour journey of discovery, right? It's like 29 quid. The i the idea is that it's not about making an income from it, it's about making people aware of what they don't know, and then if they're interested to find out, we can share with them what Dempulse does, what Sashir does. If they're interested in mead, they can be. But actually, it is giving them a true diagnostic at a very little cost. You know, that they for that diagnostic, they'd be charging 69-89 quid for a patient. They're gonna pay 29 quid to come and find out where they are, so that then they can at least not be burying their heads and choose to do something about it. It's kind of like telling a patient, look, we've got BPEs of threes and fours, we need to do an ordinance survey map mapping out what's going on. It's then your choice as to whether you treat that periodisease, but at least now you are aware what's going on, which means you can't go, nobody ever told me. Because that's what's happened with the majority of our clients, is with their accountants. No one's ever told them what really is going on underneath the financial covers. They just know that the stress, they've got a bit of bleeding, they've got some stress, they've got some sensitivity, but actually they don't really know how bad it is or how actually quite good it is. We just need to tweak a few levers and everything would be okay. So that's that's our aim over the next few months is to provide more of these clinics so people can come and find out what's going on.