Dr James, 49s:

What would ever come over if somebody to start a squat at the age of twenty-five? Well, pull that thought because that's the question that you can ask my two amazing guests in the Dentists Who Invest Podcast today. James and Katy Nolan did exactly that and then since went on to start a further squat. A little later, a few years down the line, we're going to be talking about their journey, what possessed them to make that decision way back in the day at such young age, the trials and tribulations that they encountered, and their words of wisdom to anybody who is about to embark upon that journey. 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 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. Guys, Kitty and James, let's cut to the chase. The exact title of this podcast, What comes over somebody to start a flipping squat at 25? First of all, hats off to you both. You do know you've done something amazing, right? Thank you. Um yeah, it's really Yeah, yeah, we're great. No, I'm kidding.

James, 2m 19s:

No, don't I think yeah, more I don't know, more um, probably naivety and ignorance looking back, but a big dream. Um, yeah, I think what would you say?

Katy, 2m 31s:

I'd say, yeah, dreaming and naivety, definitely. I'd say we met at university, so like part of the talking point was, you know, do we want to have a practice one day? And we wanted it to be glass fronted. And yeah, we just literally walked across across the complex once, and it was had all big glass fronts. We don't, we'd not even been long since graduated, and we just kind of looked at it and I was like, James, we've got to do it.

James, 2m 55s:

Yeah, wow, and then we just decided, yeah, and then we we knew what we wanted to create, and then we just kind of we have a good work, we have a good work ethic looking back, and we just yeah, did what it took to make it happen.

Katy, 3m 9s:

Stubborn, stubborn stubbornness is like one of the biggest things that we had. Like if we like if we were going to do it and we're going to make it happen, we were so stubborn we'd have put our through selves through absolutely anything to make it work, which is a good quality and a bad quality, because we would sacrifice our life for it too.

Dr James, 3m 27s:

Well, you gotta, that's how it works, at least at the start, right? And there's there's there's a saying, and I can't remember the exact saying, I'm not even gonna attempt it today, uh, but in case I butcher it. But it's something along the lines of naivety is your biggest superpower, uh, especially at the start, whenever you start a business, because you just you almost know so little about the situation that you're not scared of the downside or potential negative things can happen because you don't even know what they are, and then therefore you just go for it.

James, 3m 53s:

Yeah, I think that that that would be it. Like we were relatively fresh out of university, we were about three, three years out, two, two years out, two, three years out. Um, so you only have limited experience. Um, and you can see the gaps in the practices where you work, and we could see you know the holes that we could fill.

Katy, 4m 12s:

Yeah.

James, 4m 12s:

But then I don't think we really saw the behind full behind the scenes of running a practice, and I don't think you really truly appreciate it until you're actually doing it. You know, all the other costs understanding you need of like the marketing, the sales, you know, just the general business overheads and controlling those, and that's how you it's not just a practice where you do dentistry, it's a it's a full-on business.

Dr James, 4m 33s:

Um yeah, you know what, we should totally talk about that, and we will definitely cover that as the podcast progresses. I guess the first thing that springs to my mind is why don't you just go and buy a dental practice that was already set up? Because they say that's the easier path versus a squat.

James, 4m 49s:

I mean, for for my answer, I would say um if you're buying a practice, uh you're buying someone else's deco, uh, someone else's fit out. So you have to confine, you know, uh you're you're limited to how they've made the aesthetic of the practice look, and then you're buying the goodwill, and goodwill is very expensive. So I feel like it's a safer option because you're buying and you've got immediate cash flow from day one. But if we were buying a practice, I think we'd look for one that we could do an improvement with. So we'd probably want to improve the marketing, we'd probably want to refurb it, probably want to get new patients in either way. I mean, it's like, well, if they're the problems that you're gonna solve when you buy the practice, then you can save the goodwill and you can fit one out. Um, and yeah, you can do the marketing yourself. Um, I I think it's it's a little more cost-effective at our time of setting up, we didn't have the funds required to purchase the practice. We couldn't have purchased one, um, but we could set one out, set one up. Um, yeah, what would you say?

Katy, 5m 48s:

I don't want to sound controversial.

Dr James, 5m 51s:

So if you need to cook, it's fine, it's it's allowed on this podcast. Well, actually, listen, I should be careful then because I have no idea what's going to come out of your box. This could be anything.

Katy, 6m 1s:

I'd say going back to like the dreaming aspect, I'd say I didn't want to buy somebody else's dream. Like for me, like we had our own and we'd done it for so many years, like we knew what we wanted. Like, I did I didn't want to buy somebody else's chair, walls, team members. I wanted to pick my own, like like everything. Like yeah, I I want it, and also as well when you're buying somebody else's practice, you don't know whether somebody is potentially kind of like set it up to sell. You don't know what you're potentially walking into. I you know, you're potentially gonna walk into a whole curveball full of problems. Not that I'm saying that somebody potentially do it on purpose, but just in case it's not it didn't, I didn't want it to be my first experience. Um, so yeah, I'd say that, and then also, yeah, it was cost effective. Like we we got it, we we managed to build a loan, and then COVID happened. The loan got halved, so we had to halve the build and then build up in stages. So even if we wanted to buy somebody else's practice, it just was not going to happen.

Dr James, 7m 1s:

Yeah, and you know what? I don't want to sidetrack this podcast too much, but if we pull this podcast into the present tense and we speak from where you guys are right now, was it the right choice?

James, 7m 13s:

There's a few things I'd I'd say to answer that. Yeah, I think business-wise for sure, uh personal life-wise, definitely not. Um yeah, like yeah, we haven't been a holiday for years, or you yeah, since 2017, Katy remembered. Not as a couple, not as a couple.

Katy, 7m 28s:

We have been a holiday, but it doesn't count unless you go as a couple, but no, it doesn't, we went and we don't really do dates.

James, 7m 33s:

We don't really yeah, for years we didn't have a life for many, many years. And it's uh um that's where the naivety comment comes back in. We didn't realize what we're getting ourselves into. I think if we truly knew the extent that we're getting into, I think we'll probably still do it.

Katy, 7m 44s:

But like um that's because we're stupid.

James, 7m 46s:

You've probably ever thought about that. Um, but business-wise, for sure, for sure. It means it it's I think you learn a lot of lessons having to set everything up from scratch. There's no systems, no processes, no employee. Like you you've just got to do everything from scratch. I think the knowledge and experience you gain from setting up from scratch is um yeah, it's it's priceless. It's not only about the financial side, it's where we feel now in terms of understanding the dental business model, even though we're we're nowhere when we want to be, but um it it's really valuable.

Katy, 8m 14s:

I'd say part of the romance of it as well, like which drove the full thing to be fair, is we wanted to spend all of our time together. Um, not just me, both of us, but um, we wanted to spend all our time together, so it it allowed for that. But I would say when they say like business can be make or break for relationships, I I can see that like we've had to be able to work together all the time. And you know, you're constantly talking about business or you you're constantly thinking about something or something like that. It's yeah, I feel like I we knew we had a strong relationship, but we definitely needed to have a strong relationship to be able to just sacrifice everything and give everything our all to the business together and show united front. Yeah, yeah.

Dr James, 8m 56s:

Wow, love it. So make sure that the relationship is strong from the get-go, is is part of your words of wisdom. Definitely is the takeaway from that. Okay, cool. All right, let's go back to the past tense. Let's go to circa the era when we started the dental practice. So, squat, you had your eye on the market for the squat, uh you had your eyes out, okay, for a good practice or whatever. How many people did you go and talk to beforehand? Like, how did you what were the actual logistics of making it happen? Did you just like full-on go for it? Or was there a lot of mentorship and consideration and things along those lines? I'm just curious.

Katy, 9m 33s:

We almost thought we had a bag in at one point, didn't we, James?

James, 9m 36s:

Well, we yeah, we didn't to be fair, we we didn't have a mentor, we didn't do any, we didn't have anyone sort of guiding us. Um just a lot of research, a lot of research. Um we looked at we only looked at one other place, we looked at one other practice that'd been going since 2012, and it's been 10 years at the time. And due to costs, somehow, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was um, and then somehow it uh yeah, it didn't have CQC, um, it didn't have a planning permission, and we were like, whoa, okay, how is that operating? Even if we found that at that time, um, but uh yeah, we kind of just went at it and we thought, well, if someone else can do it, then why can't we do it as well?

Katy, 10m 16s:

So with CQC, ours we've made it legal, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

James, 10m 21s:

Just to be clarified. Um, but yeah, so then it's just yeah, the guidelines and everything's all like this. We just I just spent yeah, we just spent ages reading guidelines and you know, full HTML 105 back to front.

Katy, 10m 31s:

That was James. I can't take credit.

James, 10m 33s:

Yeah, just we were just obsessed with the idea of making it work. So we didn't actually speak to anyone before we did it. We just thought, let's do this. And wow, and you still pulled it off. Somehow, somehow.

Katy, 10m 44s:

I feel like I was probably like James is like really, really good at being by the book, following the rules and making sure that we do everything properly. And I'm kind of like there, come on, James, it's gonna be absolutely fine. Other pull other people have done it, so we can too, like where there's a will, there's a way, like, come on, it's gonna be easy. So then, yeah, I feel like it's a good teamwork, but James probably has had a lot of years taken from his life, probably.

James, 11m 10s:

I think probably, yeah, I think having a good mentor would have been would have been really helpful though. Um I think like knowledge is something that we probably underestimated and experienced. You know, instead, we learned had to learn from our experiences as we went along. Um and if we knew where to find someone and we would have spoken to someone, then it would for sure have been something that would really helpful because it was it was difficult and stressful setting up and trying to navigate it was it's a maze. Um building a practice and getting it going. You know, we started we had zero pounds left for marketing, we didn't know what marketing was. We thought people just walk in. Um, there were so many things that we did wrong, like cash flow, didn't understand what cash flow was, so we had nothing left. We put it like um, yeah, which would have been nice if someone would have told us this before we opened.

Katy, 11m 52s:

Um then again though, it might have put gems off some in some ways. I'm kind of glad that we went into it a bit blind.

James, 11m 59s:

For sure. Yeah.

Dr James, 12m 0s:

Well, it just goes back to what I was saying earlier. I think it can be your greatest superpower, really. Just a little bit of naivety uh actually can help out. Not too much, there's like a sweet spot there somewhere, but it sounds like it kind of panned out for you guys. So listen, walk me through it, walk me through it. You've got the practice, they've given you the loan, you sorted it all out, you're good to go. It's opening day. What's going through your head as 25-year-old? Surely you remember that day crisply in here, even though it was many years ago, because it was so poignant and uh power, you know, such a such a hallmark part of the journey.

James, 12m 35s:

Yeah, you know, yeah.

Katy, 12m 37s:

Um probably a lot of emotions, partially, thank goodness, because as with many builds, there was delays. So we'd had the patients booked in probably like a week before, and I'd kept on having to move them. I remember like I've got a photo, I don't take pictures of myself crying, but I've got one on my phone where I we had like a full day of patients booked in and I had to move them, and I was just devastated because I didn't want to let them down. And obviously they were fine, they were literally so fine, but I just put so much pressure on both of us that I really hated moving them, but they were literally fine. Um so yeah, I feel like just a huge, huge, huge relief um when we actually could open the doors. And then yeah, again, we were just young. Like I remember there was two staff members waiting for us in um what the was the staff room at the time, and now he's a surgery. They were like, Oh, uh, what do you want us to do today? And both of us, both of us thought, oh well, they're qualified, so they know what they want to do. So we're like, whatever you like, just whatever you'd normally do, go do that type thing. They just kind of looked at us like, This is your first rodeo, isn't it?

James, 13m 45s:

One of them stuck with us, she's actually our operations manager now, so she yeah, she's been very, very key for the journey. Um, but yeah, I think, yeah, and on the day, you know, no sleep the night before. Um, and then yeah, we had a you you went out about four at six a.m. the night before on the morning to buy a desk.

Katy, 14m 4s:

Oh, I was so excited. So but because uh the loan that we got given, the build had started, and then we kind of got told like it's it's actually gonna be half the loan now because of COVID. So we had to say to the builders, right, can we do one section of the build? And then we recouped money, did the rest, then recoup money, did the rest again. So we're always kind of used to now having builds on, which kind of probably does help with expansion. Um but yeah, so the surgery was the staff room, and then we have private private waiting rooms, so pods attached to surgeries, it's just part of our design. And um yeah, so James's like office at the time was was there, and he had no table or anything for his office, and he was like, It's fine, Katy. We we don't have the money for it at the moment. So I was like, No, I'm sure we can spare 60 pounds. I woke up really, really, really early to go get this table before we started the day. Um, yeah, that's I don't know, that's the day.

James, 14m 58s:

So like I guess, yeah, yeah, it's it's so in summary, like positivity because it's getting going, and your first patient's walking in the door, and you it's excitement, but it's also stress because it's crunch time, so everything has to work well, and that patient needs to be given a good experience. Yeah, it's the first time you're doing it.

Dr James, 15m 12s:

So um and how did it go?

James, 15m 15s:

Really well, really, really well. Um, yeah, the first day was went really good.

Katy, 15m 19s:

Our first ever patient still, yeah. She's she's still stuck with us. She brought in a family member to see us recently.

Dr James, 15m 25s:

Yeah, yeah. Oh wow, okay. So it must have been quite a good impression then. She she's still coming back, she's still there. Wonderful. There we are.

James, 15m 34s:

Yeah, that's it.

Dr James, 15m 36s:

And can I ask a question, right? And I hope this doesn't come across as like disrespectful or blunt in any way whatsoever. Did you ever have any headwinds in terms of staff or patients not really giving you the credibility that you deserve because you were so young? Because 25 is young. You know, when I see 25-year-olds now, and they really do, they look like in a nice way, like they look so much uh you can tell they're kidding, they're they're so much fresh-faced and kind of you know, uh, they look really young, right? Don't they, you know? And did you ever come up against any headwinds because of that or anybody not taking you seriously? UK dentists, Dentists 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.

Katy, 18m 17s:

I wouldn't say you you didn't look young, but I think I I did I think I did look young. Like at first, I remember I don't want to say wishing away, but in a way, kind of wishing away a couple of years, just so I didn't sound quite so young because I felt very competent, and um yeah, I did to be fair. I felt very confident. Like at uni, I won a awards for my clinical skills.

James, 18m 40s:

I I felt very competent and ready to kind of thrive and do well, but yeah, just being a little bit on that young side, I found it a little bit of a barrier at some stages, and now I wish I was that young again, but but I think the sort of you had in the background the fact that it was your practice, and I think that kind of meant because before we opened, like you said, you'd have patients coming in and then they'd say, Oh, how old are you? How long have you been practicing all this stuff?

Katy, 19m 4s:

Who's the dentist? Yeah, which one of you is the dentist?

James, 19m 7s:

No way did you get that sometimes, did you? Then when you have it, it's like because you owned it, it it kind of spoke for itself. You didn't really get as much, yeah, not as much, though, I think. Yeah, you're like, Yeah, this is my place.

Dr James, 19m 20s:

So, yeah, yeah, it's natural, it's gonna happen. I had that happen to me a few times, you know. So it just it just is what it is. Not so much anymore towards the end of my career, and then I I missed those days. So if if you're still going through that, anybody who's listening in the audience, it's a good thing. Cling on to those days while they're still happening, anyway. Moving on. Okay, so you were what would you? I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question now. I'm curious the practice itself, NHS, private, mixed. What was the setup?

James, 19m 46s:

Purely, purely private. Uh no way, seriously. Yeah, we wow. We actually we we we didn't do our VT here for one reason or another. A few reasons. For a few reasons, a few personal reasons. Uh uh, we didn't end up doing VT, so we had to do private, so we went straight out and did private, which gave us the experience in the private practice and seeing how it runs and and providing private treatment to patients. Um, and then yeah, we got insights into how a private practice ran. So then we set off. Uh, you are very artistic, Katy's very artistic, you know, with with the hands very good. So uh it was at the time, yeah. We were like, well, let's set up somewhere where you can practice your craft doing cosmetic side more, and then but instead of just doing cosmetic, we want to do everything under one roof. So we we we do, yeah, it's purely private, but we do everything from specialist ortho to all on four, full implants, specialist or surgery, cosmetic, veneer, everything.

Katy, 20m 34s:

Um I'd say we were we once did CPD uh practice, and it was it was a special, it wasn't a specialist practice, but it had a lot of specialists in it, and everybody played to their strengths. And I just I remember going to the CPT and like hearing from all the different people, and I just thought it was absolutely amazing. Like everybody gets to go to work and do exactly what they enjoy all day long, and I remember seeing the cosmetic dentist there because that's the thing that I was interested in. It was kind of prior to the days of cosmetic dentists in a way, and I remember like looking at it and thinking, oh my god, like she's amazing! Like she was like a superstar to me at the time. Um, but yeah, I'd say a big a big thing as well, like why we didn't do the BT Yeah, a lot of it stems back to wanting to kind of like not to be cringy, it is a bit cringy, I suppose, but to to be together and stick together and you know spend all our time together. Like, yeah, I've got like this little romance love story in my head.

Dr James, 21m 31s:

That's good. Okay, well, listen, it seems to have worked out so far for you guys because it hasn't held you back because you've achieved all these brilliant things. And I think one thing we haven't mentioned so far is you've actually got an you've actually started another squat, haven't you, as time has gone on. But let's let's talk on that in just a second, actually. But just before we do, when you had the practice itself, did you have any associates from the get-go? Or it was just both of yourself, was it?

James, 21m 56s:

Yeah, we did. We did, we had uh more, we had maybe four or five. Uh oh wow. Yeah, so we had a specialist or a surgeon. We could be a specialist periodontist, actually, and then we had uh we had a hygienist, we had a CDT who started with us as well. Um that's and two dentists actually. Oh, yeah, so we had six. Um yeah, yeah.

Katy, 22m 24s:

I kind of basically I feel like the way our kind of life works is I dig us into a big hole, and then James pulls us back out again. So, like, cause we were doing the practice, I was like, right, it's gonna be amazing. We've got private pods, it's gonna be beautiful, it's gonna be called Vitruvian, and it stands for all of this. So, and then I just like go on Instagram or something, like message loads of people, like find some amazing profiles, be like, you need to work with us. And then James would be like, Katy, we have no Never ran a practice before. What on earth are you thinking?

James, 22m 53s:

Yeah, it was stress. But yeah, we started with them, and yeah, the diaries were we we managed to somehow make the diaries okay. Uh Instagram. Yeah, yeah.

Dr James, 23m 1s:

That was the next thing I was gonna ask. How did you fill the diaries? Because that's one of the biggest pain points for a new dental praxis, particularly squats. Uh, it's yeah, how we got the loan.

James, 23m 12s:

Well, initially, yeah, we had a list of patients, but Katy had uh you did that. I'll give you all the like your spectrum. She'd basically message people just just just on Instagram. She just had her account and she just called messaged people who are in the area.

Katy, 23m 26s:

James, it wasn't quite like that.

James, 23m 28s:

Literally was in the area. Literally just send them a cold message saying, Do you want your teeth done?

Katy, 23m 33s:

She'd look and see if they had if somebody's not smiling and showing the teeth, there's often a reason why. That's all I'm gonna say.

James, 23m 38s:

Okay, they would offer to fix that. So literally cold message, but she ended up with a list of which was we're fully work for two weeks. There was no money spent, and she just cold message people, and then she'd do visual.

Katy, 23m 47s:

There's like six figures the the amount of people that were wanting to come to us, but it was prior. Sorry, I put it in. You speak. Sorry.

James, 23m 54s:

Oh no, no, no, go, go, go.

Katy, 23m 56s:

No, it was just prior to the days of cosmetic venture. Sorry, I didn't mean to put in then I feel bad now.

James, 24m 2s:

But yeah, so she yeah, no, I was giving you credit like that. Um, so yeah, so then she had she'd do virtual consults, pretty much set up the treatment plans, um, obviously buying the checkup and any general work they need after the x-rays, and then we ended up with a waiting list of um, yeah, it was about six figures worth within the first two weeks. It was over six figures because we needed that to pay off a second bit of the bill. Yes, so we we went over budget with extras of by about that amount, so we needed that. Um, but then we thought yes, there's no market in budget. Um now we do it really differently. Now we have a massive marketing budget, but um, yeah, it was just so different. Needs must.

Dr James, 24m 37s:

I'm just blown away that you filled the books with cool DMs on Instagram. I mean, fair there must have been a lot of cool DMs, right, to cat the right people, but it worked. Kitty?

James, 24m 50s:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I honestly not like we had no nothing on marketing. We hadn't set up Google ads, we hadn't set up Meta ads, um, we hadn't done anything other than boosting the odd post on uh your Instagram, which was uh we had limited cases on there. That was it. So it was just cold DMing people, offering them very good deals um in exchange for like uh testimonials and transformations. Um yeah.

Katy, 25m 13s:

The thing is, is somebody doesn't like I feel like it's so easy to get afraid of being embarrassed, but if somebody doesn't respond, or if somebody like doesn't acknowledge you or says, Oh no, sorry, it's not for me, nobody's lost anything. Like it wasn't a case of me saying, Oh, you're not smiling with your teeth. Like, I didn't give anybody a negative self-esteem or anything like that. It'd literally be a case of like, hi, by the way, like da-da-da. Like, you know, respond or don't respond, that's absolutely fine. Like, it it was it's just I don't know, energy and excitement.

James, 25m 41s:

You just messaged us that we're opening a brand new dental practice. Would you be interested?

Dr James, 25m 45s:

I'm blown away. I've I I mean it makes complete sense that it would work. I've just never thought about doing that, and I've never heard of anybody on the podcast either saying that. So listen, that that is actually really cool, and I hope that the listeners are really tuning in right now because everybody gets their in a right sort of how can I say this? You know, they have a real hang-up on how the books are gonna fulfill up. You guys did zero marketing, zero spend, pure just putting in a shift, messaging people honestly.

Katy, 26m 20s:

It was a lot of work, yeah.

Dr James, 26m 21s:

You can imagine it must have been two of us.

Katy, 26m 24s:

Like it definitely needed two of us.

James, 26m 26s:

Yeah, while you were doing the asking crazy work. I did the paperwork while you were doing it, built filming a diary, and it was like teamwork, good teamwork.

Katy, 26m 33s:

And I know you became very good at messages, James.

Dr James, 26m 37s:

I didn't I know this is a little bit of a crude question because it's not all about what I'm about to ask, like there's other variables surrounding it as well. But how many followers did you have around about that era on Instagram?

Katy, 26m 50s:

Probably not that many compared, to be fair, probably like four or five thousand. Like probably it was really probably not that many, actually. Like I've yeah, and then I put my account on pause for a while because I couldn't keep up with when we did open, I couldn't keep up with it until about six months ago I reopened it. So even now it's only on about five or six, like it's not it's not like a huge account, but it was it, it I feel like it was how I use the social media not to boost my own ego, but it was quite smart. And I feel like in my head, like I thought to myself, right, if I get a list of patients, I'll be able to prove to James that it's gonna work. And as it was, it actually also helped us get the loan. So, but for me, it was like, Come on, James, I can prove to you, I'm gonna have this huge list of people. Like it was just a bit of dreaming, really. But yeah, it ended up being quite useful.

Dr James, 27m 38s:

Yeah, flipping hats off. I'm I'm impressed. I've never come across that as a strategy before, and I think it's probably a reason for it. I think it's really cool. There we are. Anyway, let's move on, let's fast forward to the future. Now, first squat went well, got it up, got it running, everything along those lines, and you went back for more. You opened another squat.

James, 27m 59s:

Yeah, it just opened uh November this year, it's a couple of months delayed. Um, but yeah, it's because of the business model works slightly different, so we rely on new patients, so we don't have a patient list really. Um, so then it's because we're we have we have the internal workflow so much so that we can just attract new patients every month, then we were like, okay, well, if we just open, you know, we just need another location, another building, another practice, and we because we we have a whole new practice basically starting every few months anyway, a whole new influx of patients. Um so we feel it because we've got that sort of process uh going well, um, it didn't seem as daunting opening up an ex location. It's not like we're trying to set up and build a patient list gradually. Um, it's very heavy marketing, very you know, on the on the internal work process that uh yeah, it it wasn't too much of a a strain on the business to do that.

Dr James, 28m 52s:

Yeah, so it gets easier, is what you're saying.

Katy, 28m 56s:

No, no, oh no, definitely not, definitely not. I I thought it was hard first. I thought it was hard first doing the um first practice, and I thought, oh, it'll never get harder than that. Now we've got the brand, we've got like how we design things, like we could never possibly have it as hard financially, um, because there was some real like kind of troughs financially as we went through it and we just battled through it. Um and then often in the second one, I I think that's been so much more stressful because you're changing from a practice into a business, you know, and instead of when you first opened the squat practice, fine, you know, we had we had um more than just ourselves, we had a few people all joining together at the same time. But then this time we had a little personal goal to say, can we set this practice up without working in it? Just as I don't know, a little goal like that, you know, if we needed to work in it, of course we would, but just a personal goal. You've got so many new people arriving all in one time. You then need to fill the diaries with that for that as well. So you've got to get you've got to start splitting your business into departments, which is where James comes in for the smartness of all that, to be fair. I can't take credit for this. This is James.

James, 30m 5s:

No, it's both of us, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. But it's it's yeah, it's making everything systemized. I mean, you've got to optimize your systems, and you it, you know, make sure you're marketing that system's nailed, then you've you've got your bookings process is nailed, then you're you're when the patient comes in, the patient journey inside the practice is nailed, uh, and then the follow-up, how your patient's followed up. It's all that side that we're trying to optimize when you're not there. So you need your systems to play in, you need your managers to be able to manage the systems effectively. I it's really different running two to running one, we've realized. So it's difficult in a different way.

Katy, 30m 37s:

And so many more managers as well. Like instead of having one solo manager that's kind of in charge of so much, you're employing then more managers alongside, and you need to make them all work um well together and keep each other in the loop and um all of that, I suppose. It's it's just it's very different to what we thought it'd be.

Dr James, 30m 58s:

Yeah. Well, we were talking just off camera, weren't we, about the emyth book, weren't we? And we all agreed that the logic in that book is super pertinent for any business that wants to scale, not just scale, but even just grow in the first instance, and to stop, you know, stop taking 18 hours a day of the owner's time. Uh, so shout out that book again if anybody has not read it, who's a listener to the Dennis Invest Podcast, because it's friggin' phenomenal. And I didn't read that book for so long because I felt like I'd absorbed all of the information in it through osmosis, through conversations, and then I eventually got around to reading it like six months ago, and I regret that I didn't read it sooner. So if I can inspire anybody to read that book, it plays into exactly what you guys are saying. And I know, James, that you said you were a fan of it as well, right?

James, 31m 47s:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I got recommended it by uh a good friend of mine, actually. Um, but it's so true, and because if you if you if you run it as a yeah, because in summary, it's like it's very different being the um how do you put it, being the business or like being the dentist in the practice to running a dental practice, you know, because it's there's so much margin for error if you're the main practitioner, you know, and you're not paying the 40 to 50 percent associate split, you've got so many, you know, potential holes that you're plugging by the fact that you're being the main practitioner in there. Um, you know, you might be spending too much on your stock or your lab costs or your marketing or your wages, anything that you can plug. So you can't you don't realise the holes in your business because you're plugging them easily. Um and yeah, the difference of um just being the main being the practitioner in there versus running the business. It's working in the business versus working on the business, and until you take yourself out of working in it, then you can't get a proper bird's eye view of how your business is actually performing. Uh, is it a business or is it actually a ball and chain? And you might be better being a so being an associate and being able to go to just cut off at five o'clock and yeah, yeah, it's a nicer life.

Dr James, 32m 57s:

Yeah, yeah, they're in the business, on the business, a dash is the perfect one, and it's it's so true. So many people will be able to relate to that. Fun fact on the emyth, by the way, there's actually a dentist-specific version. No, it's actually it exists, that exists. I think it's American though, so I don't know how applicable it will be to the UK, but it's literally called. I'm just looking at it because it's on my bookshelf over here. It's called the EMyth Revisited, uh the dental version or something along those lines. It's on Amazon. Oh, really? Fun, fun fact. Yeah, take a look at it. It's on it might even be worth a browse. Who knows? There might be something in there to learn.

James, 33m 36s:

You'll definitely get that. I like my books, yeah.

Dr James, 33m 39s:

Anyway, yeah, I I'm actually surprised that I haven't picked it up yet. But my curiosity more than anything else, even though I don't own a dental practice, I just want to know what it says. But yeah, I'm pretty pretty sure it's American, so I don't know how applicable it'll be, but I'd be interested to hear. Anyway, what does the future look like for you guys? More squats.

James, 33m 56s:

Well, I mean, we're currently expanding our addition our first one at the moment, so that's due to open next week.

Katy, 34m 2s:

Oh, yeah.

James, 34m 2s:

Um, so we've just added on a couple of extra surgeries. Um, so I've got this right.

Dr James, 34m 10s:

This is in the second squat. You're adding more surgery to it, and they're opening soon, correct? First one. The first one, first one, right.

Katy, 34m 18s:

So we're taking over the full unit next door um at the first one. So it's basically a bit like practice number three because it's costing the same amount to be honest. Um, but we're having an on-site lab, um, three extra surgeries, a boardroom upstairs for collaborative uh work in between all the dentists because everyone plays to the strengths um within the practice, so they can you know sit with cases and discuss all the different aspects or say what they do, like just essentially it's potentially very useful. Um, and then the upstairs area that's for kind of like a lot of behind the scenes, so like bookings, after sales, um marketing, yeah, yeah, accounts and admin type thing.

James, 35m 0s:

So, yeah, we're adding that that opens next week. Um touch wood. Yeah, if everything goes okay. Yeah. Um but then after sorry, sorry, yeah. Oh no, I was gonna say after that, then it's just we've got want to get everything functioning smoothly. Um so get yeah, make build the team, make sure everything's working well, and then who knows? It would be it would be good to uh keep going on the business journey. It would be good for sure.

Katy, 35m 24s:

The reality is is that we're gonna keep doing it and we're gonna keep doing more branches, even though we keep saying to each other we're gonna slow down, but we just can't help it. Like the second a build is done, we're gonna be on to the next one. Because I don't really know why, but we probably definitely will.

Dr James, 35m 39s:

I get I get it, I get it though, because it's it's the drive that's got you to where you are that's still gonna be present, even when you get the next one and the next one and the next one.

James, 35m 48s:

Yeah, it's true.

Dr James, 35m 48s:

Are you with me? Like the drive doesn't go anywhere, it's it's continues to be there, and how it manifests is expansion, but that's fine as long as you're enjoying the journey, right? Is that how you both feel?

James, 35m 58s:

Yeah, I mean, well, well, more my I the thing I say to Katy is like when the sun is shining, like hey, and it I love that saying, like we live by that. It's as things are going well, you know, the business model, the the economic climate is doing okay for for our business model, and as as as the business is is working and functioning well, then take advantage of that because you never know what might might happen in the future of dentistry and the future of the market. So um, while you've got the opportunity there, then yeah, you should do it. Well, you've got your health, you've got your time, you've got everything, then yeah, you'd be fool to let it go. Um, but yeah, you yeah, it's it's it's a sacrifice.

Katy, 36m 33s:

I'd say I'd say I'm the issue that we probably have is that I'm very like next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing. So I'll be like, James, right, fantastic. I want to go on holiday now. James, let's do this, James, let's do that. Why don't we move house? Why don't we do another practice? And James's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Katy. We need to keep a nice, stable, steady ship.

Dr James, 36m 53s:

Yeah, I think that's why you're a good team, though. Because you have you kind of have to have both energies, don't you? And you kind of balance each other out, right? Is that fair to say?

James, 37m 1s:

Yeah, I think so. I think we'd be too slow if it was just if it was just me. I'd want, yeah, I'd be I'd be a bit slow. Um, but then if it's Katy, it'd be very, very an empire.

Katy, 37m 10s:

If it was just me, I say it being and I'm joking, I'll take you back. It'd be too fast and it'd burn down properly if it was me.

Dr James, 37m 16s:

No, yeah, true. No, I I know what you mean because it's it's actually there's actually, you know, the yin and yang, that's the two energies, right? Yin yang is like the let's do things, right? Yin is more like, hey, you know, let's just see what happens or let's just think about it, sort of thing. And there's a reason why the the little symbol, the little tau symbol is the way it is. It's kind of because they balance each other out, and you have to have both. I find that fascinating when I heard it, and it actually relates to business because those are the two primaries energies. You have the doer energy and the more passive receptive energy. You were talking about quotes that you really like earlier. There's one that I absolutely love, and that is a calm sea never made a strong sailor. That's good. That's good.

Katy, 37m 58s:

I like that.

Dr James, 37m 58s:

Yeah, right. And it's basically the can't if you the sea was the ocean wasn't choppy, you'd never learn how to muster the ship, you know, handle the ship and be able to control it and what have you. And it's like when you put what you what it's saying is when you put yourself out there in business, that's sometimes how you learn the best lessons. And that never happens unless you go through that process.

James, 38m 18s:

Yeah, it's like I there's a quote that I knew from before we started, just sorry, you've got my love square. But it's like uh it was I heard it from Tony Robbins, whether he said it originally. Um, but he said burn the boats.

Katy, 38m 28s:

Yeah.

James, 38m 28s:

Um, and it's like, yeah, you had you know, when you're trying to take over an island and you've got your army, then the best way to make sure that you take over the island is when you land on it to burn the boats, because then you've got no way other than to you know to move forward. And it's true, and it's like, yeah, so that's what yeah, so but so we had these little things in our heads, these little sayings we'd say to each other when we first opened, because like we didn't keep our associate jobs, we just went full into it, and we were like, just you have to make it work, and then we've done it again. You because I think when you're expanding, it's just you constantly re-risk and re-risk and re-risk everything you have. You know, you've worked for years and you've accumulated some capital and you've um you know things are going well, and you just risk it all again and then do a squat, but yeah, you you just constantly have to keep burning the boats.

Dr James, 39m 8s:

Let's round things off on a really nice note. Let's say James and Katy, right here today in 2025, could go back and talk to those younger versions of themselves when they were just thinking about starting their squat, they hadn't committed to any path just yet. And you could put a hand, James, you could put a hand on that version of yourself on their shoulder, and Katy, you could do the same to yourself. We could probably have some fun with this because you we could also do what you would say to each other as well, maybe. But let's keep it simple. Let's keep it simple. Then they would get layers to it. Let's keep it simple. So just speaking to yourselves, when you're about to start, you could say one piece of advice. What would that be? Katy, let's have you first.

Katy, 39m 53s:

Oh, I was gonna say James first. Um do you know what? Right, I saw for Valentine's Day, I got James these cards, so we had to speak to each other and like find out so much about each other. Um, I don't really know why, I just saw it on TikTok so I bought it to be honest. But um one of the cards was um like what would you what would you do to change or something like that? And I feel like I don't want to come across as arrogant or sound arrogant at all, but I I I I don't like to have regrets. So like what would I tell myself or what would I change? Probably nothing apart from just like never stop bel this is gonna sound bad, but never stop believing in yourself, just keep pushing forwards. I don't know. I I that's that's mine. I'm not sure if that's like good or bad.

Dr James, 40m 52s:

That is perfectly good. Imagine, imagine hearing the uh you know future version of yourself saying that to you, like you're doing the right thing. Imagine how much conviction you'd have.

Katy, 41m 3s:

I still did at the time, that's the issue.

Dr James, 41m 6s:

Oh, right. It wasn't possible to have anymore. I understand. I understand.

Katy, 41m 11s:

I just for me, my saying has always been where there's a will, there's a way. And I'd I'd I can remember repeating it to myself like really, really, really young through exams and everything, and I would just cling to something. And the way that I would look to try and achieve goals is I'd think to myself, right, Katy, if you pass this exam or if this is successful, how would you feel? And then I'd get you know, get dreams inside my head, and I'd be like, Okay, if you don't pass your exam and you don't do this, or you you don't strive to do this, how are you gonna feel? And then I'd think, oh, I'd feel like a failure and like really beat myself up. And then I'd think, right, well, no choice then. And I'd just go for it. So that's kind of I'm very like two extremes.

Dr James, 41m 48s:

Wow, that was a little TED talk right there, in and of itself. I love that. I'm so glad I asked that question. That developed into its own little pep talk or motivational speak. I flipping love that that was cool. Thank you, Kitty.

Katy, 42m 0s:

James is so much more the TED talk.

Dr James, 42m 4s:

The bar's up here. Oh no.

Katy, 42m 8s:

Come on, James. James is the TED talk person, what is it?

James, 42m 12s:

No, I'm not definitely not. Um I I think I would say, especially because I was only 25, I think I'd say you've got um to still to go for it. You've got uh you've still got you've got so much time if anything goes wrong that you can recover. So I'd say, you know, the one of the biggest things that's valuable in life that I found is time. You know, it's there's never going to be the right time. There's always gonna be a reason why you shouldn't do it. Yeah, um, so I'd say just go for it. What's the worst that happens? Like what's the worst that happens? It doesn't work, and then where are you back to? You're back to working your associate job and working as a dentist again, which is what you're doing at the moment.

Katy, 42m 48s:

Yeah.

James, 42m 48s:

And it's what you're doing at the moment. So you don't lose anything, but instead you've gained the knowledge, you've gained the experience, and you've seen that it's probably not as bad as you think when you fail. So um I'd say go for it, yeah.