Dr James, 0s:

Guys, welcome back to the Dentists Who Invest podcast. We've got two really familiar faces, friends and me. But you know what's different is from the brand new spanking studio, which I'm just getting used to, it's just sinking in. I think we've we've arrived, guys, five years into the Dentists Who Invest podcast journey. We've not got our own official professional recording studio, and I think that's really cool. But anyway, the audience didn't come here today to hear about that, hear about my lab story and all those other things, but I just wanted to chat about that a little bit because I think we're gonna get some really cool content. Yeah, I've got mahogany bootcases, reminds me of Mikro Man a little bit. 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 certificacistes 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. Alright, moving on. This podcast is about profitability, of course, in dental practices. So let's talk about that. Barry, this is your remit, I would say, as well as Shishir, of course, but this is your remit specifically uh because you were a principal who managed to gross reasonably well. And I think maybe this is a good point to pass the mic over to you so you can tell us a little bit more about that and how you guys met.

Dr Barry, 1m 50s:

Yeah, grossed reasonably well. Actually, I uh I was I ran so I've owned three practices, but I ran my main one for nearly 20 years, and uh I went through a really difficult time in my personal life, then met my now wife, and bottom line is I wanted to make my patient journey the best it could be. I wanted to be loved. I wasn't focused on the money, but what we did is when we honed the patient journey, over a three-year period, we actually more than quadrupled our turnover. And so 11 years ago, I was working three and a half days a week, routine general family dentistry, no implants, no orthodontics, me and a hygienist, turnover 1.1 million. And I realized that what I was doing was not special, I'm not special, but what we had produced in terms of systems, processes, traffic light system, you know, co-pilot system, agreement frame, all of the things that we implemented was what made the difference financially as well as the patient journey. So that's how I got into coaching. And I am extremely good at helping dentists increase their gross revenue. Typically helped a young couple go from 800 to 1.4 million in a year. I often double people's take-home. I've got clients that have 5x their income in 16 months, whether it's an associate or a practice owner. Um, but what I've always been bad at, and it's not my unique ability, is I sweat when you show me a spreadsheet. And I, like most people, became an accidental business owner that did a really good job, even without having financial clarity and without being financially literate. I still believe that I'm not brilliantly financially literate. And so when I met this man over there, what he brings to my coaching community is everything that I don't. Because as a numbers guy, as an incredibly literate man financially, he has brought a level of understanding to my clients that's taken them from dentists who own a business to business owners that happen to own a dental practice. And what I have loved, and I am loving the journey with this man, is the shift in identity that it's having in my clients, is that their confidence is going through the roof, their ability to make decisions that are very much business centered as opposed to emotional, which is what I used to do. Watch like pay my associate, they want 50%. I'm scared of losing them. We don't have that anymore with this man. With him and his data, our my clients, our clients, are able to make solid decisions and choices based on the data and renegotiate their terms with their associates because the data doesn't lie, and the associates are there going, okay, that makes sense. With my ability to help them increase gross revenue, his ability is to help them increase the profit and keep more of that gross revenue. So that's really how we've started this journey together. But then ultimately what he's developed over the last five years is the software that gives the data and the information and updates every two minutes rather than my accounts, which are a year out of date and I don't know how to read them. So that's what we're doing. Is he's plugging the holes. I fill the bucket, he plugs the holes.

Dr James, 5m 21s:

Well, do you know what? Can I just say two quick things just for I obviously would love to bring you in, Sish here? First thing is to say when I said earlier I said reasonably well in photo commerce, that was a euphemism. Barry did more than reasonably well in his practice. We're just we're just terribly modest as British people. Uh that's the first thing to say, um, which is why I wanted you guys to come on the show today. And then the second thing is in business, I think you you need it, you need a numbers guy, and then you need someone who is more how can I say this? They they they're a little bit more this left and right brain, right? Isn't it? And it's it's yin and it's yang, right? And I think the best businesses have both, okay? Because you need the numbers guy, the the person who's a little bit more how can I say this out there, they they let their heart be their head a little bit, you know. And there's a time and a place for that, because sometimes you go there's an opportunity and bang, you just got a feeling and you just got to go for it, right? But it has to be backed by data. And I'm more like you, Barry, okay. And in my earlier heady days, okay, I would just be like, yeah, let's just do it, all on the feels, all on the vibes, right? And now I'm a lot more when people ask me those questions, I'm a lot more like, hmm, I acknowledge my initial initial emotional reaction. Let me go back to the numbers and then I'll come back to you, okay? Before and rather than just saying someone says, hey, um, staff member says, hey, I want more money or I want to renegotiate my spit, and I'll just be like, yeah, cool, no worries, you know. Um and all of a sudden, if you keep saying yes to those things without actually having data behind it, you very quickly work yourself back to breaking even in business. Okay. It's a race to the button, like you always work your back to breaking work your way back to breaking even. Trust me, just take it from me. Anyway, we all learn the hard way. So Cher, I'd love to bring you into the conversation now.

Shishir, 6m 59s:

Yes, so uh there's always like left brain and right brain uh that needs to be operating in the business, and and that needs to be there. Uh and yes, it's also about growing the top line revenue, and also it's it's more about keeping the bottom line healthy. At the end of the day, that's what it matters. You know, I've seen businesses uh turn over, say, a million, just keeping 150,000 pounds as a profit versus 800,000 top line revenue and keeping 350,000 on profit. I don't have to ask you guys who who who is more happier here, you know. You know, that's the thing. At the end of the day, business is a game of margins, you know. And that's what the data would facilitate them to look at the different aspects of the business to make saying, well, which area is actually performing better and which actually is not working. And if you're just hiding based on saying, oh, I'm just seeing a top line revenue, and that's when you start to uh not to find out the issues that the business is is really having right now. And then the other thing that I've come across is uh if you look at principals, they would want to be associated with some kind of status. So they feel like, oh, check me out, I'm a seven-figure business owner, you know, and versus, oh, I'm I'm a sixth figure, you know. But that six figure, he he would be happier at the sixth figure because he would be keeping more money. So that's that's the thing that you need to be looking at. So so it's it's good to be partnering with Barry on because helping the clients to engross with production and and and we're helping them to keep more profit and keep and make more money in the business. We have four M formula, uh James, we call it make money. Then you got to once you make money, you got to manage your money, then you got to multiply your money because you got to find out the areas where you can actually improve on, then you got to move money from business to you because you are not your business. So this is what we operate on and help them to make a you know quantum dis uh impact in the business.

Dr James, 9m 12s:

Amazing, yeah. And yeah, left brain, right brain thinking, yin and yang is another uh facet of that or vantage point, I guess, really, or another way of describing that. And I I find these sorts of things fascinating. Let's get on to the meat and potatoes of this podcast, which is profitability in dental practice.

Dr Barry, 9m 30s:

Straight to food again.

Dr James, 9m 31s:

Straight straight to food. Uh is anybody else hungry? Maybe it's my stomach speaking. Uh but yeah, so um when it comes to profitability in dental practice, what I think would be what I I I believe that we should talk about today, because it's going to be super valuable for the audience, is in you guys' experience, in your guys' collective experience, through doing what you do, through bringing both of your respective areas of expertise to dental practice, what would you say are the biggest or most significant shifts for dental practice owners whenever it comes to maximizing how much of that turnover, how much turnover there is in the first place, but also how much of that trickles through to the bottom line.

Shishir, 10m 11s:

So, yeah, so so there are um several issues that need to be addressed on this. Because if you look at the profit, what is the profit really? It is the revenue um and minus the cost of delivery of treatments, minus the running of the expenses to run the clinic, right? So those are three separate areas that need to be addressed. So what we want to be doing is we want increasing the the revenue. We want to be keeping at least the margin as much as you know while the gr revenue is growing, and you want to be streamlining your expenses. So one thing uh it matters is uh is about the structure of the business because if you are mixed practice, if you are uh an agent practice, then the cost of running the practice is much higher than if you're a private practice on its own. And then we have to look at the stage of the business also. If you are growing, then it has an impact on on the expenses side of the business. And if you are already like established business, they already have a set of expenses that is uniform through the business, and also where do you situated also? So I go by four as principle here, James. Like uh what is the structure of the business, what is the size of the business, and and what is the uh what is the stage of the business, and then where you are situated because let's say if you are based in central London where the rent is higher, this is higher, this is higher versus somewhere, I don't know, and where you can the rent and and other expenses are relatively, you know, considered less. Scotland. And and uh or Northern Ireland. And and then uh then you can't compare chocolate with cheese, you know. So you have to look at all the parameters of what's possible for you to operate a business lean and mean and still be taking care of the patient and you're not compromising on the quality of patient care and and running the practice, and then on what the margins and the treatment mix and those areas need to be addressed, and you and your ability to find the most popular treatments and going after it and initiating marketing campaigns around it. That's what really drives the profiler forward.

Dr James, 12m 28s:

Barry, anything you'd like to add? Because what Shishir has done is he's set the scene there perfectly, and this is how we should be thinking about this stuff and pulling it out of the ethereal and abstract, I guess, really. And then if we were to go to one layer deeper, that is, I feel, what's gonna be really hyper interesting today. Guys, over to you both. UK Dentists, Dentists Who Invests now has an official platform where you can learn about finance and obtain UK compliant, verifiable CBD at the same time. The only platform that exists on which you can do both. The Smart Money Members Club has hundreds of hours of mini courses, webinar series, and live day recordings on all things finance slash tax efficiency for UK dentists. This includes complete courses on how tax works for UK dentists, finance so that you can invest and grow your own money, business so you can improve your profitability as an associate or principal, and for those out there that want it, there's also a mini course and how you can responsibly enter the crypto space using measured amounts of capital. I've gathered this content from the best of the best I could find in each respective area so that you know that this is how people at the forefront of each field advise their clients. The Smart Money Members Club also contains discounts on common things that UK dentists need to pay for on a regular basis. This includes a whopping 10% discount on dental indemnity, the offer to beat your income protection deal no matter what you're paying, and for the principals out there, 5% discount on lab bills and 10% discount on practice insurance. These are designed to offer hundreds, if not thousands, in annual savings. The purpose of this members club is to not only boost your monthly income but also manage your outgoings as much as possible and therefore create more profit. To celebrate the launch of the Smart Money Members Club, and given that the CPD deadline is coming up soon, I've decided to offer the first month of this platform entirely for free. This offer will end in the coming weeks as soon as the current CPD cycle is up. To collect your CPD for this podcast episode using the Smart Money Members Club, feel free to use the link in the description of this podcast.

Dr Barry, 14m 41s:

So, what Sashir has just come up with is pretty much everything that most dental practices most dental practice owners never actually think about. And what I also find interesting is that what he just came out with most of us don't understand.

Dr James, 14m 59s:

I would agree, yeah.

Dr Barry, 15m 0s:

So when you look at Sashir, you know, if you were to cut him in half, you'd see spreadsheets through the rock, right? It's like second nature, it's in his DNA. And so when he gives his advice, um it's such a deep level that it makes perfect sense to him. Most dentists go, Well, how the flippin' heck am I gonna do that? So it's not just having that information, it's then how do we have them digest it and how do we have them begin to implement that? So it's simplifying it. I I jokingly say to him that I'm his uh ideal customer profile is ICP because I class myself as a bit of a dumbass when it comes to the operational side of the financial side of the business. My unique ability is knocking patients' socks off, having them fall in love with me, delivering great quality dentistry, but ultimately having systems and processes that massively increase people's gross revenue. What I then need is somebody like him and Dent Pulse to enable me to have the right information and then the advice of what to do with that information. So not only do our clients have the benefit of him, even our non-clients that are using Dent Pulse have the right advice based on the information that it's giving them. So we come at it from both ends of the spectrum, right? Like I jokingly said, I'm capable of helping people fill their bucket, but I've never looked at the holes in the bucket, where it's leaking, what's going on. I'm all about growth. Maybe there's a, you know, it's that element of excitement for me. My ADHD is like off the scale, right? So I'm great at starting projects, I'm great at helping people start projects. When they want to get into the weeds of it, that's not me. It's where he comes in. So helping somebody to increase their gross revenue is great. But if you can't give them advice on how to increase their profit or how to keep hold of more of that gross revenue, then it's ego. And so actually he checks that because what he's able to do is to help people recognize where is the money going that you could stop the money going to, whilst I'm helping them increase the gross revenue without increasing their effort, without increasing their stress. In fact, typically decreasing that, how do we leverage our associates? How do we begin to take this business, if you wish to, down a more associate-led model? We can now easily negotiate the associate contract because the data doesn't lie. It tells us which associate needs nurturing, which needs coaching, which needs, you know, potentially removing because the data doesn't lie and it removes the emotion from it. So that combination of understanding the systems, understanding what is required to move the needle from him is absolutely fantastic. Because I actually don't need to get into the weed still because somebody's plugging it for me. But what we are doing together is we are then plugging those holes for our clients or for anybody that wants to use the software to enable them to get the data and then understand how to use that data to move things forward.

Dr James, 18m 19s:

Excellent. And from what I've heard you guys talk about before in our various conversations over the years, I'm sure you've had a lot of success stories from dentists and even your own personal experience with regards to this methodology of thinking. Was there any specific things that seem to move the needle for those people or any any any common mistakes that you see principals making that you think to yourself, right, this one comes up disproportionately. Like this is one particular thing that we constantly see principals do that we know that if they just had this, this, and this that they could remedy. What if you if you were to pinpoint those two?

Dr Barry, 19m 2s:

I'll give you an I'll give you a perfect example. Yeah, yeah, that came up three days ago.

Dr James, 19m 8s:

Mm-hmm.

Dr Barry, 19m 9s:

Where I had a um Zoom call with a practice principal who owns a practice, has owned it, bought it just over four years ago, um, have increased the gross revenue. He works four days a week in one surgery, and his wife completes that on the fifth day. She works one day a week. They have an associate working in surgery two five days a week, and then they have hygiene therapists working in surgery three for five days a week. So they have 15 days a week of dentistry. His gross revenue is around seven, seven twenty, something like that. And the conversation he had with me is I don't know what to do. I don't know how to grow it, I don't know how to raise it. And that's because the mentality that we have been given, and it's not our faults, but the mentality that we've been given is to think about ourselves as working on an hourly rate. What is your alley rate? Well, my alley rate is you know 320 pounds. What how many hours are you working a day? How many days a week? How many weeks a year? What do you want time off? And the old way of doing it was to work out the savvy ones would work out how many days they wanted to be off in the year, what they wanted to gross and make, divide that between the number of days they're working, divide that between the number of hours they're working, Bob's your uncle, there's your hourly rate when you take into consideration your cost. But what they're missing is if you're charging your early rate, you're never hitting your early rate. And actually, by making some simple changes to your patient journey and your conversation, you start to make a big difference to what I like to look at, which is daily production. So when I tell people, and they don't believe it, but you know, it happens time and time again. I explained to this gentleman that I was working three days a week. Three years ago, I was working three days a week as an associate in my old practice. My average monthly gross revenue on three days a week was greater, significantly greater, than their gross revenue on 15 days a week. Why is that? There's no additional skill. He's an outstanding dentist. He even told me I am a better dentist than my wife. She grosses more than me. Her daily rate, her daily yield was more than 50% of his. Why is that? It's not the skill, it's the conversation. It's the patient journey.

Dr James, 21m 26s:

And and just to clarify that, 15 days a week, what you mean by that is that's the total number that's the the three surgeries.

Dr Barry, 21m 34s:

Three surgeries and three surgeries, five days a week, is 15 available days clinically, because it's a therapist as well as two dentists. Yeah. Actually, three dentists. Me, three days a week. Yeah, yeah. How do I gross more in three days a week than they do in 15 days a week? And I explain. It's actually very easy. It's all about the patient journey and the conversation. And even after that, this gentleman went, No, I don't think that's for me. So the body. Bottom line is, how are you gonna raise your gross revenue from 720,000? Not by doing exactly what you're doing now. You know, you've got to do something slightly different. Then the question was, what PMS do you use? I've got Dentally. Excellent. We have a partnership with Dentally. What what financial software do you have? Oh, I don't. I tried zero for a few weeks, I didn't like it, so I run my own spreadsheets. And I'm like, could you change that? Because if we plug Dent Pulse in, it would give you accurate information on who's doing what, what's happening, all the profits, the cash flow, all that information, so that then it it could tell you where are the holes, what could you do? Even if you chose not to work with me and potentially double your gross revenue, which is, I believe, easy. What you could do is then know of your 720, how much of more of that could you keep? So actually, by not using me, keeping your 720, but by using his software and his brain, you can actually keep more of the 720. If you combined it with both of us, that's like, you know, party central, because it it is typical that we can double somebody's gross revenue just by helping them change the way they're explaining things. But the key is understanding.

Shishir, 23m 19s:

Yeah, you it all started with understanding the figures and uh and there's a saying that, you know, if you don't know your numbers, you don't know your business. So I really stand by that um because it's all about it's there, the data is there. And the underlying thing issue that I've come across is that they want to avoid looking at the figures just because they think that they get found out. Uh that's a deeper thing, James, here, you know, like I don't I don't want to have a shitty day, you know, like because I've just been found out. Or someone else looking at me and saying, Who the hell are you making a judgment based on me? You know, that kind of thing. But I want to say to them, you know, when you when you release that fear from your head and put that in a piece of paper, saying, you know, even if I write I'm broke, now that is in in a piece of paper. You know, it's not in your head anymore. Now you're thinking like how do I solve that rather than just sticking it in inside you, you know. And and that's that's one thing. Now, if you if you look at one of our clients that uh just about eight months ago, uh she signed up on a coaching program. She never looked at the finances, had accountant, typical accountant, um, a dental accountant, uh, they're filing the accounts, and uh and see every time the associate asks something, she just gave it away because she did not want to lose that associate at whatever cost. And she had this all the fear of you know, am I okay? Uh will I be okay? What if someone leaves? All that thing. So she she hardly took any holidays. Hardly took any holidays. And in her own words, it's like I feel like I'm running the business rather than the business running me. And now she's she's off to, you know, taking a break, had a few breaks, and now she's off to like Africa doing like voluntary programs because he knows she's covered.

Dr Barry, 25m 23s:

Since she's had the software she has, it it there's been an absolute identity shift. You can see it in her. It's that she's now confident in her numbers. She understands what they mean, and she's not at the mercy of the associates coming in and saying, I'd like this, I'd like that. She's gone to the associates and said, Right, guys, here's the expectations. I will support you. I want you here. I love you, I think you're great. And in order for you to be here, this is where we need to be at in the numbers, because that makes it profitable. And I want to make sure that I'm earning 20% out of you being here, because that's the whole idea of running a business.

Dr James, 26m 0s:

And can I just interject on that? Um I think that we frame that that's a completely different conversation to just waltzing in one day and saying, we need to make more money, guys, right? We need to do this, right? Because that comes across like, you know, you're just trying to fill your pockets, right? Whereas a conversation which comes from data that says something along the lines of, guys, we need to be here, and here's where we are. And I'm not saying that for any other reason other than I want there to be in dental practice, you know, and for there to continue being in dental practice.

Dr Barry, 26m 32s:

And everybody to benefit.

Dr James, 26m 33s:

And for everybody to benefit, and for you to keep having a job and for the patients to keep coming back, right, and have a place to go to. And all of a sudden, that the outcome is the same, which is the print the the desired outcome is the same, in that we want the associates to be able to be more profitable for the reasons that we stated. However, it comes from it's framed in a completely different way, whereas the associate is a lot more like, oh my goodness, I really got to pay attention to this, or I'm gonna lose my livelihood. And the patients may not be able to benefit from this practice in the community. But again, you can only have numbers. You can only sorry, you can only have that conversation when you have numbers, which actually brings us to the next segue in the conversation. How does software help us do that in 2026? Because I think people are still, even though software has been around for what, I don't know, maybe when was the first computer invented? Anyway, we're beyond the scope of this podcast, right? It's been around for a while, let's just say that. But I I feel like there's been a shift in dentistry over the last few years. If dentists are waking up to this and they're opening their eyes. How does software help us do this in 2026?

Dr Barry, 27m 40s:

I think there's a risk. If I can I'd like to bring that out first and foremost, is that with this obviously massive era of AI, the risk is that people like me lacking true understanding of the financial aspect of their business. If you start to rely on AI, that's that's running a risk because AI is not as accurate as everybody would like to think that it is.

Shishir, 28m 13s:

It is not contextual. That's the main issue.

Dr Barry, 28m 16s:

Yeah. And so the the problem with that is most people will then jump onto something and go, tell me about this, tell me about that, help me with this, help me with that. The thing about having a certified chartered accountant put his brain into a piece of software that took him and he's still working on it, we're nearly five years down the line, is that it is an absolute source of truth because it is accurate as hell. And and he can demonstrate it time after time after time just by clicking two buttons to prove that it's really accurate. So when you start to use software, number one is darn well make sure it's accurate. If you're relying on a piece of software that is purely AI-based, that's a little bit risky because it's not you can't prove that that is actually working for you. It could be working against you. So the software itself, I think you need to be careful of. Once you've got the software that is accurate, then I think the world is your lobster when it comes to what is your lobster.

Shishir, 29m 20s:

I like that.

Dr Barry, 29m 21s:

Because it, you know, it just really starts to open things up, particularly when it's then backed by advice of what to do with that information. Because most of us get that information, still don't know what to do with it.

Shishir, 29m 34s:

Yes. Th there's there are two parts. One is information center, and the second one, the implementation center. You gotta have both, you know. And when it comes to the software itself, then obviously accuracy is the number one thing, and that you can rely on. Um, because everything is based on that. So we want to be reliable uh to the data that's been presented to us. And uh what the software uh will allow what it takes like a few days to do the month end process. When we say month end process, it means like what's actually your PNL actually look like uh once the month has ended. What exactly it is. You got to know this really, really quickly in the month. Why? Because then you can make a decision, you can make certain small, small changes that will affect your next month. You don't want to find out six months down the line what has happened in say in August 26, in November 26, because you have you lost the opportunity to make any significant difference to your bottom line for September, October, and November. But if you have the information and if we implement it, say in the first week of September, then you can make changes that will affect for the month of September onwards. One of the things that when I was a trainee accountant and we started to be trained, preparing these management accounts for the clients, high-end clients, I was working for a small accounting firm based in Putney, and it was set up by uh the guy who previously worked at EY. He's one of the uh top four accounting firms. So what I got trained, uh not EY, but I work with him, the one who set it up, set it up. And we had to close the books for the last month, three working days after the month has ended. So we are trained like how to do that, because we had to make some accruals, make some changes. We're not waiting for invoices like that. We had to do that, and this is the same ethos that we're bringing uh into what we do, and the software should be enabling to do just that, helping business owners saying this is where I'm right now on a real-time basis. You know the difference between like a sat nav and and Google Map, you know, like you know, it'll give you the route and say, Oh, I can go to Baddie's house, and okay, and then there's some problem in the road that it keeps coming back to you need to go follow the same route versus Google Map or ways, say, oh, this this traffic issue there. This it's correction. Course correction, it will give you altered path on a real-time basis. The software should be facilitating that from a dental context from a financial point of view, so that they can make informed financial decisions today.

Dr James, 32m 24s:

I I agree, I agree, and this is where software is making up the gap, which is something that we didn't have until fairly recently. And uh which stuns me to say that in 2026, there's still so many practices out there that aren't doing that. And I know that you guys collaborate on specifically a software called Dent Pulse, which which helps with these sorts of things. Interested to know more on that and how that works and how you guys complement each other on that front.

Shishir, 32m 54s:

Yes, so uh Dent Pulse is a financial intelligence software, it's helping dental uh practice owners and groups to make informed financial decisions. And we're not only providing as information, it's more like implementation plan for them. So it's not like here's what's happened, and we're also telling them exactly this what's happening, and and most importantly, here's what you need to do next. Because that is the key part. Because without implementation, information just on its own just mean doesn't mean anything because if no one's gonna use it.

Dr Barry, 33m 25s:

You can run scenarios in it. You can, you know, what if I did this? What would happen financially if I was to do this? And let me give you several examples. What would happen if I was to hire a new associate? What would they need to be grossing to make me the profit that I want to? I want to make 15, 18, 22%. What would they need to be doing? That way you're having a different conversation when you're beginning that journey of hiring somebody. What would happen if I was to put these fees up? This particular fee by this particular amount, what's that going to result in? We've never had clients, I've never been able to do that. We have one client that is like a dog with two tails, because for years he has been doing this himself in his spreadsheets. He's absolutely brilliant at it, but it takes him ages, hours and hours and hours and hours, and he's now got this, and it's like click of a click of the fingers, and he's got the information that he wants. But he's really rare. He's really rare. I'm more common, which is spreadsheet, no thanks very much. There's enough money in the bank. I see the I see the cash is working, I'm alright, is kind of how I winged it. And one of my phrases is it's really hard to F it up in dentistry, despite our lack of understanding of the finances. We seem to do okay, you know, and then you bring this along and you plug in Dent Pulse, and you've got his brain behind it as well, and then actually the difference it's making for my clients is is phenomenal. It's it's completely changing their lives.

Shishir, 35m 2s:

Yes, so uh the first thing that what it does start it does is start to bein spark the business, James, and start where you are in the business, you know, from the similar business like yours, and and uh obviously the NASDAQ average is there, you know, everybody follows that one. But like I said earlier, we follow by four as principles. You structure the business, the size of the business, the stage of the business you're in, and where are you situated matters when it comes to you know benchmarking, how we're performing versus fellow other other dental practice owners and and you know using the same platform. And that really gives us an idea where you're heading and financially. For example, yesterday, Barry, when we had a call with one of our clients yesterday.

Dr Barry, 35m 50s:

Last night.

Shishir, 35m 50s:

Last night, yes.

Dr Barry, 35m 51s:

I know who you mean.

Shishir, 35m 52s:

Yeah, so so the guy uh you know left NHS in his march and uh and he's completely doing uh private and uh and and planned income. And and now and we can see that NS income has been replaced as now we look at April to August, and now he's on the growth trajectory. And when I said to him that, you know, uh your your march is gonna get improved from here because uh your treatment mix uh is better, and uh so this is what the data is giving him, like you're more context-like contextualizing everything, and this is why the AI on his own will not give you the context. Because AI doesn't have a context. The AI doesn't know that you know last last month, you know, you had a bad week because of you've been ill or something, family something happened in the family and something, something, something. So there's always uh nuances that needs to be bringing. It needs to be like human-led and AI powered, and that's what we are.

Dr Barry, 36m 53s:

Yeah.

Shishir, 36m 54s:

It's human-led and AI powered, it's not AI first, it's human first. Because every time you run the report, every time you do calculation, the figure should be the same. It might be wrong, but I'm not saying it can't be hundred percent right, but the figure is always the same. But the problem with AI, what I've seen, is like it's hallucinate after a few few runs. Hallucination. And and then suddenly, well, you have 5,300, 4 pounds and 7 pence once, second time, third times, and the next time it's like 5,100 something, and like you know, and that's the issue. But every time you run the report, it should be give you the same same same figures, and and it needs to be contextual, and and that's what we bring to the table, James.

Dr Barry, 37m 41s:

Because once we've got that, we're able to discuss, we don't tell him what to do, but the advice of where he can find the ability to increase his profit. What are what are the things? So we'll then look at what's the diary management like, what's the zoning like? You know, all the systems and the processes that make a difference to my clients in increasing their gross revenue. Once we know, you know what the facts and the figures are, we can then look at where are the holes? Where are the holes that we could grow? What are the things that we could do? You know, what what are the systems and the processes that you are using routinely and what aren't you using? Oh, okay, you're not doing that. Great. Then let's look at implementing that. What about your associate? Oh, my associate isn't doing this. Great. Training opportunity to help your associate to improve what they're doing. You know, that's one of the easiest ways that I can help our clients is by helping their associates. And one of our clients that he mentioned earlier on, her associate started with me taking home £3,000 a month. We're now 16 months down the line of nurturing and coaching and being part of a group, and she's now taking home £15,000 a month. So she's 5X her gross revenue, which means she's also done that for our client. So everyone's a winner. And the most important thing for me is that's more patients getting dentistry that they actually want. Because, you know, our whole approach is to help patients make better choices and better decisions. And when they do, they make better choices and better decisions. It removes stress, it removes any salesy, pushy stuff. You know, we change their mindset away from selling dentistry to helping their patient make their best choice and the best decisions. And when they do, they accept more. Filter that back into the business of making choices and decisions. When we look at the facts and the figures and they go, well, how do I push the needle? We can then share with them options of pushing the needle. But without the data, we can't even track it. So now we've got the data, we're then tracking it, we know where we're going, we're able to course correct.

Shishir, 39m 45s:

And and also on this one, I would like to ask about is like then you have lots of choices, options available to you. You can do this, you can do that, you can do this, you can do that. By the time you know you've got 101 things to do, like we don't want to overwhelm them. And we're just going to give you like three biggest things you can do right now this week.

Dr Barry, 40m 2s:

Yeah, pick the best, right?

Shishir, 40m 3s:

And and and and and it it it's a bit like, you know, think uh I give this analogy. Like think of like a football manager. He has like thirty 30 players or something, you know. And then on the mass day, he would bring in 16 players, because that's the only he can fill on the on on the field. Then he would put in the best 11, right? Then he then if he needs, then he can, you know, swap after like make changes after 60 minutes or something, if nothing's working or something needs to change. So you do the same thing. You got lots of options that you can do. Maybe you want to look at associate production, you want to look at profitability, maybe you look at, you know, like going on training course, maybe you have to do this, do that, there's so many things that you can do. But what is your best level right now? You know, and what are the th three things that you're going to make difference, or five things, you know, uh you can do right now in the next quarter, and and and get on with it so that you're not you're not overwhelmed. You know, this is one of the things that the you know, what we're providing through software is like this is what you should be doing, you know. And and what you can do, right? And based on your capacity, based on capability, uh based on what you have uh on the budget, you can invest in right areas and you get on with the things that you can make a difference in in the right way.

Dr James, 41m 16s:

Yeah, I've uh I've always noticed over the years, I think in business, right, there's a billion ways you can make more money, right? Like that's the cool thing about it, right? You know, you can have an idea and go and implement it and then it works, right? But of those billion things that you can do, what are the like 300 things that actually massively move the needle forward? So what specifically are those? And that's where it can benefit having some external eyes, because otherwise you're just working through the other rest of the bit, you know, the the methods that are out there, and it's kind of trial and error. Whereas when you have the numbers and you have a little bit of input, it can help a lot. It cuts through you can maybe get there in five years of just trying stuff, right? But why not just get there in like three months, right? With with the You just shorten the time frame, Jim. Shorten the time frame. Thank you.

Dr Barry, 42m 5s:

That's another way of saying we also have bias, right? When you think of of uh Eisenhower's matrix of of time, is that what we tend to do is we tend to focus on it's a bias, right? We tend to focus on either the things we like to do or the things that we anticipate being easier to do, which often is what we determine to be maybe urgent and not important. We don't do that consciously, but most people focus on things that are urgent and not important. And actually, when you take a step back or when you have an external body going, why don't we look at what is not urgent and important? Because that's likely to be the thing that if you spend some time on will make the biggest difference. And I think that actually people can do that for themselves, but actually it's often useful to have somebody else going, hang on a minute, let's just pause on this. Why are you doing the easiest thing first when actually you should be doing the thing that's really going to make a difference?

Dr James, 43m 0s:

I think, I think I I and you know what, we could easily go into a big conversation about philosophy right now, couldn't we? Because I know that you guys well, I I like this stuff and we've had similar conversations before at variance this year. I think one of the most one of the coolest mindset shifts or reframes I think I had whenever it comes to business is that you can learn all the lessons in any amount of time, in an infinite amount of time. But what you want to do is you want to learn the most important lessons as soon as you can and then benefit from them instantly. So you want to pull knowledge forward from the future because you might be able to figure it out in like 20 years. But if someone's walked that path and been down that road and spent that 20 years, then if you learn from them, then what it means is you can implement instantly and you can get to level two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, whatever so much faster, and your growth is therefore exponential rather than waiting to get to level two in like twenty years. Right but the thing is, and what I think gets in people's way a lot ego is a frigging enemy. Ego is The enemy. And that's why I think, again, not to go to woo-woo and erry fairy, that's why I think, and I'm I'm not saying I have this skill by any stretch of the imagination, others will be the judge of that. It's it's not something you bestow upon yourself, it's a quality that others award you, and that's what I think self-awareness that's why I think self-awareness is so important in business, is to be able to not listen to that little part of your brain, not listen to your subconscious and go into your conscious and operate from that energy, basically. But anyway, not to get not to go too deep down that rabbit hole, but I just think it's just worth saying again and again and again because I see it happen all the time, especially whenever it comes to someone's business. And there's a quote that I'd like to round off on most people would rather be right than rich. Have you heard that one before? Yeah, they'd rather prove themselves right in from their own perspective and vantage point versus doing the things that will actually enable them to be more wealthy and profitable in their life, and those are often two different things, basically. Anyway, guys, thank you so much as ever for coming on the podcast. I know we wanted to shout out something today, didn't we?

Dr Barry, 45m 2s:

Yeah.

unknown, 45m 3s:

Yeah.

Dr James, 45m 3s:

Now's the time.

Dr Barry, 45m 5s:

Yeah. We um so we are very excited to be launching the software. Uh we have a um deep-rooted partnership with um Henry Shine One. They're the guys that have Dentally and Software of Excellence, and we are fully integrated with Dentally, Software of Excellence, and then Financially Zero and QuickBooks. And what we want is for practice owners and groups to benefit from having the knowledge that maybe they've struggled to have before. So we are running a little competition where we're offering five practice owners uh free software which will give them their associate visibility. It's one of the modules, it's one of the most important modules that enables people to begin to understand information that they haven't had before. And we are prepared to give that to five clinicians, five practices for free. The prerequisite is that they must be running dentally or software of excellence, and ideally running zero equipbooks, although we are able to also offer six months free of zero because of you, sir. Um because we can then get them up and running and connected. But Sashir is the best one to tell you what that associate module does.

Shishir, 46m 32s:

Yeah, so uh associate module um it it it it provides visibility on associate production, profitability, and when it comes to the key decisions, like what are the parameters you need to have in order to hire the associate, and that will give you the answer if that's what you're looking for, and you want to monitor the performance of associates, and you want to protect your main associates that perform very well, you do not want to leave them, and who is mentoring, coaching, training, who needs to be, you know, um who needs help in in that area, and also if it's not working, then potentially, you know, uh making someone like you know, I'm sorry it's not really working between us, also, and it's just being fair to each other, you know, like uh b at the end of the day it's a business, and uh it's not like like a money grabbing anything like that, it's just by being fair to each other so that both sides can see where where you're coming from backed by data. It's about being fair and uh so so the the the the associate module on its own will give you that uh those answers.

Dr James, 47m 39s:

Sure. So a competition in effect, as in you're willing to offer dental, uh the associate side of things, uh, to five people who are willing to reach out and put their hand up in effect. Absolutely. Which is obviously normally something that is is is a is a pay of service, of course. Uh, and then obviously the outcome of this would be that someone can be more profitable in their dental practice, their their dental practice, what they do clinically on a daily basis, and be able to be more profitable and benefit from that. So anybody's interested in that, feel free to reach out to Dr. Barry or Mr. Shishir. Of course, you can find them on the Dentist Who Invest Facebook community. Hi asked, can people get in touch with you guys? Have you got emails? Anything along those lines you want to shout out?

Dr Barry, 48m 21s:

Yeah, it's uh shishir@dentpulse.ai or it's Barry@dentpulse.ai, or through through your uh your establishment, mate. We're easily reachable.

Dr James, 48m 33s:

Lovely, jovely. Lovely, jovely guys. Thank you so much for coming along. Looking forward to the next episode already. Boom.

Dr Barry, 48m 38s:

Thanks, man.

Dr James, 48m 38s:

Thanks, man. Thanks for having us.