Dentists Who Invest Podcast
Official Podcast of the Dentists Who Invest platform. Talking all things investing, money and finance with a dental spin. Have you ever wondered how you can grow your wealth and protect your hard earned money as a Dentist? We've got you covered. Featuring famous guests such as Andrew Craig, Edward Zuckerberg and Benyamin Ahmed we delve deep into EVERY aspect of finance to educate and empower ALL Dentists.
Dentists Who Invest Podcast
What I Learnt In 10 Years Of Running Implant Practices with Dr Nikhil Oberai DWI-EP302
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What if mastering dental implants could transform your practice into a thriving business? Join us as we chat with Dr. Nikhil Oberai, a distinguished expert in dental implants who reveals the secrets behind his decade-long success in managing private implant practices in Cheshire. Dr. Oberai shares his profound journey highlighting the delicate balance between business acumen and clinical expertise needed to excel in Northwich and Wilmslow. Hear how his commitment to staying ahead of dental advancements and his active role in dental education have shaped his renowned dental implants practice.
Transitioning from an associate to a practice owner is no small feat, but Dr. Oberai’s story is a testament to the power of perseverance and smart risk-taking. He recounts the initial struggles, from marketing challenges to the financial risks of acquiring a private practice. Learn from his experiences on focusing on profitable services like dental implants and the strategies that led to significant growth in turnover and a strong referral base. This episode serves as a blueprint for any aspiring dental entrepreneur looking to navigate the complex journey of practice ownership.
Effective patient education and embracing technology are pivotal in today’s dental practice and Dr. Oberai offers invaluable insights on both fronts. Learn how consistent communication and collaborative teamwork can enhance patient experience and treatment outcomes. Dr. Oberai also shares innovative approaches, such as using WhatsApp for patient interactions, which have revolutionised patient care in his dental implants practices. Tune in to understand the impact of educating patients over merely selling treatments and how this approach fosters trust, engagement, and satisfaction in your dental implants practice.
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Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional.
Welcome back everybody. Another episode of the Dentists Who Invest Podcast. Today we're here to talk about the lessons learned that can only be learned through direct experience, those lessons that are learned through running private implant practices for 10 years, direct in the field stuff. And I've got sat opposite a gentleman who I know really, really, really super duper well. It's an honor and a privilege to have him on the podcast today and he's done exactly that. So looking forward to delve into that in just a minute. His name is Dr Nikhil Oberai. Dr Nikhil, how are you today?
Dr Nikhil:Yeah, very good, James, very good. Thanks for having me on. It's such a pleasure to be here. Obviously, I've been on your podcast. I've heard so much about it. I think you put out a post saying you've done almost 300 now and that's phenomenal achievement. So well done you, and it's really awesome to be here with you again. Nice to see you and catching up on everything business and implants.
Dr James:Hell, yeah, bro. And you know what, guys, for everybody who's listening to the podcast, Nikhil and I actually mentioned this seven days ago. We jumped on a call and we hadn't seen each other in so long. We literally talked for an hour and we never got around to shooting it. So today we turned up. We were somewhat on time, we turned up. We've managed to shoot this podcast within 10 minutes of jumping on zoom. So I'm proud of us, michael, I'm proud of us, but listen, this is your second time on the podcast.
Dr James:Right, you've been on before. First, first time first time seriously, oh man oh, bro, I thought you'd been on before.
Dr James:Okay, there we go. I was convinced this was the second episode. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Well, anyway, do you know what? Obviously we're here to talk about your journey, so to speak, Nikhil. So maybe it might be nice if we had like a little bit of a high level bio about yourself, who you are, your background, where you're based, all of that, and then we can get in the story of the last 10 years and how exciting they've been for you amazing yeah, so I mean, I'm I'm based in cheshire and my main work is to do with dental implants.
Dr Nikhil:So I have two practices in cheshire which, uh, which are based in wimslow and one in northwich, and, uh, it's been 10 years for my for my practice in northwich now how time flies, uh, and it's been 10 years for my practice in Norwich now how time flies. And it's been around four years for my practice in Wimslow. And it's all about me handling the business side together with the implant side. With regards to implants, I finished my master's in around 2015 now, and so next year will be 10 years. I finish my master's in implants and with that I've been involved in a lot of education. So I do a lot of lectures around England, so I use Austin, which is the implant company I work with, very closely, so I'm one of their KOLs. I work in Europe as a KOL for them as well.
Dr Nikhil:We organized a conference last year for around 400 people. This year we have a bigger conference for around 1,500 people coming to Wembley. That's going to be in November and I'm speaking there on full-arch implant dentistry. So very passionate about implants and also the impact implants make within people's lives and how we can use our practices as a tool to make those differences. I think is just phenomenal. I think the opportunities we have to make those changes in our patients' lives differences. I think is just phenomenal. I think the opportunities we have to make those changes in our patients lives. I think is great.
Dr James:Wow. Well, we were made well flipping, pretty accomplished after, and I didn't even know that stuff before you started talking about it then I knew you talked, but maybe not quite the stages that you had. So that is flipping cool hats off to you, mate, and you know what. There was one thing that you kind of alluded to there that I just like to build on. I think, whenever it comes to business or whenever it comes to creating something, really the one thing that is going to keep you going when it inevitably gets tough and, by the way, you want to get tough sometimes slightly controversial opinion for me I think you sure as hell want to get tough, because that's when you learn the best lessons. However, if you feel super passionate about what you do, that's what keeps you going, because you're like no, it's about the mission above all else.
Dr Nikhil:Absolutely. You have to be so dedicated. I mean, when you're looking at business in dentistry, there's so many ups and downs, you know you have to be very dynamic. You have to make sure you're up to date, especially when you're dealing with private dentistry. It's always evolving. You have to be not only up to date with your marketing or with your strategies, with your business ideas, with your patient journey. You have to be up to date clinically as well, because when you think of patients going into a private practice, you want those patients to be. Their expectations are that they're going to be getting what's current, what's new, what's cutting edge technology that has to be available to them. And these are all things that you have to kind of work with. And I think that's the balance of having a practice and also doing a lot of clinical work is that you have to keep those two elements on a very high level.
Dr Nikhil:So when you think about it, you know in my experience over the last 10 years, you know it's always evolving. What we did 10 years ago we can't do now. We have to change, we have to open our minds, we have to have discussions. Also, the opportunities that we have now are different. You know, when we look at our opportunities 10 years ago in private practice, they were very different. You know, for example, implant work as an example, a lot of clinicians would refer implant work out 10 years ago to clinicians, whereas now a lot of clinicians we find that and I'm a big advocate for this is that they should be doing implant work within their practices, because the simple implant work nowadays we find that a general dentist should be able to identify, should be able to do some maintenance with it and also should be able to identify, should be able to do some maintenance with it and also should be able to carry out these procedures.
Dr James:So this big, this massive shift in dental implant world, but also a massive shift in the business world as well hell yeah, bro, and you know what I think that's the next thing I'd love to get into for the benefit of the listeners is your journey. So it's because if we can wrap learnings around the story, it's extra engaging. People love that man, I love that. I was captivated by this youtube video this morning about the flipping fall of constantinople.
Dr Nikhil:Okay, right, and they made it out of the story. How is that I?
Dr James:want to finish this man. I literally never watched this. One video came up, but anyway, um, I was going to say one thing. Um, yes, with regards to business, uh, the tenacity to keep going, to keep evolving. You have to love change. Most people, low-level, dislike change. It's like somewhere in their psyche. You have to embrace that Basically, stay afloat, keep evolving, and that comes from passion, that comes from obsession, and do you know what else? Right, two quick things. Two quick things just before we get into your story, which I would like to say today.
Dr James:So much of it comes back to mindset whenever it comes to opening and running a business. And there's two, there's two really great things that I'd just love to share with everybody today, two really great mantras that can keep you going. Here's the thing do you know, whenever that really tough stuff happens to you and you want it to happen, remember, because actually those are hurdles that you can bust through sequentially and they stack, and that's each and every time. That happens is another example of when somebody else in your position will turn back. So the more you can do that, the more it stacks, the more you propel yourself and elevate yourself, and then, all of a sudden, you reach this unassailable position. So, really, whenever that stuff happens, here's what I like to remind myself. There's this little mantra that you can use instead of saying why me? If you instead say you know what, try me, let's go bring it on.
Dr Nikhil:I love that absolutely. I love that. That's a killer one 100 and you know what it is. You have to be tested whether, in any field, if you're in business and you're opening a practice, are you thinking about it? You know I I'm a big advocate for opening practices and I know recently I've been reading a lot of blog posts on how the negativity is surrounding it and how hard it is. But you know it is hard. It's not an easy thing. You know anything you're going to do is not going to be easy. No one's going to give you anything on a silver platter. You have to be dedicated, you have to really want it, you have to understand the industry and I think there's a lot of success to be gained from that as well.
Dr James:You know what, and this is the thing if it was too easy, everybody could do it right. So you know, if you can just set that little thing, you know, when you find yourself inevitably thinking like that from time to time, just think to yourself actually, do you know what it's gonna be? Even better, when I overcome this thing, think about how I'm gonna feel whenever I whole try me mentality instead of the why me mentality. One more thing I wanted to add to that as well, just before we get into your story, Nikhil whenever it comes to all of that sort of stuff, like the mindset side of things, whenever it comes to running a business, whenever it comes to everything along those lines again, not the whole why me, try me thing instead of why me, try me thing is really really, really powerful, and I like to remind myself of that.
Dr James:And then there's another thing. There's a guy that I listen to a lot, called Alex Ramos. I think most people have heard of him by now. But there's another thing that he talks about, and he talks about the dragon, so to speak. You're like the warrior and you have to slay the dragon and he's flipping. Oh, it's cool, and you know, when you start thinking like that you become so powerful. But yeah, man, and I think absolutely, and you know, I think you can use that in almost in different aspects.
Dr Nikhil:So you can use that in business, you can use that in clinical work. So you know, not obviously ownership isn't for everyone. You know we're growing clinically. What dentists? So that's everywhere, everyone. You have to grow clinically. You can't be stagnant, because when you're stagnant you find that you start to get bored of what you're doing. And when you start getting bored you start getting complacent.
Dr Nikhil:And this, what I love about dentistry is that so many different fields, you know there's so many different aspects in which you can kind of dive into.
Dr Nikhil:You can go into prosthodontics, you can go to implants, you can go into perio, you can go into prosthodontics, you can go into implants, you can go into perio, you can go to orthodontics. So you have and you can go into finance, you know. So there's so many different aspects which you can pick and then you kind of dive into these things and you find your passion. And the minute you find your passion in these things, you then you can then see that growth. And you can, once you and once you feel that growth and you can see that happening financially and in your, in your own personality and in your growth, you find it feeds on you and it just packs up and that keeps getting better and better and you start opening new opportunities for you. You know, and it's all about you putting yourself out there, putting yourself in a different mindset, in a positive mindset, and then you start to attract like-minded people, you know, and then once those people you thought you, you in your circle, I think, uh, I think amazing things happen it gets easier.
Dr James:It really does. It gets easier because the energy that you project it actually brings more like-minded people like that into your life. And you know what? Oh, this is another thing that keeps me going. I'm just like yo it's either going to be a hell of a success or one hell of a story. And what's going to make me happier when I'm like 100 years old and I'm looking back over my life? I'm going to be like yo I either smashed it, I made all these unbelievably, really, really, really cool things, or I tried as hard as I possibly flipping could, and that'll give me more happiness than anything else. But anyway, on the topic of stories, let's get into yours, Nikhil, because I know you started your first practice 10 years ago. Where were you at in terms of life whenever it came to starting that practice? Had you just? You were a few years out of university and you thought to yourself right, okay, I really want to practice, let's just go for it. Or did you have a mentor? How did that look? I'm curious so.
Dr Nikhil:I mean, my first life started, I mean, when I graduated, one of the things I always wanted to do was open a practice. So, uh, when I was in vp, I was always I always loved the business side and how he was all running and I could always think about how things could be more efficient within the practice. Then I moved on, so I qualified in 2008, uh, and I then moved to london for a bit worked there. I happened to move back to Manchester and there were always a few things. You know how you say you have to keep trying.
Dr Nikhil:And I remember back in the day I had gone through around two, three practices where I was almost signing the paperwork to buy them and they fell through. It was very, very disheartening and they fell through and it was very, very disheartening. And I find a lot of people go through that, where they go through the process of buying a practice, they do the due diligence, they go through solicitors and you do lose money as well. This is what we were talking about earlier. It's like even if it doesn't happen, it's a good story. There's always something to learn.
Dr Nikhil:There's always something to learn. And then, as time went on, I eventually found a practice. You know, I was talking to one of my friends recently and I was telling him that I was about to buy an NHS practice 10 years ago and I was on the brink of signing the paperwork when the company I was working with something happened and they pulled the rug off my feet and I was just like you know, I had nowhere to go. I just started looking for something else. And I was just like you know, I had nowhere to go. I just started looking for something else and I came across the practice I have right now and had that not had happened, I'd be in a different place right now, completely. So I think things happen for a reason all the time.
Dr Nikhil:So I didn't have a mentor, but I was very keen on looking at numbers. So whenever I would get practice leaflets through, I would look at them and I would see how I could make that profitable. And whenever I think of profitability, I always think of what I love doing, which was dental implants, and I've started my master's as well, and I always think to myself that I thought that implants was one of the most, I would say, had the biggest return on investments Because what you put in you can get a lot back from it If you get good at that skill and I really enjoyed it. I found the return on investment on implants was great. Just a rough example if we were doing an implant crown and say if I did the implant crown and I refer it back to one of my referring dentists, they would charge an approximately of around 1300 for an implant crown and if they work with me, approximately the lab bill would be around 300. So you know the return on investment is almost. You're making almost 500 quid an hour, which is great when you think about it, because you'll take two appointments One is the scan, one is the fit and once you learn all these workflows and you learn the efficiency, I think that's phenomenal.
Dr Nikhil:So, going back to my story, I then found a practice private practice and it was a big step because back in the day everyone was only buying NHS practices. People were buying private practices were not that much and the turnover was small. And it's daunting because you think to yourself am I good enough for this? You always think about is this going to be a success? And I remember when we bought the practice. We put all our funds together, me and my wife. We literally put everything together all in one pot and we bought the practice. We put all our funds together, me and my wife, we literally put everything together all in one thought and we bought the practice.
Dr James:How old were you? Sorry to barge in. What year were you?
Dr Nikhil:So it was 10 years ago, so I was 30. So I was 30 at that point. So it's a scary thought because you put all your savings in and you're going into a venture. But you know in and you're going into a venture. But I feel dentistry is a safe bet. It's a skill that you're never going to lose. You can always make money from it and that's how I thought of it at that time.
Dr Nikhil:And then we went in and the first few months were very difficult because it's a learning curve, because you've gone from an associate to a practice owner and there's certain things you don't think about. You don't think about how the patients are coming in where they're coming from. You don't think about, you know, you don't think about how the patients are coming in where they're coming from. You don't think of marketing. You don't think of how am I going to actually build the practice? And I remember on the first month that I bought the practice, we so the guy had told me that we'd take home around maybe around 2000 a month at that time uh, privately. But this was that with the income, with everything else, and I remember we took home 250 quid, I thought to myself.
Dr Nikhil:you know how is it going to work, but, like you said, you stick with it. You learn the ropes, you learn how the practice runs, you make things more efficient and you start upscaling. And that's what I did. And 10 years on now, when you move the clock forward, we've almost you know almost 10 times the turnover. We have a great working, we have a great workforce in the practice, we have a great relationship with all our patients. We have a referral base that people refer to and I must say it's taken a lot of time to build onto it, but it's been an amazing journey to be on awesome man and you know what I really feel like whenever you just put yourself out there and get yourself started.
Dr James:Everybody's waiting for the perfect time. I think you just the perfect time is just go for it, unless you've got some sort of crazy black swan event. Yeah, okay, maybe you know, like coronavirus, was that a really good time to open a practice? Maybe maybe not that precise moment, but I'm sure there was opportunities in the round that. Yeah, what I'm saying is, if you make it about the learnings, you're always winning 100, and it's all about learnings.
Dr Nikhil:It's all about. It's all about being dynamic. I think being about dynamic in business, being dynamic in the dental practice. You, you need those, you need to be of a mindset where you're happy to accept change, you're happy to adopt change and implement change within the practice, because I think that's where the growth happens love it.
Dr James:What were those big learnings then, over those first few years? I know that's probably hard to distill them down, but is there any that stick out in your memory?
Dr Nikhil:I think one thing is putting yourself out there. I think a lot of a lot of people in dentistry are very scared of putting themselves out there talking about their journey, talking about their cases, because they're they're a bit scared about the negative press maybe, or maybe, if they put a case up, they'll be, you know, judged on it and I think just getting over that fear is a massive deal. And I think putting yourself out there means that you're making yourself vulnerable, but a lot of people really value that you know, and then really a lot of people will connect with you and once you meet like-minded people, you get inspired. I think being constantly inspired is key for me. You have to be around people who are motivated, who are thinking positively and want to take things forward, and then you vibe with that and that's great hell, yeah, man, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr James:To flip it on its head and to see the fact that you're like, that is actually a positive thing and a thing that's going to enhance your ability to succeed and people do connect with it. They mightn't be the, I feel like potentially the problem with social media is there is there's this small proportion of maybe rather negative people who just seem to get a lot of the airtime, whereas in real and it's easy to get a representative opinion of how people feel about you putting yourself out there. But having been put, having been through that journey myself, so to speak, and put myself, you know, talk with Dentists Who Invest and sharing the network, you wouldn't believe the people that come to you in the dms and we're just like I love this, I want to help. Have you met this guy? Can we talk? Blah, blah, blah. That's where the opportunities are.
Dr Nikhil:Absolutely. I think putting yourself out there, making yourself a bit vulnerable, and you know it is scary, I find that it is scary putting yourself out there to other people, but I think the love you get back is phenomenal and that's growth, and that's massive growth as well. And then you think you meet these like-minded people. You start talking about ideas of business. You start talking ideas of how to grow the practice. You talk about ideas of how to grow yourself clinically and that's all, and that's the propeller into life, scared. And you're right, there's no right, there's no better time than now. A lot of people are waiting for the right time to do things and my advice is to them. You know, being 10 years in business is that there's no right time. There's always going to be. You know peter's cross in any business. You know nothing's always going to be sailing. But the minute you get onto the, onto the waves, you start riding them and then you start to enjoy life a bit more it's the same whenever it comes to people who invest in the market.
Dr James:It's like when the market is really low, everybody's like oh, I'm a bit uncertain, will it go lower? However, when the market's really high, they're like yeah, but it's about to crash. Now you're just like when are you?
Dr James:gonna get wrong to this sort of thing so there, there's always going to be a reason, and you have to kind of decide for yourself is this valid or is it not? And I think that, when you look at it very objectively, rarely there truly is a good reason to procrastinate, but anyway. So am I right in saying, Nikhil, that your practices are purely implants? Have I got that right?
Dr Nikhil:No. So we have I have two practices, uh, and so I do mainly. My 90 of my work is in plant work, so that's what I mainly do, but we have other resources in the practice, so me and my wife go on the practices. She's done her master's in prosthodontics so she does a lot of the prosthetic work in the practice. Then we have we have another.
Dr Nikhil:We have another two associates who work with me and they tend to do all the smile makers, the veneers, the crowns, and we do a lot of clear aligners as well, because I find nowadays when we see patients, we like to see them in a very multidisciplinary action. What that means is that when they come in, we look at each aspect of their smile and we try and work on it. And how I explain that to my patients is that we work as a team together and we work as a team to get the patient to the end goal. So how that works is the patient may come and see me for a consultation to get their teeth done. What would happen then is I would then tell them that okay, I'm looking at the implant work and I would plan how the implant would look. And then what would happen is I would advise them to go down and clear the liners.
Dr Nikhil:One of my associates my team will then start planning and doing some treatment planning on what the teeth would look like at the end, and we would tie all this in. We would then tie in some crowns, we would tie in veneer work, we would tie in gum treatment with a hygienist. So we have three hygienists who work in my practice as well, and it's all about working as a team to get the patient to the end goal. And I always explain to my patients when you come and see me, it's not just me you're coming to see. You're coming to see me and my team because we work all together to get you to the best possible result that we can get for you.
Dr James:That's awesome. So it's more multidisciplinary than anything else. So I'm curious, right from direct experience what do you think the biggest challenges are to effectively coordinate so many people who are obviously skilled in their respective forte in dentistry? Because you guys got to talk and communicate a lot, right?
Dr Nikhil:I think what happens is we talk a lot. So I have treatment planning sessions with my associates very often, and I think what happens is once you've lot. So I have treatment planning sessions with my associates very often, and I think what happens is, once you've done so many cases, it flows. They know exactly, they reach the point where now they almost know what I'm thinking before I have to say so if a patient comes to see me and we've made a plan, I would then send that to do a clear aligner mock-up of what it would look like. I would then quickly have a look at it and we all know where everyone's benchmarks are now, which is great. So I think, having worked with these people for so many years, you build that understanding, you build that relationships, you build that trust and as that grows, you then understand what kind of deliverance we're going to do. Because, don't forget, sometimes these patients come and see the other dentists you know, not me and then they would say, okay, I'm going to send you to Nick Hill to do the implant planning and then they're going to go back to them to have all the veneers and crowns. So it works both ways.
Dr Nikhil:So if everybody's singing from the same hymn sheet in the practice. I think that works really well, the workflows work very well and it's all about training the staff members. It's all about us all doing saying the same thing to the patients, because what we don't want is conflicting advice, because we find that really confuses our patients and it doesn't confuse anybody. You know, if you're hearing one advice from one dentist, another advice from another dentist, and even that in the same practice, this creates a lot of confusion. So we like to be in a state where we do a lot of training with my dentist we've worked with for a very, very long time to provide dentistry at a very high level, which means that everyone gets treated the same so there's no real shortcut to that per se.
Dr James:You just have to get everybody educated and then collaborate together enough times until it becomes a well-oiled machine absolutely and you know, like anything, once you do something so many times it becomes second nature.
Dr Nikhil:Uh, and then you know eventually what happened was. I also do a lot of training and I have people dentists who come into the practice and they and they see what I do and I run a mentorship program which I've been running for over a year now. So I've had various dentists who come and see me and then when I'm doing bigger cases, they would come and say I'm doing a few full arcs within a day. If one of them has referred the patient across to me who was my mentee, they would come across and we would do the case together. So it's massive learning curve for everybody.
Dr James:So it's been awesome. Okay, so it'd been awesome, okay, cool, and if we just go so, again, brilliant. So that's obviously how you guys talk to each other and coordinate to such a high level, which is excellent. Obviously, part and parcel of running a really amazing private practice is it's helpful to get the right patients through the door who are in a zone where they can benefit from this treatment. What's your philosophy or doctrine whenever it comes to the marketing side of things?
Dr Nikhil:Oh, I think marketing has changed massively when I think of marketing. You know, over the last 10 years I think the marketing strategies in the UK have changed phenomenally and I think it's still going to involve massively. And it's all about educating our patients. And how I feel about marketing is I feel a little bit about education because we find that we have all these treatment plans and things that we can do for patients, but it's about educating our patients in what's in their best interest.
Dr Nikhil:So when a patient comes to see me, it's how I look at it. I'm not really selling them treatment. I'm telling them what is possible and what I feel is in their best interest to get them the best possible result. And I think when we start looking at things from that perspective, we find that the uptake of treatment is great because patients can resonate with you. They can actually feel your positive vibes and you can feel like you've got their best intentions at heart, and I think that's key. So when I see my patients and I think of marketing, I think about educating my patients, because I find when they're educated, they can then make an informed decision on the best way forward, because I find that nowadays a lot of a lot of the patients who you people are marketing to will go to different avenues or different practices to find the same treatment, and it's all about you having to stand above and stand out from the other clinicians. So how do you do that? Is that you put your patient's interests first.
Dr James:Awesome and then presumably a big thing that a lot of practices believe in whenever it comes to how can we say, really serving the patient to the highest standard is patient journey as well. So I'm going to say that you guys have focused a lot of energy on that too. You have to.
Dr Nikhil:I mean, the patient journey is a massive thing and it's a. It's one of my favorite conversations with my staff members. So they're like, oh my god, here we go again. But it's like you know, where does the patient you know? A very good question I normally ask my staff members is where do you think our patient journey starts? So they would commonly say is when they walk into the practice and I'm like, no, that's not where it starts. The patient journey starts when the patient first recognizes that you are there or you exit. So that's the beginning right. And then you have to tailor that journey until they, until they buy from you. So there's so many gaps in there that you need to think about exactly how you're going to fill it each step you're going to take. It has to be crafted, it's not luck.
Dr James:Did you craft it yourself or did you get some help? How did that look?
Dr Nikhil:Well, I think one thing is, I wouldn't say I got help, but I love thinking about this thing. So when I think about myself as a patient, one of the things I love doing is swimming.
Dr James:Oh, okay, yeah, I love swimming.
Dr Nikhil:So I tend to travel a lot with my family. So when I travel, I go to nice resorts, you go to nice places you go to, you know, and then you pick things up and you pick things up on their patient journey. So I remember one of the things I picked up this was a while ago, this was maybe five years ago we were I'd gone to India and one thing that was really working in India five years ago was WhatsApp, and obviously we use WhatsApp massively now, but it's changed. Now. Whatsapp five years ago, what they were doing there is that they were WhatsAppping the supermarkets with WhatsApp you and what would happen is the hotels would WhatsApp you there, and this and I was like this is phenomenal WhatsApp for business right Now, whatsapp for business. And now, when we think about WhatsApp in dental businesses, we use it loads. You know now that change is massive, but I remember coming across it then and thinking this is phenomenal.
Dr Nikhil:And then I implemented those changes in my practice. We got a phone in the practice and I told my staff we need to start communicating with our patients on WhatsApp. And they were like WhatsApp, like why? I'm like, well, it's another method of communication that you have to keep on top. So you got your emails, you got your telephones, you got all the other means. Now you've got to add WhatsApp to it. But now every practice, every private practice, whatsapps their patients on a regular basis. It's like it's normal.
Dr Nikhil:But five years ago it wasn't. It was like oh my God, I'm going to WhatsApp my patients. This is crazy. I'm going to whatsapp my patients. This is crazy. I'm going to get a business whatsapp. But then you take that and then now when you go to hotels, you're whatsapping the concierge. Before you used to walk up to a concierge and ask them stuff, and now you're whatsapping. It's like where's the way? You know I'd sit. You'll sit by the pool and you'll be like where can I? Can you make me a reservation at the ex-restaurant, which is great. So you think about how communication has changed and then you try and implement that. So I take those learning curves from other places and I try and implement them. I think about them and I say how can I implement them in our businesses, in dentistry? So that's where I get my inspiration from.
Dr James:Oh, so you're, you're very much. You're very much. When you go on holiday or when you use another business you know, outside of dentistry, you're thinking to yourself right, what is their customer experience like? What parts can I hone into my own practice?
Dr Nikhil:Wow, Absolutely you have to. So you know being well-traveled and you travel to different places and you see a load of different businesses, and dentistry is a business like any other, right, and it's about how you can take things from other industries and implement them within your industry. I feel is how I've crafted my patient journey.
Dr James:You know, I wanted to share one thing on exactly that. There was a few posts on the Dentistry Invest Facebook recently where someone asked a question, something along the lines of I'm thinking about owning a dental practice, is this a good idea or a bad idea? And there was on that one particular post. There was a few comments that were trying to dissuade this person from it.
Dr James:Yeah, I just saw this post I can't remember who, yeah, yeah. And then somebody else posted and they were like guys, you all gave running a business such a bad rep on that other post. Here's the things you didn't consider and it was clear that there was two camps, so to speak. Right, and I really felt like when I started running a business, one of the things that I flip in love, that literally gets me excited every day right, is you can just be walking around, see something random. Bam, you just get the best idea of all time. You take it, you implement it and it all runs so much thicker, and it's not even necessarily from something that's in the same field as you, it just hits you out of the blue and do you know what? That buzz just keeps you. That is like one of the biggest reasons I love Dentists Who Invest. That just keeps me going. Of course, not everybody feels that way, but I'm just saying I feel like that's an unappreciated upside to having a business that you can go and implement these things.
Dr Nikhil:Oh, so much fun, so much fun. You think about these things, you come back with some great ideas and you put them down and then when you see these ideas work, it's phenomenal. You think, oh my God, that's really good, like I really enjoyed that, what a success. And you start finding the next thing. And then you know, you keep upskilling and you find the next best thing and you start okay, how am I going to improve things now? And I think this is where you have to be so dynamic. You can't be stagnant. You have to keep thinking about how can I change things, how can I move things from where I am to make it better, how do I kind of elevate things to the next step? And you have to be dynamic. And this is why I would say, you know, touch wood. Being in business for the last 10 years has been phenomenal for me is that it keeps you on your toes. You have to keep thinking about new ways to reinvent yourself and you have to keep your finger on the pulse.
Dr James:Ideas are the currency. A wise man once said, which I really, really, really liked it's all about ideas and implementation. That's good. I love that. Okay, cool when did so, obviously you started your practice and you started your implant journey as well, around at the same time and there'll be people out there.
Dr James:It was kind of maybe really two camps, I guess, of practice owners or potential practice owners who've listened to this podcast One camp who like implants and one camp who have no intention whatsoever of ever doing implants. Okay, so how can someone incorporate the what's the upside to what do you feel, as someone who's done this and been in the field? What do you feel is the biggest upside to having implants offered as a treatment in practice?
Dr Nikhil:So I feel like offering implants in your practice I think is so important and I find that having that treatment modality offered in your practice can really increase the amount of revenue you generate. Now not only does it increase the revenue, but also increases the footfall and also what you can offer to your patients. Now I thought about this loads, where people were referring things out a lot and I think why can't those people do things in their own practices? So on the back of that, I started an implant post called the Arthur Dental Implant and the idea was to empower dentists to be able to do treatments within their own surgeries, which I think is so important because you know and again it's about what I feel is in their best interest. So I find that dentists who I work with, who I have worked with, who I will work with, is, how do I think, in their best interest. It's the same thing with patients. You know we want what's in their best interest and that's where the growth happens.
Dr Nikhil:So I started a course called the Art of Dental Implants and, looking at that, I integrated all what's happening nowadays. So one thing was that we do a lot of e-learning nowadays, but also we love face-to-face contact. So I combined those two into a module for restorative and I find that key where people who now are learning to restore implants they may not love the surgical aspect, which I understand A lot of blood, a lot of cutting, a lot of this they get this like. This is not for me and that's OK. But the restorative side is fairly straightforward there's no blood involved and it's a very clean job and I find that way you can also benefit massively working with people and learning that aspect of dentistry.
Dr Nikhil:Another topic I cover very heavily there is maintenance, because nowadays we find that within our dental practices we would see patients with implants all the time and this is very normal nowadays and it's so key for us to identify issues if there are any issues with that implant, because what happens is that we then become liable as clinicians for that case. And when you think about, you know, obviously we live in a litigious world where litigation is very high and if I had an implant that was failing with a patient, you know I would like to see the patient. But if I didn't know what I was looking for, well, you don't know, you don't know. And it's about educating dentists on how implants should look and what failure signs they should look out for and how they should maintain implants. So my first module covers all this in a lot of detail with me my hygienist. We talk about different protocols, we talk about different cases and it's about educating people on how to look after these implant patients and also how to restore them. So I think that goes hand in hand.
Dr James:And also incorporating them into the business right Massively massively.
Dr Nikhil:Absolutely, you have to incorporate into that business, and I think that works really well because that's what you want. You know you want your business to thrive and then those patients who you're treating with all this can see how much effort you're putting into them and they become your referral base. You don't even have to look outside for referrers, and this is how you grow your business. Now that patient has had an amazing experience with you will then go and tell their friend and family and then if then they would be like they're like you know, go and see. You know, go and see dr nick. He's great, you know. He's really put me at ease. And this is how you grow your business through word of mouth. Word of mouth.
Dr James:I find it the strongest way to market your practice yeah, definitely, and and with any business right, because here's the thing, when you have these, if you think about it right, there's only really two ways to make more money right as a business. Yeah, and listen, dentistry is definitely not all about money, but if we're looking at things with a business uh, eyes on, or a business lens on, well, there's the cold hard facts are there's only two ways to make more money. You can go out there and get new customers or add value to your current customers, and these people are way warmer because they already know you, the people who are your current customers, and that's basically what implants it is. It's a high value way to serve the people you already have generally and then, providing you do a great job, they'll tell other people. Then they become warm customers 100%, 100%.
Dr Nikhil:It's all about looking at your patient base and how to capitalize on what you have and make that grow, and I think there's so much growth in that. And this is where you know, when you travel the world and you see how other businesses are doing it, how do they? You you know they always keep you warm. They're always sending you emails. Once you've joined the mailing list, you always get offers coming through and it's them keeping in touch on your mind about hotels you've been to and it's interesting because you start jogging your memory oh, I need to go back there. That was really nice. So that was really nice. But I look at it from two perspectives. I look at it from a consumer. But also, how do I implement that in my business? How do I make my patients, how do I keep them warm for all the treatments I do? And making sure that they keep I I'm in their mind when they meet someone who has an issue. So interesting.
Dr James:Brandon, right, in essence, that's what brandon is. Brandon slash positioning yeah, because when they think of something they want, you want them to think of you, right, you're like positioned yeah absolutely, absolutely and then so that.
Dr Nikhil:So that was the first aspect of of art of dental implants, and the second aspect was teaching people how to place implants. And I find nowadays what I, what I did, was, um, how I set the course up is that the clinicians who signed on to the how to learn how to place dental implants will come to the practice. So they would come to the practice in Wimso and they would place implants with my patients who have been prepped and and they're all ready to go for implants, so they get the surgical handling experience in the UK, which I think is phenomenal. And this is where they can then learn the basics of dental implants. I'm not saying they're going to learn how to do full out implant dentistry, but it's a stepping. It's giving them the knowledge and the foundations so they can go out there and they can grow their business.
Dr Nikhil:And then I have a level three, which is a masterclass, and now the masterclass is where it encompasses a lot of things. Now the masterclass is where you come and spend time with me at the practice and we then do our cases together. We would do cases on full cases together. We would do cases on full art. We would do cases on single implants. We would do the planning, the prosthodontics and this would then take them to the next level hell.
Dr James:Yeah, bro, so it's, it's, it's all in one, so to speak. Well, I think I think what goes wanting sometimes is definitely the business side of things, which is the actual logistics of how you're gonna do some clinical implants, which is wonderful, so that information needs to be out there. And the other cool thing about it is it's only really stuff you can learn through doing, as well as you had to do that stuff to learn it and then therefore teach people. So it certainly sounds of value. Well, Nikhil, listen, I'm just conscious we're coming up to the 45 minuteminute mark and I'm always fine, 45 minutes, okay.
Dr Nikhil:I feel like it's only been five minutes. I don't think we've just done it.
Dr James:I know We've been having fun right, but yeah, no, there we go. This always happens. I've had this exact same feeling. I look at the clock and it's been an hour and a half before I've just now to look up. That's how I've got better with time. But yeah, 45 minutes, believe it or not. So, Nikhil, listen. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and knowledge on the dentist podcast and accelerating other dentists out there. Financial journey journeys, the listeners, of course. Nikhil, if anybody wants to reach out to you off the back of this podcast, how would they be best off finding you?
Dr Nikhil:absolutely so. You know, if anyone's interested, they want to have a chat about other things. You can find me on instagram. You can find me on facebook. Drop me a dm. I have my number on my facebook as well, so drop me a message, uh, and I look forward to speaking to anyone who's interested as well smashing dr Nikhil over I.
Dr James:So on the Nikhil over I on the gram right on insta. Is that right yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah over I on the gram and also Nikhil Nikhil over I on fb as well. So I think Nikhil is in the facebook group, so anybody who wants to speak to Nikhil will be able to find them in there.
Dr Nikhil:Well anyway, Nikhil, as I was saying, thanks so much for your time today, looking forward to having you back on the Dentists Who Invest podcast at some stage let's not leave it for 300 episodes, until that happens we're going to do it a few months again and we're going to talk about a different aspect, and I'm looking forward to it. We'll plan it out I dropped the ball.
Dr James:This is my commitment to do better, Nikhil. We're committing it to the airwaves, we're committing it to the. We're committing it to hard data. There's a physical evidence of this right here, right now, because I've just said it on the podcast. So we're going to do something about that, Nikhil, listen. So much for your time. I'll speak to you again soon, my friend. Much love, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
