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
Building A Dental Dynasty with Dr Kaival Patel
You can download your FREE report on how you can avoid financial mistakes as a dentist using the link just here >>> dentistswhoinvest.com/podcastreport
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Join us as we learn the transformative journey of Dr Kaival Patel, founder of the Kana Health Group, in this inspiring episode. Kaival’s story of building a dental dynasty began during his early days as an associate in a collaborative practice where he shaped his vision for creating his own thriving dental empire. Alongside his wife, Shreena, Kaival has expanded beyond the traditional with a teaching academy offering courses in aesthetics, restorative dentistry, and business management, illustrating how education plays a pivotal role in advancing the field of dentistry.
Find out the highs and lows of building a dental dynasty as Kaival shares his bold decision to buy a dental practice without a financial safety net. He highlights the importance of conviction in one’s vision, the need for alignment with the team, and the entrepreneurial energy required to sustain growth through unexpected challenges like COVID-19. Through his experiences, Kaival emphasizes the significance of setting a clear “North Star” for your business and maintaining financial health.
Kaival’s strategic approach to building a dental dynasty extends into the business side of dentistry, focusing on stress testing loans, optimizing expenses, and creative marketing strategies. Learn how financial analysis and partnerships play a crucial role in managing a successful practice. As Kaival continues to grow his dental dynasty, discover how you can connect with the Kana Dental Academy and engage through social media, where he shares valuable insights and welcomes collaboration with fellow professionals and entrepreneurs.
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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.
What is up everybody? Another episode of Dentists Who Invest Podcast. This is an extra super duper special one because I've got sat in front of me a gentleman who has been extremely successful in the world of dentistry but is also extremely humble and they're my favorite types of people. His name is Mr Kaival Patel and he is the owner and founder if I've got this right, Kaival of the Kana Health Group, which I've seen a lot about on social media. So we're going to be getting into that journey and the learnings and the lessons and what that is very soon. But before we do that, Kaival, how are you today?
Dr. Kaival:I am amazing, James. Yeah, thank you so much for for having me on. I'm really excited to be here and I hope that I can provide any of your listeners, or or anybody, even one nugget of goodness or help. So, yeah, thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it.
Dr James:Hey, listen, absolute pleasure, mate, and I love these episodes because what they tend to become, or what they tend to be, is more or less biographics, effectively, of what people have achieved, and I'm sure that there's going to be a lot to talk about on that front today.
Dr. Kaival:But anyway Kaival.
Dr James:I'm very conscious, this is your first time on the Dentists Who Invest podcast, so if you were happy to do a little bit of a high-level bio, something along those lines, and then we can get into your journey and kind of health group and what that is, because it's dental practice, but it's also a whole load of other things as well, which we're going to reveal in just a moment.
Dr. Kaival:So, if you're happy to do a bio, that might be a good way to kick things off. Yeah, so, um, so my wife shreena and I, we're we're the uh, yeah, you're right the founders and owners of the khan health group, which is a group of practices based in milton keynes and bedford, and we've also got a teaching academy called the khan academy, where we have an aesthetic and restorative diploma for dentists, which will be progressing to courses for therapists, hygienists, nurses, all in, hopefully in the next sort of 12 to 24 months, also a business and management course as well. So, yeah, we're based in Milton Keynes and we've been loving it for a few years now.
Dr James:Awesome. Well, here's the thing. I'm just curious. You know, whenever it comes to your journey and whenever it comes to Canada Health Group and this is something that we were talking about off camera whenever you get into the world of being a principal and running a dental practice and I've had people like this on the podcast as well they just keep going in that area and then they get. They get their 30 dental practices, something along those lines, and it's amazing, you know, and what I'd love to learn about is was your mindset whenever it come to you, came to you deciding right, we're actually going to expand a little bit beyond just purity being a principle in the conventional sense and also have courses and everything along those lines. But we'll come back to that anyway, Kaival. Let's talk about your journey. Yeah, you qualified from dentistry 2007, you told me earlier 2008.
Dr. Kaival:Oh yeah, yeah, one year, one year, one year. What's a year between friends? What is the year between friends? 12 months, they a year between friends. 12 months, they go fast Anyway but yes, you qualified in 2008.
Dr James:And did you always want to be a principal? Did you always want to build an empire, or you know what things are around about that era for me are a little hazy so you mightn't even remember, but I thought I'd ask a question anyway.
Dr. Kaival:Yeah, I think it's strange. So I think different aspects of my career, of my life. I think different aspects of my career, of my life. I've just wanted different things.
Dr. Kaival:So when I qualified so I qualified from Manchester, loved Manchester great sort of party town or city, had amazing friends and everything. But I always knew I wanted to come back home, which is Milton Keynes. So I found a VT job in Northampton and then had my one and only job interview after that with a chap called Restue who had a practice in Wellingborough, which is near Northampton. And actually I learned a lot in my time as an associate. So I had a big sort of NHS component there there, lots of udas, um. But I used that time to progress my skills. So I had a, I did an implants master's degree, um, I learned sedation and design, all these things. But what I think I learned the most is I was in this environment where rest used to bring speakers into the place and he used to have us collaborate together Lovely social environment as well. So you know, like dentistry is in theory a really lonely place. Normally it's you and your nurse in a box for however many hours a day, whereas this sort of community aspect and he did it in sort of he had, I think, three sort of sites or two sites based over three locations, but he did it in a really really nice way and I think that's what I sort of sites or two sites based over three locations, but he did it in a really really nice way and I think that's what I sort of learned and I always felt that that was where I wanted to take my career. I just didn't know how for a long time really. So then, yeah, I met, or I was sort of an associate there for a number of years, knew that I wanted something, and I think we were speaking off air and we both had this itch and I'm sure you can get cream for it, but the actual itch is to go and do something. You know, and I always never really knew what I wanted to do. I always knew I just wanted to progress and, you know, do something really.
Dr. Kaival:And then I married a dentist Shreena, my wife now and when we were getting married, actually we were we we thought, well, we're both dentists and the parents were in the back of our mind as well. And in areas that you're both dentists, you should, you know, it makes sense to own a dental practice. We thought, yeah, yeah, obviously that makes makes sense. And, um, and you know, don't do that, don't do that as your plan of action. You got to plan a little bit more um than that. But whereas we thought, well, yeah, we're both dentists, we're going to own a practice, that's going to be life.
Dr. Kaival:Um, and actually we we found a practice when we were getting married and we were due to complete on that practice two weeks before the wedding day, um, so it was, it was a crazy sort of time of our lives, um, but then actually that practice ended up falling through because the, the guy selling it, had set up another site, uh, on the other side of town and he's asking all his patients to to move over to the new site, which is a bit naughty, um, and we found out on the grapevine, but literally two weeks before the wedding day was going to complete and it was two weeks before that that we found all of this out. So we had to. We've gone through the whole process, whole due diligence, legals, everything spent a lot of money, but we had to bail out, you know, at that time. So that was a sort of first intake into potential practice ownership. But I think at that point you know, when you're going through the due diligence, you have all these plans and aspirations of what you're going to do to the new place and how you're going to take your own stamp there and everything else.
Dr. Kaival:And we knew that okay, well, we wanted to own that practice. So went through probably another dozen or so site visits, different practices, put a few offers in different practices. None of it came to any avail. And then found this one place, beautiful building in Milton Keynes, big place, massive car park, really old, established list. I loved it and went to go see it, got along really well with the owners and put in the offer and I thought, well, this is it. And it got rejected as well, so this was in 2014.
Dr. Kaival:But then I was on holiday a few months later and you know what, by that time I'd just given up, because I've seen so many places I've, you know, went through all this process. You get excited so many times Just given up. But on the off chance, I was on holiday and I just pinged them an email and said look, how's things going with the sale, hope you guys are well. And they came back to me and said well, actually, the people buying it, the finance, isn't seemingly going through or there was some issue with the sale. So I was in Dubai, I think, and I called the bank manager that was helping us for the previous sale that fell through.
Dr. Kaival:So he already knew us. We already had a relationship. I said, look, I need a letter showing that I'm good for the money for this offer. Send me that letter and I'm gonna email it over to them. I emailed it over to them and they accepted the offer and a few months later we we had the first practice in 2015. So yeah, that's a little bit of how it all started.
Dr James:I, you know I love stuff like that. It's all about opening doors, isn't it, you know? Because that email that was a little bit of a dice roll, just like, hey I'm here, how's it going? Something along those lines. And that's the thing about, um, I heard a saying the other day hopefully I can remember this correctly Something along the lines of the thing about. The thing about opportunities is they look like risk at the time. It's only in the rear view mirror that you realize are opportunities and this is the thing you know. So that was a huge opportunity because it led such amazing things. But buying a practice naturally risky. Have you always been so risky? You always had that sort of character? You know, you like to roll the dice sort of thing, or was that like a skill you had to build with time? Have you always had that element to your persona? Just curious, yeah 100?
Dr. Kaival:yeah, yeah, I have, and actually that's why trina is my, my, you know, yin to the yang really. So she's very risk averse, um, and and she's the one that will sense, check things. That I'm, you know, looking into. And but also, I think, as time's gone on, you know it's a case of, well, you know, Kaival, if you believe in something, you dream in something, you're going to make it happen. So, you know, there is that, that sort of freedom with it. But obviously it happens over time.
Dr. Kaival:You know, at that point we've got nothing, um, we, we were, she was just expecting our first child, um and um. But you know we don't have the funds behind us, we didn't have tons of savings or anything like that. You know, um, we didn't come from money in terms of family, um, which always there to support us, but it wasn't that you know, that sort of, you know, safety blanket there. So everything had to, had to, had to sort of work, you know, for it to tap and you had to go into it a hundred percent. You know you couldn't be half-assed with it because you're not going to get anywhere.
Dr James:And I actually think that that's the thing that sometimes makes or breaks the risk. The thing that you you've invested in, so to speak, is how much you believe in it. Right, and it doesn't mean that it is going to pan out, but it gives it the best chance possible. And that's why not to get too ethereal and philosophical, but even if you just bring it right back to how strong your convictions are, that can actually give you the greatest likelihood of succeeding. And again, not to get too ethereal as well. Whether you win or lose, the opportunity pans out. It's the things that you learn that will then be useful to you later in life and in the next opportunity that comes along. So you're always winning if you make it about the learnings in a way.
Dr. Kaival:Anyway, anyway, Okay, so you've got the first practice.
Dr James:Yeah, you agree with me.
Dr. Kaival:Really yes, 100% right, 100% right.
Dr James:You are, yeah, 100% right. That's what gets me fired up right there. Egg time man. If you make it a point of learning, you're always winning, man, always winning, anyway. So got the first practice and got it up and running. Did it go smoothly? Did it not go smoothly? How did that look?
Dr. Kaival:Yeah, so made every mistake going, James, literally every mistake. So it was a massive place, seven surgeries. We had no idea about the business side of dentistry, um and um, and the aim was basically big place, big patient base. I I was really into implants at that point, done the, done that, you know, degree in it and um, and the plan was for me to be a bit of a nomad, so working between whatever there was spare space in the surgeries and just just do the implant side of things, sedation and Invisalign, you know, short-term orthodontics, because they didn't do any of that in that place. So that's where the big potential was in this. In the practices they just they didn't do anything higher end. So that was going to be the aim. But but ultimately, and I was so enthusiastic so even before we bought the practice, I bought a cbct machine, right. So it's there, ready, ready to sort of go in. But I say by ball, I've got the financing read and everything is ready to to sort of move in. So literally week one where you know ready to to sort of move in. So literally week one where you know ready to sort of go, bought the practice, got the keys and I'm wanting to install this CBCT machine where their practice has probably not done anything in like 10 years. And then there's me suddenly wanting to get a CBCT machine, get everything in there going and change the whole place up.
Dr. Kaival:And all the dentists there were probably on the latter stage of their career, um, and it was a complete, you know, complete disparity between me and what me and shrina wanted to do there and and where they were in their career. And then gradually I sort of got ground down because it felt like I was always on this sort of uphill. You know, anything cool I did new uniform, new equipment, and you know I wanted all this tech stuff and whatever else, but I just didn't have, you know, the team that wanted it to Support Is that a good word, support? And they just weren't on the same page. And they were not bad people they're brilliant dentists, you know, had lovely patient bases, but it was completely just not on that same path.
Dr. Kaival:And I think that's what I learned the most in in those first few years is actually um, you know, if I have that vision and if I have that pathway, then I need the team, so it can't just be me in a practice wanting to make it happen, I have to have the people around me, um, to do it, and and I did a sort of article recently about squat practices versus buying existing practices and that's the big downside to an existing practice sometimes is you're inheriting a team that already have a different sort of culture and belief, whereas the squat practice you can get that going from day one.
Dr James:Well, just to interject slightly, just for just for a second. This is the thing, right, because, uh, when you've got that entrepreneurial energy, you're just full of beans like you literally buzz off change right and it's it's hard to remember that maybe 90, 95 percent of people are not really like that.
Dr James:You know what I mean or maybe it's not whether they are, they aren't, maybe just not to the same degree. Yeah, and you come in and you're all excited and, from your perspective, you're just like, right, everybody's gonna love this. Yeah, this is it right, because you just think everybody thinks like you or like us or whatever. Yeah, and you gotta be. It's a big lesson to learn, isn't it? We've all been there and, um, yeah, how can I say this? How you come across is the, the young guy right? The upstart is in here to mix stuff up and change things and break things and cause all sorts of chaos. That's how you can come across. So it's just about negotiating that, right? So how did you negotiate it? I'm just curious to know.
Dr. Kaival:Yeah, to be honest, I think this was the biggest mistake and it's the thing that we don't do in any of the new practices. We sort of take over and I just let it fly. You know, for a long time I sort of let them get on with whatever they were doing and I built the practice around them. And I don't suggest this, but that's what I saw in Nishi, milton Keynes, where all the referrals were going elsewhere. So this was a big place that had surgery space and everything else, and so I created a referral center in that first practice and got the marketing out there. I love marketing. You know. We did a lot of marketing in and around the area, got amazing specialists involved and actually started this sort of referral base.
Dr. Kaival:You know part of the business which I loved and it was something new and exciting and different. I did my thing. Like I said, I never took over anybody's room. I literally was. Whenever there was free days I'd work in those. I was like this nomad going between surgeries, but I just got on with my business, my work.
Dr. Kaival:But I think when you look back on it, we didn't know the numbers in the place, you know, and actually I was earning less as a principal than I was as an associate, which is common, I hear it all the time, but it's it's. You know, there's this perception of you know principles and whatever they do, but actually, um, yeah, earning a lot less, and I was earning less take home, but I was grossing more, you know, in terms of the practice, I was grossing a lot of money there, but it was all getting sucked into the practice and yeah so. But that's what I did. I sort of moved around it and then, eventually, it came to a point where I was getting a little bit, I guess, upset, or I felt like the practice wasn't mine. I don't know if that makes sense, but it felt like I was going into a business on certain days and it wasn't my energy, it wasn't my, I was trying to fight almost on a daily basis.
Dr. Kaival:And I think that's the point where we just said, actually, do you know what? We've done it for a little while. We understand the business a little bit more. We need our own North Star, we need to know what we're trying to achieve, and then people are either on board or they're not, you know, at that point, and it took a few years to transition. You know that side of it and a bit of help when COVID arrived and all these sort of things, ironically, but it took that time, you know, four or five years probably, to to make that happen.
Dr. Kaival:Um, and then when it happened, you know it was, it was like just a breath of fresh air. You know, when you get rid of a bit of negativity in a place, you don't notice that's there, but it's just this sort of pressure wheel that's going on around you and then suddenly it's gone and there was just this calm, you know. And then, and then you realize actually I did the right thing, because this is this is exactly what I need to do to move and progress. And I had a whole different mindset, um, and, and I could do things I wanted to do, which is all positivity and it was all development, um, for, for the practice, do you know what?
Dr James:um, interestingly, I never I knew that. What you know, it's important to kind of crystallize our north star and what have you. But I didn't fully appreciate how important that was until I read a book very recently called traction by gino wickman. Have you ever read it? I've not read it. No, oh, my god, it's such a good book, especially for business owners, right.
Dr James:And uh, once upon a time I used to be like kind of cynical about that stuff, like, oh yeah, north Star, airy Ferry, whatever right, I kind of I didn't really get it, you know. And now I'm the exact opposite and I'm like, actually that's essential, right, because how can you say that someone is a good fit or not a good fit unless you know what you're trying to achieve and where you're going to go? Right, like it's a little bit like if you're going on the journey point a to point b, then you got to actually define where point b is before you can say that you're literally going in the right direction or you're going in the exact opposite. Until you do that, well, it's not defined. So I like that book because give you a methodology to do that and, as you said.
Dr. Kaival:But I think. I think there's a limit to it as well, because you know there's loads of people that mapped out the next 30 years. There's so much changes within that time. You know within within your personal life, within professional life, within the economy and everything else, that I feel like you know if you've got a general theme of what you're trying to achieve. But things will change. If I speak to you five years, James, things would have been completely different for yourself and probably for me, from what we expected. But I think if you're generally in that trajectory, then you're on the right route.
Dr James:You're right, overplanning is definitely a thing too, and we definitely need to be conscious of that. So it sounds like you went through that journey or series of epiphanies yourself, and then what did you? Ok, this would be brilliant, right, because not only have you implemented that, you actually saw the results of implementing that as well, and you touched upon this just now. You said that there were certain people that were not necessarily aligned, and maybe recognizing that is a little bit like ripping off a band-aid. You got to do it, basically, and then how did things shift after that? Did that give you clarity on the next practice and the next practice and the next practice? I'm curious yeah, so.
Dr. Kaival:So 2015 we got the first one. 2017 we got the second one, um, which was also in milton keynes, um, and the plan at that point was and actually we literally had two kids at this in the same years of those two practices. So the joke was, every practice I get, I'm gonna have a kid. So I had to just move away, you know, out next door for any future practices, just in case.
Dr James:Uh, but yeah, okay, I'll let it. We'll let everybody do their own math on that.
Dr. Kaival:So 20, yeah, 2017, for the sake of practice. And shrina was working in there, um, and that was going to be life. So I was in in this one, she was in the other Again, it's another large site and then COVID hit, so obviously, 2020. And I had this eye condition. I think I was probably winking at too many people in my younger days, but since I was sort of 21, I've had this eye condition and during COVID it really flared up. So I think it must have been the stress and everything else going on, you know around it and I remember, you know, like not really properly being able to see, you know, in front of me in large, you know longer distances, and I thought, you know, everything was closed at that point. So I thought I just maybe my glasses need a change or whatever, and but I ended up finding out that the flare-up, that you know the condition I had really flared up at that time. So at that point you sort of had to make a call where the I just felt like I didn't want the clinical side of dentistry to be taken away from me. I wanted it to be my choice. You know whether it's going to happen or not, and so, and incidentally, actually, I saw a specialist and it's much, much better, better and, and you know, everything sort of worked out. But during that time you didn't know, everything was closed. All you had is time to think, you know, and sort of plan out, and and actually I spoke to sreenaza and we both decided well, you know, we actually like the business side of dentistry. Um, we loved the clinical side before, but we actually liked. And we were on this entrepreneur program with a bank, which was amazing actually, and if anybody can get onto any of these programs, I really highly recommend it, because you were in environments that were not dentists. It was startup businesses with loads of energy, loads of wanting to make their career sort of go. And what we realized actually, which was a bit unusual, is both Trina and I both love the business side of dentistry, whereas often in a couple there might be one that loves the clinical side a bit more than the business side, or vice versa.
Dr. Kaival:And also, covid allowed us to run the numbers, so we figured out break-even points per surgery, per day in the practices and all these things to figure out why we weren't really earning that money. And we realized that actually, you know we had to do one of two things. One is either grow the business or the second is tighten up, and we're very much on growth, you know. So we, we figured out ways that we can, we can grow the practices, adding a surgery. So the seventh surgery place got it became an eight surgery.
Dr. Kaival:Um, we factored in these things, but also the development side. We wanted to upskill our team, our dentists, um, and make them enjoy coming to work, enjoy the the, you know, and, and like I said to you before, we have people that weren't aligned with us initially, but actually at this point we're hiring people that want to develop, want to learn, and actually I say in my interviews all the time you know, there's loads of associate positions out there. Go for it, you know. But if you want to develop, if you want to progress yourself, then we're the right place because that's what we want from you, and if you don't, we're probably not the right place, you know, because that's not the ethos we have within our group.
Dr. Kaival:So, yeah, so, but to make it happen and to make me move out the clinical side, we had to grow the group, and that's where Kana Health Group actually came about, because by that point it was just Oxford House, the name of the practice, wilson House. But we thought, yeah, we need a brand, we need to grow that brand and, as we do, we need to have, you know, grow the group actually and go from there. But we always grew it, knowing the types of practices. We wanted to buy locality and these sort of things were important as well around it.
Dr James:So, yeah, Wow, and that actually was something I was really keen to explore and talk about today, because it's so easy to just keep getting the next dental practice and the next dental practice and absolutely nothing wrong with that, by the way, you know, if you want to become very successful doing that, uh and um, I guess it'd be interesting to explore the mindset which made you think actually this is bigger than just dental practice, and I want to go into the education side of things and everything along those lines. So, if I got that right, that's what kind of health group is, is the dental practice and also the education. Maybe there's more to it as well.
Dr. Kaival:Yeah, so in terms of the education part, we used to hold courses for our own associates from the get go really. But everything's really based in London, in Manchester, and there's a whole big middle part of the country and a lot of our associates, if they wanted to do a structured course, would have to travel, you know, and let's say they were coming back of maternity, all these sort of things. It just didn't make it make it easier and I love the development side of it. So I'm very grateful to a lot of people that, a lot of the speakers that ended up coming onto course because we were nothing, you know, nobody had heard about us. I reached out to what I felt were the best speakers in each sort of category and said, look, I'd really like to host a course in in Milton Keynes, which has got some teeth behind it, so an accreditation with it, and you know it will be a diploma. Are you guys on board? And all the guys that are on our course? In terms of the speakers, they all literally gave up their time, they got involved with it and we created this aesthetic and restorative diploma for dentists and had this facility which was like a. It was a training. Well, it was a. We used it for our meetings opposite. One of the practices converted that into a beautiful sort of educational you know place and speakers and you know screens and lighting and all this sort of stuff. Uh, and then, two, it'll be three years ago now.
Dr. Kaival:We we had our sort of first course, first year, first cohort, um, and from then it's really grown. Um, but I love being, I love being the middle guy, James, I love bringing people together, um. So I, you know, I thought I couldn't teach, and certainly the clinical side of it, um, but I wanted the best speakers in these categories to be there and people not having to travel all over the place. But our USP was then to try and attract local dentists and that got blown out of the water. We have people from Ireland coming over and we had, you know, from all over the country. So I think the actual course itself is is very good and the speakers and the education content is good. So so now it's just, the USP is a great bloody course with a lot of learning, a lot of hands-on element to it.
Dr. Kaival:And then from then, I didn't, I always wanted I mean, our rule in the group is you might be with me for like one year or five years or 10 years or to the end of your career. But during that period I want you to have progressed and that's whether you're a dentist or a nurse or a reception team member or a practice manager. So I want the academy to be a hub for the whole wider team and that's what we're developing going forward. Um, and then the next sort of stage of kind of health group, I think is to have different elements and different businesses in part of dentistry. So we're probably going to have a recruitment arm and sort of go from there and it's why we called it kind of health group and rather than just kind of dental group. And you know, at one point I was looking at, maybe looking at different sort of healthcare businesses which might look at in the future. But trying to get time and focus and not go in too many directions and lose focus, I think is a critical part.
Dr James:You're so right and listen, two things that you said that I just want to pick up on. I'm going to circle right back to something you were saying maybe like 10, 15 minutes ago, and it was about how you went on an entrepreneur's course that was not full of dentists, right, and it really, really, really does shift your thinking when you meet people who are outside of the sphere. And you know, with love, we all don't realize how much we think like dentists until we meet people who aren't dentists. Like we just do, right, and I mean that in a nice way, you know and listen, those are the sorts of things that led me to Dentists Who Invest as well, like exploring finance, which is helpful for dentists, but not dentistry, basically. And then obviously, that led to the group, the community, all the things that I'm hugely grateful for and hugely proud of, and hoping to expand those and for those to continue growing. But, like I say, that all started through me exploring outside of dentistry and if I could go back and talk to myself when I was younger, I said, James, do more of that. Right, you know.
Dr James:But at the same time, you just pour a need to pour a little bit of cold water on that. Don't you cave, because all of a sudden you can be like, right, wow, I'm gonna go crazy and do all this stuff. That's the constant struggle of an entrepreneur. Right, there's that balance, yeah, between being focused and also thinking laterally. And if you're too lateral, you're too scatterbrained. If you're too focused, you're sometimes missing out no opportunities. But that's the, that's the game we play, that's the balance that we strive for, isn't it?
Dr. Kaival:and I think with practice acquisitions, you know we have quite a clear process of where we go. You know we'll get the numbers. We'll figure out, actually, where the numbers work, especially on an associate sort of led model, if it's there or thereabouts, what do we need to do to make the numbers work? And actually there have been many practices we've seen there where it doesn't work. So and and you know, on the outside of it you think, oh, this will be an amazing place to actually get, but actually if the numbers don't work or won't work, that it's not a very good business decision, and I think it's it's important to not always be led with the heart. The heart will probably lead you there, but you do need to get the mind involved, um, during it, you know as well to make the right decision, and but sometimes we were talking before sometimes it's risk. You gotta, you know, be able to take risks as well, um, so it's a really delicate balance, isn't it, James?
Dr James:it's. It's one of the eternal struggles of an entrepreneur. And then another big one is um, okay, do I stick on the path that I'm already on or do I mix it up and go for something else different? And that's the grass is always greener versus plugging away at something that isn't necessarily giving us that greater return. Anyway, it's all. It's all food for thought, really, isn't it? You know what? You actually said something really interesting just then which I feel like would be really useful for the listeners of the podcast. It sounds like you got a little bit of a system or protocol for when you find a new practice and you're kind of weighing it up and assessing it. If you're and naturally I know there's going to be like loads to this and a billion layers to it, and part of it will be in creation inevitably is there a little bit of a checklist that you could share with the listeners today by way of how that looks, that might be useful for them or things to look out for it's probably less complex than you think.
Dr. Kaival:Really, I think my my first step is I always want to see the accounts. Um, I want to, ideally want to see the accounts. I ideally want to see management accounts because you know it's something more current, and to know whether the cash flow of the business works. And you're plugging into the loan and you're putting a bit of a stress test in terms of if that loan interest rates increase, can you cover that loan? Can you cover the expenses that you have? Then we have it on a benchmark.
Dr. Kaival:So what does a normal practice in this sort of level, what should be the key sort of line items? What should the staff wages be, for example? What should you know other set of expenses be? And if there's a really big outlier, then actually I see it as an opportunity. Probably not staff wages, because that's a difficult one to negotiate. But let's say they're spending loads on materials or lab fees or these sort of things. Well, there must be a reason to that, and so we'll play around with those, those numbers to an extent, and and then you know one-off costs and and these sort of things have that they put personal expenses through um, the business and and you know um, but then also sometimes you know um that they over-inflate the profit um. You know with, with saying that, like I used to see, quite a few COVID loans used to get put into the accounts, but it was.
Dr. Kaival:So you have to be a little bit clued on with some of it nothing to say here yeah, so, so yeah, and then you, you figure out, you know truly whether you can afford it and what do you. If you know, what do you need to do to grow it? Now we're very good with the marketing side of it, I believe. Um, so I know that we can invest money into marketing and and get something out of it, um, and then you're just looking for opportunities. So then in the actual business itself, you know, are they doing higher end work for us? We have a bit of a hub and spake model as well, so we've got this referral center, but the other practices can refer into the referral center as well, which overall increases the sort of group income. So is there an option of doing that? Or is there an option of creating another hub and spoke model somewhere else? And can we add specialists or can we add higher end work and treatments and these sort of things in there? So these are the sort of things like, basically, where are your opportunities? But does it work financially sitting on its own?
Dr. Kaival:And we ended up buying a partnership practice with one of my associates and we bought that because we wanted somebody actually within the practice itself to drive the business, because we're finding that the sort of more practices we have. Shreena and I can't be as involved, you know, in the day-to-day. Well, we are involved day-to-day but we can't be involved in driving that clinical side, you know, on a day-to-day basis. So, having these partners and we've just piloted it and it's gone really, really well with a partner it really helps.
Dr James:Yeah, time and bandwidth become the ultimate constraints past a certain point, and that's why it's so helpful to be able to leverage someone else's brain, which is effectively what that is when you've got somebody else who's involved in the decision-making. You said something really interesting. Well, you said a few things there, really, and you were like okay, cool, we're looking at the practice and then we're also looking at the areas where we think we can add value, and those are those are the practices that represent good opportunities. One thing that you mentioned was marketing, and you said that because you are au fait or have some a decent level of proficiency in that side of things, and a lot of dental practice could be so much better at marketing. Right like that. That's just a given. We all know that, yeah. So I'm just curious in terms of marketing from your perspective, how do you add value to this practice? Is it like google ads? Is it creating an instagram account for the practice? How does that look?
Dr. Kaival:or a bit everything, really, maybe so again, I think, the practices I tend to look at. I look at practices within communities and the first part, overall, the best revenue return on investments, word about. So actually, if you can get a practice going well within a community, that's step one. So can you get that out there to local businesses? Can you get collaborations on social media? We will always create sort of you know social media accounts with them and what these people want to see is a bit. They want to build a bit of rapport before they come into the practice any potential new patients. So show the personality of the place you know. Show dentists having fun, say happy birthday to people on you know your team members with an actual picture of them there. Show their personality, because that way you're building that community aspect of it and they sort of know you before they even come into that practice. So that sort of step one is that community part, but also building the reputation of the practice. And then the second part yes, google PPC, but it costs a lot to get it.
Dr. Kaival:So you've got, obviously, facebook marketing. You've got TikTok now, which is there and all of these, even Instagram and Reels and these sort of things. They have different markets that you can explore. I'm very lucky. We have an amazing marketing manager, jesse, who is far more current than me and really, really creative, and we've got a head of growth and development in our team as well, lee, who focus on growth. And then we've got Shreena and another team member, kieran, who focus on projects and Shreena's the operations side. So we've sort of got both sides covered. But we need that ingenuity and growth and looking at new trends and all these sort of things in terms of the market. But the thing I've probably learned the most recently is you've got to track that bloody money, so you need to know what's working.
Dr James:Oh my god, when you said that just then, I was like yes, 100%.
Dr James:There's a huge difference in spending money on ads and spending money on ads and actually analyzing what the returns are. Also, if you, if you tweak something on the ads, you want to know how it's going to affect things. That literally happened to me two days ago. Right, I changed something and I was like this is a no-brainer, this is going to work, and it actually did the exact opposite of what I expected it to do. But yeah, I never would have realized that if I actually measured the data. And then when I was looking at it today, I was like I'm pretty sure, if I just do the opposite of what I thought I should have done there, it probably would have worked better. But yeah, you're right, you're right. Listen, Kaival. I Go on. Sorry, sorry, sorry, no.
Dr. Kaival:I'm just saying you just don't know until until you actually have the hard numbers in front of you, you know what a campaign has done in terms of bumps in seats and actual revenue from those bumps in seats. You know afterwards. So, yeah, yeah it's crazy.
Dr James:It's crazy. You, master. What you measure is a saying that I love, and it's really true. You can see the answers just staring back at you when you're having dinner.
Dr. Kaival:I want to share something with you, kipo.
Dr James:Just one more thing before we wrap up. I was talking about oops, I was talking about the book Traction earlier and how I really like that. Off the back of that, I've actually got another book here called Measure what Matters. I don't know if you've ever come across this, I don't know. Yeah, apparently this is a business classic, this book, and it's all about setting good KPIs, which sounds really dry, but it gets people excited. So I don't know. Maybe I'll let you know. I'll send you a book review. How about that Kevil, or?
Dr James:maybe I'm a reader, but it might be, helpful? I don't know.
Dr. Kaival:I think I'll read it. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that measuring part is so, so important. Just get to grips with your numbers. As a bare minimum you know for any practice owners or if you're about to be practice owners, just get the grips with your numbers, know what your breakeven point is for a day, because everything above that is profit right. And those are the sort of key elements where it gives you these comfort factors and actually, when you're comfortable in a business, you'll grow it because you're not stressing about all the minutia.
Dr James:Boom, there we go. Kaival Kaival. I just want to thank you personally for sharing your time, wisdom and knowledge on the podcast today. We could probably make I had so much more questions it was just in my head then when you were talking and I'm sure we could probably make like five follow-up podcasts. So let's think about that at some stage. We'll plan that for the future. We'll come back to that 100, but in the meantime I just want to thank you on behalf of myself, on behalf of the listeners on the podcast. If people want to connect with you or find out more about Kana, health, grip and the education platforms that you run, how would they be best off doing that?
Dr. Kaival:yes, so in terms of the academy um kana dental academy. com, please feel free to go to the website and have a little look and to connect to it with me instagram, um, facebook, linkedin, um, you know anything to be honest, they can go through through yourself. James, I'm always happy to, to share and collaborate and I'm an open book. So, yeah, absolutely happy to help any of your listeners in any way I can wunderbar.
Dr James:Well, listen Kaival as I say. Thank you so much. Let's not let this be the last podcast, for sure. Let's lock it in now with a virtual handshake for anybody who's there, we're literally shaking hands we're air shaking hands right now. That's going to happen. In the meantime, we have a smashing thursday and we'll see each other very soon, James, thank you so much for having me complete pleasure, mate.
Dr. Kaival:See you soon.
