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
Practice Profitability Hacks with Dr. Amit Jilka
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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What if the key to transforming your dental practice profitability wasn't working harder, but working smarter? Dr. Amit Jilka's journey provides a masterclass in strategic dental business growth that any practice owner can learn from.
Starting with a modest single-surgery practice generating £300,000 annually in 2012, Dr. Jilka has built a remarkable dental enterprise now spanning 18 chairs across multiple locations, with a team of 35 clinicians completing over 550 implants and 400 orthodontic cases yearly. The transformation wasn't accidental, but methodically engineered through three critical pillars: exceptional Treatment Coordinators, comprehensively trained associates, and outstanding practice managers.
The revelation of properly implemented TCOs is perhaps most striking. Unlike the common misconception that TCOs are merely glorified receptionists, Dr. Jilka's TCOs conduct 30-45 minute appointments, performing scans, discussing financing, and comprehensive treatment options before patients even meet the dentist. This approach has dramatically increased both treatment plan acceptance rates (from 60% to 80% for implants) and overall treatment values.
What's particularly fascinating is Dr. Jilka's counterintuitive approach to personal clinical time. By reducing his own clinical hours to just half a day weekly and dedicating several days to mentoring associates instead, he initially took a personal income hit – but saw practice profitability soar. This powerful demonstration of working ON rather than IN the business highlights the leverage gained through systematic associate training and development.
The practice also employs distinct workflows for different treatment modalities, recognizing that implant and orthodontic patient journeys require different approaches to nurturing and conversion. Their structured follow-up protocol for high-value implant consultations exemplifies the attention to detail that drives their exceptional performance.
Whether you're struggling with case acceptance, associate productivity, or finding time to strategically grow your practice, Dr. Jilka's proven systems offer a roadmap to greater profitability without sacrificing clinical excellence or work-life balance. Ready to transform your dental practice from surviving to thriving? The blueprint is right here.
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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. Investment figures quoted refer to simulated past performance and that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results/performance.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Dempsey Invest Podcast. This is an episode I've been meaning to do for absolutely ages with Dr Amit Jilka, because I was flipping, blown away when I met Amit for the very first time in real life, at a live day, at a course, at a program. I was blown away by his knowledge and just how much he knows about making implants profitable and also about making Invisalign profitable as well. And big clue, big, big hint, big tip, spoiler alert it starts with being incredibly efficient and giving loads of value to our patients. But more on that in just a minute. First of all, amit, how are you?
Dr Amit:I'm good, thank you.
Dr James:Wunderbar, wunderbar. So, Amit, there'll be some people listening to this who've met you and some people who have yet to meet you. If we could have a little bit of an intro, what that would mean is that everybody could get to know you a little bit and what you're about.
Dr Amit:Yeah. So yeah, I'm Amit Jhoka. I graduated in Sheffield, bought a practice a couple of years, just straight out of university in 2012. It was a one surgery practice called Abbey House Dental and we built it all the way up to three practices on one road and now have 13 surgeries across the three sites, Recently launched a new practice in Stoke-on-trent squat practice and have recently also launched our academy as well abbey house dental, the academy. So yeah, a lot going on um and I think what we're well known for is um hitting high implant numbers and hitting high invisalign numbers um, and also the value that we give patients and the value we give to our associates. We feel like we give a really, really good service to our associates, which we think is very important.
Dr James:Love that and it absolutely is. And do you know what? You know it in that very first practice that you mentioned, abbey House, wasn't it?
Dr Amit:Yeah.
Dr James:Yeah, I know we were talking a little bit off camera beforehand and you were saying there's a little bit of a story there when it comes to how you took the business from where it was to where it is. So do you know what? We didn't actually get the chance to cover that, you and I, when we were talking just beforehand. What a beautiful opportunity to cover it. Right now Everybody's listening, because what that would mean is that they can get a real understanding of just how well you've done on that front.
Dr Amit:That would mean is that they can get a real understanding of just how well you've done on that front. Yeah so, um, yeah so I graduated in 2008 um and did max facts for a year, had a passion that I wanted to learn implants and do implants, but also wanted to own a practice straight away. And, oh yeah, looked at a number of practices and at the time we you know, I was living in birmingham and staffordshire, wasn't too far saw a small little practice, didn't want to take too much risk. It was, it was a one surgery practice with a small hygiene room, so like one and a half surgeries and thought perfect, ideal for me and my wife the two of us to to kind of move in.
Dr Amit:So 2012 we bought the practice um and in those days it was actually very, very straightforward to get loans um, considering what we had to put um. The turnover practice at the time was about 300k and so it's a very small practice. Had a nhs contract as well and we had to. We pretty much got the um a full loan for it, 100 loan um from the bank because you know, straight out of max fax didn't have much income, didn't have much money behind me, and it was just, uh, yeah, the banks were just willing to lend in those days. Very different story now. Um, everyone being so cautious, especially, you know, when we get to it, talking about the, the funding for the squat practice recently was a very, very difficult um, but yeah, so we, you know, bought the practice and then 2012 did the start.
Dr Amit:My implant training with uh, raw college surgeons and um continued to grow the implant side, which grew the practice significantly. Um, and then I think one of the critical points was when my wife really got into invisalign and we joined the my smart network with sandeep kumar um and from that and training our tcos and really pushing the digital side of dentistry, we grew from two surgeries to five surgeries, to 13 surgeries and now, including the new site, you know we've got 18 chairs now and you know, doing significant numbers of both of those treatments as well as all the other parts of dentistry as a practice. We're quite well known for sedation as well. We do a lot of sedation and get a lot of referrals for that. So we've kind of grown our dentistry on offering patients the full plethora of dentistry and not just specific treatments.
Dr James:Gotcha. Okay. So one of the means that you achieved that enhancement in numbers was by enhancing the scope of treatment.
Dr Amit:Exactly, yeah, definitely Wonderful, okay.
Dr James:And then, as well as that, within those different modalities of treatment. It was also about thinking, okay, how can we be efficient? Can we be efficient as in, how can we do a really good job for the patient, first and foremost, but also be so efficient such that we can provide a huge number of implants every single year and a huge number of Invisalign treatments every single year? Do you have any numbers and stats on those, just so everybody can get a little bit of a feel for where you're at?
Dr Amit:yeah, so we're doing about, in terms of ortho cases, we're doing 400 plus cases um and in terms of implant numbers, we're hitting about 550 600 a year um at the moment I see, okay, and is that across all the 13 surgeries?
Dr James:yeah, yeah, so that's across the whole group. Brilliant, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, all right, cool. So just to go back to the story we were talking a second ago, the practice started out 300k turnover 300k turnover yeah right got you and do you know what that's interesting and how many that was on two surgeries two, yeah well, I'd say one.
Dr Amit:One surgery in a hygiene tiny little room, which it was, which, yeah, we quickly got changed amazing and you know what.
Dr James:There'll be a lot of people who maybe are in that boat right now and they'll be thinking to themselves just what do I do to hit the next level of profitability? What were the first few things that you changed or enhanced to begin to see an increase in revenue in the business? Apart from, apart from the scope of treatment we know that that's, that's relevant what were the things that we did within the, the surgery, as well as that?
Dr Amit:so, yeah, so we, we um built more surgeries. Okay, simple, but if you don't have enough surgeries, you can't see enough patients. And we train, we got therapists in and therapists um increase the scope of treatments we can do, increase the capacity of what we could do, and we really. What really made us fly was the whole implementation of the TCO and having the TCO as the first patient contact. Once that patient sees the TCO, conversion rates went up. Having a dedicated room for the TCOs and scanners for the TCOs, I think, just changes the whole practice, which means you as a clinician can start becoming really, really efficient in what you're doing, but also, more importantly, the patient gets a significantly better experience of the practice.
Dr James:You know what? I saw a poll the other week on Facebook I can't remember what Facebook group it was on and the poll was do you have a TCO, yes or no? And there's still. Everybody talks, everybody raves about TCOs. Nowadays. There's still 60% of dental practices who don't have TCOs, which I thought was fascinating.
Dr Amit:Yeah, it's interesting and I think when some practice say they've got a TCO, they're not really TCOs, they're just they're really NPCs. You know, the new patient is usually just on the phone and chatting to people. What we see as a TCO is a patient facing almost a clinician that's scanning and going through treatments and options, with the patient discussing it being part of the whole patient journey, just as much as the actual dentist is.
Dr James:Um, can I just say npc nice video game reference there. I really enjoyed that. For anybody for anybody who's not necessarily a gamer npc means non-playable characters, so so they're usually some sort of character in the background that the main protagonist doesn't really interact with or just sees in the periphery. So you definitely don't want your TCO to be that. You want them to be a protagonist, you want them to be involved in the practice.
Dr Amit:I think that works well. Yeah, they're either NPCs or from a new patient coordinator, or they're non-playable characters. They're not actually in the game either.
Dr James:So love that. I love that awesome. So what aspects of the tco and their involvement in your surgery did you notice were the most beneficial, or what? What changes did you make in so far as what, uh, what, what, what, what, what. What roles the tco fulfill for you, or how did you implement them into your practice?
Dr Amit:that's a better question and so they literally see the patient first up. So in terms of the consultation, they don't see the dentist, they see the TCO first, have a much more longer time to build rapport and chat to the patient and discuss treatment options and what they want before they go in to see the dentist for the consultation, for the clinical part. But prior to seeing the clinician, the TCO is getting the scan done, the photos done, discussing. You know how finance works as well, because a lot of patients do go for finance and so you know almost taking all of the stress out of dentistry away from them, but also letting the patient know what we do.
Dr Amit:Now a lot of dentists just do not come across to a patient about all the skill sets that they have. So you'll do a consultation, but that patient doesn't really know that. You can offer implants, you can do Invisalign, you can do whitening, you can do all of these things unless there's been a trigger word that the patient said and you're discussing it. What the TCO enables you to do is they are openly discussing what the practice offers. So the minute they come in for your consultation, tco is like patient wants whitening, he's nervous, possibly needs sedation, he's considering teeth straightening. And already your consultation is so much more thorough and more detailed and more direct to what the patient wants that your conversion rates would just skyrocket.
Dr James:That's cool as hell. And how long are those TCO appointments? How is that structured?
Dr Amit:So they're 45 minutes oh they're good solar appointments yeah good chunk for In invisalign and implants and they're half an hour if they're just a new patient gotcha and do you pay?
Dr James:do they? Do you charge for that? Uh the refundable deposit I see yeah and otherwise, it contributes towards the treatment yeah, so.
Dr Amit:But if they want to see the dentist so some patients will pay then it's the examination and consultation. At that point there's a filter so that patients can come in without any stress and if they don't want to go ahead, it's not wasting the dentist's time. But if they do want to go ahead, they're paying and they're committed. You know so. You know, dentists prefer it that way. Our associates prefer it that way that they're actually seeing patients that are already ready to go awesome and you strike me as someone who measures things in your business.
Dr James:Am I right in saying that? Yeah, yeah, oh, I love that, mate, I could, just I could. I knew that was coming, which is great, and the reason I knew that is because anybody who's really profitable measures things. You, you master what you measure. So I'm interested to know so treatment plan acceptance before you had your TCO, treatment plan acceptance rate as in percentage versus treatment plan acceptance rate after? Do you have any stats on?
Dr Amit:those, not any specific stats, but I would say that when they see the TCO the uptake of treatment is much greater, especially for new patients. So a new patient that's coming to just see a dentist, they will have treatment plans that are much lower in value total value than if a patient's in the TCO. Then the dentist, which to me is phenomenal, because that shows to me that sometimes some dentists are not consistently good at talking about everything, um, and you know what the tco does for a dental practice, and practice principle is it gives consistency to the conversion process that patients are being told everything and just because they're saying you know this dentist that can only offer invisalign, you know that means that dentist is only going to be talking about that one treatment, um, whereas a tcr will talk about everything, um, which again gives you consistency, and definitely some associates um are really good at that process themselves. Um, and some people really struggle with talking about money and all the different treatments, and so this almost just acts as almost like a signboard for you love it.
Dr James:So it's not only treatment plan acceptance percentage, it's also treatment plan value.
Dr Amit:Yeah yeah, exactly big time.
Dr James:Awesome, okay, cool. And just one more thing, because I'm geeking out on this right now, because I find this fascinating as well deal flow like whenever. Whenever there's an inquiry at the practice, do they is there any sort of filter system at that point? Uh, or just does everybody who inquires at the practice do?
Dr Amit:they pretty much go, uh, straight through to the tco and that's the primary so, yes, um, you know, we've got um a couple of and we've got a couple of people on telephone reception. We've got a call center that gets all the calls coming in, and then we have a number of NPCs, new patient coordinators.
Dr James:Oh sorry, when you said NPC earlier, I literally thought you meant non-playable characters. I thought that was a joke. I thought that was a joke.
Dr Amit:It kind of worked as a joke. You did well with that characters. I thought that was a joke. I thought it kind of worked as a joke. You did well with that.
Dr Amit:I thought that was a joke yes, anyway, I've actually basically handle new patient inquiries, um, and any inquiries that come through from our marketing. So if a patient um fills in a contact form on our website, if they fill in one of our Google ads, then it'll come up as a lead and then we contact the patient. And so the new patient coordinators are trained almost like TCOs, but purely on the phone, and they then will talk to the patient about what they want so that they're not coming in for a wasted appointment as well. So it's almost like a pre-screening before the CTCO. Some patients are happy just to have a free TCO consultation. Some patients want to have it all, so they'll see TCO and dentist and pay for it. But it's on the MPC to collect the deposit and pre-inform patient about what the process is and what's going on.
Dr James:Right, okay, awesome, awesome, awesome. Are you a big believer in scripts for those roles?
Dr Amit:We do have scripts but I think when it comes across natural from some of the telephone staff then it comes better. But initially when they train with us they have a script and then as they get better at their own job, they know what they're doing. Then it becomes a bit more natural. Yeah, but I think these scripts and key keywords is important for all of them all right, seems reasonable.
Dr James:Okay, cool. So the tco is a revelation. And once you got the tco in and once you got that fully embedded into your business and working really well, what do you think was the next step that allowed your business to flourish even more in the profitability front?
Dr Amit:the associates, having having associates that just are phenomenal at what they do clinically but also in communication as well. Um, we've hired some associates. Um, I mean, you know, all our associates are amazing and they work hard, but they all are part of our brand and our game and they understand what we're about. Um, they all personally get mentored by me and my wife. So, depending on where they are in their clinical journey, some want to go down the surgical route and do more comprehensive full mouth rehab, so they that's where I will mentor them. And some just want to do cosmetic dentistry, and so that's where my wife will mentor them in Invisalign and composite bonding and then after a couple of years or so, they're on their own.
Dr Amit:We openly train everyone in sedation, so most of our associates are trained in either IV or inhalation sedation, because it just adds to the patient journey. If you can offer all your treatments under sedation for anxious patients, it just opens up a whole different pathway for you as a patient and as a dentist. So, yeah, I think we've probably got the most sedation-trained people in a practice in the country. I'm pretty, yeah, but yeah, might be wrong there we are.
Dr James:Well, if you're training every single person, I think you're probably in with a good shot, but it sounds a bit, you know, in so far as having the most okay, cool, awesome. So tco, npc, that side of things, and then obviously the associates themselves. Here's what I'm always interested to learn, because, again, I geek out on this stuff massively specifically how things are structured in the surgery and, in terms of the diary, any hints and tips on that front. Zoning is a popular one, so that's an example. Is that something that you do or anything along those lines?
Dr Amit:um, so what I'll say, I'll say is that, um, yeah, so it's tco, uh, associate. And then the critical part of all of this for a business of our size is our managers. Um, and the managers. You know, we've got two managers and they're both ahead of the game. They always are. They're like two brains of me in the practice, every day, sorting things out, managing the diary, managing the tco is, you know, my, my role and my wife's role is mainly to look after the associates in their clinical journeys. It's the managers are all to make sure the marketing's done, the tcos are well trained, the npcs are well trained, the service patients are getting, and that all is combined, um, in terms of the diary management, that is all set by the managers and they, they, rather than letting it be in clinician led, it is pretty much based on MPCs and TCOs, because we're about giving the patient the easiest route to having treatment.
Dr Amit:You know, whereas when you have set rules for different different clinicians, it's very difficult to have different rules for different clinicians in different diaries when you're as big as you know. You know, I think we've got 35 clinicians at work with us. Um, so if all 35 had their own list of things that they wanted. It just wouldn't work. So you know, we have set rules um. Yes, we do have some clinicians that just do specific treatments, so that's almost like zoning um. And then some clinicians because we are, one of our practices is still nhs, so some of those clinicians will have private days and nhs days and that's clearly marked um. But we don't really zone it as such, as this is consultation clinic, this is treatment clinic. We're quite open with that okay, cool.
Dr James:yeah, just interested to know. Okay, top stuff, so we've covered the fundamentals, or would you say that there's anything more in there that you feel is really there's loads more? There's loads more, james, but you know how much? How much time do we have? Well, I thought that might be the answer. Yeah, good stuff, good stuff, okay cool.
Dr James:So let me see, we're about 20, 30 minutes into this podcast, so yeah, we got I feel like those were the things that were most seminal insofar as taking the business from where it was to where it is. Anything else you'd like to chuck in there, because we've still got a good little bit of time today and we want to make as much value for the listeners as possible.
Dr Amit:I think, just the overall workflow for a patient, specifically for implants. It's important that with implants it's a very clinical procedure. It's unlike invisalign that you know you can have consistency in the workflows. With implants you have to have a good workflow but it needs to be robust enough that you can have time to plan um. And so our workflows for invisalign and implants are completely different and in contrast with each other, but they both work really well for the treatment. That is so, I think, for a lot of practices they try and just have one workflow for every single treatment um. But what I'd say is that you need to be more specific in what you want your patient to have. Um.
Dr Amit:With implants, patient need a bit more time to think about whether they're going to go ahead. The spending significantly amounts more money. They need time to raise that finances and the finance that they may get they can only get some of it approved. So this is all things that with the Invisalign patient you can do all on the day. They can do the consultation, you can get the finance approved on the day and everything's set up and sorted. But with implant patients you just need to have a bit more of a robust system that there's a bit more of a follow-up with your implant patients, because some of them may not be ready for the journey with you, but within a couple of months' time they could be. But if you're not calling them, then they've forgotten about you or they're at another clinic or you know they'll delay it for another year. So it's very important that you are getting your implant consultations done, getting your treatment letters out and chasing them up, you know. Just don't expect the patients just to come and call when they're ready.
Dr James:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and what is? And we thought well, with going into as much detail as you're you're happy to, what is your policy or protocol on that? Is it like one week, uh, follow up on one month follow up?
Dr Amit:I don't know, two months follow up, something like that, as in they're set points that you're getting back to them or reminding them yeah, so at the point for implants, at the point when the treatment letter sent out out, we will call them on the day we send it out to say we've sent the treatment letter. Now, most of the time some of these patients would have already booked in for surgery, so that's already set in stone, but it's the patients that haven't committed to treatment that they will then get a phone call or an email at seven days, usually a week, and then a month, and then we chase it up, then monthly, until they tell us not to.
Dr James:Oh, okay, okay, fair enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, cool, and you find that that's quite effective, then Definitely, definitely for implant patients, because their journeys take a lot longer. And do you have any? Again going back to the data thing, no-transcript. Yeah, so from consultation to booking surgery initially is about is about 60 to 70. Oh, that's really high then.
Dr Amit:So really high, but that's for a paid consult, um. But then that number will increase over a year period to about 75 to 80. So not, it's not a massive jump, but these are big cases, you know. An invisalign case is three and a half to four and a half grand on average, but implant cases can be in excess of 20, 30 grand. So you know you're chasing for that extra 10 percent. There's big revenue there, you know. And also some patients, like I said, they just need to raise the finances. They know what the plan is, they're just figuring out how they're going to raise that money.
Dr James:But if you're not in contact with them then you'll just never have the opportunity 60% is a really good treatment plan acceptance rate for, especially for treatment plans that are grossing that amount of money. And then, yeah, as you said, that little 10, 15% that comes after that. That, because the treatment plans are so valuable, it makes it make sense from a commercial perspective to follow up the way that you're doing yeah, yeah, exactly I like that. Okay awesome, okay cool. We'll listen to some flipping gems that we've had here today.
Dr Amit:I'm curious how many days a week are you in? Clinic at the minute. Um, I'm probably down to half a day, half a day in clinic oh really interesting half a day in clinic, but then I'm doing two to three days mentoring the other associates oh, yeah, because I'm clinical but my own patients have got half a day worth a week at the moment and the rest of the week is is either management meetings or mentoring implants or sedation mainly.
Dr James:Well, that's the point of leverage in your business, isn't it? You know, you train these people and then they're going to, through your knowledge and wisdom. They're going to be able to continuously. The idea is that they'll continuously make profits and, of course, you know, be able to provide a better quality of service to the patient and everything on that front.
Dr Amit:Exactly. If you enable your own dentist in your practice to be able to treat an implant like you and they have the skills to then you will find that the number of implants you do as a practice will increase, the number of treatments you do as increases. If you try and just have that one guy that's doing everything and asking every associate to refer to you, we've found it doesn't work. Associates will generally offer patients what they can do on average. But if you give them the ammunition to say, yeah, I know how to do an implant, or at least plan for an implant, but I'll restore it.
Dr James:or you know, I know how to do ortho, suddenly the patients are being treatment planned very comprehensively, which means your uptake of treatment, your overall treatment plans, are much higher well, you know what, on that front, what I feel a lot of business owners struggle with is accepting as it is in taking the hit in terms of the income front on the on the front end for that huge gain of productivity on the back end.
Dr James:Because how does that look? Initially, you have to literally drop some clinical days, which is going to mean less money in the here and now, but very quickly that'll be coming back into your hand because you've trained these other people up and through the principle of leverage. What it will mean is that they're able to implement what you've taught them not just, not just in one surgery, but perhaps in several surgeries, which ultimately makes sense, but it's called building your lever, so to speak. You have to take some time out to build a lever, make it bigger in order to get more leverage, and then, when you come along and activate the lever, well then what it means at that point is that you have a lot more output. But that doesn't start unless you take some time out in order to construct it in the first place, which usually means that you have to take an upfront hit. Would you agree with me? I've seen that personally.
Dr Amit:Yeah, 100%. I mean, when I was fully clinical a few years ago, working five days, yes, my personal growth was very high and, you know, was doing a lot, but actually the practice, profitability and turnover increased when I dropped days and started to work on the business, started to have meetings with the manager so they were more productive and then started to focus on training associates. Practice just grew, grew, grew and it grows now without me doing anything, because these guys are now all trained to do all of these different treatments. So, yeah, you build, you build a team and then the team will grow for you amazing, cool.
Dr James:And did you notice there was like a little tiny period at the very start where there was a somewhat of a hit on the revenue front yeah, definitely, profitability dropped significantly in the year or two, but turnover turnover went up.
Dr Amit:You know, because, as a principle, your profit levels are generally what you take home, you know. But if you're relying on associates which we're not, because we still me and my wife, do a bit, but when you're trying to rely on associates, you need to gross and turnover significantly more to replace your own income. Gross and turnover significantly more to replace your own income. Otherwise, you know, I still think that you'd be more profitable, as we would be more profitable, if I'm being honest, as a practice, if I was five days clinical, because that's the income that I'll be keeping. Um, but this just enables us to grow other people, grow the business, spend more time with. You know. Meanwhile I've got three children. It gives us a better work-life balance. So it's not always about profit, um, it's about work-life balance yeah, two things.
Dr James:It's a mindset thing, I feel as well, the mindset being, uh, you know, it's very, it's so much it's so it's so easy to get caught up and working in the business rather than working on the business, because it feels so much more productive in the here and now.
Dr James:But bigger picture, if you take a step back and build that lever that we spoke about earlier, then what it will mean is it's better in the long run, but the mindset part of it is being able to understand that and take that hit hit a little bit at the start. And then the second thing is it's all about enjoyment as well. You know, there's a lot of dentists out there who just want to do four days a week clinical, five days a week clinical six, six or seven, however that looks, and maybe there's lots who don't necessarily enjoy that. So it's about designing a business. Here's here's what someone said to me once which I thought was really cool if you sit down and write out what your perfect life would look like and then you literally design your business around that, so it gives you your perfect life rather than the other way around. Very powerful, because you can totally do that yeah, exactly, I agree with you love that.
Dr James:All right, cool, I'm coming up to the 40 minute mark. I like to keep these podcasts powerful, punching, impactful from your experience in other dental practices. If you can go into other dental practices and wave a magic wand whenever it comes to profitability and pick three of the biggest areas for improvement, or three of the biggest things that you feel most dentists could be doing better when it comes to enhancing their numbers and enhancing the turnover of their business, what would you say? Those things are high level tco.
Dr Amit:Tco number one and number two is having um associates well trained in everything, not just one treatment, so that they can treatment plan. You know, you're not, you're looking at the overall treatment, not just the single treatment. And having exceptional managers. I think those three things TCO associates, managers, that's it. That's the you know, and I guess the principal as well. But I'm biased, aren't I?
Dr James:so Fair enough, fair enough, okay, cool. Well, listen, you've been really generous with your knowledge today. I know that we were talking off-cameras beforehand. You've recently launched an academy which helps dentists make their practice more profitable. Am I right in saying that?
Dr Amit:yeah, so we um in the new squat site in stoke-on-trent. We've got um bespoke academy set up um with seminar rooms uh ready to go. We've done our first um clinical course, which is composite bonding, with uh dr cal uh prajapat, who um did a life skills day with a live patient um and had a number of delegates um. We've got a couple of other nursing courses coming up in january and then I'm doing a course on being a productive implantologist in February. Saturday the 2nd, which is really all about the implant journey for a patient and for the clinician. On that day we talk about it's me and one of my colleagues, stephen Anderson, who both have very different implant journeys. Both are implant early dentists and both as practices do high number of implants. We'll talk to you about what we wish we'd known 10 years ago to fast-track your implant careers, and that's the goal of that day.
Dr James:Love that and do you help with implementation, as well as in showing how to implement that into the practice of the delegates that will be attending?
Dr Amit:Yeah, so the goal of the actual day is for each person to walk away with a plan tailored towards what they need to do for their practices, because not everyone's implant journey and the way they do implants is the same. But there's certain things that you know, we know would work for each person, and some practices don't have the room for a TCA. Some practices don't have scanners for a TCA. Some practices don't have scanners. You know so what are they doing, but there's certain things that you can still take away from the course that will say that will help you increase your implant numbers Amazing.
Dr James:Cool. Well, listen, amit. Thank you so much for your time today and for coming on the Dentist who Invests podcast. This can't be the last one that we do. We need to do another one because I reckon there's at least well many more episodes of uh knowledge in that head. So it's our, it's our duty to go out there and share it with the dental world. So I'm looking forward to those already in the meantime being smashed and happy along, as I say thank you for having me. My absolute pleasure, my.
