The Business of Dentistry Podcast

Dentist Paul Worskett and Richard Holmes from Dental Partners discuss the general factors affecting the value of a practice and what impact being a prototype has from the perspective of a buyer and a seller.

What you’ll hear:

• What a potential purchaser looks for in a practice?
• Key factors that affect the overall value of a practice
• The impact being a prototype has on practice value.

Who should listen:

• Practice owners who might be considering selling their practice
• Practice owners who might be considering becoming a prototype practice
• Anyone considering buying a dental practice.

Paul Graham, head of Dental at Christie & Co shares details of their latest report with Nigel Jones. They discuss market composition, the UK dental workforce and operational benchmarking of practice costs. Paul also gives a clear understanding of the process and steps required to value a practice and the factors impacting goodwill values currently.

What you’ll hear:

• Christie & Co’s approach from beginning to end
• Overview of market activity/demand and the evolving landscape of practice ownership
• Planning for sale and the likely buyer profile (whole of market or a restricted approach)
• Challenges within the sector including Brexit and the UK dental workforce.

Who should listen:

• Sellers looking to retire, particularly those who own specialist private/referral practices
• First time buyers, experienced operators, corporates and investors in the dental market
• Industry intermediaries, accountants, solicitors and bankers connected to the industry.

Mark Oborn discusses the benefits to both your practice and your patients of having a well-managed social media presence. He also addresses the risks and shares his expert advice for mitigating these risks.

What you’ll hear:

• How social media benefits a practice
• How patients can benefit from their practice using social media
• An overview of potential risks of having social media pages and how to mitigate these risks.

Who should listen:

• Practice owners and managers with or without social media pages for their practice
• Anyone managing social media for in practice.

Employment and HR specialist, Sarah Buxton shares details of the latest changes to Employment Law. She discusses a range of themes including employment status, harassment in the workplace and GDPR in the context of how they impact dental practice teams.

What you’ll hear:

• An update on employment status
• Recent developments regarding harassment in the workplace
• An insight into data breach cases following the implementation of GDPR.

Who should listen:

• Practice owners and managers who employ associates
• Anyone who has HR responsibility
• Anyone who manages patient or team data.

Laura Weaver discusses the dangers of producing marketing material with ‘catch all’ message and shares her expert advice for creating targeted messages to achieve the best return on your marketing spend. 

What you’ll hear:

• The risks of generic marketing messages
• Where to begin when considering your marketing material
• Examples of a targeted campaign
• How to track how successful your marketing is

Who should listen:

• Team members responsible for marketing within the practice
• Practice managers who’d like to increase patient numbers or uptake of certain treatments
• Practice owners and managers who don’t currently do any marketing

Laura explains some of the key signs to watch out for as ‘red flags’ that illustrate your practice brand might be in need of a refresh and the potential impact of not updating your brand when it needs it.

What you’ll hear:

• What constitutes your brand
• Ways an out of date brand can damage your business
• Five indicators that its time to refresh your brand.

Who should listen:

• Practice owners who have not changed their branding in a while
• Anyone who has recently bought an existing practice.

Tracy Pound explains the risk of cybercrime to smaller businesses and discusses strategies to minimise the risk to your practice. She also shares advice for you and your team on best practise for keeping your data safe online.

What you’ll hear:

Highlights of the discussion including:

• Examples of dental practices who have suffered cyber attacks
• A number of ways to reduce the risk of a cyber attack on your practice
• Ways to protect your data
• The importance of educating your team on cyber safety

Who should listen:

• Practice owners
• Practice managers responsible for patient data
• Team members who use social media or access patient data

Helen Robertson shares her story of opening a squat practice with her husband at the beginning of the recession in 2009 and building it into the thriving three surgery practice that it is today.

What you’ll hear:

• Details of building the patient base from scratch in a brand-new location
• How Practice Plan supported Helen
• What she learned along the journey
• Advice for anyone considering opening a dental practice.

Who should listen:

• Dentists considering buying a practice
• NHS dentists considering moving to private practice
• Dentists whose practice might be struggling.

Ashley Latter explains the benefits of recording video testimonials with your patients. He talks through how you can use them and shares his advice on how best to approach patients to take part.

What you’ll hear:

• How a video testimonial can help you overcome objections from patients
• How to utilise the law of reciprocation when asking for testimonials
• The best time to approach patients to provide a testimonial

Who should listen:

• Dentists who want to build their patient base
• Practice managers looking to create marketing materials for their practice

Eddie Crouch, Ian Redfearn, Paul Worskett and George Savva discuss the future of NHS dentistry. With the rollout of the reformed NHS England contract now less than a year away, we hosted a panel discussion to find out what they think it will mean for the profession.

What you’ll hear:

Highlights of the discussion including:

• The pros and cons of prototypes A and B
• The lessons learned so far from the reform programme
• The implications of the contract rollout.

Who should listen:

• Dentists with an NHS contract
• Owners and practice managers of NHS practices