Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Barry Oulton
Episode release date – Monday 20 November 2023
Barry (00:00.54)
You talk.
Andy & Chris (00:01.006)
It’s podcast recording day. It is podcast recording day and it’s a good one. It is it is it isn’t and they keep coming don’t they and it never ceases to amaze me how many interesting smart people are in dentistry. It’s studied really we think we’ve done I don’t know how many now definitely over 100 and we’ve never had a tough guest. No well that’s put pressure on the guy that we’re talking to today doesn’t it there’s no pressure there. Yeah but Barry I understand thrives on pressure.
Barry (00:21.895)
It was time.
Andy & Chris (00:29.554)
Well, perhaps in let’s falsify minutes or so, we’re going to find out. So today we are, we’re very fortunate. We have a Dr. Barry Alton joining us and Barry is a dentist. He is. Principal of the Confident Dentist Academy of Dental Coaching. See Tarji, he’d be fine. Speaker, mentor and communication and patient journey expert. Flip, that’s a business card, isn’t it? I just think communication and patient journeys is, is that’s kind of the beating heart of life and business. You know that, isn’t it? You know that.
and so much falls into place. Anyway, welcome Barry, how are you?
Barry (01:00.726)
very well thanks chaps nice to nice to be with you
Andy & Chris (01:04.194)
Thank you. Thank you guys likewise and if you’re listening to this on audio You will not get the benefit of the beautiful artwork that sits behind Barry So I urge you to jump on YouTube and look at it. It’s a fair. Definitely. It’s quite cool. It’s very cool. It’s very cool How are you? Are you doing well?
Barry (01:21.398)
Really well, really well. I’ve just recently moved into the house, so we’re settling in.
Andy & Chris (01:32.17)
Brilliant. Good. Good to be settled. Before we get to dentistry and there’s a lot to pick through. Cause you know, a lot of stuff in your, in your years in dentistry. In your young years in dentistry. Yeah. Throw that in there. Might you feel good? We need to, we need to roll back the years and then we need to kind of understand a bit more about you and who you are. So is there a time you can look back on your childhood and say that this is why I am the person I am today. What was your childhood like?
Barry (01:45.975)
Thanks for that.
Barry (01:58.922)
Oh, wow, what a great question. My childhood was wonderful. Yeah, really good. Very, very close family, mom and dad. My dad was born in Liverpool and always wanted more for us than he had. He had a tough time, really, my dad, and he wanted more for us. And he was part-time.
psychologist. He liked to read into stuff and so he liked Skinner and his rats and Pavlov and his and so he employed a few of those things and I was groomed nicely by my dad that I was going to be either a doctor, a dentist, a vet, a lawyer or I could have been an airline pilot. So my choices were limited when I was young.
Andy & Chris (02:35.339)
Oh, okay, all right.
Andy & Chris (02:53.45)
Pretty broad choice. Yeah. Ha ha ha.
Barry (02:54.782)
And I didn’t realize it, but yeah, I was steered down the medical route by my dad and the way that he was nurturing me. And I actually ended up wanting to be a dentist primarily because it’s funny, right? People say, what do you want to be when you grow up? My weird answer was I want to be a dad. And so I chose dentistry because I knew that it would afford me a better quality of
life, work and balance. Because we had a few friends who were doctors and they were getting divorced and it was stressful. Not that dentistry isn’t, but it has allowed me to pick my hours, pick my time. It’s been, it’s an amazing profession. So yeah, it was when I was young, I guess, I was heading down this route regardless.
Andy & Chris (03:45.804)
And I think you’re right and I think quite often when you’re within a profession or…
your business, whatever you’re doing, it’s very easy to get very narrow and not appreciate some of those kind of real wide contacts of what dentistry offers. And I think it does offer a huge amount of flexibility. And I was talking to a dentist at the weekend and she was kind of un-enlightened about, you know, what her future is and where she’s ultimately going to end up working. And I said, but the skill is resident in you. You can travel all over the world and that skill travels with you. And okay, you need an environment to work in, but not many people have that freedom
Barry (04:11.553)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (04:21.717)
that dentists do. So it is a phenomenal career.
Barry (04:26.282)
It is the best. I’m very proud to be part of it. And I guess in many respects, that’s why I want to help improve it. Um, because there’s a lot of stress out there and I think there’s ways of learning how to cope, how to deal with situations and also how to run a business better, because most of the people, including myself, right? I became an accidental business owner. I didn’t get into dentistry to be a businessman.
Andy & Chris (04:33.534)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (04:51.778)
Hmm.
Barry (04:55.254)
Um, I always knew that I wanted my practice, but no one ever, we weren’t taught what a P and L is. We weren’t taught, you know, business operations, business systems. I learned that on the job as most dentists do, although many dentists don’t learn it very well and struggle. But, um, it is, uh, it’s shockingly bad. They’re not even taught how to communicate with people.
Andy & Chris (05:03.03)
Mm. Heh, heh, heh.
Andy & Chris (05:13.964)
No, no And they’re still not taught aren’t they?
Andy & Chris (05:22.258)
Nah.
Barry (05:23.382)
I mean, five years in Leeds, and I think a recent attendee of one of my courses said that they had three hours of communication training. It’s ridiculous when you really think about, I mean, I’ve got a few phrases that I like to use. It’s really hard to eff it up in dentistry because most dentists are earning an income, maybe not a great income, but most are earning an income. So it’s hard to get it wrong.
Andy & Chris (05:30.765)
It’s mad, isn’t it?
Andy & Chris (05:44.649)
Peace.
Andy & Chris (05:53.124)
Mm.
Barry (05:54.39)
And that puts people in a position where they tend to be focusing on improving their dentistry rather than improving the patient journey or their communication. And I think ultimately, so long as your dentistry is good enough, right? So if you said your dentistry has got to be seven out of 10 to be good enough. Patients don’t care what you do. Right. They care about how you look after them and what the patient journey’s like. And.
Andy & Chris (06:03.908)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (06:16.374)
And they don’t know. No.
Andy & Chris (06:21.407)
Hmm.
Barry (06:21.986)
you know, do they get the love and the attention that they would like to have? Whereas most dentists understandably are wanting to try and get their dentistry to 10 out of 10, but often at the cost of not developing the relationships with their patients or their team.
Andy & Chris (06:31.663)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (06:37.44)
Well, it’s CPD. CPD should be called Clinical Professional Development.
It’s not continuing professional development because if you put two courses in front of a dentist, they would always choose the clinical course over the non-clinical. And that was kind of ingrained at dental school, wasn’t it? Because it was clinical and there was nothing beyond that. Yet, as you say, the people that tend to do well, and I think genuinely are happier because it’s less stressful if you understand people and you understand how to communicate. It’s a less stressful environment because just being a good dentist isn’t really enough. You need more than that.
so much more enjoyable if you start to master some of those. What was your dental school experience like in Leeds?
Barry (07:18.866)
Oh, it was fantastic. It was hard work. We would actually, we were reflecting on this the other day. Cause a lot of these later new dentists are coming out with not a lot of experience. And I happened to bump into a guy I was at uni with, uh, again, um, on Friday and Saturday, and we were chatting about the fact that we had huge targets. We had, we had to do like 200 composites. I think we had to do like 50.
Andy & Chris (07:31.859)
Mmm.
Barry (07:47.39)
endos, just loads. And these new guys are coming out with very, very little experience. No molar endos, no surgicals, very few crowns, like two crowns, something like that. And so our uni was, it was a great experience. We were the last year that did, we did four years in one term. And that’s how it was. So we actually graduated in December of 93. And then…
Andy & Chris (08:08.298)
Right.
Andy & Chris (08:15.689)
I will.
Barry (08:16.53)
Our year was the first year, I think it was the first year that VT was compulsory. So I went into VT, but Leeds is such a wonderful city. It was a brilliant place. Yeah. I did a lot of growing up when I was there really, uh, probably still am, but yeah, it was brilliant, great tutors, great, great teachers, lots of people that I was inspired by and just a really good community. It’s quite a small.
Andy & Chris (08:26.23)
It’s cool isn’t it? Yeah it’s a great city.
Andy & Chris (08:34.069)
Hahaha
Barry (08:45.063)
Our year was like 32, 36 people, something like that.
Andy & Chris (08:45.581)
Mm.
nice and great night life yeah but what but what’s changed Barry what’s changed in the time when you were at dental school and you were doing so many extractions so many more windows that it and yet we’re now getting dentists coming out of dental school who’ve got so little practical clinical experience where the time going because the program’s broadly the same amount of time what yeah
Barry (08:51.538)
Outstanding. Such fun. Such fun.
Barry (09:14.594)
Well, it’s five years now, so it’s actually slightly longer. So my honest answer is I don’t know. I’ve never really looked into it. But what I do know is that at Leeds, when I was there, we had nurses, we had support staff, we were working on clinic all the time. I mean, we were, yeah, it was five days a week we’d be on clinic and we’d have the odd lecture interspaced. And when I’d chat to younger dentists, they’d nurse for each other.
And so straight away, that’s halving their clinical experience because half the time, yeah, and I, you know, I don’t think, maybe there’s not the patients. We were inundated with patients wanting to be treated by the students. And so, yeah, I just think that unfortunately they’re coming out with not a lot of experience and so vocational training.
Andy & Chris (09:46.954)
Okay. Yeah, you’re doing more watching than doing. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (10:02.236)
Mmm
Barry (10:13.214)
is really, they really are learning on the job. It’s not that they’re honing their skills, it’s that they’re kind of learning their skills. But I don’t, I’m not involved with uni’s for me to understand what the challenges are, because clearly no university wants to send somebody out that isn’t experienced. So there’s clearly something that isn’t working for them.
Andy & Chris (10:15.562)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (10:20.167)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (10:32.147)
No. Hmm.
Andy & Chris (10:38.262)
quite connecting. It’s an interesting one isn’t it, because we were talking to one, they were sort of saying, they wonder whether the, in a way, when the dental training was maybe developed, it was all predominantly focused around the NHS. And therefore to a certain degree the NHS, maybe, some people don’t need necessarily going back to the communication skills. And they were saying in a way, it sort of needs to almost catch up with the fact of…
Dentistry is about dentistry and communication not just generating revenue from the NHS because now There’s more revenue generated from the private but it’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Yes, I say we hear people say well, I’ve got some guy he’s never done an extraction on a molar
Barry (11:21.118)
Yeah, not sure I’d want to be that patient, but we have to learn somewhere, don’t we? But…
Andy & Chris (11:24.07)
Yeah, sorry, yeah. Yeah, someone has to learn, yeah. Yeah. Also.
So what was your journey? So you also, you qualified from lead, you worked as an associate, and then you got into practice ownership. What was that pathway through to the point when you decided you wanted to buy? Because you said, and I think you’re right, you’re absolutely spot on about being an accidental business owner. We see so many people who are associates and then either they think it’s gonna be a route to earning more money or more control or more status or whatever it might be, they then go and buy a business, which for many they’re poorly equipped to do.
What was your own journey to get to that point when you bought and practiced?
Barry (12:01.998)
So as a VT, so I qualified in Leeds and I went back to where I was born and bred, which is on the Wirral and I did my VT and I had an interest then that you had to do a project as part of your VT and so I did a project which was writing a business plan for starting a practice. And they gave me a
regional and a national award. And I won both of those with this business plan. So I think I already knew that I wanted to own a business. And so then what I did for five years is I worked, I never worked full-time anywhere. I worked part-time in a load of practices so that I could find out what I wanted to do and find out the sort of practice that I wanted. I ended up…
Andy & Chris (12:37.247)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (12:49.832)
Mm.
Barry (12:56.478)
meeting my wife. I wasn’t a robots instructor, right? And so yeah, so I was I was working at get leg warmers all the way mate and there
Andy & Chris (13:01.406)
Oh excellent! Leg warmer me up!
were you like sort of the Mr. Motivator of the world? Is that what you?
Barry (13:11.69)
So I actually worked with him, Derek, Mr. Motivator, yeah, God bless.
Andy & Chris (13:14.418)
Really? I’ve just had a vision of Barry in that. What’s that video of take on me or something? I’ve just had a vision of you, Barry. For people of a certain age, for certain people of a certain we’d have just lost a lot of our audience. Mr. Motivator, he was on breakfast TV. He’d pop up with this lycra leotard on, very bright color. Was it green? And he’d do a five or seven minute workout in the morning to get everybody kind of pumped before they started. No, no.
Barry (13:38.982)
and never on the beat. He couldn’t be. I worked with him a day, he could not be. But he, yeah, very, a very jolly chap. So yeah, I met my, this is my first wife, right? So I met my first wife and I’d always said I wanted to be down in London and do a few years. And she said, you need to go. So I came down to actually worked in Epsom and Guildford. And
Andy & Chris (13:45.342)
Fuck.
Barry (14:06.666)
And then I got mentored, I was really lucky. I met a guy that was beginning to think about having a corporate. And this is in the day where there were like, I don’t know, 15 limited companies before they made it. So they were swapping for mega, mega money. And he really, that’s crazy, isn’t it? So he mentored me really and taught me how to be a private dentist.
Andy & Chris (14:20.133)
Oh, no, you don’t, guys.
Andy & Chris (14:24.854)
Huge money, huge money. You got your dad to do it in that structure through a royal charge or something, weren’t you back then? Yeah, yeah.
Barry (14:36.15)
in terms of how to look after patients and have conversations and to map things out. And it was, it was a really good time for me. And he happened to be buying a practice to be part of his corporate in Hazelmere. But he found out that the limited company name that he was purchasing had been trading illegally or something, which meant he couldn’t buy it, which meant he had to back out of the practice in Hazelmere.
Andy & Chris (14:49.87)
Okay.
Barry (15:05.958)
And I know this man is very clever and is a proper businessman and had done his due diligence. And so I contacted, he basically put me in contact with the owner and I paid him a deposit without even seeing it. So I knew, I knew that I would, I would, I would want it. So that’s basically how I ended up with my first practice.
Andy & Chris (15:33.296)
And what did that practice look like? What sort of shape and size was it? What sort of dentistry was it delivering?
Barry (15:37.526)
So it was a long standing 70 year old NHS practice with no motorized chairs. Yeah, old army dentist. 1999, September.
Andy & Chris (15:44.894)
Wow. When was this Barry? When did you buy this practice?
Andy & Chris (15:53.129)
Who was the mentor? Who was the mentor chap?
Barry (16:00.52)
So he’s really well known in the corporate world. I probably won’t drop his name, but he was really good for me. And he also helped me understand the business more as well, which meant that I was running it properly.
Andy & Chris (16:09.702)
Okay, cool.
Andy & Chris (16:19.539)
But…
Barry (16:26.322)
Um, so I became a VT trainer for five years, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Uh, and I then exited the NHS because I knew that I couldn’t deliver what I wanted to deliver within the confines of the NHS. So I’ve been fully private now for, uh, probably 15 years, something like that. And I started off straight away before I even bought the practice. I started off with a business coach. And then.
Andy & Chris (16:47.079)
But…
Barry (16:54.698)
So I was one of Chris Barrow’s first ever clients when he used to be, his company was called Marlborough Finance. And so, you know, I knew that I needed to learn about business. I was the second dentist to ever do a sales training course. And that was four of us in a room in Manchester, Ash Latter, me, a guy called Neil Sampson and a web developer called Guy Levine. And literally…
Andy & Chris (16:58.067)
very front foot.
Barry (17:23.138)
We spent two days in that room and Ash shared with us Dale Carnegie’s sales process, which was an eye-opener because we’d not been taught to have conversations with patients either. So that was kind of started my journey along wanting to learn more. So I’ve had so many coaches. I’m a bit of a coach junkie. And most of the stuff that I’ve learned and implemented that has made the biggest difference has come from my coaches in America.
Andy & Chris (17:28.182)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (17:54.195)
That’s interesting. Why do you think that is? What’s different about their perspective?
Barry (17:55.262)
Yeah, and so what I know…
Barry (18:00.826)
Certainly at the time they were at least five years ahead of us in every way, in my opinion, in dentistry. I wanted to learn my cosmetic dentistry, so I joined up with a guy called Larry Rosenthal, which aesthetic advantage. I became a junior kind of trainer for him and then I became a senior instructor for him. So I then taught, I actually taught
Andy & Chris (18:03.871)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (18:14.834)
Yeah, New York.
Barry (18:28.91)
the clinical director of the guys I sold to, Smile Design. So I taught here, West Palm Beach, and we also went to Indianapolis. And so I then had exposure to coaches there. So Bill Blatchford, Kathy Jamieson, and then periodontal coaches as well. And I took elements, I learned lots from all of them. And I took elements from each of them and put together what I was doing.
Andy & Chris (18:47.894)
Oh yeah, brilliant.
Andy & Chris (18:52.094)
Mm.
Barry (18:59.806)
Um, then, so it was working really well, but I then found out that my wife had been having a two year affair with a mate of mine and I kind of lost the edge. I lost, I lost the plot really. Um, and I had a really difficult couple, a couple of years, but then realized that, um, I had two daughters and, um, they were really badly affected. So I decided I needed to sort myself out. So I then
personal development journey. So I walked on hot coals three times with Tony Robbins, did UPW. Some things in that blew my mind about how we process information. So I found out he was using something called neuro-linguistic programming. So I thought, right, I’m gonna learn more about that. So I became a practitioner in that, then a master practitioner, and then I became master hypnotherapist. And then I met my now wife.
Chloe, we met in Hamburg and she was the second TCO in the country. She was working for a friend of mine called Elaine Halley, who you probably know. Um, everybody. Yeah. And so I knew the day I met her that I was going to marry her, which is weird, but I did and she came down. No. Yeah, she did.
Andy & Chris (20:06.103)
Yeah, yeah, that cherry bank. Yeah
Andy & Chris (20:14.982)
Uh-huh. Did she feel the same? Was she naked? No, probably shouldn’t have said that. Ha ha ha.
Barry (20:24.654)
Um, she, she came down and she, uh, trained in NLP and came into the practices, my TCO and just nailed it. And so we, we decided there and then that we wanted to make our patient journey like the best in the UK. So I got, so I got, I kind of got rid of the associates and I went on my own. And Chloe and I absolutely nailed our patient journey. We took, we quadrupled our turnover.
Andy & Chris (20:41.694)
This is Hazel, miss, there, or is this someone? Yeah, yeah.
Andy & Chris (20:54.622)
So when’s this? Is this early 2000s Barry?
Barry (20:57.486)
So where are we now? This is, so we’ve been married for 10 years now. So this is 15 years ago.
Andy & Chris (21:00.67)
late 2000s possibly.
Andy & Chris (21:05.129)
Oh well, so back end of 2000s.
Barry (21:07.422)
Yeah, with quadruple turnover. I was working three and a half days a week, me and a hygienist.
Andy & Chris (21:14.437)
With no associates your profit was looking very good.
Barry (21:17.968)
Our turnover was just under 1.1 mil.
Andy & Chris (21:20.51)
Wow. And that was you three and a half days a week in a hygienist. Flip!
Barry (21:25.014)
Yeah, our systems are awesome. And so no implants, no ortho, routine dentists. Yeah, I’m a good general dentist. But also the other thing is we were getting 30, 35 new patients a month and I haven’t done any marketing for 18 years. So there’s no external marketing, it was all internal. Yeah, I have a…
Andy & Chris (21:29.554)
I was going to say what type of dentistry were you doing? Wow. Flip.
Andy & Chris (21:45.418)
well.
Andy & Chris (21:49.046)
Just recommendation number four.
Barry (21:52.062)
So have you heard of Robert Cialdini? So I read his book, Influence and Pre-Swayzian, and then actually I went and trained with his academy. And I utilize his principles of influence to help my patients A, make their best choices and decision, but B, to leave me five-star Google reviews and send their family and friends. So I tap into reciprocity and…
Andy & Chris (21:55.188)
Yes.
Andy & Chris (22:13.108)
Hmm.
Barry (22:21.194)
You know, there’s a, and it’s really easy when you understand, because it’s just human nature, right? And NLP is just human nature. So if you, if you begin to, all I do with people is I tell them that I’m only going to teach them something that they kind of already know. They’re just not consciously aware of knowing it. So when I share with somebody how to genuinely build rapport in a heartbeat, and they’re like, Oh my God. And like, yeah, so now you know why you’re good at it when you’re good at it. And now you understand why you’re not when you’re not.
Andy & Chris (22:21.824)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (22:26.45)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (22:37.643)
Hmm.
Barry (22:50.43)
so that you can adapt and change and build rapport with anybody. And that’s the same with anything that I’m sharing, as it’s not rocket science, it’s actually basic human behavior. When you understand it, you can use it to their advantage and your advantage.
Andy & Chris (23:02.578)
Hmm
Andy & Chris (23:09.726)
That’s remarkable growth. Just going back a few steps, you said you stopped working on the NHS because it couldn’t achieve what you wanted to achieve. You had to be private because for the patient during and the services you wanted to deliver. I don’t want to dwell on it, but what is wrong with the NHS? Why is it broken?
Barry (23:33.05)
Well, it’s financial, isn’t it? I honestly thought about 10 years ago that I had the solution. So I did my elective in Singapore, right? And once I was there chatting to students, finding out, and this is 30 years ago, 30 years ago, dental students in Singapore were finishing university with debts of a couple of hundred thousand dollars. This is 30 years ago.
Andy & Chris (24:00.074)
Wow.
Barry (24:00.546)
and they could not believe that I was not paying a penny. You know, I was actually paid to go to university, right? We had a grant that fed us and put a roof over our heads and I didn’t pay a penny for my education. I mean, how blessed is that, right? So I thought, do you know what they ought to do? They ought to…
Andy & Chris (24:04.168)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (24:08.124)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (24:20.54)
Mm.
Barry (24:25.95)
make it compulsory that when you graduate that you have to work within the NHS. And I thought we design a five-year plan, right? That you could reduce a day a week over those five years so that you’re committed within the NHS for the whole of the five years and you can cut down if you want to, five, four, three, two, one. Or if you chose not to be in the NHS, you had to pay your fees. And I think that would have…
Andy & Chris (24:31.062)
Hmm.
Barry (24:54.518)
That kind of system, something like that, would mean there’s enough dentists working within it. I also think it has to be radically changed and it’s gotta be means tested. I think it needs to be a core service for dental health. But I would be, in my model of the world, it wouldn’t include cosmetics, it wouldn’t include any once-based dentistry. I would be just…
Andy & Chris (25:05.721)
Mm-hmm.
Andy & Chris (25:17.194)
Hmm.
Barry (25:21.474)
providing needs based, but it needs radically changing. Because, you know, my clients that I see are funding their NHS. There’s not many of them that I see that are actually making any profit from the NHS. They have a commitment and a desire to serve and look after their patients and their communities. And their private income is often propping up what it is they’re doing. And I’m sorry, everybody.
Andy & Chris (25:31.431)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (25:36.31)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (25:46.39)
But you can only lean on that good nature for so long, can’t you? You can only, you know, that only stretches so far before just from a pure business point of view, it’s not tenable.
Barry (25:53.684)
Yeah.
Barry (25:57.29)
It’s not, you know, yeah, I’ve got, there’s a lot of people in a lot of tricky situations and they’re doing the best that they can. And it’s kind of some of them are shackled.
Andy & Chris (26:05.418)
Hmm.
Needs political will though to change, doesn’t it? That’s the problem. Everyone’s just tinkering, rather than actually making a decision here. Yeah, yeah.
Barry (26:14.966)
It needs a radical shift, doesn’t it? I think it’s coming. So many people are exiting, you know, I’m touring for a practice plan and they have never been busier. People are leaving, the dentists are leaving the NHS and that’s because it is broken. I think there’s a few that are doing very, very well out of it, but I think the majority are working harder for less.
Andy & Chris (26:26.866)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (26:38.602)
Hmm. Interesting. Very interesting. You said that you then you bought your practice. Um, I must say that I’m hugely impressed with the
the way you’ve approached your career from the really earliest days of working in lots of different practices to get that exposure, different experiences. To parts of the world, it’s quite cool. Yeah, it just investing in yourself to learn non-clinical, which kind of, you know, we’ll come on to you and what you offer dentists today, but you were kind of applying that yourself really early on and then you used that phrase about being an accidental business owner. How was it for you that transition from being a dentist who rocked up, saw patients, went home
Barry (26:53.71)
Thank you.
Andy & Chris (27:20.38)
being a business owner. What was that transition like?
Barry (27:23.782)
I loved it. It was just pure excitement for me. There was fear in there as well, obviously, but I quite like change. I quite like to spice things up a bit. And, you know, we did, mum and dad helped me in terms of, I mean, they’re broke. My dad was a social worker, but they helped.
Andy & Chris (27:36.607)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (27:51.802)
You got any siblings, Barry?
Barry (27:53.718)
I’ve got an older brother. And so I was the youngest. And yeah, we did everything. We decorated it ourselves. We did it up. It was an absolute, it was a wreck really, because it was very old. I had a toilet in the waiting room. No investment. Toilet in the waiting room, 116 National Geographic magazines. That, you know, that style. And upstairs was empty derelict.
Andy & Chris (27:55.699)
What?
Andy & Chris (28:08.999)
Underdeveloped and no investment at all.
Andy & Chris (28:17.498)
Oh, excellent.
Barry (28:23.862)
And so it also had scope for growth, which is obviously what I wanted to do.
Andy & Chris (28:26.538)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (28:30.314)
It is amazing when you look back isn’t it these practices I can remember once I did some valuation for a Practice in somewhere up in Liverpool and this Excessive year. We got a second surgery and when he opens second surgery It was like it was almost like there was cobwebs and there was this metal delivery system And and he had those do you remember those and drills where they had that sort of cable II thing that?
Barry (28:55.69)
I’ve seen one in a museum.
Andy & Chris (28:57.17)
It’s unbelievable and he classed that as his second surgery. It was like, really? I don’t think you’re going to be doing any dentistry here, are you? But it’s just amazing. You know, you bought your practice, was it? 99, did you say? And there’s a plate with a chair. It’s going to pump it up.
Barry (29:12.502)
He had a pump action chair. Yeah, ridiculous.
Andy & Chris (29:15.582)
So if you had to distill it down to one thing, what was the most fulfilling thing in that transition from associate to owner? What was the one thing that stood out as being the most fulfilling, enjoyable part?
Barry (29:30.158)
I think I would probably encompass that by saying it was a change of identity. And I think, again, so in human needs psychology, one of the biggest things that you can do that changes your world is you change your identity. And for example, when I went from not being a father to being a father, you know, that moment that you…
Andy & Chris (29:37.763)
Okay.
Andy & Chris (29:55.915)
Mm.
Barry (30:00.89)
have such a big shift in your life, that’s an identity shift from, you know, husband to father. And you start making completely different choices and you start behaving in a completely different way, right? Cause you’ve got different responsibilities, different focus of attention. So I went from associate to business owner and I looked 12 years old and I genuinely, I looked really, I looked really, um, and that’s very kind of you. Um.
Andy & Chris (30:02.999)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (30:07.741)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (30:12.754)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andy & Chris (30:26.151)
Well you only look like you’re in your 20s now. No I think you’re thinking that’s because it’s a bit blurry.
Barry (30:32.43)
And so, yeah. And so there was a shift, there was a total shift in me, right? Because there was like that identity shift. And I’d, I’d had only just become a father. My, my eldest was one years old when I bought, um, she was in her first year when I bought the practice. So there was a lot of change for me. We moved home. We had the baby, I bought the practice. And so I think it was that, I think it was an identity shift that became business owner and the responsibility of that.
and the responsibility of being a father and everything that brought. And so that was my…
Andy & Chris (31:04.25)
Hmm.
seems to be comparable to being a father and owning a business in terms of that responsibility for something beyond yourself.
Barry (31:14.09)
Hmm, yeah.
Andy & Chris (31:14.674)
You know, I think I remember a woman that we used to work with years ago. Um, when she had her first child, she said, I had no idea how selfish I was before I had a child. And she wasn’t at all, but her view was my goodness, you know, I’ve now got somebody that I’m responsible for and it changed her outlook on everything. And it’s, it’s similar to you in fatherhood, but also in business ownership, you know, have this entity that you’re, you’re responsible for. Um, yeah, yeah.
Barry (31:30.465)
Yeah.
Barry (31:39.478)
Yeah, I did call it my baby. And it, yeah, it was, I nurtured it and loved it.
Andy & Chris (31:48.468)
Mm.
You very briefly just kind of glossed over the fact that you quadrupled to size your business and you worked three and a half days with a with a hygienist. I’m sure there’s people that are already still wobbling their head at the thought of doing that. Can you just break down for us? Because this kind of goes to the core of kind of where you’re at now as well in terms of communication and patient journey. How did you actually do that? How did you go from having a practice that turned over I don’t know 300,000 pounds to over a million pounds? What were the significant stepping stones that you touched? I’m hoping it’s bringing Palm Beach to Hazel, man.
Barry (32:16.574)
It was, it was, it was all down to the patient journey and the way that we. So there’s like, if this, I think it’s looking at every touch point that’s in the patient journey and looking at how you can improve it and we did, and we have. So we have a different exam process than most people. I call it the co-pilot system. So it’s nurse led.
So she’s, you know, like a co-pilot sits in the cockpit and says engines and the captain goes check engines. So my nurse tells me what she wants me to look at and report. So that was a big shift because patients are like, whoa, you’ve never done this before. I was like, well, I did. It’s just, I did it in my head and I wasn’t verbalizing it. So the patients all of a sudden had massive value in what we were doing. I…
Andy & Chris (32:49.247)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (32:57.642)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (33:05.556)
Mm.
Barry (33:14.026)
went through a process of upskilling everybody in the practice. So the bottom line is I do as little as possible of the things that other people are legally allowed to and capable of doing. So in my practice, I don’t really talk to patients anymore because I have a TCO that does that. So Chloe would meet and greet and talk to the patient.
and the patient comes upstairs to Ellie and she’ll take 23 photos whilst Chloe’s handing over to me. There’s key things that we’re asking and it’s about personality preferences. They’re called meta programs. People think that it makes them who they are, but it doesn’t. They’re just preferences. So we’ll find out what their chunk size is. What that means is how much information would you like to receive when I explain something? Are you big picture broad strokes?
Andy & Chris (34:03.562)
Hmm.
Barry (34:08.138)
Or are you dot I’s cross T’s? Or are you somewhere in the middle? Because, you know, we were turning patients off who were big picture and we were naturally, we were taught we had to give all the information. And so without understanding how somebody processes, we can bore them to tears. They don’t purchase from you. So we’ll find out their chunk size. We’ll find out what motivates them. That’s called direction filter. I future pace them. So I’ll ask them a 20 year question.
Andy & Chris (34:20.062)
Mm.
Barry (34:35.55)
And so they literally write their own treatment plan for me because what I’m asking them to focus on is how do you want things to be in 20 years? We’ll find out what their deep emotional driver is by having three questions and asking why do you want that? Because nobody wants white teeth, right? Nobody wants straight teeth. What they want is either something that they think it will bring them positively by having white teeth or something that it will avoid them.
Andy & Chris (34:54.529)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (35:01.055)
Hmm.
Barry (35:04.778)
negatively. So why do you want white teeth? Well, you know, because actually I want to feel confident and I’m a speaker and I’m a presenter and I want people to look at me and go, Oh, he’s got a nice smile. So they don’t want white teeth. What they want is confidence. And when we can find that out easily, A, I feel incredibly motivated to serve them. And B, actually, very often the treatment plan changes because they think
Andy & Chris (35:18.731)
Hmm.
Barry (35:33.986)
they know what they want, but actually it could be served in a better way. And oftentimes it’s less dentistry. You know, I have somebody come in saying, I want veneers and actually they end up with some short-term ortho, some whitening and bonding. And I feel very proud about the fact that I have helped maintain their long-term health, not destroyed it. Like we see at the moment with some of the turkey teeth.
Andy & Chris (35:42.666)
Hmm, yeah.
Andy & Chris (36:02.113)
Yeah.
Barry (36:02.826)
And so fundamentally what, how we did it was our patient journey and our communication skills and our love and our care of our patients and the way that we, we genuinely want to serve them. And with me not doing everything. So I don’t take impressions, scans, don’t do X-rays, don’t do consent. Don’t do treatment presentation anymore. I mean, I don’t do anything. And the idea is. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (36:07.218)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (36:29.02)
Shall we stop there? I don’t know.
Barry (36:32.106)
The idea is that I should have a turbine in hand as much of the time as possible. So I also have two studios and I have two nurses and the patient journey went up in quality exponentially because it wasn’t solely down to me, it was actually the whole team. So my care nurses, they call them, and I work in studios because I’m an artist. My wife says I’m a great artist.
Andy & Chris (36:52.191)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (36:58.742)
I was gonna say that’s a simple one, isn’t it? Studio as opposed to surgery. It’s the language, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah, really important.
Barry (37:02.382)
Well, we changed all the words as well, right? So we don’t do scale and polishes because that has no value because everybody’s experienced that on the NHS. So what we do, and again, this is how we effectively increased our revenue is because we’ll diagnose you, we’ll explain to you what we’re gonna do. So another meta program, Convince-a-Rep, we generally need to hear things.
a number of times in order to know them, want them, buy them, whatever. So part of our journey is we’ll explain what we’re going to do. Then the TCO explains what he’s going to do. And then when you’re with me, I’m like, okay, so now what I’m going to do is this. So they get to hear it. And that was particularly about Perio. So we do our BPE and they know what the scores, scores on the doors are. And so you are either healthy, which is damn rare. In which case.
Andy & Chris (37:53.226)
Hmm.
Barry (37:59.574)
we’re going to be providing you with hygiene maintenance. You’ve got gingivitis, in which case we’re going to provide you with gingivitis therapy, which is a higher cost to you, the patient, than hygiene maintenance, even though it’s the same time. Or you’ve got more advanced and you’ve got period disease, in which case we’re going to be providing you with periodontal therapy, which again is a higher fee. So most practices…
charge an hourly rate for themselves, but also the hygienists. Well, we don’t, we do fee per item. So you’re going to pay more because you’re diseased and we want to get you healthy. And the aim of the game is to get you into hygiene maintenance. And everybody’s, even the patients are very clear on what the pathway is and what the investment is to do that. So it’s things like that. It was changing the way we word things. It was giving more value.
Andy & Chris (38:50.917)
Mm.
Barry (38:57.186)
to how we were explaining things and it was becoming much more productive. And we present three treatment plans to every single patient. So every patient gets three treatment plans. And I’m proud to say this is my wife’s design really is that we color code them red, amber, green. Red is immediate, then we have preventative, then we have elective. So immediate is anything diseased. So periodisease.
Andy & Chris (39:06.05)
Mm.
Barry (39:27.126)
gums decay, things like that. Amber is preventative is, look, it’s not diseased, but it’s worth thinking about doing it at the same time. And I’ll give you all the benefits of that. And then green is elective. So that’s not to do with oral health. That would be whitening, straightening, implant, things like that, or facial aesthetics. And so typically, let’s say Doris comes in, she’s 60 years old.
Andy & Chris (39:29.266)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (39:50.878)
Hmm. Well, okay.
Barry (39:57.686)
and she’s got a DO amalgam in the five, she’s got an old MOD in the six, and a big MO buckly extended in the seven. That’s quite typical, right? And let’s say for argument’s sake that she’s got decay in the six and it’s fractured. The distal lingual cusp is off. In most situations, the dentist…
will be explaining that Doris needs to treat that six. And I would suggest that most of my clients when they’re on the NHS are really explaining that Doris can have an amalgam on the NHS or if she wanted to, she could upgrade maybe and have a composite privately. But we know that if there’s 60% of the tooth missing and there’s hairline fractures, the best treatment for that tooth is an indirect restoration like that.
Andy & Chris (40:53.04)
Mm.
Barry (40:53.77)
an inlay, onlay or a cram. Well then, the six is on the red plan, right? That six needs to be treated because it’s unhealthy. And what Doris told me was when she’s 80, she wants to have as many of her teeth as possible. So I future paced her and I said, that’s cool. You know, in an ideal world, you want to keep that tooth and the best treatment for that is to do an indirect restoration.
Then I’ll explain that the five and the seven have contact points that are not ideal because when they were packed in with a sequivland or toffelmeyer matrix band, it gave us the amalgam contact points at the marginal ridge, not further down. And so the five and the seven do not need to be done. But, by the way, I use the word but on purpose because it negates. So they do not need to be done, but you could consider doing them at the same time.
because we can improve the contact points. We know that they need to be done further down the line. And so we explain that the red must be done, the orange is worth thinking about. And 68% of our patients go, yeah, it makes sense, let’s do all three. Now, what that does is it more than doubles the hourly rate, which is eight to 10X in the profit. Because for me to prep one tooth is 40 minutes, for me to prep two teeth and a composite,
Andy & Chris (42:07.168)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (42:14.487)
Hmm.
Barry (42:20.51)
is 50 minutes because the time the turbine is on the tooth is negligible. It’s all the preamble, the injection, everything else. So by shifting towards quadrant dentistry, I believe I’m serving my patients because it’s their choice, not mine. Right. Here’s the options and 68% go, yes, I’d like to do that. 32% know what’s around the corner.
Andy & Chris (42:28.957)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (42:39.731)
Mm-hmm.
Barry (42:48.394)
and know that they’ve made the choice that it’s not right for me now and that’s great. I don’t care whether they do it or not, I care that they’ve had the option and the choice.
Andy & Chris (42:48.402)
Yeah. Hmm.
Andy & Chris (42:56.446)
It’s really well with defensive dentistry doesn’t it that sort of everyone’s paranoid about being sued But if you’re having conversations with patients that they know what their options are Then it’s really hard for them to say well, you didn’t tell me It’s true patient choice, I love you know in To sitting down a very complex system you foot in place. You’re also the incredible at delegation
you have a very highly skilled and trained team. And all of that manifests itself into an incredible patient journey, which requires you to have minimal marketing because you have such a happy and content patient base. They’re told they’re friends and family. It’s a really, really sweet, sweet model. You work with practice owners and associates, don’t you? Is there a significant difference between how they communicate, how they engage with their patients, how they view the patient journey?
do they sort of sit in two different camps?
Barry (43:53.898)
No. No, you mean the difference between an associate and a business owner?
Andy & Chris (43:59.049)
Yeah, in terms of how they think and how they behave.
Barry (44:01.466)
No, none of them have been taught. None of them, none of them are aware. Um, it’s rare for somebody to be aware because. You know, unless, so it fits into this, right? I, I know what I know. And then there’s a circle around that where I know what I don’t know. So I do not know anything about a car engine. You asked me what engine I’ve got on the car. I haven’t got a clue. It’s just bloody fast. And I like to drive it, but then outside of that.
is you don’t know what you don’t know. And so it comes back to my very first point, it’s really hard to F it up. It’s really hard to F it up in dentistry, you kind of do okay. And because you don’t know what you don’t know and you’re not exposed to it, because you spend so much time in your practice and or developing your clinical skills, is that you just do the best that you can. And people are good at communicating.
Andy & Chris (44:33.042)
Mm-hmm.
Andy & Chris (44:58.013)
Hmm.
Barry (45:00.962)
Generally speaking, right? They do okay. It’s just that when you start to learn some of these things, it opens up a whole new world of enjoyment and understanding. Dentistry to me is a game. And I say it to my patients, I use a UFC, that’s not a Conor McGregor, right? I have an upfront contract. And this is part of my patient journey. And my upfront contract is, my job is pure and simple, it’s to knock your socks off. And when I do,
Andy & Chris (45:18.838)
Ha ha ha.
Barry (45:30.114)
which is a presupposition, not if I do, right? So when I do, I’m gonna ask you for two things. And they go, right? I go, firstly, I would really be grateful if when I knock your socks off, you go out and tell everybody how good it was and that it was a different experience. And secondly, what would really help me is a five-star Google review so that other people, when they come to town and they Google dentist, they see my patient reviews versus somebody else’s.
Andy & Chris (45:31.822)
that you’re going to.
Barry (45:59.67)
because that’s a way of me attracting my type, my, you know, my tribe. Because I want people that want to be looked after. I want people that want to be cared for, not just in out, get me done. And so I need to attract those people. And I have my tribe of patients that do that for me. Well, I did, it’s radically changed now because I don’t own the business. Yeah, they have.
Andy & Chris (46:24.946)
Ha ha ha.
Barry (46:28.098)
completely dissolved the patient journey as it is, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn’t fit their model, which has also massively decreased the turnover, which is why, yeah, I didn’t get my own out because they changed the model. I know, tough one. So it’s been a very tough five years, to be honest.
Andy & Chris (46:32.39)
Really? Wow.
Andy & Chris (46:40.35)
That’s an interesting one, isn’t it?
Oof.
Andy & Chris (46:50.662)
Yeah, that’s a gitty one, isn’t it? Sorry, because you present a really successful business. And then, I mean, we get it, don’t we? When we compete with the tides and we say, yeah, the problem is though, that exactly as happened to you, they can change the parameters. And then you sort of fall foul of it, which is, it’s, yeah, it’s nasty, isn’t it? It’s also peculiar as well because…
Barry (47:10.006)
It’s unfortunate. It is unfortunate.
Andy & Chris (47:14.634)
Part of the reason you buy a business is because of the success it’s had so far, which is effectively the DNA of that business. So to then change the DNA of that business. Okay. If you think you have a better model, then, then sure. But your, your success based on our experience, and we’re very fortunate, we get to talk to hundreds of dentists a year and we visited thousands of practices. Your experience is extraordinary. You know, to take it from, you know, 300 to 1.1 million,
Barry (47:21.591)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (47:44.608)
half days with a hygienist effectively just by obsessing about and finessing a patient journey is remarkable. So to move away from that on the basis the only reason you do that would be to have greater success. It seems peculiar. And it doesn’t fit your model.
Barry (48:02.754)
I think they look for simplicity and I think that it’s effectively it’s run by accountants and not clinicians and it’s you know my whole being is patient-centric and their whole being is bank account-centric but they have well this it doesn’t in mine but it didn’t in mine no.
Andy & Chris (48:13.654)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (48:18.225)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (48:22.958)
Yeah, it’s bottom line. But then that doesn’t work either. Almost.
Barry (48:30.806)
But, and yeah, and I wanted to stay on as well. My five years was up in July and I requested to stay on for two days a week so that I could still be a clinician and still build my coaching, but they’ve declined. So they actually do not want me in the business at all. So I’ve got to go again. I’m going to start a squat. I know, it’s exciting.
Andy & Chris (48:37.32)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (48:57.445)
Wow. Are you, are you, and genuinely, you’re, you’re excited about that? Are you going to, are you going to pull out, are you going to pull out your business plan from your VT year?
Barry (49:00.702)
Yeah, I am, because I know how to run.
Barry (49:06.606)
Yeah, I’ve developed it since then. I know, I know how to run a patient, patient centric, incredibly successful and financially brilliant business. And so, yeah, I’m going to start down the road where we moved to Petersfield. I’m going to start a practice in Petersfield and absolutely nail it. But that’s it. It’ll take, take some effort. Obviously it’s not easy, is it? But, um,
Andy & Chris (49:17.01)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (49:25.619)
Brilliant.
Excellent. Good for you.
Andy & Chris (49:32.364)
Oh no, definitely.
Barry (49:33.922)
But the model is, it works. Yeah, and that’s what I share with my clients. So my associates, typically they double their income and I help my business owners to increase theirs, but typically the associates do a lot better than they were doing just by changing their way of, yeah, it’s good, it works.
Andy & Chris (49:36.946)
Yeah, you’ve shown it. Have you shown the evidence?
Andy & Chris (49:52.884)
Well.
Andy & Chris (49:59.53)
and where.
It is good. It’s a lovely story Barry, honestly, I think it’s great. I think just your style is warming, but it’s all based on what you’ve done, what you’ve experienced, you know, and from the really early days, you’re going right back to the very beginning when you went and sought out people like Cathy Jamieson and Larry Rosenthal and other people to really take that knowledge of yourself. And it also shows that, you know, tried and tested methods just don’t go out of fashion. You don’t need to come up with a wizard way of doing something.
good at communication and you really care for your patients, it will flow through to business and that’s kind of the underbelly of a lot of what you’ve been saying. It feels like, I don’t know, I’ve never been on one of your courses, but it feels like what you’ve done is translated some of like, I mean we knew Cathy Jamieson and you know we met Larry Rosenthal and Tony Robbins and that sort of stuff. What it feels like is you’ve probably turned it and translated it into an English version, so we’re not high fiving everywhere.
Barry (50:57.942)
Yeah. I do get them to do a little bit of jumping up and down because motion creates emotion, right? In fact, I did…
Andy & Chris (51:02.678)
I’m sorry.
Andy & Chris (51:07.663)
Yeah.
Barry (51:11.618)
So I think I lectured, I did this lecture where I’m explaining how we generate our feelings. And that, you know, at the end of the day, it’s really quite simple. We’re all quite simple. And that is you have a thought and the thoughts and your body posture ultimately results in how you feel and your emotion. And it’s the combination of those three things, whatever you’re picturing, thinking, or running through your head, whatever you’re saying to yourself.
how you hold your body and how you’re feeling then drives your behaviors and your behaviors that gets you results. But the biggest, I had this incredible experience on one of the courses where there’s 9,000 people in a room and he says, get into threes with two people you’ve never met before. So I was with this South African guy and this guy from Norway. And he said, right, number yourselves one to three. So South African.
guy was one and he says I want you to think of a peak emotional state, a peak emotional moment in your life and I want you to go back and think about that. So this guy sat there and he said right increase the thoughts, really go back, see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. My job then as number two was to have a look at him and copy him, which I did my best, I sat there and I copied him and then the job of number three was to tweak me to be more like him.
And to cut a long story short, after about 10 minutes of him tweaking and changing me, changing my breathing and my tonality, make this one stronger, he said, whispered to his ear, where are you, what’s going on, what’s this memory? And then came to me, he said, where are you, what’s going on? And I went, holy crap, I’m so emotional. I’m sat in a hospital waiting room, I’m holding something heavy.
Andy & Chris (52:40.581)
Ah, okay.
Barry (53:07.682)
and shit’s going down, I don’t know, I feel really emotional. Anyway, music comes on, jump up and down. I turned to the South African and said, so where were you, what was going on? He said, well, I was sat in a hospital waiting room holding my newborn child whilst they operated on my wife to save a life and I just burst into tears and went, how the hell? A, I felt the feelings, but how the hell did I know I was sat in the hospital waiting room? This was the moment I went.
Andy & Chris (53:31.314)
Wow.
Barry (53:36.038)
I need to learn this shit. This is incredible. Because I was not the only one, right? 9,000 people in the room, 20% of them, had the experience that their partner had had. And what it taught me, and then when I learned NLP, and what it taught me is our physiology, our body postures, and our breathing.
Andy & Chris (53:41.233)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (53:45.248)
Bye.
Barry (53:58.35)
drive much more the thoughts in our head than the other way around. Right? And so then, when I’m lecturing, we’ll play the happy and sad game. And I’ll put pictures up and go, happy or sad? And people are like this. And obviously they go, sad! And people are like this, and they go, happy! And then I show a picture of a dentist.
Andy & Chris (54:04.993)
Mmm. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (54:20.171)
Mm.
Barry (54:23.502)
And they go, oh, it’s a dentist. They go, yeah. We ask ourselves to sit in a physiological position of sadness and depression for eight hours a day. We then have people coming in going, I hate dentists. Not you, obviously, but I hate dentists. We then have fear of hurting people. We have a fear of being sued. And then we wonder why one in five of us seriously thinks about suicide every year. And I believe that by helping people to recognize
Andy & Chris (54:27.096)
Hahaha
Andy & Chris (54:39.146)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (54:48.182)
Hmm.
Barry (54:53.514)
moving your body, standing up. Amy Cuddy did a brilliant video in 2012, Harvard professor, and she showed and proved that you change your endorphins and your cortisol by standing up and putting your arms in the air, doing a power pose. So I want every dentist in between every patient, just stand the heck up. Because when you do and you stretch, you’re decreasing your cortisol and increasing your endorphins. So,
Andy & Chris (55:12.79)
Hmm.
makes a difference.
Andy & Chris (55:19.21)
Hmm. Yeah.
Barry (55:21.71)
There’s loads of things that we could get out there to help dentists because there’s a lot of stress in there and actually we can tweak it by simple, simple things, affirmations, being kind to ourselves, changing our body, moving around.
Andy & Chris (55:27.357)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (55:36.023)
Mm-hmm.
that simple thing stretching, you’re right. You know, it’s, it’s such a simple thing, but if you could just build it into your, I don’t know, an hourly routine of having a stretch, you know, sales calls in the bank, wasn’t it? You have to stand up, you know, if you can do a sales call in the bank, stand up. And that’s, that’s your mess. Exactly what it was. It’s quite interesting. I never explained the way you explained it. But yeah, that was that was what it was. Right. Everyone stand up when you do your sales call.
Barry (55:48.731)
I just do it in between.
Barry (56:02.07)
Well, we’ve known this for years. So this is it, right? This is where making people consciously aware of what they subconsciously knew. Because as a child, my mum would say, come on, poppet, head up, shoulders back. Where did that come from? I mean, we’ve known this for years, right? But now consciously knowing, and now knowing that they’ve done studies in the fact that our cortisol comes down when we’re in a power pose and our endorphin goes up, we’re changing our biochemistry.
Andy & Chris (56:15.124)
Hmm.
Barry (56:31.778)
when we sit as a dentist or a dental nurse or a receptionist when we’re in this kind of hunched over position. So young dentist, if you’re listening, get some bloody loops on, or better still use a microscope because that corrects posture and that will change how you feel.
Andy & Chris (56:35.743)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (56:50.191)
Mm-hmm. Mm. That’s a fascinating one, isn’t it, really? So I was just thinking about that. You know, I’d never really thought about it, but you’re right, you’re spending your whole time bent over. I bet that’s a real wake-up moment when people do the happy sad happy sad see a picture of a dentist and go, sir. Oh my goodness, it’s like, yeah. Wow.
Barry (57:00.654)
Yeah.
Barry (57:06.366)
Yeah, it is. They’re like, oh. And I go, right, go and see Connor Bryant. Get yourself a decent pair.
Andy & Chris (57:12.314)
Yes. Nice air loops. Brilliant. Have this episode with sponsor, Die, bright and gentle. Thank you very much.
Barry (57:20.642)
little plug. That’s a that is one stellar company. He’s a good he’s a good man and he’s got great products. So yeah, I highly recommend
Andy & Chris (57:25.486)
It is. It is. Yeah. I was going to say good products, good culture, great team. Yeah.
Barry (57:33.174)
Honestly, it’s such a great place to go and visit.
Andy & Chris (57:37.183)
Yeah, I’ve not been down. I saw him and he was telling me about some of the things he was doing in his office And I do need to get down because it does sound like a really funky exciting and vigorous in place to be
Barry (57:48.775)
Yeah, I want to go in there and train his team. In fact, I will. I will be going in at some point. Yeah, he’s a very shrewd business.
Andy & Chris (57:52.156)
Mm.
Mm.
Andy & Chris (57:58.714)
Yeah Barry it’s wonderful we could talk all day but such is life, we need to let you go and get some artwork on the wall and finish your business plan for your squat, that’s what you need to do. Yeah we always finish with our guests in the same way and we ask two questions and the first question we have for you is if you could be a fly on the wall in a certain situation when would that be and who would be there?
Barry (58:07.836)
and hang these pictures up. That’s going to go in the new practice.
Barry (58:23.198)
Yeah, this might be a weird answer. But I think when I do, people go, oh yeah, actually, yeah. I would really like to know how they flipping well built the pyramids.
Andy & Chris (58:27.319)
Weirded or better, honestly.
Andy & Chris (58:40.115)
Yes. Okay. Yes. Yeah.
Barry (58:41.042)
See what you just said? You just both went, oh, yeah. I would… Yeah. They just do not know, do they? And, um… Yeah.
Andy & Chris (58:49.863)
No. There’s loads of theories and stuff. Aliens, mate. They are. Bring down the aliens. But there’s seriously big lumps of rock to move.
Barry (58:57.49)
Yeah, yeah, and precisely done as well. So yeah, I’d quite, I’d like to know that.
Andy & Chris (59:00.03)
Mm-hmm.
Andy & Chris (59:03.358)
That’d be cool. Well, let’s hope we get the answers to that someday. That’d be nice. One day, one day. And then our follow-up is if you could meet somebody, you can sit down in a comfy chair with a cup of coffee or glass of wine. Living or dead. Yeah. Who would you like to meet?
Barry (59:08.292)
day.
Barry (59:18.43)
I, so I’ve already met the one that I would, which was Tony Robbins, I’ve already met him. I would love to meet Jordan Peterson.
Andy & Chris (59:27.582)
Ah, yeah. Quite a controversial character. Yeah, that’ll be interesting.
Barry (59:29.359)
Find him.
Barry (59:34.134)
He’s very articulate and I think he’s very interesting. His daughter has a phenomenal story as well, getting over really bad autoimmune diseases and just fascinating. And equally, I’d like to meet Ricky Gervais.
Andy & Chris (59:37.046)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (59:58.666)
That would be a good couple of hours wouldn’t it?
Barry (01:00:00.686)
That would be so good, a few dinner guests like that. Listen, I’d love to have those two have an interesting debate. Cause they’re very, they’re very good at, both of them are very good at that.
Andy & Chris (01:00:03.937)
Yeah, yeah. Imagine a table.
Andy & Chris (01:00:09.746)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (01:00:13.882)
Yeah. Barry, thank you for your time and absolute joy. It’s been, honestly, it’s been a, it’s been really good. It’s been a wonderful conversation. Um, and like I say genuinely, I’d love to come down and see you practice when you get opened. I look forward to seeing that picture on the wall. Um, and I wish you success because the stuff you’re doing, it really does change lives. You know, it puts people on a pathway of, of having a happier and a better career as a result of the things that you can show them.
Barry (01:00:16.962)
Thanks for having me, chaps.
Barry (01:00:29.211)
Yeah.
Barry (01:00:40.79)
It is. It’s, it’s me, to me, dentistry is a game and it’s a game of knocking people’s socks off and helping them to improve their life. And it’s a fun one. I love my dentistry and I love sharing what we’ve created with other dentists so that then they can create their version of it and improve their lives and other patients lives. So it’s very symbiotic. It’s a good, it’s a good thing to be doing.
Andy & Chris (01:00:52.624)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (01:01:06.738)
Absolutely, absolutely. Lovely, Brian. Appreciate your time today. Look after yourself. Keep well. Thank you. Cheers. Dad up.
Barry (01:01:08.75)
Guys, thanks for your time.
Barry (01:01:12.654)
Cheers, chaps.
