Find out what will be happening in the Dental Business Theatre at The Dentistry Show this year.
The Dental Business Theatre is set to inspire and empower delegates at this year’s The Dentistry Show. The theatre will feature eight ‘Power Hours’ with industry-renowned double acts and panel discussions covering topics that will make a tangible difference to you and your practice.
Practice Plan, the curator of the theatre’s programme, caught up with Ashley Latter and Chris Barrow, who will be delivering a Power Hour session on ‘The patient experience’, to find out what’s in store for those in attendance.
Practice Plan (PP): You’re speaking together in the theatre for the first time. What do you think you’ll each bring to the session?
Chris Barrow (CB): We recently calculated that we have each invested over 25,000 hours listening to practice owners and teams describe their SWOTs (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). Our intention is to distil our current thinking into points that delegates can take away and implement as soon as they get back to the practice. We plan to capture and relay to the audience the enthusiasm that we both still feel for our work.
Ashley Latter (AL): Chris is right, there’s not that many people who have been in as many practices or spoken to as many dental teams as we have over the years.
As we’re not trained dental professionals, we can offer an outsider’s perspective, and that’s certainly not a bad thing! We can take delegates out of their bubble and show them the mistakes that they are making, from the angle of
the patients.
PP: It sounds as if you do a lot of work together. Have you spoken as a duo before?
CB: Bizarrely, after all these years, we have never shared a stage simultaneously.
AL: Actually Chris, you’re wrong there! We did speak together 18 or 19 years ago, which seems like a lifetime ago now. But apart from nearly two decades ago, our recent collaboration on our podcast ‘Two reds are better than one’ is the only joint venture that we’ve had over the years.
CB: I completely forgot Ashley, you’re right. The podcast is the second time that we have worked together then and it’s been extremely well received. We are having huge fun recording – so our objective is to bring the same energy to the theatre.
PP: In your Power Hour session, you’ll be talking about the patient experience. How important is this to dental practices?
AL: It’s everything! In the session we’re going to cover every step that the patient will take and how important it is.
CB: We want to entertain, inform and educate our audience as to current best practice in dental customer service. Patients become savvier each year and even the ‘average’ patient is a customer service expert nowadays, who is only a few keyboard touches away from writing a positive or negative review that can go viral. There has perhaps never been a brighter spotlight shining on every member of the dental team.
Ashley and I have the privilege of travelling constantly and we can bring to our session our observations of what works (and what doesn’t) in the patient experience.
PP: If business owners or practice managers attend your session, what will they take away with them?
CB: A list of dos and don’ts about delivering a patient experience. This list will help to enrol their existing patients as brand ambassadors, advocates and an unpaid sales force for their business.
AL: I hope they will come away from the theatre with at least one idea that will be a game changer for their business, it only takes one small idea to transform a practice!
Brand ambassadors are a great example of this, a referral from one friend to another could be a whole family registering on your books.
This year’s The Dentistry Show will take place Friday 12 to Saturday 13 May at NEC Birmingham. To find out more about Practice Plan’s Dental Business Theatre programme, visit www.practiceplan.co.uk/events.
In 1997, two dentists took part on Ashley’s ethical sales and communication programme and since then, over 9,500 delegates have taken this course worldwide. Ashley has delivered the ethical sales and communication programme in 14 different countries, including India, Holland, Spain, Estonia, Serbia, Canada, and five times in the USA. Ashley is the author of several books, including Helping patients to say YES, Don’t Wait for the Tooth Fairy and You are worth it. In 2014, Ashley was voted number 12 in the top 150 most influential people in UK Dentistry.
Chris is the founder of Coach Barrow and is an active consultant, trainer and coach to the UK dental profession. Chris has spent over 25 years witnessing first-hand the trials and tribulations faced by dentists today. Chris combines a wealth of knowledge with the originality and independence needed to resolve the thorniest of problems. Straight talking and determined, he can reach conclusions quickly and has the reflexes and lightness of touch to innovate, change tack and push boundaries. Chris regularly contributes to the dental press, social media and online. As a speaker Chris is dynamic, energetic and charismatic with boundless enthusiasm for his field of expertise.
