Tamara Milanovic spoke with winners of the Dental Practice Accelerator, Jay and Kin Parekh, as well as mentor Justin Leigh, about the tremendous progress the practice has made in only nine months.
It’s been nine months since winners Jay and Kin from Campbell Dental Practice won the first Dental Practice Accelerator (DPA). Since then, they’ve been on a growth journey with the help and advice of mentors Justin Leigh, Sameer Patel, and Sandeep Kumar.
Tamara Milanovic caught up with the winners and Justin to see how things are going now that the year-long journey is coming to a close. And although the DPA journey is almost finished, their road to success is only getting started.
Jay and Kin revealed that in the past nine months alone, their practice had a 37% growth in private revenue, and with exciting announcements and changes coming soon, this number will surely continue to grow.
As Justin quoted, ‘Change is tough in the beginning, messy in the middle, beautiful at the end’, and for Jay and Kin, things are looking beautiful already.
‘Not only has everyone’s mindset changed, but the look of the practice has changed, patients’ attitudes have changed, it’s all very exciting’, said Jay.
Can you tell us about a hurdle that the practice has faced during this growth journey, and what advice you’ve taken from the mentors to overcome it?
Kin Parekh (KP): Since we’ve started the DPA journey, the regular patients have noticed the changes already. A few of them have shown excitement, a few of them haven’t. Some patients expressed concern that by us moving towards a more private business, we might lose touch with the loyalty that they have towards us, especially towards the longstanding dentists at the practice.
That’s where our three mentors had advised us that it’s not just about growth for the practice, it’s also growth for every patient that walks in, because you can offer them more at the practice.
One of the fellow dentists mentioned a good point to her patient. She explained that we are losing a lot of patients because they feel that we don’t offer anything other than just NHS dentistry. The patients are going to other practices for that.
So, by advertising more and by bringing in these changes, all we’re doing is telling our patients that we are offering more than they think we are. I know that change is not always comfortable, but it’s all for the best.
You have a lot of changes coming up in the next few months. How are you as a team feeling about this and what are you most excited about?
Jay Parekh (JP): We’ve been on a change journey since July, and it’s almost snowballing now, where we’re coming to this crescendo moment.
We have an exciting launch coming up, which we will announce soon. As we’ve been promoting private internally with the staff, explaining why we need to get more private patients in, we’ve seen Kin’s diary filling up more and more with private patients.
We’ve reached the point where we cannot service both private and NHS patients now. Therefore, we’re excited to announce that Kin will go fully private very soon. We’re looking forward to it, but it will be a big change.
KP: It’s a lot of excitement and anxiety, a little bit of confusion here and there, but overall, it’s all positive.
JP: It’s important to note that this journey won’t stop for us after the launch – all these upcoming announcements and launches, that isn’t the end, it’s the start.
We’ve already been told by the mentors that it’s difficult to have a business where you’re doing NHS and private under the same roof, and I fully appreciate that and can see that. We’re in a transition phase now where we’re moving from predominantly NHS to predominantly private. It’s all very exciting.
Get ready for the second round of Dental Practice Accelerator!
It’s clear that Jay and Kin’s success story won’t be slowing down anytime soon. With a staggering 37% increase in private revenue in less than one year, Dentistry is excited to see where their journey will be in three months’ time.
The opportunity to take part in Dental Practice Accelerator can be life-changing, and with the invaluable advice of all three mentors, your practice could be next! Dentistry will be launching the second round of DPA very soon with limited entries available, so watch this space and start considering your applications!
Follow Dentistry.co.uk on Instagram to keep up with all the latest dental news and trends.
