COPENHAGEN, Denmark: Among the myriad benefits offered by digital dentistry is an improved ability to communicate, share files and collaborate with partnering dental laboratories. Dr Zuber Bagasi, the founder and CEO of Synergy Dental Group, will showcase these advantages and more at the upcoming 3Shape Navigate. This free online event will feature a wealth of stimulating talks designed to put dental professionals on the path towards workflow digitalisation, and Dental Tribune International caught up with Bagasi ahead of his presentation.

Dr Bagasi, when and how did you become a practitioner of digital dentistry?
My digital dentistry journey really started about five years ago. A large proportion of my work is related to dental implantology, and I have also taught and mentored on this topic for many years. What I found is that more and more dentists were increasingly reluctant to advance themselves in performing minor oral surgery procedures owing to anxiety over increased litigation risks, and the inexperience I sometimes witnessed was alarming.

Dr Zuber Bagasi, the founder and CEO of Synergy Dental Group. (Image: Zuber Bagasi)

I made the decision to invest in an in-house digital CT scanner, which would not only support my own dental implant planning and provision, but also allow me to mentor course participants in predictable implant planning and placement. This was followed shortly afterwards by a digital scanner, since to create a CT-planned surgical guide, you needed to have an analogue or digital impression, and it made sense to go for a digital scanner.

What advice do you have for dentists who are planning to transition from more traditional workflows to digital methods?
I operate a group of dental practices, mainly under a joint venture partnership model, where associate dentists who have become partners are like-minded and always want to excel clinically. Together, we have come to understand that you will be limiting your patient outcomes if you do not adopt digital dentistry, and one of the most important aspects of this is digital scanning. We currently offer a postgraduate diploma in implantology through SynTrain Academy, our online training academy. As part of our curriculum, all our lecturers teach the use of digital scanning technology. We believe that there is a huge revolution within dentistry which involves using a digital scanner, and for this reason, we have to teach this to new course participants.

How has 3Shape helped you throughout your digital journey?
It has helped massively. We currently use the 3Shape TRIOS 3 intra-oral scanner for all our short-term orthodontics, saving at least 60 minutes per case. We use the company’s digital scanning solutions for all of our implant planning and rely on TRIOS for restorative work and for smile design, however simple or complex it may be.

“I have been using 3Shape’s scanning solutions for full-arch implant restorations for several years now, with very predictable results”

We also use it for intra-oral scanning for tooth whitening cases as well as for the production of partial dentures. There are some limitations, especially when you are creating full-arch dentures. However, I have been using 3Shape’s scanning solutions for full-arch implant restorations for several years now, with very predictable results.

What will you be highlighting during your presentation at the upcoming 3Shape Navigate virtual event? What will participants learn?
The focus of the session will be to demonstrate the ease of use presented by the 3Shape TRIOS intra-oral scanning range, not just in terms of scanning the patient, but also when it comes to sending the scans to a dental laboratory. It takes just seconds for these scans to be received by the laboratory, allowing for a much more efficient workflow as well as a finished product with a higher degree of accuracy. Attendees will also learn about how TRIOS offers an open system, which allows it to integrate with other technologies and materials and work for all aspects of dentistry.

Editorial note: Dr Bagasi’s presentation, titled “Working with your lab is easy with TRIOS”, will be available in five languages (English, Spanish, French, German and Chinese) and will be able to be seen as part of the upcoming 3Shape Navigate event. Set to be held on 17 and 18 March, this online symposium offers dental professionals the opportunity to learn from a range of speakers who will share their personal digital dental journeys. Fast and easy registration on the 3Shape Navigate website is free of charge.

In this second article, Zuber Bagasi shows just how effectively the strategy and ethos behind the
Joint Venture Partnership can be tweaked and pivoted to compliment an existing, more established
practice for associate dentists.

s a practice owner and clinician myself, I know all too well, the struggle of balancing the many
duties of a multi-role dentist.
Whilst we have been developing the JVP model for over a decade, ensuring that each element of the
strategy works in harmony with the rest, allowing our associates to step up and to invest in our
existing practices or procure new brand new facilities, the whole pandemic allowed us to take a
step back, assess the situation and think slightly differently.
As an existing practice owner, you might have built a really strong practice over the years, you
would have obviously put a lot of hard work into what you do, you’ve secured a loyal patient base
and cultivated staff within the practice you have looked after. Now this pandemic hits and there is
a lot of stress and uncertainty. Anxiety within the industry is surely through the roof.
Immediately, a lot of questions came to mind. What is the future of dentistry? Both NHS and
private. What
do you do? What are your options? Option one is to ignore everything, imagine nothing has happened,
try to follow the regulations and advice that’s been offered by the CDO as closely as possible and
just carry on as much as you can. Option two is to throw in your towel, enough is enough, and sell
on to an
associate, to other corporates or an incoming buyer. These have been the two main mindsets I have
come across when speaking to colleagues across the industry. I know that a lot of practice owners
are thinking ‘I’ve had enough, I want to sell up, I want to have an easy life, I want to see my
children grow up, I want to spend time with my family’.
But there is a third option, an option that diverged from the Joint Venture Partnership model. In a
situation where an owner doesn’t really want to sell up, and they feel they
have had their hand forced with all the new regulations, difficulties, and uncertainties. The
option we propose is that you, as a practice owner, would keep your brand identity, keep your
practice, you would retain full ownership and you can allow us, with the experience
that we have, to take over the running of your practice and support you whilst you either stay in
the practice and continue with the work you love or even take a back seat.
Within a Joint Venture Management model, we will do just that, exactly like the Joint Venture
Partnership model except for the
fact that we don’t have an equity within your practice. Taking care of the nuances of practice
ownership, allowing you to focus on your career and your patients. We’ll do everything for you,
marketing, HR, recruitment, training,
appraisals, we’ll handle the operational aspects of practice management for you whilst you sit back
and get involved as little or as much as you want. Allow your practice, yourself and your staff the
room that’s required sometimes and when you are ready to step back in, whether that be in a
clinical or managerial capacity, that’s absolutely fine, you can.
The Joint Venture model that we’ve developed has allowed each practice that we handle to increase
its revenues, its turnover, its EBITDA. One possible outcome could be for you to have it valued
two, three years down the line and your EBITDA will have improved, your value will have improved,
then exit at that point. This strategy is
something very new to dentistry, but I believe it is an exciting offering for the professional and
I say to all practice owners looking for options ‘There is another way’.
Our Joint Venture Management model can be tailored and customised to suit the individual and will
be negotiated on a case-by case basis. For example, it might
be that practice owners want to allow us to invest in their practice as a 50/50 partner or even a
20% partner, or even a 70% partner, whatever you feel comfortable with. It might be that practice
owners want to fully sell their practice and remain on as an associate,

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‘It’s exciting times and it’s
refreshing to see the work that we have dove over the last decade has been very successful over the
wider healthcare economy and has finally been brought into dentistry after rigorous trial and
testing.’
whatever it is, this Joint Venture model that we have created will work for you.
It’s exciting times and it’s refreshing to see the work that we have dove over the last decade has
been very successful over the wider healthcare economy and has finally been brought into dentistry
after rigorous
trial and testing. The central support network that we have developed, human beings, all very well
supported, trained, and nurtured to provide the level of skill and attitude that the centralised
team require. Supported by the system they operate in, with bespoke software developments, whether
that’s through our accredited, IDDA award-winning training platform, as well as our business
management solution, SynPro which allows practice owners access to all the governance, accounts and
marketing at their fingertips. As a partner and practice owner, you will have your stats available
as a live feed at the touch of a button, in real-time. All your accounts data, your marketing, all
your governance and your compliance with the CQC, everything is available instantly.
The systems we have developed are
of course, the backbone of all our Joint Ventures. In the last article I explained that the
genesis of our Joint Venture philosophy was heavily inspired by outside
elements, away from the dental industry, the development and ethos behind our systems has been no
different. Take a brief look at the aviation industry and you will find that a pilot will probably
only physically fly a plane for just a few minutes during take-off and landing, the rest of the
time the plane
is on auto-pilot. But nonetheless, there is still a rigorous checklist involved to make sure safety
is paramount. Look into how the automotive industry is becoming ever more automated, from the
robotic manufacturing process, testing and development,
onboard computers keeping an eye on the functionality of the vehicle, right up to the cars
themselves driving autonomously. It is clear to see that the world is becoming less and less
reliant on human interaction in order to work for us and we believe dentistry, down to the
individual practices and associates, has to pick up that pace and keep up with that innovation if
we are to survive.
The systems of appraisals, of HR, of governance, all these things that normally weigh us down and
take us away from the face-to-face needs of our patients, we as dentists really need to have
systems in place to make that behind-the-scenes process more automated and compliant. We believe
that our JVM model is the perfect gateway to that future. Stress free and enabling the kind of
growth and development practice owners dream of. We at Synergy understand that the bottom line is
always very important but we have shown that each and every practice that we have ran, the
partnerships that we have cultivated, the practices have flourished and it’s something that we feel
you as a practice owner should benefit from too.
As mentioned previously, I am still a busy, practicing clinician even with all the responsibilities
of being the CEO and operational head of the Synergy Dental
Group. I feel it is a testament to the success of these systems and the centralised team that I am
able to maintain the face-to-face interaction with my patients that I love
as well as having a full and rewarding life outside of work, spending time with my family, engaging
with my hobbies and enjoying the fruits of my labour.
Alongside the support behind-the-scenes, as part of a JVM partnership, practice owners will benefit
from all the advancements in technology and procedures a member of
the Joint venture Partnership would. A fully stocked, cutting edge upgrade to your surgeries to
enable a smoother workflow, more predictable outcomes and the ability to embrace the latest
techniques and more importantly, you and your fellow associates
continue to enjoy and maintain your passion for your career.
If you feel that either the JVP or JVM models we offer may be of some benefit to you, we’d love to
hear from you. ◆
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41404-021-0650-6

Squat practices are growing in popularity as associates look to take control of their futures. In the second of two articles, we hear from Andy Acton about the financial hurdles dentists need to overcome to build a squat practice.

Why should a dentist start a squat practice now?

The last 12 months were really hard. The government support was lacking, dentists have needed to dip into their savings.

At the moment and the back-end of last year, there wasn’t the scale of work out there for associates as there has been in the past.

For a long while, the way to fix that has been to buy a dental practice, and that is still the right thing.

The fresh way of thinking is people setting up squats.

There are two reasons for it really. The demand for practices outstrips the supply. There’s a growing number of people who want to get into ownership but just find the access point difficult.

You need an entrepreneurial flair to make a squat practice work. Whilst being a dentist is awesome, you need to be more than a dentist to make a squat fly.

If you buy an existing practice and proceed to do the same as the person before you, you’ll get similar results. If you are entrepreneurial and have an understanding of the elements of business that work, then I think a squat is a very viable option.

It might sound like a stupid time to get a squat practice, because everyone’s clamouring for patients and work and business, but it’s probably a six to nine-month project – maybe longer if you need to find a very specific space.

Therefore, by the time you’re going to be in a position where you’re looking to engage with patients is towards the end of this year. By which time I’m expecting the world to look a bit like it did.

Patient demand being relative, there will also be some pent-up demand for people who aren’t going to the dentist.

I think that this will lead to a tsunami of patients into practices later on this year.

It all sounds quite straight forward, but what are the difficulties when opening a squat practice?

I think the first one is finding the right location.

When we sell dental practices, the thing I say to people time and time again is: ‘The one thing you cannot change is where it is.’ So, you have to choose your location supremely well.

Then, you need to think about what’s your proposition – is it going to be a local community, is it going to be near a train station?

There’s a change in the behaviour of the population buying their services much more locally due to the pandemic. So, when you look for your space, you have to think if you want to be in a town centre, or whether a more rural practice would suit you.

I think the location is absolutely at the top of the list.

The next one is finance. There’s no doubt that finance with a squat is more challenging than an existing practice.

When you arrange finance to buy an existing practice, the bank has two elements.

It can consider you as an individual and then look at the business you are buying. It questions on the balance of probability; can you step in and continue to run this business in a similar way? If the answer to that is yes, then you get your money.

When you’re looking to finance a squat, you’ve got your skills as an individual and a business plan. Are your skills as an individual sufficiently competent and does it give them the confidence that not only can you deliver the clinical work but also the business side of things as well? That makes it a slightly riskier venture for the bank, which in turn means that it’s more difficult to raise your finance.

Beyond that, once you’re in a position where your finance is sorted, and how you are going to go about it; from an operational view, that’s why we are working with Zuber.

Zuber’s got an offering that he’s already proven through his Synergy model. This enables people to focus on the delivery of dentistry and get engaged in the parts of business that they want to.

The Synergy team can manage all the other parts for you.

With the current pandemic, how has that impacted the financial implications, and the path to borrowing money to start a squat practice?

It has made the process very much harder.

The banks want to lend money into markets where they won’t lose anything. Healthcare has always been a safe place to lend money.

The challenge at the moment is limited to the pandemic. The banks have been inundated with requests for business interruption and bounce back loans.

They’ve got new instructions coming in from their existing clients and they’re trying to reconfigure facilities for the existing clients as well.

But those four groups are overwhelming the banks. So looking at new applications isn’t at the top of their lists.

Looking at applications of people who are buying an existing business is an easier proposition to look at than an application for a squat practice.

So, from that point of view, it’s more challenging.

That’s partly going to suit somebody who has personal resources that they use to mostly fund the project themselves. Somebody that has already done some work and thinking around what is available.

You need to make it easy for the banks to lend money to you.

What kind of profile of person do you think starting a squat practice would suit?

I think it’s really the sort of person who has more than just clinical experience. That is going to look good on their CV for the bank.

But also someone who has been working as a clinical dentist for a few years.

But most importantly they must have the ability and business skills. They understand what’s involved in managing people – the difference between sales and marketing, understanding the difference between leadership and management. They have a basic understanding of the core components of business.

I think clinically, a new graduate would be great, because they’ve learnt all of the new techniques. But there is a possibility they have not yet matured into their understanding of the business side of things.

I encourage people to spend time in practice as an associate. When there’s an opportunity to step up into a management role, step up. That experience will serve you so well when setting up a squat.

How can dentists prepare? What can they do to start preparing themselves so that they’re ready for an application?

I think what they need to do is, download a business plan and start scribbling down all of the things they have been thinking about.

What they also need to do is start to build a financial forecast, to see what it looks like.

Most squat practices don’t just start as they want to succeed. Many squat practices start as the associate still working two/three/four times a week as an associate and working one day in their practice – and it builds from there.

As their practice gets busier, they reduce their associate days.

So, they need to start laying down their business plan ideas, but also give their CV a good look at. If it’s all dental, postgraduate, clinical training, that’s great – but turn the page over and where is the business experience?

If you’re at the stage where you’re thinking about it, jump online, find a masterclass and start to get a basic understanding of what the business of dentistry means.

You’re partnering up with Zuber. What exactly are you doing with Zuber and Synergy Dental?

We’ve had a lot of people come to us with the idea of starting a squat.

One of the things that we can do is talk them through the mechanics of a squat practice, and how it works.

What we don’t do is, we don’t find the location for them. Whilst that is part of Zuber’s service, I believe that the person who is going to set up the squat needs to take ownership of that.

So, you find the location – we can guide you in terms of building the plan with calls – but then when it moves forward, if you need help on an ongoing basis, that’s where Zuber and Synergy come in. They are going to provide all of the back-end support needed so that you can have a really credible supporting partner that gives you the freedom to run that business.

For lots of people, it’s daunting. To have the support of someone that’s done it time and time again is great.

Zuber’s style is so warm, he wants to help people to succeed. For us, it felt like a natural fit.

Also, I think we jointly want to see dentistry as a profession progress and succeed. Between us we can encourage people to create squat practices.

There’s a wider common goal here. We’re trying to create more opportunity in dentistry. As well as bring more dental practices about because there is a shortage of access to dentistry in some areas.

If we can bring some new practices to the market that will be good for the whole country.

Squat practices are growing in popularity as associates look to take control of their futures. In the first of two angles, we hear from Zuber Bagasi about the hurdles dentists need to overcome to build a squat practice. Tomorrow we’ll hear from Andy Acton about the financial side.

How easy is the process of starting up a squat practice?

It depends. It can be as easy or as complicated as you make it depending on the background and the support system that you have around you.

You have to make sure that you’re going through the whole process.

The first thing is finance. You’ve got to make sure that you’ve got the financial capability. If you’ve got someone who’s already got your financing that’s great. If not then you’ve got to get over the hurdle of obtaining that finance.

The second thing is choosing the right location. If you have a location in mind then it’s easier. If you haven’t got a location then you’ve got to do a feasibility and marketing exercise where you check whether the location that you’ve chosen is going to work as a private practice.

You’ve identified your location. You then want to look for premises in that location.

You’ve also got the refurbishment and the planning. Everything from designing the practice to appointing your lead contractors, to getting everything approved. If you haven’t done this before it could be a challenge.

Do you think setting up a squat dental practice is better suited to a certain type of dentist?

The principal’s hearts and guts need to go into a squat practice. If a practice principal is looking to step into a new private squat practice, then absolutely that would work providing they’ve got their existing practice secure and stable. And they bring their experience across too.

An associate who is going to put in the hard work, they’re going to be understanding over how to lead the team, someone who’s got leadership qualities, or can be mentored and developed. Someone who’s clinically competent in the services they want to provide.

What are the benefits that come with building a squat practice?

If you buy into a practice, you’ve got an existing income stream and you’ve got an existing team. That is all part of the purchase along with the existing patient base. Therefore, you pay a higher asking price.

With a squat practice, you are effectively stitching and designing your own team together. It comes with a lot of challenges. You start out with zero income. So there needs to be some form of a director’s loan within the business as a contingency plan to keep the balance sheet positive.

The long-term effect of a new private practice is that you’ve made it your own – you’ve got full autonomy and control. You developed your own team, trained and mentored them the way that you’d like them to work.

Why start a squat practice now?

There’s a number of reasons really.

From an associate perspective, it’s to ensure that associates can plan a more sustainable, secure future.

If you can make a squat practice work, if you can get over that hurdle, then you’ve got a long-term sustainable and secure future.

Purchasing an existing practice is a lot harder financially. Typically you’re looking at a squat practice set up of about £150k.

If it’s a 50-50 partnership, which is what we’re doing as a joint venture partnership model, they pay half and we pay half. But the biggest thing with that is we do everything else around it. All the extra work, planning, the building regulations, all the recruitment, training, marketing, IT etc.

I’ve heard of many dentists who have burnt out very early by taking on all the additional bits that go on behind building a successful practice.

But why now in the middle of a pandemic?

I think patients are realising the importance of regular care. The access was limited during the pandemic. So they obviously realised the importance of maintaining a good relationship with a long-term practitioner and a practice.

Secondly the NHS is becoming less and less in terms of service provision and its offering of more complex care. It’s an opportunity for our patients to access the private and more advanced care that they need.

And what is the Joint Venture Model Synergy Dental is offering?

We make arrangements for incoming partners to secure the financial arrangements.

Mostly associates in new squat practices actually have finance available. But usually we’re looking at between £60,000 to £80,000 and most associates have that.

We look at the location. We’ve already done a lot of matching exercises on various locations across the country.

We look for premises. So, we’ve got a team that looks for specific premises. And we’ll help take care of the planning and refurbishment. We’ve got contractors in place, operations managers.

Then we have the team for governance, CQC applications.

Following this we help recruit and train appropriate staff members as well as training and developing the new associate into practice ownership. Because that is something that is not really available.

Finally, we’ll help with marketing and PR, so once the practice has opened the doors, we help drive patients into the practice.

Follow Dentistry.co.uk on Instagram to keep up with all the latest dental news and trends.

Dr Zuber Bagasi, CEO of Synergy Dental Group on channelling the inspiration of Dr Anil Shrestha, Dr
Amrik Bhandal, Dame Mary Perkins and Sir Richard Branson to forge a new path through the dental
industry.

or clarity, I need to go back to the beginning. During my
undergraduate study, I was taught by some of the best clinicians in
the country. One of whom was Dr Anil Shrestha. His philosophy of dentistry was very simple; ‘Aspire
to be the best so that patient outcomes are incredible’. He
moulded the way I felt about dentistry and his teaching influences Synergy even today.
Shortly after graduating from the University of Birmingham, I commenced my vocational training
under Dr Amrik
Bhandal. Transitioning from a single-surgery practice to the fortress-like practice and hub of the
Bhandal dental empire, I couldn’t help but admire his work ethic, passion, and the success the
Bhandal family had achieved.
Growing as a clinician under Amrik, I set my eyes on the North West. Being a Bolton lad at heart, I
always intended

to return home and I made plans for my relocation. I began contacting the Primary Care Trust in the
hope of obtaining a new practice contract, working during the day and corresponding with the PCTs
in the evenings. Most ignored me, some declined politely and with those that responded positively,
I opened a dialogue. Dr Bhandal was incredibly supportive of my plans, readily offering advice and
mentorship.
After several correspondences, I secured invitations to present my proposal.
Congratulated on my ambition but ultimately guided to rethink and return once my proposal was more
concrete, I came away with a new-found determination and within months, a second invitation came my
way. One of the PCTs had approached about possibly setting up a squat practice in Blackpool.
Advised to set out a formal business plan, I got to work.

The presentation went flawlessly, shaking my hand, they had been blown away. It was then the
Synergy journey had begun, and I haven’t looked back since.
When setting up that practice, I would often reminisce about attending dentistry shows as an
undergraduate. Overhearing clinicians discuss growth within dentistry and a theory resonated again
and again, the bigger you are, the worse you become.
My own theories as an outsider were that the issue was a lack of management structure, internal
motivation, training, and investment in staff and equipment, I surmised that there must be a better
way.
Amongst my friends, most have gone on to work in healthcare, Optometry, Pharmacy, Audiology. Often
speaking about how we could bring healthcare to the pinnacle of its offering to patients. One
friend in particular and I had

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been examining how we could model a healthcare business that supported growth without compromising
on patient care.
How could we empower and motivate staff members? How could we nurture a balanced environment of
successful business practices and total patient
satisfaction? We knew we needed to focus on companies like Google and Virgin, businesses such as
Vision Express and Specsavers. What are their philosophies? What do they do right? By consuming as
many biographies as we could, it became apparent that its remarkably simple. Firstly, have fun in
what you do so that work doesn’t become work. Second, you must
do right by the customer, put them first whatever industry you’re in. And Finally, enjoy the fruits
of your endeavours. This is the point where the philosophy of the Joint Venture Partnerships
evolved.
The Optometrist, Pharmacist and myself were all at a similar level in our careers and all had a
keen interest in applying
the lessons we had learned from these various business models to a Joint Venture framework, putting
clinical leadership
at the forefront of service provision. We modelled the first JV model and tested it in Optometry.
To cut a long story short, that friend now has over a hundred optical Joint Venture Partnership
practices throughout the UK. After tackling Optometry, we moved to apply the same structure to the
Audiology model, which is now worth
over nine million a year in that field. The JV model in the pharmacy sector is also becoming more
attractive.
Dentistry was always going to be difficult to crack, due to all the extra governance, recruitment
issues, lack of simplicity
in training and development and the contractual limitations. Knowing this, I had begun to develop
the JVP model for dentistry, even prior to approaching the
commissioners in 2006, I had to have a clear vision from day one.
By 2010, Synergy had grown from a one surgery practice to four and with each new practice, I gained
insight and I funnelled these lessons in to my ever-expanding
JVP plan. I had proven that the basic tenet of replicating a successful practice could be done, but
in order for the JVP model to work, I needed to know that the right policies and systems were
operating flawlessly, ensuring the governance and
training elements were working and guaranteeing growth could be supported through robust IT
systems. All had to be developed and rigorously tested in my own practices before allowing the
model to be accessible to the right people.
The first partnership came in 2010. That practice is still there in the West-Midlands, going strong
a decade since launch. I planned to replicate the model annually and our KPIs were showing some
serious results. All our systems continued to function as intended, and so in 2011, 2012, through
to 2017, we expanded. Balancing my time between management and the clinical work I love, it was
time to now consolidate our systems in a state-of-the- art headquarters. The dedicated operational
staff at HQ work on all our marketing, accounts, HR, governance, and IT. We have a centralised call
centre, training facilities and office space. All developed over the
last few years and working harmoniously to facilitate all our operational needs and ensuring that
we are ready to allow other practices to come and join the family through the JVP.
Since then, we’ve become Greater Manchester and Lancashire’s largest provider of Invisalign and the
North-West’s top provider of Straumann Implants. Staff turnover is very low and morale is very
high. Through JVP, we have secured many dental contracts through tendering too.
We want to give this opportunity to new aspiring associates, thinking about dental partnerships.
The current pandemic has hit humanity hard, but our attitude is that we recover, audit our work,
look at where things have gone right, where things could have gone better and bounce back. As
counter intuitive as it seems, it’s a brilliant time for associates to gain security in their
careers and invest in a first dental practice. We don’t believe
the JVP is for everyone, just the exceptional few. If you feel that your primary ethos is for your
ideas, enthusiasm and creativity to flow into your practice to the benefit of your patients, then
absolutely, this is for you. To the hard workers that think beyond the role of an associate
dentist, give it all you’ve got and you’ll do well.
The whole ethos of why this model has been so successful in other areas of the healthcare industry
is that the central support and family environment that we build is there to support clinicians
within their own environment. The governance, training, recruitment, financials, business
strategies, support with the CQC and commissioners, everything that you require to operate
efficiently has been trialled and proven to work. Leverage off everything we have achieved and
kickstart your career.
As a practicing dentist myself, I recognise the benefits of investing in a cutting-
edge environment for all associates. Increasing productivity, generating more predictable treatment
outcomes with less administration, providing the ability to embrace the latest techniques and more
importantly, maintain a passion for dentistry. We have strong emphasis on clinical mentoring with
a range of mentors to support you through your clinical journey, free of charge. Nurturing and
developing you not only as a great dentist but a great businessperson too, with the freedom to
manage as you see fit. With Synergy taking care of the nuances of practice ownership, we allow you
to focus on your career and patients. We have developed many dentists into providing mentorship
themselves through our platform for clinical development.
We strive for a diverse workforce to
challenge and bring the best out of each other, providing a family-like atmosphere in all our
workspaces. Giving staff some room to breathe without feeling overwhelmed with their workload. Less
stress, more success. The Joint Venture Partnership is not new within healthcare, but it is a new
framework for dentistry.
In part two Zuber discusses how the JVP can benefit existing practice owners and how this model
offers a feeling of fresh air ◆

Revolutionising dentistry
through Joint Venture
Partnerships – Part 2

In this second article, Zuber Bagasi shows just how effectively the strategy and ethos behind the
Joint Venture Partnership can be tweaked and pivoted to compliment an existing, more established
practice for associate dentists.

s a practice owner and clinician myself, I know all too well, the struggle of balancing the many
duties of a multi-role dentist.
Whilst we have been developing the JVP model for over a decade, ensuring that each element of the
strategy works in harmony with the rest, allowing our associates to step up and to invest in our
existing practices or procure new brand new facilities, the whole pandemic allowed us to take a
step back, assess the situation and think slightly differently.
As an existing practice owner, you might have built a really strong practice over the years, you
would have obviously put a lot of hard work into what you do, you’ve secured a loyal patient base
and cultivated staff within the practice you have looked after. Now this pandemic hits and there is
a lot of stress and uncertainty. Anxiety within the industry is surely through the roof.
Immediately, a lot of questions came to mind. What is the future of dentistry? Both NHS and
private. What
do you do? What are your options? Option one is to ignore everything, imagine nothing has happened,
try to follow the regulations and advice that’s been offered by the CDO as closely as possible and
just carry on as much as you can. Option two is to throw in your towel, enough is enough, and sell
on to an
associate, to other corporates or an incoming buyer. These have been the two main mindsets I have
come across when speaking to colleagues across the industry. I know that a lot of practice owners
are thinking ‘I’ve had enough, I want to sell up, I want to have an easy life, I want to see my
children grow up, I want to spend time with my family’.
But there is a third option, an option that diverged from the Joint Venture Partnership model. In a
situation where an owner doesn’t really want to sell up, and they feel they
have had their hand forced with all the new regulations, difficulties, and uncertainties. The
option we propose is that you, as a practice owner, would keep your brand identity, keep your
practice, you would retain full ownership and you can allow us, with the experience
that we have, to take over the running of your practice and support you whilst you either stay in
the practice and continue with the work you love or even take a back seat.
Within a Joint Venture Management model, we will do just that, exactly like the Joint Venture
Partnership model except for the
fact that we don’t have an equity within your practice. Taking care of the nuances of practice
ownership, allowing you to focus on your career and your patients. We’ll do everything for you,
marketing, HR, recruitment, training,
appraisals, we’ll handle the operational aspects of practice management for you whilst you sit back
and get involved as little or as much as you want. Allow your practice, yourself and your staff the
room that’s required sometimes and when you are ready to step back in, whether that be in a
clinical or managerial capacity, that’s absolutely fine, you can.
The Joint Venture model that we’ve developed has allowed each practice that we handle to increase
its revenues, its turnover, its EBITDA. One possible outcome could be for you to have it valued
two, three years down the line and your EBITDA will have improved, your value will have improved,
then exit at that point. This strategy is
something very new to dentistry, but I believe it is an exciting offering for the professional and
I say to all practice owners looking for options ‘There is another way’.
Our Joint Venture Management model can be tailored and customised to suit the individual and will
be negotiated on a case-by case basis. For example, it might
be that practice owners want to allow us to invest in their practice as a 50/50 partner or even a
20% partner, or even a 70% partner, whatever you feel comfortable with. It might be that practice
owners want to fully sell their practice and remain on as an associate,

BDJ IN PRACTICE | VOL 34 | ISSUE 2
IN DEPTH: PERSPECTIVES
19
‘It’s exciting times and it’s
refreshing to see the work that we have dove over the last decade has been very successful over the
wider healthcare economy and has finally been brought into dentistry after rigorous trial and
testing.’
whatever it is, this Joint Venture model that we have created will work for you.
It’s exciting times and it’s refreshing to see the work that we have dove over the last decade has
been very successful over the wider healthcare economy and has finally been brought into dentistry
after rigorous
trial and testing. The central support network that we have developed, human beings, all very well
supported, trained, and nurtured to provide the level of skill and attitude that the centralised
team require. Supported by the system they operate in, with bespoke software developments, whether
that’s through our accredited, IDDA award-winning training platform, as well as our business
management solution, SynPro which allows practice owners access to all the governance, accounts and
marketing at their fingertips. As a partner and practice owner, you will have your stats available
as a live feed at the touch of a button, in real-time. All your accounts data, your marketing, all
your governance and your compliance with the CQC, everything is available instantly.
The systems we have developed are
of course, the backbone of all our Joint Ventures. In the last article I explained that the
genesis of our Joint Venture philosophy was heavily inspired by outside
elements, away from the dental industry, the development and ethos behind our systems has been no
different. Take a brief look at the aviation industry and you will find that a pilot will probably
only physically fly a plane for just a few minutes during take-off and landing, the rest of the
time the plane
is on auto-pilot. But nonetheless, there is still a rigorous checklist involved to make sure safety
is paramount. Look into how the automotive industry is becoming ever more automated, from the
robotic manufacturing process, testing and development,
onboard computers keeping an eye on the functionality of the vehicle, right up to the cars
themselves driving autonomously. It is clear to see that the world is becoming less and less
reliant on human interaction in order to work for us and we believe dentistry, down to the
individual practices and associates, has to pick up that pace and keep up with that innovation if
we are to survive.
The systems of appraisals, of HR, of governance, all these things that normally weigh us down and
take us away from the face-to-face needs of our patients, we as dentists really need to have
systems in place to make that behind-the-scenes process more automated and compliant. We believe
that our JVM model is the perfect gateway to that future. Stress free and enabling the kind of
growth and development practice owners dream of. We at Synergy understand that the bottom line is
always very important but we have shown that each and every practice that we have ran, the
partnerships that we have cultivated, the practices have flourished and it’s something that we feel
you as a practice owner should benefit from too.
As mentioned previously, I am still a busy, practicing clinician even with all the responsibilities
of being the CEO and operational head of the Synergy Dental
Group. I feel it is a testament to the success of these systems and the centralised team that I am
able to maintain the face-to-face interaction with my patients that I love
as well as having a full and rewarding life outside of work, spending time with my family, engaging
with my hobbies and enjoying the fruits of my labour.
Alongside the support behind-the-scenes, as part of a JVM partnership, practice owners will benefit
from all the advancements in technology and procedures a member of
the Joint venture Partnership would. A fully stocked, cutting edge upgrade to your surgeries to
enable a smoother workflow, more predictable outcomes and the ability to embrace the latest
techniques and more importantly, you and your fellow associates
continue to enjoy and maintain your passion for your career.
If you feel that either the JVP or JVM models we offer may be of some benefit to you, we’d love to
hear from you. ◆
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41404-021-0650-6

The description of dynamo doesn’t quite do justice to this week’s guest, Zuber ‘Zubz’ Bagasi.

Bolton born and bred Zuber has already opened eight practices – all before age 40 and without ever borrowing a single penny.

And Zuber’s not about to stop.

He fills us in on future plans, lets us in on his inspiration and gives an insight into what it’s like being one of dentistry’s most driven.

Enjoy! 

“If you have that structure, then you as a person, you’ve got a life. And what’s more important in your life, is to make sure that you are enjoying it, that’s the first thing. Otherwise, life’s not worth living.” – Zuber Bagasi

In This Episode

01.17 – Backstory

07.56 – Mentors

13.41 – Expanding the empire

20.50 – Systems and processes

29.27  – Work/life balance

37.10 – A scratch of the nose

40.34 – Get up and go

46.41- Higher purpose

52.00 – Future plans

58.50 – Advice for the next generation

About Zuber Bagasi

Zuber Bagasi graduated from Birmingham University in 2005 and went on to found the Synergy dental group of practices.

He also developed the dental training platform SynTrain.

Zuber is a Member of the Joint Dental Faculty and holds PG Certs in implantology, restorative dentistry and facilitated learning in healthcare practice.

He continues to practice in his hometown of Bolton with the Synergy group.  

Zuber: If I have nothing tomorrow it wouldn’t bother me. It would not bother me. Honest to God, it would not bother me because I can drive a Micro or I can drive a whatever it is, or I can have good clothes or bad clothes so long as I’m healthy, I’m sane and I’ve got a lovely family around me, that’s everything for me.

Intro Voice: This is Dental Leaders. The podcast where you get to go one-on-one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav solanki.

Payman: It gives me great pleasure to welcome Zuber Bagasi on the podcast. Zuber’s a guy I’ve known for a few years and always been super, super impressed with what he’s achieved in what timeframe. And really for me not that because you can look at someone’s achievements on their own, but the mindset of this dentist has been always so impressive for me and I thought we’ve just got to have him on the podcast to try and spread that love amongst the audience. Thanks for coming on, Zuber.

Zuber: Well, it’s a great pleasure and it’s great to see you gents as well.

Payman: Tell us the backstory a bit, buddy. Where did you grow up? Why did you become a dentist?

Zuber: Yeah, so born and bred in Bolton. I’ve lived here all my life, studied in Birmingham to be a dentist. Bolton has been my birthplace, I’ve got my friends here, my family here, everything around me. It’s just so convenient, my support structure is here.

Zuber: Generally from a working class background. My parents were both factory workers putting in shifts from 7AM to 11PM, my father did. It was good. My childhood was exciting, weekends were great when used to see my father on a Saturday and a Sunday. Weekdays we couldn’t see him because by the time we’d wake up he’d be gone to work and by the time that we’d go to sleep he’d still be at work and then he’ll come back. So weekdays, generally, we never used to see him, but weekends was family time.

Zuber: But yeah, loads of great memories of childhood. We had everything. We felt we had everything. We had so much fun. The little things that we don’t appreciate nowadays for our own children, we had so little but you see it felt like we had so much. Two up, two down house, two brothers and a sister. So in one room there was two bunk beds and our parents had their own bedroom. It was great. It was cosy, it was great. Cobbled streets of Bolton, memories to cherish.

Prav: And sort of growing up, it kind of reminds me of my upbringing, although not the cobbled streets of Bolton. We definitely didn’t have a lot and when dad came to this country he was working in a factory, I think making knickers or underpants at the time, doing long, long hours. Then it was taxis, and then it was …

Prav: But my memories were he was rarely there but it was just he was working so God damn hard for us, for a better future for us. Any kind of similar stories or analogies there from your upbringing in terms of the influence from your father, and any messages?

Zuber: Yeah, absolutely. So my father was and is still my mentor. I can talk to him. Every decision I make, every single business decision or personal decision when it comes to it I go and speak to my father. He’s always been very levelheaded, he’s always been a very hardworking character.

Zuber: So I guess what the things that he’s instilled in the siblings is, look, work hard, never borrow any money, and he’s instilled a lot of values in us. So, things like being honest and trustworthy, being there for the community, being there for your friends, being there for your family. He’s developed a reputation within the Bolton community as being very trustworthy. If he’s going to get something from someone to keep or to … Whatever it is, he’ll protect it with his life. I guess that is something that’s been instilled in all our siblings, the hardworking part of it, the long hours.

Zuber: He was a keen sportsman so he used to play a lot of cricket on the weekends. We used to tag along with him. We never used to watch cricket but we used to tag along and be mischievous within the wherever we used to go, in the forest, jumping on trees, jumping on rooftops, whatever it is, as kids do. We were only sort of seven, eight years old. I’m the third child in the family. I’ve got a younger brother, an elder brother and an elder sister. It was great, great memories. You’d never think that we used to do the stuff that we used to do.

Zuber: But a sort of take home message from my father is be honest, be hardworking, live within your means and that’s enough. And it’s exactly that which is what I instil in my children as well.

Prav: So the never borrow thing. My dad’s a big believer in live within your means, what you just said, right? If you can’t afford it don’t touch it kind of thing.

Zuber: Absolutely, yeah.

Prav: And so obviously you’ve built this empire that you have and whatnot. Have some of those values carried across? And I’m sure we’ll talk more about it, but in terms of your business ethos and how you’ve built this have you had to raise money, raise finance, or have you … ?

Zuber: Okay, so the first clinic that I set up was in Sunny Blackpool. We used to go to Blackpool as kids as your twice yearly holidays, for the lights in the winter and for the beach in the summer. So I ended up in Blackpool.

Zuber: In terms of my first squat practise, it was just before the new contract came out in 2006. I used to work during my vocational training year, for Amrik Bhandal in Coventry, in his big fortress in Coventry. So I’ve been mentored through him.

Zuber: The first clinic that I launched was a squat practise. I managed to secure a contract with the PCT at the time, the area team equivalence of nowadays. So it was very little investment and most of that came from my own savings. I like to save to make sure that I’ve got enough and what I need. So I remember investing about 150,000, 170,000 in those days, 2007. I bought the property, kitted it out, I secured a contract, and there’s a story behind that as well in how I managed to secure a contract during a vocational training.

Zuber: Yeah, it was happy days. But I’ve never borrowed money for any goodwill purchases I’ve had. It’s always been organic growth, so each year as we become more successful in each clinic I’ll reinvest that into the next clinic and the next clinic, et cetera. So all of Our equipment, everything like that, it’s all paid for.

Payman: Am I hearing that right, Zuber? You’ve opened eight practises without borrowing any money?

Zuber: That’s right, yes.

Payman: Bloody hell, man. Amazing. Go on, bro.

Prav: Talk to us about your mentor. You mentioned Amrik Bhandal. I guess, if you want to talk NHS contracts in that part of the country he’s got to [crosstalk] right?

Zuber: Yeah, absolutely.

Prav: Did he mentor you in business, dentistry, everything?

Zuber: Yeah, yeah. So, being an undergraduate from the University of Birmingham, we used to have Baaz which is the second brother from the three Bandal brothers in dentistry. And Baaz used to come into clinics and he used to teach us for [inaudible] restorative clinics used to come in. He used to pick out the best surgeons from the ward and I used to see them working for the Bandals later on in their career, so after their VT years.

Zuber: So I knew of the Bandals. Obvious people talk in the West Midlands and they were successful in the West Midlands. Amrik came along once I applied for my VT. I never got a VT place first of all. So I think probably one of the only ones that never got a VT place straight after university. So I started applying to as an assistant post in certain places in Birmingham. I got offered a place with Baaz Bandal in Cranleigh Heath. About a week later he sort of shipped me across to FiveWays, fresh out of university, a week into my clinical practise and he put me into his clinic, a single surgery clinic on Fiveways.

Zuber: At that time, again, when Baaz was on clinic, at the same time I had an interest as one of clinicians. And Anil was such a super duper guy. The inspiration that he instilled. At that time I think I was a fourth year then. He said to me, “Look, Zubs, you’ve got the hands, you’ve got the drive, just make sure that you are achieving clinical finesse.” So he made me think, right?

Zuber: He used to come and check my work on my preps. I used to do a lot of porcelain onlays as an undergraduate, a lot of stuff that some of the undergraduates weren’t doing. I used to go and pick out the more difficult OCC cases, et cetera, just for clinical experience. And Anil just said to me, “Look, that’s what you need to do.” He said, “Get as much experience as you can. Don’t let money be a driver, let clinical excellence be a driver.”

Zuber: So that resonated whilst on the other side I’ve got the Bandals. So I’ve got the Bandals and the empire, and I’ve got Anil on one side, right? So I really sort of started thinking about this in how dentistry can be led through a business model which is corporately managed, the quality of care transfers from one clinic to another clinic, and how do you maintain those high levels of standards?

Zuber: I kept in touch with Anil. I used to go and see him when he was in the Priory in Birminghan for James Hull. I used to go and see him quite regularly for direct supervision, et cetera. He drove me. Anil was one of my biggest mentors, I’d say. So, when I went into an assistant position, Obviously it’s something that I had to do in the period until I got my vocational training post, Baaz transferred me along. He said, “Look, if you work for me for six months I’ll get you into one of my clinics for VT,” which started in February. From June, till July till February I did an assistant post and then moved to Coventry with Amrik.

Zuber: I’ve never met this guy before. I went for an interview, he said, “Look, you’ve got the job. You seem like a great guy.” Great. So I started with him and I sort of learnt how super intelligent Amrik was, how hardworking he was. That was the biggest thing for me. You’ve got so many practises, you don’t need to come to work. It’s not greed, it’s [crosstalk] and that hardworking ethos-

Payman: zuber, I know you take it for granted because you were brought up in the Midlands seeing the Bandals, but for someone who doesn’t know who they are, do you want to just talk about the empire. How big was the empire? What are we talking?

Zuber: When I started my training with the Bandals I think they had about 80 practises across the West Midlands with three brothers. These practises were not sort of small practises, they were huge, humongous. The one that I worked at in Cranleigh Heath for the first week of my post-graduation, that was, I think it was a 12 surgery practise. The one in Coventry, that was a 14 surgery practise.

Payman: I’ve been to that one.

Zuber: It was like a fortress. It was like a mini hospital. All cable chairs all kitted out. So they had a huge empire. Their dad used to come along when I was in the FiveWays, and he used to come in every week with a little car, used to park in the back and used to come and collect the cash. It was so cute. I asked him, “Why do you have to work?” He said, “Every day is Christmas for me.” He said, “Every day is Christmas.” And it was amazing.

Zuber: The work ethos resonates. There’s more purpose to life than just to earn a good living. And yeah, Amrik was with me. I was in the next surgery with him. I was with some great clinicians in Coventry. Yeah, it was a great time. It was a great time.

Payman: So how long after you opened Synergy, your first one in Blackpool, did you look at the second one?

Zuber: So it was 2010. If you bear in mind I had these concepts of corporate dentistry.

Payman: Yeah.

Zuber: And you always hear that corporate, the bigger you are the worst you become. And then you’ve got the boutique practises, especially like the James Hull group, some of the practises, especially the one that Anil used to work at.

Zuber: What I did was, even before I applied for the contract in Blackpool, I was a VT, I had my vision set. The vision was, look, you’ve got to work together. In our profession, there is associate dentists, self-employed. You’ve got the local practitioners within their own clinics. You’ve got the nurses, you’ve got the practise managers, you’ve got the receptionists, so it’s not just a simple retail model.

Payman: Yeah.

Zuber: I had a friend in optometry and, again, he was going through all this, all these different models in his mind at the time. Since when I was an undergraduate we used to talk about this. We looked at the Specsavers model and how we can have clinical leadership with a corporate structure that supports each clinic, ensuring that each clinic operates to a high standard allowing clinical [inaudible 00:15:12]. We looked at IDH and ADP Dental, can you remember them?

Payman: Yeah.

Zuber: And the bigger became the worse the reputation got. We didn’t want to end up like that. So, my optometry friend who was about two years my senior, he developed a similar model to Specsavers where independent opticians are reinvented through a joint venture partnership model.

Zuber: We looked at how we can develop this joint venture partnership model. He’s now got 150 optical practises through a joint venture partnership programme, born and bred in Bolton, went to same school, et cetera, upbringing was the same. So, he then went onto audiology, over nine million turnover through joint venture partnerships. I went into hair transplant surgery myself through our JV model. 50 clinics worldwide this franchise. I was a franchisee a few years ago.

Zuber: We looked at all these models, Vets4Pets for example, and how this model could be brought into dentistry. At that time, when I launched my first clinic, I thought I’ve got to align the Bandals, I’ve got to align Anil Fester through a joint venture partnership model. And therefore I called it Synergy, synergy meaning working together for better results, yeah?

Zuber: The answer to your question, which is how long after the second practise. All this had to be set in my own clinic from a single surgery to a four surgery practise I built in three years. And then in that time I made sure that all the governance systems are absolutely nailed. I’m very OCD in systems and processes, so all the governance systems, number one, had to be absolutely nailed. Second is training, so when we have dental nurses, dentists, receptionists, practise manager starting, what would the training model look like if I was to acquire more practises because I love dentistry. If I had to I would stay in surgery five days a week, and that’s what I’ve been trained to do.

Zuber: So I had to model the training pathways to ensure that I’m hands-off with the training as much as I can and let the systems do the talking. So that, for the first three or four years, I was developing. I became a vocational trainer to understand the actual structure behind the training. So then in 2010 an opportunity came. I had some friends in Birmingham. I said, “Look, we’ll go into a joint venture partnership. I’ll do some of the management and we’ll be equal partners.” We applied for some tenders, we won two tenders in the West Midlands. One of them got pulled back for whatever reason, and one is still operational in the Midlands.

Zuber: So in 2010 we launched our second squat practise, minimal investments again. It was a tender that we won.

Payman: Are you specifically going after squats rather than buying practise?

Zuber: No, no, no, no. So firstly it was the 2010 practise was a tender, a national tender, across the West Midlands booster in Birmingham. It was the time when, I think, Rodric Stencil had a lot of the contracts down south. We managed to secure the one in Birmingham. Again, at that time, I had to evaluate whether partnership was for me. So let alone the systems and processes and how can I make a practise flourish, whether partnerships is going to work for me.

Zuber: So we’re still there and the partners are still very loyal to each other and we’re doing well. And then from there on the vision was how do I now develop the joint venture partnership model just like my close friend had in optometry and in audiology? How can we develop that into dentistry? If you think about it, the systems and the processes, a lot of it are manual, so checklists, paper. Some of it is on Excel, et cetera. But that’s not good, right? In a scalable model that’s not good. So what I had to do is to create software applications to capture HR, capture governance, capture marketing, capture accounts, et cetera.

Zuber: So from since 2010 to now we’ve been developing these systems. It’s taken such a long time. Not saying that it’s took us 10 years, but I had to make sure that every time we develop systems I had to trial it in my own practises. So, every year thereon I had a plan to purchase a practise year on year with my own cash, which I did. So in 2011 I purchased a practise, tested the models out there, pressed the green button, the system works. The staffing model centrally was finally knitted together. Some central management staff have been developed over the years, some have been recruited in, but it’s a very fine balance. Who wants to work in Bolton? Right.

Prav: We can get life from 3:00 for lunch, mate.

Zuber: Get licence degree[crosstalk 00:20:26] who wants to work in Bolton. But Bolton is my birthplace and it has to be Bolton. So the management staff was sort of intricately put together and supporting this the systems, the software’s that we bespoke developed, have been developed and been then trialled and tested on each one of our practises. And it works amazingly well.

Prav: Zuber, You said you’re OCD about systems and processes, right? Have you hold these together yourself? Have you gone in and mapped out every single interaction system process and then launch that and tested it? Or have you hired in someone to do that for you?

Zuber: Oh, absolutely not. I think of myself as Alex Ferguson.

Prav: Nice.

Zuber: Right? I like to create things, nurture things and make it flourish, Okay. so just like, you Ryan gigs and the Neville brothers and Scholes, et cetera. What I like to do I like to get my hands in, develop the systems and processes. I used to read the 200 page documents on the standards for better health. If you remember that in 2005, 2006, it was launch and as an undergraduate, I was reading that. And just to understand the NHS system just to understand the processes.

Zuber: I autopsied as much as I can in the public domain IDH. I autopsied virgin. I autopsied Apple. I autopsied Google. And I looked at why these great companies, some of these great companies, the latter ones, especially, are successful. And it boil down to one main thing. It boiled down to look after your staff, look after your people, and they look after you, Right? So all this was sort of cross industry thinking, and then how we could get this back into dentistry. The answer to your question is, yeah, I did develop a lot of these systems myself, I never hired anyone in and from every little details for what a nurse does in surgery, to what the practise managers role is on a daily, weekly or monthly basis to how the governance structure is created to comply with the currency QC standards, how that’s bolted into the BDA good practise scheme, how that bolts with the Health Education England’s Practise inspection plan, all of that encompassed in and is exciting. So it’s all bespoken and it’s all very dentist driven.

Prav: Zuber, how many people work for you now?

Zuber: Probably, about 100, something like that.

Prav: You know that’s quite a beast to manage. Right? As far as human beings, right?

Zuber: No, no, no. So it’s about systems, right. So it’s about systems, right. So you have to have all the different departments. So you have HR, a crucial role. You have governance, a crucial role. You have accounts team, you have a marketing team, you have an IT team, you have the operational team that includes your regionals. Your regional headedness that support[crosstalk 00:23:50]

Prav: what is the sort of the corporate structure? As far as you know people who work outside of the practises themselves. I can see behind you, you’ve got like the office there. Got an account, some marketing operations team. But then what do you have, you have regional managers?

Zuber: So you’ve got underneath myself and my good wife, we have head of HR, and there’s two people in the HR team. There’s governance team who is responsible for any compliance, any changes in policy, implementation, et cetera. You have an accounts team, there’s four people in accounts. And I mean, this is from verification of your cashing up to invoices to whatever else you need, in accounts, your monthly p&l, you’re ensuring your balance sheets are up to date. You’ve then got a marketing team. So in the marketing team, I’ve got an SEO guy, I’ve got some social media experts. I’ve got a graphics designer videographer, content writer, the whole team there.

Zuber: I’ve got an operations team which is the regionals, which is the area manager supporting the practise managers at each practise level. I’ve got two regional head nurses, which support the head nurses at each clinic through support and appraisal. I’ve got two regional receptionist, which again supports the receptionist that practise level through appraisal, et cetera. I’ve then got a centralised treatment team. There’s six girls in there, all GDC registered treatment coordinators, all our new private patient inquiries come through all the funnels that we have both digitally and offline, they get diverted, it’s a seamless system. So patients don’t know that they are

Payman: Super important, right? Super important.[crosstalk 00:25:56]

Zuber: Centralised hundred percent so the way that we’ve trained them up is that you’ve talked to them and the knowledge that they have is almost that the talking to a dentist. Yeah. So, the training systems that we’ve implemented for our team is so robust. And so we’ve got the team centrally here. And then a practise level, the structure as clinicians you’ve got to understand as clinicians and we all clinicians here, so what we want to do you want to go to work.

Zuber: And we want to make sure that we put our gloves on and between the patients and we take off gloves if we go home. And everything else around us, we want organised. So how does that happen? And the systems and processes that’s been created, allows exactly that. It allows associate dentists to come into work, enjoy the dentistry, go out on courses and develop their career pathways, have internal mentorship, but it’s all clinically focused. And then everything else around that is managed by the team. So we’ve got treatment coordinators at each clinic, you’ve got practise manager at each clinic, we’ve got one or two receptionist each can depending on the size of the clinics, a head nurse each clinic, an assistant head nurse, an assistant head receptionist and then you’ve got some clinics have a therapist, some don’t. And then you’ve got the associate dentists there as well. So the system is such that allows us clinicians to be able to flourish.

Payman: So how many days a week do you actually drill? Do you do still do that?

Zuber: Three days? Yeah. So this is what I’ve been trained to do me. And, I can’t see myself being out of clinic. It allows me to be in touch with dentistry. I spend three days in clinic and two days in the office. Again, just working on the business dipping systems further, I regularly have contacts with the different departments on a weekly basis. And we have a board meeting every month, where the law managers potential board meets up for KPIs practise.

Zuber: And yeah, I think structure is in place. I’m a great believer of Bruce Lee, right. And as a child, Bruce Lee was my like, My God, right, I had to get six packs because of that. And Bruce Lee’s philosophy was this that to be successful, you have to have structure and all see the structure, but at the same time, you have to have emotion, and spirituality, right. So to have a synergy between the two, and mechanical approach, and spirituality and emotion and understanding as human beings involved. That’s where the fusion comes. That’s where the synergy comes in. I think that’s resonated all throughout my life. And everything I’ve done has been a mixture of a professional approach, a structured system in place, as well as just have lots of fun. Make sure that stuff enjoy themselves a little coming to work, I believe in a motto. Less stress, more success. And it’s something that resonates across the group.

Payman: perhaps Do you see what I mean? But [crosstalk]

Prav: Listen, and so, the one thing that sort of is screaming out of me at the moment, right, is you’ve put all these systems and processes together. You’re OCD, okay? And you’ve got a family, you’ve got multiple practises you’re acquiring, okay? And you’re having fun at the same time. That there must have been points during this journey where you were putting in and you probably, I don’t know whether you still are ridiculous hours, right? 16, 17, 18 hour days.

Zuber: No, no, no, no.

Prav: Never.

Zuber: Never. I feed children. Never. I love to eat, I love to get out of the house and I love to do the school pickups and I love to do all of that. But yeah, my kid is nine, four and two year old, so very demanding. But my nine year old, he’s memorising the Quran. So in the morning killer, he’s got to wake up in the morning 6 am I’ve got a supervising for two hours in the morning before I go to work. In the evening, I spend another hour with him. So that’s my time after five o’clock off. That’s it, done.

Prav: Always been the case.

Zuber: I think 90% of the times. When I first started, you know working in practise. In when I first set up my squat in Blackpool, I used to come home, but I feel so tired and ready to go to sleep. Before I had my children. I used to say to my wife, do you want to go to your mom’s today? She put up your mom’s house say sorry, not seen him all week. Why don’t you go? I decided that time that I used to get time for myself to develop systems and processes. So, I used to have a hook on one side and I used to develop my systems on the other. But yeah, I put that trust to my associates. Now as well saying that nine to five you clock out you switch off you go home.

Zuber: Sport is another big thing in my life. You have to balance it out. I’m a big believer, again, the Bruce Lee’s story. We still have Chuck Norris and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. And then were the days when the sport used to I felt the value of sports are probably you know all about this, I think. I’ve been following your fasting journey. Sport is integral, I think it’s integral part of your life. And if you don’t have this balance in life, something’s going to give whether it’s internal, or whether you’re going to explore somewhere else or in your mind, right. So this balance of sports, professional life and personal life is key. I mean, one of the analogies I gave is that life should be like driving a car, each wheel should be fully inflated equally. So work is one of the wheels. And the other three is exercise and sports. The other one is your personal life, your family and the other one is spirituality, Right? So if you use mind, body and soul. If balance yourself well, then I think you’ll do.

Prav: Well talk to me about how this balance features in your life and makes it through maybe a typical day stroke week or couple of days in the life of where spirituality features health and wellness how that fits in, whether it’s a workout, whether it’s whatever it is you do and just give us an insight into that, Mate.

Zuber: Okay, so my day starts at 6 am and I spend about two hours in the morning with my elder child. He’s memorising the Quran takes about five years or so he’s probably about a quarter of his way through now started last year. So eight o’clock when I’m in surgery. I’ll start off at eight o’clock get to Blackpool for about quarter nine, I’ll have a full day a clinic finished at the four o’clock. Spend some time when I finished my clinical work to write my reports up that what the TCM was developed for me, sign them all off, send them out to patients and come home drop my kids offs to the evening mosque.

Zuber: My wife does the school pickup I do the evening pickup and drop offs. And then I’ll fit once in the Mosque, I’ll fit in. I’m a triathlete. So swim, bike or run. I don’t do any heavy weights, I don’t do any weights at all. I just follow these three disciplines. I’m with a triathlon group. So the biggest one in the country, in fact, very lucky to have that in Bolton. And, we have training schedules planned during the week and the weekends. So I spend about an hour or so in the pool, 1500 metres to 2000 metres, whatever it is, or I go for a run for an hour. The weather’s good. I’ll go out for a bike.

Zuber: It takes me one hour, 20 minutes normally the route that I do. And so that’s been a week, so I have two or three of them sessions in the week. Evening wise, spirituality wise, I pray over five prayers during the day, in the morning, afternoon throughout the day. And so I always get them in and that keeps me grounded. I’ve got a really naughty streak in me and I think all this keeps me really grounded. And I’ve got a very supportive wife, Hitler, I call her sometimes!

Zuber: I found but her she’s a little lovely and there’s a story behind that as well. And it’s the way we met but It’s great and then on the weekends, I’ll spend. We go some swimming lessons with my children. So I’ll say come on to swimming, once they having the swimming lessons, I’ll jump in the pool myself. And I’ll do my laps, I need to, again 1000 metres to 1500 metres. Something like that I’ll do. On a Sunday, every Sunday, every morning, half to seven or eight o’clock, depending on the time of the year is. We’ll go for a long ride so 50, 60 miles with my triathlon group and straight after that swimming again with the kids and then we’ll go for our family walk or family adventure in the afternoon and up till evening. So it’s great. Is this a structured life it’s a very nice structured life.

Prav: You’ve definitely got all four tyres equally inflated, they’re made that’s for sure.[crosstalk 00:35:45]

Payman: Did you get during the day when you’re doing patients, so if you’ve got constant messages coming on your phone, things going on?

Zuber: No, no, no, no, no, because one of the things that I’ve… the way that I’ve stitched up the management team. Think of it as Richard Branson sitting in his office, he’s not going to get operational problems, is he? He’s going to have a layer and a layer underneath him was going to take it. I’ll give an example of some friends of mine, the Euro Garages brothers are very close friends of mine. They’ve just took over as in a big stake. Right? So I was with them last week. And I said, Look, how do you manage? And we will speak about this is. How do you manage it? Thousands and thousands of Euro galleries across the world? Australia, America, all over Europe, right? Two brothers sound level headed. And so how do you how do you manage it, they’ve been part of my business mentors. So I said, Look, it’s simple, you have to have a structure in place.

Zuber: And if you have that structure, then you as a person, you’ve got a life. And what’s more important in your life, is to make sure that you are enjoying it, that’s the first thing. Otherwise, life’s not worth living. You spending time with your family. Okay, and everything else is the secondary. So if you’ve got a structure in place then that should take care of itself.

Prav: Tell us about Hitler.

Zuber: See us every time I have an argument, my wife, I say, the biggest mistake I’ve made is scratch my nose. And I remind her of that and said, the story behind values. I met this girl in college. So, I’ve probably spoken to about three times in college. Never give her the time of the day. She used to hate my guts. I used to have curtains, you know the curtains styles in the days.

Prav: Believe it or not, so did I, mate.

Zuber: Really? Oh my goodness. Right. Peter Andre? Right.[crosstalk 00:37:48]

Payman: Is she a dentist?

Zuber: No, she’s a solicitor. Right? So she works for us now. And she has been for the last decade or so. But in terms of our method, So, imagine this girl I knew of, I never really spoke to her. I went to university she went on and she didn’t care what I did or what, vice versa, et cetera. And then I came back from university that said, you know Rich Dad time. It’s time that you got married. And proposals came, we through the community, you meet one girl and she hates you or you don’t like her or whatever it is, right? And so this proposal came so I think I know this girl, and I confirmed it was her. And I said, Okay, we exchanged numbers, parents exchanged numbers, and we met in Starbucks in Bolton first day.

Zuber: I said, Oh, shit, I don’t know what this girl looks like now. Not seen it for over a decade. What if you got it? Couldn’t it be awkward? You know, her friend circle. I know it crosses over. So I went into Starbucks and I went in with a big bouquet of red roses, right? And I went behind the tail and I said, I slipped to 20 pounds, no sin. And I said, Look, guys, I want you to keep this behind the counter. And if I scratch my nose, I want you to bring it out. Okay?

Zuber: I sat down and ordered my coffee, ordered my tea. She hates coffee. So ordered, everything’s planned, right. She came along, sat down, anxious as hell. And on the back then I also arranged with my sister to say look, call me at this time and if I say Oh, shit seriously, I’m coming home now. Okay. So I had it all planned, right? So just in case to make it a bit more.

Prav: Had your escape route sorted. Did you?

Zuber: Everything sorted, right? Everything sorted, right? So I’m talking to this girl and we’re talking a way about college and you know, blah, blah, blah. And then I had a scratch on my nose. And I forgot all about I told these guys that bring the flower out. They bring the bloody flowers up, right? That’s it, I am going to have to marry her now. That’s it done deal. Right? Can’t go back right, flowers are out. Right? My sister call. oh case is too late.[crosstalk 00:40:17] All right guys, so every time we have an argument, I see. No scratch.

Prav: such a lovely story.

Zuber: You know, you’ve been a lovely lady, she’s a rock of my life.

Payman: The thing I find about Zuber, I mean, you meet a lot of dentists right? Me and Prav me a lot of dentists all the time. And a lot of people it’s kind of fashionable now to say I’m opening a chain. Yeah. But the way you executed, for me, how effortless it looks? I know it’s not bad. I know it’s not. There’s a lot of planning and execution. But you are definitely enjoying your life. It’s just it’s obvious. You’re enjoying your life. And it looks like you’ve managed to balance this out really well. Would you say obviously, what you said about Neil Shrestha who’s a great friend of this podcast and the Bandals and that massive structure, we said that, but would you say there’s something about you that’s like, more ambitious than the next man, more structured than the next man? Parents who work in a factory now you’re talking about opening 100 practises out of the blue? Where did it come from? As a kid were you like that with these guys? The Bandals with no stress to sort of open your eyes?

Zuber: No, no. So I’ve been brought up in a community where 90% of the children never had the opportunity to go to university. And even if they did, their parents, probably discourage them all working class. And you know the ethos at the time in the 80s and the early 90s was you go to school and you go to work after that. I started working at the age of 12, something like that. Alarm factory to Nappy factory to Socks factory to Morrison’s earning 2.14 an hour. Sainsbury’s, I’ve always worked. And I’ve always earned for myself, and I’ve always lived within that means.

Zuber: I never got a penny of my parents, anyone. Okay. And the same with my siblings. And same with my friends around, it was just the ethos in the community. So one of the things that resonated when I was a child is actually seeing so many intelligent, really, really intelligent. Guys, I’m not the most intelligent, I can assure you really intelligent guys, but they’ve had to go into work and they’ve lost that ability to progress. And then, I mean, what I’m talking about is you would know from on one hand, the guys that went to university in the communities that we live in, right, so you know that that kid has gone to university that kid has gone to university, you know that, okay.

Zuber: So that to me was this has to change. I need to inspire. I need to do something that you can do this and you can do that. And you don’t need to just to go to work, you don’t need to drop everything else, you can balance it and life is a balance. So I guess one of the biggest drivers for me is to inspire. Remember, I’m the only… I’ve not mentioned this earlier, the only kid in my entire family, my first cousins have never gone to university. None of my first cousins have gone to university. We’ve got a big family, we’ve got a huge family, right. So the first thing is I’m not going to be able to inspire them because I’m one of the younger guys in the generation. So yeah, but I’d be able to inspire the next generation and I’ll be able to inspire the generation that’s coming up, right.

Zuber: And how do you do this? You got to do it yourself. So through school. I did well, I put my head down, I was not a child, I got into trouble loads because of the life that we were living. Naughtily, we were very naughty, very mischievous. Whenever we had a complaint at home. Father used to say, what do you do outside stays outside, never bring it at home, right? So, went through school, in 12, straight A’s, straight A stars, et cetera. Again, a big, big drive was motivating others went to college sixth form, and actually wasn’t going to do dentistry in the first place was going to do law. And I don’t know how I ended up in dentistry. But the people around me those that were very ambitious. They’re all around me.

Zuber: So like I said, for example, my friend who’s in the optical field is over 150 practises, my very close friend, online pharmacies in America, Europe, UK, another very good friend of mine. These guys have been both up together. We’ve got chain of pharmacies, and then you’ve got the the Euro garage brothers. And there’s other stories. There’s very successful stories and us guys were the mindset that we had was how do we inspire the community. Drugs, mental condition, suicide rates, all this was very prevalent and it still is, and we have to do something which allows people to focus on an end goal, and we have to do it ourselves, for us to inspire others, so be inspired and inspire others.

Zuber: And I guess Anil and amrik were sort of boosters to that same philosophy. That’s why I love these guys, but Anil was my mentor for my four implants when I first started in 2007. He used to come all the way from Birmingham used to live there. And we’ve been snowboarding together in Worcester and I’ve invited him across, we’ve been to the campsite a lot.

Zuber: Anil comes from Boston again never sportsman, I’ve seen him grow up if you remember Sajid Mahmood, the cricketer, the fast bowler for England crickets. He was in my year in school and all very sort of successful in your own rights. But the work that goes behind it, no one sees that. So no one sees what it takes to get there. And everyone just wants a shortcut. And it’s not the first, right. It’s not the culture that we tried to share.

Prav: Zuber, you spoke a little bit about, well, quite a bit about religion or touched upon it. Keeping you grounded, coaching your son through this five year programme of reciting the Quran? How important is religion to you? How does it feature in your life? And how does it keep you grounded? Talk to me about[crosstalk 00:47:03] what are your belief systems just tell you a bit about your beliefs.

Zuber: My beliefs, I’m a Muslim. And I believe in a higher creator. And it goes a lot deeper than that. Because wherever religion you’re in, my belief, is that the ultimate end goal is one, which is how you treat others. So you might be praying 20 hours a day and you might be given so much in a community, whatever it is that you you do for your religion, ultimately, it comes down to your inner self, and your inner weaknesses and strengths.

Zuber: So you’ve got the, again, one of the things that I love about Bruce Lee is that he’s not just a fighter, he had this higher purpose, which is you got to fight these inner demons. And the inner demons for Bruce Lee was things like fear, anger and hatred. So, wherever he taught him did, he was to fight these inner demons, you must have watched return to the dragon, Enter the Dragon sorry and this is based around this.

Zuber: Taking that a step further. When it comes to spirituality. It’s inside you look at you don’t look at the outside you look at the inward world, which is things like greed, jealousy, eating too much or less than. All these spiritual sicknesses that we all have, we all human beings. And it’s religion allows me to focus on that and work on the inequality so if I have nothing tomorrow, you wouldn’t bother me. It would not bother me. Honestly, it would not bother me, because I can drive a micro or I can drive a whatever it is or I can have good clothes or bad clothes so long as I’m healthy, I’m sane and I’ve got a lovely family around me that’s everything for me.

Zuber: And that’s my route. And it’s something that’s been serious whatever it brings, what’s my vision? Like, sky’s the limit. What if I spoke to a man I was with Zuber Issa from the Euro garages. Just two years ago, they were venturing out into America. And I said, Why are you going to stop? Why are you going to take this. You’re supplying the amount of fuel that you’re supplying it’s one fifth of the whole country. Right? So where are you going to take this? Right? So we don’t know, we just take as it comes. We don’t know. And yesterday, they were the preferred bidder to buy us there. Now, who would have thought that two years ago, would they have thought that themselves? No, they wouldn’t have. So long as you’ve got this balance, so long as you’ve got an opportunity, and if it fits within your life, and within your lifestyle, and it’s not affecting your time that you spend with your family or friends. It’s not affecting your health then yeah go for it. I studied the high purpose to inspire others. It’s inspire, be an inspiration. Because life is more than that.

Prav: Just taking that question, just to touch further, what you believe is on the other side, when this life is over, at the end of it all? What, what do you think happens? Or what do you believe happens?

Zuber: There’s a hell and heaven and I don’t judge who’s going go to hell, and who’s going go to heaven, I think I’m going to go to hell. There’s so there’s so many bad traits I still have, and I could do so much better. What I believe is that you’ll be judged on your character. So if your character whatever religion, I think religion is a means for you to focus on yourself, right? And whether it’s today’s on Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, whatever it is, the higher purpose of this is to focus on your inner self. That’s where Sufiism comes in. That’s what spirituality comes in. That’s where cleansing your spiritual sicknesses come in. If you having one day, you might not have it the next. That’s the bigger battle that you have. And if you have that you’ll be judged on that. And if you don’t, well, you’ll have an eternal life in heaven. And if you haven’t, then unfortunately, you see red.

Payman: You do really believe it, but really believe it’s the burning like, you really believe in it?

Zuber: I don’t know maybe. I don’t know. Honestly. It’s a common thought there is fire and snake whatever it is. But let’s not focus on that. I’ve got phobia against wasp. Wasps in the hell of it. Right. Wasps and spiders two things, right. Honest to God. Right.

Payman: So you are saying that if I’m hearing you, right, you are saying that if everything carries on and you feel like you’re happy, you will just keep growing this and you’re looking at the 150 mantises, whatever you’re not looking to exit. Yeah.

Zuber: I’m only 38 pal. No, no, I’m only 38. You know, I get bored really, really easily. I have to do new things. So dentistry wise, clinically, I see children that are on the NHS, requiring routine exams, to simple restorations to full arch implants and sedation, and Invisalign, and composite bonding and the whole spectrum. Because if I just did one thing, I’d be out of my mind. So I mixed it up.

Payman: But for me, if I was running the Empire, you’re running. I probably would lower my clinical days. But it looks like you’ve managed to get that thing running itself almost, and still managed to get the clinical hours it. I think the Bandals are like that too. Right. They will practise. They kept practising.

Zuber: They do? Yeah, I don’t know the practises right now. I think his sons have probably taken over. But the ethos is, I mean, there’s different types of dentistry. There’s an NHS dentistry world as a high end private dentistry. Well, there’s something in the middle. There’s a mix practise economy, whatever works for you, and with regards to staying in practise, again, it’s what I love to do, this is my main job. I don’t see as a job in fact. I like using my hands. In management, you can’t do that.

Payman: It was an insight into what I’ve seen a couple of your practises and you know that I like what you’ve done with them for a second perspective and all that. Yeah. But give us an insight, what is it that makes your practises so successful? For instance, with enlightened, when I look at your practise where it is, and I see the number of enlightens going through that practise, it’s more than it should be. [crosstalk] So it was known that the treatment coordinator thing, what is it?

Zuber: No, No, no. It’s a very finely stitched system. So currently effects right, so enlightened, you’ve said, enlightened with the highest provider of straumann implants in the whole of the Northwest, with the highest provider of Invisalign in Greater Manchester and Lancashire, enlightened is another big brand that we use and promote. And all this, you can’t just pay someone and expect results, right. So Prav, right. So in terms of Google SEO, Google pay per pay per clicks, you can’t just put a shedload of money in and expect results, it doesn’t look like that.

Zuber: So the way that it works is, there’s a sales funnel, right? And whatever the sales funnel that you use, whether it’s social media, Google, whether it’s PR that we do wherever it is, you’re ultimately, the endpoint is patients sat in your chair and then the conversion of that.

Zuber: So that’s one part of the bigger picture, right. So the patients have now come into your chair, however, whatever way that you’ve done that, through your central human coordination team, to your key tools, in practise, whatever way is, you’ve got a patient in the chair, the second challenge is allowing the associate dentist to be trained enough sufficiently to be able to manage that case, within the scope of practise. So that is a big, big area. So that’s training and mentorship. So we have a system that we’ve developed, probably took about four or five years to develop a digital platform where everything’s recorded step by step using high resolution videography. It’s a platform that’s an accredited platform. You got the AAIDD award last year for digital dentistry. And it allows each clinician to be able to go through a training programme. And then at the end of that they have mentorship, and direct and indirect supervision.

Zuber: So the second part of the puzzle is, once you’ve got the patients into your chair, how do you develop your dentist, particularly your dentist to be able to offer that treatment, you can have a dentist that comes in fully trained, fully skilled, and then they can implement themselves into the system, or you take the fresh dentist who are very motivated, who are enthusiastic and a willingness to learn. Those are majority of our dentists. So most of our dentists come straight after the f1 or within the training ourselves. And then we’ve allowed them to flourish. Okay. And that’s the second part. Okay.

Zuber: The third part is the management system that goes around, it’s all the administration, all the governance, making sure that everything’s working, making sure that you’re stocked in full Nick, making sure that the equipment that you use you’ve invested properly in it, all everything that goes around it, the infrastructure that’s around it. So if you were just to pay for footfall in marketing, you’re not going to get the results. So it’s the whole system. And that’s what we’ve developed, and that we’ve developed this through looking at the bigger brands that I mentioned earlier.

Payman: Socially present, but they’re going to tell you every time I speak to you, I’m just super, super, super impressed with you, man. Perhaps Go for it, buddy.

Prav: And just just before I go for it, I’m just blown away by the balance that you’ve got here, right? I know a lot of people who do well in business, right, but you’ve got the health, you’ve got the family, you’ve got the wellness, you’ve got the switch off at five o’clock, you’ve got the time in the pool on the bike running, blah, blah, blah on his face.

Payman: picks smile on his face.

Prav: Huge smile on his face, right. I’m a good judge of character as well. And it’s very clear to me that every single word that’s come out of your mouth today has come with a high degree of authenticity.

Zuber: Thank you.

Prav: And I feel like I’ve been having a session with my business coach. I’m genuinely inspired. But all that to one side. Yeah. Imagine it’s your last day on the planet.

Zuber: Okay.

Prav: And the kids sat around you and you need to leave them with three pieces of advice.

Zuber: Okay.

Prav: So question number one, what would those three pieces of advice be? Question number two, how would you like to be remembered?

Zuber: Okay, so three piece of advice is number one is what I’ve been always is don’t be afraid to ask a question. Okay. So that question could be reaching out to a mentor. That question could be reaching out to the authorities, whatever it is, regulators, whatever it is, don’t be afraid to ask a question. Okay. That’s number one.

Zuber: Number two is be the best version of yourself, Right? So don’t compete. Let yourself, create yourself to be the best version of yourself. So I was taught, I engage. I was 100 metre sprinter in school. And one of the pieces of advice that someone gave me is never look to the left, look to the right, you just focus on the end goal and you just go for it and give it your best shot. And the chances are if you do that without distraction, you’ll probably win the race. It’s not about winning, and somebody competing, it’s about giving your best shot. So the second piece of advice I would give is, focus on yourself, and make the best version of yourself. Okay.

Zuber: And the third is, I think is the most important is this, have fun whatever you do. Otherwise life’s not worth living. So whatever you do have fun, enjoy life. Spend time quality time with your family, friends, work. And I think that’s the third, probably the most important piece of advice.

Prav: Beautiful. And how would you like to be remembered?

Zuber: What I’ve always done is to aim to be an inspiration, whether professionally or personally. And so yes, so the guy that inspired me, whether that’s to take up a nine month challenge, which I did a couple of years ago or a to open a squat practise or become a partner within the joint venture partnership programme or to excel clinically . I would remember an ancestor as one of the guys that inspired me to develop clinical finesse and that’s one of the guys that remember him as. So that motivation that inspiration is so value.

Prav: You certainly inspire me to buddy.

Payman: Yeah, me too buddy. Go kick some ass. Thank you so much, buddy. Thank you so much. Thank you. I knew it was going to be good but it was even better than I thought it was going to be. So thank you so much to take your time.

Outro Voice: This is Dental Leaders. The podcast where you get to go one-on-one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your host, Payman Langroudi and Prav solanki.

Prav: Thanks for listening guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both for me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guests had to say because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Payman: If you did get some value out of it. Think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.absolutely.

As Synergy Dental Group launches its joint venture partnership, we speak to CEO Zuber Bagasi about growing the group from one practice in Blackpool.

Please introduce yourself.

I’m Zuber Bagasi, born and bred in Bolton. And I’m the current CEO and founder of the Synergy Dental Group, which launched in 2007.

We have practices based in the north-west and one in the West Midlands.

Why did you choose dentistry as a profession?

Well I actually chose to become a lawyer after first enrolling into sixth form.

I’ve always loved to use my hands and could do a bit of art, good with design tech.

But I got coerced to go into law. So I opted for the law subjects like English, history and when I went into actually enroll, I thought: ‘What am I doing here?’ Those subjects just weren’t for me.

So I switched around to the sciences and maths, which is what I was good at.

I didn’t know at that time I was going into dentistry. But I thought these are the subjects that I actually enjoy.

It wasn’t until my grandfather sat me down and said you’ve got to choose a career that you’d enjoy. Something that you’d want to wake up to, want to go to. So I thought, it had to be a mixture of science and arts, and dentistry was an obvious career choice.

You graduated in 2005. Can you talk us through the process of buying your first dental practice to building Synergy Dental?

As an undergraduate I was very much involved in understanding NHS dentistry and how dentistry worked across the country.

I looked at the IDH group of practices and other smaller groups.

As an undergraduate I would read the standards of better health, the big hundred-page document. I was just trying to get my head around dentistry from a political aspect, from a regulatory aspect.

You go to the dental exhibitions and learn from other more experienced senior colleagues that the bigger your dental group, the worse dentist you become. There was a stigma attached to working for the corporates.

I ended up working for the Bhandal group as part of my vocational training in 2005/2006. They had approximately 80 practices.

The clinicians mentoring me were really on top of their game.

My vision from there was how do we bring a model into dentistry, which allows dentistry to flourish and that is clinically led.

‘Work together for better results’

So I looked into this back in 2005/2006. I looked at the Specsavers model for joint partnerships.

I looked at other companies like Google and Apple and how the team culture helped to empower staff and helps with progression.

The vision was always a synergy, which is how we work together for better results.

Following my vocational training I started applying to come back to Bolton. I started applying to the primary care trusts at the time to obtain a contract. This is pre-2006 contract changes.

I was invited across and asked to do some presentations. And so I presented and they were impressed and offered me a contract in Blackpool, so I set up.

I set up this squat practice whilst training. It launched after around six months.

After completing my vocational training I had about two months to sort my staff recruitment, implement policies, etc and then we launched in 2007.

The vision then was to bring corporate dentistry into a boutique environment, and that’s where the synergy came in.

‘How do we replicate this?’

Moving forward the challenge was; this is the first practice now, how do we replicate this? How do we make this practice into a success and then replicate this elsewhere? Something that doesn’t involve me working at other clinics.

So recruiting and developing appropriate staff, appropriate clinicians. To run that practice as if it’s their own. And that’s where the joint venture partnership comes in.

At that time, I started developing an analogue system for governance, for HR, for training.

Then, in 2010 three years on, I had grown the Blackpool practice to a four-surgery practice. I had become a vocational trainer.

Then all of these systems that I had developed I had to try and test in a practice far away from where I was. That happened in Birmingham.

I introduced some partners there and that practice is still running.

‘Like a finely tuned engine’

From 2010 onwards I thought this is great, it is working. Now how do I turn these systems and processes from analogue into a digital form. So more automation etc.

From then on we’ve been in the background working hard to digitalise all our systems, including digital-training platforms, into our own bespoke software solutions.

We’ve been testing that as we acquire new practices.

I had a plan to acquire one practice each year to trial the systems.

Every year we acquired a brand new practice to try and test these systems and make sure that we are actually seeing results, refining them and making sure that everything works. Like a finely-tuned engine.

We’ve tested the system and it works. Now we’re ready to offer this to the dental industry.

With COVID shutting down dentistry over the last few months, how has Synergy Dental dealt with this? And how have the practices in the partnership model handled it?

Oh fantastic.

The three months of lockdown we were running urgent care across the group.

We’ve developed systems even further, consolidating processes.

Following lockdown, practices are performing extremely well. Now is the best time for associates to step up and gain that security long-term.

Those associates that were predominantly private, there was a big impact on them from COVID. You’ve got to take control of your career and during this time associates have realised this. They should invest into a strategy.

If COVID ever happens again, at least they’ve got the control.

What do you think the future of dentistry is going to look like and how do you think the profession will recover from this?

You’ve got to flip that between NHS and private dentistry.

The public will always require dentistry. In any industry, whether in healthcare or not, people will always look for quality service. This will dictate where footfall will ultimately go.

Within our profession, investments that we make should be within our staffing. So upskilling staff, developing facilities and equipment, the seamless nature of the patient journey and ultimately the clinical outcomes that we provide will improve.

The public will recognise those investments.

Synergy Dental Group discusses how its preferred implant brand has helped its practices.

We have seen Straumann become the powerhouse brand for dental implants in all our practices. The brand promotes confidence amongst our patients, thus making each implant enquiry a walk in the park.

Our CEO and head implantologist, Zuber Bagasi, trains and mentors dentists with implants alongside a team of other mentors. Together as a group of clinics, we treat thousands of implant patients every year, with Straumann being one of our strongest brands of choice. As such, we are one of the largest providers of Straumann implants across the north west.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have positively steered our ship in line with the ever-changing guidance given, bolstering our marketing efforts and becoming more online friendly. Patients were very quickly able to see dentists virtually and they stayed in touch with our team throughout lockdown. This meant when our doors officially reopened to the majority of patients, we were already several steps ahead to book them in to see our highly skilled dentists, especially for dental implant consultations.

Stepping away from the pandemic, implants have become extremely popular in all of our practices. Not all of this is down to our marketing efforts either. The dentists themselves have become very well-known and they established themselves quickly within the practices. Word-of-mouth is an effective marketing tool, so the abilities of our dentists together with the strength of the Straumann implant brand spread rapidly. We find that a lot of patients do plenty of research regarding which implants are the best quality – a bit like shopping around for a sports car. The deal clincher is often our dentists’ experience and the quality of care provided in all of our practices.

There are three ingredients needed for any dental practice to succeed. Coinciding with our highly trained staff and dentists, we feel proud to have found three key pillars: management, training and 13 years of tried and tested experience. Without this core, we feel we couldn’t offer brands such as Straumann so confidently across all of our practices.

So, what’s the final icing on the cake? JV, or Joint Ventures for those who don’t know yet. Here at Synergy Dental we have already built a successful dental group with huge amounts of success through teamwork and support. Zuber Bagasi, Synergy Dental Group CEO, has made it possible to channel his 13 years of experience within the industry to help new and existing practice owners grow, whilst leaving you in full control of your business.

The system we use is called SynTrain, an accredited training platform that allows for unique, online training, as well as one-to-one mentorship for various roles across the clinical setting. Alongside our in-house departments such as marketing, IT, business intelligence, accounts governance and training, we offer more to help your practice flourish with our very own business management software, called SynPro. In essence, you’ll have various teams within the group that will help you get a step closer to creating a well-oiled machine. It’s a tried and tested formula that has provided the perfect foundation for success over our 13 year, continuously growing tenure.

With this in mind, it is essential that oral surgeons are not simply saving costs by employing a cheaper implant system or reducing their fees. It is essential to rely on skills developed through appropriate training and support and to be able to offer the premium implants systems such as those from Straumann. Many patients really appreciate the additional benefits that a system such as this can offer them.

If you feel you could benefit from Zuber’s experience and the level of clinical freedom we offer with our JV schemes, get in touch with one of our helpful representatives by filling out the form at the bottom of our ‘For Practice Owners’ page. We want to know more about you, your practice, and how we can plan for your next steps to success!

www.straumann.com/en/dental-professionals/products-and-solution