#167: Costly Mistakes in Practice Renovations with Dr Jenny Liu

0:00You are listening to the Dental Business Mastery podcast, where you discover management insights and strategies for your successful dental practice. There are also interviews with key people in the industry who have advice and services to help you and your team achieve great success. Welcome to this episode of the Dental Business Mastery podcast. Today, you've got me, Julie Parker, co-founder of Dental Business Mastery, Amina Basile, the other co-founder of Dental Business Mastery, and the guest that we have today is such an important one. And this has been something in the making for a number of months ever since I spoke to a particular person, a fit out person within the dental profession who talks about some of the sad stories out there. And because of these sort of sad stories that we're going to have shared with us today, Amina and I are co-hosting an event on March the 18th, then here in Melbourne.

1:01And it's going to be a panel of experts just speaking to dentists that are looking at building their own practice. And so this is why you always find out very quickly why this interview is going to play such a big role in recognising why that session is going to be so important. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Jenny Lu. How are you? Hi, Jenny. I'm, you know, hi, Julie. So, Judy, you're not actually in Melbourne at the moment. We're about to, you were, I'm in Thailand at the moment. You're coming from far away. Is that a holiday, a learning opportunity? I'm here to learn diving. So it's technically learning, but you're not not of a dentistry. I've actually got my petty license, which I haven't renewed for a long, long time. So I don't actually have it anymore. But I've got a story from, you know, later on where I had a deep dive from Hell, I'd had a panic attack at 30 meters underneath the water. So anyway, that's another story.

2:02That was one of my last dives. But there were a lot of extenuating circumstances around that one. Jenny, you're going to love it. It's such a wonderful thing to diving. Well, it's just, I just realised what I'd done there. I put yourself in a bed's headspace for it. I waited the way in the pool. So anyway, it'll be right. So Jenny, some people would have seen your story in the February edition of the Bite magazine. And for people who are tuning in on YouTube, Jenny is pride there on the very front cover, glorious woman that she is. And what we're going to be talking about today is happy dentistry, your gentle practice in the heart of Melbourne. And you purchased that in 2023. Is that correct? No, 22, end of 22, but yeah, end of 22. So tell us what made you to that position? First of all, I was buying the practice. I think I got bored with being an associate.

3:04I was pretty much it. That was it felt like the associate would have been like Groundhog Day. So decided to do something different. That's nice. That's nice. Actually, my husband Charles Coves Australia's passion provocateur. He was at the world of wellness yesterday doing a presentation. And he was talking a lot around freedom. And I found a lot of the notes that I was making was around dentists. And you know, that's one of the reasons why you do own a dental practice. One, it could be to relieve the boredom of being an associate. But have you had that sense of, well, I would like to have further control and more freedom to control my working environment in my career? Yeah, I think so. I think it's certainly not for everyone, but if you really like having back control and you like being able to call the shots, then I think it's something you'd really enjoy doing. But with the control comes the responsibility. So you've got to kind of be able to take birth. Some people like control, but don't actually want responsibility.

4:06If you don't want responsibility, also do it. That's for sure. And part of what Charles says as well is there's benefits and drawbacks. An equal number to everything we do. And that's what it is, isn't it? Achieve all that benefit of only your own practice. You have to be willing to put up with the drawbacks. Absolutely. So tell us about moving into 2023. Did you buy the practice as an ongoing concern? I bought the practice, but it wasn't really what I would call a fit for practicing when I bought it. It was really, really old. Like the dentist was on his way out of the retiree. And he was at elderly man in his 80s. So the practice, I would describe it like a time capsule. It looked like it was something from the late 1900s. I made a decision to renovate.

5:06And then I think I was my first time kind of navigating all of it. And I didn't know enough people in the industry. So I think I made some poor choices. It's such a space. You're going in so green, aren't you? I mean, if you had to write a book about how to do it, you'd be at a blog about how to do it. But the only way to get to that level of information and that knowledge is to actually move through it quite often. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. So what was your experience like? Honestly, I think probably because I was quite young when I was doing it. And I didn't have the network or the knowledge. I think I was very probably too relaxed with it.

6:07I was like, you know, what I didn't set enough boundaries. I didn't set enough parameters. And I was just like, I'm going to trust that who have I chose are professional enough to do the job. You need to do a lot more oversight. And you need to actually push a lot more because I think because I was too chill. That they felt like they could also just kind of take the piss a little bit, which I think was definitely part of the issue. Long like during that renovation and fit our time. And I think again, like, unfortunately, you know, you were kind of in 2026, but it is still very much a male dominated space. Like, dentistry isn't, but when you go to like, you know, dealing with new and his contractors, everyone else, kind of adjacent to dental, it becomes a very male dominated space.

7:10And they don't tend to take young women very seriously. Or like, you really have to probably over compensate a little bit for people to kind of take you a bit more seriously sometimes. Depends on the person, obviously, but I would say that was probably also part of it. I've seen, you know, in my experience, working in dentistry and then coming from a family where my dad was a doctor, my brother's a doctor. And I think even it happens to the men as well that there's this, you know, some people who will take advantage of the fact that you guys are very intelligent individuals that are so engrossed in doing your clinical work and your science and not really exposed to all these other factors that, unfortunately, there are people out there that take advantage of that. I've seen it with accountants or then I've recently, my brother, he's a doctor as well, looking for a medical practice.

8:12He's been practicing for a long time, 20 years. Thereabouts, maybe a bit more. And he knows he doesn't want, like he doesn't want to work in a practice like this, this, this and this. And what he does want, he wants to work in a practice where he's got control where he can practice that way he wants and all the things. But all the other things outside of that, you know, all the legal things that to look for from a business perspective and so forth. I was surprised even when I did ask with him after this long in practice how much knowledge he was lacking in that space to make those kinds of decisions. And I think he was too once we had some discussion. So I think it does and I think there's, there's that gap isn't there between getting the knowledge to go out on your own into a practice and knowing what you know from practicing. Yeah, that's a huge gap. I think, yeah, medicals, we tend to doctor and dentists, I don't know, for people who don't like classified dentists as medicals.

9:13Maybe we're allied health fooders. But yeah, we tend to really narrow in on just our field of expertise and we don't really care about much else. And as opposed, you know, in essence, there's a couple of scenarios of coming to my head. Number one is when we have patients coming through, it's like a patient trying to make an informed decision for their own health without knowing all the details. And it's also like, you're about to build your own home. Oh, I'll do it without a contractor and without all the best advice in the world. I'll just kind of source it on myself. And so I think it's certainly a space where when you look at it through in different perspective, you go, of course, we need as much advice as possible. But it's about where do I go for that advice? How do I actually trust these particular people that are involved in this process? How did you go about getting the people and getting the project happening of the renovation of the building of your space in that building?

10:19Oh, the first time my banker was really helpful and gave me some contacts. But obviously like my banker knows the people, but he doesn't actually know who's good. It's not good and you're not a dental person, right? So like he knew these people worked in the space, but that was probably limited information. And so he did put me in touch with people and I kind of went from there and just reached out to these people. And you know, God ever wants to come in, have a look. Give me project proposals. I went through all of that, but I also think especially when you're starting out, I think because the financial stresses are so high, you tend to have, or at least for me, I had a more interesting value system where I wasn't really thinking about, you know, all of the factors that kind of played into the cost of search.

11:22And so, you know, I ended up choosing someone that I think had I chosen someone else who'd submitted a proposal, probably would have given me better results. And they were more expensive, right? And this stressed me out because, you know, you buy a clinic at all the cost, all of a sudden, right? Astronomical, you don't really focus on anything else except the money side of it for a bit. And then, I don't know, sometimes you quickly realize that the money's not the only thing that you should be concerned about. But I think again, some people can switch from that mindset and some people don't. So, well, you look at all of the belief values that drive how we feel about money. Well, absolutely, absolutely. It's a hard one, but yeah, I think that I, you know, after I got into the space and, you know, set everything up and everything else, and then I quickly realized a lot of it wasn't quite what I wanted it to be or a lot of it wasn't actually up to my standard.

12:30And then, you know, I didn't actually like a lot of these things. And then I kind of had to go back to the drawing board and rectify a lot of the mistakes and, you know, get the right people in and then kind of, you know, do a little bit of a do over, so to speak in a few things. So, you know, it probably actually ended up costing more, but you don't think about it when, you know, you're starting out. Like, it's a hard one. It's, yeah, whereas, you know, if I were to do it again, it would definitely be more once and done kind of project. There wouldn't be all of this to be throwing headaches, changing everything. So, give us an example of a few things that didn't go as according to plan that you kind of had to redo you are unhappy with. Oh, um, like so many things, but, uh, I don't have to change my IT provider. That's how I knew Mike, because I wasn't happy with my original one.

13:30Um, they were again, they were relatively well priced, but then Mike came in and was like, have a kind of backup on these things in ages. And I'm like, okay, that's really good to know. That's, that's a problem. Are you talking about all the short of 32? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, you know, and then I realized that my IT providers weren't actually doing what I needed them to do, um, you know. And so, yeah, so then I ended up changing up to Mike and he's now managing all of my IT things. So, there was definitely that, um, I was like a lot of things like I didn't make the correct provisions for my compressive suction unit. Um, and again, with the original people who did my fit out, um, you know, I went, well, this is the compressor. This is the suction I'm using, but they made the specs are taught that it only fit that compressor in that suction unit, which is bad.

14:34Because, you know, if you, that compressor is actually, you know, breaks, you're in a lot of the pickle. Um, so once I got built in, because again, my compressor suction unit got old and broke and all of those things. Um, generally as they do, when you buy something from, uh, old Adventist, um, yeah, uh, that was really, really good. And so you're talking about Bill's journey of all dent and they've been a fit out company. Bill's been in the industry for 50 years, so tell us more about how Bill has helped you out. Yeah, so Bill had to really just, um, you know, come in with the new units and things, but he had to literally cut that cupboard and, you know, do a lot of textressing and lots of creative things to get my units in. So it's, it's definitely been fun. We look at the problem evolving in hindsight, which should have happened. And you're highlighting just how many people have a finger in the pie?

15:35The IT, the fit out, the equipment, the finance. Who else was involved? I mean, there's like the marketing side was also really important, but I got quite lucky. I've got an in-house marketing team now. Um, was someone who helps me more that's in-house, but yeah, I realized that the original, you know, one of the dental marketing specialists were actually doing anything with the marketing, um, and the SEO strategy wasn't great. And, you know, they were, my marketing girl took one look at it. It was like, why are you paying this much money for it a month? This is, again, the hard thing, right? Because, you know, um, anyone who's like adjacent to the space kind of knows, um, you know, that again, you're a premium service that will you charge a premium, therefore they charge your premium, but sometimes they charge your premium without actually doing the work. And I think a lot of us are really, really tied to, for example, oh, we need a dental marketing specialist, but

16:39do you really? Are they actually doing the work? Um, and you know, like, I'm not happy with my website and I paid quite a lot of money for it. And, you know, I'm redoing that whole website. And that's also been a journey in itself because, you know, again, originally I had a URL that was like, I think, Dentist CBD Del Melbourne, which, you know, the original marketing company, um, advise would be better for like SEO purposes. Um, but I think like, at the end of the day, you know, after like actually talking to, you know, friends and marketing, other people marketing, made the decision. It was actually too difficult because, you know, having your email and a Dentist CBD Del Melbourne was really, really hard for people. So actually, you know, then had to really change the website URL from that to like happy dentistry.com.au, like a normal clinic. And then but yeah, it's, everything's been a continuous struggle. Like I'm getting my website read on now,

17:44um, so that, you know, it's actually up to scratch. It's, you know, it's built properly. It's not bloated because the original, um, website was built on WordPress. And, you know, it wasn't, it just wasn't right, you know, like if you go onto my website on mobile, it's clunky, it's awful, it's not very patient friendly, all of those things. And, you know, like constantly what holds it back is the fact that it's, it's so like high data use. I would say like it's just got so much data like that. The website speeds are slower and all of those things. It's like, so you, you know, it's, it's a little bit of everything. You've got to kind of be across it all. So, Jenny, um, when you set out to go on via practice, did you seek help and guidance from anyone in particular taking you through the journey, or did you navigate it on your own?

18:48Um, I did some of my practice, I had worship seminars and workshops. So, um, and you know, I joined like DPU dental practice owners and all of that. So, and then I did engage with like some dentists that were also, um, offering like dental business coaching. So, I did this here and there. I wouldn't say I had like an advisor that really held my hand through all of it. But yeah, definitely help. You can't do it by yourself. It would be awful. On reflection, do you think it would have been helpful if you engage someone sort of full time on that journey to help you through? I think it depends on, again, how hands on you want to be with it because, you know, there are dentists who probably just don't want anything to do with the management side of the clinic. And, you know, like once they get set up, they're going to get

19:49a dental practice manager and they never want anything to do with this side of it. So, and you know, they still want to practice. What is it like full time clinical hours as they're doing this? It's not feasible, really. If you want to do that, something's got to give, you know. So, yeah, if you're like only working two clinical days a week, you probably are okay with getting less help and figuring out some stuff on your own. But if you're, you know, if you're wanting to work full time clinically whilst opening a clinic, you need help, you need help, you need all the help you can get. And you kind of highlighting, when you said, you know, you're working clinically two days a week, this is the other aspect, isn't it, that when we go down the path of doing renovations in the practice or starting a practice from scratch, how long is it going to take? And if all the contractors and everybody else says, this is how long it should

20:50take us, we can never rely on that date because it's always going to take longer because that's the way life works. It's going to take longer. I need you to really do that in. It's still going to take longer. Costs will blow out. Sorry, it's almost like, you know, there's things I wish I'd done like signed fixed price contracts that I'll do now that I didn't know to do. And, you know, then, you know, contract discipline variations. And of course, you have to do them. But yeah, there's like, you know, all the things you want to wear off. And then, you know, like, I think I was doing a clinic right about the time where, like, the radiation management plan things started happening. So, like, you know, prior to you didn't need those and all the stuff, right? And it's like, these are constantly changing. Like, all of a sudden, you have all these new infection control standards that have come out. But I could using the hell out of everybody. And so now, when you do a new fit out, you really have to consider what those guidelines being and not what the old guidelines were. So yeah, things constantly change. So you definitely really need to either stay on top of it or

21:54really, really need some help externally. I remember years ago, someone saying to me that where to place a dental implant will depend on which specialist you're seeing. Where a prostodontist would place it is quite possibly quite different to where a periodontist would place it, which is quite possibly different to where an oral surgeon would like it placed. All these different people would be putting this and even the lab, lab technician may have a completely different, because they're looking at it through their own lens. What do I need from this in order for it to for me to get success with my part of this? You were talking about that's true to get one person that can actually take all of these different things into into consideration. And who is also on an up-to-date with all of these sort of what's going to be changing in the in the industry, for example, I think wash of disinfecters now are needed, required in any new build of a

22:56sterile, a sterile room. And something that not everyone's just going to naturally know that information. And so I know that one of the people that has is helping us arrange our March event is Mindy Green of SmartDental. She's been working with ADEC for many many years, and now she's like a project manager for dental fit-outs. So helping people to really be aware of all of the many considerations that they need to take in to their brain in order to roll out a successful job and project. And I think what you said too, information around and learning the lesson of fixed-term contracts as well, enormous. Because if there's all I suppose every contract is going to have a get out clause and if things take me longer, bad luck. But to be able to have tie that to the financial compensation that they get so they've

23:57got a true motivation to actually have that sense of momentum and importance I've again missed job done. So what other lessons have you learned about your journey? If I was coming to you and saying okay I mean and I have built a practice from scratch. What's our best next step? Who should we be talking to? Because this is a big part of it isn't it? Don't go by the testimonials on these people's websites because they can pick and choose what testimonials are written in. But how would you, if you had your time again, how would you find the trusted individuals that you utilize for a project like this? I think like for me obviously I went the trial an error away and I learned everything hard way. I don't know if I'd recommend doing that, but then again like it's probably very congruent with my personality. I have to know what's good and what's bad for myself. Some people have to learn the hard way. Not everybody, but that's definitely the path some people would take and they wouldn't do anything else. So in a way I think

25:01I'm probably one of just one of those people, right? Like I know the people I have a good because I've seen what bad looks like. But I think a lot of people have that mentality of how bad could it be? Surely they do all the same things. That's not the case. Not once you actually kind of understand or figure out how the good people, how good the good people are. And it's the whole I can call my cop on a weekend and if something's broken he'll hop on and fix it for me. Sometimes it's on him personally. He has a life, but yeah I can call you know back to call on the weekends. Clinic's open seven days a week so it's and of course it's always broken on the weekends. It's never broken. That's right. But yeah it's it's the same thing with Bill,

26:01you know I can really just call him you know if something's broken on a weekend. And if it's really bad you know he'll either help me troubleshoot it or when it's real bad he will come in. And it's one of those things right. And yeah there's like probably little considerations you want to think about like how close is this provider to geographically physically right especially like your equipment guy. Like Bill's great and Bill's down the road for me right. I'm in CBD. He's in Port Melbourne. It's very helpful. Yeah. So it means like if I need something he's just down the road and he's not you know far far away. Obviously it's a lot harder when you're rural because of this and in rural you've almost got to building more fat into the business and building more backups so that when things scrub you can do a bit of DIY a lot of the time because people aren't going

27:05to be able to get out to you like it's the unfortunate reality of the world. But if you do have choice in the city to go for someone like on the other end you're going to regret it you know. Yeah I remember back in the day when I was a young dental assistant back in the what was it like 80s early 90s that it was so if all the equipment broke down we had systems in place to be able to still see patients would have those little bubble things to be out and feel one with water and one and one didn't wasn't filled with water so had air in it and that would be our irrigation and air drying and things like that they would get this food next greater out and do yeah okay and we didn't need necessarily need a light queuing light because back then it was a malgum so that was all groovy as well. There were it just seemed to be able to be easier to muddle through things broke down but nowadays of course if you don't have electricity you don't have the client files and so what are you supposed to do and you can't take x-rays there's other things and so I think it

28:09is more it's tougher now to continue on seeing patients when things go awry so having those kind of backup plans are wonderfully important. Yeah you've actually got to really think about what you're going to do when things go wrong. Tell us a little bit about a financial aspect and so did you find that you got all the quotes and you went to this finance institution you said this is the money I need and I said sure here you go this is the pathway to getting all that and was that a simple enough process or did you find because of the fact you were doing redoes that you found you had to go back to the finance institute and say I need a little bit more. Yeah I had to go back and ask my banker for some more money absolutely um but that's fine like you know um I was I've been working with BRQ specialist the whole time and they've been really really good um like I love my bank off so you know he's absolutely sweetie um yeah they've really looked after me so I haven't really had an issue there that's actually been the least headache of all the

29:13processes um so yeah and I mean if you're if you are running the business well and often the numbers are healthy like the bank will give you money that's what it comes down to right um if you're not running it well then you know they've got probably other bigger problems to worry about so I think I was very lucky in the sense that financially there's not been an issue because the business is always done well enough so that the banks have been happy to give me the money um yeah then again if you're struggling finances wise or business wise then you've really got to think about how to solve that as problem number one before solving the other stuff and reassure these banks that you will be profitable as quickly as possible exactly right because at the end of the day it's like I have a good relationship with my banker but you know like I've also paid all my loans on time and you know never miss a payment and all the rest and there's

30:17always a money they can't therefore of course the bank's trick here actually you're highlighting another really important aspect and this isn't just for new business new practice builders and fit out so the thing is for anybody in business that the business does go through ups and downs over the years yeah you might meet with a generosity of spirit from them every now and then and in order to pave the way for that then do pay all your bills on time don't make people chase you for money don't be rude when you're dealing with them create strong relationships give everybody a reason to try to make you happy and do things for you no absolutely absolutely um yeah yeah so I don't know if Mike told you about the time the clinic flooded but that was really fun so yeah it's also really important to set up your insurance as early because you never know when things will go wrong very good so how long into the journey did your clinic flood end of 23 like dream like November December when it's like the business quarter so yeah that was

31:22that was good that was really good man alive you had one thing after another after another yeah yeah yeah yeah I learned everything the hard way I really let everything but really hard way how long we up and running less than a year well I think we're about 10 months at that stage I'd like started running in start of February 23 and we flooded in yeah November 23 yeah yeah so yeah again business interruption insurance like all the other things but just get it all sorted early yeah and what about kind of carrying your team through all of these changes and things like that was it disruptive to the team when they were working in the environment that actually ended up being to be changed even though it was all fresh and brand new um well I only started off with like one staff member I inherited from um you know the old dentist um um and then I at the start it was definitely a learning curve again choosing staff right um and

32:28you know you all think okay I have to interview people what skills I'm assessing for blah blah blah blah blah again like with chat GPT you can kind of chat GPT your way through some of this AI is very helpful but you still have to learn how to do it like you know AI can give you great interview questions um but if you don't know what the interview questions are asking or assessing for you don't know how to judge hey this is a good response this is a good response this is a red flag this is a red flag you know AI can do some of the work for you but can't do all the work for you um so initially you know I chose some staff members um for like my reception and I quickly realized that yeah none of them were the right fit um and then you know again back to the drawing board so at the start I probably had a little bit higher a staff turnover um but like now it's pretty good like I have probably I would say like I mean six or seven dentists none of the dentists I've had

33:34one dentist leave um Kishi went overseas had surgery and she came back on border in clinic um but yeah like I've barely had any staff turnover since but the start was definitely more staff turnover lots of learning and really kind of trying to understand what you needed because again everyone's criteria is going to be different because they have to work with you and your clinic um so there's no like right or wrong so to speak it's just what will work with you and also what you can afford and how much training you want to do because someone with experience is going to want a lot more money and you can't have someone who's experienced and not pay them up so you've got to kind of shoot what you want to do whether you're happy to build people up more um and maybe you know you don't pay as well but that's okay and you know there's all of the then there's all the talk about pay structures you pay them above award the flat rate do you pay them

34:37at the award but pay them all there over time and then we can grade or whatever else you want to do it's a lot of stuff to know and learn and you're right we have to move through it to to understand how it all relates to us and how it's going to change our journey and our path moving forward as well and the team right is something that I mean and I will be certainly talking about at that March event because it's such a crucial piece of the puzzle because everything ends up coming down to that patient experience and the team other ones delivering this patient experience and how have you found the transition of patients from the old owner and I don't mean old in years in age he might be young in spirit but the previous owner and the growing man that changes that the patients has saw and attracting those new patients how have you found that patient attraction and retention journey um look like that the previous dentist probably had quite a aging um patient base so unfortunately there's just naturally a higher tuition rate there so to

35:47speak um you know and because I'm in the city like you know people especially after COVID they just weren't getting comments of the city anymore you know they got in sick they became really young well you know unfortunately a fair amount of them passed away all of those things right so there was an actually a higher tuition rate in that goodwill base I already bought um but in terms of the transitioning the people who um yeah did stick around with us I mean what was really helpful was you know I did keep his nurse um her and I have a great relationship you know she's pretty much doing all of the practice managing side of things for me now um so you know it's it's really good that yeah she was there and you know she eased that transition because they were so used to talking to her on the phone they were so used to you know her being there all the rest of that so she played a big role in making that journey easy for yourself and the

36:48patients well absolutely because again you know it's like when she was there was that reassurance of hi I'm still here you know um I did keep the older dentist on for about a year and a half as well um and he continued to see some of his patients um and he was only there three days a week and then you know tape it him down more and more and more um just as a way to slowly transition um yeah so that was really necessary too and then you know making sure that when he did do the transition that again there was a lot of reassurance and then you know I like one of the dentists I think I ended up hiring was you know had very similar language skills to him um probably even looked like him a tiny bit but much younger um so I think that also helped because it was just getting someone you know because again patients get really funny about these things right if like

37:51the principal was a man like it's going to be easy for them to transition to a male dentist or a lot of the time um took that's what they're used to right so if you can get that's it that's and that's being more so with their expectation of what they've grown to love and trust in the previous zone or over the decades well exactly so it's about you know probably just trying to find that and doing that well we're so delighted that you're going to be present and involved in the March event and just to give people a bit more of an idea about what's happening at that March event it in essence is a panel of experts in front of an audience of people who were in Jenny's position back in 2020 22 early 2023 we've got a lot of decisions to make you're going to have to depend on a lot of external people who are going to have a direct involvement in your project and how profitable and how quickly you can be profitable after the project has been completed and it is so crucial to

38:51get people who are experts in that field who have been in the industry for many years and so have seen a lot of these sort of things go wrong so they know exactly how to what to look out for to help make it go right and we are talking about probably one of the most stressful things you'll ever move through is huge financial impact and and and decisions to make but if it does go wrong the matter stress would be absolutely extraordinary and depending on how well you manage stress it might really be one of the most impactful times of your life and so we wanted to get a whole panel of experts we each of us are going to just speak only for a couple of minutes about what we do and what well we play in the profession but then the rest of the time it's going to be like an hour and a half or it's just going to be fielding questions from the audience and so it is such a beautiful time to get the great advice and just to give you a quick idea of the lineup of speakers our MC and speaker on mindset and confidence is Charles Covis Australage's passion provocateur

39:5673 history of being a lawyer has had decades of providing business advice over the years we've also got Peter Nichol from RSM Accounting he's going to be talking about business structure and the accounting setup Michael Evans from medics finance he'll be speaking about securing the finance and managing cash flow which is huge to manage cash flow effectively Jason Carroll from Callerbird of Opdesigns his cabinetry and practice fit out Bill Stoney of Old End and Jenny you've mentioned Bill already and he is around fit out he's just recently this past year celebrated 50 years in the profession Mindy Green as well we spoke about Mindy before equipment selection and contractor selection and so she is going to be that expert in who to tap into to be able to get this project underway and a manner in myself will be speaking also we've got another guest speaker who's gone through a similar journey where there's been lots of ups and downs

40:58in the fit out process and developing their own practice and so she'll be there to answer a few questions and you'll be there as well Jenny so what would you say to people who are thinking about buying a practice number one they've got to come along to this event so they can get a whole bunch of information it's going to be a great research opportunity and it's only $50 a ticket and there's seven and a half thousand dollars worth of value in their gift bag when people do turn up so it's just a no-brainer if you in Melbourne come we've even got someone coming in from Interstate as well because they see it's such an important event what advice would you give to somebody who's looking at going down this path and it could be anything from mindset to contact these specific people to watch out for these what kind of comes to your mind i think you really have to think about why you're doing it um because i think it all really just starts with the why of it um if you're not

41:59doing it for the right reasons like you said it would just be a awful stressful time and you know you wouldn't actually get any value or any joy out of it um so yeah you've got to really be clear about the why um before you even go to the how you know um yeah because again it can really just you can just have a mental breakdown you know what i mean it's a lot and if you don't like it you you've put yourself into you know essentially like a prison of your making it's it's absolutely home and unfortunately there's no way out really because you you know the business doesn't worth very much until you actually get it up and running and profitable so that's a really good point to make it's not worth anything and especially at the start if you're getting financed for

43:00the equipment everything as well it's a ditch yeah yeah it's not it's not an aspect until it becomes actual functioning running dental clinic and that can take years you know it can take years and set yourself up on the right footing and even though at the time yes everything's expensive so you being inclined to use people that maybe are a little bit cheaper and maybe they're a little bit cheaper because they're newer to their profession what you have found is that that can bring about a whole basket of problems that are unnecessary if we just go and do our due diligence research ask a lot of people who did you use what was your experience like to be able to get the people involved who don't just want to get the money for the job they want to make sure you get the result that you want yeah absolutely i agree it's i don't know it's so hard there's you know you could talk for days about this but again everyone's going to have their own approach to things and everyone's going to have their own

44:03way of doing things and what they think is right like what i think is right is just for me it's not for everyone you know yeah nicely said nicely said and meena anything else for me before we wrap up no but thank you so much Jenny for your time it's been great to have a chat with you today thank you so much i mean i thank you so much julie it's been lovely to eat me you guys and i'm looking forward to meeting you in person at the event that'll be fantastic good luck with your scuba dive and you won't need luck it'll be fantastic you have beautiful things thank you thank you if you enjoyed this podcast then i encourage you to head over to amena and my website dentalbusinessmastery.com.au you'll find all the information that you need if you would like to gain our assistance in helping you and your team achieve great success if you would like to find out more you can also email us directly at info at dentalbusinessmastery.com.au thanks

45:06so much for listening