Dental Recruitment Evolution – IC008

Jaz’s Introduction: This episode is all about careers as an associate and a bit of a continuation of the episode I did about finding an associate position and about your CVS. It’s a very hot, sunny day today, end of June.

Main Interview:

[Jaz]
So Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me if you just kindly introduce yourselves, and tell us about why I might have interfered in terms of what you think why I’ve got you on the episode today to talk about finding an associate position and start with you, Andy.

[Andy]
Yeah, yeah. Good afternoon. My name is Andy Saunders, as you alluded to, I am the founder of the Openwide Group. We’re a careers consultancy for the dental industry. I’ve got a bit of a different take on how I believe recruitment should be undertaken. I have over 10 years experience of running a recruitment business, we launched it, we took it from naught to 25 million in eight years, it was then sold to one of the big boys. So I feel that I’m in quite a good position to tell people how to position themselves so that they are maximizing their output for how they can best show themselves off to potential new principals. They might want to be owning their own practice how they can then recruit their own associates. But ultimately, I’m really passionate about how dentists A) how they recruit. And we’ve come up with a mythology, the three R’s of recruitment, which I’m sure will allude to a bit later on, or

[Jaz]
Andy, I think what you’re doing is you’re taking your experience from your recruitment of days, in these successful companies that you know, help with, and you’re bringing that into the dental industry, you really shaking it up. And the reason I wanted to bring you on is because one thing you said to me was ‘how CVS are now changing,’ because over the past few weeks, I’ve been involved with helping lots of dentists with their CVS, because then, you know, then, since that episode I released about CVS, they’ve been sending me their CVS for my opinion. And I’ve been happy to help. But one thing that you told me about how CVS may not be the best way anymore, that really say the back of my mind, and I really want to talk about that today, as well, Simon, please tell us a little about yourself.

[Simon]
Hello, Jaz, thanks for inviting me on. I’m a salesman. And for over 35 years of my life, I’ve been selling dental products and services, to dental practices all over the world. I’ve lived in the States, I’ve worked in Australia, worked in Europe. In the last seven years, I spent most of my time helping dentists and their teams communicate more effectively with patients. And that’s based on understanding the fact that patients have an emotional attachment to their mouth or their mouth health. And so it’s really changing the mindset of dental teams in terms of looking at the patient as a person rather than just as a set of teeth and a practical solution to their problems. And I think that whole philosophy comes from the fact that dentistry is such a personal service, now involves touching whenever a patient comes into the dentist, they’re going to get their fingers in their mouth. So it’s such a personal service. And I’ve seen over my 40 years of experience that actually the whole of dental practice relies on that personal connection. So a personal connection between the dentist, the dentist or the principal, the principal and their associates, the principal, associates and the therapists, hygienists, nurses, reception staff, there really has to be that personal connection. When I started talking to Andy about how we could shake up the dental recruitment market. The section that was missing from recruitment in general, I think, not just in dentistry, but in my experience of recruitment is totally non personal. It’s about, you know, getting CVS out there really quickly and filtering through them electronically, not even in you know, in my days, when I was recruiting, I actually read every CV that came in, now they’re scanned by a machine, so you can get rejected because you don’t have the right keywords in your CV. So what Andy’s doing is building a network, which is a true network of people, that we as a team can then say, actually, we know this practice, and we know this associate or this Hygienist, Therapist, this Nurse, he’d be a really good fit, because we know them, we’ve got to know them not just through their CV. So that’s why I’m involved. I think it’s a great personal connection. And it’s great.

[Jaz]
Well, it sounds exactly that a very personal thing. I mean, from my knowledge that I have in my experience was a lot of my friends are principals and every time I think maybe 5-7 years ago, the place to advertise a job vacancy for an associate would would have been BDJ jobs, which I don’t think is the place anymore. But back then, even I had applied for some associate positions, maybe you know, six years ago, via BDJ jobs and never hear anything back because then I found out that that principal had received 400 CVs or thereabout. And really, how can an associate stand out on a piece of paper and that’s where Andy, I think you come in what you told me was the role Have a video and that really, you know, you know, I’m a massive fan of video myself with all the things I do, and just blew my mind. So just keep telling me about how the CV might be dead and what, how you’re going to shake it up with the dental recruitment with videos, maybe?

[Andy]
So, but my big thing is I don’t I’m not so sure that the CV is dead. My big thing is, how do you get that personality across on a blank piece of a4 paper with some black and white text? It is impossible. And that also has changed from the set probably the 1950s where the first CV was written, we’re not 70 years old. Look at the world of technology, look at everything, you have to tell me that that has to change. So it has to be dead. In that sense, it has to be dead. However, I think now people need to have three CVS, if I’m really honest, I think they need to have a CV, which they will send to recruitment agencies who fill to them, like Simon said with the keywords. And they need to they need to have those keywords on them. So pretty boring. Again, it’s a boring it’s a blank, dull dull document. But it gets you through to the barriers to be able to speak to that

[Jaz]
the first hurdle.

[Andy]
Yeah, it’s dull, it’s horrible. But unfortunately, the we’re still living in a world where it has to be done. You then I believe you need your second CV, which is what you would if you were approaching a principal on a practice directly, which needs to be a little bit more colorful, it needs to have your picture on it. It needs to give a little bit more background about you as an individual and not necessarily your skill set, purely and simply because what we’ve just alluded to you both said it’s a personal, such a personal industry dentistry. And then there’s the third CV, which is what we here at Openwide are all about and that’s your video CV. And this is where you set yourself apart from everybody else. And it’s what we here at Openwide are all about. We’re all about your personality, how you communicate, and how you put yourself across. Again, we all alluded to at the beginning that dentistry is such a personal industry. There is no better way of putting out your across your personality than on video. It also moves with the times if you look over social media at the moment, everywhere, it’s video, it’s you’ve got your video, you’ve got it in your pocket, you will probably

[Jaz]
Can I just challenge your idea if that’s okay? To see if it’s got legs. So when you first told me that Firstly, I was really excited. I was Okay, that sounds really clever. Because how much can you actually convey through paper? And it makes sense to video. But the issue is, sometimes I’ve taught, I’ve given advice to young dentists that look if you’re, you should be proud of the service you gave and you’ve done so many courses and you’re obviously a fantastic candidate. Why don’t you go on some of these groups and say, Look, I’m so and so I’ve got I’ve got this, this and this. Here’s my portfolio. Here’s my CV. Hire me. Okay? And people are timid, shy, afraid to do that because that’s really you put your head above the parapet so people with video, they, how can you help to get the best out of someone through video, so they don’t feel shy or timid or afraid. So that’s one of the challenges I had in my head.

[Andy]
Definitely, definitely So on that note, we do not just dive in with a video, we will not just suddenly say you might apply for a position that we’re looking for, we might be speaking to you [inaudible] hit the record button, we are going to have, that there is a process that we go through. It’s probably three stages. We will sit down and we’ll have an initial chat with you. Let’s get to know you a little bit as a person, your morals and your values, [inaudible] with us here at Openwide, if so, great. We then have a 90 minute debrief. So we will sit down and do a video call maybe beyond a video call purely simply just because it gets you used to the camera, you used to speaking to me this way. We have that 90 minute debrief is all about you both professionally and personally. So it takes out all of the anxiety that you might have of being on camera, it takes away all of the scared element, putting your head above the parapet as you put it, it takes all that away. I’ve now probably spent two hours with your company just over two hours, I’ve got to know you really well. I will now go away or we as a team go away. And we’ll work out how we feel is best to record this scenario. We might feel that it’s best to do it on a zoom call. We might feel that it’s best for you just to go away and practice on your own with your iPhone, you might feel comfortable doing on your own on your own in your bedroom. It’s really how you prefer to do it and what gives you the confidence to do it. It is very difficult, as you said, to put your head above that parapet, we, however, will lay out everything and hold your hand the whole way through that process. We are fantastic editors as well that can edit that footage down. So that we are putting you across in the best light, we would never also put that footage out there if you weren’t happy with it. And that’s something I really want to stress with. Because you have to be happy with what is going out there in that content, there’s nothing worse than suddenly seeing a video of yourself and go, Oh my god, I don’t like that, oh my god, my hair looks like, what am I, look my teeth, look, whatever that might be. There’s nothing worse than that. And we want to empower you and make you confident. But that is the data three CVS that you have to worry about today. But the one which is going to get you the most traction by a shadow of a doubt is your video CV. It’s going to give you that personality, it’s also going to save you time in you might be relocating, unless you’re relocating from Scotland down to London, you’re not going to want to travel down to see one practice at a time. In your video, you can get out there to five or six practices in the span of 20 minutes. And you will just be a hell of a lot more confident also go forward, it will benefit you in your job on a day to day basis.

[Jaz]
I think on the receiving end of the video. Yeah, I think on the receiving end as a practice principal, seeing this video compared to just paper CVs, you know, in a professional light, and you get to connect and you get to know what someone’s about. And you touched on something there about values and I’m so big on the importance of values and and how they should align. Simon, you’re so well connected in dentistry. You know, loads of associates, those principals, business owners. There are often stories about how associates and principals perhaps have clashes or teams have a toxic culture. Tell us about your experience, perhaps in the past, and why it’s important to get those values to line up.

[Simon]
I think it’s critical, Jaz, in any business, I don’t care what business you’re in, if you don’t have people that share the same values as you, you’re going to clash. You know, I know from experience having run small businesses and big businesses, your biggest headache in any business is not money. It’s not marketing, it’s not sales, it’s people. So and in a dental practice, again, because it’s a very intense atmosphere, you know, there’s a lot of stress from the clients from the patients a lot of stress for each other, a lot of part time staff, a lot of hand over information, close working environment. So there’s a lot of pressure, it’s very busy. So if those team members don’t really gel together, you’re going to get clashes, you’re gonna get difficulties, and that just gonna spoil the day every day. So one of the exercise I go through with every client, even when I’m just doing communication skills training is to get into a values exercise, I’ve got a couple of ways of doing it. But we’ll do this with every candidate that comes in, we’re and every practice. So it’s a simple exercise, we’ll get their values nailed down. And then when the cap, so we’ve got our practice values of the owners, and maybe some of the team members, and then we get the candidates values. And we’ll put them into a matrix and see where the common ground is. So we’re never going to match an associate or a hygienist therapist or anybody else with a practice where there isn’t some common ground because that would just, so no point even connects them in the first place. Let’s get we’ll do that bit. And then through the use of video, we’ll be coaching the candidate to say, Okay, these are my values, this is who I am. And if you really nail down your personal values, they don’t change, that is who you are. And there’s no right or wrong values necessarily. It’s but when you’re, if you’re a bit of an introvert, which a lot of dentists and dental people are because it’s you know what, I’m working in this field all day. So I’m fine. I don’t need to speak to people, that’s fine. But to get that across on video, what you really are about and what you care about. If you focus on your five values, I usually get five words so that they’re their five core values if you focus on those. And as answered, go away and practice it in front of mirror with a friend or family member will coach you through it. But just get that across in the video on one of the questions I asked every audience I ever lecture to or every whatever work with is, why did you become a clinician? Why do you become a dentist or hygienists? And I’ve had some amazing answer, most of it is well because it was in the family or because I care or because I’m an artist and an engineer and I want to do something medical. The best one I’ve ever heard was a dentist. He was in Greece, he was in a big audience and he said ‘I became a dentist because my wife’s a dentist’ and I said ‘Tell me more.’ And he said ‘Well, I was on the architectural course at university and I met my now wife, you know, in the first year so I switched courses just so I could be with her.’ So he changed from architecture to dentistry just so he could be with her as well. Now that is a story isn’t it? You know if that’s on the practice video that’s on the practice corporate video if you like and I’m an associate Or a hygienist therapist that, you know likes that kind of family story, that family business, that family connection? Well, there’s an instant, I want to go meet them. So that’s what we’re really talking about. It’s looking at your core values, who you are as a person, you know, all the other stuff’s important on your qualifications and what you’ve done outside of work. But actually, we want to know you as a person. The principals want to know who you are as a person, because dentistry is no longer bring patients in and diagnose, treat to the best of your ability. It’s bring patients in, understand them as people, diagnose the clinical situation, then diagnose the warmth of the why of the patient. So, you know, every dentist, every practice does that differently. So we’ve got to try and match the right candidate with the right practice. And it’ll save as early said, it’ll save an awful lot of time. And you know, just say that in CVS, because we’ll do all that work in the background say, right, we think we found three practices, Jaz, just for you, they all aligned with your values, we think you’ll like them. And then you make the choice.

[Jaz]
[overlapping conversation] deep and profound. Yeah.

[Andy]
Sorry, I think that also backs up why the CV is dead. Because if somebody was to write on there their five values, whatever they might be, I’m sorry, but most people are gonna look at that and go, Well, that’s a bs, it’s just not true. They’re not going to believe it. Whereas if they see it on a video, and they can see that emotion behind that person, and you can tell whether somebody is an outgoing spoken person, or what type of personality they are, from the video that’s created, you’re more likely to believe that than you are, with an a4 piece of paper, like you said, there’s 400 applicants, they’ve all got the same thing. And you get if you’re going to sit there and read all of those, by the time you get to the 350th one, and you read the same five values, you’re going to be go, I don’t believe this. It’s a low [touch,] where is you’re not going to do that on a video.

[Jaz]
That and also, one thing I really respect and resonate with is and what you said there, Simon, you mentioned about stories and values, but also about stories and everyone, whether you, you know, accept it or not, you have a story, you have a journey, you are unique because of the experiences that you’ve had. And that also feeds into your values and your belief system. And so to have a story conveyed through your video, even if it’s like a 90-second video about you saying, look, this is what I care about, this one about as a dentist, and that conveys a story that is so much more engaging and memorable. So that’s why I think your idea was genius, willing to do to help connect the right, you know, dentists with the right principals, and vice versa. So that’s great. The next thing I want to ask is to make sure that those in associates listening and principals to get the most value from this segment is how can you help associates find the right tribe, find the right culture that they belong in? So one thing I have thought about is, yes, to speak to the principal and look at they’re just, I mean, what can you do other than go on their website and try and suss out from their website, what kind of people they are, but that doesn’t really do its value. So how can you get people through their homework correctly to make sure that they’re selecting the correct partners essentially?

[Andy]
So what we like to take a lot of that way, from the associates going and doing a lot of that digging, as I alluded to, I’ve been in recruitment for probably about 10 years. And over the last two or three years, I’ve been working really hard on what I call the three R’s of recruitment mythology. And that is the REACH of a candidate, how to ecruit a candidate, and how to RETAIN a candidate. Okay, in this sense, let’s say it’s an associate or hygienist or nurse, not necessarily a candidate. Let’s bring them to life a bit more. And from an Associates point of view or a hygienist point of view, if that dental practice is working with us, they straight away they’re demonstrating that they invested not only in their business, but in their team and in the future. Because we’re teaching all three of those parapets, whereas 90% of recruitment agencies will only teach them, well, they won’t teach them anything. They’ll go away and tell them that we’ll do the recruitment segment for them. What do we do for our practices, not only do we teach them that, but we also go behind the video the practice. So we create a corporate video for that practice. That will be a walkthrough of the practice. There will be interviews with staff members. There’ll be sit down interviews with principals when other dentists, hygienists, people in the practice, really getting under the skin of that practice. Because as you said, you can go on their website, but a website it’s a bit like a paper CV if I want it. It’s just a blank piece of paper that we have decided, what we’re going to put on it to showcase ourself in the best light, which obviously you’re going to, but what why would you not? So what we want to do is we actually want to just get to know what the real person is, the real practices and will also

[Jaz]
But also via video, so the practice would also have their own sort of,

[Andy]
yeah, they have their own account and their own profiles, on our site, it’s a walkthrough. So we do, not only do we do a walkthrough video, where we’ll talk to a couple of members, and you’ll actually get to physically see what the practice looks like. We also then sit down with the principal and one or two others to do the video job description. Again, it’s no copy and paste, it’s a conversation on video, where you get to see the whites of the eyes of the principal, you get to really find out why they’re looking to recruit. So you so not only, so it’s the same on both sides, this is their chance to put their video CV across in a sense, although it’s the job description, it’s why they’re recruiting. So we unearth a lot of that, we go to market to unearth an awful lot of the finding out about the practice for you. Now,

[Jaz]
Andy, can I just interject and say that I the immediate benefit I see there in a post COVID world is, it saves you at least one visit because often, you know you think in applying let me go check out that practice, right? Because that’s the first thing I want to do. Let me go check it out. Let me see what the receptionist might. Let me see how big or small the surgery is. Let me see how ergonomic the places or whatever. So you do all that. But you know, the human sign that comes across would be amazing. And you might decide okay, that perhaps not for me. Or you might find that yet this practice really resonates for me far more than others because of whatever reason that comes across in that video. So I think it can definitely save associates a visit, especially they’re relocating to have to accept from Scotland to London, that is quite clever.

[Andy]
I think that’s the biggest thing I think you hit on the head there is that it saves the time. And it also eliminates, it’s the elimination, you as an associate can look at our practice and go ‘Wow, that is not the part, that is just not the principle I want to work for. That practice doesn’t share the values that I share, I think there will already be a personality clash.’ And that is absolutely, in my opinion, that’s gold dust. You’ve saved everyone time, effort, money, you name it, it’s all being saved. And I think the other great thing about it is you haven’t had to hurt anyone’s feelings along the way. So an associate hasn’t had to turn around and say, That’s not the practice for me. But vice versa. A principal doesn’t have to turn around and say, that’s not the associate for me. And we do with video, if you do, you can offend people and it can upset people’s not being chosen for something is horrible. And we eliminate all of that straightaway. Just to give you an answer, then I mean, that’s what we do at Openwide to eliminate those barriers and how you do the research. If you do see a position or a practice that you want to do, what would I be going to do to dig a little bit further? I would want to make sure that there were certain things on their website. So the About Us, I wouldn’t want it just to be about the practice, I would want there to be a section where you get to meet the team and get to find out what their values are, what each individual team member is. I would also be making sure that everything on that website is up to date, I would be going and checking out all social media profiles, not only of the practice, but of the people that work within that practice.

[Jaz]
stalker level expert.

[Andy]
Apologies.

[Jaz]
Has to be done. I’m going to do the day work.

[Andy]
Yeah, but you I think, and this is where I think a lot of people forget your career. And what you do for a living in a lot of cases it can define that person, issued, what you got to get up and go to this place every day for five, six, maybe six days a week, and you’re in there from eight in the morning and your first patients maybe eight in the morning and your last patient maybe six at night. That’s a huge chunk of your life. The responsibility on making sure that that’s the right practice for you and that the personalities fit is huge. And I think that is one thing that is one of the reasons our industry gets a bad reputation is because they do as we alluded to at the beginning just throw CVS they don’t care and it’s all about making money. Just the money is just a completely bystandard if you’re good at what you do you’ll make a shitload of money anyway.

[Jaz]
Absolutely. Yeah. As always, you say man, is that the Money is a you know, once you’re good at what you do that will come when you’re especially when you’re young dentist, I think worked to learn rather than to earn I think earn can compound itself later, I think to find a mentor. And I think that’s where with the video you get to learn can will this dentist principle, make a good mentor? Because that’s what associates want nowadays they want mentors as well. The next question I’m going to just have a look is Simon and Andy, there’s a perception that is very difficult to find a good associate nowadays. I don’t know if you, you know, loads of principals, both of you. Have you heard that sort of saying, from a principal maybe moaning about their associate? Why do you think that exists? And what’s that about?

[Simon]
I do hear a lot. Yes. And I think a huge part of it is exactly the why Andy come up with this concept is because it’s all been reliant on CVS, dentist, generally, let’s be honest, there’s only so you might be working in your practice eight till six, as a dentist, the owner, so you’re not only the owner, the head of it, head of HR, head of finance, head of, you’re also head of clinical, so you’re a busy person. And you work in a 12 by 12 room all day. So you’re not necessarily connected, you know, very frequently to go to a meeting or, you know, clinical course. So, perhaps the only way you know to recruit is to get CVS and start sifting through them. So as we’ve said, already, you can’t tell from a paper CV, what that person is like. And what we’re trying to do is make it so much easier for the practice to say Actually, we like that person, because as you said, associates and other clinicians, so I guess therapists and nurses want to know about the practice are going to join. Now I’ve looked at hundreds of, well thousands of websites for dental practice all over the world, I [mystery shot] practice is when I’m going to before I’m going to work with them as a trainer. So I’ll go in as a patient, if I can get away with it, if nobody knows me. So what you see on the website is rarely what you see when you get there. So if you’re an associate or another clinician looking for position, the website will only tell you so much. So our aim is to get behind that. So you don’t have to do all the research. But also, as Andy’s alluded to, if we can get the principal on video and the owners of the business and some of the other staff that have worked there for a while on video, explaining who they are, what the business about, you suddenly get a whole lot more communication and knowledge. So there are hundreds and hundreds of really, really talented associates, hygienists, therapists, dental nurses in the market, hundreds of them. A lot of them are unhappy in unhappy places, because there’s just not a match between their values and the practice they’re working in values. But

[Jaz]
I just want to pick on one thing you said there, yeah, I just want to on one very important thing you said there. And something no one ever talks about. When dentists are looking for a new position, they look at the practice. They’re looking in principle, they look at whether they’ve got rotary endo, whether it what percentage, there are all those things, right? And the nurse is someone who you meet on your first day at work, once you’ve, you know, gone through all the hurdles, you’ve shaken the hand, you sign the contract, then you meet the nurse. But I think I’m as a dentist, I’m I you know, I’d actually rather work in a practice that is not all bells and whistles, that is not everything I wanted. But the nurse is amazing. That actually speaks volumes to me as someone who’s going to work there eight to six, six days a week or whatever, than having an amazing practice with a high turnover of nurses, or nurses who just don’t allow it to just come in. And it’s just another work then and just can constantly thinking about going home and they’re not really engaged at work. So I think I just thought of it now that what you guys can sort of help to do is not only connect the dentist to the practice, but the wider team and I think they put the emphasis on the nurses I think because not so so important.

[Simon]
Jaz, you and I both know, so I’ve been my when I first started selling in dentistry, I was selling toothbrushes to dentists and most of the people I met were either hygienist or dental nurses. And I did a lot of talks at dental schools to nurses in training to hygienists and training because that was the time to get them in terms of getting on board with your products. But you and I both know how fundamentally important it is to a good working day to have an excellent dental system. Because, you know, if you’re just putting your hand out and they’re putting the right instrument in your hand, your day goes more smoothly, doesn’t it? You know, I know nurses have to be trained and they have to learn to work with you as a person because every dentist is different. But once they’ve done it, and I would say if I was an associate looking for a position. The first people I would want to speak to in a practice are actually the nurses to see how they are treated. Because if you’re treating the nurses well and the [dicom] nurses well, then you’re probably doing everything else well, as you said, the equipment and the practice is not as important and ultimately as an associate or as a hygienist. If you’re not happy with the instruments you’re given, buy your own. You can have, you know you can do it on their own. If you want to Yes, it’s lovely. They’ve got a CAD CAM. Yes, it’s lovely for got, you know, a panorama. Yes. It’s lovely if they got a CT scanner, but ultimately that relationship with a [CIP] biggest problem in business, people. Dentistry is a very people centric business. And if you’ve got great reception team, you’ve got great nursing team, you’ve got great DICOM team, you’ve probably got great clinicians. And you know, I would avoid like the plague of practice that is just regularly taking student nurses who are on apprenticeships at very low rate and changing them when they get another one, because that tells you a lot about the core values of that practice. And yes, we will be connecting nurses-hygienists, hygienists-therapists, into the same environment because it’s a team effort, you know, this is so important,

[Jaz]
I am going to be quality assuring this practice that the these are practices that have this sort of, that don’t have these sort of, you know, values that we just spoke about having respecting and treating the nurse as well, is that a part of your process in terms of which

[Andy]
100%, we, as I alluded to, at the beginning, we don’t just go, we won’t just do the recruitment, that if they don’t sign up to the three R’s of recruitment mythology, so how you reach them, how you recruit them, and how much we’re talking about now is retain them. They don’t share the same values as us as a business. So we know straight away, it’s not going to be a match. Yes, we can get them the candidate or the associate that they want, or the hygienists they want. But what’s the point, it’s not going to be a long lasting relationship. It’s not going to benefit us as a business, it’s not going to benefit them as a practice, because the associate or the hygienist or the nurse is just not going to be probably going to be there in six months. and dare I say, you then become a recruitment company, or recruitment agency and I don’t want that bad mouth recruiters, because there are some absolutely phenomenal ones out there. It’s just unfortunate that it’s a process. We’re just changing the process, and how we do it. And we’re going to be a bit more methodical, and a bit more hardcore in who we actually work with. We won’t just work with any practice, we won’t just work with any associate, they have, we all have to align into the same belief system. And therefore, our networks will expand organically, really, because we’re all on the same page. And that’s how we will build something brilliant. And that’s how you build a great practice. Ultimately,

[Simon]
I think just pick up on what Andy said earlier about, you said, Oh, professional stopping. But again, when you look at brand of any business, people think the logo is the brand, and certainly getting dental practice, even there’s a lot on their logo and the image, but the brand is everything, it’s the logo, it’s how you behave, it’s the material you give out. it’s how you treat your customers, how you treat your staff. And so if you again, if you look at the social media profile of a dental nurse, if they’re really connected to their practice, their social media feed is full of stuff about the practice what they’ve done as a team, what they’ve done to raise money for charity this week, you know, dress up days, dress down days, whatever it might be, if they’re the one on social media being your feed, it’s got nothing to do with the practice is probably an indication that it might be about the person. But it’s also a good indication that the practice is not really valuing that person. And instead, if they’re not valuing their dental assistants, and their reception team, they’re not valuing everything else.

[Andy]
So one of the key things that we teach business owners, principals on the retaining side of staff is Who are your best ambassadors? Who are your ambassadors? Your ambassadors are your staff members. They already work for you, they already love working for you. So you’re obviously doing something brilliant. Let them shout from the rooftops about it. What they are, they are the people that make your business, are your staff. And if you don’t believe that, from the outset, you’ve got no hope. And you will constantly have a revolving door. Your staff are your biggest ambassadors. And the minute you start to believe that you’ll start doing things a lot better.

[Simon]
The simple indicator I look for and practice, Jaz, when I go in, if on the reception desk, there’s all the little business cards of the clinicians with their photograph on it. That’s great. But I want to see them for all the team members, including the nurses. Now the nurses might not want their phone number on it, just the practice is fine. But again, I’m saying to them, Look, while you’re out in town, shopping while you’re in a nightclub where you’re meeting with your friends, if somebody says what do you do say I’m a dental assistant, and they say, Well, I’m looking for a new dentist, give them your business card. Now again, business cards cost pennies, you can get 50 for next to nothing. So again, if a practice invested in business cards, not just for the owners and the clinical staff, but for everybody. Again, that’s a good indicator that it’s possibly a good practice to go and look at and decide you might want to work for us.

[Jaz]
I love that and one of the things I could tell you about my own personal situation and I’ve now started working in Reading, brand new practice. I was supposed to start just before COVID kicked off March 30. So I’ve just started working there now. The main thing that attracted me to this practice, I mean, there’s loads of things, you know, one of my best mates as a principal, they’re good location, it’s my wife. But one thing I loved is that when I walked into the interview room, on the wall was a sort of a list of all the staff and how many years of service, you know, you wouldn’t believe it, 28 years, 24 years, 19 years, 18 years, 14 years. I just, I’ve never seen that before. And that’s why I knew that this is the place for me. Because people, once they come here, they’re happy. They they feel fulfilled, and everyone’s treated well, and I’m so far very happy, even just three days there, I can tell the culture is just magnificent. So any associate looking for a job. Find that out. And if you can’t. Ask Andy.

[Andy]
Again, but that just backs up what I’ve just said, doesn’t it? Your staff are your best ambassadors. And there, they have them front and center, on the wall, front and center, 19 years, 18 years, they are their ambassadors, that is the business, you’re also spending, as we alluded to, at the beginning, maybe 12 hours a day with those people, you want to lighten them, and you want to get on with them. And they’ve got to share your values and beliefs. Because if they don’t, you’re not going to be happy in your job, and you’re going to want to move on.

[Jaz]
I hope those listening, were able to gain a couple of insights about how we should think differently about the practice we’re approaching. Think about the wider team, think about the values, which are really hot on, think about maybe investing in a video sort of presence, and to really spice up you, as you know, to showcase yourself in a better way that actually shares your story, shares your personality, and actually improves the chance of maybe aligning with the right practice, which ultimately will hopefully stop the days where we’re hearing about, there’s no such thing as a good associate. And any closing comments, gentlemen?

[Simon]
I want to say exactly that, Jaz, look at your own values. And if any of your audience want the value program, I’ll send it to them, it’s very quick, I’ll analyze it for them, I’ll feed it back to them, they can just drop me an email through you or you know, whatever you put

[Jaz]
I’ll that on this. Yeah.

[Simon]
So I’ll happily do that. And I said, look at your own values. But most of all, get come to people like yourself, talk to other people, don’t try and do it alone. And if it’s just about a CV based application, start looking elsewhere, because you need to be looking at a different practice, and a different way of getting connected to that practice. Because ultimately, as you said, you and I are very happy at your new practice in Reading. But you’ve got a good feeling from that first meeting from the chart on the wall. Now, we want to show all that before you even go for that first meeting, we want to get that across in the in the video about the practice. So I said when you go when you log on to the site, and you’ve signed up and you can log in to see what practice we got, you’ll see an interview with the receptionist, you’ll see an interview with one of the dental nurses or at least one, you’ll see interviews with the principals with other associates. So you can immediately see if you connect with or not, if you don’t, as Andy said, no shame, you just say no, let’s go look at another one. So before you’ve met them, you can make that decision and really get under the skin of it. So that’s the important thing, so.

[Jaz]
Brilliant. Andy?

[Andy]
I’ll just say that it can be a stressful and it can be stressful, and people there are people out there that are willing to take that stress away from you. And that’s something that we want to do. We want to take all of that stress and that worry away from you get to know you as an individual. That’s really all I want to do is have a chat with you and get to know you as an individual because I know that with the networks I’ve got and that we have the Openwide, we can put you in touch with the people that you’ll work best with and then you will flourish. And that’s really what we want to do. Our mission is to connect like minded professionals every day. And

[Jaz]
Have you get someone get into what’s the best way for someone to as an entry point in terms of ‘Okay, I want to find out more.. How can?

[Andy]
You can drop me an email, you can drop me an email at andy@openwide.group. The website is openwide.group. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook, there are hundreds of ways to get hold of me. Jaz, if you would, you can probably put a link to one or two of those in the notes. People read my phone number if people want it. I’ll sit down and talk to anyone all day. I love talking to people.

[Jaz]
So we can vouch for that.

[Andy]
Apologies. [Simon] It’s a pleasure, Jaz. It’s a pleasure.

[Simon]
Jaz, I’ve enjoyed listening to you, Andy.

[Andy]
Thanks to speak what the other people do.

[Simon]
Jaz, It’s been a pleasure. Thanks for the invite.

[Jaz]
Thank you so much as well.

[Jaz]
Thank you [Andy] Thank you.