I stayed at the Hilton in Gateshead on Tuesday night – driving up to the front door and chatting to the young concierge, Martyn, about my car – checking in, bags in room, bar snack, bed.
Since then, workshops in Gateshead, Leeds and Birmingham – then back to Gateshead last night and a “Groundhog Day” arrival at 10.00pm last night.
After 4 consecutive days of our second workshop on finances and team-building – a change today as I meet with 36 members of a Newcastle Independent Practitioners Group – in a local Bentley dealership (that should be good fun).
Although the event has been billed as “The Patient Journey and Team-Building”, I suspect that the nature of the group will allow me to play with the material a little.
I’ve kind of “had enough” of PowerPoint this week – and would really like to do some bar-stool coaching – just sit there to answer their main questions and concerns.
We shall see – sometimes you cannot make that decision until you have invested the first 30 minutes is taking the measure of the audience.
The whole week has been a series of 5.15am starts and 11.00pm finishes – so I must admit to feeling rather deprived of sleep – an “oil-rig shift” par excellence – and I’ll be glad to get a little more rest next week, when I facilitate our first 2007 client retreat from a country home in Devon – more on that in later posts.
For the moment, I’m reflecting on 4 days with clients in which I have been reminded that most of them

• do not know the KPI’s for their own profession, type of practice and/or speciality
• do no personal cash flow forecasting
• do no professional cash flow forecasting
• have no scientific basis fo their pricing
• are working with associates and hygienists but with no idea if the relationship is generating profit
• have not fully utilised thir premises for income generation purposes
• are not monitoring budget versus actual
• do not consider improved productivity via innovative ways of service delivery
• are not conscious of market developments in facial aesthetics
• don’t think about future competition

Rather a scary list.
And it is equally disconcerting when I ask around a roomfor the price of a private crown – and hear figures ranging (this week) from £265.00 to £600.00 – for the same product?
That’s about self-esteem. It is not about quality of dentistry.
The result of which is that, although most provincial senior professional partners in service companies (UK) are earning £250,000 a year and enjoying a good life, dental principals are often earning half that or less, with no life balance.
After all these years, there is still much work to do – and, of course, plenty of opportunity for bright-minded business thinkers.
It has been said that Richard Branson is always looking for tired industries to move into – I wonder how the market would react if a Virgin Dental Care suddenly appeared on the high-street, delivering quality dentistry at affordable prices, in a modern environment – and a range of other well-being services in-house?
Anyways – off to play with Bentleys shortly (that will be fun and frustrating – even I don’t think it would be a good idea to glide up to a client’s dental practice in one of those!).
I’m tired – but ready for my last day in black for a while.
My client Willie Maceachen mentioned in an email yesterday that, during a flight from Gibraltar to the UK last week, his British Airways stewardess was heard saying to a colleague “don’t worry, the shift is nearly over.”
Whilst the sentiment may be true – you have to be careful who hears you say it.