In conversation with my friend and client Simon Reilly and thinking about how many potential clients we have in ourrespective countries (UK and Canada).

Here’s a thing that Simon researched…….

Average number of people per square mile:

• Canada                8.65
• USA                87.61
• UK                        655.61

That’s quite a startling statistic, either if you are in Canada (hello? is there anybody there?) or the UK (will you please get out of my way?).

I sometimes bemoan the fact that I have to travel so much to fulfil my calling – and yet Simon is faced with a lifetime of air travel if he wants to build a full coaching practice. George Clooney watch out.

So where does that take me?

Also in conversation yesterday with a splendid group of practice managers and TCO’s from IDH – and a few dentists in the mix as well.

They really are lovely people. I’ve been working with them for 18 months now and have created some valuable friends.

You may have noticed my tweet yesterday afternoon about practice managers simply never having enough time to get the job done.

The fact that corporate PM’s are drowning in compliance paperwork should be a salutary warning to independent PM’s of what is coming down the tracks – more reason than ever to be using your practice management software to automate processes.

One of the PM’s innocently let slip “we are finding it very difficult to sell whitening because of the recession.”

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If she thinks there is a recession then:

• so will the team
• and the patients will see it in their eyes, hear it in their language and tonality and see it in their body language
• and so the patients will believe there is a recession and
• they will not buy

Can I take you back to my Facebook photo of the Orient Express last week, packed to capacity with affluent diners?

A dentist in THE SAME practice as the aforementioned PM shared with me over lunch that he had just agreed his largest ever treatment plan – a £24,000 implant case.

This, in a corporate NHS practice that sits INSIDE an NHS health centre with 1000 people a day visiting – and they are NOT ALLOWED to market private treatment in the premises.

But the dentist in question is young, enthusiastic, friendly, self-confident without being cocky – and prepared to engage people in a conversation irrespective of their appearance.

There IS a recession for the long-suffering British nuclear family.

There is NO recession for:

• 25-35 year old bankers
• lawyers
• desperate housewives
• yummy mummys
• gay men
• affluent baby boomers
• the over 65’s who want better dentures
• everybody in IT and telecoms
• women in business
• footballers
• restaurant owners in the right location

and so on – the list goes on.

There are 655 potential patients in every square mile of this sceptered isle – and you have to niche your marketing to those who:

• you enjoy seeing
• want what you have and
• can afford it