Chris Barrow’s Blog

After my usual 5.00am start in the West End yesterday, I was feeling very pleased with myself as I checked out of my hotel at 7.45am with emails all answered and ready for a busy day of meetings.

The main body of the day was invested in a team meeting that genuinely moved a business forward and, again, I emerged feeling extremely pleased with myself at 5.00pm – and on to an early dinner at Cafe Caldesi  with my good friend Dr. James Goolnik, just to catch up on what we have both been doing in the last month.

My plan was to leave the West End at 7-ish and drive over to Ealing – there to pick up my friend Michel Neray who is in the the UK for the annual conference of The Professional Speakers Association – he’s a speaker in Birmingham.

I haven’t seen Michel since I last visited Toronto over a year ago – so this would be a chance to catch up in my car as I transported him to The Forest Of Arden Hotel, on my way to Manchester.

It took me an hour to drive the 10 miles from Goodge Street to Ealing – ridiculous traffic and a constant repetition of my mantra – “this is why I live in Cornwall” – but the prospect of a good conversation with Mr. Essential Message was motivation enough.

So imagine my confusion (and their’s) when I knocked on the door of a private residence and asked for Michel – to be greeted by looks of confusion and incredulity – and no Michel in sight.

Why?

Delayed flight? Accident? Incorrect address?

A phone call to Annie reveals the simple explanation…..

I hadn’t read the instructions.

He arrives in a week from now.

Michel is sitting in his office in Toronto as I’m banging on a stranger’s door in west London.

Duh.

Oh well – a few embarrasing conversations later I found myself back on the road, facing a solitary drive back to my apartment – oh – and at 11.15pm last night I was stationary on the M6 in Cheshire with three lanes of traffic, waiting to be channelled down to one lane and accommodate overnight roadworks.

I tell you – when you’ve been up since 5, pulled that double shift, made quite a fool of yourself and find a traffic jam after 11.00pm at night – that’s when you question your professional lifestyle.

Anyways – another 5 o’clock start this morning and a busy day of meetings at IDH ahead – I’m looking forward to it – but not as much as I’m looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning.

How daft am I?

Sorry Michel – you’ll be on the train next week.

It suddenly dawned on me yesterday that, since making my career change on 1st August this year, I have almost sub-consciously been going through a process of personal re-organisation that has focused on delegation and support.

A series of separate decisions have joined together to make a big difference:

1. Back on with the running shoes and 5 days a week of aerobic exercise = peace, well-being and time to think (as well as a tightening of flabby muscle);
2. Appointment of a new virtual personal assistant to handle my busy “off-stage” life = less clutter and more time to rest when I finish work;
3. Back into personal coaching with Michael Myerscough = the fellowship of an impartial sounding board and the benefit of his wisdom;
4. A massive investment in personal organisation at my Falmouth desk – paperwork, finances and all that jazz = that lovely feeling when the job you have been putting off for ages is done;
5. A great big trip to the dump with 2 years of accumulated paper and files and brochures = an uncluttered cellar;
6. An enormous effort to improve my financial self-organisation = deeper, sounder sleeping;
7. A decision to eliminate some of my more destructive and irritating bad habits (with Michael’s help) = making myself more attractive to be around;
8. Some good conversations with people I trust, respect, like and love to resolve tolerations = well, just = good conversations!

A couple of services caught my eye in the latest issues of Wired magazine:

• I have downloaded a free trial of GoToMeeting and intend to use this quick and simple service to hold meetings on-line and also share documents in real time. 

Its early days but the service looks very easy to use, compared to some of the more cumbersome webinar systems I have tried over the years.

I’m especially interested in using the service to talk through spreadsheets with clients and practices on-line. By accessing the service, not only can we chat by typing or speak using VoIP but I can also recreate my desktop on the guests computer screens (up to 11 in a meeting) and open any of my own files to make alterations. I see this as extremely useful when monitoring productivity, analysing KPI’s and also when explaining the basis of practice valuations.

A nice way of avoiding unnecessary travel in these days of high costs in energy and time.

I’ll be trialing the system over the next month and will keep you posted.

• I wish I could tell you that I had started using Hulu but its only available in the USA – what a fantastic service – and surely the future of in-hone entertainment? 

If you are interested, there’s a good article on the development of this service here.

Out for a bit of shopping on Saturday and noticed the following “evidence” that things are not quite as bad as the media would have us believe:

• a new Starbucks has opened on the main A30 link road that runs down the Cornish peninsula
• Truro city centre was packed – my first attempt to park turned into a slow and frustrating climb all the way up and all the way down the main centre car park – not a parking spot in sight and so we had to drive to an alternative car park out of the centre – thats the first time in 4 years it has happened
• plenty of people seem quite happy to pay £3.00 for a coffee and the same again for a panini or a cake – whether its Starbucks (the other one in the county) or Costa Coffee
• Called in to the Comet superstore out of town on the way back to Falmouth. They have a wide range of plasma and LCD TV’s on special offer – notably a great deal on a 40″ Sony TV that you can read here.
• I was chatting to one of the more senior assistants at 3.00pm and they had already sold 20 of this model that day and were out of stock until a new shipment arrived early in the week – 20 TV’s at £600 each – not bad eh?

I’m using this medium to explain that if you sent an email to chris@thecoachinggym.com in the last 24 hours, it will not have reached me.

Can you please re-send or send to chris@coachbarrow.com

The reason behind this relates to the archaic systems and lack of effective customer service at Paypal, the on-line payment provider.

In this world of super-fast global web communications, you would have thought that authorising your IT consultant (the genius Kimberly Black) to make payments for you would have been a good delegation for a busy traveller like myself.

Not so with Paypal – I asked Kim to renew my web hosting service direct, gave her my Paypal access details – and as soon as they saw her trying to make a payment with my account they closed the whole bloody lot down.

Now, with hindsight, that was probably a good thing in the era of phishing – fair dinkum – but what I cannot seem to get anyone at Paypal to understand is what happened and why – or fix it.

At their request, I have:

1. written to authorise Kim to make payments;
2. sent them faxed copies of my passport and a utility bill;
3. re-entered my Maestro card details;
4. followed their instructions to re-activate my card;
5. answered 4 customer service queries in the last 10 days;
6. noted the deposits they have made in my bank account to test the system;
7. and all sorts of other minor stuff that has been the subject of emails in the last couple of weeks

After this morning’s blog post on stock markets and economies and an early meeting, I jumped back into super-car for a 300-mile drive back to Cornwall.

Quite often, I have the ability to drive long distances without entertainment – just reflecting on my personal and professional life.

I prefer silence when I drive and when I jog, so that I can commune with my environment and myself.

Its fun taking phone calls though (yes – hands free) and catching up with friends, family and colleagues.

Occasionally I will listen to some CD’s, although I have to say that my relationship with music has never been a central part of my life.

In the mornings I will head for Radio 4, especially for The Today Programme but also to listen to the mid-morning shows which are often interesting and informative – I especially like Women’s Hour because its just plain intelligent without being anything-ist.

However…….

This morning at 11.00am I had to suffer 30 minutes of interviews with former employees of Lehman Brothers bemoaning the demise of their firm, their careers and their savings – and the collapse of Wall Street.

Shortly afterwards, at noon, I endured a further 35 minutes of interviews with UK small business owners and employees, telling tales of woe – bankrupt businesses, unhelpful bank managers, lost jobs, failed suppliers, repossessed houses, tightened belts.

By the end of this lot I was ready to buy a mangy dog and start selling The Big Issue.

Eventually I just gave up and switched on Linkin Park’s latest album and lost myself in a head-banging rush down the A30 to clear my system.

It seems the media will not be satisfied until we are all totally convinced of Armageddon - and I’ve genuinely had enough of it.

I’m just going to get on with my job and my life and, like my mate Ashley Latter, refuse to take part.

Attitudes are contagious - both positive and negative – and I’m going to follow the lead of my friend Michael Bungay Stanier and infect people around me with the possibility virus.

I was one of the first fee-only independent financial advisors in the UK – back in 1987 a group of us formed the Institute for Financial Planning and rejected commission-based advice for our clients.

We had become disillusioned with the pressure to either sell a policy to make a living or expect markets to move ever upwards to generate management fees.

Happily, many clients were prepared to pay a regular retainer by direct debit, in the knowledge that future advice could include the option of buying/selling nothing.

I have always regarded the stock market as a form of roulette (sometimes of the Soviet variety) in whcih, to coin a famous unattributed remark:

Investment advisors took the credit for things they didn’t influence and the blame for things they couldn’t control

It seems that little has changed, although dentistry is blessed by the services of fee-only advisors like Martin Haines who do a fantastic job for their clients.

Listening to Labour Peer Lord Desai on Radio 4’s morning news yesterday was a reminder that stock markets and economies are different places.

In my 25-year career as a financial planner, I never saw any private individual become wealthy from stock market investments (or, for that matter, from whacky “get rich quick” tax-planning schemes driven by the lure of quick, fat commissions) – what I did see was people who became wealthy because:

1. they built and sold a business and/or
2. they acquired a property portfolio and/or
3. they bought, refurbished and sold businesses and properties and/or
4. they inherited from someone who had done the above.

Here’s a little letter that I ran off before breakfast this morning in answer to a cry for help:

Dear Mr___________

 

A chance to complete your dental treatment

 

We see from our records that you have items of dental treatment that have not yet been completed.

 

We understand that sometimes due to unforeseen circumstances there can be a delay before some of our patients are able to return to have their dental treatment completed, and that the reasons for such a delay can include:

 

1.    Concerns (particularly in these times of “credit crunch”) about the costs and how to pay them;

2.    Fears that the treatment itself may be uncomfortable or painful;

3.    Apprehension that we may be angry with you because you haven’t been back to us;

4.    Confusion as to what was originally agreed – you are not the dentist and the explanation that you were originally given may be a hazy memory.

 

The purpose of this letter is to invite you back to see us and discuss any concerns you may have.

 

1.    We can arrange interest-free payments to spread the cost of treatment;

2.    We can explain how our procedures will minimise or eliminate any discomfort;

3.    We are not annoyed!

4.    We are happy to answer questions and explain procedures again.

 

The original estimate of fees that were provided to you can only be held for a period of three months from the date of your consultation after which it will subject to reevaluation.

 

If you call before ______ to continue treatment then we can hold the original price.

 

We would love to complete your treatment and give you the smile that you deserve.

 

Please contact our reception team who will be happy to arrange an appointment

 

Yours Sincerely

 

 

 

XYZ Dental

 

 

To answer the concerned emails this afternoon – I’m over yesterday’s encounter with too many Falmouth Bay Oysters (never again) and I’ve been working on practice valuations for 12 hours now.

Chris Barrow, the “former” business coach, hunched over an Excel template and with desk covered in P&L’s – experiencing that vertical learning curve at first hand.

We have recruited an ambitious young accountant who will be joining the IDH Private team in the very near future as acquisitions manager – and part of his job will be the initial number crunching BUT, for now, I want to be a bit of a control freak and learn the hard way what a dental practice is really worth.

Of course, you could say that “it’s worth what somebody else is prepared to pay for it” – and that would undoubtedly be true of the market in recent years.

I can recall a time, not so long ago, when the valuation mantra was “35% of gross revenues plus £10,000 a surgery” - remember that? I wish….

Contrast that with the dentist who recently sent me his latest accounts with the covering phrase:

we are looking at a goodwill valuation of 100% along with a transfer or buy out of the leases on the equipment/ fixture and fittings at valuation.

You don’t say?

He clearly believes it’s still a seller’s market.

What interests me is that the actual valuation of practices in recent years, plus the efforts of sales agents to achieve the maximum value for their clients (who can blame them) and the bragging rights of some erstwhile principals who have sold out and seem to lord it around dental conferences waving their cheques for all to see – all of this has created a kind of hysteria in the market place that I think is a little out of date.

Expectations of goodwill valuations are very high but are predicated on the willingness and ability of a purchaser to pay.

I’m pleased to say that funding at IDH is secure and in place. We have the willingness and the ability to acquire NHS, private and specialist practices and in IDH Private we have a unique proposition for future income and wealth.

The recent news regarding ADP’s withdrawal from acquisitions has sent a ripple of uncertainty into the market – and I’m wondering whether there is more news of liquidity problems to come?

I’m busy valuing practices on sound economic principles – on the basis that an accountant would value any business – a calculation of real earnings after the owners have been fairly remunerated.

The results are very revealing, not only about the individual practices but also about how accurate or otherwise values have been in recent months.

The next three months will, in my view, be interesting to observe and participate in.