Chris Barrow’s Blog

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My thanks to Simon Reilly for sending me this brief slide show:

Last night on my flight to Glasgow I finished reading Chris Anderson’s latest and, yet again, was provoked into thinking deeply about dentistry and also my own coaching practice.

I would consider this book a “must read” alongside “Tribes” by Seth Godin.

In “The Long Tail” Anderson explained how the internet has opened up new markets by allowing minute purchases of obscure products and services to become profitable.

In “Free” he shows how the web has overturned many traditional economic beliefs around services that can be given away as “sprats to catch mackerels”.

Fascinating and very relevant to dentistry and consultancy.

My brain is beginning to ponder how that would look in dentistry – what would you have to/could you give away for free, so as to encourage footfall and the purchase of more profitable services?

Is the development of the CACCU, the first step in that evolutionary cycle?

• off on my travels again – Salisbury today – IDH workshop on marketing ideas #
• too busy to even tweet – he tweeted…. #
• @markoborn ta mate in reply to markoborn #
• lights, action, camera! today's workshop is being filmed so I'm up early and in make-up #
• yay – emails all answered for the first time since Friday – now I can have some breakfast #
• fabulous workshop day – lovely audience, great room, perfect AV – happy me #
• At the Hilton East Midlands with a pint of Stella and the football on TV. Time to chill. Lonely this evening. #
• The third morning I have woken at exactly 04:25 – what's that about? #
• @AllanMackintosh not just me that's bonkers then – good – thank you! in reply to AllanMackintosh #
• you cannot ask your coach whether to take a parachute jump or not! #
• Recovering today – from complete burn out and a lousy man cold – and feeling very loved up and looked after by my sweet lady #
• Getting ready to travel to Scotland later today #
• Memorable experiences are the ultimate scarcity #
• The enemy of the author is not piracy but obscurity #
• En route from Glasgow to Edinburgh and homesick already #
• Just finished reading "Free" by Chris Anderson. Very provocative theory #
• X-factor proof that the Colisseum will return one day. The mob love a freak show  #

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Here, yet again, are the unstoppable team at Ollie and Darsh – this time exhibiting at a legal trade show in Liverpool.

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Paddi made reference to this last week – and I was talking about it at yesterday’s marketing workshop.

You have to give your patients a “story” to tell their family, friends and colleagues.

I went to see my dentist the other day – and you’ll never guess what happened……

Nobody ever completed this sentence with….

they have a new OPG

he has just completed a course in advanced restorative dentistry

their practice management software is finally working

what they will say is

they offered me a cappucino in a branded cup

they gave me hot towels after treatment

they remembered I had run a marathon and asked how the day went

they thanked me for a referral and gave me a voucher for a night at the movies

I had my last appointment for my new smile – and they have arranged a complimentary portrait photo at a local studio

You get my point.

And be afraid – be very afraid – if they are saying

and that miserable old battle-axe is still on reception – I’m sick of her

and that snooty hygienist hurt me again

and they didn’t remember my marathon run

It’s all about creating good stories for people to tell.

Enjoy this..

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At Ashby Dental in Wetherby, membership of the practice is not compulsory – yet.

I am becoming more of an advocate of the “members only” practice as the j-curve of the recession turns into a “w” (as described on Radio 4’s Today programme – Monday morning).

It seems that we are not yet out of trouble in the economy – and a further “dip” is now widely predicted by pundits.

We are living in a false economy created by deferred corporate tax liabilities and artificially created liquidity in the banking sector.

With that in mind, it becomes ever more important to positively differentiate your practice and your offer – and make it more appealing to the “right type of patient”.

I have written here more then once about the high-street retailers (Sainsbury, Optical Express et al) hoovering up the family market with their CACCU dentistry.

Add to that the “walk in hygiene” centres that Superdrug and Smilepod are pioneering to attract the 25-35 market.

Watch out for the sleeping giants on the high street and the mothballed Virgin Dental.

What’s left for the small independent?

The 25-50 year-old yummy mummy or glam gran.

The over-50’s.

The pink pound.

None of whom really want to visit a practice with Lego in the lounge.

And so will pay “extra” to enjoy the dental equivalent of “swimming in the pool after the kids have gone”.

So offer them a “members only” package – but PLEASE…..

Don’t think that “two exams, two scale and polish” is sexy – it aint.

As a prospective member of your practice, I need some “chocolates on the pillow”, some CNE’s and super-CNE’s, some members’ prices, members’ evenings, members’ special offers, members’ events, members’ diary times, members’ services.

Membership, after all, must have its privileges.

• home for 12 hours – and then off again – Farnborough today….. #
• At The Aviator in Farnborough – very funky hotel http://tinyurl.com/n7tycf #
• great management meeting and team session today – client calls now – client dinner to follow #
• wakes in Dartford – IDH workshop today on customer service and selling skills #
• Man with developing head cold feels very sorry for himself…. #
• Lose expensive sunglasses in Ireland. P.A. calls hire car company – no joy. Find sunglasses underneath socks in suitcase this morning. #
• Dinner in London with my son Is a perfect end to a super day #
• after days and days of presentations – today "in practice" will be a nice challenging change #
• Old friends and new in York today. Day 2 of the Paddi/Sean/Chris gig. #
• Being "busy" is not a measure. Production and profit are a measure. #
• "you have to be arrogant to be successful, with a touch of humility – but leave it on the field" – Sean Fitzpatrick #
• "give your customers a story to tell about your business" Paddi Lund #
• just about to drive to Cornwall for the weekend – my daughters are both busy in Manchester so I'm going home! #
• 2009 was my year as a "road warrior". On 1/1/10 it will change. For now, Sunday morning and I must work "on" my business #
• Falmouth Oyster Festival. Oysters 1-0 Annie Bradley. She is sick in bed after puking all night. Never again. #
• sat here with 499 friends – surely there is one more? #
• thank you! 501 friends and rising… #

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I calculated (I’ll tell you why in a moment) that by the end of this year I will have presented to almost 7000 people in just under 100 workshops and presentations around the UK and Ireland.

The fact is that my presentation style and content are not universally loved – but then neither is anybody’s – I’m sure that all speakers and performers, from busy amateurs like myself, to full professionals – get their fair share of events that nose-dive.

I remember in 1985, attending a posh dinner at The Intercontinental – Hambro Life top producers – over 250 blokes in full black tie – wined and dined to excess, starting on the cigars and brandy – and…..

Out steps the cabaret for the night – Victoria Wood.

Never could a performance have been chosen more inappropriately.

To her credit, she knew in the first few minutes that it was “wrong time, wrong place” – and soldiered through to the end of her set, drowned by the noise of guests who were totally disinterested in her songs, stories and jokes.

At the end of the 60 minutes, she calmly closed the lid of her piano and walked graciously off stage.

The responsibility, of course, rests with the conference organisers who simply booked the wrong act.

Ms Wood goes on to an outstanding career.

Its with this story in mind that I comment on my recent workshops with Paddi Lund in Dublin and York and my marketing tour with Practice Plan – the feedback from which has been quite overwhelming.

I’ve been inundated with requests to read my ezine and blog – and also with invitations to visit practices and discuss business coaching.

Possibly the best feedback I’ve had since the Talking Points tour a few years ago.

All in the context that the team at Practice Plan always introduce me as “Marmite” – (you will love or hate him).

And then I arrive home from 10 days of travel to find a letter from the Northern Deanery which attaches two pieces of paper:

• Firstly, feedback from the delegates – 10% loved it, 60% liked it, 15% disliked it and 15% hated it.

Fair enough – I did question the sensibility of putting me in front of 70 first-year Foundation Dentists who had been out on the booze the night before.

Wrong time, wrong people, wrong message?

I did ask – but they said “come along anyway – we need to wake them up and shake them about” – that was the brief.

However, it was the second piece of paper that really amazed me.

Anonymous word-processed comments from tutors which I can only describe as vitriolic and personal.

Not so much feedback as a chance to voice deeply personal insults without any accountability.

I did what I was trained to do many years ago – straight in the shredder where it belongs – so don’t ask me to recount the attack in detail.

Normally I’d put it down to experience and suggest that a few ignorant tutors is a small percentage of a 7000 audience.

But then in York on Friday, a dentist who attended the Deanery gig explained to me that, in the bar of the hotel the night before I arrived, some of the tutors were announcing to all within earshot the arrival of “that jerk Chris Barrow who is going to tell us all how great he is again”.

It appears that a fair job of sabotage was done the night before.

Perhaps the only consolation is that I was invited to lunch after my presentation, ignorant of the slander that was to come – and listened to the same individuals back-stabbing others of their peer group in earshot of myself and other guests in the hotel.

I’m not going to keep my feelings to myself – I’m “over” the poor feedback – but I abhor hypocrisy in all its forms.

I hear that the Dean has ordered me banned from future work – he doesn’t need to bother – I won’t be back.

I look forward to continuing my relationship with other Deaneries around the country, with whom I have maintained an excellent relationship for a decade.

I’ll just get on with my career and offer a public “thank you” to the dentists in York on Friday (you know who you are) and Ian Gordon, who are the only individuals who emerge from this debacle with their integrity intact.

Remember CACCU?

The term I used to describe “cheap as chips check ups”.

My last ezine mentioned that Sainsbury were in the CACCU market in Manchester.

Here is Optical Express offering the new patient £15 check-up (reduced from £45) in York this morning.

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As I mentioned in the ezine – the high street retailers have their eye on your patients.