When the coach takes away the sword, it’s not a defeat. It’s the beginning of the shift from brave warrior to wise monarch: less doing, more designing, and leading through others. Thursday’s session with my business coach, Rachel Turner, didn’t feel like a “nice chat”. It felt like a controlled demolition. Not of plans, or ambition, or vision. Of identity. Rachel has a concept in The Founder’s Survival Guide  that landed with uncomfortable accuracy: the founder as the brave w

Most practice managers aren’t struggling because they lack confidence — they’re struggling because no one ever gave them a leadership framework. There’s a pattern I see time and time again with practice managers. They think the problem is them . Not confident enough. Not assertive enough. Not the right sort of person to be leading a team. You hear it in the way they describe their days:Firefighting. Drowning. Just trying to keep their head above water. But here’s the truth I

It's been a busy start to the year I’ve kicked off 2026 with a full slate of strategic planning sessions across the UK, and one thing is crystal clear: the independent dental sector is at a pivotal inflection point. Not a crossroads. A pressure point. At one end of the spectrum, practices are chasing 7- and 8-figure exit valuations. At the other, exhausted principals are trying to reclaim their time, rebuild stability, and simply make the machine work without their constant p

When everything feels urgent, serenity is the bravest decision you can make. At 10am on a Monday morning, she felt like she was going to break. It had been one thing after another. A compliance surprise that would cost thousands. A relentless drip-feed of staff issues. An associate too casual with boundaries. Nurses leaving, one applying for a job elsewhere, one training badly. Patients cancelling, white space growing, financial pressure tightening. It was one of those weeks

“Wearing every marketing hat — from social media to storytelling — and still wondering if one person can really do it all?” A conversation over the weekend amongst my clients (dental practice owners) raised an honest and much-needed question: is it realistic to expect one person to handle all aspects of dental marketing at a high standard? One practice owner shared their challenge recruiting a marketing coordinator who could cover everything — from social media and newsletter

Zoom calls all day Yesterday marked my return to active coaching in 2026 — and it didn’t take long to remember why I love this work. Five calls, five very different practices, and one clear theme: this is the year to lead from the front. We began with a practice facing the so-called “perfect storm”: four associates leaving, therapists on maternity, and their implant dentist — the growth engine — heading out. And yet, despite all that, the conversation was about strategic calm

Get your year in gear with a flying start to January 1)        Set Q1 targets for 5 KPIs and review weekly   Pick 5 KPIs that drive profit (not vanity) and put a 30-minute weekly “numbers to actions” meeting in diaries through March. Measure: new patient enquiries, conversion %, average daily production (ADP) by role, utilisation, plan income per month.   2)        Model the April wage rise now and redesign rotas to protect staff cost %   Forecast April payroll; match staffin

The Ideal Team Player in Action: Lessons from India’s Dental Business Masters Hungry, Humble, People-Smart. Patrick Lencioni describes these as the three virtues of an Ideal Team Player in his book of the same name. As I reflect on 5 days of absolutely non-stop work and fun in Mumbai, I realise why I'm always ready to travel here. It's because of the clients I get to work with. They are hungry - to improve themselves clinically, as business owners and as humans - and they wil

https://mailchi.mp/coachbarrow/january-2026?e=2ca154bddb Here's a link to my January newsletter, including a free download: How to Win Patients and Keep Them: The Complete Dental Marketing and Patient Experience Playbook for Modern UK Practices. There’s a moment, just after the decorations come down and before the diary fills up again, when we all pause long enough to ask the same question:  What now? For some, it’s whispered. For others, it’s shouted in bold marker on the o

Watch out for The Date and The Number in the New Year Most dental practice owners wait too long to think about selling their business. This is not because they are careless but because exit planning is often seen as something to do only when ready to leave. The truth is the quality of your exit depends on decisions made years before you actually sell. Over the past year, I have led workshops across the UK asking a simple but powerful question: how do you decide when to exit y