Dental practice owner, Joanna Carew, shares how a career pivot led to her falling in love with dentistry.
Originally, my career had nothing to do with dentistry as I was training to be a lawyer. Then my husband at the time, Melbourne, had a small practice and wanted to set up a squat to be able to accommodate his expanded skillset. The work that he wanted to do couldn’t be showcased at the other practice.
We bought a squat practice. It had closed its doors three years previously and had been on the market ever since. Melbourne wanted help setting it up so I offered to do that in the short term, with the plan being I would then step out and we would employ a practice manager. However, that isn’t what happened.
I got involved and we opened in July 2021. We could see the potential of the business, but it needed a lot of time and effort to fulfil that potential. Melbourne likes to be with his patients doing his thing, and he’s fantastic at that. But he’s not interested in the business side. So, I took the decision to leave the law and to jump into dentistry to develop the practice.
I’ve been doing it in a very sustainable way. We are only open 50% of the time, but for the times that we’re open, we have 12 week waiting lists. We offer cosmetic, implant and general dentistry and I’m gradually developing our culture, our brand, and bringing the right people in. I’m making the mistakes, then fixing the mistakes and growing.
Best laid plans…
Our original plans for the practice changed dramatically as Melbourne and I split up at the end of 2023. We are still friends and working well together, but that changed us from a husband and wife building the practice to two independent businesspeople.
So, I’m now changing it from a principal led practice to an associate led model. My plan is to get us open at least six days a week, days and evenings. I want those surgeries completely busy and being used all the time.
Our Regional Support Manager, Jayne Gibson, helped us get a plan in place for when we opened the squat. We only anticipated a small number of plan members originally, as it was set up as a cosmetic and implant centre and Melbourne didn’t really want to be doing general dentistry. So, we weren’t trying to convert patients to stay with us for general dentistry afterwards.
However, our patients loved the experience of coming to Carew Dental, as our differentiating factor is the customer experience. Also, because of Melbourne’s amazing reputation for composite veneers, we’ve been in demand from day one with patients travelling from all over the UK for treatment, and as they love the Carew Dental experience so much, they converted to general patients too! Which means we have many patients who will drive for four hours for a 30-minute clean, and we’re quite proud of that fact.
Flexibility
At the practice everything’s on a first name basis. We have a separate patient lounge, but we’ll often find people hanging out in reception, and they experience a really happy, enjoyable appointment because Mel and the whole team are great with patients.
Club Carew
We’re now into the next iteration of the business. I’m going to do an in-house private conversion from pay-as-you-go to plan, and we’re calling it Club Carew. We realised that if we can get patients onto the plan, it’ll be better for everybody. Patients will save money, and they’ll have more stability in their routine appointments rather than dropping off the grid. Because they’ve already paid for their appointments, I think they’ll come more regularly, which will be a huge health benefit to them.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jayne. She believed in me when others didn’t. I was seen as subordinate. I was the wife, and people just thought I was there playing on reception and Melbourne was the one doing everything. Even though Jayne had the relationship with Mel, she offered me so much moral support.
She contacted me about training sessions coming up through Practice Plan and suggested I booked onto them. And she would come and sit with me at the lunch in some of these sessions and just listen and be a sounding board for the problems that I was encountering. There were some lows because I didn’t know anything about the industry.
Moral and practical support
Then she suggested a business coach and came up with someone that would match my personality type that I could work well with. So, she introduced me to Michael Bentley who was great. He was exactly what I needed at that point. After that she got me involved in her Practice Managers’ Breakfast Club. She invited me along, and smoothed things over with the other practice managers as owners aren’t usually invited. She then made introductions for me with other practices around the county. She’s done a lot for me.
She’s also given us great support with our membership plans. We’d set up our plans, but I didn’t know about Airflow™ at the time. When I discovered it and suggested we needed a plan for it, she sorted that straight away. She also linked Shiremoor with Carew Dental, so that any members at Shiremoor who wanted to come across to Carew Dental, could do so without paying another admin charge. So, Jayne has been a support, and a great sign poster. She’s also helped me with a lot of little practical steps. She’s been gold, really. She’s been incredible.
