Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Jonathan Webster
Episode release date – Monday 12 February 2024
Andy & Chris (00:00.778)
You know what it is? It’s a podcast. It is. I love them. Absolutely love them. Same here, say we’re well today. We’ve got someone we’ve known for many, many years. I was thinking about that. It is quite a while actually. It was, I don’t know, five, 10.
years. I go nearer 10 than five. I go nearer 10 than five. Yeah, I suppose five just before Covid really. So today we are very fortunate we have Jonathan Webster joining us and Jonathan is the Managing Director of World of Mouth Marketing. It’s a world of mouth marketing and it’s a telemarketing business working solely with UK dental practices and dental groups. And fascinating. Exactly. Welcome Jonathan, how are you doing?
Jonathan Webster (00:18.228)
Thanks man.
Jonathan Webster (00:21.673)
Thanks, man.
Jonathan Webster (00:45.196)
Very well, thanks Andy. Yeah, not so bad.
Andy & Chris (00:47.318)
So how long do you think we have known one another for? We were musing between five and 10. You were chipping with 10.
Jonathan Webster (00:51.856)
Well, I was thinking about it yesterday actually. So I can remember about 10 years ago coming to see you guys. I think I’d been in London and I just kind of swung by your place and we went down to that pub at the end of the road that you used to use as a boardroom. Oh, you still do, right, Greg? And we had a coffee and all that kind of stuff. And when I left you, I was heading back.
Andy & Chris (01:09.399)
Yeah.
We still do. We still do, yeah.
Jonathan Webster (01:21.208)
around the M25 to pick up the A1 to come back up north. And I pulled in at South Mims, which isn’t a million miles away from you, I don’t think, is it? And as I was pulling into the car park, the phone rang, so I was kind of picked up the phone, I was chatting, you know, and I got out of the car as I was chatting to someone and there was an empty water bottle on the seat.
Andy & Chris (01:32.967)
No, just around the corner. No.
Jonathan Webster (01:49.292)
So I grabbed that and thought I’d throw that in the bin on the way over to the services, I was going to buy a coffee. So walking across the carpark, finished my call, walked past these bins, chucked the bottle in, went into the services and I looked in my hand and I still had the bottle but I’d thrown my bloody phone away. So that’s my lasting memory of you guys.
Andy & Chris (02:10.303)
Excellent, excellent.
Andy & Chris (02:17.435)
Great, great. I’m pleased that we got a memory.
Jonathan Webster (02:18.608)
I threw my phone away after coming to see you. And yeah, I had to go back to the bin. I mean, I was suited and booted and all that. But there wasn’t just one bin, there were three in a row. And I didn’t know which one I’d thrown in. So I had to go through all three to find this phone. Obviously the phone was kaput, but I managed to retrieve the SIM card. So that was 10 years ago. And I bet it’s 10 years ago almost to the day.
Andy & Chris (02:28.141)
rummaging.
Andy & Chris (02:32.488)
Oh no.
Andy & Chris (02:37.524)
Oh wow.
Andy & Chris (02:44.668)
Nice, nice.
Jonathan Webster (02:49.726)
different.
Andy & Chris (02:51.046)
Just on the water bottle thing and before we start, it’s a real segue, but I read an article recently about people throwing water bottles away that still have water in them and apparently we’re losing hundreds of millions of gallons of water which are now contained in water bottles because obviously they say the water bottle takes that bottle forever to break down and that water is effectively lost from the planet.
Jonathan Webster (03:01.426)
Right.
Jonathan Webster (03:06.553)
right
Jonathan Webster (03:18.059)
One hour.
Andy & Chris (03:19.534)
The point being is for anyone listening to this, we should all make sure we completely empty our water bottle by drinking or on plants or wherever, so that it stays available to us. Because once it’s in that bottle, and once it goes in landfill, it’s gone. I’m pretty much gone forever. I think I might be able to top the random throwing away shit. So when my kids were small, I can remember we took a, you know, they go up and down the Thames on those funny old boat things. And there’s a girl called Poppy. I won’t shame her because I don’t know her surname.
Jonathan Webster (03:31.772)
Yeah, let’s go.
Andy & Chris (03:48.174)
and she took all these pictures with one of those disposable cameras and then threw it in the bin. And I said to her, what are you doing? She went, it’s a disposable camera. I said, but don’t you want the pictures? She went, oh yeah. We should start. I’m sure people didn’t join in for these random stories. So Jonathan, to kick us off, before we get to your dental career, take us back to your childhood. Where did you grow up? What was life like back then?
Jonathan Webster (03:58.517)
It’s possible.
Jonathan Webster (04:03.228)
I’m here.
Jonathan Webster (04:09.785)
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (04:15.308)
Oh God, many years ago, yeah, God. Wow, well, I’m the youngest of six kids. So I’ve got six kids, four sisters and a brother. There’s a 14 year age gap between me and my eldest sister, Jana. And my parents divorced when I was about six.
Andy & Chris (04:18.025)
Yeah, yes. Many years ago, yeah.
Andy & Chris (04:28.322)
Six kids flipped.
Andy & Chris (04:33.523)
Brilliant.
Ahem.
Jonathan Webster (04:44.828)
But despite that, you know, I had a really, really happy childhood. And it was quite a privileged childhood as well, to be fair. You know, at the time, my dad was kind of riding high in business. But then when I got to about 10 years old, all that money seemed to have disappeared. And we never really got to the bottom of how it went or where it went or anything. But disappear, it did. So.
Andy & Chris (04:54.751)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (05:08.29)
Ha ha ha!
Jonathan Webster (05:13.784)
So, well my life kind of changed quite a bit. You know, I came out of public school into the comprehensive system, which was great. You know, it was absolutely brilliant. I’ve got friends that I’m still friends with today. You know, I got booze and all sorts of stuff. No, Leeds, Leeds lad, yeah, born and bred, man and boy.
Andy & Chris (05:34.098)
Wow. Are you a northerner born and bred?
Nah, at least.
Jonathan Webster (05:44.508)
And yeah, but I didn’t do very well at comprehensive schools. So my mum said, right, you’re going to have to go to boarding school. Otherwise you’re not going to get any O levels. So she kind of scrimped and saved and sent me off to boarding school. I was there about three or four years. It was fantastic. Absolutely loved it. I had an absolute ball of a time.
Andy & Chris (06:03.443)
Wow.
Andy & Chris (06:06.975)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (06:11.908)
You know, you’re with your mates all day and you can, there’s always stuff to do, you know, you’ve got access to a swimming pool and you know, a gym and a cricket pitch and tennis courts and all that, you know, there’s never a dull moment.
Andy & Chris (06:14.625)
Mmm
Andy & Chris (06:20.276)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (06:25.543)
That must have been a big cost to her with five other kids. Oh yeah. Do you, one thing I was… Oh wow, wow. Very impressive. Flip. Very impressive.
Jonathan Webster (06:28.312)
It was, yeah. The other five had already gone through boarding school so that was kind of done. But, so yeah, I was very fortunate, you know, I really thank you for that. Because they were some of the best years of my life.
Andy & Chris (06:44.45)
Mm-hmm. I think it’s incredible when you hear stories of what parents, yeah, what parents are prepared to do for their kids. Quite often we speak to…
lots of dentists that perhaps might have joined us from overseas, you know, India or different countries and quite often the sacrifices that their parents have made coming to the UK to give kind of a better life for their kids and that’s kind of a story that’s been told time and again but I don’t think we’d heard a story like yours which is where obviously father was doing well, kind of an entrepreneur’s life means that sometimes things don’t always go so well, things change for you but then your mum kind of pulled it back and made sure that somehow you kind of got that education that you wanted.
Jonathan Webster (07:18.772)
That’s right.
Jonathan Webster (07:24.392)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (07:24.744)
Can you imagine when I’m just thinking if there’s 14 years and all the other guys gone through boarding school, depending on the financial situation, that your mum, when you finally finished, she must be like, woohoo! Relief!
Jonathan Webster (07:40.152)
She was, I’ll tell you a funny story about that actually. So it was, well from school I had literally no idea what I wanted to do. You know my mum, as it’s probably quite apparent she had high aspirations for me and she wanted me to go to Sandhurst Military Academy.
Andy & Chris (07:49.814)
Hmm
Andy & Chris (08:04.038)
Oh, okay.
Jonathan Webster (08:04.916)
following the footsteps of my cousin who at the time was the youngest major in the British army. So she was like you know you’ve got to go and do that so I completely ignored that advice and went to catering college to study hotel management.
Andy & Chris (08:28.086)
Brilliant, brilliant. Did she sort of forgive you and say, that’s okay?
Jonathan Webster (08:33.012)
I don’t think she ever forgave me for that to be honest. You know, it was very disappointing.
Andy & Chris (08:35.398)
Oh really? No. So you opted for the hot cross buns over the crosshairs. Very good. I thought to see what he did there. That was clever, that was clever. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (08:41.608)
Exactly, that’s it. Yeah, yeah. Nice one Andy, I like it. But funnily enough, when I was at Catering College, we got sent out into industry. So I ended up working in a hotel, quite a big hotel on the Isle of Wight when I was 17. And so I was there for the summer season. And when I came back from that…
Andy & Chris (08:56.501)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (09:04.542)
Oh wow, somewhat different than Leeds.
Jonathan Webster (09:10.2)
just coming back to my mum, she’d moved house and not told me. So I think that’s how disappointed she was. She did, yeah. She’d only move around the corner so it was fine.
Andy & Chris (09:20.618)
Excellent. Did she leave a thwarting address? Yeah, she sent you to Sandhurst. Oh, brilliant. That is great.
Andy & Chris (09:33.011)
So when did you find out when you like knocked on the door where you used to live or did you find out before you did?
Jonathan Webster (09:37.68)
No, I kind of got back into Leeds. I got back into Leeds and you know phoned her Obviously we didn’t have mobile phones back then, you know, I was in a phone box Fortunately, she’d taken the number with her so the telephone number still worked And I said, you know, I’m in Leeds. I said I’ll be around, you know, I’ll be back in 20 minutes or whatever and She said oh she said I’ve moved
Andy & Chris (10:00.47)
Well lucky you rang though. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (10:06.07)
Wow.
Jonathan Webster (10:06.281)
I’ve moved just around the corner to searching and searching address and there you go.
Andy & Chris (10:10.442)
Well, one of my friends, mom and dad did that. She went on holiday and she didn’t see them for a bit. And she came back again and actually went up to the front door, knocked on the front door and these people opened there. And she said, who are you? And they said, well, we own the house now. And she said, she’d been away for like three months or something and then told her. So then she had to go and find like one of her aunties and find out where her mom and dad lived. How bizarre is that?
Jonathan Webster (10:34.277)
Yeah, there you go.
Andy & Chris (10:34.886)
Imagine if you went to Rung though, that’d be great, you rock up. Hello. So, so, so perhaps much to your mum’s, yeah, so perhaps much to your mum’s disappointment you were in the, the hotel and restaurant industry and what, what did those industries teach you that proved to be kind of useful? What, yeah, what things have you taken forward with you from those, those worlds?
Jonathan Webster (10:38.244)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, probably go some returns.
Jonathan Webster (10:49.789)
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (10:56.249)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a good question. So I think the first is a great work ethic. You know, you’ve got to work hard in the kind of hotel and restaurant business because you’re up against a deadline all the time because you’ve got, you know, guests arriving at the hotel, people coming in to eat in restaurants and so on. So there’s always a deadline, you’ve got to get your arse in gear basically.
Andy & Chris (11:06.346)
Hard work, I’d imagine. Mm.
Andy & Chris (11:16.218)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (11:23.179)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (11:23.976)
But then there’s that whole thing about teamwork. It sounds a bit cliched, but you really do operate as a team, particularly if you’re in a kitchen environment, you know, a busy kitchen environment. I mean, I’ve worked in restaurants where we’re knocking out 500 meals, a la carte meals a night. And there are kind of 10 or 12 chefs in there, but you’ve all got to be talking to each other all the time and that communication.
Andy & Chris (11:45.682)
Oh my goodness.
Andy & Chris (11:52.532)
Hmm
Jonathan Webster (11:54.056)
backing each other up and checking everyone’s all right. And it’s absolutely vital. And the same transfers into, yeah, the same kind of, yeah, the same skills transfer, you know, into any industry. It’s really, really important. The great thing about particularly working in restaurants in a kitchen environment is the adrenaline rush actually.
Andy & Chris (11:58.282)
Mm-hmm. I always find it amazing to get that consistency. Mm-hmm get that consistency with all that
Andy & Chris (12:11.15)
Mm.
Mm.
Andy & Chris (12:24.395)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (12:24.94)
because you spend two or three hours preparing everything for service and then all of a sudden you’re hit with 20, 30 checks coming in and you’re cooking for 100, 150 people within 15 minutes of opening and it’s just bang, the rush is just tremendous and it’s something that never leaves
Andy & Chris (12:40.862)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (12:45.622)
Hmm. I mean, I mean, I mean… Sure. Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (12:54.256)
that I used to work with in catering, probably about a month ago. And we were just talking about it, you know, the good old days kind of thing. And, you know, we both agreed, you know, it never ever leaves you.
Andy & Chris (13:02.591)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (13:07.806)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m intrigued only because I think hospitality has quite a lot of crossover with dentistry. I think lots of dental practices, particularly now where you see, yeah, nice private practices offering kind of broad line concierge services. So I’m always intrigued at what we kind of can learn from hospitality, hotel and restaurants and how that relates into a dental practice. Cause whilst
Jonathan Webster (13:16.029)
Yeah, great.
Andy & Chris (13:32.926)
it argued it didn’t as kind of high pressure in that kind of, you know, short period of time. I think how you deliver that service is similar. So it’s interesting what those transferable skills were that you learned back then that have served you well. I think dental practices can learn lots in those markets.
Jonathan Webster (13:46.06)
Yeah, I think in a dental practice there’s no question about it. It’s that becoming more customer focused I suppose. Whenever I visited the dentist in my younger days, it’s always been an NHS dentist and you’re on a bit of a conveyor belt really, you’re in and out and off you go kind of thing.
Andy & Chris (13:52.383)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (14:06.638)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (14:12.173)
Hmm.
Jonathan Webster (14:14.004)
and private dentists. I would say when I first stepped into dentistry it was still a little bit like that but I’ve certainly seen over the years that they are becoming more customer focused because they’re recognizing that to a certain extent the retail businesses and they’ve got to look after the punters it’s as simple as that they’re not just patients.
Andy & Chris (14:22.654)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (14:31.118)
Hmm.
Jonathan Webster (14:38.009)
who they’re doing a favour for, you know, the patients coming in and they’re doing a favour for the dentist really by giving them the business.
Andy & Chris (14:40.685)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (14:45.679)
So how did you get into it then? Because obviously you did a bit of catering and then did you work in catering after catering college and then sort of how did you end up getting into dentistry?
Jonathan Webster (14:52.108)
Yeah for about, up until the age of about 25 I would say. But as I said earlier I never had a plan about what I wanted to do, I just kind of did things that I enjoyed. So what I did after I left catering just for a year, I went off driving HGVs. Childhood dream to drive a big truck, yeah.
Andy & Chris (14:59.667)
Oh, okay.
Andy & Chris (15:07.224)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (15:18.89)
Really? Wow.
Jonathan Webster (15:21.98)
So I passed my HGV test and I knew it was never going to be a lifelong thing. It was just something I wanted to do. So I went off driving a 30 ton… No, no, it was all local stuff. It was driving 30 ton tipper trucks, kind of running stone out of quarries and stuff like that. And I did that for 12 months just to get that out my system.
Andy & Chris (15:32.191)
I will.
Andy & Chris (15:36.167)
Did you continent or UK or?
Andy & Chris (15:43.007)
Oh well.
Andy & Chris (15:46.953)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (15:52.184)
and then I thought right I’ve got to get a proper job here so I ended up going to yeah good big train run
Andy & Chris (15:57.031)
I’ll be an astronaut. I’ve done the tip of the truck. I’ll be an astronaut now. I’m now going to join Eddie Stover and do a big one across the continent, actually.
Jonathan Webster (16:07.844)
Yeah, so I ended up working for someone you guys know, Johnny Fine, when he had his advertising business. So I kind of went to work in there and they just established
Andy & Chris (16:16.172)
Ah yeah.
Andy & Chris (16:20.395)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (16:24.884)
Was that your first introduction to dentistry, working with Johnny back then?
Jonathan Webster (16:27.296)
It was my first introduction to marketing.
Andy & Chris (16:30.306)
to write. Okay. Was that when he was doing Bentley and all that sort of stuff? Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (16:35.236)
Yes, so when I started they just set up a telemarketing operation, it was a new thing for that business. And we were working for IBM in the main at the time, doing lead generation for their kind of SME business teams. This is about, this is early 90s, early 90s.
Andy & Chris (16:42.219)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (16:50.705)
Oh, okay.
Andy & Chris (16:56.626)
So what years about this then Jonathan? Is that about sort of late 90s or so? Hmm. Well.
Jonathan Webster (17:04.084)
kind of 91, something like that. So, but that business started to grow a little bit and I ended up basically running the whole telemarketing operation. I’d say probably 80 people in there, 90 people. And it was mainly business to business work. We were doing appointment setting and lead generation for people like O2.
Andy & Chris (17:07.696)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (17:24.375)
Flip.
Jonathan Webster (17:33.692)
You mentioned Bentley, Chris. Yeah, we did a lot for Bentley. That was great work. Mitsubishi Mote.
Andy & Chris (17:36.671)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (17:40.914)
And Jonathan, what did it look like back then? Because obviously now when we talk about, you know, direct marketing, digital marketing, a lot of it is done through kind of platforms. It’s Facebook ads, Google ads, you know, sponsored ads, paid for. Was this telephone-based, literally ringing people up and physically booking them in a diary?
Jonathan Webster (17:53.648)
Yeah, it was, it was.
Jonathan Webster (18:01.628)
Yeah, so it was all offline stuff. After about, yeah, probably about three years in, once it got quite serious, we bought some PCs.
Andy & Chris (18:17.286)
Whoa! Wow. Look at that. Playing with the big boys.
Jonathan Webster (18:21.261)
Yeah, seriously, so it was all paper-based, you know, you’ve got all these people generating paper, filling out questionnaires and things like that.
Andy & Chris (18:25.134)
Wow. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (18:31.586)
The irony that you’re working for IBM. Yes. Wow.
Jonathan Webster (18:33.912)
Yeah, exactly. And absolutely right, you know, we’d send all the leads off in the post every night to them. Yeah. And you know, if we were running late, we had to drive down to the Royal Mail office in Leeds, you know, from the office, it’s kind of there and back, it’s about an hour and a half, it was a night.
Andy & Chris (18:42.882)
Flair
Andy & Chris (18:55.602)
Jonathan, thinking back to these global businesses, in terms of the brand and the business they have, what do they do differently in terms of their market positioning? Obviously, we all work with small businesses, dental practices, and they’re fabulous in their own right, but they’re not at that level. So what do those businesses do differently that smaller businesses can learn from in terms of how they position themselves and brand themselves?
Jonathan Webster (19:20.196)
Yeah, I think the thing is with those businesses, they’ve got a structure in place. So they’ve got a good lead generation and a kind of function going on. And they’ve got the sales teams to follow that up, whether it’s business to business or business to consumer. So that’s the main thing they’re doing differently to a smaller business, I would say. In terms of branding, I’ve…
Andy & Chris (19:45.695)
Mm. Right.
Jonathan Webster (19:48.468)
I’ve got to say I’m not a brand expert at all. I’m not very good at it. You know, I’ll hold my hands up and say that. But, you know, they’ve just got big budgets that they can throw out there and get awareness going and things like that. And they’ve got people to do it. They’ve got resource. You know, when you’re an SME, you know, like us, we’re a little business. You’re kind of doing it all yourself. It’s a bit like dental.
Andy & Chris (19:51.784)
Right.
Andy & Chris (20:05.909)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (20:09.669)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (20:15.127)
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (20:18.132)
practices with the practice manager wearing so many hats just to try and keep that business going
Andy & Chris (20:19.971)
Hmm
Andy & Chris (20:23.286)
Hmm Yeah, and process I think you say process is the most important thing so she can keep repeating Can’t you systemize otherwise it just becomes random and then it gets forgotten or yeah There’s errors or whatever and process is such a key thing. Has it has it become easier? Jonathan with the advent of you know digital marketing and
Jonathan Webster (20:29.91)
The process is definite.
Andy & Chris (20:45.89)
social media, using technology, does it mean that it’s easier today for small businesses to compete with the bigger brands? Whereas before, if it was just employing people, getting them on the phones, there’s a human cost there. But are people able to better use technology today to get more exposure that perhaps they couldn’t have in years gone by?
Jonathan Webster (21:04.86)
Yeah, I think so, but it’s probably so crowded now in just about every marketplace, isn’t it? So everyone’s shouting on social media and whatever, but the question is, is there any cut through to get people listening? That’s the difficulty, I would say.
Andy & Chris (21:10.495)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (21:19.792)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (21:28.238)
And a good old phone, isn’t it? A good old phone still works. We struggle, and I don’t know, we’re trying to get, when we have new people, especially younger people, is getting them to actually answer the phone. They’re like, ooh, I don’t know what they’re gonna say. Well, that’s the idea of a phone, because you have to answer it, otherwise you don’t find out what they say. That’s the fun of it. But it is amazing, isn’t it? We were saying that, I think the last few guys, because they’re…
Jonathan Webster (21:31.378)
Well…
Jonathan Webster (21:43.612)
I’m sorry.
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (21:52.094)
they’re young, they’d be the late teens or early twenties. They’re not really used to using a phone to make phone calls or receive phone calls. It’s quite fascinating.
Jonathan Webster (21:58.356)
That’s right, absolutely right. It’s all messaging now, isn’t it? But I think also with the advent of social media, they’re all kind of self-serve platforms, aren’t they? So, you know, a lot of people, they get involved in it, they’ll go onto a social media platform and they can set up their account, they can set up their advertising account and they can, you know, they can…
Andy & Chris (22:04.052)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (22:12.8)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (22:27.068)
filter out a target market but they still don’t really know what they’re doing I don’t think and so I think they chuck quite a bit of money at it but it doesn’t always work for them and it can leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth but for me personally I mean I’m a great fan of the phone because I think somewhere along the line even if you’re using social media to generate your initial inquiry
Andy & Chris (22:39.512)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (22:43.935)
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (22:55.828)
There’s got to be a conversation somewhere. You know, there has to be.
Andy & Chris (22:59.986)
And I think people connect with people. Don’t know. I think we’ve got AI, there’s lots of tech out there that helps us, but I think it’s very hard to find something that genuinely replaces having a conversation with another human being. In fact, that leads on nicely. Could you perhaps explain to us what world of mouth marketing actually does for dental practices? Cause we’ve been talking kind of around the phone. Yeah. It’d be good just for everybody to find out what it is that you do.
Jonathan Webster (23:12.761)
I agree.
Jonathan Webster (23:25.22)
Yeah, okay, so we’re really unique in dentistry. There’s lots and lots of dental marketing agencies out there, but I think they’ll tend to focus on social media, SEO, PPC campaigns and so on. We don’t get involved in any of that. We’re kind of at the rough end of marketing really, where we offer telephone-based marketing solutions. So…
Jonathan Webster (23:56.537)
everything we do involves the telephone. It involves making a telephone call and it’s always a call that’s best handled away from the front desk in a dental practice. So what tends to happen in our experience is that dentists will often task a front desk with saying, right, here’s a list of
300 people that haven’t been to see us for the last two years. Can you just phone them all up? And the front desk goes, I’m pretty busy actually. Yeah, it’s only 300 calls. You know, you just get on with it. But it doesn’t always work when you’re trying to make calls in volume via your front desk resource. Because those people are busy already. You know, they’re answering the phone.
Andy & Chris (24:46.559)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (24:52.008)
booking appointments, the meeting and greeting patients, the taking payment for patients leaving, the dentist might be asking them for a file or whatever it might be. And then for someone to say, right, here’s 300 calls to make, crack on with it, it just doesn’t happen. And…
Andy & Chris (24:54.256)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (25:04.728)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (25:11.254)
And also Jonathan, I thought as well, is there something about skill set as well? Because if you’re taking an inbound call from a patient who just wants to book in, that’s very different than what is kind of teaching towards a sales call. And it’s not hard sales at all, but there’s a sales call of sorts to try and to reactivate a patient. And the team members in the practice might feel uncomfortable making those calls because they don’t have the skills. They don’t know what to say. They don’t know how to position it. And they don’t have the resilience when people say no. No, yeah.
Jonathan Webster (25:38.148)
Absolutely right, you’ve taken the words right out of my mouth, I was just going to say, you know, Frendest team members, they don’t like picking up the phone and making that outbound call. It’s easy if someone’s phoning in because they want to talk to you, but making that outbound approach, you’re right Andy, it is seen as selling, it’s seen as cold calling, they see it as being intrusive.
Andy & Chris (25:49.509)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (25:53.305)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (26:00.265)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (26:04.348)
They think people are going to be nasty to them and all those kind of negative things. So they shy away from doing it and of course any in-house campaign fails to pick up any momentum. It might start with good intentions but then it just gets pushed off to the side in favour of something else. So we come in and we pick up that kind of work and we do it in volume.
Andy & Chris (26:19.671)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (26:27.193)
Hmm.
Jonathan Webster (26:34.184)
Simple as that. So we will take a list of patients from a practice. This is on our patient reactivation service. Patients that haven’t been in for anywhere between say 12 months and five years. And you know we’ll get them on the phone, we’ll have a conversation with them, we’ll re-engage with them, we’ll reacquain them with the practice, we’ll remind them that they’re still registered.
Andy & Chris (26:35.158)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (26:59.214)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (27:02.4)
and where we can we’ll generate an appointment during that live call for them to come back in for a routine dental examination.
Andy & Chris (27:02.903)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (27:12.075)
I was gonna say, I remember when we first met you, the success stats are quite staggering. So do you want to sort of share those with us?
Jonathan Webster (27:22.598)
Yeah, the amount of money that sits within a dental practices database that’s been left on a table is phenomenal and I think often practices think well those people haven’t been in for three years so complete waste of time, let’s just make them inactive. In my opinion
Andy & Chris (27:41.411)
Hmm
Jonathan Webster (27:45.172)
coming from a bit of a sales background, it’s not a no until they’ve said no basically, so there’s still an opportunity. But when we engage with lost patients, we’ll convert anywhere between kind of 18 and 28% into an appointment. And you touched on it before, there’s no hard sell whatsoever, it’s very much the patient’s choice. And…
Andy & Chris (28:10.106)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (28:13.52)
you know you just wouldn’t believe the people who kind of go, Crikey is it really that long since I’ve been in it? It seems like 12 months ago and it’s like no, it was actually you know four years. So you get a bit of that, you get people going, well it got to 18 months and then I got scared because I thought I might get told off if I fell in the practice that I haven’t been. You know then there’s other people who just take the view that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it kind of thing. But.
Andy & Chris (28:21.992)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (28:33.974)
Hehehehehehe
Andy & Chris (28:38.99)
Hmm in our business in our Frank Town Associates business We we value dental practices and one of the things that people are quite good at being able to tell us is how many new? patients they get in any given month My best guess is but you Yeah, I was gonna say my best guess is and you’d probably be able to answer is do practices know how many they’ve lost and when You go through the exercise with them. Are they quite surprised at how many patients haven’t been to the practice for two three four five years
Jonathan Webster (28:51.984)
Yeah, but no one can tell you how many they’ve lost.
Jonathan Webster (29:07.108)
Yes, yeah. No one’s measuring how many are lost. Yeah, because you know the only metric they’re kind of looking at is how many new patients have we got coming through the door. Because that tells them if the social media advertising is working and all that kind of stuff. But and they’ll do the patient recall thing.
Andy & Chris (29:15.146)
It’s a hole in the bucket, isn’t it?
Andy & Chris (29:25.366)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (29:34.564)
which is generated through the practice management software and to be fair they’ll get quite a good response you know they might get 85 percent something like that it’s not bad but the 15 percent that drops off over time you know that can be thousands of patients that they’re losing and they’re having to chuck money in at the other end to replace them with new patients.
Andy & Chris (29:53.128)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (29:59.47)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I remember you saying that when we sort of looked at it and said, you know, if you’ve got a If you manage to get a hundred patients, which you know isn’t Back in the chair then you know if you’re if it’s 50 or 100 pounds per Exam that’s a real revenue stream and out of that will probably be other bits of work So it’s almost we always just think it’s a no-brainer. Yeah, because you’re
Jonathan Webster (30:18.448)
Yeah, absolutely.
Andy & Chris (30:24.674)
being paid to deliver results anyway. And I think the other thing that I quite liked as well was you, you said that not only do you get to maybe reappoint, but you also get almost, uh, you get patient feedback on how the practice is running, don’t you? As to various bits. And I think that’s a really important one for people listening to it’s not just about booking appointments.
Jonathan Webster (30:27.336)
oof
Jonathan Webster (30:39.252)
Correct.
Jonathan Webster (30:43.66)
Yeah, we’re getting a lot of feedback from patients. So the big one at the moment that we’re hearing more and more is people saying they can’t afford to come to the dentist. So 18 months ago they’d say, they would say something like you’re too expensive. So what they were saying there was it’s not that I can’t afford it, I’m just not prepared to pay it. But now they are actually saying.
Andy & Chris (31:00.301)
Hmm.
Jonathan Webster (31:13.172)
can’t afford it. So, you know, we can feed that back to practices. It’s all useful stuff. We hear all sorts of stories about how people have been treated and, you know, why they’ve left. So again, we can feed that back because it helps practices increase their levels of customer care. You know, there’s a lot more that we can bring to the party over and above just generating that.
Andy & Chris (31:41.374)
Mm-hmm. And as a general rule, are practices good having structured communication plans with their patients? Yeah, they have, kind of those that come in get treated well, and I think it’s like lots of businesses. Once you’re in their ecosystem and you’re experienced a service, the processes work quite well. You know, booking appointments, seeing the dentist, follow up for that treatment, paying for the treatment, that’s all good. It’s the people on the fringes that kind of miss out. Get lost. Yeah, a practice is good at…
Harnessing those I guess putting it bluntly is do they work their database to the extent that they should
Jonathan Webster (32:14.792)
No, I don’t think they do. I think they do a lot of lazy marketing with it. So for example, they’ll send an SMS, they’ll send an email, they might send a postcard mailing, something like that. And you just don’t get the response that you’re looking for if you get a 2% response on that, even though they’re existing patients. You’re kind of doing alright, I think.
Andy & Chris (32:21.108)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (32:42.94)
But I think everyone thinks, you know, right, we’ve sent the email, let’s just sit back and wait for the phone to ring off the hook. But it just doesn’t happen. So I think, you know, where we come in and where we really add value is we just come in and hit the phones. It’s literally rolling your sleeves up and making some phone calls, lighting some fires and see which ones flare up. It really is.
Andy & Chris (32:59.649)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (33:08.926)
What’s your sort of best story, best result that you could quite often, obviously, when you’re trying to convince people to buy into the service? Is there sort of like a couple of stories and which ones are your best ones?
Jonathan Webster (33:17.396)
Hmm.
Jonathan Webster (33:21.868)
Yeah, so I think the best one that we’ve had over the last 12 months is a practice in Berkshire. So we were brought in because they put on a new surgery. So they’re going through a bit of a growth spurt and they needed to fill that surgery quite quickly. They had quite a lot of lost patients in excess of 2000.
So we just hit the phones over a 12-month period and we were generating, let’s say, 100 appointments a month for them, something like that, running alongside all their new business activities. So it really, really started to make sense for them. So over the 12-month period I know we generated over a thousand appointments for them.
and we were lucky enough to get some financials back from them on that. The average spend from a spend of a patient from that initial appointment was just shy of 180 quid. So you know 12 months just picking up the phone we’ve dropped 180 grand worth of business on just from that initial appointment that doesn’t take into account the fact that they’re going to get seen in six months.
Andy & Chris (34:19.909)
Eh.
Andy & Chris (34:36.662)
Bye.
Andy & Chris (34:42.614)
Wow, fabulous.
Jonathan Webster (34:48.412)
or you know there’s going to be a few implant cases in there and Invisalign and so on. So you know it works, there’s no question.
Andy & Chris (34:48.647)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (34:56.162)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (34:59.36)
Yeah, and your cost is anywhere near that. So it’s a real revenue generator, isn’t it?
Jonathan Webster (35:02.168)
No, no, that’s it. And you know, we just get paid for each appointment that actually attends the practice as a result of our activity. So we get paid to generate the sale really.
Andy & Chris (35:16.38)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? Really? Mm-hmm Yeah, it’s a no-brainer. You know, it’s like it’s like we say about Commission paying them to pay finance commission on and you know, no percent interest You only pay it when you actually get a deal and yours is the same thing You only pay it when someone comes in. So why wouldn’t you outsource this to your company to?
Jonathan Webster (35:33.776)
Yeah, exactly.
Andy & Chris (35:38.134)
to boost your numbers, to get people back in the surgery. You also glossed over something, Jonathan, when you said about kind of the future revenue, and that kind of touches on lifetime value of the patient. And if these patients were previously visiting a practice and weren’t, by reactivating them, it’s not just the money in that year. Because, you know, like I say, I think the lifetime value of a patient in a private practice is gonna be multiple thousands of pounds. So long as they continue to communicate with them and they continue to become active.
Jonathan Webster (36:01.684)
Correct.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And unfortunately, we just don’t get that feedback from practices, because obviously, once the patient has been in for that initial appointment, it’s kind of over to them and you know, we’re not tracking it for them. I’d love to know what the kind of ongoing income is.
Andy & Chris (36:23.432)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (36:29.558)
Well, if you think a thousand pounds, if you think, you know, it’d be quite reasonable when you have 10 years, a thousand pounds over 10 years, when you think that’s a hundred pound appointment a year, that’s a million quid. Yeah. It’s magnificent. Yeah. Jonathan, aside from your service, do you have any kind of nuggets or tips on how to get team members on the phone? Obviously, you’re the experts in this, but as Chris was saying, I think…
Jonathan Webster (36:41.501)
Wait.
Andy & Chris (36:54.462)
particularly amongst younger people, there is a resistance to use the phone. Do you have any kind of insights as to why that would be and how they can get people on the phone more? Because there’s no doubt it does produce results.
Jonathan Webster (37:06.372)
It does, there’s no question. So for young people, you know, as we kind of said, you know, their life revolves around a smartphone. And they can hide behind a screen, you know, they don’t like speaking on the phone, really. They’re quite reluctant to answer a phone if someone’s phoned them, but to actually make a phone call, crikey, you know. So, I genuinely don’t know the answer. I mean, the people we employ, they’re all more mature.
Andy & Chris (37:36.839)
Hmm.
Jonathan Webster (37:37.448)
So they’re used to it, you know, they just kind of crack on with it. It’s no big deal to them at all.
Jonathan Webster (37:45.784)
Yeah, I genuinely don’t know the answer on this. It’s a difficult question.
Andy & Chris (37:45.934)
F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f
Well, for me, for me, I’m kind of already 20 years ahead. And I’m like, OK, so if you’ve got slightly more mature people who are comfortable with that now, but we have a generation already who aren’t comfortable, if we roll out 20 years from now, where will the people who have the art of conversation, the confidence to be on the phone, those people are going to become really valuable. You’re going to become a rarity, aren’t they?
Jonathan Webster (38:11.988)
They are really valuable. Yeah, I mean, my worry at the moment is that AI could take it over. But in certain situations, I think AI could take over telemarketing. I don’t think it will for this. You’ve got to have a personal touch on this. But for youngsters, yeah, it’s a tricky one. It genuinely is a tricky one to get them to pick up the phone and make that kind of call.
Andy & Chris (38:21.102)
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Andy & Chris (38:30.711)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (38:42.311)
It is weird, isn’t it? Mm-hmm.
Jonathan Webster (38:43.665)
One of the things that probably does help is if the leads are better qualified through the online enquiry generation service that you might be using. We’ve been working on some other projects, not just the patient reactivation stuff, we’ve been running some projects running social media advertising and then handling the inbound enquiry.
Andy & Chris (38:55.363)
Hmm.
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (39:12.88)
ourselves and really just qualifying that lead out and then presenting a practice with a fully qualified consultation. So they don’t have to bother with it, you know, they don’t have to deal with 10 inquiries, they’re just dealing with one consultation. But we incorporated AI into that to handle the qualification of the lead and it was amazing.
Andy & Chris (39:22.768)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Jonathan Webster (39:42.14)
because it would take it through to the stage where it’s asking all the right questions, it’s asking what your situation is, it’s asking what your budget is, what your time scales are, is there an event coming up, blah blah. It can then talk about how you intend to fund your dental treatment and it keeps asking you if you want to book a consultation.
and eventually it gets them to a yes I want a book because they’ve been fully qualified so when you pick up the phone it’s quite an easy call to make.
Andy & Chris (40:09.196)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (40:13.603)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (40:19.886)
Hmm, and I think using AI I think a lot of it comes down to prompts and asking the right questions If you’re able to ask questions that take you closer to the place that you need them to be before human steps in I think it’s really valuable But I think a lot of people haven’t quite got to the stage where they understand what to ask of AI Yeah, make sure they get the right answer which is in usable information like rubbish in rubbish out. Yeah
Jonathan Webster (40:45.06)
Yeah, that’s exactly it. But you know, the AI, I mean, we didn’t develop it. We worked with a kind of techie guy. And you know, we had a guy come online at 12 o’clock in the evening, something like that, 12 o’clock at night, saying, you know, I’m interested in Invisalign. And you know, the AI takes over. It’s not your bog-standard chat bot that you see on any other website. And yeah.
Andy & Chris (40:47.603)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (41:10.27)
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (41:13.228)
it’s asking all the right questions. And he ended up saying, it’s actually for my daughter. So the AI instantly goes, how old is your daughter and has she actually looked online at, you know, what treatments are available to us? So instantly jumped on that, totally unprompted, handled all the qualification of the lead. We came in the morning, the lead’s there on the CRM, finally we’ll book him in, easy.
Andy & Chris (41:29.546)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (41:41.311)
Hmm Well, it wouldn’t surprise me with the recent demise of smile direct club It would surprise me if there’s lots of dental practices that are gonna be seeing more Patients coming and wanting me to treat. Yeah, but also that renewed interest and value of other, you know an oral health professional
Jonathan Webster (41:45.438)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (41:57.446)
Yeah, I think lots of things are good until they go wrong and this has been a classic example of something that’s gone wrong and It actually in the long term it does feed back into the dentist hands Which are these are people that spend a minimum of five years at dental school learning their thing Plus CPD and that’s what’s needed if you’re gonna get your teeth looked after to see you through the rest of your life Not something in the past. Yeah, Jonathan. You’ve had a very wide and varied career You’ve done lots of different things if you could distill that down to
Jonathan Webster (42:18.043)
Great.
Andy & Chris (42:27.963)
one single learning through your entrepreneurial journey. What would you say the key thing is?
Jonathan Webster (42:34.449)
I would say… Well, I think there’s a couple of things if you don’t mind. I think the first one is always be good to deal with.
Andy & Chris (42:43.462)
Alright, you can have a couple.
Andy & Chris (42:47.774)
Ah yeah, that’s nice. Be nice.
Jonathan Webster (42:48.912)
Yeah, so you know, treat customers, suppliers, staff, stakeholders, you know, just treat them all with the utmost respect, always be polite to them, all that kind of stuff. So that’s the first one, always be good to deal with. And I think the second one is a piece of advice that someone gave me 20 years ago. He said, he’d made a lot of money and he said, always make sure there’s enough in it.
Andy & Chris (43:00.629)
Hmm.
Jonathan Webster (43:18.26)
the other man. What he meant by that as you can imagine was if you’re in a negotiation just get it to a win-win you don’t have to absolutely run someone into the ground because everyone needs motivation. So those are the two things I’ve really taken on board.
Andy & Chris (43:20.734)
Yeah, true.
Andy & Chris (43:34.738)
No. Yeah. Otherwise they don’t want to do it, do they? Yeah.
Andy & Chris (43:47.106)
Fabulous. It’s lovely to be nice one, isn’t it? We quite often say to people, you know, if you’re going to say, you know, you can be nice, still get what you want, but be nice. It costs you nothing. It costs you nothing. And it’s good for the other person. And you don’t do it for this reason, but you generally get a better outcome as well.
Jonathan Webster (43:54.608)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (44:05.478)
Notwithstanding the fact that it makes you feel good because you’ve looked after the person You’ll generally get a better outcome. Whatever it is. Johnathan you’ve done a number of things over the years for your son’s school. I’ve got a list here It’s quite remarkable really. So last year the national three peaks three times in five days the year before that kayaked 120. All three
Jonathan Webster (44:09.492)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (44:27.39)
Yeah, yeah, three times five days. That’s impressive the year before 127 miles kayaking from liverpool to lees along the canal and back in 2021 The yorkshire three peaks again three times in three days So jonathan tell us why such extreme ventures and have you got anything in the pipeline for 2024? It doesn’t have much holiday. So you have to cram it in
Jonathan Webster (44:49.397)
Mm.
Yeah, okay well my son who’s 17, he got a diagnosis of autism when he was about three or four I think or something like that and we managed to get him in at a fantastic school which is just for autistic kids. So I thought you know we were kind of blessed to get him in there so I kind of thought you’ve got to give something back to that.
Andy & Chris (45:19.382)
Hmm.
Jonathan Webster (45:20.052)
So you know it’s easy to do a bit of a sponsored walk and all that kind of stuff but I thought you’ve got to go for it and do something a little bit challenging haven’t you. So the first two years I did the Yorkshire Three Peaks thing so I think yeah walking them three times in three days so you kind of go round ones.
Andy & Chris (45:26.862)
That’s a bit more.
Jonathan Webster (45:47.56)
have a kip, go around again, have a kip, go around again. Quite tiring. And then, you know, I came up with the kayaking thing. Probably…
Andy & Chris (45:51.542)
Well, I can imagine.
Andy & Chris (45:59.402)
That’s a lot, 127 miles, isn’t it? Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (46:02.588)
I’m telling you it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. It took five days. No, so I had a two-man kayak so I was in with a friend of mine Dominic who is one of the guys that I worked with back in the old catering days. So you know spending five days in a canoe kayak with one of your best mates is great fun.
Andy & Chris (46:08.706)
Did you just do it on your own? Did you do it on your own or by someone else?
Andy & Chris (46:15.574)
Yeah, nice.
Andy & Chris (46:23.411)
Mm.
Jonathan Webster (46:31.62)
So, you know, we did it over five days, started in Liverpool, we just, and we’d never, never kayaked before, you know, we couldn’t even steer the Blooming thing. Seriously, we literally bought the kayak, chucked it on the car, drove to Liverpool, chucked it in and went.
Andy & Chris (46:41.159)
Seriously? Wow.
Andy & Chris (46:48.098)
Ha ha ha!
and they did 127 miles.
Jonathan Webster (46:53.504)
Yeah, so the first day we did 40 miles I think, we kites from Liverpool to Wigan or somewhere like that. And yeah, checked into a hotel and then the next day was like 30 miles, but by that time we were kind of back into Yorkshire and you know, we could, someone would come and pick us up and we’d have our own beds for the night. But yeah, it was great fun, great fun.
Andy & Chris (47:01.726)
I bet your shoulders hiked. Flippin’ it Tucker.
Jonathan Webster (47:22.693)
And then last year…
Andy & Chris (47:22.979)
Brilliant. So what’s coming? Oh, go on. Yeah, so last year, you…
Jonathan Webster (47:26.592)
Yeah, so last year National Three Peaks three times in five days. So I just came up with it as a bit, I was probably a bit drunk to be fair. I thought, you know, how hard can it be? So it normally when you do the National Three Peaks, you kind of do it as a circuit, you move from one peak to the next and to the next. But what I did was I kind of we went up to Scotland.
Andy & Chris (47:29.266)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (47:49.057)
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (47:56.064)
and did Ben Nevis three times so I did it twice, twice in one day and then once the following morning drove down to the Lake District and did Scaffold Pike twice in one day once the following morning and then down to Wales to Snowdon up and down there twice in one day and once the following morning it was uh it was great. Yeah absolutely right but you know 57 Chris yeah so
Andy & Chris (48:18.306)
Uh-huh, my word. Were you wrecked at the end of it?
Jonathan Webster (48:27.633)
I know spring’s kicking, but not very much to be honest. The input far outweighed the output, believe me. But you know, just doing those things, they’re great. Just getting out and having that thinking time to be fair. I know you’re kind of doing a bit of a challenge, but it’s great to get out there.
Andy & Chris (48:28.613)
I’m so impressed. How much money did you raise?
HAHAHAHA
Andy & Chris (48:40.835)
Oh well, oh well.
Andy & Chris (48:49.175)
Mm-hmm
Jonathan Webster (48:54.572)
out the office away from work because you still think about work but there’s no pressure to think about work if that makes sense and that’s when you come up with your best ideas isn’t it?
Andy & Chris (49:02.856)
and then
Andy & Chris (49:06.642)
Oh, of course you do. Of course you do. And it’s that thing, isn’t it? Just because I’m not doing something doesn’t mean I’m not busy. You can, you can be thinking and in your head you can be working stuff. Yeah. But you might be walking, kayaking, whatever you’re doing, but process, you say you can, yeah, the stuff’s going on inside the head, isn’t it? So what have you got coming up for this year?
Jonathan Webster (49:11.677)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (49:21.116)
Yeah. The challenge for next year. So next year, next summer’s challenge, I might jump back in the kayak again. And I’m thinking, could we, could we find a route, you know, from Leeds down to London or something like that along the canal network? That’d be quite interesting.
Andy & Chris (49:31.424)
Huh?
Andy & Chris (49:42.318)
What’s the Grand Union? Where does that go? I’m not great on me canals. No, no. So it must be, because there must be, must it? Because obviously that was how they transported all the goods around. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jonathan Webster (49:45.084)
No idea.
Jonathan Webster (49:50.044)
There’s got to be a way, hasn’t there? Yeah. And, you know, I’ve always got this attitude of how hard can it be, so… Once I’ve decided I’m going to do it, it will definitely happen, I can tell you.
Andy & Chris (49:59.07)
That’s a good st- that’s-
That’s a good start point. Paragliding off Ben Nevis. That’s a good start point. I think naivety is a very underrated skill. I think having a bit of naivety means you get things done.
Jonathan Webster (50:09.364)
Absolutely. Do you know what? You’re absolutely right, Andy. I agree with that.
Andy & Chris (50:15.534)
Hmm. Jonathan, it’s been wonderful. We are coming towards the end, but we can’t let you go just yet. Dun dun dun. We have two questions for you. And the first question that we’d like to finish up with is, if you could be the fly on a wall in a situation, when would that be? Yeah, I’m going to be intrigued on this one, because it’s like non-dental man. Yeah. You know, no dentist connection at all. So that would be interesting to see.
Jonathan Webster (50:38.66)
Yeah, okay. I mean I have been primed for this question so I’ve got something so I’ve got two answers just to keep annoying you. So the first answer is quite dark and actually quite miserable actually but three months ago I went to Poland and I went to Auschwitz and I don’t know if you’ve ever been but it’s
Andy & Chris (50:50.254)
This is a hedge of bits.
Andy & Chris (50:57.163)
Uh.
Andy & Chris (51:00.734)
Uh… No, no, no.
Andy & Chris (51:06.24)
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (51:07.244)
it absolutely blew my mind. It’s been a bit life-changing actually and even having listened to the stories and you know seen the place itself I don’t think I’ve got a full understanding of the actual horror that went on there. So in a kind of weird way I think being a fly on the wall in that place at that time when those things were going on.
Andy & Chris (51:10.571)
Mmm, it’s harrowing Yeah
Andy & Chris (51:24.782)
Mm-hmm.
Andy & Chris (51:33.565)
Mmm.
Jonathan Webster (51:35.976)
just to really understand the scale of it, the brutality, the fear, everything. Because we, you know, we just can’t understand it. So that’s the first one.
Andy & Chris (51:39.695)
Mmm, the true horror of it, yeah.
Andy & Chris (51:46.822)
No, no, I think it does serve as a great a great reminder though as hard as it is a place to visit I think to see it and to think about what humans are capable of. It’s a it’s a horrid but a great reminder. Yeah But scary about the number of people who are denying it. Oh, yeah, there’s a whole big thing the states about it, wasn’t there? Yeah, enough of that. Yeah
Jonathan Webster (51:57.721)
All that inhumanity to man, it’s just phenomenal.
Jonathan Webster (52:07.92)
Yeah, yeah. The second one, on a lighter note. So my all time favourite TV programme is the Persuaders, Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. So I would want to be a fly on the wall when they’re filming some of those episodes. I thought they were absolutely brilliant. They’re so daft and, you know, Roger Moore’s kind of pomposity and Tony Curtis is just…
Andy & Chris (52:20.564)
Okay, yeah.
Andy & Chris (52:28.31)
Okay
Yeah. Mm.
Jonathan Webster (52:36.164)
you know, cheeky chappy American guy. I thought they were brilliant, I bet they had such a laugh making those programmes. So, see you.
Andy & Chris (52:38.652)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (52:44.302)
They were good though, those ones. Yeah, I remember that. A different era. There was the one with the dead Blake, wasn’t there? I can’t remember what that was. I used to quite enjoy that one. He was a ghost or something. And if you were given Jonathan, if you were given… Oh, there we go, Randall and Hopkirk. Good man. Randall and Hopkirk deceased, wasn’t it? Good man. And if you were given the opportunity to meet somebody, who would you like to sit down and have a nice glass of beer, wine, coffee, whatever your tip is?
Jonathan Webster (52:48.584)
different era.
Jonathan Webster (52:56.56)
Randall and Hopka.
Jonathan Webster (53:02.939)
Correct.
Jonathan Webster (53:12.056)
Yeah, again, someone from the past, it’d be Steve McQueen who’s behind me.
Andy & Chris (53:21.44)
I was gonna say for people watching this on YouTube you’ll see Steve over Johnson shoulder if you’re if you’re listening to this as a podcast You’ve got a lovely piece of art of Steve McQueen from the great escape behind him from his brother who’s available for commissions Yes
Jonathan Webster (53:26.789)
Yeah.
Jonathan Webster (53:32.516)
Yeah. So, so, yeah, you know, I just thought the guy was great, you know, charismatic, he did lots of kind of action stuff. You know, he’s into racing, driving and motorcycling and stuff like that. Coincidentally, I passed my motorbike test about 18 months ago. So I’m now officially a motorcyclist. But, you know.
Andy & Chris (53:40.643)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (53:46.463)
Hmm. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (53:59.052)
Very good, and he’s trying to find a fence to jump it over
Jonathan Webster (54:02.132)
Yeah, you know watching all those films with Steve McQueen when I was growing up, The Magnificent Seven, Bullet, Thomas Crown Affair, all those they were just amazing films weren’t they? So yes.
Andy & Chris (54:09.506)
Mmm. Fabulous. It used to be Sundays, wasn’t it? Sunday afternoon. What’s it like to watch a film?
Jonathan Webster (54:17.72)
Yeah, so yeah Steve McQueen that’s uh that’s what I’d like to have a beer with, no question.
Andy & Chris (54:25.027)
Brilliant.
Brilliant. Jonathan, it’s been an absolute joy. Thank you very much. I think you’ve got so many elements to what you do. The hospitality, the restaurant, the pubs, moving into marketing and just the tips of, for me, the biggie is like get on the phone, don’t be shy, use the phone. It’s a tool that probably has kind of slipped into the background in terms of a communication tool, but it gives us that one-to-one. So it’s been a wonderful conversation. Really appreciate your time today.
Jonathan Webster (54:29.48)
Thank you very much for having me on.
Andy & Chris (54:56.38)
I think the fact you bought a kayak and then did 127 miles put that really on the cards doesn’t it? It follows. Give it a go.
Jonathan Webster (55:02.472)
Yeah, yeah, you’re just, you know, you’re absolutely right Andy, you’ve hit the nail on the head. That naivety really helped us through on that one.
Andy & Chris (55:11.282)
Yeah, brilliant. Lovely. Appreciate your time today, Jonathan. Yeah, thanks, Jonathan. Take care, man. Keep well. Cheers. Bye. Cheers.
Jonathan Webster (55:14.381)
No, thank you. Alright, see you soon. Cheers.
