Dentology Podcast with Stephen Kettle

Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Stephen Kettle

Episode Release Date – Monday 9th December 2024

Andy & Chris (00:00.946)
So if I said to you, Chris, it was Monday morning and it was seven o’clock, what would that mean? I think that would probably mean a release of a Dentology podcast, I would say. Absolutely would, it absolutely would. And I love the fact that because it’s the business of dentistry, we’d speak to people from all different elements and facets of this great profession. And today we’ve got an absolutely stunning guest joining us. We’ve got Steve Kettle, who’s a director of Clover Dental Fittail.

which we’ll find out more about as we have a conversation. Hi Steve, how you doing?

Steve Kettle (00:32.002)
Hi, yes, afternoon Andy, afternoon Chris.

Andy & Chris (00:36.198)
Lovely. Like that chance to put a very bad joke in here that we’ve got the kettle on. I bet you’ve never heard that joke before, Steve.

Steve Kettle (00:41.42)
Yeah, that was me.

When I was at school, yeah, Polly put the kettle on, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.

Andy & Chris (00:47.506)
Talking about being at school, Steve, lovely segue there. Thank you, I appreciate it. We always like to start right back at the beginning and kind of start with a walk down memory lane and could you talk to us about your own childhood and what your upbringing was like and how your parents set you up for the man you’ve become today?

Steve Kettle (01:08.96)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I lived in Sale, in Cheshire. Mum and Dad were very organized people, planned everything out to a fine degree. Dad was a civil servant. My mum was, in those days, was what they called a shorthand typist for the local authority. Yeah, So she could stay. And I think people still do shorthand journalists. I don’t know, but it was something.

Andy & Chris (01:30.821)
wow, so antipas, yeah.

Andy & Chris (01:36.61)
What was that? What was the famous shorthand? What was it called? remember now. They used to have special training didn’t you? yeah. can’t remember what it was called. was unbelievable.

Steve Kettle (01:45.57)
Yeah, yeah, she was very good at shorthand. She could write, you know, things off the television and just jot it all down in shorthand. So yeah, yeah, no, it’s a good upbringing. Got a brother, Martin, you know, we’ve, we’re a very close family. some, you know, holidays together.

looked after me well, you know, I was always smartly turned out, as I was So, you know, was as a boy, you’re like, mum, stop fussing, stop fussing. But no, we’ve always, presentation was…

Andy & Chris (02:12.41)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Andy & Chris (02:19.564)
Were you the sort of family that had special outfits to wear on Christmas Day?

Steve Kettle (02:24.448)
Yeah, all that sort of stuff.

And you know, very, very, very house proud, mum and dad, know, the house was immaculate. My dad, you know, looked after the garden, planned it months and months in advance where all the flowers were going to go and drew it all out. yeah, two very, very well organized people and, you know, plan things to perfection. And so that really rubbed off on me. You know, I mean, my dad would get petrol and he’d write down the mile.

Andy & Chris (02:33.425)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (02:43.314)
Wow.

Steve Kettle (02:56.824)
and check it against you know his previous fill up when he filled the tank up just to see if the car was performing okay you know always getting up yeah well we have a book

Andy & Chris (03:04.71)
Wow. One of my friends, Dad, used to do that. Work out your miles per gallon, wasn’t it?

Steve Kettle (03:09.358)
Miles per gallon he had a book and we used to fill up and dad what you don’t just filling in checking how many miles per gallon I’ve done, you know, I managed to do yeah, very meticulously organized Filing systems still to this day is 87 now. He’s got everything planned off to a tee, you know Where everything is when I pop my clogs everything is documented. You won’t have to do anything So so yeah, and that’s kind of you know laid the foundations for me to be that type of person

Andy & Chris (03:33.798)
Wow.

Steve Kettle (03:39.362)
and that’s all organized.

Andy & Chris (03:41.906)
And it’s interesting you say about kind of that planning and stuff because obviously your your world is building the maintenance environment That was what you were in for for 25 years. I guess that set you up well for that How did you end up in the dental niche because I mean just because you’re obviously in building maintenance that that world for 25 years But what was that kind of entry point that that made you turn up in dentistry? Yeah

Steve Kettle (04:07.596)
Yeah, yeah. So I ran a building maintenance company for 25 years. It’s fairly stressful because I have over a hundred tradesmen working for me. So,

In my mid forties, sort of got out of that, a partner and he took it over. And the bit that I liked was really the marketing side of things, not so much the operational. So the sales are marketing side. And I basically, through my local sports club, which I’m still a member of, met Paul Tipton and our boys played cricket together.

Andy & Chris (04:29.778)
Bye.

Andy & Chris (04:43.05)
yeah.

Steve Kettle (04:46.22)
juniors. So really that was my sort of first introduction into the dental world and then also another member of that club was a gentleman who had a compressor business called Dental Air and so I started doing some

Andy & Chris (05:05.458)
I mean, Paul Titum is not a bad person. He’s incredibly well known. you would now know, he’s incredibly well known across dentistry. So that’s a pretty good entry point.

Steve Kettle (05:09.592)
Thank you.

Steve Kettle (05:15.404)
Yeah, and I started doing sort of stuff with Paul outside his core business, so like special projects and things and…

Before COVID, started doing his road shows, tips and training road shows. So organising for Paul to go around the country and do his one day lectures. So I’d find the venue for him and talk to sponsors and get them on board and run the day really for him. So yeah, that was kind of when I really sort of broke into dentistry through the tips and training road shows.

Andy & Chris (05:36.434)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (05:51.014)
Hmm. Hmm. And when was that Steve?

Steve Kettle (05:55.182)
That would be like 2000, before COVID, 2018 probably.

Andy & Chris (05:59.306)
right. Yeah. Yeah. And then you set up Cloval Dental Fitter in 2021, which is obviously just on the back of COVID. Was that a great time to do it or a tough time to do it? Because I think dentistry was going through quite a nice period as we came out of COVID.

Steve Kettle (06:15.234)
Well, what?

Steve Kettle (06:18.978)
Well what happened was I was also in erm…

I had my own events business before Covid as well, doing lots of corporate events and seminars and conferences and sporting dinners. When it’s sort of everything closed down, I’m thinking what else can we do? we actually, through tips and training, we did the kickstart scheme that Rishi Sunak and I are, so getting young people into jobs who are on Universal Credit.

Andy & Chris (06:39.291)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (06:49.702)
Yeah.

Steve Kettle (06:51.552)
headed that up and we started placing young people into dental practices, mainly social media, even receptionists because you you had the airline industry that are grinded to a halt and we’ve got sort of people who were in the airline industry said I quite fancy a change here now you know I could do a receptionist job at a dental surgery so we actually placed about a hundred I think it was about 126 young people into

Andy & Chris (07:07.143)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (07:15.455)
Yeah.

Steve Kettle (07:21.438)
dental surgeries during Covid. So that was a project.

Andy & Chris (07:23.858)
That’s brilliant.

Steve Kettle (07:27.04)
Another project that had was that we, just near where I live, I saw an empty building that was a hairdresser’s and it was a really nice location. It was next to a Waitrose store and as you know, everyone was queuing up for the shopping and you know, three in at a time, three out and that sort of thing. And I kept passing this empty shop thinking this would be really good as a dental surgery. I actually got in touch with Paul and

Andy & Chris (07:42.567)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Steve Kettle (07:56.906)
said do you want to come down and have a look at it what do you think and he said yeah I think it’d be really good as a dental practice so that was really the journey I got in touch with the agent and you know we sort of looked at seeing whether it was going to be feasible to run as a dental practice and yeah and it sort of everyone was happy to go forward with it so negotiated the heads of terms with the with the agent and then

Andy & Chris (08:14.887)
Hmm.

Steve Kettle (08:25.634)
Basically once the lease was signed I brought in a team of builders who hadn’t actually done dental before

Andy & Chris (08:32.402)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Kettle (08:33.464)
But we kind of learned on the job with it. that was my first squat practice. And while I was doing it, I thought I’ll set up a website and set up a company. So that was how it sort of was born really. Just started that first job. Yeah. So yeah. And, you know, it was a learning curve for me, but because I’ve been in the building trade, I’ve gone back to where I was before. You know, I worked with Martin, the builder and his team and also got a lot of help from people in the

Andy & Chris (08:37.681)
No.

Andy & Chris (08:45.98)
No.

Andy & Chris (08:55.045)
Yeah, yeah

Hmm.

Steve Kettle (09:03.408)
industry. The likes of Pete Hickson at RPA has been tremendously helpful. He used to come down once a week making sure that we were doing everything in line with the CQC regulations. And so it was about 12 week project and we opened it up and it’s running now and thriving.

Andy & Chris (09:06.576)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (09:26.564)
I think the fascinating juxtaposition is that we’ve got loads of dentists who aspire to set up their own dental practice and never actually get to the point of doing it. And then we’ve got Steve who happens to be walking past wait rows a few times who then says, yeah, I think that’s a really good opportunity. Paul, what do you reckon? Right, we’re going to do it. It’s amazing isn’t that? Almost…

Steve Kettle (09:44.824)
I think.

Andy & Chris (09:55.954)
It’s the business hat that you have from your other businesses that sort of almost said, yeah, I can do this as opposed to maybe thinking too much about it. Does that make sense? And also I think it’s taking, I think it’s taking action, isn’t it? It’s not prevaricating. Yeah. I mean, there’s so many people out there that spend all the time planning and thinking and writing notes. You saw it and did it. And that’s the significant difference. You took action.

Steve Kettle (10:06.008)
Yeah, yeah. Well it ticks all the boxes really.

Steve Kettle (10:22.772)
Mm. Yeah, one thing going back to my child, although it rings in my ear every day, my dad used to say, procrastination is the thief of time, just get on with it. Yeah, so that’s, yeah, you like thinking about it and then you’re round and round, you, before you do. I mean, it’s a,

Andy & Chris (10:33.168)
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s so true. So true. Yeah. What are the differences you’ve seen, in dentistry? You’ve also spent a lot of time in general building on the general business side of things. Are there some distinct differences on the dental side from general business?

Steve Kettle (10:54.904)
from general building, sorry, business.

Andy & Chris (11:00.058)
Yeah, on the general building side of things compared to, and you know, non-dental businesses compared to dental. I mean, there’s obviously the specific equipment that they need, but do they broadly just behave like buildings and businesses just with a little tweak, or is it quite a different way of approaching it?

Steve Kettle (11:11.579)
yeah.

Steve Kettle (11:19.022)
No, mean, there’s so many things you’ve got to take into consideration when you’re fitting out a dental surgery. You’ve got to make sure that you’ve got all your building control documents signed off and you’ve got to get fire approval. Often the surgery needs ventilation.

there’s a certain flow that you have to fit it out in and all that gets checked by the CQC at the end. So really my recommendation to any dentist that’s looking to start a new squat practice is go to a company, a contractor, a builder that’s done dental work before. I I know I haven’t, it’s my first one, because you don’t want to get to the end of it and find out that it’s not fitted out right and the CQC, that’s got to be ripped out. So it’s very niche and very,

Andy & Chris (11:57.789)
Who understands it?

Andy & Chris (12:04.114)
Mmm.

Steve Kettle (12:10.324)
specific really. a general builder, there’s a lot of general building work in there but there’s a lot that are you know specific requirements to ensure CQC approval.

Andy & Chris (12:11.724)
Mm. Cheers.

Andy & Chris (12:19.633)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (12:23.452)
Sure.

but I don’t really get that much involved with squat practices. But I can always remember when I used to fund years and years ago, doctors, when they sort of built new surgeries, they were fine until they start to get a bit excited. And then they’d say, could we add this and could we do this? do you end up with are they pretty good at staying to their budget or do they sort of just say to you, actually, Steve, I’d quite like to add this. So is there always sort of a 10 % contingency that you put in because you know that they’re going to they’re going to add extras?

Steve Kettle (12:52.718)
Yeah, totally. Yeah, well, yeah.

Yeah, I mean the way we do it is we do a proper scope of work so you know, it’s not sort of, you know, fit out the decom room or whatever. It’s actually itemised by how many sockets, pipe work, etc. So they actually got cost certainty of what it’s going to be because you’ve got a fully priced schedule. And then into that, as you say Chris, is you put in a 10 % contingency because you don’t know what you’re going to find.

Andy & Chris (13:08.876)
Mm. Mm.

Steve Kettle (13:26.346)
and you’ve got that in the bank if you need it. So you pretty much know exactly what it’s going to cost them and it may be another additional 10 % for unforeseen things that come up that you don’t know about.

Andy & Chris (13:28.668)
Mm. Mm.

Andy & Chris (13:39.18)
Coming out of COVID, we had lots of conversations with people who were talking about setting up squats, know, novo practices. Many of them didn’t, but some of them did. Is the startup practice side of things for you a big part of your business? Is it people with an idea? And if it is, do those people come to you with a location or do they just come to you with the idea and then it kind of gets built out from there?

Steve Kettle (14:07.114)
It’s a range of different things really. mean this week I’ve a call from a gentleman who’s found a building, dentist. I found the building but I’m not sure if it’s going to work. I’m looking to buy it. I’m not sure if it values up at what they’re asking for it. And I don’t actually know if it will work as a dental surgery. So we go in, we’re going in on Thursday so we’re going to have a look at it, assess it, make sure that it’s going to work. Is the drainage in the right place? Is the floor going to

Andy & Chris (14:16.922)
Mmm. Vote.

Andy & Chris (14:28.252)
Mm.

Steve Kettle (14:37.03)
to be raised. There’s a lot of things that feasibility basically before they actually buy it. And then I get dentists coming to me all the time with saying, know, we’d like to set up a squat practice. It needs to be in this location, maybe 15 miles from where I’m operating now. And we help them find that property. yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’ve got contact with

Andy & Chris (14:42.096)
Hmm. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (15:00.57)
I was going to ask if you do the sourcing of the location yet.

Steve Kettle (15:06.262)
most of the agents around, national agents and local agents around the country. We also have some software that we subscribe to that’s quite expensive, but it basically sends an email to us and alerts if any properties are due to come on the market. So yeah, so we offer this property search facility to dentists. Can be quite time consuming, but yeah.

you know, we get the brief off them what they’re looking for. Lots of dental surgeries now like being in the fabric of the high street next to a Costa coffee next to a, you know, so footfall good.

Andy & Chris (15:38.162)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (15:42.042)
Yeah Yeah, that’s right. Yeah where the footfall is. Yeah, i was gonna say it’s foot foot It’s footfall on the eyeballs, isn’t it? If you get if you get in in those those situations And do you help with the planning steve? So do you sort of not just I don’t mean building planning but you sort of do you help me with the financials? you know like year one year two year three projections or is that not your bag?

Steve Kettle (16:04.086)
No, not really. I’ve got a network of…

dental professionals that I can pass on to the dentist. So if they want an accountant, we have an accountant that looks after, I think, over 200 dental practices. So what I do is I just widen my network open to the dentist. So I can help you with literally everything. You know, if you want someone to raise finance for the practice, we’ve got somebody that can do that that we’ve worked for for many years, or the last few years anyway. So yeah, it’s literally like, I suppose, a consultancy type.

Andy & Chris (16:10.534)
Hmm. Right, okay.

Andy & Chris (16:24.178)
Mm.

Steve Kettle (16:38.121)
approach as well that I’ll open up my network and put them in touch with whoever they need to talk to.

Andy & Chris (16:38.706)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (16:45.36)
And going back to the property side of things, Steve, is there an optimal blueprint? Is it kind of, I don’t know, three surgeries, fit one surgery out, plumb and wire the others, and then go from there? Is there, if you were talking to somebody, would you say, this is kind of the perfect place to start? It’s affordable, it’s manageable, it’ll turn into a good business, and you’re not going to overextend yourself.

Steve Kettle (17:06.403)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, generally the workout and the sort of 2000, 2500 square foot. Most up practices get one surgery and one chair up and running. And then, and then we put all the services and everything in ready for the, for say the other two, if it’s three surgeries. they could just drop the chair in and the cabinetry after. And when they built, built up the, you know, the patient book, then it can go to the second one and then the third one. But obviously you’re still.

Andy & Chris (17:21.65)
Hmm.

Yeah, it makes sense, doesn’t it?

Andy & Chris (17:35.056)
Hmm. Hmm.

Steve Kettle (17:37.016)
You know, you’ve got to your disabled toilet facility. need a, you know, need a decon room, whether you’ve got one surgery or three surgeries. so yeah, it’s because, you know, it takes a little bit of time to build it up. And, you know, your first, your first 12 months, you’re working really hard to get you, you know, get your patients up and get it filled. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (17:43.506)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (17:50.214)
Yep.

Andy & Chris (17:59.442)
Thinking back to the one that you did with Paul back next to Waitrose, using that experience, which is your first one, what would you say are the three most important things for any dentist that was thinking about setting up a squat practice? What boxes do they have to put ticks in before they can go any further?

Steve Kettle (18:18.7)
I think that once you’ve decided that you’re going to go forward with a property and the minute you’ve either bought it or signed the lease on it is for you to register with the CQC because that seems to be the sort of, you know, the bit that can stop you. It could be, I don’t know what it can be, four months, five months, it changes, but you’ve got to get that sort of application in first and that gets the ball rolling.

Andy & Chris (18:34.868)
That’s 16 weeks right there. forever, yeah.

Andy & Chris (18:40.347)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (18:47.495)
Hmm.

Steve Kettle (18:47.822)
And then I think again, it’s sort of planning, you know, your marketing and things like that, rather than getting within two weeks of opening and saying, I’ve started doing some marketing is get.

Andy & Chris (18:56.688)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m here.

Steve Kettle (18:59.362)
Get all that in place, get your social media moving through. Talk to local people. The one that we did that was just speaking about their mind you smile. We had a big sign in the window. The builders were working inside but coming soon, opening in the new year. Register your interest now. start making a noise about it early so that people can see what’s happening because people are curious.

Andy & Chris (19:16.786)
Hmm.

Steve Kettle (19:29.296)
I wonder what that’s going to be. it’s going to be a dentist. even the old fashioned dropping the leaflet drops, we did 5,000 leaflets within a mile of where the surgery was opening. And we got a lot of inquiries just from the leaflet drop. Register your interest. But again, your Instagram, all that sort of stuff. So would just say definitely CQC and marketing are the two big ones, really.

Andy & Chris (19:29.585)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (19:38.118)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (19:48.657)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (19:52.082)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (19:57.092)
Yeah, it’s interesting the marketing thing is this is so many people nowadays try and shy away from the you know hard copy stuffing it’s all on the all on Instagram and we say to people no, no, no, you know, there’s so many people who still read a leaflet

Steve Kettle (20:06.126)
I’m out.

Steve Kettle (20:11.778)
You do, or just a very, it doesn’t cost a lot to put an A board outside. You can do that. We found that people were coming to Waitrose and I saw them park up, going for the shopping, pointing at the A board. look, John, there’s a dental surgery opening up in the new year. And so you’ve got to do a bit of everything, really.

Andy & Chris (20:18.368)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (20:33.456)
Yeah, I agree with you. I was going to say at least that way round you tap into all demographics, know, I mean at times changing but typically kind of digital marketing appeals to slightly younger people. But like you say, if you do a leaflet job or you do letters, we know if something comes through our letterbox, we look at it.

The open rate or the read rate of things that come through your letterbox is very high. Whereas with emails, we all get thousands of emails that we never look at or read. I think you cover off a broad range of demographics by having a variety of different things in your war chest.

Steve Kettle (21:06.498)
Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I my parents wouldn’t.

open an email or anything they’d still look at a leaflet and still look at a sign outside somewhere. So yeah, mean, you know, that seemed to work. I mean, the other thing as well is that if you can start to bring in obviously children into the practice, we went around the local schools to be honest, I just went to see, you know, there was three or four schools quite near the surgery and I just said, would it be possible to come in and give a little talk after assembly on healthy teeth?

Andy & Chris (21:12.775)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (21:17.752)
Mm. Mm.

Steve Kettle (21:40.624)
look after your teeth. And so, yes, we can do that. So we got the dentist who would recruit it to come in and do a talk for half an hour after assembly. And with the permission of the headmaster or headmistress, we were allowed to put leaflets in the satchels of the children to take home. So it was just creating another.

Andy & Chris (21:42.214)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (21:53.625)
Mm. Mm.

Andy & Chris (22:05.466)
Brilliant. It’s great, isn’t it? Creative marketing.

Steve Kettle (22:08.716)
Yeah, just awareness, know. you know, when they go home at night, mum and daddy, there’s a new surgery opening up. been in today and had a talk. So.

Andy & Chris (22:11.185)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (22:16.39)
but they’re clever as well. Those things aren’t really expensive. It’s being creative and also investing a bit, a little bit of time in your local community. Isn’t it? think that’s the difference. It’s not just spending money.

Steve Kettle (22:24.566)
Yeah. Yeah, because

No, no. And I mean, other thing is we did an interview, or Paul did, with a local publication. It’s the local one for our area, Altrincham today. And there was a feature there. Paul opens up a new clinic in Altrincham, squat practice. that’s, again, people still read those sort of things. And it’s online. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy & Chris (22:41.402)
Hmm. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (22:54.45)
Yeah, it creates visibility, doesn’t it? Yeah, now which is great. Just using your experience of what you see from your perspective, in the Far Eastern US, quite a lot of the practice out there are these superclinics. They’ve got 20 plus surgeries. Do you see a place for that in UK dentistry? Has anybody approached you to look to do something on a very large scale?

Steve Kettle (23:20.302)
No, but it has done a lot, it? I was talking to someone this week who said it’s the same in Portugal and France and places like that. So, I think it’s coming, but I haven’t had anybody approach me. mean, the ones that seem to be becoming quite popular now are actually where they’re in an empty office accommodation. I went to look at, well, we got hold of one for a dentist a few weeks ago where the top floor had a company.

Andy & Chris (23:23.514)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Andy & Chris (23:41.394)
Hmm.

Steve Kettle (23:50.296)
and they were paying about 40 grand a year rent. And then the bottom section, they were thinking of turning that into a surgery. it’s on a commercial building development. There’s nowhere near the high street, but there’s parking and everything like that. So there’s quite a few dentists doing that now, where they’re not visual. It’s all office blocks, but putting themselves in there. But super clinics have not.

Andy & Chris (24:03.036)
Hmm. Hmm.

Andy & Chris (24:08.849)
Hmm.

Steve Kettle (24:17.558)
personally come across anybody asking me to do that as yet.

Andy & Chris (24:21.4)
No, I’ve not seen it either. But like I said, I know that, yeah, like say, in the Far East and the US, I know there’s some practice in the US that have like literally 40, 50 surgeries. And it’s truly remarkable, scale of them. I think over here, so obviously in kind of another world, we value and sell dental practices. So as a company, we visit hundreds a year. Most of them are, you know, two, three, four surgeries.

Steve Kettle (24:35.512)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (24:48.946)
that captures the majority of what we see. Anything upwards of five surgeries would fall into category of being a large practice. But I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything with more than probably nine or 10 surgeries. No, not that can think of. Yeah, no, it’s interesting the way that different markets operate in terms of where they are. Many, many years ago now,

Steve Kettle (24:50.242)
Yeah, we’ll be charged.

Steve Kettle (24:56.259)
Yeah.

Steve Kettle (24:59.97)
No, no, I haven’t seen that. Yeah.

Steve Kettle (25:08.993)
Yeah, yeah.

Andy & Chris (25:15.146)
through your own business life. You got involved in something called Flying Start, didn’t you? Which sounded interesting. I read up about it and it sounded a bit like a forerunner to Dragon’s Den. Would that be a fair description?

Steve Kettle (25:21.09)
Not yet, that’s right.

Steve Kettle (25:30.53)
Yeah, yeah it was, was a long time ago.

Andy & Chris (25:32.306)
What was that about?

Steve Kettle (25:33.794)
Well, was run by a guy called Tony Wilson. was a reporter on our local Granada reports here. But he had nightclubs, the Hacienda and things like that. Basically, the idea was that it would be a panel of business people. think one of them was John Maunders, was a house developer. He was on the sort of, you know, the panel. And the way the program worked, was four contestants on the

on each programme. The first bit is they went out and videoed your business just to show the viewers what you do. So at the time I was running a building maintenance company, so it was a film that they filmed out with our guys, fitting new doors and radiators and things like that. And then basically you’re then sort of brought into the studio, bit like mastermind actually, you’re in the hot seat.

Andy & Chris (26:19.004)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (26:29.678)
Mm. Any quizzed?

Steve Kettle (26:33.74)
there’s questions that are fired at you from four judges. It’s actually…

you don’t get a lot of time to, if you make, you know, they’ve got a window that it has to be recorded in. And so there’s no retakes. It is what it is when you do it like we’re doing now. So it was a bit, it was a bit daunting actually. I thought, we might be able to edit bits out, but it’s no, it’s right. We’re off and that’s it. And we go and yeah. So I actually came second in that heat. I didn’t win it, but I came second and yeah.

Andy & Chris (26:47.174)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (26:53.157)
Wow, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Andy & Chris (27:07.038)
What was it was the draw to doing this day you you strike me as a very entrepreneurial guy you kind of do building maintenance I’ve got an events business. I’m really into marketing I’ve now got a dental fit out business and I went and this was kind of back in the the like late 90s wasn’t it? So again, when people now see dragons down and lots of reality TV today But this was something that was like, you know 25 30 years ago. What was the draw for you to get involved in it back then?

Steve Kettle (27:13.73)
Yeah, I just…

Steve Kettle (27:23.969)
Yeah.

Steve Kettle (27:29.71)
Huh.

Steve Kettle (27:33.134)
You’re welcome.

Steve Kettle (27:36.782)
Well, what you got basically, I put in the application and then I was successful getting to sort of the interview stage and what you got was before the programme, part of the deal was that all these different people on the panel helped you with different aspects of business. So it might be financial, it might be marketing and they actually came to your offices and helped you.

to grow your business. So some real sort of advantages before the actual program of people who had been successful coming to help you. So, and I just thought it elevate the brand and everything like that. it was just, I’m reasonably sort of driven guy and I thought this would be another good thing to do, get myself on the TV. Just before Coronation Street as well. So I knew there’d be a lot of viewers.

Andy & Chris (28:18.322)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (28:26.29)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (28:29.89)
No, there you go. Very smart.

Steve Kettle (28:31.63)
It was seven o’clock, seven o’clock, yeah. So, yeah, I got a lot of people that I knew sort of phoning me and sending me, you know, texts and letters. Yeah, it was a good experience. It was a good experience, you know.

Andy & Chris (28:42.322)
Brilliant.

Andy & Chris (28:45.968)
Yeah, very front foot. Yeah, yeah. And based on your…

your own quite varied experience and you know, there’s a bunch of it in dentistry, but some of it not. What would you say, a lot of people that listen to this podcast are younger dentists who at some point have the aspiration of owning or running their own dental practice. have no idea what shorthand is. No, They assume it’s some physical disability. And we also have lots of practice owners, but what would you say are the key skills you require to be an entrepreneur?

Steve Kettle (29:07.202)
Yeah.

Steve Kettle (29:19.564)
Yeah, well you’ve got to be very driven and you’ve got to really put the time and effort into it.

You know, you, mean, I sort of live and breathe business still. I think it’s, it’s built in years, it? You know, it’s a hard work, hard work, keep going, you know, don’t give up, you know, there’s a lot of, a lot of situations when you’re running your own business, you think, this is tough, you know, but you’ve just got to keep going, keep pushing through and, you know, try and, try and plan things as best as you can, as you can.

Andy & Chris (29:33.776)
Yeah.

You still enjoy it.

Steve Kettle (29:56.622)
But a lot of it is energy, enthusiasm, knowledge, all those sort of things. And it’s not nine to five at all. I mean, most nights I’m coming back at eight o’clock. I’ve got two meetings tonight, 7 and 6.30 and 7.30 on Zoom. And so it really is hard work. just keeping going, keeping positive as well, keeping positive.

Andy & Chris (30:06.8)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (30:14.513)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (30:19.824)
Hmm. Hmm.

And I think also because it is hard work, finding something you really enjoy and you care about carries you through as well, doesn’t it?

Steve Kettle (30:28.6)
Yeah. Well, it’s yours. you’re going to, if you’re not passionate about it, then if you’ve got staff, that’s, you know, they, if they see your passion, it sort of, you know, it funnels down to them as well. So yeah, and be enthusiastic about it. You know, it’s your business and, know, and you really, you know, you need to shout about it and try and make it, try and make it work.

Andy & Chris (30:34.258)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (30:41.426)
Yeah, it rubs off, doesn’t it? Absolutely.

Andy & Chris (30:51.568)
Hmm, absolutely Steve we can’t let you go without asking you two questions to finish up with So our our first question for you is if you could be a fly on the wall in a situation Where would you be and who would be there?

Steve Kettle (31:06.888)
I thought about this this morning and I was thinking, you know…

with what’s been going on with the elections in America. I’ve been, I mean, whatever they think about Donald Trump, I mean, he’s been interesting, hasn’t it? Watching it I’m told, and everything. He’s a real character. for me, just think, you know, the way it is at the moment, whether you could be a fly on the wall with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meeting up, you know, first meeting after the election. I just think that’s gonna be a really interesting one, that, for me.

Andy & Chris (31:12.978)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (31:19.618)
for sure.

Andy & Chris (31:40.494)
It will be.

Steve Kettle (31:40.586)
So yeah, because I am a football fan and a Followman United, which is an up and down thing at the moment. yeah, but you know, someone like maybe, you know, an Alex Ferguson, Josie Mourinho, you know, interview would be interesting to hear those two guys in the same room. So that’s my

Andy & Chris (31:49.766)
We’re having a hard time at the moment.

Andy & Chris (31:54.806)
My heart bleeds. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (32:01.202)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (32:06.618)
It would it would and if you got the chance Yeah, and if you got the chance to to meet somebody Steve, who would you like the opportunity to sit down and have a Pint of mild or a cup of coffee with living or dead?

Steve Kettle (32:09.485)
Ha

Steve Kettle (32:20.236)
Well, didn’t have to think much about that. Great, again a football person, but Eric Cantona.

Andy & Chris (32:28.082)
The sea goes full of the trawler. Yeah.

Steve Kettle (32:29.548)
Eric Cantona. Yeah, The Seagulls Follow the Trawler. Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, mean, yeah, just a fantastic footballer, but also, you know, just so many different strings to his bow, hasn’t he? think he’s singing. had a single out a few weeks ago. Acting.

Andy & Chris (32:48.946)
Yeah, love seeing him in the adverts because he appears quite a bit on TV in the adverts. the beer adverts. Yeah, he’s a real maverick, a real eccentric, isn’t he?

Steve Kettle (32:54.124)
Yeah. Yeah. Great idea.

Yeah, you know, don’t, you know, when I get time, I just can put it on YouTube and watch some of these goals. Charismatic guy. Really loved it. Old Trafford. They still sing his songs, songs about him. yeah, yeah. Eric Cantona for me.

Andy & Chris (33:08.155)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (33:16.668)
Fabulous. Lovely, Steve. We know you’ve got a busy day ahead. We’ll let you get away. That was really, really enjoyable. Hopefully we’ll catch up at either one of your events or dental event at some point future. Of course, dealership somewhere. Exactly.

Steve Kettle (33:29.283)
Yeah, yeah, that’s where I was last week in South London. Beautiful. Yeah. OK, good to speak. Thank you very much for your time.

Andy & Chris (33:32.444)
Brilliant. Lovely. Cheers, Dave. Look after yourself. That was really good fun. Thank you very much. Thanks, man. Cheers. Bye bye.