I first met Chris Barrow approximately 15 years ago after receiving a recommendation from someone I worked with at the ITI.
We met at a hotel in North Nottingham.
I was fascinated.
In the first meeting, Chris gave me some extraordinary tips, information, and help, whether he realised that or not (I'm sure he did).
We then went on a journey of about two years, during which I tried to gain as much information from Chris as possible to drag myself through a hedge backwards into the world of running a business.
I've said it here in these pages, and many lectures, and I'll say it again many times: we would never have reached where we are or what we've done without the influence and guidance of Chris.
From then on, after the initial high-speed coaching, we kept in touch, and I became much more reliant on Chris on an ad hoc basis for particular problems or issues or conundrums that would come up in the running of a business.
I was also fascinated to share with him our thoughts and dreams as we were working towards building the clinic as it is now.
In 2017, we started to provide our own form of business education, which was entirely different from that which Chris provided. At that stage, he was kind enough to heavily promote what we were doing and to come and work with us on that course.
He's worked with us on many of our business offerings ever since, and we have always worked together to promote each other's businesses and interests.
Chris taught me that this was called the abundance mentality. He also taught me that competition breeds demand, so the more we talk about dental business, the more people will be interested in learning about it.
Different people go to different places for different things; that's how it works.
With this in mind, The Campbell Academy and Campbell Clinic will be promoting heavily Chris's 100 for 2025 and his concept of "The Age of the Golden Goose".
It's fascinating how the market changes; two years ago, everyone was selling their practice because it was the height of a bubble, people jettisoned their practice, got out, took the cash, stayed in for their earnouts.
Everything looks very different now.
Some of the guys who took their earnout are struggling through an earnout process, some of the people that bought practices are now struggling to pay earnouts or to come good on the promises they made, many of the people who sold the practices have seen the practises change out of sight.
What Chris will be focusing on with his team through the 100 for next year is the alternative to that: not selling your business and keeping it, not letting someone come in and take it apart, getting rid of your good staff, reducing your costs and try to extract a profit for their shareholders.
It's about you running a business, looking after your staff, and continuing to look after your patients in the best way. It's about creating space not just for yourself to run off and do the things you want to do outside of work but also to do the things you want to do inside of work that you enjoy.
There are plenty of dentists who want to work in a practice like that, and plenty of team members, too.
Chris will show you how to do this through his contact days for both team and clinicians, through all the community he has, through the WhatsApp group, and online education.
I consider the investment in Chris' project for individual practitioners to be devastatingly good value for money.
The lifetime value of being a 100 member will pay you back many, many times over.
It's hard for me to calculate how valuable the time I spent with Chris from 2010 to 2013 was, but there's no question that we have literally made millions of pounds as a result of the work we did.
So, £27,000 for three years to make your business a better place, to make friends that you'll know for the rest of your life, to laugh, to cry, and to share your experiences seems like a drop in the ocean to me.
You can sign up for Chris' 100 here.
If I were you, I would.
Blog Post Number - 3962
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