It's 17 years today since I first bought any aspect of anyone's business or got involved with anyone else in a business style.
That day, I was buying into a partnership with my former partner, Ian Peace.
Today, it's a partnership with Chris Barrow and his business professional coaching services.
In between 17 years ago and today, I bought 50% of the business with Ian Peace and then bought the other 50%.
I started a business from scratch called Refined Specialist Dental Care with my previous practice manager, Angela Leivers. We both put £5000 in each and started a practice. I sold my half of that business to Angela around 2014 or 2015.
I started The Campbell Academy from scratch in 2014, at that stage with my friend and colleague, Andrew Legg. I bought Andrew out of that business somewhere around 2022.
I started a property company too, only to build at Edwalton Business Park, where one of the buildings hosts The Campbell Clinic and Campbell Academy, but never have I gone outside of my business to merge with another business, to move things forward so quickly, so excitingly, so enthusiastically.
The Campbell Academy began providing dental business education in 2017 at the request of the dental implant giant Straumann.
From that time onwards, we provided year-long courses in dental business, week-long courses in dental business, and specific-day master classes, and an online education course in dental business education, which is hosted by the International Team for Implantology (ITI) and accessible to 100 countries.
Throughout all of that period and through almost all of those courses, Chris Barrow has been involved as a speaker or an adviser, or a confidant. Chris is the best-known dental business coach in Britain and beyond, with footprints in many other countries.
Chris has 30 or more years' experience in dental business coaching and dental business education and is synonymous with the subject around all aspects of British dentistry.
Soon after I bought the first business back in 2009 with Ian Peace, I instructed Chris to come and teach me about the dental business and to teach Ian and Angela at Campbell and Peace, the clinic in Nottingham and Refined Specialist Dental Care in Alfredton.
Instead of having Chris visit every 3 months, we had Chris visit every month for 18 months.
We paid, what was then at least, an extraordinary amount of money to be coached in dental business, and it catapulted us forward to the point where, within 6 or 7 years, we were being asked ourselves by Straumann to provide dental business education.
Chris's intellectual property, his understanding, his experience, his insight, and his knowledge in the dental business are second to none. The only thing that Chris has struggled with over the past few years is infrastructure and scale.
Now aged 72, Chris's ability to put together an infrastructure around him which justifies and amplifies all the knowledge, skill and insight would be difficult.
The Campbell Clinic Group has exactly that infrastructure.
Chris provides the biggest wealth of experience, relationships, and trust that is possible in dental business in the United Kingdom and beyond.
The Campbell Clinic Group provides a home in Nottingham, a team of 65 and growing, and a financial infrastructure, enthusiasm and ambition that will allow Chris to go to the places where he always wanted his business education to go to.
The merger of the two groups sees Chris become the director of business education for The Campbell Academy.
If you're an existing client of Chris, don't worry, it won't get worse; it will get better. It won't get more expensive (not withstanding normal price increases that we all have), unless you choose to access something that you think is better or more suitable, or bigger.
It's going to be the most exciting journey.
Chris is 72, and he'll be working with us for at least the next 8 years.
Some people seem to look at me and think that's mental when I tell them that, but I'm planning to work until I’m 85.
So, actually, I expect Chris for at least another 13.
Blog Post Number - 4484
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