DBG, The First 20 Years!

I really can’t believe that 20 years have gone by since I had the ‘off the wall’ idea of creating a dental buying group and on reflection I am amazed that I found any dentists who believed it would work. I do remember meeting one dentist in Liverpool, who is now a leading light in the corporate dental field, who categorically dismissed me and the idea as utter foolishness.  

It’s amazing that, with no experience of dentistry, I had the cheek to think I could pull this off but, as time has proved, with the right support anything is possible.

On reflection much of our success in the early days can be firmly placed at the doors of those dentists who became members and enthusiastic supporters of the concept. There was and still is a hard core of members who always help with advice and attend regular meetings at our offices. The last twenty years is crammed full of fun, humour, some tears and most importantly new friendships, which on occasions have been tested but survived.

On one particular occasion, when we had only just started and were so inexperienced, we took an order from a member for, what we thought was, a Willy Bite Gauge. Not being able to find a Willy Bite Gauge in any of the suppliers catalogues we telephoned the sales department of a company and asked them what the afore mentioned item was. All we heard was gut busting laughter from the other end of the telephone line. Not something we were allowed to forget in a hurry.

On another occasion a dentist complained that our disposable needles were rubbish as he could only use them once. We found it almost impossible to control our laughter and explained that they were only meant for single use. Rubbish he shouted "I wouldn’t buy the bloody things at all but the guy who sharpened my needles has died". As you can imagine, after the shock had subsided, we did fall about laughing and wondered if the needle sharpener had been a patient.

It’s not been all fun but a good fight often strengthens the resolve and makes you more determined to overcome the devious ways of competitors even though you sometimes question the integrity of those who spread rumour and lies to all who will listen.

We received calls one day from a number of members who had received visits from salesmen who had shown them copies of a photograph of our offices to undermine dentists confidence in the DBG. To be fair, the offices in question were pretty basic, being sited in an end terrace house, in an area of Cheshire not known for its mass appeal to footballers or their wives.

Strangely enough this 'Knock the DBG campaign' backfired on them and generated dozens of new members who had never heard of the DBG until they had talked to the salesmen in question and seen the photograph. Will they never learn, I hear you say, probably not but who am I to knock free publicity.

The Group progressed and launched new services in many other fields, which in themselves generated a new range of incident. I remember shortly after we had launched the engineering service that a dentist complained that our engineer had been in the surgery the evening before and that when the dentist came in the next morning nothing appeared to be working. His language was quite strong and aggressive and the young lady taking the call handed him over to me. I assured him that we would get an engineer out but he continued to rant and rage and accused us of being the worst company he had ever dealt with. Eventually we calmed him down and got an engineer out to him immediately.