Mike Hesketh

Mike and I have been working together for nearly ten years and I’m excited to bring his skills and knowledge to my clients. I first visited The Exeter Dental Centre as their communications coach in the early days of the EDC journey and was impressed by the systems Mike and his team had put in place to run an associate led practice. Open seven days a week, with seven surgeries in a beautiful city centre six floor building, providing the full scope of practice for all clinicians, I knew I wanted Mike on my team as a coach. After five years of working together on my entrepreneur’s course, over 70 practice owners have now benefitted from his wisdom on my course. I can testify working together has been a stunning success for our clients.

The story of The Exeter Dental Centre is epic. Bought for £270,000 in 2012 and sold in a walkaway deal to BUPA for £3,200,000 in 2017, winning national awards whilst gaining over 200 new private patients a month, the numbers speak for themselves. Mike is most proud of his support team’s development at Exeter during that time. Following this extensive in-house training, no less than five of the leadership team have become dental business managers, spreading Mike’s EDC gospel and brand book far and wide. All whilst decreasing his amount of clinical dentistry to eventually stopping in the third year of the business journey. Mike focussed on leading the operations team at EDC supporting their growth, building a brand and ensuring the culture & ethos of the team were spot on. This allows the owner the ability to stop or limit practicing clinically, whilst simultaneously enjoying rapid business growth and is key to Mike’s ‘work life balance’ philosophy.

After a family Around the World Gap Year with his wife & business partner Lara together with their two small children, they embarked upon an ambitious architectural self-build home overlooking the River Exe in Devon. Now, Mike is doing it all over again with his new venture, Dartmoor Dental, Tavistock. Rapidly proving the first time was no fluke, the practice was bought in 2022 for £600,000, and now only one year later is turning over more than £2,000,000 (with no clear aligners or extensive implant work, yet!), the same strategy and operations that served EDC so well are working again for the digital age. Building Dartmoor from a solid base will allow Mike to build a mini dental group of high turnover large practices in the Southwest over the next 10 years. To top it off Mike, as of May 2023, has just retired from clinical dentistry for a second time!

With extensive experience in leadership roles outside of dentistry, including officer training in the Royal Navy, five years’ experience with the Royal Marine Commandos, gaining the coveted green beret, leading teams on the ground in Africa and Afghanistan, Mike knows how to lead under pressure. As a clinician Mike is an experienced dentist with membership exams of both Royal Colleges and a year as an SHO in Maxfax, before focussing on general practice. Backing his consultancy and coaching up with academic business rigour, achieving a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) & the Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching (PCEC) from Exeter University and the Henley Business School respectively. Mike’s business advice comes from wider life experiences and broader industry, so is well calibrated and cutting edge.

Mike offers our course delegates knowledge on how to dominate a city with your marketing like he did in Exeter, how to build a team of dynamic clinicians and enthusiastic support staff and how to know your numbers! So join us on the journey and get involved with our next entrepreneurs course – I can guarantee you won’t have experienced business growth like this before!