An Idea that changed my business (ft. Raha Sepehrara)

Opportunities don’t always knock at the most convenient time. But when they do, make most of them.

Today’s article features Raha Sepehrara, a Personal and Business Coach, Speaker, Entrepreneur and a Dentist. Raha runs three successful dental practices in the UK. Read on to find which idea changed her business.

When my husband and I first started our dental practice, we were both working in two different locations five days a week and taking work home in the evenings and weekends. Our business was such that it heavily depended on our presence; this meant we rarely took any time off and kept working long hours. The only time we got off was a few days between Christmas and New Year. I knew this lifestyle couldn’t go on forever.

When my son was born, I had to work extra hard, spending time at my dental practice, attending to my baby, and work on the businesses from home as the baby slept. It was indeed, stressful. I went through many internal battles, feeling the mum’s guilt.

Within a year of my son being born, a chance offer to buy another dental practice came along. This new business was in a highly desirable location and was priced right. The idea of having a third practice had been simmering at the back of my mind for many years. So when this new business opportunity presented itself, I thought it would be an excellent addition to our existing practices.. 

However, when I shared this idea with my husband, he thought I was crazy! His logical reasoning was, “We are already working all the time. We barely have any time off. We got a one-year-old. How can we make time for a third business?” While my husband’s concerns were genuine, I also knew that a new practice would allow us to restructure our business, such that we would have other people working for us.

I was pretty much the driver in getting our third practice going. While the timing of this new offer wasn’t the best (with my son being hardly a year old), I wasn’t sure if a similar opportunity would still be available in the next 2-3 years.

Quite honestly, what made me jump at this opportunity, was a mixture of being confident in my abilities and also, a gut feeling.

I could moan and complain about being stressed and having no family time and then do nothing about it. Or, I can choose to take a risk, believe in myself, and go for it.

Our biggest concern with a new practice was to build the right team so that we could continue to provide the highest level of service to our clients. To accomplish this, we created our mission statement; we got clear on our values, our plans, what we wanted to achieve, and whom we wanted to attract. I think when you are clear on who you are and what you want, it becomes easier to attract the right people. Looking back, I feel proud to say that many of the staff we hired have been with us from Day 1. I treat them as a family and trust them implicitly with what they do. 

So yes, the idea of diving into a new practice was quite scary. But instead of making us busier, this new business gave us more freedom. Slowly, we were able to have more family time and more holidays with our child and paved the way for more flexibility by the time our second child was born.

To conclude,

• If you’re not happy with something in your life, you need to take action because otherwise, nothing would change.

I hope you learned valuable lessons from Raha's sharing. Please make sure to connect with Raha on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and her website.