One of the most common things I hear from dentists who want to own a practice is some version of this: “I’m ready to buy. I just can’t find anything.” They’ve checked the broker websites. They’ve set up alerts. They’ve looked at the same three practices that have been sitting there for months. Then they […]
It’s 5 p.m. on a Monday, and I’m walking into my boss’s office to ask for a raise. I’ve thought about how to open. I’ve thought about the number. I have four kids at home under the age of ten and a wife who has put her whole career on hold to raise them, and […]
Earlier this year I asked a group of dental residents at some of the best programs in the country a simple question: how will you know when you’re ready to buy a practice? The answers came back, and one word showed up over and over. Feel. “When I feel ready.” “When it feels right.” “I […]
Somewhere in my book there’s a line that says you only have to be mediocre to succeed as a practice owner. I wrote it to take the pressure off and help dentists feel a little less stressed. Dr. Wang read it and got a little competitive, instead. “I was like, oh, you just have to […]
Imagine that you buy a practice and on your first day of ownership, the police come busting through the front doors with guns drawn. This is a true story of a client of mine, and that’s not even the craziest part of the story. The really crazy part happened two weeks before that, and it […]
Craig Hanks will be the first to tell you that sales is not his natural home. He knows the theory. He spent years inside DBA building the podcast, the audiobook, the blog, absorbing every principle of practice acquisition before he ever talked to a buyer. He’s warm, easy to talk to, the kind of person […]
Partway through a lecture at UNLV’s dental school last month, right before I said what I was about to say, I joked to the room that I’d probably never get invited back. Then I said it anyway, because I believed it, and because nobody warned me before I learned it the expensive way through other […]
A few weeks ago I wrote about a comment section: the 80 comments under a Utah news story I was featured in, where two dentists reached opposite verdicts on whether this profession is worth recommending to their own kids. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that thread. Because as it turns out, the […]
In a lecture hall at UNLV earlier this month, I handed a dental resident in the front row an imaginary practice. “Here you go”, I told her. “It’s a $400,000 practice in Henderson, a turnaround. You can’t wait to get your hands on it. You’ve got a plan, you’ve got energy, and you’re going to […]
Last Thursday morning, in a lecture hall in Las Vegas, a dental resident raised her hand and asked me the best question I’ve heard in a while. I was at UNLV’s dental school, talking with their students about the financial side of buying a practice. We’d covered what banks look for, how to spot a […]
