Clark Mannas was sitting across a lunch table from an 85-year-old dentist who had no idea why they were there.
They were friends. They met at dental society meetings first, then did some fishing and golf together.. So the invitation hadn’t raised an eyebrow. The owner had been practicing in Mason, Texas for decades, still enjoyed it and had never once mentioned selling. Not to Clark. Not to anyone.
Clark had rehearsed what he was going to say. Then he said it.
“I don’t know if you’re thinking about selling. You may be, you may not be. But if you ever are, I think we both know each other well enough to know this would be a good fit.”
Then he stopped talking.
How he got to that table
A year earlier, Clark wasn’t sure he wanted to own anything. He’d come out of residency and taken an associate job to see where things landed.
They landed somewhere he didn’t love. The position didn’t line up with his long-term goals, and the town wasn’t where he pictured raising a family.
Mason was. He already spent most of his time there anyway.
And Mason had exactly one dentist he knew well. An 85-year-old one.
Here’s the part most buyers miss: Clark didn’t wait for that practice to become available. He did the math every buyer does in their head (“he’s going to sell to somebody, someday”) and then did the thing almost nobody does. He acted on it while the practice was still, officially, not for sale.
What the owner said back
He said it was a great idea.
Then he said the thing buyers don’t hear often enough: “I’m in no hurry. Let’s both sit with it for a few months and see if we still want to.”
That’s the best answer Clark could have gotten. The point of the lunch was never to leave with a deal. It was to open a door without breaking the friendship if the answer was no.
They checked back in that October. Both still wanted to. That’s when Clark called us.
The question I get at every lecture
“How do I find a practice when nothing in my area is listed?”
Clark’s story is the answer. The practice he bought was never on a broker’s site, never marketed, never something he could’ve found by refreshing listings. It came through a relationship, and then through a careful ask.
There’s a bad version of this strategy. It sounds like cold-calling every dentist over 60 in a 30-mile radius and asking, “Are you selling?”
Please don’t do that.
The good version is slower and more human. Get to know the dentists in the town where you want to own. Ask how they built their practice. Ask what they wish they’d known. Let them know, honestly, that you hope to own someday.
Then, if the relationship is real, you can say what Clark said. That sentence works because it isn’t a tactic pretending to be a relationship. It’s a relationship with a direction.
What he was actually afraid of
Not the dentistry. Not the money. The technology.
An 85-year-old dentist’s office is usually an 85-year-old dentist’s office. Clark knew he’d be upgrading almost everything the week he took over, and he was right.
He had a second problem that’s harder to get answers to by walking around the office. He knew this practice too well in one way and not well enough in another. He’d been in the building a half dozen times as a friend. He knew the owner, the staff, the town. He knew it felt right.
He had no idea how much the practice collected or if it was profitable. Feeling good about the person selling is not the same as knowing whether the numbers work.
Our review came back with a green light, with six specific weak spots we told him to address early. Clark told us later that a cautious report probably wouldn’t have killed the deal, because he knew the owner too well. But he also said he wouldn’t have known where to start on the numbers and probably wouldn’t have started.
A good relationship gets you into the conversation. It can’t do the due diligence for you.
Six months in
Clark closed March 5.
He works Monday through Thursday, 8:30 to 4. The office is still mid-renovation, the technology turnover is mostly done and the previous owner stayed on as his associate, which is its own kind of succession plan.
The practice is producing well above what he made as an associate. He hasn’t taken much of it home. It’s gone back into the building, which is exactly what year one is supposed to look like.
He also had a baby somewhere in the middle of all this. When I asked what the last six months felt like, his word was “Cuisinart.” When I asked how the practice was going, his words were “really, really good.”
Both are true.
His advice
Expect far more non-dental work than you think. Learn the nuts and bolts before you jump: the insurance you’ll need, how the business side runs, what a month looks like from the owner’s chair. If you’ve been practicing a few years and you’re a competent clinician, the dentistry will be the easiest part of your first six months.
Everything else is where the fire is.
And one more thing he said without my asking: Ownership isn’t for everybody. It’s a big commitment, and once you make it, you make it. He’s thrilled he did. He’d also tell you that if you’re not all in, it gets a lot harder.
If you are all in, don’t make the mistake of waiting for someone else to decide to list. Sometimes the right practice is one lunch away, and the only thing standing between you and it is a sentence you haven’t said yet.
If you’re trying to figure out whether you’re all in, start here: the Ready Kit at dentalbuyeradvocates.com/ready.
