Buying a Practice at 130% of Collections

[MUSIC] >> Set down your sleepy water in your Mr. Wessel. Take off that raincoat and grab a cold beer. It's time to have a real talk about pediatric dentistry. You're listening to Bruce and Tiny Teeth, the unfiltered pediatric dentistry podcast. [MUSIC] Can I start by saying I think you might be the first guy on the Bruce and Tiny Teeth podcast to actually be wearing a beer shirt while we podcast. I hope that was intentional. >> That was very intentional. Yeah, yeah. I don't have a beer with me, but I have my brewed coffee for the rules. And then I got to see a Nevada shirt. So yeah, that was like one o'clock. >> It's one o'clock. You're on Eastern time, but still it's like mid afternoon on a Thursday. So if somebody's into the sauce this early, that could be a problem. >> Yeah, I might have a yard beer in a sec, but we'll see. >> Yeah, that's good. I've been, so it's like public now, but my wife, we're having our third baby coming in October. >> Yeah, I know. >> So yeah, so she's quite pregnant. And so I've had to also like cut back on my evening, like after workbeers and whiskey and stuff. >> Yeah. >> Just like not just to not be like a jerk of a husband for her. But on the flip side, like yeah, you go a couple weeks without having a drink and you feel pretty good at least. So that's a positive like from the health side of things. So that's a good vibe. >> Yeah. >> But you got kids at home, Luke, I can't remember. >> Yeah, I have actually 18 months today. I got one daughter. So she's hanging a daycare while we're recording and stuff. So I'll go pick up in a little bit. >> Cool, yeah, I've got a, we're about, when was your kiddos birthday? >> January 23rd, 25. >> Okay, so yeah, your one year old is just like a month older than mine. But I find my, she's my second, but that age, they're so destructive and just exhausted. >> Yeah. >> Like I get, get home from work and like she loves to go through it like our dogs. Like dog food thing and she's pulling out dog food so then you clean that up and then you turn over and she's pulling dishes out of stuff. Like they just, you're just cleaning up messes. Yeah, it's crazy. But. >> Definitely, it's more fun though. You know, she's so much more interactive and just doing stuff. So it's, you know, just kind of following us around, which is nice. >> Yeah, I'll have her just be a potato on the floor. >> So. >> Yeah, I tell everybody that I never love the newborn phase. Like isn't my favorite phase. But the toddler, like my three year old, were besties. She's like, she's the best. >> Yeah. >> Okay, so let's dive into it. I know you and I kind of got in touch because you kind of have a unique story in terms of like your start, not start up, but your ownership journey being a little bit different. And you know, like a lot of people on the podcast, I'm pretty pro startup. In fact, this week, in just the last couple days, I've had two or three phone calls from listeners that like, man, my associateships not working out and I, you know, want to be an owner and they want to do startups. So I don't know what's in the water in July. But I've been doing a lot of startup talks. But it's kind of cool to hear the stories of guys that have done well with the, you know, like buying in an existing practice. And so I know you kind of went down that journey. But I think that could be the focus of our talk today is, is, is that backstory. So if you want to kick us off, like I like to do, maybe tell me a little about where you're from and your background and your training and all that good stuff. >> Yeah, yes, your thing. So my dad was in the Air Force, so I kind of moved around a lot. So I was born in England, a bunch of different states, but settled in, settled in Georgia for high school. And then I went to EGA for undergrad, stayed in Georgia, went to Augusta for the dental college of Georgia for my dental training and stayed there for residency as well. So I was just in Georgia for school for 10 years, I guess. Met my wife in dental school. She's a GP and then we went up to Richmond, Virginia after finishing my residency. Just kind of a dart on the map, kind of thing, just for something different. You know, we didn't have kids yet. I just wanted to kind of go see different cities we knew. Kind of ultimately knew that we were going to settle back in Georgia, either in my hometown or my wife's hometown. So we wanted to kind of get out and do something before we were too, you know, kind of locked in. Loved it up there. You know, worked at a DSO, got a lot of experience, saw a ton of patients, but also kind of quickly went from never wanting to own anything to very quickly wanting to own something. Just kind of the- >> Well, you know, DSO will do that to you, you know? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, I think it was a great first job, you know, I was making really good money. You know, got a lot of experience. But also got to see kind of the things that I didn't like and things that I wanted to change. You know, just seeing how much money I was making. Other people was kind of tough. You know, and I was like, hey, you know, if I own this and actually run it the way I want to, then some of the frustrations I'm having hopefully won't be there. I'm going to have different frustrations with owning, obviously, but still just kind of being able to make it something of my own. You know, I just more and more realized that that's something I wanted to do. So really, that was kind of the five or ten-year plan. It was going to be to try to buy something or do a startup. But my wife in Dunwoody, which is where I'm at now, Dunwoody, Georgia, it's like a little suburb outside of Atlanta. She, this office, she actually shadowed a couple times before Dunel School. So we knew this office was here. We kind of knew, kind of had it in the back of our mind like, hey, you know, it'd be cool to buy that office someday because we know that we're likely going to end up back in Dunwoody. It's a cute little office. It's been around for a while and nice and established. And, you know, that was just kind of the five years minimum plan, but hopefully longer just to kind of build up, you know, more just kind of experience and time and capital and stuff. But then I ended up just kind of reaching out to the seller just to kind of say, hey, you know, just to get to know her, just that way whenever the time did come to sell. I was kind of at the top of her mind. And she was like, well, hey, I'm glad you reached out because the practice is already, it's listed right now. I'm trying to retire this year. And I was like, wow, that's great. But also like, I'm not, I'm not ready to do this yet. You know, I've only been out for two years. Actually at the time, I'd only been out for a year and a half. And I was like, I'm really not trying to buy anything yet. Like we'd, we'd just gotten comfortable and settled and rich men. You know, we'd only been there a year and a half. And we're like, oh, we're really about to just uproot and move back already. But then after kind of talking to her and getting into the weeds about the practice and stuff, I was like, nah, that's, that's, that's what I want to do. You know, and I remember whenever I had my, my first phone call with, or one of my first or second phone calls with the seller, my wife, and I, you know, she kind of gave me a pet talk and she was like, right, you know, we, the earliest we can do this is, you know, January 2026 or something like that. And I get, and we're, that's, that's it. Like if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Like that's, that's just, that's our timeline. And then I go and I talk to her for an hour on the phone and just kind of talk about everything and finally hang up and slowly walk back into the living room and just kind of peek my head into my wife's like, we're, we're, we're moving aren't we? We're fine. I think so. Was that practice for sale? Was it for sale for a while and had been sitting there or did you jump on it pretty quickly? Um, I think it had been, it had been up, I think, for about maybe four or five months before I bought it. It had a ton of interest, I think. I think it, it hadn't, you know, sold quite yet, maybe because of what we're talking about today. Um, I actually know, um, one of the, um, one of the dentists that got pretty, pretty far into the process with her. Um, we actually know each other now. We're kind of in like a little mini study club together and stuff, which is pretty fun. So, um, but, um, but yeah, yes, it, it had been up for a little bit and then we, um, kind of started talking. We had to get through the process pretty quick because I had a, a six months, um, six months notice at my job at the D. It's because I did this kind of pseudo partnership buy in little, you know, like 10% ownership, kind of thing of the practice. And so, um, with that, the, um, you had a, a 60, or six months notice instead of 30 days that, so we had to kind of get things, get things rolling, um, because she was trying to, the, the sellers deadline was like July 1st. Um, and so I was like, well, I gotta let them know as soon as I can. So we kind of, kind of went through things quick. Was this, uh, practice, you know, and we'll get into the details here, but was this, uh, you know, fairly modern like this was the cat's pajamas of practices like, like busy, nice, good aesthetics in a good area, you know, where it could demand a high price, like at face value or, you know, you get the ones that you're, you know, you're buying a fixture upper where it's old and it's going to need a lot of updating. Like, what was kind of the, the face value when you first looked at that practice of kind of the image it was giving? I think, uh, it's kind of a hybrid. I mean, it's definitely, it's very clean, very put together, but a little dated, you know, that's, that's kind of the, now that we're, you know, kind of cooking a little bit, I'm, I'm hoping to kind of revamp and do a little bit of, like, new floors and some paint and stuff like that. But the office actually flooded, like, five or six years, I think five years before I bought, um, so all of the equipment is, you know, five years old. Well, now it's, now it's seven, but that was, that was kind of a nice little factor there. So instead of buying a practice with 20 year old chairs and 20 year old, you know, everything, it's everything was pretty much brand new. So that was, that was a nice little factor that kind of came into play, um, to, to maybe increase the, you know, increase the value a little bit. It's, uh, you know, fee for service or, you know, fully, uh, fully at a network, we, we still, um, like, we'll, we'll take a sign of the benefits. So like, we're, it's, it's kind of that hybrid, like fee for service kind of thing, but, you know, no, no insurances that were contracted with or anything though. So that was a huge, you know, that was a huge draw. Um, there's not really that many practices in our area. Um, it's a, you know, it's a nice kind of upper middle-ish class, little suburb outside of Atlanta. There's my office. There's a big DSO across the street, which is ironically one of our kind of better referral sources, kind of for second opinions and stuff. Um, and then there's another kind of similar sized office, um, a few miles down the street. That's, um, also kind of out of network and stuff. So Ladakh. And then there's the only other one directly in town is, um, it's a, uh, husband and wife, you know, GP, Pito kind of combo. So, so there's not really a ton of just straight direct competition. for it, which was nice too, considering it's in Atlanta or Atlanta-ish, which is obviously a pretty saturated area. So that's just kind of a little, I don't want to say unicorn, but definitely a lot of little factors like that that came into play. It's also right in the center downtown, if you want to call it that, Dunwoody doesn't really have much of a downtown, but it's as central as it could be probably the area with the Misfit traffic, so it's definitely a prime location for the office, about a half mile from the neighborhood that we knew we wanted to buy a house in, so I can meet it takes three minutes, which is great. All those little, just kind of, external factors definitely came into play a lot. To adding value apart from just the classic kind of percent of revenue kind of thing. Yeah, I was curious, like if this was a situation where like my practice where you guys are living in an outer ring of Atlanta and your wife is driving one direction and you're driving out further, you know, like how far, just to paint the picture of the community, like is this, you know, kind of its own standalone town that's more out in Farmville, but is a better in community or is it still actually a suburb of sorts where like what's a community like? I'd say definitely just like suburb, like we're right outside of the perimeter of Atlanta. And it's, you know, honestly feels kind of like a little bubble and it's just, it's got a ton of just, you know, it's got really good schools, ton of kids, it's grown pretty quick. It's like, I guess kind of a subset of the Sandy Springs area, it's kind of the larger area. And, you know, but definitely kind of a little bubble, you know, growing a lot, a lot of nice, just kind of, I mean, most of my patients are going on the little private, little Catholic schools and stuff around and stuff like that. So the, that's, you know, I guess take that as you will. I mean, it's a nice patient population. Is your wife working or what's your wife doing for work when she found out you guys are moving back? Yes, she, she found a job. We moved first. You know, we wanted to get there because I bought the practice. We moved June 30th of 24th, close on the practice July 1st. So there wasn't really any overlap or anything. Like I wasn't into sociator, anything like that. I just kind of bought, bought straight out. And then once we got kind of settled, she found a job. She, it was, it was, it was okay, not the best fit, but then she went on maternity leave and then when she came back from maternity leave, she found a new job that she's been liking a lot more. She's been there about a year now. Okay. Good. So what was it? What was it about the practice when you had that phone call with the selling doc? You know, what were the things you were looking for or put another way? What were, what was said in that conversation that were the couple big things that said, man, I got to have this practice. I think just the way she was describing her just kind of life. And I was like, that's, that's what I wanted. I mean, I mean, just, just, just, you know, just not having to deal with insurance, you know, except being in the DSO, you know, we were, I was kind of outskirtsish of Richmond. So, you know, we're very Medicaid heavy. And Virginia actually has really, really good Medicaid reimbursements, but Georgia not, not quite as, not quite as hot. But, but just seeing some of the fee schedules and just seeing some of the, you know, doing a, doing a class too on a scream and four year old and getting like $70 for it. And then I get my percent of that, you know, like this is just crazy. And so, so just talking to her about just not having to worry about that. It's like, this is how much the filling costs and you get that every time. I'm like, that's, that's nice. That's, that's kind of the dream. You know, the fact that it's already like that instead of having to drop insurances over time and stuff like that. So, the, so the, the out of network thing was a huge, that was a huge pull. And, and then just talking, I think she said she typically was taking like 12 weeks of vacation. You know, so a lot of time off. The office is only three days a week. It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday from seven to five. So, that, I kind of knew, had a lot of growth potential as well. Because, obviously, you know, can open up a fourth day over time, rather than buying a practice that's already slammed five days a week and you can't really, it's kind of hard to grow. I mean, I'm, I'm still nowhere, anywhere close to capacity or like needing an associate or anything. So, if we get to that point, that's, that's great. You know, and it, and it's, that just means we're really, you know, doing, doing well. But, are you two, four days a week? Have you added a day yet or you at three currently? We, we started doing like one, one clinical, I started having my front desk come in for a half day on Thursday to at least like answer phones and stuff. Because we do get a lot of calls on the days off. And then we have at least one clinical Thursday a month where we'll just usually, you know, just kind of see how the schedule ends up doing at least like eight to eight to noon, sometimes eight to eight to two if it starts to fill up more. And then I just recently started doing IV sedation. We had our first day last Thursday. So, the hope is to do at least once a quarter, do a sedation day on a Thursday, have that other clinical Thursday. So, you know, every few months have two Thursdays. In the summer, we did like every other, or we've done every other Thursday because it's obviously busier. And then around the holidays kind of a flex schedule based on when the holidays landed and stuff like that. Okay. So, could you maybe go into the weeds as much as you feel comfortable doing just kind of talking about, you know, the, the valuation? What was she asking, you know, relative to collections? And then like what the lending process looked like? Like let's shift and kind of get in the weeds there. Because I think people will be interested to hear, you know, your details on that. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, that's kind of what made me want to, you know, reach out in the first place because I was listening to your podcast, I think with, is there any milk, I think, she's up in pencil, many of us. And, yeah. So, I was listening to that one and, you know, and just a lot of the other startup episodes and I was like, man, like, you know, these are, you know, obviously not every startup goes that, you know, grows that fast and stuff. So, those are kind of the unique, the unique ones that are fun to hear about. And then I was like, man, you know, as far as acquisitions go, I feel like mine's kind of unique. It's as far as the numbers. And so, I wanted to do this that way if somebody is kind of looking to buy and, you know, they get kind of scared by the valuation, just, you know, kind of hopefully letting somebody know that just because it's not the classic 80% of collections that you hear about doesn't necessarily mean to bad, you know, bad decisions. So, mine, my, my evaluation was 130% of that year's, or the previous kind of average three years collections or whatever. So, obviously kind of off the charts in terms of typical, typical valuations. I mean, I honestly think the 80% is kind of starting to change a bit. I mean, maybe in more like rural areas where there's not quite as much as many buyers. But, you know, I can satirated area like Atlanta. I feel like it's definitely kind of creeping up more and more towards that at least like 100% kind of thing from what I've been hearing from some other people that I know that Bob practices, I think DSO's might kind of play a part in that. I think I think they're, I don't know, but I mean, it could have been maybe a DSO offer that then just kind of became the price, but I don't know. There wasn't really too much negotiation to be had. And then, you know, I guess fortunately for the seller, I already kind of knew that this was like, this was the practice that I wanted, you know, even before kind of talking numbers. You know, like we already knew about the practice. We already knew that this is where we wanted to be. You know, if I was just looking for a practice to buy, it likely, you know, probably wouldn't have done this one just from, you know, from a business kind of standpoint, but just kind of all those extra factors in knowing that this is where we want to be and just kind of knowing what what I wanted to grow it into and just kind of the potential I could see in it. You know, we decided to kind of, to kind of go for it. So there wasn't a lot of negotiation back and forth. We kind of laid out like, I want this is like my asking price and this is how long I want to stay on for like you didn't try to get it, get negotiated too hard. You just found a way to make it happen. I mean, try to get the price. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say, you know, the price, the price is firm. I would say. Sure. And the price is firm and then, you know, and I was willing to make it work, you know, and I think another factor was, I was 30 when I bought it, you know, and I was like, hey, you know, that worst case, I'm 45 and this thing's paid off, which is still pretty sweet. That's a good position to be in. So it hopefully sooner, you know, I mean, I'm going to hopefully start at some point and make extra payments. But that was another thing. I mean, I think getting in early makes a higher valuation a little less scary. Sure. Well, I mean, it's still scary, but just kind of knowing the extra time I'm going to have on the back end versus if I had, you know, done this when I was 40 and, you know, then I'm paying the practice off 155. So I feel like I feel like having the, having the kind of time on my side of the ownership was another kind of factor that made it a little easier of a pillow to swallow, you know. So I guess not necessarily a, not necessarily the best business deal, you know, but it doesn't still mean that it wasn't a good decision, you know, to mean it's kind of the, I guess, the premise or the point I'm trying to make. Yeah, for sure. Tell me about lending. What about, you know, was that not an issue taking these numbers to a bank and saying, like I need a loan for this practice and they looked and said, this is way outside of our, our range. Like were you able to work with local banks? Did you go with the big ones? Like what did the lending process look like? I, I ended up going with provide. I think like one of their kind of things is their, their a little more flexible on that at least kind of getting up to that 100%. And so I was able to get 100% of collections from them and then a little bit of work in capital. And then the rest of it I did owner financing. Oh. And so yeah, yeah. So I've been I just you know I pay her. She just kind of did her own interest rate. She did 5% which was nice because I got a higher rate on on the bank loan which I'm hoping to refinance. But yeah, so that was kind of nice. So I just I had my bank payment and I had the the promise we know. That's cool. - Okay, and that's all automated and contracted and agreed upon and pretty cut and dry. Cool, okay, there's probably on her end some tax benefits to that to not taking such a big bite up from it kind of spreads out. Some benefits, both sides. Tell, did you guys work closely with CPAs or advisors or representatives on both your ends or what kind of team members did you have to make sure that you executed all this correctly? - Yeah, yeah, so my team, I guess, because I read Brian Hanks' book and listened to a bunch of podcasts and stuff like that about assembling your team to buy the practice. And that's where it's funny, 'cause before we got into the numbers, I was reading these books and I'm seeing the 80% collections and stuff, so that's kind of what I'm going into. And all of a sudden I'm like, wait, what's this 130 thing that we're talking about? But yeah, so I had my attorney, had my CPA and we didn't do any brokers or anything like that. - Yes, so I guess that's kind of it. It was just kind of the attorney and CPA that we went through everything. And yeah, my CPA, he was funny. He's like, I'm not gonna, I think he was like, I'm not gonna tell you not to do this, 'cause I can definitely understand, there's a lot of other factors that go into it besides just numbers. He's like, but I do have to say, I don't think I've ever seen one quite this high. And I'm like, somebody's got to have the highest percentage. So why not me? You know, so. Yeah, it's been great. I mean, I would do it again. If you asked me this last year, I might hesitate for a second, but this year, you know, now the things are really kind of starting to roll a good bit. You know, definitely I'd do it again on heartbeat. - Was there a long conversation on your end about how to break up the sale in terms of, how you've put a value on equipment versus goodwill and all of that, or maybe that's more important on the sellers and for her tax reasons, I guess. - Yeah, that was another area that didn't really get too much negotiation stuff in my favor. So I think the equipment side had, I think the value that it ended up having had already been kind of depreciated a lot. So I think the very, very large kind of bulk chunk of what I bought was the goodwill and then a very small portion of equipment 'cause I think that was tax wise a little more in the seller's favor. So, you know, again, nothing necessarily kind of going in my, in my favor, - It's just the process. - But, you know, I mean, other side of that, I mean, you know, I think you can appreciate goodwill over like 15 years or something. So, I'll get little chunks over a longer period of time rather than getting a large chunk in the first handful of years or whatever or something like that. So, you know, you still get to depreciate everything. It's just over different times, I guess, is my understanding or something like that. But, - Yeah, you know, it's like, ultimately, you know, the numbers can be daunting and whether it's 50% or 80% or 130%, or somebody will break your record and be at 140% here one of these days, right? Like, ultimately, if you know that you can show up and do the dentistry and you know what that monthly payment is, you know, as long as you've got cushion, I mean, the nice thing is you guys had some cash saved, you got a working spouse, you know, you kind of fit the, the footprint for somebody that can swing this, you know? Like, as long as that monthly payment, I don't know what the, if there's a rough rule of thumb, you know, 10% or whatever it might be of your profit that you have out of the practice, as long as you can swing that and have breathing room, you know, it's gonna work out to your point. You're gonna be fine. But it's just like, you know, if that monthly payment choose up any extra cash you have left over and then it's like beans and rice every month, that's one of the things you guys guess. - Yeah, no, no, for sure. I mean, and that was definitely the, in the early stage, that's where it was pretty stressful. I mean, we weren't, like, we were profitable, you know, very, very quickly. I mean, there was good cash flow from day one and the first month means July, you know, we had a really strong first month right at the gate. So that was kind of nice, gave us a little buffer there. - Yes. - And then the first six months were interest only, you know, so the payment was a lot lower for the first six months and stuff. - I see. - And then coincidentally, you know, the month my daughter's born is when the overhead jumps up because that's when I start paying the principal. But, you know, so, I mean, it was definitely, it was definitely a pay cut, you know, and we knew that just kind of with kind of where everything was at. But again, just, we were just definitely looking more kind of long-term and just kind of seeing, you know, what we, you know, thought that I could kind of grow it into and turn it into and stuff. And then the seller, she stayed on for six months. She wasn't seeing patients, but just kind of introducing me to parents. She's kind of being there as a familiar face. So that definitely helped with the transition. Because we did do a complete rebrand. The old name was just the seller's name, you know, kind of the classic dentist name thing, which, you know, is tricky. But luckily, the website was DunwoodypediatricDenistry.com, which is as SEO friendly as it gets, you know. So, we already had that locked in. So that's what I changed the proudest name to. It was just DunwoodypediatricDenistry, kind of, kind of refreshed her existing logo. It's like a little smiling sunshine and stuff like that. So just all those little kind of revamps. It took a while for those to stick, but they definitely, you know, started to, you know, now that I've been there for two years, I think it's, we're pretty kind of cemented into the, into the area. And people, people know that I'm here and people know it's me versus the old owner and stuff like that. - What are some other things you did? Maybe not right off the bat, but what are some changes you went in planning to make that, you know, you could start to like, increase the value of this practice a little bit or what changes? Obviously, you know, you don't jump in and overhaul everything and read it, you know, get rid of all the staff right off the bat or anything crazy. So what are some things that you did, either early on or later on, to kind of help grow and improve the practice? - Yes, I did. I kind of added in a couple things. She wasn't doing Zirconia crowns, so I got those and started offering those. We have a little bit of like a whitening and stuff. I'm not doing a lot of it, but we still just kind of offering new services and stuff like that. Now we have the, I mean, it took us two years, but now we have the sedation going, which is another kind of thing. What else? Kind of the chair side space maintainers saved a little bit on the lab fees, you know? But I mean, I'd say the biggest thing that was kind of, in untapped potential that I think is really kind of started to let us kind of take off is, she wasn't really seeing many patients under three. It was just kind of like, come see us when you're three, which I was like, that's, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see them when they're one or six months if you want to be seen. I'm not gonna turn you away. Like if you call them making a appointment, I'm not gonna tell you to come back when you're three. I'm gonna get you on the books. So we, this, this, one of the, the ops kind of right there off the front, has these nice windows and it wasn't really used. It was just kind of a storage room. So I, but I had a dental chair in it. So I took the chair out, got kind of a regular comfy chair, put like these polka dots on the wall and put a changing table in there and kind of made that our little infant toddler room and with a bunch of toys and books. And so I think our, that's been our, I think our biggest thing, 'cause I'll go to all these daycares and elementary schools and stuff. And, you know, and now we're seeing a ton of one and two, most of our new patients are under three. And so now we're seeing them rather than them calling the next office and never seeing us. So I think that's been really big. Kind of having that and just, and I'll spend, like it'll be me and they're doing the toothbrush prophy or the little cordless prophy and stuff. And I'll talk to the parents about diet and hygiene. And I mean, sometimes I'll be in there for 30, 45 minutes if they're, you know, if they have questions and stuff. 'Cause we'll try to put those closer to lunch kind of later in the morning. 'Cause once school starts, we have a harder time kind of feeling the middle of the day. So that's where we'll try to focus our kind of toddler visits. And so I think just making that really, that really, really big kind of impact in that first visit has been big, especially if they had been to the DSO previously and, you know, maybe waited an hour and weren't really, they were just kind of like, hey, cool, here's your varnish. Like let's see, you know, come see us later. So then I'm spending all this time with them. And I think that's been a really big, you know, kind of getting to the mom groups and stuff like that, which has been pretty good. - Yeah, that's part of a fee for service office. Like on a summer day like today, we're just packing them in every 30 minutes and it's a giant, you know, just really hectic day. It's like the idea of, if you have a mom who's really invested and wants to talk to you and you can just sit for 20, 30 minutes in chat about stuff, like there's a lot of days and like, I see the appeal why that type of practice lifestyle would be pretty killer for sure. - Yeah, I mean, it's pretty sweet, you know, I mean, that's, X-Men, I can see like 20 kids and we're cooking, you know, and also like when it comes like the growth and stuff too, I mean, 'cause practice is pretty stagnant when I bought it. You know, she'd kind of definitely slowed down a lot. It wasn't really growing too much and I think like, there were like 20, 22 new patients in the six months leading up to when I bought. So it was like like three, maybe four a month or so and most of those were like siblings of existing patients. So, but once we got going, I got the kind of the baby room going, I think in my first six months we had 40. So that was already kind of doubling the rate. And then last year, I think we had 192. And then this year we've already passed 200. So we're getting about 30 new patients a month, which in pediatric, you know, like you hear, you know, we're getting 150 new patients a month and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, but 30 patients in a fee for service offices is kind of like 100 with my old fee schedules, you know what I mean. And we're on the other side. three days a week, you know, so I feel like that's, you know, our rate of growth has been really, really strong with that. And we're just kind of loading the practice with all these young, young kids that are going to be with us for a long time, you know, so because we did have pretty heavy attrition when I bought it wasn't, you know, it was nothing personal, but it was just because it hadn't really been growing too much or there weren't really many young kids coming in, the average age, I would say it was definitely kind of older, those pediatric offices, you know, a lot of older teenagers that had been going there since they opened, you know, it was, I think it had been open about 18 years before I bought. So all these kind of older teenagers, you know, kind of left, you know, it wasn't anything personal, but it was just, you know, they're like, I don't need to see a new pediatric dentist, I'm going to go to my parents' dentist now, yeah, so we lost, you know, definitely lost a good chunk of, of kind of right at the get-go, but as far as the young patients, though, you know, like the six-year-old, seven-year-olds, I mean, you know, kind of few and far between of ones that actually left when she retired. So which is good, because those are the ones that you want to keep, those are the ones you care more about. Those are the ones, those are more the, you know, the long-term patients that you're trying to focus on. It's a now that we're growing a lot more, and they're pretty much, you know, all three and under, we're kind of replacing the teenagers we lost with these three-year-olds that are going to be here for the next hopefully, you know, 15 years, which has been good, so. For sure. I've heard that on a couple other docs talking that, if you buy an existing practice, that's really established, that tends to have that older teenage patient base. Yeah. And so if you don't like doing that type of dentistry too, you know, that can be kind of a tough transition, but what are you doing on your, you know, you, so you're doing three days a week, what are your Thursdays and Fridays? Are you spending a fair amount of time on those days doing admin and marketing type stuff, or do you have, are you trying to do non-denistry stuff just to keep a good work life balance? What are your days off, looking like? Yeah. I mean, so usually pop into the office a little bit on Thursdays, and just kind of just kind of do some admin stuff. Like I do the profit first kind of money management thing, if you're familiar, and so Thursdays, that's my allocation day. So like I'll go and kind of run the numbers, do the reports, and do my transfers, and stuff. So that's always kind of fun just to get my coffee and do some basic kind of basic admin stuff. And then I work, I do PRN with DSO, usually like once or twice a month on Fridays. I'm actually, I'm working tomorrow. And, but it's pretty nice actually, actually enjoy it. It's funny how, how different it is when doing PRN at a super busy office like that. The one I go to is 730 to 2, so it's kind of a shorter day, which is nice. But I'll still see, I think I'll see like 100, one of the, one of the days from 730 to 2, I think I saw 104 patients was the highest. It's only me. It's like four columns of treatment, and then like eight columns of hygiene. But it's, it's kind of fun because you know, I don't, I don't have any of the stress of, you know, I don't have to worry about anything else. I just kind of turn my brain off and just see a bunch of patients and just kind of power through, make some good money for the day, which is just the complete opposite mindset of when I was doing it four days a week. And all these things that I want to change, that I don't really have any power to change, you know, so it's, it's kind of funny how it's, I wouldn't say it's relaxing, but it's, it is kind of, it's a nice contrast to my, to the days of my office. Just to, and also I do a lot of treatments. It's a good way to kind of keep up, because you know, right now, you know, I mean, a, just my patient population is smaller, but also I would say we're a pretty, pretty low carries rate area. And overall, I don't really have a ton of full-mouth cases. As we're growing, I'm starting to get a few more. And I mean, I've been seeing a lot more special needs patients recently. So that's kind of what sparked the IV thing to get that going. But in general, I mean, it's like most kids, like they might have like one, one DO on B, or you know, or something like that. And then some sealants. And it's, it's pretty, pretty minimal treatment-wise. So there's days I don't have any treatment at all. And I'm just doing hygiene checks, which is fine. But then I'll go, yeah, you know, very, very different from, you know, my, my last, uh, definitely different from my last job. And certainly different from my, my PRN job, because then tomorrow I'm going to go do, you know, 30 ops in six hours. So it's definitely a good way to, you know, get a month's worth of treatment in a day or two and just kind of keep, keep my, you know, keep my speed up and stuff like that. So it's been kind of a fun balance and just a good way to kind of get some extra money. And we usually just try to throw that in the student loans. Nice. That comes in. So yeah. What's the future kind of hold? Like what are your goals for your practice now over the next five years? You know, you kind of mentioned you want to add a day, like try to keep growing your new patients. Is there anything else you can think of? Like areas, you kind of want to add services to add, marketing things, like things to change, things to do. Like what are your goals with the practice? Either, and it could even be on the number side of things. Like, you know, you said start paying ahead on the loans. That's a good idea too. But just like, what are your goals for the practice going forward? Yeah, no, sure thing. Yeah, I mean, you know, I have kind of my new patient goals, you know, like this year, my goal, I think, was 250 and we're already at 200. So we're obviously going to pass that and stuff. So just kind of continuing to grow, trying to get, like this year, I think we should be pretty close back to, you know, because with the attrition, I mean, I definitely, I produced less than she was last year. Again, still, you know, still profitable. Still, we're still still doing just fine. But this year, we're going to, I think, get, be getting pretty close to back up to where she was, which means that hopefully next year, we're just kind of a clips in that. I think so far this year, we're, I think, I can't remember what, what I'm at. But compared to the first seven months of 25, I think we're like 56%, you know, higher. So we've been growing, yeah, yeah, definitely growing pretty quick, which is great. But as far as and with that, you know, comes now, I actually have some extra money to invest back in the practice. And so, you know, I want to, I just, I bought a sewing at, at AAPD, which, which has been pretty fun. I just bought some new, I got some Ergo loops. And so it's been kind of fun actually being able to have the extra money to, to, you know, kind of buy some toys to the practice. I want to try to do the floors and stuff. I want to get a, I want to get a scanner. I think I think it'd be fun to circums some digital stuff going. Maybe like some night guards and sports guards and then also just helping with them, like peg laterals and just different, different, like little things that you can do with that. I'd love to get a light scalpel and start doing some for neck to me, and kind of getting into that kind of realm. Maybe some limited ortho, you know, so just all just, you know, just, just kind of gradually adding some services and stuff. But really just right now, just kind of focusing on just building the, just building the patient base. And just, you know, just kind of keep growing hygiene. Because if we do, I mean, if we keep going at this rate, you know, I mean, if we have, if we end up getting 300 new patients this, this year, then hopefully we get more than that next year. And so I mean, at a certain point, we'll have to open up kind of every Thursday and then maybe even eventually every other Friday or something like that. So just, just kind of, just kind of keep, keep growing that. And then as far as like marketing, pretty, pretty minimal right now, honestly, I have like a $500 Google ad budget. And then I have my SEO guy that just kind of updates the website and stuff. So that's been kind of nice to, you know, it's not like I'm throwing five grand a month into marketing. So, so as we grow, I figure, I mean, if I do throw more into that, maybe it, you know, I know it's like an investment kind of thing. But, but so far, I haven't really felt the need to increase it. We've had a, I think word of mouth is kind of the biggest thing. And I go to a lot of the schools in the area during February, if you're Donald Health Month, I went to like 15 schools and I go myself, I do the, these old presentations, give out toothbrush bags and stuff like that. And so that's, I think that's where our biggest kind of growth has been coming from. I started that last year and then I think it was April, April and March is where we really started to see our first uptick and new patients. And a lot of them were like, oh, yeah, you can't go to my kids school. So, so I think that's definitely, you know, continuing that I think is going to be a big, a big one for sure. Yeah. So Luke is like kind of my wrap up question here. If somebody was listening to this and came to you and they were in a similar situation where they wanted to buy an existing practice, but they thought the price was high, you know, somewhere over, you know, to your point, I think 100% of collections is definitely more common now like you see that quite a bit if it's a good practice. But if it's above that and, but it checks a lot of their boxes, what kind of advice or what would be the verbiage you would tell them or things to consider or things that you've learned, like what would be your advice to them? Yeah. Now for sure. I think I think just the biggest thing is just if it's a practice that you, if it's practice you like, if it's practice that you, you know, have maybe some extra ties to whether it's, you know, hometown, more like emotional side of things and just kind of personal side of things, you know, don't don't be scared. Don't don't turn it away just because it's above what the book says of 85% or whatever, you know, like you go on, you'll go on like a real world dentistry and dental clinical pearls and somebody's like, hey, there's this practice or sale and you have a lot of this people like, that's more than 85%. There's no chance. You should never buy that. That's way overvalued and I just, I read that and I just laugh and like, what if they knew I did 130%. And, you know, but just I'd say just don't, you know, don't get scared, don't get scared from it. I mean, I think, I think just looking at the other kind of factors that come into play and just and just knowing if this is, if this is something you can see yourself putting some extra time, you know, definitely some extra time and extra effort into to kind of get it going to maybe hit those numbers sooner and they can make more sense. I mean, that's something to kind of look at. But don't necessarily just turn it away just because it's not that specific percentage that they say. Because for mine, again, I would say it's not necessarily a good business deal in terms of just historical dental practices, but for me, it was definitely still the right decision. And just kind of knowing what we wanted to turn it into, for sure. Cool. Let's see, to sign off here, should we-- if you got some contact info here, Luke, you could drop. If somebody wants to pick your brain on the Atlanta area or a fee-for-service office setup, how you've done that, that would be good. Or buying a practice that is a little over market value. What's a good contact info or way to get in touch with you? You can do it. Probably email. It's a long one because our website's long. But it's Admin, like administrator. So ADMIN at Donowitty, which is d-u-n-w-o-o-d-y, pediatricdenistry.com. Sweet. Dude, thanks for hopping on and sharing the stories. It's like a really cool, unique episode and a fun conversation. So I'm glad you came up with the idea. I think I don't do a lot of justice for the guys out there, guys and gals that want to do buy out of existing practice versus a scratch start. So definitely some listeners will find a lot of value in this one. So thanks for making it happen. Yeah. That's your thing. I'm definitely-- like you said, it's a good clickbait title. It's a great clickbait title. Yeah, I don't want to use it. Yeah, I love it. All right, Luke, man. Well, thanks for coming on your day off. We'll stay in touch, buddy. OK? Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate it. All right, thanks, man. [BLANK_AUDIO]