Want to Sell Your Practice Someday? Start Thinking About It Now. | IP 197

What happens to your practice when you're ready to walk away? 

Most private practice owners have no idea. 

Lord knows I sure didn’t when that day came for me.

And this week's guest, Dr. Ruth Mannschreck, believes that's a problem - and she wants you to KNOW what to do. 

A dentist, practice strategist, and founder of Shoreline Strategies, Ruth helps practice owners create businesses that run more efficiently today while also becoming far more valuable tomorrow.

So in this episode, we’ll talk about how to prepare your business to sell - information you need. 

But what surprised me about this conversation was that it's not really about selling your practice at all. It's about building a business that isn't completely dependent on you, one that can survive and thrive even after you’re gone.

There are many reasons you may want to step away from your practice some day. Retirement is the obvious one, but there are many others.

So whether you're thinking about an exit in five years or twenty-five, the lessons in this episode can help you create a healthier practice, a stronger team, a better client experience, and more options for your future.

And isn't that a good thing? :)

In this episode, you'll hear...

1. The four pillars of a healthy practice that's ready to sell.
2. Why most owners wait far too long to think about their exit strategy (and what to do instead.)
3. How Ruth cut her clinical hours in half while ultimately doubling her revenue. (Wait a minute. Whaaaa?!)
4. Why systems, culture, and team ownership matter WAY more than most owners realize.

And really, we’ll talk about how creating a practice worth selling means creating a healthier business right now… so that you can build a practice that serves your clients well today without trapping you in it forever.

Ruth also created a free resource that walks through the framework we discussed in today's episode. Visit www.PrepItNow.com to grab a checklist to help you begin thinking strategically about your own future.

I wish I'd known all of this when I started my practice. 

Don't wait. 

~Wendy

P.S. There are MANY reasons why you will one day want to walk away from your practice... so this conversation is worth hearing. What you're building today will bring value and choices to your life tomorrow.

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TODAY’S GUEST:  Dr. Ruth Mannschreck  

Mannschreck is a dentist, practice management strategist, and founder of Shoreline Strategies. After spending more than 30 years in private practice, she learned firsthand how systems, culture, and leadership can dramatically improve both quality of life and business performance. Following the sale of her own practices (twice!), she became passionate about helping other owners avoid the mistakes she made and prepare their businesses for successful transitions. 

Today she helps private practice owners reduce their workload, strengthen their teams, and build practices that can thrive long after they're ready to step away.

Her website: www.ShorelineStrategies.com  

A Free Resource: www.prepitnow.com  

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ruthmannschreck

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WANT to BE a GUEST on the podcast?

We are currently scheduling interviews for the 2nd half of the year. If you have a clear message, an engaging style, and a heart for healers, let's meet!
 
Submit your application right here.

Transcript

Wendy Pitts Reeves 0:00

You're listening to Ideal Practice episode number 197. Today, guys, we're going to talk about something we have not covered here, or we have barely touched on it, and that is what it takes to design, develop, run, and prepare a private practice that one of these days you can sell. So, stay tuned. Hi, I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves, and with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, I've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy, alignment, and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered, but people forward. This is the Ideal Practice Podcast. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Ideal Practice Podcast. This is Wendy, Wendy Pitts Reeves, your host. And as always, I'm excited to be hanging out with you today, and I love the conversation we're about to have.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:20

As you will hear in this discussion, there was a moment at the beginning of this when I thought, I don't know, is this too much? Is this too technical? Is this beyond the reach of you guys, my audience, or for that matter, honestly myself? But the further we went in this conversation, the more I realized that was not the case. What Dr. Ruth Manchreck has to share today is something actually you can totally use and you need it. And I am so glad I had this conversation.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:51

Ruth Manchreck is a dentist. She's a practice management strategist, and she's the owner and founder of Shoreline Strategies, an LLC in Michigan. She's had over 30 years of private practice, and along the way, she has transformed her own business in some pretty dramatic ways that you'll hear about. And today she's helping other people do the same thing through her program. She has two. One is called Built to Run Itself, and the other is called Prep It to Sell. That first one comes from her stories. She built a successful dental practice from the ground up early on when she was raising two little boys, and then everything changed when she had a daughter who was born with some pretty serious medical complications. That experience required Ruth to be present in a way that she could not do with a full-time practice. And essentially, in a very short time, she cut her practice in half, going from 40 hours to 25 hours a week, guys. You'll hear her talk about this. And in spite of that change, in the end, that practice rebounded and succeeded, not succeeded, exceeded its previous revenue. I think she doubled it actually. It was really kind of amazing what came out of that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 3:04

And then there's been lots of experience and growth since then. So she has a lot to share with us that I think you're going to find helpful and useful, and it's going to make you think more strategically about how to be a successful business owner with a long-term view, a long-term vision for what you're building here.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 3:25

I'm going to tell you something. If you're in your 30s and you are just getting your practice off the ground, and it maybe it's just you, or you've got maybe one or two pre-licensed individuals who are joining you, and it's all very exciting, and it's all about growth and newness, that's a lovely time to be alive, and it is so much fun and daunting and overwhelming, but all good, right? But there will come a time in your life when you're going to have a reason where you might want something different. You're going to want to walk away.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 3:58

It may be that you want to move and reestablish your practice somewhere else. It may be that you want to retire. It may be that you want to step into a completely different career path. It may be that you're just tired of running a business and you want to go off and rent an office somewhere, right? It's different for different people. But there will come a time when what you are building now, you will want to have something on the other side of this. You will want something different.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 4:25

And wouldn't it be cool if when that day comes, whether it's five years from now or 25 years from now, wouldn't it be awesome if when that day comes, you did not just close your practice and refer your clients out? Wouldn't it be great if when that day comes, you had a practice you could sell so that you could reap the investment of all of those years of work. I did not know how to do this. I did not even know this was a thing. I had nobody in my life to talk to me about this, and I wish I had. But you, my friend, you're lucky. You do have somebody in your life, and it's me, and today it's Ruth Manchreck.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 5:08

So tune in, stick with this all the way through because it gets clearer as the conversation goes on, okay? And with that, let's get in to the interview. All right, welcome to another episode of the Ideal Practice Podcast, everybody. You've already heard a little bit about my guest today. I just told her that when I look at all the different things that she can talk about, I really kind of wanted to talk about all of them. So it's gonna be a challenge for me today. But let's go ahead and get started. Ruth, come on board and say hi to everybody.

Ruth Mannschreck 5:41

Hi, Wendy. It's so great to be here. I can't wait to speak with your audience.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 5:46

Thank you. You have a very different story than what we have had on here before. So uh for first of all, you're the first dentist I've had.

Ruth Mannschreck 5:55

Oh, good. Good.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 5:57

I think that gives you some kind of special spot. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And I have long heard actually that dental practices are a really good resource to learn from, that they're very profitable, but it takes a lot to make them work. And it's a really like it's not something that's not an area that I know a lot about, but what so I'm kind of interested in learning a little bit more about it. Sure. But let's start here. Tell everybody a little bit about where I like to start, which is where are you in the world and who do you serve and how do you serve them?

Ruth Mannschreck 6:29

So I'm in Michigan, beautiful Michigan, in the states, and I serve professionals in private practice. Can be a solo practice or a group practice. Their two biggest complaints are one, I work too many hours, my practice is all consuming, and two, how do I get my business, my practice ready to sell?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 6:49

Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 6:50

So those are the two areas that I focus on.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 6:53

Okay. And we have never talked on here. I don't think I've had anybody talk about getting your practice ready to sell. Or if we do, I don't remember it. So I don't think we've done that. So you have, when we met before, I was struck by the story that you have that got you into this. Can you you want to start with that? Just tell us that story?

Ruth Mannschreck 7:11

Sure, sure. So I started my dental practice from scratch, and we were moving right along. I was practicing five days a week. We had two little boys. Then my daughter was born. She had a very complicated birth. She was in the hospital for, she was in intensive care for weeks. And when she came home, she had to see eight different doctors every week. And so I had to go to my team and say, we're gonna take our five days a week and we're scrunching it down to two and a half. That is non-negotiable. I can give you two and a half days, that's it. The rest is for my daughter. And we did it. The the main areas that we focused on were our systems, making sure our system, we changed them completely. Our systems, and then we had to have the right team members, and then to support both of those things, we had to have the right culture. And I wanna I want to really emphasize that it wasn't something that Dr. Ruth figured out all on her brilliant self. I went to my team and said, together, we have to figure out how to make this happen. I don't want to lose people, I don't want to lose patience. I need to cram this down into this much time. So we had to change things. And I'm I'm almost grateful that we were forced to do it because I don't think I would have been as adventuresome in the things that we tried. We experimented with a lot of things, but it was a I have to do this.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 8:44

Yeah, necessity is the mother of invention.

Ruth Mannschreck 8:46

It was perfect. And then my the doctor in the suite next to mine caught me in the hall one day and he said, Ruth, what are you doing? You are never here, and yet your practice is doing so well. Your team is in and out, your patients are in and out. What's going on? How did you do this? And he actually became my first coaching client because we taught him what we had done in our practice. And just to give your audience this little message, there are so there's a lot of differences between a dental practice and your healers. Um but we all have we all have so many similarities. We have people coming to us in a in a panic. In my world, they're in pain, they're anxious, uh, they're angry, they're mad, all these things. Yeah, and we provide this transformation in my office so that when they're finished with our whole thing, their feelings, their emotions are completely different than when they walked in the door. And I think that's one of the biggest commonalities we have as professionals in private practice, as service providers in the healing world. It's not just the physical or the money, money part, it's that emotional transformation that I think we all provide to our clients and patients. And I think that's what makes what we do so transferable to all the different practices that I work with.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 10:24

100%. I actually had a colleague at one point whose niche was helping people with dental anxiety. Because it is a huge issue, especially for trauma survivors. Huge issue. So you're right. There's an the emotional aspect of it, no matter what the situation is, is we have that in common. And we are in the business of helping people who don't feel good get better.

Ruth Mannschreck 10:45

Yes. Right.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 10:46

So you got it. Yeah. Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 10:48

So then we so that's how we started coaching people on how to work fewer hours in their practice as the owner. We then moved on. I sold my first practice, and that I did such a horrible job of selling my practice. That's how we stepped into the world of all the things I should have done in my practice before I let someone purchase the practice.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:15

Okay. So yeah, go ahead. Sorry, don't go ahead.

Ruth Mannschreck 11:18

So much of what we did, so much of what I learned has nothing to do with revenue numbers or number how big is my practice. So many owners feel that, well, I can't sell my practice until it gets this big. I have to have seven or eight figures, or I have to have this bulk of patients or clients that are part of my practice before I can even think of. And that's really you leave so much on the table if you wait for those things to happen. In addition to getting to the revenue number that you want, you also need to get your house in order before you sell. So it's a very similar conversation that I have with owners when they come to me and and say, a broker won't sell my practice because he says I'm not ready. What does that mean? And we help them get their house in order before they're ready. They print right. Right.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 12:14

Let me go back to that that where you started with all this. You had a practice that was worth selling because you were able to not just sustain it, but save it and improve it. Like what what happened? Like, I really like how do you go from 40 hours a week to two and a half days? And assuming that you did not lose any clients and there's only one of you.

Ruth Mannschreck 12:34

Right. Right.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 12:35

I I am curious. Like I what I want to know is like, what did you build out of that? Where did your practice go? So then you had something that was worth selling, and then we'll dig into the selling.

Ruth Mannschreck 12:44

Sure.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 12:44

Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 12:45

And there's so much in all of our practices that has nothing to do with a patient being or a client being in the chair and me delivering services to them. So much. We just don't think about it because all the practice management companies tell us to focus on what's your average chair time cost? You know, what's your average revenue going to be per chair? It makes they make us think only about our service delivery, not only, but in mostly about that number has to be big and substantial or irresistible to a buyer when there's so much more. There I I work with practices and there's so much intellectual property, I'll call it, services or processes that practitioners have perfected and really hum in their business, and they've never thought about turning that into a revenue stream. So there's there's a way, and you need to scour through your practice and say, how am I different? How can I present this when I get ready to sell my practice? So, what we did to answer your question, I got way off base there. To answer your question, we did those three things. We worked through our systems and we started with what I call, everyone can do this, what I call the client journey or the patient journey through your practice from that very first phone call. What do you want to happen? What information has to be collected? What emotion are they feeling in that moment when they call? And at the end of that call, how do you want them to feel? Oh, I love that. What emotion do you want them to feel? Then the next step. Do they get scheduled? Who's responsible for scheduling? What information do they need? And how are they going to hand off the patient to the next step in your process? What comes after scheduling? Then there's diagnostic or collecting information. Maybe there's service delivery. All those steps.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 14:52

The intake. For us, it would be the intake. Yes. Yes. Right. Initial consult.

Ruth Mannschreck 14:57

And think about the emotion of your patient or your client at each of those steps. And what can you do to bring them to a different emotion? Because remember, our transformation that we provide is from the mess that calls us in the beginning to what is it at the end that we want them to feel because that's what they're going to remember.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 15:21

I love that. Okay. And you don't think about that in terms of your systems like you know, answering phone calls and scheduling a client, setting up the console, thinking about the emotional aspect of those very first few interactions. That's a that's a very good point. Love that.

Ruth Mannschreck 15:38

And just making making the patient or client feel heard and appreciated, even in the midst of their mess, you know, that someone listened, looked them in the eye, so to speak, and really heard what they said. Not that it's right or wrong, but just to understand where they are and make them feel heard. That could be the gist of your whole first phone call. But to track that for each client, each patient all along the way, how are they doing? Are they better than the last time they came? Do you see progress? And do you reflect that progress back to your team and to the patient so that everyone sees, everyone is on board for that whole experience? It's the difference between, like I went to my my own physician, and at the end of the appointment, I came out of the little exam room, and the assistant pointed me down the hall and said, Mary down at the desk, I'll take care of you. It's down there. I would never let anyone do that in my practice. We walk our patients down to the desk. We wait for Mary and hand them over with verbal explanations. Mary, this is Ruth. She needs to have this appointment. And to me, they would say, Ruth, this is Mary. She's gonna set up your and tell me what's gonna happen next. So that there's a handoff. It's so important. Yeah. Because things get lost so easily. And that's part of what we did to shorten everything that happened was to tighten up those systems. So I love this saying from one of my favorite books cracks are where the light comes in. So to get rid of those cracks where where information could fall out or a patient could get lost. You had to tighten up all of that together.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 17:35

I love that. So this is an efficiency.

Ruth Mannschreck 17:38

Partly.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 17:39

Partly, but it's also tending to the patient in a more uh intentional and in connected way, I think. Right. Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 17:47

Because if we're gonna shorten face-to-face time with my patients, then what we do give them has to be just brilliant, has to be just all enveloping so they feel totally cared for and they won't mind that it takes less time.

unknown 18:04

Okay.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 18:06

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 18:07

But I have to I have to say we didn't bring our revenue back up to where it was before by shortening our appointments. Because the time spent, the doctor spending time with the patients. It's more complicated than that.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 18:33

I bet it is. I bet it is.

Ruth Mannschreck 18:34

It is, but but the gist of the whole thing is my team and I figured out systems, then we had to have the right team because you have to have empathic, compassionate, very soft skill, heavy team members who can hold that patient's emotional journey all the way through the process.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 18:56

Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 18:57

So we were taking on more of the work ourselves in order to speed it up.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 19:04

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 19:05

So we took responsibility for making sure that our patients, our clients went from emotion to emotion to emotion along their journey, their time in my practice, all the way to follow-up, whatever that means in your office, well checks, touching base, whatever you want to call it. That whole system needs to be seamless, and the energy needs to be so that if someone else does a follow-up phone call, they know exactly what energy they need to bring that patient up to. And it's just like, hi, I'm Mary, and I don't know what you need, but doc said to call you. You know, it it needs to be really emotionally your matching who you're speaking with. And it makes such a difference.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 19:53

What I'm hearing here is that you you just really cleaned things up and tightened the overall process much more consciously. And I'm guessing you had the the the roles that you assigned people, what your team did as whatever their section of that process was, and making sure that everybody was on board about the overall kind of quality of quality of patient care and quality of it's customer service. This is what we're talking about. It's customer service. Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 20:20

And the biggest difference in my team was I went from hiring people who do tasks to hiring people who own a role.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 20:32

Oh, that's a very different way of thinking.

Ruth Mannschreck 20:35

Huge difference. We changed our entire hiring process. Wow. Yeah, it's we did a lot. But it's because you're a normal, run-of-the-meal, breathing person that you want to hire because you're desperate is not going to help you when you're taking responsibility for the flow of the client journey through your practice.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 21:01

So in a counseling practice or a massage practice or an energy healing practice, I'm thinking if you're a solo provider, you may be the only person that ever talks to your client, but there but you can apply the same principle in terms of being more conscious and deliberate about how and when you communicate to them. But if you are running a group practice, which a lot of my listeners do, and a lot of folks I talk to, and you've got, you know, 10 or 12, 15 providers and a boatload of clients coming in all day, you may have front office staff, you may not, like you may or may not have physical office staff, but you may have a digital system or a telephone system, and you can still drop people and still miss things along the way. So I I love this. I do talk about the client journey quite a bit in terms of the overall flow of your business from when people first even are aware that you exist to when they come into services, et cetera. But you're taking this down to a micro level. That's what I like about this. It's a micro level, like literally walk in the door. What happens? And when they walk back out, what happens? Okay, got it. Okay. Owning the role. You're also in in that I'm hearing giving your staff more authority. More authority. Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 22:14

It is. It is with responsibility. Yeah. Has to come authority. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And so think about that. That was a a huge thing in my practice. It's it's dangerous to be in a dental office sometimes. People can die in my office. So I don't take lightly giving people, giving my team members authority because it's my license on the line, it's my patients' lives on the line. So it's not willy-nilly that I say, oh, just let them take care of it. This is this is serious stuff. So someone has to earn the right to take that responsibility on. I give them authority because they've stepped up to owning and being responsible for that. And I have trust in that. So we have a whole process of how do I build trust in my team members over their roles in my practice. How does that work?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 23:14

That's leadership on your part.

Ruth Mannschreck 23:17

And and it's per it's me being responsible for the personal growth of my team.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 23:22

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I love that. I love that, Ruth. That's really cool. Um, and and I would think that that would make your practice stand out. Because even folks who who have a who aren't, quote, the doctor, or in my case, the therapist, or whatever, the practitioner, everybody is important who interacts with those clients in some way. Everybody. And in my world, I would say like even the billing clerk, right? Or even the scheduler or whatever. That's right. The assistant that sends them the paperwork. You're it's it's upping your not just how you do what you do, but the energy you bring to it. I love that.

Ruth Mannschreck 24:00

And you also need a way to communicate with your team members so that when someone, so in my world, we have software, and when the phone rings, it tells us who it is, and there's a place for notes so that before a staff person answers the phone, they can quick read through the notes and know just exactly how she was when she left the office the last time. Okay. What is she anxious about? What's you know, what questions might she have? So that communication has to happen all the way through any of our systems. And so sometimes in a smaller practice, or if you don't have a dedicated practice project management software to use, you have to come up with how are we going to communicate? Where do we store this information and how is it accessible for anyone who might be on the phone, who might be doing emails, or who's going to cross paths with the patient in the hallway.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 24:59

Everyone's awesome. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Ruth Mannschreck 25:01

Everyone needs to adjust to the patient when they see them, when they run into them, when they email them. All of that needs to be provided somewhere so that everybody who's supposed to has access to it.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 25:16

Yeah, she's talking about, I mean, this is an information system, right? So how you're not just your client records, but so that you can quickly access their status, what's where they are, and know what to do. And if you're handing this off to somebody, they need to be able to get that same information. And there's, I mean, there's ways to hand there are ways to do this that are fancy and expensive, and there are ways to do this that are DIY. Sure. There are ways to do this if you've got a small team or if you're just by yourself. But it is that is a really important system that that makes me think about. I won't go into the details, but I had a I had a very robust system for how I kept up with all of my clients and all of my phone calls. And every time I got on a call with somebody, I could easily go back and look at the record of when we had talked before and what we had what we had said, what the action step was, what my responsibility was. Not everybody does that though. I know people who literally scratch notes on a piece of paper and then they lose that paper. So that's great. I love that. And that's uh also efficiency and also client care. Also love it.

Ruth Mannschreck 26:16

Yeah, that communication is a huge piece of it. And the third piece of that, to go all the way around, so it's systems team members is your culture. What I find when I go into practices is that way back at the beginning, the doctor came up with four or five core values, big words, sounded good, put them on a plaque, stuck it on the wall, and that's it. Never heard from again. So what we what we teach is to take those core values and turn them into something tangible. That's the problem with core values. They're ethereal, they're big words, they mean something different to everyone. Like what does excellence mean? Or what does qual good quality mean? It's different for everyone. So we take those core values and turn them into behaviors, okay, identifiable behaviors, so that you can have your team say, that's what compassion looks like, that's what empathy looks like in action. Because if they have a better idea of what your expectations as the owner of how you want your core value big word defined by them and what it looks like in action, because that's what's going to pique your your team members to behave the way you want that word defined. And that's what your patients and clients, when they walk out the door, that's the impression they're gonna walk out with. So you're creating your brand as they walk out because you've wholeheartedly, your whole team has worked together to create this culture that's irresistible to both your team members. So they say, I want to work here. I love this. Yeah. You know, I don't care if you don't pay me as much as the guy next door. This is a great place to work. I want to hang out here.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 28:20

There's a lot to be said for that.

Ruth Mannschreck 28:22

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I yes, I want you to pay your people well because they they've they're working hard to help you achieve your dream goal, you know? And so I want them paid well. But I also want the culture to be irresistible. So they say, Oh, I want to work here. This is where I want to, this is where I want to make a difference.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 28:47

So when I ran a group practice, which I did for 25 plus years, I often would have people who came to work in my practice say that they that it was not a typical group practice. It was so, so different from what they were used to. Because we had a sense of community, and because we had a cohesive, a core, a brand that stood for something in our community, but we also had lots and lots and lots of ways that we supported each other and encouraged people to grow on their own. And it was so we had sort of the benefit of the structure of a group practice and all that comes with that, but also had the flexibility and freedom of individuality inside that. And people would work for not for me, with me, right in a way that they a very different way than it would have been somewhere else. So I know exactly what you're talking about. And I and what I love about this, Ruth, is how cohesive it is. You really are looking at everything from the inside out and upside down, right? Bottom to top, out the end.

Ruth Mannschreck 29:47

And right and it it moves forward. So we're talking about how to make your practice run more smoothly, but it goes all the way to how you get your practice ready to sell.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 30:02

Yes.

Ruth Mannschreck 30:03

Because you're gonna need you need a differentiator when you go to sell a practice, because there are businesses galore that are for sale. What makes yours different? An irresistible culture is one of those things that will come top of mind to the right kind of buyer. Love it.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 30:25

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 30:25

So we're talking about how to improve things on one end, but all the things I talk about are going to have a positive effect on how you get your practice ready to sell. You know, we're talking about turning it into something turnkey because most buyers are not looking for a 70-hour a week job to buy. They would like something that produces money, that produces clients, that gets them in the right location, but they're not looking for 70 hours a week of work. Right, just aren't. Right. You know, and we get so wrapped up in making it because we're having fun. Sure, we work too many hours, but we love doing it and we're helping people, we see all these things, and we don't think about is this sellable? What I have, is it sellable? The way it's set up, the way my systems run, the way my team owns or doesn't own their roles, and the way my culture is irresistible to everybody.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 31:27

And stands out among the competitions. Yeah. Right.

Ruth Mannschreck 31:30

You have to have a way. So to go to to how to sell your business, I I liken it to Goldilocks in the three bears.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 31:40

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 31:41

Because you want a buyer, not just a buyer who has deep pockets and lots of money and can afford your asking price, but you want someone who matches your culture. You want someone who appreciates your team members, you want someone who enjoys your systems and the expediency that they bring, all of that, that's what you want. It's it because if you just go into the transaction looking for money and someone to relieve you from the responsibility of your practice, you're gonna get walked all over.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 32:19

So before you before you get into because you're talking about finding the right buyer, right? Right. Before you get into that, I think we need to start a little bit more basic. Okay, because I I mean I ran a practice for forever and no one ever talked to me about selling it. It wasn't until to the very end that I wished I had had this conversation. And when I think about conversations I've had with colleagues, and I've seen people retire, they just close their practice, right?

Ruth Mannschreck 32:42

I know. I call it evaporating. It's just heartbreaking.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 32:47

Well, let's start really, really basic here because this is, I think this is something that we especially in my world, nobody, we just don't talk about when you what does it mean to sell a practice? What are you selling? Are you selling the building? Are you selling a client list? Are what what are you selling literally?

Ruth Mannschreck 33:05

So unfortunately, so what I see people selling is what I'll call a book of business, just because that's a term. Could be your client charts, or it could be your equipment, it could be your location, it could be your real estate. There are all, I'm not an attorney, there are all different kinds of ways. I encourage people to look at what you're selling and how can I increase the value? It's one of the big tenets of getting your practice ready to sell. How can I increase the value of what I have to offer? So it could have been, it could be as simple as not only do I have a team, but I have a team that's running at 50% capacity. So they are all ready to go if you want to add new patients to my current practice. So that's a selling point. That's because when you go to sell, when you go to sell your practice, you don't just grab your PL and your balance sheet and hand it to a book broker and say, Go find somebody who can afford this. You have to sell it. It's like you're you're running a commercial on TV. You have to have points of interest, you have to have something that increases the value. You need a differentiation. If there were two therapy practices in your town, why should the buyer pick yours over the other practice?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 34:32

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 34:33

You need a competitive advantage. You know, there are lots of things, and these are all things that you're not gonna fix overnight. Like you can fix you can fix a revenue problem in a year or so, but if if you have a culture problem or if you have an employee problem, it's it's gonna take some time. So I hear, in fact, I just this morning heard a business broker say, you should start three to five years before you want to sell your practice. I say, what if we started 10 years? Ten years before we wanted to sell our practice. I have some different ideas on how to sell a practice. When I sold my very first practice, I was told don't tell your don't tell your team until Monday morning after you've made the sale. And stupid little me, I believed them. And that was the the cruelest thing I could have ever done. I was crushed when I saw how that made them feel. So what if, what if we started 10 years before we thought we were gonna sell and said to our team, you know what, in 10 years, I'm probably gonna be gone. So let's spend this 10 years making sure this is the best practice we can put on the market and make you, as my team, so indispensable that the new buyer is not gonna give a second thought to letting you go when they take over the practice.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 36:11

Yeah, I was thinking it makes me think about Stephen Covey's seven habits and the concept of beginning with the end in mind. I'm I I am astonished actually at how many people I see starting practices fresh out of grad school, like late 20s, early 30s, although I was, you know, I guess that's about kind of where I was, but I've I spent so much time talking to people about how to start a practice, grow a practice, run a practice. If if we started talking about selling it from the very beginning, that someday you don't know it now because you're just getting started and you can't even imagine it. But someday, it may be 10 years, it may be 20, it may be five, someday you're gonna want to do something else. So from the beginning, here are some things to be thinking about so that when the day comes, you've got a marketable product here. So all right, so what I hear you talking, so when you're talking about team, when you said 50% capacity, I at first I didn't know what you meant, but you mean you've got people that have room to take on more business, right? So that would not necessarily be a deficit. Look at all this empty staff time we've got that we're not billable hours.

Ruth Mannschreck 37:15

So this is where you're you're Goldilocks, you're looking for the right buyer. Someone who has patients needs clinicians to help service more people. You know, every buyer comes with different wants. Yeah. It's not all about I've got extra money, I'm gonna spend it on a practice. It's I need a different location, it's I need a piece of real estate, it's I have all these patients I can't service, I need more clinicians. They come with their own agenda, and we need to think bigger than I just need somebody who can afford to pay me right now, you know? So figuring out what you want as Goldilocks, and then at working with a broker or without, it happens both ways. Who are you looking for exactly? Not just the right dollar amount, but someone who's gonna blend with your team, utilize your systems, fit right in with your culture. And in my book, that means bringing your team in in the selection process of who's gonna be the buyer. We need to approach our we approach sales, the selling of our practice with a scarcity mentality. Like, man, I hope I find somebody who can afford to pay me this dollars.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 38:35

And who will keep my team and we'll keep my sales?

Ruth Mannschreck 38:37

Yes, yes, and we have our fingers crossed and we're praying. And we should come with a sense of generosity and abundance and say, I'm gonna help this work the right way, and I'm gonna bring my team in as part of this transaction. One of my practices, and it was a psychotherapy practice, they had three locations, maybe 35 or 40 practitioners, and they brought they brought in, they had practice interviews with potential buyers. So he brought someone in to pretend that they were wanting to buy the practice, and they would spend the day in the practice. All the team got to spend time with them, they got to see how everyone functioned. Then after they left, they had a debrief with their team.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 39:30

That's impressive, like a big role play.

Ruth Mannschreck 39:32

Yes, yes, and said, So what do you think about this guy? Think you could work with him? Does he have the right mindset to take care of our clients? Our team members, I don't think we give them enough credit. They have a beautiful perspective on what happens in our practice. And it's different than ours. Yes, I know fully well what happens in my practice, but my team sees everything from a different perspective. Yeah.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 40:00

Yep.

Ruth Mannschreck 40:00

You know, we all know this. Our clients ask the team members more questions than they would ever ask the doc. You know? So they see so much. And it's really a detriment to us as owners if we don't tap into that reservoir of information about what's going on in our practice. And not only does it help us get a more well-rounded picture of our practice, but it makes your team members feel like a million bucks because you appreciated their opinion enough to ask for it.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 40:35

I love that. I love encouraging including your people and making them part of the process. I agree. I think that's an I think I think that's a that's just a good way to run a business, honestly. You have so I'm trying to be careful because I don't I don't want to get us off track. I have two different two different sorts of ways I'm thinking about here. I know you have like four pillars of what you need to do to prepare your practice to sell, and I'm interested in hearing about that. And then I'm I'm curious about like what kind of people buy a practice? Like, what's the scenario that you're looking for? Is it some like you you mentioned location, they already have an existing practice somewhere else and they're looking to expand? Is it somebody that doesn't even they're not even in the industry that is it's just an investment opportunity for them? Or or or something else I'm not even thinking about. But I'm kind of and and how does the broker thing work? I want to talk about that too. But let's go, let's do before I get ahead of Massa. Tell me about the four pillars. Okay. Um, yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 41:33

Sure. And we already touched on some of them. One is to increase the value of your practice as much as you can. Yes, there's some financial ideas about what that would be, but like inner intellectual property is a thing that so many owners just don't even realize could be a thing, you know. So I the first is to increase the value, the second is to decrease the perceived risk. So buyers get red flags. And some of the things that that worry buyers would be one, if the owner is the face of the practice in the community. You know, so the old style of practice, and I did it this way too, is to just have your name, Ruth Mantrek DDS. You know, that was the name of my practice. That's really more difficult to sell. Yes, you can sell it. Yeah. But if it didn't have, if I wasn't the face, so you have to change if if you want to do this, you change your thought process from deciding how Dr. Mantrek's going to care for her clients or patients to how is this practice going to care for them.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 42:51

Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 42:52

It's the same process when you bring associates in and you ask your patients to let someone else work with them.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 42:58

Yep.

Ruth Mannschreck 42:58

They have to understand that the culture of the entire practice is just how they perceive me as the doc. 100%.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 43:08

I get that. Yeah, it can't be a personal brand. It makes it be brought bigger than that, broader than that. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Ruth Mannschreck 43:15

And so other things that look like risk to a buyer. If you have a if you have different providers, different producers in your practice, and a large percentage of your revenue comes from one producer or one provider, that's going to worry a buyer because if that producer doesn't happen to like the new buyer, they're just going to leave and there goes all that revenue. So diversifying your production is a huge thing. Same with referral sources. If you have one or two referral sources who happen to be good friends with the doc, that's gonna throw a red flag up because when the doc leaves, when the seller leaves the practice. You might lose those referral partners too. So you want to build your bench of referral partners so that you can show depth of bench to the new buyer.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 44:13

This is great. This is so good. Okay. Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 44:15

But it makes sense, right?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 44:18

Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 44:19

So the the third thing is competitive advantage. What what makes your why are you different? Pardon me. Why are you different from all the other practices in town? You need to have the easy ones are you were the first in your location or you're the biggest in your location. Those are easy ones everyone talks about. I don't find those as very enticing to a buyer.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 44:47

Or you have a specialty or a niche that nobody else is serving.

Ruth Mannschreck 44:51

Yeah. Right. Right. Yes, exactly. So think about your compare your list of services to other practitioners in your area. How are you different? Because there's always going to be a competitor, and and you need for it to be so obvious to a buyer that they would pick you over one just like you, but they don't have whatever your competitive advantage is.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 45:19

Yeah, so thing that just think that that that's a really great way to look at this. Like my practice was a general practice, and and we wanted to, we want it to be known as a one-stop shop, that whatever you needed, whatever the problem was, we could we could handle it. And we did have that, and we were the biggest, and we were really kind of the go-to place at the time. That's changed today, but that's how it was. On the other hand, complete opposite. So I could so I could see selling that as like we are the place everybody goes. You want to be here. Like this is right. But the opposite of that is there are a few practices in our region who only serve men and their families, or only do couples work, or only do birth-related marin perinatal and maternal stuff, right? And if you were looking to specialize in a particular area, there's not a ton serving that. So that stands out. That would make it more profitable or more marketable. That makes sense to me.

Ruth Mannschreck 46:11

I like it. Right. Like it. Um because see, then again, you're just selecting, you're self-selecting for a different buyer who's just looking for adolescent or they're just looking for marital company, you know. So whatever it is, whether you want to serve everyone or just your niche, perfect. You can do either way, just get really, really good at what you do and make sure your market understands your that's your competitive advantage. Whatever that is, you need to create it and then you need to tell everybody about it.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 46:45

And own it. Like own it, claim, claim it. Don't be don't be mild, don't be meek about it. Okay, great. That's perfect.

Ruth Mannschreck 46:52

And the and the fourth pillar is that you want your practice to be turnkey. You want it to be easy. Because, like, and we kind of talked about this before, no one is gonna buy a 70-hour a week job. You know, that's just not enticing. That's you want to give any potential buyer the freedom to not worry about your systems because they're solid. Communication is right there, you've got a team that's running it. They don't need to be there, you know, 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week. It's whatever the buyer wants to add to your beautiful thing that you've created. It gives them such freedom to make a decision instead of saying, Well, you got great revenue, but I don't I don't have 70 hours a week to put toward a new business.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 47:45

And you as the practice owner or you as the senior clinician, that's that's what I see you doing. That's not sustainable. So what else you got? Yeah, yeah. Love it.

Ruth Mannschreck 47:54

So those are the four big things. And and remember, you're you're Goldilocks, you're looking for a match. And the better you get at deciding for yourself what that matches, translating that to your team so that they know, and then telling the world that that's what you're looking for.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 48:16

You know what I love about this, Ruth, is that what you're describing that gets your practice ready to sell is also what just makes your practice work better. Right? It's just it's just a good, it's just a healthier business.

Ruth Mannschreck 48:26

Yes.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 48:28

That's really, really awesome. But so if you so if knowing this on the front end, if from the beginning you are designing a business that that meets these four criteria, which are all crystal clear, really helpful, the day comes, so when you're gonna want to, you're gonna wanna, you're gonna you're ready to retire or you wanna move, or you just want to do something different, you're changing your life, whatever, right? Tell me, like, how do you go about selling? Like, what do you what what does a broker do? How do you do this without a broker? How do you even start looking for a buyer?

Ruth Mannschreck 49:02

Sure. So you put together what's called a prospectus, okay, and it it's almost like a marketing piece that explains everything about your practice.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 49:13

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 49:14

And if you put that together before you go to see a broker, it speeds the process. And in order to put when you put together the perspectives, that's what shows you, oops, this little area of my practice isn't very tidy. I better go clean that up. You know. So if you go through that work ahead of time and look at those areas we talked about, how I decided to work fewer hours is what you need to do to get your practice ready to sell. You're you're absolutely right. Those are the same processes, you know. The more you can do that ahead of time, that'll save you time with the broker.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 49:52

And there are actually prospectus is like a like a dashboard, like an or a summary.

Ruth Mannschreck 49:57

Yeah, it's an executive summary, so to speak, of everything, explaining all the great parts of your and it's a marketing piece. You have to brag about all the great things that you're doing. You have to be honest, and if you don't, you'll get a bad name in the in the legal world, and you don't want that.

Speaker 2 50:16

Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 50:17

Um, but you have to put your goodness out there. You know, you do think about it. You are as a service provider, are responsible to a certain extent for the ongoing care of your clients. So it's in the best interest of taking care of your precious clients that you want to do a good job of putting together the prospectus and therefore selling your business. Your broker is gonna focus on numbers. And there are several times, there are two or three times when people think about selling their practice. So the growth of revenue in a practice starts off on a steep slope and then it kind of plateaus off, and then the doc does something different and you get another rise. When you get that second rise, that's when you want to sell your practice.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 51:09

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 51:10

Unfortunately, that second rise in revenue doesn't always happen. One, when the doc has collected enough money to retire, or second, just that, you know, I am so tired, I just want to stop. Or I want to start a new venture. I'd like the money from this practice to help me start a new venture. Those timelines don't always coincide. So knowing what is it gonna take for me to feel comfortable to step back away from my practice, whether you retire or you don't. What do I need? How how can I collect that quickly? And where is my revenue growth in my practice? Am I on that? Because they're gonna want to see three years worth of trending metrics for your practice.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 51:58

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 51:58

So you don't want to wait till you get to the second plateau and then say, well, now is the time to sell. Because you've missed, you've missed that trend. They want you in a growth trend. They want to see you're growing. A growth trend is enticing to a buyer.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 52:15

Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 52:15

You know, uh a practice that's done growing is not so enticing.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 52:20

That makes sense. Okay.

Ruth Mannschreck 52:21

So they it's why they ask for a history of your financials so that they can see where are you headed, what's your trajectory, you know? So it behooves you to go back ten years ahead and say, well, how long, how long is my energy gonna last? You know, how long do I want to keep doing this? How long is it gonna take me to get my retirement in order? And where is the growth curve of my revenue right now? Where is it gonna be in three years? Get the timing down on all those things makes it much easier. And there's less disappointment when you start to talk with a broker if you've already thought about those things.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 53:03

I can see how this would be a little tricky. Oh, to get that timing right. And also if my growth is picking up, that's gonna be um it's gonna be emotionally harder for me to sell. Yes, right, because we're doing good, we're just beginning to like make some progress here. What do you mean, sell?

Ruth Mannschreck 53:19

Yes. And I have to admit, I've had clients come to me and say, Let's get this ready because I want to sell, and then we get it all cleaned up and everything's cooking with gas, and they say, you know, I don't think I want to sell it now. I'm just gonna go.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 53:32

Yeah, because I'm making money.

Ruth Mannschreck 53:33

And and I'm not working as many hours because it's a self-propelling business. It runs itself. I just keep it on the tracks.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 53:41

Well, no, we didn't say we never did say this, but I remember you telling me, uh, tell me if I'm wrong, that when you cut your time in half and your team's time, like the whole office when your daughter was going through all that, that you when you came back when you got when you got it all figured out, you doubled your revenue, right? Am I remembering that correct?

Ruth Mannschreck 54:00

We never went back to five days a week.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 54:03

Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 54:04

I I have never since then I have never practiced five days a week again. It was running so beautifully. But it it took us work to get to that part, but it can be that's the the joy of one of the joys of being a practice owner is you can design it any way you want. You can say, I want to sit in a chair till the day I die, or you can say, I just want to be in the background and orchestrate my team.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 54:34

You know, this is you can this is what an ideal practice is, it's whatever it wants you want to be for you. But but I think this is important. You cut your time in half and your office staff, your team, everybody in half. You not only did not lose money, you cleaned things up and polished things up in all the ways you're talking about today, which I know was a I'm sure it was a huge process, really. We're just hitting hitting the highlights. I know. Yes. I know that. Yes. But with time and effort and clarity and precision and experimentation, you gradually got it back to where not only were you making the same money that you have been making five days a week, but you doubled it. Like your revenue, like like that, I know that's a whole story all by itself, and we don't have time to go into that.

Ruth Mannschreck 55:20

Sure.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 55:20

But yeah, it's so cool what you're teaching here. And like if you do this right, guys, you really could be setting on something that can make really, really good money for you and an important part of your life. And you I also like what you said about you owe it to your clients to make sure that they are taken care of after you leave. And you don't and you don't just have to close your practice and refer them everywhere. There's other ways to do it. This is good.

Ruth Mannschreck 55:49

And and you do and I want to really make clear that it was not brilliant Ruth that did all this. It was the team. I went to my team and together we put this all together. It was lots of it was very messy, lots of trial and error. That's the part I can save people from having to go through on their own.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 56:10

Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 56:12

Yeah. Because once you see, and when you put your systems in place and your existing team looks at the systems and the communication that you now expect in your practice, they self-select whether they want to be there or not. You know, we were very blessed. Most of our people stayed and said and took great ownership of what happened, you know. But it is a divining time when people say, Whoa, I kind of liked it when we were sloppy and lazy and just a little bit inefficient, you know, because that's so comfortable. So there's weeding that happens, sifting and sorting, you know. Yeah. And team members, it becomes very obvious whether they want to take ownership for their roles and want to contribute to making the whole practice better, or if they just want to show up and do tasks.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 57:04

Well, it's just like it's just like in terms of the clients and customers that you attract. There are people who'll be a good fit for you and people who are not. So the kind of team that you attract will be people who love this way of thinking and want more of it. You'll lose the people who don't, which is fine. You don't need them anyway. They're not your ideal staff, not your ideal client, but they're not your ideal staff. Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 57:26

And just one more little note that because a lot of my clients say, well, we don't really need to do a whole lot to get things ready because I want to sell it to my second in command who's just gonna take over the practice. And that works a lot.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 57:45

That's kind of what I did when I left my practice. That's kind of what I did. Yeah.

Ruth Mannschreck 57:49

But it it makes you think small because if you didn't have the constraints, because you know how much this person makes when they work for you, if you didn't have that constraint, what would you ask for in your practice? If you if you had your asking price based solely on the amazing practice that you put together, plus your financials and how it runs, it would be a much bigger number than mentally what you think your second in command can handle. And don't get me wrong, practices do that all the time. I bet. But I think owners do themselves a disservice by just saying, sure. Yeah, sure, this'll work.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 58:35

Well, it's an easy way out. And and if you're like me and you don't know how to do this anyway, or you're in an industry where nobody teaches you, like what else do you do? You don't know any other way.

Ruth Mannschreck 58:44

Exactly.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 58:44

Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's really I I bet you see that a whole lot. I bet that's really common.

Ruth Mannschreck 58:48

I feel so bad. And yeah, in the dental industry, we have brokers who do nothing except dental practices, but in the psychotherapy, chiropractors, I I don't see that amount of expertise. So that's part of my mission is you guys need to think about this because nobody's there to tell you that, oh, think about this and create this and make it irresistible and get yourself out there. Tell people what you're excellent at, how you care for your patients so that your practice becomes irresistible to them.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 59:24

I love that you said you have to put your goodness out in the world. Yeah. I wrote that down. That's gonna be my quote today because I love that. Um because because they don't. And and and I I preach this all the time, just in terms of marketing your practice and making sure your clients can find you. Like they're not gonna find you if you're hiding. Like you got to get out there and you can't help people. But what you're you're taking this, like you're adding a whole nother layer here, like about why this is worth it, guys. It's not only serves your clients, it not only helps you fill up your own practice, but when you go to sell, this is part of the value that you're bringing. Like put your goodness out into the world so that somebody else can pick it up and keep it going when you're done. Right. I like that a lot. Yeah. You said that when you you sold your first practice, have you done this more than once? I oh yes.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:00:10

Yeah, I bought a practice, and we could have a whole session on all the things I did wrong when I bought my first practice, and I sold that one too. Much different process than the first one. So I've been on both sides of the practice, and it it really hurts my heart to see professionals who have spent their entire career building this wonderful thing and then have to just set it down because they didn't focus on learning how to sell it, you know, didn't have the energy or the intention to create something that somebody else would want. They were so busy serving their clients and their patients that thought never entered their mind, and then they got stuck at the end.

unknown 1:01:03

You know.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:01:03

So I'm on a mission to tell people, think intentionally long term, about what are you creating and how can you make it irresistible so that you take care of first your clients in the future and your team members in the future?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:01:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So looking back on that, I'm curious I'm just curious. You had done so many things right in that first practice when you went through this huge change. Sure. Right. What is it that knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently when you sold it? Because clearly, I know you learned from that. That's part of what you're talking about. Oh, sure. But what is what did you not do that you wish you had done?

Ruth Mannschreck 1:01:41

Oh, I would have done so much more research. Um so, and it's it's just I have stories. Um, I was working on a patient, working on a patient, and the ceiling in my operatory collapsed.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:01:55

Oh my gosh.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:01:56

Yes. So we had to start we everybody had to leave. The building was full of mold. I wasn't even I couldn't go back into my office to care anymore. I had to find a place to practice like tomorrow. And so my excuse for doing a bad job is well, I had to do it fast, so I don't know what I was doing. I just was saying yes to whatever worked to get us a place to be. But that's an excuse. Um and so I've obviously I'm driven by events, a crisis, you know. I'm a deadline person. Give me a deadline and I am there. And it was, I would never have dreamed of cutting my time in half if it hadn't been forced on me, you know. Um and I'm glad, and I would never have thought of solding my selling my practice so quickly if I didn't all of a sudden I had no practice, no office. It was gone. Lord hell. They wouldn't let us back in. So yeah, I was those situations forced me to do things. I never want people to be in any of those situations because it's so it's so good to just make these changes on your own with your team and make it part of the growth of your practice.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:03:18

Yeah. I was just thinking, I think a lot of us are driven by crises. Like the pandemic did that for a lot of folks.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:03:23

Oh my goodness, yeah.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:03:24

I I mean, I had a full practice with a bunch of providers and a very full practice caseload and went online overnight, like left my last live client at five o'clock and at eight o'clock the next morning, we were online, and I had no idea how to do online counseling. So, like that's kind of yeah, and I've seen this a lot in a kind of going back to the idea that when you're the face of the practice, when there's a well-established, well-respected practice, and it's really built around person, one person who passes away. Oh, yeah. You know, there's some kind of a crisis like that. I've seen that happen. Like life happens to everybody, and and it's so easy. Like, Lord knows we're all busy out the wazoo just trying to juggle all the things we're juggling. But your point is when you think strategically and carefully about the future and you prepare for it now, everything's gonna be better. And what I want to really highlight about that is that doing how you do anything is how you do everything. And when you are running a healthy practice that's gonna work to sell, you're running a healthy practice that's gonna work for your clients and your team and yourself now. You're not just waiting for something that's 20 years out in the future, you are also getting yourself set up for success now. And I just think that's brilliant. I think that's brilliant. And I wish I wish I had known this stuff back when I was starting to go.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:04:49

Oh, there's so much I wish I had known. Um that's how we learn. It is. Um so yeah, uh I do remember they they tried to teach us practice management in dental school. We had one class, and I have to own up to I was one of those arrogant seniors. I sat in a back row and I read the newspaper during that class. I thought I could run a business, I can uh just let me out there. I'm gonna take care of everybody and I'm gonna do a great job, blah, blah, blah. And I had no idea what I was doing when it came to do payroll. What?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:05:24

What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, I don't care about all that. That's boring. Who cares about business? I don't care. I just want to help people, right? Right. While I am starving my family because I'm not making any money, right? It's and feeling guilty all the time. It's just I d and I do also want to just say that I appreciate, and I I hope y'all who are listening, I hope you heard what Ruth said about that in the dental world, there are brokers and there are practice management experts, and they do actually, I think, get more of this kind of business help than we I know than we do in the social work world. Sure. Mental health in general. Like we just don't. We just don't at all. In fact, we're sort of shamed for thinking about it, actually. It's much more like, why do you care about that? That's not important. What's important is how many people are you seeing and are you helping? So it's validating to hear you say that. Yeah, I know you don't, y'all don't get a lot of this. And I'm glad there's people like you out there who are ready to teach it because we need it. You have an entire market just waiting on you, my friend.

Speaker 1:06:28

Yes. Yes.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:06:29

Yeah, this is really good. So let me, is there any well, let me just ask you this. If people want to know more about the four pillars, if they want to know more about how to get prepared, what's the best way for them to find you, to connect with you, to just learn from you? Because clearly you got some things to teach. Where do they go?

Ruth Mannschreck 1:06:49

We put together a free download for your listeners. So if they go to the URL, prepitnow.com, it's kind of a review of the pillars that we spoke of. Okay. And it gives our great ways to connect with us afterwards. But it's a nice way to just be able to read through what we talked about because we covered a lot of territory today. We did. So that that's a nice way to get part of our world, to become part closer to the work that we do and where they'd see us online.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:07:23

Okay. Prepitnow.com. And then do you have a primary website that we've got to do? We do.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:07:30

My company name is Shoreline Strategies. So shorelinestrategies.com is our website. And there's multiple different ways they can reach out either for making your business run without you, so you're not working so many hours, or how to get it ready to sell.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:07:50

Okay, awesome. And y'all, there was a little bit of a Michigan accent in there. She said shoreline. Yeah, sorry. I heard Shoreline. Oh. So like Lake Michigan, like shoreline. Yeah. Okay. So I'll make sure that we have both of those linked below. Ruth, thank you. This has been super thought-provoking.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:08:10

Thank you.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:08:11

It's very interesting. It's really easy to kind of go, ah, help. This is like so it and like when we first started talking, I had a brief moment of feeling like, oh, this is so far beyond me. And then as we got into it, I went, no, it's not. No, it's not. It's just good business. It's really just good business. But you have given us lots to think about that I think is useful and digestible and practical. So I appreciate that. Before we call this to a close, one of the things I like to do that I don't always remember, but I wanted to ask you, is there anything that we haven't covered? Because we did. We covered a lot of ground very fast, and I know there's tons more. But is there anything I didn't ask you, anything we forgot to cover, or anything that you just feel called to share that you feel like would make this conversation complete?

Ruth Mannschreck 1:09:00

Sure, sure. I do have I do have something. I always encourage people to think about what do you want to happen when you retire? What does that look like to you? Do you want the golden handcuffs we call it? Would you like to stay and continue practicing and just have someone be someone else be responsible for running everything? Do you just want to show up and provide services? Do you want to take the money and run to Hawaii and never set foot in your hometown again? Um what would you like? I mean, seriously, how do you want that to be? So make a list. What would you like to happen when you retire? And then pick out of those what's non-negotiable? Like what's what are you gonna draw a line in the sand and say, I really want to work, you know, for two more years. So I get to come back. That's my non-negotiable, or you could say, nope, I'm out of here. I don't know golden handcuffs, please. Just I'll take a check and out I go. Those are so important so that your broker's gonna want to know that, but your team is gonna want to know that too, so that they go forward and work on this with you with the right spirit. Yeah. Because if the whole world doesn't understand what you're aiming at, they're gonna make it up. And the last thing you want is your team making up reasons for why you're leaving your practice. Yeah. Why you would want to leave your practice. So figure out that song and sing it loud and clear to your team so they're not surprised and they don't feel the need to make up answers. Because they don't know. They will.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:10:50

You're absolutely true. Yeah. Yep. But I also this is really this is a very good suggestion in that it's also encouraging us to be intentional and get a vision to envision what we want our life to look like after this. Because we don't think there is an after, but there is an after.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:11:07

Yeah right?

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:11:08

We're talking about how to get to that after, what that looks, what that transition looks like. But what you're saying is being be like, take the time, and gosh, this I I think I needed to hear this today. Take the time to think about what that after looks like because that's the why that's gonna drive all of this anyway. And as you know, I have just now remembered, I have been working with a neurologist for some time who is really needs to be seriously thinking about retirement, who has a very full, very thriving practice in in the town that they work in, and it's very difficult to imagine leaving. And yet there's a bunch of people who are dependent upon this one provider who is the face of that practice. And I can totally see how if if that person isn't careful, they're gonna run to some problems because they're not doing the same things you're teaching us today. Thank you so much for this, Ruth. So, y'all begin with the end in mind, whether it's about the end of your practice, the next phase of your life, and all the things that go into that mix. This is really, really helpful. Thank you.

Ruth Mannschreck 1:12:12

Oh, good, good, thank you so much.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:12:14

All right, guys, I'm gonna be sure and link to the websites that she mentioned below. In particular, prep it now. And y'all, y'all have heard me, I have done episodes about the mistakes I made as a group practice owner. And this is one of the biggies. I have often said that the one of the biggest mistakes I made was I did not buy the building that my practice was in because I didn't know that I needed to. And by the time I was ready to, the person I was renting from had a really good deal going because we've been there a long time and we had the whole building, and they were no longer interested in selling. That was a mistake that I have regretted. This is another one. I never even knew you could sell a practice. Like that just wasn't even in my vocabulary. And so, what Ruth has taught you today, you will be so far ahead if you take this to heart and do what she says and prep it now.

unknown 1:13:05

Yeah.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 1:13:06

All right, everybody. Thank you so much for being here today. I hope you have an awesome week. I hope you got as much out of this as I did. I hope you will take this lesson to heart and do something with it. And I will see you next week right here on the Ideal Practice Podcast. Bye now. Hey, y'all. If this program has become important to you, if ideal practice matters, it would mean so much to me if you'd be willing to take just a minute to do one or two of the following things. First of all, would you follow or subscribe to the show here at Ideal Practice? Following me helps you because you'll never miss an episode. But it helps me as well for all kinds of reasons. To do that, all you have to do is go to the show page for Ideal Practice on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. There, just click on the plus sign that you'll usually find in the top right hand corner, or click on the word follow that you're going to find somewhere there on that page. Of all the things, this really is the most important thing you can do for the podcast itself. While you're there, it would be extra special if you would be willing to give me a five-star rating. And even better than that, a review with your own words. Your words matter. And when you write what you feel, what you think, you uplift and encourage others. And I love that. If you want to go a step further than that, take your favorite episode or two, one of the ones that has meant a lot to you, and share it with a friend. Could you do one or two of those things for me? I promise I will love you forever. You guys matter to me, and I value your support more than I can possibly say. Thank you, sweet friend, for anything you can do to help me out and support the show. I'll see you again soon.