Owning a Practice: Conquering Financial and Leadership Challenges | 2

Is stepping into practice ownership really the key to financial freedom or just a new set of challenges you haven’t faced yet?

Episode two of The Dental Associate Edge dives straight into the real conversations so many dental associates and students need but rarely hear: how to map a confident route from chairside roles to leading a thriving practice on your terms.

Dave and Sandy revisit the core questions every aspiring owner should ask, from leadership ambitions and appetite for risk, to handling debt and setting life priorities. They unpack the realities of practice ownership, from managing cash flow and resisting lifestyle inflation, to meeting bank requirements and deciding if you should buy a practice before paying off student loans. With relatable stories and actionable advice, this episode is the perfect listen for anyone weighing the lifelong rewards (and real challenges) of moving from associate to owner.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• The key advantages of dental practice ownership beyond just increased income.
• Essential questions to ask yourself before pursuing ownership.
• How to weigh leadership responsibility versus clinical focus in your career path.
• The truth about managing debt as a dental professional (and how banks view it.)
• Strategies to avoid lifestyle inflation that can jeopardize practice success.
• Timing major purchases to support long-term financial stability.
• Building personal and practice cash reserves to reduce stress and burnout.
• What banks expect from buyers when financing a dental practice.
• How delaying ownership impacts your lifetime career benefits.
• Practical prompts to assess your readiness and next steps to take toward practice ownership.

Hit play now and start building the clarity and confidence you need to become a successful dental practice owner!

Learn More About Dave & Sandy Here!

Website: https://www.dentalassociateedge.com/

Email Dave & Sandy: dentalassociateedge@gmail.com

Dr. Dave Striegel: https://www.drdavestriegel.com/

Sandy Baird, MBA: https://www.bairdconcepts.com/

Mentions & Links:

Episodes:

• Should You Own a Dental Practice? The Unfiltered Truth for Aspiring Owners | 1

Questions From This Episode:

1. Which bank requirements have you already met?

2. What strategies will you use to meet the remaining requirements?

3. What will be your first step right now?

Transcript

Dave 0:00

Initially, it is going to really help you pay off debt. But then once the debt starts to alleviate, then the financial aspects of owning a practice really start to take hold and take shape. And that's when you can really make major inroads into the financial future and setting up a financial future for you and your family. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Dental Associate Edge, where practice ownership isn't a dream, it's a destination. Hi, I'm Dave Striegel.

Sandy 0:31

And I'm Sandy Baird. And together we're consultants who work with dental practices every day and created this podcast to help dental associates and dental students build a clear path towards practice ownership.

Dave 0:45

So this is our uh second episode, and we encourage you to listen to our first one and the very important sort of initial topic that all associates have to ask, which is, is ownership right for you? And we created a list that we shared on the various pros and cons relative to owning, and we'll recap a few of those. But again, we encourage you to go back and listen to the previous episode. Some of the pros are obvious, and some of them maybe not so obvious. So some of the pros, freedom, the opportunity to make decisions for the direction of your career, that can be a con at the same time for some. But in a general sense, having control over the directions that your practice goes and that your career goes is considered a pro. Setting your own hours, the financial aspects of owning, and this is part of what we'll get into in a little bit, but initially is going to really help you pay off debt. But then once the debt starts to alleviate, then the financial aspects of owning or practice really start to take hold and take shape. And that's when you can really make major inroads into the financial future and setting up a financial future for you and your family.

Sandy 2:00

We left everybody with three questions to ponder at the end of the podcast. So we're going to kind of talk about these three questions for just a few minutes because we feel like these are critical in deciding what your future is, but also critical as to whether this podcast is going to be helpful to you or not. So the first question, we wanted you to think about your career, 30, 40-year career. Do you see yourself leading a team, hiring, firing, developing a team, and working on developing a business, a dental business, not just a practice, but a dental business. Or do you want to work chairside and have no other responsibilities? Those are two different careers. Two totally different careers. Now, Dave is our expert in psychology, and these questions take a lot of mental thoughts. So I'm going to pass this on to Dave, where he can share some of his knowledge on how to address this in your mind.

Dave 3:06

Thank you, Sandy. I think when you're considering the long term, it's hard to be able to predict the future as we know in just in the last five years in our own world, no one would have ever predicted what's happened. But I think the question that Sandy's asking really is speaking to you knowing yourself. Now, are you the type of person that likes challenges? Are you the type of person that's okay not having all the answers all the time? Or are you the type of person that really is uncomfortable not knowing the answer? And if it's not a pretty clear path, then you either don't like that or you get really stressed out. So ownership in dentistry has a lot of good parts to it. Predictability is not one of those generally. And there are a couple of things that dental school doesn't necessarily teach you. The first thing it doesn't teach you is how to manage people. It's one thing to be a team member, it's another thing to be a manager or an owner, where you're overseeing people into what Sandy alluded to, the you have the decisions regarding hiring and firing and developing and reviewing and giving feedback.

Sandy 4:11

Dave, would it be helpful for them to look back in their lives so far and see if they tend to be the person who likes to be a leader, the captain of the other one? That's a great question.

Dave 4:21

Yeah. And and I would agree with that. One of my personal areas of experience is in the world of sports. That's where my training initially was in sports psychology. And I find that people who have an athletic background, they don't need to have been a Division I athlete or anything of that nature. But if they have a background in sports, then that's a good training ground. It's not required by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a good training ground that if you have that kind of experience, or you had a parent who owned a business, not even necessarily a dental practice, but owned a business, now you have an appreciation for the commitment and the pros and cons of owning a business. Then the other part to it is really just being honest with yourself. And I think as the field and as the makeup of dentistry moves more toward female, which is the trends that we're seeing in dental school, from what I understand, that means whether you're considering a blessing or not, you have choice, or you're being forced to make choices. Or is there a sequence to it? And I see Sandy, you shaking your head.

Sandy 5:40

I wouldn't want to do those at the same time. And I have actually worked with a client who did do that, and she would not recommend it either.

Dave 5:49

That's a fair point. So it's not no, it's just when. And so this notion of, you know, do you want to work chair side or do you want to be responsible for everything? I also wanted to make the point, but even if you are an associate, career associate, you're not an owner, you have leadership responsibilities too. So it's not as though you just punch the clock, at least in most practices, because the owner duck in the private practice is not going to be there all the time that you're there.

Sandy 6:17

And so you're going to be the figurehead, you know, when I will tell you, in the eyes of the employees, the team members, the dentist, I'm saying, not saying the leader, the dentist, plural, are the leaders. That's how in their eyes, that's how they see you. I don't care if you sit in your cubby, your little clinical room, and all you do is dentistry and you never lift your head. In their eyes and in the eyes of the community, you are a leader. And you're not going to escape that role completely. You can have some control over it, but you will never escape.

Dave 6:55

To your point, Sandy, you know, the two elements that they don't teach you at dental school, the managing people and the owning a business, those two pieces. The managing people, even if you're an associate, you're going to be involved with that. You may not be responsible for it, but you're going to be involved with it. You will. When you're the owner, you get to decide the direction the practice is going. You get to decide the vision, the culture. All those things are your choice. You may ask for input from others, you may give a voice. In fact, I highly recommend you give a voice to the rest of your team and helping shape the culture of your practice. But when it comes down to deciding are we going to go left or right, that's on you. If you like that responsibility, then ownership could be a good fit for you.

Sandy 7:39

Exactly. Now, the second question we threw out to everybody is how well can you handle debt? Debt is a fact of life in the world of business. It is. And I think most of you all have already learned that it's a fact of life in education and in training. And so we probably think that most of you all are a little familiar with debt, but we think this is something you need to explore deeply. And I'm going to let Dave kind of give you this insight on that.

Dave 8:12

One, and I think, Sandy, you mentioned it early on, your experience with debt, personal as well as familial experience, yes, factors into how you view debt as whether it's a vehicle to something better or bigger, a tool or a liability, something that will be avoided. And I think there can be two right answers. I mean, one of which is it can be a tool, but it also can be something that you strive diligently to get rid of.

Sandy 8:43

And there can be good debt and bad debt.

Dave 8:46

One of my mentors explained to me this way: when you own a dental practice, you have the practice requirement of income, but then you have your lifestyle requirement of income. So the lifestyle, what you need at home, he called the hungry tiger. That hungry tiger is hungry all the time. He's never not hungry, and it never gets full. What happens sometimes is we prioritize the tiger before the practice.

Sandy 9:16

Which is laying the golden eggs. The practice is laying the golden eggs, but the tiger will consume it.

Dave 9:23

Well, and the tiger is asking for bigger eggs and more eggs than the practice can produce, which puts upward pressure on the practice to do something it can't do yet. Yet. So that's why the lifestyle decisions you make, and what Sandy was referring to is good and bad debt, appreciating assets are generally looked at as good debt, though that doesn't mean you should always have debt, but something that's going to build in value is an appreciating asset. Something that depreciates in value is bad debt. And so if we think of a house as, in general, an appreciating asset in most markets, a car, depreciating asset in most instances. If you're a dental school student or just kind of out fresh in your first associateship and you're thinking, you know, I feel like I've made it, you know, making some good money and I deserve this. I'd really cost you to be careful to buy into the notion that you deserve certain things until you can truly afford them. And there are different definitions of what that is.

Sandy 10:29

But a good example is that's a lot of dentists. I've read and I've known a lot of dentists, of course, in my 45 years of being in dentistry. They have student debt, they've done their residency or their internship or their associateship, and they have bought a practice and think now I have to buy a big house. I have to buy a big dental house, all at the same time. And the timing in that couldn't be worse. I mean, it's all about timing, as you said, Dave. It's a lot about timing. Sure, you can have that wonderful dentist house, but not at that point. Not at that point. You've got to see how much your practice can support of a house.

Dave 11:12

And that's where if you're not numbers inclined in that way, or you're not sure how to calculate those things, that's where a really experienced advisor, CPA, practice consultant or coach, a really good advisor can help you do the math. And that's really so much what the debt component ends up being is a math equation. It is. Because there's the principal balance, and then there's the interest rate, and then there's the amortization period, which is the number of years that you're going to be paying on this loan if you keep it the entire time. And then there's the monthly payment. So often we only look at the monthly payment as to whether you can afford it. But the reality is that it's a matter of how long you're going to be making that payment. And if you really then look at different loan options and what the total principal and interest combined amount is going to be, it may point you to a higher monthly payment for a shorter amount of time.

Sandy 12:12

And Dave, there are better for you. That's right. There are also those personalities. I know a lot of people look at the monthly. There's also those personalities who can't get the total out of their head. All they think is I owe a million dollars. And they stay up at night thinking, oh my God, I owe a million dollars. It's overwhelming. It's and it can eat some people alive. It really can. It can.

Dave 12:38

And you juxtapose that with the people elements of owning a practice. And it can be really stressful and frustrating and overwhelming. But as far as the debt side of things goes, to your point earlier, Sandy, owing something is almost unavoidable.

Sandy 12:56

It is almost unavoidable. Unless you are filthy rich or you have you have a family.

Dave 13:02

I mean, I like I mean, that happened. I have a client who has a father who had capital available to lend him, similar to a bank, a 10-year amortization period, had a reasonable market rate, interest rate. And my client just paid it off a few months ago. And that freed up cash flow that he could choose to do something with. He could either take it home or he could reinvest it or a combination. He chose to reinvest it in his practice to continue to grow.

Sandy 13:28

But most of us don't have this. I know in our practice, debt was just part of it. When we were in practice, if we had to get a new piano or the first intro or camera for $20,000, $30,000, we didn't have that kind of cash sitting around. So being in debt, even when you get to the point where you've paid most of it, you're still going to have these capital expenses, even if you're sharing them with someone. You have to invest in your practice if you want it to give you lifelong income. You cannot ignore that practice. I mean, I've seen dentists where I've come in, the practice looks like it's 15 to 20 years out of date, but yet the dentists all have second homes, two boats. They've spent all their income, none of it on the practice, and all of it on their hungry tiger.

Dave 14:22

Along those lines, Sandy, that and I'm glad you brought that up, that I don't think either one of us is saying that you shouldn't benefit or reap the benefits financially from your practice. But a good financial plan, even a spending plan in the practice, has at its core priorities. Your team gets paid, your vendors get paid, and your debt service gets paid. Right. That's when the owner gets paid.

Sandy 14:48

That's right.

Dave 14:49

The only one in the practice who doesn't get paid when there's tight cash flow is potentially the owner. The bank will get paid. Now, once they do, and you have a predictable stream of production, collection, and income, it's important to have reserves in the practice too. So cash reserves. Depending on your threshold, you can think of it as one month of average collections, it'd be a good place to start. So if practice collects $75,000 a month on average, then shoot from that as being a threshold of recurring cash that you have in the practice. Now it may fluctuate down a little bit or up a little bit, but on average, one month collections is a good place to start because that gives you peace of mind. That you have money available to pay that debt if the practice experience is a little bit of a downturn, a little bit of a slow.

Sandy 15:37

That's so true. So the last question we ended with in podcast number one is do you want full control over how your practice operates, or do you prefer someone else to set the structure and tell you what to do? And we kind of have addressed that a little bit.

Dave 15:54

We did. I think so. I think we touched on that a little bit as so you need to understand yourself. I can just think of conversations I've had recently with multiple people around one associate in particular, I'm thinking of, who has come to realize that with their owner doc, their owner doc means well, but the owner doc sometimes tells them what to do instead of involves them in the decision or asks them to do something. You're gonna do this, you're gonna come on Thursday night to do this. And the associate's like, well, wait, hold on, wait a minute. You're not here to tell me what to do. This is a choice. You have to know that about yourself. Because when you're the owner and you need something to happen, you need to be able to dictate what happens. And if you're the associate and it's like, look, you know, I like to be the captain of my own ship. That's how I sleep best at night, and that's how I know myself, then you're a good candidate for an owner. Exactly. But if you know that, look, that pressure, I've seen it, maybe you've seen it in your spouse or in a family member that did not go well, then maybe you know that look, I don't want that headache. I'll take being an employee and the downside of the lack of control and maybe a cap on income to make a good living, but not have to worry about all the other aspects of owning.

Sandy 17:09

These are all very personal questions, but they're so important. You may have a firm grasp on what your personality is and what's going to work best with you. But I still implore you to think about what we've just talked about, the nuances of it in depth. Because even if you're completely right that yes, I'm ready, ready, ready, this will better prepare you if you listen and think about some of the things we've mentioned. Because coming right out of school or coming out of a associateship or residency, those nuances may be new to you and you may not have thought about that particular aspect.

Dave 17:49

Well, and on that note, Sandy, what occurs to me when we talk about debt is debt has to be factored in, and I think we've kind of touched on it a little bit, into the bigger picture financial cash flow model of your life, not just the practice. It's really the practice combined with your lifestyle and how those two things dovetail together.

Sandy 18:10

Exactly.

Dave 18:11

That determines, and again, I would get a real handle on the minimize the lifestyle as much as you can to start. Experience the feeling of having cushion. And then as you get a sense of what you can predictably expect from the practice financially, then you start to ratchet up and make decisions, maybe a little bit bigger house, maybe a newer car, or maybe we invest in something else that we hadn't been before. You know, you've got kids going to college in 10 years, you've got to prepare for those. All these factors are part of it that you've got to think through. And then you're asking the practice potentially to go from 80 miles an hour to 100 miles an hour in the next five years.

Sandy 18:52

And so many times when a uh potential client comes up and says, you know, I'm really having cash flow problems. I'm having a hard time meeting my financial obligations, and I look into the practice, practice looks really healthy.

Dave 19:05

That's a great point.

Sandy 19:06

Yeah, it's really healthy.

Dave 19:08

I'm saying it's a healthy problem.

Sandy 19:10

It's not a problem in your practice. And so it's really, I think that's really hard sometimes for that. You know, you could tweak this and this and this a little bit, but this is not the problem.

Dave 19:23

This is well, and to what you're saying, Sandy, that's effectively asking you're asking a car to drive 100 comfortably when it's really built to drive 80 or 70 comfortably. It can go to 100 if needed in an emergency or crisis, but it cannot maintain that sustain it comfortably. And that's where the lifestyle that if there's probably one piece of advice that I would give all associates or dental students is to really get lean in your lifestyle coming out of school until you establish yourself as an associate first, and then when you decide to buy a practice, get lean again. But it won't be forever. But it won't be, I promise you, it won't be forever. But it'll happen on your terms, and you won't get in this dangerous place of asking the practice to do more than it can do, which only leads to negative outcomes.

Sandy 20:20

And the kind of financial problems we're talking about can also lead to a real quick burnout. So we have to also think about that aspect. The stress this type of debt can create or the stress of not being able to financially meet your obligations can be devastating to people. So that's why we're telling you now, we're hoping that you can kind of see what point of view we're coming from to protect you and to make sure you have a long-term career, because the majority of your rewards in your career will come towards the end of your career. And if you burn out before that, guess what you've lost? Essentially, your retirement is what you're in your greatest earning years. So that's what you lose.

Dave 21:08

Your dental school loans, your practice purchase loans, those range in time frame, but the practice purchase loans generally are into 10-year amortization. So you got to figure if you buy the practice at 33 years old or something like that, you've got till 43, unless you choose to accelerate the repayment, which could be a good idea, or maybe not, depending on the the landscape of your practice and and your reserves and all that sort of thing. But it's a 10-year amortization on the loan. So you're looking at 43 in this example until you really start to experience some cash flow freedom.

Sandy 21:46

Yeah. And this kind of sets the stage for our next big question that we're going to present a new question. Should you pay off your student loans before buying a practice? This is a huge question. Will the bank loan me money? Already owe $400,000 or so with student debt. I've had one year maybe as an associate to pay a tiny, tiny bit off. But first of all, can I get another loan to buy a practice with that kind of loan? Or should I just work as an associate until I pay off my student loans? This is what I like to tell the associates and the dental students. Think of student debt like a big hill. Okay? Working as an associate is like walking up that hill, step by step, year after year, slow, steady progress. Buying the practice is like jumping onto a bike. Now, you do have to buy the bike. The bike does cost money. But once you're riding it, guess what? You can get to that top of the mountain or top of the hill in half or less of the time because you're making more money. When you own your own practice, you're going to make more money. Maybe not the very first year, but after that, you will, and you'll be able to pay that debt off sooner. So the kind of generic answer, if you run the numbers and you look at all the analysis, is you're going to pay off your student loan debt sooner if you own a practice. So the question is no, you shouldn't pay off your student loans. You can get barrio money, and we'll talk about that in a minute from the bank. But also, Dave is going to tell you there are a couple of instances where no might not be your answer.

Dave 23:42

So the question is, should you pay off your student loans before you buy a practice? And the answer is really, it depends. If you have the means to be able to pay off student loans before you buy a practice, again, depending on the overall cash flow picture and the availability of those funds, et cetera, it might be a great move because it means that you're going to take thousands of dollars per month off the table that you aren't going to have to pay moving forward. But if it drains you of all your resources, that may not be a great fit for you initially. But the reality of it is you may not have an option to wait that long. So if it's going to be 10 or 15 years for you to pay your student loans off, don't do that. You can't afford to wait that long in most cases. Now, I I Sandy knows some, and I do as well, associates who waited until their early 40s or mid-40s to buy a practice because of personal circumstances. That can work as well. It just compresses the timeline that you have to benefit from the purchase and the ultimate benefits of your practice financially in the long run.

Sandy 24:50

And in the long run, you're going to make more money the sooner you buy your own practice. But if you postpone that, you've cuts your income lifetime, your career length of time.

Dave 25:00

That's that I think is true.

Sandy 25:01

So now I think the important question now for us to kind of address with them is okay, so I have this $400,000 in debt now for my student loans. You're telling me that I can still go buy practice, right? That's what we're saying, that that's available to you. What do you need in order to do that? How do you prove to the bank, hey guys, I'm really sorry I got like $400,000 in debt already. And now I have this practice I'm really interested in, and it's about $1.5 mil. Uh, so how can you help me?

Dave 25:37

So one of the initial things is to keep in mind that student loan debt, at least how I look at it, is the student loan debt is a personal debt. That's something you're gonna have whether you buy a practice or not.

Sandy 25:50

That's right.

Dave 25:51

So your cash flow that's coming to lifestyle, so your income that you earn as a dentist is gonna pay for that. The practice profit is going to pay for the debt service. So the bank is not gonna be looking so much at you. What they need to know from you is can you handle the load, the dentistry load? Can you produce at the level that this practice requires their owner to produce that, their lead doctor to produce that in order to satisfy the debt load?

Sandy 26:23

That's right. So essentially, most big name banks for Samaritan, Chase, all of the first name, they are very eager to loan dentists money. They are. They are dentists are good investments for them. So, first of all, they're glad to see you, so to speak. And they, a lot of these big-time banks will loan you a hundred percent and more. They will loan you the first year's life support, so to speak. They will also pay for practice management consulting. They will do a lot of things to enable you to get your feet on the ground with this new practice. But in exchange for that, they need some things from you. And this kind of reflects on our first podcast because one of the things they need from you is evidence that you can produce about 80% of what that practice you're buying produces. You've got to prove to them that you can do the production, that you can do the procedures. Say you're buying a practice that's implant dependent. If you're walking into that practice, you're gonna have to take up the slack unless that dentist is not gonna leave right away and is going to train you to do implants. Because, particularly in general practices, implants is one of the biggest sources of income. So you've got to prove to the bank that first you can produce about 80% of what this practice you want to buy is. They want to know that you can manage money. So you need to have like a credit rating of like 700 or above. And you have to have a clean credit history. They want to see that you've practiced for at least one year. So that kind of answers our question about the associateship. Should you do an associateship or residency? The bank says yes.

Dave 28:15

And on that note, there are all types of credit profiles that banks look at. And there are. If you don't have the perfect credit profile, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't buy a practice. No. But what it generally does mean is the bank will ask for additional collateral, let's say, of different kinds.

Sandy 28:35

That's right. And the kind of real catcher is the bank, the big banks won't ask you for a down payment. But what they do ask you for is they want to see in your bank, in your bank, they want to see about 7 to 10% of the cost of the practice sitting in your bank account. You have to prove to them that you can manage your money, you can save your money, you can produce the money that is needed to pay your loan, and that you have the expertise to do all of that. So that's a huge part of what the bank looks like, but it's not the most thing. The most important thing in the bank's mind is this practice you're buying. What does this practice look like? How healthy is this practice? What are the terms for this purchase? And this is a real important part. I've read percentages that say that 70% of the bank's decision is based on the practice you're buying, and the other 30% is on you and this evidence that you can give them. So these things are important to know because they all take time to develop. You may not automatically have a credit history, you may not automatically have a credit rating, you may not be able to do implants yet. And so these are the kind of questions that they want to know and the kind of questions you need to yourself need to start working towards achieving.

Dave 29:57

I think the question also comes into play is how big of a practice do I buy? Okay, so I've decided I want to be an owner. I feel like I'm in a pretty good position to buy a practice. You know, practices come up for sale, and you know, it's like different types of cars. You know, each one has pros and cons, a different price tag. And well, this one, you know, does this type of dentistry, this one is in this area, and everyone is a fingerprint.

Sandy 30:23

And that's probably what we're going to kind of talk about next podcast is I think we need to talk about how you go about deciding what practice you want to buy. I mean, because this is usually a career-long decision. What kind of practice? Where, in what environment exactly? So these are the kind of things we may address next time. But I think we'd like to leave you today with a few more questions to ponder. You know the goals, you know what you've got to have now, basically. I mean, every bank's a little different, as Dave mentioned, and they look at different things. And of course, you may have a bank, you know, a local bank that is willing to work with you. Typically, from what I've read, they are not as eager to give you 100%. But those possibilities do exist. It depends on your relationship with that bank. So let's think about the three questions for our next podcast. These goals of what we you need to prove to the bank to show that you are going to succeed and pay back the loan, which is what they care about, is which one of these goals have you already met? Which ones can you mark off and say, hey, yeah, I've got that one year of practice? I've got, I can prove that I can do all these procedures. I have a good credit rating. I don't have this liquid money in my bank account. So what have ones have you already met? And the second question is what are your strategies? What strategies are you going to use to meet the other requirements? Are you going to do another year of associateship, perhaps, to save up that money? Or are you going to go public health and try to save up that money? There are a lot of options there. And then what is going to be your first step? What's going to be the first thing you do now? What decision are you going to make now to move forward so at one time in the near future, you'll be able to go to the bank with all that they want?

Dave 32:24

Because that's really what we are trying to help you build is choice.

Sandy 32:30

Yes.

Dave 32:30

Is to have the option to, when the time comes, a practice becomes available that fits what you're looking for and that you're clear with what you're looking for. That's important. And it's not just uh on a whim and out of nowhere and like, oh my gosh, I haven't thought about this. Uh maybe I should. That's generally not the best place to be coming at this from. So we want you to be prepared, knowing your pros, your cons, your strengths, your weaknesses. You're working to be the best candidate to buy a practice that you can be. That way, when the opportunity comes, you're ready. And then it's a matter of just evaluating the practice itself and really looking under the hood and making sure that it is what you think it is.

Sandy 33:11

And this is all preparing you for being a business owner. It is all preparing you for that. And so there's really a purpose in this craziness. It'll make you a better leader. The most important part of leadership is understanding yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses. That's a real important part of leadership. And this is essentially what we're talking about right here. But I think that's it for this podcast, right, Dave?

Dave 33:40

Yep, that's it. We certainly appreciate you spending some time with us. And we always are interested in and welcome feedback and questions and things like that.

Sandy 33:52

In fact, we're we've set up a website.

Dave 33:54

Yes, we're setting up a web page for the podcast.

Sandy 33:58

And an email. So you can email us and give you ours. So we're here to help. We're here to help you make a better decision and have a more successful career. So we're going to have that available for you to go to. And please, we'd love to hear your questions. We'd love to hear any suggestions you have, anything that will help us help you better.

Dave 34:21

So that's it for this episode of the Dental Associate Edge, where practice ownership isn't a dream, it's a destination. Thanks so much, and we'll see you next time. Bye.