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In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. Jim Simpson shares his journey of buying the right dental practice. From his decision-making process to evaluating opportunities and making the best choice, Dr. Simpson dives into the key factors...
A bootcamp in small business ownership and practice management for dentists, giving the new graduate a roadmap to successful practice ownership. We interview the best dentists, experts, consultants and more on our weekly show. Here's the topics we will be covering in our 8 Seasons:
1. First Years as a Dentist
2. Think Like a Business Owner
3. Money and Numbers
4. Startups, Acquisitions, and Partnerships
5. Internal Systems
6. Marketing & Growth
7. Leadership, Vision and Culture
8. Beyond Dentistry
Go to SharedPractices.com to download the 8 Season Roadmap.
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Welcome to Shared Practices 2.0. This is our second client update since the
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podcast has relaunched.
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And I'm excited because I think we get in trouble when we share the success
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stories because we set a fairly high bar for ourselves and for our listeners, unfortunately.
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People are like, I've only had 50% growth in the first year after buying a dental
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practice because they've heard too many of these episodes.
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So I apologize to our audience ahead of time. We have a pretty awesome journey
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from pre-purchase, finding the right practice, and first year of growth.
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So the jealousy, it's okay. But if you buy right, if you buy with growth in
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mind, it unlocks quite a bit of potential and is pretty incredible.
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So I'm going to introduce my co-host today, Danielle, one of our amazing coaches.
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Danielle, how's it going?
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It's going good. Yeah. It's always good on a Monday morning.
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I'm not in a hotel. No, I'm in my home office.
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Finding Wi-Fi and weird corners. So tell us a little bit about our guest today.
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Okay. So this is Dr. Jim Simpson.
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He and I went through the buyer rep program together.
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And then he jumped into this journey of coaching with me.
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We've been on this journey for just under a year together and his office is amazing.
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His growth has been tremendous. We've implemented and done a whole lot of things.
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And I don't want to share too much about his story or his office because he's
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sort of in this really weird situation right now, which is kind of a cool thing.
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So I want him to be able to share what all of that is. But he's an amazing doctor.
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He's an amazing boss to his team.
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And I think that that, I'm going to say leader, he's a leader in his office.
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And so he's been amazing to work with.
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Awesome. Jim, welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me. And thank you for the great words there.
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You're welcome. Appreciate it.
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She's great at being a hype man. I'm just like, okay, a little pump here at
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the beginning of the session. So tell us a little bit about yourself.
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When did you graduate? What area of the country are you in?
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And just a smidge of kind of your pre-ownership journey.
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Yeah. So I am from a somewhat more rural area in Northern Kentucky,
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not too far outside of a big city, but graduated dental school in 2015.
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And then I started working as an associate for larger group practice with a
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doctor that I actually kind of mentored with.
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He mentored me while I was going through school and even before I got into dental school.
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And I stayed with him for pretty much close to eight years in the city. So...
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That's towards the end. Yeah, go on.
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Well, I was going to say class of 2015. So, you know, first off,
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very good, very good year.
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But I eight years at one office.
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I remember in the original season one of shared practices, we had someone on
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who talked about the fact that if someone is an associate for more than seven years,
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the likelihood of them making the jump to ownership drops off more drastically
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because it's just like making good money.
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Life is good you're settled you're comfortable so
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you know i think that's awesome that you made the jump despite
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having a good thing going and having a good relationship and it sounds like
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an opportunity that was worth sticking around for eight years what was the moment
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for you if you remember that you decided okay like it's time i want to do my
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own thing or was this just something you always knew and it was just now now you're ready yeah.
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So i actually remember that episode. And I knew I was approaching that timeframe too.
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And originally, obviously in dental school, I think everybody has the goal of
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ownership at some point.
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Because I had this established relationship already, I knew I definitely wanted
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to at least go get some experience with them.
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And it was a great associateship. I had a lot of really good experiences,
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got to learn a lot of as far as from dentistry and from the business aspect.
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I would say towards the end, within the last two years of being there,
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I started to... I don't know, I guess I just wanted more and got tired of like,
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I don't know, clocking in essentially and doing the same thing,
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like the lack of responsibility almost.
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And then there were, you know, there were some other changes that were happening
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and it was kind of like, I think it's time to, for the next step.
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And then oddly enough, I was out of town visiting one of my friends and we had
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just been like talking about the whole situation.
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And I'd been looking a little bit for a practice and a hygienist I knew messaged
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me about a doctor from my hometown.
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And that was kind of the start of it. Yeah.
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Did the hygienist know that you were looking or was it almost like out of the blue?
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She didn't know I was looking. Yeah. It was kind of out of the blue.
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She's, she messaged me a few times in the past. We never worked together or
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anything, but we were pretty good friends from college.
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Okay. Okay. Nice. So I love that.
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You know, I think that oftentimes there's just this sense of like, I want to call the shots.
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I love that you're just like bored. You're, you're, you were sitting there,
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this is a good gig, but at the end of the day, I want to do things my way.
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And that's part of the essential...
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Drive behind ownership is not only is there financial benefits,
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but you can have your own thing and really make the decisions.
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And there's something about making the decisions, even if they don't go the
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way you want them to, but you made the decision and you get to own the consequences,
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good and bad, and reach your potential.
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So super exciting. That's awesome that you didn't really have to grind for years
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to find this good opportunity.
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How early on did you start working with us on on the buyer's representation
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services versus like kind of knowing is this a good opportunity or not what
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was that timeline for you.
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So well so early on so i would say like two years before i had the the call
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i was like i was casually looking but not not very aggressively and so i was
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kind of looking at a couple different places trying to decide what i wanted
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i was used to i don't know producing i guess a decent bit and i was deciding,
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do I want this practice that are harder to find that already has that annual
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revenue or do I want something that I can help grow?
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And then when this came along, looking at the numbers, I'd met with the doctor
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a few times, actually, before contacting you guys.
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Went through schedules and just talked to him. He really wanted to find somebody
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that was particularly from the area, hometown.
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And so going in, seeing his schedule and looking through the numbers with him, he was very open.
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Then I would say it was probably like three, four months after kind of talking
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to him. It was very, very casual in the beginning.
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Well, and the relationship building of this, of like, you're from the area,
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there's an inherent trust and desire.
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You've got to leg up on anyone interested in this practice.
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And I think that's the way that you have to treat these off-market deals where
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it's a relationship with the dentist.
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Sometimes our listeners get into this mode of like, I need to know the numbers
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before I pursue anything further, before I really talk with this dentist.
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But just being patient and building a relationship and being open to that possibility,
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it might take an extra month or two.
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But if you're kind of courting them the correct way, and they're open and transparent,
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every time you ask for a little bit more, they're not withholding information or guarded,
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then eventually you get to the point where like, okay, let's get serious about
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this. So you start working with us,
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When you got that report back, the full detailed analysis of the practice, what stood out to you?
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And then I'll ask Danielle if she remembers anything from that after you respond.
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I would say just as far as some of the numbers go, his overhead was pretty fantastic.
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He had about 60%. And then revenue was good.
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I'd say he was doing, I don't know, close to 700,000 or so. And his schedule
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was fairly light, four days a week.
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And the area, I already knew the area, obviously. it's it's rural but it's it's
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developing very rapidly the only dentists that are out there are the same like
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three dentists that were there when i was a kid.
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Nice um.
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So i knew that i knew the potential was definitely there.
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I i love the developing edges of large metros where it's like you like the suburbs
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are expanding and you're like the next town out and and so it's like there's
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only one place that growth is going to go and you know that like over the next 5 10 15 20 years,
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there's just like a net influx of people who are building, who are commuting,
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the community is getting built up, like new stores are going in.
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And so being like, it's that perfect storm of like, okay, I know what is here,
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the competition here, and the growth that's possible here.
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That's awesome. Danielle, do you remember anything from that early,
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kind of looking at the practice before purchasing?
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Yeah, so I truly love looking at the demographics of a specific area because
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I like knowing what type of person are we going to have in this area?
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What is the growth going to look like?
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And then to the practice information, how many patients are actually there right
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now that we have to work with?
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System-wise, like what systems are we going to put in place right when we walk
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in the doors that maybe haven't been in place in the practice that we can see
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just from the reports that were given to him.
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So I think for me, those are the things that I look at right away.
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And that's a little bit of the special stuff that I want him to share with you
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guys about what's going on there. It's pretty cool.
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Well, one more anatomy piece, Jim, how many ops was the practice?
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Did you buy the real estate? Is it freestanding? Is this in a complex visibility,
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that kind of stuff? Tell us about the actual physical practice.
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Yeah. So I wasn't unfortunately able to buy the real estate off the bat,
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hopefully down the road, but it is a five op freestanding building.
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It's right next to a little strip mall and it's off basically the main road
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that goes straight through town and connects it to all the major highways.
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So as far as visibility goes, it's fantastic.
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I have a sign that's fairly close. The city won't let me put it actually on
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the road, but it's close enough.
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We cleaned up a lot of the landscaping and the amount of people early on that
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were saying they didn't realize it was even a dental practice was kind of mind-blowing.
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His sign was kind of his name and the script was all kind of goofy.
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Couldn't really read it from the road.
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So it's amazing how like the emphasis on like fancy font was like,
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you know, that that's what was important 30 years ago when when that sign went
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went up and it's like, no, I want this like cursive, you know, like I'm a dentist.
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Give me the cursive versus can someone tell I respect and also hate the signs
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that are just like dentist.
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Like yes they commit to like no i'm
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not going to like pretend that i'm anything other than
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a dentist and it's like dentist and phone number and just like pure utilitarian
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sign for for a dental office i i couldn't do it but i i respect those who have
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like the gumption to just put it out there that way um so you know upgrade the
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landscape upgrade the sign you're you're on the,
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Would you have the ability to expand if you wanted to?
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That's something I've been looking at. And I think it would be pretty difficult
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when the current layout, which is one of the current issues we have is we need another operatory.
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And there's just not really a good way to even add one, like feasibly, I think.
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So that's something for future thought as far as what I'm going to do building
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wise, because my end goal would be to have something a little bit larger where
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I can have another full-time doctor with me as well.
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Well, and I don't know if you've listened to the new episodes on on SP 2.0.
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One of the things we're talking about is some some different pathways to the
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million dollar practice.
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And one of the practices is that, you know, new avatar that we're talking about
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maximizing for income, the smart solo.
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So how can I get to a million dollars take home in a five op ideally situation
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with a low overhead and doing that like on cruise control? It's like,
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okay, I can sustain this for as long as I want to.
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It sounds like this practice would be well set up for that.
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And in fact, one of the Facebook questions was like, what do you think is faster,
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doing a startup to that million dollar smart solo or doing an acquisition?
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And I mean, my default is that like the right acquisition, I think is going
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to give you the faster path.
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So we're not going to press you and ask if you're at that million dollar take
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home number. But I do want to talk about your growth over the first year.
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So you take over the practice.
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Tell us a little bit, how nervous were you and any bumps in that early first couple months?
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Definitely nervous coming in because being an associate for so long,
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I was definitely part of some of the business aspect, but I didn't know a whole lot.
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I did have a lot of resources and people I could reach out to,
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though, along the way, aside from just having Danielle, which was fantastic.
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Coming in was a little bit slow, for sure. It was probably...
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So when I started, he had one assistant.
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And so hiring somebody right off the bat was obviously needed.
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But the first few weeks, we were doing a lot of the background,
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front desk paperwork, dealing with some of the insurance plans.
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There weren't even a whole lot of those to deal with, thankfully.
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But it was probably a good three to four weeks before I started seeing patients.
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Because we were... And then we started... I would work two days a week and he
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stayed on. He's still actually with me practicing on Monday and Tuesday.
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Oh, cool.
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Which has been fantastic to have. But we were basically splitting that one assistant
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until I could hire somebody, which was another just like the hygienist reaching
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out to me about the practice for sale.
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I had one of my old assistants contact me one night about another dentist in
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town she was going to go interview for.
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She got out of dental for a little bit. She was doing some other stuff,
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but she wants to go back to hygiene school.
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And so when she messaged me, it was like right after I had posted for an assistant.
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So I was like, well, how about me? Do you want to come in an interview with me.
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And so she came in the next day, pretty much. And I started the following week.
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That's, I mean, when you can find good people early on, I think that's another big accelerator.
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It's like when you inherit a team that's not on board, that's like resistant
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to changes, and then you can't, you know, it like takes a while to turn them
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over and find new people to replace them. That really impedes your growth.
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So it's like to have someone who's already highly competent,
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bring someone on who's also great and that you can kind of train up and there's
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no resistance to the new stuff and the growth, I think is a big deal.
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So you mentioned that the old doc is staying on Monday, Tuesday.
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Are you then working Wednesday, Thursday, Friday?
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I am there Tuesday as well. I just run one column. And then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
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We added a half day on Friday. He wasn't doing any Fridays before.
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Okay. Beautiful. Because I mean, that's once again, we're talking about the
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low overhead that you know, you inherited with this practice,
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adding one day does not add anything to your fixed costs, you know,
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other than the AC bill that you're running that day or whatever,
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but you can add a significant amount of revenue.
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So between you and this other doctor, sounds like you've got a pace that is
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very sustainable for you.
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Was there any resistance on his part of like, if he was used to running one
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assistant, you know, having a little bit busier of a Monday for him, how has he handled that?
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Has he liked it? Or is he just like, hey I'm going to do my pace I'm going to
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do my thing on Monday you do your thing Tuesday through Friday.
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Yeah, I pretty much let him keep his schedule the way he wants it.
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And Monday, he still just has his one assistant and two hygienists.
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So when I came in, there was eight hygiene days. Every day was two hygienists.
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And then within three months, I think it was January, I brought in another full-time
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hygienist and we opened up the Fridays, which then allowed me to add basically
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four and a half hygiene days because one of the other hygienists wanted to work Fridays as well.
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But as far as his schedule, yeah, he comes in Monday, does his thing normal.
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Tuesday is the same thing. I'm just there. I kind of keep a lower schedule.
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I try to keep it more productive.
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And then I help out with the hygiene so he's not too swamped having an extra
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hygienist than he's used to.
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I mean, I love this. This is like immediate eight to like 13 hygiene days or
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maybe even more because if one of those added the Friday as well.
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Danielle, what are your recollections of this first six months and any of the
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bumps, the early successes, coaching moments that you wouldn't mind sharing?
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Yeah. I like that Jim laughs because he knows probably what I'm going to say.
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We have had a lot of conversations and they happened early on up until last
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week about what do we want to do next?
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Because he has this really great organic growth that a lot of offices don't have.
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And when I say organic growth, I mean like 50 to 70 some new patients a month.
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With no marketing spend, I'm guessing.
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Zero marketing.
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Oh my goodness. How incredible. Yeah.
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It's so great. But then we're sort of like, you bring up that new avatar.
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And Jim is really in this position where he wants to be this producer doing different dentistry,
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but we can't get him out of the chair with like fillings and we can't get him
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out of the chair with these other things that are taking up a lot of time and all of the exams.
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And so it's really trying to figure out what the next step is.
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And then we're talking about a new space or expanding into this other op.
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So there's so many choices around just the fact that he has this like huge organic
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growth and we've had it since the beginning.
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And it's something that we can't shut off.
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It's just people keep coming, right?
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It's a problem. You're just like, this is our biggest problem is the new patients
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like pounding our door down.
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I can't imagine how many of our listeners are just like, shut up.
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Like, I don't want to listen to this.
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But the vision really is to cut back clinically, to be able to do the dentistry
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that he wants to do, to do more implants, to to implement sedation cases, to do things like that.
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And so it's really hard sometimes to, we talk a lot about that,
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like, how do we get here with what we're,
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currently doing at the office? How do we get to that goal when we currently
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have just tons of people coming in in the space that we have?
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So that really has been an issue from the beginning.
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And then getting the team involved
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with what it looks like to make that dentistry a possibility for him.
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So there's a lot of working parts in his office.
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And like I said in the beginning. Everyone is so amazing, but we're really trying
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to make his vision a reality for him.
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Well, and the question I'm going to ask here in a minute is about,
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you know, you mentioned that you didn't have to deal with too many insurances.
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So Jim, tell us about the insurance mix. How much is fee-for-service?
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How much is insurance driven?
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Yeah, I would say probably 60, 40, 40% being fee-for-service.
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The insurances are all PPOs. There was five plans when I came in,
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and then one of them was not paying any out-of-network.
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And so during the credentialing process, we ended up just dropping them anyways, which didn't hurt a lot.
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A couple people left, but quite a few of them ended up trying to find new insurances
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because since it's such a small town, everybody's so attached to the hygienists,
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which was one of the good things when I came in.
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They were pretty much fully booked out for six months, every single one of them.
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If somebody had to call to reschedule, we couldn't get anybody in for you know
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three four months at least which is was part of the driving factor for bringing
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in the the additional hygienist okay.
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So a great mix to start off with and then you dropped insurance and saw very
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little drop in demand or patient flow,
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So this is such a great opportunity that if you want to, to renegotiate with
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insurances, possibly drop insurances.
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Danielle, what's been the conversation on that front?
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So we've certainly talked about that. We are not quite there yet that that seems
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to be an option. We have talked that maybe come the new year,
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that conversation would come up again.
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And I don't think it's the patient flow that we're afraid of losing.
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Jim could step in here and say what that is.
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But I think it's more the security behind it that if we do want to grow into a larger space,
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which could mean purchasing something outside of where he is and not just expanding
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that space, then having that comfort of what this looks like and the people
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that are going to go with you needs to be there.
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And so I can understand that hesitation and fear.
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And so there's just working through this process. Like I said,
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I think coming the new year, we have decided to have that conversation again
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on what this would look like.
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If we don't have availability in the office, it's really hard to say, okay, what do we do next?
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We're jam-packed with people. What do we do?
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Yeah. Yeah. And with that, I think the episode drops this next Monday,
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a conversation between George and I, or maybe it's the Monday after,
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about this moment of you have a decision point.
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You've reached what is possible in one office.
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And do you push for growth now or do you push for overhead and income now?
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And so raising fees, dropping insurances, renegotiating insurances before you grow is
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Um, it does slow your growth because part of the reason you get so many new
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patients is that you are a network.
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And so if, if growth, rapid growth to the, your eventual size is your number
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one goal, then staying in network and just adding capacity is the way to go.
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If you're okay with slower growth and you want to optimize for income along
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the way, this is the moment to optimize, to drop insurances,
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renegotiate, raise fees.
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I know raising fees, like some people, there's like zero resistance to being
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like, okay, I'm going to raise fees.
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But there's also like a part of being a dentist and maybe this is only some dentist.
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I'm this way where it's like, sometimes you feel bad raising fees.
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Like, you know, it's a small town.
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There's a lot of dental needs. Like you don't want to have the reputation of
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being the greedy dentist.
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And so is there any of that coming up for you in this decision-making to get vulnerable on air?
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Yeah. I mean, there's definitely the hesitation just because of being in the first year still.
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And I am so set on wanting to see the consistency to make sure there's no,
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I don't know, some false growth from the beginning. I don't know why.
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The insurances I would definitely like to take a look at at the end of the year.
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And there is one in particular that I am definitely not opposed to getting rid of.
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As far as fees go, I think our fees are pretty reasonable for the area.
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I wouldn't say they're low by any means.
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There are a few services I offer because I enjoy doing them and I just want
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to make it more accessible for the area.
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And again, the area is growing. There's a lot of really nice neighborhoods coming
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in, but we're still... It's somewhat rural and we're very close to even more
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farmland and stuff where a lot of people are coming in.
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So I like to keep that growth going for now.
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I know there's going to be a bottleneck, which is one of the problems that we're
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going to face, in which case, we'll readdress and see what we want to do at that point, I think.
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Definitely want to stay where I'm at and maximize what I have and be as efficient
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and productive as we can before we start going elsewhere.
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But I think the goal would be in the next two-ish years, two to three years
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to start hopefully looking to build something close to maybe twice the size.
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I think if that's the goal...
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You will have time where you will have excess pressure for longer than you want.
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And renegotiating insurances takes time. You kind of often have to drop out of network.
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And then like while it's renegotiating and people are getting letters of like,
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your dentist is no longer in network and your team's kind of got to like reassure people.
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So like that's a great thing to do in the interim is it doesn't cost the patient
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anything for you to get higher fees from the insurance.
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So it'd be a good use of the excess demand that
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you have and i also think raising fees on the
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procedures that you don't love you know you've said i want to do
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more of these but there's also all the procedures that you're like
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man this is filling up my schedule maybe sometimes i'm
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annoyed at this these back-to-back mod's and you know
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whatever it may be raising the fees on those procedures
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that are tending to kind of fill up your schedule and prevent you from
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doing more of the stuff you want to do feels good
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because then it's like okay well at least i'm getting paid more to do
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the stuff that i don't want to do as much of so that
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would be you know an area for for you to like think about and consider as
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you look at what to do with that excess demand so so now i do want to ask about
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actual growth and jim was more modest and danielle was more forthcoming on the
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call beforehand as we were just talking but tell us about you know where our
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collections at now and like what are the what are the months that you're seeing these days jim yeah.
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So for the i'm I'm coming up on my 12 months in basically a month even,
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and we're at about 1.3, I believe, for the last 12 months.
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We just hit the million for the actual fiscal calendar year.
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So hopefully we'll be close to 1.5, if not a little bit over.
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Yep. This is why these types of episodes are dangerous. Because in the book,
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we talk about 37% growth or, you know, we have that record of like,
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hey, we're going to get everyone growth and it's going to be good.
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And then you come on air and it's like, well, you know, I bought a 700k practice
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and now it's going to hit 1.5 within the first year.
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And people start expecting more out of us. So this is a problem.
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Danielle, you know, what do you see as a driver of this kind of growth?
Track 3:
Yeah. So like I had said in the beginning, we recognized really quickly that
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there were some things that just weren't in place with systems, with the office.
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So right away, we started putting people in the right seats in the front office
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specifically and putting systems in place like re-care and reactivation for
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our hygiene patients and filling up our hygiene seats.
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And we did some schedule optimization to make sure that we were truly optimizing
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our doctor's time and that we were putting the right things in the appointments
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at the right time when we needed to.
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So exams and x-rays and things like that. So we were really kind of looking everywhere.
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We had a whole team meetings and we really talked about why pre-appointment
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was so important from hygiene because we're looking into the future and we don't
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want to be circling back and chasing people to put them on the schedule.
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So collections protocols, we really went through everything that was really
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important to the growth of the practice and to each individual seat in the practice.
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So not just the growth of the practice, but the growth of Jim's team.
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And it's paid off. It's really shown.
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That's incredible. And I love that it's like so
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many dentists are sitting on these opportunities they don't realize that
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if they'll just optimize these little things and focus
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on growth and be willing to add team members and train them appropriately like
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you can double your practice you he you know the the opportunity was here and
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they're great dentists they're at a pace they they want to be at but if you've
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got someone with a motor who wants to go and wants to grow and is willing to
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really take the reins and and,
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do it a lot as possible. So that's incredible. Jim, what do you see as some
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of the big drivers and the things that you're most grateful that you implemented
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with Danielle as you grew?
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Definitely the systems, because when I came in, it was kind of like one of those
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autopilot type offices where they were all kind of just doing their thing that they've been doing.
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And it was working for them, which was great.
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Everybody was very, they were attentive and ready to change and grow as well.
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As more people started coming in and we were seeing more volume though,
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they were quickly realizing some of the things they were doing that weren't working anymore.
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So I think that was more motivation to take in some of the change that we were
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in systems that we were putting into place.
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That's awesome. It's that order of operations.
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You got to get the systems in place as you grow. Otherwise the wheels fall off
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just due to growth and chaos and not having that in place, your team breaks,
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the systems rake, you lose patients.
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So you've been able to grow both. You grow your patient base,
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you grow your systems, you grow your team all at the same time.
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And that's how you get this opportunity that you have in front of you.
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So I love this. I'm super excited.
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I'm excited to hear if you are able to find another space.
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It's hard when you're right on Main Street, you've got great visibility right in the middle of town.
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And you're like, man, it's hard to give up the demographics of my specific location.
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But with the new growth, I'm sure there's going to be shopping centers,
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there's going to be new neighborhoods, new developments, and opportunities for
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you to kind of take your pick and build where you want to build.
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What other challenges do you see in the next three to six months that you're
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looking to overcome? Jim, I'll start with you and then go over to Danielle.
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Honestly, just the biggest thing is keeping, I guess, everyone on track as far
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as maintaining the goals, but then also the volume.
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Because we're still, it definitely ramped up from the beginning.
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The first five months or so was about 70, 75 new patients a month.
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We've kind of calmed down to around 45, 50.
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But maintaining that and making sure the schedule stays manageable from all aspects, I would say.
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Okay. Danielle, how about you? What do you see on upcoming challenges?
Track 3:
Yeah. I don't necessarily think it's a challenge. I think it's something that
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we face in almost every office is that we're constantly having to do...
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We have to check in with our team and we really have to check in with the systems
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that we've put in place just to make sure that we're all still good.
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And that's something that we've really had to make sure has been a thing with
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Jim's office is just saying, hey, are we feeling good with this?
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How's everything going here?
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We recognize when things aren't necessarily...
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You know, on the up and up on something. And so we, we do some training again,
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and we get everyone excited about the importance of something.
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And so I think it's not just his team that we're going to struggle with.
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I think it's all teams that we have to always have these constant reminders
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of the importance and why we're all working towards these goals.
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But it's, it's fun.
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Well, and especially when you add, you add a lot of systems.
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So it's like you've added, you know, this and this and this over the course of this three months,
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next three months, next three months you add a couple systems every
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three months and all of a sudden you're a year in and we're
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like okay we have to audit all of this and we have to be checking up
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on all of this otherwise as you get
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busier as the chaos hits as your short staff temporarily
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it's just natural like this is not ingrained into the dna quite yet of this
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practice it's like you're we're still building that like pattern recognition
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that muscle memory of all of these systems um so that that's what we all have to do.
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And auditing sometimes isn't fun and you get pushback and people feel bad and
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guilty and they hide and all those things.
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But if you can just do it in the right attitude of like, hey,
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no, we just want to make sure that we're able to take care of our patients and
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we want to make sure we're organized.
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We want to make sure you're not stressed as a dental assistant,
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as a front desk team member.
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Then I think people are on board with, okay, we got to circle back.
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We've got to make sure that we're doing things the right way.
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So anything else, Danielle, and then Jim, that you would say of this whole journey
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and this opportunity before we wrap things up today, Danielle, I'll start with you.
Track 3:
Yeah. Gosh, it's been great. I cannot wait to see what happens next.
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It's a huge amount of growth and I know more to come.
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So I'm truly excited to see what the next moves are in the game of this office.
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It's truly cool. I know, Jim,
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you laugh, but it's so fun figuring out what we do next to see the vision come
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to reality and working with the team to make all of this happen and working
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directly with Jim to make all of this happen.
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It's just fun. It's a fun little adventure.
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Jim, how about you? Anything to wrap us up here?
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Yeah, it's just been a whirlwind of a year. That's for sure.
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The constant evolving has been fantastic. And I really appreciate the team that's been there.
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I was very lucky with who I brought in with the acquisition and the new people
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that I brought in as well.
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Everybody's been very receptive and definitely been a big part of the success
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as well as obviously Danielle and everybody at Shared Practices that's been able to help.
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That's awesome.
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I appreciate it.
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Yeah, I if people want to extrapolate because I keep thinking back to this like
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conversation we've had on air, especially the surprise,
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not surprise, but like George and I were like, OK, we didn't have this as an
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avatar of the million dollar take home solo.
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And if people put together like your early overhead, maybe it's changed,
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maybe it's gotten worse or better what you're projected to do,
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they can start to like come up with their own conclusions of what's possible in your office.
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But I'm going to count this as a win for what Suzanne said, which is,
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Richard, we're already doing this.
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We just don't have this as a specific avatar.
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And also a win for acquisitions as a pathway to having a great take home and
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having options of, do I now optimize for growth?
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Do I now optimize for overhead and what production can be done in one office
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with one doctor sustainably?
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And I just love that you've added a doctor day, you've added hygienists,
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like you've done all the right moves to be able to expand what is truly possible
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out of this five op practice in a phenomenal growing semi rural area.
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So this is just, if we could copy and paste your situation for people like we would all day long,
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hopefully some of our listeners who are pre-owners maybe are thinking about
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like, okay, can I find this growing edge of a major metro, semi-rural type situation?
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And if they can stomach not living in the downtown of some major metro,
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there's a lot of opportunity.
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And then you just drive into town and spend a lot of money downtown anytime you want to.
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So this was awesome. And Jim, thank you for coming on the show.
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Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
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Danielle, this was great. Thank you so much for helping Dr. Simpson out over
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this year and helping him buy the right practice. I really appreciate everything you've done here.
Track 3:
Yeah, thank you as always.
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Awesome. Well, we will talk to you next time on the Shared Practices Podcast.