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We bled red ink for 18 months before reaching profitability. Every month was a negotiation with reality. Would collections cover payroll? Could we stretch vendor payments another 30 days? Do we invest in marketing now or conserve cash and risk slower growth? Those are not theoretical questions. They’re decisions that age you. I was eating antacids like they were M&M’S. I would lie awake staring at the ceiling, calculating in my head who would get paid that week: staff, lab, supply house, landlord, or the bank. When you’re choosing between obligations, you’re not operating from strength. The stress bled into every part of my life. I was still working full time outside the practice to support my family, essentially working two jobs while trying to keep a startup afloat. That pace isn’t sustainable. It cost me my first marriage. I ended up sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a friend’s house and waking up on Christmas morning without my children. That’s not a memory I cherish. I share that not for sympathy, but because struggle leaves a mark. And it also teaches lessons. We did survive. We stabilized. We grew to three locations. The business continues to operate today. And on the personal side, I remarried and recently celebrated my 31st anniversary. There can be a second chapter. Over the decades that followed, I stayed deeply involved in the profession. I consulted on practice management and operations. I helped owners design and implement buy/sell agreements to protect their futures. I brokered traditional practice sales. And for more than 15 years, I served as a senior executive in mergers and acquisitions for multiple DSOs, participating directly and indirectly in transactions representing hundreds of millions of dollars in enterprise value.
Even Google Maps can’t build a route to your destination without first identifying your current location. The same principle applies to your journey as a dental practice owner. You can’t define what it will take to move from here to there until you clearly define the “here.” That’s precisely why I urge you to obtain a professional practice valuation and an operational assessment as the first step in understanding how your current value compares to your target value at exit — whether that exit happens next month, next year, or 10 years from now. If your current value falls short of your target, you need to understand which levers will close that gap. It’s Impossible to Know Where You’re Going Without First Knowing Your Starting Point
That vantage point changes you. You begin to see patterns:
Mark
Why some practices grow predictably and others stall.
Why some owners exit with life-changing wealth while others leave money on the table. Why systems, structure, and strategy matter more than hope and hard work alone. I can’t help but wish I’d known then what I know now. It would have saved money. It would have saved stress. It might have saved a marriage.
Which brings us full circle.
I wouldn’t wish the pain of learning the hard way on any practice owner. Yes, growth requires effort. Yes, business ownership carries risk. But unnecessary suffering caused by avoidable mistakes is something else entirely.
This newsletter exists to shorten that learning curve.
It’s meant to chart a pathway to practice success, drawing on lessons accumulated from my own journey and watching hundreds of others navigate theirs. Think of it as a road map built from real-world experience, not theory. I’ve lived your challenge. My hope is that what you read here will help you grow with fewer sleepless nights, clearer decisions, and a stronger outcome when the time comes to transition your practice.
If it does that, then the scar tissue was not wasted.
2 · DentalGrowthAndExit.com
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