Post-Sale Advice: Understand that Change Comes in Time

So you’ve purchased a dental practice. Congratulations are in order!

And you can’t help but be excited… It has been a long journey, and you can hardly wait to re-shape the practice with your ideas and your vision of practicing your craft.

But hold on and put on the brakes. You have just made a huge investment in acquiring someone else’s goodwill.

It has a developed culture and a staff who are used to your predecessor’s modus operandi. You will be able to make changes, but you need to be patient. Allow yourself the luxury of getting to know the practice you just acquired along with establishing relations and trust with the staff and patients.

Understand that there has been a huge change and that this is not “business as usual.” The staff is now working for a new employer in that practice where they have been employed for a long time. They made their emotional investment here long before you ever walked into this office.

They will be observing your chairside manners, rating your clinical skills and judging your philosophical approach to treating patients. They will also be observing your management skills. Expect that they will be critical at first as they judge your standards with the hope that their former employer made the right decision in transferring the practice to you.

The first few weeks will be your most difficult as you and the staff transition through the psychological and emotional change dictated by this new ownership. It will take time before you achieve a comfortable stride in the practice along with the staff trusting and supporting you.

After an appropriate honeymoon period and, with the staff’s support, you can start to integrate desired changes. This is much easier on all of you if you do it with the necessary support and endorsement. If there is any resistance, you can then make staffing changes when you feel the patients have come to accept you as their new dentist.

You are now cemented into the practice. Congratulations are truly in order because you were wise and prudent in allowing things to come together slowly. You have made a smart and intelligent investment. Enjoy your practice!

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Client Comments

Matched Me with the Right Practice

“Ray, you were keen from the onset to match me with the “right” practice, one that reflected my personality and experience. You even discouraged me from purchasing a practice you had for sale in San Jose because you felt it didn’t fit me.

While other practice brokers were trying to force-feed practices on me, you searched for the appropriate one for me. When this practice came on the market, you quickly contacted me and told me that you had the one I was looking for. And you were absolutely right!

Even though I have practiced dentistry for 27 years, I have never enjoyed it as much as I do now. I’m not sure I would be feeling this way if I purchased another practice less suited to my personal style.”

—Joel Boriskin, DDS, Berkeley