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July 1, 2008

Note: The following was written by Dr. Kevin Winters, who graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1989. After completing a GPR at the University of Louisville-Humana Hospital, he opened a general practice in Claremore, Okla. After developing a successful general practice and being awarded the Young Dentist of the Year Award in 1995, Dr. Winters transitioned his general practice into one that concentrates on esthetics and reconstruction. He is one of the original clinical instructors at the Las Vegas Institute. He also lectures and conducts seminars across the nation.

Dr. Winters can be reached at (918) 341-4403 or by e-mail at smilmkr95@aol.com.

By Dr. Kevin Winters

Entering new territory

The process of selling a practice and starting a new one is completely foreign to me. I've never done it before. I bought my practice right out of my GPR, and it was already established. I've been there ever since. So to sell my practice and start a new one, I've relied on common sense and talked with several people I felt were reliable.

One of the first things I did was work with a commercial real estate agent. My timeframe did not allow for building a new office, so I needed space to lease in my desired location. While doing my research and due diligence, the same name kept coming up. Carl Vincent of Corporate Realty Advisors, LLC in Tulsa, Okla., was my choice. He has done a first rate and completely professional job for me.

After explaining the kind of practice I wanted and several ideas of where it might work, Carl was able to provide me with an in depth market analysis of these areas. He found not only per capita income, but also information on spending habits, traffic counts on certain streets, and more. It's amazing the kind of facts that can be found. With this information I confirmed that where I wanted to be was in fact the best choice. Armed with this information, Carl led me to several desirable locations, and I found what I thought was the ideal place ? new construction on the corner of a busy intersection. It had great visibility with area for signage. It was perfect, so we began the lease negotiations.

This is where Carl really shone. He was able to understand the wording of the contract and find areas where I wasn't protected. He handled all of the negotiations with rates and terms, and got things right where I wanted them.

Then the unforeseen happened. The doctor purchasing my practice had a delay in his financing. This was going to postpone our closing by about two weeks. We informed the owner of the property of our delay, and that it would in no way change my desire to lease the space. About seven days later, Carl was informed that the owner had leased the space to someone else. The owner did not even call to tell me he needed a check immediately or anything else. There was no contact at all. Obviously, this took the wind out of my sails pretty quickly.

My advice in this area is to be careful and not make assumptions. I've always tried to do the right thing when it comes to business and life in general. Don't assume everyone else is like you. Some people just do not operate in an ethical, moral way.

Next on my list was to find a company to work with to get the office equipped properly and guide me along the way. Of course, the big companies like Sullivan-Schein, Patterson, Burkhart and others have an immense amount of experience in this process. Also, many regional companies offer very good service. I've chosen Schein. I've found the company to be very responsive to my needs and requests, and I've begun to understand the complexities of setting up an office. Ron Fernandez, equipment specialist for Henry Schein, is a wealth of knowledge. From the ergonomic layout of the operatory to the equipment, Ron's knowledge has been invaluable.

Finding this person in your area will create the result you've always wanted. Be sure to interview several companies and the equipment specialists within each. Time spent here will be invaluable.

So, I've chosen my real estate agent and my equipment specialist. What's next? Deciding who's going to plan the layout and design of the office is huge, and of course there are many companies to choose from. Most do a very nice job. I chose a local architect for my project. Shane Fernandez of McFarland Davies Architects in Tulsa really stood out to me. After meeting with him and explaining my vision, I could tell he "got it." I like the fact that he hasn't designed a dental office, because I don't want my office to look like a "dental office." My equipment specialist will consult and work closely with him to make sure the dental-specific things are properly laid out, but then the architect can use his talent to make the office really unique.

I'm now ready to sign a lease on a different space. It's actually in a higher per capita income area than where I was looking before. The space is a very unusual shape, and my architect loved the possibilities. We have a rough outline and are ready to go.

In my next article, I will talk about the next step in this exciting process ? working with the architect and finding a contractor.

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I Think I Can, I Think I Can

Note: The following was written by Dr. Kevin Winters, who graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1989. After completing a GPR at the University of Louisville-Humana Hospital, he opened a general practice in Claremore, Okla. After developing a successful general practice and being awarded the Young Dentist of the Year Award in 1995, Dr. Winters transitioned his general practice into one that concentrates on esthetics and reconstruction. He is one of the original clinical instructors at the Las Vegas Institute. He also lectures and conducts seminars across the nation.

Dr. Winters can be reached at (918) 341-4403 or by e-mail at smilmkr95@aol.com.

By Dr. Kevin Winters

This should be fun. I'm not really sure what I'm getting into and the exciting thing is that you are going to share it with me as I go. It will be almost like a live experiment happening in real time with no one knowing the outcome until we get there.

So, if I have intrigued your interest, let me share with you what it is I am talking about. For about the last six years I have been trying to sell my practice in a small rural town in Oklahoma. I have been able to establish the type of practice that most people say could not be done in a small town. I emphasize cosmetics and restorative dentistry with much higher than average fees for the area. I do quite a bit of marketing trying to attract people from Tulsa, Okla., to my small town of Claremore, about 30 minutes away.

Through the years I have been quite successful but reached a point where I felt my growth potential had leveled off at this location. Locally, I am known as "the high-priced cosmetic guy" and in the region, although I have good name recognition, many people feel that driving 30 minutes from Tulsa is just too far out of the way. It is funny about the mentality people have for health care. If you are in a smaller town, you must go to the "big city" for quality health care. If you are in a big city already, why would you ever consider going to a small town for quality health care?

In spite of this, through the years I have been able to do very well in this practice. We have done a lot of dentistry and made many people very happy. It has provided a great living for myself and my family.

However, I don't know if it is just me or what, but I knew if given the opportunity to be in a more desirable area, one where the kind of dentistry I want to do might fit in a little better, I could take my practice to a new level.

So, about six years ago, I put my practice up for sale. Knowing the process would be slow, I expected it might take 18 to 24 months before anything happened. What I did not realize was that, after two different brokers and my own efforts to sell the practice, I would not have a single offer to purchase the practice. That's right, not a single offer for six years.

I did have one glimmer of hope about three years ago. I had an associate come in to the practice for about three months with the goal of then making a purchase at that point. The way it turned out was gut-wrenching at the time. After getting all excited and preparing for the new possibilities just around the corner, this doctor pulled the rug from under my feet. He decided he was not ready to own a practice and left to go work for a corporate dental office. Man! Talk about dejected. It was as if all my dreams were thrown right back at me and stuffed in the trash. The only thing to do was to keep on keeping on. I put the practice back on the market and kept working hard in the practice.

As 2006 and 2007 progressed, I resigned myself to the fact that the practice was just not going to sell. At the same time, I knew I did not want to stay where I was. I felt somewhat trapped because I really did not want to get into the whole "bring in an associate and manage two practices" lifestyle. After all, I am a dentist and I wanted to do dentistry. If I had wanted to run businesses, I would have got a different degree.

Well, we all know reality is not always what we may desire. We are all businessmen and businesswomen. The reality is that we probably spend more time running our business than we do in improving our dental skills. So my new philosophy in 2008 was to figure out a way to get an associate in to my existing practice and start a new one, from scratch, in Tulsa. I started looking at land and buildings in areas that I considered good demographic matches. I readjusted my own mindset to follow this new path but, at the same time, I never abandoned my mantra of "my practice will sell this year." It was something I told myself on a daily basis. It was this power of positive thinking that I think ultimately led me to where I am now, working with a dentist to buy my practice and building a new one.

That's right. Six years later, no offers, one prospect and not much hope of seeing things change other than what I envisioned in my own mind, I am waiting on bank financing for the purchaser, working out the contract with lawyers, working with architects and dreaming of my new office that may be only four to five months away from opening.

This series of articles is going to log my trials and tribulations along the way. I am going to discuss with you the why's, what's, and who's of starting a new office. Hopefully through this process you will be able to learn from the mistakes I'm sure I will make and also benefit from the things I do and experiences I have. I encourage feedback to share with other readers here in Dental Economics and hopefully we can all learn from each other.

I think this is a perfect example of how although our plans may not always fit perfectly in to our timelines, keeping the faith and continuing on down the path toward your dreams will ultimately get you where you want to be.

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