We’ve posted an interview with one doctor, Bill Dean, that we assisted with selling his dental practice. We also posted part one of an interview with the buyer, Dr. Kevin Shively, about his experience on the other side of the deal. Here, in part two, Dr. Shively discusses why he was looking for a rural dental office for sale.
Let’s talk about the benefits of buying a rural dental office for sale. There are a lot of dentists out there that just think a city is where they need to be to have the practice they want. What would you say to people about considering smaller towns? Has it been good for you?
Oh, absolutely. I wholeheartedly support and agree going rural for opening a practice. Trying to make it in the big city, especially as someone new-ish coming out of dental school. “New-ish” being, you know, five to maybe seven years out of school.
Everybody’s business background is going to be different and, for me, being in the military, I never had to worry about the money issue. It was, “Okay, you need a crown. Let’s do a crown,” kind of thing. But trying to make it in a bigger city like Lubbock, or Odessa, Midland, somewhere like that, it’s going to be a lot harder and you’re going to have to look into participating with insurance, figuring out how to do reimbursements, things like that.
So, can you open a practice in a big city like Lubbock just on your own? Yes, you can. But it’s going to be much more difficult. I would wholeheartedly support and suggest looking into rural practices. The people need the treatment. They will come from, in some cases, hundreds of miles away to get the treatment. And at the end of the day, they know how much work went into it and they are so, so appreciative.
When you’re in the military and you have a bunch of 17 and 18-year-old kids, they don’t necessarily really understand how much work goes into things. They’ll say things like, “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m here for today. My leadership told me I had to come for an appointment today.” While they cooperate and do everything, here’s a case where you worked hours and hours on something, and they take a look at it and they’re, like, “Yeah, looks okay, I guess.”
So, you really kind of lose that love and that drive to do dentistry. Within the first week or two being in Floydada, I found that I was loving coming to work. I found that I loved getting to know and interact with my patients, and just having those moments where patients will cry because of how beautiful their teeth look again, and how they’ll fall over themselves to thank me for the work and everything that I’ve done. It really, really helped me reaffirm why I got into dentistry in the first place.
Let’s talk about your hopes for the future. We’ve talked to a lot of retiring dentists, and they have all sorts of plans of all the fun that they’re going to have. But we haven’t talked to a lot on the buying side. What are your hopes for this practice? How you see it playing out throughout your career?
I definitely want to grow the practice. Being out in the rural area, the patients … They understand there’s some procedures they can’t get around going to Lubbock for, but if they can stay in Floydada, they would appreciate it.
I want to grow the practice and ultimately start doing more procedures and make it a true … as much as possible, a true one-stop shop to be able to get everything done. That’s my hope for the future, is to grow the practice to really make it a well-rounded family dentistry practice.
Going back to rural practices, people might be worried about, “How do I market myself? How do I get more patients?” How are you getting patients to your practice?
Well, I would say rural is going to be more word of mouth. Those first few patients are going to be very leery, which mine were as well, because I’m not Dr. Dean and it’s a situation where you have to trust in yourself. You have to know that you’re doing the best for the patient and also treat them as you want to be treated. Treat them with the kindness and respect that you would love to have if you’re the one sitting in the chair. If you do that, it will come back to you a thousand-fold.
I do a little bit of marketing on Facebook. Dr. Dean, one of his main marketing ploys was, he would … There was a local restaurant in Floydada. He would frequent it, and if he noticed that one of his patients were sitting somewhere in the restaurant, when he went to pay he would also pay for that patient, as a sign of goodwill and “Thank you for your patronage with my practice.”
Because it’s such a wide area that you pull from, you’d want to have some face recognition. Word of mouth obviously would be huge.
We do have a website that we’re starting. It’s still a work in progress. But I want to, for those patients that are, let’s say, 45-50 miles away that are looking for a dentist, I’d like for them to be able to look at the website and look at what the practice looks like. And get to know our staff a little bit more, and what we can and can’t do for them, before having them make that trip out there.
There was also a transition letter that was sent out to all the active patients from the last five years. DDSmatch helped with that, but Dr. Dean and myself crafted it and then we sent it out to all the patients. So that was, I think, the biggest initial marketing plan that we had.
Looking for a Rural Dental Office for Sale? DDSmatch Can Help!
If you are considering a rural dental practice, here at DDSmatch Southwest, we have several available dental offices for sale in Texas and New Mexico, as well as across the country. Check out our listings online. Contact us today for more information— it starts with a conversation.