Her attorney and accountant told her not to buy the dental practice, then quit when she did. The appraisal came in at about 5% of the asking price.
Dr. Jen Moran, an AACD board-certified restorative dentist, founded Water Tower Dental Care in Chicago in 1997. She did it by buying a practice that ran on the lowest tier of dental insurance and barely broke even. The appraisal gave the practice’s goodwill zero value. What she saw instead were happy patients from major Chicago employers and a highly skilled hygienist. Over several years, she worked with those employers’ HR teams to move patients to fee-for-service care. Her parents had co-signed the lease, which put their house on the line.
Her second mistake was an impulsive purchase of an early same-day crown machine. She placed about 50 restorations with it and didn’t trust the results. She sold the machine back at a 50% loss and redid every restoration at no charge.
For leaders, the episode raises two questions. What does your accounting miss about the value of your people? And what does it take to own a mistake in front of your customers? We also talk about the business coach who taught her to share profits with her team, private equity in dentistry, and how to use a sonic toothbrush correctly.
Episode page and full transcript: https://markgraban.com/mistake369
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