This week, the Dental Amigos welcome Josh McSpadden, who has been in practice lending since 2012, and is the co-founder of PracticeFinder, which he believes is the world’s first practice listings and marketplace app. For many years, Josh has helped dentists and other medical professionals around the country to acquire their dream practices, to expand into multi-practice ownership, and to acquire commercial real estate. Creating PracticeFinder has enabled Josh to build upon his experience and further extend his guidance to dentists and other medical professionals who struggle with  navigating the acquisition process.

Josh emphasizes the importance of buying a practice efficiently and correctly, and discusses how challenging navigating that process can be  due to a lack of advising. With his creation of PracticeFinder, professionals are able to use  a number of filters to search for and quickly identify their ideal practices. Josh underscores the value of hiring a practice broker, and explains how PracticeFinder partners with brokers to help them buy and sell their clients’ practices and commercial real estate using PracticeFinder’s  third-party listings platform.

To check out PracticeFinder, go to PracticeFindermedia.com to download the link directly. If you have any questions or are a transition broker who would like to consult with Josh, you can email him at Josh@PracticeFindermedia.com.If you are a dentist who is seeking financing in connection with a practice acquisition, you can reach Josh at Panacea Financial at Josh.McSpadden@PanaceaFinancial.com. Panacea Financial is a boutique lender that helps professionals from residency through to retirement.

Listeners who want to reach out to Paul can do so at Paul@DentalNachos.com and those who want to reach out to Rob can do so at Rob@RMontgomery-Law.com.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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Bumper  00:00

Welcome to the Dental Amigos podcast with Dr. Paul Goodman and attorney Rob Montgomery, taking you behind the scenes of the dental business world. All the things you didn't learn in dental school, but wish you had. Rob is not a dentist, and Paul is not a lawyer, but since Rob is a lawyer, we need to tell you that this podcast is for informational purposes only and shouldn't be considered legal advice. Listening to this podcast does not and will not create an attorney-client relationship. As is always the case, you should formally consult with legal counsel before proceeding with any legal matter. Learn more about the dental amigos atwww.thedentalamigos.com.  And now, here are the Dental Amigos!  

Rob Montgomery  00:39

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Dental Amigos podcast, the only podcast hosted by a dentist and a lawyer.

Paul Goodman  00:47

We are special.

Rob Montgomery  00:48

We are, as far as we're concerned. I'm Rob Montgomery, and I'm joined, as always, by the Head Nacho himself, Dr. Paul Goodman.

Paul Goodman  00:54

Glad to be chatting, Rob.

Rob Montgomery  00:55

It's always fun to be with you, Paul. And today we have an interesting guest who's rolling out what I think to be a really exciting product,  revolutionary in the in the dental world, maybe, a game changer for sure. And that's Josh McSpadden,who's going to talk today about what he does in the dental world, and specifically his new Practice Finder app. So excited to talk to him about that, and for our audience to learn more about that and what Josh does for dentists. So Josh has been a practice finance lender since 2012 and now he's with Panacea Financial. He's helped countless medical professionals achieve the dream of practice, multi-practice and commercial real estate ownership, and now he can add "app developer" to his resume. Josh co-founded Practice Finder, the world's first practice listings app. Practice Finder is a third-party listing platform that allows a medical professional to build filters and quickly identify the practice of their dreams. Even submit an LOI through the app Practice Finder, revolutionary app, brings our industry and places it in the palm of your hand. And really, as Josh likes to say, we've heard him talk about Paul, is it's kind of the world's first Red Fin or Zillow for the dental world.

Paul Goodman  02:19

I've been asked many times by dentists about this, so it's here. I'm looking forward to learning more about it.

Rob Montgomery  02:23

Yeah, it's an interesting thing.  I find myself too when people say, "Well, I'm looking to buy a practice. Who should I call?"And you say, well, you should call this person, that person, this person, that person, this person won't have quite as much, but you never kno, you should talk to them, which seems like a weird thing when people hear that, and you have to tell them, it's not like the real estate world until now, right? I'm excited, all right, and now, without further ado, here's Josh McSpadden, welcome amigo, and thanks for being on the show.

Josh McSpadden  02:52

Hi, Rob. Dr Goodman, thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to visit with you guys for a little bit.

Paul Goodman  02:52

Us too. Before we get started on all the practice stuff, I have a hard hitting question. If we were in your town, where would we go for nachos and what is your favorite topping?

Josh McSpadden  03:11

Oh, good question. I would take you guys to City Taco down right outside the steps of the San Diego Padre Petco Park. There's the most incredible taco shop down there, but we out here in California, we make them "California style", we dump the chips and we add french fries. So I would have you have a carne asada fried Nacho. That's where I would take you, down at Petco Park. It's incredible food down there.

Paul Goodman  03:41

Sounds unique.

Josh McSpadden  03:42

And then we catch up, then we catch a ball game.

Paul Goodman  03:44

Nice.

Rob Montgomery  03:45

I don't know, are we Padres fans, Paul?

Paul Goodman  03:47

I am not over here, but you know, I have someone on my team who lives in San Diego, so I'll root for her through that. Root for the Padres through her.

Rob Montgomery  03:54

I've always loved, like the old school Padre logo. Yeah, I have no connection though, so I've just, it would be weird, but I've always been a fan of it. Hey, So Josh,  you've got a recent app that you've developed, and you have to tell our audience how long ago you've rolled it out, but we'll talk about what it is and what it does. But, you know, as we said in the introduction, it's a an app where people can find practices for sale. Let's just kick it off and say, what led you to want to develop this sort of app?

Josh McSpadden  04:35

Yeah, first off, I'm a big fan of doing things differently. But my business partner, her name is Allison Robles. She was a veterinarian optometry transition broker with a large national brokerage. And she calls me five years ago and says, Do you know of a debt optometry practices for sale in La Quinta, California? It's out here in the in the desert, part of California, big golf Mecca. And I said, I have. I have no idea. She says, I wish that there was a platform where all the transition brokers could list their practices so we could see what's available in certain markets. And I said, kind of like Redfin. She says, exactly. I said, doesn't exist. Why don't we build it? So that from that conversation five years ago until today, we've been under App development and web development for the last nine months, and it's been a beautiful disaster. I really don't want to do it again. What we what came of that was Practice Finder, which is the world's first practice listing app. Our model is that we partner with transition brokers, where they list their practices on their website and on Practice Finder are given the power to look at practices that are available in certain markets for dentist, vet, Opto and medical professionals, now in the palm of their hand. So it eliminates the Google searching, eliminates all that, and they look for inventory and certain demographics that meets their skill set, all from the palm of their hand, you know, from their phone.

05:57

Now, I was

Josh McSpadden  05:57

just

Paul Goodman  05:58

I was just using it myself, because I'm a dentist, and you know, dentists always want to look at practices. There's people there's people out there who like to go to open houses just to check out houses.  It was easy to use. And I put in some settings, you know, I do not want a practice that has less than five operatories if I would buy another one, because modern day dentistry, you got to put a lot of stuff in it. I know this is not a thing that my amigo Rob really understands. But to to put things in a dental practice, it requires a lot of space, more space than 20 years ago. So the more ops, the better. And it was easy to use. I really, really found it fun.  Yeah,

Josh McSpadden  06:32

Well, I appreciate that. And like I said, it' eliminates the Googling so if I'm a dentist, and I'm moving from, you know, Newport Beach to Austin, Texas, instead of Google, and they don't really, if you're making a move or you're not familiar with the transition brokers that are in that particular market. Now, instead of googling dental practices for sale in Austin Texas, you can very easily download Practice Finder, build a filter, exactly what you just said, based on your skill set, is how we can now identify practices and match up a dentist's  production capabilities and skill set to find the right practice, as opposed to Google, telling them you know what listings are available, plus that dentist that's moving from Newport Beach to Austin, Texas, if they can produce a million bucks out of five operatories, that practice might be buried on the fifth, 10th, 13th, second website. There's no telling. Now, it just gives greater availability and visibility to the listings that are for sale that match that skill set of that particular dentist. So it's kind of revolutionizing the way Dentistry and Dental Practices are bought and sold and transacted.

Rob Montgomery  07:40

Yeah, it's cool. I mean, the other thing too, some people remain somewhat flexible as to where they're going. And if  you're moving from Newport Beach, and you say, well, Austin would be cool, but yeah, so would Houston, I'd be okay with Dallas. And I've always wondered, would we like to own a practice and work and live in Tampa, you know? And like, if you find a practice in one of those areas that you like, that may direct you, to your point, Josh, like trying to navigate that on a Google search in a sort of an intelligent way, would be a challenge.

Paul Goodman  08:12

You wind up just giving up. And, you know, when I started Dentist Job Connect, I was just giving some D3s this morning this advice. I said, Go on Dentist Job Connect. Pick where you might want to live, and just see what's out there, and give yourself context as to what type of jobs are out there, what they might pay you, the skill set that you need. The buying of the practice, Josh, I say is the biggest decision of a dental career. Spend some time checking it out. Be proactive instead of reactive. But I'll share, as somebody who at one time in their life was really into wanting to buy a lot of practices, it is not easy until you've created this, and you it has a high give-up ability, because, like you said, Rob and Josh, you're on page two of Google, you're on a random website, it's not there anymore, and you wind up just giving up.

Rob Montgomery  08:53

Yeah, well, yeah. And I think a lot of practices too, and some brokers just don't even make it to the website, right, either, you know? And so it's sort of probably a more immediate way to get connected. I'm curious too, so talk us through this alittle,  you say that you can submit an LOI through the app too. I've kicked around the app, but talk to the audience a little bit more more about the mechanics. How do people find it? So if we have listeners, they can go to it now and then pause the podcast and then kind of follow along with Josh, so to speak. But where do people find it? How do they download it? For starters?

Josh McSpadden  09:37

Yeah, there's a couple different ways. If you launch the app store, if you're an iPhone user, launch the app store and type in PracticeFinder one word, and you'll see our beautiful logo, and you can download it through there. You can also go to Practice Finder two words on if you're if you're one of the Android users that are contributing to the demise of the world. I tease that because that's my wife. She uses an Android

Rob Montgomery  10:03

I'm guilty as well.

Paul Goodman  10:04

Green bubbles, they're causing, they're messing up group chats. Oh, I don't care how good your camera is, the green bubble is ruining it.

Rob Montgomery  10:10

I've got a big group chat that for my open water swimming gang

Paul Goodman  10:13

I'm surprised to let you be on it.

Rob Montgomery  10:15

It's my group chat so they have no choice, but who knows what they say on their little apple behind my back. Some times people are like why do I have all these one-on-one chats with like, one of 18 people. And then sometimes it works, so not only am I an Android user, I'm a bitter one at that, and it's kind of made me more entrenched to stick with it, Josh, in all honesty.

Paul Goodman  10:37

Out of spite man, you're sticking with it out of spite.

Josh McSpadden  10:42

I did not mean to trigger you guys. I'm sorry.

Rob Montgomery  10:45

Doesn't take much, Josh. So okay, people are gonna go download that app, and again, if you feel like pausing the show now to kind of get that in front of you,  I don't expect you, Josh, to walk through all the mechanics, but now that people hopefully have that app on their phone. Tell us, what's the process? How does that work? That they can submit an LOI through the app, walk us through the mechanics of that.

Josh McSpadden  11:11

Sure, it's complimentary for a dentist to download the app and build filters and look at some of the news, some of the mechanics that we'll go through a little bit later, but it's complimentary for them to build filters and look at the listings that are available across the United States. We just cleared, it doesn't sound like much, but we just cleared 300 listings, partnering with 14 brokerages. We launched this at 3pm Pacific Standard Time on August 19. So we just celebrated 10 weeks. And so we've been onboarding new transition brokers, and it's just kind of catching. It's kind of that tipping point is getting a little bit closer each day. So, yeah, if I'm a dentist, you know, you can go to practicefindermedia.com, and there's also a link in there to download the app that takes you to, you know, whichever your platform that you choose, whether it's Apple or Google. But now, as you build a filter based on your skill set, million dollars, five operatories, whichever city and state that you want throughout the United States, to see the availability, you can actually click on the listing and see which transition brokerage lists that practice, and how they describe the practice. There's different fields that say, Is this a general dentistry practice? Is the perio? Is it ortho? Is it oral surgery? There's different ways the transition broker describes that. How many operatories, square footage, purchase price, collections that we also backlink, where it says broker website, they can click on the broker website that goes to the transition broker, link their brokerage website with an NDA and what we call CRM so they can gather some information. But if a dentist wants to put an offer in on that practice, they can get under NDA directly through the app, and then eventually do a little bit of due diligence and then submit an LOI. We just play matchmaker. We allow dentists to use the platform complimentary to find the practice that meets their skill set, and then match them up with the transition broker that ultimately, you know, gets them, maybe they engage in business and take it further to the due diligence process, get the financing all of that.

Paul Goodman  13:24

I see a nice practice in Phoenix, Arizona, I'm sure it's popular, over a million dollars a year in collections and 3000 active patients. It just took me, you know, just a few seconds, and it looks like I can contact someone right away and also figure out what kind of loan I'm looking at.

Josh McSpadden  13:41

Yeah, yeah, there's loan calculator in there. So we built a great product that I think that people are really starting to enjoy in the marketplace.

Paul Goodman  13:49

Tell me this, Josh, because Rob says we're the only podcast with a dentist and lawyer. And I know I'm not the only one of these people, but I am one of the few who's a dentist who's also been a transitions broker. I have retired from listing practices myself, but I still work closely with transitions brokers. Tell me about their experience, the ones who are using it. Do they see it as a something awesome? Do they see it as a competitor? Is it something they wish they had? Tell us about the brokers on the site, just their general outlook on the app.

Josh McSpadden  14:25

Nine out of 10 of them. 9.9 out of 10 of them. I can't even say nine out of 10, because everybody that I speak to about this says I had the same idea, right? And my grandfather told me, 99% of the people that walk around their lives with an idea banging on their head, and don't do anything about it. I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur. And so, you know, we liquidated 401KS, my business partner sold family land to pay for this, and then we had some angel investors. But from a broker standpoint, they see the value in partnering with Practice Finder, especially when it's complimentary, because too often, people are trying to get involved in the transaction. I simply just help dentists identify practices and then match them up with the listing that matches their skill set. So it's been very well received amongst the transition brokers. I walk them. I my job with Practice Finder is to identify a brokerage, demo them and onboard them. And they can't believe how easy it is to use, we built it that way. I have some transition brokers that are 80 plus years old, so I had to make it as easy as possible for them to use the app. So its very easy to onboard listings. It's been very well received, and we are starting to see as this, like I mentioned, we just kind of launched this 10 weeks ago. We're starting to see transition brokers get signed NDAs through the app in less than 24 hours, where we're matching up buyers with these listings, and so it's shortening their sales cycle. And we're eliminating a lot of that frustration that a dentist has when they really didn't know where to start in purchasing a practice. And so they can reach burnout kind of quick, like you mentioned. But from a brokerage standpoint, a lot of them have this idea. Nobody's really come to market with it. We have, now that it's here and the model that we built, it's been just kind of overwhelming kudos each time that we talk about it, which kind of just fires us up more because we're on the right track as far as Practice Finder goes.

Rob Montgomery  16:34

Yeah, that's really exciting. So it's clear too, because we do have a lot of brokers that listen to to the podcast. You're saying that it's free for them to usethis?

Josh McSpadden  16:43

Yeah, I'm a marketing platform. So when a dentist builds a filter to look at practices for sale, they can look at the listing view, where they can just swipe down to up and look at all the listings that are available. Every five listings on the app, there's advertising space that's available. That's where you get some of these large companies, 3M, Henry Schein, Patterson, all these other companies, they can advertise on Practice Finder. And so I'm a marketing platform. That's why I don't have anything to do with the transition except just simply match the buyer and the transition broker and ultimately the seller. So that's called premium advertising. It's available for their company to advertise their product and/or service in the listing feed. There's also Marketplace, which is one of the tabs on the website, or at the bottom bar on the actual app. That's a resource site where a dentist could say, I want a dental attorney or I want a dental consultant, and any company that advertises as a dental consultant or attorney or DSO services or wealth management, whatever it is, will show up on there, and we have linked that company's advertising or that company's website with that E tile, is what we call it, under Marketplace, they can engage in business that way. So it's also used as a resource site to help dentists. What we say, from residency to retirement, where they can come to Practice Finder, and it's all at their fingertips.

Rob Montgomery  18:16

Yeah, it's really cool. And so really, what's the downside to a practice broker? I mean, it doesn't cost anything, and it just gives them exposure. There's no reason not to put your practice up here.

Josh McSpadden  18:34

Yeah, Revolve Practice Transitions in the San Francisco Bay Area, Gavin Shea, he's the CEO over there, he asked me the exact same question, and I said, if he could find one downside to why a transition brokerage would not use Practice Finder I'd buy him a steak dinner. So I give you that same challenge. If you could figure out why they wouldn't do it, I'll buy you a steak dinner. Because I haven't really found a way to do that, because I'm not a part of the transaction. We're a marketing platform, and the more marketing, the more advertisers that we get, the longer we can keep the transition brokerage, you know, complimentary for them.

Paul Goodman  19:14

In dentistry, there's something called periodontal disease, scum disease, and we rate it with mild, moderate or advanced. Okay, so I work with the dentist, and I can say this as an expert. So periodontal disease is called periodontitis, and my dentist people, they have extreme, advanced frugality to itis, which is being very frugal, what I call dentist cheat. So immediately I say to myself, here while Rob and I champion the dangers of DIY. We just saw an entire company go out of business because they tried to have people do their braces at home, and that did not work out well at all. But I've seen dentists, and they sometimes are into DIY. Can a dentist themselves list their practice on the site?

Josh McSpadden  19:58

Great question. Our business model is the same, we partner with transition brokers, and so this is not a for sale by owner site. This is not a biz, buy, sell. I actually have systems in place on my admin panel, on the back end dashboard, where I see the new users that pop up. And we also have a block to where a trend if I when I onboard a new transition broker, I'm face to face with them, and they understand that I'm helping them sell their practices quicker. I also verify their business license and or their real estate license. And so we've had a couple situations where a real estate person, or possibly a dentist, I don't know who it was, tried to upload their own listing, and my system, my software, blocked it to where it couldn't be published a Practice Finder, because our business model is partnering with transition brokers to help sell their practices. I like it. I think the industry has worked for the last 40 years. We're just helping them take it, put it in year 2024, and beyond. So, yeah, I have no aspirations to make this a for sale by owner site. That's not really the model that we're going for.

Paul Goodman  21:13

Which I think is smart because most dentists own one practice in their entire life, and it's a big decision, and trying to DIY your own practice sale can come with massive risk. I think it's really important that they see not only the brokers, but you have banks on here, and you have advisors. So it gives them right to their phone, right in their face, on their phone, because we're always on our phone right in front of our face. Who the people they need to succeed are, who the who the advisors that they should connect with. So I think that's great.

Rob Montgomery  21:48

Well, people don't, you know, it's sort of like the appeal to, you know, say, quote, unquote, save the money. But as we talked about the the issue, and people have sometimes biases against brokers. I get it, its same thing with lawyers. You could say, like, this lawyer is going to gouge me and not do the work, or this broker is just going to charge me all this commission, and I can just do what they do. The solution is not to not work with those people. It's to work with the right people, and also a good broker will add value. You don't need to DIY this stuff. You can hire a good broker. And frankly, when we're working on a transition, the deals that just go on forever and get off the rails are the ones with either no broker or a bad broker. So a good broker adds value to the seller to get the deal done, keep it on track. And a lot of times, you know, for people that are buyers out there, you know, there's an appeal to send out all these letters to all these practices who are not really interested, perhaps in selling their practice, but they would like to get the money. And then those people, the buyers, potential buyers, get frustrated with the fact that, why isn't this person selling? Well, they probably never were all that committed to selling in the first place.

Paul Goodman  22:59

I think, to echo your point, hiring a team of  professionals shows commitment. And you have seen this. I've seen it. I've seen it myself where, you know, I saw someone on my Facebook the other day, their  owner was supposed to sell it to them. Now they might sell it to somebody else. And this world is just so complex. And I compliment you, Josh, that you're creating not only clarity, but also responsible information. As someone who lives their life on social media and sharing things, even if you had all of the knowledge to sell your practice yourself, you would still need someone to buy it. And I have yet to find a dentist who's been able to explain to me how they would advertise their own practice for sale. Oh, put it on your own Facebook group. Is your aunt of your own Facebook page? Is your aunt gonna buy your practice? Is your aunt interested in your practice? And then they go, Oh, my attorney knows people putting way too much pressure on their advisor accountant or attorney. Because yes, they might know a few people, but it's like from the 1800s to not use the power of apps and social media to get the most options to sell your most important asset.

Josh McSpadden  24:04

I think that that angle of the of the business model came from experience of the lender, right? Because I've seen dentists try to sell their own practice and at the given, if the give and take, they don't have the Rolodex of buyers that a transition broker would have. The transition broker lifts the practice, knows the process, can identify a buyer to bring. If a dentist is trying to do that on their own, that's going to chew up some time. So where's that time going to come from? Are you giving up time with your family? Are you no longer chair side seeing patients because you're trying to sell your practice? If that happens, then collections are going to dip, and the value of the practice is worth a little bit less than it could be. A transition broker keeps a buyer and a seller motivated to the finish line. That's one of the biggest values that I've seen as a lender, and they do in a professional way. And so yeah, and there's also the resource to bring you know all the players in the banks, the attorneys, the Real Estate to get the lease and all that stuff. There's some mistakes that can happen if somebody's gonna try to list their practice on their own. So that's why my model is help the transition brokers speed up that process that ultimately is going to help the buyer and the seller  get to that finish line, also a little bit quicker.

Paul Goodman  25:17

I'll add one more thing, as the only owner of a dental practice here, I'll call it, you're too close to the emotional fire of it. So we had Joe McGonigal on, and if I hired Joe to sell my practice, I am sure that one of the buyers might say to Joe McGonigal, "Why does this operatory have so much old, out of date stuff? and Joe McGonigal is going to say to me, "the buyer was interested in what updates are you doing?" Right? And they wouldn't be necessarily passing along. And I might say, "Why is the buyer dragging their feet? They said they're already done." And Joe will say to the buyer, "The seller is interested in accelerating this process," right? So I will just share this is so emotional for both people. And if they have no go between, it could work with fights, tears.

Rob Montgomery  25:58

The intermediary, exactly. It's a filter.

Paul Goodman  26:01

I say this in a joking way, just know, the dental person, I can imagine what people would say on both sides. And I think you need that person who does this thing every day to help you with something you're only going to do once.

Rob Montgomery  26:10

Totally. I mean, they're the filter. They know what needs to be done and said to keep things on track, like you said. And we see this too, that especially in our world that comes up a lot, but it sort of manifests itself in the situation where you've got an associate that's buying into a practice. We always tell them, like, do not discuss this with the other party, you know, because you're going to end up having to work together right after the fact. You have to have difficult conversations. Somebody does, you know, and it doesn't need to be the buyer and the seller. It's better that the broker has those conversations, or the lawyers have those conversations, especially in a dentist to dentist deal where you want to transition the practice, you want to preserve the goodwill and a good relationship after the deal, and to have these like face to face, quote, unquote, hard conversations, does not really facilitate that. I'm with

Paul Goodman  27:03

Rob knows a lot about the real estate world. What you've done with this app is you get people get to pick their preferences. So I have this allergy. It's a weird allergy. Not many people have it. I'm allergic to mowing the lawn. Okay? So even though I have two children and a dog, if a real estate agent said, Hey, Goodman family, I have a wonderful house in Bryn Mawr with a lawn, they don't know that. I do not want that lawn, okay, and stop trying to tell me about that lawn, because I don't want to spend any of my time mowing that lawn. So what I you know like about this app and just playing around with it as a dentist, is some people want a small, three operatory practice that is $700,000 a year, and they work four days a week. Other people, to me, that would be too constricting, and I'd rather have a bigger one. And I'm sure the brokers benefit from just a more streamlined, efficient approach to getting the buyers interested in what they have.

Josh McSpadden  27:50

Yeah, Practice Finder only publishes what a transition broker wants to put out there, right? Because from a sensitivity and confidentiality standpoint, and so, yeah, it just it opens it up to where a buyer has now all the power to see what's available that meets not only their skill set, but their current plans and their future exit plans, you know. And we just try to bridge that gap by giving, by leveraging a little bit of technology.

Paul Goodman  28:15

I don't know that Rob thinks this, we can have a friendly debate. I actually think there's too much confidentiality in this world and too much secrets and too much don't even say what state I'm in. And I think when it comes time to selling a practice, you don't want to tell your team and say it's on 31 North Main Street. That's my practice and doing it. But I think that just the mere fact that you're bringing all these listings that you can scroll through and seeing practices, it just creates, to me, just more of a normal way to buy something, as opposed to this weird behind the scenes. Look behind door number two four operatory practice in Bryn Mawr as the person who's been on that side. It just can get a little weird.

Rob Montgomery  28:56

It's interesting. We've never talked about this, certainly not in these terms. But yeah, you can kind of analogize it to if you use the the RedFin or the Zillow, all right, "I'm gonna buy this house. It's a four bedroom, three bath house, but you can't see the house or the address. Just know that, it's this many square feet, it's this many bedrooms and, that'll be a weird thing.

Paul Goodman  29:20

It hurts momentum. And I looked at your thing, it doesn't have all the details. I don't know where it is exactly. So I want to be clear. I'm not suggesting sellers should put their address and phone number for everyone to call them, but I just like that. It just creates this red finish type of opportunity.

Rob Montgomery  29:34

It's just like Josh is saying, that just creates friction in the deal. And whenever there's friction, things take longer, right? Things don't come to fruition either. That's not good in the in the transition world for anybody, frankly.

Josh McSpadden  29:49

Yeah, with Allison, my business partner, being a transition broker, we built this with confidentiality with the utmost importance, right? Because we know it the. It's a sensitive you know, sometimes the staff knows about the sale, sometimes they don't. So when a transition broker lists the practice and they're completing the fields on their dashboard, the little pin on that map is tied to a zip code, and so my software knows to put that pin somewhere in that zip code, or my transition brokers have gotten a little bit savvy where they put it in a neighboring zip code, so it's just kind of furthers the sensitivity and confidentiality of the practice. But yeah, we, we originally had purchase price to be a required field before the listing gets published to Practice Finder, and then we kind of, we got talked out of it by a few transition brokers. But that's okay, because we had to be specifically vague with the required fields, because each brokerage is a little bit different. Some puts purchase price, some put the address, some put different information. So we're kind of using this, and we're using our our participating brokers to help us make this product as best as we can as we continue to take it to market. One thing that we did, too, and I gotta give a quick shout out to Doctor Peter Weinstein. He was, he's a prolific veterinarian consultant in the veterinary space, but I sat in his office in 2012 and I told him that I was, you know, this little young lender that walked in and said, I'm gonna lend money to veterinarians. And he says, Make me two promises. One, figure out a way to keep private practices private, and two, leave this industry better than how you found it. From that conversation, is my "why." Allison has her whys, but one of my whys and why Practice Finder really exists, and so the way we help keep private practices private is one of the newest updates, and you'll start seeing popping up when a broker lists their practice right before they hit submit to me and my team. Before it gets published, there's a drop down and it says preferred buyer, and so there's three drop downs, there's private, there's corporate, and then there's private equity in corporate. So I'm taking a piece of the overall market in dental, vet, Opto, medical, and I want to be able to carve out how much of a sale in St Louis, Missouri or Jacksonville, Florida are those brokers listing practices to help keep private practice private, or are they listing it to attract corporate buyers or private equity buyers, because that eliminates if somebody lists to be corporate or private equity, that's going to be priced, I'm probably on a higher multiple and that private buyer is not going to be able to afford that and get financing for it, because it's typically going to be over most credit, bank credit policies, 85-90 95% plus collections. And so we're starting to gather a lot of this data from not only transition broker side, but also the buyer side. To see are the sellers more opt to keep their legacy and their communities, or are some of them trying to continue to graduate into private equity or corporate acquisition? So, yeah, pretty cool stuff. The way the data that we're gathering.

Rob Montgomery  33:21

That will be round two with Josh McSpadden, you know, we're gonna talk to you in a year or two. And want to talk about what you're finding and what you're capturing with that, because I think it's a very interesting data point. So, you know, as we kind of wrap it up. We always give our guests the opportunity to talk about their how people can get in touch with them, and where they can learn more about them. But I'd like to just take a little extra time with you today, Josh, and just talk to our audience. You know, as a talk to our audience of dental practice brokers and our audience of dentists who are potential buyers? How do people specifically find you, connect with you to be listed on the platform? Or how can they? How can they see these practices? And we talked about downloading the app, but just walk people through both of those scenarios a little bit more as we wrap it up.

Josh McSpadden  34:17

Yeah, if a transition broker, I mean, anybody is absolutely welcome to go to practicefindermedia.com, and you can download the link directly through and start engaging in it if you have any questions. If you're a transition broker and you want to learn more, or you want to walk through a demo with me on how to leverage Practice Finder to help you sell practices quicker, you can email me at josh@practicefindermedia.com, and we could find a mutually beneficial time to walk you through the app and how you can you can leverage it, and if you are a dentist looking for practices to acquire, you go to the App Store, go to practicefindermedia.com and and follow the links that takes you to your app store or to Google, you know. And as you find those practices, and you're partnering or you're engaging with the transition broker that I'm partnering with on Practice Finder, and you want financing, josh.mcspadden@panaceafinancial.com We're a boutique lender that helps doctors from residency of retirement. We help with their due diligence, finding practices to purchase, help them run efficient practices so they can put more away and enjoy it at retirement. Use these as resources to help you achieve your dreams of practice ownership. And then, if your strategy is multi practice, to go from three to five and all of that, and then sell to private equity or corporate, we can absolutely help with that too. But our job at Panacea is to help you, as a dentist, build your net worth outside of practice ownership. There's different ways to do that, and we would love to partner with you. Speaking of partners, we're the affiliate bank for ADA, so any of your listeners and dentists that are members of ADA, you get a really nice package by being an ADA member and partnering with Panacea. On the financial side, there's multiple ways you can also go to LinkedIn Josh McSpadden and find me. We love to connect with you there, but we're really hoping to help leave this industry better than how we found it. And you know, this Practice Finder product, and then with Panacea, we've, you know, I'm with a bank right now that is more client focused than any bank that I've been a part of. And so Practice Finder is there for a transition broker to to utilize it's going to help them grow their brokerage take care of clients. And you know, hopefully they have the same mindset, which is to leave this industry better than how we found it. If they have that skill set, we'd love to partner with them and use Practice Finder to take this industry into year 2025, and beyond.

Paul Goodman  36:57

Awesome. Josh, thanks for thanks for sharing with us. Really, really excited to keep learning about it and doing something really cool and creativ for dentistry is what I love. So appreciate you sharing with us.

Rob Montgomery  37:07

Yeah, we love it. Very interesting. And for all of our listeners, as always, those links and information that Josh just rolled through will be posted in the show notes. So if you're in your car, do not try to take notes and drive at the same time while you're listening to the podcast, right? You can find it when you get to your destination. But Josh, really, it's been cool talking. You know, we've enjoyed connecting with you offline too, and excited about your product here. And wish you all the best of luck and success. And we will have you back again to talk about what you're what you're learning and what you're seeing as we roll through the process.

Josh McSpadden  37:43

I look forward to it Rob, Dr. Goodman, thank you guys so much for having me. And, yeah, keep doing what you guys are doing, and we'll leave this industry better and how we found it one day.

Rob Montgomery  37:52

Deal, thanks. It's interesting, you know, the interrupters, right? It's, you know, it's one of these things that seems so obvious. How can we not have a, you know, a multiple listing in the dental world all these all these years. And now Josh McSpadden, his partner, have found a solution. And be interesting to see where it goes.

Paul Goodman  38:10

I always tell dentistry is like a cave profession, even the, you know, the advisors that help us. And he's bringing people out of these caves into one place to pay attention to something really important. And I think it's important to champion that there's many ways to be successful as a practice owner, and show these dentists that there's opportunities to purchase private practices that are in good locations and good metrics. And I'm excited to see it grow.

Rob Montgomery  38:33

Yeah, me too. Thanks Paul. It's always a pleasure. And thanks listeners for being here.

Bumper  38:37

Thanks for listening to another great podcast with the Dental Amigos, and don't forget to tune in next time to have the dental business demystified. If you're looking for more information about today's podcast, you can find it on thedentalamigos.com. If you're looking for Paul, you can find Paul at drpaulgoodman.com and if you're looking for Rob, you can find him at yourdentallawyer.com This podcast has been sponsored by Orange Line Media Group, helping dentists and other professionals create content people love. Find out how we can help you take your business to the next level at www.orangelinemg.com, till next time

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