Before You Buy: Know What the Right Practice Looks Like
The Journey of Buying Your First Dental Practice:
Finding the Right Opportunity
By Dr. Eric Chatterley, DDS
The decision to buy a dental practice is one of the most significant moments in a clinician's career, and it tends to arrive with a mixture of excitement and uncertainty that can be hard to put into words.
You've spent years developing your clinical skills, building experience, and imagining what it might look like to lead a practice of your own. Now you're standing at the edge of that next chapter, and the question becomes how to move forward in a way that sets you up for long-term success rather than years of regret.
It Begins With Clarity
What I've come to believe after coaching countless buyers through this process is that the path to a great acquisition begins long before you sit down to review any specific listing. It begins with clarity. Clarity about the kind of dentist you want to be, the patients you want to serve, the community you want to plant roots in, and the lifestyle you want your practice to support. Buyers who skip this internal work tend to get swept up by the first opportunity that looks reasonable on paper, and they sometimes spend years afterward trying to reshape a practice that was never quite the right fit to begin with.
Surround Yourself with the Right Professionals
Once you have a sense of what you're looking for, the next part of the journey involves surrounding yourself with the right professionals.
A skilled transition consultant or practice broker who genuinely represents your interests can help you navigate listings and identify opportunities you might otherwise miss.
A dental-specific CPA brings perspective on the financial picture that a general accountant simply cannot offer.
An attorney with experience in dental practice transitions will protect you from contract pitfalls that the average business lawyer might overlook.
A banker who lends to dentists understands the financing landscape in ways that translate directly into better terms and faster closings.
Coaches, mentors, and trusted colleagues round out this circle by offering perspective drawn from their own journeys.
Invest in Your Own Education
Beyond your professional team, there are resources available to buyers today that simply didn't exist a generation ago. Industry publications, podcasts focused on practice ownership, online communities of fellow buyers and new owners, continuing education courses on practice management, and study clubs where ownership conversations happen openly are all worth your time. The buyers who invest in their own education before signing anything tend to walk into ownership with a level of preparation that pays dividends for years.
The Right Practice is Worth Waiting For
As you begin to evaluate specific opportunities, allow yourself to be patient. The right practice is worth waiting for, and the wrong practice purchased out of impatience can take a decade to fully recover from. You're not just buying equipment and a patient list. You're buying into a community, inheriting relationships, and stepping into the legacy of whoever built the practice before you. Take the time to understand what you're really purchasing, because the answer is always far richer and far more complicated than the numbers on a listing sheet suggest.
Stay Engaged in the Process
The journey of finding the right practice is rarely linear, and that's okay. Some buyers find their match in the first few months of looking, while others spend a year or more before something clicks. What matters is that you stay engaged in the process, keep refining your sense of what you want, and trust that the time spent searching is part of the preparation for ownership itself.
Your Next Step
If you're an associate dentist preparing to purchase your first practice, defining the right opportunity is one of the most important steps you can take before reviewing listings or making an offer.
The 2026 Ohio Dental Practice Ownership Forum was created specifically for dentists like you. During this highly interactive Saturday morning Forum, you'll have the opportunity to learn directly from Dr. Eric Chatterley, ask your own questions, hear the experiences of other dentists, and leave with practical ideas you can apply immediately.
If this article helped you clarify what the right practice should look like, imagine what three hours of interactive discussion, real-world examples, and candid questions will do for your confidence. The program is purely educational.
There is no cost to attend, but seating is limited,
and advance registration is required.
We hope you'll join us!
Saturday, October 24, 2026,
9:00 a.m. until noon
REA & Associates Conference Center
5400 Frantz Road, Suite 200, Dublin, Ohio.
To reserve your seat at the 2026 Ohio Dental Practice
Ownership Forum click the button below!
Dr. Eric Chatterley, DDS
Dental Coaching
Leadership Training and Mentorship
This event is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors:
Bank of America, Provide, Huntington Bank, and U.S. Bank.
