The Seller Can Make or Break Your Transition
Preserving Goodwill Through the Transition:
Why Your Relationship with the Selling Doctor Matters
By Dr. Eric Chatterley, DDS
MEET DR. CHATTERLEY IN DUBLIN ON OCTOBER 24
A free, highly interactive forum for prospective buyers and newer practice
owners - with small-group discussions, recent-buyer panelists and plenty
of time for your questions.
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Saturday, October 24, 2026 | 9:00 a.m. - Noon
REA & Associates Conference Center, Dublin
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FIRST 15 REGISTRANTS RECEIVE A FREE PRACTICE EVALUATION
A $5,000 value from Dr. Eric Chatterley through CTC Pathways.
The evaluation reviews not merely a practice’s financial results but also patient experience, systems & processes, team dynamics & culture, and leadership & management style. Buyers may use it for a practice they’re considering and current owners to see where to improve. This is not an appraisal.
The Seller Relationship Is Often Overlooked
Among all the relationships that will shape your first year of practice ownership, the one you build with the selling doctor often turns out to be the most consequential and the most overlooked. Buyers tend to view the seller as a counterparty to a transaction rather than as a person whose decades of work and reputation are about to be transferred into their hands. That framing, while understandable, misses something essential about how dental practices work.
The Seller Helps Transfer Patient Trust
When patients have been coming to a practice for ten or twenty years, their loyalty is rarely to the building or even to the brand on the door. Their loyalty is to the doctor who has cared for them through cleanings and crowns and root canals and the occasional difficult conversation. When that doctor introduces you warmly and authentically as the next caretaker of those relationships, an enormous amount of trust transfers along with the deed. When that introduction is awkward, reluctant, or absent, you spend the next several years working to rebuild what could have transferred smoothly.
The Team Takes Its Cue From the Seller
The same principle applies to the team. The selling doctor's relationship with long-term team members carries weight that cannot be replicated through a memo or a single all-hands meeting. When the seller signals genuine confidence in you as their successor, team members are far more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt during the transition. When the seller seems uncertain, conflicted, or critical, even quietly, those signals travel through the team and shape how willing they are to follow your leadership.
Goodwill Is a Strategic Asset
All of this means that preserving goodwill with the selling doctor is not a soft skill or a nice-to-have. It is one of the most strategically important things you can do during the entire transition. The hard part is that it requires patience and humility at exactly the moment when you may be feeling impatient and confident, eager to put your own stamp on the practice you've worked so hard to acquire.
Build the Relationship During Negotiation
Begin during the negotiation itself. The way you conduct yourself through deal terms, through due diligence questions, through inevitable disagreements about price or contingencies, all of it is being observed and remembered. Sellers are often emotionally connected to the practice in ways that surprise buyers and treating that emotional dimension with respect costs nothing while earning enormous goodwill. You can negotiate firmly on the things that matter while remaining gracious about how you communicate.
Treat the Seller's Presence as an Asset
Once you've closed, the transition period is where the relationship either deepens or fractures. If the seller is staying on for a period of weeks or months to facilitate the handoff, treat their presence as the gift it is rather than as an obstacle to taking full control. Ask their advice. Listen carefully to their perspectives on patients, on team members, on operational quirks they never thought to write down. Some of the most valuable information you'll receive in your first year will come through casual conversations during this overlap, and creating an atmosphere where the seller wants to share is entirely up to you.
Resist the Urge to Critique
Resist the urge to critique the practice in front of the seller, even gently. There will be many things you'll want to change, some immediately and others over time, but airing those observations during the transition period communicates something the seller will absorb deeply. The practice they spent decades building is being judged in real time by the person who just bought it, and even constructive criticism can feel like a verdict on their life's work. Save your change plans for the appropriate moment, which is rarely in the early weeks.
Stay Connected After the Transition
Stay in touch after the formal transition ends. A genuine relationship with the selling doctor can pay dividends for years. Patients will continue to ask about them, and being able to say that you talked to Dr. Smith last month and they're doing well does more for patient confidence than any marketing campaign you could run. Team members will appreciate hearing that the doctor they served for so long thinks highly of how the practice is being led. And in moments when you face a clinical or operational challenge that has likely come up before, having someone who knows the practice intimately and is rooting for your success is a resource worth more than most buyers realize until they need it.
Honor the Work That Came Before You
The relationships you build during this transition are meaningful to your success in ways that extend far beyond the closing date. Investing in the relationship with the selling doctor is one of the highest-leverage things you can do, and it costs you nothing more than patience, humility, and the willingness to honor the work that came before you.
Bring Your Questions to the Forum
If you are considering a practice purchase, due diligence is exactly the kind of work you should understand before you are under the pressure of a closing timeline. The first 15 dentists who register will also receive a complimentary Practice Evaluation from Dr. Eric Chatterley through CTC Pathways, a $5,000 value.
At the 2026 Ohio Dental Practice Ownership Forum, Dr. Eric Chatterley will lead an interactive morning built around real questions from dentists like you. You will take part in small-group discussions, hear from dentists who recently purchased practices and have time to ask the questions that cannot be answered by reading another article or watching another webinar.
The Practice Evaluation is not a formal valuation. It is a practical review of the entire practice, including financial alignment, patient experience, systems & processes, team dynamics & culture, and leadership & management style.
If you are considering a purchase, you may use the evaluation for a practice that interests you or use what you learn to identify changes you may want to make after becoming the owner. If you already own a practice, the evaluation can show you what is working and where improvement may be possible.
The Forum is purely educational and free to attend. Advance registration is required, and the complimentary Practice Evaluations are limited to the first 15 registrants.
Saturday, October 24, 2026
9:00 a.m. until Noon
REA & Associates Conference Center
5400 Frantz Road, Suite 200, Dublin, Ohio.
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, REA & Associates, and Huntington Bank
