ADAPT Blog

Welcome to No Stupid Questions, our new Real Talk series in which we bring in practice transitions experts to answer your most pressing questions. Have a question for our experts? Ask it in the comments below!

For today’s question, we reached out to Chris Mayer of The Heimat Group, ADAPT's trusted transactions partner. Chris holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and has experience valuing dental practices (and other businesses) prior to mergers or acquisitions. Chris graduated with a finance degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business where he was a member of the applied equity market research program specializing in fundamental analysis, equity valuation, and market research. During his University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate program, Chris was selected to attend the Otto Beischeim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. He also attended the University of Leipzig, Germany where he worked on his Masters in Finance & Economics.

Question: Why and when should I get a practice valuation? And what is a valuation, exactly?

I was sitting behind special mirrored glass at a research facility watching an interviewer speak with a dentist. We were doing the research for what would become ADA Practice Transitions. I watched as yet another dentist said, “I want to sell my practice to someone like me.”

This sentiment is at the heart of what we are trying to build at ADAPT: we believe that a consistent philosophy of care is critical to the longevity of a dental practice, particularly when a change of ownership occurs.

Previous interviews had taught us that we would hear that statement frequently: “I want to sell my practice to someone like me.” But we had also learned that we needed to dig a little deeper to understand what “like me” actually meant.

You asked, we're answering! Today we're introducing Real Talk to answer your questions about career planning, finance, practice management during transitions, and more. First up is this More Than Meets the Eye post, designed to answer one of our most-asked questions: "How do I compare two practices?"