All references
It all runs through the owner
Dental practice
IllustrativeComposite scenario. Not an actual client.Where it started
- Owner in daily operations
- Every decision, every day
- Margin by service line
- Pooled and invisible
- Front desk escalations
- Constant
- Transferable value
- Owner-dependent
Where it landed
- Owner in daily operations
- By exception only
- Margin by service line
- Tracked and reviewed
- Front desk escalations
- Rare, and documented
- Transferable value
- Systemized and saleable
Dental practice · two locations · eighteen years
I own a job, not a practice.
Karen built a busy two location practice and still approves every schedule change, every supply order, and every difficult patient conversation. The front desk escalates constantly because nothing is written down, and her office manager has never been given real authority.
What the North Star surfaced
- 1Growth capped by the owner. Every operational decision routes through Karen, so capacity is limited by her hours rather than by chairs or demand.
- 2Margin invisible by service. Hygiene, restorative, and cosmetic sit in one set of books. Nobody knows which line carries the practice.
- 3No transferable value. A buyer would price in the risk that the practice is Karen, because as built, it is.
- 01 · Destination
The number they were building toward
Established the practice value today and the number that would make a sale or an associate buy-in genuinely worth it, then modeled both paths.
- 02 · Roadmap
What had to change, in order
Gave the office manager defined authority and scope, documented the escalation rules, and separated the books by service line so margin became visible.
- 03 · Rocketship
The systems the team now runs
Built the scheduling and reporting platform, the documented front desk playbook, and a weekly dashboard that replaced the constant escalations.