https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y8GKSDy354 Questions to Ask Before Seeking Financing for Dental Startup or Acquisition Carrie: Welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Weber, and it's so great to have all of you back in the Jameson Files community today. We're excited. We have a very special guest who has come to the Jameson offices to be in person with us for this interview. This is Tom Angeloni, the National Sales Director of Bank of America. We were talking earlier, Tom, we've both been in the industry for about the same amount of time. It's been over 20 years for you.  Tom Angeloni: Like a quarter century. I have to date myself. The Future of Dentistry Carrie: Well, a lot has come and gone. I'm really excited and very grateful that you've come by to spend some time with us because, for those of you out there, whether you are a young dentist starting out, looking to get footing into your own practice ownership situation or whether you're a practicing dentist and have been practicing for some time and are looking for opportunities to expand, you may have a lot of questions about financing and what things you need to be considering. What is the environment like today and what things can you plan for? So, Tom, I'd really love to have a conversation about that. I’d love to start out with just giving your perspective on where things have come, after all of this time. From your perspective, where do you see things right now in the dental industry? In the dental environment?  Tom Angeloni: Honestly, it's driven demographically.  There have been a lot of states, different territories that were heavily driven by startups. Over the years, depending on where you're at, that has moved more towards acquisitions. Overall, we still find that the dental economy is still very strong. Dental spend is up year over year.  The last stat I saw from the ADA is that between 2021 and 22, there was an increase, not a huge increase, but about 1.2% increase in graduates. And then over a five year span, there's been about a 7% increase in graduates. So you still have a lot of graduates coming out. And the trick is to keep pace with who's retiring, right? That's always the trick. So the projections, again, ADA and some different consultants are really looking at it and say that over the next eight to 10 years, so 2031, they say that there's going to be a shortage of about 30,000 dental professionals. So you can look at that as, you know, very optimistic and an opportunity. There are still, as it stands right now, about level or a little bit more graduates compared to those that are retiring. Starting a Dental Practice from Scratch or Acquisition Carrie: Wow.  And I don't know why that feels surprising to me, but, you know, that gives a lot of opportunity to these young dental graduates. You do a lot with dental students and with those new dentists in trying to educate them on what their options are. And they think they know the direction, but I don't know that they've done a lot of due diligence in terms of how to make the best decisions for the start of their professional career. Some of you have, but some of you may still be really unclear about how you get from here to there. What are some of the questions that you get asked a lot from these dentists starting to explore purchasing or even starting up a practice from scratch? Tom Angeloni: I'll tell you the most common question in all the lecturing that we do at different dental schools across the country.  Almost 80% of the time we do this, the question comes up, should I start a practice from scratch, or should I do an acquisition?  And a lot of people have different opinions, right? Obviously, when you acquire a practice, you have a built-in patient base, you have a staff, you have equipment. It's almost like you flick the switch and get going. But what I've always seen is that it really has so much to do with what the transition plan ...