This week, the Dental Amigos welcome JJ Littrell, Co-Founder and COO of Tuatara, a dental partnership consulting firm that specializes in supporting dentists build, grow, optimize, and transition multi-doctor private practices  JJ blends big-picture strategy with a people-first approach to help dental practices grow with confidence and is known for making complex partnership concepts clear and approachable through practical analogies.

In this episode, JJ Littrell shares her journey from hospitality and finance leadership into co-founding Tuatara, and how those experiences shaped her approach to dental partnerships. The discussion centers on her “Partnership MythBusters” series, breaking down common misconceptions about dental partnerships—including money expectations, associate vs. partner roles, timing of partnership planning, and why exit planning is essential. The conversation highlights how most partnership issues stem from misaligned expectations and lack of upfront structure, and how intentional planning can create stronger, more sustainable professional relationships.

To learn more about JJ Littrell and Tuatara, visit https://www.growwithtuatara.com or reach out to her directly at jj@growwithtuatara.com.

Links mentioned in this episode:

https://www.growwithtuatara.com

Listeners who want to reach Paul can do so at Paul@DentalNachos.com and those who want to reach Rob can do so at Rob@RMontgomery-law.com.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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Bumper  

Welcome to the Dental Amigos podcast with Dr Paul Goodman and attorney Rob Montgomery, taking you behind the scenes of the dental business world, all the things you didn't learn in dental school, but wish you had Rob is not a dentist, and Paul is not a lawyer, but since Rob is a lawyer, we need to tell you that this podcast is for informational purposes only and shouldn't be considered legal advice. Listening to this podcast does not and will not create an attorney client relationship, as is always the case. You should formally consult with legal counsel before proceeding with any legal matter. Learn more about the Dental Amigos at www.thedentalamigos.com. And now here are the Dental Amigos.

Rob Montgomery

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Dental Amigos Podcast. I'm Rob Montgomery. I'm joined, as always, by the head Nacho himself, Dr. Paul Goodman. Great to be talking, Rob. It's good to be talking to you too, Paul. And we've got a cool guest today, somebody that I've had the pleasure of working with on deals over the years, JJ Littrell, and we are going to talk about partnerships, dental partnerships, and specifically MythBusters. And I will say that the genesis of this podcast episode, Paul, came when I saw JJ posting a series on partnership issues on Dental Nachos, MythBusters, as she called it, which I thought was really cool. Yeah. And I thought, well, you know, either I can engage with this on Nachos, which I may have a little bit, or we could just bring her onto the show. We could talk about it to save myself some typing, and I can ask some questions and have a little interactive banter with JJ. But we have done some partnership deals with JJ's clients and JJ's partner, Brandon Culp, over the years, and they've always been good people to work with. So excited to have her on the show today. JJ Littrell is the co-founder and COO of Tua Terra, and she blends big-picture strategy with a people-first approach to help dental practices grow with confidence. With a background in hospitality and finance, she's known for making complicated ideas feel clear and approachable, often with a well-timed analogy. Before co-founding Tua Terra, she had leadership roles at global hotel brands and served as CFO for an international health tech company. Off the clock, you'll find her by the water with a Kindle in hand. JJ reads over 100 books a year, and she's passionate about helping dentists build partnerships that support both their business goals and their quality of life. And now, without further ado, here's JJ Littrell. Welcome, Amiga, and thanks for being on the show.

JJ Littrell

Thank you, Rob. I appreciate the warm welcome. It's great to be chatting with you and Paul, as always, but I know we'll have a good time breaking down some of these partnership myths today. So, looking forward to it.

Rob Montgomery

We will figure it all out. JJ, mountains of the world will be solved in 30 to 40 minutes, or at least dental practice partnerships for you. There's so much we could do.

Paul Goodman

Our most important question, JJ, as you know, since I love nachos, is if we were in your town, where would we go for nachos? And what's your favorite topping?

JJ Littrell

I love it. So I live outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. My favorite nachos are actually at our minor league ballpark stadium. And the reason they're my favorite is because they are topped with barbecue, shredded barbecue pork. And they are the best nachos anywhere. So it is in our little minor league ballpark, is my favorite nachos in Charlotte.

Rob Montgomery

Sounds great. I'm curious, what kind of cheese do you get at the ballpark nachos? Is it Whiz, or are they grating the cheese there?

JJ Littrell

Good question. It's kind of in between the two, but it is like a white—it's the white liquid sauce. It's not like the traditional ballpark orange, you know, flop. It's a little bit better than that.

Rob Montgomery

Right, so it's not Philly cheesesteak Whiz, but it's a variation, it sounds like.

JJ Littrell

Exactly, yes, which is important. The cheese on the nachos really can make or break it, so it's the key ingredient. But the barbecue pork on top is what really makes it.

Rob Montgomery

It's true. Good, good stuff. It's one of the more original answers. Yeah, I agree. So, JJ, as I said at the outset here at the introduction, you had a really cool MythBuster series on Dental Nachos talking about partnerships in the dental world, which is something that we, in our firm, deal with literally on a daily basis. You know, we've always got several of these deals in the office. And, you know, some of them are good and some of them are not. And I thought that your series of posts were really good, and anybody out there that's thinking about doing a partnership should really kind of listen up and feel free to reach out to JJ after the show. So we're going to count down. There's five in particular that you had in your series. So let's roll through them, five through one. We'll do a countdown per Dr. Nacho—like it—to build the suspense, and we'll talk about each of them and what's—what are the myth busters? And we'll bust some, and some of them we'll confirm. So, number five in the countdown: the only reason you should start a partnership is to make more money. JJ, what do you think of that?

JJ Littrell

So this one's probably a little obvious, but this one was busted. So obviously, oftentimes, when you come together with a partner, it's to make, as Paul likes to say, make a bigger pie, right? We get a bigger pie, and we get to share in this pie, which is great. But if you are going into a partnership just to make more money, and whether that is more money from a transition because you're getting ready to retire and you want to use a partnership as a vehicle to do that, whether you want to make more money just because you think that your associate will, quote, unquote, work harder if they're an owner so you'll get more from them from a production perspective, you're not going to have a very successful partnership if that is the only reason you're doing it. So we encourage folks to think about the reason that they want to get in the partnership, and what are the quantitative as well as qualitative factors that make them believe that doing something in a partnership would allow them to do something differently than what they could do on their own, and not just doing it for the paycheck, not just doing it for the dollars. It is a relationship. And most relationships that are started for financial gain, they fizzle out pretty quickly. So we encourage doctors to really think about the why and what they could get from the relationship that is well beyond the opportunity to potentially make more income in the practice.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, so that's—you know, we see that a lot too, where people say, like, we want to be partners. Why do you want to be partners? We were friends in dental school. Okay, why do you want to be partners? You know, like, probably one of the easiest ways to probably kill a friendship is to become a business partner. So that's the reason not to become partners. But what are some—you said there are quantitative and qualitative reasons. We'll talk about the qualitative stuff as we kind of roll through some of these others, because obviously it's an important issue. But what are some of the quantitative issues that you see that are other reasons that are compelling to consider a partnership?

JJ Littrell

One of the—you know, we like to talk about growth, and one of the biggest things that we see with practices is when you grow in an associate model, there's a lot of risk that you take on. So let's say you are—you’re practicing, you're getting busy, you're starting to book out. You really want to bring in an associate to help you with that growth. You come in, the associate, you know, takes over that book of business, and they grow as well. So now let's say you're up to 4,000 patients the two of you are serving, and everybody's running around, everyone's busy, and then that partner gets an opportunity a couple towns over or, you know, they decide they want to be closer to the beach and they want to move, and they give you their 60 days’ notice. And you're kind of stuck with this practice that you can't serve on your own. So that's really where the qualitative comes in, is how much risk are you willing to kind of put on the table? How—you know, we've got a team now, that staff for certain days that they're working with that associate there. When that associate is actually a partner in the business, then there's opportunity for you to take a lot less risk and still have that quantitative growth. So looking through kind of some of those scenarios and deciding at what point in your growth does that associate need to become a partner. There's also the flip side of that—you don't want to do that too soon. So, you know, we don't want to have someone buy in before the practice has grown to a place that it supports one and a half to two doctors, etc. So it's really looking at some of those—the timing, I would say, of the buy-in, so that you have that kind of quantitative—we want you to buy some of your growth, but not all of it. We hear that a lot. We could talk a whole hour about associates who don't want to, quote, unquote, buy their growth, and for owners who want to make sure the associates, you know, buy all of the growth because they had the risk. So balancing those two things—those are some of the formulas, some of the math that needs to be done before you get into partnership, to know kind of what those right trigger points are for buy-ins and for partnership versus associateship.

Paul Goodman

I want to ask a question. JJ, this doesn't fit on the top five here, but it made me think of it. Let's just say a dentist hires an associate. The dentist grows it to 3,900 patients. They're practicing, they're practicing, practicing. And they say to the associate, you want to be a partner, and they don't want to be a partner. Have you seen situations where they bring in a dentist from the outside to become a partner? What are some of the nuances of that?

JJ Littrell

Yeah, that's a great point. So obviously, the sooner that you can align on expectations and what you're looking for, the better, so that you don't end up, you know, in a situation where you have a practice that's twice the size that you could serve and an associate who isn't sure if they want to be there or not. What I have found in relationships where there's clinical compatibility—they love working together, they're both committed to that area—and the associate says, I'm not sure I want to be a partner, what I have found is that they don't understand what that means, and they aren't sure what kind of, quote, unquote, difference it would make for them, and oftentimes they're nervous it's going to cost them a lot of money. So they look at it and go, I'm making a great income, I like working here, I've got a ton of flexibility. I don't—you know, I don't want to go and take this huge amount of debt on so that I can be a partner here when I don't really—I don't feel like I'm missing anything. So I think it's really an opportunity for the owner to work with the associate and help them understand what does it mean to be an owner, how could it benefit them? And again, back to the math that we were just talking about, show them the math of what it would look like for them to have a part of the profits of the practice. I think a lot of times the doctors go, I'm going to be making the same amount of money, but now I'm going to have debt service, so I'm going to go backwards. When the reality is, if you value the practice correctly, you buy in at the right stages of time, which we can go into, there's no reason for that associate's compensation to go backwards, and they should be enjoying, you know, if not a large lift, at least a small lift in their income. So I think there's a lot of misconceptions of why would I want to do this as an associate, and it's really on the owner to bring that to them and say, here's the why, here's what we could do together that's better than us doing this—you know, me as the owner, you as the associate—and really helping them understand what it is they're nervous about or what they would be hesitating on is really what I see as kind of when someone says, no, thank you, they have a misconception of what it really means to be an owner.

Rob Montgomery

Well, that's something that you and Brandon do well with your business—that you help people to be able to convey this and for them to make the opportunity understandable to the associate. I mean, because it's like that. I think sometimes people have this misconception like, well, if the other side doesn't really understand what they're doing, then that's a good thing. It's not. One, they may not see the benefit, or two, they may think there's a benefit that's not necessarily there. And you want there to be full disclosure with this stuff. You don't want to sort of trick somebody into becoming a partner, you know, like it's like, trick this person into marrying me. That's probably not going to be a great long-term relationship. But I think that's just part of the planning and the communication process. And I feel like, you know, there are times where we're advising our clients and we're saying, okay, you're going through this cash flow analysis. As the practice owner who's going to be bringing on a partner, you know, we want to make sure this is good for the person coming on too. It's like, well, why do you care about them, Rob? Well, because I don't want them to figure out six months after we do this deal, this is rotten, they're miserable, and they only have to try to figure out how to unwind this. I want them to know what they're signing themselves up for. I want them to understand it. I want them to embrace it and then proceed with it—not to figure it out, you know, that they took what was behind door number two six months later, and now their problem becomes your problem. They say, oh, okay.

JJ Littrell

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, hopefully you've seen this—you've been on both sides of the deals as the owner as well as the associate. The associate's probably going to bring this deal to counsel. And when you bring a deal to, you know, Rob, if an associate brings you a deal and you look at it and go, why in the world would you sign this? Well, now there's trust broken in that relationship, right? And, you know, if any of these deals are brought to the table and the idea is to have a gotcha in there, the deal is only done if you know the other—if the other party is a fool, you don't have a good deal. And that's going to be a relationship that ends—a relationship that ends very painfully and likely will be a very expensive ending. So---

Rob Montgomery

That sounds like one of these, like DSO minority partnerships you just described—not to throw shade at our DSO friends out there. But, you know, it's not uncommon to see those deals are commonly rigged. All right, so let's go down number four on the countdown. I feel like Casey—Casey, I need to find the right associate before I can start building a partnership plan. What do you say, JJ?

JJ Littrell

That one is busted. I think so often we hear from owners, well, I need to find the right person first. And if I find the right person—you'll even see this in job posts. So we're big fans of Dennis Dodd, Connect One of one of centers—and you see it all the time in these job postings, right? A partnership opportunity for the right associate. And we would argue that the practice is either in a position to have a partner or it's not, and the owner is either in a position to be a partner or they're not. So it's important that you think through what your plan is to be able to attract the right person. So it's kind of like—we use dating analogies a lot at Tua Terra when it comes to partnerships—and it's kind of like saying, well, I'll just kind of see who comes along my path, and then I'll try to decide what I want to look for in a relationship of whether or not I want to get married. It's like, no, it's probably—especially if you're dating in your 30s, right?—you probably need to know: do you want to get married? Do you want to have kids? Do you want to live on the coast? Do you want to live in the mountains? Those are some things you need to establish before you then go try to find your dream spouse. Same thing for partnership. It is a relationship-based endeavor, so the person matters deeply. But if you're going and trying to attract an associate who is already doing—you know, they're doing great production at their current practice, they're not necessarily unhappy, they kind of are ready for something more—and you approach them with, hey, come do a lateral move over here to my practice, and maybe one day, if we decide this makes sense, then maybe you can be my partner—that's going to be hard for that associate to make the move. But if you say, hey, listen, I've thought about this, and I'd like to live in this town, have this many kids, and get married at some point—that's going to be a way more interesting opportunity. So having that partnership plan ahead of time where you can appeal to associates that are interested in the same things you are is going to make the recruitment process a lot easier. It's going to give the associate a lot more confidence, and it's going to give you the time you need to build the relationship in the right way to prepare both each partner as well as the practice for the partnership. Instead of these, uh-oh, we wrote that we would talk about partnership in two years, and it's been two years, and so now we need to figure this thing out and get it done immediately—that can be really tricky. So always start before—you know, the best time to plant a tree was 100 years ago. The next best time is today. Start the plan as soon as you think this is something that might interest you so that you can work towards being the right person for your associate to be interested in and for that partnership to potentially take place.

Rob Montgomery

That's a good point, for sure. I mean, we've had situations—and it doesn't usually happen—but I do like doing this where we've, instead of just having an associate agreement that has that three-sentence blurb that after two years, the parties like each other, they may possibly consider the thought of maybe proceeding on something that will not be binding until it's executed—like, you don't have anything there—but actually going to the next step of a full-fledged letter of intent. Still not binding, but shows a lot more commitment, a lot more thought went into it, the details of how are we valuing the practice? Are we going to value it before you start? Are we going to value it at that time? You know, how much are you—what's the interest that you're going to get? Are you going to be involved in the real estate? How are we going to split the profit? Like, it's all laid out, you know? And there's no guarantee that will happen, because both sides might say, well, this is not going to work, this is horrible—but it shows so much more planning and good faith, I feel like, on both sides that can only be beneficial.

JJ Littrell

And it allows you to behave differently within those—and I'm just going to keep using the two years, that's about how long we think it should take for you to meet someone and, you know, eventually get married, right? So in that two years, you behave differently when both parties know what we're working towards. If I say, hey, Rob, come sit with me on this marketing meeting, I want you to learn XYZ and see how I do these things, and you're going, what for? Like, where does this get me to? As opposed to, right, absolutely, because we're working on me building up these skills so that I can be your partner in two years—it's a totally different approach that you can take. And we think that that two years is critical, because there is one thing that that three-sentence blurb that you just described, Rob, does, and what it does is it immediately creates missed expectations. Because as the owner, I put that in, and I think, great, when the two-year anniversary comes, we will start talking about partnership, and the associate reads it and goes, great, in two years they will make me an offer for partnership. And so immediately, on January 1 of whatever that year is, whenever they're supposed to be having this conversation, I'm expecting you to show up with a ring, and you think we're going to talk about whether or not we should be exclusive. And it just creates unfortunate conversations, and it can be a missed expectation that can lead to disappointment.

Rob Montgomery

Sounds like the perfect premise for a reality—stick with your relationship and marriage analogies in the partnership world.

Paul Goodman

I'll do number three, JJ, because it's near and dear to what I do all the time. Associates and partners are basically the same. I can just hire an associate and keep full ownership.

JJ Littrell

Yes. So this is one of our favorites, and this is busted. So we love dental associates. We think that multi-doctor practices are absolutely the future of dentistry—getting harder and harder and more expensive to practice solo for a number of reasons. And I could go on for days about the macro and micro reasons for that, but the biggest thing here is we—and I talked about it a little bit earlier—is associates are free to go. They are free to leave whenever they would like. And it's really hard to build a practice and to grow together with that 60-day notice, even if it's a six-month notice period. The owner is really taking a ton of risk by doing that with an associate-based model. The other thing that's really challenging, and we've seen this before with associates who—they love the practice they're in, they love the doctor they're working with, they love the team, the patients are, you know, their ideal patient, everything is great—but they don't have the context to support strategic decisions or leadership decisions. So it's really hard for the associate when, you know, somebody comes in the office and says, hey, so-and-so clocked in before their shift started, what do you want to do about it? And the associate is like, well, I would love to do something, but I don't know what the owner would want me to do here, and I'm not sure what the protocol is, and I don't know what other conversations have been had. And so it leaves the associate feeling like they can't do as much as they would like to, and it leaves the team a little bit frustrated because they have to wait for the owner to be available. So when you have that associate relationship, no matter how well-meaning the associate is, there comes a point where the associate could, you know, want to do more than they're doing, and they don't have that context to do that. Or there could come a time when the owner wishes they had more support than just clinical. It's not wrong for an associate to just want to do clinical support for the doctor—that's what they're being paid for. We pay our associates based on the dentistry they produce, and it's appropriate for them to focus on that production and go home at the end of the night. But sometimes owners need more support than that, and it can be—you know, it's that expression like it can be lonely at the top, right? When you're the only one having to deal with these strategic decisions, you're the only one dealing with the administration, you're the only one dealing with leadership, sometimes that can be hard. And an associate, no matter how well-meaning they are, just don't—they just don't have the context for that when they're not in an ownership position, and they don't have the incentive either. And that's not a dig on the associate, that's just the reality. So when you have that associate relationship, there is a limit to how far they can go in the support of the owner, and creating a partnership opportunity for them allows them not only to be more, you know, tied to the practice. I'm not saying that partnerships don't—and we'll, you know, maybe we may get to this—but I'm not saying partnerships never end and that there isn't a way for associates to move on if they do become a partner, but it's a lot more—you know, it happens a lot less frequently. You have a lot more time, and it can be done a lot more deliberately than with just an associate relationship. So we love associate dentistry. We just think it can be so much more for the owner when they have a partner that they can lean on in all those other areas, not just clinically.

Rob Montgomery

Plus, you were talking about before just the retention. You know, it just creates stickiness.

Paul Goodman

This is my retention strategy for associate dentists. JJ, feel free to use it with your clients: complain as much as possible—how hard it is to run the office when you're in the dentist office together—so they never want to become a practice owner. So, I gotta do payroll this weekend. You can go wine tasting. I'll be doing payroll. It's not a lie if you believe it—George Costanza, right? So, you know, I'll say, I've got to do this payroll and the hiring and firing. So that's my number one retention strategy. Like when they say—well, you know, like those movies or those jokes—like let a young couple spend time with a three-year-old, and that'll—they won't want to have one yet. You know, I try to use that forever.

Rob Montgomery

It's a good time.

JJ Littrell

Yeah, good Jedi mind trick there. I like it.

Rob Montgomery

All right, number two. I'll take this one, Paul. I'll make less money if I bring in a partner. JJ?

JJ Littrell

So the answer here might surprise you, and this is plausible. So, as you know, the people that do partnerships, you would think I would be beating this drum that you're going to make so much more money—you should just get a partner. And the reality is, yes, 99% of the time you do make more money in a partnership than you do as a solo owner. However, there are times when partners bring in another doctor so that they can make less money, and that happens when I'm working five or six days a week. I am doing way more dentistry than my body can handle for a long period of time. I would really like to slow down. I'd really like to get my clinical hours back to something that's a little bit more reasonable—three and a half a week—and I am more than willing to take a step back in my income to give the associate, the partner, those days so that we can build the practice together and both get kind of back up. So typically, if we see someone making less money, it's because they are intentionally doing that. They're pulling back on their production, either for a period of time or because they want to for the long term. And then the other thing is, sometimes we see partnerships get formed so that there is more—there's less risk and there's shared responsibility for going out of network. And so at that time, sometimes doctors will make a decision to pull way back on the number of patients that they're serving so that they can build more of a fee-for-service practice. And so we will see sometimes that there will be a short period of time there that they will opt to make less money so that they can, with their partner, move forward in a fee-for-service model. So it's plausible, because there are times and circumstances where you do it intentionally. We have not yet seen a partnership that, over the long term, stays with a partner making less money unless they have very intentionally done that to pull back their clinical time. But it's plausible, but not common.

Rob Montgomery

Right. And we've talked about this a lot on the show. And I think you're talking about this at a much more strategic level, I think, JJ. I mean, we see a lot where people do make less money, and I think they're surprised. And this just goes to improper planning, you know, like the expectation that I'm bringing on a partner, I'm going to work less and make more money—you know, maybe, but certainly not immediately. And this just goes to doing the right thing from a cash flow and a planning and a financial planning standpoint so that your expectations are properly aligned. Because, you know, when different expectations—or expectations are not met in any relationship—that's generally a recipe for a problem. So whether it's on the associate side that they thought they were going to make more money as a partner, or the owner's side who thought they were going to make more money bringing on a partner, the improper planning, or lack of planning entirely, is what will unhinge that. I mean, you just talked about all those examples you just gave were strategic reasons why you would want to make less money—you know, work a little bit less, make a little less money, but then maybe have more longevity as a dentist because you're not going to run yourself into the ground in five years, or strategically trying to back off of PPO plans and be more fee-for-service. These are all things that, you know—I will say, JJ, because you guys do a great job—you're just assuming that people have actually thought through all that stuff. Well, a lot of times we'll see people like, you're going to be partners—have you talked to anybody about the financial aspects of this? No. The structure? No. Do you tell us what to do? Like, well, yeah, you have to make some introductions here for starters, because you're focused on what color the floors are going to be, what the logo is going to be, what the logo is going to look like, and what the name of the practice is, and you have not thought about anything that's important in our world. And so, you know, if you don't do these properly or if you haven't done the right planning, you know, it's whether or not you make less money. It's really, to me, I think it's more about you don't want to be surprised by whatever it is that you're rolling out, because we're going to get to the last—just the perfect segue. I wasn't even planning that, but it's the perfect segue. You take it, Paul.

Paul Goodman

Partnerships are hard to navigate out of once established. Over there said is, how hard is it to end a partnership?

JJ Littrell

Yes. So this is confirmed. Partnerships are hard to get out of. And that's on purpose. It's got—again, back to the marriage conversation—if you are, you know, entering a marriage because you want to date someone for three to five years and then move on, that's an expensive way to do it. And the same is true with dental partnership. So, you know, they're hard to get out of intentionally, and you again, if you don't set them up correctly, if you don't think about what a transition looks like or how it is the owners do get out, then it can be very, very messy. I'm sure Rob has, you know, a lot of front-row seats to some of these really uncomfortable and sometimes, you know, downright painful breakups. And that is true, that they are hard to get out of, but that's why we spend so much time getting the partners and the practice itself ready for partnership so that, you know, like we talked about earlier, you know what to expect. You have these expectations around finance. We do this slowly and intentionally. If you go from being associate and doctor, and then the next day you're 50/50 partners, that's like going from first year to fourth—that's a really—you’re going to be really, really stressing the ends in there. So taking the time to set it up correctly, and then establishing what it is that you both want to accomplish from the partnership so that it could be that you have intended for the partnership to end at some point. That doesn't mean the relationship itself is over or that the partnership itself failed, as long as, intentionally—again—you set this up so that you understand this is how we would end it if we needed to. This is how we can be fair to each other when it is time for one of us to retire, or, you know, there are unexpected things that happen. We have, you know, practices that have their child or their parent or themselves have a health diagnosis that they were not expecting. We've had doctors get into major car accidents—they were planning on practicing for another 10 or 15 years, and physically they can no longer practice, and they have to separate from the partnership. So setting it up intentionally, where we thought through these things—it’s not comfortable. When I was putting together the brand, Brandon and I are in a purpose-driven partnership, and we were putting our partnership together—it was uncomfortable to talk about what happens if I die and Brandon has to buy my share of the business from my husband, who's grieving losing his wife unexpectedly and now having to raise two young children together. That was a hard conversation to have, but I'm so thankful that we did, because now that's handled. We know what to do if that happens, heaven forbid, and we've done it up front. So it's not always our intention that a partnership would end unexpectedly, but here's what we're going to do if something happens. And then that, again, puts the relationship first. We're making sure that that is preserved to the best that it can be, and knowing that ownership is intended to be permanent, but maybe not forever. So, you know, like our house is, right? We might buy our dream house and we expect to be in it 10, 15, 20 years, but we may not get all the way to the end of our 30-year mortgage. There are things that come up, stuff that happens, and we may need to move on. So what does that look like? Setting that up up front so that we can avoid the pain and sometimes there's just this opportunity cost that we have that maybe we can mourn that, but we're not actually, like, you know, going bankrupt over this would be the ideal situation. So confirmed—partnerships are hard to navigate out of, but you can do things in the front end of the partnership so that when it is time to move on, whether that's expected or unexpected, you're able to do that in a way that both partners know what to expect.

Rob Montgomery

Now, not only can you have to—you know, I'm just saying that, you know, it's just—they are, as you said, too hard to navigate out of—that you just can't go into these things willy-nilly. I mean, partnerships for us are the most complicated, involved, and highest-risk transaction that anybody does in the dental space for that very reason—you know, that there are so many variables and so many things that need to be covered in every situation with every partner. Every practice is different, that you just—it is potentially harmful, you know, if you don't do it right.

Paul Goodman

You can say to your dentist, life happens when you're making other treatment plans, and sometimes that life happens out of your control, in your control, for good reasons, for not so good reasons, but they impact the partnership, and that has to be ended for some reason. If you don't have a plan to do that, it just makes it even more difficult. And I think that's right. You know, my hope is people listening to this, when we talk about on Dental Nachos and our podcast, is they don't think all partnerships are bad and never work. No, right? No. Like they—I was saying to JJ before, you know, when you have a—it’s like coaching. People who love coaches can't understand why anyone else would not love coaching. People who think it's a scam. So people who have a good partnership think, who would ever want to do this alone, right? Right? And people who've had a bad partnership think, who would ever want to partner? And there's a middle ground there that when you use advisors and you do it purposely, you could be successful. And I think that's such an important takeaway.

Rob Montgomery

He definitely stacked the deck, yeah. There's no doubt about that.

JJ Littrell

For sure, yeah. And you know, something that's really—I think that we've seen just really in the last six months or so that's been really encouraging to me—is we actually have a lot of partners who are coming to us, and this is their second marriage. They have been in partnerships before that were not set up intentionally, that were not—that the deck was perhaps stacked against their favor. They didn't understand really what they were getting into, or a number of other reasons. And they're coming back to us, and they're saying, we know partnerships should work. We did this the wrong way the last time, and we want to try again and do it right. And that's been really encouraging for me to see, because I think a lot of times it's like, oh, I've been burned, I don't want to go back to this. But they do—they felt so deeply that the partnership brought so much value, they're willing to try again, but just doing it in a different way. And I think that that's really encouraging to see, and I hope we continue to see that for folks who either have—they've heard the stories of a friend that had something that didn't go the right way, or they themselves have experienced it, or even just watched it. We have a partner group we're working with right now—we're doing a purpose-driven partnership with them—and one of the doctors was in a practice that saw the other two doctors have a partnership that was really unfair. And they are now the senior doctor. They are bringing in their associate, and they're like, nope, we're going to do it right for this relationship. We saw how bad it can go, and that was just them being in the practice with those other partners. So it's really encouraging to see that folks know that it's worth doing it the right way if we're going to do it, because there are so many benefits for it.

Rob Montgomery

Good stuff. Well, I'm glad that we got to do the oral version of the partnership MythBusters podcast. And I thought, again, it was great. And your contributions on Nachos, I always like reading. And thanks for taking the time, JJ. And if people want to get in touch with you and learn more about Tuatara, how would they be able to do that?

JJ Littrell

Yeah, thank you, Rob. So if anyone would like to reach out, we are "growwithtuatara.com". That's our website, our email, our social handles. So I am always—my calendar is always open. If you want to reach out to me, it's just my first name, which is JJ—the letter J twice—at growwithtuatara.com. But would love to connect with folks. We do offer free discovery calls and strategy sessions for folks who are considering partnership. We know that often these conversations happen, you know, 12 to 18, 24 months before there is work to be done. So we are always here as a resource for folks to just do a kind of free call to talk about whether a partnership might be right for you. So my calendar is always open. I'd love to chat with folks.

Rob Montgomery

Great, thanks. You guys—we appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time.

JJ Littrell

Thank you, of course. Thanks, guys.

Rob Montgomery

It's great in the trenches with partnerships—Tuatara. Like I've said, we've had them on some deals, and they do a good job at really aligning expectations and planning. You know, we keep talking about this, Paul, in different ways and different contexts, but it pays to plan.

Paul Goodman

Someone who's a partner with someone and grew up with them—my dad having a partner—I see so many of the benefits, but also see the challenges, and you just got to go into it with eyes wide open. Not do it based on feeling. Can't be your—just because it's your best friend from dental school, you actually make them a good partner. Rob, where if you want to invest in real estate, you can invest in real estate. It doesn't have to be your dental practice, right? Right? And if you want to spend time with your friend from dental school, it doesn't have to be as a partner. Yeah, you could go golfing, yeah, for dinner, yeah. Because I'll share—someone who's at my dental practice yesterday with my own brother as my partner—you’re often not spending much time together. You're just taking care of the practice.

Paul Goodman

Yeah, it's not quality time.

Paul Goodman

Yeah, it's a relationship that's cool, because you get to spend time together you wouldn't otherwise. But I think for people who don't do it, they might—what's the right word for it?—be delusional, right? Delusional about how much, like, fun time. Even my own dad, who I love practicing with, we sometimes go in the morning at 8:30, yeah, not talk again until 6 p.m., right? And it doesn't mean not to have a partner, but don't do it just because you like someone from dental school. You can go play golf.

Rob Montgomery

That's like the eight-year-old—like, I like you, you like me, let's start a club. We're friends, yeah, let's be partners in a dental practice.

Paul Goodman

Do it for the right reasons—it works out great. It's great. But when it's not, it's not so great. So take JJ's advice.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, good stuff. Thanks for listening, everybody. Thank you, Paul.

Bumper  

Thanks for listening to another great podcast with the Dental Amigos. And don't forget to tune in next time to have the dental business demystified. If you're looking for more information about today's podcast, you can find it on the dental amigos.com if you're looking for Paul, you can find Paul at drpaulgoodman.com and if you're looking for Rob, you can find him at yourdentallawyer.com This podcast has been sponsored by Orange Line Media Group, helping dentists and other professionals create content people love. Find out how we can help you take your business to the next level at www.orangelinemg.com. Till next time.