Brian Hanks has a job title you may have never heard before: dental transition specialist. Hanks works with dental professionals looking to buy a practice and helps them find financial stability. “Dentists are small-business owners,” he says. “The marketplace is becoming more competitive, and more and more dentists are realizing that they need to be business owners first and dentists second—or at least have those two positions tied in their minds.”
In 2017, Hanks published How to Buy a Dental Practice: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding, Analyzing, and Purchasing the Right Practice for You. The book’s successful sales helped launch Hanks’s consulting firm, BrianHanks.com. “Creativity may not be my strong suit,” he quips about the firm’s name. “Perhaps I should have taken more marketing classes at BYU Marriott.” But jokes aside, Hanks and his team successfully assist clients in evaluating practices for sale, negotiating sales terms, and establishing financially independent businesses.
Hanks admits he only found his unique niche after some disheartening experiences. While studying management at BYU, Hanks was drawn to financial planning but became disenchanted after completing an internship that turned out to be more involved with sales than finance. It was only after graduating in 2006 with an emphasis in supply chain management and then starting an MBA program at Michigan State University that Hanks turned his sights again to financial planning.
After earning his MBA, Hanks accepted a position as a financial planner. He spent several years in that position until one day when he met with his employer for what he thought would be a raise negotiation. Instead, the employer unexpectedly fired him on the spot. “It was one of the worst experiences of my life, no question,” Hanks says.
Fortunately, he was able to find another position quickly as a financial planner in the Boise, Idaho, area, where he worked mostly with dentists and their families. After three years there, Hanks completed his Certified Financial Planner certification through Northwestern University in 2015.
While Hanks wouldn’t wish his experience of being fired on anyone, he says the job change allowed him to realize the unique need for dental accountants and to establish his own firm. “It was, looking back, one of the better things that could have happened to me,” he says. “And it gave me a real sense of empathy for other people who go through that experience.”
During his time in Idaho, Hanks wanted to get more involved in the community, so he looked up the local BYU alumni chapter and attended the next meeting on their calendar. “They immediately put me to work,” Hanks says. He was asked to head the annual Friends of BYU Golf Tournament, which he organized for three years, helping raise more than $50,000 for BYU student scholarships.
Hanks and his wife, Natalie, moved to Lehi, Utah, in 2017 with their four children. Hanks enjoys serving as a Scoutmaster, playing tennis, mountain biking, and working at his job. “It’s incredibly rewarding,” he says. “I love that I can positively impact the trajectory of a person’s life with one decision.”
