Why should I make my surgery a Best in Class dental practice?
For many years there have only been a few specialist dental practice sales brokers in that space. You could count them on one hand, and over the years many dental practices have been bought and sold with good and bad experiences between the parties, including the brokers.
As one of those select few, I thought it time to clear up a few myths that surface during a normal week in the life of a specialist consultant when dealing with new clients on both sides of this fence.
Qualified and Licenced Practice Brokers:
Depending on who you talk to, depends on the qualification of those chosen few and in fact the level of service you will receive for fees you have negotiated to pay which tend to span the following:
• Advertising your dental practice for sale in maybe 3 sites where some buyers tend to congregate.
• A blind email blast to all current prospective buyers list.
• An email to favoured buyers including corporate eagles waiting for a good deal, as it were.
This is the basic service with minimal information shared with no listing fee charged (feedback in several recent cases not even a non-disclosure agreement completed by the prospective buyer) whereby any interested parties with or without much qualification taking place will be introduced to the seller for them to cut a deal between them accompanied by a smaller fee normally 3.5% – 4% paid to the introducing agent. This gets around having to be licenced in all states.
Next would be a larger brokerage with many dental surgery listings offering adequate information once appropriate Non-disclosure agreement completed and some qualification of their ability to purchase has been performed.
This organisation does not charge a listing fee but offer supposed discounts on their success fees if other services are utilised within their group (in most cases observed, discounts offered have been normal fees of others in this space) basic information is collected and collated with little to no comprehensive work being performed other than offered by the principal’s team.
Maybe this style of representation is adequate for some surgery owners, but from where I sit, it doesn’t cut the mustard. In ninety percent of cases, this is the most important asset behind the family home and should be represented to achieve maximum return for the lifetime of effort you have expended.
Over the years, I have observed practices achieve fantastic returns on investment and practices worthless at the time of sale. Why?
“Preparation” It’s that simple!!
If you have a Comprehensive Exit Strategy or “Options Strategy” (as I like to call it) started well in advance of the day the dental practice is listed for sale, the returns will flow like wine.
“No planning means no joy”. You cannot expect to achieve maximum return on your lifetime of hard yakka without investing in a comprehensive options strategy.
So many dentists become upset and insulted at sale time, when the buyer and their team commence due diligence and uncover a whole bunch of little things that can and do ultimately break the sale (65% of sales are lost at due diligence because of small issues that could have been picked up with prior preparation).
You wouldn’t buy something this big without doing thorough due diligence, so isn’t it worth doing your own comprehensive due diligence on your own practice before listing it to see exactly where everything sits, at least you would have peace of mind knowing it’s prepared to “Best in Class” and ready for any scrutiny. (in 75 % of cases, once completed, the value can increase up to 20%).
Funny, when the service light comes on in the dash of your car, you book it for service ASAP – shouldn’t you do the same for your practice?
What stands PracticeLink apart?
• When we prepare a practice for sale, it’s to “Best in Class” the same standard you would expect to buy one.
• No more than 6 practices are engaged at any one time allowing for maximum interaction and effort per practice until sold.
• 75% of fully prepared dental practices achieve greater justifiable value, meaning an effortless sale process with maximum return at sale.
• Like most specialist dentists, we make no apologies for expecting a fair fee to perform such a comprehensive dental practice assessment.
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Don’t you owe it to yourself and your dental practice to cover all the bases, considering how much it’s taken you to get to that stage?
Whether you’re in the market to sell your dental practice right now or just want to explore the best Exit Plan Options for a future sale…
Click below to schedule a free consultation. It’s never a bad idea to get good information that can make all the difference to your future!