Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales Valuations Manager, Alison Bates, discusses why planning ahead for the sale of your dental practice is essential, and how the Practice Sale Readiness Checklist can help you prepare.
- Preparing early for the sale of your dental practice can help you approach the process with greater confidence and clarity.
- Regular valuations can give you a clearer understanding of your practice’s value and where there may be opportunities to strengthen it.
- Making adjustments ahead of time can help improve financial performance before you are ready to sell.
- Planning in advance can help you understand potential post-sale commitments, including whether you may need to continue working in the practice.
- Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales can help you understand your practice through a financial lens, with guidance designed to support valuation, identify potential inefficiencies, and help you prepare with confidence.
- The Henry Schein Practice Sale Readiness Checklist is designed to guide dental professionals through the key steps of preparing for a successful practice sale.
Key Takeaways
- Preparing early for the sale of your dental practice can help you approach the process with greater confidence and clarity.
- Regular valuations can give you a clearer understanding of your practice’s value and where there may be opportunities to strengthen it.
- Making adjustments ahead of time can help improve financial performance before you are ready to sell.
- Planning in advance can help you understand potential post-sale commitments, including whether you may need to continue working in the practice.
- Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales can help you understand your practice through a financial lens, with guidance designed to support valuation, identify potential inefficiencies, and help you prepare with confidence.
- The Henry Schein Practice Sale Readiness Checklist is designed to guide dental professionals through the key steps of preparing for a successful practice sale.
Key Takeaways
- Preparing early for the sale of your dental practice can help you approach the process with greater confidence and clarity.
- Regular valuations can give you a clearer understanding of your practice’s value and where there may be opportunities to strengthen it.
- Making adjustments ahead of time can help improve financial performance before you are ready to sell.
- Planning in advance can help you understand potential post-sale commitments, including whether you may need to continue working in the practice.
- Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales can help you understand your practice through a financial lens, with guidance designed to support valuation, identify potential inefficiencies, and help you prepare with confidence.
- The Henry Schein Practice Sale Readiness Checklist is designed to guide dental professionals through the key steps of preparing for a successful practice sale.
Planning Ahead To Get The Most From Your Practice Sale, With The Help Of Henry Schein
“A common misconception is that you only need to have your practice valued when you're ready to sell,” begins Alison Bates, Valuations Manager for Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales. “But we need to challenge that, which is what the Practice Sale Readiness Checklist does.”
When it comes to selling your dental practice, preparation is fundamental. And with over two decades of experience in healthcare acquisitions, Alison knows this well.
“Ideally we work with practice owners at least five years before they're ready to sell,” explains Alison. And while planning this far ahead may seem excessive, there are a few key reasons for doing so – which some dentists may at first overlook without the correct guidance.
Why Should I Start Thinking About My Practice Sale Now?
To Ensure Your Valuation Meets Your Expectations
If you wait until you’re ready to sell before getting a valuation, and that valuation then comes back as a lower figure than you’d hoped, you have limited time to rectify it before exiting. The Practice Sale Readiness Checklist helps to “set expectations in the right place”, according to Alison.
“At Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales, we work with you to grow your practice value and then maintain it,” she continues. “There are a lot of different suggestions that we can make which you may not have considered as a clinician. You look at your business with a dental hat on, but we look at it with a financial hat on.”
To Allow Time To Make Adjustments
“It's not just about giving you the tools to make changes, but also the time,” explains Alison. With accounts produced annually, a change today doesn’t necessarily mean tangible results tomorrow – in fact, realistically this could take a year or more, so making appropriate changes in your practice is best done sooner rather than later.
“As an example, let's say you’re overstaffed – this could be costing your business hundreds of thousands of pounds in terms of value. Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales can help to translate what you do on a day-to-day basis into financial performance. We’re here to provide you with information that you might not have known, and identify potential inefficiencies within your practice.”
To Fulfil Contractual Obligations
Contrary to what you might believe, it isn’t always possible to simply sell your dental practice and leave. “You can't necessarily just sell your businesses and walk away, particularly if you have a bigger dental practice that you're going to sell to a group or a corporate,” says Alison. “They will need the principal dentist to keep working for three to five years as an associate after they've sold the business.”
Because of this possibility, it is important to consider well in advance any commitments that you may potentially have to honour upon selling your practice.
The Practice Sale Readiness Checklist is a comprehensive checklist of things that dental professionals don't know they need to know – but they do need to know.
The Practice Sale Readiness Checklist is a comprehensive checklist of things that dental professionals don't know they need to know – but they do need to know.
Download The Practice Sale Readiness Checklist Today
“It’s comprehensive,” begins Alison, when summarising the Practice Sale Readiness Checklist. “It not only covers what to do once you're ready to sell, like the legal process and due diligence, but also the other moving parts, like having regular valuations, how you grow, how you build, and how you prepare your practice for a sale. It’s an overview of the whole process from start to finish.”
“The Practice Sale Readiness Checklist is a comprehensive checklist of things that dental professionals don't know they need to know – but they do need to know.”
If you’re ready to get in the know and get ahead when it comes to selling your practice, download our full checklist today, or contact our Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales team for more information.
1. When should I start preparing to sell my dental practice?
2. Why should I get my dental practice valued before I am ready to sell?
3. How can early planning help improve my practice sale?
4. How can Henry Schein Dental Practice Sales help dental professionals prepare for their practice sale?
5. What does the Practice Sale Readiness Checklist cover?