Are You Prepared for Your Practice Sale? Assess Your Practice Sale Readiness [Free Checklist]

Plan ahead to get the most from your practice sale, with the help of Henry Schein senior dental practice valuers…

“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.

Download the Practice Sale Readiness Checklist

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 retirement. 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.

“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.