I recently had the opportunity to share my perspectives on empowering your practice by thinking like a CEO when I spoke at the annual meeting of the Academy of Private Dental Practice conference in Fort Lauderdale. It was a great group of dentists and I would encourage you to check them out.
During one of the breakout sessions, we engaged in a spirited and informative discussion on when was the best time for dentists to start preparing to transition to retirement.
The consensus answer…NOW! Whether you purchased an existing practice or built de novo, start planning your transition from day one.
And as you look to add value to your practice for today, always keep its future value in the back of your mind. Because the truth is, you never know when that future will come.
Obviously, we all hope that you enjoy a long and successful career in dentistry. But sometimes life has other plans. Accidents…illness…even death! These are unfortunate realities that you want to be as prepared for as possible.
Any of these events could force you to sell your practice at a time when you and your family have more than enough stress to deal with. The more prepared you are for an easy transition, the more you can at least reduce that one area of stress.
Make sure your employment contracts are up to date. Ensure that your office lease is easily transferable without any hidden fees the landlord can impose. (It happens!) And invest in your office – both in training your team and in the technology you use.
Here is something that Dental CEO’s understand: the same strategy that can maximize your business valuation at the time of sale will also maximize the level of care you provide to your patients while you are the owner.
That’s right – ideal patient care and business valuations are interconnected. Think about it…an office with state-of-the-art technology, with a team that is fully trained on that technology…that is an office poised to provide the best standard of care for its patients.
And all those investments in care are also investments in value. This is the practice people will want to buy should you have to sell unexpectedly.
You can even make sure you know the value of your practice by having your broker do an annual update. Such updates can be provided at very reasonable rates as they are not full evaluations.
Dental CEO’s are in for the long haul. They have a vision for what they want their practice to be today and well into the future.
But they are also prepared for the surprises that life can throw at us. So always have one eye on what you need to do to maximize the value of your practice. And rest assured you will be providing the best patient care at the same time.
About the Author
Shawn Peers is the President of DentalPeers. DentalPeers is one of Canada’s oldest, continuous operating buying groups exclusively for dentists.
