The Importance of Your CPA During a Transition
Megan Urban of Omni Practice Group talks about how a dental-specific CPA can help you during a practice transition. Contact us today for a complimentary snapshot valuation – info@omni-pg.com, 877-866-6053.
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Benefits of Hiring a Broker
By Kevin Brady
Why use a Dental Broker to Sell your Practice?
After many years of the hard work, long hours, and substantial investment that go into building a dental practice, you’re now thinking about selling the practice. It’s easy to assume that the practice will sell quickly and for a great price when you are ready to sell. Feedback from doctors who have recently sold their practices shows that the process is more complicated and stressful than anticipated. This is why it is essential to hire a dental broker to help guide you through the process.
Potential individual buyers and DSOs (Dental Service Organizations) will have experts who can help them navigate the sale. You will also need someone to advocate for you and help you understand the process from start to finish. In most cases, the last time you were involved in a practice sale was when you bought the practice, which means you need someone to help you navigate the process.
Benefits of Hiring a Broker
Here are just a few reasons why hiring a dental broker to assist with planning and selling your practice would be a sound investment.
- Determining Fair Market Price: At Omni Practice Group, we have certified practice appraisers that put together a valuation to maximize a fair market sales price for the practice and real estate (if applicable).
- Develop a Marketing Plan for the Practice while Maintaining Confidentiality: Omni provides confidential marketing and advertising services for your practice that do not identify you or your practice until a buyer is screened and signs a confidential Non-Disclosure Agreement. Omni also provides the financial prospectus for your practice along with confidential personal showings of the practice to potential buyers. Finding the right buyer that you will want to take over your practice can take some time. Good practices can sell quickly, but some can take months or even a year to sell.
- Letter of Intent: Omni brokers negotiate on your behalf, a Letter of Intent with your approval for the purchase price of the Practice and the Accounts Receivable. Your broker will also guide you through the due diligence conditions for bank financing, help negotiate a new lease agreement, non-compete agreements, and other conditions that both the seller and the buyer will agree on. If real estate is included, your Omni broker will determine the value of the real estate with a “Broker’s Real Estate Opinion” that is used to market the real estate with the practice.
- Finalizing the Sale: Your Omni broker works with you to determine a possible closing date based on whether your practice has real estate to sell or a lease that will be negotiated with the new owner. Omni’s brokers work with attorneys to finalize the Asset Purchase Agreement for both the seller and the buyer.
Omni’s 70-point-plus checklist helps guide both the seller and the buyer through the process of items to be completed prior to the sale closing.
A banker at one of the major banks recently said, “A high percentage of deals that fall apart is due to the seller not using a dental broker.” Using a broker typically saves sellers a lot of time, money, and headaches in selling their practices.
Omni Practice Group has been helping dentists for over 15 years with the planning and transitioning of their practices. If you’re thinking about selling now or in the next few years, give us a call for a “free consultation” to help you determine a plan that works for you and how we can assist with a smooth and profitable transition – 877-866-6053.
Read MoreSelling Your Practice Yourself – Penny Smart and Dollar Foolish
By Rod Johnston, MBA, CMA, Practice Transition Advisor
You’ve heard the stories of people doing their own electrical work on their house only to be electrocuted when they try fixing the bathroom light while standing in the bathtub full of water. Or the person who decides to fix his brakes on his car only to accidentally cut his brake line and end up driving off a cliff. They have awards for some of these mishaps. They’re called the Darwin Awards.
Deciding to sell your own practice may not give you a fate as extreme as the Darwin Awards, but it could cost you money, your staff, lose patients for the buyer, or end up in a lawsuit. That’s if the sale even makes it all the way to the closing table. I have been selling practices for 15 years. I keep thinking I have seen it all, but then something out of the blue pops up. For example, I was called as an expert witness to review agreements in a prior sale where the buyers were suing the seller. The buyers thought they were buying a practice and a building. They wanted to save money and not use a broker, or an attorney. The buyers showed up at the practice after closing only to find an empty space. It turned out, they just bought the building and not the practice. The agreement used was a real estate purchase and sale agreement and was not for a practice sale – a big and costly mistake on both sides.
Lenders and attorneys report that practices that are sold without a broker have a 50% chance of failing before the practice closes. I believe the failure rate to be higher than that. Reasons they fail include buyers losing interest, seller and buyer can’t negotiate a disputed item or clause, seller and buyer don’t know the steps to the transaction, and confidentiality is breached by one of the parties. A failed sale can disrupt a practice if the staff leaves knowing the practice is on the market.
When selling a practice, you need to wear a lot of hats and possess expertise in a wide variety of areas. Transition consultants need to be knowledgeable in law, accounting, tax, real estate, valuations, psychology, negotiations, design, equipment, technology, software, project management, sales, analysis, practice management, human resources, and mediation. In addition, you need to have a lot of extra time. On average it takes 200 hours to sell a practice a lot more if the sale is to a corporate buyer. That time includes gathering data to do the valuation. Putting the valuation together. Developing a prospectus or offering. Creating advertising, placing the ad, taking phone calls, meeting prospective buyers, doing background checks on buyers, talking with lenders, assisting buyers in due diligence, working with attorneys, negotiating bumps in the road, reviewing agreements, and more.
You also run a financial risk. You could undervalue your practice or get taken by a buyer who is good at talking and negotiating a good deal for themselves. If there is a corporate buyer involved, you need a broker even more. Brokers can assist in negotiating amongst several corporate buyers to ensure you get not only the best value for your practice but also the best terms. Corporate transactions require a lot more scrutiny, due diligence, negotiating, and time. Done right and with patience and you also can reap the reward.
Selling your practice on your own may not get you a Darwin Award. But, doing so comes with a lot of risks and requires a lot of time and expertise. Why risk the equity you have built up over the years to save money? Pennywise and dollar foolish could cost you thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars as well as non-monetary losses.
Give Omni a call today for a free consultation and learn how we can help. Call 877-866-6053 or email info@omni-pg.com.
Read MoreWant Your Own Practice, But Don’t Know Where to Start?
By Megan Urban
The decisions you make now will impact you and your income today and in the future. We are here to assist you to make the best decisions for you and your family.
Gather your team of trusted advisors.
- Start with your Transition Advisor and they can recommend dental-specific banks, attorneys, and CPAs to guide you every step of the way. We’ve done this many, many times, and want to share our experience.
- We understand money is a concern, but decisions you make now can equate to thousands of dollars that you may never recoup over your career, so gathering your team of trusted advisors is priceless.
Your Transition Advisor can help you:
- Understand the practice and the purchasing process.
- Assist you to do a chart audit and other due diligence to determine the cash flow and if it is the right practice for you.
- Work with your other advisors to set up the best entity for your practice, acquire solid financing, and ensure all necessary documents and contracts are in place.
- Make a plan to retain patients and team, and implement processes and procedures to help you to increase production and collection, as well as reduce stress.
We can help you with the process of buying a dental practice. Contact us today!
Read MoreOMNI Practice Group Highlight the Cons of Completing a Dental Practice Sale Without a Broker
The process of selling a dental practice can be exceptionally challenging for those without experience in the practice transitions. It’s a process that requires the leadership and guidance of an expert in the dental practice field, as well as a comprehensive understanding of the steps involved in a business sale. The experts at OMNI Practice Group have decades of experience helping practice sellers locate qualified buyers for a seamless business sale, and in this latest article, they explain the cons of completing a sale without a dental practice broker.
The Seller May Not Receive Full Practice Value
A broker can help their client to achieve full value for the money they’ve placed into their business over the long term. They can then work to obtain viable selling opportunities and locate qualified buyers within the marketplace. Without this type of guidance, the seller may find their selling opportunities restricted. They may discover that they can only achieve a small proportion of their total dental practice value in the sale.
Sellers are Unable to Handle the Legal Aspects Alone
The legal aspect of a practice transition is often a critical element within the dental practice sale process. Buyers will have their lawyers review the business’s paperwork and any issues they find must be analyzed closely by experts in the legal field. Brokers often have significant legal experience or have a legal team on their side and can help handle any challenges that arise during the transition process, while keeping the seller’s needs as the foremost consideration. The broker will be available at any time via phone or email to answer the seller’s questions and move the transaction process along. This can help prevent the seller from making poor choices and becoming embroiled in legal challenges.
The Seller Doesn’t Have Marketing Experience
When bringing a dental practice to the marketplace, the seller must be able to highlight the advantages of their business in a way that attracts qualified buyers. Brokers are often experts in this area. They can use their experience to craft compelling marketing materials for the seller and use their experience in the marketplace to build target buyer lists and send out high-value content to these buyer lists.
Sellers Cannot Handle Mediation with Buyers Alone
The buyer will likely have a lawyer driving their purchase process. The lawyer will be negotiating with the seller on all elements of the transaction, including the final price. Having a broker on-hand during this process ensures the broker can handle all mediation, negotiating on the seller’s behalf to get the right price and the ideal structure for the purchase.
Working with a qualified broker can help dental practice sellers reduce their transaction challenges and secure a seamless sale. To learn more, speak with the team at OMNI Dental Practice Group at 877.866.6053 or visit their business website at www.omni-pg.com.
