Growing Your Medical Practice Before You Sell
No matter where you are with your medical practice, if you want to sell one of the best things you can do before you even put it on the market is to grow your practice. Whether that means upgrades, a remodel, or even relocating, the fact that you are growing makes your business more desirable to a buyer.
So how do you get your practice from where you are now to a place of growth before you sell? Here are some simple tips.
Develop a Plan
Developing a plan involves some simple steps that will require some thought on your part. The first is that you must define your objectives. Where would you like to be before you sell your practice? This can be a variety of things, from growing in revenue or profitability year over year, or having a 30% growth in your practice, or being in a new or better location.
Whatever your goals, that will determine the steps you need to take next, and how long it will take to reach your goals.
Assess Your Finances
Before you go any further, you need to know where you are now financially. What are your profits, and what do you have in savings that will help you achieve your growth? What assets do you already have that you can leverage? In order to determine the goals you need to set to get where you are going, you need to know where you are now.
Determine Your Budget and Timeline
Of course, the next step is to know how much you need to get where you are going. Let’s say you are simply upgrading the equipment in your office or the EMR software that you use. These are relatively small upgrades, but there will be a cost in transition time, staff training, and more. This is not the type of project you need to hire a project manager for, but you need to do some research or have it done about the actual cost of upgrading.
At that point, you can set your budget and your timeline. How long will it reasonably take to accomplish the transition? Once these items have been set, you can continue to move forward.
Of course, if you are considering a larger upgrade or relocating your practice, this may take even longer. Since you are planning or selling your business when the process is over, you’ll also need to determine how long you will need to run the business yourself to get a reasonable return on your investment. In some cases, you might be able to increase the asking price of your practice enough to recoup your investment right away.
Additional Considerations
Relocating your practice comes with some potential costs, as you may lose customers. So is keeping your practice open during remodeling or upgrading equipment. Be sure to thank your patients for their patience, but you might still lose some along the way, or they might go elsewhere until your work is done.
You also might want to let patients adapt to the new systems and/or location before you try to sell. Too much change can be bad for a practice, so don’t be in a hurry to sell until you are well established in your new routines and the transition will be a smooth one for both you and your patients.
This is one argument for having the buyer work in your practice before they take over and make a purchase. This is common in selling a practice and can make things better for the patients and the new buyer.
Looking to grow your practice, or are already ready to sell a medical practice in Sacramento? Contact Rogerson Business Serviceswith your questions. We know how to help you navigate the tricky process of selling your medical practice the right way.
