It’s never too early to prepare for a successful future.
What is the end goal for your practice? Succession planning is one of the most important parts of owning a business. Whether you intend to eventually retire or sell your practice, it\’s never too early to plan for the day you hand over the keys to someone else. Here are 4 things to begin the process of achieving your long term goals:
1. Plan Early
Last minute preparation will not make your business very attractive to potential buyers. Physicians and surgeons are in an industry where their name is linked to their practice status. As such, succession and transition plans need to be developed years in advance to ensure business continuity and patient retention when there\’s a change in ownership. Planning well in advance also places you in the best position to negotiate on your terms.
Think about your ultimate goals. Is there a certain age you want to retire? Do you need to make a certain amount of money beforehand? Do you plan to have someone else take on your practice, or do you plan to sell it? Begin the planning process with the end in mind.
2. Assemble a Team
It\’s important to get together a team of trusted experts that can help you build your strategy. A qualified tax advisor, attorney, and wealth advisor are important people to consider along with consultants who specialize in practice management. Talking to this team now can help you determine how best to structure your business and what will be important to any future investors or buyers. These experts can also manage your expectations. Practice owners who are \”winging it\”, relying too heavily on current practice performance, or using their own personal calculations and valuations of their business, can easily be disappointed when they find out their practice isn\’t worth what they thought.
3. Evaluate Your Operations & Management Software
Systems and platforms that are 10 years old may not be able to help you scale your business for the next 10 years. It of course goes without saying, a paper system can become a huge headache when it comes to managing your business. It\’s important to have accurate, comprehensive platforms that can track and report key performance metrics in real-time. This will help you easily evaluate historic and projected growth, as well as net income, which are all important factors to potential buyers.
Utilizing a customer relationship management (CRM) system is also key for managing prospective patient leads, current patient activity, as well as on-going follow-up and wellness appointment scheduling.
Finally, it is imperative to establish and routinely optimize business processes and workflows that can manage day-to-day volume, but also handle operations as you grow.
All of these tactics can help your practice run more smoothly now and are fundamental components of scaling your business to meet future goals. They are also elements needed in the transition process to ensure your business doesn\’t skip a beat during a change in ownership.
4. Invest in Outsourcing
Now is the best time to ensure you\’re maximizing your income, your time, and your resources. If your business is growing, it makes sense to consider partnerships that can take your business to the next level and provide a return on your investment. As an example, our practices average a 10 to 1 Return on Investment (ROI) with our Boomerang program and are guaranteed a positive ROI in the first 90 days. Click here to see case studies.
We have also found our First Contact call handling program increases average practice revenue by 10-15%. Furthermore, we help to streamline the call-handling process, allowing your staff to focus on your patients.
Not only do our programs and services show to boost revenue, but we partner with a number of industry leaders who are also focused on helping you grow your business. Click here to check out our list of 5-Star Partners.
You\’ve worked hard to build your practice. We\’re here to help ensure it pays off in the end. To learn more about how we can help grow your practice to meet your future goals, contact us.