VIDEO: How to Sell Your Dental Practice Successfully | Tennessee Dental Practice Broker Ryan LaPrad

it's very good to have a a a you know

that broad question of how do I sell my

dental practice and you know we kind of

go through a few uh pieces of advice

first and foremost um you know prepare

early understand what you have and and

um what asset you have to sell always

recommend you know walk through the

front door uh as you're a buyer and and

kind of look at what you like and what

you don't like um so understand what the

buyer's seeing uh talk to a transition

specialist early on get an idea of what

your practice is valued at what it's

worth what it's going to probably sell

for um and in the end in the end you

know you know engage that transition

specialist let them help you they're the

expert in transitioning practices you've

never done this before you may only do

it one one or two times in your career

uh so it's very important to have

somebody on your side helping you

protecting you and making sure you get

the right value for your

practice Yeah we always recommend that a

dentist starts as early as possible um

whether it's 5 years out seven years out

or just a few years out but the earlier

they can start the better um some of the

things they can do to prepare and and

kind of be ready for a transition you

know obviously initially talk to a

transition specialist you know kind of

get an evaluation of your practice

understand what you have and what you

need and um things that you can do now

to maybe help uh prep yourself and

prepare for the the eventual

sale sure a lease needs to be reviewed

well ahead of time by the the seller by

the practice owner there's certain

Clauses in the lease that can be tricky

when navigating through a transition um

first and foremost the assignment

language if you've got an existing lease

with term left you need to understand

how easily that that lease can be

assigned and how much control the

landlord might have in the sale process

because if that language isn't uh set up

properly and then they don't have the

necessarily uh necessary um right to

assign it or um can't be re reasonably

withheld then it could cause problems

when assigning the lease um so yeah you

want to review that ahead of time and

get a good idea of what you're looking

at and then maybe you can even start

discussions with the landlord or perhaps

you might just have to look at doing a

brand new

lease yeah so yeah definitely the sooner

the better you want to understand what

goes into a transition how it's going to

impact you uh what your transition plan

or timeline might be uh so you're

properly prepared mentally prepared uh

we don't want to push you into doing a

transition before you're ready we also

don't want you to wait too long and and

do it when it's kind of too late so

talking to a a transition specialist

sooner than later is very important uh

it's just going to help put you in a

better position to know what you're

looking for what your timeline is when

you are ultimately decide okay I'm ready

to to move on this um plus you know a

lot of times we're dealing we're talking

to doctors two three four five years

before they actually transition so we

talk them through help coach them a

little bit on different things and then

when they're ready we're here for for

them and we're we're prepared as much as

they're

prepared yeah sure there's no secret

that corporate Dentistry or dsos private

Equity they've definitely impacted uh

the dental field and you know it's been

uh interesting over the last probably

year to 18 months the dsos have actually

slowed down a little bit and that's due

to the rise in interest rates obviously

if money costs more it affects the

metrics of how they buy a practice but

they're still out there and they're

still actively looking for practices

there's a lot of differences between

selling to a DSO and selling to an

individual first and foremost is the

commitment you're going to you're going

to go from practice owner to practice

employee and that could be for three

years four years 5 years it could be an

extended period of time the benefits of

that the metrics actually play out in

your favor you get a little bit more

money for the practice um but you don't

have that feeling of being able to you

know walk away right away or maybe in a

few months you're you're committed for a

few

years I mean every transition we ' done

personally I've done over 150 every

transition's different you never know

what you can expect you never know what

wrinkle you might be thrown so it's good

to to be patient understand that you

have to maybe move a little bit on your

terms and your timeline um like we

mentioned before landlords can have an

impact if you're assigning a lease um

real estate if you're selling real

estate there's uh can be an extended

time um getting appraisals done

inspections done that could delay things

um every buyer is a little different in

what they want they may want you to to

drop the keys off and be gone the next

day which is a big change or they may

say hey I need you here for for 3 months

or 6 months so now you're you're kind of

you're not the the boss anymore you're

working for somebody or helping somebody

so you've got to be prepared and be able

to move uh no matter what happens in the

transition we try to manage it to the

best of our ability but there's always

something un unpredictable that's going

to

[Applause]

happen