Even if your retirement is ten or twenty years away, it's never too late to start viewing your practice through the eyes of a future buyer. By continually evaluating and growing the value of your practice, you will ensure that, when the time comes to sell, your practice will yield the highest price.

When asked to list the attributes they desire in a practice, new dentists commonly list six: (1) an office with a good reputation, (2) an active patient base with strong hygiene, (3) a modern facility and assets in a good location, (4) a practice with consistent growth, (5) a loyal and motivated staff, and (6) a practitioner who is active in continuing education and who offers new techniques. Therefore, your ongoing goal should be to create a practice environment in which these desired elements are in place and evident. Integrating these into your Practice Mission will increase your chances for success.

Practice Reputation – In the world of practice sales, this is called "goodwill." Goodwill brings patients back to your practice year after year and generates referrals. Goodwill is the sum of many practice attributes, including the dentist, staff, environment, philosophy and treatment. Making the most of every patient contact is a vital part of creating and enhancing goodwill. The receptionist, assistant or hygienist who greets the patient with a voice of familiarity, compassion and genuine interest significantly enhances practice goodwill. Remember that on average, a patient spends more interactive time with staff members than with the practitioner.

Active Patient Base and Active Hygiene – The first question a potential buyer asks is "Does this practice have a patient base that can support the dentist(s)?" Community involvement, providing value-added services to your patients, and maintaining the image of a patient-centered practice will build your patient base. Hygiene activity is also a key selling point. A practice with an active hygiene system should generate 25% of total revenues from this source.

Facility and Assets – The astute dental practice owner strikes a balance between maintaining an attractive updated facility without creating an atmosphere of opulence and overkill. Current technology is essential to offer enhanced dental procedures and a pleasant environment is important, but there is a limit to what the profit structure of a practice can handle.

Continual Practice Growth – As some dentists mature in practice, they refer out or decline to offer many traditional procedures, including those that they historically performed. An alternative is to hire a part-time or fulltime Associate. Today’s dental environment has generated more dentists who wish to practice a limited schedule without ownership. These highly skilled dentists make excellent augmentations to a practice, and allow you to maintain your procedure spectrum and grow revenues.

Continually Learning Professional – Continuing education courses offer opportunities to learn about lasers, cosmetics, implants and more. It is essential to be open to learning and providing new enhancements to patients. However, it’s important to find a balance. Today many offices actively and sometimes aggressively promote dental enhancements and technology. We all want to promote our practice as being advanced, but an overly assertive campaign to promote these enhancements can backfire. Patients perceive quite astutely when the emphasis turns away from the traditional image of dental practice. A subtle but consistent offering of new dental techniques and services is much better received.

If you have already managed to build a practice with these attributes and you are in the process of selling, congratulations! But don’t assume the attitude of the homeowner who stops watering the lawn once his house is in escrow; this can jeopardize the sale and put you at risk. It’s essential to preserve practice value throughout the sale to maintain cash flows at historic or even higher levels.

Your ongoing commitment to maintaining, enhancing and protecting revenues will result in a practice that is highly marketable when the time is right.

Statements of opinion not necessarily endorsed by ADA Member Advantage, ADA Business Enterprises, Inc., or the American Dental Association, or any of its subsidiaries, counsels, commissions, or agencies.