Build A Practice You Can Sell
Welcome to “Beauty and the Biz”, where we talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery, and how to build a practice you can sell.
I’m your host, Catherine Maley, author of “Your aesthetic practice – What your patients are saying”, and consultant to plastic surgeons to get them more patients and profits.
Build a practice you can sell
Even if you’re going to work until you drop and have no intentions of selling your practice, this episode will give you insights on how to make your practice more successful.
So please listen in
- You are the majority revenue-generator in your practice
- You put more value on YOU as a surgeon vs. growing profit centers run by others
- You work IN your practice more than ON your practice
The objective is to set up your cosmetic surgical practice as a business so it’s more profitable, more enjoyable to go to every day, and it frees up your valuable time, so you have more of it to spend doing what you like to do with the people you most enjoy being with.
But, you have a challenge that keeps you from winning in the long run.
As a surgeon, you were programmed to think in a certain fixed way.
You had to think that way to become a great surgeon.
However, that thinking is the opposite of how a businessperson thinks.
In a cosmetic practice, you, the surgeon, are the technician of the surgery, so you focus on that because you’re good at it and that’s what you know.
However, does that make for a sellable asset when you’re ready to exit?
Probably not, so you either have to work until you’re ready to close the doors and get nothing back for your efforts, or you can set your practice up to make a profitable exit and enjoy your retirement.
If a profitable retirement sounds good to you, think like a businessperson by using these strategies:
The first one is Mindset:
Shift your thinking from a surgeon to a businessperson and “Operate your practice like it’s for sale”.
In other words, regularly ask yourself, “If I wanted to sell my practice tomorrow, what would I need to improve to get the most value for it?” Or, “If I wanted to buy an existing practice, what would “I” be looking for and be willing to invest in?
That leads us to The Value of Your Practice
Many components make up the value of your practice such as:
- Profits
- Good Will
- People
- Processes
- Tools such as your CRM
- Patient list
- P&L statements
- Vendor agreements
- Fixed Assets & inventory
All of that is important but when I interview surgeons on this Podcast and we talk about them buying another surgeon’s practice, the #1 value component they are looking for is a ready-made income stream.
Because Buyers are looking for a practice’s ability to generate cash with a degree of predictability and certainty.
That’s why it’s difficult to value the surgical side of your practice.
If you have been practicing with a “one and done” mindset, you’re not developing much of a bond with your patients because it’s such a short-term relationship.
And, to keep your surgical side busy, you have to market and advertise to attract new surgical patients and that increases your overhead costs so other surgeons have to look at not just your revenues but also your overhead to make those revenues happen.
They know there’s no certainty that those surgical patients will come back for more surgery or come back soon enough or often enough. Or, if they do return years later, will they be ok with a different surgeon they don’t know? It’s hard to say so that affects the value of your practice.
However, if you can show a prospective buyer:
- Predictable revenues they can count on month after month that don’t include YOU
- And how you increase the lifetime value of your current cosmetic patients
- And how you generate more referrals and reviews organically
- And how you differentiate your practice from all the others,
That’s interesting AND valuable.
Because now you have a predictable, systematic cosmetic revenue stream profit center that works without you and could easily be handed off to another surgeon.
You do that by building up the non-surgical aspect of your practice.
So let’s talk about the Benefits of a Non-Surgical Profit Center
You can still enjoy the surgical side of your practice as you build a non-surgical profit center. Hire excellent team members such as a nurse-injector, laser techs and/or aestheticians who understand customer service and how to treat their patients with friendliness, kindness and respect.
These extenders act as the glue to keep cosmetic patients coming back for both non-surgical as well as surgical procedures. Because a cosmetic patient who cares about her appearance today cares about that for a lifetime so why not be her “one-stop shop”?
It’s the retention of your cosmetic patients that builds the value of your practice using resources you already have. These loyal patients tend to buy more, return more often and refer more of their friends.
This increases their lifetime value and decreases your advertising budget. Now you have a healthy stand-alone profit center that generates revenues without you and that makes for a great sellable asset others want to buy…But only if you follow the steps to build a practice you can sell.
If this makes sense to you and you want to set up your own predictable and reliable revenue stream that gives you more growth and freedom, let’s talk.
Of course, it would be great if you subscribed to Beauty and the Biz so you don’t miss any episodes and a review would be much appreciates.
Thanks so listening and we’ll talk again soon.
If you want to talk more about your specific situation, just leave me a message at:
https://www.CatherineMaley.com
…Or DM me on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/CatherineMaleyMBA
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