North Texas Dentistry Volume 10 Issue 1 2020 ISSUE 1 DE | Page 20

DUAL vs. DUEL
practice transitions
A Better Way to Sell your Practice
by Richard V. Lyschik, DDS, FAGD, CFE
Your practice may be one of your most valuable assets.
Why would you not want professional guidance to sell it?
1. If you try to sell your practice on your own, what can you pos-
sibly say to a buyer about the actual value of your own goodwill
and be believable? No matter how hard you try to be objective,
your very position of self-interest will cause the buyer to be sus-
picious. This will lead to doubts, causing the buyer to hire a CPA
or an attorney to create advice from “his side.”
2. If as a seller, you think hiring an attorney or CPA can get you
safely through the transition maze, you may be sadly disap-
pointed. We often end up educating the “experts” in these mat-
ters because they simply do not understand all of the issues
which bear on the structure, the valuation, and the sales process
itself. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing …”
3. By far the worst part about a decision to sell your own prac-
tice is not what will happen, but rather what will not happen.
The right terms, contract provisions, allocations, buyer, timing,
etc. may simply not be introduced to you at all!
4. You may instead choose to go with a broker. Since the broker
will represent only you in negotiations, why should a buyer be-
lieve the broker any more than he believes you about your prac-
20 NORTH TEXAS DENTISTRY | www.northtexasdentistry.com
tice value? The buyer will still feel insecure and suspicious about
the valuation. And so begins the adversarial negotiating so un-
fortunately common to the dental practice transition process.
Such adversarial negotiating can destroy the greatest asset your
practice has to offer – your goodwill! Preserving the goodwill be-
tween buyer and seller is tantamount to safeguarding the intan-
gible value of a practice. In adversarial processes everyone loses!
A broker could make you broker.
5. And now with the DSOs soliciting dentists every week, be
aware that you are never awarded the full practice value.
You are made to believe that you can deal with them directly,
and that all pricing models are the same. You might even be
offered useless stock, instead of cash!
Our smartest sellers have explored this option, only to return to
us to sell their practices!
A poorly structured transition can
cost you your entire practice!