Hanging out your shingle doesn’t guarantee you’ll create a profitable, scalable, sellable practice. And being a great dentist isn’t enough to build a successful business either.

It doesn’t guarantee you any income at all. In fact, being in business only guarantees one thing and that’s a huge investment of time and money.

How do some people seem to find it easy to create successful practices? How is it that some people can sell their businesses for so much more than others?

What is it that successful people know – what’s the secret?

One secret is that you should always be building your business to sell, even if you have no intention of selling it yet. In fact, the book Built to Sell states:

“If you want to sell your business for the maximum amount of money, it needs to be designed to thrive without you so the next owner can continue to grow and profit from your hard work when you’re gone.”

 

Create a Business That Thrives Without You

A business that thrives without you is more likely to sell for a higher price than one that revolves around you. So how do you create that?

In a word: systems. You need to create documented processes and procedures for your team to follow.

That way the business is not reliant on you. And things are done to a similar standard, in a similar way, each and every time.

You can start creating a great customer experience because you have processes and procedures. You can spend less time and energy constantly reinventing the wheel.

There are less mistakes. And the big bonus?

When you build your business to thrive without you, you are no longer tied to your business. You can delegate effectively. You can take a holiday without spending the whole time worrying.

And another big benefit is that you can scale effectively. Because in order to scale you must have successful dental practice management, marketing, and systems in place.

Create a Business You Can Scale

First of all, let’s get clear on the models your business may fall under:

1. Sole practitioner (owner) – the traditional way practices operate
2. Owner/practitioner plus an associate dentist (plus or minus auxiliaries)
3. Creating excess capacity – for example, extending opening hours, split shifts, employing additional people and opening multiple locations

A scalable business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost.

You might have a ready-to-scale business that has a proven product or business model and is ready to expand into new territory. This could include new locations or even a different target market or industries.

When you are building a business to sell, your dental business coach will advise you if it needs to have an element of scalability. You might create capacity through innovative scheduling, employing more people or opening extra locations.

Any of these options require a different skillset to the traditional model of practice.

As you scale up you need to learn to build and lead teams. You must know your metrics and be able to produce “teams of income” rather than multiple “streams of income”.

It also takes in your dental practice management, dental marketing, and dental practice systems.

Create a Business You Can Sell

Your methods need to be teachable by someone who is not you and that’s because you must be thinking about taking yourself out of the business.Remember: you won’t be there when you sell.

Remember: you won’t be there when you sell.

A sellable business is one that creates plenty of value for patients (and that value is not easily repeated by others). This will help show you have combatted the number one profit leak in many dental practices today, which is patient retention.

Most small businesses are family owned and operated and can be very successful, satisfying and small without being scalable.

But if your passion is to create a practice that is scalable without burning out, if you want a profitable business and a life as well, then you need to create and implement strong business systems.

Don’t Do It Alone

Creating a fully systematised business is hard, but I want to help you.

My passion is to help you succeed.

I want you to experience the success you desire, and create the business and life that you’ve always dreamed of.

That’s why I’m opening up a limited number of places at my next Intensive, Profitable, Scalable, Sellable.

My events are normally reserved for my coaching clients, but we’re offering a limited number of spaces at this one event. Once they’re gone, they’re gone – so grab a ticket while you can!

Get all the details on the Profitable, Scalable, Sellable registration page.

You deserve to create a business and life you love!