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Hey everybody, Dr. Randy Ross here and welcome to today’s show. I am the CEO of Premier Practice Consultants, but before we get started, let’s make sure we give a big shout out to ChiroSecure the sponsors and hosts of these wonderful shows that they bring you every week. Um, we’re going to jump right in and get started here. Um, and what’s really important to know about today’s show is everything I’m going to talk to you about is not theory. It’s not, you know, a concept. These are issues that myself, Dr. Matt Davis, president accompany our team deal with every single day. So we know that these are important issues when they come up all the time within the working parameters of your business. So we’re going to talk about the four biggest mistakes that a lot of chiropractors make I wrote most, um, that can potentially cost you lots and lots and lots of money.
So we’re going to start with number four. And the fourth biggest mistake that people make is they don’t keep their office updated the design, the technology. So I’m just going to kind of paint a picture for you here. We represent a practice that is for sale, and we send someone over to go for a site visit. They look at the first pieces of information. They like what they see. They look at some other financial may like it. Now it’s time for a site visit to see the office, meet the doctor and see if this is a good fit. And I can tell you when you have an old outdated office and I mean, there’s, you know, some of us that have been around a long time and a lot of times we, we think everything’s okay, well, the carpet is not ripped, so it’s okay.
Or the paint still looks good. Doesn’t matter that I haven’t painted in five or 10 or sometimes 20 years. And it’s got a few scuff marks. And what about my tables? They’re worn. Maybe they have some rips in them, but they’re still good. They still function. I could still adjust people on them. No, no, no, no, no. This is the worst mindset to have. I can tell you. We’ve had some fantastic practices that is statically. I call this the aesthetic of the office was not updated in a very long time. In other words, the carpets, all, actually people aren’t even really using carpet anymore, except sometimes where the tables are. The color is off from something we use the decade or two ago, they still have the same, you know, design, reception counter that they had when they opened their office 25 years ago, because they spent a fortune on it.
So they think that that they’re still using the same waiting room chairs. All of these things might not seem like a big deal to you because they’re functional. But I can tell you think about it. If you ever went to my house, did you want to buy the house? You walked into that. You’re standing there with your significant other going, okay, well, we got to redo this kitchen. This bathroom’s no good. Look how old the tile is on the flooring we have to redo. Most times it will ultimately sell. This can sell for a lot less can take a lot longer. So keep your office updated. Aesthetically. If you need a design person, there are people within our industry that help you do that for not a lot of money. You could actually even Google a lot of things today as to what the current styles are that people are looking for.
And if you don’t think patients are looking at these things, you’re really fooling yourself. Yeah. Your patients that have been with you for a long time, probably don’t care who when a new patient walks in an office is old and dingy and outdated, or an office is modern and sleek and spa like big difference as to how they feel on their initial impression of you and technology. If you’re using ten-year-old computers, go get some new ones. If you’re struggling with an outdated software program, because you don’t want to pay for the new version, guess what? Pay for the new version. These are things that are really important to keep up to date. Um, I mean, I could go on and on with a laundry list of things here, but I think you get the idea. You know, people are looking at your equipment when they’re coming in, you know, how old your table and old tables can be fine.
You know, there’s some, you know, high lows or, or, you know, drop tables or all this stuff that, um, you know, costs a lot of money when you purchase them. And they’re still worth a lot. Maybe you just need to have them recovered. Maybe just need to have them serviced. So we don’t need to necessarily throw everything out. And you know, as far as the equipment, but sometimes the equipment becomes outdated. Look, we all have phones that two years from now. We probably need a new phone just because the technology has advanced so quickly and so much that what we have really doesn’t function anymore. So please like, I bet you, this is such a big deal. You have no idea. All right, let’s move on to number three. The third biggest mistake that people make. Sometimes it’s actually the biggest mistake people make, but that’s just my opinion, overvaluing their practice for what the market is going to call for.
So to give you an example of what I mean, if after going through and completing valuation reports, somebody tells you the market value of your practice currently, as it exists is $300,000. And then you go, Nope. I want to list it for four 50. Well, that doesn’t make any sense. This is not real estate where there’s bidding wars for, you know, the house in a, in a sought after neighborhood, because there’s not a lot of inventory and everybody wants to move. Listen, I live in Southeast Florida. You can probably get 20% above what the market value is of a home and a lot of communities today because everybody’s moving here and there’s not a lot of inventory, but your practice, a chiropractic practice is not fall within those parameters. So if you, you are going to think that your product that you already own is worth more than it is.
It’s okay to think that, but you’re, you’re selling yourself short and you’re doing yourself a disservice because I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. Your practice is going to sit on the market because everyone’s going to look at the math, the simple part, the quick thing they look at, and they’re going to go, this doesn’t make any sense. This practice should be like around $300,000. And this is what happens every single time. The other problem you run into is you can say you want anything for your practice, but at the end of the day, I mean, if you find a buyer, no bank is going to fund it. So now you’re really spinning your wheels. You have a buyer and they can’t even get funding because you want 20 or 25 or 30% more than your practice will actually fund for. So I know how invested you are and, and the value it is to you.
But you really have to hear what the professionals are telling you when it comes to what the actual market value of your practice is. You know, I often say to someone in a, we did a show up maybe about a month ago on this. You know, sometimes you have to decide, do you want to list your practice, but do you want to sell? Cause for a lot of, a lot of practitioners, a lot of Kairos, it’s two different things. We don’t list your practice for whatever you want. That’s no big deal. We can create a marketing campaign. That’s no big deal, but are we going to sell your practice? That’s the fork in the road that some of you really need, uh, you know, to think about when you’re embarking on this process, let’s go to the second mistake that most people make is not having a strategy where you annually update the value of your practice.
I can’t drive this point home enough. Um, and this is something that’s so lacking within our profession, that other professions seem to have a little bit of a better handle on, um, it’s so important to look at the value of your practice every single year. And I don’t care if you’re only in practice five years and you’re saying, well, why do I care about that? I’m not retiring for, you know, the next 20 years or whatever. Well, because we never know what’s going to happen. Your circumstances could change at any time, either by your choice or forced on upon you. So having this strategy of being able to look at, uh, your practice, uh, annually really gives you a good snapshot of what your practice is doing. Cause it’s more than what shows on your tax returns. And even if you keep good stats, if you know, if you work with coaches and everything and you keep good stats, again, that’s only kind of one component and one element of what your practice is doing, but it’s really not often telling you the actual value.
So when you have this strategy of every year, listen, if you have a portfolio with some type of brokerage firm for your stocks and all that, don’t you look at it every year, don’t you analyze it, see where you could do better. Don’t you don’t you have that conversation with your broker. Is there kind of like a financial coach at that point to say, okay, well this is helping improve my portfolio, but this not so much. Maybe we could do better here. It’s the same kind of thing. But for some reason as chiropractors, we don’t look at it that way. We should be looking at our practice as the commodity, that it is every year and strategically analyzing how it’s doing, where you can do better and where you’re strong to continue that. And there are so many variables that can go into determining that.
And the people that follow this platform in this program really see a huge difference a in their practice and B when you ultimately do go to sell, whether it’s by choice or by not, someone’s going to see, well, they’ve developed a strategy that they follow for their business to analyze at all times every year, I should say to, to analyze and determine, you know, where can we do better? Where do we need to fix things? Where’s the hole. Where’s great. Let’s continue doing that. And maybe even build upon that, that’s really impressive to a buyer. When someone has that history to show them about a strategy that they’ve developed, we, we term it an exit strategy. Um, so, you know, take that to heart. Not too many people talk about that, but you know, we all need to step up as business people. That’s one of the points of these shows that ChiroSecure brings you.
So think about this, you know, a bit, and don’t let another year go by that you’re you don’t have a strategy to analyze exactly what the value of your practices. All right, we’re going to go drum roll number one. This is the biggest mistake that everybody makes. I’m going to say probably two, three times a week. I have to have a very lengthy conversation with someone that calls us to represent them for selling their practice. And they tell me, I want to be out by, at this point, let’s say the end of the year. And I’m like, well, that’s not going to happen. And I’m like, Y Y you know, it should only take 90 days. Again, this isn’t a piece of real estate. There’s a lot that goes into what we call onboarding a practice before it’s even available on the market could take anywhere from three to six weeks.
And that’s, if you’re a cooperative seller, um, and then to develop a marketing campaign, and then we have to find a buyer and then it could be months before a buyer actually makes an offer. There’s a lot of steps that go through there that we manage. Um, and then if someone is not a cash buyer, which that’s a small percentage of most buyers out there, they have to go through funding, which can sometimes be the worst nightmare for someone. Um, the days of deals being done in 60 days does not exist anymore. 90 is a gift and that very rarely happens most, uh, funding to be completed. When I be, when I make a blunt, I’m like, like, you have your check in your hand in the bank. And the deal is closed is four to six months. So that’s a whole nother element of time that gets added to anything.
So we always tell people that you need to give yourself, wrap your mind around that. It’s going to take 12 to 24 months to sell a practice. And that often can be extended depending upon where you’re located. You know, some parts of the country right now are super hot and a good practice. We’ll, we’ll sell what I mean from start to finish in 12 months, if you’re in certain areas where people are migrating away from it’s a little bit more difficult, may even take a little bit longer. You can’t get frustrated, you have to allow yourself. And whoever represents you that timeframe to properly handle the sale of your practice and find the right buyer and, and bring the deal to fruition, to what I say the closing table. So, you know, if you’re even got a little thought, Hmm, I think I want to retire in three to five years.
Guess what? Don’t wait three more years to reach out and find out what the value of your practice is and what the market options are for you start now. You know, the worst thing that happens is we sell your practice a little bit sooner than you wanted to get out, but at least it’s sold. Um, your market right now is actually really hot. That could change at any given moment by variables that are out of our control. So 12 to 24 months is the bare minimum you want out in two years, you need to start. Now, you want out in three years, I would still start. Now you want out six months from now. Guess what? You waited way too long. You should have started a year to two years ago, never too late. You just have to adjust your expectations of what is going to happen.
Well, I hope that these four hints of mistakes that people make have helped. Some of you really start thinking about, uh, some things that maybe you’re not doing, or you’re not paying attention to that you should make the time to do it. Don’t tell me you don’t have the time, make the time to pay attention to your business. We’re going to offer through the month of October, uh, for you to get that valuation that we’re speaking about at 25% off, uh, you just use the code when you go to our website from your practice consultants.com. There’s a little blue button there on the homepage. Click on that. There’s a couple of questions that it asks. There’s a code at the bottom to due October, 2021. And we will be happy to extend that to you, talk to you about your practice and see if there’s any way that we can help you.
Well, I thank you for joining me here today. Make sure that you log on next week for Dr. Julie McLaughlin. Julie is always a Ray of sunshine and she has so much great information. She’s so knowledgeable and has so much experience. She’s always so excited to share everything well. I’m Dr. Randy Ross, CEO of Premier Practice Consultants reach out to us at any time. So we can help you with the process of evaluating your business. Or if you’re looking to sell or buy, we’re always here to help you and want to thank ChiroSecure for having us here to share this information,
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