How a Broker Can Potentially Help you Sell Your Vet Practice

If you’re thinking about selling your practice, a broker might be able to help you. Read on to learn about some of the ways that they can potentially support you below:

Create space between you and buyers

A broker can be helpful to you during negotiations with buyers in a large variety of ways. One of the ways that they can support you includes creating space or a cushion between you and buyers in the event that negotiations get tough. With a broker on your side to help mediate discussions, they’ll help reduce the impact that your demands might have on your long term working relationship with the buyer and increase the chances that you’ll have a positive relationship with the buyer when the deal closes.

Price and buyer discovery

Two of the ways that you can determine the value of your practice are by conducting a valuation estimate (by using your practice’s financials and other unique characteristics) or by engaging with potential buyers and letting the market determine the value of your practice. At VetVet, we prefer combining both of these methods.

By having a preliminary valuation completed, you’ll have a point of view that you can lean on during conversations with buyers. While the market will likely determine the value of your practice, it can likely be moved within a range. With a valuation estimate on hand, it could help you effectively argue why your practice is worth more than a buyer might initially propose.

If you have a very attractive practice, and as a result a high number of interested buyers, the market will play a larger role in determining your practice’s value. The more buyers you can engage with the better, which a broker can help you with.

A veterinary practice broker should be able to uncover buyers who are most likely going to be interested in your practice. They’ll leverage their market knowledge including, which buyers are most active at a given time, are interested in the geography you’re in and the size of your practice among other factors.?

Manage process and relationships

The process of selling your practice can be complex and time consuming.?

From organizing financial information and documents to coordinating responses between legal teams, engaging with tax advisors, accountants, and negotiating with buyers, as well as other tasks - there’s a lot to manage.?

A broker can help coordinate the steps needed to continue moving things forward.

Navigate different ownership structures

There is an increasing number of ways that a buyer can purchase your practice. For example, they can buy it out 100%, they can buy a portion of it and you retain a portion of it, they can buy a portion of it in cash and give you the remainder as a stake in their parent company, etc. A broker will help you navigate these different options, so that you can choose the one that is best for you.?

Your time is valuable

If you’re still one of the leaders or doctors at your practice, your time is incredibly valuable and how it’s used will likely have a direct impact on the value of your practice. As your peers who have already sold their practices can attest, the process of selling a vet practice can be incredibly time consuming and complex.?

By choosing to sell your practice yourself, you’ll need to dedicate significant time and energy to this process. This can distract you from running your practice and potentially harm your ultimate practice sale price, which is impacted largely by performance.

By delegating this task to a broker, you can focus most of your time on your practice. Not only does this reduce your workload and potential downside, but it also allows you to fine-tune operations and grow your revenue, potentially making your practice even more attractive leading up to a sale.

If you’re interested in discussing the sale of your practice or anything else, please get in touch.

Email: [email protected] (not .com)

Phone: 510-969-2792