As the owner of a dental practice, you are probably already aware that how you market your practice, manage your business, and engage with your customers is important to your bottom line. While you may be enjoying your practice right now, eventually you will need to consider whether or not to sell your business. Even if the thought of retirement is a long way off, it’s still good to be making decisions now that will positively impact your future.
At Allen Business Advisors, we work with business owners to help them get the proper business valuation they need to make the most from the sale of their company. If you are wondering what things you need to be aware of before you sell your business, then continue reading to learn a few of the items that need to be taken into account, as well as other items that can help increase the value of your business.
Income, Billing, and Expenses
Your income, billing, and expenses are probably some of the more obvious items that will be considered when determining your business valuation. If you’re wondering how your income and expenses compare to other dentists around the country, then take some time to browse the Survey of Dental Practice that the American Dental Association (ADA) put together. You’ll be able to see the annual and median net income of other dentists and specialists in private practice, gross billings for dentists in private practice, practice expenses per dentist, average hourly rates for dental office staff, and average patient wait times.
Social Media Presence
If you haven’t already been building your online presence on various social media platforms, then now is a great time to start! Public perception is a powerful indicator of the perceived strength and health of your business. This means that the more you engage with your customers on social media, the more you will develop a solid reputation as a dentist who cares about providing valuable information to your clients, which will enhance the value of your dental practice.
Social media can help you strengthen your online presence, improve the quality of traffic that comes to your site, and increase patient referrals. The most commonly used platforms that would be ideal for you to utilize include: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Make sure that you understand the best ways to interact on each of these platforms as they are not all designed to promote the same types of interactions. For example, Instagram focuses heavily on picture and video sharing while Twitter is dedicated more to short statements that highlight a person’s thoughts or opinions.
Here are a few of our tips for some of the best ways to market yourself on social media:
- Make sure to verify your account on the social media channels that allow you to do so. Your patients will appreciate seeing that your business listing is the official account. Official listings will also benefit you in terms of search engine optimization (SEO) value.
- Regular social media posts help to keep your business in front of people, encourage engagement, and attract new visitors to your site. The higher you can drive engagement, the more visibility you bring to your practice.
- Since you are a local business and not an online store, it’s important to include geotags and other location-based keywords in your posts and hashtags so that you can draw even more attention to your brand from other local followers.
- It’s not enough to post things on various social media platforms. You need to make a commitment to respond to your patients and other followers as they comment on your posts. The more your respond, the more you encourage engagement.
- One of the most important tips that we can share with you is to make sure that you prioritize patient privacy before posting pictures of procedures or final outcomes. Written consent to share photos or messages on social media will be sufficient.
At Allen Business Advisors, we want to help make the process of selling your business as smooth and profitable as possible. We have the experience and knowledge to help you make the decisions that will help with the valuation of your company and the sale of your practice. Contact our team today to learn more about our process and how we can help you.