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I am very happy I sold and am enjoying the balance of being an employee dentist. I like seeing the practice change, as well as having the time and freedom to enjoy other interests. I highly recommend selling in your 50s when you’re well and healthy, rather than waiting till you’re in your late 60s and your health might not be as good. It was an excellent outcome for the practice.

When someone is looking to buy or sell a practice, they are often presented with an appraisal of the practice that has been prepared by the other party in the transaction. While the results of the practice’s trading may be clear, there are numerous appraisal techniques to choose from, and often some creativity applied when using them.

A popular exit plan for many dentist practice owners is known as the Delayed Internal Sale.

I had a massive heart attack and decided it was time to sell. I still loved dentistry, but after my heart attack I was getting tired easily; it was getting too much for me. I decided it was a warning and I had better listen.

The stakes are high in practice sale transactions.  Financially, a practice usually sells for amounts in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. There are also important non-financial qualitative aspects of the deal, like transferring staff, patient relationships and a reputation that has been built over decades, and post-sale work commitments for the vendor that can last from 6 months to 5 years. The transaction itself is usually documented with three or four legal contracts (1. a business sale agreement, 2. a premises lease contract or premises sale contract, 3. a work contract for the vendor post sale, and 4. a partnership/associateship agreement if there are equity partners/associates). With all of this at stake, you would think that a buyer or vendor would want to make sure that they get appropriate legal representation, to ensure that they get what has been promised to them and to protect themselves from future risk.

It’s not uncommon for many women to put their own careers on hold while their children are young and their spouses are building their own business/career. This is the story of Laurie Koranski, a dentist’s wife and former practice owner, who got a second chance at a career she is passionate about, when she and her husband sold their busy Jimboomba practice.

Once upon a time, buying a dental practice was a rite of passage that almost all dentist graduates went through after a few short years in the workforce. In more recent years however, statistics have shown that being an employee/contractor/non-owner dentist for life is a growing choice for dental graduates. There are many reasons that people give for this trend, including:

In 2014 I became ill, a situation that I had not previously had to contend with. Whilst in hospital, I had time to reflect on 34 years of practice ownership, and the realisation that the effects of getting older could consequently find me more likely to find myself unable to work. It made me consider the possibility of at least easing back and enjoying a little more of life, before I reached the point of no longer enjoying my work.

There comes a time for most successful practice owners when they get to a level of comfort with their first practice, and start to contemplate starting or buying a second practice.

"One of the main mistakes I see practice owners make is that they let a career worth of fatigue come into the practice a year or two before they sell. So, even though their practice has been a fantastic business, none of that history matters."