Are you thinking about selling your practice? If you are an optometrist who owns a practice then you should be. You may not be planning to retire for 15 years, but you should still entertain the thought of selling, as many decisions you make now will impact your ability to sell later.

When optometrists are ready to sell, they are often stuck at where to start. One key document that you must have to set yourself apart from other sellers is an executive summary of your practice. An executive summary is a “teaser” for those who may be considering buying into a practice or buying a practice outright. An executive summary communicates enough information to pique a potential buyer’s interest without being so detailed it is passed over.

Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at 8.53.29 PMHere is a basic outline of an Optometric Practice Sale Executive Summary:

  1. Picture of office front or your website home page (assuming you have a dynamic optometry website)
  2. What is being sold (partial sale, outright sale, associate buy-in)
  3. Practice details
    1. Demographic details (this can be general percentages of practice patient make up)
    2. Insurance accepted
    3. Revenue per patient (total collections for the year divided by the number of full exams)
    4. Gross collections for past 3 years broken out for each respective year.
    5. Net/gross ratio
    6. What is special about the practice
    7. Relationship with physicians within the community
    8. Highlight that practice is the medical model (or a specialty contact lens practice, etc.)
    9. Equipment in use (buyers are looking for key pieces of equipment)
    10. EHR system (what system, following progression of meaningful use 1 & 2)
  4. Community details
    1. Churches
    2. Schools
    3. Driving distance to what attractions
  5. Purchase price
    1. Give the range of price
  6. Detail how you will help the buyer be successful if the buyer so desires

Remember, “curb appeal” sells houses, and the same goes for practices. Make your executive summary look nice and professional, and easily distributed by brochure/flyer and a printable .pdf.

Deciding to sell your optometry practice does not necessarily result in the sale of your practice. Those ODs who are intentionally planning for the sale of their practice and executing their plan are the ones who are finding satisfaction in selling their practice. Don’t make the mistake of 400-500 practices a year that close their doors without a buyer.