Entice buyers who’ll pay the price YOU want for your practice

You’ve worked immensely hard over the years to build your practice.

So, why would you sell it for anything less than the price that you want?

You want to entice buyers to pay you the price that you want – and deserve.

But whether you can achieve this comes down to the buyer’s perception of your business.

You need it to stand out from the crowd, to gleam and sparkle in the way that prospective acquirers want to see.

Thankfully, there are many ways to do this and to make it more attractive – and we’ve got this covered for you.

What will make my practice more attractive?

There is a panoply of measures you can take to boost the appeal of your business. We explore all of these in detail in our guide HERE.

But for now, we’ll give you a quick lowdown here to get you started.

The best modern tech

What could, but should not be underestimated, is the importance of technology, which is becoming a significant factor in valuation. Buyers will be looking for forward thinking, modern firms that have adopted cloud solutions, automated their key processes, streamlined their workload and cut down on unnecessary manual work which costs time and money. Among a number of important questions that savvy buyers will be asking are:

• Does your software enable you to streamline your compliance to its maximum?
• Are you automating as many of your key processes as possible to decrease the cost of serving clients and increase profitability?
• Do you exchange documents, gain approval and get paid via a secure electronic portal rather than slower traditional methods?

If the answer to any of the above is no, you should be talking to your software provider about what solutions you can introduce to your practice to make it a yes.

Financial statements above reproach

This is key. financial statements which buyers find difficult to understand – especially around the potential profitability – can kill a deal.

Welcome your firm’s independence day

Is your firm totally dependent on you being there to make it run effectively? Does it function smoothly when you have time off? Have you got other leaders in the business? If buyers think your departure will leave the practice dysfunctional that could be a major deterrent.  Create a culture of greater independence in your team, delegate responsibility and think about a succession plan.

Excite buyers about the future

To entice buyers, you will need to excite them about the potential opportunities that could arise in coming years to expand and add new revenue streams. To do so, you need to understand the marketplace you’re operating in.

Prosper without paper

It’s worth considering that many acquiring firms may have paperless offices. They would face costs related to taking over a traditional hard-file practice. So, look at going digital - online bookkeeping, client portals for sharing information and e-approval.

There are many more ways you can make your practice more appealing to buyers and we explore all of these and more detail about the above in our guide HERE.

In the last in our blog series we will look at the 5 big things to AVOID doing when selling your practice, so look out for that to escape those potential pitfalls!

In the meantime, if you’d like a conversation with any of our exit planning specialists to understand more about what you’ve read so far, please call 0344 844 9644 or email practicesales@iris.co.uk.