Blog, Chirosecure Live Event September 10, 2020

Has the New Normal Changed the Value of Your Practice?

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Welcome to ChiroSecure is empowering women in chiropractic the Facebook live show for successful women by successful women. Proving once again, women make it happen.

Join us each week as we bring you the best in business growth, practice management, social media, marketing, networking leadership, and lots more. If it’s about women in practice and business, you’ll hear it here.

Now join today’s host Dr. Randi Ross, as she talks about tech tools and transitions. And now here’s Dr. Randi.

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to today’s show let’s first, give a big shout out to the sponsor of these great weekly shows, ChiroSecure, make sure to visit ChiroSecure.com, great team, wonderful people that serve the chiropractic industry. Well, in case you all don’t know me and I hope most of you do at this point. I am dr. Randi Ross. And today I’m coming to you as the CEO of Premier Practice Consultants. We are chiropractic practice brokers, and I know, you know, everyone’s probably COVID weary at this point, trying to, you know, think about the things that are different and the things that change that are they going to stay that way? Or is it there people hate the word new norm, but there might be one. Um, you know, I think for, for chiropractic, most of us are seeing a pretty decent rebound and return to what used to be normal, but we know we’re feeling a lot of calls lately with people asking, you know, uh, different, different questions about the effects COVID had on their practice, the value of their practice.

So I want to take a few minutes today to go through what we’re finding is some of the most common questions, and there might be questions that you have to, and the thing that’s always interesting to me about this is, you know, most of us with various things in our life, we’ll kind of always have a little bit of an idea of what’s the value, like, you know, the general value of your home. And if you’re like me, you watch the stock market dailies, you know, basically what your accounts are doing, or sometimes by the hour and all these different things in our life that we really know the value. When we talk about your practice, most people like, okay, well, I have a general idea. You know, what’s my gross, what’s my net, uh, you know, these kinds of things, but you know, there, there’s a few things to understand during this, what we call Kobe time.

It might be a little different that you need to be aware of. So one of the questions, or actually something that’s come up a lot, um, during this COBIT time, even with banks, that was a little bit surprising is when people say my office was closed. Um, and just so you know, some of the answers I’m going to give are going to depend upon where you are in the country. Obviously some places were affected dramatically. Some places were affected, minimally. Some places are still being affected. So you have to take that a little bit into consideration with the information I’m going to share. So what we’re seeing is if your office closed, what that means, obviously for the owner of the practice is just like, if you went on vacation for a week or two or four, and didn’t have coverage, you know, you’re going to expect to see all of your stats are going to be down.

So over the course of the year, when we all figure out 2020, you’re gonna see a decrease. You know, you just, unless for some reason, when you get on the other side of this, you rebound, you build it back up. Um, but if there is, if that’s the case, then you’re okay. When someone looks at your stats for new patients and services and all of those things for those couple of months, and they’re off the norm for the last three years, that will be okay. But if your numbers are down overall at the end of the year, 10%, 15% for some people 20%, you have to wrap your mind around that. That’s going to make your business on paper mathematically worth that much less to a buyer. Sometimes what we’re seeing is they’re actually able to purchase a practice at a somewhat discounted price, obviously, depending upon the seller and their need, but that is existing.

Now, if you are someone that is a buyer, I’m not saying there’s buyer sales all over the place, don’t misunderstand me. But, um, there are certain instances where people are deciding maybe now’s a time that they want to go ahead and move on to something else or retire. And you might be able to get somewhat of a discounted rate or certain other terms that are amenable to you as a result of this COVID situation. Um, will the numbers be overlooked? We always get this. And I, I kind of explained it just now, but I’ll, I’ll expand upon a little bit. Will the numbers be overlooked? And the answer to that is, um, no, the numbers will not be overlooked. They will be explained. And whether they’re being explained to a potential buyer, you know, and again, if we like we have a worksheet over the last 12 months, and as you know, new patients, total visits, um, services, build services, collected, you know, pretty straightforward stats.

And there you’re going to see in, okay, March and April, you went from, you know, seeing 20 new patients a month to two that can be explained. Um, it can be explained to a bank that’s looking to fund the purchase of your practice, but it won’t be overlooked. And that’s just reality. And because remember the value ultimately comes down to mathematical equations. So as anything, it would be same thing if there was no COVID and for whatever reason, your practice was down 10, 15, 20%. When we total up 2020, you’re going to have that much less value mathematically that the business will be worth. So it won’t, it’ll be explained. It won’t be overlooked. So that’s a good thing to remember. Don’t take any of this personally, don’t, you know, if you are someone that’s in the process of thinking about selling, no, this will come up. Um, and it’s just important not to get emotional about that. It’s just the reality of, there are certain elements now that are missing from your business during those few,

Um,

Will your practice be worth less? You know, the interesting thing is the answer to that is yes and no. And, and I’m sorry to be so evasive in my answer, but you know, again, some of this comes back to where are you? And we really see everything across the board. I have to tell you, I’ve seen people that are unaffected. They’ve actually even had growth during the COVID pandemic. Um, some of them they’re in a, in a city, but in a very residential part of the city. So all those people, if we use New York as an example that worked in Midtown that are now housed in, they are, you know, condos and co-ops and apartments and stuff. And if you’re in that community, it’s really easy for them to get their care and to even stick to a care plan because they don’t have to commute to work, come home at seven, eight o’clock or whatever it is they’re right there.

And for some of you you’re experiencing that, not only in cities, but in certain suburbs, people aren’t commuting to certain cities where their work. So their availability is different. Not that they’re not working, but they’re around the corner. So, you know, some people have not seen a change. And for some people, unfortunately we have a few that are in, um, certain cities that are dramatically affected and the actual value of their practice is going to be considerably less, uh, someone that is in New York city in Midtown, just as an example, when from seeing roughly a hundred visits a day to five. So obviously that’s a little bit of a more dramatic situation than most people are experiencing. We’re seeing most people on the other side of all the lockdowns are actually, you know, building themselves back up and, you know, uh, people are coming in for care, whether they’re returning or they’re new patients.

Yeah.

So during the pandemic, there are definitely some buying opportunities. And I touched on this a few minutes ago, um, where we are seeing some doctors that maybe are a little bit older, maybe they would have hung on for a few more years, but after all this, they just don’t want to invest the energy to necessarily, you know, do the rebuild and, and maybe acclimate to some of the new things that have to be done. Um, so we’re seeing some, some additional type of people that are, that are exiting the progression maybe a little bit sooner than they would have. Um, and you know, like anything else, the situations are all different and unique. Um, but some people are definitely willing to, uh, you know, maybe compromise on what they would have gotten a year ago or something like that. You know, they’re realistic about the value.

So if you’re a buyer out there, if you’re someone, either out of school or thinking about relocating, getting tons of those, everyone that lives on East coast wants to go to South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and everyone on the West coast wants to go to Colorado in Texas. So that that’s kind of, that’s the movement that we’re seeing. Um, so if you’re a buyer, it’s a good time to look and reach out, uh, you know, like anything else, these kinds of things, some people are a little more realistic about their value or a little more willing to kind of compromise and have better terms that are more acceptable to you. And some people are still, it’s kind of business as usual, and they’re all a little bit unique, but I would tell you, uh, you know, if you are a buyer now as a time to reach out, um, you know, we can help you with that and see if there’s something that we have, or somebody else that we work with.

Just kind of be aware of a couple of things banks are, if you’re someone that’s looking for funding banks are a little bit squirrelly right now. Um, as you could expect, there’s been so many, not necessarily in orange history, but in other industries that are closing down and things like that. Uh, so they’re, they’re a little bit, maybe more cautious than they were, but they’re definitely writing loans. Um, and they’re just a little bit slower, uh, because of all the other things that they’ve been addressing during this time with, you know, these, uh, these PP loans and things like that. So you just got just something you’ve got to kind of be aware of that just might take a little bit longer to get something done. So, uh, you know, again, if you are someone who is thinking of relocating, it’s a great time. I can tell you there was a lot of practices on the market, no matter where you’re moving to, uh, like any other time, there’s the ebb and the flow of people leaving and people coming.

So that hasn’t changed. We know we’re seeing a little bit of shift, like I said, in some practices that are maybe coming on the market a little bit sooner than they would have come to market without COVID. Um, so, you know, see what’s there, it’s a good time to relocate, especially if you’re living somewhere where there’s a lot of problems and it’s really hindering your business. So one of the things that, you know, we always kinda come back to and at the end of any explanation I have is someone saying, okay, okay, okay, okay. I get all these things you said, but what is my practice actually worth?

And the answer to that is not really sure the kids,

I do that for you, but what I would like to do, um, to thank all the viewers of ChiroSecure, if you want, we’ll go ahead and we could offer you our evaluation 20% discounted, real simple, go to our, go to our website, premierepracticeconsultants.com right there. You’ll see a little picture of an intake form button. Just go ahead and click on that. And there’s like five questions in the last one. It asks you to put a code in code is Cairo secure, and you’ll get 20% off. If we can help you. We are happy to be able to provide that service or help you along the way or answer questions. Um, you know, whatever your needs are. We’re, we’re here to help you with that. Well, that is pretty much what I have for today. Make sure don’t miss next week. One of my favorites, dr. Julie McLaughlin, she’s always so much, so much fun and energy and has such great information, um, make sure to log, make sure I log in every week, no matter who the guest is. Um, cause Kira secure really puts a lot into bringing you these shows. So it’s important that you show up well, I am dr. Randi Ross from your practice consultants, make sure to visit our website if you’re interested in having evaluation. And, um, I hope everybody has a fantastic day. Thank you for joining me.

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