During your career you are going to need to interact with a number of professionals. You will need an accountant, at some stage a couple of different lawyers, if you are smart probably an practice management consultant and if you are really smart a good financial planner. These professionals come in all flavors, really good, good, so so and terrible. Picking the right flavor will contribute in a huge way to the success of your practice, your financial stability and your enjoyment of life in general – wow that sounds ominous but its true. Lets start by setting out some guidelines to help you pick or determine if you have a good accountant. Being an accountant myself I can speak to this matter with some authority. The first thing to know... (CONTINUED - READ THE FULL POST)

Today we are pleased to be sharing with you, Andy McLeans follow up thoughts on starting your own practice. Andy Mclean, FRI, CLO is a member of the Hill Kindy Group and has extensive experience with practice start ups.

You have finally found a location where you would like to start your practice but you are not sure how to proceed. Once you have found a location whether on your own or through the help of a real estate person, your next step is to start the negotiation process. Do you do it on your own, or use the services of a professional such as a Certified Leasing Officer ? I would not advise doing it on your own as most doctors do not have any training or expertise in commercial leasing. There is much more to a commercial... (CONTINUED - READ THE FULL POST)

Today we are pleased to be sharing with you some start up and leasing thoughts from Andy McLean, FRI, CLO, a member of the Hill Kindy Group specializes in start ups lease negotiations as well as practice sales.

Ok so you’ve been working as an associate for a few years or more and you now feel you are ready to start your own practice. Where do you start?

First, you need to find a good location to start your business but you are not sure what a good location is. Having worked with many dentists and other doctors over the years, when asked where they would like to be the response tends to be the same “I want to be in a new growing area with new housing developments , in a new plaza or shopping centre with great visibility... (CONTINUED - READ THE FULL POST)

Congratulations you just bought your first practice or maybe your second or maybe your just about to buy your first practice, either way congratulations. The big question is what do you do now. Most doctors are going to show up for work the day after their purchase closes and with or without the help of the retiring doctor, start to work. They have probably been told not to change anything right away and so they’ll follow in the footsteps of their predecessor with the intent of personalizing the practice slowly over a period of years – then they go to sleep and nothing happens. I am going to suggest that this is a very big mistake. The first thing that you should do after or maybe even before you buy your practice is to hire a good... (CONTINUED - READ THE FULL POST)

When you go to sell your dental or optometric practice your choice of professional advisors could have a significant effect on producing a positive outcome. Over the last several months I have had contact with a number of situations where poor advisors have created unnecessarily confrontational situations for both the vendor and the purchaser. As more and more vendors plan to continue practicing as associates in the practices they have just sold it becomes even more imperative for the sale or transition process to be as non-confrontational as possible. In some cases the difficulties have stemmed from a lack of knowledge and in some cases the difficulties have been a function of attitude and ego on the part of the advisor. We have even had... (CONTINUED - READ THE FULL POST)

I am pleased and excited to introduce a new feature to our website – the Hill Kindy News Feed. It is our intent to use this forum to introduce timely topics and to share information relevant to the whole practice appraisal, purchase and sale, start up, lease negotiation and succession planning knowledge base.

You will note that we have also developed a new and interactive Question and Answer section for those of you who have specific questions that you would like immediate help with. It is our intent that between the two new sections we will be able to keep you informed of ongoing developments in the field, provide you with useful information, and directly address any related questions you may have.

We encourage you... (CONTINUED - READ THE FULL POST)