Running a veterinary practice comes with its own set of challenges. Whether you’re just starting out, growing your business, or planning for an eventual exit, having a clear strategy in place is crucial to ensuring the long-term success of your practice. Florida Veterinary Advisors’ Protect, Grow, and Exit framework is designed to help you safeguard your practice, increase its value, and ultimately plan a smooth transition when the time is right.
Here’s a brief breakdown of the three key areas every veterinary practice owner should focus on:
1. Protect: Safeguard Your Practice and Personal Assets
As a veterinary practice owner, it’s essential to protect both your business and personal assets. This protection starts with a solid foundation:
- Risk Assessment: Identify the potential risks that could impact your practice or personal assets. Whether it’s operational challenges, unexpected injury or illness, natural disasters, or economic downturns, having a strategy to mitigate these risks is essential.
- Insurance Coverage: Work to ensure you have the appropriate insurance policies in place, including personal life and disability insurance, business disability on the owners and key employees, key employee life insurance, malpractice insurance, property insurance, and liability coverage. These policies will help protect your practice from unforeseen events that could otherwise lead to significant financial losses.
- Legal Protections: Establishing the appropriate legal structures, such as LLCs or corporations, can provide an extra layer of protection. It’s also vital to have contracts and agreements in place that protect your ownership and operational interests such as a Buy-Sell Agreement with the right insurance funding when there are multiple owners involved to satisfy the conditions in the agreement.
- Emergency Planning: Prepare for unexpected events by creating contingency plans. Whether it’s a temporary shutdown, key staff leaving, or an unforeseen crisis, having a personal emergency plan and an operational fund for the business can help ensure you’re ready to respond quickly and effectively.
2. Grow: Enhance Practice Value and Personal Wealth
To ensure long-term success, most focus is on revenue growth—but there needs to be an equal attention on the value of your practice by increasing profits:
- Financial Organization: Streamline your financial records to help ensure they’re up-to-date and organized. Clear financial data will help you make informed decisions, both in daily operations and in long-term strategy. Use a tool like The Living Balance Sheet® that brings all your personal and business assets, liabilities, protection, and cash flow into one place.
- Revenue Optimization: Explore ways to increase revenue, whether through well-defined employee reward programs that focus on specific revenue producing actions, expanding services, adjusting pricing models, or improving client retention. Optimizing your revenue streams is key to boosting your practice’s profitability.
- Cost Management: Identify areas where expenses can be trimmed or eliminated without compromising quality. Being mindful of costs can drastically improve your profits, allowing you to reinvest in growth opportunities or to use the profits for personal wealth building to diversify the reliance on your practice.
- Team Development: Investing in your team through training and development can improve productivity and enhance the quality of care you provide. A well-trained staff leads to better client satisfaction and retention, which in turn helps your practice thrive.
- Client Engagement: Building strong relationships with your clients is paramount. Develop strategies to engage and retain clients, from personalized service offerings to loyalty programs. Happy, loyal clients are more likely to refer new customers and provide consistent business.
3. Exit: Plan for a Successful Transition
Whether you’re looking to sell your practice, retire, or pass it on to the next generation, having a well-thought-out exit strategy is essential:
- Valuation: Understanding the current value of your practice is the first step in planning your exit. Work with professionals to have a proper valuation done, which will provide you with a clearer picture of your practice’s worth.
- Exit Strategy: There are several ways to exit a practice; whether it’s through a sale to an investor, merger with a competitor, or succession plan to employees. Develop a clear strategy that aligns with your goals and objectives for life after practice ownership.
- Tax Implications: Exiting your practice comes with tax consequences. Make sure to understand the tax implications of your exit strategy. Prepare early to minimize double taxation on sale proceeds and capital gains with a tax-efficient route.
- Legal Considerations: Review and update any legal documents that will help facilitate a smooth transition. This might include buy-sell agreements, partnership agreements, or estate planning documents.
- Post-Exit Planning: Selling your practice is the first step but what comes next is equally important. Those sale proceeds are responsible to create income and a plan to minimize taxes, risk, and the chance of running out of money are important. Plan for life after the sale, including your financial goals, lifestyle objectives, and personal fulfillment. Whether it’s pursuing new ventures or enjoying retirement, having a plan for the next chapter of your life will help ensure a smooth transition.
To dive deeper into each of these areas, watch the 5 Steps to Protect, Grow, and Exit Your Veterinary Practice and download the Exit Planning Checklist by completing the form located on the page.
The Living Balance Sheet® and The Living Balance Sheet® Logo are service marks of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America® (Guardian), New York, NY. © Copyright 2005-2025 Guardian. Guardian, its subsidiaries, agents, and employees do not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Consult your tax, legal, or accounting professional regarding your individual situation. Tom is a Registered Representative and Financial Advisor of Park Avenue Securities LLC (PAS). Securities products and advisory services offered through PAS, member FINRA, SIPC. Financial Representative of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America® (Guardian), New York, NY. PAS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian. Florida Veterinary Advisors is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS or Guardian. California Insurance License #0K80141. AR Insurance License #15823672. Florida Veterinary Advisors is not registered in any state or with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a Registered Investment Advisor. The individuals associated with Florida Veterinary Advisors do not maintain specialized licenses or qualifications for the financial services provided to veterinary professionals. 7938304.1 Exp 5/27