Stage 4 Leveraging Equity for Exit

Writing Stage four of my book “The Health Practitioners Journey” I challenged myself to include the many pathways that practitioners may take to a new opportunity or exit. The stage is named ‘Selling your list – Leveraging equity’. When exploring this stage, I reflected on one of the habits that Stephen Covey talks of in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. That habit is “begin with the end in mind”.

I have always advised practitioners that it is crucial to keep an eye on how you will eventually exit what you do and move to something else. This may happen at any stage of your career. I made the focus in Stage Four about selling your asset to claim the financial return on your equity. Of course, this implies that you have established a business to sell which not everyone achieves.

I describe the possible scenarios to illustrate who this stage for:

‘The Opportunist’ is the practitioner who takes the unexpected offer that is made to him which was very financially beneficial.

‘The Retiree’ is the practitioner who has operated their business for some years and wished to unlock some money to use in preparation for retirement.

‘The Life Changer’ has worked fruitfully for some years but feels that there is something else they wish to contribute to, or commence and they want to do that while they have the passion and can devote time to that passion

‘The Corporate Opportunity’ can happen to a practitioner who has worked over 10 years in the industry and established a network of practices. The approach from the corporate company was not only to purchase their business but there was the added attraction of developing a role for the practitioner with the Corporation. This scenario was similar to that which I availed myself of a few years ago in my career.

The final scenario I describe is ‘The Career Changer’ who wishes to move onto something that is completely different.

If you see yourself in of the above scenarios you need to make some preparation! To make your business attractive you need to consider how the business looks both figuratively and financially. Identify the services you offer, the patient database you have developed and the current documented systems and processes e.g. recruitment, induction, HR, stock etc that you have or may not have in place.

Some questions to consider are:

• How will you set a value for your business?

• Who will assist you in the process?

• Do you need an advisor?

One important word of caution for you. Ensure that you maintain confidentiality about the process; if you broadcast your intention it may affect the purchaser or destabilise your stakeholders. Change is a frightening thing to so many of us so don’t create fear by telling others of your intentions until you need to. If nothing happens with the process then no one is any the wiser.

Moving on from what you have created can be a painful process as you are passing on what you have built and will not be able to control what happens from then on. Make sure that you give due consideration to whom will purchase the business so that what you have built has the best chance to continue successfully when you are no longer in control of it.

This part of your journey can be exciting and rewarding, if approached with appropriate planning, support and forethought.

Stage One for new Physiotherapy Graduates

When I was at Lifecare we established three levels of education for our practitioners. The initial stage was for graduates, 1 to 3 years into their careers. They were in the first stage of education which I call Clinical Excellence. 

It was important to have mentors who would teach these practitioners. I had guided Ross L through commencement of practice at Lifecare Prahran Sports Medicine Clinic and was fortunate to mentor him through stage one (with assistance from exceptional clinical mentors) and into Stage two commercial success. Just six years after graduation Ross was ready to fly!

I asked Ross if was interested in taking a new step, involving becoming a mentor and teacher of others. Despite his initial reluctance, Ross eventually agreed, thanks in part to some persuasive encouragement from me.

We were eager to commence level one mentoring with formal group sessions with the group of graduates from years 1 to 3 that were working at the Lifecare practices in Melbourne. In all we commenced with some eight graduates from six different practices. We named the sessions ‘manual handling and clinical reasoning’. 

I cover those aspects of learning in detail in my book 'The Health Practitioner's journey'. We identified that upon graduation these two aspects of practice need further teaching and by building up the skills in a group environment we believed we could facilitate greater clinical excellence in the graduate’s practices.

Learning in a supportive group of peers where you share what you know and learn together is a wonderful way to enhance your skills. Encouragement from both Ross and peers created an environment where the graduates rarely missed a session. 

The sessions also developed into an opportunity where participants could bring case studies to the session and collaboratively problem solve to find how to best treat or progress these patients in their recovery. A majority of those who participated found that their patient list grew quickly as they had acquired new skills that they applied to their practice. This also prepared them to enter Stage two, of Commercial success and they were well prepared with a solid base of clinical excellence.

Ross took to the challenge like a duck to water and contributed significantly to the development of these practitioners’ skill base. Equally importantly, Ross learnt valuable skills that he was able to apply to his own practice. Stephen Covery calls this approach three person teaching as I had assisted and trained Ross, he had trained his new grads and then encouraged them to share what they had leant to others at the businesses they were working in.

Structured learning needs to be interesting, relevant, and fit for purpose. By combining Ross’s acquired skills and engaging with a thoughtful, enthusiastic group of individuals who understood their position in their journey and the skills they needed to progress we created a very successful learning environment. We had cultivated a generation of new leaders in the Lifecare practices.