STRATEGICALLY SELLING YOUR BIRTH CENTER

So many midwives are struggling to keep up with the demands and considering early retirement.  I frequently get calls about midwives wanting to sell their birth centers, but have the challenge of short timeline goals to make it happen.  When we only have months to find a buyer versus years, more midwives are liquidating building and supplies at wholesale and closing down the birth center.  It is really sad to see how frequent that has happened the last couple years from midwives just burning out and feeling they don’t have time on their side.

I want to see successful midwifery practices sell to the next generation of midwives to help spring board our success.  There is such a need for business education not just with starting and improving your midwifery business, but also how to smartly sell the practice for max profits and smooth transition to the next owner and community.  Here is a list of some common things to get in order and considering when selling your birth center.

It doesn’t matter whether you are selling to a midwife, physician, doula, chiropractor, or community; getting your books in order is one of the first steps midwives should take to prepare their practice for sale.  It is really hard to show the financial value of your business without strong recording keeping.  Midwives sometimes forget that another potential is buying this practice for the profit margin, not a self employed position and taking over your salary.  Most potential buyers want to hire someone to replace your midwife role on the team and see what profits are available to manage the company.  If they wanted to be self employed, they would just start their own private practice.

Make sure all the policies, protocols, training manuals, and resources are updated so the new owners can easily see how well organized and strong the business foundation is to the birth center.  If you are not keeping up with standards and supporting the flow of the business well, they are now purchasing a practice to fix versus is already turnkey functioning to the best operations possible.  

Have your staff make a list of all the supplies, equipment, and assets with the business to figure out retail value price for those items.  It will help with justifying your selling price point to buyers.  They want to know where you are coming up with $1 million dollar value and not just from what your emotional investment is into the birth center.  As midwives, it is very difficult for us to objectively look at the value of the practice.  We have put our heart, sweat, and soul into the practice to be successful.  Hiring a business valuator can really help with this process (I have done this frequently for midwives and their practices). 

There is value in your building, supplies, client following, reputation in the community, CABC Accreditation, policies, insurance contracts, resources, and business knowledge that needs to be accounted for.  Many midwives don’t even realize the untapped business selling value of slowly transitioning of 12-18 months to new owner with a business mentorship package part of the business purchase.  Each birth center owner has IMMENSE knowledge about running this birth center that can be smoothly passed onto the next owner to increase chances of long term success with the birth center.  In the end, we want to continue expanding midwifery access and keep these legacy birth centers in business! 

 Please watch this FREE hour-long presentation about strategically selling your birth center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dkN6sBs88c