Why You Should Consider Buying Your Own Veterinary Practice
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According to Aristotle, excellence is a “habit,” not an “act.” His statement can be applied to an employee’s transition to becoming their own employer. Achieving great things in your veterinary practice should be based on the things you do regularly, rather than the things you do when your boss asks.
By becoming your own employer and buying your own veterinary practice, you stand a better chance of turning excellence into a habit because you can control the practices that drive the business. Consider these factors when choosing how you will make the transition and how you will benefit from buying your own practice.
The Benefits of Owning Your Own Practice
The two main benefits of owning your own clinic are increased profitability and the ability to choose your own business practices.
Compared to being an employer, owning a clinic will allow you to profit from your business practices. Not only will you be working at your office, but you will also be able to build equity through both the business and real estate.
Both of these assets, when managed well, can be sold later, used as collateral, or passed to your family.
The second primary benefit of owning your own practice is the ability to make business decisions that reflect your beliefs in how the business should be run. As your own boss, the freedom to create your own marketing plan, hire your own staff, and improve existing infrastructure could be invaluable to the future equity of your clinic.
Independence will allow you to increase the value of your investment in your veterinary degree while forming your own business plan.
Are there Drawbacks to Owning a Clinic?
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The drawbacks to owning a veterinary clinic are slightly different depending on whether the clinic is a new or existing practice.
Buying a new practice means that more infrastructure must be established to find a client base and create a cash flow. Hiring new employees, buying new equipment, and marketing the business from the ground up are all costly expenditures.
These drawbacks may be reduced by buying an existing practice, where much of the infrastructure is already in place. However, the expenses would still apply.
How Should You Decide?
Owning a veterinary practice allows you to control your business’s procedures and use its success to build personal equity. This is impossible as an employee of someone else’s business.
By purchasing an existing practice, you can have a level of certainty concerning the success of the brand and the devotion of your employees. Starting your own practice requires more overhead in money and time but gives you greater control.
Either way, the benefits in freedom and profitability should make owning your own veterinary clinic a serious consideration for those that want to increase the value of their degree, their personal equity, and their business.
The Takeaway
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While owning your own veterinary clinic comes with drawbacks, mostly related to high overhead costs, the independence and increased profitability prove that it should be part of the long-term plan for many veterinarians. The decision to buy an existing practice or start a new one could change its value, but the process has every reason to be profitable either way.
If you have any questions or concerns about opening your practice, please reach out! We want all veterinarians pursuing their profession to experience success stories like the veterinarians of the International Veterinary Professionals Association (IVPA).