today to learn critical exit planning strategies specifically designed for hearing aid practice owners. Your moderators for today are me, Ted Annis, Senior Marketing Specialist, and Suzanne Hill, Professional Development Supervisor. Our expert presenter today is Cliff Carey. Cliff has over 12 years of experience in business and sales management. He joined the EarQ team in 2009. Cliff's overall vision and scope for EarQ's programs and identity, as well as his ability to develop relationships, has led him to transition into this role of vendor relations in 2011. In 2013, Cliff streamlined EarQ's messaging and brand management when he was selected as communications director. Cliff has taken EarQ's creative focus from an in-house print agency to a full digital web development suite, effectively positioning EarQ as a leading source for effective messaging, brand management, patient engagement in the industry. We're very excited to have Cliff as our presenter today, but before we get started, we have just a few housekeeping items. Please note that we're recording today's presentation so that we may offer it on demand through the IHS website in the future. This website is available for one continuing education credit through the International Hearing Society. You can find out more about receiving continuing education credit at our website, IHSinfo.org. Click on the webinar banner on the homepage or choose webinars from the professional development menu on the left side of the page. There you will find the IHS CE quiz. Also on the webinar page, you'll find slides from today's presentation to help you gather the information you'll need for the CE quiz. If you haven't already downloaded the PDF, feel free to do so now. Tomorrow, you will receive an email with a link to the survey on this webinar. It is brief and your feedback will help us create valuable content for you moving forward. This presentation highlights recognized principles commonly found in the financial arena, but in no way suggests nor should be considered as financial advice. It is recommended that you consult a financial professional for specific advice regarding financial matters that may be pertinent to you or your practice. No relationship exists that presents a potential conflict of interest or special business relationship between the International Hearing Society and Cliff Carey or EarQ, nor any of its principals or employees. Today, we'll be covering the following topics, goals and expectations, timing your exit, reviewing the market for your practice, and succession planning. At the end of the presentation, we'll move on to a Q&A session. You can send us a question for Cliff at any time by entering your question in the question box on your webinar dashboard, usually located to the right of your webinar screen. We'll take as many questions as we can in the time we have available. Now, I'm going to turn it over to Cliff, who will guide you through today's presentation. Take it away, Cliff. Well, thank you so much, Ted. It's a pleasure to be here. Again, my name is Cliff Carey. I'm the Communications Director with EarQ, and I've got over six years' experience in the industry working directly with private practice owners, helping them to overcome challenges and certainly focusing on solutions for anxieties that arise as a practice owner. Certainly one of the largest anxieties is the idea of selling or transitioning away from your practice. We work with several opportunities per month to transition through acquisition or exit strategy of independent private practices. And we know that it can be a tough challenge. For many practice owners, the thought is unnerving to leave your practice that you spent so much time and energy to build. There are many questions that often arise. And we know that there are many of them are focused around timing the exit. Who will buy the practice? Are there recommended strategies? What is the value of the practice? And the first steps, are there common first steps? Many times we try to focus on attaining three specific goals to earn the best possible sales price while limiting tax exposure, determine a reasonable timeline of agreeable responsibilities after the sale, and identifying an appropriate buyer type to allow you to leave a legacy. When possible, attaining all three of these criteria means a successful sale. But on occasion, we'll be limited to focusing on one or two of these three criteria. Cheaply among them, earning the best sale price while limiting tax exposure. It's very important throughout the process to remain as objective as possible. Your business is an investment. But it can still be tough to remove all emotion and attachment when you work so closely with the day-to-day procedures at your office. It's also important to recognize that as an investment, the fundamental valuation of your practice versus your ability to realize that valuation when you sell, can be a challenge. It's important to recognize that values can differ. It's also good to realize that practices with similar earnings can differ in value based on core competencies and services offered. Therefore, a unique and individualized approach should be taken with every single exit strategy. A great deal of importance should be placed on finding a good professional advisor. Now, there are a list of criteria that an advisor should support you with, and there's certainly a list of things that an advisor must support you with. A good advisor should manage part or the entirety of the sale process, remove any obstacles during discovery, should certainly vet the buyer, and to help prepare your financials. Keep in mind that in order to realize the best valuation for your practice, you should be as involved as you possibly can be during the preparation of the financial documents. Now, a good advisor must be independent. There should be no conflict of interest or ulterior motives. A good advisor must be experienced in hearing health care, the valuations that are specific to hearing health care. They do differ from those methods that are commonly used in financing and other business segments. A good advisor must help you to determine a proper asking price. Your confidentiality is important throughout the entire process, and most importantly, a good advisor must allow you to continue running your business throughout the process. There are mergers and acquisition firms that assist in exit strategies. They refer to them as transition management services. The main goal for these firms is a successful sale at the highest valuation. Many of these mergers and acquisition firms may charge a retainer and or success fee. It's good to keep in mind that a similar amount of preparation can take place for both small and large sales. So the success fee percentage may be on a sliding scale with a larger percentage on a smaller sale and a smaller percentage on a larger sale. Say for example, a practice that sells for $300,000 may have a higher success fee percentage than a practice that sells for $3 million. Timing your sale is very important. You want to make sure that you have the right timing. There are three main considerations. Your timing, practice maturity, and the market. Of these three major considerations, which do you think is the most important? Or if I were to rephrase, which do you think is the least important? And of course, your timing would be the least important of these three considerations as your timing is relevant only to you and will almost never be perfect. Preparing your practice five to ten years is ideal for an exit strategy. Three to five years is workable as most valuations in our industry are dependent on the previous three years' historical sales performance. Inside of three years, your options become limited as you've got a shorter window to drive the valuation up. The last three years that you're in your practice before you sell should be the most profitable, if at all possible, to drive the valuation as high as you can. The fire sale is a dangerous scenario for you to get involved with. This is when a practice owner needs to leave their practice as soon as possible. There can be an air of desperation to the negotiation process, and you've had little or no time to prepare for the highest valuation. Many times a fire sale scenario takes place because of circumstances that exist outside of your day-to-day business or your practice itself. These could be medical concerns, personal concerns, or changes in market condition that are unforeseen. Again, ideally, five to ten years preparing your practice will earn you the best possible valuation. When taking a look at your practice maturity, the ideal conditions for your exit strategy is that your business is still growing. Again, the last three years that you're in your practice will give you an opportunity to grow and to attain the highest possible valuation. Employing established and competent staff will reduce an element of risk for the buyer, and a stable and diverse patient base will certainly allow for the continued driving of revenue and the expectation of future earnings. When timing the market, there are four major considerations, the first being buyers. Who will buy the practice? We believe that the status of buyers right now is very important. For one, other independents, many of them are at retirement age. They may be looking to you as a potential buyer, while you've also identified them as a possible buyer for your practice. It's also good to consider that a significant amount of mergers and acquisition activity has already taken place. In fact, most of you on this webinar today have a competitor within your marketplace who has sold their practice either to a corporate-backed franchise, manufacturer-backed retail, or to another independent. The more concerned you are about the consolidation that takes place, the less likely you are to find a motivated buyer. The second consideration when timing the market are tax implications. The status is worth consideration. It's important, again, to reiterate that I'm not a CPA and that you should work very closely with yours to understand how the sale of your practice can impact your income tax or your capital gains tax. If the payout for the sale of your practice happens within a single year and you list it as income, it could bump you into a higher tax bracket and you may have to pay a higher percentage. That's why in many cases a structured payout over time could benefit you. The capital gains tax becomes increasingly complicated almost each year. So make sure that you work very closely with your CPA to understand that if you're going to identify the sale of your practice within a single year, you need to identify it as earnings from an investment that you've made, that you understand how you'll be impacted by the capital gains tax law. The third consideration while timing the market are interest rates. Right now the status is favorable, in fact, very favorable. The Fed continues to keep interest rates at all-time lows. However, they've begun to intimate that a raise in interest rates could happen within the next several years. Keep in mind while interest rates are low, it's less expensive to borrow money, making that capital more available for the buyer. While those interest rates remain low, buyers can pay a higher premium as a percentage of the payout. The fourth and final consideration when timing the market is to take a look at the availability of financing. That status is also favorable right now. Specifically in our industry, we see non-traditional lenders aggressively pursuing acquisition and lending at high levels. These would be corporate-backed franchises and manufacturer retail models. Independence can also get those non-traditional lenders to back their purchase of an independent practice, and in many cases, cash required at the time of that sale is at an all-time low if there's any needed at all. Now in looking at today's market, it's good to try to understand who out there are motivated to buy practice. In 2014, 60% of the mergers and acquisition activity that took place in the hearing care field was generated by manufacturers in the retail sector or corporate-backed franchises. 35% of that activity were the sale of one practice from an independent to another. A small segment of the mergers and acquisition activity that took place was in the medical sector. Let's review each of these potential buyer types in more detail. The manufacturer retail option, while many times initially untenable to an independent practice owner, they can be the most likely buyer type for successful transition. Manufacturers are well-capitalized, and in many cases they may pay over market price for your practice. These acquisitions have specific benefits for them, most notably securing channels of distribution and points of sale. In fact, having two or more manufacturers vying for your practice could push the valuation and the final selling price to a high level. Manufacturers are also looking to obtain talent, as many of them do not have the requisite staffing to allow you to step away the day after you've sold your practice. That's why many times selling to this buyer type can result in an employment agreement. Very frequently those employment agreements last about 36 months as you transition into the practice, but help the new owner to maintain the patient base. The medical option, while very small, can also be an effective buyer type for your practice. This consists of hospitals, ENTs. You will see optometry and ophthalmology as other possible buyer types within the medical field. They're looking for expertise and added revenue. In many cases, this buyer type has the existing office structure, square footage, and administrative support to keep the business running and access to patient base. However, your expertise can be valuable to them as well, and you could see possible employment agreements with this buyer type. Perhaps the most attractive type of buyer type, the most independent practice owners, are other professionals within the field, and they can be broken down into two distinct categories. First would be the established professional, and then, of course, the first-time buyer. An established, competitive office in your market can look to reduce their expenses through the economies of scale, and what that means is they could possibly schedule patients for their current location and then your office, should they acquire it, out of one location. There's already a system there in place. They may also have regular staffing as far as professionals who are administrating the evaluations and the fitting and dispensation of the devices with staffing that's already there in place. Because of this, an established professional can allow you to phase out very quickly. In fact, they may look at your current location, In fact, they may look to establish their current business model as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that many are also baby boomers, and they may also be considering selling. In those cases, perhaps one of the two practice owners would end up working further into the age that they'd like to retire and they'd acquire the other practice. The first-time buyer is a little bit more tricky, as there are currently a shortage of professionals seeking practice ownership, either through state licensure programs or even the AUD program. Or even the AUD programs that are generating audiologists. Many folks are either not prepared to own a business or just don't have the desire. Many of them may not be able to pay premium as they're buying their first significant purchase. In a business, credit history may not exist. It requires long-term vision and planning, and that's where succession planning becomes so important. Before we discuss succession planning, let's go over a few barriers to exit. For any of you familiar with investments made in new markets, are familiar with barriers to entry, which would be things that keep you from entering a new marketplace or investing in that new marketplace. These barriers to exit are obstacles that may impede your desire to leave your practice, and at times they can be financial barriers, and other times the cost can be of a different nature. Some common barriers are closure of penalty costs. If you are entered into a supply agreement with your main manufacturer, that remaining balance will have to be considered prior to selling your practice or part of the sale. You may also have a contract with a local business or union where you might be doing any type of industrial testing, and you may have a supply agreement to offer devices to any of those employees who also exhibit hearing loss. If that contract is with you specifically, it will also have to be taken into consideration as you transition your practice. And, of course, lease agreements. As most practice owners in our industry, rent the location where their practice is, and those contracts are in your name. Another common barrier to exit is a high investment in non-transferable fixed assets. This would be the case where you own your practice, but you also own the building that the practice exists in. Many times a practice owner will look to sell both. This adds an entirely new dynamic to the sales process, as now there's a commercial real estate valuation that must take place on the property that will use different methodology in the valuation process that will be focused on the practice itself, specific to hearing care. Other fixed assets could be equipment specific to certain tasks. For example, you may offer audiological services at your practice that the new buyer type may not want to offer. You may have a VNG, and the new buyer does not want to pay the several thousand dollars that that machine does cost. It may review the list of assets in the practice and have some questions there. So you may want to liquidate any of those non-transferable fixed assets specific to tasks that may not be part of the business model of your buyer type. Of course, high redundancy costs can also be barriers to exit. If you have extraneous employees or employees with high salaries, those could create complications during the valuation and sale process. Again, I would take an opportunity to review your practice and look to remove those assets that could be tough to sell along with the practice and certainly take a look at the way that your employee salaries will impact the sale as well. Now perhaps the most important barrier to exit are owner contributions. Commonly the most valuable and tangible asset during the valuation process, your significant contributor to revenue, and the majority of goodwill during valuation results directly from your presence. The relationships with referring doctors, the relationships with any type of business networking, chamber of commerce, and even the relationship with patients themselves are a prime responsibility of the owner. And if you departing your practice results in the loss of patients and profits, the valuation can be significantly impacted. Keep in mind throughout this process, it should be your goal to limit the possibility of risk for the buyer, to enhance the expectation of future earnings, and to be transparent. That's why quite literally we can have it all with a succession plan. Look to your staffing to help reduce your practice reliance on your owner contributions. If you can limit your contributions to less than a third of total revenue, then the perception of risk will be much, much lower in the eyes of the buyer. This can be virtually impossible for the sole practitioner whose presence in that practice drives almost all of the revenue. Key to hire and retain employees who make significant contributions so that the business can continue to run when you step away. That's why a good succession plan is how you can have it all. However, finding a successor can be a tough challenge. It can be tough to expose them to the types of decisions and responsibilities that the owner has while keeping them focused on their daily tasks. I would suggest you exercise the same amount of diligence while identifying a successor as you have in pushing your practice to this point. If you don't have one on staff, you should hire one. I think state licensure programs are fantastic opportunities to work with that apprentice and perhaps identify whether or not they are a good buyer for your practice. In fact, many people take on an apprentice specialist in an attempt to train their replacement. If you do have a hybrid practice that offers audiological services as well, you can use the fourth-year externship programs to do something very similar. Throughout the process, look for smart people who can take direction while at the same time encouraging them to bring fresh ideas to the table to drive revenue or increase practice efficiency. The more involved they feel, the more ownership they'll take, which may transition into literal ownership after that. Give them freedom but with responsibilities attached so that they are always being focused on driving revenue for the practice. If they feel part of the decision-making process, if their ideas and action plans are taken into account and on occasion implemented, you're prepping them to take over the practice. Oftentimes to keep good, talented people, rewarding them, is a very, very significant investment to make. Many practice owners will consider profit sharing to allow an existing employee to buy their way into ownership, if not entire ownership, partial ownership. The longer that those employees do stay at your practice, the more personally invested they will be in its success. That will be helpful in the valuation process. They may also be willing to pay above-market value because of their commitment and familiarity with the practice. In conclusion, you must work hard to jump the barriers in your exit strategy. Selling your practice can be unnerving. It's certainly outside of our area of expertise and it can be difficult to overcome some obstacles. But with preparation and proper guidance, you can jump those barriers. I think it's very important to continue to align your expectations with reality of the marketplace and to be as objective as possible when considering your investment and your ability to realize that investment when you sell. You should prepare based on your practice maturity in the marketplace. And if those can align with your timing, that is certainly beneficial. But keep in mind that the market and your practice timing may not align. Ultimately, you must be patient. It takes time to prepare, to identify the proper buyer type, and to work through the process of valuation and sale. But with patience, you can maximize your return. A couple suggested reading, the exit strategy handbook, an exit strategy maximizing the value of your business, along with the emits by Michael Gerber are great reads and can help give you some guidance while working with the proper advisors, certainly your CPA, and your business lawyer. I would like to thank you so much. This has been a pleasure. If you have any questions, you can certainly type them into your question bar, but you can also reach out to me directly at ccarrierq.com. Thanks, Cliff. Great presentation. Cliff, we're so excited that over 100 attendees have joined us today on this webinar. We do have some time for questions. If you have a question for Cliff, please enter it in the question box on your webinar dashboard. CLIF, our first question actually comes from Mary, and Mary asks, are there any merger and acquisition firms out there that specialize solely in hearing health care practices? There are a few. There's a firm out of Chicago known as Caber Hill, which does a fantastic job in promoting transition management services and next strategies, and then, of course, a division at IRQ that focuses specifically on those as well. Great. Thanks, CLIF. CLIF, our next question is from John, and John says, if I decide to put my practice up for sale or just want to test the waters to see the value of my practice, where can I advertise my practice? Well, there are a couple areas where you can, but you should certainly ask yourself the question on whether you should. If you do advertise in an open forum, you invite the opportunity for collusion, and that would be for any buyers to certainly review the opportunity and to even possibly force the price down, so I would enter you into a nondisclosure agreement with anybody that you're talking with about the sale of your practice, but for some folks who have been looking to sell their practice for some time and are not getting any traction through business networking with folks within the industry, possibly reaching out to competitors, there are opportunities for you to post the sale. Even IHS has a great forum where you could post that sale for other competitive audiologists or dispensers to review, so I would follow that, but certainly at first, keeping it as confidential as possible can be helpful for you to realize the highest valuation. Great, thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question is from Kimberly, and Kimberly asks, what are your thoughts on maintaining ownership while receiving monthly stipends? I think that that is very common for the owner to, quote, hold the paper on the practice while an employee has a structured payout. That can certainly help to limit tax exposure. The only downside would be if the sale were to fall through or there would be complications, unforeseen circumstances outside of the agreement or outside of the practice. So the more lengthy the structured payout, the more opportunity there is for something to happen, but I think it's common, I think it's a good way to negotiate, and sometimes by taking on that added risk, an owner can ask for a higher valuation or above market value because you are taking the risk of the lengthy structured payout. Great, thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question is from David, and David would like to know how the calculation of business is commonly valued in terms of one-time sales over revenue. Well, there are a number of different valuation methods that are used, and keep in mind the buyer and the seller are going to have all of the same information and may interpret it differently. Likewise, if you've got, again, the scenario, the hypothetical that we discussed earlier, if you had two or more buyer types that were buying for the practice, they may use different methods to value the practice. One-time sale over revenue, five times profit, or an average or normalization of historical sales performance, all of those are methods that can be used and are used, so I would take a look at the buyer, what their preferred style of valuation is, but be aware of the other methods that are out there in case there's a significant difference in the fundamental valuation of your practice. So it really is going to come down to who you're negotiating with, so I would be familiar with all of those methods. Great. Thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question is from Manaz, and she asks, in the stats that you had mentioned earlier about mergers and acquisitions, were those stats made up from American or Canadian data or both? That is the U.S. market as far as what the breakdown was for mergers and acquisition activity, and that does fluctuate throughout the year. In fact, in 2014, we saw in the beginning of the year, there was a more significant amount as a percentage of the whole of M&A activity from one independent to another, but by the end of the year, manufacturers and corporate-backed franchises had really increased the amount of activity they had compared with the beginning of the year. So that was really an aggregate number based on 2014's overall M&A activity, and that's the U.S. market. Great. Thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question is from Helen, and Helen asks, are there any tax breaks if I sell to a relative? Well, there certainly can be, and again, I would suggest that you work with your CPA, but there are certain loopholes or considerations within the tax code in one-time gifts to a spouse. Certainly, if you're in any type of owner partnership and your partner passes away, there are things that can be willed down through the estate tax portion of the code. So it really does depend on how you look to utilize the tax code and structure the payout. Family members may be more willing to take a structured or a more lengthy sale process, which could certainly have a benefit on your income tax or your capital gain. So the short answer is yes, the long answer is it really depends on what works best for your practice and what method your CPA would suggest. Great. Thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question is from Bill, and Bill asks, how can I make sure that I receive the highest valuation for my practice? Preparation is the key, Bill, and allowing yourself enough time to drive your profitability and your gross sales as high as you can just prior to selling. Most valuation models used in our industry are dependent on roughly three years of your historical performance immediately leading up to the sale of the practice. So the best thing you can do is to be very motivated to grow your business prior to sale. Thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question is from Sue, and Sue asks, what is the best way to find business brokers experienced in the hearing aid industry to help you sell your business? That's a great question. First and foremost, I would rely on trade association networking. I know that anyone at IHS will point you in the right direction. I think that any vendor partner, say a manufacturer representative, would be able to give you at least some advice with who to contact. Any business support networks would be able to point you in the right direction as well. So I would bring all of those considerations to bear when looking for the right type of firm or advisor to work with. Great. Thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question is from Mark, and Mark would like to know, what is the typical percentage charged by brokers to find a buyer for your practice? I've seen 12% as a flat rate for a success fee, and very commonly that success fee is only executed upon sale of the practice, but again, as we discussed earlier, many times you'll see a sliding scale where it may be as much as 12% on a less expensive sale or a transition that requires less capital, and it can be as little as 2% or 3% on a very, very valuable transition. A multimillion-dollar sale could result in a shorter percentage, which ultimately may be a larger dollar amount, but it really can vary. But I would take a look, and 12% would probably be about as high as I would consider paying unless you are highly motivated to sell and you are limited in your options. Thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question actually comes from Manaz again, and the question is, what advice would you give to one that has to buy out a partner due to medical issues? Well, I would certainly know that there is a motivation for that partner to leave. You would look to maintain your professional relationship and probably a bit of a personal relationship there, so I would be as delicate as possible in working through the process, but understand if they are motivated to sell, they may be willing to accept below market value, or they may be willing to accept above market value, and you would certainly want to be able to get a very clear understanding of their contributions. Now, if they fell into ailing health over time, their contributions may have lessened over that time period, so I would certainly, to protect both of you and to make sure that it is a successful sale, invite a mediator before things did get contentious, if you are worried about that happening, and consult with your business lawyer to certainly protect you through the process, but getting some support from a mediator would be key to making sure that the execution of that buyout took place, and it certainly did not end in contentious talks. Great advice. Thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our next question comes from Charles, and Charles asks, although your graph shows manufacturers being the largest group acquiring practices, do you see this group increasing or decreasing their acquisitions from previous years? It's really tough to say. If you had asked me this question 18 months ago, I would say that it seems that maybe the market was saturated, and that they would be acquiring less practices, but the last six months, there's been a great deal of activity, competitive activity for the purchasing of practices, and again, their desire is to secure distribution channels and points of sale, so it really is difficult to tell. There's a tremendous amount of volatility in our marketplace right now, but there's a huge degree of growth that will take place because of the aging population and their needs for our services, so it's tough to say. I don't see it slowing down. I could see it maintaining about that 60 to 66% clip for some time to come, but that would just be my guess. Thanks, Cliff. Thanks, Cliff. Everybody, if you have a question for Cliff, please don't hesitate and drop it in the question box on your webinar dashboard. Let's see. Cliff, our next question is from Susan, and Susan says, if I decide to sell my practice, should I make my staff aware that it's for sale, or should I wait until it's sold? That's a great question. Certainly a delicate situation, and it's going to be unique to you and your practice, Susan. It really depends on a couple different factors. Your relationship with those employees, how long they've been with you is worthy of consideration. What their roles may be following the sale is going to be worth considering. If one or more of them is a potential candidate to buy the practice, of course, you will be entered into a dialogue in that regard. I certainly would suggest a nondisclosure agreement in that case, but I don't think there's any reason to alert them too soon, and I don't necessarily know that it's something that you want to wait until you have sold and closed the sale to alert them to it. I would say some reasonable and responsible timeframe just prior to the sale when you've identified a buyer and it looks like you're going to close, letting them know would be respectful and responsible. Just keep in mind if you do it too soon or if the sale falls through, depending on the employee, they may start to question the stability of the practice itself and may seek employment elsewhere. Take a look at your specific situation, and again, work with that advisor to develop the most responsible approach specific for your situation. Thanks, Cliff. Cliff, our last question is from Sue, and Sue would like to know, since you mentioned the importance of the last three years of sales in your business, what about the impact of the bad economy over the past several years? Well, you've got no control over the marketplace. I think that another barrier to exit are market conditions and changes in those conditions outside of your control. The bad economy could have an impact for sure, but I think if you have prepared and monitored your business model and allowed it to a certain amount of flexibility, you may have been able to maintain profitability while your gross sales decreased by removing extraneous assets or expenditures or, in some cases, staff. So you may still be able to keep profitability in a high valuation if you are able to make those changes along with the market, but if you're feeling the bad economy, chances are everyone is, and that would certainly put more negotiating leverage into the hands of the buyer and less in the hands of the seller, and you may want to consider riding out any dips in the economy until things begin to improve so that you can realize that higher valuation. But there are certain things that are certainly going to be out of your hands, and a recession is one of them. Thanks, Cliff. Great answer. Cliff, I'd like to thank you for an excellent presentation, and I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today on the IHS webinar, How to Have It All, Exit Strategies, and Succession Planning. If you'd like to get in contact with Cliff, you may email him at ccarey, at earq.com. That's c-c-a-r-e-y, at e-a-r-q.com. For more information about receiving continuing education credit for this webinar, please visit the IHS website at ihsinfo.org, click on the webinar banner, or find more information on the webinar tab under professional development. IHS members receive a substantial discount on IHS CE credits, so if you're not already an IHS member, you will find out more info at ihsinfo.org. Please keep an eye out for the feedback survey you'll receive tomorrow via email. We ask that you take just a moment to answer a few brief questions about the quality of today's presentation. Thank you again for being with us today, and we will see you at the next IHS webinar.

exit planning

hearing aid practice

timing

selling a practice

preparing for sale

buyer types

succession plan

experienced advisor

barriers to exit