Selling Medical Equipment
Selling Medical Equipment
The Do’s and Don’ts When Selling Medical Equipment
DO
- Know whom you are dealing with. If you aren’t familiar with them, request references.
- Make sure you get a minimum of a 10% deposit upon your acceptance of any offer, and make it nonrefundable following inspection.
- Try to establish how the seller arrived at the offer amount: Is the offer based upon wishful thinking, outright speculation, an offer from some hypothetical customer, or informed and factually based decision making. (Hint: this could tell you volumes about the seller’s true ability to follow though). Offers from brokers based on their customers’ ability to perform are usually not reliable. Dealers who commit and take inventory are more reliable.
- Leave yourself at least 10 to 12 weeks from offer acceptance to targeted removal date.
- Use common sense. If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is.
- Make sure the contract spells out all conditions and terms clearly. Ensure all reasonable eventualities are covered, including liability, failure to perform, etc. Submit it to the “what if” test.
- Deal with an organization you are convinced can, will, and are capable of performing.
DON’T
- Sign a contract or agreement without stipulating an immediate deposit (talk is cheap…).
- Do business with anyone you are not familiar with or who cannot or will not provide references. Ask them if they have ever defaulted on a transaction.
- Allow anyone to “shop” your equipment without a signed agreement. Often a system can become over exposed, actually reducing the ultimate selling price.
- Discuss trade-in value with a new equipment vendor until you have received their best “all cash” proposal on the new equipment. Then, and only then, discuss what cash amount they will give you for your old equipment. This will ensure you get an accurate assessment of your used equipment’s value, with no hidden inflation on the back end. Vendors will increase the trade-in value of the equipment to make you believe you are getting a better deal, but this trade-in value is a disguised discount that you would get in any case.
- Get discouraged. Reputable dealers will treat this process with respect, and you will obtain fair value and good service.
