So making a decision is not purely an emotional decision, not just a financial decision, a comprehensive approach with all of us helps us all to figure out a challenge. I love that Four Quadrants sees us as a team and every decision that’s made is not made just with him in mind but with us in mind; the whole family.
The dynamic duo, Mike and Rebekah, stop in for their one year review with our firm and share their experience of how practice and personal life has improved in that time.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier is great at setting goals and exceeding expectations. It wasn’t too long after he received his DMD that he purchased his first practice in Nashville, Tenn.
The ambitious dentist had his eye on expansion and completed the purchase of his second Nashville practice last year. But under the surface of gleaming potential was a lot of stress. The two practices were very different, and patient demands were quite diverse.
His wife Rebekah was anxious too, as she tried to balance managing the two practices with the needs of her three children, two of whom are autistic. Mike and Rebekah both knew owning two businesses would make life busier, but they both felt they were demanding too much of Mike’s time away from home.
Luckily a fellow dental school grad recommended they talk to Four Quadrants, who could help them “on the practice side, and personal side as well.”
Indeed, we implemented two different business plans to rein in costs and to set their sites on “better” rather than “bigger.” Now the two practices are thriving while Mike can concentrate on two things he does exceedingly well: Fatherhood and Dentistry.
The dynamic duo stopped in recently for their one year review with our firm and shared their experience of how practice and personal life has improved in that time.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - Basically, we have two general dentistry offices in the Nashville, Tennessee area. They are tailored to different demographics. Our areas of focus are cosmetic dentistry, sedation dentistry, implants and Botox.
They are geographically ten minutes apart, but they serve different populations in Nashville. One was established in 2007, and the other we established in 2014.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - My biggest struggle when I was running two offices was that I felt like the dentistry part was pretty easy, but running the business side was a daunting thing at times. There were many times where I had to make decisions on my own, without appropriate guidance or counsel. A good friend of mine I had gone to dental school with had used Four Quadrants for a couple of years and suggested that I talk to them. He said life had been improved on the business side as well as the personal side and that Four Quadrants was helping guide decisions that affect both areas. He also felt they generated better ideas to go with his practice and take it to the next level.
Our practices were doing okay, but we were a little frustrated at times with the direction we needed to go. We felt like we were spinning our wheels, and ultimately we decided to defer to Four Quadrants to see where they could take us.
Rebekah Glasmeier - From my point of view I saw my husband struggling to run two practices and the stress level that came up that affected his personal life. We had three small children at the time, and the personal spills over to the business and vice-versa. Frankly, we were headed for a disaster; it was headed south when he brought Four Quadrants to the table. When they showed us what they could do, I was all on board!
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - I think it’s made it a lot better. I feel like having Four Quadrants and my wife there has helped us to create a team concept where we establish a different perspective. So making a decision . . . It’s not purely an emotional decision, not just a financial decision, a comprehensive approach with all of us helps us all to figure out a challenge.
Rebekah Glasmeier - I love that Four Quadrants sees us as a team, and every decision that’s made is not made just with him in mind but with us in mind; the whole family. I feel that the wife sometimes can be left out of those big decisions, but then we are here to listen to the complaints. Four Quadrants includes us because everything is really important on the home front too.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - Honestly, in the first couple months we had some uncertainty, things were changing so swiftly. But I think the time when we felt confident about this relationship was when we could give ourselves a pay raise. It was rejuvenating, and it energized us to want to go forward.
Rebekah Glasmeier - Yes that raise helped a lot because we would have loved to give ourselves a raise in the past; we just never felt 100 percent sure about it because we didn’t know what we should be paying ourselves. No one gives you that type of direction in Dental school. They don’t learn about that, and I have no idea coming into it what our pay structure should look like.
So when Four Quadrants set up our salary structure and pointed us in the right direction, “rejuvenated” is a great word. It rejuvenated us and put us on track to feeling like we can confidently pay ourselves the right amount and not worry about whether it’s too much, or too little. It’s the appropriate amount.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - Within three or four months working with Four Quadrants, we were already significantly improved financially and personally. As a business owner, you always want to pay yourself more; you’re just not always sure if it’s prudent to do so, or how much it should be.
Everything that they’ve done for us has been heavily researched and projected, so there’s another level of confidence that they can back up what they’re saying.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - The biggest one is to establish a blueprint for our future so that we know, from a retirement perspective, that we are going to be okay, and the family has got to be okay. To help generate some protocols to essentially bring my stress level down so I can still be effective and enjoy what I do and still provide a lifestyle for my family.
Rebekah Glasmeier - We have three children, but two of them have special needs, and one is more severely affected than the other. He will be living with us for life. Four Quadrants understands that, and they make us feel very comfortable in the fact that our children will be taken care of far into the future.
That’s very important for us, the parents of a child who won’t be able to take care of himself as an adult. For me personally too, it makes me feel at ease that our child will be taken care of long after we are gone. That’s probably the best feeling that I’ve had over the last year. Just knowing that he’ll be taken care of.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - We had been talking about retirement for years but never had a plan to execute. We’ve been approached by many many people that wanted to pitch us something, but we would always hesitate. We didn’t know that we were really in search of a strategy we liked first.
We appreciated that Four Quadrants had proposed some ideas but had strong evidence and research to back them up, but also some great references that we had spoken to that highly recommended them.
We knew that what we were doing was not accomplishing anything, so we knew we had to take that next step. We had to find someone who could do the whole comprehensive thing for us.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - Four Quadrants eliminated a lot of my stress level that I had. So the simple things are, you know, being able to go on a vacation and not be financially downtrodden about missing work, or missing a bill or something like that. I feel like I have more financial independence as a result of the things they have given me, so that when I go on a trip I can enjoy with my family and not be so perturbed by always thinking about the financials.
They’ve helped me develop an appreciation for what needs to be done financially but also be relieved that I can leave work and go home and enjoy my personal life. That was something that had been an issue the past couple years especially.
Rebekah Glasmeier - I’ve learned a lot. Like Mike said earlier, financial advisors still approach us today with different things that would seem appealing but are not appropriate for our situation. They are teaching me how to dissect financial challenges, and there are some things I don’t even need to give Four Quadrants because I learned how to examine an issue and stop it from becoming a problem. Now some things I still don’t understand and they’re right there to help me with that. I discerned so much about the business aspect of just working with them.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - Yes. The staff of Four Quadrants. . . Sometimes I feel like they are parents and help us make some hard decisions, which we couldn’t make on the business and personal side. How to think all the way through them because they have been there before. They’ve helped us make a decision whether it’s a “yes” or a “no” - and we’ve had a lot of no’s - they are not yes-men. They give us justified “no’s” and we feel comfortable that they are helping us make the right decisions.
Rebekah Glasmeier - They always come up with information behind their reasoning, and it’s information we would never have found out our own.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - The overall experience has been great from the beginning, and we haven’t even talked about the accounting part they’ve helped us with. I just feel like I have a panel of experts that communicates with each other all the time. That’s better than the alternative: having a bunch of separate experts where you have to bring together their opinions and hope that they jive. You feel confident doing it and know that you’ll get the result that you want.
Rebekah Glasmeier - Their communication is the best I’ve ever dealt with. If I leave a message, they get back with me the same day, usually within an hour. Their answers are always in our best interest.
Dr. Mike Glasmeier - Four Quadrants assured me throughout this first year that they wouldn’t change anything in how I do dentistry. I was deeply fearful of that, and that they were going to propose to me to change the way I can work. They’ve been great and supportive, and I haven’t had change anything on the dental side because they respect that I know what I’m doing. I like the fact that they kept their word.
