THE MILLIONAIRE DENTIST PODCAST

Episode 53: 2020 Year End Wrap Up

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EPISODE 53: 2020 Year End Wrap Up

Casey Hiers is joined by new co-host Jarrod Bridgeman to discuss the impact 2020 has had on not only their lives but society as well.

 

EPISODE 53 TRANSCRIPTION

Announcer:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist podcast, brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry, finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentist you deserve to be. Please be advised, we do speak with an honest tongue and may not be safe for work.

Casey Hiers:
Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hiers And today we are debuting our director of marketing, Jarrod Bridgeman who is in studio with me. Jarrod, thank you for joining today.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, thanks. I'm really excited to be here.

Casey Hiers:
Well, let's just start off by tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, sure. So I've been with the company for a short period of time here. I got hired during the summer, which was for me really interesting to get really such a great job during quarantine, basically during all of this Corona stuff. So that was really cool. Father of two young children. I come from a video production background that slowly morphed into this kind of a marketing director position where I still get to do cool things like video podcasts. Any kind of content creation I'm a big fan of, so that's kind of what I'm doing here.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And what's really, really different for me compared to any other place I've worked or anything like that is this is my first time working with people who know what they're doing with money. As a artsy kind of guy who went to school for-

Casey Hiers:
Creative. Creative. Sure.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I am not always the best at that. So I find all this super fascinating and for you listeners out there, I'm probably going to be that guy that's going to ask the dumbest questions, but I'm hoping for some of you, I might ask that question that you're too embarrassed to ask yourself.

Casey Hiers:
Well, I can tell you what, that will be a great addition and I'm looking forward to you joining this podcast a lot more moving forward. From a podcast perspective, we've had a very informative year for our listeners and I really just wanted to spend a little bit of time with a year-end wrap up. Jarrod, what comes to mind when I say the year 2020 wrap-up?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Masks, I would say. Six feet apart, social distancing, trying to find ways to keep my children entertained while being stuck at home. As all you know, that's once they go to bed, I might have to pop a beer.

Casey Hiers:
There you go. I think a lot of people would say good riddance as well.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
What about you? I mean you've been with this company much longer. You've been here since the start of 2020 and prior, but not only for yourself, but as everything in this company, your clients, what does 2020 mean for you?

Casey Hiers:
That's a good question. For me, I think fighting fear and anxiety is something that's important for me personally. Looking from a broad spectrum and how it ties into this podcast, Four Quadrants Advisory and our clients. From a practice owner's perspective production, historically, at least on the short term, has overcome a lot of issues for practice owners and their finances. And this year has shown me and a lot of practice owners that that production has covered up a lack of systems and processes in place.

Casey Hiers:
And when that happened, things were exposed, right? It exposed a lack of processes, it exposed income and overhead and retirement savings that weren't where they should be. It exposed a whole lot of really quite frankly, weaknesses. And that goes from practice owners on the business and finance side of their practices, but it probably exposed a lot of weaknesses when it comes to just people in general and our need for interaction or lack thereof.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So, yeah, I totally agree. It kind of made me think about local restaurants and how some of the smaller ones that didn't have things set in place are gone. It was the ones that quickly adapted that quickly were like, "You know what? We're doing curbside only, we're going to do delivery. We're going to add this and this and this." And those are the ones that are still surviving. And I feel like every business out there right now, unless you're someone whose initials are JB and you have the richest man in the world, and you're already doing the mail service, everybody had to refigure their plan. And I'm assuming as you work with people and talk to people, dentistry, it kind of operated the same way. They had to rethink their game plan, whether it be again, overhead, finances, or...

Casey Hiers:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's exactly right. Those who were sort of running and gunning and every year saying, "Wow, we did it again. We're not sure how. Fingers crossed let's just try the same thing over to see if it works," and the issue with that is if and when there's curve balls, then that again, to get exposed, right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Would you call this the wake up moment or for lack of a better term, the come to Jesus moment?

Casey Hiers:
For a lot of practice owners, yes. The phone calls that we receive and the conversations we've had, absolutely. And what they'll confess is they always felt like some things could be better. In the pit of their stomach they always had this feeling, but now that it was forced fed upon them some folks closing their doors for a couple months, others longer, some shorter, but it showed them the areas that they need help with.

Casey Hiers:
And one practice owner put it best. He said, "I've been really good at finding professionals who are good at what I'm not good at and helping me, but in my practice, I didn't do that as much." And there's ego involved there. There's a psychology involved, dentists are high achievers. We've talked about that a lot, but yeah, absolutely. It really has shown people areas to improve. I think that's probably the best way to put it, but yeah, it being a wake-up call a little bit and again, control what you can control. For our listeners who are not clients of Four Quadrants Advisory, again, use this time to reflect, the end of the year and just think about what this year has taught you. I think that's the best thing that we could say about it.

 

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I agree and if you're interested in maybe jump-starting a few things or getting a few new ideas, we do have these really cool free eBooks on our website for Fourquadrantsadvisory.com. We've got a few different things like dental accounting 101, financial planning, practice transition guides to kind of help give you an idea of what we do here, but this is a great time to kind of start letting that mill around in your brain.

Casey Hiers:
Well, that's a good point. We've always had a lot of resources on our website and Jared part of your role has been to bolster those, to sharpen them up so that they're even more usable for the masses. And so for those who have not been on the Four Quadrants Advisory website, great resources, a lot of areas, it's a good start to, again, try to improve. I think everybody wants a better 2021 personally, professionally and across the board. And for those practice owners, the resources on our website are fantastic.

Casey Hiers:
And listen, there's no shame in areas to improve in and I always summarize problem areas that a lot of practice owners have. Don't be embarrassed if your insurance adjustments are super high or you're just frustrated in general. You're not alone. Poor tax management, unfortunately that reveals itself later in the year when it can be too late. Practice account balances, if there's no strategy around that you're being taken for a ride. That's stressful and again, you're not alone. So many practice owners have that. Income structure, if you're skipping checks, taking what's left over, that's a problem area, fix it. Lack of retirement savings, same thing. A piece mailed approach, Jarrod, what that is a lot of practice owners have a lot of professionals helping them, but all separate, all in different areas of the-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay. So they're not all connected. Let's say Tim, my accountant guy is not talking to Jerry, my financial planner and they're not working together. Okay.

Casey Hiers:
That's a perfect example and so they piece mail everything within the practice. And that's with what we do, but also areas we don't do. Everything is piece-mailed and then what happens is the practice owner is then responsible for almost everything, figuring it all out, being that hub of the wheel, being the communicator.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
On top of being an employer, a dentist or specialist, having to go through CE things and probably taking care of families and having spouses. And I can see that, I mean, just doing my one job and having two kids, I'm already tired half the time.

Casey Hiers:
That's yeah. Too much practice owner time spent on areas that professional experts should be mastering for them. That's probably one of the biggest problem areas that again, has revealed itself and because 2020 has been somewhat of a struggle for a lot of different professions. And if you own a business, everything's become real. They're starting to realize that if I can correct it, let's correct it. Egos are down, let's be effective. Let's do it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I like the part where you pointed out that there's always some area in your life, in your work or relationships that probably do need some work. And I'm the kind of person that I'm not afraid to admit I always want to learn more. I always want to work on more things and there are some things that just aren't for me. And I would rather have someone take care of that for me than be like, this is just not in my wheelhouse. I'd rather focus on my passion.

Casey Hiers:
And Jarrod with all the kind of negativity with 2020, there's a scarcity mindset and there's an abundance mindset. And I'll tell you, if you have an abundance mindset that helps somebody gain balance and when you have a good balance that helps prevent regret. And so many times people are feeling so dejected from this year or from a failure or two that it can become overwhelming. But again, realizing that there is better out there and that balance is so important, I think that's it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean, I get that. That's what I'd tell myself every day in high school when I got rejected for dates.

Casey Hiers:
Abundance, that's right. That abundance mindset. I understand. And just having courage over comfort, choosing right over what's fun, fast or easy. And so many times practice owners, because there are so busy, so many balls in the air, they're just trying to get through it. And so they try to just whatever's kind of fast and easy fix, and they've got to move on instead of finding the right fix.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No and I get that because I mean, that's almost a point I feel like in our society in general now too, everything is so instantaneous. And now where I feel like we don't spend as much time playing the long game or attempting to anyways.

Casey Hiers:
Instant gratification, that's what everybody's looking for.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. Who doesn't want to just get a scratch off and win $5 million.

Casey Hiers:
Sure.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Instead of hiring Four Quadrants to help you retire as a multimillionaire.

Casey Hiers:
No, I like it. As you have improved the resources on our website, even though you are looking at it from a what will attract the masses and viewership, you've also learned a lot. And you've learned that folks that have systems and processes, have professionals that handle those things that we can be expert in, it propels folks. And we almost say that if we can't help improve somebody's net worth by $5 million by the end of their career, we might not take them on as a client. That's the level of accountability and results that we expect. And so-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Which is crazy. I would take that right now.

Casey Hiers:
And as a newer employee, you're like, I don't understand why if there's 200,000 dentists in the country, why are they all not clients of ours, right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
And again, there's a lot of psychology and a lot of things that come down to it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, it's just because knowing who runs the company and who... Our employees and all the hard work they do and what they end and what great people we have here. It's just, it's a fascinating company to work for and if I knew more dentists, I'd be talking their ears off.

Casey Hiers:
Very good. Jarrod, anything to wrap us up in terms of a 2020 wrap-up?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I think the only thing I would... Actually, I want to ask you something. If you pick any kind of a resolution for yourself for 2021, what would you pick?

Casey Hiers:
Any resolution? I try not to worry, yet I find myself worrying and I just had a conversation with my dad and he said, "A lot of the things people end up worrying about, most of them don't happen and if and when they do, they're typically not as bad as you were worried about them being." And so hearing that advice and working to implement it daily, it's still challenging, it's still very hard, but I need to put it into practice instead of simply professing, I think is probably the best thing for me.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's really good, mine was just to lose weight. But here's my challenge to our listeners out there. For 2021 make it a resolution to give us a call. Let us see if we can work with you. Let's see what we can do to help you. All right. Just give us a call or visit our website. And hey, I'm really excited. After this we're going to be taking a short hiatus until after the new year and I will be a quasi permanent co-host.

Casey Hiers:
I was going to say and let's put on some of our greatest hits over the break too, but yeah Jarrod, well done. I appreciate you joining and we'll do this again.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
All right. Have a good holiday, everybody.

Announcer:
That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great information. And thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in. The Millionaire Dentist podcast is brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. To see if they might be a good fit for you and your practice, go on over to fourquadrantsadvisory.com and see why year after year, they retain over 95% of their clients. Thank you again for joining us and we'll see you next time.