While every business and practice may have some issues, some are harder than others to admit. Casey and Jarrod discuss 7 of the biggest things that practice owners have a hard time admitting to themselves.
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 back at the Millionaire Dentist Podcast in-studio with co-host Jarrod Bridgeman. How are we, sir?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Good. How are you?
Casey Hiers:
Thriving.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Sounds like it.
Casey Hiers:
I was going to pivot in the comedy and then I just said it and looked at you laughing.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, that's all right. So, here's the deal. Last week we had mentioned Jeff Foxworthy and came up with a topic and I think that went well with that. I started thinking about other fun, just comedy bits we can text each other and stuff on the weekends. I started thinking about George Carlin from way back in the day.
Casey Hiers:
Old school.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Old school. I know him as Rufus from the Bill & Ted movies. I grew up watching those. I even have a Bill &Ted poster at my house, but he became quite famous as a standup comic and he was very well known for his bit of seven things you can never say on TV. These seven words, five of them, I still would not feel comfortable saying on air. The other three, one of them I'll toe the line and say this. Okay, there you go. There's one of them.
Casey Hiers:
That's weak.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's weak, but you know of at least two of them.
Casey Hiers:
Well, two start with C. As I went through the list, a couple surprised me. Two start with C.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, but it made me think about a little bit was how much comedy has changed, how much we allow and don't allow on TV anymore. Some of it depends on Netflix, some of it depends on the time of day. But even that led into, oh, what are seven things that a dentist can't even say to themselves or admit to themselves? Are there seven words or seven phrases that's just...
Casey Hiers:
I'm with you.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
Here's a recommendation just as a little off-topic, but I watched a movie called The Gentleman.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay.
Casey Hiers:
Matthew McConaughey, Colin Farrell, decent cast. Haven't really heard much about it, buddy recommended it. It's based overseas, but their use of profanity is creative and gentlemanly. Some of the words they use are on this list. Oh, my gosh, but they say them so well and so casually. By the end of the movie, I was like, "I got to be careful I don't go upstairs and say that to my wife or children."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, of course.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
My son did say ass last night and he's four. I was like, "Oh, buddy."
Casey Hiers:
He must have picked that up somewhere. No way he got that from you.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Never. I've never cussed.
Casey Hiers:
All right, so George Carlin and you had a fun fact. The first guest of Saturday Night Live in the mid-'70s ever guest host was...
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, it was George Carlin back in '75.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. I think what, I watched four minutes of this for prep, but George Carlin makes me laugh.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
Even some of his last bits, he was quasi-edgy, but in this politically correct landscape, you can't be funny and the jokers on TV trying to be funny, just really aren't. I mean, I used to stay up and watch Letterman as a kid.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
Got mono because I didn't get enough sleep because I loved Letterman's early work.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.
Casey Hiers:
But I don't really have to stay up to watch them because they're not that funny anymore.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
No, not so much. He was great just because he, kind of like South Park, would say and do to anybody and everyone. It wasn't a, I'm going to attack one group.
Casey Hiers:
Equal opportunist. Yeah. No, it wasn't one-sided one way or the other. All right, so George Carlin. Yeah. So, seven things practice owners can't say to themselves, or quite frankly, how about seven things practice owners don't want to admit?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay.
Casey Hiers:
To themselves. Some of these are fairly clear. Some of them we can get into a little bit, but I'll tell you one I hear a lot is summed up that my income does not reflect all of my hard work. When you talk about what a practice owner has to do, it's not just dentistry. Our listeners know that.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
But they're putting in an incredible amount of clinical hours, CE hours.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Playing HR for their team.
Casey Hiers:
Absolutely. Taxes, P&L, balance sheet, payroll, practice account balances, moving money around, it's robust. Most of them just think, "That's what I have to do." But you know, is your hard work being compensated for? Most of the times, it's not.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
No, because you're again, you bill people for the time spent in the chair, but you're working well outside of office hours.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. You're making minimum wage for some of those other things you're doing.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
How about this? Dentistry is not what I thought it would be. That one's hard for some to admit because they do love the dentistry.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. I mean, what does that mean though, specifically? What did someone think it would be? What did it end up being? Some examples of maybe clients you've talked to.
Casey Hiers:
I'll share what people have told me.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay.
Casey Hiers:
What they mean is, they still like the dentistry. They like helping people, right. There are two or three primary reasons for getting into dentistry. They do enjoy that. But in terms of what they thought it would be, they didn't think it would be this hard.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
They didn't think they would have that feeling of, I am a prestigious Doctor of Dental Surgery, right. I'm a prestigious dentist or specialist, but it's just, it's harder. There's so many more balls in the air that they didn't think they'd have to-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Have to deal with.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, because I can see it being as simple as I get to show up, I get to do my work, pay the rent and go home, and it's never that easy.
Casey Hiers:
Well, what do they say? We're all trying to fill a void with something, right. So, a lot of times go to dental school and you go through these steps and then they look up and they are a good dentist or specialist. They have a beautiful practice. They have good patients. They have a good staff. They all those things and they look at it and they're like, "Huh? This is it? This is it?" There's so much extracurricular outside noise that they have to deal with, and so I get that. Yeah. It's not quite what I thought. I'm still glad I'm in it.
Casey Hiers:
Now, I'll tell you this. Medical doctors and surgeons and they straight up tell younger people, had to do it over again. I would not recommend it. Because now that they're hospital-owned employees.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.
Casey Hiers:
So dentists, in my opinion, dentists still have a very, very great niche occupation situation. But man, there's some tough things that are involved in it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Speaking of the hospital doctors and stuff, that just makes me think about some of the dentists that may accidentally, get into a DSO, and then it's another bad corporate, not imagine what dentistry is.
Casey Hiers:
Well, lack of control, right?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
To your point, I've had surgeons tell me, I didn't think at the end of my career I'd be being told and dictated to by a hospital.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
But they waved that big check in front of me and I signed my soul over apparently, here I am.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
That's a good point. A lot of dentists, they look at that and go, that's a big number. I can still practice a little bit, and what happens is they don't go out on their terms, i.e, dentistry's not quite what they thought it would be.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Speaking of going out on your own terms, I am not saving enough for retirement, right?
Casey Hiers:
That's the dirty little secret in every room full of dentists.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.
Casey Hiers:
The majority are not and again, they can't say it to themselves or they don't want to admit it. I mean the ADA, some of their data, they say that 96% of dentists admit in a survey that they under save for retirement.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And they may-
Casey Hiers:
Sorry, they may actually admit it to themselves, but they don't love it. They don't want to say it. They don't want to say it at their study club.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. They don't say it to anybody anybody else.
Casey Hiers:
Hey Betty, are you undersaving like I am? Hey John, hey Jenny, I'm not saving enough for retirement. You don't hear that a whole lot.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You don't and comparatively, you may be saving more than your neighbor who's the mailman, but are you saving enough for your lifestyle and what you should be saving based on-
Casey Hiers:
A lot of practice owners are probably saving more than an executive they live by.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
Still not enough.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Correct.
Casey Hiers:
Again, what's enough? I don't know, at least a hundred thousand. I mean, we had a specialist that saved $830,000 last year. We had somebody else that saved over $400,000 last year, and their comment was this, "You guys did it for me. I didn't really feel it. You just did it." Right.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You don't have to stress about it.
Casey Hiers:
Versus trying to do it on your own.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right.
Casey Hiers:
It's so hard, but yeah, you're right. That's one of those that they might admit, but it hurts.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Going off of that, you kind of mentioned a little bit, but I'm not saving enough for retirement. I don't even know how much I should be saving.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's that one is tough.
Casey Hiers:
Those are connected, right? Hey, I'm saving 90, is that enough? They don't know, but that's hard to say, right? That's hard for them to say, "Hey, I'm saving 125. Is that enough? I don't know."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
Well, what the problem is, their external team's not telling them they don't actually have a good strategy in place. If you're doing a major procedure in dentistry, you have a game plan. A lot of times for retirement, these folks don't have game plans. They make a fair amount, not enough as they should. They save some, not as much as they should. But they don't have it planned out or gamed out, and so they don't know how much they should be, right.
Casey Hiers:
So, an oral surgeon might be saving a hundred. Well for a GP with a smaller practice, that that would be good. For the oral surgeon, he should be saving more like 250, but he doesn't know that.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
If you don't think you're saving enough if you don't know how much you should be saving, I guess the next thing in line would be, I don't know when I could retire, right?
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, so that's, yes. I don't know when I can retire. Typically, it sounds like this. What's your retirement age goal? And after two minutes of hemming and hawing because they don't really know because nobody's asked them in a direct manner.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
They basically aren't sure, so they say, "Well, I'd like to be able to back off, but I don't know if I'll ever stop." What they're saying many times is... Listen, a small percentage love dentistry so much their last breath is helping a patient.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.
Casey Hiers:
The majority say that because they can't retire, they don't know and so they say, "Well, I'll back off, but I'll still probably practice up until I'm 70. I don't know. I really love it." A small percentage do.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And if you do, that's amazing.
Casey Hiers:
Hey, kudos.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.
Casey Hiers:
But Jarrod, let's be honest. Do these people really want to practice into their seventies? Hell no.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean, I love marketing.
Casey Hiers:
They can't retire.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
But I don't want to be here when I'm 70.
Casey Hiers:
They haven't saved enough money. George Carlin was alive, he did a whole bit on dentist, money, and retirement.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. We'll bring him in for the next conference.
Casey Hiers:
Isn't he dead?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.
Casey Hiers:
I guess a hologram thing.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
I mean that's some technology you'd have to figure out, hologram in George Carlin, get the copyright and all that stuff, and then you got to do his voice.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Sounds like a lot of work.
Casey Hiers:
Here's something that a lot of times a practice owner can't say to themselves, "I sometimes feel overwhelmed. I'm not sure who can help me." A lot of practice owners are some of the smartest people they know. I mean, that's I guess good and bad.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Does that mean maybe they're stuck on a hamster wheel and just can't hop off there?
Casey Hiers:
Yeah.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And feeling overwhelmed. Not only they're running on this hamster wheel, there's people pegging them with rock.
Casey Hiers:
I'm overwhelmed and I'm not sure who can help me because everyone else I'm looking around at, I'm not sure they're any smarter than I am. They're just maybe smarter at different things.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. Right. Again, as we talked about in previous podcasts when you have people out there that do help you in different ways, but none of them are connected or talk with each other, you feel overwhelmed by the fact that you're dealing with several different people, several different pieces of advice.
Casey Hiers:
Here's the last one, and I think it can be hard for a lot of practice owners to say to themselves, it's, "I need some experts to help me." That's hard.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Admitting you need help, in general, is tough.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. I think that's hard. The ones that can do it are the ones that are massively successful. The ones that can't keep trying to sort of figure it out on their own. Unfortunately, they're wasting lot of time, right? I mean, we get people saving, in one year with us, what it would take them on their own given historical data, six, seven or eight years to do, we do it for them in 12 to 18 months.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
We had a client that their retirement savings shot up over 700% in one year.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's insane.
Casey Hiers:
And they were saving an okay amount in terms of the averages.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.
Casey Hiers:
But, yeah, admitting you need some help looking at that.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's the first step I hear.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Admitting you need help.
Casey Hiers:
What are we talking about, is this therapy? What is this?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.
Casey Hiers:
But no, these are just seven. These are serious topics, but they're not necessarily fun. But a little comedy, George Carlin stuff, I like that. You showed me the video. I said, "That guy's old. He's wearing bell-bottoms. What is this?" But his comedy was effective and kind of drew me in. Yeah, great idea.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you. By the way, I did want to mention that we do have some upcoming events, so if you're in the area, we've got ones that I need to look up real fast.
Casey Hiers:
February.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You're going to Boca.
Casey Hiers:
No Boca Vista, no Seinfeld, Boca Raton.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.
Casey Hiers:
Okay.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. March 24th, you're heading to Nashville, Tennessee.
Casey Hiers:
Ooh.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
On March 31st, you'll be in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Casey Hiers:
Okay. Those are nice.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, so if anybody's interested in going, and if you're a practice owner.
Casey Hiers:
A Practice Owner's Guide to the Business Side of Dentistry.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right.
Casey Hiers:
If you want to come have a good meal and hear about an underserved multi-million dollar topic. Now, I always tell people probably eat fast because once I get into the meat of the topic, you're going to lose your appetites. But, you'll be better because of it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. Head to Fourquadrantsadvisory.com/events.
Casey Hiers:
Thanks, Jarrod.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you.
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.
