Are you tired of your external team only telling you what they think you want to hear? Or maybe they don't really give you any answers or advice. Casey and Jarrod discuss what signs may be out there that should influence you to reach out to a new team.
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 joined in studio with co-host Jarrod Bridgeman.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, good morning.
Casey Hiers:
How we doing?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm doing all right. Still rocking this caffeine that I need desperately. How are you feeling?
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. I think I had a little, my latte had a little caffeine in it, but-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Latte. So fancy.
Casey Hiers:
Hey, the sun's out. Feeling good.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
The sun is out. It rain all day yesterday, which was very disappointing.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Extra vitamin B. That's super helpful. We are going to the Iowa Dental Association meeting. We're going to spend some time-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
When is that?
Casey Hiers:
... in the great state of Iowa. End of April, 28th, 29th.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Nice.
Casey Hiers:
Something like that.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You excited to get out to the great state of Iowa?
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, absolutely. We'll get into it today, but the more folks we can visit with and potentially help, the better. And like we always say, we certainly can't help everybody, but for the right fit, we're going to go to Iowa and see if there's some like-minded people who could use some help.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and it'll be nice to continue getting it back out there again after two years of not really being able to go out and do much. It'll be nice to go out and talk to more people and get the landscape again.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, that's a good point. When I was looking through the information, they were like, "Hey, it's our in-person." And we have been spending time in states that have been open for a while, but there are those that these are the first times that they're getting together. And so we want to be there to high-five them.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
It'll be nice.
Casey Hiers:
So heard a quote from a friend of the firm, client of the firm. I wanted to share. And let's talk about it because I think this quote will resonate with a ton of practice owners and probably a lot of our listeners. And it goes like this. "I was so used to effectively being told what I wanted to hear or various versions of nothing."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Whoa. Yeah. I'm going to be honest. I thought you were going to do Casey Kasem, which is fine. And it reads... I should have. But yeah. No, no. I mean that's something that I've heard pop up quite a bit with practice owners.
Casey Hiers:
Well, it's incredible. They are told what they want to hear, not what they need to hear because again, most of the people on their external team are looking at them as the successful dentist or specialist they're doing better than their other clients or customers.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Almost like a piggy bank.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. A little bit. They don't want to upset them. But there's a lot here to unpack, but here's what I wanted to mention. [Denison 00:02:56] specialists clinically are off the charts, right? For the most part, between how serious they take this, the pride they take in their work, the continuing education clinically, all the extra time and training and learning new procedures, they are incredible clinically. But then this quote really sums it all up. When referencing their external team, right, the people that handle their money, their accounting, some of their decision-making, whatever, "I was so used to effectively being told what I wanted to hear or various versions of nothing."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
What would be an example that we can quantify of being told what you want to hear?
Casey Hiers:
Hey, I'm looking at this piece of equipment. It's a couple hundred thousand dollars. What do you think? Well, yeah. Absolutely. I'm sure you'll use that in your practice. Right?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.
Casey Hiers:
It's very shallow. There's not much depth of the conversation. It's a practice owner wanting to speak to maybe his CPA and ask him that or somebody else on that external team, and they're just told. "Yeah, sure."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
It'll be like, "Okay. Yeah. We know you've got that amount in your account," or whatever the case is, and go for it instead of really digging in and seeing what the effect would be.
Casey Hiers:
Right. Here we have much deeper conversations and really, really, really get granular with those things. But most folks are just used to, "Yeah, sure. If you want it, get it." And there's no real analysis. There's no real depth to it. And then the second part, "Or various versions of nothing." And I hear that a lot where practice owners tell me they reach out to their CPA and they ask them some questions, and they don't really get an answer.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. We kind of get the runaround.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. So why do you think so many practice owners excel clinically but settle on the business and financial side of their life? Let's get psychological on this because we hear this and see this all the time. This is... what was I going to say? A pandemic. I mean, this is incredibly common. Why do you think that is?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I think part of it may be just they don't want to rock the boat. They're already in this groove or maybe they don't know any better of that there is better out there than what they're getting, maybe their first and only CPA or external team that they've had.
Casey Hiers:
I find most Denison specialists incredibly nice, and nonconfrontational is probably a descriptive word. Again, broad strokes here. But a lot of Denison specialists are used to dealing with the public and dealing with patients. And for the most part, they're nice people. They're not a trial attorney. Right? They're not used to debating every day. And so they're non-confrontational and so they settle. And they settle.
Casey Hiers:
And they're not thrilled with their accountant, financial planner, business advisor, investment person, consultant, whoever those people are. But they just keep on going until what? Big tax surprise. Big cash flow. Something big is typically a catalyst but-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, let me ask you this. Would another reason be they're running a practice. They're running a business. They are spending all this time having to worry about 1,000,001 things that a lot of dentists on top of their mind is patient care and taking care of their team members, and maybe not so much themselves, taking that ding on themselves.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. No. I think there's some legs to that. But let's put this in reverse. What happened if you're... Let's say you're a dentist and a patient comes to you and mentions something. Maybe a tooth hurts. And you're like, "Your teeth look great, man. Your teeth look great. You have some of the best teeth I've ever seen."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. You don't have a cavity. It's fine.
Casey Hiers:
How often do you floss? Once a week? Cool. Keep doing it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You're supposed to do it once a week?
Casey Hiers:
Effectively, that's what dentists are putting up with on the back end. Right? It's like the patient comes and says a little bit, and the dentist just tells them, "Hey, you're all good. You're all good. We're just going to do a few things." And again, that's laughable.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
The pain of not having money in your wallet, it's not the same as a tooth pain, but it'll still hurt.
Casey Hiers:
Well, if you have $600,000 in your practice account and you get a stroke of $50,000 additional tax surprise because your accountant didn't do anything more than just a safe harbor estimate, that hurts. But if you got 600,000 in your account, you can deal with it, but you don't like it. And so I think that's the difference. But that analogy, again, while laughable, as a patient, I don't want a dentist to tell me just what I think I want to hear. I want him to tell me, "Hey, you've got some issues here. If you don't take care of this over the three years or two years, you're going to lose bone. You're going to lose your tooth." Whatever that looks like. I might not want to hear it, but I'm going to you as the expert to tell me that.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. And luckily, a lot of dentists have a nice bedside manner.
Casey Hiers:
Oh yeah. The dentist used to be oh, so scary. It hasn't been scary in decades. These dentist offices are beautiful.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's not little shop.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. What channel do you want to watch?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Do have some sunglasses?
Casey Hiers:
What color of sunglasses?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm telling you right now, my son who's four loves going to the dentist. He sits in the chair all by himself and he likes to wear the big goofy sunglasses and get his little toy treat afterwards.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. It's not scary anymore.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
The scary part I would say is always the fear of the unknown. And so that really plays into, I feel like, the dentist and sticking with their external team. They're afraid of, if they change it up, it may get worse. Right?
Casey Hiers:
Yep. Well, and to continue with this analogy, right? They tell their patients, "Hey, you should brush a couple of times a day. You need to floss. You need to maybe use some mouthwash here, some technique here." We actually brush and floss for our clients. We're actually doing those things. But yeah, it's a topic that blows my mind because I keep hearing it, the uncertainty or the poor standard of care that so many practice owners have around the business or finance of their practice. And I know this because when I go speak on this topic, people are waiting with bated breath because they don't get this topic hit very much, especially from a comprehensive standpoint.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And we're talking potentially millions of dollars over the course of a career, right?
Casey Hiers:
Millions and millions and millions of dollars. We see it all the time. Being able to double net worth, go from 7 to 14, go from 4 to 10, whatever that looks like. It's-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean, we have a client that increased his ability to retire by about eight times in the first year. That's insane.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. And they look at each other and go, "It wasn't that hard because you all did it for us." But yeah. This quote that we're basing this around, it is so simple, but it is so telling and why practice owners put up with just being told what they want to hear or not really getting much advice or proactive advice at all, why folks settle for that is unbelievable. And again, we can't help everybody. This isn't about coming here. Sure, call us if you want some help. We'll certainly shoot you straight. But if you're in podcast land challenge your existing team, right? Don't settle for this.
Casey Hiers:
And I get on my soapbox when I present because I do get fired up because I hear and see this from practice owners who they're like, "Well, we thought we were doing just fine." Compared to what? And then you look at things and you're going, "You're leaving so much money on the table and you're getting such a poor standard of care." And unfortunately, it takes something like a big wake-up call for people to make change because like you said, they're busy enough. Change is hard. Change is unknown. But at minimum, challenge your own team to start talking and start doing something.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean, all it takes is a phone call. Pick up the phone.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. I mean, I'm talking to practice owners all the time and trying to understand what's going on with them and can we get you better? What's that look like? But yeah, I was so used to effectively being told what I wanted to hear or various versions of nothing. That is a successful person who thankfully on the front end of their career in dentistry said, "No, it's not good enough." It's not good enough, right? Having enough swagger to say, "No, this doesn't feel right. I'm not just going to put my head down and let this be."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
No, because now he can retire when he wants.
Casey Hiers:
Financial freedom's a glorious thing.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right.
Casey Hiers:
I just wanted to bring that up because we see it so often. Again, great clinically, ignore the business side, or it's the poor standard of care, a standard of care that the dentist shouldn't accept. And so again, it's okay to be a little confrontational with people that you're paying. And if they're not doing the right things, they need to be the hub of the wheel. They need to be proactive. They need to bring things to your attention.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. Feel free to pull Cobra Kai and beat somebody if you need to. We don't condone violence.
Casey Hiers:
We're not condoning violence. Nice Karate Kid reference.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you.
Casey Hiers:
Is there another event you want to promote?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I know we are coming to several places. We're going to be in Las Vegas in May, which will be nice. That's a couple of weeks away. We are also going to be showing up in Salt Lake City, which I have never been to personally, and I'd love to go. So if you want to take me along, that'd be cool. And then we'll be in Omaha, Nebraska.
Casey Hiers:
Omaha.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right.
Casey Hiers:
Peyton Manning will not be there, but Omaha.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
He might be. We're not inviting him, but he might be hanging out.
Casey Hiers:
Great.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
All right.
Casey Hiers:
Thank you.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thanks, Casey.
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.
