Casey and Jarrod dive into more detail with what areas our complimentary assessment covers. In this first part, they talk about three of the 8 options available: Business Consulting, Tax Planning and Accounting, and Financial Planning.
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 Jared Bridgeman.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, how are you?
Casey Hiers:
Doing well. How about yourself?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Doing well.
Casey Hiers:
What do you want to talk about today, pal?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
This was a few weeks ago, but we had talked about how we launched our free practice financial assessment, and with that we have a lot of options for people to go in and kind of choose from. I thought it's time for us to, Let's dive into a few of those so we can further explain this.
Casey Hiers:
I like it. Makes sense. Yeah. I mean, as many practice owners know, there are dozens and dozens of pitfalls and areas that can really hinder a practice owner from massive success and revenue. But our firm solves those for our clients, but for our listeners maybe who don't work with us, we offer eight. You get to pick one.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Correct.
Casey Hiers:
Okay, well let's tackle two or three of these and just kind of explain what, what, and the why.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
There is one, I really thought it sounds really interesting and what I think a lot of people will choose, but it's also kind of ambiguous of what it might actually be. I kind of wanted to start with talking about the first option. Business consulting. Yeah. So what does that mean? What does that encompass?
Casey Hiers:
One of the big differentiators here at Four Quadrants Advisory is our clients don't just bring us their taxes, bring us their hard-earned money, or their goals for us to plan, advise, or do taxes for. We actually go find money. What that means is we are going in the practice and we're helping look at it in totality and all of the questions that practice owners have. Should I add an insurance? Should I drop an insurance? Should I have another operatory? Should I do a build out? Do I need an associate? Should I learn more procedures? Are my fees off? How is my business model? What's the future? All these questions that practice owners have to go on instinct on. We look at it in totality with a lot of data and advise on what those headwinds would be, what each option or decision would mean for them. Bottom line is more money. That's what it means. It means fixing things in the practice to capture more so that then you have options of what to do with it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So you would say a lot of that is already working with things with that's already in there in the practice?
Casey Hiers:
A lot of times people will come to us and say, "Listen, I'm in network with a whole bunch of insurances. I'm booked out three or four weeks. I have a ton of patients per day. I don't get to spend much time with them. I don't love my case acceptance." There's so many factors that are interwoven and that this is just one little example.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So then what we do is we'll take a look at those PPO plans and find the one and the best way to drop it without killing the practice, right?
Casey Hiers:
That is a very high-level correct statement. Yeah, there's a lot that goes into it, but it's understanding that. But yeah, that business consulting. It's listen, I've got this million dollar, 2 million practice, how can I best serve my patients, my staff, and my team, and as important or more yourself to make sure you're getting everything out of it. That's ultimately what we do. It's incredible how many practice owners that just get their day-to-day and they're going through the motions and they're not sure. Am I maximizing my profitability and am I making good decisions? Some they, they're not and it's hard to unwind from it. But we look at that and really have a clear path that we lead them on. We can't put the onus on clients to have to do this, but certainly business consulting is all about getting that practice to pay you more money.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Which is obviously good because again, it's already things that are happening in your practice and finding ways to get that extra, that extra dollar.
Casey Hiers:
But yeah, I mean, folks get into dentistry for a variety of reasons, but ultimately when they're in that practice every day, they'd probably like to maximize it and have the most, get the fruit.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean even the most altruistic dentist who still needs to take care of bills and take care of themselves.
Casey Hiers:
[inaudible 00:04:15] altruistic, I mean look at the big brains on Jared the day. I love it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's Monday. I have my juicer.
Casey Hiers:
Had your brain food today?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I did after a weekend of eating garbage. Yes.
Casey Hiers:
But no, that's a big one. Business consulting, to your point, it is broad, but in dentistry, think about how many decisions and practice owners don't know whether to zig or to zag with them and what the good or what the fallout might be.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, because they're in the trees and not looking at the bigger picture of the woods of the whole situation.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. The forest and trees analogy. Yeah. They're standing there looking at a beautiful tree in front of them. They don't know which way to go sometimes, nor should they. So again, that's a really nice one. Ironically, once you start to get the blocking and tackling and systems and processes in place and really maximizing the business model that you want, well then it's a domino effect. How's it going to affect your tax situation?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So that's another one of our options, right?
Casey Hiers:
That's right.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. So let me ask you, this is, some of these other ones are much more zeroed in on things. So with tax planning, tax management, and that kind of stuff, how does our assessment look at that?
Casey Hiers:
So it's really simple. We're going to, again, look at some data. Anybody that does our complimentary practice financial assessment, they sign our privacy principles document, what we deal with is ...
Jarrod Bridgeman:
They'll have to submit some paperwork.
Casey Hiers:
We got to look at data. Absolutely. So ultimately that's looking at taxes and year-to-date financials and things of that nature to get a feel for it. Unfortunately, when we do this, we're just another set of eyes that's offering some complimentary advice. We'll tell people things that they are unaware of from entities who we are actually paying to do this work or we find issues. We find shareholder loans on the balance sheet. We find that they're, and ...
Jarrod Bridgeman:
A lot of times shareholder loans may be a big surprise for the owner.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Most don't know. Sometimes we go, "Hey, I hope you've talked to your CPA because you're going to have a pretty big tax surprise the next time you talk to them." But ultimately it's looking at information and data again and understanding from a tax perspective, are they set up correctly there? There's a lot of things we'll find in there.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
A lot of that stems from the fact that we're also a, we're proactive with our taxes here. So when we dive into things, we'll see, oh, with the PPP money, there was some steps you should have taken to not have to pay all that back. There's a lot that as one example off the top of my head. But there are a lot of things that come up tax-wise that a non-dental specific CPA may not catch.
Casey Hiers:
You're exactly right, and being proactive is what prevents shareholder loans from being put on the balance sheet because we've talked about this before, counting firms can be lazy rather than have a big tax bill, we'll just create a shareholder loan and no one's the wiser and we'll fix it later. But that's what happens when you have a poor standard of care. It's incredible how many practice owners provide great dentistry, have a good standard of care for their patients, but then what they get in return ...
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Don't return the same.
Casey Hiers:
... is a very basic level. I just spoke with somebody this morning and $1.6 million practice. There's a lot of good things to husband's a GP, the wife is a pediatric dentist and she's like, "Our financials are two or three months behind. Constant staff turnover. It's a mess."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
But they make good money. They bring in good money to the practice, right?
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. I mean, without looking at data yet, I mean there's a lot there, but they are realizing we're not getting the level of service that we provide to our own patients. So why should we accept this from somebody else? We're going to go out and try to find the best of the best ultimately.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So you can bring in a million dollars in collections, but if you're spending 900 K out the door, those numbers, the million sounds great until you realize how much is leaving.
Casey Hiers:
It's not necessarily how much you produce or collect, but it's okay, well what else? You can produce $3 million in dentistry and have 84% overhead and get smoked with tax surprises and your heavy insurance. I mean, that's a tough place to be because people in the community think you're a massively successful and wealthy dentist and it's a house of cards financially. Again, that's looking at business model and understanding. If my goal is 10 million at retirement, how do I get there? Here's my practice. Go. We look at that and reverse engineer it and can understand what they want. Now with the complimentary assessment, again, you only get to pick one, but that business consulting, like you said, that's that. That's the cash cow. That's where it's all coming from. Then once you get that streamlined, then you're going to have tax frustrations. But in this case, so many folks are going to have tax ... have a meeting this month with their tax people and they're going to be pissed.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Let's say we're doing okay business consulting wise, we think, let's say we're doing okay we think with taxes. When it comes to let's say our finances and planning for that, we have an option for that as?
Casey Hiers:
Well, like I said, you think because so many practice owners, they don't actually know when they're honest with us, and we get pretty honest with folks we talk to. It's all highly confidential, but they don't really know. They do think. But yeah, the whole thing is then the financial planning, the personal financial planning. This shouldn't be in a vacuum. If you're getting advice on your practice and you're getting help from a CPA, well what gets left? Well, the personal financial planning, well, that's kind of important for a practice owner who's with the school for longer, who's taken on risk, buying a practice, who has more debt, you need to reap the benefits. So many of them are not. Their personal financial plan is nonexistent. How do I know that? Because we always ask for that from practice owners who are going through our process and seven out of 10 don't really have a formalized financial plan.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean what do we say people should be saving for retirement a year?
Casey Hiers:
If you're collecting a million dollars, a hundred thousand. I mean, we have practice owners saving $200,000-$300,000 a year, right? That's 401k, that's profit share, that's brokerage. There's many vehicles for that. But yeah, if you're a million-dollar practice and you're not saving six figures, well again, why?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
What are some of the questions and answers that could come from, let's say, especially the personal or family financial planning there? What are some of the things in the history you've seen in our company that questions come up about?
Casey Hiers:
About what?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Personal financial planning?
Casey Hiers:
Well, a lot of them, the questions are, they don't have one. They don't know when they can retire. They don't know how much they need to retire. They don't know what it looks like. But that safety net of selling the practice or, "Well, I'm always a dentist. I can still work two days a week as an associate," they use that as almost their excuse, safety net rationale for ignorance and not ignorance in an insulting way, but they don't know the answers to a lot of their financial plan. They don't know how much they spend a year. They don't know how much they don't know these numbers. We know that because really, really successful people go through our process. When we get into the nitty-gritty, nobody else has done this with them. We do. We hear it and they tell us, "Wow, nobody showed us this."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Especially when they start doing things like buying a big new house or a nice new sports car, they end up underwater.
Casey Hiers:
Lots of those examples. I mean, the calls we love from our clients are, "Hey, I'm looking to make this fun purchase. How will this affect me?" So instead of being the person that just either does it or doesn't do it for our clients, you have a team that helps you make that decision. So when you're driving around in your dream car or building your dream home, you can actually feel good about it because you have a financial plan. Your tax situation is in control. You're from a business strategic practice advice perspective. You're on point. You know your business model, and you know what it's going to take to get your overhead where you want it to go and the money you're going to make. It's all the uncertainty is gone. Right. It's insane how many practice owners are out there and they have so much uncertainty around so much of this.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
What would you say to somebody that's on the fence right now listening to this call, listening to this call, listening to this podcast? What would you say to them to say, just fill out quick form and schedule a call?
Casey Hiers:
Well, for the practice financial assessment, it just comes down to people get offers all the time. I mean, I do. You do. It's understanding what it is. This offer is incredible. So if people understand it and they'll sign all privacy principles and submit the data and we'll have a call, they're going to get an incredible amount of free information.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
We make it easy ... as easy as possible.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. I mean, for this offering, it's incredible not to. But again, people get offers all the time. What are the strings attached? There are no strings attached except that we have a discovery call for 15 minutes. You submit data that we need, and then we have a review call to tell you here's what we're seeing. Ultimately, if it is something that aligns with our firm and what we look for, the offer would be, we would love you to engage in our full vetting process to see if we can help you in a comprehensive manner, not just in one way. Most of the time they say, "You have shown me and told me more with a couple pieces of data than my team has showed me in years or decades." So it's a natural move. That's the only string is a consideration. But we might not want to work with half the people that we're offering this to as well.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, we're still giving you the advice.
Casey Hiers:
We're still going to give the complimentary advice because that's what our founder and CEO has said, "I want to do this in the dental community because it's so needed." People are so derelict in some of these topics. So we're what we're offering.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Casey, for our next podcast in about a week or so, we will go over a few more of these options and kind of explain those as well. I want to let everybody know if you are interested in signing up for our complimentary financial assessment, please go to fourquadrantsadvisory.com/assessment. That's fourquadrantsadvisory.com/assessment. We will be in Colorado spring soon for Top Golf. Top Golf event where we can teach people how to find better cash flow strategies, which will be exciting. Then we're also coming to Charlotte in December as well. Casey, are you excited about Colorado and Charlotte?
Casey Hiers:
Absolutely. Yeah. I love ... Top Golf is a blast. I love presenting on from a high level on the business side of dentistry and typically people are having a lot of fun and enjoying themselves.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
It'll be fun. There'll be food. There'll be some drinks there, and even if you don't like golf or if you're not good at it, just go out there and give it a shot anyways. Or you know what, you can just come and hang out. You don't have to.
Casey Hiers:
I was going to say about a third of the people just sit on the couch and then ...
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Which is fine.
Casey Hiers:
... eat, drink, and are therefore more for this, for the subject matter, which I love because to me, that's why you should come. top Golf's fun too.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So it's a nice bonus.
Casey Hiers:
Let's go whack the ball around.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
All right, 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. 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.
