THE MILLIONAIRE DENTIST PODCAST

EPISODE 44 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 back at it again. Today I've asked Dr. David Salomons to join our podcast. David practices in Binghamton, New York and has agreed to join us today. David, how are you doing this fine day?

Dr. David Salomons:
I'm doing real good, Casey. It's a pleasure to be on with you today.

Casey Hiers:
For our listeners, David, your story, it's just too good not to share. And I wanted our listeners to have a chance to hear it. And for those out there who have been maybe thrown a curve ball and had to adapt or things didn't maybe turn out quite how you planned, I think you're going to appreciate David's story. But first David, I always like to know briefly tell us why did you want to be a dentist in the first place? Why did you get into dentistry?

Dr. David Salomons:
Ooh, that's a good question. I actually didn't know I wanted to be a dentist till my senior year of college. I was actually pre-med and this was 1988 and senior year and I'm going pre-med and I'm looking at the landscape of the medical field at that time with what the insurance companies were doing to it and then looking at my life and I decided, you know what? I just don't want to be in school for another 12 plus years and then come out and have to work under these environment. I kind of always liked dentistry, but never really thought that's what I was going to end up until I started looking at everything and said, "I still want to be in the healthcare field. I still want to help people and this kind of checks all those boxes off for me." And I was very fortunate at that point then when I applied to get into schools and go on from there.

Casey Hiers:
Nice. I appreciate you sharing that with us. I just, I always like to know why people want to get into dentistry, but let's just jump into, David, tell our listeners about the practice that you bought into, a little bit of the history of it and then how things changed, if you will.

Dr. David Salomons:
Sure. Absolutely. I graduated dental school 1992 and my goal was always to join a group practice. I figured, why do I want to reinvent the wheel? Why not go somewhere that's been successful and learn from them? That's what I did. I joined a practice that actually been around since the 1950s and had been a group practice since the early sixties. Multiple partners in and out due to retirement and they were very successful. I said, "Great." I was fortunate that they offered me a position as an associate and then four years later, I became a partner. That was 1996. Fast forward to 2018, we've gone, when I was the junior partner, so to speak or the youngest partner, I was now the second oldest and my oldest partner was getting ready to retire or stop being a partner and he was going to work couple days a week as an associate. And the gentleman we had brought in was now the younger partner, was recently disabled, unfortunately.

Dr. David Salomons:
I'm now facing a little crisis in our practice at the end of 2018. We're going from a three man doctor practice to a doctor who's going to work two days a week and a doctor who's disabled, myself and a new associate that we brought on. And we kind of every year we'd be successful and we sit there and say, "Don't know how we did it, but hey, we had a great year. Let's keep moving forward." And looking at the landscape, I did not want that anymore. Entering January of 2019, I was looking at the prospects of myself as being the only partner, paying out two partners, one due to retirement, one to disability and then also having a new associate who were very much loved and was doing a great job, but still very green and not learning as he went. And then trying to figure out, how am I going to maintain this practice? How are we going to be successful? And how am I going to afford both these buyouts?

Casey Hiers:
Well and the onus was really on you at that point because most of the decisions, nonclinical, everything was rolling up to you at that point. And that was new.

Dr. David Salomons:
Correct. Correct. We used to do things as a group. It wasn't like, oh, I'm the senior partner. I make all the decisions. We had a very equal relation. If you were a partner for two weeks or 20 years, you had an equal voice as a partner but I was the only partner so everything was up to me. It was a matter of hiring, firing, raises, no raises, every little thing, what do we do? And that was my position at that point.

Casey Hiers:
And that was part of the reason why you liked the idea of a group practice.

Dr. David Salomons:
Correct.

Casey Hiers:
So that the onus of all of the business side of dentistry and all those decisions, there was some precedent to use. There was other opinions to use and then boom, it's all you. And that's a big mindset after practicing a certain way for 22 years.

Dr. David Salomons:
Correct. Correct. Yes. If I wanted that, I would have been a sole practitioner.

Casey Hiers:
Right. Right. Talk about some of the decisions you were making and that you realized you're going to have to do something. You're going to have to figure something out. Talk about some of those decisions that as they came across your desk, for lack of a better word, you just puckered a little bit.

Dr. David Salomons:
Well, I guess the different answer that would be knowing where I was in January of 2019, I always go to the Yankee Dental conference in Boston. And I went to school, undergrad in Boston. I like the conference and I made it a point knowing what I was doing at that point, every class I took, I try to do a theme each year, whether it's restorative or implants or endo or practice management or things like that. I said, "You know what? I'm going to do business only classes." Because they don't teach you how to run a business in dental school. They teach you how to do dentistry, but we're not business people. We hire our accountants, we hire our financial advisors and we count on them.

Dr. David Salomons:
But what I was finding, as much as I love my people, it was my accountants were great, but it'd be like, okay, you have this money at the end of the year. What do we do? Well, no, what do you want to do? It's like, they're supposed to be telling me that I'm not supposed to be telling them that. That's where I was. And so everything I did at the Yankee that year was to learn more about business and figure things out.

Casey Hiers:
Well that's a good strategy, try to enrich yourselves in areas that you feel like you need help with. And yeah, that's the Yankee Dental Congress, what a great resource, what a great meeting. And you were at that crossroads and you were seeking out, is there a better way? Because your practice, you had mentioned, for 50 years, they did things the same way. And so you were unsure, is this the best way? Or is there a better way?

Dr. David Salomons:
Correct. Correct. Yeah, so I just wanted some help.

Casey Hiers:
Talk about, we're at the Yankee Dental Congress and you're taking these classes and you hear about how a practice owner needs to master the business side of dentistry and you start hearing some different strategies and things of that nature. and I guess we can jump ahead a little bit since that Yankee meeting and since you really had a focus on the business side and learning, getting better and putting really you and your practice in the best position, talk about what's transpired since that meeting. You go from group practice for 22 years, one guy's retiring, one guy gets unexpectedly disabled, boom, it's on you. You go seek out as much education as you can. Then talk to us here what's happened the last couple years.

Dr. David Salomons:
Okay. Well, so coming from the Yankee, just a little bit more on that, I saw a bunch of different people and obviously saw a presentation by yourself and Four Quadrants. Of all the things I saw, that's the one that most intrigued me. Reached out, we had conversations, we moved forward with everything. And again, it's one of those things where, you know what you know, you know what you don't, and you don't know what you don't know. And the reason that I, for lack of a better word, joined forces with Four Quadrants Advisory, hired Four Quadrants Advisory, however the right phrase is, is conversations I had with a couple of people. One is my oldest partner who was retired, who had retired and was just an associate, very left brain, very analytical, very it takes him seven hours to decide to make a decision on what to have for breakfast, so to speak.

Dr. David Salomons:
And he was still my partner for 20 plus years. I still like talking to him and just getting insight. And his response was, "Really? I've always thought about something like that and having that in our practice." I was like, "Okay." And then I talked to a friend of mine, who's a managing partner at a law firm and he's like, "Anything you can do that lets you just do dentistry, that's a good thing." And that kind of hit the nail on the head and said, "Yeah, that makes sense." We as dentists don't know what we don't know so let somebody who knows what they know, do that and let us just do dentistry and run our practice, handle our staff and things like that. But the other parts of it, we don't know so let somebody else do that so I can go in every day and just do dentistry and run my practice. That was kind of what got me to say, "I want to join forces with these people." Hence I think it was May, June of 2019, we joined forces.

Casey Hiers:
Talk about real quick, how hard is it to something you're comfortable, doing the same thing? How hard was it to change for you specifically around this?

Dr. David Salomons:
For me, extremely hard. I am, as my wife would say, a very controlling hands on person. I like to have my hands in, I don't want to say it and everything, but I like to know what's going on. It's my practice or it's the partner's practice. And so it's hard, very hard for me to let go of that. As I explained to somebody, you have to be willing to take that step off the cliff and just assume that there's something down there that you're going to step onto and not fall off the cliff. That's how hard it is. Yeah, the answer to that is it's extremely hard, but you have to be willing to make that leap.

Casey Hiers:
Well, and I'll put this in there too, that leap, before making that leap, we definitely do our best to show you on the front end as much detail on how we'll help, but to your point, until someone does it, change is hard. And there's no doubt about it, but if there's a better way, the thing I respected about you so much, if there was a better way, just show me. And I love that attitude. Show me if there's a better way, prove it and then again, it's still hard to like you said, change. I appreciate you sharing that. And then yeah, since then, where I interrupted you there, just tell us what's transpired.

Dr. David Salomons:
What's transpired since June of 2019? Well, let's see. This is going to take a while, but let's start with the simple stuff. The oldest partner, worked through 2019 then in 2019 and my disabled partner was officially disabled and was out of the practice. The end of 2019, my older partner who had retired, was working as an associate was officially done. It was myself and my associates, there were two of us now. Come to January 2020, we've reached out and we started negotiations with another practice, a solo practitioner about merging or buying his practice. COVID hits. We're kind of moving forward, we see a plan, a change in the future and just like any other practice we get waylaid by COVID. Honestly, I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't for Four Quadrants, because as anybody, any office that went through COVID knows, there were so many unknowns.

Dr. David Salomons:
They had, what loan do I take? What do I apply for? How do I apply for it? What are my numbers? What do I plug in here? All those answers were handled by Four Quadrants. I just had to get the information from them and plug it in. It was like a plug and play type of thing. COVID hit and we came out of COVID probably at the best situation we could come out of. Necessary loans that we needed to get the PPP, the ITA loans, the CARE Act grant. We got as much as we could through all the sources we could that our practice was still very solvent going in or when we came out. That was great. Once that ended, we were back in negotiations with buying this practice. Not only did Four Quadrants help with the valuation of this practice, looking at all the numbers and the negotiations for the buyout, they also talked to the banks and got us an unbelievable interest rate for the buyout.

Dr. David Salomons:
And on top of that, we negotiated with my ex two partners because again, the way things had always been done is the practice buys out the ex two, kind of through the practice, through the person buying them out. But we're like, why do that? Why not just get a loan from the bank, pay them out completely? We also negotiated a complete buyout of them through the bank, at the great interest rate, even a lower interest rate than I was already paying them at.

Dr. David Salomons:
Fast forward, what has Four Quads done with me in 2020? Well, it's a laundry list, got me through COVID, my practice is in a much better position than it was before COVID, negotiated a merger with another office where our our production now is over a $100,000 a month more than what it was prior to the merger, bought out my ex-partners at a better payoff rate. They get the same money, but it's a better financial arrangement for me through the payouts so my cash flow is better. And set me up with my associate, who is a great person and I want it to be a partner and set him up in a position where either the end of this year or next year, he can now become a partner and be successful at that too. Every penny that I paid Four Quadrants has been absolutely worth it.

Casey Hiers:
Well and I love that. In a time when people are just trying to survive, you were able to thrive and really achieve more than you thought you could. But you were open to it. You were open to proactive advice, prove it to me and I think I love that. For your peers out there, David, who face adversity or wonder if there's a better way or even some drastic changes like you experienced, what advice do you have for your peers out there who go through adversity, go through change, or just simply wonder, is there a better way?

Dr. David Salomons:
Oh, well the first thing is we all go through adversity. Don't be alarmed if you have some adversity in your practice. We all got to go through it. That's part of business. Talk to anybody who owns any type of business out there, there's adversity. I think it's how you handle it. You have to be willing to go out there and search for the right people that are going to lead you to success and make you successful. If anything I ever watch, whether I watch Shark Tank or something like that, you listen to these people who have all this business knowledge and I just go, oh yeah, that makes sense. I never thought of it that way. Find somebody who knows more than you in a category and let them help you. You don't have to do it all yourself.

Casey Hiers:
Well, and it takes someone with the self assurance that their ego doesn't take a hit with that. And again, for the right people. And I love what you just said, areas that maybe you're not schooled in or the most proficient in, find people who are, surround yourself with them, that really does lead to success. But a lot of people, their ego can't do it sometimes or it's just the idea of change and so they just kick the can down the road. But what I hope our listeners hear is you were dealt a unique situation in a short period of time and you kind of had to make a decision. Are you going to fold? Or are you going to get out there and do it? And I commend you for doing that. Appreciate you being on this podcast and any parting shots you have for our listeners out there, David?

Dr. David Salomons:
Parting shots, the first thing is good luck with everything you do. We're in a great profession. We're in a great time to be a dentist. We have some challenges with COVID-19 going on, but I think our profession is in the best spot it could be in. That being said, put yourself and your practice and the other thing that we haven't really touched on, your financial, personal financial success in the experts. The one thing we didn't touch on is that my wife and I are now in a position, even though we've only been with you for a year or so, we have an idea of retirement. I never had that before. It was like, well, what do I need to live on? What I need to retire on?

Dr. David Salomons:
Nobody could give me that answer. And with Four Quadrants Advisory, nothing's guaranteed obviously, but I have a much better idea that I could sit there and say, "I'm looking at a six to seven year window right now. Before, I didn't know. It was an abstract number. Now it's a tangible number that we have a goal to reach." Don't delay. The longer you delay, if I had found Four Quadrants 10 years ago, I'd probably be retired now and I'm only 54. Don't delay making decisions that will help you and your practice in the future.

Casey Hiers:
David, I think that's a great place to leave it. I want to thank you for joining us on today's podcast and be well, my friend.

Dr. David Salomons:
Thank you. I appreciate it. And send my best to everybody.

Casey Hiers:
Will do.

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.