Join Casey and Jarrod as they explore how the geographical location of a dental practice can impact the daily challenges. From urban settings to rural areas, discover how the characteristics of each location can influence the way dentists run their practices and interact with their patients.
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, looking dapper.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, you too. It's a sharp-looking suit you gut there on.
Casey Hiers:
Likewise.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you.
Casey Hiers:
Pocket square, it really makes it pop.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm not going to lie, pocket squares are the biggest gouge I've ever seen. It's a little piece of fabric and it's like 30 bucks. I mean, I got this on clearance for like $2.50, but $30 up front, I can go to the fabric store and make my own.
Casey Hiers:
You're an emotional guy, though. If you start getting emotional, you got something to wipe your tears away.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right, when I get sad.
Casey Hiers:
Tears of joy.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh yeah, that's what I meant. Casey, you were not here for last week's podcast. I would like to chalk it up to you just being lazy and not showing up, but it turns out you were out and about. You went to both Chicago and Tucson.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, I've been to some fun areas, met some great practice owners, was able to share some good continuing education on the challenging part of dentistry, and it was a lot of fun. Tucson's weather was better.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I was going to ask, how was the opposite ends of the spectrum for weather?
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, I stayed in Scottsdale and drove in and out of Tucson and the Valley of the Sun, it was 60, it wasn't South Florida.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Cold for them.
Casey Hiers:
But yeah, they were wearing winter coats. But, man...
Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's 19 degrees here right now, by the way.
Casey Hiers:
Oh, I about slipped and fell on some slippery stuff, but my core strength just really came through.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I've been, I was really worried about your hip.
Casey Hiers:
Oh, I did go to the chiropractor yesterday. Anyway. No, that sun is so great. I mean, just vitamin D deficiency in the winters a real thing, and so getting out there was fun. But yeah, got to meet a lot of nice people.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's awesome. Let me ask you, while you... You went to Chicago, you've gone to Tucson, so you travel pretty much all over the 48 states, the lower 48 states I should say. When you talk to dentists of various practice sizes and age groups and things like that, do you find that there's different trends among different parts of the country?
Casey Hiers:
That's a good question. It's interesting, right, when I think there's a correlation, I'm proven wrong. So we try to make no assumption and keep open minds. I would say geographically, no. There's a lot of consistency, actually. The good, the joy of dentistry or practice ownership, the challenges of it, I think those are consistent. I would say, from what your question said, age, I probably maybe see more. Where they're at in their career, there may be some correlations or trends.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh yeah. Again, nothing. A dentist in New York is going to have similar stressors than as a dentist in, I don't know, Washington.
Casey Hiers:
Well, it's funny. We're based in Carmel, Indiana, right. A lovely suburb of Indianapolis, and we have clients in New York and California and Florida and Texas, and I mean virtually everywhere.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And while each practice is different, some of the core stressors tend to be the same.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. How to fix them is custom and different for every practice, and there certainly is nuance, but big picture, I mean, there's people in Naples, Florida and Grand Rapids, Michigan and Riverside, California that are all stressed out about their income's not what they thought it was, and their overhead's too high. Yeah.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So is that something they say to you? What are some of the things you've overheard and have had said to you?
Casey Hiers:
Well, it's, again, I enjoy the one-off conversations with practice owners because that's when you truly hear what's going on. Everybody's posing and peacocking and trying to put out an image, but being able to have those conversations where we get into the nuts and bolts of things, I learned so much, and at our firm we want you to own for a couple years, ideally three, before we would work with you.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Why is that?
Casey Hiers:
There's exceptions, but for the most part, when you're young, you're bulletproof, you under...
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm going to live forever.
Casey Hiers:
You underestimate what it is to own your practice. It's that bonus job. And so typically after three years, a practice owner looks up and goes, "shit, this is... What's going on? Why didn't these older practice owners tell me this is hard?" And so that's where a lot of times the compartmentalizing and focusing on your team or your staff almost as a singular complaint because you think you can control it versus all the other things you can't control. But the reason is, if you haven't experienced ownership, the good and the bad, then for our firm, you're not going to appreciate what we do. And younger, I mean, we were all know-it-all's at one point, right?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.
Casey Hiers:
There's a lot of young practice owners that, and good for them, they're overachievers, they're doing great, there's nothing they can't conquer. That's a great attitude to have.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Sure.
Casey Hiers:
So we like them to experience some things before our firm goes through it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Maybe get knocked down a peg or two, just a little bit.
Casey Hiers:
Well, it's fascinating at some of these events, the younger in the room, it's almost like they have every answer we're presenting. And then at that same event, more seasoned practice owners come up and go, "that guy, that guy's got a rude awakening waiting for him and hey, can we talk? Because you hit on a whole bunch of things that are exactly what we need."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So book smarts versus experience. You can read something in a book, but until it actually applies to you in real life, you really don't know.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. It's that Mike Tyson quote, everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face, right?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right.
Casey Hiers:
I mean, as a practice owner, everything's golden until you get hit with a unexpected tax surprise, a piece of equipment goes down, a couple staff members leave, and all of a sudden your overhead's 80% and you look up and go "uh-oh", but nobody else knows. So do you keep the secret or do you fix it?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
When they talk to you, do you often find that they actually mean what they say, or is there a hidden meeting behind their words? If that makes sense?
Casey Hiers:
One off, we can peel the onion back pretty quick. I mean, we get to overhead, income, how much do you have saved? What are you saving for retirement? What's your goals? I mean, they most appreciate and respect the direct questions to get to some real straight juice, but if they're in front of their peers or in any sort of group, state meeting, society, study clubs, yeah, you're not going to get to much. It's more so they slip me a note, Hey, call me. Here's my information. I'm available Friday at this time, right? Then you know, okay, something clicked.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
The sad part to me is everybody in that room has stuff they want to fix and change. I don't feel like... I get having that fear of embarrassment, of raising your hand and being like, "hi, I'm in trouble" in a group full of people, but...
Casey Hiers:
Nobody wants to be exposed. Even going through our process, people will say, "man, it was really good to go through it. I learned a lot, but you certainly feel vulnerable." But the point is, again, put on our big girl and big boy pants. Do you want to avoid being vulnerable or do you want to make another $150,000 next year and do you want to have a plan and have less stress and have more time with your family and be able to retire with millions more, right.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Is that a real choice? 'Cause I'll take the second.
Casey Hiers:
I mean, if ego gets in the way of that, it stinks when I encounter that and I encounter that a fair amount, but no, people that are true to themselves and start to go, Hey, these are real issues and they're not fixing themselves, they're actually getting worse.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So what you're saying is some of these dentists can tend to settle, settle in life and career.
Casey Hiers:
I like that. When I was younger, I always told my friends, don't settle with your spouse. Right? Shoot high. Yeah. No, I think that you're onto something there, and if you are a practice owner, again, who's doing better than most of your friends and family and people on your street, you can rationalize underachieving. And so again, in my talk, the ones that in the pit of their stomach, they have this feeling that they could be doing better, the ones that are brave enough to address it, they're either going to confirm they're doing the right things if they look to fix it or they're just going to have more money because somebody's going to help them.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.
Casey Hiers:
But ignoring, it's a terrible plan.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
How often do you find that the person's actually doing the right thing?
Casey Hiers:
There's a lot of people doing some of the right things, but to be a good spouse, to be a good parent, to be a good dentist and specialist, to be a good business owner, to be a good employer, and to be a good business and financial person, probably not enough hours in the day.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. Something's going to go to the wayside.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Yeah. And a lot, it can be health, it can be stress, it can be relationships, and so what dentists tell me when they're being honest is, "I need some help, or at least I need somebody to look at some things that I'm not sure about." Why is my overhead so high? Man, my insurance situation, I just got another letter from Delta they're just given us another haircut. Less money. Right? What do you then do in response to that?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So in that general area of discussion, would you consider a tax surprise or a large tax surprise to be that way?
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Along with that note from an insurance provider, a message from your accountant, those are the things that tend to be catalyst for change or when people finally say, "I'm fed up," but again, what they say, sort of the persona, hey, that person's got it all figured out. They've got a big practice, multiple locations, they own property. They've got it all figured out. Guess what I'm having conversations with? "I don't have it all figured out. I need to get this fixed really quick. I've probably waited too long to fix it. Can you help?" My reply is, "I don't know. Have enough self-respect to engage in a process to see." Right? Investigate, determine, learn. Just kicking the can down the road and staying on the hamster wheel, that's what should not be acceptable to our listeners, in whatever capacity you take this podcast for. Maybe it's, again, you challenge your current and existing team, "I need more from you."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You know what? It made me think about when I was a kid. You think your parents have all the answers and that they're, let's say, well adjusted and mature, and now I'm the age that I'm at. I'm 39. Of course, my parents had me a little younger at 18, but I was in college and I know I don't know a damned thing now. I sure as shit know they didn't then either, but you don't think about that. You think that they're doing well, so it's like the neighbors, the other people thinking the doctor knows everything, and then it turns out they're just doing the best they can.
Casey Hiers:
The profit and loss balance sheet, personal cash flow, it's a house of cards sometimes. I mean, there's a lot of practice owners making four or $500,000 and they feel paycheck to paycheck. They don't feel confident about retirement, but again, they're like, "well, I'm making this much money. I shouldn't have any problems."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's like when anybody starts in their career, first, you're thinking, "okay, I'm making 60,000. If I just made 70,000, I'd be set." Then you get to there and you're like, "well, shit. Now I need 80,000."
Casey Hiers:
That's with income, with practice owners and with production and collection, with practice owners. Yeah. We talk about that where, man, if I could just have revenues of 1.3, it maximizes inefficiencies ultimately, but no, I enjoy presenting. Right? The person that's looking for the magic bullet, that's tough. Their expectations aren't going to be met, but if you're looking to understand what are eight areas that are preventing me from achieving more, it's certainly going to stir the drink to get you thinking, and you're going to at least be able to identify better in your practice where those might be, and certainly get a lot of general pearls of wisdom.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
If someone's wanting to do that, where should they start?
Casey Hiers:
If they want to do what?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Get some advice or talk to somebody. Maybe get someone to come look at some numbers.
Casey Hiers:
Well, twofold. One, we're all over the place, and so hit up one of our events, whether it's a Topgolf in...
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Atlanta's coming up.
Casey Hiers:
Atlanta's coming up, or the Florida state meeting or we present a lot. That's a nice way to passively hear some information. If somebody out there goes, "you know what? It's a new year and I'm sick of mediocrity, even though everybody thinks I'm great, I want to get my financial house in order." Well, that's what our firm does, so I'd love to chat with you.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Got that. You can always go online onto our website fourquadrantsadvisor.com, and we've got different places where you can fill out a form and just ask for someone to reach out to you, which would be Casey probably, but...
Casey Hiers:
It's that easy?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, just fill it out.
Casey Hiers:
Huh.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Huh. Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
And the ones that do it have millions of dollars more.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
We even have a free assessment right now where you can choose one topic and we'll dive in.
Casey Hiers:
Lucky bastards.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Crazy, huh? Talk to Casey, man. That's what I'm saying. Thanks, Casey.
Casey Hiers:
Thanks.
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.
