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EPISODE 135: What Are You Doing to Get Better?

What are you doing to get better? It's a simple question that doesn't always have a simple answer. Casey and Jarrod discuss how practice owners work to improve their practice and life while others may be too complacent to change.

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EPISODE 135 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 the Millionaire Dentist Podcast in studio with co-host Jarrod Bridgeman.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, good afternoon. How are you?

Casey Hiers:
Good to see you, man.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Good to see you. I'm glad you're back in the office again.

Casey Hiers:
I wish the audience could see that shirt. It's live. Good.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's very busy.

Casey Hiers:
Good. It's the right volume. It's not too loud, but it's certainly not quiet.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No, I like to stand out.

Casey Hiers:
Boom. What are you doing to get better?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, boy.

Casey Hiers:
That's a broad open-ended question.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That is very broad. Eat better. I do that. Do I still drink and lay around? Yes. Not during the office hours, obviously. Then, I do like to do things that, hobbies that tie into my work here. I'm the photographer and videographer as well. Sometimes at home, I will try a new camera technique or some new editing stuff to see if I can bring it into the office.

Casey Hiers:
Hone your craft.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.

Casey Hiers:
I ask you that because I was at the American Academy of Implant Dentistry in Dallas and learned a lot of that at that meeting, met a lot of really, really good people. But ultimately, almost every practice owner there, they've got $2 and $3 and $4 million practices. They're honing their craft in dentistry. They are doing implants. They want to be really good at implants. It was fascinating because most of the people had the same driver or commonality that all of our clients have, and a lot of folks that we want to potentially talk to, they want to get better. They're achievers. They're not willing to settle. This meeting was loaded with people like that.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Would you say that's kind of the idea of why these people even go to those meetings for the most part? Not everybody, of course, but there's a reason to-

Casey Hiers:
It's funny you say that. There are CE junkies out there, and listen, everybody likes a trip where you're doing some work and you can write it off, but there's some fun hat. I get that. This isn't for CE junkies who are just doing it to do it. They're there for a reason. They want to specifically get better at something, a certain speaker that's covering a certain technique or a new technology. It really was the best of the best. But you mentioned some, everybody claims they want to get better at something, weight, diet, food, take the vitamins, remember to put deodorant on. Sometimes, man.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's always, for some people, it's if I had that extra day off, if I had some more free time, and I will say that, I thought about this the other day when the lockdown happened. I think a lot of people said they were going to improve a lot of things around their home, around themselves, and then watched The Office six times in a row on I think the lockdown.

Casey Hiers:
Tiger King?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
But if you want to improve yourself, you need to actually do it. Just having the time isn't enough.

Casey Hiers:
Well, and again, I get do a lot of things, but I talk to a lot of practice owners and they have to get vulnerable with us if we're going to consider taking them on. And so, when you think about business, getting better at business, I talk to a lot of folks whose collections are 1.2 to 1.6, but they are frustrated. The same points we talk about, what are they? Income, uncertainty about retirement, when can you retire. The people, I ask that at this meeting, when you think you can retire, they had a pretty specific answer. Most people, when I ask they, hem and haw, they laugh, they deflect because they don't know. But getting better at those things, if you have a practice that size, what are you doing? What are you doing to get better? What are you doing for your income?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Are they tired of the plateau? For a good portion of their career, they're probably working their way up towards that 1.2, 1.7, whatever it is, and now they're kind of stagnant.

Casey Hiers:
A lot of them go, "Shoot, I should be doing better. I should be making more. I should be saving more. My overhead should be lower. I should be happy." They think they're one or two decisions away. That is such a misnomer. They think, and a lot of them are close, but they think they're one or two little tweaks away when in reality, we know it's dozens of little things that add up and maybe want to-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. Because it's not just making more money that would make you happy either. If you, for example, had another practice on, you could just be doubling and tripling your little issues that add up.

Casey Hiers:
That makes sense, because when you, I mean... Listen, the answer-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Listen, more money, yes, money does help.

Casey Hiers:
The answer to most questions is money. But there's the other side of it's quality of life. And so, typically, a practice owner has to work way too much and have way too much stress to have the money they think if they have the work-life balance, they're not making the money or can retire when they want. You can have both. You can do it too.
Again, what are you doing to get better? If you're a practice owner out there and your collections are over a million bucks, why aren't you making 400,000 or 500,000, 600,000? Why aren't you saving 100,000? I don't know. I got juiced up going to this meeting because I talked to people who get it. You can be happy and content without being complacent if that makes sense. Let me explain. A lot of people there, they realize they have success and they like that, but they want to be around others that have that success.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, it's the same as I feel like having friends growing up or even college. If you surround yourself by a group of people who don't have a drive, you kind of find yourself falling into their habits. You know what I mean? But if you surround yourself with people who, for example, when I quit smoking cigarettes back in the day, I didn't hang out around cigarette smokers anymore.

Casey Hiers:
Well, that makes sense.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I didn't feel the need to do it. And so, that's kind of my thought on it too, is if you want to have a certain feeling if you want to have a certain way, there's things you can change that's external to you that you still have some control over.

Casey Hiers:
Well, and I guess if your study club or your dental society or your dental buddies, if all you do is complain about your staff, your team, your assistance, your hygienist, how tough it is to staff people and overhead, well, nothing's going to get better. You're just going to continue to complain about that versus-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Making a brain trust and trying to figure it out?

Casey Hiers:
Go learn a new technique. Go learn a new procedure. Go surround yourself with-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
People who can-

Casey Hiers:
... achievers.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and they may just motivate you as well.

Casey Hiers:
No, I think that's a very good point.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, it's like when I see you eating a really good taco at lunch, I'm like, "Man, I have to go get a taco like that." As soon as you start talking to somebody at this implant convention last week, was it right away, was that the feeling you got right away was just you walked into the exhibit hall, wherever it was, and you could just tell you were in a room of people who wanted to achieve more?

Casey Hiers:
I've been in an event that exact same property, completely different vibe, completely different everything. To answer your question, yeah there was, and there's good meetings everywhere, but it really did stand out and let's look to what we try to do. We try to help as many practice owners as we can. Why am I going out to lower your handicap, lower your overhead outings? Well, it's the answer to the question. What are you doing to get better? The folks that go to these, they want to have a little fun and hit the golf ball. Heck, we might even do golf lessons at some point if somebody wants to really get better at their swing.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That'd be cool.

Casey Hiers:
But ultimately, they're going to hear on a subject matter that they need to get better at. And so, on a Friday, they're going to have a little fun, they're going to have some camaraderie with some peers, but they're doing something to get better. They're spending a little bit of time hearing about a topic that they need help on.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, what's nice is you talk on a topic that they don't normally get hit with. They're often being talked to about products, clinical things and stuff like that, where we're offering a lifestyle change or a comprehensive lifestyle change almost.

Casey Hiers:
Well, the challenge, again, we see these results all day, every day when our clients come in and they're ecstatic. And so, it's easier for us to just have that passion.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It is, but they need to help us help them. Once we get our mechanics in place after that onboarding process and all that stuff, seems like everybody's pretty dang happy.

Casey Hiers:
Well, it's that, again, what are you doing to get better? Are you talking to a firm like ours? Are you identifying leaks in your practice? We'll plug those leaks and find leaks that you didn't even know you had. But are you doing that? Are you looking to get better in all these different areas? Again, for us, it can be frustrating because we're trying to make this as available as possible with the Topgolf, with a free complimentary assessment, literally a diagnostic on just one. Our clients get them all, but just one area. A complimentary diagnostic on your practice, but it's that human nature, "I'll get around to that."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'll get around to it or you're so scared of they come back and tell you-

Casey Hiers:
Vulnerable. People don't want to be vulnerable. Instead, it's just stop wasting years and decades underachieving. It's starting to make me more, I don't want to say frustrated, but when I talk to people who get it right, and sometimes we can't help them because they don't need to pay us for what they need and we can point them in that direction, but the key is they go away better than they came or we can absolutely help them. But the people that are just complacent, that just they want to just stew in mediocrity, it's starting to drive me nuts because I see the older dentist that finally go, "Can you help us? Oh wow, you can. Let's work together. Oh wow, that's a big check." Three years later, "Why the hell it didn't I do that 15 years earlier?" We see that side of it, and then I go to these meetings with achievers, but then there's so many dentists out there that are just, they're just on the hamster wheel and they're scared. Listeners, if you have any ideas how to help get your peers off that hamster wheel, let us know because ultimately, knowledge is power and effort is what matters.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Now, Casey, this Friday, just in... Today's either Wednesday or Thursday, whenever you're listening to this, on Friday, you'll be in Schaumburg, Illinois. What are you doing there?

Casey Hiers:
Going to dominate in Topgolf. Then, I'm going to share it on the business side of dentistry, so we can have a little fun, eat, drink, be merry, hit the golf ball. But then, we're going to go into a conference room and we're going to touch on the things that are keeping practice owners from being multi-millionaires.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Has your swing improved?

Casey Hiers:
I'm still swinging too hard, coming over the top. I mean, I think at Topgolf, might take one over the net at some point and it's typically next to a highway, so that's not the best thing.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
The couple times I've played, I do better than I really thought I would because it's not just how far you're hitting it.

Casey Hiers:
You're surgical. You're getting those 60, 80-yard darts, dude.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm just getting there in those holes where they're at. That's something I wanted to mention as well is if it's just a fun thing to do, if you've never done Topgolf, you don't have to be good at it. You don't have to be good at golf. I never even picked up a golf club outside of putt-putt until you and I went.

Casey Hiers:
There's a reason why there's a company spending tens of millions of dollars building these because a lot of people have fun at them.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. That's Friday. Also, we'll be in Charlotte this year for Topgolf as well. Visit fourquadrantsadvisory.com/events and you could check out where we're heading next.

Casey Hiers:
Thank you, sir.

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. 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.