Are Your Advisors Costing You Millions? The Power of Objectivity

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 the studio with co-host, Jarrod Bridgeman.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Casey, how are you today?

Casey Hiers:
Doing great.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Are you doing well? I see, we had talked previously about a, you had a fender-bender wreck situation, and it sounds like you're getting your car back today, finally?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, couple of weeks later, get the old car back. And the rental, I drove it like I stole it, so that was a lot of fun.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Are you excited, though, to be back in your own car?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's kind of like when you go on vacation or take a trip. It's fun to be in a hotel, but sometimes I just cannot wait to get back in my own bed.

Casey Hiers:
No, I'm with you. I'm ready for my vehicle, my things, everything's... yeah, lots of continuity.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and everything's how you want. It's your seat, you're used to it. It's already got your ass print in there.

Casey Hiers:
That's right, that's right. It fits me.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. Casey, as we have been traveling the country, doing our events, going to conferences, such as, pretty soon we'll be going to Kissimmee in Orlando for the Florida Dental Association Convention. You speak with owners, you speak with dentists out there and specialists, and sometimes there's a hurdle when they know they need to improve on the business side, and that hurdle can sometimes be their inner financial circle, or their accountant is somebody they're related to, a best friend, their great uncle. How often does that seem to be the case for you, that they have that kind of relationship with their team?

Casey Hiers:
I distill it down to, what are relationships costing you? I talked to somebody recently, and they had some people that they liked working in their practice, right? A bookkeeper, an accountant, an office manager, and there were embezzlement issues, like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so in that case, some of those relationships cost them a lot of money. I like to start with, think about the dating world. Did you ever have a buddy who he started dating a girl and he alienated his friends?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, yeah.

Casey Hiers:
And tried to change, and-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That was basically my best friend in college, who then disappeared for three years. Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
And did they end up with that person?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No.

Casey Hiers:
And so if you think about what relationships can cost you from the simple junior high, high school, college dating, a lot of times you'll see bad relationships where like we just said, they're alienated or they're changing who they are, maybe not for the better. That relationship is costing them a lot.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
Have you ever done that? Have you ever fallen into that cycle?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Maybe a little bit early on in the dating, but part of it was that a factor of knowing it was new, I was able to get them naked, so I wanted to be around more often. And then it did become a toxic thing where I was in college and I was working and I'd be at work and she would call and be like, "Hey, what are you up to? What's going on?" I'm like, "I'm at work. What do you want?" And so. It just kept building from there and those times where I start to sense those things, people like to use the word red flags now with dating, and those are a major red flag in terms of dating. I can only imagine the astronomical amount of stress and money and time a red flag in a dental practice could cause.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, back to your original question, pretty much everybody we speak with, and sometimes it's complimentary information, sometimes it's about presenting CE, but sometimes it's about, can we help them? And most people when they come here, again, they have people, personal financial planners, CPA, maybe consultant, investment advisor. And typically, those relationships are strong. At minimum, they like them.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep, I'd say more so could be even...

Casey Hiers:
Patients, relatives, neighbors, friends, best friends, you name it. But ultimately, what I ask people is, what is that costing you? And we see it just from our tax side. If you're looking at your CPA and your standard of care for tax and accounting, don't look at it as just what you're paying them to do a service, but what does poor accounting cost you? And many times it costs people tens of thousands of dollars a year because of poor accounting, in addition to what you're paying them. But to take that thought forward, people will say, "Well, my best friend's doing this," or, "My neighbor does this service for me, so I couldn't even consider looking." And then a lot of times it's a three to $5 million difference over the course of a, let's say, eight to 10 years of a career left. And a lot of times, the team that gets you to a certain point of your career is not the team that gets you across the finish line, but because of this relationship, they're like, "Well, I could never leave them."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, I mean, I would compare it almost to your little league coach. Are you taking him to college with you, if you're on a college team, for example? It was great when you were eight to 10 years old.

Casey Hiers:
Oh, I got you. Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
But is like that the coach [inaudible 00:05:26].

Casey Hiers:
Your high school coach, your college coach, your professional coach, and yeah, no, I'm tracking with you on that.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You like that? That's a sports thing I just dropped on you, yeah.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, I wasn't expecting that from you.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's like bizarre-o world.

Casey Hiers:
But a lot of the most true achievers and astute people who look at this through an objective lens, they go, "Very few relationships that I have are worth three, four, or $5 million."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean, I'd give up my kids for three or $5 million.

Casey Hiers:
No, you wouldn't. But there are a lot of people that the relationship, they couldn't imagine ending it for their fear of what that reaction would be.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right, and a best case scenario, and we've seen this happen, we bring on a brand new client, and it's part of that we take over the tax management and the planning and all that stuff, is even their own accountants like, "Yeah, this is better for you. I was able to do what I could for you, but this is the next step for you." That's probably the best case scenario where the accountant themselves excuse themselves.

Casey Hiers:
The majority of the time when this situation has come up, and ultimately a practice owner and spouse go, "We have to do this for ourselves, our family, and our legacy. This is a no-brainer," still going to be uncomfortable severing a relationship. But ultimately, it's not as hard as they think because the common reply from the accountant, financial planner, or investment advisor is, "Hey, I get it. They're dental specific; they are all or nothing. You're looking to put your practice in the best position and cashflow and it's all connected and there we understand." Now, take that the other way. If somebody throws a fit.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
A temper tantrum.

Casey Hiers:
Well, again, what's it costing you? And also, was that a one-sided relationship? Do they truly want what's best for you? And again, for us, when I talk to people in the first 20 minutes, the hypothetical is if we can help your situation at least $5 million, can you sever the relationship? Some people say, "No, I don't think I could." That's okay, we find that out early, because time and money are valuable resources, and that's fine. But again, they should be asking themselves, what is that worth? Is that relationship worth $4 million? And if I'm fearful of the reaction if I don't work with this person that I'm close to anymore, and they get negative, well, what does that tell you about that? Is that coming because they want the best for you? And love, a true love, is that you want the other person to be happy, and you're willing to sacrifice for that. A selfless relationship is-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
If you love someone, let them go.

Casey Hiers:
And if they come back, they're yours; if they don't, they never were. Yeah, I've read that quote. But does that make sense?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, for sure.

Casey Hiers:
It's how much it's costing you, but then if your biggest fear is they're pissed at you, well, if they're truly at you but you're going to get help in ways that they couldn't offer, why are they pissed? Then that's them being selfish because they are not working with you.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, exactly.

Casey Hiers:
And that's affecting their bottom line. So okay, you're paying this person $25,000 a year, just random number. And somebody else can help you by a couple of million bucks, and if they're upset about the 25, then that's-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So-

Casey Hiers:
I'm kind of in a mind pretzel here, but does that?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It makes sense to me, and one of the things that I kind of wanted to touch upon in that statement is, over the years you and I on separate occasions have both experienced catching somebody not performing like they should or cutting corners, whether it be an accountant or your driveway sealer. But when you bring that up to them, they get overly defensive. And most of the time, if someone's being super defensive, it's because they're guilty of sin.

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

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Not always, but.

Casey Hiers:
Well, no, that's a good point. If you point out something for improvement, people should want to rise to the occasion. Those who get defensive, it's like, well, what else are they cutting corners on? And use the handyman example. I don't know a lot of that stuff, so I trust that they know what they're doing. A lot of practice owners don't know the business and financial and accounting side of the practice, and so they trust that the right people are in place. And then they look up, and if they have the courage to either confirm you're doing the right things or move on, they all of a sudden go, "Holy cow, that relationship was costing me hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. What was I thinking?" And again, people can be loyal to a fault, but it's always fascinating to me when somebody says, "No, I could never."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
"Oh, I could never."

Casey Hiers:
"I could never imagine." And it's-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I can imagine it.

Casey Hiers:
It's a little shortsighted.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Let me ask you, in your experience, obviously without naming any names or anything, what has been the worst experience you've seen with them, with whether they're a client or not, whoever, of having to end a relationship like that, and it went in a negative direction?

Casey Hiers:
Really only a couple. New clients that had shared that informing their person that they're not working with them anymore, that they got angry and they got a little bit aggressive. And what they told me was, "That was almost my biggest fear, but then when it happened, it confirmed that I was doing the right things because emotion brings out truth. And what I saw was they were selfish and not looking out for me, looking out for them, and the second they [inaudible 00:10:23]."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And all of a sudden, you've got a bunch of stockholder loans.

Casey Hiers:
"Just the second they found out I wasn't going to pay them, boy, they changed." And that can be very telling, but typically, that's the worst. But then it all ultimately helps the person go, "I am making the right decision here."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Basically, you paid to have a friend to cost you more money. You know what I mean?

Casey Hiers:
100%. Oh, I mean, most products or services that a practice owner is paying for, that person is going to be nice to them. The question is, what are the results that they're getting? The results that they're getting need to be the driver; the relationship can be fun after you've achieved some success. So many times it's ass backwards. It's like, well, I like them. We're friends. They take me to a professional game.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Sure.

Casey Hiers:
Or we go to dinner, or we golf. And so they've actually overvalued that part of it, where in reality, the results that you are getting as a practice owner should be the driver. And those that can provide good results, then if there's also a great relationship, that's where the sweet spot is. Typically, it's heavy on the relationship or the nostalgia or the connection, and they'll let some things slide.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
In your opinion, if someone listening to this is hearing this and some little alarm bells, red flags are kind of going off here, and they are experiencing or at least have a feeling that this is kind of the situation that they're in, what's a good first step to either have their numbers looked at or how to approach talking to their accountant or planner? What's... you know what I'm kind of asking here?

Casey Hiers:
Most practice owners don't know what they don't know, so they'll have a feeling or an instinct but they won't actually know if something's off know. Why am I getting a refund every year? Why are my taxes extended? Why am I paying extra every year? Why is my overhead unknown? Why is my income lower? Why is my hard work not being reflected? They'll have a feeling or an instinct, but they don't have the technical know-how to really point it out. The beautiful thing about Four Quadrants Advisory is that we're not a volume shop. We actually bring on, I would say, a limited amount of clients because our primary goal is results, not quantity of clients.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep, just the quality.

Casey Hiers:
But when people get engaged in our mutual vetting process, which we've talked about, it's either going to confirm that they're doing the right things and they're on the best path and there's no need to consider working together, or they're going to look up and go, "I'm going to have millions of dollars more, alleviate stress, have great cashflow today, and my future and my legacy are going to be secure." So either way, it's time well spent, but for me, if somebody tells me, "I can never get rid of that relationship," it's about a 15-minute conversation because what's the point to go through all the things and point out all the challenges if they said hypothetically, "We can't sever that relationship"? But again, that's you're putting that relationship on a pedestal, it's going to cost you a lot of money. Would they do the same for you? If you're giving up millions of dollars to work with them, would they give up tens of thousands of dollars to not work with you, for you to have more success? That's kind of a weird way to frame it.

But in the last one we talked about, "Yeah, I can't sever the relationship with myself because I'm going to do it yourself-er. I'm a control freak and I want to do everything, even though it's causing division with my family and my wife and everything, but I'm so like hyper control freak, do-it-yourselfer. No, I can't sever that relationship with myself and even think of anybody else doing it." Two reasons. One, they won't think they'll do it as good, or two, they actually would feel worse about themselves if somebody did it better than they did it.

And so they would rather keep up this facade.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You see that little professors kind of running around?

Casey Hiers:
Yes, that they're the only one that can do it. They're so smart. They're the only smart one who knows how to do it. And it comes from a lack of self-esteem. I mean, you can get into some child psychology there, but hugs as a child are important, as are spankings.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, I actually read something not that long ago that there was a survey done with students at Yale University, and they had marked the number one thing that they wanted in life was love. Isn't that interesting?

Casey Hiers:
That is interesting.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, and sad. That's why I only love my children and don't educate them. That's my goal in life. Casey, you had mentioned how dentists and owners out there might have a feeling, you might have something in their gut, might have some intuition there, but they're not quite sure what it may be. Where's a good place to maybe learn a couple of these flags in the bullet points that they can kind of start asking about?

Casey Hiers:
It's really hard; it's a hard question. This is so difficult. Type on our website so you'll see if we're presenting somewhere. We have a lot of resources on our website.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
We sure do.

Casey Hiers:
Fill out a form.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.

Casey Hiers:
I'll talk to you for 15 minutes.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Casey or one of our teammates will talk to you. We've got blogs, we've got all kinds of podcasts, obviously, you're listening to this one. We even have some eBooks you can download, and then on top of that, again, yeah, as Casey mentioned, we have these events that we're hosting all over the country. We're going to be in Orlando, we're going to be in Kansas, we're going to be in Indiana. Obviously we're no, that's our area, but basically every other week we're going to be in two different cities. If you're interested in learning more, if you want to register for it, if we're already coming to that event, go to FourQuadrantsadvisory.com/events, and you can just register right on there. Or if we're going to be in an area sometime this year, you can actually see where we're going to be, and then I have forms set up. You can actually-

Casey Hiers:
Plan ahead.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
... plan ahead, and I'll let you know when those go live.

Casey Hiers:
That sounds so difficult.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Isn't that nice? Man, it's like I take care of my people. Casey, thank you so much for coming in, and I can't wait to see what we're talking about next week.

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.