Commitment Counts: Why Consistency in Financial Planning Matters

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:
Casey, good morning. How are you?

Casey Hiers:
You looked a little Brady Bunch action going on with that shirt.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, I bought a cool seventies shirt.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I love it.

Casey Hiers:
What was the dad's name in that show? Mr. Brady?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes. Mr. Greg? Peter?

Casey Hiers:
No, those are the boys.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Marty?

Casey Hiers:
I don't know. Yeah, you look like Papa Brady.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'll take it. I'll take it. He's a daddy, as they say nowadays. So, Casey, let me ask you something very important. What are you drinking right now? What is that?

Casey Hiers:
Oh, coconut water, Bai.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Is this what helps keep you energized and ready to do your calls and talk to prospects, and get out there and chat?

Casey Hiers:
No, I don't drink enough water. So this just supercharges my hydration, supposedly.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Casey, as you're going out there and you're speaking and you're talking with dentists and specialists and owners out there, what is a major complaint that they have? In your mind, besides the obviousness of staff and things like that? What's a major complaint you hear?

Casey Hiers:
Staff.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay. Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
Team.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Team. Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
That's the easy one because it's not as personal.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So when you dig in a little bit more, and you're able to get some of the, let's say, pains that these people may feel on the financial side, what is something that they seem to be lacking?

Casey Hiers:
A plan.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
A plan?

Casey Hiers:
A strategy.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Or a good retirement plan kind of thing?

Casey Hiers:
I mean, that's one. Yeah. I mean, really, strategy and planning, and their personal life, and their personal finances, and the practice on the business side. I mean, really, there's a lack of a comprehensive, robust strategy and plan. And even when they've piecemealed an external team together to help do a lot of the business and tax, and financial things, they're still the hub of the wheel. And so they have to reach out to all the people. And there's no comprehensive plan. There's a piecemeal plan where each person does their little thing.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And would you say it almost comes across as suggestions more than?

Casey Hiers:
Well, the biggest thing we hear is when practice owners go to get advice or ask a question, they basically just go, "Yeah, if you want to. Yeah, that sounds good."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And is that because the planner and the accountant don't talk, don't chat with each other, so nobody knows the actual numbers potentially?

Casey Hiers:
I don't know why. I just, there's a lot of it where there's not a plan. When they ask for guidance, there's just a lot of cheerleaders.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
A lot of yes men?

Casey Hiers:
And women, yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And women. Good call. Look at you being pro-sex. So let's say they have a loose plan. What are some reasons as to why you think someone may not follow the plan?

Casey Hiers:
Well, let's say they actually have a good plan, right? Let's make that assumption that they have a good strategy around their practice, around their cash flow and finances, and tax, and all of the areas that we help and practice owners need help in. Let's say they actually have a plan. What can get in the way?
The first time it gets hard or something doesn't feel good, change course. It really comes down to consistency. Well, it comes down to number one: have a comprehensive, robust strategy and plan that you and your external team have come up together and spent many hours on developing, not just writing down on a napkin or mentioning it in a sentence, in an email, and then, "Oh, that's my plan", really have one. But then it's important to stay the course and just think about working out. "Well, I went to the gym last week, I lost 30 pounds, and why am I not ripped and cut up and super strong?" Because you've got to be consistent and do it for a while.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And get steroids.

Casey Hiers:
Boy, I tell you what, I know some people that dabbled in that back in the day, and they were jacked.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, I bet.

Casey Hiers:
They were a little irritable. I don't know if there was a correlation.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, their voices got a little higher, too. You had mentioned staying the course, being consistent, and talking about comparing it to the gym and working out. I would say another big thing to keep in mind is patience in terms-

Casey Hiers:
Those that get treated or a disposition where you take your time?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. I would say take your time.

Casey Hiers:
Okay.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes. Not as in my doctor's patients? We are talking to dentists, aren't we?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
My gosh. We're so smart. But again, especially when it comes to financial things and the same thing as weight loss and muscle gain, it's going to take time. And I feel like a lot of people, myself included, in my history, especially when I was younger, will do knee-jerk reactions to things that may pop up in life.

Casey Hiers:
You get distracted by the shiny thing a lot.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I do. I like buying things.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Well, and let's even drill this down. Let's make it more micro. For our clients, it's interesting, the ones that are just achievers and excited and ready to go and engage in getting the plan and staying in the course. And they look back over two years, four years, six years, and they're blown away by what they've achieved, and it wasn't as hard as they thought it was going to be. And then we'll have some people, maybe some newer folks or people that have a hard time delegating and relinquishing control, and they still achieve a lot, but the first time cash flow gets tight, they want to change everything. So again, it's having a good plan, having a comprehensive plan, and then staying the course and not having knee-jerk reactions. Now, tax surprises cause this to happen a lot.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I was going to ask about tax surprises.

Casey Hiers:
Well, you'll hear people, and they'll go, "Well, I was able to save $90,000 for retirement in 2022 and 2023, but before that, I had big tax surprises, so I wasn't really able to save." And it goes back to that consistency, where what's going to come out of nowhere and screw up the plan? And you've got to get ahead of it. But again, number one, most people don't have a plan. Number two, most people don't stick to it because everybody's impatient. And the first time there's adversity, then they changed things. "Oh, I played a round to golf and decided to open a second location." Wow, what went into that? And I'm exaggerating a little, but not a lot, because when I ask people why they've made different decisions, once we're having these private conversations, it's incredible that they basically admit, "I don't know, it just kind of makes sense. And then when I voiced it, everyone around me was the cheerleader because I'm the dentist, I'm the specialist. I'm supposed to be the smartest person in the room." And so then there's this game of mutual mystification of, "Well, I'm going to just pose that I know and they're going to pose that it's a great idea." And actually, nobody knows because nobody's done any real analytics on it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
But they're getting all those dopamine drops from people cheering them on.

Casey Hiers:
That's right.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Opening a new practice may feel good for that first month.

Casey Hiers:
Imagine that's just a random example, but so many different things that practice owners do. And then when you look to the origin of where that decision was made, it wasn't sound.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Correct.

Casey Hiers:
Now, clock's right twice a day, right? Broken clock. So sometimes they can get away with it. But again, having the plan, staying the course, no knee-jerk reactions, being very proactive and aware of what can throw this off. Tax surprises, as an example, something where cash flow gets tight, that can cause people to just panic.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and we mentioned on a podcast quite some time ago, we had a title of an episode called Boring is Sexy. And this is along the same lines in terms of staying the course, being patient, it doesn't seem exciting because you're not-

Casey Hiers:
Moving, shaking.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. You're not doing high-risk maneuvers, but in the long run, you're going to have more money, more freedom, more time, and all those things.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. And again, if you do have that plan, it's looking at the big picture and the three-year, the five-year, the 10-year plan, and taking some peace in that. But again, that's having a team, having a plan, then staying the course. It's really three parts. And they're all hard, because even when you have the team and the plan, we see people who-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Still drift?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, it's challenging with anything, but that's all I got.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Casey, if someone had wanted to talk to us about this kind of stuff, is there anything that we do or offer?

Casey Hiers:
I mean, the biggest thing is people to have the courage to go from the sidelines to get into game, to actually decide, you know what? We've talked about this.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Pull your head out of the sand and look around.

Casey Hiers:
We've had people that made $700,000 in general dentistry and a million dollars in general dentistry and income. And they still had that feeling in the pit of their stomach that they needed some help. So the first thing is that people have the courage to go. "Shoot, I'm either going to confirm I'm doing the right things or I'm going to find out that I'm leaving a lot of money on a table and get it fixed." But yeah, don't we have a website?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
We do. Fourquadrantsadvisory.com.

Casey Hiers:
With information.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
All kinds of information.

Casey Hiers:
Ways to communicate.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Free information. You can sign up for our podcast email.

Casey Hiers:
We have a newsletter? Did you just make something up?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I did. We have a blog now. New blog, no newsletter. You can reach out and schedule a phone call with Casey or one of our other wonderful people here at the company. We have events coming up soon. If you're in the area and would like to attend one of our events, you can go to fourquadrantsadvisory.com/events. We're going to be in Kansas City, Saint Louis, Indianapolis, and Evansville, Indiana. We're going to be in Washington, DC. We've got all kinds of really awesome things planned, and I know we're going to a couple of shows this summer as well.

Casey Hiers:
Absolutely.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So feel free to reach out. We're looking forward to hearing from all of you. Thanks, Casey.

Casey Hiers:
Not everybody.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No. Dentist and owners, right?

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.