Protecting Your Cash Flow and Beating the Holiday Burnout

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 that 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, good morning. How are you today?

Casey Hiers:
Great. We had donuts this morning.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
We did. I saw you cutting away, having one 8th of 16 different donuts.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, kick-ass bakery, and variety's the spice of life, so I wanted to taste different ones. I used a knife, not my bare hands.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I thought maybe you just smooshed the ball into a ball.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Where was that idea an hour ago?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm sorry, buddy.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, that'd been great. I love a good donut.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. Me too. And it's weird. My kid doesn't, one of my kids. He only likes the little mini powdered, like Little Debbie donuts [inaudible 00:00:58] bag.

Casey Hiers:
Well, good self-control, I guess.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
He told me once that when he gets bigger and opens his own donut store, he wants to make bigger powdered ones.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm like, "Well, if they make those." But I was like, "That's a great idea."

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Patent that. "Nobody's thought of that before, son. I'm so proud of you. You're a genius."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So Casey, you and I spend a lot of time together each week and each day. And it's not as bad as it sounds, folks, but this past Saturday we had our company Christmas party.

Casey Hiers:
Ooh, our Christmas extravaganza.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, it was a good time.

Casey Hiers:
It was nice.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I got to talk to your wife for a little bit, and she didn't run away screaming this year, which was great for me.

Casey Hiers:
Your professional growth has been incredible.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Overall, it was a great time, and it was cool to be able to see some of the other employees I don't interact with as much on a daily basis, and then be able to spend time and meet their significant others.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Great venue, great hors d'oeuvres, great meal, great drinks, signature drinks, gingerbread espresso martinis.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That was great. I had a Winter Old-Fashioned. It was like a spiced simple syrup. That was pretty tasty.

Casey Hiers:
Isn't that funny how getting together with people you work with, and our listeners can appreciate this with their holiday parties in their offices, it's a lot of fun. And then you just have your fingers crossed that no employees or hygienists just have too much Christmas joy and do something not good.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
As an employee, I also love the fact that I don't have to pay for anything. That's a big bonus on my end.

Casey Hiers:
We had some wagering going on, and there was a lot of money that you were going to do something wild and you were just so well-behaved.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Who won?

Casey Hiers:
The person that bet on you to not do something crazy won.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Nice. All right. I should get it cut.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
If I had known ahead of time, that would have been even better.

Casey Hiers:
Well, we had to have a high-integrity gambling system at Fort Quarters Advisory. Right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Don't want to take a dive or anything.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, yeah.

Casey Hiers:
That was a nice way to start off a busy December, right? December's busy for everybody, and having a Christmas party kind of on the front end, it's like the first of many for most people, but there was a nice, relaxed vibe, a lot of appreciation and gratefulness.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
There's only a handful of days before the holiday break kind of starts.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. So you're in December, what kind of things do you have to do? What's on Jarrod's list?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Quite a few things. Right after Thanksgiving, we're putting up the tree, putting up some decorations, and then I'm shopping, looking for gifts for my kids or my friends and family. And I pride myself on being a pretty good gift-giver.

Casey Hiers:
I'm a size large in Peter Millar.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay. All right.

Casey Hiers:
It's a brand of clothing.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm sure, large. Okay. All right. I'll see. But I do a lot of that. And so, I may sometimes stress myself out a little too much trying to find good gifts. I had an ex-wife who returned every gift I ever bought her.

Casey Hiers:
Just one?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, so far. Who returned every gift I ever got her, whether it was jewelry, a watch, all that kind of stuff. So that kind of burned me for a hot minute. But so gift giving, planning who's going to be at Christmas, at what time, multiple families, multiple in laws and grandparents and all that stuff, on top of my job and getting things ready for the new year.

Casey Hiers:
This time of year, there's a lot of noise.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Lots of noise.

Casey Hiers:
A lot of busyness, a lot of people. It's interesting in life or in December, a lot of people who claim to be super busy and stressed, they actually wear it as a badge of honor. That's kind of their identity. But yeah, you've got holiday parties, you've got friend parties, you've got family parties, decorations, gifts, Christmas cards.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
I got a couple of paper cuts.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, no.

Casey Hiers:
I know.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
That's rough.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
But yeah, as you said, there's so much noise. Again, with work, and especially with dental practices, 'cause a lot of them don't stay open between Christmas and New Year, that kind of a time period there.

Casey Hiers:
They're trying to produce dentistry for practice owners. I've got a lot of birthdays. I've got a nephew, a wife, a daughter, and a father-in-law.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
All in December?

Casey Hiers:
All in December.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Wow.

Casey Hiers:
And if you have a spouse with a December birthday, mine has been very gracious, but that can be hard, because when they were kids, they didn't get a party or they got gifts for both.
And so there's a stigma. I've talked to a lot of people with spouses with wives in December. It's a wild thing. So, December gets amped up. There's a lot of noise and a lot of busyness. Sometimes you lose focus.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. It's just like a blur. You're just trying to get through it. And I think that's a disservice.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Both at work and at home, 'cause you might be thinking about home things while you're at work and vice versa.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. No, no doubt. Whatever industry you're in, dentistry or other, trying to finish the year strong and make sure that you've got decent production for the month of December.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. Casey, let me ask you, what is some noise that a practice owner might be trying to wade their way through in December?

Casey Hiers:
Well, they get smoked, right? 'Cause there's a lot of expectations on a practice owner. But I'll go back to me, my favorite topic. The best thing for me is, "Okay, there's a lot going on. I'm going to try to enjoy everything, but what's the focus?" It's different for different people, but for me it's, okay, Christmas is a faith-based holiday on the birth of Christ, so I'm going to focus on that. I'm going to focus on time with family, time off, and enjoy it.
I see people miserable. And to me, you have to have a focus on, "Okay, cut through the noise. What do I want to focus on? What are the most important things?" And minimize the other stuff that's just an emotional suck of energy, easier said than done. But transitioning this to practice owners, there's a lot of noise in dentistry, and there's a lot of noise to cut through.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
One of the ones I always kind of think of, 'cause we often bring in Kevin or Brody or Steve from the tax side of things, is December kind of feels like that month where the local sales rep comes in and tries to get you to buy a piece of equipment and then claims, "Well, Section 179, 179."

Casey Hiers:
Well, there's so much noise, and it's all connected. And most practice owners, it's funny, that one they almost forget or intentionally forget. And it's like a sneak attack when the tax management's not great or they find out they're going to owe some money and then, "Well, do I go buy something?" And emotionally, that feels good. "Oh, well, I have to go spend this money." That's always a fun thing.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's kind of like, not to be sexist here, but when you're spouse, let's let's say spouse, goes out and says, "Honey, I saved us $50 at the store today, but I had to spend an extra 100 just to hit that limit."

Casey Hiers:
Ooh.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You know what I mean?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. And it's kind of like that Section 179.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Buy five, get one free. "Hey, I got a free one."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You only needed two.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think for practice owners, this time of year, staff gets amplified. So every event that I go to, almost every practice owner I speak with, staff is going to be high-level stress because this time of year people get sick. They want more money. Maybe they're pregnant, half your hygiene staff are pregnant-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It makes sense-

Casey Hiers:
... at the same time.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Nine months ago would have been spring.

Casey Hiers:
And then they want more money. That's noise that never goes away. And sometimes in December, it's amplified because you want to treat your staff well. You want to have a nice event, have a nice party, have a nice gift, have a nice bonus, whatever that is, but that could be stressful because-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And the staff feels that from their end just because it's Christmastime, they're trying to buy gift for everybody.

Casey Hiers:
Oh, sure.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And all of a sudden their cash flow's low.

Casey Hiers:
It's incredible. My wife was getting texts from people she barely knows or this dance mom group, "Oh, let's do a White Elephant." My wife's like, "No, thank you. I'm fully committed, but I wish you all Merry Christmas."
It can get out of hand, but to your point, Section 179, what's some more noise in December or all year? "I'm going to buy some more equipment. Let's expand this. I'm going to add a location. I'm going to merge an "acquisition. That's noise that can be good noise. It can be bad noise.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Do you think some of that's almost the psychological feeling idea we've had for as long as I can think of, of new year, new changes? So people are kind of thinking like, "Oh, 2026 is going to be the year. 2027's going to be the year, so I need to start."

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, there's a lot of reflecting and forecasting, right? So you're reflecting on last year, forecasting the next year. I've said this before as a Cubs fan. Before they won the World Series in 2016, the joke was, "Well, there's always next year. We'll get next year. It's going to get better next year. It's going to be great." And a lot of times people have that kind of mystification that, "Well, it's just..."
And it's good to be positive, but man, when your time spent on just so much time on staff or spending money, or moving and shaking, mergers and acquisitions, maybe it's a expensive practice management, that, "Hey, my friend did this. It sounds good." But it doesn't ever actually improve your income or cash flow. There's a lot of noise there that practice owners have to have discernment. Discernment on, "Where is my time best spent?" Clearly, producing dentistry and spending time with family should be at the top of the list.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And maybe not just reading a blog about some shiny new idea and trying to run with it immediately.

Casey Hiers:
There are a lot of shiny ideas to, quote, unquote, "Fix everything." And in December and January, they sound great because of hope. Right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.

Casey Hiers:
There's that hope. And unfortunately, a lot of those things can be noise that takes a lot of time, effort, and resources away. Some of these things, again, can be positive, but how do you know if you don't have discernment or if you don't know your numbers or situation?
These are all challenges. These are all noise, but what should practice owners focus on? Like I was talking earlier, for you in December, Jarrod, all the stuff going on is your focus, fun, relaxation, hang out with family, and try to keep drama low. What's your focus if you had to distill it down?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
My focus right now, it's a mix, is to get as caught up and ahead here at the office, so that when it comes time for Christmas and New Year's and all that, I don't have to do anything.

Casey Hiers:
Oh, there you go.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And just focus on making sure my kids have a great Christmas.

Casey Hiers:
Preparing yourself so that your mind is free. Okay. So that makes sense. That's a good focus.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep. And then just mapping out where I'm going to head on where.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
My people in my life that make Christmas great, like my wife, my sister, my parents, whatever that is, sometimes they will get annoyed with me because I'm like, "Well, hey, it's Christmas, I'm celebrating the birth of Christ. Why does it have to be so hard?"
And they're like, "Oh, are you enjoying this food that we just made and prepared for you? Do you like this gift?" And so I've got to be careful of not oversimplifying it sometimes. But when things get chaotic, I tend to just try to make it simple.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
The problem is, is we're all chasing our childhood Christmas. Like that time I went down to the Christmas tree and there was a brand new Nintendo 64 wrapped up from Santa.

Casey Hiers:
Best day ever.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That was great. That and Goldeneye, right there in my hands.

Casey Hiers:
I think there is some of that. No knock on Disney, but adults that go to Disney all the time, that's great, I think that's cool, but a lot of times you're trying to chase that nostalgic feeling.
Good point on Christmas. You're trying to chase that feeling. Even in dentistry, maybe there was a good year you remember and you're trying... "How can I just duplicate that?" And sometimes it's hard in the chase-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And maybe that good year you had was just a freak accident. You know what I mean? It was like nothing you may have done. You did some things well, maybe some other things not well, but the timing of different things just made it a good year.

Casey Hiers:
Sometimes that's because it was simplified, right? You didn't overcomplicate it. You produced dentistry, you didn't chase the shiny idea, and sometimes less is more. For me, in December, less is more. Yes, I want my loved ones to feel love and have nice gifts and be entertained. All those things are important, but man-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
But do you go over the top with your kids with Christmas stuff? "Here's five different elf on the shelves."

Casey Hiers:
No.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Here's where Santa's reindeer left poop out." You know what I mean? I think some people go really overboard and crazy. I'm sure they get a lot of enjoyment out of that-

Casey Hiers:
Well, here's a controversial topic.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
When my daughters were six and seven, or maybe seven and eight, asking me, "Daddy, is Santa Claus real?" Selfishly, for self-preservation, not for my wife to realize that I told them, but I didn't want to lie to them, but it goes back to, for me, when I'm asked that question, I try to deflect it and I tried to walk them through different things, but eventually they're asking a question and they want the truth and I told them the truth. My kids probably learned a couple of years earlier than others about Santa. But to me, being truthful was more important than whatever you want to call it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
At some point, the truth does come out.

Casey Hiers:
Now, my wife was pissed. I robbed her of years of our little girls, blah, blah, blah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
"Being little girls," quote, unquote. Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
But again, just like how about your CPA? You want your CPA to blow smoke up your-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Behind.

Casey Hiers:
... or tell you the truth? That's a hard part about Christmas, too, I think. And again, did I want that for me selfishly, or do I want the betterment of my kids? That's a whole nother topic, but that can be tricky, being honest with yourself and your practice, and your finances and your tax situation, being honest with people, "Hey, I don't have enough time to add another thing to my December."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
"Hey, Santa's not real. And guess what? You have a shareholder loan."

Casey Hiers:
There you go. But what should practice owners focus on? There's noise. Okay. Well, what's the order of things that's important?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So let's say outside of the family, which may or may not be in some of your control, you might have that father-in-law who's a jerk when he drinks some of his bourbon. But one of the big ones, it's something we always come back to, and it's what you speak about and your team speaks about when we go out into our events, is cashflow in the practice.

Casey Hiers:
Cash flow in the practice. There's an argument that's number one. What you're doing in your decision making, how does it affect cashflow in the practice? 'Cause there's an order to things. And if cash flow in the practice as well, that gives you then options versus trying some of these things when your cash flow's terrible. It's out of order sometimes.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, 'cause some of the things you may need to do or want to do, it's going to cost money. And if you don't have a good cash flow, you don't have the funds to either invest the way you want to invest or-

Casey Hiers:
Analogy, right? Christmas vacation. Do I want to put 10,000 lights on my house and be away from my family for two weeks and be like, "If I do this, everything's going to be better"? No, they really just wanted to spend time. So many practice owners, they'll try to do all these other things when in reality, if you can really focus on cashflow in the practice, which again, big bucket, it's really important if that's right. And then again, what's the honesty part? How's your overhead? How are your insurance adjustments? All that noise tends to add to overhead sometimes. And sometimes you add, in the short term, the overhead for long-term improvement. Unfortunately, so many things out there just add to overhead.
And we're conscious of that. Everybody we talk to, if we can't decrease their overhead on average 11% in the first 3 years, including our fees, then it's not going to work out. For me to go put 10,000 lights on my house and take a week, that doesn't make any sense. Prioritizing your time is huge, right? In this month, especially, but for practice owners, right? And if you prioritize cashflow in the practice, overhead, insurance, but then you get hijacked because you don't have high-level tax management, you've got a historian doing it, that's got to be a focus. You've got to really look at the tax situation.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And that historian's not super worried about that $70,000 tax bill you just got.

Casey Hiers:
Well, no, that shareholder loan just fixes it all.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. That's right.

Casey Hiers:
No problem. Think about this. Well, I can just tell you how many conversations I've had with people and they have a lot of ideas, but then how is that going to affect your legacy, your retirement, all this stuff? There's a lot of uncertainty.
And that's mind-boggling to me that a practice owner, a business owner, nothing is certain, but the amount of numbers and data that practice owners aren't aware of, how does that work? It's like I'm going to go to Nordstrom and buy everything that catches my eye and worry about it later. And unfortunately, a lot of-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And half of it didn't even fit.

Casey Hiers:
Well, I got the large, and I really needed the extra large, I think, is what you're getting at there.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, you said a large in Peter Gang?

Casey Hiers:
Peter Millar. Yeah. Yeah. But those are the items that practice owners need to work on. And if you have a comprehensive overarching strategy, that's going to lead to certainty, but the noise is distracting.
And so many practice owners I talk to, their focus and what their mind is consumed with a lot of times aren't the things that are going to make them the most effective, but they can get stuck in it.
Just like so many people in December just get stuck in the busyness and don't actually enjoy it or have a fruitful... At the end of it, "Oh, I'm just glad it's over. I survived."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And I like the point, 'cause we talk about it a lot, but the comprehensive overarching strategy and plan, because sometimes too many people will get hyper focused on just one thing. And they're so focused on just my staffing issue, just this one, or whatever the case may be, that other things kind of fall through the cracks.

Casey Hiers:
I see two things. You either have that singular focus or is it pinball where you pull it and it's bouncing from idea to idea, the ball's going everywhere and nothing gets done? Both those happen.
And I think you can see that in, again, going back to the December and the Christmas busyness, people can just be bouncing all over the place, and they don't even know what they're doing. They're going to this party, they're buying this thing. It's challenging.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Casey, what kind of comprehensive plan? Let's go back to just you, because you love talking about yourself so much. What's your comprehensive plan for taking care of the holidays? You talk about how you enjoy the day, but you didn't really do any of the cooking, but what's your plan, work with at home with children?

Casey Hiers:
I like to reverse engineer and get out ahead of the big problems first and then work my way back.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
What's your biggest problem usually holiday time?

Casey Hiers:
What's my biggest problem during the holiday time? It's the right time and emphasis to focus on my oldest child's birthday, my wife's birthday, Christmas, and the party. So it's the time management. But again, what's the most important?
Well, for me, it's time to celebrate the actual holiday and what it stands for, and then it's to make sure my wife's happy, and then it's to make sure the kids are happy, but there's an order to things.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
But what would happen if you just blindly flew into December?

Casey Hiers:
I'd have some unhappy people, and that's no good. I don't want to be December 27th and go, "Huh, I'd have done some stuff differently, but I didn't really think about it. I let the busyness dictate my actions versus me taking control of it." And when I think about it, forecast it, think through it, and then prioritize, it's much more successful, typically.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And seeing what steps need to be taken.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. And practice ownership, same thing. If you don't have priority on what's important, again, cash flow in the practice should be pretty high up there, and there's a lot to that.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Or if your goal is to lower overhead, okay, great, great blanket statement. Let's backtrack that. What are your expenses? And how much do you spend on marketing? How much do you spend on this and this? And how much is your insurance? You know what I mean? All that stuff that you-

Casey Hiers:
So many practice owners don't know their numbers. And it's not a knock on them, but you can't expect success. I can't expect a successful December if I don't think, plan, strategize, prioritize, and take some time with it. And you've got to prioritize, and it's tough, but it'll lead to more success.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
My biggest priority is recording podcasts.

Casey Hiers:
There you go.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
There I go.

Casey Hiers:
We're going to be in the South Florida. There's a lot of holiday parties, but we've got, I don't know-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's this week?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. We've got quite a few people going to attend two different events because they have prioritized this issue. A lot of times, they've reflected on this year and just they don't like where they're at. And so what's the first step? "Well, I'm going to go learn something. I'm going to try to learn some things from some experts, maybe have some conversations," but insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
And unfortunately, a lot of practice owners will spend a decade or two doing that until they take it seriously. And trust me, I spent some Decembers just kind of, "Oh, we'll see how it goes. Well, it didn't go exactly how I wanted." Well, did I put effort into it? Not as much as I should have. So hey, it's a great time of year.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep, it is. We love it. Casey, for those folks who are listening, as you mentioned, we're going to be in Naples and Boca Raton, Florida this week, so Thursday night. If you're in the area, we still have just one or two seats left, go to fourquadrantsadvisory.com/events. Starting next year in January, we're going to be in Frisco and Fort Worth, Texas. We're going to be at the Yankee Dental. You're going to be presenting at that one, I believe. Right?

Casey Hiers:
Yankee Dental Congress. Yeah. We're going to do a fun social event, and then we're going to present for a couple of hours. It's a big old room and-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It'll be nice. And then following up, we've also got Arkansas coming up. We got Little Rock and Fayetteville, Rogers area. So we've got some things cooking for 2026.

Casey Hiers:
It's going to be a good year.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. Thanks, Casey.

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.