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Are You a Defeated Dentist? The Hard Truth Every Owner Must Hear · The Millionaire Dentist™

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  Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to you by
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  four Quadness Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry,
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  finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentists you deserve to
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  be. Please be advised we do speak with an honest tongue and may not
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  be safe for work. Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hires back at
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  the Millionaire Dentist Podcast in studio with co host Jared Bridgeman. Casey, it's
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  so good to see you. I love that color. It's like a dreamsickle
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  orange that collar. Casey, you just got back from Chicago just a couple
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  of days ago, and you've been out and about a lot lately, going
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  to Charlotte, going to Houston, going to Saint Louis and presenting and spreading
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  the good word out there. When you're out there and you're speaking with these
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  dentists, do you often find that within the room you can fit certain dentists
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  in a certain buckets? Are you asking me? Do I STAREO type?
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  No? Okay, now I think I get it. Yeah. No,
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  there's you know, first of all the crowds that we get our majority awesome,
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  like great people, fun people. The subject matter we cover is very
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  serious. It's it doesn't make you feel real good, you know, but
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  it's needed. So we like to have some fun. That's why we'll do
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  great food. We'll have it at a great venue. We'll have a bourbon
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  tasting or whatever, or some top golf or something to kind of ease the
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  pain. It'sad yeah, I mean, we want to have some fun.
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  But yeah, Ultimately, we'll have younger people who they're astute enough to know
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  that this topic is important, right, and they're also scared of it a
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  little bit yep, because they've heard maybe some older dentists share some more stories,
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  you know, but yet younger maybe not an owner yet. But okay,
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  boy, those those folks, I look at them, I go,
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  they at least realize this is an issue. Well, and they're also in
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  the room, which gives you the idea of like, oh, they're wanting
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  to own. Yeah, a lot of them. A lot of them do
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  it a side conversation the couple and they're a so the associate deal for uh
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  for for her was so sweet. They're like, we haven't seen one like
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  it. Yeah, And I'm like, I've not hurt a lot like it,
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  and they're like, well, worried ownership will be not as good.
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  But yeah, you've got that group. You've got you've got some of the
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  folks, maybe you're kind of ryting at it. They've they've owned. You
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  know, they're the late mid to late thirties to maybe early fifties, and
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  so they're in it now. These this group of people who are are maybe
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  youngerish, maybe not own. When you're presenting in your you're asking questions and
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  I know sometimes you might get some pushback. Do you get a lot of
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  pushback from that group? Are they the war drofe or whatever from the muppets?
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  Are they the ones out there, you know, yelling something back at
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  you? Wait, like the old men in the bus. You don't know
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  what their names are, but I do remember. No, Actually, no,
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  they're they're you know, young like a sponge. I mean, they're
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  they're really just sort of they have a lot of questions and they have a
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  lot of they're inquisitive and they're like listening very intently, right yep, versus
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  you know the it only happens maybe one out of five times with the guy
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  with eighty percent overhead that's falling asleep in a corner. You're like, hey,
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  Val, you may want to write this down. Yeah, yeah,
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  no, And then and then ultimately, you know, there's some people on
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  the back end of the career and I hear a lot of I wish I'd
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  have heard this, you know, fifteen twenty years ago. A lot of
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  our clients go, I wish I would have started working with you fifteen to
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  twenty years ago. But yeah, you'll you'll have some of those folks as
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  well, and you know, sometimes it is too late, but a lot
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  of times it's not. But you know, then you also see the defeated,
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  you know, the defeated practice owner. And sometimes that's because they've tried
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  to grow and they just they haven't been able to grow. So well,
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  I guess when you use the term defeated dentist, what do you mean by
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  that? Mmmm, Like defeated in life. Almost dentistry is not what they
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  thought it would be. And they're bordering on what's that negative? There's like
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  a negative adject like they're they're cynical, they're jaded, they're right, they're
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  kind of just going through the motions. They feel like they've been burnt,
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  like they're they seem very frustrated. You know, like basically, if I
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  couldn't do it, nobody can. Yeah, I mean we break it down
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  right as a practice owner, regardless of where you're at, are you in
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  a survival mode or are you in a growth sort of thriving mode. And
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  that's how we look at it and kind of divide them. Right, if
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  you're just surviving, you have a lot of uncertainty, you have sleepless nights.
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  Those two things affect decision making. You talked about it earlier, and
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  health well, no doubt. But if you have sleepless nights, uncertainty stress
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  your decision making, you might be looking for of an immediate gratification decision making
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  because you almost don't have the capacity to look and understand what a decision might
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  mean long term. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that affects people
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  in certain areas where they have those quick loan cash loan places. You know,
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  I need that one hundred bucks right now, sure, and that's translated
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  into something else. If you're in a surviving mode, if you haven't spoke
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  to your accountant or CPA or some of your external team much this year,
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  I mean it's October. Yeah, near the end of box are. Yeah,
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  if you're not in a surviving mode, you might be when they tell
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  you the oh fifty dollars, Is this a Jeff Foxworthy kind of thing?
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  You might if you haven't spoken to your CPA yet this year, you might
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  be surviving defeated dentist. Yeah, well but no, unfortunately, there's a
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  lot of that out there. But surviving versus Okay, now now they're let's
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  call them just defeated and I hate right, But like insurance adjustments are high,
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  overheads, high, employee wages are high, tax planning is reactive.
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  They're they're not growing. Their income isn't what they wanted it to be.
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  They're stressing, their stresses off the charts, you know. Industry is not
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  what they wanted it to be. Their income has never been reflective of their
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  hard work, and they just they're so frustrated. They don't understand why.
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  And then do they do? They kind of come out at you in these
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  in these group settings, just because they're defensive because I know they're being called
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  out. What is your opinion on what I know? It's obviously a very
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  emotional thing for them. I would compare it to just sometimes with your with
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  your with the with the parent, when you're younger with a spouse now,
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  sometimes some conversations can hurt, and as dudes, we could sometimes be defensive.
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  Yeah, I mean really, this is probably less than a handful of
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  times and a many many, many, many, many many things, But
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  yeah, I think some of that can come out. And ultimately it starts
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  with just some questions. It starts with questions, and then it's it really
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  gets kind of it gets kind of sad because ultimately, if they've spent multiple
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  decades trying to produce great dentistry and master the business and financial side of their
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  practice, chances are there not where they want to be right, And I
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  think that realization sets in when a few factors hit right. Age of course
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  is part of that formula, but some of the factors hit they realize,
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  I'm not going to be able to retire like I want. I mean,
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  yeah, the fact is, you know, you could might be an excellentessigs,
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  you're probably a great dentist, but business things in general are very hard,
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  can be very emotional, and then you start getting into finance, you
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  start getting the taxes, and taxes are not an easy thing to understand no.
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  Well, and this Employee Retention Credit ERC that's coming up I think in
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  like April of twenty twenty four where that expires, and so people have to
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  get this in prior to that. And I'm having more and more conversations where
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  they're what we would call their run of the mill standard accounting operation. They're
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  coming up with a lot of excuses. They don't want to do it,
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  they don't want to look into it. Isn't that their job, yeah,
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  one would think, And so ultimately, you know, we've heard things like,
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  yeah, my CPA looked into it and said it's too much trouble,
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  and then they gave them a two thousand dollars bill for them looking into it
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  saying it's too much trouble. Somebody else told me their account and goes,
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  well, yeah, but then I'd have to go and mend returns, and
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  I'm just like, yeah, wow. Again, that's the point. So
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  when we talk about comprehensive, our firm is looking at the entire picture of
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  our clients to help them. If you have it peace mailed, that means
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  that your accounts is looking at it. Going is a pain in the ass,
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  and I'm gonna have to mend some stuff, and I don't really want
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  to, you know, because you know, sometimes we have pipes on on
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  our podcast. Steve Levy, he's our tax manager here, and uh,
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  he's not in this week or in this in this podcast this week because he's
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  out there being proactive with taxes right now. Yeah, I mean, it's
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  all inclusive here, right. We're gonna look and see if an employee retention
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  credit makes sense for you and your practice. And you know, there's multiple
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  three criteria and there's all these things and you gotta fill all Form A and
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  B and check this box and do these things. Sure, I mean,
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  our clients enjoy it, but I'm hearing more and more as people are realizing
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  the deadlines approaching and they're inquiring, they're not getting the answers they want.
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  Therefore, you are in that survival side of things versus that growing and thriving
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  side of things, right, because we're all in one and we have different
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  seasons. But if you're in the surviving mode, if you don't get out
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  of it, then you're all of a sudden in the defeated dentist section of
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  the of the house. It's a cycle that's really hard to get out of
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  again. What do we always say these numbers? And sure it's adjustments,
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  overhead and wages, reactive tax planning all they don't get better if they don't,
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  if they're not addressed right, you need to ask yourself how high are
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  those? How high are you right now? Yeah? I mean overhead sometimes
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  people are seventy eighty percent if they even know that. Most of them don't
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  you, And I mean I know that most of them don't. When I'm
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  in a room, I know they most of the time they don't know what
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  their insurance adjustments are, their overhead, their employee wages, they do not
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  know what those are. Let me ask you, is there a correlation to
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  If they don't know, it tends to be high. I feel like if
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  they spent the time to learn it and know it, they might have at
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  least some better control over it. You know, I've to just talk to
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  people with That might be true, But I don't know if it's like a
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  direct correlation. I've talked to somebody who's like, they go, I don't
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  think overhead's too bad. So they didn't really know it was fifty eight percent.
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  We've seen worse, right, But they Yeah, Casey you know,
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  it sounds like when you're out there, you run into a lot of different
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  types of people, a lot of different personalities. Does that ever affect your
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  your presentations and how you teach and how you speak with people, having to
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  deal with not deal with having to potentially cater to these personalities. Interesting.
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  I mean, the nice thing is when we have groups of let's say eighteen
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  to thirty, it's cozy, so it is nice, there is interaction,
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  and I love hearing from audiences and things like that. But yeah, I
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  mean, certainly, if people are in that defeated dentist section, it's emotional
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  because they've tried a lot of things and nothing's worked, and they're frustrated.
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  And so the tone I get is, well, if I can't do it,
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  nobody can. And then when I give them different examples, I mean,
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  ultimately, there is a profitable way to have an insurance shop. Your
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  external team should be showing you that blueprint. There's a profitable way for a
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  hybrid model. There's a profitable way for a fee for service model. There's
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  ways to do it. We have twenty years of examples of this, but
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  just, you know, just saying it can't be done is unfortunate. But
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  now you know, I customize this presentation to at least try to to each
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  room, each group of people the questions they ask. But yeah, no,
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  we certainly had You know, somebody who potentially had gotten beaten up and
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  their realization was kind of sad, but they didn't want to accept that success
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  could be had. Well, they have lost. They just wanted to be
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  like insurance has render it for all of us, instead of no, there's
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  ways your margins are less as a dentist. You could you could be less
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  than mediocre at the business side of dentistry and get away with it maybe thirty
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  forty years ago. Now you can't. The margins are thinner. Again,
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  it just elevates what we do as a firm. And again, if you
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  never work with us, that's okay, but make damn sure that the team
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  you do work with is up to your expectations and you know what good should
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  be. Because I just talked to somebody I believe they're a listener, and
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  they basically said, I feel like I'm giving my external team the ideas and
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  they're having have a hard of time like checking out out or verifying the I
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  go, which would be like me going to my dentists walking him through how
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  to do my exam or do the cavity like that's ass backwards. Feels like
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  doctor Nick from the Simpsons. Oh after that, I'm sad to say that
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  reference is lost on you lost on me? Yeah, my bad. No,
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  So Casey, if anybody out there is listening and they maybe not get
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  beat up, you know, kind of feel some of the emotional polls that
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  you can give up presentation. Do you know where you're going to be going
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  to be next? Orlando and Scottsdale. That's right area in Orlando, Yes,
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  so that'll be both those events will be upcoming in November. Please go
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  to four quadrantsadvisor dot com slash events and when you click on it, make
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  sure you register. Please. We'd like to keep a good headcount of who's
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  going to be there. Yeah, I mean needs tend to sell out.
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  We got to know who's coming, right, Just don't show up and you
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  might have to sit by the trash. Can you know that sucks? We
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  typically do have some pretty nice private rooms. It was a great space and
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  we had a great time. So next time, you know, I'm not
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  even allowed to go anymore. Casey's had to kick me out because we've had
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  so many people in there. That sucks. All right, Casey buddy,
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  I really appreciate you helping me out today and understand some more of these things
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  that you run into. Thank you. That's all the time we have today.
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  Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great
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  information. And thank you to you the listener for tuning in. The Millionaire
• 13:22
  Dennis Podcast is brought to you by four Quadrance Advisory to see if they might
• 13:26
  be a good fit for you and your practice. Going over to four Quadransadvisory
• 13:30
  dot com and see why year after year they retain over ninety five percent other
• 13:35
  clients. Thank you again for joining us and we'll see you next time.