Latest / The Millionaire Dentist™ / Retire Early, Live Big: Why Young Dentists Are Taking Control

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Retire Early, Live Big: Why Young Dentists Are Taking Control · The Millionaire Dentist™

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  Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to you by
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  Four Quadrants 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 dentist 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 Dnist Podcast in studio with a very dapper Jared Bridgeman. Hey,
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  how are you doing here? A little suit on too? It's nice?
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  Suit it up, suit it up. Love it. So, Casey,
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  let me ask you Memorial Day just happened? Did you have anything great happen
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  over your your holiday weekend? Crushed it? I'm really good at days off.
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  I'm really good at holidays. I crushed it nice, I mean you
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  name it. Yeah, cigars, golf, friends, family cookouts, that's
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  everything. Nailed it than really good at that time off? Yeah. We
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  Uh, I took the family over to my dad's house and he has a
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  heated pool, so that was nice. It's uh the ponds for you in
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  the back, the way back, that's right, kids. Yeah. Well
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  and I'm I'm the kind of guy I don't like cold pool water. It
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  takes me like an hour to inch my way in, so warmmer pool is
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  really at my alley. Figured you'd be a cannonball guy. I still gotta
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  play my nose. Why I never really learned to swim. She's not that
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  well like a dogg and paddle like a master though. Goodness, Yeah,
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  it's nice to have some time off sharpen the axe. Well, and especially
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  for you. I mean you've been you know, hitting up shows and uh
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  and speaking and doing all kinds of stuff lately. Yeah, spreading a good
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  word. Um. And and it's funny, what do we prep for podcasts
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  in terms of three to six minutes? And we just run, We just
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  go right like we're uh. And so we had so many great ideas,
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  no one theme, and uh, we're just gonna throw some stuff against the
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  wall and see what sticks. I mean, we've got a lot of fun
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  things to talk about, but it's not it's not what we say cohesive.
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  Hey, don't even have a title yet, but I'll think of one.
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  You know what it's like when you have a bunch of ingredients left and you're
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  like, you know what let's see what we do and it tastes delicious.
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  I don't know lay store and I just grab it's in my fridge. Yes,
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  So you know some of this of course, like we are a firm
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  who has been around for almost twenty years who helps practice owners. We talk
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  about that all the time. Some of the topics are going to probably hit
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  that, but we're also going to talk about some other things in dentistry as
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  well. But you know, one of the first ones, we were talking
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  to our founder and CEO, Jason Smith, and he was sort of doing
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  some reflecting and he said, as I look out at our clients, some
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  of them are able to retire early. Um, those that find us young
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  are able to retire at fifty. And I found that interesting. And we
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  just had somebody in from what New York right right right? He uh,
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  he's retiring early, isn't he five years early? Okay, four and a
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  half if we want to get real. I also know he just took an
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  amazing river cruise out in a gamsterdamn and up in that area. Well,
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  this is one of those things that I was that the Yankee Dental Congress meeting
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  presented to a sold out room. You know, somebody approaches and has some
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  questions and wants to talk. That's great, right, right, We provide
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  ce, but ultimately people realize your expertise comes from that you have done this
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  for a couple of decades as a firm, actual experience. We just didn't
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  make it up. And he was everybody has a different situation, right,
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  And he was just in a place where one partner's retiring, another partner disabled,
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  and so boom, all of a sudden, he's in a different situation.
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  Long story short, he took that leap of faith, and for his
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  personality profile, that was hard, Jared, It was really hard for him
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  to take that leap. He looks back and goes, the hell would I
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  have done without finding you? Guys, He's retiring four and a half years
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  early. He's retiring early. He now has someone else who's bought in,
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  right, correct, And I mean who's now and we help we'll help handle
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  that kind of handoff, right, and millions more than he would have had,
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  right. So for him, it was retiring early because he found us
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  later. But we work with people who they find us in their mid thirties,
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  Jared. They can be out of dentistry by the time they're fifty.
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  He retired right, like retired with like lots of money. Oh yeah,
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  retirement. I retire at fifty and be homeless eight eight digits right, eight
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  digits. Yeah, And so that's a big deal. And that's why we
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  we better our bread sometimes on this podcast because this is what we do all
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  the time. We help people. We want to help more people, but
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  we can't help everybody, you know. Jason, our founder again also had
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  mentioned something I found very interesting, which is he's finding today that dentists in
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  their mid thirties seem to have more of a stride than even like ten years
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  ago. Like there's been a shift in more of a drive for what like
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  like to success and to own their own practice and really not just own own
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  at top quiz. Why do you think that is because millennials are better than
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  jen x? I love it. No, I No. I think part
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  of it could just be a lot of people that age or just a few
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  year, few years younger than us, have seen the struggles that maybe they're
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  their parents or their grandpather they if they're in that in that bitline of business.
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  I'm going to give the answer to my own pop quiz. Yes,
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  from my conversations with practice owners. It's twofold that age. They've seen some
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  older folks and maybe a study club or in the community that they were respected
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  and they did not retire or go out the way they wanted to, or
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  they had the practice longer. So they have seen it may be not done
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  the right way, and that's a little can cause trepidation. The other side
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  of it is a lot of their friends are going into corporate dentistry to avoid
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  the downfalls and pitfalls of that ownership can have because they're almost too scared to
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  do it. So they say, I'm going to take that out of the
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  equation. I'm going to do corporate dentistry. It's not necessarily what they want
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  to do, but it's a path. And so some of the younger owners
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  are looking at this going so I want to be old and still practicing,
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  or do I want to get stuck in a grinding the achievers go screw it.
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  I'm want to prove everybody wrong. Yep. I'm want to prove my
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  friends wrong who are too scared to own a practice. And I don't want
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  to be old man River at the study club who can't retire right in your
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  seventies raties, and so what we're finding are some really the mindset because twenty
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  years ago, fifteen years ago, some of these the younger people might not
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  have been ready for a firm like ours, quite frankly, but now they're
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  looking up, going, I don't we don't have time to waste. I
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  want to get this right. I'm good at dentistry. I'm not good at
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  all the stuff you guys do. Let's have a chat, let's work together.
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  But yeah, that's that pop quiz is that they want to prove their
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  corporate dentistry friends wrong, and they don't want to be the old person who
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  can't retire. So they want to get it right, and they don't want
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  to wait. They don't want to do it themselves for ten years and fall
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  short. So find us in your thirties, retire by fifty or you know,
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  five to eight years earlier than expected. That all sounds great. Does
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  that mean we're you know, you're working yourself to the bond. No,
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  that's that's the in dentistry. You here, if you want to make more,
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  produce more. We've said it before, that's what people here. It's
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  not necessarily true. Our firm is really really good at driving results, but
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  increased production like one point seven percent, right, you know, over a
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  couple of year periods. So it's it's what we're all about, is our
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  clients working the same or less hours, but they're more efficient. That looks
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  different for different practices. Sometimes that's an insurance situation we've got to get figured
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  out. Sometimes that's fees, case acceptance, patients per day, production per
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  day. There's a lot of benchmarks that drive that would that kind of tie
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  into more of a work life balance for these for these owners. Yeah,
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  it's incredible the folks again can take the leap of faith and have the opportunity
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  to work with a firm like ours. You know, work life balance gets
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  better when these areas are mastered. I mean they're not at home working on
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  the books either. No, as much as they were. No, I
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  mean they can actually do things that they enjoy. But it was interesting.
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  We were just is it okay to pivot? Yeah, we were just at
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  um. We were just at a state meeting and one of our clients is
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  the president of the state Association and we had the the privilege of hosting the
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  presidential suite and just it was it was fun, right, like, of
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  course everybody likes that. Feel. Sure, we got to talk to a
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  lot of people we don't work with, but they're big hitters and the AGD
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  and the ADA and they do all kinds of things in the dentistry and well,
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  and they were older and they heard about our firm. They haven't worked
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  with us, but even hearing from them, like why I hear really good
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  things or you know, younger people need to at least take a look or
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  or what does it take to have success? Because again, most of these
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  folks are older and they're they're still working. Some don't mind it because they're
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  not in the mouth as much. Yeah, um, and they actually enjoy
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  it. But it was it was a lot of fun to go to that
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  meeting. Um, and again just have those conversations. But I was asking
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  some of them, when you go to these sorts of meetings, what do
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  you what do you want to get out of it? Yeah, I feel
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  like, you know, off the top of my head, some of it
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  really is just um, the ce like the in the chairs. There's certainly
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  some opportunities to learn something. Yeah. Um, I mean honestly that if
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  they're at a nice resort and they get a little family time or a little
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  time away see some old friends. Yeah you know, yeah, that's right.
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  Um. But they had said that, you know, sometimes they still
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  go through the exhibit hall, but it can be awkward. Um and and
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  it's not necessarily helpful. Um. But what I told them, I go,
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  well, we were actually are in the exhibit hall as well. And
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  I go, oh, really we because I was just kind of skipping through.
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  We didn't know that you that you were. And one of them said,
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  you know again, I don't work with you, but you know,
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  wow, that's a good way for younger dentists to potentially find you guys,
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  because he goes, it's you know, I didn't know about you guys until
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  later in my career. It was an interesting conversation. You know what's nice
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  about that too, is, uh it makes me think of when you're walking
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  through the mall because we don't do this, but you know, the guys
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  with the bottles of lotion are constantly trying to sport stuff in your hands and
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  try out their their lotion. If you've ever walked the streets of law sidewalks
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  of Las Vegas, like the nice areas, uh yeah, yeah, they
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  snap a match in you're just like, leave me alone. That's how the
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  hawk can feel sometimes. Um. Ultimately, we we we don't necessarily do
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  that. We like to meet. We like to meet new people to see
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  if we can help. But we've actually got some people we're at this weekend.
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  Oh, we've got the American Association of a Pediatric Dentistry and they are
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  in Orlando. Yeah right, yeah, the Gay Lord Palm's great, great
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  hotel, great resort. You've been there to that, to that hotel,
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  right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that Florida State meeting. That's
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  right. That participating, but ultimately talking to to our team that's down there.
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  You know. Again, we're um, what we do doesn't really lend
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  to exhibiting as much. Right, we don't have a shiny thing, and
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  people don't want to talk about because you guys won't let me go the thing.
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  But you know, people don't want to talk about overhead and taxes an
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  income in retirement because it doesn't make them feel good at those meetings. They
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  typically want to just have fun because we only address we really just address the
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  negative things and make you better and we have positives that come out of it.
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  We're addressing the most the things that cost practice a right the most.
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  It's greet them wrong. It's gonna cost you it. It's not a product
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  that we're like this, we'll do this and like how cool this pin came
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  right upside down and it's kind of funny. But we do a little raffle.
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  Right, we'll have a nice bottle of a class AA zul tequila,
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  maybe a bottle of red wine cam us Right, it catches their eye.
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  People are really excited to potentially win about one hundred bottle or two hundred dollars
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  bottle of an adult beverage. That's great. What we do in the conversations
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  we have are worth so much. Yet from a mindset, it's just hard
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  for people. It puts them in a mind pretzel sometimes and they're more comfortable
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  talking about a nice bottle of red wine. But I like to win things
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  there you get well, don't have you get me into the chats keys.
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  But yeah, it's nice Pediatric National meeting we're participating in. And again for
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  us it's we don't have the shiny thing. But you know, if we
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  meet twenty or thirty people, there might be one that we end up chatting
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  with and helping a lot of the people that we to or that align with
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  our firm. They like nice things and they have expensive hobbies. You know
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  what, I know a couple of clients have some expensive hobbies. We're not
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  saying names. We we our clients get things right, and they have the
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  ability to have a private jet, that is true, have a McLaren,
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  have a race car. But but they didn't go broke. Well here's the
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  difference. I've heard some really sad stories about centists and specialists who had really
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  expensive hobbies and they were going to fill that need, regardless if they should
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  or not, at the expense of retirement savings, the future cash flow and
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  the practice cash flow at home, and those are sad stories. Is a
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  McLaren nice to sleep and if you lose your home? No? No,
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  I mean what about four or five hundred thousand bucks for a McLaren. Those
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  are beautiful, Oh yeah, not really roomy to sleep in? Right?
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  No, right, So you've got to do it right. Our clients get
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  things right. And after you do that for a couple of years minimum,
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  all of a sudden you look up and you go, hey, I kind
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  of want this thing, and you feel guilty about it. And then when
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  your team goes, You're in a position where if that's something you want to
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  do over the next nine months, here's the path to make that happen.
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  How much better do you feel buying something when your team's going that's okay.
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  Now you also might hear a oooh, yeah, we we have got to
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  get you fee for service before we're going to do that. But if that's
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  your goal, we will help you work towards that. What's what's the path?
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  Yeah? Yeah, it doesn't necessarily to be yes or no, But
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  what we hear is it's so much better to do those things. We don't
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  feel guilty about it. Where's a good place for someone to start if they
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  want to discuss anything about their practice in terms of on the financial business side,
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  is just going to the website and fill out a form. They're giving
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  you a call. What can these folks do? Yeah? Actually, I
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  received a call this week from somebody who has known about our firm, has
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  met a client who sang our praises that's standard. There were two or three
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  other things that had occurred where they said, gosh, I don't I just
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  need to call literally just reached out of you know, y'all are smart.
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  If you want to reach out, you can figure it out. Website still
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  out of form, placed a phone call. I think some of them are
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  directed to my cell phone. That's fun. No, I want to hear
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  that number on everything. No, but but ultimately somebody that goes I don't
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  know. I just I feel like I need to talk. And after twenty
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  minutes it was like, okay, this is this is great. You're actually
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  vetting me because you don't take everybody I said that is correct. Well,
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  and then the great thing is is if you know you need help, or
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  if you think your practice as good as is or perfect, getting a second
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  pair of eyes can either you know, help you be like, oh damn,
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  I'm fantastic, or here are some areas of improvement. It doesn't hurt
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  to initiate the conversation. We've had three people recently that went through our process
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  and learned that previous tax returns were not done in a dental specific, mastered
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  way right, And there were thirty thirty eight thousand and sixty thousand dollars that
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  with our help amending these returns, that's what they were getting. And we
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  did not charge them more to work with us because we found it right that's
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  just our standard of care that what they were receiving, and they thought they
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  were doing pretty good. Two out of the three thought they were doing pretty
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  good. But again, is there room for more? I don't know.
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  Again, it's all about a conversation and if you're if you're not, you
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  know, if you're if you're a little too insecure, or you're a you're
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  not an extrovert like I am or Casey is, and you kind of want
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  to hear some more of this first before you start a conversation. Again,
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  We're going to be at all kinds of places all year long. We've got
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  our own events that we are hosting at various top golfs who are also implementing
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  a tasting and ce event like maybe some bourbon or maybe some wine. Again,
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  those are on four quadrants advisor dot com, slash events. Just check
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  out where we're going to be, you know. And it's interesting some people
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  will come to us out of this um paralysis from all the debt. We
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  have people with five hundred thousand dollars in debt when they come here. We've
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  had people with over two million dollars in debt when they came. That hurts.
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  It's emotional, and we've talked about this before. That's not really an
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  issue. When you get everything else right, Jared, you can stroke a
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  check and pay off the debt whenever you want. We have example after example
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  of that. But here's the order of concern. And if people listen to
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  this and are finishing their jog or mowing their lawn, you know that this
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  is actually pretty interesting. Most people put debt number one and they want to
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  get rid of it, and then they go down from there. It's it's
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  it's it's just the inverse. It should be practice cash flow, get the
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  practice right right, insurance if that's a situation, get your arms around that
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  personal cash flow, tax management, and the interest. When you get those
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  things in order, the debt is then better addressed. When those things are
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  it's harder to pay down debt. People will reach out because of their their
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  debt. And there's such thing as like good debt too, Oh of course,
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  right, yeah, yeah, that's that's emotional. But you know some
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  people don't have any debt and they're like, I'm good, I'm I'm just
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  doing great. And you know what's another thing we've heard recently. It's not
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  uncommon for our clients incomes to what go up or double? Yeah, twenty
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  the average is twenty five percent, but I mean recently. Yeah. Again,
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  we keep getting better and better. You know, people that have made
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  less mistakes because they're coming to us earlier, which means the opportunity is bigger.
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  A lot of incomes are doubling. Yeah, you know that happening in
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  the first month, but the first two and a half years. Yeah,
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  incomes are doubling and stuff goes quick. I just really example a bottle of
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  chemist to get started to have the conversation. That's right. Well, Casey,
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  I wanted to thank you for this kind of a kitchen sink version of
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  our show. Again. Check us out at four quadrons dot com if you
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  want to see the events we're going to be at, like the events tab,
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  if you want to see some of our client testimonials or a space for
• 17:40
  that. We've got blogs. Man, We're just full of knowledge and if
• 17:42
  you get it all figured out, keep on keeping on, yeah, and
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  just listen to us. Thanks, Casey, that's all the time we have
• 17:51
  today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really
• 17:53
  great information. And thank you to you the listener for tuning in. The
• 17:57
  Millionaire Dennis podcast has brought to you by four Quadrants Advisory to see if they
• 18:02
  might be a good fit for you and your practice. Going over to four
• 18:04
  Quadrants Advisory dot com and see why year after year they retain over ninety five
• 18:08
  percent of their clients. Thank you again for joining us and we'll see you
• 18:11
  next time.