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Dentistry Demystified: Choosing Your Dream Practice · The Millionaire Dentist™

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  Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to you by
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  four Quadn's 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 heires back at
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  the Millionaire Dentist Podcast and studio with co host Jared Bridgeman. Casey, how
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  are you good? I just had a nice lunch of chicken salad from the
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  Chicken Salad Chick. Yeah, it's good. It's a restaurant. Yeah,
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  what kind you get? Olivia's Old South. They're threw in a butter cream
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  cookie. I'm trying to, you know, cut out my sweets. So
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  I came in and I asked for it and he said, no, thanks
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  for that. Casey. You're not there obviously this week, but we are
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  there AGD in Minneapolis. The twenty twenty four Aged events happened Minneapolis. Is
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  that what said? You kind of slurred it Minneapolis. Yeah, we're based
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  near Indianapolis. Yes, The Academy of General dnistry. Their annual meeting is
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  in Minneapolis, uh I think through Saturday. So yeah, we like to
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  We've we presented at that meeting, We've you know, sent some leadership up
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  there, and we like to support that meeting. It's a good one.
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  Yep, yep, We've got some We've got some folks heading out there really
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  excited to If you're you're going to be there, make sure you stop buy
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  and say hi and let us uh vow you with our with our brains.
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  You know, that's an ideal, but you know, or they can enter
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  a raffle to win a little of camus or two hundred dollars tequila. That's
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  true. And if nobody and if you don't enter to win, I get
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  to drink it all. So if you want to help protect my wife falls
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  and fights now. But when we're at those events, you know, we
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  speak to and we hear every dental practice story in the world. We see
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  every tie of practice that's out there. And sometimes folks are just along for
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  the ride. They let their circumstances dictate how their practice in their lives are.
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  You know what I mean about that? And so I wanted to ask
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  you, let's kind of get into it. What are some basic things that
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  people should be able to take control of but may not. Well, I
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  don't know that we know every scenario, mister big talker. Yeah, we
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  see a lot, We hear a lot. Ultimately, been at this for
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  over twenty years and so every conversation is unique and custom. But that being
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  said, you see trends in dentistry, right, and yeah, like you
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  said, a lot of times people they're not choosing their own adventure with dentistry
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  once they buy a practice, they're being taken for a ride. Yeah,
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  and it's more fun to choose your own adventure. And there's a whole bunch
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  of crossroad crossroad decisions. A practice owner gets to make over their career,
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  which is exciting. Sometimes it's a fifty fifty coin flip on what's right wrong.
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  But yeah, we can go over just what some of those are at
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  a high level. Yeah, so you know, let's start off put the
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  bare bones basic. I would say it's like a one practice shop. Yeah,
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  right, you graduate here, maybe you're an associate for a little bit,
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  and then boom, you're a practice owner. You've got this practice and
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  really hopefully this thought process has come in beforehand but what kind of practice do
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  you want to buy right? Right? But you know, if you've got
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  a practice, is this a practice that can get you where you want to
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  go? Yep? Does this one need a lot of work? Does it
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  need a complete one eighty change on business model? But really deciding, Hey,
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  do do I have the right practice? And do I just want to
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  make this one practice my cash cow? That's really the first one because a
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  lot of people want their names on the side of buildings that they're saying that
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  in a bad way, but they feel the path to the most wealth is
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  multiple locations, which would be the next step. Some people often dive into
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  oh, I'm doing okay at this practice, but I would like more more
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  money wherever the case may be, and so they start branching out into multiple
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  practices. But there are some cause of that too. Now that's not to
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  say that may not be the answer for you, but it may not be
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  the right time for that answer, or you're just complicating your your stress levels
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  of adult babysitting, or if you don't have your systems and processes in place
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  in the first practice, you're just repeating that exponentially out there. Some people
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  get a magic calculator. They don't love where they're at financially with the one
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  practice, so they go, well, I'll just doing times too open a
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  second location and about of being about a boom. Right, Well, there's
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  people with multiple locations that are crushing it. They're doing great because for a
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  variety of reasons and variables that were executed correctly. The timing was right,
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  the practice was right, the distance locational, and you kind of have the
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  right mindset for too. Just because you see somebody else do being successful at
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  it doesn't mean that you will be. Ooh, let's dig into that.
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  That is unfortunately I hear way too often. Yeah, well I know somebody
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  or you know, they've got this many practices and they have an aircraft and
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  they have a lake house, and I want that, so therefore I need
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  two practices. Right, that's not a great business plan. No, Yeah,
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  it's one thing to kind of know what you want and then it's to
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  dig into the details. But yeah, multiple practices, multiple locations, multiple
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  partners. I mean we've seen some of that where they look up and they
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  are fifty to fifty partners in three different practices and they've got a very complicated
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  situation. Yeah, and you're kind of stuck at that point unless you get
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  bought out by somebody. Well more times than not ready fire aim. If
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  we want to talk go into the range. They think they want to do
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  it, they do it. They look up and go, I don't like
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  this either. Right now, I've got a complicated situation that really hasn't brought
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  me a hasn't doubled or tripled my income necessarily, right And and at that
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  point too, if it's fifty to fifty or you know how many other partners
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  are involved, you can't just straight up make a larget decision at that point.
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  You know what the rationalization is for that? What's that Well, I'll
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  catch it on the back end because they've got these massive practices and I'm gonna
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  get something out of it. And so they you know, put their hope
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  in that they're going to just get this big, perfect check to buy them
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  out when they go to retire, and that's going to make up the majority
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  of their retirement. That's the rationalization sometimes for practice three practice for partnership here,
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  you know, it's like a complicated crime scene pictures with yarn with some
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  of the things that we've seen. It almost appears as diversifying, but you're
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  not. You know what I mean. If you're thinking you're putting all these
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  eggs in different baskets, but it's all really the same basket. We have
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  general dentists that make a million dollars in general dentistry at one practice because they
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  have figured out the best path for them and roadmap with help from a team
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  to monetize that. And we have others with this complicated situation and they're still
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  not making or saving what they want. They don't really have a ton of
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  certainty with you know, when when they can hang it up. I mean,
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  this is this is a much smaller scale example. But years ago,
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  a few buddies and I formed a small board game company between the four of
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  us, and then I was twenty five percent ownership for everybody, and so
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  it came down to nothing ever really got done because we can never agree fully
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  to do anything. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Oh my gosh,
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  that's that's a big one. So let's say you've got okay, you've got
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  your either one or two or three or six locate, you've got that one
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  figured out, you feel good about it, and then it's okay, do
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  I need an associate? How many? Right? How there's a that's a
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  huge component to me. You just get more associates, you make more money,
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  right, you're doing more dentistry. Magic calculator again, Yeah, it
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  can be incredibly profitable if you've got the numbers to back it up. So
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  let me ask you. I know we've got kind of a rough benchmark of
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  as a company of when you should start start thinking about looking for an associate.
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  What's an Do you have an average number in your head of when the
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  average per dentist might start thinking about, like not knowing their numbers fully,
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  are they just thinking, oh, I'm is it based upon time or is
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  it based upon how much start making it? I was like, oh,
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  I'm so busy, I need an associate, even if they're not making a
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  lot from it. There's a lot of words from one question. So there's
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  a lot of variables that go into it. But you know, we have
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  people that produce you know, one five, one six, one seven,
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  nine, two million by themselves, they're big producers that it's a non issue.
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  We have others that at one point three they were, you know,
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  seemingly to capacity and so stressed out and all those things. So there's it's
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  custom, there's different things. But yeah, I mean, if if your
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  overhead stinks and you're not you know, collecting one four, one five,
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  one six, you may you know, if you're south of that, you
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  may want to really really take some time to determine if you want an associate,
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  because while that answers the question of coverage, well, I've got somebody
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  to help me out pay them. And unfortunately, we've seen some cases where
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  the associate was making more than the owner, more than you would think once
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  you peel the onion back. Yeah, there's twenty percent of the time.
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  Yeah, so she you look apples to apples, the associate is out earning,
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  not necessarily outproducing, but out earning sure the owner of the practice.
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  And that's uh, that's not why you open a business. I mean,
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  having employees is great and all, but usually your main focus is to make
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  money yourself. Yeah about you. Well, and I mean I talked to
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  an oral surgeon the other day. He works five days a week, you
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  know, And that's the other thing. Okay, do you want to work
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  five days a week, four days a week, three days a week.
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  What's that look like? What's each option look like what needs to occur,
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  let's quantify it like that. There are so many crossroads that Addis has.
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  But then unfortunately they'll look up without much strategy, without much guidance, and
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  they look up and they're like, how did I get here? I like
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  dentistry, but I don't I don't love all these details. Right, let's
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  talk about it. Insurance. Insurance is one of the biggest frustrations ever where
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  if you're a young dentist, may be target fee for service practices to purchase
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  and you'll eliminate decades of of stress. But then there's others that do a
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  startup and they accept some insurances. Right, well, that's basically marketing costs,
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  and they've had a path to be successful doing it that way. Sure,
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  And so to you, like you said earlier, well, somebody else
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  did it and did it well. I mean, we have examples of every
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  scenario almost where somebody has crushed it in a good way, and where somebody
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  has industry is not what they wanted and they considering getting it out. So
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  it's not necessarily which decision do you do, because there's not a cookie cutter
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  answer. It's your situation, your preference, your practice, your geography,
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  so many things they go into these decisions. Yet these practice owners make decisions
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  on emotion, right, instead of looking at all those things and then aiming
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  that towards here's my end goal. What can I do? What can I
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  tweak? What can I do to come close to that? I mean,
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  emotions should be the first one. Like it's good and bad? What do
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  you want? Right? Then you need some professionals or some consultants or a
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  team to then get into the nitty gritty of all the numbers, all the
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  variables, all the details to determine is that a good idea? They don't
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  have one of those uh dental practice Businesses for dummies books out there. Oh
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  I'm sure there are. And the Cliff Huts version is just produced more.
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  That's that's that's just it's two pages, just real big across the top.
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  Yeah. Well, and practice owners they know this when they consider adding a
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  location. Then again, a bunch of cheerleaders, everybody thinks that's a great
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  idea. Oh that sounds great. Oh that sounds neat. Oh yeah,
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  lots of bankers want to give you money, and equipment companies want to fill
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  up your practice, but really taking control of the business side of dentistry,
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  and if you don't, it's going to take care of you. You don't,
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  you don't really get to just sit it out. Either you're going to
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  take control of it or it's going to take control of you. Those are
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  your Those are your options. And unfortunately so many people are like, well,
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  just keep practicing. And I had a guy tell me, O,
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  the dam I practice till my arms fall off? The hell is that sounds
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  awful? What I mean? What is that? That's not a lot of
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  strategy. No, And I also don't want to be in the chair when
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  that happens. Sounds gruciome as a patient? Yeah, yeah, no kidding.
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  And then kind of like what I was just talking about, Hey,
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  you want to retire at fifty five? Do you want to retire at sixty
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  or sixty two or maybe sixty five? Being really clear on that is important.
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  And the percentage of practice owners that can't answer that question because they just
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  don't know, They don't know how much if they have enough money, but
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  they don't want to admit that, so then they just kind of have this
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  general well I don't know, and have a surgical and clear path and plan
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  with your retirement or again, you're going to look up in your seventieth birthday,
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  You're going to be coming home from work bad back to blow out your
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  candles because you're still practicing. Yeah, because you just thought it was going
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  to take care of itself. Yeah, very little does very little. And
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  it's just one of those things. One of the things I wanted to mention
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  too was don't just think about what you want, to think about how different
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  things in your practice make you feel, why it makes you feel that way,
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  Like, Okay, having one practice, I am stressed about staff.
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  Do you think adding another location is going to alleviate that stress if that's one
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  of your biggest stressors, you know, boiled down to the actual issues,
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  and I think that's a good place to start. And it might and it
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  might hurt. It might hurt you to kind of really voice that out there,
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  even if it's pin to paper. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and
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  then there's the I want to get out of the mouth and be a entrepreneurial
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  CEO practice owner. Again, if that's your goal, there's there's a path
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  to it. But it's really really difficult to achieve on your own. And
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  we know that because a lot of practice owners have come to us instead,
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  I've tried this, I've really messed us up. Can you unwrap it?
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  Yep. Well, we're not a rescue firm, so let's look at the
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  numbers and see we take successful people and make them more successful. But that's
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  that's another one of those where their whole goal is to not practice indistry.
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  Yeah. Again, it can be done, but it's not easy. No,
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  And that's a very particular personality trade too. Yeah. Well, I
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  mean it's like it's a it's a motivational speaker type fella. I mean,
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  just because I get complimented for making a good meal doesn't mean I'm gonna go
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  open a restaurant tomorrow. Like those two. I can be a good cook,
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  but opening a restaurant probably isn't the best use of my time or my
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  strengths. Nah, I don't see you doing that. So we've talked to
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  you for service. We've talked insurance as much. The insurance is like the
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  devil you know in the details, almost kind of thing. When I recently
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  attended one of our events where represented, and once the insurance conversation came up,
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  you could see every practice on in their head and then in the room
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  just shaking their heads. Yeah, a couple of them got red in the
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  face. Yeah, I think mainly because of anger of insurance. But no,
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  it's a it's a big topic, and again, too many people don't
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  really have a strategy around and I can see that one being a little tougher
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  to tackle just because there's a lot more things involved than numbers. I mean,
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  listen, if we have a client with a great practice and a great
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  attitude, who's coachable and all those things that we've helped them on, insurance
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  is still going to be a twelve to twenty four a month, like yeah,
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  pretty hardcore deep dive to get it right right, and that's with an
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  entire team of people. Yeah yeah, I mean these knee jerk reactions,
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  aren't you know, don't don't cut the mustard, casey, any final points
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  on this topic? Is it to me? It's really don't go chasing waterfalls?
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  I mean, really, TLC, you can just left Di Lopez Yeah
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  yeah, No, I mean it's you know, determine what you want and
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  then strategize to do it. Don't just have emotion drive your thoughts, because
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  all these things we mentioned either side of the aisle can be massively successful.
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  Yep, Your chance of success has increased when you have a team of dental
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  experts that are looking at everything comprehensively in your situation to get you to the
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  end goal. If you don't have any goal, or it's just kind of
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  wishy washy, how the hell you're going to get there and how somebody going
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  to help you get there? You got to have a map, you know,
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  when we were going out west, you you take a map, otherwise
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  you end up like the Donner Party. I like to have a map and
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  a driver, yes, and so again for our clients, that's what we
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  try to experience. We try to give them we have the road map,
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  and we also have a driver to drive you, yeah, down that path,
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  so that you can enjoy practicing dentistry or the things you enjoy. But
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  now, if you're listening and you've you know, pondered some of these things
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  again, these are they're not light. These are all big, heavy crossroads.
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  Done right can propel you, done wrong can set you back and all
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  of a sudden dinners. She's not what you want it to be. But
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  instead retire on your own terms because you've taken control of it, You've not
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  been controlled Cassey. I love that We're gonna be in several new cities coming
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  up this year. We're gonna be in Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio doing our
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  own events there. We're doing a bourbon tasting and our lunch, so make
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  sure check those out. We're gonna be in the Washington, DC area.
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  That's going to be in Tyson's in Virginia, Tyson's Corner, YEP and Chevy
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  Chase, Maryland. I just launched a couple of spots for our Los Angeles
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  areas. We're gonna be in Huntington Beach, California, as well as Calabasas,
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  Calabasas, Calabasas. Yeah, those are good areas. Yeah, so
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  we're gonna be there. And then we're looking at San Francisco's well this year.
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  So we're gonna be in a lot of cool places and new places that
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  we don't normally. We haven't normally reached out and done our own events.
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  We've gone, we spoke at different places, but I'm really excited about getting
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  out there into some new spots and meeting some new dentists and then seeing what
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  we can do. I loving practice owners. Tell me where you've been all
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  my life? That's right, So that's why we got to new areas.
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  That's right. Thank you so much, Casey. That's all the time we
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  have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some
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  really great information. And thank you to you the listener for tuning in.
• 17:32
  The Millionaire Dennis Podcast is brought to you by Four QUADRANTCE Advisory to see if
• 17:36
  they might be a good fit for you and your practice. Going over to
• 17:38
  four Quadrantsadvisory dot com and see why year after year they retain over ninety five
• 17:44
  percent of their clients. Thank you again for joining us and we'll see you
• 17:47
  next time.