437: Ross Brannon | How Owning Your Business is More Valuable Than an Offer for 5-7 Years of Cash Production

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CARESTACK | Cloud-Based Dental SoftwareClick the link below and get 1 MONTH FOR FREE + 10% OFF your Annual Subscription + 50% OFF Your Set-up Fee!Check out CARESTACK now: https://lp.carestack.org/thedentalmarketer‍‍Guest: Ross BrannonBusiness Name: Ross Brannon Financial AdvisorCheck out Ross's Media:‍850-566-7999‍Other Mentions and Links:Florida State UniversityMerrill LynchMorgan StanleyRIA - Registered Investment AdvisorParkinson's LawAlly BankBank of AmericaCostcoUsain Bolt 12,000,000 Savings LostDave RamseyDan Sullivan - Why I Don't Believe in RetirementBitcoinDogecoinEssentialism@thedentalmarketer‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer SocietyMy Key Takeaways:

If your savings and checking accounts are an iPhone swipe away, they are too close! Try opening accounts at different financial institutions.Always look for testimonials and high quality recommendations when considering a financial advisor.Instead of an end of the year CPA, search for a financial planner for quarterly tax planning.Do not sell your practice to a DSO too early! Owning a cash flowing practice over time can be much better that multiple years of up front revenue in an offer.Have a plan for retirement. If you are aimless in post-retirement plans, it will be an abrupt transition.The difference between a true business owner and a self employed individual, is that the business owner can walk away and it continues to run.‍

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Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to the Dental Marketer Podcast. I'm your host, Michael aas, and in this episode I'm speaking with Ross Brannan, who's a financial advisor and a strategic wealth specialist, and we dive into some really interesting topics and questions. He does holistic planning and he goes deeper into what that specifically is, and we discuss how there's so many financial planners, advisors out there.

So how do we know who to trust and who we're. Take our money. So we dive into that. We also discuss how we can reduce taxes legally and what strategies dentists would appreciate most when it comes to budgeting or accruing wealth and savings. And then we discuss what he hates and loves about dentistry, how he thinks.

Every dentist needs a system to ask for referrals, and we dive deeper into that topic and how people weren't really designed to retire, and we also dive deeper into that and what he means by that. So guys, without further delay, here is Ross.

Ross, how's it going?

Ross: Brighton, Mike, how are  

Michael: you? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. If you don't mind me asking, where are you located right now?  

Ross: I'm in Tallahassee, Florida. Oh, nice. So, uh, it, you know, it's, you know, it's January right now and it's 75 degrees in humid.

So, uh, we don't really have a winter here.  

Michael: Yeah, that sounds nice right now though. You know what I mean? Like in. Like the weather, the degrees, and the heat. But that's all good. That's good. So Ross, tell me a little bit about your past, your present. How'd you get to where you are today? So  

Ross: I grew up in Atlanta.

Uh, and I went to play football and scholarship at Florida State University back in the mid nineties, mid to late nineties. Uh, came to Florida State, had a lot of success. Um, started. On a national championship winning team in 1999, unfortunately had six knee surgeries while I was playing at F S U, so I didn't finish my career, but, uh, ended up staying in Tallahassee.

Ended up marrying a local girl, now have five kids and two dogs. And I was a client of the firm that I'm a part of now, and I'd always been kind of financially minded and they kind of saw that so. Asked me to come work with them. And that was many years ago. Uh, and, and then, you know, I, as I'm working as a financial advisor, I work with a friend who's an orthodontist, and next thing you know, he introduces me to his college roommate who's a, who's a general dentist.

And the snowball effect happens. And next thing you know, I've got dentists all over the country as clients and, uh, it's just kind of where I started focusing. Gotcha.  

Michael: So your area of expertise is,  

Ross: So I do personal financial planning for dentists now, and, and that's, that's a little bit different. Um, you know, cause I do holistic planning, so it's a little bit different than the traditional financial advisor.

So to kind of educate people, there's a couple different silos in the financial advisor world. You have probably the majority of people are what's called assets that are management, you know, Might be a Merrill Lynch, it might be a, uh, Morgan Stanley, it might be an independent r i a, which stands for Registered Investment Advisor.

And all they do is gather assets. So you really don't, they won't talk to you typically unless you have half a million dollars or more. And they will ma help you manage your money. And that's investment accounts, IRAs, things like that. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's, that's definitely a, they, they do, they help a lot of people then you.

Maybe like the Northwestern Mutuals who do a little, a little more insurance work, what might be disability or life insurance. And then there's, there's very few, but I, I think it's probably the best. It's kind of what's you see as some, practices and advisors that integrate both insurance and investments, but then you find even less who really do planning.

So a lot of times planning is basically planning around the facilitation of a financial product. Now we all need financial products. That's not bad. Is it really planning? So when we talk about holistic planning, the question is, what does that mean? Well, that means looking at everything that your money touches.

So it could be something as boring as auto insurance, something as complex as legal in the state documents. or something as as practical as how much money you save and where you save it. And oh, by the way, if you're saving money in a checking account, that's great. Nobody gets paid on that, and that's why nobody talks about that.

But that's something you have to talk about because having liquidity and saving money is a big deal.  

Michael: Yeah, that was a big deal, especially like two years ago, right in the middle of everything where everything was like covid and stuff like that. So holistic planning is everything your. Touches. So is that kind of like when we sit down and we are doing a budget, we're like, okay, where's our money coming out of?

Like where? We're in debt. Well, yeah.  

Ross: so I've got some strong opinions on lots of topics. Budgeting is one of them. I, I don't think what I call spreadsheet budgeting works very well unless you're an engineer. And I'm not an engineer, and most people aren't engineers. Some people are.

And so I'll ask people, Hey, what does it cost you live? What's your burn rate every month? And they'll be like, they'll look at me like I'm an alien. They have no idea. . So let's suppose their burn rate to $20,000 a month. Mm-hmm. . And let's suppose they bring home after tax $30,000 a month. And I'll say, okay, you're saving 10 grand a month.

Right. They, they in look at me like I'm an alien, so I'm not here to put you on beans and rice. And if you're a dentist, you probably don't need to be. Some, some might, but you probably don't need to be. And so it's like, let's create a cash flow structure. that makes sense and works for you. the typical cash flow structure is all your check goes in your check account, you spend what's there, whatever's left over you save.

And that's typically not very much.  

Michael: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. .

I feel like that's what we, we kind of tend to do a lot. So then let's do that. Let's build a cash flow structure. What does that look  

Ross: like? So because expenses rise to mean income, it's Parkinson's law. So that would mean something as simple as, okay, I have a dedicated account somewhere else, and that account, my check goes into that account.

Let's just use my numbers of 20 and 30 as an example. $20,000 goes down to that, or $30,000 goes to that account. I need 20 a live. So that account then transfers 20 year checking account to live. And so now I'm automatically, by default, saving 10,000. . Mm. And so then every month it adds up. It adds up. So you build enough of a rainy day fund for whatever you need, that four.

Then once it starts getting to a certain level, then you start saving. Then you start deploying that money to other investments. Too many people they're only savings as a 401K or something like that and, and then there's plenty of people listening saying, oh, I saved more than that, but I can promise you you're not saving as much as you could be or should.

So  

Michael: how can we do that? What, what, because you're kind of talking about , you're also talking about me here. Like, I'm like, oh my everybody. Exactly. Yeah. It's a, it's a human being thing. It, it's exactly what I do. Like, I, I, and there's something in me where I'm like, I don't wanna see my checking account ever hit a specific number kind of thing, right.

And I can allocate whatever left I have to savings and other things like that. But, . So you're saying have a specific account, make all the money go there, then by default, take out what you need to live.  

Ross: Yes. And they do not, they cannot be at the same financial institution. So for example, if you Bank of a Bank of America, you can't have two checking accounts or saving the account of checking account, run next to each other because it's only an iPhone.

Swipe away. Yeah. I closed my savings account at my bank because it was just an iPhone swipe away. So you had, they have to be at separate financial institu. And what you do is you have the money. So if you bank of a Bank of America, you set up, you know, let's suppose you put, oh, your check goes into some online account.

Let's call it Ally. Let's suppose your check goes to Ally. You don't have Ally. Push the money, you have Bank of America pull the money that way it avoids a fee.  

Michael: Mm. Okay. Okay. I like this. So then if we're not pro like spreadsheet budget, Where do we start? For example? Let's just say, so,  

Ross: uh, continue.

Here's what I do. Okay? I'll go, what's, okay? What's your car payment? Uh, it's $560 for the month. Well, then I round up and call it 600 bucks. Okay. What do you spend on your cell phone? It's $213. That's two 50. And just round up, create a built-in fudge factor. Just go through every expense. What is gas? Well, gas is obviously a variable expense. Let's go on the high side. What is grocer? , let's go on the high side. Therefore, we have a 500 to a thousand dollars fudge factor built in because there's always things that come up. all right, so maybe your real cost will be is 9,000, but we're saying it's 10,000. And so we build that fudge factor in.

Now you still have to be aware, cognizant of how much you're swiping, cuz nobody pays for cash anymore. you gotta be careful how much you click the Amazon button. so that's like legalized crack, that Amazon button. Um, yeah, it's so, so we have to do that now if you're a higher income person, because for dentists you mean, you've got dentists making, lower income, and then you've got dentists who are making much higher income.

But if you're a higher income dentist, uh, the best way to save is to reduce your tax liability, to reduce the amount of taxes you owe. And then to the, the typical response is, I'm doing the best I can. My CPA says I am. and I would argue, no, you're not. More than likely you're not, because most CPAs don't do tax planning.

Most CPAs prepare tax returns. That's what you're paying them to do. There are the rare tax planning CPAs, many of whom I know. Um, , but if you're not meeting with your C B A on a quarterly basis, you're not doing tax planning. that doesn't mean they're bad or they're a bad person. It's just the average C P A probably has 500 clients and, uh, you know, maybe five or 10% or less.

are the super high income business owners. The rest are W2 employees, and so they aren't motivated to go learn advanced tax reduction techniques for the minority. It's just human nature. And so you have to begin to think outside of the box because we've been conditioned to think, oh, I have to pay what I have to pay.

And uh, I was looking at a client case today. This guy makes $5 million a year. and through proper tax planning, it looks very likely that he'll be able to save a million dollars in tax if he implements the strategies that are available. Mm-hmm. , so there's a couple things there. Everyone's situation is different, so that doesn't mean that's you.

and it requires work and you have to do certain things. So, When this is presented to this individual, he may not like the strategy for X, Y, and Z reason, and that's fine, but he just won't get the tax benefit from it.  

Michael: Gotcha. When it comes to that, what strategies have you noticed that are more popular?

More what more dentists would appreciate, and ones that are  

Ross: like, eh, Well, it all depends. So the, so obviously the, the low hanging for the easy one is a 401k, so you can put, you know, up to 60 some odd thousand dollars into a 401k with, um, the profit sharing, uh, portion of it. And, and that's, that's a deduction.

That's, that's right away. It's easy. you could then go on top of that with a cash balance plan. The way a cash balance plan works though, it's dependent on the census, meaning the age and demographics of your, your employees. So the older you are, the better. So if you're older and your employees are younger, it's better.

But if you're 28 years old and all your employees are 45, it will not work. The numbers just don't make sense. So those are some low hanging fruit ones. Uh, there are some more advanced strategies that Some of them are, they're all a little more outside the box, but they are, uh, they work and you people just have to have an open mind and learn about 'em and see how they feel about 'em once they, once, once they hear  

Michael: about ' em.

Like what are some of those? The out of  

Ross: the box ones? Well, there's certain charitable strategies that you could do. So you could do, uh, and obviously this is not a recommendation cuz everyone's situation's different. So you could do a charitable remainder trust and there's all different variations of. . so that that could be something.

there are, uh, certain types of, um, investments that have, deductions tied to them. and so, yeah, and I'm, I'm speaking generally for the purposes of, you know, just cuz I don't want people to think I'm making recommendation mm-hmm. , but it really comes down to everyone's fact pattern is differently.

So, . I'm 45. I have five children. I live in Florida. My situation is uniquely different than yours. You're younger than me. You live in California. every dentist situation is different, but if you are a high income earner, there are situations where advanced planning strategies can make sense and could potentially reduce your tax.  

Michael: Yeah. Cause I think that's something that we all wanna, , all wanna do as much as possible, reduce taxes. Well, well,  

Ross: I would argue the highest rate of return you're ever gonna receive is a dollar taken back from the irs. The second highest rate of return, in my opinion, is investing in your business. So there's no financial product or widget that I can offer you that is going to give you a higher return than those two.

Yeah.  

Michael: I feel like, um, when it comes to your type of planning, right? Um, cuz you do personal financial planning, right? Not holistic planning,  

Ross: right? Well, holistic, it's, it's p holistic is personal. So we're looking at everything  

Michael: here. So when you're looking at everything, and maybe a practice owner also does separate things, right?

Maybe they have investments in real estate, things like that. are those things like you recommend that or not? Maybe not recommend, but you're like, oh, that, that looks good. When it comes to reducing  

Ross: taxe. ? Well, there are definitely benefits to real estate. You know, obviously if you own your building, there are some tax reduction strategies with that, depending on the specifics of your building.

real estate tends to be a very good financial asset. but you, you don't wanna just go buy it just because it's real estate. You get the numbers gonna make sense. You need to make sure, it makes sense as a part of your overall plan. Just buying blindly. Buying real estate isn't always the best thing, but buying real estate.

Can be very, very good.  

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And you mentioned something called fudge factor. Break it down at me. What is that?  

Ross: Well, I, you know, if I say it costs me $10,000 a month to live, there's always going to be, an unplanned expense. does it matter what it's, and so if I'm saying it costs me, $250 for gas for the month.

I'm rounding up to $300 just to build a, a cushion of another $50 in the overall, budget. So if I put a fudge factor in over 15 items of like 60 or 70 bucks, that adds up. All of a sudden. Now it's like, okay, I got, I built in roughly a thousand dollars of. Cushion in case the numbers are office month, cuz the numbers are never gonna be exact.

Mm.  

Michael: I like that, that, that helps me a little bit, my, I guess my mind to be put at ease because I feel like every time our numbers aren't exact, I'm like, where are we going wrong? What am I doing? You know what I mean? Kind of thing. And  

Ross: well, and the prices are going up. Yeah. We've had inflation the last year, so it's like, you know, the same thing.

Doesn't cost the same thing. That's true.  

Michael: Yeah, you're right. I remember going to Costco and I was like, I'm getting the same stuff I've always gotten. Why is it, you know what I mean? More, but,  

Ross: well, just, Costco has, they put fairy dust in their stores and it makes you buy stuff that you wouldn't normally buy.

Next thing you know, it's like $700 and you're like, what? What just happened? ?

Michael: That's uh, that's so true, man. I don't know why that happens. I have, I have a question. . I don't know if you saw this about Ussein Bolt, right? But we were talking about it, us in a couple, a lot of us price owners and dentists not that long ago, where he depended on a financial company, right.

Personal finance, something like that. And they kind of ran with it and took his money and so,  

Ross: oh, that happens all the time to professional athletes.  

Michael: how do we know who we can trust when it comes to personal financial?  

Ross: Well, I mean, you can do a FINRA broker check and, and I'm, I'm looking up you saying Bolt right now, just so now mm-hmm.

Um, you can do a FINRA broker check. oh. Yeah, there you go. I see it right there. so you can do a FINRA broker check. That's not always going to, um, tell you the whole story, but I'll tell you if there's any complaints or anything on that. Um, obviously a high quality recommendation from somebody.

anytime you are working with somebody, you know, you know, if you're making a kind of a non, non-traditional investment, you wanna make sure there's a lot of due diligence done. So I like, I don't know what kind of investment account he has. or he had, but uh, you know, those people are probably gonna go to jail if they get caught.

What is he gonna get? His 12.7 million back is a different conversation. But, FINRA broker check, any outside the norm Investments I would require, I would, I would, make sure there's lots of due diligence on it. Many times you'll hear about these great ideas that there's no due diligence on it.

And then, you know, , ask for, uh, recommendations, ask for testimonials from, you know, you're dealing, you're talking to John Doe, financial advisor. He's, he's trying to make you his client, ask for, um, testimonials from some of his clients.  

Michael: Okay. That's good. And then when would you recommend as a good time to start?

Let's just say I'm a startup practice. I'm a, have $700,000 in debt. Right. Um, when would it be a good time? Break even, or a little bit before that, once I reach a certain amount, when would be a good time to start doing this holistic planning. Well,  

Ross: most people don't really get serious about their money until they have a kid. that that's how typically most people work. But if you buy a practice, you know, obviously the first year or two you're just kind of swimming upstream. Once you feel like you've at least kind of got your head above water, it's probably time to at least start having a conversation with somebody just to get a, a few of the basics taken care.

Michael: Okay. Okay. And that's like where we can reach out to you or somebody like that, right?  

Yeah. You  

Ross: reach out to me or somebody else. But I mean, there's just certain things you should make sure you do, from a personal planning standpoint. But I realize most people in that situation, they're so focused on just trying to get things going.

They don't have the mental bandwidth for something like that at that point, typically. Yeah,  

Michael: because I feel like sometimes you just. Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna do a 401K or ira, and then I have a savings, then I have a checking, and then I'll just keep racking it up. Right? Why is that not a good idea?  

Ross: Well, okay, so should you put money, let's just uses pick on the ira.

So you're 27 years old, you have a, you're a brand new practice. Should you put money on ira? Well, everyone says start saving for retirement and, and what's funny? . I had someone in my office, they were talk and they had just finished school, finished, uh, dental school, and they were talking about saving for retirement.

And I said to them, you're already start talking about quitting your job before you even started it. so I, I'm not a big retirement guy. If you read the history of retirement, it's, it's kind of a made up thing in the 20th century. Mm-hmm. , um, no one's ever retire. and most people when they retire, it doesn't go well.

But that's another topic for another day. But so you're 27 years old, you put money in a retirement account, which means you cannot touch it until you're 59 and a half. What's more important at 27 years old than new practice money that you can't touch for 32 years or money in a savings account for a rainy day?

And they're like, absolutely, well, I'm not gonna save for retirement. Which by the way, you don't just use retirement accounts for retirement, use all, all of your assets, all of your investments. And so not putting whatever amount you were gonna put in for the first couple years is not gonna change your retirement, whatever that looks like.

But, Not taking on credit card debt cuz you don't have enough cash flow or, cash or, not being able to buy a house cuz you don't have enough cash.

That's tough. I mean, I, I mean there's doctor loans out there, but still you, you need liquidity and, and enough savings.  

Michael: Gotcha. So then what do you recommend then for that 27 year old Right. Who just opened another practice? Like what moves can we make  

Ross: stash? oh, I'm not making any interest on my cash.

That's correct. Not all your dollars are supposed to make in, are supposed to earn interest. You need to have a rainy day fund. What happens if I have no liquidity and all of a sudden my breaks go out? And by no liquidity, I mean no savings. I have no my, my breaks squad. I gotta get no breaks. What does that cost?

if, what if I need new tires? . life will throw all sorts of things at you that cost money and we need liquidity to do that. So, more often than not, there are some people who have too much savings, but usually it's people who have too little savings, not too much.

Hmm,  

Michael: gotcha. So when it comes to the too much savings part, let's just say we stash cash, we're like, okay, we, we can cover enough for like the breaks to go out a million times, right. Or whatever. What do we do now do? Is that when we start with like our,  

Ross: well, I think you need to determine what I call your peace of mind number.

So what does it take you to sleep well at night? Okay. Is it 50,000? Is it 10,000? Is it a hundred thousand? It's a different number for every people. For every person, so you know, whatever that number is. Anything over and above that, I would start deploying to an investment. and there's obviously millions of types of investments.

The most, the easiest one is just to set up a brokerage account, whether it's through an advisor or through yourself and, and start putting money in there. But there's a million different ways to deploy capital.  

Michael: Gotcha. And so that's where we can kind of come in and be like, Hey, Ross, like, what should I do?

Right. Like, look at my stuff. Yeah.  

Ross: Yeah. I mean, that, that's one of the many things that I do. So, um, but there, there's a lot of things that quite frankly, have to be done before.  

Michael: Does anybody ever go to you when they're like, I'm drowning in depth. I have no idea where these holes are coming from, or I kind of can tell, I'm like, I'm not even living with a life that I want, or whatever.

What, what am I doing wrong? Does anybody ever go for you?  

Ross: Um, they have on occasion, to be honest with you. I, I can help those people with something. Really, what I focus on though, and if you're drowning in debt, just listening to someone like Dave Ramsey probably makes sense. Now, I don't agree with everything Dave Ramsey says, but he helps a lot of people.

I think the challenge with him is some people listen to him when he's not the demographic he's, he's reaching to, but he helps a lot of people who are in debt. Um, so, but you know, really if you're a high income I dentist, you know, that's typically where I tend to really help people the most  

Michael: and that's where you help them with allocating to.

Ross: Places, well, it's making, making sure their cash is going the right places, making sure that they're talking with the right tax professionals to mitigate their taxes. I'm not a C P A, I'm not an enrolled agent. I do know an a fair amount about taxes, but there are tax attorneys and there are tax professionals that, um, I connect my people with my clients with to make sure they are, paying the least amount of taxes.

Michael: Gotcha. That's interesting. Okay, so then Ross, what can a dentist do today to improve their business?  

Ross: So, that's a really good question. So there is this continuum that I say for dentists. So, uh, on one side you have dentists who basically own a job. These are all people who their own, their own practice. Dentists who own, own, own their job. It's a good job, but they own. Their job. Then you have dentists on the opposite extreme who are business owners who happen to be dentists. So for example, like I have a friend, he wa, he practices two days a week. It's a fee for service practice. He makes 2 million a year. He is a business owner that is a dentist. I've got numerous clients and friends who make more than that and they're business owners. And then there are some who. , own a job. It's a good job. And there's, and owning a job and being a business owner, one is not better than the other, but it's what do you want? Now, obviously most people are in the, between, in the middle. But what do you want? you wanna be a business owner, maybe you don't have the skills to do that will go educate yourself, find a mentor, and learn how to be a business owner and, and grow your practice because this is the greatest.

Way to create wealth in America is owning a business and a dental practice is a business.  

Michael: Gotcha. And I feel like a lot of people might mainly want to do that. They want to own their, they wanna be the business owner, you know what I mean? Um, yeah. But  

Ross: a lot of people are very shortsighted and they make a critical mistake, which you're gonna ask me about here in a minute.

What is that? They'd sell out. The DSO is way too young. They, they're giving away the golden goose. So I have a cash register. In my basement that throws off whatever amount of money a year, and now I sell it for five to seven years of cash production, and it's gone forever. So if I'm a dentist, I make a million bucks a year, I sell my practice and I get 7 million.

I don't do tax planning, I get murdered on taxes. and now I am no longer a business owner. I'm a W2 employee. I've lost all my deductions. I'm making half of what I was, and I'm basically somebody's employee and I can't do what I want. I had a guy, he, so he was 47 years old. He sold his practice for like 10 million bucks and he says, I said to him, Hey, now you sold your practice.

What are you gonna do? He goes, I'm gonna manage my investments. And I looked at him dead in the eye and I said, brother, you ain't that. Unless you're day trading. And, uh, you know, he's heard me say this story before on podcasts. He's like, were you talking about me? I was like, yeah, I was talking about you.

And he is like, man, I wish I hadn't sold. It's the biggest mistake I ever made.  

Michael: So then when, where is it? Where is it? Where it's like, now it's okay to sell?  

Ross: Well, first of all, Do you wanna sell for the highest dollar? If you do, you're selling to a D S L. You're not selling to an associate or somebody else. Second of all, I don't believe in retirement. I believe in transition. What are you gonna do next? If you don't have a plan after you sell, you're gonna go freaking insane. I've seen people who have gone into deep depression after they retired because they're, they didn't have have anything planned. If you're gonna sit home and watch TV or watch Netflix or whatever brother you have, you might as well just go ahead and start buying your, uh, your coffin. I mean, people were not designed to retire. If retire means do nothing, you have to have a plan. Second of all, a lot of people don't realize how long they're gonna live.

Most people, higher educated and higher income people live. Those are the facts. Whether they're fair or not is besides the point. There is a high probability that most people are gonna live to a hundred years old. Well, 10 million at 47 acts pretty hard to get to a hundred years old. But the longer you work, the less money you need.

Not suggesting you should go spend all your money, but what are you gonna do? So you gotta have a plan. Maybe you decide that you want to go. change careers, that's fine. just don't sell because you got some crazy number. What if you decide to build your business bigger and then sell for twice as much in 10 years?

Yeah,  

Michael: I feel like sometimes. So then what? What is the driving factor that in your experience, that you've seen people sell to  

Ross: soon? Well, a lot of people hate their job. there's a lot of dentists who hate being dentists. There's also a lot of dentists who hate managing people. and that, you know, cuz in dental school you don't learn, you don't learn business, you just learn clinical.

Mm-hmm. And I've seen people try to sell a practice cuz they hate managing people. so that's a challenge. And but I mean, as a dentist you are starting late. You went to, you went to four years, four, at least four extra years of school, you likely incurred a large amount of debt. So you're late to the party when it comes to saving.

So these are things that we, we've gotta make sure that we think through. Just cuz you heard someone get some great, some great multiple, doesn't mean you're gonna get that same multiple. It's not the same situation and you may hate your three to five year earnout, and then you may walk away and lose all that money, which I've heard numerous stories of it.

Michael: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Okay, so then. We really, really need to brainstorm on this, right? Like, think about it. What are we gonna be doing after? If you're ready to retire? Are you even sure you should be retiring right now.  

Ross: So anyone who wants to think of the word retirement, they should Google the name Dan Sullivan and Retirement.

Dan Sullivan is the founder of Strategic Coach and he does a lot of, he's talked a lot about retirement and what it really means and what it is. Mm-hmm. . , I think we've been conditioned about this whole concept of retirement and I don't buy it. I don't ever wanna retire. Mm-hmm. , my dad had a force retirement.

He was a good saver, so he was okay financially, but he retired in his early fifties and I saw him over the next 20 years physically and cognitively declined to be a shell of himself. I saw that. I was like, I ain't doing that no interest whatsoever. I'm never stopping working. I mean, I may do something else, but I'm not stopping working.  

Michael: Yeah. No, no, no. But I mean, like, what do you mean by like your dad? He became Michelle like, he's like,  

Ross: well, he is physically, he's so frail. It's not because he's so is 75 years old. Even he is still alive cognitively, he's not using his brain.

Your brain's a muscle. He watches TV all day and he is, you know, he's just a parrot of what's ever on tv. He can't have an intellectual conversation. it is just, it's no way to live. Yeah. So I I'm not doing that.  

Michael: Yeah, no, I get you. I get you. I, I don't, I don't ever think. I don't ever think I can just stand still and, um, you know what I mean?

Like, just be there. It's like your brain's constantly like, oh, this idea has to, has to happen right now, you know, kind of thing. And you build it, do something, uh, conversation. So I agree. You said Dan Sullivan Retirement.  

Ross: Yeah. Google those three things. Okay. Dan Sullivan's the founder of Strategic Coach and it's a phenomenal program I would probably recommend any dentist, any business owner, consider it. Okay. So, all right. So the, if you type, if you type Dan Sullivan retirement into Google, it's not Sullivan Retirement Resource. The first one. It is the second link. It's why I don't Believe In Retirement by Dan Sullivan. Okay.  

Michael: Okay.

It's gonna put a link to that in the show notes below so you guys can, can also read about it. Check it out. I'm gonna read about it. Check it out. You know what I mean? Oh, oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Okay. So. These next questions, Ross, are just to get into the head of, of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry.

Right. Okay. So for you, what would you like to see more from a dentist?  

Ross: Well, it's hard for me not to go back to the start thinking like a business owner. . So you start thinking like a business owner. And I think that enhances the overall practice in so many ways. It enhances the lives of the staff because if you start thinking like the business owner, you start creating more revenue.

And now you can also, as you create more revenue, you can start paying your people more. You can start rewarding them more. and so I think that I is a really important idea. And the, and the bigger you go, the more people you. . Do you feel  

Michael: like sometimes dentists think they're thinking like a business owner, but there's signs that  

Ross: they're not? I think everyone who owns a business many times thinks they, they're thinking it and, and they may be missing them both, even you and I. So, um, the question is to really be a business, can you walk away and still continue? versus being self-employed. so the example I gave someone practicing two days a week, he's got two or three associates.

If he walked away completely, he may not make money he's making, but he is still doing really well.  

Michael: compared to someone who can walk away. Okay. And then right. What do you hate about dentistry? What do you not really like at all about dentistry?  

Ross: Okay. At the risk of offending people, uh, I don't like that they're sheep and that kind of comes up harsh, but they all do the same thing.

They all join the same club. They all get the same Facebook group. If one person says it, they all. . It's like if one person says by Bitcoin, then all of Bitcoin was bought by Dennis . I'm, I'm exaggerating, but only slightly, I'm making a broad brush, uh, generalization, but they tend to they just tend to all do the same thing.

and they trust anybody who is a dentist or a former dentist, and there are some people out there who are, you know, dentists and they give recommendations to people and they're just not good or they just immediately trust them because they are a dentist.

or a former dentist or whatever. And I mean, not that these people are bad people, but you just have to be a little wiser and smarter about what you do. Um, you can't just join something or be a part of something or trust somebody just because they do what you do. And you know that, that might be a little unfair on my part because, you know, there is a, a, probably a fraternal feel.

To someone in your industry, but, you just wanna, I mean, and I'm not saying that they're bad groups or bad people, but don't just do it because everyone else will do it. Start to think a little bit contrarian, if that makes sense. So I'm not trying to disparage anyone individually, I'm just saying people need to think for themselves and not just follow the crowd.

Gotcha. You see that pretty. I mean, I've seen a fair amount of times and, uh, I view jokes to, uh, some of the, some, some, uh, dentists. I said, you know, there I met like a few guys from, one certain Facebook group and I said, oh, that, that group's a cult. And they just started laughing. And so, uh, so it's kind of funny.

Michael: Okay. Okay. And then right now, what do you love about dentistry?  

Ross: I love that. I love that it's an opportunity to build a business. I was talking to a. a senior in, in, in college, and he wanted to go be, he wanted to go be a doctor, a physician. I said, dude, go be a dentist. You'll make twice as much money. And most physicians are W two earners.

and they gotta go to med school, then they gotta do a residency versus dentist. You know, you're, you're a business owner and so you have the ability to make so much more. You're not getting. , your pay cut by insurance reimbursements. Obviously dental insurance has its challenges, but nothing like medical insurance.

and so it's just an incredible opportunity to create wealth. Owning a business is a great way to create wealth.  

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then right now, what, when it comes to, I guess, building wealth, pieces of advice, can you give us like instructions when it comes to, uh, building that  

Ross: well, I would assume everyone who's listening has heard of Warren Buffet, and he says, the number one habit to acquire is the habit of thrift.

What does he mean by that? He means savings. Save your money so I can prove your savings rate is more important than your rate of return. So saving 20 or 25% or 30% of income is more important than getting 10, 11, 12%.

Now, you do wanna get a rate of return on your money, don't get me wrong, but you wanna save at a high savings rate, first. So save money. Now, obviously you need to invest it, but save your money.  

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So. Save it as much  

Ross: as you, let's, let's, okay, let's, let's deal with the problem of too much savings versus having too little savings.

So if I told everyone listening, don't do a thing with your money until you get a hundred thousand dollars in the bank. There'd be a lot of people who have have to stop doing what they're doing until they get a hundred thousand dollars in the bank. So let's save our money. There's lots of places to deploy capital, but we need to have a lot of cash on.

Michael: Yeah, I, I, I think it's, uh, I think it's Ramit Safety from that book. I will teach you to be rich where he is like, saving isn't sexy, but it's like the best thing we can kind of do. Right. Just like, just put it in there and that's it. just don't move it. But we get that shiny object syndrome sometimes where we're like, what?

Oh, they're doing this. We gotta do that, and then we gotta do that. And we got, you know what I mean, kind of thing.  

Ross: It's like what Elon tweeted about Dogecoin, let me go buy $10,000 worth Doge Dogecoin, which is the same thing as lighting my money on fire.  

Michael: I fell into that and then I was like, uh, it's there now.

It's, you know what I mean? But you're right. It's the, it would've been better just to save it way, way better. So I get you a hundred percent. Awesome. Any final pieces of advice that you wanna give to our listen?  

Ross: No, I mean, nothing at all. Just, I mean, there's a lot of advice that's kind of in silos out there and, and really you want to get advice that's kind of, like I said earlier, more holistic.

So that's the ideal scenario. obviously everyone has some things are trying true no matter what. Some things are opinion, but you want to mathematically verify whatever you're talking about. So let's weigh and measure decisions so we know. What the right decision is.  

Michael: Gotcha. Awesome. Awesome.

Ross, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being with us, and if anyone has any questions, where can they find you?  

Ross: Two places. One ross brennan.com. The site's getting rebuilt. It's, it's sufficient for now. It's getting rebuilt though, so if it's not as sexy as you like, please forgive me. Um, but ross brennan.com or you can call me or text me.

Uh, I, I, I answer every phone call. I'm not afraid of the phone. Uh, eight five oh five six six seven nine nine nine eight five oh five six six seven nine nine  

Michael: nine. Awesome. So that's gonna be the show notes below. And Ross, thank you for being with us. It was a pleasure. And we'll hear from you soon. Thank you  

Ross: so.

Michael: Thank you guys so much for tuning into that episode. And Ross, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast. We truly appreciate it. Guys, if you wanna reach out to him or you wanna talk about this episode or any other episode in the past, you can definitely do so two ways, actually. You can do it on our Instagram.

Just search us under the Dental marketer. That's our handle. You can find us there. Or second, you can join the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group. It's a free Facebook group. It's gonna be in the show notes below the link to that. You can definitely talk to the guests who've been on this podcast, or you can talk to other guests who've been on other episodes in this podcast as well on there and ask any questions or concerns.

But thank you guys so much for tuning in and don't forget to check out Care Stack. More and more people are signing on because it's an in. Cloud-based practice management software. So click the first link in the show notes below to see more and schedule a free personalized demo. And you can see all the exclusive deals that, uh, you're gonna get as well in that link in the show notes below.

So if you're just nosing, you wanna check that out, go ahead and check that out. All right guys, so the book is called Essentialism by Greg Macallan, and the quote is, pause Before You Speak. It can greatly reduce the possibility of making a commit. You'll regret. All right, that's gonna do it for this episode.

Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.‍