Episode 119 – Dental Opportunities in Uncertain Times

“I feel so blessed to be where I am that it makes me sad that so many people are unhappy in dentistry.” ~Dr. Bruce B. Baird

It’s been disheartening seeing what’s going on in Europe in recent weeks. But one thing current news has made me really think about is how thankful and blessed I am to be born in the USA. I am so grateful that I live in a place where I’m not worried if the plane that just flew over my house is going to be dropping a bomb.  

Yes there are still problems and we could talk about those issues all day, but in my opinion, the US is still the greatest country on Earth and when it comes to our occupation of dentistry the truth is we have so many opportunities. We can have any type of practice we want to have. We’re not being oppressed or pushed from our country. We can help support people we want to support, to do the right thing through giving and service. We can build dental practices that help bring our communities to help, while building better lives for our teams, our families, and our futures. 

Which I why it makes me so sad to know that there are a lot of dentists out there who are unhappy and are selling their businesses early thinking that they can make good money now and get out of a difficult industry. 

But the truth is, if you are focused on helping people live healthier lives and building an Investment Grade Practice that will give you an amazing lifestyle today and build value for you when you sell in the future, you need to think about your business strategically.

Today, I want to talk about some of the trends I’m seeing in the dental community right now and hopefully give you some things to think about as you contemplate your dental business, including:

• How events shape your outlook and mindset
• The impact of selling and inflation 
• Opportunities for creating wealth

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Bruce Baird

Hi, this is Dr. Bruce Baird with a productive dentist podcast and this is episode 119. Amazing we’ve gotten, we’ve gotten that far over the years. So today I’m going to talk about Born in the USA. It’s been pretty disheartening, watching what’s going on over in Ukraine right now with Russia, attacking and a sovereign country and doing that and I sat here in and started thinking I actually heard a couple of airplanes fly over earlier and I thought wow, how would it feel if I was sitting here at my house, and there were airplanes flying over that were, you know, bombing my family and bombing people around me and it really, it really made me so absolutely thankful and, and blessed to be born here in this country. I hear all the things that people talk about, you know, systemic racism and just all of the problems that are going on in our country and the truth is, it’s the greatest country on Earth and people are trying to change it, people are trying to do things and when it comes to our occupation, dentistry, I was listening to a podcast, and I was watching something on the news and reading something about some dentists in Ukraine that were helping others and some, you know, some of the immigrants and some of the people that were, you know, leaving the country, they were finding homes for them in Eastern Europe, and across Europe and I thought, what opportunities that we have here in our own practices, to do things that really whatever we want to do whatever kind of practice we want to have, we can have. We’re not, you know, we’re not in a situation where, you know, we’re being oppressed, and having to leave our country.

When I think about that, I think about all of the opportunities that we have as dentists not only to help support people that we want to support, do the things that we feel are the right thing to do around the world, through giving through, you know, through different things that we do. But stepping into our own practice, I noticed that, you know, a lot of dentists are unhappy. They’re selling their businesses at an early stage in their career and I’m wondering to myself, why are you selling your business? Is it for the money, I have to think you feel like you’re I mean, you’re out, you’re, you’re gonna lose your opportunity, you’re gonna lose your opportunity to sell your practice because right now sales are at the highest levels and a long, long time that in fact, the highest returns that I’ve seen in my 42-year career? But does that mean it’s the right thing to do? And I’d really, I question, you know, when somebody says, If you want to sell your business and go open up, taco bueno or whatever, go do that. If that’s your choice if that’s what you want to do. But don’t think that you’re going to make more money doing that than you are in the practice of dentistry. Dentistry is amazing, it’s an amazing occupation. It’s an amazing business that we can run and I want you to think very, very long and hard, you know, people are selling to DSOs or selling their practices. They’re in their 40s. They’re in their 50s. Even some in their 30s and they’re thinking, Well, I’m going to get this cash, I’ll invest this money, and you know, it’ll be fine. I can, I can still work on the side. There are other things I can do. But when you look at inflation right now, you know, inflation right now is seven 8%.

Inflation yearly. Think about that and it’s gonna get worse, in my opinion. But think about that, you sell your business. Let’s say you sold it for a million dollars in 2000. In the year 2000, you sold your practice for a million dollars, and you were a millionaire. Today, that million dollars is worth 560,000. We’re seeing the government spend all this money there, you know, they say, well, it’s not the government spending. Well, it is the printing of paper, it’s when money no longer has that value, the price goes down. So there are things that you can do, I’m not an investment counselor or anything like that. But imagine selling when you were 35 years old, in 2020, or 45. Now you’re 65 and that’s only worth 560,000. It was a great decision, you’ve got to think about these things over your lifetime. Being Born in the USA, gives us some amazing opportunities to create wealth. I’ve talked about that with compassionate finance, there are ways that you can create wealth by allowing people, to pay monthly over a period of time and you create this, this portfolio of paper that has a real value at interest rates that are very difficult to get these days, I go back thinking about 1980 1980, I was so excited to get a house mortgage, it was 14% 14% interest. I opened up my dental practice here in Granbury, Texas in 1984 and I thought I broke the bank, I use an SBA, 504 debenture, and I locked in an 11% interest rate, which I couldn’t pay off for 20 years without penalty. So those of you who haven’t been there and haven’t seen this, I want you to think about this a little bit differently. Do I think interest rates? Well, the Consumer Price Index has been changed since the 80s. People are saying yes, it’s the worst inflation since 1982. Well, that was the CPI was changed.

If you were to look back at 1982, our actual rate of inflation right now would be closer to 14 or 15%. Now, again, we’re still in a great country, but I want you to think long and hard about selling your business. When you’re young and you’re still enjoying it, don’t feel like you’re missing the boat, if you don’t sell, build a business, build a legacy, you know, learn to and learn to invest, listen, you know, listen to, to, to those that have a lot more knowledge than I do about investing. Although I’ve done well over the years, you know, I’ve got a multitude of different investments that I’ve done over a period of time, that no longer tie me to just my dental revenue that comes in from the practice. So if you’re thinking, you know, this is the time to sell because it’s, it’s, it’s hot right now, meaning prices are hot. Just think about what happens if you sell now and it continues to inflate, you know, you’re not going to be in the situation you think you’re going to be in. I also see people that are selling that have a lot of influence in dentistry and they’re actually going to work for these DSOs or these large businesses to help convince others that they should sell also because they get a piece of the action. They’ll get a percentage of your sale

by giving you those recommendations. So always look at the source. Somebody taught me this a long time ago. They said look at the food chain and what does that mean? What is look at the food chain meeting Well, where does the money go? You know, when somebody makes a recommendation and I’ve had multiple people who have I’ve listened to in a lecture that gave a lecture and we’re talking about, for instance, a particular material that was being used a new type material. That’s awesome and amazing. Well, before I listened to someone speaking, I want to hear, why are they talking about this? Are they getting paid to talk about this? Is this something that is based on research and, you know, based on fact, or is just based on one company doing the research, hiring people to go out and sell it, or talk to other dentists about it and I can say the same thing, whether you’re selling your business, whether you’re talking about blocks, for your Serra machine, whether you’re talking about all of these things, you’re going to see materials, and now with new printing materials, this is the best material this is this, but go and look at the food chain, where’s the speaker? Are they getting paid by this manufacturer? To talk about this? Well, yeah, most of them are. But why, you know, why are they putting their reputation on the line over this material? And where does the money flow and that goes for, you know, selling your practice to a DSO.

When I think about all of the things that are going on across the world right now, I think we are absolutely still the greatest country on Earth and it’s, it’s amazing that I see so much. So much negativity, so much dissatisfaction in dentistry, I really believe that by learning communication skills, by learning to enjoy working with people, learning to enjoy helping those get a smile of their dreams, helping them get, being able to chew and eat and function again, all those things lead me to, to feel so blessed of what I’ve been able to do for the last 42 years, I don’t want you to get caught up and this negative energy sucking news that we hear, I want you to really focus on your business, are you building an investment-grade business and an Investment Grade Business does not mean that you have to sell the practice, there are ways that you can continue to practice dentistry, and continue to be in control of that practice or control of your legacy as the years pass. So I know this is kind of a rambling, rambling podcast today. But there are so many things on my mind after watching the bombs falling in, over in Ukraine, and just the thoughts that I have.

Again, we’re so fortunate to be born in the USA. I know that people are complaining about everything that’s going on in our country and I stand up to there’s a lot of things wrong, there’s a lot of things that need to change and where do we change what’s going to change one person at a time but we have to focus on the things that we know and the things that we can do in our business, helping patients helping our team building a team and that is a long term legacy of where we stand and again I’m so thankful for you guys that our listeners if you have questions or even concerns, please send me an email bruce@productivedentist.com I’m, I’m thankful that again that we have rated the third best podcast out of 69 Dental dental podcasts this past month. Continue to send me topics that you’d like to hear from me and I just again I’m thankful and blessed to be born in the USA. I’ll talk to you guys next time. Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast.

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