Hey guys! It's Justin Goodbread, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER with Heritage Investors,
bringing you this Client Question of the Week. So today's question is, "Justin, I'm a dentist,
and I've owned my practice for 12 years. I've spoken with several of your clients who are
producing over a million dollars in revenue. Man, that's awesome. However, I can never
seem to break $750,000 in production. My net income is always around $140,000 taxable.
If I want to increase my taxable net income to $250,000, how do I do it?" He says, "I've
tried," in quotes "consultants," "as they always want to pitch me their solutions. No
one has offered me a custom solution." And then in big bold letters with exclamation,
exclamation, "HELP!!" Hey Adam, first, congratulations on being above average in production. I pulled
some stats just to make sure I was right. The ADA says the average dentist produced,
or made, $646,000 in production in 2014. Your $750,000 is better than that. Good job! However,
the same study says the average dentist takes home roughly $175,000 in income. So you're
making more production, but you're taking home significantly less income. I can see
your concern. Here are some points you may want to consider. Number one, get the last
three years. You said that you've been in business 12 years. Get the last three years
P&Ls, or Profit and Loss Statements, and do a side-by-side comparison. Look at where you're
spending your money, and then take the approach of, I'm gonna slash my expenses by 10%. Now
whenever I typically tell a client that, they panic. "Hey! There's no way to slash it by
10%!" Look, you can do it. It can be done. Take that mindset, and start by number one,
slashing your expenses. 10% is a good number to go with. Number two, revisit your marketing
plan. If you're gonna grow revenue, you've gotta increase your marketing. A marketing
plan is not a whimsical or fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, so to speak, allocation of money. It's whenever
you sit down at the beginning of the year, or the middle of the year, or whenever you're
going to do this type of planning. You sit down, and you look at how am I going to allocate
my money to drive new patients to my practice. Take a proactive approach in your marketing
plan. So that's number two. Number three, look at your time management techniques. You've
heard things like "block scheduling" or "weak long allocations" or "new client blocking."
These are industry lingos that you've heard of, I'm sure. But basically, it's just time
management. Look at your time management. If you're gonna produce more revenue in the
same amount of work time, you're gonna have to change some of your current structure in
order to accomplish this. There's an old adage I've heard that says, "In order to affect
the future, you must disrupt the present." In order to disrupt the present, you've gotta
know how you're gonna disrupt it or else you're gonna have a catastrophe in the future. Look
at your time management. Now look, these are just three points that I would consider. I
obviously don't know anything about you other than what you've given me. Your numbers look
solid. You have a good practice to grow on. I'm gonna tell you point blank. It's time
for you to hire a wealth manager. It's time for you to hire somebody who knows how to
grow business, probably your number one asset and your largest asset. Hire a good wealth
manager. Hey look guys. This is Justin Goodbread, answering this Client Question of the Week.