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Dr. David Rice: Financial Mistake
56 Plays4 months ago
Dive deep into mastering your finances with Dr. David Rice on Dental Fuel!
Discover the genesis of the game-changing 90 Day Jumpstart program and how it empowers dentists to overcome major hurdles. With a commitment to delivering 3x ROI in just 90 days, this program enhances financial and clinical control while establishing effective practice systems.
Don’t miss David’s invaluable advice on debt management, scaling practices, and savvy property investments.
About the Guest:
David Rice is the founder and CEO of Ignite DDS, an organization dedicated to helping dental students and young dentists navigate their careers with confidence and expertise. He is also a seasoned clinician with extensive experience in restorative and cosmetic dentistry. David practices part-time at East Amherst Dental Center in Buffalo, NY, where he initially started as an associate, then became an owner, and now returns occasionally. Apart from his clinical and teaching roles, David is a prominent educator, frequently collaborating with top dental education institutes like Pankey, Dawson, and Spear.
Episode Summary:
In this illuminating episode, Tanya Sue Maestas interviews David Rice, the founder of Ignite DDS, about the new 90 Day Jumpstart program—a transformative initiative designed to aid young dentists in mastering their finances and achieving a successful start in their practices. Bringing a practical and supportive approach, David shares insights on the importance of early coaching, describing how the program promises to deliver significant returns on investment by helping new dentists develop financial control, clinical acumen, and effective systems early in their careers.
Throughout the conversation, David emphasizes the crucial yet often neglected aspect of financial management for new dental grads. He shares his personal journey with debt management, highlighting common pitfalls such as the urge to pay off student loans too quickly. His advice is to maintain liquidity and strategically manage debt to facilitate practice ownership and expansion. Additionally, David offers valuable pieces of advice from his own experience on scaling a practice, acquiring real estate, and leveraging property investments to build a sustainable, multi-practice empire. This episode serves as an invaluable resource for any dental professional seeking to navigate the complexities of financial and practice management.
Key Takeaways:
- Value of Coaching: The significance of having a coach to guide young dentists in clinical and financial aspects, making it more accessible through the 90 Day Jumpstart program.
- Financial Strategy: The importance of managing student loan repayment intelligently without rushing, to maintain liquidity for future investments in a practice.
- Early Ownership Advice: Encouragement to own a practice as soon as possible, despite the fear and perceived overwhelming nature of the responsibility.
- Practice Scaling Insights: Practical tips on scaling a dental practice, and the benefits of consolidating multiple practices under one roof for better management and reduced overhead.
Connect with Ignitedds and Dr. David Rice: @ignitedds
Connect with Tanya Sue Maestas: @tsmaestas.dds
Learn more about 90 Day JumpStart : https://ignitedds.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Dental Fuel Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Dental Fuel, the podcast that focuses on what no one else is talking about. Mistakes. The dental world is full of before and afters and no one is talking about the middle. Dental Fuel brings you the unspoken in-between. Welcome back to another episode of Dental Fuel. Dental Fuel is brought to you by 90 Day Jumpstart, a program to help you increase production and break free from financial stress.
Financial Strategies for Young Dentists
00:00:25
Speaker
David Rice is back and today we are talking money, money, money. Today we are discussing financial strategies for young dentists and a financial mistake that David has made. We hone in on 90 Day Jumpstart, a transformative initiative that is designed to aid young dentists in mastering their finances
00:00:45
Speaker
and achieving a successful start in their practices. David talks about the importance of early coaching and how it's important to develop financial control. another part of ignite dds that i've seen you kind of grow is the part where you help or the group tries to help young dennis manage their finances and start their first practice if they choose to do that. and When this launches, this will probably be in its prime, but 90-day jumpstart is something that's kind of brand new and while we're speaking ah for Ignite DDS. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. i've I've always been a huge believer in having a coach. I've had one most of my life in many different ways, shapes, and forms.
00:01:27
Speaker
But a gap we saw was most young dentists couldn't really afford big time coaching. It's 60, 70, $100,000 a year. So we thought, hey, why not shrink that obstacle and create a 90 day program where we could help people gain you know financial control, systems control, clinical control, and really kind of jettison, whether you were doing a startup or you were you are acquiring a practice, but really get out of the gate strong. And we could deliver three times the ah ROI within 90 days and now all of a sudden investing in yourself didn't seem so hard anymore. So we're really pumped. We've got a bunch of beta programs that are happening out there in different spaces of dentistry. And we're already seeing some really great results. So pumped. If you could sum up what this program has to offer, how how would you sum it up?
00:02:20
Speaker
I would say um the highest view is we help you build your self-determined future. Whatever your version of success is, we're going to get you there. How? You know, the fastest track there. We help you build case acceptance. We help with communication skills. So as a young dentist, you are a stronger leader with your team.
Building Sustainable Success
00:02:40
Speaker
And I would say an optimal communicator with your patients. So you get yes a lot more. And then we also kind of build process into that so you can sustain it because we've met so many young docs and they come out of the gate really, really strong and they don't have the system. So a year later, they're like, what just happened? And everything levels off or it goes in the wrong direction and then nobody really quite knows why.
00:03:05
Speaker
It's hard for new grads or really anyone who's just trying to, you know, start their own thing to know what the next steps are. So I can see a lot of advantages of taking part of the 90 day jumpstart, especially when it comes to finances. Cause you know, I don't know how to manage my finances very well. I know that many others don't and there are many who, who are very very financially savvy.
Managing Debt and Liquidity
00:03:27
Speaker
Uh, but for you, David, what is a financial mistake that you have made and how did you overcome it or build from it? Okay, so this is the one that lots of dentists make, and I made it, and and even though you know our your listeners are going to hear this, they're probably still going to make it, but so don't. um I paid off my student loans too fast. Oh, tell us more. Yeah, i was so I was taught by my family, and and for like really good reasons, right? Get rid of debt, get rid of debt, get rid of debt.
00:03:54
Speaker
And so I did. I eliminated all my debt as quickly as I could. And then one day I walked into the bank and said, hey, I'm ready to buy my first practice. I have no debt. I have money that's invested. And they looked at me and said, that's really great. Who's going to co-sign your loan? I'm like, what are you talking about? like I own a home debt free. I have no student loans. And I've already invested all this money. Like, that's great. We don't want to take your house. We don't want to take your dental practice. And we can't tap into all that money that you've saved. So if you're listening to this and you want to be a practice owner,
00:04:29
Speaker
Save 10,000 bucks in an emergency fund, save 50 to $70,000 on top of that and keep it liquid. It needs to be in a checking account, a savings account. It could be in a money market account. And then under a mattress, under mattress, my grit, listen, right. We've all had that family member like under the mattress is a real deal saves, whatever you need to do, but keep, keep access to it. And then once you have those two accounts lined up, then. Go, you know pay back your debt. However, you want to counterintuitive. I know scary. I know but it is the path It can be very scary for someone who is interested in opening something of their own to Just kind of wrap their mind around accruing so much debt. I mean it is a ton of debt to a crew, you know, you're coming out with a
00:05:22
Speaker
$500,000 of dental school dental
The Benefits of Practice Ownership
00:05:25
Speaker
school debt. And now you're going to add on practice set. It can feel like it can be unmanageable. What would your advice be for that? I would um i give you two pieces of advice. The first is one I've used since I think I was a sophomore dental student. I would always look a year ahead of me and say, wow, if that person could do it, if those people could do it, why can't I? So know that those of us who've been in dentistry for 10, 20, 30 years, we're not any smarter than you. We're not any better than you. We're just older than you. So if we can do it, you can.
00:05:59
Speaker
And the second piece of advice I would give you is to understand that as an employee or an associate, you can only produce what your two hands produce, and that is the rate limiting step to your financial future. When you're an owner and you have one, two, three, four hygienists working with you, or maybe other dentists who work for you, then you're producing in multiple rooms at the same time. So you sort of overcome this this time thing that is so difficult to overcome. And you will generate enough money as a team to really knock down all that debt that that really weighs you down. And I get it. I mean, it was 30 years ago, but I was over $300,000 in debt 30 years ago. So yeah you guys can do it. You can do it. It's really, banks don't care how much debt you have. It's more up here.
00:06:51
Speaker
And I think in your stomach, which is where it was for me too. David, did you come out of dental school and go, did you, how quickly did you buy into a practice or started practice? That's a great creation question. um I did a residency right out of school and then I was an associate for a year and a half and none of them good until I found an associateship that I knew I was going to buy that practice. It was sort of built into our initial contract six months later. So call it three years.
00:07:27
Speaker
That's pretty quick. Would you say that that's an average? Is that something that you recommend? I know that everyone's journey and path is a little bit different, but I know that you have also seen it from a bird's eye view and ah know the, you know, inside out and outside in. So what what are your thoughts? I would share, um it seems to me the average is somewhere between three and five years that people take the leap. If I was to give anyone a piece of advice, I would say own one as soon as you can. You're never going to feel ready. You're always going to feel overwhelmed. There will always be things you just don't know anything about. That was totally me.
00:08:09
Speaker
But when you build the right people around you, you'll learn the lessons and it's never going to be any less expensive than it is right now, right? Buying a practice, starting a practice next year, 10% more two years from now, 20, 30% more. So it's not going to get cheaper. Did you all decide or ever decide to scale that practice or was it only one location?
Scaling Practices and Strategic Advantages
00:08:34
Speaker
We did, so how we did it was a little differently than many people scale today. So I ended up purchasing um four practices and then we did a separate startup. But over time, even though we had multiple locations as we purchased each one, we pulled them underneath one roof. So we tried to target practices that were within a geographic location that we knew once we met the patients.
00:09:02
Speaker
we could convince them that four miles, five miles um wasn't a big deal to drive to one centralized practice. And that really radically lowered our overhead, gave us total control over our team. Cause scale is cool to think about, but at scale is also difficult. Scale breaks things. So we have to be really careful when we do that. And the startup was its own thing, but that we did that for entirely different reasons in the first place, I guess. Another thing that I think that you all did financially that I thought make, made a lot of sense is that you all owned the building that you guys were in and then, uh, there are other facilities, uh, things in that building as well. Is that correct?
00:09:47
Speaker
Correct. So we did, um, and this was a really good example of great mentors. So I knew nothing about any of this stuff, but we had a tremendous accountant who shared secrets. So we started a real estate company that real estate company bought the land. It bought the building, but our building, and you're all welcome to come see it. We have lots of young docs and students come visit us all the time, sits on a six acre piece of property that we were a part owner in, and there are multiple buildings. So within our building is is our practice and a lab behind it.
00:10:24
Speaker
is our favorite pediatrician. Behind that is our favorite oral maxillofacial surgery group. Right next door is our favorite orthodontist. Behind them, our favorite pediatric dentist, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we we built a co-op and um that was one really cool advantage of owning a real estate company. But the other cool thing is that real estate company um bought other properties that had nothing to do with dentistry at all. So there's significant tax advantages when you and I do, not just the one is ah is a big win in itself, but when we buy multiple things and put them underneath that property company, lots of really great things happen. It's kind of like playing Monopoly when you're a kid. Yes, except ah real money this time.
00:11:09
Speaker
real money at the time, but when you get really, when you get good at it, and I was not, Russ was our accountant, you learn how to play with other people's money. So once I bought the land, I never actually spent one dime of my own money on anything. It was always someone else's money. And that's a skill we can all learn.
00:11:31
Speaker
Be sure to tune in next week as we continue our conversation where David talks about a team mistake. If you're looking to find financial control, systems control, and clinical control in your office, the 90 day jumpstart is for you. Dr. David Rice can help you reach your goals with 90 day jumpstart. Isn't David awesome? We're your profit, not your stress. Be sure to connect with us on social media at Ignite DDS and at Dental Fuel. If you'd like to listen to more Dr. David Rice, you can find him on his podcast, Dentistry Unmasked with Dr. Pan Maragliano.