How to Create an “Investment Grade” Practice – Episode #368

Large companies work hard for solid credit ratings based on their history, financial strength, and future. They want to be investment grade. Your practice is your #1 asset, how do you make sure it’s “investment grade”? On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show, Ryan welcomes Dr. Victoria Peterson, Dr. Chad Johnson, and Regan Robertson of the Productive Dental Academy.

Show Notes
productivedentist.com

 

 

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

[music]

Ryan Isaac:
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show brought to you by Dentist Advisors, a fiduciary, no-commission comprehensive financial advisor just for dentists all over the country. Check us out at DentistAdvisors.com. Today on the show, I have some longtime friends, Chad, Regan, and Victoria from Productive Dentist Academy PDA. We talk about a lot of stuff today, Investment Grade Practices, looking back on 2022, what’s going into 2023, how to be a successful, happy, healthy dentist. Man, this was such a good conversation. So many thanks to my friends at PDA. If you don’t know who they are, check them out. Their details are at the end of this conversation. They are such nice, experienced, wise people. So funny too. Many thanks. Thank you very much, Chad, Regan, Victoria for spending time with me today. That was awesome. If you have any questions for us and you want to talk to a financial advisor that only works with dentists and ask them a specific money question, go to DentistAdvisors.com. You can do that today. We’d love to help give you an answer and point in the right direction, answer your money questions. Thanks for being here. Enjoy the show.

Announcer:
Consulting advisory, conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dentist Advisors or registered investment advisor. This is Dentist Money. Now here’s your host, Ryan Isaac.

Ryan Isaac:
Welcome to the Dentist Money Show where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I am your host Ryan, and I’m so excited today to have some very good longtime friends in a big group. It’s a big end-of-year group party from PDA. We have Victoria, Regan, and Chad. Welcome three. What’s happening? How are you guys?

Regan Robertson:
Thank you, Ryan.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Thanks for being here. We were all just joking previously about just setting up a Facebook message group and saying like, we need to podcast. We’re all friends here. Like let’s get this done. So thank you. Thanks for doing this. Where are all you coming from right now? Where’s everybody?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
I’m always Iowa proud. Des Moines, Iowa representing the Midwest right here.

Ryan Isaac:
Holding down the fort? Snowy and cold? What do you got going?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
I suppose. No, we’re holding it off. They’re getting it up north, but we just have kind of cruddy rain and clouds and junk like that, but it’s coming. It’s coming.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. We’ll move to Regan. Anacortes.

Regan Robertson:
Anacortes in the beautiful San Juan islands. And I don’t know, it sounds awfully pretentious of me. Every time Chad says Iowa, I laugh and I know why.

Ryan Isaac:
Wait. Why do you laugh at Iowa? I mean, you’re on an island, you know…

Dr. Chad Johnson:
She probably finds it’s funny that I’m so proud of it.

Regan Robertson:
It is. He’s like Iowa proud. And I immediately think corn and then I just start laughing and I don’t, it’s terrible.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
I pass by miles of cornfield on my way to and from work. So there’s no joke. It just is.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
I think about the butter sculpture contest…

Dr. Chad Johnson:
At the state fair.

Ryan Isaac:
What? I don’t know about this.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Yeah, we got the butter cow. And then they, every year they sculpt a cow out of butter and then they also sculpt other things. It’s like a sand castle, but make it out of butter. And then people go and take their picture in front of it. It’s quite an ordeal.

Ryan Isaac:
I love butter.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Is there a butter cow queen?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Oh, I think there is, but I don’t want to promise you that, but they have like a pork queen. They have a beef queen. They have a… There’s a queen of everything.

Regan Robertson:
There’s a pork queen?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Oh, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I like beef queen. That sounds like a great nickname for somebody. We got to find someone that’s going to take that. Is that your nickname now? Did you just self nickname Chad beef queen Johnson?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Beef queen.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah we can do that.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Look at these. Come on. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Anacortes, Washington. And then Victoria, we saved you for the last because you take the cake on the coolest place. Tune in from…

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Nebraska! Just kidding.

Ryan Isaac:
Big Island?

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Oh my gosh. Only if, only if Lamar, Nebraska was located on the big Island of Hawaii.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Well you in volcano territory. No?

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
I am 50 miles from the latest eruption, which went out today. Both Kilauea and Mauna Loa quieted down. So I guess a Pele’s indigestion is gone for the moment and all is returning to quiet.

Ryan Isaac:
All is well. Well, thank you three for being here. Let’s have, I’m gonna ask Victoria, would you tell us for any audience members who might not know who productive Dentist Academy is affectionately known as PDA, who is PDA?

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
PDA was co-founded by myself and my partner, Dr. Bruce B. Baird in the turn of the century, 2004.

Ryan Isaac:
Wow. Yeah, it’s true.

Regan Robertson:
My son would call that an antique. We are an antique company.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
An antique company. And I would say the best way to describe PDA is we are, a community of doctors and hygienists and teams brought together by a cultural North Star. And we help doctors decrease stress and become more productive at the heart of everything we do. As stress is the number one killer of life, but it’s also the number one killer of your productivity. So we’ve spent 20 years honing how to develop the team and develop systems in a way that is as non stressful as it can be a bringing a consultant in your office, right? Change is always a little nerve wracking, but how do we make this easier? Because that’s where accelerated growth comes from. And so that was our original intent. And we do coach like almost like a football team where you have a head coach, you know, we have your business advisor, you have team development coaches, you have a marketing coach, you have a clinical calibration coach.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
So early on I’ve been in the consulting field since ’95 and boy, by 2004, it was rare to find a consultant dedicated enough to learn all the disciplines of business, right? ‘Cause some are very right brain, some are very left brain finance versus marketing, you know, creative versus didactic. And that’s when we started peeling things apart and integrating multiple coaches to help doctors. So that’s our roots where, someone, one of our clients recently described us as, “Your culture is fun and rebellious.” I like that a lot. So I didn’t say that, but we recently got coined out of all the consultants out there. I think you guys are the most fun and the most rebellious.

Ryan Isaac:
I like that. That speaks to my punk rock roots. I appreciate that a lot. What did you say? A cultural North Star? Is that what you described it? That’s really cool. What was that like? How did that kind of come about? That’s a really cool way to phrase the community.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Well, Chad, you’ll have to speak to this, but it’s really funny when PDA doctors come right. And they get into the thing. Dentistry is very isolating and we’ll say, “Do you hang out with other dentists?” And like, “No, but I’ll hang out with PDA doctors.” So there’s an affinity, and affinity is, most of the doctors that we attract have already gone through some sort of maturation process. They know who they are. They know what they stand for. They know, that they’re fighting the good fight, right? So there’s an affinity of doing good while doing good. And I think that’s, that’s our biggest cultural North Star. Making money quite honestly is easy. I know if you’re, if you’re struggling right now with money, that seems like shut up. Yeah, I shut up, but there’s a mechanic, there’s a mechanic of time and value equation. What’s not easy is enjoying the process and having support along the way when it gets bumpy. That’s the hard part. That’s the hard part. So having that cultural North Star, a group of people that are aligned through affinity, you know, we have an affinity and we naturally aligned this way. I just creates a really cool environment.

Ryan Isaac:
Very cool.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
What’s cool is when there’s colleagues within PDA that are connecting with one another through text, through Facebook, through phone calls, through honestly through Marco Polo, you know, stuff like that where I know…

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Anyone getting on Marco Polo?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Hey, listen, there was no push.

Ryan Isaac:
My kids make fun of me. They say Marco’s for old people.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
So I just got on it last year.

Regan Robertson:
I have two unwatched Marco Polo videos right now. It keeps reminding me.

Ryan Isaac:
We’re not the group to talk tech, it’s probably Snapchat or whatever.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Yes, you know, fight me. I like Marco Polo. So, but the cool thing is when we like, we talk with one another and, and we’re happy for each other’s successes. We don’t just talk shop and we don’t just talk personal. It’s kind of both, you know, that we’re able to talk that stuff through. So it’s just kind of cool that I can…

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
We only occasionally talk clinical, but when we do, it’s out deep.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Yeah. But you know, like, if any of my friends, were moving to, Arkansas, I know Wade Kiefer would be the guy I would refer to. And I’d say, “Listen, it might be a drive. You’ve got to go see Wade.” And, just, you know, occasionally connecting with doctors from the workshop. And again, being happy for their success. ‘Cause I find that to be the rare thing, is that with some doctors, it’s kind of a competition and I want you to do well, but I don’t want you to do like so well that you’re making me jealous because like, you know, rather to be with some guys that are like, “Good for you. You had your best year ever. That’s awesome. I’m hoping next year, but I got to admit this last year might not have been my best year.” “Oh no. Why?” “Well, you know, we actually took more time off.” “Oh, good for you.” You know, it’s stuff like that. So it’s just kind of cool that it’s a constructive North Star. I like that. Victoria.

Ryan Isaac:
Regan, I don’t want to put you on the spot if you don’t have anything to add to the North Star, but I just wanted to see if you have anything to comment on what you were involved in in the business and how you would, I just love this North Star community concept.

Regan Robertson:
It, for me, it comes down to, it really drills down to the culture of what you’re trying to build together. So Chad, to your Testament, having that support, what I’ve seen over the last year is this return to community. So I feel like we are getting out of the fog, even though we’re supposedly going right back into COVID again, I think we’re taking a stand. I think collectively as the people were being rebellious and we’re leaning on each other. And I don’t know about you, Chad, but in my mind, I can’t think about this in a different way, but if one of my friends is winning at life, I feel like it’s a win for me. And so I think being in our text threads or our Facebook message or Marco Polo, believe me, I’m connected with doctors and all of these different communication formats. It’s about celebrating each other’s wins and everybody goes through something difficult. Have you anybody here? Have you guys watched City Slickers?

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, that’s been a long time.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
I was going to say that.

Regan Robertson:
Okay. So I’m taking my kids through the City Slickers and I’m making them watch the ’80s and ’90s movies right now. We just watched it. And I realized like the moral of the story for it was everybody has to go through hard, difficult challenges. You can’t get out of life without experiencing sacrifice and struggle along the way. And the theme of it was you can look at it with that abundance mindset or that scarcity mindset. It’s going to happen either way. And, I take it for granted sometimes that both Bruce and Victoria come from an abundance mindset and it’s been extremely transformative for me this year to even be more embedded with our doctors since as chief communications officer, I tend to sit on the front end and promoting out PDA, but to be in it with the doctors and really, helping them walk together through the tough times. I think it makes the celebrations that much more sweet.

Ryan Isaac:
So cool. For those who can’t see the video, Victoria is flipping through a book. I have a feeling you found something you want to share or no, or are we just reading on the side wall away? Oh, it’s a picture book of someone surfing. So you caught my attention.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
My journal journal. No. Well, I can’t go into it completely.

Ryan Isaac:
Will you please read? This is what the episode is about. Victoria is about to read her journal.

Regan Robertson:
Dear diary…

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
It’s my dear diary. I was on a podcast today with this hunky sir, Ryan Isaac and… No. So, I know I can’t share it all because every year, we choose the spirit animal to help as part of our guiding light. And I have not shared what that is. I can come back after Friday after our company party.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
What if it’s released after Friday? Tell me, no, I’m just…

Ryan Isaac:
This will be released after Friday. It’s true, but you can’t. Yeah.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
This… And Chad would know. And Chad…

Ryan Isaac:
This is like two weeks out.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
So Chad lives for the t-shirt.

Regan Robertson:
Oh, look at that. He’s taking out his earbuds. That is the integrity that Chadwick brings to this.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
I can give you some clues, Chad. So it really, this whole piece around the cultural North Star began to be more and more of a focus during the pandemic and Regan during the pandemic, ’cause we all had so much downtime as coaches trying to help our doctors get through, just like you did Ryan as the stock market was crashing. It’s so much free time. She said, “I think it’s time to look back and see what we’ve really done.” Right? So you can’t connect the dots looking forward, but how do we come out of this and re-found the company in essence? So we’re, we’re back, even though we’re an 18-year-old company, we’re still back at the founding level because so many things got leveled about how information was disseminated, how doctors want to be engaged, if their team was going to come back, if they had anybody to train, you know, so all of our world got upside down. And when we looked back and connected the dots, what we realized is there was one seminar breakout topic that we talked about. In fact, you came and talked to us about this back in 2015, how to build an investment grade practice.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, investment grade. Yep.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Right? And you came to the doctor breakout and you were talking about, you guys were just getting going and you’re talking about investing and you were one of the first financial advisors that I had worked with that said, “Actively reinvest in your business. It’s your number one asset. This will get you to retirement far quicker than your 401k.” Right? And so the cultural there, I want, this is my dare I say, this is my proclamation. I was going to say hope or something.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Go bolder than that. Yeah.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
So my proclamation is that we’ve created an IGP scorecard to score the practice to say, are you investable? Are your financial documents, is your financial house in order? Are your operational systems in order? Are you authentically marketing? If you’re authentically marketing, is your service fixed aligned to pull your radius out to serve more people with the gifts that you were blessed with? And what is your cultural North Star? So we started looking at that and how this ties into the spirit animal.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Victoria, another one was, are you protecting your risks? Like against your risks? That was another one. Yep.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Yeah. How are you mitigating risk? And there’s all kinds of risks. Doctors health is the number one by the way. And my book will come out someday when I finish it.

Ryan Isaac:
Not the diary, not yet…

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Not the diary, but the real book. Yeah. Building an Investment Great Practice. But so the spirit animal this year is really going to help us with culture because it’s the one area that is so difficult to wrap your arms around, particularly if you’re scientifically based. I want numbers, facts and logic, all these emotions that’s sort of messy, you know, and most doctors don’t want to deal with the messy part of human interaction, right? So how do we do it? But culture really comes from cultivating, right? So how are we cultivating and nurturing the talents and the wisdom and the leadership that’s already a part of your team? And I came very close. This is going to be a very vulnerable moment. Came very close to burning down, accidentally burning down, kind of like Chad’s accidental burning, burning down the whole damn company because I didn’t pay attention to the cultural North Star. So I now have a visceral, deep experience of what it means to hang on to what’s important to you. And I want for our doctors to be able to embed that in their practice because it’s so easy to lose yourself and who you think you are because you get good advice from others.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
And everybody else is hitting the money train. I should do that too. Or I’m afraid that no one will be around to buy my practice. So I’ll sell out or I better hire this person. She doesn’t quite fit, but that’s okay. We only have to deal with their eight hours a day, you know? So we compromise in so many ways about what our core values are. So that’s what we’re working on. That’s new and exciting. I’m, I’m hogging this podcast ’cause I’m so passionate, but I want to quantify what cultural North Star means. I want employers to be proud of their employer net promoter score. Teams actually going to rank their boss and they’re going to have Glassdoor reviews and you know, just all of that, all of that.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. So that a few things I want to ask about that where, am I understanding that you have kind of a system to help practices score their business health? Or how… Like, what did that mean? That’s really like our whole business lives in scoring and analysis and data and all the little boxes and stuff. So that would really caught my attention.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Yeah. Well, yeah…

Ryan Isaac:
Or you have the survey…

[overlapping conversation]

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
We have such data envy and your sleek, the elements table…

Ryan Isaac:
It’s out, it’s out. It’s like ready our clients in 2023. It’s rolling out to all of our clients. Finally. Yes. We’re so excited about that.

Regan Robertson:
Congratulations. That’s a large initiative. Wow.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
That’s awesome. Yeah. Victoria, our scorecard should be called the Lanthanides. That’s what it will make. That will make it real nerdy. The bottom part of the periodic table, the extras, you know, the Lanthanides.

Ryan Isaac:
I was like, where have I heard that before? Yeah. Oh yeah.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
I’m going to get the Lanthanides.

Regan Robertson:
You nerds…

Ryan Isaac:
So what does that mean? What does that mean for a dentist scoring their business? That that’s really fascinating.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
It’s hard to visualize on a podcast, but there’s four quadrants and there’s kind of…

Ryan Isaac:
There’s four of us in a quadrant right now. So here we are.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Yeah. And each one of us have five things that we are in charge of. So in business, I’m going off the top of my head. So business value, for example. Here’s a crazy statistic. We were working with one of our transition brokers that does a lot of mergers and acquisitions. They have 1700 inquiries a year. 42% of them can’t get to a valuation. Guess why?

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t know. Why?

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
They can’t submit their documents.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, that’s not surprising, but it’s surprising. Like what a small thing.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
So 1700 doctors who want to sell their practice. They can’t get three years of tax returns and PNLs and balance sheets to the broker to be valued.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
The first step is there, is this.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
The first step do…

Ryan Isaac:
So this would kind of validate, which I love when my position gets validated. This would validate what we would say when people ask, what’s the biggest financial mistake you see dentists making? I would say number one for sure is a lack of organization around their financials.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Open a Dropbox, put some folders in there. It’s not that hard.

Ryan Isaac:
Wow. So 40% of 1700 of these inquiries can’t even accomplish the first step of getting a valuation because they can’t gather the documents together. Yeah. It’s surprising how, what a small thing created such a big problem for 40% of these people. But also I’m not surprised because that’s kind of like the biggest thing that even the biggest, most successful dentists have to deal with. It’s just that lack of.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
And you know why? It’s because it’s scary. You know, we weren’t trained in numbers and all that gobbledygook. So you shake your head when your CPA talks to you and go, “Yeah, yeah, I understand. Do I owe any taxes?” That’s not yet. So that’s one out of like five things that are in that piece. We also, the second most powerful part in that one block on business value is we onboarded a super intelligent person, Dr. David Porat to our team this year, who spent six years studying consolidation of the dental industry going towards his doctorate. He’s got a PhD in business and his theory was based on DSOs, the environment, the consolidation, but more importantly, career satisfaction within that consolidated environment. And he, you should get them on your podcast sometime.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, that’d be fascinating. Oh yeah.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
He actually came in and studied how PDA grows doctors over time. And we now have a calculator that can help you predict your business value five years from now. And we can adjust the growth metrics because the average dentist grows 3-5% a year. Maybe, hopefully they’ll grow seven since inflation’s running a little high, but DSOs are for steady, slow, minimum growth. So solo doctors and DSOs, they grow slow and low. PDA doctors, because we take the stress element out, we put in easy systems for the team and we just put a lightning bolt to their marketing. They grow at an average of 20-27%.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
And Victoria that’s not just like your supposition. You recently said that you’ve got statistical data to back that up now that we’ve… Yeah.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Statistical data. Yeah. But we don’t even set the goals of that. We set it at like 12. We cut it by almost a third. So it’s a way to create generational wealth, this investment grade practice piece. I can’t wait to go deeper into it because you’re going beyond, I’m going to survive my retirement, right? That total term and can my money last a hundred years. You’re going to blow it out of the fricking water and have generational wealth to leave your great grandchildren.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Yeah. Ryan, IGP right now is the hot topic among the PDA docs. Gotta say.

Ryan Isaac:
Can you explain, can you IGP stands for?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Oh, Investment Grade Practices. That’s what yeah, it’s to…

Ryan Isaac:
What the cool kids say on Snapchat.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
It’s such a PDA abbrev.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. For adults on Marco Polo. Can you explain?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Absolutely. You can find me on AOL instant messenger later and we can discuss it.

Ryan Isaac:
IGP. Regan, can I ask you a question? You said I’m not going to get your title, right? Or your position there, but you, you’re kind of at the front end of like client communications. Is that right? Okay.

Regan Robertson:
Yeah. You said that you said that accurately.

Ryan Isaac:
How I’m just curious. And something you is kind of two questions, something you said earlier that, reminded me of something. There’s this, kind of appreciating other people’s successes and as a human being, that’s not always really easy to do. It reminded me of, like dumb example, but like when I go surfing, if I catch a great way for myself, like that’s fantastic. But if I take my daughter surfing and she catches one, it’s like the day is, is like my whole week is made. I mean, like I could, it’s like not even comparable, you know. And it’s cool when you find, I don’t know, maybe the spot in your life, in your business, your practice where you’re comfortable, you’re, I dunno, you’re, you’re confident in what’s happening and part of that has to be like, you know, your scores are okay and you know it’s a healthy practice and it is investment grade. You can get into that space where you can then watch your peers kind of just also grow into their own too and have their own successes. And anyway, you just said that I just thought that was like such a cool comment.

Ryan Isaac:
I was curious what you see on the front end talking to so many docs with this investment grade idea, maybe when they’re kind of beginning and kind of asking this question, like, how do I get to that point? I am so stressed. You guys really stress. You helped me love this along the way. What’s that mentality? What’s that mind shift like? Because it’s not only mechanical, like Victoria saying, this isn’t just mechanics. This isn’t just a process. This has to be like a mind shift too. You don’t go from a three to 5% growth to a 27% growth without also changing like mentally, emotionally too. Like what’s that like?

Regan Robertson:
Absolutely. There are doctors where it’s hard to get off, almost off the treadmill. And what I’ve learned neurologically is the brain seeks reward and it can seek negative reward just as much as it can seek positive reward. I know. Does that not blow your mind Victoria?

Ryan Isaac:
It scares me.

Regan Robertson:
I just learned this.

Ryan Isaac:
The implications of that are like, I don’t want to know actually, but…

Regan Robertson:
Yes. So I’ve, through my career, I love that you don’t remember my title. I’ve had lots of different titles over 20 years, right? We’ve all had different titles.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, call me what you want.

Regan Robertson:
There’s been times in my life where I find that I’m on… No, let me back up. There’s been times when I see others with almost a snowball effect of success. So it’s like, it just, they can’t go wrong. They just, they do one thing, right?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, they can’t help themselves.

Regan Robertson:
Yes. And another and another. And then I’ll see, I’ve gone through my own cycles and seen doctors where they almost feel like they are addicted to the negative and staying in this space of indecision and a year goes by and another year goes by. And what’s so exciting to me about IGP, there’s two sets of Investment Grade Practices. There’s the ones that are in conversation. They are our clients. They are on their mind shift has occurred. They are reward by the positive behaviors. And I believe at the root of it, it’s because to your point, Victoria, you hit it generational wealth, legacy growth. I don’t know if you know that Bruce Baird has a book out right now called Legendary Leadership. It’s that urge to be something, a part of something greater. So even if you’re an atheist, you still have an urge to want to be part of something greater.

Regan Robertson:
And I think looking beyond that gives you all of a sudden something that is outside of yourself, but you are still a part of. So thinking about your daughter, like catching that wave. I know exactly as a parent, how that feels. That’s exactly what we want because we live through them and the cycle continues on. So when I’m at the front lines talking to the doctors… I was just on a call the other day with a doctor who is swimming in indecision. They want to make the right decision. First, they have to get radically vulnerable. I love Victoria how you were just radically vulnerable with yourself and talking about some of the dangers that the company has gone through that you feel responsible for and how you don’t want to make that mistake again. So I see dentists as business owners who care very deeply about the decisions that they make for the practice. And this can cause that analysis paralysis. So one of the things that I help doctors through when I’m on the phone or when anybody at PDA is on the phone is shift the questions and put them in that purpose-driven mindset.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
So it might not even be about the practice today. It’s asking questions that get them stuck out of that and imagine a positive future. So once we start to get that vision in place and help them walk through those milestones, that’s exactly what investment grade practice is all about. It’s not about just can we make payroll this month and can we knock out production and have one good month. It’s about where do you really want to go? What’s the purpose for this entire existence? And then let’s work backwards from there.

Ryan Isaac:
And how did you phrase that radical vulnerability? Is that what you said?

Regan Robertson:
Yeah. I’ve seen a lot of radical vulnerability. I think again with COVID and everything, it’s caused a lot of honesty to come about and we don’t have time to wear masks. I think it’s well, physical masks. Okay. But not psychological masks. I think the people who are brave enough to get real and be honest with where they’re at and what they’re struggling with. My favorite kind of call is when somebody really admits and it takes maybe a couple of calls. “Listen, I don’t know anything about business. I’m really clinically gifted and I don’t want to admit this.” You know, it’s not that easy to ask the honest questions. I’ve been in the high level financial discussions and I will tell you, I’ve seen, I’ve even seen upwards close to billionaires that get nervous about asking questions because of how they will look. But if you can turn that off and if you’ll notice, I think Elon Musk is good at this. If you can turn off that fear driver, you can ask the honest questions that will move you towards your goal. And I think once you put that pattern in, that’s another element that gets you on that snowball of positivity that leads to an IGP practice.

Ryan Isaac:
So interesting. I love that you brought that up because in our business, a new client kind of onboarding process begins with just uncovering someone’s entire financial life. And I mean, anyone who’s ever just had a home loan, it makes you feel really weird just sending people like here’s my income and here’s what I spend and here’s actually what I have in the bank. And you know, like here’s my credit. I mean, it makes you feel kind of uncomfortable. And I like that you bring that up because…

Regan Robertson:
A lot uncomfortable…

Ryan Isaac:
Very uncomfortable. I kind of hate it. Yeah, I don’t like it either. But yeah, I mean, it has to begin there because unless you’re honest about what you can do and can’t do, then you’re not going to get anywhere. No matter how much you dig into strategy or how good of a strategy it is. It’s like you can’t mentally get to that point. I want to ask each of you a question about, I really like where this conversation went. Oh, by the way, really fast. I have a t-shirt idea. You know, the old song, I think you guys should have a t-shirt that says, ” Are you down with IGP?” And then the back says, “Yeah, you know me.” Can we do that?

Regan Robertson:
Yes we can do that.

Ryan Isaac:
For the next conference. Alright.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Are you coming to… Are you going to be in March?

Ryan Isaac:
I think so. I was just looking at my calendar, booking a client right before this and I’m, I have it blocked off. I’m coming wherever PDA is going. It’s on my calendar for March. I don’t know what that…

Regan Robertson:
You down with IGP? Yeah. You know me. Oh yeah. I’ll make that. I will make that happen.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s happening. And before we wrap up, we’ll talk about what you guys have coming up too. But I wanted to ask each one of you maybe just look back on this year real quick and say like, what’s something you learned from this year and what are you taking into 2023 for clients, for team, for the community at large, like in some aspect? And let’s start with… Who goes first, Chad? Want to start with Chad.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
I find that going into 2023 something that I’m trying to do is have satisfaction with where we are. I switched a couple of years ago to a fee for service practice. And we also were in quite growth mode because I bought two new practices. And so I was at three, one was not doing so hot and talk about vulnerability. So I dropped that one, sold that after 18 months and and had focused on the one that is doing well. And as I go into my annual planning for next year, which I’m doing in a couple of days, we’re looking at just maintaining what we’re doing actually. And you know, like a lot of people are like, “Okay, how do I, you know, double what we did this year?” And I’m actually going in going, “How can I maybe take off a little bit more time and do the same amount next year?” Yes, Victoria, you won’t believe it. But how I’ve done that also is with systems in place. For example, implementing profit first into our accounting, you know, in having a management style, not just a managerial style, but a management operation system that Victoria that you helped me a couple years ago figure out when I was like, “I’m going to do an MBA,” and you’re like, “What do you want to learn?” And I’m like, “I want to learn all this stuff.” And then you’re like, “Why don’t you just learn that?” You know, I’m like, “Oh, good point.”

Ryan Isaac:
You can just learn that.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
So she just saved me, you know, 60,000, 80,000 bucks, maybe some hours away from the family. So that way I can do a podcast with you guys. So there’s my last year and what I’m looking forward to into the coming year.

Ryan Isaac:
Health and maintaining what you’ve achieved in the business while gaining some more balance, calling back some more balance.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Being satisfied with where you are.

Ryan Isaac:
Being satisfied. Love it. Regan.

Regan Robertson:
So definitely in the same vein, I decided in 2022 that it is not selfish to put myself first in by way of saying taking care of myself. So I think the cliche of you are the friends you keep definitely propelled me forward in 2022. So I looked to our colleagues and my buddy Chad, who is, you know, my podcast co-host on Everyday Practices. You know, he’s very, he’s also radically vulnerable with me. And we’ve gone through a lot together now over the past few years. And we’re really straightforward with each other about where we want to go. So I got really clear about what I want my 10-year vision to be. And then I backed it into a five-year and a one-year and my, I think my secret sauce is I found a fellow CEO and I wanted to practice some coaching on him. And I said, “Let’s… Will you let me coach you?” ‘Cause he had some indecision areas and he said, “Absolutely.” Well, we ended up coaching each other and walking each other through this 10, five, one-year plan. And I kid you not, when you start to write down, it’s so cheesy.

Regan Robertson:
How many times have we heard it? Write down your goals. I think you just start to universally align to those. So when we started this process four or five months ago, I said, you know, I’m going to drop 45 pounds. I’m going to start sleeping better. I’m going to take these classes. And I kid you not much faster than I realized those things just started to intuitively come true. And you start to align yourself to those. So I definitely learned that this year to put myself first and keep those boundaries and don’t, don’t consider it to be lazy. If you need to sleep, sleep, it’s good for you. We read the articles we know, but actually putting that into perspective and treating yourself like you would treat your best friend.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. I, okay. So first congrats. That’s a, that’s a huge milestone on some of the things you did. That’s really awesome. And I was just going to say, don’t you feel like when you have a chance to kind of take a look at your own life, whether it’s a sleep habits, blood pressure medication, angry lines in the forehead, like whatever it is. Right. And you’re like honest with yourself. And then you actually go through the process of fix. Even if you’re not, you haven’t completed the process. You’re maybe you’re still messy in the process trying to go through this yourself, but you’re in such a better position to take that to a team, to friends, to family, to clients and go like, “I kind of know what this feels like ’cause I’m also going through that.” Victoria looking back in this year, carrying in the 2023, what are you feeling? What’s the vibe?

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
Well, I love this conversation where you’re in this year. I made a declaration. I turned a big number this year. So I’m making 60.

Ryan Isaac:
Do we ask? We don’t ask.

Regan Robertson:
40.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
No, I’m in my sexy 60s now.

Ryan Isaac:
Awesome.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
So I love all this conversation about health and staying young and vibrant. I would say the single most pivotal moment for myself this year and for our company was leaning into Regan skills and having you walk through the business made simple model of clarifying the company vision, the value, the core value. So we, like a lot of people, you know, we had our tribe values and trust and integrity and this and that, but it was really, it’s hard for us to remember much less put into play. And so your ability Regan to help us boil it down to our core value as a company, as professionalism, and then the key characteristics of being knowledgeable, being genuinely caring. I take that to extreme and say, loving, I love everybody. Is this a loving thought? This is a loving thing to do to this person right now. And then the other is responsive. You know, are we being responsive and timely? Are we being considerate of how much burden we’re putting on others versus taking off? That was a huge step getting that clear. But then the other part was how do we now weave this through the whole company so that the behaviors and like role descriptions have this baked into it. The how we onboard clients is baked into it. It’s measurable. It’s tangible. It’s not just a piece of paper on the wall that says, “Be a professional dammit or… ”

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Although I like that. That is a good phrase though. Be a good mug.

Regan Robertson:
I always think of that little skydiving poster. Have you seen it where they’re all holding hands and then it says teamwork underneath it? And I’m like, “We’re not… Come on. We’re not going to do that.”

Ryan Isaac:
We’re not going skydiving guys.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
No. Gosh, for 2023, what is it coming up for me in 2023? I think it is living the concepts that we’re teaching through investment grade practice. So we know, and you taught me this Ryan, that there’s a couple of stages in business, right? First you got to be viable. So when you’re working with the young docs, you’re like, “Dude, just say 1%, just so you’ve got some kind of rainy day fun and you’re building habits on a small scale until you become viable.” And then you become predictable. Like everything’s working. It’s working really good, but it’s only working if that group of people stays there very longterm. If the doctor takes a vacation, revenues dip, right? Mary Margaret at the front desk decides to leave and nobody knows how to file an insured.

Ryan Isaac:
Starting over.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
So we’re moving into that third level and taking our doctors to that third level of durable, what makes it durable so that Chad gets the time off when he wants it off, you know, so that you can be away from the hand piece and your business is truly a business. You’re not just a highly paid employee, but you really have a company and a culture and predictability and durability. So I think that’s what I’m looking forward to in 2023.

Ryan Isaac:
What were the three stages before you get to predictable and durable? What’s the first one?

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Viable.

Ryan Isaac:
Viable. Yeah. That’s the grindy years.

Dr. Victoria Peterson:
That’s the grindy, that’s the race…

[overlapping conversation]

Ryan Isaac:
Answering your own phones, designing your own websites. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the grindy years. Very cool. I feel like we could do this forever, but for our audience sake, we’ll tease out another episode. I really, really would love to do the effects of physical health on the field, on the career of dentistry. I think you guys had have some really good insight on that and okay. Well, thanks for doing this. This was awesome. I really appreciate where this went and the conversation and everyone’s kind of just like authentic sharing. Can you tell us about where do people find PDA? And we mentioned the event coming up in March. Tell us a little bit about what you have going on, podcasts, workshops, where do we find all that stuff?

Regan Robertson:
Well, we have three podcasts. So you can see Chad and I on a Everyday Practices, Dental Podcasts. You can see Dr. Victoria Peterson on the Investment Grade Practices Podcast, and you can also hear from our co-founder, Dr. Bruce B. Baird on the Productive Dentist Podcast. So we are, and we’re teeing it up for 2023. We’re going back to every single week for several of our podcasts, producing those so you can catch those, but we have over a hundred episodes, almost each. So lots of content there. Right now we are running our cyber December special. We have three seats. So probably even at time of recording, we’re done with March. March, I believe is completely sold out. But before December 31st, if you register for our September, 2023 Productivity Workshop listeners will get 12 months of PDA on demand. So the entire workshop. It is amazing. It’s everything, including the breakout sessions for a full year. So I like this because Ryan, I’m sure you’ve attended CE and you go and you try to cram it all in my hand hurts. And then I’m like, hoping that I can integrate something.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Regan Robertson:
So we’ve got that all completely covered. You go to the workshop and then you get that. And you also get a 90-minute one-on-one session with a business advisor. And I like that because like I was speaking to the big goals, it’s personal to me. So each practice is unique. Get that session before you attended the workshop and that’ll help you clarify how you can get the most out of the workshop, what your personal goals are and, you’re teamed up with an ambassador while you’re at the event too. So we make sure that it’s guaranteed that not only you grow, but you get the most out of it. That’s relevant for you. So if you want to hop over to our website, just go to productivedentists.com.

Ryan Isaac:
Productivedentists.com. Check them out. Thank you, Chad and Regan and Victoria, good friends, happy holidays to all of you. Appreciate you being here. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in as always.

Dr. Chad Johnson:
Yeah. Thanks for listening.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, we love it. Thank you guys for the great conversation. We’ll do this again very soon and we’ll catch everyone next time on another episode of the Dentist Money Show. Take care now. Bye-bye.

Practice Management