If your practice income is such that you should be Wealthy, but haven’t been able to accumulate money and CREATE WEALTH— then this message is for you!

Over 30 years of working with my colleagues tells me that Creating Wealth is simple, but not easy! I’d like to share with you some vital keys to Creating Wealth that can make all the difference in your career as a dentist.

First and most important, you must know exactly how much is enough and by when. You have to Create a MASTER PLAN. Obviously the earlier you do this, the better. In reality this is more Neuroscience than it is Science. The way our brains work is simple, but most are too busy to stop and consider how their brain works and how their Mental Mindset determines their life!! Your brain works in two ways. First, the energy is directed towards seeking a goal and why you want this goal; the second is to discover and take action to accomplish the goal.

YOUR GOALS are your plan for the future.

In concrete terms you need 20 times the yearly income you plan to Create Wealth or abundance. If its $100,000 a year, then you need $2M. $200,000/ year, then $4M and so on.

Those intending to Create Wealth, PLAN, the rest don’t. In fact the Wealthiest people I know are planners not plodders.

Your MASTER PLAN takes into consideration the FOUR main areas of your planning process. A MASTER PLAN takes into consideration your goals for Production, but also your goals for expenses in every major category of your practice and life. Your MASTER PLAN also takes into consideration what your life will be like when you pursue your goals. The major pieces look like this: 

• The money it takes to run your practice (this is first because you can recapture the most money here!)
• The money it takes to run your lifestyle.
• How much money goes to taxes, FICA, State and Federal taxes.
• The amount of money you need to SAVE or INVEST each month.

The second most important action is to have a MODEL of PRACTICE that enables you to go to work every day with a plan and a process helps you Create the Life and Practice you want today, but are Creating Wealth in the Process.

The vast majority are working without PLANS, without a BUSINESS MODEL that has at its core the Creation of Wealth. When I write that you have to have a model, this is what I mean.

• You have to know what Wealth means to you.
• You have to know how much by when.
• But equally important is how your practice will Create Value for those who come to you as patients.

One of the greatest mysteries to the unaware is the following:

“To the degree you Create Value for others is the degree that others will help you Create Wealth.”

Your MODEL of practice has to create value for the patients you serve. When I say create value, the value that is created is not in your mind, but rather is in the mind of the people you care for. If they do not see, experience, feel, sense, want the value you are offering, no matter how hard you work or try, they are not going to be willing to pay you the price you deserve for your services.

Since I’ve been privileged to work with many of dentistry’s finest dentists, I see and feel the difference when I talk with them, when I visit their practices. We are truly in the ‘experience economy’, and the MENTAL MINDSET and ENVIRONMENTS of those who are Creating Wealth versus those who aren’t is strikingly different.

Those who are really Creating Wealth talk about how great a team they have, what more they can do for their patients, how they are working on various aspects of themselves and their practices to create even more value for their patients.

Whereas the majority focus on Production, this smaller group focuses on how they can deliver a great service that fulfills the requirements and needs of their patients in an empathetic, caring, informative way.

This is the Reality of your business:

• Your practice exists for a PURPOSE, and that purpose isn’t you.
• Your practice exists to make a difference in some way for the people you serve.

If there is any recurring theme of those who are NOT CREATING WEALTH, it is that their thinking and practice is focused on themselves and not on the value they are creating for their patients or their team.

Requirement Number 3: Those who are Creating Wealth have Wealthy Mentors, Guides, Coaches; men and women that have been down this path before and have Creating Wealth themselves. Successful people leave clues. The top 3% of dentists are 10-100 times more wealthy than the rest.

“If you want to be a Winner at anything hang around with Winners”

Weekly I talk with dentists from all over the country who are 55, 60, 65, have worked hard their entire lives, taken care of their families, educated their children, have had good lives, but one thing is so common that it could be called a crisis;

95% can’t afford to retire on anyplace close to the same income they have while in practice.

Keep this in mind. These are good, well intentioned people, but they have operated their entire lives without a PLAN, without GOALS, without A MODEL, without MENTORS or GUIDES, and lastly without

Requirement number four which is MONITORING. Every person who I know that has achieved Wealth in dentistry has had an ongoing (long term) relationship with a Mentor, Guide, or Coach who holds them accountable to what they said they were going to do.

• Master Plan
  
• Models
• Mentoring
• Monitoring

The four requirements of Creating Wealth.

I recently lecturing in New Jersey to a group of 160. I asked everyone to stand up. I started the day by asking five questions:

Question # 1: I asked everyone who didn’t have GOALS to sit down. About 40 sat. This means that 25% didn’t have any goals whatsoever.

Question #2: I then asked everyone who didn’t have WRITTEN GOALS to sit down. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, all but 25 sat.

Question #3: Then I asked those remaining standing to sit down unless then had written goals for more than their career or financial life. That eliminated 13, leaving 12 standing.

Question #4: I asked the remaining 12 to sit down unless they had a written plan that accompanied their goals. That left 6 more, leaving 6 standing.

Question #5: I asked the remaining 6 to sit down unless they reviewed their goals, plans with a Mentor/Guide or Coach on a quarterly basis.

Only one dentist remained standing.

Several points need to be made. When I wrote The Science of Creating Wealth, I wrote it based on 30 years of working exclusively with dentists. There are some key points to keep in mind.

• The most money to be recaptured is in your PRACTICE since we are dealing with ‘gross income’.

With average overheads in the US approaching 70%, it is clear that if one lowers their practice overhead 10% then this is 10% more of gross dollars that could be saved, invested for Creating Wealth. The majority of money to be recaptured is here.

• Second area is home expenses. No one thinks they are spenders, and yet without some form of budget or understanding of what we spend at home, we’ll spend whatever we make unless we have plans to contrary. I’m not recommending keeping tabs on every penny you spend, but I am recommending that you have a plan or a budget for outgo or expenses. No matter what your income, you need to know what your ‘lifestyle’ costs you monthly.

• The third area is taxes. It is important to plan ahead for taxes as Uncle Sam is a partner in all of our lives and businesses. Being PROACTIVE with Taxes is vital to Creating Wealth. Our experience suggests that most are paying $10,000 to $20,000 too much in income tax every year.

• Save and then Invest. It is important to become a saver first and an investor second.

It isn’t that we dentists as a group don’t save, but we don’t save enough.
To view the full article from Dental Economics, please click Science of Creating Wealth.