Part 2 of podcast guest Dr. Lauryn Brunclik (of She Slays the Day podcast fame) and her conversation with Kiera. In this follow-up to Becoming Business Savvy with a Clinician-First Mindset, the pair discusses seeking other revenue streams to obtain financial freedom. The chat includes fixing your pricing structure, living below your means, understanding the spender and saver mindsets, time management, and more.

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Transcript:

The Dental A Team (00:00 )

Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and welcome back to part two of my chat. If you liked part one, you are going to absolutely love this. I am so excited and I can't wait to dive right in.

 

Kiera Dent (00:10 )

Lauryn, I'm very curious. Like you've talked about it at length. Like what do people do? Like what's the how, how do we get into this?

 

How do we have multiple streams because agreed all eggs in one basket? gosh. It's, ⁓ to me, that's like just a ticking time bomb. Like one bad day, one bad patient, one bad procedure. Like it's just going to explode because you're sitting like you're sitting on the edge of fear all the time to where you are in like cortisol adrenaline, like you are pumping. And then what you do is you go into complete shutdown because you can't handle it anymore. So your body and your system literally like just shuts down on you. You become apathetic to life.

 

Dr. Lauryn B (00:23 )

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (00:44 )

things aren't exciting for you anymore. You become very numb to walking through the world. And it's like, I feel like the world of color goes into very like gray. It's very subtle. It's like, it's, there's no, there's no life left. It's just, are living life, but you're not actually being and living day in, out. So what are some tacticals? Like I'm so curious. I love to hear that.

 

Dr. Lauryn B (01:04 )

Well, so,

 

I mean, ultimately what you have to, I'm no cashflow expert. My husband would like laugh, not, he wouldn't laugh. He'd just be like, what's she gonna say right now? So like cashflow will multiply the more you start putting your money to work, okay? So it's very, very, step one is simple. It's exactly what you said. You have to have cashflow coming from your clinic.

 

Kiera Dent (01:14 )

okay.

 

Dr. Lauryn B (01:33 )

You have to. Like, you need to spend less money than you are bringing in. Okay?

 

Kiera Dent (01:42 )

Ooh, love that. Ding, ding. All right, great. Got it, team. Got it all.

 

Dr. Lauryn B (01:45 )

Like, so it's

 

it's simple. what did you say? Like you said, there's only three ways to make it happen. Like lower your overhead. Yep. Yep. See more people. Yep.

 

Kiera Dent (01:50 )

There are, either cut your costs, increase what you're producing. like for how many patients you're seeing and

 

or collections, because a lot of times you're producing enough, but we're not collecting the money that we're actually producing. that then costs, people are have no money. And I'm like, you have 500,000 sitting in your AR that's not collected. So you actually have money. You just have a broken system of how to collect it. And to your point, my husband said this very early on when I started that company, he said,

 

I care, don't lose money. He was like, yeah, I'm not going to give you any rules, any parameters. He's like, just don't lose money because that's going to cause a lot of strain on us. And I thought about that a lot. It's like, ⁓ I guess that's a great, a great plan. Like it's really been a good thought for me. But it's like, if you are going to lose money on having a business, go be an associate for someone else. Like it's a hobby at that point. It's not a business. So I'm like, if you're not going to have your business make money for you, like truly no judgment.

 

Dr. Lauryn B (02:24 )

Thanks, husband.

 

Yes.

 

Kiera Dent (02:44 )

go honestly be an associate, go work for someone else so you're taking home a paycheck. When owners are working for themselves and making less than they are as an associate, I'm like, we have a big problem here. And now you're mad because you got way more problems. You can't just clock in, clock out and leave for the day. And I'm like, that's actually not a business. That's a hobby. And it's a bad hobby. You have no freedom. No, it's delusional. No.

 

Dr. Lauryn B (02:57 )

Mm-hmm.

 

And they're like, but I have the freedom when I'm the owner. You don't have freedom? can't afford a vacation. what? You have

 

no freedom.

 

Kiera Dent (03:11 )

Stop lying to yourself just because you own a business. People are like, I wanted this texture, have more time. And I'm like, yeah, tell me how that's going for you. Probably not great. All right, so we gotta have a business that actually cash flows. Simple stuff.

 

Dr. Lauryn B (03:16 )

How's that working for you? Yeah.

 

Yes, so step

 

one is very simple, but not is you have to fix the pricing structure, the collections, your payroll blow. You need to look at the profit margins of your clinic. Very easy, very difficult, but very easy.

 

Kiera Dent (03:37 )

And they're

 

industry specific too. I don't know how it is in chiropractic, but I know in like dentistry, we say right now, even with all the things like I want 30%, we're talking all things, fringe benefits, 401k. Like 30 % for payroll, 25 to 30 is about average. And we aim for, I don't know how it is in chiropractic, but I aim for a 50%, not including doctor pay, 50 % overhead in dental practices, 30 % of doctor pay, because I'm like, that's what you're gonna get paid as an associate. It's like, let's at least pay you that.

 

Dr. Lauryn B (03:45 )

No, that's pretty yeah, that's pretty healthy. ⁓

 

Kiera Dent (04:04 )

And then hopefully we've got a 20 % profit, but that profit debt services click in and that's a real fun zone and taxes. Like I love it. No, you're not getting your W two people are not taking taxes out. You own this business. All that money comes to you. So do not get trapped in that like tax trap. but like, like that's a very simple formula and you look, what is my supplies? What are my rent? Like, what are all those things? And if you figure out the benchmarks, then you know, which one am I bleeding money on quickly fix that hole. So we stopped bleeding it again.

 

It seems so hard. And you and I are on the other side of that equation saying, no, actually it's like real simple. You just look at it real quick, figure out what it is. You can build your practice to support whatever numbers you need, or we cut. Usually it's easier to increase production and collections than it is to cut. But a lot of people are just overspending in ridiculous ways that I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I have a practice, I looked at their numbers. They shouldn't giggle. I did giggle, because I was shocked. They're like, here, we have no money.

 

And I was like, all right, send me your P &L. Let's take a look at it. So I did. Year to date, they produced 528,000. So they're doing about 85,000 per month is what I calculated when I ran the numbers. But when I looked at