How OJM Group Can Help Dermatologists Reach Their Financial Goals in 2025 and Beyond

From free consultations and a popular podcast, to upcoming articles and content in Dermatology Times, David Mandell, JD, MBA, and OJM Group have much in store for 2025. Mandell and his team specialize in topics such as tax savings, asset protection, and strategies for both early-career and established dermatologists. OJM’s latest publication, Wealth Strategies for Today’s Physician: A Multi-Media Playbook, can be found on their website or by texting “DERM” to 844-418-1212. For more information, Mandell can be reached at 877-656-4362 or mandell@ojmgroup.com.

TRANSCRIPT:

Mandell: Hello, this is David Mandell. I am an attorney. I'm an author, as we'll talk about with our newest book. I'm the principal of the wealth management firm, OJM Group. I'm a frequent and regular contributor to Dermatology Times.

Dermatology Times: What message would you share with physicians who may be new to OJM Group and its services?

Mandell: I think when folks are thinking about looking at a wealth manager to help them with something, a couple things. One is the most important thing that I think they should be thinking about is trust. If you can trust your financial expert, then that is extremely important. And how can you build trust? How do we try to build trust with our clients? We want to educate them, even before they potentially become a client, that we know what we're doing. So like, if I go to a dermatologist, I want to trust them. What does that mean? One, I want to know that they're competent. They can diagnose what they need to do, they can treat what they need to do, right? So they may be a good person, but if they're not an expert in what they do, I can't really trust them to do that. So the books, the podcast, the articles we do in Derm Times, the lectures we've spoken at AAD and all these conferences over the years. And hopefully give people a way to read our books, read our materials, go to our website, listen to the podcast and say, “Do these people sound like they know what they're doing?” Hopefully they do. So that's the first part of trust. The second is, are the incentives right in their business? In the financial world, Wall Street is built on hiding the ball. And part of our book is explaining how you want to work with advisors, and you need to understand how they make money. We have a graphic in one of our books. It's not in this one, but it's in one of our past ones that is basically like a graph, and it says, "As transparency increases, so does trust." I used to practice law, and people make fun of lawyers, I know a lot of lawyer jokes. But they generally liked working with me because, A, they knew I knew what I was doing, or they could figure that out. And two, I was working with them on a flat fee basis, where they knew exactly what they were going to pay and what they were going to get. I'm going to charge you X for wills, for trust, etc, versus some hourly fee where there's a bad incentive for me to take my time and charge more, right? Well, those bad incentives are throughout the financial world. We, in our business model at OJM, have tried to, and I think we've been successful in eliminating that. On the investments, we take no commissions. Our fee is transparent. Our fee is aligned with the client's assets. Most clients start with us on a flat fee-based diagnostic process, a planning process, so they know it's just a certain amount of money, and we're going to go through a diagnostic process, and we're going to give them the best of our knowledge, and maybe they'll use us to treat them. So that diagnostic versus treatment, I think, is an approach that we use with all new clients, and that seems to resonate with dermatologists and physicians. So that is kind of big picture what I think docs should be thinking about, not just with OJM group, but with any wealth manager they might consider using.

Dermatology Times: How can DT readers learn more about OJM?

Mandell: Well, first of all, read Derm Times, because we're writing a lot there, and every time we have a byline in there, you can see how to get a hold of us. I'm sure in the material below this interview, we can put the website, which is ojmgroup.com. We've got a ton of free content on there. We have a free newsletter that almost 10,000 docs get every month. We have this free podcast, which I'll talk about before we close, which, again, is free. We always do a free consult with clients. So if you raise your hand, you say, "Hey, I'd like to talk to Dave or one of his partners. I just want to see if there might be a fit. I need help with X (and X could be anything financially). And I want to see if OJM can help." We never charge. Listen, we're busy, we want to grow, we want new clients. But we're also busy enough that we're going to stay in our lane and tell you the things that we do well and that we can help you with. And if it means I refer you to somebody else, because what you're looking for is not something that we can help you with, I'm happy to do that too.

Just talking about the podcast for a second, because I'm very proud of it. I'm the host, and I'm sitting here with my podcast mic. So why not? It's called "Wealth Planning for the Modern Physician." It's on all your platforms, Spotify, Apple, Google, all that. We're in season 5. So this isn't like a startup thing. We've been doing this since 2020. We're almost at episode 100 as we speak. We'll be getting there pretty soon. We're up to probably above now, but I haven't looked recently, 50,000 downloads. So there are a lot of your colleagues out there who are listening and watching because we are on YouTube. We started that last year in season 4. So both audio and video, whatever you want, and about 50% of the guests that I have on are physicians. We've had a bunch of dermatologists telling their stories. Whether I considered selling my practice, but I didn't. Or I'm 2 years into a sale. Or, let me tell you what happened when I got sued one time. Or this is what was successful in me finding an advisor. And this is what I'm thinking about. There was an orthopedic surgeon close to retirement. He's like, "I want to retire to something, not just from the practice of orthopedics." So, he's talking about his plan to have a successful retirement. So a lot of learning from colleagues, I think that's really valuable. And then the other half are the gamut of smart advisors in the field; healthcare attorneys, M&A attorneys, practice managers, CPAs, private equity firms, investment bankers, et cetera, et cetera. Anyone related to the world of finance, law, tax, or physicians, are the other half of the guests. So there's a lot of great stuff. They're typically about 30-35 minutes. We try to keep them at that so people can listen when they work out or they walk their dog or they drive. It's not too long form, but there's enough to get some substance. So I'd encourage again, people who are just trying to learn and keep up on things to check out the podcast.

Dermatology Times: What can readers expect to learn from OJM Group in 2025 print issues?

Mandell: So we've mapped out with the Derm Times folks a pretty robust schedule over the next 12 months in terms of the content we're going to create. We're going to start with everybody's favorite topic; how to reduce taxes. And we expect in 2025 to have some significant tax opportunities because obviously we've got a whole new administration and Congress in Washington, and they've talked about certain things. And Carole, my partner's, taking the lead on this. And I think we start our first article with some tax-saving ideas for 2025 and what to be looking out for as things change. From there, looking at what we've got, we've got really something for everybody here. We've got a couple of topics for young docs, including student loan challenges and repayment concepts and tactics. We've got some asset protection. We've got some more tax savings regarding qualified plans, which, for those of you looking to reduce taxes and building retirement wealth, that's great. We've got some articles for physicians longer out in practice, including what to start thinking about for retirement withdrawals and kind of everything in between. We've got something on "doctor-preneurs" and side hustles. So there's a good range of articles we're going to be doing for Derm Times this year. So I think there really is something for everybody in there.

[Transcript has been edited for clarity.]

Disclosure:

OJM Group, LLC. (“OJM”) is an SEC-registered investment adviser with its principal place of business in the State of Ohio. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of OJM by the SEC nor does it indicate that OJM has attained a particular level of skill or ability. OJM and its representatives are in compliance with the current notice filing and registration requirements imposed upon registered investment advisers by those states in which OJM maintains clients. OJM may only transact business in those states in which it is registered or qualifies for an exemption or exclusion from registration requirements. For information pertaining to the registration status of OJM, please contact OJM or refer to the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.

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This article contains general information that is not suitable for everyone. The information contained herein should not be construed as personalized legal or tax advice, or as a recommendation of any particular security or strategy. There is no guarantee that the views and opinions expressed in this article will be appropriate for your particular circumstances. Tax law changes frequently; accordingly, information presented herein is subject to change without notice. You should seek professional tax and legal advice before implementing any strategy discussed herein.