April 2021 – Your Financial Pharmacist

YFP 201: How and Why Trey Made the Transition from a Six-Figure to Resident Salary

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How and Why Trey Made the Transition from a Six-Figure to Resident Salary

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich talks with Trey Lowery about his experiences taking a non-traditional path towards residency training. They discuss why Trey decided to go back to complete residency training, how he and his wife were able to make the transition from a six-figure to a resident salary, and financial tips for those going back to do residency or making a job transition.

About Today’s Guest

Trey Lowery is a clinical outpatient pharmacist at the Iowa City VA Health Care System. He attended pharmacy school at Mercer University College of Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia and moved to Iowa City, Iowa with his wife, who attends graduate school at the University of Iowa. He began his pharmacy career as a staff pharmacist for Hy-Vee Pharmacy following graduation in 2018. He then matched to the Iowa City VA’s PGY1 pharmacy residency program in 2019 and continued there in his current position upon completion. In the few years following pharmacy school graduation, Trey experienced the transition from student to the seemingly never-ending job search, to full-time salaried pharmacist, to resident, and back to pharmacist salary again. He is excited to share his experiences with other pharmacists in hopes it will encourage them to not allow potential decreases in pay to prevent them from pursuing their dream job as a pharmacist.

how to Summary

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich welcomes Trey Lowery to the show to discuss his experiences with his non-traditional plan towards residency and the many adjustments that came along with it. Trey shares some of the challenges he and his wife worked through along his journey to residency and how both compromise and financial savvy helped them through the transition.

Some of the best tips and advice that Trey shares in this episode include making sure that you have a solid budget and financial plan ahead of time. Trey shares his long history with budgeting and how he views it as a tool for success rather than something limiting. Tim and Trey go over Trey’s very practical advice on budgeting during residency, including a formula for building your residency budget even when you are not sure of your salary and specifics.

Additional advice includes building your emergency fund up to be able to fund at least 3-6 months of expenses. The reasoning for this is simple, with a 6-figure salary, unexpected expenses and events are much easier to manage, but with a resident salary, those same unexpected expenses and events can be a bigger problem.

Trey closes with a little motivational push and encourages anyone who is looking to take a non-traditional path to residency to do so.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Trey, welcome to the show.

Trey Lowery: Thanks, Tim. Appreciate you having me.

Tim Ulbrich: Appreciate you taking time to come onto the podcast and really share your story and pearls of wisdom for transitioning from a student pharmacist to a pharmacist with a six-figure income to a resident salary and what that meant for you, for your personal situation, and how you were able to financially plan for that transition. And so let’s start with your pharmacy background and give our listeners a little bit more of a picture of where you went to pharmacy school, when did you graduate, and then the route that you took through residency to your current role.

Trey Lowery: Sure thing. So I grew up in the state of Georgia and then went to pharmacy school at Mercer University College of Pharmacy, which is in Atlanta. I then got married after school and my wife decided she wanted to pursue a PhD program. And she chose to do so at the University of Iowa, so then we made the transition and moved from Georgia halfway across the country to the great state of Iowa. And when I got here, I didn’t really have many connections, I wasn’t licensed yet, so I had to figure out how to transition into passing all the different licensing exams and attempting to find a job without a license and without any knowledge of anyone in the area. So thankfully, I was able to do so after a couple of months. And I ended up working at Hyvee pharmacy. It was about an hour away from where I lived, so the job search was certainly expanded. And then after about 9-10 months of working at Hyvee, I applied to the several different residency programs and ended up matching at the Iowa City VA, where I completed my PGY1 and then after finishing it, I was happy to continue on in my current position as a clinical outpatient pharmacist there at the Iowa City VA as well.

Tim Ulbrich: And I’m excited to share your story with others as I suspect there may be many pharmacists out there listening that for whatever reason, you know, didn’t complete residency training right out of school, which may have been Plan A for them in their mind or perhaps they discovered later on that they wanted to do residency training. And that could either be a financial decision, that could be a family situation, a move that’s going on, it could be a match situation, lots of reasons why folks may not necessarily complete residency right out of school. But there may be an interest to go back and complete a later program at a later time. And I think one of the common barriers is wow, this is a big financial change to be considering, right? Going from student income to finally you’ve got that pharmacist six-figure income and then taking a step back at least financially in terms of that resident income. And so we’re going to dig into that in more detail here in a little bit, but I want to give our listeners more perspective on your Plan A and then obviously your work that you ended up doing at Hyvee. But my understanding is your goal was if possible to do residency right after your P4 year and because of the timing, because of the move, you weren’t able to enter Phase 1 of the match, didn’t yet know where you were going to be because of location with your wife’s PhD programs and the options and then at that point were able to move into Phase 2 — for all that have been through this process know how difficult Phase 2 of the match can be in terms of the number of applicants that are out there relative to the position. So talk to us through about that experience. How challenging was that in terms of that being up in the air, unknown, as well as having to make that decision that this is Plan A but I’m going to put that on the back burner because of this move. And if it works out in Phase 2, great. If not, then you’ll pursue something else.

Trey Lowery: Sure, I think that’s one of the interesting parts of my story is that I went into pharmacy school thinking I didn’t want to do a residency because I had worked originally as an intern and as a technician for a company called Kroger, which is very similar to Hyvee, back in Georgia. And I thought that that was the path I wanted to do. I was thinking retail pharmacy, maybe some type of independent or ownership later on. But it wasn’t really until my fourth year rotations when I actually got experience in the clinical and hospital side of pharmacy that I really decided, you know what? I actually really like the idea of the work that I’m doing here, so much so that it was basically around September when I decided OK, I definitely want to pursue a residency. But then the applications were due in December. So that was also part of the speeding up process that I had at the time. So I did what I could in those couple of months, tried to get some research experience, doing some more experience in the clinical areas and bolster my CV as much as I could. But yeah, the unknown of having to wait for Phase 2 was certainly challenging I suppose would be the word. I mean, we didn’t know where we were going to move, we didn’t know how we were going to financially survive after the move because if I didn’t match, then I wouldn’t have a job already lined up in the area. So it was certainly a challenging time. And it was one of those things to where we basically had to decide which of our careers would help the other one, sort of. So my wife was willing to take a year off if that meant that I could pursue a PGY1 anywhere in the country. But ultimately, we decided to go with — stick with the plan of her going ahead and going into school because it was going to take significantly longer and then my ability as a pharmacist to find a job would likely be a little bit easier than hers just coming out of undergrad.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I’m glad, Trey, that you guys were able to work through that and come to that decision as a family because obviously now you guys are in a great position at the Iowa City VA, your wife’s continuing on in her PhD degree, so it all worked out, but I’m sure that was incredibly stressful in the moment as you guys were evaluating the options that were in front of you. And so you make this move, you obviously get into Phase 2, limited options, lots of applicants, and ultimately weren’t able to land a position in Phase 2. So now you’re at the point of getting a job, right? So you land a position with Hyvee pharmacy, and my question here is once you were in that role, obviously I’m sure in the back of your mind you’re still thinking about residency as a path that you may be interested in, some of your career goals that you identified here in the fourth year that were of interest to you, but you’re making a good income. And I think this can be a hard thing to really objectively say, “I want to go back and pursue this training pathway,” knowing that it’s going to reduce my income by a half, certainly probably even more than that for some positions. And so talk to us about that decision-making process, you know, how you were able to really objectively evaluate, you know what, this path of residency is best for me, even if it means taking a pay cut to go back and do that.

Trey Lowery: Well, for me, Tim, it really stemmed from thinking about what my long-term career goals were as well as my wife’s — you know, obviously that was certainly a sacrifice for both of us in doing that. So when I got to thinking about what I wanted to do over the course of my career for the next 40+ years, I really just didn’t think that my current position was something that I was comfortable with thinking about in the long term. I really thought that I wanted to get more involved in the actual act of patient care, being able to handle some of the decisions instead of being more reactive by when they just come to the pharmacy and drop off prescriptions, it’s hard to really make a lot of interventions in that setting. And depending on when my wife finishes her PhD, we don’t exactly know what’s going to happen there. So it may involve another move, it probably — it will likely involve another job search. And I figured that if I could do anything to bolster my ability to be more marketable in that area by having residency training, then I’d also improve my chances of finding a job in the future and then hopefully being able to land something that I really enjoy like I have right now.

Tim Ulbrich: Well, and good call on the VA. You know, obviously we have many, many VA pharmacists that listen to this show that we work with as clients. And we know how much they enjoy the VA from a scope of practice, from obviously the quality of employment, the benefits, but also from the ability to transition. You know, one of the benefits of the VAs, if you guys have to pick up and move across the country, if you’re able to locate with another VA, you know, that minimizes a lot of the licensure concerns and other things of transferring your practice. So what a great opportunity that you have there. What about the experiences at Hyvee? You know, one of the things I’ve noticed as a residency program director and previous experiences is I have found that those that have some work experience, so graduate from pharmacy school, go out and work for a year or two years, however long that be, and then come back and do residency, seem to be a little bit better prepared to take on the demands, the challenges, the rigor of residency. Are there specific experiences that you had at Hyvee or skills that you obtained through that year that you felt like really benefited you during the residency year?

Trey Lowery: Yeah, and I think that’s an important point for those seeking to go back to do residency is using that to your advantage rather than saying, you know, I’m actually multiple years out of school, I’m well into one specific area, how can I go into a residency program that’s going to require well-rounded, maybe things that I haven’t done before? But I think like you mentioned that that is actually something to use to your advantage because one thing you’ll have over the other candidates that are applying that are still in school is that you’ve actually made that transition into I am an independent practitioner, I have ownership over my practice, when I scan the barcode to verify my prescription, that’s the last check. It’s completely up to my abilities as to whether or not the patient is getting the right thing, and I’m now the one responsible. So I think between that, you also gain some supervisory experience because you’ll actually have technicians that it will be just you in the pharmacy, you have to do a little bit of kind of management of time and management of people in that area. And then for me, it was just kind of the relationships that I really was able to develop with my patients. You know, actually seeing that your work is having an impact on them really makes you want to take more ownership of that. And so then going back into residency, I’d already seen the effects that I could have as a pharmacist on my patients. And so I think that made me care about it a little bit more knowing the sacrifices that I was making to be there.

Tim Ulbrich: Trey, one of the things I think about besides the financial transition, which we’ll get to in more detail here in a few moments, you know, just having a year I guess off — not necessarily off, you obviously were practicing, using skills, but you know, it’s a different pace from happy clinical rotations where you’re being evaluated and you’re expected to do so many interventions and have a certain autonomy of practice. So being, having that transitionary year and even just schedule differences, you know, I think about the pace typically of a residency probably were in more of a normal, not going to say not stressful, but normal schedule, so you finally graduate from school, you get to somewhat of a normal scheduled routine, and then you say, “You know what, I’m going to raise my hand to make a lot less money, to work a lot more, to be able to develop these skills further.” So money aside, just talk to us about the transition of a year off, not using some of those skills perhaps that you obtained in your final year of school or throughout your PharmD as well as just the schedule differences and how you were able to get back into the flow and the rhythm when you started residency.

Trey Lowery: It was definitely a transition, to say the least. For the first couple of months when you’re getting licensed and studying for your board exams, it still feels a little bit like school because I was taking most days of the week to study for that and for job searching purposes and that kind of thing. So for the first couple of months, I didn’t feel like I could just completely relax and not have to worry about the scheduling part. But you’re right, once I got into the position I was in, it was very much I go to work and then I come home and then I don’t necessarily have a bunch of projects or schoolwork or studying to do. And it is definitely easy to get caught up in that position. So when making the transition back, I’ll be completely honest, it was difficult the first couple months. I really felt like I had to do some extra reviewing so that I knew the topics I really hadn’t used in a year or plus, since my rotations when I’m actually going through my rotations in residency. And the scheduling, it was very much a team aspect in our household. My wife definitely helped so much with figuring out ways that we could be able to make sure that we spent time together, that we were — that I had time to focus on my residency projects and had ample time to be at work when I needed to. And it was certainly not easy. But after the first couple of months of residency, I suppose you kind of get used to it. You know what you have to do at that point, but yeah. Certainly a big difference from how it was before then.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. So let’s transition to talk about some of the financial tips that you shared with us prior to the interview that I think would be really helpful for folks that are considering a similar pathway, you know, student, practicing pharmacist going back to residency or folks that may be transitioning jobs or careers. I can think of situations where someone’s salary might be reduced or they’re looking to go part-time or they’re making a transition to another position that doesn’t have the same salary and just general financial principles that I think are helpful for individuals that find themselves in a similar situation. And the first one that you mentioned, Trey, is to make sure you have a solid budget and solid habits around budgeting before you get started. So tell me about budgeting, how you and your wife created good budgeting habits and effectively budgeted prior to making this transition back into the residency position. What did this look like?

Trey Lowery: So I am thankful that both of my parents are very financially savvy and both of my wife’s parents are the same. So I actually started my first budget when I got my first job at age 16 because for me, I looked at budgeting not as something that was limiting what I got to spend and where I got to spend the money that I was earning, but I felt very relieved in that I could actually allocate where certain parts of my income was going and then it was OK for it to go to those areas. So when I — when we got married, that was very important to me. I had listened to plenty of examples from different financial advisors throughout the country and from YFP as well to where I knew that money can certainly become an issue in marriage. And so we really wanted to focus on that at the beginning to make sure we were on the same page and go ahead and knock that out. So I use primarily Mint.com and then a couple of other different spreadsheets to track the budgets that we make. And it certainly took a couple of months for that to really become an effective tool. It took some balancing in certain areas and making sure that we were on the same page of all the different categories and that kind of thing. But the reason I say that that’s such an important aspect is because if you don’t have that going into residency, you’re not going to be able to create it while you’re there. You’re not going to have enough time, probably not enough energy, and then if you do have a family, it’s going to be very difficult to get everyone on the same page in the chaos that is residency. So that’s why I recommend if you can, go ahead and — I mean, useful budgeting, good budgeting habits are beneficial for anyone at any time I believe. But if you can make sure that you have those working effectively beforehand, it will only benefit you once you actually enter the reduced salary stage.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great advice, Trey. And I think sometimes it’s easy, you know, P4s that are listening that are going to be starting a residency, starting a job, folks that are in a position such as yours that might be making a transition where there’s a salary change, sometimes it’s easy to say, “I’m just going to wait until I see what that actual pay stub and take-home pay is,” but I think you can get close enough, right? You can estimate close enough, work through the budget. It won’t be perfect, but the point is you’re being intentional, you’re being prepared with the transition, and then you can fine tune and refine it once you actually get that first pay stub and begin to move forward there knowing that you’ve been intentional and been prepared. Yeah, we have a budget template for folks that are looking to get started with a budget. If you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/budget, we have an Excel template that you can download, work through that. We use a zero-based budgeting method and system, and then you can take that information and plug it into a tool like Mint.com, like YNAB, or any other budgeting tool or software or good ol’ pen and paper or Excel if that works best for you as well. So that’s No. 1 around budgeting. No. 2 here is increase your emergency fund if you don’t already have 3-6 months of expenses saved. So why, Trey, did you decide to focus on building emergency fund prior to residency? How did you guys practically do this? And did you end up having to use that fund at all during residency?

Trey Lowery: So this is something that we did initially upon finishing school. That was kind of our first major goal. And it was fun because it gave us something to work towards together that wasn’t high-risk, high-reward, that kind of thing. It was something that we knew that once we got there that would just be a nice cushion for us to have going forward. So the reason that I would recommend increasing your emergency fund or at least having the usual is kind of 3-6 months’ expenses is the recommended is because obviously if you’re decreasing your salary that much, a $1,000 home repair or a car expense or some kind of unexpected family emergency happens, when you’re on a six-figure salary, that isn’t that big of a deal. You just say, “OK, I’ll just move around this part of the budget, and we’ll cover it.” But when you’re in a residency salary, you know, let’s say you bought a house, you have a family, it’s going to be very difficult to make that unexpected expense be able to be covered. And then that could lead to things like putting it on a credit card and then that will only amplify and amplify as things continue to happen. So when you’re in residency, the last thing you want to be concerned I think is some kind of unexpected financial emergency. You’ve got plenty enough on your mind already. So if you can already have a good-sized emergency fund going into it, I think that will just help everything going forward.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great stuff. And this third one, you know, really caught me off guard the first time I read it. I had to reread it, and then I got to what you were saying exactly. And it’s really a great, great piece of advice. And that is look for salaries at prospective residency options, pick the lowest salary option — say what? — pick the lowest salary option, create a new budget using that salary. Depending on the results of your new budget, you may need to make adjustments. I think this tip is bold. Trey, tell us about what you mean by this, why you took this approach, and why this can be so valuable.

Trey Lowery: Like you mentioned, you may not exactly know the dollar amount that you’re going to have in your paycheck in order to create a full budget around. So for us, because we knew we were going to be located in the Iowa City area, I knew I was going to be applying for residencies within, you know, a 30-minute, hour range and not too much further. So I went on the forecast website and they have actually all the information regarding the salaries and some of the benefits of each of the programs that you’re applying for. And so when you match, you’re very much committed to that program that you match with. So if you have a bunch of different salary options, if you’re looking all over the U.S., it certainly I’m sure varies. If you can create your budget around the lowest one such that if you happen to match to the lowest salary option, which I actually did, so it ended up working out well. I didn’t have to change any of my budgeting once I actually started residency from that perspective. But if you can pick the lowest one, that will be your most strict option for your budget. And if you end up matching with a program that’s anything above that, then at that point, you’ll have extra to put towards other goals or other discretionary expenses, that kind of thing when you’re going into residency. But for me, it was just a way of not getting caught off guard when you had such a massive decrease in income all at once.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great advice, especially considering the separation you can see of resident salaries, depending on where they’re located, types of roles and things like that. So that can be a big difference if you’re looking at, I don’t know, $48,000 versus $40,000 for example. That can be a significant impact on that year and during that year as well. No. 4 is have a plan for your student loans during residency. What would it be in terms of a YFP podcast if we didn’t mention or talk about student loans? So let’s go there for a minute. How did you decide to handle your student loans during your first year working and then also in residency? Talk to us about the plan, the approach, the strategy you’ve taken, and how you ultimately have gotten to that decision that that is the best repayment plan and option for you.

Trey Lowery: So when I first figured out that I was going to be using student loans to get through graduate school, I had to figure out basically what was going to be my approach to either whether I’m going to pay them off or attempt to go for forgiveness, that kind of thing. When I first started pharmacy school, I really didn’t know that there was such a thing as forgiveness. And my dad always told me, “You know what, you’ll make enough, you’ll be able to pay it off. It’ll be good in the long run. Just go ahead and take them out. You’re going to need to because we couldn’t afford to send you all the way through graduate school.” So I went through pretty much all the way through school thinking that that was going to be my plan, that I was going to pay them off. And then in my fourth year of school, I actually went to a financial advisory meeting led by one Tim Ulbrich from Your Financial Pharmacist. And that is where I discovered that there actually were forgiveness options available, which I had not realized at the time. I feel like I might have already been somewhat committed because the financial gurus that I followed were like Dave Ramsey and some others, which are very much you took out the debt, you need to attack the debt and tackle it in order to make your own financial goals become a thing. But like I said, I hadn’t considered that there were actually other options. So ultimately after looking at the numbers and weighing how we felt about our debt, I did decide to go for the pay-it-off method, which I’m currently doing now, although granted the 0% interest and no payments are certainly a benefit in that.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Trey Lowery: With them being federal. But that was what we ultimately decided, and additionally, because I was at first at Hyvee and I wasn’t at one of the accredited organizations that would qualify for PSLF, I really didn’t know if I was ever even going to be in a position to do that.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Trey Lowery: So I did use my first year to do some paying off of the debt then as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I think that’s great, Trey. And you know, as I shared with you before we hit record, as I’ve said many times on this podcast before, this really is an individual situation. And you know, I think at the end of the day, it’s about having a plan, that you understand the options that are out there, and you feel confident in evaluating those options and knowing that when you apply those options on top of your personal situation that you’ve gotten down the path of the best repayment option or strategy for you personally as an individual. And I think for folks that are listening, you know, this can be a topic that obviously can be overwhelming, there’s lots of options, there’s forgiveness, there’s nonforgiveness, there’s federal, there’s private, the list goes on and on, and it can feel overwhelming. It can become paralyzing. And I think really digging in to understand the options is important and a great piece of advice here for those that are — really for anyone with student loans, but especially for those that are going back into a residency position or going through residency training to make sure that you’re using this time to evaluate those options. So I would recommend to our listeners, Tim Church wrote an awesome book on student loans for us, “The Pharmacist’s Guide to Conquering Student Loans,” really an A-Z guide of all things student loans, customized to the pharmacy professional, really meant to go through all of those options and help you apply that to your personal situation. You can learn more about that at PharmDLoans.com. Trey, this has been outstanding. I think for those that are currently in training, going to pursue training, whether it’s right from pharmacy school, going back, I think they’re going to find a lot of value in your advice and there’s a lot of wisdom here. Any other advice that you have, financial tips, wisdom to share with those that are listening that are going back into a residency position or going right into a residency position, making this transition? Any tips or advice that you would have for them as they go through that transition?

Trey Lowery: Well just like with finances, I think this is really a personal decision, and it depends on what your career goals are. Personally, I feel that if you are someone that is committed to pursuing your residency and you know that that’s the path that you want to take, you’re going to be able to figure out the finance part and make it work if you’re committed enough to following that path. So I think just taking some time to figure out what your career goals are and what steps you’re going to need to take to get there are probably the most important. And when I look back on my time during residency, obviously I’m not 40 years down the road at the moment, but I can say even nine months out that I really, really absolutely feel that it was worth it. And I think that in the long term, having a position that I really enjoy, that I feel like I gain a lot out of and I’m really able to make an impact on my patients’ lives the way that I think I would like to, no matter what, that’s going to be worth the $60,000, $80,000, however much you’re giving up for just one year. And if you were to develop good budgeting habits before that time ever comes, then that actually may end up benefiting you financially even more in the long run than not doing a residency in the first place. So I think there may be multiple benefits to pursuing that. But like I said, for me it’s really just depending on the individual.

Tim Ulbrich: You beat me to it, Trey. One of the things I believe — I have no evidence to support this, you know — but one of the things I believe is that a benefit of that year, if you take full advantage, or two years perhaps, is that it really does force you on some level to build some of the behaviors that can have a very long-term benefit throughout your career. So I think one way of looking it at is ‘Oh man, I’m not going to make much money at all.’ Another way of looking at it is, ‘Hey, maybe there’s an opportunity to learn some things throughout this year, whether it’s goal-setting, budgeting, being intentional in other parts of the financial plan, that can have a benefit well beyond those training years.’ So Trey, again, thank you for your time. And appreciate you and your willingness to come on the show to share your story.

Trey Lowery: Thank you so much, Tim. I’d like to say if anybody is in the YFP community on Facebook, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to continue to share any other points that I might have. If this is something that you’re pursuing, definitely consider it because you definitely can do it. Thank you, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: Thank you, Trey.

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YFP 200: An Interview with Sarah Fallaw of The Next Millionaire Next Door

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An Interview with Sarah Fallaw of The Next Millionaire Next Door

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, Dr. Sarah Stanley Fallaw, co-author of The Next Millionaire Next Door and founder of DataPoints LLC, a behavioral assessment advisor fintech company, joins Tim Ulbrich to talk about the surprising secrets of those who achieve millionaire status, how psychology and personal finance intersect, and why it is so important to understand your financial behaviors and tendencies.

About Today’s Guest

Sarah Stanley Fallaw, Ph.D. is the co-author of The Next Millionaire Next Door and the founder of DataPoints LLC, a behavioral assessment advisor fintech company. DataPoints created the industry’s first assessment of wealth potential based on The Millionaire Next Door. Her research on psychometrics and financial psychology has been featured in conferences and publications including Financial Planning Review, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Journal of Financial Services Professionals. Sarah received her Ph.D. in Applied Psychology from the University of Georgia in 2003. Learn more about her work and research at www.datapoints.com.

Summary

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich welcomes Dr. Sarah Stanley Fallaw, co-author of The Next Millionaire Next Door and founder of DataPoints LLC to the show to discuss the secrets and behaviors of millionaires in the United States. Dr. Fallaw shares her experience of co-authoring The Next Millionaire Next Door with her father and outlines some of the behavioral research that went into writing it.

Tim and Sarah mention the money personality assessment tool offered by DataPoints that both pharmacists and those in the field of financial advising can use to better understand personal factors that influence spending, saving, and wealth. Tim mentions how when taking this assessment, he was surprised by some of the questions and ultimately how certain personal characteristics can influence financial decisions.

The key points and concepts from The Next Millionaire Next Door are also discussed and related back to the career and financial situation of today’s pharmacists. Concepts included in the discussion include myths about wealth and income, perceptions about wealth and how wealth is built in America, external influences and factors that can ultimately affect our wealth, the typical lifestyle that most millionaires in our country live, treating personal finance like a business, and the investing patterns of millionaires.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Dr. Fallaw, thank you so much for joining us today.

Sarah Fallaw: Thank you for having me.

Tim Ulbrich: Well, I’ve been looking forward to having you on the show and really excited to have you on as a special guest. This is our 200th podcast, so a big moment for us in the YFP community. And you joined us way back on Episode 035, the Science of Behavioral Finance, that went live back in February 2018. So we’re three years ago where you and Tim Baker, our Director of Financial Planning, talked about how your company DataPoints applies lessons from the book “The Millionaire Next Door,” written by your father, Thomas Stanley. And you two, Tim and you also dug into different factors that measure the propensity to build wealth. So today, we’re going to dig a little bit further into that conversation, talk about behavioral finance, the applications to one’s financial plan. But let’s start if you could share a little bit more about your background, your training, your career, and the work that you’re doing with DataPoints.

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on this milestone episode. That’s exciting for you guys. You know, as you mentioned, obviously connected through my father to “The Millionaire Next Door” and research on wealth. But my background is in industrial psychology. So I’m a psychometrician, if you will, by training. And really, the focus that I’ve had throughout my career is trying to understand characteristics and competencies of individuals. And then of course, in the later part of my career, taking that research that went into “The Millionaire Next Door,” and saying, well, how can I help people understand themselves, particularly clients? How can I help the advisor understand how a client might behave or make decisions about finances related to their personality and things like that. And so that’s my background and how I got into this area.

Tim Ulbrich: So how does one — I have to know — how does one get interested in industrial psychology and become a psychometrician? How does that happen?

Sarah Fallaw: Yes, yeah, how does that happen? Well, you start off in clinical psychology, thinking that you want to help everyone. And then you realize or recognize that you might be better suited for the statistical side of psychology, and so that’s how you end up in industrial psychology. No, really, I felt a calling to be in the business side and certainly industrial psychologists are the ones that are applying psychological principles to the workplace, how do you hire people, how do you develop them, how do you have a great organizational culture? All those things. And so that was really what I was attracted to in the field of psychology and then psychometrics kind of came alongside that really using survey research, test development, all those kinds of things to understand individuals. So that’s how you fall into that. You just kind of start on one path, and you end up on another.

Tim Ulbrich: Well, I really appreciate that. You know, we say often on this show and I know from personal experience, so much of personal finance is behavioral. And we’re going to dig into that a little bit further. And I love the mission that you have and the work that you’re doing at DataPoints, helping advisors understand the client money mindset and how that obviously then connects to the financial plan. And you’ve got a really interesting quiz tool that really helps folks understand their money personality. We’ll link to that in the show notes. Folks can find that at DataPoints.com/personality. So tell us a little bit about this personality test, this money personality assessment and really how it can help someone learn about their financial behaviors or perhaps help the advisor who is working with that client to understand how those behaviors connect with the financial plan.

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah, absolutely. So what we know from research, not only obviously that my father conducted but lots of academic research in the fields of financial planning as well as psychology, that certain characteristics about ourselves lead to great money behaviors or maybe not so great choices. So the test that you mentioned is one that measures five factors of personality, which is a really well-researched model, so you know, how are we all different in terms of our attitudes, values, experiences, that kind of thing. And they break down into those five areas that you’ll see things like conscientiousness, so obviously as pharmacists, conscientiousness is of utmost importance. But it’s also an important characteristic when we’re talking about saving and spending and making good financial decisions. So it’s actually predictive of someone’s net worth, it’s predictive of financial success. Some of the other characteristics, things like agreeableness. So how do we get along with other people? Are we there caring for others or are we sort of out for ourselves? What we find, unfortunately, is that those that tend to be a little more agreeable are also those that maybe spend a little bit more than they should. And that makes sense, right? Like we want to pick up the check. We want to take care of this, that kind of thing. So understanding some of those — those are just two of the five — but understanding those characteristics can help you understand what you might do in certain situations and then maybe how to avoid those situations or how to prepare for that situation the next time. So those are some of the things that you can learn about yourself and certainly then, again, if you’re a financial advisor, you can use that information to help your clients as well.

Tim Ulbrich: I really enjoyed this, taking it myself and reading the report and findings. It took me about, I don’t know, 7 or 8 minutes to get through it. And it was different than what I was expecting. You know, I’ve taken lots of money self-assessment tools that are out there, and I think often they’re focused on like your risk tolerance and how conservative or how aggressive. And this really threw me for a loop. I mean, questions like, “I enjoy reflecting on challenges, problems, or large issues,” or “I tend to understand others’ feelings and thoughts. And at first as I was taking it, I was like, how is this going to connect to the financial plan? And then when it got to those five personality buckets that you mentioned, the extraversion, the conscientiousness, the openness, the agreeableness, and the neuroticism, I was like, OK, I’m starting to see the connection and obviously the report and the guide talks about that further. But I can certainly see how one’s awareness of these as well as their coach’s awareness of these could be really helpful as it comes to developing their plan. And I was feeling good, Sarah, about myself when I saw the high conscientiousness, as I suspect many pharmacists would.

Sarah Fallaw: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: And not so good then when I saw oh man, agreeableness, not so high, and neuroticism, a little bit higher. But you’ve got to dig deeper, right, than just the terms that are there.

Sarah Fallaw: Exactly. Yeah. And there’s always a good — a positive and a negative about any score that you have. So obviously taking that openness to experience one as an example, if you are high on it, it means you’re creative, you like new and different experiences. If you’re low on it, you like things to be the same. And so you know, those can be good or bad depending on the situation that you’re in. Certainly for accumulating wealth, it tends to be better if you’re more of a traditional, I like things the way they are. But again, it can be a good thing for your mental health to be trying new things and experiencing new foods and all kinds of things like that.

Tim Ulbrich: Very good. And let’s shift gears to talk about the work of “The Millionaire Next Door” and the follow-up, “The Next Millionaire Next Door,” which was, as I mentioned to you before we hit record, really both of those books have been transformational for me in my own personal journey. And a lot of what we do and the philosophy of what we do at YFP and how we approach our education and what we believe in I think aligns very well with those two resources and the research that you’ve found and obviously a strong connection there to behavioral finance and the work that you’re doing at DataPoints. So let’s start, I suspect many of our listeners have heard of “The Millionaire Next Door,” arguably one of the best personal finance books and resources of all time, and give us a 10,000-foot overview of that book. What was your father’s aim for the book? And ultimately, high level, what were the findings?

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah, so it was written — I’ll start with that sort of aim question portion of it. You know, he had spent his lifetime studying how individuals build and sustain wealth. So he studied affluent populations in the United States. He was a marketing researcher. And so his goal with “The Millionaire Next Door” was to help individuals understand that there was this kind of component of affluent America, which was made up of people that did this on their own. It wasn’t just the case that they had rich uncles and aunts and that they were born into a certain kind of family. There still to this day was a large component of millionaires who were self-made. And he felt like there were so many unusual aspects of this group that he wanted to share it with individuals. Early in his career, he was teaching, he was consulting, he was working really, really hard and saw several of his peers do that too. He felt like if he could give people this information that maybe that could save them from some of this constant income earning-spending, income earning-spending cycle that they were in. And so that was really the aim. But again, the 10,000-foot view of the book is really that there are certain characteristics that allow individuals to build wealth over time. And again, a lot of times it has to do with the career you choose, with the spouse you choose, with the place you start living when you first buy a home and things like that. And there are, again, these certain characteristics that millionaires exhibit that allow them to build and sustain wealth over time.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I remember one of the — I can remember one of the tables reading that book, but there’s the big-ticket items like your career, obviously the spouse, the home that you live in, the neighbors and the community that you’re in, all those things that influence your spending patterns and behaviors. And then there’s some other things that may not seem as large on the surface, the jeans you buy, you know, the cars that you drive, things like that that can have a very profound impact and perhaps a window into other spending patterns and behaviors. I personally find, Sarah, that the research that affirms the opportunity for folks to really create their own opportunities and to become self-made, I find that very refreshing and I suspect many of our listeners will who are facing sometimes $150,000-200,000 of student loan debt upon graduation. They’ve got a great income to work with, but they can often feel like they’re starting at point like, oh man, forget about it. Like is there even an opportunity going forward? And I think the compound effect of being intentional with those micro decisions along the way is going to be really important. So why the need for a second edition? Tell us about “The Next Millionaire Next Door” and ultimately how you decided that this resource was necessary as a follow-up.

Sarah Fallaw: You know, that kind of came out of a couple of different things. You know, No. 1, it had been nearly 20 years I think at the time when my father started talking about that, sort of a new book. And it was time to look at some new data, to look at some new aspects of spending, you know, social media was not a thing, right, back in 1996. That was — no one knew that we would have Facebook back then. And so there were a lot of different aspects that he wanted to consider and I was serving in the role of the statistician, I was going to do the survey data collection and the analysis and those kinds of things. And it really wasn’t designed necessarily to be a second edition. You know, he’d had that question asked of him many times by publishers and things like that. But instead, he wanted to really take a fresh look at things. And so yeah, you know, it started off as something that we were collaborating on. And then as you know, he passed away in 2015, was killed by a drunk driver. So I had the privilege of finishing the book without him but certainly the beginning of it and the ideas for it came from him. So yeah, that’s kind of where it came from.

Tim Ulbrich: And there really are so many “Aha!” moments throughout the book. I found myself in both “The Millionaire Next Door” and “The Next Millionaire Next Door,” really shaking my head in agreement with the writing, the research findings, and I think analytical pharmacists and scientists will appreciate the research and the power that’s behind it because often, you know, personal finance education and advice can feel squishy at times. And to really have some research supporting these findings that we can then try to align our behaviors with to give ourself a chance of success I think is very refreshing. So I want to dig into some of the key findings in the book, and I’m going to hit a couple highlights in different chapters of the book hopefully to give our audience really just a sampling of the outstanding content that is throughout and then of course would encourage folks to pick up their own copy of “The Next Millionaire Next Door.” So in Chapter 1, titled “The Millionaire Next Door is Alive and Well,” you share a truth that is so important and I think can often be looked over or easily confused. And that is that wealth is not income. And income is not wealth. So tell us about what this means, what the differences are between income and wealth.

Sarah Fallaw: Yep, absolutely. So I think — and again, you would think after 20 years, 25+ years now, people would see the difference. But it’s hard for even me and certainly my teenagers to even see that. But the truth is how much we make has very little to do with how much we keep. And that’s the idea. You know, we have this confusion in our brain, we see individuals with nice cars or in the best houses or whatever it might be, and we equate spending to having money in the bank. And unfortunately, they’re not. And I think a lot of us, particularly when we come out of grad school, when I came out of grad school, and we have a great big salary and we’re excited about that, you know, again, particularly for pharmacists, it’s just not the same. So we confuse that level of income that we’re receiving with being wealthy, which leads to us spending above our means in terms of our wealth and can lead to a whole host of things. So I think that that’s a mindset that, gosh, if we could teach our kids that, if we could learn that early on in college or grad school, before we have that income that comes in, we would be better off for a whole host of reasons. But yes, that continues to be a struggle. When we work with advisors, that’s one of their struggles, particularly with working with younger clients that are just newly out of school and things like that too.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and if you can crack that nut on teaching your teenagers, let me know so I can teach my boys as well.

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah. Me too.

Tim Ulbrich: Such an important thing of the mindset and a whole separate conversation about what may work, what may not work, and doing that. So you know, I think of pharmacists here, Sarah, and one of the things that pharmacists are blessed with is a great income, often at a very young age, you know, of course I’m overgeneralizing for a moment, but typically pharmacists will come out of school if they go through four years of undergrad, four years of their doctorate training, perhaps some residency after that, you know, still late 20s or maybe early 30s, making a good six-figure income. But one of the challenges is that many pharmacists’ income may remain relatively flat through their career. And so I think this point is all the more important that, you know, I know from personal experience, many of our listeners know that as time goes on, things become more expensive. You know, just generally speaking, right? Our goals, our aspirations, perhaps children, families that are growing, other things that we want to do. And so if our income is not going to see an exponential growth, then we’ve got to really try to be diligent right out of the gates to make sure we establish those behaviors that are going to allow us to create margin. And I know for my wife Jess and I, one of the “Aha!” moments we had early on in our career is OK, good income, but if income comes in and income goes out and it’s not sticking, which I think is really what net worth is a good indicator of what’s sticking, then we’re going to be in trouble ultimately with being able to achieve our long-term financial goals. So net worth, a really good indicator I think of one’s overall financial health. And I think this mindset that you talk about in Chapter 1 is so important. Now, in Chapter 2, “Ignoring the Myths,” you say that in order to build wealth, we have to discontinue or ignore the myths of how wealth is built in America. What do you mean here? And how can we take our financial future into our own hands?

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah, you know, there are a couple of things that go along with this, certainly one of them being that, again, wealth isn’t the same as income and things like that. But you know, there are a lot of kind of, again, mindsets from whether we adopted those as children or adolescents, from the life experiences we’ve had, or that’s what we see in the media, that can keep us from kind of owning the building of wealth, right? So how, for example, if I take myself and say, well, I’m a woman, how can I run a fintech company? Well all of a sudden, I’ve created this sort of artificial, if you will, hurdle for me to get past in order to make the right decisions and to continue on. And it’s the same with building wealth. So if we kind of adopt the mentality that ‘Well, I have all this debt, there’s no way I can get out of it,’ or again, for example, ‘I’m a woman,’ ‘I’m a minority,’ or something like that or ‘I’m in this particular group, I won’t be able to get past that,’ that’s one of the things I think that differentiates those that tend to be financially successful is they see past that no matter what group they belong to or kind of what background they’ve experienced in the past, they’re able to move past that. And so there are a lot of those myths, and they have to do more with like financial attitudes, and that can prevent individuals from actually working to achieve goals because they view wealth as something that can’t achieve.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think what you’re sharing here reminds me of so often we, like many other I’m sure financial planners, get questions like, “Hey, what should I do with my student loans? What should I do about this investment? What should I do about that?” And I think what this is highlighting is often we have to really unwind and understand, you know, what are the money scripts that we’ve been told over time? I’ve heard somebody reference it like, you know, whether it’s family interactions, whether it’s societal types of stories that we’ve been told or believed, we all have some script, we have some baggage with us about how we view and interpret money. And that of course has a fundamental influence on how we spend, on how we save, on how we approach this with a significant other. And we’ve got to be able to understand some of that I think and be able to really set goals and understand some of these behavioral pieces before we start to attack the x’s and o’s of the financial plan. And so I hope folks will hear some of this and take a step back and say OK, what are some of my own behaviors that I need to better understand that if I take the time to do so will have a real big influence on how I approach my financial plan. Chapter 3, you talk about the influences on wealth. And you know, one of the questions I think of here is what outside influences may impact one’s ability to build wealth? So how does our upbringing, how do our friends, how does our spouse really play a role in this? And what does the research say?

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah, so again, one of the key kind of indicators or predictors of financial success is being able to ignore or to not be influenced. But you know, again, there are a lot of different ways that others can make us feel as if we are making certain decisions. So you know, certainly we can talk about upbringing, we see that if your mom or your father but mostly your mother has the most strongest influence, if they tended to be frugal growing up, you will be frugal in later in life, that kind of thing. But we also see, again, social influence. We see that particularly related to social media but also kind of where you plant yourself in terms of your neighborhood, right? So that can have an undue effect on things like car purchases and things like that. And then again, your spouse, we know that millionaires tend to have spouses that are frugal. So even if they’re out maybe running a business or they’re the primary breadwinner, their spouse tends to be frugal. And we know that that can influence financial decisions in the future as well. So certainly influence can be a good thing, but it can also lead to some pretty poor spending decisions as well. And that’s really where we see the influence. We also see it in investing. So if you think about Gamestop and you see like how everyone kind of behaves when things get really exciting, we can be influenced into some of that. And we’ve seen that that can be a good thing, but it certainly can be a negative as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, we’ve all been told of the circle of influence, right, and those five or six or whatever the number is people that are around us and the impact that they can have. I think it’s no different here when it comes to money. Sarah, I’m curious, I have to know, when you mentioned the research with mom, you know, I’m thinking of my wife Jess really taking a huge role in raising our four boys, like why is that? You know, what is the connection there with the research of the mother and the spending habits that are passed on?

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah, you know, it’s not only the spending habits but career influence as well. But I think it’s primarily because of the time spent. So the research that we’ve done primarily with those that are in like their 30s, 40s, you know, you think about that in terms of well, when were they children or adolescents? Well, it still was the case in most cases their mothers were the ones that were home. So I think that that’s why we see that influence more so than the father. But again, we know that if a mother was frugal, if she was showing good financial behaviors growing up and then I mentioned the career piece as well, it’s also the case that if you had — as a mom or as a parent, if you are helping your child understand their career options and what they might do in the future, that can also be a predictor of income and net worth in the future as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Sarah, one of the personal struggles that I have is around the concept of frugality. And you know, I think that there’s certainly a benefit in frugality of being able to make sure being intentional, we can allocate money towards our goals, we can assure we’re taking care of our future selves, but you know, one of the things I hear our planning team say often, which I really admire, is that it can’t just be about the 1s and 0s in the bank account. So if we do a great job of squirreling away $3 or $4 or $5 million but we’re miserable for 30 or 40 years, like so what? What’s the purpose of that? And so there’s this reconciliation of, you know, we’ve got to be frugal to take care of our future self, but I think we’ve also got to make sure we’re prioritizing and enjoying things along the way that drive us to some of the greatest happiness and value. And so I would just love to hear your personal thoughts as I know a lot of it points to the concept of frugality, like what are your thoughts on that reconciliation between taking care of your future self but also making sure we enjoy it along the way?

Sarah Fallaw: You know, I would say a couple things about that. First and foremost, I think you’re right that many of us aren’t really super excited about being in a spartan lifestyle for their entire life and then having all this money left over when they’re 80. That doesn’t sound great. I think that one of the things I’ve learned personally but then also learned through the research and the work that we do is that there are certain individuals, certain clients, certain people, that love being frugal, that sort of get a thrill out of kind of living that way. And then there are others of us that say, “Well, how long will I have to do this?” or “How can I make this as easy as possible?” So I’ll say a couple of things about that. No. 1, I think that as spouses, you have to make sure you’re on the same page, recognize and respect each other’s viewpoint on those things, make sure that there’s room for if the spouse isn’t really excited about being frugal all the time, make sure that there’s room throughout your relationship and throughout your lifetime to enjoy some of the fruits of your labor but then also have respect for the spouse that really does want to make sure that they have everything ready in the future and is OK camping out outside for their spring break and things like that. So that’s what we’ve sort of learned personally but then also, again, through the experiences of our advisors is to understand that about yourself early on, to communicate that, and then again to make sure that the plan that you put in place acknowledges both members of the household.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think this connects so well back to the money mindset concept and the money personality test and really understanding this individually as well as the planner working with the client and the importance of that. In Chapter 4, “Freedom to Consume,” you know, one of the things you talk about there, which I think is a timely topic right now given what the real estate market looks like, which is en fuego —

Sarah Fallaw: Crazy.

Tim Ulbrich: — is home buying. And you know, I think this is a time where I know I’ve talked with many pharmacists over the last six months that are like, ‘I’m looking to buy a home, but I’ve talked with one out in Washington recently, I’m expecting to put $100,000 over asking,’ just kind of is what it is in the market. So this feels like something in the time that might kind of get away from us in terms of where it fits in with the rest of our goals. So talk to us about the research and what you found in terms of the cost of homes that millionaires are living in.

Sarah Fallaw: Typically what we see is that millionaires are — they’re not living in $1 million homes typically. So the majority of them or many of them are living in homes that are less in terms of the value. So we found — I think it was that the current home value for most millionaires — again, this data was taken from 2016 — that it was $850,000, which was significantly higher than in 1996 when I think it was somewhere around $300,000. But you know, inflation, things like that. So I think that that’s one of the important factors. I think also, just from — and again, I’ll use the conscientiousness, you could say frugality, it’s a lot of different things, but I think that millionaires and those that are really savvy about money recognize the costs in moving, the costs in making those large-scale financial decisions. So you know, we have friends and family here in Atlanta, the market is the same as well, you know, where people are — the asking price is just the start. And what we’re seeing is that there’s sort of this excitement about change, excitement about potentially trying to time the market. And I think that millionaires tend to be a little more conservative, maybe like I said, conscientious, they understand the ramifications of making changes like that, and they aren’t necessarily looking for sort of the next big thing. But again, in general, millionaires are not necessarily living in $1 million houses. It’s not always the case.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, really interesting research in that chapter, not only on home buying, which I know is a topic of significance to our audience, but also on things like how are millionaires spending money on cars and clothing? And in terms of cars, what types of vehicles are they driving? New v. used? Luxury? Models, makes, and everything in between. So Chapter 5, you talk about strengths for building wealth. And one of the things that really stood out to me here is this concept of running your home like a business. So what do you mean here? And how can someone that’s listening start applying these principles?

Sarah Fallaw: So connecting back to my industrial psychology days here, I really viewed building wealth as a job, looked at sort of what it took, the complexities of it, everything from kind of dealing with the mundane tasks — or again, some folks might think these are fun — but mundane tasks of paying bills and maybe helping to do your income tax, depending on if you do it or if someone else does it, you still have to get everything together for it, those kinds of tasks as well as communicating with your spouse and communicating with the rest fo the family when it comes time to budgeting and spending and things like that. There are a whole host of things that make someone really great at the job, and then there are of course other things that can keep people from doing that job well. So in terms of strengths for building wealth and kind of thinking about personal finance as a job, it makes you kind of think about it differently in terms of OK, you know, this doesn’t seem so complex. I can think about the individual tasks I have to do and consider can I do this task well? Maybe my spouse can do this tax better than I can. We have that often happen with the advisors we work with who are using assessments to say OK, hey, you know what? You might be better at this than I am. And that would make more sense for you to take this part of it. So if you can look at the job of building wealth or of managing your personal finances well and look at it as a job, you can think about what it takes to do that job well. So that’s kind of how we certainly view it at DataPoints, that was sort of, again, in the last several months of my father’s life, kind of how we started talking about how I explained what we were doing at DataPoints, had to kind of walk him through all of that. But that’s certainly the way that we think it’s easiest, especially for those of us that don’t have a financial background to understand what it takes to actually build wealth.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and that really resonates with me because I think that as many of our listeners know from personal experience, this topic can be very emotional at times. And at times, we all can make irrational decisions that often we look back and say, what in the world were we doing with that? And that’s just part of the learning part of the growth? But I think approaching it like a business, you know, helps make this as objective as possible but also helps with thinking about like systems and processes and automation and how do we make sure we can understand where our biases may be, where our shortcomings may be, and how can we build a plan and a system and have a coach and really surround ourselves to give ourself the best opportunity to succeed as possible. In Chapter 7, “Investing Resources,” a whole lot of things we could talk about here that could be a separate podcast in and of itself, but you know, generally speaking, what do you find from the research in terms of what makes someone a successful investor? What are the characteristics and behaviors that somebody will hold in terms of becoming a successful investor?

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah, so that goes back to the personality conversation we were having earlier. There are a couple of different key things that we’ve found, one of them being that emotional side of investing, just like you said, the emotions related to money. What we found is that those that really tend to experience negative emotions more than others, so anxiety or fear, we call that volatility composure. That would be a lower score on that component. Those folks tend to have a harder time, especially when things are chaotic. So — and I’ll put myself in that camp a little bit. So we gravitate towards the news, we want to see what’s happening in the markets, we’re constantly looking at our investments. That kind of personality characteristic can lead us to making maybe not-so-great choices related to our investments, particularly, again, when markets are chaotic. Some of the other components include having a longer term perspective on investing. So for those of us who really view investing as a long-term play, it’s helping us build for the future, those investors tend to have more success than those that look at investing as something that needs to be managed on a daily or a minute-to-minute basis and view it more as maybe fun or entertainment versus something that’s a component of their long-term financial success. So those are a couple of the things. You know, confidence is also something important, particularly in terms of making decisions that align with a long-term strategy. So we don’t want to be overconfident. Those of us that tend to be overconfident are often the ones that are timing the market or trying to, at least, but instead having some level of confidence in our financial choices or investing choices can lead to investing success as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and these really resonate to me, Sarah, as a place where a coach can be incredibly helpful in the process because if you can be self-aware of these things and that individual is also aware of these, they can help challenge you appropriately, they can help you stay the course when you have tribulations in the market, which inevitably are going to happen, and I think certainly can be a valuable resource beyond investing but specifically here as we talk about investing. So we have just literally scratched the surface on so much of the rich content that is in “The Next Millionaire Next Door,” so I would highly encourage our listeners to pick up a copy of that book, which you can do pretty much anywhere that you can find a book, whether that’s online, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, so forth. And Sarah, we’re going to link, as I mentioned earlier, in the show notes to the personality assessment available at DataPoints.com/personality. Folks can take that assessment, download that report, work with their planner, provide that information as well. Beyond that, what is the best place that our listeners can go if they want to learn more about your work or if they want to connect with you?

Sarah Fallaw: Yeah, so definitely on LinkedIn, Sarah Fallaw. I’m on Twitter @sarahfallaw, so all one word. They can also go to our website, just DataPoints.com. We have a blog. We write — generally our audience is financial professionals, but we also write at TheMillionaireNextDoor.com as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Well, we will link to all of those in the show notes in terms of the social media and the websites as well as the personality data assessment. Sarah, again, thank you so much for your time. This is a special episode for us in Episode 200. And really excited for the opportunity to be able to interview you as a part of the celebration. So thank you very much.

Sarah Fallaw: Thanks for having me.

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YFP 199: Introducing the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast

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Introducing the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich welcomes Nate Hedrick and David Bright, co-hosts of the brand new YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast that is launching on Saturday, April 17, 2021. Tim, Nate, and David talk about the mission and why for the show, who the podcast is for, the content that will be covered, and the guests that will be featured on the show. They also discuss the newest guide developed by Nate and David, The Pharmacist’s Guide to Real Estate Investing, which details a step-by-step plan on how to get started in real estate investing.

About Today’s Guests

David Bright, PharmD

David Bright is a pharmacist with a heart for teaching. He’s been a full-time professor since 2009 with a passion for implementing and improving pharmacy services. Themes of “implementing and improving” in the pharmacy space are quite similar to themes of “building and fixing” in real estate, which has been a growing hobby for David and his wife, Heather, who bought their first house more than ten years ago. That fixer-upper house became a live-in house flip, which they sold a few years later, only to repeat the process with their next house. When David and Heather got sick of perpetually living in a construction zone, they pivoted to fixing up rental properties in West Michigan, where they now live.

David invests in real estate as a way to bring greater diversity to financial planning and to fund memorable life experiences with family and friends.

Nate Hedrick, PharmD

Nate Hedrick is a full-time pharmacist by day, husband and father by evening and weekend, and real estate agent, investor, and blogger by late night and early morning. He has a passion for staying uncomfortable and is always on the lookout for a new challenge or a project. He found real estate investing in 2016 after his $300,000+ student loan debt led him to read Rich Dad Poor Dad. This book opened his mind to the possibilities of financial freedom and he has been obsessed ever since. After earning his real estate license in 2017, Nate founded Real Estate RPH as a source for real estate education designed with pharmacists in mind. Since then, he has helped dozens of pharmacists around the country realize their dream of owning a home or starting their investing journey. Nate resides in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife, Kristen, his two daughters Molly and Lucy, and his rescue dog Lexi.

Summary

On this episode, Nate Hedrick and David Bright, cohosts of the brand new YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast join Tim Ulbrich to discuss the podcast launch, the why and mission for the show, the target audience for the show as well as the guests and content.

Nate and David also share some of the steps from their guide, The Pharmacist’s Guide to Real Estate Investing. Here are some of the highlights:

Get your financial plan together: Taking stock of your own finances and financial picture will help you to better understand which investment and financing strategies may work best for you.
Time to study up: Learn about and do your research on which real estate opportunities will best match your personal skill set.
Location is everything: Choose where you are going to invest, taking into consideration factors that will impact your investment such as rent to income ratios, population growth, and more.
Choose a strategy: Choose which strategy of investment you plan to implement of the many options, including house hacking, flipping, long-term or short-term rentals, or BRRR.
Build your team: Build your team of professionals around you, specific to your investing needs. This likely will include a realtor who is familiar with real estate investing, a lawyer, an accountant, contractors, and property managers among others.
Double check the math: If you do the math wrong with real estate, it can be a bad experience. If you do your math correctly, with the use of some tools and resources, you can get familiar with the numbers and more easily find a deal where you are comfortable in making a decision.
Make an offer: Keep emotion out of the decision and realize that not every property is going to work out. Stick to the plan and research you’ve conducted in steps 1 through 6 and make your offer.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. And today’s show is a special one, not just because it’s Episode 199 — hard to believe that we’re almost to Episode 200 — but special because we have something exciting to announce that we’ve mentioned on the podcast and in the YFP Facebook group over the last couple weeks and something that really has been in the works for much longer than that. On Saturday, this Saturday, April 17, we’re launching a brand new podcast through the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast channel called the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. Now, as much as I love the new podcast and the focus on real estate investing, I’m excited that the hosts of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast are two pharmacists, real estate investors, and friends that I have known for awhile, two guys that I have a great amount of respect for in the work that they do as pharmacists and the integrity in which they approach their business and their investing and the heart that they have for educating others and who have both been on the show before. And that is Nate Hedrick, the Real Estate RPh, and David Bright. Nate and David, welcome back to the show.

Nate Hedrick: Thanks so much for having us.

David Bright: Thank you.

Tim Ulbrich: So I know you both have been on the show before. Nate, you’ve joined us many times on the YFP podcast. And David, we had you on not too long ago, Episode 167 where we talked about must-know real estate terminology. But I don’t want to assume that our audience knows your background and really important information that they get to know you as we get ready to launch the Real Estate Investing podcast of which you two will be serving as the co-hosts. So David, let’s start with you. Tell us a little bit about your career, how you got started in real estate investing, and your why behind pursuing real estate investing while keeping your pharmacy career.

David Bright: Absolutely. Yeah, I started in pharmacy at 16 working in the drug store and went from there where pharmacy school, community pharmacy residency, and really just loved that outpatient community pharmacy drug store opportunity that was there. A lot of the implementing and improving of non-dispensing clinical services really got me excited about that outpatient space. And then later as well with academia, that implementing and improving also mirrors hobby of real estate, the building and fixing of real estate. And so that was something that my wife and I had enjoyed too. We bought our first house as a short sale. It need a lot of work, so that kind of live-in flip was a way that we could diversify our financial plan, also just create some extra money for those memory-making experiences with the family. And so we’ve just enjoyed kind of doing that over time. At some point, we decided we didn’t enjoy living in a construction zone anymore, so we started enjoying doing that in other properties. But that’s just been a fun hobby along the way and part of our why behind real estate.

Tim Ulbrich: Great stuff, David. And I know you and I have had this conversation before, but we’ve known each other dating back to community pharmacy residency all the way back in 2008-2009. And I like the connection you’ve made before about really some of the challenges around developing, implementing, evaluating patient care services in the community pharmacy setting and really the connection between some of the interests and passions that you have in real estate as well. So excited to have you experience, your perspective, on the show, really to be sharing that information with the community but also what I have always taken away is really your passion to help other pharmacists and really lead with education, really teach some of these principles, and help folks understand how they might be able to apply that to their own personal situation. So Nate, as I alluded to, we’ve had you on the show many times. I think now officially the most frequent guest on the YFP podcast. So starting way back on Episode 040 and 041 where we had a two-part series talking about 10 things every pharmacist should know about home buying and then most recently on Episode 193, building v. buying a home, what to consider. And that was in early March of 2021, and I think many of our listeners know you as the Real Estate RPh. So for those that haven’t caught one of your several — I think at least five or six at this point — episodes on the YFP podcast, Nate, tell us about your background, pharmacy career, and how you ultimately ended up as a realtor and real estate investor.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, and I expect the trophy for most frequent guest to be arriving.

Tim Ulbrich: It’s on the way. It’s on the way.

Nate Hedrick: Alright, good. Yeah, no. So I started off full clinical track. I did a residency right after graduating from Ohio Northern back in 2013 and really fell in love with the pain and palliative care space. And was a hospice consultant for a long time and really just, I loved that role. And then as time went on, I kind of moved into more of a sales-y type track where I was working with outside clients and really kind of touting what the other pharmacists were doing rather than doing that work myself. And as all that was happening, I was getting this interest in real estate and real estate investing. I think the story I tell all the time was I read “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” and my mindset just completely shifted. So when I should have been going out and getting my BCPS or some sort of additional certification in pharmacy, I told my wife I was going to get my real estate license. And she looked at me like I was crazy at first, but we’ve really fell in love with where that stake in our career and the opportunities that I have. And so back in 2017, I took that same idea and launched Real Estate RPh, a website all about educating pharmacists about home buying and home selling and real estate investing. And really just have been growing that ever since. And so really excited that we are able to launch this podcast today. I feel like it’s the culmination of a lot of that stuff coming together, that idea of education and connection really in the purest form. So I’m really excited about this.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and this really has been in the works for I would say a couple years. I mean, it started with the idea of hey, we were seeing a growing interest of real estate investing, wanting to learn more among the community, how can we help provide some education, some awareness, how can we connect pharmacists with other pharmacists, and all of that really led to hey, let’s start with a podcast, let’s start with the education, I think something we’re all passionate about. And then let’s see where it goes from there into the future. So let’s dig into the new podcast launching this Saturday, April 17, on the YFP podcast channel. Nate, what’s the mission and the why of the show?

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, the mission is actually pretty simple. It’s to empower pharmacists to leverage real estate as part of their financial plan. We realized that not everyone’s listening to this podcast trying to take over a real estate empire, right? And really, when David and I sat down and started thinking about what kind of philosophy are we going to have behind the show and what kind of guests are we going to have on the show and all that, we really sat back and said, we don’t need to replicate what’s already out there. There are some fantastic resources in the real estate space, Bigger Pockets being kind of the most obvious one with excellent podcasts and books and all these things that I think really promote the idea of real estate investing. But what we felt like was missing was this idea of how do you couple a really fulfilling career, i.e. pharmacy, and real estate investing? How do you do both? And so our whole idea with this show is that we’re going to show you how to not just leave pharmacy but stay in pharmacy while also investing in real estate. And so that’s really the overarching philosophy behind this program and this show.

Tim Ulbrich: Great stuff. And I think to reiterate that, that really is going to be the focus of the content and the audience that we want to reach. So you know, not to say some folks may get started and eventually build that empire, Nate, that you talked about, but knowing the vast, vast majority of pharmacists that are listening have either not gotten started yet but have the interest piqued, wanting to learn more, or maybe have taken a step or two, might be saving for that first property, might have bought a property or two, but really looking to take it further from there. And that’s going to be the focus of this show. So David, with that in mind, you know, what can our listeners expect? The kind of guests, the topics that we’re going to be covering as they listen to this podcast that we’ll be launching each and every Saturday?

David Bright: Yeah, I think the obvious one is we don’t really intend on focusing on pharmacists that have left their career of pharmacy. That’s not really our focus. Again, we’re focused on pharmacists that want to have real estate as a part of their financial plan. So there’s a lot of other, better resources out there for those kind of things. But for those that are looking for tangible and practical tips on getting started, on growing, on getting better at what you’re doing, that’s where we’re focused. We’ve got guests that are on talking about short- and long-term rentals, talking about house flipping, talking about rehabbing, property management, taxes, lending, all those different things go into buying your first or your second or your fifth property. And so focusing, again, on ways that you can jump into that and make that even better.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and our goal is, David, you know, I think one of the things we’ve discussed thus far is that real estate investing can look like a lot of different things. And we’re going to obviously highlight a lot of different stories that will emphasize that. And it’s probably going to take a lot of guests and a lot of episodes to even fully uncover the variety of options that are out there. And so we’re not suggesting that there is a one right path to real estate investing. What we want to do is explore many different areas, feature many different stories, the good, the bad, the ugly, make sure we’re representing all sides of that and then really give folks an opportunity to go learn more and say, ‘Oh, that’s interesting, I think that might fit or might not fit for my personal situation,’ as they evaluate where real estate investing does or does not fit in the context of their financial plan. So Nate, if someone has a question about real estate investing that they would like to be answered or perhaps they have a story that they want to have featured on the show, where can they go?

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, and so as this podcast drops, we’re going to also be launching a new website just to help out with that. And so YFPRealEstate.com will be your go-to source for getting in touch with us, asking questions, you can apply to be a guest on the show, all sorts of stuff. So as this podcast launches and you guys start listening here, you can head over to YFPRealEstate.com. And then we will also have — we’ve already launched, and it’s been running for about a week now, and that’s a Your Financial Pharmacist Real Estate Investing Facebook group. So if you’re looking for community, looking for a place to connect with others, we’ve already seen some great photos posted and people talking about their investments already on there. So definitely check that out.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned the Facebook group, Nate. One of the goals we had with that group and with this effort overall is to connect other pharmacist investors with one another. And we had a question last week in the group that was in essence like, “Hey, where are you from? Welcome to the group. Where are you from? Tell us a little bit about what you’re hoping to get out of this group. Tell us a little bit about your investing, what you’ve been working on.” And to see pharmacists, “Hey, I’m from Buffalo, New York,” “I’m from Columbus,” “I’m from this part of the country,” I think we’re going to see a lot of that connection start to happen organically. So I hope folks listening will join us in that Facebook group as well, which we’ll link to in the show notes. David, I want to come back to the concept that we don’t feel like real estate investing is something that folks have to choose it’s either that or it’s my pharmacy career. We really feel like folks can be successful in their pharmacy career, still be passionate about what they’re doing and what they’ve spent a lot of time and money to train to do and still pursue and potentially reap some of the benefits that come from real estate investing. So David, tell us, how can one enjoy their profession while also investing in real estate?

David Bright: Yeah, I think it’s the same kind of answer that you think about when it’s how do you get 700 prescriptions and 50 flu shots done in a Monday in a drugstore. It’s you have a team around you that helps you, right? Like this isn’t an individual sport with real estate. Like I know that I am not a realtor, I am not a contractor, I am not a property manager. I’m not a lot of those things. But I can find people who are really good at each of those areas. And so by bringing that team together and by having some direction and leading that team, I can really step back from the day-to-day side of it and let other people that are really good at what they do do what they are good at. And to me, I think that’s how a lot of pharmacists can find real estate investing as a part of their financial plan without it taking over or taking too much time.

Tim Ulbrich: And one of the things that I know I’ve heard both of you talk about and seen you role model as well is that the value that a team can bring to the process and really thinking about how to begin to build your real estate portfolio with both the team and the system in mind. And I think that’s really critical. I suspect many folks listening are not only busy in their full-time career as a pharmacist but they perhaps have family, other commitments, other priorities, other things that they need to be doing, want to be working on, things that they enjoy. And so we need to be able to do this, if we’re going to do it, in a way that is realistic with those other responsibilities and those other roles that one has. So Nate and David, you created a really valuable guide, the Pharmacist’s Guide to Real Estate Investing, that details essentially a step-by-step plan on just that: how to get started in real estate investing. And we’re going to link to this in the show notes, and I’d like to walk through this for a few moments to give our listeners a taste of I think some of the information and the content that they’re going to get on the show. But that guide, the Pharmacist’s Guide to Real Estate Investing, you can download that guide for free by visiting YFPRealEstate.com or you can text REIguide, all one word, again, REIguide, to 44222. And you can download a copy of the guide that way as well. So Step No. 1 of this guide is get your financial plan together. So a topic obviously near and dear to my heart. And Nate, tell us about why this step, getting your financial plan together, is really such an important first step.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, I think a lot of this comes back to the original mission of Your Financial Pharmacist as a whole. I think back to, Tim, when we had our very first meetings years and years ago, and I said, you know, I want to be the real estate side of what you’re trying to create here. And again, it all stemmed from that idea of you’ve got to have a good financial house first before you can move on and do anything else.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Nate Hedrick: Again, as I approached my own real estate investing, we really stepped back and did a lot more time with the education side and the reading side because if you don’t have that financial base, that strong financial base, it becomes very, very difficult to escalate or to be successful in the real estate investing side. So we put that first because, again, it’s really the core philosophy of YFP, but it’s also just absolutely essential if you want to be truly successful I think in the real estate investing side.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and one of the things, Nate, I think you mention this in the guide that I like is if you think about real estate investing being similar to pharmacy school, personal finance is like your pre-reqs, right? Your basic science courses. So before we build upon that, before we get into our therapeutic courses, other more advanced content, we better be sure we’ve got a really good foundation or we’re going to end up in trouble when we get on rotations and we have the preceptor that exposes the lack of that information. So that’s Step No. 1, get your financial plan together. Step No. 2 is time to study up. So I love that you guys write that first, you need to learn the basics and then can decide what real estate investing niche fits your skill set. So David, talk to us about how to approach learning about real estate investing and what resources you have leaned on as you got started in your own journey.

David Bright: Yeah, I think just like you wouldn’t recommend a drug therapy without having any therapeutics courses, you need to have that time to study up. And with setting aside that time is probably the most important thing for the life of a busy pharmacist. And so for me, I found that during my daily commute, it was really easy to plug in podcasts and audiobooks. And so we will — as a part of the show, we have some outro questions where each guest recommends some resources. And so I would encourage you to take notes as we get through there. And we always put those things in the show notes as well. If you’re looking for good books and resources that got each guest started, we’ll have those going as well. So we’ll have several recommendations coming over the next few weeks. ANother thing I think are groups, whether that’s in-person meetups — at some point we can hopefully be doing that again — and then also just gathering with other friends and people that can bring accountability and education and you can share in that with. So carving out that time I think is really important, but I also think that there’s some even a life of a busy pharmacist, you can find 15 minutes here and there to get through an audiobook or podcast slowly.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and David, I’m envisioning a future state, post-COVID perhaps, where we have a real estate meetup of pharmacists at a state or national meeting or other venues, which is really exciting to think about. What is your over-under, David, on the number of times we’re going to hear guests recommend “Rich Dad Poor Dad” in the first 50 episodes?

David Bright: Oh, 48 out of 50 I think is what I’m thinking.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Nate Hedrick: We’re going to have to strike that from the options. You can’t pick that as your favorite. I’m sorry.

Tim Ulbrich: So Step No. 3, location is everything. Nate, you know this, obviously as an agent. So choosing where you’re going to invest in real estate is such an important step. Nate, give us a broad overview of some factors to consider, whether somebody is choosing the location for their first or perhaps their fifth real estate property.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, absolutely. So really it comes down to assessing those locations. I think as we look at investors when they are either starting out or they’re looking at a new market, figuring out where to invest is one of those big steps in terms of OK, well, is it going to be something that I need to have close by? Do I have someone there that’s a part of my team that I can tap into? Do I know anyone there already? And then it gets into the actual macroeconomic factors of that location. So is the city seeing population growth? Job market — is that diversified? What’s the rent-to-income ratio look like? All those things get factored into it. And so there are — you can be successful anywhere at any time. Anybody that tells you, oh, you can’t invest there. The market doesn’t work. It works for something. But what you have to find is a way to pair that location with your strategy and your goals. And so I think figuring that out together can be difficult. So we really try to address that in the guide about here are some factors to consider before you start moving forward.

Tim Ulbrich: And Step No. 4 then is choosing a strategy. So we’ve got our financial house in order, we’ve soaked up lots of real estate investing knowledge, we’ve decided on a location, and David, what comes next when one evaluates the strategies available?

David Bright: I think that as you’re figuring out that strategy, that’s just really important because you think through each potential real estate acquisition through the lens of that strategy in order to make sure that it’s effective. Like you may find this beautiful lakefront property, and if you run the numbers as a long-term buy-and-hold where someone moves in there and lives there for years, it may not work nearly as well as if it was an Airbnb or VRBO kind of vacation rental. The numbers may work much better that way. So figuring out your strategy and the way that you want to invest in real estate can really help you figure out which property is the right acquisition for that plan.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and we’ve talked about a few. I know you mentioned a couple earlier in the show, but we’ve had on guests talking about house hacking, we’ve had Nate on to talk about flipping, we’ve talked about long distance real estate investing, we’ve talked about using the BRRRR strategy. So we’re going to dig into these and others as pharmacists, again, evaluate, OK, what’s out there? And then as I learn more, which of those may fit into my financial plan. So Step No. 5, build your team. Nate, we talked about this briefly already but team, team, team, is so important when we think about real estate investing not only in the long-term success but also being able to make the most of our time and the limited time that we have. So talk to us about this concept of building a team and who we should be thinking about being included on this team.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah. And this applies whether you’re investing locally down the street or whether you’re investing across the country. There are just certain members that you’re going to need to build into that. And we try to one, demystify that process but also make it feel easy. I know every time I heard, “You have to build a team to be successful in real estate,” it just sounded kind of overwhelming. Like I don’t know how to build a team. I don’t know how to do any of that. So we’re trying to break that down and make it a little bit easier. But the idea is that you need to have that real estate agent, you need to have potentially a lawyer or an accountant, a financial planner. You know, there are all these different members that can help you out. And so how do you tap into the good ones? And how do you get to that team more quickly? So the guide helps with that a little bit. And then it also leads to our expansion of the real estate concierge service, which we’ve been doing on the home buying side for years but really this new model is looking at how do we connect you guys with investor-friendly agents? So again, head on over to YFPRealEstate.com. We have access to our real estate concierge service. We can get you connected to a local investor-friendly real estate agent, somebody that can actually help elevate that business wherever you’re trying to invest.

Tim Ulbrich: Very important distinction between agents that, you know, specialize on the primary residence home buying side and those that are familiar with the investing side and ideally maybe even have some experience themselves or have worked with many clients that have gone through that path and know what they may be looking at to be able to advise them. Step No. 6, David, the math. So we’ve got to actually figure out is this a good deal or not? And so Step No. 6 is double or triple check the math. So talk to us about the importance of running the numbers and obviously something we’ll dig into in much more detail as we go throughout the show on individual cases and scenarios. But you know, how is the math run? Why is it so important? Talk to us about this step.

David Bright: Yeah, I think we’re all familiar in the pharmacy space that if you do the math wrong, that can be life-and-death for a patient. And I think the parallel with real estate is if you do the math wrong with real estate, it’s life-or-death of that deal. Right? It can be a really, really bad experience if you do the math wrong. If you do the math right, you check it well, and that ends up being a great investment for you, then that’s also a huge win. So there’s some strategy in doing those numbers correctly. There’s some online calculators and YFP has one, I’m sure we’ll put the link in the show notes today. But those online calculators are just like in the profession of pharmacy where there’s different online calculators for things that we need as well. So just getting familiar with those numbers to the point where it becomes really understandable and simple of how to evaluate those deals makes it just that much easier to find something that you’re comfortable with to break through that analysis paralysis and to jump in.

Tim Ulbrich: And we will link to the YFP rental property calculator that David was alluding to, we’ll link to that in the show notes. And finally, Nate, Step No. 7 is we’re ready to make an offer. So talk to us about really two key points to keep in mind as folks are getting ready to make an offer.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, I think when you get to this point where you’ve done all this background work and you’ve gotten to this point where OK, I think this is a deal that we’re going to go put this offer in, there’s two really important things to keep in mind. And that is that you need to keep emotion out of it. This is an investment. This is not your forever home. And so once you’ve done all that math like David said, don’t ruin it by ignoring the math and making a bad decision. So keep the emotion out of it, walk into that deal with ‘here’s where we’re going to go’ from a numbers standpoint, and we’re not going to vary from that. And then realize that not every good house is going to work out. Even if everything looks great, if you can’t get to that right negotiating spot, it’s worth it to walk away. So I think, again, Step 7 really should be do what you did in steps 1-6 and make sure you stick to it because that’s really what the offer is all about is that you’ve done all this background work to stay in line with what you’ve decided ahead of time.

Tim Ulbrich: Great stuff. So we just scratched the surface on these seven steps that are part of the Pharmacist’s Guide to Real Estate Investing, which you can download at YFPRealEstate.com or you also can text REIguide, again, all one word, REIguide to 44222 to get a copy. So I hope that you will join us for Episode 01 of the YFP Real Estate Investing podcast. It’s going to launch this Saturday, April 17, where Nate and David talk with Tim Baker and I about how real estate investing may fit into a pharmacist’s financial plan. We also talk about considerations for how long someone should be in their personal finance journey, where you should be perhaps with debt repayment, where you should be perhaps with your investing plan before jumping into real estate investing, and then we also talk about how one may balance real estate investing with a busy pharmacy career. So you can listen, again, to the YFP Real Estate Investing podcast right here on the YFP podcast channel. It’s going to launch each and every Saturday. What better way to start the weekend than learning about real estate investing, hearing from other pharmacists that are along this journey as well? So David and Nate, thank you both not only for your time on this episode but I know firsthand the time and effort that goes into putting a podcast together. It’s both exciting and exhausting at times. There’s moments of re-records, there’s moments of that was an episode that went great, but really an awesome opportunity as well to meet other pharmacists and connect with folks all across the country. So I appreciate your passion for this topic, your willingness to teach others, and the time commitment that you’ve made in being able to put this podcast together.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, we appreciate you letting us do it. This has, you know, really been, like you said, months and months in the making. And it’s really fun to get to this point, and David and I have been having a really good time interviewing the initial guests we’ve been working with, and I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

David Bright: Yeah, we’ve got some really inspiring people coming on in the first few shows and so I’m really excited about it and looking forward to it kicking off officially on Saturday.

Tim Ulbrich: Great stuff. So again, this Saturday, April 17, I hope you’ll join us for Episode 01. And as always, we appreciate you joining us on this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 198: What You Need to Know About the Most Recent Stimulus Bill

Posted on by yfpadmin

What You Need to Know About the Most Recent Stimulus Bill

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, Tim Baker and Tim Ulbrich break down the key points of the most recent $1.9 trillion stimulus package also known as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Tim and Tim discuss the items that they think are the most relevant to your financial situation and plan, including the stimulus payments, the expansion of the child tax credit, the unemployment compensation and benefits, and what to make of the student loan forgiveness provisions being tax-free through the end of December of 2025.

Summary

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich and Tim Baker break down the key points of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and the relevance of these key points to you and your financial plan. Tim and Tim review, in detail, the stimulus payments which many people have already received, how the total amount is calculated per tax filer or family, and the nuances and differences between this stimulus package and the two previous stimulus packages.

Tim Baker explains the new phase-out guidelines for stimulus funds in the current package, how the income ‘cliff’ could impact you, and a few ways to implement strategic financial planning to maximize your stimulus. He also breaks down the history of the child tax credit, how this package changes the way that the child tax credit benefit is applied and received, and provides a general guideline for calculating your expected child tax benefit.

Tim and Tim share about the changes and updates to the unemployment compensation and benefits as they relate to the current stimulus package. They also make some general predictions about the future of student loans and student loan forgiveness given the current impact of student loans debt on borrowers and the growing pressure from student loan holders for wide-sweeping change.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Tim Baker, glad to have you on the show. How is everything going?

Tim Baker: Busy. Tax season is upon us, so yeah, it’s been really busy. But good. How about you, Tim?

Tim Ulbrich: Good, speaking of taxes, we’re going to come back to that topic today as we dig into the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, also known as the most recent stimulus bill. And this of course, as our listeners already know, is the follow-up to the CARES Act from March 2020 and then the Consolidated Appropriations Act that was passed in late December of 2020. So the primary focus of these bills of course have been related to COVID-19 relief, but as we will discuss, there certainly are some broader implications here that we need to consider. And while this bill contains lots of things, many of which we’re not going to touch on today, we’re going to hit on those parts that we feel like are most relevant to the financial plan of the YFP community and to those that are listening. So Tim Baker, I’m going to put you on the hot seat here to try to break down hundreds of pages of bills as we talk about what does all of this actually mean? So give us the 10,000-foot view. What is the American Rescue Plan Act? And really, what are some of the key pieces that the bill focuses on?

Tim Baker: Yeah, when I see the numbers, Tim, I actually think they look like — it reminds me of like professional sports contracts, you know, when you first saw that first like that $100 million contract and now they’re signing ones that are $250 million. That’s kind of what it reminds me of. So the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was signed into law on March 11, 2021. It’s a $1.9 trillion — with a t — piece of legislation that, according to the Department of Treasury, will change the course of the pandemic and deliver immediate and direct relief to families and workers impacted by the COVID-19 crisis through no fault of their own. So this has been billed, pun intended, as one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in our history. And I think what Congress and what the president is seeing is that they’ve been — I think the numbers are like 9.5 million workers that have their lost jobs and 4 million have been out longer than a half a year or longer. So what this is really meant to do is kind of stimulate and help those that are in need. So to your point, there’s lots of things that this covers, one being like infrastructure, which we’re not even going to get into, but help with small businesses and vaccinations and testing and things like that. But I think what we try — want to do here is really kind of distill it down to what does this mean for many of the listeners that are tuning into this? And how does this affect me? And I think that’s what we’re excited to kind of dig in and jump in and talk through.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and to that point, we’re going to cover three main areas: Economic Impact Payments, also known as the stimulus payments, the Child Tax Credit, which I think is really substantial in some of the changes that are forthcoming there that I think will have an impact for many pharmacists listening and their families, and then also some that may have been impacted in terms of jobs and unemployment compensation. So those are the three areas that we’re going to focus on. Again, certainly not all-encompassing of what this piece of legislation includes but the three that we feel like are most relevant to you. So Tim, let’s start with the stimulus payments as these have already started going out, probably at the time of publishing for those that are eligible, it likely has already hit their bank account. But how much are people getting? What are the phaseouts here in terms of Adjusted Gross Income? And what’s different about this round of stimulus payments?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so stimulus payments or recovery rebates, whatever you want to call them, you know, this is really, to your point, Tim, round 3. So the first one with the CARES Act was, you know, a lot of people received or the tax filer received $1,200 and $500 for dependents. And dependents was more strictly defined. And then second round, I think it was something around $600 per person or per — is what they were looking at. This is the most generous. It’s the greatest stimulus, it’s $1,400 per person. Think of it as taxpayer or spouse. But then it’s also $1,400 for dependent. So a dependent is not strictly defined — this is not just anyone under 17. This could be a college-aged 21-year-old, somebody that you actually provide for the health and welfare. But it could also be for an elderly parent. So that was one of the big things that prior bills had really kind of left out in the cold that those parents that were caring for elderly parents and now all of that is included. So it is a greater benefit in terms of total dollars. It is a better definition in terms of what it qualifies as a dependent. But the big thing that changes are the phaseouts. So — and I wouldn’t even really call them phaseouts. They’re more like cliffs. So for the phaseouts for this round — and this is going to be based on either your 2019 or 2020 tax return. So for a lot of people — and we’re seeing this on the tax side — it might be beneficial to you to kind of hold filing your taxes or not. And this is one of the areas that’s going to be a big part of this. So for a single income or single tax filer, income below $75,000 in Adjusted Gross Income, you’re going to get that full $1,400 times a spouse and dependents, etc. So if you’re a single parent and you have a dependent, you’re going to get $2,800. Now the phaseout or more likely a cliff is very narrow. So once you get to that $85,000, so $75,000-85,000, then basically that rebate or that stimulus check is gone. For married filing jointly, the number is $150,000. And then it completely phases out at $160,000. So before these phaseouts were greater. Now they’re more like a cliff. So the idea here is — this is where planning can be very important here because when we’re actually seeing this — you know, I mentioned that tax season is upon us where as we’re talking through clients, we’re saying, “Hey, this return is ready to be filed. But we’re just holding onto it until the stimulus gets figured out and then we will go ahead and file the 2020, the tax return.” And it’s just basically a planning decision to get the most benefit for that client as we’re looking at those situations.

Tim Ulbrich: Tim, I suspect we have many, many folks listening that that cliff, as you put it, which is really one of the main things that’s different here in addition to the amount of these payments, are going to be impacted because of that cliff. So if I’m someone who’s listening and 2019 and 2020, let’s say I was just above, married filing jointly let’s say for the sake of example, two dependents, so you know, if I were under that $150,000 would have been $5,600 if I’m doing my math correctly. Let’s say someone is just above that $160,000. Out of luck? It is what it is? Like what’s the strategy, if any, here for folks that are just above that cliff and that threshold of those payments?

Tim Baker: A lot of the — and we weren’t sure about this until recently — but a lot of the, with the extensions of the tax filing date, a lot of the targets or the accounts that you can also put money into like an HSA, like an IRA, have also been extended. So it might be where you shift your strategy or you’re saying, hey, I was really focused on this debt, i.e. student loans, that we know that our $0 payments with the CARES Act going until later this year. Maybe you’re trying to get ahead of that, but maybe you do shift some money into some of these other types of accounts to lower your AGI, specifically the HSA was probably the one because there’s no income limits. So these are things that you could do before you file. It’s a little bit of a circular logic because you have to — sometimes you have to get all those numbers in before you can actually figure it out, which again, it’s helpful when you’re having someone help you file your returns. So there can be some planning that you could do before you actually file. But there’s also a look ahead. So the bill basically affords people that potentially have a lower ‘21 tax year, so this year, that when they go to file in 2022 get a true-up or a credit to their taxes say in the future. So basically, the way that this was explained to me is that if you have your 2019 or 2020 return, and you’re in that phaseout, within that range, you’ll get a payout. And that’s typically direct deposit with whatever bank account that you have on, which make sure you do that. So just a message out there: Make sure your banking information is correct. We’ve had some that was incorrect, and that can take a long time to unwind. But the second checkpoint is if your 2020 AGI is less than 2019 and you filed before — so say you already filed your taxes, there is what’s called the additional payout determination date, APDD, that you could potentially — the IRS could potentially look at it and true you up if 2020 is lower than 2019. And then looking ahead to 2021, if the AGI is less than that upper threshold, the IRS will send an additional balance adjustment. So there are going to be some kind of fallbacks to make sure that the people that are in need of relief that are in and around these AGIs are going to be made whole. But there could potentially be some planning to get that money sooner.

Tim Ulbrich: Great summary. And I think what you just mentioned there highlights to me the importance of the planning, not only in the financial plan side of course, which we have been adamant about promoting the value of it and what our planning team does but also on the tax side. I mean, for that reason right there, if you look at someone who may be in this situation, what’s ahead for 2021, what could be done from a planning tax perspective with these numbers in mind as they look ahead to the year. So for folks that are interested in that service and working with our tax professional, working with our financial planning team, you can head on over to YFPPlanning.com and schedule a discovery call.

Tim Baker: And I would just say as a note to this, like this could be really where you are, if you have any control over things like bonuses or unpaid leave and things like this, you know, the planning I think potentially associated with this if you have a young family and you could potentially take FMLA or things like that, these are real-life things that it might not be worth you making that additional money to actually spend that time at home with your family. And that’s the impact of this is if you do a little bit of planning, you can get a really greater benefit that’s really even outside of the numbers of just the dollars and cents, so being paid to stay home in some way.

Tim Ulbrich: So Tim, you mentioned a good PR campaign for the IRS, make sure you have direct deposit set up. Make sure all that’s good.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: But if someone’s listening, they think they should have received a payment and they haven’t yet gotten one, what’s the strategy here?

Tim Baker: Yeah, just like anything tax-related, I put the heaviest weight on the IRS.gov. So if you go to www.IRS.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment — and we can put this in the notes of the, you know, you should be able to see kind of the status and what that looks like. So the IRS — and you could probably just Google “IRS stimulus check,” and you’ll get this link and that basically will direct you in what you need to do.

Tim Ulbrich: Tim, the other thing that comes to mind here is, you know, if I’m listening today, I’ve received perhaps a previous stimulus payment in Round 1 or 2 that maybe I’ve put in a savings account, it’s still sitting around or it might have been added too here in Round 3, I think it’s a good time to think about what are some considerations in the event of an unexpected windfall? So of course, assuming someone doesn’t have a short-term need for these dollars, gap of employment, some type of other need, how do you think through this in terms of OK, there’s dollars here now that perhaps weren’t planning on seeing those dollars, and the options of how somebody can best allocate those dollars to their financial plan?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I’m a big, big proponent of assigning kind of a purpose for like inflows. So you know, like with our business, Tim, like we get profit distributions from the business, like I have a set purpose for that. And it changes from time to time, but I know before the money comes in like what’s that for. So you know, for a lot of us — and again, if we rewind to 12 months ago when everything started to go down and we were starting to see job loss and things like that, you’re like, whoa, OK, this is why we have that emergency fund. And for a lot of people, that can be tough to swallow, especially because where interest rates are right now, you’re not being rewarded as a saver. You know, you’re more rewarded as a borrower for anything just because rates are so, so low. So you know, to me, it’s really getting comfortable with OK, if there was a catastrophic loss like me or my spouse can’t work and we don’t necessarily have the means to generate income quickly, just making sure that that is on point, the emergency fund is really important. But it can be a little bit of a double-edged sword because sometimes we get people that come and work with us and they have $120,000 in the bank and you’re thinking like, oh, that’s a good problem to have. And it is. But it’s a problem nonetheless. So to me, it’s really about once you feel comfortable with those cash reserves is then getting that money into the market. Now right now, one of the things that was not included in this, there was no RMD component to the bill. So you’re thinking like, OK, what’s an RMD. An RMD is Required Minimum Distribution. So once you get to a certain age — and I think they’ve recently changed this, but it was 70.5 — but once you get to a certain age, the IRS is like, “Hey, Tim Ulbrich, remember all that money you squirreled away in your 401k and you haven’t paid any taxes on it? Well now, we’re demanding, we’re requiring you to distribute some of that to yourself that you pay taxes on.” So they didn’t put anything in the bill with this because to be honest, those types of people are not really in need. It’s like, OK, you have all this money squirreled away and you don’t need it to live? Like there’s no reason for a stimulus or some support there. So to me, it’s really about getting the money into the market in a way — so that can be an HSA, it could be an IRA, that could be a brokerage account. And because of the way that rates are, you know, it’s getting invested, or it could be actually looking at something that is more life planning-related. So I’ve had clients recently that are pulling money from potential retirement accounts to do something for their family, which is like a vacation home, a cabin in the woods, that they’re asking me is this crazy? And I’m like, no, not really, because again, this is a use asset that you’re going to be able to rent out, you’re going to be able to enjoy with your family. You’re kind of trading one asset for another, and we’re doing it in a way that kind of minimizes the penalty and the impact. But things like that is like getting creative. And one of the things that you could do, Tim, is you could just stick this money into a checking account and it really does nothing for you. It doesn’t enhance anything about your life or your future plan. And that could be problematic as well.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think this is a timely topic, Tim. I’m thinking of folks that not only have received a windfall through like a stimulus but also may — I’m assuming many listening are still in this time period where they’re in administrative forbearance on their student loans. So dollars that were otherwise being put towards debt that maybe they’re not making those payments, obviously individual to everyone’s situation. Here, there’s also additional dollars. And I think this really highlights to me the benefit of you have a plan in place, you’ve been intentional, you think about the goals. And when that windfall happens, when something happens like you don’t have to make student loan payments, you’re able to quickly identify and direct where those dollars are going to go because you’ve already established the goals and the plan to support those goals.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and I think it goes back to the planning of — in a lot of ways, planning can start with us putting out fires, so to speak. But then it can really evolve to challenging the client to think outside of what is normal, what is expected. And case in point is like everyone thinks — a lot of people think, oh, I have to work until I’m 60 or 65. I’m like, well, do you? And again, this is potentially something that we want to challenge clients on and say like, “OK, we have resources that are here that we can direct in a way that, again, you feel that you’re living a wealthy life both today but then in the future.” I think going from that scarcity mindset to more of an abundance mindset and challenge the client to push their planning in a new direction I think is important too.

Tim Ulbrich: So let’s shift gears to the child tax credit. I think this one has made a significant splash as a part of this bill. Somewhat I guess difficult just to understand exactly what is changing, what’s going to be different, who qualifies, who doesn’t. But I suspect listening are going to be interested in watching this unfold to understand how this impacts them and their personal situation. So child tax credit, tell us a little bit more, Tim, about what’s included in the American Rescue Plan as it relates to the expansion of the existing child tax credit that we have.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and this actually was a tax credit that was expanded in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act under the Trump administration. So back in the day, it was you had a child and it was $1,000 credit. Now before, we used to get exemptions on the tax return and those have gone away. But one of the things that the Tax Cut and Jobs Act did is that it changed the credit, it doubled it from $1,000 to $2,000. And then it really expanded the phaseouts. So at a baseline today, if you have a child, you get a tax credit of $2,000 and that doesn’t phase out until $200,000 for a single taxpayer and doesn’t phase out until $400,000 for a married couple filing jointly. So it’s already a lot more generous. And then with this extra temporary provision as part of the American Rescue Plan, it actually increases more. So the credit amount has been increased so it goes from $2,000 to $3,600 for children under the age of 6. And that’s by the end of the tax year. So I think Olivia turns — I think — Olivia turns 7 this year, so I’m going to be over that. But then it does go to $3,000 for other children under the age of 18 by the end of the year. The example here would be if you have three kids, 2 years old, 4 years old and 8 years old, previously that would have been a flat $6,000 credit. So $2,000 times each kid, so $2,000, $2,000, $2,000 would be the $6,000 credit. Now the credit would actually be $10,200. So you get the full credit for your 2-year-old, $3,600, a full credit for your 4-year-old, which would be $3,600, and then $3,000 for your 8-year-old because you’re above the 6-year-old threshold. So that would be a total of $10,200. So for those of you that have lots of kids — Tim Ulbrich — this could potentially be a big benefit. So the other big part of this is that the scope has been expanded so children 17 years old and younger as opposed to 16 years old. So it gives you an extra year. Now, the other things it does is it follows the same phaseouts as the recovery rebate, as the stimulus check. So again, from a rebate perspective and from a child tax perspective, for married filing jointly, that $150,000-160,000 is critical. And finally, the one big thing that it does and that I want to go through the advanced payments really quick, but it’s now fully refundable. So non-refundable tax credits, Tim, basically what that would mean is let’s pretend at the end of day, you have a $10,000 tax bill. But then you have $10,000 of fully refundable, so that would basically, it would zero out your tax bill. If you had $12,000 of a refundable tax credit, you would actually get $2,000 back. But if you had $12,000 of a non-refundable tax credit, it would just zero it out. So for the IRS, the tax credits are the most generous in terms of credit versus deduction. But a fully refundable credit is even better because that actually sends money your way versus this is zeroing out your balance. So that’s really important.

Tim Ulbrich: Tim, I want to rewind and make sure I understood correctly — and correct me if I’m wrong. So they are looking at when we talk about the phaseouts, they’re looking at 2020 income in terms of AGI?

Tim Baker: It’s going to be whatever’s on file.

Tim Ulbrich: Whatever’s on file, OK.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so again, this is one of the things where you’re — if your 2020 income was higher than 2019, you know, especially if it’s within that threshold, if you’re filing your taxes and that disqualifies you, you want to make sure that you put a pin in that and not file. And that’s just a little bit of planning. Now, if it has gone down because of the pandemic and say you made $180,000 as a family and this year, you’re going to be making $145,000-150,000, then absolutely get that tax return filed and get the benefit of both the stimulus checks but also the child tax credit.

Tim Ulbrich: Gotcha. And if I understand correctly before we go onto the advanced payments and how these are going to be distributed or at least what we think they will be as of now, the phaseouts — so you mentioned that $200,000/$400,000 on the existing tax credit of $2,000. And then you mentioned the phaseouts of income here that also mirror what we saw in the stimulus payments. That is for the bonus amount, correct? So from what is going $2,000 to $3,000 or $2,000 to $3,6000?

Tim Baker: Yeah, that’s right. So you have the baseline amount that’s the what’s part of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. And then yeah, this would be the — it’s called the extra temporary benefit.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Tim Baker: So yeah, that’s right.

Tim Ulbrich: And so for those that are listening like I was when I read this, like my goodness, just tell me what the number is please. So there’s a good calculator I found on Kiplinger.com we’ll link to in the show notes where you can enter in AGI, kids that are under 6, kids that are above 6, and it will project out what that payment will be. But of course, again, I think working with somebody and thinking about some of the strategy side of this can be really helpful as well. So Tim, how will this be paid out? Talk to us about the advance payments of credit and ultimately at least what the IRS is thinking right now, although to be fair to the IRS, they’re also in the midst of tax season, of course we have an extension to that as well. So I think there’s going to be further guidance coming in this area. But what at this point are we expecting?

Tim Baker: Yes, this is kind of a nuanced with this particular part of the bill is that this is actually going to paid out almost like a stimulus check versus like a credit, which you typically don’t see with this type of legislation. So you’ll likely get half of the credit paid out on monthly checks beginning in July. And I think one of the — I might have said it was based on the ‘19, but it actually might be based on 2020 regardless because the payout is going to start in 2021, in the summer. So this might be where it is tacked on to the 2020 versus ‘19. But another example, your AGI is under the $150,000, you have a child under the age of 6, the credit, the total child tax credit would be $3,600. And you would get basically $300, so $300 per month or $1,800 basically between July and December. So the idea is they want to try to get more money into people’s hands and then the rest of that, the other $1,800 would be when you file your 2021 taxes. So now, if you look at the benefit, when you stack it up, in other years that $2,000 credit, which we would just get basically at tax time, it goes from $2,000 to $3,600 and then they divide up half of it is coming to you in check form between July and December and the other half at tax time. That’s the big thing. And again, this is going to be — to clarify from what I said before — this is going to be for 2020, your 2020 taxes, and then basically pay out the rest of the year and then the credit or the true-up would be in 2021 when you file your 2020 taxes. So clear as mud.

Tim Ulbrich: And as I understand it, there’s going to be a portal where folks can enter in information, update it, so somebody that says, “Hey, Tim and Tim, we’re having a baby in 2021 will we be able to update that information?” or if payments go out without updated information that then essentially there would be a true-up when they go to complete that 2021 return.

Tim Baker: That’s correct. Yeah, the idea is that at the end of it, you know, if you filed in subsequent years and you’re in the following year that what the IRS or what the government is trying to do is make sure that you get those dollars that you wouldn’t have otherwise because of yeah. So from a behavioral perspective, it’s going to be interesting because, again, before this was all just kind of figuring out on the wash at tax time, but now you’re actually going to see people starting to receive checks throughout the course of the year, which is, again, a little bit different than what we’re typically used to outside of these bills that come around the economy starts to tank.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think the other thing, Tim, here that’s interesting and certainly we’ll keep the audience up-to-date for folks that are watching this as well is nothing has been decided yet, but my understanding is there are some policymakers that are considering, you know, is this expanded credit something that should become permanent? And so you know, obviously that has implications beyond what we’re talking about here but could be significant to many folks in terms of what that means for their financial plan. So that’s the child tax credit, as you said, clear as mud. So the last piece we want to briefly touch on is unemployment compensation. So we obviously know some of the challenges you referenced early on, Tim, in terms of some of the job loss. We suspect that some listening in terms of their pharmacy positions may have or are currently facing a situation of unemployment or a spouse or significant other, so I think this is noteworthy. What do we see in the American Rescue Plan Act as it relates to the unemployment compensation?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so the good part about this is that it’s been extended. So one of the big headlines in and around before they signed this bill into law and they were going back and forth between the House and the Senate was that, hey, these unemployment benefits were expiring. So typically that’s the beauty of deadlines, right? So the pandemic unemployment assistance, these benefits were set to expire March 14. They’ve been extended until September 6. So if you fall under that bucket, you’ll have a few more months of relief. And then the other big thing that is important to note that is the federal pandemic emergency unemployment piece, this is the additional check amounts. So you have the state benefits, so the state will pay you, you know, $500 a week for unemployment. But then what the federal government did is they added another $300 per week. So this has also been extended, which is important because there’s some states that the way they calculate their unemployment, it’s tough to live off of or survive. So these are the big things. And then the other thing that happens, happened, is that the first $10,200 of unemployment is tax-free. So what this means is that for per person, so if I’m unemployed, the first $10,200 of unemployment compensation received in 2020 will be tax-free. So the AGI must be under $150,000 AGI. So that’s the number you keep seeing. And this is all filing statuses. So it doesn’t matter if you’re single or married filing jointly. And this is a true cliff. So if you make $150,001 and you had unemployment, that unemployment will be taxed. If it’s just under that, then that will be tax-free. So this is a true cliff, there’s no phaseout whatsoever. So again, if you, you know, did file for unemployment and you received compensation, this will be another thing to take a look at to make sure that you’re under that because that could thousands of dollars in terms of your tax liability.

Tim Ulbrich: Tim, the last piece I wanted to ask you about, it certainly did not make as much of a splash in the news as did the stimulus components, the tax credits, or the unemployment compensation, but there was some news that came out related to a loan forgiveness that I suspect some of our listeners are trying to figure out does this mean, if anything, for my own personal loan situation? So specifically related to what we often talk about, Non-Public Service Loan Forgiveness and the tax-free component, tell us about the change here as it relates to loan forgiveness and what we saw in the American Rescue Plan Act.

Tim Baker: Yeah, you know, the big question that a lot of people were saying is like, what’s the loan forgiveness in the bill? And there really wasn’t much in there. And I think a lot of people think that this could be potentially a precursor to what President Biden wants to do in his tax bill. But the big thing that did come out is that it does include a discharge of student debt as taxable income for both federal and private loans. But this debt discharge has to occur between the years 2021 and 2025. So as most people know with PSLF, you know, if I am in that program and I do my 120 payments over 10 years and I have $60,000 that’s forgiven, because of that program, that $60,000 is not viewed as taxable income. But if I’m in a non-PSLF forgiveness option and I do that for 20 or 25 years, that’s $60,000 is then reported as taxable income in the year of forgiveness. So if I make $100,000 and that year I get $60,000 forgiven, it’s as if I earned $160,000 that year. So this is one of the things that they added. Now, for a lot of the non-PSLF forgiveness strategies, some of these won’t even become due until like later in this decade. So it doesn’t really move the needle much.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: I think what this is really trying to address are you get excited or I’ll get excited sometimes when I see like oh, there was student debt forgiven. But it was a lot of these like for-profit schools that kind of misled borrowers and things — I think it’s really trying to address those people that have been forgiven, which are very, very small percentage of people out there that through legislation that they’ve been forgiven and they’re not going to be taxed as if they received that income. So very, very, very minimal in terms of what came out from the student loan borrower. Now President Biden has indicated a willingness to kind of do something here with student loans. I’ve had people that I’ve talked to, prospective clients who are saying, “Hey, I’m trying to figure out what he’s going to do.” I think what President Biden wants to do is have some type of bipartisan legislation and not use the executive order. I know Democrats are calling anywhere from they want $30,000-50,000 — I mean, you have some that are saying the whole, all of it. But typically more moderate Democrats are saying $30,000-50,000. President Biden I think has expressed a willingness to potentially the executive order to do $10,000 per borrower. But who knows, Tim?

Tim Ulbrich: You don’t have a direct line to Biden? I mean, what’s the problem?

Tim Baker: I don’t. I mean, he is an Eagles fan, as I am being from Delaware originally. So we’ve got that going. But nope, I don’t have the direct line to Biden, unfortunately.

Tim Ulbrich: So am I understanding this correctly, Tim, that this is in part potentially setting up tax-free forgiveness if something were to move in that area? So if this window of time, 2021 up through end of 2025, so let’s fast forward six months, 12 months, 18 months, whatever, whether it’s legislatively or through executive order, there’s some forgiveness that is granted, let’s just say for sake of conversation it’s a $10,000 forgiveness as an executive order. This is in part setting it up that that $10,000 would then be tax-free forgiveness?

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think that’s what they’re doing. Again, a lot of what’s in this bill I think is planting seeds for what could potentially come in the Biden tax bill, which could be very much a needle move or so. I think so. I mean, I think that a lot of people, a lot of borrowers are really — they come to me and they say like, “Tim, I don’t want to look at the forgiveness option because I don’t trust it, blah, blah blah.” And I get that. But again, especially when you look at the PSLF and you look at the math, it’s really hard to look at the numbers and say, “Yeah, let’s not at least consider that.” The reason I’m bringing this up is that I think because of all the rhetoric around student loans and how it can be suffocating to someone — we’ve talked about studies that people get married later, buying houses later, starting their families later, all of those things. I think it could potentially be breadcrumbs potentially to look at a forgiveness that’s similar to PSLF, even for working in the private sector but not necessarily the same timeline but the same tax, where it is tax-free. Or not. It could be — I could be completely off the mark there. I guess what I’m saying is that I think that the student loan, like the borrower, where we’re at today, it’ll be more generous to them in the future, not less. So a lot of people are saying like, “Oh, well PSLF could go away.” And I’m like, “It could, but I don’t think so.” Like if I’m looking at that, I’m thinking as a borrower, it’ll be more generous because I think it’s just something that the screams are going to get louder and louder, you know, in terms of like, hey, this is a — this system is not working where the price of schools are and things like that, it’s not working so we need to have some forgiveness. I mean, you look at $1.9 trillion, you know, that would do a whole lot in the student loan department because I think it’s — what, $1.6-1.7 now.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, pretty close. Yeah, great stuff. And I think we have covered a lot, Tim. And I think for our visual learners that are saying, hey, that’s great information but I need to see some of the numbers for myself, read through this, understand it in a little bit more detail, we’re going to link in the show notes to the treasury.gov information. We’ll also link to the Kiplinger calculator that I mentioned earlier when we discussed the child tax credits. And our hope is that you’ll be able to understand and apply that information to your personal situation and of course, we’re here and ready to work with you for those that are looking for a financial planner to be in their corner as well as to have a tax professional working alongside of them. So before we sign off for the day, I want to invite you again to a free webinar that we’re going to be doing on April 14 at 8:30 EST where we’re going to be talking about student loan strategies for 2021. So as we’ve discussed here briefly, we all know that administrative forbearance is set to expire at the end of September 2021, really making now the perfect time to determine the best way to tackle your student loans. So during this webinar, I’m going to share how to decide whether you should be paying on your federal student loans during the administrative forbearance, how to evaluate the loan repayment strategies that are out there, and what steps you need to take to pick the best repayment plan for your personal situation.

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YFP 197: How to Leverage What You Know as a Pharmacist to Start Your Own Consulting Business

Posted on by yfpadmin

How to Leverage What You Know as a Pharmacist to Start Your Own Consulting Business

On this episode, Blair Thielemier, the creator of the Pharmapreneur Academy and the Elevate Pharmacy Summit, joins Tim Ulbrich to talk about ideas and strategies for how to monetize your clinical expertise, including where to start, how to know if you have a good idea and common barriers that pharmacists often have to face and overcome. Blair and Tim also discuss the upcoming Elevate Pharmacy Summit, where you can learn about building revenue with clinical service contracts so that you can help more patients while generating income along the way.

About Today’s Guest

Blair Thielemier, PharmD, is an MTM and business management consultant pharmacist specializing in pharmacy billing models. She consults on and produces e-learning programs for state and national organizations, pharmacy wholesalers, payers, technology start-ups. She has books and online courses available for individuals looking to leverage their pharmacy knowledge into monetized clinical programs at PharmapreneurAcademy.com She speaks internationally about trends in leveraging pharmacists to improve value-based care.

Blair is passionate about the advancement of the profession of pharmacy and believes the shift to a value-based healthcare model is an opportunity for pharmacy to play a bigger role in the system. She believes this shift will change the face of our profession drastically in the next 20 years and wants to help her colleagues prepare and adapt to those changes.

In 2015, she founded a pharmacy consulting business BT Pharmacy Consulting, LLC and currently helps train and coach other pharmacists looking to start their own consulting businesses through an online e-course and membership site at the PharmapreneurAcademy.com. Part of that business includes presenting at pharmacy conferences and pioneering the use of educational online courses for pharmacists interested in providing enhanced clinical services, such as immunizations, point of care testing, chronic care and transitional care management programs.

In April 2017, she launched the first online pharmacy conference in the industry. The Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit featured pharmacists of various backgrounds practicing pharmacy at the peak of the profession. There were over 1,800 pharmacists from across the globe who attended the free event.

In April 2020, the 4th annual Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit reached thousands of pharmacists across the globe helping them to identify and act on innovative opportunities. The five-day conference presented by the Pharmapreneur Academy has been leading the way in virtual education and events in the pharmacy industry for the past 4 years.

Blair’s interests include advocating for community pharmacy services that help providers in primary care and post-acute care improve quality measures and patient outcomes. She is dedicated to putting out helpful information about pharmacist billing options and the benefits of pharmacy consulting services.

In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and children, gardening and raising animals on their small farm and traveling abroad. She also enjoys reading personal development books, listening to business podcasts, studying meditation and human potential and learning about investing and personal finance.

Summary

Pharmacist and entrepreneur, Blair Thielemier, joins Tim Ulbrich on this episode to discuss how to leverage your skills as a pharmacist to start your own consulting business or side hustle. Blair touches on common barriers and hurdles to success in the mindset of the entrepreneur and ways to overcome self-limiting beliefs when it comes to your business. Pharmacists have such an impressive breadth of knowledge that can be applied widely. With some soft skills training, sales education, and business basics, that you just can’t get in pharmacy school, you can develop the mindset of an entrepreneur. This mindset shift means thinking about and actively asking about your clients’ and patients’ needs, anticipating those needs, and providing solutions to meet those needs and provide value. Consultation can be monetized in many ways, personalized to the pharmapreneur’s ideas, and applied through various methods whether consulting in an office, in a pharmacy-based setting, entirely independently or virtually.

Through her personal experiences, Blair discovered that she could use and monetize her own pharmacy skills and knowledge of the body to the cellular level, in countless ways to help others, ultimately leading to the creation of the Pharmapreneur Academy, her consulting business, and the creation of the Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit. The Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit aims to teach pharmacist entrepreneurs the skills necessary for building successful businesses and consulting programs, including methods for increasing revenue, relationship building, and a system for success.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Blair, welcome back to the show.

Blair Thielemier: Thank you so much for having me again.

Tim Ulbrich: Excited. This is, for the record, your fourth time on the YFP podcast. So we’re excited to have you back. Last time we had you on was Episode 117, all the way back in September 2019 where we talked about three bold predictions for the future of pharmacy. And I want to put you on the spot here for a moment. So we had talked about predictions you had around automation continuing to happen and evolve in community pharmacy practice, the shift that you thought would be happening to appointment-based models, and the third thing that you talked about was the continued shift in focus on pharmacists being embedded in primary care practices. So since September 2019, we obviously have had all that a pandemic has thrown at us, which I feel like for many pharmacists, we’ve been focusing on vaccine distribution, serving our patients the best that we can. What have you seen in your space, your world, in terms of these predictions and where we’re at in 2021?

Blair Thielemier: Yeah, I mean, those predictions, you know, that we were going to be shifting at least diversifying our revenue streams away from just a product-focused business model to now include services, I also kind of saw this opportunity for pharmacists to step in and have an impact on preventive and community population health. So yeah, the COVID pandemic really was a catalyst, I think, in a good way for clinical services led by pharmacists. And it’s something that I’m going to continue to talk about and beat this dead horse that pharmacists need provider status. But we can also do more and help our patients, even right now when we don’t have provider status. So you know, two of those predictions I’m still not reversing my stance on either one of those. And the third one, for us to start becoming embedded in physicians’ offices, especially when we start looking at quality metrics and some of the pay-for-performance models that CMS is really, really focusing in on, there’s going to be a huge opportunity for clinically-trained pharmacists in the future.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And we’ve seen — shoutout to my Ohio colleagues here have done an awesome job advocating on our behalf. We’ve seen some exciting evolutions here in Ohio with value-based contracts, embedding pharmacists, obviously the evolution of telehealth that’s happening. We’ve still got some work to do on the reimbursement side of that as well, but I think there’s exciting times ahead. And one of the things I often think about, if you think about telehealth as one example of if we could now move a model where you might have depended on a pharmacist being embedded in a clinic to be able to be accessible from a population health standpoint to serve multiple clinics and perhaps those are the highest risk or could improve those metrics to the greatest degree, wow. I mean, talk about really trying to leverage the pharmacist’s expertise. So 2019, we talked about some of that. It’s been exciting to see the movement and certainly more on the horizon. And today, we’re going to talk about ideas and strategies for how folks can perhaps think about some of their clinical expertise, their experiences, how might they turn some of that into a business or a side hustle? How might they monetize some of that? How might they think like an entrepreneur? Or what are some of the barriers, obstacles, case studies, things that you’ve seen from your experience? And so before we get into that conversation, remind our listeners who may not have caught one of the three previous episodes, a little bit about your background since graduating from pharmacy school, and the work that you’re currently doing with the Pharmapreneur Academy.

Blair Thielemier: Yeah, so after I graduated pharmacy school, long story short, went from being a clinical hospital pharmacist to having no job whatsoever. So you know, it was a rough time. I was six months pregnant with my first child. We now have three. And it was a small, rural hospital, declining reimbursements, just couldn’t afford to keep two full-time pharmacists on staff. And so I was really left out in the cold, kind of being six months pregnant and trying to figure it out. So what I did, fell back on my community pharmacy roots, and I went to a couple local independents and just offered my help. And they were like, ‘Well, we have this new clinical thing called an MTM and none of us know how to do it. We were kind of hoping that you might want to do it for us.’ And I did, I went through the first couple cases and worked with those patients and absolutely fell in love with clinical services and I thought, this is my purpose in life. I mean, I don’t mean to sound dramatic. But that was really the feeling that I had was like, this is my future. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. But this is the path I have to follow. So I really just tried to make myself as knowledgeable as possible on these clinical pharmacy services. And in doing so, I was talking about it on my blog and eventually ended up creating a training course in the Pharmapreneur Academy. And you know, now we work with pharmacists and independent pharmacy owner clients that just like you mentioned at the beginning, you want to work with a collaborative provider doing remote telehealth services for maybe three or four providers in your area and seeing 50-100 patients per provider? That’s a full-time position. You know, that’s creating new jobs for pharmacists and being able to really think outside the box and understand some of the nuances of the quality payment programs and pay-for-performance stuff. It really allows pharmacists to what I call think like an entrepreneur, which is to see these gaps in the marketplace and also see opportunities in the marketplace so that we can leverage those skills in new ways to impact our community’s health and also the health of people across the U.S. because with telehealth, I mean, I don’t see that going away.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Blair Thielemier: Anytime soon either.

Tim Ulbrich: And so you’ve made this transition obviously from a clinical pharmacist and the role that you had to now really what I see of educating, training, coaching, motivating various pharmacists, which is really interesting, I think is inspiring when you think about impact. And we’ll talk about the business side of it here in a moment. When you think about impact, when you’re able to help people take an idea and help frame, shape that idea, perhaps help them overcome some of the obstacles or barriers that may seem overwhelming to them in the moment and then think about seeing that service develop and hopefully thrive at some point and the impact that that will have on patients, obviously that’s far greater than the impact that you could have had alone. And I see so much of that happening, what you’re doing at the Pharmapreneur Academy. One question I have for you as you think back to your journey, would you have ended up here today doing what you’re doing if it weren’t for that job loss? And I ask that because I feel like when you talk with folks that I think have that entrepreneurial slant, itch, bug, whatever you want to call it, like it comes out eventually, right? I mean, it’s going to come out. You’re either going to get frustrated with the situation you’re in, see an opportunity, see a problem that can be solved. So as you reflect back on the journey, how critical was that situation, that moment, as difficult as it was to where you are today?

Blair Thielemier: I don’t actually know if I’ve ever told you this story, Tim. After I was working as an MTM consultant, like just kind of doing PRN for these local independents, it was probably my daughter was about 6 months old at the time and there became a director of pharmacy position come open at the local regional hospital one county over. So not the place I had been let go from but one county over. And I went there, and I applied for the job, and I got the job, of course. They offered me the job. And after the interview, they were walking me around the pharmacy, they were introducing me to the team, they were showing me my very own computer and all this stuff, and I actually that day was probably worse than the day that I lost my job the first time because I felt like there were like these two paths laid out ahead of me. And one was like the I know what that career path is going to lead to. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. There was more responsibility as the director but also I had what I thought was a pretty secure position at the other hospital. And you know, I just, I thought, how many more years am I going to do this before I finally go after what I really want, which is to own my own business and have the freedom and flexibility and autonomy to work the way that I want? And so I went home that evening and told my husband, I’m like, ‘Well, I got the job. Bad news is I’m not going to take it.’

Tim Ulbrich: But…

Blair Thielemier: Yeah. I got it, and I’m not going to take it. It was kind of one of those moments where my parents were concerned about me, you just spent a ton of money going to school, getting your pharmacist license, and you’re already like I’m going to try this other thing. But I really, I just at that time, I just felt like there wasn’t another option for me. It was really like, if you don’t try this, Blair, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. And that was the big turning point for me is like, you can still work your job while you’re trying to build up your side hustle. But there comes a point too to where you really have to decide, am I going to focus on this? Or am I going to focus on this? And that was the point to like just get that started. I think it was — I was originally pushed off that traditional path by when I lost my job. And then I actually chose the other path whenever I decided not to take the director position. So every day, I’m still choosing to show up at the Academy for my clients and to continue to really help them help their patients. That’s what I want to grow. And that’s the impact that I want to have is helping pharmacists leverage the stuff that they’re really good at that I can just support them with some of the business and marketing skills that we didn’t learn in school.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And let’s go there and discuss that further as I suspect many folks will be listening and saying, “Hey, I’ve got this really cool area of expertise,” or perhaps I have this idea, and I just don’t know exactly what I could do with it. And you know what, I was trained to be a darn good clinical pharmacist. But I don’t know about marketing, developing business plans, and financing my business. And oh, by the way, this is really scary to think about. Maybe I have a young family or I’ve got a stable income. We talk about it sometimes, the golden handcuffs, right, in terms of being able to — or I have $175,000-200,000 of student loan debt that might be getting in the way of what I’m doing, which obviously connects through the work that we do. So someone that has an idea or even knows that they’ve got something that is worthwhile sharing with others, having an impact in the work that they’re doing, where do they start? You know, I think this is the common thing I hear is, I don’t know where to start. And that fear can often come to be quickly where you can convince yourself that I either have to leave what I’m doing altogether to pursue this or I can’t pursue this because I have limited time and I’m working on this full-time, and sometimes we don’t get past the start line, right, to even see what might be potential going forward. So as you coach folks in the Pharmapreneur Academy, I would assume from all walks of where their idea is at from maybe I don’t have one but I know I want to do something to I’ve got something to I’ve validated it to I’m trying to scale it and everything in between, like what advice would you have for folks that are hearing this and thinking, I just don’t know where to start.

Blair Thielemier: You know, we really have a process. Like it’s a step-by-step framework that we — I encourage people to kind of put their blinders on. So think about what you want, think about the program that you want to build, put your blinders on, work towards that, and then test it. If it doesn’t seem to be something that the market is interested in, it’s OK to pivot too. So I think we get so attached to our ideas, when we have one, you know, usually people are like, “I have zero ideas of what I can do as an entrepreneur,” or “I have 50 ideas about what I can do as an entrepreneur.” So both of them I really tell them the same thing, like baby step No. 1: Look at your career and look at your past experience, look at your network, because what you have to offer is very individual. Your past experiences, maybe you know, you’re like me and my undergrad degree, I was studying plant biology because I’ve always been a little bit of a crunchy plant nerd. And I was like, maybe when I go to pharmacy school, I want to go to the Amazon and research novel drug development. And now, like I’m finally kind of seeing this come full circle as I’m getting my Master’s in Ayurvedic medicine. I almost forgot that about myself. Like I forgot that I was really into plants and herbal and like even growing a garden and nutrition. I had kind of forgot that about myself. So we’ve got some places where people can revisit some exercises that they can do to figure out if they don’t have an idea what their idea could be, if they have too many ideas how to scale down and start with just one thing. So that’s what we call our three pharmapreneurial paths, which is essentially are you going to be a consultant in a physician’s office? Are you going to be a consultant in a pharmacy-based setting? Or are you going to try to do kind of completely separate, on-your-own, like a virtual cash-based kind of business? So being able to really hone in, figure out which of those paths I want to take really makes figuring out your offer, so we talk about deciding on your offer, we’re going to talk more on this year’s Elevate Summit about how to scale your business from $1,000-5,000 per month in revenue to upwards of $25,000 per month in revenue using these techniques and things that I have learned throughout the past seven years in the online business industry and figuring out how to apply those things to pharmacy. And the other thing I really work with people a lot on when I coach them is helping them to identify their limiting beliefs. So you know, I know, Tim, you’re a big self-development person. And this idea of the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset, one of the things that I really see people in this static or fixed mindset deal with is imposter syndrome. And they, they might say, “Oh, well I’m not a clinical guru,” or, “I’m just a retail pharmacist.” I hate hearing that. I’m like, you’re not just a retail pharmacist —

Tim Ulbrich: With just a doctorate degree, yeah.

Blair Thielemier: You just have, you know, this amazing breadth of knowledge underneath your belt. You’re trained unlike any other healthcare professional on Earth. I mean, ask a doctor some questions about pharmacokinetics and see what happens. Like your training is so unique. Our knowledge of biochemistry and physiology, down to the cellular level, is what I think really makes for an interesting recipe for a pharmacist to be able to take influence from all these different seemingly unconnected areas of health and even looking into stuff like Ayurvedic medicine and meditation, how that has an impact on our mental health, on chronic stress, on our gut health, like all of these things really play together with the pharmacological interventions, the modern medicine can bless us with.

Tim Ulbrich: And so you mentioned one, Blair, which I would agree with, you know, some of the self-limiting beliefs, imposter syndrome, being a hurdle that folks may have to overcome and doubting whether or not they can do something, perhaps making the mistake of looking at others and you know, making assumptions that may not be true about what others are doing or looking at others and saying, “I’m not sure I can do that,” when in fact those folks may have been doing that for 5, 6, 7 years and they obviously had a place they started, which takes me to the question, like what are other hurdles that you see folks having to overcome? Common barriers of folks that are coming to you in the Academy that are just trying to get started, whether they don’t yet have an idea or they do have an idea, common hurdles that folks need to overcome or work through as they develop this business idea further.

Blair Thielemier: Yeah, so a lot of people come to me and say, “Hey, how do I get a job as an MTM consultant?” I’m like, “Well, it’s not really a position you can apply for, unfortunately, at this time, anyway.” And what I think that maybe we aren’t taught in school is how to talk with someone, how to have like a sales conversation or a collaborative business arrangement with someone. So really, like I kind of teach them — I feel like I’m teaching them the language of business to where they can feel comfortable going out and not feeling like, oh, I’m just going to hand somebody my business card and wait for a call because I don’t want to be pushy or sales-y or whatever. So what I teach them really has to do with building up your selling skills, building up confidence in what you’re talking about. The having conversations with people that don’t feel sleazy or sales-y, we have the four A’s of selling, which what I call first, you start with Asking what challenges they’re dealing with. What have they tried in the past? If you’re talking to a physician maybe like what quality metrics are you reporting on? Or what are some of your biggest medication issues with patients? So asking that question is the first A. The second would be Assessing. What are some things that I’ve heard? I’ve heard Blair talk about chronic care management, I’ve heard other pharmacists talk about pharmacogenomic testing or whatever. So assessing what type of program could I put together that can be customized to this person that can really help them? Because it’s not necessarily what I want to do. Like maybe I went in there thinking, oh, I really, I kind of want to do annual wellness visits for this place, but come to find they’ve already got somebody doing annual wellness visits and they’re happy with that service. But they don’t have somebody doing chronic care management. So you know, you go in with this like kind of a loose plan but then leave it open for —

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right.

Blair Thielemier: Leave it open for changes and pivots. And so being able to assess what their needs are and agreeing on this could be a good thing, would you want me in the office? Or would you want me in my own office? And would you want to do a collaborative practice agreement? Or should we just work under a collaborative business arrangement? And finally, the final piece of that is Accepting, accepting of the program, accepting of you as an employee, signing off on that legal agreement, and really just kind of going through the pilot and implementation phase of any type of new business relationship is going to go through that kind of four-step process. So when people go in and say, “Well, I talked to my physician’s office about it and I handed them a flier and told them that I was available for hire, but I never heard back from them,” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s not really the way I would have tried to get my foot in the door. And here’s what I would recommend to you to do. Go back and have that conversation with them because they may not even understand who you are or why you’re trying to help them or what it is you do. So first things first, just build a relationship and talk to them like they are a person and that you are a person, and you just are looking to see if there’s any opportunities to work together.”

Tim Ulbrich: In that last example you gave is such a good one because I think sales and accepting some of the success and challenge that can come from that is something probably many pharmacists struggle with. And this is an area where I see the community and the network being so valuable inside of the Academy because I know firsthand, this is an area where one of the coaches that I’ve worked with before calls this “head trash.” Right? There’s things that, you know, are barriers that we come to believe are going to happen or the example you gave of I dropped off a flier, I let them know I’m available, reach out to me if you want to, that is not sales. Right? That is a “I want to feel comfortable walking out of this scenario without putting risk for it that I might get a no.” And I think in that example, I would encourage folks to reflect on like, why is that the approach? Because at the end of the day, remember, we’re talking about if you have a business idea, you have a problem that needs to be solved. And if you believe so wholeheartedly in that vision, then the outcome needs to be — if I have a solution to a problem, then I need to make sure we get to that solution because I know I’m going to better serve that physician, better serve the patients that that physician also cares for, and so my primary goal in sales is to be able to further that mission. And in that mindset, which gets back to some of the growth mindset, is a totally different perspective when somebody is thinking about a sales process. But if you’re trying to go about this on an island — and I think this is where an academy and a group can be so helpful, you know, you can talk these things out loud, talk to folks that have different levels of experience, and start to learn through one another and also reflect on those conversations and get some feedback as well. One thing you mentioned, Blair, earlier was think like an entrepreneur. And I know many pharmacists that I’ve talked with, you know, when they may think, hey, I’m a really good clinician, but I don’t consider myself an entrepreneur. And that can feel overwhelming. I think sometimes we glorify the image on an entrepreneur, tech startup, big offerings of companies and so forth, and we often don’t think of what may be realistic in terms of the work that we’re doing. What do you mean by that concept of thinking like an entrepreneur? Break that down a little bit further.

Blair Thielemier: Yeah, so I really think that pharmacy’s origins started with people like my great-grandfather, who owned his own pharmacy in the Chicagoland area in the early ‘40s. And it was that kind of person-to-person service, it was the idea that like if I don’t make an offer to help this person, they may not be able to get the solution to their problems. They may not even know that this option exists for them. So even giving like just a very simple answer, so one of my friends, she was doing like a intermittent fasting, keto-type diet, and so she was mentioning having some issues with muscle aches. And I was like, “Oh, well make sure that you’re drinking a ton of water if you’re going to do one of those diets because you’re losing water. You’re also losing a lot of electrolytes, so you need a really high-quality vitamin supplement.” And you know, she was like, “Oh, I never even considered that if I was going to change my diet that I needed to think about supplementation.” And she was like, “Oh, but I can’t take those big horse pill vitamins.” And I’m like, “Well, they make gummy vitamins. And they make liquid,” like there’s so many options that you can do. But because she had never really thought to ask me about it, I never even thought to talk about the different ways that you could — we haven’t even gotten to compounded medications to where you could really help someone if they do have those types of issues. So even thinking about just basic pharmacy services from an entrepreneurial standpoint, you’re thinking about, OK, well what time of the year is it? What are people needing? What are my patients experiencing right now? It’s hayfever season. We’re going into spring and thinking through like, what are these people’s needs right now? And right now, they’re needing some COVID vaccines, for one. They’re probably also needing some Claritin. So being able to think like that and see the opportunities in the market, the gaps in the market, to have conversations and talk to people about their pain points. You know, Elon Musk didn’t wait for people to come say, “Hey, I really need an electric car.” He was like, this is what the country needs, like even if consumers aren’t screaming that they want an electric car, I’m going to create something because I see this opportunity, and I see it as impacting the highest good. So we’re going to make it, and we’re going to make sure it fits people’s needs and their pain point and also let them feel good about the investment that they’re making in their next vehicle. So same thing, you know, I think when we talk about investing in people’s health, so many pharmacists are like, “Oh, I would feel bad if I charged my patients for a consult on their nutritional supplements or a functional medicine consult or whatever.” I’m like, “Yeah, but people need to have some type of investment in the program or else they’re not going to take your advice.”

Tim Ulbrich: Yep. And value it —

Blair Thielemier: And value it.

Tim Ulbrich: — as such, right? I mean, I think that’s partly why we’re having some of the challenges that we have in the profession that we’ve largely given away what we have for free. Obviously that’s an overgeneralization in some regards. But I think the comfort may not be there of back to where we started the conversation, you know, any good business idea is a problem that warrants a solution, is one that you’re passionate about, and is one that people are willing to pay for. And if you can find that idea of what you’re providing value and providing a solution to a problem and you can obviously generate revenue from it, if that’s deriving value to an individual, it’s OK for them to pay for that, right? And it’s OK for that to be profitable because there’s a willing investment that’s being made as they see the return on the investment. And if we think about how we invest as a consumer, you know, I think that helps reshape our mind of, I invest in a lot of things that may not be a physical product, per se, but I believe has a lot of value and I’m willing to invest both time and money to invest in that solution that is going to provide some of that value. And I think this is a good transition, Blair, to an upcoming summit that you are hosting again, the Elevate Pharmacy Summit, which I’m excited about, April 9 and 10, and as folks are hearing this, thinking about OK, strategies that I might consider to monetize clinical expertise or I’ve got an idea and I want to think about how I might begin to flesh that idea out further or maybe I’ve started something, and you talked about kind of that growth phase from let’s say $1,000 in revenue per month to $5,000, whatever that growth would look like. And I know that some of what you’re going to be discussing on the summit. So tell us about the Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit, who it’s for, what folks can expect, and the theme of what you’re trying to accomplish in the summit this year, April 9 and 10.

Blair Thielemier: Yeah, so this year’s summit, we’ll be teaching our entire system over the course of two days. So it’s two days of live trainings, of live presentations that will help you really decide on the services and programs you want to offer. So like you just said, thinking about the solution that you could offer someone, how to put a value on that. So one example is a client that I’ve worked with. She had some issues with fertility and changed up her diet and nutritional supplement regimen and kind of fixed some of those issues with her microbiome and gut health and was able to conceive. And she, because of that experience she had, she really felt called to create a group program for other females that were of childbearing age who were looking to conceive. And you know, she was asking me about pricing and I’m like, “Well, if you help someone who couldn’t have a baby have a baby, what type of return on investment, you know, like what –”

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Blair Thielemier: Can you imagine how much more enriching that person’s life would be? And there is value in what we can offer. And there is value in our solutions. So you know, she was able to really think about the impact that she wanted to have. And so I really have worked with hundreds of pharmacists to overcome some of these issues from absolutely no idea of what they want to do to OK, now I’m generating $5,000 in revenue each month, you know, I’m thinking about leaving my full-time position, I’m thinking about hiring someone else to help me, you know, scaling to that $25,000 to $50,000 to $100,000 per month in revenue and how that works for someone using some of the processes that I’ve built in to my own business. So some of the automation and some of the marketing and lead gen and social media strategies. That’s exactly why we created the Elevate Pharmacy live this year is so that we can teach those. It’s going to be also a very small-knit group. So there’s only 300 tickets available in our Zoom room so that we can take Q&A, so we’re actually working with them. It’s really a two-day workshop that we’re going to be teaching and talking about and then of course, Tim, you’re going to come on and talk about like kind of your book publishing empire and how you’ve been able to impact so many pharmacists and helping them improve their financial health and then also what to do with it when you do get to that, you know, $25,000, $50,000 to $100,000 in revenue per month. Like that’s a fun conversation to have with the Tims is like, what do I do with all this money? That’s a great place to be. And you can really start thinking about how to have the impact you want and how to structure your services so that you can — if you do choose to leave your job, you can have this as a full-time position and it’s something you can grow and really build out. So that’s pretty much what we’ll be teaching on those two days. It’s our system from taking you to low five-figure revenue to six- and seven-figure revenue as a pharmacist.

Tim Ulbrich: I’m really excited for the event, not only participating as a speaker, as you mentioned, but also that this is available to pharmacists. When you and I talked a couple weeks ago, I was going through the list as you’re talking about marketing, lead gen, social strategy, building processes, I was like, yep, fumbled through that, fumbled through that, fumbled through that.

Blair Thielemier: Me too, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: And every one of those was an incredible learning experience but, you know, to have other examples and I certainly read lots of books and resources and blogs and podcasts and all those things, which were incredibly helpful to see things outside of the industry as well. But to hear from folks that I can connect with and to begin to develop a community that I can connect with, I certainly know the value of that. So looking forward to the Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit, April 9 and 10 coming up. You can learn more about the summit and register and join me at PharmapreneurAcademy.com/YFP. Again, that’s PharmapreneurAcademy.com/YFP. Blair, thank you so much for joining. Appreciate the time, as always. Appreciate the work that you’re doing to better the profession as well as those that have some of these ideas and entrepreneurial dreams. And excited about what this means for them individually but also for the patients that they serve. So thank you very much.

Blair Thielemier: Absolutely. And thank you for having me, and thank you for the work that you’re doing as well, helping pharmacists create this firm financial foundation so that they can really build something amazing on top of it.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. Thank you, Blair.

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