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YFP 090: Key Tips For Refinancing Your Student Loans in 2019

Posted on March 7, 2019November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Key Tips For Refinancing Your Student Loans in 2019

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, Tim Ulbrich is joined by Tim Church, YFP refinance expert and student loan ninja. In addition to a quick recap of the process of refinancing your student loans, the benefits of refinancing, how to calculate your savings and what to look for in a refinance offer, Tim and Tim give you an update on a new refinance offer available that may save you big.

Summary

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich asks Tim Church about how to refinance student loans, the benefits of refinancing, how to calculate savings on refinancing your student loans and what to look for when analyzing which refinance company to choose.

Refinancing may not be the best option for everyone with student loan debt. First, you have to decide if you are going to pursue student loan forgiveness or not. If you are going to pursue PSLF or if there is a chance you could, then do not refinance as it will make you ineligible for forgiveness. Additionally, mathematically, refinancing may not make sense for some people, especially if they are needing an income driven repayment plan due to having unstable income or upcoming changes in income.

The main reason to refinance is to get a lower interest rate. On average, graduate or unsubsidized student loans have an interest rate of 6-8%. If you refinance with a lower rate, you have the potential to save thousands. When you refinance, it is possible to get out of debt faster as you may be able to pay more money toward your principal balance regardless of how long your term is.

Other benefits of refinancing student loans are that you can potentially remove a cosigner from a loan, lock in a fixed rate, and potentially receive a cash bonus. Refinance companies make money from the interest you pay on your loans. Your Financial Pharmacist has worked with several reputable loan companies to offer cash bonuses when refinancing with their companies.

Tim Church discusses the newest refinance company partner, First Republic. They are only in select cities, however, can offer (at the time of recording) 1.95% fixed interest rate for a 5 year term and up to 3.95% fixed interest rate for a 15 year term. There are several other requirements that need to be met to be able to refinance with First Republic, however, doing so could save you lots of money over the course of your loan.

If you have any questions regarding student loan refinancing, email the YFP team at [email protected] .

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to Episode 090 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Excited to be back on the mic alongside Tim Church. Tim, how you doing? It’s been awhile.

Tim Church: Yeah. Hey, Tim. I’m glad to be back on and just cool to be closer to that 100 mark.

Tim Ulbrich: So awesome. I was reflecting on that today, Episode 090, we’re 10 away. We’ve got some exciting things planned for Episode 100. And just so you know, Tim Church, while I am freezing here in almost sub-zero temperatures up in Columbus, Ohio, I happened to pull up my weather app today. And I still have Palm Beach Gardens on my phone from last time I visited, and it said it was about 80 degrees when you walked out of work today. So how’s that feel while we’re suffering in 0-degree temperatures?

Tim Church: It feels great. But I’m not looking forward to coming to Columbus in April.

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, hopefully by then, we’ll have turned a corner. So we’ll see what happens. Well, excited to have you on. I certainly, as I alluded to in the intro, you are our student loan expert. And when it comes to refi, you’ve had so much experience in this area, so I want to pick your brain a little bit. We’ll revisit some of what we talked about in episodes 029 and 030 around refinance. So certainly go back and listen to those episodes as well. But things have changed, there’s new offers that are out there. And so we want to make sure we’re revisiting this topic, probably one of the most common questions that we get is around this topic of refinance. Tim, before we jump in though, I want to say side hustle series, the work you’ve been doing with that, I have really been enjoying the episodes that you’ve been recording. So great work with that, looking forward to more of those coming in the future. Alright, here we go. Student loans, always a hot topic. As I mentioned, one of the most common questions we’re getting. Refinance. Should I do it? How should I do it? What companies should be used? So Tim, before we jump into some of these specific questions, let’s discuss specifically who should not be considering a refinance. So walk us through that component of who should not be refinancing.

Tim Church: Definitely. Well, I’ll be the first one to say that I made this huge mistake back a number of years ago. But I think the way that companies are marketing themselves and getting people to want to refinance that you have to really take a step back, and it’s not the best option for everybody. I mean, mathematically, it doesn’t make sense, even if you’re somebody that really wants to get rid of your loans as fast as possible, it may not actually be the best way or the best approach how to do it. So I think the biggest group, where refinancing is completely off the table is that if you’re pursuing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program or you think you could be or that’s still in the running because if you’ve got typical student loans that pharmacists are facing, you know, $160,000 or more, then mathematically, PSLF is always going to win out just because of some of the strategies you can do to optimize it where you can simultaneously save in your 401k and other retirement vehicles while lowering those student loan payments and then not having to worry about a tax bill. So I think that’s really the biggest group where you’re just going to shut down from refinancing because once you do that, you’re going to make yourself ineligible. I think there’s some other groups too where you have to really look at this before you pull the trigger. And that’s really individuals who need an income-driven repayment plan. And there’s a number of different reasons why that may be. Now, one is obviously for PSLF, but it could be if you’re having an unstable income or you anticipate you’re going to have a change in your income and you really need to make sure that you’re able to cover at least that monthly bill. And you may not be ready to make whatever that payment is when you refinance, whatever that term may be. So I think those are some of the key ones that you really want to look out for.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think, Tim, just to elaborate a little bit on your PSLF comments, which I think are spot-on and certainly just to reemphasize that, if you’re even remotely considering Public Service Loan Forgiveness, the way we always teach the loan repayment option is you first have to decide forgiveness or no forgiveness. And if it’s a no forgiveness play, then you evaluate a refinance, among other options. And we talked about PSLF in Episode 018. We also came back and talked about it on Episode 078 after some of the news that recently came out that was really getting to the point that 90+% of people applying for loan forgiveness were not receiving the benefit, and we hopefully broke down some of the confusion around that. Tim, I want to ask, though, we talked about in Episode 062, we talked about non-PSLF, so the other loan forgiveness. So that’s also something that people need to be looking out for, right? Any forgiveness clause they may be pursuing in the federal repayment option, they should not be going through a refinance, right?

Tim Church: Right, because you have to keep your loans in the federal system in order to qualify for any of these programs. So once you make that move, you would make yourself ineligible. And there are people where using the forgiveness that’s not through PSLF, where it’s 20-25 years, depending on the repayment plan that you choose and then having to pay the tax bill on the amount forgiven actually can be a better strategy than refinancing. I know it may seem overwhelming to say, “Hey, I’m going to hold onto my loans for 20-25 years,” but even with having to plan for that tax bill, you could be in a better position, depending on how high your debt-to-income ratio is. So you really have to look at the math behind what your situation is and what the difference would be if you refinance and how much would your monthly payments be and what kind of buffer do you have to even put towards other financial goals? So we talk about sometimes the debt-to-income ratio of 2-to-1, but also some of the things that you’re feeling holding onto loans that long, there’s some other emotional aspects I think behind it as well. But it’s also important that you do the math and see what comes out to be a better option.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, just a great example of that, Tim: This past week I was at Ferris State University doing some work with their students, and we were walking through PSLF and non-PSLF forgiveness. And you know, I think we tend to focus on so many of the mathematical components, but when I talked to them about non-PSLF forgiveness, 20-25 years, the tax bill, I got this look on their faces like, “Who in the world would ever consider that?” But I think to your point is that it’s a combination of these variables. And if you’ve got a very high debt-to-income ratio, and you’re working for a non-qualified employer, you’re working for a for-profit employer, then you know, depending on how you feel about it, it’s at least probably an option to evaluate. So again, just to be clear here, anybody who’s considering loan forgiveness through the federal loan repayment options, whether that’s PSLF or non-PSLF, certainly refinance would make you ineligible because you’re pulling yourself out of the federal system into the private system. The other question I get here, Tim, is — and you alluded to this a little bit about income-driven repayment plans and anybody who needs that, but what if I’m anticipating changes in income or I’m unsure about cash flow I’ll have month-to-month? I mean, is this something similar to the federal loan repayment options where I can make extra payments? So I could start with a longer term, say 20 years, and then eventually come down if I have more? Or do you recommend if somebody’s in that period of I’m not exactly sure the stability of my income, I should just stay in the federal system and then wait to do a refi?

Tim Church: Yeah, I mean, I think the conservative play is better in this situation that you want to have stable income and know what’s coming in because you’re not going to get that flexibility with most refinance companies like you get with the federal government. I mean, the option to do income-driven repayment plans and at the very worst, to temporarily stop making payments, whether it’s a qualified deferment or forbearance, you know, that’s something that you have to consider that you’re giving up. Now, some of the companies, they have variable options. I think at least one has an income-driven repayment plan option, and some allow you to make interest-only payments, but I think that you have to be pretty confident in your financial position before you make this switch.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, we’ve definitely seen a transition, I would say over the last five years where these plans very much are starting to look and be as competitive as the federal options, just hopefully with a lower rate, which I’ll talk about here in a minute. So I think we’re going to see more of that shift toward offering income-driven repayment plans, especially knowing how popular those are among borrowers when they go into active repayment. So before we transition and talk about the main benefits of refinancing, obviously, there are benefits because you have done this — how many times now have you gone through the refi process?

Tim Church: Um, let me see. I’ve refinanced my loans three times. And I think my wife has also done three times. So like a total of like six times.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. So let’s come back to that because I think that when I mention to people, you can refi more than once, I think there’s some concern about the impact on credit scores and just not being aware that you can do that. So let’s come back to that. But let’s first start with the main benefits of refinancing. So why would somebody pursue this? So they’ve decided, OK, I’m not going to pursue loan forgiveness, so now I’m going to evaluate either staying in the federal loan repayment system, choosing one of those options, or going to a refinance. What would be the benefits of doing a refi?

Tim Church: So I come back to your situation, Tim, because you’re somebody that was not pursuing any of the forgiveness programs.

Tim Ulbrich: Please don’t remind me, Tim.

Tim Church: And stayed in the federal system. And you —

Tim Ulbrich: At 6.8%, yes.

Tim Church: Right, so you had a lot of financial stability. And if you’re somebody in that position, most of the time, you’re going to be able to get a lower interest rate. And obviously, that is the main benefit and the main reason why you should even consider refinancing. So the average interest rates in the federal system are typically from 6-8% for a graduate loans or unsubsidized loans, and so by getting that overall interest rate reduced, you’re going to save a lot of money over the course of the loan. Now, it depends on your balance you start with, the change in the percentage and then obviously how fast you pay it off. But if you consider a pharmacist who has a balance of $160,000, and you plan to pay that off over 10 years, well if you take a rate from a 7% overall to a 4%, you’re going to save about $28,000 over those 10 years. So really, it can have a huge impact on the total amount that you’re going to pay over the life of the loan.

Tim Ulbrich: So what do you say — and I know obviously the news has been over the last year, we’ve seen the fed increase interest rates, which obviously these private loans are going to be tracking with what the fed is doing with their interest rates. So are you seeing these are still a competitive option with those federal loans being 6-8%? Were they more competitive 12 months ago, and they’re less competitive but still competitive? What are you seeing in terms of rates and what people are getting to? Obviously, knowing it’s variable based on debt-to-income ratio, credit score, etc.

Tim Church: Yeah, I mean, I haven’t noticed a huge difference.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Tim Church: In 2018, when we did multiple refis, we were able to get the first couple times down to in the 4’s. I know Nate, the Real Estate RPH, he I think was able to get down to like a 3.5% fixed rate with one of the companies. And this was in 2018. So I still think there’s definitely a lot of competition and a lot of room. And obviously, we’ll talk about one of the special partners that we have because they offer kind of a unique situation. So Tim, so we talked about obviously the lowering your rate I think is the biggest reason. That’s the No. 1 reason why you’re going to refinance. You’re going to pay less money in interest over time. So one of the things that’s kind of a cool way to look at it is technically, you will get out of debt faster if you make the same monthly payment that you’re making with a higher rate and switch to a lower rate because more of that payment is going toward the principal. So that’s another kind of a cool way to look at it. So regardless of what term you end up choosing, if you just make the same payment, you know, more of that is going to the principle, and you’re going to get done with it a lot faster.

Tim Ulbrich: So what are you seeing in terms of terms? You know, that’s usually one of the questions that I get of, you know, what is the range here? Is it 5-20 with everything in between? Are these all the same between companies? And then I would assume, in theory, the more aggressive you’re willing to be with payments, making larger payments, the better the interest rate you’re going to get. What are these companies offering?

Tim Church: Yeah, I would say in general, that’s true. So you’re totally right. Most companies, it’s anywhere from 5-20 years. A lot of companies offer a 7-year, a 10-year and a 15. And then a couple companies offer kind of rates a little bit in between there. But yeah, in general, the shorter the term, the more competitive the interest rate that’s being offered. And then also, the other variable that goes into it is whether it’s a fixed rate or whether it’s a variable rate. And that’s the other thing. A lot of times, they’ll put out teaser rates or rates from. Even on our website — which is typically their variable rate that they’re advertising. And sometimes, that’s just a teaser rate just to get you interested. But you always have to look at what the maximum or what the cap is because that can obviously change with the federal reserve and with LIBOR rates, so there’s a lot of different situations where you can end up in a worse situation than what your rate was before you refinanced.

Tim Ulbrich: Well, let’s talk there for a minute about the co-signer issue. That’s often a question I get as well is that, hey, I currently have a loan, I’m in the federal system, I’ve got a co-signer. How does that work when I’m looking to refi my loans and bring them over to the private sector?

Tim Church: So a lot of times, that’s another reason to do the refinance is you can actually get rid of a co-signer. So depending on your credit score, your current income that you have, your debt-to-income ratio, you can actually just put yourself on the loan and remove whoever else was on there. Because I know that that is a concern for some people, especially when the originally took out loans that they have somebody else that potentially is responsible.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So we have talked through several benefits. We obviously talked about the interest rate and the savings, being able to get out of debt faster, the money going to a principle, potentially removing a co-signer, being able to lock in a fixed rate, more aggressive payments, usually the better rate that you’re going to get. What about the cash bonuses? You know, you mentioned the variable rates being kind of a teaser to get people in. The other teaser I see out there is often the cash bonuses, which certainly we have negotiated the best rates for our listeners over at YourFinancialPharmacist.com/refinance. But are those cash bonuses what they seem? Are there any hooks? And then why not refinance multiple times if you’ve got opportunities?

Tim Church: Well, that’s what my wife and I did. We literally did that. And this is no joke, but honestly, we actually made $2,700 last year in 2018, just by refinancing multiple times.

Tim Ulbrich: Time to quit your YFP job, right? Just keep refinancing.

Tim Church: Honestly, I don’t think that’s always going to be the scenario and the situation, especially depending on what competitive rates that you’re able to get. But it was fortunate for us is that every time we checked every couple months is that another company was able to make an offer that was lower at which we currently had. So it obviously made sense. It wasn’t just for the cash bonus that the companies were offering. It was also to get that lower interest rate. But I think it’s kind of important to understand, you know, why they do this and why pharmacists or healthcare professionals are sort of targeted. But obviously, it’s no secret that refinance companies, they’re going to make money from you by the interest that you pay them each month. And pharmacists, they typically carry high debt loads in the six figures, we all know that. They’re actually going to make more money off of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals than other people with just typical undergraduate student loan debt. And so as an incentive for you to use a particular company, they typically will offer a cash bonus or sometimes called a welcome bonus. And as we talked about, you’re not limited to doing this one time. And because the interest rates can always change and sometimes you can get a better rate, then you can obviously do it multiple times. I’ve heard this term before is “serial refinancing” where you can do this. But I mean, it makes sense that they’re able to do that. But I think one of the cool things — and obviously, we’re fully transparent. We do make a commission if you refinance through our links, but a lot of the big players out there, they’ve got student loan review sites and things like that. But they’re either offering nothing if you use their sites or use their links or a very minimum amount of money. But that’s not really our style. And one of the things that we wanted to do even from the get-go is really offer a lot of value and push that number as high as basically we could to offer our audience some really high cash bonuses, which there’s not very many companies and businesses that are basically putting that out there and putting that much money for people to get.

Tim Ulbrich: I think we need to get you a “Refi King” T-shirt. Right? That would be awesome. It really is incredible. And I think that’s an important piece that people just need to understand, what you just said there about the cash bonuses, the transparency is important. Obviously, that’s taxable income, right? So you need to account accordingly when it comes to tax season and accounting for that money that you’re making on a refi. What about the credit impact? That’s a common question I get that, “Hey, if I go through with these refinance offers, is looking at rates going to impact my credit?” And if not, obviously then when you go through the process, I’m assuming it would, just like you’re buying a car or something else. Talk us through the impact on credit.

Tim Church: Yeah, so when you do a rate check, they often do a soft credit check. So you’re just trying to see what kind of rate you’re eligible for. You’re not going to have any ding or any hit on your credit score. But you may experience a very minimal change when you do refinance, when you use — basically, when you fill out the entire application process, they’re doing a hard credit pull. So it is possible you might see a small reduction in your credit score. Personally, my wife and I didn’t really see that big of a difference, to be honest.

Tim Ulbrich: Which is just all the more reason, you know, to be aware of it, check your credit, annualcreditreport.com. You can do that once a year from three different companies. It’s something you should just be doing anyways, but obviously, be aware of the impact that this may have in that process and weigh that benefit as you’re going along and the risk, if any, associated with doing that. So Tim, second most common question I get outside of, “Hey, should I refinance or not?” is “I’ve got all these options, I’ve got all these choices. You guys have some on your site, I’m getting these fliers in the mail, I’m getting emails, I’m getting things from my national association. What company should I choose? And then what are some things that I should look for in choosing a company?”

Tim Church: Yeah, I mean, you definitely have to make sure they’re reputable. Unfortunately, there are so many scams out there with companies claiming to have these special forgiveness programs or special refinancing programs, and oftentimes, there’s — one of the ways you can tell they’re not reputable or they’re kind of scammy is that they want to pay them a fee. So that’s really a big red flag is that if they’re asking for some kind of origination fee in order to do the refinance, I mean, that’s a huge red flag. I mean, we just talked about that they want to pay you money in order to refinance with them. So definitely want to watch out for that. But there’s two places that I really like if you’re really concerned or you want to check it out. The first one is the Better Business Bureau. So you can go there and check out and see what kind of ratings they have and also some of the customer complaints, if they have any. And then NerdWallet actually has another cool resource called the Watch List. And we have that link on our website. We’ll put it in the notes. But what they did was is they’re basically identifying and targeting any businesses with unethical practices or fraudulent practices or have like severe debt or liens against them. So I think that’s another cool place to look for to make sure that whoever you’re using is a very, you know, safe company to use.

Tim Ulbrich: So obviously, they need to be reputable. You know, no origination fee, I agree that ultimately, you’re giving them business, and they’re going to make money off of that. We talked about the cash bonuses, you can obviously compare those. What about the forgiveness on death and disability? We know that if somebody only has federal loans, their loans would be forgiven in the event of death or disability. But that’s a question mark in the private sector. I know we’ve seen this move where it seems like most of all, these companies are offering that but not everyone. So what is your advice as you’re talking with fellow pharmacists and peers about how to evaluate that benefit of loan forgiveness on death and disability?

Tim Church: I mean, it’s definitely something you have to consider. I don’t think it’s an absolute must, but if you are going to decide to go with a company that doesn’t offer that benefit because they’re rates are much better, that you want to make sure you have those policies in place. I mean, for everybody pretty much, disability insurance or some kind of coverage is going to be warranted. Life insurance, that could be debatable on terms of whether you absolutely need it. But yeah, I mean, I think it’s something to keep in mind because that is one of the protections that you may lose when you switch your loans out of the federal system to a private lender. Three of the companies that we have on our site, so Common Bond, Earnest and SoFi, they will actually forgive the balance on death or disability. So that is one of the perks of those companies that we partnered with.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So let me just point our listeners to — I think that’s a great point that it’s not an absolute, but if you’re going to work with a company that does not offer that because they’ve got a better rate and you’re weighing the risk and benefit, make sure to figure out that you have the life and disability insurance coverage that you need. We talked about that in Episode 044, How to Determine Your Life Insurance Needs, and Episode 045, How to Determine Your Disability Insurance Needs. So Tim, we talked through the benefits in terms of what somebody should look for in a company: they’re reputable, no origination fees, the cash bonuses, the loan forgiveness on death and disability. Now, obviously add making sure there’s no prepayment penalty. So just like in the federal system, if you want to make extra payments, maybe you’re on a 15-year fixed repayment plan, and you want to expedite that if for whatever reason you don’t refinance down to a shorter term, you can of course make extra payments along the way.

Tim Church: Yeah, and I’ve seen many people where, you know, they’ll say something like, “You know what? I could refinance to a five-year. I could make that monthly payment.” Or “I could make that seven-year payment. But you know what? I want to give myself a little bit more flexibility, and I’m going to set it up as a seven.” Or “I’m going to set it up as a 10. But I’m going to throw extra money at it.” So most of the companies, most of the main companies out there, I haven’t seen this be an issue of making additional payments and paying it off faster than what the term that you signed up for.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I think especially as these companies have become so competitive at getting your business, they’re obviously wanting to offer everything they can to be able to secure that business. So Tim, one of our newest partners that we wanted to talk about on this show and make sure people are aware for those that are able to access this company and the benefits is First Republic. And I have to be honest, when you came to me with what First Republic was and told me about the rates, and I heard you talking about rates below 2% and I’m thinking of most people at 6-8%, I was like, “I don’t think I’m buying it.” But certainly, it’s legit. You’ve gone down this path. We’ve had several others that have. So talk to us about this opportunity, who qualifies, and what are they offering that’s unique compared to the other companies that we’ve been working with?

Tim Church: Yeah, they’re definitely a very unique bank. And it’s funny because of how this bank is described out there. Like a lot of blogs and websites, they talk about it as a secret or a mythical bank. Like, you know, like it’s hidden in the valley, like only certain people have the map to find it.

Tim Ulbrich: To find it, yeah.

Tim Church: But one of the main reasons why it’s kind of had that reputation is that unlike some of the megabanks out there, they’re only in select states and cities. So the state that they have the most locations in is California. And we have a link to the post that I wrote. It has all the specific locations there. But they’re in Portland, Oregon; they’re in Greenwich, Connecticut; and then they’re in Palm Beach County. They happened to be in Palm Beach County, Florida, which is where I live. And that’s why I was able to refinance with them. And then they’re also in Boston and New York City and also Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But why that’s important is that —

Tim Ulbrich: Jackson’s so random. Jackson Hole, Wyoming, right?

Tim Church: I don’t know, I don’t know. It would be interesting to see how their team, how did they decide how to select like what cities they’re going to have. But why that’s so important is that one of the requirements to actually refinance with them is that you have to live within a 20-mile radius of a physical location. I don’t know exactly why they mandate that, but that is one of their requirements. And obviously, that’s going to disqualify a number of people out there that don’t live in one of those locations.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and depending on somebody’s student loan balance, it may be worth picking up and moving. I’m half kidding. But you know, it could when we look at these rates. But I think too, what I’m assuming they’re trying to do, which other companies are interested in doing as well is, you know, the refi here may be the gateway to get in the door as a long-term customer, to purchase a home, to eventually get a HELOC, to do real estate, other things that you do at their banking. But nonetheless, I mean, their rate is like no other what we’ve seen. So talk us through what they’re offering.

Tim Church: Right. You can’t beat it.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Tim Church: Yeah. I mean, there’s no one else that I’ve ever seen that has these kind of rates. But they still have, even as of the time of this recording, they have a five-year term. And this is the other thing is these are all fixed rates. None of these are variable rate offers. They’re all fixed rates. But they’re offering 1.95% for a five-year term.

Tim Ulbrich: Crazy.

Tim Church: And then it’s up to a 3.95% up through a 15-year term. And one of the things is that, you know, unlike some lenders where they’ll take all of your financial information and then they use their magic algorithm and spit you out a specific rate, it’s kind of — it’s an all-or-nothing. Basically, you either qualify or you don’t.

Tim Ulbrich: OK, so you mentioned them offering rates that are fixed, less than 2%, 1.95% up to 15-year terms at 3.95%. I was actually just coming back and looking using our refinance calculator, which we have available over at YourFinancialPharmacist.com/refinance, where you can run your numbers to say, “Hey, if I were to keep my loans in the federal system versus if I were to refinance, what exactly would be the savings?” So you know, looking at my total indebtedness, roughly around 6.8%, which is hard to think about when you’re talking about rates at 1.95%. So for me, it would have been about $30,000 of savings through a refinance like this. And I think that’s what we’ve seen on average for somebody who’s looking at the average indebtedness and saving a couple percentage points on a refi. Obviously, a rate like this is going to bring that down even a little bit further. Now, I know, Tim, you had to jump through a couple hoops that were not necessarily insurmountable but that were different from other refi companies out there to be able to work with them. So talk us through those just so people that are listening who are going to be evaluating this option among others, what are the things that they can expect in terms of meeting the requirements to be able to refi with First Republic?

Tim Church: Yeah, that is one of the big differences is that it’s pretty challenging to actually qualify and meet all of their requirements, much more stringent than the other major players out there. But we already talked about the 20-mile radius of a physical location. But one of the things that you have to have and what they’re looking for is about 10-15% of the loan balance in liquid savings. And depending on how high your loan balance is, I mean, that can be a pretty substantial amount. And if I recall, that’s not in retirement accounts or anything but actually liquid cash in savings, checking, something that’s able to be accessed pretty easily. So I think that’s one of the requirements that’s pretty tough. And then the other one that I think is pretty tough as well is they’re looking for a debt-to-income ratio of 40% or less. You know, we talked about earlier that it’s sometimes the opposite for people where they have a 2-to-1 debt-to-income ratio. So you know, much higher than that ratio. So I think those are probably the toughest requirements to meet. And sometimes, it may be something where you don’t meet it initially, but eventually kind of once you build your savings up, pay down your debt a little bit, that eventually you’re going to kind of meet those cutoffs. And what they’ve told me, what some of the reps is that these are not all, you know, you have to meet these exactly to the exact T. They kind of look at the whole picture, but this is kind of their basic guidance for when they’re looking at who to approve. And then some of the other ones that you have to have — so you have to have a loan balance of $25,000-300,000. Probably no big deal for most pharmacists who are graduating today. And then a credit score of 750 or higher. And those are really the main things. But then to kind of take it a step further, and this was something that for my wife at first was a little bit — caused a little bit of anxiety.

Tim Ulbrich: You convinced her, though.

Tim Church: I did. I used my amazing persuasive skills to show her all these benefits. But you actually have to bank with them. So basically, wherever you’re banking currently, you have to switch everything over. And that is to keep your rates at the level of where they are, you have to make direct deposits into one of their checking accounts. And then technically, you also have to keep I believe it’s 10-15% of the loan balance in there to keep that rate or it goes up — it goes up by a very small percentage, it’s not anything substantial. But the biggest ones to keep the rates down are making direct deposits, keeping a checking account open, not basically closing all your accounts before the loan’s paid off. So there’s definitely a number of hoops to get it to happen, but I will say that I am impressed overall with their customer service. You know, one of the things they do is they assign you a relationship manager, which you know, I kind of joke with people, I’m like, yeah, it’s VIP access, like your 1-800 number, like you’re calling like somebody’s cell phone, you know, in case you have any issues. But one of the other cool things they do is because they recognize that they’re only in select cities, if you have to use any ATM, it doesn’t matter what other bank or what other company, they’ll actually reimburse for any ATM fees that you incur, which is a pretty cool feature that they have.

Tim Ulbrich: I like that. I mean, I feel like the idea of ATM charges seems ancient in 2019. So glad to see that they’re on board with that.

Tim Church: Right.

Tim Ulbrich: You know, it’s interesting, even though you described those hoops, Tim, to me, as I hear you say all of those, they all make sense to me, right? So for them to be able to offer a very competitive rate, you know, they want to probably have somebody that they’re going to retain long-term business and get Return on Investment elsewhere, which makes sense in terms of banking with them, direct deposit so you have a higher likelihood of future business, and then they want to make sure that you’re a qualified applicant who’s going to be likely to pay on your debt and not be somebody who ends up going into default on these. So having liquid cash, having a favorable debt-to-income ratio, having a positive credit score, I think that all makes sense. And I think the thing I would consider for our listeners to evaluate if First Republic is an option for them to consider is maybe there’s a refinance play that you can do right now and take advantage of some of the savings, a cash bonus, and this is something you’re working towards as the next refinance, maybe in a 3-6 month period as you’re getting these things saved up. And I think you certainly can have your emergency fund in with them, which would help the 10-15% loan balance. So just some strategy, but when it’s all said and done, you’ve been there. It’s actually happened, right? And you’ve gotten good customer service, as you mentioned. So you can learn more about that on our website, YourFinancialPharmacist.com/refinance. We’ve got them listed alongside other partners. And then you wrote an awesome blog post on this topic and specifically, more about that offering that we’ll make sure to link to in the show notes.

Tim Church: Yeah, one of the other things that’s really cool — and this is the feature where I said, I don’t understand this offering that you have. But if you — once you refinance with them, if you pay off the loan balance within four years, they’ll actually give you up to 2% of the interest paid, 2% of the total loan balance. They actually give that and credit it back to you. And that’s one of the things where I said, “Well, like I don’t understand because you guys aren’t making much money, you know, off of this.” But again, it’s kind of what you said is this is one of their moves to get some of the younger generations into their banks to provide them and offer them other services.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. I mean, when the Churches end up being in the multi-millionaire status, they’re going to have your business, right? So that’s a good play on them in the future. So those that are listening to this that, you know, heard, OK, who should consider this, who should not? I know that I’m not going to pursue forgiveness, so now I’m going to evaluate a refinance. We talked about the benefits, we talked about the features of what somebody should look for in a company. So the question is, what’s the next step? Where do I go if I’m listening and I want to learn more about this? I want to check rates, I want to see my potential savings. What would you recommend?

Tim Church: Yeah, so I think going to our website, to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/refinance. And I think the first step is is just get some rates and see what you’re even eligible for. And then kind of once you look at the rates you can get and go ahead and use our calculator and see what that savings would be like. You know, some of the sites, they have it kind of baked in, so they’ll let you know and tell you what your potential savings are, but I think that’s kind of important moving forward. And then, you know, obviously if all the rates are the same and all of the perks and things that you like about the companies, then definitely go where the money is. Go for the cash bonus.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. And as always, if you have any questions as you’re going through this process, shoot us an email at [email protected]. And a couple last reminders as we wrap up this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, we mentioned at the beginning that 2019 is the year of giveaways over at YFP. And so this month, we’re giving away five Costco gold memberships — I really wish I was in this drawing, to be honest, but I don’t think that would be fair — valued at $60 each. So enter the giveaway today at YourFinancialPharmacist.com/giveaway. Again, that’s YourFinancialPharmacist.com/giveaway. And as always, if you liked what you heard on this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, please do us a favor and leave a review in iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts each and every week. So Tim, thank you so much for joining and to our listeners, have a great rest of your week.

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How To Prepare Financially When Expecting

Posted on March 3, 2019 by yfpadmin

How To Prepare Financially When Expecting

The following is a guest post by Karen Berger, PharmD. Karen is a pharmacist and medical writer in Fair Lawn, NJ. Her husband has been trying unsuccessfully to put her on a budget for many years.

Congratulations – you’re expecting! In just a few short months, your life will change in a way you could never imagine. A precious baby will smile and coo at you all day, as you feel a powerful love like you never imagined. You will also never sleep, you will be up to your elbows in diapers, and you will have tons of new expenses.

If you are like me, you will also use one-click ordering to have Amazon packages delivered to your door daily, and you will have your credit card number memorized for all other websites. Having a baby can be a major life change and a financial wake-up call. Learning how to prepare financially when expecting is essential.

My husband and I had our kids pretty much back to back – 3 kids in 4 years. It all feels like a blur. Having a baby is like having your entire life as you know it turned upside down. At many times, you will feel that you have no control over this baby, who basically rules your life for the next 18 years. Although you cannot control your newborn, you can control your finances and take the steps of getting your finances in order when expecting.

According to Nerdwallet, raising a child costs at a minimum $260,000 from ages 0-18. This price includes basic (less expensive clothes and groceries) needs and does not include extras such as electronics, birthday parties, and vacations. Taking into account more expensive essentials plus all the extras, you are now looking at over $745,000 from birth to 18, and that is per child, and all before college.

When I was in high school, anytime I was asked what I wanted to be when I “grew up,” my answer of “a pharmacist” was frequently met with the same reply. “What a great career for a woman,” people would nod approvingly. At the age of 17, this made absolutely no sense to me. However, it makes a lot of sense now. A stable income with flexible options is a perfect job for a parent. A pharmacist salary puts you in a great place as you take on the task of financial planning for a baby.

Getting Your Finances in Order

When planning for a baby, there is a lot to do – you have to decorate the nursery, pick the perfect stroller – the list is endless. However, the biggest favor you can do for your family is to get your finances in order while expecting.

Knowledge and clarity about your current financial situation are of utmost importance. That means knowing exactly what it costs to run your household and your spending habits on nonessential items.

While the idea of having a monthly budget is not sexy or fun for most people, it’s a great way to help you organize your spending, eliminate or cut unnecessary expenses, and make adjustments to help you pay off debt and reach your other financial goals. You can learn more about budgeting by checking out this post.

Besides budgeting, knowing and tracking your net worth is a great way to get clarity on your current financial status. In short, your net worth is your total assets minus any outstanding debt. Many pharmacists, especially those starting out, will begin pretty far in the negative considering student loans. However, your progress and trajectory of your net worth is what’s really important.

Hopefully, you are making decisions to help grow your net worth in order to secure your financial future and achieve freedom from debt. But if that’s something you are struggling with, going back to the budget and optimizing is a great idea. If you want to determine and track your net worth we have a great tool through Right Capital you can use.

Besides getting clarity on your finances, it is really important to be on the same page as your spouse when it comes to budgeting and spending. There will be enough to argue about, such as who gets up with the baby and who does the laundry and cleaning (spoiler alert: it’s usually mom). If you can figure out money ahead of time, you are winning the game.

Insurance and Benefits

Now is the time to really understand your insurance benefits for your prenatal care, labor, and delivery. What is covered? Is there a maximum? Do you have a deductible or copays? What if your baby ends up in the NICU – how much will you have to pay? One of our children was in the NICU and the hospital billed over $100,000 – fortunately, we only had to pay a few hundred dollars.

It is also important to plan your leave; check with your company’s HR about sick pay and understand your state laws with disability/FMLA. You will want to predict how much money will be coming in while you (and possibly your spouse) are out of work.

Now is a great time to start an emergency fund, if you do not have one yet. You will want to save 3 to 6 months of expenses (not income), in a separate, accessible account such as a money market or savings account.

Once you establish your budget, taking into account newborn expenses, you want to ensure you have enough savings to cover any missing wages, in addition to the emergency fund. Depending on how tight your budget is, you may have to temporarily scale back on making extra debt payments or contributions to savings/investing accounts to build this up.

Take the time to research your benefits online, or call your insurance for more personalized service, and ask all your questions and write down the information because when you have a baby, you won’t even remember your own name.

Trust me. While on the topic of insurance, research pediatricians (and interview them!) and pick one that is in network, if possible. After the baby is born, be sure to call your insurance to notify them of your newest addition, so he/she can be added to your plan as quickly as possible.

Newborn Expenses

Last but certainly not least, you’ll want to have an idea of monthly costs after the baby is born. Diapers, diapers, and more diapers add up quickly. Also: pediatrician copays, formula if you choose to bottle feed, clothing, diaper bags, carriers, carseats, baby monitor, crib, strollers, baby swings, toys, books, and all of the adorable accessories at the baby store that you absolutely must have such as a squeaky giraffe, a pacifier attached to a stuffed animal, and those soft Muslin blankets. You may do a lot more take-out than cooking those first few months, which can really add up.

*These costs do not include insurance or medical expenses.

**Expect to need a new convertible car seat when baby is around one year old at an average cost of $80-$250 per carseat.

Pro Tip: Create a registry so that your friends and family can buy things that you need, rather than guessing what you want!

Childcare is another big cost. How long do you plan to take off? Are you going back to work part-time, full-time, or not quite yet? If you are going to work, do you have family to watch your little one or will you use daycare or a nanny? All have varying costs and they all have their own positives and negatives to explore, and now is a good time to interview possible candidates to care for your little one.

In our next segment, we will tackle some more must-do’s for after baby arrives, such as life and disability insurance, retirement planning, wills, and saving for college.

Financial planning for a baby, and in general, life events, can be overwhelming. Often it is best to bring in an experienced financial planner to help you plan and prepare. If you are looking for some extra help, you can book a free call with the YFP financial planning team.

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YFP 089: From Unemployed to Successful Pharmapreneur

Posted on February 28, 2019November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

From Unemployed to Successful Pharmacy Entrepreneur

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, Tim Ulbrich, co-founder of Your Financial Pharmacist, interviews Dr. Blair Thielemier, a successful pharmacy entrepreneur. She is the founder of BT Pharmacy Consulting, creator of the Pharmapreneur Academy and the Elevate Pharmacy Summit and author of the Amazon bestselling book How to Build a Pharmacy Consulting Business. Tim and Blair talk through pharmacy entrepreneur opportunities she has discovered through her journey from losing her job as a clinical hospital pharmacist to building a successful online business that provides pharmacists with efficient systems to managing a sustainable model for clinical services to improving patient outcomes and achieving the highest standards in the practice of pharmacy. They discuss what makes her tick as an entrepreneur, what changes she is seeing in the profession of pharmacy and how having your personal financial house in order is integral to having a successful business.

About Today’s Guest

After graduating with her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Arkansas for the Medical Sciences in 2011, Blair unexpectedly lost her full-time income as a clinical hospital pharmacist in 2014. She was asked to serve as an independent Medication Therapy Management Consultant Pharmacist, a niche position that was entirely new to her at the time but would be instrumental to her future success and entrepreneurial journey. For the past three years, Blair has been focusing on elevating the profession of pharmacy through advanced clinical services. In 2015, she founded a pharmacy consulting business BT Pharmacy Consulting, LLC and currently trains and coaches other pharmacists looking to start their own consulting businesses through an online e-course and membership site at the PharmapreneurAcademy.com . In April 2017, she launched the first online pharmacy conference in the industry. In 2018, based on the success of the first summit, she hosted a five day encore event in partnership with the National Community Pharmacists Association’s Innovation Center. The Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit featured pharmacists of various backgrounds practicing pharmacy at the peak of the profession. She is also the author of the Amazon bestselling book How to Build a Pharmacy Consulting Business.

Summary

Blair shares her story of losing her full-time clinical hospital pharmacist job to building successful online businesses. In 2014, while pregnant with her first child, Blair lost her job. Not knowing where to turn, she first took a hard look at her family’s finances to determine how much they truly needed to live and where they could cut their budget. From there, Blair contacted local independent pharmacies in her community to see if they needed her to fill in any shifts. She was given an opportunity to take over cases in a clinical program which she first declined. Blair felt like she wasn’t an expert enough in MTM to take on these cases. She thought she needed further board certifications or a master’s degree to be successful in this line of work. After accepting the position the second time, Blair discovered that MTM consulting was her passion and knew she needed to begin a business in northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri.

Blair decided she would initially take on 3 or 4 coaching clients. She found challenges with each client as they were building their own businesses and was able to work through them. These experiences ultimately led her to develop her Pharmapreneur Academy course.

In working with clients to help them grow their businesses, Blair sees that pharmacists need to see their own value before they can pitch themselves confidently, that pricing your services appropriately is incredibly important so customers can see the value they are receiving, and that skills and trainings should be added as they are needed instead of adding them in case they are needed. Blair also shares about the need to bring more services elements versus products to clients.

Blair discusses other opportunities and platforms that are becoming available for pharmacists to work in, like genetic testing, the extremes of beginning the journey as an entrepreneur, the biggest mistakes she sees pharmapreneurs make, and much more.

Mentioned on the Show

LendKey
BT Pharmacy Consulting
Pharmapreneur Academy
How to Build a Pharmacy Consulting Business: Your Rx for Finding Freedom and Loving Your Career by Blair Thielemier, PharmD
How I Built This Podcast with Guy Raz
Small Passive Income with Pat Flynn
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
Elevate Pharmacy Summit

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to Episode 093 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. This episode has been a long time in the works where I have an opportunity and privilege to interview Dr. Blair Thielemier. So quick bio on Blair: After graduating with a doctor of pharmacy from the University of Arkansas for the Medical Sciences in 2011, Blair unexpectedly lost her full-time income as a clinical hospital pharmacist in 2014. She was asked to serve as an independent medication therapy management consultant pharmacist, a niche position that was entirely new to her at the time but that would be instrumental to her future success and entrepreneurial journey. The past three years, Blair has been focusing on elevating the profession of pharmacy through advanced clinical services. In 2015, she founded a pharmacy consulting business, BT Pharmacy Consulting, and currently trains and coaches other pharmacists looking to start their own consulting businesses through an online e-course and membership site at pharmapreneuracademy.com. In April 2017, she launched the first online pharmacy conference in the industry. And in 2018, based on success of the first online summit, she hosted a follow-up event, a five-day encore event in partnership with the National Community Pharmacists Association Innovation Center. The Elevate Pharmacy virtual summit featured pharmacists of various backgrounds practicing pharmacy at the peak of the profession. And she’s also — in case that wasn’t enough — the author of the Amazon best-selling book, “How to Build a Pharmacy Consulting Business.” Blair, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Blair Thielemier: Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Tim Ulbrich: This has been a long time in the making, so I’m excited to get you on the show. And I was planning, I went way back to 2016, shortly after I started Your Financial Pharmacist. And you may remember, you wrote an article for us on the blog, “Four Ways for Pharmapreneurs to Improve Their Financial Equation.” And we’ll link on that, but our discussion is really going to build on that. And I’ve been following along your journey and genuinely have great respect for the work that you’re doing that’s having a positive impact on the profession and, I believe, allowing pharmacists to pursue the dreams that they have to be the best clinician and the best businessperson that they can be. So thank you for your contributions, and thank you for role modeling that, even for my own business. I appreciate it.

Blair Thielemier: Thank you. I think it’s important, that’s something we don’t get a lot of in school, right, is how to promote our businesses, how to promote ourselves and market our services in the right way. So I thought it was something very important to help other pharmacists with.

Tim Ulbrich: All the fun stuff, right, that we don’t get in school.

Blair Thielemier: Exactly. I love it.

Tim Ulbrich: So as I was preparing for this episode, I was going back through the website, I was recalling my own experiences just following you and your business growth, and I thought, what a journey that you have been on. And so I want to start by taking our listeners back to 2014, just a few years after you graduated from UAMS, you’ve got your PharmD, you’ve been out for a few years, you’re working as a clinical hospital pharmacist. And you lose your job. What are you thinking at that point in time? What are the thoughts that are going through your mind?

Blair Thielemier: One of the main ones is “I am 6 months pregnant, I have a baby on the way, how am I going to pay for this?” I was planning on an 8-12-week maternity leave. Now, is that going to be completely out the window? Pretty much, how am I going to replace this income? But you know, before I could even start looking at that, Tim, I had no idea how much income I needed to replace. And I think that is an important part to start with in my story is literally, the first thing that I did after I lost my job was I went and signed up for Mint.com and Personal Capital, all these different sites and started trying to figure out, OK, if I’m going to make the bare minimum to get by, what does that bare minimum look like for me? And really, drilling down on our expenses, exactly how much we needed to bring in each month to keep our lifestyle pretty much the same.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and we’re going to dive into that here in a little bit because I think as you and I have talked about before, getting your personal financial house in order is so critical to being able to approach business with confidence, to being able to take the risks that you need to take. And I think building a healthy business is a lot of that depends on your own personal finance. So here we are, you’re at 2014, you all of a sudden lose that full-time income. Do you think, as you reflect back on your journey today — and we’ll talk about the work that you’re doing here in a little bit — but do you think you ever get to the point of developing the businesses you started, taking the risks you started if that wouldn’t have happened back in 2014?

Blair Thielemier: Absolutely not. No. I think I was interested in entrepreneurship, but I really thought it was going to be something outside of pharmacy. I don’t think that I realized this opportunity existed until it happened. So when I lost my job as a clinical hospital pharmacist, I was pregnant, so I was just picking up shifts here and there at local independent pharmacies. So I was hustling on my student loans before we decided to have a baby, trying to get all those paid off. So people kind of knew me in the area as someone they could call with extra shifts. So I had gotten my name out there as a relief pharmacist for independent community pharmacies. And pretty much I just started calling them up and saying, “Hey, you know, I’ve got a lot of days open here if you need any vacation time.” And that’s how it grew. So I started doing that, picking up relief shifts, and to their credit, these pharmacy owners, they wanted to help me. I mean, they just welcomed me with open arms and really made up the difference in those shifts. So in working back in community pharmacy, they were like, “Hey, you’ve got this clinical background. We’ve got these clinical programs that we have to do now called CMRs, and we’d really like for you to start doing them for us, start taking over our MTM program and figuring out how to see these patients.” And I’d never done it before, so the first time they asked me, I said no because that’s scary, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Blair Thielemier: You’re billing Medicare for a service that isn’t a product. And so luckily, I had kind of a mentor of mine, someone I had worked with in the past who she was doing some independent consulting doing MTM. And she helped walk me through my first few cases. So as I started doing more and more cases for these pharmacies, I fell in love with it. And I thought, this is what I need to do. I need to grow my MTM consulting business in northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri because I’m licensed in Arkansas and Missouri. And so that was my focus. After the baby came and she was doing wonderful, so really in 2015, I’m thinking, OK, I’m growing this business. How am I going to do it? I know. I’m going to put up a website because if you put up a website, people are just instantly searching for you.

Tim Ulbrich: Or make a business card, right?

Blair Thielemier: Or make a business card and just hand that out to everyone you see, and then your business will be successful, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Right, right. Yeah.

Blair Thielemier: Well, the problem with having a website is if you don’t have a plan to attract traffic to your website, it’s pretty much like that business card that’s probably in your glove box in your car, and no one’s seen it. So what I did, I was sharing information about MTM on my website and on my blog, which was BT Pharmacy Consulting. And if you had seen it back then, it was really, it was focused on people hiring me. So I was sharing this —

Tim Ulbrich: I remember that. I remember that.

Blair Thielemier: Yeah. So I mean, it came about very organically because I was trying to build my business here locally, and as I was doing that, I was writing these blogs and sharing them on LinkedIn, and then other pharmacists started contacting me like “What are you doing? What is MTM consulting? How can I do this? I’d love to get out from behind the bench, even if it’s just a few days a week.” And so I decided at the end of 2015 I would take on three one-on-one coaching clients, other pharmacists, just to see if I could help them. And very quickly, we identified several challenges to building their businesses, and we were able to work through those. And that experience with those three one-on-one coaching clients is what I decided to turn into the e-course at the Pharmapreneur Academy.

Tim Ulbrich: So much to unpack there. And I appreciate you sharing that. And you know what jumps out to me as I think about a lot of pharmacists out there today that I’ve heard from that are frustrated with either, you know, hours getting cut or frustrated finding a position, and you know, thinking back to your journey in 2014, you find yourself in that position, and at that point in time, you have a mindset decision to make, right? Is this going to be a woe is me? Or is this going to be an opportunity to build relationships, leverage the relationships you had, take some initiative, which you did, see a problem that needed to be solved and work through that? And obviously, as you know in building a business, you take one step, that leads to another step, that leads to another step. But often, we get hung up in kind of the overall vision, which can be very overwhelming. One thing I want to ask you about, though, that stuck out to me there is that you said no at first. So when you talk about those other pharmacies that you were working with, you said no at first. And you alluded to the Medicare reimbursement and maybe not fully understanding or appreciating that at the time. But were there other reasons you said no at that point in time? I mean, were there things that you felt like confidence-wise or self-limiting beliefs or things that you didn’t feel like you had the tools to begin with the business? I mean, I know you worked through that, but what were the reasons that you said no to begin with?

Blair Thielemier: Oh, absolutely. And this is what I also found my first coaching clients struggling with too. So one of the big ones was not feeling like I was the best person to do this job. So I felt like I wasn’t expert enough in MTM. I felt like I needed a Master’s in MTM or a board certification in ambulatory care or just whatever I could think of, I’m thinking that’s my comfort zone. I mean, I know that I can get through school, I can pass these courses, and I can rack up this education. And I do, I’m big on personality tests and stuff. So I’m an INTJ, and the trap that I myself get stuck in a lot is the neverending pursuit of more knowledge. Like I need to know everything about a subject before I can move forward with it. And really, what the mentor, Ashley, was able to help me with in walking me through those first few cases is just seeing how I already had the tools and the skills that I needed. And you know, and then when I went and started looking at, OK, now I want to build this business, I think I need to go back to school and get an MBA because you can’t own a business if you’re not an MBA, right? And so it was just — it’s been a constant struggle for me to, you know, to view myself as expert enough to be able to offer these services. And so it’s something I see other pharmacists struggling with. You know, all the time, they ask me, “Should I go and take this course? Should I go and take this certification?” or whatever. And I’m like, “Well, what are you doing? What does your client say you need? What setting are you working in?” So really, now, I like to say, I add skills and trainings as I need them not in case I need them. And that’s been a huge learning curve for me.

Tim Ulbrich: I think you are so spot-on there. I think for many pharmacists, myself included, we tend to be learners by nature. Right? And that’s who we are, and I think there’s a tendency to feel like we need to acquire all this knowledge, and I think if we’re honest with ourselves, many times, that’s an avoidance of wanting to really step into something that we can think we could do, whether it’s business or take on some risk or whatever, and it’s an easy out to begin to continue to pursue. And I would point our listeners to — I’m sure you’ve listened to the “How I Built This” podcast on NPR. And many of those successful entrepreneurs and business stories, many of them don’t have formal education. I would say a vast majority of them do not. What they saw was a problem that needed a solution, and they took a risk to do that. They were confident in their ability, but they weren’t perfect in their ability. They made mistakes, they had self-limiting beliefs like we all do, but they took that step. And I think that’s an important piece for many of our listeners to think of as they’re considering their own journey. So one thing I want to ask you, Blair, is that I think there’s many I’m sure that are listening to this podcast that have some business aspirations to take a unique talent that they have to tap into some unsolved problem or maybe a process that could be done better or differently, or maybe there’s others listening that are feeling stuck in their job but don’t yet have an idea formulated for what their business may be, whether that’s a side hustle or a formal business. And I think when hearing and seeing your story in hindsight and as I introduce you and hearing about all the success you’ve had with the academy, your consulting work, the book, the summit, on and on, that can feel overwhelming to people that are just beginning. What advice would you have to somebody who’s just starting or beginning on that path to overcome that anxiety and overcome that comparison with others and to just take that first step in getting started.

Blair Thielemier: Well, first of all, I’m a huge proponent of a side hustle or building some kind of business as an additional income stream. I think we’re living in the gig economy, and I see pharmacy consulting as a way to leverage the skills and stuff you already have because a lot of people come to me and I get emails all the time. It’s like, “I was afraid I was going to have to leave pharmacy because it’s just not for me. But that was before I knew that consulting was an option.” So whether it’s consulting, whether it’s real estate, whether it’s creating your own podcast about personal finance, whatever it is, whatever your passion is, I think it’s about looking at the value that you can provide the person in front of you. So you know, one thing I like to say is you first have to be sold yourself on your value in order to pitch your services confidently.

Tim Ulbrich: Amen.

Blair Thielemier: So unless you’re running a charity, you do have to charge money for your services, and I think selling yourself is an art. So talking about, oh, I’ve got this, this, this and this, like certification or letters behind my name, well, nobody cares about that. But they care how you can help them achieve whatever goals or results they’re trying to get to. So when you’re talking about say you’re pitching a physician’s office, you’re going into a physician’s office saying, “I’d really like to come in and see some of your patients. There’s this thing called pharmacy consulting that they’re embedding clinical pharmacists into primary care settings all across the country. Doctors are loving it, it’s helping with burnout. The financial guys in the office are loving it because I’m going to be helping with quality metrics and meeting your MACRA and MIPS quality measures, helping you get better reimbursement, no late penalties and all this,” but you’re not saying, “I can do this, this, this and this. I learned how to do motivational intervene, I learned how to — I’m a certified diabetes educator, blah blah blah.” You’re not talking about what you can do. You’re talking about what they need.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Blair Thielemier: So when you’re thinking about promoting your services, whatever it may be, think about what the result the other person wants to get. So I say if you’re going into that physician’s office, you don’t have a relationship with them, go in with a list of questions because you can’t offer them a solution until you know what their problem is. And I think that’s pretty similar to and can be applicable to most businesses is your marketing message needs to be tailored directly to the needs of the person that you’re hoping to serve.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And I think, you know, I’m thinking of as you were talking there, you know, Pat Flynn and his podcast, “Smart Passive Income,” and his focus is on providing value, right? You have to know what you’re bringing to the table. You have to know what the problems are before you start to present solutions. And just to build off of what you said, Blair, around pharmacists charging, I think one of the things that I often see is pharmacists tend to undercharge for their services because they don’t yet fully believe in the value of what they bring to the table. And second to that, they don’t fully account for all the expenses that are involved with providing something. They stop often at their salary and say, this is what I make per hour, and this is the value I bring. I think that gets to some of the business aspects of the plan. I’m sure you see that way more than I do with your clients.

Blair Thielemier: Yeah, absolutely, because you do need to take into account, well, I’m going to have to be paying for some other stuff that are benefits given in my job like liability insurance and maybe even health insurance if you’re looking at doing this full-time. So there is a difference in what you’re going to charge as a consultant just to cover those basic expenses. But I also believe in — especially for cash-based services — you’re also pricing yourself and your services based on the results that you’re getting for the person. So you know, for example, when I started looking at what do I charge pharmacists for the academy? It’s what could building a business do for your life in terms of financial freedom, in terms of financial flexibility? And then I want to price it appropriately so that the customer also sees the value because if I was giving this stuff away, then people would not be as invested in, OK, you know what, I’m going to do this. I’m going to take this advice and move it forward. And that’s the same for our patients. If I’m doing a genetic consult for somebody, you know, I charge my full rate because I want them to take it seriously, to be fully invest in the results and what I’m telling them, and then also to commit to making the changes that I suggest in my recommendations.

Tim Ulbrich: So Blair, shifting focus here a little bit, we have — as you very well know — a healthcare system that is moving towards value-based care and payment models. But largely, what I’m seeing outpatient pharmacy — not everywhere, but is really stuck still based on a payment-for-product model. We seem to be caught in this chicken and the egg situation where we want to evolve the role of the pharmacist and be doing non-dispensing care activities and leveraging their expertise, but we seem to be in this vacuum where the payment mechanism don’t support these efforts for a variety of reasons. Simultaneously, we’ve got a growing number of graduates, pharmacies that are cutting their hours, we’ve got automation and technology and Artificial Intelligence and states that are expanding the roles of technicians and other healthcare providers that, to be frank, have prescribing rights but are available at a cheaper cost than a pharmacist. What do you as a thought leader in this space, what do you make all of this? And where do you see you role in addressing some of these problems?

Blair Thielemier: So the new models of care, that’s exactly the reason why I created the Elevate Summit because I wanted to share stories and the experiences of pharmacists who were doing something differently and succeeding in adding a more service-based product into their toolkit, so to speak. So you know, traditionally, pharmacy has always been a product-based business. And I think as we’re seeing reimbursements decline, we need to bring in those service elements because they can be profitable, you can charge cash for a lot of these things, and there are people all across the country that are doing them very, very successfully. So what I wanted to do with the Elevate Summit was to highlight some of these models, you know, one this year I’m in the process of recording interviews for the 2019 summit. This year, I’m interviewing a pharmacist with an all-cash business model — a pharmacy owner with an all-cash business model. I’m interviewing one who brings in an embedded nurse practitioner to do MedSpa stuff. So they’re doing like chemical peels and Botox in the pharmacy. And others, they’re doing diabetes education, they’re doing travel vaccines, they’re doing consultations on health and wellness. There’s so many different things that we can provide. And then to answer your point about there are other people out there that can provide similar services that may be cheaper than a pharmacist. So I hear this all the time. Why would a physician hire a pharmacist when they can just hire another nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant and the billing is so much easier? I mean, that’s a fantastic point. So you know what? I asked one of our physicians that’s joining us on this year’s Elevate Summit that exact same question. And what he said was, “They’re trained in the same way that I’m trained. A pharmacist is trained in a completely different way than the way I was trained.” So what he saw the value of the pharmacist is as bringing in that different perspective in looking at it at a completely different angle whereas the nurse practitioner or the PA, who were trained in the same way, are looking at it kind of from the same lens as the physician. So I think we need to own our expertise in the area of medication management and optimizing therapy. And I also think there’s a lot of opportunities — you know, everybody’s into genetic testing now. It’s like for Christmas, everybody gets like one of the —

Tim Ulbrich: It’s the cool thing to do.

Blair Thielemier: It’s the cool thing to do. One of my friends told me that her aunt and uncle went to a party — they’re from New York — and they went to a party, and the party favor like an Ancestry DNA kit.

Tim Ulbrich: Oh my gosh.

Blair Thielemier: So they all did their DNA swabs and then they had another party later to come back and everybody looked at their results, and it was all fun and games. And I’m like, OK, but did you know that you can actually use that information to make medical decisions about your health? I mean, you can use that information more than just like, oh, that’s cool, I’m 20% Irish or whatever. You can really dig in a lot deeper, and so that’s one platform that I want to promote more this year personally is getting out there and talking about the value that pharmacists can add in helping decipher some of these genetic test results. So I started — after my son was born, I’ll share this quick story. So my son was born in December of 2017, and when he was born, the neonatologist had him under the light and they were looking at him and she was holding him on his belly and kind of looking at the base of his spine, and he has a very, very deep sacral dimple. And my daughter had one too but not near as deep as what his was. And the neonatologist said, if I can’t see the bottom of this, we’re going to need to do an ultrasound to make sure that it’s not open. And so you know, I told her, I said, “My daughter had the exact same thing. She’s fine. There was no neural tube defect or anything like that.” And his was closed too, thank goodness. It was just much, much deeper than hers. So then I’m thinking, I took folic acid my entire pregnancy. What’s the deal? I had actually taken it from the time Aven (?) was born until the time Hoyt (?) was born, so I knew that it wasn’t because I wasn’t taking folic acid. But when I went and did my — it was one of the direct-to-consumer DNA kits, it came back that I had a high risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, which actually exists on both sides of my family. My maternal grandmother has Parkinson’s, and my paternal grandmother died eventually of Alzheimer’s. And so in kind of digging a little bit deeper, I started looking at I’ve got this mutation in MTHFR that prevents me from being able to metabolize folic acid into the fat form, and so pretty much the folic acid I was taking wasn’t doing anything for me. But it was also, I went and got a blood test because I’m a guinea pig. And I like to — before I started taking methylated folic acid or anything like that, I wanted to know, what were my levels? What was my homocysteine level? And being able to start tracking that. So I went through with a fine-tooth comb, looked at all of my genetic markers, took them to my doctor. I was like, here’s the test I want. You can imagine. He was a very good sport about it, he was like, OK, I’ll try to figure out what these are and how we’re going to code these for your insurance. And so we did that, and you know, it came back that I’m a homozygous variant for the MTHFR mutation, and you know, I think now how close was my son or my daughter to having a neural tube defect because even as a pharmacist, I didn’t know that this existed.

Tim Ulbrich: And that’s why that party needed a pharmacist there to help them interpret their results. Right? And take some action.

Blair Thielemier: Exactly.

Tim Ulbrich: No, I think that’s a huge opportunity, and I’ve been following the work that you’ve been doing there, which is exciting. So for a minute, I want to talk about the value of having a sound personal financial situation to be in a position to start and grow a business. And I know this is a topic that you talk about with your community members and those in the academy and those that you’re coaching with the belief that really, a financially healthy business is built off the foundation of a financially healthy individual. So what does this mean for you and as you’re working with clients? You know, obviously, I’m sure for everybody, getting rid of all of their debt and everything is not necessarily realistic. What do you use in terms of the advice of getting yourself in a sound financial position that will allow you to take the risks and go confidently into the business aspirations that somebody has?

Blair Thielemier: Well, one question I get all the time is, how quickly will I be able to replace my salary? And so that question is a little bit difficult to answer because it’s kind of like, well, how much do you need? Not how much are you making right now.

Tim Ulbrich: Exactly.

Blair Thielemier: Not how much are spending that maybe isn’t on the necessities. But how much do you absolutely need? And that’s why I said when I lost my job, kind of the first thing that I went to was starting to track our budget because, Tim, this is embarrassing to admit. I didn’t know how much I made each month.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. Hey, I was there.

Blair Thielemier: I had no idea.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Blair Thielemier: I knew what each paycheck said, but I had never really sat down and been like, OK, this is how much income I’m averaging each month. And I definitely didn’t know how much I was spending each month. If I didn’t even know how much — I knew a roundabout, but I didn’t know exactly how much I was bringing in each month. And I definitely didn’t know how much I was spending each month. So whenever I was able to take a hard look at those numbers and figure out, you know what, I don’t need to go shopping on Saturday afternoon because it’s raining and there’s nothing else to do and that kind of stuff that I was able that year that Aven was born, I lost my job, to take a $40,000 pay cut and be fine. We were able to now live well below what we were actually spending once we sat down and took a look at it.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think that is great advice. And we’ve talked so much on the podcast about budgeting to be able to determine what are those essential expenses, what to cut if you need to cut, and I think that’s huge for those thinking about some business ventures. They’ll say, OK, what do I actually need to live off of rather than what am I currently making or what am I currently spending each and every month. A couple things I would just add to that is that I think there’s two extremes on this that I’ve seen with the business, you know, some that say, I’m just ready to jump in, and I’m not worried about these aspects of my personal financial situation. And then the other end that says, I want to have everything lined up. I want to be completely debt-free, have a fully funded emergency fund, be on my path towards retirement, all these things taken care of before I jump into business. And you know, I believe that there’s probably somewhere in the middle that is reasonable for everyone. So maybe you look at, OK, I’ve got a plan for debt repayment, I’ve got a solid budgeting process in place. I’ve got an emergency fund. I’ve got the basics around insurance coverage while I’m working towards these other things, but I at least feel like I have a solid foundation so that I can jump into this business with confidence. And I think that allows people to approach their business in a more confident way and take the risks that they need to be taking. Blair, what are maybe the one or two biggest mistakes that you see new pharmacy entrepreneurs making? I mean, what are kind of the common traps that either fell into, probably I fall into, that you often see people that you coach going into? You maybe alluded to one with the idea of the website and feeling the need to start there. But what are some of the other common things that you see?

Blair Thielemier: So I think, you know, you mentioned not having — like some people have to have all of the information before they move forward. And definitely that was something that I probably should have been a little bit more diligent about when starting a business. I knew that I needed to register my business, I needed to have an LLC and all that. But I had no idea how to deal with taxes or any of that kind of financial stuff. So I am a big fan of investing in people that can coach you and help you through the processes like this.

Tim Ulbrich: Agreed.

Blair Thielemier: I ended up — so after my first year in business, I wasn’t doing quarterly estimated taxes or anything like that. I ended up owing about $17,000 in taxes. And it was something that I wasn’t prepared for because I really had no idea how to calculate that. So whenever I say I made just about every mistake in the book, I mean, it’s true. But we were able to come through that and, you know, now I know and hopefully I can help you guys avoid some of these pickles like that. But that would be definitely a big one, which is investing in hiring either a coach or some kind of professional to help you through that. I think once you have a business, you’re past the TurboTax, Do-It-Yourself thing, for me anyway because I will say whenever something is not my strength. And taxes and all of that is definitely not my strength. So I think it’s part of that is, you know, investing in your business. I think you can start a business relatively cheaply, but I don’t think your goal should be to spend nothing. So a lot of times, we’ll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on our pharmacy degrees and then after that, it’s like I’m not going to pay $50 to do that CE. You know? And it’s like, I think professional development is a huge part of being successful, and this is also going to be a topic you’re going to hear me talk a lot more about this year is professional, personal, career development and what does that look like in order to do it in a way that, like I said, you’re not adding skills in case you need them, you’re adding them when you need them.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Blair Thielemier: So as an entrepreneur, I value my time more than it costs to hire someone who is a professional in that space that can just come in and download into my brain, here’s everything you need to know. And if they can do it for me, even better.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And I think you’ve got to value your time and put a dollar amount to that. And that’s something that I am guessing like you and many other entrepreneurs struggled with at first, but I’m coming to appreciate more and more each and every year the value of depending on people that know exactly what they’re doing, they’re an expert in the space, and they can help accelerate business growth because it’s an ROI on your investment. So let’s talk about legacy for a minute. You know, I look at your vision statement, Blair, on your website, is powerful. It says, “In the next five years, helping hundreds of pharmacy businesses add millions of dollars in revenue and to serve them as an advocate for clinical pharmacy services.” And I think that it’s fair to say that the work that you’re doing today is going to be left behind for others to build upon and for your kids to admire and say, “Yes. That was my mom that did that.” So my question for you is, what do you want your legacy to be?

Blair Thielemier: Oh, I love that. Great question. So you know, it’s definitely — it is about my kids seeing me doing something that I’m passionate about, that I love, that I truly believe, this is my purpose is to bring together all this stuff that I’m interested in, present it to pharmacists as here is a viable financial model for really loving your career again. And you know, we’re being faced with a lot of challenges. You mentioned them earlier, just job market saturation and then AI coming in and maybe we won’t need to be doing the dispensing anymore. So then what are we going to do if not dispensing? We need to create these opportunities for ourselves, and a lot of people say, oh, we need provider status to do that. Well, you know, physicians have provider status, and they’re not getting reimbursed the way that they want to, so I’m pretty sure we’re not going to be reimbursed the way we want to, even if we did get provider status. So I think the opportunity there is to come up with unique things that maybe even exist in the market but that aren’t being done the way you would do them as a pharmacist like the genetic testing, like the health and wellness consulting where you’re counseling people on, oh, if they’re going to use CBD oil, make sure it’s not interacting with some of these other medicines or if they’re going to use this or that supplement or herbal medicine. And it’s a huge opportunity for pharmacists to get into the preventative medicine space, and so my legacy, I really, I want to bring about these ideas for new opportunities. But I think more importantly, I want to give you the skills that no matter what you’re doing, no matter what you’re selling, what business you’re in, you can feel confident in going out and marketing your services and selling them in a way that feels authentic. You know, that’s something I hear a lot of pharmacists say, “Well, I don’t want to feel like a salesperson. I don’t want to feel like sleazy, trying to push my product on people.” And that’s kind of why I said, well, first, before you sell your product to anybody else, you have to believe in it yourself.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Blair Thielemier: You have to have bought into it 100%. And I think that this thing that I have can solve your problem and then you present it like that. You know, here’s your problem, here’s what you’ve told me you need, here’s the solution that I’ve come up with that I think will help you achieve what you just told me your issue was. And then when you introduce your price point, it’s kind of like, well, you know — it should be a stretch, your price point should be a stretch for whatever so that they can see the value in it, but it should also be something that they’re like, yes, absolutely. I get what you’re saying. That makes sense. So giving pharmacists that business acumen, I guess, is really my ultimate goal so that whatever it is they’re selling, they can do that confidently and then they can grow their business confidently.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think there’s that compound effect where as you’re training and teaching other pharmacists, they’re going out there and impacting patient care lives in a way, in a far greater number and a way than you could ever do yourself. And I love watching that and how you’re inspiring others. And I would also add, I think part of legacy for me — and I think you share this from what I’ve been observing your journey — is the legacy of our children. And I sense a passion for you in teaching your children about entrepreneurship and business and probably at a young age, just the role modeling, but I think that’s something that I’m passionate about, my wife and I share that. And I’m hopeful that that’s something that we can collectively do and thinking about how do we teach and train the next generation, you know, the skills that maybe we didn’t get ourselves or didn’t feel like we received through our formal education. So a couple last questions here that I want to make sure we give our audience insight into. Starting a business — and I alluded to this earlier that we often see the glamour, we see the glory — but you and I both know that it is absolutely exhilarating, but it’s also hard and it’s a grind at the same time. And there are moments that you can feel overwhelmed, there’s moments that you can feel unfocused, there’s moments that you feel like are stressful. And you go through those times of excitement and obviously, you remember exactly why you’re doing what you’re doing. What do you do — what is your process to kind of bring yourself back to that reason of why you’re doing what you’re doing when you’re feeling overwhelmed or unfocused or you’ve lost that focus temporarily. What do you do to re-engage? How do you keep yourself motivated along the way?

Blair Thielemier: So I was thinking about this the other night. So I try to do a meditation almost every night, just to kind of clear my head and think about exactly what you just said, why it is I’m doing what I’m doing. And I’m a very self-motivated person, but I think it’s because I have sat down and I have put together these goals. Like you mentioned, you know, the vision statement on the website. I put that on there to remind myself and to remind others what is my ultimate goal. So do you have your goals written down? Do you know what you’re working towards? A lot of times — so I work with a lot of independent community pharmacies as well as independent consultants who want to go in physicians’ offices. But they will not have kind of a guiding goal. So take health and wellness, for instance, if your big goal is to become a health and wellness destination, you know, maybe some of these other programs, it’s OK to say, “No, I don’t think that’s right for my audience at this time.” And that’s how I do a lot in the academy now is looking at so is this right for my audience? Is this program going to help them move forward with their goals? And then ultimately, advance the profession of pharmacy and help them add millions of dollars of revenue to their businesses? So I think it really is about going back to those goals and staying focused. So in the beginning, it was hard. I mean, but I loved it. I would get up early Sunday mornings and stay up late at night after my daughter went to bed. And I truly enjoyed what I was doing and working on my business. Whatever you choose, make sure whatever business you choose to go into that you’re cool with talking about it all the time because I really feel like I could talk about MTM and entrepreneurship all the time and never run out of words and run out stuff to talk about. And that’s the fire and the passion that you need to be able to bring to your business in order to have the endurance because I mean, it is a long game. That’s why I tell people, don’t build a website unless you have a long-term plan to bring traffic to it. Or don’t start a podcast unless you have a long-term plan to continuously upload episodes.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and that passion comes through in what you do. And I think it’s contagious and really allows the success that you’ve had and the academy members and drawing people to you. So before we talk about the academy and the virtual summit here to wrap up, how about a book and/or a podcast recommendation for our audience? Something that’s inspiring you, that you’re pulling from, that’s motivating you, that you think would be valuable to our community.

Blair Thielemier: Oh, so next up on my read list — I haven’t read it yet — is “Mindset” by Carol Dweck.

Tim Ulbrich: Heard of that.

Blair Thielemier: Yeah. So I’ve listened to her on a couple podcasts, and I really like what she’s doing. So mindset is a huge, huge issue for people. So one of the things that held me back in the beginning was I was afraid to one, to market myself as an expert, so to speak, in the field. And then two was I was worried what other people would think of me. I would put out a video, and instantly be like, should I take that down? You know? Because I was worried, what will my colleagues think? What will my husband’s friends think? What will all these people think? And you know, and occasionally, people would say to me, “Oh, I watched your video, but I didn’t understand what you were talking about.” And so, I would just kind of, “Oh yeah, you know, well it’s because it’s for pharmacists. You’re not my target audience,” obviously, but I think having the mindset of like I’m going to do this for me, whether or not anyone else is listening, that was really kind of the what I needed to hear in the very beginning, and I heard that from my business coaches and my mentors of saying, “You know what, just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re going in the right direction.” Even when other people were saying, “I don’t think pharmacists would pay for that. I don’t think they’re going to join your course. I don’t think they’re going to pay a monthly fee for business coaching from you.” And I still hear it. I still hear people say, “Oh, I think your course should be lower so students can join,” or “I think your course should be higher.”

Tim Ulbrich: They would be saying the same thing if it were a third of the price, right?

Blair Thielemier: Exactly. So it’s a lot of like just listening to yourself, and if you’re comfortable with it, I think just pick a direction, pick a number, and go with it. You can always change and reiterate later. But I think that was a big part. So the “Mindset” book by Carol Dweck I think if anyone wants to chat with me about it, I’m going to have lots of time for reading here coming up as we’re headed to South Africa, so it’s going to be a very long plane ride. So I’m getting my Audible and my podcasts cued up.

Tim Ulbrich: I look forward to reading it. Mindset is my personal mission for 2019 for all of the reasons that you mentioned. And I think similar to you, as I look back to my business journey and even just personal life, you know, whether it’s places stumbled, mistakes that I’ve made, if I wouldn’t have confidently taken the step to put myself out there, I would have never made those mistakes, which every one of those has been a learning opportunity, which has resulted in something else being better that I can bring better value to our community. So I think having the mindset around how you may go into certain situations, mistakes that you’ve made and looking at those as opportunities to continue to grow your business. So let’s finish up here, the Elevate Virtual Summit coming up May 8-12, 2019. Our listeners, I hope you’ll be there, great content planned, as Blair mentioned. You can get your free ticket by registering at ElevatePharmacySummit.com, and we’ll make sure to link to that in the show notes. And Blair, just for a minute, the Pharmapreneur Academy, I referenced that in our introduction, our listeners can go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/academy, and they can use the coupon code YFP50 to get $50 off their first month. But tell us a little bit more about what our audience can expect if they were to engage a little bit more in that academy.

Blair Thielemier: So the academy, as I mentioned, is the e-course I built based on our one-on-one coaching program. So I created the MTM consulting program as the base of the academy. Since then, I have continued to build on new trainings and new modules. We go from very beginner stuff like should I get an LLC? Where do I find liability insurance? You know, how do I cold-call my potential clients? OK, they said yes. Now they want me to implement annual wellness visits in a primary care clinic. What do I do next? Or OK, now I want to do cash-based genomic consulting. What should I do with that? So the e-course, it builds on itself, and it goes from the beginner stages up through much more advanced content. So it’s a self-paced e-course. You can log in, get instant access. If you use the coupon code YFP50, you’re going to get $50 off the first month. And so you can cancel that anytime. It is a recurring membership, but we don’t hold anyone hostage. So you come in, go through the e-course, use the forums. The forums is where, you know, a lot of our members say is their favorite part of the academy because they ask questions, they get feedback not only from me but from the other pharmacists in there, so we’ve got about 150 pharmacists that are in the academy. You know, it’s not like a forum if you’re part of one of your national organization’s forums that you ask a question in the forums, it may or may not get answered. Or you may not get the answer you were actually looking for. These forums are monitored every single day by me and my team, and you are guaranteed to get an answer from one of us. So that’s where we kind of do our daily group business coaching. And then we also have a monthly member call the last Tuesday of every month, it’s a live Zoom call, like a video conference call that everyone who’s a current academy member can jump on, sometimes we bring guest experts like you, Tim, in to talk about –

Tim Ulbrich: Looking forward to it.

Blair Thielemier: Yeah, to talk about like financial, getting your financial foundation under you or in January, we brought in a sales coach, the sales maven Nikki Rausch, so whatever it may be, we kind of sometimes bring in guest experts, sometimes, we just do a Q&A, sometimes, I’ll do a special training. It really depends on feedback from the academy members. And that’s something that I’m big on. I probably ask for feedback maybe too much, but I really want to continue to build and grow the academy, and I do that by listening to what our members are telling me that they need.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So again, that’s YourFinancialPharmacist.com/academy. YFP community members can get $50 off their first month by using the code YFP50. Blair, this has been fantastic. I’ve enjoyed this, looking forward to collaborating in the future. And thank you so much for your time and coming on the show.

Blair Thielemier: Thank you for having me.

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YFP 088: Introducing YFP Planning!

Posted on February 21, 2019November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Introducing YFP Planning!

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, YFP Co-founders Tim Ulbrich and Tim Baker announce some exciting news as it relates to the launch of YFP Planning, talk through the benefits of financial planning for pharmacists and reminisce on the origins of Your Financial Pharmacist.

Summary

On this episode, Tim and Tim dive right into an exciting announcement regarding the launch of YFP Planning. YFP Planning provides comprehensive fee only financial planning services now as part of Your Financial Pharmacist. Formerly Script Financial, YFP Planning covers anything that has to do with your financial situation including cash flow, budgeting, insurance, retirement, tax preparation, and estate planning.

Tim Baker, CFP and head of YFP Planning, shares that financial success and wealth were based off of an old equation that is now a myth. The old method of thinking focused on being income statement affluent where a high income is made, however you have no savings to show for it. Conversely, balance sheet affluence is where money flows in and actually sticks so you can save for a purpose.

Comprehensive financial planning forces you to look at your current financial state and make moves to better it. This can be especially helpful for pharmacists who typically have higher incomes and a lot of student loan and credit card debt. YFP Planning doesn’t just provide you with information on how to pay off your loans, save money, or create a budget, but instead also offers accountability and coaching. Having someone offering an objective approach to your financial situation helps you to see the whole picture and pushes you to take the steps you need to reach your goals.

The YFP Planning process starts of with a free discovery meeting where the YFP Planning team learns more about you. If you decide to move ahead with YFP Planning, the first meeting focuses on getting organized. Then, another meeting is scheduled to discuss your goals and dig deeper into some questions you may have not asked yourself about your financial situation or goals.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to Episode 088 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Excited to be here with Tim Baker after we’ve had a series of side hustles represented by the one and only Tim Church. He’s doing a great job with that series, the side hustle series, so if you haven’t listened to those, check those out. Tim Baker, welcome back to the show. It’s been awhile since we recorded. I think — what? The New Year Game Plan back in Episode 081.

Tim Baker: I know. It’s actually crazy, like I think — not to be a broken record, but it’s actually nice to be like a listener and to hear all of these inspiring people come on and just the work that you’re doing and Church is doing on the podcast, like it’s really cool to see. Yeah, things have been good, been super, super busy, lots of things going on. But yeah, excited to be back on the podcast today.

Tim Ulbrich: I’m with you on that one. I kind of like the surprise of like an episode going online and get to see it as a listener and hearing the past couple weeks and being inspired by some of the pharmacists out there doing some awesome side hustle stuff. So we’ve got more of that coming also in the new year. So lots going on in your world and the tax prep, right? So we just did a webinar recently. And tell us more about what’s going on in that arena.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so one of the things that I really was thinking about in terms of like Script Financial and really providing great service to our clients is what are some things that really, we have to work through and really deal with every year? And it’s really tax. So before, you know, obviously, I’m a CFP, and a major component of that is tax, but I really wanted to learn more and look at ways to almost start a tax business as part of this Script Financial. And when the things with the Tims all kind of took off, I kind of set that aside. But I was lucky enough to have Paul Eichenberg, who’s a member of my team, who has experience with tax, become part of the team and really offer that as a service to our clients. So last night, we did our first webinar, our first YFP webinar. And it was great. We had great attendance and just kind of a learning experience for us on the webinar side. But yeah, we’re super excited to roll that out for clients. So when clients work with me, comprehensive is just kind of included in their fees, so every year, we’re doing a little bit of tax prep, which is kind of what we’re going through right now, this time of year. And really, kind of the planning that I’m a big believer in that, hey, halfway through the year, let’s take a look and do a projection and make sure that we’re not paying Uncle Sam too much or getting a refund back or whatever that looks like. So yeah, big changes, but very exciting. And just excited to roll that out.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Yeah, you guys have been doing great work there. Shoutout to Paul, I think he’s doing an awesome job leading that. And for those that are listening that aren’t yet clients, if you want to learn more about that service, YourFinancialPharmacist.com/tax. And as Tim mentioned, that’s both inclusive of the filing part but also the strategy part of looking ahead to say, what can we be doing to maximize the tax situation heading into 2019? So Tim, we’ve got some exciting news to share on today’s episode alongside a discussion we’re going to have on the decision to hire a financial planner. One of the most common questions that we get — and we’re also going to be reminiscing along the way about our journey as we both individually reflect back on all of the things that have happened really leading up to this moment. And I think it’s — to be frank, I’ve been kind of giddy about this because, you know, when you and I met just a few years ago, I feel like really, the culmination of that vision is coming together. And it’s been a really, really fun ride. So before we start getting too sentimental, Tim Baker, let’s cut to the chase. Give us the good news. What’s the announcement?

Tim Baker: Yeah. So the big change is that Script Financial, which I just talked about, which I launched way back when in 2016 is now YFP Planning. So this has kind of been kind of in the works, so Script Financial is now part of the Your Financial Pharmacist brand. It’s just super exciting. I know Tim, like when I think back when we met, you know, via Twitter way back when, I never imagined that it would kind of lead our paths to this, but it just made sense in terms of kind of our beliefs and I think what we’re really trying to do in terms of empowering pharmacists and pharmacy students to really take control of their finances. So whether it is the blog or the podcast or a course or doing your taxes or comprehensive financial planning, which is kind of my bread and butter, you know, we felt like basically having that under one brand and one mantle made the most sense, so I’m giddy as well. I’m super excited about I think where we can really take this and I think with good feedback from our listenership and readers and all that basically YFP subscribers to kind of listen to what is needed and adapt. And I think one of the things that really was a catalyst for me to leave kind of the traditional financial planning firm was, you know, there wasn’t really a lot of planning out there for young professionals or individuals that were dealing with student debt or just cash flow and budgeting. So I think in that same breath, we always want to make sure that we’re adapting to the needs of the community and what’s out there and what pharmacists are dealing with. So I’m just super excited to really get going on this and kind of do this relaunch of the brand.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’m with you on that. And one of the most common questions we get is, hey, do you guys offer comprehensive financial planning? And for our listeners, here’s the answer. Yes, yes we do. So YFPPlanning.com is the launch of the site. So if you’ve been hearing us talk about Script Financial, Tim’s brand and company, we all are now one entity. So YourFinancialPharmacist.com, you can get there as well or directly at YFPPlanning.com. And I think this really, for me, as I mentioned before, is a culmination of the vision that we had when we sat down at Bob Edmund’s on I-71 in Mansfield, Ohio, and I was actually there with Jess and the boys recently, and I was kind of — I mean, she probably was looking at me like, why are you staring off into the distance?

Tim Baker: Get a little teary-eyed.

Tim Ulbrich: Got a little teary-eyed, I was looking at the booth where we sat and had my boys there, and it was just kind of a cool moment. But just sharing that vision of like, you know, we are so passionate about helping pharmacists in this area, and I think our vision at the time was, hey, everything A to Z. Everything from debt to budgeting to investing to estate planning in all forms and fashions, we want to be involved with pharmacy and helping people along that journey toward financial freedom, which for everyone means something different. And we had this vision that whether you want to come to YourFinancialPharmacist.com and check out our free resources and calculators, which we have a ton out there, or you feel like financial planning’s a great fit for you, we’ve got that all now in one place. So let me ask you the obvious question because I think it’s worth digging in a little bit deeper is, what does comprehensive financial planning mean? Because I think we throw that out there, and the industry, as we’ve talked about before in Episodes 015, 016 and 017, you know, is very different in terms of what you’ll get for that service. So for you and for us, what does that term mean?

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think I look at it as if it has a dollar sign, we’ll work through it. To me, if I’m hiring a professional to help me with my finances, I want someone — I want there to be someone in my corner that has my back, that has my best interests in mind, which unfortunately, the way the industry is set up, that’s not always the case. So I think we’re touching on all of the things that are related to the financial plan, more specifically, things like debt management and kind of your fundamentals and cash flow and insurance and retirement and estate. But there are going to be things that are beyond that, those life events that come up, and I think it’s just really important to have someone that understands what your goals are and kind of understands really the technical piece of the financial plan and point you in the right direction. You know, so much of kind of the old equation or the old guard of financial planning was to push product. Hey, you’re a pharmacist or a doctor, here’s a life insurance policy that, you know, is probably going to pay me a lot of commission or a disability policy or an investment. And I’ll talk to you once a year. That’s not necessarily, you know, the model that we employ. So I think that the idea that a lot of things in life, even in the financial services, is becoming more and more of a commodity. So you know, really what we’re focused on is kind of bringing that life plan that fits the view of what your view of a wealthy life is and have the finances really support that. Typically, most people don’t — they don’t accumulate wealth for the sake of accumulating wealth. It’s for, you know, the fact that they want to retire at age 50 or they want to have this vacation home in the woods somewhere. So that’s really the idea is to connect the dots with, OK, what is a wealthy life? And then how do we get there? And that’s, to me, that’s what fires me up.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Love it. You know, Tim, one of the things that stands out to me is over the Facebook YFP Book Club right now, we’re working through the book, “The Next Millionaire Next Door,” by — we’ve talked about it on this podcast — Dr. Tom Stanley, Dr. Sarah Fallaw, which reminds me of our journey and our beliefs to buck the status quo and complacency that’s out there when it comes to achieving financial freedom and building wealth. And the one takeaway that I remember from this book and the first one that was published back in the ‘90s is that this old equation of high income=success is a myth. It’s a false reality. But so many pharmacists, myself included at one point, really subscribe to this false reality. So tell us more about this old equation and how you see pharmacists kind of falling into this trap.

Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s kind of what they talk about when we talk about income statement affluent versus balance sheet affluent. So essentially, income statement affluent — and I see this a lot where, you know, you have a household that makes $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 or whatever that looks like and have nothing to show for it: have no savings, have credit card debt, and essentially, the money, the household’s like a siv, the money comes right in and goes right out. Balance sheet affluent — and I’ve seen this even with residents who make $40,000 or $50,000 or incomes of less than $100,000 — balance sheet affluent are those people that when the money flows in, it actually sticks. And you’re saving for the purpose of retirement or a kid’s education or whatever it is. So the reality is that you’re spending, you know, for a lot of people, a lot of people will say, “Hey, I wish I could make a little bit more. I wish I could get a 10% raise, and then all of my concerns could be put at ease.” But the reality is and the psychology shows us that most people, their spending rises with really their income. So you know, if I double your salary tomorrow, a lot of people will double their spending. So the old equation is, you know, basically is when you follow traditional advice, you should really enjoy your income and really live for today, and we see that in society as being — we very much live on credit and we spend, spend, spend, you know, car payments, a big mortgage, that type of thing where what we really want to do — and it often leads to things that give us stress, so I’m thinking back to Jessica Louie about clutter and things like that. A lot of it is very near-term, like satisfaction of like, oh, this is awesome. But then we just surround ourselves — and I’ve been this way in my life in the past where I’m like, I just have all this stuff that I really don’t like or want that just causes more stress. So I think, you know, the idea is we want to make sure that we are being intentional. We talk about being intentional with our spending. And develop a savings plan that allows you to allocate dollars for the things that mean the most, whether that is a vacation to the Pacific Northwest, whether that is a vacation home in the woods or a trip to Paris, France. Those are really the things that I think are what I talk about life plan that are more important.

Tim Ulbrich: Amen. Preach it, Tim Baker.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Preach. You know, it’s interesting because we just finished up “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” in the book club, and now we’re reading “The Next Millionaire Next Door,” and that wasn’t intentional, but two very — I don’t know if different is the right word — but just very philosophically — you know, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” to me is all about growing the asset line and thinking about real estate and those types of things.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think that “The Millionaire Next Door” focuses much more on frugality and cutting expenses, both of which are very important. And Jess and I were having a conversation the other night is you put the two of those concepts together, and boom. It’s like, game on, right?

Tim Baker: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: And I was even thinking back to this old equation, thinking back to 2009, you know, Jess and I had over $200,000 of student loan debt, we had a house with almost no equity, we soon had a growing family to support with the loss of one of our incomes because she was going to be staying home. And we realized that despite all of the amazing opportunities that have been afforded to us, there’s really little discussed truth among practitioners, ourselves included, in this field about how to manage this. And I think many pharmacists listening find themselves in exactly the same boat. And so as you meet with pharmacists or residents or fellows or students, what are some of the most common frustrations and things that you’re hearing from them?
Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s a great question. And typically, when I meet with a prospective client, I’ll lay out essentially three things. And I’ll say, “Hey, Tim,” — you know, typically, when a pharmacist such as yourself comes to speak with me about their finances, they share one of a few things. It could be “I’m overwhelmed with student debt,” or even credit card debt, I’m seeing that more and more, this credit card debt. “I am confused how to properly budget, save and invest in my future.” And that’s kind of a broad, that’s a broader one. But it typically hits for most people. And the last one is, you know, “I’m frustrated by the fact that I make a good income, but I’m not progressing financially.” And kind of this idea of living paycheck-to-paycheck and maybe not enjoying kind of their work because they could be stuck in that work because they need that income, that type of thing. So there’s a lot — and typically, when I kind of go through those pain points, a lot of pharmacists look at me and then they say, “You just described me. Like you’re three-for-three.” So I think it hits on a point a lot of kind of what we’re talking about with empowering pharmacists to really get going on this because you can meander in life and wake up when you’re 45, 55, and really have nothing to show for it. It’s really that easy to do. So I think like part of what we do at YFP Planning now is really, we kind of force you to look at it. We meet quite often, so we almost like force you to really look at that, look at the kind of your current state and make moves to better it. And really examine — we often don’t do enough self-reflection, not just about finances but about life in general. You know, so when I say, “Hey, Tim, what does success look like in five years?” what I often see is, “Wow, that’s a really good question. I never really thought about that.” And then the other things I see, particularly between spouses is kind of like that rubberneck, like I can’t believe that these are the things that you want in five years or that type of thing. And again, it’s hard for us to imagine our five-year-older self, and essentially what I do with clients that if you’re 30 right now, you’re 35, I’m like, imagine when you’re 35 or 40, and put yourself in that place. So I think like the pain points are definitely real, and it’s easy to put your head in the sand and kind of not look at it and just live with it, but I think the sooner that we can kind of get a plan in place, the better. And hopefully, we can do that for you.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think just to build on that, Tim, one of the things I see, I’m sure you see it more often that people often come up to me after a talk or ask a question, and they’ll describe that “I really want to pay off my $200,000 student loans,” or “I really want to save $4 million for retirement.” But when I ask that next-level question of why or what’s motivating you or what’s going to keep you going, there really isn’t much thought there, right? And I think that goes to the point of visualization and thinking about not only your why but where you see yourself in five or 10 or 15 years. And what would be the negative impact if you didn’t do this? Or what are you hoping to achieve by doing this? And I think that gets to the point of accountability and coaching. And one of the things that excites me as we think about YFP Planning is that for the past few years on YFP at YourFinancialPharmacist.com, we’ve been providing a ton of information — and a shoutout here to Tim Church, who has done an unbelievable job.

Tim Baker: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: The guides, the checklists, the calculators, the blogs, the podcasts. But what I’m getting to here is it’s not just about information. I’ve seen this firsthand with Jess and I working with you that I read on this topic all the time, but at the end of the day, if I don’t have an accountability partner or a coach, things may not get done. And you know, there’s a quote out there. It says, “If information was the answer, then we’d all be millionaires with perfect abs,” right? So you know, talk to me about accountability and coaching. And I think often, there’s this misperception that hey, my financial planner’s going to help me get x return on my investments when really, maybe the accountability and the coaching is the more important piece.

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think like when I look at it, you know, I kind of go through like when I more or less explain to a client what we do, a lot of it is kind of touching on the different parts of the financial plan, but I almost say like at the end of it, like crumble all that up and throw it away because really, I think the value that we provide is kind of the ongoing coaching and accountability. The technical side of it is important, but you think about even like in pharmacy, like it’s important that you know your stuff, but a lot of it is adherence, right? You want to make sure that your patients are taking their medication and all that kind of stuff. So like it’s the same thing as like I could give — what I tell clients often is just because life is so busy, I could give you the most well thought out, awesome financial plan. Most people will read it, say, “Hey, that’s nice.” And they’ll throw it on the shelf, and nothing ever gets done. So I think what we try to do is provide some, you know, where we have a client portal and we try to put those tasks back into the client portal, that pings them and reminds them. And really, again, the fact that we meet frequently, we’re trying to always push the ball forward and cross those things off the list, whether it’s getting your will done or insurance in place or setting up this Ally account for the purposes of Paris, France, which I want them to label it as “Paris, France,” even if it sits empty for two years. I don’t care. I want that there, ready to receive money when that happens. So I think that — I think that the accountability is important. But I also put a heavy premium on the objectivity. So you know, if we take you and Jess as an example, you guys view money differently. So sometimes, it’s good to have someone that has an objective opinion that says, “Hey, these are what my thoughts are, and this is my advice.” So I think if you couple the objectivity and kind of the objective approach to the financial plan with the kind of the ongoing coaching and accountability, it’s a deadly combination. And that’s what I think that often falls short with a lot of other advisors, so sometimes I’ll ask a prospective client, “Hey, who ultimately is going to make the decision? Is it you? Is it you and your spouse? Is it you and a Yoda in your life? What does that look like?” And a lot of times, you know, people will say, “Well, I really respect my dad’s opinion.” They have an advisor, and that’s an objection I kind of have to overcome because most of the time, dad’s advisor is not going to understand or really value what we do because dad’s advisor will typically — you’ll pay based on the assets that are invested and then maybe — and if they don’t have minimums like $250,000 or $100,000 minimums, and they will work with a younger professional, then they talk to you once or twice a year. That’s not our model. We’re very different. So it’s not an apples-to-apples approach. So again, I think the coaching and the accountability part is such a big part of that that I think it’s a differentiating factor between us and other financial planners.

Tim Ulbrich: So Tim, hopefully this is a feel-good for you, but as you were talking right then, I just started making a list of all of the things that Jess and I accomplished in the last three months that I’m confident we either would not have done or would not have done as quickly without your accountability and coaching. So I’m sure I’m missing some, but we’re back on track with our zero-based budget, using YNAB, we got the estate planning documents wrapped up, emergency fund is back to full fund after we moved recently, we worked through plussing up our disability and life insurance policies, umbrella insurance policies, we worked through lowering fees on investments, asset allocation of accounts, and setting up our savings sheet with our sinking funds. And even to your point earlier, some of those have a $0 but are a reminder of the goals that we have, right? So we have some real estate goals at $0 right now. That’s not the point. The point is it’s a reminder of the goal that we’re trying to get to and because of that, even at $0, it’s something that Jess and I are talking about. So that’s the power of accountability right there. Would I have done those things did I have the knowledge to do them? Yes. Would I have executed? Maybe yes, maybe no. And that matters.

Tim Baker: Well, it makes my heart happy. And you guys are great clients, so I think that, yeah, I think that it’s good feedback. Now, the 403b that we have in transit, that’s a work in progress. I’ll talk to you about that today. But you know, there’s always things that, you know — and again, it’s kind of like an ebb and flow. So it’s never going to be clean-cut in terms of like, hey, we knocked this out. Things are going to change in life. And imagine like in your life alone, what has changed over this past year, and you’ve accomplished all that, and you’ve been really intentional about that. And I think almost working together has kind of forced us into that. And I think that’s great. And yeah, I think that it’s hard to — so a lot of — it’s hard to quantify that, though. Like how do you quantify? Because at the end of the day, pharmacists are scientists. They’re very analytical, so they want to say, OK, if I’m paying this amount of fee, am I going to get this return? And I put that back on how do you value x or how do you value y? But I understand, like you have to get value from that. But yeah, it’s great feedback. And I think the things that really fire me up are those types of, that type of feedback but also seeing a client — and I have a few clients in mind that come to me with $40,000 in credit card debt, and they pay it off like aggressively, very quickly, so we can move onto the next thing. And we can see the movement in their overall net worth, so where before they were -$200,000, maybe they’re now they’re only -$140,000, which sounds like people laugh at that, but those are real dollars that we’re making moves towards. So I love those cases, and it inspires me to kind of keep going and really be the advisor, be the planner there that is there to back them up and really encourage them and really give them tough love when they need it as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Alright, so Tim, we’ve talked before on this podcast many times about the value of fee-only financial planning. Episodes 015-017, which I referenced earlier, and lots of variability that’s out there in the financial planning industry. So just real brief, fee-only, what is it? And why does it matter?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I guess in my profession — and I guess I struggle to call it a profession for a lot of reasons, but really, the way that advisors are really identified, so if we have any John Oliver fans out there who does Last Week Tonight, he does a segment on financial advisors and kind of what they are and how they work, and I always reference that because I think it’s actually pretty funny and pretty accurate. You know, essentially, a financial advisor or financial planner, that name really doesn’t mean anything. Unlike a PharmD, an MD, a JD that actually carries weight to it, the CFP has, that’s kind of like an accreditation that you want, a Certified Financial Planner, but essentially, financial advisors, financial planners, are typically categorized in three buckets. You have a commission agent, which in the very extreme example, think of like Wolf of Wall Street. “Hey, Tim, I’m walking in the parking lot, I had this great idea on a stock that I want to sell you or this life insurance plan or this disability policy.” It’s very transactional, and it’s the sale of product. So I’m trying to get my commission and then go. The fee-based world, which this is where I started in the industry before I launched Script Financial was fee-based. Fee-based is basically where you have advice and the sale of product, basically they’re merged together. And anytime that happens, you have a conflict of interest. So in my last firm, I would say, “Hey, client, I could sell you this mutual fund that pays me a 1% commission and a 1% trail or this one that pays me a 5% commission. Or if we talked about term and whole-life, this particular term policy pays me a commission of x and whole-life pays me a lot more,” so anytime that you have — and we see this, Tim, we see this with physicians. So physicians are not supposed to get kickbacks on the medication they’re prescribing because, you know, there’s a conflict there. So it’s the same in our industry, except right now, most of the advisors out there operate in that fee-based world. What fee-only does, and it’s a very, very small subset of financial advisors out there. I’ve heard estimates it’s less than 5%. What fee-only is is basically you separate the advice, the dispensing of advice, from the product. So my compensation comes directly from the client, there’s no kickback or referrals. It’s not through a mutual fund or insurance company. It comes directly from the clients. So I don’t really — I’m not influenced to put a client in Product X or Y. I want to basically — I’m giving them the advice, they’re paying me for the advice, and I’ll put them in products that I think are in their best interest. So the big thing with fee-only is that it follows that fiduciary standard of care, which means that I’m legally bound to act in my client’s best interest versus a suitability care, which the majority of advisors out there where they can actually put their own interests ahead of their clients’. Which is crazy to me that that is actually a thing.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think just to drive that home one step further, if we think about the traditional financial advising model, typically, there’s a compensation based on Assets Under Management, so how much you’ve invested with them or commission from product scales, which often are hidden from view or hourly fees. So in other words, that advisor is incentivized to focus on investing over other options. And sometimes, this means that your goals as the client and their goals as the advisor are not fully aligned. And that is so important for pharmacists to hear that message because as we launch YFP Planning, we talk about fee-only financial planning services, which is what you’ve been doing with Script Financial, that it really bucks that model entirely. And that’s really important for those of you that are looking comprehensively, that I need help with student loans, I need help with credit card debt, I need help with my budget, I need help with home buying, I need help with estate planning and all these other things with investments being one piece of that. But we’re not going to only focus on investments, ignoring the rest of the financial plan. And so I think that holistic model and that pricing incentivizes that comprehensive nature is incredibly important for our clients to be considering, whether it’s us or somebody else, to make sure that they’re looking at a model that’s fee-only, that there’s a right educational credential and that pricing is done so in a way that really incentivizes that advisor to work with you on a comprehensive nature.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and one of the things that frustrates me a bit is, you know, when I’m talking to a prospective client and they’re like, “Well, maybe I’ll go with my parents’ advisor that doesn’t charge them anything,” which is utterly false. It’s so, like, nothing comes free. So you know, typically, what happens there is that they don’t know what they’re being charged, which is a problem. Transparency is a problem in our industry. So that’s a problem. But I think also is the — I think when you work with a professional, there’s almost like a sense that they know what they’re talking about. And I would say by and large, most advisors have no idea what to do with student loans or how to help clients with a budget because it’s just not something, you know, most advisors want minimums of $250,000 in investable assets, so there’s almost this assumption of wealth. So it’s like, “Hey, kid straight out of pharmacy school, good on you. But you don’t need financial planning help,” which is utterly false. It’s just that their model is set in a way that they’re incentivized to go after those that have investable assets. And then really with the student loan piece in particular, I’ve had clients that say, “Hey, I’ve been working with this other advisor, and their advice on the student loans was like, oh, they’ll just take care of themselves. They’ll just amortize over time,” which is like ugh, I just want to scream to the heavens and say, “No, that is terrible advice.” But then they’re also in a whole-life policy or whatever. So it’s just crazy talk.

Tim Ulbrich: Follow the dollar. Follow the dollar.

Tim Baker: Yeah, exactly.

Tim Ulbrich: So talk us through the process at YFP Planning. Where do people begin? And then once they go through that process of trying to figure out is it a good fit for them or not? What does that look like from there?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so it’s a great question, Tim. So I think the best, you know, if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re like, man, I think this works for me, probably the best thing would be to go YFPPlanning.com, and you can actually schedule like a free discovery meeting with myself. And really, this allows me to kind of learn a little bit about you and potentially your spouse, what are the big issues that we’re dealing with and kind of talk through the process and what we do and kind of get a sense of each other to see if we would be a good fit. So you know, if we decide that, we kind of go through a step to kind of get you onboarded. So it could be really the first meeting that we have is get organized. So in the get organized meeting, we essentially look at your client portal. So once you become a client, you get a welcome email that says, “Hey, start linking all of your things to the client portal: your checking, your savings, your student loans, all that.” And what I’m doing is I’m building the first lens in which I’m going to look through to give you advice. So I’m looking at a snapshot of your income and your net worth, and then we also do kind of a 90-day retroactive budget exercise just to see how money is flowing through the household. So that’s really the first meeting. And then from there, we essentially schedule the second meeting, which is the second lens in which I’m looking through is it’s all about the goals and kind of hearkens back to the three questions that we went through with you and Jess. And really, it’s where I learn the most about my clients and really how the client views what a wealthy life is. So we’re going to ask you thought-provoking questions that you probably have not asked yourself. But the idea is to really, based on those two meetings, build a plan in a way that I am helping you grow and protect income and grow and protect your net worth while keeping your goals in mind. To me, that’s the name of the game.

Tim Ulbrich: So Tim, I’m guessing some are thinking, can I just do all of this myself? So what is your answer to that? Because I know for you, fit is very important in terms of the right fit for you, the right fit for the client. So what is your response to that?

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think, you know, I think the answer is that you can. You absolutely can. And there are a lot of people that kind of more of a DIY approach. And Tim, I would probably put you as a more DIY, especially before we first met, but I think once you start working with someone and you can kind of see the power of kind of the ongoing coaching and accountability, it almost kicks that into second gear. So I think you can. I think my view on that is, you know, I’m a financial planner, and I need a financial planner because, again, I need someone to objectively look at Shea and I’s situation and say, hey, we come from very different places in terms of money. These are our goals, how do we get there? So I get it. Pharmacists are very smart. They’re very analytical. But you know, even if you’re going to play a sport, you’re going to workout, typically, you have a trainer or you have a coach that kind of looks at your situation and looks at it from that third-party viewpoint and say, “Hey, brass tax, these are things that I think you’re doing well at. These are things that I think we need to improve upon.” So I think that you can. I would argue that what we do across the board with tax — so the slide that I put up last night was the average pharmacist will make $9 million, and $6 million will flow through your accounts. What’s at stake is really the $3 million that typically is eaten up by tax. How do we be as efficient with that as possible? You know, I’m analyzing an individual’s 401k now, and their expense ratios are like 2.67%, which is crazy. Like it’s crazy. So with a little bit of adjustment, we can really lower that substantially. And over the course of their lifetime, we’ll save probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, not an exaggeration.

Tim Ulbrich: Maybe more.

Tim Baker: Maybe more. And again, that’s not a guarantee or anything, so nothing like that. But like, it’s those types of things that either you — the audience, you guys are trained as pharmacists, you’re not really trained to look at some of these things that I do every day with clients. So it’s just that other, maybe more technical piece of it to really look at. And again, I think kind of the high-touch that we are with offering the tax and the cash flow and budgeting piece is I think a really differentiator between us and maybe the other guy.

Tim Ulbrich: So to our listeners, regardless of whether you choose to explore YFP Planning, I want to offer up a challenge to you that is two questions. No. 1, what are you going to do in the next 30 days to change your financial situation? And No. 2, what’s the first step that you’re going to take towards your wealthy life? Because everyone we’ve talked to, myself included, constantly says, “I wish I would have started earlier,” right? And when I go talk with students and residents and I talk with faculty and pharmacists and preceptors, the one thing they say is, “I wish I would have started earlier,” or “I wish I would have learned this information sooner.” So Tim, let’s wrap up here. Just give us a little bit of background on the YFP Planning team — I know it’s a team that’s growing — and what our listeners can expect as they engage with us as a group.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I’m super fortunate enough to have a good team that surrounds me. Like I mentioned, Paul who was on our webinar last night, he is essentially my go-to. He’s basically Director of Operations and Tax. So he handles all of the tax returns internally. Frankie, who’s my assistant, she does all the behind-the-scenes work that sets me up for meetings and follow-up and all the things that are crucial to kind of push the financial plan forward and helps me with that. And Tom, who’s my assistant advisor. And all Tom does is work on cash flow and budget. He’s a super nerd, he likes that stuff.

Tim Ulbrich: Super nerd.

Tim Baker: Super nerd, yeah. So I’m so happy to have them as part of my team. And of course, you guys in terms of helping the firm grow and Caitlyn, who does an excellent job with the podcast, all integral parts of the team. But I think like as we — and Tim, I was thinking about this, like you know, the other day, I’m like maybe we should have like a career section on our website. Because I think that we are growing, and I would love to be able to have maybe jobs out there that maybe would be interesting to the YFP community. But I’m excited. We’re looking at bringing on a paraplanner in the coming weeks and just to add additional backup. And I think as we grow, one of the things that we’re really — and we talk about this a lot, kind of the three Tims — is making sure that our brand is — we want to make sure that what we represent and what we believe in is kind of is shown amongst all of our team members. So I’m just excited about, you know, really the rebrand and I think where we’re going to take this going into 2019 and beyond.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And to the point you made about the careers piece, we’ve got some exciting announcements coming out, looking for some writers that are passionate about this topic.

Tim Baker: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: We welcome and value other perspectives. And then also, we’ve been floating around the idea of a student internship. So if there’s any students out there listening that are nerds on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. [email protected]. And we’re hoping to make that a reality here in 2019. So to the YFP community, as always, we appreciate you joining us each and every week. And we’re excited to be on this journey alongside of you. And if you’re not yet a part of the community over at the Your Financial Pharmacist Facebook group, check it out. That group every day inspires me as they’re challenging, helping one another, motivating one another, sharing success stories, looking for encouragement. So again, that’s the Your Financial Pharmacist Facebook group. Tim, it’s been a lot of fun, as always, with this episode and the journey, and looking forward to an awesome 2019.

Tim Baker: Same here.

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YFP 087: Student Loan Updates with Travis Hornsby

Posted on February 14, 2019November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Student Loan Updates with Travis Hornsby

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Tim Ulbrich interviews Travis Hornsby, Founder of Student Loan Planner and Chief Student Loan Planner. Travis shares student loan updates and talks about his journey starting the Student Loan Planner, the most common mistakes he sees pharmacists making with their student loans, the pros and cons of student loan refinancing, what legislative changes he anticipates will happen and the one step you can take today if you are feeling overwhelmed with where to go next with your student loans.

About Today’s Guest

Travis started Student Loan Planner in October 2016 after helping his wife and her friends figure out their six figure student loans. He used to be a bond trader, so he took his Excel heavy skill set and built models for how to save money paying back student debt. When he and his wife tackled her debt from med school, there were not a lot of resources out there for professionals like her. Most of the sites that did exist just wanted us to refinance so they could earn a commission.

Summary

Travis Hornsby, founder of Student Loan Planner, talks all things student loans with Tim Ulbrich. The Student Loan Planner has saved 1,500 clients a projected $80 million over the lifetime of their loans.

Before launching the Student Loan Planner, Travis worked as a bond trader for one of the world’s largest companies. However, he wasn’t excited about getting up for work in the morning. He sought early retirement, traveled the world, and met his now wife who had a lot of medical school debt. Travis used his experience with Excel to model paying off her student loans and did the same process later for a lot of their friends. This experience paired with his realization of how little or bad advice is given for paying off student loans led him to create his Student Loan Planner business.

Travis provides insight and updates for different loan repayment options and reminds those with pharmacy school student loan debt that they have a lot of options.

First, Travis discusses the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF). He shares that a lot of people are getting the story wrong about the history and working of PSLF and thinks that in the future, borrowers taking this path will be grandfathered in to complete the program, even if the program has changed or doesn’t exist anymore.

Travis also discusses the return of investment of the pharmacy degree and that it’s important to take your focus off of debt and think about your broad financial goals, as this can aid in determining which repayment plan to chose. He also speaks about the refinancing market and how to know if that’s the option that will work best for your situation depending on your debt-to-income ratio. Travis talks about the benefits of the “refinancing ladder” and that you are able to refinance your loans multiple times.

He also gives advice to those that may be feeling overwhelmed by their debt. Travis shares that it’s important to determine what your goal is, whether it’s to get your student loan balance to zero or for your loans to be forgiven. This will help you determine which path to take and allow you to plan out how to repay your loans.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Travis, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast!

Travis Hornby: Great to be here, thanks for having me, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’m excited to have you on and talk all things student loans and excited to be able to pick your brain as somebody I view to be a leading expert in this space and hear more about the work you’ve done at Student Loan Planner and also talk about this topic, this behemoth that is student loans, the impact on pharmacy graduates, what you’re seeing with your clients and the future of student loans. Specifically, we’ll talk a little bit about loan forgiveness, refinancing and other things that I know our listeners are in tune with or want to learn more about. And Travis, I have to say, I was reflecting as I was going back, preparing for this episode. I think it was just over two years ago I heard about your journey, we had a phone call, got a chance to talk a little bit about the vision of what we each were working on. And it’s been incredible to watch what you have been doing over at Student Loan Planner, so congratulations on the work that you’ve done.

Travis Hornby: Thanks, and you know, great work as well, educating pharmacists and making them more financially literate. It’s badly, badly needed. So really grateful for Your Financial Pharmacist being out there. We’ve got very similar positive missions to try to help people as a community, so it’s exciting to talk.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And before I ask you to talk a little bit more about your journey of starting Student Loan Planner, I want to make our audience familiar with the work that you’re doing if they’re already not, so StudentLoanPlanner.com, and you have saved over 1,500 clients a projected $80 million over the lifetime of their loans. And we’ll talk a little bit about how you have done that. And the website, again, StudentLoanPlanner.com, is an incredible resource: up-to-date information, you’ve got the blog, you’ve now got the podcast we’ll talk about here in a little bit, calculators, quizzes. Your calculators are phenomenal. Is that you building those? I mean, that’s amazing if you’ve been building those calculators.

Travis Hornby: Yeah, you know, I did build it. That’s my background, I was a bond trader for one of the world’s largest investment companies, and you know, the career path is keep your head down, make a lot of good trades, you’ll work your way up to being a portfolio manager, and that’s a wonderful career path. It’s a very numerative career path, but it just wasn’t for me. It wasn’t what got me up in the morning, really passionate and excited to go to work. And I’m a big believer that no matter whether that’s in your field that you initially chose or whatever it is, you should try to seek it out. And so for me, that kind of led me to trying to do early retirement. So I actually quit my job at 25 and traveled the world for a little bit and then ended up dating this woman who had a lot of student loan debt, my now wife. And she had a lot of debt from medical school, and so I was thinking, well, you know, I’ve got all these Excel skills fresh out of being a bond trader. I should use these to model it for her. And I did. And then she told me to tell all her friends about it because they were in the same boat. And then we had friends when we were up in Philadelphia that were in a bunch of different graduate programs, and I found that the math was applicable to their situations as well. And then I thought, wow, this is a lot more fun than making rich people richer. Not that that’s a terrible thing because a lot of big investors are mom-and-pop type people, and that’s a noble goal, but it just wasn’t something that made me super excited to help people that already had figured out their financial issues.

Tim Ulbrich: So Travis, what were you seeing at the time in terms of — you mentioned your situation with your wife and the journey that you guys had paying that off, and you’ve kind of brought your experiences together as a bond trader. You had this desire of kind of doing something you are passionate about. What did you see in your own journey as it related to paying off student loan debt and achieving that vision of becoming debt-free? And why were you then passionate about spreading that onto others?

Travis Hornby: Sure. So a lot of your pharmacists that are listening to this that work at not-for-profit or government employers will really feel the pain here, will really feel our pain. So my wife worked at a not-for-profit employer when she was in residency and in fellowship. So she had a bunch of credit towards loan forgiveness. And then at about year 7 or 8, you know, in terms of the numbers of years toward the 10 that she needed to get public service loan forgiveness, she submitted all the paperwork after I made her realize that hey, this is a thing, you should really apply for this, you should be eligible for this and then we should be able to just cap your payments out on the IBR plan for the last two or three years of it when you’re attending, and we should be able to get $100,000 wiped away. And so I submitted all the forms, and then Fed Loan came back to us and said, “You don’t have any credit on half of your loans. And on the other half of your loans, you only have three years of credit.”

Tim Ulbrich: Classic, right?

Travis Hornby: Yeah. I was just blown away by this. I said, how is this possible that you’ve made all these payments based on your income for seven years and you have almost no credit for a lot of your loans and barely any on the other half? So I thought that was just absurd, and so I ran the numbers again to see, well, pretend that she gets the full three years of credit on everything, what does that mean for the rest of the PSLF path? Should we count on this or not? And her debt was small enough, you know, thankfully, that we just decided that the projected savings, there might be like $20,000 or $30,000 left over at the end of the 10 years, so we’re just going to refinance it and pay it off really quickly. So that’s what we did. So we paid off her $124,000 of med school debt, which is, you know, very low compared to a lot of people that I talk to. And we’re very blessed that it wasn’t very high, but at the same time, it’s really crazy because it should be the injustice of this whole system going through this personally because her parents were first-generation Americans coming over here from Hong Kong and then Canada. And they really sacrificed and put tons of their savings into her med school to try to help her come out with less debt. And if she’d only had better guidance, she not only could have had her parents keep a lot of that money, but she could have paid even less of it back if she had had that information early on in the process. So I thought that was just so outrageous that one, the cost was already so high for medical school. But second, that she got such bad advice from that same medical school that caused her to be kind of taken advantage of by the loan services, just the fact that cost us five, even six, figures. I just thought that was terrible, and I didn’t want that to happen to anybody else.

Tim Ulbrich: I love that you took your personal pain and obviously, you know, nobody wants to go through that, but taking that personal pain and turning it into good and teaching others. And I think as I follow your blog, I weekly kind of follow, I think you’re an incredible teacher of taking what is a unbelievably complicated subject — probably one we both agree is unnecessarily complicated — and really breaking it down in a way that people can understand and really take a step back to say, what is the best student loan repayment option for my personal situation? And I know coming out of school, similar type of a journey, as I look back, I could have went Public Service Loan Forgiveness, I could have refinanced, didn’t know what either of those were, didn’t have the education, didn’t have the tools. I couldn’t tell you what was subsidized, unsubsidized. I couldn’t tell you IBR and PAYE and REPAYE. I didn’t have any idea any of that knowledge. And I think that’s a consistent theme we see with lots of pharmacists, I’m sure you see with your clients, and being able to break that down and as you work with people one-on-one to say, hey, based on your situation, this is really what we think is the best path forward I think is incredible. So that’s been fun to watch your journey and see that grow along the way. So let’s talk while we’re in the moment of loan forgiveness, let’s talk about that for a minute because I think there’s so much swirling right now about Public Service Loan Forgiveness. We’ve talked about it on this podcast on multiple occasions. In Episode 018, we talked about maximizing the benefits of PSLF. Episode 078, we just recently talked about whether or not pursuing loan forgiveness is a waste. And so much news swirling around about, you know, at 99.x% of applicants being rejected and you know, is this something as a new pharmacist graduate that might actually be viable for me or not? So give us the lowdown on what’s going on with loan forgiveness. Is there any new news out there? What should recent graduates be considering as they potentially pursue this path?

Travis Hornby: Yeah, that’s a great question. So the listeners that are planning on loan forgiveness or afraid that they might not get it, they first need to realize historically what happened with this proram. So this program was around since 2007 on the books but functionally, it really didn’t exist until like 2009. And in earnest, it didn’t exist until 2010. And the reason is because you had FFEL loans before 2010 that were basically loans issued under an old loan program. So before 2010, when the government took over all student loan lending and created everyone had to use the direct loan program past that point. Prior to that point, you had this FFEL loans, which are basically bank loans that are backed by the government. And those loans, because you can think of the banks being the ones that actually hold the debt, obviously they wouldn’t want those loans forgiven, right? And so the government essentially gave them basically allowed the banks to not have to deal with the PSLF thing for those loans. And so when 2010 rolled around, then everybody started getting direct loans by default without having to do anything special. And everybody had access to things called Income-Based Repayment that people could sign up for without having to be a PhD-level expert in Department of Education bureaucracy. So a lot of people look at these statistics, and they get really depressed. But the problem with that is that you have to look at what happened 10 years ago to understand why so few people are getting approved today. And that’s a very hard thing to do and explain in a quick 800-word article on CNBC or something like that. So that’s the problem is a lot of people are getting the story wrong because yeah, like it was almost impossible to have loans that qualified in 2008 and 2009. That’s why you’re only seeing people that basically went to like one-year Master’s degrees that documented everything perfectly, they got super, super lucky being the ones that are getting approved right now. And so for that reason, I don’t personally believe that we’re going to see any large-scale forgiveness for PharmDs until about 2023. I think that’s when we’re going to see the first cohort that had been on an income-driven program for, you know, 10 years consistently and actually has a full slate of PharmD debt that they’re going to get forgiven. So a lot of the people out there that are pharmacists, you know, don’t expect any shocking news until then.

Tim Ulbrich: And you actually recently talked with — or I can’t remember, you might have blogged about it — a real, live person who actually had loan forgiveness, right? I mean, they do actually exist.

Travis Hornby: They do. Yeah, it was great. She sent me an email — that’s one of the best parts of having a student loan blog and just being super focused on that alone is, you know, I got this long email from this person who was like, this is my story. Feel free to use it. And I was like, absolutely. I’ll take you up on that. So I wrote a blog post about it, and she only had $19,000 from a very short, abbreviated degree program in like 2008 that just happened to be from one of the right schools. Because they had direct loans prior to 2010, but it was very limited. And so this person just happened to have the right kind of debt, she had signed up for the wrong kind of program, but she followed the TEPSLF rules, the Temporary Expanded PSLF rules, precisely. And she ended up getting loan forgiveness, and it was amazing. She even got refunds for all of the payments that she made that she shouldn’t actually have to make based off of her payment count. So that’s really amazing. Like anybody that’s worried about not getting PSLF needs to probably read that article because it shows you that not only are they going to cover it and give it to you, they’re also going to give a literal refund for all of that money that you pay that you shouldn’t have had to pay. So that’s the most amazing program that you can really think of in terms of if you can actually get it.

Tim Ulbrich: So one of the questions I probably get most often, Travis, is what is the future of this? And what certainty, if any, what’s the political climate? And obviously, none of us have a crystal ball, but as you’re in this each and every day in the weeds, I mean, do you foresee major legislative changes coming in the future? And if so, should there be any security that people feel in terms of being grandfathered in in terms of when those rules may be changed?

Travis Hornby: Yeah, so the thing that people need to realize is the way that the U.S. government works is the grandfather people in, and they make changes on a long-term basis. So a perfect example for this is social security. Social security, whenever they need to fix the program, they don’t cut benefits for people that are currently retired because they don’t want to make people super angry at them in the short term. So politicians is the “them” that I’m talking about. So what they do is instead, they just gradually raise the retirement age over time. So if you talk to people that are looking at social security, their retirement age goes up by like I think it’s 2 months every year or so for the next x amount of years until it hits 67. So something similar like that’s going to happen, I think, with PSLF. I think that it’s very, very expensive, this program. People have no idea how expensive it’s going to be from the taxpayers’ perspective. So I do expect it to get phased out eventually. I think that you’re going to a future Congress realize that it’s way, way more expensive than they thought probably in the early 2020s, and then I think that they’re going to probably curtail it or eliminate it, but they’re going to eliminate it for future borrowers, and they’re going to eliminate it for people who start graduate school after a certain point. So it’s going to be real interesting to see what grad programs do. I would imagine they’ll probably try to enroll a lot of people early. You know, so they can get access to this. But yeah, I do think it’s going to end at some point in the next, say, 5-10 years. But I think it’s going to end for people who have never taken out yet. So I think that the PSLF promises that are being made now will be continued to be paid out well into the early 2030s.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. I’m going to switch gears for a minute here and talk about the ROI of the pharmacy degree. You’ve blogged on this topic, and we’ve talked about it here. We’re in a landscape that is shifting. We’re hopeful, I think, as those that love the profession we’re going to see this shift back, but obviously supply-and-demand, and actually just yesterday, I got an email from somebody in the YFP community talking about they’re a fourth-year graduate, getting ready to go out into the market, they’re worried about the market being saturated, salaries are decreasing, and they’re basically looking at between salary reductions and a reduction in the number of hours, planning on a base salary somewhere around $85,000. And the question being, what can I, what should I be doing to plan financially for that? And I think historically, the message that I felt and many others have felt that don’t worry about the student loans, you’re going to have a great income. Well, that story is changing. So as you’re working with clients, Travis, specifically your pharmacy clients, are you seeing this trend? Are you seeing the shift? And what are some of the things that you’re trying to help them think about in terms of intentionality of student loan repayment? Maybe being strategic about finding an employer that qualifies for loan forgiveness, refinancing, how does this shifting ROI of the degree in the job market impact their plan to pay back student loans?

Travis Hornby: Sure. So the average pharmacist client that we’ve had has had about $214,000 of student loan debt. So that’s obviously a multiple of what the first-year starting salary is. If you were going to talk about the average income being $85,000, then in terms of the average that we’ve seen, that would a debt-to-income ratio of about 2.5, 2.5 times income. So generally, what we tell people is if you have a debt-to-income ratio that’s above 1.5-to-1, and this is at a family level, then that means that you probably need to go for loan forgiveness, you know, in some fashion. Basically, what you need to realize is that if you try to refinance this thing, it’s kind of like walking in front of a train. If you’re making $85,000 a year, you have $200,000 in debt, you’ll have to pay $2,000 a month for 10 years. So that’s about a third of your take-home pay going to debt. That’s really not that sustainable.

Tim Ulbrich: For 10 years.

Travis Hornby: For 10 years. That’s really not a sustainable or a smart decision. And that’s not anything, that’s not a mean statement, that’s just reality of math. And you could pay the debt back, but if you do, then you’re not going to be accomplishing things like saving for retirement, saving for your kids’ college, you know, buying a house, like doing all these other financial goals that are really important. So one thing that I like to tell somebody is take your focus off of the debt from a really zoned-in level and start thinking more about, you know, what are your broad financial goals? And how does that fit into your debt repayment? So for example, if somebody has $120,000 in pharmacy school debt and they are one of those lucky folks who does get a full-time job at a CVS in maybe a rural location making $120,000-130,000 a year, yeah, sure. Refinancing can make a lot of sense. And paying it back in five years and doing a refi ladder where you start with a 10-year, refi to a 5-year later, you know, and getting rid of it as fast as you can, that’s a great decision. But when you’ve got an $85k type of income, I’m assuming that this person’s not working at a community hospital or an eligible not-for-profit. So that’s one of the biggest misconceptions that I’ve run into with pharmacists is they’re not aware of the other loan forgiveness. So the IDR loan forgiveness. And that’s going to be more and more important for pharmacists. You know, one thing that I think is fascinating is $85,000 is still an amazing salary. That’s still really good compared to your typical person that’s going to go work for a corporation and make $50,000-60,000 a year. And if you’re working 32 hours a week for that income, that’s exceptional. And the reality is I think we’re going to continue to see, you know, this decline in salaries because of the acceptance rate of pharmacy schools is so high overall. And so I think for a person who’s in pharmacy school now, you think about this from a positive perspective is the worst case scenario, your debt is a tax. It’s a percentage of your income. And so if you lose 10% of your income to student loans, and that’s your cost — I know you have to put a couple hundred dollars away for a tax bomb one day — then that $85,000 income can actually be pretty attractive. And to take it a step further, you know, how many people out there can go earn a $50,000-60,000 a year job or salary, rather, working 20-25 hours a week? Not a lot of people.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I think that’s great insight. And we’ve talked before on the show, and I want to emphasize it again because I don’t think we talk enough about what we call non-PSLF forgiveness, or the other PSLF forgiveness. And I think you’re spot-on with this debt-to-income ratio, if that continues to trend in the direction we’re seeing it trend, that option is going to become all the more important as when you evaluate. And I also would add to that, Travis, and we’ll talk here fo a minute about refi, but as interest rates are climbing, obviously, that changes the math a little bit on the refi. And I like the example that you used of pharmacists coming out, maybe they have a lower debt load than the average, so maybe $110,000-120,000. Maybe they’re making $120,000-130,000, they’ve got one of those full-time jobs that’s paying a decent salary, well then obviously, paying them off or refinancing looks very different than somebody maybe who has $250,000 of debt and they’ve got an $85,000 income. And to Tim Baker’s credit, one of the things he talks a lot about, and I appreciate his external view into the pharmacy world is that we typically don’t think about career advice in the sense of seeking something like a qualifying employer for loan forgiveness, right? We often are thinking about it specifically on the type of pharmacy practice that you’re interested in, salaries have been relatively equal since I graduated in 2008. You aren’t seeing huge discrepancies from one area to another. But we are starting to see that trend happen. And I think now, a very important consideration is if you’re somebody that has an extremely debt-to-income ratio, then really that choice of employer and potentially being able to pursue Public Service Loan Forgiveness is going to be a viable option. So Travis, as a follow-up to that, what are the trends you’re seeing in the refi market? It feels to me that six or 12 months ago, even maybe a year or two years ago, the math on that was very lucrative because of where interest rates are. And I feel like that’s tapered off a little bit as interest rates have come up. What have you seen in terms of the clients that you’re working with?

Travis Hornby: Yeah, I mean, a few months ago, that was definitely the case. It’s gotten a little bit better because the 10-year Treasury yield has declined a little bit again with a little bit of uncertainty in the economy and the government shutdown, China’s economy being a little bit slower growth than expected, so I think that the refi opportunity will exist for at least probably the next few years. I’m not sure if it’s going to go completely away. I don’t think it will because, you know, a reminder for folks that when you borrow in school, it is tied to what the government’s borrowing cost is. So you know, eventually, if interest rates keep rising, you will also feel it in your student loans that you’re taking out while you’re in school. You know? So last year, Grad Plus was 7%. This year, it’s 7.6%.

Tim Ulbrich: Ugh.

Travis Hornby: Yeah, so even though you might not be able to refi to like a 4% or 4.5%, you know, if you can still refi to like 5-5.5%, and you’re having to borrow at 7.5% or 8% or 8.5%, like that’s still savings, you know? But yeah, the refi market, I think the one thing that I’d like people to know more of — and we have a similar philosophy too on how we hook people up with the refi deals because you guys obviously have a lot of great bonuses on your site — and the thing to do is to refinance multiple times. So I did a survey of our readers, had almost 1,000 responses, and only half of them knew that you could even refinance more than one time.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, we see that a lot too.

Travis Hornby: Yeah. So for example, like you can refinance for — say you’re one of those people making $130k and you have $120k in student loan debt, well, you don’t want to do a five-year because that payment’s going to be over $2,000 a month, and what if you lose your job? What if you want to move? What if you want to work part-time or something like that happens? So that’s a very common feeling. And so rather than jump right into a five-year, what you can do is you can do a 10- or a 15-year where the payment’s around $1,000-1,300 a month, something like that, and you can pay extra. So you can pay maybe $2,000-3,000 a month to really knock the debt down. And then once you knock the debt down a bunch, then you can refinance it again and maybe cut your 4.5% or 5% rate down to maybe a 3.5% or 4% rate with about the same monthly payment by refinancing to a shorter term. So that’s called a refi ladder, and a lot of people don’t understand that. And that’s something that could save people money. I will say this, though, the refi thing, I don’t want people to get super focused on the refi thing because that will save you several thousand dollars, it really can in terms of interest costs. And if you pay down your debt faster than you would otherwise, it could save you tens of thousands. But loan forgiveness can save you hundreds of thousands in certain situations. So that’s why, you know, you’ve got to be real careful also about not making extra payments. One problem that I see people make or one mistake that I see people make — I’ll give you an example. I had a buddy who was a community pharmacist at a hospital system, and he was paying on the standard 10-year plan. So he was paying on $200k of debt about $2,000 a month, you know, instead, he could have been on the Revised Pay As You Earn plan, and he could have been paying about like $690 a month. So you know, saving almost a little over $1,300 a month, and he was eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

Tim Ulbrich: And maxing out a retirement account and all of that jazz, right?

Travis Hornby: Yeah. And then he could reduce his student loan payment even more. So and that’s the PSLF example. You know, the flip side to that is a pharmacist who wants to have a family, work 20 hours a week, wants to have more time for hobbies or whatever that reason would be. And then that person can pay, you know, say $400 a month working part-time. And then you just have to make sure you’re prepared for that tax bomb when it hits in 20-25 years.

Tim Ulbrich: So I hope the students that are listening, hopefully one of the take-home messages you’re getting as you’re hearing Travis drop lots of wisdom here is knowledge around this topic is obviously going to be able to influence a decision that could save tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. So using this time, you know, before you graduate, before you go through the grace period, to really identify for your personal situation, taking a step back, looking at all of your financial goals, looking at the type of job you’re going to pursue, residency, no residency, all these variable, debt-to-income ratio, and coming up with the best student loan repayment option is huge. Refi ladder, Travis, I like that. I know the concept, we talk about it. We talk about that idea, but I think you should brand that. So I haven’t heard that term used before.

Travis Hornby: Yeah, I should trademark it, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Travis Hornby: I got a lot of zingers here, you know? I mean, yeah. There’s all kinds of weird things that I’ve learned doing this that you wouldn’t think about unless you’ve really had a lot of cases. So I’ve done over 1,000 plans personally. I think that’s more than anybody else in the country. I’m not positive, but I think that is. And you know, advised more than 330 million myself.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s incredible.

Travis Hornby: Yeah, so that’s pretty bad because that tells you how much debt it out there, you know?

Tim Ulbrich: Well, you’ve got $1.what? $1.4 trillion more to go? Something like that?

Travis Hornby: Yeah, exactly. So I mean, so one example is something called the breadwinner loophole, that’s another one of my weird terms I’ve come up with. So for example, a pharmacist in California might be making $90,000 a year, maybe she has a stay-at-home spouse, and that spouse makes nothing. And she’s eligible for Pay As You Earn. Well, in community property states, you can file separately for taxes and equally distribute income. So you can equally distribute income based on community property rules in these certain states. There’s like nine of them. And then you can basically have instead of an income of say $90,000, her income would be $45,000. And because you equalize the incomes, you also eliminated most of the tax penalty from filing separately as a married couple. So that’s an example of just some random thing that, you know, we realized probably a year into doing this that people could do since the payments are based on your adjusted gross income. And you know, we’ve not received any guidance on this yet, but it certainly seems like this is a legitimate way to approach repayment in these nine specific community property states. So that’s another one of these random things that you wouldn’t really think about unless you do this all day, every day. So that’s one thing that I like about our focus is we really do focus just on people that have $50,000-$1 million of student loan debt. Really, our primary client is in the $200-500k range. But you know, it lends itself for having a deep specialty level of expertise on something that’s very complicated. You don’t have to worry about getting the broad financial plan together, the insurance or things like that. That’s somebody else’s job.

Tim Ulbrich: Tim Baker, that’s your job. Yeah.

Travis Hornby: Exactly, yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: What are, Travis, some of the most common mistakes that you’re seeing pharmacy graduates make as it comes to their student loans? I mean, I’m sure there’s a ton of them. After you do enough of these, you start to see some I’m guessing repetitive things that are happening over and over again that our listeners can be aware of.

Travis Hornby: Well, for your pre-pharmacy listeners, there’s a whole bunch of schools that have opened up to basically take your money. And that’s why they exist. I mean, that’s just my personal opinion. But you know, you have like high-quality schools, you know? Like UNC or like Ohio State, that’s where you’re at, right, Tim?

Tim Ulbrich: Go Bucks. Yes.

Travis Hornby: Yeah, so maybe University of Florida. I mean there’s pharmacy schools that have been around for a long time that are high quality that even if you have a crash in the profession are not going to be going anywhere. But there’s a whole bunch of new schools that I won’t mention any by name because you know, I don’t love getting served lawsuits, but you know, basically there’s schools that were initiated that are private schools that were founded in the past, you know, 5-10 years I would say are automatically suspect. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad school, but you want to be very careful. And from a student’s perspective, if you’re going to go to these places, you just have to realize that things could potentially not end well if you go to one of these programs that has a high acceptance rate. So I would actually ask the school to give you their acceptance rate data. I would ask them to tell you what their average salaries are for graduates in writing. And I would actually do some due diligence and actually ask them in a very assertive manner for these statistics that you deserve to have prior to making this decision. Now, if you already have the debt, then I think that your perspective has to be a positive one. There are, like I said — you don’t even have to actually be a pharmacist, which is kind of crazy. These income-driven repayment plans apply whether or not you’re unemployed or making a bazillion dollars as a CEO. So it doesn’t matter that you become a pharmacist, even if you graduate pharmacy school. So from a mental health perspective, don’t feel trapped, even if you have $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 of pharmacy school debt. Do not feel trapped. You have so many more options than you think you do. And if you want to go make 50% more than the median household income in America, you can do that, even in a big city and live a pretty decent life. You’ll have to live on a budget, you’ll have to be a little careful with your expenses. It’s not as good as it used to be, but you’ll certainly make a good living. And so I would just say in terms of student loan mistakes, I mean, it’s a little broad, but I guess I just want people to know that the biggest mistakes you can have is not having a plan and sticking your head in the sand.

Tim Ulbrich: Amen. And if I could echo that, that’s the one thing we’ve seen, Travis, is the wandering through graduation into new practitioner life of not having an intentional plan. We’ve already highlighted and we don’t need to beat it further that that can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that example you gave of I think you said it was a community pharmacist friend of yours that went through a 10-year standard repayment, paid the maximum payment for 10 years, that was my situation. You know? And I think that as I look back on that journey, a little bit of knowledge would have saved me a ton of money along the way. And I want to also add, you know, your advice for the pre-pharmacy student I think is incredible because the reality is not all schools are created equal. And a lot of this data you can go out and look up in terms of what’s the board pass rate? What’s job placement like? What is the application acceptance rate into the College of Pharmacy? What’s the residency placement rate? And obviously, you know, there’s ranking that are out there, but they don’t represent many of the factors that are going to be most important to you as a graduate of a pharmacy school. So great stuff there. Travis, my last question for you is that my guess — just knowing our audience — is that we have lots of our community listening that’s feeling stuck with their student loans, feeling paralyzed, maybe feeling overwhelmed, don’t know where to start. What’s one piece of advice that you’d give to them that they can begin to get over that hump of feeling stuck or overwhelmed?

Travis Hornby: One piece of advice would be look at what your payment is. If you think that your payment is too high, take a look at Pay As You Earn or Revised Pay As You Earn and try to figure out whether or not your end goal is to go for full repayment and get to $0 in terms of the debt you owe, or if it’s to go for forgiveness. That would be the first big decision somebody has to make. So if you could at least figure out whether or not you need to go for forgiveness or repayment, that will help a lot because a lot of people, you can tell that in their actions, they don’t really know. They’ll throw an extra $200 at their highest interest rate loan when they have it, they’ll make a $5,000 one-time, lump sum payment to the smallest loan to get rid of it so they feel better psychologically, and that’s very, very indicative of just having no plan and no strategic direction at all with your loan repayment. So I would say that’s one piece of advice. One thing that I’d say is I forgot to say this when you asked student loan repayment mistakes. There’s a lot of residents out there who probably listen to your podcast.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Travis Hornby: The residents need to be on one of these income-driven programs while they’re still in residency.

Tim Ulbrich: And not deferring.

Travis Hornby: Yeah. A lot of people don’t realize that, but if your goal is to eventually pay your debt back, Revised Pay As You Earn can get you thousands of dollars in interest subsidies from the first month that you start paying on it. So if you’d like to have $5,000-10,000 less in debt by the end of your PGY1, PGY2 years, then get onto the Revised Pay As You Earn if your plan is to eventually pay the thing off. If your plan is not to eventually pay it off, you’re kind of unsure, then you might look at Pay As You Earn as well to try to build up credit for forgiveness. But that’s one mistake that I see people make all the time that I think people will continue to make because, you know, the residency programs are not as organized with as much detailed information for loan management as I think a lot of the human medicine physician type residency programs are because they’re a lot older and more resources are behind them. So that’s one thing that I’d say for your residents listening, but yeah. The big kind of direction, you know, you have to figure out if you’re going for full repayment or forgiveness. And that’s the big fork in the road, and that determines a whole bunch of the recommendations that we like to give. So like one thing we do is we figure that out for people or which path we think they should go down.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, great advice for residents. And I probably see — the most common situation I see is deferment during residency, which for those that are thinking loan forgiveness, obviously deferment does not equal a qualifying payment, number one. But two, as look at the income-based repayment plans, then you know obviously depending on how that’s calculated, you know, there’s this automatic assumption that I can’t afford any payment. Well, do the math. Sit down and figure that out. And obviously, you’re going to begin to make that progress toward whether you’re going to pay them off and refinance them or whether you’re going to eventually pursue loan forgiveness. So Travis, obviously StudentLoanPlanner.com, our listeners can learn more about the work that you’re doing and the service you provide. Also, it’s my understanding you recently launched a podcast, the Student Loan Planner podcast. I’m assuming that’s available on iTunes, anywhere that you can find podcasts: Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, etc. Beyond StudentLoanPlanner.com and the podcast, what’s the best place that our listeners can go to learn more about you and the work that you’re doing?

Travis Hornby: I would reach out to us, [email protected], and myself or somebody from our team will reach out and tell you what we think you’re dealing with and whether or not we think that you’d be a good fit for our services or not. And then if you want to just read more about pharmacists in particular, if you go to our blog, StudentLoanPlanner.com/blog, on the right hand side if you’re on a desktop, you’ll see our categories that we’ve written articles on, so there’ll be a pharmacist category that you can click and read everything we’ve ever written about pharmacy school and pharmacists. And it’s quite a lot at this point, so take a look at that if you’re looking for some free resources.
Tim Ulbrich: Great stuff. Travis, on behalf of the YFP community and the YFP team, thank you so much for taking the time to come on today’s show and looking forward to more collaborations in the future and having you back on to provide some more education to our audience.

Travis Hornby: Thanks for having me on, Tim.

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YFP 086: How to Spark Joy as an Entrepreneur

Posted on February 7, 2019November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

How to Spark Joy as an Entrepreneur

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Tim Church, YFP team member, interviews Dr. Jessica Louie about how to spark joy as an entrepreneur. Jessica is a Board-Certified Critical Care Pharmacist and Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice. She is also a multi-passionate entrepreneur with 3 small businesses. Jessica is the CEO of Clarify Simplify Align, High Performance Life Coach, Professional Organizer and Certified KonMari Consultant.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Jessica Louie is CEO of Clarify Simplify Align, High Performance Life Coach, Professional Organizer and Certified KonMari Consultant who helps busy professionals gain clarity of their purpose, simplify and declutter their home and minds, and align their work into their lives with simple processes to avoid overwhelm, lead with confidence and curate lives they LOVE.

Jessica holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from University of Southern California (USC), Advanced Practice Pharmacist license (APh) and is board-certified in critical care (BCCCP). She uses her healthcare background to coach clients through emotional and difficult decisions. Jessica resides in Pasadena/Los Angeles, California and serves her clients in-person locally, travels to Salt Lake City, Utah and Brookfield, Wisconsin and provides virtual coaching sessions.

Summary

On this episode, Tim interviews Dr. Jessica Louie about her entrepreneurial journey in the creation of three businesses that have really taken off. In the beginning of the episode, Jessica shares more about her background and the inspiration she had to start side businesses on top of her busy full-time pharmacy career. Jessica is an Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at West Coast University School of Pharmacy and is a critical care pharmacist working in an intensive care unit at a hospital. She divides her time between both settings and truly loves the patient interaction she has. At the end of her residency, Jessica was burned out. After some life changing events, she realized that she wanted to live with more intention and focus on spending time with people she loved. She was also ready to take on new challenges. This began a transformative journey in finding her why and beginning several businesses.

Petit Style Script, Jessica’s first business, is a fashion and lifestyle blog that helps women make intentional clothing choices by investing in quality pieces and by creating a capsule wardrobe. She dove deep into website design, social media management and marketing which helped to keep her costs lower. Her revenue is earned by affiliate commissions and through sponsored content instead of through a signature product.

In her newest business, Clarify Simplify Align, Jessica helps other busy professionals gain clarity of their purpose, simplify and declutter their home and minds, and align work into their lives. She takes clients through a transformative process that includes a free consultation, a simplifying process in decluttering your home in an intentional way, and using your new mindset and habits to apply to other areas of your. Jessica is a certified KonMari consultant which is the popular method founded by Marie Kondo, however, she believes that this whole process is more than the KonMari method. She provides emotional and physical support while also offering accountability to her clients. She shares that there are many benefits to decluttering and organizing your environment like gaining free time, reducing anxiety, taking control of your health and finances and gaining confidence in decision making. She works with clients locally in Southern California but is also able to host virtual online sessions.

Clarify Simplify Align was created in July 2018. Jessica currently earns 5 figures and has a goal of moving into the 6 figure range in the next 12 months. Her side hustle income is being allocated toward savings, investments, and travel. Jessica has been able to balance the work with her businesses and her full-time pharmacy career. She spends about 25 to 35 hours a week on her businesses, depending on the number of clients she has. Her biggest advice to pharmacists that are wanting to step into an entrepreneurial journey is to gain clarity and follow your passion.

Mentioned on the Show

YFP Giveaway: Tax Preparation and Filing Services
Petite Style Script
Like to Know It Rewards Style
Simon Sinek
Clarify Simplify Align
KonMari Method
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo
Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become that Way by Brendan Burchard
Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More by Courtney Carver
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
Contact Dr. Jessica Louie

Episode Transcript

Tim Church: What’s up, everybody? And welcome to Episode 086. Wow, that is just crazy to say that number as we move closer to 100 episodes. Now, I can hardly take any of that credit, given the other Tims have done most of the shows. So kudos to them. And also I want to have a big shout out to Caitlyn on our team, who does our editing and does an excellent job. If you basically consumed any news or social media in the past couple months, then you know about the show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. And the show is just everywhere, and it’s an incredibly popular series on Netflix right now. But just in case you’re in the dark, this show is all about world-renowned tidying expert, Marie Kondo, helping clients clear out their clutter in their home and choose joy. So what the heck does that have to do with today’s episode? Well, our guest today is not only an accomplished pharmacist, but she’s one of the few that holds the KonMari consultant certification, which basically allows her to perform in-home and virtual consults, similar to what you see Marie Kondo do on the show. So I’m really excited for her to talk more about this and her other business ventures. So let’s go ahead and jump into the interview. Jessica, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and for being part of this side hustle edition.

Jessica Louie: Thank you for having me, Tim.

Tim Church: When I sent out the first email alerting the community that we would be talking more about side hustles on the podcast, you were the first one to respond, and I could tell that this was something you were excited about and wanted to share what you’ve been doing outside of your full-time job. So before we kind of jump into your businesses and your pharmacist’s career, I want to know what gets you so fired up about this topic of side hustles and entrepreneurship.

Jessica Louie: Well, thank you. It was really a life transformation in terms of starting my small businesses 2.5 years ago. And it’s definitely been a great learning experience for myself that I really would love to share with other pharmacists and healthcare professionals and students.

Tim Church: That’s great. And kind of going back into before you started any of these businesses, where did that inspiration come from where you just decided, hey, I’m going to do something outside of my typical pharmacist job or my duties there?

Jessica Louie: Well, as I was finishing my residency back in 2015 and transitioning into my role as an assistant professor in pharmacy practice, I was really undergoing a burnout type of episode in healthcare at that moment. And like other busy professionals, I was kind of spinning around this quarter-life crisis, accumulating things in terms of I had been on a long journey of nine years of training for my bachelor degree, doctorate, residency, PGY1, PGY2, board certification, and you know, I wasn’t really enjoying the journey. I was just trying to get to the finish line. And then I realized, you know, how life can be really short when my aunt died suddenly at age 51. So now I really like to live with intention and be present by the people I’m surrounded with and the things I’m surrounded with that spark joy. So I really want to share my story to see if it will help inspire someone else to really transform their own life and really be happy with their day-to-day life.

Tim Church: Wow, thank you for sharing that, Jessica. I love what you said there about being intentional and kind of getting the fire started to pursue some of those passions and ideas that you had. And I believe that’s so true. And I think that that’s one of the most common characteristics of people that have an entrepreneurial spirit is just being intentional about what they’re trying to do. And a lot of times, we live a life that’s reactive instead of proactive. So that’s really great. So can you talk a little bit about your current role as a pharmacist? You mentioned that you had a long journey and did residency training in order to get there. But talk a little bit about the role that you’re in now and what you’re doing.

Jessica Louie: Yes. So right now, I am an assistant professor of pharmacy practice at West Coast University School of Pharmacy in Los Angeles. And I am a critical care pharmacist, so I work in the intensive care unit of a local hospital. And you know, my current role is really divided between the university and my practice site. So this is my fourth year teaching at the School of Pharmacy, and I am really passionate about teaching critical care topics related to respiratory and cardiology. And most recently, I am developing elective courses to focus on well being, resiliency and burnout prevention in our graduate students. So that’s a passion of mine in the pharmacy world.

Tim Church: So how do you split that up between your teaching responsibilities and your role in the critical care unit?

Jessica Louie: Currently, I spend a little bit more time at the university. About 60-70% of my time is at the university during the semesters. We have 12-week semesters, and we have long winter and summer breaks. And then I’m at the hospital setting two days a week, usually. And it’s a great balance in terms of being there to educate the students and also being there to stay up-to-date on the healthcare institution.

Tim Church: Great. And can you go into a little bit more detail about what is your day like typically at the hospital?

Jessica Louie: Typically, at the hospital, it’s a local community hospital. And it’s a Level 2 Trauma Center, so we’ll usually start where you’re going in and working out patients, getting ready for interprofessional rounding in the intensive care unit or with the other medical teams. They do have medical students and medical residents at the institution. And then going on rounds and completing some of the in-person work with the patients with their medication reconciliation, their pain management and preventative health screenings and putting some progress notes, both for the other healthcare professionals and for pass-off to the other pharmacist. And during that process, if there’s students on rotations, walking them through that process in the morning and then also meeting with them in the afternoon for educational discussions on different topics and different patients. And then also assisting other pharmacists in the setting to see what they need help with.

Tim Church: So it sounds like you’re in a very clinical role that’s very much participating in direct patient care and working with other healthcare professionals. Would that be true?

Jessica Louie: Yes, and really trying to see where we can expand service lines because in California, there’s, you know, a need for some expansion of service lines in the hospital setting. So working on that right now. We just had a new law passed in California requiring pharmacists to perform the medication reconciliation in the hospital setting. And I know some hospitals are struggling with that new implementation of that law. So seeing it work and help with resources and things like that.

Tim Church: And what would you say are your favorite aspects about your job? You know, I think there’s a lot of negativity in our profession, and I think it depends on the setting that you’re in and the responsibilities that you’re doing, but what do you most enjoy about what you’re doing as a pharmacist?

Jessica Louie: I definitely enjoy the patient interaction and helping them through the process. I know critical care in the intensive care unit can be an emotional and difficult situation for these patients and their families. And that’s one of the reasons why I am part of a new initiative with the Society of Critical Care Medicine to target post-ICU syndrome. So similar to PTSD, our ICU patients and how they transition and how their quality of life changes, so that brings me a lot of joy in terms of trying to give back to these critically ill patients and their families and making sure that they do have the support system, even when they’re outside of the ICU setting and in transitions of care.

Tim Church: Wow. I think that sounds like a really great program. And I, working in ambulatory care, I didn’t know that that was even a thing or something that patients were dealing with. So I think that’s really a great initiative to kind of get that going and identifying that patient need and looking for ways to integrate into that program. So I think that’s really cool.

Jessica Louie: Thank you.

Tim Church: So you talked about that you’re on this long journey, it’s taking you nine years with all of your residency training. Do you feel like it was worth it?

Jessica Louie: I definitely feel that it was worth it. I think that’s it’s important to take a step back, though, and remember that it’s not about getting to the destination. It’s about enjoying the journey and the experiences. And I think that there were times during that nine-year process where that was definitely forgotten. And if you’re familiar with the growth and fixed mindset type of philosophies, it was definitely in this fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset in terms of, you know, doing this for myself and for my patients. And you know, just getting back to why did I really go through this process? And what impact do I want to have on patients and the healthcare community and other people? So it definitely was worth it, and I wouldn’t change it looking back.

Tim Church: That’s so good. And I think you made some really strong points there. And I think that a lot of pharmacists who are on a long journey to get to their career and where they’re trying to is sometimes you can forget a lot of those things that are important along the way. So you talked about at some point, you got inspired and you wanted to start pursuing some things beyond pharmacy and really focus on some other passions. So what were some of your main motivations besides, you know, feeling like life is so short and that you really have to be intentional about going after things that you want to do. What were some of your other main motivators?

Jessica Louie: At that point in my life, you know, I really had achieved the things that I had set out to achieve. And it was time to take on new challenges. I like new challenges and lifelong learning, so I had, you know, a strong passion for helping other women feel confident in how they dressed and their wardrobe choices. And you know, I started that as basically my first hobby that I turned into my first small business called Petite Style Script. And you know, because I like to challenge myself, I wanted to learn how to website design, how to run social media and marketing, so I ran all of that as a solopreneur over the last 2.5 years. And I gained a lot of skill sets that I was able to apply to my other two businesses.

Tim Church: That is so cool. So you really bootstrapped a lot of this getting in off the ground in terms of I’m going to learn how to do all of the back-end work, I’m going to learn website design. I’m going to do it all. I think that’s really cool. And sometimes, I think especially if you don’t know where to start or maybe you’re limited with funds and don’t want to hire people, that that’s a great way to get going. So talk a little bit more about Petite Style Script and kind of what that business is all about. And what are some of the services and offerings that are through that business?

Jessica Louie: So I focused on Petite Style Script at first. You know, my aunt had passed away earlier that year and she was really a big fan of shoes and handbags and women’s fashion. So I wanted to help other women, especially petite-sized women feel confident and empowered by their outfit and wardrobe choices. So it is a fashion and lifestyle blog, and although it has a lot of petite information, it also caters to other women. And I’ve turned it into really being intentional with your outfit choices by creating capsule wardrobes. So that’s one of my signature products and services. And then just highlighting really classic style where you’re investing in quality over quantity of pieces. So I talk about things that I own and things that I recommend and sizing and fit and then how to style things together to really have a classic wardrobe that will last for years to come. So there’s a lot of just how-to’s and resources on the website that are free for people to read or join the email list to get weekly style advice.

Tim Church: And so what you’re selling is actually the advice of style but not actual wardrobe or physical products, is that right?

Jessica Louie: That’s correct. So I don’t physically make any of the products. I will earn income through affiliate commissions or sponsored content with companies that I really love. So I have a few companies that I’ve used, even from when I was young that I’ve been able to partner with and really showcase why those companies are great for the environment and really quality products to offer to my readers.

Tim Church: Can you go into a little bit more detail about affiliate marketing with this business and how you’re earning income? Because I think a lot of times, you know, the word “affiliate marketing” sometimes can have a negative connotation. But I actually think it can be a great way to point people to the right products and services and actually can provide a lot of value.

Jessica Louie: Yes. So affiliate marketing or affiliate commission is really popular in the fashion blogging world. I learned that early on, both from your website and from your social media. So basically, I am creating content and articles online. And I am talking about different products, I’m recommending how to style them together, talking about my sizing that I have purchased. And then I’ll link to my outfit or to other items that are similar to my outfit if those items are no longer in season or available online. And then if readers would like to purchase the same item that I’m wearing or a similar item that I’m wearing, they’re able to click on the link and I earn a small affiliate commission when they purchase the item through the website. So I work pretty closely with the Like to Know It and RewardStyle affiliate company and a few other companies to really showcase this is what I personally own and recommend and I’ve tried it out. And I’m not necessarily getting paid to try it out, that would be sponsored content, which is different than affiliate income. I have personally purchased the clothing I’m wearing, and then I’m going to link to it to earn a small commission from you reading the how to articles.

Tim Church: So I think that’s a great point that you put on there in that you’re not just promoting and pumping products and different attire that anybody could use or just something that you find that could earn income. These are actually things that you’re recommending to people either because you’ve tried it out or feel very confident about the product that they’re offering.

Jessica Louie: Yes. And I mean, personally, in my opinion, when I go and buy a product, you know, I like to read a review or see how it fits on someone, especially when it’s more difficult to find petite-friendly clothing. So it’s nice to be able to read someone else’s article and honest review besides just seeing a picture of it on Instagram or on Facebook. So that’s what I’m trying to provide in longer, 1,000- to 2,000-word blog posts, articles, on the website.

Tim Church: And so would you say for that business, is affiliate marketing, is that the main generator of revenue?

Jessica Louie: Yes. That is the main generator of revenue.

Tim Church: OK. And then you said there’s also some sponsored content. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Jessica Louie: Yes. So sponsored content is when a company will pay for certain content to be promoted, either on social media, especially Instagram, or on the blog website. And you know, those are contracts that we’ll make with certain companies that I really feel passionate about promoting. So it’s usually companies that I’ve worn or used for years. So those are companies like Figs scrubs healthcare professionals and Aveda hair care products and skin care products and different things like that. And they will be — if it is a sponsored post, it’s clearly marked, either in the social media caption or in the blog article as well to show that it was paid content, but it also, you know, I personally have used it and stand behind the company or the product.

Tim Church: That’s great. And I think it’s a cool way to earn revenue because you’re helping people get to products and services that they need and that they want. And you’re providing input from it.

Jessica Louie: The sponsored content also pays for the production costs of running the website and social media. So there’s a lot of effort put into having people find your content, so a lot of SEO optimization, so if you search for a product on Google, you know, it’s coming up on Google, Pinterest and YouTube so you can find the photos, the videos and the written words. So that’s really where the sponsored content is helping offset production costs.

Tim Church: Yeah, and that’s what I was going to ask you. Where do you find the majority of your customers — is that organic traffic through Google? Or is it through social media?

Jessica Louie: It definitely is through search engines. So Google is definitely the top one and then technically, Pinterest is a search engine and not a social media platform, so Pinterest is my second most common referral source. And then my third most common is YouTube. YouTube is also a search engine and is owned by Google. So those are my primary three. So I definitely put a lot of effort into the backend so people can find the content. And then social media is nice, but it’s really not — I feel like it’s more for exposure and for people to digest some content. But then they need to also take action to get to the website or to get to more information so that, you know, it’s great for exposure and creating a community with some of the readers and some of the other bloggers and business owners, but it’s a smaller proponent of a referral source.

Tim Church: I think this business is so cool because it’s just way outside the realm of pharmacy. And you know, I think that’s a lot the stories that I’ve heard with pharmacists and what they’re doing on the side that yes, there are some things that definitely have a pharmacy twist or relationship, but this one is sort of a little bit outside of that realm. And I think that’s really cool. So before we move on to your next business, so I have a question. Is there any intention for one for men that you’re going to create so that if I need some fashion tips that I can go to?

Jessica Louie: So currently, no, not another fashion-focused blog or website. But with my newest business, I do help people simplify their homes and wardrobes. So I don’t discriminate against men or women for clients for those coaching sessions. So I can do that more one-on-one or group coaching but not necessarily full, written articles geared towards men.

Tim Church: OK. So your newest business — and you told me before we jumped on for the recording that this one has really been a result of some of the other things that you’ve done. And I think this one is also really cool because, again, it’s outside of the pharmacy realm but something that you’re passionate about. So talk a little bit about that one.

Jessica Louie: Yes. So basically, this is my third business. The one in the middle is actually my pharmacy-focused business. But I wouldn’t have been able to get to this point in opening Clarify and Simplify online without my experiences with the other two businesses and learning about virtual content and other marketing things. But this business is, you know, to help other busy professionals gain clarity to their purpose, simplify and declutter their home and minds and align their work into their lives. So work into your life, not the other way around. So we can really avoid some of the overwhelm and burnout that people are feeling and lead with more confidence so that you really build and curate a life that you love. So it’s really talking about being more intentional and taking away some of the burnout that a lot of people, I think, are experiencing with the work environments we’re exposed to.

Tim Church: So this is kind of has multifaceted business in terms of what you’re trying to do to help people. So can you walk through the process if somebody says, “Jessica, I want you to help me be less stressed out. And I want you to help me do that and walk through this process, especially with decluttering things.” Can you just walk me through what that consult — what would this look like?

Jessica Louie: So a potential client would schedule a free consultation call, so we really get into what are they looking for, what are their goals, and you know, what kind of budget they have in terms of I’ll offer either one-on-one in-person coaching or one-on-one virtual coaching or virtual coaching because they’re not local to my area or I don’t travel to their area. So I’m based in Los Angeles. And we’ll go through that process and really overall, it’s really about clarifying your why. I was trained with Simon Sinek earlier in 2018, so I use a lot of his philosophies and putting that into actual practice. And then the simplifying part is really up to the client in terms of do they want to go through the simplifying process in their home? And if they do, I am a certified KonMari consultant, so we are using the KonMari method developed by Marie Kondo. It’s a Japanese method to really dig into decluttering the home in an intentional way so that you’ll never do it again in your life. And you’ll really change your habits and your mindsets around your home environment. And then we’ll be able to use those habits and mindsets to then apply to other areas of your life. So that’s where aligning your work into your life comes into play in terms of really addressing a lot of well-being and burnout prevention and then we’re able to address the habits and mindsets related to community, the people you surround yourself with and your finances and your healthcare. So that’s, you know, the full transformative process, and then if someone is specifically looking more to just do the simplifying the home and professional organizing, you know, we can do that. But I would encourage them to go through the whole process. And I provide either workbooks for them to do it on their own time versus me one-on-one coaching them.

Tim Church: So just to clarify, for the majority of the people that you’re assisting in coaching, you’re either going to their house or giving them a virtual consultation, and you’re literally helping them declutter their home. Is that right?

Jessica Louie: Yes, that’s correct. So a lot of it is in-person, in their home. And you know, it’s a different way of approaching professional organizing and decluttering because it’s really going to be a lifestyle change and really intentional. So then if people live outside of my service areas such as Los Angeles, Salt Lake City or Milwaukee, Wisconsin, then I’m doing more online, virtual coaching through that process. And I really focus on the home first because I think that once you address what’s closest to you, which is your home, then you’re more easily able to address other aspects of your life.

Tim Church: And how did you develop an interest in doing that?

Jessica Louie: That’s a good question. So I read Marie Kondo’s books back in 2015, and I applied the method to my own home. So she has some very popular books called, “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and “Spark Joy.” And you know, she goes through a category-by-category type process of organizing your home instead of a room-by-room or a little-by-little type of process. And then I was able to help my friends and family go through the process as well, and I learned about her official certification system and was officially certified this year. And there’s only about a handful of certified consultants in different areas through the United States. So about 100-120 certified consultants in the U.S. at the moment. So I really love the process, but I also think that it’s more than just the KonMari method, and that’s why I like to bring in Simon Sinek’s philosophy and then work-life alignment in my philosophy as well.

Tim Church: So what do you have to do to become certified?

Jessica Louie: So the certification process for the KonMari method, you know, starts with yourself. So you’re going through the process yourself, you’re making sure that you have completed the entire process. The process, you know, is very individualized, but it usually takes one month to six months for people to complete the five categories in their own home. And then you’re going to a training program, you’re working with individual clients as practice clients, basically, taking an examination and then getting officially certified.

Tim Church: So they don’t just hand them out to everybody, it sounds like.

Jessica Louie: No, not just anyone.

Tim Church: So I have to ask this question because I’m just thinking in the back on my head that I’ve seen many episodes of Hoarders, and you know, everyone has their own way and own system of organizing. And sometimes, there is no system. But have you had any cases, basically, where you’re like, wow, like you were just overwhelmed at what you had to do to help them in their situation?
Jessica Louie: So I haven’t experienced with my clients particularly with being diagnosed hoarders, per say, but I know everyone’s home environments are different, so that’s why it’s really important that they really trust me to invite me into their home. And you know, I think that my healthcare background really helps in coaching these clients. It is an emotional and difficult process of addressing each item in your home and each item that you own, especially when we go through the last category of sentimental items and photos and things like that. So I think that, you know, with my healthcare background, I am able to help them process, especially with my work with intensive care unit patients and their trauma that they’ve gone through. So it definitely is very personal to the client, and that’s why I really enjoy working one-on-one, in-person, if possible.

Tim Church: And what do you typically charge for someone to do one of these consultations? And is that a one-time consult? Or is that an ongoing process?

Jessica Louie: So the first consultation is free. So that’s a 15-30 minute call, maybe a video chat, depending on the person. And then it really is based on their own budget in terms of — you are going to invest in this once in your lifetime, in my opinion. I actually would prefer you never rehire me for the KonMari method portion of our coaching, at least, because no one rebounds after going to the KonMari method. You organize your home once and for all, and then you keep the habits and the mindsets have changed so that you don’t reaccumulate the clutter. So it really depends on the home size and how many people are in the home. So we work one-on-one, so if it’s a family, I work one-on-one with each person in the family or teach the parents to help the children. But I do work with children as young as 4 years old. And most sessions are about $500 per session and then usually, people invest in the packages to really commit themselves to transforming their life. So throughout the process, usually I’m able to help them then, you know, recoup a lot of that money they invested in the package with me because they’re able to resell items that no longer spark joy, and I’m able to help them work through the consignment, resale, donation, environmentally sustainable process of discarding the items. And then it takes usually one month, three months or six months for people to get through the process. And depending on the budget, then they’re able to also do work on their own, so doing a little bit of homework in between our session together. So let’s say we finish most of someone’s clothing category, but we haven’t finished their shoes. Then they’re able to go through their shoes in their own time, and then the next session, we get together and tackle books and papers. Those are the next two categories. So then for papers, you know, I really encourage a lot of digitizing of papers. So then they’re able to digitize things on their own time, not necessarily with me there. It kind of depends on the client, then, of how much time we’re one-on-one spending together. But usually, the entire process takes anywhere between 20-50 hours.

Tim Church: Wow. And what kind of feedback do you get from people after they complete the session and kind of go through the program?

Jessica Louie: Usually, people are so surprised in terms of how much we get done during the sessions and how much of a transformation it is because they maybe either worked with other professional organizers before or tried to purge and do spring cleaning every year before, and nothing ever stuck because, you know, their closets just reaccumulated things or their attics or garages. Here in Los Angeles, there’s very few people that actually park their cars in the garage. And I grew up in the Midwest, and you know, I always thought, you know, it’s unfortunate that you’re not actually using your garage space so that you’re protecting your cars and other items. And so basically, the transformation that they feel is pretty significant because a lot of these times, the clients have tried going through the process themselves. You know, purging, decluttering, going through the KonMari method after reading the books. But they don’t have an accountability partner. They don’t have emotional and physical support. So as their coach, you know, I’m facilitating that process to make sure they’re keeping accountable to working through all the categories and setting an end date to when we’re going to finish this because this is not a lifelong process. This is, you know, there’s an end goal in mind and a vision in mind so they can get to that step. So a lot of times, when people DIY this, you know, it might take them one, two or three years to finish the process. And we definitely decrease the time commitment that is required.

Tim Church: And you mentioned that, you know, obviously decluttering, getting organized, is a big part of the process. But it’s not the only thing that you’re doing and what you’re trying to help people accomplish.

Jessica Louie: Right. I think that it’s a big component of everything. But if someone really is not committed to the process or not ready for that process, that’s OK. We don’t want to ever force anyone to go through the process. So a lot of times, when I’m working with couples, one person is more committed than the other. And you know, the other person will just see the transformation in the client and maybe be willing to start their own transformation a few months later or a few years later. It’s really up to them. But I think it’s so important to be able to go through the other steps, like clarifying your why and aligning your work into your life, if you’re not ready to do the simplifying in your home environment.

Tim Church: I know that I feel amazing when my space is decluttered, clean, whether I’m at work or I’m at home, and my wife probably to the next level. Like she uses it as almost like a therapy session when she’s cleaning and doing things. So what would you say to somebody that says, they ask you, “Well Jessica, what kind of benefits and what’s going to happen in my life if I get my house in order? What can I expect? Or why should I do this other than just to get organized?”

Jessica Louie: So I mean, there’s been a lot of research in terms of how your space affects your well-being and how many people have anxiety related to their clutter, right? Because basically, anything that you’re seeing, anything that you’re consuming, you know, via social media or other environments is something that you have to process. And I call it “closing the files” in terms of you have to be able to close the files in some of those things. But basically, people are really gaining more time to focus on what matters most to them because technically, everything that you own needs to be taken care of. So that means either physically taken care of or cleaning things. So usually, you get more time to really focus and have more intention in your daily activities. You also free up your mind to live more in the moment and be present. And I really think it creates more calmness and peaceful environments. And it really changes your mindset about things versus experiences. So creating experiences and memories together instead of buying a lot of things and gifts and physical items, you know? Because when we’re older and we’re on our deathbed, no one ever says, “Oh, I wish I owned more things.” They always say, “I wish I had spent more time with this person,” or “I wish I would have done this.” And they have some regrets. So really focusing on let’s not have those regrets later in life. Let’s do those things now and live life to the fullest. And then one of the big things I really focus on is increasing confidence in your decision-making skills because throughout the process, you know, you don’t really necessarily — when you start, you don’t really necessarily know what really speaks to your heart, what sparks joy, but as you go through the process, you really build your confidence of I know I want to keep this, I know that I love this item. And then you’re able to apply that habit and that mindset to having confidence in your day-to-day life, interacting with people, taking control of your healthcare, taking control of your finances. So those are some of the things that help people during this transformative process.

Tim Church: Wow. I’m just so fascinated by this. And I love it. And I’m sitting here on the other end, and I think it’s funny that as you’re talking about this transformation and the decluttering, like I’m already feeling like relaxed, like as you’re talking and going through it. So I can only imagine that if you’re someone that is doing the full process, getting the full makeover, what the benefits come about from that. So I just think that is so cool. Now, can you talk a little bit about the income that you’re earning from this business and from your other businesses? And you know, without even getting into specifics, just generally speaking, you know, what kind of income are you bringing in from that?

Jessica Louie: So this business is a little bit newer. This was created in July of 2018, so right now, you know, I’m earning five figures. And the goal in the next 12 months is to be earning in the six-figure range and growing the business both locally in my local area, southern California, and also online with some virtual sessions to really reach — I think that the online environment is great because it really reaches beyond your local network or the classroom and things like that. So those are my goals moving forward.

Tim Church: And how do you allocate the additional money that you’re bringing in from the businesses? Where is it going?

Jessica Louie: So it really is going basically to savings. So I paid off all of my student debt a little bit less than three years out of school, so I paid that off back in early 2016, and I was able to make some investments so my family was closer and living closer to me. And now, it’s really just saving for the future and for possible investment in the future in terms of more traveling — I didn’t really travel very much during my training process. So there’s been a lot more travel recently and more plans to go to Tokyo, where the KonMari method was founded, and other travel experiences. So really creating more memories and time together with people that I really love.

Tim Church: That is so cool. I really like that. I mean, congratulations, by the way, on paying off your student loans. I think that is awesome as well. And actually, just a side note on that, do you think that not having student loans, which a lot of people are struggling with even for 10-15 years post-graduation and even longer, that not having that on your plate has allowed you to take more risks as an entrepreneur but just to explore more and be willing to invest more in these businesses?

Jessica Louie: I think it definitely has helped in terms of I had a little bit over $50,000 in loans to pay off. And I was very intentional with that during residency and then right outside of residency. And I was also very fortunate with not accumulating $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 worth of loans. I think that the environment now with student loans has changed a lot in terms of it’s really easy to get the money, but it’s really difficult to know how much the interest is compounding and all that stuff.

Tim Church: Right.

Jessica Louie: So overall, it’s definitely helped me invest more into my businesses because I have those funds, I don’t go into debt at all with investing in my business. And I’ve been able to invest in business coaches to help me along the way as well. So it definitely helps in terms of you need to make the investment so it’s not just a hobby. It is a small business, and you’re really leading it as a small business then.

Tim Church: Now, I think a lot of people are listening to all of these businesses and things that you’re doing while you’re a professor and working as a critical care pharmacist. How the heck do you manage all of this?

Jessica Louie: Honestly, Tim, it was difficult in the beginning. But I was also — also think about, I was a year out of residency. And during residency, I was at a great program, but I was also spending 80-100 hours a week in the hospital. And that was because I was really involved in research processes and other things. So I was spending extra time that wasn’t required of me to be there. So I was already in the mindset of, you know, I don’t have to work 40-hour weeks. I can work 80-hour weeks and things like that. So that really helped me in the beginning of my first business to, you know, really dive deep into the learning process of the technology and the back-end things. So you know, I didn’t think I was working that much, you know, because that was kind of normal. And I was almost bored if I wasn’t doing something that was challenging me, right? And then I also have a partner who’s also in medical training and working quite often and paying down his medical student loans. So I think that if you have a partner that also stays busy and, you know, is working to achieve their visions, it really helps for your support system to know that you’re both working towards your end goals and your visions and growing your careers. But overall, since that time, I’ve definitely been a lot more intentional about how I run my businesses and have been able to automate things and just also learn what’s important. So for example, recently in 2018, I built up a pretty strong Instagram and social media following, but it wasn’t really a passion of mine anymore. And it wasn’t attracting my ideal clients, so I stopped posting on Instagram. And has that affected my business? You know, no. Like it’s nice to connect with people on social media, but sometimes, you have to take breaks and put boundaries about your time commitment to things that aren’t actually bringing in return on investment.

Tim Church: And how many hours now are you typically spending on your businesses?

Jessica Louie: I would say, you know, 25-35 hours a week. It really depends on how many clients are scheduled during that week because I’m seeing clients in-person locally, either at night, in the evenings after work, or on weekends. And so it depends on how many of those clients are scheduled and then I’m doing some of the technology in terms of posting. I like to batch things out. I highly recommend, if you do have an online business that you batch things out. So in 2018, I’ve been doing a little bit more videos. So I recorded all my videos for fall in two days in August. So I think that if you’re really intentional about how you, when you’re working on your business versus working in your business, how much time you commit to each of those and your strategy behind that.

Tim Church: So it sounds like it’s much more manageable now in terms of balancing your job as a pharmacist and what you’re trying to accomplish in your businesses.

Jessica Louie: Definitely. I think that at the beginning — and I think this happens with a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, you want to do all the things and you want to grow your Instagram, grow your LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, everything all at once. And then you kind of learn that, you know, that kind of sets you up for some burnout and exhaustion. And now I’ve learned, you know, that really focusing on what matters most, what will have some return and what also is enjoyable. So and then when you’re at a point when you can outsource things and automate things, I would recommend that so that you’re using your skill sets to their fullest potential when you get to that stage.

Tim Church: Jessica, you have shared some awesome points about entrepreneurship and what you’re doing in your business. What advice in general would you give to other pharmacists and even students out there who have an interest in becoming an entrepreneur? Maybe instead of or even in addition to their role as a pharmacist.

Jessica Louie: I would definitely recommend following a passion, you know, gaining clarity of what you really want, setting your ideal lifestyle of how you want to live your life day-to-day and then going after your dreams because I know a lot of people who will wait to say, “Oh, I’ll do that in x number of years,” but why don’t you just do it today in terms of setting up that dream and going for it? And you know, it might be overwhelming at first, but every baby step will lead to big transformations. And when you’re documenting the journey that you’ve been on, you’ll see how far you’ve come.

Tim Church: That is so good. And what books, any books you would recommend on entrepreneurship or running a business in general? I know one that you already mentioned, and it’s one of my favorites, which is “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek. Any other gems that you have found to be extremely helpful or inspiring?
Jessica Louie: I also really like Brendon Burchard’s “High Performance Habits.”

Tim Church: I’m listening to that right now, actually, in the car.

Jessica Louie: Very nice. And then of course, Marie Kondo’s books if you’re interested in the KonMari method. And if you’re interested in simplifying, Courtney Carver’s “Soulful Simplicity.” It actually has really nice, tangible advice. And “The Growth Mindset” books, I think it’s Angela Duckworth, I think those are some of my go-tos right now. And then I usually provide a list of resources as well when I work with clients if they want to look at more books outside of those.

Tim Church: That is awesome. Thank you so much, Jessica, for coming on the show, for sharing your insights about business but also some of your passions and what you’re doing. And I think it’s just incredible. And I think a lot of people are going to find value not only from what you’re doing but just the experiences that you’ve been through. So if somebody wants to reach out to you, either just to learn more about entrepreneurship or your journey or even to become a KonMari coach or consultant or do what you’re doing, what’s the best way to contact you?

Jessica Louie: The best way is to go to my website, ClarifySimplifyAlign.com, and reach out via there, the contact form, schedule a call or email, which is [email protected].

Tim Church: Great. Thank you again so much. And I look forward to reconnecting a few months down the road to hear what you’re doing and how you’re growing and expanding your business.

Jessica Louie: Thank you, Tim, for your time.

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YFP 085: How One Pharmacy Entrepreneur Is Solving the Drug Shortage Crisis

Posted on January 31, 2019November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

How One Pharmacy Entrepreneur is Solving the Drug Shortage Crisis

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Tim Ulbrich, YFP co-founder, interviews Dr. Patrick Yoder, co-founder and CEO of LogicStream Health. Tim asks Patrick about his journey as a pharmacy entrepreneur which led him to get his PharmD from the University of Iowa to starting as a clinical pharmacist at Lake Regional Health-System to serving as the Director then VP of Clinical Development and Informatics at Wolters Kluwer to being the Co-Founder and CEO of LogicStream Health since 2013.

About Today’s Guest

Patrick developed a passion for innovation reengineering bicycles to better suit the needs of childhood. He started his career in medical research, then as a Clinical Pharmacist and an Informatician. He developed experience leading innovative teams at Wolters Kluwer Health as the Vice President of Informatics and Clinical Development. There he spearheaded the creation of a solution that established the company as the recognized leader in the market within four years. He also led the informatics team at Hennepin County Medical Center before co-founding LogicStream Health. Patrick enjoys scuba diving, running and cycling in his time away from LogicStream Health.

About LogicStream Health

LogicStream Health is trusted by a community of high-performing healthcare providers across the United States. The company’s clinical process control and improvement software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform stands alone in its ability to help customers gain instant insights to improve vital clinical processes and patient care. As a result, customers reduce cost and improve outcomes. Also available is The Drug Shortage App from LogicStream Health™ that reduces risk to patients, controls medication spend and increases staff productivity as a result of the ongoing drug shortage epidemic. The LogicStream Health SaaS platform is ‘must-have’ technology enabling clinical teams to quickly improve clinical processes in near-real-time and is designed for rapid implementation and easy adoption by end-user clinicians, informaticists, data analysts and executive teams. LogicStream Health software today is supporting hundreds of hospitals on a scalable and sustainable technology platform to standardize processes and deliver highly reliable healthcare. For more information, please visit www.LogicStreamHealth.com.

Summary

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich dives into learning about Patrick Yoder’s entrepreneurial journey. When Patrick graduated from pharmacy school, there was a shortage of pharmacists. Patrick chose to become a clinical pharmacist which then led him into taking on more business roles in companies. He served as the Director and then Vice President of Clinical Development and Informatics at Wolters Kluwer.

In these roles, Patrick was motivated to use technology to change the way pharmacists work with electronic health records. He took risks to co-found LogicStream Health in 2013 and continued his business-oriented journey. He currently serves as the company’s CEO. In 2018, the Drug Shortage App from LogicStream Health had its debut. The Drug Shortage App from LogicStream Health aids to support pharmacists to increase their work flow while also increasing patient safety.

Patrick shares advice on starting an app, why serving in the community is important and also what should be done to expose more pharmacists to an entrepreneurial path in pharmacy school in this episode.

Mentioned on the Show

PolicyGenius
LogicStream Health™
Drug Shortage App from LogicStream Health™
YFP Facebook Group
Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters by Jon Acuff
The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferriss
The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care by Clayton M. Christensen
To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel H. Pink
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
LogicStreaming Podcast

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Patrick, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Appreciate you coming on.

Patrick Yoder: It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to this episode for some time as I shared a little bit before we hit record, learning some of your backstories as an entrepreneur, and I’m excited to get into that. And part of what I’m so excited about sharing with the YFP community is that they hear me talk often about the importance of entrepreneurship and lots of things going on in the pharmacy job market and things and to have a real, live example of somebody who has done this, came out with a pharmacy degree, had some clinical pharmacy experience and has now ventured into starting a company that obviously is growing. Look forward to hearing your story, picking your brain a little bit in terms of what makes you tick. So before we jump into the work that you’re doing with LogicStream, which is your company, and the recent launch that you had of the drug shortage app, which as I understand, actually debuted at the ASHP Midyear clinical meeting, I want to learn a little bit more about your journey into pharmacy school and the path that you took to get where you are today. So take us back to when you graduated from the University of Iowa. What were your career interests and goals at the time?

Patrick Yoder: Yeah, well, I mean, I think I graduated at a good time back in 2000s, early 2000s, there was a huge shortage of pharmacists. And I think while that was exciting and good, it was actually awful hard to figure out where to go. I think I had 10 different job offers. And I decided that I really wanted to do acute care stuff in hospitals, and so I really made that jump at that point and started to work on the clinical side. And then interestingly, EHRs came along quickly after that, which will tie into probably various different things as we go through our discussion today.

Tim Ulbrich: So you come out of pharmacy school, and as I understand it, you’re working in a clinical pharmacy specialist position. And then you took a jump into a director role and then a VP role at Walters Clure Health and then obviously that led up to the work that you’re now doing in starting LogicStream. So what was the catalyst for you making that transition from the clinical role to what you were doing at Walters Clure Health?

Patrick Yoder: Well, I think in general, there’s been a couple of jumps that I made. But I mean, that was the first one. And I remember that pretty specifically. I was working clinically in the ICU at a regional health center. And I even had this discussion with my parents, who you can imagine — and I was a few years into my career, and I said, “You know what, I think I’m going to jump to the corporate side of healthcare.” And they were kind of looked at me funny and said, “Why in the world did you go to pharmacy school if you wanted to be a business guy?” And I don’t know, I just, I think I’m kind of a calculated risk taker. And I think there was a real opportunity in that job, and I kind of felt like I could always keep my pharmacy skills up, although that’s actually a lot harder now than it used to be. But just really decided I wanted to take a look at that opportunity and really looked at it that way instead of a risk.

Tim Ulbrich: Did you — I’m curious — do you remember back in pharmacy school having some of those business interests? I mean, was that something that was always front of your mind? I mean, obviously you went into that clinical path right out but can you tie back now that you put yourself in a CEO role, can you tie it back to, yeah, you know, I really was mindset around the business component all along?

Patrick Yoder: Yeah. That actually really started with me as a kid. So my parents were entrepreneurs and started several businesses. And so the things that I was exposed to as a kid, talking about financial statements and employees and all that stuff around the dinner table. I later figured out, well, that’s just not normal. Most kids aren’t exposed to that kind of world. And so, a lot of the things that I actually thought were difficulties because I heard my parents like talking through some of this stuff, that really actually led me to a professional degree where some of the biggest things that I really had a desire to do more of after I had that professional degree. And I think there’s different ways to approach that. You certainly could do health system administration and pharmacy leadership and all of those angles as well. I just had this — for whatever reason, really liked to create things and ended up on a path that allowed me to do that.

Tim Ulbrich: So 2013 — I’m hitting fast track on your career just out of the sake of time here — but 2013, you founded LogicStream. Obviously, you currently serve as the CEO and co-founder of that. Tell us about the vision that you had for that company. Where did the idea come from? And obviously, with any business, you’re trying to solve a problem, right? So what business were you trying to solve in starting that company?

Patrick Yoder: Yeah, so I mean, just going back just a little bit, at Walters Clure, we were very much in the middle of the EHR adoption phase. So basically, everyone was buying Electronic Health Records, everyone was installing them and putting them in their health systems. And a lot of the products we built there, which I was on the kind of new product development team, and my group of folks did a lot of work in that area. And therefore, I spent a lot of time in the market, and so I was always thinking about, well, what’s next? What is going to be the next problem? And through that, really figured out that Electronic Health Record is actually just the beginning. All of the things that we were doing to put those in place were baseline. And we weren’t thinking at all about or not as much as we should have been thinking about how do we use this technology to actually change the way we work. And in fact, that’s really where LogicStream and the ideas originally came from is how do you not only have an EHR in place but really use it to help your clinicians do the right thing and do it more often that maybe they can remember on their own?

Tim Ulbrich: So obviously, that experience you had at Walters Clure gave you the foundation and sparked that idea, which then became LogicStream. And I think one of the questions I’m very interested in learning more about is your mindset around risk at the time. You obviously had a great job, and so you’re making this decision to start something new. And I think that is a factor that can prohibit and paralyze many pharmacists that may be thinking of an entrepreneurial idea. So what type of risk did you take on to leave a comfortable and successful career to start this company? And if you had fears at the time, how did you overcome any of those fears and overcome any of the self-limiting beliefs that you may have had about, you know, in reference to your parents earlier, that you’ve got a great career, and now all of a sudden, you’re going to jump out and do something on your own?

Patrick Yoder: Yeah, well, you think that conversation was challenging when I was a pharmacist going to the corporate world, you can imagine what it was like when I now have a family and a wife, and they look at me like, wait, you’re going to do what?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Patrick Yoder: What’s this story here? You know, but luckily, through my work at Clure, I had a lot of connections. And I really leveraged those to help soften that transition. So I actually went back to the care delivery side of the world for a short period of time to validate some of the ideas that I had about building a company or a product. And then also leveraged the relationships to do a lot of contracting and consulting work in the interim as well. And you know, I guess the real driver for me was that I could see that there was a better way and really wanted to play out that thought and test it and see if it was real. And that’s I think the balance. I mean, most entrepreneurs are generally risk-takers anyways. I think the smart thing to do is be pragmatic about that and understand the risk as much as you can. And certainly having a pharmacy degree is a really nice backstop, right? You can always jump back into that and have plenty of work to do.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I love what you said there. I mean, that resonates with me. And for many that are thinking of business ideas is that you’ve got a degree to fall back on. You know, many that are starting companies don’t, obviously. Many people can start, you know, a business while they’re obviously working or at least kind of begin to get that process going. And I really liked what you said about the validation process, right? So you had an idea and you went in and worked to validate some of that before you jumped in, obviously, to the beginnings of that company. So the drug shortage app — and we talked a little bit about this before we hit record — is obviously a big area that you’re working on now. Drug shortage app from LogicStream Health made its debut, as I understand it, at the 2018 ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting in Anaheim, and I wish I would have known that before the meeting. I was actually there, so I wish I would have known that. I could have stopped by the booth and say hello. But tell us a little bit about that app and why this solution is so important to our profession and to healthcare?

Patrick Yoder: Yeah, well, I think for me personally, it’s really exciting because you know, we started this company and have a large number of hospital customers across the country. And we typically work in with nurses and physicians a lot on improving their processes. And so it’s really exciting for me to actually be able to launch more so into the pharmacy space in a very specific way. And the way we actually ended up here is we listened to our customers and what the pharmacists that were using our software tools, even before we launched the app, were saying about their biggest problems. And I think it really became apparent to us as a group that, you know, drug shortages are a huge problem. They basically disrupt the primary workflow of the pharmacist, so you can’t actually take an order or a prescription and create a safely administered drug. And that’s a huge problem, and it was basically sucking up a lot of their time trying to figure out how to use alternatives or really buy directly from manufacturers or whatever the case may be. And then it also has a huge safety component, which drug shortages and using different formulations and different drugs that aren’t common to a health system can actually lead to adverse drug events for patients, which is kind of near and dear to any healthcare person’s heart. So we’re really excited about the opportunity to help pharmacists in a very meaningful way.

Tim Ulbrich: So when you launched that at the Midyear meeting, I mean, was that a moment of celebration and culmination of hard work? Or are things just so busy and moving so quickly that you’re kind of always onto the next project or even to see obviously that through for the time being?

Patrick Yoder: Oh no, that’s absolutely the way it works. I mean, the team here puts in a tremendous amount of energy when we’re launching a new product. And you know, months ahead of time, you’re doing plenty of work and designing how all the screens work and how it actually gathers the data necessary to make it run, and so we had even prior to that, spent many, many hours with pharmacists on the phone, understanding the pain points of the whole problem. And so absolutely, it was definitely an event and something that the entire company wanted to hear more about, even during the show as it was going on, how well it was really fitting with the needs of pharmacists.

Tim Ulbrich: One of the common questions I get from people on different ideas is they always say, “I’d like to start an app to do this or that,” and you know, then the next follow-up question is, “What exactly goes into developing an app?” And not that we’re going to get in on that in this show, and obviously, we’re pharmacists, right? We’re not developers. But I think my question to you is what advice would you have for somebody in terms of where do you start? I mean, is this something that you have to go out and raise a bunch of money and capital to get some backing to do? Or where does somebody start with an idea of an app for whatever problem that they’re trying to solve?

Patrick Yoder: I would highly recommend not going out and getting a bunch of capital to start with. That’s not what we did. And in fact, most of the thing that you need to do first is actually just start. And that sounds kind of strange, but it is really the way it works because as soon as you start, you put yourself on a path to learn a whole lot more about the problem than you understand today. And in fact, that is actually where all of your intellectual property comes from that then you can use to raise capital in much better scenarios than Day 1. So just start, and be ready for some sleepless nights and maybe a lot of them. And you’ll learn very quickly if it’s a good fit or not. And don’t be scared of the fact that it’s not because there actually will likely be a whole bunch of things around it that are a really good fit in the marketplace, and then you’ll have to choose which one you want to pursue, which is actually a good problem to have but also a very difficult decision.

Tim Ulbrich: I love what you said there. I actually just posted recently on our Facebook group, one of my favorite books that I like to reference a lot is actually called “Start” by Jon Eckhoff. I don’t know if you’ve read it before, but it was really instrumental for me when I was starting Your Financial Pharmacist back in 2015 that when you have I think a new idea, and obviously what we’ve been working on isn’t the scale of what you’re doing over at LogicStream, but there’s so many fears and limiting beliefs that come into play. And well, I don’t know how to do x or what about setting up the structure of the organization? Or where’s the money going to come from? Or what about the website? What about the accounting? The legal? All of these things. And I think the thing I look back at that allowed us to get going was just taking the first step, right? Just starting. And you know, as I look back, it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t how I would do it today, but every one of those steps leads to another learning moment. And you don’t know what you’re fully stepping into until you actually embrace that step. And I’m guessing you felt a little bit of that back in 2013 and even as you entered into the app development and new products or services, you know, I’m sure there’s some of that as well. So I think there’s great wisdom in there that I hope our listeners heard in what you just said there. One of the things, Patrick, that stood out to me as I was looking at LogicStream’s website is I think front and center on your homepage or maybe just scrolling down a little bit on your homepage, I noticed that your company has been active even already in the New Year with volunteering with the food group in New Hope, Minnesota. And we talk a lot about here the importance of philanthropic efforts as a part of a financial plan and how that really provides perspective. And to me, as I saw this, this really was an indicator of the value that you see as your company and the role it plays in philanthropic activities and in the community and in serving in the community. So why do you feel as the CEO that it’s important for your company and your employees to be a part of serving and giving in the community?

Patrick Yoder: Yeah, well, it’s a huge piece and sort of team-building perspective, it helps — you know, having your team do something together that they kind of cross different areas of the company and they maybe don’t work together every day actually really helps build relationships and a real team. But you know, I think at the core, entrepreneurs and CEOs — and this may sound a little different than what you typically hear — so while our jobs are to create things and make money, we actually see that as actually a service to the world around us. So and it’s funny, one of my mentors taught me this. You know, if you think about something like LogicStream and we have 35 or so employees right now, those jobs didn’t exist without actually building the company and keeping to push it forward. And so even just those jobs and the value and the pay that we put into those people’s lives are in service, in some ways. And so we kind of just carry that out, I think, as a company across the board. And it is important for sure. And as we get larger, it becomes I think even more important and really a critical piece of how a company actually makes an even bigger impact in the world around them.

Tim Ulbrich: So along the lines, one of the things that sticks out to me that I alluded to a little bit earlier is I feel like pharmacists often by nature are fairly risk-averse. And I think part of that is maybe driven by personality but also in part because of, you know, you may graduate at 24-25 years old, and you’ve got a six-figure salary that’s facing you, and it may be hard to say no to that if you have $150,000 or $200,000 of student loan debt and other variables that are in there as well. But I think we as a profession are at a point where we need to create and innovate and stimulate and make some of these opportunities and reinvent how we have thought about practice and thought of different things. So I’m curious from your standpoint of somebody who graduated with a PharmD and now somebody being a CEO and an entrepreneur, what can we be doing or what should we be doing in pharmacy education to help provide some of these principles, whether it’s entrepreneurship or maybe even more intrepreneurship of those that aren’t going to go start their own company but need to be thinking in an entrepreneurial way inside of the organizations in which they operate?

Patrick Yoder: That’s an interesting question. And I think maybe I’ll answer it this way. So I’ll go back to my training when I was at the University of Iowa. You know, I don’t think we were very exposed to pharmacists that took unique paths. So we certainly were exposed to pharmacists that build their clinical practice in ambulatory care or some specialty pharmacy area, but never — I mean, I don’t remember ever being exposed to a pharmacist that is a technologist and started a technology company or some device. I mean, there’s probably endless examples of this. And that’s probably the first step, just opening up that a little bit so students can see, well, gees, there actually is a huge opportunity out here. And in fact, I think going back to your risk question, the whole fact that you have a professional degree — and I kind of get the loan stuff that goes with it, I’m still paying for mine, by the way.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Patrick Yoder: It’s an opportunity. I mean, I really see it as an opportunity because you have that backstop that other people don’t have because of that degree and the time that you put in building that clinical knowledge. And in fact, I think in some ways, it makes you more effective in actually finding good solutions to the potential problems too. So it’s an opportunity, I think.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I agree. I think exposure in the PharmD curricula is huge. I hope your alma mater is taking advantage of you. But even just planting the seeds, right? I mean, I think that if they can hear from somebody — and it may not be an area they’re necessarily interested in, but just to know that, you know, there’s different opportunities that are out there. I typically see there’s a mindset of I either can go into community-based pharmacy practice, or I can go into residency training. You know, that’s kind of the two trains of thought. And that may be where somebody starts or maybe not, but just to even begin to plant the seeds of there are different opportunities in which your degree can open doors and to get people thinking about those. So one of my questions for you is obviously, as somebody who is I’m assuming extremely busy and you’re trying to balance family and prioritizing that as well and making sure you’re serving your employees and the company and the vision you have, what do you do for fun? I mean, how do you keep yourself from burning out? What are your strategies?
Patrick Yoder: That’s a great question. You know, I actually think that — and I am pretty busy. I spend an awful lot of time working on the company and, to some extent, in the company as well. And I think about burnout more about as a mindshare problem, and so if you can’t ever get away from, you know, applying your thoughts and mental energy towards the business, that’s actually I think what burns you out. So if you do that non-stop forever, you’re not going to — you’re going to burnout. Whereas if you just can create some time — and it doesn’t even have to be in big chunks — but some time throughout the week where you’re not spending your mental energy on that, that really helps keep you balanced. And then I think the other thing you always have to really be very cognizant of is your family, right? So just because I’m an entrepreneur doesn’t mean that my wife is, doesn’t mean that my kids will be, so you have to understand probably the level of commitment and energy that you’re actually putting into the business and take time away to just spend with them. And it actually doesn’t have to be as complicated as it sounds. Sometimes it’s a conversation over a coffee.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, absolutely. Good stuff. I want to finish out with an idea that I’m trying for the first time, I’m stealing actually from Tim Ferriss, author of “The Four-Hour Work Week,” widely known for his podcast. I started reading his book called “The Triumph of Mentors,” which we’ll link to in the show notes. And in there, he essentially interviews a lot of people with some questions to really pry into their brain and how do they operate and what do they think and how might people who are interested in some of these ideas begin to think about further developing themselves. And I think what I love about these questions is that it’s going to give myself, selfishly, and our listeners some insight into how successful entrepreneurs and people doing things like you’re doing are thinking and the behaviors and habits that contribute to success. So I’m going to rapid-fire a few questions, and then we’ll wrap up with some more information about where people can learn about what you’re doing. So let’s start, Patrick, with if you’re a reader? I’m assuming you are. It seems like most entrepreneurs are. But what are one, two or three books that you feel like have really greatly influenced your life and the way in which you think?

Patrick Yoder: Oh yeah, there’s a long list, so I’ll pick out what I think are probably some of the most pivotal ones. And I actually read books that are, I don’t know, I find a lot of value in their contextual. So starting the company, one of the big ones that I absolutely loved was “The Innovator’s Prescription,” Clayton Christensen’s book. He actually wrote a whole series of them. I’ve actually read all of them, but that book is just — it helped me kind of frame up how to really think about the dilemmas of innovation inside a big company and then what it means for an entrepreneur. I really like a lot of Daniel Pink’s stuff, you know, “Drive,” “To Sell is Human,” all of those typical things that you run into pretty quickly in a company. It’s like basically how do you get people to buy the stuff that you’ve built that’s really cool, right? And then my favorite book, which is actually almost like a textbook — so mine’s all marked up and I have little tabs on the pages — is Ben Horowitz’s book, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things.” And it’s —

Tim Ulbrich: Ah, I’ve never heard of it. Tell me more.

Patrick Yoder: It’s a fantastic book. I mean, it’s basically — so Ben Horowitz is a venture capitalist who’s also started companies and actually built them into kind of dot com era. It’s a terrific story, but it has — it’s just loads of great information about how he dealt with the difficulties of running an early-stage company and building it and venture funding and all that stuff. And I go back to it a lot and basically read his story because it’s very contextual and real. I mean, you can tell that he was living it. So it’s really a fantastic, fantastic book.

Tim Ulbrich: Great recommendation. We’ll link to those in the show notes. And I’ll be ordering those from the library soon. So thank you for the recommendations. So let’s talk about for a moment failure. Can you point back to a moment as you were starting up LogicStream or even maybe more recently with the app of something that you would say is a moment of a favorite failure? Something that you look back and say that in the moment, it may have been painful, but it’s really set me up for success in the future.

Patrick Yoder: Oh man, there’s probably some yesterday. I think that one of the key things that you’ll probably learn from talking to people like me, I would imagine, is the thought of failure is actually pretty different. So — and I tell my kids this all the time, and the first time I told them, they kind of looked at me weird and I bet their teachers probably hate me. But if you don’t fail, you actually can’t learn.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Patrick Yoder: And so if you look at failure that way, you actually just try to do it faster, as fast as you can because in a company like ours, the faster you can learn, and the faster you can adjust to those learnings is your competitive edge. You know, you’re not going to win against Amazon by raising more money. You’re just not going to win that way. And so if you have that context about failure, it just totally changes the way you actually think about them. And I’m guessing in some ways, it actually changes your risk aversion towards them as well, towards failures.

Tim Ulbrich: I love that. I read recently something from Seth Godin. I’m drawing a blank on what it was, if it was a blog or one of his books, where he talked about exactly what you said and really trying to not avoid failure but where it’s happening, accelerate the process and minimize the damage.

Patrick Yoder: That’s probably true.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. But that it’s so essential, and I think to your point about it changes the risk aversion that I think can happen along the process way. Along the way. So what advice would you have, you know, lots of smart, driven pharmacy students that are listening, about how to enter the “real world.” What are some words of wisdom that you would have for them as they’re entering somewhat of a chaotic time in our profession and in healthcare at large?

Patrick Yoder: Yeah, I mean, I think that it’s — so I would actually recommend against just jumping straight to building companies. I think there is some significant learning that can happen very, very fast when you actually go out there and do the real work of pharmacists and learn how health systems are actually operating today. And then bring that to the table as part of your thought process. And then find people who have done this. I think that probably the interesting thing that most people may not know is that people like me, so I actually have a coach. I have a CEO mentor that has done this multiple times over, and I ask him questions all the time about how did you do this? What did you do about that? And it’s so helpful to have those kind of people around you. Even in my team, our CFO has done this multiple times over. Those kind of resources are just incredible to have because they really help you up your wisdom game, which you only get from experience. And so you know, kind of lean into those people that likely are smarter than you. But just be aware that they’re really trying to help you, and that’s a key part of it for sure.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I love — just to piggyback on that — investing in the areas of your life a coach and a mentor that are most important to you. And I love that as a word of wisdom. So Patrick, my understanding, you actually host a podcast as well, LogicStream, to conduct interviews with healthcare leaders discussing trends and issues that affect healthcare leadership and clinicians, innovations in healthcare, IT and more. So beyond that podcast, which certainly our listeners can find and we’ll reference in the show notes, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and more about LogicStream?

Patrick Yoder: Yeah, I mean, the best place to go is our website, so LogicStreamHealth.com. There’s an awful lot of content out there, not only from me but from other people in our company as well as some of our customers. So certainly head out there and take a look, and if you have any questions for me, I’m always open to discussing interesting and exciting ideas with folks.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So as we wrap up this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, I want to give a special thanks to Patrick and their team at LogicStream that helped us get ready for this interview. Obviously, incredibly busy and for him to give us his time, I know is something that has left an impact on me. And I’m excited to be able to share this with the community. We’ll link to all of the things that we talked about in the show notes. And as always, we appreciate you as the YFP community joining us for this week’s episode of the podcast. And as always, if you liked what you heard, please leave us a review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcast each and every week. Have a great rest of your week.

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7 Programs for a California Pharmacist to Conquer Student Loans

Posted on January 27, 2019 by yfpadmin

7 Programs for a California Pharmacist to Conquer Student Loans

The following post contains affiliate links through which YFP LLC. or its team members receive compensation.

California has the most practicing pharmacists in the U.S. which is no surprise given it’s the most populous state.

It also has the most pharmacy schools at 13 and pharmacists earn the second highest mean salary next to Alaska at $136,730.

Unfortunately, for a California pharmacist, the effective salary can feel much lower secondary to high taxes and cost of living. Not only that, most pharmacy graduates will face much higher debt loads than the national average when adding in the cost of living. With this high debt to income ratio, it could be hard to make progress and even make minimum required payments on student loans. Below is the current cost for California pharmacy schools as of January 2019.

Consider a California pharmacist with $300,000 in student loans with a 7% interest rate. The default standard 10 year plan through the federal loan system would have a monthly payment of $3,483. Unless there’s spousal income or additional streams of revenue, making that kind of payment probably isn’t possible. Plus, even if one could make that payment, it would likely stretch the budget so much that it would be tough to put any money toward other financial goals like investing and purchasing a home.

If you currently don’t have an income because you have been affected by the CPJE scandal or you are between jobs and making a transition, check out the end of this post for tips for some temporary options.

So besides paying off student loans into retirement, let’s explore some other options.

Here are seven to consider.

1. Education Debt Reduction Program

Besides the loan repayment programs offered through the military, one of the most generous federal loan repayment programs is the Education Debt Reduction Program (EDRP) through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). While not unique to those practicing in California, there are a large number of facilities within the state and therefore more potential opportunities.

Through the program, pharmacists can receive up to $120,000 over a 5 year period with a maximum of $24,000 per year. Unfortunately, this is not always available and depends on the need and difficulty in filling positions. EDRP was not available for my position when I joined the VA, but a lot of my friends, including Alex Barker of thehappypharmD.com, took full advantage of it.

Unlike some programs which provide direct student loan repayment, this is a reimbursement program. So if you pay $24,000 per year toward your loans, the VA would reimburse you $24,000. If you have a total student loan balance around $240,000, you would essentially be responsible for paying for half plus any interest. With balances less than that, it would make sense to make payments less than $24,000/year to enable you to maximize the benefit.

Job postings on usajobs.gov usually have this listed for VA positions if available but always check with human resources if you are interviewing.

2. Indian Health Service Loan Repayment Program

The Indian Health Service Loan Repayment Program (IHS LRP) offers up to $40,000 in exchange for a 2 year full-time service commitment working in an Indian health facility. This program can be extended annually if you continue your service until your entire student debt is paid. Currently, there is no max established.

This program is also not unique to California, but there a large number of Indian health facilities compared to other states. Similar to the EDRP, this program is also based on facility and provider-specific needs.

If you accept the IHS LRP award, you cannot receive any other awards from any other government entity that also requires a service commitment.

You can find job listings that offer the IHS LRP award on usajobs.gov.

3. California State Loan Repayment Program

To increase the number of medical professionals in Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA), the state offers the California State Loan Repayment Program (SLRP). This program is open to several healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, who work for approved practice sites in shortage areas.

While this strategy may not completely eliminate your loans, it can help take out a big chunk. For full-time commitments of 2 years or half-time commitments of 4 years, you can receive up to $50,000. There are also extension grants with availability that varies year to year.

Besides the 2 or 4 year initial commitment to work at a practice site that qualifies under the SLRP program, there are other requirements you must meet with some being pharmacist specific.

4. National Health Service Corp Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Program

As a measure to help battle against the unfortunate opioid epidemic, pharmacists were recently added as a qualifying clinician eligible for the NHSC Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Program with the main goal of assisting in the treatment of substance abuse in rural and underserved areas nationwide. To be eligible, you have to work at an approved NHSC site that provides Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment which includes Opioid Treatment Programs (OTP), Office-based Opioid Treatment (OBOT) Practices and Non-opioid Outpatient Substance Use Disorder Sites.

In addition, to receive priority funding you must have a state-issued license or certification to provide SUD treatment. A provider’s license or certification to provide SUD treatment must meet the national standard recognized by the NBCC; NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals; or IC&RC.

There are two different service options available. The first is a 3 year full-time commitment (minimum of 40 hours/week and 45 weeks/year) which has an award of $75,000. The part-time option is also a 3 year commitment (minimum of 20 hours/week and 45/weeks per year) and has an award of $37,500.

This program is not specific to pharmacists in California but because the state has the most NHSC approved sites in the country at over 1700, there are likely a number of those that could qualify for providing SUD treatment.

For 2019, the deadline to submit your application is February 21st at 7:30 pm EST.

For more information on the NHSC Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Program, check out this video q and a recording You can also click here for the full guidance and requirements and to see if your site meets the qualifications.

5. Public Service Loan Forgiveness

If you work for a government organization, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) company, or a non-tax exempt non-profit (that meets qualifications), then you are eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. This would apply to all Veteran Affairs, Indian Health Service, military, and other government pharmacists in addition to those who work for nonprofit 501(c)(3) hospitals.

After making 120 qualifying payments on Direct Loans over 10 years, you can have the remaining balance of your loans forgiven. Not only are they forgiven, but they are forgiven tax-free!

Although there’s a lot controversy surrounding this program, you can’t ignore the math.

Consider a single new grad that starts working for a non-profit hospital with an adjusted gross income of $135,000 and loan balance of $300,000 with a 7% interest rate. If the new grad pursues the PSLF program making 120 income driven payments through either the PAYE or REPAYE plan, the total estimated amount paid would be $149,524, less than half the total balance!

Because your monthly payments are based on your adjusted gross income, there are opportunities to lower them by contributing to tax-favored investments such as a traditional 401(k) and Health Savings Account (HSA). So essentially you can build wealth while paying less on your loans. Pretty cool right? You can learn more about ways to minimize your payments on episode 18 of the podcast.

If you want a step-by-step process on how to pursue PSLF check out this post.

6. Non-PSLF Forgiveness

Did you know that you can get your federal loans forgiven after making payments for 20-25 years? This is another strategy to get rid of your loans outside of the public service loan forgiveness program. With non-PSLF forgiveness, there is no employment requirement. However, you must have Direct Loans and make qualifying income-driven payments every month for 20 years under the PAYE or IBR new repayment plan or 25 years through the REPAYE plan.

Unlike PSLF, you will be taxed on any amount forgiven after that time period which is one key difference from PSLF. Let’s consider the same example of a pharmacist with an AGI of $135,000 with $300,000 in student loans that have a 7% interest rate. If paid over 20 years through the PAYE plan, the total amount paid would be estimated at $400,420. The amount forgiven would be $319,580. That amount would be considered income and so you would need to plan for a big tax bill along the way.

You may wonder why anyone would use this strategy given the amount of interest paid and tax implications. Depending on your debt load, it may actually be your best option. The reason is that you may not be able to make the payments on any of the non-income driven plans or any of the monthly payments on refinance offers. That’s why this strategy typically works best for someone with a very high debt to income ratio (such as 2:1 or higher).

With either forgiveness program, you cannot refinance your loans or you automatically disqualify yourself from the program. For more info on this check out the ultimate guide to pay back pharmacy school loans.

7. Refinance Through First Republic Bank

First Republic is not currently accepting applications for student loan refinancing.

Refinancing can be a solid move to save a ton in interest on your loans. With federal student loan rates at 6-8%, even a small change can lead to big savings, especially if you have a large balance.

While many student loan refinance companies offer similar benefits, there is one in California that stands out: First Republic Bank.

First Republic offers some of the lowest interest rates among lenders nationwide. They are fixed rates and unlike other companies which take your credit history, loan balance, and income to come up with a personalized percentage, First Republic’s rates are the same for everyone. You either qualify or you don’t.

First Republic is pretty conservative and doesn’t just loan money to everyone. You need to be in a relatively healthy financial position with proof beyond just a credit score. Most notably, you need to have 10-15% of your loan balance in liquid assets and a debt to income ratio that’s 40% of less.

Other requirements include the following:

Besides the requirements above, you have to live within 20-mile radius of a physical location. This bank is only available in very select cities and states but California happens to have the most physical locations.

First Republic Bank Locations

Beverly Hills
Burlingame
Corona Del Mar
Cupertino
Danville
Del Mar
Encino
Escondido
Livermore
San Jose
Los Gatos
La Jolla
La Mesa
Los Altos
Los Angeles
Manhattan Beach
Menlo Park
Millbrae
Mill Valley
Mountain View
Napa
Newport Beach
Oakland
Orinda
Palm Desert
Palo Alto
Pleasanton
Redwood City
Sunnyvale
San Diego
San Francisco
San Mateo
San Rafael
San Ramon
Santa Barbara
Santa Monica
Santa Rosa
St. Helena
Studio City
Walnut Creek

One of the other great benefits with First Republic bank is they will actually give you back the interest you paid up to 2% of the original loan balance if you pay off the loan within 4 years. That may be tough if you have a high balance but definitely a nice perk. The refinance program does not include any forbearance periods or income-driven repayment plans. However, you may be able to extend the term if needed. They also will not forgive the loan if you die or become disabled with a balance remaining so make sure you have adequate coverage. If you want to shop multiple companies to find the lowest cost and best value check out Policygenius.

If you refinance through this unique link, you can a $300 cash bonus. You can also email Andrew Gerber at [email protected] and he will make sure that you get the cash. Just say that Tim Church from Your Financial Pharmacist referred you. You can also learn more about First Republic here.

Even if you don’t meet the qualifications for First Republic, refinancing can still be a good move and there are several other reputable companies that offer great rates and terms. You can check out our partners our refinance page and get up to $750.

Current Student Loan Refinance Offers

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What to do if you don’t have an income

As you probably know (and may unfortunately be affected by this), in October 2019, the California Board of Pharmacy has invalidated around 1,400 exam results for California Practice Standards and Jurisprudence Examination for Pharmacists (CPJE) because of a cheating scandal.

This has caused a significant delay in thousands of pharmacists being able to become fully licensed and practice in the state of California subsequently without an income. With the grace period for federal student loans ending soon for most, one of biggest questions is “What do I do about repayment?”

Fortunately, there are some options through the federal loan system that can help alleviate some of the stress with this situation or transitioning to another job.

If you are about to go into repayment for the first time, one of the best initial moves to make is to do a Direct Consolidation Loan. This will combine all of these loans into one with a weighted interest rate and be serviced by a single lender.

This will automatically convert and make essentially all loans eligible for one of the income-driven repayment plans that qualify for PSLF or non-PSLF forgiveness. While you could choose to put your loans into forbearance to avoid making any payments, interest will accrue while in this status which is why there are better options to consider.

With the income-driven plans, you can report to the Department of Education that have you have $0 in taxable income if that is true, which will result in $0 payments. The good news is that $0 payments still count as “qualifying payments” whether it’s for PSLF or non-PSLF forgiveness. For PSLF they technically will not count though until you have started employment with a qualifying employer. However, based on the income-driven payment certification form, you would not have to report a change in income until you re-certify the following year.

As you are applying for the Direct Consolidation Loan, the optimal repayment plan will depend on a few things. If you’re planning to work at a for profit company such as a community pharmacy and may eventually refinance, REPAYE can be a good option.

Under REPAYE, for all Direct Unsubsidized loans, the government will pay 50% of the interest that accrues every month if your loan payment is less than the amount of the monthly interest. So let’s assume you have $160,000 in student loans at 7% interest. $933 in interest will accrue every month as soon as the grace period ends. If your payment is $0 (which would be the case if you have no current income), the amount of interest that would accrue would only be $466.

If you anticipate that your income will be half or less than half of your student loan balance, PAYE would be a good option because you can get forgiveness after making qualifying payments for 20 years as mentioned above.

If you anticipate working for the government or non-profit organization eligible for PSLF, PAYE or REPAYE will be good options. Since spousal income comes into play for PAYE depending on how taxes are filed (regardless for REPAYE), this would be a key consideration. Make sure you choose FedLoan Servicing as your service when you apply for your Direct Consolidation Loan given they are the exclusive servicer for PSLF.

Obviously, these moves are only going to work if you have federal loans. If for some reason you have private loans, you would have to work with your lender to see what options are available. Some offer income-based payment options, interest only payments, or some form of forbearance. Another potential option is to extend the loan as far out as possible (such as 20 years) to get the lowest monthly payment possible.

Conclusion

The cost to complete some California pharmacy schools is way beyond the median amount borrowed to attend private institutions. With big student debt combined with high cost of living and taxes, a California pharmacist could be starting their career in a tough financial position. Fortunately, there are some state-specific programs available to offer assistance and also federal programs that are especially good for those with very high debt-to-income ratios.

YFP 084: How to Build a Following Through Amazing Content

Posted on January 24, 2019November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

How to Build a Following Through Amazing Content

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Tim Church, YFP Team Member, interviews Brandon Dyson, co-founder of TL;DR Pharmacy, about how to build a following through amazing content on this side hustle series. TL;DR Pharmacy is a website that simplifies dense clinical topics and provides resources to help student pharmacists, residents, and new practitioners.

About Today’s Guest

Brandon Dyson, co-founder of TL;DR Pharmacy, a website that simplifies dense clinical topics and provides resources to help student pharmacists, residents, and new practitioners. He also is the pharmacy manager of a community oncology practice, and a passionate pharmacy educator.

Summary

Tim Church interviews Brandon Dyson, PharmD on this side hustle series episode. Brandon Dyson has a number of side hustles that diversify his streams of income, all of which he’s passionate about and enjoys doing. Brandon’s main side hustle is the website TL;DR Pharmacy which is a platform that shares blogs, resources and cheat sheets for pharmacists, residents, new practitioners and others in medical professions. Working with long-time friend Sam and team member Steph, TL;DR Pharmacy aims to create approachable, digestible content in their products that break down some otherwise tough material. Their audience continues to grow with the intentional, well-crafted products and blogs they publish.

The website has been up and running for a couple of years and the TL;DR Pharmacy team has found that they bring in the most revenue through product generation. These products, like ebooks and cheat sheets, are relevant clinical pearls and lessons from their experiences that have been transformed into everything you need to know about said subject. Brandon also brings in money through affiliate partnerships and donations. The website is a host for a number of blogs written by the team. These blog posts are carefully crafted, as are all of their products, to ensure the best product is delivered to their community.

In addition to TL;DR Pharmacy, Brandon has a number of other side hustles. He teaches an online course through Georgetown University School of Nursing and also has recently published 100 Strong Residency Interview Questions, Answers, and Rationales with Tony Guerra, which is an incredible guide for anyone on the journey to land a residency position.

Although Brandon has a lot on his plate, making time for his family and finding that balance between work and life is incredibly important to him. He reminds everyone that TL;DR Pharmacy was built hour by hour when he was able to make time to work on it. He also shares that if you are going to pursue a side hustle, you have to be passionate about it and enjoy it.

Mentioned on the Show

YFP Giveaway
YFP Facebook Group
The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg and John David Mann
YFP Blog: Money Talks: The Cost of the Pharmacy Residency Quest
TL;DR Pharmacy
Mastering the Match: How to Secure a Pharmacy Residency
Pharmacy School: The Missing Manual E-Book
Alex Barker, The Happy PharmD
100 Strong Residency Interview Questions, Answers, and Rationales by Brandon Dyson and Tony Guerra
Discover Your Talent Podcast with Tony Guerra
7 Figure Pharmacist by Tim Church and Tim Ulbrich
APhA
The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy
Contact Brandon Dyson

Episode Transcript

Tim Church: What’s up, everyone? And welcome to Episode 084. We are doing back-to-back side hustle episodes, as you said you wanted to hear more of these stories. So big shoutout to the YFP Facebook group for helping us with ideas and topics for 2019. Looking back at the first episode I did that introduced the side hustle series, I discussed the concept from the book, “The Go-Giver,” that your income is determined by the number of people you serve and how well you serve them. Now, this is something that I truly believe in and really felt this permeate throughout the interview with our guest today. So today on the show, we’ve got Brandon Dyson, who is the co-founder of TLDR Pharmacy, a website that simplifies dense clinical topics and provides resources to help student pharmacists, residents and new practitioners. He’s also a pharmacy manager of a community oncology practice and a passionate pharmacy educator. Let’s go ahead and jump into the interview.

Tim Church: Brandon, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and for being part of this side hustle edition.

Brandon Dyson: Hey, Tim, thank you so much. I’m glad to be here.

Tim Church: Well, I want to first say thanks also for the guest post that you did for us a few months back called “Money Talks: The Price of the Pharmacy Residency Quest.” This has been an extremely popular post, and it’s just a great topic. So if you haven’t checked it out, I highly encourage you as it breaks down all the anticipated costs from going to Midyear and interviewing for different residency locations. So it’s a really great tool. I think you did an awesome job putting that together, so thank you for that.

Brandon Dyson: Of course. Really, it came out of how I dumbfounded I was going through it. I’m like, oh my God, this is awful like in terms of how much of a hit financially, you know, I took, we all took getting ready for it. And then as I’ve been a preceptor and dealing with working with students and finding out, oh, you’re going to interview at 10 different locations? Like, you know, which I understand, but boy, that’s expensive.

Tim Church: Yeah, exactly. And I think sometimes, like if you’re still dealing with loan money, that it may not feel that real or you’re just kind of in the mindset of like, I’m going to do whatever it takes to apply to as many as places. But it really can add up, and obviously, you talk a lot about that in the full “Mastering the Match” ebook that you have, which this is a part of that. Could you talk just briefly about what that tool is?

Brandon Dyson: “Mastering the Match?” Sure. To me, it’s what I wish existed when I was applying for residency. And I’ve been very involved in that process on both sides now. I went through it myself, obviously, and same with Sam and Steph, who helped us write it as well. And kind of what it is is start-to-finish, like here are all of the things that you can do to make yourself the most competitive applicant possible while also trying to tell you about hey, by the way, make sure you save a few thousand dollars up for interviews and for getting to Midyear and everything like that. It’s really just our start to finish, what we think is the best way, like it’ll go through how to interview and what to expect on your interview and how to make your CV and your cover letter and your presentation that you give during your interview, how to make them as effective as possible to just give guidance because there’s not a lot of it out there. There’s some schools that will have like a small resi-prep or residency boot camp, but not every school has that. And not every student, some people work or have a family and don’t have the time to do that. So it’s another option.

Tim Church: Yeah, and I love how you guys did this because you really broke it down into different phases, you know, before Midyear, during Midyear and after with the residency. So it’s really a nice chronological order of how you would approach pursuing a residency. So not only is the content awesome, but the way you guys organized it I think is really cool too. Well, I’m excited to talk about you, your role as a pharmacist and what you’re doing in your full-time job, but I’m going to switch things up a little bit, and I want to get right into your side hustle, the side businesses that you’re doing. So what is TLDR Pharmacy? And how did you get started with this?

Brandon Dyson: OK, so TLDR Pharmacy is — it’s in keeping with the trend, but it’s what I wish existed when I was in pharmacy school. I constantly — and I think most students genuinely want to learn this material. They want to understand it. They want to be able to know what’s relevant. Like they want to be able to tell patients and actually help people. And it’s so hard to read a medical journal and understand it, and it’s so hard to ask a professor, “Hey, I don’t understand this. Could you explain it?” And then be told to go read the book or something, you know? Go read the pero. And what I wanted was an accessible, readable, this is the way it works. And it’s kind of like it started just as a summary of stuff of what Sam and I, what we learned, like and how we understood things. And it’s still that, I mean, that’s still the part of it. It’s just it’s kind of grown from there, which has been really cool.

Tim Church: And so what does TLDR stand for? So for people that don’t know what that abbreviation is because I’ll be honest — and you guys listening are probably like, duh, like you should have known that — but I actually didn’t know what that stood for until I learned more about the business and what you guys do.

Brandon Dyson: Yeah, no, it’s actually a common question that I get emailed, which we’ve tried to address with our About page, but who reads About pages? So it stands for Too Long, Didn’t Read, which if you ever hang out on Reddit or any chat forum, it’s a way to either one, I wrote this really long-winded post, here’s the TLDR, here’s the summary of it. Or you know, you can see it used rudely as well where someone might write a long-winded post, and then one of the commenters will just say “TLDR.” So it’s sort of a tongue-and-cheek thing for us because some of our posts are quite — I mean, we’ve got posts that are 12,000 words long on this site. So some of them are very long. But it’s shorter than the chest guidelines, right? So it’s like.

Tim Church: Yeah, exactly. And so just to kind of summarize, you know, what TLDR Pharmacy is, I mean, it’s obviously, it’s a blog, it’s a platform where you’re sharing a lot of clinical pearls and information with the majority of it is actually free, right?
Brandon Dyson: Yeah. Greater than 98%, I would say, is free. It’s all just posts on the website and emails that I send out.

Tim Church: And if you guys haven’t checked this out, I think it’s just an amazing resource out there. But one of the things that I really admire about the work that you and Sam do is that not only is your content amazing because you really take the time to break it down and put al the most important pieces of information on any clinical topic, but you do it in a way that’s really fun. So there aren’t that many — I can’t read the pero and see a Star Wars meme come up in the book. So you know, really for me, I really enjoy kind of getting some of that humor and entertainment that you tie into it.

Brandon Dyson: And I think that helps you remember it, right? Like humans in general — I’m kind of generalizing — but we learn through stories. Right? Like think of the most memorable, like oh, I’ll never forget that because I saw it in this patient or I remember my professor telling me about this and saying, “Oh, and a patient died because this happened,” you know what I mean? You remember that because it’s a story. And if I can break down HIV management or whatever it is, you know, and throw in relevant stories or even just throwing in Star Wars memes, you know, you remember it. It’s something to hang onto, you know, that’s not just a sea of abbreviations and words and like chemical names and stuff like that.

Tim Church: Exactly. And I think there’s just so many blog out there, whether it’s pharmacy or non-pharmacy related where the content is just kind of surface-level, you know, you get through it maybe in just a minute, maybe even less. But one of the things — and as you kind of join your community, what I love is you basically put out there is that every piece of content we put out there, we are trying to wow you. We’re trying to make it so memorable that each post is a quality post that you’re actually going to take away a good chunk of information. And so I think that is such a cool thing that you guys do, and that’s why I think you’ve been — one of the reasons you’ve probably been so successful.

Brandon Dyson: I mean, I think that’s part of it. I agree. I’m not trying to give you — I’m long-winded, you’ve probably already been able to tell that, you know — but I’m not trying to give you a 500-word, despite our TLDR name, because you can’t adequately cover it.

Tim Church: Right, right.

Brandon Dyson: I try to do it in as few of words as possible. I’m not trying to throw out beautiful prose or anything, but 500 words is not enough to teach you every possible thing about Warfarin, right? We have a post that we just put up, you know, it’s over 9,000 words long. I feel like we’re still barely touching Warfarin. And it’s like, it just is what it is. It’s long, but we took the time. It took us months to write that to really go through, write it, edit it, make sure it was readable, make sure it was approachable. You know, it takes a long time, which is why we don’t post every day or even every week because it just, it takes too long. Future goals, maybe, but we need to have a staff of writers to get to that point.

Tim Church: Yeah, I mean, you guys just do a fantastic job. And I just, I love the quality of everything that you guys put out there. I think what’s cool is, like you mentioned, like 98% of the content which you guys have on there is free. I mean, which is great. So it’s a great resource for students, for residents, but even practicing pharmacists who need a refresher on a particular topic that’s really important, especially where pharmacists are involved a lot. So I think that is so cool, and I love the tagline that you guys have, “Get better at pharmacy.” That’s what we’re all about.

Brandon Dyson: I appreciate that. Thank you.

Tim Church: So Brandon, let’s break down a little bit on how TLDR Pharmacy makes money. Because even though you guys are providing a lot of free content, it is an online business for you and your partner Sam that manage it. Can you break down how you guys are making money?

Brandon Dyson: Yeah, absolutely. So one — I’ll start with how we don’t make money, which is via ads and things like that. So I don’t anticipate you’re ever going to read a sponsored post or have ads for Viagra or something popping up across any of our pages. And that’s just a choice because I hate dealing with those. They slow down, like I don’t like them on pages, and that’s just us doing our user experience. I’ve actually been emailed by representatives at Google or some big ad place, saying, “You could make blah, blah, blah with the traffic that your site gets,” and I’m just like, I don’t want to make money that way. So we don’t make money that way. How we make money primarily is through product generation, which we talked about “Mastering the Match,” so that’s an ebook that you can purchase to help you get into residency, right? Like my rule is if we’re going to charge you money for it, you’re going to get ridiculous level quality stuff. Like I don’t want your money, especially if you’re a student. Most of our audience are students or new practitioners. I don’t want to separate you from your money unless it’s going to be really worth your while. So we’ve written an ebook. Currently, we have “Mastering the Match.” We have another ebook called “Pharmacy School: The Missing Manual,” which is a guide to pharmacy school and doing well and setting yourself up well with it. And then we make cheat sheets as well, which are study guides, basically. We’ve got an HIV cheat sheet or an oncology cheat sheet or an anticoagulation cheat sheet. And what we try to do with these is take every relevant clinical pearl, monitoring piece, like they’ve really grown to be a lot more comprehensive. Our HIV cheat sheet is 16 pages long now, which is more or less like you can’t even call it a sheet. But it’s like everything that — as of this recording, it’s basically like everything that’s relevant for you to know about HIV pharmacotherapy, including opportunities (?). So again, it’s what is the product that I want to make? What do I want? And I’m looking for everything’s in one spot, here’s for HIV, here’s preferred regimens, here’s the clinical pearls for each, here’s the renal dose adjustments if there are any. Here’s opportunistic infections and what I need to start prophylaxing for them or when I treat them, for how long do I treat them, what are the drug interactions, what are those. Like it’s what do I think of in a product? Or what do I want in a product? Sam and I were both — I’m not going to get braggart or anything — but we were both very successful academically in school, and I think part of that is the way our brains work and organize this information. I just have a way of thinking. I can predict test questions. And my brain works that way, so I know how to study, and that goes into cheat sheet generation as well. It’s like, I just — it’s like my mutant. If I was in X-Men, this would be my mutant power. It’s like, oh, they’re going to ask about the alcohol dehydrogenases for a back of ear or the HLA, like it just — I don’t know why, I just notice these things. So that’s kind of the bulk of where we get it is through product for our income. And then we also, we’re affiliates for a few of Alex Barker’s courses or your YFP courses, we’re affiliates for.

Tim Church: Yeah, you make money off of us as well, which we appreciate that. But I think I’ve talked about on this side hustle series before that I think with a affiliate income, sometimes gets a bad rep, but truthfully, when you’re promoting products, everything that you have on your resources page, you even told me that there’s things that you believe in and you know are going to provide value to people. You’re not just pushing anything on there, you’re trying to direct them.

Brandon Dyson: Right. I think if I wanted to squeeze every penny that I could out of TLDR Pharmacy, you know, it would be different, right? But that’s not my primary, that’s not our goal. It’s to provide a resource that we wish existed. It’s to create something that we think should be there. As your site grows, it’s the fun little law, but it gets more and more expensive to run a website as it grows in popularity. I’m sure you know, it grows as your traffic grows. Your expenses go up right along with it. So we need to make money, and obviously, we take hours and hours and hours of our life to make these free articles.

Tim Church: Yeah, and I wanted to ask you about that too, Brandon, because one of the things that you guys do on your site, which I think is fair and reasonable because of the quality of the content that you guys produce is that you actually ask for donations. You know, which is not something that I commonly see, but just for all the reasons you just mentioned, you know, obviously it takes a lot of time, and it takes money to operate a website and to continue to produce this. So what has your experience been with that?

Brandon Dyson: I try not to go out of my — it’s one of those things — like again, especially if I’m going to separate a student from their money, I try not to be too much with it, so to speak. I want you to get something really valuable in return, which arguably, the blog posts are. But we do have a sort of a team of subscribers, so to speak, for donations or people that do one-off donations. And we welcome them, we love them, of course. We can’t even explain how much we appreciate that. You have two different options. You can just give a one-off donation, or you can subscribe for a few dollars a month, basically, $3 a month or $15 a month or $7 a month I think are the price points we have. And I mean, that’s a great way to support us — I like to compare it to a cup of coffee. For a cup of coffee a month, you can kind of help us exist, basically. But I try not to go too much. It’s down on the footer of the website, you know, and I mention it in one or two emails that you get when you sign up for the website. But other than that, I try not to blast it too much because generally, I’m kind of, hey, we made this new product that you can buy. This is a great way to support us too.

Tim Church: Right, right. So when you kind of break down the cheat sheets that you have and also “Mastering the Match,” and the “Pharmacy School: The Missing Manual,” what out of those products is actually producing the majority of the income? What’s the breakdown?

Brandon Dyson: Cheat sheets is definitely the majority. It might just be because we have more of them or maybe there’s more of a demand for them. We have them at various price points, anything from $4-19, depending on how comprehensive the sheet gets. And so I think that opens it up. And we also, you get a free cheat sheet just by joining our email list. So if you sign up, you get an antibiotic cheat sheet, which is kind of the thing that birthed that whole product line for us. And it’s been immensely popular, so it’s like, you get this for free. And I think a lot of people see that and are like, “Wow, this is amazing,” and then are willing to give up more, you know? And I think another reason cheat sheets work for us, I think, is that we have nurses and we have physicians and we have practicing pharmacists that follow us. The physician doesn’t give two shakes about getting a pharmacy residency, you know? But he might want to know about like all of the drug hurdles for (inaudible) management or something. So there’s I think a wider audience with the cheat sheets as well.

Tim Church: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s easy to see that what you guys are producing, especially the premium content that you guys charge for, is to that same level of quality that you’re doing with your blog posts. So that’s what’s really cool, and that’s why I tell a lot of people that you need to check that out because you’re going to get that value for what you’re paying. And what’s cool is, I mean, you’re obviously charging not very much in terms of exchange for that great value. So I think that’s really cool how you guys have that set up. Now, you mentioned that obviously, it takes time to run a website, it takes resources. Talk a little bit about your partnership with Sam and how do you guys kind of — how does TLDR function in terms of who’s having different responsibilities?

Brandon Dyson: So we work phenomenally well together, and for most things, either one of us could pick up seamlessly for the other. For most things. But we each have our sort of niches, like we each have our specialties. Sam’s specialty is one, the technology piece. And we’re a simple-to-run website. We use Squarespace, like there’s not a lot of coding or intense stuff that needs to happen. But there is a lot of stuff that integrations with email and with our sales platform that’s a lot of stuff that goes on on the back end that Sam is just phenomenally good at. I’m a lot better at just typing words into the computer box thing and hitting a submit button or whatever. So I do a lot more of the — to date, I’ve typed the vast majority of posts on the website. But now, we have Steph, who we brought on board with us. And she helps out with a lot of that, editing, guest posting, keeping stuff on the site at top quality. Sam has done a lot more of the back-end computer work, but Sam has written posts on the site. And in the early days, they were both kind of co-written by both of us. Like in the first 6-8 months of the site being active, there was probably equal doses of me and Sam. And then we started kind of the natural course of the website. We had no idea what we were doing in terms of like when we launched. We were just like, this is a thing that should exist, you know, and we kind of figured out how to make money with it or at least how to have it pay for itself. It took a long time before I would say we broke even. But it happened just through people emailing us, talking to people and experimenting with different things.

Tim Church: Well, I think that’s so cool, the partnership that you guys have. It really just does sound like you play off each other’s strengths to support the business and to make it be successful. So where did the inspiration come from for you guys to start this website and to make this great content?

Brandon Dyson: So honestly, it’s hard to remember kind of where it started. It started just with — Sam and I, we both went to the same pharmacy school. We went to Howard University, which is in Washington, D.C. He graduated a year below me. I was class of 2013, he was 2014. But both of us were pretty active in school, and both of us, I think importantly, tutored every single year of school. We were both — and in our fourth year, we were the “chief tutor,” the powerhead of this thing, very lucky, in fact. We were paid to give tutorials to our students, which was the class below us, basically. Not phenomenally well, but we were able to make a little bit of money by essentially studying your notes from last year and then tutoring the class below you, which trust me, re-going over your therapeutics notes, you know, year after year, helps you phenomenally with both the NAPLEX and with eventually creating a website called TLDR Pharmacy because you’ve been over it a number of times.

Tim Church: Right, right.

Brandon Dyson: So I think that was the biggest part of it is that we are both just kind of naturally interested in teaching and educating. We were both good at it — again, not to put too much — we enjoyed doing it, and we were able to — I think I said, we were good at taking exams. If we’re nothing else, we’re good at knowing which material is testable and what not to worry about. And so we were able to focus tutorials on study here, maybe study this if you have time, probably just forget about it and if there is a question, take the loss on it, so to speak. So you know, we both also did residency in D.C., different sites, but we talked and kept in touch throughout. And eventually, we just — it’s really hard. We talked about, we pivoted. We were going to make mobile apps at one point in time. Maybe one day, we still will. But like initially, we started getting together to talk because we were going to think about making some pharmacy-related apps. That was like the thing that we wanted to do. And it’s really hard to put an exact time where we somehow ended up being a blog, you know.

Tim Church: When did the first blog post go up?

Brandon Dyson: March 2016 is when I would say — I think it’s March 8 is our birthday. We may have had posts up a couple of days before that because, you know, if you launch, you have to launch with a couple of posts and the books. So I think it’s March 8, 2016 is our birthday. So yeah, we just did that and it’s really, really slow-going when you launch a website. Maybe you guys didn’t have quite that experience, but.

Tim Church: No, it is. It’s a growing process. And like you said, I think it takes so much sweat equity just to deliver great content, especially if you’re going to do it in multiple different formats and just the time to make quality content. I think it’s easy just to write short blog posts, which is what a lot of websites do. But to take the time to do the research to put it in, it is very, very time-consuming. And I think sometimes, even in the beginning, I don’t know if you felt this way — I know Tim Ulbrich, he has talked about it before that, you know, even though the intent in the beginning is not to monetize, per say, it’s really just to deliver quality content, but I think there does come a point where you’re questioning —

Brandon Dyson: Why am I doing this?
Tim Church: Will I ever actually make money from all this time that I’m putting in, right?

Brandon Dyson: Yeah. Luckily, it can be really cheap to start a website, right? Like it doesn’t cost that much, especially if you don’t have much of an email. Like there’s free options for getting an email server, you know. Like there’s plenty of different ways that you can do it. And you can do it really cheaply. And we did. We did the bare minimum. We got registered as an LLC in the state of Texas. I live in Texas, Sam’s currently in Virginia. Turns out Texas was much more cost effective to do it that way, so we did it that way. Another side hustle is that I teach online. I teach for Georgetown University School of Nursing. I’m a faculty there, I teach pharmacy or pharmacotherapy or whatever. But point being is that I have an .edu email address, and you can get a student discount for a few years on your website hosting through Squarespace, so we did that. Like we did everything to help us make ends meet, so to speak. So you can start it for less than $1,000 I think pretty easily.

Tim Church: It’s a matter of putting in the time and sticking with it because I think a lot of times, you underestimate what it’s going to take to maintain but also just to continually generate new content, quality content, all the time, right? Especially if you have a full-time job, which we’re going to get into that in a little bit. But I want to shift gears. So bottom line, TLDR Pharmacy, you’ve got to check it out. Get better at pharmacy, that’s the bottom line. So the other side hustle that you’ve got going on, as you just mentioned, is that you teach an online pharmacology class. So this is kind of aside from the website, something that you do. So can you talk a little bit more about that?

Brandon Dyson: Yeah. So my residency was done at Georgetown University Hospital in D.C. And you know, they don’t have a pharmacy school, but they do have a med school and a nursing school. And there was a teaching certificate of my residency. So part of that was to give a lecture, a couple lectures, for the nursing school. And they had recently, right before I came there, maybe a year it was in the making — but they had taken their NP for their Nurse Practitioner school, and they made it online. So their undergraduate portion was, and I believe still is, in person. But their nurse practitioner school that they have is all online. And I was offered — my residency director was working with them on that, so he was part of it. But I was able, I was offered, hey, are you interested in teaching? And it’s a great gig. I love it. And it still helps me write because I’m still going through pharmacology three times a year. Right? We go through and there’s three semesters in a year, basically. So I go through that, it’s once a week. I give a two-hour lecture, basically. And it’s like a Q&A. It’s a neat setup. They have pre-recorded lectures that they watch and reading assignments and all of that. And then I’m kind of like a TA where I just come in and, you know, like we go through — I have a lecture called CNS, like I go through everything from Parkinson’s to depression to Alzheimer’s. Like it’s insane to think about how much we lop into a two-hour lecture for them. But that’s kind of how it works. And it’s a really enjoyable — I love doing it. We just wrapped up the semester, literally this week, actually.

Tim Church: And how long did you say you’ve been doing that?

Brandon Dyson: Since residency, so I graduated residency in 2014. And I started pretty much immediately after that. So three times a year, three semesters a year, ever since.

Tim Church: And how’s your contract for that work? Is it an annual basis?

Brandon Dyson: No, it’s done per semester. Or yeah. You’re lopped on for 14 weeks at a time, basically.

Tim Church: And so they basically just keep renewing that because you must be doing a pretty darn good job for to continue with that.

Brandon Dyson: My students that we just finished with — and honestly, I had no idea but very touching — but they told me that there’s like a private group or whatever for students to talk about the whole curriculum. And they said like one, my class is like the — mine specifically is one of the most highly sought out — I feel like I’m bragging now.

Tim Church: Go ahead, go ahead. Brag. This is your opportunity.

Brandon Dyson: It was like the most humbling — it was such a cool thing. They’re like, “Yeah, everyone talks about, you’ve got to have his class, got to have his class.” And they said that it fills up in less than a minute, basically. Like my section is full in less than a minute.

Tim Church: Wow.

Brandon Dyson: There’s like — I don’t know — it just, I was touched. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said. You’re like, come here guys, hug me. Cyberhug. So that was really cool. But it’s very rewarding. And I always learn something too because the neat thing about teaching nurse practitioners is that many of them have been practicing way longer than I’ve been a pharmacist. You know, they’ve been a nurse for a long time. They’re just now going back to get their NP, so there’s always some labor and delivery, something where I’m less familiar with drugs there, or like I’ll learn random facts like we all know alteplase used for strokes, cathflo, right? But it’s used for frostbite management in colder parts of the world and an off-label thing. They actually give them cathflo or alteplase for if you get frostbite. Random facts like that that I would never pick up on. So fun stuff.

Tim Church: That’s awesome. So it sounds like it is a very rewarding experience and just a cool opportunity for you to share some of your knowledge. But obviously also, you get paid for doing that, right?

Brandon Dyson: Oh yeah, absolutely. As much as I love doing, I would not do that without payment.

Tim Church: What is the income from that look like?

Brandon Dyson: I mean, it’s good. I make a few thousand dollars a semester doing it. I think I’m averaging about $1,000 a month doing that right now is where I’m at with them. So it’s great for a couple hours a week. You know, obviously, there’s additional work. There’s emails that I answer, there’s tests, there’s things like that. But if you were to break it down hourly for the amount of time I spend actively on that class, like I would make way more than I do in my day job. It’s just I only do it a couple hours a week.

Tim Church: Right, right. That’s cool. I mean, that’s a nice chunk of additional income coming in. So with that and the website, and then I know you got another project that you just put out, which is awesome. And I’m just looking on here on Amazon right now, so “100 Strong Residency Interview Questions and Answers” that you co-wrote with Tony Guerra, which is a No. 1 new release in educational professional development. So first off, congratulations.

Brandon Dyson: Thank you, thank you.

Tim Church: A much needed resource because I’m looking at that, I’m like, OK, where was that when I was applying to residency and going through it? But that is, you know, such a cool thing that you guys recently put out. And I’m excited for you guys. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Brandon Dyson: Yeah. That was Tony’s idea, honestly. I call him like the Yoda of producing audio books and pharmacy now. He’s like really getting good at it. But I’ve worked with Tony, I’ve been on his podcast a few times, and we’ve chatted back and forth for a few years now and worked together before, and it just was a great idea. It’s residency season, we’re like, hey, let’s knock this thing out. My stance is that once you’re — the hardest thing in residency is getting an interview. But like the next hardest thing, you know, once you’ve made past that cut, is like most people don’t realize that what the interview’s really about, you know?
Tim Church: And can get intense. And it can get intense. For those of you that haven’t gone through the process, like especially the ones that ask you — like I got asked a lot of really tough clinical questions I wasn’t prepared for.

Brandon Dyson: Right. And it’s good to know, like having sat on the other side of that table, what we’re really looking for. And it’s not necessarily that — I don’t care that you’re a clinical expert because you can learn that. But I want to see if you’re going to make up some answer, right? Or I’m going to see how you crumble under pressure, like if you go through the scrutiny of attending physician that asks you why. Like the reason you’re getting those targeted questions, you know, most of them at least, are not necessarily, OK, well he’s just not clinical enough for this residency. Like that’s not the point. The point of them is to assess how you react to questions like that, if that makes sense. And that’s what this book is covering, stuff like that.

Tim Church: Yeah, I think it’s just a great resource to have that many questions that are available all in one place. I’ve seen other resources that are kind of mix-and-match, here and there, different places, so I think it’s kind of cool. And I hope people actually use it as like a mock interview too. I think that would be pretty cool to use it that way.
Brandon Dyson: Yeah. And I think that’s part of what we’re going for. I mean, like it’s geared toward residents, don’t get me wrong. It’s 100 strong residency questions, right? But these are standard job interview questions, especially if you’re going to be in the field of pharmacy. Some of the questions, you know, you could go apply to be a server at Applebee’s, and you’ll get asked the same questions, right? Or some variation of it. Some of them are just those situational interview — tell me about a time that you had a conflict, you know, like it’s the same thing, just applied to pharmacy. It’s a book that will benefit you, period. We go through the question, we give you a sample answer, and we tell you why that answer’s good from the perspective of people that listen to interviews just like this all the time, you know? So it’s, I think, a really helpful book. And we did a really cool giveaway when we first got it launched on Amazon. We just gave it away free for a day. And it was probably the reason it became a No. 1 is we gave away — over 2,100 people I think downloaded it or something. So that was really cool.

Tim Church: Wow. That’s impressive. That’s awesome. Probably a combination of the audience that you built but just the genuine interest in this topic. I know you guys are coming out also, there’s going to be an audio version. That’s on its way?

Brandon Dyson: Yeah, that’s — I guess by the time this podcast airs, it’ll be out. We’re within a couple of weeks, basically. It’s submitted to Amazon or to Audible, so it’s just a matter of waiting for the Bezos approval, and then we’ll kind of go from there, you know. So that’s kind of cool. And the audio book is really helpful. You can listen to that in your car on your way to the interview, right? Or on the plane ride if you’re flying to an interview or anything like that and just kind of really help yourself prepare that way. I listen to audiobooks all the time, so it’s a great way to absorb content, you know, especially if you’re not a visual learner or whatever.

Tim Church: Definitely. Well, and I think there’s so much available time when you’re in your car or doing mindless activities where you can really multitask with the audiobook, so I’m a believer as well. So what I want to know is you’ve got a lot of businesses, a lot of things going in that are bringing in this additional income. But what is your strategy on how you’re allocating that? Are you specifying this additional income as going to different place than what your full-time income is? Or how are you doing that?
Brandon Dyson: No, that’s a great question. To me, it’s all the same pot. Like I’m the sole income earner for the family. I’ve got a family of four. A new family of four, for that matter, 2 months old is our youngest right now. And I understand the points of separating and mentally, at least, I do. But to me, it’s also all going in the same pot. And so I use it to help us meet our financial goals. You know, we’ve got a house that always needs updating, right, or something breaks or we also for the longest time, we lived in a 700-square foot apartment. So when we finally bought a real house, I mean, it’s still not furnished. So we have things like that, but I’ve also, you know, I graduated with just over $200,000 in student loans, which I’ve got down in the 90s now, so we’re working on that. But I don’t want to sacrifice retirement, so we’re contributing there. You know what I mean? So it’s a matter of like in my ideal world, I would be like, maxed out in all possible retirement contributions, IRA, 401k, etc. while paying down extra on loans and things like that and maybe having a little bit of fun money for buying a couch for upstairs or something like that for the house.
Tim Church: Right.

Brandon Dyson: But we need a piece of furniture so there’s a place to sit somewhere upstairs. So it kind of just, to me, all goes into things like that. And then it’s just a matter of prioritizing what’s most important with my wife, myself, like we make that decision. We meet together somewhat regularly and kind of say, OK, next little windfall we get, you know, we’re going to spend x amount on this, we’re going to do this with x amount, and we kind of make the decision that way.

Tim Church: That’s great. I mean, that’s cool that you guys work together, you already have a plan in place for this additional income as it comes in. So obviously, we talk a lot about that in “Seven Figure,” but I think it’s important because sometimes, people will treat the newfound money differently. But I was almost like setting you up for that. You passed, by the way, Brandon.

Brandon Dyson: Yes. I read “Seven Figure.”

Tim Church: No, but that’s cool. And I think that really is the key is just knowing what your plan of attack is. So I mean, a lot of people, when they talk to me about side hustles and things like that, I mean, they always talk about how difficult it can be to manage a full-time job and your personal life. And obviously, you’re doing a lot of things. I mean, we just went through, I mean, different books, eguides, the website, you know, I guess first off, you know, what is your full-time job as a pharmacist? And then how are you managing all of these side hustles with that job and then also your personal life?
Brandon Dyson: Yeah, that’s sort of a — struggle is not the right word, but it’s definitely an endless, you know, battle let’s call it. That sounds like a struggle too. But it’s something I think about a lot. So my full-time job, I’m a pharmacy manager. I’m an oncology specialist, if you get official into what I do in the real world, so to speak, so I’m a pharmacy manager of an outpatient infusion clinic. And we’re also a retail pharmacy. So one of the benefits of this — and I actually just transitioned. I was in a hospital working forever as an oncology pharmacist but just inpatient generalist, so to speak, up until literally about six months ago, this opportunity came up. So transitioned, it’s a big year of transitions for us between having a child and changing jobs and everything like that. But the cool thing about this is that it’s much more banker hours, so to speak, in terms of pharmacy, you know? Like my job is now Monday to Friday, no evenings, weekends or holidays, which coming from hospital work is just like a godsend, especially growing a family. So that’s excellent. In terms of finding the other time, it just requires a lot of scheduling with my wife to make, well, we know when I’m teaching. It’s the same night every time. I try to get the same time slot so that that’s always consistent. OK, I teach on Thursdays or whatever. I think the key, the key to it, you know, in terms of making TLDR and doing ebooks or whatever else it is, it’s doing things that you’re passionate about. I’m just not a person that sits around and watches a lot of TV. I’m not judging anyone that does or anything, I just don’t do it. It doesn’t interest me as much. I watch a show with my wife, and we like to watch movies, but if I’m given free time, I’m probably going to read or I might want to work on — like it’s fun to me to produce things, like to make a website. I love the juxtaposition of putting Star Wars references in — I crack myself up with my own stuff all the time. Like and it just is fun for me to do. I don’t know why. Because I’m a nerd like that, I guess.

Tim Church: I’m pumped because I did a webinar for the APhA member this week, and you inspired me. So I had to put one in there. It wasn’t a Star Wars. I think it was like a Full House one.

Brandon Dyson: Oh, perfect.

Tim Church: But it seemed to work. But I was like, oh, Brandon would be proud of that.

Brandon Dyson: So proud. Yeah, it’s just — you have to enjoy it. Like I enjoy doing TLDR. If I didn’t — I mean, I was not paid for TLDR Pharmacy for a very long time, I assure you. And it kept going because I enjoy doing it. And I’m not retiring or anything any time soon, but it does bring home money for me now. And that’s also incredibly — you know, there’s nothing more rewarding to me than creating something. Like TLDR Pharmacy is like a diary in so many ways for me, you know? You put that out there, you try to make something of value and having complete strangers give you credit card information for it and then tell you about how excellent it was and how much it helped them do this. And I don’t think I would have passed the NAPLEX without this. Like I can’t tell you how gratifying it is, just the reach that we have. It’s amazing. I love it. And I would do it for free. But I’m happy to be paid for it too, you know?

Tim Church: Of course, of course.

Brandon Dyson: So I think that’s really on balance. I try to be — ironically, for me, having a family, I think actually made me more productive, in a certain sense. Only in that there’s this thing called Parkinson’s Law, which is the amount of time that it takes you to do something will expand to fit the amount of time, you know, the amount of space that you give to do it. I just have less time now, you know? I really want to spend time with my family. I don’t want to be one of those fathers that’s hovering over the computer not paying attention to his kids, saying, “Daddy’s got to write.” That’s not going to be me either. I just have less time, so when I do have an hour or two hours, I’ve got to be really intentional about it. And I think ironically, it helps me, I find myself that I’m not scrolling Facebook now, you know? And I would never have guessed that, but I think it helps. It makes me, OK, I have to focus. And that’s kind of how I fit it in. Do stuff that’s interesting to me.

Tim Church: So it sounds like it’s making you much more intentional about how you’re scheduling that time and making sure that you’re doing what you need to do for the website and your projects but also making sure that there’s quality time there. Is there any specific timeframes or in a given week, do you work in the morning? In the evening? Weekends? Like what seems to work best for you?
Brandon Dyson: So up until the 2-month-old, until Baby 2 came, I was a religious up at 5, work on TLDR or whatever else I was doing, you know, for a couple of hours, and then go to work. As anyone with small children can attest, that schedule — my youngest son does not care about that schedule at all. Neither does my oldest, for that matter. So it’s much more now, less regular. I still try to get up early. But I’m not waking up at 5, at least not right now because I probably slept terribly, and so I need that extra hour or so. So I’m sleeping until 6. And I try to work on stuff, and most mornings, I’ll be able to get an hour in before I have to start getting ready for work. So I’m getting about an hour most mornings. Unless I have a specific deadline with TLDR, which is great when it’s your own business, you don’t really have a specific deadline with it unless you set one internally. So unless I have a specific deadline, I don’t do a lot at night unless it’s I’ll respond to emails, catch up on emails at nighttime and stuff like that. We do get a lot of emails from people because we encourage it. I enjoy connecting with people, so I put that on myself. But I enjoy that too. Weekends are hit-or-miss. If there’s time, like during naptime for the kids, I’ll spend a couple hours doing something then. But you know, otherwise, I just try to spend time with my wife or family or do things like that. That stuff’s important too and without that, then none of the TLDR stuff really could happen, right? I couldn’t do it without the support of my wife. And our relationship wouldn’t work without putting in those dividends too, so to speak.

Tim Church: I hope she listens to this. You’re going to score some major points there, Brandon.

Brandon Dyson: Almost guaranteed she won’t. But I’ll tell her to. This one, you’ve got to.

Tim Church: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, that’s awesome. And thanks for sharing that because I think a lot of people are a little overwhelmed, or just the idea of trying to take on something else beyond their full-time job and their personal life, it can just be pretty tough to think about and to actually put some kind of a vision into reality.

Brandon Dyson: If I could say just one piece to help with that is that especially in the early days of TLDR Pharmacy, like everything had — we published well over 100,000 words. I counted, again, because I’m a nerd like that. And it all happened one hour at a time. You know? Like it does not have to be — like you can build a great thing one hour at a time. It will take a lot longer than eight hours at a time, but like TLDR Pharmacy, even still is primarily between — because Sam’s a father as well, you know. Like we all have full-time jobs. It’s built one or two hours at a time. And then if you make remarkable content or you make a reason for people to come, and it grows, and you can grow with it as well. But it’s, you know, it’s a side hustle. It truly is a side hustle. We do it when we have the free time for it.

Tim Church: Yeah, that is so good, what you just said. I mean, I love that. One hour at a time can turn into something pretty outstanding, pretty remarkable. And really, when you were talking about that, it kind of brought me to mind “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy, which is taking small, consistent actions over time just have these astronomical results. And I think that’s so cool because even if it takes awhile to get things there, just that consistency can really pay off over time.

Brandon Dyson: Yeah, when we launched, we would get 100 people a week, you know, or sometimes 200. No, 100 a month was probably good for us when we first launched the site. And we hit over 40,000 a month now and still growing, you know? Like it’s just one hour at a time. The reach you can have is amazing.

Tim Church: Well, Brandon, as we wrap up here, what advice would you give to other pharmacists or even students out there who have an interest in becoming an entrepreneur or starting a side hustle?

Brandon Dyson: One, I think it’s one of the greatest things you can do. I don’t want to get doomsday on our job outlook, so to speak, but you’ve got to have something to set yourself apart. TLDR Pharmacy is really fun, but it helped me get my current job. You know, the people interviewing, two of the pharmacists had known and downloaded cheat sheets from the site that I was interviewing with. So I’m like, whoa, that’s weird.

Tim Church: Wow, that’s awesome.

Brandon Dyson: But it’s something you’re known for. And the way I look at it, it’s a multifaceted effect for your career, like being into entrepreneurship. This is I’m speaking to a blog. I mean, it could be any side hustle. But one, you’re giving yourself a little bit of buffer with your income. If I were to lose my day job — knock on wood — I’ve got a couple of other streams of income that while would not be enough to cover all of my expenses, help. Right? Like it can really help as you start looking for a new job, you know. You’ve made yourself a little bit more resilient so that you’re not 100% dependent on this one job. And that’s especially true as you hear, oh, well this pharmacy’s cut down to 32 hours or whatever it might be. Or the starting salaries are dropping. Again, I’m not trying to get doomsday or whatever. But having additional income streams helps protect you from that and is part of a safety plan. If you want to go the route of a blog or any other sort of entrepreneur, your key thing is providing value to people and being your own unique voice. I think TLDR works because it’s our personality. You’re hearing Sam and I when you read these posts. Like it’s just us being us. Same with Steph. Steph is so into Star Wars. All of her posts have so much Star Wars. And like it’s just be you. Like we stand out, we are different than DiPiro (?) because we do things like that.

Tim Church: Yeah, I don’t see — I don’t remember there being any like memes in DiPiro.

Brandon Dyson: Gimbel. (?) Go to Gimbel had something, right? So I think, you know, the other is just to learn. Like I do enjoy learning about entrepreneurship. So I read a lot. I read books, you know, I’ve invested heavily in learning how to write, to write better and to communicate more effectively. So it’s like you’re investing in yourself. And I did that within the guise of helping TLDR Pharmacy, but you know, the cover letter — for this job that I currently took, I wrote the cover letter for it in like 30 minutes. And I was like, wow, that’s really good. I’m done. You know? And that happened because I write all the time now. It’s just through practice. So it’s like, all of these skills build up. I’ve taken courses on sales copywriting, for example. One, because it’s interesting. It’s an interesting science that I never thought about in terms of how do you effectively write sales copy or write copy. But two, it makes you communicate more effectively. You know? You have to put the bare minimum, and that gets fed into every single post on TLDR Pharmacy, even when I’m not selling you. I’m communicating very clearly and effectively with you. And like all of these skills build on each other. You learn a little bit about entrepreneurship and about how a business works. And now, all of a sudden I’m the manager of a pharmacy. I didn’t have necessarily prior experience, but this just kind of dropped in my lap, you know? Different things open up. Like this wasn’t part of my five-year plan. I don’t even really have a five-year plan. I just kind of work on what I think are interesting things that are going to improve me in some way and see where the wind takes me, so to speak.

Tim Church: Well, that is so cool. And I appreciate you sharing that because, you know, any way you look at it, when you’re relying on one source of income, one stream of income, you’re certainly there’s always a risk there, no matter what kind of job that you have. So I think that’s cool, like what you said about having multiple streams and making it work but also just the ability to develop those different skills can help you in many different ways. So I think that’s really cool. Well, I just want to close up here, Brandon, but just want to say thank you so much for No. 1, coming on the show, but just your commitment to the pharmacy profession. I mean, one of the things that really has stood out with your content but just you as a person is just how authentic you are and that commitment that you have to really help people and see them succeed. So I know that people are going to be better off because they’ve interacted with you, whether that’s on a personal level or whether it’s through the content that you’ve delivered. So just thank you for all that you do.

Brandon Dyson: I really appreciate that, Tim. Thank you so much.

Tim Church: Now, if you want to reach out to Brandon, you can check out his TLDRPharmacy.com. But if somebody wants to get in touch with you personally, where can they go, Brandon?
Brandon Dyson: You can email me also, just it’s at [email protected].

Tim Church: Awesome. Thank you so much, Brandon. It’s been a pleasure.

Brandon Dyson: Thank you, Tim.

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YFP 083: You Know Where the Weight Room Is?: TJ’s Rise to Becoming an Entrepreneur

Posted on January 17, 2019November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

You Know Where the Weight Room Is?: TJ’s Rise to Becoming an Entrepreneur

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Tim Church, YFP team member, leads another edition of the Side Hustle Series where he talks about ways you can create additional streams of income to reach your financial goals faster. This episode features Dr. TJ Allan, a pharmacist and entrepreneur who owns three gyms and is now teaching others how to open their own gym.

About Today’s Guest

TJ is a pharmacist, father, husband, and entrepreneur that enjoys fitness, arguing about the NBA, visiting Disney, and discussing all things business.

Summary

TJ Allan graduated from St. Louis College of Medicine in 2007 with not only a passion for pharmacy, but also for entrepreneurship. While in college TJ didn’t take on large expenses and was very conscious about his purchases and lifestyle. After he graduated, he began working for Walgreens. He was making a good salary and had benefits, however, he jumped on an opportunity to work as a local pharmacist in his small town so that he could become an entrepreneur.

He was living with his parents at the time and drove the same car he did while in college to keep his expenses low. This allowed TJ to save money to use for his business ventures. He opened his first gym, Ageless, in his hometown and broke even by the end of two weeks. He only had to put up $70-80,000 to start. Although several people said that the gym wouldn’t be open long because of its location and the success rate of gyms in general, his optimistic personality reminded him that he could have success. He continued to open two other gyms (a studio gym and spin gym) which have both been successful and are still open.

Ageless, which follows a 24 hour model with classes and only needs 40 hours of staffing each week, brings in $125,000 in revenue with a net profit of 40-45%. Each month, TJ makes $3,000 to $4,000 from Ageless as passive income, however he invests it directly back into the business. Collectively, the other two gyms bring in $90,000 of profit each year.

Of course, TJ has had several failures along the way, but these have taught him so much. He’s learned the importance of marketing and now follows a lean startup method.

TJ has created a work and life balance allowing him to be present for his wife and young daughter. He also has worked to create efficient business models so that he doesn’t have to spend a lot of time running the other businesses. With a block method of scheduling, he works on certain projects each day while also continuing to work as a pharmacist in his hometown.

Mentioned on the Show

LendKey
YFP 081: New Year Financial Game Plan
Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money – That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyoaski
Tony Robbins
John Maxwell
The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
Contact TJ Allan

Episode Transcript

Tim Church: What’s up, everyone? And welcome to Episode 083 of the podcast. I’m really excited about today’s guest to kick off the first side hustle episode of the year. I think you’re really going to enjoy hearing his story. On the first episode of 2019, the other Tims talked about setting financial goals and how important they are to having a successful year. For some of you, one of those goals may be to finally start that business or project that you’ve been thinking about. If that’s you, I really want to encourage you to think about those next steps to make that vision become a reality. And if you need some inspiration, you definitely don’t want to miss out on TJ’s story. So Dr. TJ Allan, he’s a pharmacist and entrepreneur who owns three gyms and is now teaching others how to open their own gym. He’s also a father, enjoys arguing about the NBA, visiting Disney and discussing all things business. Let’s go ahead and jump right into the interview.

Tim Church: TJ, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and for being a part of this side hustle edition.

TJ Allan: No problem. Thanks for having me.

Tim Church: OK, being a gym owner, I have to ask you this question before we go on. If there were no royalty issues to worry about, and I could have put on any song for you as you walk up to the mic for this recording, what would it be?

TJ Allan: Right now, I’m a Cardi B man. I don’t have a workout unless Cardi B’s on my iPod.

Tim Church: Wow, is that mandatory in all of your gyms too? That they’re playing that?

TJ Allan: The workout doesn’t count unless there’s Cardi B playing at some point in time during it.

Tim Church: Oh, that’s awesome. I was going to say, I thought maybe you’d go old school, but that’s cool. I like that. Well, I’m really excited to discuss your entrepreneurial and how you came to acquire three gyms. But before we do that, can you talk a little bit about your career path as a pharmacist?

TJ Allan: Yeah, because I think it’s really important to talk about that because there’s so much right now in this entrepreneurial world ripping on college and saying, if you want to go open these businesses, you don’t need college, it’s a waste of money, everything else like that. You know, I can honestly say that without college and without going through the pharmacy route, I don’t think I would be where I’m at with my entrepreneurial stage, without it. So I had actually attended St. Louis College of Pharmacy, graduated in 2007. I got involved in pharmacy, I had my sister’s boyfriend at the time had just graduated from there when I was a junior in high school, so it was on my radar. I was really big into sports, so I was trying to kind of figure out, do I want to do sports, do I want to go into something educational? And I was passionate about helping people is what I would kind of say. And I was also looking for a job that was secure, that paid well, and there was plenty of opportunities around. So of course, pharmacy was a viable option. And it was also nice that it was 45 minutes from my house. So that’s kind of how I got started. I love St. Louis College of Pharmacy. It was a great college. I enjoy pharmacy. People always say, you’ve got all these businesses, you’re doing all these, why don’t you just do this stuff full-time? Why are you still in the pharmacy? I like pharmacy. There’s really nothing right now I can say bad about the pharmacy world other than of people outside the pharmacy world ripping on it. But from my perspective, pharmacy has given me everything that I have right now.

Tim Church: Yeah, that’s awesome, TJ. And thanks for sharing that because I do agree that there is a lot of negativity, and I think it depends on kind of the environment that you’re in, the employers that you work for, but I think there are so many great opportunities to not only have a job and a position, but one that you feel fulfilled and feel like you are truly making a difference. So can you talk about your current role as a pharmacist and what you’re doing?

TJ Allan: Yeah. So right after I graduated pharmacy school, you know, I knew I wanted to move back home. I was a small town kid. My hometown and where I was born and raised has 3,200 people. I went to St. Louis, I’d been to other things, I don’t like the big city. So I knew I was going to come back to a hometown. At that point in time, 2007, you know, opportunities were everywhere. CVS was offering still the $40,000 sign-on bonus. I could go anywhere. I had actually signed on with Walgreens. And at that time, I was a floating pharmacist, so I was picking up shifts. I mean, I was working 60 hours a week, there were so many shifts available. So it was nice. So I stayed at Walgreens for about a year, maybe a little bit less than a year. And I had that entrepreneurial itch. I knew I wanted to get in something, open my own business, but I knew that being at Walgreens probably wasn’t going to allow me to do that because my hours were sporadic, when I was at work, I had literally no access to my cell phone or anything else. So I started looking for a job that would allow me to chase my entrepreneurial dreams but also allow me to still be in the pharmacy industry. And just by coincidence, the pharmacy was located in my hometown that I’d actually sent a letter to the owner my sixth year of pharmacy school, saying that I wanted to buy it, the pharmacist in charge job opened up at Sullivan’s Drugs. So I, of course, jumped on it and interviewed with them, did really well during the interview, but I was really kind of candid with I talked to them, you know, I’m coming back here at this small pharmacy because I want to also chase these entrepreneurial dreams that I have. So there are going to be days where I’m going to have to miss, I may not be able to work five days a week, I may have to take some personal calls during my shift, I may have to have Internet access during my shift. And he was fine with it. I mean, he was looking for somebody, but I told him, I said, “I’ll give 100%. I love pharmacy, but I also need to do this stuff.” So of course, there was a salary difference coming and going from Walgreens to a small, independent pharmacy. And there was also a benefits difference. So I mean, I took a hit. I went from Walgreens, I think at that time, I was making about $125,000 a year. And I started back there at $100,000, maybe $98,000 a year. Walgreens, of course, you had all the benefits back there. At that point in time, when I signed on, there was no retirement package, there was no IRA, anything like that, there was no health benefits. I was paying my own health insurance. So it was a hit, but it was a sacrifice that I was willing to make because I saw my long-term goals.

Tim Church: Was that a tough transition at first, taking that cut that you did?

TJ Allan: Not so much because, you know, I read a really good book. I got lucky. My sixth year in pharmacy — actually, fifth year in pharmacy school, I had a professor, Dr. Kenneth Shafenmeier (?), and he was kind of our business professor. And he really kind of took me under the wing and really explained things because he knew I kind of had a passion for the business side of things, he knew I wanted to be in an independent pharmacy or possibly even own one. So he had kind of always led me money-wise to the right things and the right books and everything else like that. So like the first book I read was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” by Robert — and I’ll probably butcher his name — but like Kowaski (Kiyosaki), is how I think you pronounce it. And you know, people have their opinions on that book. Some people say it’s awful, and the investment advice in there is horrible, outdated, etc. And that may very well be. I’m not here to argue that. But I will think what it did for me — and I think it will do it for a lot of pharmacy students that they need to read — is that it gave me the mindset of what do I spend my money on? Am I buying assets, which I had no idea what they really were at the time in pharmacy school. I was just trying to get by organic chemistry and that kind of stuff. Or am I buying these expenses? You know, am I buying a new car? So for me, I always kept my expenses to a minimum. At that point in time, when I was working for Walgreens and making $125,000 a year, and I’m still living with my parents, and I’m still driving the same car that I had in pharmacy school. So I never had these extravagant expenses like when you first get out of pharmacy school, I mean, you go from making $10,000 a year to $125,000 a year. Of course, the first thing you want to go buy is a brand new car. And it’s usually $50,000-60,000. I mean, you’re going probably for a BMW or a Mercedes, something like that. When you’ve suffered six years of pharmacy school and really worked your tail off, you want to be rewarded. I was never interested in that because I was just always interested in a business. So I looked at every expense I had was, man, what if I put that money in a business? What could it do? I mean, that was kind of my passion, that was always kind of my hobby was these businesses. I was never into cars, houses, that was not my thing. Those just didn’t really ever entice me. So for me, going from $130,000 to $100,000 at the independent pharmacy wasn’t really a big issue because I didn’t have those expenses.

Tim Church: And too, it sounds like you kind of had the vision and where you were going and the opportunities were going to be there by making that transition. So I think that’s pretty cool. I want to take a step back because what you said is pretty interesting because if you would have said what you did in the interview process to even another independent owner or somebody else to say, “Hey, I’m taking this job because I want to have the ability to work on some side hustles and other businesses, and I may even take calls during my shifts and things like that,” I mean, what was that dynamic like? Because I’m just picturing here like that if you were to say that, I have a feeling most employers probably would not like hearing that or probably would sort of turn away at that. Can you talk a little bit about that?

TJ Allan: Yeah, you know, I probably wouldn’t have — I know I wouldn’t have said that if I didn’t do my homework prior to. But I had known — like I said, in 2007, pharmacy market was all over. I mean, there was opportunities everywhere. I mean, jobs, they were struggling to fill spots for pharmacists. So I knew I had an advantage with this because I knew what Walgreens and CVS was paying, and I knew what this guy was paying. So I knew he was going to struggle getting someone to come to this small town at that pay rate as a pharmacist, and especially a decent, good pharmacist. So I knew had an advantage there. And I also kind of made it seem like, we had — I left this out. I should have mentioned this earlier. But during the interview process, you know, we had a handshake agreement when I left that I wanted to buy his pharmacy. And that’s kind of how I sold it, you know, I’m going to be doing all this stuff on the side, but I guarantee you I’m going to be giving 100% because I want to own this pharmacy when he retires. At that point in time, he’s about 66 years old. Now, he’s 70-something years old. So I think that’s what kind of sold it to him was he knew I was interested, he knew I was passionate, he knew I was going to give it all my all. But he also knew his pharmacy only did on an average day, 150-160 scripts a day. So there was a lot of time of just standing around. And he knew that. He was smart enough to know that. And he was smart enough to know, hey, I’m not going to be sitting here taking a phone call when I got six people waiting on me. But there was a lot of downtime that I could be working on that stuff. So I think that’s kind of why it worked because like, yeah, you say that at Walgreens, you say that at CVS.

Tim Church: Yeah, hit the road, Jack, right?

TJ Allan: It’s going to be a handshake and, OK, we’ll get back to you. So I mean, those three things right there: knowing there was a huge gap in pharmacists and knowing that I wanted to — knowing that there was a lot of downtime and knowing that I really wanted to buy that pharmacy I think is kind of what sold that.

Tim Church: Wow. That’s a really cool story right there. So at what point in your pharmacy career, you talked about reading “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and kind of using that as a way to figure out how you’re going to acquire assets, right? And not just liabilities. I mean, at what point did you say, “You know what, I really want to do something beyond pharmacy or something where I have more control and the ability to really dictate kind of that additional income that I could bring in?”
TJ Allan: It was about three months into Walgreens. And I know there’s a lot of people that bash Walgreens, and I honestly can’t say anything bad about my Walgreens experience. I had a lot of good pharmacists, I had a ton of good technicians, really great pharmacy supervisors, I enjoyed the majority of the stores I was at. The problem I had with Walgreens was the problem I think everyone has with their employer. You only get paid if you’re there. So I knew, I was going to be $125,000 and have these 2% raises over the year or whatever the raises are now at Walgreens, and that’s the only way I was going to increase my money unless I want to take extra shifts and of course, it’s tied to me being there. So I knew right away, within three months, you know, if I want to make more money and I want to kind of break those chains from making money and having to be there, it had to be, you know, the entrepreneurial route.

Tim Church: Wow, that is just a cool vision. And I think a lot of people, they get that vision, but not everybody acts on it. I hear a lot of stories of people wanting to make a change, they have ideas for a business, but they never go out and actually do it. But beyond kind of getting additional income and not having to always trade your time for money, did you have any other motivations for wanting to pursue something else and starting a business?

TJ Allan: Yeah, you know, this is going to sound weird. No, I was an athlete in school, and I love sports. But you know, I always had this creative kind of thing. I always wished I could sing or play the piano or I was really good at art. I just had this always — envied these creators. And I think that’s maybe why I went more so with entrepreneur because it’s something I can create, it’s something I have control over, you know? I think entrepreneurs are amazing and probably not given enough credit for the creativity because they take something in their brain that they think could benefit the world, and they put it in action, and then it becomes concrete and tangible. And then people enjoy it. You know, Walt Disney is kind of one of my idols. Walt Disney had this amazing, amazing imagination. And then he turned that imagination into concrete, tangible things that people just love. You know, I’m a Disney fanatic, my family’s a Disney fanatic, we go three or four times a year. But it’s —

Tim Church: DisneyWorld or DisneyLand?

TJ Allan: Both. We go — usually, two or three times a year, we go to DisneyWorld. My wife does the marathons. And then we, in fact, just got back from DisneyLand three weeks ago. And then we’re going to DisneyWorld here in another month.

Tim Church: Oh, that’s awesome. I was just at the food and wine festival, and it was amazing. Great experience.

TJ Allan: And honestly, I go there for a lot of inspiration. Disney is one of those companies — Disney’s like Nike. You watch those companies, you can learn so much, even if you’re in this small mom-and-pop shop in rural Illinois with 3,200 people, there’s so much I can learn every time I go to Disney about how they interact, how they create this experience. So yeah, for me, it’s more about creating an experience and creativity. The money’s nice, and you know, you always have to chase the money because if you don’t make money, you don’t have a business. But really, creating some and creating that experience and creating those bonding experiences with your customers, I think that’s kind of what I’m always after.

Tim Church: So talk about what you’re doing right now. You know, I’ve kind of laid some seeds earlier that you’re owning multiple gyms. So how did that come into play? How did you start that?

TJ Allan: So you know, I kind of got lucky. You know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs don’t put enough emphasis on luck, the role of luck in their success. So I have had luck. And so the first gym I opened up was in my hometown there. The gym had just closed, it was a Curves, it was a women’s only. And kind of me and some friends got together and we were like, man, we wish we would have a gym in town. I was like, you know, Dr. Schafenmeier was in my ear, he always was trying to tell me, start a business. Even when it’s a hobby, start a business because you learn so much when you start a business, and so much of starting a business will help you in pharmacy and will help you in your personal life too. So I told them, I said, “I’ll open a gym. If it fails or if it doesn’t do well, it’s a tax write-off for me. I don’t care. But you know, I’ll open a gym.” So I got lucky, found a business that was — or a building, I should say — the owner really wanted to get rid of, bought the building, bought some equipment, opened up. And honestly, it was a success from Day 1. We broke even by the end of the first month. I was really, by the end of within two weeks, and we really have not had a unprofitable month since we opened almost 10 years ago.

Tim Church: Wow. That is awesome. What’s the name of that gym?

TJ Allan: That’s Ageless. So that’s the one that’s in Gillespie. So yeah.

Tim Church: Is that a trademark name? I love the name.

TJ Allan: People always ask me, where did I get this name? And it’s funny, at the time, my fifth year in pharmacy school, we had this elective. It an osteoarthritis elective, and the teacher, one of our assignments was, you know, create some kind of business or entrepreneurial thing that could help patients. And mine was a gym, of course. And at the time, I really had no interest in opening a gym or even thinking about that. But I named it in my paper Ageless. I put how osteoarthritis, getting people stronger, these lifestyle modifications can really help people, even with osteoarthritis. And so we kind of just used that and yeah. I haven’t trademarked it yet, you know, my lawyer’s on me about doing it. I honestly just haven’t just because I’ve been involved in so many other things. It just always kind of slipped my mind every time I try doing it.

Tim Church: Well, I love it. I think it’s a cool name. So how much capital did you have to throw in to get this thing started?

TJ Allan: So that’s the tricky thing. When most people think gyms, I think that people think I’m a lot more successful than I am. Because when most people think of gyms, they think of these big, huge, golden gyms, Planet Fitness, these ones that cost multi — $2 or $3 million just to start. My building cost $65,000 at the time. I put 20% down. The gym equipment to put inside the building was right around about $50,000-60,000, so I only had to put up about $75,000-80,000 to begin with. And really, cash-wise, I only had to put about $25,000-30,000. Everything else was on loans. So I really didn’t have to put up that much. Tim Robbins talks a lot about asymmetrical risk, reading his books or any of the investing stuff he talks about with these asymmetrical risks, and that’s kind of how I always looked at, you know, how much cash do I have to put up? What does this mean to me? And I always kind of — this is a weird thing to say — but you say, “I’ll put up enough cash for a car. Would I rather have a car or would I rather just invest this in a business?” And that’s kind of how I look at it. So about $50,000, $60,000 is the most cash I’ll ever put in a business initially just because of the risk.

Tim Church: Was that tough? I mean, because I think a lot of people listening are probably like, wow, I don’t know that No. 1, I could come up with that amount. But even if I could, throwing that all into a gym, you know, from somebody else’s perspective, you could say, wow, that seems pretty risky. What were your thoughts behind that? Like did you have any anxiety about putting that much in?

TJ Allan: I honestly didn’t. And I think it’s 1, I’m an extremely optimistic person. I live in a world of abundance that I think I’ve always thought that, that anyone — and that’s kind of what with my clients at the gym, I believe in everything. Anyone can have success. So failing never really went through to me. For me, losing that money never kind of crossed my mind. But I mean, I had the cash, like I said, my expenses were minimal. I was living with my parents, I was still driving the car that I had in college. So I accrued no new expenses once I graduated pharmacy school. So I go from making about $10,000 a year in a part-time job as a pharmacy tech sixth year to $125,000 a year at Walgreens. And I mean, I worked every shift I could at Walgreens because I knew I needed to have a nest egg if I wanted to do some kind of business. The second thing you look at — and this is what people often forget — is even with that, my building, I could have resold and got my $65,000 back guaranteed. I mean, I got a steal on that building. And even with my equipment, I wouldn’t have been able to sell my gym equipment back for a thing, but I would have got 50 cents, 70 cents on the dollar. So all in all, if it would have failed, worst case scenario, I would have only lost maybe $10,000 max? You know, that’s — to me, that was worth the risk.

Tim Church: Got you. So I think that’s awesome because it sounds like you decided, hey, I’m going all-in. And basically, your perception was that I’m OK with that risk. I’m OK with going in head first because, you know, I believe that I’m going to make this work. And if it doesn’t, you know, I’ve got somewhat of a contingency plan. But it sounds like you were never planning for that. It sounds like you were planning to be successful, and you were going to make it work.

TJ Allan: Yeah, I was. And I guess I shouldn’t have said I didn’t have a contingency plan, because I did. Because I knew that I could always sell the building, I could always sell the equipment back, and at max, I would lose $10,000. But I always go back to a thing, you know, if I wasn’t opening these businesses, I would have probably wasted that money. I probably would have went out and bought a BMW or I probably would have went out and started building a house or something like that that I would have sunk that money over there instead of in the business. So I think that kind of helped me a little bit too.

Tim Church: So you mentioned that essentially, even from month 1, that you’ve either broke even or the business has been profitable. We’re talking still about your gym, Ageless.

TJ Allan: Yes.

Tim Church: I mean, obviously, there are gyms all around the country that are not successful. And I’ve seen many that close just after a few months. So what would you say — what is the secret sauce that you’re injecting into the business to, you know, make it successful, make people to come and to use the facility and getting more customers and retaining customers?

TJ Allan: Yeah, that’s a good question. And if it was one thing, it would be real easy. That’s a good question. It’s a really hard question because if I could narrow it down to one thing — but I don’t think I can. I found a location, an environment, where this gym thrives. You know, most people overlook small towns. Most people have never been in a town of 3,200 people. So most people, this has never been even on their, you know, plan. So I found this small town that most people assume wouldn’t even be able to sustain a gym, and I’ve made it work. And I’ve made it work because I’ve built this efficient model of a gym, and that’s kind of what’s made it succeed underneath the engine. But really, what’s kept it profitable has been the community we’ve created. You know, we’re all about community. When you’re only 3,200 people, it’s a small town, it’s people who take pride in their community, they all live there because they love the people that live there because there’s not a lot of opportunities in small towns. There’s not a lot of job opportunities in small towns. There’s not a lot of businesses in small towns where you can go and enjoy a lot of things to do. I mean, people stay in small towns usually because of the people. But that’s kind of always been our focus. We realize people live in small towns because people enjoy the people in small towns. So our focus has always been on the people. And if you can make the people happy, you can create that community kind of feel, you’ll do well and you shouldn’t have to ever close your doors.

Tim Church: So did you ever have anybody recommend against you doing this or say, “TJ, you’re crazy for going all in on this?” Did you ever have anybody?
TJ Allan: Absolutely. The few biggest business guys in Gillespie that I’m actually friends with, one builds new homes and has been very successful, and he’s about 55. And then there was another one, I went to both of them, kind of gave them my idea, both told me I’m crazy. They said, “You’re in pharmacy. Open a pharmacy. Why would you not open something in the pharmacy? These pharmacies are making bank and everything else.” So they’re going on, they said, “Don’t do this. You can’t sustain it.” So the first bank I go to to talk about the loan, talk about my idea and everything else, they tell me the exact same thing. “You know, you’re in a town of only 3,200, you’re just not going to succeed, TJ. It’s a nice idea, and it would be a great thing for the community, but it’s not going to be making money.” And even then when I went to City Council when we were going to expand, I remember the first thing they told me when I told them we were expanding — my first building was about 2,500 square feet, and then we were going to build this building that was about 8,000 square feet — and one of the first aldermen told me, “What are we going to do in two years when you have to close your doors, and we have this 8,000-square foot that we can’t get rid of?” You know, that was kind of the negativity that’s surrounding the gym.

Tim Church: And so talk about — obviously, Ageless has been very successful, that’s your first one that you opened. And how did you decide, OK, it’s time to expand, it’s time to get some other gyms up and running?

TJ Allan: Well, Ageless’ expansion was always based on our members. You know, listening to their feedback, hearing what they have to say, and then looking at our numbers and putting the math. Math, putting a pen to paper and kind of figuring it out. So we’ve always expanded the Ageless, so we went from about 2,500 square foot to where we’re at now, about 8,000-9,000 square feet. And we’ll probably stick to 8,000 or 9,000 square feet. I don’t see an expansion in our future, but who knows? So then it came down to, you know what, I’m still working as a pharmacist, still — everything that Ageless made, it was nice, and this is why I always recommend that people opening a business but keeping their day job because what that has allowed me to do is use my pharmacist salary for my personal expenses, but then any profit that I’ve ever made from Ageless has always went into either opening new businesses or just investing. So I’ve never had to touch any of that or reinvesting in Ageless, which has made it nice. So I’ve always looked at, you know, at the end of the year, here’s the profit from Ageless, what do I want to do with it? And then that’s allowed me to invest in other businesses, it’s allowed me to open other businesses, and it’s allowed me to open some businesses that have failed, unfortunately. But you have to take that risk.
Tim Church: So talk about those other businesses that are up and running currently.

TJ Allan: OK. So you know, in “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” he has this good cashflow quadrant. And he talk about the first cashflow quadrant that most people are in are employed. They work for somebody, they’re tied to their job. They don’t make any other money if they’re not actually at their job. Then the second quadrant is self-employment. So that’s a little bit better employment but still, at the same point in time, you may be self-employed, but still, your business isn’t making money unless you’re there. And then it comes down to an actual business owner. And a business owner is one who doesn’t necessarily have to be there to make money. His employees actually run the business, and he works there, but he doesn’t have to work there if he doesn’t want to. And the fourth one is kind of where you eventually want to be as an investor, where you don’t have to do anything except give money and get a return on it. So I’ve kind of followed that, tried to follow that. But unfortunately, you just can’t start as an investor. You kind of have to work your way up. So that’s kind of what Ageless has allowed me, as an employee of Walgreens and Sullivan’s, which has given me money. And then I started to open a business, which I would never say I was self-employed because I always worked for the pharmacy, and I never had to actually work at a gym. And then I became business owner. And now, I’m almost to the point where I’m just an investor in things. So what I’ve always just taken this Ageless money, and I’ve partnered with two other co-owners in a town about 60 minutes from us, and we’ve opened a studio gym. Then a year and a half later, that was doing well enough that we decided we were going to open a pay-per-class, like a spin gym only. And then I’ve tried some other things that haven’t done well. But those have been my two other successes have been those other two gyms there.

Tim Church: And have those been profitable most months, just like Ageless has been?
TJ Allan: They have. Now, they took a little bit longer to get to a break-even point. It’s primarily because of the models I use. The studio gyms, of course there’s a longer sales cycle. It’s easy for someone to walk in Ageless and buy a $29 a month membership. I mean, that’s not a hard decision for most. But with these studio gyms, it’s a different model. And when you’re charging $99, $139 as your smallest packages, that’s a bigger decision for people. So it’s a longer sales cycle, so it takes a little bit longer to get to that break-even point. So by about Month — I think three and a half months in, we hit our break-even point for that to where we weren’t having to invest any more money of ours into it to keep it afloat. Now, the spin gym, which is a pay-per-class thing, that was almost profitable from Month 1. In fact, I think it was profitable Month 1. If not, it was for sure profitable Month 2 because again, that was a low-cost, low-barrier offer. It was $15 for a class, so that wasn’t a hard decision for most. So you know, those two have been successful pretty much from the get-go, I would say, and still are successful to this day.

Tim Church: Wow, that’s incredible that you basically had to inject capital in the beginning, but they have been so successful that you haven’t had to put any more in since then because you’ve been able to make it work with the personnel and the way it’s been managed, so I think that is really cool. And obviously, that’s not the case for a lot of other businesses, you need to inject capital periodically in order to keep it afloat, even, but also to expand and to get to the point where you need to be. So I think that’s a cool feature of what you’re doing right now.

TJ Allan: Most definitely. And that’s kind of always been the business opportunities that I’ve looked at has kind of always been, you know, how long does it take to get to break-even point? How much capital — you know, people forget. People want to start a business, and what happens is they want to — especially a lot of gym owners, they come to me, and they want to start a gym. And what they always forget to factor in in their startup costs is those 3-6 months of operating expenses because they assume they’re going to hit the break-even point on Day 1. They’re going to open their door, and they’re going to get all this money coming in, and they’re going to be able to pay their monthly bills Month 1. Month 1, Day 1. And what happens is, usually, that’s not the case. Usually, you don’t hit that break-even point for 3-6 — and I shouldn’t even say usually because it depends on the industry — but man, it could take 6 months to hit the break-even point. And they always forget to factor that in, and that’s why they struggle. And that’s why a lot of gyms go out of business in a year because these owners use all their startup expenses initially buying equipment and just getting the building ready. And they start with their bank account at 0 on Month 1. And then, of course, they have to inject their business with their own cash, that runs low, and it just spirals out of control.

Tim Church: So is that something that you got information from other gym owners or your own research that you said, hey, if I’m going to do this, I really need to prepare and make sure that even if they don’t make money or are profitable in the beginning that I’m going to be OK and I’m not going to have to pull out?

TJ Allan: Exactly. And that’s what it was. And it really came down to research. It’s really doing as much research as possible prior to getting involved in these kind of things because these are big decisions. And a lot of people take, you know, opening a business kind of lightly, like, ‘Oh, I’ll get into it. It sounds fun.’ And it is fun. But there’s a lot of research, and it could get extremely stressful, and it could get extremely bad if you don’t do your research. Luckily, I did my research, and I knew the risks because there were still risks. And it still could have went south real easily. But I understood those, and I accepted those. And I kind of did as much as I can to minimize them.

Tim Church: Got you. So I think one of the big questions is now is you’ve got these gyms up and running, they’re profitable, they’re making money, but depending on the type of gym and what services and products are offered, there’s different ways in terms of ways people can make money from those services. So can you talk a little bit about how you’re actually making money? And also maybe a little bit of an insight as to how much you’re actually bringing in from these?

TJ Allan: Yeah. OK. So I’ll go with Ageless first. Like I said, the gyms I had are all different business models, so they make money a little bit differently and the amount of money they make is a little bit different too. With Ageless, we’re a traditional, 24-hour gym. If you know Snap Fitness, we’re basically like Snap Fitness, but we include classes. We have a little bit more all-inclusive than Snap Fitness. So Ageless is nice. And Ageless is a nice model, especially for someone that still wants to keep their existing job because it only requires about 40 hours of staffing a week, even though it’s open 24 hours. So it allows me — I mean, I spend I think about three hours a week working on stuff with Ageless, and a lot of the stuff, I really don’t need to work on. It’s just that I still enjoy it and working on the things. So in a small town, expenses are minimal. And that’s why I also like investing in small towns because there’s less risk. So people are kind of shocked, I just an interview with a business coach who does fitness. And he was kind of shocked — he’s from these big communities out in Connecticut, and he’s used to these monthly leases of $8,000-10,000 a month minimum, if not higher for these gyms. And when I told him, “You know what, we pay $2,000 a month, and we’re 8,000 square feet,” you know, he’s kind of shocked with that. But the model that we use, we’ve kind of built it to where we have this net profit percentage, right about 40% is kind of our goal we hit. So on average, if you look at our sales, it’s not impressive. But I tell people, you know, we do about $125,000 in revenue a year, nobody really blinks an eye. And they kind of just laugh and like, OK, whatever, you’re probably making $5,000 off of that. But we’re not. We’re actually making right about 40%, sometimes 45% if we can really get the efficiency built up a little bit. So anyway, so I make about $3,000-4,000 of passive income from Ageless alone a month.

Tim Church: And that’s what you’re actually bringing home? You’re actually bringing home?

TJ Allan: Yeah, so that’s what I’m actually profiting, yes. We do about $125,000, on a good year, we’ll do about $140,000-150,000 in revenue. On a down year, we’ll do $120,000-125,000. This upcoming year, in 2018, we’re probably going to hit about $120,000. We took some services off that we thought were taking up too much time and making it a little bit more inefficient, so our revenue’s going to be down. But our net profit percentage is going to be up because those things were more labor-intensive. So yeah, so what I would bring home, I bring home — and I shouldn’t say I bring home because I keep everything in the business — but if I needed it, I could bring home about $3,000-4,000 a month.

Tim Church: And then what about from the other gyms?

TJ Allan: The one gym is just over a year old, and the other gym is 2 years old, going to be 3 years old here, so it’s about 2.5 years old. So right now, I take nothing from there. I do have two co-owners, so right now, we’re on pace — between the two gyms combined — we’re on pace for about $300,000 in sales this year, $325,000 in sales this year. Of that, the profit would be, is going to be probably about $90,000. But we’re not going to touch any of that right now. So it’s hard for me to even say what I would bring home for that because that’s all being invested because we kind of have bigger plans for that gym. It’s in a larger community, it’s kind of a suburb of St. Louis that’s extremely wealthy, and we have some other ideas going along with that. So that I can’t say much. I know that to do this, we’ve been talking with a bank to put in a $1 million gym. We won’t have to put a penny down. So I’ll say that, so to get this loan and to put this $1 million gym, if we do decide to go that route, we won’t have to put a penny of our own money down. It will all be funded by those two gyms.

Tim Church: And I’m assuming that the income that you’re pulling in from Ageless, is that 100% just from new members and the retention of existing members and the fees that they pay?

TJ Allan: You’re exactly right. So what it is — how I talked about we removed some of those services, like we don’t offer personal training, per say. Everything that our revenue is built on is basically built on memberships. 95% of our revenue is from memberships, 5% is from waters, key tags, miscellaneous little classes we have or camps we have I guess is what you should call them. The 95% of it is just on memberships: new memberships, existing memberships. I can say that the model’s nice because it’s a subscription-based model, which right now is hot, and everybody’s trying to get this subscription-based model. That’s why you see basically a subscription-based service for everything under the sun, from razors to dog toys to everything because those are nice models to have because the cash flow is so nice. So that makes it nice. But more importantly from my perspective, is I own the building that Ageless is in. So it’s paying for itself. So I’m going to have this asset here in the next 10 years that last year, was appraised for about $550,000 that I really didn’t pay more than the $12,000 or $15,000 I initially put down on the first building for. So that’s why when you have this, because Ageless has just been paying this off for me the whole entire time.

Tim Church: And is that how you’re directing a lot of that cash that you’re getting every month? Like how are you breaking that additional income from Ageless, aside from what you’re making as a pharmacist?

TJ Allan: So Ageless is on its own separate bank account, so I keep everything in Ageless. So what I do, you know, I know some people would probably recommend starting making double mortgage payments, stuff like that, just because of course you’re paying interest on those payments and everything else like that. I’m not that way because I want to start new businesses. So I put — basically, what I do is I have these budgets for Ageless, whether it’s new equipment, there’s a budget for just monthly gym expenses, the new equipment purchases every year. And then I put everything else aside and put the profit at the end that we use for new businesses, whether it’s an expansion on Ageless or whether it’s some kind of new business to get into. So that’s kind of how I put Ageless. My whole goal with Ageless is never having to rely on that and allow that to build this nest egg for me.
Tim Church: Got you. So you’re not using any of that in terms for personal use, for debt paydown, student loans, or IRA contributions, anything like that.

TJ Allan: No. And I know you guys are probably going to call me an idiot for not doing that, but honestly, I haven’t. And it’s just because cash is king when it comes to business, and I like having a nest egg because if there’s an opportunity arise, I want to jump on it. For instance, I just — the other night, I was just watching TV, and I got a text message about a gym going up for sale in Litchfield, and the guy wanted to know if I was interested. You know, if you don’t have cash, it’s hard to play, and I’d miss out on that opportunity. And luckily, we have that cash set aside that hopefully we can take advantage if everything works out in these negotiations and be able to jump on the opportunity. So at times, I question myself whether I’m not making a smart decision by not either contributing to IRAs or paying this or that, whether it’s student loans or whether it’s the mortgage. But it’s just — I’m a business — I like business.

Tim Church: Well, I mean, obviously, you’re successful. So it’s not like you’re throwing that money away. You’re doing it with the anticipation that you’re going to continue to grow and expand. But I think a lot of people would look at that and say, ‘Well, what about other retirement accounts?’ Are you doing other things in addition, with your pharmacist salary so you’re kind of diversified in addition to what you’re doing with the businesses?

TJ Allan: Yeah, so what I do — so now, initially, my employer didn’t offer, Sullivan’s didn’t offer any kind of retirement package. Now, he does where he matches up to 4%, so of course I match him to 4%. And that’s just in a basic IRA. And then otherwise, by myself, I do index funds. That’s about it. I don’t make it real complicated. I kind of follow BogleHeads. It’s index funds, and that’s the extent.

Tim Church: That’s the KISS method, right? Keep It Simple, Stupid?

TJ Allan: Yes. Exactly.

Tim Church: Wow. So I mean, I just think that is so cool not only to hear that journey but the risks that you were willing to take, the ability to take a lot of heat from other people saying that it wasn’t going to be a good decision and just kind of persevere anyway. But you know, I think a lot of people may be listening and thinking, like obviously all entrepreneurial ventures are not successful. And it’s not the way that it happens. And I think John Maxwell said it best that the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. And I think that’s so true with entrepreneurship and I’ve certainly experienced this myself. But have you had any failures that you would say, TJ, prior to what you’ve done that’s been successful? Or even along the way as you’re doing some of these things that have been successful.

TJ Allan: Oh, most definitely. In fact, I probably have had more failures than I’ve had successes. You know, John Maxwell is of course correct. I started out, I think I always had that optimistic mindset because I always played baseball. In the game of baseball, you could be a really good hitter and you could only get a hit three out of 10 times. So seven out of those 10 times, you’re going to be a failure. But you’re still considered a really good hitter, even if you fail seven times. So that was always in the back of my mind when I started these entrepreneurial journeys. And again, it was Dr. Schafenmeier (?) who was always in my ear, who would always say, “You know what, you’re paying for experience is what you are.” You can’t look at a failure as you’re dumb or you can’t do this or you’re not made out for this. You need to learn from it. These are expensive teachings, but you need to. It’s the only way to really learn is to get your hands dirty and fail. So my first one I failed, I was actually still working for Walgreens. And this was kind of a weird business to start. But at the time, I’m 26-27, couples our age, my wife was fiancee at the time, we’re starting to have babies and everything else like that. And of course, we were always looking at what to give them, what to give them, and a lot of them would always joke, why don’t you bring us some over-the-counter pharmacy stuff that we should use for our kids. We don’t know what to get and everything else like that. So we actually created this Mommy Indeed baby basket. And it would have the Tylenol in there, the Desitin cream, all that stuff that a newborn would need eventually. And it would have little notes from the pharmacist saying, use this when this happens and stuff like that. So that was kind of our first business venture. And of course, it was a failure. But it was a good learning experience because it taught me a lot about marketing. And you know, you could have a really good product, but if you can’t market it, it’s useless. And then my second business venture, I actually partnered with a pharmacy student that I graduated with, and we created this dietary supplement. It was more of an energy-type supplement that we called — I think it was All Night IQ is what we called it at the time. It was really to help students kind of stay up and binge study for the night is what the goal of it was. And again, we each invested about $10,000 into it, and we lost everything. We could never — we thought just because our product was superior to any other product on the market, that we were going to be a success. And we virtually had zero marketing budget for it, and it was a failure. So from then on, I realized how marketing is extremely important. And if I don’t factor in a marketing budget initially or in my cost to acquire a customer, then I’m never going to have a success. So that’s how — then my next one was Ageless, and we did really well. And then right after Ageless, you know, we were doing really well, and Ageless was always built for the community. You know, I really enjoyed the community, I was born and raised in it, and I wanted to give back. So what we did is I had built — hired some programmers, and we had built this website that allowed small town businesses, small mom-and-pop shops on Main Street to basically put up an e-commerce store within minutes, and all the e-commerce stores would be on the website. So it was almost like a virtual mall. So what we wanted to do is basically give an advantage to these small mom-and-pop-type stores and give them this online presence that we thought they needed if they were going to survive the Walmarts and the Internet if they didn’t have it. And that was an expensive venture. That one, over the course — and I used all Ageless money, I didn’t have to use any of my own money on this, all the profit from Ageless went into this — and it ended up costing me about $20,000 or $25,000. And that taught me something really well is you — a really important lesson, and I wish I would have read the book “The Lean Startup” prior to that — is that you better go to your customers prior to and make sure this is something they want. You may think they need it, but they may not think they need it. And even though you think they need it, and you think it would definitely help them, if they don’t think they need it, I don’t care how great it is, they’re not going to jump on board. And we just couldn’t get anybody to jump on board. These small mom-and-pop shops, I finally realized, they don’t have an online presence because they don’t want one. And they don’t want to learn about one. So that was another failed one.

Tim Church: And would you say that those have been key for helping you to drive your success forward?

TJ Allan: Oh, most definitely because the lessons I learned about marketing — I mean, I have a voracious appetite for reading. I read business books, marketing books, behavior psychology books, I mean, I’m constantly reading books. So usually, I’ll read about 40-50 books a year. And I love being — and even all the marketing books and everything that I read prior to it and all the business books I read too that always talked about cost to acquire a customer, don’t forget about that, and how important marketing is and having a marketing budget and all these marketing methods — even knowing that, it’s still a difference between knowing and doing. And it wasn’t until I did it and then failed that it really hit home that hey, marketing has to be a key, you have to build it around marketing. And then the second thing was the lean startup method.

Tim Church: That’s so good, TJ. And thanks for sharing that. Because I think a lot of times, people will look to others who are successful and it kind of looks like they’re an overnight sensation. But you don’t see the back end, what’s behind the curtain, what’s been going on and what hasn’t worked. And a lot of times, even the most successful people out there, they’ve failed hundreds of times before they’ve become who they are. So I think it’s just cool to highlight that. I appreciate you sharing that. So you talked a little bit earlier about the time that you were spending each week because I think a lot of times, people before they start a business or maybe they have an idea to pursue a side hustle, is they say, “You know, I’m working full-time as a pharmacist. I’m a mother, I’m a father, you know, I have a family. How am I supposed to manage that?” So can you talk a little bit about how do you practically manage all of these businesses and work as a pharmacist and be a husband and a father?

TJ Allan: You know, I’m kind of an organizational freak. I live on checklists. And another book that I was lucky to read very, very early was called “The E Myth.” The E Myth, Michael Gerber talks about systems and processes. So from Day 1, I always put in systems and processes in my life, in my businesses, everything like that, so everything kind of runs smoothly. So everything is kind of — there’s a system for everything. There’s a checklist for everything I do. On Mondays, I work on the Ageless stuff. On Tuesdays, we have this new venture going on, we’re going to coach other people on building new gyms, I work on that. On Wednesdays, I go back to work on Ageless stuff. On Thursdays, I look over the paperwork and the flow of our other two gyms’ stuff. And then on Fridays, I have this other other new venture that I partnered with somebody and we’re going to work on about marketing, marketing the Facebook ads. And I work on that. But everything’s kind of blocked off in blocks. And just everything is organized, and I think that’s the biggest thing. And people say they’re organized, but to me, if you don’t have it in a spreadsheet, you’re not organized. It’s one thing to say you’re organized, but it’s got to be in a spreadsheet. So everything I do is in a spreadsheet, everything I do has a checklist on it. And that’s what’s helped me to be able to do all this kind of stuff because I am a father. I have a little girl who’s 5 years old who I adore. And we play all the time. And that’s my purpose for living right now is to be able to play with her and have that time, and that’s why I kind of do a lot of this stuff so that it gives me time, that I’m not tied to pharmacy for the rest of my life. And I have a wife, and we travel, and you know, I like to workout on my own. And I have a lot of other hobbies and a lot of other things that require my attention. But I’m extremely organized, and that’s why I’m able to get it in.

Tim Church: Yeah, and it sounds like you’re just very intentional about it. So besides having a system in place, you know, you’re proactively saying, these are the days and these are the times, this is what’s going to happen, and this is how it’s going down, even before it actually happens. So I mean, I think that’s great. And a lot of people, like you talk about, they think they’re organized, but you know, I think the book that I read before called “The One Thing,” by Gary Keller, and he was talking about time blocking and how important it is that you need to put these things down as they take priority over everything. And unless there is an emergency, this is what’s going to happen.

TJ Allan: Yes. And that’s a great point because I love that book. And that’s probably even more important is being able to prioritize. If you cannot do that, I mean, a lot of people say they’re organized, they have 20 things listed down. But honestly, 18 of those things probably aren’t going to make that big of a difference. There was that 80-20 principle, and that’s kind of what I’ve always done is the 80-20 principle. What’s the highest priority? What’s going to give me the biggest bang for the buck and provide the biggest return? And so I think that’s even more critical than having your spreadsheet out.

Tim Church: TJ, you have shared just some amazing wisdom on this episode, and I’m so excited that we got to talk and you got to share your story. But as we kind of close out, what advice would you give to other pharmacists or even pharmacy students out there who have an interest in becoming an entrepreneur? What would you say to them?
TJ Allan: You know, I have pharmacy students, and we talk a lot about this with pharmacy students. You know, when I graduated in 2007, there was about 80 pharmacy schools. Today, I think there’s closer to about 140. We’re graduating about 15,000 new pharmacists a year. And the opportunities just are not there as much. And a lot of it has to do with acquisition, I mean, Walgreens, CVS, buying everybody out. We’ve had 1,100 independent pharmacies close their doors since 2011. We have all this automation going on now with these mail-order companies, telepharmacy, Amazon’s getting involved. So automation’s going to improve immensely over the next five years. And so and unfortunately, we’re still getting paid per pill we do. So I think it’s important that they look at these entrepreneurial ventures. I don’t want to say the outlook for our industry is bleak, but it’s not as great as it once was. So it’s important to expand your skill set. And that can be anything. A lot of people think, oh, you need all this money to start these businesses, you know, you don’t. With the internet and everything else like that, a blog, selling on Amazon — I talked to one pharmacist the other day, and he sells on Amazon. And he started selling on Amazon about a year, year and a half, and it’s taken him about 12 months, 13 months, to really start making kind of a profit on Amazon. But it was a learning experience for him, and he said the same thing as me. He saw kind of the outlook, and he didn’t think it was that great for him continuing to make $100,000-125,000 a year from pharmacy. He thought that there was really going to be a shrink. So he was looking for a different skill set, this was being able to sell on Amazon. So I think that’s really important to find these different skill sets in addition to pharmacy because there’s a lot out there that you can learn now on the internet and start these businesses for very minimal.

Tim Church: Right. And I think you highlighted such a great point that even though a couple of your businesses, you actually did put some capital, you injected what some people may consider quite a bit of money, but there are a lot of other businesses out there where what you’re investing is really sweat equity. It’s really your time, your energy, your focus. And maybe in the beginning, you’re not going to be able to bring home a revenue, and it may take time. But I think there are so many different opportunities out there, we don’t necessarily have to have a whole lot of cash to get started.

TJ Allan: Exactly. And that’s kind of my thing — and I was trying to use myself as a case study with this last year and a half. I dived deep into Facebook ads, and I have taken almost every course and paid for every little membership thing, really dove deep because I wanted to prove to people that you could start a business for very minimal. So in July, we started a business. And it’s basically we’re helping pharmacies build these Facebook ads for their pharmacies to get new patients, to deepen their relationship with current patients. But my goal behind this entire time was never to spend more than $150 a month on this business. And that’s kind of been my goal since Day 1. And so far, we’re growing. We haven’t had any paid customers yet, I wasn’t expecting a paid customer, this is a long-term process. I expect one here in the next two or three months. I have a few that are really interested and that we’re still talking to. But I mean, that was my whole thing was, you know, this can be done. And it can be done where you don’t have to spend even $2,000-3,000. It could be done for $100 or $150 for now.

Tim Church: Definitely. I totally agree. So TJ, if somebody wants to reach out to you to learn more about opening up a gym or more about your entrepreneurial journey, how can they get in touch with you?

TJ Allan: The easiest way, I’m connected to my email all the time. I can tell you to go to these websites that I have for each little business, but they all feed back into my email anyway. So if anyone ever has a question, I’m an open book. I’ll send you my P&L’s, I’ll answer any questions you have, I’ll help you in any way that I can. I love business, I love helping people start businesses, that’s kind of — I enjoy that kind of thing, so if somebody’s got that itch and somebody’s really got that drive, I’ll help you in any way that I can. So all you have to do is email me, it’s [email protected]. And like I said, I usually respond within a few hours at most.

Tim Church: Thank you, TJ. And we just really appreciate you coming on the show, telling your story, and I know that this is going to inspire. This is going to light the fire for some people to get going, to really start to act or think more about their entrepreneurship and their ideas that they want to bring to reality. So thank you, TJ.

TJ Allan: No problem. Thanks for having me.

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