YFP 279: Finding Your Pharmacist Voice: An Interview with Kim Newlove

Kim Newlove, founder of The Pharmacist’s Voice and host of The Pharmacist’s Voice Podcast, shares how and why she started her business in 2017, how she pivoted from her initial service and business idea, and what myths as a business owner she has found to be untrue. 

About Today’s Guest

Kim Newlove is a pharmacist, voice actor, podcast host, wife, Mom of 2 teenagers, and volunteer.

She earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in Pharmacy from The University of Toledo in 2001, and is an Ohio pharmacist. Kim founded The Pharmacist’s Voice ®, LLC in 2017, and launched The Pharmacist’s Voice ® Podcast in 2019. Her website is thepharmacistsvoice.com.

Finding the right voice for an audio project is important. Kim brings her years of expertise as a pharmacist to her audiobook and voiceover projects. Her delivery style is confident and trustworthy.

The Pharmacist’s Voice ® Podcast is a weekly podcast. It’s available on her website (thepharmacistsvoice.com) and all major podcast players. Kim alternates solo shows and interview shows. She shares her journey from pharmacist to voice actor and interviews a variety of people who use their voices advocate for something, educate in some way, or entertain so that listeners are inspired to use their voices too.

In her spare time, Kim enjoys spending time with family, playing Ticket to Ride Switzerland, swimming, and riding her BMW motorbike.

Episode Summary

This week, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, is joined by Kim Newlove, founder of The Pharmacist’s Voice and host of The Pharmacist’s Voice Podcast. In this episode, Tim and Kim discuss Kim’s journey from graduation in 2001 to the start of her business in 2017, the student loan debt picture in 2001 compared to today, and the power of having a plan for handling student debt. Kim explains the reasoning behind working part-time in her career and the financial decisions she and her husband made that tie into the success of her business journey. Coming from a position of financial strength because of sound financial decisions early in her career, Kim was confident investing in herself and starting her business. Kim shares the motivation behind The Pharmacist’s Voice and The Pharmacist’s Voice podcast, what inspired the name of her business, and how she was able to distill a business idea that worked for her as a mother, wife, and pharmacist. While Kim’s original business idea of narrating continuing education journals has not yet come to fruition, she and Tim talk about the evolution of her business offerings and how she was able to pivot to medical narration, e-learning, and voiceovers. Kim and Tim wrap up the episode by busting some entrepreneurship myths and shedding light on the hard work behind what it is to produce a podcast and run a company. 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• YFP Planning: Financial Planning for Pharmacists
• Schedule a free Discovery Call with YFP Planning
• The Pharmacist’s Voice
• The Pharmacist’s Voice Podcast
• Nancy Wolfson
• David Rosenthal
• Global Voice Acting Academy
• Impact Pharmacist: Start Your Own Wellness Practice and Leave Your Retail Pharmacy Job Behind! By Dr. Asha Pai Bohannon and Eric Bohannon
• Perimenopause: The Savvy Sister’s Guide to Hormone Harmony by Anna Garrett
• Kimnewlove.com
• Pronounce Drug Names Like a Pro
• Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University
• Your Financial Pharmacist Disclaimer and Disclosures

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

[00:00:00] TU: Hey, everybody. Tim Ulbrich here, and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast, where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. 

This week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Kim Newlove, Founder of the Pharmacist’s Voice and host of the Pharmacist’s Voice Podcast. During the show, we discuss how and why she started her own business, the Pharmacist’s Voice, in 2017, how she had a pivot early on from her initial service and business idea, and what myths as a business owner she has found to be untrue. 

Now, before we jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does in working one-on-one with more than 250 households in 40-plus states. YFP Planning offers fee-only high-touch financial planning that is customized to the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com. 

Whether or not YFP Planning’s financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom. Okay, let’s jump into my interview with Kim Newlove. 

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:15] TU: Kim, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:15] KN: Hi, Tim. Good to be here.

[00:01:19] TU: Well, so excited to have you. Spent a long time in the making. We talked back in the winter, and then we had a chance to connect in person at Ohio Pharmacists Association meeting. I came on your podcast and really excited for the opportunity to talk several different things with you, entrepreneurship. We’ll talk a little bit about family. We’ll talk about personal finance. I want to start with your career and some of your career background. So where did you go to pharmacy school, when did you graduate, and what ultimately drew you into the profession?

[00:01:50] KN: Okay. If I leave anything out, remind me. I went to the University of Toledo College of Pharmacy. I graduated in 2001 with my Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy degree. I never got my PharmD. What was the next question, Tim?

[00:02:06] TU: So where you went to school, you answered that. Go Rockets, right? Toledo, 2001. 

[00:02:11] KN: That’s right. Go Rockets. 

[00:02:12] TU: When you graduated, you answered that. What drew you into the profession?

[00:02:16] KN: What drew me into the profession most was my Uncle Tom inviting me to shadow him when I was an eighth grade junior high student at Eastwood Junior High School in Somerville, Ohio. He invited me to watch him as a surgery pharmacist at St. V’s, which is one of the major hospitals in the Toledo area. I also, of course, love to help people, and I was good at math and science, and I really felt like I had all of those attributes that a pharmacist needed, being trustworthy and being interested in helping people and being intelligent and all the things.

[00:02:56] TU: So some of our listeners, they wouldn’t be aware but maybe interested to know. We share a Northwest Ohio connection. So my wife, Jess, is from the Bowling Green Perrysburg area. You’re, obviously, in Northwest Ohio as well. A little Rockets-Falcons rivalry that’s going on between Bowling Green and Toledo. So you came, and you snuck in right before the PharmD requirement, right? Because that would have been early 2000s. So you came in right before that.

[00:03:22] KN: Right. I was – One of the last classes to graduate was my class. I graduated in ’01 and, I think, in ’04. That was the cutoff. My brother, who’s also a pharmacist, graduated in ’03 with his bachelor’s. Never got his PharmD either. Yeah. It’s a great school. But, yeah, our cutoff didn’t end until ’04 for some reason.

[00:03:44] TU: And we’re going to talk in a bit about the Pharmacist’s Voice. For those that are watching this interview, they can see your background behind you. We’re going to talk about the business that you’ve created, what you’re doing, why you started it, what you offer. But before we get into that, give us some of the career journey because I think this is a really interesting part of your story and your family’s story, as we’re going to talk some personal finance here in a little bit. 2001, you graduate. It wouldn’t be till 2017, correct, that you launched the business? 

[00:04:14] KN: Correct. 

[00:04:15] TU: So give us the CliffsNotes synopsis version of your pharmacy career from graduation prior to starting the business.

[00:04:24] KN: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. There’s some retail in there, some hospitals, some compounding, and some behavioral health. I started off working at a small hospital. The schedule wasn’t right for me as a newlywed. I got married about six weeks after graduation in June of 2001. I passed the boards right away, like two days before I got married, which was kind of cool, yay me. Everybody was saying, “Congratulations on getting married. Did you pass the boards?” “Yeah.” “Okay. Congratulations on that too.” 

Then after that, about a year of trialing out, working at a small hospital and the hours not working out, I switched to working for Walgreens, and I worked part time at that hospital for about five months to transition my replacement in. Then I was working full-time at Walgreens for not – Well, sorry. Not for nine years. I worked at Walgreens for nine years, only worked full-time for about one year. Then I had my first child. 

While I was working part time at Walgreens, I worked at a small compounding pharmacy. If nobody would know the name, we got bought out by a competitor. But the focus was respiratory solutions for inhalation, and I coincidentally had baby number two, right, as we were getting bought out. I never went back to that job. I didn’t stop working for Walgreens until 2011. When I stopped working at Walgreens in 2011, our agreement, my husband and my agreement, was that I would stay home for one year. Then I would start looking for another job. 

I started looking for another job immediately because I can’t follow my own plans sometimes. But I didn’t get the jobs that I tried out for, so I truly stayed home for that one year. It was after that one year that my husband started getting other opportunities in climbing the ladder, and I ended up staying at home. 

Well, fast forward to the year 2015, I couldn’t just stay at home, Tim. I had to do something. So I started volunteering quite a bit. I had already volunteered some with the University of Toledo. While I was volunteering, I got connected with a woman who invited me to be her relief pharmacist in – I think it was October or November of 2015. I had been off the market for four and a half years. I felt a little rusty. But the job she offered me was really in line with some of my volunteer work, and it was at a behavioral health hospital. 

I worked there for one year. She moved on. I was her relief pharmacist. I didn’t feel comfortable staying without her, so I ended that job, and I didn’t work again until I started my company.

[00:07:02] TU: So we’re going to come back to that in a little bit. My first question for you, though, is student loan debt in 2001. A very different picture than what it is here in 2022, unfortunately, even if we adjust for inflation, right, which is something that we’re all thinking about at the moment. The numbers are drastically different. 

Our listeners know today, graduates coming out on average about $175,000 of debt. Often that will be much higher than that if we factor in undergrad debt and other expenses for those who go to private school. So tell us about, for you, even though that debt may have been a significant part of the journey, numbers were much smaller, right?

[00:07:39] KN: Numbers were much smaller. Yes. You know, Tim, every time you say that number, when I listen to your podcast, it moves up. 

[00:07:46] TU: It does. 

[00:07:47] KN: It used to be like 170. Now, we’re up to 175. For students listening to this, much respect. I know that’s a huge burden to take on. My student loan debt, I added this up before our interview here. From what my records show, I had $23,888.28 in student loan debt. I used 13,650 for actually paying tuition and all that. Then the disbursements were a little over $10,000, and I lived off that. I bought my books, my gas for my car at, what was it, 97 cents a gallon back then. I had to live off of that. 

I actually went back to my earnings history too to find out how much I made as an intern. In 1999, I made $10,000 as an intern, which was pretty good. But you know you got to live and, yeah, the student loan debt is real. I paid it off, I want to say, in less than two years. 

[00:08:47] TU: Yeah, yeah. I think for many graduates today, the number in and of itself is a lot to work through in terms of monthly payment. Obviously, right now, we’ve got a pause on those payments, which has certainly helped a lot of people. But it’s not only the dollar amount. It’s the paralyzing nature of the feeling that can come from that that can cloud the ability to make other decisions. 

So one of the things we often talk with individuals about is, yes, we’ve got to attack the number or perhaps pursued something like loan forgiveness. But we also need to make sure we don’t underestimate the power of having a plan. Even if that number doesn’t change a whole lot next week, something is drastically different if we can start to put a plan in place, so we can begin to move forward and consider that piece of the puzzle as we also look at other parts of the financial plan. 

I do want to come back to one thing that you mentioned because I think that we often assume that pharmacists are the breadwinner in the family. Pharmacists are the ones that are going to be making a significant income, especially if it’s two incomes that are in the household. You mentioned something that I thought was really important to touch on that others may be considering, which is you mentioned your husband and his income opportunities. Before we hit record, you mentioned several points of his career, where he had an opportunity to kind of level up to the next level. 

I think that was an interesting approach that you guys decided on as a family together that there was going to be an investment in his career and some of the upward mobility and upward nature of that income, which may not have necessarily been there with a pharmacist income. Can you talk more about how you got to that decision and why that was best for your family? 

[00:10:30] KN: Yes. If I leave anything out and you need clarifying details, please let me know. My story is very different. I mean, I come from a place of currently being a stay-at-home parent. Tim, you talk about pharmacists often being the breadwinner because they earn more money than their partner. I am a pharmacist by training. My husband is a mechanical engineer by training. 

When we started having kids, which happened pretty darn quick after I graduated, within like 18 months of graduation, I started having the kids. We talked about who’s going to stay at home or what are we going to do about daycare. At the time, we lived in Toledo, Ohio, which some people may think of as, “Oh, it’s big urban area. How can you trust people?” There were plenty of great choices in Toledo. Did we have anything set up? No. I worked full-time, seven on, seven off as a midnight pharmacist. I made a great income. 

As I mentioned before, when we started out, I also had a part-time job in the first five months of my employment as a pharmacist as a part-time hospital pharmacist. I had this income. My top earnings ever was like $97,000. I looked at my husband after we had this baby and I said, “I can make at least $97,000 working full-time as a pharmacist. Let’s look at how much you make.” Just disclosing how much he made in the year 2003 when our first son was born, it was around $60,000. He made significantly less than me. He said, “You know what? I don’t have a ceiling on how much I can make. But you kind of seem like you do.”

That was something I had never thought of. Being the mechanical engineer, a very data-driven person, and just somebody who I would actually listen to, I listened to him. What I did was I became a part-time pharmacist, full-time mom. Could I have gotten daycare? Could I have gotten somebody to care for my kids? Yeah, I could have. But we decided as a couple, that was not what we were going to do. Plus, we wanted to have another kiddo in about two years. That was just our plan. 

So I thought it was pretty hard being pregnant and being a pharmacist, standing on my feet all day, with the challenges of going to the bathroom and eating and drinking. Why would I bring that upon myself, and I’m exhausted just having a newborn? So we decided his 60,000, plus my going part-time, we thought would be maybe anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000, that would equal what my full-time income would be if I just went out and was the sole breadwinner, and he would stay at home and make no income. 

But you got to keep in mind. He had that opportunity to climb up the ladder, not just in title but in earnings. So I took that leap of faith, Tim, and I let my career take a backseat. I wasn’t that far into my career, and I haven’t accomplished that much. I didn’t have as much to lose, I guess you could say. So that is one of the factors that played into that.

[00:13:45] TU: Kim, what really stands out there to me is even in this case, you decided that for you and your family, it was going to be your career that was going to be a little bit on the back seat. Obviously, you mentioned your husband realizing that there was perhaps some more upward mobility in role over time. But even if those roles were flipped, right? Because I think there can be a lot of pride that can come through, especially for the pharmacist that may be listening. They can, “Hey, wait a minute. I just invested you know, $200,000, plus 6, 8, 10 years of my time,” and maybe this is something that they are considering as well. 

But whether it’s like your situation or even if the roles were reversed and your husband were the one to say, “Hey, I’m going to let my career take a backseat because this is what we want to do as our family,” I admire the intentionality, and I’m sure these were in-depth conversations that happened at the time. But really just the openness and the transparency and the intentionality of saying, “Okay, what do we want as our family? What do we think is best for our family unit?” 

That could be and is different for many different families, and there is no right or wrong answer. I think that’s so important for everyone to hear. But really, what is it for you that you and your family want and how do you ultimately be able to set up the infrastructure and the system that works best for you. So I really respect and admire that. My wife, Jess, and I have had a lot of those similar conversations along the way as well. 

You know what’s interesting, though? So I’m reflecting in 2022, and we think about what a pharmacist is making today. Your theory held true, right? So has the pharmacist income gone up since? You mentioned the $97,000. It has. But if you factor in inflation and other things, it really has had a ceiling, right? It really has had a ceiling, and I think we’re continuing to see that with some exceptions, and there certainly are some areas of practice where that may not necessarily be the case. 

So my next question for you is you decide in 2017 that you’re going to use your pharmacy background and degree in a very different way, in a nontraditional way, not only in starting your own business but in using your voice and under the brand what would become the Pharmacist’s Voice. My question here is what was the genesis of the Pharmacist’s Voice? I don’t know the answer to this question, so I’m excited to learn the answer. How did the idea come to be and what ultimately led you to begin down this path of starting your own business?

[00:16:13] KN: The genesis of the company name, let’s start with that. It came incredibly organically because I wanted to take my background as a pharmacist and my speaking voice or my voice and writing and combine them to do something in commerce, creating a company that did something. I knew I wanted to use my voice. Now, the why, why did I want to use my voice? That is like the best part. 

I have a son with autism. He is currently 19 years old, almost 19 and a half. I can’t believe it. He is nonverbal, and the thing that happens to a lot of people who have a child with challenges happened to me. If you’ve ever seen people on the news that have a child in a wheelchair, and the parent becomes a marathon runner, and they run those marathons together, and the parent is pushing the wheelchair. Or if you meet somebody who has a child who ends up being a deaf child, a child that’s hearing impaired. That adult, that parent learns sign language and becomes an advocate, right?

Having a person in my life who cannot speak, he cannot read, write, or speak that we know of, it really inspired me to respect my own voice and recognize the power of having a voice and using it. There are so many people that don’t take their passions and their strengths and use them. You have a responsibility to use your passions and your strength to do something that matters. Why wouldn’t I take my background as a pharmacist and my speaking voice put them together and make the Pharmacist’s Voice? I’ll tell you, there’s so much more that I want to say about that, but I think I should probably pause and just let you ask your questions.

[00:18:10] TU: Well, I think what I’m really curious about is you just said that there’s so many folks that don’t take their passions and their strengths and take action on it. You mentioned responsibility. I love that challenge because everyone may have a different passion or strength or a different challenge and may feel that sense of responsibility and for whatever reason haven’t acted on it. That can look like a million different things. You we’re talking, obviously, about the Pharmacist’s Voice and the business that you started. 

So my question for you is why do you think people typically are not taking action? Why are they not acting on that responsibility to be able to move forward with that passion, with that strength that they have? I mean, certainly a multitude of reasons. But if we distill it down to a couple, what do you think is typically blocking people from moving forward?

[00:18:59] KN: Man, Tim, you are so lucky I’m an ESTJ. I’m extroverted, right? So I’m not really shy about sharing, and I’m a little judgmental, meaning I’m great at making decisions. So why do people have that problem, that challenge? I want you to know, anybody listening, I’m not judging you if you have barriers to entry, if you have hang ups. I think it might be part personality. 

My personality, if you look at the Enneagram, if anybody knows that personality test, I’m an eight. I am the challenger. I don’t want to say fearless, but I’m the person that sees a problem and takes it as a challenge and wants to conquer it. I’m not the perfectionist, which is the number one, which is my husband, and he has a hard time with his perfectionism. A lot of times, I have to point it out to him and say, “Are you doing this because you don’t understand the first step? Or is it because you’re hesitant? Or have you made a list of pros and cons? I mean, help me understand.” 

For example, he lost his job at a company he was with for more than 12 and a half years in April of 2020. It was April 30th or May 1st of 2020, right as the pandemic was –

[00:20:27] TU: When it started. Yeah. Geez. Yup. 

[00:20:30] KN: Yeah, yeah. So being the support person I am, I wanted to go out there and like a light switch, turn on the business and say, “Oh, I’m going to go out and make all this money.” But voiceover, what I do the voiceover industry, it’s not like having a light switch. You can’t just turn it on. But anyways, what gets in people’s way is – I want to use my husband as an example. He wants to play a matching game. He is a mechanical engineer by training. So when he thinks about getting another job, he wants to match the words mechanical engineer with somebody who’s looking for a mechanical engineer. 

What I taught him about just all the things that I know from marketing and communications and storytelling is that what you really need to think about is all those things in the Ikigai. What do you love to do? What does the world need? What can you get paid to do? All those things. What do you value? Do you want to have to travel to Asia all the time, which is what he was doing two to three weeks at a time, up to five times a year? It was hard on our family. So anyways, that was one of the things, perfectionism.

[00:21:44] TU: Well, and we know that the matching game and perfectionism doesn’t go too well with entrepreneurship or starting something new. So my question for you here is I talked with many pharmacists, probably one or two a week that I can tell they’re on fire, and they’re passionate about something. That something could be another W-2 job. That’s something could be, “Hey, I’ve got this great idea for a book or a podcast or this nonprofit.” I had somebody messaged me recently about an idea they have for a nonprofit or a business idea, whether that’s a service-based or a product-based business. 

But when the conversation moves to, well, what’s next, what’s next, I can tell instantly the tone of voice shifts. Fear starts to come into the equation. More often than not, there starts to be a paralyzing reality of like, “I don’t know what the next step is.” So I’m thinking about those number one Enneagram perfectionists that are out there versus the eight challengers, where you might have an idea, and it’s not all fully fleshed out. Great, I’m going to do one thing that’s the next thing, just to get momentum on this. Then it’ll be messy, and it’ll get better, and I’ll get better, and I’ll get better. I get that, but a lot of people are not comfortable with that. 

So my question is for folks that are listening and saying, “I have an idea. I want to do X, Y, or Z. But there’s 15 things that I’m not sure exactly where do I go next,” like what advice would you have for them? I mean, even if you think about the Pharmacist’s Voice, and I’m looking at your background, and you’ve got nice logos, and you’ve got services and offerings and web things and courses we’ll talk about, that can be overwhelming. So like what is the next step, and how do people discern that?

[00:23:28] KN: Oh, Tim. This is such a great question. I’m so excited to answer this. I had to do this too. I have that problem too. In fact, I have a whole podcast episode about how I funneled all my ideas down to one, and it comes down to, okay, if you can imagine a funnel. Everybody listening to this has been to pharmacy school or their students, right? I mean, think about compounding lab, and you’ve got a funnel. In the top of the funnel, it’s broader than the bottom of the funnel. You put all of those ideas down in the top of the funnel, and you’re going to distill it down to just one. That’s going to pop out the end, and that’s going to be your one that you run with. 

I had all these ideas, and I just put them in that funnel. I mentally worked my way through each of them to find out if they were even possible. In doing that, I figured out that my number one barrier to using probably four or five of my ideas was childcare. I have a child who, at the time, was only – Was he 15? I think he was only 15. But still, rapidly approaching adulthood, can’t read, write, or speak. I’m going to be taking care of this person. I’m going to be as guardian. I’m going to be his full-time caregiver, until death parts us. I’m not trying to be morbid. Sometimes, when you have those constraints, it makes all your decisions that much easier. 

So when I found out that childcare seemed to be my biggest barrier, I realized I needed to find something I could do in the gig economy. It was just that easy, and I knew through my passions, through respecting the voice, and wanting to do something with my voice, that, heck, yeah, I could continue to volunteer when I have time. People don’t expect you to show up when you volunteer 100%. You let them know the expectations. If they can deal with it, they let you continue to volunteer, right? It’s okay to volunteer. You discover your passions that way. 

But then in going through mentally all these ideas, I figured out that I could not go to people’s houses and help them with their medication lists and cleaning up their closets. What if they were running late? What if I was running late? What if there was a school delay or a closing or whatever? I had a sick kid. I would have to cancel on them, and then making it up would be so hard. So anyways, all those things really added up. 

Then talking to other people, Tim, that’s so important. All of your listeners who are interested in entrepreneurship should really be talking to people who do the thing that they want to do. It’s common sense, but it’s also great advice because when you talk to people that do the thing – For example, I wanted to go to patients’ houses, help them clean out their medication closets, and help them make medication lists, just doing some basic MTM type stuff, then cash pay. So I wouldn’t necessarily have to use the insurance company’s definition of MTM. 

I found out that in Ohio, we needed to have a TDDD, a Terminal Distributor of Dangerous Drugs license. I think it was a level two or something. 

[00:26:40] TU: Two. Yeah, you’re right. Category two. 

[00:26:42] KN: Yeah. In order to have patient data in my home or on my computer. Honestly, I didn’t want to deal with that. So in talking to Sue Paul, who we both know through the Ohio Pharmacists Association, she’s an Ohio pharmacist and pharmacogenomics queen, I learned some of the issues that she deals with. I didn’t want to deal with those issues. So again, just fleshing out those ideas like how would I actually make this happen? What are the barriers I would come across? Who already does this? What are the challenges and the rewards? Yeah. Just flushing everything out. 

Out the bottom of the funnel came something where I would use my voice, and I didn’t know that I would be in the voiceover industry when I started. I ended up going into voiceover because my original idea didn’t even work. So I had to take that original idea that came out of the bottom of the funnel and pivot it to something else, which isn’t always fun because you have to admit failure. But you got to have a short memory about it. Kind of like when you’re up to bat and you strike out. You strike out. You still got that third pitch. You might fall or you might have a home run. So just keep swinging. 

[00:27:52] TU: I love that. No, it’s great. I love the practical advice that you gave, in terms of the funnel and having the ideas and talking with others, which I think not only helps you speak out loud your idea, which gets you thinking about it more, internalizing it more. It clarifies your message. Sometimes, I’ll have a great idea. More often than not, the day ends, I go home, and I’ll, “Jess, Jess, Jess. I got this idea. I got this idea.” Then I hear myself say it out loud. Then 24 hours passes, and I’m like, “That was really not a great idea.” But it was in my head, and I started talking out loud. 

Or sometimes, when I have those conversations, the ideas start to crystallize, or she’ll add to it. What about this? What about that? Have you thought about this? Those conversations of people that can help you build upon your idea, that can help you network with other people that have been down that path before, is so powerful. But you said something that the end that I think is so integral for people to remember, which is we have to, on some level, be comfortable with and accepting and embracing some failure along the way. 

I think if we can shift our mind around failure typically has a negative connotation but an opportunity to grow and to learn, but being comfortable with that, and you mentioned the first idea that popped out of the funnel, right? You had to pivot and do something else. Perhaps a whole separate conversation about how we get comfortable with failure. But I think really good advice for folks that are looking to get started because even if you come up with the perfect game plan, guess what, it ain’t going to be perfect. There’s going to be things and bumps along the road that are going to come to be.

[00:29:27] KN: Yeah. You got to have that abundance mindset. 

[00:29:29] TU: That’s right. 

[00:29:30] KN: Like there’s more than one idea here, and it’s okay to flush them out. Write them down too and revisit them because, like you said, Tim, you may come home and talk to your wife, Jess, and say, “I have the best idea.” But then when it comes out of your mouth, that doesn’t sound so good. But she’s kind of like a good sounding board, and she’ll tell you what’s good about it, and maybe you can just write it down. So I hope everybody out there has their own Jess or even a notepad and sleep on it and look at it another day.

[00:29:56] TU: I love it. I love it. We’re now – I’ve got four boys at home. I’ve talked about it before in my podcast, but it’s been fun, as my oldest is now about to be 11, and he’s heard so many of these conversations with my wife and I, just in passing. Just this weekend, he came up with, “Well, Dad, what about this idea? Wouldn’t it save time if we had a toothbrush that had two different brushes, so you could brush the top and the bottom at once? And is that something that could be invented?” I was like, “That’s it, right? You got to throw ideas out there. The process, they evolve and see what happens over time.” 

So as it relates to the Pharmacist’s Voice, what do you offer? What is the business, what’s the offering, and how has that evolved since 2017 to what you’re working on right now?

[00:30:39] KN: Starting in 2017, my original idea was to narrate pharmacy continuing education journals into audio. My original idea didn’t work. I approached all kinds of companies, for example, APHA. I approached the Ohio Pharmacists Association. I approached Pharmacist’s Letter. There were others too. I pitched it to somebody the other day, but I have a little bit more proof of concept now that I’ve been in the voiceover industry. 

But anyways, I didn’t have proof of concept. I didn’t really know what I was talking about. I didn’t know how to record, edit, and produce audio at the time. Everybody said no, and that’s all I needed. It’s not like I gave up early or anything. I just thought if they don’t like this particular idea, let’s try something else. 

What I did was I pivoted, and the first thing I did was when I pivoted, I went to talk to somebody who could teach me how to record, edit, and produce audio. Somebody who I thought could help me with that. I went to a local audio engineer, and he said, “Oh, yeah. We record people here. But I’m the one that records them. I’m the one that edits them. I’m the one that produces the final files and gives them to the client.” That’s a high ticket item right there. It’s expensive. So I thought, “Well, gosh. How can I do this at home?” 

I went on a journey of learning how to record, edit, and produce audio. I’ll tell you, that’s, for me, the hardest thing about having a podcast, hardest thing about producing audio books, which is one of the services I offer. It’s the hardest thing about creating voiceovers. I had to spend a lot of time in the trenches. Believe it or not, pharmacists would be awesome at this. I mean, if that was like part of the thing like, yes, we dispense pills. We make IVs. We mix audio. Pharmacists are very detail-oriented people. 

It turned out, I love it, and I’m great at it. So on my journey, I learned I can record, edit, and produce this. Great. What am I going to talk about? What am I going to produce? One of the things that the audio engineer that I talked to did for me was he connected me to my very first voiceover coach. I thought, “What’s a voiceover coach? I don’t know what this is. I don’t know if I want to do this.” But he said, “You need to learn how to talk and have good mic skills and all these things.” 

So I went to Nancy Wolfson. If you’re going to write this down, just please know that she is more of an advanced instructor, which is what I found out when I started working with her. She focuses on commercial narration. Once I did – I don’t know if it was eight lessons or something like that. I realized I needed to do medical narration because my heart just wasn’t into talking about pantyhose and banks and things that are on the news. Or not on the news. Radio ads or television ads. 

So anyways, I started working with a different coach, and his name’s David Rosenthal, and he’s with the Global Voice Acting Academy. Definitely look that one up because they do teach young voice actors, if you’re interested, and he helped me with medical narration. He’s like, “Yeah, you can say the words great.” I don’t want to paint him in a bad light, but he said things that I needed to hear. He said that, “You basically don’t know how to deliver. You know how to say the words just fine. You sound like you know what you’re talking about. But then other parts of the delivery are not so great.” During that whole discovery period and learning, I took group classes. I took private classes. I made my first demo. Moving forward, I have worked with other coaches too. 

Now, how did audiobooks come into this? Audiobooks came into this because if you can do audiobooks, you can do e-learning, which is what I have learned. That is what I originally wanted to do. Narrating pharmacy continuing education journals into audio format is e-learning. So I learned how to do audiobooks and e-learning. At the same time, I’m an audiobook narrator. I narrate books that are on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. They’re for sale. 

Two examples are IMPACT Pharmacist: Start Your Own Wellness Practice and Leave Your Retail Pharmacy Job Behind by Asha and Eric Bohannon. I’ve also narrated Perimenopause: The Savvy Sister’s Guide to Hormone Harmony. So as I’ve been going through this journey, I have been figuring out what people want to pay me to do.

[00:35:18] TU: Well, I like that too because I think it connects back to what we were talking before. Now, you’ve got service offerings. But I’m guessing those have evolved and changed over time, as you kind of figure out what does the market need and want? What is the market willing to pay for? What are they not willing to pay for? Then, obviously, you start to spread that through word of mouth. 

So again, just a great reminder that as folks are getting started with an idea, where you start and where it goes is going to be an evolution. It is, and you’re going to look back and say, “I can’t believe –” I remember back to my first blog post, November 6th, 2015. I read it recently. Yes, I had a great, great story of our journey. But, wow, like writing had a lot to be desired for. I think back to the first podcast that we did in 2017. So it’s a journey. It’s an evolution, and I’m hopeful that we’ll say the same thing five years down the road as well. 

If folks want to learn more about the work you’re doing at the Pharmacist’s Voice and the offerings you have, they can go to thepharmacistsvoice.com. We’ll link to that in the show notes as well. You mentioned your summer project before we hit record, is you’re working on an online course. Tell us more about that.

[00:36:25] KN: Yes. Thanks for the opportunity. If you go to kimnewlove.com, you can see my current online course offering. It’s a drug name pronunciation course, believe it or not, and it’s called Pronounce Drug Names Like a Pro. The next online course, which I have not released yet, but it will be on kimnewlove.com, hopefully, by the end of August. That’s my goal. It will be a behind the scenes look at the Pharmacist’s Voice Podcast. The Pharmacist’s Voice, of course, is my company, but I am a business with a podcast, much like Your Financial Pharmacist. 

So the name of my podcast is the Pharmacist’s Voice Podcast. A lot of people ask me all the time, how do I start a podcast? How do you make your podcast? So this is going to be how I make my podcast, not how you need to make yours. Because a lot of people just want to know what goes into it. What does it look like to edit audio? Because you’re taking a visual representation of something you can hear, and not everybody really understands how you can manipulate something that you can see, but you end up hearing it. It’s really something. So, yeah, that’s my summer project, Tim. Thanks for asking.

[00:37:38] TU: Well, I’m looking forward to that coming out because I have a lot of folks that I talk with. They have interesting ideas or thinking about starting a podcast, and they often get hung up in some of the, “Well, what equipment should I use, and what platform should I use to record?” There’s a million options that are out there, and I like your approach of kind of a behind the scenes of what you’re doing, which I think what will give people some structure and some hooks to be able to hang some things on but not necessary the only way to be able to do or release a podcast show.

[00:38:07] KN: Yes, I agree. Tim, just to add something real quick, that, hopefully, is going to feed into me training pharmacists or healthcare providers, small cohorts, at a time how to start their own podcasts, if there is interest. So send those people my way. I would love to help them. It’d be kind of like a white glove type thing, where you have an idea of what you want to do and you want to flatten that learning curve. I can totally help you do it. I mean, I have my own podcast. I’m on episode 160-something. I know how to do this.

[00:38:37] TU: I love it. I love it. I love it. One of the things I wanted to ask you about is I personally feel that we’re in a period of time where there’s somewhat of an over glorification of entrepreneurship, and I love entrepreneurship. I think it’s something that the skills that are within owning your own business and starting your own business are things that everyone can learn something from, whether or not you have your own business. So, obviously, I’m a huge fan and have really found great benefit in my own journey. 

But I think there are sometimes some myths that come to be with owning your own business that people think, “Oh, well. If I just own my own business, like everything would be okay.” So my question for you is like is there a myth or two that you have found in your own journey and owning your own business that you’d like to share with the audience?

[00:39:33] KN: Oh, my gosh. How many do I get to share?

[00:39:36] TU: Go with it.

[00:39:38] KN: Okay, all right. Thank you for the opportunity to share this because with what I do now, which is voiceover, I do medical narration for pharmaceutical companies, biotech. I do e-learning, I do explainer videos. I do all this. People think you can just plug a microphone into a computer and talk, and the Brink’s truck will backup and dump a bunch of money in your driveway. That, I would say, is the number one myth about what I do now. What I do is voiceover, and it is not like that. 

There are actual studies now for the voiceover industry to demonstrate the people who have been in the business, who are just starting out, who work part-time like me, typically make $8,000 or less when they first start out. 

[00:40:22] TU: Per year. 

[00:40:22] KN: I work very part-time, and I make less than $8,000 a year, and I will probably say that. But it is in increasing, and I have negotiated $10,000 deals, $20,000 deals, and just the projects never went into production. So I’ve had great opportunities. But, oh, my gosh, the ups and downs of the gig economy are crazy. So I just want to point that out, and I would say you’re not going to make $100,000 right away, for sure. 

Then as an entrepreneur, I would say there’s a lot of risk, but you have to be smart about it. You have to not dump all of your savings into the shiny objects that you see. You got to have boundaries. If somebody says, “Oh, this microphone is the best in the business,” you find out what’s a starter microphone and see if you even like doing it. Yeah. If there’s anything else I can tell you, let me know because I’ll tell you. There are so many things, so many myths and misconceptions about voiceover industry alone. But entrepreneurship, I mean, gosh, I could go on and on about that, in general. Let me know what you want to know, Tim.

[00:41:36] TU: Smart risk resonates with me. I tend to have some shiny object syndrome myself. I think many entrepreneurs do, and it could be a new piece of equipment. It can be a new piece of software, right? And a new solution or course. I think one of the challenges as you continue to grow in your business journey and you grow your network and you talk with other people, inevitably, you come across conversations like the one we’re having, and someone may say, “Well, I use this tool or I use this software. I use this.” You’re like, “Oh, I need that,” right? I need that piece of equipment, that piece of software. So sometimes, the answer is yes. That’s going to be a valuable solution. But really taking smart risks and making sure you’re staying on course with the core offering and not getting distracted by that, I think, is really, really smart. 

Related to smart risk, I want to wrap up our conversation by bringing together the personal financial journey with your business journey. When I talk with a lot of aspiring pharmacy entrepreneurs, one of the hurdles that typically comes up is the intersection between the personal financial journey and being able to start the business with confidence. That could be because of student loan debt. That could be because they have a young family, and there’s lots of competing financial expenses. That could be because they feel like they’re behind on retirement, and they don’t feel like they’re in a financial position of strength to be able to lean into their business idea. 

So my question for you, as you started the journey in 2017, how did your personal finance plan intersect with your ability to start the business and to feel confident making that jump forward?

[00:43:10] KN: I love this question so much. When – Oh, boy. We took Financial Peace University, the Dave Ramsey class at our church in 2013, and that made a big difference in how we attacked debt. I would say that the mortgage payoff was in the horizon. Like we were almost there when I started my business. I started my business November of 2017, right at the end of the year. Then we paid off our mortgage March of 2019. 

Having that financial freedom and really, honestly, extra space in my mind to let myself dream about what could be was huge. So I would say we started off investing in our futures through 401(k)s and Roth IRAs early. Okay. My husband as soon as he got a job that had a 401(k), I believe he was at least doing employer match and then eventually maxing out. Currently, maxes out. I think 18,500 is his current contribution per year, and that’s the maximum, I believe, he’s allowed per some law. Right, Tim?

[00:44:28] TU: It’s up a little bit in 2022. I think it’s a little bit north of 20,000, 20,500. But he may –

[00:44:33] KN: Okay. I’m sure he’ll be there soon. 

[00:44:34] TU: I don’t know. But, yeah, he probably is. He probably is. Yeah.

00:44:37KN: Yeah. But then I had my Roth IRA that I started in college because we had a speaker come to class and during our management and marketing class. That guy, I just called him up afterwards and I said, “Hey, you want to be my financial planner,” and he did. He became my financial planner. His company is still my financial planning company 22 years later, and I have all that growth and that trust and that relationship.

[00:45:02] TU: So slow steps to building the financial plan. You mentioned in 2017, specifically, the business. Having that home paid off was a big part of feeling confident to have the margin to get the business off the ground. I think that’s great because I think some sometimes every business is different, right? If somebody is developing a product-based business or a business that requires a lot of inventory, there might be a lot more upfront costs. 

I think of what we started at YFP. I believe of what you’ve done as well. Certainly, some upfront costs but maybe not to the magnitude of a product-based business, where you may need to have some more upfront capital. But nonetheless need to have a solid financial foundation in place to be able to make that journey and to do it with confidence.

[00:45:45] KN: Yes. Thank you for summarizing that. I feel like there’s so many little details that I could bring up. But, yeah, I don’t know how much into the weeds you want me to get. I think that if somebody is going to take a risk, a calculated risk, and start a business, you need to do your homework. I did my homework to find out. Once I discovered the voiceover industry, can I afford to do this? I found out that the microphone that I wanted was only like 199 bucks. I needed a stand. But I needed training. It was like $200 a pop for an hour. I needed a demo. It costs X number of dollars. Without a mortgage, we had that available capital, and we were still investing. 

Yeah. Over time, the investments – I mean, if you are faithful and you have a good strategy, you will eventually get closer to your retirement goal. But you need to have a goal in the first place, and you got to start somewhere, and I highly recommend that Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University and also getting somebody that you trust to help you with your journey.

[00:46:50] TU: Great advice. Kim, this has been a lot of fun, and I appreciate you taking time to come on the show. Again, for folks that want to learn more about what Kim’s up to, you can go to thepharmacistsvoice.com and also visit kimnewlove.com, and keep up to date with the newest course that she’s working on starting a podcast. So, Kim, thanks so much for coming on the show.

[00:47:09] KN: Thank you for having me, Tim. Take care.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[00:47:12] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. 

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts, and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist, unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements that are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. 

Thank you, again, for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week. 

[END]

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