YFP 344: Beyond the ER: The Entrepreneurial Journey of Dr. Jimmy Pruitt

Jimmy Pruitt, PharmD, Founder & CEO of Pharmacy & Acute Care University, shares insights on his entrepreneurial journey and the EMPower Rx Conference.

Episode Summary

In this week’s episode, join us as we sit down with Dr. Jimmy Pruitt, a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Emergency Medicine at Atrium Health. Dr. Pruitt wears multiple hats as the Founder & CEO of Pharmacy & Acute Care University and the brains behind the EMPowerRx Conference. Our conversation delves into his fascinating entrepreneurial journey, exploring the roots of why and how he embarked on this path.

Throughout the episode, we gain valuable perspectives on the intricacies of balancing professional commitments and entrepreneurial endeavors. Dr. Pruitt shares his experiences, lessons learned, and the strategies he employed to overcome obstacles on his journey. Dr. Pruitt also shares his vision for the EMRower Rx Conference – a  unique conference and continuing education experience for professionals in emergency medicine pharmacotherapy. 

Tune in to this insightful conversation with Dr. Jimmy Pruitt to glean wisdom from his unique blend of clinical expertise and entrepreneurial spirit. Whether you’re navigating the realms of healthcare, entrepreneurship, or both, this episode offers valuable insights and inspiration for the road ahead.

About Today’s Guests

Dr. Jimmy Pruitt is originally from Orlando, FL, and is a combination of nerd and gym junky having a background as a division 1 cornerback then turned Doctor of Pharmacy from Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy in 2017. He completed a PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency at Florida Hospital Orlando, and then went on to Grady Health System in Atlanta GA for his PGY2 Emergency Medicine Residency. Dr. Pruitt is currently an Emergency Medicine Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC.

Dr. Pruitt was honored with the Excellence in Diversity from MUSC College of Pharmacy, Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy (PCSP) Alumni of the Year, and keynote speaker for the 2021 PCPS graduation. Dr. Pruitt’s professional interests include cardiac arrest, shock syndromes, trauma, and hosting the #1 Emergency Medicine Pharmacy Podcast “Pharm So Hard” and operation his new pharmacy academy called Pharmacy & Acute Care University.

Key Points from the Episode

• Entrepreneurship and pharmacy with Dr. Jimmy. [0:00]
• Entrepreneurship, pharmacy, and education with Jimmy Pruitt. [1:37]
• Validating a gap in the market for pharmacist-created acute care content. [6:21]
• Overcoming fear and taking the first step in starting a podcast. [12:01]
• Balancing full-time work and business as a creator. [16:10]
• Growing a team and delegating tasks. [22:53]
• Business growth and vision for a pharmacy education company. [29:02]
• Emergency medicine pharmacotherapy conference. [34:56]
• Emergency medicine and pharmacotherapy conference. [39:25]

Episode Highlights

“The biggest thing that people say is like sometimes you have to just jump and you just have to do all these different things. And I’m like, I have a family, one. So that really kind of changes the dynamic. It’s not just me making this big shift, but I want to make sure that I was able to consistently get that number.” – Jimmy Pruitt [18:37]

“But I’ve noticed as I continue doing both of this, me being a business owner and being very focused as being the president, CEO, whatever the title you want to give yourself when you’re when you’re starting out, it actually made me a better employee.” – Jimmy Pruitt [19:09]

“So as I looked at the component of making sure I’m meeting that output, that I need to be able to consider stepping back, I also realized there was so much more value, because now I’m able to understand other people’s problems.” – Jimmy Pruitt [20:29]

“But learning more at the job and understanding the problems that they have, and other people like them have, has made me be able to understand the market, and how I can potentially use that in the future. But more importantly, my skills as a business owner, has allowed me to be able to solve problems that early in my career, and earlier, you know, in places I’ve been people don’t necessarily think about.” – Jimmy Pruitt [21:58]

“I think when looking at growing a team and really get into that first step of, I want to bring someone else into this, especially when you’re talking full time employment. The very first employee that I hired a couple of years back was just my virtual assistant. And one of the first aspects I realized was a very big challenge of mine was, how do I explain what’s in my head that I do every day?” -JImmy Pruitt [25:03]

“The big thing that I believe that I’m trying to accomplish over again, this next five to seven years is to make this to where we have one unified goal and mission we’re trying to do: provide high quality education related to pharmacotherapy.” – Jimmy Pruitt [31:20]

“I want to provide a home for those individuals and I want I want them to be able to have a home, whether they’re gonna be the consumer, or the producer.” – Jimmy Pruitt [32:42]

“And we want to figure out, how can we do it as for us and by us, instead of someone else creating it and thinking they know what we want. Why don’t we just create it from the ground up?” – Jimmy Pruitt [38:01]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• EMPowerRx Conference 2024 (use code YFP2024 for 15% off registration)
• YFP Episode 284
• Start by Jon Acuff
• Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden
• Your Financial Pharmacist
• Your Financial Pharmacist on Facebook 
• Your Financial Pharmacist on Instagram
• Tim Ulbrich on LinkedIn
• Jimmy Pruitt on LinkedIn
• YFP Disclaimer
• YFP Newsletter
• Pharm So Hard Podcast

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich  00:00

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 welcome Dr. Jimmy Pruitt, a clinical pharmacy specialist in emergency medicine at Atrium Health, Founder and CEO of Pharmacy and Acute Care University and Founder and CEO of the Empower RX Conference. We discuss his entrepreneurial journey, including how and why he got started, why he has maintained full-time employment, challenges going from creator to solopreneur, to building a team and the vision for the business over the next five to 10 years. I’m excited to announce our partnership with the 2024 Empower RX conference, a leading event in emergency medicine pharmacotherapy. This year it’s happening in Charlotte, North Carolina on April 26-April 27. I’ll be there and hope to see you there as well. It’s ideal for pharmacists, physicians, PAs, nurses and others in the field. Empower RX offers more than 10 CPE credits, insights from top experts, interactive workshops and groundbreaking research. It’s not just a conference, it’s a community focused experience, fostering learning and networking in a welcoming environment. Take advantage of discounted registration available to the YFP community by using code YFP2024 for 15% off. Again, that’s code YFP2024 or 15%. You can join in person or virtually registered now at EmpowerRX-conference.com and elevate your emergency medicine skills. Again, that’s EmpowerRX-conference.com. 

Tim Ulbrich  01:35

Jimmy, welcome back to the show.

Jimmy Pruitt  01:37

Hey, thanks for having me on again. And it’s been great.

Tim Ulbrich  01:40

So our listeners might remember you back from Episode 284, where we discussed your experiences monetizing your clinical expertise, we’ll link to that episode in the show notes so that folks can dig a little bit deeper. We’ll have some crossover here as well to bring people up to speed. But we certainly did a deeper dive in that episode. And Jimmy, for those that didn’t catch that episode and aren’t already familiar with you and your work, give us a brief introduction to your background and pharmacy and the work that you’re doing now with Atrium Health, as well as being the Founder and CEO of Pharmacy and Acute Care University and the Founder and CEO of the Empower RX Conference.

Jimmy Pruitt 02:14

Thank you. And that’s a mouthful for a lot of you guys. But again, I’m Jim Pruitt. Again, I’m by training at clinical pharmacy specialist at Atrium Health here in Charlotte, a Level One Trauma center, academic, Medical Center, all those great things. And then, in my spare time or lack lack thereof, I like to start off as being a content creator with this pharmacy PEARLS and just having different things that I can give my providers, then that really led to something else led to a podcast called Pharm So Hard. And once that happened, it was really the genesis of something special, I believe. It led to an audience of 1000s of people who didn’t know how to interest in acute care pharmacotherapy, and then from there trying to figure out how to solve the problems that they had. So that led to the next thing, the next thing being after 100. And so episodes Pharm So Hard led to Pharmacy and Acute Care University. And all that really is it just an academy that helps people, pharmacists in particular, with continuing education, but more particularly going to be for board certification prep. So whether you’re studying for your BCPS, or our most popular product that be CMP, your emergency medicine pharmacotherapy, or certification. That is where I spend a lot of my time- question banks, practice exams. And is making a lot of the content that goes along with that. And it’s just been phenomenal to see that growth. And what that led to is people saying, oh, man, I wish I had a place to go to talk about these things versus just studying for it, which led to the Empower RX Conference. So I think, long story short, I am an educator that started to understand the business a little bit more and continuing to learn what business is, and really is focused on how can I not just bring myself along, but how can I bring other people with me to understand the business side of things and monetize their expertise and content? 

Tim Ulbrich  04:08

We’re gonna talk a lot about that on this episode, Jimmy, I want to pick your brain have you know, you started with with an idea identified a problem that needed to be solved starting to solve that problem, which opened up more doors built community in this niche, which is really exciting. And now as you enter this growth phase, you know, there’s exciting opportunities and challenges with, Hey, how does this grow beyond the hours that you have in the day? Right? And what what what challenges may that bring? I want to first ask you that I was I was stalking you on LinkedIn and noticed in your headline, you have four different words creator, connector, educator, and pharmacist. Do one of those resonate more with you than the others and why?

Jimmy Pruitt  04:49

I think that is that’s a very, that’s a great question for one, but I think it it depends, like a good lawyer would say it depends. It depends on what I’m doing. And I think as I look at the different platforms that I’m currently in, I tend to be on one side more than other depending on that particular project. So I like to say, the biggest thing is like, I can be a connector, because again, most of everything I’m doing is usually not just myself, I’m usually bringing different people on whether that’s going to be at work. And I’m working with a provider, and a nurse is having a concern about something, I’m connecting those two and that problem and trying to also provide a solution. The same thing for when I’m in my pacu, where my pack you have, well, a potential customer has a problem. They want to be board certified, and I’m trying to connect them with the best highest quality information that helps them get to their end goal. And my conference, prospective people want a place to come. So I’m literally physically now connecting them with other people throughout the world in emergency medicine, pharmacotherapy. So I think connectors the the one thing I can say, but realistically, I have to be all of those other things, to be able to be a good connector. I have to be a great pharmacist, I have to be entrepreneur to make these things happen consistently. And I have to be kind of a creator to be able to have that audience to begin with. So I think connectors the one word, but I think depending on what hat I’m wearing, is really just depends on that location. 

Tim Ulbrich  06:21

Well, we say it depends on this podcast often. So that is that is welcome. But I appreciate what you’re what you’re sharing there. I want I want to dig deeper in a few areas that I see come up often with aspiring entrepreneurs and side hustlers that I talk with. And you know, one of the first things is really what was the beginning? Like, right, so the genesis of starting the side hustle that’s turned into a business, obviously, you have many, many different activities that you’re doing within that business. You know, tell us a little bit more about the problem that you are trying to solve and how you identify there is a gap and a need in the market. And I know you shared that briefly already. But you know, a natural question might be well, like Jimmy, aren’t these pharmacists already part of other organizations or, you know, cohorts where they’re able to gather other societies and so forth. So what stood out to you as an opportunity in the market that wasn’t already being served that you said, Hey, not only am I a part of this community, but I feel like my peers, my colleagues could also, you know, come together and we can provide value?

Jimmy Pruitt  07:22

Absolutely. So I think one of the things we look at, and I think the very first problem I wanted to solve was providing high quality education in the acute care space. So if we look, one of the things that is very common is that from a oncology standpoint, from a transplant, those medications that are branded still they have a lot of great continuing education out there. Because again, there’s grants, there’s different incentives for companies to make that content. And a lot of those get heavily represented. But from an acute care standpoint, a lot of things from a pharmacotherapy perspective was not necessarily being created by pharmacists. And emergency medicine in the pharmacy space is my first you know, love within this, but I realized that emergency medicine has everything is critical care is ambulatory care is all these other spaces. So I realized that there wasn’t pharmacist created content that was detailed, that was detailed, but also a concise so that we can see it and be actionable. And that was the aftermath of creating the pharmacy Frothy Pearls series that I created when I was a PGY2 resident at Grady. Once that kind of became the first thing I was like, Okay, well, the problem trying to solve is providing high quality education, from a pharmacist perspective in the acute care space, that is highly assessable. That was kind of a next branch with the audience that I was able to generate from from farm so hard, I realized that, hey, I’m already providing education, but I didn’t necessarily consider it to be very different and very unique. But then the audience would tell me these things. And after you start to look, you kind of change your perspective on how you’re looking at your interactions with people want to online, you realize, hey, I have a model here, from a business perspective that I can sustain because most of it, you know, I would love to direct you away for free every day. But it’s not sustainable. Yeah. And that was kind of the first component of finding pharmacist-created acute care, physical therapy information that was concise, but also provide them continuing education as well.

Tim Ulbrich  09:25

My next question was around validation. And how do you validate that that gap truly exists? You know, one of the traps, especially early on in a business as a hey, I’ve got a great idea. I’m gonna kind of run hard and then you realize, oh, wait a minute, like the problem that I thought needed to be solved. Either I’m in misalignment or maybe it’s not as big of a problem as I thought, you know, others may think and so you partly answered that when you said, hey, you know, through the podcasts, obviously, seeing your listeners getting some feedback, you are getting real time information that I’m sure shaped your next steps. Was there anything you did prior to starting that podcast as a PGY2 to validate the problem that needed to be solved, or was that the first step in?

Jimmy Pruitt  10:05

I think it was the first step. I would love to say that I had this aesthetic plan and things of that nature. But realistically, the first two years I was in business, I didn’t know I was in business. Yeah, because I wasn’t charging anything. I think that part of the equation that I didn’t look at what’s the value I was providing, and whether or not that was something that could be sold as a resume. And I think within pharmacy in general, we get so used to just providing a lot of content. And we’re just doing it for just the validation of our colleagues and just to provide great education. But I think the first piece that helped me understand the business aspect of it was when we started creating some of these, you know, hour long presentations, people said, hey, you know, is this for continuing education? And I said, Well, I can get it for but I didn’t realize the process, go through that. And then I remember saying, Hey, how can I get this credential? Is this AACPE certified? It’s like, oh, it’s a price tag to that. Yeah. And then the first step, like, how do I get that taken care of versus me just paying out of pocket a significant amount of money for one hour? I think the first the very first time I did this, three years ago, the credit hours was like $600 for one hour CE. And I was like, Well, if I have 100, people come to this, and we break this down, I think, you know, a few bucks would wouldn’t be horrible for me to do it. So I think that was the first step. But I think I don’t, it made me just think differently. That was the very first trigger to realize, like, hey, if I’m gonna sustain this, I have to figure out a way to monetize it, to just cover the basics of what I’m doing. I think that was the very first step in realizing people were okay with that. Not as many as I thought, initially. There’s a certain amount of people that was okay with that. And I realized that if I can scale it to any degree, it may be something that I can build build upon.

Tim Ulbrich  12:01

And speaking of first steps, you know, I often will will talk with folks that have an idea. But taking that idea, and taking the first step to begin implementation. It’s scary, right? I mean, you know, even when you do the validation of the idea, it’s one thing if people say, I’m interested, I’m gonna pay for it. It’s another thing if they actually show up and pay for it. And as you and I both know, you can assume some much lower percentage than then people may report. And so my question here is, how were you able to be comfortable with taking that first step, and maybe as a PGY2 resident, you know, maybe the pressures off a little bit, and you weren’t yet thinking about as a business, but even that, I’ve talked with pharmacists that are like, Hey, I’ve got a great idea. But, you know, to run a podcast, I got to do A, B, and C, and I got to worry about the microphone and editing and hosting, and yada, yada, yada. And soon enough, there’s no action. Right? There’s no action. And my question for you is, how were you able to take that important first step, that important first action, from which even though you didn’t know you’re in business, from what you would eventually learn and get feedback that would become the foundation of the business?

Jimmy Pruitt  13:09

Yeah, I think that the first step for me, and I would love again, to say that it was it was just phenomenal intuition and I was great, but it really came from mentorship. To be honest, the first thing was that someone, one of my mentors, John Paca, wanted to hear a podcast episode done by me. And he, he, I remember him mentioned, he’s my RPD, he’s my mentor, he was like, I want you to be yourself. And I want you to be different than everyone else. And that was the first thing he wanted me to do. So I think the process went from me having an idea to someone really pushing me and said they want to hear it. So the result was always him hearing this versus me starting it. So I think that was the first goal initially was that, hey, how let me produce this first episode, so he can hear it? Yeah. And that was the end result of the very first task or create this first pearl. So I can present it to these individuals because it’s part of my residency objectives. So I had like this end goal that I started while I was still in residency, but I think the biggest thing was him wanting to hear an episode, because the Pearls was the first thing but it wasn’t necessarily a first step into business. Pharm So Hard was actually the first step into business because again, that’s what opened me up to understanding the problems and the things that were valuable to people that wasn’t just my RPD. I think the first step was being able to start that podcast and the first step of me actually doing that was him saying, hey, I want I want to hear this. So I think for me, my action item was to complete it versus to start it. I think, getting to that point to where letting other people hear that episode, now that took a much longer period of time. To say same episode, I recorded the same thing, but having other people hear that and I was just fortunate to have him, Sean Troy Johnson, a few people to saying hey, you know, you should go for this and you should now let other people hear it. And I think once that came about my partner, Oscar Santalo, who initially started together, we went back and forward it on PGY1 but never gained traction. In PGY2 we gained a little bit more traction, and I made the first episode. And then it’s like, hey, I’ll do the next one. So it became this kind of back and forth to where I made the first one, we listened to it, it was fine. And then the next step was for him to do it. And then I had a little bit more time to be able to get to the next step. But I think those were our first action items. And I thought that I didn’t think it would lead to what it did. But I think just getting started and having some type of MVP is really what it being just having an MVP to start with. Now everything I do, I tried to create an MVP. But I think the first episode, and that was what, Brian Gilbert on antiquated reversal, back 2019? And its 2018. And that kind of lit to what it is today. But I think just getting that first MVP and having someone to push me, because traditionally, I wouldn’t have went through all the steps because my first episode took 16 hours to edit.

Tim Ulbrich  16:08

I remember those well. And I’ll occasionally throw back on, you know, episode one, just remember the journey. And, you know, but it’s a great reminder, I’ve mentioned on this show several times the book Start by Jon Acuff and I think your journey and story is such an important one that, you know, the dots aren’t always in a straight line. And the key is, when we take that first step, you know, we might have a loose idea, often not of what might be steps two, three, four and five, but it’s really through that first step that, you know, things start to happen, where in this case, your meeting a learning objective, you know, you sat down, you did the recording, obviously, there was some nudging in that process, you know, eventually it’s okay, we’re gonna edit this, we’re gonna share this, you know, and then they start snowballing. And obviously, through there, you start to build community, get feedback, validate the idea and start to evolve this into a business. And I’m so glad you mentioned mentorship, because it’s a critical reminder, for all our listeners out there that are precepting students, residents, fellows that are educators that, you know, sometimes we see something in someone, and it’s not until we can really slow down and have some of those in depth meaningful conversations that we can really help, you know, be the gentle nudge to help them – that learner  – see something that may, they may not even see themselves. And that’s really what I heard, you know, in your journey, that your RPD saw something in you that perhaps, you know, naturally as a resident, you may not always see in the moment. And I love that right, because I think that’s, that’s true for many, many stories, many journeys, where we can reflect back on a mentor, I’m thinking of several, as you’re talking that were so influential, and just action steps that I took, that led to other things, but it wouldn’t have been without their mentorship and encouragement from the start. 

Jimmy Pruitt  17:52

Absolutely. 

Tim Ulbrich  17:54

So Jimmy, if I’m following your journey correctly, your five plus years in as a creator with the podcast, creating content, three years or so with the Acute Care University, we’ll talk about the conference here in a little bit as well. And you’re still working full time in clinical practice. Talk to us about your decision to stay full time in practice, as you’re trying to also grow a business and what value that’s provided and challenges, I would presume as well. 

Jimmy Pruitt  18:23

It’s been unique, I would say, one of the things that we looked at is making sure I’m at that number, and making sure I don’t make the mistakes that I’ve seen other people do. And more importantly, make the mistakes that I’ve read about. The biggest thing that people say is like sometimes you have to just jump and you just have to do all these different things. And I’m like, I have a family, one. So that really kind of changes the dynamic. It’s not just me making this big shift, but I want to make sure that I was able to consistently get that number. And early on I end up saying once I’m able to make you know, one and a half times my my salary consistently, and my business can continue to function smoothly, then it will be a conversation of what I do from a full time standpoint. But I’ve noticed as I continue doing both of this, me being a business owner and being very focused as being the president, CEO, whatever the title you want to give yourself when you’re when you’re starting out, it actually made me a better employee. That was very unusual because I started going to work and said, Okay, understand the objectives that I’m trying to do, and understand how, what it feels like to have someone work for you. Yeah, and be able to accomplish these goals. So when I have conversations with  the board and with the administrators at my hospital, I’m asking the question, Hey, what are the KPIs that we’re trying to understand? And they’re like, What are you you’re a clinical pharmacist? I said listen, I can solve many problems. I realize the problems that you’re going to care about. And more importantly, I realize the problems that the person that report to you is going to care about. I’m going to help save people lives. I work in emergency department. That’s my fulfillment. How can I make this a, you know, a symbiotic relationship to where I get the resources that I want, but I’m also getting the things that you want me to get. So from that perspective, being a better employee has made it more enjoyable, because now I’m able to go in and solve problems and be able to find different things and have conversations that before I started being, you know, heavily involved in my company, I didn’t understand all the problems. I didn’t understand those problems. So as I looked at the component of making sure I’m meeting that output, that I need to be able to consider stepping back, I also realized there was so much more value, because now I’m able to understand other people’s problems. And  it makes me say, Hey, I may want to do this for a little bit more, because I’m able to do consultant work now where I can get brought in as a consultant for and ED pharmacotherapy, find different problems, and then say, Hey, I’ve done these things now, at certain institutions, and it opens up more doors for me at this point in my career, and I just don’t think that I initially thought that. Because I think everyone who goes into business initially thinks, oh, I’m going to work for myself, it’s gonna be great. I can wake up when I want to. It takes quite a while. But I’ve enjoyed the process. And I think as I look at all these things, what having a business and working full time has allowed me to do is cut a lot of this the skin out of my life when it comes to tasks that I don’t necessarily need to do. And it’s made it easier for me to focus on family, focus on activities, I want to focus on health. So I think having both of those has kind of put me in a position to where I have to stay very focused and enjoy, pick the things that I want to enjoy, and to glean different insights from situations knowing that there will be a transition at some point, yeah. But learning more at the job and understanding the problems that they have, and other people like them have, has made me be able to understand the market, and how I can potentially use that in the future. But more importantly, my skills as a business owner, has allowed me to be able to solve problems that early in my career, and earlier, you know,  in places I’ve been people don’t necessarily think about. So yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. There’s challenges, of course of not being able to take significant breaks and being able to have days where you just do nothing. But I think realistically, the continuation of doing it and seeing some benefits allow me to be able to do both, and be able to enjoy both. Because now I walk into the ER I don’t have to be a CEO today. I could just focus on this component and is vice versa. So I’ve enjoyed it. It’s helped with burnout. But I’ve really enjoyed the process. 

Tim Ulbrich  22:52

A few things you said there that I love, Jimmy,  that are worth highlighting, you know that the patience that I hear there, the intentionality in your thought process. You talked about a certain multiple of income one and a half times and you know, that that’d be in a place where maybe the conversation starts to shift, obviously, you and your situation – everyone’s entrepreneur journey is different, right. And I think there’s sometimes there’s this blanket, kind of advice or blanket type of idealism around entrepreneurship, which is like, jump in, and you’ll figure it out. You know, and it’s like, you know, for some people, that is their story. It’s not my story, wasn’t your story. But for some people it is. And I think for everyone’s situation, you know, it’s different. And some of the things you said really resonated with me as I had some crossover from full time work and the entrepreneurial journey. And it was several years in before making that transition. But the connection between, you know, the entrepreneurial journey and becoming a better employee, I felt that. I felt like I brought more skills to the workplace. I felt like it prevented burnout, right, some of the change in pace and environment and work and, and I think there’s something to be said, too, when you’ve got, you know, the business that’s growing, and all of a sudden your employment becomes this place of opportunity and learning and growth like, wow. I would argue Jimmy’s probably that much better of an employee and an asset. Like you’re you’re not dependent necessarily in that moment on that income, you know, as you’re building something else, and you’re able to really bring the value to the workplace, you know, that you can bring. So I think a lot a lot of wisdom there that you shared, as well as just continuing to build build the skills. Jimmy, as you have grown from content creator to solopreneur, to now building out a team. And we’ll talk again about you know, the conference here in a little bit in the logistics and all that’s involved, my mind is spinning partly because I’ve been through this journey as well. And I know that with that growth, comes fruit and comes challenges as you look into building a team and delegating and letting go. Just talk to us about that journey. I think it’s something we don’t hear enough about, as we often hear maybe more solopreneur type of stories but as you have grown and you built the team, what has been and some of the fruit what have been the challenges of that?

Jimmy Pruitt  25:02

I think when looking at growing a team and really get into that first step of, I want to bring someone else into this, especially when you’re talking full time employment. The very first employee that I hired a couple of years back was just my virtual assistant. And one of the first aspects I realized was a very big challenge of mine was, how do I explain what’s in my head that I do every day? I didn’t realize how challenging that was going to be, until I started assigning tasks and realized that that wasn’t necessarily what the output that I wanted. And I realized that it wasn’t necessarily the employee’s fault. It was really how I was able to give information and how I was how detailed I was able to be about what’s the purpose, how to get there. And then SOPs and having templates and all those things that people talk about that are not, the cool thing to think about are so valuable. And what it allows, it allowed me to do is be able to communicate more efficiently. When I first got into pharmacy, what are the key things that was very, you know, self conscious about my ability to communicate, because again, I grew up inner city kid, again, not necessarily being around many college educated people. Again, I’m one of like, six high school graduates in my family. So the way I communicated, it was, again, very different than the way I communicate on a daily basis now. It was something that was a very limiting factor for me. And I realized that I had to figure out a way to communicate better. And I really, I love to talk, I love to kind of do these different things. But as many people can probably hear, I have a Southern sudden tone, I still, you know, speak in a particular way. And I realized that in order for me to work better with other people, especially on diverse set of people, I need to translate that, translate that and technology has been phenomenal. Being able to voice to text has been the best feature I’ve ever had. So that took the initial challenge of communicating exactly what I wanted to my first employee. And it kind when I went back and edit it and went back and forth, that changed everything. Then going from there to next step was figuring out how can I not spend all of my time not doing this, in the next step was reading different books, educating myself as a, Hey, have that employee have them make the template. You know the output that you want, you know, what’s quality work for you now have them do that. And I think once I’ve transitioned from being the only person that produce the output, to try and to explain that and figuring out better ways to explain what I want to allowing the person who I’ve been working with now for over two and a half years to make the template because they do it well. That was a very long process. But I think it was one of the more unique and impactful things that I’ve learned through this process. And it went from a major challenge to being something now that I consider to be a very, you know, streamlined process. And now bringing other people on has been a lot easier because I have something and a have that he can I can show them as an output, but I can also provide them now templates, SOPs and things of that nature. So I think that’s one aspect that many people don’t speak of, or think about, but the books are out there, people don’t speak on it, and think about enough when they’re starting a business. And I everything you do, guys, if you possibly can record yourself, speak through it, dictate it and do it once. So you can always be able to reference back to it. That’s the one thing I would like to tell people and then realizing that you have to take some level of consideration depth that everyone is not going to do it the same way you do it every single time. You have to create a process that allows for them to get close, I say 75% as good as you are on a consistent basis.

Tim Ulbrich  29:02

That’s really good stuff, Jimmy. I’ve had similar experiences and I think often people run up into, you know, barriers where they start to grow, they might hire a contractor to hire employees, they run into some of the frustrations you experienced. You know, I think we’re you push through it, often people may retract and kind of fall back into this solopreneur model, which again, everyone’s build something for different reasons, different goals. But as you continue on this vision, being able to accomplish the vision you have will depend on Hey, what time, what tasks need to get done beyond that that Jimmy can do within a day which requires a team and processes and all the things that you mentioned. You’re sharing reminded me of the book, procrastinate on purpose by Rory Vaden. He talks about, you know, exactly this concept of, you know, could you do the task in 10 minutes, that’s going to take you you know, five hours, you document you could. but there’s a certain return on time investment Right, if if you do a repetitive task five times a week, that takes you 30 minutes, sure, it’s gonna take you a lot longer to train someone to get to the quality that you want. But over enough repetitions, especially those recurring tasks, if you can fight through that, you’re gonna have a lot long term benefit of the return on time. And so I love the share that you had there, I think is a great example of that. I want to ask you to zoom out on your business for a moment. And I think it’s sometimes it’s hard as the CEO, as the person who’s operationalizing, at times in the weeds, you’re in the midst of planning for a conference, I’m sure there’s tons of logistics things that are moving, it’s hard to zoom back out to that 20,000 foot view to say, Where are we going? And why are we going in this direction? And so, Jimmy, as you zoom out and look at all the things you’re doing across the content, and the podcast, the PACU, the conference, the various educational products, the offerings that you have, what’s the five to 10 year vision? Where do you see the growth going, as you look at all these things you started and now you move into this this next phase of growth?

Jimmy Pruitt  31:10

That’s a great question. And I do this every once a while and I had to force myself usually, every every quarter, I tried to do it. Sometimes better than others. The big thing that I believe that I’m trying to accomplish over again, this next five to seven years is to make this to where we have one unified goal and mission we’re trying to do: provide high quality education related to pharmacotherapy. How do I go from many different products, many different services, many different things to one umbrella company that can be operationalized by other people consistently and provide that value that we started out with, and, and being okay, not knowing each individual step to get there. So I would love to say in in five years that I’m in a position where I’m sitting on a few boards, I am the one who makes the final checkoff. But I want other pharmacists that have this, this passion, to be able to impact people through education, to be able to monetize their expertise to have a home. And I don’t necessarily feel that there’s a huge home for that now, there’s opportunities to volunteer your time, there’s opportunities to be part of other organizations, things that nature, but I believe that there’s I should say, there’s not an abundance of homes for pharmacists, and those who engage in pharmacotherapy to share, monetize their expertise. I want to provide a home for those individuals and I want I want them to be able to have a home, whether they’re gonna be the consumer, or the producer. I think that those is the things that push me forward and figure out how can I add more people to my team to add that passion? How can I make sure that we do this, and I feel good about it, because at the end of all of this, the one main thing that’s going to happen is improved patient care. So for me, when I think my business perspective on that, I feel much better knowing that the very, very end end goal and very in any user of this, the recipient of all the things we’re doing is going to be someone getting the right drug at the right dose at the right time. And doing it in the right way. Yeah, so for me, I want to provide a platform that I’m leading, or that I’ve led, that’s going to be able to influence patients by those who expertly use pharmacotherapy.

Tim Ulbrich  33:42

What I love about that we haven’t talked too much about that on this episode is I’m a firm believer in having a strong anchor in your business of a why behind everything you’re doing, because through the ups and the downs, you’re going to have to rely on that anchor. And when you talk about everything pointing towards improved patient care, wow, that connects all the dots of everything we’ve been talking about, right? Because building a team, delegation, getting comfortable with that space, and, you know, may not always be done the same way that you do it in here community! Community of the consumer. Community of the Creator. Like, wow, the urgency of that is important, right? Because that’s all aligned towards being able to have more people in this community, creating in this community, as well as getting information and benefiting from the community, all pointing towards improved patient care. Like that, I just hope everyone hears that that is thinking about an idea or has a business that when you have that type of compelling torch of a vision and a flame. It provides so much clarity. I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy. It provides so much clarity of where are you going and why are you going there and that is so critical when you’re building something and not every business can say that. To have that type of clarity of vision and that type of clarity of messaging. I love that. Absolutely love that. Let’s talk about the Empower RX Conferene coming up April 26-27th in Charlotte, I’m really excited about our collaboration surrounding this event. I’m looking forward to have the opportunity to meet your community there live in Charlotte. And I suspect that we have several listeners that have different areas of clinical expertise that maybe are in acute care and are going to be attending the event. Maybe they’re brainstorming other educational opportunities in their own niche. So tell us more about the event. How did it get started? And how is it evolved to the current state?

Jimmy Pruitt  35:27

Absolutely. EmpowerRx has been just another brainchild of wanting to improve patient care. But realizing again, we sort of go back a couple years ago and realize the history of emergency medicine. Again, we had three PGY2s in emergency medicine back in 2004. I’m starting one this, we’re over 119, I believe, in 2020. So I think as we look at the number of the growth that’s there, we realized that not every aspect of emergency medicine pharmacotherapy has been able to catch up. One of the areas that I remember mentioning, as we made Pharm So Hard was that there wasn’t a place for us to come together, hang up talk about just emergency medicine, versus just having a 10 minute Pearls or just having a 60 minute session with a few presentations. That was you know, spread out dispersed amongst the major organizations, they’ve done a phenomenal job of providing resources, and helping us grow the specialty. But I wanted to provide a place that it was very unique to emergency medicine pharmacists. And if you know anything about us, if you’ve had, if any listeners are part of, you know that you have to be a certain type of personality to consistently work in emergency department. And I wanted to provide a space for that. So I remember sending a text message to Kyle Wendt, he was he was at MUSC at the time, and saying, hey, what if we just created our own conference? And what if we just made it to where it was? It was like, it wasn’t like any other from a professional standpoint, what if you just you didn’t wear dress clothes? What if you didn’t come there at a tie, you came there and a T shirt, some jeans, and you just was having a good time. And we just spent all day talking about things that really impact emergency medicine pharmacotherapy, whether it was clinical, or whether it was the social components. There’s a lot of things that happen in emergency medicine on a day to day basis that there’s it’s not in the textbook. You don’t know how to have the interaction with the one mean nurse. You don’t know how to, you know, make sure that you’re able to think quickly when that patient comes in, that’s unannounced. We want to provide a place where we can talk about those things. But also, can we be ourselves the same way we are at the bedside. Because many ER pharmacists will tell you, when we go to the actual pharmacy area, there’s a certain persona that we we uphold when we talking to our superiors. And there’s what happens in the ER when we spend the majority of our time with nurses, physicians, EMTs things that nature. So I wanted to provide that environment, that community. And we sent this out in 2020. And we want to figure out, how can we do it as for us and by us, instead of someone else creating it and thinking they know what we want. Why don’t we just create it from the ground up? And that really was the initial phase of this. And it led to us being able to create an environment where we speak on many aspects of acute care pharmacotherapy, particularly again, the resuscitation part of it. So whether you’re a central pharmacy that responds to cardiac arrest, we have information there for you whether you’re a nurse who just happened to be interested in the drug component, we have something for you. So I think we are a emergency medicine pharmacotherapy conference. And we’re not necessarily a EM pharmacist conference in a say. So I think it kind of brings together our world in one place over two days, and the initial one was going to be virtual, because again, COVID definitely has something to do with that. And then last year, partnering with SAEM. And we got to see a sense of it. But I think that the next phase was okay, we keep saying that we’re for us, and by us, we have that everywhere. This is the first year we’re going to do everything completely in person, have some virtual access and completely be for us and by us and we grew our team tremendously to build something that again, it’s for all of us. And when I say us, that can be a physician, that can be a nurse, that can be anyone in that space, but you now have a home to discuss pharmacotherapy. 

Tim Ulbrich  39:24

I’m really excited to experience it. I’ve been to many, many pharmacy conferences, but I’m sensing there’s something different, something unique about this, and I can’t wait to be a part of it. Hopefully the emergency medicine folk will allow me into the room. It’ll be a good, good, good chance to interact. And I’m really looking for it’s another great example to me, Jimmy, of something that, you know, you obviously had interest built up in a community and following at the point of when you launched that first one, but you still had to take that first step, right. And sometimes that means success. Sometimes that means failure and certainly you’re going to learn and grow from it. And I can hear the evolution that the conference has taken the last several years. So really looking forward to being a part of that. And I just as we wrap up, Jimmy want to say I admire and I mean this wholeheartedly admire, what you’ve built, why you’ve built it, how you built it. I love the niche focus. I love the clear messaging you have, there’s a strong sense of community. And there’s a strong anchor back to the vision of why that you’re doing and that that is the recipe for success in my mind as people are thinking about building a business. So, Jimmy, thank you so much for taking time to come on the show. I appreciate it.

Tim Ulbrich  40:29

As we wrap up today’s episode, let me remind our acute care healthcare listeners about our partnership with the 2024 Empower Rx conference, a leading event and emergency medicine pharmacotherapy. This year, it’s happening in Charlotte, North Carolina on April 26, and 27th. I’ll be there and hope to see you there as well. It’s ideal for pharmacists, physicians, PAs, nurses and others in the field. The Empower RX conference offers more than 10 CPE credits, insights from top experts interactive workshops, and groundbreaking research. It’s not just a conference, it’s a community focused experience fostering learning and networking in a welcoming environment. Take advantage of discounted registration available to the YFP community by using code YFP2024 for 15% off. Again, that’s code YFP2024 for 15% off you can join in person or virtually register now at EmpowerRx-conference.com and elevate your emergency medicine skills. Again, that’s EmpowerRx-conference.com.

Jimmy Pruitt  40:29

Thanks for having me on, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich  41:32

 As we conclude this week’s podcast and 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 which 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 Pharmacists Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

 

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