“It’s hard to get good help!” Not exactly true. Just like any skill, managing a team to strategically growing your business is something that can be learned.
Here to help us out is physician coach extraordinaire Dr. Errin Weisman.
You’ll learn how this burnout coach was nearly burnt out herself when managing her business. She shares how she overcame her struggles managing a team to finally achieve her success.
LINKS MENTIONED:
Physician Coaching Alliance
https://www.physiciancoachingalliance.com
Burnt Out to Badass – Masterclass to help overcome physician burnout.
https://www.burntouttobadass.com
Doctor Me First – Learn More about Dr. Errin Weisman’s life coaching, courses, and podcast.
RAW TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Hey guys, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another episode of bootstrap, MD. And our next guest is someone that I’ve been wanting to interview for some time. I mean, there’s, as you know, one of my good friends is Dr. John Jurica, probably one of the nicest doctors you’ve ever met. And I was listening to this podcast, and I could actually feel the cheeks of john blushing on this call, and I just, it was great to finally have the opportunity, because she’s gonna be talking about things that a lot of entrepreneurs need to know about. And that’s about building your own virtual team. So Errin, I want to give you a proper introduction. She speaks on her experience on professional burnout. She’s a family, family medicine doctor, but underwent burnout and she her kind of mantra is that no woman should ever feel alone, that she should be able to have a joy filled and sustainable career. And she’s able to transition from being a primary care doc, getting out of the realms of burnout and as a very popular life coaching. life coaching business and her she has a physician coaching lines so much that we could get into I’m just gonna shut up right now. Errin Weisman, welcome to the program.
Dr. Errin Weisman
Oh my god, Mike, I’m so excited to be here with you. Yes. If anybody hasn’t listened to that episode with john, I don’t think he knew what he was getting into quite yet.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
So yeah, so just let you guys know, because I did clear it up. Sometimes we might get NSFW you guys
Dr. Errin Weisman
We’re gonna go off color.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
We’re gonna go off color. So I know that there is some virgin ears that might be semi some interns. Some people you know we get we get all types. Eric, you know, Mexico, premed retired, just just want to prepare you. But again, I’ve been looking forward to this for some time. But you know, there’s some out there who don’t really know about your story. So when you were in medical school, when did you say you know what? I think I’m gonna build a physician coaching Alliance. You never never
Dr. Errin Weisman
gonna be I was gonna be the straight laced. Go back home to the country. delivering babies go into the nursing home. Everybody knew me at church doctor. That was my grave right though. I was gonna do cradle to grave Dr. Quinn, medicine woman that was that’s what I thought when I
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
bring you apples and oranges, as you know,
Dr. Errin Weisman
pies chickens. Yeah. Yeah, honestly. And it wasn’t until I really got into the throes of medicine and it really creeped up on me honestly, like, the dreads about going in and rounding.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
There was that
Dr. Errin Weisman
hindsight. 2020. I really think that my burnout, I think I started earlier in that I think it was probably my fourth year of medical school. But I thought it was normal. Like I looked around at all the other students in the resident, I’m like, Well, I guess this is just what it is. Right? went into training. And it was always about like, when I get out of intern year, when I get to second year, when I get to third year when I get out and get my big girl contract, and you know, it’s gonna get better, it’s gonna get better. And then it didn’t get better. Within weeks of starting that new job, that big girl attending job, I was like, Well, shit, this is it. This is the next 30 years of my life. Like, where’s my frickin doctor medicine woman magic. I was pissed. And and at the time that came out his frustration, it came out as like, little needle pricks on like, on irritations with patience. It came out as just like the zombie mom who was just rushing to pick her up kids up from daycare, get them home, feed them, wash them and throw them in bed as quick as possible so that she could just collapse. And as I sat with that, I was like, this is it. This is what I went six figures in debt for I’m the first physician in my family. Hell, I’m the first one with a pretty advanced degree to be perfectly honest. And I just looked around and I was like, I don’t want this. But I couldn’t say those words out loud. Because at that time, everybody else was like you did it. Aaron, you did it. You made it through medical school. You’re back here at home. Like kicking ass taking names. But inside I felt numb. And it was when the Sunday dreads really creeped in hard, you know that feeling before you got to go to the office the next day. And it’s that dark cloud, you don’t know where the hell it comes from. But at bed, it feels like a dementor on Harry Potter, when it just sucks all the life and joy and happiness out of you. My husband, he tells me now he’s like, I can see this switch, when your brain started to process. And you wanted to hop on the computer and get on epic and look like what your your schedule is going to be and how many labs you needed to go through and who was going to be there that day. And it just came to a point where I remember sitting at our kitchen bar with my husband, and I’m like, I can’t do this. And he asked me like, what is this? Like, what so hard? This is what you’ve been trained? It’s not any different than residency is it? And I said, exactly.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
So your husband is not in medicine.
Dr. Errin Weisman
He is not he actually is a teacher supported me all through medical school. And after we popped out a few kids, I was like, man, somebody’s got to be the stable parent here, because I’m like killing it. And so he actually, quote, unquote, retired early from teaching and is now the farm manager of his family’s corn and soybean farm. So he got to live his hashtag best life and he was transitioning and kind of going through, like, what’s my identity, if I’m not what I went to school for, so he was kind of going through his own thing. But we had gotten to a good, good place. And I think that was part of it that triggered my transitioning was because I was like, This is not how I envisioned my motherhood to be like to just be the golden goose that brings home the paycheck and then like occasionally checks in and sees people and saves enough money. So you can go to Disney World, like that’s not, that’s not what I’m in this for.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
And you had young young kid, a young kid and Jenkins at the time.
Dr. Errin Weisman
Yeah, almost three and six months. Wow, when we had this kind of like reckoning moment. So yeah, that tells you anything, I had two kids in residency, and I still graduated like eight weeks off cycle. So you can do the math. What I did there, but it was legit, it was legit. And the other thing is that made it really hard is that essentially when I transitioned away, I mean, I lost all my community, everybody else was going to their different areas, setting up practices. And that bond that you have, like I know a lot of people have compared to like, residency bond is like, Band of Brothers like water. And like it was gone. And I intimately felt that and so what I did is what I tell all my patients not to do, which was get on the internet. And I found and this was back in 2014, I found 1000s of other doctors who were saying the similar thing. And that was just when like fire was kicking off. And people were transitioning to pharma. And I just was looking through the list. And I was like, I don’t really like any of that. But I was so desperate at the point that I was like, I don’t care what I was gonna do. I was googling how to turn my CV to resume, because I was like, I gotta find something. Because this, this is not it. And I was scared to death because like, literally, I’m a new grad. All that student loan debt, we just bought a home little kids at home husband’s scared to death because you know, he’s a farmer, and they don’t make no money. And what I found through those, those searching was this gal out on the west coast and she was doing this thing called entrepreneurial MD now I’ma do but I love my MD counterparts. And I signed up for it. It was like an evergreen program. Now, you know, everybody’s got one and started working through it. And I was like, I gotta talk to this woman. Because I think I think she’s got something and so I did what I know now is a discovery call got on the phone with her. And I felt heard. And I felt understood. And she validated that like, hey, you’re not crazy if you don’t want this. And…
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Was it Philippa Kennealy?
Dr. Errin Weisman
It was Philippa. 100% Philippa. She is like the matron saint of physician coaching. You guys don’t know, Philippa. We’re going to put her in the show notes. Because
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I don’t think she’s you know,
Dr. Errin Weisman
she she’s Yeah, she’s transition and doing something else too. But God, like she was instrumental in my story and just sat with me. Because she started asking me the questions that no one else had ever asked me. Like, the one that I remember the most and I talk about all the time is like, what is the one thing it was taken away from you, you would be devastated. You know what? I didn’t say my kids. I didn’t say my husband. I didn’t say my health. I said my frickin medical license, because I had that. So wrapped up into my identity. And that one thing that was my identity was also burning me to a crisp. So it was like this love hate relationship of like, I gotta let this go But who am I without it? And so she sat with me and coached me through that. And as we were going through the process, I was like, You know what, where’s all the like young physician life coaches, cuz we need this shit. We needed this shit in medical school, we needed in residency, we needed when we hit hard times we needed mid career we need all the way through everybody needs a coach, because it was such a powerful thing for me. And so that’s when I jumped into the business in 2015.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, I think I appreciate the story. But I think Philippa is like a South African, or is she? She is your shit?
Dr. Errin Weisman
Absolutely,
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
yes, yeah, interact with us lovely woman. But yeah, that’s great. It’s just a the importance of a mentor.
Dr. Errin Weisman
And, and getting somebody who not just like, pat you on the head and send you back to work. But the work that she did for me as my first coach, to show me like, No, you have choice in this, and you can have autonomy, and you can change your life, and all those rules that you’ve written inside of your skull. They’re not, they’re just invisible, you can change this, there’s no one saying that you’re locked into this office, or this career path, or this way that you practice medicine, like you can, you can change that. And so she was just, she’s been so instrumental to my story. And I will forever be grateful for her wonderful. And so that’s what my entrepreneurial journey started at that time, I still practicing medicine kind of started as a little like, didn’t really want to tell people about it. So I was just doing like coaching friends and family, you know, like toe in the water. And then I realized, like, I can do this, I really, I can help people. And this is a way that I can do it with a certain amount of sass that’s not being expressed in other places. And then the business has kind of grown and grown and grown from there. And so I want to come to your podcast today and talk mainly to the people who were five or 10 steps behind me. And teach them what I learned through the University of hard knocks what not to do, when it comes into the entrepreneurial space, and especially around leading teams. Because as as cool as it sounds of being like a solopreneur, this burnout coach almost got burned out in her her passion job.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, this, this is great, you know, we’ve had so many people who’ve come on to the show, and they feel that they have something of value, which I always, I always encourage you to get something of value that you can put out into the world. You know, why not share that? And that’s what you did. Because I know, as a physician myself, you know, one of the reasons why I got into medicine is, of course, the typical, I want to help people right. But for me, you know, writing the same prescription medications and adding the fourth or fifth antihypertensive, I didn’t feel like I was doing it. And one of the, the benefits, you know, of, at least having an online business is you can really just put yourself out there. So I’m not ready to make that call not ready, ready to do that. That’s fine. There are there’s steps that you need to do. But that’s what I always think that for someone who wants to start their own business, why not just doing something that you love by just giving your expertise, your knowledge. It’s not like I’m assuming it’s not like something you went to like burnout University, you just, you know, got certified. We all know how much doctors lift certifications, but your own experience and that’s something that you can’t take away, you can’t separate from someone else.
Dr. Errin Weisman
Well, and also realizing too, that your perspective may be the exact thing that someone one other person needs to hear to change the trajectory of their life. Because here’s the thing. We go to med school, we learn all this stuff they forget to tell us you can only take care of a finite amount of people. Like I really again, Dr. Quinn, medicine woman, like I was gonna take care of the world, all of Southern Indiana you just come to me and I would take care of you. But in reality that is not sustainable whatsoever. And so you’ve got to translate that over into entrepreneurship to like, you are not everybody’s special sauce. Like I am not everybody’s special. Believe me, you go look on the trolls on my social media. I am not for everybody. But I know that that doesn’t mean I’m doing something wrong. In fact, I’m doing something right. Because that means I’m not vanilla and I’m not playing. And I’m making people have a reaction, be it a positive one that they jump on the bandwagon and are like, all in badass. Or the opposite, who you know, they call me whiny millennial Doctor Who doesn’t want to work hard. And and that’s fine. They, they can have their opinion. But guess what? So can I and let’s the marvelous thing about this digital world is you don’t have to go out there and shout with a megaphone and and try to reach the masses like peloton does, you just typically probably need to be reach about 20. enough to get a side hustle started and get things going and get stuff beta tested and see like, do I really want to keep doing that. And then 20 becomes 25 and 25 becomes 40. And then you double and your ad. And then pretty soon you got this podcast where 1000s of people listen every month. And and that’s what I just remind myself is in all of these goals, this is like not trying to be like the status of target. Like that is not who I’m going after who I’m going after those that truly resonate with my message, who want to listen to me, who we have some type of touch point that is more powerful than anything else that they’re hearing in the world. Those are your people. That is why your experience has to be put out into the world.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
So much to digest here. I like what you said about trolls, because I remember when I put myself out there, I was doing a consulting gig and and I remember just fixating, you know, 95% 99% to be positive. But of course, we’re human, we’re going to focus on that one negative thing. I remember whoever it is, and he said, Oh, Mike, probably he couldn’t make it as a doctor. So that’s why my business
Dr. Errin Weisman
been there. But yeah,
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
so actually, I believe that he you gotta have haters. If you if you don’t have haters, you
Dr. Errin Weisman
haven’t made it?
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, nobody cares. You’re not making a difference you whether it’s positive or negative, like Like you said, You’re triggering something. And that’s when I think that’s actually an indicator of success.
Dr. Errin Weisman
I remember I got what the first time I got a one star review on my podcast, and I was just like, if I could have tracked down CIA pulled up the list were their houses, you bet your ass I would have went and knocked on their door and be like, you need to change that because doctor me first is not a one star podcast. But then I thought about it. Man, I and I got this from Dr. Ne Darko, like, think about the time that that person who gave you the one star review took to go into Apple podcast, and take the time to review your show and fill out all of those like, absolutely, you triggered something within them that they felt like they needed to share with other people. And though it may not be on the positive side, and our brain wants to like key into negative bias. Yeah, they did it though.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It just like when I when I left. And I was in corporate medicine, and my colleagues were saying, you know, I know Mike, what’s he? What’s he actually doing? And then not to my face. But you know, some of them actually became clients. Absolutely, years ago. So it all comes around. But I wanted to talk about this idea of a virtual team. So you had the coaching, you were doing, I guess, mostly one on one coaching, right coaching? When did you decide you know what, I need to hire somebody? Because that’s always a big question for people.
Dr. Errin Weisman
Yeah, the question always is like, when do you hire? I always said, I now say, like, immediately, but I want to give people some tips and some preference, some some idea around this. So first time, like I’d worked with some projects and did some like little contracting stuff. But the first time I really hired somebody was like, 2017 ish. I knew I needed a VA because at the time, I was still I would transition from family medicine, I had a nasty non compete that I had to burn out. So I transitioned and worked over an ER for about 15 months. So I was swinging er shifts and trying to get the coaching business up and moving. So I recognize that like, I needed an assistant, everybody’s talking about, you know, delegating outsourcing. And I was like, That will be great. It’ll somebody who can work on the business, when you know, I’m working a 12 and coming back and getting it done. It wasn’t as good as what I thought though, because you can’t like clone your brain and put it into somebody else. So the things that I learned from that hiring because remember, it’s not failure. It’s all feedback and entrepreneurship. So what I learned from that experience is one I needed to tighten up my hiring process. Now I had gotten this name from a referral who I trusted. We had done like a quick call. She worked on a little small project seemed like it went, Okay. So I was like, Yeah, absolutely. Like, let’s keep working together. And she was like, Great, let’s do a 12 month contract. And of course, at the time, I was like, sure that sounds wonderful. Little did I know that I didn’t recognize exactly what I needed this person to do. Nor did I recognize that this was her first time being a virtual assistant, and a budding entrepreneurial business that didn’t quite know 100%, what its direction was. So lesson learned from that is one really key and take your time on the higher, so slow to hire quick to fire. That’s my mantra that I live by. And I can explain the fire part later. And the second thing was, is getting really crystal clear on what it is the things that you need someone else to do. So I break them down into a couple categories. So one is the head on the desk moment. This is when you’re sitting at your desk, and you’re like, Oh my fucking god, I can’t do this anymore. So for me, that’s bookkeeping. That’s podcast editing, that’s writing stupid email sequences for when people sign up on your list. Like, those are those things. I’m like, holy shit, like get these away from us. But I know they need to be done. I know I can do them. And I’m pretty good at them. But if I’m putting my head on my desk, if it’s taking me away from that, those are the things that I know that I need to delegate out. So if you’re thinking of those things, write them down right now, there is someone who can help you with them. The second way to identify your needs are what are the things that I shouldn’t be doing? Now listen, we’re all super high achieving professionals, we can learn a whole bunch of skills, but you should not be writing your own contracts and doing some legal review. If you do not have that background, just like I shouldn’t be doing my own taxes. And that sort of thing. Given the I don’t have a CPA, no, yeah, I can use QuickBooks, I can figure it out and all that sort of stuff. But not just the time investment, but what’s the energy and emotional investment that you’re doing. And I get it, I get bootstrapping, because I did that for a while. But I also see now that if I would have like, released my white knuckling on some of these tasks, and found good people that knew how to hire and delegated those out, who would have been a much happier businesswoman at those points. So head on the desk moments, what are the things that you shouldn’t be doing? And then the third category is, what things can someone else do to make me money? So for me, I don’t need to be like doing customer service emails, setting up podcast interviews, answering, you know, questions about why the website course is not working, I need to say where I’m making money. And if you come and be my one on one coaching client, you kinda want to talk to me. So I need to be with my one on one coaching clients, I need to be with my burnt out to badass group, I need to be the one doing my podcast and talking on there. And anything else, those are things that I need to delegate out to, so that I can stay in my zone of genius, so that I can be the golden goose and make the money for my business. Those are my three kind of categories.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
This is great. Now, do you think that because I’ve worked with physicians, and I’ve worked with non physicians, but I seem to think physicians tend to be more of the I got to do everything? Mm hmm. If you’ve experienced that as well,
Dr. Errin Weisman
Yes, I have. I don’t know where that comes from. Because, you know, think about it in the medical setting. We don’t prep patients for the O r, we don’t get them set up for pap smears and get the little cup thing and the broom and you know, like we have people hope we don’t check the patient’s in or check their blood pressures. Now, there are some people in DPC who are a jack of all trades who are doing that, and I give them major props, but then I also tell them like, Hey, you need to get some help, too. Because you don’t have to be doing you could be spending more time with your patients. Anyway, that’s beside the point. But when why wouldn’t we take that team approach model that we’re used to practicing in in medicine and flip that over into our business? Why do we think oh, it only has to be me and I have a theory on this. I think it’s because when you step into a heart centered business, you feel like Only I know the message Only I know the audience Only I know how to convey this. But I’m going to push up against that thought because if you’re working with very good contractors and professionals and you’re able to communicate your brand, your audience What you sell why you sell it who you sell it to? They’re pretty smart people too, and they’re going to be able to pick up on that. But it’s up to you to start using communication skills. And if they’re not giving, getting that, like giving them some feedback and say like, now that’s not really my messaging, like, let’s try again, or maybe I would phrase it like that, and building that relationship with the contractor. So they can learn your style, they can learn your voice. So my head copywriter, she literally says she’s like, I put you on my shoulder, when I sit down to like write, and I can just hear you talking in my ear. Because we’ve been talking, we’ve been working together long enough. and nine times out of 10. I read through her copy, and I’m like, yep, nailed it. Moving on. Occasional, there’s some tweaks, maybe 10% of the time. But just think about, like, if she’s doing blog posts or setting up emails, she’s spending the 10 hours, that means I got 10 hours to go do something else. And I do a 30 minute edit. I mean, that’s bank, honestly. And so, it again, and this is a lesson from Hard Knocks University is you’ve, you are not the only one with the special sauce, you can share the special special sauce, you can teach someone else to make the special sauce. But you’ve got to be willing to give over the recipe. And you’ve got to be willing to communicate well, with your team.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, I love what you say I call it you know, for me, I call the RGA revenue generating activities. That’s the one that either I’m hiring somebody to do those RGA or I’m doing it myself. And I think entrepreneurs feel that. If I’m just busy, that means I’m doing something and busy and like I’ve worked with with with clients, and I said, Well, what were you busy with? What did you do this week? Well, I was like working on my logo, or I’m working on the graphics. And I go, have you ever done this before? No. But I was busy. So that must be good, right? And it’s just like, you just want to hit him over the head. Hey,
Dr. Errin Weisman
I’ve been there. I’ve been an expert on Canva. Now that I’ve sunk like 100 hours into it my first year business, I have no business doing graphics, or branding colors or picking out fonts. Like know that. You’re exactly right, like letting the expert do what they’re great at. And encompassing that is so important. You know, one idea that I’ve been trying on this year, because I am the burnout coach. And because I know I can easily grind, I can grind with the best of you. I tell people in medical school, I might not be the smartest, but I will outwork all your asses into the ground. And that that mentality is what burned me out, I’ll be perfectly honest. And it’s still something that hard work was so implanted to me as a child that I know I can, even if it means my death or illness, I can grind hard. So let’s try on the opposite Aaron, the more fun I have, the more money I make. And that has been a really fun idea to thread into my business to be to see, like, if I step back, if I hire someone to do this, and someone to help me with that, and I go and have fun, I come back into this space with more creativity with more spunk with more fire. And and that energy is what’s going to bring people to me. And so I think we have to remember exactly what you said like busy doesn’t equal success, we have to stop the transition of like time equals money. That’s not true. I think we’ve learned that through medicine, you know, like the almighty grind, and for the almighty RVU bullshit. And so we have to start looking just like in medicine at different payment models, you have to start looking at your time and different ways. And so I really think it’s important to look instead of like goal based living, which is like the to do list and like, in five years, this is how much I’m going to have in my 401k. And like, you know, having those hard milestones, and really switching it into more of a value based living. How do I want to feel when I wake up in the mornings? How do I want to go about my day? How do I want my kids to perceive me? I think that’s really super important. Because so many times, if you say like what’s most important, I do this with my clients. I’m like, what’s most important to you in your life, and they give me a list. Usually it’s like family, fulfillment, purpose health, friends, you know, the typical list. And I say, well look at your schedule, where do those show up? And it’s a huge mismatch. And so that’s why I say like, something’s gotta give either you have to change your values, or you’ve got to change what you’re dedicating your time to.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, I love it. So let’s talk about going Back to your virtual assistant. What would you recommend in terms of like, hiring them? Are you are you giving them tasks, it should be 10 hours a week, you do it full time, what’s what’s been your experience?
Dr. Errin Weisman
Alright, so through learning all the mistakes, what I would recommend now is finding those exact things that you need. Like, for instance, I use ConvertKit, for my email services and communicating. So if I’m interviewing a VA, to do emails and setup, I want to know their exact experience with ConvertKit. I want to see examples. And I want at least two names of past or current clients that they are working with, that I am going to contact. A lot of times, like people will get names for referrals or recommendations, but they don’t follow up with it. And I’m going to challenge you to say like, No, you need to follow up, and you need to ask some hard questions about expectations of this person quality of their work, and even ask them, How much did you pay for them, because, you know, they’re probably going to coach you a price that’s higher, and you’re gonna have to think about that. So this is the kind of work that they were doing for this person at $30 an hour, they’re now telling me they’re $100 an hour, are they worth that value to me. And so that would, that’s what I would do to be doing the interviewing process. And then what I do is I date before I get married, so I’m going to give them either project that’s a couple weeks, or that it’s based on like the project length, I want to see how you work, I want to see how you communicate. And I want to see the quality of your work for to do. Are you the type of person that I’m going to have to micromanage and answer every single question every hour of the day, or you’re going to take the project and run with it and come back to me. And then when I give you feedback, you’re going to take it and go fix it. Or you’re going to go like hide and get upset because I didn’t like things. And so really feeling people out and giving them a project. If you don’t feel like you got a good feel for them on that first project, do a second project and see and do a third project. And then after that, then I would start talking about more of a retainer type project. Because like, you need to see how this person’s workflow is, if they’re going to take 10 hours to set up a simple email series, how long is it going to take them to do something more complicated. And if you’re paying them on an hourly basis, I personally would pay a little bit more for somebody who works a little bit less than pay for somebody who’s cheap, but it’s going to take double or triple the amount of time and gonna take typically more management on my part. Because really, in your business, you’re three things you are you are the CEO, the high level, futuristic thinker, you are the manager, operations manager to make sure that everybody’s working well. And the books are happening. And then you are also the service provider, be at coaching, consulting, speaking, whatever. And so if you remember that you have those three hats, then you can hop into those whenever you’re managing people, because you’re not there to be their coach, you’re not there to to be their teacher, you’re there to be their manager at that point. So interviewing well working on a project, seeing how they work and then deciding what’s going to work best for you and for them, and proceeding forward. You know, maybe starting off with just like 10 hours a month, and saying if this works out, we can extend it. I wouldn’t blow it up to the whole, like 32 hours a week. Initially. I think it’s a gradual workup process, because maybe that person’s capacity is because they have three kids at home. And they’re single mom, like maybe 10 hours a month is all that they’re going to do, even though they want that like 10 hours a week. Maybe it’s just not going to work. So I say again, you know, go slow, titrate slowly, just like what we would do with blood pressure meds.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Now, you mentioned that your first ones, you got them from referrals for someone who’s starting new, they don’t get any referrals. Are there any sites you recommend freelance sites? Maybe Upwork? I don’t know
Dr. Errin Weisman
that. Yeah, there are plenty of freelance sites. I think the two best places to go is someone that you see that is doing things well. Go ask them who works for them. Like just go ask them. at me. The worst thing is they can tell you no. Or the contractor says like, No, I’m busy. I can’t take on another project. The second thing I was mentioned is because I talk on this so much and work with so many other coaches and entrepreneurs. I’ve actually set up my own referral system. And where you can just fill in a Google Doc, you tell me and I make I listed out so you don’t even have to like come up with your list. You can look at my list and be like, Oh yeah, I need that. And I need this. Ask how much Are you willing to pay? What level of expertise Do you want out of this contractor? I mean, if you’re okay with like working with an entry level contractor for this job, because it’s like, you need a millennial to do some, like video editing, they got that shit, you know, like, fine. But if you need a project manager or a high level, high functioning VA, yeah, you’re gonna want somebody with a little more expertise. So we tease it all out. So that’s actually a benefit of coming to physician coaching Alliance is that you get to use the referral system and find the people that you need to, through me, essentially, either people that I’ve worked with, or just through the connections that I’ve made and found found contractors who understand physician brains, because we’re, we’re a little different. That’s okay.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Right, right, right. Yeah, you can’t just cookie cutter it. And then finally, you mentioned about hiring slow but firing fast.
Dr. Errin Weisman
Yeah. So I’m not without grace for people, and life happens. But if I am paying you, there are certain expectations. And I think it’s really important at the higher to lay out those expectations. So I’m very much You don’t have to have a huge five page contract document. But just having something that clearly spells out, like, these are the expectations that I need to have done. And then their contractor on the other side, saying, like, these are the expectations that I need for you to work for you. And so if you can very clearly outline and define those expectations, and then when they’re not done, you refer back to them and say, I expected email to be checked daily, and me to be notified on important things. I wasn’t notified. And so you know, that’s an issue that we need to talk about. I go to the extent to of just jotting down and keeping some notes on my con, because it’s a lot easier to tease out facts versus feelings. Because like, the contractor who like dropped the ball, or like, went Mia, and ghosted you in the middle of a launch, like you’re gonna remember that because there’s a lot of feelings bundled around that, when in fact, maybe you need to just remind yourself like, oh, her mother died. And that’s what happened in the situation. Because then no think, Oh, my God, it’s happening again. And so not really like an HR folder, but just something to remind me, and having really candid conversations with your contractor, and just saying, like, I need to talk about this, I need to clear it off my chest. And really using good communication, schools skills. I feel disappointed when the email is supposed to be checked daily. And I see there’s a lot of open messages, I need to have regular communication with my clients, and with you to know that this business is operating Well, when I’m not there, would you be willing to insert what you need? So it’s, I feel I need Would you be willing to, and if you can use that communication style. You’re not saying like you, you did this wrong, and they instantly go on the defense because you’re attacking them, but really using I statements, and really clarifying, like, what was the issue? And then how can we find resolutions, and I work by the three strike policy. So after like, we’ve had that conversation three times, and it’s not work. And I will warn people, I would say like, Hey, this is the first strike. Like, we need to work through this, I can move past this, but I just need you to know, if they do it again, hey, this is the second strike. And really, you have to say that this is the second strike. If we have another one, I’m going to have to let you go and in the contract at that point, and again, like in your contract, you need to spell out what that looks like is that like, you know, because it’s in doctoring to when you quit, you don’t quit that same day, you got a 90 day burn out that you typically have to do. So my contractor usually in there, they say, you know, like with notice for two weeks, however, if mutually agreed upon, will end within 72 hours. And so, you know, so that, you know, and if you have the third strike, then you initiate that plan. And you talk about what is the what is the exit plan look like? This is what I need to be done. I don’t share passwords anymore. And I use a system called LastPass. I would highly recommend anybody who has contractors to do that. It’s an encrypted way to share passwords, but your your the other side, the contractor doesn’t know it. But before I would have to like change all my passwords and so like I would just say I need you to exit out of all of my accounts, any sensitive information, anything that you’ve created for me and you haven’t uploaded to Google Drive or Dropbox, I need to go ahead and do that. You will be removed from permissions as of whatever date and then we talked about like when their last paycheck comes. When they’re last, you know, invoice will be paid or when it needs to be to me on that point. And you know, typically it’s pretty amicable then, because you’re taking the emotion out of it. And you’re just being very factual and being like this is this has been the pattern, this is what it is, this is how we’re going to exit out.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
So, so much great, great content, I do want to, I do want to mention to you, of course, you want to be sensitive, you might have some family issues, that’s delaying. The one you want to worry about is the one that I had where the uncle passed away, and then the aunt passed away. And then the sister passed away as excuses. Or there’s like a real problem in there. Yeah.
Dr. Errin Weisman
And then you would just say, like, this is not a good fit. Like, obviously, you need to go either take care of your family or figure things out. Because Yeah, because, you know, excuses are like noses, everybody’s got one and, and that’s fine. And that’s maybe the story, the stories that they’re telling themselves. But that’s not yours to figure out. You’re the employee, you’re the business owner. And if you can’t do it, they can’t do it. And that’s okay. And it’s the same for us. Like, I think sometimes we delay getting stuff to our contractors or, you know, something comes up and we’re like, well, this is what’s happened, like, just state the facts. And then you can move through it and move on to it. Yeah,
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
yeah. So so much to go through, but great content. You mentioned a few of your own businesses. Give us some information on the physician coaching Alliance, as well as your, your company on physician burnout.
Dr. Errin Weisman
Yeah, so physician coaching Alliance was formed, because I’m kind of an out ahead of the physician coaching wave, which I’m glad to see new coaches coming into the space. But I was seeing a big gap from when people were going trained through their training. And then they were kind of like staying with their little hub of whoever they trained with. And I was kind of like, this is not junior high, like, we can intermingle. This is fine. Like, maybe you did that coaching school and somebody else did that certification and like, I wanted a place that where we could all intermingle and really learn from each other. Because there’s so many different styles and topics and approaches, that I really wanted you to be a very open and inclusive space. And so I started this back at the beginning of 2018, just as coaches who had come on the podcast, or that I had met through LinkedIn, or Instagram or whatever, and just invite him and said, hey, let’s do like coaching grand rounds. Once a month. Let’s get together. Let’s have community let’s talk about a topic. And we’ll see. And what I realized is like people loved it. Like we were just talking about such amazing things and forming this just like network and community, because I’m a good family medicine, like I like a referral. So if somebody comes to me with overdrinking, that’s not really my jam, but I know a guy or I know a girl who I can send them to. And so it really helped open that up. And what I realized is, I was essentially forming a community, authentically. And so we named it, we now have a very active slack group, we have three meetings a month that anybody can catch who’s in the group on all sorts of different topics. So not only talking about the different types of coaching and how people approach it, which is what we do one Thursday night a month, but also tangible takeaways. How can like this conversation we’re having today? Like, how can you build your business? It’s almost like a best practices like what are you doing? What are you doing? What have you done, that’s worked, but coming from peers, and not some like 26 year old business guru who just got out of MBA, actual people who are in our same shoes, and who can say authentically, like, this is how how we do it. And so it’s been a really awesome space, it’s open to anybody. It’s a super easy level of entry. You just fill out the form on the website, and you tell me, Hey, I heard you on Mike’s podcast, like I want to be a part of the Alliance comes to me and I’m like, Yeah, you’re in, here we go. And it’s just great to come in there and to meet people who you otherwise would not bounce into. Because here’s the thing, we kind of get this lone wolf mentality like that you got to like survive the wild by your own and like, you got to figure it all out. When in fact, it’s really a pack mentality. And if you can learn from somebody else, and you can teach somebody, collectively as a group, we’re going to get farther faster. And the whole preference of physician coaching Alliance is to bring coaching and to bring balance into medicine and I don’t know who doesn’t get behind that.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, yeah. And your your burnout coaching.
Dr. Errin Weisman
Yeah. So in addition to that, where it all started, you know, was the burnout coaching it’s where I’m still super passionate. About. And so the podcast that I started is Dr. Me first, and it’s me having conversations of just about everything. Occasionally I’ll let my husband Mr. Wiseman, come on, and we do a series called married to an alpha female. And so that’s always fun to get an inside look into team Wiseman. But yeah, come over to Dr. Me first and hear more about that. If you are feeling a little crispy if you’re interested in being like, okay, maybe I’m transitioning for the right reasons, but I’m a little crispy around the edges, I’d encourage you to check out burntouttobadass.com. It’s where I do all of my coaching. I do one on one and group because I love both of them. Like I’m sorry, but I’m never gonna scale to group only I still like just like a patient encounter with a person in front of you. I still love coaching one on one with the person in front of me as well. And so, yeah, that’s my coaching what I’m doing. And it’s kind of cool to have now built the coaching practice and now helping and fostering other entrepreneurs in the physician coaching space. I don’t feel like I have, like two separate entities. It’s more like my right and left hand now.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Right, right, right. You definitely walk and walk talking the talk. And then the URL is physiciancoachingalliance.com. All righty.
Dr. Errin Weisman
Make it easy.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yes, you did. This has been tremendous. Just just been a joy. Any last minute words that you want to leave for us today?
Dr. Errin Weisman
I would just tell people don’t compare your beginnings to somebody else’s middle. Like we all put our pants on the same way. We all take a shower are the same. Like there’s nothing special about what I’ve become and what I’ve built that someone else couldn’t do with their zone of genius. It’s just having the clarity of what I wanted to do. The courage to put myself out there. And the confidence to keep going.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I love it. Aaron, it’s been a pleasure. I never had to use the word sassy through the podcast. So I think that was pretty good. But again, so much fun. Thanks for coming on and like to have you on again. And as always guys. Keep moving forward.
