BootstrapMD

Career Coaching for Physician Entrepreneurs

Spark your physician life

  • About
  • Getting Started
  • Courses
  • Testimonials
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

By

The Only Physician Side Gig You Should Pursue


Physician side hustles and side gigs are all the rage!  However, many do not understand on why these type of gigs are often not ideal for entrepreneurial doctors.

We cut to the chase in this episode to see why only securing side gigs that will reward you after you leave, are the best ones to have when seeking work-life balance and becoming your own boss.

TRANSCRIPT
Hey guys, it’s Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, welcome to another edition of BootstrapMD. This is the podcast for a physician entrepreneurs, and you may not be aware of, but we have a Facebook group with over 1400 of your colleagues that you can join us on BootstrapMD, And I’m happy to put that into the show notes. I know for the last few months, actually few years, one very popular topic is pursuing physician side gigs or physician side hustles. And as someone who left corporate medicine back in 2004, I never would thought there would be a day where we would have some of the biggest topics, biggest discussions on doing something besides the regular physician job, it was almost taboo back in the days.

And don’t get me wrong, it’s great. I love other doctors pursuing other interests, other activities, other things that really give them joy and happiness and bring in additional streams of income. However, I do think it’s actually lost its focus somewhat on discussing side gigs. Now, the definition that I’m using on side gigs is a side job in addition to your main job, which is mostly your physician job, and there are many reasons why people pursue this. I’m not talking about replacing your job. Most people who are looking to do other activities outside of being a doctor, it’s usually a clinical activity, whether you’re being burnt out working with patients or dealing with insurances, or dealing with hospital rules and regulations, whatever that may be. But just because you are doing something different or nonclinical does not necessarily mean you’re going to be happier, it doesn’t necessarily mean the grass is going to be greener on the other side.

And I can’t say it’s a hundred percent, but most likely, this side income, the side job that you’re going to be getting is not going to be the same as what you would as a medical doctor. You have to understand you most likely will take a drop in income, it may not always be consistent. But I’m not talking about replacing your job to do nonclinical activities. I’m talking about a side gig, a side job in addition to the income that you’re making. So this discussion is not for those who have a job as a physician, a clinical job, and are looking for a nonclinical job to replace it with, and this is not what I’m talking about.

If you have aspirations to do more in utilization management or become an expert witness and want to pursue that, and think that’s what you want to do for the rest of your life, then more power to you. But most likely, if you’re listening or watching this podcast, you do want to become your own boss, you do want to become a physician entrepreneur and you have the aspirations to do that. So this talk is for you. So if you’re someone looking for a more financial freedom to capture that mythical work-life balance, unless that side gig, really does pay you more than what you’re currently making, you should only focus on side gigs that will help you develop revenue generating assets. And actually at the end of this talk, I’ll give you some questions you can ask yourself and how to determine if that side gig does exactly that, help you produce revenue generation assets.

Now I know what some of you might be saying, “That all sounds good, but it’s not always about the money, Mike. I’m looking to work as a yoga teacher, part-time, I’m not getting paid a lot, but it gives me more time for myself. It clears my mind and I enjoy it.” And that’s great, but that yoga teacher job is not going to lead to more financial freedom if it’s not helping you decrease the amount of hours that you’re working in your current job and leading to something else. Now, if you said, “Hey, I’m doing kind of a yoga teacher job and I want to open a yoga studio.” Well, now that’s more of a business. So in my definition, your yoga teacher job is more of a hobby than an actual job. I know it sounds harsh, but we’re here as entrepreneurs. We’re here to learn more about financial freedom.

And we’re going to go over these revenue generation assets and what those are all about in just a moment, but to get a better understanding, I want to go over the concept of money and how physicians deal with money. And I know that can be an uncomfortable subject, but recently I had been on the internet and I wanted to see what young pre-med people think about medical life or becoming a physician. And we all say we want to become physicians because we want to help people, that’s the typical, stereotypical answer you put on a personal statement or for your entrance into medical school, but a lot of people do look at money and how much they make.

And I was looking at the Student Doctor Network Forum, which is probably the biggest pre-med online forum out there. And it wouldn’t surprise you that a majority of the discussion is about money and, “How much can I make as a family doctor?” “How much can I make as a cardiologist?” etc. There’s a big emphasis, a big concern about is, what is my hourly rate? And for many doctors, this hourly rate is used as a way of just comparing people. And somehow, the intrinsic worth is built into this hourly rate. Let me give you an example.

So every year, they publish the average salary that [inaudible 00:07:31] in a specialty make. You’ll have generally, obviously primary care doctors below, specialist at the top. But does that mean that, let’s say a cosmetic surgeon, are they four to five times more valuable than a pediatrician? Don’t answer that. Of course not. It’s because that’s what society believes that that person is worth. So the cosmetic surgeon might be able to charge thousands of dollars for procedures and make a lot more money than a pediatrician who may not be able to charge these types of amounts, but it has nothing to do with their value, but many doctors have their self-worth wrapped up into their hourly rate. And it’s not just a physician thing, it’s a society thing, but you shouldn’t take your hourly rate as a reason of what you are worth. It’s simply an indication of what someone else is willing to pay you, what society is willing to pay you for that.

So let’s say I’m a family doctor and I work in the outpatient setting. However, I might be able to work twice as much as a hospitalist in the hospital. However, even more than that, if I decide to work, let’s say in a prison, they pay one of the highest salaries for primary care doctors. Does that mean that the salary that I would make as a jail doctor, because I’m making twice as much as an outpatient doctor, do I have twice as much value? Of course not, it’s silly, right? But we have this belief that the more money that we make per hour is somehow better. And too many doctors get caught up in this hourly rate. And the ones that do are substituting time for dollars and not realizing that they can make income besides the actual activities that they’re making, the ones who are not obsessed with that understand the importance of multiple streams of income, but it’s silly.

I’ll give you another example, did you know, you can get a tattoo artist in New York city, they charge $500 an hour. LeBron James, he just signed with the Lakers a few years ago, he makes $586,860 per hour. Does that mean a tattoo artist is worth more than a cardiac surgeon? Does that mean LeBron James is worth 10,000 more times than an emergency room doctor? You guys, if you follow sports, there’s a name you may be familiar with, his name is Gregory Polanco. He plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pittsburgh Pirates, in that shortened season because of COVID, they were the worst team in the Major League Baseball. Gregory Polanco was arguably the worst player on that team. He was at bat 157 times, he got 24 hits. So a 153 average, meaning out of 10 times, he failed.

Some considered it the worst season for a Pittsburgh Pirate in over a hundred years, Greg Polanco made $7 million last year, $3,365 per hour. Just another example of that you got paid at an hourly rate doesn’t mean that you are worth more, but we all have this salary mindset that we need to get out of our heads. So in our lifetime, research has showed that we work as an average, 90,000 hours in our lifetime. And if you’re a doctor who has graduated, actual work time that you have available as a doctor is probably around 70,000, 75,000. How do you want to spend that time? Is it trying to go after the highest hourly rate that you can? I would argue not.

What you need to start doing is to stop looking for side gigs, and instead looking for side income, or as I mentioned, income or side gigs that will help you develop revenue generating assets. You want to create something that will help you develop revenue for a lifetime. So what are revenue generating assets? Are these entrepreneurs owning their own business, whether it be a brick and mortar business, an online business, it can also be creating online courses, creating books, creating content, paid content that pays you monthly. It could be investments, real estate, stocks, developing royalties, all examples of revenue generating assets.

So what are some side gigs that can develop into revenue generating assets? Well, let’s say you want to own your own business. Let’s say you want to own your own med spa. Well, one side gig could be become a medical director for another person’s medical spa. That way, you’re not only learning about the trade, learning about this area, you’ll have the best education that money can buy. You’ll know what’s working, what’s not working, you’ll have an insider look, and that best thing about it is you’re also getting paid for it.

Let’s say you want to sell more books. You want to develop books or become a book writer, or a book publisher. Well, you could take writing gigs on freelance sites, such as Upwork, where you’ll actually learn to pursue this even further, see if you even like it. Those are the skills that’ll pay you off for a lifetime, and those are the side gigs that I want you to start pursuing. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be financial or transactional. I worked as a volunteer writer at an online medical journal that was pretty prominent, and I was really just doing it for exposure and increasing my networking. And it actually led to more higher paid gigs because the editor left and went to some other place that was pretty influential, and then he remembered me and I was chosen for a pretty big writing deal, biggest one that I had.

And so it always doesn’t have to present itself as you’re always going to get paid for it. Can you get exposure and will that lead to more revenue generating assets now and into the future? And so to me, it really doesn’t matter how much you actually might be making per hour, as long as it’s leading to generating some types of revenue assets. So there’s a lot of jobs out there where they’re looking for people to create more health content. A lot of times right now, a lot of video that they need to do.

So where a website just needs more online health content, and you being doctor, you’ll probably be at the top of their choosing and you might not get paid a lot of money to do that, but doing that, will that give you more experience and maybe the courage to create your own course? And let’s say you learn about creating more content, you get comfortable with the video, you learn how to create courses, and now you’ve developed your own course and you launch your own course. And let’s say you sell that course for $100, okay? And just coincidentally, maybe you make a hundred dollars an hour as a doctor, and you’re trying to reduce the amount of hours.

Well, you sell one course a month, you’re going to have the ability to reduce one hour of working for someone else, of working in your medical job, or you keep your current working hours as a physician, and now that extra hundred bucks covers your water bill, or let’s say you sell five copies or $500, now you don’t have to worry about your car payments, or maybe you’re lucky and you sell 10 courses a month, you put some marketing into it and that’s an extra thousand dollars. Now maybe let’s say that’s how much you have to pay for your medical student loan. And now you have the peace of mind to have that covered. That’s the importance of learning skills that will help you develop revenue generating assets.

So when it comes to deciding if you’re going to do a side gig, there’s really only a couple of questions you need to ask. First off, do you need to do it? Or are you doing it just so you can do something else? Because I know some people who get certifications and get master’s degrees, just because it occupies their time, but it’s not helping them develop financial freedom. And the second question is, is what I’ve touched talked about is, is a side gig going to help me develop more time, more money and more enjoyment in the future? Is it developing more revenue generating assets that will build me an income and keep me sustainable for a lifetime? But whatever you do guys, once you find that side gig, don’t just sit around and think about it, that’s not going to help, it only works if you keep moving forward.

Filed Under: Articles, Mindset, NonClinical Jobs

By

The New Normal: COVID-19’s Effect on Physician Entrepreneurs

The last thing you want to watch is another Coronavirus video, but I wanted to address specifically the issues that are affecting you, the Physician Entrepreneur.  You might be feeling guilty if you’re not on the front-lines, or worried if you’ll still have a business if you are.  Here to help is my good friend Maiysha Clairborne, MD, who is a master on the entrepreneurial mindset and what’s she been doing that can be a lesson for us all.  You will get some take home advice after watching….Please stay safe!

 


[TRANSCRIPT]

Living the new normal in the age of COVID-19 and its effect on physician entrepreneurs, in this episode of BootstrapMD.

Hey guys, it’s Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Thank you for joining us. My special guest and good friend, Dr. Maiysha Clairborne, is here. I thought of no better person to help us as physician entrepreneurs know how to deal a bit with what’s going on. Some of you may be feeling guilt; some of you may be in the front lines, and thank you so much for keeping us safe. Maiysha is the person that I talk to to help me get through all of this. You know her as the founder of The Stress Free Mom MD, founder of the Next Level Physician Entrepreneurs Institute. She’s my partner in crime at our BootcampMD events. And I wanted to get her wisdom and her perspective about how she may be dealing with it, and also how she’s maybe helping her clients deal with this, through this tumultuous time. So, without further ado, Maiysha, thank you for taking time in your busy schedule to join us today.

Yes. You know I’m always a yes for you, Dr. Mike. Always. Yes.

Always so positive. So, tell me, first of all, are you safe? What’s going on with you and your business, and of course, your family? What’s going on right now?

Most people know I’m in Atlanta. The schools are closed in Atlanta. Surprisingly, however, my son’s in Montessori, the school was open this week; they just announced closure for next week, so I’m going to be, along with most parents, homeschooling. I’m safe. I have a little bit of the voice thing; that was way before this actually started. But we’re good, we’re safe, we’re good. My family’s good, my mom’s good, my dad’s good, everybody’s good, so I feel blessed in that regard. Thanks for asking.

One of the reasons I asked you on here is you put out a little… a great post, it was a kind of infographic, and what you were basically… The reason for it is you were feeling guilty somewhat. You had your own integrative practice; you’re not clinically in practice right now. Your full-time income is now based upon your online businesses, which is awesome, your coaching business. What was the reason that you put out that infographic? It was, for those who hadn’t seen it, and we can put a link on it, it was basically to talk about how to start a telemedicine practice or how to integrate a telemedicine practice if you’re in clinical practice.

Yeah. So, it’s interesting, because last weekend, and it’s funny, it’s been that long already, but last weekend, I was… I went into the weekend, I was feeling some kind of way, like, “Okay…” I’m a family doc by training, and as a family doc, I feel like I’m supposed to be on the front lines, like the ER docs, the urgent care docs. And as a family doc, most of what I did was in urgent care, that was what I loved to do, and so I felt like, “Man, I could be out there in the urgent care, I could be out there on the front lines, what am I doing?”

And then I had to really get for myself that I am a contribution where I am. And so, I thought, “Well, how can I? What can I do, being that I have primarily transitioned out, 99% out of clinical medicine? What can I do to keep myself and my family safe, but also to contribute to the docs out there?” And that’s why I put out the infographic. I got this sort of swarm of ideas: “Okay, well, there’s a need for telemedicine as we’re going into this sort of stage of quarantine, stage of social distancing. How do we protect the doctors so that they can be home but still serving patients at the same time?” And that’s why I came up with that infographic and put that out.

Now, what do you say to the doctors like myself, I’m not on the front lines, who may be feeling guilty? I talked about this with you last night. What are the things that… Somehow we feel powerless, and I’ve even seen some posts on some of the non-clinical forums where it was like, “Hey, are you guys feeling guilty that you’re getting a non-clinical job?” What do you say to that?

Yeah. You know, it’s easy to, when you’re seeing your colleagues, and especially if you’re trained in one of those frontline specialties, it’s easy to feel like you’re helpless or useless, or like you should be. I think that’s the biggest thing, like, “I should be out there.” It’s almost like survivor’s guilt. A lot of people who are in situations where they survive and other people don’t, it’s like a survivor’s guilt, so it’s sort of like a cousin to that, I feel.

What I say is, you want to look at where you can contribute. First of all, you want to get that where you are, you are a contribution. In every level… I was talking to my friend who is a physician, but also he’s in the military, and he’s actually over in South Korea, and he was telling me that there are levels of contribution to make things work at a system level. There’s the front lines, and then there’s the officer level, but then there’s logistics. And we don’t realize, as people who may be, like those docs who are non-clinical, who are working in utilization review, who are doing disability exams, who are doing all kinds of other things that are not directly in those front lines, what our contribution is to helping keep people well. Because believe it or not, there are people who still need… There are still people who need regular health care, like general, routine. There are people who need to have these utilization reviews so they can get their stuff paid for. The world is still turning.

So, wherever you are, and especially in entrepreneurship, like as coaches, especially… I hear it a lot from people who have transitioned to online business and coaching like myself. People need coaches, people need guidance in this time. Even the entrepreneurs, one of the things that I put out, I said in one of my live streams, was that this is a time where, as a new entrepreneur, it’s not the time to get scared, it’s the time to push forward, it’s the time to move forward in your business, in your idea, because there’s an amazing opportunity ahead.

So, first you got to really get, wherever you are, you are a contribution. That’s just what’s so. And it doesn’t, like you said, I’m just… Honor and respect, and I’m grateful for those who are on the front line. And now, we have, those of us who are not on the front line, we are not because we have the option of not being on the front line.

At least for now; we don’t know.

Right. Right, for now, absolutely, for now. And for now, right? And so, let’s look at where we can contribute. Where can you contribute? It could just be speaking out. I’ve seen a lot of docs doing Facebook Lives lately, educating people on the symptoms of coronavirus, or urging people to observe the social distancing, really being educators. And we undercut the value of our knowledge and what we could be doing, even from the periphery, not from the front line. You see what I’m saying? So, I think it’s just important to get, there are so many other ways that you can contribute that make a difference, that are going to help these people on the front lines, like educating, like putting out infographics, like supporting the docs. I’m going to probably be doing some online meditations over the next coming weeks just to kind of give some respite, a recorded meditation. That’s tools, just to give docs respite when they’re out there in the field. So, I mean, there’s just lots of little things that we don’t feel sometimes is relevant that really are relevant.

Yeah, and that just reminded me, even with my own people that I teach and some students, one student said… And I’m helping her with her online business, and she said, “You know what? I need to have this information even faster now. I need to move right now. It’s just given me more impetus to start working on my own.” And if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a leader, and this is also a great time for opportunity. Not opportunity like, “Hey, I’m going to hoard all these respirators or masks and sell them,” but opportunity is like, what is your skillset? What are you doing?

If you feel that your best aspect of your business is teaching, teaching in entrepreneurship, whether it be helping them with investing, helping them starting their own businesses, if you are… Or if you feel that your best need is to educate the public on COVID-19, then go ahead and do that. But whatever you do, don’t… I think the last thing you want to do is just kind of huddle up, even though all of us are huddling up, but use that time to be productive. You were just talking, you’re using it to create content, using it to create videos, preparing for your kids, what’s to come.

Right, right.

So, these are all opportunities for you to work on, and almost have a time out. I’ve seen, at least for many of my entrepreneurs, many of whom I know, they’ve got multimillion-dollar businesses, they’re looking at it to actually, interesting, have a pause in their business right now, and actually almost like a reset. “What am I doing this for? Why am I actually doing this? For myself, protect my family, those kinds of things.” But use that, as someone who… If you are learning to be an entrepreneur, use this time to… Hey, you know, we should be prepared. I’m a preacher of multiple streams of income, having streams of income. If you’re someone who’s like, “Oh, shoot,” or other words similar to that, “my whole income is based upon me being an employee.” Well, yeah, it kind of sucks the way it is, but what could you do in the next time this happens? Because there will be a next time, whatever that is. There will be a next time.

Absolutely, yeah.

And prepare for it, you know? And use this as a learning lesson for you. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, no, this is absolutely the time to be thinking about, what can you do to create that new stream of income? This is a time to be… Like you said, I’m using this time to not only create content, but also to reevaluate my business model, my business strategy, my marketing strategy. This is a good time for those who are already in business to take a step back and to look at, “Hey, what is the big picture here, and how can I be profitable, but also be relevant and be a contribution at the same time?”

There is a principle in NLP, y’all know that I am an NLP trainer, and there’s a principle that says the person or persons with the most flexibility controls the system. And it’s so important that you get that, because in this time… I was just talking to a colleague, like, look, whatever your message is, make it relevant for what’s going on to empower the people. You’re building community, you’re empowering people, but you’re also being flexible inside the system. And then, as all of this starts to boil over, you are going to be at the forefront of people’s minds as someone who was supporting and a contribution, and you’ll be the person people look to in the future.

So, just think about that, think about… And not as an “in order to,” but more as, this is what you can be doing, this is what you can be doing to impact. Like you said, you’re not on the front lines, but you still can be making an impact, and at the end of the day, this will also benefit your business. Right? But now is the time to be doing this.

Another question people have brought up too, and something that I’ve felt as well is, “Well, maybe this is not the time to be selling. I don’t want to feel like I’m taking advantage of the situation.” People also may be more holding on to money right now because of the uncertainty. What do you say to that, or how are you dealing with that?

You know, I have not found that to be true. I still have people who… And I think it’s now more than ever, because people are looking for a way out, people are looking for something different. And so, while they will be more mindful of their spending, they’re not going to necessarily stop it, especially if you have something of value that is going to contribute and pull them forward. So, I say, continue to promote, but in a way that is relevant to what’s going on, in a way that helps to empower people.

In all of my video content, I have an invitation for people to schedule a strategy call with me. I have an invitation for people to check out my free masterclass, which will lead them into an invitation to schedule a strategy call or to join membership. Right? So I don’t think we need to feel guilty about promoting our business; we just need to do it in a way that has integrity, and a way that is ecological. But yeah, definitely don’t stop promoting yourself. Just, you know, make it relevant.

Right. I had one mentor tell me, he’s… Be opportunistic, but ethical, obviously. You know, ethical and integrity, because that’s, at the end of the day, that’s really what it’s all about.

Yeah.

Dr. Maiysha, this has been amazing. I know you’ve got a lot of stuff going on too. Also realize, guys, that there’s a lot more people on social media these days. If you’ve been having trouble getting in front of someone right now, there’s a lot of people who are on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, social media, whatever it is. Whatever your social media is of choice, start making more videos. And we’re seeing that too, we’re seeing more Facebook Lives, a lot more now with LinkedIn Lives, and different things, and it is… You know, the engagement is there, so if you have something of value, you owe it to your public to share that with your audience. You really owe it to them.

So, thank you, Dr. Maiysha, thank you for this impromptu therapy session. Where can they go to get more information about what you have to offer?

They can always go to drmaiysha.com. I have three masterclasses, one being directly related to mindset, Remap Your Mind for Manifestation and Success, Cracking the Code, and the, of course, Non-Salesy Selling. You know I love talking about sales. So, you can access the free masterclasses right on my home page, drmaiysha.com, and if you want, you can also schedule a strategy call if you need a little help with your mindset.

Thanks again, Maiysha. Of course ,,,[glad] your family is safe during this time.

Thank you.

And of course, all of you out there in internet land. And as always, don’t just hunker down, keep moving forward.

Keep moving forward. Y’all stay safe, namaste.

Namaste.

 

Filed Under: Articles, Entrepreneurship, NonClinical Jobs

By

5 Ways You May Be Sabotaging Your Entrepreneurial Dreams as a Doctor

What are five ways that as physicians and doctors, we are sabotaging our entrepreneurial aspirations? Once you recognize these reasons, it might help you transition from doctor to entrepreneur. My plan is that these issues will help you recognize the problem and then deciding to do something about it. So let’s get started.

#1: We are trained to be risk averse.

We aren’t comfortable with uncertainty. We don’t like ambiguity. You know, we like having the opportunity to follow the conclusions of a double blind placebo study. But the definition of starting a business is you got to take on risk. Now the good news is, unlike in medicine, starting a side gig generally doesn’t involve life or death. It’s something that you have to be comfortable with every single day of our job as a doctor.

It really comes down to, understanding that you have to be comfortable with going outside of your comfort zone. It’s kind of nice to be in that comfort zone of the day to day doctor life. Being an entrepreneur, you can have to deal with some sleepless nights. You need to have to be able to deal with stress. It’s not for everyone.

#2: We don’t like to sell.

I don’t like to sell. It’s not very comfortable. But obviously as a business you have to learn how to sell and not nobody wants to be that used car salesman. But as a doctor, one of the skills that you have is that you do sell. You sell every day. You are recommending to a patient to get that X-ray, get an ultrasound, take that medication, writing that prescription that you have to sell. It may not seem like you’re taking in money, but it is something that you’re doing to sell to them, to help their life, to help with their health. But there are ways that you can get around with selling. I think physicians, we can sell through education. You can create a webinar about your thoughts as a doctor. You can create some content.

Again, I don’t like doing that kind of stuff either. But if you show that you are someone who knows what they’re talking about, you’re ahead of the game. If you can provide value to others, there are ways that if they want to get to work with you, you want to make sure that your time is worth money. That’s how the world works. And again, it’s not our fault.

I’m going to say this again and again. Doctors and profiting does, doesn’t always mix. We know how the general public thinks of that. You know, physicians don’t like us to accumulate. And again, that those are kind of those inner things that we have that just physicians and money that we’ve always kind of struggled with. I’ve struggled with that myself. But selling is an integral part of a business. You’re not going to have a successful business if you’re not able to sell. If you want to become an entrepreneur, you have to be able to overcome this hurdle.

#3: We don’t like doing things out of the ordinary.

Most of us are followers. We are not leaders. Being an entrepreneur is against what most of us, aspire to do. We look down upon doctors who are on the fringes. They’re doing something against the ordinary. They might be listed on these medical boards or they get in trouble. And as entrepreneurs, if you have want to provide some solutions to problems that have been existing, sometimes you have to go outside of the box, right?

You have to do something new and innovative. And many people are not comfortable with that. When I wanted to leave my job working full time in primary care, they didn’t approve it. When I speak at conferences about entrepreneurship, I’ve had push back from these conferences.

They’re like, “Hey, we just want a doctor that writes prescriptions, makes sure they’re following HIPAA, works on their ICD 10 code, and make sure they’re coding correctly. We don’t like doing things outside of the box. We don’t like doing things outside of what we’re doing.” If you wanted to become a doctor, we had to do well in college, either doing premed, we had to do volunteer work, we had to get great MCAT scores, AND get great personal statements. Then we’d go into medical school, you know, do well on our board exams and then go into the residency. Everything was done step by step.

In entrepreneurship, there is no real step-by-step. There ARE different ways that you can build successful businesses, but there’s no step-by-step way.

#4: We don’t want to learn new skills.

I get it. We’re going to be doing activities that we’ve had no training on. We don’t get any business training in medical school. It’s not something that we’re comfortable with, and we often hire somebody else to do that part of business. But it’s something you need to know as an entrepreneur. You don’t have to do everything, but you have to understand sales. You have to understand finances and marketing. Sure you could hire a marketing company, but you need to know why they’re doing one, why they’re doing it, and you need to know what are the skills that you need to learn to understand what’s working.

You have to understand about conversion and about building a funnel. You have to understand a sales process and following up. It’s not just buying a billboard. There are ways that you have to understand it. Sometimes we just throw money at it and hope that problem solves itself.

Another thing about doctors is that we love to have initials behind their name. If you want to go into business, I want to do it the right way, right? You need to get that MBA. I’ve argued you don’t need to have an MBA unless you want to become like a hospital administrator or something like that. Perfectly fine. But if you want to have a successful business, I don’t want you to be spending money for two years just because you think you need an MBA.

I’ve known many multimillionaires with successful businesses that haven’t even graduated college or even attended college, let alone have an MBA to become a doctor. But you have to understand that if you want to live on your own terms and become your own boss, you have to make a decision. Am I going to be someone who is going to find my own dream? Or am I going to be working on someone else’s dream? There’s nothing wrong with it. Just know that as an employee, you’re fulfilling someone else’s dreams.

#5: It isn’t worth leaving your role as a doctor.

As doctors, we generally make pretty good money. And you know, we know that through research that most people are motivated by pain or avoidance of pain, than actual pleasure.

So an idea that you’re going to make around $200,000 and you might eventually make $500,000 in most cases, that’s pleasure. That’s something that is not as motivating as… Losing your job for something you don’t need skills for. And starting a business is the only way to build up an income.

When I went and I left my job, the pain was knowing that I wanted to be somewhere different, so I knew I needed to get out of that situation. I was in an area of my life where I was surrounded by a lot of negativity. For me, the urge to get out was great for me to help me start up my businesses.

We’re comfortable to just join a Facebook group with entrepreneurs and see what other people are doing and then following. But we’re not really invested into it. People are not really engaged into it and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with it. Sometimes we like to live vicariously through what other people are doing. There are some people thinking that, “Someday I’ll start a business and someday I’ll work on creating a blog. Someday I’ll start that side gig!” They never get off that Sunday Island. You just need that push.

If you want to grow and you want to build your own dream, it’s through entrepreneurship. You need to become more risk averse and you need to be able to identify these problems that you inherently as a doctor you have that are stopping you from becoming a and starting your own business.

Filed Under: Articles, Entrepreneurship, NonClinical Jobs, Online Business

By

The Truth About Non-Clinical Jobs with Michelle Mudge-Riley

Increasing job dissatisfaction is leading to an influx of physicians looking to go non-clinical, resulting in these type of jobs getting harder and harder to come by. Competition is getting fierce leading to dwindling wages. More sham telemedicine companies are popping up taking advantage of desperate doctors. So what’s a doctor to do? We talk job hunting strategies with renowned non-clinical coach and mentor Michelle Mudge-Riley on what you need to do now to avoid the pitfalls, and stay ahead of the competition.

Michelle will be hosting a conference in April 2019 for physicians interested in non-clinical careers and side gigs. PHP Conference Details

(Start Transcript)

Too much competition for dwindling nonclinical jobs? Sham telemedicine companies taking advantage of desperate doctors? We’re going to talk about the pitfalls to choosing a nonclinical career as well as possible solutions on this episode of BootstrapMD.

Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming with BootstrapMD, really excited today. We’re going to be talking with one of the veterans in the industry. I’ve known her. We’ve been in different circles, but we didn’t actually get to connect until recently. We’ve both been involved in physician education in terms of helping doctors with nonclinical careers in entrepreneurship. What I want you guys to get out of this is really to understand that there are so many ways that you can become successful, but the best way I believe is to have a coach or have a mentor, someone who’s actually been there and done that.

Michelle has certainly done this. Really quick bio about Michelle Mudge-Riley: She’s a physician and peer mentor coach. She spent the past 13 years assisting physician to medical students with career strategy through the company she founded in 2008 called Physicians Helping Physicians. The doctors she works with are interested in using degrees in a nontraditional way as I mentioned through non-clinic careers, optimizing their skills and passions within their career and rediscovering meaning and purpose in their work. She’s been called the doctor’s doctor in the 2010 book she co-authored because of her success in working with other doctors.

The book is called Physicians in Transition. I love things that rhyme. Dr. Mudge-Riley received her medical degree from Des Moines University, Osteopathic Medical School, and her master’s degree in health administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. Michelle, thank you for being on the podcast today.

Hi, Mike! I’m so happy to be here!

Like I said, we’ve known about each other, or I’ve at least known about you for the last decade because when we were helping physicians, there were very few other mentors in this space. I’m really glad that we’re finally connecting. One of the reasons we’re connecting is I was honored to be able to present at her conference that is coming up, the celebration network meeting coming up in Austin in April, which we’ll be talking about throughout the call here today. Thanks again for coming on the call. I know you’re really busy. You got a lot of things going on, especially with this conference. I just wanna know how did you first get started, because last time I checked, there wasn’t a residency for nonclinical careers mentor coaching.

I know. Well, I started very accidentally. I planned to be a doctor and live happily ever after. That was the plan, which probably is most of our plan. It’s most physician’s plan when they go to medical school. As happens to now a lot of us, it wasn’t the plan, so I ended up getting into somewhat of a malignant residency. While I loved med school, when I started meeting the residents and the attendants and the other physicians who were practicing, I saw how unhappy they were and I was pretty unhappy myself and I thought, “Wow, all this so the next 40 years I can be a miserable, angry person who hates what they do?”

I thought, “There’s no way I’m doing this.” I was young, and I decided to take a year off and see what else was out there, explore industry. I got a job at a medical device company, and fully intended on going back. It’s been almost 20 years and I haven’t gone back. What ended up happening was I went back to school for a business degree, a masters in health administration just to fill some of those gaps because we don’t learn business at all in med school as we all know. During the time of my transition from that, from the device company, then to a brokerage firm working in corporate wellness, I was their director of medical management.

I worked with small and medium sized companies helping them design, implement, and evaluate their wellness programs. I started talking about my story and writing about it. I actually cold called some editors, and they said, “Sure. Write us a piece and we’ll publish it.” This was back in the early 2000’s. Physician burnout was just starting to be talked about. People wanted to hear a little more. I was somewhat of a novelty. I was authentic and just spoke about my trials and tribulations if you will, and people liked it.

I always put my email address at the end, and I would get contacted by other physicians and then people who were doing conferences asking me to speak to tell my story. It was all quite accidental. I just basically told the truth and talked about what had helped me, how I did a resume, how I went to Barnes and Noble and sold a hundred resume books, and didn’t have a clue on how to even start to put together a resume, but I figured it out. These triple boarded surgeons were calling me and saying, “Hey, can you help me write a resume?” I was like, “Well, sure. All right.”

For a while, I just helped people and then I realized, “You know what, this is taking up a lot of my time” so at one point I just said, “You know, I charge for this,” and the physician was like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, “Okay,” and my business was born. Over the years, I’ve had multiple different cost structures for coaching and help with resumes and elevator pitch, and LinkedIn comes along and all these different things, but for some reason, it’s always worked. I have helped a lot of physicians, and that has been so gratifying and through the process healed myself as well, because I felt like a huge failure and like, “Why don’t I want to do this?”

Because there weren’t a lot of us out there, I didn’t really know who to talk to, and there weren’t a lot of groups like there are now. I very much felt alone at that time probably like you did, right?

Pretty much. One of the things that was interesting is I actually didn’t find a lot of conferences where you could actually talk about some of these things. Some of the medical conferences that I was attending, I actually have one where they asked me to speak, but then when I was going to talk about entrepreneurship or doing something else, one of the people who led the conference says, and they were in the pharmaceutical industry, basically said that, “Yeah, that’s kind of not what we want to talk about, because we want the doctors to write more prescriptions. They cannot do what they want. They cannot not to in certain terms.”

It’s good that you were able to find an avenue for your message that you’re able to get across.

I really think it was all just timing and a lot of luck. Again, I didn’t plan it that way. It just kind of happened. As you know, then the tide continued with things getting even worse, which is really unfortunate, so back even in the early 2000’s when things weren’t great, now they’re much worse for doctors. There are a lot of us that are saying, “No, this is enough. We’re going to diversify what we’re doing or we have other interests,” and so doing a lot of things in addition to clinical work.

That’s interesting you say that it’s getting worse because I can agree with that, but I can also disagree with that. Let me know your thoughts on it. I think one is we’re talking about it more so maybe it’s been more prevalent, and burnout and then more and more people feel like, “Hey, yeah, I’m experiencing that.” I did that initially in my career. I definitely had burnout, but I think in the other way look red, there was definitely more opportunities for physicians, especially the nonclinical route in terms of things like telemedicine, pharmaceutical industry, expert witnessing and actually now about starting your own career through an online business or through consulting is which we did around but we didn’t call it back then, but all these different conferences about getting your message out into the world.

I’m just curious about your thoughts on where you’re seeing medicine as it pertains to nonclinical careers.

I definitely agree that things are better in terms of more opportunities and more people talking about this. It’s not the pink elephant in the room anymore, and no one feels like something’s really wrong with them, at least maybe at first, but not after they start exploring it. They start to recognize that there are lots of doctors who have done something different, some who have gone totally nonclinical and never looked back and some who diversify with some clinical, some side gigs, some part-time work, a variety of stuff, a grab bag of stuff.

The reason I feel like it’s worse for physicians now practicing is because the reimbursement continues to go down. Not only that, but the environment for physicians is very malignant in a lot of places. It wasn’t that way. It was starting to be that way in the early 2000’s, maybe a few pockets of really bad places, but it has gone downhill. I continue to talk to physicians who practice, who tell me stories about how they’re vilified and how no matter what happens, it’s always the doctor’s fault.

That just makes me really sad because a lot of these doctors will start to have very low self-esteem, very low confidence in themselves because they blame themselves because they’re being blamed by the administration or the nurses. They’re even having some legal action taken against them in some cases, or they’re losing their licenses, or they’re losing their jobs. I mean, that used to be unheard of physicians being fired. I mean, that was part of the reason I wanted to go to medical school. I thought, “Gosh, this would be a great job. I’ll make a good amount of money, and I will always have a job.” Well, that’s no longer the case.

Anyway, the environment for the physician who wants to practice clinically or who is practicing clinically I feel like is much worse than it was even 10 years ago, but the environment for nonclinical careers or non-traditional careers is better. That’s been born from this bad clinical environment, so a lot of business people see an opportunity, which is good. Then there are a lot of us who have spoken up over the years and are saying, “We can help you, or look at this opportunity or that opportunity.” Then others take advantage of it, and the word spreads.

That is really interesting. Again, you’re more on the front lines than I am because you do coach these physicians who are into these malingering environments. I’d like to dig a little bit deeper into that. Are there certain environments that are worse than others? Is it more of a hospital environment? Is it affecting younger doctors who may not have as much experience or may not feel that they can go in and go against? Do you see it more in the corporate? Is there any kind of area or is that too hard to stereotype? I’m curious.

Well, it really doesn’t distinguish. I actually think the younger doctors are maybe the best off at this point, not in terms of residency because it’s just a vial time and place, and people are treated just abhorrently in residency in some places. You still see those stories. Now, there are blogs out there so you can read the stories. I just read one last week. I forget which one it was, but on some forum, someone posted something. There’s a ton of stuff out there, but for different physicians of different ages, different genders, even foreign grads versus medical grads or US medical grads, it can still be difficult for both.

I spoke with a foreign grad the other day who was telling me about the environment for him and some of his colleagues. They are having to put up with just it sounds like a little bit more than they should. I’m not 100% sure if it’s because they’re foreign medical grads or not, but he seems to think they are. You only really see one side in some of these conversations, and so I’m not sure, but I have heard that from others. That may be a piece of it as well. The older physicians are having somewhat of a hard time with the transition to the electronic medical record.

Some of them just flat out can’t do it or won’t do it, and some of them can and will, but the administration isn’t willing to give them a chance or they’re just piling so much work. It’s non-sustainable for almost anyone. It’s tough in a lot of different places. You find it in different pockets, from academic medical centers to private medical centers. It does not distinguish, unfortunately.

I wanna shift gears just a bit… I liked what you said about nontraditional careers as opposed to non-clinical careers because I consider telemedicine is a clinical, but it’s not traditional, but that’s kind of semantics. I was recently talking with a friend who’s not a doctor, and he was telling me he has a business where he markets to doctors. He says, “I can’t find doctors on social media.” I said, “That’s because they’re there, they just don’t let you know they’re there.”

I said, “Did you know one of the largest groups is a Facebook group dedicated to side gigs for physicians? Do you know, the last I checked, it’s 23,000?” Because of this influx, is it getting harder to find a “nonclinical” job just because there’s so much interest in it? I’ve talked to a few of my own clients and they think that once they quit, jobs will be plentiful for them. It seems like it’s getting more and more competitive for these types of jobs, or is there an influx of more opportunities that I’m just not aware of?

There are definitely more opportunities, which is good, but it’s getting more competitive because where it used to be a trickle of physicians applying for some of the more low hanging fruit, like the utilization review or the telemedicine jobs, now, it’s a faucet. There are just lots and lots of physicians applying, so they have made the requirements more stringent at times. Sometimes, those requirements don’t need to be so stringent, but because there are so many applicants, the companies feel like they can.

I definitely want to talk about more of the positive stuff, but I do have to mention another somewhat negative part about all of this is some of the salaries have actually gone down or the pay has gone down for some of those more low hanging fruit jobs because they can get it. There are so many physicians who want out and want more flexibility or want non-traditional work that they’re willing to take $75, $80 an hour.

Oh wow.

It’s ridiculous versus $110, $120, which is still pretty low, but I mean, there’s a pretty big difference there. Although we’ve come together as physicians to try to not stand for that and not accept that low pay, there’s talk but I think people are still accepting it because they’re just desperate and they want out. It’s better than working at Starbucks or something like that, and they don’t know what else to do. I mean, the other problem is it’s hard to find information on the different opportunities that are not the low-hanging fruit like the utilization review work or telemedicine work or expert witness work, which not everyone wants to do either, IME work, things like that.

One of the things I also noticed too just because there is people going in to try to give these nontraditional jobs, I think you have to do your due diligence. I’ve seen now where because there is so much opportunity and particularly in the telemedicine space, I’m noticing. I recently talked to a colleague and he was going to say, “Hey, I joined this telemedicine group, but they’re going to be prescribing medications online without a physical exam, or they’re going to be sending me crutches or braces, and they’re going to put it on Medicare.”

I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” As a physician, you definitely need to do your due diligence because there are these big cases now, and these telemedicine companies, not all, I’m not saying anything, but there was definitely people who are trying to use your license to make a buck. Whether or not it’s legal or not legal, you need to be very careful. I mean, have you come across any of these types of companies? I certainly have seen them, but I just want to know your thoughts. Have you worked with doctors who may have come across these kinds of things?

Absolutely. I have done a lot of due diligence to the point of calling the companies and pretending like I was going to be applying for the work just to get the information because I’m a lot more savvy only because I’ve been out there for longer. I’ve been doing this for longer, so I feel like with my clients, I can help them out by giving them not only a second opinion but also the experience that I’ve gotten over the years just in the business world and interacting with these companies and maybe pick up things that they may not.

The people I work with appreciate that, but what I found is avoid those companies. There is a lot of shady stuff that’s happening. There are a lot of loopholes that some smart people are trying to take advantage of, and when something happens, the ones who are going to take the fall are going to be the physicians and their license. Avoid those like the plague. The DME, the durable medical equipment, avoid that right now, any kind of prescribing, especially any kind of pain medication, pain creams, stuff like that.

Make sure if you’re looking at a telemedicine job that there’s some kind of electronic portal that there’s some option for a video conference. That’s not always the case. You don’t have to have a video conference. There just has to be that option. All the legal aspects are beyond the scope of this podcast, but definitely do your due diligence on these companies because, this is a gross generalization, but I would say probably a third of them are shady and they’re gonna end up taking a fall real soon.

Again, the telemedicine… It differs for in each state. I know in California for example, you can’t prescribe if you’ve not actually laid hands on the patient, but every state is different. Montana is different than California, et cetera. I’m glad of that because that’s something that not a lot of people talk about, and every now and then, you’ll see it on the forum. “Hey, I’ve got this job. Does this sound legit?” You kind of know in your gut. You gotta know in your gut.

I mean, it sounds great. That’s the problem. I mean, it sounds amazing. You do it from anywhere, anytime. They’re willing to pay. They’re quick to get back to you. Well, there’s a reason for that. They need someone and they need your license and they need your degree.

It’s those things that a lot of people think nonclinical jobs, but, again, there are definitely companies that are taking advantage of it. We kept talking about negative stuff.

I know. Let’s get into the positive!

Let’s get into the positive stuff. Doctors are listening to this working right now. Maybe they’re working full time. Maybe they’re looking to, reduce the amount of hours. They’re looking into nonclinical careers, but they don’t have the experience or they don’t know where to start, kind of an overgeneralization. I know that, but what kind of advice, what kinds of things can they be doing right now if they’re looking to transitioning to a nonclinical career?

The best thing you can do right now is free and you can do it yourself. It seems kind of contrary to what you might think because I know most people expect to get a list of different things that they can look into, and then they choose one of those and that’s it, but that is not the best way to go about doing this. You really need to look at yourself first. Where do you want to be one, three to five years from now? How much money do you want to be making? What location do you want to be in?

I know some of this is impossible to predict, but you can put together a plan, at least a skeleton of a plan somewhat easily, and that’s going to guide you because the perfect job is not the perfect job if you’re not living, say, near your family and you need to because you have aging parents or for some reason you just have to return to, I don’t know, Sacramento for some reason. If you’re not there, your life is just not worth it. I mean, again, a gross generalization, but you really need to figure out where you want to be. Then taking a look at how you work best.

Do you work best from home? Do you work best going to an office? Understanding those things is very, very helpful. Now, at some point, you do have to look at the reality. What is really available to you as well? What age are you? I’m not talking about age discrimination at all. I’m just talking about do you have time to gain a skill set that you may need to gain if that’s what you want to do? If your burning desire is to go to law school, great, but it doesn’t make sense to pay the money. Go, spend the time getting that degree, and then working up a little bit because there’s always gonna be that working up from any new jobs.

Maybe, instead, you look at law careers that aren’t going to require a law degree, and maybe it’s not being a JD or an esquire. I forget exactly what it is. Lynn Marie was coaching me on what it means to be a full attorney. I thought it was just a JD degree, but it’s much more than that.

Hey, you’re not the only one who she’s coached. Lynn Marie, I love her.

I know. We both do. Anyway, so maybe just then, “Okay, great.” You know you want to be in the legal field. You’re fascinated by that. You want to combine that with your medical background. Awesome. You don’t have to be an attorney. That helps you then start to cool down on different things rather than just opening up a book of just a thousand different careers, getting overwhelmed or jumping straight to telemedicine or utilization review.

I do want to add the caveat though that those careers are low-hanging fruit for a reason, so it is still somewhat, I don’t want to say easy, but if you want to get into that, it’s going to probably be a shorter road than completely changing your career. If that is your only option, if you are a certain age, you have certain family obligations, you have a spouse or kids or aging parents or whatever the case, there’s all kinds of different situations. Your dream may be to go into the legal field, but it just doesn’t make sense because you’re looking at your life on a big picture level.

Again, first step is to check yourself. Spend some time reflecting. Don’t spend two years. Then that’s two years wasted, but you don’t have to pay a lot of money. You don’t have to do anything real crazy. It’s really just being honest with yourself and what you want and then you can start going to some conferences or paying someone to help you. I’ve had too many people that have paid me a lot of money to help them, and we’ve gotten a lot done, but they didn’t do this first step. Then because of that, they’re still working clinically. They have an amazing resume, and they’re ready to do something else, but they haven’t gotten past really knowing where they want to be, and so finding those right opportunities.

You’re preaching to the choir. I’m a big stickler on the doctors that they love to get more degrees on their name. I have a friend who ran the MBA program at John Hopkins. I would ask him. I said, “How many of the doctors are actually using it?” He says, “Unfortunately, not as many as what we hope for. There are some who would definitely they might go into administration, et cetera, and then there are some, they’re looking for something else to do and they’d want to pay $35,000 a year to do that.”

I said, “You know what, if there is a job out there that you want and there’s someone who’s doing what you want to do, instead of paying all that money, ask to shadow them for a week, if that’s something you want to do for a few days just to see if this is something that you want, because the grass isn’t always greener just because this is maybe nonclinical. It just might be in the situation. I was in medicine, and then I was out of medicine, and then went back in. I have my own clinic because I still like medicine, but I wanted to live on my own terms.

We have an insurance free type clinic. We do have that kind of thing, but I enjoy that aspect of it. Just because it’s different to a nonclinical, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something that you may want to do, that you could still, like myself, enjoy medicine, but medicine is so broad. There’s still different opportunities that you can get into. For someone who is like, “I’m in clinical. I want out.” Don’t completely close that door. That’s my two cents on that.

No, that’s very astute. I find that most people have that experience when they’re starting to look at nonclinical, and they go back and forth. It’s really hard to figure out because you don’t know if you like something until you do it, so there’s a little bit of that as well. Another thing you can do is really get some freelance or project work, and there’s tons of that available now, much more than there even was five years ago. Sign up for some of these sites, freelancer, Fiverr. There’s a ton of them.

Upwork.com.

Yup. Yup. That’s another one. Yup. FlexJobs, and just get some experience doing something else and figure out, first of all, do I like this? Second of all, you’ll have some projects under your belt and experience. That’s the value that you bring. It unfortunately isn’t the fact that you’re a doctor, although we all know we can do anything, and it makes us amazing people.

That’s right.

Anyone who wants to hire us may Look at that and they may think, “Okay, well, they don’t have experience in banking or finance, and so next. Who’s the next applicant kind of thing?”

There’s a lot of stuff that are still out there. I’m glad you ended on a positive note. That’s great. Speaking about positive, we’ve got an event coming up on April. I’d call these physicians … It’s a mouthful. Physicians Helping Physicians celebration and network meeting for a PCCNM.

Love it.

Let’s talk about why you decided to put on an event. I believe this is the first, I guess, big event that you’ve put on before. Doctors who listen to this, why should they come to this besides meeting us, of course?

I know. I have been thinking about this for a very long time. As we talked about, we’ve been in this space for a long time ourselves, not only looking at something different, but helping others do something different. At some point, I feel like bringing us all together makes us stronger. It also is meeting people and hearing about their experiences in person can’t be … You cannot get that experience with Facebook groups. You cannot get that experience with podcasts. You can get a little bit of it, but it is not the same as coming together and actually meeting people, hearing their story live, hearing their advice live.

I’ve had that experience myself going to other conferences, and so I finally decided to do it. I’ve toyed with the idea. I actually had two other conferences scheduled over the years, and I ended up canceling them because it wasn’t the right time, and it wasn’t working out the way that I felt like it would be the best experience for the attendees. When I decided to try it again, I have a small army of people behind me helping me this time, other physicians. I call them the founding members, and they’ve agreed to really help me with putting this event on.

Then other people came out of the woodwork, so again, timing, so people like you, people like Lynn Marie, people like spokesperson. She’s been an anchor for over 25 years, and she’s going to come and speak and do some helping with just presenting yourself and if you want to get on TV, how to do it. It feels right this time. That’s evidenced by the amount of people who have already signed up to come. We have over 60 people already signed up for the first time, and that’s pretty amazing for a live event, because people have to travel there and they have to take time off.

I’m so grateful to those who have already signed up. It’s just going to be an amazing experience for everyone. People will get to hear about the different options in a nonclinical career. If you’re even considering it at all, you can find out what other people have done and hear their story and find out how hard it was for them. There’s gonna be tons of networking, so one of the benefits of what I’ve done is built a network of people easier. Please don’t hear that. I’m not guaranteeing anyone a job.

It happens all the time, where you’ll be speaking to someone who’s transitioned and they either are hiring or they know someone who’s hiring, and they’re willing to help you because they understand and they’ve been there. That’s the best way to get a job is networking anyway, and a good job at that. That’s what we’re doing. It’s the first time so it’s a little scary, but I am doing everything I can to make it a great experience, and hopefully it will be and it will be the first of many to come.

It’s happening April 6th and 7th in Austin, Texas.

Yes.

According to your website, the hotel, I just want to make sure, it is not sold out. You have a block of rooms apparently that may be got, but there is space at the hotel. Is that correct at least on the time of this recording?

That’s right. As of this recording right now, and today’s the sixth of March, the hotel is not sold out so you can still book a room at the conference hotel. The block of rooms that I reserved has been sold out now for a little over a month, but they didn’t give us a huge discount anyway. It’s the first time that the conference is being held, so you’re not really missing out by not getting that discount. There is still space.

I will close the registrations at some point in the next couple of weeks, just because I don’t want to overwhelm everyone and myself and making sure that I give a great experience to everyone, and for practical reasons. I have to give food, numbers, and things like that. If you haven’t signed up yet, you still have a week or two, but please do it sooner rather than later because people are registering in the next couple of days. I’ll try to let everyone know when that happens, and I’ll start a waiting list at that point.

What is the website where they go to register?

The website is Physicians Helping Physicians website. It’s www.p as in Paul, H as in Henry, physicians, with an S on the end, dotcom. If you go to that, you’ll go to the homepage, and you’ll see a button for the celebration meeting. You can click on that and it’ll take you to the page where you can register. The conference is donation only so you can choose to donate or not. I would appreciate a small donation just to cover the food expenses, but this is the first time I’m having it and so I wanted to make sure that everyone gets value out of it.

Next year, there will be a required registration fee. Take advantage now of the donation only. Are you there?

Yeah. Sorry. You’ve been cutting out. That’s okay.

No worries. Nope. That’s it.

That’s great. That donation only, that is true. I definitely know it can be very expensive to run events, especially with food and hotels trying to jack up the price and charging water for $5 or $10.

It’s crazy.

Believe me, I know that. Michelle is very generous with the donations. I would advise you to donate on the higher side if you can, because it just helps pay everything out. I guess, this is the first time I’m actually hearing it is that there might be a second one.

Yeah. As long as this is successful, and we’ll be doing surveys after the fact. As long as it works for everyone, then we’re gonna start doing this on a yearly basis. We may move the location at some point. We may have multiple locations. All remains to be seen. Let’s get through the first one.

Again, it’s coming up on April 6 and 7 in Austin, Texas. The Physicians Helping Physicians celebration and networking meeting or PHPCNM, hashtag.

That’s right. That’s right.

As we know it. I hope you can come. I’ll be there. I look forward. If I haven’t met you before, come there. If you heard this on the call, let me know and we’ll love to chat with you to see what your plans are, what your dreams are happening now because there is tremendous opportunity. We’ll end it up optimistic now. There is tremendous opportunity that is out there, but like you said, the best jobs, if that’s what you’re looking for, the best jobs aren’t usually advertising. It comes from networking, like going to events such as what we’re having.

Michelle, thank you so much on there. I know you’ve got a lot planned, especially with the event. Thank you for taking the time to join in with us on the podcast today.

Oh, thanks for having me, Mike.

Thanks again, guys. As always, go ahead and sign up on the website. Love to see at the meeting and as always, keep moving forward.

Filed Under: Articles, Interviews, NonClinical Jobs, Workshops

OUR CONTACT INFO

BootstrapMD
c/o MWM Holding
1537 Grand Ave Ste D
San Marcos CA 92078

info AT mwmpro DOT com
760-518-4809

 

Like Us On Facebook

FREE MASTERCLASS

Become a High Paid, In Demand Physician Consultant

 

  • Entrepreneurship
  • Workshops
  • Training
  • Online Business
  • Product Creation
  • NonClinical Jobs
  • Resources
  • Freelance Work

Copyright 2020 MWM Holding