In this engaging episode of Bootstrap MD, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming invites Erika Kappes, DO a board-certified psychiatrist and successful private practice owner, to share her inspiring journey from serving in the U.S. Army to building a thriving concierge psychiatry and wellness practice in Alexandria, Virginia. Dr. Kappes offers valuable insights on the challenges and rewards of starting a medical practice from scratch, emphasizing the importance of having a clear vision, seeking mentorship, and cultivating a strong team.
Throughout the interview, Dr. Kappes divulges her strategies for effective hiring, leadership, and financial management, providing a wealth of knowledge for physicians considering entrepreneurship or transitioning to non-clinical careers. Her passion for her work and the fulfillment she finds in running her own practice is truly inspiring. Tune in to discover how Dr. Kappes’ experiences and advice can help you navigate the path to building a successful and rewarding medical practice of your own.
Transcript:
Dr. Mike: [00:00:00] Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, welcome to another edition of Bootstrap MD, the podcast for physician and healthcare entrepreneurs. Super excited about this next interview from time to time. We love to highlight physicians who are out there in the field, make it on their own, becoming their own boss.
And this next person is certainly a no exception. She’s a board certified psychiatrist and private practice owner in Alexandria, Virginia. She completed undergrad at University of Virginia attended medical school at Virginia College of Osteopathic [00:01:00] Medicine in Blacksburg. She was commissioned as an army officer prior to attending medical school, and then went on to complete a residency at Walter Reed and Bethesda, Maryland, where she served as chief resident.
She was then stationed at Fort Stewart, Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, where she worked in multiple embedded behavioral health clinics, inpatient settings, and a behavioral health consultant to army leadership. After leading leaving the army, she returned back to Virginia and opened up her own concierge psychiatry and wellness practice.
She now has a team of 4 of the providers, a psychiatric PA, 2 therapists, and an acupuncturist where they all collaborate to provide premier level care to their patient base. She also operates in the capacity of a medical director. It also leverages her knowledge of nutrition and integrative medicine to teach your staff and deliver optimal patient care.
I know we’re going to learn a lot from her today to introduce Dr. Erica Kappes.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Mike: [00:02:00] Wonderful well, this interview is, it’s taken so many twists and turns. I canceled on you, you’ve canceled on me, didn’t get a recording on it, and just so many different things, and I know that the universe, there’s a reason for all of this yeah, so I know this is going to be a great interview and love to share nuggets of information to our audience. Without further ado, let’s talk about this because, unfortunately, these days, less and less physicians are wanting to strike out on their own, start up their own practice. Maybe you can talk about your beginnings of how you were able to do just that.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah ,thank you so much again for having me, this is great. But, coming out of the army, I would say I was in this institutional mindset of having to, work in another big company where I get my paycheck every 2 weeks and get told what to do and have very limited flexibility. I did do that for a little bit outside of the army [00:03:00] for a couple months, and I knew right away that it was not going to be a good fit for me long term. I even considered leaving medicine altogether or going back to residency in a different field as if that would solve the problem. And then I decided, no, I actually want to stay in my own field and create something that I’ve been thinking of for a while. Which is a boutique, mental health practice, a beautiful space where people come and have an amazing experience and a really flexibility to do what I want to do with it.
And so I reached out to people who had similar practices that I were very, I was inspired by one of them, Dr. Brooke Shelley, who I know you’ve had on your podcast. And she helped mentor me as well as some other physicians as well who were doing similar things, mentored me how to get started.
A lot of it’s just getting that first step going. Cause I think I really didn’t know even how to start that first step. So one day I opened my doors in one room and 2 years later, I’m in a bigger office suite with 5 [00:04:00] offices newly renovated with a team of 4 other providers and myself and doing very well.
And I love my work. So it’s been a really cool experience.
Dr. Mike: And I’m curious, did was there any like entrepreneurs in your family that maybe not necessarily in medicine or perhaps in your upbringing? Did you do any type of entrepreneurial activities as a teenager or a college student? Anything like that?
Dr. Erika Kappes: The answer is no, and I think, I love my parents. They’re fantastic and brilliant people, but they, I think, struggled at times with understanding even what I was doing. Like, why don’t you just get a 9 to 5 or join a different practice or things like that? And so I think for a lot of people who are used to maybe more government jobs or the standard 9 to 5, it’s possibly a generational thing as well.
It’s hard to wrap your mind around starting something from nothing, essentially, and knowing that it’s going to take off, but being patient to let it take off. And, that’s tough for a lot of people that [00:05:00] patience, but no, I didn’t come from any kind of background like that. I think, to be honest with you, I think my family was pretty shocked and I really didn’t think , I thought I had to wait for the perfect time as we’ve talked about before, have, more practice in business, and I realized it’s really not the case.
You just got to get started surround yourself with people who also are doing similar things. That’s what helped me reaching out for people who, have blazed that trail already. But once I got into it, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is so much fun. It’s such a creative process.
I’ve had a blast forming this practice, creating it, adding to it, changing things. For me, that’s really exciting! Not everyone feels that way, but for me, that’s been a really cool experience.
Dr. Mike: In what way did the military, perhaps shape you, the direction that you’re going?
And I’m thinking both positively and perhaps even negatively. And the reason why I say this is my father in law is a Navy man, been in there 30, [00:06:00] 40 years and actually, when he retired, it actually had, difficulty kind of making that transition to a civilian work, anything like that alter your thinking or, perhaps shaped you in the direction that led you to start up your own practice.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah. So I also struggled with coming out of the military and I wasn’t in there for a career. I did the HPSP scholarship, which for med students, it’s the military pays for you to go to medical school and then you do residency typically with the military. So I did mine at Walter Reed and then I, you get four years active duty back based on.
What you trained in. So I did psychiatry, which is a four year residency. You get four years back active duty. If you were like a five year surgery residency, you would do five years and that kind of thing. But I came out of it feeling very untethered, even though the military was not something long term for me, as in it didn’t, I wasn’t able to nourish more creative outlets.
I am a very creative person. I [00:07:00] think I was like an art curator in a different life, maybe. But I didn’t, wasn’t able to let explore that as much in the military. So I was eager to get out, but once I got out, it’s oh boy, what do I do now? I’m in this huge sea and I have no idea how to navigate myself.
I always felt like I was on the precipice of what I wanted to do as an open something, do my own thing, but I didn’t know how to do that. And we definitely didn’t learn that in residency, medical school or the military. The military’s set up to maybe keep you doing something similar to the military.
So a lot of people go work for the VA and there’s nothing wrong with that, but that is just not for me. And so I think I came out of the military feeling a little bit lost and untethered on the positive side. I did, you build up some resilience being in the army in my case because you don’t have a lot of control over your life or your day to day. So I think maybe that resilience was helpful during this time of the transition, but it was a tough transition for me. So I think for anyone coming out [00:08:00] of a career in the army, it’s probably or the military. It’s probably an even harder transition. I was able to tether myself finally, once I sat down and made a plan of where I want to see myself in a couple of years, but that took a little bit of time to even get to that point as well.
Dr. Mike: When you decided, yeah, that’s great to understand that, the kind of conflict that you had for some time and finally finding something that you could really stabilize you in the direction you wanted to go. Let’s talk about those early. Early years or early times when you had the decision.
You had a practice. Was it in your head that you, this is what you envisioned or, were there people out there, we mentioned Brooke Shelley out there that you modeled after, or did you, think of this, I know what I wanted to do and now I wanna seek out mentors or experts who’ve already blazed that trail.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah, so I think I had a night. I remember having an idea of what I wanted to do. And then [00:09:00] I found Brooke Shelley. She was my sort of a consult business consultant. I would say on some level coach to me for a little bit. And now we’ve become friends. I consider her a friend of mine.
And we support each other from different coasts. But anyways she, I saw what she was doing. I knew that was something I wanted to do. So I really researched all the practices in, I would say, the country that we’re doing similar things that I wanted to do. And then I just cold call people.
I call it a practice in New York City with a woman who. Dr who was doing some interesting things up there and I just reached out to her coldly and she was lovely. She said let’s get together on zoom. Let’s talk. So people will respond if you ask for help or even inquire about what they’re doing.
So I found some really interesting people. And then I started crystallizing what I saw for myself and doing one little step at a time. And as I gained more confidence in what I was doing and honestly getting more business, I then was like, Oh, this is actually where I see myself. You just keep like changing [00:10:00] course.
I see the space being like this. I see the experience being like this. I want to add more services, acupuncture. I want to bring a PA on who helps seeing patients and sees them at different rate as I do. So just like making different business decisions. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed that piece, just every time there’s, you get new information, you pivot and do something different.
So I think it’s been pretty fun.
Dr. Mike: Yeah, you highlighted one of my favorite words as an entrepreneurship and really a skill that you need to learn. And that is Pivot and to be able to be flexible to not and not to be tied down with perhaps, old school thinking, or the way that you think it is, and oftentimes.
I learned not just from mentors, but even from my own clients and patients who was like, we launch a particular treatment and, nothing really happens. And then, we pivot to some seems to be more palatable to the audience.
Dr. Erika Kappes: I think even like the people who work for me, if you ask them.
I hope to God, they say they love working here. It’s [00:11:00] I find it a great place to work. I’ve made the experience really enjoyable, but they have ideas to that. Sometimes I haven’t thought about, but, my mind is full of all kinds of different things. But for example, the. The PA Lauren who works with me, who is just like amazing. She’ll come to me with marketing ideas and she has different marketing ideas than I have. And I’m like, yeah, I never thought of that. Let’s try that. Let’s reach out to this group. Let’s, so she’s really helped market our business in a way that I hadn’t even thought of in a prior.
And so it’s been great to get other points of view. And I’m always open to that, which is one thing I love about business. It’s You can do all kinds of things. You have a lot of freedom to practice and design things the way you want to. And I’ll be honest with you, even getting to that mindset was like a hard coming out of the army.
Cause I was like, Oh wait, I am my own boss. You have to keep reminding yourself of that.
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Dr. Mike: I’m sure the general isn’t asking the private for, military advice. But it is important that we have our monthly staff meetings and so often, we’ll ask, each 1, they may not say it individually. They might email it to me or talk to me privately. And basically the question is, no. I want you to name is there something that you’re currently doing, or is there, do you feel that there’s a different method where it could help your job better? Whether you become more efficient. The way that we room patients, the way that we answer phones, the way we deliver information, you’re not in that.
So I ask everybody, from the medical [00:13:00] assistant on up doesn’t matter. It’s all a very information is valuable and they want to work. They want to have a long, hopefully they won’t have a long working relationship with you as well. And, oftentimes those questions, those concerns don’t get answered by higher ups.
It’s unfortunate, but it is very important as an employer to be able to be given that opportunity.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah, no, exactly. And I think, people want to feel like they’re part of something interesting and part of a creative process as well. I take everyone’s, recommendations, very seriously and consider implementing them if I feel like they’re in line with the practice.
Dr. Mike: Yeah, so let’s talk about that because one of the things that we had mentioned previously is your ability to assemble a team and some things along the way that could be useful to our audience.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah. So actually another thing coming out of the army you don’t get to choose your team in the army.
So you look around, that’s who you’re [00:14:00] with, regardless of what you want. So , that’s what I was used to. So when I opened the practice, it was just me in one room and I pretty, pretty quickly realized I had to bring on extra people. So when I started doing that it was a challenge for me because I had to really instill this level of trust in them.
Like I will, this will turn into this, by the way, I’m sitting here, I’m pregnant. So obviously at the time, so obviously like the writing is at the wall that I’m going to go out for a little bit. And there was no lease sign for a new space yet. And, there was a lot of things still hanging in the balance, so I had to say please trust me.
I, this is what this will look like eventually, and this will all be, this is what my vision is, and I need you to have that shared vision. And it can be tough for people to really trust like that, because, I think I said it the last time, one of the most addictive things in, I guess the world and America is a paycheck every 2 weeks.
So like the same paycheck every 2 weeks. So when you are coming away from [00:15:00] that, it can be very scary. And I totally acknowledge that because that was my experience as well. And I had to say I know that this is how this is going to look, but please trust me. So I had to really find people who had a shared vision.
And that is that took some time and that, really sifting through who could stick with me, even if there were times that weren’t as busy as others. And so I found that team. They’re wonderful. Every element people who work with me are just amazing people. It’s been a great experience, but it did take a little bit of it was like a trial and error at first.
Dr. Mike: So let me talk about, did you have any hiring tips or hacks that you felt led to you to that perfect team that you’ve assigned?
Dr. Erika Kappes: Honestly, going through gut, I think sometimes like we ignore our gut when it comes to like personality difficulties. And you have to like really listen to that intuition.
And sometimes, myself and my business partner would interview and he is extremely logical and a numbers guy and he’s amazing. But we may have [00:16:00] had different like intuitions, maybe like I’m, and so you really have to be on the same page. And if you have, if you notice red flags in your gut, you have to go with it.
In my opinion if you notice things that aren’t you aren’t sure that’s going to work out. The relationship of, contractors or people employed is a very can be difficult relationship. And it’s you want it if there is any friction there. It just, I guess my recommendation is go with your gut if you feel like something is off.
Dr. Mike: Yeah and one thing too, that I probably shared last time with you is, when you’re building up your team, don’t just rely on yourself to do the interview. I’ve had it where we were interviewing a PA, and I quickly thought the interview went really well, she said everything I wanted to hear and then we did a quick kind of tour around, in the office and meeting some of the staff.
And I, when the applicant left, I talked to my other PA at the time [00:17:00] and he says, what did you think about her? She says, I did not like her at all. What do you mean by that? He says, look how she treated Jeanette. Jeanette’s our medical assistant. She did not even acknowledge that person in the room.
Only wanted to converse with her and myself. And the end, so they’re obviously there, she probably had some status, ideas of who to talk to and perhaps the quote underlings aren’t the worthy. I’m talking to as a deal. I did not notice that you picked up on it right away. And so having other people getting different perspectives, sometimes they know, an interview, they know, most people know how to interview and they know what to say.
What they’re saying behind the scenes is maybe a different story.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Absolutely. And so I actually learned that exact thing a couple months after I started interviewing is have multiple people interview. So now I do that. I have different, if we’re going to bring on someone else, I’d have the interview 1 of the [00:18:00] therapists, but I definitely don’t just rely on myself or even my business partner, Cody, even though I trust his judgment, it’s just that sometimes we’re so deep in the weeds with things.
So it’s good to have that outsider.
Dr. Mike: Yeah, so let’s talk about 2, let’s start for the export. You got the team. You got the vendors assembled, you’re working a cohesive unit.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah like I said, I think, just really, taking everyone’s viewpoint seriously. I think I hope that they would say they love working with me.
I give a lot of flexibility with scheduling. When people see patients, when people don’t see patients as long as they’re meeting the standard that I see for this practice which they know, because that was outlined to them when they came on board. And that’s 1 of the reasons they like the practice.
As long as that’s going on I don’t micromanage. I try not to micromanage. I do check on the clinical work at times, and I’m always around for especially with the physician’s assistant with any clinical questions. And I’m always [00:19:00] available for anything, whether it’s, concerns things that need to be adjusted, clinical questions.
So I think that’s a huge thing as well, being available to people like quickly and not just Oh, I’ll call you back tomorrow. Like I’m always available for people, whether they just want to talk or whether they want to talk about business related matters or patient related matters. I think that’s been really helpful and I think that if you would ask any of my staff, they would say that, I’m always around for anything that they need.
They also have an expectation of a standard and I don’t even have to voice that they know, because I model that standard myself.
Dr. Mike: That’s great. They need somebody to model after. I’ve had situations where I deal with clients. Business clients and, I had this 1 doctor said, you know what they’re not making like they used to in terms of work ethic and everything like that.
But then I know there’s a pattern. He went through PA almost every month, and if it’s not the PA, it’s you.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Probably you.
Dr. Mike: Yeah, it’s the king of micromanaging. [00:20:00] To some extent, obviously, I like to start when I’m hiring. I usually have them on a trial basis, for 3 months or something like that, whether you like us and we like you and then once you’re able to do it, it really is important.
At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, it ultimately, it falls on you. It’s not necessarily for you. It’s, what you’re going to do. Was it the way that I gave wasn’t that clear? Did I not give directions? And oftentimes, not to say everything is a lot of it falls on the employer or the boss.
At the end you want them to be proactive. You got to get away. There’s no way you can run a practice when you’re micromanaging everything go insane.
Dr. Erika Kappes: I don’t have enough time in the day to do that.
Dr. Mike: Yeah, and you have to give them and you have to give them responsibility and sure there’ll be times where you want to check up, there and make sure that everything is there.
But we have it. So each person is accountable, accountable on a regular basis and they have to know what was done at the end of the week or end of the quarter. What have we done to [00:21:00] exactly accomplished?
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah, exactly. And, for the P. A. obviously, I, from the clinical side of the house, I’m a supervisor and I really was watching, to make sure her clinical acumen was, up to snuff. Obviously personality is great, but you also want someone to be technically very good at their craft. So she’s amazing, but that, I obviously, you have to check on that when you first hire someone because that does fall under your license.
Dr. Mike: 100 percent for sure. So let’s talk about again I like talking about those early days. Sometimes it can be pretty painful, but I think a lot of lessons can be learned from those. We have a number of people listening. They’re looking to start up their clinics, let’s just talk about the things that we often have to talk about expenses and money.
I think last time you did, you told me you weren’t inherited some big fortune to start up your home.
Dr. Erika Kappes: No, I wish,
Dr. Mike: What were some ways that perhaps, did you bootstrap your way? Did you take loans? Some things and, what should we be spending money on?
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah, [00:22:00] I didn’t come from wealth or anything like that. But I also did not take any loans out. I started small and didn’t spend a lot of money on overhead at the beginning. So I live in the D. C. area. Rent is extremely expensive around here. So there was a little intimidating, but I started out small 1 very cool room essentially, that I decorated a really funky way. So people were like, oh, this is neat. They thought it was very intentional even though i’m like, this is all I could get right now. But that was okay and then I just because I was paying so little on rent to start out with I was able to save a lot of money and then once we were ready to move into a bigger space we were able to afford that as well as completely furnished the space, which obviously was a massive expense, but I had saved.
I didn’t let my like lifestyle flex based on the money I was making. I think a lot of people do that. They start making more money. Suddenly they’re, driving a hundred thousand dollar car and buying Chanel shoes. Like I wasn’t doing all that. I [00:23:00] was, I recognized that there was something I was, banking for the future happens.
Cody, my business partner is like a money is a numbers guy. So he also would keep me in check with that. Because he was tracking the books and everything. But I think, you want to like, make sure you know what your long term vision is because, we all have a tendency to want to flex our lifestyle based on making more money.
And it’s really, that’s where you get in trouble, you can’t save like that. I did not take any loans. I think that, some of my friends did, and I think that’s reasonable, but just for me, I didn’t need it because I wasn’t bringing in any huge machines at the time. I think for some places like aesthetic practices, you do have to have bring in lasers and all that kind of stuff, which is, great, but you do probably need loans for these types of things.
But for me, I was, psychiatry practice, the way I started, I didn’t need all that.
Dr. Mike: Yeah. And I tell them, cause as I run med spas, I didn’t get my first laser until eight years in practice. Doesn’t necessarily have to be the first [00:24:00] thing that you want to do. So you spent money, not too much on the furniture and the decorations.
Dr. Erika Kappes: No, I did, but this was after I had money.
Dr. Mike: What was your first, besides your business partner, what was your first hire?
Dr. Erika Kappes: So my first hire was Dr. Farrell. She’s a therapist and a couples therapist and a you know an individual therapist so I so she would take all my therapy patients and we started marketing couples therapy. Because insurance doesn’t cover couples therapy anyway, so it actually fell perfectly in line with the practice.
And then we brought on an acupuncturist, which I actually did have to invest some into the very nice bed that we got and all of the acupuncture supplies. But that was just quite a bit of, I would say expense, but that was, because I had saved money, it was, it ended up being totally fine.
And then when I knew I was going out on maternity leave, I knew I needed to bring another medical provider in, so I brought in the PA and then another therapist as [00:25:00] well.
Dr. Mike: What about ancillary stuff, your print desk or any of those?
Dr. Erika Kappes: I actually didn’t spend a lot of money on that. I did most of that, Cody and I would basically run the calls ourselves.
Dr. Mike: Oh, wow.
Dr. Erika Kappes: So I, at the beginning, we didn’t spend a lot of, the startup costs for me Brooke, Dr. Shollet was, her advice was like, just get going with it, obviously do the basics and just get going with it. And I think that if I had waited around to have everything perfect, I never would have gotten going, gotten off the ground.
It would have been like, wait for the perfect, time to do this, for the perfect website. If you wait around for that, it just, time goes by so fast, you never get to it.
Dr. Mike: Yeah. There’s never a perfect time. I make X amount, nagging for this. And sometimes you just need to do it.
Dr. Erika Kappes: No, you just need to do it.
And, eventually, like I told you next week, our new version of our website’s coming out. It’s going to be beautiful. But obviously that took me some time to get the bandwidth to redo that once I had the new space set up. So it’s not as important [00:26:00] initially. Yes, you want it for marketing. You want it nice for marketing, but if you really want to refine it, you have time to do that once you are into business.
Dr. Mike: So what started bringing in the patients for you? Did you do your own ground game marketing?
Dr. Erika Kappes: I hustled. I was getting coffee and lunch with every therapist, other physicians in the area.
Every single week, about twice a week, I was meeting face to face with internal medicine doctors family practice doctors, concierge physicians in the area, therapists. Like women’s health specialists. Cody was bringing donuts to concierge OBGYN practices just so we got our name out there. We also send out a bunch of postcards with our name on it saying we were open.
We’re taking new patients. So I did, we did invest some money into marketing. We started running some Google ads, not a ton, but just enough. So you could find us in the area and basically it was word of mouth. It was my foot game. I was in all of these events. It was exhausting.[00:27:00]
Dr. Mike: And what compelled them to sit down with you. Was it the donuts? Was it your sparkling?
Dr. Erika Kappes: I think they were actually surprised. They were like, wow, we don’t usually have doctors reaching out to people said that so many times we don’t usually have doctors like reaching out to us like this. And I was like, oh, okay.
And so they were like, happily wow. And then they’d start referring patients to me because we’d already had this conversation and I felt we could collaborate on patients. I also became acquaintances with a concierge internal medicine guy in, in old town, Alexandria, he and I sat for coffee.
We, talked about our, the way we do business and he started sending me over patients and vice versa. So I wanted to connect with like minded people.
Dr. Mike: And if all of those different things that you did, what you think had the most impact in terms of marketing or bringing in.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Honestly, sitting down with people.
For me in this area, it’s this area is a lot of getting your name out and reputation. This is the D. C. area. And I think it helped a lot because I suddenly get referrals like, oh, my [00:28:00] therapist knew this other doctor who mentioned your name and they, sent us over here. It was a lot of work at the beginning.
I did enjoy it because it was something different than just my old nine to five job of seeing patients all day. So I was like getting dressed up, going out for coffee. It’s fun. And you were doing it for like your, essentially your child, your business that you were forming.
So I felt really like excited about it. And that went a long way. I went to practices to visit. I gave a couple talks at a couple local practices.
Dr. Mike: I love it. And it’s funny in this era of internet and social media, I have docs saying, do I need a dance on ticktock?
At the end of the day, I always felt it has the biggest impact is what my partner calls. You have to have a great gown, ground game. Yeah. And like you said, you’re not too big to actually sit down and have coffee with your providers. And if you have that mindset, I think you’re really missing the boat, [00:29:00] as you said.
Yeah. It was a breath of fresh air for them sitting down and getting to really know them.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah. They were like literally the amount of times I heard, we’ve literally never had a doctor reach out to us like this. Yeah. And I was like, oh, yeah, and I’d have at the time, some people were still wanting to do zoom.
It was 2022. so I think the early 2022. so I do zoom kind of coffee with other providers a couple of practices wanted to do zoom calls with me with all the members of their practice, just so they knew I was out there and I became friends with some of the other providers. I got to know people in the area myself.
And yeah, it’s funny. I don’t even have, I keep saying I need to get an Instagram page for the practice because I know people do. I don’t have any social media for this practice and somehow I feel like it makes it a little more mysterious and cool. But I also know that like social media is a thing now that I may have to get on board with, but I’ve done all of this with no social media.
Dr. Mike: Yeah, it’s one thing, I tell them and I come from an online background, marketing [00:30:00] background. You shouldn’t be spending all that money on Google and face if you haven’t done the ground game. Yeah. So essential.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah, it’s and honestly, I got that idea from Dr. Shellay. She done an amazing job of connecting herself to therapists and physicians in her area.
And she’s, well known in that area. And that’s how she did it. And so I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. And I modeled, I knew that was what I figured this is a similar area, urban area. Yeah. People know each other here, and that worked for me. So I very much value that piece of advice she gave me.
Dr. Mike: We’re coming to the end of the interview. This has been amazing. Lots of great information and nugget for someone easier considering opening up their own practice or perhaps you’re out of practice right now. And maybe it’s a little bit stagnant. I get some great ideas to accelerate the process.
Yeah, any last minute thoughts or advice you’d give to that those, perhaps early practice owners out there.
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah, just keep added and [00:31:00] let it grow organically and don’t rush things be patient. Organic growth was really big for me, rather than cancerous growth. Also, for people who are stuck in jobs, I don’t like, and they want to open a business.
Just do it. It’s the best thing ever. I love my job. I literally love what I do. Sometimes I’m like, is this seriously my job? It’s so awesome. And not, like I said, last time, not many doctors will say that about what they’re doing. So I feel lucky. I just hadn’t having a really good time.
Dr. Mike: If somebody wanted to reach out to you and perhaps pick your brain as someone else did for you yes to go.
Dr. Erika Kappes: I’d love it.
Dr. Mike: Where would be the best place for them to reach out?
Dr. Erika Kappes: Yeah, email me drkappes@district-wellness.com, but and it’s I would love to share any pieces of knowledge or help people out. So feel free to reach out.
Dr. Mike: All right. Wonderful dr. Kappes again, her practice is called district psychiatry and wellness.
You can go out, check out her website. We’ll leave that in the show notes. Thank you for your time [00:32:00] today. It’s been illuminating.
Dr. Erika Kappes: It’s good. It’s good to talk to you again. It was even better the second time around.
Dr. Mike: Thank you. Thank you for listening. As always, you’re going to have ups and downs in your business.
It’s always important to seek out mentors, find out people who may be doing what you want to be doing, seek them out, get their advice and keep moving forward.
