Ep #245: Build Your Personal Brand in Five Simple Steps

Hi docs, welcome to The EntreMD Podcast, where it’s all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I’m your host, Dr. Una.

Well hello, hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. We are going to have a great time today talking about one of the things that I really love talking about, which is personal branding for physicians. And whether you are a veteran physician entrepreneur or you’re just starting out or you’re like, “I’m not an entrepreneur,” this episode is for you.

Especially if you feel you’re not an entrepreneur this episode is for you. And we’re going to have a blast. So you’re going to walk away with something that you can apply starting today, like you don’t even have to wait until tomorrow, you can start right now.

Before we do that I want to give you an update on The EntreMD Method book. We have done over 2,000 copies of the book, we have over 100 copies we’ve sent to residency programs to send it to the residents and say, hey, read this, this is the book we on the outside wish we had before we graduated. We wish we learned all these things early.

And we have 134 reviews on and so it is going strong and it is doing what we want it to do, which is for it to be that bridge, we didn’t get a business education but with the book we can, right? And so I call it our $16 MBA and it’s doing exactly that. Lots of life changes being reported.

So if you haven’t gotten the book, get the book. If you have not thought about getting the book for the residents in the residency program you graduated from, you definitely want to do that. You can send us an email to set that up, druna, D-R-U-N-A, @entremd.com.

And if you have not left us a review, please leave us a review. It helps Amazon recommend it to more people. It helps us get the word out. It helps other doctors realize that maybe this is the book for me, It is so, so, so helpful.

And for everyone who’s done one or all of these things I want to say a big thank you. You are part of the EntreMD movement, you’re part of the crew helping us to educate 100,000 physicians and let them know you can live life and practice medicine on your terms. So thank you so much, I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know and I can’t wait to see what will go on to continue to produce together. So thank you for that.

All right, so let us talk about personal branding for the physician entrepreneur, okay? And I’m going to talk about this in five steps and I’ll start off by saying at the end of the day we’ve all made this really big investment to become who we are, right? And so we’re talking multiple six figures in debt. We’re talking about over a decade of our lives. We’re talking about so much studying, so much expertise acquired, so much experience, even if you’re just graduating, so much experience.

And it’s kind of something that we need to be a steward of, right? We worked for it but it is a gift. We worked for it but it is a privilege. We worked for it, granted, but it’s such an honor to be a physician, to be in the position that we’re in that we do need to take the time to make sure that we steward what we’ve been given and we make the most of it, right?

And one of the ways that we do that is through personal branding. And this is not in the way that you think about, we’re not going to be talking about logos or colors, or websites really, or any of those things. But what makes the foundation of a personal brand that is high impact and profitable, right?

And you know in the EntreMD world we always talk about serving and earning. And we will always link those two because they go together and when we separate them we create problems like the problems that we’re having in the physician community right now.

All right, so your brand, your brand really is the first business, and it might ultimately be the biggest business at the end of the day that a physician can own, right? And so we want to pay attention to that, we want to start working on it, it will evolve so there’s no need to wait for any of the things we talk about today to be perfect, that’s not the point at all.

The idea is for us to put our best foot forward, work with the information we have and start. And as we start the subsequent steps will be clearer. So for me, I started off building my brand, helping entrepreneurs, doing all of those things. My brand as a clinician, as pediatrician and all of that. I had no idea I would be where I am.

And truthfully, I know what I’m going to do, I have a general idea of where I’m going, but I’m also aware that time will tell. I’m also aware that I’m probably going to be shocked where I find myself in another decade. And that’s part of the adventure of life, right?

So I’m saying that to say you have the freedom to work with the information you have now and make the best decision and take the massive action and all of that because you can evolve, you can change, you can modify and you’re going to get more clear. And you’re going to get more in alignment with who you truly are. And so it’s fine, this does not need to be perfect, this is not yes or no and then it’s written and it can’t be changed at all, okay?

So let’s talk about five things that you’re going to need to do. Five things to build this personal brand. The first thing is you want to recognize that you are a brand right now. You are a brand, you are a brand that can be profitable, so you are a business right now. This is not something that’s going to happen, Dr. You Incorporated is a brand. It may be an unknown brand, it may be an undeveloped brand, it may be a hidden brand, it is still a brand.

You are a brand. You are the CEO of Dr. You Incorporated, okay? You are already that. And so when doctors say, I don’t have a business, I disagree. Now, you may not want to have a brick and mortar business, you may not want to have a private practice, you may not want to be a coach. But we already have brands and those brands are so powerful they can have a huge impact and they can generate a lot of revenue. Again, we’re going to steward that, okay?

So the first step is recognize. And when I had the Business Makeover Mastermind for the EntreMD Business School, we had this in April. It was just a meeting where we were going to come work on our businesses, get rid of obstacles, mindset blocks, all of those kind of things. It was powerful, it was amazing, it was like two and a half days of pure magic.

And one of the things that I did was on their desks, right, everybody had a tabletop that said their name and underneath it, chief executive officer. And that was just to create that paradigm shift, like I’m a CEO, okay? I may not have done much yet, I may have done a lot, but I am a CEO.

And so you are a CEO, you are the CEO of Dr. You Incorporated right now. Okay? So you’re a brand right now. So we’re not really talking about how to create your brand, we are talking about how to up-level your brand. And your brand may be making zero dollars, or it may be making $5 million, right? But we’re going to up-level that. So that’s number one, recognize that you’re already a brand.

Number two. Number two is you want to identify what you stand for, right? Because your brand, more than a logo and a color, is a message. What is that message? Now remember where I started from, I was like you can evolve. So you might say, but I don’t know what it is. But there is something, right?

So maybe you’re a family medicine doctor, that’s what you do right now. But you are so passionate about fixing this obesity problem. That’s your message. You can own that. You can start from there. You can’t think of anything, you can start from there.

You may be a person who is, so like my dear friend, Dr. Dada, she’s a rheumatologist out of Seattle, and she’s like, I am building the number one center for rheumatology in the greater Seattle area. That’s what she’s owning, right? That’s what she’s standing for.

And so you see what I mean? So that’s her message. You may be a pediatrician and you’re like, man, mothers in the fourth trimester, nobody’s taking care of them, letting them know what to do with their babies and all of that stuff. That may be your message. Right?

You may say, well, my message, there are other people talking about it. Yes, there will probably be other people talking about it, but there are people who will only listen to you.

So for instance, Tony Robbins is a coach, right? He’s a coach, it’s probably a million dollars to coach with him one on one, okay. I’m a coach. Now, Tony Robbins is great, he’s amazing, he changes lives, he does all of that. That does not mean that my work is less valid. What is my edge? I am a physician. I understand physicians. I’ve built a private practice. I’ve built a coaching business. So I have these unique experiences and unique things that make me unique.

Now, I still had to own it and grow into these unique things, right? But I’m saying that to say there may be many people, there may be people who you consider much better than you who are doing it. It doesn’t mean that you can’t own your message. So own it. What do you stand for?

Your thing may be access to care. At this point, that may be the biggest thing. Own it. When I started my private practice my big thing is, oh, my goodness, visits to the doctor don’t have to take forever, it can be done efficiently so you can be in and out. And I was like, I want to create a place where the service is warm and friendly, but door to door is no more than an hour, right? That was my message.

And so you want to own something. Own something, okay? And you can take a one hour walk and think about it. You can go by the beach and sit and watch the waves and think about it. The important thing is to come up with something that is authentic to you, like it resonates with you, it’s you, and start from there. It is going to evolve, so don’t worry. It is going to evolve, and that’s fine. So that’s number two.

Number three is you want to start promoting the brand. And what I mean by that is let your voice be heard. Okay? Now you can use any tactic you want. What I want you to understand is the strategy, right? The strategy is you have to be out there. People need to see it. It needs to be where the people who need what you do can see it.

That could look like you speaking at events. That could look like you on social media. That could look like you owning a platform like a podcast, YouTube channel, or a blog. That could look like any of those things. So you want to start putting your brand out there. How are you going to do it?

Now you can do a lot of things, right? And we talk a lot about it in the business school, we talk about it on different episodes on the podcast, but you want to put your brand out there, okay? And so people will say, can I build this business and use a different name? Can I use this business and not show up?

And my answer to that is, you don’t want to hide, the world needs your brand. It may be uncomfortable in the beginning, but I started off as a socially awkward, super shy, introverted introvert. And if I can go out there and be on podcasts, and be on YouTube, and speak at events with over 1,000 people, if I can do all these things, trust me, you can too, okay? All right. So you want to put the brand out there.

The fourth thing is you want to pick your business model. And this is a little beyond the scope of this podcast for me to do an in depth discussion, but I’m going to give you pointers, right? So how will your brand make money?

Pay attention to this, how will your brand make money? And, again, it’s okay for you to own something, you can change it, doesn’t matter. But you want to own something because from the beginning, all right, and as you advance your brand you want to be thinking serve and earn.

So you’ve owned your message, that’s how you’re going to serve. And you’re going to put yourself out there, so you’re going to serve, right? But how are you going to earn? You want to do both. The brand that is going to have the biggest impact is going to need to do both because if there’s no margin, there’s no mission. If you’re going to to have a mission, you’re going to need to be able to fund the mission, and you fund the mission with money, okay?

All right, so what could your business model look like? It could be a service based business, so like the way a private practice is or like a coach would be, or a nonprofit because, again, nonprofit, you know, it’s nonprofit in a way. It’s not no money is nonprofit, right? It’s just you’re going to need to generate revenue and all of that stuff. But your thing is going to be service based, right?

My business model is a service based business. It could be a product based, maybe you’ve always wanted to start this skincare line or you’ve wanted to start this new breast pump that is going to be so much better than what people have access to now and all of those things. So maybe, or some medical device, right? And so it’s a product based business, right?

Or it’s informational, right? And so that could look like courses, it could look like books and things like that. And that’s what you want to sell, right? And that’s the way your brand is going to make money. Or it could be like ads, affiliates, things like that.

So for instance, I have a number of clients who are intrapreneurs and so they work full time jobs, they love their jobs, they started a podcast, YouTube channels and things like that. And they would either have people pay to put ads on it or they would promote other people’s products and they get a percentage of whatever sales are made, right?

And so services, product, information, ads and affiliates, there’s more and there’s more detail to that, but I want to give you an overarching way of looking at it right? And so you can go on to pick a business model, right? This is how my brand will make money.

And so what that means is even if you work a full time job and you can decide no I build my social media presence and all of that stuff so I can be a brand ambassador. Or I’m going to be a paid speaker. Or on the side I want to be able to coach people, right? Or you’re like, I’m doing my private practice and all of that stuff.

Sometimes people are like, well, I want to do these five things, right? And my recommendation, if you’ve heard me before, you’ve heard me say it a thousand times, pick one and then you can evolve. Pick one and build it so it’s a grown up and it can fund all the others. But we don’t want to build five babies at the same time, right? So you pick your business model, that’s number four.

Number five. Number five is now that you recognize that you’re an entrepreneur, now that you recognize your message, you recognize how your business is going to make money, you made that commitment to put yourself out there, then you want to acquire business skills, okay? You want to acquire business skills.

So we’re talking about negotiation, speaking, collaboration, networking, visionary, building a team, selling, marketing, all of those things so that you can serve a lot and earn a lot. You can build a successful business. Once we make that shift as doctors, because even as private practice owners who are doing really well, sometimes we just see ourselves as the lead physician in our practice, we don’t really think like CEOs, right?

You can start thinking about CEOs. You can project the impact you want to have. You can project, decide the revenue you want to generate. You have the skills to pull it off, you have the brand, you have the credibility, to pull it off, and you start doing it. I want you to think of what it would look like for physicians if this is the way we thought, this is the way we acted, and this is the way we built our brands. Okay?

So what I would really love from you today is for you to make a commitment, I am building my brand out. I am taking my brand to the next level. Okay? You may go like, well, I built this seven figure business and I didn’t do any of these things. Imagine what will happen when you tie this on, right? And so you did that with an undeveloped hidden brand. Imagine what will happen when you intentionally do this, right?

And so I want you to make a commitment, I’m going to do this, okay? I’m going to do this, I’m going to recognize that I have this company, I have this brand, I’m the CEO of this brand. I’m going to identify what I stand for, I’m going to put my brand out there, I’m going to identify my business model, and I’m going to learn business skills.

And if you’re like, man, I really want to go all in, I want to learn these skills. Well, as always, we would invite you to come to the EntreMD Business School, the number one business school for physicians who want to build six and seven figure businesses so they can live life and practice medicine on their terms. Come join us, that is what we are doing in the Business School. And so it’s entremd.com/business, you can come check us out.

But even if you don’t, I want you to take the information from this podcast, I want you to take the information from The EntreMD Method book, and I want you to go to work. I want you to make your own plaque, you put your name there, MD, and then put CEO, right? I want you to change the way you show up. Show up to work like the CEO that you are, right? This is going to, I mean, it’s going to be so amazing.

Think about it, there are a million physicians. Think about if 100,000 physicians showed up with this attitude. Oh my goodness, right? So what I want you to do now, is I want you to take this episode, share it with another doc in your life, tell them, look we’re going to do this together, you’re a CEO, I’m a CEO, we’re going to do this together. We’re going to create wild, wild, wild results for ourselves. We are going to have such a huge impact. This is going to be amazing.

Share it with another doc, okay? And go practice this and I cannot wait to celebrate you, okay? All right. So I will see you, my friend, on the next episode of The EntreMD Podcast.

Hey, if you love listening to The EntreMD Podcast I want to invite you to join EntreMD On Demand. It is my signature subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur, and that is to thrive. Just head out to entremd.com/ondemand and I’d love to have you join us. See you on the inside.