Ep #81: The #1 Question That Will Transform Your Business

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.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. As always, I’m pumped that you’re here. And I want to say a really big thank you to everyone who’s been listening, sharing, reviewing. I truly, truly appreciate it.

And I wanted to take a moment before we get into the episode – which is going to be really transformational by the way – I want to take a moment and give a big shoutout to a doctor who left a really kind review about a podcast episode.

So, this is Dr. Amelia Beaké. Shoutout to you. She’s a student at the EntreMD Business School. And this is what she says about the last episode, episode 75.

She says, “Authenticity, Consistency, encouragement, three of the things I love most about the EntreMD Business School and Dr. Nneka Unachukwu. If you have a message to share and aren’t reaching the audience as well as you’d like to, check out this episode and subscribe to the podcast.”

Thank you so much. This was the podcast episode, The Number One Reason You Don’t Have Enough Clients. And thank you so much, Dr Amelia. I truly appreciate it; I appreciate you reviewing it. You’ve left us a review on iTunes. This was on social media. I appreciate it. Thank you for everything you do to support the cause, the movement called EntreMD and, you know, you know I’m rooting for you and I can’t wait to celebrate all your successes because that’s what we’re going to accomplish together.

Alright, so, today I want to talk to you about the number one question that will transform your business. And the reason why I bring this up is because at the time of this recording, we’re at the end of 2020 and people are getting ready for 2021. And people are wondering, what do I do? What do I do to make my business work in 2021, over the next 12 months? What do I need to do? What do I need to change? And all of that kind of stuff?

And I want you to listen to the one question you need to ask. This is an exercise I’ve done. This is an exercise I’ve done for years which has worked really nicely. And that is this. What worked for you in 2020? What worked?

Like, you got some results. Why did you get those results? What actions created those results? And the whole idea is to find out what worked and do more if it, find out what didn’t work and do less of it. And if you’ll do that, then you’ll find out that it will be a great year, okay.

So, I’m going to give you an example using myself. I’m going to be the guinea pig for you guys today. And I don’t want you to do what I did. I’m not giving you a strategy. I’m giving you the strategy that worked for me.

After this, I’m going to have you look and see what strategy worked for you. Because our businesses are in different phases and we have different targets and different outcomes that we’re going after. So, I’m not sharing this with you for you to take the things that worked for me and go work it. I’m sharing them with you so you can go do the exercise and figure out what worked for you.

So, I got together with my executive assistant. I actually did a version of this yesterday. And I was like, okay, so of all the things that we did this year, what worked for EntreMD? What helped us increase our exposure? What helped us increase the number of people we were able to help? What moved the needle forward for us?

And she’s worked with me all year – shoutout to Makeda – and so, we sat down to look at this. So, these are the things we came up with. We’re like, “Okay, let’s take a look at the podcast.” Now, the podcast worked because it gave me a platform to help so many doctors. I cannot tell you how many people have PM’d me and said, “Oh my gosh, my life has changed. Oh my gosh, my marriage is so much better,” even though this isn’t a marriage podcast. People who are like, “I finally started that practice. I started that business. I launched that product line.” People who are like, “My mindset has completely shifted, I literally feel like a different person.”

So, it gave me a platform to give people wins. It gave me a platform to get people to start trying putting their hands at being an entrepreneur and seeing that it’s possible. It gave them a safe space where they could feel normal as a physician entrepreneur. Because you know, there’s a lot of talk around that and shame around that. Like, now all you care about is the money and all that kind of stuff. But give them a safe space where this is normalized.

And that’s something that really resonated with my audience and a lot of people found EntreMD that way. And a lot of people shared the movement that way. And so, for us, it worked. So, guess what we’re going to do more of over the next 12 months? We’re going to do more podcasting. We’re going to make this better. We’re going to make it give you more wins. We’re going to do more episodes, so you’ll be getting episodes more often. And that’s all a commitment and it all comes from a place of, “This worked so we’re going to do it bigger and better.”

The second thing that worked for us is collaboration. Now, you guys know, at my core, I’m an introvert. And so, while I have learned and acquired the skills of networking and collaborating, it’s not something that I would just naturally jump up and do.

The reason why I embrace it is because I’m committed. I know that the healthcare space is a tough space now. I know that doctors are devalued in the workplace. We were looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s like we got to the end of the tunnel and the light was there and it just went out, and there’s no job security anymore and all of these things.

So, I am committed to helping 80,000 doctors embrace entrepreneurship so they can have the financial freedom to live life and practice medicine on their terms. I’m committed to that. I’m so committed that I’m willing to get over my discomfort around collaboration to help the doctors I want to help.

And so, this year, I did collaborate more. I was part of some other doctors’ programs. I did more events, you know, speaking at other people’s events, being on other people’s podcasts and reaching out to others to glean ideas and stuff like that. And the relationships that I built this year are just so powerful, so powerful.

They helped me personally and professionally and also helped to amplify my brand because then I have other people who have audiences that I don’t have access to that are saying, “Hey, you have to check out Dr. Una. You have to check out EntreMD. You have to check out her podcast.”

And the number of people I was able to help grew that way. And so, collaboration worked. And uncomfortable as it is, guess what I’m going to do more of over the next 12 months? I’m going to do more collaboration and I’m going to really lean into my relationships, meaning bring them value, bring value to their audiences. Because you don’t collaborate to take advantage. You collaborate to serve and in the process of serving, it serves you. That’s the way that it works. So, build better relationships, build more relationships. I’m going to do more collaboration.

So, you see the process. And so, then we looked at another thing, so what else worked? And for live events, for an introvert, is very strange, I love live events. I mean, I had to overcome my fear of being onstage and speaking and all that. But I love live events. I love talking to people. I love engaging with them. I love answering questions. I love doing laser coaching on the fly. I love all things live events. I just love it.

I love it so much that I don’t really like Zoom Webinar because I’m like, “I can’t see the people.” I think I’m becoming an extroverted introvert. But anyway, love events and EntreMD Live was huge.

I really was going to cancel it, you know. I was like, “There’s COVID and people can’t come in person.” And I was like, “Yeah, but I have the opportunity of doing something uncomfortable, trying to pull off a live engaging event via Zoom.”

And this was in June, you know. I was like, let’s do it. And it was the biggest one we’d ever had. We had 321 registered. We had people from nine countries, 26 states. It was so impactful. So, so, so impactful. And we got a lot of reviews from that, rave reviews. And people talked about how it set the stage for them to see everything differently. It was just really good. It was really, really good.

And that’s when we launched the EntreMD business school, which I’m so grateful that we did. It was just a great event. So, it worked. It worked for us. It really did. And it grew our exposure as well, grew our audience, grew a lot of stuff. And so, we’re going to do more of that, bigger and better. And so, get ready for EntreMD Live, June of 2021.

And then, the other big live event we did was the EntreMD Business School Expo, which again is something – it wasn’t part of the original plan, but I’m so grateful that we did it.

And so, the EntreMD Business School Expo, what that was is we had 21 of the students from the EntreMD Business School come up and speak and to share their number one – so, they shared their journey as entrepreneurs and they shared their number one business success tip. And it was a win-win-win situation, which was my heart’s desire. That’s what I wanted.

And so, it was a win for the audience because they got to see 21 entrepreneurs in different stages of business who are all physicians and who are all like, you know, “This was my fear, this is what we did, this is how I got here, these are the results I’m getting.” It was so amazing.

And you could see the doctors in the audience light up, like, “Wait a minute. What? That’s powerful. That’s amazing.” And the whole idea is for you to see what other doctors are doing so you can say, “Wait a minute, if they can do it, I can do it too.” It was for the doctors to see what could be possible.

And from 21 people, you’re going to hear different business tips for success and you get to get a feel for what might work for you, what resonates with you, what resonates based on the business you’re doing. It was just so impactful.

And then, it was a win for the students who were the speakers because they had to grow to pull it off. And that’s not to say they weren’t successful entrepreneurs, but they had to stretch, they had to do something they hadn’t done before in that way. And some of them, they created freebies and they had to go back to their website and do it even better and the social media and all that stuff.

And they rocked the stage in ways that shocked them, you know. So, they became different people, better speakers, and all of that stuff in the process of pulling it off. So, it was a win for them. Some of them got clients from that. Some of them, their confidence went through the roof because of that and even all the trainings we had to do before the event.

So, it was a win for them. It was a win for EntreMD because the original intent was, “Okay, what do we do to inspire others and help the students to make a paradigm shift, a big paradigm shift?” And it was like, “Well, I’m the one that teaches you can’t go speak without having a call to action. So, we’ll open the business school for enrolment.” And then we got to welcome an amazing new class; amazing.

And we even got a Canadian and a doctor in Australia from there. So, we have flavors from around the world in the school. And it was just great. It was so amazing. I had no idea it would be like that.

So, guess what, live events for us works. And I did some live masterclasses, especially after the pandemic hit and everybody’s like, “Oh my goodness, our practices are shutting down,” and all that. And I did a few live classes on how to recession-proof your practice, which was so helpful for the doctors. I did some on coding, how to optimize your coding so you can optimize your revenue while the patient volumes are down, and a lot of things like that. And those were huge. How to use video to grow your business. We did all kinds of things. And all these were done live. So, live, we’re just going to do because it works for our brand, and we’re going to do that.

And then finally, we’re like, “Yeah, the Facebook group really grew.” So, that’s the fourth thing. And it grew and it just gave me an outlet to share my thoughts. I think a lot about entrepreneurship and I think a lot about how to help doctors win and how to help them overcome obstacles and negative mindsets, because I battled with that a lot, like, “Who do you think you are? You can’t pull off this kind of business. You’re just a fraud. You’ll be found out.” You know, the whole imposter syndrome and all of that.

And also, for doctors to find themselves, to collaborate and all of that. And so, that worked for us. That did. It did. It gave us the opportunity to help people get wins and see, hey, this is a movement for you.

And I said finally, but that was the fourth thing. The final thing was this year, I was really consistent with emails, sending out weekly emails and a lot of it encouraged you, encouraged the doctors, let them know you’ve got this and give you tips and stuff like that.

And over the year, the number of people who are opening our emails and clicking and stuff like that, that grew. And so, it really worked and our email list really grew. And it was never a big part of our strategy, but this year it was. And it worked, you know.

So, these are five things. The podcasting, the collaboration, the live events, the Facebook group, the emails that we sat and we’re like, this helped our brand. And so, this gives me five things that I can say we’re going to do these things next year, and we’re going to do them bigger and better. We’re going to do them for 2021. And then, we’ll take it from there.

So, I’m not walking around confused, like, “What am I going to do?” because I answered the most important question, which is, what has worked? And because this worked, I’m going to continue working it.

So, how do I make it better? How do I make it more effective? How do I make it more efficient? How do I give people more wins based on these things? How do I serve the EntreMD community better with these things? Those are now the questions that I get to ask. But these are the things that I’m going to focus on.

So, I want to give you your homework. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to schedule a 30-minute period of time where you’re not going to be interrupted. You’re going to put your phone away. And in this timeslot, you’re either going to mindstorm or you’re going to brainstorm.

So, if you are the only one who really knows what’s going on in your business, then you’re going to mindstorm. You’re going to look at what worked. And you might go, “I don’t know what worked. I don’t know.”

The targets that you set that you hit, how did you hit them? If you got new patients or new clients, how did they find you? So, the results you got, what were the actions that led to that? So, you’re going to mindstorm.

And if you have an assistant that you work with or maybe you work with your spouse or something like that, then you get to brainstorm. Two of you can sit down and kind of figure out what worked.

And I want you to itemize those. I want you to be clear on them. And then, I want you to commit to do them. But this time, you’re going to do them bigger, better, smarter, more efficient, more effective. But now you know what to do. This is not a mystery. What has worked before? Do more of that.

Now, you may be here and you’re just starting out, so you don’t even know what works. I’m going to tell you something that happened with the very last class that joined the EntreMD Business School. A number of them, about four of them have told me, “The best decision I made in 2020 is I joined the business school.”

So, if you’re just starting and you don’t have anything to fall on, how about I give you a hint. Join the business school. Get on the waiting list. It’s entremd.com/business and come join us.

And I had one doc on the very first call – very first call – she says, “It just dawned on my why my business is not working.” First call, “Just dawned on me why it’s not working.” And that could be you.

You could be saying, “The best decision I made this year is I joined the EntreMD Business School.” So, if you’re thinking about business and you want to build a business as a physician entrepreneur that serves a lot and earns a lot – that’s what we say in the business school, serves a lot of people and earns a lot – then the business school is for you.

Okay, so entremd.com/business. Come in and join us. It’s a group of physicians. It’s a safe space for physicians to thrive as entrepreneurs. We’d love to have you.

Alright, so you have your homework. So, if you have a business already and it’s working, this is what you need to do. If you haven’t started, then this is what you need to do. Come join us in the business school. And if you’re ready to scale, come join us in the business school.

Alright, so I hope this helped. It’s not complicated. It’s easy to do. The problem with things that are easy to do is they’re also easy not to do. So, please do not not do it, okay. So, take the time, take the 30 minutes, do your homework, make a decision, put it on a wall. And now, you’re clear. You have your marching orders for the next 12 months.

Alright, so thank you again for listening and I will see you on the very 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.