Behind-the-scenes of 'Your Financial Pharmacist' | Tim Ulbrich, PharmD

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

[00:00:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: Hello, Tim. Hi, how are you doing? I'm doing well. Thanks for joining us on the show for those that haven't had the pleasure to run across you online yet tell our listeners who you are, and what's exciting right now in your life. 

[00:00:29] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah, a lot of exciting things and I, and I live in two different worlds. So I have an academic world that I live in and then I, uh, live in my business world and they often intersect with one another.

So I'll be brief on both of those, but I've been in academia, currently working at the Ohio State University College of pharmacy. Uh, I direct the health system, pharmacy administration program here, and I've been in academia for about 11 years. Uh, and then my business, many people may know me as the co-founder and CEO of your financial pharmacist.

And we're really our mission is to help empower pharmacy professionals on their financial path and journey. Lots of, uh, need out there for this topic for obvious reasons. Uh, high debt loads, lots of competing financial priorities. So my passion and I just had a chance to share this this morning with the P ones here at Ohio state.

My passion is to really help pharmacy professionals take the burdens and stress that often comes with finances off their shoulders and give them the resources, tools in the community to do that. So they can focus on the things that they love, patient care, their families, and, and all the other things that often finances can cloud some of those things.

[00:01:32] Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. Well, Tim, I gotta ask, because I think the listeners are probably wondering, where did you pick up your great radio voice? because you're a smooth, you're a smooth talking dude. I don't mean that like you're trying to sell me something. I mean, you've got a nice voice and I know you've always sounded great on your podcast, in that, where you pick up that skill through the 

[00:01:52] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: years.

Yeah. Thank you for the kind words. Um, I, I just love. Doing this, like I like you and I am having this conversation right now. I love learning about people. I'm genuinely intrigued about what makes people tick. Um, one of the greatest questions I like to ask on my show is why do you do what you do? What's the legacy that you wanna leave.

And, and I think the reason why that's important to answer your question is that I think when you're genuinely asking questions about people in their journey and you really care about why people do what they do, and you really look at every interaction with somebody, that's an opportunity to learn and get better yourself.

I think it just gives a better interview. Right. And, and it comes out in your voice and you're more excited. Um, I joke with my father-in-law. Um, he was a news anchor for channel 11 news in Toledo for 30 years. So I've been around him a lot. He's got a great radio voice, uh, great, great video, but I, I love speaking.

Yeah. And I love getting people fired up about this topic, which often isn't super exciting. Right. And, to do that, you've gotta bring energy. You've gotta bring passion. You've gotta bring stories. Um, and so that's where, you know, my drive comes from really trying to put as much as I can into the interview.

And I listen to a lot of podcasts as I'm sure you do. Yeah. And I just take something different from each and every host that I listen to in terms of how they interview what's their trial. True. Yeah. 

[00:03:09] Mike Koelzer, Host: Right, right. Yeah. All right. Well are so Tim, you, you maybe spent some time in I'm in, um, community pharmacy.

Mm-hmm academia now. The stuff you're doing on, um, you're a financial pharmacist, which we're gonna get really deep into. Yeah. Which one now, now that, now that you're just academia and, and the show and the business of the financial pharmacist, are you trying to get one of those more times of your week versus less time?

Or are you at a nice mix right now with your weekly duties? 

[00:03:48] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. You know, Mike, that's a great question. And then the reason I say that is my wife and I just welcomed our fourth son into the world a couple months ago. And congratulations. Thank you. And anytime that happens is, you know, I'm sure many of your listeners know it is just an opportunity to reflect on life and where are you trying to go?

And what's the purpose and what am I teaching my kids and what am I passing on? So I've thought a lot about this question. And I think for me, Both compliment one another. And for me, I've been trying to think of what's the bigger theme of career, right? Mm-hmm whether it's whether it's Y FP or the work that I do at Ohio state or work that I've done.

And I think this also passes into my children, which I am passionate about, and I feel like I've been, um, you know, just given a natural inclination and skill set for helping people and motivating them to be the best version of themselves. Mm-hmm . And I do this with students in career development. I do this by helping people think through business ideas and coaching them.

Uh, I do this through my own business in terms of helping people on their financial plan and their journey. And so I think the personal finance piece and the academic pieces are two very important parts of that. Mm-hmm , but they're, they're this broader theme. And as I think about legacy and career and those types of things, and I think about with my own children is.

I really enjoy somewhat obsessed about when I sit down with somebody for an hour, finding that one or two things that really sparks a passion in them, where you hear their voice change and you hear mm-hmm, the excitement come out and you hear them get more passionate about anything else that they're currently doing and helping them navigate and figure out a path of, well, why aren't you doing that?

And how can you be doing that? And how can you be the best version of yourself in that venue? And the book that comes to mind? The resource that I think about, um, there's this concept out there called the zone of genius. I'm sure you've heard it before. And it's all about this idea of really finding where, where you are in a zone that nobody else can be in, and that you're the best version of yourself.

That's accomplishing the mission and a playoff of Simon XYX words, really finding your why of what you're doing each and every day. And I think for everybody that's different, right? Yeah. Some, some people that's being a community pharmacist and being the best darn community pharmacist in that community for other people it's.

They really need to evaluate and ref reflect on, maybe they should jump ship and go open their own business. And they just don't know where to start. Right. Um, right. And so I love having those conversations and, and one of the things that drives me nuts is when there's broad generalizations to say, well, you as a student pharmacist should really think about A, B or C.

Yeah. There's really infinite options. Yeah. All of which align with, well, what, what are the areas that you're really interested in and what are the unique differential advantages that you have? And what's your zone of genius and okay. Now how do we make a career out of it and how do we influence and impact others doing that?

[00:06:26] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. That's one of them, that's very, very wise and good information. It's um, yeah, it's kind of one of the sad things it's like, it's like, because, because you took a, a, a person who was smart. And driven and at least was able to make decisions on what career path they thought they should at least study.

It's it's sad when that turns into, you know, like a must, you know, like, like the second and third and fifth year of pharmacy school, it's like, I must do this. And it's like, no, don't don't open your don't penalize yourself because don't make yourself worse than the person who didn't decide until 21 or 22, and then has the whole world there.

At their 

[00:07:15] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: disposal. Yeah. I agree. And, and I think for whatever reason, and this might be industry specific, it might have to do with the demographic of who we are as a profession or what attracts somebody in a pharmacy school. But I, I feel like there's often a mindset, of course, making a broad generalization here that whatever path you're on is the path that you need to be on.

And, you know, one of the greatest things about living in 2019. I tell this to my wife and I talk about this all the time with our boys. You can literally learn anything that you want, anything. Yeah. I mean, you pick it and if you're willing to put in the time and invest, invest a little bit of resource and more than anything, just acquire the knowledge, you can learn anything that you want.

No other generation has had that gift given to them. No. Um, and so it's an incredible opportunity if somebody's listening and says, you know what, I've identified this isn't for me. All right, what's the game plan? What, what are we doing to learn what that next step is? And, you know, I think we're really getting into a new age of entrepreneurship here in 2019 and beyond where it's a matter of, you know, who's willing to learn because it's an open access of resources.

Uh, and who's willing to take a little bit of risk, but the days of traditional education. You know, with few exceptions where you have to have it to get a degree, like we see in pharmacy and medicine and others. I think those days for my boys are gonna be gone. I really do. I mean, I think that there is a skillset that the workforce is desiring that the traditional educational model is not fulfilling.

And I think when you combine that with open access information times are changing. Yeah. I was that 

[00:08:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's really interesting. I was, um, just talking to Chad Halverson who found it. When I work, which is a scheduling program for retail stores. And we were talking about how there's so much information that they can collect from first wage jobs and then jobs going into college mm-hmm and then internships.

And there's so much they can collect on. When I work as far as what level they made it to. How was their attendance? What, what portion of the business? Did they flourish in and when were they promoted and all that kind of stuff. And quite often I'll tell my children, it's like, yeah, college, unless you're in a, I don't want my heart surgeon learning it on YouTube, but the information that they're getting in college, it it's important, but, but also important to say, all right, you were able to figure out how to sign up for classes and find school and, and learned how to work the parking garage at school.

I mean, all these things that you don't, we know, but as a kid growing up, they're, they're learning and how to, how to finish and how to get the term paper turned in and so on. But as you're saying, and with these markers along the way like when I work, there's gonna be other ways for owners. Employees that are coming through.

There's gonna be more ways for us to give them tests in our mind of how far they have come by looking at their actual history on something. Like when I work versus having them go through four years of college and have that, the only marker, because how much do we know whether their helicopter moms took care of 'em and stuff?

We just don't know that stuff. 

[00:10:25] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Well, and I think we're gonna see that sooner rather than later in pharmacy, because what happens when you have a supply and demand issue like we have right now is the workforce can then make those selective decisions. Right? Mm-hmm so if I'm an employer, um, and everybody's coming out with the pharm D.

It's no longer about the pharm D or even it's no longer about the pharm D plus a PGY one, plus a PGY two plus port certification. Yeah. It's about who can think innovatively in their practice site who can see an opportunity and design something that is a sustainable service that can maybe generate revenue and, and meet quality metrics and communicate with physicians.

I mean, all those other skills yeah. That, you know, and again, you know, just building off of what you're saying, it's, it's interesting that the education system is still very linear when people are not linear learners. Right. So, yeah. Right. And, and I live in this world, so I think about this a lot, but we put people through a very traditional everybody's in a cohort you're all in the same classes.

You all track for four years. Well, we know learners don't all track together, right? Yeah. Not everybody's learning at the same speed. They don't have the same interest they don't have. Yeah. You know, all these other nuances. So I think it's a really interesting discussion. And I think that. We're not far off from, from, from very significant changes to the educational model because of this age of entrepreneurship, which I would add is not about only owning your own company.

You know, I think that, yeah, every pharmacy graduate today has to have an entrepreneurial mindset, whether they're working for big box pharmacy or whether they own their own business, it's about being able to identify problems that need to be solved. That's what we need in 2019. We don't need people that can follow a script from a to Z 

[00:12:06] Mike Koelzer, Host: Jim.

Um, alright, so. So we talked about all the, all the, the, the degrees that the pharmacist can have and so on. And you made the comment, which I agree that there's gotta be even more of that. And then you also made the comment to say that they have to identify the problems that are coming.

And here's a question I have for you though. If someone doesn't have their own business, how are they, how are the O no, let's say not the owners. Let's say, let's say the hospital administration or, or some other healthcare administration, a little bit broader. How are they gonna see that from these peoples, the differentiations that you talked about beyond the, the, the first year internship and second and accreditation and all that, how are they gonna see that?

Is that gonna be part of the pharmacist, personal branding mm-hmm and maybe not through, you know, you know, Instagram things, but some way that there's gonna be a branding inside of the, of the industry. Um, That's almost like their personal little shop. Yeah. Now how, how, how does the administration see that though?

If they're not looking at all the degrees, but the person doesn't have enough time in the industry to show their brand, how do they, how do they, how, how, how do you suggest that people make that move to make themself known? Is that through some kind of a personal brand and how do the administration find out that brand, if they're not playing on Instagram and Facebook 

[00:13:49] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: and, and you're talking about the point of hiring, right?

For somebody to get that job. 

[00:13:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, probably for someone to get the job and yeah. What, what distinguishes 

[00:13:56] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: them? Yeah, I think that's a great question. And, I wanna first be clear that I think in my opinion where we're heading, and again, I'm generalizing, I think the degree plus the training plus the credentials is the baseline.

So I think there's certainly gonna be a requirement for that. What I'm talking about is the plus factors, right? It's the things that in a market where, you know, you think about one great example of this is we're moving really towards a lot of value based contracting and really having innovative clinical models where it's not widget counting base in terms of reimbursement, but it's about, are you actually moving the needle on improving patient care?

Well, in order to successfully do that, You as a pharmacist need to be able to collaborate with other healthcare providers. You need to be able to set a vision for what you're doing. You need to be able to get stakeholder buy-in to do that. You need to be able to know how to evaluate the effectiveness of what you've done.

You need to know how to justify your position. And I can tell you very little of that is in a, in a pharmD curriculum. And very little of that is in residency typically, depending on the program. Yeah. So I think your question is then how, how do you, as a candidate demonstrate those skills and then how does an employer identify those skills, right?

Yeah. Like in the first 

[00:15:01] Mike Koelzer, Host: three years of your life, or, you know, your professional life. 

[00:15:04] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. And I think personal branding is a big part of that. And, and I would argue that somebody who's building a personal brand, you know, we often think about brand and social media and all that. Yeah. To me, that's a piece of it.

So I'm not, I'm not banking on the director of pharmacy being on Instagram, right? Yeah. Yeah. What I'm baking on is my network, and that's kind of where I'm going with this. Gotcha. And so I'm actually reading a great book that I would recommend, and I'm gonna interview the author for our podcast next week.

It's called friend of a friend. Okay. And he's an academic researcher who really studies networking. Yeah. And basically he concludes that everything we've learned about networking we've been taught is really terrible advice, you know, in terms of, uh, go meet people cold and, you know, introduce yourself yes.

And have your elevator pitch ready and all these things. Yeah. And what he makes really compelling arguments that are backed up from research is that the best leveraging of your network comes from what he refers to as loose ties or dormant connections. So these are people that you once were connected to sure that you no longer are regularly connecting to for whatever reason.

Right. Um, you know, time, life, you've moved on location, business, whatever you've already invested. The capital, you've already built the relationship. You've already built trust. And it's really dependent on these people and what people typically do is they run. Closest connections and the challenge he mentions in that book with doing that, is that when you run to your closest connections and that, that network tends to be very tightly integrated with one another.

Yeah. But they're not integrated with other networks. Yeah. And or 

[00:16:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: They go, so it's like, you're going to your brother and tell me how good of a son I am to your mother. It's exactly like, you all know each other already. 

[00:16:38] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Exactly. Or they go to a cold network. Right. And what he argues is that that's not very helpful either, but it's these loose ties.

And so I, I think the point I'm making here is that it's the net, it's the networking and the intentionality of the networking with the branding me on part of that. But when, when people, when you combine a personal brand with a strong network, It's game on because that network then speaks for you, right?

Yeah. So I may not know the director of pharmacy over at Cedar sign I out in, out in California. Right. But my bed is one of his employees knows what we're doing over at Y F P and hopefully knows who I am in terms of, uh, some of the connections I have established there with former students or former colleagues.

And you put those two things together, and now I have a warm connection that I can get somebody with, tuned in ear to at least hear the story. And for me, it's still my responsibility to make a compelling case. Right. But I at least open that door. Right. Yeah. That's so 

[00:17:32] Mike Koelzer, Host: true. And what a better time, you know, for that to be, you know, as well, I probably know better.

I see. I have more gray hair than 

[00:17:39] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: you do. I'm getting some, four kids will do that. So , I've got 

[00:17:43] Mike Koelzer, Host: 10. So that's where all my gray hair comes from. 10 kids. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So that's where all my gray hair comes from. Um, that's awesome. But. Yeah, that's where, when I graduated and I went to Purdue, I lived in Michigan.

So my closest friend is like two hours away and the rest are like not eight hours away, but back then you had said goodbye. And that was the end of it. And now what a better time to be able to, you know, to connect. 

[00:18:11] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: And again, that, you know, back to our discussion, there's no greater time from information, access and networking.

To live then in 2019. I mean, you and I can be here having this conversation that we probably wouldn't have had 10 years ago. Yeah. Um, and you have a whole new network that I don't have in vice versa. Right. So I think it's a fascinating time and I think it's a mindset thing. Right. So I think that, you know, many, many students and new practitioners I work with, um, for whatever reason, there may be this mindset of, okay, because I've gone down this path to pharmacy school and because all along the way, things have been mapped out for me.

Now I'm waiting for things to be mapped out for me going forward. Right. Things aren't gonna be mapped out for you. Right. But you have no greater opportunity than to find that map for yourself. It's just really putting yourself in that offensive mindset. Yeah. Rather than sitting there kind of waiting for things to happen.

No, 

[00:19:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's true. What came first in your Y F P world, what you know, and I'm, I'm looking at things like, you know, blogs, books, the, the podcast, you know, speaking, um, website, um, services. How, how did all that grow and what came first and, and 

[00:19:23] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: why? Yeah, I'm, I'm glad you asked this question because when I, when I talk with others that have a really cool idea and they're struggling with where to start, I think they get overwhelmed with looking at businesses that have been around for 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 years.

And it becomes overwhelming with, well, I don't even know what to do. What's next? So I think this question is a first step, and one of the books I recommend here is called start by John AUP. And he talks about this concept of just starting, taking one step. And that was it really. My journey was, you know, I had a vision which was, Hey, I just went through this journey.

I paid off 200 that my wife and I paid off $200,000 of non-mortgage debt. Um, I feel like it was more difficult than it needed to be. I didn't have the resources and tools that I needed, and I was missing a community of people that I knew were out there struggling with this, but there was no community of people that were out there helping, supporting, empowering and encouraging one another.

And so the vision was. Create a community, create a community that does not exist because I know this topic is stressful and it's impacting people's relationships or career satisfaction, and the list goes on and on. So that was the vision. And then the question was, well, where do you start? And where I had decided to start was just sharing my journey.

So I reached out to a hundred of my closest friends and colleagues. I still have the screenshots. I send them a message on Facebook messenger, or I text message them. Yeah. And I said, Hey, I'm thinking about starting this blog about personal finance and pharmacy. What do you think? And what was really interesting about that is that number one, almost everyone responded.

Yeah. And that's, that's not normal. And number two, the responses really told me there was a hunger for this information. Mm-hmm . And so that's all I needed as a validation. You know, I didn't know what it would look like for a business. I didn't know where to go for five or 10 years. I knew there was a need.

There was a problem that had to be solved, which every great business that's, that's what you start with a problem that needs to be solved. And I knew I had a solution to offer in terms of starting with my own story. So I started blogging and that really, you know, kind of quickly gained traction, which validated the feedback I had received.

Initially from there, I started speaking, uh, from there then Tim church, uh, my colleague over at Y F P he and I wrote a book which led to, uh, the podcast and other speaking opportunities and really led to the growth of the business from there and the brand that we built. Um, but all of that, you know, even as I reflect back on today, three and a half years later, we're still relatively new in this journey.

The vision has remained intact without question, but I could not have predicted what we would be doing today and where we would be. And I, I think very few people can mm-hmm so I think getting hung up on that and that being a barrier to not starting is a pointless activity. And I think that's the whole concept of just starting.

Um, if you have a problem that needs to be solved and you have a solution, then start picking one thing to start with. And that might be you write a post on medium or LinkedIn and you share your thoughts and you get some feedback. It might be reaching out to a college and seeing if somebody's interested in having you speak on a topic, it might be going on Facebook and sharing a video about your thoughts.

It might be starting a podcast, you know, but just start and what the real value is, is in what you learn through the process and your community, your audience taking a play here from Seth, God, they will tell you what they want. The tribe will, the tribe will form itself and the community will inform what you do in the future.

So getting paralyzed on what the future looks like, I think, is fruitless. Yeah. And, 

[00:22:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: and that's great advice. And especially, especially these days where, you know, the difference between a, the difference now between a book and a, and a blog and a video cast. And mm-hmm, speaking is sometimes no more than, you know, flipping on your camera on the yeah.

You know, on the, on the machine, on the comp machine, the computer, or, or, you know, taking, taking the, the stuff from your, your, uh, podcast and putting it into print. I mean that, yeah, that is changing. And I think about, um, you know, we'll do this often in our pharmacy, uh, Tim Ferris in the four hour work week.

Yep. And my daughter asked me to read that one time and I said, Molly, why, why would I wanna increase my week by two hours? So , I, I got to joke with her, but, um, I love that, but, but you know, like the AB testing, I mean, years ago you would have to spend. Gobs of money with focus groups and so on. And now within 24 hours, you can put up two ads on, on Google, test them against each other.

One of 'em gets some hits, one of 'em doesn't and you've just done something basically for free, which would take months before and, and a lot of money to commit to that. So your point there on just starting is like, is like, great. And I know that a CF had to start, you know, he had to keep starting a couple times through his career, you 

[00:24:05] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: know?

Well, and, and I would add, and, and I hopefully will encourage your listeners that there are no excuses to somebody listening that says I have an idea and I feel like I can help people. I would argue you have an obligation to start sharing your ideas. Then if you truly believe you can help people, then you need to do it.

And usually what happens is they. Caught up in details that don't matter when you start. So I'll talk to people and they say, well, I don't have my website up or, you know what? I don't have a business structure yet, or I don't have a business card. Who cares? Yeah. You will worry about that later after you validate the idea to your point, somebody right now, tonight, somebody listening to this says, you know what, I'm really an expert in this.

And I could help people with that. They could go home tonight and jump on YouTube or Facebook live or whatever, and record a five minute video on what they do every day that they're an expert on. Yeah. And start putting yourself out there and getting feedback. Now, will that be the business? No, but you're, you're taking a step and you're beginning to work towards validating your idea.

And you're beginning to build the community. And you're also building a personal brand, which also builds a network over time. And that's one of the great things that nobody talks about. That when you put yourself out there and you create a business and a personal brand, naturally when you're doing something like what you're doing or I'm doing, and you have the opportunity to interview somebody every week, every week, you're building your network, right?

Yeah. For 

[00:25:21] Mike Koelzer, Host: sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And, and the thing about. I like reaching back and now we can do it. And I know you're, I know you'd agree with this is that we don't want to hit our network up 15 years later when we're finally moved from pharmacy, into selling life insurance or selling Amway, you know, mm-hmm God bless both of those professions, but these people have to hear from you.

As you know, Gary V would say, they've gotta hear from you for, for 10 years while you are doing nothing. but Offering them a part of yourself before you even begin to be asking 

for something. 

[00:26:02] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah, that reminds me too, you know, Gary V's stuff is awesome, but, uh, it reminds me of pat Flynn's mantra of, you know, you, you provide value, keep providing value, provide value, provide value, and the business will come.

And, and I believe that, and I'm guessing many people listening say, okay, I know there's a problem that needs to be solved. I have a solution and I can help provide value to other people. Bingo, that's the start of what you need to do. Oh, that's all you need to get going is if you have a message to share that solves a problem and you can provide value, then over time, you'll see the fruits of the business that will grow.

Now, don't get me wrong. There's a million steps that need to happen. And, and you can optimize that. And there's ways you can go right or wrong in that whole process, but you just have to keep it simple at the beginning and focus on those things. And, and over time, you'll, you'll learn and it'll take on a life of its own.

You could almost argue 

[00:26:48] Mike Koelzer, Host: not having the fruit yet not knowing what your fruit's gonna be. Is really, almost better because some people go from, you know, ideas to being able to solve it. The next step is how to monetize it. And before you know it before they've even made even an inkling of a name for their self, their monetization programs out 

[00:27:13] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: there.

Yeah, I would agree. And, I think to your point, you have to build an audience and people who care about the product before you launch a product, you know, mm-hmm, Seth go is brilliant in articulating this concept of tribes. Um, but if you build an audience and you focus on building an audience, you're providing value, they will make your product better.

They will tell you what they want. They will tell you the problems. They'll give you insights into the solutions. Amy Porterfield does a great job of this. You'll ask the right questions. And so launching a product without an audience or without a community to give you feedback, I think is, is a challenge in terms of, I think the quality of the product will be less, but I think also it'll be crickets when you go to launch it.

[00:27:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Um, Tim in your, in your spread of products now, um, speaking about having a product, what is don't gimme numbers, but gimme percentages, what of your, you and your partners business now, what part of that would you say is directly, I know all of it's important indirectly, but what part is directly bringing in, um, income and.

Percentage of those, is it like, Hey, this, you know, this, uh, one thing we sold just brings everything in that we have, what percentage is bringing in, what as far as income. 

[00:28:34] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. And that, and that's, I'm glad you asked that. Because of that, that has changed as we've matured a little bit over the last three years.

And I expect that will continue to change as a part of a natural evolution. And, I wanna use this as an opportunity to give a shout out to my two business partners, Tim church pharmacist, down at the VA in west Palm beach, Tim baker fee only certified financial planner. Two awesome guys, high integrity.

And we don't need to, I won't dig into this in detail now, but I think it's so important if you're working with others, especially in a partnership, uh, you really have to have that trust and, and that, uh, being on the same page in terms of the vision and the integrity of the business. And, we certainly are as the three of us.

So for us, um, in terms of revenue, when we first started and we launched the book, um, and we self-published the book, which is an important detail, because if, if we would've had our book on Amazon, we may have increased the reach a little bit, but our revenue probably would've been one 10th, if not one 20th of what it was.

And one of the books I read was authority by Nathan Barry. And he really helped me see and visualize how you could. Self-publish a book and the value in doing that. And the main benefits for us were we were able to build different options that you can't necessarily build on Amazon. So if you go to our website right now, seven figure pharmacist.com for the book, you can buy just a book.

You can buy the book that's packaged with some other resources and then you can buy the book. It also has an online student course that ranges from 29 to 99. 

[00:29:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: And it's a great website by the way, very well set up and 

[00:29:59] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: organized. And Tim church did the work on that. Um, so if you translate that to Amazon, you know, Amazon's revenue percentages, you know, I've heard upward as high as 60% of what they've taken a cut and you're not gonna price products like that on Amazon.

Right? The other big reason we went the self-publishing route is we wanted to know who the buyer was. We wanna know who our audience was. Yeah. Because if we want. And have a mission of building community. We want those people in the community that are helping and encouraging, empowering one another, but also gives feedback and input on future products.

And if you buy through Amazon, you don't, you don't have that luxury. So for us starting off right outta the gates, before we offered other products and services, most notably comprehensive financial planning, that was our bread and butter. Um, 

[00:30:42] Mike Koelzer, Host: I would say, I'm sorry. The, the book, the 

[00:30:43] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: book was the bread and butter because of how we had a price.

And because we self-published it now in there, we started to build, um, some, some speak. We have speaking engagements we've worked with 30 plus colleges of pharmacy across the country. We have a partnership with the American pharmacist association and we began to build in some, uh, affiliate revenue as well into our website, around student loan, refinancing, uh, disability, life insurance, and some other things which.

Is a separate, important topic that we may wanna dig into because I think a lot of pharmacists struggle with how to take advantage of affiliate opportunities, but you wanna make sure it also lines with brand and mission as high integrity and all those things. Sure. So if I had to give you numbers just off the top of my head, I would've guessed in the first two years, we were probably 80-20 in terms of like book revenue.

And then that other 20 would be some combination of like speaking and, uh, affiliate revenue and, and so forth as we've evolved. And our podcast has grown. We've had a significant uptick in podcast sponsorship, so that has. Come into a revenue line, we've expanded speaking engagements. So that rev revenue line has increased, but really for us going forward, um, I would envision if I had to fast forward 10 years from now, my guesstimate would be, uh, comprehensive fee.

Only financial planning would probably represent 80 to 90% of our red revenue. And then the rest would be 10 to 20 would almost flip. And the reason that is, is if you just think about the price points, it makes sense. Right? Right. Um, but also even though the volume is less, the price points are higher, but also those are not typically one time sales, those then become monthly annual revenue.

So for example, if we have a hundred clients this year and we have 150 next year, you have 200, 200 5300, 500 a thousand, those are continually compounding. Whereas if I buy a book, that's a one time transaction. Yeah. Right. So for us, and again, it always goes back to back to our core mission of providing value.

Providing value, providing education and for those that need want, and it's a good fit of comprehensive financial planning, we're here to provide that solution. Um, but that may not necessarily be for, for everyone. I, I think everyone should consider a coach, but for a variety of reasons, they, they may not.

So we're here to offer that. Um, but we will continue to be also providing resources on the blog, on the podcast. Um, we've got guides and checklists and calculators as well as some of our paid products in terms of the book. And, and I'm sure we'll have others in the future. 

[00:33:07] Mike Koelzer, Host: Tim. I know that from what I've seen of your company.

I know that I saw, for example, a speaker who wasn't one of you guys, cuz she was prettier just this week. Yeah, it was exciting. I saw that and I, and I know that you've got some concierge with, uh, real estate on, on your site and so on, which brings me to the question of scalability. Then when you talk about 80 to 90% of this going, you know, fee only financial services in my mind, I say, oh, that sounds like work.

How, how do you scale that then if you still wanna be. You know, in academia and things like that, is that gonna be through like a Dave Ramsey sort of like, you know, network and so on, or do you bring on more, more pharmacists that are repeating what you guys are doing? 

[00:33:57] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah, that's a good question. And specifically scalability to financial planning.

We've spent a lot of time thinking about this and Tim Baker has done an awesome job with this. It. For us it comes down to systems. So, you know, scales of efficiency. Uh, we just recently hired our second, uh, financial planner. We've got a budget coach, we've got a tax professional. Um, and I think that we have an opportunity to really continue to serve people the level we do, but do so in a more efficient manner as we continue to grow and, and get our processes down.

Um, I do have some other ideas though. We haven't fully flushed them out though. I think there's opportunities where you can supplement one on one planning with communities and networks and live meetups and other things. Yeah. But I also, you know, and I've gone through it myself. I really wholly value one -on -one coaching.

So I think we will forever hold onto that. Um, but I think to your early part of that question, One of the things I think a lot about is scaling of the brand. Um, and again, I'll go back to what I've been harping on, uh, provide value first. The business will fall second. Yeah. So what I keep thinking about is if you think about it like, we had Jill Pollier out in Arizona speaking for us this week, she's the one I saw on Facebook or something.

Yeah. Really passionate about the topic. So, you know, me jumping on a plane and flying across the country, um, while that may be fun. If we truly believe we're providing value and we're helping sort of change this next generation of pharmacists when it comes to their finances and the stress, I can't rely on me or Tim or Tim to do all that.

Yeah. Right. So we need to again, empower our community that can collectively go out there and do that. So that's what we're working on with Jill and others is to really pilot this idea of could we have regional. Liaisons that really kind of work with us, but you know, will allow us to get out to more groups, more student organizations, more colleges, you know, those types of things.

So I think there's some other brands that have done this really well, bigger pockets come to mind. Sure. Um, you know, local meetups and other types of things. So I spend a lot of time thinking about how do we scale the brand so that ultimately we can expand the reach because at the end of the day, if we expand the reach and we truly believe that the brand is having a transformation in people's lives, then I go back to, yes, it's a business.

But also I feel this obligation to we've gotta figure it out because I feel so passionate about this topic, that when I get people emailing me saying, Hey, because of listening to this podcast or reading this, my spouse and I are now in this positive direction that we weren't well, if people don't know about it, Then I feel like I need to help them know about it.

Yeah. Because I truly believe it can transform a marriage. It can transform, you know, somebody's opportunity to be able to stay home with their kids or to find a different job or start a business, or just have less stress. So I, I think, and the reason I'm harping on that, I think business out of passion and I use that word and it's used too much, but business outta passion and value will really change your mindset of how you sell, because I think so many pharmacists struggle with I can't sell and the way I've reframed it is say, I so firmly believe in what we're doing.

That yes, we're selling a product, but I'm first getting valuable content information into people's hands. Yeah. And yes, that's a business, but I have an obligation to do that because I believe so much in what it can provide to people. Yeah. And, 

[00:37:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: and pharmacists, pharmacists can sell when they believe it.

I mean, you watch a pharmacist with a passion in their face when they, you know, when their baby baby comes in with a rash or something, that's right. And they're saying, you need to do this and you need to go here and you need to stop this and start this. It's like, no, you're you're, you don't know, but you're selling right there and you're passionate and maybe you're not getting directly, you know, remunerated for it.

But you're, mm-hmm, , that's, that's selling right there. Your point about getting the word out with Jill each day, I take my kids to school. They're building, they built this huge church a few years ago. And I was curious about just who was the pastor or whatever. And someone told me, I couldn't even believe it.

They said they built this whole church as basically a movie theater, because the, the, the main, uh, Pastor is like five miles away in another area of town. And they maybe ha maybe both have the live music and the both have the live, this or that, or live donuts, you know, those kind of things, but, but important.

Yeah. But, but the pastor was, but the pastor was on, on the movie screen and that's something that, you know, there's tons of things you can do with that with Jill. And then you guys could come in with a live little video thing, but. 10 of Jills out there, but then you're coming in for 20 minutes talking to the 10 Jill things going on yet.

It's live. I mean, there's just a, as we just talked, there's just a million things, as you know, I'm just saying it for the, you know, for my own thought pattern, but there's a million things you guys can do. 

[00:38:48] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. And again, you know, using bigger pockets is an example. We've done this well. So millions of people engage with their content on, on podcasts, on webinars, on YouTube, on their blog.

But then they have these local meetups that allow them to in Columbus, um, build a connection with other real estate investors and get to know one another and it brings it to life. Right. Yeah. So I think that's a great example of scalability. You know, how can you leverage? Cause at the end of the day, it comes down to that local interaction and community where for many pharmacy professionals that that's so important, but they may not necessarily have to get that information from the local community, but they can help apply it in smaller groups, you know, in, in that 

[00:39:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: area.

Right. We were through Columbus a couple times. My daughter got married down in, um, um, North Carolina. So we, oh yeah. Google sent us through Columbus on the way there and the way back. So yeah. Thanks for the hospitality for the 10, 10 minutes or so we were driving through. Yeah. Um, Tim, um, I, I grew up always saying, I never wanna have a business partner.

Here's why, well, because of all the, all the, the, the problems that you can come into, you know, I'm, I'm, my wife puts up with me as her partner in marriage and that's about the only person that can stand me, but I would do it with the, it seems to be the nice, um, The nice efforts that the three of you bring together because you all bring your different skills and what are refresh my memory on those.

I know you come from a pharmacy background more and what are the other, the other, the other two Tims. 

[00:40:27] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. One is also. Also pharmacist he's down at the VA west Palm beach, he does ambulatory care. And he really is, I would say our, our operations genius. So he is, um, an incredible, uh, doer of vision. Um, he really is, is responsible and gets all the credit for what you see on the website and our social media presence.

Um, and he's got a lot of skill in that area. Um, and then Tim Baker, the third, Tim, he's a certified financial planner. Mm. Um, he and I met several years ago. And he's one of those guys that is similar to Tim church. Again, you know, I'm a big believer in trust and integrity and friendship first business second.

Yeah. Um, and, and we had established that collectively and, and I knew both of them and brought the three of us together. That's kind of how we started. Yeah. And I think Mike, your, your, your come hits me because I grew up in a small business. Uh, my parents owned a business. My grandfather started, um, and there was actually a falling out of that business.

Yeah. Uh, between my dad and his brother. Yeah. So I saw the worst of it, of which relationships are still not repaired to this day. Exactly. And so I had always been, you know, kind of backdrop of, you know, anti-partnerships and there's risk and, you know, you've heard the horror stories. Sure. And, and they're well documented.

And at the end of the day for me, um, I'm just a firm believer within my business and across other businesses, there's value in numbers. And, you know, I was talking with, um, Susie Solomon yesterday about the Facebook moms group. Okay. It's an awesome job with that. And we were just talking about collaborating and, you know, questions about other partners in the mix and other things.

And my answer is yes, like if there is shared vision. Yeah. Yes. I mean, if, if it's about reach and it's about having an impact, then, then why not? And when I looked at Tim and Tim specifically, I saw one, what you had mentioned, they brought something very different to the table. I think we all compliment each other, uh, really well.

And, and that got more clear as time went on and we were able to figure out where our lanes were most yeah. Right, effective. And it wasn't necessarily always that way at the beginning. Um, and I think we'll continue to refine that. Um, but I also even see looking back the business wouldn't be what it is today without.

No, no, exactly. Yeah. And, uh, and us spending a weekend together, you know, spitballing ideas. I guess I could do that with myself or with some other people, but, you know, I can think of very few times whether it's in work outside of work in marriage, whatever, where you don't have a better outcome when three or four people get together and can help an idea grow.

Right? So when I try to run a project on my own, it may be okay. It may be good, but it always is better when I can get people to challenge me to think differently and help me see different sides of it. Now it may take longer. There may be disagreement and it may be slower. Uh, it may not always be pretty, but I ultimately think the end product is usually better when you have a variety of opinions.

So I think that diversity of who the partner is, is really important. And, you know, obviously I, and I would be lying if I said, otherwise, we, we don't always agree. Right. That's the reality of a partnership. And I think that's part of a process just like it is in a marriage. If my wife and I are working through a scenario with a behavior issue with one of our kids, yeah.

We may disagree at first, but if we can work through that, The outcome is better. It always is. Right. Um, and so I think that's the fruit and the benefit of a partnership. Yeah. Um, but I will be the first to say that it definitely takes a greater time commitment and effort to build that relationship. And again, if I'm working on launching a product or a book, I could get that out faster if I could do it myself, but it won't be as good.

Yeah. And it, it won't be, it won't serve the audience as well as it could. How, 

[00:43:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: how do you guys physically communicate? Are you on a shared project board or are you on your phones? Email? What do you guys do mainly to stay in touch and move things forward? Uh, technology wise. 

[00:44:12] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Your, your question intrigues me because this is an example.

I see where my work experience has brought value into the business. Mm-hmm so, you know, through managing projects at work, through working in an organization, working on executive teams and other things you start to see, okay, what are the communication strategies that help a team function at a high level mm-hmm

And, you know, I think often in startup entities, there may not be that same mindset around strategy and strategic planning and those things. So we've been very intentional about it, we have weekly team meetings. So every Wednesday at noon, we jump on a zoom video call and that's our standing place to know that, you know, for the items that need the three of us to discuss and work through.

We've got that meeting set now. Yeah. We're, we're texting back and forth pretty much 24 7. Um, you know, with each other, we've tried to slack off a little bit. We never really got into a rhythm with that. So for us, it's a weekly team meeting. Uh, a lot of text messaging, uh, and email phone calls as need urgent things, but then we have quarterly in person strategy sessions.

Oh, cool. Um, I think of these almost like strategic planning, where we do a mixture of social fun and hanging out nice and, and work sometimes we'll record some podcast content, but more than anything, we're trying to hold the stuff for. What are the things that need the three of us to discuss, yeah.

Strategy, but doing it in that environment, especially when I live in Ohio, Tim baker lives in Maryland and Tim church lives in Florida. Right. You know, if you aren't intentional about doing that. And you're at a distance, you can start to lose some of that relational aspect and you start to, we, we even see this, if we don't meet for whatever reason, I think we start to fall into a more, uh, formal rhythm of business.

Yeah. And forget that, you know, we also really value friendship with each other. Yeah. Right. Exactly. I think those processes of weekly meetings and quarterly weekend meetups are types of things, we rotate between the three of us. Nice. And we get a chance to see each other's families. Yeah. And then all that.

Um, but I think that really helps. Yeah. That's cool. We, 

[00:46:03] Mike Koelzer, Host: we, um, for years I ran the pharmacy just as the sole benevolent dictator, um, questionable on the benevolent part, but in the last few years, Three managers. And we were our executives, I should say, um, in different roles. And we use a program called monday.com.

It's on, it's in the same vein as, you know, Trello and slack. Yeah. But just set up a little bit differently. But every, every Monday at one 30, when one of the main, the chief pharmacists. Job is done. We all hop on Hangouts or zoom or whatever. And my question to them is, or is there anything we should be talking about?

That's that we can't effectively put on monday.com? Absolutely. And, often our meetings are lit last week. Literally it was 15 seconds. It was any, it was, uh, anything going on that we haven't effectively covered or can effectively cover by writing so that we can have more passive interruptions and less active interruptions.

And we get on and we say, Nope, I'm covered. Nope, I'm covered. Nope, I'm covered. And have a good week. And then five minutes later, we're back on the computer doing our things. So that weekly time in front of the face is good. Sometimes you can even pick up some clues, yeah. That you never would without seeing.

[00:47:22] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: And, and if I could add to that, I think one of the traps I've seen leaders fall into is, trying to find this balance between you don't wanna hold meetings just to hold meetings. Mm-hmm , you know, you often hear the advice. If you communicate via email, do it and cancel the meeting. Yeah. I agree with that.

But the balance to that is sometimes, you know, even if it's a 32nd touch base yeah. As a leader, you're showing that it's a priority. Yeah. Or showing that you care and there's value in the relational aspects that impact the business. So as a leader, you have to find that sweet spot. And it's not just as simple as canceling the meetings, you know, there's those times where it might be a two minute call and you don't have anything that has to be discussed.

Right. But you see, or I see that the other person is I can tell nonverbally something's bothering them. Something's upsetting. Yeah. And that wouldn't have happened, you know? No, 

[00:48:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: that, that wouldn't have happened. That wouldn't have happened. Yeah. And I know that we, if you talk to a. Therapists they'd say, well, come on.

We're all big kids though. We're not supposed to have to depend on, you know, the verbal cues. And if you want something you ask for and all that, but that's, that's bull. I mean, we're all humans. And if you look at someone's face, you look at someone's face and you can tell something, you know, you can, you can tell something's happening.

And the thing about videos nowadays, you can do a quick video thing from wherever you are. And if I'm on vacation, I may not. But besides that, you can be anywhere and pop in, even on videos. So it's just amazing, Tim. I've got a few, a few questions that I, I, I want to just ask about the good and the bad and that of your day and so on.

But before I get to those, what information, and even give your, even give your, uh, your company, a plug here, what information would you tell. Pharmacists maybe students or, or going into pharmacy or just coming out of pharmacy or so on, what advice would you give them and how would you tie that into what they can do with all of the passion that you have?

How can you best spread that to them and start that connection? 

[00:49:19] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah, I, I think for me, uh, especially when it comes to the financial journey, I just had a chance to speak with the first year students here at Ohio state. Um, and, and I think for me, the number one thing is value in getting plugged into a community mm-hmm

And so we've got a million resources over your financial pharmacist.com. We've got 115, you know, podcasts and blogs and all that's great. And I would highly encourage, you know, the listeners to check that out because I think they can go for any topic, any concern, and really get started. However, where I would say the first step is.

I think getting plugged into our Facebook group is such a great place. I mean, that group is, um, you know, there there's no monetization of that group, but probably one of the proudest aspects that we are for our business, because you know, there, that group has now grown and has such a, I think it has such a heart for helping and sharing and encouraging each other, that somebody will post a question or a concern or a challenge or a win.

And 20 people will jump in and respond before I can even get there. That's great. And that kind of goes back to the vision of the community. And not building a business around just, you know, yourself. So I think, you know, jumping into the air finish pharmacist Facebook group is a place that I really truly believe there is no stupid question.

If you've got a win to share, if you have a struggle that you're dealing with, if you just want to, you know, find out what people think is the best long term savings account, like yeah, people are there to help and they're passionate about the topic. So I think that's a great place to get plugged in. And then certainly, you know, the weekly podcast, we're, we're pushing out there on, uh, apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, you know, all those types of things.

Mm-hmm , and we've had some great interviews recently, uh, and, and all of that, you can get through the website as well. Those groups really 

[00:50:57] Mike Koelzer, Host: help, you know, with, um, mm-hmm with just, just celebrating the wins with people too. Absolutely. What are some things in your, in your day, day to day that are just kind of.

Just kind of like something you don't feel like doing, or just kind of a pain for you. Like, I, this is something I wish I had a, I wish I had an assistant for or something or, or what, what are your, you know, I don't know, maybe even stresses during the day or whatever. 

[00:51:24] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a vision starting guy.

I'm not a maintenance guy. Yeah. Um, so if I had to choose a bucket of things, anything, anytime something falls into a maintenance category, right. Um, I'm not the best person to be doing that. Yeah. And it's not the best use of my time for our company. And that's true for my day job as well as the business.

But the reality is, as you know, Sometimes, you know, you don't have resources at your luxury or sometimes things have to move so quickly that I can't hire somebody to do this task. But I, I think building on that, one of the things I'm currently struggling through a lot is just the reality of time in a day.

Yeah. And being able to slow down so that I can strategically identify in advance. So if I know I'm gonna have those needs, how can I slow down to identify them far enough in advance that I can get somebody to help? Yeah. So I can continue putting myself in the position where I provide the most value to my business or to my day job here at Ohio state.

Um, the Ohio state. I'm sorry. So, you know, when, when I'm working, you know, 40 to 50 hours a week at the Ohio state university, I'm, I'm working on YFP stuff. Yeah. I'm traveling to speak, uh, and for me, family is priority and I've got a newborn at home, uh, and a shout out to my wife who really helps make all, all things.

Hum. Um, you know, there's just not enough time in the day. Right. And so I think really. Taking time, ironically, taking time to slow down to find where time can be improved and be done more efficiently. Is a big priority for me right now. And I, I think that at the end of the day, if I can do that and do that well, it'll better serve the business and better serve the people that our business serves.

Yeah. Because I know that if I'm in maintenance mode, um, then I'm not the best person to be doing that. Yeah. Right. Um, so really my role in the business should be setting the vision, finding the opportunities, strategic relationships, connecting with others, building those connections. And when I find myself like, you know, updating a blog post or in the back end of WordPress or whatever, like not good for me, not good for the business, you know?

No, no, that's right. 

[00:53:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: And, um, you might be familiar, but for the listeners, um, David Allen of, uh, getting things done. Yeah, he does. He does a really nice job of talking about having a, a weekly. You know, 20 minute you're for yourself, clean up and getting things, not necessarily a physical cleanup, but that's involved too, but making sure everything's in order and, and, and, and doing that weekly to kind of take that time of the assessment and 

[00:53:47] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: so on.

And I like doing that on Sunday. Uh, you know, um, it doesn't have to be a lot, um, you know, I think 20 to 30 minutes. Yeah. Just to look at the calendar, right. You start to identify things like, okay, what are the top three priorities of the week? Yeah. Where do I have time? Or if I don't, what pivots do I need to make now before the week starts?

Yeah. To make that time. Yeah. Do I need to cancel meetings? So I need to reschedule meetings. Is there something that I can move from an hour meeting to 30 minutes, right? And so you then are in that driver's seat of control of the schedule. And I think that is such a small win. Yeah. Uh, and such great advice of spending 30 minutes before the week begins, cuz otherwise the week starts.

Things get busy, email starts going off the chain. Yeah. Uh, and all of a sudden you look back on Friday and you're like, ah, what, what did I get done? You know what just happened? Yeah. Cause so many things. 

[00:54:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: If, if you see something three days ahead of time, it's different than remembering 30 minutes ahead of time.

That's exactly right. A lot of things could, a lot of things could change with 

[00:54:41] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: that. I think too, you also, um, you know, this is a hard part for me that I didn't do well the first year and a half of the business you have to invest to grow. Um, and I, and I think this is, you know, I, I preach this with, uh, personal coaching for financing, personal coaching, for fitness, personal coaching for your marriage.

Like there's an investment that you have to make and you have to strategically make that. So it has a positive return on investment, but the same is true for your business. That, you know, if you look at and say, okay, where am I spending my time? And if I can hire somebody, who's probably more competent than I am.

Definitely is more competent than I am to be doing podcast editing. Yeah. Which then frees up four hours a week that I can grow the business. Right. I may not see that revenue on the books today. Yeah. But if I'm thinking through the business correctly and I, I will see it in the future. Yeah. Um, but there has to be that upfront investment that you're willing to make.

And Amy Porterfield does a great job of talking about this. And I think taking that first step of hiring an assistant, a virtual assistant, working through the bugs, working through the hiring and just letting go and realizing everything didn't fall apart yeah. Is such an important thing to build off of and make future hires.

[00:55:48] Mike Koelzer, Host: There's some stuff that people like there might be 10%. It's like, well, I kind of like cutting the grass. I still wanna be on that and feel it rumbling and things, but there's 90% I can't stand. And so absolutely there might be some things that you, you still like to, you know, organize this little folder once a week.

It's your way to at least have some sanity in your life, but it's like, I hate doing that part of it. So poking through those and working with the assistant and finding out what's the best off your plate is certainly, uh, it's certainly great advice. All right, Tim, what is the part let's say you've got all that stuff set up and you've got the perfect assistance and the perfect program.

And you don't have to spend any time on any junk. You don't want to, what would be, what would take up like the Mo what would you be doing like the most time of your week? 

[00:56:36] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Two things, vision and relationships. Um, so I, I think for me personally, my sweet spot is having uninterrupted time to truly think about strategy and vision for the business, and then forming the relationships that will make that a reality or building on the existing relationships that will make that a reality.

So, you know, just the example we were talking about of the local meetups and how do you scale the brand? Yeah. You know, me sitting in a room with a whiteboard and some other people and talking about that for four hours, um, or right now we're really thinking about what, what, how does real estate play into our business?

Mm-hmm , that's where I need to be spending my time, really, really thinking about the vision for the business. How do we provide value and scale this, and then who are the partners that are gonna help us get there? And that we can also give them value as they're working in their own business. So for me, if I have all those systems and processes set up, those are the two areas that I need to be.

So if I look at my calendar, what does that mean? That means I should have dedicated time for, um, Setting vision, you know, you hear some entrepreneurs talk about this literally time that they will like sure, go, go walk in the woods. Right. Yeah. Right. Um, and I should see on my calendar, strategic relationship meetings.

Yeah. Whether that's, I'm recording on podcast with somebody, whether I'm meeting up with coffee, I'm meeting on zoom. That should be a priority in my schedule. And I think that as you know, it just happens so quickly, things can get busy and build on one another. You can look at your schedule and see none of that happening, right.

As the CEO, as the person kind of running the business. So again, carving out that time, uh, intentionally, but those would be the two areas. You know, if I had to pick two off the top of my head where I would be the most, 

[00:58:11] Mike Koelzer, Host: when you talk about the vision, I know that a lot of that happens. If you're like me, it's gonna happen in the shower.

And while you're yeah. Driving, driving through a traffic light and you don't really remember if it was red or green, you know, you're thinking about it all the time. Mm-hmm . But if you only had, let's say that you, you had to turn your mind off, but you only had like. 10 hours a week for vision. How much of that would be in a room with others?

And how much of that, if that was the only time you had to think how much of that would be in a room by yourself, what percent would be by yourself versus with 

[00:58:45] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: others? If I had to choose in a perfect world, um, if I had 10 hours, I'd say it's 33. No, let me change it. I'd say it's 20% with myself. 30% with my wife and 50% with others brainstorming.

And that second part is really important because my wife is not a pharmacist, but she always provides a brilliant perspective that I don't get from other people because she knows, she knows me at that deepest level. Right. So she knows. And obviously she has the outside of pharmacy perspective as well, but she can ask those probing questions that maybe I've got a half flush vision, but she's really poking at the pieces that need to be flushed out more.

Yeah. Or she's really like, I can see her energy on an idea or, you know, get her feedback. So typically the pattern that I will flow and I'm not always as intentional about this is I will think about an idea, you know, could be in the shower, could be after working out, could be driving often is the case.

Um, could be daydreaming, uh, could be sitting with one of my kids, whatever. And then I will kind of. Work through hearing me talk that out loud with her mm-hmm so, you know, a normal evening for us, which I'm not sure. She always loves . 

[00:59:48] Mike Koelzer, Host: I was gonna ask, I was gonna say, does she do this just so she knows the psychology between ones that's on your mouth you'll shut 

[00:59:53] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: up.

Yeah, I think so. No, no, I think she genuinely cares. I'm sure she does. You know, but normally for us it's okay. I come home and, uh, there's some idea whether it's a new business idea or there's an idea within the business mm-hmm or a new relationship, and I'm looking for her feedback. And usually based on that, the idea gets twice as better right away.

Mm-hmm mm-hmm and then I'm able to go back and either refine that more myself before I then reach out to, you know, person A, B or C and say, Hey, I've got this idea, you know, can we meet up and talk about it further? And I'd love to see how we can collaborate. Yeah. So that's sort of how I work through the process.

Yeah. And until you ask me that question, I don't know if I've ever thought about that, but that is as I'm talking out loud. Yeah. It's a pretty standard way that I work through things that I don't know if I've even realized I do. Yeah. 

[01:00:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, the fact is you do it cuz uh, the proof is in the pudding.

There there's so many things like that in life where like at the pharmacy, for example, and, and the most of your time should be either in vision or thinking about the future of the business, or it's gonna be out wishing Mrs. Smith, a happy birthday and giving her a, a box of candy or something. Absolutely.

If you are that connection at that time in the business, and then the rest of it is really, um, not maybe not the best use of time. 

[01:01:04] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: That's a great example. So, you know, I think of a pharmacy owner and, and you've obviously lived this life, but you know, you walk into a pharmacy and many pharmacy owners are behind the counter, grinding it out.

Right. Yeah. And sometimes out of just reality, you know, that might be the case, but what's gonna help grow that business. Yeah. Right. You know, getting out in front, going out and talking with business owners, being a part of the community. Um, and again, zone of genius, who else is gonna do that besides, you know, that person.

So, 

[01:01:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah. And, and a lot of times who else can, and, and, uh, now in, in our case, we've, as I've shifted out more and brought some, brought some kind of new faces in to sort of be that, to be the Colonel Sanders of our, of our business, you know, instead of me. So finally, Tim mm-hmm , if you had to take a sabbatical for a year and basically not think, let's say, not think business, your own business, or even future business, what would, what would you do for a year if you really couldn't get, you couldn't touch anything that you're currently doing?

Oh, 

[01:01:59] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: I love that question. Um, that's a great question. I hope you ask that to other people. Um, the first thing that comes to mind is I would spend a year with my wife, uh, rethinking how we could, uh, educate our, our kids, how the education system could be improved to meet the demands we have in 2019 and how we could better teach our kids and other kids, uh, the principles of entrepreneurship.

Hmm. Um, so we, we homeschool our kids and, um, a blessing to my wife, uh, for her passion and vision in doing that, I'm supporting her, but, uh, you know, I'm not, I'm not that person that could execute, like she could, you're the mean principal once in a while that yeah, I am that's right. Um, but we have daily conversations about, you know, whether it's education in our home or education at large, um, what does the, what does the workforce need for the problems we're trying to solve as society?

And what's the current status of the education system? And I think there's a massive disconnect between those two things. And so I would spend a year there. Thinking about that, uh, forming relationships, talking with communities about that, talking with leaders about that, uh, anybody who would listen, uh, and, and with a specific focus then in on, well, if we are in an age of entrepreneurship where we need a mindset that is not somebody who has knowledge acquisition, but that can really comp solve complex problems.

Right. Then how do we teach that? Yeah. Um, how do we teach those principles to our children? What, what are the best examples I've seen of the Sith code? And recently had a blog post where he talked about, you know, we teach our kids in subjects, right. So you're in algebra. Sure. You're trigonometry, you're in calculus.

And through that, we hope kids learn things like problem solving, things like creativity, things like communication, all the things that the workforce wants. Right. Yeah. And his idea is what if we flip those around yeah. Where the subjects were. Problem solving creativity, you know? Yeah. And then we had different methods.

So I think about those types of conversations, and then, you know, how do you, how do you implement that? How do you test it and then how do you scale it if it's working? Yeah. Um, that topic fascinates me. So that's a, 

[01:04:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, first of all, that's a, that's a, sounds like a great year. And on that topic, um, yeah, it's a different world where, where everything, everything, you know, we need all the knowledge is in our hand and school, obviously you look at some public difficult public schools in certain cities that are just having struggles.

You look at the, um, the balloon of the balloon of college, the, the, you know, the, almost the impossibility of, of kids paying for that. Well, I mean that, that's your whole subject. I mean, that's your whole life right now is how to, how to make everything worth it and all that kind of stuff. But somewhere along the line, you know, it's kind of like.

I think back to my, I think back to the first house that my wife, uh, and I bought, and it was like, you know, let's say $70,000 mm-hmm and we sold it maybe for, let's say for round numbers, let's say we doubled it. We were like 1 25 let's it was one 40. It's like, there's no way in hell. This is gonna be a quarter million dollars in 10 more years.

And it, and it didn't, the crash came in oh eight and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It went back basically down to, you know, where we sold it and it's like, college is that same thing in school in general. And, uh, it needs some great minds like you to be spending your. Take the year off. I'll talk to the other, I'll talk to Tim and Tim.

Yeah, let's do it. I'll talk to them and it'll be fine. Do you work on that too? 

[01:05:27] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Well, and, and, you know, just to build on your example of home. So this year 2019, the median indebtedness of a pharmacy graduate was $170,000. And, uh, if you look back in 2010, that same number was a hundred. Geez. Now the concern is when you look at those in tandem, we also have had wages that have stagnated decreased, decreased, and interest rates that have gone up on loans.

So most students are now looking at interest rates six to 8%. So the purchasing power of an income, the purchasing power of the pharmacist's income has significantly degraded. So one of the things I think a lot about is, well, how could the system. Be done differently. Does it need to cost $170,000? Does it need to be four years?

You know, there's other models in medicine, you know, would we value more of an apprenticeship model and really flipping this whole thing on its head? I don't know the right answer, but I know that a conversation needs to happen and we need venues and think tanks to have those conversations. Um, and we just don't.

I think we often get caught in a very traditional, structured mindset of how we, how we have done things. 

[01:06:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: Certainly we haven't solved anything really. I, in, in medicine, I mean the, our, our average lifespan has gone down. It's still, you know, 30% heart disease is killing people. 

[01:06:44] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Infant mortality is not good.

Yeah. Yeah. We, we obesity 

[01:06:48] Mike Koelzer, Host: and we haven't. So, pharmacy is not, it's not like we're losing pharmacy jobs because we've solved the problem. We're losing pharmacy jobs because we didn't solve the problems. And, and someone else is just trying to run with it being whether it's, you know, the PBMs or Amazon or yeah.

Or whatever. So one, we haven't solved it. So yes, schools could do better on, nor McDonald's said, he's gonna, he's gonna vote for the politician that solves death. said that if a politician came out with that platform, but so we haven't really solved a lot yet, but then on the money side is where I was going with.

That is like, If more money, if people can make more money somehow on the, on this system of, on any system that they're, they're going to try. And, and if you can charge students more and you can make it longer and you can do this and you can do that, it's like, there's a, let's just say there's a, there's a group that really cares about the education, but there's also a group that really cares about.

Maxing out the money they can get from people that are willing to 

[01:07:53] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: pay it. Yeah. And I, and I think that what we'll see in 10 years, I think one of the hidden blessings of stagnation of wages, or, you know, we've seen certainly the news of Walgreens and Walmart cutting pharmacists, and, uh, many other companies, 32 is the new normal.

I, I think what's gonna come out of this, you know, certainly a lot of hardship that 

[01:08:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: we, Tim say that again, 32 

[01:08:13] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: is a new normal that 32 hours a week is becoming a very new normal and community practice. Gotcha. Gotcha. And, you know, I think that while there's hardship, that's gonna come out of it and we need to acknowledge that.

Um, I think there's also gonna be a lot of people that pursue innovative entrepreneurial ideas. Yeah. That will be disruptive. That would not have otherwise because of the golden handcuffs. Right. Yeah. Right. Um, so I'm excited about that because I think when you look at a time period, like. There's two ways of looking at it.

There's the woes of me looking at it. And then there's the way of, okay, well, if, if people are losing jobs, because let's say automation, artificial intelligence, other things are disrupting that industry. Well, that means there's a lot of disruption going on, which means there's a lot of opportunity for us to rethink and be innovative for sure.

Which means there's incredible business opportunities. And my fear right now is pharmacists aren't in those business opportunities. It's others that are looking at it. Um, yeah, but we need to rethink, you know, the, the, the thing I always say is, you know, and, and people don't like when I say it, but. If we're honest with ourselves, my generation, I truly believe, is not going to be walking into the doors of a chain community pharmacy in 15 to 20 years.

Right. We, we don't get anything else that way. Why, why would that continue? Unless something significant changes. So we need to be okay with having some creative ideas and brainstorming and thinking and being provocative on some level to say. Okay, let's rethink this. If that were to be true, then how would we still be able to serve patients with the expertise that we have, but maybe it looks a little bit differently.

What would that look like? And then what's the business model for that happening? 

[01:09:45] Mike Koelzer, Host: We can't say, well, the, you know, the pharmacists deserve this. No, the, the, the, the economy's taken care of all of that. They're pharmacists who don't deserve anything. They're, they're deserving of what the supply and demand do. And, and we, we can't, we can't rest on some of those things that really don't make sense.

Like really do people really like coming to the store and hanging out and you're basing everything on that. You know? 

[01:10:09] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Well, one example of this for me recently is I, I met a, uh, physician, uh, and I won't share the company. I don't wanna promote what they're doing, but they are essentially envisioning a.

Netflix subscription model for access to physician care. And that's what they're doing. So for X dollars per month, you can get 24 7 access to a physician via video and or via email, uh, messaging. So what they, what they kind of come at and say is 80% of all primary care visits don't need to be happening, you know, in person, obviously there's some things that need that and maybe others would disagree with that.

Um, but what I love about the innovation of that, whether they succeed or not is, does. Does healthcare need to be dependent on getting to a physician of mine working for an employer where I have access to healthcare insurance, where I have to then go schedule three weeks out. I have to take a half a day off and I have to go walk in the doors and potentially get me and my kids sick.

And it's a miserable experience. Like rethinking. That whole thing is awesome. Like, I just love that. I mean, innovation, whether that works or something else. And I think that's the kind of thinking we need in pharmacy is what if, what if we started with a clean slate? What could this look like? That serves patients that, you know, aligns with what we're trained to do as a medication expert, but also has a viable business model behind it?

Yeah. I don't know the answer, but I love having the conversation. Yeah. If there's, if 

[01:11:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: There's many pains along the way, those are, those are opportunities. Yeah. I always say that with our, with our group, it's like, it's like when businesses are up or down, it's like, I don't know. I don't know exactly what road we need to take, but I do know that.

Like, as I told you, the life expectancy is going down and, and people are dying off. I mean, look at Steve jobs, you know, it's like solved a lot of things, but, but, but health health is what is, what took them, Tim? What so on. So finance education, what else are, are you, are you trying to find a way to go to the moon?

Are you on that project at all? Or are those the 

[01:12:05] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: two biggies? No, those, those are two biggies, real, real. Estate's a big one for me. It kind of fits in the finance bucket. So I'm dabbling into that and, uh, hoping to bring the YFP community into that for those that are those that are interested.

Sure. Um, yeah. And, and I don't have anything formal around this, but I love it. Uh, I love thinking through business ideas with people. Yeah. Just something I'm really passionate about. Yeah. Even if I have nothing to do with the idea. Um, so, you know, one of the things I think about in the future when there's certainly more time is me sitting down for a cup of coffee with somebody who has an idea.

I love, love that. Yeah. I love thinking through that. That's cool. 

[01:12:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's fun. That's cool. And you, and you are what I, what I like hearing from you, Tim is I know we talked about not liking all the administrative stuff, but there's a big difference also between. Between getting something going enough to even have administration stuff.

That's right. Which you're doing a excellent job of, I mean, you've, you guys have done so much and it's like, yeah, you don't want that little, you don't want the administrative stuff, but you've done so much, but it would be pleasurable as you're saying to sit down and have coffee or a milkshake and just have ideas and not have to do anything, then just come up with ideas.

That is fun too. Yeah. 

[01:13:15] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Tim church calls it, living in the cloud. So he says, he says I live in the clouds, which I do. I like you do, but 

[01:13:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: You have a lot of dirt though, man. You're you're, you're doing it. I 

[01:13:23] Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: appreciate that. You're doing it. Hey Tim, pleasure talking to you. Thank you. Spend a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing in 

[01:13:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: touch.

Thanks.