Entrepreneurship on the Job | Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA

Speech to text:

Mike Koelzer, Host: [00:00:00] You're listening to the business of pharmacy podcast with me, your host, Mike Koelzerr.

Kimber for those that haven't come across you online, introduce yourself and tell our listeners what we're talking about today. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: I'm Kimber Boothe. I serve as a strategic pharmacy consultant and career coach to advance pharmacy practice and then help pharmacists have joyful engaging careers. Today, we're gonna talk about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship.

So some people may wonder what those terms are. Obviously, I think we're familiar with entrepreneurship having that entrepreneurial spirit, where we own our own business. We're creating our own path. Entrepreneurship is related to that, but it's the opportunity to be innovative and entrepreneurial within an organization, which at the end of the day, many of.

Do practice or work within the confines of an organization. So how can we advance practice both entrepreneurial or through entrepreneurial efforts? 

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's cool. The entrepreneurship 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: entrepreneurship is actually a published term. It's in the dictionaries. Some people call it an entrepreneur on the job.

You know, it's an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur at work. Many of us have these ideas, but. Going off and starting your own business, whether it's a small single person or you have these big dreams of a big business, sometimes you have the safety net of being in an organization that can support that innovation.

There's the safety of doing it within an organization that comes with funding sources. The legal structure is there. You still have a guaranteed paycheck. Um, that don't, that isn't always there when you're starting a side hustle or, or trying to start a business. It 

Mike Koelzer, Host: almost sounds like there's no downside of safety.

Well, I can see two downsides. If it's ultra successful, you may not get the upside of your entrepreneurial endeavors. Number one. And then I suppose, separate from the money they might get extra time or at least flexible time. So those are the two things that maybe. You trade for not having a safety net, but a safety.

Net's really good. Sometimes. You know, 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: honestly what I do, my main part of my consulting business is stuff that I did as an entrepreneur. Do you 

Mike Koelzer, Host: feel like. Do you in general like the personalities of people that have this entrepreneurial spirit or sometimes are they a narcissistic pain in the ass? 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: um, luckily I have not noticed.

That narcissistic, uh, pain in the ass personality. I have dealt with them, but actually they have not been pharmacists in my career path, uh, that had that personality. I love that spirit. So I will say that this kind of bold attitude, again, whether you're an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur, I like to say that I like people who are strategic about their life and career.

So most people that are these entrepreneurs or people who seek me because they wanna advance practice, they want to, you know, have a better career. All of their mindset. I seem to attract these types of people who are positive or positive about the profession who wanna give back and it's okay to wanna make money doing it.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Devil's advocate. Intrapreneurship they go to their boss in the pharmacy world and they say, I've got this spirit. And as you were saying, you want to get paid sometimes for that. But the devil's advocate. If I'm a boss, I'd say, just get to work. That's what you're paid for. I didn't get you in here just because of your skills.

I hired you amongst another 30 different people because I saw more potential in you to do your stuff. So how do you tell people that want to do entrepreneurship? How do you prepare them? Just to maybe get slapped by their company that says you're supposed to be doing this. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Well, and it, that definitely can happen.

And sometimes it's the individual manager who is not thinking broad enough, right. Or, you know, they're very narrow minded, you know, got blinders on, you know, get the, the widgets done. Um, and they're not open to that. I, I think. [00:05:00] That's why, you know, teaching about how to support innovation in your department is important.

So how do you, when, when your, when your employees have an idea and come to you, how do you embrace it and support them and provide them the resources or time or space to explore it further and not squash it, but there are definitely narrow-minded managers out there. And it's important to think about how you do.

Manage up and identify who your stakeholders are when you have an idea. And it can be small. For example, um, a pharmacy pharmacist that I worked with, she started a technician training program. So she identified a need. While there were some initial barriers to it. She put together a detailed summary plan, which covered the key points and the RO return on investment, the ROI.

And it got presented. Her boss presented it to senior leadership and it got approved. So they could get internal resources to address their technician training and turnover issues, uh, that they were having. Definitely put together a business plan. You'd wanna do some of the work for that person. Time is the most precious resource, right?

We don't have time right now, but if you can prepare a summary that then your boss can present, that has some of these thoughts in it. You don't wanna be talking to other leaders when you're trying to identify a plan. You definitely wanna loop your boss earlier, but putting something on paper that has an outline of your proposal.

The benefits and the return on investment is what you wanna put together to help the process. See, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: here's the thing though, when dealing with the boss is we bosses, well, I record this at home and I can't say that too loud because my wife and my daughters might be, think I'm talking about being a boss here, which I'm obviously not, but at work I'm the boss, but we bosses.

Love to think the ideas are ours. When you bring something to the boss, you can't make it too refined or else they're afraid of that. They're gonna show it to their boss and it's gonna be, well here's Kimber's plan. It's gonna go through it. So if you have to leave enough for the boss to put their imprint on it, 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: I do agree with that.

And that's why you wanna go to them earlier. in, the process, you've identified it, you have kind of an outline, um, but you haven't, you know, it's not a fully fleshed out, you know, business plan at that point to, to include them. And then hopefully they will be supportive. Of you or, you know, maybe they have to point you in the right direction.

If a 

Mike Koelzer, Host: pharmacist is your boss, what are some traits? That they're probably a pharmacist because of some of these traits, but then it makes 'em a crappy boss. If they're a crappy boss, 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: I love how you ask these, you know, you know, very poignant questions. So I do think some of the type, a. You know, detail oriented, micromanaging aspects of a pharmacist, um, make it hard.

Um, as a leader, especially an actual leader, not just like a supervisor. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Why, why is that type 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: bad? It, you just, you want to, when you move up in leadership, it's more about. Allowing your people to do what they're best at and you not micromanaging them. And so, and that's hard. It, it, I, you know, I not don't wanna say I struggle with it, but it's a transition and it is a lot more about empowering them.

And, you know, you have to be pretty strong in yourself. To be confident that as the leader, you've brought this team together, that's your success, right? Like you hire the right people, you allowed them to develop, you supported and inspired them towards this greater mission and vision. Yeah. And then you kind of gotta step out of the way.

Right. And let them do what they're good at. And so, and you need to be comfortable with the fact that they're gonna come up with these good ideas and it's your job to. You know, move it along through the process and remove any barriers so that it can be implemented. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I think it's obvious to me, I think why pharmacy attracts type a, is it that obvious though?

It's because medicine's black and white and you have to be organized and all that kind of stuff. That's why it attracts these people. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: It just requires a large attention to detail, I think. Yeah. And you know, in terms of the, you know, you, you have to be on like when you're a practicing pharmacist and admittedly, I haven't been a practicing pharmacist in a while.

Um, It's, it just requires a lot of attention that I think people in other professions, um, don't have that, you know, you, your, your, your work is not so critical, um, [00:10:00] in terms of, you know, a patient's life is in your hands, if you make a mistake. Uh, so that's how I think about it. But, you know, I don't know, actually, if a study's been done about.

The breakdown of, uh, personality traits in our profession, I'm sure it exists. And I would suspect it would be very much towards that, uh, type type, a controlling, um, personality. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't think I like a lot of pharmacists. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Why do you say that? Might 

Mike Koelzer, Host: And I, I don't mean to paint a rosy picture of the world.

They're just not happy and lucky. And I see it a lot of times. as pharmacists were pushed around a lot by PBMs and our managers and the wholesalers and all that stuff. And you lose a lot of your individuality. Yeah. And. And this is a little bit cliche, but you've heard about it where some pharmacists take that frustration and they become like C2 Nazis, or, you know what I mean?

It's like they grab onto any power they might have, and then they just beat it to death, you know, with too much control on areas that don't need that much control. I don't know. It. Somebody would say, Mike, if you don't like all the pharmacists, it's obviously you , you're the one, I mean, you know that Kimber.

Yeah. If you're mad at everybody in your house or something, the problems with 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: you, it's usually you. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Cuz people aren't doing, you know, In general, most people are not doing things to make you upset on purpose. And you know, so a lot of it is how we react to the situation. And what you're saying though, does resonate.

And it does remind me of some of the training I've done with joy and work. And, you know, it all relates to kind of burnout and resilience. And the Institute for healthcare improvement came up with this term, you know, of saying, we need to find our joy in work again. And so, and we need to expect. And, you know, know that our day is gonna be stressful, know that, you know, healthcare is hard, but if we put ourselves in the right mindset and we step back and remember why we got into this profession and all the amazing and wonderful things we get to do that we get to do, you know, that mindset of, yeah, this is a privilege to get to help patients.

So what you're saying in terms. People getting stuck on certain things. And I, and I do think there's an element that is causing people to want that power. In terms of, when you think about what causes people to feel engaged at work, they want to feel in control of something. And when we're losing control of so many things, I think that's somewhat natural.

Yeah. But I also feel like we're, we've lost some of the joy in work and that's definitely a passion of mine is to try and see one of course, how we can make sure we have the right resources. Right. I do think that in many practice settings, we are under-resourced, both in terms of people and technology that is causing unneeded stress for a pretty high risk, you know, of activities that we are involved with.

Mike Koelzer, Host: When you think of somebody not joyful at work. People would say, oh, they're not joyful. That means they're sad. They think that's the opposite of not joyful, but you alluded to it there. Kimber, what are some other signs that you would feel would be. Opposite of joy. If it's not just sadness, would it be controlled?

Would it be that kind of stuff 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: in terms of, you know, words that come to my mind? It, it's definitely a more negative, um, you know, negative thoughts, negative mindset, negative, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: not maybe sadness, but negative. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That negativity. And, and I know. I tend to be very much an optimist and a positive person, but it's easy sometimes to let that negativity slip in.

And I know you've talked in your podcast, you know, that blaming others, you know, so you're, you're powerless in a way because. Of all of this stuff happening, you know, to you, uh, that, that you're, you're feeling, you know, negative and again, yeah, it's, it's not as much sad as it is negativity, and then you lose some of the lightheartedness that should come from 

Mike Koelzer, Host: work, which is a release during the day, 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: too.

Exactly. And we're all people, our patients, our colleagues, you know, we're all people and we. it is important that we interact, you know, as people first and then as the healthcare, whatever healthcare entity relationship we're in, you know, doctor pharmacists, you know, patient pharmacists, et cetera, how do we interact there?

But [00:15:00] we're still people. And so connecting with them on a personal, you know, actual level and then taking care of the business at hand, which is, you know, the patient care that that needs to. Just 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Taking some time to be human for a little bit and sharing a smile among the stress and so on is, yes, probably a big thing.

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Yeah, well, and I know that I've used music a lot with my departments and teams. You know, whether, you know, if it's a team meeting, I like to introduce music. I like to have, um, oftentimes my teams we've picked out a theme song for the year or for our team. So I often try to introduce music, uh, into those kinds of situations, which.

You're right. Like throughout the day, maybe you can't play that, but that's where you need breaks to, to introduce some of that, maybe a little dancing, you know, move your body a little bit. I think that's a fun, fun thing to incorporate, but absolutely I'm pleased to see, but saddened that it's taken so long to get some of our chain pharmacies to implement breaks, uh, because I think that's, that's so necessary when you look at all the reading about, um, you know, resilience is you.

Some of that downtime, whether you're gonna go meditate, uh, and whatever that means to you, or you just need your, your mind needs a, a break it's. I think it's important for safety, uh, as well as your overall well being. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Kimber, do you listen to music when you work? I know you weren't talking about this, but do you listen to music?

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Yes, I do almost always listen to music while I work and I try to balance like some of my other activities. I do listen to podcasts a lot. Like when I'm, you know, cleaning the house or, or something like that, or driving people 

Mike Koelzer, Host: listen to mine right after they take a couple melatonin at night to go to sleep.

I know the truth. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: No, no, but yeah, I love music. I've been listening to, uh, BTS lately. Actually it's a pop, pop band, so it's very upbeat type music. And, uh, that's been my, my background go to my 

Mike Koelzer, Host: dad years ago at our pharmacy. He must have had a sales guy or something come in that talked about having music on for shoppers.

And I think, you know, there had to be something financial to it. Like people are more relaxed and they shop more and stuff. So. He got these couple speakers. And I think the guy sold him on that. You could go to Alka trust if you were playing the radio, you know, and without giving credit to the players and so on.

So he bought into this, um, music service and back then, you know, my dad was a different generation. Now the generations are closer because of TikTok and all that stuff and society. So my dad gets his music in and it's kind of elevator music. And one, I hated the elevator music, but two. I just couldn't concentrate.

So he wanted this done and he'd come in and the music would be off and he'd come in and turn the music on and he'd turn it on a little bit louder to like make up for the time that it wasn't on and then he'd play this damn elevator music and then he'd leave and I would turn it off again. So Kimber, you.

A book or two. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: So I have one book published, uh, at the end of last year, another one coming out, uh, now, uh, here in 22, where I started with the book that was my novation book. So pharmacy innovation, I had created a course. To pull together some of this entrepreneurship that I had learned through the years and wanted to make sure that I packaged it in a way to allow it to impact more people.

You know, there's only so many people I can coach one on one or consult with, but how can I get this message out? So a book or an online course, or two ways of doing that and great news, it looks like at least once college of pharmacy may be using it for their practice advancement. Uh, which is thrilling.

Uh, I know that people have been given it to their students and I just, you know, wanna see how it can inspire bold, uh, innovation for, for practice. So I started with farm innovation and it's um, well, I know you can probably see me, but not your listeners, but it's about advocating for resources, advancing pharmacy practice and, you know, accelerating your pharmacy career.

Well, Kimber, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you're holding that up and that's a hard cover. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Yes. And it's very colorful. Lots of pictures. Wait a minute 

Mike Koelzer, Host: talking about pictures. I think it has a centerfold 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: there is yeah. Me on the back. Uh, oh, you're on 

the 

Mike Koelzer, Host: back. That's the back. All right. So with hard cover your plan from the start would've been, that's a school book, right?

Well, 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: we are offering it both. I have a soft cover hardcover, [00:20:00] Kindle, and it's being recorded as an audible right now. So, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: But was that your thought of hardcover that it would be more school or do people still like hardcover business books? Even the general population? Yeah, 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Actually, you know, it was interesting cuz people can buy both from me and I will say that the initial purchase, so maybe people in my community were definitely a lot more on the hard cover, but the hard cover is like $10 more.

just because it's caused more to print, um, the hard cover. So now it's probably a little more balanced to the soft cover and, you know, I tend to buy a lot of books on Kindle or, or, you know, audible myself. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Wait a minute though. Did the hard cover come 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: out first? Uh, the hard and soft came out together at the same time and hard was higher.

Yes. Yep. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Isn't that? Something. Yeah, but most people might not be as cheap as I am. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: yeah. Like why spend the extra, extra money on it? Uh, right. Yeah, it does feel good. We did, we have thought about that, but you know, I didn't, I didn't create it specifically for pharmacy courses, but it was something that we, I brainstormed with my book publisher about like, how could I create a supplemental, you know, teachers guide that goes along with it to, to allow it to truly be used in a course, you know, I teach.

At the university of Cincinnati right now, I've definitely been faculty in other areas, but I teach in the master's in pharmacy leadership program on financial management. Um, but this is a potential book for, you know, business courses, you know, that exists in pharmacy schools, either at the, you know, pharm D level or master's level, uh, or it can also be, you know, part of that somehow type of practice advancement or innovation.

Uh, so we are actually talking about. You know, if schools do wanna use it, uh, because again, there's these downloadable tools that can be used. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: How do you get word out to the schools? Obviously there's a lot of ways to do it, but how do you think that you would get that serious word out that you'd like business classes or whatever to adopt it?

Yeah, 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: it's definitely something, you know, I, I need to plan for, I, you know, want to reach out to the schools anyways, cuz I wanted to offer to, to speak to the students. I've spoken at some pharmacy schools at practice advancement. Uh, and I just wanna share this message of, of hope for our profession that I do see.

And I mentor several students, uh, in, in schools and. I'm very excited about the future pharmacy. And I wanna make sure they're hearing some of that optimism again, back to our topic today for entrepreneurship to advance things, don't have to stay the way they are. Um, they can improve or, you know, whether they wanna consider entrepreneurship.

When I think about my business, I have three main topic areas that I'm supporting. It started with this kind of connector leadership topic. That is where I started as a, my career coaching that I started with like actually seven, eight years ago when I first started my side hustle and it did evolve to focus on pharmacy with some of the great experiences I've had with being able to advocate now for over 250.

Positions in hospitals and health systems. So. That's why formation became the first book, but in terms of my three paths, it is the connector leadership. How can you grow your career? How can you be an effective leader where you're not that micromanaging manager? You know, you wanna be that bold, optimistic, supportive leader, um, to get where you want.

So that's my connector line. Support 

Mike Koelzer, Host: that verb connector. Who are you connecting with? 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Well, I'd like to say that I'm helping pharmacy leaders to connect people, knowledge, knowledge, and, and resources. So you are the connector. You're connecting the dots. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. We've already established that. I don't like pharmacists.

Okay. And they don't like me and that's fine. That's fine. but if you can pick areas because we like to pick on people here, if you can pick areas. Pharmacists with patients and pharmacists with each other and pharmacists with family and pharmacists, with community. And so on, we talked about pharmacists being type a, you know, and, and some of those things.

Do you think pharmacists, compared to other professions, maybe don't? Connect those dots as well. Is there something about being type a and you think of some professions, like a real estate agent or, you know, a, a salesperson or something they're born to make those connections? Do you think pharmacists have trouble with that?

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Yeah. When you say it that way and you put it that way. I do think some aspects of it, we are definitely more, more challenged with, um, for sure, but I, I do find that this is kind of a challenge with, with a lot of people that we're, we're not in general. Yeah. We're not being strategic about our life. So a lot of people can be strategic about their careers, but on I, what I found, unfortunately with pharmacy is.

It kind of stops like after you finish school, it feels [00:25:00] like, uh, you spent all that time, all that money in school. And then, you know, I ask groups of pharmacists and I'll ask big rooms and I'll say, you know, how many people here have a career development plan? You know, how many people set annual goals and.

Like one person in a room might raise their hand. So really it's surprising to me, yes. That while some of the things I would've expected because we've spent and invested so much in our careers, that, that, that would continue. But it's almost like we shut down, uh, in a way, uh, afterwards 

Mike Koelzer, Host: We talk about, I don't talk about it, but people talk about, you know, the PG Y you know, all these different extensions and all this stuff, it always seems like.

Pharmacists are making these plans. But when I hear people, maybe it stops kind of like, okay, I got a job. As I contemplate on it. It's like not a lot of people maybe talk past that point and if they do, I kind of, I don't talk to a lot of 'em, but I hear it more in terms of maybe their career for a few more years, but I don't hear too much.

Yearly goals as you're talking about. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Yeah. And I think, you know, I haven't really, I don't know that I've studied it, but some of what I've read and definitely working with a lot of clients across the country, um, there is, again, some of it's just an exasperation, like they don't have time. Um, and they're just, you know, trying to balance everything else.

Um, yeah, but they're just not being as thoughtful about it. And to me, it doesn't require a residency. Uh, residency is nice, cuz it's just a fast track, right? It's a mm-hmm you get a lot of focus training in those years, but there's other ways to develop yourself by networking with other people, by continuing to read, by listening to podcasts.

We'll prepare you for those positions. And it could be that you want a clinical position, or maybe you even want a leadership role, right? You wanna move into leadership, you know, maybe you can do some project management training. Do you understand the finances and the business of what we're in? 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You bring 

up leadership, being a leader's kind of a pain in the ass.

I mean, you usually make more money. Maybe you can hide a little bit more. You can pretend like you're working on something, sitting at your desk and some people, I guess, Have that goal of leadership. Sometimes it comes and goes for me. Mm-hmm, , you know, you get a little bit of George Washington and you, you know, something like that, but leadership, you know, you just get a lot of complainers and the people that are complaining, they like that a lot in life.

They don't wanna go anywhere. They're just professional complainers underneath you. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: It is sometimes a thankless job for sure. And you do have people who. Who will think that you have bad intentions, even though you're trying to do everything you can to balance whatever the competing priorities and, and challenges that are, that are coming at you.

Um, but, but that may not always be, you know, recognized and, and not everybody has to be a leader. So, you know, right. Definitely. You know, we don't have, I mean, everybody couldn't be a leader, but I do also focus a lot on, you know, something that I think is Sarah White in our profession, and it's definitely.

Outside of our profession talks about the big L and the little L right. So yeah, you can definitely have that big L titer where you're, you're the official leader, meaning people report to you, the buck stops there, et cetera, but there's also the little LS that I think sometimes we, uh, and to me, that's part of that entrepreneurship.

Like how do we make sure that everybody realizes that they, they are their own leader, they're leading their, their own life, their career. And, they're impacting people around them. So they, yeah, it's important that everybody looks at themselves like that. And I remember one time when I was working in the pharmaceutical industry and one of the values that we had to talk about was leadership.

And some of the staff didn't think they had to actually even respond to that in their performance review because they weren't a manager or in management. And I said, of course you do. Leadership is not just the big L title. It is. It is leadership of yourself in, in, in what's around you. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Most of us can.

And. Will be, and maybe should be strong. Number twos. You know, how many number ones are there? Mm-hmm , especially as a company gets bigger, you know, think about like Amazon and now think about someone who's not the head of Amazon, but you've got, you know, thousands of people underneath you, you are a leader, but you're not the leader.

And even when you're the leader, then, then you say to yourself, well, I'm not the leader of that company. You know, that's bigger than I am in me. We're all followers. But we're all leaders. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Yeah. And it's true. I mean, cuz almost, even, even when you're the CEO of many companies, there's probably a board. That's, you know, you got it, the [00:30:00] board there, it's helping to impact and decide whether you have a job or not.

So, you know, it's, it's important that everybody, you know, looks at themselves, uh, as part of the leadership team, uh, the success of an organization. And, um, so I, I do think that's important that we look at it that way. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You don't own a yacht? 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: No, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Nor do I, but can you imagine having, you know, a hundred billion dollars and you buy this yacht and you see the Jones' next door, you know, have a yacht that's 30% bigger.

I bet those feelings of not having as much. Is the same feeling or worse when you're, when you have a hundred billion dollars, but you don't have the biggest yacht, you know? Oh yeah. It's all the same 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: feeling. I bet it is at every level that keeps it at every level Jones's. Um, it is, and, and it's, it's kind of a jealousy and an imposter syndrome that happens.

I know I just had it recently as a pharmacist in my career and seeing, um, being jealous of some other pharmacy entrepreneurs who were. Who were doing certain things that are like, oh, I should have done that. Or, oh, I'm not as big as them with my followers or my absolute, you know, clients, what have you, but then you have to get back and remember, you know, you have your unique purpose, your unique gifts.

Uh, but yes, I've, I've gone through that. And I, I don't doubt that it's not at, at every, and some people will look at me, but. Look at you, Kim, like if you're a full-time entrepreneur, you know, more than doubled my salary, you know, with what I'm doing and they'll look at me and think I'm perfectly successful.

And, but then I'm like, you know, I'm not achieving all of my goals and, and then I get this kind of jealousy. So I know it, it happens at, at every 

Mike Koelzer, Host: level. All right. So Kimber, so we've got the ovation, which is entrepreneurship. Yes. And then we talk about them. Connectors. What's the third 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: theme. The third theme is farm flus where I'm supporting pharmacy entrepreneurs through this thought leader model, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: the narcissistic.

What did I call 'em earlier? What did I call 'em narciss yeah, you definitely narcissistic 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: narcissistic. I had another derogatory comment. You might have to listen to the recording for that. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I'm gonna listen to it and edit it back in here. I'm not even sure if these thoughts are related, but I think sometimes the pharmacists.

We are normal folk in the trenches. However you define that. I think sometimes there is an envy of people saying that they want to do stuff. I think sometimes there is envy, but I think that some of the leaders do a good job of connecting to the people in the trenches to lift them up. And I think sometimes I'm not saying you're people at all, but I think sometimes.

People can look at those people. And maybe the people have been a little bit derogatory to people that are still downtrodden mm-hmm , you know, and sometimes that connection's not there. And that's where I like the entrepreneur so much, because there's a big, nice span of being a leader in your own spot.

How broadly do you define entrepreneurship? Well, 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: I think, you know, in terms of having that entrepreneurial spirit, I do think, you know, anybody who's kind of that, um, innovative think out of the box, um, where your goal is to kind of create a solution to a problem, uh, that those are some of the terms that I think of.

Um, when I think about entrepreneur, Entrepreneur, you know, mindset and behaviors. Um, true entrepreneurship. You'd say, um, as my, as my business coaches would tell me is, you know, you, you need to get to a point where you have a business that's making money. It has to go beyond a hobby. Um, if you're, if you're true, truly thinking about being an entrepreneur, , but it can be a side hustle.

It, you know, and that's what I had for, for many years. And, it was a longer term plan to do it full time. Um, but like I said, it, the, it blurs because of this entrepreneurship, um, when I'm thinking about it again, because I think that's that entrepreneurial stir in, in the organization. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Let's face it, unless you have a, a brand, you know, or a huge arbitrage or something, that's really gonna take off the risk isn't as strong.

And the reward is quite often better in entrepreneurship. You know, maybe not that satisfaction of doing it on your own mm-hmm or maybe not some of the flexibility, but the monetary reward is quite often pretty good, you know, unless you. Hit it as an entrepreneur versus doing it already in an organization.

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: You know, it's interesting. You're bringing that up cuz sometimes I, from a marketing perspective, um, [00:35:00] I don't wanna say struggled with, but sometimes I've really thought like my fellow entrepreneurs who are, who are promoting people to start their own business, like it's kind of like a, a they're promoting a clear ROI.

Whereas when I'm focusing on my formators, you know, people working with organizations, you know, When you look at their success, they may justify, you know, $500,000 in FTE or resources, but that may or may not go into, you know, any of that may not go into their own pocket. Um, and so sometimes it's harder to connect that return on investment, but that said, I definitely have, you know, seen people who've, you know, gotten promotions, gotten that higher paying job.

And so yes, advancing your career even without a business. Is very possible to be positively rewarding or just learning how to negotiate that salary. I just worked with somebody who is moving into a management position and we were able to get her salary up $46,000, I think, from what they originally offered her just by learning those skills of negotiation and not accepting the first offer, uh, that you're you're given.

Your goals 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I am inspiring because I have a lot of selfish goals. I wouldn't even think about the other pharmacist. I would just be thinking of my life, but I'm kind of an old fart. So I have my own dreams now. But one thing I thought of is I can make a huge impact on business schools with my podcast because they could take it.

All the business schools have them listen to it on Monday. And then the next day they come to pharmacy business class, the teacher would then say, all right, do the opposite.

right. Think of the impact I would make. 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: Oh, my you speak great things and you have some great guests on this show. Um, but it's, it's nice that you wanna make fun of yourself. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Ah, well, Kimber, what a 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: pleasure meeting you. Absolute pleasure talking to you here as well. Like I say 

Mike Koelzer, Host: there seems to be sometimes a divide.

Not everybody feels this way, but stuck in the pharmacy dungeon. And then there's some people that have, you know, broken free, you know, they're the entrepreneurs, but it's so cool to see that nice connection between entrepreneurship, between people who are kind of. In that area, they've got leadership skills, but they're not quite there.

Maybe they never want to go out on their own . And so it's, it's really cool that connection you make there. And I think that it's very practical and it touches reality, you know, because for a lot of people that is the reality of being able to make incremental steps up that ladder of life. And I think you, in that position, Give a lot of hope and direction for 

Kimber Boothe, PharmD, MHA: people.

Thank you for saying that. I definitely do hope to have some type of inspirational aspect to have people think positively about our profession. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: And it's good. You have those goals for another 10 or 15 years before you're an old bitter person. Like I am just looking out for myself. I will try. All right.

Kimber, such a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Talk to you again. Bye-bye

you've been listening to the business of pharmacy podcast with me, your host, Mike Keer. Please subscribe for all future episodes.