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Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD, discusses what she has learned from being an employee in corporate America to then being an employer.
https://www.collaborativetherapeutics.com/
Speech to text:
Mike Koelzer, Host: [00:00:25] Kristin for those that haven't come across you online, introduce yourself and tell our listeners what we're
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: talking about today. My name is Kristen Tallent. I am the CEO of a wellness clinic called Shore Integrative Health. And I'm also the CEO of another company called Collaborative Therapeutics. Today.
We're going to talk about going from being an employee, pretty much corporate America to an employer and the different things I've learned along the way you took
Mike Koelzer, Host: off from corporate America. Now you're doing your own thing. You're going to end right back up in corporate America. You're going to be leading it.
What did you learn from the corporates that you say I'll never do that though. I'm going to be different
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: How they treat their employees 1000%, because that was one of the things that I absolutely hated about working for larger corporations and some of my, even some of the smaller companies that I worked for, I just really felt like they didn't value like truly value their employees and the sacrifice and hard work that people put in on a day-to-day basis and the amount of time that they give up from their own personal lives to give to that company.
And I don't truly feel like it's appreciated a lot of the time. And so that is definitely something that I am striving to create in my own business, but I have to be honest, it is really not a very easy thing to do.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Kristin devil's advocate. Did you get paid when you were in the corporation and are you paying your employees now?
And so tough two weeks for two weeks pay, what's all this hand holding, what's all this, uh, appreciation stuff.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I cannot stand when people say, well, at least you have a job. You could say that for everything, we could get a job doing millions of different things, really from how many millions of different people, but especially when you're working for smaller entities, you see their families, you see their lifestyle, you see where they're spending their time a little bit more.
And so you start to see that, you know, maybe you're putting in more time than that person. The least you want is a little bit of appreciation, you want to feel that sense that they appreciate the sacrifice that you're making in your own life to not only grow and build their business, but then, you know, support their life and their lifestyle that they have.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I think sometimes families are almost worse than businesses, because I think sometimes you get these big businesses and it's like, okay, I'm one of the thousand employees and there's the CEO. Who's millions upon millions of dollars. And you almost disassociate yourself with them. You're like, well, they're so far up that they do what they want.
I don't love my job, but I got a job, but in a family business, it's almost like you can have 10 of you there. And all of a sudden, you know, there's seven in the family. It's like, all right, we're going to Hawaii this week or something like that. And they deserve it, you know, but it's so close.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Sometimes they do.
And it is, and I've worked for two very different kinds of people. I've worked for the one that just showers you and showers your employees there. He and showered his employees with so much love and respect and monetary things, whether it was bonuses or tickets to something and just the, um, The sense of gratitude and how the friendliness of that environment was totally different than maybe someone else who, I mean, I was luckily lucky if I got an animal raise or a Christmas bonus, and everybody's, everybody's moved by different things.
You know, everybody, you know, not everybody wants a bonus or not. Everybody wants more vacation time, but those conversations weren't even happening.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I think that's the trick of a good boss slash owner is sometimes people don't want that warmth They want more money or they want this, or they want that. And it's a hard conversation because you don't want to go to your employees and say, what would you like more of them to say? I want more of this.
And you're like, no, that's not going to happen. but I mean, there's different incentives for different things.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Absolutely. And figuring out how to kind of work that into the system, into your business and your workflow and figuring out what each individual employee wants, and then finding the happy medium.
It's really tricky.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I've been trying to figure this out. What professions is it okay to have a really nice car in which ones is it better not to be a boss? So for example, it's best. When I come into work, I leave my Jaguar at home [00:05:25] and I pull up in my, you know, my old Chevy or something like that.
It's just a better look. It's a better look for customers. It's a better look for employees. It's just a better look. However, if you're in another business, there's other businesses where. You want to see the success of that person? We used to have this little drive-through hamburger place. All they had was like burger and fries, the burger for like 50 cents.
And the fries were like 50 cents. Something like that. This is like 10 years ago. And I saw the owner pull up one time and he was driving this deluxe car. I mean, this guy was so rich. He wasn't even wearing socks. You know, the type, you know what I'm saying? He had his, he had his loafers on and stuff. You know, he didn't wear socks.
And I thought, oh, that guy's rich, but I didn't really care. I don't care because the burgers are 50 cents. There's some businesses where. It looks better if you have a really good car. I don't know what that would be. Exactly. Maybe if you're like a, one of those hospital chasing attorneys, you know, the type that everybody hates, but those guys it's good.
If they have a really nice looking car, because the people that hire them to win their cases, they look at them and they say, that's who I want to fight for me. So there's some that should look big and nice. And there's some that don't, I'm just relating that to watching your boss, especially if it's a tight knit thing and like how they're living in, it's really none of your damn business, but it does affect you.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Yeah, no, it's not any of our business whatsoever, but I think previously being an employee and now being an employer, you see both sides, sides of it. Very clearly. You see both sides of it very clearly. And I just remember certain instances where I didn't care about that because. You felt the appreciation and you cared more about it when you didn't feel the appreciation.
So I don't, and I agree with you. I think healthcare in general, especially when you're in specific niches, they don't want to see the really nice car that you're driving, because then they feel like you're taking advantage of them and everybody associates healthcare with it should be covered by my insurance and it should be free.
So if you're driving around in some really nice vehicle, um, you know, I think that could be maybe taken in a negative light, but also I can't help, but think of Dave Ramsey, because he's all about paying off your vehicles and driving some, some beat down car because you're putting your money in other more advantageous areas.
And so. I look at it a little differently. I see that really sort of car and I'm thinking to myself. Yeah. But what's that? What do all the other financial pieces of that person's life look like? Whereas that, that crappy car they might be driving around might mean that they have a really, really nice 401k or a couple extra houses.
I don't know.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Now that you're a big shot and you've got all your employees. What are you driving up? And don't give me the model of the car. Just tell me, is it a status symbol for you? Is it a status symbol to let other pharmacists know how well you're doing? So maybe they'll join in and want to learn from you and how you did this business or are you on purpose?
Like dominant down.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: So I drive a Mazda SUV and I look at things differently than I think a lot of people do. I am not one to put on some kind of fake persona, especially with all the social media that we have going on in this world. I'm really not a huge fan of all of that, because you can make yourself look like a totally different person.
Literally like the Kardashians. Yeah. I mean, filter in all.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't watch the Kardashians stuff, but they've got like all these sisters. I think they have another sister, like someone who I've never seen before. And I realized that it's the tall one and I don't think she's that tall. Oh, who am
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I thinking of?
I don't know. I don't, I don't watch it. I'm sorry. I don't. Yeah,
Mike Koelzer, Host: It's probably pretty petite, like five 10, but she stands next to her sisters who are like five one, and she looks just like a giant, the poor gal. Anyways. She always uses these filters and it looks like they have another person in the family, but it was actually a sheet.
But anyways, you're not into those facades. I'm
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: No, I am really big on being authentic. I like purchasing from people. I like following people who are also authentic or seem authentic people I can trust. Um, and so I want to be that same type of person. You worked for a chain for a time? Yes, I did.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Was that the impetus for getting the hell out of the chain or was it a good experience or marched me down because then you went to chain to some independence.
You've got the itch, you started doing your own thing. You're going to grow [00:10:25] into a huge corporation. Was the chain the impetus, or was it like a path? That was a great experience.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: It was actually a really good experience. Um, I was with a chain who was kind of on their way out. Uh, I was there for several years, but there it was, it was this beautiful in my experience, it was this beautiful blend between corporate retail, pharmacy and independent pharmacy as.
So I was able to see, you know, the hierarchy and all the people that are involved with district managers and people above them and billing departments and met meeting metrics and quality calls and, you know, all of those things that we see in corporate community pharmacy. Um, but at the same time I knew my patients and my volume wasn't so high that I wasn't able to breathe.
And I wasn't able to know my patient's names or where, um, what they were dealing with or their disease states and really have an impact. So it really did marry the two very nicely, but the sad thing was, as they were, and I knew at the writing was on the wall that they were on their way out. And so when, um, they started turning part of the lights off throughout the day, I knew that it was time for me, for me to F to find a new job, literally.
Right. Literally I would, I would walk in and. At first, I was wondering to myself why, I wonder if like half the lights are broken. That's really strange. Cause it was like one row was on one row and it was every other row was on and then this was consistent. And I thought to myself, I think it's probably time for me to start putting out feelers.
Mike Koelzer, Host: When you say it was kind of an independent feel, is that because it was smaller than a huge chain or what gave you the sense that it was a little bit of an independent issue? Is that because you got to see some of the operations or
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: what? Yeah. So quickly, I was hired as a staff pharmacist right out of school.
And I was quickly put into the pharmacy manager position because that pharmacy manager had left and it was a fantastic opportunity. And. I think the reason I say it was able to kind of have that independent feel is because it wasn't such a high volume and I was still getting tech hours. So I had plenty of support and also my district manager was fantastic.
It was like that blend of guiding you and helping you with what you needed, but also leaving you alone to actually do what it is that you're there to do instead of being micromanaged, which I think a lot of us can really relate to. None of us want to be micromanaged. We want to see if we can sink or swim.
Right. And so he really, um, he was a big piece of that I think because he really allowed me to kind of make the mistakes that I needed to, to grow, but also allowed me to really, um, be successful in the areas that I was. That I was able to be successful during my time. There was this manager, a pharmacist.
Yeah, he was, I think that was a big piece of it too. I know
Mike Koelzer, Host: Other chains have pharmacists, some as district managers. So what quality do you think he had to let go of the reins a little bit. And do you think he did that on purpose knowing that it would make for a more engaged employee? Or do you think it was just dumb luck that this guy wasn't as
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: engaged?
No, I think he was engaged. I think there was something about what he saw in me possibly to kind of relinquish a little bit of control and just let me. Take the reins. Also, he did put me in like one of the biggest failing stores in his district.
Mike Koelzer, Host: That sounds like me, but it's usually after I've been there awhile.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: So in a sense, there was only room for growth, but also he was very clear in what he wanted. So I feel like that's part of, uh, one of the things that made it successful, because if you tell me exactly what it is that you're looking for, then I can usually figure it out. But it's the people who are vague or all flighty, and don't really even know where they're going.
That's really hard to take direction. From
Mike Koelzer, Host: what quality do you think he saw in you to let
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: go off the reins a little bit? Well, I actually moved, um, out of state right out of school. And so this, this move was. Five hours away from what was originally home. Um, so I think there's a sense of maturity and independence that you automatically get from somebody who might be doing that.
And also, I think just as now, the employer. People coming right out of school have something exciting about them there. They haven't been, they're not jaded. They're not jaded. They haven't been ruined by life or [00:15:25] some terrible job that they've already had. You know what I mean? They're like, they're excited about it.
They're excited. And so I think that's probably, probably when he saw my excitement,
Mike Koelzer, Host: pharmacy's kind of a good job to do that because it's a licensed job. You can get someone relatively fresh. Who's not jaded, but you know that they know everything because they had a license ship. That might not be the same in some professions, but yeah, pharmacy, you can get the proof that they're good without the baggage.
Sometimes, you know, it's funny, you mentioned the light because I had dreams about our pharmacy before we remodeled. And this is years ago. I was like 25 years ago before remodeling. When I first started out there, I had dreams about coming into work. And turning more lights on and the team that was there, not having all the lights on.
And I keep trying to say, was that possible? Did we, did we not have all of our lights on? And I think we always did. I think we always had our lights on, but for some reason in my dream I'm coming in and I'm turning more lights on. So I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I was your manager in earlier life or something.
I don't know. I'm not old enough to double you, so that
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: can't be it. No, absolutely not. It was a very weird thing. As soon as I started to see that happening, I knew it was time to start looking for a different job. I like to be prepared, you know what I mean? So the last thing I was going to do was go down with the ship I had to get out.
It
Mike Koelzer, Host: sounds like the Titanic actually, with the lights blinking from that freezing water and so on, you take off from the chain, but it was more of it. Running, not in a negative sense, but it was more of leaving something than maybe going somewhere. But you did end up in some independent
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: stores. Yeah, absolutely.
No. And I, it wasn't really a negative thing. It really was just looking at the, um, looking at the pharmacy industry and knowing where something is going. That's really what it was. And so I always wanted to be a pharmacist at an independent pharmacy. I had done a lot, a lot of work with independent pharmacies when I was still in this.
So I shifted to an independent pharmacy, which was an incredible experience because I started there as a staff pharmacist and then, and then transitioned into their lead compounding pharmacist. Because they did compounding and they even had a DME department, they had all kinds of things and it was just, it was a great next step.
Mike Koelzer, Host: What's the main reason why you wanted to go to an
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: independent, the level of patient care that they give, maybe even
Mike Koelzer, Host: without finding that independent kind of across the board, you knew that they'd maybe had more interaction thus care.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Yeah, absolutely. Independent pharmacies are kind of known for that, you know, and they know their patients' names, what they have going on and really just end up, they tend to go the extra mile.
They take the extra step and they usually have time to do those things or they figure out a way to make time. To do those things. And whereas with it, it's really unfortunate actually with a lot of the corporate community pharmacy settings, we're getting to the point that it's, it's almost like a factory.
You, I mean, just go to any of your local places. You could barely get a pharmacist if you, if you tried. And so I knew that that is not the route I wanted to go. If I could prevent it, you know, it's interesting
Mike Koelzer, Host: because when you think about marketing of change versus independence, it's like when I go to a town.
I'm usually stopping at a McDonald's because Jo's burgers are across the street. I just don't know if they're above average or below average with service and price and quality and things like that. You don't know. And that's why McDonald's has done a great job. It might not be great, but it's probably not terrible with independent pharmacies.
I'm always concerned that when people see us in town, for example, that we might have. Great, but maybe I'm off somewhere drag racing in my Jaguar. I don't have a Jaguar, but I'm going to pretend I do. I'm off drag racing, my Jaguar, and I'm not looking at certain prices and things like that. All of a sudden someone comes in and there's, they just get this far out price and, you know, crappy service because there's nepotism in there.
And somebody is pissed that this or that because of the internal squabbles and all that in a small family thing, stuff we talked about, the point is to someone from out of town, know that, or are they just going to say, give me these McDonald's slash national chain store because it's probably average, but I think you and I are both saying that that average.
Probably going
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: down. Yeah. I couldn't agree more with that. And you have a really good point. I feel like independent pharmacies, [00:20:25] really? You don't know what you're getting, you're right. You know, depending on what zip code you're in, you, you, it really could be a crapshoot and you could hit the lottery or it could be the total opposite.
It'd be worse than the chain, right? It could be way worse. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. We're getting
Mike Koelzer, Host: somewhere that just hasn't changed in years. And they got some old fart, all cranky. It could get worse.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Oh, it should definitely get worse. And we do a bad job as a profession in general, as for, um, advocating for ourselves.
But when it comes to independent pharmacies, you know, sticking together and being an entity like you're talking about that people can know and trust and go to, regardless of where they are. We don't do a very good job at that. Either
Mike Koelzer, Host: someone comes in, they don't know, they don't know what. If you were in charge of everything, what would you tell independence to do to raise that middle of the line awareness for potential, let's say new customers or people in the area that somehow might eventually be your customer.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I think the industry is changing so much right now that that's a little bit of a challenging thing to answer, but I will tell you just at face value to keep your store up to date, because I mean, I'm sure you've done it. You've walked into pharmacies and you think to yourself, when is the last time they have reset their shelves or they have some old sign that's been there for 50 plus years and not, not in a good way, not in a historic district, you know, cute little pharmacy sort of way.
Um, and. Reduces trust instantaneously. I mean, you figure we're up against these huge entities that are remodeling. What thousands of stores they're doing it for a reason, because the aesthetics of it matter.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I look around at like, um, I always talk about fast food places on this show. You'd think that's all I do because here we go, you look at Wendy's and stuff like that.
And they remodel and you're like, I don't think they need to remodel. No, they look fine to me, you know, with their 25 year old light Oak chair rail, it looks fine to me. But then you see these new ones, you know, they get the titanium, this and that. The service still sucks a lot of the time, but at least they know that you gotta keep going somehow,
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I guess.
Yeah, absolutely. I think people buy from places that look nicer, regardless of the service.
Mike Koelzer, Host: You talked about your store at Kmart, actually closing down, but a lot of times you get these national chains. And maybe their whole focus isn't pharmacy. And then you get like a pharmacy inside of a pharmacy. And I'm not going to mention names here, but I think there's like a national chain pharmacy that people kind of like to work for.
And then another pharmacy kind of came in and said, we're going to be the pharmacy for this department store. How do you think that goes over?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: That whole thing really broke my heart. To be honest with you, it was a shame that it happened. I know why it happened. I honestly think it was a really smart business move on the department stores end because they weren't known as
Mike Koelzer, Host: a pharmacy
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: chain.
No, no, they weren't known as that. And I also, I can't help, but wonder did they see the writing on the walls? Did they see the lower reimbursements? Did they see the DIR fees coming in and did they think to themselves we're better off renting out our space than we are dispensing medication? So I do think that.
And, uh, on the business end of it, it probably was a very strategic and intelligent move on their end, but it breaks my heart because the people who worked for that department store really tended to love their job. Especially when I was coming out of school, everybody that wanted to work in retail was trying to work for that company because the environment was really nice.
The workload was, was a good amount of work, you know, like you aren't, you aren't slow and bored. You are overly worked, you had enough support staff. And um, and now it's not like that from what I hear you, you, you very rarely hear anything good about that pharmacy chain when it comes to people actually liking what they do.
Mike Koelzer, Host: The problem with that is I can sit here and I can say, yes, they should do better. Why? I don't give a crap? I mean, but you know, as an outsider, like our pharmacy soap, opera talk, you know, it's like they could do better, but then I'm like, all right, well maybe they had to do this. And maybe it has to work this way before they start turning the lights off, like Kmart.
Some could argue, maybe they have to do it that way. But I think we can maybe agree that there's a difference between tightening ship and having people hate you and have the industry know that you're [00:25:25] maybe cutting more and doing more than it's needed. And you look at the corporate profit of these places and you say, oh, oh, well, maybe they didn't need to cut that much.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Yeah, exactly. I mean, when the chief executives are making tens of millions of dollars, if not more than that, I honestly don't even know what those numbers are and you can't even get a couple tech hours a week. It just doesn't justify itself. And I understand where you're coming from, because again, you're, you're, you need to run a business and in order to stay in business, you need to be, you know, financially intelligent and, and make sure that the.
Make sure that you're not overpaying your staff, but I think we've tipped the tables, uh, to the complete opposite side where, you know, pharmacists are working 12, 14 hour days without any, without any lunch break now that's changed. And then also to your point about, you know, maybe they're doing this for financial reasons.
I would believe that except for now. Do you notice that we're seeing like 20, 30, $50,000 sign on bonuses? I haven't seen those. Are they doing that? They're technically retention bonuses. I think they're being tat packaged as sign on bonuses, but it's like, if you commit to so many years with these companies, they'll give you, I think in, in one particular state, I can't remember which one it was, but they're offering a hundred thousand dollars and you have to think to yourself though, as a pharmacist, what exactly am I walking into?
Yeah. How bad
Mike Koelzer, Host: Is it to sign up? But you need that. Yeah. I had an employee many years ago and he ended up working for. GM or something and then onto some Whirlpool and different places like that. But he said that it was known in some of these bigger companies that hire engineers, that they just run them to death.
And we talked about pharmacy earlier that, you know, you have a certain level of competency with the licensing. Is that just happening? They're getting in some of these licensed people that are, you know, wet behind the ears and they're just running them to death, you know, for a few years. Is that the trend?
Are we seeing a lot of new pharmacists ending up in these places when they're kind of handcuffed if they have their education, but now they have to pay for it?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Yeah, I think so. I understand that, that misery of having an enormous amount of student loan debt and mine was less than what I'm hearing people are coming out with.
Now, I'm hearing two and $300,000. Some students are coming out with, um, some pharmacists are coming out with student loan debt. And so you can definitely see why somebody would even take a company up on their offer and just say to themselves, well, I'll just, I'll just do this for a couple of years, but I don't think we realize even as pharmacists, how much, how detrimental that is to our health in general, even just a couple of years of that grind is absolutely terrible for, for our health.
So
Mike Koelzer, Host: Now you're at an independent pharmacy that hopefully your. A little bit above average in customer service. When you went there, Kristin was that fruitful. Did you have more time with the patients and so on? Did you find what you were looking for there, but what was still missing?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I did find what I was looking for there.
It was a very, very wonderful transition. Like I said, I went into an independent pharmacy that was doing more things than I was doing in my previous position with compounding. I've always loved compounding and. We had a, uh, a DME department and, you know, all of the things. And I had time to actually get to know my patients and get to know some of the local doctors and make recommendations.
And I really felt like I was having an impact, especially with compounding. Once I became the compounding pharmacist, that was really where I was. I was truly starting to kind of get into my career and love what I was doing, because you are really able to customize and meet the needs of the patient walking in the door.
But the thing that was missing there was I really liked to be challenged. So I was, um, I wasn't being challenged to the extent that I wished I was, and I also was not allowed to do a lot of the different things that I wanted, that I wanted to bring into that pharmacy. They weren't really seeing eye to eye on kind of where the business should, should go.
And it seemed like they were really happy with where they were and what they'd been doing. And they were just going to continue doing that. And I saw the potential of what it could be. It was already this amazing thing. And I could, I could see how it could be even more incredible, not just for the business [00:30:25] financially, but for the local community.
How long were you there? I was there for about three years. I think that at
Mike Koelzer, Host: this plate itself out again, different people, different scenario, maybe a different product line and so on. I still think it would just have been a three year step before you moved on. True.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I think maybe I think maybe, um, but also there's a part of me that thinks that.
They were willing to take my ideas and implement them so that I would probably still be there. Are you glad they didn't? I'm very glad that they did it right? Yes. I truly believe in the universe. Everything happens for a reason. I really truly believe the more I live, the more experiences I have, that everything happens for a reason.
And the universe might do some things in some very weird ways, but the end result is always better than, than the original take your
Mike Koelzer, Host: ornery. S day back when you were working for the independent, put yourself in the worst mood day that you can think of and now think of what you felt when they weren't moving with the things you wanted to do.
I don't care if it's fair or not to them, but what are some. And Maria's thoughts you can think of, or maybe you didn't have them. Maybe you're just like, well, it's.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: You know, there's a big piece of me that wishes that that is the type of personality that I have. I'm a little bit more aggressive than that.
I, I I'm, I don't mean to be, I think it's passion. It's really passionate. It's shining, shining, um, its head or rearing its ugly head, but, um, Sometimes it comes across in a little bit more of a negative light, but I would say that you could just see that I was physically upset and I would try to hide that and mask it as much as possible, but it really started eating at me.
You could see it in my personality. Um, you could feel it whenever I was there. And when you start to not like yourself, you, you know, again, you're like, oh, something needs to change. You know, the term, like
Mike Koelzer, Host: when people say ass, none of your damn business, none of your business, none of your business, you know, the calm, right.
It came from people saying truly, that is none of your business. This is my business. You don't own the business. That's your business. So people always talk about, let's have a meeting with the employer and share my ideas and all this kind of stuff. And sometimes it's just like, that's none of your damn business.
It's not your business in your case though. And it can be approached a couple of different ways. At minimum and in your case, did you approach them or did you just say half and that's not my business. And just see the side, because you were pissed and you wanted things to change. What direction did you take?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: No, I talked to them multiple times, multiple different approaches, um, private meetings, just, you know, casual conversations. What, I, I tried it in a couple of different ways, but after a couple of years, it became very apparent to me that like you're saying it was not my business. It was physically not my business and emotionally, it was not, they did not want my opinion.
So it was not my, it wasn't any of my business and that's fair. And it took me a little bit of time to, to accept that
Mike Koelzer, Host: It's fair now, but what thoughts? I want to hear it. What were you thinking? Even if it wasn't rational until you get to the point where you say it's their business, it's their investment.
I'm an employee. If I don't like it and they're not open to it. Thank you. I'll put my notice in without any bad feelings. I'm going to move on and do my thing. That might be where you end up. But what were you feeling? And then was it rational for you to feel
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: That way? Probably just a stain. I hated that they would not take any of my ideas and try to bring them to fruition.
I couldn't stand how close minded they were. Why
were
Mike Koelzer, Host: they close minded or the old farts, or were they too much family input? What were they close minded about?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: You know, I think sometimes you're so successful for so long as the owners, it doesn't really matter anymore. Right? Exactly. And whether the. The revenue boat, the profitability boat, whether that's, you know, slowly sinking or not, because I truly believe that it was, um, you've done so well for so long.
It really doesn't even matter. But when you're in a smaller community and you have this ability to actually make an incredible impact and be that go-to place for healthcare and change and be this like boutique wellness hub that I was [00:35:25] envisioning. Um, and you can't look past the nose on your face.
Mike Koelzer, Host: How much did you plead your case or was it all kind of in private and maybe you were building up a reason inside of you to leave your building up your fortitude and so on. Did you ever get into a tussle with them, like a verbal tussle or was it always just like, all right, I'm marking this off in my checklist in my head.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: No, there was never any verbal altercation or anything that happened. No, absolutely not. You're just storing it up. Well, I mean, you know, every time you start to have a conversation and it's declined, you kinda, I think we all do it. It's like a little, there's a mark put back there and then it happens again.
Did they decline the conversation or
Mike Koelzer, Host: Just your idea? Did they sit like we're not talking
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: about it anymore? Um, no, just the idea. Just the idea. And then once the pandemic happened, honestly, I want to say this is probably the last straw. The pit, there were, there were two different locations and when the pandemic.
Happened about six months into 2020, everybody was gathered for a meeting and they were told we're closing this smaller location, which was the original location, this like an 80 year old, 80, maybe 90 year old location. Um, and we're just going to consolidate to one because it's not really all that far away.
When, when really it was, I truly believe because of lower reimbursements and DIR fees and I can't help, but wonder if you were going to bring in clinical services, whether it was my idea or someone else's, I don't care who I don't care that it was me trying to preach. We need clinical services, we need clinical services, but I can't help, but wonder if they were to bring them in.
I truly believe that store would still be there. We need to save our independent pharmacies because in case nobody's noticed they don't want independent pharmacies in the healthcare game anymore. They're trying to get rid of compounding pharmacies. They're killing with reimbursements and we need to shift to clinical services or else it's just going to be one more pharmacy that closes
Mike Koelzer, Host: Here's my beef talking to you.
You're talking about how important it would be for them to take your vice and why they were dumb asses for not doing it. At least that's what you are thinking. You didn't come out and say it, and you get all this energy up and you say, I'll show them. I think I read that you were at two independent pharmacies after all that grandstanding inside of yourself.
You just go work for some.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: So I had alluded to, um, some student loan debt earlier. So I had a lot of student loan debt. I had over a hundred thousand dollars. I actually graduated with $175,000. That's about average, I think. Yeah. And it, it, if you're anybody who's had that amount of student loan debt it's smothering and I wanted it gone.
I was doing literally everything in my power to try to get rid of my student loan debt aside from literally working every hour of my life. So I was in a position where. I Wanted to stay in an independent pharmacy and felt like the place that I was going to would allow me to have that impact that I was really yearning to have.
And that was the main reason that I shifted from one independent pharmacy to another, how far away I ended up going from like a two minute commute to a 50 minute commute city and so on to a different town entirely. All
Mike Koelzer, Host: right. So you go there hoping that you can do more.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: How did that turn out? I was kind of running into the same issue.
And you
Mike Koelzer, Host: think to talk to these people before you joined or did that not even cross
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: your mind? No, I did. I had a very blunt candid conversation with this owner and I really thought that we are, uh, we're aligned because I wouldn't have left if I, if I knew that it was going to end up the way that it did.
And so I, I can't deny the fact that I wonder, you know, is there a piece of me? Is it me? Is it my approach? Is it my let's call it passion, but also too, I do wonder is it the independent pharmacy owner that is reluctant to change?
Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, there's a couple of things. It could be the change. It could be where the second place is desperate to get somebody.
No, they weren't. So they weren't blowing smoke just to hire you?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: No, they weren't. I think that they, I think she really wanted to, I think she really liked the ideas. She liked bringing men. She wasn't even doing immunizations. I think she really liked the idea of bringing somebody in to do, you know, your adult routine [00:40:25] immunizations.
Um, maybe we start to do some point of care testing. I was doing her MTMs through outcomes, basic things like that weren't even happening. So I was really excited to kind of bring them in, but it was hard to implement because I wasn't. I wasn't the final decision maker, which I knew going into it. But when you're not the final decision maker, you realize that somebody else has to obviously sign off on what you're doing.
And I'm not somebody I'm very respectful of. And the workplace, like I know what my position is. And so I wanted her to tell me what was okay, what spending was okay, where we could, you know, what we could create, what we couldn't create. And there was just a very large disconnect. Um, and also too, what I realized is I think regular meetings could have probably mitigated a lot of the issues because when you're working off shifts and you're never there at the same time, you can never have conversations about the projects that you're working on.
Like there's a, there's a reason that people, especially larger companies and successful companies, too, have meetings. And it's because you need to have everybody on the same page. Was that a stall tactic
Mike Koelzer, Host: on their part by not having the meetings or it just never happened? Yeah.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I mean, that's a very good question to this day.
I don't know the answer. Um, but I, that's one thing that I try to pull again, I pull into my own business. My goal is to have weekly meetings that are 15 minutes or less, and it's not just a place where the employer is dictating to the employees everything that they should do. I want it to be more of a dialogue where people can come to the table, they know that we're going to have a set meeting, and this is where I can bring ideas to the table.
This is where we can talk about things that aren't working. This is where we can talk about things that are working, that reinforce those good things. You know, maybe pat some people on the back because we're all working really hard to meet this one common goal and also to be a nice touchpoint for the projects that.
In the middle of creating, because in reality, when you're being innovative and you're trying to do things that other people aren't doing, you have to continually communicate about what it is that you're doing. What step of the process that you're on, where you're going, when you plan on getting there and so on and so forth in order for it to be successful, otherwise it just doesn't happen.
Mike Koelzer, Host: When did you get to that place and say, oh crap. You know, it's like, I mean, it wasn't like a week or it wasn't like, like a day or a month and you're like, ah, crap, what the hell am I doing? When was that? How long was it in?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: You know, it's funny because I was really excited for the shift, um, and to create these cool, new, wonderful things in that area.
And the day I started, one technician went out on maternity leave. So I was a technician when I started the new job. So I feel like that was a sign in and of itself that I, cause we, we operated for about two months with, with one less technician that we needed and it was very busy.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, how long did that last?
That, I mean, what did, what was the
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: timing on that? So we're looking at fall of 2020 when that happens. So again, we're kind of almost a year into the pandemic and during all of this, I would say for the last five years, Well five years from now. So let's say 20 17, 20 18. I really started to look into clinical services. I didn't know what I was going to do with them, but I was looking into functional medicine.
I was looking into point of care testing. I wanted to do something more as a pharmacist. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I've always known from the beginning that I didn't want to be attached to a product like we, as pharmacists are attached to dispensing medication. And so clinical services just really are where my mind has always been.
Um, so anyway, fast forward to 2020, and we're in the middle of a pandemic and I'm in an area where you can barely find any COVID testing. And I am thinking to myself, I have a solution to this problem. So I open up a COVID testing site
Mike Koelzer, Host: while you're still at the other place
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: while I'm still at the other place.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Did they know?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Um, yes, she did know again, very transparent, blunt, very open conversation with. her
Mike Koelzer, Host: transparency. It's a good thing, but you don't always like what's on the other side, you know, it's like me being in a glass shower and my kid coming in or something, you know, it's like, you can be transparent, but the answer isn't always there.
So she allowed
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: it. Let's say, yeah. I [00:45:25] mean, absolutely. I, if you want to call it that, then yes, she allowed it because we definitely had a conversation that I was working on my own business at the same time. And, and that, that was agreed upon ahead of time. So the testing center was way more successful than I could have ever dreamed at being re-putting in double time.
Yeah, I was, I was juggling working for her. Certain days of the week. And on those days that I worked for her until like six o'clock, I would then have the testing center open from seven to nine at night. Would you say you were full-time with her? Yes, I was full-time with her. Yes. It was 36 hours full-time.
So I would work about four days, but on the other three days, I'd be open during the day. And then on the other days where I was working for her, I would then be open at night at the testing center. You leave the chain.
Mike Koelzer, Host: And what I'm hearing you pulled from that is you liked your manager and you realize that he gave you some room to breathe, and you kind of liked that.
And I imagine you're bringing that into your business. Was there any good at all from those to independence or that sock is the only benefit of that? Just knowing that you don't want to end up like that. And be honest, don't fluff. It. Was there anything you pulled from them?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Yes. I loved working for both of them.
I said, I know I pulled, I pulled a lot from them. I pulled, um, if we're going to focus on the negative, maybe I got
Mike Koelzer, Host: positive stuff. If you talk about positives, no one believes you and we don't want to gossip. We just like the negative stuff because it's more interesting. It's more fun to talk about.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Well, and you learn from the negative you learn from everything I learn, I learned it the hard way. I don't know why, but I always pick the most difficult route to learn. Okay. So was there
Mike Koelzer, Host: anything actually good from those places that you pulled or was it only good because your. Comparing it in the light of what you do now, was there actually good
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: that came from it?
Absolutely. The first opened my eyes to functional medicine. I was sent to a bioidentical hormone replacement convention, and that really opened up my eyes that there's a different approach to health and wellness outside of medication and surgery.
Mike Koelzer, Host: They sent you there, you have these ideas and they're like, Nope.
Yeah, it was
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: very weird. They spent money for me to get this certificate. They spent money sending me, sending me to a live couple day convention. And then what I got back, I was able to do hormone replacement therapy consultations with patients. And once I really started doing that, that's when I realized that I wanted more of that and less to spend.
Put
Mike Koelzer, Host: yourself in their shoes, they send you and are saying, let's get Kristen the hell out of here for a while. We can't take her in, let's get her out of town and then bring her back. It's kind of like, they were placating you kind of like toying with you giving you some room, but then they just didn't want
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: to do it.
Yeah. I don't know. I really felt like the relationship was really good until. Until closer, you know, maybe like six months to a year. Nah, I would say probably about a year before I left. Um, I felt like it was a genuine relationship and I feel like that they did want to be that service to the community, but it's hard for them.
Yeah, it is. It's hard for you. And especially I see it, you know, as an older owner, as an owner that has kind of, not really, you know, the, if the business has been handed to you, um, you know, you've been in business for 40 plus years under your own ownership. I could see how it would be difficult to listen to this person that you barely know coming into your, coming into your business and presenting different ideas that you don't see any other pharmacy merrily doing.
So I respect that. I really do. But at the time it was, it was slightly infuriating. All right. Second one.
Mike Koelzer, Host: What did you take from the second job? The
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: second job. Oh,
you know, I was, I was a little bit, I was a little bit hurt about how that one ended to be honest with you because I bought her. What is that? I was bought her, but her you've never heard the term butter, no
Mike Koelzer, Host: butt
hurt.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Let's Google that road.
Mike Koelzer, Host: There's a bit like the anatomy,
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: but overly or unjustifiably offended or resentful
Mike Koelzer, Host: got to get that one down. Yep. But
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: it's an essential piece of your vocabulary. So you were
Mike Koelzer, Host: butt hurt on that one. Why? It seems like the second place kind of got under your skin more than the first
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: one did, just because I thought that it was very clear as to what [00:50:25] I was coming there to do, and then that's not what happened. And I really feel like it was because of lack of communication, not really on my part.
And you mentioned transparency before, and there is a double edged sword to transparency. You get to hear what the other person is thinking, but then you need to be able to respect and, and also accept the fact that you might not. What you're hearing. And I feel like we have a very difficult time doing that as humans, especially in our world today,
Mike Koelzer, Host: Last week I made an hour change at the pharmacy.
I changed our hours and there were some people that probably thought that I would have mentioned this before I did that. And they changed to benefit. We shortened her hours. Everybody's happy about it, but I think there's some that thought maybe we would talk about it. And I didn't, I just changed them because I didn't care what anybody else thought about it.
Cause I'm the golden goose and I got to keep myself happy and all that kind of stuff. So I didn't pretend like I was trying to be transparent and pretend like I wanted input and stuff because I knew exactly what I was going to be doing. Even for this rather large choice for the business of changing our hours.
Is that where you're going, that she pretended like she wanted input, but then wasn't going to do anything with it.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I think that's fair. I think, I think that she had the intention of doing all of these things and then maybe didn't realize the number of decisions that she would have to make, or the amount of money, albeit honestly, in the grand scheme of things, very small, less than $3,000, um, that would have to be spent in order to make these different clinical services happen.
Like you can't just do point of care testing, um, and not spend anything ahead of time. So I'm not sure. So she kind of
Mike Koelzer, Host: had ideas, but she maybe got cold feet hard
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: to say. It is hard to say. It's very hard to say. Part of me wonders if she just wanted a staff pharmacist and knew that I was reliable and that she could. She could trust them the fact that I would be there and handle what needed to be handled and, um, fill that position for her.
But I just wanted more. I just, I just wanted more. That really is all it is. It is. I don't know. In retrospect, looking back, I don't think that it's any of what anybody else is doing. I just really feel like I want to create something. I've
Mike Koelzer, Host: got a handful of kids, no matter what I do, some of them are going to disagree with me just because I'm their dad.
I could give them the world and be like, Hey, dad gave me the world. Some things they're just not going to be happy with. That's innate in children. They're supposed to see things differently than you do, because that helps them leave the nest and so on. So in your case, you might've had a perfect situation. You didn't, but you might've had a perfect situation, but you might've even been looking from the inside for something that wasn't going right as the impetus for you to get out on your own.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Yeah. And it actually took two of my close pharmacist friends to, for me to actually pull, pull the trigger and actually leave because you start to rely on that, that salary you rely on it. That's one beautiful thing about being an employee is that it's always there, you know, every two weeks you're going to get that same check and it's very reliable and it's very comfortable.
Um, but I, I just had to, I had to finally cut the cord. So
Mike Koelzer, Host: You opened your place up and now you've got three employees.
Kind of things. Do you think your employees could be talking about you? Like when they're in there, I call it like the teacher coffee lounge and all the stuff that teachers talk about, the coffee, lunch, what kind of stuff do you think people might talk to you about? And you're like, oh, I might've talked that way in the past too, but now I realize this as an owner that it's not really fair to me.
You know, what kind of things do you think people could say about you or maybe some things that you said about them, but now that you're an owner, you're like, ah, I should have been maybe a little bit easier on them.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: Yeah. So, um, I can be a little scattered sometimes. So I feel like that might be one thing, you know, it's kind of hard to follow where I may be going.
So I'm constantly trying to. Remind myself of what the focus is and what we're trying to do, what our goals are and, and where we're going. But also to being a little, I don't want to say disconnected, but I am very aware that I hate being micromanaged. And so I don't want to micromanage my employees, but that's also, there's also a [00:55:25] very fine line with that as well, because if you're not micromanaging, then there's also the complete opposite, which is not managing at all.
You're just not managing. And so I am, I could see them possibly thinking I might be, I might be a little too distant. So that's also something I'm very aware of and trying to do, they don't teach us how to be business owners in pharmacy school. And so even when you, maybe you are innovative and maybe you want to be a pioneer of something or do your own thing and whatever way.
Once you venture into business ownership, you've just entered a totally different industry. And there's a lot of things that I don't know how to do. And I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that. So
Mike Koelzer, Host: what you've done is you've taken some of the stuff that you've learned, some of the experiences you've had, and then you batched up your business slash management into a new company that you're helping people that are maybe in your position, learn some of the stuff you've learned.
Yeah. With that in mind, you've got this online course, but there's three things that you did not put in the online course because you thought it was going to ruffle some feathers, maybe come off wrong. Maybe you thought it sounded a little bit bitchy. You know, you thought about those things, but what three things.
Do you really wish you would have known five years ago? What would you have told yourself anywhere from watching out for these kinds of people to keep this focus in mind?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I would say the first, the first one would be that it doesn't have to be perfect. Just create it, whatever idea you have, just, just create it in whatever fashion you're able to create it in because as pharmacists, we're very analytical, we're type a, everything has to be perfect.
And it does not have to be perfect in order for it to serve people and for you to have an impact. Um, the second thing would be that, um, The sec, the second thing that I would include is to make sure you have all your consents and, and legal documents in place because people may duplicate your work.
Um, and the third, the third lesson I think, would be to not listen to people who tell you that what you're doing is, um, is stupid or it's never going to work, or you can't do something like that because you're a pharmacist because you're going to hear that probably. All day long, especially if you're venturing into the world of clinical services and collaborative practice agreements.
And maybe you're trying to push the envelope with provider status. There's a lot of healthcare practitioners that don't want pharmacists in that kind of space. Uh, but we have every right to be there and you've got to turn off the negative noise in order to get where it is that you're trying to go. All right.
We got to
Mike Koelzer, Host: delve back into number two. Was that in the consulting side or earlier when you started your own business?
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: It was on the consulting side. Oh,
Mike Koelzer, Host: and so you were helping, but then some of it got swiped.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I'm sorry to hear that, but yeah, that's a, that's a, um, difficult pill to swallow that's for sure.
But you know, the sad thing is that. The person who duplicated the course was actually one of my very first students. So it was a beta, it was a beta test.
Mike Koelzer, Host: So you didn't maybe have all that
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: copyright stuff. So I didn't have, yes, I didn't have any of my copyright stuff in place. I didn't have any of the terms and conditions, because again, when you're creating things from nothing, um, then you, number one, there's a piece of you that doesn't realize that you need it.
And number two lawyers are extremely expensive. Yeah. Well, they got to pay for
Mike Koelzer, Host: those cars we talked about earlier.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: So,
Mike Koelzer, Host: um, this wasn't just someone who took your stuff, but took it and then did their own consulting kind
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: some things with this have since been duplicated. Yes. Oh, that's too bad. So, and that's, again, we go back to what we talked about.
You know, earlier is authenticity and transparency. I am who I am and, um, I'm extremely [01:00:25] genuine. I'm extremely transparent. Maybe, you know, I was once told that your biggest weakness is usually your strongest strength. And I love that because I think about that when it comes to me with transparency, because I'm usually pretty open.
I'm very giving you usually know what's on my mind, but sometimes that's not really a good thing. And so, um, I think about that with that instance, you know, I was, all I wanted to do was help a fellow pharmacist create their own testing center and their own, you know, community. And then it was, it was duplicated so that it could be sold by.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I think in the
long run, your openness and transparency, and that pays off, not in the short run, maybe, but I don't know if I agree with the biggest weakness, because my biggest weakness is like a quart of Bryers vanilla with the black beans in it. I'm not finding out how that can be my biggest strength, but I'm going to work on it.
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: I think that's a good thing to work on.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, Kristin Dolly, thanks for
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: spending time. Yeah. I hope people can take away some of the lessons and, uh, I can learn the hard way for them in some instances, but thank you so much. It was great talking with you. Keep doing what
Mike Koelzer, Host: you're doing it for the profession.
Thank you for your transparency. Lot of people are learning. Good stuff. Nice to meet you. We'll
Kristin Denne Tallent, PharmD: talk again soon. All right. Thanks. Bye-bye bye.
