How Pharmacies Get Penalized for Buying Wrong | Kris Rhea, MBA Pharmacy Marketplace, Dir. of Business. Dev.

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Koelzer: Chris, introduce yourself to our listeners.

Kris Rhea: My name is Chris Ray. I am with Pharmacy Marketplace and I've spent about 15, 20 years in the community retail pharmacy industry, various roles with McKesson, BioLite, and now Pharmacy Marketplace.

Mike Koelzer: Chris, we talked just for a brief second before this, and you said you were coming from the A PHA, was it convention? Would that be or.

Kris Rhea: Yeah. So that was in Nashville, this weekend. And it is really neat to see essentially the whole care continuum and the whole supply chain, together. So you had manufacturers, you obviously had advocacy groups. Pharmacy, retailers, technology partners, wholesaler partners. So essentially a very broad dynamic as opposed to just one segment.

And, I was there just meeting with some potential partners on the technology side and some manufacturers as well.

Mike Koelzer: I've only been to basically not anymore. I've only been to wholesaler shows and I imagine these ones are a little bit. More broad. Why? I can imagine why it's broader, but why is it broader?

Kris Rhea: because they're dealing with different business units, it's not just gonna be. Independent pharmacy or hospital pharmacy, as a CPG company or a, you know, major manufacturer trying to connect to everybody. And just the show four is obviously huge and, we're talking, you know, everything regarding community pharmacy and health system pharmacy.

So you know, just a great opportunity to kinda expand your network and, and some of the ideas. 

Mike Koelzer: Are there more booths there that have to do with, I don't know, advocacy and stuff? I don't even know if there's a company that would put up a booth for that.

Kris Rhea: yeah, definitely. There's tons of advocacy groups, you know, and each segment has their own advocacy group. So if you're a specialty pharmacy or a compounder or a retail store, there's gonna be a subset just for you. And everybody's kind of under the same roof and able to talk to each other.

just about any connection point you'd possibly think of.

Mike Koelzer: Alright Chris, so you wrote me a bit back and it was great having you on the show before and you said, Mike, I'm

Kris Rhea: Yeah.

Mike Koelzer: company now an aggregator of prices and stuff and I said, ah, Chris, I've had that on before. They're kind of, I think they're kind of the same. And you gave me a nice present. Detailed sheet and you said, no, we're not. And I said, all right, well Chris, I said, come on, we're gonna talk about that. Maybe talk about some of the different companies you've been with and which one you enjoy selling for more and things like that. So jump to your current company.

Kris Rhea: Yeah, Mike, I really appreciate you just not assuming, hey, this is another commodity, another me too that I've seen, and that's my biggest struggle is just educating people on why our platform is different. So what we're doing at Pharmacy Marketplace is something that I was dealing with at McKesson on a daily basis, probably about five, six times a day.

These pharmacies are. Ultimately, a lot of times confused with their prime vendor agreements, with their, their primary wholesaler. They agree to something, they think they understand it and then ultimately do different habits because they don't understand it and hurt themselves from a gross profit standpoint.

And that was just a source of contention as a wholesale rep, understanding that the stores think that these big corporations are out to get 'em. And what we've done is we've designed through technology, AI algorithms, how to show the stores exactly what to be purchasing to stay compliant with their sourcing agreement from their primary.

And then where to take advantage of some of the secondary options when they have some buffer in that agreement. So really it's there to increase gross profit from stores that are, at a tipping point on, you know, possibly closing or selling, and it's just our goal is to use technology to lift all boats in the supply chain, whether it be the primary wholesalers, the buying groups.

Secondary wholesalers and ultimately the pharmacy. So, it's been a huge opportunity for me because I remember the pain point of trying to build a relationship with stores and help them operate better, but it all came back to, Hey, I'm confused and frustrated with this whole sourcing option, and you guys are the bad guys.

So we're hoping to bring cohesion back into that.

Mike Koelzer: And for some of the listeners that haven't been in the trenches of, independent pharmacy, basically, and I don't buy any brand names anymore so I don't have to deal with this bologna anymore, but 

three or four wholesalers, they say you've gotta buy so much, brand name. And the more you buy, your generic discount rate is going to go down.

So in other words, the more we're able to screw you with brand name prices, we don't need as much from you on the generic profit. That's the problem. And people are like, do I buy this to put me into the next bracket? Or do I maybe buy the brand name even from another?

Company or the generic from another company, and it gets, it gets to be a puzzle. And Chris, here's what I hate. I hate this because even the smarmy car dealer wouldn't do this. Where you go in and say, look, I'm gonna buy 10 cars for my service, something, whatever company I have. you know, give me the, give me the price. Now, I know it's hard to get prices from car people, but when you do get out, you know what the price is down to the penny, let's say you buy a hundred cars, from this, car sales. You know, at least what you paid with the wholesalers, you know, they, they say, Hey, you didn't buy enough. You should have bought another car this month and now we're not gonna be able to sell you this, or we're gonna change this service agreement.

And it just goes on and on and on. It's like, are you kidding me? I buy $6 million a year from you guys and you treat this like bazooka gum, you know, points. it's just crazy that they've gotten away with this.

Kris Rhea: Yeah, Mike, that's where the relationship is, you know, the pharmacies are frustrated 'cause they're having to do all this manual math and try to calculate all these different levers and parameters and ratios. And ultimately they feel like, Hey, these wholesalers are out to get 'em. When quite frankly, the wholesalers are, they're corporations and they're putting these protection levers in place.

So if the stores go completely rogue, then they're gonna protect themselves, you know, and it's, it's not outta malice. I know some of the stores think it is, but really it's, they're gonna protect their assets as a publicly funded corporation. And that I wish we didn't have a business model with pharmacy Marketplace, but unfortunately be with all the complexities, we do have an opportunity and because we understand the supply chain and the economics, we're able to develop a technology to be like, Hey, 

Here's where you need to purchase these items, both from inside and outside to protect those relationships. And like you said, if you're not buying brands or not buying control items, you can go and not deal with the big corporate full line wholesalers. But if you are a traditional community pharmacy, you have to have a somewhat of a relationship with those guides because they have the full book catalog that you're needing.

So what we're trying to do is just, you know, essentially show the stores. If we're gonna teach you how to play the game to an extent where you know they are happy enough with you, they can give you the full catalog and you're happy enough. 'cause now you don't have to manually think about this and rely on your text to, sit there and try to calculate to the penny when you're going to ultimately cause yourself pain through buying outside.

Mike Koelzer: So I imagine Chris, if I'm thinking about this from a lay point, there's two main things I need in this. One is you need to have. If it existed my data. My brand data, what I'm buying, how much I'm buying it for, the percentage, what number I have to hit your system has to have that. And then I imagine it has to have a handful of competitions that you just don't tell me about. When it's okay to buy something, but then you're comparing it with a handful of generic wholesalers, and then you're saying, here's where you wanna buy this product from this hour of the day so you don't screw yourself.

Kris Rhea: Essentially, we're feeding all those EDI files into our system and we are doing backend AI algorithm calculations to digest and bucket those NDCs and items to show you exactly. Here's the items to bring within that primary agreement wholesaler. And these are the ones on the secondary that you need to utilize.

Now there's other companies that have that technology, but the big key here is protecting the store by giving them those guardrails. that keeps the long term relationship with. That primary wholesaler buying group is intact and the secondary wholesalers are also good partners of ours.

'cause now they're saying, Hey, we, we see that there is some room for these pharmacies to utilize us. We know we're not gonna get the, the majority of that, but we wanna make sure that we have passive selling with our catalogs when it makes the most sense, and we don't have to, hassle them during workflow by calling them and, and bugging them, and then making the cart minimums hit.

So there's just, there's benefit no matter which player you're in the supply chain. There's benefit to everybody.

Mike Koelzer: And Chris, I imagine this is a SaaS program. Are they paying you and they're getting a log into this and that's how they're doing it. 

Kris Rhea: Right. There's a subscription fee that the store pays for us to, analyze that data and give them those recommendations. really we wanna remain an agnostic tool. We're not trying to manipulate or. Persuade the store to a certain, wholesaler group. We will work with anybody and just show 'em where that balance in that sweet spot is.

Mike Koelzer: Chris, don't gimme your actual numbers, but what is your revenue breakdown then with your company as far as, are you getting something from, I know you said a subscription. Are you getting something from the wholesalers, the generic houses?

What is your revenue source?

Kris Rhea: Our main driver for revenue is the subscriptions from the pharmacy Secondaries do pay a slight commission to, you know, be on the site for us to manage those pos and those price files and the technology around that. But we try our best to remain agnostic and make sure that the pharmacy is the one truly, you know, being, seeing value and we're not trying to persuade them to order because of the economics of that commission.

Really, that's our main goal is to stay neutral. 

Mike Koelzer: So you were a sales rep for McKesson, I imagine. Bologna's been going on for a long time.

All this pricing stuff. Was there anything hard for you to stomach that day? Not really picking on McKesson, but really the pharmacies that were under this. This pressure to play these games. Was there ever a time that was hard for you to stomach, like someone just missed a cutoff or something like that?

Did people ever get really burned by these shenanigans with the primary wholesalers?

Kris Rhea: Yeah, definitely there are really hard conversations that you have to have with the pharmacies that, you know, it might be one or two items that cost a rebate of thousands of dollars. And, that's really not fun news to bring to a pharmacy and that doesn't really, you know, lend itself to a positive relationship.

But I think that the stores, you know, would tell us like, Hey, if you. Lay out the rules of the game. I'm willing to play it. I just have to understand, but I don't really understand. And that's where, you know, our role comes into play. It's like making that information digestible where there's not a blank game.

our goal is for. The staff and the owners have that information live to them. So if they make a decision, they don't have anybody to blame but themselves if it's a punitive, parameter, 

Mike Koelzer: This is about 20 years ago. I used to go in and maybe, I don't know, this is when the brand name Motrin, I think, was still around. I'd find the biggest damn bottle of drugs I could find either a big bottle of caterer or Motrin or something. I would just. Bash it down on the table, you know, not trying to do it harder, but yeah, I put a little bit of pressure behind it, but just a big thud. And I would tell the, the rep, I'd say, tell me how much I'm gonna pay for this. And they had no idea. I'm like, come on. I mean, it's back on me, back on my complaint about the, you know, about the car place.

Chris, your. personal, road with this if you are trying to get independent pharmacies on board with this, you're selling this subscription to people. That's your goal.

Kris Rhea: Yeah. My goal is to get these stores educated, that there is a tool to make this easier. Streamline it so they're not having to spend hours trying to calculate it on a napkin, and help them understand that, you know, sometimes you are stepping over dollars to save pennies by continuing to shop secondaries.

We wanna show exactly where that situation is occurring. My personal goal is to bring the wholesalers and buying groups back in good standing with the stores as well.

It's, very difficult, sensitive relationship that I personally was impacted by. You know, I, to be honest, Mike, if I had a tool like this when I was at McKesson, I probably would still be doing it.

But I just got tired of that relationship dynamic where people that were my friends were continuously getting frustrated with me on a daily, weekly, monthly basis when I was visiting. And so I took my ball and went home, and that's when I went to Viol, right. But, this is something I, I, you know, told my colleagues here at Marketplace like, Hey, you guys have great technology.

If you can develop a tool that addresses compliance, then you really have something that's different and can really bring back some positivity to the market and keep these stores in business, but also keep the other suppliers, and supply chain members, healthy. 

Mike Koelzer: Chris, What are your sales? Are you this much? Convention trade show. Are you this much on the road? Are you this much on the phone?

What is your personal sales strategy to move this?

Kris Rhea: I think the main thing, Mike, is finding the right partnerships with the buying groups and wholesalers. Showing them the value of being able to leverage this tool with their stores and essentially stores. You know, getting the marketing message from reps and, from those groups, for us to be able to do a demo and show them the analytics of what we can do.

So my primary role would be to navigate those relationships and show them what that is meaning to the positive impact of their group. And ultimately, what we've been able to do is show how we can move the needle from a gross profit standpoint in those independent pharmacies, but also develop, positive impact on compliance to their overall group structure from a membership standpoint.

So your main focus to start is going to be buying groups. And are you calling them, are you dropping by, how do you make that first contact? Yeah, so. I guess my career so far is when I was with McKesson, understood where the problem was with all of this, and saw that there could be a solution through technology. But at that time I was considered a competitor to a lot of these groups, so, you know, no one's gonna become a network, a relationship, a friend, but fortunately through BioLite I was able to develop those relationships with everybody else.

And, that was a product that they all enjoyed and we worked on a smaller scale, bioLite probably wasn't going to keep the doors open, but we could be a vendor that was something that they sucked in the front end. So through that company, I was able to develop the relationship with the buying group and with the different wholesaler reps and stores.

So now, you know, I have something that addresses the core. Problem of sourcing for them and it's been a great fit so far.

Mike Koelzer: You call him up. Hey, this is Chris. Can I tell you about this?

Kris Rhea: Yeah, definitely. I think, they all get the problem 'cause they're dealing with it every day, you know, whether it's a store, a buying group, a rep, this is a source of frustration and the number one impact of the sort. 80 cents of every dollar that is coming into the stores, going back and drug inventory.

You know, that's a substantial piece. If you're not getting right, if you're not optimizing, then you're gonna be out of business. So it's on the mind of everybody. And one of the things I noticed with highlight is, hey, you can, you know, preach and tell them how this can help their front end and how they can utilize it in, in the community.

But if they don't, they don't get the drug sourcing part, they don't have the energy and bandwidth. Do anything else? The analogy I like to use is if the house is on fire, no one cares what the curtains look like. So, you know, we're, we're addressing the house being on fire through this platform

Mike Koelzer: So Chris, looking at your companies and don't pick on McKesson or BioLite pharmacy marketplace, don't pick on any of them, but what. Was probably the, the biggest or a couple of the biggest struggles between, I imagine the stores, coming in with a national product or this, you know, a computer software thing. Where would your pain points be in trying to have it? Success was the worst part of your day, let's say, you

Kris Rhea: Oh.

Mike Koelzer: all these kind of companies,

Kris Rhea: Oh, that's a great question, Mike. So, yeah, you know, I went from one extreme to the other in my career. with McKesson, you're a Fortune 10 company. You have all the resources in the world. Obviously you represent a big portion of their drug spend. But you're considered the representative of the death star.

So they can like you all they want, but when you're. This big corporation that has impact on their store, there's some cynicism, so, you know, I had to overcome that and through authenticity and the understanding that I really cared about the stores

the communities they represented, you know, that was the, the big barrier to overcome is, Hey, I.

I want you to succeed. Without you, there's not gonna be opportunities for McKesson. You know, ultimately, the store and, and the patients are, are the keystone of everything we're doing right.

On the other side with BioLite, it is basically a small CPG company that is right at a past startup.

You have limited resources now you had a lot of flexibility and a lot of ways that you could have innovation and influence within the company. very nimble, like the community pharmacies and being a family owned company. But, you just didn't have it. the impact on the overall economics of this, the pharmacy, where they're gonna give you a lot of time or mind share,

so that, that was, a huge sway from big corporation to small, low ticket front end item. But it was definitely great to develop, both, I guess networks and, both perspectives. 

Mike Koelzer: And now you can only say good things about pharmacy marketplace, but with this one, what do you anticipate or what are some struggles and so on?

Kris Rhea: Yeah, I think, you know, us being a technology platform a lot of times, you know, you can talk about the value with the owners and the stores, but it's. Sometimes a tough thing to get adoption from staff, so you don't only show the benefit to the owner, but you have to show that tech, that o ordering, staff member why they should change their habit,

so, you know, it's just human nature, especially in a reactive model like pharmacy that I don't wanna change, I don't have time to increase my bandwidth to change habits. In my daily operations. So I think our biggest challenge is, showing that, pharmacy staff, well this isn't just gonna benefit the owner who you think has a country club membership and enrolling in the dough.

This is gonna benefit you from a resource perspective, a time perspective, and ultimately, very similar to what we did with MedSync back in the day. You have to adopt it if you want to stay in business.

Mike Koelzer: And maybe get the owner the hell off your back, you know, instead of the owner coming in, it's like, who the hell bought this yesterday? Don't, you know, this is gonna do this and that? And they don't, they don't have the map behind it.

The owner doesn't really, he just wants to bitch about something. And so, you know, that's, that's one of the benefits, getting 'em off your back. That had to be hard with a big wholesaler like that because, you know, pharmacy owners are. pissed. They're pissed at the PBMs, they're pissed.

They can't get stuff, lower price in the brand names and they really can't complain about that. It's kind of, you know, everybody can say, well, it's not our problem. But then when a problem does come in, something that they're able to nail to that company, they just want to take it out on you.

They're taking their frustration , on the whole ball game, out on you for that play and y. You're stuck. It used to be that the company got mad at the salesperson 'cause the salesperson would promise too much and then the company felt bad.

'cause, why'd you promise this? But with a company that big, it's like I don't have any say in that. And then you've gotta, you've gotta things that kind of. Placate them, but you're not gonna be able to do too much, so you don't wanna promise you, you know, that's a hard position to be in with one of those bigger companies like that. And it's not like a company, it's just a hell of a lot of fun. It's not like you're a SpaceX or dealing with a pro baseball team or something. It's just kind of the drudgery of buying drugs for too much money.

Mike, the analogy I like to use is, Hey, you are the child of two divorcing parents that wanna use you as the ping pong, tell your mom that she's this and that, and you go your dad's and you're like, huh, you know, please. Well, and the worst part about it too is. The real one, they're pissed at the PBM. They don't have a rep coming in for that, you know, so you're getting the complaining from all sides and you're the only sucker to kind of show up and take it. And, you know, the wholesalers need you.

They need that face behind there. and that's, frankly, that's why they get, they get, smart guys, smart guys and gals, pleasant people who are just able to kind of. Take the crap storm of some of that.

Kris Rhea: I think that, you know, obviously the business model being as strange as it is, the additional layers of non-revenue producing time that the owners are having to put in. Of clawbacks and. PPBM contracting, the three letter acronyms that the stores have to deal with, lends itself to frustration, fear, and that energy has to go somewhere, right?

So I think it's human nature to find an outlet for that energy or you internalize it and you can't take it personally.

I think that if you believe in relationships and you're authentic. Ultimately, you know, people will understand that you're coming from a good place and you'll be able to develop a positive relationship with them.

You know, I still have customers of mine from my McKesson days that are really close friends. But yeah, it's definitely a bell curve. You know, some people. They would give you the shirt off your back and vice versa and others, you know, it's just strictly a business relationship. But for the most part, I've really enjoyed the relationship and that gave me a really pure place in my heart for community pharmacy after that, part of my career.

And that's why I wanna see, you know, people stay in business and not only survive, but thrive in this model. And I'm hoping that we can help do that through the pharmacy Marketplace.

Mike Koelzer: back in the day, you know, the wholesaler back in the day, our reps would come in, they'd have a three ring binder and show us suntan stands and things they needed to sell us. I imagine that's changed if I may back on the wholesalers, what do you think of the goal these days of the three major wholesalers? Is it that a rep would be in a store for a certain amount of time, every something or other? Is that what they're looking for? Or, or is that, is that old school of, of the reps visiting the stores?

Kris Rhea: I think that we're having to do more with less, 'cause the wholesaler model is strained on the community pharmacy side as well. I know that everybody thinks they're making tons of money. But they're investing more into some other segments, so the resources are strange.

So I don't think you're able to see a rep like you were on a continuous cadence every couple weeks or once a month. So these reps are having to, to expand their territories. I think the main goal is to drive this, this sourcing compliance that we're talking about right now. I'd say that's a priority.

But also bring the stores into the 21st century as it relates to workflow, efficiency, automation and clinical services. And, you know, really there's other things that the store has to be doing outside of direct dispensing. And a good wholesaler, a good rep is going to try to train the pharmacy how to, to manage the paradigm shift of healthcare, to utilize the accessibility of their drugstore in that education and relationship.

To impact community health.

Mike Koelzer: Chris, what do you see as your main competitions with Pharmacy Marketplace? And let me, let me lay it down with this. I imagine it's not straight competitors, I imagine it's people not thinking they need it, people not wanting to spend the time, people not. Wanting to spend any time just looking into it, just talking to you, would you break down your competition?

Not looking at other competitors actually.

Kris Rhea: Right. Yeah. I think the main competitor is fear of change and fear of. Technology. So you know, the owner understands, Hey, I've been doing these napkin calculations for so long, I've taken the phone calls. This is just what we're used to. And we're scared to adopt something. We don't wanna share our data information with a partnership.

You know, we don't wanna evolve in workflow 'cause we know the devil we know is better than the devil we don't know. That would be the main thing. Yeah. There are other technology platforms that can show savings on the secondary market, and we don't really consider that competition because they're not addressing the entire ecosystem of what's going on.

And you know, that's really what we're trying to promote and educate about is, hey, there has to be a change in how you're doing things. You have to evolve, but. You have to remain in good standing and have decent relationships with your suppliers. With everything going on in, in community pharmacy, that relationship has to remain intact. 

Mike Koelzer: Hey Chris, I gotta tell you a secret. I figure people have heard me talk enough now they're either asleep or have turned this off, so I don't know if anyone's gonna hear this, . a third generation pharmacy and , my son is in the business too, he has a business degree, but is probably the end of the road family wise, at least. It's like I'm not trying to keep a ton of value. I'm, I'm balancing lifestyle versus keeping value in there, so not trying to. Push it into a fourth generation and, and try to please everybody so that they can grow, grow, grow. So I'm basically like, eh, I make more than a pharmacist does here, average pharmacist and. We're gonna make things happy. So, one thing we did is we're, so I started closing Saturdays if I'm open nine to five.

I shaved off an hour there. And then a few weeks ago I said, know, I. Nine to 11 in the morning. We just get a bunch of people worried about deliveries and all that, even though they get texts and all this stuff, they're just people hovering over the phone. So shut the phones off from nine to 11 and, and basically we have a good IVR system and can even call us if they want an example.

Let me give you the phone number. (616) 361-7319. If you want to hear our phone message And Chris, I'm on a double tangent here. All right, so bear with me. There was a company years ago that went through the whole IVR thing and then they said, if you want to hear a duck quack, press five and you'd press five.

And I go, quack. Alright, off that tangent onto the 9 to 11. So I did that for a couple weeks and then one of my guys said, this is pretty nice, let's turn the phones off the whole day. So our pharmacy now is strictly messages, so the phone doesn't ring at all and the doctors can get through, which they don't do too often 'cause they can leave messages and do the e-script and all that.

And you know, people call me crazy. Well, my wife calls me crazy, but besides that it's like, ah. Piss on it and we're doing it. And I think people like it because when they come into the store, we give them our undivided attention, and the phone's not ringing off the hook. And then when those people are gone, we call the people back on the phone.

We tried to call 'me' within 20 minutes, there were a handful of old ladies that kind of I did this for, that was a pain in the ass that would call us like eight times a day. And

guess who, the only people that were, that complained about this were those little old ladies.

But we haven't had any complaints and the phone doesn't ring, and we call 'em back. I can do this because I've given up on the fourth generation, I think, I think it's better. I think people like it. 

Kris Rhea: it's funny, Mike, 'cause you know, we talked about adoption with staff and. And med sync a little bit ago, like how I used to sell med syn to a tech would, I would say, I would ask the owner, who's your five most problem customers that bother them every month? And they'd be like, well, it's Jim and it's, you know, Ms.

Smith and I. I'd go to those techs, I'd be like, do you wanna make it where you only have to talk to Ms. Smith once a month? That would be great. My life here at the drugstore would be so much better. So that's how I showed what this is the light at the end tunnel. This is what it's for you. And they were like, I'm on board if you're telling me I don't have to deal with this 10 times now.

But it, yeah, you're right. Like where do we find the balance between you know, good focused customer engagement where we can give them our undivided attention and, the other side of like, well, we're, we're having to ignore and not really give anybody focus or, and divided attention. So you know, that's, that's tough.

Mike Koelzer: Some people I'll, I'll give them the spiel about. better service and so on. But in the nuts and bolts of it is, I had a couple people, they complained and I'm like, Hey, we're doing this to basically stay in business and do a better job in the meantime.

But what I wanted to say to them is, look, make 6 cents on your prescription. I. You know, I can hardly even look at the caller ID for 6 cents, and that's what I made in your prescription. So it's like we're gonna do it this way and I'm just gonna be happy doing it.  

Regarding not wanting to talk to certain customers, I remember the GE guy, I forget what his name was and I don't really like this, but he would fire 10% of his staff every year.

The bottom 10% don't really care for that too much. Well, probably 'cause I'd get fired. That's probably the main reason, but it makes you think that, you know, most pharmacies would be a lot happier if, about once a year, you got rid of five or 10 customers. You know, the ones that bitch all the time or the ones that are just you.

You don't wanna do it to people that need you and then maybe are not really profitable, but the, you know, the gripes and, and that kind of stuff. And just send them a letter and just say, Hey, we're, we're taking a different direction and you're not included in it. And just fire 'em. I mean, people would be a lot happier I think, if, if some of the pharmacies did that.

Kris Rhea: Yeah, I think just from a weight off your chest being lifted and just being able to feel like, Hey, now I got the energy and focus that knowing I don't have to dread that interaction. I do think that pharmacies need to be more selective about who they're engaging in the community and who they're, ultimately, working with. Unfortunately, this isn't a business that makes sense from a pure volume perspective. It's not A plus B equals C, and you sell it at, you buy it from this, sell at this, and it's gonna make a positive margin every time. So I would definitely, as a pharmacy owner, look at customers just from an economic model or from a psychological one and just make, ruin your staff's day model and say, Hey, we might be better. Addition by subtraction.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Kris Rhea: I think that would relate.

Mike Koelzer: And here's the thing, you usually end up making more mistakes on those people too, because you tense up a little bit. Nobody wants to call 'em. You know, so maybe you should have called him about an allergy or something. And you don't wanna do that 'cause everybody just hates dealing with 'em.

And then the person comes in, you don't wanna wait on 'em and, and this and that. And then all of a sudden a mistake happens. And a lot of times it's just because of nature. You're not relaxed, you're not giving it your all because you're a little bit afraid to give your all that kind of thing.

 I found you make more mistakes. With those customers anyways. And that's like the last people you wanna make mistakes with.

Kris Rhea: Yeah. And it's so funny, Mike, going into the drug stores, every one of 'em would always tell me, well, my people aren't like the other people at the other stores. My people are crazy. You know, we have a unique population here in this little town. And I, you know, I would definitely agree and, and placate that answer, but knowing that, you know, a certain rural town in Tennessee is not much different than the other rural town, 20 minutes away, but everybody thinks, Hey, I have the unique character traits that enter my drugstore. And they're all psychos compared to everybody else. Has it been better? That was always the inside joke for me.

Mike Koelzer: Well, God bless the customers, but you think about it, it's like these people you talk to like three or four times a day, like they're talking to their pharmacy like a hundred times a month or something like that. Some need it, but a lot of times it's not normal really. 

It doesn't seem like you're making money with those many touch points. I don't know. I'm getting old and stale. Chris. Maybe it's time to head out. I don't know. I don't know, but my patience is, what am I saying?

I was never patient. I hid it better. I hid it better back then. Now I don't hide it very well.

Kris Rhea: That's good for your mental health to be able to let that be an outlet as opposed to internalize that so much, you know

Mike Koelzer: Yeah.

Kris Rhea: That's a positive.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah. I suppose, Chris, as far as comradery, you miss it from anything? Did you miss the golf outings with McKesson? Did you miss being on the road and staying in the hotels with bio light? Do you miss any of that? 

Kris Rhea: Oh yeah, definitely. Mike, I'd say the best thing about BioLite was. Me and my dad got to spend a lot of time together going and, and visiting stores and taking samples out into the market. I think we. Ended up visiting about 2,500 pharmacies, and he would drive me and I would have the Google Maps and we would go into a market and spend a week and, and see stores.

And I think at the end of it, you know, that that was probably the big value to me. Obviously it was a career, a job, but I had the ability to, to spend some time with my dad and with McKeson, you know, having the, the relationships with the stores more of an intimate relationship with my customers was very important to me and, and, and added a lot of value.

And yeah, getting to spend time with the other reps and, and all that was really neat. And well, fortunately with the marketplace, I'm, I'm able to reestablish those connections. And same with the other wholesalers and, and buying groups. It's a lot of fun to be able to know, continue to, you know, have those, those friends and those relationships and help ease some pain points for them.

So, now, I think I'm where I need to be and it's been, it's been a wild ride, but I'm, I'm enjoying it still. 

Mike Koelzer: So Chris someone's listening to and they pull up to the store home and they want to give us 30 seconds. What are they gonna do? Are they going to look up your website? Are they going to message you? What would you like out of a listener at this point?

Kris Rhea: Yeah. I think if you are dealing with the frustration of this situation, drug sourcing and. You, your hands have been thrown up in the air for a while and you're, you're kind of giving up and I would definitely reach out to me either on LinkedIn or Facebook or email me. Or you can go to our website, pharmacy marketplace and set up a time to do a demo.

The goal is for us to, you know, sit down and make stores feel comfortable with utilizing technology. To be more efficient in the business. It's gotten to a point where if you're not changing some of the ways you operate and using technology, it's gonna be hard to survive just from a time and gross profit perspective.

So if you are interested, you can reach out to me and it's easy. It's Chris KRI s@pharmacymarketplace.com.

Mike Koelzer: Golly, Chris. Nice seeing you again. That was fun. It's cool coming at that from a few different angles, the history you've had and boy, the place you are right now, pharmacy marketplace, that seems like all of these were important, but it seems like that one really can make an imprint. So very cool stuff. Chris, I know you're busy. Thanks for your time. Our listeners appreciate it. I appreciate it. I look forward to the next time we get to do this.

Kris Rhea: Yeah. Thank you so much. I, you know, follow every episode of the podcast you just had, my close friends, Bruce and, and Nicole on this last one. Avid listeners and I think that the stores and different stakeholders, if they take the time to, to continue to follow this podcast and others like this, they can find little, little differentiating factors that might make a difference in keeping the doors open or not.

Mike Koelzer: All right, Chris. Thanks for the kind words and look forward to talking to you soon.

Kris Rhea: See Mike. 

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