Pharmacy in the UK | Paul Lowndes

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

[00:00:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, good morning, Paul. Well, good morning. 

[00:00:14] Paul Lowndes: Well, good afternoon here in 

[00:00:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: London. I was gonna say it might not be might not be morning for you. How's the day shaping up over there? Uh, 

[00:00:22] Paul Lowndes: Yeah, it's pretty good. It's uh, it's sunny. We've had a lot of rain here this summer, over in the UK. Um, but it's, uh, today it's bright and sunny, so, uh, we're back on track.

Paul 

[00:00:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: You have just told our audience why the two of us don't quite sound the same. So you're over in, uh, you're over in England. That's right? Yeah. Have you always, you've always lived there. 

[00:00:46] Paul Lowndes: Yes. I've always lived. I've done a bit of traveling, but for the last, uh, 20 years, I mean, I was, I was born and grew up in London, so yeah, pretty much all my life I've lived over.

Oh, 

[00:00:57] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's cool. So Paul, tell the, tell the, um, listeners for those that haven't come across, you introduce yourself and, um, tell the listeners what you do right now. Who are you? 

[00:01:12] Paul Lowndes: Yeah, sure. Um, so I'm, uh, I'm, I'm Paul lounges. I'm a co-founder of media farm and, uh, media farming is an online training platform for pharmacy business owners and what we do.

Train and, and manage, um, support staff training for pharmacy business owners in order to deliver fantastic customer service. So in a nutshell, that's what we do. 

[00:01:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: Paul, who are your customers? Is this going to be, um, over in the states, we call them independence and versus chain pharmacies. Are all workers different?

[00:01:50] Paul Lowndes: It's both actually predominantly independent, but we do work for the national chains as well. Um, so we, we, we, we cater for both audiences. 

[00:01:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: And how did you do it? How did you start this up? What's your background that you are now, you know, making videos for pharmacies and how to on, on how people deserve people?

[00:02:11] Paul Lowndes: Yeah, well, well, I mean, my, my, my journey is, uh, I, I started off in sales, so I worked for a trade magazine called chemist and drug is, which I think is the oldest. Sort of pub publication for, for pharmacists. So, uh, so it's got a long history. Uh, it's still published, but it's online. It's an online magazine there.

So I worked there. I was the sales manager. We sold, um, uh, advertis. I sold, uh, essentially the advertising, the sponsored, um, training pieces in that magazine. Um, and. We, I, I, I left there and I set up consultancy with my partner who is a pharmacist, and also worked at, uh, chemist druggist and she was clinical editor.

And, and we started off creating content for, uh, the national chains, uh, and, and for pharma companies who wanted, uh, training materials and training guides. To an accredited standard, but actually delivered results. So that's where we started. So it was a small consultancy based business. Um, of course back then it was all paper based.

Uh, so, but, but now we have the online training platform we deliver into over 500, uh, pharmacy businesses, and it's all, it's all done online and, um, it's, it's all, it's all tracked. And, and, and we, we, we focus on, um, making sure that not, not just the training, content's good, but all the, all the tracking facilities there.

Uh, cause I dunno if it's what it's like in, in the us, but in the UK. It's highly regulated and there's a certain amount of compliance training that has to go on. So, and above the customer, um, staff training, there's an awful lot of compliance training and, and that increasingly has to be done and tracked and evidence.

You've documented 

[00:04:03] Mike Koelzer, Host: it. Now, when I think about accreditation, um, What level are we talking about here? Are we talking also about the, um, the sales team member that might be selling a candy bar to somebody? Is it everybody in the pharmacy that is required to have. Training. 

[00:04:26] Paul Lowndes: Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Uh, I mean, if you are working in a pharmacy now, um, even if you are just behind the counter, uh, you are expected to complete a six month accredited course.

It's called the medicine counter assistant course. Um, not a very imaginative title, but that's an accredited course and you have to do it. Um, and increasingly even delivery drivers are now being, um, required to do a certain level, you know, communication skills. Um, wow. In. Push out the quality.

Yeah, 

[00:04:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's really interesting. So, um, in, in, in the us, um, the. Recently, at least in Michigan, and I'm not sure across the country, but recently the pharmacy technicians have had to be certified. Right. And, um, and it sort of comes down to anybody who basically touches the medicine actually touches the tablets has to be certified.

It's very fascinating to hear that. That the UK requires training actually like on customer service basically. Right. Well, it's more that that's really something because in the states it's like, I always think that, well, everybody thinks they're the best, but I think my little store maybe has better service than somebody else.

I can't prove it, but that's at least what I think. And so it's like, good. Let free trade take care of that. Mrs. Smith no longer wants to go to that pharmacy because they're rude and they don't know how to treat people and let them come to our pharmacy. But it's really interesting to hear that that's, um, Mandated through training in the UK.

That's really fascinating. And I'm not saying it's bad by any means. It's just really fascinating. I never thought about 

[00:06:23] Paul Lowndes: that before. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, I mean, the technicians are now required to register as pharmacists. Do, uh, and, and that's all taken care of. So there's a continued professional development requirement, C P D requirement for pharmacies and technicians. So that that's, that's a professional qualification, but anything below technician, um, then, then you are required to do the accredited training and it's more than just customer service that that's, that's, that's part of it, but it, it goes down to, um, Pain allergy and understanding of all those conditions.

And, and I think thinking behind it is that, um, increasingly pharmacies were starting to sell more over the counter medicines. So this all came about in the mid nineties. So a level of competence to, to understand common conditions and, and treatments 

[00:07:16] Mike Koelzer, Host: and a, I see. So when, when someone comes in and says, You know, they have a certain, uh, ailment, at least the person has some idea what's what's going on.

Exactly, 

[00:07:26] Paul Lowndes: exactly. So that's a big part of the training. So it's, it's about understanding medicines, the

[00:07:38] Mike Koelzer, Host: treatments and things, and well, almost like. Almost kinda like the very first aid part of it before they go and would ask the pharmacist to question 

[00:07:44] Paul Lowndes: yeah, that's right. That's right. And, and, and, uh, and the reason they wanted to do it was, is, is to try and free up the pharmacist time. So instead of the pharmacist, oh, I see continually being called out to say, right.

Can you know what's the best thing for hay fever or what's known? Right. You know, the basic questions the, the, the assistance can deal with. Uh, but it was felt that that needed to be some sort of qualification, which is universal. So if you, if you, um, and, and I think that was the other thing, cuz of course everyone used to get some sort of informal training.

Like you, you are talking about there. Um, and of course some would argue, well, you know, nobody really. Killed anyone prior to the nineties. So there's this whole debate about regulation versus, you know, just common sense. But I think the idea was to come to, to make that, that, um, that position, perhaps a little bit more of a formal thing and, and, and assistance can then move around and say, yeah, I'm qualified.

I'm it's it' is re recognized qualification medicine, counter assistant qualification, and that that's a benchmark that you can take from pharmacy to pharmacy, and you can work anywhere 

[00:08:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: with that. Hey, that's really cool now that you know that explanation. Um, boy, that really, that really makes sense. Um, like I know, I know in our fam pharmacy and I don't think that it's a, I don't think it's a rule, but we've made one in our own pharmacy.

We say that. That way, if the customer comes in, you can show them where things are. But if they have any medical questions that should come up to the pharmacist, et cetera. But I know that before we had that procedure in place and I'm imagining in pharmacies across our nation, that it's all different.

In some cases, you've got the pharmacist being, let's say interrupted. Which it's not an interruption, it's a customer, but let's just say it's an interruption for lack of a better word by every question. Yeah. And then in some pharmacies you maybe have somebody who's been there for a week, you know? Yeah.

Um, diagnosing something short of. You know, a migraine or heart failure or something like that. So that's really interesting. 

[00:10:00] Paul Lowndes: Yeah. Yeah. And of course what's happened over time. It started just with the meet encounter assistant course, and then they added on another bit called the dispensary assistant. So that allows them to work in the dispensary to help with pharmacy sort of assembling 

[00:10:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: prescription, maybe like the technician as we call them on our, on our 

[00:10:18] Paul Lowndes: end.

Yeah. That one below the technician, but able to support the. Technician I suppose. 

[00:10:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: Oh, I, I see. And, and what, how far, how far are they below the technician? What's an example of what they would do to help the technician, the dispensary part? 

[00:10:34] Paul Lowndes: Well, you can, so dispensary would be more just not actually assembling the, the, the prescription, but, but more just being able to work behind in the dispensary either.

Gotcha. Stock taking stock in putting stock away, doing. Basic things, uh, in the dispensary. Yeah. But not actually getting involved in the prescription. Um gotcha. But you can, but you can then go up to what we call accuracy, checking, uh, technician, which is, which is not a full technician. Um, but again, it's an accredited course and allows you to then get involved in, in, in the assembly of the prescription with, with, with the pharmacist, uh, doing, doing, doing the final check.

So, um, so you 

[00:11:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: can get you and, and, and then where does the. So then the accuracy technician, and then where does the next technician level, what are, what are they allowed to do? 

[00:11:20] Paul Lowndes: Well, the technician allows them, but can basically do what a pharmacist can do pretty much. Gotcha. Um, you know, without being a fully acquired pharmacist so they can actually put the prescription together.

Um, but increasingly it's become that that's quite like a management role. So what we're seeing in the UK is, oh, are technicians getting more involved in hospitals? Uh, where they've got much more independence because actually the lines are blurred. So what, so if you've got a pharmacist there, what's a, you know, what's a technician do cause they're basically almost interchangeable.

Uh, now. Yes. Yes. So the skill mix actually makes it more sense to have a pharmacist, um, and, and accuracy checking technician. To actually delegate the sort of, you know, day to day stuff. And that's increasingly, what's, what's happening. 

[00:12:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's in, but in, but in the hospital, that's where, yeah. The technicians are, are more like they can even do more that, that, um, it's a little bit more spread out and things like 

[00:12:15] Paul Lowndes: that.

Yeah. Yeah. They, they, they have a much wider role. It's more of a management role, it's seen as you know, it really is seen as, quite a, an important role, um, within a hospital primary care setup. 

[00:12:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, I'm afraid. If, if the US did all those levels, they would have a pharmacist and then they would have one called a lazy pharmacist and they would put me into that role.

what, um, Paul on the six months can, can the. Can the person start in the pharmacy before the six months training is completed, 

[00:12:52] Paul Lowndes: they can, but they have to be enrolled on that course within the first three months of working. Gotcha. So they, they can, uh, they can be employed sort of on a preliminary basis, given some basic induction training, uh, and understanding about how yeah.

But, they must. Be rolled on that formal qualification within, within three months of, of 

[00:13:16] Mike Koelzer, Host: starting. Yeah, that role seems really cool, especially from a, um, um, I don't personally do the hiring at my store anymore, but my chief of operations does a great job, but sometimes, you know, when you get a technician in, in the states, how they're certified, you know, they have a certain, um, Level about them, but it's neat that there's, that you could actually hire somebody in that's already trained, like as a, you know, counter person and, and know that they have that, that level about them.

So that's really cool. Yeah. Tell me, um, tell me back at the, um, uh, Back at the early ma magazine. You said you were, were you selling something that was related to the training somehow? Were you selling ads or something or, or something related to the training? 

[00:14:15] Paul Lowndes: Yeah, so, so when we started out. When I started out, it was just straightforward ads, trade ads in, in trade magazines.

And then increasingly the manufacturers started to become, uh, what they used to call EDU. They were interested in, in, in educational marketing. So it was deemed to be of, of, of, of greater value than just. Straightforward and ed for a, a product. So we used to work with manufacturers to develop training programs, sponsored by the big manufacturers, like GSK and Pfizer and, uh, people like that.

And so, and that 

[00:14:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: Maybe because that was because some of those rules started coming down and they were, then they thought, well, let's, let's merge that. Yeah, 

[00:14:55] Paul Lowndes: That's right. And, and I think there was a, uh, just an awareness that the, the. There was, from a marketing perspective, you could, you, you, you'd get more value in, in training.

Sure. Uh, people up about the products and, and understanding why it's different and, and, uh, what the value was to the customer. So it was a deeper level of engagement mm-hmm , um, that, that, that manufacturers wanted. And, and so we started to, to do more of those sorts of things, sponsored education products, um, rather than just playing, playing plane ads.

[00:15:27] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. When did, when did you and your partner? Um, I'm always kind of intrigued by like the first sale or, or kind of that thing, like, oh, wow. We got something here. Yeah. Yeah. When did you, um, when did you finally say like, whoa, this is gonna work. Yeah. You know, was it after you had already written some of your material or when, when did you like to say wow.

[00:15:48] Paul Lowndes: Yeah, well, it's interesting. I still remember that first call, cuz it was very much like, you know, it'd be great if we could spin this out into some sort of business. And uh, and I saw an a, I remember seeing it, I still remember it in the magazine and it was an editorial about, um, a company that was launching a training platform for their products and stuff like that.

And, uh, they were gonna have all these. Training modules there. And, uh, so I, I thought I'll ring up the agency and just see if they wanted some help with writing the content. Um, so I picked up the phone and called them. This was back in the day where you could pick up the phone and, and, and people used to answer 

[00:16:27] Mike Koelzer, Host: before you warn, before you had, before you had to warn them with a text that you're gonna call that's, right?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Your phone it's rude. It's rude. If you do not text somebody now and say, I'm gonna call you that's. So I don't. 

[00:16:39] Paul Lowndes: No one answers the phone straight away. No. Um, so, uh, and, and I got straight through to this LA, this, this PR lady and she said, oh, thank goodness. She called. She said, 'cause we're doing all this stuff.

We have no idea. how we're gonna do it. So they put all this press out. So say you're gonna do it right now. We've gotta figure out how to do it. So, you know, it's just one of those luck I lucked out, you know, you know? Yeah. And, uh, 

[00:17:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: they, they, they were hoping that they were really advertising for, for you even, you know, secretly

That's great. That's great. And then, and then you did it for you, did it for them, and then eventually you started running it out on your own then, right. You started. Doing your own sales of it then. 

[00:17:24] Paul Lowndes: Yeah. So that, that, that was a good, good while later. So, uh, it was 2010, um, that, that we actually invested in our own platform.

And, and what was happening is that you had more and more manufacturers, uh, doing more and more amazing things, but they were all on their own platforms. Um, so, so what you got was, uh, you know, more and more information, more and more content, but increasingly it was, it was getting more and more, um, splintered and scattered across everywhere.

So you had multiple logins and, you know, combined with the fact that increasingly pharmacists had to show that you'd recorded it. So, so what, what our thinking was. Wouldn't it be great if, if actually you turned it on, on its head and sort of had one place where all this content could, could sit. Um, right.

And, and, and, and a lot of content we have actually also sits outside of, of our platform, but, but we can track it. So, from a pharmacist point of view, It's almost like the internet kind of, you know, uh, right. Curated, I suppose you record it. Sure. 

[00:18:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. How, how, how did you, um, let's see, 2010. So if you started that in 2010, you could, you could almost be.

Advertising that online. Is that where you did it or did you still go to some print magazines? 

[00:18:49] Paul Lowndes: Um, no, we never, we never went through print. We used to, um, advertise it online. We did a lot of trade shows, uh, in the oh, trade shows. Gotcha. So we signed up a lot of pharmacies, uh, that way.

Um, and, and, and, and that's really where, where it, where it picked up from. 

[00:19:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Okay. Paul trade shows. I walk down the trade show and I don't go to 'em much anymore, but I walk down and I got all these people staring at me. And I feel like getting like, uh, um, you know, I, I feel like pretending I I'm. Right.

I have a site disability or something so that no one thinks I'm looking at them. How, how do you, what do you do at a trade show to, um, do you have any tricks of the trade or, or do you, um, or, or do you stand there and kind of wait for people to come up or do you give, uh, you know, Snicker bars away or something like that.

[00:19:44] Paul Lowndes: Yeah. I mean, um, we, we don't do so much of them now. Um, cause I think they have become, you know, much more of a circus and, and, but, but, oh, I 

[00:19:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: see. They, they, they maybe weren't in the past as much. 

[00:19:56] Paul Lowndes: Yeah. It was, it was a little bit better back then. And also we were, we were doing something very different. They, you know, we were the only players in the market, so it got a little bit more crowded back then, but, uh, yeah.

Yeah. And, and also. Our strategy was we hooked in with the people that put the trade show on. So when you signed up, you got a free learning account and then people were interested in, in kind. Uh, so, so they were signing postings, uh, the, you know, then, then to us, as opposed to us sort of, you know, waving something.

Yeah. And, and, and getting. Yeah, 

[00:20:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: just literally, it's kinda like they gave them the bag and they're just coming to you and filling it up. Yeah. Yeah. So 

[00:20:34] Paul Lowndes: with stuff, and I have to say these days, you know, my, my attitude, those sorts, I, I, I quite like the small ones where they are really focused and, and we do a couple, we do a great one as one that just come back from, which is much more of a, a kind of a, a closed network where you get to speak to people.

Sure. But it's literally, they. Sort of 25 suppliers, 25, um, buyers and it's much more oh, kinda. Yeah. Now those things I think work, but I think, I think now the big trade shows, I agree with you unless you've got tons of money and you go, you know, here I am and you literally are prepared. If you, if you are one of the small guys, the chances, someone just walking up onto your stand and, and, and actually doing business, uh, you know, 

[00:21:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah.

I, I wonder what the, I, I wonder what the future. I don't know much about trade shows at all. I know some, I, you know, some might go up, I wonder if they'll go down just like I know a lot of local service groups and business groups and that like, we used to meet in morning business groups for our neighborhood, this and that.

And those are gone. I think it's just because of the internet. I have a friend, um, who makes bird feeders and, uh, plastic bird feeders. He moved over from the, um, uh, Uh, automobile industry, because that was so competitive and he makes these bird feeders and they only really sell at trade shows. You know, he's put 'em in, he's put 'em in bird stores and online, and they just sell at trade shows.

So I guess for some it's, it's still a good thing, but, um, I just, I just don't care for them. Um, Paul, what kind of, um, What kind of competition do you have to be concerned about? And I imagine there's gotta be some competition to keep your prices in line or else you could charge a million dollars if the training is required.

So what is the competition? What do you have to do? Be concerned about or things like 

[00:22:38] Paul Lowndes: that. Yeah. So, we have a number of players in the market because it's an accredited course. It does. It does mean that. Uh, there, there, it does restrict the competition, uh, because it's quite an onerous thing to go through, but there are, uh, I think two or three other, um, accredited training providers.

I think it's three, actually. I think it's four who are accredited to deliver the courses. So, so you're right there, there is, you know, that, that sort benchmarks the price. And, and, and, and the pricing of the courses are, are all, all pretty similar, but what we've tried to do, because we were, we were the, um, you know, relatively entrant, um, you know, when, when we actually started to get into, um, the, the whole kind accredited course business, um, and, and the thing that we do differently from everyone else, traditionally, Course providers will sell you a course.

And, and, and, and, you know, we did for, for many, many years. So you, you, you found out, you, you say, right, someone started in my pharmacy, I need to buy this course, as you say, um, sign me up. And that's how, how it worked. What we've tried to do is sort of move things on a little bit. And, and, and with our platform, what we do is, is, is, is, is we've moved towards a subscription model.

Because, you know, what we used to see is, is people used to, yeah, it was very reactive. You know, I buy this course, I buy that course. Um, and, and as the number of courses that you have to keep track of has increased people want, not just the course, but somewhere to actually. Monitor what they do. Sure. And so things like SOPs, internal training, a lot, a lot of.

So you mentioned you, you know, you train your own staff. A lot of people wanna do that as well, but they want it all in one place. So, so what, what, what we've done is said, right? Yeah. Bit like spot fire, bit like Netflix, you know? Sure. Um, you pay us a monthly subscription. I see. And for that, you get unlimited access to all the courses all just rather than buy them separately, just get so a bit like nextly rather than buy a mentor, a DVD you just pay.

Yeah. And you've got access to the whole library, plus you can upload your own content and we'll even provide you with. Basic kind of servicing. So you, you, you've got your own personal training platform effectively with all your accredited courses already preloaded. So that's in contrast to where our competition is, which is, um, uh, Hey, you need an ANCA course, you know, buy it.

Yeah. And then. You, you won't hear from us, Kate . 

[00:25:10] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Yeah. Right. When you were talking about the Netflix over in the states, there's a term, um, it might be a little re risque, but I think it's called Netflix and chill. where it means. It means, you know, it means you're probably gonna do more than watch Netflix.

You're probably gonna maybe snuggle on the couch a little bit but I wonder, I wonder how media farm and chill is going to, if that's ever gonna catch on, 

[00:25:37] Paul Lowndes: but maybe this romantic pharmacist, that 

[00:25:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: That would be interesting. You never know. You never know. Um, do you have a market? So like in the US, there is not a mandate for the, for the lower counter person, but there's mandates now for, um, Technicians and, and pharmacy continuing education and so on.

Do you have a market outside or, or have you, I imagine you've looked at what is a market outside the UK. Um, and, and, and do you switch around to meet those different markets and so on? Yeah. 

[00:26:18] Paul Lowndes: Um, so, so, where we see the sort of growth of it, because, um, you know, the accredited stuff really, you have to do so.

So we wanna get people through that as quickly as possible. Not because it's, it's it's bad, but, um, because in terms of actually adding value or, or pounds to the bottom line, it doesn't matter how many courses you go through. That that's not going to actually deliver any, any, any sort of extra revenue.

So, we automate that. We get that all set up where, where we see the real growth is in new services, professional services. So in the. Over here. Most pharmacists derive most of their revenue from the NHS. So they get a dispensing fee for every prescription they dispense from the NHS and traditionally 5% of all the revenue from pharmacy was, was, was, came from the NHS.

[00:27:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: And that's the, that's the country's health. Conglomerate that's right. Yeah. 

[00:27:17] Paul Lowndes: So all our health services are free at the point of access. So you don't pay for doctors, you don't pay for prescriptions, you do prescriptions, but it's like a flat fee of $10 or something. Sure. Um, so, so, so all health services are, are, are, are free.

Um, and so, so pharmacies are effectively part of the NHS, even though they're privately owned, they get their revenue from. The NHS, the, the, the national, um, healthcare provider, but they are cutting back. You know, like, like everywhere on, um, on, on costs and, and they're, so the fee is getting less and less. Um, so for pharmacies to grow, um, they need to start to look at more consumer private healthcare opportunities, and that is around, um, new services such as travel clinics, um, such as, um, 

[00:28:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: Health change diabetes or vaccinations and those kinds of things.

Yeah. That sort of thing. Therapy management, those kind of 

[00:28:20] Paul Lowndes: things, therapy management. Um, yeah. Um, all sorts of new areas are opening up for pharmacies. Uh, and it's just emerging cuz they're moving from. A place where nine, as I say, 95% all came through the NHS. Now it's dropping. Yeah. Um, and yeah, and, and, and not just dropping, but, but the value is getting this plus you've got of course technology.

So you've got all, you've got increasing automation coming in from, uh, from, from robots and things like that. So, suddenly this idea, there's also a threat. Everyone's worried about Amazon coming in and, and, and taking over the whole kind of, you know, delivery of medicine. Yeah. So all that's in the backdrop.

So, so, um, plus online, you've got online pharmacies over here as well. Of course. So, yeah. So you, you, you're getting the same conversations as, as, as all high street, you know, bricks and mortar businesses is what's the point of difference between you and online point of difference? Right? The people are face to face.

[00:29:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's the same. Um, ours is more privatized, uh, in the US, but it's the same exact, the same exact story. I mean, parallel to, to what, what you guys are seeing over, over there. It's um, yeah, it's, it's the, the shame, the shame that I see is that I was just talking to a friend yesterday in the pharmacy and it's like, it's.

Everything's getting squeezed and, and the costs are coming down and it's, it's, you know, it's not the same as it was, but it's not because we've solved anything. I mean, I know, like in the US, at least the average lifespan is down. The heart disease is up, you know, it's like, we haven't really solved anything in all these years.

It's just, everything's kind of changing because of price, but not because like, we. We've solved death. You know, death is still there. We're just finding ways to go about it cheaper, I guess. Yeah. And, 

[00:30:25] Paul Lowndes: And over here, you know, the big problems are, I guess the same as us. The big killers now are cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

So, you know, these are lifestyles. Diseases because people are, you know, doing the wrong thing, getting lazier. Yeah. Eating the wrong stuff. 

[00:30:42] Mike Koelzer, Host: Um, maybe finally, maybe finally, you know, if things crash a little bit or change. You know, people will start to understand that more. You know, I don't know, we've gone through whatever a hundred years of pharmacy and, and it seems like all the problems are still, you know, all the medical problems are still kind of there.

Hmm. Paul. What is your, what does your day look like typically? Um, as far as waking, do you go into the office? Do you do this? Do you put in any time at night? Are you traveling kind of stuff? What is, what does your day look like as the, um, as the, the head honcho? 

[00:31:25] Paul Lowndes: Yeah. So, so what we do, so, uh, EV every month, uh, I have a series of, uh, online meetings with, with our key customers.

So they, they really give us some feedback as to, to, you know, what training, what the issues are. You know, what we, what, what, what new content we may need to, to create. So mm-hmm so we have that input. And then over that, that month, typically we'll be looking at creating new modules, new content or updating things, um, with, with a view to releasing that over the, the next, uh, you know, next period, um, portion of my time is spent on, on the actual systems administration.

Um, and then we have, um, system, you know, the actual development of, of, of the actual platform itself. Uh, and the rest is yeah. Sort of, yeah, just looking after customers really, you know, so I'll be doing this type of thing. I'll be, um, talking at conferences, uh, do a fair bit of writing, sort of, you know, content creation, blogs and that type of thing where we have to, you know, solve sort of problems and things like that.

So, uh, I, I mean, I'd say. 20-30%. My time is spent traveling. Um, and then yeah, the rest is, is, is in the office. Um, so yeah, you know, it's, it's a, you know, I try to divide my day up into, you know, doing, doing my sort of, um, sales stuff where possible in the morning. Yeah. Uh, and then sort of operational stuff in the afternoon, although, uh, yeah, it, it never, never quite 

[00:32:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: goes to plan

Yeah, no, no, never goes to plan. I just watched a YouTube video last night about the, um, you know, how you end up like an, I was, it was like midnight last night and I'm ending up looking at airline crashes or something like that. But I, I started an hour earlier though for some reason, looking at, um, the low cost airlines.

And it was saying that in the US, the low cost airlines are maybe 25% or 20% less than the main ones, but they were showing, um, You know, a map of the, the, your area over there. And they're just showing how low the cost of some of those airlines are compared to the main airlines. So are you, um, are you hopping on those little, little things or are you driving to a lot of your steps?

Uh, no. I mean, 

Fortunately 

[00:33:38] Paul Lowndes: most of the businesses in the UK actually. So I, I would, yeah, so you're taking the train. So we have a great train network over here. Yeah. So I use the train, but, uh, but yeah, we, we have the low cost airlines, so, uh, if I do need to go to Europe. So I was in Spain, uh, a couple of months ago, Portugal, um, heading out to France later on.

So, you know, yeah. We, we. For those sort of short call flights. Yeah. We can jump on. Yeah, quite and, and they're, I mean, quite the crazy thing is it's cheaper often to, to, to fly to Spain, you know, for, for sort of under a hundred pounds than it's to jump on the train 

[00:34:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: and, and it's probably, it's probably.

You know, in the old days you thought of planning a flight, but it's almost probably like a bus fare. I mean, you can decide pretty quickly and then make that decision within a day or two and still get low, low rates. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Paul, what is your, um, where do you guys see yourself then in, in.

10 years, just more, more ingrained into the, uh, you know, more ingrained into helping your base. Yeah. I 

[00:34:45] Paul Lowndes: mean, I, I, I see ourselves becoming, you know, personalizing the service more and more, but essentially becoming, you know, sorting the training partner for, for businesses that wanna grow. Um, yeah, because we believe that, you know, training going forward, training the staff to offer great customer service is the only way that pharmacies are gonna survive.

Like, like, like a lot of, you know, bricks and mortar to pharmacies, you know, pharmacy, the customer has got to want to go there. Rather, clicking online will be so easy. It will get easier and easier. So why, why would you want to go into it? Take the hassle to get into town and, and see someone because you're getting a great experience.

So, our focus is on training the staff to deliver that. Um, and, and ensuring, you know, that it's as easy as possible. It's as simple as possible. And, and, and to, and to get, get pharmacies to, to realize that that, that, that training isn't, you know, it is, is a, is a, is a revenue earn because yeah, one of, one of the sort of downsides of, of having this regulatory environment is people see training as a cost.

So therefore sure. I don't want to do that because. I have to. Yeah, because I'll, you know, I'll be outta business if I, if I don't tick the box. Right. But then, but then that's it, you know, just so doing what's required, whereas the way that we see it and the way that, that, you know, we've shown works is that if you train your staff every day, Um, every week, every month, then, then that in itself.

And you're focusing on things which, which, which the business is, is focused on. So, so what are, what, what what's, what's the business plan? What are the key things that are gonna drive the, you know, have you got training to do that, to deliver that, then that's, that's the line and that's, what's going to create, you know, Create growth.

So that's really our driver to, to, to, to provide the pharmacy businesses, which up to now haven't had that facility cuz you just can't afford to no, if you're a small business, you can't afford your own training platform with all the content. Right. We can't do it. So, so yeah, if we, if we are providing that.

And, and we can, we can, we can help educate you into learning how to use it effectively. You've got a fantastic tool then to go out to the marketplace and develop these new services and, and, and to fight back against online. 

[00:37:01] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. And, and people, uh, they see the, they see the training as part of their satisfaction because it's, it's probably, you know, it's kind of that back and forth where if you use what you were trained on and then see the customer satisfied and so on, it kind of goes back and forth.

Yeah. And, and millennials, 

[00:37:18] Paul Lowndes: I increasingly expect it as well. You know, when we started people used to say, well, you know, no nobody's interested in training. No one wants to do it. You know, but of course now the millennials are coming up, the first thing they say is. What training do you offer? I mean, that's actually, yeah.

How 

[00:37:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah. How come I was left without training, you know, where, where do the, where does the employee typically, where, and when does the employee typically do the training? I'm assuming it's, you know, On some device with maybe headphones in or something. Are they doing that like at work or on their own 

[00:37:51] Paul Lowndes: or, yeah, it's, it's a mixture actually, Mike, um, uh, but, but what we see increasingly is is people doing it in their own time?

So, oh, you know, when we launched, you know, the big concern was, you know, how people have time to do. But, actually now a lot of people actually prefer to do it in their own time. So, uh, you can access the platform on, on your, on your phone, on your tablet, you know, laptop, whatever. So some people still do it in, in the pharmacy and, uh, and they may use a laptop there or, or even their, their, their own sort of, uh, PMR system to, to access it.

Uh, but, uh, we see it an increasing amount and actually the. Thing is, if I see the analytics, people never believe me when I tell them, but the most popular time for people to complete the training is actually on a Friday night, seven o'clock on a Friday night. No kidding. Now. 

[00:38:44] Mike Koelzer, Host: No kidding. It's just maybe they're windy.

They're yeah. Well, I, I told you it's their media farm and chill. Well, I told you that. I told you that now the question is, does it go till midnight? You know, that's, that's a question. Well, I think part of it might be too, is that. It's a transferable degree. Yeah. So, so where, where, if it was just training for this store, then they're like, well, I'm doing this for.

Old man Smith. Who's out on the golf course as my boss, but with this, because it's transferable, I compare that sort of, to like in the states, like our technicians studying for their, um, re-certification yeah. They don't relate that so much to just our, you know, our, our pharmacy. Yeah. Um, Paul, what kind of, what kind of, um, you know, Worries or hurdles or things that are kind of a, a pain in the rear to you.

Do you, do you kind wish you could eliminate from your day? I guess? Um, 

[00:39:56] Paul Lowndes: I, I, I, I guess the, the sort of the bits that I'd love to take off, it would be around, you know, the, the, you know, the software issues and programming and that type of. Yeah. Um, because you know, that's the bit, you know, I mean, I, I, I love dealing with customers.

I mean, you know, sales is what I grew up with, so I, I, I love it and I love solving problems. Right. And I love being able to sort of say, right. Okay. We've got a solution here. I love that. What, what I struggle with a little bit is then putting on my. Analytics hat on and, and programming hat on I don't program.

But I have to understand how to program. Yeah. And, and trying to document that. And, and, and then, you know, do, do all that. And that's, that's the hard bit, and, and invariably, you know, you can imagine with the platform, like, this is quite a lot on it and, and, and you, you're trying to sort of update things and, and then, but also.

Keep it the same, but improve it. And, and that 

[00:40:55] Mike Koelzer, Host: bit, you know, I know how that goes. Yeah. We had that, our, the best example of that for me is our house, our, our wood floor in our house yeah. Was getting kind of scuffed up a little bit and you just kind of ignored it. And pretty soon you, like you say, all right, we gotta do something.

So you hire this company in and they come in and they end up putting down. You wonder if they've ever done it before they put the wrong shellac down. So it's showing every footprint. It's like, why did we. You, you have to do it, but you don't. And I imagine with software, it's the same where you, you maybe make one tweak here and then yeah.

You know, it's got this down, the line, you just, you just messed up, you know? Yeah. 90% of the other stuff. So it's all connected. So you gotta do some, but keep some the same, you know? 

[00:41:41] Paul Lowndes: Yeah, that's right. And it's a great, uh, it's a great cartoon actually about, you know, trying to brief an IT project. And, and the idea is, you know, you're trying to, you know, create a.

swing And he goes through these iterations and, and it that comes up with this swing with three ropes and it's like What's this

and well, the programmer said that's what you asked for. Yeah, it is that, why don't you apply common sense? But of course I understand now the programmers you know, they have to be like, literally, you know, it has to be spec'd out 

[00:42:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. It's different, and there's a lot of stuff. Um, I was talking to a program or a, a brother-in-law of my new brother-in-law and, and.

A lot of the, you know, a lot of the programmers get in there and they wanna change everything just to get like a period to come out in a spot. And you're like, no, I know that this is the old system. And it takes like 1000th of a second longer for this to happen. But the customer doesn't know we're gonna keep it like that for now.

And it drives him, drives him crazy. so, Paul, if you had, uh, In closing, I'd like to ask this, so we dream ALO, but if you had like a year sabbatical right now where you did not like to work on the business, you just had to refresh yourself. Not that you need it, but let's, let's say, what would you be doing?

How would you be spending a year if you couldn't touch the business 

[00:43:15] Paul Lowndes: at all? Hmm. Oh, well, great question. Um, do you know what I, I, I, I would love. To do a bit more traveling. Uh, I traveled a bit when I was younger. Um, I've done a little bit, you know, uh, just recently and I, you know, I, I, I still love that going to cities and, and, uh, you know, just going from one place to another, um, And also, uh, just, just somewhere, a little bit, sort of, you know, near, near a lateness mountains, a little bit kind of, you know, a bit quieter.

I think that's sure before I kind of go back to nature, I think that's, that's increasingly, you know, drawn back to, to. To the simple feeling of life. yeah. 

[00:43:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: I dunno if that's nice. I think we could all or what? Yeah, I don't know. I, I think we could all, I, I think we could all use that a little bit more. I think we all, as much as 

[00:44:07] Paul Lowndes: I love technology, you know, I, I, I think, you know, it's nice to have that counter isn't it?

[00:44:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: yes, it sure is. Paul tells the listeners. I know that we. Marketing right to them, but tell the listeners what's the best way to get a hold of you. If they wanna say hi, have a question or something like that, LinkedIn or, 

[00:44:26] Paul Lowndes: yeah. Yeah. I'm on LinkedIn. So you can look me up on LinkedIn. That's fine. Um, uh, that's probably the, the, the best way Mike, if, if anyone wants to get in touch.

Yeah. LinkedIn. 

[00:44:34] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Yeah. Say to our, say hello to our new friend across the pond over there. Yeah. 

[00:44:40] Paul Lowndes: Yeah, no, it'd be, be great to, to catch up with anyone from the us who's interested in, in, uh, talking to 

[00:44:47] Mike Koelzer, Host: us. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, Paul, thank you so much for your time. It's really nice to meet you and I'm looking, uh, I, I'm glad to say now I have.

Friend that's uh, that's over in, uh, England in case I ever have to run from the law over here. I'll know where I can hide. 

[00:45:03] Paul Lowndes: You'd be very welcome, Mike. 

[00:45:06] Mike Koelzer, Host: I might take you up on that. All right. Thanks, Paul. Okay.