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Anisha Patel shares her journey from pharmacist to podcaster, discussing the creative and technical aspects of podcasting, the challenges of balancing work and passion, and her goals for expanding her reach. She also explores the importance of engaging with the pharmacy community and the impact of podcasting on her professional growth.
https://www.pharmacistdiaries.com/
https://www.bizofpharmpod.com
This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Anisha, for those who haven't come across you introduce yourself to our listeners.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: My name is Anisha Patel. I am a pharmacist by background, but I am a podcaster by passion. I also teach at a pharmacy school here in London. And this is where my journey with podcasting began. I was teaching students in pharmacy school. And I realized that there was this massive gap in terms of their understanding of pharmacy careers and the knowledge that they have to choose the right pathway for themselves once they qualify as pharmacists.
And I just kept thinking, what can I do? How can I serve this young generation of students, educate them, inspire them, help them to understand the different pathways? And a podcast just automatically came to mind. And next week is
my 150th episode.
Mike Koelzer, Host: You love doing this. So if it [00:01:00] wasn't in the pharmacy, you would have picked something else to do, so it's not just your mission that you wanted to spread the word of pharmacy. You wanted to do this. Do I have that right?
wouldn't you have done this regardless? Even if you didn't have a message to spread, you would have thought of one.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Well, I was really fortunate. My husband was also podcasting at the same time. So
I am, yeah. So he is in the health and wellness space and he was health coaching at the time. He started a podcast interviewing multiple other healthcare professionals and probably about six months prior to me starting.
And that probably, definitely, no, I would say It definitely inspired me.
Um, so you're right. I would have probably found podcasting outside a pharmacy and done something fun with it regardless.
Mike Koelzer, Host: What enamors you about podcasting?
[00:02:00]
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: There's a couple of things. The first thing is. It's my own.
I've been an employee my whole life. I've never ever ever thought about doing something on my own and this was just a fun passion project. But going into it and Understanding how creative it is, how much innovation there is in podcasting, how much I'm learning about tech, whether that's video editing or social media or marketing. I have learned so much on this journey in the last four years. And I love the idea of recording a podcast and then doing all the little bits and pieces behind the scenes and then publishing it like a piece of art. And it's mine. It's mine. Like it's my voice. It's my creativity. It's my passion. It's my way of telling a story .
Mike Koelzer, Host: There's [00:03:00] this guy I watch on TV sometimes. And You see a lot of it, he's autistic and a lot of times they have special gifts because their mind kind of focuses on that and you'll see a lot of them that are piano players and you're thinking to yourself, now, wait a minute, he wasn't born to know how to play piano because how would his mind know that there is a piano, how did evolution know to make someone a piano player? But. He takes whatever tool there is and is able to put that into an order with a Mathematical picture in his head. So if there wasn't a piano invented, he'd probably find another way to do it And so when I think about creativity you talking about that if it wasn't Podcasting it would be maybe something close to that that allowed you slash other people Us to be creative, to do the whole package, to make it into artwork.
Well, maybe it would just be our, maybe it'd be a painting, but I think there's something [00:04:00] valuable in that creativity versus joining just another corporation
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. I think we're very process driven as pharmacists. We love politics. We love a procedure or a guideline, that,
That's kind of part and parcel of who we are. And podcasting still allows me to do that,
that I have a podcast to record. I have to email specific guests, get them to book in a
date. We have a recording, it then gets uploaded, edited. We create clips. We do social media, we write show notes, and we get it published. So there's a journey for each episode, which I love. I love that And I know what's coming next. But at the same time, there is creativity within each episode, whether that's the conversation that you have with the guest or the information that you're trying to get across to the people listening or watching you, whether it's, a behind the scenes look at someone's life that [00:05:00] no one would really know about unless they came onto your podcast.
It's really cool that I get to share someone's voice. When they wouldn't have probably put that information online themselves. but each time that I record an editor podcast, I learn something new in the process and become 1 percent better each time that I put that episode out there. And I love that I make that progress as well. So you have that creative space, but you're also making really good strides in terms of learning and putting something out there that improves each time. And that's really important to me.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I think about it, and I guess a lot of stuff in life, it's like, if we could just do this and all of a sudden it was so automated, you could just press a button and have it done. It's like, I wouldn't want to do it anymore. It's a whole process of finding the right and the right way to enter the show and the right this and all that.
[00:06:00] It truly is not the finished product. It's got to be the journey, because again, if you could hit a button and have it done, I wouldn't want to do it.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Of course, of course. I mean, I started this journey as audio only. I started the journey as an audio only podcast. And then we got to the point And, um, I was at a meeting where my husband was so passionate about videography. That he said, let's aim to start yours as a video podcast. So people can listen to it and watch it on YouTube.
And then obviously Spotify now has video versions of the podcast as well, which is awesome, and we just gave it a go and. He's now turned this passion project into a full time job. He's actually a
vide yeah, he's a videographer now. He's got a full time job as a videographer.
Yeah,
Mike Koelzer, Host: Anisha, here's the problem with video. Like I said, I've got a face for the radio, but [00:07:00] two. I do a ton of cutting on this. I do a ton of editing, mainly editing out my own baloney that I'm putting in here. And it just doesn't hit, and I see different ways people edit on YouTube. Sometimes in the old days, you'd think you'd have to really splice something now. I think people almost take pride in the jump sometimes. I don't know. But do you decrease your editing once you're versus just audio?
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: No. I do
such limited editing. A lot of people do these jump cuts, because
that little spark in terms of the change on the screen, it keeps the viewer entertained or it keeps their attention going. And that's why a lot of people like to use kind of little jump cuts. But
Unless someone's made a mistake or they've really fumbled or they're really anxious and they need to redo a certain section of the episode. [00:08:00] My husband, who helps me with the main edit, will only edit the beginning and the end, and we put it out there.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Anisha, what if you ask a really boring question or someone gives a really boring answer? I'd like to move things along. I like to take all that out. You're never tempted to get rid of something like that. Or is it just the natural flow you take? It's just humans interacting.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: I think my podcast thrives because it's very conversational.
It is long form. It lasts, it's always over an hour and a half. It's a long form podcast. It is, it feels like you're having coffee with a friend. Um, So it doesn't always feel like a question answer interview style podcast. It's nothing like what maybe pharmacy would imagine a podcast to feel like.
It's very [00:09:00] conversational and I think people enjoy listening to my podcast on runs. They like to walk and listen to my podcast. So it's. providing them with information and education. They feel inspired by the story, but they're not looking for a quick win.
Mike Koelzer, Host: You talked about People going out and having coffee with you. Do you know how many people invite me out to coffee? It's like zero. So I don't think my regular coffee conversation is intriguing enough.
I don't have people beating down the door, wanting me to go to breakfast and so on. So that's why I have to cut mine to keep it snappy. Here's the reality of it. The reality is like to go off just because of what you're talking about. Those kinds of non scripted stuff. I like to go off and maybe start marching towards something.
And then you realize, like, it just didn't go there. [00:10:00] You didn't like your question. The response didn't go there. It just wasn't very fruitful. And I think by me editing quite a bit, it gives me more freedom to kind of mess around a little bit more and explore some different areas without having the duds,
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: fair enough. A couple of things on that though. If my guest has unfortunately been extremely boring. Which doesn't happen very often.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Now, remember, I'm not your guest this time. You're my guest. So take me out of the running.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: when I was new to podcasting, there was a guest that I had that I re-listened to the episode because I edited. The content myself, and I found the content quite boring and dry. And even the conversation during the podcast felt quite slow [00:11:00] and I didn't think it was going to be
engaging.
Mike Koelzer, Host: the actual pace and so
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: the, the, the content, like what information they were giving was just so
boring. I decided not to publish that episode at all. And yeah, and I find this really, it's really challenging. Because you know, you don't want to offend someone. But at the
At the end of the day, it's my show. And
I, I want my audience, my listeners, my viewers to be happy every time that
they listen to an episode duh, who wants to be bored when they're listening to a podcast? I don't want that for my audience. So I had to
make an executive decision and say, well, actually, I feel like this is not going to be A good enough episode to publish and either we try to redo it or I genuinely give them honest feedback and tell them that we're not publishing the episode. And after that day, I [00:12:00] decided that every single person that I invite onto the episode, I have to have an introductory call with them on a video call, like a Google Meet or zoom. So I can speak to them and get an idea of who they are and that way I kind of know now whether or not they'd be good enough to speak on a podcast and engage with my audience in the way that I want them to. And now I've had conversations with people in the introductory section of my checklist of thousands of activities that, and I've said no to people from
that point of view and I feel bad.
I feel bad.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, Anisha, there it is. See, I'm not the kind of person that would like to, because you and I had an introductory call for your show, which I recorded a month or so ago. In fact, now that we're talking, I'm pretty honored that you. Called me back the [00:13:00] second run. I didn't know that was what you call it?
Like a rose ceremony or something like that. See, here's mine, Anisha. I would not have the heart. Talk to somebody and then not be able to have them on. And so most of my people, most of my guests, I've snuck around on things.
You do a little research. I may have tried to catch them on another podcast or another interview somewhere. Sometimes I'll go in. Blind, but not too often. I think the worst person, as I think about it, is if you get someone that's boring, you can usually fill it with your own stuff. I think the worst kind would be a boring person that keeps going on.
Cause then you can't fit in your own comments to kind of balance out the show.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: That's also an issue too, if someone speaks too much.
Mike Koelzer, Host: And that you don't sometimes.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: you have no idea until [00:14:00] you're in it. But that's part of the process of learning to be a good host. Right. And that takes
time.
Mike Koelzer, Host: and It's a process of editing a lot.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah. It takes time to master that, to become good at questioning, to become, a mastery level at stopping someone from speaking and, Having your your point of view or asking a question or moving on to the next topic
It's it's part of the process of learning to be a good podcaster, and I'm not doing it to be unkind I you know
That's not you know I I have to. this is my show and I have to take care of my audience It's not about me It's actually about the people who listen and watch my show and I was going to come back to that point That when you look at content and you invite people to come onto the podcast, you're doing it to serve your audience and you're doing it to help
them.
And, and sometimes it's content that I'm not interested in, but I
genuinely know that my audience would [00:15:00] find it really interesting and engaging. So I do it for them.
Mike Koelzer, Host: See, I can't do that. Well, first of all, I record for like 90 minutes. minutes by the time you get some of the kinks out and then I only put out about minutes so I'm cutting about 30 minutes out and again most of it's just things that didn't go anywhere but One of my thing is I decided this a while back that I've got to have a conversation about things that I'm interested in.
In fact, right now, Anisha, as you and I talked, this is a little bit of an experiment because a lot of my listeners probably aren't going to start a podcast, but we went into the saying, let's talk about our interests and here we go. And so, there's a few things I can't do. I can't teach. I hate to teach. I hate to talk about stuff I already know.
I would hate to be a standup comedian, and I would hate to be a famous singer who's doing the same [00:16:00] song over and over again. I think that podcasting lends itself well to going in some area, talking about something and then basically never talking about it again. Maybe, you might be certain conversations You and I have had about certain places in England or might be talking about some theme park or something like that.
And it's like one and done.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Let me ask you a question.
How do you know which elements of the podcast to cut out because you think the audience won't like it or they'll find it boring?
Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, I usually start out by cutting out a lot of history from the show. I don't think people necessarily want to always hear about where someone went to pharmacy school and all that kind of stuff. So I usually cut stuff out there and then I typically like to have.
first question, something that the listener somewhere quickly. So it's [00:17:00] usually not. What's the word I'm looking for, it's usually not chronological, so it's just a question somewhere out of nowhere, just an interest I have sometimes though, to get to that point, I'm cutting out 10 minutes of what I asked that just didn't hit.
So that's where my first, maybe 10, 15 minutes out is with the introduction and that point. I don't think I cut as much at the end because at that point we're in a true conversation.
We're really talking about stuff that we're interested in. At that point, I'm probably only cutting stuff that maybe had a dead end or maybe is repetitive from what we talked about
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Mm
Mike Koelzer, Host: But I know I keep a lot of the second half more the first half, because that's when people are kind of getting loosened up and
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah, it does take people time to get into
podcast conversation. I find that too. You're making me reflect because [00:18:00] now that you're saying that, it's really important as a podcaster to engage your audience in the first few minutes of the podcast episode. So I love that you've got a very unique question that comes into the beginning of the story, and you are right that people don't want a 20 minute history of where you went to pharmacy school and what you did.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Some Some might,
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: yeah, Some might. Some might.
that, First few minutes or first 15, 20 minutes is really vital to keep the audience tuned in. No one wants to release a podcast episode with limited numbers of viewers or listeners, we put in so much effort and time and energy and love into creating an amazing episode. You definitely don't want to publish it and feel like no one wants to tune into it. And part of that is understanding where to make those cuts. And Now you've made me think about it. There are some pharmacists, because mine is [00:19:00] very about career journeys, it's about someone's story.
So it always starts with, why did you choose pharmacy? That's, it's
a, it's an easy way to get people to tell their story, to
start their journey.
Mike Koelzer, Host: That's your
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: So I know that it's very sort of transitional in terms of their career journey, why they chose certain roles that they're in, why they. Did certain educational master's degrees or postgraduate schemes, what fellowships did they join?
What residencies did they do? It makes sense to tell their story in that format because it helps them to remember the journey. Because a lot of pharmacists that I interview. When you do face to face podcasts that have a lot of cameras, a lot of lights, a lot of microphones, they haven't been exposed to that environment before. And in the
In The UK, podcasting in pharmacies is still so tiny. There's less than a handful of people who have podcasts here in our tiny little island, which is smaller than Virginia. So,
so when [00:20:00] you look at it from that point of view. The people that come onto the podcast take 15 to 20 minutes to get into it. So I want to give them that space. to get out of their comfort zone and try something new and not overwhelm and make them feel like the whole process of podcasting is really daunting. I genuinely want to have an enjoyable conversation with them.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Anisha. I give them that space, but then I throw all of it out.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: No, but that's
only if it's really bad and it only happened once. It only happened
once.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Here's the difference. Here's the difference. of my listeners are male, not by a lot, but most are male. I'm thinking most of yours are female.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Well, interestingly, um, audio listeners are mainly female. YouTube, mainly male.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, men are a lot on YouTube.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah.
But yeah, mainly female.
Mike Koelzer, Host: on YouTube, you can flip easily over places, different chapters and things like that. More so than the [00:21:00] oral podcast, the audio, but you women in general. Like those details a lot more. It's the same reason I have to sit with my wife and watch the rom coms and the whole story and all that kind of stuff.
I don't like that. They want to cut to the chase and get to the interesting stuff right away. But you women, it's more of storytelling nature. That's just the fact, not. Everybody, but in general, that's what it is. So doing perfect for your audience.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah, you're right. I guess so. And it's really important for me to look at those analytics. Now that you've talked about
kind of statistics,
I have to analyze those statistics to understand what my audience wants, because like I said, I'm serving other people, I'm not doing things that necessarily light me up or conversations that bring me a lot of joy.
I mean, 99 percent of the time they do, but there are
also topics that I engage [00:22:00] with that I know solely my audience will love and that would be really educational for them, really inspirational for them and I do what I need to do in order to support their journey because that's my
Mike Koelzer, Host: How do you sit through that drivel though? If you don't like it,
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Like a good example,
uh,
Mike Koelzer, Host: You didn't say you were an actress either.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: no,
No, it's like some people like last, a few weeks ago, I interviewed somebody about artificial intelligence and pharmacy.
It's not necessarily a topic of conversation that I genuinely love.
it's not something that I'm really passionate about. It's not something that lights me up,
but It's really valuable to understand what is
happening when it comes to AI in pharmacy and how it's changing community pharmacy, but it's not something I'm massively passionate about and I care about deeply.
So of course it's conversation that's [00:23:00] interesting to learn about, but it's not what brings me lots and lots of joy.
Mike Koelzer, Host: And if you look back, you could probably say to yourself in years to come, I'm glad I had that hour
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Koelzer, Host: that. I learned a lot. I met the person in just an hour.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: It's the, it's really nice to be able to share that person's story. The point of the podcast and Pharmacist Diaries is to get someone else's story across and showcase their passions and showcase their interests, showcase their journey. That's what my podcast is about.
Is showcasing the pharmacy profession as a whole. All right. Anisha, I looked at your LinkedIn and you said no more Instagram.
Oh yeah. I quit Instagram. I did
So I decided to put myself out there on every social media platform. That there is from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, et cetera. And I've loved being able to put content out on different platforms. But of course, when you're working full time, I have young children. I travel three hours a day.
So it's an hour and a half commute each way. Time is pretty precious. And being able to keep up with my social media calendar is challenging.
And very time consuming. And Instagram is a platform that I genuinely love actually. I've always loved Instagram um, it's a really nice way for me keep in touch with people that I know from across the globe because I've lived in multiple different [00:25:00] countries and it's just a
nice way to connect with people. It's an easy platform to scroll and kind of waste time and I have always enjoyed using it. And when I created Pharmacist Diaries, it was my favorite platform to showcase the podcast, the episodes, the behind the scenes content. I started the video reels there, and I loved it. But what I started to see was that Instagram didn't necessarily love me. It wasn't really pushing my content very far. I wasn't getting much engagement from my audience. I would get a lot of likes, which is great, but I was, I'm looking, I'm craving connection. I don't know if you find that podcasting can be a slightly lonely journey
Mike Koelzer, Host: It's lonely. There's no real good way to talk to a
podcaster.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: it's hard because you want feedback from your audience. You want
people to tell you, I love that episode. I hated that episode. Oh, this part of the conversation was amazing. And this is [00:26:00] what I've done with my life because I listened to you. Or, Hey, I
quit my job because your podcast was so inspiring that It helped me to make a change in my life or
I'm a student and I've been really struggling with my journey and your podcast really helped me to see the light. Those messages do come through for me. Those emails came through for me, but on Instagram, I was getting such limited engagement, but it was a platform where, when I audited my time every week, I was spending most of my time creating content specifically for that platform. However, The number of followers that I received, liked, or gained in return was so tiny.
It
Mike Koelzer, Host: Why don't you just post stuff on Instagram? Just post your show. Why do you have to leave? Why can't you post at least a release that your show out that week. Don't switch the artwork. Don't switch anything.
Why can't you just throw out repurpose stuff?
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: because the time it takes to even schedule content on all the [00:27:00] platforms is a waste for me. It's a genuine
waste of time.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. But Anisha, if you're scheduling something, takes one click to schedule it on another social site.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: not, the kind of person that can schedule content that goes out on all platforms in the same way, because I know, I
genuinely know that like Twitter will like certain types of
conversation, like very short choppy sentences
Mike Koelzer, Host: You're rising above the noise and taking advantage of what each site
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: oh yeah, absolutely.
Mike Koelzer, Host: just lazy like me and just throwing it out there just to let people
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: No, no,
Mike Koelzer, Host: the difference
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: I genuinely am trying to understand the algorithm
Mike Koelzer, Host: Sure.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: and how it works and not just to gain followers. This is to help me to gain reach because one of my 2024 goals with the podcast is growth. Like that my term for 2024 is growth. And if something is not [00:28:00] necessarily providing me with that, then I am so happy to spend my time elsewhere. And I'm not saying that I'm going to spend it. Zero hours on Instagram for the rest of my life. I just quit for now. I need a break
from it and I need to step away from it for two to three months. And I need to go all in on other platforms that do love engaging with me and having that connection with me and being able to communicate with me.
And that's something that I crave.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Instagram is sort of a friend for you. You want these social media to represent interaction with listeners and so on. And you're not going to just. Toss them something like I might just to say, here's a flier that I'm doing this. It's like symbolically, you're not getting anything back from that, you don't even want to be a part of that because it doesn't feed your soul.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: [00:29:00] Yeah. I'm all about community. I'm all about community connection and aligning what I do with my values. I need connection in my life and Pharmacist Diaries is all about building a community of pharmacy professionals who are on a general mission to showcase what pharmacy has to offer, to showcase what other people are doing within the pharmacy profession, and if I don't get much engagement on that platform, then I'm happy to let go of it for now and spend more time elsewhere.
It is genuinely about my values.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, I don't have any. No, here's the thing, Aneesha. Looking deep down, I wish I had more interaction with listeners because just for the listeners that are listening, podcasting in itself, there's not really a way to respond to a podcast.
I mean, there might be reviews, , but you're not responding to that. [00:30:00] Occasionally it's on LinkedIn, but those aren't really your listeners necessarily. That's just outside. Edge possibly, or they might be strong listeners, but a lot of times it's just the fringe listens. I think crave is maybe too strong of a word, but I think I would like more interaction.
It's just hard with the RSS feeds because it's just not a two way
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah,
Mike Koelzer, Host:
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: absolutely. Which is why social media is so important as a podcaster because that's where you get your feedback. Of course, your analytics give you so much information about your general audience in terms of statistics, where they live, female versus male, what age groups they are, what platforms they use, do they prefer using their phone versus their laptops. You can gather statistics. So much information, even from each episode where there are spikes in the content in terms of what they were listening to, the
number of minutes that they've tuned into that episode [00:31:00] or where the episode has dropped off. So, where it got boring for
and they left the conversation and listened to something else. And that's really valuable, but you don't know who that individual is. You genuinely don't know what they liked about it. The content that you created but another thing is about valuing my time. And because I
was creating so much specific content for Instagram that I
I was hoping that the algorithm would love it, though it didn't. I now want to spend my time. Investing in learning more about monetization of a podcast, because we're at a point now where we're spending so many hours a week of our spare time and that's evenings once the kids are in bed or on the weekends when my youngest son is napping is two to three
hours I have to work on the podcast or even
Friday nights. I am working on the podcast and that's because I love it. [00:32:00] But now we're at a point where we're spending so much time and also a lot of money. Our personal money for microphones and headphones and lighting and cameras means that we now have to think strategically that, hey, this isn't just a hobby. It isn't just a passion project.
This is a business. So now I'm at the point where I have to look at my time and audit my time and understand where I value my time. And if something isn't necessarily giving me the return that I want or I need or I crave or I value, I have to move on. That's how I
think of it.
Mike Koelzer, Host: On the topic of monetization. I think that is where, just like you wanted the feedback from people and that kind
of stuff. it was important for me to finally get to monetization, thinking that you have something to offer in the market and so on.
What I offer in the market is. [00:33:00] And then putting some monetary value to that,
That was very rewarding to me in the last year or so when I started monetizing it because, frankly, I've seen this too. When you go onto a website and you see that The marketing companies on websites, maybe they haven't touched their Twitter for like four years, or you get somebody who's a coach of something on there, but you look and they're not even doing what they're preaching themselves.
And so although I do own my own pharmacy, it was fun to have another spoon in the pot of business through monetizing the podcast.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah. And I think it's great. It's a great idea to generate passive income. I think it's a great idea to put the money back into the podcast to help it, to provide The content that your audience is looking for.
Mike Koelzer, Host: a labor of love, but sometimes like when you're dishing out and you know it with your husband's stuff, you're dishing out 30 [00:34:00] bucks for a SAS program here or there one to help with the sound one to help with, AI different stuff. And it's kind of fun to know that it was supported.
Maybe your time's not, but a fee like that is supported by the income that's coming into the show too. Help with that and so on.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: yeah, Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's now vital because. When we, when you look at pharmacies in the UK, what's different to the US is that we run on what's called the NHS, which is the National Health Service. So you don't have to pay for healthcare. I mean, you pay for it through your taxes, but you don't have to pay for clinic visits.
You don't pay for hospital admissions, you don't have to pay for x-rays or MRIs. It's all covered by the National Health Service. However, the employees. Don't get paid nearly anywhere near American or US [00:35:00] pharmacists would get paid a lot of the money that we're spending on this podcast, which is amazing and We love it.
It's coming out of our personal pocket and I wish I had a lot more money to be able to just dive into the podcast space and be able to buy as much tech and camera gear and lights and build my own studio at home, like in my garage. But that's not the case for us at the moment. The average pharmacist salary here, even if you've got 10 years of experience, you might only be getting 60 to 70, 000.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Of us money.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: U. S. money. And that's with multiple years of experience
as a
senior level manager, you know, It's really, it's a small amount of money. So people become pharmacists here for the genuine joy of being a healthcare professional and helping other people. And
of course people do that in the U. S. too. The gain in terms of salary is huge. so much more [00:36:00] beneficial. And back in the day, living in the U S was a lot more cost effective. I know that things
Become a lot more expensive now, but living in London is like New York city. It's also very expensive to live here. Monthly bills are really high. So I would love to get to the point where we are able to monetize the podcast and be able to put all the money back into creating awesome content. And I will dream about the day that I can raise enough money for this podcast where it will feed my family and pay my bills. That would be amazing.
That would be great.
Mike Koelzer, Host: As we're sitting here talking about dreams and stuff of the podcasting and you keep mentioning like doing it for people, like for the profession and stuff like that. It's like, I don't know if I have that in me. As you mentioned, it's a conversations with people because now I've got a few hundred people that if I ever don't [00:37:00] do what I'm doing, I'll be able to at least have those
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Absolutely.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't know if I have any benevolence in me though like this. But I keep going back to why I like it. It's because I can reach out from my corner. I can reach around the globe instead of a mile from my store. That kind of stuff.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Which is a great idea. It's actually a brilliant idea,
I love the creativity and the innovation and the growth that I'm experiencing learning about becoming a podcaster. That's amazing. And that's just come naturally.
I didn't know that's how I would feel, but it's here.
But if you look at my big dream, it's all about having freedom with my time. And that is the
The biggest picture that I can think of is that I've loved being an employee and I always have. Thought of myself as being an employee for [00:38:00] the rest of my life. I've never thought anything different, but now I can visualize myself making enough money from this podcast, living anywhere in the world, homeschooling my
kids, traveling
around the globe and doing what I want to do on my time, but still enjoying it. What I do for work every single day, making connections with people, which is so cool across the globe within my own profession, but doing it on my terms. I mean, that's amazing
to me. That's the dream. that
Mike Koelzer, Host: is the dream. In my case, I used to have a crap ton of free time. I always had crap on my mind from the business, but I had physical freedom. I could do what I wanted to do throughout the day. And a few years ago I had to go back into the store full time just because of financial things. But I've only got like four or five years left, so I don't really.
Need a ton of freedom right now because it's in my grasp almost I would take it I suppose
I think for [00:39:00] me. So, I don't know finance is a big part of it because I don't see it replacing My financial picture, not that it really has to do with one thing I do like about it. It's just a challenge. It's fun to see it grow. It's fun to see how to get it to grow that kind of stuff
on an international stage.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: That's the part of the pharmacist in I think it's auditing, it's the critical analysis. It's understanding something in so much detail, Some minor changes or sometimes big changes and seeing
massive growth from it I think these are all skills that we've learnt as Pharmacists, but we're just transferring them into a different role outside of pharmacy.
Mike Koelzer, Host: No matter what field you're in pharmacy, medicine, accounting, estate, whatever I'll have to say it's to be. this
side of the profession, on the vocal side, I guess it's just kind of fun
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: of
course, It's
cool
Mike Koelzer, Host: If you're a [00:40:00] CEO of a big company, you don't maybe have the time to do it because you don't have time to drink around with different stuff. If you're not to the level where you have some ability to do this, it's tough. It's fun. Especially having, going for 30 years as a one store operation in some city
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Podcasting has opened up so many opportunities for me That I never even knew existed.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Like what?
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: April, I got contacted through Instagram. Can you believe it? I got a,
Mike Koelzer, Host: I've heard just about enough of Instagram here.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: No, this is a good story. This is a good story.
Mike Koelzer, Host: a good
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah. I got contacted through Instagram by a pharmaceutical company who love the podcast, love that I was showcasing my own voice, love that I was showcasing the pharmacy profession. They thought I was good at public speaking [00:41:00] and they invited me to fly out to Germany and speak at their conference.
And yeah, and I got paid for the first time to speak at a conference internationally, my flights, my accommodation, and to
actually speak. And that was really fun. And that was a serious highlight from 2024 because I've never had, I've never
been able to do that before. And that was all because of the podcast.
I'm partnering with different brands. So the Naked Pharmacy is one of them. I'm an ambassador for their brand and I love using their products. They create awesome supplements and I get to showcase that on the podcast. And I'm learning more about marketing and advertising, which I have never exposed myself to as a pharmacist. And. I have met so many interesting people that opportunities across the globe come into my inbox. People offer me jobs in different places. And that's
really awesome. [00:42:00]
Mike Koelzer, Host: I've never been offered a job. must know I'm on my way out.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: It's cool. Like, I think this is a really fun way for me. It's like you have your own CV on, like your resume on video.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: it's cool.
Mike Koelzer, Host: As I think about it here, One thing I really enjoy, I like being in the present. As I think about it now, as I'm looking through LinkedIn and I see all these people pop up that are kind of the leaders in the pharmacy business, not so much the clinical part of things, just to realize, I mean, I'm 200, 270 people deep in the show.
Most of them are leaders, I guess I would say, because that's how their name rose up for me to decide to invite them or why they reached out to me. And so
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah.
Mike Koelzer, Host: people like yourself, Anisha, you know, it's like, it's cool to be in the same which I'm not [00:43:00] quite, because if they talk about this or that, I'm more of the, Um, Oh, maybe the old grandfatherly figure that's kind of like an eye on different stuff, which is another way to saying not working very hard but, knowing the name, seeing the names, I've had the pleasure to talk to the last APHA CEOs as they went through some changes and CPA and, about everybody you can think of I've either connected with them on the show, or I will connect with them and pleasurable to me I'm coming from this one little store in Grand Rapids and I'm in the same conversation, or at least I pretend to be, or at least I know this group of people that are kind of
the top and thinkers in pharmacy. And that's pleasurable to be part of that
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Of course, it's pleasurable to be part of that group, Mike. It's awesome. And you get to have such intimate conversations with them that they [00:44:00] wouldn't put out into the world of social media, or they're unlikely to share that story with social media. They might not even be on social media, but people who tune in to your episodes get insight into their lives and the. thoughts. the. the working lives of these CEOs and high level leaders that they may never even meet in real life you're educating your audience on what's happening in terms of hot topics in healthcare and pharmacy and in business and people are craving that information and they like listening to it.
So you are absolutely serving a community, but you just
maybe didn't see it that way,
Mike Koelzer, Host: I think when things come easily slash is enjoyable. You sort of think, eh, that's not important. Anybody can do this kind of thing. And it's not true . I think in pharmacy, we've spent so much time [00:45:00] fighting, fighting the PBMs and fighting businesses and so on that stuff that is enjoyable and kind of comes natural.
You're like, ah, whatever, but you have to listen to
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah. Before you started your podcast, were you quite well known in the pharmacy world?
Mike Koelzer, Host: No not at all. , in my hometown, I did a lot for the business, a lot of PR and stuff like that, but not on any other kind of level at all.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Then who was your audience? Who were the people who were tuning in to your show?
Mike Koelzer, Host: you mean before,
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: days?
Mike Koelzer, Host: oh, in the early days, I didn't know, probably just, just LinkedIn followers , stuff like that. My audience was probably, My wife I'd turn the podcast on to help her fall asleep in the car that kind of stuff on a long trip, you know
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Mine, I obviously created the podcast for students,
Mike Koelzer, Host: you
students?
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: but in those early days in that first [00:46:00] year, my statistics showed that none of my students were even listening to my podcast. It was mainly very experienced pharmacists who had 15 to 30 years of experience in pharmacy because I could see from their age and they were the people tuning into the podcast. 75 to 80 percent of the time. And it was only two years into my journey, even though I was teaching students day in, day out and sharing the podcast with them, but they weren't. majority of my audience, they were a really sort of 15 to 20 percent of my audience in the early days, but now the tables are turning where it's mainly the younger generation and I think YouTube has helped me with that because when I went to
video and posting on YouTube, it really helped
to navigate, Who my audience are [00:47:00] and I've been doing a lot of public speaking at colleges of pharmacy.
around England as much as I can, doing webinars online, going on to other people's podcasts if I can to showcase my story and that's helping to generate more love from the younger generation.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I have a theory of why I don't think it's a theory. It's a thought of why people Well, not even a thought. I kind of wonder always, like if you look at my YouTube feed, most people are like this. You look at what you're subscribed to, it's stuff you already
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Mm.
Mike Koelzer, Host: It's the philosophical studies you already know.
Practically know them. It's science stuff. It's maybe some band that you follow, some music genre that you follow and it's like Why are you really listening to that? Because you could be learning about zebras, construction of buildings, textile industry and things like that.
I think people are drawn. I think it's a fear of missing [00:48:00] out. It's a club. That kind of stuff. I think that's what draws a lot of people to stuff they know, because I've thought of that too. I'd like to get more involved with, maybe some of the college kids don't get the business studies and classes they
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Mm.
Mike Koelzer, Host: It's not really a learning thing.
I think it's more of a, it's like, yeah, there's somebody else that gets my strange world kind of thing.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: That's cool though. As long as it works and you're serving your community in the way that they want and they're tuning in, aren't they? You're 270 plus episodes into your journey.
Yeah.
Mike Koelzer, Host: suppose.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Ha ha ha. Mm
Mike Koelzer, Host: You know what I like though, we're talking here, Anisha, what I like, one of my favorite articles is when I read an article about what somebody does with their day, what their day's
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: hmm. Yeah,
Mike Koelzer, Host: get up, have breakfast, do this, go to the
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: yeah.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I love reading that about [00:49:00] people.
And that, I guess that's what I do here on the show. Just in a longer
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah,
It's like a day in the life, which is nice. I'm not in a permanent role anymore. I have switched to what in the UK we call locum life, but in the US you work like per diem, and you
just get paid per hour. Doesn't feel as fulfilling as a permanent role though, that's the only thing that I find quite frustrating about it.
Mike Koelzer, Host: That's
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah, because I don't necessarily feel like I'm part of a team, because I'm just
going to different shifts, different places. So that's
quite hard.
Mike Koelzer, Host: That's a lot of that draw for communication with your listeners. That's where that's
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah.
Mike Koelzer, Host: I'm just cold and bitter.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: You're not.
Mike Koelzer, Host: it
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: You're not. Maybe you're just on a different mission to me. We don't have to have the same mission. I think I'm really focused this year on growth and I'm really focused on [00:50:00] understanding my audience. And what content they like, what they don't like, what topics they're interested in, how they like the podcast to be formatted. Do they drop off after the first minute because they were bored by my introduction? I really need to understand the details so that I can drive things forward. And a good example of that is I've recently looked at my YouTube channel and I've looked at the analytics in which episodes have done really well.
Versus not so well. And I did a series on entrepreneurship in pharmacy, so pharmacists who have then become entrepreneurs on their journey and started businesses of some form.
And those episodes have been really popular. Another episode that's been really popular was How to become a pharmacist in Australia. I did an episode with a recruitment agency in Australia who are hiring pharmacists from the UK because they have a huge shortage of pharmacists in the country and they're helping people to get [00:51:00] visas and get licensed to be a pharmacist in Australia.
And we talked all about that on the episode and that's been my most popular episode for months. So
now. I'm looking at the analytics of what elements of that conversation were really interesting. And now, can I provide more podcast episodes or YouTube videos on that topic that would be useful or beneficial for my audience?
So I'm really diving into the details and then choosing what content I create to serve that population.
Mike Koelzer, Host: It's something that's out of the blue. Like, why the hell would you think that Australia would have a stronger interest. , it's like, you don't know until you look
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah, no, you don't know. And also when you look at my country, I noticed that there are so many pharmacists in Malaysia. I don't know why, but the Malaysian pharmacists really like my channel. So I've
gone on to LinkedIn and I've tried to find pharmacists in Malaysia that I can [00:52:00] interview Cause I think if
they're, if.
they're,
Mike Koelzer, Host: That's
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: so I'm doing some of that, but I'm also doing episodes that I genuinely want to do and people that I want to speak with and people's journeys that I want to capture out of personal interest
as well. So I'm kind of doing 50-50. But I'm also going on tour with my podcast, by the way.
Mike Koelzer, Host: You are
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: going to Ireland. This summer, I'm going to interview several Irish pharmacists. I would love next year to come out to the U S and do a U S tour and travel around
the U S and interview pharmacists all over the country. That would be amazing.
Mike Koelzer, Host: What a great
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah, it'll be.
so much fun! I get to travel, I get to do what I love, and I get to showcase it to the rest of the planet. Boom.
Mike Koelzer, Host: My biggest listenership is Antarctica.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: What? No way.
Mike Koelzer, Host: No, [00:53:00] I'm just
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Oh, right. I was
like, what?
Mike Koelzer, Host: even know if people live down there.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: You said it
so seriously that I actually believe that.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Golly, Anisha, good talking to you. We had an hour a few weeks ago and now this time, and I think we can pull out of this show.
This pursuit of passion for us is that we don't want a button that would do it all for us. That would lose everything. This is what the whole hobby slash entrepreneurial pursuit is about. It's this kind of conversation that has us both in it. So I look forward to having many more and I thank you for your time.
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: I loved being on your podcast today and I look forward to seeing how many cuts you make today.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Nobody's ever gonna know except you!
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Now Because we're gonna cut the whole conversation out. Right.
Mike Koelzer, Host: Anisha, good to see you. We'll talk
Anisha Patel, Pharmacist Diaries: Yeah. You too.
Thanks for listening. Now here's that voicemail from a listener. Remember, you can leave your own message at bischoff armpod.[00:54:00]
com. We might feature it in an upcoming episode .
Hi, my name is Jacqueline Katelnikoff and I'm a Canadian pharmacist. I've been thinking a lot about change in pharmacy this week and conversations that I'm having on LinkedIn with pharmacists across the country and in the USA are making me think pharmacy is a little bit stuck right now. Why are we stuck?
I think there's so much fear surrounding change and moving forward. And it's easier to live in fear and stay at the status quo than it is to change and move forward. For me, I think that's leaving pharmacy in a really sad state of affairs on top of all the threats that are coming at us. So we have this fear of change and then we have all these pharmacy threats, especially in Canada, like PBMs and decreasing margins, landing us in this place of [00:55:00] going nowhere fast.
Even when we're obtaining regulatory changes and legislation to advance practice as far as we want clinically. I think there is so much room for change in pharmacy practice. We just need to start making it happen. I think we're holding ourselves back, but we can move forward. There's pharmacies that have, I work for one, and there are ways that we can go about making the practice into the practice that we want it to be.
So I hope that with practice change and workflow changes and technology, the business of pharmacy can go back to being. Caring before commerce. Thanks for listening.
You've been listening to the Business of Pharmacy podcast with me, your host, Mike Kelser. Please subscribe for all future [00:56:00] episodes.
