7 business lessons from my first ten weeks of podcasting

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Hi, docs. Welcome to the Entre MD Podcast, where it is all about helping amazing physicians just like you, embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Una. Well, welcome back to the Entre M podcast, the place where physician entrepreneurs come to get the inspiration, empowerment tips and hacks to thrive. So today we're going to talk about the seven business lessons I learned from my first 10 weeks of podcasting. All right, so if you don't know this about me, I celebrate everything. So this is episode 10. We finally hit double digits. And I want to share all the things that I learned so that you can use this in your business. Okay, so seven business, seven business lessons I learned. So I started this podcast to give value. I started this podcast to inspire physician entrepreneur to know that they are not stuck. You're not stuck in your career. You're not stuck in the way your job is. You can thrive. Yes, the healthcare space looks different. Yes. Maybe it's a little more hostile. Maybe what used to work before isn't working anymore. But you can pivot, you can can adapt, and you can thrive. And that's what I come on here to do on this podcast. So I want to thank you for listening. I want to thank you for subscribing, for reviewing, for sharing the podcast, and thank you for letting me know that this podcast is Making a difference in your life, in your career, in your business, because that's my why. So thank you so much for doing this. Now, I want to take a moment to read a review that really, really made my day. And this is from a doctor who calls herself Sunny Joy Bell. It says, that's my coach. I love your voice. Someone else could bring excellent content, but if your voice annoys me, I won't listen. So I thank God that your voice is soothing. I'm grateful that my voice is soothing, too. Okay, now for the real stuff. This podcast is what every single physician needs to list listen to. Just hearing your story inspires and gives hope that we can expand past clinical medicine and form second and third streams of income. A monotonous life was what I had before, and now I'm excited. And she has the excited emoji for a future of practicing medicine, which I love. And then businesses forming on the side that allow me to be creative and put other talents on a stage. The world is wide open. I highly suggest this podcast for all physicians and any entrepreneur, actually. Well, thank you so much, doc, for this review. Totally touches my heart and gives me the inspiration and that kick to keep it going because this podcast is making a difference. So happy 10th episode, everybody. All right, all right, so now let's look at the seven business lessons that I learned. And I want you to think right from the beginning about how you're going to apply this to your business. All right? And in the private Facebook group for Entre MD Tribe, I want you to post there what you're going to do, how you're going to apply this, and if you're not part of the group already, you can go to entremd.com join to be part of the private Facebook group. So. So, number one, when you are starting or scaling a business, you need to educate yourself. That's number one. So when I started this, before I started this podcast, I really didn't know much about podcasts. And I listened to some podcasts here and there, but it wasn't really my thing. I was more of a YouTube kind of doc. So there are many things that I didn't know. All right, so when it was time to start, I worked with my coach on it. I took a course on it. I listened to other podcasts to see what they did, how they laid out their podcast, how they did their show notes and all of that. And I read a lot of blog posts. I literally immersed myself in the world of podcasting. Okay. When I started my practice nine years Ago, I did the same thing. I wasn't smart enough to know that a coach would shortcut my success. So I didn't have a coach at the time, but I did have mentors. I did read a lot of blogs. I did listen to, watch a lot of YouTube videos about business because there's not a lot about physician entrepreneurship, but business in general. I did look at what other, you know, pediatricians were doing, their websites, all of that stuff. So I totally immersed myself in that process. So I'm saying that to say you saying I don't know how is no longer an excuse. You gotta get educated so you can learn it. So for your business, what do you need to learn? What is that skill that you need to acquire that will take your business forward? Now is the time to start working on it. Okay, so that was the very first thing. In fact, if you looked at my computer, then I would go to one place, maybe, you know, Buzzsprout or, or Podbean or, you know, podcast website, any of those websites, and I would go through their blogs. I could have like 10 pages open at the same time, read one, close it, read one, spin off to another one. I consumed content. Okay? The second thing, which is the twin of the first one, is just start. Don't let your education paralyze you, because you're going to read about things that people who are five years into, you know, business, like for me, five years into podcasting or recommending, but it's not something I can apply now, right? They may be talking about some equipment that maybe I can't afford to have right now. I'm not even sure which one to get. They may talk about a studio setup. And I'm like, look, I just need to record this in my PO in my closet and start, and then we'll work on the studio. So your education is great, but don't let it paralyze you, right? So, yes, educate yourself, but start. Okay? I always use the example of the iPhone. Now, Steve Jobs, they could have said, you know, we're not going to release the iPhone till we have, like the version iPhone 5. But that's not what they did. They started with iPhone 1, and then every year they improve. That's what they did. And with your business, that's what you're going to do. You're going to start, and every year you're going to upgrade, right? So we make jokes about my practice. We say, oh, this is iv. You know, the name of the practice is Ivy League pediatrics. So we'll say, this is IV 2.0. Now we're working on IV 3.0. Now we're working On IV 4.0.

Right.

So the idea is to start and then keep getting better. Okay? So take action. And when you're reading, when you're acquiring your education, when you're learning, I want you to adopt a new mindset. I want you to learn to do, not learn to know. If this is the only thing you get out of this podcast, like this episode, which is totally loaded with good stuff. If all you leave is with this, you'd have left with something huge. So I'm going to say it again. You don't learn to know, you learn to do. So the intention behind reading a blog post is to take something I can take action on. You're looking for something to act on. You're not learning so that you can, you know, do a post and show everybody what you know, or have an intelligent conversation and show everybody what you know. Doesn't matter. You want to act. Okay, now I'm going to give you a little bit of a timeline of this podcast. For some reason, I did exactly what I'm telling you. So as of November 1, 2019, I had no plans whatsoever of having a podcast. It had not crossed my mind. Now, I. I was thinking that maybe I would do a podcast for my practice, but it was a maybe kind of thing, you know, like, maybe we'll do that. Um, but somewhere, November 7th, I was like, maybe I should do a podcast for Entre md. That would be really good, and I can get the message out there. I can help a lot of people. I can keep them inspired. They can listen to me as they're driving to work and all this stuff. So it'd be really, really great. So on the 9th of November, I decided to start a podcast. The very first, the very same day, I decided on what platform I was going to use. All right, the next day, the 10th, I sat down, I recorded the podcast intro and outro after. I spent the day before looking at different outlines for intros and outros, and I picked what I did, and I did it. And by the 15th, we were live on iTunes with our first three episodes like it was there. The only reason why I didn't do the official launch the following week is because it was Thanksgiving. So December 2nd, we did our official launch. And by December 12th, less than a month after we went live, and about a month after I first made the decision to do the podcast, we had a thousand downloads. So the question becomes, if you apply this in your business, where, you know, this is what I need to do. I've done my due diligence. I'm taking action. Taking action, taking action. And with a month, you have something new. What would your business look like if you were that quick to take action? Right? How different would it be? Because what that means is October there was no plan for a podcast. November, there was a podcast. I mean, like, is that quick? So just start, stop procrastinating, stop trying to make it perfect, stop trying to feel all the way confident. Stop trying to do all that. Because that only happens as you take action, you become more confident. As you take action, you become more comfortable podcasting. As you podcast, you become better at it, right? As you do it. Not while you wait. There's no amount of waiting that will build your confidence, right? So just start. The third thing I learned is that collaboration is powerful, right? And is something that you need to grow a business. So remember, at my core, I'm an introvert, so I'm really not going like, huh, whose podcast can I be a guest on? And you know, who do I want to reach out to to be a guest on my podcast? That's not really natural thoughts for me. Those are really out of my comfort zone. But at the end of the day, collaboration expands your world. At the end of the day, your net work is your net worth. So as you're building a business, don't try to do it in isolation. Reach out. Increase your social network, increase your social capital, Increase the people that you know. So I had a wonderful time being a guest on John, Dr. John Jurica's podcast. That was great. I was on Doctors unbound with Dr. David Dragness, which was wonderful. I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Sasha Shilcutt, the founder of Brave Enough Amazing Physician. Having a conversation with her one on one, that was really good. And another special guest who you'll hear, you'll get to hear a few episodes from now, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, who is the founder of the Galveston Diet and has built a phenomenal business. You will love her story. Now, these are all people that I could have chosen to just do a solo cast and not talk to anybody, or I could have reached out and grown my network. And now I have had one on one conversations with all these super amazing physicians. And I learned so much from them and even, you know, whether I was a guest on their podcast or they're a guest on mine. And it was really, really, really fantastic. So the question for you becomes, who do I need to Collaborate with? Who do I need to reach out to? Who do I need to whose world do I need to insert myself in? Right, because you need to, you need to build yourself bigger. And it's people, right? It's people. So all the introverts remember, I am, I do a lot of the things I do for you because I'm an introvert. Right? So if I can do it truthfully. Truthfully, I know it sounds a little cliche, but so can you. Okay, so. So collaboration. The fourth thing is consistency. All right, So I read, I pulled up some data. It's really scary data, but it's true data from Blueberry of the. There are 706,000 podcasts. All right, well, as I. Earlier this year, 706,000 podcasts. Of those podcasts, only 39% created a new episode between April 2018 and April 2019. Only 39%. What's the issue there? I mean, there's some podcasts that are not designed to go for seasons, but they're, they're in the minority. Like really, really in the minority. But what made those other podcasts disappear? They're just not consistent. And people don't take you seriously if you're not consistent. And don't be fooled by who's clicking on your stuff and who's liking your stuff, who's. There are always more people paying attention to you than you're aware. And the more consistent you are, the more they're like, you know, she means business, she's not going away, we should pay attention to her. You know what I mean? Like, so consistency. So in your business, are you consistent? Are you showing up are you showing up to market your business? Are you showing, are you showing up to promote your business? Are you showing up to tell people, I'm here and I'm not going away? You know, so only 39% created an episode in the entire year. Okay, now that's the entire year. But if you want to see how bad this data is, it's even worse that when they looked at a three month period. So when they looked from February of 2019 to April of 2019, like how many people produced a new episode in that three month period? It was 18%. 1, 8, 18% of the 706,000 podcasts. All right? So it shows you that a lot of people are not going to be consistent. So if you will just be consistent, if you will just decide I'm the last man standing, it would make a huge difference. You have to be consistent. Now there are some times when you should probably quit, right? But that's something that you work with a mentor or a coach. And a lot of times it's not that a lot of times it's just we're not consistent, right? But if there's something you need to quit on, your coach can help you work through that. But you have to be consistent. Entrepreneurship is hard. It's great. It's very rewarding, but it's hard. But again, you're a physician. You've done hard stuff. You've. You got into medical school. That's hard. You did a residency. That is hard. You work long hours. That's hard. You have the work ethic to pull this up. Everything you've done all your life has trained you to have the work ethic to turn out to be a great entrepreneur. Now, if I may, I'm going to tell you something. Business has three phases, okay? And maybe somebody has posted on Instagram that they built the seven figure business. You working two hours from the beach, sipping margaritas, that is an illusion, okay? If they only work that hard, they will not be advertising on Instagram because they won't need to do that, okay? But anyway, it has three phases. And if you remember, this will kind of help you go through the process. The first phase is that phase of excitement, right? I just got an idea. I'm going to build a business that's going to change the world. And you're excited and you're like, oh my goodness, this is going to be great. Nobody has ever had an idea like this. And this is, you don't even want to tell people about it because it's so innovative. And you're, you're the only one of the idea, right? And the third phase, I skipped the second on purpose. The this, the third phase is the result phase. And that's where you finally hit it. The business is working, the money is coming in, you've had more time off than ever. You get to spend time with your, your family. You get to take your mom on that vacation to the Caribbean that you've always wanted to do. It's wonderful. So excitement and results in between is something I like to call the wilderness. Okay? And in the wilderness, it is hard. You'll doubt yourself. It'll seem like things are not working. You put in a lot of effort, you kind of get a result and you're kind of like wondering, am I really supposed to be doing this? It's hard. But there's no way to get to phase three without surviving phase two. Okay? So I say that to say this, it's going to get hard before it gets wonderful. But the result of having that wonderful only comes first from surviving the hard. So when you go from excitement to man, I don't know about this. Just remember wilderness, but after the wilderness, something really good. The promised land. Okay, all right, so don't quit. Consistency is not a very common skill. You heard the data. All right, so don't quit. And you'll distinguish yourself. Okay, all right, so that's for number four. Number five. Number five is ask for help. And I think this is especially hard for physicians because we are really good at getting stuff done and, and taking on more stuff, and we have a really good work ethic, and so we try to do stuff by ourselves. There is no reward, nada, zilch, no reward whatsoever for doing this stuff by yourself. And you're going to limit your impact if you try to do stuff all by yourself. So ask for help. So for the V. For the, for the podcast launch, guess what I did? I created a VIP launch team, and I want to give a big shout out to the VIP launch team. You docs are so amazing. And this is a group of docs that committed to share the podcast on their social media. Share it via text, encourage people to subscribe, and the whole nine yards, amazing group of doctors. And, you know, so they're doctors, mentees, clients, you know, all of them. And they did that. And then I also reached out to family and friends. I'm like, look, I'm, you know, I started a podcast. It's for physician entrepreneurs. Please send this to any physician, any resident, any medical student that, you know, and, you know, give me, give it a listen and let me know what you think about it and stuff. So I wasn't afraid to. Well, maybe I was, but I did it anyway, you know, so I had the VIP launch team. I, I had, you know, my friends and my family and my clients and, you know, have you subscribed to my, you know, have you shared it and stuff like that? So, so reach out. Don't, don't be afraid to do that. I have friends, you know, medical students who've rotated with me in the past. I sent that to them. I have residents who rotated with me in the past. I sent that to them. I'm like, you know, forward it to your circle of influence, because I have my circle, and the only way for me to reach other people is to have other people share to their circles. That's literally the way this works. So in your business, ask for help. Ask for people to spread the word, Ask for people to tell somebody else, ask for people to refer. You have to ask for help now, of course, because I'm talking about asking for help. If you're listening to this and you haven't had a moment to subscribe or to review or to share it, then I'm going to ask you to do that. Take a moment, subscribe, and every Monday on your ride to work, you can get inspired and, you know, get ready to take your world because you have new episodes coming every Monday. And if you're like, wow, this is really great, then leave me a review on itunes or anywhere, any platform you. You listen to podcasts on and share it. Give it to share the link with one other doctor. Share the link with an, you know, especially a final year resident. They would love you for it. I wish I knew this stuff on my way out of residency. So do that. Okay. So share it with your circle. All right, so back to our seven things, seven business lessons. Number six is delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate. Del. I could make a whole song out of this. Delegate. Okay, don't try to do everything yourself. So let me give you a little bit about me, okay? I've been married for 13 years at the time of this recording, right? I have four children, and I'm a pediatrician working in a practice, and I'm the CEO of that practice, and I'm the founder of Entre md and I have three other businesses that I work. So I have a lot of stuff going on, right? So if I am going to launch a podcast, that's a new thing, in order to do that, I have to delegate some old things, right? I have to get some things off my plate so I can take this new thing on my plate. And that way I can focus on my strengths. The things that I'm good at. I love doing that have a big impact on my business. Okay? So delegate, delegate, delegate. Now, in the process of doing the podcast, I did some delegation. You know, someone who could, you know, edit my podcast and all that kind of stuff, but it was really light. And in episode nine, the episode before this one, I talked about, you know, how a good virtual assistant can multiply the pro profits in your business. And I talked about my new strategy to get a lot more stuff off my plate. So I did some delegation here, but I found out I had to do a lot more delegation and I set those systems up and I'm all set up for that. So in your business, what do you need to give up so you can go Up. Okay. Do you need to give up managing your calendar? Do you need to give up managing your social media? Do you need to give up creating your own graphics? Do you need to give up those things? So take a look at it so you can focus on doing the things that only you can do. And if you didn't have a moment to listen to episode nine, it's a good one. So you want to go back, listen to that and start delegating and getting things off your plate. Okay, now for the final thing. Number seven. Number seven. Lesson that I learned is keep the main thing the main thing. And this is one of my key things from entire 2020 I'm going to be on, is keeping the main thing the main thing. So let me use a podcast to explain what I mean. With the podcast, I can choose to keep an eye on how many downloads did I have, right? How many likes did I have on the post that talked about my podcast?

Right.

Those are good, but that's not the main thing. The main reason why I started this podcast is I want to give great value, value to the entree MDs. I want to build an engaged community, a group of people who are like, you know what, let's do this. Let us thrive in this economy that is choosing to hurt his doctors, kind of, right? And I want to create opportunities for those people who are like, man, Dr. Una, I want to work with you. Right? I want to create opportunities for them to meet me. Okay? So while the downloads are nice and the likes are nice, my eyes need to be focused at all times on making sure that I'm providing great value, where you can listen to the podcast and literally say, this has changed my life, where I'm creating a community. Because when I started business, I really couldn't find other doctors who were doing the same thing I did. So I felt weird, I felt alone. But now I have a tribe of people, you know, so to be in that kind of community where people can spur you on to keep doing greater and greater things, that's priceless. And that's what my focus needs to be and creating opportunities for people who want to work with me to meet me, right? So I want. I'm going to look at the downloads because that's proof people are listening. That's proof, you know, that more people are listening and stuff like that. But I am not going to not focus on providing you value the amount of time it consumes. I can spend tracking down all my numbers and checking it every hour. I could spend that researching. So I Can provide you some greater value. I can take that time to look for some great guests to get on the podcast. So I need to focus on keeping the main thing the main thing. So in your business, are you keeping the main thing the main thing right? Or are you distracted by social media? Are you distracted by vanity metrics? Like metrics that don't affect your mission, don't affect your bottom line? So keep the main thing the main thing. Okay. And I'm going to give you a bonus. I know I said seven business lessons, but the bonus is that celebrate every step. Oh, my goodness. One of the things I regret with my first business, my pediatric practice, is I didn't celebrate the big step. You know, the first time I saw two patients in a day. The first time I saw 10 patients. The first time we had a full schedule. The first time. I mean, like, because I was like, oh, those are just little. They don't really matter. Oh, my God. But look at all the other people. They're doing big, bad stuff. But now I'm like, man, I wish I celebrated all of those. So I celebrate everything. So today I'm celebrating episode 10. Oh, my goodness. Right, okay. Because I'm part of the 39 who are providing content, and I'm part of the 18 that provided content in the last three months. So, hey, I'm gonna celebrate it. Okay, now, there are podcasts. There are a lot. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so, like, Lewis Howes, he's the host of the School of Greatness podcast. He just released episode 860 74, and I have 10 episodes. But guess what? I am so happy for him. I'm so proud of him. I'm so inspired by him. But I'm going to celebrate my 10 episodes. Okay. I'm going to celebrate. So you should do that, too. All right, so think about it. What is that quote, unquote, small thing that you've done in your business that you need to be celebrating? I want to hear about it. Post it in the group. Tag me. I want to hear about it. I want to celebrate you, too. The clients who work with me, they know this is what I do. I celebrate. I celebrate the small wins. I celebrate the small wins. Because your consistency with the small wins will take you to those big wins. And this way, you get to enjoy the journey. All right, so I want you to post on your social media and say, Happy 10th episode to the Entre MD podcast. Okay? Tag me. Hashtag Entre MD. Let's do it.

All right.

Okay. So I am going to have you do something and we did this in the last episode. I'm going to tell you three things you need to do to make sure that what you learned change you. The fact that you heard this doesn't change anything is the actions you take. So number one, one way of learning is by teaching is so much more powerful than listening. So I want you to take a snapshot, a snap screenshot of this episode and I want you to post it as, as. As well as what you learned on social media and tag me, okay? So tag me and you can put hashtag entre md. Okay? That's the first thing. The second thing is I want you to apply. Even if it's one thing, apply it. Okay, so maybe it's celebrating that win. Maybe it's keeping the main thing. The main thing. Okay, Maybe it's committing to consistency. Maybe it's committing to educating yourself. Maybe it's committing to just start. Okay, I want you to apply one thing. The third thing I want you to do and I want you to stay connected with people just like you who are doing the same thing. So join the private facebook community entre md.com join and you will get to be part of a great, amazing group of doctors who are entrepreneurs who are trying to build those profitable businesses so they can have freedom to live life and practice medicine on their terms. Thank you so much for celebrating episode 10 with me. And I will see you next week for another great episode of the Entre MD podcast. If you love this podcast, please take a moment to subscribe, share and review it on itunes as you go about your week. Remember, you're not just an md, you're an Entree md. Don't forget to tune in next week for another great episode. Until next time.