How I Grew My Business by 220% in Six Months with Dr. Catherine Toomer

If your business isn't working the way you expected, it's not because you're bad at business. It's because no one ever taught you how it actually works. We were trained to master algorithms in medicine, but when it comes to revenue teams and growth, we were never taught anything. We weren't even told to figure it out. We just assumed somehow we'd know. Like it would magically make sense. But it doesn't. The era of the seven Figure Physician CEO is here. And it's not about working harder. It's about learning entrepreneurship as a system. The same way you mastered ACLs and pals, you can master the algorithm of building a profitable scalable business. That's why I recorded the Seven Figure Physician CEO audiobook. Whether you're building a medical or non medical business, and whether your goal is your first million, first 2 million, first 5 million, first 10 million, this is where the journey starts. There is no calvary coming to save us. We are the calvary.

So.

So go get your audiobook now. Www.entremd.com sevenfigurebook and let's rewrite the narrative for physicians starting today. Hi, docs. Welcome to the Entre MD Podcast where it's 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. Umn. Well, hello everybody. Welcome to another session of Inside the Entre MD Business School. I am so excited to be here. And the reason why I started this is because there are so many unbelievable stories of doctors in the ontramd Business school, the things they're doing in their businesses, the strategies they're implementing. And I could not figure out any way to let the entire physician community get to it except this way. So I have today, Dr. Toomer, she's. this point, I think I can say she's a regular. She's been on the podcast a number of times. She's been on on Trendy Live another number of times, and here we are now. And it's just a testament to her ability to continue to evolve and continue to take her business from one step to another. So, Dr. Toomer, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, I always enjoy it.

Oh, my goodness. I'm so happy you're here. Okay, so I'm going to give you a moment to introduce yourself to listener. There's some people here who like, she's a regular. I haven't heard. I haven't heard her story before, but I'll have you briefly introduce yourself, and then we're going to go into all the yumminess that's been the first half of the year for you.

All right. Well, I am Dr. Kathryn Harmon Toomer, and you can find me anywhere on the Internet because I'm the only one. Dr. Kathryn Harman Toomer on the Internet. I am the CEO and founder of Health, Wellness and Weight Loss Centers. And I maximize health and wellness through weight loss. And then I use very targeted health and wellness measures also through weight loss, to improve people's health and wellness. And I do this as a coach, I do that as a consultant and now as a speaker. And I help people one on one. I help people in a group and recently have added advocacy to my plate because as I've been helping people through treatment and through testing and the like, there's been a gap that I'm trying to fill now. And so advocacy has been added to my list of things that I do.

As if you don't do enough already, right after advocacy, there's going to be more. So it is.

I know.

So I am, for myself, I'm excited to hear about the first half of the year for you because we've worked together for many years at this point, and there is a kind of business you want to build and there's kind of life you want to live. Right. I know from working with you that your time with family or your time for yourself is almost more important to you than whatever revenue goal. Right. So with you, we've always had to figure out, like, how can we help you build the business you want without compromising what your real priorities are. Right. So I wanted to share briefly, like, what, you know, what your priorities are, like, what's a dream month for your dream first half of the year? What are those priorities? And then what has happened in the first first half of the year for you?

All right. Well, I think I should give a little bit of background so it makes sense. 22 years ago, I went into congestive heart failure a month after my daughter was born, and I was morbidly obese and I had type 2 diabetes on insulin. And that trying to get my health together is how I created the program that I actually use for my business now. So I lost £107. I use that method now with my clients, with my patients. And I was told at the time that I had a 50% chance of living five years. For me, time has always been the number one importance and time to watch my children grow up. Because for a Good five years. I was scared I would never see them graduate from kindergarten, let alone college. I always have measured my revenue in my family first, my time second, my health third, and then financial revenue. And so that's always been the case. And because of that, all of it has grown. I have more time with my family. I have more flexibility. And because of the revenue, because I don't really chase revenue, it just seems to come to me and allows me then to apply it to my time and my family. And so that has always been my goal. And everything I've done, I've always looked for a system that allows me that same flexibility, that same amount of time. And what my success has been is that each year, I've been able to hone my system, hone my product, so to speak, into a way so that I can use it. Right now, I am not at home. I'm actually at my mother's home. She's 93 years old. I was able to come here, spend a week and still work, still have my business run. To me, that is the ultimate in success. And if anything, I've done that more and more in the last year, and my revenue has grown more and more. And I think partly because my mindset has been, this is what you wanted. This is where you are. And so I haven't been fighting myself and fighting the process. And so now I'm. And I'm still growing. Things are still coming at me without even really trying now, because I'm in a good, nice, smooth place where I can just sit back and allow myself the peace of being an entrepreneur, because that's truly what, ultimately it is. You just become. It becomes a place of peace.

Okay, so I'm gonna. This is the gift. This is the gift you're giving us. Right. You had the scary experience. We didn't.

Right.

But that experience put you in a position where. Because whenever you have an experience like that, it's an opportunity to see life for what it is, to put things in their proper place. And so the gift you're giving us is even though we didn't have that experience, well, our family is something. And I say this all the time. I'm willing to build multiple very successful businesses. I'm not willing to do it at the expense of my family. Right. And so the family is a priority that we want to keep that up there. We want to keep time up there. We want to keep health up there. I have the gift of the privilege of talking with a lot of people who are older and they'll say, oh, I wish you the best of success in your business. And all of a sudden. And they're like, all I need is my health. Right. Constantly that all I need is my. And I'm like, if we're, I'm going to be saying that I might as well prioritize that now. Right. I don't need to wait till I'm 90 or whatever.

Right.

And so, and then the revenue and really what you're painting is a picture of, of the fact that it's possible.

Right?

So in ebs we talk about dreaming or building your dream business and building your dream life at the same time. Right. So you did a post in the group. And to give context to this, in the Entremd Business School, we live 90 days at a time. So our year is a 90 day block. And so July 1st we were like, happy new, happy EBS new year. Right. Because that's what we do. And so then we share like this. These are the wins have happened. These are the lessons I've learned. These, this is what I'm looking to for the next 90 day block. And so you shared. It was very clear. I could tell, like a revenue goal, a time goal, a family goal. Like there it was just there it's like that's just her priorities on display. So talk to us about what those, what those wins were.

Those wins. Well, and you're gonna laugh because this is me always. I can't tell you exactly how much I've grown from last quarter to this quarter because I always look at the money last. I can tell you that from last year to this time, there's been a 220% growth from last year to this year at this same time. The only reason I know that is because when I sign into my various platforms, it tells me I don't go looking for it. I can't avoid it. But what I can tell you is that the other growth that has happened, I've spent more time here with my mother this year than I have ever spent. I am one of eight children. It is very rare anyone from a large family knows to have your parent to yourself. I was with my mother for almost a whole month by myself. That is so valuable. I got to hear stories I'd never heard before. I got to get insight, her wisdom, her knowledge and I got to absorb that. That is so invaluable, I can't even put a dollar amount on that. But not only was I able to do that, I continued seeing my clients, I continued having my meetings. I Continued all of those things because I could. The other growth has been I lost family members that were very close to me this year. And I mourn, I allow myself to mourn when that happened. And so in allowing myself to do that, I was able to take time for myself, for my family, for everyone who needed me emotionally and physically so I could be present. I wasn't distracted by anything else. And I had a nice system in place, a nice team in place, who protected me, who allowed my business to continue growing. Now mind you, this 200% growth happened during this time when I was really distracted and really preoccupied. But I had put in the groundwork before and so I was able to do that. So trying to put a dollar amount on that is impossible. It's just too invaluable to put a dollar amount. But I can tell you the actual dollar amount was 200% more than last year.

Love it. And you had the time with your daughters, you posted all about their graduations like so yeah, like your tank is family wise, is like completely full. I'm thinking, right, like just from observing. And you said something about reducing the actual time you worked by a third, leveraging your team. Okay, so let's put this in perspective. Year over year growth, we're talking about 220%. In the meantime, more time with family. Sometimes we're talking a month long time with family that you've ever had before, you worked a third less than you typically work. And this is for the first six, half, six months of the year. Like how wild is that?

Even just this week. So what happened? I wasn't anticipating having to be here to help my daughters move. They're moving in together to a new city and I'm here and it happens to be the same city where my mother lives. So what I did was as soon as I found out that week they were going to need me that week I completely shut down my schedule. And I didn't cancel any appointments simply because I wanted to make sure that those I honored the ones that were there, but I didn't allow any new one. And so I was able to do that while staying in contact with my team and, and continuing. And I check my revenues. It's the same because I created a system where it's ongoing so that I didn't have to pay attention to the little details every single day. Because I know me, as soon as my daughter's call, I drop everything else. And I want that. Some people like that too much. But as I'm 58 years old now I'm starting to wind down a little bit. I'm starting to thinking about retirement and what we know what life's going to look like outside of practicing or outside of medicine completely. And so now that life has sort of made me slow down a little, I realized I can maintain that. I can keep that and not go back to where I was. Some of it was intentional, but some of it was just life and happy accidents.

Life and happy accidents. This is golden because. And I think this is also a pointer. Like, even if you feel like you had a difficult, distracted difference kind of quarter first half of the year, it's really important to stop and take stock of what happened.

Right.

Because it all depends on what you focus on. Right. Like, you had all these things happen, but it didn't change the fact that your business grew. It didn't change the fact that you work less, which is a priority for you. Change the fact that you had all this time to spend with family. And it was kind of practice for, like, okay, so if I were to do this on purpose, what do I need to do to make this where my business can continue to grow? I can continue to do the things that are important to me, and it all works. So. So this is good. Now, I want you to talk a little bit about some of the things you think you did that made these wins pop possible. And I'm going to start off by saying one, which is you've done the work. You've been doing the work like you. You have consistently done the work, and you're coming to this place where it's a big snowball thing. You just have that Midas touch. Everything you touch is working. And even when you decide to slow down, you've done so much that the ripple effect just continues. That's just my observation. But what are some of the things you done that you think are responsible for this ridiculously amazing first half of the year? And what are some of the things you stopped because you said some of that? And I was like, people need to know. So, yeah, tell us all the things.

Well, number one, and I'm going to be very honest, and I know this might embarrass you, but I really, truly follow the entre method. I mean, honestly, and not even all that well, to be honest, I do my best, but if it gets in the way of my time and family, I don't do it. But for the most part, I at least try to do some of it every single day. And as a result, that little bit of inching forward And I remember talking to you once and saying, I feel like I'm shutting down. Just so much is happening. I'm getting overwhelmed. But it was emotional shutdown mostly. And you said, just do a little bit every day to inch your business forward, to inch something forward. And so I always use that, even if it's just 15 minutes of getting something in, so I can say, okay, I accomplished something today. And so I've always done that. And if you add that up over year, over two years, it just pushes you forward. It may not be as fast as some people want. It may not be as fast even as I want it, but that's part of what I did. I gave myself grace. I followed the method. I gave myself grace. I. I didn't set my expectations to the point where they were realistic, they were higher than before, but I didn't set myself up for failure. And plus, I just don't see anything as a failure. I just see everything as lessons. So my feeling is that I wasn't supposed to be here. So anything that happens is a blessing. I mean, that's my mindset always. The other thing that I did, though, was that I really looked at opportunities for what they were. I analyzed them. It's very easy to put our ego into whatever we're offered and say, oh, that's something I should have. That's something I should do. That's something. And so. But I had to say no to some things because I knew they were distractions. I knew they would get in the way. They might, partly because I knew I'd be good at it and I knew I'd be successful, but it was going to take me in a direction away from my foundation of the things that I wanted. Particularly because I started speaking. I have speaking opportunities. Some of those opportunities would have taken me somewhere that, yes, would have fed my ego. Yes, would have been nice and flashy, but they would not have sustained me for the rest of my life. And so my philosophy is always, if I do it now, I need to be able to do it when I'm 90. Otherwise, it's not something for me, because, like I said, My mother's 93. I can very well and very functional. So at 93, I could very well be sitting here having another, talking to someone, and I don't want to have been somewhere else. That shut me down physically because it was too much. And so I often say no to things and to opportunities, and I'm very quick to pivot if I'm going down a path. And I see that path is taking me somewhere that I really didn't want to go. I just stop and come back and go back to my foundation. And so, as you always say, Dr. Una, do the business before the business. I've done that consistently. One of the biggest changes I made over that time was being visible. There was a time when I wouldn't even have done this. I would not have allowed myself to be interviewed on video. And Now I do YouTube. I have. I stream to YouTube, Instagram and Facebook once a week at least. I interview people weekly. I have a TikTok account. I have a YouTube account, a channel. I mean, all those things that I never would have even imagined doing before. And even when I go back and look at my old videos, they're horrible, but I don't care. I love them because I see the growth, I see how much. And so just, I guess to make a long story long, just to do the work in any amount of increments that you can and not allow yourself to be distracted by the shiny pennies that are out there because someone has convinced you that's what you're supposed to do. We have a method. It really works. It's now in a book, so you have no excuse not to find it and read it. And really, I mean, it just works. And I know you didn't invite me here to promote your book or promote your method, but I am a living testament to that method. I started out at zero. I had a brick and mortar office. I was shut down during the pandemic. I pivoted within a week because of using your method to get online. And now My business grew 100% virtually. And now I'm. Oh, gosh, I think I'm at 2000% where I was when I started or more. I can't even, to be honest, I don't know because the first three months was 600% and now from last year, it's been 200% and I've been in business now for six years. So I'll have to go and do the math because right now I don't know.

You do have to go do the math. Okay. But I do want to thank you. That is such a beautiful breakdown. It makes me. I have questions for you, but okay. For everyone listening, though, I hope you pick this up. The word I would use to describe the bulk of what you said is intentionality.

Right?

Intentional. So, yes, I cannot work on all the things, but these high level things that I can work on consistently. Right. And that will bring this. Yes, I can have this shiny object, if it's not taking me where I'm intending to go to anyway, I'm going to say no to it. It's a distraction that is disguised as an opportunity, right? And so it's all, it's all intentionality. So I want you to talk a little bit about saying no to opportunities because I cannot tell you how many entrepreneurs that I've seen, they were going in one direction and it took two shiny objects and now they don't have a business, Right. Because they were just too distracted to make anything grow. So talk about saying no to opportunities.

So what I often do first is if an opportunity comes my way, my first question is, would I have sought that out had it not come to me? And if the answer is yes, then I'm like, okay, then I'll sit with it and I'll look at it and see it for what it is. If the answer is no, I say no. I mean, if it was something and it's not one of those things where, oh, my imagination was too small and I didn't think of it, no, that means that someone else's idea of what I should do, that's someone else's dream. How am I their product? Because that's often the case, especially with physicians, we often become the product for other people. And so when they start showing me things, my first thought is, am I the product or not? And often they're making their money off of my intellectual property, they're making their money off of my time and using me to do that. Even though, yes, I'll be the face, yes, I'll be out there and I'll be getting the attention, but ultimately they are the ones who are gaining. And so that's my first thing I look to see who benefits the most financially from this opportunity. And if it's not me, not saying I'm greedy, but if it's someone else using me for that, I say no. The other thing that I do when looking, and if it's something that says yes, it is something I would have pursued. I look at my plan, Was this part of my six month plan, my one year plan, my five year, ten year plan? If it was part of my ten year plan, is it something, if I pull it forward, is it going to knock out some of my six month plan? Because my six month plans were put in place when I was level headed and not distracted and my ego was set aside. And so I laid out that plan when I was being objective. So when the shiny object comes, is it going to knock any of those things out of the way. And if the answer is yes, and it's too many of those things, and of course then I say no. If it's something that I could flop in, jump right back, then I may say yes. If I say yes, I always look at how much time is it going to take, how much of my revenue, my health revenue, my time revenue, my financial revenue, Is it going to cost me money to do it? Is it going to cost me time? Is it going to cost time for my family? Or is it something that I can pull my family in? Are you asking me to come someplace that I can turn this into a vacation and spend with my family? If the answer is yes, then I don't care if it costs me money because now I get that revenue back with their time and their experiences. And so I just put all. I just think about things really logically, really objectively, and I make sure that I write down things because it's very easy to forget what you wanted. A year from now. When something bright is shining in your face, you can't see. I mean, it's like anything. If you're sitting in the dark and someone shines a light in your face, suddenly you can't see anything else but that light. And so you may, if you haven't written down stuff, you forget what's behind the light. And so you've got to have it written down and to remind yourself constantly what it was you truly wanted when you were sane and calm and objective. And so that's how I choose. And so with each incident, it's different.

Okay, I didn't see that coming.

That was so good.

These answers. I was like, oh, I have to get my team to like edit this out. Like how the three step formula to get rid of shiny object syndrome forever.

This was so good.

Okay, thank you for sharing that. That was so good. Oh my goodness. I didn't see that clip. That was good. Okay, so now you are, you're in the entremity business school community. You've been there for a while. And I always ask this because it's almost impossible to explain to somebody outside of the school what the school is like. Right. And so not everybody, but there's somebody here who's watching, who's like, I am a physician. I am committed to building a successful business. I'm not willing to give up my family or my lifestyle to do it and all of that. What would you say to that person?

Well, one of the things that the business school has done is giving me huge shortcuts. Instead of having to look for answers myself, instead of having to go through trial and error, I have a whole community of trial and errors to ask. It's like instead of saying, okay. And not only just the trial and errors, the trial and errors and the nuances of the situation. So I have someone say, yeah, I did that, but my business is xyz. Yeah, but my business is xyz. And I did the exact same thing and got the exact same result. I'm like, okay, it's the system, it's not the business. So I have that. You have all that. Just huge amounts of information and huge. Not only just information from a revenue standpoint or process standpoint, but emotional standpoint, physical standpoint, people at different levels of their life. I am an empty nestor. There are people who have small children. Their lives are going to be very different. But if you have someone who has three small children and they've created a system that works for them, imagine how much bigger that system is going to work for me when I don't have children around. I look at all of that. That's a community that I just. That's information that's, again, invaluable, that I would not have access to otherwise. Because in medicine, we've often been taught to be competitive. And I personally think it's a divide and conquer method, but that's another story. So we've been sort of taught to compete with one another, that there's only a certain amount in a pie and only a certain amount for each of us. And so if you take yours, hold on to it, and don't share it with anybody else, One of the things that EBS has done is it's made it very clear that's a lie. There is more than enough for everybody. And the more you share, the more of the pie you get. And so in that environment is. And I've said this before, what EBS has been for me is like, okay, I'm going to go out on faith. I'm going to go and just jump off a cliff. And I know there's a nice pillow of people there ready to catch me if I fall, if I don't soar, which I usually do, and which most of us do, and even if we don't soar right away, even if we're just kind of coasting and we're. There's a lot of wind from the group to push you up under your wings, that you start to fly, even if you start to sink again, that Wind comes and just pushes you up. All you have to do is ask. And there is hundreds of people, and not even just people who are in EBs now, prior EBs, who are still in contact with me, people who are thinking about joining. It's like this community of sharing that is just too invaluable to describe really. But what it truly is, just having a backup plan, multiple backup plans, and not even backup plans, just people at your back. I mean, that's. I don't know how else to describe it. I hope that does it justice, but I don't think it did.

It's a backup plan. It's people at your back. I mean, thank you for sharing that. And I do want to say thank you for sharing because you're an invaluable part of the community, right? You could have kept your wins. You could have not shared it. You could have said, well, I have stuff going up. I don't have time for this. But I think for this quarter, you were actually the first person to do your post. You did it even before I did the post. Like, it's time for IQ to review, right? And so that's a testament to the kind of sharing, right? You're sharing the wins, you're sharing the lessons, you're sharing all of that. And it's such a gift to everybody. And here you are sharing it with the entire physician community. So thank you for doing that. And of course, anybody who's on here and you're, you're like, I want to know more about the school. I want to be part of these people. You can go turn an application on trimdy.com forward/business. I'll be happy to have that conversation with you. Dr. Tuma. Where do people find you? So people are listening on here and I'm going to say this, okay? If someone comes on here to share their story, to take you behind the scenes, to share the good, the bad, the ugly, the least we can do is support them. And as physicians, we need so many examples of what is possible. That is what is required for us to have the big shift we need in the physician community. So anything you can do to support another physician entrepreneur, do it right. Like, this is how we make everything different for everybody. So what is a good referral for you? So who do you take care of and where can people send people to or where can they go follow you on TikTok and support what you're doing?

Well, a, a good referral for me is anyone who feels like they're at the end of their rope. Either they just can't seem to get on top of their health, their wellness, or they're struggling with weight loss and they're about to give up, or they've just been told they've just been shamed to the point where they shut down, which is where I was. Those people send them to me and even if I can't help them or they can't utilize my services, I will find somebody who can. I have a database of everyone who does what I do so that I can find someone for them. The other is anyone who needs speakers, who need someone who wants motivation. I've done TED talks, I've done a lot of corporate speaking on wellness. I'll be speaking next week at a national conference. Anyone who just wants speakers on health, wellness, imposter syndrome, anything that just sort of fits into the whole person, I'm your girl. The answer is if you find that there is someone who's having difficulty navigating the medical system. I don't help necessarily with that, but I did have a database of people who are willing to step in and help because there is a huge gap in the haves and the have nots in our medical community. And so anyone who is having struggling in any way, we'll help, will find a way. But mostly you can find me@doctrortumer.com and that's D R T O M E R dot com. From there you can just sort of find me everywhere else. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and email. Text message.

She is visible. She told you she was working on her visibility. She is visible. And to think that in the beginning you're like, I'm not doing a video and here you are everywhere. It is just so beautiful to see.

I was not only did I was, I, I hid, I was, it was me. I was a one woman show. I wouldn't hire anyone because I didn't want to interact with anyone. And now here I am with a team and all these lives and videos and all the rest is just amazing.

It's amazing and it's again, it's a testament to the work you've done and your willingness to do what was uncomfortable. Right, because building a team was uncomfortable. When you started building team, delegating to the team was uncomfortable. Right? Doing the videos was like, it was all uncomfortable. But you were like, okay, I'll just do a little bit of it. And that's all it takes.

So you can't do it Messy.

Yeah, doing messy. But here we are, right? And so I want to say a big congratulations to you. And you know how we are, right? This second half is your best half yet. That's the way we roll in ebs. So there's even more of this coming for you. And thank you so much for sharing your stories, sharing your wisdom. It's such a gift. We have people watching live right now on YouTube, so in the comments, shout her out so she'll go look at the comments and know that her story touched the you. So let her know how her story impacted you. And so thank you for doing that. Thank you for being an invaluable part of the Entre MD community. And to everybody watching, we'll see you same time next week with more stories from inside the Entre MD Business School. Hey, if you love listening to the Entre MD podcast, I want to invite you to join Entre MD On Demand. It is my signature subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur, and that is to thrive. Just head out to entreand.com forward/ondemand and I'd love to have you join us. See you on the inside.