How this Ob/Gyn built a seven-figure side gig with Dr. Mary Claire Haver

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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.

All right, well, welcome back to the Entree. This is your one stop shop where you come to get the inspiration and empowerment and tips and hacks to build a thriving business today. I'm super excited because I have Dr. Mary Claire Haver on here who is a board certified OB GYN in the Houston area and the creator and founder of the Galveston Diet. I'm so excited to have you on here. Welcome, welcome.

Thank you. So excited to be here.

So I'm going to give you a moment. I've read a lot about you, I've talked a lot about you. But I'm going to give you a moment to introduce yourself to the audience and kind of give them a background. Give them a bit about your background and your clinical career.

Sure. So my name's Mary Claire Haver. I'm 51 years old. I've been married by the grace of God to the same man for 26 years. We have two beautiful daughters. 1 19, 1 15. I went to LSU Medical School and graduated in 98 and then immediately started my OB GYN residency at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Graduated from there in 2002 and went straight into traditional clinical practice. And was immediately hornswoggled and overwhelmed, covering three hospitals, you know, doing way more deliveries a month than a human being should be capable of doing. Quickly, within a couple years, realized, I can't keep this up. You know, my. I had a second baby. I never saw my kids. I mean, I was just working, working, working. And I was in a very pyramidal. You know, the two guys at the top took almost no call. All of us at the bottom took most of the call. And I was making tons of money for them, but not really. You know, 90% of that was my paycheck. Now I get overhead, but I was like, the partners were splitting all my hard work, and I just couldn't see myself continuing in that model for much longer, so. And I missed academics. I missed being with people who read studies and followed guidelines and not weren't, like, cowboy cowgirl physicians. So after three years of that, I went back into academic practice, which is where I was until about a year and a half ago, when I was left traditional practice and really focused on my side gig.

Awesome. And I like that you call that a side gig. And people understand why I'm excited about that in a little bit. But I just wanted to go back for a second and say, you look great. For 51, you look amazing. Thank you.

Excellent skincare.

Yeah, you look really good.

I have one of my side gigs.

So this side gig that you're referring to would be the Galveston Diet.

Galveston Diet? Yeah.

Tell me what prompted you to create that?

Okay, so I, five years ago, on a whim, joined a ground floor skincare company called Evil. And that kind of was the beginning of me learning how to flex my entrepreneurial muscle. It seemed to be I was something I could do very much on the side. It was fun. I did well with the company. I quickly kind of rose to the ranks, had a large team. Um, so that kind of was the thing that opened my mind to the business side of, you can do other things.

Okay, great.

I learned a ton from that ton about social media. All of that. Galveston Diet itself was born out of complete frustration that I was going through menopause, and I suffered the loss of one of my brothers and found myself on the end of that 20 pounds overweight through how I chose to handle my grief, which was the wrong way, you know, with carbohydrates and alcohol. So when I decided, okay, it's time. You need to get back in shape, get back to your healthy self, I went back to the old habits that I had done. Like, as we all would I was exercising like crazy and I was calorie restricting and it wasn't working. And I had sat across from patients for 20 years listening to them in their 40s tell me I'm working out and I'm eating less and it's not working. And I would have that, sure. You know, Catherine, on the knee, you just need to hit the gym more. You're just not doing enough. You're not working hard enough. And sadly, it was not until it happened to me that I was like, oh my God, they are telling the truth. Like they weren't making it up, but they weren't cutting corners. I mean, this is a real thing and it's happening to me right now. So I marched over to the nutrition department and the university I was associated with at the time. I was like, hey guys, what is going on? Like, you're like, well, our studies are on like the elderly or astronauts because we're associated with NASA, you know, 25 year old athletes, astronauts and old people. I'm like, what do you got? You know, let me figure out a way to work it in the middle. And everything kept coming back to inflammation. So I looked at what the studies, the data were showing on inflammation and aging and nutrition and I came up with a plan. It was all for me. I had no idea I was going to make this a company, but I was like, all right, I'm doing this wrong. So I looked at it. So the program is intermittent fasting, an anti inflammatory approach to nutrition. So cutting out the things we know cause inflammation, adding in lots and lots of things that fight inflammation naturally and breaking the addiction to carbohydrates. Just simple carbohydrates. Not all. Some carbs are excellent, you know. So put that together into a program, made this little brainchild, Literally typed it out on Word document and did it to myself. And it worked. And so of course my girlfriends are like, what are you doing? So I like would go to Office Depot and make copies of my little program and give it out to my girlfriend. So they're doing it, they're going crazy with it. Oh my God, this is amazing. Then I got the whim to kind of throw it out on Facebook because I had grown a group through the skincare business, but they didn't want to hear about skincare. They were interested. What else does Dr. Haber have to talk about? So I'm starting to talk about sarcopenia, hormone therapy. I was just kind of, just to try to broaden my reach.

Yeah.

And I started talking about my program and the world exploded.

Oh, wow.

Everybody wanted it. So I started making private Facebook groups for free. And I would ask for volunteers, people would join, and I would just give them all the information. I developed kind of a course through these groups where I would spoon feed them the information over time, and they form these little communities. And it was all spontaneous and organic. And so after doing about, you know, 1500 people through this and growing and growing and growing my Facebook group, I was getting less and less and less happy at work and was making enough in the skincare company to walk away. And so I got that final press Ganey report where I had a 4.6 or something.

Oh, wow.

And I ranked in the bottom 25th of my group. And they were going to send me to a class for patient doctor communication that I actually taught. And I was like, wait a minute, guys, I'm not doing this. And they're like, your employment is dependent upon this. And I said, my employment is actually dependent on me showing up. So I think I'm gonna say goodbye. I mean, there was the straw that broke the camel's back, you know, burden, the hours, all of it. And it was the most freeing, wonderful thing. One, I had a nice side gig, backup job. Galveston Diet was free at that point. It gave me the courage, the time, the space. And I talked to some other physician entrepreneurs who were like, mary Claire, this is a thing is a viable business. You need to make this. So I tried an ebook. It failed. I tried all kinds of things. And then someone said, try a course. Try an online course. So I, you know, typical type a physician dove into the online course world, took classes, and I took exactly what I was doing on Facebook. You know, I had done it for a year for free. So I had feedback.

I had.

I knew it would work. I knew people would love it. I knew that it was a health viable business that also was medically based, sound. And I wasn't. And I created it. And I asked my former students, what would you pay for this? What do you think this is worth? They threw out numbers. So I set a price eventually of $49. I sold it for $10 first, and then I just ramped it up till we hit 49. And we have over 22,000 students enrolled. We hit seven figures. Enrolled 20, 19.

Wow. From a $49 course.

From a $49 course.

That is impressive. So it started off with a problem that you had, and you went after it and you're like, I'm gonna find the solution for it. And this worked for me. Other people are asking about it. I'm gonna show them too. And then some other entre MDs were like, excuse me, this is a business. Can you make this a business?

Someone's gonna take it from you. Someone's gonna take it.

This is.

It was not anything that I like. This is my course or my plan. I had no idea we would be this successful. I mean, I knew it would work.

Yeah.

And I'm really savvy. I got great help with Facebook ads. I have great background help. But all I have to do is get it in front of eyeballs and people want it and it works. So our return rate, we have a 30 day money back guarantee. It's less than 3%. People love it. So my advice to other physicians is, you know, what I did is reproducible. I didn't plan it. It is absolutely reproducible. Get an idea, solve a problem. You know, people have. You have sat across from patients for however many years, there are things that they didn't teach you in medicine or that you're not able to adequately solve in the clinical area. Develop a solution and create something with it, Give it away, tweak it, get a following and then launch it and see what happens. It's intellectual property. It's almost free. I was never once in the red in this. I never risked my family, I never risked our financial stability.

You didn't need a huge capital.

As we scaled, we spent more on ads and here we are, I mean, 100. Our top month was 220,000 in income. Now, ads are expensive, but you know, a year ago to sit here and say that this, you know, a year ago in 2018, we started August 1st and when we closed the year, we hit six figures. And I was like, oh my God. But it's very, you know, at least in my world, in the like lifestyle, fitness, weight loss, whatever, it's a very emotional buy. So there's definitely cyclical. No buying. When they're holiday shopping, they're not buying a diet.

No, of course not. How are you going to eat if you buy that?

So, you know, we're all ramped up and ready for January because everybody's going to buy it.

Everybody's.

Yep.

So I'm rooting for you for a big month next month.

Yeah, I think right. If we get through Christmas, people will start thinking, you know, and I need.

To get it together.

We'll start plant the seed in that week before New Year's and after New Year's, we're going to blow it out.

So Let me ask you this. So you went from academic medicine to full on, full blown entrepreneurship.

You know, there's always that part of me that is, you know, I'm the multiple streams of income girl. I still have a skincare business. It's kind of on the back burner, but it's there, which I believe in. I took on a hospitalist position and I work. I worked four shifts a month for the first year and I've taken three months off because I had an injury and I'm starting back probably next month at shifts a month. That's it. Just enough to scratch that itch, keep up my skills. And I like practicing medicine. You know, it's fun, but I do it on my time, when I'm available, and it is awesome.

And that's the whole premise of the whole entre MD thing is freedom to live life and practice medicine on your own terms. For some people, they want to work five days a week. For some people, they want to be in the hospital all the time. You're at a phase in your career where you're like, I want to do four shifts a month. And that's what entrepreneurship lets you do, lets you pick what you want to do, whatever that is, you know. So now tell me, what kind of changes did you have to make after you embrace entrepreneurship?

You know, my husband is great. He's like so amazing. He's actually on his way home from a month long trip right now. And this happened really fast in our lives. And I had built the skin care thing up over years, you know, and so for him watching me, I mean, when I decided to stay home more, I'm working from home. So one thing is when he's home, so he works, he does one of those rotational assignments where he's gone for a month and he's home for a month with no job. Well, he just wanted to sit down and hang out and I was like. He didn't recognize you were working?

Yeah.

So to anyone who's kind of transitioning out of the traditional, you're going to get in the car and leave and then come home at 5 or 8 or 9. As physicians, you know, if you're going to work from home, you need to set boundaries. You need to have space, you need to let the loved ones in your life know mom's working. You know, this is work where my kids, I mean, for a while thought, you know, so you're just playing on the computer and now they see how many followers I have and suddenly I'm cool, you know, like, this is good.

For you to have with me.

It wasn't until I got 50,000 followers that my 16 year old recognized that this actually is a thing. You know, she doesn't see me putting on scrubs and like going to the hospital and like her friend saying, you delivered my mom's baby, you. So we live in a small town. So anyway, that was one thing. Two, here's what I did that I'm super proud of. I don't start my workday until 10. I have those morning hours to meditate, to journal, and to exercise. I start my day with those. And it has made the hugest difference in my life. At 51 years old, I look better, I feel better. I'm in the best shape of my life because when I decided to make those changes, I was like, what? You know, this has to be a part of my everyday life. And that is how I start my day. I get up, I have my black coffee which I fast. I am a faster. It is part of the Galveston Diet. I have my meditation app, 10 minutes. And I have my journal sheets that I created for Galveston Diet and I filled out. I give my things up to the universe. I practice gratitude for the things that went well. I celebrate the wins in my life and I set my goals and intention for the day. And then I built a gym in my garage. It's very low rent. It's not what you think, but I have my equipment, my computer, the screen to do the videos. I have things all over the wall in front of my car. And that to me, when you make that leap into entrepreneurship, don't lose sight of the life you want. And you have got to build self care into it. And my self care is meditation, journaling and exercise.

Wow, that's really powerful because that's the whole why in the first place. Right?

Right.

Yeah, that's the whole why that's powerful. And in the process of embracing entrepreneurship, I'm sure there were challenges along the way. What kind of challenges did you have and how deal with them?

When I started the skincare business, I hid it from anybody at work for a long time. One, it's not ethical for me to talk to patients about it. I just never would do that. But you know, my co workers, I was a little bit ashamed like, like people, it was probably just me but you know, worried about the side eye if you don't make enough money or why are you doing this or. And it was just something I felt that was important to diversify. I didn't realize I didn't know at the time that I could make enough money to cut back my hours. You know, I went part time, you know, with the supplemental income. And I always worried about that, that people had valued me as a doctor and that I was becoming a business person was lowering them, lowering my self esteem. And that was probably. They didn't care what I was doing, you know, but that was my fear because I had allowed my designation as a physician to define my status in life.

Wow. And that's really common. Lot of the doctors I speak with who either want to start businesses or scale businesses. Shame is actually one of the things that keeps them from it. It's like I'm this professional and this is, you know, then I'm going to be out there marketing and doing all this stuff and that's sleazy. And it's not beneath me in the sense of I'm proud, but it's beneath my profession, if that makes sense. So that's something that's actually, you know, pretty, pretty common. And the other thing like you mentioned is like, you don't make enough money already. Like there are poor people all over the world. You really are not content with what you have. You want to make more, you know. So what did you do to overcome that one?

I just stayed the path and my success eventually just overrode people's, you know, thought process. People who had kind of, you know, rolled their eyes or naysayed suddenly, you know, after two, three years, where, I mean, this is a journey. Entrepreneurship is not an overnight success. I mean, my success with Galveston diet is 20 years of clinical practice is, you know, five years as a business person in another business learning all these things. And now, honestly, I feel like I'm helping women just in a different way. You know, I was not able to help them with their nutritional choices, with their, you know, mindset, any of that. I was there to do a breast exam and a pap smear and whatever we can get in three minute conversation, you know, and throw some hormones at them and, you know, there's a place for that and that's an honorable thing. But I wanted more. And once I was able to do that, and the feedback from the students is so beautiful. You've changed my life. I was so frustrated, you know, I'm so much healthier. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's just worth everything.

So, favorite client transformation. What's your favorite story?

You know, there's one hard to pick. It's hard to pick because we do have so many success stories, but yeah. You know, there is one who had been morbidly obese and gone through gastric bypass and then, you know, had lost 100 pounds and then slowly put back on about 60. So she was BMI probably 35 when she started Galatin diet. And it has been a very slow process, but she has embraced it. She is sharing it. She has now become a coach. Wow. And she is still overweight. But I mean, her health, her diabetes, you know, her blood sugars, her cholesterol, all of it is so much better. You know, she's got the data to back up how much healthier she is and just her beautiful personality. So when I think about in my darkest moments, what am I doing? Should I, you know, just go back and do pap smears again? You know, because it is a roller coaster. I think about Deborah and I think about all these people who have just, you know, given their hearts to me in thanks of creating this and, you know, finally coming up with something that seemed to work them.

That's.

That's amazing. I'm sure she feels like she has a new lease on life. That's. That's really good. Now, you talked about the roller coaster, so I'm just going to point that out. Like, even with all this success, there's still those moments when we're like, I think I might want to quit. It doesn't necessarily go away.

Yeah, you're like, but the nice thing about entrepreneurship, at least the way that I have mine set up, I can take a day off. There's no office hours. You know, I can preload stuff ahead of time and it runs on its own. So when I'm having a bad day, I just walk away.

Oh, that's great.

That's good.

You know, not to have that chain of having to get up and go to the office every day. I mean, for me, it just was a beat down after. After 20 years.

So what. What advice would you give somebody who's kind of in the beginning or the middle of entrepreneurship? They've tried a few things. It's not quite working. Maybe they're in the phase where you were, where you did the ebook and it didn't work. They've tried a few things. What kind of advice would you give them?

God, just keep trying. Stick with it. I failed so many times in this. As far as I knew, if you know you have something good to offer, if you know that this will help people, if honestly you're coming from a good place, you just have to find the right delivery system and it will Work. And I tried so many things and what worked last year may not work next year. But I still know that this is a good, viable product that people will, that will make their lives better. And I just, just focus on that and then hire experts to help you.

Hire experts to help? Yeah. I love it. And you, this is many years in the making at this point. And if you could go back to the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. Now, I know you don't necessarily want to change your journey, but let's say you're coming from a vantage point. Like I've seen the end of the script. What would you tell the version of you that just started?

You know, when you hire an expert, get a contract, okay, only pay 50% and then 50% on delivery. Do not pay that second half until you have gone through everything they've delivered to you and you're absolutely satisfied with it. I have made so many mistakes by using my emotions to, oh, they promise you the world and there's a lot of people out there, you know, and you rush into something and you throw a bunch of money at it and it's a failure or they didn't deliver what they promised. So be very, very savvy about when you go into hiring a contractor or hiring someone that you, you know, that is probably the biggest thing that has caused me the most drama, the most stress and the biggest lessons that I've learned.

So when you say experts, do you.

Mean like marketing director or, you know, the first company I hired, I wanted to build a website and I wanted someone to help me with Facebook ads because Facebook, with the space that I'm in on Facebook is very difficult. There's so many rules on what you can and can't say. Yeah, in weight loss and they'll shut you down. So I was shutting down. So I was looking for a, that would have some expertise in this and know what the words are. Because Facebook will throw a 64,000 page manual at you and say, good luck. You know, here are the rules. I have time, you know, so that's what I was looking for. So the company I hired, I went on Google and you know, help and found three or four sent out inquiries. They called me back. We set up, you know, this company, like Slick guy called me, you know, wheeling and dealing, offering, promising me the world. Oh, this is not a problem for us. We do this type of thing all the time.

Okay, fine.

So I spent way too much money. They did build a beautiful website. Super happy with it still. But the Facebook ads thing cost Me a fortune.

Wow.

You know, I almost went in the red on that one and I basically had to fire them and I just threw myself into it too fast without really reading the fine print. And so like anything in life, you know, make sure you know what you're getting into before. Because, you know, we're physicians, we don't know these things. No, none of us have. A very few of us. If anyone has a marketing degree or a public relations degree or, you know, and the other thing is just stay true to your mission. Don't deviate. You know, you'll, you'll be tempted to go off in this direction, that direction. Like for me, I'm very careful. I don't read anybody else's diet plan. I don't know what anybody else is doing. I don't subscribe to anyone because I1 don't want to like soak up things by osmosis and be tempted. I just want to stay true to my research and what I did and how I'm moving forward with it.

So that gives me another question, because this is one of the things that's hard for entrepreneurs is staying focused, staying on one thing, right? Because I'm sure, you know, like I like to joke, every time an entrepreneur takes a shower, they come up with 10 new ideas of things to do, 10 new different businesses and all that. But for what you've done to build a seven figure business, you've done it off of one program. So what has helped you stay focused on that? Because you could have had so many types of spin offs and I'm sure people have told you of so many other things you could be doing with it, but you're just like, I'm going to do this one program and you put 22,000 people in it and you hit your seven figures and you're good. So what helps you stay focused, you.

Know, one is the success stories we have started, you know, and when I've developed other things or thought about it, it's things that people ask for. It's not anything I thought of on my own. So people, for example, we have a companion guide that you can buy because you know, a thousand people said, hey, I don't like to look at things on the computer. I want to print it out and highlight. So I threw in, I basically downloaded the whole program, got everything written out and made a PDF file that's an extra charge. And 30% of people who purchase the program buy that and they're happy with it, you know, because they learn that way. They like to read and to underline. Next thing was, you know, people saw me journaling. So I live my life on Instagram, God help me, but. And people would see me journaling in the morning. They're like, I want to journal. So I worked with a mindset person and we developed a journal together for Galveston dieters. And it's a six week daily check in meditation, all of it, you know, and that's what people were asking for. I developed that and that, you know, they're nominal charges, but they add up over time. So they're all just tools to make the program better if you want. And then we developed the coaching. The private coaching groups started with just me, but so many people wanted them and were willing to pay for the time that it takes a six week course that I started training people to help me. So now I'm able to share the success of the Galveston diet and share the financial success. Like, my sister's a coach, my sister in law's a coach with my family.

That's awesome.

And bring them only because these are tools that people have asked for.

Got it.

So, I mean, I just want to throw out there, you know, again that, you know, I'm so happy that you did this. This is setting an example of what is possible. And, you know, sometimes people are like, you know, entrepreneurship, I don't care about the money. And I'm like, the money is just a consequence of helping people. It's not so much the seven figures as it is the 22,000 women that you have. 22,000 women who used to wake up in a cold sweat because they couldn't lose weight no matter how hard they're trying, and now they're celebrating. So the seven figures is just a reward for doing such an amazing job, you know, so tell people where they can find more information about the Galveston diet. I haven't hit menopause yet. I'm 40. You know, for 40 year olds like.

Us, I specifically developed it for, you know, my age group, you know, 51. But our key demographic is like 42 to women in their 60s. It works for everybody. It worked for my husband. Everybody's got their husband on it, their teenage daughter. They need to be through adolescence. I'm not going to, you know, not going the kid route, but it works for everybody. But it really, really helps because Galveston diets become so much more than that. It's more like the Galveston life and it's the non scale benefits that keep you in the game. It's the sleeping better, the better mental clarity, the Mental fog that just lifts that we used to deal with because you weren't sleeping that well and you're just distracted. It's just amazing. So I digress. So you can find me@galvestondiet.com. that's our website. We have a free meal plan download. We have blog. I have multiple blogs on there talking about menopause, weight loss, all of it. We also have Instagram, thegalveston diet on Instagram and the Galveston diet on Facebook.

Excellent. And I'll post the links in the show notes for all of these so that people can find you. And thank you for clarifying that younger people and some males can sneak in and do that as well. So thank you so much for coming on here. It's a true pleasure having you. And I have one last question for you. So you hit your 2019 goal even before the last month of the year. What's your big goal for 2020?

Yeah, I'd like to get to 100,000 students.

That would be great. Well, we're rooting for you. And you'll get some students from this, so we're rooting for you.

That's scary to say. I like my heart's pounding from saying that.

And that means It's a true BHAG, right?

So y 25% of the way there. Well, 22% of the way there, yeah. Yeah.

Well, we're rooting for you. Thank you so much for being on here, and hopefully we'll get you back on the show to celebrate your 100,000 students.

All right, thank you.

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 entre md. Don't forget to tune in next week week for another great episode. Until next time.