How to sell confidently
30 Jan 2026 · 24 min
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu teaches physician-entrepreneurs to sell by taking inventory of their unique value, quantifying what transformation they deliver, and seeing money as a neutral exchange instead of something to feel guilty about.
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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.
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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. Unna. Well, hello. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Entremity podcast. As always, I am super pumped. And we're gonna talk about one of my favorite things to talk about, which is selling. Okay, we're gonna talk about how to sell confidently now. It's one of my favorite things because I think as a community, we have bought into a lot of lies about selling. Right? And I bought into them too. If you've read the Entrepreneur method book, I talked about that, where when I think about selling, I'll think about a used car salesman and it being all slimy and manipulative. And I would interpret it as I'm trying to take people's money and all those kind of things. But the truth of the matter is that selling is serving. Selling is one of the best ways you can serve your clients. You can serve your patients. If you think about it, a lot of times people complain about the misinformation and they complain about people not knowing, you know, what kind of clinician they should go to and stuff like that. Nobody's going to know if you don't sell. Right? You may have the best product. Nobody's going to use it. If you don't sell. And there they are in a pain that your business fixes, and they would happily pay you to make that pain go away, but they don't even know you're there, you know, and so it's one of the best things you can do. And there is no such thing as a business without selling. Very often I would see people who would launch a course or launch a coaching program or launch a private practice. And when I ask them about how I can support them, a lot of times it's things along the line of how can I get people to come without having to market and without having to sell? And I'm like, the second you find that out, you are going to get a Nobel Peace Prize, because nobody has been able to figure that out. And so I think it was Dr. Karen Kaufman who said it best. She is one of the rockstar docs in the entremd business school. And we were talking and she said, marketing is part of my job, right? Because almost like I see patients and I'm irritated by all these other things I have to do. So she's in private practice, right? I'm irritated by all these other things that I have to do. I just want to see the patients. But think about the beautiful reframe where she's like, yeah, I see the patients, but marketing is part of my job. Same way doing my charts. That's part of my job, right? And so I think when we can figure out selling, we can figure out how to show up confidently. Makes a huge difference, makes our businesses more enjoyable. It makes what we have to do for marketing and selling more enjoyable, and it leads to massive growth, and it leads to us having the ability to help a lot of people. A lot of people. Okay? So there's no selling, there's no business. There really is no such thing as, you know, as a business where there's no sales. It just doesn't exist.
Right?
And so how do we do that confidently? How do we show up and confidently tell people, come work with me, right? And today I want to talk about three things you need to do. And let's get to it. Okay? So the first one is understanding your unique value. And I bring this up because sometimes we're apologetic about the things that make people attracted to us, attracted to our offer, attracted to the thought of working with us. We don't realize them as the gifts they are. Okay? So when I talk about your unique value, I mean your perspectives, your experiences, some of the things you think are your disadvantages, right? And So I could talk about me. I'm a physician, okay? And so what I do in the entremd world, I am uniquely positioned to do it because I am a physician. I understand physicians, I understand what physicians go through. I understand what the hang ups are. I understand what limits us from thriving as entrepreneurs. I've seen it and I've experienced it, right? And so somebody may say, well, you're a physician. If somebody wanted someone to help them become a better entrepreneur, they would go to an entrepreneur, not you. But the truth of the matter is me being a physician is an advantage, right? It's part of my unique value, okay? The same time, I'm a huge introvert and someone may look at that as a disadvantage. I don't because that is part of my unique value. Because all the introverts are like, wait a minute, first of all, I cannot see how she's an introvert, but I've heard her stories. Now if she was an introvert, she can be doing this, then there is hope for me. You inspire by what you think is a disadvantage, right? And so I am an introvert. If you look at experiences, well, I have been married for 16 years, I have four children. And somebody's thinking the reason why I'm not an entrepreneur is because I have all these babies. And it's like, wait a minute, Dr. Una has four kids, right? And so these are all things that sometimes are like, huh, you know, we don't pay attention to them, but. But they are valuable. I have run a private practice. I've had my private practice for. This is the 13th year, right? And so that is an experience. And that practice went through the pandemic and thrived in the pandemic and all of that. That is an experience that is part of my unique value. I've built multiple seven figure businesses. That is part of my unique value. Like, so there's so many things and you want them stop and take note. And all these things that we've thought were either, you know, nothing, nothing serious, nothing special. It's time to take inventory, right? Think about the things that maybe you, up till now, you've considered disadvantages. What if they were advantages? What if they were part of your superpower? And some people, a lot of people are like, man, the reason why I'm not speaking or I'm not doing podcasts because of my accent. Now listen, I have a lot of accents, right? It really depends on where I am and I have no control over it. It's the funniest thing. But see, I Was, I was born in the U.S. i did half. I grew up. I spent 20 years in Nigeria. So from the age of five, that's when we moved back to Nigeria. And I was there for 20 years, and then I moved back here. And then in. In Nigeria, you have many languages. We make, you know, many, many, many languages and are colonized by the British. And so proper English is British English. And so, you know, you would say the trunk of a car, we would say the boot of a car, you would say indicator, we would say trafficator. And so I speak English, but so many variety, varieties of English, right? And you know, if you meet me amongst Nigerians, then, you know, it's. That's a. That's a whole other thing that comes out there. And I speak the broken English. I spe other things. And so when. When somebody's like, my accent is the reason why I get that. But I'm like, girl, guy, that's not going to stop you. Right? And so the bottom line is this. The bottom line is this. You're unique. I don't even have to know a lot about you to know that you're unique. And so you do want to stop and take inventory, like, what makes me unique. Write about, you know, itemize, pull out a thing, make bullet points, your experiences, your perspectives, your origin story, your. More like your origins, all of those things. Take a look at them, because in them you find your uniqueness. Okay? And it helps you to sell confidently. And you have to own who you are. You are who you are. That's it. You know what I mean? It helps you. It helps you. Because I have. I'm thriving as an introvert. I show up confidently for my introverts because I was this person who didn't know anything about business, anything. I was scared spitless of anything, everything. And I went on to build multiple very successful businesses because of that. I show up confident, right? And I'm letting you know. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You can do that too, right? I was scared of being on stage. Now I love being on stage. I love hosting live events. I can show up confidently because of that. So you're going to take inventory. Okay, so that's number one. Number two is you want to understand the value of your product or your service. Now I don't. I'm not talking about the benefit. I'm not talking about the features. I'm talking about the value. What is the transformation that your product or service creates in the life of your ideal client? Okay. All right, so I'll give you an Example, the Entre MD Business School, for instance, right? Before I would talk to people about it and all of that, I would sit in the transformation it can create. And we're talking about things that. Now, I don't. We. I don't do small wins. People are like, this is a small win. I don't know what that is. A win is a win, right? A win is a win. And so to see somebody who is like, I don't think I can start a business, come back and say, I registered my business, and for the first time, I used the word entrepreneur and my name in the same sentence, right? I want you to think about the value of that. I would see somebody else who's like, I came in because I wanted to cross my first seven figures in annual revenue. And that person hits that, think about that value for somebody else. They're like, what is more of my priority is having time for my family. And they've built business. They've built a business that, you know, I think Dr. Behrens, we talked about this when I interviewed her on. On her pod on her episode, and she said, I want to work mom hours. And that's from 8 to 3. So I'm there for my kids. And she's building her practice around her family, not the other way around. Like, her family's at the center and. Right. She's building it that way. What is the value? What is the numerical value? What's the dollar amount you would put on that? And so the clearer I am about the value that I bring, the value, the transformation that people experience, right? The clearer I am about that, the more confidently I will show up and say, hey, if you do this, this can happen for you. Come join us. And then remember that you can. When people are like, oh, but the cost of this thing is too high. There's no such thing. This is a value exchange, right? Money and services is a value exchange. And so if you pay me $20,000, but you end up with a practice that generated a million in revenue, this is a great value exchange. There's no cost. It's not a cost. It's a great value exchange. If you're like, I finally started my business, I identify as an entrepreneur, I got my first client. All those kind of things you think, value exchange, right? You could have gone to Emory, which is our university, our local university, you could have gone to emory and paid $140,000 for an MBA, but I gave you this hefty discount, and you did at 20, right? But that's the way, it's a value exchange. It is horrible to offer something where the quote unquote cost is higher than the value you're giving them. Okay? Now you might be saying, well, Dr. Una, that's easy to measure because what you're doing is business. So they can measure the numbers. Not necessarily. I want you to think about if you are a health coach or, or you run a private practice or you are a weight loss coach. Hear me out. Or, you know, we have Dr. Amanda Atkins, she's a doc in the untrended business school and she helps people transition to plant based diets. She tells her own story. She used to be overweight. Everybody in the family had hypertension, diabetes, all that kind of stuff. And now she's living this very healthy lifestyle. Right? Now I want to ask you, if you think about it, somebody's diabetic, hypertensive, you know, you transition them to a plant based diet, they either have disease reverse or the medication burden is much less because the control is so much better. If you did that and it gave them an extra 5 years, 10 years, give them a extra 20 years, better quality of life for their families and all of that stuff. What is the numerical value? What is the dollar amount on that? Do you see what I'm saying? So even though she's not a business coach and we're not talking about direct numbers, you, you still want to trace the value? You still want to trace the value. Dr. Rachel Rubin, she is a urologist and she is fellowship trained in sexual, sexual medicine. And think about her working with somebody and because of that, she solves those problems. Their marriage is so much better. That person has more fulfillment in life and goes on, I mean, like just that. Go on that, go like if we could fix this, we could fix anything. And their lives are totally turned around now. What is the numerical value put on that? So the more you're aware of the change, the transformation that happens when you work with people, the more confidently you will show up when it's time to sell. Okay? So it is important that you take inventories to say, what is the value? What is the value? Now you may say, oh, Dr. Una, but I just started my business, so I don't even know what the value is. What, what is the value based on what people in your industry have done, right? Because that's the value that you're going to trace until you have your own stories, okay? And if you've worked with anybody informally, so you didn't charge them, it doesn't mean that you didn't work with them. It's still. You see what I'm saying? It's still the same thing, is still the same value, even though you didn't charge them money. So if you worked with people informally or anything like that, you can still trace a value. Okay? So understanding your unique value, understanding the value of your service and product, that's number two. Number three, understanding the neutrality of money. Understanding the neutrality of money. Okay? So a lot of times when people want to sell, there is this underlying thing that selling is bad because I'm manipulating people and taking their money. Okay? If I'm a physician, I'm a 1% or 10% earner, and for me to want to make more money, that makes me greedy. If my heart is really to help people, which is what I want to do, I should be able to do it without the money. Okay? All right. So if we don't address that, that means subconsciously you think whenever there's an exchange and you acquire require money, you're doing something wrong. And if you think you're doing something wrong, then every time you show up, you will sabotage your sales. You will sabotage that ask. You will get there, and this may have happened to you where you're like, okay, this is how much I'm going to ask for. You get there and you just say something. You don't even make the offer because subconsciously, money is this bad thing. Now, if you are not driving, I really want you to take the dollar bill and I want you to look at it. It is a piece of paper. It is a piece of paper. Mercury paper with the dead man's face on is not good. It is not bad. It just is. Is a microphone good or bad? Right. Is it good or bad? It's not. It just is. I'm using it to record this podcast. So this is great. It's doing a good thing. Somebody else can use it to hurt somebody, right? And then it's used in a bad way. But the microphone itself is not good or bad. It's not good or bad, right? And so money is not good or bad, it just is. It takes the shape of the person using it. A car is a good or bad, it just is. It could take you to work, it could take you to vacation in Florida by the beach, could run over somebody. All depends on who's driving it. It's not good or bad, it just is. Okay? And so you want to explore what are the things that come out about money when it comes to selling? Because you want to put those thoughts on trial and say, have I believed something that is an error for so long that I've converted into an unshakable truth? Have I believed making more money is greedy? Have I been that person who says, all those rich people, right? When people say, oh, I built a seven figure business, does that upset you? Do you go like, wow, they've gone to the dark side. All they care about is the money. You want to examine that because you must understand the neutrality of money. Money is value. Exchange. You helped me. You extended and helped me. I'm extending and rewarding you and saying thank you. It is an exchange. That's all. Is the thank you note for a good job done. That is all. That is all. And you don't want to resist reality. We live in an economic world. When you deliver services, a payment is expected. Okay? You may say, oh, well, but what about the nonprofits? The nonprofits raise the money. There is still money involved. There is no such thing as services rendered and no payment given. If you didn't pay, somebody paid, but there was a payment, okay? So it is neutral. It is not bad. You are not greedy. We live in an economic world the same way. If you hand somebody something, the person will say thank you. In the business world, when you give somebody a service, they say thank you, but it's not with words, it's with dollar bills. Okay? So now what I want you to do is I want you to treat this like a workshop. Okay? So this is going to be one of those episodes. You're going to go back, you're going to listen to again. You're going to listen where you have, you have a notebook where you can start taking inventory and scribbling and thinking through things and all of that. Because the more you work this, the more confidently you sell. If you are a coach or you have an online course and things like that, you do want to be that, or you have a direct primary care practice. So your cash or concierge, you want to periodically come back and review this again, right? And so you set yourself up to show up even more confidently. If you're going to do a price increase, you want to come back and look at this again. And so you can do that new price more confidently, right? So I want you to do that and I want you to take inventory. What is unique about me? What's my unique value? What is the unique value of my service or unique value of my product? You want to take inventory of that. You want to take inventory of what are the thoughts I think about money that are not in line with money being neutral, right? Where have I made it a bad thing? Where have I made money? Be a bad thing? Where. What thought is triggering guilt about making money? What thought makes me think selling is bad? Take inventory. Put those thoughts on trial so you can start the process of dethroning them. Right? Because you believe a lie long enough, it becomes this unshakable truth, but it's a lie. Okay? So you want to do that because I want you to think about this. I want you to think about being so confident, right? Because we're confident in the services we create. We create this service. I know it can change people. But what if you also should show up confidently to sell it? That means you have a really great product and a great service, and a lot of people know about it, and it allows you to serve a lot of people and earn a lot. Like, how beautiful is that? Okay, so that's what is waiting on the other side of you doing this work. Do the inventory, okay? Do the inventory and start practicing. It will change your business. It will rock your world. Now, this is one of the things that is really complicated for the physicians, physician community, okay, As a whole, because it's not something, you know, we've been told, you know, oh, you don't want kickbacks, you don't want this and that, and those are. Those are good. I'm not coming against that. But it also put this whole thing about, you know, money and getting rewarded, like, is this bad thing. All of that. We need to get rid of all of that. Okay? All right, So I want you to do me a solid and share this episode with the physicians in your life. Okay? Entrepreneurs, the ones who are thinking about entrepreneurship. But I want you to share it because it would be. It could be the difference between a business they enjoy and that thrives and that helps a lot and earns a lot, and a business that's a complete drag. Complete drag. Okay, so you'll be changing some other doctor's life. So go change it. Go share this episode, and I will see you on the next episode of the entremdy podcast.
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