Interview with Dr. Angela Mulrooney – 342
In today's episode, Dr. Angela Mulrooney explains how to create your ideal life and shares her inspirational career journey.
Dr. Mulrooney's unique journey began as a gymnast turned dancer and choreographer while studying dentistry. She built a thriving practice following graduation. However, she developed an illness that made it impossible to practice. So she transitioned into coaching dentists, leveraging her experience to build a successful coaching company.
Our Show Sponsor
We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.
The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.
By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.
Clinical Practice: Make It Great or Move On
Recognize dysfunction, fix it, and protect yourself, or seek better opportunities
In only about one month from now, the second annual Nonclinical Summit will be starting. It’s not entirely nonclinical, however. Sure, we’ll be presenting topics related to fully nonclinical work, such as freelance Medical Legal Prelitigation Consulting, Expert Witness Consulting, and Medical Affairs Regulatory Consulting. But we’ll also have experts talking about whether it’s medicine you need to leave or your job or current boss. And we will discuss several types of clinical businesses that make you the boss, opt out of insurance participation, and build an asset that you can sell later.
If you’d like to learn more, check out the 2024 Nonclinical Career Summit, with a complete list of speakers, topics, and objectives for each presentation.
And just like last year, you can attend the live sessions for FREE, so block your calendar on April 16, 17, and 18 from 7 to 11 PM Eastern/4 to 8 PM Pacific.
Our Episode Sponsor
Dr. Debra Blaine is a physician like many of you, and her greatest challenge was fear. The whole concept of leaving clinical medicine was terrifying. But she is much happier now as a professional writer and a coach. Debra says, “It’s like someone turned the oxygen back on.”
If fear is part of your struggle, too, she would like to help you push through those emotional barriers to go after the life you really want. Click this link to schedule a free chat.
Or check out her website at allthingswriting.com/resilience-coaching.
From Dilapidated Practice to Referral-Based Success
Angela pursued her dental career dream by working primarily with children. She took over a rundown practice, revitalizing it over six months by implementing physical and aesthetic changes. And she converted from insurance-based to non-assignment services.
By investing in her skills, including IV sedation, full-mouth rehab, and implants, she transformed the practice into a referral-based success, targeting patients afraid of the dentist.
LinkedIn Mastery and Unleashing Influence
Recognizing the power of LinkedIn in reaching professionals, Dr. Mulrooney strategically utilized the platform to build her coaching businesses, rejecting conventional choices like Facebook and Instagram. Unleashing Influence, her coaching company, emerged from her experience coaching dentists.
Leveraging LinkedIn's Sales Navigator, she refined her approach to connecting with the right professionals. She guided them through a transformational process in her events, ultimately leading them to join her coaching programs. This approach has proven highly effective, resulting in significant success for her clients.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney's Advice to Create Your Ideal Life
If you have been plateauing for a while, you've got to decide if you want to stay plateauing or if you want to get out of your way.
Summary
Dr. Angela Mulrooney's career evolution serves as an inspiration for frustrated clinicians. To connect with her, reach out through her LinkedIn profile, where she actively engages. Additionally, search for her on popular social media platforms or visit her website Unleashing Influence for more information.
NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.
EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.
Links for Today's Episode:
- Unleashing Influence Program
- Dr. Angela Mulrooney's LinkedIn Page
- How to Start and Grow a Profitable Cash Based Medical Practice – 293
- Do You Want to Live Life and Practice Medicine on Your Own Terms? – 237
- How to Be a Successful Physician Entrepreneur – 123
- Top Five Start-Up Secrets for the Physician Entrepreneur – 087
- Entrepreneur and Business Owner – Interview with Dr. Mike Woo-Ming – 019
- 2024 Nonclinical Summit – 12 lectures & Attend for FREE
- Dr. Debra Blaine's Coaching Services
Download This Episode:
Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.
Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton
Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 342
Light Your Entrepreneurial Fire and Create Your Ideal Life
- Interview with Dr. Angela Mulrooney
John: For those entrepreneurs listening and watching today, I have a real treat for you. Our guest was working as a dentist and somehow her entrepreneurial side kicked in and she created a very successful referral-based dental clinic, and then later a professional dance company, and then a coaching company for dentists. And then this is morphed into what she's doing now, which we'll get into in today's interview. I'm very pleased to welcome Dr. Angela Mulrooney to the podcast. Hello, Angela. How are you?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Hi. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
John: And I appreciate you being here. Another healthcare professional who has veered off in a direction which I think my listeners would love to hear about. Like we usually do here, why don't you just start by telling us about your background, how you went from being a dentist to doing what you're doing today. You don't have to go into too much detail, but just an overview of what you've been up to the last decade or so.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. I originally was a dentist and I wanted to be a dentist since I was two. It was really a dream come true. And every day that I got going into practice it felt like I was just playing. Power tools and blood. Pretty cool. I did that for the first four and a half years. I worked as an associate, primarily working with children because I was so ridiculously shy. I couldn't look adults in the eye. I focused on kids because I could just tell them stories. And then I happened to run into one of my old bosses who was working in a locum for a 78-year-old dentist. And he was like "I really don't like doing this dentistry. Do you want to take a couple of days off my hands?" So I said, "Sure." That was on a Friday. By Sunday night he called me, he is like, "Ang, can you just take the whole thing? I really don't want to be practicing dentistry." I was like, "Okay."
I had no idea what I was getting into and walked into this practice. It was the most rundown, broken down practice I'd ever seen. The carpet was black because it had never been cleaned. Pretty gross. But every day I walked in there I just stopped and it turned into me going from always saying "I was never going to own a practice" because I was still a professional dancer at that point to me thinking, "Wow, there's potential in everything here. I think I can turn this place around."
I ended up going and seeing the 78-year-old dentist. He unfortunately was dying of bladder cancer and asked him if he was okay with me putting a bid on the practice. And it was funny because before he had always said there was no way he was going to sell it to a woman. He was very old school. And he had heard enough good things from the patients who had come to visit him like they were family. He was like, "Yeah, I would actually love for you to take over the practice." So I did.
And six months into owning it, I really scraped everything that was in there. Rebuilt the whole practice physically and aesthetically and also went from taking insurance to not taking insurance. I went from an assignment practice to a non-assignment practice and went and started investing in my skills to be able to serve.
What I saw was potential in the practice was these people who were terrified of the dentist because the old dude was pretty rough. I went and got my IV sedation. I did my full mouth rehab, implants, all these things. And that's how I created a referral based practice because most people do not want to work with patients who are afraid of the dentist because it takes a lot of time.
I had really a blue ocean market and started just sending out letters and referral pads. And every month on the week that the referral pads went out, we got a whole rush of referral of patients who either needed IV sedation or who were terrified of dentists.
So, that was awesome. I got the practice to the point that I wanted it to be at. And then I got injured out. I ended up with focal dystonia, which had been kicking in slowly over time. And then finally during the middle of a surgery, my hand completely stopped working. I couldn't pick up my drill. So, it was the last day I practiced dentistry, which was a really scary day. And so, that put me on a completely different path to start doing other things with my life.
John: All right. Did you say you were a professional dancer in there?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yes.
John: Explain a little bit about that. We got to know.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yeah. Actually, I was originally a gymnast as a kid and then when I went to university, the biggest social club was the University of Saskatchewan Ballroom Dancing Club. I was like, "Okay, well, that's where everyone else is so I'll go there." And the first year after I was in the club, they started asking me to teach. And I'm like, "No, no, I'm trying to get into dental school. Don't distract me." And then I got into dental school and I'm like "Please distract me, let me have a position." I started teaching and then I turned pro the day that I graduated dental school. And so, I had those two parallel careers. I would go into the studio at 05:00 or 06:00 in the morning, go and train until my shift started. And then when my shift was done, I would go back to the studio and teach. I had two careers going at the same time pretty much until I got injured.
John: Did that interfere then with the dance as well or did you end up teaching that later or at the same time? How did that fit in?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: With the dystonia, it affected styling because it was actually this very famous picture of me with my hands are supposed to be like this. So, it affected styling and sometimes control of my arm, but we just built choreography around it and got it. We just made it work.
John: Okay. Then what did you do after that? You got very entrepreneurial after all this happened from what I know. So, go on from there.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: After I got injured, everyone was telling me that you built this brand, you're known in the market, you're known to patients, you're known to the dentist to keep going with it. You can run this as a CEO and not practice clinical dentistry. I was like, "Okay, I guess I can do that." The unfortunate part was I had invested so much in my skills, I had to bring in four different associates part-time to try and cover off the skills that my patients were used to receiving. That was a bit of a headache. And after two and a half years, I'd been through the global financial crisis when I first bought the practice. And then I was in Calgary, which is an oil-based city. And the 2015 oil crash, the economy was dropping super fast. And I just was like "You know what? Every time I go into the practice my heart hurt because these people don't care as much about patients as I did." It didn't feel that way.
And so, I decided it was time to just pass the torch to someone else and start moving on with my life. I decided to sell the practice, I fire sold it, and passed it on to someone else. And honestly, the day that the deal went through, official ownership transferred, it was like this weight was lifted off me and I felt released to go and do new things. So, it was interesting how much that weighed on me trying to keep this thing alive that just wasn't a fit anymore.
John: Okay. Now I know ultimately you began at some point teaching other people how to become entrepreneurs and pursue their dreams. But take us through the way that developed or the steps to getting to that.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yeah. After I sold the practice, I took a year away from dentistry because everyone knew who I was and what had happened. And everyone that I met in the dental world was pity. And I didn't deal very well with pity. I was having enough problems just keeping it together. So, I stepped away, spent a year just building my professional dance company.
And in that time what happened was the pieces of "why" things had happened started to make sense. I was like, okay, I've been through some really strange things from the owner dying halfway through me buying the practice to getting sued by my team to worst case scenario of being injured out of my career. So, I decided to take all the lessons of what I've done and create my coaching company for dentists. And really what my goal was, it was to help them to build a brand but also find their passion in dentistry. Because a lot of dentists really don't like dentistry and they're doing things on a daily basis that they don't like. My goal was to help them to get passionate.
That went on for about two and a half years. And how I built that company was actually getting on LinkedIn, posting content, starting conversations. And in a year of putting effort into LinkedIn, I went from 200 to 12,000 industry followers.
John: Wow.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: And so, then people started to go, "How did you do that? And can you do that for me?" I started to take a few different colleagues' accounts and I said, "I don't promise anything. I don't know if what I did was a complete unicorn or if I can replicate this, but I will try." I started working on their accounts that I was actually able to replicate the results. So that's where unleashing influence, the original iteration of it was a social media agency for professionals.
And so, that came out of me building my business coaching company for dentists. And that became an official company on January 17th, 2020. March 17th, 2020, Canada got shut down and so exactly two months the day I had some big decisions to make because I had a couple of team members. I had three different companies. I had my dance company, the business coaching company, and the social media agency. And I told the people in the social media agency to buckle in, keep yourself healthy, get lots of sleep because we are going to take this to the moon. And by 10 months into the pandemic we had gone from two and a half full times to 14 full-time team members. So, it just took off.
The dental coaching company got shut down because dentistry got shut down. Dance company got shut down because we weren't allowed to be near each other. I definitely picked the right pony at that point. And then by the end of the year I was like, "I don't want to be in lockdown in snowbank anymore in Calgary." I made the decision that I was exiting Canada to go hang out in a tropical place for at least 12 months. I want to avoid snowflakes for 12 months. So, I bought a one-way flight to Nicaragua and arrived there on January 21st, 2021.
John: Wow. That's a lot. Now I could ask you a thousand questions, but I want to go back because your experience with dentists applies I think to physicians as well. And so, I'm just curious when that thing was working and you were going to even expand it, what were the things that dentists could do with their practices that were unique to each of them? In other words, it's like with physicians. We're cookie cutter. We are family medicine, we all do the same thing, we get bored, that gets tedious and so forth. But I can imagine there are things you can specialize in certain things or you can focus on certain things. So, just give me a glimpse of some of the things that you helped dentists do before we get into the rest of it.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: For sure. Well, what happens is we're trained in university to be generalists and you're not going to be good at everything. And so, if there's things on your schedule that make you go, "Ugh, do I have to do this today?" Or if there's a patient that you see that you feel that way about, why are you doing that to yourself?
John: Oh boy, I've had those feelings. Yeah.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yeah. Life is way too short. So, if you can be comfortable saying, "Okay, I no longer do root canals. Maybe I don't do surgery anymore, maybe I don't do kids." And focus in on the skills that you're actually talented at and passionate about. Yes, you're going to have to send some people out or you're going to have to bring an associate in to cover that stuff. But what's going to happen is you're going to get better, you're going to get more niched into your genius in that skill and you're going to be so much happier doing it and patients are going to feel that.
So, if you are not a good jack of all trades, which let's be honest, nobody is. If we can start getting away from that jack of all trades, they have to give us a jack of all trades education in university because they have to expose us to everything, but it doesn't mean we have to do everything forever. If you can hone it down to the things that you actually like doing and focus around that, you can build a practice, you can make money doing anything, let's be honest. But you have a professional degree, you have a designation that is recognized by the public. If you say you're a doctor, you say you're a dentist, people have the gist of what you're doing. It's pretty easy to market it and just focus on exactly what you like to do and then either fill in the gaps with an associate, as I said, or refer those patients out. But you can design a practice around anything that you want. There's no legalities about saying no to root canals, saying no to surgery, saying no to whatever you don't want to be doing.
John-: Yeah. I can imagine in the US where you'll say a family physician, you're on some kind of Medicare panel, you can't necessarily refuse. But if you say, "Look, okay, I'm just not going to do that anymore. I'm going to do this part of my practice. And if you don't like it, go somewhere else." That's fine. I've not really heard anyone really emphasize that aspect, but it sounds very effective. I appreciate that.
Okay, now jump forward. Basically you had started this agency, it was a social media type company. What does that really look like? I'm trying to imagine who were on that team, and maybe just explain a little more detail as to what that business looked like and was comprised of. It sounds interesting.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. There was 14 full-time creatives. I had everything from copywriters to graphic designers to people who were doing video editing for me. I had one manager in place. But yeah, pretty much it was almost 14 full-time creatives. And so, there was pods working on different clients. There was lots of little moving pieces in it. And I'll be honest, there's a reason I sold the agency. It's a lot to manage because there's so many moving pieces and you have to be relying on people to keep up. And I found I had to build a lot of redundancy in because at that time there was so much turmoil in the employment market as well. So, someone would get offered another job and they'd be like, "Okay, I'm moving over there." So then you're quickly replacing. We always had two of everything and a backup plan for that, which was really stressful, especially when there was a shift. So, I was losing a lot of sleep over my agency, which is why I ended up selling it.
John: Now, who are the clients? What type of people or companies were they?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Most of my clients were actually coaches, consultants, and speakers. Because what happened when we had the shutdown, all the events were gone. Their way of being able to go and hang out and have coffee with people or speak from the stage and get clients, all those in-person marketing tactics were off the table. And a lot of the speakers as well, and even the coaches, sitting in front of a camera and trying to be entertaining when you don't have a thousand people in the room who are giving you energy, there was people who were losing their career because they couldn't pull it together on camera.
A lot of them were coming to me to be training, "How do I use my hands? How do I use the space? How do I use the actual camera to be engaging so that I can get back on track?" Because the pandemic landing zeroed the field for speakers. These people who were famous for 30 years, who were amazing in a room were terrible on camera and they realized it very quickly. And so, they had to develop a new skill set. I acquired a lot of those coaching them on camera as well as building out their social media presence so they could go out and reach and hunt new people into their business.
John: All right. Very good. Now that brings us up to almost the present here, unleashing influence. Is that right?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yes.
John: Okay. Tell us about that in more detail and then I'll have some more questions about that.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. After moving to Nicaragua, I started to really realize I did not want to work hundred hours per week. That had been my norm for the past two or three years. And so, I started to realize, "Okay, this social media agency with all these team members is just not good for my health." I sold it to one of the team members and then I was like, "Hey, this coaching company for dentists, this is not really where my heart is." Because every time I walk into a practice and or talk to a practice that's not as passionate about dentistry as I am and I'm like "I want people to practice on my behalf because I couldn't anymore" it was like someone ripped a scab off my heart. So, I decided to sell that one as well and just go all in on what I did best, which was really cracking clients open, helping them to see their potential, see what they could be in the marketplace. And also helping them to really step into their genius and fully own that and be able to burn away everything that didn't belong.
So, that's what I hunkered down to. And for three months after I made that decision, there was money coming in after selling the other two companies, but it wasn't super confirming that I'd made the right decision. So, I was a little scared. And then about three months to the day after selling the last company I got a deposit from a client which was paying in full for my services. And it was more than I would've made full-time working as a dentist. I was like, "Okay, that's a sign. This is going to work." The ball is rolling so I let it keep rolling.
I let that develop out and because I changed what I was showing on LinkedIn, people started to contact me saying, "How can I work with you?" And suddenly my book of business increased and I was like, "Oh geez, if we keep going down this path, I'm going to be back to working a hundred hours a week, back to being addicted to be an entrepreneur." And that's not what I want.
So, I took a step back and looked at what I was doing and really I was saying the same thing multiple times a week. I had these really talented clients who were feeling very alone in their journey. When you step out of corporate and step into being an entrepreneur, people think you're insane because you've taken a massive risk, especially after you've had a 30, 40 year career and now you're like, "Yeah, I'm going to do what I want instead." They had a lot of misunderstanding from the community and they also had a bunch of genius.
I decided to have some hard conversations and say, "Okay, this one-on-one thing is not working and I want you to trust me to do this group coaching thing and let's just see what happens." And it was like magic. What used to take so many years to get people through, in 90 days, we could collapse two years' worth of work into 90 days and get the massive outcomes. So, that's what Unleashing Influence became, is a coaching company and that's what I do for a living now.
John: Awesome. I think the next part is going to sound to my listeners perhaps as an advertisement for you, but really I want to hear the cases. Give us specific examples of some of the success that your clients have had just because it's fascinating and we can learn from what they learned. So, just a few cases would be fantastic.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: One of my clients, she was former CIO of NASA.
John: That's a minor job. Yeah, right.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: After 40 years in the tech industry, she came to me and she's like, "Okay, I don't want this anymore, I want to pivot." And originally she thought she wanted to be a professional speaker and I'm like, "Well, let's have a conversation about professional speaking looks like." Because I had done that before the pandemic had hit. And so, after our conversation, she's like, "Okay, I want to do what you're doing." I'm like, "Okay, let's do that."
She went through the accelerator with the other people in the group and she was able to close $150,000 the first month of working out of the accelerator. She was able to pivot fast and get her programs up and running.
I'll give you a dental specific one. She was making good money but she was working all one-on-one. So, she could only take on 10 practices and she was also traveling to the practices. And we have taken all the travel off the table and made it all online because she was like, "I want to be able to be geographically free like you. Not necessarily traveling the world, but at least have some freedom to move around without being stuck. I have to go to this practice this week, I have to go to this practice this week."
We were able to redesign her program to 10 times her hourly rate and decrease how many hours she was working a week by a 10th. Then that freed her up to design a new program that allows her to keep condensing things and stay with the group programs and be able to move that into the future.
So, what I really like doing is helping people to get away from the one-on-one because if you've done any one-on-one, you go in with your idea and someone comes in with whatever happened that day and they're knocking you off.
John: I see.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Off your path. And you're like, "Okay shoot, we didn't stick to the curriculum." But with group, especially if you're doing a high caliber per group, and I recommend creating boutique groups, not your down sell of "Oh, I'll do one to a thousand." No, these are six people in your group and they start together and they finish together and they're going through a very specific curriculum and there's a very specific outcome that they are going to be achieving. People are so dedicated to that because no one wants to show up being the kid who's like, "Well, the dog ate my homework." They're all high caliber individuals. The dog didn't eat your homework, you just didn't do it. So, it's a very different approach versus one-on-one. And what I found is what I help people to do is some of the fluff that they were putting into their one-on-one coaching, we get rid of that. It's like, "What is the 5% that is creating 95% of outcomes?" That's all that goes in your program. So, that allows us to time collapse because they're not spending time on fluff and then the outcomes become huge.
John: Okay. I hear questions coming in right now. One of the question is going to be without going into too many specifics is what did the NASA person do in terms of just what was the general feel that they went in where they could generate that with just refocusing and reapplying some of the things that you've taught her?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: She stayed in the tech industry. As a woman in tech, she shouldn't have been able to achieve what she did achieve with being the gender that she was being in the generation that she was. She goes in and works with Fortune 500 companies and helps a cohort of women to be able to raise their hand be like, "Okay, here's the innovation I want to bring into this company. Here's what I want for it." They're helping to elevate the company and they're also helping to elevate their own status within the company because that's what she did her whole career. So, we just took what she naturally did. This is what I do with everyone is, "What do you naturally do? How can we take what's happening in your beautiful brain and turn it into a curriculum that we can teach other people how you naturally did that?"
John: One thing I would add to that, and it sounds like I'm maybe disagreeing with her, but actually if you're a minority, if you're gender is woman or whatever, anything that's different companies are looking for that.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: They are now. Yeah.
John: Don't let that hold you back. Let's boom, let's do it. All right. That's awesome. Okay, other examples? Have you worked with many clinicians as a background doing something like this, abandoning the old?
Dr. Angela 0Mulrooney: Yeah, I've worked with a few dental clinicians as well. Some of them are getting injured out and they're like, "I can see the end coming" which is nice if you can see the end coming. And some of them are just like, "I'm just done. I just want to move on to other things." And again, take what they naturally do that is so unnatural to everyone else and be able to teach them a process to get to the next level.
John: Okay. Now let me ask you, there was another question I had. I'm going to ask you about LinkedIn for sure.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. That's my favorite topic.
John: Yeah, that's what I thought. The groups, and I think you mentioned this on your website, but what you sounded like you were describing is what some people call a mastermind. It's like group coaching but you're all holding each other accountable. Is that a separate thing, the mastermind, or is that just basically part of this process?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: The first thing that they have to go through is the pivot accelerator. That gives them the foundation. I'm taking whatever they've got. If they already have one-on-one coaching or if they're coming from corporate and building out a new program, I do what's called a "crack you open" session. They always say that it's like "You took a look at my soul." And then you look at my experience, your expertise, passion, and then I package them and give them their brand in the marketplace. Then the accelerator is building out everything from building out their personal brand, learning how to be good on camera to create awesome content, building out their curriculum, learning how to actually sell themselves because selling for another company versus selling for themselves is a different story. And then also all the tech that they need behind it so that they can run a seven figure company with a part-time VA supported by a tech platform for it. That's the first level that they have to get through. And then once they graduate, then they can qualify to become part of the Badass Entrepreneurs Club, which is what we do to continue to become masterful at the program that they created while also scaling it to the next level.
John: Very nice. All right, we're going to get on LinkedIn, but why don't you go ahead and tell us your website URL so we at least have that now before the end of the episode.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. It's unleashinginfluence.com.
John: Okay. That's easy. Unleashing influence. Of course, that'll be in the show notes. Now tell me why do you like LinkedIn so much? It sounds like you use it a lot. And I don't know if you use it to find clients or to just promote yourself. Just tell me your LinkedIn story.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: LinkedIn is a beast. And a lot of professionals, including medical, dental, avoid LinkedIn. When I was first building my business coaching company for dentists, they're like, "You need to be on Facebook, you need to be on Instagram." I'm like, "My bet is on LinkedIn." Because no one else was using it. I was able to build a six figure company in six months just leveraging LinkedIn. And all I was doing was sending out messages, putting out content that was speaking to what I believed in and that got me clients. Then when I built the social media agency for professionals, LinkedIn again was our main tool. And I have dabbled with Facebook. I've tried Facebook ads. Meta has now eaten my lunch a few times without giving me a single client. $60,000, $70,000 worth of ads with no return. Yeah. I'm not a fan of Meta. But it's still a good platform, it's just not good for me and for the clients that I'm going after.
You have to really pick your platform based on what are you offering and who are your clients. There's tons of people who do well on Facebook. There's tons who do well on Instagram. For the clients that I work with, they're professionals speaking to professionals. That's why LinkedIn is so powerful. Yeah, that's how I built a social media agency. That is how I've built Unleashing Influence as it currently stands. All my clients come from LinkedIn.
John: Now, when you are using LinkedIn, I've never used an add-on software or tool for LinkedIn. You are just using basic LinkedIn, maybe Premier. How do you use LinkedIn and how do you reach people? Are you just one at a time reaching out?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: We use Sales Navigator. With all my clients we get really specific about what are the degrees that we should be going after. Sometimes it's gender specific. Some of my clients only work with men, women, some of them only work with men. And then it's also figuring out what year would they have likely have graduated to be a certain age. We comb through those details. Sometimes it's also specific to a part of the country. Sometimes it's specific to a part of the world. It depends on the time zones that they want to work in and whatnot.
But we do get very specific about those things because LinkedIn has taken away people's ability to spam and behave badly. Now you only get 20 new connections per day on average. And so, you want to be very careful with how you're spending those 20 connections, especially if you want to get profitable fast, you want to be getting in touch with the right people. The more drilled down you can get into that as to the things that I talked about, the better off you are. And then not only do you need to be finding the right people, you need to be sending the right message to them.
I always talk about being polarizing, and it's not to be a badass or anything like that. It's just to be like you either want people to be a "yes" or "no." Not a "maybe." Because you don't have time to be talking to people who are "no." The people who are "yes", that's what you want to figure out. And you want to slowly get them dialed down by having conversations with them, getting them into an event and then getting them onto a call to become part of your program. And the faster you can push people out who are not appropriate, the faster you're going to get the result.
And a lot of people, I'm going to refer to my nationality here, are very Canadian about this and they're like, "But I started a conversation so I have to finish it." And it's like, "Well, you don't actually." You can politely find your way out of it. And lots of people, they don't come back onto LinkedIn for like six months. The fact that you didn't respond to someone who was not appropriate to you, it's not going to be a big deal. No one's going to shoot you over that.
John: I like it. Good advice. What I noticed when I'm looking at your website, and I actually signed up for one of your courses, I think it was one of the intros, but I think you used that. So, explain how that works for those that might be the right process. You have something out there, you have a LinkedIn profile, maybe you're reaching out to people. I gather the thing you want to do is just get them into that first exposure to you at some level. So, just map that out for our listeners.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Right. After we found the right people, we're going to send a message, start a conversation, and then I take over the conversation until I get them to the point where I'm like, "Okay, this seems like the right fit of person." If they're like, "I really need to talk to you because I've shown them what I do", then I will get on a call with them. But I don't really want to close them on that first call because I want them to have time with me in the room. That's what my events are for. I do five day challenges and five hour intensivess. And what those are is me taking people through what it would be like to be in my classroom, and helping them to move into a transformation. Usually what I focus on is a mindset transformation. I'm going to give you technical things to do as well, but the biggest shift is getting out of your own way. And we talk a lot about burning things away, which is usually what's holding people back. Because they're like, "Oh, but I've always done this" and so I need to keep doing it. They carry all this garbage with them and they keep redoing the things that aren't actually making a difference. So it's like how do we pair this down to the 5% that's giving you 95% results.
And so, when people experience that, they're either a "yes" or a "no" for actually becoming part of my program, which makes it easy for me. And I'm also a "yes" or a "no" for them being part of my program because I'm seeing how do they behave in the room? Do they play well with others? Are they willing to be vulnerable? Because I ask some pretty hard questions in it. So, I want to make sure that they are actually going to be willing to be truthful, not posture about what is actually happening in their life.
And also are they responsive to inputs? If they're like, "Oh no, no, no, I already knew that", they're not really likely to be coachable. That's going to make it not very fun when they're in my accelerator, or intensely trying to get through things, resistance is not great. For people who are resistant, I'll recommend that they do the Unleash Your Badass Self Profitability, it's a 30 day mindset program, and to see how they come out on the other side of that. Because it really makes it clear what your programs are, what your resistance is, what has been holding you back. But yeah, it gives people, for my clients to use it as well because of the same reasons. You get to see who's in the room, you get to see how they act, you get to see if you're a good chemistry together or not and decide whether you want them in your program.
John: Interesting. Yeah. It reminds me of someone I heard say when asked the question of whether they're interested in something. If it's not a "hell yes", then it should be a "no." That's the old adage. Okay, we are actually out of time. We went over a little bit, not a big deal, but we are going to have to wrap up. Actually, if you want to tell us anything more about what you do and convince some of the listeners to get off their something and take action, I'll give you a couple minutes to do that and then we'll wrap up.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. My suggestion is if you have been plateauing for a while, you've got to decide if you want to stay plateauing or if you want to get out of your way. And if you come to one of the events, either the five day intensive or five day challenge or five hour intensive, you are going to see things about yourself that you can't unsee that are going to propel you forward. It will make you break through your plateau. It's really hard to go back to what you were before the event started. So, if you are feeling stuck and you're looking for possibilities and want to get some ideas, I highly recommend that you attend one of those.
John: And that would apply to even someone who's maybe unhappy in their clinical situation now, but still wants to see patients somehow, but just needs to have a breakthrough or something that would apply to them as well. Correct?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Absolutely. Absolutely.
John: Okay, good. Because I tend to get focused on taking people out of practice and move them into utilization management or this or that or starting some kind of company. But there's really no reason why they can't apply these principles to what you're doing now and just make it like you said, something that you love to do and get rid of all the stuff you hate. Okay. Again, how's the best way to get ahold of you?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: The best way to get ahold of me is on LinkedIn. My profile is Dr. Dr. Angela Mulrooney.
John: Okay. That's easy to find and I'll put that in the show notes. We've got your website, unleashinginfluence.com, which I'll put in the show notes as well. We've learned a lot here in the last 30 minutes. This has been fantastic, Angela. I really thank you for taking time on your world travels. We didn't tell the listeners when we started, where are you right now?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: I'm currently in Paris and in two days I will be moving to Greece.
John: Paris, Illinois. No, I don't think so. Paris, France, and going to Greece next. Oh, that is awesome. And I guess you are working obviously.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yeah.
John: All right, with that Angela, don't hang up on me, but we're going to say goodbye for the podcast. I really appreciate you coming here and I hope to talk to you again soon.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Perfect.
John: All right, bye-bye.
Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!
Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.
Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 342
Light Your Entrepreneurial Fire and Create Your Ideal Life
- Interview with Dr. Angela Mulrooney
John: For those entrepreneurs listening and watching today, I have a real treat for you. Our guest was working as a dentist and somehow her entrepreneurial side kicked in and she created a very successful referral-based dental clinic, and then later a professional dance company, and then a coaching company for dentists. And then this is morphed into what she's doing now, which we'll get into in today's interview. I'm very pleased to welcome Dr. Angela Mulrooney to the podcast. Hello, Angela. How are you?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Hi. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
John: And I appreciate you being here. Another healthcare professional who has veered off in a direction which I think my listeners would love to hear about. Like we usually do here, why don't you just start by telling us about your background, how you went from being a dentist to doing what you're doing today. You don't have to go into too much detail, but just an overview of what you've been up to the last decade or so.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. I originally was a dentist and I wanted to be a dentist since I was two. It was really a dream come true. And every day that I got going into practice it felt like I was just playing. Power tools and blood. Pretty cool. I did that for the first four and a half years. I worked as an associate, primarily working with children because I was so ridiculously shy. I couldn't look adults in the eye. I focused on kids because I could just tell them stories. And then I happened to run into one of my old bosses who was working in a locum for a 78-year-old dentist. And he was like "I really don't like doing this dentistry. Do you want to take a couple of days off my hands?" So I said, "Sure." That was on a Friday. By Sunday night he called me, he is like, "Ang, can you just take the whole thing? I really don't want to be practicing dentistry." I was like, "Okay."
I had no idea what I was getting into and walked into this practice. It was the most rundown, broken down practice I'd ever seen. The carpet was black because it had never been cleaned. Pretty gross. But every day I walked in there I just stopped and it turned into me going from always saying "I was never going to own a practice" because I was still a professional dancer at that point to me thinking, "Wow, there's potential in everything here. I think I can turn this place around."
I ended up going and seeing the 78-year-old dentist. He unfortunately was dying of bladder cancer and asked him if he was okay with me putting a bid on the practice. And it was funny because before he had always said there was no way he was going to sell it to a woman. He was very old school. And he had heard enough good things from the patients who had come to visit him like they were family. He was like, "Yeah, I would actually love for you to take over the practice." So I did.
And six months into owning it, I really scraped everything that was in there. Rebuilt the whole practice physically and aesthetically and also went from taking insurance to not taking insurance. I went from an assignment practice to a non-assignment practice and went and started investing in my skills to be able to serve.
What I saw was potential in the practice was these people who were terrified of the dentist because the old dude was pretty rough. I went and got my IV sedation. I did my full mouth rehab, implants, all these things. And that's how I created a referral based practice because most people do not want to work with patients who are afraid of the dentist because it takes a lot of time.
I had really a blue ocean market and started just sending out letters and referral pads. And every month on the week that the referral pads went out, we got a whole rush of referral of patients who either needed IV sedation or who were terrified of dentists.
So, that was awesome. I got the practice to the point that I wanted it to be at. And then I got injured out. I ended up with focal dystonia, which had been kicking in slowly over time. And then finally during the middle of a surgery, my hand completely stopped working. I couldn't pick up my drill. So, it was the last day I practiced dentistry, which was a really scary day. And so, that put me on a completely different path to start doing other things with my life.
John: All right. Did you say you were a professional dancer in there?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yes.
John: Explain a little bit about that. We got to know.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yeah. Actually, I was originally a gymnast as a kid and then when I went to university, the biggest social club was the University of Saskatchewan Ballroom Dancing Club. I was like, "Okay, well, that's where everyone else is so I'll go there." And the first year after I was in the club, they started asking me to teach. And I'm like, "No, no, I'm trying to get into dental school. Don't distract me." And then I got into dental school and I'm like "Please distract me, let me have a position." I started teaching and then I turned pro the day that I graduated dental school. And so, I had those two parallel careers. I would go into the studio at 05:00 or 06:00 in the morning, go and train until my shift started. And then when my shift was done, I would go back to the studio and teach. I had two careers going at the same time pretty much until I got injured.
John: Did that interfere then with the dance as well or did you end up teaching that later or at the same time? How did that fit in?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: With the dystonia, it affected styling because it was actually this very famous picture of me with my hands are supposed to be like this. So, it affected styling and sometimes control of my arm, but we just built choreography around it and got it. We just made it work.
John: Okay. Then what did you do after that? You got very entrepreneurial after all this happened from what I know. So, go on from there.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: After I got injured, everyone was telling me that you built this brand, you're known in the market, you're known to patients, you're known to the dentist to keep going with it. You can run this as a CEO and not practice clinical dentistry. I was like, "Okay, I guess I can do that." The unfortunate part was I had invested so much in my skills, I had to bring in four different associates part-time to try and cover off the skills that my patients were used to receiving. That was a bit of a headache. And after two and a half years, I'd been through the global financial crisis when I first bought the practice. And then I was in Calgary, which is an oil-based city. And the 2015 oil crash, the economy was dropping super fast. And I just was like "You know what? Every time I go into the practice my heart hurt because these people don't care as much about patients as I did." It didn't feel that way.
And so, I decided it was time to just pass the torch to someone else and start moving on with my life. I decided to sell the practice, I fire sold it, and passed it on to someone else. And honestly, the day that the deal went through, official ownership transferred, it was like this weight was lifted off me and I felt released to go and do new things. So, it was interesting how much that weighed on me trying to keep this thing alive that just wasn't a fit anymore.
John: Okay. Now I know ultimately you began at some point teaching other people how to become entrepreneurs and pursue their dreams. But take us through the way that developed or the steps to getting to that.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yeah. After I sold the practice, I took a year away from dentistry because everyone knew who I was and what had happened. And everyone that I met in the dental world was pity. And I didn't deal very well with pity. I was having enough problems just keeping it together. So, I stepped away, spent a year just building my professional dance company.
And in that time what happened was the pieces of "why" things had happened started to make sense. I was like, okay, I've been through some really strange things from the owner dying halfway through me buying the practice to getting sued by my team to worst case scenario of being injured out of my career. So, I decided to take all the lessons of what I've done and create my coaching company for dentists. And really what my goal was, it was to help them to build a brand but also find their passion in dentistry. Because a lot of dentists really don't like dentistry and they're doing things on a daily basis that they don't like. My goal was to help them to get passionate.
That went on for about two and a half years. And how I built that company was actually getting on LinkedIn, posting content, starting conversations. And in a year of putting effort into LinkedIn, I went from 200 to 12,000 industry followers.
John: Wow.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: And so, then people started to go, "How did you do that? And can you do that for me?" I started to take a few different colleagues' accounts and I said, "I don't promise anything. I don't know if what I did was a complete unicorn or if I can replicate this, but I will try." I started working on their accounts that I was actually able to replicate the results. So that's where unleashing influence, the original iteration of it was a social media agency for professionals.
And so, that came out of me building my business coaching company for dentists. And that became an official company on January 17th, 2020. March 17th, 2020, Canada got shut down and so exactly two months the day I had some big decisions to make because I had a couple of team members. I had three different companies. I had my dance company, the business coaching company, and the social media agency. And I told the people in the social media agency to buckle in, keep yourself healthy, get lots of sleep because we are going to take this to the moon. And by 10 months into the pandemic we had gone from two and a half full times to 14 full-time team members. So, it just took off.
The dental coaching company got shut down because dentistry got shut down. Dance company got shut down because we weren't allowed to be near each other. I definitely picked the right pony at that point. And then by the end of the year I was like, "I don't want to be in lockdown in snowbank anymore in Calgary." I made the decision that I was exiting Canada to go hang out in a tropical place for at least 12 months. I want to avoid snowflakes for 12 months. So, I bought a one-way flight to Nicaragua and arrived there on January 21st, 2021.
John: Wow. That's a lot. Now I could ask you a thousand questions, but I want to go back because your experience with dentists applies I think to physicians as well. And so, I'm just curious when that thing was working and you were going to even expand it, what were the things that dentists could do with their practices that were unique to each of them? In other words, it's like with physicians. We're cookie cutter. We are family medicine, we all do the same thing, we get bored, that gets tedious and so forth. But I can imagine there are things you can specialize in certain things or you can focus on certain things. So, just give me a glimpse of some of the things that you helped dentists do before we get into the rest of it.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: For sure. Well, what happens is we're trained in university to be generalists and you're not going to be good at everything. And so, if there's things on your schedule that make you go, "Ugh, do I have to do this today?" Or if there's a patient that you see that you feel that way about, why are you doing that to yourself?
John: Oh boy, I've had those feelings. Yeah.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yeah. Life is way too short. So, if you can be comfortable saying, "Okay, I no longer do root canals. Maybe I don't do surgery anymore, maybe I don't do kids." And focus in on the skills that you're actually talented at and passionate about. Yes, you're going to have to send some people out or you're going to have to bring an associate in to cover that stuff. But what's going to happen is you're going to get better, you're going to get more niched into your genius in that skill and you're going to be so much happier doing it and patients are going to feel that.
So, if you are not a good jack of all trades, which let's be honest, nobody is. If we can start getting away from that jack of all trades, they have to give us a jack of all trades education in university because they have to expose us to everything, but it doesn't mean we have to do everything forever. If you can hone it down to the things that you actually like doing and focus around that, you can build a practice, you can make money doing anything, let's be honest. But you have a professional degree, you have a designation that is recognized by the public. If you say you're a doctor, you say you're a dentist, people have the gist of what you're doing. It's pretty easy to market it and just focus on exactly what you like to do and then either fill in the gaps with an associate, as I said, or refer those patients out. But you can design a practice around anything that you want. There's no legalities about saying no to root canals, saying no to surgery, saying no to whatever you don't want to be doing.
John-: Yeah. I can imagine in the US where you'll say a family physician, you're on some kind of Medicare panel, you can't necessarily refuse. But if you say, "Look, okay, I'm just not going to do that anymore. I'm going to do this part of my practice. And if you don't like it, go somewhere else." That's fine. I've not really heard anyone really emphasize that aspect, but it sounds very effective. I appreciate that.
Okay, now jump forward. Basically you had started this agency, it was a social media type company. What does that really look like? I'm trying to imagine who were on that team, and maybe just explain a little more detail as to what that business looked like and was comprised of. It sounds interesting.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. There was 14 full-time creatives. I had everything from copywriters to graphic designers to people who were doing video editing for me. I had one manager in place. But yeah, pretty much it was almost 14 full-time creatives. And so, there was pods working on different clients. There was lots of little moving pieces in it. And I'll be honest, there's a reason I sold the agency. It's a lot to manage because there's so many moving pieces and you have to be relying on people to keep up. And I found I had to build a lot of redundancy in because at that time there was so much turmoil in the employment market as well. So, someone would get offered another job and they'd be like, "Okay, I'm moving over there." So then you're quickly replacing. We always had two of everything and a backup plan for that, which was really stressful, especially when there was a shift. So, I was losing a lot of sleep over my agency, which is why I ended up selling it.
John: Now, who are the clients? What type of people or companies were they?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Most of my clients were actually coaches, consultants, and speakers. Because what happened when we had the shutdown, all the events were gone. Their way of being able to go and hang out and have coffee with people or speak from the stage and get clients, all those in-person marketing tactics were off the table. And a lot of the speakers as well, and even the coaches, sitting in front of a camera and trying to be entertaining when you don't have a thousand people in the room who are giving you energy, there was people who were losing their career because they couldn't pull it together on camera.
A lot of them were coming to me to be training, "How do I use my hands? How do I use the space? How do I use the actual camera to be engaging so that I can get back on track?" Because the pandemic landing zeroed the field for speakers. These people who were famous for 30 years, who were amazing in a room were terrible on camera and they realized it very quickly. And so, they had to develop a new skill set. I acquired a lot of those coaching them on camera as well as building out their social media presence so they could go out and reach and hunt new people into their business.
John: All right. Very good. Now that brings us up to almost the present here, unleashing influence. Is that right?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yes.
John: Okay. Tell us about that in more detail and then I'll have some more questions about that.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. After moving to Nicaragua, I started to really realize I did not want to work hundred hours per week. That had been my norm for the past two or three years. And so, I started to realize, "Okay, this social media agency with all these team members is just not good for my health." I sold it to one of the team members and then I was like, "Hey, this coaching company for dentists, this is not really where my heart is." Because every time I walk into a practice and or talk to a practice that's not as passionate about dentistry as I am and I'm like "I want people to practice on my behalf because I couldn't anymore" it was like someone ripped a scab off my heart. So, I decided to sell that one as well and just go all in on what I did best, which was really cracking clients open, helping them to see their potential, see what they could be in the marketplace. And also helping them to really step into their genius and fully own that and be able to burn away everything that didn't belong.
So, that's what I hunkered down to. And for three months after I made that decision, there was money coming in after selling the other two companies, but it wasn't super confirming that I'd made the right decision. So, I was a little scared. And then about three months to the day after selling the last company I got a deposit from a client which was paying in full for my services. And it was more than I would've made full-time working as a dentist. I was like, "Okay, that's a sign. This is going to work." The ball is rolling so I let it keep rolling.
I let that develop out and because I changed what I was showing on LinkedIn, people started to contact me saying, "How can I work with you?" And suddenly my book of business increased and I was like, "Oh geez, if we keep going down this path, I'm going to be back to working a hundred hours a week, back to being addicted to be an entrepreneur." And that's not what I want.
So, I took a step back and looked at what I was doing and really I was saying the same thing multiple times a week. I had these really talented clients who were feeling very alone in their journey. When you step out of corporate and step into being an entrepreneur, people think you're insane because you've taken a massive risk, especially after you've had a 30, 40 year career and now you're like, "Yeah, I'm going to do what I want instead." They had a lot of misunderstanding from the community and they also had a bunch of genius.
I decided to have some hard conversations and say, "Okay, this one-on-one thing is not working and I want you to trust me to do this group coaching thing and let's just see what happens." And it was like magic. What used to take so many years to get people through, in 90 days, we could collapse two years' worth of work into 90 days and get the massive outcomes. So, that's what Unleashing Influence became, is a coaching company and that's what I do for a living now.
John: Awesome. I think the next part is going to sound to my listeners perhaps as an advertisement for you, but really I want to hear the cases. Give us specific examples of some of the success that your clients have had just because it's fascinating and we can learn from what they learned. So, just a few cases would be fantastic.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: One of my clients, she was former CIO of NASA.
John: That's a minor job. Yeah, right.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: After 40 years in the tech industry, she came to me and she's like, "Okay, I don't want this anymore, I want to pivot." And originally she thought she wanted to be a professional speaker and I'm like, "Well, let's have a conversation about professional speaking looks like." Because I had done that before the pandemic had hit. And so, after our conversation, she's like, "Okay, I want to do what you're doing." I'm like, "Okay, let's do that."
She went through the accelerator with the other people in the group and she was able to close $150,000 the first month of working out of the accelerator. She was able to pivot fast and get her programs up and running.
I'll give you a dental specific one. She was making good money but she was working all one-on-one. So, she could only take on 10 practices and she was also traveling to the practices. And we have taken all the travel off the table and made it all online because she was like, "I want to be able to be geographically free like you. Not necessarily traveling the world, but at least have some freedom to move around without being stuck. I have to go to this practice this week, I have to go to this practice this week."
We were able to redesign her program to 10 times her hourly rate and decrease how many hours she was working a week by a 10th. Then that freed her up to design a new program that allows her to keep condensing things and stay with the group programs and be able to move that into the future.
So, what I really like doing is helping people to get away from the one-on-one because if you've done any one-on-one, you go in with your idea and someone comes in with whatever happened that day and they're knocking you off.
John: I see.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Off your path. And you're like, "Okay shoot, we didn't stick to the curriculum." But with group, especially if you're doing a high caliber per group, and I recommend creating boutique groups, not your down sell of "Oh, I'll do one to a thousand." No, these are six people in your group and they start together and they finish together and they're going through a very specific curriculum and there's a very specific outcome that they are going to be achieving. People are so dedicated to that because no one wants to show up being the kid who's like, "Well, the dog ate my homework." They're all high caliber individuals. The dog didn't eat your homework, you just didn't do it. So, it's a very different approach versus one-on-one. And what I found is what I help people to do is some of the fluff that they were putting into their one-on-one coaching, we get rid of that. It's like, "What is the 5% that is creating 95% of outcomes?" That's all that goes in your program. So, that allows us to time collapse because they're not spending time on fluff and then the outcomes become huge.
John: Okay. I hear questions coming in right now. One of the question is going to be without going into too many specifics is what did the NASA person do in terms of just what was the general feel that they went in where they could generate that with just refocusing and reapplying some of the things that you've taught her?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: She stayed in the tech industry. As a woman in tech, she shouldn't have been able to achieve what she did achieve with being the gender that she was being in the generation that she was. She goes in and works with Fortune 500 companies and helps a cohort of women to be able to raise their hand be like, "Okay, here's the innovation I want to bring into this company. Here's what I want for it." They're helping to elevate the company and they're also helping to elevate their own status within the company because that's what she did her whole career. So, we just took what she naturally did. This is what I do with everyone is, "What do you naturally do? How can we take what's happening in your beautiful brain and turn it into a curriculum that we can teach other people how you naturally did that?"
John: One thing I would add to that, and it sounds like I'm maybe disagreeing with her, but actually if you're a minority, if you're gender is woman or whatever, anything that's different companies are looking for that.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: They are now. Yeah.
John: Don't let that hold you back. Let's boom, let's do it. All right. That's awesome. Okay, other examples? Have you worked with many clinicians as a background doing something like this, abandoning the old?
Dr. Angela 0Mulrooney: Yeah, I've worked with a few dental clinicians as well. Some of them are getting injured out and they're like, "I can see the end coming" which is nice if you can see the end coming. And some of them are just like, "I'm just done. I just want to move on to other things." And again, take what they naturally do that is so unnatural to everyone else and be able to teach them a process to get to the next level.
John: Okay. Now let me ask you, there was another question I had. I'm going to ask you about LinkedIn for sure.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. That's my favorite topic.
John: Yeah, that's what I thought. The groups, and I think you mentioned this on your website, but what you sounded like you were describing is what some people call a mastermind. It's like group coaching but you're all holding each other accountable. Is that a separate thing, the mastermind, or is that just basically part of this process?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: The first thing that they have to go through is the pivot accelerator. That gives them the foundation. I'm taking whatever they've got. If they already have one-on-one coaching or if they're coming from corporate and building out a new program, I do what's called a "crack you open" session. They always say that it's like "You took a look at my soul." And then you look at my experience, your expertise, passion, and then I package them and give them their brand in the marketplace. Then the accelerator is building out everything from building out their personal brand, learning how to be good on camera to create awesome content, building out their curriculum, learning how to actually sell themselves because selling for another company versus selling for themselves is a different story. And then also all the tech that they need behind it so that they can run a seven figure company with a part-time VA supported by a tech platform for it. That's the first level that they have to get through. And then once they graduate, then they can qualify to become part of the Badass Entrepreneurs Club, which is what we do to continue to become masterful at the program that they created while also scaling it to the next level.
John: Very nice. All right, we're going to get on LinkedIn, but why don't you go ahead and tell us your website URL so we at least have that now before the end of the episode.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. It's unleashinginfluence.com.
John: Okay. That's easy. Unleashing influence. Of course, that'll be in the show notes. Now tell me why do you like LinkedIn so much? It sounds like you use it a lot. And I don't know if you use it to find clients or to just promote yourself. Just tell me your LinkedIn story.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: LinkedIn is a beast. And a lot of professionals, including medical, dental, avoid LinkedIn. When I was first building my business coaching company for dentists, they're like, "You need to be on Facebook, you need to be on Instagram." I'm like, "My bet is on LinkedIn." Because no one else was using it. I was able to build a six figure company in six months just leveraging LinkedIn. And all I was doing was sending out messages, putting out content that was speaking to what I believed in and that got me clients. Then when I built the social media agency for professionals, LinkedIn again was our main tool. And I have dabbled with Facebook. I've tried Facebook ads. Meta has now eaten my lunch a few times without giving me a single client. $60,000, $70,000 worth of ads with no return. Yeah. I'm not a fan of Meta. But it's still a good platform, it's just not good for me and for the clients that I'm going after.
You have to really pick your platform based on what are you offering and who are your clients. There's tons of people who do well on Facebook. There's tons who do well on Instagram. For the clients that I work with, they're professionals speaking to professionals. That's why LinkedIn is so powerful. Yeah, that's how I built a social media agency. That is how I've built Unleashing Influence as it currently stands. All my clients come from LinkedIn.
John: Now, when you are using LinkedIn, I've never used an add-on software or tool for LinkedIn. You are just using basic LinkedIn, maybe Premier. How do you use LinkedIn and how do you reach people? Are you just one at a time reaching out?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: We use Sales Navigator. With all my clients we get really specific about what are the degrees that we should be going after. Sometimes it's gender specific. Some of my clients only work with men, women, some of them only work with men. And then it's also figuring out what year would they have likely have graduated to be a certain age. We comb through those details. Sometimes it's also specific to a part of the country. Sometimes it's specific to a part of the world. It depends on the time zones that they want to work in and whatnot.
But we do get very specific about those things because LinkedIn has taken away people's ability to spam and behave badly. Now you only get 20 new connections per day on average. And so, you want to be very careful with how you're spending those 20 connections, especially if you want to get profitable fast, you want to be getting in touch with the right people. The more drilled down you can get into that as to the things that I talked about, the better off you are. And then not only do you need to be finding the right people, you need to be sending the right message to them.
I always talk about being polarizing, and it's not to be a badass or anything like that. It's just to be like you either want people to be a "yes" or "no." Not a "maybe." Because you don't have time to be talking to people who are "no." The people who are "yes", that's what you want to figure out. And you want to slowly get them dialed down by having conversations with them, getting them into an event and then getting them onto a call to become part of your program. And the faster you can push people out who are not appropriate, the faster you're going to get the result.
And a lot of people, I'm going to refer to my nationality here, are very Canadian about this and they're like, "But I started a conversation so I have to finish it." And it's like, "Well, you don't actually." You can politely find your way out of it. And lots of people, they don't come back onto LinkedIn for like six months. The fact that you didn't respond to someone who was not appropriate to you, it's not going to be a big deal. No one's going to shoot you over that.
John: I like it. Good advice. What I noticed when I'm looking at your website, and I actually signed up for one of your courses, I think it was one of the intros, but I think you used that. So, explain how that works for those that might be the right process. You have something out there, you have a LinkedIn profile, maybe you're reaching out to people. I gather the thing you want to do is just get them into that first exposure to you at some level. So, just map that out for our listeners.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Right. After we found the right people, we're going to send a message, start a conversation, and then I take over the conversation until I get them to the point where I'm like, "Okay, this seems like the right fit of person." If they're like, "I really need to talk to you because I've shown them what I do", then I will get on a call with them. But I don't really want to close them on that first call because I want them to have time with me in the room. That's what my events are for. I do five day challenges and five hour intensivess. And what those are is me taking people through what it would be like to be in my classroom, and helping them to move into a transformation. Usually what I focus on is a mindset transformation. I'm going to give you technical things to do as well, but the biggest shift is getting out of your own way. And we talk a lot about burning things away, which is usually what's holding people back. Because they're like, "Oh, but I've always done this" and so I need to keep doing it. They carry all this garbage with them and they keep redoing the things that aren't actually making a difference. So it's like how do we pair this down to the 5% that's giving you 95% results.
And so, when people experience that, they're either a "yes" or a "no" for actually becoming part of my program, which makes it easy for me. And I'm also a "yes" or a "no" for them being part of my program because I'm seeing how do they behave in the room? Do they play well with others? Are they willing to be vulnerable? Because I ask some pretty hard questions in it. So, I want to make sure that they are actually going to be willing to be truthful, not posture about what is actually happening in their life.
And also are they responsive to inputs? If they're like, "Oh no, no, no, I already knew that", they're not really likely to be coachable. That's going to make it not very fun when they're in my accelerator, or intensely trying to get through things, resistance is not great. For people who are resistant, I'll recommend that they do the Unleash Your Badass Self Profitability, it's a 30 day mindset program, and to see how they come out on the other side of that. Because it really makes it clear what your programs are, what your resistance is, what has been holding you back. But yeah, it gives people, for my clients to use it as well because of the same reasons. You get to see who's in the room, you get to see how they act, you get to see if you're a good chemistry together or not and decide whether you want them in your program.
John: Interesting. Yeah. It reminds me of someone I heard say when asked the question of whether they're interested in something. If it's not a "hell yes", then it should be a "no." That's the old adage. Okay, we are actually out of time. We went over a little bit, not a big deal, but we are going to have to wrap up. Actually, if you want to tell us anything more about what you do and convince some of the listeners to get off their something and take action, I'll give you a couple minutes to do that and then we'll wrap up.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Sure. My suggestion is if you have been plateauing for a while, you've got to decide if you want to stay plateauing or if you want to get out of your way. And if you come to one of the events, either the five day intensive or five day challenge or five hour intensive, you are going to see things about yourself that you can't unsee that are going to propel you forward. It will make you break through your plateau. It's really hard to go back to what you were before the event started. So, if you are feeling stuck and you're looking for possibilities and want to get some ideas, I highly recommend that you attend one of those.
John: And that would apply to even someone who's maybe unhappy in their clinical situation now, but still wants to see patients somehow, but just needs to have a breakthrough or something that would apply to them as well. Correct?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Absolutely. Absolutely.
John: Okay, good. Because I tend to get focused on taking people out of practice and move them into utilization management or this or that or starting some kind of company. But there's really no reason why they can't apply these principles to what you're doing now and just make it like you said, something that you love to do and get rid of all the stuff you hate. Okay. Again, how's the best way to get ahold of you?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: The best way to get ahold of me is on LinkedIn. My profile is Dr. Dr. Angela Mulrooney.
John: Okay. That's easy to find and I'll put that in the show notes. We've got your website, unleashinginfluence.com, which I'll put in the show notes as well. We've learned a lot here in the last 30 minutes. This has been fantastic, Angela. I really thank you for taking time on your world travels. We didn't tell the listeners when we started, where are you right now?
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: I'm currently in Paris and in two days I will be moving to Greece.
John: Paris, Illinois. No, I don't think so. Paris, France, and going to Greece next. Oh, that is awesome. And I guess you are working obviously.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Yeah.
John: All right, with that Angela, don't hang up on me, but we're going to say goodbye for the podcast. I really appreciate you coming here and I hope to talk to you again soon.
Dr. Angela Mulrooney: Perfect.
John: All right, bye-bye.
Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!
Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.
Disclaimers:
Many of the links that I refer you to are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so does not affect the price you are charged. I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.
The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career.
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.