Interview with Dr. Nicole Rochester – 385
In this podcast episode, John interviews the founder of a fantastic B2B Business. Dr. Nicole Rochester returns to the podcast 5 years after her initial appearance in Episode 127 in 2020.
Starting as a pediatrician who launched Your GPS Doc, LLC in 2017 to help patients navigate the healthcare system, Dr. Rochester has expanded her business to include consulting for major healthcare organizations, speaking engagements, and coaching other physicians to start health advocacy practices.
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Building a Career with a Fantastic B2B Business
Nicole's journey from clinical medicine to entrepreneurship demonstrates how physicians can leverage their expertise to create multiple revenue streams while making a significant impact. Dr. Rochester's business evolution exemplifies organic growth through network building and opportunity recognition.
Starting with board participation and speaking engagements about health disparities, she expanded into consulting for healthcare organizations and hospitals. By accepting new challenges and learning as she went – from creating scopes of work to determining consulting rates – she built a successful B2B practice.
Her approach emphasizes the importance of valuing one's expertise appropriately, with payment rates for consulting that significantly exceed clinical hourly rates.
Expanding Revenue Streams
Beyond consulting, Dr. Rochester has developed additional business streams, including coaching other physicians to start their own health advocacy businesses. Her eight-week program helps doctors leverage their medical expertise in the growing field of patient advocacy.
She emphasizes the importance of mindset work for physicians transitioning to entrepreneurship, noting that doctors often underestimate their ability to run successful businesses despite their significant accomplishments in medicine.
Her approach combines practical business guidance with strategies to overcome imposter syndrome and build confidence in their nonclinical roles.
Summary
Physicians interested in exploring health advocacy or healthcare consulting can connect with Nicole through her website or by scheduling a discovery call to learn about her coaching program.
Her journey demonstrates how physicians can successfully transition from clinical practice to entrepreneurship. Leverage your medical expertise, personal experiences, and professional networks and create innovative healthcare solutions and multiple revenue streams.
Links for today's episode:
- Your GPS Doc
- Your GPS Doc Consulting for Healthcare Organizations
- Free Discovery Call to learn about coaching to build a Health Advocacy Consulting Business
- How This Consulting Business Grew Directly From a Patient Need – 289
- How to Use Consulting and Advising to Find Freedom – 249
- How to Become a Consultant to Venture Capital Firms
- Purchase Your All Action Pass Videos and Bonuses from the 2024 Summit (Use Coupon Code 30-OFF)
- The Nonclinical Career Academy
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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 385
How to Create A Fantastic B2B Business
- Interview with Dr. Nicole Rochester
John: Today, I'm very happy to welcome back my guest from five years ago. It's hard to believe. And at that time, she introduced us to her new innovative work as a physician health navigator. I think that's the right term; it can probably be called other things. But anyway, her business has grown and evolved since then, and so I thought I'd invite her back to talk to us, provide us some inspiration and share what she's learned and— maybe some things we can apply to our businesses. So with that, Dr. Nicole Rochester, welcome back to the podcast.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Thank you, Dr. John Jurica. It's so great to be back. Thank you for having me.
John: My pleasure. I know people are just gonna get a lot out of this because what you do is somewhat unique, I think. I know you're teaching others to do it, so that's awesome. But it's somewhat unique and you're running businesses or your business since, I don't know, six, seven years ago. And I see you're doing a lot more speaking recently. So why don't you catch us up? What's been going on for the past five years? You can maybe mention a little bit about your medical background before that, but bring us back up to speed.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Sure. Yeah, so I'll start a little bit at the beginning, like you said, just for those who may not have heard the prior episode. So I'm Nicole Rochester. I am a pediatrician by training, and I always like to say that I loved pediatrics because I know in this day and age, many doctors are finding their ways into non-clinical careers out of necessity, or they're kind of running away from something. And there's nothing wrong with that. There are lots of reasons to run away from medicine these days. But in my case, I really did enjoy my job and really thought that I would work there until I retired.
And for my situation, it was the life experience that led to my transition into entrepreneurship. It was a caregiving journey with my late father and seeing how difficult it was to get the care that he needed, to communicate effectively with the members of his medical team, to advocate for him. And so I found myself doing these things behind the scenes, realizing that as a physician and an insider, I was really uniquely positioned to advocate for my dad. And then after he passed away wondering, how is everybody else managing this? If it was this hard for me, who's a doctor, one of my sisters is a nurse, how much more difficult must it be?
And so I really felt this calling to advocate for other patients and family caregivers the way I had advocated for my dad. I thought I was making this up; it turns out I wasn't. There's an entire field of what's known as professional health advocates or independent health advocates. And so as I started thinking about this business model and doing research, I discovered that others were already doing it. And so in 2017, I left my academic pediatric career and launched Your GPS Doc, LLC, which started as a health advocacy company where I was working one-on-one with other patients and family caregivers, helping them understand and navigate the healthcare system, which involves a whole lot of things.
So yeah, so that was kind of how I got started. Since then, you know, since I was last on your podcast, my work has really evolved from working one-on-one with clients, which were patients and family caregivers, to working with healthcare organizations and hospitals and health systems. And that work involves some speaking, workshops, and training, as well as consulting. And then, as you alluded to, I also am coaching and teaching other physicians how to launch their own health advocacy businesses. So a lot has happened in the last five years, and honestly, things just continue to evolve. And I think I'm still learning, growing, and figuring things out as I go.
John: Good, we can learn from you and with you then as you know this continues. There are so many things that I could say about your opening comments. I'll start by saying that I bet 99% of the people that go see a physician when they're done with their visit and they go home—if they're really sick or not really sick—they can't spit back 5% of what they were told, except, "I saw the doctor and my blood pressure was okay." I have a 96-year-old aunt who doesn't live close to me, but I keep in touch with her. She goes and sees physicians, and then when she comes home, she asks me all these questions. And she's not even given a piece of paper with what her meds are or what she's supposed to do. It's just like, "Come back in two months." So that's shocking.
But the other thing I wanted to mention when you were talking about, you said there are these health advocates, but at the time you started doing this, what percentage of those health advocates were physicians?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yeah, that is a great question, John. I, to this day, have not been able to get reliable, validated data on that, but very, very little. And today, very, very few. You know, there are more, and I'm happy that I've contributed to that increase. But there were very few when I first started. And in fact, I was on a mission to find other physicians who were doing health advocacy, and I found a few, you know, maybe four or five. But it's something that I think most physicians continue to not be aware of. When people find out about me, specifically other doctors, they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is the part of my job that I love the most." And to your point about your aunt, these are the things that most of us went into medicine for. We liked talking to our patients when we were medical students and being able to sit and spend that time. And the reality is that we just can't do that for so many reasons. And so I always get excited when I talk to other physicians about the work because it's the communicating and the explaining and the connecting, the part of our jobs that most of us love but don't have enough time to do in the current environment.
John: Well, I wanna learn more about that aspect of what you're doing. So let's go a little deeper into your GPS Doc business and how it's changed in the last five years. How did you kind of migrate to working with organizations?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Sure, sure. So in terms of the work now, you know, I think the biggest lesson that I've learned and that I hope that your listeners will take away is that the things I'm doing now were birthed out of opportunities to which I said yes. I didn't go back and get another degree. I didn't go back and get more certifications. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that but I allow myself to sit in the space that they're asking me to do these things. How can I figure out how to do them? What do I already know? What do I need to learn? And we know doctors are great at learning and finding information. And I say that because there are opportunities that I easily could have shied away from due to fear, due to imposter syndrome and all those other things that we amazing, brilliant doctors face.
And so I look at where I am now, and I think about like those first opportunities that led to this pivot. And it just reminds me that we don't give ourselves enough credit for all of the knowledge and experience that we have. So what happened with me is that I was on a board. In fact, I just finished my ninth year and just fell off of the board, but I was on the board of an organization in Maryland where I live that basically serves as the primary source of education and training, leadership education and training for healthcare professionals. And so they are deeply connected to the local hospitals and healthcare systems.
And so I was on the board, and in 2020, we had a meeting in June, just a few weeks after George Floyd had been murdered. We were in the midst of the pandemic, and so we were talking about what was going on in the world. And the meeting headed to an end, and I said, "Wait a minute, like, what are we going to do? Like, what, what can we do in this space?" And we were specifically talking about health disparities and racism in medicine. And so me asking that question kind of led to me being, I won't say voluntold, but I was asked, "Hey, what do you think we should do?"
And so I thought about how could we provide education in this space and start to educate healthcare leaders and healthcare professionals about structural racism and how that impacts the healthcare that individuals from marginalized communities receive. So then that led to, "Well, would you be willing to do it? You know, can you develop a talk?" And I have been giving, you know, all of us give talks, right? As medical students, we give talks as residents. I had definitely given a lot of talks as an attending, but I had never given a talk about this. And so this was the first time I said, "Okay, I'm going to say yes to this."
I had already always had an interest in health disparities, even as a medical student, so I kind of relied on that, did a bunch of research, found out, you know, what's going on, looked at statistics, all those things. And I developed a talk called, combating, I think it was called "Combating Structural Racism and Disparities in Healthcare" or something like that. I gave that talk for this organization, and it put me in front of a lot of hospital leaders, doctors, and other medical professionals in my state. And so then some of them reached out after the talk and said, "This was great. Can you come give that talk to my hospital? Can you come give that talk to my medical staff?" And so that led to more opportunities for speaking.
And then an organization that's affiliated with that original organization, the Maryland Hospital Association—actually, I'm sorry, it was the Maryland Patient Safety Center—they reached out, and I had been familiar with the CEO of that organization, who happens to be a pediatrician, a retired pediatrician. He and I had worked together in a hospital. So again, there's a thread here, that leverages network. So he saw the work that I was doing, he attended the talk and he said, "Hey, you know, we're in the middle of COVID. We're seeing that a lot of community members who are minoritized, marginalized are saying no to the vaccine, not only in the community, but we're even seeing healthcare workers who are Black and Brown and marginalized saying no."
And so they had a project where they wanted to address vaccine hesitancy in the context of health disparities. And so he said, you know, "We'd like for you to work for us as a consultant." At this point, John, I had never ever done a consulting job. They asked me to provide them with a scope of work. I literally didn't know what that was. Said yes, got off the phone, Googled how do you write a scope of work, and looked at a bunch of templates and examples, and basically created this scope of work around what I thought would be helpful. And that led to my first consulting gig, which then led to other consulting gigs and more speaking. And now, that has really kind of positioned me as a thought leader and an expert in health equity. And so then that led to some specific health equity projects around maternal health. And it just, you know, the snowball just keeps on going, and it all started with me asking a question in a board meeting and then developing a single talk, which has led to lots of iterations of that talk and many more.
John: All right. So I can ask you many questions about this, but I'm going to focus on two. One is, a lot of people that are trying to get something like that going find themselves having to do some kind of marketing, but it sounds to me like this thing kind of snowballed kind of on its own to some extent. So were you seeking speaking engagements, for example, or doing other things? Number one. Number two. Did you at any point charge for the speaking, or did you just use that as your marketing tool?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: OK. Yes. So I definitely—I had already been doing some speaking within the context of my business, Your GPS Doc. But because I started out primarily working with family caregivers and helping people navigate the healthcare system, the talks that I was giving were really focused on that. So I was giving talks at caregiver conferences, I was giving talks for local departments of aging around that, and some of those talks were paid. Initially, a lot of free talks, and then like many speakers, you start out free, and then finally either you get the courage to ask for money or somebody offers you money and then you go, "Oh my gosh, I can make money." And then you gradually raise your price.
So definitely the talks that I'm describing now were paid engagements. And once I did a few of them and really, really loved it, I did formally market in the sense that I put a page on my website, speaker page. I put a contact form so that people could contact me if they were interested in having me come speak. And I'm very active on LinkedIn, and so I started to post. If I would have a speaking engagement, I would post about it on LinkedIn. I would post a picture. I would usually ask somebody, "Can you please take a picture of me while I'm speaking?" And I would post that photo. I would tag the organization. Inevitably the organization would comment, "Oh, this was such an amazing presentation." You know, maybe they would share my post or maybe they would do their own post. And so that definitely led to some traction on LinkedIn. And so periodically, I continue to get requests about speaking engagements, either from people that saw something on LinkedIn or maybe they went to my website and saw it there.
So there definitely has been some intentional marketing. I will say that one of the things that I am admitting and acknowledging—and I always think about this to myself—is that I really don't market myself as much as I could or should. And I've just really been lucky, blessed all the things with the opportunities that have come my way. And I also recognize that moving forward, I am going to have to probably be more intentional about marketing and making sure that I'm top of mind and that people are continuing to find me.
John: Did you end up, at least on the marketing side and, you know, whether it's emails or posts on different social media, did you hire anyone and you have any assistance or are you handling all that yourself at that point?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: There have been a lot of iterations of having help and not having help. I definitely will say I probably waited too long to get some help in my business. And so I have had a virtual assistant at times, and I've had a social media manager. And I'll also say very transparently that at times those are my two young adult daughters. So, you know, if you have kids, teenagers, young adults, they can be amazing at helping you with those things. And then I've also had other individuals that I've worked with. But a lot of it I do and have done and continue to do on my own, just organically. And I have to, you know, social media is its own beast. Sometimes I'm really good at keeping up to date. And then other times I'll look and say, "Oh my gosh, I haven't posted in a month." And so I try to balance that.
John: Well, it's tough when you're helping patients directly, you're doing the things with an organization, and trying to manage and handle everything. And then, oh, I, got to remember to, you know, go on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever. It it gets overwhelming pretty quickly.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yes, absolutely.
John: If you're like me, then you go in cycles, though, when you really nail it for a while and then you drift away for a while. So you had to learn how to basically write a proposal, a scope of work. And actually, like you said, one of the big things was, well, how much do I charge? I don't want to necessarily ask what you charge then or what you're charging now, but maybe like, how did you figure out what? How did you come up with that number thinking, I don't want it to be so high it's crazy, but I don't want to leave a lot on the table? I mean, I'm spending a lot of time researching and doing all this work.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yes, that is a great question. That is something that I feel like it's hard to know, and I will say that generally—and this sounds crazy, John—but I just, I make it up. Not completely make it up, but I try to do some research. I try to ask around and see what other people are charging. As you know, a lot of times for many reasons, you don't get straight answers with that. And then I just would try something. I would say typically whether it's speaking, consulting, and even coaching, the initial price was much too low. Like I would significantly underprice my services. And then I would realize, you know, after getting feedback or seeing how it's going, it's like, "Wait, you know, I could be charging more." And then I would charge a little bit more the next time. And If I get a very quick yes, I'm like, "Uh-oh, you know, that probably was too low."
And so you kind of inch your way up as you get more comfortable, as you get more experience. For me though, like I did go in some of the Facebook groups for physicians, nonclinical careers, things like that. And you ask the question and a lot of times you would get kind of a range or people would say it depends. But I really felt strongly that as a physician, regardless of what I'm doing, whether it's consulting, definitely in the consulting space, what I was hearing from other doctors who were willing to share is that they were charging anywhere from $300 to $600, some even more, dollars per hour. And so I felt like, "Okay, let me maybe land in the middle of that and then kind of see if they say yes and then work my way up from there."
I think that we—one thing that I've noticed when coaching physicians is that they often start... When we're talking about the hourly rate, for example, with the health advocacy, they will go to their clinical hourly rate. And if they're a pediatrician like me, we're at the bottom of the pay scale and they'll say stuff like, "I don't think I should charge more than $150 an hour." And I'm like, "Absolutely not." Especially if you're working with organizations and things like that. So I think we all have a tendency to try to compare that work to what we did in a clinical setting, and the two are little like apples and oranges. And getting accustomed to the fact that your knowledge and expertise is extremely valuable and that you know the companies that are hiring you to consult or advise they're doing that because of your unique vantage point and your experience, and that deserves to be compensated. So it's not about taking advantage of anyone, but it's really kind of standing in your truth and trying to understand and figure out what you're worth.
John: That's good advice. You know, I was a chief medical officer for a hospital, so we had consultants always coming in. And, you know, a lot of times there were big consultations, so they wouldn't even give an hourly rate. It would be like just a project that would take a year, and, you know, it would be $100,000 or something like that. Now, you know, you have to do some work backwards, I guess, and see how much time you think it's going to take. But I would say, again, this is based on nothing except just talking to people like you. Like if you're a physician doing consulting and your clinical rate is like $200, $300 an hour, you know, doing whatever you're doing, you should at least double it.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: I agree.
John: What else have you learned in the last five years as you're making this, transition to doing really these bigger things and working with more of an institution? Anything you want to share with us about your mindset?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, mindset. I think what I have learned—I know that what I have learned in the last seven years since becoming a business owner is that 95, if not more, percent of the work is in our own head. It's our mindset. Everything else can be figured out. The information is out there; you can find it. But having the information, like as doctors, we always feel like if I just have more information... But for us, it's here—for everybody, but particularly for us. And I've been really intrigued with my own journey and with now coaching physicians, this idea that we represent—I don't know the exact number, but we're in the top echelon, I believe, in terms of intelligence and things like that. And we do really, really hard things as physicians, like literal hard things, like intubation and putting in central lines and saving lives. And yet when it comes to starting a business—and I'm not saying it's easy, because it is not easy—but we have so many fears and trepidations.
And I've talked to so many doctors that are like, "I want to do this, but I'm afraid to start my own business. I don't think I can start my own business. I don't think I could do it." And it's like, "Are you serious? Like you save lives every day. You're an emergency room physician. You're a critical care doc." And you don't think that you can start a business? So our mindsets are so important. And you know, whatever it takes, whether it's mantras, affirmations—for me, sometimes, John, I will actually go look at my CV, and anytime I have an opportunity to update my CV, it becomes an amazing exercise in boosting my confidence because I start to look back at like all of the talks that I've given and you know, my regular job and all the work I did as a pediatrician. Then to look at the different talks that I've given, the articles that I've contributed to, and the clients that I've had a chance to work with. And that reminds me like, "Nicole, you're doing pretty well,"
And so I think that we discount ourselves so much as physicians, and we just don't appreciate that, yes, we have the medical knowledge, but there's so much more that you can do with that medical knowledge beyond the clinical arena, and really, you know, just embracing that. So mindset, I continue to work on my mindset regularly because every now and then, it's something that you don't conquer, at least for me. Like sometimes I'm thinking like, "I've got this," and then some new opportunity will come my way and I see myself, I see that old part of Nicole trying to sneak back in. So I think mindset is incredibly important.
The other thing I've noticed specifically around speaking as a doctor is that I have had to creatively and respectfully remind organizations I'm a small business owner. And I say that because I continue to speak for free periodically, but it has to be like a very small nonprofit or a very religious organization or just a cause that really aligns with my purpose in life. But there are large organizations, like large John, that will approach me about speaking and then tell me that they don't have a budget or the budget that they have is significantly below what I would charge. And I've gotten to the place now where I just politely decline. And if there is a back and forth, which sometimes there is, I will tell them, you know, they'll say, "Well, Dr. So-and-so spoke for us last year, and he or she did it for free." But they're always naming a physician who works for an employer. And so, you know, you may recall, when I worked in academia, speaking was considered, you know, you do it for "exposure."
I love when they say, "Oh, we thought you would just do it for exposure." And it's not... to sound arrogant by any means, but I don't need—well, I don't want to say I don't need exposure. I always need exposure, but I'm kind of beyond the stage of speaking for exposure. And when they bring up a physician who is employed, I remember when I was employed, absolutely, I gave talks all the time for free. But at that time, I had a goal of, you know, maybe advancing up the academic ranks; like there was something tied to that effort. And so now, you know, my CV doesn't earn me a title of associate professor or professor, and I literally work for myself; I provide for my family.
And so I think that's another thing that I want to share. You know, certainly in the beginning, again, there's nothing wrong with doing things for free. There's nothing wrong with doing things for lower cost as you are making a name for yourself. But after you've done that, you deserve to be paid. And so I just find a lot of times because we're so altruistic, there's just this attitude that we should come speak to large healthcare systems and pharmaceutical companies even just out of the goodness of our hearts.
John: Wise words there. So it's absolutely true. And when you're going your own and run a small business, you have to earn a living and you have to put money aside for when maybe it gets a little light for a while, you know.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yes.
John: It makes perfect sense. That's good encouragement. Okay, now there are some people that like what you're doing and, you know, different aspects, but I'm sure there are people that like the advocacy part because that's something, again, that maybe they hadn't realized they could actually get paid to do. So you're teaching other people how to do that as well, correct?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yes. Yes, that is correct.
John: So tell us all about that.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Sure. Yeah. And that's another thing, you know, there's a theme I'm realizing now. There's a theme in our conversation in terms of saying yes and embracing opportunity. Because with the coaching, I started my company in 2017. I was doing health advocacy. Within a couple of years, I became known in some physician circles as the doctor who does this. And so one, when doctors would say, "Hey, I have a family member who this happened to or this happened to," they would remember, "Oh, Nicole dealt with that when she was caring for her dad," or "Nicole now works with people."
And so I would get tagged in these Facebook posts. And so initially I would get tagged for like helping someone's family member navigate the healthcare system. But then doctors would sometimes say, often in the nonclinical groups, "Hey, is there such thing where I could just like help people understand their medical conditions or maybe when they're hospitalized, I can help them understand what's going on and communicate with their doctors?" And then I started getting tagged. They were like, "Hey, Nicole does that."
And so I would get tagged and then I would reach out to someone, I would hop on Zoom calls and maybe talk for an hour or two hours and just kind of answer their questions about how I got started and all the things. How much do you charge? Do you need insurance? All these things. And so I started doing that and then as I got busier, I didn't have the time or the capacity to have these two-hour Zoom calls. And so then doctors would say, "Well, can you just coach me?" And the first four or five or six or eight maybe times, I said no. I was like, "No, I don't do that." And they were like, "Well, can you just coach me?" "Nope, I'm not a coach."
So finally, around 2020, I started saying yes. I never advertised it. I just, you know, I said, "Okay, somebody reached out and they were like, 'I really would love to learn from you.'" And so I said, yes. So similar to that consulting scope of work package where I had to figure out what it was, I started researching, you know, coaching and like, how much should I charge? And then I thought about my journey. What were the things that I needed to know in order to launch Your GPS Doc? But even more importantly, what are all the mistakes that I have made? What are the things that I wish I knew when I first started?
And so I started developing a curriculum and I took my first coaching client and I worked with her one-on-one, and that was great. Everything went great. And so then, you know, the next doctor that came, I said, yes, I do this. But I never advertised it. I was still afraid. So if somebody came to me, I would say yes. But I wasn't out there saying "Hey, you all, I'm a physician coach." So then that led to me formalizing a curriculum that went from like a three-week program to four weeks to six weeks. Now it's an eight-weeks program. And then I went from a one-on-one to a group model.
And so since 2022, I've been hosting or leading the small group cohorts of physicians who want to start their own health advocacy business. And again, as the landscape changes, as new things pop up with the industry, I go back in, we update the modules. But right now, it's an eight-week program; there are lessons and modules and videos and downloadable templates and things that live on an online platform. And then weekly during the program, we have coaching calls, live coaching calls where I answer questions, where I deal with mindset challenges and coach the individuals. And yeah, we do that, and there's even an alumni program that I started just a few months ago because what I noticed is that a lot of the doctors that would finish, some of them would just take right off. Like they would finish the program, implement everything, start their business.
But a lot of them were still kind of nervous or scared, and they still needed a little more support. And so now we have an alumni program for those who want ongoing support after the eight-week program is finished. And it's just been an amazing thing to see these doctors in various seasons of their career. Some are retired, some have been out on disability for injury or illness, and some are still working full-time or part-time, and seeing them launch their health advocacy business and helping other patients and families has just been amazing.
John: Sounds like, though, from your standpoint, I mean, looking at what you're doing, you're definitely juggling a lot of things here.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yeah.
John: You know, you have, but it's interesting. I mean, real entrepreneurs, that's kind of what they do. Maybe you didn't really consider yourself an entrepreneur 10, 15 years ago, but you know, you're just meeting these needs as they arise. And some are, you know, huge, you know, organizations and some are just individuals. So it's really, I think it's very—I was going to say impressive, no, but it's very—it is impressive, but it's just, it's encouraging, I guess. It's like you said, there's so many things you can do if you just have that mindset. You could do a whole thing. It's all the mistakes to avoid because that's really like the, what did a consultant provides: "Don't do any of these things; do these things, and you're going to be where I was only it's going to take one-third of the time or whatever."
Dr. Nicole Rochester: That part. That is so important. Time is compressed when you work with somebody who's already done it. They've already made all the mistakes. Absolutely.
John: So where does somebody go to learn about that part of it, the coaching?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Probably the best way you can schedule a call with me to learn more about health advocacy and about the program and we can decide if this is a good fit. And that's bit.ly/NHAcall. And N-H-A is in all caps. And they can also just go to my website, which is yourgpsdoc.com.
John: Well, you've covered a lot and you've really given us a lot of inspiration and actual good practical advice as well. So, anything else you—I guess we're going to get to the end here. So, I just would open it up for any advice you have for physicians. You know, my audience, a lot of them are either burned out or they're frustrated or they've been in medicine for 25 years and they're like, "You know, I just don't want to work like a crazy person anymore." What advice would you have for them?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yeah, one, I, you know, I—sending hugs because it's really, really difficult to practice medicine now for so many reasons. And honestly, I'm afraid as I get older, like who's going to be around to take care of me because I know that so many of our colleagues are leaving. But I guess the advice I would give is really, really embrace the knowledge and the expertise that you have—not just with your medical career, although that's incredibly important—but your lived experiences, your personal experiences, your interests, your hobbies—like all of those things make you who you are. And all of those things are potentially monetizable.
And I think that's something that I've learned and continue to learn is exactly what I'm always surprised at: What is monetizable? And for me, it's not just making money. Like that's not my, that's never been my motivation: is to make money. I'm excited that I get to make money while I'm still doing things that bring me joy. But realizing that there's so much information and knowledge that we have that can help others and that other people are willing to pay for that information. So it's a win-win. I mean, you have a way of monetizing your skills and your knowledge and you're doing it in a way that helps the broader society.
John: I agree 100% and you're a good example of it..
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Thank you.
John: All right, Nicole. I don't think I'm going to wait another five years, but if I still have a podcast going maybe in two years or so, then I think we're going to have to get together again and see what else you've been up to. But this has been very interesting, fascinating, helpful. And I thank you for being on the podcast today.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Thank you, John. Thank you for having me. And thank you for this platform. I've talked to a lot of doctors who listen to your podcast, and that's been their motivation to step out into the deep. So thank you for what you do.
John: Well, I appreciate that. All right. Well, take care. Bye-bye.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Take care.
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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 385
How to Create A Fantastic B2B Business
- Interview with Dr. Nicole Rochester
John: Today, I'm very happy to welcome back my guest from five years ago. It's hard to believe. And at that time, she introduced us to her new innovative work as a physician health navigator. I think that's the right term; it can probably be called other things. But anyway, her business has grown and evolved since then, and so I thought I'd invite her back to talk to us, provide us some inspiration and share what she's learned and— maybe some things we can apply to our businesses. So with that, Dr. Nicole Rochester, welcome back to the podcast.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Thank you, Dr. John Jurica. It's so great to be back. Thank you for having me.
John: My pleasure. I know people are just gonna get a lot out of this because what you do is somewhat unique, I think. I know you're teaching others to do it, so that's awesome. But it's somewhat unique and you're running businesses or your business since, I don't know, six, seven years ago. And I see you're doing a lot more speaking recently. So why don't you catch us up? What's been going on for the past five years? You can maybe mention a little bit about your medical background before that, but bring us back up to speed.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Sure. Yeah, so I'll start a little bit at the beginning, like you said, just for those who may not have heard the prior episode. So I'm Nicole Rochester. I am a pediatrician by training, and I always like to say that I loved pediatrics because I know in this day and age, many doctors are finding their ways into non-clinical careers out of necessity, or they're kind of running away from something. And there's nothing wrong with that. There are lots of reasons to run away from medicine these days. But in my case, I really did enjoy my job and really thought that I would work there until I retired.
And for my situation, it was the life experience that led to my transition into entrepreneurship. It was a caregiving journey with my late father and seeing how difficult it was to get the care that he needed, to communicate effectively with the members of his medical team, to advocate for him. And so I found myself doing these things behind the scenes, realizing that as a physician and an insider, I was really uniquely positioned to advocate for my dad. And then after he passed away wondering, how is everybody else managing this? If it was this hard for me, who's a doctor, one of my sisters is a nurse, how much more difficult must it be?
And so I really felt this calling to advocate for other patients and family caregivers the way I had advocated for my dad. I thought I was making this up; it turns out I wasn't. There's an entire field of what's known as professional health advocates or independent health advocates. And so as I started thinking about this business model and doing research, I discovered that others were already doing it. And so in 2017, I left my academic pediatric career and launched Your GPS Doc, LLC, which started as a health advocacy company where I was working one-on-one with other patients and family caregivers, helping them understand and navigate the healthcare system, which involves a whole lot of things.
So yeah, so that was kind of how I got started. Since then, you know, since I was last on your podcast, my work has really evolved from working one-on-one with clients, which were patients and family caregivers, to working with healthcare organizations and hospitals and health systems. And that work involves some speaking, workshops, and training, as well as consulting. And then, as you alluded to, I also am coaching and teaching other physicians how to launch their own health advocacy businesses. So a lot has happened in the last five years, and honestly, things just continue to evolve. And I think I'm still learning, growing, and figuring things out as I go.
John: Good, we can learn from you and with you then as you know this continues. There are so many things that I could say about your opening comments. I'll start by saying that I bet 99% of the people that go see a physician when they're done with their visit and they go home—if they're really sick or not really sick—they can't spit back 5% of what they were told, except, "I saw the doctor and my blood pressure was okay." I have a 96-year-old aunt who doesn't live close to me, but I keep in touch with her. She goes and sees physicians, and then when she comes home, she asks me all these questions. And she's not even given a piece of paper with what her meds are or what she's supposed to do. It's just like, "Come back in two months." So that's shocking.
But the other thing I wanted to mention when you were talking about, you said there are these health advocates, but at the time you started doing this, what percentage of those health advocates were physicians?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yeah, that is a great question, John. I, to this day, have not been able to get reliable, validated data on that, but very, very little. And today, very, very few. You know, there are more, and I'm happy that I've contributed to that increase. But there were very few when I first started. And in fact, I was on a mission to find other physicians who were doing health advocacy, and I found a few, you know, maybe four or five. But it's something that I think most physicians continue to not be aware of. When people find out about me, specifically other doctors, they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is the part of my job that I love the most." And to your point about your aunt, these are the things that most of us went into medicine for. We liked talking to our patients when we were medical students and being able to sit and spend that time. And the reality is that we just can't do that for so many reasons. And so I always get excited when I talk to other physicians about the work because it's the communicating and the explaining and the connecting, the part of our jobs that most of us love but don't have enough time to do in the current environment.
John: Well, I wanna learn more about that aspect of what you're doing. So let's go a little deeper into your GPS Doc business and how it's changed in the last five years. How did you kind of migrate to working with organizations?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Sure, sure. So in terms of the work now, you know, I think the biggest lesson that I've learned and that I hope that your listeners will take away is that the things I'm doing now were birthed out of opportunities to which I said yes. I didn't go back and get another degree. I didn't go back and get more certifications. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that but I allow myself to sit in the space that they're asking me to do these things. How can I figure out how to do them? What do I already know? What do I need to learn? And we know doctors are great at learning and finding information. And I say that because there are opportunities that I easily could have shied away from due to fear, due to imposter syndrome and all those other things that we amazing, brilliant doctors face.
And so I look at where I am now, and I think about like those first opportunities that led to this pivot. And it just reminds me that we don't give ourselves enough credit for all of the knowledge and experience that we have. So what happened with me is that I was on a board. In fact, I just finished my ninth year and just fell off of the board, but I was on the board of an organization in Maryland where I live that basically serves as the primary source of education and training, leadership education and training for healthcare professionals. And so they are deeply connected to the local hospitals and healthcare systems.
And so I was on the board, and in 2020, we had a meeting in June, just a few weeks after George Floyd had been murdered. We were in the midst of the pandemic, and so we were talking about what was going on in the world. And the meeting headed to an end, and I said, "Wait a minute, like, what are we going to do? Like, what, what can we do in this space?" And we were specifically talking about health disparities and racism in medicine. And so me asking that question kind of led to me being, I won't say voluntold, but I was asked, "Hey, what do you think we should do?"
And so I thought about how could we provide education in this space and start to educate healthcare leaders and healthcare professionals about structural racism and how that impacts the healthcare that individuals from marginalized communities receive. So then that led to, "Well, would you be willing to do it? You know, can you develop a talk?" And I have been giving, you know, all of us give talks, right? As medical students, we give talks as residents. I had definitely given a lot of talks as an attending, but I had never given a talk about this. And so this was the first time I said, "Okay, I'm going to say yes to this."
I had already always had an interest in health disparities, even as a medical student, so I kind of relied on that, did a bunch of research, found out, you know, what's going on, looked at statistics, all those things. And I developed a talk called, combating, I think it was called "Combating Structural Racism and Disparities in Healthcare" or something like that. I gave that talk for this organization, and it put me in front of a lot of hospital leaders, doctors, and other medical professionals in my state. And so then some of them reached out after the talk and said, "This was great. Can you come give that talk to my hospital? Can you come give that talk to my medical staff?" And so that led to more opportunities for speaking.
And then an organization that's affiliated with that original organization, the Maryland Hospital Association—actually, I'm sorry, it was the Maryland Patient Safety Center—they reached out, and I had been familiar with the CEO of that organization, who happens to be a pediatrician, a retired pediatrician. He and I had worked together in a hospital. So again, there's a thread here, that leverages network. So he saw the work that I was doing, he attended the talk and he said, "Hey, you know, we're in the middle of COVID. We're seeing that a lot of community members who are minoritized, marginalized are saying no to the vaccine, not only in the community, but we're even seeing healthcare workers who are Black and Brown and marginalized saying no."
And so they had a project where they wanted to address vaccine hesitancy in the context of health disparities. And so he said, you know, "We'd like for you to work for us as a consultant." At this point, John, I had never ever done a consulting job. They asked me to provide them with a scope of work. I literally didn't know what that was. Said yes, got off the phone, Googled how do you write a scope of work, and looked at a bunch of templates and examples, and basically created this scope of work around what I thought would be helpful. And that led to my first consulting gig, which then led to other consulting gigs and more speaking. And now, that has really kind of positioned me as a thought leader and an expert in health equity. And so then that led to some specific health equity projects around maternal health. And it just, you know, the snowball just keeps on going, and it all started with me asking a question in a board meeting and then developing a single talk, which has led to lots of iterations of that talk and many more.
John: All right. So I can ask you many questions about this, but I'm going to focus on two. One is, a lot of people that are trying to get something like that going find themselves having to do some kind of marketing, but it sounds to me like this thing kind of snowballed kind of on its own to some extent. So were you seeking speaking engagements, for example, or doing other things? Number one. Number two. Did you at any point charge for the speaking, or did you just use that as your marketing tool?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: OK. Yes. So I definitely—I had already been doing some speaking within the context of my business, Your GPS Doc. But because I started out primarily working with family caregivers and helping people navigate the healthcare system, the talks that I was giving were really focused on that. So I was giving talks at caregiver conferences, I was giving talks for local departments of aging around that, and some of those talks were paid. Initially, a lot of free talks, and then like many speakers, you start out free, and then finally either you get the courage to ask for money or somebody offers you money and then you go, "Oh my gosh, I can make money." And then you gradually raise your price.
So definitely the talks that I'm describing now were paid engagements. And once I did a few of them and really, really loved it, I did formally market in the sense that I put a page on my website, speaker page. I put a contact form so that people could contact me if they were interested in having me come speak. And I'm very active on LinkedIn, and so I started to post. If I would have a speaking engagement, I would post about it on LinkedIn. I would post a picture. I would usually ask somebody, "Can you please take a picture of me while I'm speaking?" And I would post that photo. I would tag the organization. Inevitably the organization would comment, "Oh, this was such an amazing presentation." You know, maybe they would share my post or maybe they would do their own post. And so that definitely led to some traction on LinkedIn. And so periodically, I continue to get requests about speaking engagements, either from people that saw something on LinkedIn or maybe they went to my website and saw it there.
So there definitely has been some intentional marketing. I will say that one of the things that I am admitting and acknowledging—and I always think about this to myself—is that I really don't market myself as much as I could or should. And I've just really been lucky, blessed all the things with the opportunities that have come my way. And I also recognize that moving forward, I am going to have to probably be more intentional about marketing and making sure that I'm top of mind and that people are continuing to find me.
John: Did you end up, at least on the marketing side and, you know, whether it's emails or posts on different social media, did you hire anyone and you have any assistance or are you handling all that yourself at that point?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: There have been a lot of iterations of having help and not having help. I definitely will say I probably waited too long to get some help in my business. And so I have had a virtual assistant at times, and I've had a social media manager. And I'll also say very transparently that at times those are my two young adult daughters. So, you know, if you have kids, teenagers, young adults, they can be amazing at helping you with those things. And then I've also had other individuals that I've worked with. But a lot of it I do and have done and continue to do on my own, just organically. And I have to, you know, social media is its own beast. Sometimes I'm really good at keeping up to date. And then other times I'll look and say, "Oh my gosh, I haven't posted in a month." And so I try to balance that.
John: Well, it's tough when you're helping patients directly, you're doing the things with an organization, and trying to manage and handle everything. And then, oh, I, got to remember to, you know, go on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever. It it gets overwhelming pretty quickly.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yes, absolutely.
John: If you're like me, then you go in cycles, though, when you really nail it for a while and then you drift away for a while. So you had to learn how to basically write a proposal, a scope of work. And actually, like you said, one of the big things was, well, how much do I charge? I don't want to necessarily ask what you charge then or what you're charging now, but maybe like, how did you figure out what? How did you come up with that number thinking, I don't want it to be so high it's crazy, but I don't want to leave a lot on the table? I mean, I'm spending a lot of time researching and doing all this work.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yes, that is a great question. That is something that I feel like it's hard to know, and I will say that generally—and this sounds crazy, John—but I just, I make it up. Not completely make it up, but I try to do some research. I try to ask around and see what other people are charging. As you know, a lot of times for many reasons, you don't get straight answers with that. And then I just would try something. I would say typically whether it's speaking, consulting, and even coaching, the initial price was much too low. Like I would significantly underprice my services. And then I would realize, you know, after getting feedback or seeing how it's going, it's like, "Wait, you know, I could be charging more." And then I would charge a little bit more the next time. And If I get a very quick yes, I'm like, "Uh-oh, you know, that probably was too low."
And so you kind of inch your way up as you get more comfortable, as you get more experience. For me though, like I did go in some of the Facebook groups for physicians, nonclinical careers, things like that. And you ask the question and a lot of times you would get kind of a range or people would say it depends. But I really felt strongly that as a physician, regardless of what I'm doing, whether it's consulting, definitely in the consulting space, what I was hearing from other doctors who were willing to share is that they were charging anywhere from $300 to $600, some even more, dollars per hour. And so I felt like, "Okay, let me maybe land in the middle of that and then kind of see if they say yes and then work my way up from there."
I think that we—one thing that I've noticed when coaching physicians is that they often start... When we're talking about the hourly rate, for example, with the health advocacy, they will go to their clinical hourly rate. And if they're a pediatrician like me, we're at the bottom of the pay scale and they'll say stuff like, "I don't think I should charge more than $150 an hour." And I'm like, "Absolutely not." Especially if you're working with organizations and things like that. So I think we all have a tendency to try to compare that work to what we did in a clinical setting, and the two are little like apples and oranges. And getting accustomed to the fact that your knowledge and expertise is extremely valuable and that you know the companies that are hiring you to consult or advise they're doing that because of your unique vantage point and your experience, and that deserves to be compensated. So it's not about taking advantage of anyone, but it's really kind of standing in your truth and trying to understand and figure out what you're worth.
John: That's good advice. You know, I was a chief medical officer for a hospital, so we had consultants always coming in. And, you know, a lot of times there were big consultations, so they wouldn't even give an hourly rate. It would be like just a project that would take a year, and, you know, it would be $100,000 or something like that. Now, you know, you have to do some work backwards, I guess, and see how much time you think it's going to take. But I would say, again, this is based on nothing except just talking to people like you. Like if you're a physician doing consulting and your clinical rate is like $200, $300 an hour, you know, doing whatever you're doing, you should at least double it.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: I agree.
John: What else have you learned in the last five years as you're making this, transition to doing really these bigger things and working with more of an institution? Anything you want to share with us about your mindset?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, mindset. I think what I have learned—I know that what I have learned in the last seven years since becoming a business owner is that 95, if not more, percent of the work is in our own head. It's our mindset. Everything else can be figured out. The information is out there; you can find it. But having the information, like as doctors, we always feel like if I just have more information... But for us, it's here—for everybody, but particularly for us. And I've been really intrigued with my own journey and with now coaching physicians, this idea that we represent—I don't know the exact number, but we're in the top echelon, I believe, in terms of intelligence and things like that. And we do really, really hard things as physicians, like literal hard things, like intubation and putting in central lines and saving lives. And yet when it comes to starting a business—and I'm not saying it's easy, because it is not easy—but we have so many fears and trepidations.
And I've talked to so many doctors that are like, "I want to do this, but I'm afraid to start my own business. I don't think I can start my own business. I don't think I could do it." And it's like, "Are you serious? Like you save lives every day. You're an emergency room physician. You're a critical care doc." And you don't think that you can start a business? So our mindsets are so important. And you know, whatever it takes, whether it's mantras, affirmations—for me, sometimes, John, I will actually go look at my CV, and anytime I have an opportunity to update my CV, it becomes an amazing exercise in boosting my confidence because I start to look back at like all of the talks that I've given and you know, my regular job and all the work I did as a pediatrician. Then to look at the different talks that I've given, the articles that I've contributed to, and the clients that I've had a chance to work with. And that reminds me like, "Nicole, you're doing pretty well,"
And so I think that we discount ourselves so much as physicians, and we just don't appreciate that, yes, we have the medical knowledge, but there's so much more that you can do with that medical knowledge beyond the clinical arena, and really, you know, just embracing that. So mindset, I continue to work on my mindset regularly because every now and then, it's something that you don't conquer, at least for me. Like sometimes I'm thinking like, "I've got this," and then some new opportunity will come my way and I see myself, I see that old part of Nicole trying to sneak back in. So I think mindset is incredibly important.
The other thing I've noticed specifically around speaking as a doctor is that I have had to creatively and respectfully remind organizations I'm a small business owner. And I say that because I continue to speak for free periodically, but it has to be like a very small nonprofit or a very religious organization or just a cause that really aligns with my purpose in life. But there are large organizations, like large John, that will approach me about speaking and then tell me that they don't have a budget or the budget that they have is significantly below what I would charge. And I've gotten to the place now where I just politely decline. And if there is a back and forth, which sometimes there is, I will tell them, you know, they'll say, "Well, Dr. So-and-so spoke for us last year, and he or she did it for free." But they're always naming a physician who works for an employer. And so, you know, you may recall, when I worked in academia, speaking was considered, you know, you do it for "exposure."
I love when they say, "Oh, we thought you would just do it for exposure." And it's not... to sound arrogant by any means, but I don't need—well, I don't want to say I don't need exposure. I always need exposure, but I'm kind of beyond the stage of speaking for exposure. And when they bring up a physician who is employed, I remember when I was employed, absolutely, I gave talks all the time for free. But at that time, I had a goal of, you know, maybe advancing up the academic ranks; like there was something tied to that effort. And so now, you know, my CV doesn't earn me a title of associate professor or professor, and I literally work for myself; I provide for my family.
And so I think that's another thing that I want to share. You know, certainly in the beginning, again, there's nothing wrong with doing things for free. There's nothing wrong with doing things for lower cost as you are making a name for yourself. But after you've done that, you deserve to be paid. And so I just find a lot of times because we're so altruistic, there's just this attitude that we should come speak to large healthcare systems and pharmaceutical companies even just out of the goodness of our hearts.
John: Wise words there. So it's absolutely true. And when you're going your own and run a small business, you have to earn a living and you have to put money aside for when maybe it gets a little light for a while, you know.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yes.
John: It makes perfect sense. That's good encouragement. Okay, now there are some people that like what you're doing and, you know, different aspects, but I'm sure there are people that like the advocacy part because that's something, again, that maybe they hadn't realized they could actually get paid to do. So you're teaching other people how to do that as well, correct?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yes. Yes, that is correct.
John: So tell us all about that.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Sure. Yeah. And that's another thing, you know, there's a theme I'm realizing now. There's a theme in our conversation in terms of saying yes and embracing opportunity. Because with the coaching, I started my company in 2017. I was doing health advocacy. Within a couple of years, I became known in some physician circles as the doctor who does this. And so one, when doctors would say, "Hey, I have a family member who this happened to or this happened to," they would remember, "Oh, Nicole dealt with that when she was caring for her dad," or "Nicole now works with people."
And so I would get tagged in these Facebook posts. And so initially I would get tagged for like helping someone's family member navigate the healthcare system. But then doctors would sometimes say, often in the nonclinical groups, "Hey, is there such thing where I could just like help people understand their medical conditions or maybe when they're hospitalized, I can help them understand what's going on and communicate with their doctors?" And then I started getting tagged. They were like, "Hey, Nicole does that."
And so I would get tagged and then I would reach out to someone, I would hop on Zoom calls and maybe talk for an hour or two hours and just kind of answer their questions about how I got started and all the things. How much do you charge? Do you need insurance? All these things. And so I started doing that and then as I got busier, I didn't have the time or the capacity to have these two-hour Zoom calls. And so then doctors would say, "Well, can you just coach me?" And the first four or five or six or eight maybe times, I said no. I was like, "No, I don't do that." And they were like, "Well, can you just coach me?" "Nope, I'm not a coach."
So finally, around 2020, I started saying yes. I never advertised it. I just, you know, I said, "Okay, somebody reached out and they were like, 'I really would love to learn from you.'" And so I said, yes. So similar to that consulting scope of work package where I had to figure out what it was, I started researching, you know, coaching and like, how much should I charge? And then I thought about my journey. What were the things that I needed to know in order to launch Your GPS Doc? But even more importantly, what are all the mistakes that I have made? What are the things that I wish I knew when I first started?
And so I started developing a curriculum and I took my first coaching client and I worked with her one-on-one, and that was great. Everything went great. And so then, you know, the next doctor that came, I said, yes, I do this. But I never advertised it. I was still afraid. So if somebody came to me, I would say yes. But I wasn't out there saying "Hey, you all, I'm a physician coach." So then that led to me formalizing a curriculum that went from like a three-week program to four weeks to six weeks. Now it's an eight-weeks program. And then I went from a one-on-one to a group model.
And so since 2022, I've been hosting or leading the small group cohorts of physicians who want to start their own health advocacy business. And again, as the landscape changes, as new things pop up with the industry, I go back in, we update the modules. But right now, it's an eight-week program; there are lessons and modules and videos and downloadable templates and things that live on an online platform. And then weekly during the program, we have coaching calls, live coaching calls where I answer questions, where I deal with mindset challenges and coach the individuals. And yeah, we do that, and there's even an alumni program that I started just a few months ago because what I noticed is that a lot of the doctors that would finish, some of them would just take right off. Like they would finish the program, implement everything, start their business.
But a lot of them were still kind of nervous or scared, and they still needed a little more support. And so now we have an alumni program for those who want ongoing support after the eight-week program is finished. And it's just been an amazing thing to see these doctors in various seasons of their career. Some are retired, some have been out on disability for injury or illness, and some are still working full-time or part-time, and seeing them launch their health advocacy business and helping other patients and families has just been amazing.
John: Sounds like, though, from your standpoint, I mean, looking at what you're doing, you're definitely juggling a lot of things here.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yeah.
John: You know, you have, but it's interesting. I mean, real entrepreneurs, that's kind of what they do. Maybe you didn't really consider yourself an entrepreneur 10, 15 years ago, but you know, you're just meeting these needs as they arise. And some are, you know, huge, you know, organizations and some are just individuals. So it's really, I think it's very—I was going to say impressive, no, but it's very—it is impressive, but it's just, it's encouraging, I guess. It's like you said, there's so many things you can do if you just have that mindset. You could do a whole thing. It's all the mistakes to avoid because that's really like the, what did a consultant provides: "Don't do any of these things; do these things, and you're going to be where I was only it's going to take one-third of the time or whatever."
Dr. Nicole Rochester: That part. That is so important. Time is compressed when you work with somebody who's already done it. They've already made all the mistakes. Absolutely.
John: So where does somebody go to learn about that part of it, the coaching?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Probably the best way you can schedule a call with me to learn more about health advocacy and about the program and we can decide if this is a good fit. And that's bit.ly/NHAcall. And N-H-A is in all caps. And they can also just go to my website, which is yourgpsdoc.com.
John: Well, you've covered a lot and you've really given us a lot of inspiration and actual good practical advice as well. So, anything else you—I guess we're going to get to the end here. So, I just would open it up for any advice you have for physicians. You know, my audience, a lot of them are either burned out or they're frustrated or they've been in medicine for 25 years and they're like, "You know, I just don't want to work like a crazy person anymore." What advice would you have for them?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Yeah, one, I, you know, I—sending hugs because it's really, really difficult to practice medicine now for so many reasons. And honestly, I'm afraid as I get older, like who's going to be around to take care of me because I know that so many of our colleagues are leaving. But I guess the advice I would give is really, really embrace the knowledge and the expertise that you have—not just with your medical career, although that's incredibly important—but your lived experiences, your personal experiences, your interests, your hobbies—like all of those things make you who you are. And all of those things are potentially monetizable.
And I think that's something that I've learned and continue to learn is exactly what I'm always surprised at: What is monetizable? And for me, it's not just making money. Like that's not my, that's never been my motivation: is to make money. I'm excited that I get to make money while I'm still doing things that bring me joy. But realizing that there's so much information and knowledge that we have that can help others and that other people are willing to pay for that information. So it's a win-win. I mean, you have a way of monetizing your skills and your knowledge and you're doing it in a way that helps the broader society.
John: I agree 100% and you're a good example of it..
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Thank you.
John: All right, Nicole. I don't think I'm going to wait another five years, but if I still have a podcast going maybe in two years or so, then I think we're going to have to get together again and see what else you've been up to. But this has been very interesting, fascinating, helpful. And I thank you for being on the podcast today.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Thank you, John. Thank you for having me. And thank you for this platform. I've talked to a lot of doctors who listen to your podcast, and that's been their motivation to step out into the deep. So thank you for what you do.
John: Well, I appreciate that. All right. Well, take care. Bye-bye.
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Take care.
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