Interview with Dr. Nneka Unachukwu – 350
In today's episode, Dr. Una returns to the podcast to teach us how to use her visibility formula and to tell us about her new book.
Two years ago, Dr. Una introduced us to the transformative power of entrepreneurship for physicians. Now, she shares the strategies that have propelled her clients to success, with practical advice for physicians ready to embark on their entrepreneurial journey.
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.
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 so much happier now as a professional writer and a coach. According to Debra, “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.
The Visibility Formula: Unlocking Business Success for Physicians
Dr. Una explains the core principles of her latest book, The Visibility Formula. The book aims to empower physicians to overcome challenges in marketing and branding their businesses. From redefining introversion in entrepreneurship to practical strategies for increasing visibility, she offers valuable insights into building a thriving medical practice.
Practical Strategies for Physician Entrepreneurs
Dr. Una shares actionable tips and strategies for physicians venturing into entrepreneurship. She provides concrete steps for building a sustainable and successful medical practice or business, from identifying target audiences to leveraging social media. Drawing from her own experiences and those of her clients, Dr. Una offers valuable insights into overcoming common challenges and achieving long-term business success.
Summary
From homeschooling her children to leading The EntreMD Business School, Dr. Una's journey is filled with insights for physicians seeking to navigate the entrepreneurial world.
In her latest book, “The Visibility Formula,” Dr. Una unlocks the secrets to business success for physicians, offering practical strategies to overcome introversion, master visibility, and build thriving practices.
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:
- Dr. Una's website [EntreMD]
- EntreMD Podcast
- The Visibility Formula: Taking Your Business From Best Kept Secret To Household Name (Amazon Affiliate Link)
- The EntreMD Method Book
- Purchase Your All Action Pass Videos and Bonuses from the 2024 Summit
- 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 350
How to Apply the Visibility Formula to Become Known
- Interview with Dr. Nneka Unachukwu
John: I found that one of the best ways for physicians to thrive in today's healthcare environment is to opt out of the traditional corporate employment. That just doesn't do it for most of us. And as an alternative, build your own practice or a healthcare-related business. And to do that, of course, you need business knowledge and marketing knowledge. And that's why I brought on today's guest because she is an expert in both. Maybe we'll get she's taught so many people how to start a business, run a business, optimize a business, market a business. And so, I want to welcome back to the podcast, Dr. Nneka Unuchukwu.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Hi, John. Thank you so much for having me back. This is a treat.
John: Yeah. And of course, you are being a presenter at the summit, which starts a week from now, but it's actually in the past by the time this is posted. I do want to mention it though, because people can still buy the videos after the fact. You are our kickoff speaker next Tuesday. I'm very thankful that you're going to be doing that for us.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. And I think it's a gift to the physician community really, because we really do need all hands on deck and for people to see examples of what is possible. And you really gathered a really great group of speakers who are speaking on so many different things and everybody should be able to find something that resonates with them. And then hopefully just change the trajectory of their lives really.
John: Yeah. And not the least of which is just get to know some of these speakers who maybe they've never met before or seen and just say, "Wow, I didn't know there was someone doing that, that I could emulate or I could reach out to." Because pretty much all of us, if we're doing this for mentors or coaches or something along those lines too.
All right. Let's see, you were last here about two years ago. Of course, I can never go back and remember where things were two years ago, but just give us an update on maybe how your life has changed and some of the newer things you've been doing since we last spoke back in, I think 2022.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. A lot has changed since then, but on a personal note, I started homeschooling my older two kids, which has been so good because they get a full education. They get the academic piece. I'm teaching them business, leadership, real estate, character development, and they get a lot of hands-on because I have them hands-on in the business. They're 16 and 14. It's been so rewarding. And some of the things we're going to talk about today are the things that made that possible because I was able to create that space so I could do that. That's been really good.
From a business perspective, I've done a lot, but really focused. As you know we have The EntreMD Business School, which is really about helping doctors build six, seven, multiple seven figure businesses. And for the last two years, I could have started many, many other programs, but I really poured a lot of energy into that. How can I help the doctors get bigger results? How can I help them get results faster? How can I help them see as many examples as possible of what is possible?
And really over the last two years watching them, we're talking docs, building multiple seven figure businesses, taking vacations once a quarter. Their marriages are better. Their relationships with their kids are better. Their health is better. Everything is better because they're back in control. They're back in control. And so just watching that has been so great. I'm really glad. The school is almost four years old now. Just the sheer amount of focus that I've put on that.
And then I really took to writing. I figured we didn't get a business education and everybody's not going to come into the business school, but I did really want physicians to have all these blueprints of how they can change their businesses, how they can grow really great brands and things like that.
This year I was like, "I'm going to do a book a quarter and we see how that goes." For the last two years, I've done a book a year. But then this year I was like, "I'll do one a quarter." That's my tall order for my own self.
John: That sounds like a challenge. It's hard. The way through that and with everything else you're doing, but it's a good challenge.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah, I'm up for it. I committed for a year, so we see what happens after that.
John: Yeah. Well, maybe by then you'll have written everything that needs to be known by anybody. So that'll be good. But that's why we're here. We want to talk about your latest book. You wrote The Visibility Formula recently, and published it. I've had a chance to look through it, but why did you write that and what aspect is it focused on?
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. I started off in entrepreneurship as a socially awkward, super shy introverted introvert. And I think many physicians are introverts and all of that. The problem with that is if we adopt the traditional sense of an introvert, it's almost impossible to make a business work because then the introvert will say, "Well, I can't go out and ask for referrals because I'm shy and I can't speak on stages because I'm shy. I can't ask for reviews because I'm shy." And it goes on and on and on. And I had treated that like a handicap, but being able to show up and promote your business and promote your brand and all of that, it's not really a personality type. It's like a skillset. It's a skillset. And I found so many physician owned businesses struggling, not because they don't have a great service because we lead with service. We have amazing services, but the thing is nobody knows about them. Obscurity is the big problem.
And so, I wanted to create one book where you can go end to end and discover how to build a business that is like a household name where people start saying you're everywhere, where all the people you want to serve can find you because there are so many people who have the problems that our businesses fix, but again, they don't know we exist and if they don't know we exist, they can't say yes to working with us. And so I wanted every doctor to be able to lay their hands on something that they can follow, their team can follow, and it will take them over the course of time from obscure to household name.
And then once we get to that place, we're in a position where we can help the people we're called to serve and we can create financial freedom at the same time. So that's kind of what drove me to write the book.
John: Oh yeah, I think most physicians, it's not something they're aware of or exposed to the idea of marketing or sales or, I don't know, branding even, that kind of thing. Maybe you can walk us through the components of the book or of the visibility formula. Obviously we should all go by the book if we want the details, but you can at least give us a high level overview of at least two or three, or maybe all.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. The starting point of all things visibility is really recognizing how powerful it is. And when I talk to people about them, if your brand is visible, you get to attract more people that you can work with, which is what you want to do. You get to attract more people who refer people to you, because again, there are people looking to refer to people just like you. They just don't know you exist. You'll get to attract people who will come work for you.
I have so many doctors in The EntreMD Business School who now have one of them over the last three months has had six doctors from different states reach out and say, "You're the person I want to work with. I will move my family cross country to come work with you." Visibility does that.
And then one of my favorite things is that the visibility formula will do for you is it sets the stage for what I call the unknown. There's so many opportunities that can fall in our lap. That could be investments, that could be partnerships, that could be so many things, but they're not things that are on a vision boards and not things that are goals, but they can fall in our lap if people can find us. And so, if we understand how valuable visibility is, we'll be willing to embrace some of our discomfort to be visible. And so, that's the starting point.
Then the second thing, especially for physicians, because when I started out as an entrepreneur, I thought sales marketing, all those things are sleazy things, that used car salesmen did, not professionals like me. But redefining what that is. For instance, I could see selling as something you do to manipulate people to take their money, which is not what selling is. Selling or even being visible is really putting yourself out there loud enough and long enough so the people who have a pain that your business solves can find you. And so, the truth of the matter is putting ourselves out there is sometimes some of the best service we'll do to the people we're called to serve, because they have real problems.
Dr. John, if you think about it, there are problems in maybe your life, your business and things that you're thinking, "If I could just find somebody who does this, I'm willing to pay them whatever. Whatever they want, I'm willing to pay them. I just need the person." But there's somebody else who has a business who solves that. The reason why you're not working with them is because you don't know they exist. And it's the same thing for us.
If that person were to come to you and the person tells you, this is what I do, you're not going to say, "Oh my goodness, this person is sleazy and manipulative." You can even almost hug them and say "I've been looking for somebody like you." And so, being visible is not a slimy thing at all. It's a good thing. It's you serving your people. And if we can just reframe the way we think about it, everything becomes better. These are almost like prerequisites. Once these two are here, it makes embracing the formula, it makes it much easier.
As far as the actual formula, the starting point is who do I serve? Who do I serve? Who is the person? And a lot of times people will tell me, "Well, I can't choose. What I do will help everybody." And I'm like, "They're 8 billion people. You're not going to help everybody." And they're like, "No, but I really can't choose." I'm like, "Yeah, but you're an OB-GYN. You're not a pediatrician, you're not a dermatologist, you're not a heart surgeon. You chose a specialty so you can choose."
Really identifying who is the person my business serves, because when we talk to everybody, we're talking to nobody. And that's the rule of the game. You want it so that this way, everything you're doing is strategic. You're talking to your person at all times. That's the first part of the formula.
The second part of the formula is the person you serve already exists. They're not going to be born. This is someone who's going to swipe a credit card or swipe a card to work with you. They already exist. And so, they're out there in communities and groups and tribes where they've been gathered.
The second part of the formula is identifying where they are already gathered and going to them. For instance, Dr. John, I'm on your podcast and there are people who are listening now who have never heard of me, but they hear of me because I'm here. And the same thing, if you go on somebody else's podcast, there are people who've never heard of you, but they're gathered and you show up there and they're like, "Oh, now I've met Dr. John. Let me go find his podcast. Let me go attend his conference."
And so, we go show up where our audience already is. Because a lot of times what people do, they start a business, they open a social media account and they're talking there all day, every day, but nobody knows them. You have to go find the people. The second stage is going to find the people.
The third stage is then creating what we call a headquarters where people can come and binge on your stuff. Think about Netflix for business. If we use this example, Dr. John, I'm here on your podcast. Some may listen to this and be like "I find what she's saying is really fascinating." They could come to my podcast. My podcast has 414 episodes at this point. So they can binge away. They can see, "Oh, this is what it's like when people work with her." They can see, "Oh, this is what she's about." These are the principles to stand for. "Oh, she showed me this. I can go apply it in my business now and get wins and all that." Everybody kind of wants to own that so people can come home, if you will. They come to the headquarters and really experience you.
And done right, your podcast, YouTube, blog, those are the three main types of headquarters. They really can be a full-time employee in your business because while you're asleep, Dr. John, someone just listened to you talk about the conference. So someone's like, "Yeah, I heard you say the conference has passed, but I'm going to buy the replays and stuff like that." This could be happening at 02:00 A.M. You're asleep where your podcast is working like a full-time employee. Identify who you want to serve, go out there, go find them, build an HQ for them.
And then the fourth stage is really around "How do I set this up in a way that it doesn't take over my life?" I don't want to spend all day every day doing the podcast, creating, pitching where I'm going to go, all of that. Because sometimes people hear about this, they're like, "It's too much. It's a lot of stuff." And that's why we talk about things like repurposing, batching, getting a team, delegation, all of those things.
You can do it because I've had a whole month period where I didn't record a single podcast episode because I wanted to take a break. But I batched and I created six episodes, which is for six weeks. So of course I can take a break. My podcast didn't take a break, but I took a break. So there are ways to do all of these things and it will look like you're everywhere doing all the things at all times, but not really. That's not what's really happening because you've learned to leverage all these other things.
And the truth of the matter is we put ourselves out there long enough, loud enough, and we're strategic with inviting people to work with us and all of that. We will just build a brand. We will build a business where we can serve all the people we want to serve and really create massive change, which is what we really want to do. That's a long answer to your question, but that's kind of the formula.
John: That's a good overview of the formula. Now I'm going to get into the specifics of a couple of questions. One of the things I've become more interested in is instead of pulling people into just these nonclinical jobs, working for UM or an insurance company or something, but going back and saying, "Look, just start your own practice. Maybe do a cash only business of some sort or concierge or whatever you want to call it."
I just want to know when your experience, when you're working with those people, are there certain techniques that they use? Looking for patients geographically around them, do they go out on LinkedIn on social media or do they just do ads in newspapers or what?
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: That's a great question. There's a lot of things they can do, but I'll tell you almost in order of importance, if you will. I'll give you some. When you have a brick and mortar and you're going to be serving people locally. When we talk about going out to where the people are, a lot of times they're local referral sources.
I'll give you an example. I'm a pediatrician and a great referral source for me would be an OB-GYN because we serve the same person in different ways. The OB-GYN will take care of the mom. I will take care of the mom's kid. And so, there's no competition there because we do completely different things.
Now, if I were to have build a relationship with six OB-GYNs and they're all preferentially referring to me, I'm busy, the end. The end. Because their moms are going to keep having babies and they're going to keep sending them to me. So I just have this constant stream of new people who are coming in.
I will give you an example of one of the docs in The EntreMD Business School, she does weight loss, brick and mortar, and she had been courting this orthopedic surgery group. Because they would need for their patients to have some weight loss to qualify for certain surgeries and stuff like that. And it took her a minute, it took her about 11 months of following up with them and all of that, but it's a big group. And so, the day they said, "Oh, come do a lunch and learn from us. We want to learn more about what you do." She ended up with 42 new referral sources, 42. If they sent you one patient a month, that is 42 new patients a month from one referral source. You see what I mean? And so for brick and mortar, that right there, it's so powerful, it's super powerful. That's number one.
Number two, because private practices tend to be high volume for the most part, except they're concierge like DPC, they tend to be larger volume than say a coach would have. Unleashing your current patients is so powerful. Many of them will refer, but they don't refer because they don't know you're accepting new referrals. Case in point, I was taking care of a patient one day and she said, Dr. Una, are you accepting new patients? Because I had this friend, she has three kids. She asked me who my doctor was and I was like telling her how you were amazing and all of that, but you're busy, I'm sure you don't take new patients. Here she is thinking she's doing me a favor by not referring patients. Meanwhile, I'm actively recruiting and accepting new patients. If we don't tell them, they won't refer. Now sometimes they will, but we won't experience the real magic of it if we're not telling them.
It's as simple as maybe I see 12 patients a day and I decide every day I'm going to ask four people to refer people to me. Especially when they're like, "You're the best thing since sliced bread." What they're literally telling you is ask me for something. Ask me for something. When they tell you that, oh, that's so amazing, that we're looking to build this practice up with patients just like you. Do you have any friends or family who you think deserve to be in a practice like this? And then they're like, of course, yes. And there they go. Because again, one person may give you five people. One person may be someone who's very influential, leads an organization, may give you 20 people. But if we don't ask, that's not happening.
Now people can do ads, but for me, I usually say ads is like gasoline on the fire. You want to make sure there's a fire. You want to make sure there's something already happening and you're doing the ads. I usually put that as last. And social media is also really powerful. Even if you're not getting a whole lot of engagement, do not be confused by it. People are watching, people are referring, people are sharing the video because they're like, oh yeah, this is my doctor and stuff like that. It's so powerful.
I've had clients who they're like, "I'm not getting a whole lot of engagement", but they keep hearing their patients say, "Oh, I see you. I see you online all the time and I shared your video with somebody else." They've gotten paid speaking gigs from that. They've had speaking gigs where they were in front of their ideal audience. They went to speak somewhere and got 20 new patients from one Facebook video that 25 people watched. It's really powerful. If they do the referrals, internal and external, and they do the social media, it's amazing what can happen.
John: All right. Well, let me shift gears to another. As you were talking, I thought, "Well, this whole idea of automating is a good one, because otherwise we just get overwhelmed." Do you have like a one or two of the things that you found that really just made a huge difference in any aspect of your business or your practice?
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. For me, delegation is one that's made the biggest difference. And I like to talk about it because I struggled so much. Because I'm good at a lot of things like most physicians are. And so, I'm like, yeah, I can do it. It'd take too much time to train somebody else to do it. But the problem is that one is too small a number for greatness. There's no way to build a great company with one person. And if you do the opportunity cost is pretty high.
And so, if you can always ask yourself this question, "Is this the best use of my time?" Either as a physician working clinically, or if you're working as a CEO in your business, you are the most expensive person on your team. The question is, would I pay somebody else what I will have to pay me to do this task? I had a client who loved to play on Canva. And if she listens to this, she'll laugh, she knows herself. Loves to play on Canva, loves to create graphics and do all this stuff. I'm like, "Look, if your hourly rate is $350 an hour, and you spent two hours creating this graphic, that's a $700 flyer. Would you ever in this lifetime pay somebody $700 to do that?" And she's like, absolutely not. I'm like, "So stop it. Find somebody else who you can pay appropriately to do that. It's too expensive."
Delegation is it, but one of the struggles with delegation is then we don't want to train the person to do it. They should come, they should know what to do, and they should read my mind and all of those things. The rules that make delegation work are really around you have to be very clear on what you want them to do. You have to be very intentional about training them to do it. You have to be willing to do some hand-holding in the beginning so you can set them free. And it's kind of like you're free for a really long time.
I'll give you an example. The last time I onboarded an executive assistant, I knew she was going to have a lot of tasks to do for me and all of that. I did a 30-day bootcamp with her. 30 days. 30 days, I met with her. I'm like, "This is how you do this. This is why we do this. This is my thinking about this." I did that every day for the first 30 days.
Now, after the first 30 days, she has been able to take so much off my plate. I kid you not, I probably have 12 hours a week back. But the cost for her to be able to do that, do it so efficiently, I represent the brand so perfectly, is a 30-day bootcamp.
John: Yeah. I appreciate what you're saying because I hired a podcast coordinator/assistant. And one of the things she said, "Hey, do you want me to do some of those images, those graphics for your social media and for your podcast?" I'm like, sure. Of course, she does them 10 times better than I ever would. And it actually takes her less time than I was spending doing them. And so, yeah, it's just amazing. You can't get away from having that human person that replaces what you do in spite of all the automated tools we have these days. Ciara, if you're listening to this, helping me with my podcast, then I'm giving you a shout out right now.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: That's awesome.
John: Okay. I want to hear more about everything that you do, starting with the book, so we know where is the best place to get the book and so forth.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. To get the book, it's really simple. You can go to entremd.com/visibilitybook. And you can get the book there. We have other books that we've written, The EntreMD Method, and then Made for More, which is a compilation book from 40 doctors from the EntreMD Business School came together to tell their stories and stuff like that. So, that would be the place to get the book.
John, the way we like to look at this is we call the EntreMD podcast the free MBA for physicians. We deliver a lot of high value talking about business principles, how to scale, what you need to do to take your practice, for instance, to the seven figure mark, how to build a formidable team, all those kinds of things. We talk about all of that there. And it costs nothing. You're on a podcast platform already, just pop in entremd.com and go there.
The second thing we call our $15 MBA, and that will be our books. The Visibility Formula, Made for More, The EntreMD Method, and all the other ones I'm going to write this year. And then the third thing really is for the doctor who is committed to building a six, seven, multiple seven figure business. They're committed to their goals, but they're like, I need some mentorship. I want to be in a community of people who are doing the same things. I don't feel like I'm a unicorn doing something that nobody else has ever done and I can be inspired by people who are doing that. I need accountability because I'm not always motivated and nobody is.
And so, that would be the EntreMD Business School. That's our year-long program. It is a place where it's an alternate reality in medicine really, because you'll see people from starting up to all the way to eight and a half million in revenue, people who are monetizing their personal brand. So, they're working jobs, but they're building their personal brand as their business to private practice, DPC, DSC, speakers, event hosts, people with products, all kinds of businesses in there. The results that they're going on to create are just unbelievable, because you know what I think. Doctors, we make some of the best entrepreneurs, but all in one community creating those results. And so, all of these you can find on the website entremd.com, but these are the ways we support physicians. Those are the three MBAs.
John: Excellent. I think that's fantastic. We know what we know clinically, we're all well-trained. I think there's a big fear of venturing into the practice environment, but I think that's going to be our only saving really. Yeah, there's some good organizations that treat their physicians well, but you don't have the autonomy. Someone is telling you what to do, and you have this 15-page contract, and it's like, who wants to live like that? I would definitely take advantage of this if I was starting my practice, just to learn those business and marketing and promotional things, and just the common sense things that people that have already run a business know about.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah, you talk about fear, but I think that we should be afraid if we don't evolve. Because with the way it is, the burnout is at an all-time high, loss of autonomy is there, and there's no way to explore your full potential, which is one of the things that entrepreneurship allows you to do. There's no financial stability, let's not fool ourselves, because anybody could be fired any day. And so, yes, there may be a fear to venturing out, but you never know. That could absolutely work, and there's so many evidences of people it's worked for, but this other one is a guaranteed fear. We know this is not working. Choose your heart, choose your fear.
John: Yeah, think of a strategy. Maybe you're coming out of residency or fellowship, and you think, "Okay, let me be employed for a while, but make sure that I can get out of that in two or three years, and in the meantime, learn all these other things I need to know, so I can create the perfect situation for myself." But I tell you, I never thought about things that way back in the day, but maybe it's an option for some of the newer grads to consider.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah, very different times. We've had a lot of new grads in recent times, fresh out of fellowship, fresh out of residency, and watching them thrive in private practice, now that's been something. We have what it takes. I always joke, and I say, if we could learn the Krebs cycle, we can learn business.
John: Exactly. All right. Well, I think we're going to be out of time here momentarily. Any last bit of advice, just because you know my audience, it's a lot of physicians, some of whom are unhappy, some are frustrated, some are just looking for fulfillment. But what's your advice for my audience these days?
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah, I think the best thing I could say now is with the way the healthcare space is now, the requirement for our evolution, it's a mandatory requirement. We have to change, and we have the capacity to. We're not fixed, we're not stuck. The way it is, it's not the way it always has to be. We can change. We can learn business skills, we can learn speaking skills, we can learn how to monetize brands. The things we're uncomfortable with, we can become comfortable with them. But I want to invite everybody to embrace becoming different, becoming an upgraded version. If you would like 2.0 because the healthcare space and you having autonomy, living without burnout, having financial freedom, having time, freedom to do what you really want to do requires that you evolve. The old model is not working, it's not going to get better. We have to change.
John: Very good, wise words. All right, Dr. Una, thank you for being here today and we'll get you back on in a couple of years again, if I'm still around. But I'm looking forward to hearing your first presentation at the summit and on a future podcast I will definitely give everybody a review of how things went. So I thank you for being here again today.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Thank you so much for having me. And thank you so much for what you do for physicians everywhere. We appreciate you.
John: Thank you for that. All right, with that I'll say goodbye.
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 350
How to Apply the Visibility Formula to Become Known
- Interview with Dr. Nneka Unachukwu
John: I found that one of the best ways for physicians to thrive in today's healthcare environment is to opt out of the traditional corporate employment. That just doesn't do it for most of us. And as an alternative, build your own practice or a healthcare-related business. And to do that, of course, you need business knowledge and marketing knowledge. And that's why I brought on today's guest because she is an expert in both. Maybe we'll get she's taught so many people how to start a business, run a business, optimize a business, market a business. And so, I want to welcome back to the podcast, Dr. Nneka Unuchukwu.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Hi, John. Thank you so much for having me back. This is a treat.
John: Yeah. And of course, you are being a presenter at the summit, which starts a week from now, but it's actually in the past by the time this is posted. I do want to mention it though, because people can still buy the videos after the fact. You are our kickoff speaker next Tuesday. I'm very thankful that you're going to be doing that for us.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. And I think it's a gift to the physician community really, because we really do need all hands on deck and for people to see examples of what is possible. And you really gathered a really great group of speakers who are speaking on so many different things and everybody should be able to find something that resonates with them. And then hopefully just change the trajectory of their lives really.
John: Yeah. And not the least of which is just get to know some of these speakers who maybe they've never met before or seen and just say, "Wow, I didn't know there was someone doing that, that I could emulate or I could reach out to." Because pretty much all of us, if we're doing this for mentors or coaches or something along those lines too.
All right. Let's see, you were last here about two years ago. Of course, I can never go back and remember where things were two years ago, but just give us an update on maybe how your life has changed and some of the newer things you've been doing since we last spoke back in, I think 2022.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. A lot has changed since then, but on a personal note, I started homeschooling my older two kids, which has been so good because they get a full education. They get the academic piece. I'm teaching them business, leadership, real estate, character development, and they get a lot of hands-on because I have them hands-on in the business. They're 16 and 14. It's been so rewarding. And some of the things we're going to talk about today are the things that made that possible because I was able to create that space so I could do that. That's been really good.
From a business perspective, I've done a lot, but really focused. As you know we have The EntreMD Business School, which is really about helping doctors build six, seven, multiple seven figure businesses. And for the last two years, I could have started many, many other programs, but I really poured a lot of energy into that. How can I help the doctors get bigger results? How can I help them get results faster? How can I help them see as many examples as possible of what is possible?
And really over the last two years watching them, we're talking docs, building multiple seven figure businesses, taking vacations once a quarter. Their marriages are better. Their relationships with their kids are better. Their health is better. Everything is better because they're back in control. They're back in control. And so just watching that has been so great. I'm really glad. The school is almost four years old now. Just the sheer amount of focus that I've put on that.
And then I really took to writing. I figured we didn't get a business education and everybody's not going to come into the business school, but I did really want physicians to have all these blueprints of how they can change their businesses, how they can grow really great brands and things like that.
This year I was like, "I'm going to do a book a quarter and we see how that goes." For the last two years, I've done a book a year. But then this year I was like, "I'll do one a quarter." That's my tall order for my own self.
John: That sounds like a challenge. It's hard. The way through that and with everything else you're doing, but it's a good challenge.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah, I'm up for it. I committed for a year, so we see what happens after that.
John: Yeah. Well, maybe by then you'll have written everything that needs to be known by anybody. So that'll be good. But that's why we're here. We want to talk about your latest book. You wrote The Visibility Formula recently, and published it. I've had a chance to look through it, but why did you write that and what aspect is it focused on?
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. I started off in entrepreneurship as a socially awkward, super shy introverted introvert. And I think many physicians are introverts and all of that. The problem with that is if we adopt the traditional sense of an introvert, it's almost impossible to make a business work because then the introvert will say, "Well, I can't go out and ask for referrals because I'm shy and I can't speak on stages because I'm shy. I can't ask for reviews because I'm shy." And it goes on and on and on. And I had treated that like a handicap, but being able to show up and promote your business and promote your brand and all of that, it's not really a personality type. It's like a skillset. It's a skillset. And I found so many physician owned businesses struggling, not because they don't have a great service because we lead with service. We have amazing services, but the thing is nobody knows about them. Obscurity is the big problem.
And so, I wanted to create one book where you can go end to end and discover how to build a business that is like a household name where people start saying you're everywhere, where all the people you want to serve can find you because there are so many people who have the problems that our businesses fix, but again, they don't know we exist and if they don't know we exist, they can't say yes to working with us. And so I wanted every doctor to be able to lay their hands on something that they can follow, their team can follow, and it will take them over the course of time from obscure to household name.
And then once we get to that place, we're in a position where we can help the people we're called to serve and we can create financial freedom at the same time. So that's kind of what drove me to write the book.
John: Oh yeah, I think most physicians, it's not something they're aware of or exposed to the idea of marketing or sales or, I don't know, branding even, that kind of thing. Maybe you can walk us through the components of the book or of the visibility formula. Obviously we should all go by the book if we want the details, but you can at least give us a high level overview of at least two or three, or maybe all.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. The starting point of all things visibility is really recognizing how powerful it is. And when I talk to people about them, if your brand is visible, you get to attract more people that you can work with, which is what you want to do. You get to attract more people who refer people to you, because again, there are people looking to refer to people just like you. They just don't know you exist. You'll get to attract people who will come work for you.
I have so many doctors in The EntreMD Business School who now have one of them over the last three months has had six doctors from different states reach out and say, "You're the person I want to work with. I will move my family cross country to come work with you." Visibility does that.
And then one of my favorite things is that the visibility formula will do for you is it sets the stage for what I call the unknown. There's so many opportunities that can fall in our lap. That could be investments, that could be partnerships, that could be so many things, but they're not things that are on a vision boards and not things that are goals, but they can fall in our lap if people can find us. And so, if we understand how valuable visibility is, we'll be willing to embrace some of our discomfort to be visible. And so, that's the starting point.
Then the second thing, especially for physicians, because when I started out as an entrepreneur, I thought sales marketing, all those things are sleazy things, that used car salesmen did, not professionals like me. But redefining what that is. For instance, I could see selling as something you do to manipulate people to take their money, which is not what selling is. Selling or even being visible is really putting yourself out there loud enough and long enough so the people who have a pain that your business solves can find you. And so, the truth of the matter is putting ourselves out there is sometimes some of the best service we'll do to the people we're called to serve, because they have real problems.
Dr. John, if you think about it, there are problems in maybe your life, your business and things that you're thinking, "If I could just find somebody who does this, I'm willing to pay them whatever. Whatever they want, I'm willing to pay them. I just need the person." But there's somebody else who has a business who solves that. The reason why you're not working with them is because you don't know they exist. And it's the same thing for us.
If that person were to come to you and the person tells you, this is what I do, you're not going to say, "Oh my goodness, this person is sleazy and manipulative." You can even almost hug them and say "I've been looking for somebody like you." And so, being visible is not a slimy thing at all. It's a good thing. It's you serving your people. And if we can just reframe the way we think about it, everything becomes better. These are almost like prerequisites. Once these two are here, it makes embracing the formula, it makes it much easier.
As far as the actual formula, the starting point is who do I serve? Who do I serve? Who is the person? And a lot of times people will tell me, "Well, I can't choose. What I do will help everybody." And I'm like, "They're 8 billion people. You're not going to help everybody." And they're like, "No, but I really can't choose." I'm like, "Yeah, but you're an OB-GYN. You're not a pediatrician, you're not a dermatologist, you're not a heart surgeon. You chose a specialty so you can choose."
Really identifying who is the person my business serves, because when we talk to everybody, we're talking to nobody. And that's the rule of the game. You want it so that this way, everything you're doing is strategic. You're talking to your person at all times. That's the first part of the formula.
The second part of the formula is the person you serve already exists. They're not going to be born. This is someone who's going to swipe a credit card or swipe a card to work with you. They already exist. And so, they're out there in communities and groups and tribes where they've been gathered.
The second part of the formula is identifying where they are already gathered and going to them. For instance, Dr. John, I'm on your podcast and there are people who are listening now who have never heard of me, but they hear of me because I'm here. And the same thing, if you go on somebody else's podcast, there are people who've never heard of you, but they're gathered and you show up there and they're like, "Oh, now I've met Dr. John. Let me go find his podcast. Let me go attend his conference."
And so, we go show up where our audience already is. Because a lot of times what people do, they start a business, they open a social media account and they're talking there all day, every day, but nobody knows them. You have to go find the people. The second stage is going to find the people.
The third stage is then creating what we call a headquarters where people can come and binge on your stuff. Think about Netflix for business. If we use this example, Dr. John, I'm here on your podcast. Some may listen to this and be like "I find what she's saying is really fascinating." They could come to my podcast. My podcast has 414 episodes at this point. So they can binge away. They can see, "Oh, this is what it's like when people work with her." They can see, "Oh, this is what she's about." These are the principles to stand for. "Oh, she showed me this. I can go apply it in my business now and get wins and all that." Everybody kind of wants to own that so people can come home, if you will. They come to the headquarters and really experience you.
And done right, your podcast, YouTube, blog, those are the three main types of headquarters. They really can be a full-time employee in your business because while you're asleep, Dr. John, someone just listened to you talk about the conference. So someone's like, "Yeah, I heard you say the conference has passed, but I'm going to buy the replays and stuff like that." This could be happening at 02:00 A.M. You're asleep where your podcast is working like a full-time employee. Identify who you want to serve, go out there, go find them, build an HQ for them.
And then the fourth stage is really around "How do I set this up in a way that it doesn't take over my life?" I don't want to spend all day every day doing the podcast, creating, pitching where I'm going to go, all of that. Because sometimes people hear about this, they're like, "It's too much. It's a lot of stuff." And that's why we talk about things like repurposing, batching, getting a team, delegation, all of those things.
You can do it because I've had a whole month period where I didn't record a single podcast episode because I wanted to take a break. But I batched and I created six episodes, which is for six weeks. So of course I can take a break. My podcast didn't take a break, but I took a break. So there are ways to do all of these things and it will look like you're everywhere doing all the things at all times, but not really. That's not what's really happening because you've learned to leverage all these other things.
And the truth of the matter is we put ourselves out there long enough, loud enough, and we're strategic with inviting people to work with us and all of that. We will just build a brand. We will build a business where we can serve all the people we want to serve and really create massive change, which is what we really want to do. That's a long answer to your question, but that's kind of the formula.
John: That's a good overview of the formula. Now I'm going to get into the specifics of a couple of questions. One of the things I've become more interested in is instead of pulling people into just these nonclinical jobs, working for UM or an insurance company or something, but going back and saying, "Look, just start your own practice. Maybe do a cash only business of some sort or concierge or whatever you want to call it."
I just want to know when your experience, when you're working with those people, are there certain techniques that they use? Looking for patients geographically around them, do they go out on LinkedIn on social media or do they just do ads in newspapers or what?
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: That's a great question. There's a lot of things they can do, but I'll tell you almost in order of importance, if you will. I'll give you some. When you have a brick and mortar and you're going to be serving people locally. When we talk about going out to where the people are, a lot of times they're local referral sources.
I'll give you an example. I'm a pediatrician and a great referral source for me would be an OB-GYN because we serve the same person in different ways. The OB-GYN will take care of the mom. I will take care of the mom's kid. And so, there's no competition there because we do completely different things.
Now, if I were to have build a relationship with six OB-GYNs and they're all preferentially referring to me, I'm busy, the end. The end. Because their moms are going to keep having babies and they're going to keep sending them to me. So I just have this constant stream of new people who are coming in.
I will give you an example of one of the docs in The EntreMD Business School, she does weight loss, brick and mortar, and she had been courting this orthopedic surgery group. Because they would need for their patients to have some weight loss to qualify for certain surgeries and stuff like that. And it took her a minute, it took her about 11 months of following up with them and all of that, but it's a big group. And so, the day they said, "Oh, come do a lunch and learn from us. We want to learn more about what you do." She ended up with 42 new referral sources, 42. If they sent you one patient a month, that is 42 new patients a month from one referral source. You see what I mean? And so for brick and mortar, that right there, it's so powerful, it's super powerful. That's number one.
Number two, because private practices tend to be high volume for the most part, except they're concierge like DPC, they tend to be larger volume than say a coach would have. Unleashing your current patients is so powerful. Many of them will refer, but they don't refer because they don't know you're accepting new referrals. Case in point, I was taking care of a patient one day and she said, Dr. Una, are you accepting new patients? Because I had this friend, she has three kids. She asked me who my doctor was and I was like telling her how you were amazing and all of that, but you're busy, I'm sure you don't take new patients. Here she is thinking she's doing me a favor by not referring patients. Meanwhile, I'm actively recruiting and accepting new patients. If we don't tell them, they won't refer. Now sometimes they will, but we won't experience the real magic of it if we're not telling them.
It's as simple as maybe I see 12 patients a day and I decide every day I'm going to ask four people to refer people to me. Especially when they're like, "You're the best thing since sliced bread." What they're literally telling you is ask me for something. Ask me for something. When they tell you that, oh, that's so amazing, that we're looking to build this practice up with patients just like you. Do you have any friends or family who you think deserve to be in a practice like this? And then they're like, of course, yes. And there they go. Because again, one person may give you five people. One person may be someone who's very influential, leads an organization, may give you 20 people. But if we don't ask, that's not happening.
Now people can do ads, but for me, I usually say ads is like gasoline on the fire. You want to make sure there's a fire. You want to make sure there's something already happening and you're doing the ads. I usually put that as last. And social media is also really powerful. Even if you're not getting a whole lot of engagement, do not be confused by it. People are watching, people are referring, people are sharing the video because they're like, oh yeah, this is my doctor and stuff like that. It's so powerful.
I've had clients who they're like, "I'm not getting a whole lot of engagement", but they keep hearing their patients say, "Oh, I see you. I see you online all the time and I shared your video with somebody else." They've gotten paid speaking gigs from that. They've had speaking gigs where they were in front of their ideal audience. They went to speak somewhere and got 20 new patients from one Facebook video that 25 people watched. It's really powerful. If they do the referrals, internal and external, and they do the social media, it's amazing what can happen.
John: All right. Well, let me shift gears to another. As you were talking, I thought, "Well, this whole idea of automating is a good one, because otherwise we just get overwhelmed." Do you have like a one or two of the things that you found that really just made a huge difference in any aspect of your business or your practice?
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. For me, delegation is one that's made the biggest difference. And I like to talk about it because I struggled so much. Because I'm good at a lot of things like most physicians are. And so, I'm like, yeah, I can do it. It'd take too much time to train somebody else to do it. But the problem is that one is too small a number for greatness. There's no way to build a great company with one person. And if you do the opportunity cost is pretty high.
And so, if you can always ask yourself this question, "Is this the best use of my time?" Either as a physician working clinically, or if you're working as a CEO in your business, you are the most expensive person on your team. The question is, would I pay somebody else what I will have to pay me to do this task? I had a client who loved to play on Canva. And if she listens to this, she'll laugh, she knows herself. Loves to play on Canva, loves to create graphics and do all this stuff. I'm like, "Look, if your hourly rate is $350 an hour, and you spent two hours creating this graphic, that's a $700 flyer. Would you ever in this lifetime pay somebody $700 to do that?" And she's like, absolutely not. I'm like, "So stop it. Find somebody else who you can pay appropriately to do that. It's too expensive."
Delegation is it, but one of the struggles with delegation is then we don't want to train the person to do it. They should come, they should know what to do, and they should read my mind and all of those things. The rules that make delegation work are really around you have to be very clear on what you want them to do. You have to be very intentional about training them to do it. You have to be willing to do some hand-holding in the beginning so you can set them free. And it's kind of like you're free for a really long time.
I'll give you an example. The last time I onboarded an executive assistant, I knew she was going to have a lot of tasks to do for me and all of that. I did a 30-day bootcamp with her. 30 days. 30 days, I met with her. I'm like, "This is how you do this. This is why we do this. This is my thinking about this." I did that every day for the first 30 days.
Now, after the first 30 days, she has been able to take so much off my plate. I kid you not, I probably have 12 hours a week back. But the cost for her to be able to do that, do it so efficiently, I represent the brand so perfectly, is a 30-day bootcamp.
John: Yeah. I appreciate what you're saying because I hired a podcast coordinator/assistant. And one of the things she said, "Hey, do you want me to do some of those images, those graphics for your social media and for your podcast?" I'm like, sure. Of course, she does them 10 times better than I ever would. And it actually takes her less time than I was spending doing them. And so, yeah, it's just amazing. You can't get away from having that human person that replaces what you do in spite of all the automated tools we have these days. Ciara, if you're listening to this, helping me with my podcast, then I'm giving you a shout out right now.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: That's awesome.
John: Okay. I want to hear more about everything that you do, starting with the book, so we know where is the best place to get the book and so forth.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah. To get the book, it's really simple. You can go to entremd.com/visibilitybook. And you can get the book there. We have other books that we've written, The EntreMD Method, and then Made for More, which is a compilation book from 40 doctors from the EntreMD Business School came together to tell their stories and stuff like that. So, that would be the place to get the book.
John, the way we like to look at this is we call the EntreMD podcast the free MBA for physicians. We deliver a lot of high value talking about business principles, how to scale, what you need to do to take your practice, for instance, to the seven figure mark, how to build a formidable team, all those kinds of things. We talk about all of that there. And it costs nothing. You're on a podcast platform already, just pop in entremd.com and go there.
The second thing we call our $15 MBA, and that will be our books. The Visibility Formula, Made for More, The EntreMD Method, and all the other ones I'm going to write this year. And then the third thing really is for the doctor who is committed to building a six, seven, multiple seven figure business. They're committed to their goals, but they're like, I need some mentorship. I want to be in a community of people who are doing the same things. I don't feel like I'm a unicorn doing something that nobody else has ever done and I can be inspired by people who are doing that. I need accountability because I'm not always motivated and nobody is.
And so, that would be the EntreMD Business School. That's our year-long program. It is a place where it's an alternate reality in medicine really, because you'll see people from starting up to all the way to eight and a half million in revenue, people who are monetizing their personal brand. So, they're working jobs, but they're building their personal brand as their business to private practice, DPC, DSC, speakers, event hosts, people with products, all kinds of businesses in there. The results that they're going on to create are just unbelievable, because you know what I think. Doctors, we make some of the best entrepreneurs, but all in one community creating those results. And so, all of these you can find on the website entremd.com, but these are the ways we support physicians. Those are the three MBAs.
John: Excellent. I think that's fantastic. We know what we know clinically, we're all well-trained. I think there's a big fear of venturing into the practice environment, but I think that's going to be our only saving really. Yeah, there's some good organizations that treat their physicians well, but you don't have the autonomy. Someone is telling you what to do, and you have this 15-page contract, and it's like, who wants to live like that? I would definitely take advantage of this if I was starting my practice, just to learn those business and marketing and promotional things, and just the common sense things that people that have already run a business know about.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah, you talk about fear, but I think that we should be afraid if we don't evolve. Because with the way it is, the burnout is at an all-time high, loss of autonomy is there, and there's no way to explore your full potential, which is one of the things that entrepreneurship allows you to do. There's no financial stability, let's not fool ourselves, because anybody could be fired any day. And so, yes, there may be a fear to venturing out, but you never know. That could absolutely work, and there's so many evidences of people it's worked for, but this other one is a guaranteed fear. We know this is not working. Choose your heart, choose your fear.
John: Yeah, think of a strategy. Maybe you're coming out of residency or fellowship, and you think, "Okay, let me be employed for a while, but make sure that I can get out of that in two or three years, and in the meantime, learn all these other things I need to know, so I can create the perfect situation for myself." But I tell you, I never thought about things that way back in the day, but maybe it's an option for some of the newer grads to consider.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah, very different times. We've had a lot of new grads in recent times, fresh out of fellowship, fresh out of residency, and watching them thrive in private practice, now that's been something. We have what it takes. I always joke, and I say, if we could learn the Krebs cycle, we can learn business.
John: Exactly. All right. Well, I think we're going to be out of time here momentarily. Any last bit of advice, just because you know my audience, it's a lot of physicians, some of whom are unhappy, some are frustrated, some are just looking for fulfillment. But what's your advice for my audience these days?
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Yeah, I think the best thing I could say now is with the way the healthcare space is now, the requirement for our evolution, it's a mandatory requirement. We have to change, and we have the capacity to. We're not fixed, we're not stuck. The way it is, it's not the way it always has to be. We can change. We can learn business skills, we can learn speaking skills, we can learn how to monetize brands. The things we're uncomfortable with, we can become comfortable with them. But I want to invite everybody to embrace becoming different, becoming an upgraded version. If you would like 2.0 because the healthcare space and you having autonomy, living without burnout, having financial freedom, having time, freedom to do what you really want to do requires that you evolve. The old model is not working, it's not going to get better. We have to change.
John: Very good, wise words. All right, Dr. Una, thank you for being here today and we'll get you back on in a couple of years again, if I'm still around. But I'm looking forward to hearing your first presentation at the summit and on a future podcast I will definitely give everybody a review of how things went. So I thank you for being here again today.
Dr. Nneka Unachukwu: Thank you so much for having me. And thank you so much for what you do for physicians everywhere. We appreciate you.
John: Thank you for that. All right, with that I'll say goodbye.
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.