Behind-the-scenes of 'Pharmapreneur Academy' | Founder Blair Thielemier, PharmD

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

[00:00:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, hello, Blair. 

[00:00:16] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Hi, thank you so much for having me. 

[00:00:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: Hey, thanks for joining us here. Blair for the few people that may not have come across you introduce yourself, give us your name, tell us kind of like what's going on right now. And then we'll, then we'll back up and, and dig down. 

[00:00:33] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: So my name is Blair T Lamar.

I have been licensed as a pharmacist for nine years. Now. What I primarily do today is business coaching for other pharmacy, pharmacists that want to get in the consulting space. So I run a, a membership community called the pharma entrepreneur academy. And right now I'm actually working on shooting the interview sessions for a brand new, our fourth annual elevate pharmacy virtual summit, deciding 

[00:01:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: who's gonna.

Be in it or are you actually recording the segments? Now 

[00:01:08] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: we are recording the segments right now. So we, we let them go live all at once. So it's more like a conference feel. It's um, a five day event. We air between four and five, maybe even up to six interviews a day this year, cuz we've got so many great speakers this year, but it's very focused on entrepreneurial opportunities for pharmacists.

[00:01:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: So Blair, we're a little slow here in Michigan. So slow down just a second here. You've got the elevate pharmacy virtual summit and you said you have five or six people talking a day. do people, do people take the week off of work or what do they do? Do they, I, I mean, the listeners are the listeners listening to this at night then or what?

So 

[00:02:02] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: they can, you know, once, once an interview goes live and like I said, we don't do it live just out of, uh, 

[00:02:09] Mike Koelzer, Host: logistics. So you're doing the whole Netflix, like we're gonna release like all of these kind of things, but you release like five a day for five days. 

[00:02:17] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Exactly. And you can binge watch generally they're between 20 and 30.

So not huge, um, you know, long they're they're interviews with successful pharmacy owners. So the idea that I had or successful pharmacist consultants, the idea I had was after going to many national pharmacy organization meetings, I would see the successful programs, these people talking about these amazing models that they've built.

And then I, you know, I had this idea. I was like, what if they came down off the stage off of their lecture? And then I could sit there and have a conversation with them, like a coffee chat about, well, what really happened? Like tell me what, how really went down? What were the challenges? What would you do way differently had you, right.

You know, had you it to do over. So that was the idea for the elevate summit was to. You know, applaud these, these leaders and these innovators in the pharmacy space, but also to share their advice and their experiences with other pharmacists who are looking at them and saying, well, you know, I wanna go work in a doctor's office, or I wanna create a, a, you know, diabetes self-management training program and not having to start from scratch, not having to figure it out every single time in every single state, in every single pharmacy, but having a working replicable model that we can share with our colleagues.

And 

[00:03:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: so what you're doing is live you're on camera with not live, but I mean, you're on camera with the people. Yes. So basically you are putting out like, like 25 vlogs or podcasts yes. Or whatever, and you're doing it like you're, you're releasing, 'em like, like a Netflix thing all at once. 

[00:04:14] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Absolutely. We can call it like a five part series, I guess.

And each day these interviews. Are live. They are free to view. I mean, all of this is, is totally free. That's what's great about it, really. Wow. I want students, I want pharmacists that can't leave their pharmacy. They can't travel. I still want them to have access to this information. So each day they go live they're free for 48 hours.

So when day three goes up, day one comes down. Okay. So there's still a, a time element. It's very, you know, it's time sensitive information, but it's great because we can, we can talk about things that are happening right now, right. In pharmacy 

[00:04:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: right now. Do you, do you edit those or are they really live? I mean like how, like, are you splicing and cutting if you talk to someone or are they pretty live?

Y I, I know they're recorded, but are. Recorded live, basically. 

[00:05:11] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: So I, I do have an editor, um, that basically what he does, he cuts out the pauses in between like me asking the question and them responding. Gotcha. Just to make it a little faster, we usually add an introduction in the beginning too. So I'll read their bio, their, you know, and you'll see like a picture of their headshot on the screen.

And it might say, you know, three key takeaways from this interview with Mike is this, this, this, and this, like, be sure to tune in if you're interested in learning more about this opportunity, and then it'll go into like our little logo and then it'll go straight into the interview. The actual interview itself is only edited for, to just make it a little bit shorter for 

[00:05:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: pauses.

Yeah. Yeah. What have you learned since the first one? Oh 

[00:06:03] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: my goodness. This is our fourth annual. Yeah. I, I could probably write a book on producing a virtual summit. Is there 

[00:06:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: something that you kick yourself with over the first one or, or was it all real good learning stuff or is there something like you're even, I don't wanna say embarrassed, but like, is there something you kick yourself with over the early ones or is it all all like, Hey, we needed that to, to build on that, to learn this.

[00:06:31] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yeah. I mean, I've tried different stuff. Um, learned a lot about promotion of the summit. 

[00:06:37] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, I saw your, um, I saw your cool, it looked like you were burrying a dead body in your backyard. It is with the, with the secret file and so on. So I followed you on that and that, that was. 

[00:06:51] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: That was so an idea that my business coach and I had together, because I believe in business coaching and investing in yourself.

Yeah. And what we decided was it would be fun. I had, I have these three predictions for the next 10 years in pharmacy 

[00:07:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: I 

saw those. Yes. 

[00:07:09] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yes. And so the idea was I write these three predictions down in this confidential folder, bury it in the backyard, dig it up in 2030 and see if my predictions came true. 

[00:07:21] Mike Koelzer, Host: Oh, uh, I, I think I still have some time capsules from when I was like eight or nine.

I think we buried some time capsules in a Hills brothers can. And most of 'em you dig up like two days later because you just can't stand the excitement. So you dig it up and pretend like you're, you know, you found the, the Al Capone voter vault or something like that. But, um, but there's gotta be some, some out there still, you didn't really bury anything.

Did you. 

[00:07:49] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: We'll see 

[00:07:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: Blair. Tell me your breakdown of your company. Two things I wanna know off from start. What do you do all day? In other words, do you, are you at a desk most of the day? Are you in a home office? Are you working with anybody? Do you have any, um, helpers and so on? So that's my first question.

What does your day look like? 

[00:08:13] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Okay. So every day is very different. Um, I try to spend at least one day a week at home with my son. He's two, my daughter's five she's in kindergarten. Okay. So family's very important. So at least one day of having my own schedule, probably three days a week, looks like. Doing things like this, having meetings, um, developing business relationships, traveling to pharmacy conferences, whether that's as a speaker or as an attendee, um, writing emails to, to my list, connecting with people on LinkedIn and then maybe another one day a week that if a pharmacy only works for a few pharmacies anymore, but if a pharmacy owner that, you know, that knows me, maybe I wanna go in and do an MTM consult for them, or I wanna go in and they're on vacation.

I go in for one day a month or something like that. So I like to have one day that's also flexible that I could go into the pharmacy and do some work there as well. So I, I like variety. 

[00:09:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: Do, do you feel you like that? Do you like to go into the pharmacies or do you do that to like keep your feet in it and things like that?

[00:09:36] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: I think I, I enjoy it, but now, you know, as it, it's a great way to keep my ear to the ground. Right. And I, I like the ideas and the patient care, and I like seeing the workflow and trying to figure out, like, for example, this year I'm looking at cash based business models for pharmacists. How can we figure out these replicable business models that are focusing specifically on prevention?

So like functional medicine type consults. So what I would be looking for in the pharmacy would be things that support the functional medicine, more holistic consults. So. C B D oils, uh, pharmaceuticals, uh, herbs and supplements. Um, you know, those types of products 

[00:10:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: and being in the pharmacy keeps your ear to the ground on that, to see some of the ads coming through and the, what the customers are asking for and that kind of 

[00:10:36] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: stuff.

Exactly. Exactly. So it's, it's, it is keeping, you know, that one foot in the door so that I understand what pharmacists are dealing with and the challenges that are going on right now. But I also can step back and take more of a 30,000 foot view of like, the challenges around the PBMs. Like how do we yeah.

Right. Integrate new revenue streams. So that's, that's really what, what I'm looking for is kind of using it as a, um, I don't know, a trial and error what's 

[00:11:10] Mike Koelzer, Host: what's gonna work. Yeah. And you're kind of keeping in touch with the owner. So the owners are the people, so you can hear what they're griping about or whatever.

It's easy to, it's easy to read this stuff, but when you say, oh, I'm sure Bob's doing this down at the shop. And so he, you know, I could ask him or I can, I know that it's really affecting somebody, this national decision or something 

[00:11:33] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: like that. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it does, it does help me. How much do you 

[00:11:38] Mike Koelzer, Host: feel you, you need that?

I would I'd run if I could 

[00:11:43] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: you know, I honestly, it's probably gonna become a time where it's it's maybe even costing me money to go work in the pharmacy of course, 

[00:11:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: because you're not able to set something up or you're whatever. Exactly. Exactly. And you must be 

[00:11:57] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: close to that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. I might actually be losing money by working in the pharmacy now, but I still, I love being a pharmacist.

Like I really enjoy it. So, you know, that there's that as well as that's part of, of my identity and who I am. So I, can you like going in there? I can't, I can't really imagine a day that, that I'm like, no, I don't want to go in the pharmacy. I, I go in there my days off. So 

[00:12:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: how much is enough of that though?

One day a month? 

[00:12:26] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Probably two, one or two days a 

month? 

[00:12:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, I'd pick one or two a year. I like it, but I was just mentioning last week. It's like, when I'm a pharmacist, I either have something crappy that I've gotta do that's on my mind. You know, something I have to get done. That being right in the pharmacy is not allowing me to do, or I have something that I'm more excited to be doing.

And I feel like, like pulled down for those hours. So I've never been quite happy just being there. I guess it keeps things healthy and not boring though, to always have stuff flying around your head. So, 

[00:13:03] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: yeah. Yeah. And definitely, and I, you know, I. I kind of pitched my ideas there as well. So even just to the pharmacy technicians 

[00:13:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah.

[00:13:12] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: You know, sharing about, Hey, this new MTM program thing came out, or one of the pharmacies I, I work for is at a doctor's office. And so talking with the providers when they come in to yeah. Grab a bag of peanuts or something like just, you know, asking them, Hey, you know, what's, what's going on. How's that new CPC plus model that you guys implemented this year 

[00:13:38] Mike Koelzer, Host: going.

Almost like a, like a comedian tries out their material. You're sort of like just touching on it a little bit. 

[00:13:45] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Exactly. Exactly. Just introducing a little bit of curiosity. 

[00:13:49] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, exactly. Blair, what is your don't gimme any dollar figures? What is your spread of revenue now? So I know, uh, I know one 25th of it is coming from your pharmacy.

you know, working in the pharmacy payroll, but how much of it now is, is, um, you know, speaking versus the sales courses versus your book you have on Amazon versus those kind of things. What, what, what percentage roughly are we looking at at this 

[00:14:14] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: point? I would say 90% of our revenue comes from members of the pharma preneur academy.

So 90% of our revenue is direct business coaching with pharmacists who want to create consulting businesses. So we say we have three pharma entrepreneurial paths, and these, these are paths that I made up just so we can sure have the same language so that we're talking about the same things. So the three pathways are one consulting in the physician's office path.

Okay. So that could look like, you know, Blair as an independent pharmacist, reaching out to the local, uh, you know, primary care clinic and saying, Hey, did you know that consultant pharmacists can come in and take some of the medication management challenges that you have off your plate? Hmm. The second path would be the pharmacy based path.

So that's where I'm testing business models in cash pay services yeah. In supplements and, you know, CBD sales and traditional MTM consults. Right. And then the final pathway is the patient pay pathway, which obviously can have some overlap between the other two. I kinda, this whole thing is a ven diagram, you know?

Yeah. Right. Different times in your career. But the cash pay pathway is instead of marketing your services to be hired by a physician's office mm-hmm or to be hired by a pharmacy owner, you would actually be positioning your services and marketing directly to the consumer. So you're talking all your messaging is directly to the patient and that.

What makes the patient pay path a little bit different in that you're not talking to another healthcare professional, you're talking to a patient at that point. 

[00:16:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Right. And that could be anything from being live to being halfway across the world like we're doing now on, on the internet. Right?

[00:16:16] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Absolutely. So, so that's primarily, um, our, our revenues generated through members of the farm entrepreneur academy so that they have access to our beginner's business blueprint, which has information about those three paths and really helps you how to get started, how to identify your target market, how to create an elevator pitch and a personal story and do cold outreach and do free consultation calls that you convert to clients, you know, and the things that we weren't taught in pharmacy schools exactly about how to.

Run a 

[00:16:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: business. Yeah. I've been re I've been reading some of those that you have online. Like what would you do in this case? You know, you're sitting at a basketball game and you know, this doctor comes up and that kind of stuff. Absolutely. So, so the 90% is any of that live teaching or is that all the, the, the, the binder or the videos and those kind of things.

[00:17:20] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: So we do have monthly member trainings and each month we either do a Q and a where we all hop on a zoom call and members just ask me questions. A lot of times we'll share wins where we'll share goals. We'll try to support one another. You know, if there's some, maybe connections that need to be formed in between group members.

Right. You know, you're a, there was a post in the forums the other day. So there's also a forum component, uh, which is not necessarily live, but you can access it at any time. So the forum, um, there was a post in there by a new member about, Hey, I'd really like to focus on, um, you know, doing mental health screenings and also maybe even pharmacogenomic testing for patients on antidepressant antipsychotic.

Sure. You know, psychiatric medications. And is anyone else doing this? And immediately we saw like two or three other people post. Oh, cool. You know? Yes. This is the program I'm working on. Yes. I've worked in psychiatric pharmacy for 10 years, you know, and it was so great cuz it wasn't the Blair show, you know, it wasn't Blair answering all these questions.

Right. Community members answering these questions and supporting them. So that is exactly what I've tried to build with the academy. It's the former preneur academy community. And we have these opportunities for live monthly training calls that people can join or watch the replay of later. Right. You know, and then we have these, these trainings, these online courses that they are self-paced they can go in.

Oh, I see. Gotcha. And you know, once you've got your, your first client, I say the BI beginner's business blueprint is to get you your first client. Okay. It's your first. Yes. It's like putting blinders on. Yeah. So that you don't go, oh, this would be a great model. This would be a great model. This would be a great 

[00:19:22] Mike Koelzer, Host: model.

Some people they model themselves out and you're, and you're so thin you can't focus enough even to get the first customer. 

[00:19:29] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Absolutely. So, so this is the blinders. This is putting your blinders on so that you can get that first. Yes. And then we move into the implementa implementation phase, which would be deeper dives into say, you're going to work in a physician's office.

They want you to do annual wellness visits and then integrate that into a chronic care management program. You would go into the advanced learning lessons and say, first, I need to learn more about annual wellness visits and you click on lesson 10 and there's an hour worth of very, very curated content on you.

CMS regulations around annual wellness, physic on care plans that you have to have on the criteria that you need and how to build those codes. So it's like in the weeds. Yeah. Right. And when I first built the academy, what what's really interesting is pharmacists told me that that's what they needed was the CPT billing codes was the diagnosis codes was the care plans and the templates and all that stuff.

So when I started building the academy in January, 2016, that's what I started with was the very technical, very, very in the weeds. Yeah. Um, you know, analytical exactly the information that you would need and you know, it was great and people were, were getting results, but I still was having. Academy members that were not taking action.

Right. They were stuck in this like yeah. Overwhelm analysis, paralysis mode. Yes. And so last summer I invested in an eLearning expert. She was a course designer that this is what she went and got her. I don't know, masters or PhD or something. Really. Wow. Course design. Wow. And so she and I worked together to create the beginner's business blueprint.

So I actually did it backwards. Yeah. 

[00:21:37] Mike Koelzer, Host: Right. You're like star wars where you started at episode three and went through all that. Yeah. Now we're going back to do the pre print and now you're back. So when somebody joins the program, they're joining like all three of these or do they join one at a time kind of.

[00:21:51] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: most people, if you're joining the membership, they, they just join the monthly membership, get access to all of 

[00:21:57] Mike Koelzer, Host: Is, is your plan in your head blur that that goes on for a long, long time, you're gonna kind of grow with them. Do they become a member for years and years or, you know, are they graduated and gone or do they become a lifetime customer of yours?

Sort of, 

[00:22:12] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: you know, a, a little bit of both. And, and I'm conflicted by, by what I want that path to be, because I want them to be so successful that they don't need me right anymore, but I still want them to hang out with me. yeah. Right. Exactly. Because I think what in turn that does is when we have successful pharmacists stay in the community.

Oh yeah. Right. They serve as expanders for other members to say, that's what I could be like that. she did it, therefore I can do it. Yeah. And I think that could be one of the things we're lacking in pharmacy is not having those examples of, you know, how, how it could be, what this could look like, what it, 

[00:23:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: where it 

[00:23:02] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: could go.

Exactly. Exactly. So maybe that's like a separate tier, like once you've graduated. I don't, yeah. I, I haven't made it that that far, but we do have members in there that are legacy members that have been with me for years. And I, I honestly think it's just because of the community it's access to the network and right.

You know, myself and my network that I've. 

[00:23:27] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Do you think on average, on average, would most people, when they've gone through it, do you find that they're sticking around or do you find that after so long, they feel like they're done. 

[00:23:40] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: So six to eight months is kind of the six to eight, the sweet spot for most people to come in and join, get through the courses, get really an understanding of, so we're talking about macro and MIPS and CMS, and like it's like learning another language mm-hmm so, you know, I don't think you could learn Italian in no 30 days.

I really, I compare it to learning an entirely new language for sure. And being able to. You know, one thing we do is in going through the course is I have them do exercises. So it might be like post your pitch in the forum, in this forum thread, and I'll critique it like, gotcha. You know, I'll kind of help you through it.

So obviously there, you know, when you get to a certain point in business, you may not need that, but maybe you get approached by your local state association chapter. Yeah. And they want you to do a presentation then based on the stuff you've learned from me in the academy. Yeah. And then I wanna be like, yes, absolutely.

Let me help you with that presentation. Let me write that, you know, help you write that proposal. And here's what I would charge and yeah. You know, I think it's business is always about growth and. That's what I want people to, to take 

[00:25:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: from it. Yeah. It's kind of like, it reminds me almost of like Dave Ramsey, you know, the financial guy and right.

And it seems that I'll have mom once in a while when I'm taking the kids to practice or something, but that's kind of where he went. It's like his beginning years were all about getting out of debt, but then I'll turn 'em on a year later and I'll hear, 'em talking about a new, a new book on what retirees can do once they have their, their stash of money and how they're going to give that away, you know?

And in other words, so he's kind of grown with his base and that's the same thing. It's like, if, if your students are, are growing they're they probably don't wanna stop if that's the kind of person exactly. You know, that they are exactly. Is there anything still that you don't like about your week that you're like, I wish I had.

this like this person, or I wish I was big enough not to do this, or when I get enough of this going on, I'm gonna stop doing this. I mean, maybe it's like laundry, but but is there a part of yeah, but yeah. Yeah. You got a point there, but is there, is there anything that you like wake up on one day and say, yeah, it's Wednesday.

I gotta do this with the business, 

[00:26:23] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: man. That, that's a great question. And, and it's definitely something that I do try to think about at the beginning of each year. How, how can I better delegate my time and how, you know, is there an opportunity to automate this? I just got back from, uh, an in person V I P day, actually with my website developer, trying to figure out how to automate some more of these processes.

Hm. So I, I do have an ultimate goal, I think in five, 10 years to essentially phase myself out of the business. And then what I want to do is to start a nonprofit and I want to be the, the CEO of a nonprofit. And that's, that's where my heart is. My heart is in, in travel and mission work. And to be able to found a nonprofit that is based around pharmacy clinical services, even in places like, you know, third world countries.

I, I think that that is, is my ultimate vision and mission. So on the day to day, I, I think I've done quite well at delegating out a lot of the stuff that I don't enjoy, but of course I, I could always get, get better at that. Especially around the house. 

[00:27:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. I know. There's some stuff though that you, like, I've got one thing that I hold onto and that's like cutting the lawn.

I like getting on the lawn, mow at home and riding around in circles. And that's, , that's something that I just don't how're out. I kinda like doing it. So sometimes you just like certain stuff, you know, your, your, your mind can get away while you're doing this or that the website was interesting because you mean, there's some things on there that it's like, why, why do we have the customer call during this step and do this?

Why couldn't they just do this or jump on this program and do this and so on. So kind of stuff like that, some of the background 

[00:28:20] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: stuff. Yes, absolutely. Just looking at our systems, looking at our processes, um, you know, what, what things do we have a person doing that that would be. Served by an automation.

Yeah. And how can we then use that person in a different way to maybe be more proactive, like reaching out to our members and saying, you know, Hey, you've been a member for three months. We wanted to check in, is there anything you need? Right. And being able to serve them better in that way. So, um, in terms of that, we, you know, I, I feel like we're, we're on the right track.

Um, I've, I've also outsourced or delegated, whatever you wanna call it. A lot of my social media. So I have a social media person that interviews me like a couple of times a month. Nice. Asks me questions and maybe I'll, I'll answer them on a zoom call or yeah. Right. Just via email. Right. And then she kind of takes my thoughts and, you know, the things that I'm working on and focusing on and.

Comes up with these like great, yeah. Conversation starters that you on LinkedIn or on Facebook, 

[00:29:34] Mike Koelzer, Host: almost like your helper that put the class together, they're kind of getting your thoughts, but they're experts in their molding of that 

[00:29:41] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: stuff. Exactly. So I, I, I do try to invest in building a really great team around me and I, I encourage other pharmacists to do that as well.

I mean, they, you know, in the startup phase, like, of course you, you have to learn how to do these things yourself, but then the idea is to, to create a system or process around it so that you can phase yourself out of it, for sure. And continue to 

[00:30:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: grow. Did you have any examples of the, of the website trip you were on?

Do you have any examples of something that you might be thinking of switching from and it almost, and it sounded almost like you might go from. Person to web, but then some things you were saying, maybe you take, maybe you then get the people involved some more personal way. 

[00:30:30] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Absolutely. So, uh, one of the things that we had talked about was our cancellation process.

Mm. So, because it's a recurring membership, uh, people join either at a monthly membership fee or they join at an annual membership fee. Gotcha. Right now most people probably, you know, I don't know, 85, 90% of our people are joining at the monthly rate. So what we're seeing is if we have our team be proactive and reach out to them at the three month mark, when we know a lot of people will hopefully have their business model and the results.

Yeah. They want in place by six to eight months. Right. We can reach out to them and just say, You know, Hey, there's, there's this opportunity to upgrade to the annual so that you can go ahead and get your success and yeah. Get your results, but then still be able to have access to the community and access to Blair.

And so that was one of the, the processes that we're talking through, how to change that cancellation process, um, to, you know, maybe they only want access to the forum, or maybe they want to upgrade to an annual plan that actually saves money in the long run. Sure. You know, what, what are some of the options that they have to be able to point them to specific resources like, oh, you're doing annual your wellness visits in a blah, blah, blah.

You should connect with this other academy member. Who's doing the same thing and you guys work together on it. 

[00:32:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: It's almost impossible to replicate that on the computer unless you've got AI, I guess how many hours. Does it take for your business right now? Like, let's say you're doing 30 hours worth or 25 hours.

How many other people or hours are involved to run this every week? On average, maybe per month. I know you got people involved, you got the web web and you've got the social media. Who else do you have involved? And, and how, how many total hours would that be? Would you say per week that it takes to run things?

I know it goes in phases, right? Cause you have, sometimes you're putting out this huge project and it's taken forever to 

[00:32:49] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: do. Yeah. So, you know, the, the month of January has been probably three, eight to 10 hour days a week. Calls and interviews and setting up calls and interviews. You know, a lot of it is administrative.

[00:33:09] Mike Koelzer, Host: And then do you have any kind of, I know you got the social person and you might have some web help. Do you have any other like outsourced help that you use for your 

[00:33:18] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: business? I have a virtual assistant. And so she, she's the one that does, like, if you, if you need to cancel or if you have a customer service inquiry, she's the, the contact point for all of our customer service stuff for academy members.

Gotcha. And so she's the one that will be doing the, the outreach and the cancellations and the gotcha surveying and all that stuff. So 

[00:33:41] Mike Koelzer, Host: how much time is she putting in a week? Would you. 

[00:33:44] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Uh, I believe I have her contracted for 20 hours a month, so five hours. Oh, 

[00:33:48] Mike Koelzer, Host: okay. All right. So she's returning some calls and things like that.

And where's, she lo 

[00:33:53] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: doing some of our emails she's in Florida. In Florida. Yeah. And I'm in Arkansas. So she does. Isn't that cool. She does our emails. Um, she, we, we do, we also do a newsletter for academy members every week that just says, like, here's what you may have missed in the forums. Like here's, you know, our upcoming member called this month, usually it's the last Tuesday and every month that we have, like the Q and a, or yeah.

Um, throughout the, the beginning of 2020, we've actually. My mentors and business coaches coming into the academy and doing special trainings for academy members. So I'm really, really excited for that too, that they can get access to, to my business coaches and my mentors. 

[00:34:42] Mike Koelzer, Host: These are people that you actually used back in 1516, or these are people that you, these are not just people that you authors and things you look up to.

These are people you've actually 

[00:34:52] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: used. These are people I've worked with still work with today, 

[00:34:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: still today that are giving that are kind of like your, your board in your mind, like to, 

[00:35:01] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: yes. Yeah, yeah. This is my executive board members kind of thing. Yeah. 

[00:35:07] Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. Well, we have to get back to the dirt now, so you didn't start all this.

You were in a profession and things didn't go the way you thought. Right. What, what can you tell us 

[00:35:16] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: about that? Well, this was 2014. When, you know, I know today we're seeing a lot more market saturation and jobs being eliminated, but in 2014 it was relatively stable. It's relatively. Okay. Yeah. And I was working as a clinical hospital pharmacist.

I was six months pregnant with my daughter, my first child. Yeah. And I got the news that my position was being eliminated. They were cutting me to part-time and I would not have, uh, access to health insurance or 401k or any of those, you know, full-time employee benefits. So I definitely had like an, oh my goodness.

I'm six months pregnant. I'm the primary breadwinner. What am I going to do? And, you know, being six months pregnant, that's not a great time to be looking for another full-time job. yeah. Right. Like, Hey, I need you to hire me for two months and then, uh, give me a full paid maternity leave. Yeah. 

[00:36:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: They're not legally supposed to ask that stuff, but you couldn't, you couldn't hide it too.

Well, no, there 

[00:36:25] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: was no hiding. It 

[00:36:27] Mike Koelzer, Host: it's like the stars in, in the, the sitcoms where like they carry like a, a waist basket while they're in this scene and stuff like that. You couldn't do that through the whole interview. 

[00:36:36] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yeah. I I'm just wearing my bathrobe today. 

[00:36:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah. Right, 

[00:36:41] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: right. So, so yeah, that was the moment that I was like, you know, what, what am I gonna do?

But then I, I was also a little bit, I don't know, disillusioned by the idea of getting. Another job. So 

[00:36:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: how, how long had you been in pharmacy by that point? 

[00:37:04] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Uh, I had worked for that particular place for two and a half 

[00:37:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: years. And how long had, since you had graduated then three and a half. Okay. So you were relatively fresh out of yeah.

Out of school mm-hmm . And was that a downsizing of the company? 

[00:37:18] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: It was a small rural hospital. It was, you know, uh, just a symptom of what we see going on in healthcare with the decreasing reimbursements and they just right. You know, they just didn't have right. There was only two full-time pharmacists, so it was me or the director 

[00:37:39] Mike Koelzer, Host: so, so it wasn't a, but good to know, it wasn't a downsizing of Blair.

It was a downsizing of your position. So that's good. No, it, 

[00:37:45] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: it was, and there's no hard feelings or anything. Yeah. Right, exactly. But there was this thing that, you know, in the back of my mind, I kept going. I've always wanted to start a business. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur when I was in school.

I thought it was owning a pharmacy. Yeah. And, you know, and I, I didn't feel like that was the right path I was looking for. Yeah. So I started listening to podcast, like, you know, pat Flynn's podcast. Yeah. And Ferris's podcast and right. You know, some of these more business oriented. And finally I ran across a podcast called the biz chicks podcast.

Huh. And I started listening to her and she was talking about her name's Natalie Al. And she was, you know, just really focused on female entrepreneurship and marketing and leveraging social media and doing this thing called online business. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know what that is, but I'm curious enough about it that I wanna figure that out.

[00:38:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: What was your mindset Blair at the time where you were thinking, okay, I'm gonna have eight months off anyways. Cause I got two months more pregnancy and then some, you know, maternity time or, or were you like freaking out or were you okay? You knew you had a little bit of time. I 

[00:39:03] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: decided what I would do instead of going back and, you know, I, I think it's funny now that I think of having a full-time job as a riskier investment exactly.

Than having multiple income streams. Yeah, exactly. So for me it was like, I never wanna be in that position. I don't wanna put all my eggs in one basket. That's what it is. Multiple revenue streams. Right. So at the same time, as I was figuring out this whole consulting thing, I have a lot of, uh, friends and people that knew me as someone who would come in and work PRN.

So I, I did a lot of relief work. Gotcha. As a clinical hospital pharmacist, cuz I had. Worked weekends. So I had days off, so people around knew 

[00:39:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: and you knew maybe you could pick up another day there. So you were not like you knew you weren't probably out 

[00:39:57] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: on the street. Yes. Yes. I, I, I wasn't, I wasn't, um, going to be homeless or anything.

I gotcha. Luckily had a, a decent enough network that I was able to pick up the phone and say, yeah, Hey, I just, you know, I just got all my hours. Cut. You got any hours for me? Yeah. So in building that back up, I, you know, I did. Okay. I didn't take as long of the maternity leave as I wanted to, but what's interesting is some of those pharmacy owners that I started working relief on the bench for was like, Hey, you've got this clinical background.

Yeah. You've been working in a hospital, seeing patients and, you know, grounding with doctors and all this cool stuff. We've got this thing called MTM and we can't keep up with right. The patients and the opportunities that are coming up. And it's just like free money that's left on the table. Yes. That we're not capitalizing on.

So in my head, I went, is that my, is that my business right. To build a, an MTM consulting business. And so I, I started doing it, just testing it, fell in love with it, like. You know, I, I was fine with being a hospital pharmacist. It wasn't like the joy of my life like jumped outta bed every morning. But when I found MTM consulting, I loved it.

I dug into it and I, I did, I decided midway through 2015 after I had had my daughter. And after H had really just kind of been making ends meet for a while that I was gonna focus 200% of my efforts on building this MTM business. And I even turned down, I got offered a director of pharmacy position at a local, another local hospital that was at one county over and I turned it down and my husband thought I was crazy.

My mom thought I was crazy. You know, they. why would you turn down a director of pharmacy position? And right. I just said, I just have to do this other thing. I just have to try it. Right. And that, that job will probably still be there. And I think it's probably still there, but yeah, right. It was like, this is the thing that I'm supposed to be doing.

So at, towards the end of 2015, I thought I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna jump in with both feet. I wanna hire a business coach. I want her to help me, you know, do this, really build this business and grow this business in the Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri area. Luckily I hired the right person. I hired Natalie Al and she was such a fabulous coach because she taught me to look so much bigger than what I was thinking in, you know, just having this local consulting business.

So she really encouraged me to think. more broad. And you know, that I had this replicable business model that was working really well for me, was providing for my family. Why don't you just teach other pharmacists how to do this as well? I, I already had people reaching out to me on LinkedIn saying, what is an MTM consultant?

Like, what are you doing? And I was so passionate about it. I was writing blogs for free, just about everything I was learning about everything I was doing. And Natalie was the one that really came along and said, why don't you just teach other pharmacists how to do this too. When 

[00:43:37] Mike Koelzer, Host: did you go from being a part-time employee of the pharmacy doing MTMs to being your own thing?

Or were you ever doing that? Were you always a contractor? Were you always that when you were doing MTMs or when was your first time where you were, you were getting paid for an MTM as a business owner? 

[00:43:59] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: So you can, you can do MTMs as an independent subcontractor, like a 10 99 employee. Yeah. Yeah. For me, it was easier to just say this is my hourly bench rate.

This is my retainer fee for MTM consulting. And just make that two separate like rates two separate fees. So, so I, at the beginning it was just an employee relationship. They held out taxes. I didn't have to figure out estimated taxes or anything. They'd 

[00:44:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: pay you so much per month as a retainer. It was a retainer and then pay you per MTM or, or whatever.

Yes. 

[00:44:42] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Gotcha. Yep. So, gotcha. So yeah, the, you know, definitely there's. Based on, I think what the pharmacy wants in terms of, do they want to set you up as an employee or do they want to set you up as an independent subcontractor? You could kind of go either way. And, and that's some of the stuff that we talk about in the academy is like, here's the pros and cons of each, like the, the pros of being employees.

You don't have to figure out taxes, you know, the, the con would definitely be, you know, you don't have as much flexibility as yeah. In terms of being able to deduct business expenses and 

[00:45:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: things like that. Yeah. At some point you had to make the decision between saying, can I, can I scale MTM pharmacist below me versus yes.

Doing this is everybody. Sort of in that position or have you seen anybody scale this with an MTM company with MTM pharmacist? 

[00:45:43] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yeah. So, um, several of the academy members have scaled it. Um, you know, one of our members, Paula, she actually built her MTM consulting business. I think she had 11 pharmacies at one point that she was consulting for.

And what was interesting about that is she, she ended. actually taking a, another job. It was like a dream job that she decided and kind of handed the business over to her protege. We have another pharmacy, um, a Pharmac entrepreneur academy member who decided to scale the business, start hiring residents and licensed pharmacists to work under her.

And now she's focused solely on the business development part of it. So yeah, you know, like, like any business it's, it's as diverse as the people that, that run them. And it's, it's about what you want. And there was a time that I said, do I want to run an MTM consulting firm, right. And begin hiring pharmacists to work under me, or do I wanna be a business coach to help other pharmacists, right.

Get these types of businesses, 

[00:46:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: knowing that you had. Entrepreneurial blood. When would you have done something? If you did not get, let go. And what do you think that would've been? That's a 

[00:47:08] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: really good question. Maybe never, right? Maybe never. Maybe, maybe that, that was the thing that shoved me off my path.

And you know, I think a lot of pharmacists are we're. We are in a time that job stability is not as sure as it once was, you know, market saturation is a real thing. We're seeing age related discrimination for pharmacists that are well paid. Yeah. And right there, there's, there's so much more pressure on the job market right now that I think a lot of pharmacists are either seeing the writing on the wall and saying, Hey, I, I need to kind of figure this out sooner rather than later.

or they come to me and, and they say, you know, listen, I've, you know, I've just, my position's been eliminated. I don't know what to do. And so, you know, it is, it is something that, that I feel there's lots of change going on. I call it career climate change. Right. But what it is doing is it's opening up these conversations for, okay, well, what would it look like if we created a business model that places pharmacists in primary care centers, right.

And still provides a great return on investment for that practicing consultant. Yeah. So my vision, you know, I talked about for the next 10 years in pharmacy, right? Part of my vision is for pharmacists to be as. Commonplace in clinics as nurse practitioners and PAs were, you know, 20, 20 years ago, no one had heard of a nurse practitioner in primary care.

Exactly. I want pharmacists to be the nurse practitioners in the next 10 years of yeah. You know, of, of being able to integrate themselves into the healthcare system. 

[00:49:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Right. What's your favorite three hours of the week work related? What are you doing during those three hours? 

[00:49:15] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: I like writing. So writing emails, I, I would say that's probably one of my sales emails, 

[00:49:22] Mike Koelzer, Host: or just responses to people and things 

[00:49:25] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: like, um, like a sales or informational email.

[00:49:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's gonna be go out to a 

[00:49:30] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: mass. Yeah. My thoughts, um, on trends that are going on in pharmacy, like all things I've written, I, I want to, one of my goals for 2020 is to send out a monthly. Recap, um, report basically on what's going on in pharmacy, in consulting, in, you know, what, what I see these opportunities are as, you know, a free service for people that sign up for email lists.

So yeah, something I really enjoy doing and yeah. Um, it's something I think writing has always been one of my favorite mediums of, of expressing myself. What was the goal 

[00:50:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: of your book that you have out? Is that like a perfect integration or was that gonna be something that is more or is less than you thought it would 

[00:50:22] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: be?

So the book is interesting because I didn't write that book. That book is the first six lessons in the academy. Gotcha. So I told you I built it backwards. So I built the advanced learning lessons with all the. Tactical information that people told me they wanted. Exactly. So what I did was I, throughout the beginning of 2016, I created those, those first six lessons and then eventually built on lessons seven to 13.

Okay. Um, that were more focused on pharmacists in the primary care space, but the first six lessons are essentially an overview of all the opportunities for consultants. Gotcha. So I took those lectures, ripped the audio, uploaded it to, um, rev, uh, transcription service. Yeah. Got the, um, transcripts formatted them in Google docs made, you know, make sure they were edited.

Things were spelled correctly. That's not. No, it wasn't, it wasn't, but it probably would've been easier to just write it honestly, but, uh but I used the transcripts to kind of have, have a basis since it was already, it was already done. Yeah. So the editing part, send it off to someone who, who made it look really nice and yeah.

And spell, checked and did all those things. Right. And then we were able to make a, a Kindle book out of it and then a physical book. And finally, uh, it's an, it's an audible book now, too. 

[00:52:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. I know people like people like that. 

[00:52:05] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yeah. I don't, I don't read anymore. I'm audible in the car. Audible. Is that right?

No, at home. Yeah. I, I don't, I rarely pick up a paper book. Yeah. 

[00:52:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: Would you ever like to write fiction? 

[00:52:18] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yes. Yeah. I think, 

[00:52:21] Mike Koelzer, Host: do you read fiction? 

[00:52:22] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: I do. Yeah, 

probably I probably read more, um, memoirs in bibliography type yeah. Of nonfiction right now. Um, but 

I think it would be cool to write a fiction based on like maybe some kind of pharmacist, like 

yeah.

heroine you know, 

or hero, I guess it could be 

a hero. 

[00:52:47] Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't read much fiction, but I always thought it'd be kind of cool to write it. And my, my book I was write was gonna be called hung jury. And there was these 12 jurors, but they couldn't try the case because they were all ending up dead by. being hanged that's as far as I got, 

[00:53:11] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: I love it.

I love it. 

[00:53:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: I got like a 10th of the first chapter done, so that's, that's all I got. 

[00:53:17] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Well, I, 

I wanna write a book. I wanna write a screenplay. Um, I wanna do a documentary on the state of community, pharmacy and pharmacists. Like my whole drive. My whole mission is to change the perception of pharmacists. Like right.

We can offer so much more than we currently are. Yeah. And just based on our training, like our knowledge of biochemical pathways and all stuff, like I see the pharmacist as the person that can. We can take what we know about Western medicine, but we can also get down with the natural herbal sure.

Supplements and stuff with the preventative medicine, right. To be that bridge of like, I, I kinda, you know, I get why you're essential oils work or your CBD or whatever, like being that person that can take the holistic alternative approaches from yeah. Like the crunchy fringes. Yeah. And bring it more into mainstream healthcare.

Yeah. I guess the pharmacist is the perfect person to do that. Yes. Because of our training in medicinal chemistry. Yeah. I was 

[00:54:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: talking to one of my prior guests and he was saying that quite often, the herbals and things they fall into, they fall in the hands of people that say, this is great. And they. More sales adjectives than that, you know, or it falls in the hands of people that don't trust it.

Don't know where to start and call it quackery, but there's nobody really in the middle that you can trust. And we all know that many different actual medicines come from plants. Of course. And so it's, it's, it's not something that you can, it's not something that you can just throw out. So Blair, if your vision of the, uh, nonprofit comes, let's say in 10 years, maybe five or 10 years.

Probably 10. Yeah. What would you really like to be doing for the, your business? What would you really like to be spending your time on or doing just like you're doing now? 

[00:55:29] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: So one of the things that, you know, whenever I talk about changing the profession of pharmacy, we don't have a leader. We don't have a doctor Oz.

What I would like to be for pharmacy is that person that's going out and saying to good morning America or whatever, go talk to your local pharmacist about, you know, whatever it is, weight management, uh, right. You know, diabetes consulting, C oils, supplements, herbs, nutrient depletion, whatever it is. Right.

But I, I want to be able to say, yes, your local pharmacist can do this. And having them, you know, having them ready to go and ready to accept this challenge, you know? Right. So that I can go out and promote and say, Pharmacists are doing all these amazing things. And then also having them trained up enough to where they can do it.

Like it's right. You know? Yeah. Let's make an appointment. 

[00:56:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: So what steps do you take to get there in, in five years, you're gonna be on the today show and you're gonna be, we might even see you there on new year's Eve because you're there with, uh, I don't know, what's the guy's name? Ryan CREs, Ryan Seacrest, or Anderson Cooper.

And you're there bringing in the new year or something. So what's your path to that in five years? 

[00:56:54] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: I wish I knew, um, that, that make things a, a lot easier, but maybe less interesting. I'm my path is to continue what I'm doing. So I have a speaking coach. I have a PR coach. Gotcha. I'm speaking in that a business coach.

I have a web developer. I have such a team around me that, you know, it's, it's not about. My mission. My, my mission is to advance the profession of pharmacy period. It says it on, you know, a tagline on my website. Yeah. So that pharmacists can have a bigger impact so that we can have a seat at the healthcare table and everything.

I do, you know, every meeting I take, I, I talked to, um, a physician that worked on the steps forward program at the American medical association the other day. And just trying to advocate for pharmacists to say, you know, yes, if this can help with provider burnout, if this can help physician productivity and profitability.

We owe it to our physician colleagues to go out and tell them about the value of pharmacist service. Yeah. So I, I don't know the steps that it's going to take to get there, but I definitely see the, and, and have a bigger vision for what I'm going to do on, on that platform. Okay. 

[00:58:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: Let me ask this. If somebody said that's not needed or something happened where everything's fine with pharmacy, wouldn't it still be cool to be a national spokesperson for something.

In other words, this isn't all for pharmacy Blair. There's something that would be really cool about being a national spokesperson. The Dr. Oz of something, am I. or is it just a love of pharmacy and, and what it can do and all that, 

[00:58:58] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: you know, I'm okay with just staying here in Arkansas and, you 

[00:59:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: know, you're a fantastic builder.

I'm, I've known from all the stuff that you've done, but seeing you and your methodical thinking and all that of just going through things and step by step, I just see you as like, okay. We're building. And the next step is doc is Dr. Oz. That's what Blair does, Dr. Oz. And so if we took pharmacy away though, I think you still belong there.

Well, thank you. 

[00:59:25] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: I NA I, I don't know, you know, I'm, I never pictured myself in the position that I'm in right 

[00:59:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: now, and I can see it all over your face. I mean, you belong there, you know what I'm saying? And so you belong with Dr. Oz. 

[00:59:42] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: well, thank you. I, I do appreciate that. If, if people were to say, you know what, we're good pharmacy doesn't need to grow.

Like, we're happy where we're at. Then I would be like, okay, you know what? I'm gonna go do something else. I'll yeah, I I'm gonna be a travel planner or something. Like, I don't know what I do. 

[00:59:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: Coaching is not just a book. It's a coach. Who's saying, come on, we're gonna do this. Now. Just like a football coach would be they're.

They're trying to lift you up when you're down and give you some direction. 

[01:00:09] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: They, they push you out of your comfort zone, push you. That's what I'm looking for. They help you become more. Self-aware some of the best investments that I've made are mindset. Trainings are, um, You know, thinking really thinking through the, the intention that I wanna have.

So when I, you know, when I come on a, a podcast to talk about this, what is the intention behind it? Mm-hmm and, you know, thinking through these, these mindset challenges, and really trying to push yourself out from what helped me was the idea of like, I'm not being a pushy salesperson. Right. But if people don't know about this opportunity, that's right, then I'm doing them a disservice because I feel so strongly.

About the services that I can offer and the results that I know I can get them. Yeah. If they would just allow me to 

[01:01:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: help them. I've had people say before that they don't feel like a salesman in pharmacy. And I'm like, anybody's a natural salesperson when they believe in what they have. Yes. And I gave the example to this person about maybe having a family member who's in pain and they didn't know, they could take, let's say Tylenol and ibuprofen at the same time.

And you said, yes, you can. You know, and yeah. And it's like, and you might even walk under the counter and sell at this. And then you're not trying to sell, you're trying to you're, you're trying to solve something. And it's like, oh, that that's sales. You just didn't realize it because you, you were helping them so much.

[01:01:49] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Absolutely. I had a friend the other day that, you know, I knew she was doing this keto diet. Um, in intermittent fasting, I said, you really should be taking a multivitamin. If you're gonna follow a very strict keto diet. And she said, I can't swallow pills that big. I said, you can take an adult gummy vitamin.

You know, it was, it was just so simple. She never even thought of it that way. Never thought of it. And I'm like, I'm not telling you that you need a vitamin cuz I'm not the person selling it to you, but I'm telling you as a friend, you need a vitamin and here's a gummy vitamin that meets your 

[01:02:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: needs. My wife and I were coming home today and at our high school, my daughter was actually the cause of an accident about 10 years ago because.

Most of the people coming from one direction, turn in and, and the other people turn in. Everybody turns, everybody turns and, and one year she thought everybody turns, but not everybody turns. Some people keep going down the road and she turned in front of the person. Yeah. You know, so I'm sitting there, I'm sitting, we're, we're talking today about their traffic and I'm thinking, and they tried to help by doing this like yield road, like this road that comes in gradually and so on.

And I'm trying to think of like, pretty soon I'm talking like bridges and, you know, bridges and tunnels and stuff. And I said, I don't think you put a traffic light there. , you know, I got so far down the road that it was, it was, uh, sometimes their simple 

[01:03:11] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: solution 

[01:03:11] Mike Koelzer, Host: is the best. Sometimes you're simple answers.

All right. So Blair's five, 10 years from now. You kind of sell the business, you do this and you start doing your, your vision of your nonprofit. What are you doing? in that. What does your day look like there after you're up and successful? Are you also Dr. Oz for that? Or, or are you, you know, sweeping the hallways?

What, what is your goal? What are you doing 15 years from now? Once that gets going, what do you love to do during the day when this nonprofit's going strong for five 

[01:03:47] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: years? Yeah. So it would still be speaking, um, you know, being a, a national resource for, for pharmacists and organizations, it would be fundraising.

It would be. Continuing to build business models for, for pharmacies. The only difference would be, it would be a nonprofit. Gotcha. Maybe based in like Costa Rico. 

[01:04:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: of course my dad always said, why east pass me? He said, why don't they always have these corporate meetings? You know, it's always warm someplace.

You know, they never do it in Detroit or something like that. Yes. For my pharmacy, you know, or a corporation. But I, you know, I'm the president and vice president and secretary and treasurer. And so when I have my annual meeting, you know, I should, I feel like I should go to Hawaii or something. Yes. And just sit there by myself and kind of just talk to myself and CEO day.

Yeah. CEO day. What are your favorite three modes of communication? Like if I said you could only keep a few things like email LinkedIn or this, or what, what are like your top things that you're like, yeah. These are important for our goals. Are there any three or four companies that you'd be. You'd be kind of sad if they were gone.

[01:05:08] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yeah, definitely. LinkedIn is, is LinkedIn's good. Yeah. Yeah. Is LinkedIn is huge for connecting with pharmacists who are either looking for new positions or they're just trying to figure out what's out there in terms of opportunities. Yeah. Um, we do run Facebook ads so that, you know, we can continue to make pharmacists aware.

I mean, there's 300,000 pharmacists out there. Yeah. And only, yeah. You know, only a handful of those only a tiny fraction of those. Are are aware of the academy and what, what we're doing with elevate summit. So, so that's a big, big part of the strategy, um, yeah. In making them aware of these opportunities.

Right. Um, the elevate summit is our free virtual event that gives people an idea of what opportunities there are out there. So it's like the what, and then the pharma entrepreneur academy, if they wanna join, get access to the courses, access to me, access to our monthly member calls. That's the how. Gotcha.

That's the steps for how to implement these, you know, these business models, these innovative services that we introduce in. You know, in the elevate 

[01:06:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: summit with these, um, you know, 25 interviews, let's say that you're having for the elevate summit, that that's when you have that in the spring, 

[01:06:42] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: right? Or, yeah, it's April 8th through the 12th, eighth through the 12th of 2020, that'll be our fourth annual summit.

Fourth 

[01:06:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: annual. Wow. 

[01:06:52] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: It's crazy. And the first time I ever did it was in 2017, it was such a gamble. It was, I had no idea if it was gonna work. This is the first time a virtual pharmacy conference had ever been created. I, I had attended virtual summits in other industries, but what's great about having. You know, a toe in the online business space and coaches and mentors and people that are not pharmacists is that they see all these other yeah.

Industries, you know? Right. There's a real estate virtual summit. There's a yes. You know, insurance providers, virtual. Yes. There's all these things there. Wasn't a pharmacy virtual summit. So interesting. I was like, you know what? I have no idea if anybody's gonna sign up for this at all. I put, I think five grand of my own money into the, the very first virtual summit.

I had no idea if it was going to work. And then interestingly enough, um, around the same time as the summit, our tax bill from the previous year, oh 2016 came due when I had the 12 different jobs. Yeah. Right, right. They don't tell you if you have 12 different jobs, you should probably withhold as a single with no dependence.

Yeah. cause you, the algorithm does not get you straight. So yeah, I get the tax bill $17,000 that I owed. Wow. In taxes for, for when I filed the 2016 taxes. Guess how much money I made on the first virtual summit? You made 

[01:08:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: 17. 17. Wow. 

[01:08:38] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: I mean, it, it was like, so, and, and that's why this holds a special place in my heart.

I mean, I have a tattoo of the elevate summit logo once my arm. 

[01:08:48] Mike Koelzer, Host: Whoa. All right. How'd you make money on the virtual summit because you told me it was free. It is. So where do you make money then on it? 

[01:09:00] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: So on people seeing the opportunities that we're talking about in. On the summit. 

[01:09:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's right. Cause we talked about it being the op the, the invitation to there's more out there.

[01:09:13] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: There's more out there. Here's these ideas, here's these innovative business models. Here's other pharmacists to show you, this can be done and you right. Can be successful. So this is the elevate summit is the what? Yeah. And then the academy is the how. Yeah. So then, you know, you join the summit, you get all pumped up.

Like, yes, I wanna do. I I'm ready to get my first client. Yeah. What's the next step. Well, I hope that that next step is coming to work with me in the academy. 

[01:09:47] Mike Koelzer, Host: And so the official money comes from them getting into the academy. Yes. Right. And you, you were able to tie those together because you're like, it's not just by chance that our sales go up or they use some kind of a log on code or something like that, or?

[01:10:04] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yeah. So the, the virtual summit ticket is all done via email. So all of this is done via email, you know, making the offers, they can sign up for the academy. So it's all provided digital. 

[01:10:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: When you said you made the money, you were able to, you were able to correlate the sales of farm per right directly to that because they they're using a certain buy code or a coupon code or whatever.

So that's how you can tell exactly what that did for you. Yes. Wow. That's fantastic. 

[01:10:39] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: It was. It was such an amazing moment. And, you know, that was one of the moments that is like, okay, I, I am on the right track, like all of this heck yeah. You know, hill that I've gone through for the past five months and putting this together and all the money that I had put into it.

Not right. Having any idea if it was gonna work. Yeah. You know, now I get to send it into the IRS, so yeah. It'll worked out if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have had that 15 grand. 

[01:11:11] Mike Koelzer, Host: Exactly. So someone's listening to this. They said, Hey, I'd like to check that out. And you said, you said as long as they're kind of doing it in time, it's, it's, it's free.

Eventually they can say, give me all of these, I'm gonna do it a month later. Yeah. But they just, they just log on and maybe sign 

[01:11:26] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: up. Yes. It's at elevate pharmacy summit.com. So you'll, you'll log into the, um, you'll just type that in your browser, you'll land right on our main landing page. That'll give you the dates.

It'll. You know, sign up, get your free ticket here. You'll put your best email address in, um, you know, click sign NA or sign up now, and then you're gonna get an email from me saying, you know, congratulations your registered, make sure to whitelist my email address, just so that this doesn't get sent to junk mail let or Spain, right?

[01:12:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yes. That's a great idea. Let's tell people ahead of time whitelist me so that this doesn't go to spam and so on. 

[01:12:06] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Right. So then, you know, they'll get a confirmation email. It'll say it, it'll send, I'll send reminders out as time gets closer. Yeah. Leading up to the summit, you know, Summit's next week, make sure that you set aside, you know, two to three hours, uh, to, to go through.

Right. And, and honestly, I don't expect anyone to watch. All of the videos for every single day. Gotcha. I think the best use of the summit is to go watch the videos you're interested in. And you know, I'm really about, like I said, with the blueprint, put your blinders on, like, right. If you kind of know the direction that you want to go in on one of those three paths that I talked about, right.

Just stop with the information seeking. Yeah. And focus in on this is the direction that, that I wanna go and make that decision. I'm only gonna watch the summer interviews that pertain to this and then you'll get through them. No problem. Because 

[01:13:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: the goal of it is not it's, it's not necessarily the, the answers would be, do I wanna do more?

It's not necessarily, did I miss this certain step because it's more of a 

[01:13:17] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: invitation. Exactly. It's not all or nothing. It's not like you have to attend every single lecture to, to take something away from it. 

[01:13:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: Knowing what you know now. would you, would, would you, would you choose pharmacy 

[01:13:32] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: again? Absolutely.

If I get to be where I'm at right now, everything that pharmacy's given me and done for me. Absolutely. So I think, I don't think I would pick pharmacy in the traditional sense. Say this business goes away tomorrow. Yeah. I am waking up Wednesday morning going to a local provider's office, trying to figure out how I can go work for them.

Mm-hmm I'm not applying to Walmart or Walgreens or anything like that because that's not the type of pharmacy I wanna be involved 

[01:14:09] Mike Koelzer, Host: with knowing that let's say it's, you know, let's say it's the year 2010 and you're, you can see some of these possibilities for a Blair. She's either doing this or she's going to a doctor's office and doing that is, is pharmacy, would you say yes, I'll take that.

I'll take that gamble. Let's go. Let's sign up for pharmacy school. 

[01:14:31] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: I think so. I think so. If, if I had it to do over again, I still think I would go to pharmacy school. Hopefully I would've found someone like myself who is a consultant and been able to still get into consulting some way or another. I, I believe that I'm on the right path enough that if time reversed and I wake up in 2010 and I'm back in pharmacy school, then I'm still gonna find my way back to consulting.

[01:15:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: What would you do if you, if pharmacy didn't exist, let's say you let's say you couldn't take any medical path. Okay. You couldn't take a medical path. Well, what was it back then? If it wasn't gonna be pharmacy, what was your second choice at that time? um, 

[01:15:23] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: so back then, I mean, I've wanted to be a pharmacist.

I've worked in a pharmacy since I was 17. Oh, I gotcha. So, so I, I grew up wanting to be a pharmacist. Um, for a while I thought maybe this looks like a new drug discovery. Maybe I go live in the Amazon rainforest. Yeah. And discover new, new drugs by testing plants or something. I don't know. Right. Right. Talk to the shamans and the Amazon basin and figure out what they're using for traditional medicine.

Yeah. Right. Um, so that was, that was kind of the idea I had and gotcha. I feel like I'm coming back around to it now. Right. With some of the work that I'm doing in functional medicine and yeah. Right. You know, integrative nutrition. Okay. You know, I think I I've always been interested in that. How, how can we kind of bring that back around from these ancient ways into traditional Western medicine?

Right. And how do we marry those two? So, so that's always been my, my interest. Okay. So I can't choose pharmacy. I can't choose medicine. 

[01:16:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: You're outta high school. You can't choose pharmacy, you know that you have entrepreneurial skills, but you can't do anything health related. Do you a, do you even go to school?

Do you even go to college? And B if you say, yeah, I want to get a college degree. What would it be 

[01:16:53] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: in? I would always choose the college degree. Just. That's our culture. I would like to say I would be cool enough to be like, no, I don't need to go to college. I'm gonna Elon musket or whatever, you know, like, so I would like to say I would be cool enough to do that, but I'd probably would still go to college for something that, that takes guts that takes an immense amount 

[01:17:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: of guts for every person that makes it to the top, that way there's 99.9% of the people that you can label them as a failure because they, which isn't fair, but because they don't have the farm, they don't have a, a, a college degree behind them.

[01:17:32] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Exactly, exactly. So, um, 

[01:17:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: I would, so you would go and what would it be? I would 

[01:17:37] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: go, um, I really love my world lit classes, so I'd probably be like, I don't know, some kind of, uh, English literature major. Yeah. And, um, maybe. Like I said, maybe like a dive master. Like I could, I could see myself working in the hospitality industry, like tourism.

Yeah. I love to travel. Um, I, I think being a tour guide would be a lot of fun. Yeah. So that would, that would probably be, um, you know, something that maybe that's a, a retirement plan for. That's my retirement career. 

[01:18:16] Mike Koelzer, Host: One of my sons is in the, um, he's gonna follow that path, you know, like you mentioned about the, the literature and so on.

Yeah. Yeah. What business, if, if right now someone said, Blair, you have to do something business wise, you've gotta make money for your family. Would you try to repeat what you're doing here in another field? Could you think of a business? So that would go along with those kind of things, would, would, would, would you find a, uh, somewhere, a niche still in the travel industry, or have you ever thought about other other fields of businesses you would do.

[01:18:50] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: So my business coach and I had a conversation about that this morning that we could take the business skills, the marketing skills that we know now and apply it to almost any business. And I think it would be successful. So I think I would hone in on something in the membership model. I, I like the, the membership model.

I like the recurring revenue. Sure. I like the, you know, getting clients that, you know, you can, you can expect to continue to buy for you. Right. So sure. One of the interviews I did for last year's elevate summit was with a pharmacy owner in Memphis who charges, um, his patients $50 a month for the membership and they get all their medications at cost.

There's no insurance billing. There's, you know, no, nothing like that's, that's their, their model. Mm-hmm and it's. It's so fantastic that a lot of the people that are his patients are lower income. So yeah. You know, I'm, I think I would, I would still focus if I had to build another business right now, I would focus on something with recurring membership, recurring, whether that's a monthly or an annual membership and, you know, maybe it would be travel related.

Yeah. You 

[01:20:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: mentioned some things. It could be, you know, you, you're gonna, you're gonna turn someone into, you know, a, um, a scuba, you know, something or other, or you're gonna, but you're gonna do that through a program where they can then bond with other people and maybe meet up at destinations and all that kind of stuff.

You can use a lot of the stuff you've done the same model, basically for a lot of things. Probably. Yes. 

[01:20:35] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yeah. I think, I really think that once you build these business skills, once you've kind of understand how to make. An offer how to do an elevator. Yeah. How to do a proposal. I've got people, me to do stuff that is not advertised on my website at all, but, you know, they're, they're asking me to do this stuff because they they're like, well, you know, we, we thought you could figure it out.

Like, you know, right. You, you are able to kind of build your airplane after you've jumped off the cliff and you're on your way down, 

[01:21:11] Mike Koelzer, Host: you know, the path. Well, Blair, a pleasure talking to you. 

[01:21:15] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: Yeah. It's been, it's been great. I, I love talking to other entrepreneurs and, and some of the stuff that, you know, the brainstorming and the ideas that come out of it, it's just so much.

[01:21:27] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, Blair really nice meeting you. I look forward to keeping in touch and best wishes on that summit. Coming up, you 

[01:21:33] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: can get your free ticket. It's elevate pharmacy summit.com. It's April 8th through the 12th. And I would, I would love to have you guys, you know, come share it, share it with your colleagues too.

It's it's gonna be a great event. So 

[01:21:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: offers a lot of food for thought for some people and for some people, a lot of hope in this time where pharmacy's shifting. So that sounds like the right direction to shift 

[01:21:56] Blair Thielemier, PharmD: to. That's my goal. If it offers someone hope it was all 

[01:22:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: worth it. Yes, that's right. All right.

Blair, take care. We'll be in touch. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Thank you.