COVID Vaccine Clinic Coaching | Neal Smoller, PharmD

Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript is generated using speech-to-text technology and may contain errors or inaccuracies.

Neal Smoller, PharmD: [00:00:00] Well, hello, Neil.

Hi Mike. How's it going? I'm doing well. How are you doing? I'm sorry, I'm talking like, uh, you're a puppy. I just got a puppy in my house. So that's all I know, it's like when you first get a baby and you're like, you know, like, so you boy, Mike, you're a good boy. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I've been called a good boy for a long time.

Neal Smoller, PharmD: you deserve 

Mike Koelzer, Host: it. So Neil, for those who haven't come across you online, mm-hmm introduce yourself. Sure. And tell our listeners why we're talking 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: today. Yeah, no problem. So my name is Neal Smoller. drnealsmoller.com. I am a pharmacist. I call myself a holistic pharmacist. I specialize in giving people the quality results and, uh, information that the natural products industry promises to deliver, but fails to.

So I, uh, also work as. Business coach for supplement and like wellness entrepreneurs. And we have an online school called supplement school where we educate folks on how to build a wellness practice with their expertise at the center. So that's kind of the stuff that I do. I'm also an independent pharmacy owner in Woodstock, New York with the aging hippies, get their drugs and you know, and so I've got a lot of stuff going on.

And right now, the reason that you and I are talking is because I wanna talk about COVID vaccines. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. You can talk about 'em, but first I'm gonna ask you this. Why are you doing them? It seems to me, Neil, when I look at your stuff and all the stuff that you got going on, that you've got enough going on, that you wouldn't need to take on something like this.

Tell me why you're doing it. It's 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: the last thing that I need to do right now. But that's it. That's what I'm saying. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Why 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: would you do this? It's the first thing that I want to do though. All right. Because I can, you know, what I've done through the entire pandemic has been providing people with the direction and almost the leadership that they need to navigate.

So from day one, with our blog and even locally in our pharmacy, my goal has been to help give them the real information, not the BS, not the stuff the charlatan's putting out there, but which supplement's gonna prevent COVID and all that nonsense. Right? Yeah. So helping people through and I've been sitting here, like put me in a coach, right.

I wanna help in some way. Yeah. To either. End this pandemic or treat the pandemic or step up in some way. And I feel like this is the opportunity. In fact, what I've been trying to show people is that this pharmacist, especially independent pharmacists can be the ones that end it quickly because it's inevitable, you know, these doses by the end of the year, we'll get in people's arms.

And if it was up to the chains, It would take, you know, a hundred doses a week and they would eventually get there, but independent pharmacies that are aggressive can do like what we are doing this week, which is 4,000 doses in three days, you guys 

Mike Koelzer, Host: are, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: we are wow. So I believe that we can help end the pandemic for people, and help people restore their lives.

I believe that we can show the world the strength of independent pharmacy and there is still a financial incentive here. Right? Um, the COVID vaccines are paying out much better than lisinopril. Uh, and so from, from my perspective, it makes a lot of sense for us to take these on, you know, um, the reimbursement for Medicare is $18.

So the first one and about 30 bucks for the second one. So both of those are very solid reimbursements, especially compared to the pilot garbage that we're used to dealing with. It's a little bit 

Mike Koelzer, Host: different this time, right? Because we finally get paid as like a healthcare person 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: or the way that it's working is just like a traditional vaccine.

You have two costs, you have the cost of the, the, the vaccine itself cost of the administration fee. Okay. So those two costs are always a part of it, but the vaccines are being provided by the state and federal governments. So we aren't billing for that. We're only billing for the administration fee. So that's what we're getting paid for.

We're getting paid for, from a professional standpoint on the administration of the vaccine. And the nice part is, is that all the ancillary supplies, alcohol swabs, syringes, all of that stuff is being supplied to us by the state governments too. There are some marginal costs that we have to pick up.

Um, and you know, one of the things I want to talk about is how, in order for us to be able to accelerate and almost like force multiply, you know, our efforts is to use an army of volunteers. Because if we had to pay staff to help us with this, we would go broke in no time. You know, how do you provide 1700 immunizations a day?

Well, you do it with 60 people. You know, you have 30 people inside for a five hour shift, and then you have about 10 people outside for a five hour shift. And then they switch, you know, so we have to use, and then that's not even addressing the billing, like we have to bill each of these [00:05:00] prescriptions and I've got a small pharmacy.

I don't really, you know, pay much attention to pharmacy these days. And 3000 is about what I do in a month. And we're gonna do that over three days. And then we're gonna have to get the claims into the computer and actually get reimbursed for it. Wow. So it's a tremendous undertaking, but I believe that the Goodwill and the current financial situation justify our efforts.

I 

Mike Koelzer, Host: went to Catholic school growing up and they always said that Catholic tuition went up so high now, because years ago, The schools could just hire nuns and they wouldn't pay 'em anything hard. So I'm trying to hire a bunch of nuns for the pharmacy. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I think that's a smart 

Mike Koelzer, Host: idea, but I haven't done very well.

And the next thing I would rather do is get someone to volunteer. So how are you finding people to volunteer for you? They're not gonna start getting like your name branded on 'em next. Are, are they, that sounds like a 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: cult kind of thing. I kind of want it to be a cult. I'm really into it. It seems like that's where this world is going, is like just the cult of personality.

Right. And everybody's following some cult leader. Now, wait a minute. So what else do you mean they're gonna make a knee flag, put it on my truck. What do 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You mean you, you volunteers, tell me about that. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: What, what I've been saying since the beginning of this is that I'm just trying to mirror the effort that community leaders have been doing for decades before me.

Right. So they've been really going above and beyond for the people that live in this area for a long time. Right. And I've been just trying to at least give that right. In a short amount of time to do this. And that's pretty inspirational. Right. A lot of people are saying, oh wow, that's really great. And, what he's trying to do is awesome.

I want to be a part of it, you know, and I've been pretty clear, like I need volunteers, I can't pay people. Otherwise I won't be able to provide the vaccines at the rate that they are. And so people want to be a part of this solution. They want to get this over for folks. They wanna be a part of our system because of how much fun we make it, you know?

And so. We just basically have a whole system for acquiring volunteers from like, Hey, I'm interested in a volunteer. They email, they get a response back. They fill out a volunteer form, which asks them for their availability at night, evening shifts. How many days a week are they medical professionals? They have their own insurance because I'm using nurses and pharmacists to drop doses and administer them.

I mean, at 1700 doses a day, I can't be the guy stabbing people. Right, right. I have to make sure that this whole machine's working, you know? Yeah. Right. And so, um, I'm gonna be running around a bunch. So we're gonna be using lots of different, um, volunteers to staff, all these different positions, you know, and like the immunizers, the professionals I'm hooking them up with.

And this is a really interesting thing. I didn't put this, uh, you know, we'll talk about like the training that I have for folks, but like, I didn't put this in the training. Um, The volunteers that I wanna say thank you to I'm buying gift cards, $25 gift cards to all of the different restaurants in town, plus $25 to the food pantry.

So everybody gets 125 bucks for volunteering for me for a five hour shift. Right. And then they're getting, you know, like a small gift card. So I'll have to spend more at that restaurant right out of pocket. And it's supporting my restaurant tour friends that are business owners in town that got their teeth kicked in this past year.

Right. So it's a cool mechanism for me to say, thank you. And then support the local businesses in the food pantry. You know, again, because if somebody is immunizing and they're doing 40 shots an hour and we're getting paid 20 bucks for it, then you know that five hours. You know, uh, revenue versus the cost.

It's, it's pretty clear how, you know, it's still profitable to, to give them the, the, the, the gift cards, you know? So, um, yeah, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: our listeners, some are from more rural towns. Mm-hmm and some are from cities with a ton of chain pharmacies within, let's say within five miles, they might have 50 chain pharmacies or something like that.

Yes. Do your ideas that you started, would that be different if you were in a bigger city with a bigger hospital, like three miles from you? So I want to take our listeners along this path that you set out. Would it be different if you were in a different size? City or would this still play out the same?

I 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: think that community pharmacists have roots in their community, no matter how big it is, whether it's the entirety of it, or if it's just like the few blocks around you, you know? And I think that this is an opportunity for you to, if you don't have those relationships to create them and then work and, or fortify them, uh, and let people know that you're here and you're a part of that community.

Well, however big that world is, and I will say that if it. For me, getting lucky at the beginning. I probably wouldn't be [00:10:00] having this conversation because there's a lot of folks that haven't got doses yet. And, you know, for us Cuomo, uh, government Cuomo said, you know, pharmacies, you're in, I got a hundred doses the first week and we kind of were like testing our model.

And then we figured out that we can actually really burn down the building. Like we can really like to cook. Right, right. So, uh, the next week I got 200 and then the week after that I got 700. I was the only private practitioner that got doses the first, the second two weeks. Right. And so that got a lot of media attention.

And, and like, especially because I took some of those doses and I went directly to communities where there were people of color or people that had access issues and tried to solve the inequality issues. Right. Mm-hmm so I was getting lots of media attention with our efforts. Right. And so, but then what happened was I got nothing.

I got no doses for two to three weeks. Nothing, nothing came. They. You know, we begged and, uh, we had a contact and we got an extra hundred doses last week, you know, first doses. And then all of a sudden this week we get an email or a phone call and they're like, Hey, can you actually use the 3,200 doses that you pre book every week for the past 11 weeks?

And I'm like, I could do that in three days, lady, she started cracking up and came to find out they actually made that same call to our county, uh, at like the, the executive. And they said, yeah, we know that he can definitely move those units. And so sure, sure enough, later that night we got the 3,200 doses.

So here we are. So now we're, we're now in this place where we've tried every different possible scenario for immunizing and we've lucked out, we've gotten the doses and we've shown what we can do. And there's people now that are speaking for us saying, yes, they can do that because we created this system and.

and I believe that that can, can, and should be repeated in a ton of different areas. So, yeah. So if you're getting choked out, because CVS is getting all the doses and you're not getting your doses, it's extremely frustrating because you know, you can't even, you know, get the opportunity, you know, and it really stinks.

And that's what the problem is. But soon the doses are gonna start moving to the pharmacies themselves directly from the CDC, if you're part of CPS N and all of those kinds of things, right. You're a part of the federal partner program. And I believe that February was the worst month. It's the lowest point of the, the, the supply.

And I believe that March is gonna be the start of the biggest, right. And so people are gonna really start to, to move. And I think that opportunity will come up, even if they were kind of iced out before because of the hospitals and whatever, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: if someone has not. Ever even immunized, should they be listening to us if someone has immunized, but does, but hasn't even looked into COVID yet?

Should they be listening? Who's who is this? Probably too late for. And is this just a practice in you looking back for maybe the next time this happens? Or is this still valid that people should say there's still time left to maybe listen to you and still set up their own COVID stuff? I mean, I decided a long time ago, part of the reason, because I lost some pharmacists and I never liked that up and down supply because I would always promise something or my mind, I would promise a vaccination and then it, you know, flu stuff over the years and it wouldn't show up.

Yeah. And we're in a city with just a gob of medical places. So I'm like, ah, let someone else do it. Yeah. All right. So that's my answer. I'll never get into it at least. Not that I think I would, but. Who could get into this? 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I think everybody should be running an immunization program in their pharmacies. I think you're missing a huge opportunity, even if they 

Mike Koelzer, Host: have done no immunizations 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: before.

Well, I mean, I think that if we take it a step back, you should be doing immunizations. Like if you have an independent pharmacy, you should be doing immunizations. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: What if you're an old fart? That's lazy. I'm not saying, I know one. I'm just saying what if there is a lazy, old 

fart? 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I'm sure. There's well, I know lazy young dudes that didn't wanna do it.

Right. My buddy, who, before he sold the story, like, I'm not doing immunizations, screwed all of that. You know, like I'm not doing that, but you know, our, you know, our peer group, we like, you're missing a huge opportunity because you know, that's like a thousand transactions that you don't really have to do much more for, you know, you just have to have like a little area for them and you make 15 bucks on each one, you know, like what's the big deal there.

So, well, when I 

Mike Koelzer, Host: talked to one of the guys in my business and I said, because I had lost some pharmacists and then one of 'em wanted maternity leave and stuff. I said to one of my customers, it's like, ah, I kind, this is before COVID. And I kind of feel guilty. I don't do immunizations. I gave 'em the line about what I was telling you about the fluctuation supply and all that stuff.

And when they left, one of my workers said, why would you wanna do those? We don't get paid crap for, um, any immunization. So why would we wanna do those? And maybe he was just saying that to make me [00:15:00] feel better. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Yeah. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: But is the money there in general for immunizations? Let's say minus COVID. Yeah. Would the money have been there in general for immunizations?

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I think so. I think it's enough. I think it's enough for me. Like the problematic ones are the Medicare D vaccines because the DIR fees hit those. So, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: oh, I gotcha. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: That's a nightmare. You like, you don't wanna do those for Medicare D patients because it's like, okay, they'll pay you $190 for a shingles vaccine.

It costs you maybe one 60 to do it. Um, and then they take away $30 for a DIR fee. Gotcha. And then you've just lost money on the transaction and it doesn't make sense to do it, especially because it costs you $2,000 for the inventory. Yeah. So our rule with shingles vaccines is that if we have a box, I want all of them.

To be used up in a day, like, you know, otherwise we don't have a box, you know, so that way we schedule 10 and we get rid of 10 and that's it. So that way we're not sitting on the inventory, you know, cuz it's already bad enough. The reimbursement is part of 

Mike Koelzer, Host: that. So you can focus, you know, that maybe the next 10 people may not be Medicare D they might be from this employee group or something, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: or we hope so, you know?

Yeah. We just, yeah, you just hope that like, you know, it's gonna get screwed up, but I mean, like this speaks to the bigger issue of like what's wrong with our minds. Um, you know, I don't, I'm sure there's a lot of folks listening. The business of pharmacy podcasts at our pharmacist, maybe they have a friend in another business and ask them if their friend owned a catering business and they went to do a catering gig and they lost $20 on it.

Would they go back and do that catering gig again? Right, right. And so what's wrong with our brains, right? We are in this business where we're providing a service and generations ago, they failed us, um, with their, um, uh, allowance of this system to be put in place without standing up as a unified voice.

And here we are. Right? Yeah. So I would say that immunizations are, uh, uh, a value added service that brings some traffic to your pharmacy that may not necessarily always be there. And I believe that there, if you do flu shots and like Medicare, B type things, you'll make it. More money than you'll make on their other stuff.

And so I do feel like immunizations are worth it. Now COVID immunizations are worth it for the Goodwill for ending this damn pandemic and for the reimbursement right now. Now when we move to private pay, I don't think it's gonna be there. You know, I think like Johnson and Johnson is gonna be the death of death for us.

So I'm really focusing on the seniors right now. So 

Mike Koelzer, Host: private pay. So when, if it's a, if it's a employee coming in third party and the pharmacies have to buy it and so on, then it's gonna fall apart 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: again. I think so, because like, of course it's going to, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: But Neil, so someone's listening and they're like, all right, I haven't been doing this yet.

And now I have. Charming voice on the other end of the line saying that I should be doing this and then why though we start in, and then you're saying that it's not gonna be worth it again. So why should anybody even take the energy to even, even listen to this much less believe what you're saying or try to even picture this in their own pharmacy?

Well, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I mean, if I do 4,000 doses this week yeah. That'll. 30 hours. Right. And then we'll have to do 30 hours for the second dose 4,000 times 48 is about $180,000. Mm-hmm . So even if you do 4,000 over the next six months, that's exactly equal to the DIR fees that were ripped outta my pharmacy this past year.

Somebody 

Mike Koelzer, Host: probably couldn't do this if they're not already injecting. I 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I mean, I believe that you could get something because there's 300 million Americans that are gonna get immunized. Yeah. And there's gonna be plenty of opportunities. So I think there's gonna be, and then the other thing I'll say, and part of what I wanted to talk to you about is like the logistical nightmare.

This is, um, so if you look at the chains and like, most people hate going to the chains for these things, because it's like, they're doing 30 a day and it's like, you know, everything's everywhere and it's a mess. And so like just the customer service side of things. And this is one of the things I talk about.

So I guess like, let me just say this. So the reason I wanted to come on here is so more pharmacists can hear that I'm offering a free supplement school course, um, on. Coronavirus vaccine oh, mass delivery. So I created it already. It's at Dr. nemo.com/courses. And it's the only course that's there because we're moving supplements school over to my new site.

And that's a 

Mike Koelzer, Host: lovely site by the way. Thank you. Your site is 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: really flashy. Thank you. We're. I will say that January 1st was our goal to move to this and like, be this guy, this, like, I, I hate Dr. Neil. I, I, I absolutely do. I don't wanna be known as the guy. I never really, but you know, the truth is, people rally around the personality, like we were talking about the culture personality.

Right, right. And so I finally embraced it a couple years ago, but it isn't something, it's something that I've resisted for 10 years because I could have done this 10 years ago with my supplements and everything. But I always tried to do the retail, the brand first, I was a very old school guy in that regard.

So it's hard, you know, to see all the doctor Neil stuff and, and with the vaccine, we used my [00:20:00] Dr. Neils site because it had more resources. Like we have more money on that site. So it made it easier to put all this stuff in there. And, um, you know, so there's Dr. Neil, Dr. Neil, Dr. Ne my staff is like, oh, Dr. Neil, he is so great.

He's giving us the COVID, you know? And it's like, ah, but anyway, so January is the goal to move everything over to this site. And then January 5th is when Cuomo's like, you're in mofo, get ready. And so like basically all of us. Targets to like, get the site functional, like move our online store there and like put in all of our, like, here's your health quiz and Dr.

Neil, you know, like all of that stuff. So it's, so if somebody goes there and sees that it's like half our, you know, that's, I'm sorry. , it's just, COVID vaccines have gotten in the way 

Mike Koelzer, Host: for our listeners. That branding thing is that you've got a few different things you could be in. You've got your store, which is in the village APO area.

Then you've got your Woodstock vitamins. In theory, you could have had a website for that and kind of had a Q and a on that. And how is this gonna help and all that stuff? And then you've got Dr. Neil's site mm-hmm and your healthcare consultants. Friends and you said, Hey, this should go, Dr. Neil put a face behind it instead of a company behind it, but then it all hit and it hit fast.

So instead of saying our pharmacy village, APO area is doing these shots and let's get the Q and A, and then fill out the forms and all that there, you did it under me, Dr. Neil, why? Yeah, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: partly because the site had more resources and partly because I wanted to. The search juice, the Google juice. Um, because we were moving our site from Woodstock vitamins where my blog lived over to Google.

Oh, is that Woodstock? Gotcha. Yeah, it was Woodstock. vitamins.com is where I was living before. Yeah. Because that's how I felt like under a brand. And I'm like, eh, that's not really the way I wanna go. Yeah. So I wanted to search for juice. I wanted, you know, the clicks on the page that made the page very legitimate, that folks are coming.

And, um, I wanted people to start to know me as Dr. Neil in the event that pharmacy blows up, you know, I wanna have my plan B ready, you know? Yeah. And so my plan B is helping other pharmacists not have to make that decision. You know, uh, I want to have them build a supplement business where they, uh, have this huge influx of like gross profit to offset.

And offset their losses and potentially generate profit, but then also tee them up for their own plan B in the event that their pharmacy goes. Right. So let's just imagine that you have your pharmacy and you wanna start getting into supplements while you have two paths, you can be the charlatan, you can go with the trendy stuff.

You can, you know, there's everybody and their mother will teach you how to, uh, you know, about omega three and everything like that. Right? Yeah. And you can get into the trends in the gimmicks, or you can do what I did, which is to look at and say, listen, I'm a pharmacist, right? I. I care about everything that goes into people's bodies.

So how are these things made? And like what's real and what's not based on real science. Right. And I feel like pharmacists are really good at copying other successful people, but never inventing for themselves. And so I feel like pharmacists need to kind of like get flicked in the head a little bit and realize that if we go on that other path where we say, I'm the pharmacist that knows about medicines and therapeutics and clinical trials and can sort good from bad and manufacturing, product quality, compounding all of that stuff.

I'm the perfect person to lead holistic care and supplements and that advice, right. And then it puts you in such a radically better strategic position, business position than anybody else out there. That's doing supplements. And so I want a pharmacist. You know, the thing is like, we're talking about vaccines, right?

Yeah. And so what are we doing? Right. You and I are following the practice, wherever it's going. Mm-hmm right. So like, and what I find with a lot of these, like pharmacy, like leadership groups and stuff is like, what's the new trick. Right. Right. And like, and we're just kind of like trying to like, get the scraps on the table and we're just letting it lead us around.

We haven't really set the agenda for what is right. Should be the practice of pharmacy. And that's where a lot of these, like smarter folks are saying like CPS N and, and stuff they're saying like, this is what we should be. Right. Yeah. And I believe that we have to add. Holistic care to it and like holistic, not in the sense that you would Google holistic or you would think about holistic where it's like alternative medicine or just like pseudoscience nonsense, taking that word back and making it mean truly holistic.

So lifestyle choices, like diet, stress, sleep, exercise environment, right. And knowing how to teach people how to do that. Right. Supplements and doing it in a strategic manner based on what we know about medications and how, you know, how therapeutics pharmaceuticals work and then conventional care. So like how to manage [00:25:00] diseases, like honestly, and, and like, based on science.

Right? So I feel like we, I, I want in my next phase of life to help direct the practice of pharmacy back towards that and stop with this, because part of the problem is right that. We've kind of let it go. Like doctors, pharmacists, we're just like, oh, that's PS. Right. And we are just dismissive about it.

And then folks, where do they go? They go to the person that's talking about what they want to hear. You know, they go to the alternative practitioner who's and, and sometimes it's fine, but a lot of the times it's not right. They're them bad information. And they're ripping them off at, at best. They're ripping 'em off at worst.

They're hurting them. Right. Right. And so we've relinquished our leadership role. And I believe that pharmacists should take that back and we should be directing our practice, especially us in the community, uh, towards. Writing that wrong finally. Right. And, making people think of pharmacists, not just as the guy that puts the pill in the bottle and loses money doing it.

But as the person that will fix my health problems, right. Prevent future health problems. So 

Mike Koelzer, Host: right now it's Dr. Neil and someone goes to your site and it talks about holistic, this and that. What if all of a sudden you've got this great thing, because a lot of people probably weren't able to have people volunteer for them and things like that.

It sounds like I'm talking to Tom Sawyer. Have you ever seen that movie? 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Isn't that, that song by rush that's 

Mike Koelzer, Host: that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, but for us old FARs, Tom Sawyer was by, um, Samuel Clemens. His name is Mark Twain. Anyways, he got all of his friends to come and volunteer to paint his thing.

That's cool. Just as an offshoot, what if all of a sudden people come to you for the guru to do these kinds of things? Would you have to have another offshoot of a website, like, like Neil's consulting for pharmacy because this site is not intended really to draw pharmacists on this. It's really intended to draw 'em on your healthcare stuff.

Neal Smoller, PharmD: It's gonna be pro dot Dr. nemo.com and, um, Part of it is going to have supplement school. It's gonna have our wholesale business and my coaching, one of the other services that I provide, I work with wellness influencers to design their own, uh, formulations, um, like supplements and 

Mike Koelzer, Host: stuff. So this will be a different site than the Dr.

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Neil site. It's gonna be the Dr. Neil site. So it'll be pro do Dr. Neil. Oh, I saw that. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Where you can get into either site, depending on what you click, basically. That's right. And the people who are not using you for the pro stuff, they'll figure that they're there for some reason, but they don't know that they might be going to your site on how to be like a chip and Dale or something like that.

Maybe that 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: with a dad, Bob, I don't know. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: but that'll allow it to be hidden right. Under the pro stuff, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: basically. Yeah. So the way that I've set my site up is to be directed towards consumers. Gotcha. Because that's where I put a lot of my blog effort is towards being that consumer guru mm-hmm and I've got some really interesting things coming up with that.

Yeah. Um, but in the footer. Uh, and at the heading, yeah, there's going to be like a, if you're a healthcare professional gotcha. Click here. And then that will take people to the pro site, which I gotcha. And so like right now, it's all like if you go to that course, that free course that I'm offering, that will be.

like just on the regular doctor, Neil says, oh, I gotcha. Again, like we've gotten so distracted with COVID that like, we haven't been able to do much of anything. So, um, but yeah, so soon the wholesaling will be there. The, um, supplement school and my coaching services, uh, will all be on the pro site. So then if you're a healthcare professional, you can go there.

And my intention is to spend the next year helping people build their supplement practice. We had, you know, after you and I talked last time we were talking about supplement school. Um, we had a number of folks sign up, but then COVID hit. And then everybody said, I can't think about this right now. And so we have probably 30, 40 people that are just waiting nice for COVID to like loosen up and what I've offered everybody, because, you know, it's a frustrating time, like lots of grace, like we all, we're gonna help them go above and beyond just to make sure that they are feel taken care of.

But I do think that it's important for us to start thinking in a post pre and post COVID standpoint. So right now your focus should be building an immunization program to some degree. And if you can get it scaled up, like my crazy place, then do that. Uh, and then what's your plan for post COVID because there's gonna be a transitional period where everybody's gonna be like, kind of coming outta the caves and stretching and like, you know, getting the cobwebs out of their ears and stuff like that.

And then there's a lot of fat people because they've been overeating right. To help with COVID and there's gonna be a lot of people looking to lose weight and be healthier again. So we wanna be positioned in a pulse. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: C's gonna be cool. It's gonna be really cool. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: It's you know, like the rowing twenties, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You know, all right.

I have a question for you. Sure. in the last couple months I could see my listenership. It would kind of go up and then COVID hit because of people maybe not doing as much driving to work and stuff. And then it happened again after, you know, eight months when something else happened. It's been down a little bit lately too.

And [00:30:00] my contention is that a lot of the pharmacists are just so damn busy right now. Is that true? 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Oh my God, it's insane. Like nobody has time to look up. Um, the testing again, testing is profitable. Vaccines are profitable right now. So folks are just really busy focusing on that. Plus then everybody's workload is higher cuz we're now doing curbside pickup and more deliveries.

Yes, that's true. It's just nuts, everybody. And you know, and like dealing with pharmacists anyways, like hurting cats, but you know, like it's, it's a very difficult time for us. We're very busy, but then on the other end, so this is what I said to my accountant. As busy as it was the year before, if not busier making less money mm-hmm right.

And because the D IR fees are so dramatic, you know, our gross profit per prescription was around 17, 18, um, three or four years ago. Right. And then last year was when it really kind of jumped, jumped off a cliff and went down to like 12. And then I think we're at like 10 right now, you know? And, and that is not, I mean, I sell a ton of supplements.

Right. So that's, you know, I've got like a multi seven figure business with that. So like, I'm moving units, but it's mainly online. Um, no, actually like 50, 50. It's like really? Yeah. Really strong retail. Wow. And like, so the thing about supplement sales is if you're over a million in a local store, you're in like top 10%, cuz that's how much it's fragmented.

So we've been there for a bit. Right. Oh. And like we're pretty strong there. So then we also have our online stuff too. And so, like I said, it's like 50 50 and like. You know, I would never recommend an online business to anybody. Just so we're clear, like 

Mike Koelzer, Host: We talked about that. It's just, you have to put so much into marketing for every it's insane to get people's 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: attention.

And one of the goals for me for this next year is to be a supplement coach and a business coach, but to be a marketing coach, pharmacists suck at marketing. Yeah. We have no idea how to think about it. And like, you know, I teach people like in supplement school about just the sales process, right.

Because we are not used to thinking like sales, we just wanna make recommendations. And I'm with you. I don't wanna be a sleazy sales guy either, but we have to understand how people think and engage with brands and products. Right. And be able to navigate and push people through a sales funnel to some degree.

Yeah. To effectively do that. But then you have to think globally in a marketing standpoint. Right. So like, right. What's our campaign? How are we running it? You know, how do we educate our staff? Like how do we measure our success? Every. Student supplement school. I Google their name and nine times outta 10.

I can't even find them really isn't it something. Yeah. So if I Google my Kelser, I can find you. Right. Cause you're putting your name, your face on everything, right? Yeah. The About page. And like, you might even, I don't even have my kelser.com or not, but anyway, but like some people will have that most folks, I can't even get to them, like even on their pharmacy page, like it should, you know, like, let's just say it's Neil village, APO carrier, rx.com has a Dr.

Neil page and it's got my picture and everything like that. And it has my story. So that way, if I'm Googled, I'll come up there and it'll be there. It'll be my page. It'll be Woodstock, vitamins like everywhere. So like, these are the basics that pharmacists just have. Hip with, and there's plenty of marketing programs that pharmacists can buy, but they're all BS.

Everybody knows that, right. You spend 300 bucks a month and they do stuff for you and they never really do anything. They never deliver. You 

Mike Koelzer, Host: mean the ones that pharmacists can yeah. Pharmacies can 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: sign up for, right? Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And because what pharmacists want from all of this, from supplements, from.

COVID vaccines from marketing in general are turnkey. They want to just like, be the pharmacist and then just throw some crap on the shelf and then it moves. Right? Yeah. But really, and what I tell folks, when they're joining supplement school it isn't that this isn't a field of dreams you have to become, this is your personality.

Now this is who you are. You, you have to be the holistic pharmacist of your region, right? Yeah. You have to think and breathe holistic care. And yes, supplements will be a part of that. So, well, pharmacy, and this is now who you are. So like, you have to really kind of change your frame of mind a bunch, uh, uh, you know, because we're so used to like, okay, so what's the next gimmick?

Oh, we'll put greeting cards. Okay. What's the next GIM let's put dolls in, you know, cuz it's a gift card and like that doesn't work . Those guys are dead and dying and like, if you wanna stay in this game, you gotta. Innovative, you know, and you gotta change who people think that we are, you know?

Yeah. And that's why with like, COVID vaccines, like, uh, the recognition, the, the, the excitement, the thanks, right? Like, uh, our business has grown 20% and script volume because of what I'm doing. Like, these people are like, oh, I know you've been here for a decade, but I see you now, you know, because of COVID stuff.

Yeah. Because I'm the one hustling and, and I'm in the news. And like, I'm, you know, because again, like I'm, I know that it's all, all it is is messaging. Right. Right. So I am contacting all of the media and I'm saying, listen, [00:35:00] I'm doing a COVID vaccine here. Right. And so the local paper is like, okay, great.

Let's go take pictures. And it starts there. And then I got an NPR and I was an NBC news. So that is like 50% of the work is making sure that people get it right. What you're doing, you know, for sure. And because you can do this stuff and like I'm doing it to be. Good and helpful. I'm doing it to be profitable, but I'm also doing it for, you know, to show people what we're capable of.

Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. So Neil, someone's listening now. Mm-hmm and they say, all right, I'm gonna check this guy out. Or at least just to see what they look like. Yeah. You know, mm-hmm cause people, I know people don't think I, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: no, just kidding. You're not, you're not, you're not as handsome as everybody thinks you are, it's like, you sound better.

You're sound. I think you're a handsome guy. I, uh, oh, go on. Keep going, look like a hot mess. I am, uh, you can see it. Like my hairline is ripping back. I'm really having a hard time with that. I think I'm gonna take some of this COVID money and get some hair plugs. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: What do you think about that? Both of us have good looking wives and children.

So I know we've fooled somebody at least. Absolutely. Right. So just keep your mouth shut and keep going. Yep. Yeah. All right, Neil. So people say, all right, all right. They get done driving. They say, we're gonna, we're gonna go to Neil's site and check this out. Mm-hmm you actually have a marketing person on your staff.

Right. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Well, so that's always been very difficult for me. Like the sales people versus the marketing people. I use a team of freelancers and I'm gonna start using them more and more. So, like, I just started working with someone to do the copy for my website. I saw that it looks nice. Yeah. And she was really great.

So I'm gonna use her to build my ebook, which is like a 40 page about the vital five, the five nutrients almost everybody would benefit from. So it's gonna be really great. Yeah. You 

Mike Koelzer, Host: have a division on your website for that actually. It's that 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: important? Yeah. Because you know, If I can. Here's the thing about selling supplements.

You can find the whales that want to spend $400 and never use a real doctor ever. Right. And they want to, you know, spend all of their money on supplements. Da da, da, da, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: wait, why are they 

whales? Because they're big and 

fat. Uh, that's just like a marketing turn. No, now they're, they're normally pretty thin.

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I mean, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't call people fat, especially after the M M consumption that I got going on. So, so 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you look like you lost 

weight, actually, I, I did. I, I dropped 20 pounds and I put on five and I've been fluctuating back and forth and I got another 20. You dropped it on purpose on, on 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: intentionally.

Yeah. Yeah. So I was, I was getting chunky and again, I've got a pretty wife, so I can't let that go. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you're married. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Gotta keep that 

game up. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Who cares? 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I don't know. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I tell you one thing. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I've got a horrible personality though. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: So Neil, let me tell you one thing, cause I'm, I'm older than you are. So here's the one thing.

If you start this, you can always stop. Don't buy 'em flowers and stuff on their birthday. And Valentine's, you know why? Because they'll come to expect it every year. Oh, I 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: get it. Yeah. You don't wanna, you don't wanna set a precedent if you've 

Mike Koelzer, Host: already started. It's not too late. Just tell 'em business is tough and you don't wanna set that.

All right, Neil. So I know I brought up a few times who does that, or what does that through? It's very 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: professional. Thank you. So I've been using a graphic designer who does web stuff for 15 years. Literally, pretty much since I've done my business, he was like a, a, a 21 

Mike Koelzer, Host: year old, maybe that's who I was thinking of when I said marketing 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: person.

Yeah. So he's just a graphic designer. So he's really great, you can tell by the look, uh, and like he's really good. Right. And so I trust him pretty implicitly. We have a great relationship, like telling each other to F off like that whole thing. Right, right. So we've got that, that level. And so I've been using him and he's gonna probably be part of my team when I create this marketing thing.

So gotcha. My, my dream is, is like, listen, I've written every article about vitamins, right? Yeah. So why do you, Mike, need to do that? If you wanna start selling vitamins, right? Yeah. So you, you pay to be a part of our marketing program and then you get access to all of these articles that you can then weekly print out.

Even if you don't have a website, print them and hand them to your patients and say, here's our newsletter on vitamin D this week. Here's our newsletter on fish oil. He'll help keep all that going. What he'll do is help you take that and turn it into a branded thing. Gotcha. You know, and like really kind of like make it snap, like mind does, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Let's talk a little bit about them, the actual things that people will see, so they'll go there.

What are they gonna learn? Let's say they pick up your program. It's a free program. You said the free 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: vaccine program. What are they gonna see? So I'll actually go there and we'll, uh, we'll talk all about it. So, um, because it's been so long since I've done it, the one 

Mike Koelzer, Host: The thing I didn't like about your site is that nude on the first page.

me neither. Oh my God. You just made me snort 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: pass over to that one. Um, so basically it's Dr. Neil's guide to COVID vaccine clinics and it is a supplement school freebie. When you click on it, it's got the course content. So basically we talk about, you know, the introduction, what I want people to do, what I want people to learn.

I give people an overview. I talk about metrics and PAC. Primarily, I talk about the different, um, bottlenecks that slow down the pace and how you have to address each one of them, the pace 

Mike Koelzer, Host: for adopting this into your company or the pace for helping people. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: No, the pace is for immunizing, right? So like, I, [00:40:00] I have shot for a goal of 40 per hour to be immunized.

Right. So in order for 40 people per hour to be immunized, what things need to be addressed and how do you set up your workflow to keep that pace moving? Right. Because one of the things about my, my system here, it's been, you know, It's great. I'm giving people vaccines, but everybody's told me how it's a dream.

It's fun. It's a party. Right. And, and really kind of changing the environment and like the perspective around this. Right. And so, um, you know, we want, I want you to not have a nightmare clinic where people are like that. I'm never gonna go back to that place. They didn't have it organized. I want you to have it lean and mean and move people through there.

So that way, when they read about like the Javit center in New York city and how it's like, you know, a two hour way to get a vaccine, like they're like no way it was 20 minutes I was in and out of there. Right. So, we talk about how to actually provide the vaccine, how to allocate, uh, manage your allocations, your pods, because there's a lot of numbers coming at you.

Um, what I use for, um, signing people up. Appointment scheduling called jot form. And then I spent a big chunk of time on customer service because one of the biggest things is that it's a customer service nightmare. Um, we got, um, in the first week and a half a thousand emails and they were all pretty much asking the same eight questions over and over again.

So we adopted a ticket management system. We're able to just like it. Cut and copy and paste. Basically they're called macros. Somebody asks about how to get on the waitlist. Here's the response somebody asks about who do you immunize? 65. Plus here's the response. You'll email that back to them or send it right back to them and then close out the ticket and it's, it's really kinda, you know, it's really cool.

So, um, so we kind of talk about that and Neil is this 

Mike Koelzer, Host: course of yours. Video or are they reading this, uh, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: video? So, um, yeah, so basically on superbowl Sunday, I wrote it up, and recorded it. Gotcha. And what I will say in the video is that it's ugly. it's like not to my normal, um, specs at all because I just wanted to get it done and get it out there so people can get it, you know, get into it.

Okay. Carry on. Um, so yeah, so we basically were talking about all of that. What, you know, what are the pitfalls, what are the things to look out for? I've gone through everything negative with this too. It's not been just a positive experience. Uh, so, uh, early I said, okay, we're gonna prioritize our patients.

And that's what it said on the site. And I got turned into the department of health because the MOU said I have to open it up for everybody, but I was just using the verbiage to say, listen, I'm gonna focus first on my sickness. And I couldn't do that. So somebody turned me in for that. But 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You were saying your pharmacies, patients are just the patients that are the sickest.

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I, I said to my pharmacy's patients, they didn't like that. Yeah. And because again, I only did that because I literally was typing it. Like, it was just like. Yeah, brain to, to keyboard. Sure. And I didn't like having any time to think about it. I just needed to stand it up in 12 hours. Right. And like, with, you know, as soon as somebody's like, oh, well the wording is a little confusing.

I'm like, oh, let me fix it. And I fixed it within the week, you know? Yeah. Uh, but I was more prioritized on getting the doses in people's, you know? Right. Um, so we had that, we had somebody and this was the really crazy part. So very early on, especially with that verbiage, they're like, oh, here it is another, White's only clinic.

He's being racist. He's excluding people of color. And I'm like, you certainly don't know me. And like, that should be the last thing out of your mouth. Because like, you know, that was actually a huge concern of mine is making sure people of color are cared for. But then I got put on a map of COVID racial inequities.

If you can believe that, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: How did they come up with you being racist? 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Because again, it was like an exclusive kind of thing and it was in a white neighborhood and like, and most of your cut gotcha. Was white. Yeah. And like, and that's just the way it is. Like, you know, that's just where you are. This is where I live.

So, you know, so, but, you know, and then I, I, I, you know, was obviously reaching outside of my community to make sure my county community as a whole was taken care of because that's what I believe we should be doing as leaders in our community. So, um, but anyway, so, you know, That's the kind of like it got ugly.

People are, their energy is so messed up right now. Frustration and anxiety is turning into anger and they're directing it at the helpers and every step of the way, even though it's interesting, lifelong customers like screaming at it. Right. Wow. Uh, about how unfair it is, the, what I'm doing, you know, it's like all this craziness.

So, there are a lot of negatives that can be associated with this just because of the climate right now. Everybody wants this to be over. They want their dose, everybody's trying to buy an iPhone and there's four iPhones. So they're 

Mike Koelzer, Host: all at home with probably a little bit too much time on their hands and here you're trying to help.

And they're taking that frustration out on you and they probably don't even know they're doing it. It's almost like a subconscious. Yeah. I mean, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I feel like they know what they're doing. They're, you know, it's, it's like, especially 

Mike Koelzer, Host: when they throw bricks in your window. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Yeah. Like if you think about it, like folks go for the jugular just to get your attention.

And so, and you know, you and I aren't used to working with the public at. Large. We have a subset of the public that accept 

Mike Koelzer, Host: us, that 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: wants to be with us, right. Ha exactly. Having to serve everybody and listen to everybody's nonsense. There was one lady at a clinic recently that I said to her, now that you got your second dose, I never wanna see you again.

You know, really you, oh, she was a nightmare. She wanted to turn me into the HIPAA police because [00:45:00] long story short, there were extreme weather delays. Right, right. There were delays in the shipments. And so I, the governor, told me to postpone my clinic. Basically. He told all of us to delay it a week, cuz it's gonna be a week.

And so I did that and I was managing that. And then. The next day, the CDCs, like, Nope, we got your doses. They're coming tomorrow. Right. So then it was kind of like back and forth. So in the haste to try to make sure everybody knows what's real and what's not, I sent out a mass email. I didn't use my MailChimp account.

I just was doing it through my email and I put it in send instead of BCC blind card copy. Oh, gotcha. So then it became a nightmare of, you know, people responding all, and then I'm gonna turn you into the HIPAA police, whatever, you know, HIPAA organization they wanted to, because they said it was a breach of Phi, which it wasn't of course, but that's what I was trying to deal with in the middle of, you know, manually verifying 528, people are gonna come to this clinic and burning all of those hours, myself.

And so everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong. And one of the parts that we talk about in the course is just communication. How, like, if you goof up the communication even a little bit, it just creates. Tenfold work for you. I sent out an email saying no doses this week. Right. And what I meant to say was no first doses this week.

Right. Because we still have our second dose clinic. And even though people had their appointments scheduled for their second doses, and I've said a million times at second doses, they're gonna be there no matter what. We got 75 emails, you know, like where's my second dose. So then you have to process 75 emails.

I think that takes a lot of money and effort. Yeah, it does. So, but again, our volume right now is justifying the fact that we have a full-time customer service person. Plus like with my Dr. Neils stuff, I'm gonna need a full-time service person, you know, customer service person anyway, answering the emails and stuff like that.

How do you 

Mike Koelzer, Host: keep this focused on the, uh, emails and away from phone calls? 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Um, so basically we have just shut the door on phone calls, like as everybody has, um, our phone system, uh, and this is something that we cover in the class is like how to manage the customer service nightmare. Yeah. But essentially we.

We just create a layered approach. So phones the, we put an auto attendant that says, we're not gonna talk about this. If you have a question about COVID hit one and then it sends it to the COVID voicemail. Gotcha. And then the customer service person will call them back. Right. But then in the, in the COVID voicemail, it answers the most common 

Mike Koelzer, Host: questions and then it, and then it sort of promotes email more than leaving a message 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: probably.

Right. And it says, yep. And it says, go to the website. This is where the information is: leave an email, we'll call you back at our nearest convenience, which could be up to four business days. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: So they get better service through email and reading the Q and a first of 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: the thousands of emails we've gotten.

Like eight questions and then maybe 20 of them are unique, truly unique questions is 

Mike Koelzer, Host: the whole thing of people being pissed. Is it like, does that fall into the whole, um, entitlement? Yeah. Entitlement and like, people are taking care of me and you 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: better do this. No, it's an entitlement attitude. Everybody has it.

Like, we like to tell stories in this country about the different types of people, team, A team, B blue, red, all of that stuff. Right. We're all the same jerk, you know, like really that's what it is. Like. There's so many of us that no matter which side of, because again, I'm in Hippieville liberal town USA, and I have people claw and scratching at doses.

And one of my patients said, you know, it's not fair. He's 68. Right. And he's totally healthy. He's, he's fit. He's better looking than me. Uh, how come you didn't get me a dose? And I'm like, I'm like, dude. So do you want me to not give the dose to the NAACP elders in town that's been forgotten with this?

Would you rather have gotten that dose, Mr. Liberal hippie dude? You know what I'm saying? Like you, I thought like we want to be inclusive and take care of everybody. Right? I thought that's our 

Mike Koelzer, Host: ethos. The whole entitlement is we've suffered for a year. And now the US government owes me because this is basically a US government program.

Right. I 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: kind of feel like it's more. How come they got it, not me. Right? So like it's hard, whoever else got it. Is it who, whoever else got it? Yeah. And so like, you know, people are making up all sorts of stories. So like I'm not happy like some of these senators that have made this COVID crisis worse, right.

Via their rhetoric are getting doses. They're 50. Like, no, and you've been a jerk about it. So why are you gonna be the first one in line? Right. And so I kind of get that too, like F you dude, like, you know, whatever. And so, and then some, some of these people are looking, they're going well, that person got it.

And I think they're healthier than I am, and I should have gotten it. And everybody's got an idea of how it all should work, but they don't understand the implications for trying to do a program like this. This is a public, this what really should have happened. 75 and above should have been handled by the national guard.

They should have been set up in every high school across the country. And if you're 75 and above bring your ID, come get your shot Monday through Friday, these times. Right. Uh, if you're. Letters a through D you come on Monday D through J you know, and like to do it like that, and then just have them [00:50:00] go and get that because the big obstacle for the seniors is the technology.

Right. And the access to the internet and like just how to fill out a web form. Yeah. I'm convinced that nobody, no adult in this country should be legally allowed to use a computer based on the crap that we've had to deal with. We had a signature thing on our form, like, sign your name with the mouse.

Right. So, you know, you've done that a million times. Right? Right. People had no idea how to do it. I had to delete it off the thing and just say type your name. You know, like it, like, that's how crazy this whole thing has been 

Mike Koelzer, Host: 75 and older, they don't have a computer. They show up with their ID basically.

And they, and they're told what to do and, and it gets done. And 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: then we can move to everybody else because everybody else is right. Has the skills to manage all of that. You know, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: that's 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: interesting. That's true. My pursuits have been to try to equalize some of the inequities. That's what I've, I've made my goal.

I saw really quickly that if you had these computer issues, if you were, um, divided along these racial lines, especially in certain communities, if you had transportation issues, those are the three main things that would stop you from getting a COVID vaccine. So I've been trying to address them to some degree, 20, 30%, every single time.

So I did something called the road show. I worked with Baptist churches and like all different groups, like, uh, senior housing. And I went on the road and I gave 300 shots over nine hours, myself with three volunteers. And it was a crazy crazy day. And I did that for the first and second doses. So I've done that now a couple times.

And so this week it's this cash, right? 3,200 doses, potentially 3,800. If I can get those extra doses pulled outta the vial. And I said to all of the groups that have been contacting me saying, how can you help my people ? You know, hard up, you know, that is being excluded. And so my idea was, let's dump everybody's name and phone number into a spreadsheet, and then I'll have my volunteer army call 20 people and reserve a spot in our clinic.

So right now, as we speak, in fact, one of the things I've been looking at every now and again is the email because we're adding more and more volunteers. We have a total of 50 volunteers right now in this spreadsheet, and each of them are calling, uh, 20 people and trying to reserve a spot for these seniors.

Right. Uh, so that way once, and for all the, the people that are the highest risk. The ones that are left out in the cold are addressed. So that way I can stop all this extra work because I'm, again, I don't want to, I want people to think that this is what you have to do. This is what I've wanted to do, and that's how I've built these programs.

And like, but I, I want these folks to be spoken for and cared for. That's my impact. That's what I'm gonna, my, my like legacy here is that we tried, but then it's over because it is so much work 

Mike Koelzer, Host: short of the national guard. What you're doing is knowing that the elderly might have trouble getting in. So you're having people call them and take 'em by the hand, and welcome them in.

Right. So 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Basically we, we call an elderly person and say, we're gonna give you a COVID vaccine. We're gonna schedule your appointment. What's your name? What's your address? What's your date of birth? Um, do you have COVID, you know, do all those screening questions and your appointment is this time at this place this week, and we'll see you.

And how do you get those names again, Neil, all the different community groups cuz one of, yeah, one of the pieces is like community groups are a good way to kind of like take away big swats swats of people at a time. Right. So, um, so I've had a doctor's office, local doctor's office say, listen, I've got 500 patients that don't have access.

Right. And so we took their list, dumped it in there. And then we took, you know, this Baptist church and we dumped it in there. We took, um, a couple aldermen from one of the cities, right? The city council guys, they went through their neighborhood and they gathered up names. Right. And then they put it in this list.

And then my volunteers are calling to try to get them access to the vaccine where they otherwise wouldn't. Because if I just went by my wait list, it's a lot of people that can handle this. That isn't really at the highest risk of dying, even though they're 65. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Right. And they're the ones that are first gonna get on the waitlist because they've got their phone, it's text to them.

They know how to click on the blue link. That seems to take 'em to your pharmacy. They try out these two or three avenues of the websites. It doesn't work, but they know the fourth one, they know all this stuff. And unfortunately the people that are arguably the smartest with that are, you know, practically in the least need of it.

Yeah. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I that's what I, I feel 100%. So what I said to my staff before I left, because my staff is trying to train the volunteers and they're also making the phone calls. And I said to them, "This sucks. I know. And I said, but this is good work. And I said, this is the last that we'll do this.

So I want you to just punch through to the other side, Tuesday three o'clock it's over, we're done doing these road shows. We're done doing this. We've made our effort stronger than any other pharmacy will in this area. And here we, here we are. So let's just punch through, get through this. And then from then on, like, if I got 4,000 doses, it's as simple as just sending out an email blast, I've got 9,000 people on my list right now, you know?

So a few weeks of that and I'm through my list, but then once people start to hear that I'm moving doses, they're gonna all join my list and there's gonna be people coming from all over the place to get. The doses. Was that an [00:55:00] arbitrary date that you stopped? Um, so I'm just basically, so we get the allocation on Sunday.

So it's official on Saturday. We get word on Sunday that it's coming Tuesday, right? Every weekend, every week, if we, if we get doses that week, right? So that's the, that's the rotation. So then I have to on Tuesday, cuz the hardest part about this is the planning. And so what I want people to do is take that course.

So they know what to do and start to like to plan out stuff because what happens is this crap gets dropped on your lap on a Tuesday and you gotta move it in seven days. So you got Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday before to get rid of it, if you want doses in the future. So, like you wanna, so basically I'm spent today and I will tomorrow.

We're calling these people while I'm trying to coordinate massive spaces. We're using the high school, we've got the VFW coming to help. Like it's this massive operation at one of the sites we're going to another site. So. Big big place. So I've gotta do all of that crap while this army is doing this last ditch effort.

So I basically said bye tomorrow, because in order for me to fill the clinic on Wednesday, I need at least three to four hours, right? Oh, you mean they're 

Mike Koelzer, Host: only done for this week? This starts all over again. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: No, my, I told my staff that we're done doing this good work above and beyond stuff forever, forever.

Unless something else happened until COVID O's over. Exactly. So we're, we're done. Uh, this is, this is it. And I, I decided that because this is so much work, I'm just looking at a list of 2000 people. We've got 50 volunteers and we gotta, when did you decide that? Uh, this afternoon, like when I realized how much of a mess it was, I was like, we can do this, we got this, but then plus I gotta go talk to Kelser for an hour or so.

I gotta talk to Mike. That's got a puppy. We slept for days. Like you could see Mike like to see these friggin circles, right? Like, oh my God, I'm a hot mess. So, um, But yeah, I mean, so I'm done with that work. I think it's important that every pharmacy try some sort of outrage to try to address these inequities, to really show how important we are to the community and how we think about the community more than just our patients.

Right. And, and like, really say, listen, I'm here as a staple of this region and I care. And, and like, that's what I've said. And I've convinced everybody that it's true, cuz it is, and we've done more than anybody ever has. And we are, have said, that's it we're we're done as of this week. And like from here on out, we're gonna do what everybody else is doing.

We're just gonna do it bigger, which is sign up on the waitlist, fill out the form. If you can't fill out the form, I'm sorry. Find somebody who can and they'll fill out the form for you, you know, because it's just too much, it is a lot of work what we're trying to do here. So. I imagine 

Mike Koelzer, Host: That part, that communication is a really big part.

And then, like you said, you're just saying right now, once the communication's done, then things get easier. Are we missing something? Did we cover the communication or is there more besides the outreach now? Will it get easier for everybody when they're at this point in the course or thought process? So what I think 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: is important is to kind of go back to one of the original thoughts that I had is that early on in COVID identified that pharmacists can lead by providing direction and truth.

And just giving people like, this is what you should be doing right now. This is what it is. This is the best information saying that we don't know saying that science has changed and being honest. Right? And so I believe that we still need that. And especially with all this confusion and chaos, because even if people aren't interacting with that confusion in chaos, that's what they're hearing about and their media source of choice.

So. We need to make sure that our communication is good. So what I decided two weeks ago was that I started emailing every Monday, whether or not we had clinics available. So I sent out an email and I said, I don't want you to sit by the phone, waiting for something. We don't have doses this week. And I, and then in it, have to see it next week.

We'll do this again. Right. And then in it, it has, you know, To improve communication. Here's all the frequently asked questions. Right. And then like, so it's got like, how does it work and how do I sign up? How do I remove myself? Right. So it has all of that information in there. So every week we've got this, um, cadence to deliver them, whether we do or don't have a dose.

In fact, our update today was no update because of this, this added project here that I wanna make sure we take care of. I'm not gonna tell folks that we have doses for this week until I get those people locked in. So our, our update this week is basically, we'll tell you tomorrow by six o'clock, you will know definitively if we're actually gonna get doses.

Right. And so I think it's just important that we do a good job being better communicators than the state governments, the federal governments, and other pharmacies. Right. Because it's a big waiting game that people don't know about. So just by saying, Hey, no doses this week, you know, or by saying, yes, we have doses and this is how you sign up.

Or let me answer these questions for you. So it sounds like 

Mike Koelzer, Host: After the doses come finding space, actually setting up the chair, the table, the supplies that's following along a system that may [01:00:00] not have many changes. It sounds like the pain in the ass was leading up to basically getting someone in that chair ready to be served.

Neal Smoller, PharmD: That's right. There's the pre-clinic work. There's the clinic work and there's the post clinic work. So pre-clinic work is what's your system for answering the onslaught of customer service questions? How do people sign up? Are you on a waiting list? Are you not on a waiting list? Are you, how are you gonna notify them?

When are you gonna notify them? You know, like, are you gonna do it in the store? Are you gonna do offsite mass immunization clinics? Like that's the pre-clinic stuff. The clinic staff is getting the paperwork ready and all the people ready, the volunteers, and like making sure that all of that is set up, I give everybody like an operations manual is essentially what you get with this course.

So you get the SOPs, you get the workflow, you get everything. And so, you have the clinic operations and how you're gonna actually give the shots. And then you have the post where you have to do the data submission to the state. You have to enter the prescriptions, you have to do all of that stuff.

Right. And so there's. Those three phases are pretty much what's there. And then, and then, you know, you don't know whether or not you're gonna get doses for the next week. So there's, you know, it's, the hardest part is that we just don't know if and when this is gonna happen. So then you don't know how to allocate your resources.

And, and basically once I stopped getting doses, I said enough, I'm not gonna spend my efforts. Just waiting for doses. I'm gonna go do my business. And if we get doses, then I'll just pick off a couple days and take care of it. Now we are back in the mindset that we're probably going to be doing this pretty hardcore moving forward, thinking that we're gonna be getting nearly 5,000 doses a week is not unrealistic.

And so, how do we manage that? And so like, I've got that in the back of my mind this week is the test. Can I move 4,000 doses in three days? The answer's gonna be yes. And like, how do I feel? You know? And so, uh, so like I think that, you know, It's important that everybody now gets ready, you know, understand how this works, what the pitfalls are, first dose, second doses, how to manage it all, you know how to kinda get your hands around it.

Everybody's loving the course. So I think everybody should take it again. It's Dr. nemo.com and it's N a L S M O L L E r.com and doctors just Dr. Um, slash courses. And 

Mike Koelzer, Host: We'll put a link to that in the show notes too, so people can come and find that easily. Yeah, I think 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: That's smart just because, like, I don't have it linked in the head or anything like that.

It was just something, again, I just threw up and unfortunately I haven't had time to like, make it all pretty, but, um, but that's the GA. The gig. And like, you can email me that on the bottom, that email goes directly to me and we can talk. And I've even been fielding phone calls from pharmacists. So 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you're not gonna talk, you're gonna send '

Neal Smoller, PharmD: em to one of your, I'm gonna send 'em my customer service people.

And they're gonna give 'em a macro. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You already showed us the truth, where that thing's going, it's going to the oval file or whatever they call that. Don't try to pull one over on the listeners. Neil, they're too smart. It's 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: going under G for garbage 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Neil. When is it too late? All right. So this show, let's say that some of these shows have some residual value and people are listening to this.

So let's say that this comes out in, this will be out in March and then someone comes across this in. You know, July and September in January, you know, 20, 22. Yeah. When does this become old news? Versus what date? Could someone still hear this and say, Hey, this has some value still. I mean, current value, more than just hearing what's on your mind.

I mean, 

I 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: I really hope that we don't have another pandemic. I believe that, um, I think I hope we've learned our lesson too, to spend the money on pandemic prevention and kind of keep that stuff in play. So I hope this doesn't happen again. And I don't think that we'll be doing this to, um, the scale, uh, that, uh, this is happening.

I think that the idea of what I'm talking about with everything else is certainly evergreen. Um, and what we mean to the community, what pharmacists can be, how we need to, instead of being led around by the nose of what the practice will be, we need to. Driving that decision. And we have to stop with the gimmicks and games and we have to start building businesses that are sustainable.

Um, and, and some of us need to plan a, uh, uh, our, our exit and get into something different and be confident about that. You know? So I think all of that stuff is going to be very relevant for some time for pharmacists, the show 

Mike Koelzer, Host: will always have relevancy, but like if someone hears us talking about signing up for a course and earlier we saying, well, it's never too late.

When is it too late to say, yeah, C's probably, someone's probably taking care of it. If they're not listening to this till 2025, this thing's probably done. Yeah, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Well, it's totally done. And I think that like, even if we get to June, because what I, what I'm seeing here is that March is gonna be an excess month.

Pfizer's ramped up production, modern's did the same. They're promising to deliver, uh, more doses. The CDC is gonna start moving Johnson and Johnson's in play. Right. And they're gonna dump 4 million on us right now, you know, and then 20 million by the end of the month. And so do you. Our immunization rate is approaching 2 million a day already.

And we were [01:05:00] just hoping for a million a day, right. With the first hundred days. And so we are gonna get to, you know, I had been saying September, I moved it to June when I had heard Biden's plans. And I'm actually thinking maybe by may, we're gonna have a huge chunk of folks that are immunized.

We're gonna have this, the nicer weather. So we're now not indoors. The kids aren't spreading it as a vector. Right. And then the cases are falling. So all of this is gonna make a perfect storm for the numbers to go and then give us time to get more people immunized and get the kids immunized and such. So I believe that if you haven't gotten involved in COVID vaccines by may, you probably should just sit it out.

I think that by April, it's going to be difficult to find people that need shots, I suppose, for 

Mike Koelzer, Host: different areas, it could be different, but in general, it's it. You know, in April its people are gonna have a hard time finding customers actually for it. Absolutely. Mm-hmm Neil. At what part of any of this, have you just shaking your head and said, come on, are you kidding me?

Was it to the entitled customers? Was it the staff that you were pissed at? Was it the city, government or federal government who got the brunt of you saying, come on. I can't believe you're doing this. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Yeah, I think that it was all of the people that have tried to trip me up along the way everybody that's used their, an, their anger in, in a wrong way.

So from the girl that called me racist, the people that turned me into the department of help to all of these people that are, uh, acting in the way that they're acting. It's, it's just been every single one of those. And unfortunately I'm not well adapted. So I enjoy telling people off. So, uh, you know, I've, uh, taken, uh, tons of time to yell at folks.

For 

Mike Koelzer, Host: those who haven't put the two together, your podcast is the big mouth pharmacist. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Right? You bet. Yeah. So I'm thinking about changing that up and just going holistic, but you know, like, you know, the wise asst pharmacist would probably be a little bit better, but, you know, I wanted to kind of like tie in this idea that I'm kind of not talking, I'm talking a lot of smack.

Um, but you know, my, my thought is actually to change the name of the podcast to be a little bit more like, um, less. Being a big mouth and more about the holistic pharmacist side of things. So, um, you know, like I'm at episode 100, my 100th episode comes out this week. So I feel like, yeah, now's the time we can kind of shift, you know, switch it a little bit, you know, take a month off.

Would I have seen 

Mike Koelzer, Host: already artwork on that or something? Because when I was looking at your stuff earlier today, I was thinking, wait, did Neil change the name of his podcast? Would I've already seen that somewhere 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: or not? I haven't changed it yet. No. I mean, I haven't really been able to look up. I wonder 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Why did I think that something in my mind earlier a couple hours ago? I saw something and I was like, I wonder if you changed something?

Neal Smoller, PharmD: No, I mean, I've got my, um, the podcast are now all at the Dr. Neil say, which is good. Maybe that's where I saw it. It's probably just like the, the artwork is all now different, you know, more subtle or 

Mike Koelzer, Host: something than, than it was on 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: their. It's exhausting. Uh, all of this is exhausting and I need a nap and that was actually one of my podcast episodes.

Recently, you saw that I need a freaking nap. I saw that. So I think that this is a huge opportunity for us to show the merit of independent pharmacy. I think it's an opportunity to make some good income and maybe lick your wounds a little bit better, uh, after COVID, because I know a lot of us are using that P PB money to make up for what's going on.

And I think that, um, you know, it's a huge undertaking, so you need help. Um, don't, re-litigate the stuff that I've already learned. Don't learn those lessons on your own. I've already done that. So, um, I think that, you know, take advantage of the course and let's get through this and let's help the story be painted that an independent pharmacist made this happen.

You know, not some chain dopes that are rigging the system, but it was independent pharmacists who came out of this better and then let's get ready to change pharmacy. So, and, and, and join me in my fight. You know, the wellness warrior is my other t-shirt, um, you know, become a wellness warrior and start to redefine holistic for people and redefine pharmacy's role in what most people believe is alternative medicine.

But I just think so. Good medicine 

Mike Koelzer, Host: five years from now. How, how many hours a week do you wanna spend in doing business and what do you want that week divided into percent of dealing with? Um, we talked li on the last show, but I want to see if it held its, its mark. Um, what are the answers to those two questions amount of hours per week and where do you want to be spending them like percentage wise during the 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: week?

I see COVID as a definitive break, you know, there's a before and after and, and actually coincides with a five year plan of mine five years ago this year I sold my big practice, my hometown pharmacy. The first year I actually replaced my income by this third year, I was making more money than I made outta my little pharmacy than I made ever in my big pharmacy.

And so. Then fourth year, 2019 was the Dr. Fees in [01:10:00] 2020 was the real kick in the teeth. So I'm looking at it going, what do I see for the next five years? And for me, I don't see the business of putting pills in the bottle as a big part of my plan. I feel like I would say in five years, I would hope to have a private label, wholesale supplement business, making the stuff that I want consulting with, uh, lots of entrepreneurs and, uh, of all shakes like pharmacists and more, um, helping them develop their own supplements with their own names on them.

And, uh, and then. Patients how to navigate the nightmare. That is the wellness industry and get the real information that they need. And so I don't see anything less than 50 hours a week for any of us as entrepreneurs. That's stupid to say I'm gonna do the four hour work week that no, I mean like that's BS, right?

Um, it's not real. Um, so, and I see most of my time, I would really like to be the more strategic guy. Um, but I know that over the next five years, I'm gonna have to be the hands on guy to really make this Dr. Neil thing, swing, sing, uh, sing until we get to scale where I can potentially put in an operation.

Like executives and management. So I feel okay over the next five years, it's going to be a big mix between the day to day business management, the thought leadership, content creation, and then the, like the coaching and such. So I, I don't know how I could break that up, but I know that I'm gonna be spending a lot of time still spending lots of plates, but I'm not too sure how pharmacy fits into that.

So does that mean that I get a junior partner? Does that mean that, you know, we eventually say goodbye. Does that mean that we, um, just groom a leader to take the, the, just the, the mental weight of it out of my head, you know, I'm kind of a visionary, but I don't, don't really like managing folks, you know, it's not my, my cup of tea.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I've been mind down too, that I don't like people. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Yeah. I'm 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I'm with you, you know? Because all the stuff we talked about today, we didn't talk about how, you know, you don't like your new blue couch. You got that. You should have gotten maybe a beige or something. You know, we, all of the complaints are about people, so I'm just gonna stay away from people.

I think it's a smart move. Well, speaking of which, what kind of dog did you get? 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: We got a chocolate lab, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: puppy. Ah, we have a black lab about a year old. They're beautiful. 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Nice. Yeah. They're awesome. So like we had gotten a rescue psycho pit bull that ended up just charging at my daughter, even though he was super comfy and now she was super comfy and I had not been a dog person.

And so I fell in love with this dog. I'm like, we're getting rid of the damn dog. We're never getting a dog again. And so we ended up getting a chocolate lab, just genetically vanilla puppy, starting from scratch. That's awesome. He's really good. Like. Like sit all, like he's been here for 24 hours and doing the full sit.

Um, and like at the door, like before we go to the bathroom, it's like, sit, he does the thing and then he'll wait for us. So I'm like, this is gonna be great. We're gonna have this dog trained. So I've learned something 

Mike Koelzer, Host: though, Neil, I was doing a podcast a couple weeks ago and my lab was in here, like munched on a bone.

And so I thought I gotta get her out here. So I threw it and like 20 seconds later it was back and I'm like, oh yeah, it's a retriever. No, what was I thinking? You know, actually those damn pit bulls people are like, it's the owners because 20 years ago it was Doberman's and then it was German shepherds mm-hmm

And so it's just the people you didn't hear about this, like, ah, Yeah, I don't know. But a pit bull it's still a pit bull 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: The problem is that they're just genetically aggressive to some degree there's nature and nurture, which is totally legitimate. Um, but they're more likely to snap and rip your face off if something weird hits them, right.

Especially a rescue. Right. So you have to, you're dealing with other, other people's baggage, but there's plenty of success stories. There's plenty of horror stories. So that's why we just said lab, you know, like, even if you screw it up, it's, it's still gonna be a good 

Mike Koelzer, Host: dog. Lab is safe, even if you screw it up.

Right. All right, 

Neal Smoller, PharmD: Neil, get some sleep. I'm gonna try, bro. I really appreciate you having me on well, thank 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you. Thanks for all you're doing. And there's always gonna be something that pharmacists are looking out for, and hopefully it's gonna be less of an urgent matter, but there's enough big things out there that we could be doing things on a big scale.

Yeah. And all these trials and failures, but more successes are gonna teach us how to do those kinds of things. I agree with you, man. Keep it up. Thanks Bob.