Grow Revenue by Building People | Travis Wolff, PharmD, PharmFurther

Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript is generated using speech-to-text technology and contains multiple spelling errors and inaccuracies. It is only intended to capture the essence of the conversation.

00:00:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: Hello, 

[00:00:15] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Travis. Hey, how are you today? I'm doing well. 

[00:00:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: Thank you. Thanks for joining 

[00:00:19] Travis Wolff, PharmD: us. Yeah, I'm, I'm so excited to be here. Um, I'm actually honored. I've seen some really big names that you've interviewed, so I'm glad to be a part of that list. Now, 

[00:00:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: Travis, for those that haven't come across you, uh, give us a little, uh, snapshot of what's going on hot right now.

Why are we talking? 

[00:00:37] Travis Wolff, PharmD: We're talking today about growing your revenue by building your people. I love this topic. You know, this is what I love. I'm a multi-store owner. I'm a board certified ambulatory care pharmacist, but my passion and my love comes into, uh, coaching, other pharmacy owners and community pharmacist and their staff through, uh, my coaching business called farm further.

[00:00:58] Mike Koelzer, Host: Travis. I talked to a lot of pharmacy owners and. Some of them have either gotten into a specialty of perhaps coaching or perhaps consulting or so on. And I like to always ask them what percent, let's say, pick whatever length of week you want, whether it's 40 or 50 or 60 or 20, whatever you wanna pick. If, if you had it your way, what percent of the time.

Would you be 

[00:01:32] Travis Wolff, PharmD: coaching? So my ideal week would be close to a hundred percent, but not a hundred percent, because I think that I have a lot to offer from being an owner and being a pharmacist. So I think being at my store at least part of the time and engaging my own staff into our projects and our goals, I think that gives me a lot of insight into what other pharmacists live and breathe every day.

I mean, I always say whenever I speak on stage or teach a class or do a webinar, I always say that, uh, I live you're crazy every day. And so I can relate to all of the fires you're putting out while you're trying to be a pharmacist and a business owner and a leader. Would it be fair to say that your 

[00:02:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: staff.

Our Guinea pigs 

[00:02:17] Travis Wolff, PharmD: oh, absolutely. Absolutely. They test things all the time. They know that we do, um, every year at our annual retreat, it's kind of a, what does he have planned now? You know, so let's say that you're 

[00:02:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: coaching just took off, you write this book and the world's on fire for Travis. What percent would you feel you would still have to be?

[00:02:39] Travis Wolff, PharmD: You know, I do my days differently than most because I structure myself so that I'm here every day, but I have little parts of the day that I have windows. And so. I don't think it had to be very big because I can still know what's going on within the four walls. You know, I like to come in and open the store and work the case for an hour.

But then, um, then I got two hours before someone needs me to cover a lunch break and then lunch break gets through. And then I have another two to three hour block in the afternoon, you know, where I can coach. So I think I'm here every day. So I think I don't have to be there very often because I'm here and I can coach from here, but then I can have the, in between times to help the staff and kind of know what's going on.

And I think it changes too depending on what's going on in our industry. You know, if we've got. A virus taking over our workflow, then that looks different than summer when everyone's trying to be on vacation. 

[00:03:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: I mean, sometimes just being in my store, take taking a step, a foot in there, just through the, the grapevine or someone walking quickly through your office, not even talking to you just under their, or maybe just, you know, thinking out loud as they're walking through their office, you pick up, you pick up some of those gems that you can use.

You know, you can use it down the road. 

[00:03:52] Travis Wolff, PharmD: I think one reason too, why I'm not on a specific percentage is what's different about me is I, I really work to teach you how to fish and not give you fish. So with my coaching, I don't do contracts. So if you come to me and you have a specific project you wanna work on, or if we need to work on your culture, the minute that you feel like you can do it without me, then I take that as a compliment that I really equipped you.

For success. And so you just let me know that you don't need to continue the next month. And I've got clients that have done a specific project, and then we've I call 'em we graduate? 'em, that's what I call it. We graduate 'em out, I've got some who, uh, we've improved their culture and then we graduate 'em out.

And then a few months later they have a new project to work on. So they come back. Um, and I have some that say that they can't live without me, and they've never had, you know, ended their services. They just continue on and on and on. And so I think it's really just meeting pharmacy owners where they're at.

And so the point is not to tie them into this year long contract or, or longer, and not be providing any value. I think it holds me accountable to be providing value every single month in order for them to renew the next month. And if they are not getting value, then the whole purpose of farming further is to move the community pharmacy profession forward.

And so as, as we continue to take on coaching clients, You know, I've added some staff to help me with this because the capacity is obviously there with just one person. So you gotta add other coaches and subject matter experts. But as we've moved through that, I need to be graduating people out so they can keep the profession moving forward.

And that's the whole purpose. 

[00:05:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Well, so Travis, you and I were going to talk months ago and it didn't quite work out with our schedule. And so we finally met up here and I was online trying to get more information about what was happening with you. And it seems like everything that I clicked on all I was seeing was pharmacist of the year pharmacist of the year pharmacist of the year.

I couldn't get into any meat and potatoes because that's what was on every search result I found. So. What's going on with that? Who are you pharmacists of the year for, and when 

[00:06:14] Travis Wolff, PharmD: they've been compiled over probably the last four to six years or so, just from various organizations, anything from something local to something international, um, a couple of national ones.

Um, and you know, most of them I'm surprised by, so I'm not sure, I'm not sure how they get a hold of me or my name or my info. Um, that's a great question. Maybe, maybe, yeah. I don't have anything for you on that one. I, 

[00:06:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: Maybe one of them did their homework and then the rest of 'em just say, well, he's good enough for them.

He's gotta be good 

[00:06:51] Travis Wolff, PharmD: enough for us. Yeah, potentially. So, you know, I think just, uh, trying to do the right thing and take care of people the best that you can. And people talk about that. All 

[00:07:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: right. I know you're being humble, but give me some examples. And if you don't, I'm going to, because I did my research.

Give me an example of what one place might have said about you. Is it because your such a nice person or is it because you had some revenue ideas maybe that you put into place? It's 

[00:07:27] Travis Wolff, PharmD: probably a combination. I think what interest people, when they come, come with those awards, because some of them I've actually have asked, you know, cause I'm not sure why I was the one to receive that.

That's really funny. And it's kind of like your podcast, you know? Um, a couple of the organizations, there are people who I really respect as role models. Yeah. And so whenever, and they've won that award before from that organization. So then whenever I dive into that, I think. This is a responsibility to have this, have this award.

Now I have to go help other people, you know, I gotta be held accountable. Right. But I think what, what it comes down to, what, why they're so interested is I'm just a really rare hybrid of a pharmacist or a person. And what I mean by that is most pharmacists are kind of, um, their, their wheelhouse is pretty specific.

Okay. With me, the rare hybrid comes from this combination of a pharmacist, who is a pharmacy owner, a multi-store owner, who is also a clinical expert. So board certified and ambulatory care pharmacy. Um, as I began to teach pharmacists across the nation, I learned that while I knew this. I needed to learn how to teach it better.

So I went to the University of Connecticut College of pharmacy. Well, after graduation to get a teaching certificate so I could learn how to teach what I knew you 

[00:08:57] Mike Koelzer, Host: wanted to teach more, but that wasn't individual yet. Was that more like group 

[00:09:02] Travis Wolff, PharmD: things, uh, that is gonna be people calling me because they saw me speak at a conference about some kind of clinical something.

And I'm trying to teach 'em how to put this into their store. So you needed help 

[00:09:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: actually on teaching one to one, one 

[00:09:17] Travis Wolff, PharmD: to one. Yeah. And you 

[00:09:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: went and got a certificate 

[00:09:20] Travis Wolff, PharmD: for that? Yeah. Yeah. Teaching certificate. So I could actually learn the concepts of, you know, learning styles and visual representation and pornography and, and how, how can.

You know, everyone learns in a different way. And so just because I understand it doesn't mean that I can teach people and help 'em where did you get that? From the University of Connecticut college of pharmacy. It was through a 

[00:09:42] Mike Koelzer, Host: pharmacy school, but it was a teaching certificate through there. Yeah. How long was that program?

Uh, a little over a year. And you actually went signed up for a year of school to get a certificate, to be able to teach one-on-one 

[00:09:56] Travis Wolff, PharmD: better. I did. Wow. And then it gets worse. So after I did that, I, so now I'm trying to help people and teach them what I know, you know, clinical based. And then, it comes down to everything that you want to implement or start in your pharmacy.

It comes down to people. It comes down to. engaging your people. And so you have to know the psychology behind what motivates people. So after using the teaching certificate with my ambulatory care pharmacy and my pharmacy owner background for a while, probably a couple years at that point, I realized we gotta get more people involved.

So then I went to another longer program with Cornell and I did a psychology of leadership program through Cornell, so that I could learn a little bit more about what motivates people. And so I've got this rare hybrid where I'm a clinical pharmacist who is a pharmacy owner who has a teaching certificate, who also has this psychology of leadership.

And that's really where I've had the most probable return on my investment is being able to tell pharmacy owners exactly how to meet their staff at their demands. And it's really fun whenever. Someone comes to me, wanting to fire somebody, and then we just help them communicate a little easier. And then they both end up winning and the employee ends up staying that doesn't always happen.

You know, sometimes they choose not to work for the, for the owner. But, um, so I think that's where all those awards come from to go back to your original question. It's just a rare hybrid of someone who knows their material can teach the material and then can tell you how to engage your staff to that material as they teach it.

Um, and so I don't see a lot of people like that out 

[00:11:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: there. Yeah. That's a really nice mix. If you were not able to tell anybody about your teaching certificate or about your psychology certificate, if you were never able to put that behind your name or put it on your website and so on, would you still have done it because it was that beneficial or as part of that because of the.

Association then that you knew you could edit to the end of your initials or your website or your business or whatever. What, how much of that was, was which as far as learning versus this might help me in a, um, association sense. 

[00:12:32] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Yeah, that's a really good question. I would say that I would still absolutely have done the psychology of leadership and I've continued other studies in that I've learned so much being able to share about that.

The teaching certificate is probably on the table. Uh, I did learn quite a bit from that, but I also, it was really geared towards teaching pharmacy based stuff. Um, gotcha. But I would say probably the board certification in ambulatory care pharmacy that was probably for initials more than anything, because mm-hmm, , I can apply how to run a clinic inside your pharmacy a lot better than what that test prepares you for anyway.

And so I don't think, you know, that was probably more for the initials. What I would say though, if you even took all those off my website and from behind my name, I think what that gives me, if, if I don't care, if people know I did that or not, but I think what that gives me is, uh, you know, this morning I was coaching a pharmacy owner and they have a lot of pharmacists that work for them.

And what they said to me is that the unique thing is that I can take a complicated theory of something mm-hmm and I can tie it to very real life, actionable items and analogies so that people can understand. And so. I think that I gained enough from those experiences. That's what really makes it unique is that I can, I can explain some of that down.

They don't have to know all of the psychology behind it. If they wanna know, I'm happy to share. What they need to know is, how they need to talk to their employee, how they need to track and metrics their goals so they can implement things successfully. Um, they need to know these analogies so they can understand how that employee is seeing things in their eyes so they can understand, was that a good investment for my business?

What is that return on my investment? When should I expect that return? How do I, you know, if you go look at business plans, they're all theory and book work. So how do we apply that to your actual book of business and how do we let you know whether you were successful or not? And I think with pharmacists, especially, they struggle with this because here's, here's kind of a counterintuitive balance we have here.

Many pharmacists are type people who like to know what's expected. What's predicted is that they really like that black and white area. They don't care for the gray areas. Okay. Yeah. Yet we have chosen to be in a business as pharmacy owners where we have very little control over how much money we're gonna make every year.

And Mo most of us have no idea what we're gonna make until we get the tax time, because our yeah. Right. Cash flow is so different. And so it is so counterintuitive that all these type a personalities go into a business where they have very little control over the outcome. That's for 

[00:15:32] Mike Koelzer, Host: sure. Do you ever talk to an owner and someone else at the same time and you're like, The referee or is it always just consulting or coaching and they're always going back and then doing it on the, 

[00:15:45] Travis Wolff, PharmD: on their own.

Yeah. So, uh, it's different every time I do prefer the term coach as opposed to consultant, because I think a coach is someone who's actually done it. So since I've actually owned and I am a pharmacist and do work with my people every day, I think that I do, you know, I prefer coach, but you know, I have pharmacy owners, basically.

I ask them what they want. So I have some who are pretty introverted and they would just soon be a part of the team. I can lead team meetings via webinar. I can lead, uh, instructional webinars about various things. They want their staff to learn about it. Um, some owners have me work one on one with just certain staff members that maybe need a little budge in the right direction.

[00:16:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: Wow. So there's times where you'll be. Talking sometimes only to the employee without even the boss there. 

[00:16:39] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Yeah. That's pretty often actually. Um, and then I, and then I have some that, uh, I'll coach through the owner, you know, I'll coach through them. So here's what, here's the verbiage you need to use.

Here's how you need to approach this, this problem. Here's how you need to track it, to know if you're successful. Here's how you need to work with this individual. Here's what's important to them. Here's what motivates them. And they can take that information and they can do it themselves if they, if they would like to.

Um, for me, it's just meeting them wherever they need me. So if they want that, that's fine. If they want me to work with someone, that's fine. Um, I have one person who has me talk to anyone that they're gonna. Ahead of time, really? And so that's been fun. I think what's been really fun for me. I've had several non-pharmaceutical owners who have got these goals and these KPIs set out for their pharmacist.

Mo many of them are multi-store owners and then they can't communicate these metrics. And these KPIs down to the pharmacists who are managing the stores. And so it's been really fun for me to connect those dots for them and work with that pharmacist one on one and communicate that owner's goals to that pharmacist so they can get into their workflow.

And I don't know if it's because it's pharmacist to pharmacist or it's be, you know, I think a lot of them think, well, they've never done this before, cuz they're not a pharmacist and that's why they're not listening to the owner. I don't know why they run into that, but it's been fun for me to connect the dots so that everybody wins on both sides of the table.

Yeah. That's really cool. 

[00:18:07] Mike Koelzer, Host: how many people cry a week to 

[00:18:10] Travis Wolff, PharmD: you? Uh, usually at least one, sometimes three. Um, is that right? You know, people are unpredictable and so yeah, they have no idea what they're gonna walk into on Monday morning and that, you know, as part of that total care package on my website, is being fully accessible.

And I only take so many people in that package because, um, I've had one that was really having pushback from a couple of employees. And, uh, this is, this is several years ago. This is early on in the coaching. And so I had equipped them to kind of stand up for themselves and, and to kind of take a stand.

And so she's gonna have this employee meeting and the staff showed up late. And so she ended up locking the door. And then didn't let them in for the meeting. This is not my advice, by the way, this is just her she's one that wanted me to coach her. And then in that instance, and in a lot of instances, the staff don't even know about me and that's good.

That's good with me. You know, they don't have to know about me. They need to know that their leader is capable of leading them. So that's great with me. So after she gets outta the meeting, she goes and unlocks the door wishes. These two girls have been standing outside, uh, good day to you, happy morning.

And then she goes and locks herself in the bathroom and calls me what do I do now? And so I'm right. You know, so yeah, so it happens, but. At the end of the day, all, all of the people I coach they're people too, and people unpredictable. So that's what keeps it fun. But I love that part of it. And I love that.

We're not always able to know what our day's gonna look like and that's okay. It's okay to be able to pivot and look at it. Uh, I had one coaching client that hired a pharmacist recently, and that pharmacist ended up just being completely crazy. And it was, it was really interesting to work through and it helped the owner really grow a lot.

I mean, it really, really did. Do you think 

[00:20:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: Is it good or bad that a pharmacist is like five feet from these people all day, you know, working right with them? Is that a good thing or do you think that just adds to more frustration because people are working so closely? 

[00:20:27] Travis Wolff, PharmD: I think it's a really good thing. I think where it becomes a bad thing is when the pharmacist is doing everything from start to finish.

And so. I find pharmacy owners are kind of on two ends of the spectrum right now. And I find that either they have went to extra trainings and they've sent their staff to extra trainings and they have really high output clinical programs already inside their four walls, or they are working inside doctor's offices and, and doing incident two visits and that kind of thing, or they're on the other end of the spectrum, where even if it's something simple as MTM or a flu shot, and the pharmacist is doing everything from start to finish.

And so I think that that is where it becomes a bad thing being all right there accessible in the same room is because the pharmacist just takes over and does all that. Instead of empowering their staff to take on some of the beyond dispensing activities, if we don't engage our support staff, then it's very costly to do business and you can take, you can take several programs where.

you're, maybe it's a required activity that doesn't pay out a whole lot of money, but it's still required. So CMR completion could be a really good example. Uh, most pharmacists think that MTM is a four letter word and, and they, they don't like putting the time into it. And do we make enough money through a CMR to pay for that pharmacist for an hour of their time?

Absolutely not. We don't. Can you calculate your CMR completion rate to your DIR fees though? Absolutely. You can. So does it become required? Absolutely it does. But if you've got a pharmacist doing everything from start to finish, you're paying $60 an hour. It becomes very costly and you're losing money on that activity each time.

But if you've got a clerk doing part of it at minimum wage, and you have a technician. Doing it at a little bit higher technician wage. And then you have a pharmacist coming in for the therapeutic decision making all of a sudden where you were losing money. It will at least break even, if not profitable.

And what I see here is that if pharmacists want to be providers, if they're asking to be providers, then they have to be willing to look like a provider. And when you go into a pharmacy and the pharmacist is still doing everything from start to finish. I mean, think about your doctor Mike when's the last time they called the doctor themselves to remind you of your appointment.

They checked you into the front desk, they checked your insurance card. Then they took you back, took your blood pressure. They took your weight and your temperature. I mean, a lot of doctor's offices, the doctor doesn't even triage you anymore. Now they have a nurse or a medical assistant triage. You, why are you here today, Mike?

And then they put in a note and then the physician comes in for five minutes to use their clinical decision making. And then a lot of times they document there and they're gone to the next patient and that's the bus, that's the business model we gotta have in pharmacy as we move forward. If it's something simple like the flu.

Or something more, more complicated as, as billing for a clinical office visit inside your pharmacy. All of those require the same building blocks to have the support and auxiliary staff trained and equipped to do everything at the top of their license. And that's where your profit changes so much because now you're paying $10 an hour for something you've previously been paying 60.

[00:23:54] Mike Koelzer, Host: Sometimes if you're the owner and when, if you're with an earshot, it's always so tempting to wanna jump in that other hat that you've set up, just never launches because that pharmacist always has an ear to that and kind wants to keep things in their position. If you can spread 'em out sometimes, uh, maybe some of those things would take off a little bit more quickly.

[00:24:19] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Yeah. And I think, I think we have a lot to learn, but I think people who started this first would be, uh, your functional medicine pharmacist. Who started doing office visits. And if you'll notice anyone seeing a patient, that's a pharmacist in a functional medicine setting, if you notice they never work the register, that's something, something you're taught.

They see the patient for the visit and they might even pull the product. They might pull the product off the shelf and hand it to you, and then you go to the register to meet one of the pharmacy clerks. And now you're no longer tied to that product in its sale. You're tied to your expertise and the advice you gave inside that office.

Whereas if you follow 'em to the register, you're, you're still giving out free information. And, it's not about ripping patients off. I'm not saying that it's more about providing, providing value and. You know, I am not motivated by money. However, we have to have money to keep our doors open. So if we're not doing this profitably, then our patients really suffer because our doors, at some point 

[00:25:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: close to our pharmacy, I've been working a lot more in there lately because I've had some staff quit and I've let go.

Some we've gotten tighter. A lot of that's just because of some of the writing on the wall of maybe people hearing me complain all the time about the decreased spread and things like that, but it takes commitment that I will rarely handle something in the pharmacy that someone else can handle. So I don't know how to work the register.

And I'll rarely answer a phone call on insurance. I'll rarely answer something else. If I'm a pharmacist at the time, even though maybe I'm no longer. Qualified I'm joking. No one else knows that really. So I'll answer all the pharmacy questions and stuff that no one else should be answering, but anything else?

Sometimes it's tempting to do it, but if I don't take the time to hand that off and for someone else to have the confidence of me handing it off to them, uh, you can get yourself in a, you know, in a heap of trouble. 

[00:26:22] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Yeah. And you're, you're rare, you know, not a lot of pharmacists do that. A lot of them want, you know, total control of that.

I mean, I've got, well, 

[00:26:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: Travis, they're not as lazy as 

I am. 

[00:26:31] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Oh no, 

[00:26:32] Mike Koelzer, Host: I can teach that. 

[00:26:33] Travis Wolff, PharmD: They just need to start a podcast. Right. So that way they have other, other ways to spend their time. You're rare though. Most, most people don't do that. Most of them want that hands on. 

[00:26:43] Mike Koelzer, Host: Um, many, many pharmacy owners are very hesitant to take a vacation or to go home early.

[00:26:50] Travis Wolff, PharmD: I mean, I've got one pharmacy owner that I'm coaching right now. They want help with their transition. From, you know, they don't wanna sell their store, but they don't wanna work every day. And so I say, I can, I can identify those key steps to get you there, but I need to know what they look like. And so they gotta have the guts to say, Whatever that is.

They wanna leave at two o'clock every day. They wanna work two days a week instead of seven, you know, they have to have the gut say that. And most pharmacists don't, they just feel like they're full on all the time. Is your 

[00:27:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: deliverable difference? In many cases, sometimes it's just, all right, I'm on the phone with this lady.

Who's crying in the bathroom. And my deliverable there to her was the words I spoke to her, you know, over those 10 minutes where somebody else is it ever like a Microsoft three page document to like, show that, okay, we're done this sort of, this sort of is symbolic of what you signed up for. And I'm gonna make, I'm gonna put this into a paper or a PDF to sort of, if not anything else, just to symbolically capture the end of it.

Do you have a physical? Symbol, if nothing else to, to say we're done, we've agreed with, with what we have and we're done and we can carry on, but this is, you know, proof of that. 

[00:28:16] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Yes. So people come to me for all different reasons. Okay. Um, if they come to me wanting help starting a new clinical service, or they want to get accredited, maybe like, like let's say that they want to be accredited for diabetes education that is easily a start and finish.

I can tell them exactly what needs to be done and based on how much time they wanna put into it, they can be done in a couple months. Um, the stuff that is culture building is, you know, I want them to see how I think so that they can be equipped. Mm-hmm to do it by themselves. A lot of culture building, what is different about the way I do it is I like to use implementation of things that will benefit the pharmacy anyway.

And so if they use their staff to build in these implementation strategies, then it builds culture because the staff can see how their contribution contributes to the overall store goals and success. And so that's what I love to do is to do that. So with that said, you're asking about PDFs and all this stuff.

I design so many custom documents for people, uh, because. The things that we do and the services we provide have a lot to do with tracking the metrics. And a lot of pharmacists don't know how to track it, to know if they actually were successful or not. Um, of all of the S I've taught of all of the programs I've been involved in.

I can teach the theory behind how to do stuff. I can tell them a lot of scenarios. Here's what I would do if, but the minute I pull out my personal tracking documents that I've used in my store, or if I show them. Tracking documents that I've used for other pharmacy owners. The minute I pull out those documents, everybody's eyes light up.

I mean, it's like gold. And, and so for me, if I can give them a document that they can use forever. And for always that is like a checklist. Maybe it's a checklist. You know, I had one pharmacist who was his goal. When he came to me, I wanted my store to run the same way that it, when I'm not there, as it runs whenever I am there.

And so I said, well, let's talk about what that looks like. What does it look like when you're there when you're not there? And so it became that he was filling in a lot of gaps by running certain reports and asking people to do stuff. And, essentially he did the same exact stuff every single week to make sure all the metrics have been met.

And I said, what if we just made a checklist of all the things you're already doing? And then you send me your strengths and weaknesses of all your employees, and I'll help you pick who the best person is to do this task that you want done all the time. And then they can run that report and they can do that, whether you're there or not there.

And then as long as that's being executed every single day, every single week, every single month, then, you know, you'll be on track. And what that does is it creates a system at that workstation. And what I love about systems is if you have an adjustment that needs to be made, because maybe a mistake getting made, or you're not meeting your margins, or you're, you have a product that you're carrying or a service you're offering, and you're not getting the desired results, then it's really nice to have that system because it's a lot easier to adjust the.

and then any, any employee that touches that now is following the new system as opposed to figuring out, oh, well, Mike did it this way and, and Travis does it this way. So H who did it? Who can we do? You know, who's gonna be responsible for fixing this. So, those checklists ultimately create systems. And so my clients get so many different types of documents.

Um, the other thing that is really unique is I have a very unique way that I. Do action plans. And so after every call, you get an action plan from me and it literally says, Mike will do this by this time, Travis will do this for Mike by this time, uh, Mike has an employee called Michael and Travis will do this call with Michael about this topic.

And so it's very specific action plans. And then there's a lot of notes next to my other action call. And people can actually get the background to kind of jog their memory about why we talked about that and why we're doing that and how we know it's important. And so that action plan that gets sent is really unique.

I think because a lot of coaching that happens, you're making your own notes and then you're kind of on your own, but with the action plan, you know exactly what you need to get done, and it keeps you on track by when, if people haven't taken care of their business, they don't book their next call. And then what happens is they go two or three months, and then they're mad because they've been paying you and they didn't get any results.

But they didn't take any action. And so they didn't take any action. Right. And so now if I'm calling in to book a call, if I know which package has, how many calls a month, then I can check in when in with them, Hey, you're due for a call next week. What day works for you? What time do you wanna do it? And then they know I'm gonna be doing that.

So that way they have to be completing those lead measures every single week. They can't just wait until the week before our next call. They know it's in their calendar and then try to rush and get it all done. Halfway devil's 

[00:33:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: advocate. You said every call, but there's some calls that are maybe just extensions, like our lady friend that was in the bathroom calling you now, that was a quicker answer kind of thing.

Right. So am I correct to say that? Well, maybe not that that was kind of a nudge or does even that get documented. 

[00:34:02] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Um, so that's gonna be a follow up later, so that's kind of in the heat of the moment. So we're gonna help her, you know, help herself. And then I need to know that the advice I gave her and what she did, or that advice turned out well for her.

[00:34:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: So you'll actually remember that. And then you'll say, Hey, well, we're gonna write this down. We'll maybe talk about it next time. And then that'll turn into an action of some homework or something she has to practice on or 

[00:34:25] Travis Wolff, PharmD: something. Yeah. So she was one that actually paid me to coach and she didn't own the store.

She was a pharmacist and she was managing it. And her owner actually didn't see the value in a coach. Her owner wouldn't pay for it. So she paid me out of her own pocket to coach her. So her staff didn't know about me. And so on that particular instance, we're talking in the morning, cuz she had the meeting before work.

And so. I just texted her and let her know, Hey, do you want to go to your car and chat on your lunch break? Or you call me when the store closes. And so then I follow up to see if, if how I told her to handle it worked out or not. And in that way, if something went south, I can help her navigate where the next steps are to try to fix it.

They know 

[00:35:06] Mike Koelzer, Host: that consistently over time, you're always gonna have their best interest in mind because of not only all your skills, but that relationship that you have well, 

[00:35:17] Travis Wolff, PharmD: and I'm personally vested because what I realize is if my stores are doing everything perfectly, right, then there's no way that my, my few stores alone can save the profession of pharmacy.

So I have to have them working at top efficiency so that they're profitable and keep their doors open. So that as a whole, we keep community Pharmacy. Open and moving forward. And, and I do probably change day to day, but it's because I have an open and a growth mindset so that I'm learning every day. I mean, I had a revelation last week.

There is a particular, uh, problem that we see in some of our compounding pharmacists. And I have identified last week that there is a common personality trait in a personality test. They can do it. That always predicts this problem. And so I'm learning as I go, because I've helped navigate through this. And as I'm talking to a new pharmacy, uh, owner, a new, new to my coaching last week, they're telling me about this, this pharmacist.

And it is almost as if it's the same person working at a pharmacy in another state for another person I coach. And so I ask them, Hey, do this, do this psychology test. I want the result. They send it to me and they're the same person. And so, uh, another issue that I've seen is if you have someone that's a technician who is kind of a relay and really likable, they're not really great with lead measures.

They're not very good implementers, but they get hired more often because they're relatable. And so. Are they good with your customers? Absolutely. Are they gonna remember to do what the customer asked them to do? So that it's right next time. Probably not. And so they need lead. They need lead measures to really succeed and Excel.

And so helping the pharmacy owner know that helps that person stay successful, where their customers are happy. But the owner's happy too because the employee stayed happy and they're, they're performing 

[00:37:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: Travis. I know that probably all the people you coach are just lovely personalities. You like to talk to, but let's just pretend that there were some personalities that you did not like to coach.

What kind of people would those be and how do you deal with that? like stress or boredom or 

[00:37:54] Travis Wolff, PharmD: so I really don't have a personality. that I don't like, I mean, the personalities don't bother me and they are a range. I mean, I've got people who I've had other pharmacists tell me, I can't believe you coach this person, or I can't believe you coach that person.

I don't know how you could ever do it. The personalities don't bother me. Um, what bothers me is when they're not willing to help themselves and they're not willing to put in some of the time that's required to fix the problems, because again, could I come in and fix those problems? Absolutely. But does that help our profession?

Absolutely not. I need to teach them how to fix it. And I, you know, depending on what package they choose, I do become more of an operations manager, but ultimately I'm gonna put the ball into their court to be responsible for the performance and the action. And so how do I handle that? I fire 'em, you know, I come up and I talk to them and I'd say, I don't think you're getting any value out of the time that we're spending together.

And because of that, you're wasting your money, that you're paying me. And furthermore, it's not helping our profession. If we don't do something about these problems, we know that we have. And so sometimes that's a really easy conversation to have. And sometimes it's really hard. You know, I've had a couple who, it took me some convincing to convince them that it didn't make sense for us to work together because they, they really wanted the help and they really, they really wanted the access to me.

But at the end of the day, they were paralyzed and not taking any action based on the recommendations. So if I call and we're having the same problem as we had last time, we've done nothing to try to fix it. Do we start all over again from scratch? Do we go back to the drawing board? You know, so, so yeah, I don't think there's a personality.

I don't like it, but I want them to be passionate about community pharmacy. I want them to be passionate about the people that work for them, and I want them to really have their heart into it. And, and if they're not, then I've had some that are too busy. So why don't you pass me to someone who does have the time to be that champion on your team?

And that can be a lead technician. Um, I've got one pharmacy owner who, uh, we have done a number of things for them. Sometimes it starts really simple, you know, sometimes it's, they don't have an adherence program, so we need to build a sync model so they can develop the time and the resources to work on all these other things.

You know, that's where our relationship started. And I built this enormous, uh, sync program through their technicians. And a few weeks ago, this pharmacy owner. Had her house plowed over by a tornado. She doesn't have a home, she doesn't have any cars, she doesn't have anything. And so she makes one call to me and I'm able to coach her technicians to run the sink program from afar.

She can call some relief pharmacist who knows nothing about it. They just need to be there to unlock the door and check prescriptions. And we ran her store for two weeks. That way, what percent of your 

[00:41:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: calls are I imagining phone versus video chat? 

[00:41:08] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Uh, they're almost always on the phone. I do have a percentage of, um, like, you know, I do the zoom videos or I do do, uh, I might have some slides or I might want to show them an interface or I might want to see what they're looking at.

So let's say that they use a dispensing system different from what I use. A lot of the major, a lot of the major ones. I'm, I'm very good at, even if I don't use that system, but they might have a rare dispensing system that I've not ever seen or dealt with. And so I'll have them share their screen, you know, show me where you see that number at, show me where you're getting that metric from.

Let's find out where that comes from. So, you know, those, those are more like the video and the share screen. Um, I've got a lot of people who just really don't understand how to interpret their equipped dashboard into actionable items. You know, um, I showed, I showed a gentleman, um, four different things he could do from his equipped dashboard and it made him $80,000 last year.

And so people just dunno how to interpret all the data we have. And that's the thing pharmacies are. Just mega data sources. We have so much data at our fingertips. And so, so yeah, to answer your question, a lot of it is, is, is on the phone. However, I do a lot of it by sharing those screens. Do you like phones better?

Um, I really don't have a preference. You know, most people don't like the video and what I find is I have my video on and theirs is off. And so really? Yeah. Yeah. People just don't like to see themselves on camera. So I do the phone because most people are more comfortable with it. Especially if it's a support personnel, a pharmacist will get on the camera a lot easier.

But if you tell a technician that they're doing a call with some person, they don't know, there's no way they're gonna turn the video on. 

[00:43:01] Mike Koelzer, Host: Maybe it's just the mood I'm in right now. I think the people that would drive me nuts would be the ones that. Are giving excuses. And I suppose most people that hire you probably aren't in this position because of the fact they put money and time out to hire you.

Cuz I was a psychiatrist or psychologist and I was talking to someone and maybe it was like court ordered or they didn't wanna be there. I think the one for me would be like excuses and instead of them coming out and just saying, well, no, I'm, I'm afraid to do that. Or I don't want that confrontation or I'm angry at that person or something . It would be all of this.

Like all of this fluff up in the air that you'd have to break through. And maybe I don't like it so much because maybe I do that all the time in my head and we know that we don't like the stuff that we do sometimes, but I think that's the one that would probably drive me the most 

[00:44:03] Travis Wolff, PharmD: crazy. Well, you have to remember that.

I'm trying to grow as a person. So when I say that I'm gonna grow your revenue by building people. Sometimes the people are the pharmacy staff and sometimes the people are you. Sometimes there are major issues among the staff, but sometimes the owner needs to grow in, in their personal growth as well, and their expectations and how they're communicating those expectations.

And you do have some who really do avoid the conflict. And so you have to work, work into that with them and help them understand that the relationships that are worth keeping are built on trust and conflict management, and you can have good goals. You can have good KPIs. You can be executing lead measures, but if you don't have the trust and the conflict management, if you think about your very best friend, have you ever been in a fight with them?

That you worked through later, if you are married, have you ever had a fight with your wife that you worked through and did that make your relationship stronger? We work it through just 

[00:45:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: because she's right. 

[00:45:13] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Well, of course she is. Exactly. But you had to grow as a person to know that 

[00:45:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: I had to understand 

[00:45:18] Travis Wolff, PharmD: that though.

exactly. 

[00:45:21] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. You you're investing in 

[00:45:22] Travis Wolff, PharmD: that deeper. Yeah, exactly. Um, I have one I'm coaching. Feels like staff are incapable of doing what they're asking, but what the reality is, they don't know how to communicate what they're asking. So it comes down to the pharmacist, actually growing a little bit and learning.

Here's how to communicate with this type of personality. And, there's all this psychology behind it. And if they want to know, they can know, but, but they don't have to. I can give them real life stuff. Oh, that technician needs lead measures to be successful. They need to be able to monitor your equipped scores.

They need to be pulling your wheel call bin every two weeks. They need to be sending back your wholesaler return every week. Um, and then you have things where, uh, you know, pharmacy owners have this performance expectancy, and this has been proven by Harvard where when you give a technician or a clerk or any kind of staff member a task, you've automatically decided in your head.

How they're gonna perform on that task. So if you think about your rockstar employee, who just can never get it wrong, you give 'em new projects and they're always doing it, they're doing it better than you would've ever thought to do it. And then you have your kind of bad apple at the other end of the spectrum.

And no matter what you give them, you've tried. They're not really bad enough to get fired, but you're giving me different projects here and there and trying to find something they're good at. Well, what happens is you have assigned this project to them. You've subconsciously decided how they're gonna perform on that.

And then it leads you without even knowing you're doing it to micromanage that person. You're checking in with them on progress. And what happens is you shut down their creative thinking so they can no longer learn along the way they could not have this accelerated learning you're a rockstar that can do everything right.

They have this growth mindset where they learn while they're doing, and they have this, uh, accelerated learning curve because you give them the freedom. And, and so teaching pharmacy owners, you know, they've got this one person, maybe they just need to cut. 'em a little bit of slack and not micromanage.

'em so much. I know 

[00:47:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: We pharmacists put a ton of our staff into double binds. You know, we're saying one day we're crabbing because they're not focused enough on the, uh, you know, some project the next day we're crabbing at 'em because they're not attentive enough to the customers that are coming.

And it's like, well, you just told me that you just told me the day before to have mine, because of the mood you were in. And you told me to have my nose in the computer doing this. And you just made it impossible for me to hit both of those standards you've 

[00:48:00] Travis Wolff, PharmD: given to me. And we don't realize that a lot of times, I mean, I see that happen all, all the time.

People, people don't realize that that time is like a budget. And so what they're doing is overdrawing their accounts on those people because they unlock the door to their store about the same time every day. And they lock the door to their store. The same time every day. Notice, I didn't say closed because most pharmacy owners stay well past closed, but they kinda have an idea of when they're gonna go home and when they're gonna come in.

And so when you ask someone who already has a full plate to do something new, now you have to go back and identify what can be cut out. What is, what is less important. So they have time to do this new project. Tell me what a 

[00:48:42] Mike Koelzer, Host: perfect day would look like for you about three years from now. Would it look pretty close to what you are now or, or how would it differ from what you're 

[00:48:53] Travis Wolff, PharmD: doing now?

Three years from now? I feel like I would be doing even more coaching. I would be available to my stores, but I wouldn't be actually managing them. I would be working through other managers. I would do a lot of hands-on learning with my coaching members so that I could really meet them. In an attempt to accelerate their learning.

And so, yeah, my perfect day I think, is, is more coaching and, and less, less pharmacist. Um, however, like I said, I don't have that. I don't ever want that to be a hundred percent because I do want to be in the know and understand what current events are happening so that whenever I get that crazy letter from express scripts or Caremark, I can quickly pass the message and relate it.

Or if I have a certain employee issue, I mean, with, with coronavirus right now, um, there are eight different states who we've discovered don't have a secure portal for their employment security commission. And Oklahoma is one of those eight states. And so in this coronavirus, uh, world where we have. All of this unemployment going on, there are a ton of fraudulent, unemployment claims being turned in to the securities mission.

Um, I coach one store. Who's had 13 claims of people who have never worked for them ever. And you have 10 days to catch that. So I think being in the store, being a business owner and knowing that kind of stuff, like, and now call all my people in those eight states and, and say, okay, you gotta watch your mail because pharmacy owners don't do that very well.

And you gotta catch these within 10 days you 

[00:50:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: have ownership or you own the three pharmacies you've talked 

[00:50:44] Travis Wolff, PharmD: about. Yeah. So we run the two locations, so we've bought three. And then the second one we bought, we combine under the location of the first and who is we? Uh, my wife and I have a business partner as well.

Who's also a pharmacist. Will there 

[00:50:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: A day that you say I want to be involved in a pharmacy and, you know, be able to walk around and do my stuff, but I don't want any ownership. I just want 

[00:51:09] Travis Wolff, PharmD: to coach. Um, I'm not sure yet that might come someday. I really like, I really like the business part behind owning a store 

[00:51:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: and the ownership really gets your, gets your heart into it.

[00:51:23] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Yeah. I really like being able to track all those metrics and implement these new systems into the challenges that change every single, every single day. Um, and, and the other thing is, you know, with my coaching business, uh, I love to coach a hundred percent. I love that. And, and I wanna be doing more of that, but I'm different in that.

I really want the pharmacist to have access to the subject matter expert. And so with farms further. I don't have to be an expert on everything because that's what happens a lot in coaching businesses. People, if they see a need, then they need to go become the expert of that. So they're gonna go learn about this and try to help their clients.

Right. But I don't see that with far further. I see that if somebody needs help with DIR fees, Then I'm gonna use some of the money that they're paying me to go pay Benjamin jolly. You know, he's been on your show and I'm gonna have him help them because he knows so much more about that than I do. If I know somebody who needs help with inventory management, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help pay for them to go see Joe Williams.

You know, if they need help doing clinical services and incident two visits, I'm gonna send them to the Avan Institute with, with Amina of a blocker. You know? So it's about not having to be the one who knows everything, but getting them to someone who knows far more about it than I do. And then what happens is they go to these subject matter experts.

And most of those subject matter experts don't like to do what Amina calls handholding. Okay. They want to teach you how to be successful and then turn you loose. So now I can use what they're paying me to go find this subject matter expert in whatever they wanna accomplish. But then once they have the knowledge, they can return back to me and I can help with an implementation plan.

So they, they, they continue to implement what they've learned from this person and be successful into their own business model. 

[00:53:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: Is there anything, and if there is, what's the biggest spread between what you preach, but you don't practice. Is there anything that you say, I know this is the right thing to do.

I know I'm teaching my team this, but I struggle with that personally. Is there 

[00:53:39] Travis Wolff, PharmD: anything like that? Well, I am far from perfect. So there are lots of things that I'm sure I don't practice. I would say the one thing I've had the hardest time with is time blocking, because I do like being that all access pass and I do like task completion.

And so it's, it's hard for me to walk away from something before it's complete, but also, you know, part of my mentality of, of growing up in a pharmacy. And being available on the bench. When people walk in the door, it is hard to schedule things. If you're on the bench, because you have no idea. You know, the other day I was about to go home early and, um, I had other pharmacists, I've got five pharmacists that work for me and they were gonna cover for me at my busy store.

And a lady comes in who I know really well. She's one of my good patients. I go out and I'm talking to her and she's, she needs help picking out a bandaid. for this sore that she has. And so they're, they're filling her prescription like, well, sure. Let me help you with that. You know, so I go down, so while I'm headed over to the first aid section, she takes off her shoe and takes off her sock.

She says, I got this little sore that won't go away and I could see the bone of her toe on the bottom of her foot. . And so now I'm thinking, well, I was headed out the door, but now we gotta get an ambulance or we gotta get her to an ER. We, you know, I could see her bone and she's already lost one toe on her other foot.

And she's in here looking for a bandaid and some Neosporin, you know? So, I would say that my biggest thing is, it's hard for me to block time. Um, I'm very good at scheduling and I do, I do very, very much value my family time. And so I shut things off in the evening for a period of time to put my kids in bed.

And so, um, I would like to, when my kids are in bed, I want to be able to go do things on my own time. And so occasionally I, they stuff overflows and I gotta work on that late at night, you know, I might be sending action plans or documents, you know, at 11 o'clock or midnight, but I want it to be complete and I want them to have what I offered them.

So that's the hardest thing for me. Probably. What authors do you like so much? Um, I am a really big Jim Collins fan, 

[00:56:03] Mike Koelzer, Host: good to grade and, and get the right people on the bus and all this kind of 

[00:56:08] Travis Wolff, PharmD: stuff. Right? Yeah. And, and why I like him so much. I mean, they're, I have a whole list of authors.

I can give you based on what you're trying to accomplish, but why I like him so much is a lot of his research and studies have been based on. Businesses that had to achieve a definition of great that he defined, which was a, a very strenuous definition of itself, but they had to maintain that greatness for 15 years to, to even qualify for his research.

And so if you think about the average pharmacy owner, if they're gonna own their business on average 20 to 30 years, can you imagine actually being at your prime for half or more of your career, I mean, to be truly in your prime with ultimate performance, be able to do that for over half of your career is just phenomenal.

I also really like a lot of authors that actually get highlighted by, um, like Harvard business review. I really get into a lot of things that they find. Um, it's actually really interesting. I. Had an article I read in the HBR by a couple of authors, uh, Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall. And, they had a philosophy on feedback and they called it the feedback fallacy.

And so a couple of, a couple of key points from that. And there are several I could go over, but first for time sake, a couple of key points from that excellence is subjective. And so whoever the manager, the leader, or the owner is in the store, what they define as excellence is different from how the employee defines excellence.

And so you can't always put into words what you think is excellent. And it becomes a difficult conversation to communicate that through. And so they, they brought up a point of when an employee does something. That they should be doing. You should praise them. Well, pharmacy owners, a lot of them will say, I hate praising people cuz it seems fake and I don't want to sound fake.

I want it to be real. And so if you can catch someone in the act of doing something that you really liked, they came up with a phrase where you can say that yes, that you pointed 'me and you say that yes, that, and then all the other employees see that. And, and it's phenomenal because now it's very current in everyone's mind as to what just happened, what that customer service experience with that MSFI with the error that was made.

However, they fix that, whatever they do, they like that. Yes. That, so now that employee knows what they did was great, but everyone around them knows, wow. That's how Travis wants that done as the pharmacy manager. And so then what you get into is people don't always know what you're talking about. It was just second nature.

That was what they always do. So what did they do? That was so special? So then you can come back with their next step. Did you see what you did there? And then whenever they can't answer that, cuz that happens sometimes too. Then you can say, let me tell you what that looked like to me. And so now in a few seconds, your whole staff has learned exactly what excellence looks like in your eyes.

Should this come up again? And so they had that feedback fallacy and all of the problems wrong with feedback because what we tell managers is you need to give your staff more feedback. You need to give 'em more feedback. And I talked to a pharmacy owner last week. They have a daily, sometimes twice daily huddle.

They have a weekly meeting and they have a monthly meeting and they have a quarterly meeting. They have a one on one meeting with every staff member every month. I mean they are meeting out their ears and they're not getting results. And so it has to do with how you're giving that feedback. Sessions and, and how you're measuring, whether what they're gonna do with that information is successful or not.

The best plan is only good if it has good execution. And so if you don't execute the plan, then nothing got done and, and everyone's time was wasted. And so, um, anyway, so fast forward, the reason I bring them up is, someone was telling me about this book called the nine lies about work. And so I'm, I'm looking it up and there are all these misconceptions that we have about what employees want and why they wanna work, where they do and what gives them job satisfaction.

And, and they have found these common nine lies that we've made based on companies who are supposed to have this amazing culture like Zappos and Google. And, and some of those. And so, um, I'm, I'm looking this book up and I'm thinking, wow, those author names, they sound so familiar to me. And then I put together, I've been preaching on their HBR article that they wrote for several years now.

And so it's the same author. So, so yeah. So, um, tons of authors that I, I really, really love the books and, and can read 'em over and over. Um, absolutely. 

[01:01:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: Pharmacy's such a great place for that kind of thing. Yes. That. And do you know what you just did there, because quite likely you're an earshot of half of your staff of people hearing that you're not going up to someone's desk, you're hearing, and everybody can join in, on listening or being nosy at least of what did they do so well that they got called out on it.

I like that idea, Travis of the Harvard business review, because it's my contention that a lot of times when you are looking up stuff online, a lot of it's. Click bait like the author says, I am gonna go against the grain no matter what, I really believe I'm gonna go against the grain to have somebody read this.

And so let's say that customers like to be called by their, by their first name and just to get something ranking, you know, they'll say something like why you should never call a customer by their name. And it's like, a lot of that is Bo, but it was a way to get in front of someone's eyes. So the cool thing about that, I'm gonna check out that Harvard review is because it sounds like those are serious articles that make it in there versus just some, 180 shift just to get people to look 

[01:02:47] Travis Wolff, PharmD: at it.

Yeah. And I study those. And so if you're a busy pharmacy owner and you don't have time. Or don't want to subscribe to the Harvard business review. Then I can be reading all this every month and I can know what is relevant to you as you need them. And I can send you those articles, you know, so that you're equipped.

And so, um, that's part of the glory of coaching is, that's part of what you're paying me for is to bring you the resources. So you don't have to have all the answers. Um, but I found some of my favorite authors through there. You know, I'm looking through my audible list right now, just to kind of give you more authors.

Um, Adam Grant is phenomenal. Um, he's actually a professor at Harvard, but he's a business professor. He's wonderful. Um, he's a young guy, but man, he knows his stuff. Um, he has a lot to say about just employee engagement. Um, I've never, I've never read anything by Simon Sinek that I didn't like. Um, Simon Sinek has got some just really good.

Advice to life and, and to employee performance, he's another one of those rare hybrids, you know, where he can, he combines a lot of biology and science into what motivates us as people. And so, um, he knows a lot of psychology, but he also knows a lot of science. I mean, he has one book that, uh, is just about neurochemicals and our hormones and how that affects, uh, employee incentives and how rewards make us, you know, repeat things.

Um, Dan, Dan Clark is another really good one. If you've not read any Dan Clark, um, he's got a book called the art of significance, man. It is really good. Um, I'm, I'm a big fan of it. Um, some of these, uh, I'll tell you what, if you have anyone in a closed mindset, the magic of thinking big by David Schwartz is another really, really good one.

It's an old book. Uh, it's really old and it's really funny cuz it gives examples. From the times of like the 1930s and stuff. I mean, so it might give you examples of driving your model T down the dusty street or something. I mean, it's an old book, but the concepts in there really break you out of your fixed mindset and, and get you to thinking creatively.

So, um, those are some of the highlights. So, so I stick around, you know, kind of those business and employee engagement, you know, biology of a successful business. And when I'm not there, I'm usually reading a parenting book or a religious book, you know, I'm trying to figure out, you know, how can I be a better Christian or how can I be a better dad?

Um, so it's kind of, I bounce between those sections. My nightstand probably has. Five to 10 books on it at all times. So are you doing 

[01:05:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: that instead of any, um, Kindle on your phone? Do you like hard copies? 

[01:05:34] Travis Wolff, PharmD: Um, it depends on what kind of reading it is. Um, I really, I really learn really well by audible, which is part of the reason why I do the phone calls.

You know, you asked about that earlier. Um, I'm such an audible learner, so, um, I do a lot of, a lot of books on, on audible or, um, listen to 'em in my, in my vehicle, you know, when I'm driving, um, I can retain so much of what I hear. Um, I've got a little bit of a photographic memory so I can remember stuff. If I see it.

But, um, when I'm reading the, when I'm reading the print, I only want that in certain settings, you know, like an airplane or when I'm going to bed or that kind of thing, perhaps it's, it's been 

[01:06:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: A pleasure having Y and I can really tell your love for coaching. It seems like that goal couldn't be better off trying to increase, you know, the whole profession.

So thanks for what you're doing. And it's been great having 

[01:06:28] Travis Wolff, PharmD: you on the show. Thanks for having me today. I'm excited to share a little bit about this and I look forward to connecting to some of the listeners. All right, Travis, take care. 

[01:06:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: I'll be 

[01:06:36] Travis Wolff, PharmD: following you. All right, Mike, we'll catch up soon. All right, God bless you too.