The EntreMD Podcast

7 ways to fight for your business during a crisis

May 04, 2020 Dr. Una Episode 37
The EntreMD Podcast
7 ways to fight for your business during a crisis
Show Notes Transcript

When a crisis shows up, you can choose to quit or fight.

In this episode of the EntreMD Podcast, I show you seven ways to fight for your business. I believe that adversity is painful but it can bring out the best in you as an entrepreneur and  your business.


Subscribe & Review in iTunes

Have you subscribed to my podcast? If you haven’t, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. Great episodes will be coming every week and if you are not subscribed, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those.

Click here to subscribe in iTunes!

Also, I would really love it if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Your glowing reviews help other people find my podcast and I love reading them. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you.

Join the EntreMD Private Facebook group here. 


Links mentioned in this episode:

Free Telemedicine Masterclass with Dr. Una
EntreMD Live Our annual conference will be held virtually on 06/13/20.
Freedom Formula Masterclass - 12 week masterclass 
Remember to use the discount code "PODCAST" to get 50% off.

When you are ready to work with us, here are three ways.

1. EntreMD Business School Accelerator - If you are looking to make a 180 turnaround in your business in 90 days, this is the program for you.
2. EntreMD Business School Grow - This is our year-long program with a track record of producing physician entrepreneurs who are building 6, 7 and 7+ figure businesses. They do this while building their dream lives!
3. EntreMD Business School Scale - This is our high-level mastermind for physicians who have crossed the seven figure milestone and want to build their businesses to be well oiled machines that can run without them.

To get on a call with my team to determine your next best step, go here www.entremd.com/call

Follow Dr. Una here
LinkedIn - www.linkedIn.com/in/druna
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/drunachukwu
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drunachukwu
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DrUnachukwu?sub_confirmation=1

speaker 0:   0:00
hi docks. Welcome to the entree, MD podcast, where it is all about helping amazing physicians. Just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your turns. I'm your host, Dr. Well, hi, dogs. Welcome back to another episode of the entree MD podcast checking in with everybody and doing what I can to keep everybody inspired and motivated and empowered in these amazing times that we live in And, you know, before we go into it, April, which is what month it is at the time of this recording is a really special month for me. And the reason for that is it's my daughter's birthday. My first daughter, she turned 12 and she was the baby that I wasn't supposed tohave, you know. So, you know, I got married two years before I had her was super excited. She was my dream, only to be called when I was about 20 weeks pregnant to say, Hey, she has a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. You don't I think that she's gonna make it. We recommend that you abort. She also has a pericardial effusion. There's just no space for her lungs. to grow. This is not going to be pretty and we did all kinds of stuff and she was my dream, and I fought and fought and fought. We fought for her, and she eventually carried her to full term to the glory of God. She was in the hospital for only nine days, even though she had surgery on the day of life. And she's done great, like she has not had any complications or anything like that. But we had to fight for what our dream was. And even though this is a little different than our businesses, we actually have to fight with our businesses. Everything is great with business until it's not and when it's not, then we fight. That's what we dio now. At the time of this recording, where right smack in the middle of the Cove in 19 Pandemic. You know it's a real crisis, and I don't want to make little of anything that anybody is going through in their businesses, I think in private practice across the nation, volumes were down 50 to 60%. So these air riel things that are happening to real people. But im on here because I want to show you seven ways to fight for your business during a crisis. Right? Seven things that you can do now. There's some things you have no control over. There's some things you have control over. You don't have control over. When a pandemic shows up, you don't have control over. You know if there's going to be in a recession if there's gonna be an economic crisis, but you do have control over your response to it. OK, so I'm going to show you seven ways, and I want you to apply these to your business right away and start looking for some kind of better outcomes. OK, so that's hit it. So the first thing you can dio toe fight for your business is keep your vision top of mind. Now, one of the things that I noticed that happened, you know, when the pandemic, you know, really started hurting businesses, people saying Well, 2020 was awash. 2021 will be a better year, so it's almost like forget it the years over, nothing's gonna come out of it. We're done, and I don't want you to adopt that stance. We still have time we still have. I mean, we have endless creativity, and we have support and have all kinds of stuff. We're gonna fight for this. So I don't want you to take that vision that you had at the beginning of the year and throw it away. Maybe you want to tweak it a little. Maybe you don't want to tweak it a little, but don't throw it away. Do not throw it away. Okay? So I want you to think about you do this all the time. I want you to think about the pre Covic era when you used to go to the mall, right? And you go to the mall and go to the directory. And their directory says you are here and you're like, OK, where's the Gucci store? Gucci stories there. So this is how I need to get there now. There could be many things that will take you off track. Right. So maybe you went with the kid. The kid wants to go to the bathroom. Or you saw on old Navy anyone to stop by and get something and all that stuff. But you never let it take away your vision, which your original vision is I want to go to the Gucci store. Right. So in the same way, yes. The pandemic has thrown some things at us. Yes, it has thrown some things that us economically. Maybe some things happened with some staff. And maybe you didn't get your pee pee pee loans approved all this stuff going on. But these are all detours and want you to keep your vision top of mind. Okay, If you will keep your vision top of my keeps, you centered. It keeps you like we can fight for this. It gives you creativity because you're constantly your subconscious is constantly working on How do we bring this vision to pass? So don't throw away your vision. If you had a vision board and kind of tucked it away somewhere in the basement, I want you to go get it out. And I want you to keep that vision top of mind. So the question now becomes, how do we make this our reality? And once you start asking those kind of questions, you start getting the kind of answers that will help you turn your business around. Help you reinvented, help you pivot it the whole nine yards. Okay, so that's the first thing. Keep your vision top of mind. The second thing is you have to extroverts into the marketplace, even in the pre cove in 19 error. For most businesses, the biggest problem was obscurity. People don't know that you exist. So the option of hiding the option of not coming in front of the marketplace not coming out to serve, not coming out to you let people know what you do. The problem. You solve the solutions you can give them. The outcomes your business provides is an amazing disservice. And it's not going toe work for your business. So maybe you're like, I'm shy. I don't do videos. I don't really like talking to people. I don't do social media. I don't reach out to people. I don't ask them for business. I don't ask them to refer. I don't do any of those. You do those now. Okay. You have to extroverts into the marketplace. You have to put yourself out there. You have to stop being the world's best kept secret. Okay, there are many people, even in these times, who, if they knew about your service, would sign up yesterday. They just don't know. OK, so you have to extroverts. And you might be like I don't want to put myself out there. But let me tell you something. Do you know one of the things we have in abundance of in the middle of this crisis problems? There are a lot of problems. The old problems were still there. The new problems have shown up on the scene. And guess what we do is entrepreneurs. We solve problems. Okay, so extroverts go out there, solve problems that people know what you dio let you put your business in front of people. I let people use what you dio Okay, so that's the second thing. The third theme is God learned to sell. You have to learn to sell. And I know doctors I know it's almost like a customer. Like, did she just say sell? Yes, I said so You have to learn how to sell. All right, let me give you an example with my practice. Okay, so you guys know I'm the founder of On Trendy, but I also have a pediatric practice and, of course, like every other practice. You know, when the pandemic hit. Everybody is scared in their social distancing and all the stuff in the bottom start going down. And I had to come to Jesus meeting with my staff, and I'm like, You know what? The way things are right now, I don't really need your services like really right. But I do need a new set of staff, and their job description is whatever it takes. So if that's you, you're willing to be flexible. You're willing to be flexible with your role and all of that. Then let's do it. You're the person I've been looking for. So they're like, Yeah, let's do it whatever it takes. And so we developed a sale strategy, right? So their parents who could come in and, you know, I'm a pediatrician, so, you know, vaccine rates dropping. I mean, that is really scary and that we've done a lot of changes in the office to make it safe. So they're not come in contact with other people that are sick people in the office, the whole nine yards. So I'm telling the staff, like all right is not a time to hit the phones because they're like the phones are not ringing. I think the phones were not supposed to ring. You're supposed to be on the phone, so if people are not calling you, you call them. But whatever it is, you need to be on the phone. So they're calling the patients. They're like, Hey, you know, checking up on you guys. We see that Johnny's behind on his shots. This is what we've done to make it safe. We would like to get you in so you can get his shots for others. They like all we see that, you know, James has asthma, and we haven't seen him in three months. And all that stuff, if you need this kind of appointment, weaken, do via telemedicine and stuff like that. And so they're just doing that. They're overcoming objections and they get in appointments on the books and they getting kids getting their vaccines and the world is a better place. Okay, but we had to learn to self. Okay, we have to learn to sell. That's one of the things you have to do in a crisis. Because if there's no money, there's no mission, there's no margin. There's no mission, Right? Okay, that's the third thing, so you got to do it. The fourth thing is you have to galvanize. The team's already talked about that a little bit, right? You have to have meetings with your people. You have to talk to your people. You have to inspire them. You have to lead them sort of change. And maybe your business. You're in a position where ah lot of things were like, you know, by autopilot and didn't really have to deal with people. He didn't have to inspire people. You don't have to do any of that now, you dio okay, because your team there, like your greatest assets, they are. And if you can galvanize them, share the vision, share the challenges and, you know, share what can happen and the strategy and asked for their input because they're on the frontlines. They know a lot of these things more than you. The things you think are objections may not be objections at all. They know because they're talking to your people, right? So you wanna galvanize them, get them on your side. So you guys are working as a team and you're not working isolation because that will lead to burnout. Frustration. No one to lean on is just awful. Okay, so number four galvanized. You're team number five. Serve your clients or your patients at a higher level. Okay? Now, what is going on now is that we have new problems right there. New problem. So let me go back to my practice and use that as an example. Now, you have used to be that my kids, they just need to come in. They need to get their shots and and all of that kind of stuff, right? You know, just needed those to take care of the health care. But now there's the cove in 19 fears and the parents have to deal with all of that. And what do we do to serve them on a higher level? We have to make sure that it's safe for them to come in. Right. So we go did away with the waiting room entirely. So they go from the car they call us when they get there, we call them in, take them straight to a room. We make the visit, you know, such that they don't come in contact with other people. There's not really any wait time, so they're technically in and out to get their things and they're out right. For some of them, serving at a higher level means we have to incorporate telemedicine, right? So we incorporate telemedicine. So for some of the things they don't even have to leave the house. We could take care of them in the comfort of their own homes. And we have to send out emails were doing emails about three days a week to keep them updated with what we're doing, updated with what is going on with Cove, it and all of that kind of stuff and, you know, health information they would usually get. So we have toe add on all these things to serve them at a higher level, right, because they have new problems going on. So one of the things you do to fight is to serve them, and the reason for that is they're afraid. They're unsure. They're anxious, right? And for you to be the person who is making them more comfortable, who is looking after them, who is helping them through this transition? It gives so much goodwill, so much brand loyalty, and it's just overall great. That's what we want to do anyway, isn't it? So serve your clients at a higher level, okay? For the other business that I run on, Champ De. If you look at the podcast, you see there's a lot more episodes and his gear tours the problems that people are having, why I want to be able to serve you at a higher level. I want to be able to help you in the midst of this crisis. I want to be able to give you direction What things you can do to make your business is better and stuff like that. From my private coaching clients. I created another vertical around what I already do for them to give them more value, give them more support in these times that we're in. If you look, I've done a lot of webinars, like how to recession proof, your practice, how to recession proof your business, how to create videos. I will put your business on the map. These are all things that I'm putting out there to help to serve at a higher level. Okay, and so that's number five. Number six. You have to work hard to eliminate doubt, anxiety and fear, because you need to be in the right mental space to lead your team, to lead your tribe, to whether the storms to not get thrown off by every piece of bad news that shows up. So you have to eliminate that. You can choose how you do that for some people. Be prayer. For some people, it's meditation. For some people, it's affirmations that they say. And actually, we did create affirmations for the physician entrepreneur. And if you go to entree MD dot com slash affirmation, you'll be able to get that on. What it is is five minutes of positive affirmations about your business that you can listen to right at the start of the day. To set your mind like this is gonna be an amazing day. This is where our business is going. These are the opportunities are coming our way. This is how I'm going to navigate this crisis. So it's great to start your day with, But also, you have those times in the day where maybe three pieces of bad news came at you back to back to back here like man, I'm just gonna quit. I can't take it everybody has those kind of moments, right? Just takes enough bad news for that to happen. But this is something that in five minutes you can use it to reset, reset your mind, and you're like, OK, let's get back in the ring. Let's get this done. Okay. So eliminate doubt, anxiety and fear. Okay, That's something that we need to dio. The seven thing that you need to do is you need to lean into your mentors and your coaches. And the best way I can think of illustrating this is think about a boxer in the ring and they've had one round, and they beat the crap out of the boxer and he goes back to his corner and his coach comes up there is like, Look, you can do it. You can do this. Change this strategy. I got you. You can't quit, right? We need that. Okay, so this is a time to lean into mentors. This is a time to lean into coaches. You need the direction you need the shortcut. Someone can give you a road map like this is how you do this, right? You need that. So lean in. OK? And if you're like You have never really done the coaching thing. I don't know about coaches. I started investing in coaching a few years ago, and it is the best thing I've ever done. And I'm never going to stop for a long as I live. But if you're like, you know, I don't have one yet there is the Freedom Formula Master class. This is a program that we've run for almost a year at this point at different times, and it is a place where you can get direction. You can get the shortcuts you can get roadmaps and, most importantly, can get a soup port of community, positive supported community that you definitely need to thrive in these times, right, because you can read enough blog's and watch enough videos and all this stuff to eventually figure out stuff. But we don't have time for that were in the middle of a crisis, right, And this is something that you can start in and you can get those shortcuts and you can work your business and you can make it thrive. Yes, there are a lot of businesses that are suffering, and that's because of the times that we're in, but there are a lot of people for them. This has been their best time. It literally has because of some things that they're doing. Okay, they can check it out. Is entree AMG dot com forward slash freedom. And for those of you who are my podcast listeners, you can put the code podcast in there and it gives an amazing 50% off because again, I am doing this to help you in this time to thrive. Okay, so those air the seven things you can dio keep your vision top of mine, extroverted to the marketplace. Learn to sell, galvanize your team. Serve your existing clients and patients at a higher level, eliminate doubt, anxiety and fear, and finally lean into your mentors and coaches. Okay. All right. So apply these super helpful will help start turning your business in the right direction on one of the best things you can do. One of the best ways to learn is to teach. So I want you to take the nugget that stood out to you the most and that you're going to start applying right away. And I want you to go to your social media platform, and I want you to talk about it. Just tag me. I'll be happy to give you a shout out as well. Okay. And check out the freedom formula masterclass, and I will see you on the very next episode. If you love this podcast, please take a moment to subscribe. Share a review it on iTunes as you go about your week. Remember, you're not just in MD. Urine on trendy. Don't forget to tune in next week for another great episode until next time.