How To Network Like A Pro Especially For Introverts with Dr. Barbara Joy Jones-Parks

In this episode of the EntreMD Podcast, I interviewed Dr. Barbara Joy,  a brilliant intrapreneur.

We discuss:

• Her wins as a physician intrapreneur.
• The power of networking.
• Practical tips on how to network like a pro.
• How to leverage the power of social media. 

You can follow her here FACEBOOK

Resources
EntreMD Business School

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about my 12-month program. 
• Interested in 1-on-1 coaching? Apply here.
• Grab a copy of the "The 7-Figure Physician CEO" book. 

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

•  The Profitable Private Practice Movement - If you want to build a thriving private practice that serves a lot of patients, while creating time and financial freedom for you, come join us here. 
• 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!
• 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 ...

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hi Doug. Welcome to the OnCham D podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Imna. Well, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the OnTraMD Podcast. And as always, I'm excited. I want to first of all say thank you, thank you, thank you for listening, for sharing, for reviewing. It is helping us grow. It is helping us spread the word. It is helping us get the message out there that we are doctors. Yes, this is challenging times, but this is our time. Our time to embrace entrepreneurship so we can live life and practice medicine on our own terms. It's been said doctors don't know anything about money. They don't know how to run businesses and all of that stuff. But we are changing that. And you are changing that by being a listener and acting on all the things that you learn. So thank you. Right? I'm really excited about this episode because I have a special guest for you. So this is part of what we do in the On-TraMD business school. I had one of my clients who is a master at networking come in to teach the On-TraMD business school students about networking and all of that. So I get to share part of what she taught in the business school on this podcast. And we're talking about how to leverage the power of networking to grow your business. Okay, so my special guest is Dr. Barbara Joy Parks, and she is a family medicine doctor and the ultimate, one of the ultimate entrepreneurs that I've met. And she's the lead physician at Northside Hospital Outpatient Center in Peace Street Corners. And we talk all things networking. Now, after this, in the business school, everyone is raving. You know, she does a QA with everybody afterwards, and it was just really so impactful. And you see introverts, introverted introverts. Now I'll talk about it a week later. Like, oh my God, I am having so much fun with networking. If you can imagine it. All right. So this is a really, really good episode. I want you to lean in. I want you to enjoy it. And if you are thinking, I want to start a business, I want to grow my business, I want to rock this entrepreneurship thing. I want this to be as simple as my algorithms in my clinical life is, right? I want to invite you to come join us in the entream D business school. Okay. So entreamd.com forward slash business, all right? But in the meantime, I want you to enjoy this episode and get everything you can get out of it. So here's the episode.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Okay. As an entrepreneur, the first thing that is the biggest thing that is worth every single thousand of dollars or with all those thousands I paid for Dr. Una's course was I have a four-day work week and I didn't have to cut anything. I basically, we had a conversation. I wrote everything down with Dr. Una talking about how I could leverage myself and who I was that was different from all my other colleagues. And I said, this is what I have to offer, and I need a four-day work week because I'm too tired to do the other things that are positive for the hospital, such as go on TV and go to rotary club meetings and all these other types of things. And they were like, hmm, that makes sense. And so I was like, yeah, you're right. And so I just work Monday through Thursday, and I have a three-day weekend every single weekend to do things that I enjoy and pursue other stuff on the side. So I'm very, very, very thankful for that. And I basically established myself as an irreplaceable employee because of that. So being a minority female, being an osteopath, and still um practicing osteopathic manipulative treatment, so that's unique. And then I do things like network, so I actually am able to attract patients to the practice through word of mouth and through my networking on social media where they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising, and here I am for free, attracting, probably. I always ask when somebody's new, how did you find your way here? And two-thirds of them come through social media. So I'm like, y'all could have given me that $200,000. I'll attract patients for y'all. I'll go to meetings, I'll post whatever advertisement to get patients here. And um, another thing as an entrepreneur is Dr. Una opened up my mind to that I could do side gigs. So I am actually a peer reviewer for the VA hospital, and I make basically enough money to pay my student loans every month so that my main gig, that money goes for what it needs to be, and then the side gig actually pays for my student loans, which is basically a mortgage, $3,500 a month. So I'm able to, oh, and actually that's it. Fridays is when I actually do that. So I spend about 10 to 12 hours on the side gig, and so basically four days a month to make my student loan payment, and I do that work on Fridays. So very appreciative of that. And then basically speaking on stages, because anybody who is able to command an audience, it shows credibility and accountability. And I get a lot of people who actually come see me due to having spoken on like panels or um been a speaker at different events. So that's those are some of my wins as an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Awesome. How many of you love those? Love it. Now, there's a win that I remember. Now, when let me set the stage for this. So when you started working at this clinic for Northside, they had started it, like you started at ground zero, right? And they had all these projections, like how long it would take them to get X number of patients and all of that stuff. I remember you telling me that you guys were ahead of projection, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Right, right. So they actually put me on guaranteed salary for two years because they didn't expect me to even build a practice for two years. And so even on the first day, I had nine patients and we've been packed ever since then. So I'm I'm packed currently, probably two or three months out. And I think we are considered at least 50 to 60 percent ahead of projection, even with COVID, because COVID generally for the hospital was you know a deficit for everybody. But even with COVID over the last, you know, nine, nine, ten months, it's I'm still ahead of projection because they really didn't think I would be able to practice until two years in. So I guess they I'm thankful they have low expectations. So I could surpass them. I don't know they had low expectations.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

I just think you're brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

In my head, I'm thinking, who do you guys think I am? But sure. Okay, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yeah, you're you're amazing. They they didn't know now, they don't. Um now, how important would you say that networking has been to your success? Because this is a lot of success, right? And it's not like you've been out of residency for 10 years. You know what I mean? Like, so this is huge. So, what what's the connection between that and networking, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Um, so I would say that it's excessively been really, really helpful. Knowing people, it's through people in my network that number one got me on TV, that get me all the gigs that I do, any podcast episodes where I'm a guest. It's all because I networked with somebody who networked with somebody else. Even my first grand rounds when I went all the way to Westchester, New York at hospital was through Entra MD, through Dr. Una, one of her other coaching students. She works as an attending there as an anesthesiologist and got me the gig. So there's traveling, that that's something to put on my resume, and financially was good for me. And then also, just by who I was in residency, I was always going to different meetings and representing. There was only five of us. I was one of the first in the inaugural class of family medicine residents on the campus of Gwinnette Medical Center, which is now Northside Hospital. And I was just basically the face of it. Every single meeting or anything that there was to be at Christmas party, New Year's Eve party, any, you know, department meetings, I was there showing my face. And so at the end of that, all five of us actually wanted to stay on board as an attending and enter attending hood with the hospital system, but they only offered two out of five of us jobs. And I think that had a lot to do with the fact that getting along with everybody and my face was very visible versus, I guess, some of my other colleagues that didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything, didn't make any connections, and um they weren't offered anything. They basically had to go outside of the hospital system to look for work, even though we're at a deficit for primary care in the state of Georgia and for everybody. So I think the networking was really helpful for that. I would also say the biggest, another big thing is recently, since March at the beginning of COVID, I started a group called White Coats and Gavels. And so that's basically every woman of color that is a physician, judge, or like lawyer basically in Atlanta and surrounding areas. We got in a group together that I started, I had like a mixer right before pandemic hit at the beginning of March, and then that week is when everything shut down. And so, because of the pandemic, and also because my skill of galvanizing people, I was able to bring those two groups together where the lawyers were scared about COVID. And so they would ask the physicians questions about their kids, about themselves, about anything medical, we would answer. And then the other half, when like my job thought that they could send me back to work without PPE, I basically verbalized, I need some verbiage here, guys. I need to snap back real quick, politically correct, but like snap back. I'm not going back into the clinic until y'all get me PPE. And basically, they were able to contribute that to my life, along with other things like personally when I needed a ticket or whatever, and got represented. And then one of the judges was actually the one at the at the front. She was like, I got you, wink. I was like, okay. And then I got my license back and everything. So that has been beneficial in a personal and then in a very much financial way. And also, because we I was very supportive of a bunch of the women who are now basically in superior court, or I would say that there's probably about 20 of these women who are currently judges in Atlanta in Atlanta and surrounding areas. And I don't know when that will pay off, but I know that it has to in the future at some point be in connect with basically every judge in Atlanta and surrounding areas, in, you know, that my name would be known around if it was mentioned, that it would have a positive connotation to it if anybody ever mentioned me, that my reputation preceded me in a positive way. And that was all through through networking, through bringing that together. So that has been really, really beneficial. Networking has been exponentially got me everything that I'm that I'm here now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

So at this point, I I and everyone in the group are going like, well, I mean, connected to 20 judges, got a job, got all the way to CNN to do it, you know, as a medical expert correspondent. But like, okay, all right, enough. Give us your best tips. How do we become rock stars at networking? What would you say?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Okay, so I would say just to get out and advertise your booty, you need to get out and get two events in which there are going to be people that are like you or in different scenes that you would like to be in. Or if it's somebody that is in a position that you are striving for. So, like Dr. Una, she's to me hashtag goals. So I'm gonna stay in circles where she's at and even come here, be with you guys, because it's a benefit to both of us for me to network with Dr. Una and be in her circle and be here in the first place. So basically be around those successful people and go to go around and advertise your booty. Be around everywhere where people see your face, even if they don't know your name, or if they do know your name and they attach it to a face that was familiar, there's a better chance of whatever you need, whether it be a job or a referral or anything, that you would be seen in a positive light versus negative or just neutral. They would have something to say about you over somebody else. Another thing is when you get somebody's social media or cards when you meet them for the first time, don't wait for a long time before you contact them. So if you get their email or their cell phone number, I actually do this, and it might be kind of awkward, but I'll take a selfie, I'll be like, smile, I'll take a selfie, and then I'll literally send them the picture of us so that they know the place where we met and they can place my face when I send like my card or whatever. And and then if they're on social media, I'll go and stalk them a little bit by going and actually commenting and liking a bunch of their pictures so that I show up like 20 times like this person liked this many pictures and commented on this, it leaves a positive connotation too. Like, I don't care if you think I'm a stalker, whatever. You you recognize me, you notice me. Okay. The next thing is if it's in person, if it's away from COVID when we're back in person, the best place to hang out is next to the food or the drink place. Here's why. Because if somebody comes in, they put their coat away, they come to the networking events, they go get their drink or go get their food, and then they face the crowd and they try to figure out what to do, where to go, what their next step is. Why don't you be the hero and go rescue them by introducing yourself and you give them something new to do? You you are their next plan. Like you stepped up and said, Oh, what did you get to drink? Or who do you know that brought you here? Do you know the host? Or how is this connected? And you are actually the savior. So that's the best place to hang out when we're back in person, is next, right next to the bar or next to the food place where where you are their rescue when they face the room. Another thing that I do is basically over the last decade on social media, I don't just like, because if you just like things, you get lost in the sauce. So I actually take time to make a comment if it's an emoji or then something truly meaningful that shows that you took the time to write happy birthday, or if they had a win, you wrote on it, or if their kid is cute, you wrote how that's cute, how your kid picked you that flower or whatever. Commenting means something. Even if you they don't say thank you or reciprocate, again, in the future, their perspective of you is going to be something very positive. If at any point in the future your you as a human being come up, whether it's professionally or personally, it'll it'll be something positive. So those are some of my hit my um tips. Yeah, so like go stock them, like their com, you know, everybody likes people who like them. Everybody wants to be liked. So if you show that you're really enjoying their pictures and are enjoying them, they're gonna have a positive perspective of you.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

All right, super cool. And social media, I can say social media works really nicely for Dr. Barbara Joy, because this is what tends to happen. Oh, I'm looking for a family doctor, and I'm in Atlanta. They're like, well, if you want to drive, Dr. Barbara Joy's impeached cards, it's not too far, but you should go to her. And literally, you see one post, and it's like 12 different people. Like they didn't see all the other times somebody tagged her. There's 12 different people tagging her back to back to back. And that's one of the main reasons why they're 50% ahead of projection, because even the people who are hosts for TV gigs that she's done, they're shouting her out, and on social media, they're shouting her out, and you see that nonstop. And I wanted to take a moment and ask you this because you're really good at this too, because someone may be thinking, well, I don't have all that time to be on social media forever, right? Like, so how do you balance it? Because you have a job, you work four days a week, and you don't want social media overtaking your life. So, how do you balance it where you're able to engage with people's posts, but you're still the boss of social media, it's not the boss of you.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Right. Like social media can serve you, or you can serve it. So I would say lately what I'll do is basically set an alarm. So I'll be very intentional that this particular 60 minutes is for social media to interact and to comment and to kind of manage the white coats and gavels group just to go in and be present. And then once the alarm goes off, then I have to go into something else that is useful. But it's very intentional for that hour. And so I'll do that. And then at my lunch break, I may spend 15 minutes before I, you know, go take a walk outside or take lunch. So just intentional when I do it, not just lightheartedly going about it. Like I'm intentional when I get on, that that's my purpose is to engage and get engagement as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

So we're not just scrolling and looking at funny cap videos, as I always say, and scroll itis and you know, all of that stuff. Okay, so this is intentional. And what I usually say is, you know, if Max Zuckerberg were on Facebook, he's on there, he's not just scrolling, right, and looking at funny cap videos. He's there as an entrepreneur. How do I make this product better? How do I keep people on here longer? What do I do to give them a better experience? So I'm like, if Mark is gonna do that, then so am I. Right? So it is social media, yes, but as entrepreneurs, we can have times where we show up there as entrepreneurs with intentionality, as she says. Okay, now I remember I had an episode about networking that had come out, I want to say it was in January or so. And then people listening to it, they're like, oh, well, now there's COVID, so everything's virtual. And so that means no networking. I'm like, no, it there's still networking. The way we're doing is just a little different. So since COVID hit and you've had to network virtually, more so, you know, more often than not, is virtual. Actually, all the time is virtual. Have you pivoted? Have you adapted? Have you stayed in networking mode even in this time?

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yes, I definitely have, but it is virtual at this point. So basically, I've been um a podcast guest. So if I meet anybody who has a podcast, I'll find a way to be on their podcast in whichever way that they need. So it might be there was a megachurch who had me on, so they wanted to know about COVID. There was the women aviation group of America, and I got on for them. Basically, if anybody invites me on to speak, I'm there. So I'm doing that. And then also, there are a lot of our colleagues that I don't know that I do want to know and be in their good graces. So if they're doing a Facebook Live or they're putting on their own Zoom or an Instagram live or any of that, I will go on, even not even if it's interesting, I'll stay on the whole time if I'm learning something. But I might go on for five or 10 minutes and be very loud the whole time. Meaning if they say something nice, they'll be like, wow, that was so profound. I'm gonna save that. Or, wow, you ladies look beautiful. I love your scarf, you know, Dr. K. Marie, or ask a question, just basically engage them where they acknowledge that this person took the time out of their day to come on my Facebook Live or my Instagram live and make a comment about how they enjoyed what the content that I had to say, or that they agree with me or compliment me on my scarf or my hair, or that they saw me someplace else and they're they really enjoyed this. So it doesn't take the full 50, 60 minutes that some people are on. I may take five to 10 minutes and be very active in their face talking and they recognize that. So later on, they engage me a lot because they saw that I took my time and just, I guess, what is the word, modest or just like I'm always open to constantly learning, even as I progress in many things, and Dr. Una is saying you're an expert at this, I always try to like be completely open-minded. There's something new for me to learn from every single person. Every person can teach me something. And so if I come in humble like that, people love to contribute to others. So I let people know and I acknowledge when they contribute to me, even if it's small or to make me laugh or to make me smile, and it makes them feel good. And then if it's somebody very important in the time of COVID, what I'll do is there are opportunities to be outside. So I'll invite them to a restaurant or to coffee where there's an outside seating where it's getting colder, so maybe there's a heat lamp, but then they can't deny me because I'm saying, I'll pay for it. There's a heat lamp, it's outside, it's COVID safe or whatever. Meet me there and let's have a latte or you know, shrimp tempura or whatever. So if there's somebody that I need to extrapolate something from them and they're doing something that I need to learn, then I'll try to take, I'll date them, I'll take them on a date and um make it COVID safe. So yeah, I I would say those are my tips on how I pivoted in the pandemic. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Awesome. And I and I think a lot of it too, even before the pandemic, I think we were more virtual than we thought. Because uh, Dr. Barbara Joy, you and I, our first encounter was, it may have been social media. And then we talked on the phone a lot. And then I think Entre MD Live was the first time we actually met in person.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Yes, actually, the first time was at the Atlanta Modern Luxury launch for their, they were giving awards to female physicians that. were doing good stuff in the community.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Oh yeah, that was before OnTram D Live. But we had been talking for months and months and months by that time, right? So it was it was very virtual, even though we were we're in COVID.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah, it definitely was. It started off virtual and then we we took it offline. Yeah. And then now it's back online.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Love it. Okay. So I'm gonna ask you one more question and then I'm gonna open this up so people can ask their questions because I'm sure they have them. But before I do that, I want to point out something because the strategy that she's talking about about engaging, I want to show you how much it pays off, right? So I'm yeah you may see me looking down I'm on her on her Facebook page and she has 3900 friends, which in the Facebook world that's not a whole lot of friends, right? But if you look through her posts, you see so many posts with 100 likes, 200 likes, 500 likes, 600 likes, and that's not even the wedding. Do you see what I mean? And there's tons of comments and all of that stuff. And the reason for that is because of the amount of engagement that she does, it's like people are like, oh that's my friend, right? And everybody's commenting, you know, so I remember being really amazed by the ratio of you know number of people versus number of amount of engagement you get. So I'm just saying that to say this stuff works, right? So what would you say to the person who is just starting off? So let's say social media they don't have they don't really have a lot of followers. They're just trying to build their audience they they want to do a Facebook live but they're like there's nobody here to talk to what would you tell that person? How do they start?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

I would say like like you always say sloppy action but at least forward action like start start posting start doing your lives and you'll soon enough start to acquire but you want the right audience. And so as you are basically displaying what you have to offer whether it be medical tips or talking about COVID and the new vaccine or whatever it is or things that you enjoy doing, you still have credibility just because you're a physician, you're held to a higher standard in society just for that period. And also don't think that just because somebody's not liking it or commenting that doesn't mean that it's not engaging them. There are a lot of people that I have come to visit me and Dr. Una as well that they never commented, never liked, but they can basically tell me every post I put up so just because you don't see it through the numbers and the likes or the comments doesn't mean people aren't watching. And sometimes people for whatever reason that that's all they do they just what is the word they just snoop or or in in you know behind and just looking at things but but they're actually really engaged and you may not find out until later that that's the case. So don't just look at the evidence of it through the numbers keep going and you'll you'll eventually get who you need to get and also it is the the quality of that. So it is true that I may only have you know 3900 on Facebook but you know my I think it was my my wedding photo got like 2000 likes and then on on Instagram I think I have 6,000 now and I'll get up to a thousand or two thousand and then I have a girlfriend who has 3000 and she may get a thousand likes. So when you think about it that's more engagement because I guess people felt that they could connect to me or connect to whatever I was saying or my message and relate to it. So they felt inclined to take action versus just perusing. So I just keep going.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Even when you don't notice that people have noticed they're watching they're really they're observing and they're watching and they're reading well right I trust that you enjoyed that I trust that you got a lot of valuable nuggets out of it. And so what I want to do is to challenge you to take action on it. Don't just listen to this and say oh that was pretty and cute but take action on it. Networking will dramatically change your business it'll dramatically change your life it'll dramatically change every aspect of your life so go do it. All right and I want you to pay this forward by taking a screenshot of this episode and sharing your biggest aha moment on social media. Okay so screenshot in the caption put your biggest aha moment ask somebody else to listen to this episode with you and I will see you on the very next episode of the OmtreMD podcast hey if you love listening to the Om Train D podcast I want to invite you to join OnTraMD On Demand. It is my signature subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur and that is to thrive. Just head out to ontramd.com forward slash on demand and I love to have you join us. See you on the inside