The EntreMD Podcast

3 Things That Make Events Useless to You

Dr. Una Episode 355

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In this episode, Dr. Una unpacked three mistakes people make when they attend events and how to fix them.
This simple tweak will help you get a 10X return on investment for every event you attend from now on.

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Speaker 1:

Hi dogs, welcome to the EntremD 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 Ibnah. Well, hello. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the EntremD podcast. I am actually sitting in my study working on the content for a workshop that I'm going to be hosting a little bit, and so I didn't set up EntremD just to do a business. It started off as a mission, and it is a mission to support doctors in these crazy times that we live in, where there's a loss of autonomy, there's a burnout, there's a financial instability, there's so many private practices going out of business and all of that. And I saw a statistic that there were 11,000 practices that either went out of business or sold to private equity in 2021, and I was thrown off by it. I didn't realize that there were that many, right? And then I remember doing presentations where I'm like, for the first time in history, more private practices are owned by hospitals and PE than physicians, and it was up 46%. I remember that not too long ago. And then I saw the new data, and the new data shows 30%. So not only is it not less physicians, but it's a lot less physician. That number is going down. And so, between the practices that were shutting down or selling out to private equity not by choice, but just the frustration of everything going on to only 30% being owned by physicians and then in the Facebook groups, I'll constantly see like I finally decided to shut it down, I shut it down, I shut it down, I shut it down and I'm like, oh my goodness. And so I said there are some things that are macro, things like the insurance reimbursements and things like that that was going to. There is work being done on that, but that's a bigger mountain to move. But I was like there is still a lot that we can do so that we can stay profitable and we can live life on our terms and practice medicine on our terms. This is stuff that many doctors in the on-term, the business school have been able to do. This is something that I've been able to do and I was like, okay, well, how about we bring a solution to the market? And so I'm hosting this workshop where I'm showing doctors seven ways. They're leaving money on the table every single day, right, and I'm like we may not have fixed the other ones yet, but these are things that you have 100% control over, and you can start fixing those and kind of give yourself a raise, right, get a cash injection and improve the financial stability and maybe reduce the need to work as many hours and things like that. And so, in the process of doing it like an event that is truly transformational, a match made in heaven, has it's a collaboration, right, and so my job is to show up like you paid me 10 grand to be at this event, right, if you paid me 10 grand, I know I would want to deliver a return on investment, and at least 10X, right. So at least you should get 100 grand out of what we're going to learn. And I've done the calculations. Yes, that's easy, right. Okay, so I'm going to be showing up that way. I want people to have a real return on investment. Now, this is a free event. By the way, if you haven't registered, it's on tramdcom For a slash practice, okay, so it's a free event, but I'm showing up like it's a $10,000 event, okay. Now the second part of the equation is the person who's attending the event showing up like they paid 10 grand for it. So if you, first of all, you pay 10 grand for event, you are going to be there, right? You're not going to miss the event, right? So you're going to be there, you're going to shut off all distractions, you're going to lean all in. But there are three mistakes that I find that people make when they attend events. Now, yes, I'm talking about this in the context of the workshop that I'm hosting, but this applies to any event. You go for a retreat, for instance, the entrepreneur business school. We have a vision retreat coming up, right. So you go to retreat, or you go to your association annual events, or you go to whatever that is. Whatever that event is, I'm going to show you three mistakes that make sure that that event was just useless to you, like completely useless. You were there, you may have even been a little inspired, but when you look back, you're not going to see any return on investment. Okay, so I want to talk about those and you're going to use this, you're going to use this for every event you attend from now on every webinar, every masterclass, every conference, every retreat, every lunch, and learn Like anything you're going to, because you're like this is going to change my life. I'm going to show you the things to not do so it can change your life. Okay, all right. So the first thing, the first thing is approaching it with pessimism, right, like you're like. So somebody, for the sake of the workshop I'm hosting, someone, may come in and say, well, I don't believe anything you're saying, because it's not about what we can do. Like, private practice just sucks, period, because of all the things insurance companies are doing. There's nothing we can do. We've done all we can do. If you approach an event like that, you will get nothing from it, nothing. And so, if that is the attitude, you might as well save yourself the cost, right? So you were going to fly somewhere, but you've already made up your mind. This doesn't work and all of that stuff. Save yourself the flight ticket, save yourself the hotel bill, save yourself the time away from your family. Go have a great time with your family. Don't even bother. Okay, if you show up an event and you want this event to blow your mind, you want it to change your life, you have to approach it with a sense of optimism Wow, what am I going to learn? A sense of curiosity, right, like, where you're open-minded. Like, why would they say that Huh, what if I did that? What? That is the approach, right? Well, I don't think about that that way. What if I did that? What could that look like? What would the result be? In my business? You have to approach it with optimism and curiosity, otherwise you will hear nothing, otherwise you won't be open to get anything out of it, and it won't matter that you are there. Okay, now let me give a few other examples, right, because I'm talking about events in general and not just this workshop. But, for instance, you go to an event, you're a coach, it's a business event, and you decide ahead of time well, coaches don't make money from coaching. They cannot replace their physician salary with coaching. Then, don't go. Like, why are you going? Don't go. You've already made up your mind, right? Or you can say oh, people don't buy high ticket items, and so because this stuff is high ticket, it's not going to work, it's just fake. People don't buy that, right? Or people don't value low ticket items, and it's an event for that. And you're like so don't go, right, private practice is dead. Okay, then don't come to the workshop. You know what I mean. And when I say don't come, I really hope what you're hearing is I can change my attitude, right, it's a very simple flip. It's from. This doesn't work to hmm, I wonder how this could work. I wonder how this could be possible. I heard just her doctor, eunice, and extra 100,000. And to be honest with you, my number is more like 500,000, but I'll just say 100,000 to be conservative. And you hear that you're like I don't believe that. You can say, hmm, I wonder how that's possible, right, like it's a simple flip, so don't not attend it. I'm just trying to get you to see that it will be useless. So attend it but make a simple flip Like how could that? I wonder how that could be possible, right? So other examples oh, this works if people, if the practice is cash-based, or this only works if the practice is insurance-based and all of that. So the thing is that all of these things work. There are people in DPC who are killing it. There are people with insurance-based practices who are killing it. There are coaches who are killing it. There are people who are doing low-ticket who are killing it. There are people who are doing high-ticket who are killing it. There are a lot of coaches who have replaced their physician salary. So all of these things work, they could all work. Now you're going to figure out what's going to work for you, but the idea is, drop the pessimism for whatever event you're going to Come with optimism wow, this could work. And show up going, huh, I wonder how this could work, right? I mean, like, what's the worst that can happen? You already don't know how it's going to work. So maybe you could find how it could work. And if you didn't find it which you will find if you come from my event, but if you don't find it, you're still just where you were. You didn't lose anything, right? Okay, so that's the first one pessimism, and just look for it, like, where is it in me? Right, and then just make a simple switch, be optimistic, like, maybe, hmm, maybe I could find something that will make this work, maybe I could find something that will make a huge difference, right, and you're curious like huh, they said that they think different from me. How do they think like that? Why do they think like that? Oh, that's how they worked it. I wonder if that could work for me. Optimism and curiosity, okay, all right. So that's the first thing. The second thing, the second mistake, is looking for shiny objects, right? And the reason why I bring this up is, if you listen to the podcast, you know that I am really committed to simplicity, right, I don't talk about complex things. I actually take complex things and make them simple. I don't talk about 35 steps. I will talk about 35 or seven, with three being my favorite, and I don't look for fads. I look for the timeless, classic, proven things that have always worked. I will continue to work. And so, for instance, someone coming to my workshop chances are you're not going to hear something that you're like I have never, ever, ever remotely heard that in my life. Now, you may, you may, but chances are you will not. It is in the simplification of it, so you can consistently execute on it, so you can get the result Okay, and so you know this. This happens without fail. Every event I do. Wow, this is so simple. I'm like yes, but don't let the simplicity come confuse you. It is profound and it will get you the result. My job is to make it simple so you can understand it, so you can execute on it, so your team can execute on it for you. That is my job. My job is to make it simple when you say this is so simple, I'm like good job, dr Una. You did your job. And so sometimes you're looking for something you've never heard before. But the execution of a combination of things you have heard before is sometimes what you need to create the big break. Yes, you can hear some things you've never heard before, but chances are you hear things you've heard before that maybe you didn't understand. Now you understand. You hear things you heard before and you did understand, but you didn't execute on it. So now you know what to do so you can consistently execute on it. You heard something before you understood it. You thought you would do it, but it would make more sense for your team to do it, and now you know for your team to do it. It's not about knowing. It's about executing and getting the result. And so, even if you hear the same things, when you hear something like I've heard that before, that's the wrong statement. The question to ask is but am I doing it? Am I doing it? Am I doing it consistently? That's the question. It's not about if you heard it before. You've been alive long enough. If you've been an entrepreneur for long enough, you've heard a lot of things and chances are you're going to hear repetition of the same thing, repetition after repetition. But the thing about repetition is repetition is the mother of deep and lasting transformations or impressions. Okay, so be okay. Even if you don't hear earth shattering, brand new stuff, stay curious, ask yourself am I doing this? Am I doing it? Because, if you're not, maybe you need to hear it again. Okay, okay. So that's number two. Okay, so think about your shiny objects as junk food for kids, right? And what makes them healthy is the same old, same old. The same old veggies, the same old fruits, the same old drink of water, some carbs, all of those things. Exercise is the same old thing. So they're classic, proven things. You are going to hear them over and over and over and over again, and your thing would be to either get a deeper understanding so you can do it, or to do it better, or to do it bigger, or to do it through your team. There's so many modifications, but it's the same thing. So don't be thrown off because you didn't find a shiny object. Okay, all right, because looking for shiny objects, that's a mistake. You can lose out. You can lose out on your ROI, your return on investment, on an event. Okay, number three. Number three is is lack of execution. Okay, lack of execution. So you've heard the theme, you understand the concept, you know what to do, you've done the calculations, you know this will work. If you don't have the intent and the follow through to execute, then you'll know what will create the result. But you're not going to create the result because you're not doing it right. And I find that it takes motivation and accountability. So there's the intent, there's the motivation, the accountability to follow through with what you decide to do. And the intent can look like I schedule, for instance, you're at the workshop and you're like, oh, my goodness, if we did this, it will, it will total. Oh my word, like we can, we can easily add 50 grand, 100 grand to the bottom line. If we do this and it has something to do with your biller and you schedule right there, you send a message to the biller, you schedule a schedule, an appointment, it's all in the books. So there's the intent. Your scheduling is kind of a little layer of accountability there, right? So your forth. So sometimes people say, oh, I struggled with execution. I'm like everybody does, like the most disciplined people do right. It's just that they've built mindset, tricks, people, programs, systems in place to keep them accountable. But I mean, there's nothing wrong with you because you struggle with execution. This is being human. Okay, so the intent so you're making decisions as you go, right, like you're making decisions. You can schedule those decisions. You can have an accountability partner, right, you can find yourself in a community, like we built one it's called the EntryMD Business School where you are in a community of doers, and so you're constantly looking like doers, you're constantly inspired by doers, you're constantly inspired by what they're doing, because motivation wears off. It does, it does, and this way you get exposed to it every day. Right, okay, so the execution so plan to execute. The starting point of execution is making decisions. Right? So maybe we talk about one way that private practices are leaving money on the table, and you're like I'm deciding, we're not going to do this anymore, so this is what we're now going to do. You schedule a meeting with whoever you need to work on that with right away. You have another buddy who's in private practice, or you're in the EntryMD Business School, and you're like, okay, we're going to get this done and this is the day that I'm going to do it. And then you follow through with it, right. If you make mistakes or you don't keep up to the commitments you made to yourself, show yourself grace and boom, get back on it. Right? Okay, good, I'll do that. Compared to the low cost. Ok, if you will be the person who will show up at an event and you're optimistic and curious, you are okay, not seeing shiny objects. Like you don't say that conference, I mean everything they said. I heard it before, like why, why? Why? Why? If you have the results, yes, but if you don't come on, so you're gonna show up, understanding that what makes businesses work? It's like classic, timeless, proven strategies, and I may hear the same thing over and over again, but it's not about have I heard it before? Is it working for me? Am I doing it? Cause? If I'm not, then I probably need to hear it again and then do it. And then, third, if you'll decide that I'm gonna start taking action immediately, I'm gonna start executing immediately. You will be this person who always gets a return on event, on investment, for every event you attend. I do not lose money on events. I have never lost money on an event since I learned these things. When I go to an event I show up. I get massive results because I do these three things. So if you are a private practice owner and you're coming for the workshop, I wanna invite you to come. This way, it will change your practice. If you're not a private practice owner, there are events you're going to attend. There are retreats you're going to attend. There are conferences you're going to attend. Show up this way. It will change your business. It will change your life, all right. So if you found this episode really helpful, what I would love for you to do is to take this episode, share it with another doctor in your life. Tell them oh, my goodness, you need to take a listen to this. Let's do this together. That could be your accountability buddy and you're coming for the private practice workshop. Get somebody who's an accountability buddy. There's a whole Facebook group for you, so there's gonna be people in a group. But then you decide I'm gonna act. I'm gonna go to day one. I'm gonna act day two. I'm gonna act day two. If you do that, you have a brand new practice. Okay, so share this episode with another doctor in your life. You can share it on social media. Tag us, hashtag EntreeMD. I'd love to shout you out for doing that as well, because you're a critical part of the EntreeMD movement, sharing the message that we're just one skill away from living life and practicing medicine on our terms. So thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the EntreeMD Podcast. Hey, if you love listening to the EntreeMD Podcast, I wanna invite you to join EntreeMD 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 EntreeMDcom, forward slash on demand and I'd love to have you join us. See you on the inside.