The EntreMD Podcast

How I Surpassed a Year's Revenue in Six Months with Dr. Heather Awad

• Dr. Una • Episode 372

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Secrets of a successful entrepreneur or an adventurous journey to self-discovery? I can promise you, this episode with Dr. Heather is both. I'm thrilled for you to hear this story of family doctor turned life and weight loss coach who has revolutionized the lives of countless women. 

Drawing on her rich experiences, Dr. Heather provides a fascinating narrative of transitioning from a physician to an entrepreneur, signifying the importance of a supportive community and consistent learning. She further illuminates her business strategies that led to a significant increase in her revenue. So significant that she was able to surpass what she made in one year, in only six months!

In this episode you will also hear her unique approach towards team building and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. More than just advice, this episode is filled with lessons from Dr. Heather’s personal entrepreneurial journey that you just can't afford to miss!

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

  • 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.
  • 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 ...

Speaker 1:

Hi docs, 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. Welcome back to another episode of the Entremd podcast. Here I have a phenomenal physician here. I'm Dr Hedda-Wad. I'm so excited she's here, because we tried to do this interview I don't know a few months ago and I was managing my own schedule, which is always a disaster, and so disaster happened. So I've delegated appropriately and here we are. So we're going to have a real conversation into her journey over a 90 day period because in Entremd Business School, we live 90 days at a time and just for you to get a feel for the difference that kind of time slot can make us. We're always rooting for physicians. I'm a firm believer that we make the best entrepreneurs and it's time for us to take medicine back, take healthcare back, take our lives back. So this is going to be a really great conversation. So, dr Heather, I am so excited. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for inviting me. I'm thrilled to be here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I'm going to give you a moment to introduce yourself. I love what you do. I don't qualify yet to be to be one of your clients yet, but if you could introduce yourself to the listener.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So I'm a family doctor and life and weight loss coach and the people I work with are women around the perimenopause menopause age, so I help women over age 50 lose weight. For the last time, I had my own struggle with this. My weight was pretty fine over the years, having four babies and everything, and then all of a sudden, not changing anything. I just noticed that I was gaining weight and my waist was expanding and everything in my late 40s. So I tried kind of the usual things and that didn't work at all and did some yo-yo dieting which was demoralizing and terrible. And then so I so then I thought, well, I can figure this out, I can do some research. So then I really dialed into the insulin resistance piece that comes when your estrogen starts to drop, and so learning that really helped me. And then I got some life coaching for some other reasons actually, and then learning how to have my own back a little better and to choose what I want to do really helped me lose the rest of the weight really easily. So I decided to bring this to the world myself. I was always kind of that food. As medicine doctor anyway, I love talking about nutrition, so it was a good fit for my business.

Speaker 1:

That's excellent. So you and I are similar in that in that case, right Like we solved a problem for ourselves and then we looked out and said, okay, who else can we, can we do this? For I want to do a little bit of a detour and ask you about this, because there is one thing about wanting to help people and understanding the mechanics of helping the people, the service and all of that, and there's a whole other thing, that's business, right. What was the biggest challenge as far as making that transition from physician to physician? Entrepreneur, if you will.

Speaker 2:

I think the biggest thing for me was I liked when I would go to the clinic or the nursing home and the patients were just there, I didn't have to get them. That part where I thought this is the, this is easy, I just show up and they fill my schedule so that when you have your own business you have to fill your own schedule. So that's the part that's been was the biggest mindset shift and the biggest challenge. And now it's kind of a fun part, but that's the biggest challenge.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so now I want to hear a little bit more about that. What do you think made it fun? Because there are people who have had their businesses for a while and they're still in resistance, right, like, they're still like I can't believe I have to do this. When can I delegate it? When can I? When do I outgrow it? I'm like I don't, I don't know what to tell you, but what would you say to that person? Because you're saying it's almost the the fun part what we tell them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I think you just have to accept that the stuff that you want to do is is still there. But that as the CEO, and trying to grow things, that marketing and getting the word out about how you serve people so you can help more people is always part of it. I think some of the fun part for me is that I'm in a community where we're all doing this together, so it's fun. We share ideas, we laugh about things like doing TikTok videos and things we never thought we would do, so it's it's hilarious. Some of the time it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:

So now it's it's. You're in a community where all of these things are happening, and so that normalizes it right, cause everybody's going through the same thing. So, big deal, get in line, it's fine, okay. So I really want us to talk about this 90 day block for you. So, for the person listening, I mentioned this earlier we do live 90 days at a time, so we have four years and one we just celebrated like an EBS new year that's what that's what we call it and and then we take the time to look at what happened and things like that, and so I want us to talk about Q2 here and some of the things that were wins for you. I think you'll be generous enough to share some lessons as well, which will be so helpful to everyone. So what are some of the like highlights of that 90 day block for you? Sure?

Speaker 2:

I mean, the fact that we do a debrief on each quarter was super helpful for me, because I actually felt like we did a lot of building and program building all that quarter and then, when I actually did the math, we had made more in Q2 than in Q1. And we had made more in the first six months of the year than we had the whole year before. And that was a surprise to me until I did the math.

Speaker 1:

A very pleasant surprise, yeah it's very pleasant.

Speaker 2:

So then I started dialing down on kind of how that all happened. Part of that was I bumped my price up a little bit and it's funny, I didn't have to bump it all that much to really make some big gains. So that was a great win and we got better Our team we had been just launching three times a year. We decided let's just, let's keep it going all the time. Let people join all spring long and and just I think asking people more often really brought more people in.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, so this is fascinating because these are things, again, that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with, and you embrace them, which makes me go, wow, I wonder what's going to happen in the next six months. Right, if you're saying marketing is fun, you're raising prices, you're making more offers, because you describe two things here. Right, racing prices, which a lot of times there's a lot of drama around. Am I being greedy? Am I manipulating people? Am I giving them? Am I asking for too much? Maybe what I do is not that valuable, and things like that. What will people think? Will my current clients leave and all of those things? And so did you have any drama around that? Or you were just like no, that's totally logical, let's raise prices here.

Speaker 2:

No, I had a lot of drama around it. Yeah, my thought was, if my schedule isn't totally full then I shouldn't raise the price. But I did kind of with some encouragement, went through and thought about, wrote down what it costs to put this program on for people. Myself and another MD doctor are the coaches, so you're get so people work with us one on one and I have to pay that person and I have to pay myself. So looking at those things, I realized that I wasn't charging enough because I can't just pay the other doctor and not pay myself, and not the staff need to be paid, and so it's not a cheap program. And in the weight loss world there are cheap programs but it depends on if you want to spend time with a medical doctor every week during your weight loss program, then the price is what it costs.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I like all of that. And so what you're really, what you're really doing, is you're the uncertainty business. We have a funny way of saying, like the math has to math right. And so you did the math, like what is, what is the cost here? And to pay me, to pay the other person? And you're really like, yeah, so we're not charging enough to make this work. And I'm such a firm believer that your business relationships, your relationship between your clients, should be a win-win. They should get a massive win. You should get a massive win too. Right, that's, that's the way we want it. We don't want parasitic relationships. So doing that analysis is really powerful, and sometimes also even looking at the value of what the person gets right what is the opportunity cost of not working with you? And another thing you did is you acknowledge what kind of program you're running, like my program is not cheap, so I'm not trying to compete on price in that way, because that's not the kind of program I'm trying to build. If it was, you wouldn't have another MD right Working with you, or you have some automated recording, recorded thing and all that. But you're like no, I want to give high touch, high value, and so I'm not going to compete, because sometimes what people do is they want to give really high value but they want to compete with the cheaper alternative and I'm like it's one or the other right, the math has to math. Now the other quote unquote difficult thing you did is making a lot more offers, asking a lot more for people to work with you. So again, I'll go back to okay, that is something I mean like we will do everything right, Rather than ask we'll fix the website, we'll do another landing page, we'll create a whole new course, we'll do. I mean like we'll do everything, rather than ask. So what position do you think where you're able to follow through with that and make more offers, which clearly put you in a position where in the first six months of the year you did more than all of the year before?

Speaker 2:

Sure. Well, some of it is that I have an email list and I send people out a newsletter every week with ways that they can get wins and to teach them more about their own biology and their own nutrition. I have good open rates on that. People like what I'm sending them, so I made it possible for people to work with me more times. So instead of being like, well, you have to wait till May or you have to wait till September, people could, just when they were thinking of it, come in and I think that made a difference. I also just have really embraced, telling everyone everywhere I go, what I do. The other thing I do besides this is I do some real estate investing, so I was at a real estate conference, so some of these other things that I go to people find me again. Someone called me and I've seen her a year ago at a real estate conference and she said I was just thinking, I've been thinking about you for a couple of months and I wanted to know if I could work with you and because we're open all the time now, I could say yes, not, oh, we have to wait two months, or anything like that.

Speaker 1:

So that's powerful. I mean that's so good. So you tell, is I'm telling everybody, everywhere I go, this is what I do, because then again people are always looking, but if we don't tell them what we do then then they can't find us. This is so good and congrats. I'm glad you were pleasantly surprised by all of this. The other question I had because I noticed you had done a post in the group about your team. You're building a team, leading a team and all of that, and again, this is why I'm so impressed by what you're doing. That's another struggle point for a lot of entrepreneurs right, hiring the right people, building the culture, onboarding them, training them, delegating like significant tasks for them, so they're actually taking things off your plate. And so how did that play out for you in Q2, maybe even some of Q3? And what would you tell somebody who's thinking of hiring or maybe even having a hard time training their team and stuff like that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, all right. I mean, the thing I would tell you first is that you're going to mess it up. When you talked about team and training, team and EBS, I really perked my ears up because when I started this business, I actually hired two coaches and one of them quit because I was a bad boss and I agreed with her that I did not give her enough training, I did not give her enough support and I expected her to just show up and be able to do all the things. So when you talked about it, I thought I really need to pay attention to this. So I've been really working with trying to impart the culture to our team. So when we meet weekly, really showing them the vision of what's going on and how the steps we're doing right now, how that's moving us forward, we celebrate the wins of the business to gather and we celebrate their wins. What did they think? What did they do that week? That really went well. We're a small enough team that we have time to sit in and gloat over those things, big and small, but those have been really good. And then I've just really not expected. I hired people who have skills, really specific skills, but also not expecting them to show up and know how to do all the things, like I did with that first coach, knowing that I have to train them and how we do things in our program and just kind of asking what do they need to learn more about? Because even someone who shows up and says one of the people is a social media person but it turns out that writing is a difficulty for her. So we've been working on some of that stuff, so really trying to help them grow, and I shared in the post that one of the people I asked them what is your favorite things you do in the office with our business? Because they do a lot of things and I wanted to make sure that they got to keep doing more of the things they really enjoyed. And then one of them said actually one of the things I like are these meetings, because I feel that I'm more confident in what I'm doing, because we're talking about what's gone well and I can see how what I'm doing moves the business, and so I feel that part has really been motivating for them and I'm super proud of that part, even though all I did was kind of follow the formula that you taught us, but it really works.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So, just in case anybody missed this whole masterclass that you gave, because I actually started taking notes. I'm like she's spilling so many gems here. So this is I mean, I think about this right, Like you're doing, you're doing the meetings and you're doing them weekly, Like that alone just shows your commitment to building a team and your commitment to you know leveraging a team to get them, help you bring the vision to make that reality right. So there's weekly meetings, there's vision casting on those meetings. You're constantly sharing the vision. You're connecting. The actions like these are the things we're doing and this is how it's taking us towards that vision. Because once people can see that what I'm doing is not just this mundane task, is this thing that is really moving the needle, then it's very motivating, right. Because now is when they ask the janitor at NASA, what are you doing? They say oh, we're putting a man on the moon, right, Even though he was just cleaning. But they showed how everything is connected to putting a man on the moon. So here he is doing his work with pride, and they talk about celebrating the wins, and not just the company wins but their wins as well, which again connects them to the vision connects them to the company and then training them, no matter the skill level. So I did what you did. I was like your CV looks great, you have the skills I want. May the force be with you, right, Carry on, and it doesn't work. And so that statement you made about no matter the skill level they may be very skilled, but when they come in, I still have to show them how things work here, what is unique about us and all of those things, so that they can thrive. Otherwise they don't. That's so good. Thank you for sharing that. That's amazing, and I think in reading about Q2, I also read that you got to take Tuesdays off as well, and so not only did the revenue go up, you're doing this with your team, but then it sounds like you had more time for yourself and maybe projects or people that matter to you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, that was one of the things I really wanted for having my own business to is to have that freedom. My dad had his own business and I remember he would work really hard and then he'd be totally free when we were on vacation. Because of that last week we wouldn't see him very much, but then he was completely no phone calls or anything that week off. So I love that part of it. So I wanted to. Time is a construct and we make it what it is so I can work all the time if I want to. But if I just take Tuesdays off, then I can do the work on the other days and somehow I get really focused in on not doing busy work but doing the work for my business. That really moves it forward, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like a KA eat those frogs, right? Yes, and if you're listening to this and you're not in the untrimmed business school, you haven't read Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy. You just need to read the book, okay, and then you'll get it. So one of the things we do when we do the debrief is we also look at the lessons learned, right, and so there are probably a number. When you reflect, these are the things that maybe I would do differently, or things I now know because of the experiences I had. What is you can give us one or two like some of the lessons you pulled from there and you're taking them with you, sure?

Speaker 2:

There was still a lot of busy work time at the end of the summer. By the end of this last summer I was like I am working too many hours again, I'm overworking again and I think as physicians it's super easy because we're really good at overworking. So putting putting some hard stops on the end of the day, saturday is an absolute no work day for me. In fact, I write it on my calendar and I have to remind myself in the middle of the day when I'm thinking about work, it's Saturday. You don't work on Saturday, so that that's a continuous thing, I think, for me. Also, there's still more stuff to do with team. I have one of my team members loves for me to tell her everything to do and wants to come ask a lot of questions, and I'm happy to answer questions, but I I'm getting better at saying, well, why don't you just do it? And? And then we'll come back and we can look at it after it's done, to give her more responsibility for her own work, which is also something that UBS and I guess I wouldn't have known how to do that, but that's something we're really working on too.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing, and the hard stops that's so powerful. For me personally, it was a little complicated, because first I'm a doctor and then I have these businesses and then I love business and I love people and all that stuff. So it was hard. And I'm an introvert. So when I'm quiet and just sitting, it doesn't mean I'm not working right, because I could be fabricating a whole right, creating a whole business plan, even though I'm just seated and quiet. So I had to use the strategy you use, which is the hard stops, like, okay, after this, we don't do this anymore. Right, to kind of discipline myself, to peddle back. But thank you for sharing that, because what we don't want to do is to leave the burnout in medicine and then create our own ecosystem and then create our own burnout. Now you have nobody to blame, right, like you did this to yourself and so, yeah, that's powerful that you're doing that. So when you were done with the debrief, how did that feel? When you think about the results you got in your business, in your life, the lessons you learned, thinking about the quarter after that, how did that feel for you?

Speaker 2:

Oh, it felt amazing. Like I said, I was surprised that we made more money. I mean, that's in a business. That's always an amazing thing. So just looking at how we shifted, how we wanted to do business, and how that worked as well was great. Even though there were lessons that we learned along the way for things we wanted to change. It was great to see we wanted to do things differently and the results were good.

Speaker 1:

So that was great, that's amazing, and I'll tell you this I mean you like eating frogs. So this is a good thing and I think, as the time goes on, these are wins that are just going to become bigger and bigger. Lessons we will always have right as long as we're here, but these are going to become bigger and bigger because, really, you're not as averse to doing the will be considered the difficult thing, but it's really the thing that moves the needle, so that's super powerful. So my final question here maybe, will be so this is you in a container. You talked about the community a number of times and normalizing, doing these challenging things and all of that. What would you say to the doctor who's? I'm a physician, I'm an entrepreneur and I really want to make some traction in my business. I maybe, like you, right, they went through something and they've converted that into a business and they actually love being a doctor where they show up and the patients are there, as opposed to here, where it's okay. It looks like this is a completely different world. What would you tell them about the on-trimmedy business school? And because I will always say, of course, come on in, right, and you're like no, I want to hear from a real doc who's in there. So what will you tell them?

Speaker 2:

Well, I would say that the I mean the community itself is so inspiring. The work that you've done since you've had both practices and multiple businesses, is super inspiring and it gives you a place to teach from. That really helps us looking at both being in practice and then moving to having a business. I just I don't think I could have gone as quickly. I think if business seems hard, it's a great place to come in, because then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can see the next steps. That's really helpful. There are so many different aspects of business and I think we just hit all of them in EBS, so that's super helpful. I mean, if your business is just easily ticking along, then maybe you don't need it and or maybe you want to come because of the mastermind of all the physicians who are here, because there are people who are new and there are people who have stayed years and have a lot to share. But if any aspect of your business is not easy, I would come here and you'll be able to move a lot faster and and move forward. I think that's just been a terrific thing about being here.

Speaker 1:

Well, I like moving forward, I like moving faster, and I love the way you put it. If any part of your business is hard, yeah, I like that, I may borrow it. I'll give you credit, I'll give you credit. Thank you so much for like taking us behind the scenes and sharing what business has been like and your experiences, the lessons you learned, the wins Like. These are all. These are all great. You threw in a few master classes and and and that's really, really good. I want you to tell the listener where they can find you, since this is what you now do. You tell everybody what you do or where they can find you. So someone is listening or someone has somebody in their world, and I want to say this before I even say that we're physicians, and so if you're listening to this and you know someone who is a good referral or anything like that, I want you to do Dr Heather Asolid, because she came out here and spilled all the beans that took us behind the scenes, which that there's vulnerability to that Right. That's you putting yourself out there, and so the way you can say thank you is by connecting with her, with someone who would be a great client. So we support each other, all right, so tell us where we can find you, sure.

Speaker 2:

You can find me at LinkedIn or other socials, at Heather Awad MD my website is HeatherAwadMDcom If you want to learn more about my program. I do have a podcast, the Vibrant MD podcast, where we talk about weight loss, women's health and food really for the midlife woman and beyond, and those are probably the good places. Those are the good places.

Speaker 1:

All right, and so the person who would be an ideal person for you would be somebody who is over 50 and then it's kind of in your shoes back in the day, has this stubborn weight they can't get rid of, and things like that.

Speaker 2:

Right, it's kind of showed up perimenopause, menopause, life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, all right. So we're at HeatherAwadcom, right, you can find her podcast. We're already on a podcast platform, so just look for Vibrant MD.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I was like, is there a health there, vibrant MD? Okay, so look for it there. Subscribe again. We support each other. So again, thank you so much for coming on and I will see you soon in the group or on our Wednesday call. But for everyone listening, I want you to take this episode and I want you to share it with the doctors in your life, because these are the stories that help other people transform their lives, especially if that person is a physician coach. Just reach out and say, hey, I have a gift for you. Boom, send them the link. Okay, they'll thank you for it and I'll see you on the next episode of the Entremdee podcast. If you enjoy listening to the Entremdee podcast, you have to check out the Entremdee Business School. It's the number one business school for physicians who want to build six, seven and multiple seven figure businesses. You get the coaching, the accountability and the community. You need to do the work so you can thrive. To find out if this is your best, next step book a call with my team Entremdeecom forward slash call. That's Entremdeecom forward slash call. I can't wait to celebrate all the wins we can create together.