How To Start Your Own Internet Business For The Risk-Averse Physician Entrepreneur

In a recent issue of Medical Economics, I was astonished when I read the title of the cover "Passion Powers Success". To my amazement, the topic was discussing Physician Entrepreneurship, and the importance of running your own business.

For years, physician entrepreneurship was often considered "taboo". Just recently, I was approached to speak at a physician conference.  However once I had mentioned the title 'Becoming Your Own Boss"- they asked if we could change the topic to something else.

"We don't want to train doctors that way" - says a nameless physician spokesman, as if somehow my speech will cause an exodus of doctors leaving the field and cause mass destruction to our healthcare system.

Is the phrase “physician entrepreneur” an oxymoron?

Becoming an entrepreneur, does not necessarily means quitting your day job.  What it does give you is more choices of what you want to do in your life.  I know many entrepreneurs who still maintain a partial or even full practice, yet are enriched with the challenges and rewards that being one brings.

Now being an entrepreneur is obviously not without its risks. If you have ever watched the ABC Show “Shark Tank”, you will see evidence of everyday inventors who have spent their life savings on creating products, and later finding out the hard way that no one else would want to buy it.

Some think being an entrepreneur requires you to buy a business or franchise.  One couple I have been consulting with recently took over a jewelry business.  They rent store space, hired employees and pay massive overhead.  They take turns working at a store for 12 hours a day, including weekends, while still working their current job. Although they are now making a profit, they have in a sense “bought a second job”.

Many of the above examples, could have been solved by testing out ideas and products using the internet first.  The internet is the greatest level playing field we could every have.  It allows you to reach people in a cost-effective manner in almost any demographic, occupation, or niche market.  My client could have created a website selling jewelry, hired a virtual assistant to run and take orders, and avoid the extra financial costs of running a “brick and mortar” store.

And if you feel you do not have the technical knowhow in building a website, sometimes you don’t even need one! I recently had a great conversation with a radiologist who I helped get his first ebook onto Amazon.  In a short time period, he averages about 10 sales a day, and gets a nice check each month. The best part is he only had to create it once, but it is on a topic that is “evergreen”, content that will always be relevant,  where we both expect sales to continue for years to come.  He already has plans of creating five related books in this field by the end of the year now and building a nice nest egg for him and his family.

Becoming an entrepreneur opens you up to more business models and different ways of thinking. As doctors, generally we only make more money by seeing more patients.  However through the internet, you have the ability to create and launch products such as ebooks, apps, information products, newsletters, subscription sites, and home study online courses where it is created once and get paid on a regular basis. If the only way you are generating revenue is by seeing more patients, it is time to open and consider different avenues of revenue.

Masterminding With Physicians: Forming A Strategic & Successful Alliance

Why do some entrepreneurs fail and other’s succeed?

I do not think I would have been able to successfully grow my business if I did not secure a few mentors early in my business career, and surrounding myself with an outstanding support team.   Of course, I wouldn’t have done this without the blessing and support of my loving wife and family.

But I also had another  support “family”  a network, a safety net – fellow entrepreneurs many of whom who were running and growing their own successful  businesses, that I could pick up a phone call or meet on a regular basis, giving me a blueprint that I could hone and follow.

For the last several years, I’ve belonged to and run mastermind groups, both in my office, or at quarterly and yearly meetings, as well as virtually on bi-weekly and monthly conference calls.  And I am starting yet another one for this summer for physicians and health care professionals.

And our businesses has grown exponentially because of it!

Why mastermind groups?

Mastermind groups allow you to challenge yourself, brainstorm ideas, and serve a common purpose with others. It also puts yourself accountable to other members, leveraging the experience and knowledge of the group.

 The concept of the Mastermind Group was formally introduced by Napoleon Hill in the early 1900's.  "Think And Grow Rich" was a book I read back in medical school.  Hill writes about the Mastermind principle as:

"The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony."

At our meeting there is a shared camaraderie and a spirit of helping each other, because, running an online business can get to be lonely. As I have pointed out in the past, doctors often have a “lone wolf” mentality, which may not translate well into the business world. It is vitally important also to have people in the group with vast knowledge and experience to help guide you, or that can bring different skill sets to the group.

Each format of a mastermind group runs differently but a fundamental component is where each person states "here is where I am in my business, here are my successes, and here are my needs or stumbling blocks"  Ideas are then shared rapidly in the group and solutions are then sought.  A key component is also having goals and milestones for the next time we meet.

If you feel your business is stuck in neutral, consider joining a high-level mastermind group.  Mastermind groups  can truly be a key pillar to your success.

Doctors in a Tail Spin - You Are What Your Record Says You Are

I’m a big football fan. However, my team, the San Francisco 49ers, aren’t doing so well this year.  They have a losing record, and it looks like that they will miss the NFL playoffs once again.  Growing up in Northern California as a kid, cheering the likes of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice during their championship seasons, It is frustrating to hear the players and coaches dole out their excuses after another disappointing loss. “We’re a lot better than our record shows”, they’re quick to point out.

I often reflect back to what famous football coach Bill Parcells used to say – No matter how rigorous the schedule, the oh-so close losses, and the bad breaks, he was unwilling to give any excuses for a loss.  He would say “You are what your record says you are”. You are exactly where you should be. Better run teams have winning records. Team in disarray with poor planning end up with losing records.

That same principle can apply  in life.

For unsatisfied doctors, a significant number point to external factors to their unhappiness – declining reimbursement, government intrusions, an overall lack of respect for physicians, from CEOS to patients. But when it comes down to it, if you are not happy in the position you are, you are ultimately responsible to where you should be. Coach Parcells would say again “You are what your record says you are.”   

I  have a relative who was involved in the burgeoning tech industry in the late 1970s. He was trained to learn a very specific computer programming technology in his corporation.  He spend years educating himself on the programming, as well as training others, and then only to find out just a short time later the technology would soon become obsolete, as was his employment, as dictated by corporate headquarters. Soon there after, he found he was out of a job, a casualty of mass layoffs. He had no choice but to reinvent himself, going back to school, with new training, and a hope not to be made “obsolete”.

As doctors many feel we lost our position as being the decision maker in healthcare. It  pains me to see an industry where over 50% want to get out of the industry, yet feel powerless, to do something about it. Yet many of us as physicians have assets and fund of knowledge that we can use and apply in different ventures besides clinical medicine, as evidenced by the numerous examples we have in Freelance MD.

Last weekend, I conducted a workshop to a group of physicians who were all at different stages of their career. I commended them for attending, and remarked that unlike many of their colleagues, because they were willing to start something new and out of their comfort zone. Many doctors aren’t willing to reinvent themselves, because what economists refer to as an “opportunity cost”. For example, many physicians feel because they have spent so much time and money in medicine anyway, that if they do something different there is an additional lost opportunity cost. That is by starting something new, it would make  the years missed and the money spent all for not, and  instead they feel forced to continue to work in their current vocation,  even to the detriment of their own happiness. There is also the feeling that they are “giving up” if they choose an avenue that the rest of their colleagues would not follow. Albert Einstein, said the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". Does this quote apply to you?

If you are not happy where you are, it may be time to start taking control and reinvent yourself. If you wake up and dread going to work, it may be time to take a mini-vacation or consider a new endeavor. If you feel like you’re going through the motions in your career, and not making a difference in the world, it may be time for a new challenge. Just as a team with a losing record, it may be time for a new coach, a new offense, a new strategy.

As Coach Parcells would say, “You are what your record says you are.”

How Doctors Can Double Their Income

As a physician, you're trading time for money.

Most physicians are no doubt very adept when it comes time to academics and being “book smart”. We all had to get great MCAT scores and high grades to get into medical school. However when it comes down to financial planning or building wealth, it’s not overstating the case that our preparation was a bit lacking. Medical school didn’t prepare me very well for finances,entrepreneurship, let alone running my own practice.

As physicians, when it comes down to it, we are exchanging time for money. The amount of money a physician can make is generally in proportion to how much patients we see or procedures we do. This is no different then the majority of the population who earn wages for a living.

The unfortunate aspect is that for us to double income, we generally have to see double the amount of patients. And as reimbursement continues to dwindle, we are now having to see more and more patients to get the same amount of income, in comparison to five to ten years ago.

So what are our options? For physicians who want to maintain their current nest egg, they need to start building passive or residual income to work for them. Indeed, many physicians have resorted to passive income (in the form of investing, real estates, buying bonds, etc), or started “side careers” or investments (In fact, many of my ER doc friends have run anything from owning their own tavern, to daytrading, even starting your own winery! There’s a reason why Business Pitch section of the AMA news, a series that highlights physician side careers,  seems to be one of the most popular columns.

One great way to build residual income, is entering the domain of online health consulting and medical publishing.  No matter what you decided to do, building residual income to work for you will be more imperative for physicians in the near future. Starting early is the key.

5 Reasons For Physicians To Start An Online Business

Can you build an online business outside your medical career? An unequivocal YES!

When I started my business that originated from a hobby several years ago, I was only able to work on my internet business from 5am – 7:30am. Why those hours? The reason being, that was the only time period I had available outside of my clinical hours. Building a business these days is different from how it used to be. Today businesses can be built virtually with little overhead. Here are five reasons why you need to be starting an online business today.

1. An online business is inexpensive to startup. This isn’t the case with most medical practices. You can start a business with the price of a domain name (around $10 from Godaddy.com) and monthly hosting (such as from Hostgator.com). I have personally built businesses for the price of a cost of a good dinner for two.

2. An online business can be run from nearly anywhere. I have run a business from sitting at the back of a Starbucks, to flying at 30,000 feet with airplane wi-fi, to sitting on the beaches in Australia. Wherever you can bring a laptop and a decent internet connection, you can run the day-to-day your company – what other type of business can you say that about?

3. An online business can be outsourced. I have a physical office with less than 10 employees for my software company, however I also hire workers as independent contractors from around the world. I have writers who are based in the United Kingdom, programmers in Eastern Europe, and web designers in the Philippines. They all do quality work but they don’t need to be in my office for me to maintain it. You can work with independent contractors with sites such as elance.com or odesk.com  (For more resources check out my blog at IncomeMD.com)

4. An online business can start out small. Great websites start from simple ideas. Who would have thought businesses would have started from sending DVDs by mail (Netflix), project planning software (Basecamp), and coupons for local businesses (Groupon)? However, don’t feel you have to have a killer idea to start a sustainable business. Can you improve on an existing idea that will save people time and money?  If so you have the foundation for a successful business.

5. An online business can be scalable. Once you have an offer that works, you can grow your business in a systematic, simple approach. Most initial methods to market your practice can be done free or inexpensively, so there are fewer startup costs compared to a franchise or brick and motor company, and then you can reinvest your profits back in your business.  Unlike most practices, you no longer have to be the sole breadearner for your business. Hopefully this article sparks your imagination - I'd love to hear your ideas!