Mar 26, 2018
Today we’re going to talk with Mindy Guerra, PharmD, CGP a Drake University graduate and VA Hospital pharmacist who now works as an independent consultant for Rodan and Fields. She started her side gig as a way to connect with others while working full time and being a mother and wife. If you want to contact her:
Full Transcript:
Welcome to the pharmacy leaders podcast with your host Tony Guerra the pharmacy leaders podcast is a member of the pharmacy podcast network with interviews and advice and building your professional network brand and a purposeful second income from students residents and innovative professionals welcome to the pharmacy podcast network I'm your co-host Tony Guerra for the pharmacy future leaders podcast broadcasting from the Des Moines health and Public Services Building at DeMint d-max Ankeny campus connect with me on Facebook at Tony farm d1 or you can find over 1,200 pharmacy videos supporting my audio book memorizing pharmacology on YouTube and ER tony Pharm.D today we're speaking to Mindy Guerra who is my wife and is going to be telling us a little bit about her side hustle with Rodan and fields and it's really kind of an interesting journey when we're talking about entrepreneurship and how someone just decides that you know they have a good job they enjoy it and they want to do more and they want to do something that's really impactful and meaningful to them so Mindy welcome to the pharmacy podcast thank you well everyone's Road is a little bit different maybe you could tell us a little bit about your leadership road and how you got to where you are now I currently work at the VA in central Iowa as a clinical laboratory care pharmacist and now I also have a side gig as an independent consultant for Rodan and fields I went to pharmacy school at Drake University and then I went on and completed PGY1 community pharmacy residency with the University of Iowa after my residency I accepted a job with hi V managing a clinic pharmacy in Ames I manage two different high V pharmacies over a five-year period and then I landed a job at the VA as luckily I was lucky to be granted an interview and hired and I have been with them just shy of five years now okay well so you've got a good job you you know you did the school the residency and you don't have any student loan debt the house will be paid off years before our kids end up going to college what made you decide to start this entrepreneurial side business well as a full-time working mom and a wife it is hard to find time to stay connected with friends and make time for myself I became a roadie and fields consultant have some me time reconnect with some old friends make some new friends along the way and grow as a person I also truly enjoy helping people and this job allows me the opportunity to do that helping someone gain or improve their self-confidence by improving their skin is priceless also having a little extra play money each month to spend how I want without having to feel guilty about not spending it on you pretty great so I didn't know or maybe I didn't remember that you were doing some pretty severe skincare stuff before our wedding can you tell me a little bit about what you were doing something about peels or something like that yeah every week for I think two months or maybe it's like every ten days and go I don't quite remember I would go have a chemical peel done so literally they put stuff on your face and then your face peels off so it looks like you have a bad sunburn and then your face flakes it's quite hideous so you you did this because you loved me so much or you just want to make sure you look great no everybody stares at you that day terrible Wow I uh I got a haircut and I didn't have to do a chemical peel so I guess it's quite a bit different well I remember when I was a kid I was so embarrassed to go get a thing of Clearasil I did it under cover of darkness I paid with my own money and I put it on and you know the the acne went away but you had actually much different or much more difficult experience with skin when you were younger tell me a little bit about that I think ever since I hit puberty I've struggled with acne breakouts and then I can't keep from touching my face so then my acne scars so I went to different dermatology to try different prescription products try different procedures like that chemical peel and microdermabrasions I probably have paid for everything in that OTC aisle tried it without lots of results so about a year ago a friend of mine offered to help me through Rhodian infields product I was I was hesitant but at that point because there was a 60-day money-back guarantee and I was so tired of just throwing money down the drain I said okay let's do it I'm going to try it and it actually really worked so I have such better skin now less breakouts and I'm really happy with how I look well tell me let's actually back up a minute and go back to the OTC aisle when I started 20 years ago it's a pharmacist oh my gosh there's two things yeah it was Clearasil and oxy ten that's hurtful I don't know I don't see the commercials good but I guess back then though I remember that there was always someone in the cosmetics aisle at the various chains and I don't want to call out certain chains because I'll go into a chain now and there's literally one person on the floor the manager might be in the back and there's one person to run the register put the things away so back then I think there was an expectation that you could get professional advice in the skincare aisle or in the cosmetics aisle and that's always first because of the margin and all of that tell me a little bit about what's happened in terms of that kind of service where can you get service or where can you find out more about skincare and cosmetics well right now I feel like if you walk to the OTC aisle you're just overwhelmed with everything so you're reading the products trying to find something that will help you and just guessing really the TCL with all that stuff is really close to the pharmacist so that would be where a lot of people would then turn to to get advice or to ask but a lot of people are also kind of self-conscious about that so they don't really want to discuss it they just want to try to pick something and see if it works right there's nobody out in the aisles really helping anybody try to narrow down or find the right fit for them would gender be an issue here I know that you would always get upset when somebody would say can I talk to the pharmacist and look directly at the male technician that's next to you and you're like right here right here pharmacist right here but if you went into the aisle and you saw there was maybe a male pharmacist would you be less inclined to talk to that person or would you because I even if you did come to me I don't know that I could give you much advice because I just might be an area where girls might actually be better at advising just because we've used these products I mean most men barely wash their face maybe use some lotion but they're not gonna know you know know how these things are supposed to work but they're not gonna necessarily know what the girl might be looking for in a way that could relate to her so tell me a little bit about how I I didn't I didn't really understand the divide between skincare and cosmetics and how if you do one first you actually don't even need the other or you hopefully don't need the other so can you explain how skincare comes first cosmetics comes second I know some people enjoy cosmetics and some people don't can you explain how how that works yeah so if you have a good skin care regimen or good skin or can fix the problems that are actually going on you cosmetics are not necessarily needed anymore so cosmetics are generally the things that we think of to cover our face and to hide any blemishes so that be like your powders your foundations but if you actually fix the problem and you don't actually enjoy wearing that stuff I do not enjoy putting foundation no no I don't wear that anymore which is awesome so tell me a little bit about many of the listeners that we have are our pharmacy owners I know one female pharmacy owner and most of the others are men how would you advise a pharmacy owner to make sure that what they have on the floor would be what's most beneficial to their to their patients are you would you be able to consult with them would you be able to help them I know that Rodan and fields isn't sold in stores but can you could you give me like let's say I owned a pharmacy could you go through it and like just kind of explain how things work yeah then you have to think like as pharmacists you have to look at the ingredients because half those things are the same exact ingredients just branded differently so I think caring less of a selection is not so overwhelming for the owner or for the people coming in trying to find the perfect product so I think narrowing down a search and then have somebody familiar with all those items that could actually help them and talk to about them about what those things are supposed to do so tell me a little bit about Road n Fields kind of a your journey you started by you had a friend that helped you with the product the product helped you and now you are working with her working with the team can you tell me a little bit about how the actual how you started and how your journeys kind of going right now being part of the road and fields Network on the business side has been very rewarding for me I get to help people glow it never gets old seeing a customer gush to me about their results and tell me how much more confident they feel in their own skin I also get to connect with fellow consultants and make some new friends and that's also a great support system for me so if ever I have questions or don't feel like I have the right answer for any of my customers I can reach out to someone who might know our team leaders also like to hold some friendly competitions with great rewards which is an added bonus an additional stream of income is never bad thing I think for a lot of pharmacists working for already in fields is a natural fit because we like helping people and were comfortable talking people about these products because a lot of them are ingredients that were familiar with and we have the background to know what these products might be able to do to help somebody potential side effects that might come along and how we could help overcome those side effects well I guess I was just I did a quick google search and found that a lot of pharmacists are tied to Rodan and fields but what really impressed me was so on Thursday night you know we put the kids to bed and you were talking to your team leader the person that you work with and you were so excited about what was going on you completely ignored scandal on Thursday night which ignoring me for scandal is one thing but ignoring scandal for something else just the first thing I just wanted to make sure was that you know that relationship between you and Keith Urban didn't happen yet and then once I was confident with that I was like all right well I'll go to work and get some stuff done I had something for something big going on on Friday but but tell me about the excitement that you kind of have with this side business and and it's kind of fun I've had a lot of fun talking to you about kind of some of the things that come along with it I you know started as a realtor and and left that when we came to Iowa and then you know now I my big thing is authoring those books but tell me about in the entrepreneurship side what just really excites you about connecting with other people and helping them what gets me excited is one this is like timeout me time where I can have a break from me get have a break from you know the kids are down and maybe it actually makes myself makes me have just carve out time to do something that I actually get some joy out of besides no taking care of you and the children can't my day job but otherwise without before I started doing this after the kids would go to bed then I would start cleaning getting ready for the next day never doing anything really for me so this allows me even if I just do it for 5-10 minutes it's sit down quiet time where I'm just confessing on me and trying to help somebody else cuz truly if I find somebody and I can help them and I see that they're excited about it and then I see the results there that brings me such great joy than I know that this I'm doing the right thing we we went out to our 10th wedding anniversary dinner and ended up finding out that Pauly Shore was at the funny bone and while we're sitting there I kind of learned a lot about that I can't believe I didn't know I mean we've been married for 10 years but that almost 45 minutes of year day after you come home is burnt up by making dinner so it be it seems like if you made enough money doing this there's a lot of things that you could maybe pay for timewise so that the first two hours of the day before you go you could spend with the kids and then the two hours after would be much more productive and unless those kind of things that kind of bring you down what are your goals with the with Rodan and fields right now it just seems like you're just kind of enjoying yourself you told me about the the equation for how much money you make admit that you like you know what I don't know I just it sounds like that's good that you know your focus is so much on the patient or the customer that you don't even really worry about the money but the money seems to follow so what are your goals maybe in the in the next year that's a little ambitious but that would be amazing even for them to come in for a day right make all the meals for the week right yes if I could have just food prep and ready to go that's something that the kids would actually eat and not have to like fight with him every night and what's for dinner would be amazing yeah anything that could help me not have to do stuff that I'm not really enjoying and it's taking time away from the kids which I feel like I already have don't get to spend a lot of time with them working full time is an added bonus so I guess how would you recommend somebody get involved in this do they just call you do they just how does it work for someone to kind of dip the toe in the water because a lot of times many people are afraid you're gonna as soon as you get on their email list or as soon as you become friends with them on Facebook you're just going to start hounding them until they they become part of your network and I think that's a I think that's a genuine fear that they're going to have tell me a little bit about how you start with a customer and how that relationship either works or doesn't work how it times comes to fruition um so I just reach out to people tell them about Rodina fields in general and then I just talked him about how I love I love what I'm using I love the business and I just asked if they'd be interested in learning more and if they're interested in learning more I kind of find out what might be a good fit with them if it's the business side is the product side if it's both if they don't respond I try to reach out again and I send a message saying I have a no hounding policy getting a dog soon but there's a know-how because I my goal is not to push it on people or put people off or be like oh god Mindy's sending me another message I need a blocker that's not what I'm going for so if you flat-out say don't bother me ever again fine that's fine and it's a different fine when you say fine to me it's never been fine but okay well well maybe I'm not clear on the the two routes that you just talked about so when I was in real estate there usually was a divide although all realtors can help people with listings and people can know with the buying side some people really prefer the buying side going out there how being somebody go find a home basically going shopping with them and then the other side was really a marketing side making sure the listing gets as much money as you can marketing it and doing that thing and then we usually saw a divide that about 1/4 I'd like to do the listing side and about 3 out of 4 would do the buying side and that's how we ended up with these teams tell me a little bit about the two sides that you talked about you talked about product side and business side so can you talk about the business side first and then product side so as the business side that's the side where you're actually trying to gain customers and promoting the business and then the product side is where you want to use the products but you're not necessarily interested in selling any of the products and then so you would kind of talk to the person and maybe they don't know maybe they're maybe they're shy but we know that the pharmacy community is significant number of introverts I've talked about this before where there's just not a lot of people that make it through organic chemistry that had amazing social lives you know there's there's a bit of introversion that you have to have if you're gonna spend that much time studying so tell me a little bit about let's say I'm just too scared or I'm an introvert can I be successful as an introvert doing these kinds of businesses because I think that tends to be a real concern or fear yeah I'm a definite introvert I mean if we went out we would if I went out by myself I could never make a friend but if I'm with you we can make friends at the whole room I mean you can make friends with the door I can't so yes it pushes me out of my comfort zone which is a good thing because I don't mean to necessarily be shy that's just my natural response but this actually pushes me out to talk to people because I I do like talking to people I just for some reason other I just clam up instead so this gives me a reason to reach out and to go outside of my comfort zone well in terms of someone that I would as a pharmacist sometimes while you have the very chatty person like me if you want someone that is an absolute listener that is listening to every word you say and that really is taking things in I feel like that would be you so I feel like you would really take the time to listen to what concerns I had can you tell me a little bit about what you're listening for as someone's kind of talking about what issues they're having is it just okay I've got the solution here I've got the solution or does it maybe take a little bit more because it sounds like this is a lot more complex than okay you've got dry skin you've got oily skin you've got this concern we can fix it with this right so you're trying to find oh I'm trying to find exactly what is bothering them what's bringing them down and how I could help them whether it's kind of encouraging them that no this could help them and they might feel really great in their skin and have more confidence or whether it's you know let's prevent anything from happening it's listening to their whole story and knowing that you're there for them to help them along the way and you're not trying to pressure them into anything that might not work because if it's not going to work for them I don't want them to use it so I guess if somebody is interested or somebody wants to learn more and get in touch with you what's the best way for them to get in touch with you what's your best contact information so my email address is Gera which is gue RR a dot Mindy M IND Y at yahoo.com or you could also send me a Facebook message so I think yours is Gera Mindy 7 or Mindy Gera 7 something like that you're one of a kind but they're like 7 of you on Facebook so well let me let me just ask you a couple of questions that I always ask at the end here what's the best career advice that you've ever given or received well I always tell my pharmacy students that I have that you're only gonna get out of what you're putting in so if my students show up just to show up and take up space I told they're not really not going to get anything out of it and they're not gonna make good contacts for the rest of their look you know career but if they show up and they're engaged they have questions they're gonna learn so much more so that's my advice then that can pertain to anything what inspires you I think right now my my kids what about me what inspires you that your kids have done recently I mean when they get along and we have so much fun just inspires me to be able to make time to be with them or I feel like life is just crazy and there's not actually time that you just spend getting to know them and doing things together which it's kind of sad so I think they inspired me to be more present with them yeah well sometimes I'll take two and you'll take one and it's like we've got one kid and that's kind of fun sometimes you see them you get to know them what's your best daily ritual to keep your work on track are you a list person no I'm a multitasker and I'm very organized it drives me nuts when things are out of place so I think I have to I have a list in my head and I get that done and once that's done then I feel okay but you know me I don't sit down and tell stuff's done well actually actually that brings up something really important how do you convey what's most important on the list in your head to your spouse or what's the best way for your spouse to make sure that he's we can't read my mind I've been trying I've been trying how can for example I had no idea that if I were to to make lunch and dinner or if I were to have made dinner every night for the kids and make sure that they they ate that it would make your life exponentially better and we've been married ten years so obviously you'd be better if I was a quittin listener in an introvert than an extra hurt but what do you think for those people out there that may be our pharmacists pharmacists couples or that are trying to get their entrepreneurship journey going and if they just add another 45 minutes or another hour every day they could do it how would you convey that or how do you without nagging or something that how do you how do you convey that to the spouse like this is really important if you could help me with this then I could do this and that would make us both happy yeah I'm terrible at that because I just try to fix everything myself it's my flaw okay so cheerful support for this episode comes from the audio book memorizing pharmacology a relaxed approach with over 9,000 sales in the United States United Kingdom and Australia it's the go-to resource to ease the pharmacology challenge available on audible iTunes and amazon.com in print ebook and audiobook thank you for listening to the pharmacy leaders podcast with your host Tony Guerra be sure to share the show with the hash tag hash pharmacy leaders
