Portfolio Pulse: The Money Podcast for Medical Professionals & Entrepreneurs

Our guest today is Ari Tulla, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Elo Smart Nutrition Service. Elo is transforming food from the cause of some diseases to medicine for your body. Ari is also an active angel investor with a portfolio of 40 startups, including Virta Health, Good Eggs, and Oura. Previously, Ari was the CEO of Quest Analytics, the market leader in doctor data and network management. Ari led the company through a pivotal growth stage from $15M to $40M in revenue. Before Elo, Ari led Nokia's game and application studios and was brand manager for Lucky Strike in Northern Europe. He shares with us how to find investors in your company, how he determined that health was the space in which he wanted to help the world, and how through a traumatic personal event, he was inspired to reach more people with nutrition and health. This product could be a great way for physicians to reduce ailments for patients through healthy eating, supplementing minerals in your own body by locating deficiencies, and nurturing a personal mission to create positive and healthy eating habits. 

Today's guest, Dr. Marcelo Hochman, Physician and Owner of Facial Surgery Center in Charleston, SC and President of the Independent Doctors of South Carolina, joins us for a riveting discussion on how the current corporatization of medicine isn't what's best for doctors, patients, and their families. Dr. Hochman and his colleagues have been working with state legislators to repeal the state's Certificate of Need statute and for the elimination of hospitals' Non-Compete Clauses, so that patients can have greater access to privatized healthcare, fair and competitive pricing, and high-quality care. Dr. Marcelo Hochman is the premier facial plastic/reconstructive surgeon in South Carolina, whose practice features a unique blend of adult and pediatric, elective/reconstructive, pro-bono, insured, and self-pay services. He's engaged in medical publication, legislative activities, and educational opportunities for students and residents, all of which are unusual in private practice. He sees his platform as helpful in promoting the independence of physicians in SC and he wants to lead the comeback of the doctor/patient relationship. 

A dear friend of the show, Katie Blomquist, is the founder and Executive Director of Going Places, a Charleston-based non-profit with a mission to spread joy to children by donating bicycles to every child in their school. Through her hard work and resilience, she's been able to grow her organization from a local 501(c)3 to a national charity. Starting her career in the corporate world, then to becoming an elementary school teacher, she's worked diligently to stay top of mind with donors, business owners, and individuals through networking and social media. Katie has also created other businesses to start passive income streams and provide help to others who want to start building their own non-profit and help small businesses with their social media presence. She's working on a keynote speaker business and finding more ways to spread joy to those in her community. You'll enjoy this conversation with a local leader, Katie!

The medical supply chain from manufacturer to consumer has gotten completely out of control. Luka Yancopoulos and his co-founders started Grapevine to become the Amazon of health care supply products, and they have effectively removed the middle men distributors in the process. Their venture has saved producers and end-users aggregately millions of dollars in costs on simple products like PPE and supplies for their offices. These essential products are needed to treat patients, conduct surgeries, and routine visits. Luka explains that his grander vision for this company, after winning multiple grants, awards, and seed money, is to leave the world in a better place than he found it and strive to make the process much easier to acquire this necessary equipment. His mother is a physician, and his father a data scientist, so he saw the need for the change with his own eyes. You'll be impressed with his outlook on the medical world and the way he sought to disupt a billion dollar industry, one order at a time.

Jay is a seasoned physician leader with over 15 years of progressive and diverse experiences in the medical field and is currently helping Aktiia improve hypertension diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment as the Chief Medical Officer. In our conversation, Jay discusses his medical training from Harvard, University of Washington in Kansas City, and working at Massachusetts General Hospital. He then moves to a prestigious role at The Mayo Clinic after running a very successful cardiology line in Portland, OR and leaves that job on trust, faith, and a willingness to control his own destiny, to accept a position as Chief Medical Officer for start-up Aktiia. 

Physicians and entrepreneurs alike can learn much from Jay's sage wisdom around reframing your thoughts about your skillset to creating multiple sources of diversification and passive income in your portfolio. In addition, you'll learn a bit about his next venture, a search firm that matches physicians to jobs in their preferred industries that match their skill set. Not your typical headhunter working for a corporation!

Over the years, I've spoken with many physicians that would like to add more revenue to their practices, yet aren't sure the best way to go about doing it. Creating additional revenue sources can be a great way to diversify your cash flow for the practice and make it more desirable for any buyers that potentially would like to make you a great offer for your hard work. Jeff Russell, best-selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur joins us for today's conversation to share how to Fire Yourself First and make your business run well without you. Jeff is the founder of Oakridge Financial Group and IAPAM (International Association for Physicians in Aesthetic Medicine) and as a successful entrepreneur, he teaches other entrepreneurs how to unchain themselves from the daily grind by creating a business that runs without them. His latest book, Fire Yourself First, provides a four-step plan to free up time and allow business owners to do what the love next. He's taken his secret sauce on how analyze, systematize, and scale businesses and provided these strategies in his new book, so business owners can unchain themselves from the daily grind.

I'm very excited to welcome you to my conversation with Dr. Brittne Halford as today's guest! She had just graduated from Northwestern Medical School, strapped with $131k in student loan debt. During her residency, she completed loan forgiveness but was only making the minimum payment toward my student loans. Every time she thought about her debt, she'd feel anxious and overwhelmed. Her parents were frugal and taught her how to save, but didn’t teach her how to manage large sums of debt or how to build generational wealth. She knew there had to be more. Dr. Halford is a great example of the upcoming (and current) physicians fresh out of medical school that are faced with serious financial decisions: "Do I pay off my student loans rapidly and forego the 'lifestyle' that comes with being a well-paid doctor?" "How can I be introspective and honor myself when I'm being told many times over that I should spend, invest, then pay down debt?" "What resources are there for me to learn more about my loans and how do I know which ones will benefit me?"You'll learn a lot of the answers that worked best for Dr. Halford and how she formed numerous cohorts of successful physicians to build her business helping women physicians make smarter and more educated decisions when it comes to their finances.

I'm sure by now we've all heard about unconventional products that were introduced to mass market consumers that disrupted the industry and changed it for the better. In today's episode, we are speaking with a leader in the dental industry that thought of a new way to handle our morning and evening routine of flossing. We should all be doing it! Eli Packouz (pronounced “Eh-Lee Pack-owz”) is a serial inventor and two-time founder. He started his first company, Singular Sound, with his brother in 2013; they have since launched eight blockbuster products. In 2017, he partnered with Dr. Ralf Raud and Dr. Ana Mascarenhas to create the first device that automatically flosses all your teeth in only 10 seconds — Instafloss. After five years of research and development, Instafloss is ready to change the world, one tooth at a time.We uncover some of the struggles and highlights he's faced trying to secure rounds of funding, using Kickstarter to further that raised money goal, and manufacturing the product in North America. His potential and vision allowed Eli to make capital investors believers in his product and help him make this amazing device more economical for everyday use by consumers. 

Most financial advice is geared towards business owners and families that account for passing wealth to children and further generations. Heck, if you tried not to leave a legacy in most financial planning softwares, the Monte Carlo simulations would glitch out!Jay Zigmont, PhD and CFP, is a life and business coach who specializes in financial planning for those who are Childfree or permanently childless. While most financial advice treats parenthood as the default, Dr. Jay has created a life and financial planning system that centers the unique needs of those whose futures don't include kids. Earning his first million by 21 and losing it by 25, he learned the hard way how crucial it is to learn how to manage and invest money. He's now on a mission to teach foundational principles of money management to others, so they can create financial plans that support the vision they have for their Childfree futures.  jay@childfreewealth.com

In today's episode, Steven discusses taking the role of being a leader or a CEO very seriously and how to reduce friction in your business with Dr. Jonathan Baktari. Dr. Baktari is the CEO of eNational Testing, e7 Health, US Drug Test Centers and creator of the best-selling course "High Converting Call Class" as well as host of his own successful leadership podcast, "Baktari MD."These groundbreaking and disrupting companies were born out of a combination of Dr. Baktari's expertise as a doctor, medical director, and educator over his 20 years of clinical, administrative, and entrepreneurial experience. A former triple-board certified physician with specialties in internal medicine, pulmonary and critical care medicine, being a healthcare CEO is only the latest chapter in his life mission to help others by making integrative preventative medicine available to everyone. Find out how he juggles and scales these multiple successful businesses, running his own media brand and podcast, and leadership opportunities in this exciting, wisdom nugget-filled episode!

Today's important guest is Molly McAdams of Palmetto Benefit Solutions. She's a good friend of mine; she has been assisting small business owners by creating attraction and retention tools, which help improve their overall culture. I'm very excited to hear what she has to say about how business owners can continue to grow their thriving business. She's a woman of faith who is happily married, she's a high achiever, and she can speak with business owners about how they may increase their key value drivers and what their actionable KPIs look like. She can help them become an effective eligible employer by making them competitive with the rest of their industry. Molly shares that having your own small business is basically running your own little conglomerate inside of a larger corporation. It gives you the skills and the technical knowledge on how to create positive ripple effects in your own life, your employees' lives, and in your customers' lives. Sharing her knowledge of the employee benefit space and finding money on the customers' balance sheets to show them it's cost-effective to implement these attraction tools will help them grow their business to be the entity they've dreamed about. 

Mike Hennan joins us today to chat about how he's helped numerous dental practices attract, convert, and retain more patients. His skills and knowledge have helped countless practices boost their revenue with PatientBoost, and his group, Dental Business Association, gives new and tenured dentists, as well as dental service businesses, a place to connect, learn, and ask the questions that may be on their minds.

Dental School rarely prepares new dentists for all the challenges they'll face as they join an established practice or create their own new practice, and it's concluded that they'll need as many resources as possible they can find to empower them to grow the right culture, employee-base, and patient-base to make them successful. His marketing prowess has also given dentists the voice they need to add value in their community and marketplace. Make sure to "favorite" this episode and refer to it when you need some guidance!

Dr. Eric Francom attended dental school in the inaugural class of Midwestern University. After dental school, Eric owned and operated four dental practices- three he started from scratch- and sold them to a private equity group. After increasing his net worth four times since the sale of his practice and increasing his passive income from $7k to over six-figures per month, Eric wanted to share his knowledge and teach others how to do the same.

In today's episode, we have a guest that can help you take your business from non-profitable or somewhat profitable, to Profit First! Rocky Lalvani serves as Chief Profitability Adviser for business owners. He teaches them how to ensure they get paid and make profit a priority! As a certified Profit First Professional, he implements Mike Michalowicz's Profit First System. They change the accounting formula of Sales - Expenses = Profit to Sales - Profit = Expenses. This ensures Profit comes first! (PS. It's not about money at all costs, people come before money!)

Rocky started with nothing when his parents immigrated to the United States when he was two years old, and his parents were in their 40's. It was his parents' second time starting over in life as they moved here to experience the American dream. Despite a lot of struggles and his mom passing away when Rocky was 7, he has achieved financial and life success. Rocky loves to share his journey and inspire others to achieve their dreams even faster.

Topics include:

Implementing Profit First (this book and the author Mike Michalowicz has a large following and I am certified to share the information on Profit First)

How to ensure you have a growing and more profitable business.

Understanding Business Finances.

Managing Cashflow and Profitability.

Why your accounting reports don't tell you what you need to know

Have you ever wondered how banks make so much money that they are "infallible" or basically fool-proof? Did you know that every dollar you make you may only use one time as it cycles through your family economy, yet the bank uses their dollars over and over again to make MORE money? Our guest in today's episode, Vance Lowe, CFP, is going to highlight the concept that the ultra-wealthy and myriad corporations, including big banks, use to grow exponentially and keep their wealth in-house. It takes some dedication and a small amount of work up-front, but just like Disney, JC Penny, and the Rockefellers, they found value in using Private Banking Strategies.

Here are some additional resources to help you find out if this may work for you, too!

As physicians and entrepreneurs, it can be daunting to find multiple investments and asset classes that truly give you a sense of diversification, risk mitigation, and growth potential. On top of having to excel in your practice or field, spend much needed time with family, as well as relax every once in a while, how do you know you're making the best choices when it comes to your portfolio?

I've invited our next guest, Mariusz Skonieczny, to our show to highlight how he educates those that are willing to learn about different investment classes, specifically around micro-cap investments. These micro- capitalized companies usually have a longer holding period yet may bolster your performance once they make large profits or sell their companies. In our discussion, Mariusz shares his trials, tribulations, and some big wins that he thinks may help our listeners feel more confident in this particular asset class.

In today's episode, we are graced with the expertise and insight of the Director of Wealth Management and Retirement Income Certified Professional James Matthews, CFP to share our thoughts on the inherent challenges with conventional planning advice around retirement planning and how you could plan much more effectively for your best life after your working years.

Our goal in this discussion is to share how planning for a Balanced Structure in retirement instead of the Typical Withdrawal Rate or one-size-fits-all advice can create a much more enjoyable lifestyle and much less risk / worry as you age. The benefit of this balanced, integrated approach is to create a strategy in retirement that does the opposite of the traditional approach, create a much-needed source of true liquidity, take less risk, pay less in tax to the IRS, all the while potentially enjoying much more income.

Dr. Pranay Parikh is a full-time physician, Co-Founder and President of Ascent Equity Group, online course creator, and host of the MD to Entrepreneur Podcast. Dr. Parikh started out as a fresh attending with zero business experience. Despite loving his job and medicine, he didn't feel like he had financial security or control over his time. Today, he is a serial entrepreneur and practices medicine on his own terms.

Dr. Parikh is an advisor for multiple eight-figure businesses and is the co-founder of Ascent Equity Group, a real-estate company that helps physicians become passive investors in real estate. He has a passion for helping other doctors reach financial independence and do more of what they love. He seeks to teach others so they can skip all the missteps and struggles he endured. Learn how he developed a passion for non-stock market correlated assets to diversify his portfolio.

There’s a common misconception that a company’s people make its culture. In reality, startup culture begins and trickles down from the very top, from a company’s founder. That founder’s personality, including their emotional maturity, can lift their organization’s culture or destroy it. So, how can founders identify whether their personalities are positively impacting their culture, and make changes if not?

Did you know how hospitals bill their patients for surgeries? Wondering what all those itemized pieces on your bill are when you receive your statement of work? Surgeons, nurses, and medical device sales professionals move like a ballet in the operating room, so how do we change the antiquated paper-billing process of a long surgery for the hospital and patient without disrupting that flow?

Introducing Richard Palarea, CEO of Kermit, a Baltimore-based healthcare cost reduction and spend management company bringing automation and insight to the high-spend category of implantable medical devices within hospitals and health systems. Since its founding in 2011, Kermit has saved hospitals more than $200 million and manages 40% of the implantable device spend transacting in Maryland. He's discovered the million-dollar idea that many have failed to cultivate until now, and he's implemented it in multiple hospitals to save them an enormous amount of money. Listen to today's episode to discover how he transformed the billing process with his software and saved health institutions millions of dollars along the way.

Kyle King is almost 30 years old, yet he's already an accomplished author (7 books, working on the 8th), has built many successful businesses including coaching groups and Masterminds, and uses his influence and leverage to establish and scale hyper-profitable businesses as speakers, through leaders, and authority figures in their field. After servicing over 30,000 Entrepreneurs and helping each of them reach milestones beyond their wildest dreams, he has noticed a few common forces that prevent most Coaches and Podcast Hosts from being able truly scale the impact of their business and I've boiled it down to 3 key forces:

Force #1. Scarcity Mindset- You have been trained to operate in limitation.

Scarcity Mindset is limiting, and you will most likely allow it to limit everything you do, have, and aspire to be, including your vision.

Force #2. Generalism- You generalize others’ success and experiences.

You are discrediting the power of your unique journey and the parts of your story that can redefine success and allow you to flourish.

Force #3. Lack of Clarity - No Clarity + Blurry Vision= Running a race you can't see with a finish line that doesn't exist.

Be amazed and inspired while listening to Kyle's higher purpose, vision, and truth bombs he drops in this weeks' episode, #50!

In our conversation with Alexis Gallati, owner of Cerebral Tax Advisors, she uncovered what makes using a physician-specific and small business-oriented tax planning strategy one of the most advantageous financial decisions you could make this year. She grew up in a family of physicians, as her father is a neurologist, and her husband is a neurosurgeon. She understands the tax exposure that only physicians with multiple sources of income face, and how small business owners have an advantage to different tax credits, deductions, and strategies based on how income is sourced.

Our guest today is renowned CPA Catherine Tindall of Dominion Enterprise Services. While she is skilled in numerous areas of tax planning, her firm has specialized in assisting business owners with the filing and determining the eligibility for the Employee Retention Credit. Eligible businesses can be rewarded with up to $26,000 in potential tax credit per employee retained during the pandemic and this payroll tax credit can create a massive one-time injection of cash for any business owner. Even if you believe you're not eligible because of what your current tax advisor told you, or if you already received PPP money, you could still be able to receive your credit.

Catherine tells us how the process works, how beneficial this is for business owners, and why, as a planning firm, their sole focus is on helping business owners receive their credit, as it's their right if they were impacted by the pandemic negatively. Huskey Financial partners with leaders like Dominion, and we hope that you'll reach out after hearing how your business could be impacted!

With over 30 years of combined M&A, Valuation, and Integration experience, the Pivot Capital team embraces a more dynamic and holistic teaming approach of analyzing a transaction from the scope of many different angles. Through this approach to process management, Pivot Capital can deliver in harvesting the VALUE built within your company. In today's episode, we are joined by Jameson Pugh, Managing Director of Pivot Capital in the Atlanta area and he and his team help business owners maximize their ability to create capital structure, assist with Mergers and Acquisition, and strategic advisory so they can continue to grow and one day exit. 

Huskey Financial specializes in Business Planning and Exit Planning for accomplished business owners, so Pivot is a proud partner that will optimize any transitions to retirement or to a new business venture. 

Dustin Heiner is successfully unemployed. What do I mean by that? Dustin is the founder of Master Passive Income and is a real estate rental property investor who was able to make enough passive income from his business to quit his job when he was 37 years old.

With his podcast, books, courses and coaching, he now helps other people quit their job by investing in real estate rental properties to live their dreams life. You can find him here:

In this episode, we interview Dr. Benjamin Rattray, Associate Medical Director of Neonatal Intensive Care at the Cone Health Women's and Children's Center in North Carolina. He gives us a glimpse in how he compartmentalizes what he sees on a day-to-day basis in the NICU, how he gives parents good and bad news, and leaves the workday at the hospital when he goes home to his family.

It's important that doctors have a creative outlet, or someone to speak to, to unwind their mind of all the things they see in hospitals to avoid depression, harming thoughts, or physician burnout. Enjoying your hobbies, reflecting on what you're grateful for, and being a wonderful Servant Leader are the ways Dr. Rattray believes one can be the best physician and parent one can be. Please pick up a copy of Benjamin's book, When All Becomes New, in the link below!

When is the last time you reviewed your business documentation? You know, those buy/sell agreements, commitment contracts for business, and have you considered how much weight they hold for you and your business? Alex Juncu of Juncu Legal talks to us about the uniqueness and specialization of Contract Law and why it's so crucial to have an attorney review your legal documents, contracts, offer letters, etc.

We learn a lot about the HOW of how you run your business, and if you don't control your own terms and conditions in your everyday strategy, you will be subject to someone else's terms and conditions. Put your best foot forward, continue to learn, and be proactive when it comes to your legal considerations.

We learn from Rick Krenmayer about how he got started building an IT Managed Services company with his business partner David Stasaitis to form Stasmayer, Inc while in college. Running a business early on has it challenges, yet have you ever had to run a meeting while a keg party is happening next door in your dorm?

Being deadly consistent at what you do, having great people skills, and being able to read a room can lead you to be considered a trustworthy person and may have more value in some cases over being extremely technical and avoidance behaviors. Money tells you where you've been, and it's one of the best technologies we use as a society, so how do we protect our businesses and money? Rick gives us some great insight about IT and security services.

As business owners, we wear a lot of different hats. Some of the jobs we do out of necessity, and some of these tasks really make us motivated. For those tasks that are menial and don't add revenue to the business, or we just don't have time to complete, we should outsource. Featuring Kat and Ashleigh of Allora Solutions Group (#outsourcelikeaboss), they give us some things to think about that will make us more productive, that will save us time and money, and give some ideas about delegation and outsourcing crucial business tasks like HR, payroll, compliance, planning, etc.

Before working with a financial advisor, it’s wise to set up a consultation so you can talk through all the money management details. Think of this as a two-way interview—not only will the advisor be getting to know you and your financial goals better, but you will also be determining if they’re a good fit to manage your money. Coming prepared with questions such as the ones below will help you determine if a financial advisor is a good choice for your current and future financial needs.

It is no understatement that life is full of surprises. Though some unexpected events can often be welcome and joyful, there are also surprises that are less pleasant—and if these surprises derail your financial goals, they can even be catastrophic for your future. We reveal the 5 main financial risk for which to plan.