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The Power of Partnership: Co-Branding for Independent Pharmacy Growth | Cardinal Health™ Counter Talk™ Podcast · Pharmacy Podcast Network

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: The testimonials appearing in this podcast reflect individual experiences, and
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: individual results may vary. Cardinal health is not claimed, or
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: should the listener assume that any individual experience recounted in
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: this podcast is representative of what another consumer may experience.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: The Cardinal Health caronra Talk podcast and collaboration with Pharmacy
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Podcast Network, is for independent pharmacists to learn about the
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: state of the industry, innovative services and solutions, and the
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: future of pharmacy. Join me your host Jason colorI for
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: conversations with pharmacists, cardinal health leaders, and industry experts, sharing
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: best practices, discussing industry trends, and showcasing cardinal health products
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: and services. You can subscribe to the Cardinal Health counter
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Talk podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: to your favorite podcasts. Hello everyone, and welcome back to
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: the Cardinal Health counter Talk podcast. I'm your host Jason colorI,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: and today we are going to be talking about Medicine
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Shop and the overall benefits of joining a franchise. Plus,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: we will learn more about how co branding works and
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: explain how you can maintain your local brand presence while
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: leveraging the strength and scale of a national brand. Today
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: we'll be talking with Tony Ibraham, RPH, a medicine Shop
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: multi store owner that includes several co branded locations. We
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: will also be chatting with LANCEMNT, a franchise business consultant
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: for Medicine Shop International for about four years, but it
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: has been with Cardinal Health for about fifteen years.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the show, Tony and Lance.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, appreciate it.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Uh, Tony, I'm gonna start with you. I always like
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: to get into the pharmacist personal journey. What was your
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: journey into the pharmacy profession, why you chose to become
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: an independent pharmacist.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I thank you so much for her hosting me today.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: From the get go, like after finishing high school, I
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: was driving in the pharmacy school I started. Once I
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: entered the pharmacy school, I found like, Hey, this is
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: something that I like and I can't do. But after
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: like finishing and start being a pharmacist, I found out
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: like I have a direct impact on patient outcomes. So
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: I said, like, you know what, that makes sense to me,
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: Like I'm going to continue doing this and it happened
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: that I worked when I started all of this, I
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: like worked in the chain environment, okay, And although like
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: the chain give you like certain type of experience, at
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: the same time, and I understand why there's like certain
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: limits and constraints that they put us that they put
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: in place due to business needs maybe and sometimes the
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: regulations that those like constrained limits how much here I
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: can give to my patients or deliver Okay. So based
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: on that, at one point I said, you know what,
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: it's better if I move into the independent pharmacy board
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: and did this, and it helped me to remove like
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: a lot of those barriers while a practice and compliance
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: with the legality of the pharmacy environment and being able
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: to provide a more patient approach.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Care. Yeah all, it's all all.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Being an independent pharmacy gives you more control over the
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: services that you can provide, the type of workflow inside
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: of the pharmacy that you can do, and how you can
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: engage with a patient. It differs a lot when you
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: work in a chain then when you're on an independent pharmacy.
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: It's day and night, absolutely yeah. And also at the
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: same time, and also one more thing, I don't mentioned
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: from a business point of view, like being a pharmacy owner,
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: it helps a lot for law term, not only to
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: support me and my family, but after doing this for
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: a while, having multiple stores, there's something unique that you
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: can do to your people that you can create jobs
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: that can create long term opportunities for your staff and
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: your people that they won't be able to like to
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: find it. And a chain, So that combination of clinical
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: care and and stacient care and also your staff, your people,
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: your family care. That's like what drote my decision in
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: the first place.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, less barriers.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: I love the point that you brought up about, you know,
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: being able to connect with your patients on different levels,
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: which is something I think chains definitely struggle with.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: So yes, that's great.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: Well, tell us about your pharmacies you own with your
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: group in California and some of the services in the community.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: You know, the communities you serve, you know what may
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: makes your pharmacies stand out.
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: We'll create a net work of pharmacies across California, like
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: creating from northern California to southern California, and we have
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: pharmacies like an urban centers and also like an underserved
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: like roal communities and being doing this this allows me
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: like to tailor my care delivery base on the local
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: population needs difference from one area to one area. Part
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: of the services that we provide besides clinical structural clinical consultations,
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: we do like adherance driven services like midst organization and
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: compliance packaging, re organization.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: We do point of care.
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: We start now to upgrade our services in cooperations with
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: other healthcare providers to provide also services like chronic care management. Okay,
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: but at least we just added point of care testing
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: also service okay for our patients. The pharmacy environment is
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: changing and it's allowing us like to provide more and
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: more services now composed to the past.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Oh for sure, For sure, Lance, I want to move
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: to you tell us about your.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: Role with Medicine Shop International and you know what led
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: you to become a franchise business consultant.
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: Sure, thank you, Jason.
• 6:23
  Speaker 7: Well, my role with the Medicine Shop International is I'm
• 6:26
  Speaker 7: a franchise business consultant and as my title kind of
• 6:32
  Speaker 7: portrays is I help on the business side with the stores.
• 6:36
  Speaker 7: So if it comes from their profit and loss statements,
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: I will do comparisons to make.
• 6:42
  Speaker 6: Sure their stores are as profitable as they can be.
• 6:45
  Speaker 7: Maybe they're advertising too little, maybe they're advertising too much,
• 6:48
  Speaker 7: Maybe they have too much staff, maybe not enough staff.
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: Just trying to make them as profitable as possible. I
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: help them look.
• 6:56
  Speaker 7: At their third party reimbursements, and you know, that's kind
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: of a quick overview of what I do is more
• 7:03
  Speaker 7: on the back end of their stores to try to
• 7:07
  Speaker 7: make sure that everything is running as smooth as possible.
• 7:10
  Speaker 7: What really led me to this role is my best
• 7:13
  Speaker 7: friend owned a medicine shop in my first territory with
• 7:16
  Speaker 7: Cardinal Health.
• 7:17
  Speaker 6: That's kind of where I learned the business.
• 7:19
  Speaker 7: And I had eleven medicine shop pharmacies in my original territory,
• 7:24
  Speaker 7: and those were the stores that I just became really
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: close with, and the franchise business consultants that covered those
• 7:31
  Speaker 7: that territory at that time were really influential in really
• 7:35
  Speaker 7: shaping my career and helping me learn the business.
• 7:40
  Speaker 6: So that's really what led me to this role.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: Very cool, Tony, you're a member of the Medicine Shop
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: International franchise. Now, just kind of tell us about how
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: long you've been in a franchise e and you know
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: what ultimately led you to become a franchise owner or
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: choose this franchise in particular.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: You know what, Simply it's destiny. You know, it looks
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: like it's okay.
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: But I've been with the medicine shop for now I
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: think eleven years. I think so, And honestly, like the
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: first thing, like when I said, like I'm going to
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: choose medicine shop or different franchise, I met one of
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: my friends that who has been a medisty job also
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: franchise owner for a couple of years, and he had
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: a good experience he recommended. Then I had a meeting
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: with a business consultant at that time. I was impressed
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: with the knowledge and the support that he could and
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: medicine Shop provide to me. Honestly, I did my evaluation
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: process at that time. I did meet another franchise representative,
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: but I found a big gap between the genuine support
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: offered my medicine shop, the dippth of nowe and the
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: way of communication. So either tread you know what I'm
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: I'm going to stick with what I know and what
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: looks good. And I believe after more than ten years,
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: I made the perfect decision.
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: So where have you seen the most benefits to being
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: a franchise owners? What's been some of those key metrics
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: that you're seeing.
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: I'm going to start the first one with the support,
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: Like it's more than one actually key area, but like
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna start with the support.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: The level of support that being given to me is
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: purpose like actually more than I expected. The pharmacy business
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: is a highly regulated industry. It's in a constant evolution
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: all the time. And every single day you either have
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: an ir regulation, or you have a new service, or
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: you have a new limit or from many, many, many
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: many plays.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: You need someone that can provide you with.
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: Some sort of structured support and consistent whether on operational level,
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: whether on our regulatory level, or on a strategic support.
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: As Lance was mentioning that he can also support, he
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: supports us with a proft and loss. Profton loss is
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: actually and how you make money is one small area
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: that they can help you with.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Like there's so many other areas.
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: I believe it's more available to me than the only
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: profton loss is like one small thing. Okay, The brand
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: itself another thing, The brand itself having a medicine shop
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: when I entered.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I didn't know.
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: That it was a really recognized the brand we're getting now.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: It helps because Lance, you open a medicine shop in
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: a community, okay.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: For some reason. Okay, people are organizing it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: Okay for some even like it built media trust with them, okay,
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: and that helps me with that gives me like the
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: introduction to my population, Okay, to my community. Okay, we
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: have something reliable that you guys can trust. Now it's
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: on me to back up this name.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: And I wouldn't be able to even to back up
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: this name without the support of the franchise people themselves.
• 11:28
  Speaker 7: Uh.
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: One more thing, actually, I believe I got so much
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: benefit by being a medicine shop franchise owner as the
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: availability to expand.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, I did want to answer about that, the
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: the expansion, you know, expanding and how did that, how
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: did that process go and was it easy for you?
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Was it so much better that you wanted to expand it? Right?
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: Like, you know, like the expansion like was something in
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: my in my head. But let me saying, when you
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: have like a well known infrastructure, right that, Hey, you
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: did test it and it's working. Now, it's easy to
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: applicate that one. I don't have to start from scratch
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: every time I open a pharmacy, I know what to do, Like, hey,
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: I did start this model and it's working. I just
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: need to copy and paste, copy and paste.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: And move forward. And it's been working. It's been working.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: So they give you the infrastructure guideline, They give you
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: the Haye twenty, like the opportunity evaluation.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: They gave you actually some.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: Good opportunities that they're people, they want to retire, that
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: they own medicine shop, people they move, you know what
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: I mean, things changing life, things changing life. So now
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: they come, hay twenty, we have this opportunity for you.
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: What do you think about it? We think it's good.
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: We think like you think you deserve it, like you've
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: been with us. And again they also have their own
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: evaluation process to the franchise owner she or she does
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: work opportunity or not, because at the same time I
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: wanted their backup and also they want my backup, so
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: we can't keep the name growing.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Sentiment that you're talking about is something and I've heard,
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: you know for many years about the support that MSI
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: gives to independent pharmacists, especially ones that are looking to expand,
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: making it easy doing all the back end work to
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: make sure it's going to be the right fit, right location,
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: and all the things in between.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally love that.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: You know, I do want to get into the co
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: branding model a little bit, and Lance, I want to
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: kind of throw this at you. I did mention co
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: branding the co branding model in the beginning of the podcast.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: So before we get much further, can you explain medicine
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: shops Internationals the co branding model to listeners overall?
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: Certainly so with anach any type of franchise, there is
• 14:02
  Speaker 7: a quote unquote franchise fee, and that's what we have
• 14:04
  Speaker 7: with medicine Shop slash Meticap, and.
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: You can choose to be either one of the those franchises.
• 14:11
  Speaker 7: It's five ninety nine a month for a co brand
• 14:14
  Speaker 7: It's also five ninety nine a month for a fully
• 14:17
  Speaker 7: branded store.
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: So with a co branded.
• 14:19
  Speaker 7: Store you can really all we require for medicine Shop
• 14:23
  Speaker 7: or Meticap is to have a co branded signage window
• 14:27
  Speaker 7: sticker either on the door or on the window wherever
• 14:30
  Speaker 7: there's traffic that says Bill's Pharmacy a member of the
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: medicine Shop family. That way, you don't have to do
• 14:38
  Speaker 7: re all as signage. You have that store that's been
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: there for forty years, has that name recognition, can also
• 14:44
  Speaker 7: come on and have the medicine shop name recognition along
• 14:47
  Speaker 7: with it. With a co branded store, you'll get a
• 14:51
  Speaker 7: discount on a solutions. You'll get a three hundred dollars
• 14:54
  Speaker 7: credit towards one of our qualified solutions, and you'll get
• 14:58
  Speaker 7: a discount off of other solutions. Ten percent is usually
• 15:02
  Speaker 7: of what what that that discount is. So as a
• 15:07
  Speaker 7: regular cardinal store versus a co branded medicine shop store,
• 15:11
  Speaker 7: it's right around fifty eight dollars that it costs you
• 15:13
  Speaker 7: to be a medicine shop more a month, and then
• 15:16
  Speaker 7: you you get my services too. I need to make
• 15:20
  Speaker 7: a T shirt that says I'm worth fifty eight dollars,
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: but I don't know if that's appropriate or not for work.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: Well lands to that end in your opinion, you know,
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: why do you think joining a pharmacy franchise as a
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: co branded store beneficial? What you know from your experience
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: you've seen, what are the what are the main benefits?
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously you have you get to keep your
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: name and put that on the on the front door,
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: which I think is obviously very important for someone who
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: has spent the time to build up a business, has
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: made a name for themselves within the within the community
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: that they're in. But what are the benefits of not
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: only joining the Metashop Medicine Shop franchise, but also as
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: a co branded entity as well.
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: Yeah, Like, like you said, Jason, that it is your
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: own name recognition that you've had in the past, but
• 16:04
  Speaker 7: it's also the name recognition of medicine Shop. As Tony
• 16:07
  Speaker 7: was saying earlier, it's a very well respected name. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: just when you see medicine Shop, people think quality and that.
• 16:16
  Speaker 7: I think that's something that really lends as a good
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: cohesive group when you tie those two together.
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: The other thing that is really nice, even with the
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: coal branding store, is.
• 16:29
  Speaker 7: Like when we go to the retail business conference, we
• 16:31
  Speaker 7: have our own little medicine shop recept. It is so
• 16:35
  Speaker 7: dynamic to have all these owners together collaborating, Hey, this
• 16:40
  Speaker 7: is what's working in my store.
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: I have stores that call each other regularly.
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: They're not in competition, but it's just a good way
• 16:49
  Speaker 7: to build the independent business overall. And I think that's
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: what we gain with the co branding stores.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: So, Tony, I'll throw it back at you.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Why did you decide to co brand your three pharmacies
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: with medicine Shop. Was it to some of the points
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: that Lance had mentioned or was there something more to it?
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: Just curious actually, like it's a combination of more than
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: one thing. It just I needed the branding thing. I
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: need to maintain that strong franchise support. That's on one side,
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: and the other side I need to preserved local community identities.
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: So many years with Medicine Shop, a liven for support
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: was meaningful to me. So that's something I needed to
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: keep to keep growing and stay in business. At the
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: same time, some stores like I took over. So when
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: I took over, there was the name was there, and
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: the name was very strong in community, like has very
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: strong ties with the community people, so I had so
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: I had to preserve that name, okay, to help again
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: to help preserve the trust with the existing patients. At
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: the same time, I did the core branding and other
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: sides and like for example, I have farms in a
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: small town called Manchester. I believe that name that reflects
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: the town that people and had a huge impact in
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: people accepting a new business in the community. Okay, this
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: is the business that represents them. It has the same
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: name as their town. People were very, very, actually supportive
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: for us. So the core branding actually allowed me to
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: combine both advantages and back to what a Lance was saying,
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: those five ninety nine honestly worth nothing compared to the
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: support that we get from Medicine Shop.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: It's like, I'm not going to say them to increase.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: It or good, but but actually it's it's it's it's
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: worth a lot a lot of support to get worth
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: a lot more than this.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: Well, tell me about the process once you decided to
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: co brand integrate the medicine shop marketing with your brand
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: name store that you had built over the years. What
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: was that onboarding process like? Was it seamless? What was
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: it like to launch a new brand? Tell us a
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: little bit about that experience.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: It's mhm, it's more of let's put it this way,
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: it's more of a process that has multiple steps. Start
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: starts with as I recall, it starts with the big
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: littery approval the signage. Okay, having the signage approved by
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: medicine Shop, and then after that approved by the city.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: That was I think the first process, okay. Then after
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: that you need some sort of.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: Marketing approach starting from maybe we did like some in
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: store materials, We did flyers, we did postcards. Definitely, we
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: are in the digital era, so social media as a
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: campaign was a big thing that we used for sure.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: At the same time, communication was critical, so engaging with patients,
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: informing them with the same pharmacy I think changes. We
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: are the same people. We just got now an added
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: support to help you guys. So word of mouth help
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: us a lot, a lot. One last thing, and I
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: want to mention that's actually very important that we did.
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: We were very proactive to engage with all local healthcare
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: providers physicians, clinics, hospitals, okay, to make them aware of
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: that transition that it's only just for to better support
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: their patients. So we included direct outreach between visiting clinics
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: for example or actually facts is okay, to just like
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: make sure that they continue the referrals and the coordination
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: care that we established among these that that's.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: A great point.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: I think that's probably a detail that some people miss
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: about you know what it looks like from the outside
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: looking in with your your pharmacy partners, your professional partnerships
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: that you have within your community.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: I think that was a great point. Lance.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: We're hearing this word support a lot. Tony loves the
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: support that you guys give. What what what exactly is
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: the kind of support that FBC's fbcs like you provide
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: for the pharmacy once they decide to co brand in particular.
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's a good question.
• 21:49
  Speaker 8: The most of us franchise business consultants, once we find
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: a store that wants to convert and come over as
• 21:57
  Speaker 8: a co branded store, one of the things is to
• 22:00
  Speaker 8: go into the store just to look at the store.
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: What's the workflow look like?
• 22:05
  Speaker 7: You know, are they maximizing their efficiencies as well as
• 22:08
  Speaker 7: they can. Most of us have been around the block
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: a little bit, so we can kind of go, Okay,
• 22:14
  Speaker 7: here's some things that we need to work on.
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: Maybe there's too much staff. You can kind of notice
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: that right away if there's too much staff. But as
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: kind of like on an.
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: Ongoing basis for support, it's we're there to answer questions.
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: So whether it's you know, this year with.
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: The Inflation Reduction Act, I spent hours and hours on
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: the phone assisting my stores with getting through that paperwork.
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: Process.
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: Sometimes it went really fast, sometimes it went really slow.
• 22:45
  Speaker 7: But that's kind of the extra effort that we as
• 22:49
  Speaker 7: franchise business consultants. We have the time to do that
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: and we have the focus for our stores to get
• 22:55
  Speaker 7: all that new paperwork, new information out there and help
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: them through that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Tony, how is being associated with the national pharmacy brand
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: like medicine shop? How did it impact the business model?
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: From the onset?
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Was it? Did you?
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: I don't know, did you feel like you got some
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: new patients, some new interest because now you had medicine
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: shop attached to you, to your pharmacy name, or again
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: just kind of opening up those different services and support
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: really kind of help you.
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: All you mentioned was correct, But like before that, I
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: want to like highlight a point that proceeds all of that.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: To be honest, when I went into this being a
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: pharmacy owner started this journey, I totally underestimated how complex
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: the pharmacy operation is. I thought, like it just like
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: you know what, just like dispensing the medication, building the insurance,
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: get the money and just be done with that, okay.
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: And unfortunately it's nothing like this okay, And with out having.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Medicine shop supporting me.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: I don't think I would survived okay, or definitely was
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: so much money okay at least okay, So beyond the
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: compliance and operational requirements and regulation requirements that medicine Shop
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: always keep us updated about, okay, we wouldn't be able
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: to like to survive.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: But that's on one side.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: On the other side, again, as I said, it's a
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: model that is working now. When I move from one
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: location to one location, I have the same.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Training across the board between the locations.
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: For example, Okay, I standardize the workflow across operations. Okay,
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: the services that I do and the way we do
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: the services, it's the same across the board. So being
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: part of the franchise helps introducing all these like tiny
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: things that my tender to provide a service here and there.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Being part of the medicine shop helps. That's on one side.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: Another side, actually, one of the biggest things that I
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: believe people miss all the time is being also part
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: franchise can open certain doors for you for vendor relationships
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: and how you can be part of a larger network
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: where you can access better pricing.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: And get a stable supply chains.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Okay, a.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Manage your inventory in a better way.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: So this is a big, big, big point I feel
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: people they miss all the time.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, lance back to you.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: Once a pharmacy is co branded, How are you guys
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: engaging with their owner and staff? What's the check in
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: process like? Are you are you in constant communication? You
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: talking to them every checking in every week, every month?
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: What does that look like?
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it really, Jason, really depends on the owner.
• 26:21
  Speaker 7: So I have a lot of startups, and a lot
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: of the majority of my startups come in as a
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: co branded store.
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: With them, I'm in touch with them continuously, probably for
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: the first six months.
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: Just to try to get them onboard and get them comfortable,
• 26:37
  Speaker 7: get them understanding exactly what's happening with their business and
• 26:41
  Speaker 7: going with the flow.
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: Then I have other owners where every quarter.
• 26:47
  Speaker 7: I meet with them in their accountant and we go
• 26:49
  Speaker 7: through kind of their books, we go through their financials,
• 26:53
  Speaker 7: We sit down and go through all that. Then I
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: have other owners that are pretty much if I need
• 27:00
  Speaker 7: if I need you, I'll call you. So it's really
• 27:03
  Speaker 7: kind of whatever the owners looking for, we can kind
• 27:07
  Speaker 7: of tailor our expertise to their needs.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: No, yeah, I love that, Tony. You know you keep
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: you know again giving back to.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: That word support, you know in talking to Lance, you
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: know what's been what what you actually if I even
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: go back further, you mentioned that you put in what
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: is it called the immunizations right in your pharmacy right,
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: So was that identified by Lance and the teams and
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: something you wanted to do? How is this support from
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Lance and just medicine shop in general allowed you to
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: identify some maybe some things that you can you know,
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: expanding your pharmacy operations.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: You know what.
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: Like I'm going to give you an example that goes
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: back I think like three years okay, and that's when.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: We had.
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: Margin crush because of the way the reimbursement in the
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: industry is going on. Lands and medicine shop people came
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: with an idea that tay Tony, there is something big
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: going on. It's called LTC at home, long term care
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: pharmacy at home, and we believe that you have so
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: many patients that they can benefit from.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know what, guys, please help me? Okay?
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: What's this about? How can I do it? Is it legal?
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: What's the compliance needed? What's the imbursement difference? Is it
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: worth it? How can I approach my staff about all
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: of this, is that something I'm only going to make
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: money out of what I'm going to really help patients
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: and close a health care gap that we need to do.
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: And the answer was clear yes to everything. And from
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: that point, actually, I think that's one one side of
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: what Medicine Shop and lends UH can can help you with,
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: like bringing you ideas that you didn't think off uh
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: and actually those ideas it's really meaningful to your patients
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: and your business.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, as far as you know some of the opportunities
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: that you're excited about or work side about the time,
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: what what really kind of took off and and got
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: you thinking, you know, maybe I should do this in
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: many of my stores or all of them? What were
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: those those couple of ideas that really got you excited?
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Uh? You know what? Uh?
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: Another one was actually, as I mentioned, being part of
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: Medicine Shop opened certain pricing structure and vendor support and
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: that I won't get for example, being able to structure
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: to partner with Medicine Shop slash Cardinal to get surprising
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: for certain items that we do. I just don't want
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: to mention any name, but actually it helped a lot
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: it's helped a lot. That's one side that it helped
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: more than anyone can imagine. On one side, the other
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: one adding certain services to our pharmacy to help our patients.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: Part of what we're doing now is something called community
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: healthcare Workers Okay, expansion, and that's something we were able
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: to help our patients with and at the same time
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: build for these services. Medicine Shop also helped us and
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: recognizing such opportunities and my state that we can do
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: a couple of examples that I would think of, actually
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: that comes to my mind.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: No, yeah, well, actually, you know, you brought a billing
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: and that's a we actually recorded a podcast not that
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: long ago about building in some of the intricacies that
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: are involved there, and it's kind of it's great to
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: hear that that medicine Shop is helping you guys out
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: with that as well. Yeah, Tony, last question for you,
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: if kind of wrap this up, what would you tell
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: a pharmacy owner interested in expansion or even about co
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: branding the pharmacy with the medicine shop. What what advice
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: would you give to them, because I know probably you
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: know it could be a little scary in the beginning.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: Do I want to do this? Do I not want
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: to do this?
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: What advice would you offer an indiependent pharmacist that could
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: be maybe on the fence about it.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: You know what, I'm going to think it's worth more
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: than you can imagine. I'm going to don't think the
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: fact that there are so many regulations in this industry
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: and at any time something can hit you without you
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: noticing or without you knowing. There are so many incidents,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: and I know so many people that they had to
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: close their farmacies simply because they didn't have the information
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: needed to be compliant in one simple thing there point
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: they like, they just didn't know about it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: Okay, Now, how doing someone like Lance, Okay, with all
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: his vast experience, Okay, he would come and just tell you, Tony,
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: are you doing this?
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: No?
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: I'm not doing it because I didn't know about it.
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: You know what, Tony, The Board of Pharmacy came or
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: THEDA came to that store, or whatever regulatory agency came
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: to that store, and they get fined only because they
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: didn't click that box. That's It's as simple as that,
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: because simply they didn't document such thing as simple as that.
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: So that information. It works a lot because the relations,
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: like believe it or not, can be in tens and
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not worth it. It's
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: not worth it. You can easily avoid so many things,
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: and I did avoid so many things luckily because of
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: the advice that they got from that. That's not to
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: mention that's not to mention the huge, the huge points
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: of opportunity that they come to you, whether it was
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: a service that you can add, whether it was a
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: pricing structure that they can benefit you from, whether it
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: was an opportunity that they can tell you about, whether
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: that it's a new building service that you can add
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: to your pharmacy with a way to educate your people.
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: It's as simple as that, Hey, Tony, I know a pharmacy.
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: It's in the same town like you. And they did
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: this marketing campaign and it worked very well, brought them
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: so many patients.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: As simple as that.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: It helped all the time and not only brings you
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: or keeps your compliance with any regulation, but also add
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: a lot to your business.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: I appreciate that, Tony. That's a lot of a lot
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: of really good insight. I think it's a lot of
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: great helpful information for all the listeners. Tony obviously very
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: passionate about it and it's coming through so I really
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: love that.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Lance. I'll let you kind of, you know, wrap it
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: up here.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: If a pharmacy owner here's this episode and wants to
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: learn more about co branding, what should they be doing, well.
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: They can.
• 34:13
  Speaker 7: They can check out our Cardinal Medicine Shop website. But
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: also they can contact me directly just at my email
• 34:21
  Speaker 7: at Lance dot mint at cardinalhealth dot com. Happy to
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: share any insights, give them advice on what's going to happen.
• 34:32
  Speaker 7: If they're a startup, we can do a demographic study
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: and take a look at what kind of locations they're
• 34:37
  Speaker 7: looking at.
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: Happy to help it anyway.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: That's awesome. Thank you guys.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: I want to say thanks to both Tony and Lance
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: again for giving our listeners some great insights and you know,
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: a clear understanding of how co branding with Medicine Shop works,
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: the pros, the cons, how much support you do get
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: If you're interested in learning more, check the show notes
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: for a link to the MISI co brand landing page,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: or as Lance mentioned, you can email him directly.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: So hopefully Lance gets a lot of emails and with.
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: That said, thanks for listening today's episode of the Cardinal
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: Health counter Talk podcast and as a reminder, this is
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: your first time listening. Make sure you subscribe and download
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: the Cardinal Health counter Talk podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: See you on the next one, guys, and take care
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: every month