The dynamic duo behind Your Financial Pharmacist, Tim Ulbrich and Tim Baker, met on Twitter before an in-person convo at Bob Evans that turned into a decision to marry their individual businesses into one. Today they’re on a mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom through comprehensive financial planning services, a weekly podcast, blog, and the YFP community.
The Tims come from very different backgrounds.
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Tim Ulbrich was a pharmacist in his early career. He and his wife spent many years working to pay off his student loan debt. Along the way, he became aware of just how many people were in his exact same situation without much out there in terms of support or community resources to help pharmacists that were struggling with the adjustment from pharmacy school graduation to starting their professional career. After completing that journey, he realized that he wanted to better serve pharmacists struggling with their personal finances so he started the Your Financial Pharmacist blog and shortly thereafter launched the book ‘Seven Figure Pharmacist’.
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Tim Baker has always felt drawn to financial planning but initially found himself in logistics after getting out of the military, until 2012 when he dove headfirst into financial planning. In 2016, he took the leap and started his own financial planning firm called ‘Script Financial’ which was focused on financial planning for pharmacy professionals. Through his entrepreneurial journey, Tim was slowly growing his business and trying to figure it all out along the way, when he came across Tim Ulbrich on Twitter and decided to reach out.
After their initial meeting and incredible conversations at Bob Evans, they decided to continue the conversation through a new podcast: Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. This was the first test to see whether they wanted to take it to the next level and combine their businesses. They’re proud to say that they’ve been doing the podcast since July 2017 and now have half a million downloads! That was really the genesis of where they started to come together.
Tim Ulbrich puts it this way: “We really were separate businesses that came together and merged into one entity with one vision and one team. The second we made the decision, we started seeing the acceleration of the business growth. The example I always use is that we can keep rowing side-by-side and it would be a great journey but what would happen if they hop in the same boat and decided to go at this together? I think that we are continuing to see the initial benefits of that. You get together two different businesses and there are certainly challenges to that. There are T’s that have to be crossed and I’s that have to be dotted but it allows us to get crystal clear on our vision. Our vision is to educate and empower pharmacists. Everything is pointing towards one-on-one competent financial planning because we really believe that’s where the transformation is going to happen.”
The Tims both enjoy being entrepreneurs and business partners. They’re driven by the autonomy to create something from nothing that helps pharmacists achieve their dreams. Today, the Tims aren’t flying solo, they’ve built a passionate team that shares their vision. Tim Baker can hardly believe what they’ve created, saying, ”I do know that we have touched something with our niche and it’s truly rewarding to see this idea that we had that was born out of nothing to be this entity, this thing and that still kind of trips me out and I think it’s very rewarding.”
Along the way, they’ve learned a lot about entrepreneurship so we asked them for advice to give others who might be considering their own entrepreneurial journey.
5 Tips for Budding Entrepreneurs
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Find a good partner and a good team that you can surround yourself with that help share your vision and values.
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Solve someone’s problem + Be passionate about your solution. The Tims were inspired by Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income. Every business is about solving a problem that people care about and they’re willing to pay for. Identify that problem and work out a solution that solves that problem. That’s how you know you’re onto something.
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Take risks. Everyone wants to be successful and comfortable, but you don’t have to go down the traditional path of getting a degree, working for someone else, collect a salary and benefits, then retire. You can take a different path but it requires taking risks.
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Ignore the haters. Your idea is worth exploring. It’s worth trying. Too many people are afraid to start because it goes against the grain and they fear what other people might say.
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Don’t fear failure. The first few years as an entrepreneur can be difficult as your struggle to learn everything about doing business on your own, but know that is normal. You might fail along the way, but trust that you can figure it out and give yourself time to learn from your perceived failures. Look at them as growth opportunities.
So, where is Your Financial Pharmacist hoping to go? “I really believe that we’re playing a significant role in a problem that is plaguing many pharmacists very early on in their careers. So continuing to serve the pharmacy community and continuing to help pharmacists and really empower them is what we’ve been trying to do and empower them to take their own action. They get excited about learning and, we’re here to help them stay accountable. I think if we can continue to spread that we will have an opportunity to really have a transformation not just in the individual but in the profession as a whole. I think there’s some really significant opportunity that this conversation of personal finance and pharmacy has really come front and center of the last five years for a variety of reasons but I feel like we play a significant role in that and I think that we have the opportunity to bring the community around issues that can inform what we do in terms of colleges of pharmacy, as future pharmacist are being training. Are they getting an education on this topic and what role can be played to help make that a reality?” says Tim Ulbrich.
Get to know Tim and Tim of Your Financial Pharmacist by tuning into their podcast or read up on their blog.