Justin Allan, The Elite NP will be speaking at the APP Aesthetics Summit in Orlando, FL April 28-30th 2023.
Justin is the mastermind behind The Elite NP which is a wealth of information and resources for NPs looking to start niche medical practices. He is going to be speaking at the APP Aesthetics Summit about the Elite NP Model of starting a business. He has already helped thousands of NPs achieve that goal. Read below of the transcript of Cassie and Justin having a happy hour interview. The topic is the upcoming Summit and we dive into measurable metrics you should know about your personal finances before starting your business.
Cassie Lane: All right. Hi, Justin. A k a, the elite np. Uh, thank you for joining me today. We decided to make it a happy hour, right? Cheers. Cheers. Yeah, <laugh>. So, um, I’m excited we could come together on a Sunday evening because there’s no rest for the we for the weary, especially the entrepreneur. Um, but this is the time we can make it work, because I really wanted to, um, touch base with on you and talk about, um, you coming to talk at our a p p Aesthetic Summit. And, um, for anybody who is not familiar with Justin, he is the mastermind. He is the elite np, and you offer a host of kind of entrepreneurial cash-based, some, some insurance-based stuff too, but kind of startup services for nurse practitioners where you can start your own business, everything from IV hydration hormones, um, honestly at this point, you name it, derm, like, so, so many things.
Cassie Lane: Um, and we were lucky enough to snag you to, to come really do your first public speaking thing that, that I know about. You know, you’ve always kept it really to online stuff, but you have such a, a loyal, um, following or tribe with you, and I know that they’re gonna be excited to connect with you. Um, so welcome. And I just wanted you to kind of, you know, anything I missed, please, please feel free to add anything. And also just let me know a little bit of, of what you think you’re gonna talk about, um, in April at the conference.
Justin Allan: Yeah, sure. No, I think you pretty much, uh, summed it up. Yeah. Uh, we started the elite nurse practitioner. Um, I’m a little over three years ago now, and, uh, yeah, we have 20 plus courses, probably another, um, eight to 10 plan this year. Uh, mostly focusing on cash based wellness services, that kind of a thing. But like you said, we do a little bit of insurance, um, more like the niche insurance based stuff, you know, like we don’t have like a primary care insurance course, like, there’s just no money in primary care, unfortunately. You know what I mean? So like, uh, so yeah. Anyways though. But yeah, that’s kind of, uh, the gist of it. So, um, yeah, so we started this three years ago to kind of help empower the nurse practitioner to, um, you know, get out of, uh, working for others and start their own business. I mean, you’re always gonna be screwed over working for other people. You’re just going to, there’s just no way around it. Like, just no way. You know what I mean? So, um, so yeah, you still work, uh, 10 99, don’t you?
Justin Allan: Do. You still like PRN stuff? Mm-hmm.
Cassie Lane: <affirmative>, yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah, I do one or two days a month of anesthesia still.
Justin Allan: Gotcha. But you, I mean, you probably make pretty good money doing that though.
Cassie Lane: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah, and, you know, I never, I actually didn’t ever picture myself stepping away, uh, from anesthesia the way I did. It just kind of, you know, I loved entrepreneurship more, but I, I think, I think many people struggle with this. I’m sure you see it all the time, and I’m sure you had these same feelings too. It’s hard to like, give up on that amount of school and expertise and experience that you have, you know? It sure still feels to me like that safety net, you know what I mean? I don’t know when that, when that goes away, but
Justin Allan: Yeah. Um, like I haven’t picked up a shift in the ERs, you know, nurse practitioner for God, four years or something like that, you know what I mean? Like, uh, yeah, I was worried about losing those skills. Um, and I probably lost a lot of those skills. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, I’m sure I could jump in there and work up just about anything at this point, but it would take a little while to get it going, you know? So, um, you know, the fear of losing that, it’s not really a big deal to me. I mean, I’ve already, I’m focusing on other stuff. So like, it’s just the evolution of the advanced practice nurse. Like, you go from, you know, this clinical only person and you just, and you, you basically build up those skills, right?
Justin Allan: So like, I’m at a different point in my career from where I was then, so like, sure I lost some of those skills, but I’ve gained a lot more skills, right? Different skills, you know, so, uh, skills that make me more fulfilled, make me more, you know, generate more money and those kinds of things. So, yeah. Um, so yeah, anyways, about the, the conference though, yeah, I think I’m gonna speak about mostly just, um, uh, financial kind of things. Like I think, uh, uh, I’m really getting into just more investing in how to like, make your money turn into more money, that kind of a thing. So I’m probably gonna talk a lot about that and also talk about the, uh, the elite nurse practitioner model, which is a model I created, um, when I first created the Elite mp. And it’s just a model, um, put together to kind of help the advanced practice nurse, uh, basically break free from the rat race, you know, kind of get out and do your own thing.
Justin Allan: So, um, the principle of it for those people who, uh, might not be familiar with it, is having a part-time job, um, always maintain a part-time job during the initial entrepreneurial, um, journey. Basically, when you’re first starting a business, always maintain some sort of job, some sort of income, um, try to have more than one business, you know, ha try to have more than one income stream. I think it’s foolish to, uh, have one income stream. It’s, uh, it’s just, it’s, it’s dumb. Like what that one income stream dries up, you’re screwed unless you have a lot of savings. Um, avoid insurance practices if you can only own cash practices. Cash is king. Insurance is a pain in the ass. You have to deal with pre-authorizations, all the in, uh, uh, all the documentation considerations. I mean, all that stuff. It just, you can’t, you, you basically can’t run your business like you want.
Justin Allan: If you are, um, accepting insurance, you just can’t, uh, decreasing personal expenses, live below your means. That way you’re not gonna be stressed out. Uh, decrease business expenses, run a lean business, a lean business as a profitable business, and try to be debt free. I mean, I think that, uh, if you can do all of those things in your life, you’re going to exponentially increase your wealth, your net worth, your freedom. Like that’s how I started. And like, I’ve 20 xed my net worth in just four or five years. Like, there’s no way I’d be where I’m at now if I was still working at the urgent care in the er. There’s just, right. Absolutely. No way.
Cassie Lane: Well, when you’re just trading your, your time for money, you know, there’s only so much time in, you know, there’s gonna be a cap of how much in as a nurse practitioner and healthcare, your hourly rate is ultimately gonna be. I mean, even physicians, you’re seeing the, the groups are being bought up, they’re becoming so much more corporate or being bought by the hospitals and, you know, so many of them are just cogs in the wheel as well. And I think what made me think about that is this is almost like a somewhat new phenomenon, and I feel like nps creating their own businesses, I think it’s been really, um, more in that physician realm, you know, of that expectation. They also get zero business training in school just like we do. Um, and I think that, um, it’s so great that there is some help in some leadership in this area of saying like, Hey, you can do this too.
Cassie Lane: You have the ability, there’s nothing stopping you. Here’s the tools to do it. Um, what I really wanted to get you to, or, or us together to dive in is somebody that’s looking at starting their own business. Um, I love this idea that you’re gonna keep a part-time job to have some income to support yourself, but I wanted to talk a little bit about personal finance and what are some things that you think an NP looking to start their own, um, aesthetics practice their own, uh, testo, Sharon clinic, whatever it may be, weight loss clinic, whatever it may be. Are there even like, like a checklist of things that you feel like people should have straight before they in their own personal finances? Because I think your business finances are this extension of your personal finances. I mean, you talked about net worth, a lot of people don’t, don’t know about net worth. So I don’t know, just tell me some of the highlights of what you think are the most important things have straight in your personal finances before you endeavor into a business.
Justin Allan: Sure. So two things. First, net worth is really, it’s kind of meaningless. I mean, if you have a house that’s appreciated 200% in the last three or four years, yet all the real estate around you has appreciated like that, you’re not gonna sell your house because there’s no other house to buy, right? So, sure, you’re sitting on a lot of equity, you know, you’re sitting on a house that might be worth $500,000 that you bought for $200,000. So you’re, you know, you automatically increase your net worth by $300,000. Doesn’t mean anything though, until you sell it, right? So instead of net worth, I want you to think of cash flow. That’s what’s important. The money coming in, that’s what ultimately changes your life, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that’s what you can do stuff with. You can’t do something with equity just sitting in your house unless you pull out a line of equity, you know, a, a a, a credit line off your house, a a heloc, basically, you pull the equity out and you’re just going into debt and you’re basically giving your house back to the bank. Stupid, right? So, so just kind of thinking more like cash flow, I want people to start thinking more cash flow versus net worth, because that’s what matters. Like, how much money is coming in, how much do your investments make you super important. Um, a lot of people never think about that. They just don’t, you know what I mean? They, you know, I, I’m worth $800,000. I have so much equity in my house. Like it doesn’t mean shit at the end of the day until you actually can start generating money from it, right?
Cassie Lane: Well, same thing with your stocks, right? They, they’re only worth something if you sell them. So that’s a really good point. Um, correct. I have a big fan of, of net worth and knowing that, but you know, you make a really good point that it’s such a meaningless number because it, it fluctuates so much based on the stock market, right? And the real estate market,
Justin Allan: Right? Like, you know, like Elon Musk’s net worth a hundred billion, $150 billion, whatever it is, so much of his money is tied up in his businesses and his stocks and stuff doesn’t mean anything. Like he can’t, he doesn’t have, you know, like, I mean, I’m, she has a lot of cash coming in for sure. Yeah. But like, you know, like he doesn’t have 150 billion in cash. He, he just doesn’t, you know, right. So, uh, so yeah. Yeah. Super important. And like we investments
Cassie Lane: Maybe just a touch of like, practically how somebody could track their cash flow. Like what exactly does that mean? It means, I think essentially how much money is coming in in a month or a year. Sure. Yeah. Um, and how much is going out, you know, is there anything more complex on that? Is there any like, software that you like to, to track it? I maybe just QuickBooks, just anything more like practical for that.
Justin Allan: No, I don’t, I don’t use anything to track it other than what’s coming into my bank account. I mean, what’s coming into your bank account at the end of the day is what matters, right? Right. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it’s really not com It’s like, it’s like trying to figure out if your business is profitable or not. Take a look at the bank, what’s your bank account say at the end of the month after all expenses are paid, there’s your profit, right? I mean, it’s what you mean? Same thing personally. Like, and like you, you know, what you touched on, your personal finances and your business finances, they’re gonna reflect each other. Like, if you are really, really bad at personal finance, chances are you’re probably gonna be bad at maintaining the finances of your business too. Like, I very rarely ever see someone who’s really, really good at their business finances, but are just absolutely, you know, then they suck at their personal, like it’s usually it’s one or the other. Like if you’re bad at your personal finances, you’re typically, you’re probably gonna be bad at business finances. Like, those are the people who go out and buy a brand new car three months into their business just cuz they need a business vehicle now. So they’re just going into more debt and more debt. Like, they do the same thing in their personal life, you know? So, um, so yeah, but like in terms of,
Cassie Lane: Yeah, bad I think too means just a lack of education on the, on the matter, right? This is the, these are all smart, we’re all smart, you know, nurse practitioners. It’s more that we have traditionally had, you know, either lack of interest in personal finance or just a lack of resources knowledge or undervaluing the importance of it. Right. I know you have a, you have kind of like a basic personal finance class, don’t you, on
Justin Allan: Yeah, I have the, uh, financial independence and investment. Uh, course it’s like six hours of me blabbering on about this stuff. Like, yeah, it’s, uh, it’s what it was, it was one of my favorite courses to create in my, uh, how to lower your taxes course too. I mean, those things are filled with gold. I mean, yeah,
Cassie Lane: I, I listened to your, had a lawyer taxes course, and then I sent it to my accountant and I was like, listen to this, that even though I was even, I actually do think she got some gems from it. A but b I wanted her to kind of know where my head was out and, and where I was. That’s kinda how I presented it to her. I said, I want you to know, you know, some of these things I’ve learned, and so we could work together to implement them. You know, I didn’t wanna try and imply anything that she may not know, but it felt like that was a good way to bring it up. But anybody who is listening to us and right now they’re thinking, I, I really have never taken an interest in my personal finances, but I wanna start a business. I would say go check both of those courses out. Um, because yeah, I’m like a personal finance junkie and I, I have not listened to your personal finance course and I really want to, I think I would just like the whole time be like, yes, yes. But I know I would pick up a lot of stuff as well.
Justin Allan: Yeah. You know, it ultimatly comes down to what your goals are, you know, I mean, some people are completely fine working until they’re 65, 70 years old, paycheck to paycheck, very rarely ever getting ahead, putting a money in their 401k. They’re ira and like lot, that’s how most people live. So it ultimately comes down to what your goal is. Like, do you wanna become financially independent? Do you want to be able to have that f u money? You know, that money that just, you know, you can just give the middle finger to whoever you want and say, you know what, no, I’m not gonna take it anymore. I can walk away. I can do whatever I want. Like, so it’s really just comes down to what it is that you want to do. Me personally, I want to be, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m 38 years old right now, 40, 42 years old. I want to be able to just say whatever, walk away from whatever it is that I’m doing anything and just literally like, it doesn’t matter to me. You know what I mean? So it just depends on what your goals are like. So if your goals are that, then yes, personal finance should be a intimate part of your life, really should, you know. So yeah.
Cassie Lane: What are some other top elements outside of cashflow that you think somebody before they, is there any kind of minimum amount of money or something before you think somebody should have, before they start a business? Like I’ll throw out, you know, one of my thoughts is that you should have six months of like personal expenses, liquid cash in the bank before you start a business. Now, that’s a luxury. I don’t think that’s a must. I think that’s, that’s ideal though. But I think that starts obviously with understanding what your expenses are. You know, many people don’t. Do you have any rule of thumb like that?
Justin Allan: I honestly didn’t agree with you. I think six to 12 months of expenses in the bank before you start a business is absolutely critical. Like actually in my book, I, I, you know, I, I actually talk about that. I say if you have that six to 12 months of expense, you know, expenses in the bank, it reduces your anxiety significantly. And so if you don’t have an anxiety over your head during the business startup phase, you can actually spend your mental energy on your business versus having to worry about all the stuff going on in the background, right? So I’m gonna agree with you, I think six to 12 months, preferably 12 months if you can, is ideal. Now you’re not saving this money up to use, it’s just there just in case. So you should still have an income stream, a part-time job or whatever it is.
Justin Allan: You should still have that coming in and you live off of that, but you have this buffer in the background so you don’t have to worry about it, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that’s what that emergency fund, that personal expense fund is. It’s just there, just in case. So like, you should never, ever quit everything and go a hundred percent in on your business when you’re first starting. It’s asinine. You only do that when you can justify it, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t know how long it took you, how, how long did it take you to get to your point where in your business to where you were like, okay, I can walk away now from my, from from my work and I can live off the income my, my business take. Yeah. How long did that take you? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Cassie Lane: It was, it was probably a year, but it, which I think is probably on the, maybe it was a year, year and a half. I should look and, and get the exact, you know, number of months. But it was around there. People ask me, and I want you to, to think of an answer for this too. People ask me frequently how did I know when it was time to, to step back or, or essentially walk away from like traditional medicine to do my own thing? And for me, it became where I was like, something has to give, I, I hit my personal breaking point of like, I was doing so much. Like I, I had two young children, a husband, a full-time anesthesia job, and a blooming practice. And it was like some, I just finally was like, you can only, I guess, you know how to say burn the candle at both ends for so long.
Cassie Lane: And I, I knew something had to give and I knew 100% that that something wasn’t gonna be my business. And I knew I really didn’t want that something to be my family. Um, and so it had, that was the only thing left to give. Um, but I, I do feel like when I backed off, because I had the security of having at least six months of personal finances, I had the runway to, even though I didn’t feel like my business was certainly not as, um, it was not replacing my anesthesia income at that point. Um, but I just, I knew it was time because I couldn’t do it anymore. Something had to give. So it probably wasn’t, I think people are looking for a more concrete answer than that. But that was just, I think that you, when, you know, you know, um, but because I had that personal finance piece, I knew I had runway to give it a try.
Cassie Lane: And here’s the, the catch 22. The more you dedicate to your business, the more success you have. I certainly, my books were not, I wish I could say, oh, my books were booked out for aesthetics for two months, so I knew I had to give more time. It wasn’t the case. It was, I became more and more booked the more time, money, energy I dedicated to the business. Um, and that personal finance key, uh, piece was truly the key for me to be able to do that. So yeah. What do, what do you tell people when they say, how do you know?
Justin Allan: Yeah. I mean, I’m gonna agree with you completely. I mean, those are all pretty solid points. I think that, um, I think that for you to leave your, to leave your job, you know, to call it quits, to focus a hundred percent on your business, there’s a lot of factors and you hit a lot of ’em. So number one is obviously, is the income coming in to your business? Is it close enough to match the money you were making at your job? But more importantly is, is that money able to sustain your lifestyle? And so if that number is close, then, uh, then yeah. So from an income standpoint, it’s time to leave your job and focus on your business, right? Um, from a, I guess more of a, uh, man, that’s, you can quantify that from a number standpoint with the income. You can also quantify it based off of how far ahead you’re booking, right?
Justin Allan: And so there’s a principle for, uh, not only leaving your job, um, and focusing on your business, but also hiring another nurse practitioner, another provider to um, see patients. For you, it’s the same, it’s basically the same principle. And that principle is that the, um, that, that basically you’re booking out, uh, two to four weeks in advance is my opinion. If you’re booking out two to four weeks in advance, you are throwing away money because people are impulsive. If they can’t get in the door within a week, two weeks max, they’re going somewhere else. And so you’re throwing money away. And so two to four weeks, if you’re booking out two to four weeks in advance, it is time to seriously consider cutting hours back at your job, putting more time into your business, or hire someone else, start seeing patients for you. And so, um, I did both, like, I mean, yeah, I started hiring other nurse practitioners help me at my men’s health clinic. And so I actually had two other nurse practitioners working for, at my men’s health clinic before I even, like, before I finally left my urgent care job. And that was more or less a mental block. Cause I always wanted that. I wanted that stability, I wanted that job. It’s always there. And like, I just had to get past that. And it was the best thing I ever did. Getting past that was just saying, you know what? No, you know, I don’t need it. Why am
Cassie Lane: I here? When, when, uh, like little factoid that came to mind when you were talking about that is, I know at least in aesthetics, we look at booking at 75%, you know, in, in my software it tells me how booked I am, 75%, you know, I consider that full, um, because, you know, you need to have a little bit of leeway, uh, for like eating and pee breaks and charting and all that. Sure. So I consider a 75%, you know, full availability to be that, that full booking. So if you’re kind of consistently getting that, I think yeah, for sure. That’s an, that’s an easy one. Um,
Justin Allan: No, absolutely. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I
Cassie Lane: See people passing up all, I mean, providers in Richmond, they’re booked out for months and, and I get all their overflow and it’s great. And I’m like, I keep hiring more people to keep up with our demand, you know? I don’t know. Um, yeah,
Justin Allan: They’re throwing away money. They’re Yeah. Throwing it away, right? Yeah. And they’re still working. They’re shifts in the ER or something. It doesn’t make sense. Like, you know what I mean? It just doesn’t make sense. Yeah. So I actually wrote an article about it. There’s actually an article. I was just, I was just thinking, I’m pretty sure I wrote an article about this. If, uh, you, it goes to the elite mp.com/and clicks all articles and searches, just type in the keyword lead, L e a v e. I actually, I actually wrote an article about when to leave your job as nurse practitioner entrepreneur. So, um, yeah, I mean, it kinda, yeah.
Cassie Lane: Say it’s a wealth. I mean, I don’t know, you, you create so much content, you know, I’m an avid, uh, avid reader of your content and it blows my mind, you know, just how much you write, like how much you, cuz I write all the stuff for injectables edu blog and it’s a labor of love, but I’m like, you are a prolific <laugh> prolific writer. <laugh>. Yeah. Not a lot. It’s good. Yeah, I mean, so much. I mean, there is so much, um, in there. So I definitely recommend people check it out. I don’t wanna keep us on too long. I, I know we both have, um, you know, more wine to drink and I’ve gotta make some dinner and put kids to bed. And
Justin Allan: You have, I got two month old, I can hear ’em kind of,
Cassie Lane: Yeah. Yeah, you’re probably happy to hide in your room, um, <laugh>. But, um, but yeah. Um, so just I guess any, any closing thoughts on anything? And I’ll let you get back to it.
Justin Allan: Um, I think from a personal finance standpoint, I think that if you’re gonna start your own business or even grow your current business, um, the whole point of a business is, you know, at the end of the day, it’s to generate money, right? Like, if you’re not generating any money, you’re wasting your time unless you wanna do something that’s non-for-profit or whatever, and that’s fine, but you still have to pay, right? So at the end of the day, with a business, the ultimate, the foundation of it is, it’s, it’s basically the finances of your business. And so if you can’t have a solid foundation for the rest of your business to be built on, um, that foundation’s, it can crumble, it can, there can be cracks in it and things fall through. And so I think that it’s extremely important to just have some very basic financial common sense in your mind.
Justin Allan: You know, expenses, revenue coming in, revenue comes in, expenses go out, whatever is left over is your profit. It’s that simple. You don’t need fancy, you don’t need fancy software and fancy apps and stuff to do this for you. Like, it’s, you know what I mean? Like, that’s, that’s basically it. If profit is low, look at your expenses. Is there stuff that you can cut out? Like it blows my mind when I do consultations with nurse practitioners or other, you know, or podcasts and they’re spending $1,500 a month on an E M R. It’s like, what? Why? Yeah, you, you, you realize you can use paper charts if you want, if it’s a cash practice that’s free, like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that’s $1,500, like that’s half your mortgage payment. That’s a, that’s two car payments. Like what are you doing? Like, so just look at the numbers, look at your expenses, look at your credit card bill. Like look, what can you cut out? What can you decrease? Cutting out one expense instantly increases the profit in your business and also your personal life. So, awesome. Keep it simple, it’s not complicated.
Cassie Lane: Love it. Well thank you so much for joining me. And, um, yeah, if you haven’t checked Justin out, go to the elite np.com. Is it the right, the elite NP is the, or is it just elite NP for the website?
Justin Allan: Just elite np.com? Yeah, my, my email is the elite np. Ok. So it’s two E, it’s weird.
Cassie Lane: Okay. Yeah, that’s true. Uh, elite np.com. He’s got a podcast, like I said, so much info. So check ’em out. Come see both of us. Hang out, both of us. Yes. And mastermind too at the a p p Aesthetic Summit in April in Orlando. Um, have a, have a wonderful rest of your evening and, you know, cheers, <laugh>.
Justin Allan: Cheers. Yeah.
