Two Pharmacy Podcast Network podcasters.
Two advocates for nontraditional pharmacy.
Two powerhouse women pharmacists.
One great TNP feature!
Name: Ashlee Klevens Hayes
Position: Founder of RxAshlee
Interview Summary
Lynn [00:00:00] Lynn Paterini here with The Nontraditional Pharmacist, part of the Pharmacy Podcast Network. Today we’re joined by Ashlee Klevens Hayes and I personally have been looking forward to this interview for quite some time. I am a big fan of Ashlee’s work. She’s doing some really awesome things in pharmacy. Ashlee is a pharmacist, a keynote speaker, a fellow co-host on the Pharmacy Podcast Network with her show Rx Buzz, and on top of that she is an entrepreneur with her business are Rx Ashlee. So Ashlee welcome and thanks for being on the show with us today.
Ashlee [00:00:33] Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate this. This is fun and I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time too, Lynn. So thanks for having me.
Lynn [00:00:41] Let’s get started today by having you share with everybody your path through pharmacy to where you got today.
Ashlee [00:00:48] Sure. Top number one question people ask me when I get on these types of shows and when I’m talking to students especially, because I think students are so eager to know other people’s jobs and other people’s lives and just to kind of know how their experience was to get to where they are. And I’ll tell you I definitely don’t have a checklist of how to get from A to Z, but my path has been winding and it’s been curvy and it’s taken me places that I never in a million years thought I would envision to be. If you would have ask me five years ago if like what I wanted to do in the next five years, there’s no way that Rx Ashlee would have even existed in my brain. So I will just start with that. Okay, I’m just gonna set the path with that because I am a third generation pharmacist, my grandfather was a pharmacist, my dad’s a pharmacist, and lo and behold I became a pharmacist. And I always knew going into pharmacy that I was going to do something nontraditional. I just knew that in my heart I wanted to go into the profession because there is just so many opportunities and there really really are endless endless opportunities, the profession has never disappointed me. Actually it’s been overwhelming because I’m like which one do I choose? Where do I go? Where do I fit? So navigating through pharmacy school I kind of always immersed myself in unique positions or unique experiences and then I learned about the health system administration because I did a rotation with a CEO of the hospital and he was a PharmD and he was starting this program and he was like Ashlee you should really look into this. I always thought I wanted to be like a director of pharmacy, chief pharmacy officer or like a CEO of a health system like that. That’s what my dad did. So that’s kind of what I was exposed to, more of the business side of pharmacy and operations and less of that direct clinical patient care. So I took that rotation fourth year and then obviously my dad was a director pharmacy so I had that exposure and I did a PGY1 and PGY2 at the University of Kentucky, I was the first admin resident at UK which is a whole experience, a whole story in its own of how I got there. But I was you know, I met the director pharmacy there and I was like this is what I want to do, what you guys think? And they were totally on board and so I joined UK, ended up staying there as their assistant director of central pharmacy operations where I oversaw sterile products and OR services and really perioperative management care. Then from that role I was a project manager on an implementation of a technology company, some software that we were implementing within the hospital and I built some connections through that company and it was essentially a software startup company in the pharmacy space and I recognized that I had some questions about some pharmacy questions, some basic pharmacy questions and I was like can I talk to your pharmacist? And they were like we don’t have pharmacists on the team. I was like you don’t have pharmacists? You’re a pharmacy software team or a company. And so long story short I ended up meeting them and meeting the CEO and I transition into consulting for software companies shortly after that meeting. So that’s really my experience in pharmacy specifically, in like a traditional realm. So once I got into the consulting position what happened was I was really exposed to not just the startup feel and the startup world, but like entrepreneurship 101. I mean this was a small, small company. I was one of like 25-30 team members and it was so much fun and I loved it. Now coincidentally when I was part of the startup space, I had a lot of pharmacists reaching out to me asking me how did I become a consultant? And I was like I just networked my way in. I don’t know I just did it. And then those questions kept on coming as I was traveling across the world, giving speaking engagements, traveling across the country just talking to different people and literally I just kept on getting messages and emails from colleagues asking how I was doing what I was doing and finally I was talking to one of my friends and she was like Ashlee, that’s what you do you’re just good at getting jobs. I was like what?. I’m a pharmacist. I don’t get it. I don’t know. I just didn’t realize that that was a skill.
Lynn [00:05:17] Yeah that’s a good skill to be good at.
Ashlee [00:05:19] It’s not a bad thing. You know I’m not good at a lot of things, but one of the things that I think I have a skill in is learning how to talk about yourself, and teaching people your skill set. And so, lo and behold, long story short, I started taking on a few clients here and there about who wanted to go through starting a consulting business or career pivots or needing support in interviews. Fast forward two years later and this is my full time job now. I am doing career strategizing, business development, branding, marketing, and interview prep for high level professionals, majority of them being pharmacists but also I have a lot of non-pharmacists clients too. Long winded answer to a very short question, but it’s not like I just woke up one day and this all magically happened.
Lynn [00:06:04] Hey no that’s great. That’s exactly what we want to hear we want to see the steps it took you to get to where you are today. I love that you mentioned how you networked your way in. Since it’s such a huge part in getting a job. So you went from being a consultant at a pharmacy-based company, which kind of got you into the entrepreneurial spirit but that’s still different than what you’re doing now, correct?
Ashlee [00:06:23] I myself went through a whole career pivot about two years ago.
Lynn [00:06:27] And then you started RxAshlee?
Ashlee [00:06:28] Yeah it’s about a year two years ago and then I started Ashlee. The inception was about 18 months ago. So it’s kind of been a whirlwind. And I love it, super fun. I love my job so I think it’s just really important that people recognize, like asking yourself what are you good at. Not what do we think you have to do, not the things that you think on paper looks good, like actually what are you good at? And then kind of doing more of that.
Lynn [00:06:59] Okay that’s great. That’s great advice. Can you go further into explaining what are RxAshlee specifically is?
Lynn [00:07:06] So RxAshlee is a career development company. We focus on career people, “we” as in me and my clients, we focus on career strategizing, career pivots, brand development if you’re starting a business or if you are going through like a personal brand pivot, marketing yourself, and interview preparation. That is in its whole what exactly I work one-on-one with clients, I have group clients, I have individual clients, I have students, I have high level professionals. So really it ranges from students all the way through, I mean physicians, CEOs, attorneys, experts in all different realms. It’s not really industry specific because everything we talk about is transferable.
Lynn [00:07:48] That’s interesting, very interesting to note that you branch out and do coaching not only for pharmacists but for other professionals as well.
Ashlee [00:07:56] Yeah and it’s not isolated to pharmacists. I would say about 50 percent of my work is pharmacists because that’s again my network, and that’s where a lot of pharmacists reach out to me. But it is actually grown in different areas because of referrals and recommendations. So for example kind of how this started, I have a lot of pharmacists clients and then they are pharmacists but then they tell their spouses or their sisters or their friends about the work we’ve done and they’re not pharmacists. So I love working with every industry and it’s kind of fun to learn about different experiences and different jobs and different career paths. I’ve learned so much just by working with unique people in nontraditional roles or traditional. Things I would have never imagined but because the skills that we go through and the tools that we use is non-industry specific it’s quite easy for me to jump on a call with someone that’s not a clinician.
Lynn [00:09:00] You talked a bit about how you started RxAshlee, how did you decide to make that your full time job? I can imagine that be a little nerve wracking and scary. So how did you decide to make the jump and go all in with it?
Ashlee [00:09:11] So we, my husband and I, my family were going through a lot of transitions. We were moving across the country we had just had a baby. We would be moving again because my husband was going through residency himself. So we both kind of were transients for lack of better terms and I took the year of when I knew we weren’t gonna be there for long term, I turned down 30 pharmacist jobs, I remember I took an Excel spreadsheet and I was like applying to jobs, looking at new positions because we had moved, and because the consulting company I was kind of like I like it, but I want to see what else is out there. So I started just thinking like what is it that I actually want to do with my skills? What is it that I actually want to do with my education? I want to help people. I love my job, I love working, but honestly Lynn I was kind of thrusted into entrepreneurship because of our geographic location, we had been moving and so I didn’t want to take like a “traditional job” because I knew we were gonna be moving again. And it just largest logistically didn’t make sense for our family. So I just said I’m going to do what I want to do, I’m going to start this. And I started it from scratch, totally on my own. And it’s really grown its wings and evolved into something that I never thought about this again. When I was a student I would have never imagined myself in this position but it’s working, the results are there and I just I love the work. And again like I said before, I knew I was always going to do something nontraditional, but what I thought nontraditional in my opinion, I thought I was going to be like a CEO of a health system. Like that’s really what I thought, that’s nontraditional because pharmacists don’t really do that. But it’s totally different than what I ever imagined.
Lynn [00:10:57] So you took nontraditional to a whole nother level.
Ashlee [00:11:00] Exactly, thank you. Yeah exactly. You can say that again. I typically do take things to a whole different level, that’s just kind of my personality in terms of like you told me to do something and I’m just gonna break every single real possible. I’m a big rule breaker.
Lynn [00:11:16] Hey that’s okay, sometimes you need to do that. Break those rules! You took a situation you were in and made the most of it and made your own rules along the way. That’s fantastic.
Ashlee [00:11:25] Yeah and I think as you go through your career you have to be able to define what success means to you and your family and everyone has different expectations and different stories and paths in their life. But what success means to me is totally different than what someone else’s measure of success, and the way that I measure success is am I helping people and do I see the results? And both of those are totally checkmarked in my current business so I’m going to keep rolling with it and see what happens.
Lynn [00:11:56] Keep rolling with it I like it. What is your specific role in RxAshlee? Do you work one-on-one or is it more in groups?
Ashlee [00:12:05] So we have, so I’m the content creator, the founder and then I have a few people that work under me, but totally different. They don’t do any of the direct client facing stuff, it’s all behind the scenes graphic design and freelance content creation for the blogs and photography and I have an attorney that I work with. So it’s a group of us that make this whole business function but it’s really me as the face of the company. So I do a variety of different things. First and foremost, I work one-on-one with clients every single day. So whether that’s in curating a business or launching a business or creating a business there’s that. Two, if it’s one-on-one with a client working in career pivots I do that. And three if it’s interview prep I do that one-on-one, too. The second thing is I have online courses now that we’re going through. So I put a lot of the clients I work with through the online course and then the reason why I developed the online courses because a lot of people, a lot of professionals have the same exact questions. So it’s like why don’t I just create this so I can put all my clients through and then if they want to meet with me one-on-one, then we can like work closely together. But everyone tends to have the same questions. So putting them through the course and then three, I do a lot of speaking engagements now so I travel around a lot. And then four, I am in the middle of group coaching too. So I have a women’s mastermind group, there’s I think almost 10 professional women in this group coaching course. I’ve been working on writing a book and podcasting. There’s just so many different arms of the business. But ultimately the bread and butter is when I work with clients one-on-one. That’s where it’s at.
Lynn [00:13:59] Where is RxAshlee today in regards to your larger vision? What do you have in mind for the future?
Ashlee [00:14:06] Oh man if I can like. That’s a great question. You know I’m gonna be honest with you. Entrepreneurship every single day looks so different. And if I could just help every single pharmacist possible to really teach them how to articulate themselves and teach them how to. It’s not about your resume, it’s not about your CV, it’s about really learning how to talk about yourself and talk about your skills and just be comfortable in an interview setting or comfortable and when giving presentations. I mean that’s a major goal of mine. I’m not sure the bandwidth or the capacity of how I’d be able to do that. But if I envision RxAshlee in five years, it would be just talking to every single pharmacist out there and honing them into this big room and saying, “You guys. We’re gotta talk about ourselves better. We’re better than this. So that would be great.”
Lynn [00:15:00] Being able to share your knowledge with more people I think that’s great. Especially with pharmacy school, I know it seems like you’re almost hyper-focused on getting good grades and you want to do well of course, but a big part that’s left out is like you were saying, interview prep and how to speak with people and land the interview that gets you the job in the end. For the next question what advice would you give to others that want to go down a similar path yours?
Ashlee [00:15:24] Great question. So I think having the mindset that there’s only one job for you or there’s only one type of job for you, or maybe two jobs or three jobs. Because ultimately I think the best advice I can give to people who are going through a career pivot in pharmacy specifically, the jobs out there are endless. It’s like there’s so many jobs. It’s just what we typically are hyper focused on is one is one maybe three jobs max. And I just totally disagree with that sentiment. I think that there are so many opportunities for us to use our skills, to use our background, to use our experiences and to really implement them into different companies and just using your assets in a different way. We have to address that the one size fits all model just doesn’t work. And healthcare is obviously an ever-evolving, rapidly changing space and we’ve got to keep up.
Lynn [00:16:23] Definitely agree with that. Pharmacy is such a dynamic career path and speaking of it changing a lot, where do you see the field of pharmacy heading in the future?
Ashlee [00:16:33] Oh wow, this is a loaded question. I feel like it’s going to go one or two ways. It’s either going to explode into all this awesomeness of like just totally different roles and pharmacists really taking taking it on headfirst and treating themselves as their own unique startup industry and their own unique entrepreneur-self, even if you’re working for someone else. Or I see it going really just negatively and us not really participating in advocacy or policy work and us taking the sidelines, which we’ve traditionally done, and I’m not that person. I believe that if you want to change something it comes from within and you have to actually do something about it. If you’re unhappy in your job, if you’re unhappy in your career, if you’re dissatisfied about how your path is going, you actually have to do something about it. Like no one’s going to do it for you and I think that’s where the root of a lot of unsatisfied pharmacies come from but ultimately, because there are more traditional pharmacists in the country now, I really think it’s our time to take this as an opportunity, not as a negative thing. It should be a positive thing, that how are we going to spin our skills and help more patients and overall make our impact stronger? Not weaker! I mean I wish I had like a magic ball that showed me what happens in 10 years but ultimately all I have control over is how I participate in the profession and that’s by giving back to a local pharmacy organization, you know attending conferences, maintaining my network and just doing the best I can to be a positive influence on the profession.
Lynn [00:18:11] Now if people want to learn more about you, about RxAshlee, a little bit more about what you do, where can we go to find more information?
Ashlee [00:18:19] Sure. So the best placed to reach me on is my website, http://www.RxAshlee.com and it’s two “E’s”, RxAshlee with two “E’s”. And then you know I’m on all the social media outlets LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. My website is the best place to go.
Lynn [00:18:35] Well Ashlee. Thank you so much for your time today and sharing your story. I love your take on pharmacy and everything that you’re doing. It’s great to have you as part of The Nontraditional Pharmacist network and we’ll see everybody next time.
Ashlee [00:18:47] Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity Lynn. Appreciate it.