From paramedic to healthcare entrepreneur, Jennifer Carlquist is improving lives

When Jen showed up in my group with her cardiology course to promote, I was impressed! She had found a corner of the market that was untapped in healthcare by solving a problem that she has seen throughout her career that started in the back of an ambulance.

Today as a physician assistant, she is teaching paramedics and others in her field how to read EKG's by offering an artistic point of view of how the heart works. Now she's reaching more people by teaching through a digital course, and she came to me for help in promoting it with Facebook ads.

Listen to our conversation.

Transcript:

00:23                                     Hey,

00:24                                     ready? I've got Jen, Carl Quist here. And do you like to go by Jen or Jennifer? Dennis. Good. Jen is good. Awesome. And where do you live? I think you're in California.

00:35                                     Yes, I am in the bay area of California. So the Monterey Bay. It's beautiful over here.

00:41                                     I bet it is. I would love to see that someday. Um, I've been to California, I've been to Los Angeles several times. I've been to San Diego, I've never made it to San Francisco area, but I have been up to the Willits area, which is like the gateway to the

00:58                                     redwood forest. Is that right? I think so, yeah,

01:02                                     exactly. So, so I've had like all sorts of different, um, touch points around California, but just not, I've never been to San Francisco. And then I don't know where Monterey Bay is. Anyway,

01:14                                     it's two hours south of San Francisco and we're known for our big aquarium here. We have a beautiful, um, huge aquarium and so that's the big attraction here.

01:23                                     Very cool. Well, tell me a little bit about your background and what, you know, how did you get into what you do? Let me know, you know, are you a doctor or are you, um, are you some other sort of medical specialists?

01:38                                     So I'm a physician assistant, which is basically between nurse and a doctor. And I originally started as a paramedic and I did that for 13 years, working on the streets basically in the ambulance. And then I moved on in for about 12 years and there's just an assistant. So I work in the emergency room and I work at a cardiology office. And so I found that while I was on the ambulance that I would have to really sick heart patients and I just sort of fell in love and figuring out where the mystery was in their heart. So what was causing our ailment? And there's a lot of clues to that. One of the biggest clues was the EKG, which is that piece of paper that they print out and they hook you up and it turns out there's a ton of clues on that.

02:20                                     But the other thing that's true about AKGs is that a lot of providers, nurses, doctors, Pas, nurse practitioners, they don't feel comfortable using this tool because there's so many layers of complexity. So what I did was early on when I realized I was getting it and a lot of people weren't, I decided to go on the road and teach it. And so I go all over the country and I just, I ended my summer speaking to her and then now what I did was I formatted it and packaged it up the same workshop into a Kajabi course.

02:52                                     So our online course online course and deliver to people and not have to be right there in person.

02:59                                     Exactly. And so that's been really instrumental in getting the word out to people that couldn't come to the conferences and they can do it at their own pace. And then Kajabi itself is just a great, um, as you know, it just a great, you know, business in a box and I'm just a great tool. I'm still sort of realizing all the power in it and trying to utilize all the different pieces of it. But so far, um, I just did a launch I guess three weeks ago now. And it's going well so far. I've, I've Kinda touched on Facebook ads a little bit and I'm running to right now and I've been watching your, um, I think it's called Facebook ATM. Make your, make Facebook your ATM was the course, but it's changing. I think I'm watching your own loan. And I was watching your older, older videos telling this was funny cause um, I must've been several years ago when you had the car and you had a little box around here and it was like, you're so cute.

03:53                                     You're just like horrible, horrible. So it's neat to see where, how far you've come. I mean, and, and you're like an inspiration that, you know, anybody could do this just if we, if we, you know, really follow your advice and we, you know, go through the steps. So it was really, um, inspirational. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's been quite the journey that, uh, and I've, my brand has definitely evolved and changed, but I like to keep some of the things from the past in there even though I don't always use it in my marketing and my names and so on and so forth. So the games you like puzzles and games and, yes. Yeah, I remember. Yeah. So it's, it's all, it's all making sense when you look at how you set up your marketing. It's, it's, I get it now. Yup. Yay.

04:45                                     Thank you. I wonder sometimes I wonder, do people really get me, you know, it's like little eclectic and change things around at times. So, um, you became a PA then a physician assistant after 13 years. And how long has it been since you've been a PA? It's been 12 years now. 12 years now. Okay. So basically half your career, you were doing the ambulance rides and then half your career doing the PA work. And when did you start doing the teaching with the EKG? That was about two years into being a PA, so, oh, so a while. Yeah. And it's really evolved too because you know, as you really refine your teaching style, I've realized that when people learn, the best way to do it is to integrate all three teaching styles. And so I have a tiny little portion. I actually, I liked the Sally, I actually take the EKG, I give them colored pencils and I make them color the EKG, the sections, so they'll remember it.

05:45                                     And so they're having to filter it through and put it on paper in their format. And so that's really engaging. And then I take a real heart and put the EKG next to it and I say, okay, this is what you're really looking at. And all these [inaudible] are missing. For me, I kind of do the visual, I do the auditory, and I do this, the tactile, and it's just this, it's this experience where you're always shifting, you're always moving, you're always putting the pieces. And so by the time that three hours are done, people are like, wait, wait, no, I'll keep going. And yeah, cool. So it's really, really help people go from really zero to 60 on getting their comfort level up with reading. You can choose because they all come in and they're just like scared because there's high risk. If you miss any little bump or any little weird thing that could be heart attack, there's no miss right there.

06:31                                     You have to get it. And so with all those high risk stakes on the, on the board people and they don't know all the findings cause they can be so subtle, they're scared and they didn't get enough training. And so I sort of come in and fill that niche of like, Hey, I know you know the basics but let's take you through the high risk things that will kill somebody if you miss them that the machine software is not catching. So it helps keep them safe and it helps really give them confidence because we walked through with the colored pencils, which are not scary and we color on the EKG lists and then by the end of it they're like, oh, and they're, they're shouting out, oh that's this, that's this in three hours. Which is, that's nice. And so these are your live workshops that you're talking about doing that, the live ones on, how many people do you typically have in the audience when you do that?

07:18                                     Well, I get hired in by conferences. It's based on how many people they've attracted. So I'm like a subcontractor, but basically it's been anywhere from like I'd say a hundred was my most, um, I'll do it really small, hundreds of the most because I'm basically walking around and I'm helping people as I go. So a hundred kind of a little bit unwieldy, but it's been my max. So what about the course is different? I mean obviously that's going to be videos and maybe what worksheets are what or how are you doing that on ideal like you do with an over the shoulder thing? So I have this camera that set up over my paper and I basically have the EKG and I give them a blank copy in there, downloadable portion where you put it or worksheet, download it, print it, and then I send them colored pencils.

08:09                                     And so they, they watch my video and they work along with me. So they watched the video, they do the same thing on the EKG and it kind of is like I'm standing right there. Do they, do you tell them, get some colored pencils or just being, or cardiologists? No, cause it has to be a certain three colors. And I actually have this box, so I met, I'm a painter as well. I painted artwork and I use it as my box graphics. So I have this cute little box that gets mail and it's got the painting on the outside. No, that is so cool. I love that. I've loved that you're a painter. This. Okay. It seems like every time I talk to somebody, they're like used to be an engineer and now they're a voiceover artist or

08:56                                     used to do web design and now they teach children how to use legos and does it to learn. I mean, it seems like every time I talk to somebody, they've got that, uh, that, that dual brain power, if you will, that the creative side and you've got this logical side and that is such a beautiful thing. So thanks. I'm so glad you told me that.

09:19                                     Well, my new love, honestly, if I can't get enough, it is marketing. I am just, I'm in love with the process. I'm in love with the game that it is. It's the puzzle. It is. And it's just, I'm just ever changing one. I know. And that's what you keeping us updated on that. So that's been good.

09:36                                     Good. Well, so what's next for you? You've got some things coming up,

09:41                                     so yeah, I'm going to a conference actually, and not speaking at it, I'm going to it, it's a medical conference and so I want to get this workshop online in front of them. So that's going to be a pattern that I'm going to use throughout the next year because there's a lot of conferences that I'll actually be at. So if I can market to them from the stage but also on like Facebook when they're scrolling through I'm like oh I saw her face. Oh yeah, she's got a word. Oh yeah, I've got to check out. So cause you said people have to see something seven times so well

10:12                                     yeah and maybe even more these days with all the distractions that they get. [inaudible] now one of the things, and we can go ahead and, and talk a little bit about this targeting. We were talking about this in, in our, our member group, Jen is part of my member group and we have um, I have a a marketing program and advertising program where I help coach people through this process for digital marketing. And we have been talking about how to target people while you're at this event. Now one of the things, it's awesome if you could ever have phone numbers and emails cause that's just an automatic that you would be able to market to them. But usually only the event organizers have access to that sort of thing. But when you are an attendee and you are not presenting and you don't have the opportunity to throw out some sort of free resource for people to go get on your website like you would normally do if you were speaking or something like that, the way that you would help to target people would be to narrow down by the location where you are and then to choose the people that are at that location.

11:28                                     Now, one of the things that happens is that people have to have their location on, on their phone. So there's all sorts of little loopholes or little, little trap doors, if you will, that people will fall through. And you'll never capture them if they don't have these features on their phone. But some people you will capture. So it's a way to, um, drop a pin at the actual location and shoot out the smallest radius that you can. Um, so that you are geo targeting, if you will, for that location. And the other thing would be to then narrow down within the detailed targeting to the job titles of all of the people that are at that event that you want to target. Now you could, um, do some other things too. So for example, if people follow certain publications, if they, uh, maybe are in certain organizations, maybe they are members of certain things, you need to do some research there as well.

12:32                                     And that was something I was going to bring up to you whenever we got into this in the group. Cause we're going to help teach the group this as well. But I think that this will, this will also help them get started and maybe they'll go and start looking for themselves, uh, for some sort of events. So what I would like you to think about is what are the organizations these people are in? I don't know because I'm not in this medical world myself, but the things that I think about typically are like the Ama, the American Medical Association or maybe there's a magazine that everybody in this health world is in tune with. Something that might be sitting in doctor's offices all the time and you could target those specific types of publications and organizations as well as the job titles so that you will just get in there as many as you possibly can.

13:32                                     Now you don't want this to be a huge, huge, huge audience. You don't know how many people are going to really be within that mile radius, but you do want to cover as many touch points as you can and that detailed targeting and then push it out there and see how it goes. You may need to try different things to get people's attention and one of the things that really helps is to have everything set up ahead of time. You get there, take pictures in front of the signs of the event or with other people or whatever and go in. When you get a break, go in and add that to your ads so that the creative portion really speaks to where they are at that very moment. I will recognize it. They'll, because otherwise people are busy at a conference. They're not really paying attention as much to their phone and they're just kind of scrolling by.

14:35                                     But if they saw the stage and a picture of you in front of it and you said, hey, such and such conference goers did something like that, it grabs their attention. And next thing you know, you'll have some people commenting and it's not the perfect thing. Uh, it's not, you know, going to be the, be all end all of reaching people at an event, but it absolutely could get garner some attention so that you can gain some audiences. The other thing, the other trick is to, uh, do a quick video with that as well and not be afraid to, you know, put a video that's about between five and 15 seconds so that you'll hit the most audience that you possibly can. What you're restricted on, the types of video time, times that you can have on certain platforms and certain, uh, ways that Facebook puts out.

15:36     And Instagram put out the ads. So if you keep it between five and 15 seconds, you're going to hit all the possible methods of getting your message out there. Plus it's easier to create audiences to follow up with later if they saw that video much, much better than just an image. So the video would be even better for your retargeting when you're pushing out your course or your freebie actually is what you'll push out and put them into your sales funnel. Yeah, good idea. Okay. Yeah. Well, I know that you have to go, you don't have much time here, but I think, um, that has been a great talk and I love getting to know you a little bit more and I'd love to hear more about the painting and, uh, anything else that you're interested in doing. Maybe we'll get to chat again later. Sounds great, Sally. Have a great day and thanks for having me on. All right, thanks. Okay, bye. Yeah, bye.

Learn more about Jen's course

If you'd like to take a peek at what Jen is doing, find her online at Conquering Cardiology.