Episode 6: Mastering Entrepreneurship - Lessons & Wins from Dr. Jeffrey Ricken

In this episode of Mentor Conversations at Score Houston, Mentor host PV Bala interviews Dr. Jeffrey Ricken—a distinguished mentor, retired physician, educator, and business leader. Dr. Ricken shares insights from his diverse career, discusses the importance of mentorship, and offers practical advice for entrepreneurs, especially in healthcare. The conversation covers business strategy, success stories, and the value of SCORE’s free mentoring services for small businesses. Write your comments here: https://scorehoustonpodcast.blogspot.com

Give your comments at https://scorehoustonpodcast.blogspot.com or write to pv.bala@scorevolunteer.org. Let us know what you like of this episode and suggest subjects on which you wish to know more. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Mentor Conversations at Score Houston, where we bring you insights and stories from our mentors. You'll hear from senior executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals who volunteer their time to guide small businesses. SCORE is America's largest network of volunteer business mentors and is supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration. In Houston, we provide free, confidential mentoring and education to help entrepreneurs start, grow, and succeed. Now, let's dive into today's mentor conversation.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Welcome to Mentor Conversation at School Houston. I'm your host, Piri Bala. Today's guest is Dr. Jeffrey Rickon, a distinguished mentor with School Houston, whose careers plans medicine, education, authorship, and business mentorship. Dr. Ricken is a retired physician with more than 45 years of experience, as well as a former college professor and high school teacher. He's also a public order of medical cleaners and is open operated with multiple medical clinics, branding clinical expertise with real-world business design. He focuses on helping entrepreneurs, especially in healthcare. Develop strong business strategies. His mentorship combines deep medical knowledge, technical teaching skills, and practical business experience. Enabling founders to bridge the gap between care and commerce. What Dr. Rickan turns out is his ability to simplify complex ideas, share lessons from decades of leadership, and guide entrepreneurs with both clarity and creativity. Welcome Jeffrey to the School Houston podcast. Thank you for having me. What was the early childhood family life that gave you the exposure to achieve this?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, I grew up in New York City. I went to college there for many years. And my dad had a retail liquor store, and later in life, he had a Hallmark card greeting card store. And on the weekends and holidays, of course, with the greeting cards and in liquor, we were very busy and we worked all hours. And I could see the uh challenges of a business where it wasn't a nine to five job and a Friday paycheck. It was when there was business, you worked. Holidays were the busiest time, Sundays included. And as a result, I could see, compared to my mom, who was a high school teacher, she worked eight, two, or four, and it was a very different life. She got a pension, she got health insurance, all kinds of benefits. My dad, he had to watch the bottom line and support the family and our lifestyle. So as a result, he worked longer hours, harder, but he had an idea that this is what he could do being a businessman.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

I note that you are a college professor and a high school teacher together for over 20 years. Would you say that this experience helped you to be such a popular mentor? Though I appreciate that mentoring is much more than teaching.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Yeah, mentoring is more about listening and finding out where there are gaps maybe in their knowledge and their expertise. And that's where we fill in. Yes, I think teaching all these years, whether it was in the medical school or college or graduate school, and even in high school, it's about sharing knowledge, but it's also about inspiring, keeping them focused, maybe bringing a little reality in, easing the pathway because entrepreneurship is a challenge for those who have not experienced what it is to start a business, to be a capitalist in America. Most of us are trying to get a job, go to school, get a job, get a job. Well, we need somebody to have a dream and create jobs for others. So I found in life we're either going to have a dream and build towards it, or we're going to work for somebody who already has that dream. And I kind of like the idea, even as a doctor, of owning my own business, owning my own practice. Even though we weren't taught any of that in medical school. We were not taught the idea of creating our own clinics, our own surgical centers. I like the idea of a capitalism, of starting it and helping others along the way in their career by employing dozens of people, as I did. So, yeah, teaching is is critical to mentorship, but it uh mentorship is more about inspiring and listening and letting them solve some of their own challenges.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Exactly. I think in mentorship, you get into understanding the personality whom you're mentoring, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah, there's a different uh person as a whole, yeah. Yeah, the there's a different mentality to different people and the way they approach business. Successful people have certain characteristics, they're all different. There's a variety of them. You don't have to have one personality to fit success in business. Attitude helps. There's no question about it.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Positivity helps. And it's hard in these days. We're all so uh ground out. I gotta degree, I gotta do this. It's nice to know that the uh good listening skills, a positive attitude, how to help others is a way to help yourself. And teaching has always been the best reward in my life. I enjoyed teaching, even within teaching patients how to take care of themselves. That was the best way of getting them healthy, not just doing their surgery. I really found helping them prevent further surgery was just had a warning. Now it's time to help yourself.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

Yeah, because I do find that when people do come with a business proposal, sometimes releasing their background, it may be worthwhile to tell them, look, you don't pursue this kind of a business. Maybe you, as a personality with your background, it may not be suiting you. So it's something we need to advise against a person's wish of starting a business because that's the for their own good. As a mentor with a senior with our years of experience, sometimes we feel that's what is right.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

I think we need to show them some of the minds ahead in the minefield of what they're trying to do. And if you don't have the temperament for this, I've had people come and say, I want a business that is going to run itself, and I don't want to get involved, it's gonna be a cash cow. There's a problem there, and and they need to face the reality here that there's a sweat equity we put into business, we invest in our blood and sweat into our businesses.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

That's right. What is the essence of business strategy that you learned that you teach small business clients? Could you repeat that again? What is the essence of business strategy that you learned that you teach small business clients?

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Sure. It's about again focusing, limiting you can't do everything at once once. You can't be a shopping mole. Focus on something that you're excited about. Let's get that off the ground, and then we can diversify. I find getting their attitude right. I give all of my amentees three books to read. I think that are really good for attitude. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking. These are books that are like 80 years old, available in any bookstore or library in the world. They're all$10 books, but these are the Bibles of business. If you can get your head straight and not just think you're going to get rich quick or oh, this won't work. There's got to be a growth period when we convert a person, especially in America, from a job seeker to a business starter. And this could be a smooth transition. I always tell my students keep your day job. It's nice to have a cash flow. It's a good idea. Banks love it if you're looking for funding. SBA loves it. It's nice to have a cash flow and make this your side gig, your dream, and then you can work yourself out of a job.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Absolutely. Absolutely. You said it. One of the core areas of business that you mentor is healthcare. And Houston is well known as a healthcare hub. What specific products and or services do most of your clients want to start? And what opportunities do you foresee as of now?

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Houston, over 40% of the jobs in Houston are healthcare related. I see a lot of interesting businesses where there's a unique take on usual healthcare delivery. That is mobile, mobility of services, where x-rays are now portable, going to the client. This is a big asset, like in nursing homes, et cetera. It's a cost containment feature. So every office doesn't have to buy a$50,000 x-ray. Telemedicine, a lot of my psychologists and psychiatrists are talking about broadening their reach by doing telemedicine. So they do wellness care online, also for addiction treatment. Other jobs in Houston involve also one other I should mention, I see a lot of med spas, medical spas where people are focused on wellness, healthcare prevention, treating their diabetes with dietetics, medications that are now available by injection, and beautifying their clients as well in the cosmetic end. This is a very lucrative business, I think, where people are empowering their patients to take care of themselves, prevent the illness. Of course, they're afraid of the aging process, diets they're on, and the obesity that is, of course, epidemic in America, health spas, medispas. This seems to be a very common feature. This is one of the most popular businesses. But also young dentists, chiropractors, doctors, a lot of them trying to figure out how do I start a business. Well, I've started a half a dozen clinics and surgical centers. As a result, I can help them specifically in that. Because as healthcare workers, we don't get any training in medical or dental school and business. Other jobs in Houston, I should mention, is construction is number two. Energy, of course, has always been a part of us, and that basically is engineering and also management. Engineering managers are a big business in Houston. High tech obviously is growing anywhere in the state of Texas, but people who can service robots, people who can program computers, and people who can do artificial intelligence work, this is a growing field that I think in the next decade we'll take over.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

Score is very fortunate to have you as a mentor, Jeffrey. How did you happen to join SCOR?

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Another SCORE mentor, a good friend of mine, Rick Webb, who was here in the Houston area. He was an executive with Ernston Young, the accounting firm. He was HR, and he had got involved with SCORE and kept mentioning it over lunch. And I looked into it and he seemed happy with it. And I, as a result, went through the training, which was like a couple of three weeks of videos and interviews and some on-site training at our offices, having others in I was interning with others doing the same. I put in my hours to make sure I was on the same page with how SCORE maintains its quality of a consulting and mentorship and within a code of ethics, so we don't benefit or invest in these businesses, but we're strictly there as a volunteer, free of charge, to lend 30, 40 years of our experience among various different disciplines. I think we do that extremely well at score, and the training is superb. We've been around since what, 1967? 10,000 of us. And I think a national score in every state and every city is a unique feature of the American economy.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Perfect. In your years of mentoring, you have advised so many clients in many fields. Can you narrate some success stories of clients?

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Sure, I have a couple of three that are really very interesting that I found very rewarding and became successful. One was a young lady, she was a flight attendant, but she had also become a certified nursing assistant in her high school and earlier years in college, did some hospital work where she worked in neonatal intensive care units. Nick U. She wanted to, she saw a niche where people in the NICU, particularly the parents, there were certain skills that the parents were getting in the NICU unit to take home some of these very special needs babies who were premature usually. They were afraid to do some of the technical work, changing bandages, catheters, cleaning wounds, operative wounds, even feeding methods. She felt that she could teach that at home as a transition service. And she gave it a cute name, a website, and made her services personally available. And she got lots of calls. And as a result, she wanted to expand because she couldn't handle it all herself. We talked about marketing her and getting support from other CNAs like herself, nursing experienced people who would do home health care to transition the parents and train them in-house at home by the hour services that the parents really felt they needed to supplement the bringing baby home scenario. So we figured out ways of marketing and getting other people in her situation who were working part-time as CNAs but wanted to go full-time. And she became a referral service. This went across the state of Texas rather quickly. And she had about a half a dozen cities that she could refer CNAs to. It became very profitable. And then she wanted to go national. So what we had them do is put together a bag with a little teddy bear that she would give to the parents coming out of NICU in each of the hospitals in Houston. And she went around on, and we gave about a dozen of these little bags we put together with her company's name on it to let them know these services were available, and they got a free little teddy bear attached to it. And sure enough, her business took off. And eventually, it by referral online it went national. And now she has people from coast to coast doing this little business. She gave up being a flight attendant as a result.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

And she has a she had virtually no competition in this field. Another very young lady, this was in another city, came up with an idea of a dog park. There are cities that don't have all year-round dog facilities, and a lot of people are working at home. Young executives who are doing engineering or whatever management at home, like a lot of businesses, but they needed to walk their dog, but they needed to keep working. So she developed small pocket parks that were indoors, little warehouses that she converted to where you could let your dog go, but there would be internet cubicles set up so your dog could run free, but you can continue working. So your dog got exercise and you continued doing your online work that you were getting paid for. So that was the dog park idea. And she eventually developed two of them outside of the Houston area, which were very successful. Another one was a gentleman who graduated Texas AM, and he wanted to start a hydroponic farm. And he's doing that right now. I'm helping him because I have a farm. And as a result, we're guiding him into the purchase, smart purchase of our land, actually leasing the land, buying some used tractors and some used tents to use his skills that he learned in hydroponic, renewable, sustainable farming.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

What is that hydroponic? Can you explain that? What is the hydroponic means?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

It's it's a science where a lot of the fruits and vegetables you're getting at lower cost are actually grown without uh damaging the soil. It's sustainable, it's it's actually low cost, and it's all weather. It's grown in basically a type of a tent with running water and nutrients added to it, like tomatoes, for example. You can hang them. You can grow a lot more tomatoes without buying ground. Okay. Just hanging them from a vine, as long as you give the roots a certain scientifically produced nutrient base. So it's echo-friendly, it recycles the water, it doesn't drain nutrients from the ground, it doesn't use pesticides at all. It's totally organic. Okay, and you can commercially, it is vegetables actually taste better.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

I see. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

And it's totally sustainable, so it's a self-propagating thing. So he was going to develop that initially for local restaurants and then, of course, towards supermarkets in higher volumes.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

Okay, it's in addition to using natural products for the growth, you're using also a controlled environment you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Totally controlled. Exactly. Light and day, you can grow things much quicker. It's natural, it is non-chemically based. You just put the electrolytes basically in the solution, and we know how to do this. We just have to go and do it. The old-fashioned way of farming is you know, give me 10 acres, I'll grow you some tomatoes, you know, four months from now. Yeah, it's not like now we can grow them in a smaller area and very little land involved. So it's economically very favorable, and you can actually control the flavor of what you're getting depending on the sugar content, etc. So it's a thing of the future, and it's really it doesn't have much competition. Old-fashioned farming is probably it uses up the land, and you have to rotate the crops and everything. And he can be much more sensitive to market variations because he can change the plants very quickly. So carrots can come in, onions come in quickly, everything comes in quickly. So yeah, so he was diversifying getting into that. So I was helping them with the process of getting a farm going on the cheap without actually having to spend lots of money.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

True, true.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Because it didn't take up a lot of space.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Exactly. Uh tell me what attributes distinguish the successful client from others? Is it their business ideas or how they approach the opportunity and work towards achieving their goals?

SPEAKER_02 20:06

I think with when I when I listen and trying to get a profile on the clients initially, we're trying to find out the personality and what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses. So I'm looking for their assets. What are they done? The questions I ask are what have you done in the past? What are you doing now? What did your family do? Do you have any experience in this X field? Do you know? And I try to find out they know what they're talking about, and are they excited about it? That's the key ingredient. They always think they're selling a product or a service, it's their excitement about it that's you're selling yourself. It's a concept, it's an idea. And if they've been working for 20 years, you know, for somebody else and realize it may be a dead end, and I can't support my children, and my husband figured out that his job is basically a dead end, he's getting too old for it. We need to start a business, but we never learned how. At least they realize that there's a need. There's a need, and need is the mother of invention. True. And Benjamin Franklin said it. This is critical to business. If you look for something because you need it and want it badly enough, you'll find, gee, I think I've got this hobby. Wait, let's put it on Etsy.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Maybe it's a craft, it's a side gig now. You've been fixing cars. Maybe we can make that a business, a skill that we can market, a mobile auto repair. Yes. Something unique. So if we can find something that gets you excited, we can help you with that. Because that excitement's going to get you through the minefield. Because there are going to be challenges and risks. You're not going to start a business without some risk. There's, as we say, some skin in the game. Banks will lend you some money and funding will come, but lenders are gonna investors are gonna want you to have some skin in the game.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

You're gonna have some of your sweat equity in there, whether it's time or money. There's some risk, and you don't have to, you know, sell the farm to get the money. We can do this in a sensible way. You don't have to build three stores at once. We can start maybe with a kiosk and then maybe build it into a business. Maybe we can do it online. Everybody wants to do everything online. What we have to teach them is you're selling yourself. You're gonna have to get out there and funnel people to that website. Too many websites out there. So we have to teach them. You're gonna join and get involved in your community, shake a lot of hands, and pass out a lot of business cards and sell that excitement.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

And that's what's gonna get people to your website. Not paying somebody otherwise. And we teach them how to market themselves with a press kit, with joining organizations, and doing good in the community, becoming more profile.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Absolutely. Score is unique to USA. I'm not seen such an institution in any other country. Isn't this a boon to small businesses to avail themselves of their free mentoring services from such distinguished mentors such as you?

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Score is, you know, I wish I knew more about score when I was growing up. I certainly could have used it rather than the learning the way I did, boots on the ground. I learned the hard way. It is very expensive not to do things without a mentor. And score is free. We're here for you. I will meet with clients once a day, once a week, once a month. Our time is your time. And we would we enjoy doing what we're doing. The rewards are for us, but more importantly, it's for you. We need to get the message out that score is national. We're everywhere in this country. Go to our website, score.org, and you can find us. We are excited to help you. And if it's not, if you need a lawyer, an accountant, a bookkeeper, a business person, a supply chain person, a web developer, we've got them. Even a doctor, we've got them. And we can do multiple expertise mentors at a time. We're here for you. And whether you like to do it in person, via email, at our offices, we're here for you. Our time is for you. I wish more people knew about it. I can save people literally thousands of dollars. Say, just get to me before. Just yesterday, I had two young ladies from California, from Los Angeles, they're starting a med spa. They went to a lawyer to find out about the structure of their business. And the lawyer sold them on their idea. No, you have to be a C corporation. And they charge them a couple of thousand bucks for a C corporation. And when all they really needed to start out was a limited liability corporation, much simpler bookkeeping. They're not getting investors. In fact, it turns out in California, contrary to what the lawyers told them, they're not allowed to be a C corporation. I just did the research myself. In Californians, they're afraid of investors not being doctors or certified licensed. They're afraid of corporations investing in the med spa. They're not allowed to be. So they had to get rid of their C Corps just yesterday, wasted thousands of dollars. And I could have told them for$300, they could have become an LLC or a PLLC. And I just they just wasted$2,000 right there from bad legal advice from certified lawyers in California. Of course, the only advantage to a C Corps is to have an investor. And the investor must be a doctor, must be a nurse, has to be a healthcare worker with a license. They're afraid of big corporations selling medicine. So they got bad, bad advice, even in California. So we have lawyers who we know better. And at least we can do the research for you and make sure you're not wasting thousands of dollars. And we can help getting money for you. We can help get funding without getting a high interest. We can show you how to repair your credit. We can get you the funding, whether it's grant, what we call CDFIs, community-based grant. All of this is available. We have the knowledge, the training, the expertise. We just want to help make sure you do increase your odds of success. That's what score is about.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

Tell me, Jeffrey, what personal satisfaction do you derive being a score mentor? What keeps you going?

SPEAKER_02 26:54

You know, I've been doing it. I have I've had several hundreds of mentees, and the more I do it, the more I enjoy doing it. At first, you know, I was a little concerned, maybe I didn't know enough. Well, score gives us such training, such confidence. They don't let you make a mistake. They really are there. The oversight is terrific. The uh videos like they had me do, the uh internship, the hours we put in to become experts at helping, understanding, listening, uh, giving good ethical advice. I really respect SCORE's way of doing this all these uh dozens of years, so successfully. Everybody needs to know if you're going to transition into owning your own business, entrepreneurship is what SCORE is all about. We're here to restore the American dream to those who want to go through the minefield but have a mentor at your side. We're a free partner. You can pay for help, but it may not be any better than what we're already doing because the experienced people like me, we're already here. So scores, I I really have complete confidence in score. And I'm proud to be a member.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

Thanks, Jeffrey. That was an engaging and inspirational conversation. Thanks for your time and sharing your knowledge and experience.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

It has been my pleasure. And I know you do the same good work as I've done. You've done it a lot longer than me, but you're a good mentor for mentors like myself, and thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Thanks for listening to Mentor Conversations at Score Houston. If you're an entrepreneur or small business owner, we'd love to support your journey. You can reach us at 713-487-6565, or visit us at 8701-South Gestner, suite 1200, Houston, Texas 77074. Our office is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., except for federal holidays. Walk-ins are always welcome. To learn more, to request free mentoring, or to register for workshops, visit us online at score.orgslash Houston. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and remember, at Score, we're here to help you thrive.