Make Marketing Easy Podcast

This episode of the Make Marketing Easy podcast, hosted by Joel Gaslin, features 6’5” Indiana-based marketing automation expert Jason Wright.  Jason’s days have an unusual structure to them and are filled with client calls, consulting, projects, brand building, and maybe even a round of golf or some time cheering for the Colts. 

He insists on the value of developing positive client relationships, being confidently willing to receive a “no” answer and refuse a price change, and honing his business to focus on what he loves, namely, marketing automation platform, active campaign-specific recurring services, coaching and strategy programs, and working with high-ticket custom sales funnel clients.

Jason provides a lot of specific insight into the world of marketing automation. First speaking about how to grow the very small number of sales reps independently using marketing automation. 

Jason also addresses a number of other topics: recommended tools such as Active Campaign, the internal focus that many organizations have developed in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, his work with Upwork and in developing useful email strategies, how not to use LinkedIn, common ways of navigating client relationships, and the use of marketing automation. 

He wants listeners to leave with the knowledge that there are many tools they can use and that they can, in fact, have better success in client relationships. Jason believes marketing automation is a critical skill for anyone working in a business.

Jason also makes some observations about who is going to win the U.S. Open golf tournament. So if you’re a golfer, see how he is at predictions!

For more information on the podcast and to purchase Joel’s new course, “How to Become a High Achieving Sales Rep,” visit Make Marketing Easy.

And click on the link to get a free Ebook called, “Five Things Helping Sales Reps Thrive Right Now.“

Links:

Learn more about Jason.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Learn more about his marketing automation business, Intentionally Inspirational.

The post Marketing Automation with Jason Wright appeared first on Make Marketing Easy.

In the second episode of season 2 of the Make Marketing Easy podcast, host Joel Gaslin talks to Andy Wright, Sr. Regional Business Manager with Glaukos. To open, Andy explains how he realized that LinkedIn is a great avenue to get information out about his company. He began by asking surgeons he worked with to pose for pictures with their staff after their first surgery on LinkedIn. These posts would celebrate the surgery, congratulate the surgeon, and let Glaukos’ followers know that the surgeon had completed the surgery. This was initially met with several questions from colleagues and competitors, who wondered why Andy would post this information, but he emphasizes that there was a method to the madness.

After posting, he would then share the post with the surgeons letting them know how many people viewed the post. From there, he would follow up a few more times with updates, which would almost always result in more clients coming to the practice for these surgeries. This became an incredibly easy marketing tool that would generate a lot of interest in the practice and the surgery. Andy heavily recommends this form of social media marketing as long as it meets all of the company guidelines. In the midst of all of the unknowns of Covid-19, the two recommend leveraging technology, social marketing and existing relationships with clients and vendors to help companies last through the chaos. 

To close, Andy recommends doing everything to make technology and remote-based correspondences as fun and interactive as possible.

For more information on the podcast, visit https://makemarketingeasy.com/.

Links:

Learn more about Glaukos.

Follow Andy on LinkedIn.

Podcast Transcript

Joel Gaslin:  Welcome to the second episode of the second season of the “Make Marketing Easy Podcast.” I’m your host, Joel Gaslin. In this episode, you’ll hear from Andy Wright. Andy is a senior regional business manager with Glaukos. Glaukos is a medical device company that created the microinvasive glaucoma surgery category in ophthalmology.

What you’ll learn in this episode is how a veteran medical device sales professional uses social media to help grow his business and add value for his customers at the same time. I hope you enjoy this show. I’m very grateful for Andy’s willingness to share his insights in the Make Marketing Easy Podcast.

If you wish to stay connected with me, please visit makemarketingeasy.com. Put your email on the box in the upper right corner of the site, and you’ll be notified when the next episode is available. Also, you’ll get a free five‑week checklist containing ideas to help you reduce anxiety by staying connected with your customers and prospects when you can’t visit them.

My guest today on Make Marketing Easy Podcast is Andy Wright from Glaukos. Andy, what insight caused you to start using social media as a medical device salesperson?

Andy Wright:  Thanks for putting me on the call, Joel. Just quick feedback, we go into a surgery on what we call first starts with our surgeons when they’re beginning their initial training and evaluation stage with the iStent inject. What I did, which I thought was unique…One or two other people followed along, and then it kind of became epidemic.

Joel:  [laughs] Apropos term today, yeah.

Andy:  [laughs] I just started using particularly LinkedIn. I viewed it as a way to get a little closer to celebrate with my doctors. Just about everybody is on LinkedIn now, most of our doctors, our competitors, our referring surgeons, the optometric networks. I just felt like it was a neat avenue to get information quickly out, celebrating the onset of trying this new technology.

What I would do, which some people didn’t want any part of it but the vast majority were fine with it, I’d wait until the end of their first case. Then I’d ask them to post for a picture with me and with their staff members. Then we would have that come out.

I would crop it down, make sure people weren’t embarrassed and weren’t having a bitter‑beer face or something. Sometimes we’d take extra pictures. Then what I would do at the end of the day is I would put that up on LinkedIn.

I was very careful never to say, “Congratulations to Dr. Smith on your first implant,” just in case that patient or any of the next patients were looking at this and would then be judging him on the fact that it was his first time ever using it.

Joel:  Yeah, that’s good advice. It makes sense.

Andy:  I would word things on there also very carefully because we’d see some direction from our company of dos and don’ts in social media, not making any product claims, etc., just being somewhat vague.

The way I worded most of them was a hearty shout‑out. “Congratulations to Dr. Smith today from Cedar Surgery Center in Homedale, Ohio. This is an exciting message going out to everybody, letting them know that Dr. Smith is using the iStent inject, and “I really appreciate the support and help from their fantastic staff as well. Congratulations.” Short and sweet.

Joel:  What was the outcome that you initially noticed when you started?

Andy:  It was exciting. I got a lot of messages immediately on LinkedIn from competitors, coworkers saying, “What are you doing? This is crazy. How can you put that on there?”

I was challenged by one of my colleagues who would go unnamed and said, apparently, I didn’t know what I was doing in how I was using this. My response back to him was, “Look, just to prove to you that there’s a method to my madness, there’s a couple of things considered here, the power of the social media, especially in this venue of LinkedIn.”

It’s a professional version of watered‑down Facebook, for lack of a better term. I don’t put things on Facebook. I don’t put things on Instagram, just on LinkedIn. I said to him, “When I put this out there, I always follow up with my doctors.” Most of them like to be followed up via text versus a live call, etc. No one reads email anymore.

What I would do is take a screenshot of the picture that we took after the first case. I would send it to the doctor and say, “24 hours post‑op, day one, look how many views you have. You have close to 400 views in 24 hours. Who are those 400 people?”

Joel:  That’s a good question.

Andy:  Then I’d say, “Doc, do me a favor. Let me know how your patient looked. One‑day post‑op is never really the final resting spot, but give me a good idea of your experience yesterday. I appreciate you taking the time to work with me. I’d just like to get some feedback from you about your patient’s outcome.”

Then at one week, I would call them. I’d take another screenshot. By then, they’d be up to 2,500 views. There’s a magic to it where some of these guys, I had about 100 percent rate of them responding back to me. They would get excited like, “2,500 people actually viewed this?” I’d once again say, “There are 2,500 people now wondering why you haven’t scheduled the second eye.”

Joel:  [laughs] All right. How did that go over?

Andy:  A little tongue in cheek, a little fun, a little poke. Almost every client responded back, “Yeah, I found three more patients today in my clinic. I’m going to schedule them soon, too.” It lent itself. It was a soft sell. It was a celebration that I was sharing with them and congratulating them on adding a new, vibrant technology to their practice and, hopefully, having continued success.

Then I would go back to them live. Sometimes they’d call me and say, “Hey, I’ve got this patient with pigmentary glaucoma. Can we do this?” They’d start asking me all the questions. Often, in those questions, we talked about the strength of the message that we put out on LinkedIn.

Joel:  That’s great. What effect do you think it had on how they viewed Andy Wright as a consultant to the practice? How do you think it affected that?

Andy:  I think it affected it pretty positively. There was never really a negative. I had several doctors say, “Oh, your competitor was in here, laughing about how nice it is that you share all that information.” Not to be overly cocky but a lot of my responses back were, “If they’re good at their job, they should know where I am. It shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

Joel:  That’s a good response. What’s amazing to me is the industry that you and I both spend our careers in, ophthalmology, we’re pretty lucky that the physicians that we work with generally are willing to share how they do what they do with their colleagues/competitors because they believe that it is best for the patient.

It’s great when salespeople say, “Hey, I’m perfectly happy to share with you how I do what I do because I just think I can do it well, and it’s going to work for me.” When someone makes statements like that, I chuckle at that.

Andy:  Joel, this thing got a little bit bigger. There was a couple of times in the last…Probably I’ve been doing this for two years now. I’d say I have close to maybe 70, 80 people up on that.

What was neat is I had a couple of doctors that I was doing my first day in surgery with. At the end or halfway through this, they were, “Aren’t we going to take a picture? I’ve seen all of those pictures of my competitor.”

Joel:  [laughs] That’s great. That’s when you know you’ve made it, when people are asking for it. That’s cool.

Andy:  Yeah, this is interesting. One of the questions I would ask these guys live when I go on work with them again, I’d say, “Hey, look at all these views.” I’d keep on bringing that up and showing them the picture. I would say thanks to them.

There was one guy. He had over close to 4,000, like 3,700 views, and something like 65 comments were made on it. I said, “A lot of the comments that are being made aren’t towards me saying, ‘Way to go, Andy.'” People would occasionally do that.

I said, “A lot of these comments are from your referring ODs and from guys that you were in residency with or gals that you went to med school with. People are celebrating now along with you. It’s kind of cool, isn’t it?”

Joel:  Yeah, that’s cool.

Andy:  At that same time, then we started seeing other ophthalma companies with reps holding up boxes and doing the same thing. It caught on. It was fun, but there’s still some naysayers who discount it.

I said, “Hey, it worked for me. I’d never felt there was a negative to doing it. As long as you made sure you follow what your company’s guidelines were on, using social media didn’t make any claims,” and in respect to the doctors not call it their first time using it. That could lead them to having to answer questions of patients that maybe they wouldn’t be comfortable with.

Joel:  Right. It’s interesting, that whole first thing because a lot of people like to be first. I was amazed when a certain new technology was put out there, how many different people said they were the first in a state to do that. I’d say, “Who’s the validating body of all that? Why does it matter?” It’s funny.

Andy:  I won’t go and name that, but you and I know exactly who that was. It was interesting because I called a couple of reps from that company. One rep…I won’t give you her name. You know her. We’ve been friends for a long time.

She said, “I’m just doing what you did.” I said, “Yeah, but you’re congratulating the doctor for being the first person in a specific geographic location.” They were making claims about what the product is doing. They had HIPPA issues where they took pictures with the patient.

I was like, “Man, you better run that by internally with your company.” None of those things make that much sense. If I’m one of those doctors’ competitors and you’ll come and see me, and I’d been supporting your product portfolio for decades, I’m going to be a little upset and ask, “What made you decide to make my competitor the first one in this town?”

Joel:  That’s all good advice. It’s all true. Just to back up for the listeners, a little bit of Andy is in my history. Andy, back in July of 1992, was my first sales trainer as I got into the surgical part of ophthalmology at the Storz Instrument Company.

I remember flying to Cincinnati and spending a week with Andy and just being amazed that the relationships you had with your customers and the way you could go in and out of offices and surgery centers. I’m grateful for what I learned there. Luckily, it worked out well for me. You’ve done really well.

With what’s happening in the world right now, it’s going to be different. How do you think it will impact you and how you do your everyday work now with what’s happening in the world with COVID and all that SARS stuff?

Andy:  A lot of unknowns there. You and I have a long history. We’ve been blessed and had great careers. There’s a lot of unknowns at the current situation. Are we going to be able to have the same level of freedom in and out of operating rooms?

All the pressures that sales reps have faced in the last several years with vendor credentialing ‑‑ Vendormate, Reptrax, symplr, etc. ‑‑ I can only imagine that’s going to become even more of a stumbling block for the vast majority of us going into places.

Free‑standing surgery centers may be a little bit more flexible with that. If you’re covering a territory that’s predominantly HOPD, main hospital settings, you may have a lot of challenges going forward. Hopefully sooner than later, we’re all going to get a peek at what our future looks like, but it’s certain to have changed.

Joel:  I agree. That’s why it’s important what you were up, a leader in doing for med device folks of finding different ways to bring value to the doctor and the practice so that you can be a trusted advisor rather than just another person pedaling a product or a service. I congratulate you on that. It’s cool. What’s next for you?

Andy:  Sitting around…

Joel:  [laughs]

Andy:  …waiting for another two Zoom calls today. I had one at 10:00, got one coming up at 2:00 and another at the end of the day. That seems to be the new communication. I’ve been having fun with that too.

Joel:  Where do you think that’ll fit into being able to communicate and have meetings with surgeons going forward?

Andy:  We were talking a lot about that. On our calls, we’re all…It’s new to everybody, too. We’re exploring how that’s going to benefit us. It’s great. You’ve seen some of them are ready, I’m sure, where you have 10 physicians getting on there. They’re inviting other people to jump in, and listen in, and be part of that. It’s interesting where that goes.

I’m thinking that it’s going to be harder to gain access to surgical suites of my doctors at hospitals versus surgery centers. My territory is probably more heavily weighted towards ambulatory surgery centers.

I’m hoping I have easier reentry into the OR, but I can also imagine that there are going to be some people from a credentialing perspective where they’re going to want to take the temperature of every rep walking in. There’s going to be new requirements, new protocols.

Once you get in, there may even be…I mean almost every place that you and I go into surgery has some sort of monitor system where you can watch the case up on a TV on the wall.

We’ve been talking about how do we access that medium and have some doctors who are a little less likely to let you in the room say, “Can we pipe that out into an empty room down the hallway and maybe FaceTime or have an earbud?

I can coach you on things that I’m witnessing during each procedure that maybe gives me the same ability to coach you with a new product without standing right next to you, looking through the observer’s scope.”

Joel:  That’s interesting. I spend more time, Andy, now in marketing than I do out in the field selling for quite some time. When I think about this, I’d be grateful for your advice as a marketing person who puts together content and things to help reps get in front of people, and tell the story, and help a prospect go from being curious to enlightened to making a commitment.

How do you think we should view content creation? What tools do you think salespeople will need as you think about having to do Zoom calls and something like that? How should we be thinking about trying to make it better for salespeople?

Andy:  It’s a great question, Joel. I don’t know if I have all the answers for that. The changes in the lanes, I’ve noticed we call them lunch‑and‑learns over the years. Opportunities get in front of staff and coach them a little bit about ways they can help their doctors internally mind their practices for patients or help better educate optometrists and referral networks.

Those things are only going to just get more expanded. The Zoom tool, any of those type of new, fad technologies, for lack of a better description, if you can make it fun, if you can make it less of a parental‑type teaching situation and more interactive, we’ve got the tools now to do that.

I would imagine more of my time is probably going to be spent doing dry labs and doing lunch staff trainings.

Joel:  And doing them remotely?

Andy:  You can do them remotely.

Joel:  That’s interesting.

Andy:  A lot of big changes. We’re going, like we all do, go out there and see how many places we get told we’re not allowed into and then try to come up with strategies that would get us on that.

Joel:  You’ve been doing that really well for a long time, so I imagine you’re going to keep doing that. That’s good.

Andy:  Sign language from the parking lot.

Joel:  [laughs] It’s hard to know. Well, I’m grateful for your time. Anything that I haven’t asked you about that perhaps you’d like to talk about on the program before we sign off?

Andy:  No, I’m all set. Joel, thanks for having me. I appreciate you taking the time, too.

Joel:  I appreciate it.

Thanks a lot for listening to the Make Marketing Easy Podcast. My goal was to help you think of learning about marketing as a way for you to achieve the results you imagine in your territory and also use those skills to add value to your customers’ businesses.

If you want to learn more ways to make marketing easy, go to makemarketingeasy.com and download my free five‑week checklist containing ideas to help you reduce anxiety by staying connected with your customers and prospects when you can’t visit them. Until next time. Thanks again. I’m grateful that you took the time to listen.

The post A Veteran Medical Device Sales Rep Explains How He Uses Social Media to Help Him Succeed appeared first on Make Marketing Easy.

In episode 1 of season 2 of the Make Marketing Easy podcast, host Joel Gaslin talks to Dr. Vance Thompson about the importance of handwritten notes, being progressive with technology and being old-school with how you respect and treat people. Their conversation is broken into a few main parts. They discuss marketing during times of crisis, Dr. Thompsons wine business ventures, and the future of refractive surgery.

Getting a handwritten note in the mail in 2020 packs a punch. It communicates an extra level of care and effort that an email or text just can’t convey. Dr. Thompson talks throughout this episode on the importance of putting people first at your practice, whether it’s a patient or staff member. This discussion of handwritten notes leads to the next part of their conversation: Dr. Thompson’s ventures in the wine business.

Dr. Thompson is a part of two wine businesses: Jessup Cellars and Handwritten Wines. Both of these businesses are hyper-focused on investing handmade quality and craft in each one of their wines. This philosophy of care clearly runs deep in Dr. Thompson’s life.

Lastly, Joel turns the conversation back onto the world of refractive surgery, asking Dr. Thompson what he thinks is the next big thing. He mentions light adjustability, trifocals, and SMILE laser surgery. Finally, he ends the conversation by offering some perennial wisdom for doctors who want to build a longstanding practice and salespeople who want to connect with them.

Handwritten notes are a great way to stay connected during the COVID hiatus and the re-ignition period.

Links

• Jessup Cellars
• Handwritten Wines

The post The Art of the Handwritten Note and Staying Connected – with Vance Thompson, MD appeared first on Make Marketing Easy.

Donald Downer, MD is a corneal fellowship-trained ophthalmologist in Jacksonville, FL who specializes in Laser Cataract Surgery and treating corneal diseases. Adopting any new technology in a medical practice requires many steps.

In this fourth episode of the Make Marketing Easy Podcast, Dr. Downer discusses the process he and his partners went through to educate their staff, figure out the flow in the operating room, and much more.

You may find the full transcript of the Donald Downer, MD interview here.

The post Donald Downer, MD – Talks Adding LenSx to His Practice appeared first on Make Marketing Easy.

In this episode of the Make Marketing Easy Podcast, host Joel Gaslin sits down with Bill Wiley, MD of the Cleveland Eye Clinic and Amnon Keynan of Surgiorithm. Bill Wiley is a cataract and refractive surgeon in Cleveland, Ohio. Amnon Keynan is the CEO of Surgiorithm, which is a digital communication platform for educating patients and informing doctors. In this episode, these three professionals discuss the commercialization of the eye care industry, the growing need for cataract surgeries, and the future of technology in healthcare.

Joel and Bill kickstart the conversation by discussing a shift in the focus of many physicians. This is the shift from the internal, or back of house tasks, to the external, or front of house consumer experience. Physicians today are striving to understand and improve the consumer experience like never before, and this is leading to the development and integration of new technology. But as they discuss, the industry still has a long way to go.

One of the current problems in the world of eye care is that doctors are experiencing an influx of patients who need cataract surgery and subsequently need to be educated about the procedure, vision options, payment options, and quality-of-life expectations. This education is crucial to both alleviate stress from the patient and sell the procedure as a whole. But how can doctors handle this influx of work without spending countless hours in the chair? According to Amnon, Surgiorithm is currently alleviating these issues through cloud-based technologies that educate patients, informs surgeons, and provides a holistic analysis of the upgrade process. In doing so, Amnon discusses the story of Surgiorithm, explains the software’s predictive algorithms, and walks through the Surgiorithm process from the patient and surgeon’s perspectives.

As the conversation ends, Bill Wiley and Amnon Keynan discuss the future of technological integration in the health industry. One of the core needs, according to Amnon, is for the development of personalized patient experiences. In addition, they discuss the importance of having digital resources like mobile apps for educating patients at home rather than in the office. Finally, Bill calls for the healthcare industry to move from simply using technology to schedule, bill, and track patients health to use it for actually raising the standards of the medical services being offered. Altogether, Bill and Amnon’s dialogue showcases their expertise and provides clear insight into the trends and trajectories of the eye care industry.

Learn more about Bill Wiley: https://www.clevelandeyeclinic.com/our-doctors-ohio/william-f-wiley-m-d/

Follow Bill Wiley on Twitter: @wiley2020

Connect with Amnon on Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amnon-keynan-aa039/

Learn more about Surgiorithm: surgiorithm.com

Follow Surgiorithm on Twitter: @surgiorithm

To receive more information about Surgiorithm, fill in the box below, and I’ll connect you with them quick.

Read the transcript of the Podcast below.

Joel Gaslin:  [00:20] Welcome to the Make Marketing Easy Podcast. If you’re a returning listener, thanks for tuning in again. If you’re a new listener, welcome. This podcast aims to help doctors and medical device reps learn about what’s happening in their markets so that they may do things smarter and build connections.

[00:40] On today’s episode I have two guests. That’s a first for me. My first guest is Dr. Bill Wiley. Dr. Wiley’s an ophthalmologist and a managing partner of the highly successful Cleveland Eye Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

[00:53] My second guest is Amnon Keynan. Amnon is a serial entrepreneur who is relatively new to the medical industry, and is also the founder and CEO of Surgiorithm, a healthcare software company using a predictive algorithm to engage patients.

[01:07] Dr. Wiley, thanks for being on the show today. Please tell us about your background and your practice in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr. Bill Wiley:  [01:13] Sure. Thanks, Joel. Thanks for having me. I’ve been in Cleveland, Ohio, for the past 15 years. I originally joined my father’s practices. He had two practices that he started, one called Clear Choice Custom LASIK Center and the other one called Cleveland Eye Clinic.

[01:29] In general, both practices were running independently, but we’ve seen a merger of the two practices. Cleveland Eye Clinic historically was a cataract practice that focused on insurance reimbursed procedures like cataract surgery, and we had Clear Choice Custom LASIK Center which focused on corneal refractive surgery.

[01:48] Over the past 15 years we’ve seen a lot of changes and updates to that market with new technology and new services that we can provide for corneal refractive surgery. What we’ve seen is those two concepts merging together to now have something called upgraded cataract surgery where we can have a better refractive result when we do cataract surgery.

[02:07] We’ve taken a lot of what we’ve learned in corneal refractive surgery and applied that to cataract surgery to get better results and meet patient’s expectations better.

[02:18] What’s happened is it’s created great opportunities to deliver better outcomes, but it’s also created new challenges such that there’s some challenges in educating patients, making sure that they understand what their opportunities are when they go down that path of cataract surgery. I think that’s what leads us to today’s discussion.

Joel:  [02:37] That’s great. Thanks for that background. Amnon and I have talked about this and maybe even you and I have, Bill, at some point.

[02:43] I think what’s really interesting about ophthalmology right now is, for so long, physicians have been focused on what I call inside the practice, the four walls, where you’ll have how many EMR/EHR systems have you already gone through and then practice management software instead of working within there.

[03:00] I think there’s an opportunity now and people are beginning to see. People like you and other successful practices around the country that are starting to look more outside the practice and look at the commercial flow of a commercial process within the practice. To use the restaurant vernacular, it’s like front of the house, back of the house.

[03:19] That’s why I’m really excited to have someone like Amnon on the podcast today who’s working on that solving their issue for practices. Amnon, please tell us about your background and what made you decide to start Surgiorithm and what does this software do?

Amnon Keynan:  [03:35] I’m excited to join, thank you for having me on this podcast. My passion in life is to innovate in improving processes using multidisciplinary approaches and technologies. I’ve done it in the past. I’ve done it in insurance, in public sector, in communication and healthcare.

[03:52] Every time I try again and again to find the other interesting niches to do it. I did it as an executive in large enterprises as well as a co‑founder in small startup. This is my third.

[04:05] What I like to do best is to envision and deliver new technology that makes the daily life of user ‑‑ in our case we’re talking about doctors ‑‑ easier and more productive. In addition, to develop new knowledge. In our case, we’re talking about knowledge about patient journey.

[04:24] Three years ago, together with my partner Diane and Shawn who joined us, we started elective procedure market. We liked ophthalmology because cataract is the most common procedure in the States with multiple choices. This is a key point, multiple choices, for patients and the debt of thousands of dollars between the choices.

[04:47] A number of surgeons remain flat in this industry. There is a clear need for better use of the surgeon’s time to fuel organic growth. In short, we believe that it’s time for ophthalmology to join the consumer era. It is our mission to help ophthalmologists grow in the consumer era, which will be so dominant in the next decade.

Joel:  [05:11] Great for doing it as the consumerization of healthcare and…

[05:14] [crosstalk]

Amnon:  [05:14] Yeah, I like it very much.

Joel:  [05:16] It’s happening and it’s real. I’m also amazed and humbled by how…I travel around the country, as you both know, and go into lots of different practices. So many times people say, “My area is different and that doesn’t work here.”

[05:30] I’ve just seen so many exceptions to that, that it works anywhere with the right process that’s why they like you use the word process, Amnon. What is a predictive algorithm, Amnon? How does it work, and how does it create value for Surgiorithm?

Amnon:  [05:45] This is a great question, thank you. It’s great opportunity for me to explain these terms in our context. The common use of predictive algorithm in healthcare is mostly in batch processes of large amounts data. Everybody heard about it for medical records, lab results, and so on, studies, etc.

[06:07] We, however, have some different approach. We use predictive algorithm to create predictors about individual patient’s decision. We started with answers from 2,500 patients who were scheduled to cataract evaluation before they get into the evaluation. Then we compare the data to their decisions.

[06:28] We now use this analytics to tell the doctor, with a predictor for each individual patient, what is the likelihood of this patient to choose self‑pay options before the doctor sees the patient.

[06:41] The result is that, when the patient comes to the appointment, the doctor knows in advance if the patient is yes for self‑pay, or, in other words, “Doctor will get me out of these glasses,” or no, in other words, “I’m happy to wearing glasses all the time.” Both yes and no indicators save doctor’s time. It saves a lot of time in enquiry questions and so on.

[07:08] Not less important is the other predictor, the maybe, the third predictor, which means you, doctor, will need to help the patient to make decisions.

[07:19] Another value of the predictor to the patient and the doctor is the availability of wisdom of the crowd as a consideration in the decision. The patient gets message as part of the preparation program that patients who answer similarly discussed premium options with their doctor, so they are not alone.

[07:40] The predictor tells the doctor that, based on multiple doctors and thousands of patients, this is the patient inclination proven by data. This creates a unique value to our customers and unique competitive advantage to Surgiorithm.

Joel:  [07:57] Is that like it when you go on Amazon, you buy something, and then, at the bottom, it says, “Other people like you would pick something like this,” or it’s a way to look at correlation between what like people make decisions or is that…Am I understanding that correctly?

Amnon:  [08:13] Yeah. You remember the days before Amazon. In those days, consumer needed much legwork to know all product options, their availability, and prices. Shopkeepers knew very little about who is coming, when, and what, and not to mention the consumer trends.

[08:31] Yet, even today, in the elective procedures, the doctor needs to sell the procedure to patient in a shared decision‑making process. This involves much time and information.

[08:45] By us introducing Amazonization of elective procedure, the patient knows what to expect like optional and quality of life outcomes, range of fees. The doctor knows how to personalize the message efficiently and to save the most important resource ‑‑ the doctor’s time. This has to be fixed. Surgiorithm solution is the practice of discovery and disseminization.

Joel:  [09:12] That’s great.

Amnon:  [09:12] I hope that this answer the question.

Joel:  [09:14] It does. That’s, again, what I really like about this is, if you think about a medical practice, ‑‑ and, Dr. Wiley, you can certainly echo on this ‑‑ that the most valuable and also the most scarce resource in a practice is the doctor’s time. Is that the right way to think about in your mind, Bill?

Dr. Wiley:  [09:32] Yeah. I think as the cataract market is growing and growing, it seems that we just don’t have the time to treat patients, to do surgery, to educate patients. Physicians are in this place that they need to delegate a lot of things to either staff members or technology to help carry out those processes.

[09:53] It’s one thing to do it to save time, but what’s interesting, if you can do it not only to save time, but also improve that process and do a better job than what the physician can do, everybody wins. I think the patients win because they’re better educated or better understand things, and the physician wins because he’s freed up a valuable resource of his own time.

Joel:  [10:13] What is it, Dr. Wiley, that made you decide to take a look at Surgiorithm? How did you become connected with them?

Dr. Wiley:  [10:18] In our practice, we did see the value of educating patients on what their choices were for cataract surgery, but also understanding on an individual basis what those patients were looking for.

[10:31] We had a full‑time employee that went through a process that would educate patients, sit down with them, try to understand what their needs were for cataract surgery, and then relay that information back to the surgeon.

[10:45] That was working well, but then that employee was getting older and was looking to slow down and retire. We thought, “Gosh, how are we going to replace that person?” We found that was an integral piece to the process, is that education and feedback to the surgeon.

[11:03] Right around that time, we met Surgiorithm that was accomplishing that same goal, but through technology and not necessarily an individual. We thought it was perfect timing to help step in and replace that full‑time employee.

[11:17] Right now, we have multiple surgeons in multiple locations and that employee just couldn’t be everywhere at once. Even if they were in the clinic that day, there might be multiple patients that needed discussion and he just couldn’t see everybody, just like the surgeon couldn’t.

[11:33] Really, to do it adequately with employees, we’d probably need three or four people to do what now Surgiorithm can do in not only a more efficient way, but more effective way.

[11:45] Now that we’ve found by integrating Surgiorithm, we’re able to replace that full‑time employee, but also do a better job of educating and providing that feedback loop to the surgeon on what that patient is likely going to be looking for in their surgery.

Joel:  [12:01] Amnon, do you have any results, stories, or anecdotes that you’d like to tell? Success stories early on? You’re what, a year into the market? Is that about right?

Amnon:  [12:12] Yeah. Just to talk a few sentences about history, we started in clinic using iPad to collect data of patient’s decision pathways. This is what help us to build up the predictor and the patient insight report.

[12:29] With the experience of 2,500 patient, we moved to the at‑home service and entered our patient contact center, which drives, right now, 85 completion rate of people at home. This has streamlined the entire process of preparation.

[12:48] Then, we added integration to videos from AAO and Rendia. We are just in the process of integrating links to financing service providers because we want patient to be less anxious about affordability and going into the discussion.

[13:08] From results, yes. The data that we have is that, first, doctors see more patients. It’s about 10 percent more. When we compare between the same months last year and this year, then we also see that there is increase in selection of self‑pay options. Other than these important results and we help Dr. Wiley how he sees it, we also have much learning here.

[13:38] One of the examples that I can share is that we compared data of patient who did it in practice and patient who did it at home at the same practice. What we learned from that is that patient at home are much more open, was open‑minded to contemplate opportunities.

[13:59] In other words, if we can deliver the right messages to those who are contemplating and we know that we have the data to show that this individual is contemplating, then we can be much more successful when the patient is in front of the doctor in the evaluation room.

Joel:  [14:18] I’ve always been humbled and amazed by the commercial process that I see with a lot of people. A patient comes in and they hear, “I have a cataract,” and we know that it’s a really successful operation and everything that’s true about it. Yet, sometimes patients hear, “I have a cataract,” and they’re a little bit scared maybe.

[14:39] Then, many doctors at that time in their process says, “OK. Now, we’re gonna try and sell them an upgrade.” If you look at a perfect selling environment, to be maybe garish about using the term selling in health care, but it really is a commercial process at that point.

[14:54] It’s an odd time to ask someone to make it and then they say, “Nope, don’t want it. Don’t really understand my options.” They just move forward and they say, “OK. I don’t need it.” That’s why I think it’s really great what is happening and what you’re working on.

Amnon:  [15:07] Let me add here that what happens for most patients is that they schedule the cataract evaluation say, next week, 10 days ahead, 7 days ahead. There, there is a dark frame of time. The patient is at home, anxious, thinking about, “What will happen? Somebody will get into my eye. What does it mean?” and so on.

[15:33] What we are doing when the patient is at home, we send the patient a secure link to do an online session. Our online session is focused on the outcome of the procedure. We help patient in a thoughtful process to think, “What is my side goals? What do we want to have as quality of life postop in regard to activities, work, driving, glasses?” and so on.

[16:00] With that, we focus the patient to think about the life postop and not the scary thing of the procedure itself.

Joel:  [16:11] Dr. Wiley, will you tell us a little bit about or tell the listeners about what it was like to get started with Surgiorithm and how? Sometimes when you add something new into your practice, it can be disruptive and not super easy.

[16:23] What people tell me is Surgiorithm is really easy to get started with and that the team is really helpful. Will you tell us about what your experience was or is with that?

Dr. Wiley:  [16:30] Yes. In general, when you add a new process, it can be disruptive. For example, when we added EMR, it seemed like we had to reduce our flow, our patient volume, by 20 or 30 percent just to get through the day. It was extremely painful process.

[16:46] What’s nice is Surgiorithm was more or less seamless. From the day [laughs] we incorporated it, we took a step forward and it made our lives easier.

[16:56] A lot of times you listen to staff and, if they’re not bought in, it’s very hard to incorporate new technology. From day one, the staff was immediately bought in. They saw that it was going to make their lives easier.

[17:08] Our surgery scheduler saw that the patients were now going to be better informed and the physician was going to be better informed of what the patients were looking for. It was very seamless.

[17:18] I think one of the key aspects to that is the fact that Surgiorithm has…Part of the process is they reach out to the patient and walk the patient through a survey, walk the patient to getting registered for that survey and expecting the email.

[17:32] I think that personal touch adds one layer of confidence to the patient and our team that things are going to be done correctly. Nowadays, we get a lot of emails in the mail. A lot of times you don’t open them, but having that personal phone call, reaching out to the patient, helps start the process in a positive direction.

[17:52] We were sensitive also as far as how much information do we want to load the patients up with and surveys. A lot of times, patients are getting about a number of things, and you don’t want to overload them. What’s nice is there is a feedback loop to understand our patient’s enjoying the processes or not.

[18:10] I think, Amnon, you would have the stats at your fingertips. We had over, I think, 97 percent patient satisfaction with the process itself, which is very high for any kind of new technology that you’re adding. The fact that patients were happier, staff was happier, physicians were happier, everybody was on board almost immediately.

Joel:  [18:32] Right. Your practice…

Amnon:  [18:33] That’s a bright career.

Joel:  [18:34] Yeah, and I know your practice, Dr. Wiley. You’re highly focused on the patient experience, and so it sounds like Surgiorithm really is a nice way to improve on the patient experience. How do you think about that statement?

Dr. Wiley:  [18:45] Yeah, correct. There’s a lot of things we do as physicians to improve outcomes and add technology to get a better result, but, bottom line, the result is almost a given. Patients are expecting that no matter where they go. The experience is what they truly remember. How do they go through that process to your practice?

[19:08] We focus a lot on creating a better experience because that’s more or less a lot of what you’re going to be judged on. You might deliver this beautiful result, but, if your front desk person or the call center drops the ball, that’s all the patients remember.

[19:22] Anytime you can take that experience or that interaction and raise the bar, I think everybody wins. We see that Surgiorithm allowed us to do that in the experience level.

Joel:  [19:33] Great. Dr. Wiley, why do you think some doctors are hesitant to offer upgraded products and services to patients, and what did you do to get so good at it, frankly?

Dr. Wiley:  [19:43] It can be challenging to offer upgrades to patient. A lot of it, I think, doctors are afraid of failed expectations. By offering an upgraded service, you’re automatically raising that patient expectation above, let’s say, a basic level.

[20:02] We’re in the business of meeting or exceeding patient expectations. Physicians are often afraid that anytime a patient is going to be paying out of pocket, they might not be able to basically meet those expectations. What’s also nice is Surgiorithm has an opportunity to help properly set those expectations on what those patients are buying into.

[20:24] You can send patients personal videos explaining what the patient might expect with the choice they’re going to choose. A lot of it is setting realistic and appropriate expectations to allow that physician to meet or exceed them. I think this product can help get more people on board with feeling comfortable and confident in offering those upgrades.

Joel:  [20:49] That’s a great observation, and I think, at least from where I sit, the end of your statement’s really important about the physician being comfortable and confident. I know you’re good friends with John Berdahl, and I was at an Ophthalmology Innovation Summit.

[21:01] He was on a panel, and he, as you know, in his sort of boyish charm, when they were talking about the pace of adoption of ATIOLs in laser cataract surgery and upgraded cataract surgery, and he raised his hand and said, “Well, I think it’s that doctors aren’t comfortable talking about money, and I’m just going to say that,” and everybody nodded their head.

[21:23] Another thing I really like about Surgiorithm is it creates that pre‑sell environment where people…We understand what it is. We understand, “OK. Here’s a person who’s going to be a person likely to upgrade, so it’s an easy conversation.” I think that’s great.

[21:35] Amnon, as a relatively new person to the industry of ophthalmology, what are your thoughts about how innovation happens, and how does it convert to other industries where you’ve enjoyed so much success?

Amnon:  [21:45] Thank you. This is very interesting question. The first thing that comes in mind is that most of the investment in innovation in ophthalmology is happening with measurement and surgical technologies.

[21:59] With the need for organic growth, which is out there in the market right now, it is very clear to a newcomer like me that the solution will come from consumerism technologies that will ease the streamline in patient decision.

[22:14] With this information technology, that will help doctors move faster. In elective procedure, probably introducing the Amazonization of elective procedures is the answer, but I have a feeling that we talked about it.

Joel:  [22:30] We did. I think the earlier part of your answer where you said that the majority of innovation in ophthalmology is focused on medical technology, med device, and pharma, and I think that’s true.

[22:41] Bill, would you agree with that, or what do you…We’re getting towards a need and an opportunity for people that develop technologies for what we’re talking about.

Dr. Wiley:  [22:50] Yeah, totally agree. It seems that early software technology was more or less [laughs] meeting goals of, let’s say, billing, or scheduling, or documentation, very basic‑level goals, and replacing paper as far as a documentation tool or a scheduling tool.

[23:11] We really [laughs] have just only barely scratched the surface of what technology can provide for healthcare like it’s provided for other industries, and there’s so much more we can do. We just haven’t had the opportunity to raise the level of service that we’re providing to patients.

[23:30] I think Surgiorithm is a step in that direction by raising that educational level, raising the feedback to physicians, but also having this analytical software that analyzes that process and allows it to improve over time.

[23:46] We just haven’t had that ability yet, and I think we’re going to start to see technologies like this help raise that bar and commercialize, like you said, medicine in a positive direction.

Joel:  [23:57] That’s great, and I think you said a lot right there, Dr. Wiley, and part of it is that physicians in general are very process‑driven in almost everything you do. I think that’s the part that’s been lacking, and I think there is an opportunity in the market.

[24:10] If you think about it, like you, I go to the Ophthalmology Innovation Summit. I think it’s a terrific meeting. I commented to Amnon after the last one that there’s not a software company or a patient engagement company that’s promoting at these or even talked about at these conferences.

[24:27] My hope is that maybe there’s an opportunity to start a conference around just…Call it patient engagement type of software platforms and how they do that. Maybe that’s something to think about in the future.

Dr. Wiley:  [24:38] Yeah, I totally agree.

Joel:  [24:40] Bill, how do you think patients are changing in ophthalmology? What role do you think interactive technology, mobile apps, artificial intelligence, what will they play in your practice five years from now, and where do you see that fitting into the clinic and the OR, those two environments?

Dr. Wiley:  [24:56] I think patients are changing in health care, but more or less in all commercial aspects. You see how people shop, or how people learn, or how people interact online. We’re seeing that trickle over to health care and ophthalmology, specifically.

[25:15] I think the days in the past of a patient sitting in a room, in an office watching a video about cataract surgery, that’s going to go by the wayside. The patient wants to see that same content, but do it on their time, on their device, when they’re comfortable.

[25:32] We’re seeing a lot of things like that, things like online scheduling. Patients don’t want to necessarily go through a call center and reach out. They want to do it more digitally and have interactions via their smartphone or computer to more or less navigate their life, like they’re doing in other aspects of their life.

[25:53] I think we have to take a step forward in these processes to meet these patients’ lifestyle as they’re changing in day‑to‑day living.

Amnon:  [26:02] Let me add to this. I think the big change that we are starting to experience is the need for personalization. The main cataract patient right now are the baby boomer that are coming into this cataract era for them. These people have the experience in other industries that everything is personalized to them.

[26:26] We’ve talked about Amazon. We just need to give a reference here to that. The change in the market that we need to create is to personalize the messages, the education, and the patient needs to feel that what the patient is experiencing is part of the education and preparation, whatever, is personalized.

[26:47] We help both the patient and the doctor to get into personalized preparation and then personalized discussion.

Joel:  [26:55] Amnon, what do you view as the critical success factors for Surgiorithm? How does a doctor who may be listening to this podcast, or even a med device rep, or someone who likes to bring ideas to their surgeons they’re working with or trying to work with, how do they get started with Surgiorithm?

[27:11] How do they get more information and learn about it? What kind of questions should they be asking their team?

Amnon:  [27:16] Talking about Surgiorithm, first, our success comes from more traction and more customers. With that, this means that more traction means more functionality and more insights. This is how we improve, process, measure, and so on.

[27:34] A doctor who is thinking about deploying Surgiorithm should ask two major questions. First, do we need to grow? Do we need to improve? Do we want more bottom line revenue from consumers that we already have? These are key questions.

[27:53] If the answer is yes, do they have the team and the culture to jumpstart a new way of patient engagement and experience for the benefit of the patient and the practice?

[28:08] If this is the intention, we can help the practice prepare the patient in a way that, when the patient is in front of the doctor, the doctor needs to qualify the answers of the question and to say what is the recommendation based on this.

Joel:  [28:26] Dr. Wiley, your practice, I know, is heavily involved with optometry. How do you see Surgiorithm fitting with optometry and how does that process work for you?

Dr. Wiley:  [28:37] In our practice, we do a lot of co‑management, and we’ve found that a lot of times, in a co‑management model, there can be some disjointed messaging that can be challenging to wrap your hands around where the optometric practice may be saying one thing to the patient and our practice is saying something else.

[28:57] It’s nice to have a unified source that can bring both together. What we’ve done is reached out to our optometry colleagues and have them buy into the Surgiorithm process as well so that they understand this is the message that’s going to be sent to the patients.

[29:15] The optometrists can help support that and say, “OK,” to the patient, “you’re gonna get this survey. You’re gonna get a phone call, and it’s gonna describe the survey. Why don’t you register and walk yourself through that. It’s gonna help all of us understand what your goals are and understand what you’re looking with surgery? We can communicate that message back to the surgeon.”

[29:36] We can also have specialized videos that could go to that patient that might come from the optometrist, allowing that optometrist to support the messaging that we’re trying to create. We personalize videos for myself, for our team to describe what the process is going to look like.

[29:51] It gives a common platform of education to make sure that we’re all speaking the same words or using that same phrases or same technologies that the patients understand and not getting this mixed message from one practice to another.

Amnon:  [30:06] Dr. Wiley, if I can ask you about these ODs, did you hear any feedback or question from your referring ODs about this process of Surgiorithm?

Dr. Wiley:  [30:17] Good question. Initially, just like integration of technology to our staff, a lot of times there’s resistance, and same thing with optometry. Sometimes they’re resistant to change because it may disrupt their relationship with a patient or may add another level of complexity that might make their job harder.

[30:37] I was a little worried about that integrating Surgiorithm, but what we found is we’ve had buy in immediately from the optometrists as well so that they understand this is a non‑invasive process. They understand that it’s going to allow their patients to be better educated so that they can understand what they’re getting into with this surgery.

[30:55] We’ve had a buy‑in and very positive feedback from our optometric network.

Amnon:  [31:00] That’s great, thank you.

Joel:  [31:02] Anything that I haven’t asked you about that you wanted to talk about or were hoping to talk about on the podcast, whether it’s, Bill, something interesting you’re working on? Amnon, anything you want to talk about?

Dr. Wiley:  [31:11] I see Surgiorithm being agreeable to future technology that we’re going to be offering. A lot of times we’ve found with, let’s say, written messaging, written brochures, or education material that it seems like the technology that we’re providing clinically changes so quickly.

[31:27] By the time we have a brochure ready to go, we might be using a new technology, a new lens, or a new laser and we have to go back to the drawing board and recreate our written message.

[31:39] What’s nice for Surgiorithm, we can very quickly update what message we want to give to those patients. Maybe record a quick video that describes this new process that we’re going to be doing for the patients.

[31:50] Like anything digital, to have that ability to quickly change the platform once you have the foundation pieces in place, it provides for a very updatable tool that we can use.

Joel:  [32:02] That’s great. Iterating and keeping the message fresh and consistent with, as you say, it goes to harmonization of message.

Amnon:  [32:09] Dr. Wiley, do you see any way to use Surgiorithm for clinical trials?

Dr. Wiley:  [32:14] That’s a great point, Amnon. We do do a fair amount of clinical trials and a lot of times those are changing as well. Right now, we’ve got a couple trials underway that have to do with some of the upgraded technology, maybe a new presbyopic lens.

[32:29] What we can do is add a questionnaire or a simple question within that process that the patient’s undergoing that might ask the patient are they interested in a clinical trial that might provide this upgraded vision?

[32:44] To have that feedback, number one, to the patient so they see if they can opt‑in or opt‑out of that technology, but also relaying that back to our staff is invaluable.

[32:53] It can help increase enrollment, help increase education. We can have directed messaging about that technology so the patient understands what this new clinical trial might offer. Again, that harmonization of messaging is across all things, including clinical trials.

Amnon:  [33:13] Thank you. Joel, what I would like to add, two things. First, referring back to the discussion about the OD integration and involvement, our vision is to work with the practices to close the loop with the ODs in a way that the process starts with OD registration and referring the patient to the practice.

[33:40] Then close the loop by sending a message, both to the OD and the patient, “It’s time to go back to the OD.” This will probably support the interest of the core management.

[33:52] The other point, at some time during this discussion you asked me about what kind of question the doctor need to ask himself or herself while considering Surgiorithm.

[34:08] One of my answer was, “Does the practice has the culture to jumpstart a new way for patient engagement?” This is an opportunity for me to say that Cleveland Eye Clinic sets the bar for committed team, all rolling in the same direction. Its leadership has established a culture of innovative thinking and high personal commitment. We appreciate it.

[34:33] Thank you, Joel, for having me on your podcast. It was a lot of fun. Thank you, Dr. Wiley, for joining us and sharing so many insights with us. Thank you.

Joel:  [34:44] That’s great. You’re welcome, Amnon. Thanks, both to you and Dr. Wiley for being on the show. I enjoyed visiting with you and learning more about both of you and your practice and your business.

[35:08] I recently attended a conference called the Podcast Movement. It was a lot of fun there. I met with a lot of people, I learned a lot, and it was just fun to be immersed in the podcast culture for a while.

[35:18] I’m really becoming excited about this medium and what it can do to help people learn, how I can convey the messages of things I’ve learned and people that I talk to, what’s working and what’s not, and what’s new. It’s just a lot of fun.

[35:57] On this episode, you may find the show notes at joelgaslin.com. Joel, J‑O‑E‑L, Gaslin, G‑A‑S‑L‑I‑N, dot com, and you can find show notes and links to the things we talked about in the program.

The post Episode 003 – Bill Wiley, MD – Amnon Keynan – Surgiorithm appeared first on Make Marketing Easy.

Matt Jensen is the CEO of Vance Thompson Vision in Sioux Falls, SD and the owner of Matt Jensen Marketing, also in Sioux Falls. We welcome Matt to the show today where he shares his thoughts and insights about all things related to the Experience Economy, operational excellence leading to world-class experiences, marketing ideas, how sales reps can get a doctor’s time, how to handle “haters,” and many other topics.

The post Episode 002 – Matt Jensen appeared first on Make Marketing Easy.

Hey everybody! Welcome to episode number one of the Make Marketing Easy Podcast, your go-to source for selling and marketing tools, tips, strategies, stories and even the occasional rant.Since this is the maiden voyage of the podcast, I am grateful you’re here and humbled that you will take a chance on listening to my work.

Today’s episode will be a little different because I believe I owe you the answers to three questions before you give me the privilege of a second listen to the show. The three question we’ll answer are: Why listen to the podcast? Can you really make marketing easy And, who am I deliver this podcast and why now? I guess that’s four questions but 3 and 4 are kind of linked….het, it’s my show and you get a sense for this whole thing is going to go! My promise to you is that this is the only podcast episode that will be sort of focused on me. I’m really not that vain or narcissistic and I hope you understand what I’m trying to do here….so let’s get started!

Why listen to this podcast?

Have you ever looked at your cell phone and, if you’re of a certain age, wondered how it is so much smarter, smaller and useful than the old one you used to lug around? It’s ok if you haven’t. I have pondered this question, researched it and arrived at the conclusion that the foundation of improvement in this technology is in it’s software and how it runs.

Like so many things in my life, this question led me to another question. You know, sort of along the lines of the book I used to read to my kids when they were little called, “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to want a glass of milk.” The question, or quest depending on with whom you speak, especially if it’s my wife, Jean, for me became, “What is happening in the selling and marketing world that is like this?” It turns out, a lot!

This podcast will teach you about selling and marketing through research, interviews, stories and occasional rants from everyday people who are working to get something done. Myself included. Will they be famous? I don’t know, it depends a little bit on your definition of famous. My definition is anyone who is making good progress on a goal they’ve set for themselves, maybe gets knocked down, gets up to do it all over again with a new strategy or tactic and finally succeeds. If you’re as interested as I am in talking about stuff like this, hang on because it’s going to be a fun ride! I want to learn about how these people are doing what they’re doing, share it with you and add whatever value I can to the idea, story, tool or strategy.

Back to the original thought about the cell phone…Most things today utilize some form of an Object Oriented Program (OOP) to operate because it is efficient, flexible and powerful. It’s also powering internet based software and driving the Internet of Things revolution. The basics of the software lie in featuring classes of objects that utilize different methods to create some output. That’s my simple definition, anyway, and I’m sure someone with much more knowledge than me can go on an interesting rant about this topic (I hope to one day interview someone who can do that in an engaging way).

So, when I began thinking about all of this, I started putting my thoughts into notebooks, notecards, sticky notes and in the margins of books I was reading. I’m still doing this today and decided I am going to write a book and publish it myself. The working title is, “Object Oriented Marketing and Selling.” I liked it because it captured, in a native sense, what I was thinking about selling and marketing for 2019 and beyond. It is not, however, super catchy so I’ll keep working on it…

If you’re at all like me, you’ve listened to different podcasts and audiobooks. And perhaps you wonder what is different about this one and what will I get out of listening to it? That’s a great question and my answer is, “It depends?”

It depends on what you are looking for and what you’re willing to put into it. If you, at some point in the podcast, hear something and think, “I hadn’t thought of it that way or thought of doing it that way,” you’ve helped me accomplish what I’ve set out to do with the Make Marketing Easy Podcast. More importantly, if I can interview someone, offer an opinion or share some research that helps you have this thought, YOU WIN because thinking that way will change your business and your life. We must come to new conclusions and derive novel solutions to opportunities in our lives if we want to achieve our own definitions of success. And your definition of success doesn’t matter, this remains true.

My own experience with podcasts is varied and diverse. I like mostly business related feeds because that’s where my career and hobbies sort of come together – weird as that may seem. And I know also there are podcasts available on pretty much any topic you may be interested in so I like that variety.

Where I lose interest in podcasts is when the episodes are crammed with advertisements and self-promotional materials talking with people who have vast resources. Don’t get me wrong, I understand there is an economic reality that nothing is done for free very well or very long so having affiliate relationships and some sort of sponsor for the podcast may be necessary at some point. In fact these folks have worked hard and produced good work to get to the platform on which they stand.

And since I’m just starting my podcast, have few subscribers and nothing more than a desire to produce good content, perhaps one day I will understand the dilemma some of the “big guys and gals” face. So, since I like to avoid absolutes, I’ll just say that we have no ads and no sponsors. And that’s not passive aggressive begging for one, it’s simply a statement of the way things are today.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to produce this podcast all on my own today.

My promise to you, the listener, is that the Make Marketing Easy Podcast will provide thought provoking and actionable content with research and interviews focused on the subjects of physician marketing, corporate (B2B) marketing and selling in a territory. All of these subjects are near and dear to my heart and are the arenas where I earn a living to feed my family today. You’ll hear from real people who are practicing what they’re talking about.

I’ll tell you more in a few minutes about why I’m qualified to talk about, and interview people getting it done in the trenches, within these exciting areas of business.

What happened to the name, “Cognified?”

I came up with “Cognified” while I was reading the excellent book by Kevin Kelly called, “The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.” In this book, the second force Kelly writes about is “Cognifying.”

If you’ve ever had a book passage that hits you like a “ton of bricks,” that’s what happened to me with the first paragraph. Here’s what it says:

“It is hard to imagine anything that would “change everything” as much as cheap, powerful, ubiquitous artificial intelligence. To begin with, there’s nothing as consequential as a dumb thing made smarter. Even a very tiny amount of useful intelligence embedded into an existing process boosts its effectiveness to a whole other level. The advantages gained from cognifying inert things would be hundreds of times more disruptive to our lives than the transformation gained by industrialization.”

After reading that part, I devoured the rest of his book and bought up all of the URLs I could around “Cognified.” AS an aside, I’m a bit of a URL hoarder and my hope is that one day I can monetize that little quirk…what I am obsessed with is that I think the concept of cognifying aspects of our work and lives so that we live in a “Cognified Age” is an exhilarating possibility. To add “smarts” to our marketing and selling processes may be just that little change that leads to a monumental improvement in outcomes.

Prior to reading Kelly’s book, I was doing some thinking, reading and research to increase my understanding of a type of software development called, Object Oriented Programming. I was thinking about this strategy as a means to help the Marketing and Selling teams at Sightpath Medical (Where I serve as the EVP of Sales and Marketing) improve our results. While doing this, I came across an interesting book by Matt Weisfeld called, “The Object Oriented Thought Process.”

I was interested in this book for the same reasons that OOP is prevalent in so much of the software that touches our lives today. OOP is an efficient method of development that features objects and uses Encapsulation, Inheritance, Polymorphism and Composition. I was struck by the utility of these concepts and how they might apply to marketing and selling.

They’re esoteric concepts, for sure. So I will teach a lot about these important terms and how they apply as I roll out the podcast and ultimately, the book. Maybe I should keep this a secret, but I haven’t seen anyone else writing about marketing and selling this way and I want to share it with everyone.

How does this apply to physician marketing? I am privileged over the last 26 years to work with hundreds of physician practices on a variety of subjects. Most, are terrible marketers.

They’re terrible not because they can’t be good, most just don’t work at it, want to write a check for results and give-up too soon when what they paid for doesn’t work. My team hears me say all of the time that, “We’re selling gym memberships. Paying your bill doesn’t get the job done. Exercising and controlling what you put in your mouth does!” It’s not what our clients always want to hear, but it’s the truth.

When we bootstrapped Sightpath Creative (An internal agency created to help the clients of Sightpath Medical) we began searching for a simple approach to make marketing smarter, metrics driven and cost effective. We accomplished this with a campaign-based approach. We help practices understand their markets (Classes), develop ideal personas (Attributes) and create programs (methods) to yield desired outputs.

We have now helped more than 80 of our clients grow their practices, reduce headaches associated with marketing and rest easier knowing they were using a smarter approach with an agency who only works on ophthalmology. Essentially, we’re harnessing the power of focus, data and agility.

So, what about “Cognified,” where did it go? Good question. I attended the Podcast Movement conference last summer in Philadelphia and while I was there, one thing I learned was that the title of your podcast must tell people what you will deliver. I immediately thought, Cognified doesn’t tell anyone anything!

As a result, and a few other work related distractions, I took a hiatus from publishing the show, did some thinking and changed the show to Make Marketing Easy. That’s a bit of euphemism because marketing isn’t easy. And by asking good questions and building systems, I believe it can be easier with a path to easy.

1. Why am I qualified to deliver a podcast like this and why now?

I’m not sure that I am. I do know that, like you, every day I get up, work my priorities and look for ways to “crack-the-code” of success.

Your particular endeavor may be quite different than mine and still I believe we are all in this together and we can, dare I say must, learn from each other.

What gives me the audacity to start something like a podcast? Well, for starters, I don’t believe there is one like this that exists today and I aim to give it my all and deliver something of value that will help people and, as I mentioned earlier, get them to think, “I’ve never thought of it like that or heard it put that way before.”

I’m not doing this alone, I’m doing this to serve others and I will stand on their shoulders to achieve anything with this initiative. I don’t purport to have all of the answers but I have demonstrated throughout a 28 year career in the field of medical device sales and marketing (Ophthalmology, specifically) the ability to grow a territory, product line and an enterprise. I believe I have accomplished all of this because of a fervent desire to serve, the ability to listen, and the discipline to take a step into the unknown.

As an example of this, I had a stint owning a math game and activity development and publishing company for 12 years that allowed me to draw upon pretty much every skill I have – personal and professional. I am grateful for the twelve years I spent growing this business because it was completely unrelated to my chosen field and yet I believe it helped me a better ophthalmology marketing and selling professional.

I love the field of ophthalmology and am grateful for all it has provided for my family and me. Since the benchmark most of us use for success is dollars earned, I feel confident that my career earnings place me in the top 2% of lifetime earners for sales and marketing in the business side of ophthalmology.

This isn’t bragging, or giving away a secret. Regrettably, I was involved in some litigation a couple of years ago where all of my earnings were made public. This was a difficult time following a break from a person I was once very close to and I am grateful I came out victorious. Not without bumps and bruises, but certainly wiser for the experience. If you’re interested, I wrote an article about this experience for Success Magazine’s blog. You may find the article, “10 Things I Learned When I Was Knocked From My White Horse” on success.com

When I was going away to college at the University of Minnesota, I had a conversation with my dad (He holds a PhD in mathematics education) about what I was thinking about majoring in when I got to school. I mentioned a few different ideas and my dad calmly said, “You may major in whatever you want to as long as it’s math or science.”

Incredulously, I replied, “Why is that?” His response sticks with me to this day and it was, “Because math and science teach you how to think. You learn to form hypotheses, isolate variables and solve problems. All of these are skills you may apply to anything once you have that foundation.” I earned a bachelor of science in Biochemistry and I am forever grateful for his advice.

Couple this with my mom who was a nurse and constantly badgered me to “see what needs to be done” and you can see why I am working on this project.

To tie this back to how I think and demonstrate that my dad’s logic worked, here’s another example of something I learned in biochemistry that has found it’s way into my metaphor quiver after all of these years: I am astounded by the similarity of a need and product or service coming together at just the right time to yield a desired response. You know, it’s the age old marketing dilemma, “How do i find someone who’s need is aligned with competencies of my service or product at just the right time?”

This a lot like the “Lock and Key Theory” I learned in biochemistry. I know, this is super geeky but stay with me for moment..

First, a bit of background and terminology: An enzyme is a protein that acts as a catalyst to initiate some mechanism of action. Floating around all by itself, it can’t do anything. Once it finds a place to land with an acceptable binding site, this is called the substrate, the fun starts to happen.

In the Lock and Key Theory, only the correctly sized key (substrate) will fit into a key hole and actuate the lock (Enzyme). As I said, this is a little geeky, but you get a sense for how my brain works and why I am grateful for the seemingly strange boundaries my dad placed on my college major choices. If you decide to become a loyal listener, you’ll hear more about this analogy.

So, you see, this fits with what I am interested in with Make Marketing Easy. Can we discover ways to help put the right key in the lock to accomplish our objectives? In my experience, it’s not a huge iteration that drives change, it’s little bouts of getting smarter and thinking about possibilities along the path of learning and serving.

Finally, I believe the confluence of technology, an aging population, the Internet as a neural network and the human need for connection will all come together to create the next age – The Cognified Age.

I am starting this podcast now because I feel called to do it. I can’t say “why.” I have a burning desire to help others see what I am seeing. My hope by doing that is they will add to what I am thinking about and together we all end up in a better place. It’s a lot of work, a bit scary because I’ve struggled in my first try, but hey, you never know, it might just work this time!

Alright, if you’ve gotten this far, please know I am grateful for the gift of your time and attention. If you believe you have something to say that may offer value to others, want to share a story that ends with you or someone you know winning or just have a rant about something interesting going on in the selling and marketing world, please connect with me. You can easily find me via Twitter @Joelgaslin, on LinkedIn or send me an email at [email protected] – we can get together for a discussion and/or an interview.

And, of course, please go to iTunes, leave whatever review of this podcast you believe is appropriate and sign-up at makemarketingeasy.com to be notified every time a new episode comes available.

My plan is to publish weekly on Fridays. I am working on my topic and guest list now so please stay with me if I’m a little sporadic at first. The data says that people stop producing podcasts after they make their first 5 episodes. My experience is a little different than that because I did 6, stopped for almost a year, did ten, stopped for four months and now I’m starting again.

For those of you who followed the podcast before, the next 15 episodes are ported over from the old one so wait a couple of weeks and jump back in on episode 17!

Thanks again for listening and make marketing easy!

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