Growing Doctor Referrals With Physician Liaisons

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Hi, everyone. Stuart Gandolf here, welcome to another. Podcast. Today, I’m gonna meet or you’re gonna meet some of my old friends. I’ve had a couple of them on before, but it’s been a while, so Kriss Barlow and Sus Susan Boyd. Sorry are both leaders, Barlow McCarthy, and they are not just leaders of Barlow McCarthy, but they are really leaders of the whole position, liaison movement in terms of training, building.

planning all of that. So that’s a big topic. And people that our clients and prospective clients and readers know that we think position, our position referrals is vital to so many of the businesses we work with, and physician liaisons are a really important part of that. So today I thought we would talk about this in our evolving world. So welcome, ladies, good to have you.

Thank you.

Susan Boydell Be here!

Stewart Gandolf So you know, you guys can jump all over each other. This is very informal. You can interrupt each other. You guys probably know each other like sisters by now. So I’m assuming. So it’s okay. Don’t worry about protocol. So I’m just gonna ask you guys broadly questions. And you guys can decide who wants to respond. But I’d like to start by just asking for you know, readers, listeners, people who don’t know you as well to give a quick overview of your business.

And what you guys do exactly.

Kriss Barlow Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Stuart. It’s always fun to reconnect with you and and your listeners, because this marketplace is evolving dramatically. So things change, don’t they? Let me start out with a a little bit about Barlow McCarthy. We’re a consultancy and we’re in the physician strategy space as you described. For Susan and me, the focus is referral growth. We help organizations build their models. It always has to start with strategy. Looking at the data. What should the structure be? And then what’s that field approach and the internal approach look like

I would say for us, it’s got to start with equipping the right staff

that hiring process. Getting them trained. Developing talent is just, I think, a big deal for all of us in healthcare strategy and marketing.

It includes really good planning these days. And then, of course, what everybody wants demonstrating that impact. We do have another arm of Barlow McCarthy that supports in-house recruitment of physicians. But Susan and I hang out in this referral growth space.

Stewart Gandolf Alright, very good, that’s really helpful. So we were just talking offline before I got started today about the evolution of this whole world that we’re in and how long it’s been going on. And you know, in hospitals, if you were new to a hospital system, a health system, you would take it for granted. There’s a team of physician liaisons that support the hospital. That wasn’t always the case. And you guys are kind of at the beginning of all that I believe so tell us about you know how this even became a thing.           

Kriss Barlow
Well, I I’m the historian. So for good, bad or otherwise. And programs like this have been around, I think, since the nineties, early nineties.

Hospitals had them 1st to be heavy on customer service. We went through, then an evolution where it was very much about a vendor approach where you go in and tell and sell. Here’s our. Here’s our programs. Here’s our products. Here’s our docs.

And I would say, and this is where Susan, you should absolutely weigh in today’s organizations, absolutely expect a strategic approach to this model and method and the level of talent that we’re seeing to be who are able to be effective in it and to show results, I think, is front and center. So what’d I miss Susan. 

Susan Boydell
Well, I I always love the story because I was a healthcare marketer, consumer side, branding all that stuff. And in my very early days right before I met Kriss Barlow. It was, I said to myself, you know we have no idea how somebody shows up in our hospital. We know how they get there. But what happens out there before they ever show up. And it was a true, I would say, business growth strategy. It was like, can we go out and just talk to primary care doctors? We didn’t call them that back then. That’s how old this is. But yeah, let’s go talk to family practice, to internal medicine about what happens in your practice that makes you need to refer somebody like there was nothing that told us any of that. And then it it just evolved from there because it was.

That’s how Barla McCarthy came into the space was, okay. Let’s build a sales team to go out and just understand needs and sell what we come to us. Type of piece. So it’s funny, the evolution of it. But but Kriss is absolutely right, like I like when you think about the customer service days of it. That’s not gonna cut it anymore. And most leaders.

They don’t want any of that, either. They want you to treat them well, absolutely, which we all say we want the whole hospital to treat the referring physician. Well, sometimes that can be a challenge. But the strategy part of it. Because boy markets are tight right now it is hard to grow business. So yeah.

Stewart Gandolf
That’s great. And it’s always fun to know the origin story of how these things all happen. So where are things today in hospitals. Because when you guys started, you know, this was just sort of a you know, nascent idea, and one hospital sort of watch the other hospital. And they would approach it. Do you know, large hospitals, small hospitals, you know, any ideas of like, what percentage of hospitals, you know, have programs. And I’m assuming it’s all aboard. But I’m just curious. Where are things today?

Susan Boydell
Yeah, I I would say, the majority have something larger. Hospitals have more formalized programs with larger teams because they have larger market areas. Their referral market. Is much larger, which means that just justifies the talent. That you need to be able to do that. Smaller hospitals always challenged. Mostly because those folks will wear multiple hats. So they usually have responsibility for the marketing side, the consumer side of stuff, the community side of things, you know relations. And then they’ve got physician relations, and it’s a challenge in smaller hospitals, because whatever the crisis of the day is what drives that poor person with what they have to do. But everybody has something. Today, I would say, if there’s 1 thing that has really to the top, I would say, since Covid, let’s say, Kriss, you can probably add to this, too, is there’s not a leader out there, whether you’re small or whether you’re huge, whether academic or you’re not for profit, any of that. They. There isn’t a leader out there that doesn’t want to show the impact that that team is making. They all want growth. But you gotta show it to them. They all are like, Yeah, I think they’re good. I know they know all the doctors all of that. But I really

have a hard time understanding what they’re bringing to the table. I’m going to guess. Consumer marketing has the same issue in terms of how we measure, but it’s pretty much front and center with just about every leader. Right now, would you say the same, Kriss?

Kriss Barlow Yeah, I sure would. I I think that’s exactly right. And I would say the only exception. The only places that haven’t embraced having a liaison are probably those

organizations that are work, critical access hospitals that are meeting just local needs. Or they’re a 1 hospital town. And even for a lot of those one hospital towns. Now the big cities are planting ambulatory centers in those. And so you know, it’s everybody who wants to grow referrals from primary care and or from specialists to subspecialists, are really looking at all the options in the continuum to make that happen.

Stewart Gandolf So it’s really funny when that where? Susan, you were mentioning a couple of things to those points. One, we wrote an article, one of my favorites. I wrote it personally called “How to Ruin a perfectly good physician liaison”, and the premise of that is to, for example, take a marketing person, try to turn them into a salesperson, or especially give them every role like.

well, you know, while you’re doing this, why don’t you, you know. Create a you know. Go order pizza for the doctor’s office. Oh, no! Now you can go over here and I don’t know. Create a marketing brochure. Why don’t you post up on our social media account? And they end up with somebody who was on target, who was supposed to be out

in the field meeting with people. And suddenly they’re in the office all day, and then 2, 1 or 2 things happens. Either a. This person decides they really like air conditioning.

Never leave their office, and they never stay out of the field or B if they’re good, they think oh, I just. I have a terrible job. This doesn’t even do what I do. Do you guys have any comments on that? Because that happens all the time.

Susan Boydell Yeah, it. It’s, you know, going to even what you were just saying. what you see a lot is. And this is just how everybody looks at talent in general. So this isn’t specific to field talent or even marketing talent. But everybody has where there’s where their talent lies, and if they’re more comfortable in the social media space or the consumer side of it, when you throw the doctor part of it and say, Now go out and talk to some offices who really don’t care to see you at all, and let you know.

But the likelihood that you’re going to get in that car and do that when you much more. You said air conditioning. But it’s kind of all the same thing. They kind of sway to the area that they like more. So you’re pulling them, trying to get them out into the field when it’s not what they feel comfortable with at all. Yeah.

Kriss Barlow Yeah, you know, the other piece of that is good. Good sales is a game of momentum right? And so the importance of frequent, consistent, even small visits into these practices is just critical to the success of these programs. And so when you, when you put somebody in the job, and then, you say, take 2 months out of the field to create the golf classic for us.

We lose all our field momentum, and it’s not a starting back where you were like you can pick up with where you were with a brochure. But you can’t do that with sales relationships. So the momentum is lost, and then everybody’s.

Susan Boydell You’re starting over.

Kriss Barlow Yeah.

Stewart Gandolf Yeah, yeah, it’s it happens all the time. I’ll have to send you guys a copy of that “. I still giggling because it’s the tale of all this time. I hear it over and over and over again, and there was the. It’s irresistible for a smaller organization to say, well, we you know she’s hanging around she’s doing for falls. I don’t even know what she does out there in the field, and so she can handle the social media.

Kriss Barlow Or anything that’s physician stuff gets dumped into the bucket.

Stewart Gandolf Yeah, yeah. So I wish we had time to go into that. We could complain for an hour easily on that one.

Kriss Barlow18:21
Drive.

Stewart Gandolf18:22
So we’ll have to hold that link to that blog post down further in the description on our website. So what you know that? So we talked about where things were? Where do you guys see things going like, where like, where? What’s exciting to you guys? Where do you. Where is the opportunity today? You know, where are things evolving to and why.

Susan Boydell
I’ll start. I would say. Niche selling is like when I think of anything future, I go. It’s all about niching. It’s not about. Okay, let me sell cardiology or let me sell something very general this is about, do I know what, how? I’m differentiated? Because, you know, here’s something, Kriss. And I say all the time, this is a take strategy. There is no business just laying around out there that nobody’s grabbed yet.

This is. It’s all going somewhere, and you want to change that referral pattern which we all know is not easy. So that’s where the niche piece of this comes in, and we’ve talked about differentiation, I’m gonna say, for what? 20 years. But I would say, now it is top of the doggone list because if you can’t differentiate, why, you versus somebody else, and you know, ideally, we would love all of that to be in the clinical space.

But sometimes today it’s purely about access. If I have access in my with some of my specialties that my competitor does not, I have an opportunity to just earn some business there. So that whole piece of niching and understanding differentiation which really means

I have to really understand my competitors. We’ve spent a lot of time making sure that that I mean, you gotta know your own products and services to be able to sell them. And you got to know all of it like just the differentiation all of what I just talked about. But I kind of got to know it on the on the competitor side, too. Because why would they switch? I gotta know why they’re going there. What? And it’s not that I’m asking them about that. I just got to figure that piece out before I ever go out to have a conversation with a referral source. What what would you add, Kriss.

Kriss Barlow Well, I I think what’s pushing a lot of that, Susan, is the alignment piece. Practice. Alignment is just alive and well in most markets. And so if we’ve got all the primary cares aligned with a hospital part of that employment structure figuring out what we can move for business. I, I think, has evolved dramatically for us.

And it starts with good data. You know, that ability to be able to say, Who can you grow business from, and then what can you grow which I think sets us up, then, for what are the clinical differentiators, and what are the niche offerings within that, and the other piece on the back end is physicians are overwhelmed, so are our internal stakeholders. So instead of doing this, tell and sell pitch that ability to hear their needs and go specifically to their patient needs in our conversations instead of a product pitch. So I think it’s evolved both at the strategic level with the alignment and the data analytics at the what we’re selling, as you described. Perfectly, Susan, with getting more clear about the niche and then at the talent level with figuring out the skill set to be able to deliver a different type of message. For our customers today.

Stewart Gandolf
That’s really intriguing. And what that really sounds like is the sort of evolution of sales just in general has gone from that right, just pitching what I’ve got to like asking what you need and having that kind. And then niching is famous like our agency. It’s a niche player we play in, you know, a specific niche and there is. The niches are just the way to go. Yesterday I had somebody call me Young Guy, interesting, smart guy who is has a telehealth software. And I said, Look, you’re trying to compete with these major players. You really need to not have on your website. Every medical specialty you need to figure out where you’re going to start because you’re going to get killed if you try to go too broad at your stage of development.

The so another thing that frontier that I see and love you guys to talk about a little is the multi location providers. So, for example, just yesterday I was on a call with a Co. Of a large respected multi location group, a couple of specialties with this particular one.

and he has experience with physician liaisons, but they’ve never done it. And they’re feeling a little stuck right now in terms of growth. So I’m wondering who I should refer to help. But you know, do you guys see that very often? Because that’s you know. Right now, in my experience. I see some of these groups we work with which we do a lot are very sophisticated, have this in place and are good, but others have none, and the whole idea is new to them.

So I’m curious. You know what how your business is evolving with that side of things.

Susan Boydell You know, it’s interesting, because Kriss and I both said in the last what? 12 months, maybe a little bit longer than that? We have had more inquiries from very large practices, those with like a national footprint, like management companies that have now multiple practices across the country. And some just like you said, have some. They know they need it mostly because this is where it all starts. We’ve got to grow these practices, I mean, that’s what they where they start. I imagine you get the exact same thing. We’ve got to grow these practices because it’s all about the bottom line at that point, and so we’ve seen quite a bit more of it. It’s a very different approach than the hospitals. The basics are all the same, but in terms of helping them even understand what it takes to do it, and the commitment to do it is, has been, has been a little bit front and center, or learning even on our part, to understand how to help them build it and what they need to have in place. Yeah, Kriss, what would you.

Kriss Barlow Well and a couple. So when we think of multiple sites, I think these organizations should look to what the hospitals did to say, we need to centralize an approach. One of the biggest challenges we’ve seen in terms of a not so great is that every practice wants to do their own thing in their own way, and

same as marketing, same as branding, same as your social consistency of message matters with this, and having somebody accountable to the talent. Because if there’s an area where there’s a fail, it’s, you know, it’s working great in practice. A, but not so good in practice. B and C. The jury still out, I think a lot of times we see. That is because of the consistency of leadership and direction, and some of the tools that really go into supporting this. So our recommendation is to the extent that you can centralize

the structure of this, and then allow the individual practices to play in what they’re best at, which is some of their strategy and some of their areas of growth

in our experience. It just functions better. Holding people consistently accountable through all those practices is a difference. Maker.

Susan Boydell I think it’s such a key point. So I’m glad you brought it up, because, you know, we get asked this question a lot, Stuart, from hospitals to say, Well, where should this report up to? And our answer very often is, Who gets it? And so we’ve seen a lot in in this practice environment, large practice environment, that that the local administrator that’s running the practice like they now have responsibility for a salesperson. That’s tough.

because it’s not their forte. You’re lucky if you get one that gets it. But when they don’t, that’s usually when you want to go. Whoa, that investment’s gonna get tough. Be. But it’s so. Yeah, it’s a really good point, Kriss, that that we see often that take some education. I would say.         

Stewart Gandolf So I have to jump in on all these things makes me giggle a couple of things. You guys, it’s really bizarre how you know we’ve been from our standpoint as a company. We’ve been, you know, teaching this stuff for years. We don’t get in the ground. And I look at you guys as a sub specialist, right? And so that’s why we refer you. It’s like, I can talk to these guys till the cats come home about the basic idea. But it’s like, Okay, you need a team listening to all my friends. Right? That’s really this comes. But I’ll just share some of my experience number one, you said commitment, and oh, my gosh!

You know we get that all the time from like, especially anything to do with b 2 BI don’t know what it is. b 2 b could be, you know, reaching out like where we do digital marketing to doctors or digital marketing to other corporate executives from our standpoint, but also from your standpoint, like everybody wants to like, launch a program in like the 1st month, like, well, if it doesn’t work. We’ll stop like you shouldn’t even start. Don’t even start like, just don’t, don’t start your. This is set up for failure. You have to have a longer range, even a year is too short, like you really need to look at how are you going to do this, like, you know, for our own agency. You know we’ve been doing b 2 b. Marketing now for 18 years. Do it for a month, and then stop and start to work. So it’s a different mindset. I love who gets it. Oh, my gosh, that’s so funny, because

I often talk about this when with clients about it’s a different culture sales, and, like the position, liaisons are really suspect everybody else in the practice. If they’re working ground level, like, what is this person who dresses nice and gets in a car all day, and we don’t ever see what they do like. They don’t. It’s like they don’t even like this person. It’s such a different, I mean, it’s unspoken, but it’s real. And so, you know, like that given to somebody who doesn’t even like the idea of having this person is not going to be successful.

and the other thing was you mentioned is like, how difficult it is. It is a huge thing, depending on how long the business has been together. You know a lot of times you have a bunch of acquisitions really quickly, and they’re all still in their mind independent, you know, 5 times, and they’re not part of the same country, even if they say they are, they’re not really, and getting everybody together. So I would say I would guess that, given the dynamics of that, and we talk about this all the time, and the involvement to the doctors and culture and all that sort of thing. But given the dynamics of especially a freshly minted, you know. PPM, or DSO.

the you know, getting your need for you guys is even more because it’s like the culture you have. You have 50 different.

Kriss Barlow
Alter.

Stewart Gandolf You have 50 different locate cultures. You have 50 different problems and solve for all of that. So that’s important.

Kriss Barlow Well, and you know it just forces you, Stuart, to back up because they get so excited about. Let’s get somebody in the field, and it’s forcing that push up to say, let let’s make sure that we can get them in the field and have them be successful, because it’s success for the person. It’s success for the practice, and it’s success for the entity. And so, taking that time to almost make a decision about who’s in charge of what pieces of helping that person to be successful in the field? And you know it. It’s sitting down and saying, here’s doctors where you need to play. Here’s where we need you. Here’s Administrator, where you’ve got to be in this pretty deep, because the other thing about salespeople is.

they shouldn’t be left to create their own worlds, either, you know. It’s sort of the fox in the hen house, if you say, Oh, well, just, you know, decide what your job should be. That’s a little too loose for this audience of sales types, too.        

Stewart Gandolf It’s really funny. You say that, too. I was on the phone with the sales trainer the other day, and he said, This is just more broadly speaking, said, name one organization that’s known for being a good sales organization that allows the sales people to do whatever they want to like.

Kriss Barlow Kidding.

Stewart Gandolf They all have. They all have systems right? And that’s what. So the theory methodology of like, I just need to find the right great salesperson is like, you know, decades old, and it’s like you can’t build a business around. Maybe finding lightning the bottle once in a while like you need to have a system that works with an 80% person. You can’t always find the star athlete.

Kriss Barlow Said, yeah.

Stewart Gandolf Yes.   

Susan Boydell Well and think about it. This, think about it this way, too, like even that general question. There are sales driven organizations.

Healthcare is not in this space, and especially in a practice. It’s about taking care of patients. So it’s when you think about that piece of it. You go. Okay, I want to plot this salesperson into a non sales driven organization and say, Okay, let me let me let me figure this out or do what you need do your thing, you know. And yeah, it’s so. That’s the tough part, especially in large or smaller practices. All of that. It’s just tough.

Stewart Gandolf So awesome. So I would say.

in terms of the key components, I’m gonna just throw some out here for the sake of time, you know, when you look at a physician liaison program. And you guys are more expert at this than me. But I would say, Okay, well, 1st of all, I guess I should think about my objectives and my strategy. I probably want to think about

who I’m going to hire. What like would be the ideal kind of an individual. Are they clinical? Are they a salesperson? Okay, I’ve got that. How many do I need? How would I roll this out, maybe do a beta test and roll it out. And then how do I 1st of all, how do I recruit them? How do I compensate them? How do I manage them? How do I track them?

Hopefully? I’ve covered most of the key steps like, is that something that people can just sort of just do really quickly. Or is this something that should be really thought out and like, when you’re working with somebody, how do you solve those kinds of questions?    

Susan Boydell Well you hit it at the very beginning, like, what is it you need to grow? I mean, everything starts with what are we going to measure here for success. So what referrals do you need? If it’s a certain type of referral, or from a certain market area, whatever that might be the piece I would probably add to yours before I get to the talent side of it is, who are we going to earn it from?

A lot of times. We’ll talk with teams, especially in those multi practice pieces. But you know, they don’t have access sometimes to a lot of data, which means we’re gonna have to self create who the target’s gonna be that we’re going after? Because, you know, you said it very early on the talent’s expensive.

So I need the talent pretty doggone focused on who I can get some business from and that’s that data driven piece of it. So I I would add that. But you also hit the talent piece is huge, because it’s all of that, you know. Do what’s the right talent? How am I gonna pay them? How am I? You know? Am I gonna incentivize them? You know all of those. How do I see whether or not they’re doing their job right? All of it. So yeah.      

Kriss Barlow Yeah. And then the other 2 pieces on the back end is, how do we track this? And how do we report on this that ability to show measurable results is, I think, a key piece of starting the process.

Susan Boydell Yeah.

Stewart Gandolf That makes sense, you know, it’s funny, though. One thing you guys touched on I didn’t mention was the data. And there that data is out there. And so when we’re working with large organizations, you know, we go buy that data. It’s really expensive. But you can tell and for those of you that are listening that aren’t familiar with this. We have resources where we can

tell? Like, who’s prescribing, what? Who’s treating, what? Who’s diagnosing what those kinds of codes are all available. With precision. Now bring your checkbook.      

Kriss Barlow Right.

Stewart Gandolf Oh, it will not be inexpensive, but that is out there. And so the more sophisticated programs have that going back to what you said, Kriss. We were going to talk about this later. But since you just brought it up, let’s talk about the role of data analytics. Both of you guys have hinted about that. Let’s talk a little bit more about that in terms of results. What are the things you see there today?

Kriss Barlow Yeah, Susan, do you want to kick that off.

Susan Boydell Yeah, well, just the piece we just talked about from determining who I’m gonna earn referrals from. And just like you said, it’s expensive. So you gotta look up the return on investment to get that it’s harder for multilocation practices because it is so expensive. Most hospitals and health systems have some sort of claims, data, or 3rd party data that gives them that. But here’s the piece I would add to it.

This is in the tracking and reporting side of it can tell you how many times we have talked, mostly in the practice space. Okay, they don’t track where the referrals come from. So if you’re trying to go a surgeon, or you know, cardiologist or something in the specialty world

tracking and keeping track of who brought those referrals in is just essential. Hospitals have a hard time with it. They’re getting better at it. But they still have a hard time with it, because it’s so many steps before it hits their system. But there’s no reason in a practice that there’s not some way in your EMR. To be able to track where the referral came from, so I would say, it’s a big piece.

Kriss Barlow Yeah. And we use 2 different sources of data in 2 different ways. What the 2 of you been have been talking about is data for targeting who? Who’s the right audience for us to go after. And we’re very reliant on claims, data and or those lists that you can buy supplemented if the practice has been doing a good job. So that’s the targeting piece on the back end is the results piece of data and

organizations, obviously aren’t going to use rarely use claims data for that, because that’s directional data. So there needs to be systems within the practice that can demonstrate. Where did this patient come from? It’s more than just the front desk asking who referred you. It’s staying on that process and being able to make sure that we are tracking those businesses or those new referrals through our businesses to make sure that we’re using our own data to measure results.

Stewart Gandolf Very, very good. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It’s funny. You know, going back to a couple of things you guys just said, too, in terms of the culture of the business not being a sales driven. Culture, I think, is such a huge issue. And you know again, it’s like the word sales is kind of dirty. We don’t say that. Well.       

Kriss Barlow And we never use it, we will even say.

Susan Boydell So like.   

Kriss Barlow Do a lot of sales training, and we’ll say we’re gonna use the S word today. But.

Stewart Gandolf Within.

Kriss Barlow Environments because.

Susan Boydell Doesn’t that say a lot right there? That means to me that just says a lot that it’s like, okay. The sales is somehow a bad thing, and you want to go. That’s exactly what you’re doing every day.

Stewart Gandolf That’s a secret code like, yeah, that’s right.

Kriss Barlow Pearl growth is our.

Stewart Gandolf37:49
Yes.

Kriss Barlow37:49
But yeah.

Stewart Gandolf Alright. So one of the things we do. And I, we’ve done this a little bit with you guys. But and we find some success with this. I’m curious if you have any input. So as an agency, a lot of times, what we’re doing is helping craft the messaging of the business work with whether it’s a health system, hospital practice or other type of business. So working on the messaging, we’re working on

the brand. Sometimes we and a lot of times we’ll go to the next step and help them create. You know, PowerPoints, or collateral or messaging on a b 2 b basis or and what’s really cool. And you guys know this because we’ve been doing this is

to target individual doctors on a 1 on one basis as they travel about online. And so I’m curious, do you guys have any thoughts about how that the role that helps the sort of ground troops we call this the air support. Right? We’re. I’m not a military guy, but it really is a good metaphor. It’s like we’re the air support. The position lays on the ground, support any comments on that, and how that’s helpful.

Susan Boydell Yeah, I I’m gonna tell you that if you would ask that question, maybe even 3 years ago we wouldn’t talked about it much, but I have seen a much bigger evolution. And I can tell you that. So just what? Remember what we just talked about. There’s a target group of physicians. We’re gonna send this expensive talent out to go and talk to. What about all the rest?

What can we do at the ground level to get them ready to have a liaison come and have a conversation with them. And I would say it’s pretty unsophisticated in most worlds. So there’s a huge opportunity for folks to get smarter, more strategic. And actually, I’m gonna say, have a plan for it. You know what we find a lot

a lot in hospitals is the marketing. Teams are really good consumer people. They understand the the needs of a consumer and all of that, and can speak to that. What we, what we find a harder time is is you can’t take that consumer language and just plop it onto a referring physician. So it’s knowing your audience. And that’s that biggest difference in terms of it’s not just something that you add to a marketing plan.

It’s there’s a strategy to it, and I would say it is now becoming higher and higher up, and more sophisticated teams are saying, I’d like to do this better. I think we have something we could gain from this. But we’re not there yet. So I love air support. Because I think it can make a real world of difference. I think we just got to get smarter about it.

Kriss Barlow And yeah, and I think the underpinning of this is somebody stepping up and getting out of the silo and saying, How do we collaborate better because everybody’s busy. But there’s enough turf. There’s perhaps more turf in hospitals when it’s bigger teams than you see in practices when it might be part of the same collective group.

But come on, let’s step up and figure out our customer audience and work backwards to say what’s the right air support for this message.

And I love the idea. You know, as Susan described of, you know the ability to say, these are the ones we’re working with very closely, and if targeted from a liaison vantage point, what’s the next tier of people? What’s the frequency of how we’re touching them with social media, even some old fashioned mailings.

Events, all of that. And then how do we go further with some of our niche offerings? So it’s very strategic. It’s very planned, and it’s very collaborative when it’s really done. Well, then, you’ll love it. Yeah.  

Stewart Gandolf Absolutely. So as we begin to wrap up here today. Let’s talk about

best practices like one of the things that you know if you had to say one of the terms I heard years ago is like this, critical success factor is the 5 to 7 things that really matter to be successful? What would those things be like that are? Just? If you don’t do this, you might as well go home.

Susan Boydell
We’ve talked about a lot of them already. Targeted data driven. In other words, I know exactly what business I’m going after. What do I want to grow? All of it fits into that piece of it. What we were mentioning earlier I was talking about in the niche piece of it. Are you differentiated? One that we didn’t talk about too much that fits in that niche, and that differentiation is clinical expertise.

So in order for me to talk at a very detailed clinical level. I gotta know a little bit more than being up here in this general space like. Tell me what you do with your cardiology referrals? No, I’m going down so we find teams always asking for how do I get more clinical expertise? And you know what the big one of the biggest ones in all of this is. Talent. It’s you know it. It’s

it’ll make or break it. So you got to have all the rest of it. But having the right talent out to do this can also be a difference, maker, what I leave out that you would add, Kriss.

Kriss Barlow Well, I think a couple more. You know, one that matches so nicely with the work you’re doing. Stuart is we need to match the brand of the organization. And so brand for me is my style, my approach, my professionalism. How I go into these practices

I have to have a fit with the brand and the last piece which we’ve talked about. The whole session here is measurable results. We’ve got to demonstrate our effectiveness in this role. I think from a best practice perspective.

Those who do it really well show you what they’re doing.

Stewart Gandolf Yeah, that totally makes sense. So we get when we talk about the, you know, when programs are struggling, you know, what are some of the common barriers that aren’t able to achieve those things. What are the some of the warning signs? When you walk in, you go?

This one’s gonna be a little scary. This one’s gonna be a little more difficult. What are the kind of things that are obstacles to overcome.

Susan Boydell So it’s kind of in that best practice space. When we find struggling teams like one of our 1st steps, a lot of times when a leader says, Okay, I need to take it to the next level. Here’s what our growth objectives are for the next 5 years. I gotta get this team to help me get there. And we do an assessment. We look at all those best practice pieces of it, the things that rise to the top where we go. Oh, you’re going to need some help. Here is that they aren’t. that they aren’t targeted and data driven. That that they’re out calling on all loyal doctors. And you want to go. That’s not gonna grow you any business. If you’re calling on only the loyal physicians, or they don’t even know a loyal versus a splitter versus somebody else, which means they’re not using the data to the level that they could and then I would say, the second one that pops up all the time is the talent piece. It’s just like we said, it’s the difference.

So we have a lot of tools that we use that help to understand somebody’s natural aptitude to be successful in a sales role. So in other words, I say, it’s what you’re born with. We tell leaders a lot of times you’re not going to change that part. They might want to change that part. You can help them change that part, but they’re born with it. So it’s knowing that piece and it’s the tools are pretty accurate. And then the other side.

That is is how they’re they use their techniques in the field. All of that from a planning perspective. And they’re effective. Their strategic effectiveness. All of that. It all sits in that talent bucket. But if some of those things don’t match up, that’s

that’s where it gets tougher. Yeah.

Kriss Barlow I also think that when they’re not doing well.

they’ve lost connectivity within their organization. So some of that internal ability to sell up and to have be able to bring voice of customer into the organization, which is a talent issue as well. We talked about lack of focus. I think that’s the big one the last one that I might say. There it’s not a

a fail sort of thing, but it’s something that we’ve seen really evolve over, especially the last 2 years is they’re so reliant on bringing in stuff.

They’re so heavy on collateral and dropping things off or bringing in doctors that the this nuance of relationship sales and finding good conversations and hearing needs when that’s not the priority or the team isn’t effective at that. That that leaves us concerned as well.

Stewart Gandolf So I would just finish up a couple of thoughts on my own. And you guys hopefully will agree. I would say because, again, it depends on the excuse me, the business we’re working with.

Whether it’s a hospital health system practice, or whatever the culture is really important. I would say. One of the things that seems to me to be really important is having somebody on the executive level who, like you, said earlier, gets it who understands this is a different world, who and it’s a lot better if they have some power, and they’re respected within the organization because this could be off in the wrong silo somewhere where you know

nobody is buying in, because the person who’s in charge of it’s not really thought of as very credible. That’s pretty much doomed to fail. I would, I would argue, because it’s like it’s just so

counter to everything else we do in healthcare. It’s just not the same thing. And so if it doesn’t have the kind of support, you know, then people go through the motions and like what your guys are talking about like the difference to even understand what you just said. The somebody who’s supposed to be a salesperson who is dropping stuff off versus engaging is night and day. I mean it’s night and day. It’s not like a little change. It’s like night and day. So if that but if somebody who has no experience in that is in charge of the program.

and they don’t even know that’s an issue to ask, let alone fix it. So I would just say that, you know, as we wrap up here, if this is something that’s new to you.

From the strategy standpoint, like I said, we do this a lot in terms, just the ideas and the strategy. But you know we refer

all the time for people that really want to take this seriously.

To Kriss and Susan, because that’s there’s just a lot. It’s a lot, you know, we can be talked about. You have enough knowledge today. If you’re serious now, you’re gonna start working on right and so anyway, I think this is an intriguing topic, you know, just to, I don’t know if you guys know this. But when we’re talking to clients, one of the things I referred to that I came up with many years ago was.

you know, we talked to clients about their 6 ways to grow a provider or a hospital system, which is number one. All the stuff we do which most would expect is branding, digital marketing, traditional advertising.

But then there’s also patient experience, slash internal marketing, public relations. And we can define that another day and position referral building. And most agencies don’t even think about those other ones. And it’s like that’s. And for most specialties you guys are the star of the show in some regards. So it’s important. Thank you. Guys. You know, look forward to continuing doing business with you guys.

Thanks for listening. our listeners and readers, we appreciate your time. Thank you so much.