Episode 5: How to Position Yourself in Healthcare Industry

you are about to step into the barrel Solomon podcast show no fluff talking about greatness talking about wealth talking about how to become the number one in your space let's roll buddy was business man hello Facebook Instagram LinkedIn how you doing I'm here with a very very special guest he actually flew specifically for this Instagram Facebook Linkedin podcast live to thank a very dear and sweet friend of mine mr. Judah got win thank you so much guys thank you barrel for having me it's a real mr. Judah got wine it's a real treat to be here with all you guys I'm in barrels house now I saw barrels office I saw the mural I'm with the peeps your is great to be here you're ready Thank You Vera my pleasure brother so Judas from an incredible company called sky care media and what these wonderful people do is they help the industry the SNF skilled nursing facility and the health care industry to help them market themselves better online offline everywhere these guys are really professionals I've had the chance to admire a lot of his work for a long time and it's an honor for me to have Judah in town we would like to do an episode today about how to position your company in the health care industry you know a lot of times I'll go into companies and I will say to them you are amazing at X whatever it is that you do you sell cars you sell watches you help you help elderly people get back on their feet and help with their health care you're amazing at that but we have know nothing about helping sick people get better but we know how to market and we want to help bring that expertise to this incredible industry and help you guys make more money bring in more patients and ultimately grow your businesses to the points where you deserve them to grow to so we're going to jump in here we have a few points today we brainstorm some killer killer content buckle up volunteer keepers we're about to get into this alright so the number one thing and how to position your company in the healthcare industry branding is everything you see here on my desk I have two cups maybe some of you have seen this I made a post but already but I'm gonna reiterate it cuz it's so powerful two cups Starbucks cup and brown paper cup and nobody has ever heard of this brown paper cup if could go for a dollar a cup a coffee this cup sells for depends where you're buying it up to three dollars and 25 cents the coffee in them is relatively the same there's no difference if I blindfolded you I promise you you would not know the difference there's one difference that little green girl on the front of it this green logo is what allows this cup to sell for three dollars and 25 cents and this brown cup is what allows the sell for one dollar branding is absolutely everything when you skimp on branding you're only skimping on yourself nursing home nursing care industry nursing homes I don't care what it is you're doing in the healthcare space your branding has to be on point you're gonna be able to charge more to your clients you're going to be able to attract higher quality clients close deals faster clothes the decision making for the patients faster and allow your business at the end of the day to grow yes I said it we are in business ladies and gentlemen we take care of sick people and it's a very beautiful and very important thing that needs to be done in the world but at the end of the day if there is no flower there is no power you have three generations today making a purchasing decision online the barrel is gonna talk a little bit about this and why it's so important in this space in the healthcare space to be mindful of your digital your online footprint and to engage with companies like ours we're at the top of our respective fields who do what we do we collaborate with one another working in good faith and you're gonna be able to sell your beds you're gonna make money you're gonna heal your patients it's a win-win situation for the industry that's actually a good side point that I wanted to bring up Judah and I are technically in the same industry the same business and other people might say hey why you guys collaborating together you guys competitors we decided to take the route and say you know what you're good I'm ahead let's let's let's work together let's bring our businesses together let's cross promote each other and let's help each other grow instead of trying to kill each other and if we all do that we're all gonna make a lot more money and be a lot more successful working together instead of trying to sync each other's battleships next on the roster traditional referrals are dead all right Judah could speak a lot more to this point because he has been a marketer in a facility for over five years and that's when he decided to start his business because he has that experience he's experienced the change of the business I want to hear you talk about that Judah what is going on in the state of the industry that traditional referrals are they sure thanks a lot barrels so basically here's the deal I'm a licensed nursing home administrator myself and I've seen the industry evolve over a five-year period we're at the very beginning the industry was still nurturing traditional referrals where the hospitals would give her everybody a free shake a fair shake people would get referrals they closed on sales they bring in patients hospitals had their own hospitalists who were working in sync with the facilities facilities were paying medical directors who were receiving a stipend who would therefore direct all their patients to the facility and then for a number of reasons the traditional referrals started petering out we can get into that but suffice it to say that skilled nursing facilities no longer can rely upon the traditional mechanisms the marketing mechanisms to fill their beds and so what's happened is reluctantly perhaps kicking and screaming nursing home owners who are basically old school as we know so they started to embrace the internet because they saw that they have to reach out to three generations of purchasing decision makers you're talking about baby boomers Millennials Generation Xers two of those generations are making purchasing decisions sight unseen which means their grandmother is living in Connecticut she's in a senior housing complex she falls she fractures something winds up in the hospital spends a couple of days needs post acute therapy and they're going to liaised with the social workers at the hospital they're not going to tour that facility there are miles and miles away inevitably they're gonna go online they're gonna google any conceivable permutation related to the buzzwords if you will the keywords of the facility they're gonna want to see what the facility looks like online on social media on Facebook on Twitter their viral videos do they have a high-octane promotional video showcasing the beauty of their facility what about the reviews what are people saying about that facility online and it's very very scary because in an industry barrel that focuses heavily on data we're all about collecting data we have our quarterly meetings we have a weekly utilization review we talk about patients I always say that when somebody sees negativity online they're not even going to call that admissions director to schedule a tour they're just not going to show up right so how do you a hundred percent so how do you quantify lost revenue when you don't even know that you lost the opportunity so these people are going online and if you look pristine if you can showcase your 15 million dollar renovation that these people are never going to see unless they see your video online unless they see your money shots unless they see a compelling website that tells your story you're not going to capitalize on all of the attributes and everything that you've done for your facility at the grassroots level Digital Marketing is changing and revolutionising the industry and it's enabling facility owners to reach outside the box to distinguish themselves from their competition to fill their beds bang what he just said in English is your grandma's grandson is too busy playing video games in Iowa to go take a trip to go to Washington to go check out the nursing facility that he's sticking grandma in so he's gonna look at her and look at the facility online and he's gonna make his decision that way on his phone in his boxers on his bed in between getting changed or going to sleep that's where he's making it right okay and look this guy's feeling guilty already because I'm feeling guilty you know he's not in the action so he's got to make a decision for Grandma from miles away so I had a minimum if he sees your facility and your facility looks like a cesspool he's not sending grandma there if he sees your facility and your facility has a gorgeous photo collage or a video that tells a beautiful story if we review incredible reviews on Google on all of the social media networks bang you're in like flint and and and beautiful next online is everything that we sort of spoke about that a little bit but that's where decisions are being made today ladies and gentlemen think about it think about how you make decisions about restaurants you've never been to you're there ask a friend or you go on Yelp and you see what's going on what is the rating you're buying something on Amazon you don't go to the store to check it out nobody goes to Walmart to check out the the the computer are going to Best Buy to go you look online whatever has the most reviews whatever happens the most stars on Amazon that's the product you buy with your eyes closed online ratings are everything which is Judah's one of his main products he has many others but it's one of his main products as a revolutionary product for the nursing home industry which is this incredible this incredible tablet they set this up inside of facilities they stick them on a on a on a stand and what it does is the residents of the nursing home the patients at the nursing home they'll come and they'll give a review they'll type in their name they'll type in their there all their information and their review will then get posted on all the social media networks on google on being on all the bit on yahoo out all the big social media networks and when you're and when people are looking up your facility they're seeing the stars they're seeing the rating and we're able to he's able to control and make sure that the best ones are the ones that surface to the top and people are making their decisions today online that's where decisions are making being made when I go to a store the last thing that I'm doing is I'm sorry when I go to a store I make my decisions I'm if I do go to a store I will take out my phone and I will see the ratings and the product ratings at that product and I will make my decision whether to buy it or not price becomes irrelevant if I have to pay $39 extra for this item but I see it's a four and a half star item where the other one is $39 less and it's a it's a start and a half I'm spending the money to go to that facility I'm spending the money to buy that product that's where decisions are being made I want to tell you I want to share a little story with you I was recently interviewed by caring comm which is a huge fantastic very robust website for health care consumers traffic by thousands of unique visitors a month so they said to me Judith tell us something give us a snippet why the Internet has become such a powerful force in terms of people and their motivations and how they make decisions visa Vee stores and traditional brick-and-mortar establishments and here's what I said and I think this is a great analogy you know before the advent of the internet if you were to go to a Kohl's I don't you have a colles here in Montreal we have like chapters indigo all right if you go to a Kohl's or a chapter or an indigo and you buy a sweater and you take it home you open up the package and you see it's got a run so you go back to the store you know you ask for a refund and they're not gonna honor the return policy what are you gonna do you're gonna pick it in front of the store you'll tell your immediate family and friends they you know didn't do right by me but you're not doing any kind of irreparable harm to the business conversely the Internet has created a totally different playing field because today if you have a bad experience with anyone online whether it's a healthcare organization whether it's Amazon all you need to do is go on one of these heavily trafficked websites relevant to their industry and you excoriate them you flame the heck out of them and you're doing incredible damage to that facility because that review will sit at the top of Google for all of your keywords for forever in perpetuity and you've never been excoriated for perpetuity it's a really tough situation it's very very important that you look and you act and you function in your optimal kind of way online because that's where you're going to shine or that's where you're going to lose sales and it's it's like somebody's proposing to his girlfriend this is the analogy I said you know how sometimes you take out a billboard you know she drives by a certain major thoroughfare and you say Jessica will you marry me and you know she's see it an online review whether it's TripAdvisor for a hotel whether it's a place for Mom or caring calm or senior advisor calm for the skilled nursing industry you post a review on that website it's as though you took out a full billboard on every major highway every major city well and you pay for it to be there all year long for a fraction of the cost for a fraction of the cost exactly I love you could change at any time you could you could do it you and there's actually a core synergy between us which you just showed me is that on all these things you could actually you could actually post videos as well you could link it up a hundred percent so barrel has this fascinating technology he's got this video he puts this video could you throw this one on one of these beautiful displays and your liaison your screener goes into the hospitals goes over to the patients at the bedside goes to the doctors goes to your referral sources shows them this video shows the patient the video it's an amazing and compelling concept I have a micro site where we can also embed Barrels video on a social media snippet where not only can you showcase your major online reviews according to your threshold for what would constitute a positive review but you then push the people the same people to your Facebook page and your YouTube page which then has barrels video embedded in it within your viral video and that's it to close the deal your facility will sell itself can you actually just do that again yeah it's Facebook and Instagram live if we're going to do it again because you want it to be good for the final video don't judge us could you do that again tie what barrel has a really interesting product you see Burrell has a very interesting product and this product is a video that lives and breathes on this freestanding mobile kind of book it's a story book it's something your kids would open and Wow boom what's that it's a video it talks to you it shows you the beauty of the facility right in front of you they actually give it to the tour they give it to the customer or the prospective customer and they say take it home show this to your family show this to your loved ones you're going to select our facility because you know what we just did a multi-million dollar renovation which reflects is an accurate reflection of the care that we provide it shows our heart and soul is in our business and now we're telling you our story we control the narrative here's our video you're gonna close the sale this is what he does so you were in this business for five years you're a marketer for five years right yeah do you feel that if you would have walked in with this versus a regular pamphlet or a brochure or whatever it is did you feel that you would have won more patients to come to your facility I mean look it's a no-brainer I mean it's almost a rhetorical question well they're dead it was a rhetorical it's our past say I mean everybody's got a pamphlet and it's like you go to the library and when you go to the library you typically see you know old stuff old news trifles that are bent in 15 different corners because some kid fooled around with it and stuck it back in backwards this is something futuristic it's something incredibly powerful it tells you exactly what the facility is selling it's done in a very succeed kind of way that's a big word 1616 Wow and and it's it enables you to take somebody your customer from zero to 60 in two seconds you close the deal you sell the bed you gave away the video the video lives on its own it gets passed around from hand to hand and when they make that decision they're already comfortable because they've seen the facility and they've seen the facility remotely they didn't even have to tour with you they made that decision from the comfort of their own homes that's that's a good point you saw talk about making the decision time as everybody knows is money if you could our goal with these things is to help the nursing homes shorten their time of the patients decisions if patients have to visit the facility or their families have to visit the facility that adds time your that costs money you have think of the mature you have to give them a cup of coffee and it is that increases time and money our whole modus operandi is to shorten the decision to shorten the decision cycle of the patients the families the doctors and the social workers to send more traffic you're way faster and more come bleahh and i want to tell you guys something else you know everybody wants to be associated with a winner the social workers at the hospital they also need to be confident in the referrals and the recommendations they make they're seeing these videos they're seeing these reviews they've got computers in front of them they're going online and they want to know that if they're directing traffic and they're encouraging a certain facility that that facility has a pristine online footprint so people say to me barrel they say well we're in the healthcare space we deal with CMS we deal with our Medicare ratings we deal with the state listen guys and I've said this on LinkedIn I've said this elsewhere your online your CMS ratings is of no consequence with respect to your online visibility CMS is a dead website online it's buried for whatever reason we can't get into that right here it's buried on page 582 conversely your online ratings your reviews on caring com a place for Mom calm senior adviser calm nursing homes calm you know etc etc that's what they're seeing on the top of Google page one for all of the organic results related to your keyword terms they're also seeing your Facebook postings they're seeing your videos and if you look and smell like a rose in terms of your online footprint you're gonna close the sale even if you've got a two-star rating with the state because unless that disgruntled social worker at the hospital that's got an axe to grind will proactively tell that family look him up online check out their Medicare rating you have nothing to worry about you can stand tall you can tour with your families and you can proudly in declaratively state we are a five-star rated facility families will say well how do I know that's your job you've got to say that you say no no don't take my word for it when you get home tonight or when you log on if they're talking to them via the telephone google us check out our ratings check out our reviews look at our video take a tour of the facility from miles away you're gonna select us because none of our competitors measure up brand that's how you sell it's all about brand Brandon Brandon why do it why do people buy a Nike shoe over any other shoe because it has a tick on it and that tick allows them to trust your product know it's quality no there was a quality assurance I went into it and allows Nike to charge $9.00 per shoe or payless charges $49 per shoe it's the same shoe it's mainly the same sweatshop in wherever it's made in but one has a brand and one does not next on our wonderful list don't be cheap on your marketing if I could scream from the rooftops and get everybody to understand this stop cheeping out on your marketing I'm gonna make a whole a whole episode called why you're chief marketing officer is stealing from you when he walks into your office and says hey boss listen to this I just found this incredible website called Fiverr and we could do our website for six hundred bucks and they'll do our video for two hundred dollars and they'll do our online work for three hundred and he says boss I just saved you money you should fire him on the spot because really he just cost you a lot of money that's like buying a Ferrari and putting water in the gasoline tank instead of high octane fuel you're buying it already you spanked millions tens of millions on your facility you put your heart your soul and your love into this place you spend forty eight thousand dollars making sure the flowers were nice and your chief marketing officer comes in and says boss I saved you three hundred and ninety-two dollars on your marketing fired him or her right now please give her my number so I could tell her why you did it you know what I call this I call this the made in China Syndrome I'll be honest with you sometimes if it sounds too good to be true it absolutely is too good to be true I had a grandmother god rest her soul she always used to say you get what you pay for she said it with an accent she's a smart lady she was a great woman around she's a great woman she's never better listen guys you know you know where I see this a lot and it's mind-blowing I'm always amazed you've got this gorgeous website right so we finally build the site the site is like you know really compelling and then it comes time to put actual photographs and video on the site and they're like oh okay you can go on Getty Images and you could put some pictures up guys that nice sweet old lady she's living at like every skilled nursing facility in the world I've seen her on every website everybody knows she's not living with you that video that you put up that's a video you got on Fiverr the whole world uses that video you got to keep it real don't spend thousands of dollars on a video and then cheap out when it comes to your pictures and just put up some you know generic stuff that you had some department headed the facility take with their inferior camera right you've got to engage with a legit photo shoot you got to get a video Aquifer to come down barrel does all the mumbo-jumbo with the aerial drone photography it's all amazing it's my plan of all the team they come down with equipment they'll take photography from the sky from the Vasili and all the money shots you know when you get your amateur photographer at the facility who's really a recreation director and she's taking pictures she's gonna get the cobwebs she's gonna get the paint chipping around the elevator shaft she's gonna get the stained ceiling tiles you don't want that nobody's selecting your facility when they see all that stuff on your website you got to put your best foot forward if you're building it build it right yeah get the high octane video do the video the right way get professional-looking photographs that everybody will instantly know and recognize to be original and specific to you guys into your facility not to that Getty image lady that lives at every facility in the country I know that lady times Lou is a short blonde hair and she's got the same caregiver and that lady is already in the era I mean she god bless her I mean she existed she was made therefore she I don't know that oh she passed away a long time ago because of that facility so so let's talk about just to end it don't be cheap on your marketing I don't I mean it worked I'm so bored it's like Timmy it's something so simple your facility costs five ten fifteen twenty thirty million dollars spend the money to get it advertised properly you just spent a million we have questions yeah questions on Instagram and Facebook we will not leave today without answering them you just spend four million dollars renovating your Lobby no one is gonna see it unless they come to your facility and nobody's coming to your facility unless you're marketing before they get there is on point don't cheap out on these people it's the best investment and if I hear one more person said well I have to calculate the ROI the why is your losing every day brother you're losing every single day stopping cheap about this it's like coca-cola everybody knows coca-cola I don't care if you're in if you're in the Yukon Territories Japan Montreal China or New Jersey you know coca-cola why because they spend billions of dollars of marketing dollars every single year on their product and they continually will no matter what and that's why you know who they are