Marketing to Independent Pharmacies | Nicolle McClure & Bruce Kneeland

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Nicolle and Bruce, introduce yourself to our listeners, 

Bruce: ladies first. 

Nicolle: All right. I'm Nicolle McClure, president of Finch Marketing. Our sister company is GRX Marketing, but here today to talk to you guys about Finch. We are a B2B company that works primarily in the healthcare industry, so we help companies market to independent pharmacy owners and other healthcare type companies.

So excited to be here. 

Bruce: My name is Bruce Ne Linden. I've been around for 53 years. Mike, it's hard to believe, and I'm gonna quit one of these days, but just not yet. I don't have any hobbies and so I still work in the industry and I write for pharmacy journals and I try to help companies. Figure out how to improve what they can do to help pharmacies survive.

Mike: I appreciate you both being here. I love seeing your guys' stuff because it's in the cloud sometimes, but it's also in the dirt. It's real life stuff, so it's cool to have you here. Alright, now I'm gonna say something negative here and now, don't just bear with me. Don't take it personally because I'm gonna turn it into a positive.

But my dad, whenever we were in the pharmacy, and these salespeople would come in and they'd say. We've got this product and we only sell to independent pharmacies. You guys are very special to us. We only sell this and my dad would always lean over to me and say, that's 'cause they can't make it anywhere else.

So it's funny to me at the time, but like right now, if I was gonna make a product or do something, I wouldn't go and try to be the leader of the whole world of pharmacy. I would, I would niche it down and I would say, Hey, we're good at this segment and this is what we do in independent pharmacy. What is still 20,000 or close to that now?

So it's still a viable big market. 

Nicolle: Yeah, definitely. And I think a lot of companies when they're first starting out, to your point, are let's start with the independent, which I think is great. The challenge with that is then a lot of 'em move on to wanting to hit the chains and all of that stuff. Kind of where sometimes the mistrust from independent pharmacy owners comes in because they are sold that it's only gonna be through the independent pharmacy market and then it's not.

And I think they feel kind of. Sold a little bit. So that's where there's some of that mistrusting attitude. 

Bruce: I'll say two things on that subject. Uh, number one is if you're a company and you're making a product or a service or a technology piece, and your focus is selling just independent pharmacies.

That would be kind of like me telling you that I'm a high school baseball player and I say I only wanna play in the minor leagues. It's the natural scheme of things that any company that is gonna start with independence and then they're gonna try to graduate to the major leagues. And I think independent pharmacies need to know that.

Uh, I'll do one anecdote. I called on my first pharmacy in 1973, and I worked for that, a division of Pfizer, which made a coffin cold blind called Cory Ban. And Cory Ban. D and I sold a ton of stuff because that was the year Robitussin decided that they were gonna sell to chains, and so the independents were abandoning Robitussin in selecting my product.

And, and you know, I had pharmacists tell me, wow, this industry's screwed. They're gonna sell the chains and there's no future for us. I think independent people need to realize that their job is to help companies grow. And when they get big, you go for something else. So the front end is complicated. It's tough, it's important, but when somebody gets in every Walmart, it's time for you to find something else.

Mike: What I'm hearing you saying is that pharmacists may have been burned and most companies don't wanna just stay as independent, but that's okay. The onus is on the owner to say what's good for us. Don't worry so much about the claims of what this company might do down the road. 

Nicolle: Yeah. I think it's also companies when they're trying to market with two independent pharmacy owners.

Maybe just be more honest at the beginning of, if obviously if their intention is to grow and go beyond independence, don't have that be your sole selling point. And I've seen that quite a bit over the years and especially when we're working with companies for marketing, it's like, oh, okay, what else do you got?

Like, what other things can we focus on? That shouldn't be your top selling point because I think. Independence, start to not even believe that because it's happened so many times throughout the year. So if that's your only selling point, then you're not gonna get very far. 

Mike: Well, and Bruce, you had said this before, just saying, we're independent, we, we smile at you and call you by name.

It's like, well, fine, but that, that's not a real selling point. Because guess what? Chain pharmacists and people in the real world are not as nasty as independent pharmacists make 'em out to be sometimes with their selling points. 

Bruce: I, you know, amen to that. So, uh, you know, it's the classic thing if you're, if your advertising is saying, you know, fast friendly service 27 years in the community, you know, those kinds of things are platitudes.

That has very little meaning to a consumer. That's one reason why independent pharmacies need to hire an advertising agency. And, and I'll say this, there's a lot of crises in pharmacy right now that are major things. The solutions of which many have been found. Point of care, testing, functional medicine, all those kinds of things.

But pharmacists don't know how to say anything other than we've been here 27 years and we've got fast, friendly service. They haven't figured out how to market the benefits of these other things so that they mean something to the consumer. And that same thing is true to companies coming into the business.

It started by independence and for independence, and, and that's a trite phrase. Um, it doesn't captivate or persuade a pharmacist to pay attention to you. 

Mike: Maybe all things being completely equal, that might shift it. But there's a lot of stuff more important for people. I mean, I think of it. Alright, here's a little secret.

Uh, I'm not even gonna charge for this one, but at our pharmacy, I don't know what our future is as far as, I don't think we have a real sustainable future. I don't have any pharmacists, children out of my 10 or anybody at the pharmacy, and I'm, I'm quite okay with that. In fact, I said, don't go into this and you, unless you really love the science behind it.

'cause who knows what's gonna happen anyways. So I make a decent living, probably more than I would as a pharmacist somewhere else. So I'm like, screw it. In my remaining year or years here, I'm gonna make this how I want it. So just today is our first day, nine to five, and then last week, what I did. I don't open the phones now until 11, so customers can leave a message and it pops up on our screen and this and that.

We don't really get many phone calls. The first two hours of phone calls are just a little old ladies calling, hovering over the phone over the weekend and waiting till nine o'clock so they can call. They're lonely and they want to talk to somebody, and those are the kind of calls we get. Long story short.

Can you imagine having a company where you don't talk to anybody on the phone and, and I'm thinking like, huh, I wonder how that would go. And I'm like, Amazon. So here all the talk is if we answer the phone, we don't use IVR and we're friendly and we know you by name and all this kind of stuff. And it's like.

You know, fine. But I also wanna order a shower head and get it tonight between five and 10. And I'm going away this weekend and my wife and I smelled a nice cologne in the mail last week, and I don't wear cologne. And I'm thinking, hey. She tipped me off to her, so I ordered cologne. It's gonna come on Wednesday.

What I'm getting at is Amazon doesn't say they smile and this and that, and it's like, it's trite. Like you said, it's not gonna last for people. 

Nicolle: I don't want to perceive that I'm on board with Amazon Pharmacy in any way, shape, or form. But to your point that, yeah, the messaging is. Not around their personal service.

'cause I mean, we do the same thing with new clients on the GRX side. When we have a launching call with them, what services do you offer? And they say personal service. And we're like, well, so does everybody else. So how are you different? And so that's, I think, really the crutch of this is if you're a pharmacy, if you're a business, what truly makes you different?

Hopefully, I mean, everybody should have something. So that's where the focus and the marketing message needs to be. 

Bruce: We, we talk about what makes you different. We talk about change, and I like to change those words to what makes you better and how you improve. Mm-hmm. So different is not a competitive advantage.

Better is a competitive advantage. Changing. You have to change. You have to change. You have to change. Things are gonna change all the time. Whether you do anything about it or not. You're gonna get a new competitor, somebody's gonna die. You don't just change, you improve. And I think these kinds of words, somatics, make a difference as we, as we try to communicate to people on how they're gonna help pharmacists to improve.

Mike: Agreed, and I think sometimes I'd read a bunch of marketing books. I read a bunch of stuff till I was 40, and then I stopped reading. I'm like, screw you all. Now it's my turn to spout off to everybody. Now you listen to me, so to my two listeners, anyway, they would always say, segment your market. Segment your market niche down.

I'm like, okay, well it's easy if you sell cigars. You know, my audience is 20 to. 60-year-old men with this income and things like that. Pharmacy's problem is, we're like the, uh, Christmas song, you know, kids from one to 92 or something like that. I mean, we do everybody, every sex, every income, every drug.

And so pharmacists are like, well, what do you mean niche down? And then you start, then you don't niche down. And then you're like, well, we, we we're, we're friendly and we smile. We know you by name. It's kind of. Bland because we have, not derogatory, but we have a bland focus because we, we just, we just can't.

And so I would imagine part of the answer to this is, well, let's focus a little bit. Where can we focus? Where can we do it better? And, where can we keep doing better? 

Nicolle: And I think the personal service standout could have survived maybe five, 10 years ago marketing a pharmacy. It definitely does not now, just everything that's happened in the industry as a pharmacy, you've gotta be drilling in on what insurance companies have I not making any money on what products do I.

Actually turn a profit on and how can I get more of that business? And that's the speech that pharmacists understand, right? Like, how can we increase your profit on particular drugs and things like that? Because marketing is a very ambiguous thing for pharmacists. It's gray and a lot of 'em don't like it because you guys live in black and white.

And so once you start talking about marketing things, it's, it's kind of like they just gloss over and. Your point, they're like, well, I don't know where to go with this because it's like we're just bland. And so I think that it rings true more than anything else today. It's gotta have a targeted approach or it just doesn't work.

Like you can't just throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. It's really picking out those couple things and honing in on those services and really drilling down on those and beating people over the head with it because you have to do it multiple, multiple times for people to even. Take notice, first of all, and then even more to take actions.

A lot of times pharmacy owners, I think Bruce touched on this, wanna advertise everything that they do, not just a couple things. It's like, let's just pick a couple and market the heck out of 'em, 

Bruce: and which physicians are prescribing the kinds of things that you still make money on. What segment of your customer base is still attractive because of A, B, C, or X, Y, z?

And here's where I feel this notion, and we're talking about pharmacies, but the same thing is true of vendors. There's a difference between advertising and marketing. Advertising is how you tell somebody something in a persuasive manner. Marketing is trying to figure out who you're gonna talk to.

You know, what, what services am I gonna emphasize? You know, what are the demographics in my area that I can capitalize on? How do I find that seam of two independent pharmacies? 'cause that's where we live. You know, the first thing I tell 'em is half the pharmacies are below average. Mm-hmm. You don't wanna waste your advertising dollars on those.

Half of those that are above average are owned by four or 5,000 guys. The multiple store owner has become a real person. A real target and how you get to them and find them and persuade them is different now than it was 20 years ago. You need somebody who can plug you into the industry and who knows people and knows the processes.

That's where I make my modest living right now is having relationships with some of those people. And that's what excites me about my relationship with Nicolle. She's been around 15 years now. Nicolle, 

Nicolle: A little bit longer than that. Just over 20. Did you open this business when you were nine? 

Bruce: Yeah. 

Nicolle: You're funny.

Bruce: She knows the people and that's the point. 

Nicolle: The year I started in pharmacy was the year Medicare Part D came out. So that shows you how much has changed over those years. 

Mike: Let me ask this question before we go on to B2B. Can a pharmacy still market broadly, whatever it is? I'm not saying these are the ones, but let's say that there's non broad, let's say there's direct mail, certain computer ways to hit certain demographics and so on.

Can a pharmacy market to the whole demographic, whether it's print, radio, whatever. And what would those three things be if they're not the traditional, we give good service and we smile and know you by name or Nicolle before we go into B2B stuff, or Bruce, or would you say, no, there is nothing. It is niche down and you don't broadcast anymore, whatever that broadcast is because you can't say these three things that are important enough to the whole audience.

And so we're not gonna do the broadcast. But if you did broadcast, would there be enough, three different things, and Nicolle, what would those be? Gimme an example of what they would be, or is it not there anymore? 

Nicolle: I mean, I think it's still there in the sense of. Community type outreach. A good example is when you see a competitor is closing in your market, so you're just trying to get the messaging out there that we are open, we're available to serve you, that sort of thing.

I think the way those messages are done has changed. And five, 10 years ago you would put a newspaper ad and hope that somebody sees it. Now we can geofence that. Pharmacy that is closing. So people that are coming into the pharmacy see those ads of another pharmacy and can make that move right away when they get the ad on their phone.

Mike: So it's still broadcast, it's still to the one to 92, but to a precise location. 

Nicolle: Yeah, and I would say definitely on a smaller level, I mean, if you're looking at kind of your overall marketing plan, that would be about like. 20%, maybe 15% of what I would focus on. And then the rest, I think it's more targeted service-based packaging services.

I mean, and that's just because a lot of them. Chains don't do packaging. And also as our nation continues to grow and get older, a lot of 'em are gonna be staying in their homes longer because either they can't afford to go to nursing home assisted living and people are just living longer. So they're gonna need those types of solutions to stay in their home longer.

The other ones I would say is compounding. And then, I mean, we've seen a pretty big growth in cash-based pricing for prescriptions. They're just getting away from the insurance altogether and just going to that cash pricing. So I think that, and just those more niche type products, whether it's vitamins or whatever, that you can't find at your local chain pharmacy, but only available through your local independent.

Bruce: There's always a percentage of people who just had a terrible experience. Someplace who is gonna be open to that. Uh, you know, the best analogy I can think of is you drive down the street and you see the guy out there waving the, the sign we got a 50% off mattresses. Yeah. 999 people are gonna drive by that, by that thing.

And it's gonna mean nothing. But there's the one guy who just got divorced, he needs a bed. So there's that small percentage that will always respond to something because something bad just happened. 

Mike: So B2B, somebody comes to you and before they open their mouth, it's like, Hey, just so you know, we're not gonna do some smarmy, but we only sell to independent pharmacists.

So let's just get that off the table. How are you walking through a B2B customer when they come to you? What are you opening up? What are you letting them know maybe about the independent market that they haven't thought of and things like that. 

Nicolle: Well, I think a lot of the clients that we work with, um, they're either new to the independent pharmacy market, so they don't have any idea about the industry in general.

So just educating them on, you know, kind of how we touched on earlier, I would say a lot of pharmacists are more reserved, not as trusting. From new companies at the get go. So you really just have to be open and honest with them on how you can help them, but also put in as many stats, analytical data as you can.

I mean, they again. Pharmacists love stats, so how can you help save them money? How can you make them money? How can you help their inventory? Things like that. I will say that they also do like to know what their buddies are doing. So if you are working with other pharmacies and you have any sort of testimonial, adding that into your marketing message I think can be very valuable.

'cause they're like, oh, so and so in this pharmacy has done it and it worked and I know him. And so I think that can definitely help a business grow. But yeah, I guess from a marketing side, something that I look at early on is what messaging have they done so far? What does their website look like? What does their LinkedIn say?

That sort of thing. That's two areas that we can help somebody kind of right off the bat, crafting the message, but how they can execute on it. 

Bruce: I created a little formula 40 years ago. I was selling Health Mart franchises for the old Foxfire drug company. Back in the mid, uh, eighties to early nineties and the three things that we focused our marketing materials around.

Was proud. Does your pharmacy look like it? You want it to be, are you proud of the way your pharmacy looks? And that was important because we went in and put in a decor package and retrofitted the front end and all that kinda stuff. The idea was, if you are a professional, you're a, you know, you weren't PharmDs back then, but you were a healthcare professional.

Does your pharmacy reflect that kind of a positive prideful appearance and. Certainly to, that's gonna make 'em profitable. But the kicker that popped up back then was that most of the franchises we sold because Walmart was coming to town. So it was fear, if you don't do this, what's gonna happen to you?

Your buddy Fred over and Weatherford lost his pharmacy because Walmart came to town. What are you gonna do? So, pride, profit, and fear. Are the ingredients that I try to help these vendors understand that those are valid ways to try to capture the favorable attention of a pharmacy owner. 

Mike: What would be an example of a company that is trying to market to somebody trying to alleviate their fear without coming out and saying, we know you're afraid.

Bruce: That's a really good question. And that's the art of the messaging. But it's you, you've got to be able to place in their mind that if you, if you let this opportunity pass you, you know you're gonna miss out. Um. You know, it's the old classic, be the first in your neighborhood. You don't wanna be left out.

You don't wanna miss this opportunity. You can't pressure that, that's for sure. You've gotta have some valid thing that they're worried about and that's not hard to find right now. 

Mike: And that could be anything from competition coming in or just fear of missing out. All the other pharmacies are doing this.

Don't be left behind. There's a few ways to tap into that fear, I imagine. 

Bruce: Yeah, I mean, it's amazing to me how many pharmacies I call on that still don't do immunizations with any robustness, and you know, and you're missing out. There's. There's not only money to be made in doing that, there's good for society for doing that, and it's a growing opportunity for you to enhance your professionalism.

You should be proud that you can give immunizations. You should be proud that you're helping people travel abroad safely or you know, all all of these kinds of things. So it wraps together. 

Mike: Bruce, but I'm guilty as charged on that. We did immunizations when I was, when I was kind of home more, I didn't want to go into the store.

I was sick of the place and we were draining out money with DIRs and stuff, and the team wanted to do immunizations. And then kind of when our staff got smaller, I went in there and I'm like, who the hell would want me to touch 'em? And jab? I just, I just didn't wanna, yeah. In Michigan we'd have these companies that you'd lose.

All kinds of dollars by doing these immunizations. So it's like, I'm not gonna trade dollars for that, but I know that it's a good thing for a lot of people, including pharmacies. Of course. 

Bruce: Yeah. 

Nicolle: I mean, I think it's what kept some pharmacies afloat during covid, so I 

Mike: I know. Yeah. And I, yeah, I agree. I agree with that.

Bruce: It's a classic example. I saw a video on YouTube the other day of a person jumping off a mountain with one of those flying squirrel suits, and, and I was just captivated. I've seen it before, but for some reason I found myself trying to figure how do you do that the first time? Yeah. You don't practice on a diving board and go into the swimming pool.

You can't get any lift until you're doing 120 miles an hour. I don't know how they did that the first time. The point of that is if you're going to make a move into things, you have to carefully think, am I gonna tiptoe or am I going to jump? And that's an artful thing. So how do you get into functional medicine?

Do you stock a bottle of. Coq 10, or do you put in a whole line of Ortho Molecular products and then do the physician detailing and then hire somebody who understands? And then, and then, and then, or do you put it in a bottle and, when it doesn't sell, you say this, this is a bad idea. So you have to make a commitment and invest in the infrastructure, the presentation to make it work.

Mike: Yeah. That wingsuit, I figured you did some wing suiting out in Utah there, Bruce, with all the clothes and stuff out there. I know I would look silly doing that and I'm sure both of us probably would just put one of those suits on. I wouldn't even be able to, 

Bruce: I'd look flat as a pancake 'cause I'd hit the ground at 80 miles an hour.

So I tell you though, since for 

Mike: Our listeners, I haven't watched that. You're right, because you jump off that mountain, they drop hundreds of feet. I mean, I, I don't know exactly, but they drop a long way before that glide takes off the speed and things like that. And. Golly, that's, that's crazy. Well, we did the same thing in our pharmacy.

We did medical equipment, but we never got into oxygen because that's something that's like, well, wait, how do you start that? I'm sure I could have thought of it. Maybe now with the internet you could have gotten some part-time. You don't dabble in some stuff. To that point though, when you think about it.

New chains going in of different stuff, restaurants and things like that. I know they probably take a bird's eye view. They say that, here's so many houses, here's the competition, things like that. How does a company that's trying to do B2B and let's say they're trying to really get the pharmacy to commit to something, how do they try to sell that to the pharmacy?

Because I know one that doesn't work is the old, Hey, there's. X amount of people in the neighborhood and if only 0.1 X does this, and if only 0.01 does this, that's five sales, it's like, ah, that doesn't, that doesn't work. That's like having a ball that goes halfway each time, but they say it never actually touches.

How does a B convince the B of pharmacy that something is going to work? What's the best way for a business to do that? 

Nicolle: Taken a couple different approaches. Any statistics that you can show to try to link back to sales or how you can save them money or time, right? Because a lot of pharmacies are short staffed right now.

So if a business can come in and say, I can save you 10 hours a week, which equals X amount of time, I feel like a pharmacist is gonna pay more attention to that than just some ambiguous statement about something. I think other things that have worked well is offering some sort of free trial or in product sense, like a free startup package so they can at least test it somewhat.

I found that pharmacists want things that are easy to do. They don't wanna yet another program to log into and check the results of and manage and all of that. So it has to be easy. It has to be easy for them to manage, but also easy to set up in the store or whatever it is, and then. Yeah, any sort of messaging that you can use with statistics I think have always been beneficial at that starting point.

Mike: I get some companies on the show and sometimes afterwards and they're just trying to be nice, well, trying to make money, I guess, but they're like, Hey Mike, we talked about this. Why don't you bring it into your pharmacy? We'll do a free this or that. It's like, nah, there's nothing free. I gotta bring it in. I gotta tell my staff about it, and I'm gone and something screws up.

This and that. Now they're upset with me. And my point on that is like there's no such thing as free. And so almost like how we say pharmacies can't say we're friendly and nice for a company to come in and say we're free. They might think, well, that's a no-brainer. It's not in pharmacy though, 

Nicolle: right. Yeah, so maybe it's not free, but here's what you get to get started and it's a discounted rate or something.

And I think providing, what a lot of businesses don't do is they give nothing to the pharmacy to help actually implement, said product or service. It's a lot like, here you go, you figure it out, we'll replenish when you have sold the first round of product, that sort of thing. So that's also a lot of what we help with if a company has a great product.

But there's nothing to help the pharmacy know how to sell it. And so I think that's a lot of times that's where the disconnect is, then the pharmacy brings in this product and it could be the most amazing product ever, but they have no way of understanding how to promote it to their current customers, let alone new customers.

And so it doesn't sell, the pharmacy gets frustrated. They're like, I don't want it anymore. If you could have just had that bridge of how to help them promote it, I think it could go a long way. 

Mike: I think that's almost focus group material because sometimes people just aren't thinking. It's like you bring it in.

It's like if somebody would've talked to me, I would've just said. I could sell it to the customer, but I couldn't sell it to my team because they didn't have the confidence in this step. Things like that. 

Nicolle: If you can't get it past your staff, then forget about it because products will live or die by your, by your staff.

So, 

Bruce: I mean, that's clearly one of the most common things. I hear people, yeah. Do a trade show. They meet with a vendor. They come back with 20 ideas and they come back to the team and say, Hey, boy, am I excited? We're gonna do A, B, C, X, Y, Z, and the staff goes to lunch and, and nothing happens. I mean, with the people who I've had an opportunity to work with, I try to drive home to them.

You have never sold anything. Until the customer has bought it, paid for it, sold it, and then been excited enough about it that he tells his buddy that he ought to try this too. So the sale isn't completed until the customer is thrilled and talking about it, and you've got to have the ability to work with the customer all the way through that channel.

And then being excited enough about it that he tells his buddy that he ought to try this too, so the cell isn't completed until the customer is thrilled and talking about it. And you've got to have the ability to work with the customer all the way through that channel. Otherwise, you're gonna get the product put on the shelf and it's gonna sit there.

And you're, you're gonna be mad at the vendor. You're gonna be returning merchandise. You've experienced that a hundred times in your pharmacy, Mike. I mean, what do you do with that brand new carb blocker product that came out? You remember carb blockers in the eighties, there was a lot of praise for taking this pill and you don't absorb carbs and you're gonna lose weight.

Nicolle: Man, I wish those were still around. 

Bruce: It's a channel. It's a commitment to the whole thing. And if you're not prepared to work all the way to the end, I don't wanna work with you. 

Mike: Well, here's one too. We had this guy that would come in and we had this cream. It was a local, local company, and they may have sold it to 30 or 40 stores in the area.

And he would come in and the stuff sold like hotcakes. I mean, it flew off the shelf when it was there. He'd come in every month or so, reorder it for us, take out his pad, okay, I'm gonna bring in this many, and I think he'd bring him out of his trunk, but that wasn't sustainable. For some reason, when I saw it was empty, I couldn't get it from my wholesaler.

It was kind of outta sight, outta mind that the box was empty. Maybe someone on our team threw it out. Something else gets put there. And so you'd think like, man, that stuff sold. Well, yeah, but even that's not enough. It's that whole process of how does this stay sustainable because it's, it's not just selling it and it's not just, and even if you sell it out.

It has to be sustainable. And, and what does that mean? Maybe Bruce, to your point, you alluded to, maybe you have to do so much of that. A customer calls the next day and says, where is this? Because the person loved it so much they told their friend. And so it's a tough world out there to sustain stuff, it's hard to do.

Bruce: You know, I, I, I, I was fascinated. I went to, um. The A PHA meeting in Phoenix a couple years ago, and you walk around and you marvel at the scores of vendors who came and exhibited that year who weren't back the next year. Mm-hmm. So the failure rate in marketing to independent pharmacies is quite high.

Mike: Trade shows. Don't get me going on this. Just go, Margaret and I, we're gonna redo our cottage in four years and move out there once we sell our house. And so we missed the Grand Rapids Home show or something. So we go to the Holland Home Show and we get there and it's about a picture like three bowling lanes wide, about the length of a bowling alley.

And, it wasn't like home builders, it was like. Gutter guards and all this stuff. And so I get in there, Margaret and I walk in, and the first thing this lady comes up to is, Hey, uh, are you thinking about blah, blah, blah, blah? And I'm like, no, I'm just here to do this, this, that. So, Margaret goes in and gets stuck talking to her.

By the time she looks up at me, I beelined to the other side because each one of these booths has about four people in it just staring at me. There's only about seven participants in this three lane bowling thing. I just beeline it. So then she says to me, honey, you, I, I was looking for you. I said, you gotta be nice to those people.

They're just trying to do this. I'm like, Omar, I just walked in and. I said, all right, I'll be nicer. Let me go to the other room. And then someone comes up to her and does the same thing that this first lady did. But she wasn't too smart on this because she should have chewed me out later because, well, she didn't chew me out.

She suggested I would be nicer. She should have done that later, because now she had to stand there and listen to this guy's baloney. So I couldn't call her a hypocrite. She had to learn that lesson next. Time anyways. Who brought up trade shows? I don't like the damn things, but do the companies do okay with the trade shows?

I'm assuming they do. 

Nicolle: I mean, I'll personally say that we do well at trade shows, but I think you've gotta get over that initial hump to, to Bruce's point, you can't go just one time and not go back again. I mean, you kind of have to develop a presence there. But yeah, I mean I've made a lot of great connections.

Not just with pharmacy owners, but other partners, B2B opportunities through trade shows. So I do think they're valuable and you can have conversations that you're never gonna have while you're stuck behind the counter at the pharmacy. 

Bruce: If somebody's serious about selling to independent pharmacies, I think they're indispensable.

Um, agreed. You need to figure out how you're gonna maximize your presence there, but it's not only what you sell, it's what you hear. But probably the biggest advantage of a trade show is it's the top 25% of the pharmacists who go to them. So we're automatically talking about customer segmentation and how you're gonna get to the top 4,000 owners.

Well, you know, well, 

Mike: Well, not on my list. Nowhere I rate. 

Bruce: Yeah, and you've self admitted to that. You're not, you're not aggressively trying to grow your business. You're not a cutting edge guy. I'm not. That's where those guys are. I 

Mike: I know I'm a lazy nine to fiver that doesn't answer the phone for two hours.

They used to say, when people remember the yellow pages, Nicolle, you're too young for this. 

Nicolle: Oh, I remember the yellow pages. Right. 

Mike: So the yellow pages, they'd say, people don't buy from you in the yellow pages. Their fingers go down and they stop when they get to someone. Either they don't hate as much as somebody else.

Or they trust you because they've seen your name and so the yellow pages don't sell things they bring back to your conscience. A feeling that was built by other ways that this company has reached out to you. And so that's like a trade show. It's like does the trade show sell in one year? No. Does it sell in two years?

Maybe, but maybe it doesn't sell at all. But maybe then when someone brings up something about this company and you're like, Hey, I, I've seen them. I trust 'em. I met that person. You, you don't know what, where the tipping point is in marketing. 

Nicolle: I think Google is now the new Yellow Pages, right? If people are searching for some type of product and they've never heard of your company, other than just finding you on Google, they're probably not gonna reach out to you.

Unless some compelling offer, but for the most part, I think they're gonna just pass on by. So that's where having that emotional connection, whether that's through trade shows or just consistently reaching out to them through other avenues of marketing, are definitely beneficial. You have hit people over the head so much with your messaging.

They're like, okay, I'll give this a try. I mean, that's what. Amazon. That's why McDonald's, that's what the big companies do, is they're doing all their advertising through Yeah, searches and ads and all this stuff. 

Bruce: I think we're mixing two different opportunities and it might be important, I mean, as, as a pharmacy owner, you're not looking to make an impulse buy.

You're looking, you're looking to do something that has legs or tails or whatever that you're gonna do over time. So. It's not like I'm looking to buy a gift for my wife or I'm not, it's something that requires a little bit more thought. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and the, the biggest complication that I have talking to.

Clients or prospective clients are the first questions a pharmacy owner is gonna ask is, who are you and why are you so stupid to try to come sell to a pharmacist? Where did you come from? And they really wanna weed out those people who have no experience or vested interest in the industry. Um, so, you know, why should I listen to you?

Who are you, where did you come from? And you know, that's where the idea is, well, I'm a pharmacist. I own five pharmacies and I did this. You know, that's where that starts to make some, some sense to the pharmacy owner. But then you've gotta get down to, okay, all these, you know, if I buy it, how am I gonna, you know, how am I gonna sell it?

Or how am I gonna be trained to use it? Are you gonna be there to support me afterwards and, and do my friends say nice things about you? Which comes back to, you really have to find the entry point into the industry. You know, the value that Nicolle and I bring to people is. We not only can help, Nicolle can help me create messages and marketing materials, but she can point them to somebody who owns 20 stores, who will talk to them as a favor to her.

Just had that happen Yesterday I went out to 10 pharmacy owners who I know and asked them for a favor and they responded, and I gave that back to the client. It's not a mass market, I guess is what I wanna try to emphasize. It's a small industry, it's a big industry. It's almost a hundred billion dollars.

So, you know, it's, it, there's room for people to do stuff in it, but there's gotta be some passion. There's gotta be some purpose behind what you're doing. Uh, you know, otherwise it's not gonna go anywhere. In my opinion, 

Mike: The psychology of stuff is weird. When I was working, uh, my tail off in my early years and, you know, we'd be open like nine in the morning till 10 at night, and I'd, I'd wake up in the morning at seven and then I'd have to go and it's like, crap, I gotta work down nine hours tonight.

I gotta be at the top of my game. And then. Anyways, people would come in, they'd be like, Hey, I used to be a pharmacist, or We're doing this and we're doing that. And sometimes I'd be like, I'm not sure if this story's true or I'm embellishing it, but what I'm getting at is someone might say, I. I, I was a pharmacist and I quit that and I'm doing this now and I love it, and, and I'd get like jealous of people.

My point is psychology. You'd think that if somebody came in and they said, we used to be a pharmacist, or we do this or that, there's like weird psychology from someone like me that says, because of that, you know what? Screw you. I'm not gonna deal with you. That kind of stuff. And it, it's just, you know, it, it's, the point I'm making is you don't know what is gonna click with people.

Nicolle: True. And then when there is not one specific message that's gonna click with everybody, because I think a lot of pharmacy owners appreciate it if you've been a pharmacist, because they at least know you understand the industry. 

Mike: There's not gonna be many people like me, and I don't even sure if I was like me.

The point is you just don't know what's going on. So it is, there's different ways to approach it. 

Bruce: Neither Nicolle or I are pharmacists. 

Nicolle: I could probably play one on tv, but 

Bruce: not being one has hurt me in my career and what I do, that's for sure, but I'm not, I. I, but Bruce 

Mike: some. Sometimes when I was, at the time, I was making a crap load of money, but I wasn't really happy, stressed out, things like that.

And sometimes I, sometimes I just wish, like I didn't wish it, but I was wondering like, what if my license got taken away? What if I wasn't doing this anymore? It would force me to get out of there. I mean, now things are better, but it would force me to get out of there, force me to get some more balance in my life.

Maybe I wouldn't have been making as much money sometimes. Sometimes I used to have almost this like, what would you call it? Like a weird dream, like to not be a pharmacist. I, I just, I'm just saying it may have affected you detrimentally, but sometimes the grass is greener. Hey, asking about favorites. Do you guys ever hear that thing from Ben Franklin?

And this was really from Ben Franklin. This isn't one of those, uh, Einstein quotes where people say, you know, uh. You know, Einstein said this, the definition of insanity. It's like, I don't think that was Einstein, but Ben Franklin really does say that. To get someone on your side, you should ask them to do a favor for you.

Have you ever heard that one before? Yeah. I haven't, but it makes sense. 

Bruce: I think it's in Dale Carnegie. 

Mike: He might have mentioned Ben Franklin then. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what it does is it lets people know, I don't, I don't know the psychology behind it, but it lets people know that, I don't know, you think enough about him to ask a favor or, or I, I don't know what it is, but there is something there.

So when you mentioned 10 favors of, what was that story, Bruce? The 10 favors of a pharmacist. 

Bruce: Trying to help a company that Nicolle and I are working with hire a good salesman. And so I'm going to pharmacy owners and saying, Hey, you know anybody who's available, and I've come up with a couple good names that I've been able to send on that know the industry and know how to talk to a pharmacy owner and solve his problems.

I mean, at the end of the day, if you're not solving their problem, you're going nowhere. 

Mike: About neither of you being a pharmacist. I'd rather have outside eyes, for example. Rarely do I have an independent pharmacist on this show. It's like I already know it and you're not gonna tell me a lot. I'm not really interested in what you have to say.

That's not bashing them. It's just that I could look in the mirror and say that to myself, and I know there's, I. Benefits of comradery and all that kind of stuff. But stuff that's really interesting to me is usually going outside and that's why it's like, I'd rather hear from you guys with your take on B2B.

You kind of look at it from a little bit of a distance, so you see the big picture. Sometimes I'd rather do that than having someone too, too close inside of it sometimes. All right, so Nicolle and Bruce, I've had you both on separately and now you're sitting side by side. How did you guys come about that?

I know you're both big names in the industry of helping pharmacies. How did you guys meet up then? 

Bruce: I'm gonna jump on it first and say We met at a trade show. We did 

Mike: actually. Now come on. Do you know? Come on now. Full 

Nicolle: circle, baby. 

Mike: We met. So Bruce did. Did you have, did both of you have a booth or were you moseying around?

I 

Nicolle: I think we had a booth. 

Bruce: I couldn't remember. I'm 50-50 either way, not so much now, although this time last year, it was a perfect example. I like to advertise myself as the booth babe. So if somebody brings me to the trade show and I stand in their booth, um, they'll get four times as many conversations with people as they would without me, uh, particularly if they're a new company.

People just know who I am. 

Mike: I've, I've somewhat monetized the show and I don't want to go and work at one of these things, but I've kind of thought that it's like, it seems like somebody might just want me there if nothing else. Because you know how they say it, even bad publicity is publicity. I'm not sure if that's true, but they could say there's a, a-hole kelzer over there.

It would just, it would just get attention to the thing, and I'm not sure if I wanna do that. But if someone said to me, Hey, we'll fly you and Margaret out there for the weekend. We'll give you enough money to, to have a pharmacist at your stores pay you hourly while you are there, or something like that.

I'm not sure if I'm for sale. 

Bruce: I'm, I'm gonna jump on that and say, if you don't desperately want to do it, don't. 

Mike: It's a pain in the ass. Is that why Bruce? 

Bruce: I love 

Mike: it. So, but you love it. It see, I already hate trade shows, so I've already, so I've already 

Nicolle: done that. Yeah. I'm surprised you're even talking about it.

'cause you said 20 minutes ago, they hate trade shows. 

Mike: No. If you don't love it, don't do it. Mike. I love my wife and I love to spend time with her. I think I like to travel with her. We're going to Florida this weekend. We still have kids at home, so we gotta do it judiciously. But uh. You're probably right. I already showed my hands that I hate it, so what the hell the hell am I talking about?

Nicolle, how many shows does your company go to a year 

Nicolle: between GRX and Finch? We probably do eight a year. We don't do a ton. I mean, they are expensive, so we're, we're pretty selective on the ones that we go to. 

Mike: What is the price for the average booth at these things? 

Nicolle: Six, 7,000, 

Bruce: which is less than half of the cost.

'cause you've got airfare and hotels and meals and entertainment time away from the office. And you're 

Mike: talking like 15, $20,000 sometimes, right? 

Nicolle: Oh yeah. Yeah. And I mean, for a small business like me, that's pretty good chunk of my total budget, so 

Mike: Right. And most people don't sell there, it's just all.

Promotion relationship and that kind of stuff. But most people don't open their wallets at one of these things to buy from you. 

Nicolle: I mean, we typically sign up clients there at the show. But yeah, it's coming back with a lot of leads and following up. And that's the tricky part 'cause you have these great conversations with pharmacists and then.

They get back to the pharmacy and back to normal life, and then it's hard to get back in front of 'em. So yeah, as many as we can close at the show and the better. 

Mike: Someone told me, they said, try to bring one of your texts to the shows because they're gonna, I forget what they said. Or maybe the, maybe the show was encouraging texts to go because they're the ones that sometimes keep pushing good ideas.

Where the bosses might get too busy. Bruce, do you wear your swim trunks at one of these shows? Like some of these models do and stuff.

Bad or, or do you throw on a wingsuit? 

Bruce: I, uh, excuse me for coughing. I apologize for that. But when you make me laugh. So you can cut all this, you can cut all this part out. This is staying right 

Mike: in there. This is staying right in there. Alright. So. Bruce and Nicolle, so someone's listening to this. They pull in their driveway, pull into work.

They've got a minute to do something. What's something they can do in a minute after they listen to this show from both of you? 

Nicolle: Well, I mean, they can go to our website, it's finch marketing solutions.com. I would say before you try to jump in the independent pharmacy market, do your research, and what I mean by that is go look at NCPA website, go on LinkedIn, and just search independent pharmacy to kind of get an idea of what's going on in the industry.

I've talked to a lot of companies trying to break into. They don't have a clue. I mean, they don't know what A PBM is. They don't know, and it's not like you have to know the nitty gritty, but that's gonna go a long way when you're talking with the pharmacy owner to at least kind of build that comradery From there, I think it's just putting a strategy together of how you're going to rage these pharmacy owners and, and what your message is gonna be.

I would definitely start with the research first and foremost. 

Bruce: Yeah, I am gonna stutter for a minute or two, but uh, I don't have a website. So go to Nicolle's website. If we assume that the company is coming from outside the industry with something I. I have two one hour PowerPoint presentations that I go through, or I introduce people to the stats.

I introduce people to the players, I introduce people to the problems, those kinds of things, so that they get a high level orientation of what are we getting in? I'm getting ready to invest 50, a hundred thousand dollars to sell some to independent pharmacies. Why would I do that? The bigger issue, and I, I'm really big on this is why you need to be able to answer, why are you going to do this?

And if the answer is because you think I can make a lot of money, I would encourage you to try something else. The thing I love about working with pharmacists is at the end of the day, they are concerned about the welfare of their customer. And they sacrifice their welfare to the benefit of the customer.

And if you're not bringing them something that is gonna make their customers better, then you don't have a long-term opportunity in this business. 

Mike: Hmm. 

Bruce: Good info. 

Nicolle: Yeah, well said. 

Mike: Well, golly, Nicolle and Bruce, this is so pleasurable. I've, I've had you both on before. We have a lot of fun. This is after my own heart.

Half pharmacy, half marketing. Those are my two loves in the business, I suppose. So what a pleasure talking to you both. I know you're both busy, have a lot of stuff going on, so I appreciate your time. Great talking to you. I'm looking forward to the next time. 

Nicolle: Thank you, Mike. 

Bruce: Thanks, Mike. First of all, I wanna go back to chastising you for not having the passion for going to the trade show to do your thing.

What you do with your podcast is beyond remarkable. I enjoy listening to you. You're genuine. You have a passion for this, and I encourage you to keep doing it. 

Mike: Well, thank you Bruce. Shout out to your podcast Pharmacy Crossroads 

Bruce: Pharmacy. Big news on pharmacy Crossroads as we have brought in four other guests, and I am gonna do three or four this year, and then I'll be done.

Mike: I saw that. Let's have you on for sure at that point. And Bruce, listen. I guarantee you, if you're at a trade show and I know you're gonna have your swim trunks on, I'm there. No question. All right, you guys, take care.

You've been listening to The Business of Pharmacy Podcast with me, your host, Mike Kelzer. Please subscribe for all future episodes.