Redefining Healthcare Marketing Strategies | Saul Marquez Outcomes Rocket, CEO

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Mike: Saul, introduce yourself to our listeners.

Saul Marquez: Hi everybody, Saul Marquez with The Outcomes Rocket, where we're all about improving healthcare outcomes and business success for today's healthcare [00:01:00] leaders as well as patients. 

Mike: So what might a healthcare marketer do in the healthcare marketing arena ? Is, a trial or, or a waste of time? What do you think they might presuppose?

And it was incorrect because healthcare doesn't do it that way.

Saul Marquez: One thing that, uh, I heard once, um, and I, and I subscribed to it. Dr. Tracy Gappin from the Gaping Institute. Awesome guy. He says, one size fails all. And I subscribed to that and I told him I'd steal it. And he's like, that's awesome. Take it. I

Mike: Every time.

Saul Marquez: Mike. I will no doubt. one size fails all.

And you know, it's what happens when you get somebody into this business and you expect them to understand what unfair [00:02:00] reimbursement practices are or what clawbacks and DIR fees are.

You know, like, you have to sit there and talk to them about all these details, where if you're an insider, you understand things happening today and the challenges they cause for businesses.

 The challenge happens when you have to explain your whole business and they still don't understand that's a six to 12 month sales cycle.

Mike: I never thought about that solution for marketing. I thought of it for two things. One is we used to have an accountant, just a local person. This was before the internet was really hot and able and popular to do accounting and things. And I'd like to spend it. Half an hour a month explaining to them something like how we had no way in hell to know what was going to get taken out of our back pocket seven months later with the DIRs, that kind of stuff. And then I was talking to a guest one time and we were joking about being in front of the court and, I'm getting sued for something . And I would say, judge, the [00:03:00] reason why this happened is because we only wanted to lose 500 instead of a thousand, you know?

And the judge would say. Well, you mean, you mean gain 500 instead of a thousand? It's like, no, we just didn't want to lose the full thousand. We only wanted to be in the hole with this kind of transaction or something.

Saul Marquez: Yeah.

Mike: I just wouldn't get it.

Saul Marquez: And that's the issue. So, do you want to start from scratch or do you want somebody that could enter midstream with you to help you solve the problems that you have? Because look, when you're dealing with all of the headwinds, you know, and the headwinds come in a lot of forms, as you all know, Mike, you know, I've had a chance to listen to a couple of your shows and, you have to truly understand and empathize.

What does reduced autonomy of patient care do to you and your ability to add value to the people that show up to your store? If somebody understands that they're automatically going to help you [00:04:00] start putting together campaigns that will quickly engage, that will resonate, I can't explain it another way than that, enter midstream with me.

Mike: I was sitting with a friend in a grocery store I guess. And he said, what would you have done differently, you know, 10 years ago? 

I said I might reduce the staff, but here's the problem. The average company would take their business and they would shave off the bottom 20%. And they'd say, we're going to focus on this part and we're going to raise the prices here. We're going to keep our staff at this. Here's what we want. Here's the structure. like. Pharmacists, that's breaking contracts. You can't say you're going to take only 20 percent of this PBMs business, you know, you're going to take it all and you're going to be staffed for all of it, yet you're not going to make money on it. and if you say the whole. PBM is going to go away. Now you've lost a third of your business overnight and it's a different business. And if you came into me, Saul without a healthcare focus, and say, you know, [00:05:00] Mike, we're gonna, we're gonna do this and this, and we're gonna, you know, shave off that bottom 20 percent and do, I'm like, get out of here. You know, it's like, and if not, I got to explain it to you for an hour.

And, then I got to reset your thinking pattern and it just doesn't work.

Saul Marquez: You're totally right. and it's tough, man. Like, you know, it's tough out there. And by the way, like, pharmacists are a fabric of our community. What your pharmacist does for you is so critical to your overall health. The amount of data that exists that you guys know about the community, man, and how that could feed into care pathways at the provider level, or if only the primary care physician knew what you know.

And your team knows that would lead to an optimized care experience. I think there's some people and actually, you know, folks out there that are starting to include pharmacy as part of the journey, the care journey, but I feel like completely under leveraged right [00:06:00] now.

Mike: We've got access to patient data and of course it would be cleaned and HIPAA free and all that kind of stuff. So we've got a lot of them. wild frontier in that area, but sometimes you wonder if you want to increase business for the afternoon or just lock the door because you don't want the wrong business to walk in with the wrong PBM and things like that. 

Saul, People talk about the marketing story. Oh, we don't have a story. And it's like, really? you might not think this, but you've got Apple, you know, and you've got Amazon. All right. You don't think they have a story.

All right. Well, what is that feeling versus Nokia? I mean, it's like, oh, I guess I do know that, you know, the job started with him. Garage and I guess that is a story. It wasn't like, you know, save the world story, but it's that story that people, people pick up on.

Saul Marquez: a hundred percent. there's two quotes that I really like. One of them is John Rockefeller, John D [00:07:00] Rockefeller. He said, next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know that you're doing the right thing. , and then the second one that I always love to pair, cause I love to pair these two quotes.

It's Bill Gates. He said, if I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations and that's earned media. And it's all about putting it out there so that people know the story. If you're not telling your story, somebody else is, and more than likely somebody else isn't.

Mike: I tell my kids now we're in a remarkable time because there's no middleman. There's no middleman for the book you want to publish or the movie you want to put out or the press release and things like that. as we're talking here now, I'm wondering what is missed by not having a middleman if you can get a hold of a press release and put out the same exact social post, but now you said, look what somebody said about me or the customer testimonial, that distribution's getting [00:08:00] out there, but it's a different twist to it.

Saul Marquez: Yeah, it is. it gives you credibility. Like that's what it's about. It's about credibility and, people need to know that they can trust you 

PR is great because you get other outlets to tell your story for you. And then all of a sudden, when you start showing up in different articles all over the place, the assumption is this person knows what they're doing and they're having success. And you become de risked 

Mike: Do you rest? Yes.

Saul Marquez: So there's always a risk. If you're going to buy something, why should I buy from them?

Mike: My friend does plastic inventions on Amazon, whether it's a bird feeder or hanging up these. Tools, these, combi tools, you got a

Saul Marquez: Oh, yeah.

Mike: brush

Saul Marquez: I love those.

Mike: that

Saul Marquez: Those are cool. 

Mike: little attachment he puts on there to hang it up. And some other countries come in and his ideas and he's [00:09:00] always in these Amazon lawsuits and stuff with them. And, uh, I don't come in with a huge amount of wisdom, but I just say, Dave, right now you can't fight this and you can't fight that. And maybe you can't fight on price, but get as many as you can.

And I said, I don't even care if they're good reviews, but when I go on Amazon and I see somebody has three reviews versus somebody who

Saul Marquez: Oh, big time.

Mike: 180 reviews. Even if they're crap reviews, I know people are giving them attention and at least giving them a shot. 

I'm not a big believer in, you know, any press is good press, but there's something to that about there's. Talk going on. And so maybe I want to give that place a shot too.

Saul Marquez: Absolutely. Well said. And, and the reviews, you know, the reviews are critical

 if you could show that you are a credible source. The reviews, you're spot on Mike. Like that's a plus. And the people's ratings and reviews, I'll tell you, go look at your competitors, [00:10:00] ratings and reviews, I would tell you that that's a goldmine and it's a goldmine because you'll see what they're doing well

and things that people like about their service delivery.

 There might be holes in your offering, but you'll also see where they're dropping the ball and this will be fuel to help you with campaigns, but also in arming up your strengths against the competition. 

Mike: You know, Saul, that's a great idea because there's some stuff that people may not give you kudos for. Like, you might not see somebody say, boy, that Mike does a damn good job of keeping his back sidewalk clean in the winter, or something like that. you don't think about it.

Really you do it, wait till you see the negative review from somebody else because

going to praise you for a good

Saul Marquez: right.

Mike: They're going to bitch about an icy sidewalk. Now it's like, Oh. I care for the little old ladies that come in and I care about the neighborhood.

You know, all those ideas

Saul Marquez: Yeah.

Mike: from [00:11:00] somebody else.

Saul Marquez: Hell yeah. And then the next thing, you know, you take a picture of all the snow and your, and your clean walkway. Yeah.

and you make that one of your pictures on Google reviews.

Mike: Absolutely. Now, the problem is I'm talking snow and we had to back up a little bit here. I'm

to a guy who's sitting in Puerto Rico, 

Saul Marquez: Right, that's fair. 

Mike: is there on his own volition, but he's not. As a goal, to have a business like this, we're going to back up a bit here. So looking at your profile, you're in the med space stryker and Medtronic and all this kind of stuff. I'm probably cutting to the chase here , but you said, I want my own freedom. I want to. To do what I want to do, go where I want to go. Tell me the Genesis of all this.

Saul Marquez: I was in the corporate world for 17 years, 18 years. And I remember my heart was beating out of my chest. my palms were super sweaty. [00:12:00] I was in San Diego at the time and I was making the phone call. I was so nervous to this point. Mike, this is what I've been doing my whole career.

Like I was climbing the ladder. I was an executive at a med device company. And the night before I was talking to my wife and she knew I was frustrated, and like many of the people listening, I got tired of my good ideas being put on the shelf.

I got tired of having to work through a bunch of red tape, and I said, I'm ready to do this. She grabs my hand, Mike. She says, I'm ready to, let's do it. Like we're going to do this together.

Mike: this is before any foray into marketing or had you already had a

Saul Marquez: I've always been in sales and marketing. So the 17 years that I was doing it, it was always sales and marketing.

Mike: your own client base

Saul Marquez: Correct. I was doing it for other companies and I made the call and that was it. [00:13:00] The leap of faith to go start my own thing

Mike: And the

company and put in your 

Saul Marquez: my boss for the two, two week notice.

Yeah. And I, I had the best boss and I had, it was the best company. Having those 17 and a half years of experience was an amazing foundation, like a great grooming to be a business owner, like all the things that we did all the way up to the check. I was a sales rep all the way up to an executive, 

and all of the frameworks, all of the quarterly business reviews, the nine blocks to review talent, all that stuff, man, like structure that today is serving us well, that's helping us scale and grow. but it's scary when you make the jump, when you go from being an employee to having your own thing.

But I knew that I was ready and my mission had changed, you know, it went from climbing the ladder to we want to help 5, 000 healthcare businesses succeed because they deserve it. And. If you're doing something to improve our world through improving our [00:14:00] healthcare, you should be successful.

And the statistics are terrible. 50 percent of all businesses fail within five years and 97 percent of all businesses fail within 10 years. And we believe as a company that if you're improving healthcare, you should succeed. Your business should succeed. And that's why we're doing what we do now.

Mike: Yeah, that's an interesting take that you would think that the market is set up and of course got a ton of pharmacists listening that are saying, how does that math work out? But you would think that, yes, if you're succeeding in healthcare and people are getting better, you're adding value to it, then remunerated for that.

But I guess the tricky thing with the pharmacy is you've got. Holes in the market. You've got people not adding value, skimming things up. Well, not skimming it off, you know, like tipping it over and shaking it off, you know, with the PBMs and things like that. but in [00:15:00] general, yes.if you've got somebody in healthcare across the board, it's like one thing, if you're like. Building widgets. And you say, I've got a better widget and you don't know if it's needed and you don't know if it's going to break the market, all that kind of stuff, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to say, I'm improving health. We should get paid for this. And that makes a hell of a lot of sense. 

Saul Marquez: A hell of a lot of sense. Healthcare often doesn't make business sense. you have to understand operations, In order to make it work, which is part of kind of going back to your initial question around a non healthcare marketing partner.

because it doesn't make healthcare sense. You know, the way that it works, understanding how it works is critical in order to succeed. and so that's why some tech companies that come in. Thinking they're going to be super clever with technology and then they fail because they don't understand how it works.

You know, step one is [00:16:00] to understand how it works in order to be successful. 

And that's why what we do, Mike, we help businesses in this space be successful. And sometimes it's just that initial review to help you get your strategy in line. It's one and done. Oftentimes we engage and we become an extension of the team and an ongoing partner , you know, and everybody needs something different.

Mike: So Saul, let me get this straight. You call your boss, you don't have clients yet that you've been putting in some time with on Saturdays, or you've been writing some, thought sheets up or things like that. You called your boss cold. To jump into this?

Saul Marquez: I had conversations with people with the anticipation that I was going to do this

Mike: So you had your minimum viable product. You've talked to people, you don't have an order in hand, [00:17:00] but you knew there was a need out there.

Saul Marquez: Yeah, I did. And the reason why I decided on marketing services. is because of the data. at that point I had interviewed about 1500 people 

Mike: back up, Saul, on your podcast,

Saul Marquez: on my podcast. 

Mike: I got back up now. So I know you said you did your podcast, but you're saying that you had this podcast going.

Saul Marquez: The whole time.

Mike: You had that going the whole time.

Saul Marquez: Yes.

Mike: You were talking to these people all the time.

Saul Marquez: All the time.

Mike: When did the podcast start? And did you feel you had the clearance to do that? Or did you need it or whatever?

Saul Marquez: Great, great questions. So the reason I did the podcast is actually, when I was growing up, and in school and in college, I did speeches and debates. So I always was a fan of communications. I studied leadership and my last [00:18:00] semester of school, I was in Europe and my goal was to go and interview a bunch of leaders.

And I didn't do it. I actually ended up just traveling to a bunch of countries and I partied.

Mike: Of course.

Saul Marquez: It was so much fun, man. I have no regrets.

Mike: Yeah.

Saul Marquez: It was awesome. but I still had that unfinished business. Which I don't do well with. I finished things. So fast forward, I said, man, now's the time.

And I got into a groove with what I was doing. I was good at it. And, I started doing more things, to add value to, My customers and the industry. So I started the podcast and I started interviewing leaders and that turned into a phenomenal lead source for me while I was a leader at Medtronic.

Mike: Saul, besides the benevolence that you offered it, was it helping your bottom line? these people customers or any things

Saul Marquez: Well, yeah, like I started becoming my [00:19:00] customers at Medtronic. so it was the last company,that I was 

Mike: What is Medtronics?

Saul Marquez: a medical device company. They manufacture and distribute medical devices that help with various therapies from heart conditions to spinal issues, to neurovascular complications, you name it.

Mike: You had a pretty broad spectrum across the Medtronic line.

Saul Marquez: So, we did that and it worked, you know, and actually, I had a chat with my boss's boss at the time when I first started. And actually, Mike, at that time, I was. Just being very open, right , very candid And I was expecting him to say hey, you know what that's ridiculous.

You can't do this. You're working here, but instead he said No, actually that's really cool, man. if you get this to be something, maybe we'll even sponsor it. That's what he said.

Mike: Wow.

Saul Marquez: My boss's boss at the time.

Mike: How many years were you doing the podcast before you jumped?

Saul Marquez: it was [00:20:00] six years,

Mike: Wow. What year did that start?

Saul Marquez: So it was 07 or no, wait a minute. Let me, I gotta look on my LinkedIn. I don't even remember, man. It's been so long.

Mike: I got it here. Hold on.

Saul Marquez: Let me look.

Mike: I look here. So, the, Rocket 2016,

Saul Marquez: There you go.

Saul Marquez: when you've been doing it so long, you kind of forget dates.

Mike: us. That's like marriage. We celebrated our 33rd anniversary. It feels like a hundred years in a 

Saul Marquez: Ah, you cracked me up, 

Mike: So six years before you jumped, you started the podcast.

Saul Marquez: Yeah.

Mike: Wow. Did you feel like it was helping your bottom line financially? 

Saul Marquez: I'll tell you what, the podcast was funded by me, right? Like I was paying for it.

for the first three years, it cost me money,

but I didn't see it that way [00:21:00] for me. It, you know, like I was having a blast creating awesome content. And my goal. Going back to what we talked about, my strategy and goal was to be a healthcare thought leader and an influencer that was on the map.

That was my, that was my North Star.

Mike: So that is really something because there's so many people that have excuses, you know, I can't do this I'm not going to have permission from the boss. And, you know, here we are in a time where there's no middle people, like we talked about.

And I think people create the middlemen in their head. So they don't have to take that step.

Saul Marquez: Exactly.

Mike: Did it help you financially though?

Were these people, potential customers and things like that?

Saul Marquez: it helped me close deals

At my job, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, I create relationships and networks that help people.

so that led to [00:22:00] opportunities to, you know, help my company where I was working and growing. They did so much for me. I also did a lot for them.

So it was a great thing.

Mike: Right. 

Saul Marquez: It still is a great thing.

Mike: That is a really cool story. Who is it? Seth Godin. That's his thing, you know, be important where you are, be the king of where you are and offer this to your company and things like that.

So what a great lesson right there of pushing it when most people would make excuses,

Saul Marquez: I had a lot of people that said, dude, why are you doing this? The company's not even paying for it. I'm like, dude, the company's giving me so much, like

What I can do is be my best and do my best and add value. Like, that's it. I love it. So 

 guess what? I became very valuable, very indispensable. I was surrounded by a great leadership team that saw that. I was leading a division, I was an executive at the company. I was [00:23:00] rewarded for it, man. You know, even though it wasn't like a solid line.

It was a dotted line to growth and to this day, anybody, you know, I'll share with anybody listening, you know, if you're clear with your strategy and you're clear about your goals. That's the first step. Then you look at what's available. 

 podcasting, for example, we design a podcasting program for businesses to help grow, and the program is essentially designed to attract your ideal customers so you could create relationships and grow your business. And I have customers that are like through the roof. On the stuff that we're doing for them because of the relationships they're able to create instead of having to call and spam people and sell them stuff.

You're calling them to add value, to have them on your show. Like Mike, you and I, Our relationship isn't going to be the same as it was before because you just helped me, right? You gave me a platform to talk about what I [00:24:00] do, what my business does. You gave me a platform to add value to your people.

If I do so successfully, I'm going to be different. Like our relationship transforms after this podcast.

Mike: I've been in some service groups, you know, usually it's just for a nice lunch once a week, you know, but you've had some of the groups and they say, or church group, whatever,

Saul Marquez: Yeah. Yeah,

Mike: And they say , when someone joins, the way to get them really in the group is to try to get them on a committee right away. Get them putting some skin in the game and then they feel committed to it and so on. And, just to shout out to podcasting, Saul, you know, with this, when you had to have a guest on the show, there's like 12 contact points by the time you say, Hey, okay, you got this, the invitation, then you do this and you send it to them.

And then, Hey, how'd you like this? builds, Familiarity. It builds trust that you're going to be the guy that shows up when you say you're going to show up. I mean, there's a million things that grow and that's just [00:25:00] podcasting. I'll throw a ton of different stuff in there and it builds that relationship.

You're not going to get many other things.

Saul Marquez: totally. And, and a hundred percent, Mike, you nailed it, right? Those touch points through the process, the value add, In today's age, we've talked about this. digital, there's the opportunities to create relationships in person. They're, they're the strongest. So I would say in healthcare, there's nothing stronger than in person, going to conferences, meeting your customers the way they are, but.

I would tell you that one of the best second to in person you can get is podcasting and I'll share a couple stats. Instagram, two seconds, you got their attention. And email, one second to three seconds, you've got their attention. A TV ad, 10 seconds. a podcast, the average is 14 minutes. So not [00:26:00] only is this true with your audience, but this is true with the person that you're doing that episode with.

Mike: Absolutely.

Saul Marquez: when you're building a podcast, most people get it wrong. See, most people think that they're building an audience and that's true. But if you're a business, if you're a B2B business or a B2C business, and you're building a business, then the number one thing you could be doing with your podcast is attracting the right audience.

Type of customer to be your guest on that podcast. And let's just say you have a B2C business where you service consumers,

you just gotta take one step back and realize that that consumer has an employer. So like, if you know, your pharmacist, you start, start interviewing local employers and 

Reach out to the employers, get them to know you, build your podcast by interviewing local employers, boom. Next thing you know, you got this new flow of people coming to you because you just became buddies with the CEO [00:27:00] of that company. That's the way you succeed. The podcast funnel has two sides.

The listener and the guest. You will make money. By building your business through your podcast, by focusing that funnel on your guests.

Mike: Saul, what better way to get somebody on your side than to say, want you to talk about yourself for a half hour or 20 minutes,

Saul Marquez: Yeah.

Mike: And for our listeners, the reason we're talking this is I know, Saul, 

This is one of your services Outcomes Rocket is your podcast, but also, is it fair to say that's the name of your overall

Saul Marquez: It's the agency as well.

Mike: the agency. So Saul, you help healthcare people all the way from a single dentist to bigger companies. And it's these things, but one in particular is the podcast. And that's why we're giving some time to this because we like podcasts, but also a service you offer.

Saul Marquez: Correct. Yeah. It's one of the many [00:28:00] services we offer. We work with businesses that are in healthcare, whether it's pharmacists, physicians, healthcare companies that are doing a million dollars or more in business.

Or if they've raised 5 million or more, they don't, if they're not past the million dollar mark, they've raised. The money, and they have support for growth. That's her sweet spot. If they want to grow, whether it's podcasting or earned media or paid, We do all of it. we offer a 20 minute no charge session 

and we literally will sit with you for 20 minutes at no cost. Outcomes Rocket. com forward slash grow. We invite anybody that fits that category to reach out to us. Because we want to learn and grow. And if you don't hit that category, it's all good.

Check out our site for content. And it's the same, outcomes rocket. com forward slash grow.

Mike: On the podcast, mine, I'm kind of an old fart. I'm doing okay financially. I don't have to really pull much out of this. I'm not looking for customers from this. [00:29:00] theory, I could be. Talking to somebody who would be a sponsor of the show, I suppose. you don't need international and national exposure for things. You can have a podcast and I've heard it before. you could be a real estate agent. And let's say business real estate, you could have those businesses on your show. And then somewhere along that 15 minute show, you're talking about, what their expansion plans are, 

Saul Marquez: It's great, yeah, I mean, it's such a great relationship builder. So if you're looking for a way to expand your network and your relationships, podcasting is definitely it. I would definitely support it.

Mike: Even if you had those hundred potential customers and you alluded to it, you don't need a listener. This could go on Margaret's sound machine at night, you know, to put her to sleep. I mean, it's good to have some listeners, but you're building that relationship with your guests.

I mean, that's a huge part of it.

Saul Marquez: It is. And look, that's a great point. You know, the fact that your wife [00:30:00] listens to your show to go to sleep, Mike, , when you first said my wife listens to my podcast, I was like, wow. I'm like my wife, my wife would never listen to my podcast. She's like, man, I don't need to hear that shit.

Mike: I hear it enough. No, I don't get her to listen . At the beginning, I put it on in the car. We'd be driving somewhere and ask. And now I wouldn't put her through that. Now

Saul Marquez: I'm glad you're a smart man. 

 So this is what we say to your point. Downloads are vanity, contacts and contracts are sanity. That is a mantra that we have internally and that we share with our customers because we build things that help grow your business.

and so we're pretty pragmatic about the things that we do. and the number one rule to growing business is adding value

And by the way, the best way to add value is in ways that are not typical, actually, where you're actually flipping a paradigm, much like [00:31:00] I'm telling you, you know, you're building an audience, but your important person is the guest.

And most people honestly don't do that.

Mike: People listening might say, well, you're kind of building this up and the people are going to get like three listeners. I'm like, I wouldn't hide that. If I go to a dentist or, you know, pharmacist or something like that, and I'm talking to them about their podcast, I'm like, I don't care if you get put on Margaret's sound machine, it's like, you're going to get a podcast that we talked about it earlier, that you are important enough to be on a podcast. You know, somebody wanted to talk to you for a half hour. Maybe you have something that I want to listen to. And then you chop this stuff up, you get it onto social media. This person calls up their local reporter and says, Hey, I'd like to talk to you about this. And by the way, in my little byline they put as heard on the such and such podcast. There's nothing embarrassing about having three listeners to something. That's what it's about.[00:32:00] 

Saul Marquez: Absolutely. Yeah. And to your point, Mike, you know, put it out there, put it on your other channels, put it on your website, on your social media, on your email, put it at the bottom of your proposals, share it with the community because people.

In today's information age, people, when they show up to you, most of the time today, they're already ready to make a decision. They're, they're ready to decide if they're going to work with you or not. and the way you help them out is you put content out there for them to get to know you.

Mike: in the old days, and I'm aging myself with phone books now, but they would say that you don't advertise your business in the phone book it's there, but what you're doing is when someone's going down with their finger looking for a plumber. They're stopping at the person that they have some trust in, some knowledge of that comes from the podcast.

It comes from this kind of stuff. when they've gone to make the decision, when they're looking up your number to make a decision or sitting at their desktop, [00:33:00] typing your website in. They're only doing that because they think on a negative side, they think you're going to be the one that's maybe going to screw them the least.

They're not on the positive side. Maybe You're going to be the one that helps them the most, but it's a trust thing.

Saul, I know that one of the pillars you talk about is having a strategy. Why is that important? 

Saul Marquez: It really is. There was a time before I was in medical devices, there was a time when I really wanted to get in. I was actually a history major in college. I studied classical humanities and Greek and Roman history. And I wanted to get into med devices.

I was applying everywhere and I had put in like 50 applications one day. I remember getting a phone call from a guy in Florida who ran a business in Florida in medical devices. The company was Stryker and he called [00:34:00] me. It was my opportunity.

 And when I took that call, I was ready to take it. I knew exactly what my value was and I knew how to articulate it. And six months later, I went to go do my dream job. I got the opportunity and that's because I was clear about what I wanted and I was ready and the question is, will you be ready when your opportunity shows up? And I will tell you is the way you do that is you prepare by being clear about your strategy, by understanding your objective, And having that North Star so clear that when you start looking at all of the options that you have, you're going to be clear on, is it going to keep me on target or is it going to get me off target?

and you're going to be unstoppable. And so my advice and my call to action for everybody is to be clear [00:35:00] and be ready because your opportunity will come. And when that opportunity comes, be ready and take advantage of it.

Mike: So you and I talked, this podcast, it's like, I've always, say, mission statements are a bunch of flighty cloudy stuff but this show, it's the business of pharmacy. There's a million ways you can take it though. I took it. To conversations I could have taken it to an instructional podcast. I could have taken it to being always in the, the know the news podcast. I could have done a lot of things in the pharmacy business. If you don't know what direction you're going, you can pick up a lot of crap that's just keeping you busy, but it's not getting any closer to where you want to go. So sometimes it's, if you don't have that goal, you don't know where you're going, and you don't know what stuff you should say no to.

Saul Marquez: Amen. you're spot on. and that's really the core of it, you know, get clear, know [00:36:00] what it is, know what your options are and be ready. That's a belief that I have inside of me that I hold dear the way you make that happen is not to be a drifter, to be very clear about what you want. 

Mike: So Saul, we want people to hop on your site. give us that site again.

Saul Marquez: It's an outcomes rocket. com forward slash grow.

Mike: Books are maybe people going to go online that talk about some of this North star goal setting, things like that. It's such an important topic in this noisy world. You don't focus. You're not going to get there. What are some places in a general sense that they can go to?

Saul Marquez: One of my favorite books. True North by Bill George. He's one of the former CEOs of Medtronic. And that book is amazing, actually. It's one of the core ones that I love where in that book, True North, he talks about how experiences in your life or experiences that have happened in the world and how they [00:37:00] impacted your life are the checkpoints that define where you go from there.

The reason behind the things that you do and, you know, the why behind you do it. and so that's a really good one. you know, one that is on habits, that I think is crucial, is a book by Darren Hardy called The Compound Effect. The Compound Effect is one of my favorite books. He talks about how seemingly insignificant things that you do in your life over time will make a huge difference in your success or failure.

So those are two of my favorite books. we're often out there sharing our knowledge. outcomes rocket. com forward slash grow. , if you go to that website, you'll see the media room on our website so we're always putting stuff out there to help.

Mike: I would say for any of my pharmacy brothers and sisters listening. [00:38:00] It's like, if they don't think they have much to offer. It's like, go on your site and copy the damn thing. Instead of an article on, you know, giving away something on marketing, they can write something up about suntan lotion, they should be doing the same damn thing.

Talking to a local reporter and getting that kind of flair to it. So you're putting your money where your mouth is and you're putting your practice right out for people to see that they can repeat that, but in their own field. So Sol. great talking to you. Fun.

 I'm a pharmacist, but I'm really just a secret marketing guy.

That's all I really care about. These are the best conversations to have. I know you're busy. listeners appreciate it. I appreciate it. And, look forward to keeping in touch.

Saul Marquez: Likewise, Mike. True pleasure.

You've been listening to the Business of Pharmacy podcast with me, [00:39:00] your host, Mike Kelser. Please subscribe for all future episodes.