On this episode of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin goes through all the frequently asked questions we get about working with us and about the Fertility Marketing System. So, if you’ve ever considered working with us, but have been wanting to know more about how we work, this is the episode for you. In addition to answering all the frequently asked questions we hear, Griffin also elaborates on who is the ideal Fertility Bridge client and shares exactly what you need to do to get started working with us.
Find the Fertility Patient Marketing Journey here. And to read all of our FAQs, find them here.
Subscribe to our emails. Connect with Griffin on LinkedIn.
Ready to work with us? Visit us at FertilityBridge.com to get started.
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Welcome to Inside Reproductive Health, the shoptalk of the fertility field. Here, you'll hear authentic and unscripted conversations about practice management, patient relations, and business development from the most forward-thinking experts in our field.
Wall Street and Silicon Valley both want your patients, but there is a plan if you're willing to take action. Visit fertilitybridge.com to learn about the first piece of building a Fertility Marketing System--The Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. Now, here's the founder of Fertility Bridge and the host of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin Jones.
JONES
Right now I'm going to answer as many questions as I possibly can to show you what it's like to work with Fertility Bridge. Sometimes people are asking me questions because they want to skip levels in the step. And it's like, well, I know the answer to that once I know your situation, that's what you hire me for. But first, we follow the orders of this step. Sometimes it's because they just want to know what comes next. And you deserve as much information as possible to help you decide if we're a good fit for you because we have to make the same calculation about your group. If we both do a good job of that, the results are beyond rewarding. I love love love truly helping fertility centers and other businesses in the field when the fit is right. The same goes for my team. We talk about it all the time. Like, we talk about how much we adore the different doctors that we're creating content for, that we're running ads for, that we're doing their strategy and training their staff for--we do extra strategy for them. Because we love it, we joy in their success. They connect their patients and staff more easily, they have more control of their business, they earn more money, they sleep better. And we do too. And it's frickin fun. We get to watch practice owners glow when we bring their brand to life. It feels so cool. We had a client recently that just was like, ‘this is amazing’. And we were doing it over Zoom with their team and ours on a weeknight and they were with their families and they're bringing their kids into show them. It was just so rewarding. I just can't settle for anything less than that. We get to read stories from patients who tell us that they did something because they read a piece of our content, they watched a video, they saw an ad of ours that happened from training that we did. People that never would have gone through treatment if we didn't do some particular action. And we get to read about that when they're having their children, we get to joy in your success and it feels so good. So I can't settle for anything less because our field is so small. You know a lot of the people that we know and people talk so if you're not ready to engage with us, we completely understand we want to make sure that it's a good fit. I hope you get value from our libraries are free resources. And we just want to be successful.
So there's two things off the bat that we know we can't help you. So I just want to share this up front before we even get to the FAQs. These two things will help you know that this isn't what we do. The first is that you don't ask us to make unrealistic promises or charge you for something that isn't going to bring you the most value. The second is to call for free information, or worse, have your marketing people or office manager do the same. We'll talk about the first point. I know that many marketers think they're the cat's pajamas, they promise the world, you don't trust them. Many businesses waste all kinds of money doing that. That's why the Fertility Marketing System is so particular. And it's proven. It's because we don't do that. So I just ask that people don't ask us to do something that's out of order or ask us to sell them something for the sake of deliverables, or to make promises or to execute a strategy that we didn't devise. Because we can't guarantee that we can't help anything without evaluating the goals in the present situation. The second point is that we put out more content about fertility business, more than anyone--100 plus podcast episodes, dozens of articles, webinars, case studies, the book, literally wrote the book on fertility marketing, we've got two dozen logos on our website from clients that we've successfully engaged with in the past. We just ask that you don't have your office manager marketing person call for free information because it's all on the website. But more importantly, it's because of the time committed to do this for you. I want you to have as much of this free information as possible. But in order to do that, and to serve the clients that we love so much, we have a time commitment. So I hope you take advantage of all the unapplied knowledge that comes from the content we do. If you want us to apply that knowledge, we can do that in a very low investment, introductory engagement, we just can't be a real help through a call with one of your employees when we don't have when we don't have that information. So those are the two things that I ask because if you're not convinced that applying some of the insight that you tune in to the content for is worth $600 and 2 hours of your time between your principles and ours, if you're not convinced that applying that to your situation is worth it, then your expectations just might be too high or you just might be too skeptical for us to really help and it's totally fine. If that's the case, it might be better to take advantage of all our free information and resources. And then when the need and trust are present, link up with us. It happens all the time. And I like it and people trust us by that point and it's just a much better fit. So if you want to wait till the cows come home, you never have to do business with us. I hope you get to enjoy all the free stuff for free.
So now that we've just tackled those two things, to make sure that you're not coming to us for something that we really don't do. This is how we'll know if we'll be able to help you. I've listed out every question that I can think of and that my team could think of at the time. As more come up, I'll just add them here. Right now it's not categorized, but it gives you the perfect idea of what it's like to work with us and how we know if we'll be able to help you.
The first is who is the ideal Fertility Bridge client? The ideal client is the managing partner of a Fertility Center or the chief exec of a company in the fertility field, they're determined to grow. That can mean volume, it can mean patient and staff satisfaction, it can mean profit, but they're determined to grow. They work directly with our principal, which is me, Griffin, not through an office manager, a marketing director. Before our teams come together for execution, our teams will come together if we engage, and your team will work with the rest of the Fertility Bridge firm. But the conversation starts off between us principals. They're open to allow us first to decide which challenges are relevant. Second, to diagnose the problem accurately. And three suggest solutions that will have the greatest impact with the least disruption. They view their challenges as a need. That's important. It's something that has either caused their business to suffer, or it's standing in the way of what they know they want in their growth. They're concerned more with the return on investment. They're holding the return on investment rather than the investment itself. They're humble enough to recognize that there's always room for improvement. They know their competitors aren't slouches. Their competitors aren't all crazy. Our ideal clients have more humility, and they hire us because of our expertise. We're the only marketing and business development firm exclusively devoted to the fertility field. They're hiring us for our expertise, not because they need a vendor to check items off of a to do list. There's hundreds of 1000s of those people. We cherish our ideal clients. We talk about how much we love them and spend extra time on them. Especially when it's a reluctant CFO saying, ‘I guess this is working pretty good’--that meets the tippy top of our hierarchy of needs.
How do we work together? In the same way that you work with patients. Now, we don't help with clinical outcomes. We’re a business development consultancy and a marketing firm. These are just metaphors, but it's the same order, diagnosis and prognosis, which is our Goal Diagnostic; treatment plan, which is our Fertility Marketing Blueprint; initial application of treatment, which is either us Executing or Overseeing, Training, or Advising your team; and then ongoing application of treatment, if necessary. All those are detailed in the whole Fertility Marketing System, on the site and individual pages.
What should our expectations be? You're not secretly hoping for the false promises that many marketers have to make just to win your business. We don't want to do that. You're not unloading important positioning decisions that only the principal of the practice can make onto an office manager. I can't unload positioning decisions about Fertility Bridge on to my employees. So you're committed to solving a business challenge and reaching the goal. You understand that it takes time, resources, and that you might benefit from another's expertise. You're not looking for deliverables for the sake of deliverables. You appreciate that the high variance in fertility centers workflow and personnel means that your strategy probably needs a bit more diagnosis and customization than a turnkey solution. And you appreciate that we're not asking you to marry us without dating. We're not pitching a 12 month agreement. We're not asking for anything beyond the first Goal Diagnostic to make sure that we're a good fit. And to make sure that we can return the value at that level, you appreciate that we're dating before marriage, and that we're not trying to take your money, your time before validating the likelihood of success, making sure that you need our expertise in making a decision.
What services does Fertility Bridge provide? I put a useful table for you to see on the strategy side the big problems we solve, and then for your convenience, the execution of what brings that strategy into fruition.
Is business with Fertility Bridge confidential? Yes. As soon as you sign up for the Goal Diagnostic, you get a signed NDA from us off the bat. We take a reputation of being extremely trustworthy extremely seriously. There's a reason why people tell me a lot of things and tell us a lot of things. It's because we're Johnny tight lips. So you're never going to get that information about someone else from us. And that's important to know upfront too. If you're looking for insider knowledge about somebody else, it's not coming from us, not even our multi lab major city coastal groups with very different challenges than our one for docs, small market clients know what's going on with each other. When you hear me give examples on the podcast, you'll notice that the name, location, any identifiers, almost always down to the gender of the individuals are completely removed and that's by design.
Will Fertility Bridge work with my competitors? The fact that we only serve the fertility field is the reason that you hire us. The more markets that you're in or your competitors are and the more likely it is that we've worked with them, or that we will or that we do now, the answer that I just talked about with confidentiality applies here, we take great measures to keep all client information confidential. Please don't expect any information from competitors if we work with them, because you won't get it. And that same protection is provided for you. Each strategy is built upon each client's strengths and needs. We can't give someone else your strategy or we can't give you someone else's strategy. It is based on your strengths and weaknesses and what you're accomplishing. So Fertility Bridge can either help only your competitors or we can help your organization as well. But you should know up front that it is exclusive.
**COMMERCIAL BREAK**
I would be a bad fertility doctor, because I only want to take on the cases that I know are going to be successful. I only want people to say these sorts of things about me and my company, like Greg in Chicago: "Our resources are not endless. And I think that with Fertility Bridge, there's a much deeper dive." Or Dr. Young in Iowa, "I've gotten more positive feedback from patients from anything in the last 30 years of practice." Or Brad in Seattle, "You have multiple experts on your team and for, you know, a very small price to get that level of consulting for just a couple hours would be really valuable." Okay, you get the idea.
So this is how we set you up so you are 100% guaranteed to be successful in your goal over time. It's not a magical wand. Until you do this do not pass go, do not collect $200, and definitely do not get in any long-term commitments or launching issues.
You sign up for the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic at FertilityBridge.com. You fill out your Business Needs Profile, we establish your benchmarks and desired outcomes. Then we meet for our 90-minute consult. We provide you with business Intel revenue estimates and a competitive overview of the field to facilitate the prioritization of your goals between your partners and leadership team. Then we have a 30-minute follow-up, we tell you exactly what you need to audit and strategize to build your plan. I'll also give you one big marketing idea that will make you say, "Damn, that's good!" If we fail to do any of these things, we give you your money back because it's only $597.
And because I need you to be successful, because I need you to say all those really sweet things about me and my company, maybe even a gem like this one from Holly and Dr. Hutchison from Arizona, "If we didn't have Fertility Bridge, honestly, I think we would be getting closer to retiring."
There's no long-term commitment whatsoever and there's a 100% money-back guarantee. Send your manager to FertilityBridge.com, have them sign up for the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. And I will see you and your partners on Zoom.
JONES
Okay, Griffin, I know the initial offer is small, but I'd still just like to feel a bit more comfortable before starting the Goal Diagnostic. Can I talk with you before engaging? I'm happy to have a 15 minute conversation with you for your comfort level, provided that you're the managing partner or chief executive. Please take a look at the FAQ that I'm answering now on the site, listen to this podcast to make sure that it's a good fit. Look at the Fertility Marketing System page and listen to that podcast because we detail it all out and don't overthink it. The Goal Diagnostic is designed so that it's valuable for you whether we move to the next phase or not.
What size fertility organizations does Fertility Bridge work with? We work with publicly traded multi-lab, multinational, multi-physician groups, all the way down to the single REI practice and everybody in between. Smaller groups often need a complete business development strategy and help with execution. Larger groups with marketing teams sometimes need a segmented strategy. And sometimes they need help with advisory or training.
Do you work with all fertility businesses or just clinics? We've advised fertility pharmacies, gestational carrier agencies, egg banks, manufacturers at our smallest engagement or hire, we'd love to serve more. We think we have more experience than any other agency or consultancy does based on this. And a lot of it translates. But you should know that the standardization of our process and most of our experience has been with IVF centers, you should know that up front. And the Goal Diagnostic is a bit different, a bit more involved for businesses that aren't clinics, and it's $1500.
Do we work with startups in the fertility and IVF space? Oh, this is a hard one. Because we know what it's like to be new to the field and to not have any money. By which I mean, I know what it's like to be new to the field and not have any money. We'll engage with startups the same way we will with any other businesses in the field provided that there's a budget and that they're hiring us for our expertise. We get emails every week from startups that are interested in partnering with us or seeing how we might be able to help each other. I'm sorry, I just can't take meetings for these purposes. I want you to benefit from the free content. That's why I put out as much as possible, I hope that you're able to take advantage of every bit of it. And every now and again, I do make an exception to this rule because I do want to be helpful. I do want to grow relationships, some of the best relationships I have were from years before it ever made sense to do business with each other. But it's just not when people are looking for something for us to just help them with--that isn't what we do. So when I do make this exception is when the founders are just upfront and honest about their situation. If you tell me you're flat broke, and that you just want some free advice, I'm more likely to say ‘hell yeah, let's get on a call.’ Then I want to see how we can mutually benefit each other.
How much does fertility marketing cost? Here's the answer, fertility marketing budget equals the value of desired future state discounted for uncertainty. So this question is typically a sign that marketing is categorized as an expense--that's already predicted failure. Marketing cannot be an expense. It must be an investment. It has to develop the business and the investment has to be returned. The better judgment is whether the strategy will achieve a profitable goal. And to what extent? What's more expensive? You tell me. The ad in the Sunday Bugle that cost 200 bucks, but does nothing to impact the business? Or the Superbowl ad that costs $4 million, but it brings in $70 million in sales. Goal proceeds budget always. Similar to the question that you get, how much does IVF cost? You don't know if that person is going to need to spend six figures for a GC, donor egg, three cycle guarantee, or if they just need to do timed intercourse after the first consult. The same is true for us--should the single REI that wants to retire in two years be expected to have the same budget as a group that wants to scale their model across the country? Same thing--goal proceeds budget. We're evaluating Fertility Bridge by their ability to solve our challenge and meet our goal.
What is Fertility Bridge evaluating us on before moving on after the Goal Diagnostic? Great question. I'm looking for three things about you. One, is there big enough upside? If the new profit goal is less than $350,000? The answer to that would be no. Two, do we see the future in the same way? Three, are you able and excited to implement change?
Do you work with our marketing team? If and when Fertility Bridge engages with your company, our team happily works with your marketing team in ways that's detailed on the site to tell them the Fertility Marketing System , the conversation starts between the principals of your group and me, because we'll only engage if we will be absolutely beneficial to you. In order to do that we need assurance from the managing partners of the organization that they're committed to a successful outcome.
What patterns guarantee a fertility company's success in generating greater patient staff satisfaction and more profit, no matter who's helping? One, managing partners are aligned and committed to solving the business challenge. They're deeply involved in the beginning. And then they're periodically involved as the strategy is implemented to benchmarks are in place, mechanisms of measurement are sufficient. Three, strategy is established prior to execution to ensure that time and resources are proportional to the goal realistic for one person who can be helped by others. But one person is accountable for implementation. Five, one person who's usually different from the implementer approves all the milestones, they can consult the rest of the group, but one person is authorized to approve the milestone on behalf of the organization that's gonna help you with speed. Six, strategy is adapted if capacity is reached before goal.
How does Fertility Bridge help if we already have an agency or in house marketing team? Whether it's a marketing director or a full team, if you have an in-house marketing team, or an agency that you already work with, there's one of four reasons that you're approaching us and only one of them isn't a good fit for us. The first is overflow. Your current team is at capacity, you're looking for an outside agency that can take on that excess work. This is the only one that doesn't make sense for Fertility Bridge because we're consultancy first, and agency second. The second reason that you're bringing us on if you have an in-house marketing person or agency is to challenge us to push or even supplant the in-house team. Sometimes we replace existing teams, but oftentimes we don't. More often than not, we don't. The third is that you want us to lead them less to set the creative, the strategic, or technological framework of the work to come. Just as you have expertise that we couldn't possibly have. Because you're in-house, we have expertise that you couldn't possibly have, because we've worked with dozens of fertility centers from six different countries all over the world. The fourth is for knowledge transfer. You want us to train or grow your team, we offer formal training modules for most of our services.
Does Fertility Bridge execute strategies that you didn't work on? No, not every client needs a complete Fertility Marketing Blueprint, but you let us make that call in the Goal Diagnostic. If we're not engaged to thoroughly evaluate and potentially challenge the strategy. It wouldn't be valuable enough for you, it doesn't make sense to bring in a subspecialist for that. It would be like having a generalist come up with a treatment plan and then going to the REI to have them execute it.
Who will we be working with? First with me, the principal, then and our Director of Client Success and Project Manager--that's from the beginning, that's for sure. For other engagements, the rest depends on what your strategy requires. You can read more about our team on our website.
How often will we be working with you, Griffin? very much in the beginning and then episodically. You typically hire an expert advisor for pressing problems or initiatives at different times of your business. And then you'd hire an agency, coaches, technicians, managers for ongoing needs, help with implementation. So if your needs include both, you work with me for the former and Fertility Bridge team for the ladder and me episodically.
Here's a good one. I get this all the time. Before engaging with Fertility Bridge, does it make sense to work on some things ourselves? In some cases it would particularly if clinical or lab operations are preventing you from thinking about anything else, that the thing preventing you from focusing on the business, it does make sense to work on those before engaging us, where it's strongly urge you to engage us first or in areas like positioning, opening a new center branding, hiring anyone in marketing or Patient Relations, receptionist, call center new patient navigator, it's also better to engage us before you sell, quite frankly, because you will lose multiple if you haven't improved your EBITDA. And we don't work for any private equity firm. Sometimes they engage us and that works against us for the same reasons you do. But we don't work for any of them. So we can give you a balanced perspective. Before you make that huge decision.
How long will we engage for? 50% of prospective clients benefit from moving on after the Goal Diagnostic with us. After that, the average client engagements are four years, but that's an average. Some will be longer, others just need strategy and they go off in the implement it themselves.
How do we pay? Projects are paid in three payments over the course of project depending on the project size. Agreements are paid on the first of each month. There's a 5% each discount for paying electronically. This is all just to say that we don't do any 30/60/90. It's paid upfront and then broken up if it's a bigger project.
Do you come to visit our office? For the Goal Diagnostic and the Fertility Marketing Blueprint, we don't. All Fertility Bridge business is done over the video call. I do visit our existing clients and our Director of Client Success does as well, usually once a year.
Do you give references? As a matter of policy, we do not give references. And you might not even need us to because the field is so small, you probably know many of the principals of many of the organizations that we've worked with. We put those logos up on our website with pride. You might have their cell phone number on your phone, it's a free country. The reason why it's our policy not to give references is because it isn't fair to our clients to do our selling or advising for us, especially because they often pick a few that get picked on over and over again. They don't know your situation. They have busy businesses. They shouldn't be doing our selling or advising for us that puts a strain on the client relationship that we have with them. So we asked many of them to do a long video, a short video, we put them on the podcast, put it on the website, those are covered all throughout our website. So they don't have to do that over and over again.
Finally, Griffin, I'm not ready to hire you yet. How can I stay in touch? That's completely fine. There's four great ways. First, subscribe to our emails about fertility business, because this isn't showing up anywhere else. Second, subscribe to The Inside Reproductive Health podcast. Third, read the Ultimate Guide to Fertility Marketing. Four, connect with me on LinkedIn.
These are the frequently asked questions that we get. I put all of this on our website, because I want you to be able to make the decision as best as you can to know if we're a good fit for you. And I just ask that you don't ask us to do something that we're not a good fit for. Because the entire reason why we're doing this is so that we can have successful clients, people that are thrilled with the results, get that tippy top of the hierarchy of needs and can't settle for anything less because it's a small field. And it's just the way I'm motivated. So if you feel like it's a good fit, the engagement, the person engagement is very small. It's $600 for clinics, $1500 for other businesses in the fertility field, it's two meetings, if you feel like everything that you've listened to on the podcast and read from us is valuable to you to apply to your situation. That's how it starts. And it's zero commitment. After that it will be worth it to you whether you move on or not from there. And if you feel like you want to have your office manager or marketing director call me, it probably just means that you're just it's either not important enough to you or you're just skeptical and if that's the case, there's no reason to force it. Keep consuming content all for you for free. There's going to be more and kick me up when you are ready to do business.
I hope that you all are well but you got a glimpse of inside our firm and a huge thank you to our ideal clients. That allowed us to have this excess over the last few years because it is tremendously rewarding. And if it is a good fit, I hope you get to be one of them.
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You’ve been listening to the Inside Reproductive Health Podcast with Griffin Jones. If you're ready to take action to make sure that your practice drives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society, visit fertiltybridge.com to begin the first piece of the Fertility Marketing System, the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. Thank you for listening to Inside Reproductive Health.