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Organizing your Marketing Team for Success

Marketing is a huge part of a successful business, but marketing teams look different for every organization. Whether you have a marketing team, one marketing person, or no one solely thinking about marketing on a daily basis, we cover your business needs with resources to be successful. In this episode, Griffin breaks down the role of each marketing title, what targets they should be hitting, and what additional resources they need if any. You’ll be able to refer to this episode as a resource to understand the purpose of each marketing role, and more importantly set outcomes that they are being evaluated against.

Listen in to today’s episode to get the rundown on how to make your marketing department run more efficiently and effectively. 

4 Phases of Fertility Patient Marketing Journey: https://www.fertilitybridge.com/inside-reproductive-health/2017/10/17/fertilitymarketingfundamentals2018?rq=marketing%20journey 


Transcript

Griffin Jones: So now the next time that you say I've got a marketing team, I've got marketing people, you can use this resource to define what that actually means. And more importantly, you can use it to set outcomes that they're being evaluated against. To see where they're at and also to give them the scope and the skills of resources, the scope of skills and resources needed to achieve them. 

[00:00:24] Narrator: Welcome to Inside Reproductive Health. The shop talk 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.

[00:00:43] If you're willing to take action, visit www.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.

[00:01:04] Griffin Jones: Should you fire your fertility marketing director? Whoa, let's find out first. Let's find out what they all do. That's what we're going to talk about on today's episode. So you've got yours truly, because we're going to go in depth on all the marketing roles before we get into the meat of the show.

[00:01:20] Today's shout out, goes to Alex Lagunov a lab director from Toronto and giving a shout out to anyone who worked at Hannam Fertility. At that time, Alex and friends took me out at a CFAs meeting when I didn't know anyone in the field. I think it was maybe my only my second or third meeting ever in the field.

[00:01:39] And that kindness is something I really remember fondly. So hopefully Alex hears this and I get a text or an email about it. Today's show, should I fire my fertility centers, marketing director. We're going to be talking a lot more than just about marketing director. We're going to talk about all of the positions and not just clinics too, because some of these positions are a lot more common in other parts of the fertility field.

[00:02:04] If your team isn't getting the results you want, it might be all of their fault, but it might not be, it might be all your fault. It might be nobody's fault. REI partners, IVF, execs want to step out of marketing responsibilities for good reason. It falls below the top chief executive seat, and you have a lot of number of seeds to occupy, but you can only fully walk away.

[00:02:28] When someone else is completely in charge of the outcomes, if you walk away, but the person that you're delegating to, isn't responsible for those outcomes or doesn't have the authority or resources to do it, then there's a mismatch and you still have that responsibility in your lap, even though you're paying somebody to do it.

[00:02:46] The outcome is what matters. When outcomes go unreached. Even when they are clearly defined, it might be because the staff is incompetent, but it's more likely that. Expectations are set without any real understanding of the experience, authority, skillset, and breadth that goes in to ensure that success.

[00:03:09] So I want to detail it for you across these positions today, before you go firing or hiring anybody, understand these roles, and then I'm going to give you the outcomes for each of them. It's physician liaison, starting on one end marketing coordinator, marketing manager, director of marketing, vice president of sales and marketing.

[00:03:29] And then chief marketing officer, sometimes people go by chief revenue officer, but far more important than the person's title is what they are actually responsible for. Sometimes there's big mismatches in our field. So just because you say, Oh, I've got this title doesn't mean that's the person they might be under titled underpaid or vice versa.

[00:03:55] You may have heard me say this saying before that marketers are North Korean officials and practice owners and executives,

[00:04:08] you may have heard me say this before.

[00:04:14] You may have heard me say this before marketers are North Korean officials, practice owners and execs are Kim Jong-un that can be replaced for any marketer and any business owner and client. But what I mean by that is it's a vicious cycle where one person is saying, I'll tell you whatever you want, just please don't kill me.

[00:04:33] The markers values often because of this ambiguity or the mismatch is so intensely questioned that they'll often say anything to keep you from terminating them. And that's a negative feedback loop because you're so skeptical of the value of marketing. If that's you, that those in your employ again, if that's, you frequently feel compelled to exaggerate the results or make promises that they can't keep, it happens all the time.

[00:05:01] And that's fortified because marketers. Very often feel threatened by one another and for good reason, because in their attempt to justify their livelihoods, they're notorious for throwing each other under the bus. If you hire a marketer, whether it's an agency or an in-house person, and you have them critique here your current marketer they're very often going to throw them under the bus, even sometimes a very authentic experts do that. And you ain't going to get that from me because I don't want to live in Pyongyang. The people that are so eager to put somebody else under the bus and put somebody else's head on the chopping block, don't realize that it's their head that they're rushing to put on the chopping block in replacement.

[00:05:45] They don't take the time to end the vicious cycle, frankly, because it's often not in their interest for doing so. It's the big hefty promises that they make that get them the opportunity. So calibrating expectations doesn't really serve them. They are often punished for doing the right thing. That's why we do it upfront.

[00:06:05] So we're going to talk about defining outcome and equipping for success. Many of you say that you have a marketing person or marketing people, and very often don't know what that means. Say it, in those terms, marketing person, marketing people that could mean any number of different things. That's why we're going to go through this range today.

[00:06:23] This ambiguity is the source of a lot of frustration, because they're are essentially paying someone to increase your top line. I know that's usually what you have in mind. If that's what you're hiring someone for, but that doesn't mean that they're in a position to do if your marketing people don't have hard figures to put in the outcomes, I'm going to give you XYZ fields.

[00:06:46] If you don't have actual numbers to put in those, then you don't have outcomes for them. They need to be the first section of the job description and they need to be the exact metrics for which you're interviewing on and which you're evaluating their performance on. Sometimes marketers don't want practice owners or the execs of fertility companies to do our goal diagnostic.

[00:07:12] Why would they feel threatened by such a small engagement that has no duplication that has no commitment it's just a small evaluation from our firm. The only one that sub specializes in the field.  When that happens, it's often because they're afraid that we're going to come in and tell their bosses everything that they're doing wrong.

[00:07:35] And that's usually not actually the case. If your marketers are totally inept, we promise to tell you that, but more often than not, we're going to show you where they're under resourced and where they're being held accountable for things that they don't control. Frankly, because you are their only source of income.

[00:07:55] If they piss you off, they lose their job. We have many clients and we don't need any particular new ones. So we're in a much better position to challenge you than they are more likely at play is a lack of defined outcomes, a mismatch in position and/or a lack of resources and authority could be any one of the three or a combination of the three pay attention to the responsibilities and outcomes.

[00:08:23] Because again, misalignment is so rampant, we're going to start our overview today with the most junior end of the spectrum, which sometimes even the smallest practices don't even have. And then we're going to work our way up to the largest level. Which only the biggest companies in the field have. Let's start with physician liaison.

[00:08:48] This post often falls at the junior end of the spectrum because a lot of them are just walking billboards. They don't really impact referrals. They drop off donuts and bagels and pamphlets, and they don't really. Impact your business, the best ones, however, are worth their weight in platinum. They're not junior.

[00:09:09] They know the exact things that they need to do. They know the exact things that they need to differentiate your clinic and to actually be the liaison of the relationship. Let's take that word literally. It's your relationship as a provider, as a physician, that they are the custodian of and. The people that are really good at it, disrupt referral patterns from competing practices that maybe sometimes people have been referring to a long time because they give them a reason to change those referral patterns.

[00:09:44] They build new ones, they grow them and then they're handsomely appreciated and compensated because they are so darn good. Their mission statement. I'm gonna give you a mission statement for each of them, increase referrals from OBGYN, PCPs, and other specialists by building and growing and nurturing relationships.

[00:10:05] It is not reasonable to expect from them increases from other referral sources, responsibility for revenue or profit, a creative expertise that digital expertise. These people are just the physician liaisons. Now here's the outcomes grow MD referrals from Y to Z. You have to have a Y you have to have a Z grow referral.

[00:10:28] So from X target accounts, that's both a number and very specific 10 to 20 target accounts that you said, we want more referrals from these people. And so that X needs to be. Identified and the Y to Z need to be enumerated.  They also grow referrals from employers and insurance and benefits providers groups because that's such a big part of our field now. So you want to have Y to Z for that growing part for the companies that use progeny and carrot and others.

[00:11:07] Create X referring provider materials. That's a little bit more of an input than an output, but I, I put it on there established reporting system to account for all referrals by office, physician, and month. The way that your people report to you, that your PLS report to you is critical. The resources they need to be successful in their job.

[00:11:27] Is accurate reporting, accurate. Multi-source not single source, new patient referral sourcing, multimedia referring provider materials, not just pamphlets. They need to have a number of different resources that they can engage people with physician participation, your that's, your participation. They need training on your clinic.

[00:11:47] A CRM or reporting system. And then if they do have a CRM and they need CRM training, we're still on the junior end of the spectrum. And now PL can sometimes be like a thing of its own because it's physician liaison, you have more junior PL's, you have more senior PL's. Now we're really going into marketer, not just physician liaison, starting at the junior end of the spectrum is marketing coordinator.

[00:12:12] This is a very catch all term and probably for a good reason, because even when it goes by one of the other titles, this range of responsibilities is very common for fertility clinics to have in-house it, isn't realistic to expect someone at this level to be responsible for revenue sales. Procedure volumes or even leads.

[00:12:33] That's a problem because very often, if you're thinking I've got a marketing person and you have someone at this level, you are thinking I'm hiring a marketer because I want them to increase the top line. That's not really what this person does. Their marketing coordinator as with most junior positions.

[00:12:52] Outcomes are seldom assigned to junior positions because they're so task oriented, but even the most junior marketers ones that don't have any control over revenue or profit, they should at least have defined outcomes that way, if they're hitting them and if they are hitting them and they're hitting them well, they may be worthy of higher outcomes and a higher position, higher pay, et cetera.

[00:13:16] When you're making their outcomes, resist the temptation to put their inputs as those outcomes, the number of pamphlets designed social media posts, articles, events, those are all inputs. And I may have made one. Exception, but I'm going to give you those outcomes. The mission first is to execute some aspects of the marketing strategy and coordinate the rest with the other parties involved.

[00:13:43] That's what a marketing coordinator is. They coordinate, it's not reasonable to expect responsibility for new patient volumes ownership. The sales & MD referrals, not for them to do, to make the strategy or to have technical and creative expertise in all of the verticals, the outcomes that they should be responsible for.

[00:14:02] Our plan and build X informational events, increase attendance at informational events from Y to Z. That's a good outcome because it's not, micro-managing all the tasks that they need to do. It's Hey, we are doing these egg freezing events. These IVF events increase it, where it would be in 10 people per event increasing in the 20.

[00:14:21] We're doing 30. Increase them to 40 increase attendance at informational events from Y to Z. Increase patient testimonials from Y to Z increase social media engagement from Y to Z. If you have Y to Z for each of those individual outcomes, and even with a really junior position like that, you don't have to micromanage every task that they're doing.

[00:14:42] You delegate that outcome, and if they achieve the outcome then there's opportunity for advancement. And if they don't, you're probably looking somewhere else. The resources that they need to be successful in. This are. Participation from providers and leadership in events and content. If you have them coordinating content, you're the star of the show.

[00:15:06] And so if the provider, the partners aren't involved, the content that they create is not going to have a big. It's not going to have a big result. They need a marketing strategy. They need someone else to give them the plan and say, do this. They need a brand guide. They need technical assistance on some different things.

[00:15:27] Whether it's web development, paid media cinematography, because one person can't do all of those things. They need an events budget, and then they need training on social media. The marketing coordinator is mostly responsible for columns in the first phase of the fertility patient marketing journey.

[00:15:45] And if you want to go back and check what that is, that article, that page is on fertility bridge.com and we'll link to that as well as the episode where we talk about the four phases of the fertility patient marketing journey in the show notes. Marketing manager comes after marketing coordinator and before marketing director.

[00:16:06] So I'm not going to outline the mission or the outcomes here because it's very often just a hedge Sometimes at pharma companies that actually is legitimate position because they do have that marketing hierarchy very often, it's just someone that is under titled as a marketing director over titled as a marketing coordinator.

[00:16:26] So I'm going to talk about. Director of marketing in more detail, because that's enough different from marketing coordinator and marketing manager, the director of marketing or your marketing director. And I don't think there's any difference between those two director of or marketing director. Maybe one gets paid a little bit more.

[00:16:44] Maybe if they look on Glassdoor, one version of spelling gets paid more. So that's why they asked to be titled that way. But it's the same thing. The person oversees the execution of the marketing strategy. So they are the ones that make sure that it gets carried out at this level. They can be responsible for new patient numbers and they should be or if they're on the business side sales qualified leads, they.

[00:17:12] Can contribute to the strategy very often, very meaningfully, but they shouldn't be expected to have all of the experience or skillsets needed to craft the strategy. And the same is true with brand. These people are excellent brand guardians. When you have a good person. But to have the creative design experience to build a brand, shouldn't be expected of this role.

[00:17:36] They should be responsible for bringing people in the door, but if you want them to actually be responsible for revenue, that's not this role. So we're still at the point where you're hiring someone in your thinking I want them to increase the top line. This person can't be expected to do it by themselves.

[00:17:55] Or again, this role you might have someone that's. In this title and more qualified to do that. But again, I'm talking about the role, not the person. So if you're a marketing director and you said, Hey, I do those things. I'm not that junior. It's, this is a mid level position. And I'm talking about the role, not about you.

[00:18:16] You might be better off in a more senior position, but if you are going to have that more senior responsibility over revenue, you need a greater level of authority. And cross-functionality for that. The mission of the marketing director is to increase new patient volumes or sales opportunities by directing the established marketing strategy.

[00:18:39] It's not reasonable to expect them to be responsible for revenue,  complete strategy, technical and creative expertise in every vertical. Their outcomes are to increase new patient inquiries from Y to Z increase qualified sales leads from Y to  Z. Increase new patients from Y to Z, increase X consults from Y to Z? 

[00:19:02] 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.

[00:19:23] Well, Dr. Young in Iowa, I've gotten more positive feedback from patients from anything in the last 30 years of practice where Brad in Seattle, you have multiple experts on your team and for, a very small price to get that level of, uh, consulting for just a couple of hours would be really valuable.

[00:19:48] 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 magic wand. Until you do this, do not pass. Go do not collect $200 and definitely do not get in any long-term commitments or launch initiatives. You sign up for the goal and competitive diagnostic at fertilitybridge.com.

[00:20:09] 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.

[00:20:27] 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 five 97. And because I need you to be successful because I need you to say all those really sweet things about me and my company.

[00:20:50] Maybe you've been to a gym like this one from Holly and Dr. Hutchison from Arizona. I have, we didn't have Fertility Bridge. Honestly. I think we would be getting close to retiring. There is no long-term commitment whatsoever and there's a hundred percent money back guarantee. Send your manager to Fertility Bridge.com.

[00:21:09] Have them sign up for the golden competitive diagnostic. And I will see you and your partners on zoom. 

[00:21:16] The resources that a marketing director needs to be successful is positioning from the partners and executive leadership. They can't make the positioning, the marketing and business development strategy.

[00:21:28] Again, they can really contribute to it, but they will need help building up a brand guide. Budget proportional to new patient or sales goal. I have to have a realistic budget, an external agency to do the technical and creative areas. A CRM. If you're a sales organization, most clinics don't really need one access to scheduling system.

[00:21:50] And oversight of call center. That's where you start to get into the cross-functionality. But if you really want them to impact new patients, they have to have a say in how the call center does their jobs. They have to have a say in scheduling.

[00:22:05]We are now on the senior end of the spectrum. This person is sometimes called the president of marketing. Sometimes the vice-president sometimes senior vice president, but often it's vice president or senior vice president of sales and marketing because this title is not very common on the clinic side.

[00:22:25] It's not too common to see a VP of marketing. It's a lot more common to see it on the industry side. And have it be a vice-president of sales and marketing, where they're responsible for both. And this is when someone can be responsible for revenue, cross authority. Is very important here. They need to have control over all four phases of the fertility patient marketing journey, not just the first phase, which you often equate with marketing.

[00:22:55] This type of person can be responsible for outcomes of revenue,  But they do need that authority to contribute to customer service, clinical followup, front desk, call center, delivery training. They need those to be set up for success, their mission to increase the total revenue of the company by increasing the number of clients or patients and to craft and lead the strategy for sales and marketing.

[00:23:24] Don't expect them to set prices. Don't expect them to be responsible for. Profit or at least net profit and don't expect them to have technical and creative expertise in every vertical. Their outcomes are increasing new patients from Y to Z increasing total revenue from Y to Z increasing X revenue streams from Y to Z increase X sales from Y to Z increase X procedures from Y to Z and create, marketing strategy. You have to fill out X.

[00:23:50] You have to fill out why you have to fill out Z. If you don't, you haven't given this person actual outcomes for which they're accountable. And that should be in the job description and it should be what they're evaluated on every quarter however often you evaluate their performance. The resources that a vice president of marketing needs to be successful is a target for revenue, a bonus structure for revenue advice.

[00:24:16] They need advice. They need consulting. They need professionals on components of the strategy because one person can't be responsible for all of it. They need that cross functional authority. They need an external agency for those technical and creative areas like digital dev. Video, et cetera. And then they need either an agency or subordinates in-house to execute the strategy.

[00:24:39] They need a marketing coordinator below them, a marketing director below them, or they need to have, or they need to have an agency to do it.

[00:24:56]Now we're at the senior, most end of the spectrum of marketers in the fertility field. This is chief marketing officer. Sometimes they go by chief revenue officer. I don't know if I've ever seen the CRO position at a fertility company. It's not the superior of a CMO If it's the superior of a CMO, then it doesn't make sense because by virtue having the word.

[00:25:19] C in the title, a chief position, doesn't have more than two bosses at most one, the CEO to maybe the COO. If they have more bosses in that they're not actually a chief and this is a annoying miss titling that happens. Broadly in the fertility field broadly in business broadly in society. It's annoying.

[00:25:43] You're not a Chief if you have more than two bosses. So it's often to maybe elevate somebody that's in a VP or a sales position. But if it really is a chief, it does make sense for some of these companies to have this person. And so it really is a executive position. So I'm defending the position when it's warranted.

[00:26:07] If fertility companies are going to have somebody at the C-suite of this level of chief marketing or chief revenue officer, they have to have executive cross-functional authority. I don't just mean like an impact in scheduling. They need to be able to make decisions about those other parts of the business, because.

[00:26:28] As you move further down the fertility patient marketing journey. And that's just one journey. For example, sales is on the right end and that overlaps with ops a lot more than the earlier phases of marketing do. So where do you really make your money is in the conversion and that overlaps with ops. So your chief marketing officer has to have executive cross-functional authority.

[00:26:56] Because they're responsible for financial planning and profitability. They are peers with the CFO, their mission drive revenue and drive profit, build out positioning, set by the CEO and principles they can contribute to positioning. But remember only the principal of a company can actually set the positioning.

[00:27:14] You can't even delegate for this. I can't delegate for it as the owner of my company, nor can you, if you are the chief executive or the founding partners. Of your group, they commission the sales, marketing, and business development strategies. They are the ones that set all three of those do not expect of them to have technical and creative expertise in every vertical.

[00:27:37] They should be able to call on resources to have strategic counsel, whether it's consultants or anything, any other. Type of advisory that allows them to get that expertise, but you can't expect them to have expertise in every vertical. They've got the breadth. They don't have the depth in all of it.

[00:27:55] exp them to manage the strategy themselves. Don't expect them to execute the strategy themselves.

[00:28:01]The outcomes, the CMO or the CRO are responsible for are increasing revenue from Y to Z, increasing gross profit from Y to Z. They should have a profit goal increase profit on X services from Y to Z. Add X revenue stream. So CMO can actually add revenue streams. They create the BizDev budget. They create the.

[00:28:21] Marketing strategy, the sales strategy, they set those and they can actually set prices as well. The resources required to make them successful. A revenue, target revenue bonus. They need the financial statements. They need to be able to look at the P and L they need to have a profit target. They need to share in profit sharing is key for this position.

[00:28:45] I have cross-functional authority. They have an external agency that helps them with those tactics, like paid media development, cinematography. They have advisory on components of the strategy. They have a marketing director, they've got training for their marketing team, for their sales team. They have a CRM, especially if they are on the industry side, but even if they're on the clinic side, if you're big enough to have a chief marketing officer, you are big enough to have a CRM and should, and they have the authority to set prices.

[00:29:23]As we start to wrap up, I want you to be able to adjust these expectations because even the highest people still need some help. Now you'll notice a paradox, maybe that the more capable someone is of returning the investment, the greater the investment. And you have to be careful because the flip side of that isn't necessarily true.

[00:29:43] A large investment does not guarantee a return. When these expectations, when these outcomes aren't clearly defined in numbers, that person shouldn't be expected to achieve them either because of that or because of a mismatch in position or a lack of authority. And resources to give you an idea of how rare the people at the top end are.

[00:30:05] I looked for our account manager for 10 months. I source the heck out of LinkedIn. I cold emailed you. Probably. I talked to so many people that I knew asking for recommendations. I talked at some level like peripherally or not to 60 people or so, and. I was blown away by how few people knew about the business outcomes that they were going for.

[00:30:29] Not just the marketing activities, but the business outcomes that they're supposed to be driving for very few knew anything about revenue, profitability, or conversion. And that's not necessarily their fault because some of them were definitely incompetent. We'd never be paying them to have them on my payroll, but some of them were very talented and hardworking and could definitely.

[00:30:50] Rise to the occasion, but they didn't have those outcomes and the authority to actually pursue them. So the three or four that I did find that were really exceptional one I hired, but the others were, I couldn't sway them away because they were so well taken care of. So well-regarded because they are so valuable and they are so rare.

[00:31:12] And even when you do find that person, we have to talk about what, understand what it takes for them to do this. And even when you do find the right person you have to understand the scope of what's needed to successfully do their job, especially as things get more competitive as especially as you want them to have higher outcomes or more specific outcomes that the scope of sales, marketing business development is simply too vast for any one person to be expected to be able to do it all. I'll just give you a little example of a digital campaign, cause that's just one sliver of sales and marketing. A digital campaign is one little sliver for that one little sliver you need at least four people.

[00:31:53] You need somebody that can write to convert. You need somebody that can design. You need someone that is a master at analytics, so that they're optimizing it. And you need somebody that can shoot and edit great video. And I'm pushing it by putting that editor and shooter in one person's I'm taking, I'm pushing it.

[00:32:09] I'm trying to get five into four very often. You're trying to get all of it into one person. There are plenty of Jackson Jill's of all trades out there, but very few people are excellent at all of them. And before you tell me, you have a unicorn might want to think of that. Unicorn actually works for 80 grand a year.

[00:32:27] For a non-marketing company. And remember that's only one piece it's not realistic to expect one person. To have the breadth and the depth of all four phases of the patient journey and all of the different patient and customer journeys to put it in perspective for you. We've got 15 specialists on our bench for photo cinematography, conversion, copywriting development, graphic design, editing, animation, social media, marketing automation, SEO paid media, client operations, customer service, and.

[00:33:01] That's our bench. So for some companies, it makes sense to have one or two of those positions in house because their utilization rate is so high and you're using them for so much. Maybe you're using them from other things, but it almost never makes sense to have all of them in house. The cost is simply prohibitive and people often judge their marketers.

[00:33:25] Against us, for example why don't you do what fertility bridge does or why can't you do what Griffin and those guys do? And it's because we have a whole firm for this, you can't expect one person or an in-house team to possess both the breadth and the depth simultaneously just to manage. Those people that I told you about.

[00:33:45] I've got a full-time creative manager, a full-time project manager, full-time director of client success. Full-time ops manager, full-time digital strategist. These are all full-time W2's, but do nothing but their role, their sub-specialized role of marketing in our sub-specialty. And expecting one person or even a team of people on your team to have all of the depth and breadth just isn't realistic.

[00:34:12] It's not fair or reasonable to, to have that expectation of them. And even those that do have in-house agencies, even they need some strategic advice and some help from time to time. So now the next time that you say I've got a marketing team, I've got marketing people, you can use this resource to define what that actually means. And more importantly, you can use it to set outcomes that they're being evaluated against. To see where they're at and also to give them the scope and the skills of resources, the scope of skills and resources needed to achieve them.

[00:34:50] It's okay that your marketing people need help. If they're good, they can still return their value handsomely, even with the additional investment of training or strategy or help that you might be providing for them. You can hire internally for any of these roles or you can outsource any of them. It works both ways.

[00:35:11]Most fertility companies mix and match depending on their size and their goals for growth. You just have to make sure that the resources aligned with the correct outcomes, the correct position. If you have a full marketing team, they need training leadership strategy. If you have a chief marketer.

[00:35:28] They need strategic advice on very specific points of the marketing system. And they need people to implement them. If you have one person at the director level or lower, they need strategy and execution over those parts that they don't have technical or creative expertise.

[00:35:45]Maybe your team isn't capable of achieving the outcomes. Maybe they do need to be dismissed, but don't go firing your marketing personnel until you properly define those outcomes. Give them those necessary resources because if outcomes aren't explicit. Each party has left to fill in the blanks for themselves.

[00:36:02] That leads you to expecting more revenue, more IVF cycles or sales. And someone else thinks that their required outcome is just the task list that they have to do. And that's the source of a lot of frustration and should be borne out. And if you want our help with figuring that out.  You can get Fertility Bridge's help in selecting your marketing personnel, like where, when you're hiring for them, when you're designing their responsibilities and their outcomes, or giving them the support that they need to achieve that. And that starts with the goal and competitive diagnostic.

[00:36:35] There is no long-term commitment for that whatsoever. Four dozen fertility centers and a dozen other companies in the fertility field have done it. And you get that at fertilitybridge.com.

[00:36:48] I hope you enjoyed this episode. And that it gives you a deeper understanding of what's involved in marketing, what you can expect from your people and the breadth of responsibilities that are increasingly needed because we no longer live in a day and age where people spend half a percent of gross revenue on marketing.

[00:37:05] Now you've got. Wall street and private equity and venture capital and alternatives to coming into the clinic and tech companies that are going for leads. And in order to compete with that and actually achieve the business outcomes you want, but there is a spectrum of responsibilities and hopefully you can now identify that, make those outcomes for your people.

[00:37:28] Get them the resources that they need and hold them accountable so that, when they're working well or not. And if you need our help, just let us know. So I hope you enjoyed the episode.

[00:37:39] 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 thrives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society, visit Fertility Bridge.com to begin the first piece of the fertility marketing system, the goal and competitive.

[00:37:58] diagnostic Thank you for listening to Inside Reproductive Health.