How Relentlessly Taking Action Can Accelerate Your Career & Your Business
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Often times we over think and we over evaluate, especially if a decision is important to us. But being able to push ourselves and our brands to take action is incredibly valuable, because action gives us rich new data to make different decisions. That’s how we move forward.
In this interview with Scott Nelson, we chat about his journey and the key lessons he gathered over the years. Scott is a serial entrepreneur in the healthcare space. He co-founded redlight therapy company, www.joovv.com and www.bigskybiomedical.com, a Medtech accelerator and two other Medtech companies. He is also the podcast host of www.medsider.com, a podcast where he interviews heavy hitters in the Medtech and Healthtech industry.
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BONUS FREEBIE
Listen to the episode or click down into the podcast shownotes for a $99 freebie! I twisted Scott’s arm to get this, so check it out!
In this episode, we cover off on a variety of topics:
Starting Joovv, a company that brings red light therapy to the home
The basics of influence marketing (and influencer marketing)
The importance of branding and design
Selling is not only for sales people
Stories and learnings from the Medsider podcast
KEY LESSONS
Don’t be afraid, jump right in
Many professionals say they wish they had started taking a chance at a startup or take a swing at doing something different earlier in their careers, but there is risk involved, and people are afraid of taking that chance. But any decision is going to have a downside, and if you wait for the perfect moment to take the leap, it may never come. So, it’s important to take the leap, whatever that may be and you can do that with some preparation.
First, do you have evidence or legitimate information that supports your product or idea that can be used to “prove” its value to consumers? If it is an idea that people will consider “out there,” what can you show that will help them understand the value they will receive from buying your product?
For Scott, it was about real traction in the market when it came to evaluating Joovv a startup he left an agency job for “I always told myself in the back of my head, if we get to that magical $83.3K a month, which represents a million dollar business, that's the number I was after.”
Also, get to know people who know things. It can be scary to step out of your comfort zone and reach out to the “cool people.” Consider the opportunities you may have to network with people who are doing exciting and interesting things. Imagine the knowledge you can glean from their experience.
Taking a swing at something may not always work out, and you may have to try again, but sometimes you still pick up new skills or formulate new ideas just because you took a leap and jumped right in.
Tell an authentic story
One of the most important things for Joovv to get past was the inherent skepticism around red light therapy. There was not a lot of information out there and the truth was Scott was skeptical himself! He had to do some desktop research and read research papers to uncover the scientific and medical evidence in order to convince himself of the therapy validity.
Scott recalled how his own story became a narrative for the brand “It's definitely not mainstream to any extent, it's hard to even find information online about how this therapy even works. And so I actually liked to tell my story, build a narrative around something where a lot of people could relate to where the first reaction is like, this is woo woo and probably doesn’t work”.
Sometimes the narrative for your brand is right in front of you, your own story of transformation.
The right influencers have the right influence
Find influencers who can help market your product. Consider who your product is for. Who is your target audience? Is the influencer credible?
This may seem like an easy step, but not everyone who you think is a good fit will be a good fit. For example, you can have a KOL (key opinion leader) give a speech and reference your product, and maybe there are 300 or 400 people he is talking to at the conference, but if there is no hands-on experience with your product and the KOL cannot “sell” it to the audience, then it’s simply ineffective. No matter how much of an expert the KOL is!
Conversely, someone like health consultant Ben Greenfield, who is on Instagram and YouTube, has been a successful influencer on his podcasts because his audience is loyal to him and trusts him. He promotes the product and a high percentage of his audience buys it. Scott leveraged Ben as an influencer for their JOOVV product. This goes to show you that if an audience is engaged and the influence is good for your brand, then even someone with less “expertise” may be relevant to bring on.
On your end, spend time helping your influencers including your KOLs tell the best story possible. Make sure you help them present your information. This may mean making sure the data is up to date and accurate. Or maybe it means making sure you have professional pictures of your product or a video that shows it in action. The way to sell the product is to make it easy for audiences to understand how it’s going to help them and why they need it. When it comes to selling, spend extra time “thinking through a better way to present that information.”
“Packaging” and design matters
Everyone in marketing knows the way your brand looks matters – the logo, colors, and the word font you use. Consumers (yes, even in the B2B setting) are drawn to a product, a company first by how it looks. And some people think that’s where marketing ends, that it’s not important past the aesthetics. However, story and everything surrounding the message matters. That’s not to say a product, a pitch, a data presentation with an ugly design won’t sell. But how much more resonant could the content and offering be if it were more pleasing to the eyes, more digestible by the brain? When everything comes across as “more polished and more designed,” it can be more successful.
Scott emphasizes the entire package “If I'm presenting this deck, even if it's not for investment, maybe it's for a strategic partnership and it looks really ugly and it doesn't tell a cohesive story, it’s basically a bad presentation”
This concept is somehow lost on those in the healthcare industry, where you will see consistently in big healthcare conferences where presentations are so cluttered with data and seem to lack of any sort of storyline. They end up hurting the overall perception of what’s being presented. So pay attention to the design and the story you are trying to tell.
Become a Salesperson
Learn how to sell your product. Everyone is a salesperson, whether they recognize it or not. You sell your spouse on why you need this new tool or gadget. You sell your boss on why you need a raise. You sell your financial officer on why you need new software or a new copier. Selling is just a way of convincing people to do what you want them to do. It is selling a vision. “It’s a skill set that everyone should get better at because you’re always selling something.”
Someone once said “if you are the general partner of a law firm, you’re the head of sales, if you are the CEO of an agency, you’re the head of sales” Scott agrees and says selling is just you trying to paint a picture of something that doesn’t yet exist. You want it to exist, so you paint an image of what life will look like if it does exist.
“the biggest aha was that everything, all decisions involve some sort of salesmanship game”
It’s easy to sell someone on a product when you know it is in their best interest and you believe in the product. Because then, it’s not about you. It’s about trying to help the consumer see that this is a good decision. And if you don’t try to help them see how your product is something they need, something good for them, then you are depriving them from the benefits of using that product. So, learn to sell it.
Where you can find Scott
Ways I can help you
Download free guides (Healthy Brand Blueprint & Branding 101) to help you build healthy brands
Work with me as a fractional CMO/CBO or through Healthy Brand Consulting (Schedule a 15 min intro call)