Jennifer "JJ" Jones is VP of Global Marketing and Product Development at TIDI Products. Motivating others to produce, with a driving initiative to see results, has been one of the hallmarks of her leadership style throughout her career. Effectively understanding the needs of the customer, whether articulated or unarticulated, was the key to success in the product lines she supported - Spine, Biopsy and Procedure and Diagnostic Trays. Jones has years of experience being a leader in marketing, as she is currently the Vice President of Marketing at TIDI. At TIDI, Jones leads global marketing and product development strategy for their expanding portfolio of products, including specialty drapes and falls prevention.
Jones has an undergraduate degree in marketing with a graduate degree in health care management. She is married to a musician and is mom to a son.
To contact Jennifer:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-jones-ab0b8744/
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If you'd like to talk to Terry McDougall about coaching or being a guest on Marketing Mambo, here's how you can reach her:
Website: https://www.terrybmcdougall.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrybmcdougall
Email: Terry@Terrybmcdougall.com
Her book Winning the Game of Work: Career Happiness and Success on Your Own Terms is available at Amazon.
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Here's how you can reach host Terry McDougall:
www.terrybmcdougall.com
www.linkedin.com/in/terrybmcdougall
Terry@Terrybmcdougall.com
Her book Winning the Game of Work is available at Amazon
Jennifer "JJ" Jones is VP of Global Marketing and Product Development at TIDI Products. Motivating others to produce, with a driving initiative to see results, has been one of the hallmarks of her leadership style throughout her career. Effectively understanding the needs of the customer, whether articulated or unarticulated, was the key to success in the product lines she supported - Spine, Biopsy and Procedure and Diagnostic Trays. Jones has years of experience being a leader in marketing, as she is currently the Vice President of Marketing at TIDI. At TIDI, Jones leads global marketing and product development strategy for their expanding portfolio of products, including specialty drapes and falls prevention.
Jones has an undergraduate degree in marketing with a graduate degree in health care management. She is married to a musician and is mom to a son.
To contact Jennifer:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-jones-ab0b8744/
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If you'd like to talk to Terry McDougall about coaching or being a guest on Marketing Mambo, here's how you can reach her:
Website: https://www.terrybmcdougall.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrybmcdougall
Email: Terry@Terrybmcdougall.com
Her book Winning the Game of Work: Career Happiness and Success on Your Own Terms is available at Amazon.
******************************
Here's how you can reach host Terry McDougall:
www.terrybmcdougall.com
www.linkedin.com/in/terrybmcdougall
Terry@Terrybmcdougall.com
Her book Winning the Game of Work is available at Amazon
Hey everybody. It's Terry McDougall. And boy, do I have a treat for you today? I'm bringing you Jennifer Jones also known as JJ, who is the vice president of marketing and product development strategy. At tidy products. Which is a medical product company. And we talked a lot about a whole range of topics, but we dug into how to be a good leader, who's empathetic, but also who keeps things moving. Moving, even during very difficult times, like what we've experienced during the pandemic. And Jennifer's team has accomplished a lot.
Both in terms of. Assisting in the battle against COVID because. Because they do manufacture. A lot of the medical supplies and equipment. That frontline caregivers are using as they battle COVID, but they've also innovated and launched new products during the pandemic. Jennifer. Jennifer and her team have supported their employees during this time. And I'm just thrilled to bring her to you because I think that she's going to give us a frontline view of what goes on in companies that are supporting the battle against COVID. But also she's going to demonstrate how somebody can be a great.
And empathetic leader during very difficult times. And speaking of difficult times, if you're finding that your crossroads, you're having a hard time figuring out what direction to go in with. Your career or as a leader or keeping your team. Motivated and cared for. please reach out to me and set up a free. No obligation. Exploratory call. I'd be happy to talk to you to see if there are ways that maybe we can get you on the right path.
Path. So that you and. and. your team Are tapping into your fullest potential Without burning out So now without further ado, let the Mambo began.
Hey everybody. It's Terry McDougall with another episode of marketing Mambo, and I am honored to have as our guest today, Jennifer Jones, she is the VP of marketing at tidy products she leads global marketing and product development strategy.
Tidy is a medical products company whose purpose is to support caregivers and protect patients. Boy, nothing could be more relevant than what you do. So Jennifer or JJ. Welcome. Thank you. How are you today? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for having me. I'm pretty excited about our conversation today. I've heard so much and seen so many of your podcasts today, so I'm honored to be able to hang out with you for a little while about your we've been doing hi.
I'm really honored to have you, and especially because we're both B2B marketers now. Obviously in different verticals, but I think that there's a lot of, commonalities and, I was really excited to have you, also, because I feel like what you do and what you faced over the last say close to two years now is on the front line of what we're all experiencing in the medical products, industry, how has that been.
Yeah, it's funny, Terry. I mean, I've literally only been in healthcare my entire career. So this is only industry I know. And I would tell you that throughout certain pockets of my career, it has been really rewarding to be, hand in hand with our clinicians across globe.
And specifically even now in the United States. So it's always been a very giving and rewarding role and rewarding job. I would say the last two years, our purpose and what we do, couldn't have been more evident. Right. And I would say that the interesting challenge is that historically, when things have happened, we've still been able to engage with our customers in person directly.
And this is probably the first time in my entire career. Our ability to support our customers had to change drastically. For the better part of a year, from a marketing standpoint, I could not go into a hospital because either they wouldn't let me, or it was not safe for me to do so.
So my ability to engage with the in customer was different. And so I had to learn and experience their current environment in a very different way. We had to experiment with things like this. How do we have web conferences with nurses that are literally. Just getting off of work and sharing with us what's happening behind the doors.
And so I think that in and of itself made this timeframe different and unique, but then when I look at the media and see people wearing eye protection to digitally, seeing someone wear a blue gown, it is possible that they were wearing something that we produced and it couldn't have been more rewarding, through that journey.
So. I would say definitely a different time, but my career and our purpose to support caregivers and protect patients literally was extremely evident since the pandemic started. Yeah. It's funny about how we can take for granted things that in normal times, we'd probably never think about like as somebody who's never worked in healthcare. I didn't know what PPE was, but of course we all know what that is now.
And certainly you probably never really thought that the demand for something as basic as what you guys produce spike the way that it did over the last 22 months. It's interesting. You said it's very, I mean, I think strategically as a business, our focus was not PPE. I'll just be very Frank.
I mean, We had an eye protection. So it's called the face shows that you see the folks where we're using to protect their eyes, but also their mass and be able to wear them for an extended period of time. We had that segment in our business, but it really was not our primary focus and overnight. When we looked at what was on our wall as our mission to support carrier, to protect patients, we literally had to make a decision really driven by the vision of our CEO to pivot our focus pretty quickly to say, okay, let's one increase the availability of our protection.
It was took a lot of work from an operation standpoint, but then let's take the capabilities that we have and let's start making gowns because there was clearly a need in the industry. And we had the capable. And if we were going to deliver on our purpose, we needed to make that shift. So I think the beauty of this organization is that we literally are a very agile organization.
It wasn't something we discovered, when the pandemic hit. So it allowed us to flex pretty quickly. And then, thankfully we had those cut those capabilities in our facility, in our expertise that we could really respond to the needs of our customers. I agree with you, something as simple as PPE, again, that we take for granted.
So many things we took for granted, I think that the pandemic really showed us how important it was. That PPE dynamic and the availability of it became a pretty critical thing that I'm grateful that we had the opportunity to help solve that problem. Yeah. I really think that that's really sort of at the core of.
Marketing's role with an organization too, is just to have the finger on the pulse and to say, how do we need to adapt to meet the needs of our customers? That's right. That's right. Yeah. And I, and I would say, you know, Terry, I think for us, it's been, the PPE was a big pivot, but the other part is that, we have products that help to support customers and our clinicians to help protect patients from falling in a hospital environment.
And as more. Shin started showing up in this environment and it's an interesting dynamic. So think about this. When a loved one goes in the hospital, typically someone is their parent or a husband or a spouse is in the room with that patient. And so they actually in that environment helped to provide care and support for the patient while they're in the hospital.
Well, when the pandemic. Literally, took that net of caregivers in the hospital environment. It removed them out of the hospital. So now it put more pressure on nurses and staff to provide the support that family members provided in a hospital environment. So all of that created more pressure around monitoring patients and ensuring that they were safe and the census was high.
The number of clinicians was compressed. So in that timeframe, we knew we needed to continue to advance our portfolio from a falls prevention perspective. But how do you do that? If you can't go in and observe, how do you do that? When all of your folks that do the work are all sitting in their homes.
And so as a leader, really challenging my team to think outside the box, Try new things. Let's try doing voice of customer virtually. Let's try just having conversations with customers. See if they can, storytell enough for us to go and ideate. How do we equipped every engineer with the products that they need in their home so they can create.
And I think for me the amazing part of the team is that through this timeframe, Terri, Developed and launched two different products we have developed and we're in beta testing for a couple of other products. We did that literally since COVID started, when we weren't in an office together, most people were in their homes and we could not engage with COVID.
In person. So I think the flexibility, not just from pivoting, our focus from a product perspective, but even pivoting, how we might even engage with customers and develop has really been a difference for this organization. I'm super proud of what the team has accomplished. Well, it sounds like you have every right to be proud of what they've accomplished and it is interesting to me how, when crisis hits so often it really.
Empowers people to really go above and beyond. And, I think that it's been amazing, like an example that I've used since the beginning of, the lockdown is how, for example, we're talking on zoom right now that I was aware of zoom, I had used zoom a fair amount, but I know a lot of people had never even heard of it.
Right. But because there was no other option. All of a sudden people like my 80 year old in-laws are learning how to zoom. Right. And we did it out of necessity. We actually did. And, it is interesting to me about how.
Innovative we can be when we're forced to be. Right. And there was no option for you guys to just like twiddle your thumbs and just be like, oh, well we can't go into the hospital. So therefore we're not going to get to hang out and not doing things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the other thing that's just amazing for me and just makes me really humbled as a leader is all of this work happened with.
More than half of my folks have kids at home, right. Or more than, you know, 90% of my team like their, their spouses or their family members were also in the house working. And they spent days on end in their homes. And so they still found a way to press through all of that. Cause that was a lot, I mean, I had at that time he was too trying to potty train him.
It's a whole other. I had a little guy and that was hard. And then the emotion of the pandemic and not really understanding your path forward, like all of that coupled with not being able to undo the work the way we used to do. And the fact that the team could push through that and just do amazing things.
It shows you the power of people and creativity and, willingness to think differently and thinking again, all of that has just been, it's just been amazing and fascinating to watch for sure. Well, it's great that you recognize. The challenges that people had outside of work.
And what I'm curious about is how you as a leader, I mean, you just mentioned that you were potty training while you were working from home with your spouse and leading all of these folks to do new and innovative things for tidy, but what were some of the lessons that you learned or some of the things that you used as guidance to lead in this time of incredible uncertain?
Yeah, really, really good. Really good question, Terry. So I think a couple of things, one, I think everyone being in their home environment brought more humanity to the people that you work with and just real with an authenticity. And I think through that, and I've never been a leader that has like held who I am as a secret, but I think being more transparent about.
Hey, here's my struggle. Like it's been really hard to parent, right? In this environment, I'm really struggling with being locked down. So being very transparent with my team, I think gave them permission to also say I don't have to be perfect. So I think as a leader, I really did my best to try to say like, I'm struggling just as much as you are.
I think the other part for me, in leading in this environment is encouraging. Bring your kids in, like let's see the kids on zoom and it wasn't just like, let me check the box, but I really want you to know it's okay. That maybe your daughter is right behind you on her call for the class like that.
That's a gift that we actually get to see into lots of. So trying to encourage that and welcoming I think two babies born, during the pandemic, actually three babies born, since we've been on horns, he liked that was a gift to see these brand new babies. And those parents being able to, cause I was, you know, I had my baby, whole other story about how he showed up, but I know what it means to like drop your little one off at daycare and going into the office.
But it was a gift that those babies were like right next to them. And I think for that,, it was awesome to see, I think the other thing as a leader, And this environment is I try to be as present as I could be. When you're doing with like an, even in an office environment, you can easily be in your office all day and never see your people.
Right. And I think with the teams environment, it made it a lot easier for me just to drop in on. And just be an observer. I love, I was sitting in a networking session recently and one lady said like, what this did is it made everyone square the same size. So even though I'm the leader showing up, I had the same size real estate as everyone else.
And so I think that being more present, I feel through the pandemic. I've been more engaged with my team's work because quite frankly, it's a lot easier, right., I'm not stuck in an office or stuck in a boardroom all day. I could easily pop in and out of the sessions. And I think the last thing that was important for leading through this process was actually.
Giving the team permission to take a break. What I saw very early on is people were literally on teams calls or zoom calls loaded from eight 30, until five o'clock in the afternoon. And that's a lot, this constant engagement was a lot. And so we implemented what we call it a department.
And it was from 1130 to one o'clock I locked everyone's calendar out. It was on the calendar. Listen, if that meant it was time that you wanted to get caught up on work, your call. If you wanted to go work out or you wanted to go make dinner, like use it as a time to break away from the norm. I think that also helped to give people permission.
'cause I think some folks had a higher level of guilt. Like I'm working from home. Like I have to be overly present because if I'm not even going to question whether or not I'm working and so really giving people permission to take that time, I think it was another important part of leading through this pandemic.
Well, it sounds like they're very lucky to have you, because what I was hearing is that. Authenticity is important to you that you weren't making like a big wall between, Hey JJ, the marketing executive and JJ, the human being and the mom and the wife and the family member. And by you showing up very authentically.
You were giving permission to other people to be like, Hey, you don't need to be like all polished and perfect. And you know, it's funny because I see that a lot my coaching. Cause I work with a lot of high achieving people and they're always driving towards the optimum and. As much as that might be a driver for us, it can be an inhibitor or sometimes too, because there can be like a lot of self judgment about like, oh, I'm not good enough.
And the reality that we know the reality is that you can have the greatest idea and it is never going to be perfect. There's no such thing and, to make it okay for people to come out and try things and, sometimes to fail. But I have the saying about even when we're falling on our face, we're still moving forward.
Right. And so sometimes that's what it takes. It takes like tripping and falling and then being like, oh, now I learned what not to do. Right. But it makes it okay for people to be like, okay, I'm going to try. Yeah. Well, it's funny you say that because, I think that's one of the gifts of the pandemic, right?
So much of our lives every day was like, there were no games. Right. You know, you didn't know you couldn't even plan a vacation cause you didn't know if like we were going to be able to fly on a country. You didn't even know, like if that particular state was going to accept your, I mean it, every day was a question.
And so I think for me it created a, let's go try it. And if it fails, we can do something else. And so I think that the level of experimentation and taking risks, and learning through them and if I think about from a marketing perspective, How we engage with customers literally changed overnight.
Right? I had a hundred plus salespeople that were engaging with customers directly every day. For years, literally could not leave their homes. And they were for many, many years, even before I joined tidy our conduit to connecting with customers. Even for them, they could not break past the doors of the hospital.
So how we engage with customers changed overnight. And I tell them all the time and amended vice environment, consumer folks have figured out how to connect with end-users. Well, I envied apple. I envy, card users that have figured out how to engage with us as consumers directly. So then when I show up in the store, I already know what I want, but in the healthcare environment, we've always been at the mercy of people delivering our message.
And so we're at a point now where we have to get comfortable with experiment with a lot of different things, social media, blog posts, new web engagement, email campaigns. These are all brand new things for us. And so I think what the pandemic did for at least to me as a leader, It's because no one knew what the next step was going to be.
It made us all humble enough to say, I don't know, let me get comfortable with trying things and failing, but knowing in my failure, I'm going to learn. And that I think has created the pathway for us to figure out how do we connect with customers and this new. If I knew that Terry, how do we engage with healthcare customers without people?
I would be a billionaire. I figured it out yet, but it's what we're going to learn our way forward through a lot of experimentation. And I think the pandemic made it easier for people to be okay with saying, I don't know. Right. agree with you. And as you were talking about that, I was thinking back to my time in financial services, being a B2B marketer and much like you, we relied extremely heavily on sales to get that, point of view of the customers, because, in B2B typically there's larger, but fewer customers, right? Like it's big enterprises usually that you're doing business with. And so it's not like, consumer marketing, oh, you can do like a focus group where you can do, surveys or something like that. But, it's mass marketing.
Right. And this is not mass marketing. It's very, relationship. Based or account-based marketing where it's, usually there's a gatekeeper, right? That customer is very important and the sales person has the relationship. But I also think that something that's really interesting about this is that, B to C marketing.
Over the years, it used to be like, say, look back 50 years. It was the sales person in the store that was, was actually doing the selling. And as technology has advanced more and more of. Sales process or that, journey to buy has fallen on marketing, right? We are educating people.
So to your point, like when you're going to the car dealership, you know exactly what you want, you've configured it online and you've checked pricing and you're going in and saying, I want this exact car for this exact price. And there's a lot less, onus on the salesperson. Right. I think that what you described is it sounds like, this is an opportunity for marketing to
move into an area that there's been like I say resistance, because salespeople can go in and meet directly with these large scale buyers that they've owned a lot more of the responsibility for that relationship. So, do you think that this is something that marketing is going to be able to.
Continue to own this ground and maybe an even at Vance, like how, yeah, no, it's so, so, so, and I want out, because the case, some of my sales peers watch this podcast, I want to be clear. I definitely believe there is a long-term role, absolutely sales resource in the process. You know, and I think I'll tell you where at, where I'm at Tierra, specifically in the healthcare environment and I'll just focus on the United States, right.
I tell my team all the time, please be patient with my inpatients. I am now overly sensitive to the fact that there were over 6,000 hospitals in the United States of America that I believe with conviction, that there will always be a role for sales in our process of engaging with healthcare customers.
That 100%, I will never change my stance on that. At least as it stands today, what I am growing. I told my team be patient with my inpatients. I am growing impatient with the fact that there are 6,000 hospitals. Just in the United States of America that I believe with conviction, that we have products in our portfolio that they should know about.
And so now the question for me is like, how does my organization create more awareness to our solutions so that when the rep does get access, because let's be clear, even at this point in time, access is still. It depends on the state of the virus. It depends on the sensitivity of the hospital.
They may have had access two weeks ago and that could change today. So when our rep gets access to a customer, I don't want them starting from ground zero. I want them to have a customer that is informed of the problem they need to see. They know that we can solve it and they may even have an idea of how we can solve it.
And really the rep's job is to help them get across the finish line and close the deal. So that to me is, is I think the opportunity, I think the challenge though is from med device perspective, we have not. So my med device marketers might disagree. I don't think we've done that. Well, I don't think we've yet figured out how to engage with multiple millions of clinicians.
Right. And identifying who the right buyer is to then get content to them or engage with them, to help them on the journey so that when the rep shows up, they're not starting from ground zero. We haven't figured that out. So what makes me excited is, well, if we can, we could change the industry. I don't know what that looks like yet.
So that's where I say it's really going to be focused on a lot of experimentation, a lot of engagement with the end-user and we're going to learn. And just as rapidly as we can. Because I do believe there's a way we can do it. I can't tell you what the path forward is. But I am 100%.
Impatient with the fact that I don't know how to effectively engage with 6,000 hospitals. And then if you give me the entire globe, I'm completely overwhelmed. So United States hers, we figured that out then we'll go beyond. But that to me is the opportunity for marketing specifically in med device.
think that that's the opportunity for all. B2B marketers, cause I can relate to so much of what you're saying, but thinking about it in my former role in financial services and that, if you can really empower, the salespeople by. Getting the mental shelf space with the customers so that when the sales person, when they're taking it that last mile, that their customers are there with them, that they really use the time with the customer because that's very valuable, extremely valuable time.
And to have to go in and introduce the brand and introduce the. Portfolio that's time consuming. Right? And so if people are already sort of I know your brand, I trust your brand. I know what my needs are. I know where that intersects with what you offer. And then the salesperson can just really focus a lot more on finding right solution and closing that sale.
I've actually had a number of people on marketing Mambo that are sales trainers, because I'm super interested in how sales and marketing can work more effectively together. And, as you're talking, I'm just imagining like, I mean, this is my Nirvana. Like if I think about marketing is like, how can sales and marketing just be totally hand in glove?
How can they create that? Really trusting relationship where they're open about each other's needs and that they take the time to build those relationships. So it is a really productive, relationship. So one of the things that I noticed about your LinkedIn profile is that you talk about how you believe that.
Your sales background has contributed to your success as a marketing leader. And I'm wondering if you can, talk about, what did you do early in your career that was sales related and how that has. Empowered you to be more effective from a marketing standpoint. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Curious. So, I have a bias, some of my folks on my team will have heard this before.
think a marker that comes to me that started in sales. Just arrives at the role very differently because. Whenever you are at the mercy of how effectively you can communicate to someone to close the deal and basically make a living. It really forces you to listen more closely and really understand the needs of your customer.
And then it really forced you to be succinct in your communication and show that you can get that customer up to buy what you want. So I think those two skills I think are critical to. Here are the knee and then be able to articulate. I can solve your problem if you can do that. Well, I think that's the foundation of marketing and there's no better way to do that than when your paycheck is tied to it.
Right. So I started my career shortly out of college after spending a little bit. And operations and inside sales. And it was calling on small hospitals in the state of Michigan. Most of them had no more than 10 beds and really having to convince them one-on-one answer the phone and then hang on the phone with me long enough to actually hear what I had to say.
So I think that was like my entree into sales. And really my challenge, I'm like more effectively communicating and have after about a year and a half of that, then I went into the field and I sold it to larger hospitals, to include a lab of VA's here in Illinois. And so, again, I think having had that experience.
Engaging directly with customers was critical to one me realized that I wanted to stay connected to customers and delivering value to them. But I want it to be this, my younger self wanted to be the one making the decision. So if I saw a problem in the hospital, I didn't want to have to like call someone and say, Hey, here's what I heard.
I want to actually be the one to fix it. So that's really how I ended up in marketing, out of sales. And then I think coming into marketing, out of sales, it makes me sensitive to the fact that I had been the recipient of bad marketing, right. Had been the recipient of products that weren't well tested products that really didn't understand the problem we were solving and trying to figure that out on the fly and overcoming, like not being well equipped.
So I think really focusing in on making sure we really understand these, the customer and building product accordingly, I think has. Me guide the team in that direction. I think the other part is, you mentioned, the sales and marketing hand in glove, and it'd be nice if we're kind of more symbiotic and not sometimes adversarial.
And I think sometimes for me, as a marketer, having that sales beginning reminds me what things might be going awry. Like what am I missing? Right. Recently had a dynamic here where. Okay. Let me put myself back in the shoes of a rep to understand why we keep missing each other. I don't get it right all the time, but at least helps to kind of ground me back to the guardian.
We talked about voices earlier. It grounds me in history, so that can really help guide the team for, so I think that dynamic and that experience has really helped me. You mentioned this handoff now I'm like having been arrest. Again, I go back to the 6,000 hospitals.
would have loved to have had someone do all the awareness for me up front. And when I showed up in the hospital, there were five people waiting to talk to me about this, but it would've made my life so much easier. So that just makes me be more focused on like, how do we make the life easier for the reps?
They could just be closing deals and moving on to the next account. So I think all of that just reminds me. That value, because again, my career started in sales. I think we still need that function, but I want to make the most effective and most efficient. And I think marketing can really help.
Yeah, I totally agree. And I'm super passionate about marketing and I absolutely love, salespeople too. And you talked about sometimes there being a little conflict between sales and marketing, and I actually think there's a lot of richness if we have the courage to explore that.
I think that the answer. To the challenges that we're facing are usually right there in the middle of that conflict, because it's not that either side is right or wrong. Each side has, or each partner I should say has a perspective that's meaningful. And, if we can kind of reframe that. Conflict and really look at it and realize that like, both sides want the best for the customer, but come to the table with different skill sets that we can imagine ways that we can work together to make that happen.
And I think it's really critical to that. A lot of times the issue is really. Lack of understanding and that leads to, maybe not the level of trust that's required to work together effectively. So I think it's fantastic that you can understand what each side of that equation might be thinking about.
And. Smoothing that over so that there is a lot more, understanding, maybe even intuitive understanding of what the needs are and you can build those solutions. Cause I think actually, obviously marketing and sales can both be very tough. Roles, they're both areas that require a tremendous amount of specialized training.
Yes. And I have seen often in marketing that, people can sometimes get into like a routine. Right. Cause there's a lot of stuff that we do like, oh, I'm going to put a new landing page up or I'm going to make another brochure. Right. And we're just doing it sort of like through rote rather than being very present and saying.
Has anything changed here? Is there feedback that I need to take into consideration as I'm looking this and can I look at it a new, and maybe put something in here that's going to have meaning for the people that I'm sending it to, rather than just doing the same old, same old. And I think that that sometimes can be a pitfall for marketers that they're just like, this is how we've always done.
Yeah. So much richness in what you just said. Terry, I think a couple of things that spurred a while you were talking to this one, I think that, a lot of times what up, and this is like, even like a current, like recent epiphany. So I didn't, I haven't been guided by this mind tiger.
A lot of times the marketing and sales miss when they miss each other's because their focus is different. Right. So I'll go back to my chase. I'm telling my team, I'm chasing the 6,000. in one moment as a marketer, I'm thinking about the 6,000 hospitals. If that same moment my sales leader of a particular team is thinking about the 15 hospitals that each one of their reps might be in that moment.
Right? Two different focuses. Focusing on awareness, education, this broad messaging, all that, and they're focusing on, I just want to close the deal. Well, what you need in those two environments is very different. So if we're not conscious of our focus, which I will admit, like we've had some recent struggles where.
Hit the masses, but we're missing the hand to hand combat that's happening in the account. And so we've got to reframe our focus, so we don't miss each other. So I think that's one of the years where we ended up missing the. And I love what you said about the marketers and this is what I've been really forced to my team, especially on the med device side, because it's the only industry I've worked on.
So I'm sure that this resonates in other industries because med device marketers have had the luxury of people walking into an account and massaging, changing, delivering their messages. We haven't always been pressure to make sure that it was right. Cause we had a filter. So now the challenge is like let's just not create another brochure for brochure sake, but let's make sure we're actually delivering what our customers want to hear.
And what we've heard a lot is. Tell me what ABC hospital is doing with this technology down the street. But we keep producing brochures that give them features and benefits of a product, and they don't even know its application. So because we're so used to that and I'm like, guys, go get the story. If you can go get the story and the experience people buy that's how we bought.
So just to drop somebody, a brochure. It's going to do these four or five things. And here's the things like, like that doesn't matter if I don't understand how it's solving a problem and you can only do that through experience. Yeah. agree in that example that you're talking about. I can relate to that very much having worked in financial services and often supported some exotic products, right.
That sometimes it's like, You can't quite get your head around it. Right. But you kind of assume which we know what assume happens when we assume is that we can assume like, oh, I understand this. And sometimes what can happen is the salespeople actually stop believing. And the marketing partnership that they just say to themselves, I guess I'm just going to have to do it myself because they're just putting out this stuff that is not relevant.
And so then they'll have their assistant or they'll try to do something on their own or they'll just, bootstrap it. And I think having the courage as a marketer to go into that and be like, no, really tell me, give it to me straight. You know, D yeah, what are we missing? Right. I can take it, you know, give it to me straight.
Like what can we do to improve this? Where are we missing the mark? Like that is the rich place where you're going to find, the opportunity for marketing to make a true difference. And also to build. Trust with sales so that they're willing to come and be like, Hey, you know, you guys, this isn't quite meeting the mark, right.
I want to trust you as a partner to share the feedback. Cause I believe that , if I'm taking the time to do this, that you'll come up with something that's going to meet my needs and is going to help us sell. Right. And, going back to something that you were saying a little bit earlier, and I've thought about this a lot over the years is, when you were talking about the different, Focal points for sales and marketing.
Marketing is more long-term focus, right? We're all about building a longterm relationship, building a brand, having impact on people's perceptions of what the company does and the trust level and all of that over. Right. And sales is like, can I make my number Cisco? Right. And there's a natural, conflict there.
There's some natural tension there. And I do think that sometimes an unwillingness to step into that tension can cause some dysfunction. And I think that if we can realize. This is actually a healthy tension, right? Because one part of the organization is looking at long-term. The other is looking at short-term revenue generation, getting the dollars into the organization and.
We have to work together. We have to, if we try to do it separately, neither of us is going to be as effective as we could be. But anyway, like, as we're talking about this, I'm getting so excited. Cause I love that. I love it so much. Yeah. But I think the thing is, you know, there's, there's humility that has to play a part.
Right. And the humility on both sides. But I being the marketer, I'm more conscious of our side. Like sometimes we see such a big picture that we forget that, we still have to make money this year. Right. Like we still need to close the revenue goal like this yet. And so we have to straddle the fence to make sure that.
We're doing that well. And I think the other part is, is that, relationships are built within time and an experience. And so, and the rep is such a critical part of the trust that hospital in my environment has with our brain. And so we have to make sure that they are effectively.
So they can continue to build that relationship one hospital at a time. And so I think that's the side that we've got a balance as a marketing organization, because if we're not doing this effectively, like the one hospital at a time, our story falls flat on the broader scale.
And I think that's dance that we have to make sure that we get. I think you're absolutely right about that. And I think, one of the weaknesses, sometimes that can cause that dysfunction is that marketing is only maintaining that 30,000 foot view. And they're not occasionally zooming into, like you said, the hand-to-hand combat to say like, is there something that you need at this level?
Right. And, then connecting the dots, throughout the whole journey. So anyway, boy, I have been loving this conversation. There's nothing better than getting into the meaty goodness of sales and marketing. And also like I'm fascinated by, what you guys have been facing and how you've adapted and, have been able to be successful in spite of all of the.
Myriad challenges within your industry. And then of course, just what's going on in the workplace in general. So I want to ask you, as we're getting ready to wrap up, what words of advice would you have for other marketing leaders out there? Both about marketing, but also just as a leader, what advice would you have for people, on how to.
Motivate and continue to work in this challenging. Yeah. Yeah. So I think ethic one, I think to remain authentic, right? I mean, this invite, if it hasn't given you the opportunity to be your real self all facets of your life, I think you've missed the gift of the time.
So walking authenticity, all of us are navigating through a very similar pandemic. There's no need for you to look or feel like you've got it all together. Right. So I think lead from. But I think from a marketing perspective, especially if you're leading markers. I think the one thing that I had to realize probably a couple of years ago is like, I've already had the opportunity to manage a product line.
I've already had the opportunity to launch stuff like I've done. Now my job is to equip the next generation of marketers. And so, I tell my team and I'm pushing you in ways that I have no idea how you're gonna solve problem. I've never done it, but I'm challenging you because I believe this is going to be a part of your own personal world.
And so get out of the way, right? Just because you were successful and you've done all these great things like this is a new day, your job is to support and equip those people to do their very best work. I say that my purpose here is to clear the way so greatness, if come forward.
That's my job. It's just clear the way I don't. I've already done the work. It's really about really allowing someone else to just experience the beauty of marketing. So as a marketing, Just really support and equip. And I I think the last part in the supporting and equipping is giving people permission to experiment, learn, and move forward challenge them to do it as fast as you can.
What can you do like right away to go rather fast, but give them that permission? Because I think it's the only way we're going to get innovation, especially in this. It's the only way that we're going to see new things break forth. And if we don't give folks that permission and then get out of their way, I think we will stifle innovation and growth.
So I just would say, be your true self and get out the way. Yes, I love it. I absolutely love it. And I really think that what you're saying there is that make it safe for people to tap into and use their full potential. And also to multiply the impact that you as a leader can have.
I've seen it so often I mean, your self-awareness is amazing. But the fact that you've done all this stuff and you're kind of like, it's not sustainable for me to try to rush in and do it for everybody. I'm going to stay at the head of the line. I'm going to you guys to tap into your full potential.
And that's how you multiply the leverage that you have as a leader. And you're one while. Marketer for sure. JJ, thank you so much for being a guest today. I loved our conversation. Where can people get in touch with you? If they'd like to the best way is to connect with me on LinkedIn.
And I know you'll provide that link up there. That's probably the best way to at least get started. I'm all for virtual coffee. This is been one of the gifts of the pandemic is I've talked to people like Lily all over the globe through and through the pandemic because it's a lot easier to connect with folks.
So all for connecting and learning all of that and happy to help wherever I can. So, but connect with me on LinkedIn. Okay, JJ, thanks so much for being with us.