Outcomes Rocket Podcast_Cherese Paloni: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Saul Marquez:
Hey everybody, Saul Marquez with the Outcomes Rocket. It’s such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast today. I’m privileged to host the amazing Cherese Paloni. She is the founder and CEO of MDliaison, a healthcare talent marketplace that connects healthcare companies with experienced sales reps. Cherese started her career as a healthcare sales rep and has been in the industry for over ten years actually, and she’s worked with hospitals, physician practices, outpatient clinics, and health tech. Her mission with MDliaison is to create more efficient and cost-effective ways for healthcare companies to find great sales talent, and for sales reps to have at-work flexibility, experience, and job opportunities they want. I don’t know about you guys, but that sounds like a great mission, and Cherese, I just want to say, welcome to the podcast!
Cherese Paloni:
Thank you so much, Saul, for having me!
Saul Marquez:
Absolutely, and so, I was looking forward to our chat today and really want to understand what is it that inspired your work in healthcare?
Cherese Paloni:
Yeah, so I think, you know, for when I started in healthcare, for me, it was all about patients. That was my true inspiration, I think a lot of, most everyone gets into healthcare because they’ve either had some sort of disease or incident in healthcare that’s driven them to make it better and a better place for other people as well to experience and get quality healthcare. So that’s where my career really started and wanting to make a difference in the healthcare space, on to make patients have quality care and just a better experience.
Saul Marquez:
I love it. Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely one of the main drivers I find for a lot of the entrepreneurs we have on the show and really everyone that gets involved. Cherese, so let’s dig into your company, MDliaison, tell us how you’re adding value to the healthcare ecosystem.
Cherese Paloni:
Yeah, so it’s, you know, I know it’s kind of from a switch of being inspired by patients and really helping patients, and now we don’t directly do that, but really what our organization does to add value is really create cost-effective ways and quick ways to get talent. So for a lot of the health technology companies or hospital organizations, nobody has a lot of time these days or money to spend on recruiting. And I just saw this area that really was expensive for companies and it wasn’t enabling a lot of companies that are maybe on the smaller scale to be able to have access to an experienced sales rep. So they really, that wasn’t something that they were able to have, and so really what our organization tries to do to add value is for those smaller organizations to find somebody quickly and cost-effectively that still has the great quality that they want. And for larger companies who need to scale a team to be able to do that quickly as well and in different markets, if they’re going into different markets quickly and cost-effectively.
Saul Marquez:
Love it, and being able to do that is so key. And what would you say, because there’s staffing companies and there’s different ways to go about this, right, so what would you say is different or better about how you do it?
Cherese Paloni:
Yeah, I think our focus really is on quality. So when you work with us, I kind of see us as like a partner, like it’s not just a one-off, we’re going to give you one rep, we’re never going to talk to you again, we really hold the company’s hand kind of through the process of establishing a sales strategy. That’s why our candidates are experienced, they have to have at least minimum of five years. They already have relationships, a lot of the times, in these markets that they’re going into. And so really what’s different about us is that we always have an account manager on every sort of deal that we do. So they’re checking in weekly with the company and with the contractor to make sure everything is going great. So there’s no we’d leave people out in the galaxy to fend for themselves. We’re really working on if something is not working, we need to fix it. If they’re not getting the results that they’re wanting, we need to change something, whether that’s offering a free match again to another candidate or really helping them with the strategy, that’s really the account manager’s role. So we’re more of a partner for these companies instead of just an outsource vendor, that’s really kind of how I look at our organization being different.
Saul Marquez:
Love it, so in other words, somebody can, if they’re in need of this business development function, they could reach out to you guys, ring on the person to help, they’ve got five-years-minimum experience, and they hit the ground running, and if something’s not working, it’s not an administrative nightmare to try to have to replace them.
Cherese Paloni:
Exactly, exactly. And that’s what we try to do with the flexibility aspect of our, kind of, one of the other value propositions is that if you need somebody for a certain time period and don’t want to hire a full team, whether that’s testing a product in the market, or you maybe you have found market fit and you want to kind of test, you’ve maybe had bad sales teams in the past and you want to kind of almost like try before you buy. You’re able to do that now and when the time comes that you maybe don’t need the amount of people you need. If it is a new product launch, then you can scale down really quickly or scale up really quickly.
Saul Marquez:
Love that, so folks, if you have an opportunity to expand your business, whether you’re a practice or a med device company, try before you buy. And the work that Cherese and MDliaison are doing, they’re basically set up for you. So if you’ve got something and expansion that you’re thinking about, definitely look at the show notes for today’s podcast and make sure you reach out to Cherese and team. Cherese, what is one of the biggest setbacks that really you have faced and how has that made you and MDliaison better?
Cherese Paloni:
I think the biggest, so far, setback that we’ve encountered is it’s really when you’re dealing with a two-sided marketplace, making sure that you don’t have, you’re oversaturating one area inside of your marketplace. So really the setback where I learned pretty quickly is that if I didn’t have somebody for the companies, if I was just, went after the business, if that’s what we did and didn’t have someone, we were not promising quickly and on-demand. And that was a really big learning curve that I actually had to have the talent before I had the company. So learning from that, we really have, we’re in a good place with the talent side of our business that we’re ready to really offer this service to healthcare companies.
Saul Marquez:
You’ve got to have that supply.
Cherese Paloni:
Yeah, yeah it’s a complete supply. It goes back to basic economics. Even when you’re dealing in a marketplace, you know, it’s like, in business school, that was my least favorite, you just hear that all the time and it’s just like, whatever, and then you actually live it every day.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah.
Cherese Paloni:
And so yeah, you’re constantly with this marketplace business trying to make sure that your supply and demand are at a really good, healthy place together.
Saul Marquez:
Love that, yeah, thanks, Cherese. So a lot of things are changing where we’re at the tail end of COVID, yet it kind of keeps coming back, but we have it under control, there’s a lot of dynamics in our global economy with supply chain shortages, etc. So what do you what would you say is a healthcare trend or technology that’s going to change healthcare as we know it today?
Cherese Paloni:
I think in the mental healthcare space right now, I think there’s a lot of things going on that are changing from that kind of industry. I think a lot of investments going to mental health right now. I think with the pandemic, it left a lot of questions on mental health, of where, we were also secluded, we didn’t have that kind of thing we all crave with being around people. And I think it, really these, kind of, health technology companies that are dealing in the mental health space. I think companies are becoming more open that we need benefits regarding around mental health and things like that. So I think the biggest change from going to where it was almost kind of taboo or not really a thing people like to talk about, to maybe a more mainstream, let’s talk about this, let’s invest in it, I think that’s the biggest change. And I started my career in mental health, I worked with mental health patients and the resources were just so scarce for those patients. And it’s one of the reasons I skipped from the clinical side to the business side was because I just saw that the system was so broken for these patients. You saw the same things over and over, the same people, so not getting the help they need. And so seeing that transition in health technology and healthcare for hospitals has been really great and I think it’s going to continue.
Saul Marquez:
Love that, yeah, there’s so many programs and companies now doubling down on it and I think, yeah, it’s really exciting too, I totally agree. Cherese, well, look, no doubt you’re adding a ton of value with your company. Definitely want to make sure that the listeners know where they could get ahold of you, so let us know where they can get ahold of you and also give us a closing thought that you want us to be thinking about here as we conclude.
Cherese Paloni:
Yeah, I think, you know, for me, I always wanted, when you think about scaling your sales teams and really think about, what does that look like? What do I need? What are we, how many sales reps are we going to need, or what’s the end game and growth that we want to show? Because I feel like a lot of companies, they know they need a sales rep, but they have no, really, parameters around what that looks like from KPIs to geography to rep alignment. And really thinking about that will really help you with turnover, it will help with layoffs if something doesn’t work out, it will really help a lot of things at the front end. And we see a lot of clients that we have in partners, or partners that we have, that when we first speak to them, these are questions that they don’t know yet and we try to help them work through so that they’re successful. So I think for companies to really think about, other than, I know I need a sales rep and they’re just going to bring me thousands of dollars right away, more about how that sales process is actually going to look and feel for your business, everyone’s different. And you can connect with us at MDliaison.com or follow us on LinkedIn, our page is MDliaison and connect with us that way.
Saul Marquez:
Outstanding Cherese. Well, thank you. I really appreciate you jumping on with us and the work that you’re doing. And folks, again, as a reminder, you could get links to all of the resources we mentioned as well as the best way to get in touch with Cherese and her company, MDliaison, in the show notes. So make sure you check those out. Cherese, thank you so much.
Cherese Paloni:
Thank you, Saul. Thanks so much for having me.
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