How to Improve Your Sales Strategy and Results in Healthcare with Will Richter, Senior Director at IQVIA

Hey Outcomes Rocket friends, thanks for tuning in to the podcast once again. As a leader in health care, you have big ideas great products, a story to tell, and are looking for ways to improve your reach and scale your business. However there’s one tiny problem. Health care is tough to navigate and the typical sales cycle is low. That’s why you should consider starting your own podcast as part of your sales and marketing strategy. At the Outcomes Rocket, I’ve been able to reach thousands of people every single month that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to reach if I had not started my podcast. Having this organic reach enables me to get the feedback necessary to create a podcast that delivers value that you are looking for. And the same thing goes if you start a podcast for what you could learn from your customers. The best thing about podcasting in healthcare is that we are currently at the ground level, meaning that the number of people in healthcare listening to podcasts is small but growing rapidly. I put together a free checklist for you to check out the steps on what it takes to create your own podcast. You could find that at outcomesrocket.health/podcast. Check it out today and find a new way to leverage the sales, marketing and outcomes of your business. That’s outcomesrocket.health/podcast.

: Welcome back once again to the outcomes rocket podcast where we chat with today’s most successful and inspiring health leaders. Today I have a treat for you today. I’ve got Will Richter. He’s a senior director at IQ via. He drives revenue for healthcare technology and med device companies by increasing their sales volumes reducing their operational inefficiencies and crushing the competition. Will has the unique ability to find the blind spots in any company’s sales process and can turn around a growth plan of action and a winning culture and less time bring in bottom line results faster. And as we all know in healthcare, this particular area of expertise is key to the success and the lifeblood of any company looking to move forward with their solution to help improve outcomes. So one company for example he served went from 0 to 36 million dollars in six years resulting in the organization being acquired by Boston Scientific another company that he built a Nationals team for went from 0 to 21 million in just 23 months resulting in massive profits for a stakeholders and improving patient outcomes. So these are a couple of things that Will has done and the topic today is really around sales and how to improve that for your company. And without further ado just want to extend a warm welcome to Wil Richter welcome to the podcast my friend.

: Thank you Saul, great to be here.

: It is a pleasure to have you here my friend. So what would you say got you into the medical sector Will.

: Well it’s actually an interesting story I think I’m a bit of an anomaly I think some people kind of grow up or have a point in life where they realize hey I want to I want to be in health. I wasn’t like that I was in college struggling to pay my bills and put myself through school and I had an inside sales job. I knew I was kind of good at it. The success came kind of naturally and quickly for me. And while I was in college I was in a fraternity and I got to be in a leadership role within that fraternity and work very closely with an alumnus from our chapter who helped us with our philanthropic endeavors and helped us raise money and things of that nature. And so he was such a buttoned up solid individual. I always wanted to know what he did. So one day I asked him ‘what do you do? And he says well I’m a regional sales manager for a cardiac company. And I was curious ‘what does that mean? What you do? Well there were implants that go into patients bodies in the operating room and I said Is there any way I can be a part of that. I was fascinated.

: Yes.

: So he let me go on a field ride with one of his reps and she took me to a few cases. And ever since that day I knew for a fact being in the OR, seeing these implants go on. I was just fascinated with the human body. These implants the healing process patient, outcomes, clinical data the light switch went on and from that day I did everything I had to to find a way to get into the industry.

: That is so awesome Will, and I could hear the passion in your voice from that first time that you got in there. Even until now you know we’ve had a chance to really connect here before the interview. That passion is what keeps the lights on for you. Now with the experience that you have bringing these companies from zero to double digit millions. What would you say is is something that health leaders need to keep in the forefront like what’s this hot topic that they need to be thinking about?

: Well as you know Saul, today there’s a million topics. I’m actually think of it as an answer that kind of from two sides of the fence. So if you’re on the med device, pharmaceutical Medtech side, I think that leaders of those organizations need to start thinking differently and think about how they can leverage AI or some form of artificial intelligence to better manage their supply chains to their claims processing and just overall run the organization more efficiently. Is the technology’s here now and it’s starting to change the game. On the other side, if you’re on the hospital side of the industry or in a leadership role within the health system, I cannot stress this point enough and that is if you’re listening’ you’re in a leadership position in a hospital. Start hiring experts from outside of the industry because I can’t tell you. And Saul, I’ve worked with dozens upon dozens of hospital systems all over the country and I’ve seen a pattern of them all and that is that someone gets hired in the hospital X. They post up for 10, 15, 20 years in the environment become so stagnant and the people become so complacent that the word change kind of becomes like the number one enemy and it’s killing the success of the hospital. So my advice to hospitals would be to stop hiring a bunch of academians over and over and over who started hiring business experts who have been successful in the B2B world bring them in, listen to them and allow them to do for you what they have done for other companies.

: Some get feedback farewell and there’s definitely opportunity for cross pollination so to speak of business and providers and physicians to really bring about those results that we need. If you’re going to be wanting to have different results you get to do things differently. So folks take a note there from Will. So Will as you work through the technology you guys offer at IQVIA, maybe you could level that with the audience, let us know what you guys do there and then talk to us about how you’re improving outcomes and results by doing things differently.

: Okay. So I’m on, there’s the clinical side of healthcare. Then there’s the business on health care. I happened to fall into the latter, on the business side. So with the entity that I’m working with today, we’re in the business of consulting with hospital systems to teach them how to think differently and leverage big data to make business intelligent decisions strategically based on facts and data just pure numbers and will not give me an example. So now we’re kind of in an era where hospitals want to acquire physician practices and then own those physicians as employees but purchasing a large physician group as you know when their patient load is a very expensive endeavor. So the position group will show their side of the accounting books. But if a hospital system leverages our third party claims data, we can tell the hospital the actual patient volumes. We can show which of those physicians performed which procedures at which locations how much each visit or procedure builds out and so that the health system can actually see the real data of what the value is of that position group rather than just relying on the books that the physician group shows them.

: Gotcha. So you are providing that that valuation those optics to really vet out the valuation rather than just going blindly.

: Correct. It’s it’s really amazing. And you’ve seen the industry change. We’ve been in it a long time also. The data is becoming more and more relevant and everything is being collected, big brother’s kind of unfortunately or fortunately watching all of us. So just know that it’s out there that just like companies in the B2B world, our hospital systems are starting to leverage it too.

: Absolutely. Now folks again speaking with Will Rector. He’s senior director at IQVIA. Walking us through how him and his company there are helping provide optics for physician practice acquisition. There’s been a ton of waves of acquisition happening right now even payers like United Healthcare purchasing up the physician practices. So there’s definitely a big move here. Well in the experience that you guys have had, can you give the listeners an example of of maybe a mistake or a setback and maybe a client of yours or or you and your firm experienced and what you learned out of it to help the listeners avoid that.

: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll just think back to my career as a whole. I’ve actually had failed many, many times in my life and I’m a big believer that you are either winning or you are learning. And I don’t look at the family is failing. I just look at it as an opportunity to figure out hey what did I do wrong and how can I avoid making that same stake in the future. Because we’re all going to make mistakes, right. And we’re all want you to fail and it’s really important that we learn from these things. So I’m really big on sales leadership and I know that the space you familiar with to solve. Yes. I love it. I live for it. There was a time in my career where I was helping to nationalize a startup company and although we were incredibly successful right out of the gates there was more friction going on between myself and the board that there needed to be and it was because I let my ego get the best of me because you know a lot of people listen to this probably identify with us. The more success we have the more it kind of feed our ego and it’s really hard to keep that in check. And as a result my ego created a lot of issues between myself and the board. And you know those didn’t really need to happen. I wasn’t mature enough at the time to understand that. So for healthcare leaders, my advice would be to always be aware of your ego. Keep it in check. No matter how successful you are or what role you play because we always have to remain as humble as we possibly can in order to effectively lead people and the last thing I’d like to say about ego as a mistake, is that it’s a tricky one to solve because ego is the one thing that helps us believe that we can accomplish all these crazy goals we set.

: Right.

: But it can also be the one thing that destroys everything we’ve worked so hard for so.

: The balancing act.

: Just keep them right. Just keep our ego on check.

: Yeah that’s a great share Will. And you know listeners as you take strides forward and experience success is so important to reflect on what Will has shared with us because it is that edge that drives you to achieve the things that you set forth, right. With less resources and all the things that we have to do nowadays in healthcare. And when you achieve them, man you know you kind of want to pound your chest a little bit and feel really good about yourself but take it so far and take a step back. And Will what would you recommend for the listeners for us to do to really get our ego in the check?

: I believe I don’t know everyone’s got their place in their face and what they believe in. Personally my faith has helped me. I’ve been humbled over the years and my faith has helped me to try to remain humble in the eyes of a business to know that I can always learn more and to be open to being coached because I think being coachable no matter what level a leader is in, we all have to be coachable otherwise we shut ourselves off from self growth. So I think just having faith whatever you define this faith and maybe meditating as well I think really kind of helps people to look inside of themselves and learn how to be more humble. This is what for me.

: That’s a really great piece of advice there Will and I also enjoy a meditative practice and then also journaling for me. You know I one day I was journaling about a success that I had and I really really hear what you’re saying about it getting to your ego. And after doing some journaling I came to the conclusion that you know we are not our identity is not our success. We just happened to have created that success. Let’s not mistake it with our identity. And I think that’s when we’ll be like we basically say our success equals our identity that it gets to our head. So just a little tidbit I think that really helped me really distinguish between hey you know you accomplish something great good for you. But it’s not who you are.

: Right. Because if we tie ourselves too closely to that success that success one day the rug could be ripped out from under you and then who are you.

: Exactly.

: Right.

: That’s the other side of it. Right.

: Right. That’s right. Humility is the way to go as you know.

: It’s a great message. So Will take us through your experience. Is there one thing that you’d like to share that has been one of your proudest medical leadership sales experiences?

: Ooh that’s a great question. The first thing that comes to mind is when I was working for an early stage medical device companies that manufacture a new implantable spinal cord stimulator and I was responsible for building and growing a new sales team in the southeastern part of the U.S.. And so I’ve never worked so hard in my life Saul but I’ve also never had so much fun in my life. I mean you are pumping us 12 14 hour days on the regular but just the energy and the culture that we had was was insane. And I felt very blessed that the opportunity to recruit certain people and over time as the organization grew, new people in the southeastern part of the team were just fantastic. I mean there’s no other way to describe these individuals. And as time rolled on, I remember the first time we won region of the year and by that time we’d already been acquired by Boston Scientific so there were well over a dozen regions and you get called out for the hundreds of people. You go up on stage. And what was awesome for me. This is my proudest moment I think as I look back and my career was to be able to pull all of those individuals. I think it was like 18 at the time pool all 18 of those up onstage and hundreds of people look to my left, look to my right and just the level of integrity and the character tenacity and the talent that the people on this team had it was amazing and they were the ones that won it. And then over a five year span they became the number one team in that division’s history. I think that still seems to this day. So I was so proud of what they did and just how badass everything was it was it was it was a winning culture. And we had a blast doing it.

: That’s awesome. Will what a great story. I felt myself there felt like I was on stage with you my man.

: So sure.

: So you guys got off the stage and you continued education for many years. So fast forward to now. I mean you’re doing some great things at IQVIA. What’s an exciting project or focus that you want to talk to the listeners about?

: So right now I’m working with a newer Hospital Division of company that has access to a large suite of data assets. So hospitals can leverage this information and by doing so they can actually shift market share software in a competitive market with multiple hospitals by leveraging this. Th C-suite of these hospitals can see which of their surgeons are performing caissons at competing facilities because they have different affiliations and they can, some of them was the palms and those have the right to patients and patients in the location that they want. So now by leveraging this business intelligence the leadership of these hospitals can see where their surgeons are selling their procedures and do something about it so that they can retain that revenue. Another thing that leadership in hospitals can do by leveraging this data is they can see where their patient leakage is and where these patients are going. So that leadership is in the hospital can identify where they need to tweak their approach to help keep the patients that they’ve got. Because as you know it’s really really difficult to acquire a new patient. So..

: Yes.

: When you get them into the system you just you don’t want to lose them as you know.

: Absolutely as very interesting overall Will, just continuing to build a suite of optics and two tools to help providers make more intelligent decisions with data.

: Correct.

: That’s awesome man.

: And it’s becoming a bigger and bigger and bigger every year.

: Yeah I mean it can’t just guess anymore you really have to take the data driven decisions and folks I invite you to to check out IQVIA on their website. The website is iqvia.com, is that correct?

: That is correct.

: Outstanding so be sure to check them out, iqvia.com they based out of North Carolina and doing some very very interesting work to help health care organizations take it to the next level. So this has been really fun. I think right now we’re getting close to the end. Well I got to the section where you and I are going to build a leadership course on what it takes to be successful in selling within healthcare. I’ve got four questions lightning round style followed by a book that you recommend to the listeners, you ready?

: Let’s do it.

: Awesome. What’s the best way to improve selling in health care?

: To get into the mind of your customer and to start thinking like your customer so that you know how to position yourself instead of just trying to cram your agenda onto them.

: Love it. What’s the biggest mistake or pitfall to avoid?

: Ever hire a good friend of yours who will be reporting directly to you.

: Love that.

: To give that one time was a bad idea.

: I was gonna say I sense a backstory to that one.

: Well we’ll tak about that one of our reviewer one day.

: That sounds good brother. How to stay relevant as an organization despite constant change?

: We as leaders have to change with the time. So if our patients or our customers have certain expectations we have to find ways to meet those expectations and not just keep continuing to be business as usual.

: Love that. What’s one area of focus that should drive everything in a company as it relates to sales?

: This one’s easy for me. I would say collaboration because the most successful business environments than I’ve ever been a part of and always had great leadership then embraced ideas and was actively looking for feedback from the members of the team without judging them and allow the people that to give that input so that they can make the right changes for the market.

: Collaboration and what’s your favorite book that you recommend of the listeners?

: Being in sales leadership there’s a million books written by a million gurus right. We’ve all seen them and read them and there are some great ones out there. But honestly if I had to narrow it down to one book that just embodies everything that the word leadership means and you can be in healthcare you can be government you can be in B2B, it matter. My favorite book by far would be called “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink. Jocko is a former Navy SEAL who served in the battle of Ramadi in Iraq. And on SEAL Team 3. If you’re looking to become a better leader or how to work better as a team and get real results the best place to look is directly to our Navy SEALS.

: Outstanding. I have had the pleasure of reading that book listeners. It is a brilliant.

: Really?

: Oh yes. Outstanding. I couldn’t stop. I did the audio book. I do mostly audio books and I just couldn’t stop listening.

: His incredible. He leaves nothing out. He nails it.

: It’s pretty amazing. So listeners it’s called Extreme Ownership by Jackel Willink. It is outstanding. Highly recommend that as well. Will thank you for that. And by the way if you guys want to get access to the Q&A, the transcripts here just go to outcomesrocket.health/richter and you’ll be able to find those there. It’s R I C H T E R, outcomesrocket.health/richter, as in Will Richter. Will this has been a ton of fun. Time always flies when you are having fun so you can just leave us with a closing thought and then the best place where the listeners could get in touch with or follow you.

: Well I would say that in business all things are possible and it’s just that in organization is got to make it a priority to get the right leadership into the organization and then put them in the most appropriate roles based on their skill sets. And from there you’ll be able to create a successful culture because success in business is an attitude. It’s a mindset you have to expect to win every day. And it’s healthcare leaders can develop a culture of accountability and trust then I believe that everything else will fall in place.

: Great message Will.

: Thank you. And second part was how can people get in touch with me?

: .Yes.

: Honestly it’s probably just me ping me through LinkedIn. I think the url is https://www.linkedin.com/in/willrichter/ R I C H T E R, and I’ve got all my contact info there are people want me to reach out.

: Outstanding well and folks again if you wanted to just click on that. Just go to outcomesrocket.health/richter and we’ll put a link there to Will’s link then profile if you want to connect with him as well as IQVIA’s website and the book that he recommended the syllabus that we put together for you. So Will, it’s been a ton of fun. Really appreciate you chatting with us about sales- key area that we all need to be focused on and healthcare. Looking forward to staying in touch my friend.

: Absolutely. You as well Saul. Great to hear your voice again and have a great weekend.

Hey Outcomes Rocket friends, thanks for tuning in to the podcast once again. As a leader in health care, you have big ideas great products, a story to tell, and are looking for ways to improve your reach and scale your business. However there’s one tiny problem. Health care is tough to navigate and the typical sales cycle is low. That’s why you should consider starting your own podcast as part of your sales and marketing strategy. At the Outcomes Rocket, I’ve been able to reach thousands of people every single month that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to reach if I had not started my podcast. Having this organic reach enables me to get the feedback necessary to create a podcast that delivers value that you are looking for. And the same thing goes if you start a podcast for what you could learn from your customers. The best thing about podcasting in healthcare is that we are currently at the ground level, meaning that the number of people in healthcare listening to podcasts is small but growing rapidly. I put together a free checklist for you to check out the steps on what it takes to create your own podcast. You could find that at outcomesrocket.health/podcast. Check it out today and find a new way to leverage the sales, marketing and outcomes of your business. That’s outcomesrocket.health/podcast.

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