Podcast

The Critical Nature of Leading with Value

Mark Donnigan

CMO & GTM Consultant

On this episode of Healthcare Market Matrix, host John Farkas is joined by Mark Donnigan, virtual CMO and go-to-market consultant at Growth Stage Marketing, a company that builds sustainable marketing strategies while executing go-to-market plans that yield real business results by being rooted in first principles thinking. Mark has extensive experience working alongside sales, product, operations, and finance to ensure his client’s objectives are always exceeded. As an accomplished storyteller and expert content marketer, Mark believes the modern marketing function is built on the foundation of content publishing with category design, ABM, SEO, conversion rate optimization, email outreach, and paid advertising tactics. Throughout the episode, Mark shares his vast knowledge around the importance of leading with value during go-to-market efforts and analyzes a recent product launch that failed to effectively and easily convey its value proposition to its buyers, ultimately leading to its downfall.

Show Notes

(1:47) Introducing Mark Donnigan and Growth Stage Marketing

(10:12) Understanding Where to Start from the Nature of Go-to-Market

(18:21) Leading with Value in a Constrained Healthcare Climate

(31:19) Analyzing Humane AI’s Recent Launch Failure

(45:15) Asking Hard Questions during Go-to-Market Efforts

(56:34) Closing Thoughts

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Transcript

Introducing Mark Donnigan

John Farkas:

Greetings everyone, and welcome to Healthcare Market Matrix. I’m your host, John Farkas, and today we get the chance to talk with the Mark Donnigan, otherwise known as my brother from another mother. Those of you watching the video will get that illusion. We showed up with same haircut, similar glasses, same headphones. I tell you what, it’s just synergy.

Mark Donnigan:

But your mic is different.

John Farkas:

Different mic. So Mark and I got to know each other several years ago when he was on our podcast at that point, and we were talking about the critical nature of KPI creation, communication, and alignment within organizations. And what became apparent to me at that point is that here’s a guy who understands the true nature of marketing and is passionate about aligning organizations to serve the real needs of the real market.

And just so you know, as we lead out here, you can find Mark at growthstage.marketing online. That’s where his digital universe resides. But what I can tell you about Mark is that he’s a consultant and or virtual CMO who’s focused on the go-to-market program creation, specifically for early stage technology related companies. And we spend a lot of time in our context here at Healthcare Market Matrix talking about the critical nature of creating marketing initiatives that jump up and down on the real value that technology affords, and the importance of understanding and focusing on communicating clearly how you address the real problems your market is willing to spend time and money to solve.

So Mark, as you will see, shares that passion, and we’re going to have some fun in the process today of exploring that. So Mark, welcome to Healthcare Market Matrix.

Mark Donnigan:

John, it’s great to be back. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk again. We had such a good time in our last interview, and I know we’ll do it again.

John Farkas:

I expect we’ll do it again. So as we get started here, I’m going to hand you a virtual baton and let you run with it for a minute. Are you ready?

Mark Donnigan:

I’m ready.

John Farkas:

Okay. So here’s the baton. Marketing can’t just be a little department in your company that maintains your website and does a few blogs and campaigns. Marketing, especially in a B2B organization, is business strategy.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

Okay. There’s your baton.

Mark Donnigan:

I’ve got it.

John Farkas:

On your mark. Get set, go.

Mark Donnigan:

I’m running. Okay. Yeah, I completely agree with that statement, John. And let me explain why that is. Today, the buyer’s journey is so fragmented. There are so many constituents, that is, individuals involved. And what’s really frustrating, I remember the good old days where if you were an account executive, really your job was to get as close as possible, meaning know the-

John Farkas:

Go golfing.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. Meaning know the bottle of wine that the PO holder, the exact brand and the vintage and all that they liked, know their favorite restaurant, know all the kids’ names, all of this. And for those of us who’ve been out in the market for a while, we can remember those days. It was about the Rolodex. Rolodex selling.

And that’s not to say that we didn’t have to go demonstrate value. We didn’t have to have a product that worked, a solution. I’m not suggesting that. But at the end of the day, there was a singular person that you basically had to convince. That is no longer the case. In fact, I like to say that as the buying committees have expanded, you still only have one person who can say yes. The problem is you might have 6, 8, 10, or 12 that can say no. And what is so astounding is I have been in multiple sales cycles.

I mean, I wish I could say it’s only happened once. I wish I could say it’s never happened, but it’s happened way too many times where someone who was two, three, maybe even four steps removed from the decision maker… In other words, the lowest ranking person in the room vetoed the deal. No, we think there’s a better solution. No, I don’t believe in that technology. No, I’m not sure about this claim, whatever it was. And the whole thing falls apart.

John Farkas:

Torpedo.

Mark Donnigan:

So what does this mean for marketing, and how does it relate to strategy? What it means is that first of all, the challenge here is that a lot of times these decision makers are somewhat hidden. Sometimes that’s by design. Sometimes they don’t want to be found, or maybe the company doesn’t really want them to be known. But I find usually that’s not the case.

It’s usually that this is just someone that you wouldn’t think to go look for. You wouldn’t even know where to find them in the organization. They might be a department of one, a team of one, basically. And yet they could literally be the person that gives the thumbs up or the thumbs down on your seven figure, your eight figure deal that you’re hoping to close. And so the strategy piece is that marketers, and especially someone in a leadership role, so like a CMO, VP of Marketing, has to first of all understand these dynamics. They have to know who are the key decision stakeholders, if you will, in our typical buying process? What do they look like? And I don’t mean physically what do they look like, but what are their responsibilities? What’s their function in the org? What do they care about? How do they think?

And then obviously we produce marketing materials and we do our best to try and reach them, but more importantly, we have to look at our whole process, the go-to-market. It’s why I really prefer to think of myself as a go-to-market engineer or go-to-market architect, even more so than a marketing executive, because you have to be able to think holistically beyond just, oh, what are we saying on LinkedIn? What’s our trade show booth going to look like? Are we going to invest in this digital property or this other one? Are we going to start a podcast? All those things are important, but that’s the strategic piece.

John Farkas:

Well yeah, and especially today as I see the lines increasingly becoming blurred because what you said. I mean, there’s so many different ways. It’s not just a conversation on the golf course or over a glass of wine after a nice dinner.

Mark Donnigan:

Exactly.

John Farkas:

There’s a multichannel universe that’s going on, much of which we have no control over. I mean, we can influence it, but it’s not ours to control until you get to the scope of being able to launch your own ecosystem within an industry. But that’s reserved for a few billion-dollar companies.

Until you get to that point, you have very little control over what finds its way into people. And so your whole organization, so what that means right now is the sales function and the marketing function and the product development function are all merging. We talk about this a lot.

I mean, they’re all kind of coming together into what needs to be and often isn’t, but it needs to be a very unified, very integrated function that from my vantage point, and this isn’t just because I consider myself on the marketing side, but it is a marketing. This is about the go-to-market. It is about how you engage in ways that produce revenue.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

Understanding Where to Start from the Nature of Go-to-Market

John Farkas:

And so we have to look at that as a holistic perspective, understand and strategize in that regard. So when you’re looking at the nature of go-to-market, how do you start? What are the things that you’re pulling in, the data points you’re pulling in to understand what needs to come out?

Mark Donnigan:

So it really is about knowing-

John Farkas:

And you talked about understanding who the buyer is, understanding that, which is the first thing, right?

Mark Donnigan:

That’s the very first thing. And so you have to start there. But then the next logical step is to say, “But how are they assimilating information?” So what I mean by that is what are the conferences they go to? What are the online forums and the communities they’re a part of? What are the trade associations they may be a part of?

The reason why this is important, there’s two parts to it. One is it can obviously inform where we invest, IE, do we go to this trade show or that trade show? Well, if I happen to know that more of our buyers are in one particular community, then I’m going to prioritize that, right? So there’s value there, but it’s different. It’s even more than that. It’s where our buyers are hanging out is where they’re getting information. And so John Gardner, I think it was 2018 when this first research came out, and maybe they’ve been reporting this even before that-

John Farkas:

[inaudible 00:11:56].

Mark Donnigan:

But they reported that more than 50% of the buyer’s journey was completed in an average B2B buying process. Now, this is very generic across multiple industries, but this B2B buying process, more than 50% was completed before they contacted the first vendor. In other words, buyers are increasingly self educating. So if I’m going to think about-

John Farkas:

And they’ve updated that I think recently in advance of 60%.

Mark Donnigan:

And the numbers gone up, by the way. Yeah, it’s very remarkable. So if you’re going to think about go-to-market and you’re thinking about where your marketing efforts intersect with your literal selling activities, your selling motions, and then how that intersects with the product you’re building, et cetera, you have to then understand, well, where is that buyer hanging out and who are they listening to?

So the first is you have to know who the buyer is. Well, if you know who the buyer is, a lot of this is just talking. Interestingly enough, I was in a situation a couple of weeks ago and we were doing a creative code review. So if anybody comes from an engineering background, you know code review. And it’s where the group gets in a room and somebody throws up some code and it’s a constructive tear down, it’s a, “Hey, you could have done this better. What about that? How come you made that choice, et cetera.” And it’s all to improve the quality of the engineering.

So we were doing this in a marketing context, and I asked the group, there were seven marketers on the call, and I said, “You don’t have to embarrass yourself, but I’m going to ask a question. And I want you to think internally. How long has it been since you’ve been in front of a customer?”

Now let me tell you, John, nobody raised their hand, but the facial expression said it all. Some of them, I’ll bet you it’s been multiple years. In fact, I know it has in this context. And the point that I was trying to make was that people were giving their opinions in this particular meeting that I was a part of, I was leading and saying, “Well, this is what buyers want. This is what sales is saying.” And I said, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on, gang. We have a lot of opinions here. Who’s been in front of a customer and how long has it been?” And it got real quiet.

So that is absolutely critical. And then based on that knowledge, if I know where my buyer is, now I know how to communicate with them. Now when somebody says, “Oh, our buyers aren’t on Facebook,” and yet we’re selling into a particular market, I heard a great example, speaking of healthcare technology, medical device company. And they had a medical device selling into hospitals, ER rooms, I think specifically. And the engineers, the founders said the ER docs do not spend time on Facebook. The product manager went out into the field, spent a couple nights in ERs, and guess what they were all doing when no one was in the ER?

John Farkas:

Were they on Facebook?

Mark Donnigan:

They were on Facebook. They were scrolling. So he walked away and went, “Huh. What if we just published this great clinical research that validates our technology, our solution? I don’t want to ask for a demo. I just want to buy Facebook ads to just make that research available.”

So while that ER doc is scrolling his or her feed, all of a sudden because of Facebook’s amazing algorithm, our clinical study pops up. Do you think they’re going to click on it? Probably yes. They’re going to be shocked. Like, whoa, what’s this? They’re going to click on it. And so it is an excellent case study.

Anyway, it’s a real life case study that I heard about. And it’s just one example of where there was a bias or perception and it was wrong. And it wasn’t until this product manager went out into the field and went, “Wait a second. They’re all standing around scrolling Facebook and Instagram and other social platforms. There’s no one there. They have nothing to do. So they’re just waiting for the next patient to come in.” And so that’s a perfect forum.

John Farkas:

And it’s really interesting. It’s a lot of why this podcast exists. Most of our guests in the context of this podcast are people that are on the buying seats. And we’ve talked to Andy Flat, the CIO at Healthcare Corporation of America. We’ve talked to Hayden McWhorter, who’s the CIO of Premise Health. We’ve talked to Nicole Tremble, who has a big part of the nursing and identity verification universe at HCA. We’ve talked to, gosh, Kelly Aldrich at Vanderbilt, people that are in this decision making seat.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

And so part of our intent is to help people connect and start, because of what you’re saying is true, Mark. I mean, it’s pretty rare in my experience. I watch healthcare technology organizations hire marketing teams, many of whom have never been in front of a buyer, and they are working to connect the dots and are pretty far removed.

And so part of what we’re trying to do is help close some of those gaps. But it’s so important. I mean, one of the things we underscore over and over again is the importance of understanding who you are communicating with.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

Leading with Value in a Constrained Healthcare Climate

John Farkas:

And the thing we hear over and over and over again is the critical nature, especially in today’s climate, where budgets are extraordinarily constrained and human resources are equally constrained. You have to lead with your value.

We’re not interested in leading with the whizzbang features, the core technology. That’s not the primary. The primary is what are you going to do for me? How is this going to make my job easier? How is this going to improve the lives of our clinicians? How is this going to ultimately improve the lives of our patients? And cut to that and make sure you understand what my needs are so that you can clearly understand what needs to be communicated. And that just ends up being so important.

Mark Donnigan:

Well, so you can think of it like the market or our audience, if you want to almost think as a publisher. Which by the way, John, I really do believe that marketing today, especially in B2B, looks as much like a publishing game as it does anything else. So we can maybe unpack that a bit further, but you actually earn their respect when they feel like this company actually understands me. If they understand me, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss that recent blog post or that recent white paper or that clinical study or whatever it is.

And yet, too many marketers are struggling against what I call an efficacy problem. And I’ve started using this a lot recently because it just fits, because I really don’t know too many marketing teams that are lazy. I don’t know too many marketing teams that are just sitting around coasting, waiting eight weeks until the next trade show. And so they’re kind of just coasting until they’ve got to start preparing for that conference, whatever. They’re working hard. In fact, some of them are working at 110% capacity.

The problem is that I know a lot of marketing teams that are failing. So what did I just say? What I just said is that marketing teams are working hard. They’re even doing good things. They’re playing the game of marketing. And yet the CEO, the executive team, the founders, the investors are saying, “We don’t know what’s happening, because marketing isn’t working. They’re working hard, but there’s not a business outcome.”

And so much of this can be solved by simply knowing what your customer audience cares about. What do they actually care about? And stop talking about all the other stuff that’s might be important to the company… Maybe for some reason they really are passionate about this particular aspect of a trend that’s happening in the market. But if that’s not where our buyers are, stop talking about it. It’s not helping your cause. And yet so many marketing teams fall into that trench, I find.

John Farkas:

It’s really true. I think we talk about it in terms of the importance of building the bridge. So many companies will stand on the shore that they’re on, on one side of the river, and yell across to the market and say, “Y’all need to come on over here, because we’ve got a real good thing going on.”

And first of all, they can barely hear you on the other side, if at all, let alone be convinced to walk across. Because there ain’t no bridge built. There’s no bridge. And so part of marketing’s job is to create a beautiful bridge that entices people to come over. And what you need to know to build a bridge, you don’t just start a bridge on one side. You have to understand the anatomy of both sides of the bank, both banks, each side. You need to know what’s going on on the other side.

Mark Donnigan:

I love this analogy.

John Farkas:

And you need to [inaudible 00:23:11].

Mark Donnigan:

I’m going to steal this one. This is great.

John Farkas:

Well, it ends up being really important. Part of the engineering is understanding both sides.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, that’s right.

John Farkas:

We know what we’re offering. We know what the other side looks like, and we’re going to work to bring those together. That’s marketing’s role. Now, part of that, the bridge, is helping people know not what to think, but how to think. We need to equip them in how to think about the nature of the problem.

So I’ll pull something out here, because it’s something that you and I have talked about, and I think it’s a good example of helping people know how to think. Mark, I’m a little ashamed to say that we have to consider ourselves now old enough to remember this moment, because it seems like yesterday to me. But I remember the original iPod launch.

Mark Donnigan:

Yes. And I’m not ashamed to say I remember it.

John Farkas:

Just to make sure everybody knows that what an iPod was, because I have to do that now too, iPod was Apple’s preliminary foray into the music universe, and it was launched at one of the great fanfare events that Steve Jobs made ubiquitous in our world for product launches.

But what would be important for everybody to know is that the technology wasn’t new. Now, the form factor and how they brought it forward was new and different and clearly differentiated. But the essential technology, I mean, the MP3 existed. MP3 players existed. MP3s were music files back in the day. All this stuff is needing translation for people that are younger than us in some forms.

But that stuff existed. But what Steve Jobs did, I think really well, is helped us know how to think about the problem. And he did that with a little slogan that became, at that point, ubiquitous where he said a thousand songs in your pocket.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

And that just sort of changed the perspective. It helped people think about the problem. I mean, one of the other phrases he made ubiquitous was think different. It made people think differently about this technology. What do you recall about that? What’s your frame on how that was set up?

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, I use this example a lot, because what’s fascinating is that Apple, just like they did with the phone, the category existed. There were music players. In fact, you could go into Best Buy. Some in the US might remember Fry’s Electronics. They eventually shut down, I think, only just a couple of years ago.

But anyway, I loved going in Fry’s. I mean, they had everything. Every MP3 player on the market practically would be on the shelf. It was just remarkable. And you’d go in there and you’d just look at brand after brand, some very well-known brands, some no name brands, as we sometimes say in electronics. And they’d all say like 64 megabytes, 128, 256. That was huge. Considered big. And there would be other features listed on there.

And then Apple comes out, and Steve Jobs holds up this… First of all, it’s a beautiful looking device. And there’s like one button and it’s just like, what is this thing? How do you use it? That was even my first reaction.

But holds it up. And he says, “A thousand songs in your pocket.” Now, what I like to break down for people when I am walking through this example, is I say, “What did Steve Jobs communicate in this very simple statement?”

Okay, so let’s just break it down almost word by word. A thousand songs. Okay, song, that’s music. I know it’s a music player, but you didn’t say music player. A thousand songs. Whoa. And back then we all had CDs, and the average CD I think actually had more than 10 songs. But that was kind of like from the old days of records. So you do some quick math and go, “Oh, that’s like a hundred CDs. How many CDs do I own? Oh, I think I have about 80. Wow. I could fit my entire library on here. Whoa.”

And again, I’m dating myself as well, John here, you probably also had the zippered bag with the CDs in your car, and if you had a couple cars, you have to move it between cars when you go on a road trip or whatever. Now I leave the house, I’m looking, where’s my phone? Back in those days, it’s like, wait, where’s my favorite new CD? I got to listen it.

John Farkas:

My folio.

Mark Donnigan:

So you’re searching the house looking for that CD. Anyway, those are nostalgic days, but a thousand songs. So it’s music. A thousand, the size of a library. I can relate to that. What the heck does 256 megabytes… How do I correlate that? I can’t. Even the geeks who knew how to do the math and bit rate, even they would have to do some quick math and let’s see, oh, it turns out it’s roughly about this many songs, whatever that number would work out to be.

So it was very, very simple to understand. And then in your pocket. It’s portable. And it was those just very, very simple words, that very simple statement that took a category that existed and made Apple the queen.

John Farkas:

And built a bridge.

Mark Donnigan:

Built the bridge, and made Apple the absolute. So then fast-forward 10 years later, it was like 2011, and Apple revenues from the iPod accounted for something like 77 or 78%. I’m off by one or two percentage points, but the number’s so astounding it doesn’t matter. Of all revenue produced by every single company selling a music player in the market, apple with the iPod and all the various versions they were selling captured something like 77, 78% of it.

John Farkas:

[inaudible 00:30:16].

Mark Donnigan:

Now if that isn’t being the dominant, overwhelming player in a market, I don’t know what is.

John Farkas:

Yeah, it’s a great example of helping people know how to think about the problem. Not focusing on the technology, focusing on the benefit that it brings. We can put a thousand songs in your pocket.

Mark Donnigan:

A thousand songs, yep.

John Farkas:

What’s that worth to you? I’m tired of toting that portfolio around and trying to find the CD while I’m at a traffic light.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. Now it’s texting and driving. Then it was switching CDs and driving.

John Farkas:

[inaudible 00:31:02] and driving. That’s right.

Mark Donnigan:

That was dangerous.

John Farkas:

Well, you and I have talked about… I guess maybe we’ll call it a tragic launch that we’ve seen happen here recently, that might-

Mark Donnigan:

This is an amazing one.

Analyzing Humane AI’s Recent Launch Failure

John Farkas:

Serve to underscore this issue also. So what can you tell us about Humane AI and what you know about that backdrop?

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, so Humane AI, I think most people-

John Farkas:

And just to qualify it, we know that this isn’t healthcare technology right now. We’re using some object lessons and some allegories.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

But I think that this is going to serve a good point. Sorry to interrupt.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, exactly. Don’t tune out. Don’t tune out. So Humane AI would be in the category of what is typically called a wearable. And a wearable is just any smart electronics product that you would wear on your wrist, and it may monitor health functions, it could assist in workouts. I mean, there’s all kinds of wearables. There’s a lot that are out there. Frankly, the Apple Watch is really a wearable, if you really think about it.

John Farkas:

It is wearable.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. So this is Humane AI. The company, by the way-

John Farkas:

And I would say the Apple Watch is the category leading.

Mark Donnigan:

Is a category leader. Exactly. Yeah. So real quick about the company. So this is a serious company. They’ve raised I think somewhere in the order of 241 million, at least publicly disclosed. Sometimes companies have raised more, but the fact is-

John Farkas:

From some notable people too.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. Open AI, Microsoft. And it’s a smart team. And we’re saying all that because what we’re about to give you a glimpse of, if you didn’t know all that going in, you might think, “Well, I guess maybe they just… Better luck next time. Maybe they better try again.” No, these are smart people.

So with that backdrop, I don’t know, maybe do we want to show just the first minute or the first-

John Farkas:

Let’s see what happens in the first minute. Now keep in mind-

Mark Donnigan:

This is a launch video.

John Farkas:

This is the video that they’re leading their go-to-market strategy with.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

So we’ll take a look at this here. Those of you not watching on video, just listen.

Humane AI:

This is the Humane AI pin. It’s a standalone device and software platform built from the ground up for AI. It comes in three colorways. Got Eclipse, Lunar, and Equinox. There’s two pieces, a computer and a battery booster. Now the battery booster powers a smaller battery inside the main computer, and this is how we achieve our all day battery life.

Humane AI:

So if you ever exhaust the booster, you just reach into your pocket or bag and hot swap it. This is a perpetual power system that allows you to use your AI pin for as long as you want.

Humane AI:

There are no wake words, so it’s not always listening or always recording. In fact, it doesn’t do anything until you engage with it, and your engagement comes through your touch, voice, gesture, or the laser ink display.

Humane AI:

It also comes with its own connectivity built right in, our own Humane network connected by T-Mobile.

Humane AI:

We were able to pack a lot of technology into something really small.

John Farkas:

All right, so let’s just mark time. We’re a minute and 13 into the video.

Mark Donnigan:

And let me ask you, John, what is an AI pin?

John Farkas:

I don’t know yet.

Mark Donnigan:

And the whole point in this exercise, really-

John Farkas:

Well, I know it’s got a battery.

Mark Donnigan:

It has a battery.

John Farkas:

And it’ll last me all day.

Mark Donnigan:

No, I don’t believe they said it would last you all day. It’s that if you exhaust the battery, you can easily replace it with another one you carry in your bag or your purse or whatever. We do know that T-Mobile is the virtual wireless network operator who’s powering it. Oh, okay. I’m a T-Mobile user. I guess that’s good.

John Farkas:

I’m not.

Mark Donnigan:

I don’t know what that does for me, but do I get it for free on my T-Mobile plan? I don’t know. And we could continue on. It’s about a 10-minute video.

John Farkas:

The first 60 seconds are about form factor.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, form factor.

John Farkas:

And the Gizzy widget.

Mark Donnigan:

And here’s the massive failure. Not only do we not know what this thing is, who cares what it is? What can it do for me? Where’s the thousand songs in your pocket? So can you imagine if the video has started with the founders taking this little thing, which I’ve not seen one in the flesh, but on video and all. It looks like the industrial design’s been thought out. I don’t want to say if it’s good or bad, I’m just saying it’s certainly not, I think, an ugly object. But if they held it up and they said in 7, 8, 10, 12 words, “Introducing the AI pen. The AI pen… And then there’s seven or eight words, and I go, “Oh, wow.”

John Farkas:

Here’s how it will change your life.

Mark Donnigan:

Exactly. Not what it can do. Not, “The AI pen’s powered by Open AI and does…” Even that would be like, oh, okay, but why do I need to be wearing something that’s connected to Open AI? But what if it said, “The AI pen seamlessly blends the intelligence of fill in the blank,” and went on tell a story? All of a sudden, now you have my attention. Now, five minutes into the video, maybe then I’m like, “Well, what color options are there? And is this thing going to run out of power every 60 minutes?” And all of a sudden then some of this early form factor things that they talk about become relevant. But at this stage, it’s not relevant.

John Farkas:

Yeah. And why are we talking about this? Well, the point is that happens a whole lot.

Mark Donnigan:

A whole lot.

John Farkas:

In technology.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah.

John Farkas:

I mean, the challenge for organizations that are typically technology founder led or the like is that that’s where we start the conversation. It starts in the form factor. It starts in the features. It starts in the cool things that we can do that are not necessarily the clear statement of the core value that it results in.

Mark Donnigan:

So true.

John Farkas:

And that’s the thing. And the important thing to keep in mind. So I would say ask yourself how well constructed is the bridge that you’ve made to your organization? Are you starting with how many gigabytes your MP3 player is? Or are you really serving as the translation layer that helps them understand that our platform is going to let you carry a thousand songs in your pocket? That’s a big difference.

Mark Donnigan:

Big difference.

John Farkas:

So looking at the Humane world, I mean, we just talked a little bit about it. What ought to be different in that equation? I mean, we talked about what they should have led with. What do they need to be considering?

Mark Donnigan:

It’s leading with value. And I feel like in the 35, 40 minutes or so we’ve been talking, that’s just the central theme that keeps coming up. You said, John, that your previous guests who are buyers of healthcare technology have lamented, and probably even lamented in a very sincere way of saying because someone hasn’t led with value, it’s possible they’re missing out on adopting technology product solutions that actually would improve their ability to provide patient care or whatever that would do. But the buyer never had the chance, because it wasn’t understandable.

And that’s what, to me, is really the fundamental issue that we have to solve as marketers. And if you’re running a company, if you’re the founder of a company, you’re the CEO, certainly if you’re running marketing, if you’re running go-to-market, is to figure out how can you be more specific, more direct, and just more clear with value? What is that thousand songs in your pocket? It is such a powerful statement. I hope that burns into everybody’s psyche, is when you’re designing your next campaign or you’re thinking about how you’re positioning a new product, or you’re writing a PowerPoint presentation for a sales pitch coming up, what is the thousand songs in your pocket that you’re going to start with and you’re going to close with?

And sure. In the middle, there’s probably a need to go more deeper or provide context or give more information. Maybe you do need to get into more of the features and the benefits and all. Maybe you do. It’s not to say we never talk about that, but we lead with a thousand songs in your pocket. Then you tell them how it’s done, and then you wrap with, “And this is why the iPod is so amazing. A thousand songs in your pocket.” And the buyer says, “Wow, I can get that.” And so it’s leading with value, is really what we need to be focused on.

John Farkas:

That’s a great word, Mark, and my encouragement there is to be brutally honest and do your best to get as objective as you can in that assessment and ask some outsiders what they think about how you’re doing.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

Even during this conversation right here, as much as I sit and think about this, we’re in the process of working with a client right now on some top line messaging, and I’m running this little internal audit in my brain as we’re talking. I’m going, “Okay, we could do better. We could do better at cutting through it and getting to it,” because that’s just such a critical component.

So Mark, backing up a little bit, a couple things here. First thing that I heard and understood is just we’re talking about the critical nature of proximity to our buyer. So if you’re a marketing person and you haven’t spent real time in three dimensions across the table from a real buyer or two or 10 or 15 to really be able to understand the nature of the bridge you need to build, you need to do it. You need to figure out what it’s going to take to make that happen. Because without that, you’re just not going to get… And I hate to say it, but it’s harder to do over Zoom. It’s really hard to do over email. It’s really hard to do over Zoom, because we’re still missing a lot of the stuff that gets communicated in three dimensions when people are face-to-face.

It’s real. I mean, there’s just real things that get communicated differently in that situation. So what does it mean for you to get face-to-face in their environment, to really gain the level of understanding that will get you to the point where you’re going to be able to make a difference in how you present what you present and how you’re able to craft the bridge that is beautifully suited for its purposes? So get proximate. Understand how you need to help people think about the problem that they’re facing and how you articulate that, because it’s really important to say, “What does it mean to declare the value, not what does it mean to declare what we do?” Very different, very different perspective. Understanding the customer, understanding what they value, understanding how you need to articulate it, super important backdrop, especially as we look to starting the new year and all the great initiatives that are getting ready to be unleashed in the world starting Q1.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

Asking Hard Questions during Go-to-Market Efforts

John Farkas:

Getting that stuff well oriented is important. Mark, I know that you spend a lot of time thinking differently, trying to help frame go-to-market efforts. What are some ways that you see yourself as a codebreaker? How are you hacking the system? What are some ways that you see things that help you gain traction in the conversations that you’re having, in the ways that you’re engaging?

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, I find that the thing that I do regardless of stage of company that I am working with… Stage meaning if they’re kind of earlier, they’re just developing the market or if it’s growth or if they’ve been out there for a while, size of the company, startup. I don’t really work pre-revenue, but just getting started or doing $200 million.

There’s some universal things that I do. I sort of like that codebreaker kind of reference. One is really just asking these really hard questions, like looking at messaging on the website, for example, and saying, “What does it mean?” And getting back a whole stream of catchy phrases and some things that are like, okay, that’s good, but what does it mean? Do they get it? Oh, oh, of course they get it. Really? What do they get? And then you reflect back and all of a sudden there’s the silent pause in the room where it gets quiet real quick and everybody goes, “Oh yeah, we’ve never looked at it with that much detail.”

And so I am always aware that there’s this perception, like the consultant flew in 2000 miles away. So suddenly they’re an expert. And most of the time I’m sitting in the room and I’m thinking, “I am sure that I’m not the only one who’s either come in and given the same input or there’s even people sitting around this table who have either thought it or expressed it, but nobody took the time to really push and push and push and say, ‘No, what does it mean? What are we really saying? Are you sure our buyer really gets that?’”

Oh yeah. ER docs. Oh, an ER doc? They’re not on Facebook. They barely know. They hate email. And then you go into an emergency room and they’re all standing there with phone in their hands when there’s no patients in the ER and they’re scrolling their feed and you go, “Huh, I wonder what else we believe that isn’t correct.”

So I think some of it, some of the unlock, a lot of the unlock that I bring when I come into a company is just being maybe a little relentless and pushing and sometimes making people uncomfortable, sometimes myself uncomfortable, because you don’t always get positive reactions when you’re pushing against the status quo.

But that would be my encouragement, is for the listeners who have listened, hung in there, thank you for hanging in there through this whole interview, but if you’re listening and you’re saying, “I wonder if we’re falling into the same trap.” Go into your next meeting and the next time somebody makes a statement, well, no, our buyers, this is what they care about. And have the courage to ask the question. Really? How do we know that? Well, because… How do we really know that? Did we double check that? Who here has even been in the field recently? And if no hands go up, well, that’s a place to start.

John Farkas:

Yep. That’s great. So what are some of the channels that you’re tuning into that is helping inform your perspective? What are some of the things that you take in on a regular basis?

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, so I’m not going to so much give you a list of here’s all my favorite podcast, but I will give you what I believe is an important way to think about the information that you consume. And some of this is just prioritizing time. So we all have limited time.

But I found that one of my hacks, and somebody asked me this question not long ago, so that’s why I’m right on top of this question. They were asking, “What books do you read? What kinds of books do you read?” And I realized that I would love to read fiction. There’s all kinds of genres and things I would love to read. I mean, I’d be very interested, but I don’t have time for that. Furthermore, there’s a lot of business books I’d love to read. I would love to dig deeper in economics and really understand economic theory and feel like I’m more conversant as to just why things are going on in the world of finance and whatever. I would love that. I don’t have time for that.

So I am very intentional in my focus, and my focus is always on filling the gaps of where I feel I have a lack of knowledge or where I need to better equip myself for a specific task that’s in front of me. So it shifts, the resources. And I really encourage as well, rather than having a favorite subject and always reading on that subject, or maybe even to a certain extent a favorite podcast, whatever, be very intentional about. And if you’re in a demand generation phase where the whole focus of your marketing effort is on not just producing MQLs, form fills, but real meaningful demand for your product, well, go out there and study the book Play Bigger. Go through that book. Go through that book twice. Maybe you should go back and revisit Jeffrey Moore and Crossing the Chasm. But go to those books.

Don’t worry about the latest book by some hot author that’s got 10 million followers on Facebook. Don’t worry about that. I’m not saying that’s not useful. Maybe it is. Maybe that’s where you should be. But that’s how I equip myself. And maybe that’s just time limitation. Maybe one day I’ll have time to do the other things, but right now I don’t.

John Farkas:

Play Bigger is certainly on my list of books I wish I would’ve written.

Mark Donnigan:

It’s just amazing. And by the way, I’ll make a comment about Play Bigger. It is a book. It’s about category design, but I think it gets pigeonholed too much as like, oh, that’s the category design book. Now category design is hot. Everybody wants to know about it. So it’s not that anybody is necessarily going to say, “Oh, I don’t need to read that. It’s about category design.”

But I would just encourage, if you’ve heard as well, well, it’s about category design and category design’s great, but you have to have millions of dollars. And all those things are sort of true, not completely true in terms of the investment required, but the point is, it is a book that will challenge your thinking. It will absolutely reshape the way you look at the role of marketing. It’s brilliant. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO, doesn’t matter if you’re a sales leader. If you’re a product leader, you should read it. Shoot, if you’re an R&D engineering leader, you should read it. Honestly, it’s universal.

John Farkas:

I’ve almost got to the point where I don’t want to work with an organization unless the CEO’s read the book.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, I think-

John Farkas:

I’m almost there. I haven’t quite got there yet, but I probably should be, because it does condition a way of thinking. It’s not a book about category creation. It’s a book about how to win a market.

Mark Donnigan:

Yep. Oh, that’s so true.

John Farkas:

And some companies have to design a category because they don’t fit in one that exists already, and it would serve them to help people know how to think about the problem.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

That’s an important moment to realize, because it does take a different energy and a different emphasis. But some of this is about having the courage to win a market.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

And what it’s going to take to get it out there to help your dreams get realized, because it’s a big market out there, and if you are wanting to capture a chunk of it, you’ve got to get serious about making it happen.

Mark Donnigan:

Well, changing the world is, I think, in almost everyone’s… You say, “What’s your mission?” And somewhere it’s change the world. And yet it’s astounding-

John Farkas:

Seriously?

Mark Donnigan:

To me. Well…

John Farkas:

I mean, I’m agreeing with you, but I’m saying, “Are you serious about that?”

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. And that’s where I’m going with this, is that it’s astounding to me how everybody’s so quick. And maybe some of it’s sort of altruism, but I think the majority of people, it’s completely legitimate face value. That really is. That’s a legit desire. They want to change the world, and they have a vision for doing that.

Well, you can’t change the world if you’re not successful. And yet, it’s astounding to me how many people on one hand will talk to you for hours about their vision and their excitement, their enthusiasm, how their company, their technology, their product’s going to change the world. And then you ask them fundamental things about the way that they’re going to market, designing the market, thinking about the product, and it’s so out of sync with what the market needs, and you’re just like, “You really understand you want to change the world, and yet what it’s going to take to do that, you’re almost like short-cutting or just sort of leaving to fate.”

John Farkas:

And we come back to value. Here we are.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right. It’s a great way to wrap the episode, I think.

John Farkas:

Absolutely.

Mark Donnigan:

So, yeah, let’s truly go change the world. I know that I’m very passionate about helping companies do that.

Closing Thoughts

John Farkas:

Well, Mark Donnigan, thank you for that. It certainly comes through. Make sure to check out growthstage.marketing. That’s where you can find Mark. Grateful for you jumping in with us today and for the opportunity to have the conversation. There’s a lot that we’ll be, I’m sure, tagging as a result of this conversation. We’ll make sure there’s some links in the notes to all the videos and things that we’re referencing so that you can take that together.

Make sure you check us out at goratio.com. Lots going on in the podcast. Lots of great episodes recorded there that really are going to give you some good perspective on who are the people in the market, what are the real problems that they’re facing, and how are they looking to solve that and what means value to them?

Thank you all for joining us. Mark, thanks again.

Outro:

Healthcare Market Matrix is a Ratio original podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, then jump over to healthcaremarketmatrix.com and subscribe, and we’d really appreciate your support in the form of a five star rating on your favorite podcast platform. It does make a difference. Also, while you’re there, you can become a part of the Healthcare Market Matrix community and get access to courses and content that’s created just for you by signing up for Insights Squared, a monthly newsletter dedicated to bringing you the latest health tech marketing insights right to your inbox.

Ratio is an award-winning marketing agency headquartered in the Nashville, Tennessee. We operate at the intersection of brand and growth marketing to equip companies with strategies to create meaningful connections with the healthcare market and ultimately drive growth. Want to know more? Go to goratio.com. That’s G-O-R-A-T-I-O.com. And we’ll see you at noon central next week for an all new episode from our team at Ratio Studios. Stay healthy.

Transcript (custom)

Introducing Mark Donnigan

John Farkas:

Greetings everyone, and welcome to Healthcare Market Matrix. I’m your host, John Farkas, and today we get the chance to talk with the Mark Donnigan, otherwise known as my brother from another mother. Those of you watching the video will get that illusion. We showed up with same haircut, similar glasses, same headphones. I tell you what, it’s just synergy.

Mark Donnigan:

But your mic is different.

John Farkas:

Different mic. So Mark and I got to know each other several years ago when he was on our podcast at that point, and we were talking about the critical nature of KPI creation, communication, and alignment within organizations. And what became apparent to me at that point is that here’s a guy who understands the true nature of marketing and is passionate about aligning organizations to serve the real needs of the real market.

And just so you know, as we lead out here, you can find Mark at growthstage.marketing online. That’s where his digital universe resides. But what I can tell you about Mark is that he’s a consultant and or virtual CMO who’s focused on the go-to-market program creation, specifically for early stage technology related companies. And we spend a lot of time in our context here at Healthcare Market Matrix talking about the critical nature of creating marketing initiatives that jump up and down on the real value that technology affords, and the importance of understanding and focusing on communicating clearly how you address the real problems your market is willing to spend time and money to solve.

So Mark, as you will see, shares that passion, and we’re going to have some fun in the process today of exploring that. So Mark, welcome to Healthcare Market Matrix.

Mark Donnigan:

John, it’s great to be back. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk again. We had such a good time in our last interview, and I know we’ll do it again.

John Farkas:

I expect we’ll do it again. So as we get started here, I’m going to hand you a virtual baton and let you run with it for a minute. Are you ready?

Mark Donnigan:

I’m ready.

John Farkas:

Okay. So here’s the baton. Marketing can’t just be a little department in your company that maintains your website and does a few blogs and campaigns. Marketing, especially in a B2B organization, is business strategy.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

Okay. There’s your baton.

Mark Donnigan:

I’ve got it.

John Farkas:

On your mark. Get set, go.

Mark Donnigan:

I’m running. Okay. Yeah, I completely agree with that statement, John. And let me explain why that is. Today, the buyer’s journey is so fragmented. There are so many constituents, that is, individuals involved. And what’s really frustrating, I remember the good old days where if you were an account executive, really your job was to get as close as possible, meaning know the-

John Farkas:

Go golfing.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. Meaning know the bottle of wine that the PO holder, the exact brand and the vintage and all that they liked, know their favorite restaurant, know all the kids’ names, all of this. And for those of us who’ve been out in the market for a while, we can remember those days. It was about the Rolodex. Rolodex selling.

And that’s not to say that we didn’t have to go demonstrate value. We didn’t have to have a product that worked, a solution. I’m not suggesting that. But at the end of the day, there was a singular person that you basically had to convince. That is no longer the case. In fact, I like to say that as the buying committees have expanded, you still only have one person who can say yes. The problem is you might have 6, 8, 10, or 12 that can say no. And what is so astounding is I have been in multiple sales cycles.

I mean, I wish I could say it’s only happened once. I wish I could say it’s never happened, but it’s happened way too many times where someone who was two, three, maybe even four steps removed from the decision maker… In other words, the lowest ranking person in the room vetoed the deal. No, we think there’s a better solution. No, I don’t believe in that technology. No, I’m not sure about this claim, whatever it was. And the whole thing falls apart.

John Farkas:

Torpedo.

Mark Donnigan:

So what does this mean for marketing, and how does it relate to strategy? What it means is that first of all, the challenge here is that a lot of times these decision makers are somewhat hidden. Sometimes that’s by design. Sometimes they don’t want to be found, or maybe the company doesn’t really want them to be known. But I find usually that’s not the case.

It’s usually that this is just someone that you wouldn’t think to go look for. You wouldn’t even know where to find them in the organization. They might be a department of one, a team of one, basically. And yet they could literally be the person that gives the thumbs up or the thumbs down on your seven figure, your eight figure deal that you’re hoping to close. And so the strategy piece is that marketers, and especially someone in a leadership role, so like a CMO, VP of Marketing, has to first of all understand these dynamics. They have to know who are the key decision stakeholders, if you will, in our typical buying process? What do they look like? And I don’t mean physically what do they look like, but what are their responsibilities? What’s their function in the org? What do they care about? How do they think?

And then obviously we produce marketing materials and we do our best to try and reach them, but more importantly, we have to look at our whole process, the go-to-market. It’s why I really prefer to think of myself as a go-to-market engineer or go-to-market architect, even more so than a marketing executive, because you have to be able to think holistically beyond just, oh, what are we saying on LinkedIn? What’s our trade show booth going to look like? Are we going to invest in this digital property or this other one? Are we going to start a podcast? All those things are important, but that’s the strategic piece.

John Farkas:

Well yeah, and especially today as I see the lines increasingly becoming blurred because what you said. I mean, there’s so many different ways. It’s not just a conversation on the golf course or over a glass of wine after a nice dinner.

Mark Donnigan:

Exactly.

John Farkas:

There’s a multichannel universe that’s going on, much of which we have no control over. I mean, we can influence it, but it’s not ours to control until you get to the scope of being able to launch your own ecosystem within an industry. But that’s reserved for a few billion-dollar companies.

Until you get to that point, you have very little control over what finds its way into people. And so your whole organization, so what that means right now is the sales function and the marketing function and the product development function are all merging. We talk about this a lot.

I mean, they’re all kind of coming together into what needs to be and often isn’t, but it needs to be a very unified, very integrated function that from my vantage point, and this isn’t just because I consider myself on the marketing side, but it is a marketing. This is about the go-to-market. It is about how you engage in ways that produce revenue.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

Understanding Where to Start from the Nature of Go-to-Market

John Farkas:

And so we have to look at that as a holistic perspective, understand and strategize in that regard. So when you’re looking at the nature of go-to-market, how do you start? What are the things that you’re pulling in, the data points you’re pulling in to understand what needs to come out?

Mark Donnigan:

So it really is about knowing-

John Farkas:

And you talked about understanding who the buyer is, understanding that, which is the first thing, right?

Mark Donnigan:

That’s the very first thing. And so you have to start there. But then the next logical step is to say, “But how are they assimilating information?” So what I mean by that is what are the conferences they go to? What are the online forums and the communities they’re a part of? What are the trade associations they may be a part of?

The reason why this is important, there’s two parts to it. One is it can obviously inform where we invest, IE, do we go to this trade show or that trade show? Well, if I happen to know that more of our buyers are in one particular community, then I’m going to prioritize that, right? So there’s value there, but it’s different. It’s even more than that. It’s where our buyers are hanging out is where they’re getting information. And so John Gardner, I think it was 2018 when this first research came out, and maybe they’ve been reporting this even before that-

John Farkas:

[inaudible 00:11:56].

Mark Donnigan:

But they reported that more than 50% of the buyer’s journey was completed in an average B2B buying process. Now, this is very generic across multiple industries, but this B2B buying process, more than 50% was completed before they contacted the first vendor. In other words, buyers are increasingly self educating. So if I’m going to think about-

John Farkas:

And they’ve updated that I think recently in advance of 60%.

Mark Donnigan:

And the numbers gone up, by the way. Yeah, it’s very remarkable. So if you’re going to think about go-to-market and you’re thinking about where your marketing efforts intersect with your literal selling activities, your selling motions, and then how that intersects with the product you’re building, et cetera, you have to then understand, well, where is that buyer hanging out and who are they listening to?

So the first is you have to know who the buyer is. Well, if you know who the buyer is, a lot of this is just talking. Interestingly enough, I was in a situation a couple of weeks ago and we were doing a creative code review. So if anybody comes from an engineering background, you know code review. And it’s where the group gets in a room and somebody throws up some code and it’s a constructive tear down, it’s a, “Hey, you could have done this better. What about that? How come you made that choice, et cetera.” And it’s all to improve the quality of the engineering.

So we were doing this in a marketing context, and I asked the group, there were seven marketers on the call, and I said, “You don’t have to embarrass yourself, but I’m going to ask a question. And I want you to think internally. How long has it been since you’ve been in front of a customer?”

Now let me tell you, John, nobody raised their hand, but the facial expression said it all. Some of them, I’ll bet you it’s been multiple years. In fact, I know it has in this context. And the point that I was trying to make was that people were giving their opinions in this particular meeting that I was a part of, I was leading and saying, “Well, this is what buyers want. This is what sales is saying.” And I said, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on, gang. We have a lot of opinions here. Who’s been in front of a customer and how long has it been?” And it got real quiet.

So that is absolutely critical. And then based on that knowledge, if I know where my buyer is, now I know how to communicate with them. Now when somebody says, “Oh, our buyers aren’t on Facebook,” and yet we’re selling into a particular market, I heard a great example, speaking of healthcare technology, medical device company. And they had a medical device selling into hospitals, ER rooms, I think specifically. And the engineers, the founders said the ER docs do not spend time on Facebook. The product manager went out into the field, spent a couple nights in ERs, and guess what they were all doing when no one was in the ER?

John Farkas:

Were they on Facebook?

Mark Donnigan:

They were on Facebook. They were scrolling. So he walked away and went, “Huh. What if we just published this great clinical research that validates our technology, our solution? I don’t want to ask for a demo. I just want to buy Facebook ads to just make that research available.”

So while that ER doc is scrolling his or her feed, all of a sudden because of Facebook’s amazing algorithm, our clinical study pops up. Do you think they’re going to click on it? Probably yes. They’re going to be shocked. Like, whoa, what’s this? They’re going to click on it. And so it is an excellent case study.

Anyway, it’s a real life case study that I heard about. And it’s just one example of where there was a bias or perception and it was wrong. And it wasn’t until this product manager went out into the field and went, “Wait a second. They’re all standing around scrolling Facebook and Instagram and other social platforms. There’s no one there. They have nothing to do. So they’re just waiting for the next patient to come in.” And so that’s a perfect forum.

John Farkas:

And it’s really interesting. It’s a lot of why this podcast exists. Most of our guests in the context of this podcast are people that are on the buying seats. And we’ve talked to Andy Flat, the CIO at Healthcare Corporation of America. We’ve talked to Hayden McWhorter, who’s the CIO of Premise Health. We’ve talked to Nicole Tremble, who has a big part of the nursing and identity verification universe at HCA. We’ve talked to, gosh, Kelly Aldrich at Vanderbilt, people that are in this decision making seat.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

And so part of our intent is to help people connect and start, because of what you’re saying is true, Mark. I mean, it’s pretty rare in my experience. I watch healthcare technology organizations hire marketing teams, many of whom have never been in front of a buyer, and they are working to connect the dots and are pretty far removed.

And so part of what we’re trying to do is help close some of those gaps. But it’s so important. I mean, one of the things we underscore over and over again is the importance of understanding who you are communicating with.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

Leading with Value in a Constrained Healthcare Climate

John Farkas:

And the thing we hear over and over and over again is the critical nature, especially in today’s climate, where budgets are extraordinarily constrained and human resources are equally constrained. You have to lead with your value.

We’re not interested in leading with the whizzbang features, the core technology. That’s not the primary. The primary is what are you going to do for me? How is this going to make my job easier? How is this going to improve the lives of our clinicians? How is this going to ultimately improve the lives of our patients? And cut to that and make sure you understand what my needs are so that you can clearly understand what needs to be communicated. And that just ends up being so important.

Mark Donnigan:

Well, so you can think of it like the market or our audience, if you want to almost think as a publisher. Which by the way, John, I really do believe that marketing today, especially in B2B, looks as much like a publishing game as it does anything else. So we can maybe unpack that a bit further, but you actually earn their respect when they feel like this company actually understands me. If they understand me, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss that recent blog post or that recent white paper or that clinical study or whatever it is.

And yet, too many marketers are struggling against what I call an efficacy problem. And I’ve started using this a lot recently because it just fits, because I really don’t know too many marketing teams that are lazy. I don’t know too many marketing teams that are just sitting around coasting, waiting eight weeks until the next trade show. And so they’re kind of just coasting until they’ve got to start preparing for that conference, whatever. They’re working hard. In fact, some of them are working at 110% capacity.

The problem is that I know a lot of marketing teams that are failing. So what did I just say? What I just said is that marketing teams are working hard. They’re even doing good things. They’re playing the game of marketing. And yet the CEO, the executive team, the founders, the investors are saying, “We don’t know what’s happening, because marketing isn’t working. They’re working hard, but there’s not a business outcome.”

And so much of this can be solved by simply knowing what your customer audience cares about. What do they actually care about? And stop talking about all the other stuff that’s might be important to the company… Maybe for some reason they really are passionate about this particular aspect of a trend that’s happening in the market. But if that’s not where our buyers are, stop talking about it. It’s not helping your cause. And yet so many marketing teams fall into that trench, I find.

John Farkas:

It’s really true. I think we talk about it in terms of the importance of building the bridge. So many companies will stand on the shore that they’re on, on one side of the river, and yell across to the market and say, “Y’all need to come on over here, because we’ve got a real good thing going on.”

And first of all, they can barely hear you on the other side, if at all, let alone be convinced to walk across. Because there ain’t no bridge built. There’s no bridge. And so part of marketing’s job is to create a beautiful bridge that entices people to come over. And what you need to know to build a bridge, you don’t just start a bridge on one side. You have to understand the anatomy of both sides of the bank, both banks, each side. You need to know what’s going on on the other side.

Mark Donnigan:

I love this analogy.

John Farkas:

And you need to [inaudible 00:23:11].

Mark Donnigan:

I’m going to steal this one. This is great.

John Farkas:

Well, it ends up being really important. Part of the engineering is understanding both sides.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, that’s right.

John Farkas:

We know what we’re offering. We know what the other side looks like, and we’re going to work to bring those together. That’s marketing’s role. Now, part of that, the bridge, is helping people know not what to think, but how to think. We need to equip them in how to think about the nature of the problem.

So I’ll pull something out here, because it’s something that you and I have talked about, and I think it’s a good example of helping people know how to think. Mark, I’m a little ashamed to say that we have to consider ourselves now old enough to remember this moment, because it seems like yesterday to me. But I remember the original iPod launch.

Mark Donnigan:

Yes. And I’m not ashamed to say I remember it.

John Farkas:

Just to make sure everybody knows that what an iPod was, because I have to do that now too, iPod was Apple’s preliminary foray into the music universe, and it was launched at one of the great fanfare events that Steve Jobs made ubiquitous in our world for product launches.

But what would be important for everybody to know is that the technology wasn’t new. Now, the form factor and how they brought it forward was new and different and clearly differentiated. But the essential technology, I mean, the MP3 existed. MP3 players existed. MP3s were music files back in the day. All this stuff is needing translation for people that are younger than us in some forms.

But that stuff existed. But what Steve Jobs did, I think really well, is helped us know how to think about the problem. And he did that with a little slogan that became, at that point, ubiquitous where he said a thousand songs in your pocket.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

And that just sort of changed the perspective. It helped people think about the problem. I mean, one of the other phrases he made ubiquitous was think different. It made people think differently about this technology. What do you recall about that? What’s your frame on how that was set up?

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, I use this example a lot, because what’s fascinating is that Apple, just like they did with the phone, the category existed. There were music players. In fact, you could go into Best Buy. Some in the US might remember Fry’s Electronics. They eventually shut down, I think, only just a couple of years ago.

But anyway, I loved going in Fry’s. I mean, they had everything. Every MP3 player on the market practically would be on the shelf. It was just remarkable. And you’d go in there and you’d just look at brand after brand, some very well-known brands, some no name brands, as we sometimes say in electronics. And they’d all say like 64 megabytes, 128, 256. That was huge. Considered big. And there would be other features listed on there.

And then Apple comes out, and Steve Jobs holds up this… First of all, it’s a beautiful looking device. And there’s like one button and it’s just like, what is this thing? How do you use it? That was even my first reaction.

But holds it up. And he says, “A thousand songs in your pocket.” Now, what I like to break down for people when I am walking through this example, is I say, “What did Steve Jobs communicate in this very simple statement?”

Okay, so let’s just break it down almost word by word. A thousand songs. Okay, song, that’s music. I know it’s a music player, but you didn’t say music player. A thousand songs. Whoa. And back then we all had CDs, and the average CD I think actually had more than 10 songs. But that was kind of like from the old days of records. So you do some quick math and go, “Oh, that’s like a hundred CDs. How many CDs do I own? Oh, I think I have about 80. Wow. I could fit my entire library on here. Whoa.”

And again, I’m dating myself as well, John here, you probably also had the zippered bag with the CDs in your car, and if you had a couple cars, you have to move it between cars when you go on a road trip or whatever. Now I leave the house, I’m looking, where’s my phone? Back in those days, it’s like, wait, where’s my favorite new CD? I got to listen it.

John Farkas:

My folio.

Mark Donnigan:

So you’re searching the house looking for that CD. Anyway, those are nostalgic days, but a thousand songs. So it’s music. A thousand, the size of a library. I can relate to that. What the heck does 256 megabytes… How do I correlate that? I can’t. Even the geeks who knew how to do the math and bit rate, even they would have to do some quick math and let’s see, oh, it turns out it’s roughly about this many songs, whatever that number would work out to be.

So it was very, very simple to understand. And then in your pocket. It’s portable. And it was those just very, very simple words, that very simple statement that took a category that existed and made Apple the queen.

John Farkas:

And built a bridge.

Mark Donnigan:

Built the bridge, and made Apple the absolute. So then fast-forward 10 years later, it was like 2011, and Apple revenues from the iPod accounted for something like 77 or 78%. I’m off by one or two percentage points, but the number’s so astounding it doesn’t matter. Of all revenue produced by every single company selling a music player in the market, apple with the iPod and all the various versions they were selling captured something like 77, 78% of it.

John Farkas:

[inaudible 00:30:16].

Mark Donnigan:

Now if that isn’t being the dominant, overwhelming player in a market, I don’t know what is.

John Farkas:

Yeah, it’s a great example of helping people know how to think about the problem. Not focusing on the technology, focusing on the benefit that it brings. We can put a thousand songs in your pocket.

Mark Donnigan:

A thousand songs, yep.

John Farkas:

What’s that worth to you? I’m tired of toting that portfolio around and trying to find the CD while I’m at a traffic light.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. Now it’s texting and driving. Then it was switching CDs and driving.

John Farkas:

[inaudible 00:31:02] and driving. That’s right.

Mark Donnigan:

That was dangerous.

John Farkas:

Well, you and I have talked about… I guess maybe we’ll call it a tragic launch that we’ve seen happen here recently, that might-

Mark Donnigan:

This is an amazing one.

Analyzing Humane AI’s Recent Launch Failure

John Farkas:

Serve to underscore this issue also. So what can you tell us about Humane AI and what you know about that backdrop?

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, so Humane AI, I think most people-

John Farkas:

And just to qualify it, we know that this isn’t healthcare technology right now. We’re using some object lessons and some allegories.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

But I think that this is going to serve a good point. Sorry to interrupt.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, exactly. Don’t tune out. Don’t tune out. So Humane AI would be in the category of what is typically called a wearable. And a wearable is just any smart electronics product that you would wear on your wrist, and it may monitor health functions, it could assist in workouts. I mean, there’s all kinds of wearables. There’s a lot that are out there. Frankly, the Apple Watch is really a wearable, if you really think about it.

John Farkas:

It is wearable.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. So this is Humane AI. The company, by the way-

John Farkas:

And I would say the Apple Watch is the category leading.

Mark Donnigan:

Is a category leader. Exactly. Yeah. So real quick about the company. So this is a serious company. They’ve raised I think somewhere in the order of 241 million, at least publicly disclosed. Sometimes companies have raised more, but the fact is-

John Farkas:

From some notable people too.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. Open AI, Microsoft. And it’s a smart team. And we’re saying all that because what we’re about to give you a glimpse of, if you didn’t know all that going in, you might think, “Well, I guess maybe they just… Better luck next time. Maybe they better try again.” No, these are smart people.

So with that backdrop, I don’t know, maybe do we want to show just the first minute or the first-

John Farkas:

Let’s see what happens in the first minute. Now keep in mind-

Mark Donnigan:

This is a launch video.

John Farkas:

This is the video that they’re leading their go-to-market strategy with.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

So we’ll take a look at this here. Those of you not watching on video, just listen.

Humane AI:

This is the Humane AI pin. It’s a standalone device and software platform built from the ground up for AI. It comes in three colorways. Got Eclipse, Lunar, and Equinox. There’s two pieces, a computer and a battery booster. Now the battery booster powers a smaller battery inside the main computer, and this is how we achieve our all day battery life.

Humane AI:

So if you ever exhaust the booster, you just reach into your pocket or bag and hot swap it. This is a perpetual power system that allows you to use your AI pin for as long as you want.

Humane AI:

There are no wake words, so it’s not always listening or always recording. In fact, it doesn’t do anything until you engage with it, and your engagement comes through your touch, voice, gesture, or the laser ink display.

Humane AI:

It also comes with its own connectivity built right in, our own Humane network connected by T-Mobile.

Humane AI:

We were able to pack a lot of technology into something really small.

John Farkas:

All right, so let’s just mark time. We’re a minute and 13 into the video.

Mark Donnigan:

And let me ask you, John, what is an AI pin?

John Farkas:

I don’t know yet.

Mark Donnigan:

And the whole point in this exercise, really-

John Farkas:

Well, I know it’s got a battery.

Mark Donnigan:

It has a battery.

John Farkas:

And it’ll last me all day.

Mark Donnigan:

No, I don’t believe they said it would last you all day. It’s that if you exhaust the battery, you can easily replace it with another one you carry in your bag or your purse or whatever. We do know that T-Mobile is the virtual wireless network operator who’s powering it. Oh, okay. I’m a T-Mobile user. I guess that’s good.

John Farkas:

I’m not.

Mark Donnigan:

I don’t know what that does for me, but do I get it for free on my T-Mobile plan? I don’t know. And we could continue on. It’s about a 10-minute video.

John Farkas:

The first 60 seconds are about form factor.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, form factor.

John Farkas:

And the Gizzy widget.

Mark Donnigan:

And here’s the massive failure. Not only do we not know what this thing is, who cares what it is? What can it do for me? Where’s the thousand songs in your pocket? So can you imagine if the video has started with the founders taking this little thing, which I’ve not seen one in the flesh, but on video and all. It looks like the industrial design’s been thought out. I don’t want to say if it’s good or bad, I’m just saying it’s certainly not, I think, an ugly object. But if they held it up and they said in 7, 8, 10, 12 words, “Introducing the AI pen. The AI pen… And then there’s seven or eight words, and I go, “Oh, wow.”

John Farkas:

Here’s how it will change your life.

Mark Donnigan:

Exactly. Not what it can do. Not, “The AI pen’s powered by Open AI and does…” Even that would be like, oh, okay, but why do I need to be wearing something that’s connected to Open AI? But what if it said, “The AI pen seamlessly blends the intelligence of fill in the blank,” and went on tell a story? All of a sudden, now you have my attention. Now, five minutes into the video, maybe then I’m like, “Well, what color options are there? And is this thing going to run out of power every 60 minutes?” And all of a sudden then some of this early form factor things that they talk about become relevant. But at this stage, it’s not relevant.

John Farkas:

Yeah. And why are we talking about this? Well, the point is that happens a whole lot.

Mark Donnigan:

A whole lot.

John Farkas:

In technology.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah.

John Farkas:

I mean, the challenge for organizations that are typically technology founder led or the like is that that’s where we start the conversation. It starts in the form factor. It starts in the features. It starts in the cool things that we can do that are not necessarily the clear statement of the core value that it results in.

Mark Donnigan:

So true.

John Farkas:

And that’s the thing. And the important thing to keep in mind. So I would say ask yourself how well constructed is the bridge that you’ve made to your organization? Are you starting with how many gigabytes your MP3 player is? Or are you really serving as the translation layer that helps them understand that our platform is going to let you carry a thousand songs in your pocket? That’s a big difference.

Mark Donnigan:

Big difference.

John Farkas:

So looking at the Humane world, I mean, we just talked a little bit about it. What ought to be different in that equation? I mean, we talked about what they should have led with. What do they need to be considering?

Mark Donnigan:

It’s leading with value. And I feel like in the 35, 40 minutes or so we’ve been talking, that’s just the central theme that keeps coming up. You said, John, that your previous guests who are buyers of healthcare technology have lamented, and probably even lamented in a very sincere way of saying because someone hasn’t led with value, it’s possible they’re missing out on adopting technology product solutions that actually would improve their ability to provide patient care or whatever that would do. But the buyer never had the chance, because it wasn’t understandable.

And that’s what, to me, is really the fundamental issue that we have to solve as marketers. And if you’re running a company, if you’re the founder of a company, you’re the CEO, certainly if you’re running marketing, if you’re running go-to-market, is to figure out how can you be more specific, more direct, and just more clear with value? What is that thousand songs in your pocket? It is such a powerful statement. I hope that burns into everybody’s psyche, is when you’re designing your next campaign or you’re thinking about how you’re positioning a new product, or you’re writing a PowerPoint presentation for a sales pitch coming up, what is the thousand songs in your pocket that you’re going to start with and you’re going to close with?

And sure. In the middle, there’s probably a need to go more deeper or provide context or give more information. Maybe you do need to get into more of the features and the benefits and all. Maybe you do. It’s not to say we never talk about that, but we lead with a thousand songs in your pocket. Then you tell them how it’s done, and then you wrap with, “And this is why the iPod is so amazing. A thousand songs in your pocket.” And the buyer says, “Wow, I can get that.” And so it’s leading with value, is really what we need to be focused on.

John Farkas:

That’s a great word, Mark, and my encouragement there is to be brutally honest and do your best to get as objective as you can in that assessment and ask some outsiders what they think about how you’re doing.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

Even during this conversation right here, as much as I sit and think about this, we’re in the process of working with a client right now on some top line messaging, and I’m running this little internal audit in my brain as we’re talking. I’m going, “Okay, we could do better. We could do better at cutting through it and getting to it,” because that’s just such a critical component.

So Mark, backing up a little bit, a couple things here. First thing that I heard and understood is just we’re talking about the critical nature of proximity to our buyer. So if you’re a marketing person and you haven’t spent real time in three dimensions across the table from a real buyer or two or 10 or 15 to really be able to understand the nature of the bridge you need to build, you need to do it. You need to figure out what it’s going to take to make that happen. Because without that, you’re just not going to get… And I hate to say it, but it’s harder to do over Zoom. It’s really hard to do over email. It’s really hard to do over Zoom, because we’re still missing a lot of the stuff that gets communicated in three dimensions when people are face-to-face.

It’s real. I mean, there’s just real things that get communicated differently in that situation. So what does it mean for you to get face-to-face in their environment, to really gain the level of understanding that will get you to the point where you’re going to be able to make a difference in how you present what you present and how you’re able to craft the bridge that is beautifully suited for its purposes? So get proximate. Understand how you need to help people think about the problem that they’re facing and how you articulate that, because it’s really important to say, “What does it mean to declare the value, not what does it mean to declare what we do?” Very different, very different perspective. Understanding the customer, understanding what they value, understanding how you need to articulate it, super important backdrop, especially as we look to starting the new year and all the great initiatives that are getting ready to be unleashed in the world starting Q1.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

Asking Hard Questions during Go-to-Market Efforts

John Farkas:

Getting that stuff well oriented is important. Mark, I know that you spend a lot of time thinking differently, trying to help frame go-to-market efforts. What are some ways that you see yourself as a codebreaker? How are you hacking the system? What are some ways that you see things that help you gain traction in the conversations that you’re having, in the ways that you’re engaging?

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, I find that the thing that I do regardless of stage of company that I am working with… Stage meaning if they’re kind of earlier, they’re just developing the market or if it’s growth or if they’ve been out there for a while, size of the company, startup. I don’t really work pre-revenue, but just getting started or doing $200 million.

There’s some universal things that I do. I sort of like that codebreaker kind of reference. One is really just asking these really hard questions, like looking at messaging on the website, for example, and saying, “What does it mean?” And getting back a whole stream of catchy phrases and some things that are like, okay, that’s good, but what does it mean? Do they get it? Oh, oh, of course they get it. Really? What do they get? And then you reflect back and all of a sudden there’s the silent pause in the room where it gets quiet real quick and everybody goes, “Oh yeah, we’ve never looked at it with that much detail.”

And so I am always aware that there’s this perception, like the consultant flew in 2000 miles away. So suddenly they’re an expert. And most of the time I’m sitting in the room and I’m thinking, “I am sure that I’m not the only one who’s either come in and given the same input or there’s even people sitting around this table who have either thought it or expressed it, but nobody took the time to really push and push and push and say, ‘No, what does it mean? What are we really saying? Are you sure our buyer really gets that?’”

Oh yeah. ER docs. Oh, an ER doc? They’re not on Facebook. They barely know. They hate email. And then you go into an emergency room and they’re all standing there with phone in their hands when there’s no patients in the ER and they’re scrolling their feed and you go, “Huh, I wonder what else we believe that isn’t correct.”

So I think some of it, some of the unlock, a lot of the unlock that I bring when I come into a company is just being maybe a little relentless and pushing and sometimes making people uncomfortable, sometimes myself uncomfortable, because you don’t always get positive reactions when you’re pushing against the status quo.

But that would be my encouragement, is for the listeners who have listened, hung in there, thank you for hanging in there through this whole interview, but if you’re listening and you’re saying, “I wonder if we’re falling into the same trap.” Go into your next meeting and the next time somebody makes a statement, well, no, our buyers, this is what they care about. And have the courage to ask the question. Really? How do we know that? Well, because… How do we really know that? Did we double check that? Who here has even been in the field recently? And if no hands go up, well, that’s a place to start.

John Farkas:

Yep. That’s great. So what are some of the channels that you’re tuning into that is helping inform your perspective? What are some of the things that you take in on a regular basis?

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, so I’m not going to so much give you a list of here’s all my favorite podcast, but I will give you what I believe is an important way to think about the information that you consume. And some of this is just prioritizing time. So we all have limited time.

But I found that one of my hacks, and somebody asked me this question not long ago, so that’s why I’m right on top of this question. They were asking, “What books do you read? What kinds of books do you read?” And I realized that I would love to read fiction. There’s all kinds of genres and things I would love to read. I mean, I’d be very interested, but I don’t have time for that. Furthermore, there’s a lot of business books I’d love to read. I would love to dig deeper in economics and really understand economic theory and feel like I’m more conversant as to just why things are going on in the world of finance and whatever. I would love that. I don’t have time for that.

So I am very intentional in my focus, and my focus is always on filling the gaps of where I feel I have a lack of knowledge or where I need to better equip myself for a specific task that’s in front of me. So it shifts, the resources. And I really encourage as well, rather than having a favorite subject and always reading on that subject, or maybe even to a certain extent a favorite podcast, whatever, be very intentional about. And if you’re in a demand generation phase where the whole focus of your marketing effort is on not just producing MQLs, form fills, but real meaningful demand for your product, well, go out there and study the book Play Bigger. Go through that book. Go through that book twice. Maybe you should go back and revisit Jeffrey Moore and Crossing the Chasm. But go to those books.

Don’t worry about the latest book by some hot author that’s got 10 million followers on Facebook. Don’t worry about that. I’m not saying that’s not useful. Maybe it is. Maybe that’s where you should be. But that’s how I equip myself. And maybe that’s just time limitation. Maybe one day I’ll have time to do the other things, but right now I don’t.

John Farkas:

Play Bigger is certainly on my list of books I wish I would’ve written.

Mark Donnigan:

It’s just amazing. And by the way, I’ll make a comment about Play Bigger. It is a book. It’s about category design, but I think it gets pigeonholed too much as like, oh, that’s the category design book. Now category design is hot. Everybody wants to know about it. So it’s not that anybody is necessarily going to say, “Oh, I don’t need to read that. It’s about category design.”

But I would just encourage, if you’ve heard as well, well, it’s about category design and category design’s great, but you have to have millions of dollars. And all those things are sort of true, not completely true in terms of the investment required, but the point is, it is a book that will challenge your thinking. It will absolutely reshape the way you look at the role of marketing. It’s brilliant. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO, doesn’t matter if you’re a sales leader. If you’re a product leader, you should read it. Shoot, if you’re an R&D engineering leader, you should read it. Honestly, it’s universal.

John Farkas:

I’ve almost got to the point where I don’t want to work with an organization unless the CEO’s read the book.

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah, I think-

John Farkas:

I’m almost there. I haven’t quite got there yet, but I probably should be, because it does condition a way of thinking. It’s not a book about category creation. It’s a book about how to win a market.

Mark Donnigan:

Yep. Oh, that’s so true.

John Farkas:

And some companies have to design a category because they don’t fit in one that exists already, and it would serve them to help people know how to think about the problem.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

That’s an important moment to realize, because it does take a different energy and a different emphasis. But some of this is about having the courage to win a market.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right.

John Farkas:

And what it’s going to take to get it out there to help your dreams get realized, because it’s a big market out there, and if you are wanting to capture a chunk of it, you’ve got to get serious about making it happen.

Mark Donnigan:

Well, changing the world is, I think, in almost everyone’s… You say, “What’s your mission?” And somewhere it’s change the world. And yet it’s astounding-

John Farkas:

Seriously?

Mark Donnigan:

To me. Well…

John Farkas:

I mean, I’m agreeing with you, but I’m saying, “Are you serious about that?”

Mark Donnigan:

Yeah. And that’s where I’m going with this, is that it’s astounding to me how everybody’s so quick. And maybe some of it’s sort of altruism, but I think the majority of people, it’s completely legitimate face value. That really is. That’s a legit desire. They want to change the world, and they have a vision for doing that.

Well, you can’t change the world if you’re not successful. And yet, it’s astounding to me how many people on one hand will talk to you for hours about their vision and their excitement, their enthusiasm, how their company, their technology, their product’s going to change the world. And then you ask them fundamental things about the way that they’re going to market, designing the market, thinking about the product, and it’s so out of sync with what the market needs, and you’re just like, “You really understand you want to change the world, and yet what it’s going to take to do that, you’re almost like short-cutting or just sort of leaving to fate.”

John Farkas:

And we come back to value. Here we are.

Mark Donnigan:

That’s right. It’s a great way to wrap the episode, I think.

John Farkas:

Absolutely.

Mark Donnigan:

So, yeah, let’s truly go change the world. I know that I’m very passionate about helping companies do that.

Closing Thoughts

John Farkas:

Well, Mark Donnigan, thank you for that. It certainly comes through. Make sure to check out growthstage.marketing. That’s where you can find Mark. Grateful for you jumping in with us today and for the opportunity to have the conversation. There’s a lot that we’ll be, I’m sure, tagging as a result of this conversation. We’ll make sure there’s some links in the notes to all the videos and things that we’re referencing so that you can take that together.

Make sure you check us out at goratio.com. Lots going on in the podcast. Lots of great episodes recorded there that really are going to give you some good perspective on who are the people in the market, what are the real problems that they’re facing, and how are they looking to solve that and what means value to them?

Thank you all for joining us. Mark, thanks again.

Outro:

Healthcare Market Matrix is a Ratio original podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, then jump over to healthcaremarketmatrix.com and subscribe, and we’d really appreciate your support in the form of a five star rating on your favorite podcast platform. It does make a difference. Also, while you’re there, you can become a part of the Healthcare Market Matrix community and get access to courses and content that’s created just for you by signing up for Insights Squared, a monthly newsletter dedicated to bringing you the latest health tech marketing insights right to your inbox.

Ratio is an award-winning marketing agency headquartered in the Nashville, Tennessee. We operate at the intersection of brand and growth marketing to equip companies with strategies to create meaningful connections with the healthcare market and ultimately drive growth. Want to know more? Go to goratio.com. That’s G-O-R-A-T-I-O.com. And we’ll see you at noon central next week for an all new episode from our team at Ratio Studios. Stay healthy.

About Mark Donnigan

As a Virtual CMO and GTM consultant, Mark Donnigan specializes in designing and executing go-to-market and marketing programs that yield tangible business results for technology startup companies. Mark’s approach involves implementing revenue-centered go-to-market frameworks firmly anchored in category design. This strategic framework aids founding teams in effectively executing marketing and sales plans, empowering them to realize the full potential of their growth opportunities.

Watch the Full Interview

"I often find myself questioning assumptions and pushing for deeper understanding. For example, when discussing target audiences, we must question assumptions like 'What are we saying? Are our buyers truly aware of this? Do they understand what we're saying?' A concrete example is the misconception that ER doctors are not tech-savvy, only to find them in the emergency room with a phone in their hand."

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