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Why the Sales Rep Model Is Dying in Medtech · Zero Friction

• speaker-0: By using AI, the ability to remove some of the unknown and actually reduce medical errors. The ability to build confidence, the ability to train and equip people to do their best jobs, and in the end, reduce medical errors. And I think that's really where the future of AI can have a tremendous impact that everybody's going to see and feel and benefit from. In today's world, to be able to digitize. to be able to put it on a platform that enables customers to complete jobs, get things done when they want and how they want. Now they have the ability to go in digitally and actually take that training. They could do it the day before the procedure, an hour before the procedure. Yeah. They could be certified for that and actually get CDU accreditation. But all of that now is being done online. But the benefits are multifaceted. speaker-1: Hey there, I'm Terry Kucholuches, founder of RevRXAI. We remove friction and architect revenue for med tech and consumer health practices. Welcome, Zero Friction Podcast. This is Terry Kucholuchis, and once again I have an exciting guest with me today, somebody that I've had a relationship with for the better part of 30 years. And his name is Brian Wagner. He is the founder and CEO of Health Insights Consulting Group. But he's had a great career that spanned over medical devices, med tech, imaging. He's worked for some of the largest companies in the space. And so with that, I'm gonna hand the reins over to you, Brian, just to give you a little opportunity to give you, give us some personal background on your experience in the med tech space. And then we'll kind of talk about both of our journeys and where we see, you know, health and med tech and what growing opportunities we see in front of us in the future. speaker-0: Thank you, Terry. And ⁓ thank you for the opportunity to share some of my w real world experience and the ability to pay it back. ⁓ hopefully the conversation will be enlightening and insightful for many that do listen. As you mentioned, I've been in healthcare for the better part of thirty years. I started out as the founding division of Boston Scientific before it was Boston Scientific. So I started out calling on Interventional radiologist, cardiologist, vascular surgeon. So really learning the business from the ground up. I've been blessed to work for some phenomenal companies over the span of my career. I've actually founded companies from scratch, Rubber Made Medical Solutions that focused on electronic medication administration records. I've literally set up venture funds to acquire and tuck in certain startup organizations for various companies I've worked for. I've Been blessed to be a C level executive for companies such as Phillips Imaging as their chief marketing officer, chief digital and marketing operations officer for GE Healthcare. I led worldwide strategic brand management and digital marketing for Beck and Dickinson, all of those being global across all regions, all businesses, really establishing best practices. tools, processes, understanding which technology we need in order to really drive lead generation, revenue generation in this new era. As you mentioned most recently though, I've ⁓ had my consulting firm, believe it or not, it's knocking on 10 years. And really my mantra is to help small companies grow to become big and take everything that I've learned in my background and help apply that for their needs. I actually sit on a variety of different boards with the intention of helping them to ⁓ go from small to to rather large. And so I look forward to today's conversation. ⁓ hopefully there'll be some pearls of wisdom in there for everybody to learn from and I'm happy to ⁓ you know, pay it forward and give back. speaker-1: That's great, Brian. And I'm sure, you know, our conversation today will definitely generate some interesting topics. And where I'd like to start is, you know, both you and I have seen the evolution of med tech and health tech sales and and marketing sort of evolve over thirty years. You know, we've had The internet, we've had digitalization, we had COVID impact us, and now we're on the thrust of another big transformational wave of AI. So why don't we just talk a little bit about like how it used to be and what worked then, and then maybe where the gaps are today and where we both can kind of use our experiences in marketing and sales to sort of maybe pinpoint in the future what success might look like. speaker-0: No, I I welcome that conversation. I think there is tremendous amount of learning. And just so the audience knows, we're really focused on healthcare, right? Acute care, steamers calling on them, selling medical devices, ⁓ permanent implants. As advanced and highly technical as the products and services that we provide are, we still are kind of operating as if we were twenty years ago. We've got that model in the olden days you mentioned, how was it done? It was really done through your sales rep and your clinical specialist. They were considered the rainmakers. That was the model. So let's go out and let's hire them at scale. Let's pay them anywhere from 150 to 200,000, full all in. Let's give them a quota of two million. So they certainly pay for themselves and then some. So the model was always, hey, just hire more of these sales reps or clinical specialists because they pay for themselves. And they're they're the ones that are going out and creating the need, right? They're the ones that are creating the revenue because of their connections with the customers and really understanding what their pain points are. And what our product, services, and solutions can do to address those pain points. And as great as that was, it was almost for a different era. And in today's era, now you can't even gain access to an acute care center. Fancy word for hospital. You know, you've got to go through this formalized process. Some call it rep tracks, a vendor that offers, you know, the screening. You know, do you have your immunizations? Have you taken all your training, et cetera? And it's really a barrier to entry. Whereas in the olden days, you just showed up with a box of donuts and you walked into radiology and you sat it down, you know, in their meeting room, and radiologists would come and go and technologists and nurses and you would just have conversations and you know, you'd leave with a purchase order, like right then and there, like, ⁓ I want twenty stents and I want fifty balloons and you know, various things. That doesn't happen anymore. Now it's contracts and, you know, procurement. and gatekeepers and even the power of the doctors in the olden day where they can actually say, hey, I need this and this, nobody questioned them. Whereas in today's world, no, no, no. I'm sorry. We've got a VAC committee. It's a value analysis committee. So you're going to have to come in and not only convince the champion, potentially, hopefully the the interventional radiologist, let's say, but you've got to convince procurement. You've got to convince the CFO. You've got to convince operations. You've got to convince the chief information officer. You've got to convince all those entities. And they all have different pain points. They have all different gaps in their customer buyer's journey. And the old way of doing that isn't scalable. A single sales rep can't go into an acute care center and literally call on all those individual constituencies and be able to address their unmet needs. It would take far too long. So in this new era, The ability to meet the customer where they are, when they are, the ability to take what used to be done in an analog world face to face, not that that goes away completely, but let's do 70% of that heavy lifting up front. And let's take it to the digital world and let's enable customers to complete jobs, get things done when they want and how they want. And by doing that, improving their productivity, also improving the productivity of the sales rep, the clinical specialist. operations behind the scene for the manufacturer. And everybody gets something better in the deal and advances that buyer's deciding journey and pain points more quickly, more efficiently, more effectively. And rather than talk theoretically, you know, I I like to always go down and say tactically and operationally, you know, what are the unmet clinical challenges, unmet customer needs that are meaningful, that are impactful? Because we could go in and and and try and sell everything to everybody. And very unsuccessful because it's overwhelming and it's too much. And so in the past, one of the things I've focused on is simplicity that can really be a game changer. So let's take the topic of education, right? A sales rep goes in, let's say they've already made the sale now. So now we need to instruct the the doctor, the technologist, the nurse on how do I deploy that angioplasty balloon or that coronary stent? How do I actually complete a procedure? It could be a Transopatic portal shunt, it could be hemodialysis access management, whatever that is. But how do I train those folks? In the olden days, either the rep did it or a clinical specialist would come in. They'd gather the people around, they'd do an in service, and within two weeks, much of that knowledge had dissipated for a variety of reasons. Well, I hadn't done that procedure in two weeks, so I kind of forgot a lot from what I was told. Or, well, I've I've quit and I've gone to some other institution. So the knowledge that we bestowed there is lost. In today's world, to be able to digitize that, to be able to put it on a platform that enables customers to complete jobs, get things done when they want and how they want. Now they have the ability to go in digitally and actually take that training. They could do it the day before the procedure, an hour before the procedure. They could be certified for that and actually get CEU accreditation. But all of that now is being done online. But the benefits are multifaceted. The ability to increase the competence. Of those that are providing the care, the reduction of medical errors because their confidence goes up because they retain more of the information specific to how that device should be deployed. All of that enhances productivity. It reduces the cost to serve, but it's very, very pointed and specific in terms of the pain point for customers as well as for the manufacturer in the old way of doing things. So that's just one small example of where digital transformation can truly create. A very impactful, very profitable impact on both sides of the equation, but do it in a way that is sustainable, that's scalable, that's meaningful. And I would beg to offer that those that are doing it, because not all are, but those that are doing it can actually sell an inferior product to those that aren't. Why? Because it's easier to conduct business. It's easier to get things done. So I'm going to choose to engage with the manufacturer or the customer that's doing it this way. versus the other because it's just too painful to do it that way, even though their product may be superior. So that should cause pause because those that think product feature benefit hey, look at the clinical journal. Our N number, RP number is much better than the competition. Therefore you gotta use us, those days are no longer enough. speaker-1: Right. Well, and it's, you know, I think you bring up a great point, just around customer experience, around there's value beyond just the widget itself, right? But it's the how do you implement the widget? How do you reinforce the widget? How do you make sure that not only are our customers having a good experience, but it parlays into patients having a better experience as well. So it's all down the line. And so, you know, those are the things that I actually I totally agree with you on is that Some some companies do it better than others, right? And this is where people are missing, like they think their widget is the only thing that matters. And it's now a a different world where everybody has a different perspective, especially when you brought up the fact that there's a VAT committee, right? So the position might have a vote basic value offering of the product, but then you're gonna have a CFO that's gonna have a way in. You're gonna have procurement that's gonna weigh in. If it's if it's a software platform, then you're gonna have IT and IT security weigh in. And so they all have what we call friction points or inertia. And so, you know, the name of the podcast is Zero Friction. We're really talking about what can companies do to remove friction from their customers so that that buying experience or even that retention experience, it's not just even the purchasing experience, because that's just when the work begins, frankly. You know, when you get the contract signed is now now all the work really begins. So now you've got the customer. How do you keep the customer happy and how do you keep them running along the line? So especially if you're in a an implant world where it really is a razor blade business and you're just as good as the last razor blade that you sold, right? And so, you know, how do you continue to kick that retention o on over time? speaker-0: I think the biggest thing is sometimes people forget is always think customer first, right? And then think what is the customer's buyer's journey, you know? And it's not a a linear straight line. It's very circuitous, right? And it's no longer just one customer. I'm going in, I'm talking to, in this case, an interventional radiologist. So I need to convince them to use my angioplasty balloon or my drug eluding stent or, you know, my guide wire, whatever that might be. It's influencing and convincing them, but all the other actors that play a part in that. And therefore understanding what is the pain points along that customer buyer's journey. And what have we done to target and to segment them? What are we developing that is more personalized content marketing that's always on? So the other thing I would say in in terms of your original question, old versus new, in the old world, it was always push sales, push marketing. You know, you'd show up, we'd have a launch of a new coronary stent or a new balloon or a or a new something. And so we were out there pushing as opposed to really taking a step back and and probing and understanding so what are the unmet clinical challenges? What are the unmet customer needs? By the way, a customer need is different than a clinical challenge. So in the olden days, we also used to always sell on data, like, ⁓ here's the New England Journal of Medicine and here's the clinical trial and look at my numbers. That's critically important. But we're now in a world where a lot of times it's it's clinically acceptable, right? speaker-1: All the differences are fractional, right? speaker-0: Yeah. And so it's the unmet customer need. What are those customer needs? Well, the customer needs are differ for the head of information technology, the head of finance, the head of procurement, the doctor themselves, et cetera. So being able to truly understand those pain points on that buyer's journey, developing content that is truly targeted and personalized to what their unmet needs are, and being able to deliver answers and actually doing it long before you hit the VAT connect. It's like the last thing you want to do is get into a VAT community and a few questions come from left field and everybody's caught off guard and it's humana, hummana, hummana. You want this to be a meeting that's really a rubber stamp. That's not what occurs today, but that's truly what you should desire. And the way to get there is to develop the always-on content marketing omnichannel campaigns that's pulling these customers in. Some that you know, some that you don't know, and being able to equip your sales organization to do better targeting. Right. Better segmenting, such that before they walk into that acute care center, we're going to load them up and we're going to let them know that the head of procurement spent 12 minutes on our website and they spent six minutes reading X, Y, and Z. This is what's important to them. This is what the CFO did. This is what the CIO did. This is what the head of nursing did. And ⁓ by the way, the doctor, all he cared about was apps. Imagine being able to equip your sales organization with that information without even setting foot in the hospital. Very powerful. And it aids and assists them in improving their productivity, but it really directs them when they go in to create the need. You're starting in a position of strength because you better understand what those pain points potentially are. You still want to probe. You don't want to assume or take anything for granted, but you're not starting at ground zero. And therein lies a tremendous benefit that the sales reps are saying, ⁓ my God, I had no idea that this administrator played such a significant influence. And had I not been provided this information, I wouldn't have figured that out until it was too late, potentially. So that's what's changing in today's dynamic, the ability to equip and enable your sales force, your clinical specialists, your service reps to have vast more information going in to be able to really focus where they want to take the conversation and to what end. But again, always think customer first. It's not about us. It's not about selling that, you know, balloon or stent or whatever. It's about addressing their unmet needs. And if we think about that and we come to them in a more partnership mindset and we really are creating probing questions that uncover the real underlying problems, a lot of times it's not the widget. It's not the product. It's the service. It's the overriding solution. It's the way to get faster ROI or increased revenues or increased throughput, all of which is going to drive to the bottom line. And that's what's new in today's world versus. The old way. speaker-1: Yeah. And, you know, I just was listening and kind of replaying in my mind what you just said was, you know, you kept talking about customer journey versus I remember the days when we talked about the seller's journey, right? And so, you know, it's all about it all about us and what we do. And but, you know, that customer journey is so important. And then you brought up ⁓ one of the things that I actually see quite a bit with my clients is that You know, that whole discovery process, you brought up the word gap. So where are you where does your baseline today and what is the what is the ideal, you know, situation in the future? And there's that gap. And so to me, using discovery to identify the gap, to identify the needs, to again, once again, connect the value proposition to that need. And what's even made it even more challenging in healthcare than other business segments when you're selling is that the hospital has created this. complexity with new technology and new offerings that, you know, no longer allow you to work in parallel with procurement, finance, and legal. They they they make you stack those responsibilities. They put you in a room where I think the average that committee has eight different stakeholders in it. So you have physicians, you have department heads, you have finance procurement, you might have, you know, security or IT, you might have a chief nursing officer. And all of a sudden they're all coming at you. They all have a different with them of what's in it for them, you know, component. Like what do they want to get out of this new offering? So the complexity and the challenge of today's med tech, med device company and and meeting those challenges is twentyfold of what you and I used to deal with, with w walking in with a box of donuts under our arm, right? And, you know, and the Duncan coffee. I mean, I remember those days really well. And today, you know, they make you go through rep tracks and they make you feel like you're crossing the border. They they put they put a red bouffant on your hat so they they label you in the hospital as a medical device professional and not, you know, one of them. Yeah. And so, you know, it's really interesting how like the challenges of our of our industry that we've both grown up in has changed so much. And as we move forward, I mean, we have a new opportunity though. speaker-0: Do not approach. Right. speaker-1: Right. In today's age. So w you and I both have lived through the internet. We've lived through digitalization. We've lived through the COVID environment where healthcare was very much a human to human contact sport, right? Where the doors were shut and the yellow tape was surrounding the doors and nobody could get in. And you and I both were working for big companies at that point in time and we were creating that transformation around now what do we do? Now we're faced with, you know. It's a new transformation. It's kind of scary with AI. I mean, some of us are scared, some of us are embracing it. But like I'd like to pivot to today's marketplace and talk about like where we've come and where we're going with AI. I'm gonna set up a couple of baselines and get a reaction from you. Is that healthcare in these hospital environments, healthcare systems, I believe, are adopting AI. the third fastest market segment in the country behind FinTech and insurance. So the customers that we're calling on every day are trying to find ways to adopt AI in every corner of the hospital. And some are successful and some are not as successful. Some are using it operationally, some are using it clinically, some are using it for patient experiences, but they're using it. And so how does today's manufacturing supplier of med tech med device adopt when they're walking into an environment that is using AI everywhere. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, I think it's an excellent insight and a great question. I I I think one should not be resistant to it. If anything, one should embrace it and use it to your advantage because your competitors either don't understand it, haven't embraced it, ⁓ don't have the end-to-end technology stack to enable it. ⁓ a lot of challenges organizationally. We're not structured in order to execute that way. We're structured to execute the old way. These are a lot of the hurdles, but those that overcome those hurdles. Are the ones that are gonna thrive and succeed. You know, there's a stat out there, 70% of all customers, before they pick up the phone, actually know more about you and your product, service, and solution and that of your competitors than you do. And the reason is AI and a whole bunch of other things they've been able to do to go on and address all of their questions across that VAC continuum, right? Because it's it's different for procurement than it is for the doctor, than it is for the head of IT, but they all have their objections. And their challenges that they're seeking to fill and understand, and the ability for those that embrace it to put that out there and do it in a very differentiated way, ⁓ a highly innovative way, are those that are going to thrive and succeed. And by the way, they're going to reduce the path of resistance. So people are going to be more prone to pick up the phone and work with you if they feel as though it's the path of least resistance, that they're getting. Transparency, honest feedback. They're able to go on and do things that normally it was the sales rep, it was the service rep. It was the clinical specialist. They were quote unquote the hub of the wheel. And everything had to transpire through them to be able to break that paradigm and to say that's no longer the case. We're going to empower our customers and enable them to complete jobs when they want, how they want, and get the preponderance of the information they need. before making a decision and before picking up that phone. Because a lot of times the phone doesn't ring. And it's not because you had an inferior quote unquote product. It's because you didn't truly address their underlying clinical challenge, customer need, pain point in their buyer's room. You made it too complicated and too hard. But this other company, man, I was able to go online and complete jobs, get things done. I can see after I buy the product, This is how I can schedule in services. This is how I can do my installs. This is how I'm going to constantly keep current. That's all going to be value added. And we're answering those questions both asked and unasked in a different place. Such that by the time we have that engagement, it's much more specific, much more meaningful. But we're going to get the phone call, right? And at least have a shot on goal. Because there's a lot of times a phone doesn't even ring. It's like, you know, I didn't even consider you. I would have in the past. You have a great brand, but that brand is withered. Because you're not current. And so this small company, this startup company, or this company that was truly focused on my unmet clinical and customer needs, I'm going to wanna work with them. And that is where things have really changed. And as much as we like to say healthcare, it's it's very innovative, it's very technologically advanced. That may be true in a lot of clinical ways, but in terms of go-to-market, we're still operating as if it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. And therein lies our problem and friction, if you will, for the customer. So that's what we've got to identify and remove that friction because if it's easier to do business with us, even though we may not have a superior product, we're going to get the call where others may not. speaker-1: You know, if this you know, and you think about like I'll I'll give a specific example of like how this might shape out in a real life situation where you're looking at a cardiac device or an implant or an orthopedic implant and there's five vendors throughout an entire system and they have an initiative to consolidate to two vendors or two point five vendors, right? And you look at that VAT committee and you're gonna have the clinical aspect and the implant or it's gonna have a very sort of, you know perspective on what they want out of the implant clinically, right? You're going to have that stakeholder. Then you're going to have a department head that's going to be like, okay, so I want to line up with my doctors on the clinical efficacy of the product, but I also have to think I have a staff to deal with. And what's going to be easiest for my staff to sort of, you know, is it, do they do they need to learn new technology? Do they need to learn new processes? You know, does this new vendor going to sort of disrupt the way things are today? And then you have over here on the procurement side. They're looking at how much market share do all these guys have today and how can I save as much money with the least amount of effort possible, which, you know, like might mean just beating down the big vendor, right? You know, to a point. But so they have a different perspective. And then you might have the finance guy that says, ⁓ this company is going to help us develop a new therapy offering. And then so everybody has a different sort of outcome that they're looking for. And that's where I'm kind of talking about like, Having the complexity of dealing with all of that today, knowing that you have AI that can help. One thing that AI does very, very well, it takes multiple complexity things together. And it can actually break them down in very simple things for these complex situations. So that, you know, you you as a manufacturer or seller of a technology can actually map out what needs to be done for each stakeholder, what is the great blend. You know, what is the right balance between all these different things? And AI allows you to do that really, really effectively. And so that's where I see things going in terms of, you know, using AI enterprise solutions, using AI intelligence. It makes you faster, it makes you smarter, it makes you more consistent in your approach. It's really interesting how AI can sort of help that complex dynamic that you just described. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, it's interesting. ⁓ I always think in terms think customer first, which I mentioned earlier, but also having a plan, working a plan. So think of what I call the ideal sales call. The unmet customer need, clinical challenge. What's our best answer? Might not be ideal, but what's our best answer versus those we compete against? Therefore, what is our value proposition? It's gotta be overarching value prop. And then what are our proof points? And that ideal sales call is different when you're talking with the clinician person. Versus the administrator versus procurement versus IT, but to be able to understand that customer buyers' journey for each of them and their pain points and to develop ongoing content marketing that enables them to complete jobs, capture information when they need it, how they need it, reducing friction is going to increase the likelihood that they're going to choose you, not only before, but after. Because think about this. There's another statistic that says once the sale is done, people run off. They're on to the next kill. And it makes it harder in eight years or two months, depending upon what type of product, service, or solution you're selling. Once it needs to be reordered, if it's been a horrible experience, the the likelihood of exiting out is much higher versus if we just delight the customer ongoing, the likelihood they're not going to pick up the phone and call a competitor because it ain't broke. It's working. And so a lot of times that's forgotten too. So it's as important as you mentioned earlier to take care of the customer after the sale as it is leading up to create the sale. And I think more often than not, that is forgotten. Cause the sale looks on it and says, No, I've got to hit quota. I got to hit my bonus. I just need to sell X number of widgets. And if I've done that, I'm on to the next one, as opposed to really understanding that if I continue to delight the customer, they're going to constantly come back. And buy more and more. speaker-1: Create that create that sticky factor too, right? Which is really around retention. And then the other thing is is I think the stat is to regain a lost customer, it takes four times the investment of time and money to go than to keep an existing customer. So it's really kind of a you know, an interesting speaker-0: It it's counterintuitive, but people manage to their incentives and the reason they're off to the next thing is based upon how their incentive program is. And that's a whole different topic possibly. People manage to their incentives. So you gotta make sure that the incentives are aligned in order to get the desired outcome that you seek and desire. speaker-1: where do you think things are going? Like when you see AI today, who do you think has the biggest opportunity to benefit from AI in the med tech space? Like in well this is it big in the the mainstays of the kingdom or is it the small and medium sized companies? Where where do you really see AI, you know, creating a lot of impact in in the space? speaker-0: Think it's gonna benefit both large, medium, and small. So let's talk specific example. The smaller firms where all I have is a widget and I'm trying to get to market and I gotta go through a clinical trial, and then I gotta get FDA approval, and then I gotta in theory commercialize and I don't know what I don't know. And there's legal and regulatory and clinical challenges. I've never stood up a sales or all of that is complex to many founders, inventors. Well, with AI, they can go in and basically get a roadmap as to what to do and how to do it. Whereas historically they never could have done that. So that's one way to help some of the smaller players that can't afford to go hire the right consultants or to go hire the staff that has the you know innate knowledge. It could be as simple as designing the protocol for the clinical study, not just to get approval, but what marketing claim am I going to get out of that? Because that's critically important. Just to have quote unquote approval basically that means you're do no harm. But you might not be any better than the competition. So being able to design protocols, that's one small example for small companies. Then you look at some of the larger companies. They've got so much information, so much data, but it's all siloed, right? The right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing. They can't converge it. Therefore, they can't enhance productivity, reduce costs to serve. AI now can take all that complexity and boil it down and really give them a road math and a pathway. Towards how they can operationalize much more effectively, efficiently, in a much more productive way. So one big example would be to say, how do we take AI? How do we put it into an algorithm such that when a radiologist goes to look at a a film, that film isn't just that radiologist's knowledge through med school, residency, fellowship, and 10 years of practice? It's like, no, no, no. We've taken this x-ray on a million patients. And we're telling you to look here. And we think it could be one of three things, right? Now it's still up to that clinician to make the final call, but imagine where you're building confidence and they're able to look at that and then they can determine, well, again, it's based upon all the data that these big firms already have, but none of it is coming together when it's needed, how it's needed, where AI can enable that. So those are only two small examples, but they're big in terms of what they can do to really address unmet customer needs, right? That's really gonna drive differentiation, enhance productivity, improve the customer experience, whether it be for the the the company itself or the actual patient. So that's where I think AI has tremendous opportunity. Now, does it get it wrong? Sure. But that's where you need human intervention. Is there bias? Sure. Is there a lack of a hundred percent trust? Yeah. But it's constantly learning. And provided that you're providing the right inputs, it's eventually gonna get there a lot sooner than most people think. And you wanna be on the positive side of that versus the negative. speaker-1: It's really interesting where you know, you talk about the the customer value proposition with AI and you brought up a couple of really good examples, especially with imaging where you know, there are a lot of people that have stated that, you know, it's potentially that a digital read of a an X ray is probably better than the human eye, right? In in a lot of situations. Where you think about our healthcare system today where, you know, where you fall like I I feel like economically it's just it's a broken system. Like when you look at like how we all pay for our health care today, whether we have high deductible programs and platforms that are low deductible, you know, it costs us a lot of money to to take care of ourselves and go to the doctor. It would be great if AI could find a way where we could become more efficient economically with the care that we deliver and still deliver a high level of care as well. Right. And that's where my hope with AI goes beyond like into the healthcare side and what we're offering our customers and what. AI is going to offer healthcare systems, healthcare providers. And then in turn, you know, we'll get great healthcare, but you know, the cost reduction can come back to us. Where once again, I think healthcare can become more realistically economically viable for everybody, not just insurance companies, not just healthcare systems, not just doctors, but the people that actually pay for the health care into the system as individual people, right? And so, like we're all part of that whole ecosystem and I'd love to see a day when that all everybody feels like there's a little better balance and, you know, the the reward system and the healthcare system 'cause I think for the most part the patients going into the healthcare system feel like there's not enough balance going, you know, coming to them when they look at those bills every day. speaker-0: And one thing I'd add is, you know, healthcare, it's as much art as it is science. And by using AI, the ability to remove some of the unknown and actually reduce medical errors. So it's one thing to say affordability and you know, everybody's paying or paying way too much. And what are we getting for what we're paying? When they get it right, it's priceless. Right. When they get it wrong, it's disastrous. And a lot of times we're getting it wrong because we're overwhelmed, we're overworked, we're overstressed, we're all these things. Whereas with AI, the ability to build confidence, the ability to, you know, train and equip people to do their best jobs and in the end reduce medical errors at the that's the most important thing. And I think that's where the the real potential of AI is. Yes, it's about cost reduction and you know, productivity enhancements and all that, but it really boils down to reducing medical errors and and getting it right the first time. And I think that's Really, where the future of AI can have a tremendous impact that everybody's gonna see and feel and benefit from, from the payer to the provider to the patient. speaker-1: Well, I think that's a great place to kind of, you know, end this conversation. I've really enjoyed it. It's been great. I have one more question for you though. It'll be a little bit of a knuckleball, but ⁓ it's it's a question I like to ask all my ⁓ my guests. And so today's Brian goes back to twenty two year old Brian, right? What would be the one piece of advice you would give Brian at twenty two years of age and It can be in any category, whether it's personal or business or whatever it might be. But like, you know, what would you go back and offer yourself as a twenty two year old today as one piece of advice? speaker-0: Yeah. Well, that's a long time ago. And I would say the world has completely changed. And as a twenty two year old, I thought, hey, I'm gonna work for one company my entire life, maybe two. Right. And I was going to learn everything I needed while at that company. The reality of the situation is the world's changed. I think there's a stat out there that says now you're gonna work for twelve different companies in your lifetime, not counting all your positions, but actual companies, right? That's on that. So I would always say to that 22-year-old, have a growth mindset. Constantly be investing in yourself. Treat yourself as a bank. Invest in yourself because nobody can ever take that away from you. And regardless of what the future holds for you, you're going to able to draw on that investment and really be prepared for anything and everything that you know could happen or would happen or don't know. And there's a lot that's going on that nobody ever could have predicted. you know, the COVID situation be a prime example. I'd argue, did anybody when I was twenty two predict AI? No, right? There wasn't even the internet boom and revolution back then. So again, constantly ⁓ have a growth mindset, invest in yourself and always be be learning. speaker-1: Well, that's great words of wisdom for such a successful, you know, med tech executive, founder and CEO and and Brian. It's been a great conversation today. I'm so thankful to have you here. And ⁓ I can't wait to get this out and maybe have a second conversation as well. speaker-0: Hey, it was my pleasure and I hope that our brief conversation together does help aid and assist and benefit others in in the way of paying it back and paying it. All the best. speaker-1: Thank you, Brian. You better. So let's connect. Let's find where your revenue's getting stuck. Book a call at RevRXAI and build your revenue engine.