Scaling Health Tech Sales: Brendan McAdams’ Expert Coaching

[00:00:00] Brendan: Like to see revenues double what they are now. So four oh oh in excess of 400 K annually? Yes. Where I'm, I think I'm falling down or not doing as well as I'd like is most of my revenue comes through word of mouth and ref referrals. And I don't, I get sometimes I get the phone to ring from or so to speak, where someone contacts me.
[00:00:22] Brendan: And actually, for what it's worth, I've been appearing on some podcasts at your recommendation and, and that has turned up a couple of new, new revenue opportunities. It does work.
[00:00:43] Intro: You are listening to the seven Figure Leap podcast. We're here to leverage rich relationships and smart strategies to take your business to the next level. Here's your host, Dustin Reman.
[00:00:57] Dustin: Welcome back to the seven Figure Leap podcast. [00:01:00] I am really excited that the next up in our coaching series here is Brendan McAdams. Brendan and I actually connected in a meta way because. I'm doing podcast guessing, and that's my marketing, right? And so I was on Nathan Barry's podcast and he reached out and we connected, and we both thought that he'd be a really good fit for this series because he has a little different business model than a lot of the people that we talk about.
[00:01:22] Dustin: And that he's got a very specific niche, really focused on B2B and enterprise sales. I think that's a really fun, unique challenge for a lot of the models that we usually use for marketing. Brendan, thank you so much for being here, and I'd love to give the mic to you for a couple minutes. Wanna give us a little background on, you know, enough for us to understand the context of the business that you, you currently run at Kinetics?
[00:01:43] Dustin: I'd love to hear it. Sure. Thanks.
[00:01:45] Brendan: Thanks. It's a pleasure to be here, Dustin. So, just by way of background, I've been in the enterprise sales world for a a long time, probably longer than most since before your listeners were born. And so a lot of enterprise sales and in the telecom [00:02:00] and then Wall Street and then healthcare.
[00:02:01] Brendan: And healthcare for a lot last period of time. So then I went out, did did, I worked for United and, and, and what was, what became WebMD
and, and so in that space and then went out in some smaller companies and then went out on my own doing sales consulting as a kind of a fractional sales rep in some cases.
[00:02:19] Brendan: And then that turned into more. CRO work, fractional, CRO, and then just more consulting. And then I then transitioned to full-time sales consulting for health tech companies. And that's what I do now. So I work with health tech companies that are looking to sell to health plans and health systems and pharma, large provider groups, that sort of thing.
[00:02:40] Brendan: And, but a lot of the stuff that I do is translatable to B2B in general. So a lot of the same kind of practices and so forth apply, but I've tried to niche down a little bit and kind of focus specifically on health tech. It is an enormous industry and, and with lots and lots of flaws and problems and needs work.
[00:02:59] Brendan: [00:03:00] So there's no shortage of opportunity.
[00:03:02] Dustin: I was gonna say, there's plenty of work to do working in any sort of health space and, and B2B and sales, and you're like at the intersection of all those things, so, yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. So yeah, give me a current snapshot of the business. One way to look at this is trailing 12 months or in 2024, revenue number of clients, and then we can get more intel on like how you actually, how people can actually transact with you and, and hire you.
[00:03:26] Dustin: But yeah, give gimme a little sense or a deep sense if you can, on what's business like right now for Brendan.
[00:03:31] Brendan: So it's, I'm trying to do more products like package solutions as well to augment what I do at some level as a lead magnet or as an entry level sort of a product. So I've come up with this concept of a sales call tuneup.
[00:03:45] Brendan: Okay. So that a founder or early stage company or an individual sales rep that says, Hey, I just, I wanna get more of a breakdown on what I'm doing wrong or what I could be doing better and so forth. And so that's a kind of a package product that I, so I'm trying to. [00:04:00] Do more around making that drive awareness for that.
[00:04:03] Brendan: Okay. And so I've been doing that and that's had some really good uptake and people really like it and it's a great way to test me out and see if they wanna do more. And then I have some other products on top of
that, like more consulting, more kind of training modules that I do for companies. My customers as way of background are health tech companies typically that are selling into health plans and health systems and other large organizations.
[00:04:28] Brendan: And so I'm typically talking either a founder or a sales team or a VP of sales and those. And so it's a combination. It tends to be a lot of kind of a more custom. Consulting. Yeah. You know, but I'm trying to do more of a, augment that with some more packaged things that someone can say, oh, I need that and it's $1,500, or it's $2,500, or that sort of thing.
[00:04:51] Brendan: And so now to give you some idea in terms of numbers, it's been a lot of consulting and engagements and so it's, and it's in excess of 200 K [00:05:00] in the last trailing month, trailing 12 months. And that's been consistent over the last several years. So I don't have a long, I don't have a real shortage of revenue.
[00:05:10] Brendan: I'd like to obviously like would love to generate more revenue. Sure. But I think I'm falling down or not doing as well as I'd like is most of my revenue comes through word of mouth and ref referrals. And I don't, I get sometimes I get the phone to ring from or so to speak, where someone contacts me. And actually, for what it's worth, I've been appearing on some podcasts at your recommendation and, and that has turned up a couple of new, new revenue opportunities.
[00:05:40] Brendan: It does work.
[00:05:41] Dustin: Oh, I can hear that. That's good. And Brendan is not a plant. I did not know he's gonna say that, but No, that, that's really good. But anyways.
[00:05:49] Brendan: So just to wrap up. Yeah. But I'm not doing a particularly good job of, of getting driving awareness, whereas once I get someone on the phone and we are on a Zoom call, I do [00:06:00] quite well, but it's, but I'm not, it's not, it's not like happening automatically.
[00:06:05] Brendan: Yeah.
[00:06:05] Dustin: Makes sense, which makes sense. You're an expert at sales, so hopefully when you get people on a call, you're good at the thing that you teach others. That's good. I, I do, I wanna drill in a little bit for my own benefit and for anyone listening, when I first heard Health Tech Sales B2B Enterprise, I'm like, oh, he's selling.
[00:06:21] Dustin: To the hospital systems. But it sounds like you're selling, like you're helping the people who sell to the hospital system. Yes. It doesn't have to be a brand name or anything, but can you give me a specific example of a client or a product that you've helped so that we can understand who these founders are that you're actually, who are actually paying you?
[00:06:39] Dustin: To help them.
[00:06:40] Brendan: Yeah. So without naming specific customer names, just because we may talk specifically about, uh, stories around them and so forth, but like revenue cycle management companies in, in, in the healthcare world, revenue cycle management is a, on the billing side, they're the ones that are
helping to drive billing and revenue generation on behalf of a hospital.
[00:06:59] Brendan: Okay. And so [00:07:00] usually they turn to third parties, outside companies to come up with solutions to do a better job of that. And I've got a couple clients in that space right now.
[00:07:08] Dustin: Okay.
[00:07:09] Brendan: That are, so their sales team is calling on health systems, large house health systems of a certain size and larger and in, and they can, in that case, they can deliver a six or seven or eight ROI on any investment they make.
[00:07:23] Brendan: But they're struggling with how do they message and how do they overcome certain obstacles. I've got another company in the behavioral health space, they've got software that works with behavioral health. Companies and they've got, in this case, I'm working with a couple of their individual sales reps to elevate their sales.
[00:07:40] Brendan: They've invested in the, they've invested in sales reps, doing okay. And do they put 'em on a PIP performance improvement plan or do they let 'em go, or do they try and what I do with them is I work with 'em for a period of time and then elevate their sales, their sales skills so that they're, they're [00:08:00] producing at a higher level.
[00:08:01] Brendan: So that sort of thing. And then I'll do small engagements. I got a call the other day, Hey, we've got our sales team going out and we need some help getting ready for this. We're doing a big road show on the East coast, and this is an interesting one. They said, Brendan, we wanna help figuring out
how to sell and how to schedule meetings and how to have good conversations and do discovery and make the most of this roadshow that they're doing.
[00:08:26] Brendan: So I'm spending some time consulting them again, a lot of consulting.
[00:08:31] Dustin: Yeah. And so of the 200 k, I know you're trying to do more what I would call like productized services, where it's, I'll help you with this one specific thing for, it's a promise for a price, and it's very specific. Most of your revenue's coming from consulting, which I guess the way that I think about that is it's custom engagements.
[00:08:48] Dustin: It's what do you need? There's a proposal, so outta the 200 k, is it 190 k? That's like still consulting.
[00:08:56] Brendan: Probably 75%. Okay. It's 75. And so it's the smaller [00:09:00] productized engagements are not, are not, I mean they're meaningful. Yeah. But it's not. But what I hope the smaller engagements to do are the initial engagements and the kind of the stuff that we wanna talk about in terms of driving more awareness and engagement with potential customers is that's the sort of stuff that turns into larger sorts of, of opportunities.
[00:09:20] Brendan: And then you may have suggestions for me in terms of how I might. You know what else I might do in terms of more of a recurring revenue basis? Yeah. I don't have a lot of, I don't have a lot of that. And do I do a community, some sort of community thing or.
[00:09:35] Dustin: That sort of thing. Very good. Yeah. You reading my mind, but, so let's talk a little bit more about your ideal client profile.
[00:09:43] Dustin: So I understand, sounds like some software as a service, some they have recurring revenue a lot. It sounds like a lot of your clients invest in the sales activity because they're. Individual transactions end up being large over the long haul. But when you think of [00:10:00] the people you're selling to, what's the size of company that they typically represent?
[00:10:04] Brendan: The the,
[00:10:05] Dustin: yeah. Your customer.
[00:10:06] Brendan: My customer is. I do some work with founders in small startups, as I mentioned, and I've, I've run an accelerator and I do a lot of
mentoring for other accelerators. I'm doing some stuff with Techstars and that sort of thing. Okay. But to answer your question more specifically, my ideal customer is a million to 20 million in revenue.
[00:10:26] Brendan: Right. Okay. That's tech companies that are in that annualized revenue, that that's, they have a sales team, but they're, they don't have, they don't have 50 or a hundred salespeople. I don't do a lot of large sales team sort of training at this point. That's not something I'm doing. I'm working with teams of three to 10 kind of a thing.
[00:10:49] Dustin: Okay, that's perfect. 1 million to 20 million. They're in the health services, health tech space. They've got a small sales team, so every unit of improvement that you can make in one of their sales reps or in [00:11:00] their three person team has a percent. Increase in their performance, which multiplied by one to 20 million is significant for sure.
[00:11:08] Dustin: Yeah, exactly. And so in a consulting gig, what's the range of what those typically represent for your revenue?
[00:11:16] Brendan: What's a monthly retainer? For me you mean?
[00:11:18] Dustin: Yeah, if you're on a retainer basis is like, is that typical? Yeah. Describe if the outta the 75% consulting, like a typical engagement, what does that look like in duration and price?
[00:11:29] Brendan: Typical engagements, 90 days to start. Okay. You know, and could be anywhere between 25 and 30 5K. Okay. And that's not a, that's not full-time, that's just part partial and, and it's usually performance based. It's, I don't do hourly sorts of engagements, so it's whatever it takes. And sometimes it's a lot, and sometimes it's, it's less and it's really much more about delivering to whatever their expectations are and ideally exceeding their [00:12:00] expectations.
[00:12:00] Brendan: It's the goal. And, and, and then most of those engagements don't. Don't end at the end of the 90 day. They typically, they typically keep on, I'll do shorter engagements. Typically I'll do 'em one month, uh, engagement with someone if I, I've got, in fact, I just spoke to a fellow today that, uh, he's gonna, I, I'm basically an accountability coach for him for the next five weeks, and as he gets ready to roll out a, a new product.
[00:12:27] Brendan: Awesome. A new health tech.
[00:12:28] Dustin: Yeah. So, and is the person. S quote unquote, signing your check is that you mentioned it's like, uh, VP of sales or founder, depending on the size of company. So it's not, I wanna make the distinction for myself and for people listening to this, it's not you typically a sales rep who's, man, I really need to do better at my job.
[00:12:49] Dustin: I'm gonna go spend my own money to work with Brendan. It's a company. Like, we wanna hire you as a consultant to improve our performance for our salespeople. Is that right?
[00:12:56] Brendan: Correct. Yeah. It's the, like, I'll work with the [00:13:00] CEOA lot of times, or the executive team, and then in some cases I'll work with the VP of sales.
[00:13:06] Brendan: One of the things that, that I like to try and stress, because it is, I think a potential obstacle is. I'm actually the friend of the VP of sales. My job is to help make the VP of sales and that person's team more effective. And I
can do it in, in basically in the background. And I do it in close collaboration with the VP of sales.
[00:13:24] Brendan: So it's very kind of complimentary and I support whatever their culture and their approaches as long as it, as long as we jive. And then otherwise I don't, they don't end up as a customer. But, but I don't, to your point, I don't get a lot of. Individual sales reps saying, oh, you know what, I just, I should spend 500 bucks and have this guy look at one of my calls,
[00:13:44] Dustin: and so I know.
[00:13:46] Dustin: Be nice. Right? So I know it's a B2B sales process. So is it typically like. An RFP process where this company is, we wanna look for three options and you have to come give a proposal or present or is it, it's not that. So yeah. What's the sales [00:14:00] process look like for you?
[00:14:01] Brendan: The sales process for me is, is the cha and this is why we're talking.
[00:14:05] Brendan: The challenge is getting that if you getting that first initial conversation. Yeah. But once again, the conversation. One of the things I talked about, and this is consistent with how I teach sales, is I get on the phone call and it's really a consultative thing. I'm trying to figure out if there's a fit.
[00:14:20] Brendan: I'm trying to figure out if I can be helpful. I'll oftentimes suggest ideas right on the call. On the initial call, Hey, do you think about this? You should be doing this, et cetera, et cetera. And then if it's that easy to solve
the problem, then and I can solve the problem on that call, then they don't become a customer and they just go off and do their thing.
[00:14:36] Brendan: But oftentimes they say, oh, you know what? We really need you. And it's a one. It's generally a one or two phone call, uh, sales process. It's not a, it's not terribly elaborate, and then I can, I can map out how I go from there, but basically within a call or two, I know whether or not there, there's a real fit because I'm quite disciplined about trying to figure out if I can help 'em and if I can, I'll, I'm pretty good at [00:15:00] articulating how I can help and what that costs and, and then I'm pretty good at figuring out how serious they are about.
[00:15:07] Brendan: Whether or not they, they wanna do something and how great the pain is and how important it's to get it solved,
[00:15:13] Dustin: your sales skills come to bear. So that's really important because the sales process has a lot to do with. Not only who we're addressing, but how we're finding them or we're meeting them, in other words.
[00:15:23] Dustin: And so in your case, you got direct decision makers. They're either word of mouth or referrals, or lately podcast guessing where they've identified there's a pain, there's a thing that they know they need to improve in their organization. They're ready to invest. They see you as the expert in this.
[00:15:39] Dustin: Particular niche with health tech and they're willing to bring you in sometimes directly for a 90 day engagement or even a 30 day engagement. And more and more. As as. And this is where we're gonna get into the kind of the future version of your offer, stack. Some sort of front end engagement, a front end offer where it's, I don't, we're not sure we're ready to commit, but yeah, for 1500 bucks, come talk to our sales team and show 'em how to [00:16:00] do sales calls better.
[00:16:01] Dustin: And then from there, you get the full consulting package. Is that all pretty accurate? Yeah,
[00:16:05] Brendan: that's good. That's a good summary. Yes.
[00:16:07] Dustin: Okay. So that's a great snapshot. A lot of good information about your current business model, who you serve, the revenue breakdown. So if we put our future hats on and we're like, Hey, it's the end of 2026.
[00:16:20] Dustin: How would you like to, what would you like to see this be like revenue, top line, revenue wise, and maybe the breakdown between consulting and front end products? As an example, I wanna talk about top line revenue, and I wanna talk about answering the question. Do you want to keep doing consulting in the way you're doing it?
[00:16:34] Dustin: You just need more consistent leads for the consulting? I guess that's the question I'm trying to get to.
[00:16:39] Brendan: This is an excellent topic to wrestle with because Yeah, I'd love to, I'd like to see revenues double what they are now, so four oh oh in excess of 400 K annualized. That would be great. I like the consulting engagements because they're all unique and they're, there's a great deal of creativity that goes into 'em and that sort of thing, and so I get some reward outta that, but at the same time, [00:17:00] I get a huge kick outta having these sales to call tuneups because.
[00:17:04] Brendan: I can, they're, they're almost in, they're very transformative for the people I work with. So I get to get 'em on the call with 'em, and I can be really motivating and, and, and really change the way they think about sales in a very positive and beneficial way. Yeah. And so I get a big kick outta that. So I like the sorts of engagements where, where I get to do that.
[00:17:26] Brendan: One of the things I've talked about with my coach, coach, a couple folks that I work with, is how do I scale this? Yes. Is there a way to scale this in a way where I have someone else that helps me and do I do that behind the scenes with a, an assistant or do I. Bring in other salespeople that, and walk 'em through my methodology and the framework and all that sort of stuff, or like what options or do I something, do something in the way of a community or, and then to scale it in that way as opposed to a core generating course, for example.
[00:17:59] Dustin: Yeah, I [00:18:00] think there's, uh, I want to jump right into it. I'm trying to be patient 'cause I do have some, I do have some pretty strong thoughts on the offer ladder here. And Yeah, go ahead. We'll definitely do that. So, I, we talked about one year, four. Oh, can revenue, based on what you just said, is it safe to say you currently, it's just you or do you have any sort of like virtual assistant or anything on your team?
[00:18:19] Dustin: I,
[00:18:19] Brendan: I have a, I have a VA that works. With me and helps me, and then I outsource certain other stuff, like I've got some video production that I'm now doing. So I'm starting to do some kind of more content, these short form instructional videos that I'm gonna post and use in my newsletter. Newsletter and things like that.
[00:18:37] Dustin: Okay.
[00:18:38] Brendan: Yeah. But I'll under, but to be clear, I'm understaffed.
[00:18:42] Dustin: Yeah. It's basically your. Buttering all the bread, like you're the one fulfilling all the services. You're largely doing your own lead generation with the help of a virtual assistant to help with some of the content marketing video newsletter content.
[00:18:57] Dustin: But I know you've written books and you've got your own podcast, so [00:19:00] you're doing a lot of activity on the, and we're gonna obviously get into a marketing plan here shortly. Before we do that, we'll get more into the offers, but just, I wanna get, kinda get that snapshot of where you're at, where you want to go.
[00:19:10] Dustin: You said understaffed, so it sounds like you would. Have some more support. And would you say the support is most acute, an acute need on fulfillment? Like man, if there's other people that could lead some of these efforts, or is it more sales and marketing or administrative? Like where do you feel like maybe you'd love to spend more time on this, therefore you need to subtract some other aspects?
[00:19:33] Brendan: Yeah, that's a excellent question. So it'd be, it would definitely be. On the marketing side for one. Okay. Like just having some, like a marketing engine that, that could generate, that could take stuff that I've written or know excerpts for my book or, uh, I've got another book coming out at some point here in the next month or two.
[00:19:52] Brendan: And, and then just create a flywheel, an engine that that gets. And then, and then the other is, [00:20:00] I don't know how I could off sort if I could. What's the word I'm thinking of? Handoff The execution of an engagement to someone else. Yeah. It would be cool if there were a couple other
people that I could, if I could find, I could probably find significantly more consulting deal deals and training deals.
[00:20:17] Brendan: And truthfully, the sales, sales call tuneups, I could teach someone to do them. Yeah. And to some degree maybe even use AI to a greater degree to assess them on the front end and so forth. And do them in
[00:20:29] Dustin: a group format where even if it's you, it's, you've got 10 or 20 people receiving the benefit instead of one at a time.
[00:20:37] Dustin: Good. Okay. That's really helpful. So you like to fulfillment, it sounds like there's probably some. Low hanging fruit in your team structure, which is less my area of emphasis for this call, but administrative help. Sure. Some marketing help, and it could be a marketing person. I think sounds, honestly, it sounds more like a marketing system that is fueled by your expertise and you've heard about anything very episodes.
[00:20:59] Dustin: You kind [00:21:00] know where my mind's going with this is if you were showing up and being the expert in written format. Speaking engagements, podcast guessing, and there was a defined system, whether it needed a human or not, that generated leads from that. Yeah, like you like to teach, I can tell. 'cause you write, speak and have a podcast and all those things and you like to fulfill.
[00:21:19] Dustin: But yeah, the fulfillment was less irregular, less custom in many cases and with just a more consistent flow of leads like that. Sounds like a healthy 400, $500,000 business that you could be sure.
[00:21:33] Brendan: Oh yeah.
[00:21:33] Dustin: Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah, let's talk about the offers and then we'll talk more about the marketing. It sounds like consulting will continue to be that sort of 80 20 revenue generator, but.
[00:21:48] Dustin: In other words, you could fulfill more consulting if you just had the leads coming and going through some conversion mechanism. Yeah. So there's the front end, which you've been working on. There's the core is what I'll
call it. That's the consulting [00:22:00] that's still gonna be 60, 80% of your revenue, most likely.
[00:22:03] Dustin: Yep. And I think a missing piece that you've identified that's really valuable to your clients and good for you would be some sort of continuity income that's a subscription based like. Ongoing income, that's very leveraged, meaning it doesn't require a lot of units of your time to deliver the result, right?
[00:22:20] Dustin: So I like, I really like on the front end what you're, what you've started doing, selling one-off sales call tuneups. Right now you're doing that one-on-one and that's fine. But I think like those could easily be in a group, right? Where you have a certain framework and you're leading everyone through the same teaching.
[00:22:35] Dustin: Yeah. And then maybe you do breakouts or asynchronously do reviews of their next sales call or something as part of that package. But I think there's leverage to done. Leading with the sales call as like the niche thing that you really wanna lean into first. Yeah. You do those at $1,500 a pop, $2,500 a pop.
[00:22:54] Dustin: That's significant. It more than pays for your time to do that. And like you said, that leads naturally into that core [00:23:00] offer. Hey, help with your sales call. That's one part of a entire system to optimize your sales. Let me work with your team. Let me come do a workshop. Let me, do you know my thing? Yeah. And I really, I, one of the, I think things you could be looking at in the very near future.
[00:23:15] Dustin: On the continuity side, you mentioned I wrote these words all next to each other. You mentioned accountability, you mentioned coaching, you, me, I mentioned group. You mentioned sales call tuneups. Yeah. I think there's a real opportunity here for especially clients that you've worked with, whether it's just in a sales call tuneup or it's in a consulting gig where you say, Hey, for.
[00:23:35] Dustin: What, I don't know what the right price point is offhand, 500 bucks a month or something. You can be part of this ongoing sales accountability group that I run, and so your reps will get a regular audience with me in a small group setting. I will be available to review their sales calls. I'll be available.
[00:23:52] Dustin: It'll also be a peer to peer network and that these, they're learning best practices from each other and sharing experiences because that's [00:24:00] community. Like when I think of your business model, I don't think of community in the sense that you're gonna have 20,000 sales reps, and it's like an association, but more almost like a mastermind where it's, hey, this ongoing support where you're in Brendan's inner circle and you get my ongoing.
[00:24:15] Dustin: Monthly or biweekly call that you're telling, you're teaching them something new, answering their questions like in office hours. And then there could be some asynchronous support where, hey, once a quarter you get to
do a one-on-one with me, or once a quarter you get to submit three those calls and I'll evaluate them through my AI and human lens and give you feedback.
[00:24:34] Dustin: So, because I think accountability and. Continuing to hone their craft and having someone to look over their shoulder and be there for them is a huge value add for a sales rep. And I think a company would be wise to invest in that. 'cause it's like a continuing development. So how does that, and there may be other elements in that that I'm not aware of.
[00:24:53] Dustin: How does that.
[00:24:54] Brendan: No, that sounds really smart. Yeah, no, I like that for a co couple reasons. First [00:25:00] of all, you could have them of a certain size and if you get enough people, you just have a second one. Yeah. And then also you can, I could run it in such a way that I could bring in a more junior person that would be in that and co-ordinate it.
[00:25:14] Brendan: And then over time they would just run it and I would appear on a, on an ad hoc basis, but it would be their group at some point. And you could. Do this over and over. You get, you get to a critical mass of eight, maybe it's six people, so that, or eight people or whatever the right size is. And then you just keep creating new little groups of those.
[00:25:34] Brendan: And then you could even put 'em in complimentary industry. Yeah. So they're not competitive. Yeah. That's a good, that's a really, that has real potential for me.
[00:25:45] Dustin: Yeah. There's different. Forms of that. I, I like what you're saying, where it's almost like an accountability pod that has a leader, a moderator, and I think you could actually source.
[00:25:56] Dustin: The leadership from the membership. So in other words, [00:26:00] you get a group, you lead the first group, it gets up to eight people, and then you're like, Joe is really crushing this. He's really good at it. And you tap Joe on the shoulder and like, would you like to be the leader of this group? I'll comp your membership or I'll pay you however that stuff works with their company policy.
[00:26:14] Dustin: And then he's the ringleader once a month or once a quarter or whatever's appropriate. There's. All the groups come together and Brendan is there to do Yeah, the full, yeah. Opportunity. Eventually that could, if that grew,
that could have some in-person events and stuff like that associated with like retreats and sales summits and stuff like that.
[00:26:32] Dustin: But because then it, it gives a natural what's next after every consulting gig, Hey, uh, I did the thing you wanted me to do, we've improved your performance. What I know as someone who works in this is there's gonna be decay like these guys. Are, I've been looking over the shoulder. They're optimized in a sense, but if they're left to their own devices, this is gonna fade.
[00:26:53] Dustin: And AI and the industry shifts and there's new trends and all that. Like they need ongoing support. And that's why [00:27:00] for, I'm just throwing out 500 a month, but like for this. Very reasonable price. The company can enroll their salespeople into this one of these accountability groups, and they're, they're getting the best practice.
[00:27:11] Dustin: They're getting peer support, they're getting accountability. They have a channel to access your expertise as needed, and that, that would be a very scalable part of your business. And eventually, maybe when you're ready to not do consulting, that could be the business is, Hey, I run. Sales training and accountability for health tech.
[00:27:27] Dustin: We put people in these really cool pods. I lead it. I provide the structure, and that's a very scalable part of the business. It doesn't need to happen tomorrow in the sense that I. It needs to become the 80 20, the 80%, but it could eventually become the 80% and replace consulting as you want it to. 'cause you could easily go from sales call tune up to accountability pod and not even do consulting.
[00:27:50] Dustin: If you had enough volume of those like. More. Yeah. Yeah. Scalable, repeatable processes.
[00:27:55] Brendan: Yeah. Yeah. And if I could just jump on that, I do a lot of like training [00:28:00] sessions and recordings and that library of stuff. Yeah. Could be. Could be one of the assets that they would've access to as a result of being in this, in these, in this community.
[00:28:10] Brendan: And because it's very health tech specific. I could do a fair amount of rather esoteric and very specific targeted training about this is how you sell to a hospital, this is how a hospital is organized, and that sort of stuff. And I don't know that there's any real repository of those sorts of things out there in the marketplace.
[00:28:32] Brendan: So yeah, that. That makes a ton of sense.
[00:28:36] Dustin: I like it. It's a very, it's a very blue ocean because you're so niched in your industry, right? Yeah. And so you're creating a recurring revenue source that will be very sticky because we're, they can't get this anywhere else. And if I'm a sales rep, I'm gonna be. My performance review, I'm probably gonna be like, Hey, one of the best benefits this company has is they have me in this program with Brendan.
[00:28:57] Dustin: I love it. Yeah. I got leads from it. I'm meeting, I'm [00:29:00] really motivated and and the interesting thing about your model is prob the sales rep probably not having to pay for it directly, but they become your best advocate to their company of this is a continuing education that we should keep doing. 'cause this is actually really helpful and you could sell directly into that.
[00:29:14] Dustin: But I think the typical client flow would go front end. Sales training, sales call training to consulting, to continuity. We'll call it a mastermind Sales, mastermind sales accountability group. And that would be the typical flow. But in it, for any given lead, you could go straight to consulting, you could go straight to the accountability pod, you could just do a sales call and you, you get to choose which one you wanna emphasize.
[00:29:37] Dustin: And then, like I said, over time, then the mix of those could shift based on your own lifestyle and needs and health and age and all that kind of stuff. As you get older and it becomes a. To me, it becomes a much more saleable asset. It's like at some point you got 400,000 just from the accountability pods and other people run them, and you are basically the overseer and the one who has created the system and [00:30:00] feeds people into it.
[00:30:01] Dustin: That's a business you could sell. That's something you could sell. Right? Consulting. No, you're right. When you take your shingle off, you're done generating income because people buying your time effectively. Yeah, for,
yes. Cool. That's a great, yeah, I like it. I like that a lot. Any other thoughts on. Offer goals, anything like that before we move more into marketing strategy?
[00:30:22] Brendan: Uh, I'm trying to think if there's, I think we more or less covered that kind of my suite of services. It's another thing I do from a maintenance standpoint. I'm starting to sell. Hey, I get to coach these people for a certain period of time and I can see common patterns of where, hey, the, this is something the whole team needs to learn about.
[00:30:42] Brendan: And so I'm now starting to do, Hey, here's some maintenance sales investment, if you will, or sales enhancement program for you over the next X number of months. And so that's another form of recurring revenue, but it, again, it doesn't scale the way the community idea does. Yeah. That you've outlined there.[00:31:00]
[00:31:00] Dustin: Good. I like that. Yeah, that's a good, I like to have a core product ladder like we just described, and then we can always take one off. Someone wants to pay a 50 grand to come do a VIP experience in their company. Sure, I'll do that. But it doesn't mean it has to be the normal path for people, like workshops would fall into that category where maybe they come.
[00:31:18] Dustin: Do a three-day training in, in our, on our team, or come to the trade show and be with us as an embedded advisor. Like there's one-off projects you could do for, uh, that's good one too, fashion and fun, but like the core service becomes repeatable. So I like,
[00:31:32] Brendan: yeah.
[00:31:33] Dustin: If anyone's listening to some of these sessions, a common theme, and this is where I'm gonna go next, is once your offers are in alignment and you see a path forward that seems exciting and scalable.
[00:31:43] Dustin: What's really nice about that, there's a, with yours especially, there's like such a through clear line between the off or clear through line. Yeah. Between the offers. Really what we're identifying is. A bullseye client and value
proposition that's, I do this for this person. That's the [00:32:00] bullseye. Yep. And then as long as you're on the same target, you might pick up some residual sort of opportunities, right?
[00:32:05] Dustin: Yes. But if you're like, Hey, I'm Brendan. I help people, I help healthcare or health tech companies selling into these health systems, uh, improve their sales process so they can increase their revenue. The typical first step for that is this sales call. Tune up, tune up.
[00:32:20] Brendan: Yeah.
[00:32:21] Dustin: Like that's just a consistent message.
[00:32:22] Dustin: And then, and so once we know our bullseye, then marketing becomes a lot easier. Right? It's okay. I know exactly who I need to reach. I know what they need to believe, and I know then I can start to identify
where, how do I reach them and with what message. Clearly, part of this marketing strategy is gonna be podcast casting.
[00:32:39] Dustin: Not only 'cause I'm prescribing it, but also because you've already had some success. Yeah. So I'd love to let you talk for a few minutes here. What has worked with podcast guesting? Is there certain topics, certain sort of types of shows that you've found that you've gotten some clients from that we could focus on?
[00:32:55] Brendan: Yes. Let's see. So I was on Josh Specter and that Josh and [00:33:00] Josh, which is not health tech specific. Right. But he's got a, he's got a large, he's got a good following and, and we had a good conversation and I've been on a co I've been on a few other since in the last few months I've started to become on, get on more podcast.
[00:33:15] Brendan: I've been on Christie Bridges and I've been on medical sales podcast. So I'm trying to go more health tech specific. Yeah. And, and really talk to people in the health tech space. And, and so I've gotten a couple, so I've gotten one from Josh. I've gotten one from, from a, from one of the medical podcasts and, and then I got one through a recent one through a LinkedIn.
[00:33:37] Brendan: A LinkedIn Live, yeah. Which is just another version [00:33:40] Dustin: of podcast guessing so, yeah.
[00:33:41] Brendan: Yeah.
[00:33:43] Dustin: Awesome. So what was the topic on those? Was it, were they all the same topic that you focused on teaching?
[00:33:48] Brendan: I pretty much talk about, I talk about sales. I talk about sales from the perspective of the healthcare industry, and so there's some very unique kind of characteristics about [00:34:00] healthcare versus say selling into other verticals and that they're complex and they're much more, they tend to be very collab, very collaborative sorts of sales process, very, they're very risk averse.
[00:34:13] Brendan: They move very slowly. There's a lot of regulatory components to it. There are a lot of moving parts that make it more complex and you have to understand a lot more of the, the how the machine works. Mm-hmm. In healthcare reimbursement, how patients behave, how physicians
think, how nurses think, how risk managers inside hospital, inside health plans, think all that sort of stuff.
[00:34:38] Brendan: And so I spend time kind of talking, breaking that stuff down. It gets a little wonky. Yeah. And very in industry specific, but that's necessary in, in, in my line of work.
[00:34:50] Dustin: That's great that that is. I know it's technical and maybe it sounds dry, but that's what makes people effective in this industry at sales, is understanding the machine [00:35:00] as you put.
[00:35:00] Dustin: I think that's a really good way to put it. It's unlike selling almost anything else because you have to really understand, like you said, the doctor, the CFO, the insurance, the nurse, like all these people that. Have a role in decision making and in not only decision making to purchase, but in making it successful after they purchase.
[00:35:18] Dustin: So they stick around and want to keep using this service or whatever they're selling. Yeah, so that makes a ton of sense.
[00:35:24] Brendan: So what if I could jump in a little bit more? One of the things that I find is discovery in the sales process. Discovery, the understanding what your customer needs and what their priorities are, and what their challenges, what they're up against, those sorts of things, and being able to uncover that stuff.
[00:35:39] Brendan: Is incredibly important if you're gonna figure out whether or not there's an opportunity to qualify it properly. And then also how to communicate that with that. And the thing about that is in healthcare, just like in manufacturing or telecom, there, the questions that you need to ask are very specific and you have to understand things in a very specific industry [00:36:00] specific sort of way.
[00:36:01] Brendan: And the more that you know in healthcare, the more that you can understand that stuff effectively, the more you convey a level of expertise and the more you can, that you instill a certain confidence in them, in the customer that, oh, this guy knows what he's talking about, this guy can help me. Insider language
[00:36:19] Dustin: is really important to impart on them.
[00:36:21] Dustin: Yeah.
[00:36:22] Brendan: So I spent a lot of time that's these in the podcast. That's what I ended up getting into.
[00:36:26] Dustin: Perfect. Yeah, and I think we could get, one of the things we like to do in, in, in our program is kinda get that signature talk or that signature story, that signature framework that you wanna lead with, and maybe you have one, we don't have to get into all the details for the purposes of this discussion, but could be as simple as like the three questions you have to ask on a sales call to.
[00:36:48] Dustin: Increase your close rate by 50% in the health tech industry or something like this, like repeatable system or framework or thing that everyone's, they listen to it and they're like, oh my gosh, that was super valuable. And you're like, and by the way, this is [00:37:00] five or 10% of the equation. There's a lot more to come and that's why you should go read my book or whatever that next call to action is.
[00:37:06] Dustin: That was my next question though. For these podcasts and the ones that have converted into clients, what has been to your call to action? What have you told people at the end of the interview to go do that has led them to come in and hiring you? I wish I had a better answer for this. This is the most common answer, Brendan.
[00:37:23] Dustin: It's not a problem. Yeah,
[00:37:24] Brendan: right. I think what at the risk of. Trying to sound humble, but I think what comes across is, oh, he knows what he's talking about in this particular space. Yep. And I, and or I, I like his style, or I like some of the things he, the way he talks about selling resonates with me. Yep. And I don't know that the call to action that I've not had.
[00:37:46] Brendan: A good consistent call to action. I've not had a, you said like a core message. A core message for a podcast appearance. I don't know that. I don't know that I've done that.
[00:37:56] Dustin: Okay. That's, like I said, the most common answer. That's definitely [00:38:00] something we help people with. But yeah, the good news is the signal here is even without necessarily a super well thought out.
[00:38:07] Dustin: Story arc and and design of the interview. And even without a clear call to action, you've gotten clients from most of Yes. Sounds like most of the recent appearances. That's awesome. Yeah. That speaks to the fact that
long form educational content is your jam. It actually is the magnet that gets the right people to listen to you.
[00:38:25] Dustin: And I think, I think you could double your. Effectiveness, your conversion rate with just adding a really clear call to action, making sure there's like a keystone story that really hits them emotionally about why this is a pain they actually have and agitating it's like doing the thing you know how to do on sales calls and making a podcast interview, both educational and helpful, but persuasive and like using, using a steady, consistent framework and a consistent call to action.
[00:38:52] Dustin: Then you've already written a book. You're writing another one. You have. More than enough things to choose from for what that call to action would be. Yeah, and obviously you [00:39:00] said you have a newsletter, so you have all the foundational pieces to build upon the system that you opened with earlier. Man, if I had either a person or like a marketing system that just constantly generated the leads and now we've got better offers to send those people through to make this a more scalable fulfillment, I really think, yeah, I think if you did one podcast a week and it was a very.
[00:39:23] Dustin: And your role was simply to show up and do the interview and the system, or the virtual assistant was making all the things happen to get you on the show and making all the things happen to get them into your sales process and get them on a call with you since you're really good at that part. That would probably be the lead you need was just being on the right shows with the right story and the right call to action on a consistent basis with very repeatable systems, either through technology or a virtual assistant running all this stuff outside.
[00:39:50] Dustin: So you don't have to think about that part. You just show up and do your thing and then you take sales calls and then you make money. So I think that's, you got that. And so I think podcast [00:40:00] guesting is probably obvious, like where to do this, you've started to do it, but sales, podcasts, health. Tech, podcasts.
[00:40:07] Dustin: Podcasts that sales reps would listen to, podcasts that founders would listen to that are in this industry. Yep. And if you're like, man, it's like a lot of times you're so niche. A lot of times people are like, I just don't know if there's enough podcasts. We could find a lot of those podcasts. One of the ways I would help discover those is like.
[00:40:25] Dustin: Where are your ideal clients being interviewed? 'cause they're probably a lot of these founders of these health tech systems and these other things, the SaaS companies, they're being interviewed about their company and about the stuff that they do, and we can find them very easily and oh, they're being interviewed there.
[00:40:41] Dustin: That's where I'm gonna go get interviewed next. Yeah. And so it, you not only know that it's the right environment, but. Every time you're interviewed on one of these shows, all these guests who are your potential clients, you now have a warm, open connection to them to get them into your sales process.
[00:40:55] Dustin: Personally, I think there's a plethora of podcast guesting opportunities, and if you go [00:41:00] a rung out from that, we have things like LinkedIn lives or other educational based partnerships where you're doing workshops or speaking at conferences. These are all the same strategy, but just with a slightly different.
[00:41:11] Dustin: Package around it. So where I'd like to spend the next like five minutes as we, we wrap up, I think podcast guessing a hundred percent winner, there's some tweaks that we can make there and that'll be off to the races. I also like to think through like strategic partnerships. You mentioned you get word of mouth and referrals.
[00:41:29] Dustin: Usually, a lot of times those come from clients, but they can also come from centers of influence who serve your ideal client, but in a different way. So what comes to mind? Do you have some of those in place or there? Is there like places we should double click and start thinking about where you could have partners that would give you opportunities for an influx of customers all in in one.
[00:41:50] Dustin: One stop. I guess
[00:41:52] Brendan: here's one that immediately comes to mind and I've got, this works a little bit already, but I, anybody that does lead generation. Yeah. And then [00:42:00] gets customers on the phone, right. For another, for their client. Yep. They want those leads to convert. Yep. And oftentimes they throw the lead over the fence to the company, to the, and then it doesn't convert.
[00:42:16] Brendan: Yep. And what lead gen companies should do, and one has, and I'm, I probably could get another or two to do this, is say, Hey, you know what? Invest in this guide for a month or two. Yep. And, and I've, so it's a
variation on the sales call tuneup thing, and that is I would work with 'em and on their, as they get leads, prep 'em for the lead.
[00:42:39] Brendan: In some cases, hey, here's, so in the beginning, can you eliminate some of their bad habits before they start, and then also assess the calls and then build them up, motivate 'em, and also teach them more about process, about discovery, about how to qualify, how to determine whether or not there's a [00:43:00] fit, those sorts of things.
[00:43:01] Dustin: Yeah, so the way you described that was, was definitely something to explore, and that's a little more of an embedded partnership where it's like this Legion companies trust Brendan, and you're almost like a part of the team upstream from that, which would be more scalable and help you find more of those deeper relationships would be as simple as doing guest training, right?
[00:43:21] Dustin: So you could look at the lead generation companies in your space and you go to them and say, Hey, you've got a client, you've got. A bunch of clients let me come in, I'll do a free training on how to do sales calls better. It's just gonna make you look better. It's a value add to your people. And then obviously if I get some clients, I'll give you a referral feedback and it doesn't take from them in a sense It.
[00:43:43] Dustin: You should also be able to send them referrals. Right? Because people come to you for sales problems. Sure. And you're like, Hey, we fixed it. If you need more leads. I really, this other company that I've done some partnerships with, they're really good at lead gen for this particular hyper niche thing. So I think that lead gen seems like an obvious one where you could do guest training for [00:44:00] them.
[00:44:00] Dustin: Let me ask, can I just clarify,
[00:44:01] Brendan: am I doing guest training for the lead gen company or am I doing it for their customers?
[00:44:07] Dustin: The way I'm envisioning it would be the lead gen companies. Hey, all of our customers this month we have Brendan coming in. He is gonna do a guest webinar, guest training. Okay. So it's a value add to their client base.
[00:44:18] Dustin: Yes. There's gonna be people in that pool that are like, we really need help. This company's giving us the leads, but we do need this help. Yes. So, okay. Their clients are the ones hiring you and then you give a referral
feedback to the lead company for featuring you as an expert on sales conversion.
[00:44:36] Dustin: There's an infinite probably number that we could, if we sat down and mind map this with who else serves health tech companies. So it's like insurance regulation, finance, I don't know. But like they have a pool of clients who are these founders of health tech companies who have all this stuff that they're, they spend money on and you're just like a featured resource, right?
[00:44:55] Dustin: And then when you have this community of the accountability pods, like maybe you return the favor and [00:45:00] you're like, Hey, why don't you come talk about lead gen in my sales? Pod, because I don't do lead gen, I just do sales conversion. Yeah. Yeah. So when I think of strategic partnerships, it only takes a couple of those to really be a major source of leads.
[00:45:12] Dustin: Yeah. And one of the best ways to find those opportunities is through podcast guessing, because the, those people also listen to those same podcasts because they're in the industry. And like I said earlier, if you look at the guest list that some of these shows you've already been on that are industry specific, and you're like, oh wait.
[00:45:29] Dustin: Jill owns a lead generation company and she seemed like she really knew what she was talking about. I'm gonna go reach out to Jill and see if we can do a partnership where I could come do some guest training for her client base, and one way to reciprocate that is through referral fees. Another would be to let her do guest training for your client base, if that was appropriate.
[00:45:46] Dustin: Yeah, so I like. I like to think in terms of, if you get into just an easy mind map of this as every week I'm on, you know, and you could do more or less, but every week I'm on a podcast that's real easy. I show up for 30, 45 minutes, I've got my [00:46:00] signature talk. That gives me a consistent baseline of leads.
[00:46:03] Dustin: It develops a ton of new relationships. There's a lot of great momentum 'cause you're creating that flywheel. And then if you wanna pour some gas on the flywheel, like once a month. Do some sort of partnership. And maybe that's, like I said, it's what we just described with a legion company. It's inviting three other experts in your industry to do a guest panel on LinkedIn.
[00:46:20] Dustin: It's speaking on a association, it's speaking on a conference. These are the big rocks that you can throw in there, but you've got the consistent baseline of podcast guesting to, to run the machine. Yeah. Uh, infinitely. So
cool. I, we have two minutes left, so I want to pause here Brendan, and ask you, what do you think is your biggest takeaway from our time together so far?
[00:46:39] Brendan: I, there's several, but I'm certainly, the community idea just has so much potential number one. Yeah. And then now this lead gen joint like collaboration idea, I think has a ton of, has a ton of sense. It just makes, and one of the things going through my head is I have to get the transcript of this call now.
[00:46:56] Brendan: Sure. Because I'm gonna go back and have to take all the [00:47:00] notes that, because the, no, there's some, several good points, but those are two that come immediately to mind.
[00:47:04] Dustin: Good. Maybe we'll work together at some point and we can build this firewall for you and that'll make it all easy. You don't have to take notes, but this is really fun because I love to like.
[00:47:13] Dustin: Get into these niches. It's like B2B people are like, oh, podcast, you can just go on there and sell like low dollar meat sticks or whatever. Like my old my story, right? Right. But I'm like, no, there's applications of the same strategy for all levels of market and I love your openness and transparency.
[00:47:30] Dustin: Before we wrap, I'd love for you to share if people are listening and they're like, I could do some sales help. I wanna, I need some more Brendan in my life. What's the best way to either get ahold of you or get on your email list or that sort of thing?
[00:47:40] Brendan: Sure before, I just, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it and I just, it just goes to show you how important coaching is.
[00:47:47] Brendan: I do coaching for others. Yep. And it's always nice to see a different perspective and everyone has their little blind spots and so I have the same, I go through the same thing with my customers and so it's always fun when it's, when the shoes on the other foot, [00:48:00] so to speak,
[00:48:00] Dustin: we're all really bad at doing for ourselves what we're so good at doing for others.
[00:48:04] Dustin: Yeah. No, it's fun to coach a coach and see some breakthroughs come right away.
[00:48:07] Brendan: It's good. So real quick. The best thing is if you go to my website, which will be in the, I guess in the show notes, kinetics.com. Yep. K-I-I-N-E-T-I-C-S is one you can visit and that's one way to reach me, connect with me on LinkedIn.
[00:48:20] Brendan: I think that link will be in the show notes as well. And if you want a copy of my book Sales Craft, send me an email or reach out to me on LinkedIn and I'll send you the PDF. Happy to do it. It's, it's what it was, my
bucket list item and it's just a bunch of. Short chapters on how to think about sales and, and it's just like a, a whole series of like little ideas and executables that I've come up with over the years.
[00:48:46] Brendan: And it's, it's been pretty, it's been, it was a fun, fun project.
[00:48:50] Dustin: I love it. Yeah, we can get sales craft the book and then kinetics.com. There's two i's K-I-I-I-N, so kinetics.com and then yeah, Brendan [00:49:00] McAdams. Nice and clean on, on LinkedIn. Yeah. Brendan, you're awesome. I'm really glad that we connected through podcast guesting with, with what I was doing with Nathan, and really excited to give you some fresh energy and insights today.
[00:49:11] Dustin: I really appreciate you coming on and being an open book with us and letting, letting me coach you.
[00:49:15] Brendan: Thanks, Dustin. It was a pleasure. Really enjoyed it. Very helpful, thanks.
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