When Sales and Marketing Align with Troy Purdue

[00:00:45] And if you don’t recognize the name Marathon Health, you might recognize the name, OurHealth, if you live in the Indianapolis area and the Midwest region, but OurHealth and Marathon Health went through a strategic combination earlier this year and are now known simply as [00:01:00] Marathon Health – they’re on a mission to build the most trusted health company in the United States, but delivering outcomes that people care about and both our health and Marathon Health provide onsite and your site health centers for employers, and both have a patient centric emphasis on technology and data that very well may have an impact on all of our health care.

[00:01:19] Uh, here in the near future, but I wanted to talk with Troy. I’d met him earlier this year and we’d had a chance to get to know each other and what I found so fascinating about Troy, if you look at his job title, you might think he’s a sales guy. He’s not, he’s a marketer, but Marathon Health has a focus on the revenue umbrella over marketing and sales, kind of working in tandem together.

[00:01:39] Um, and I’ve had some really great conversations just in getting to know Troy and I thought it’d be. Perfect to talk about on this podcast, to hear a little bit more about how, as a marketer, he works with the sales team and is revenue minded and all that he does. And this is a topic that’s very close to my own heart.

[00:01:55] And so I had a really great time talking with Troy about all of this, and I think you’re really going to enjoy the [00:02:00] conversation. So let’s dive in. 

[00:02:03] All right. Very excited to have Troy Purdue, Sales Enablement Director at Marathon Health on the show with me today. Marathon Health is on a mission to build the most trusted health company in the United States, but delivering outcomes that people care about.

[00:02:18] And Troy and I actually met each other, uh, earlier this year, we’re both associate members of Revenue Collective, and we got paired up for. Um, what they call a random lunch where we, uh, you know, got to chat for an hour and get to know each other. And it turns out Troy actually has a pretty long history with Brad Seaman, our CEO at MonsterConnect.

[00:02:36] Isn’t that right? 

[00:02:37] Troy: [00:02:37] That is correct. Yes, Brad and I actually both went to the same high school. 

[00:02:41] Kiel: [00:02:41] Yeah, small world. Um, but, uh, it was really cool to kind of, um, get to talk to you that day and as I, you know, we were kind of planning out the show, your, your name popped into my mind. Cause we had a really interesting conversation.

[00:02:53] You had kind of transitioned to a new role at a company that was going through some, some really exciting [00:03:00] changes itself. And I was excited to sort of catch up with you on that and hear more about how that’s been going. But before we get into. What you’re doing at Marathon Health. I wanted to have you share a little bit about your career path.

[00:03:10] I know you’ve held several different marketing roles with, I guess what I would describe as health focused organizations. Um, talk to me a little bit about what that career path has been and like, and how that led you to, um, what you’re doing now at Marathon Health. 

[00:03:24] Troy: [00:03:24] Yeah, absolutely. So I would say my career path is probably an unconventional career path.

[00:03:30] Um, you know, compared to probably what most people do going to college, getting a degree, uh, maybe doing an internship and. Starting a role with that company where they do that internship. I unfortunately, uh, did not graduate college with a degree. So I’ve had to, uh, you know, kind of learn on my own, uh, throughout my career and in the last kind of decade or so I really got drawn into.

[00:03:55] What I call the ancillary healthcare space. So the broker consultant space [00:04:00] and even the, the ancillary worksite health center space, um, and from a marketing perspective, really just kind of came naturally. I’ve always had an affinity for design and technology, and they just kind of merged very well with the roles that I had.

[00:04:12] That’s some of these ancillary health, um, organizations. And so throughout the last decade, I’ve really tried to hone my design and marketing skills, learn new things, uh, you know, talk with interesting people within the industry, uh, both from a healthcare perspective and from a marketing perspective. And I think it’s really helped shape, uh, kind of my worldview as well.

[00:04:32] Um, and, and from a healthcare perspective, that’s certainly a passion project for me. I love coming to work every day and, and really hearing the, uh, the success stories that our patients and our users are having out in the market, even though I’m not directly a frontline healthcare worker, you know, influencing.

[00:04:50] Uh, you know, their, their course of care. I do feel some, uh, indirect involvement and, and take some credit for some of the successes that we have. So from a marketing perspective, [00:05:00] it definitely is probably a different track than what, uh, many of your listeners may have gone through. But nonetheless, I’ve ended up at the, you know, what I consider a similar space place.

[00:05:09] Kiel: [00:05:09] Yeah. And obviously, you know, it made perfect sense earlier this year when you joined, what I believe at the time was still OurHealth. And, um, our listeners in Indianapolis will obviously recognize that name as a company that, um, started here several years ago, but this year has gone through, um, what’s been described as a strategic combination, um, with Marathon Health, which is the, what.

[00:05:32] The company is now called. And so you, you came into our health right as this, um, change is happening. And again, strategic combination, OurHealth, Indiana based, Marathon Health, which I believe was originally based out of Vermont. And now they’ve kind of come together as Marathon Health. Uh, tell us a little bit about what that has looked like and what that means for the organization as a whole.

[00:05:55] Troy: [00:05:55] Yeah. Great question. So, uh, you know, some people think I’m a little bit crazy for jumping [00:06:00] into, uh, uh, two organizations coming together as one, because it is a somewhat of a chaotic time. Uh, I do have the, um, uh, I have been through that before. Uh, I worked for a local work site, health center, uh, organization here in the Indianapolis market that merged with another organization based out of Wisconsin.

[00:06:19] So the, the process was not unfamiliar for me. Uh, but nonetheless, each merger kind of has its own nuance. Uh, you know, and so joining the organization at that time for me was really an opportunity because it gave me the sense of what both organizations did before. And allowed me to help position where that organization needs to go moving forward as a new combined Marathon Health.

[00:06:45] Uh, and so, you know, from a sales and marketing perspective, there are certainly a lot of things that, uh, we’ve worked on through the last four or five months, and certainly things that we’re continuing to work on through the end of 2020 and into 2021, uh, you know, specifically around [00:07:00] a new brand. So we launched a brand new logo marks, brand new.

[00:07:04] Uh, brand direction and messaging. Um, some of the nomenclature that we’re using is a little bit different as we’re trying to combine. Uh, the two organizations, uh, in the healthcare service is a very complex, uh, scope of service that we have. And so bringing. Bringing those together has been challenging, but fun as we take a, you know, what, what both organizations really excelled at and, and try to bring them together into a new industry leading company.

[00:07:31] Uh, so, so we’ve been focused a lot on how do we support our sales team with marketing collateral and marketing initiatives? How do we, you know, create a new and, uh, And, and really better, um, campaign strategy and lead gen strategy to support our sales staff. And then certainly how do we, um, educate the, the market in general, uh, to what the new Marathon Health is.

[00:07:54] And because we, we decided to keep the same Marathon Health name. There is that name recognition nationally. They were a little [00:08:00] bit of a larger organization from a footprint perspective, uh, compared to our health. Uh, so we think that we can continue to leverage that. Um, that known entity of the, the legacy Marathon Health for the new organization moving forward.

[00:08:14] Kiel: [00:08:14] Yeah. And so throughout all of this, I mean, I would imagine the biggest question you get, at least from people here in the Midwest who are familiar with OurHealth and OurHealth MyClinics, and kind of the whole model of that, the, the big question would be, so what’s different now, um, that, that it’s Marathon Health.

[00:08:31] What, what has changed. 

[00:08:33] Troy: [00:08:33] Yeah. So, you know, the, the, MyCinic now work is an interesting, uh, thing to talk about because that was a big differentiator for OurHealth. And that will be a big differentiator for the new Marathon Heath. Uh, the other thing I think is culture. You know, we spend a lot of internal energy, really focused energy on creating a really world-class culture within the healthcare space and our.

[00:08:56] Our company is made up of both corporate employees, uh, [00:09:00] but also a lot of field staff. Uh, you know, three quarters of our staff are actually out in our health centers around the country. Um, our nurses, our providers and clinicians, um, in the, in the field staff that support them. Uh, so creating a culture that really, um, can be.

[00:09:17] Uh, creating a culture that can really be mimicked right outside of the corporate office to a lot of these field offices is very challenging. Uh, but we think, we think we’ve unlocked the key. Um, we, we invest a lot of energy in doing that. So, um, again, I think that, you know, differentiation. Uh, from a service level perspective is very challenging.

[00:09:38] Uh, we’re always innovating just like everyone else in our spaces innovating. Uh, but it’s, it’s always, you’re either catching up with someone else you’re leapfrogging them and they’re catching up with you. Right? I like to think of it as the iPhone, uh, you know, Apple, iPhone and Samsung, Samsung galaxy debate.

[00:09:53] Right. They both do really great things. You wouldn’t, uh, you know, Be losing out by having either one, [00:10:00] some of it is just personal preference and that’s kind of how healthcare works, uh, at the work-site health center space. So there’s other ways that we can differentiate the kind of the way Apple does, what their, um, you know, do something different to campaigns and the way that the Apple’s kind of created a culture around their brand, we’re looking to mimic some of those same things.

[00:10:18] Kiel: [00:10:18] Yeah, that’s a, that’s actually a really interesting analogy. I don’t think I would have thought of that, but that, that makes a lot of sense. Um, so this has been kind of great to, to hear about, um, this experience that you all have been going through this year, but one of the things I’m really excited to talk about with you today is this concept of, uh, Troy, the marketer who kind of has a sales title.

[00:10:41] You’re the Sales Enablement Director. And, you know, as, um, somebody, you know, like. Both you and I who have been in marketing for a while now, we’ve kind of seen this evolution of marketing roles and the marketing function becoming more responsible for revenue and more closely knit to the sales team. I’m [00:11:00] interested to hear a little bit about like how you would describe your role, um, because if somebody sees it on paper, they think you’re a sales guy.

[00:11:06] You’re actually a marketer. What does it actually look like in practice for you? Day-to-day. 

[00:11:11] Troy: [00:11:11] Yeah, great question. And I do get confused with sales all the time. I get plenty of a spammy LinkedIn messages from people thinking that I’m in sales. So that’s one, one downside, I guess, maybe to having sales in your title, but, uh, you know, from an enablement perspective, I think we’re the industry and, and I’m speaking, you know, more broadly than healthcare here, more, uh, from a marketing and sales industry, um, you know, We’re moving more towards revenue teams.

[00:11:38] And I think there’s not as hard of a line in the sand between marketing and sales as there used to be. I think there’s a lot more collaboration. Um, as more organizations start to look at, uh, using both. Uh, of those departments within an organization to find success, whether that be from a lead gen perspective, uh, you know, from a revenue perspective, et cetera.

[00:12:00] [00:12:00] Uh, so my role is really, I like to say it’s more marketing focused. Um, I’m certainly working on. Those lead gen strategies, uh, you know, how do we start to measure buyer intent and how do we start to understand buyer signals that are happening out in the marketplace, through the web, through our competitor sites, through events, et cetera, uh, you know, ad campaigns, all the traditional things that your marketing team would typically do.

[00:12:26] But I also support sales from a process perspective. Uh, so I’m working with sales on creating buyer journeys. Looking at buyer personas, uh, you know, how do we ensure that our Salesforce instance, uh, it encompasses all of the data points that we think are necessary for our sales to be successful and to have, uh, you know, more targeted conversations with our prospects.

[00:12:47] And then certainly from a sales collateral perspective, traditionally marketing has, uh, you know, taken a request from sales that says, Hey, I need a one-sheeter for this. And marketing will go and. Three to one shooter and pass it back in my role. It’s a little bit [00:13:00] more collaborative than that. You know, we certainly support those sales requests, uh, but we do operate as a tighter team.

[00:13:07] Um, when you have a Sales Enablement Director that has that marketing background.  

[00:13:12] Kiel: [00:13:12] Well, I’m, I’m guessing that like me, you’ve been in both situations, um, that you just described one where sales is asking for something and marketing’s delivering it. And secondly, where it’s a collaborative effort, talk a little bit about the benefits, um, in your own experience of why that collaboration just makes it all work so much better.

[00:13:32] Troy: [00:13:32] Yeah, I think it comes down to messaging, right? I mean, when sales is out in the field, having conversations and arguably our conversations are very complex, you know, given, uh, uh, the industry that we’re in, it’s really important that that sales number one has the materials. They need to be successful and to educate the markets, you know, whether that be a prospect, uh, that they’re having a zoom meeting with, or some of their meeting at an event, or maybe around table or webinar, [00:14:00] um, The, the second thing is when you have that collaboration, it’s a more consistent message.

[00:14:05] Uh, sales is bought into that message as opposed to marketing dictating the message. Uh, so that’s, I think where, where we’re seeing some success in working with our sales team, right, as a more collaborative approach, it is, we’re having buy-in from both sides of the fence. It’s not sales says, Hey, I need this.

[00:14:22] And marketing’s like, Here it is right here. Here’s our take on it. Um, that your sales staff are the ones out in the field. Having those conversations. They’re the ones answering those tough questions that the prospects have, and they probably have the best line of sight into what messaging really resonates with their prospects.

[00:14:38] They’re going after and in our space. That can mean a lot of different things because we provide services across multiple industries and multiple employer sizes. And so it’s really. Important for our marketing team to understand the nuance and the message that has to be communicated, uh, you know, by each sales person, depending on what type of client they’re going.

[00:14:58] Kiel: [00:14:58] Yeah. It really [00:15:00] does make so much sense as opposed to kind of having a siloed approach. And I think, you know, most people would agree with that in theory, but. Just talking, even when you start thinking about it in practice, if you think of marketing is kind of that, that first point in which, uh, you know, creating that inbound flow into the end of the funnel, um, when there’s that gap in between, there’s so much that can be lost in translation, um, before, you know, a lead even become sales qualified and gets into the sales conversation. 

[00:15:29] That’s, that’s one piece of it, but also just in terms of like overall goals, like when marketing and sales have that alignment and collaboration, and everybody kind of understands the key metrics that need to be hit.

[00:15:41] You just. You’re getting rid of that part where you’ve got two teams working in possibly two different directions. Right? I mean, it just kind of synchronizes the whole process from end to end. I don’t know if that’s something that you, you experienced on your team, but I’ve, I’ve certainly found that, um, over the past few years, it’s kind of, my roles have become more and more [00:16:00] involved, uh, with sales of how much, um, more harmonious the entire pipeline becomes from end to end.

[00:16:08] Troy: [00:16:08] Yeah, I would agree a hundred percent with that. And I think traditionally sales, um, I don’t know if the, if, if this happens in every industry, but in my experience, you know, sales is a little untrustworthy of the leads that marketing provides. And I think in our industry and. The leads are typically, um, immature, right?

[00:16:29] I think we’re quick to say, Oh, this person, you know, downloaded a, an ebook and filled out a form or, uh, you know, they clicked on a link in an email campaign that we sent out and we start to assign some sort of lead status to actions. Um, and usually it’s not very many actions before marketing is ready to pass it across the fence to sales and say, Hey, You know, we’ve got a hot lead here.

[00:16:51] Someone’s very interested because they took a couple of a couple actions. Uh, when in reality, uh, you know, those prospects are probably still in the [00:17:00] education phase. Um, and if we look at a buyer journey, uh, you know, the, what, where remarketing can really provide support is in that top 30% of the buyer journey, right?

[00:17:10] When the buyer is really just. Um, in all intents and purposes, a target, or they’re really just in that awareness phase, uh, where that buyer is just trying to understand what solutions exist in the marketplace that could solve the problem that they have. And so how do we, as marketers start to measure the actions that those prospects are taking while they’re doing that research and how do we ensure that we are providing them the answers to the questions that they have and not our competitors.

[00:17:36] And then when we understand that. They’re well-educated they’re taking, uh, they’re intense signals. Position them towards moving towards a buying phase, then we can get sales involved and we can provide them with the backstory. You know, traditionally marketing does not do a very good job of providing sales with clarity around what actions are being taken outside of.

[00:17:57] You know, my example of maybe downloading an ebook. [00:18:00] Now we can start to look at, Hey, this prospect has done all these things. Here’s 40 things that they’ve done. Here’s all the places they’ve been on the web. Here’s some of the targeted campaigns we’ve done on LinkedIn or on Google, you know, here’s keywords, they’re researching, here’s emails.

[00:18:14] They’ve read of ours. Here’s collateral that they’ve, uh, you know, uh, consumed. Now you’re ready to have a more informed conversation because I know exactly what that prospect is interested in based on, you know, the history that I have been collecting with them for maybe the past two or three months. And then when sales gets involved now, they’re having very targeted conversations.

[00:18:34] They already know what questions have been asked and answered from the content we’ve provided and they can take it to the next level. They can get into the more nuance that’s hard to, for us to convey even in a white paper, an ebook, right. Some long form content. And so I think that. Uh, creates some more trust in marketing from the sales staff.

[00:18:52] Um, and it allows us to, um, only provide those leads that are really truly highly [00:19:00] qualified as opposed to those who we think may be, but sales is truly just wasting their time because that buyer’s not ready to have that conversation yet. Yeah. 

[00:19:09] Kiel: [00:19:09] Uh that’s uh, yeah, that’s incredible. And you know, it, it, it’s so funny because it, what we’re talking about here.

[00:19:17] Remove this element of like finger pointing, because again, everybody’s kind of in conversation and understands, um, you know, where these leads are at and what kind of conversation needs to be had. And it, it really removes that piece of like that, you know, as marketers, we’ve all been in where something closes and we feel like we.

[00:19:35] We’re responsible, but we don’t really, we can’t really articulate why, but yeah. I feel like we should be getting some of the credit or conversely, when things aren’t closing, right. Marketing saying, Hey, we’re delivering good stuff over to you. What’s what’s the problem. Well, the, them as there’s really no story to be told.

[00:19:49] I mean, these, uh, and by the time something even gets to sales, they don’t, they don’t even. No, how to handle it different than another lead. So, um, it’s, it’s really, um, really exciting to hear [00:20:00] what you all are doing. Um, and how well that’s working. I’m wondering from an outbound sales perspective, I don’t know what that looks like at Marathon Health, but how, how involved are you, um, in the outbound process or is that something you touch or are involved in at all?

[00:20:15] Troy: [00:20:15] Yeah. So our outbound process, um, can be classified in a couple of different ways. Uh, you know, our, our sales models, very relationship oriented, uh, because we have a very complex solution that we’re selling in a very expensive one, right. It’s not, uh, an inexpensive for a client to build a health center right on location and hire doctors and things like that.

[00:20:37] So, um, we’re really selling from a relationship. Standpoint. So a lot of our outbound is how do we engage our sales staff with prospects to build that relationship. Um, and so we do that through a lot of events, um, in markets where we have, or looking to expand, uh, you know, our presence, um, whether that be through round tables, whether that be through building [00:21:00] relationships with brokers and consultants who, um, are, are a big part of our sales.

[00:21:04] Process, because they really own the relationship with our prospects. So our outbound, you know, in a traditional outbound sense, we do some of that as well. Right. We do some paid and earned media. We’re doing email campaigns, we’re pushing some of that outbound to drive inbound traffic. Um, but we really focus on how do we support sales.

[00:21:23] Uh, from a relationship perspective. And that’s, I think where, uh, my role as a sales enablement director also bleeds over to, uh, you know, it’s more than just giving them a collateral piece and say, Hey, this answers the question you told me, your prospect hat. It’s how do we take that either through distribution channels or through, uh, other, uh, online or in-person events so that that sales person can truly build lasting relationships with the groups that they’re targeting, whether that’d be a client or a broker consultant.

[00:21:53] Kiel: [00:21:53] Yeah, it’s, it’s really such an interesting model and I’ve, I’ve been a fan of it since, um, I worked at Angie’s list and [00:22:00] they, um, they, uh, you worked with OurHealth and, uh, there was an onsite, um, OurHealth clinic there as well, but the, when you think about like the. The size of what it is that you’re selling in most cases. It’s really interesting. Where, where does that first touch point began? Like who is the person that you’re looking to, you know, have that first conversation with? 

[00:22:22] Troy: [00:22:22] Generally, it’s going to be your HR leaders. Uh, at an organization because they’re usually the ones closest to the healthcare costs and the ever increasing healthcare spend for most organizations in the United States, uh, drives them to find solutions to lower that.

[00:22:40] And there’s a lot of solutions that exist and there’s a lot of noise. Uh, you know, in the marketplace on solutions that can help them reduce their healthcare costs. Uh, but it’s really that HR person and maybe the CFO is going to the, the HR leader, the CHR owns saying, Hey, this is getting out of hand. We need to figure out how we can reduce this cost.

[00:22:59] Uh, [00:23:00] in, in traditional practices, like moving from a PPO plan to a high deductible health plan. Plan, you know, carving out spouses. Some of those things that were done 10 years ago aren’t as effective anymore. Number one, because they’ve already been doing them. So they’re, you know, they really can’t expand that outside of going to, you know, expanding the deductible, even higher, getting into the 5,000, $10,000 deductible range to lower costs.

[00:23:23] So your HR leaders are out there actively looking for solutions to, uh, this, this huge issue of ever increasing healthcare spend. Um, and so they’re usually the ones that are. Uh, seeking us out or we meet at events or they’re going to their brokers and saying, Hey, how can you help me here in the brokers or, or presenting them, you know, potentially a number of solutions.

[00:23:45] It’s not all worksite health centers, but we, um, I think drive a pretty large impact and reducing healthcare costs. And, and by the way, your, your employees get healthier in the. You know, at the same time. So, um, we do also work with CFOs or CFOs. [00:24:00] Some of your more progressive companies, uh, you know, have a much larger buying team because everybody wants to be involved and not a smaller level.

[00:24:08] Uh, you mentioned our, my clinic networks, you know, there’s employers that have only 50 employees that can access those and they may not have an HR leader or a CHR role. So sometimes we’re working directly with the president or CEO of some of the smaller organizations. 

[00:24:21] Kiel: [00:24:21] Yeah. In a lot of instances is the educational process of these early conversations, pretty high?

[00:24:27] Because I would imagine in some cases you’re introducing a concept that’s just completely new. Um, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about that, but as something where even when you’re talking with an HR leader or the person handling benefits of the company, they need like a certain amount of time to kind of wrap their head around all of it.

[00:24:45] Troy: [00:24:45] They do. Yeah. You know, and 10 years ago, the concept of, of work site, health centers or clinics, whatever nomenclature you want to use was very new. And there are still markets where it is still fresh and new, and they don’t know a lot about it. But even those who have [00:25:00] maybe heard about it writing anecdotally, maybe they’re heard their broker talk about it, or they have a, a co a.

[00:25:06] A coworker that came from another organization that had it, or a peer at another company in a similar role that has one, it is a complex educational process to really grasp what’s happening, right. Or what we’re selling. And so there is a, uh, a longer sales rep. The process for us, it can last, you know, sometimes 18, 18 months to 24 months.

[00:25:26] Um, you know, depending on, uh, what type of service they’re looking for, they also integrating things like physical therapy or occupational health. Um, are they building a health center on their, uh, you know, in their building or on their location or are they accessing, uh, uh, my clinic network or a shared center?

[00:25:43] So there’s so many different. Um, avenues, we could go down to provide a solution, uh, you know, depending on what the, the expectation of outcomes is for our clients, but it is a long sales process. And, and again, that relationship selling the salespeople have really taken the onus to own the entire buying [00:26:00] journey, uh, you know, traditionally in our space.

[00:26:02] And so they’re working with a prospect that entire time, right? You know, many times from the very first conversation of what is a work-site health center, right. And what can it do for me all the way through signing the contract? And so from a marketing perspective, we’re really looking to figure out how we can take some of that off their plate so that they’re focusing their energy on having conversations with groups that they know are ready to invest in this type of solution.

[00:26:28] Kiel: [00:26:28] Yeah, that makes everything that you were saying earlier. Make even more sense, because, you know, as a SaaS marketer, you get used to this idea of a 30 to 60 day sales cycle. You know, we’re talking about deals just stating for 18 to 24 months. I mean, that’s a. That’s a really long amount of time. And there’s so many things that are happening in the midst of that, that if you, if you had marketing and sales separated and a more traditional model, I mean, it’d be almost impossible to create any sort of efficiency around that, or even begin to draw the kind of data that you would need [00:27:00] to make it, you know, to be able to replicate it over and over.

[00:27:03] So that’s, that’s really fascinating to hear. 

[00:27:06] Troy: [00:27:06] Yeah, the, the data has been challenging, right? I mean, we’re, we’re certainly not doing it perfectly. We’re trying to move in the right direction to do that. Um, but it is a, you know, as we look historically to think, okay, what, what can we attribute to marketing in terms of sales growth?

[00:27:21] Over the past, you know, three to five years and we’re drawing some blanks, right? It is challenging to say, Hey, what has marketing really done? We know there’s been influence, right? We know things that marketing is doing is having an impact, uh, but it’s hard to measure. And so we’re looking to change some of that with some of our new processes and MarTech strategies that we’re looking at and, uh, you know, using Salesforce as our source of truth.

[00:27:43] Um, you know, uh, a lot of moving pieces are happening right now in, in what I would consider our revenue team collective of marketing and sales. Uh, but it is a, you know, a lot of things happen in 18 months. CEO’s transition out in 18 months, which could, you know, kill a deal. Um, we do a lot of, of government [00:28:00] work as well, you know, working with cities and municipalities and, uh, you know, you get a new mayor voted in and that changes the strategy.

[00:28:07] You know, budgets change very drastically sometimes in 18 months where they may have had money earmarked for a solution like ours and something comes up and they have to redirect those dollars. And, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s always kind of a little bit of a shell game, uh, you know, trying to figure out, uh, you know, how we can make it work for that longer sales cycle.

[00:28:26] Kiel: [00:28:26] Yeah, that’s, uh, that is fascinating. Well, um, this has been a really great conversation and, you know, we talked early on about, um, kind of everything that happened this year, leading up to Marathon Health, the, the launch of, uh, the rebranding and the, and the website. It was all just absolutely fantastic work.

[00:28:44] So, bravo to you and the whole team there for the way, um, that you were able to execute on all that. So. You had this big, huge thing that happened, this big project that comes out of it. Uh that’s uh, that’s a lot, you know, for a year and now it’s here. [00:29:00] What’s the biggest challenge that lies ahead of you.

[00:29:02] What, what’s the biggest problem right now that, um, as, as the next big thing to solve, 

[00:29:08] Troy: [00:29:08] Yeah for us, I think it’s really continuing to support sales from a collateral perspective. So you mentioned our big brand launch and in certainly as part of that, uh, you know, we had identified kind of day one requirements, right?

[00:29:22] A PowerPoint presentation case studies, a certain sales collateral, the website, uh, which I’m very proud of. Uh, all those things culminated into a, what we call our Torchbearers week, uh, that happened in mid October. And so now that we’ve gotten. Past that we have this tale, right. Of all these legacy assets that we have to bring into the new brand.

[00:29:44] Um, and that can encompass a lot of things. Some of them are low-hanging fruit where it’s like, we’re, we’re comfortable with the content and the messaging. We just need to, you know, a new skin. Right to match the new brand and we can push those out to the sales staff. Uh, some of them require a lot more [00:30:00] thought and a lot more internal resources because maybe it’s a service that a, a one-pager that marathon used before to support a service.

[00:30:07] And now that service has, you know, molded and been enhanced. As part of that integration. And so the messaging on that one pager isn’t necessarily relevant anymore. So we’ve got to update messaging. Maybe we have to update imagery to match kind of our new design direction. We certainly have to do the rebranding.

[00:30:23] We’ve got to get sign off from the SME. So there’s a, you know, that’s a considerably longer process than just creating a new template for a document where the content is ready to go. So we’ve got a, a very large library of sales assets that were in the process of rebranding. And then when you think about an Everest.

[00:30:39] Banding sales team. How do we make that scalable? And so we’re in the process of, of standing up a true sales enablement tool. That can be that go-to resource for our sales staff that is integrated with Salesforce. That does start to provide us some of that data around, uh, you know, open metrics and view metrics of documents that we’re sending out.

[00:30:58] Uh, so that’s kind of the, that’s what we’re [00:31:00] working on here through the end of 2020 is how do we. Uh, fill those gaps and catch up on, on the sales collateral perspective. And then in 2021, it’s really focused on how do we create the best lead gen strategy in our market. Uh, and so we’re going to be putting a lot of time and energy into developing that, uh, testing and iterating.

[00:31:19] Um, and, and hopefully, you know, mid, uh, 2021, we should be able to come back to the table in sales and say, look, we’ve over-performed from a lead gen perspective and our marketing team. And we, we, you know, we’re interested to now measure kind of that, uh, that sales velocity for these, you know, what I would consider new, better qualified leads that we’re now providing.

[00:31:39] Kiel: [00:31:39] Yeah, that’s, that’s great. You know, I’ve, uh, been through the rebranding process before, and it’s like such a thrill when you get through it. And, uh, you’re able to make the big announcement. The swag gets distributed to everybody and there’s kind of this exciting moment, but then, uh, as a, as a marketer, you’re kind of sitting there like, Oh man, the real work starts now.

[00:31:56] I think now it’s time to really get busy. [00:32:00] So, uh, that is, uh, as a very exciting time to be in. But man, there’s a, there’s a lot to do so, um, good luck with all that. And Troy. This has been a really great conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time today to chat with me. 

[00:32:13] Troy: [00:32:13] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. I’ve really enjoyed the experience.

[00:32:20] Kiel: [00:32:20] Another big, thank you to Troy Purdue for joining us on the show today. That was a really great conversation. I hope you all enjoyed it as well. You know, whether you’re a marketer or. Salesperson, if you’re feeling that sense of disconnect, um, or loss of translation within your own organization, just know that it doesn’t have to be that way.

[00:32:37] There’s all kinds of examples that, um, we’ve seen of marketing and sales coming together underneath that revenue umbrella. Working in tandem and collaborating. And the sooner that you can start putting the things in place that are going to bring those two teams closer together, uh, the better off you’re gonna be in the long run.

[00:32:54] Um, again, thank you to Troy Purdue. If you want to learn more about Marathon Health, you can visit their website [00:33:00] Marathon-Health.com. And if you like this podcast, we invite you to come. Get more of this podcast by visiting our website monsterconnect.com/podcast. We’ve got all of our episodes there along with a handy ebook that is made just for our listeners that you can download.

[00:33:17] We hope you’ll come visit us and check it out. That’s going to do it for today’s episode. I’m Kiel Hauck. Thank you so much for joining us and we’ll catch you next time. .