Speaker 1: 0:19

Thank you. Meet Evan Polin, the president of Polin Performance Group. A master in sales coaching with over two decades of experience, evan is not just a consultant. He's a force in sales, focusing on mindset, planning and skill development. He's also the co-author of Selling Professional Services, the Sandler Way. Joining him is Craig Andrews, partner and CEO of Beholder Agency. An expert in growth marketing With 20 years under his belt, craig blends marketing creativity with strategy to propel businesses forward, making Beholder Agency a leader in effective marketing solutions. Together, evan and Craig are here to share their wisdom on winning strategies, best practices and transformative insights that will fuel your growth. Get ready to revolutionize your sales and marketing approach right here on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed.

Speaker 2: 1:11

And welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews and that's my partner in crime, evan Poland. How are you doing today, evan?

Speaker 3: 1:18

I'm doing great. How are you doing today, Craig?

Speaker 2: 1:21

Not too bad. I looked at that intro now for the hundredth of times that we've done this thing. We look pretty good on there. I'm just going to give us a little toot there in terms of how we look on screen, but anyway, let's go on so. Normally, when we do our episodes here, we generally do it from a small business owner perspective or whatever the case may be in terms of using sales and marketing. We've kind of done all the cliche stuff, but what we wanted to do this time is talk about what would happen in a big system, a big business, in terms of the sales and marketing when you're talking about culture. Can you give us a little bit of feel in terms of that, when you're talking about culture, evan?

Speaker 3: 1:59

Yeah, For our podcast, we really are mostly externally focused when we come to talk about sales and marketing and communication. But really for midsize and larger organizations, there is a lot of internal selling, internal marketing as well, whether it's coming from leadership trying to get the organization to buy in. Today we're going to be talking to somebody from the healthcare organization talking about compliance and the importance of compliance, no-transcript, some of those nuances and the importance of that internal marketing and that internal selling of ideas, of policies, procedures and those kinds of things.

Speaker 2: 2:59

And so I bring to the stage a good looking guy, Raul. How are you doing today, Raul?

Speaker 4: 3:05

Hey, craig, it's great to be here, and Evan, just really an honor to be here with you guys.

Speaker 3: 3:10

Now, Raul, did you bring those younger pictures of Craig that you promised me earlier? Are we going to be sharing any of those on the podcast.

Speaker 4: 3:18

I don't have them with me right now, but believe me, they're out there. And we'll make sure to send them to you so you can get up for a future episode.

Speaker 2: 3:25

For the record, Raul, I was a good looking guy back then.

Speaker 4: 3:28

Oh yeah, no, you still are, let's be honest, Craig.

Speaker 3: 3:32

what happened A?

Speaker 2: 3:34

lot of things happened. So, for the record, back in my yesteryear I used to be a basketball coach and Raul was one of my players at the prestigious Swarthmore College. Great guy, great leader and was really a good example of what happens when you work hard. So, Raul, you are the VP and the Chief Compliance Officer for the Jackson Health System. Tell us about what your every day is like.

Speaker 4: 3:59

Sure, so every day I'm supervising a team of about 15 people more or less, but basically we have responsibility for health care compliance for the entire system of approximately 15,000 employees. We have several hospitals and several health care centers and all different types of whether it's urgent care, primary care, transplant institute, et cetera care, primary care, transplant institute, et cetera and so my team, in essence, is advising leaders throughout that organization, providing them with guidance, letting them know what rules they need to be adhering to, and then developing all sorts of audits or additional policies and assisting them really with their everyday needs in the compliance space.

Speaker 2: 4:47

Very good, and so I know that in a lot of times, especially in our pre-recording, we were talking a lot about the strictness of compliance and you said it didn't have to be a jail sentence. Talk a little bit more about that. What is the purpose of compliance and what's the feel around the organization and what it should be? What is?

Speaker 4: 5:04

the purpose of compliance and what's the feel of where I'm an organization and what it should be. Sure, so compliance generally goes back only approximately 30 years, maybe a little bit more than that, but really, when you had the savings and loan crisis back in the late 80s and the government put out a couple of key, important articles where they said important articles where they said you know, we want organizations to proactively find problems rather than just waiting for the problem to happen and blow up the organization, then, all of a sudden, people lose jobs. No, rather, we would prefer that organizations have compliance programs in place to identify these issues, hopefully try and correct them, but then disclose them to us and then, in return for that, we'll sort of go easy on you, so to speak. So, in essence, what a compliance program is trying to do is identify what are the key risks to the organization and how can we develop a program to identify the risks, educate people on what they're supposed to be doing, auditing and monitoring them to the extent that they're, on what they need to have in place and how they're doing, and then responding to the extent that you identify any types of gaps or any types of improper behavior, identifying it and curing it.

Speaker 4: 6:24

That could be through self-disclosure to a government entity or, in our case, in the healthcare context, you may have to send back Medicare or Medicaid claims. But to the extent that you don't want compliance to be a jail sentence, a very big part of compliance is people trusting in you and sharing information with you, because otherwise, if people hoard information and sort of keep it to themselves, you won't be able to engage in those, those practices that we talked about. So that's you know. You don't want people to be afraid to report, you want people to know who you are, etc. So you can kind of help the organization do the right thing.

Speaker 3: 7:09

So, evan, I was like go ahead, I was going to say before we do too much of a deep dive. Raul, just a question for you, you and your team. Are you more or less popular than the HR folks in your organization?

Speaker 4: 7:24

Well, you know it depends. I'm sure your wife is very nice and probably would be more popular than me, but you know, it just depends who you ask. It depends who you're dealing with, Right? But but yeah, I think at times we probably rival each other in most favorite department.

Speaker 2: 7:45

That's good. So he hit that big word there. Evan, that I deal with a lot is in terms of trust, and I know you deal with a lot in terms of trust. You know, when we're talking about sales and marketing, we're talking about, from my perspective, building trust, because people buy from people they like right, and so, ultimately, if you're putting yourself in a position where you can be trusted, now ultimately what happens is that you have a better opportunity to get deeper into it. Evan, talk about it from the sales perspective, in terms of trust.

Speaker 3: 8:17

Yeah, from the sales perspective, people tend to like to work with and do business with people that they like, people who are like themselves, people who are credible, people who they trust, and that really goes a long way, especially for anybody who's in any kind of consultative type of sale. If they don't trust you, if they don't like you, if you don't have any credibility, they're really not going to buy into what you have to say and they're not going to want to do business with you. Raul, I would imagine for you and your team, if you don't have the trust of those within the organization, If they're not comfortable talking to you, they're going to be more likely to hoard the information, to not share, to be afraid to raise their hand if they see something that's wrong. How do you build trust internally within the organization? What are some of the things that have worked for you, worked for your team, so that people can be comfortable to be able to share what they need to be able to share with you?

Speaker 4: 9:16

So one strategy that we have had is to input a compliance officer within every organization, within every sort of senior administrative team, and making that member really like a member of each administrative team, and the approach that that person has to have is not, oh, I'm from compliance, from some ivory tower, or I'm an agent of the government. No, the approach has to be I'm a member of your team. Right, I may sit in this corporate office, but every day I'm here, I'm with you guys and I'm the one that's here to help you guys stay out of trouble, so to speak. And so, really, what I've seen is, over the years, as you have, that you develop a rapport with those people and in many cases it's by your participation. By participating in things that have nothing to do with compliance, right, even if these are just sort of informal events at this respective site, you gain a certain. You develop a rapport, a partnership with these people, and they come to see you not as somebody that's that's trying to like get famous off of discovering a potential problem. That's always the.

Speaker 4: 10:40

When we talk about trust, that's what we're thinking. Right, someone's trying to make a name for themselves by spotting a problem so that that creates fear. But when, when the approach is more centered towards I'm not trying to get, there's nothing in it for me to find issues, it's really for me to help you. When they see you as a member of the team, they're more willing to bring issues to you. But then along with that comes the concept of credibility. So if they bring you issues and you don't know how to handle them, or they bring you issues and you make a mountain out of a molehill, so to speak, that causes you to lose credibility. So you have to be able to navigate things appropriately.

Speaker 2: 11:26

And so what I liked about that is a lot of those points are the same marketing points. Marketing points you know part of what we have to do from a marketing perspective. If it's inside of an organization and we're marketing to the team, you know we're putting out messages. That supports that Great tip in terms of having somebody in their team, because they're building a rapport that makes them understand when they report up in terms of the things that are happening.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Because how many times, evan, raul, have you heard the uppers just don't understand what we're going through. Right, that happens all the time in every organization. So to have somebody in place that can basically be a translator I call them a translator. To be a translator of what's happening on the ground allows, from a marketing perspective, for you to understand how to deliver a message that talks to them. And now it becomes much more effective, evan, from a sales perspective. I know you have a program in which you do selling for non-selling professionals, but think about it from internally. How would you push that along in terms of what the compliance is?

Speaker 3: 12:27

Well, actually I think the way I would describe it and I'll walk I'd love to hear your feedback From a sales perspective, with the sales consultants, the sales advisors that I work with a lot of times.

Speaker 3: 12:39

You know they're one of the smarter people in the rooms.

Speaker 3: 12:42

They're able to spot problems before the person they're sitting down with realizes that there could be a problem.

Speaker 3: 12:57

Share with the folks that I coach and I work with is, conceptually, you want that prospect to see you as on the same side of the table as them, trying to fix and work on the problem, versus sitting across from the table, you know, pointing out, hey, you've got this issue, you've got that issue, what are you going to do about it? And making them feel bad, making them feel dumb, is really kind of trying to get them to see we're on the same page, we're on the same side. My job and my expertise is to try to spot issues before they become bigger issues and then let's work together to see how we can help kind of mitigate the situation, make the best out of it, you know, take care of it before it becomes a big deal. Raul, would you say from a compliance perspective, that that's how you try to see things as you and your team being on the same side as the organization that you serve and kind of working together to fix things.

Speaker 4: 13:48

Absolutely. That's the approach you have to take, what you just delineated and that is the perception that you need to have in order to get that buy-in you want to be. You want to have a seat at the table, so to speak, ideally during the planning phase, when things are being sort of considered and developed. That's where you can really be most effective because you can say you know, we may want to adjust this part a little bit to mitigate this potential risks. That exists, but if, even still, you still want them to come, if you can't get into the planning stage, if it's too late, but you learn about something, you still want them to feel comfortable enough to bring it to you and say, hey, this already happened, you know how do we fix it.

Speaker 4: 14:34

And if the approach that you take is to say, oh my gosh, why didn't you include me from the beginning? Or I can't believe you guys thought this was okay, that's never going to make them feel any better, that's not going to make them want to come to you next time. They want to go to somebody who's going to be calm, under control and come up with some solutions. And if those solutions are, hey, there's really nothing we can do beyond. We may just have to self-disclose it. I mean, maybe not what they want to hear, but that concept of assigning blame, or I can't believe you did this. No, this is a team and we're all going to try and get ourselves out of this little hole we found.

Speaker 3: 15:16

So finger pointing is not one of your go-to tactics when you're working internally.

Speaker 4: 15:19

No, definitely not. I mean, I remember hearing this. Nobody ever wants to hear. I told you so. There's no situation where that is ever going to be received.

Speaker 2: 15:30

Well, At work or at home? Yeah right, Even if it's true.

Speaker 4: 15:35

So yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 15:37

Well, see, evan, I told you that Raul was really good. See, I told you so. Anyway, so what I loved about what Evan and I do is I talk a lot about data, data, data. That's one of my big terms that I use because I like to measure if something's being effective from a sales perspective. He measures how effective is your sales process? What, from a compliance perspective, do you have in a measurement to say that my compliance processes is working?

Speaker 4: 16:05

Sure. So surveys are a great tool, you know. One thing that we did is the organization has a biannual employee engagement survey where they ask a whole host of questions about how employees feel about the organization. We added specific compliance questions how familiar are you with the compliance department? If you want to reach out to the compliance department, do you know where to call? Do you know where the policies and procedures are within the organization? Do you know where the policies and procedures are within the organization? And then, lastly, specific areas where there may be issues and hopefully see improvements over the course of the year. So that's a really big one. And also in compliance, you can track other metrics, like reports to the compliance department, hotline calls, different types of activities that you're doing. You know tracking volume. So all of those data metrics I doing tracking volume. So all of those data metrics I think are important.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Yeah, I love it, I love it. And so, ultimately, you guys, in your compliance, your group, you guys compile that and then you report it back to the team so they have a better idea.

Speaker 4: 17:30

Absolutely you want to, and this kind of goes into both sales and marketing In compliance. You need to, and this is this kind of goes into both sales and marketing and compliance. You need to prove your worth, and that means to to the board of directors, to executive leadership and even to others down the line. So you want to be able to demonstrate how you're you're bringing value to the organization, and the most obvious way to do it is with data. How many people did we train this year? How many people? How many reports did we train this year? How many people, how many reports did we get as a result of those trainings, et cetera, and the surveys results I was speaking to earlier? All of that is critical.

Speaker 2: 18:07

So, as I referenced before, he's good, he understands what he's talking about. That's that Swarthmore education kicking in right there. I'm just saying so, raul, one of the things that we do here is that, as Evan and I go to pontificate about different things, I want you to think about three things from a compliance perspective that you would want people to know when they listen to this podcast. And as you think about it, evan, where can they find us?

Speaker 3: 18:39

you think about it, evan. Where can they find us? So they can go to YouTube and on YouTube they can look up the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. That's with an ampersand. You can also find us on Apple Spotify, anywhere where you find your podcasts. You can also go on LinkedIn to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed page. There you will find clips of our episodes, be able to go and download the full episode. So please, if you've got any suggestions for future guests, future topics, comments about some of our previous episodes, please feel free to go and just hit us up on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Said by a true salesman. Anyway, raul, here you are, you're on the spotlight. Top three things that you want our audience to know before we check off.

Speaker 4: 19:21

So you don't want to be the police when you're working in compliance. It's very important. Number two, sales and marketing is key. You're marketing yourself both to the organization, throughout the organization and in all levels of the organization. And then, lastly, you need to build awareness on the ground. So you have to try to dazzle people some way somehow so that you can stand out, people know who you are and they can come and take their issues to you and you can help them.

Speaker 2: 19:53

I love it, I love it. Issues to you and you can help them. I love it, I love it. So I'm going to let you go because I don't want you to bring up any pictures or any background stories about the history that we had. You know, no paybacks for making me, making you run and all that stuff. I'm not doing that. So, evan, do you have anything before we conclude?

Speaker 3: 20:07

today. Raul, I just want to thank you for coming on being a guest today. I think you had some really great insights and, again, really appreciate your time and your expertise.

Speaker 4: 20:19

Pleasure to be here, guys. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 20:21

All right, I'm Craig, that's Evan, that's Raul on the other side. I'll talk to you guys next time on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed.

Speaker 1: 20:33

Thank you for joining us on this exhilarating journey through the world of sales and marketing. Remember, the playbook is in your hands and the possibilities are limitless. Keep exploring, experimenting and innovating, and watch as your business reaches unprecedented levels of success. Don't forget to subscribe to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed on all major podcast platforms. Subscribe to the sales and marketing playbook unleashed on all major podcast platforms and follow us on YouTube, facebook and LinkedIn for even more exclusive content. Until next time, keep hustling and keep winning.