Hollywood’s Playbook: How Marketing Can Energize the Sales Force

Sara Payne [00:00:10]:

Welcome back to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. I'm your host, Sara Payne, and I'm bringing you fascinating conversations with some of the industry's top marketing minds. Today, we're digging into something critical for any marketing leader. How to fuel business growth and empower your field sales team to win in a crowded market. Joining me is Larry Zarin, the longtime chief marketing officer of Express Scripts. During his tenure, he helped lead the company's transformation from a relative startup into a Fortune 24 powerhouse. Larry's path is anything but traditional. He started in entertainment marketing before spending two decades in healthcare.

Sara Payne [00:00:52]:

And he's known for bringing fresh, unexpected strategies into highly regulated industries. He's built programs that didn't just look good on paper, but they actually moved markets, rallied teams, and delivered results. He's passionate about innovation, powerful narratives, and what he calls business theater, that sweet spot where the right strategy meets the delight of the unexpected. Now in a consultative role, Larry remains energized by bold ideas, clever solutions, and the opportunity to help team teams solve big challenges. We'll ask Larry about market fit, sales enablement, thought leadership, and yes, even a little business theater. Let's dive right in. Welcome to the show, Larry.

Larry Zarin [00:01:33]:

Thank you, Sara. Great to be here.

Sara Payne [00:01:36]:

Yeah. Pleasure to have you. Let's start off, Larry, with a guiding principle that I know you care deeply about. You've said that relevance and differentiation are the real north stars in marketing. Can you unpack that from your perspective?

Larry Zarin [00:01:53]:

Sure. I think that relevance would speak to, you know, your target audience, your potential clients. How important is a, your messaging or B, your product or your services? And that axis kind of stands alone. And then there's another axis, which is how unique is it? How differentiated it is? It's really easy for companies to do different and unique things for the sake of innovation. People can innovate like crazy. That does not mean, and most of the times it does not mean that that is also highly relevant to the needs and the demands of a client. So it's finding that harmony between those two objectives is what really fuels what I think is great marketing. Again, there's people playing around both.

Larry Zarin [00:02:54]:

But if something is highly relevant and not differentiated, it's what we would call table stakes. You have to do it. But don't kid yourself and think that is, in fact, unique and indigenous to your organization. And the same thing with things that are incredibly unique without strong traction or relevance, that would be called fool's gold. And there's a tremendous amount of intellectual honesty required for a company. To map what they're doing or what they want to do and have very candid discussions about what quadrant this is going to fall into. Is it table stakes? Is it fool's gold? Or is it a driver? And a driver is we have that optimal alignment and differentiation?

Sara Payne [00:03:50]:

Absolutely. And, and it's a simple concept, but I think can be incredibly difficult to execute. And I know that you consult quite a bit around this. Larry, any thoughts on generally speaking, if you had to sort of put a percentage on the organizations out there that are getting this right and nailing the sweet spot, what percentage would you put on that?

Larry Zarin [00:04:20]:

Lower than 50. And the reason being is that quadrant I mentioned once, and that's fool's gold. The fact that there is a champion in the organization around an idea and the idea is unique and this champion has clout in the organization and they continue to push, push, push, push. But the field force, which is salespeople and account management people, they are part of the field force. When I speak about, you know, who my client is as a marketer, it's the field force. It's the people that are getting in front of the clients and you know, they quite frankly are rolling their eyes in a typical organization around a high percentage of that company's offerings. Meaning that sounds great back at headquarters, but in the field, I'm not just getting the embrace and that's gotta be intellectually honestly labeled and categorized as fool's gold.

Sara Payne [00:05:28]:

Wow. Telling it like it is there, Larry. Like, like that. Appreciate that. I think you're, I think you're right. Where again you, you consult around this. But when there is lack of alignment and you're not hitting the sweet spot, where do you typically recommend? I mean, this, we could spend the entire 30 minutes together just going down this, this rabbit hole here. But, but at a, at a, you know, high level, quick response level, where do you recommend they start?

Larry Zarin [00:06:01]:

I workshop this concept and it takes a dedication of three hours to six hours of workshopping. And then a very interesting thing happens organically. The truth emerges. It moves from opinion to fact.

Sara Payne [00:06:22]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:06:22]:

And that's the key, is to get an organization that wants to do this mapping around this paradigm, this matrix, what we call a strategic assessment mapping. And then the truth will emerge because the truth is going to be in sales numbers, customer feedback, excitement and enthusiasm of the field force to bring things to the field. So it's not a one hour meeting. It's if they workshop it. And I'm answering your question directly. If they workshop it, the truth emerges.

Sara Payne [00:07:02]:

Let's Shift a little bit and go more into this discussion around how marketing can better support the field force. When we were prepping for this conversation, Larry, you used a phrase that's really stuck with me and that is beans and bullets. And I know it's a military reference and I think it captures something really essential about what B2B field sales teams actually need from marketing. But for folks who may not be familiar with the phrase, can you break it down and share how you think it applies to building real support for the field?

Larry Zarin [00:07:41]:

Sure. The analogy to the military is pretty parallel. And let me explain a large B2B organization like we grew into at Express Grips, now ever north part of Cigna. You can only imagine how that field force has gotten larger and many of the people listening to this podcast, that is a group of people that are out in the trenches in the foxholes, really involved in hand to hand interfaces, walking into conference rooms and looking to upsell, looking to renew or looking to sell an organization for the first time. But they're really involved in the hand to hand interface with the decision makers. Now coming out of the Pentagon or headquarters as it may be, are going to be two broad, maybe oversimplified categories of marketing. One is going to be air cover for your organizations that are large enough that are doing national advertising. Certainly social media would be a form of air cover and they're saying all the right things to position the brand, to propel the brand, to communicate the value prop, to introduce new products and new offerings.

Larry Zarin [00:09:11]:

But it is in fact at least at a 5,000 foot level. And it might be important for some companies. I kind of question whether all of that spend is necessary versus in a B2B field force is when they're walking into that corporate headquarters of a potential client or a client, what is in their briefcase, figuratively speaking, what is the conversation and the dialogue they are going to have in that room to accomplish a couple of things. One is, and I don't see this term used anywhere, it's sometimes referred to in the culinary field or the hospitality field or entertainment as word of mouth. But in healthcare, braggability works.

Sara Payne [00:10:07]:

Sure.

Larry Zarin [00:10:08]:

When people leave that meeting, what are they going to tell others about? It could be their significant other at home, it could be their colleague in the cafeteria. But was that meeting, was that discussion with your organization braggable? That's where I begin to really embrace this concept of business theater and edutainment and make it braggable. We'll come back to that in a moment. And the second thing is how Likable is the organization. These are the beans and bullets, obviously, the innovation of products, services, the credibility, the proof, statements, all of that. But many of those things are table stakes. Yeah, many of those things are table stakes. Your company's point of view, your company's approach, the way that they engage that potential client and that prospect, those are the things that can really, really differentiate.

Larry Zarin [00:11:12]:

And that's what I mean by beans and bullets. I get very frustrated when I see all of the money being spent on training and teaching as it relates to a sales organization with, I think, less attention than it deserves around inspiring. Inspiring the field force. The fact that they are proud. Proud to run to the airport at six in the morning, get on a plane, leave their family for two nights and go pitch the wares of your organization.

Sara Payne [00:11:58]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:11:59]:

Once you build that pride, great things happen to a company. Great things happen to a company. And there's not enough emphasis on that. They're just not. I'm not saying don't train. I'm not saying. I'm not saying you don't need air cover, but I know this, Sara. When you walk into a conference room and you're about to sit down with people you know or people you don't know, we're all hardwired as part of the human species for two things.

Larry Zarin [00:12:32]:

This is not opinion. This is fact.

Sara Payne [00:12:35]:

Yep.

Larry Zarin [00:12:36]:

We're all hardwired for inattention and inertia. It goes back 60,000 years to the savannah. If you want to get my attention, it better be one of two ways. Things of great pleasure or things of great danger. Usually a pitch from a healthcare company is not what our prehistoric minds process has great pleasure.

Sara Payne [00:13:04]:

Right. You would hope that anyway. Right. Or great pain. Right.

Larry Zarin [00:13:08]:

It was very simple what great pleasure was 60,000 years ago. And great danger or fear was, you know, the lion rustling in the. In the woods.

Sara Payne [00:13:20]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:13:22]:

So first of all, when a marketing team understands, and the second hardwired component is inertia, it takes a lot for people to get people to change.

Sara Payne [00:13:36]:

Absolutely.

Larry Zarin [00:13:36]:

And we are hardwired for those things. How many marketing organizations sit with their sales organizations and start there, right there. First thing we must do is everybody in that conference room must say to themselves, they. This is a group worth paying attention to. They have earned my attention. I'll be polite for the first two, three minutes. But politeness doesn't get signatures on contracts. Engagement does.

Larry Zarin [00:14:12]:

Engagement does. And when you start there, then you go to, okay, what beans and bullets are required to grab people's attention in a relevant and differentiated way you can see how all these things start connecting. And that's just the approach we took during my heyday at Express. And still what I'm working with consulting clients on is just that. Just that.

Sara Payne [00:14:46]:

So I want to process, I think, some of the great points you're making here and, you know, process out loud. And, and so going back to this analogy, part of what I'm, I'm hearing here is that marketing teams are putting too much emphasis on the bullets. The bullets are important. The bullets are important, but they can't be the only priority. We need to potentially put more, more emphasis into the, the, the beans. And a lot of what this is, what I see is we tend to make the beans about tools or leave behind or you know what I mean, like something. Right. A tool that's going to facilitate the conversation and what you're saying, and correct me here a second, what you're saying, what I'm hearing you say is we need to focus more on the substance of the conversation and the inspiration that the team individually has, the connection they have to that message so that there is an impassioned connection and delivery of that.

Sara Payne [00:16:10]:

That's how I'm processing this. Larry, correct me where I'm not quite getting it all right here.

Larry Zarin [00:16:16]:

There's only one correction. It's at the very beginning in the categorization. The beans and the bullets are in the same category.

Sara Payne [00:16:23]:

Oh, okay. Got it.

Larry Zarin [00:16:25]:

That's what we supply. The people on the front line versus the air cover.

Sara Payne [00:16:31]:

Got it.

Larry Zarin [00:16:32]:

Right. Somebody fighting a war needs ammunition and food.

Sara Payne [00:16:39]:

Right, Got it.

Larry Zarin [00:16:40]:

They need nutrition. They need nutrition and they need ammo. Air cover is a more macro strategy.

Sara Payne [00:16:51]:

Got it.

Larry Zarin [00:16:52]:

So yes, past that categorization. You got it. Perfect. And that is what is the content and quite frankly, how much production or orchestration goes into that meeting versus let's just tell them what we do for a living in a really well done deck. And the goal is well done decks. Well done. PowerPoints don't always get and hold the attention of a decision maker. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Larry Zarin [00:17:36]:

But sometimes it's other things. Sometimes it's storytelling, sometimes it's a video, sometimes it's a thought exercise, sometimes it's an interactive exercise with the group. There's just more creative ways to grab someone's attention and to sustain it so that your messaging has an engaged audience. And I don't think there's enough focus on that and to inspire a field force to go in with a hop in their step to do that.

Sara Payne [00:18:12]:

Yeah, no, it's great, great conversation, great advice and I suspect a lot of people listening are thinking, yeah, Yep, this is 100% right. Like there's more we can do here. So, so let's, let's imagine they are saying that. Larry, where, what are some more ideas? Right. Can you take us back to, you know, the early days of, of implementing this, this philosophy and approach at Express Scripts or some examples of things you deployed along the way that really are effective at moving the needle and really enabling sales teams to be more effective in those meetings?

Larry Zarin [00:18:49]:

Yeah, part of it's philosophical. At the time of the founding of Express Grips and the CEO who led us for a long time, founder and CEO. It's not a coincidence that I came from entertainment marketing and was recruited into health care. I mean, that's, that's a head scratcher right there. We work in health care in a pretty parochial industry. And this particular gentleman had a belief that, no, I need to be a leader who buys into the cross pollination and cross fertilization of ideas from other industries into this one. And he realized that if I could bring some of the things I knew about getting people's attention and he could get me up to speed in healthcare and on the value proposition and the greater good that a PBM was engaged in back in the days, then maybe we would have a more potent marketing capability than the industry was used to. So we embraced two things I urge your viewers, listeners to consider.

Larry Zarin [00:20:18]:

One was the concept of edutainment. Edutainment, like, don't think you can't entertain people in healthcare around very serious matters.

Sara Payne [00:20:30]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:20:31]:

In fact, there's a great quote. It goes something like this. I'm sure I'm not going to get it perfect. I don't have it in front of me. But if you don't think there's similarities between education and entertainment, then you know nothing about either. And if you think about it, Sara, think about the best professors.

Sara Payne [00:20:53]:

I was just exactly doing that, Larry. I was just exactly thinking of the best teachers I've ever had. You're absolutely right.

Larry Zarin [00:21:03]:

Think about the best TED talks you listen to. They are talking about the most serious matters in the face of the planet. I mean, the most serious matters. But they do it in a way that's engaging, interesting, and quite frankly, entertaining. Entertaining doesn't have to be about comedy or jokes. It means you really, really understand the art and science of storytelling and you're going for nerve endings. So first of all, express scripts adopted, and I still do, it's the only reason I've been consulting like crazy still embrace the concept and the effectiveness around edutainment. And that's under the bigger umbrella of a belief in business.

Larry Zarin [00:21:55]:

Theater, like our value proposal in any industry, certainly in healthcare, can be turned into something that engages people's emotional nerve endings. We can make that happen. And that's a form of theater. And it's just hard work. Here's the key. People do believe that with air cover, when they go to an ad agency and they develop an error, they're certainly trying to make it emotionally impactful 100%. But the same effort isn't given to the beans and the bullets and what's in that field. Forces, briefcase.

Larry Zarin [00:22:40]:

Figuratively speaking. And these days with technology, you should be able to go into a finals presentation and have people crying.

Sara Payne [00:22:52]:

Yeah, no, I agree with you. I talk about this all the time in the sales we do, even to our clients. I say dial it up a notch. From a theatrical standpoint, I want to feel your passion for this work. And it can't be faked. It's got to come from a place of authenticity. Which goes back to your point earlier about inspiration. But I.

Sara Payne [00:23:19]:

I'm thinking of all sorts of questions now, Larry. First one is, I think some people listening are going to say, does every organization truly believe that that is marketing's role to inspire the salesforce to a level, right. Where it's storytelling? It's not just key messages. Right. It is the art. Art of storytelling. And there are some, probably sales organizations out there that would be maybe reticent to have marketing leading that. Right.

Sara Payne [00:24:05]:

I mean, there's. There's this clash that happens between sales and marketing. So what. What have you seen being out there, consulting companies of all different types of, um. Is. Do you run into resistance to have marketing playing that big of a leading role around the story that is being told in those meetings?

Larry Zarin [00:24:29]:

It didn't at Express Grips, and here's why. There's personal relationships involved. But there's also. So at Express Grips, which experienced, you know, pretty phenomenal growth when I was there. Not. Not just because of me. I mean, just a lot of the. There was a constellation of reasons, and everybody really was amazingly smart and hardworking and innovative.

Larry Zarin [00:25:00]:

But I've seen one common denominator, Sara, to answer your question about high performance organizations, and one for sure is optimal alignment between sales, marketing and culture. Now let's focus on sales and marketing, because that was your question. The goal is that sales can't get enough of marketing. Like that's where they get their nutrition.

Sara Payne [00:25:32]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:25:33]:

And a marketing team is proving it. They're sending a sales organization out and when the sales has their national conference and it's time for marketing's presentation, you know, they're not a sideshow. It's.

Sara Payne [00:25:52]:

Right. Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:25:54]:

It's really focused on like. And there's a likability around marketing and people believe in it and quite frankly, they're being successful because of it. So I think there's a bell curve, because your question makes my head go to a bell curve of what organizations have that kind of alignment between sales and marketing and what don't. And I would say the organizations that don't have that alignment have to be performing suboptimal by definition. They just do. And it would be the CEO's responsibility or the chief growth office or whatever to make sure that that alignment is there. I hope I'm answering your question, but if not, come at it another way and maybe I can expand on what you're digging for.

Sara Payne [00:26:56]:

Yeah, no, I think your answer around culture alignment was an important one and I felt that. And I also believe the statement that it is on marketing leadership to have that seat at the table at the executive level and proving it in the day to day. Right. So that marketing is leading the organization and sales is benefiting from that.

Larry Zarin [00:27:41]:

Yeah. Let's talk about the B2B environment. You know, the B2B environment, I'm imagining who your clients are and who the listeners are. You know, the largest organization that would be listening to this podcast or viewing it, you know, might have a couple of thousand decision makers that they need to influence.

Sara Payne [00:28:03]:

Right.

Larry Zarin [00:28:04]:

This is not Coca Cola where they're dealing with 300 million consumers.

Sara Payne [00:28:09]:

Correct. Right. Yep.

Larry Zarin [00:28:13]:

Some companies could be 50 people or 100 people to influence. To develop a marketing strategy to influence those 50 to 100 people is all about the beans and bullets. It's all about getting in front of those people and having them say the following. That when Imprela is done presenting to them or Zarin Schmaren and Zarin is done presenting to them, they go, I'm not sure I'm giving them my business right now, but the lights are on at that shop. That was the most interesting darn presentation we have sat through in a long time. And we sit through a lot of them. Like that really made me think. I just like the way they come at it.

Larry Zarin [00:29:09]:

They came at it differently, they made me think about it differently, they got me engaged differently. Right now maybe we're a little stuck with our incumbent, but I gotta tell you, next time Sara Payne calls, I'm answering the phone again. And that's the goal in B2B. And that's not checking boxes. That's really, really a very creative process with the leash, the leeway, the license, the freedom to do it. And that to me is, you know, the bigger these companies get, I think that gets more restrictive. And if I may, keep going. I really believe in the power of a thought leadership platform.

Sara Payne [00:29:58]:

Yes.

Larry Zarin [00:30:00]:

And I know that was on our topics to discuss, so I apologize for fast forwarding there, but it's relevant to what we're talking about.

Sara Payne [00:30:07]:

No, go for it. Absolutely go for it.

Larry Zarin [00:30:11]:

Thought leadership is an easy thing to say. Everyone has to include it in their marketing mix manifesto. And 1 out of 50 are done effectively. 1 out of 50. And not because it's rocket science. It's just because people just don't understand the potential. First of all, the first place the train stops is with white papers. And Larry Zarin is not a big believer in white papers moving any needles.

Sara Payne [00:30:56]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:30:57]:

Same whether it be around perception, certainly not in sales, but whether it be around perception, brand positioning. I'm just not a big believer in white papers. But thought leadership platforms, thoughtfully put together and executed is another thing that will inspire a field force considerably. Significantly. One other footnote about thought leadership platforms. You can't have four of them in four years. I won't mention names, but there are some behemoth health care organizations that every other month they're focused on something different.

Sara Payne [00:31:48]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:31:49]:

And they're making a mistake.

Sara Payne [00:31:54]:

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I think, I mean, terrible report card, one out of 50. That's. Those are, Those are terrible numbers.

Larry Zarin [00:32:00]:

Yeah. Maybe I'm exaggerating.

Sara Payne [00:32:02]:

No, no, no, I don't. I mean, I don't disagree with you. I'm not. I, I just wanted to emphasize the point there, you know, that we've got some work to do. We got to get it together. And, And I think one of the gaps or, or reasons why, A, there's bad report card or B, there's a tendency to want to change the flavor of the month. Right. And reinvention of this is a couple of things.

Sara Payne [00:32:25]:

One, there is the temptation that we have to represent everything. Right? We, we. We are a large behemoth organization. We've got, you know, hundreds of. We've got 50 different solutions, right. That we're selling product solutions, whatever it is. And how could we possibly, Larry, not represent all of them in every thought leadership piece we put out there? But that is not that is the mistake to take a solution or product oriented approach to your thought leadership platform where when what you should be focused on is the are the problems you are solving for your customers. Right.

Sara Payne [00:33:09]:

And distilling if focusing on the ones that are the largest pain points and ideally then when you take that approach multiples of your solutions your offerings solve helps combine to help solve those problems and there becomes the right fit. From a thought leadership standpoint, right has to be anchored. From a mission, vision, core value standpoint, right. Has to be something you're actually doing something about. But when it is problem oriented rather than solution oriented, I believe that's the sweet spot. So one of the failures is that we try to represent all of the things equally and then we get what gets watered down. Right.

Larry Zarin [00:34:02]:

And we're not really completely watered down. Yeah, completely watered down.

Sara Payne [00:34:06]:

And I think the other, the other gap that that folks have with this is the, this goes back to your very first point in the relevancy market fit conversation which is say something differentiation. Say something that I haven't heard before. Say something unique. Right. Don't tell me the same thing everybody else is saying because if I got to sit through another presentation or read through another article that just regurgitates the same problem in the same way and doesn't actually, you know, add value to me, you've lost my attention. I don't have time for that. Right. So.

Larry Zarin [00:34:55]:

Let me come at that one a different way. And this is the word. I don't think I've used the word genius yet. But I'll tell you what I think is the genius in marketing, which means it's a high bar, but when you strive for it, you have a better chance of hitting it. It really adds to what you just said, Sara, about the obvious. Right. Like, you going to tell me loneliness is a problem in the United States? Again, like really, you know, I'm lonely for some new ideas like, you know, but I think that the genius in marketing is to address the inarticulated need of your customer, not the articulated. I'm going to give you an example from outside healthcare as everyone's familiar with and I'm going to talk about express scripts.

Larry Zarin [00:35:53]:

So Steven Jobs, Apple, nobody asked him to make a device that you could carry the original ipod that would make you feel sexier by carrying it.

Sara Payne [00:36:09]:

Right? Right.

Larry Zarin [00:36:11]:

No one asked him to turn technology into an accessory and add design and colors so that it enhanced my brand like a pair of earrings would or a watch. No one asked him for that. But it was an incredible need and desire and want from consumers and the public. And look what it's grown into. And he said, guess what? Design will now lead on the dance floor. And engineering will take direction from design. And look what it did.

Sara Payne [00:36:50]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:36:51]:

When Express Scripts was founded, our thought leadership platform was around the following. No client ever asked for it. I'm talking about day one. And then we introduced one later on around, around the behavioral sciences. But day one it was the following. You are spending Department of Defense, General Motors, you name it, Blue Cross, Blue Shield. You are spending billions on pharmaceuticals and the pharmacy benefit is drastically understudied. You do not have the data you need to be spending this kind of money in this area.

Larry Zarin [00:37:39]:

You don't know the relative efficacy of this drug versus that drug. You don't know enough about drug to drug interactions. You don't know enough about regional analysis. What are people in this zip code buying versus that zip code. You don't know enough about prior authorizations and if they're working or it's just understudied. In the late 80s, early 90s and we launched a thought leadership platform around research, drug trend reports, outcomes conferences. It really led the agency, the industry that if you want to rub shoulders with a partner, a PBM that is taking a much closer scientific, data driven look at where your money's going as an employer, then we're the company to do it. And then we added some fun factors to that around our outcomes conference and the kind of speakers we got and the drug trend report.

Larry Zarin [00:38:46]:

And we created incredible business theater around a point of view.

Sara Payne [00:38:52]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:38:53]:

That the pharmacy benefit was understudied and that again was an inarticulated need. No one asked us for a drug trend report.

Sara Payne [00:39:07]:

Yeah.

Larry Zarin [00:39:08]:

No one asked us for an outcomes conference. No one asked us for this level of analysis. But our founder and the people he put around them into leadership team, you know, we're qualified to drive that kind of TLP thought leadership platform. So it comes back to my point that yeah, I mean just taking problems solutions, warming them up, serving them in a different way is not the genius of marketing, slash sales, slash growth. The genius is to uncover an inarticulated need and own it and nail it and champion it.

Sara Payne [00:39:54]:

Love that we could talk about this all day, Larry. I think that's a great place to end the conversation. I wish we could go further. I got a couple of quick fire questions for you here before we wrap up. What is one lesson from the entertainment world that healthcare marketers should steal?

Larry Zarin [00:40:21]:

How to tell a story A presentation should always start with the anxiety. Just like a good book story, a movie does. If you want to get people's, you start with the pain point. You start with what we call the predator.

Sara Payne [00:40:41]:

Great, great advice.

Larry Zarin [00:40:43]:

You don't start with the solution.

Sara Payne [00:40:45]:

What's a go to tactic for rallying the field team when morale is low?

Larry Zarin [00:40:50]:

When morale is low. I have to give that 30 seconds thought. I would think that. And which team is low?

Sara Payne [00:41:00]:

The whole company or the field team?

Larry Zarin [00:41:04]:

The field team. Okay. The field team. That, that there's that. Today's the first day of the rest of our lives and there's a recommitment to the field team and we are going to get out in the field, understand your needs, understand your challenges. We don't take you for granted. You are the lifeline of this company. Without you, there is not a company.

Larry Zarin [00:41:34]:

And at the same time, we're going to raise the bar. We're going to, you know, make personnel moves and make sure that we have the very best team taking the field. Just like a world championship team would do in sports. We're making that commitment from our end starting today.

Sara Payne [00:41:55]:

What a great rally cry. I love that. Fill in the blank here, Larry. Last question. In B2B marketing, you don't have to be perfect, you have to be Blake.

Larry Zarin [00:42:04]:

Authentic.

Sara Payne [00:42:06]:

Well, this has been fantastic, Larry. I know I learned a lot today. You offered a lot of really great advice if folks want to connect with you to learn more about your work. How can listeners get in touch with you?

Larry Zarin [00:42:18]:

Just my email address. Should I give it or you'll give it. How do you want that to work?

Sara Payne [00:42:23]:

Yeah, you can go ahead and say it.

Larry Zarin [00:42:25]:

It's lzarin z a r I n610mail.com. I'm a one man show. I don't have a website, but I've got plenty of fuel in the tank and I've been enjoying the engagements.

Sara Payne [00:42:43]:

And you're also on LinkedIn, Larry. Larry's Aaron on LinkedIn?

Larry Zarin [00:42:47]:

Yeah, again, that's great. Thank you. Sara. You're going to be my marketing director.

Sara Payne [00:42:54]:

Well, thanks so much for joining me today, Larry. I really appreciate it, Sara.

Larry Zarin [00:42:59]:

Thank you very much. I really enjoyed the conversation and admire the work of your shop. As I told you when we first met through a mutual client, real thoughtful, quality work. So you're on my list.

Sara Payne [00:43:17]:

I didn't have to say that. I didn't pay him to say that, folks. But I appreciate and the feeling is mutual, Larry.

Larry Zarin [00:43:24]:

Thanks for the opportunity, Sara.

Sara Payne [00:43:26]:

You bet. And to our audience Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And as always, thanks for listening to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence, because the future of healthcare depends on it. We'll see you next time.