The Value of Marketing: A Venture Capitalist’s Perspective

Sara Payne [00:00:10]:

Hello, everyone. And welcome to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. I'm your host, Sara Payne, a health marketing strategist at Inprela Communications, and I'm bringing you fascinating conversations with some of the industry's top marketing minds. On today's episode, we're going to get marketing insights from a venture capital perspective. As VCs look to get top dollar for their investments, what marketing strategies do they see being most effective in driving growth? This conversation is sure to offer incredibly valuable insights whether you're a start up organization or an established brand with high growth expectations. Joining me on the show is Jasmine Kim, who heads up Care at Home at Samsung Digital Health. She's also an LP advisor for Digi TX Partners and an entrepreneur in residence for Digital DX Ventures. She's an experienced growth and marketing executive who specializes in accelerating growth for companies that sit at the intersection of health and digital technology.

Sara Payne [00:01:05]:

She's a board advisor. She's held CMO roles. She has an impressive track record of building and scaling marketing and brand building programs that have delivered 10 to 30% growth in less than 3 years. Jasmine is someone who has always been led by human centered design and engagement. She is deeply focused on how we create meaningful innovation in healthcare to improve people's health care journey. I'm thrilled to have you with me in the studio today. Jasmine, welcome. Thank you, Sara, for having me.

Sara Payne [00:01:33]:

Yeah. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Jasmine, you're you're an investor with a marketing background. And I think it's fair to say that you're somewhat of a rare breed in the industry, but I'm hopeful we'll see more and more marketing experts sitting on the boards of companies in the future. Are you seeing evidence that will happen?

L. Jasmine Kim [00:01:50]:

Yes. I actually am thinking that I'm becoming less rare. I'm join joining a larger tribe of people, of like minded people. And I think that as marketers have become more revenue drivers and not as a supporting function, And the fact that a lot of marketers that I'm meeting now, we've all had p and l responsibilities and being more of a GM role, revenue driving marketers. I think that many companies, small and large, from public to privately held companies are looking for people who are really know how to engage with the end consumer, whether it be a b to c or b to b to c. So I think that, I'm seeing more of them, and I'm really, hopeful, and it's tickled me pink to join a larger community of people.

Sara Payne [00:02:41]:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm thrilled to hear you say that it's, it's, you're, you're less and less of a rare breed because I I'm very hopeful as well. I think it's good. I think it's gonna be great for organizations. I think it's gonna be great for for growth. I think this is exactly the sort of shift that we need to see in terms of leadership, sitting on boards. In our last conversation, Jasmine, you told me that when you made the transition from being a marketing leader to becoming a VC advisor and board member, you went on a listening tour. And, you talked to other board members and CEOs and you asked them what they were, what they were missing.

Sara Payne [00:03:15]:

Share with

L. Jasmine Kim [00:03:16]:

us what they told you. Yeah. And I think that oftentimes one thing that I think that we need to do more of, and I'm hoping that that'll come to pass, especially in such a world where every sound bite and every little the person who's the loudest gets the the kind of the last last word that I feel like if we're I always try to go on a listening tour. And even prior to kind of going on my journey as wanting to be on the boards, I kind of I went to mentors and sponsors and people I'd kind of admire. And one of the really key things that we talked about was couple of things. 1 is that a lot of people, were looking for more innovative thinking board members. And traditionally, you think about finance and audit and governance. And I think that one of the biggest weaknesses some of the companies have is you have a great product or great service and how do we actually engage with the outside market? So the whole notion that we built it and they'll come, that's been kind of over for 15, 20 years.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:04:19]:

And so I think that if you position your role not so much, I think that people still have maybe some traditional thinking of, like, traditional marketers don't belong on the board or they're they're not traditionally. But if you really position yourself as a you are go to market market engagement person or creating market access or market development. And I think that that is a different framing of the work. 2nd, what I also heard is that anybody who could help you go from 1, an adjacent industry. And I think that, people who market or create new market access are always looking to once you have one kind of p and l line, how do we diversify and add on new business and services? So anybody who's done innovative thinking about creating a marketplace and going into an adjacent category or sector is really helpful. And I think 3rd is that the whole I mean, I know that it sounds really, trite in 2024, but there's still a lot of companies who are looking to highly actually go fully digital. And now I would say fully AI. And so I would think that people who have been on the marketing front have really toyed with and played with all kinds of AI tools.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:05:32]:

And so I think that even 3, 4 years ago, it was really about how do we fully, fully go digital. And I think that COVID has really blew that door wide open. But then also, how do we find people who could actually help you do integrated full journey marketing, which is both online and offline. It's not like Sara, the end user, thinks only digital or only offline or only with AI. Then I think then in the last year or 2, really the blowing wide open, how do we use AI in product service, in back of the office, in front of the office, and how we engage with the market? Those are three areas that are really compelling for for boards and companies to add. And if you have that expertise, and I think that people who come from marketing background have always kind of at least the people that I know have been in marketing have always kind of been on the forefront. So I think if you could frame that and frame that and package that set of tools or set of kind of your your bag of tricks, that that is actually something that a lot of companies need and a lot of boards are needing. So I think that that's how you frame, how you might be on boards or how somebody who's a marketer, could serve on boys and really contribute in a really impactful way.

Sara Payne [00:06:47]:

I love that. And, and really smart of you to go on this listening tour to begin with. Right. And really sort of listen and hear what it is that the gaps are and what their needs are. And I love this framing around, you know, it it it probably is those people with that sort of marketing background that are that are willing to do some of this work that may be missing on some of the boards. And the thing that strikes me about that, Jasmine, is that going going all in on digital, going all in all in or not, but but adopting that, right, from an integrated perspective as you talked about digital or AI, you have to inherently be willing to take on some risk with that and to sort of jump in and try new things and make mistakes and learn from them and sort of that that sort of fail fast sort of mentality. And and do you think that that's additionally something that that marketing leaders inherent many marketing leaders inherently have, based on having to adopt digital marketing, into their programs over the last few years. Yes.

Sara Payne [00:07:55]:

I actually think that is one, probably a constancy,

L. Jasmine Kim [00:07:58]:

at least in my career and kind of from my perspective, is that in how to engage with the user, we've got we've gone through 20 years of unprecedented change in how a consumer wants to consume information and data and products and services. So even if you look back and it it seems like, you know, if you think about how I'm gonna say she. She might have been on TV or print, and then it's online and social media and marketplaces and chats and now TikTok and YouTube, every different way than in which we can consume information. I think that if you're really good chief customer engagement person, you're going to be where she is do what where she is at. And I think that we often say things like, well, let's meet the customers where they are. And I think that we should really double click on that and really unpack how she is looking at her 247, her day. Like typically we one of the things that we said at Sutter when I was at Sutter Health is that even 10 years ago, people used to make a decision on like, choosing a health service by 2 contact points. You might have seen them walking down in your neighborhood, then you saw a clinic, you you saw a healthcare brand that you wanna talk about.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:09:15]:

You what you wanna go go consider. Or second, maybe your mother or somebody in your milieu recommended, you know, so and so doctor or so and so clinic. Now, you know, 15 years later, the data shows that it's averaged, you know, 15 to 20 interactions. That, Sara, maybe in the morning, you as the consumer, Sara, maybe I heard it on the podcast. My maybe I heard it on the radio. Maybe my neighbor mentioned it. Maybe I saw it in a billboard. Maybe I saw it in my TikTok.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:09:47]:

Maybe I, you know, I heard it in a magazine article. And I think that all of those points of contact is gonna make her consider or be aware of what you are doing and then to really consider and that that that's how much we need to cut through her reality so that she could actually really, really consider the the consumption or the purchase of whatever the thing that you're trying to do. So I think it's it's paramount that we know where that person is and how to engage and how do you actually look at any new media, any new kind of technology that she is using to gather information, to make decisions about her life.

Sara Payne [00:10:26]:

Yeah. And the other thing that strikes me about what you just said is that I think sometimes in marketing, we focus too much on middle of funnel or bottom of funnel. We focus on the conversion point. But what you're talking about is needing to have all of these touch points and exposure of your brand, really emphasizing the need on top of funnel strategies. Right? Being in the right places, being, you know, out there as a brand, to have that opportunity to have multiple touch points. Maybe even before someone's even quote looking to make a purchase, whatever kind of purchase that is, whether that's engaging in care or it's actually, you know, buying a product. So I think that really underscores the the importance on top of funnel strategies as well. Yeah.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:11:07]:

And I think that also I mean, I know that with marketing becoming so mathematical that everybody looks at, well, let's do multivariate testing, which is now, you know, you can. And you can find, what are some top of the funnel or middle of the funnel, bottom funnel that works with a certain kind of a category or cohort. Right? But you need to constantly mix it up because you don't wanna take your most loyal users for granted either. And oftentimes, sometimes that your most loyal customers or users need to actually know something that's really meta point about who you are and then also at the bottom of the funnel. So I think that you have to have that constant mix. And I think the reason I like to still think that I hope that marketing or go to market or engagement is art and science. We're human beings after all, and we're incredibly emotional. So, yes, we have gotten lots of, mathematical analytical tools, and I use them all the time.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:12:05]:

But end of the day, I think that anybody's read Daniel Kahneman, who he's just passed away, the famous, you know, economist, the psych actually psychologist, we make a lot of decision on gut instinct. Yes. Right? So Yes. Rational I mean, human beings are not that rational. So sometimes I think that it's not then correct to always try to usually rational thinking, mathematical models. And mathematical models end of the day, we've actually set up those models and human beings set them up. So ordinarily, there are human biases built into every one of those.

Sara Payne [00:12:38]:

Yeah. I think you're right. That's great advice. Let let's talk about the value of marketing from a from an investor perspective. I think the $1,000,000 question most marketing leaders wanna know is do boards of directors believe in the value of marketing to support growth. What are your thoughts on that, Jasmine?

L. Jasmine Kim [00:12:54]:

I believe, and despite the discussions I've had in the past couple of years, that I think it is now paramount. There we have such because of the cost of creating products or services have become democratized, that I think it's really how do you actually take it to market and how to land the thing. Right? So I think I think people call it different things now. People don't, as we say, call it, you know, they'll they'll oftentimes say go to market or market access in health care and biotech and medical devices. But I think end of the day or patient marketing, or they'll say doctors marketing, or it's very specific channel. Right? But end of the day, we're all humans and we need to actually cut through their clutter to make sure that you understand what the product is, how it actually serves you. How does it how do you get it? How do you use it? And what's the pricing point? So I think it's really important. And I also know that oftentimes, like, when it you know, you look at a lot of the digital health apps that that have been sold through the past 6, 7 years to employers.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:13:57]:

Well, they're finding out that once it yes. The first phase is done, but nobody uses it at the other end. Because what we thought about the fact that maybe the employer benefits people don't not upmarket it to the actual employees who are consumers and the consumers are not just hearing from their employers, they're hearing from other people. So you need to create all those touch points. Right? So I think that that's the traction. And and what we found out, and I think it still holds true, that it Pricewaterhouse did they did extensive, incredible research that people expect the same kind of marketing and expectation as they do with regular commodity products like Amazon products than they do with healthcare. So if we're looking at really regulatory things and people know that health I'm not talking about like quaternary brain surgery. Okay.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:14:46]:

But like really primary, secondary things are now really available. A lot of them, now on the the kind of through a digital health and through telehealth channels, they're having same consumer expectation as consumer products. Yeah. I'd love to think that those understanding your, your your toolset of how do you engage with the user, whether it it be a doctor, whether it be your procurement officer, whether is it a consumer or whether it's a patient, I think that that those are same same kind of practices and thinking that you have to use and, and using pattern recognition. Of course, the last 2, last 20% mile might be different. But I think that people sometimes make it so foreign, like, we understand that there are regulatory things that you have to do. We understand that there are more gatekeepers, but they're still humans.

Sara Payne [00:15:35]:

Yeah. Absolutely. Jasmine, I know you're someone who believes marketing should be an investment line rather than

L. Jasmine Kim [00:15:41]:

an expense line. Can you elaborate on your perspective on that? Yes. I think there is traditionally and I was just having this discussion even with my, current company Samsung. There are some, especially a lot of legacy companies and older traditional companies, look at marketing as really just doing awareness, brand awareness and maybe consideration. And then sales, which is like, how do you actually get them to compare and then to purchase and renew was like allocated to sales. But I think that more and more in the digital space and especially with especially in kind of digital health where I'm in, I think that marketing and the full top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, it's all the way down to the so I always like to say that marketing should, I we I do the kind of marketing that drive users and revenue. And if you do that, that's an investment. That has an ROI effect.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:16:34]:

That's not an expense line. It's one thing and then and, you know, there's wonderful, amazing advertisers and marketers who do huge campaigns. But I think that today we have a lot of analytical tools that could give you attribution to how that pays out in in immediately or down, you know, 30 days or 60 day attribution. So I think it's really important to show ROI and to say how you are making investment in the future equity of the brand or equity of the company in which you're building so that you drive users and revenue for the long short term and for long term. And I think if you position it that way, then you're making an investment. It's not some cost, some cost that's like somehow evaporates with a beautiful campaign. Right. I think people get really focused on the beautiful campaign.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:17:22]:

I'm really focused on how does it land. Yeah. Yeah. What does it take the end user and what does it actually and how does your product and services scale and accelerate because of the, the all the different tool sets that you've used in a marketing tools, you know, arsenal. 100%. What is the most common marketing advice that you give to your clients across the board? That's a good question. I think couple things that I will always say, number 1, no matter how complicated something is, people generally really don't care how something is made. They care about how it's gonna benefit them.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:17:59]:

Yes. How it's gonna make their life easier. How that's gonna solve their problem or how it's gonna enhance their thing that they're doing or how it's gonna accelerate their business. So really focus on the human and how it helps them less on your own product and services. Of course, it's really important to say I'm 156 megabytes and all the features. But turn it around and say, Sara, you're gonna do you're gonna get this because we spent the time doing 8 bit monitoring with these kind of diagnostic tools. Yeah. It's yesterday.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:18:34]:

So that's 1. Second thing I would say is that building a long term business with a significant equity, which actually means dollar number when you're actually selling it, acquiring it, and transitioning it. A brand equity is not some, like, fufu that we create, that it really is a long term customer journey, not a one time transaction. I wanna be with Sara when she's not interested in my product just to tell her to say hi, Sara.

Sara Payne [00:19:05]:

Yes. But you get a

L. Jasmine Kim [00:19:06]:

lot more credit flowing hi to Sara when you're not selling something than when you when you're doing something. Become become walk walk next to her as much as possible, your end user, and walk in her journey and constantly be in contact with her so that you make her be part of your brand community and have her be your advocate. End of the day, really, if your cost and so that's the second thing is to really walk along your customer journey. And 3rd, what I would say is that end of the day, the job of a really good customer engagement is to make your cost of acquisition go towards 0 over time. Now it'll never go to 0, but if you it's a good parabola. If you could actually do your job and have the entire company focused on getting your acquisition cost down to over time over 0, then there then you're scaling that business. If every time you have to acquire a new customer that you're spending the same amount of money, then make it a $100 business and call it a day because your margins will be the same. The cost of scaling a business is to lower your step margins.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:20:13]:

And to do that, you actually need to create advocacy and brand equity. And that is actually like, again, go back, be human centered, walk along the entire customer or the user journey, be with them at times where you're not selling them. Just be with them, you know? Don't be a wham bam thank you ma'am. And I think that I've been very fortunate that I've worked on brands that have, like, high price value, etcetera, especially in health care services and product, but you're kind of in there for life.

Sara Payne [00:20:44]:

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. No. I love this was super smart the way you laid this out. I love how they're all threaded together. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Payne [00:20:51]:

The human centered focus, building the equity, walking along with your customer across the entire journey, and and moving towards 0 over time. Yeah. And, I I mean, the common thread in all of those to me is really lies in kind of number 2, which is you're a huge proponent of focusing deep, deep in the funnel at that loyalty and advocacy stage, which to your earlier point, many brands will overlook that. Right? We got we got to the sale, we got to the conversion, and now let's go get more. You know, let's repeat that model and get more of those customers. But really, if you're looking to build that long term brand and, you know, going towards 0 over time, you have to look at that that loyalty and advocacy and cannot over look at it. Yeah. And then I think and then one other thing, which is because we speak so much about innovation today, especially with AI, that

L. Jasmine Kim [00:21:41]:

the biggest, area of innovation is to go to your next adjacent category. And few brands are given the latitude to do that by their customer base. And Amazon customers have allowed them to do that from bookselling to fashion, to food, to health. K? And they've actually been able to make an inroad, have a, you know, have an anchor, go into a market and then open up and go into an agent's market and go open up. And that has allowed that that company, that brand to really expand and become ubiquitous and become part of our every single minute of our lives. And so if you take that as an example, and I think that having having that that, that brand advocacy, you know, and equity allows you to actually innovate and continue to diversify and scale your businesses into multiple adjacent categories. And so that's a sign of a really good portfolio brand, right? So Amazon used to be single brand, but now it's a portfolio brand that's got Amazon Cloud, Amazon Commerce, Amazon Health, Amazon, what have you, right? And so I think that that is a playbook that has many companies like Louvoutin Motorhead and Sea has used. Walmart has used that.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:22:57]:

So really create that long term equity because we will, as a brand, like human beings, we will make mistakes and we will fumble. Because if you're innovating constantly, you're bound to make errors. But I think that if you have that brand equity, your customers actually give you permission to make errors. Yeah. Because they it's We'll overlook you because we you've been with me through these other things. Right. It's I trust you. Right.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:23:23]:

It goes, it goes to

Sara Payne [00:23:24]:

the importance of brand trust. And I, when I think about Amazon and and part of what has allowed them to Yeah. To make these transition, it is trust. Yeah. And what led to the trust is the customer experience. That's right. It's that it's been there day in, day out for me, you know. I I know I can click here, put in cart, and it's at my doorstep tomorrow.

Sara Payne [00:23:44]:

And if you can translate that to Yes. Food or to fashion, you know, all these other categories that I'm in. Yeah. Because I trust you and you've delivered that stellar customer experience. And as long as we can continue to deliver that, I'm I'm all in for it.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:23:58]:

Yeah. And we use that kind of a thinking, especially when I was at Sutter Health, as an integrated health care system, I think that a lot of health carers were buying up other companies and they just assume that people are just gonna believe that you could deliver that. That's a lot of hard work. Yeah. It was painful, etcetera. We got through it, but you have to really let the patient believe that not only are you gonna integrate these new adjacent areas, but you're gonna do it in a seamless way and still deliver the same quality of product, reliable product, and consistent service and coherent service to Sara Payne or to Jasmine Kim over time. Yeah. Well, another thing that sort of related to all of this that

Sara Payne [00:24:38]:

I wanted to have you touch on was is patience. And, you know, I know you're someone who, who believes you need to be patient when it comes to growth and marketing's impact on growth. What advice do you have for company executives about the, the patients they need to have in building for the longer term with their marketing?

L. Jasmine Kim [00:24:58]:

Really good question. Patient is in really short supply as you know, unfortunately. Unfortunately. Yeah. I always try to turn that conversation around to the board or to the investor, to the market and said, you know, what brand do you recall or do you remember top of your head that you've only dated once? You really I think it's just like human nature of like, if you think about and, you know, all of us at a certain age are like, when was the last time I had multiple dates? But but I think that in fact with nature, if you only meet somebody on Zoom, right, and you don't have human contact, okay, or the fact that you just traded names, but not 3 most important things that matter to you or do the adjectives or had a meaningful conversation, the probability that you're going to recall that person when something comes up goes down proportionally. Right? So why do we think that that's the same case of building a quote of brand? A brand is not something that is out there talking at you. Brand is actually in your mind and it's Yeah. It's fine space.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:26:07]:

Okay? To cut through that so a very interesting example that we did is, and this is, you know, a really good analogy. I remember when, of course your companies, each person who's working in a business that like, they think that Sara, the consumer is only thinking about our product 20 fourseven. And when I was working at baby center at Johnson and Johnson, of course, it's a pregnant woman. So we everybody said, you know, when I said, how many minutes do you think she spends time on our site? And everybody's like, well, she's having a baby. It's the biggest important thing in our life. You know, 20 minutes. And what it came down to was literally one point like, less than 2 minutes. And I then created a 24 hour calendar of what she goes through in a day.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:26:50]:

So I said, how lucky are we? They were totally disappointed that we only got less than 2 minutes. And I said, actually, how lucky and privileged we are that she even thinks of us for less than 2 minutes. Because really she's pregnant. She's working. She's just trying to get through a subway to get to work in New York City. Like, you know, get me out of the way, get my get my shoes on, you know, wash my hair, do grocery shopping, and, like, are you kidding yourself that this is what? So I think today, and this goes back to patient, to do that, we kinda need

Sara Payne [00:27:20]:

to be there for more than a quarter on TikTok to actually cut through the clutter. Yeah. Absolutely. And now I I try and

L. Jasmine Kim [00:27:28]:

make it really plainspoken because I think sometimes, many times, we sit there under calculus and we think that we are the most important thing in that person's lives. And, of course, higher the price point, longer the consideration rate, things like mortgages, buying houses, buying your healthcare services, longer it is and more long term it is. And the you know, for you to separate, it's actually more painful. Like, sometimes I think I can't leave my bank because it's just too painful for me about divorce. Right? But not anymore. But, anyway but I think that those are all considerations, obviously, but I think that you have to at least give it 3 to 4 full buyer cycle. So and I also think that, you know, and I always go in the rules of threes. And I think that you need to at least invest 3 full good years or 3 full buyer cycle to have through somebody's mind.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:28:21]:

Even though we think that we're the most important and we think that we spent $12,000,000 or $100,000,000 on a campaign, You're lucky if we have the privilege to be in our mind space for 2 minutes, that she might think of you top of mind. Right.

Sara Payne [00:28:34]:

Yeah. The type of

L. Jasmine Kim [00:28:36]:

your 17 different points in an integrated, coherent, and cohesive way that she will think I'm gonna purchase that every day and to make it a habit.

Sara Payne [00:28:46]:

Yeah. No. I I love that. I think you're absolutely right. And I think marketing leaders may want to, you know, share this with with their executive leaders as well in terms of setting realist realistic expectations about the time that it takes.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:28:59]:

Right? To to do some

Sara Payne [00:29:01]:

of this work and see the kind of impact that the organization is is really looking for. I appreciate your directness. I I you're you're a truth teller and I think that's really important. Right? That people that we don't sugarcoat the realities of what it's gonna take to to see success in in marketing and and building a brand over the time.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:29:21]:

Yeah. And I that that's one thing that I do wanna say is that I think one thing that we do need to make sure is that, especially marketers with all of our analytic members, we need to actually give people ranges and expectation. I think that sometimes we get why factors with the big, beautiful campaigns. And like, I know that we at Samsung are doing all this thing around Olympics. Right? There's the wow factor, But I'm always about, like, how does it land for the long haul? Yeah. Right? Yep. I wanna see the long entire long tail. And sometimes it's not the big wow events, it's the smaller quieter event that hits people depending on what the brand that you represent.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:30:02]:

And I will also say in healthcare, it's the small quiet moments that actually deliver much more profound things to a patient or to a procurement officer whose complexity of doing something, major digital health innovation in their hospital system or in their clinic is gonna make a profound impact.

Sara Payne [00:30:20]:

Yeah. And and part of the small quiet and what makes that work is because the the brand or the product sees them sees their pain in that moment. Yes. Right. And and and knows them so well. They're like, yep. That's a 100 percent what I need. And it doesn't, to your point, have to be big and splashy.

Sara Payne [00:30:37]:

It just has to resonate on that exact pain point.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:30:41]:

Yeah. Yeah. So I I would really say that that's another thing that we really, really need to focus on really.

Sara Payne [00:30:48]:

Yeah. Absolutely great advice. Well, I'd like to switch gears for a special segment we call the collective quick fire. I've got 5 questions for you, Jasmine. First one is name a couple of healthcare brands you think do marketing really well. I will say.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:31:03]:

Omada health, which I'm a big fan of. And I think Amazon health does a really amazing job.

Sara Payne [00:31:09]:

Yeah. I think those are both really great examples. Yeah. Startup mentality or corporate strategy, what's more important for growth? That's a really good question, and sorry for the the the slow response to rapid fire. I think a good corporate strategy is having a startup mentality. Oh, I love that. Right? It's like a trick question, and you made

L. Jasmine Kim [00:31:31]:

it It's not a trick question. Right. Because because strategy is how to go by doing something. Strategy is the modus operandi, And if we set the notion that we're gonna have a very entrepreneurial kind of environment or culture, whether you are a entrepreneur of a venture or you're a large company doing intra intraventure, entrepreneurial work, I think that's really critical. I know when I say entrepreneurial, I mean like ability to fail fast, testing these things, going into adjacent area, taking information from any adjacent area to actually try something out, and really being agile and pivoting on a dime when you need to. Yeah.

Sara Payne [00:32:08]:

Yeah. Love that. Thea, I know how you're gonna answer this one, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. What's more important to you? Short term results or long term investment in the brand? I always will say long term, but I know that the reality such that you need

L. Jasmine Kim [00:32:22]:

to do both of those things. And I was telling this to my daughter that the reason we call people who are executives is because there's a thing called executive function. Executive function is our human ability to manage day to day. Could I get food in today? Will I get water today? Also, how do I actually scale the long term so that my environment, living, is sustainable and safe? So I think that is needed for any good marketer and any good executive working today. So I would say it's kind of we gotta do both at the same time.

Sara Payne [00:32:56]:

Yeah. I love that. What advice

L. Jasmine Kim [00:32:58]:

do you have to help marketing leaders become more decisive decision makers? Decisive decision maker. Another really good question. I would say always look at what's the risk portfolio. What's the risk and really, really assess what the real risks are. Some of the risks are in our mind and not really logic or rational. Like, literally say, what would I lose? Right? Right. So for something as example as, like, asking somebody for help, the sums are really small. I mean, like, compared to a lot of people don't like to ask people for help.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:33:33]:

A lot of people don't like to go to a hotel and say, do you have a better room? Like Yeah. I was like, what's the downside? You're gonna be at

Sara Payne [00:33:38]:

the exact same place you are in.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:33:40]:

Like Right. Right. Right? And so if you're pretty if you have a pretty good situation and, like, to do something, you know, and if you wanna like, I've not I've done this in other places, and most of the time I've landed in good place. And, you know, 1 or 2 times I've actually licked my wounds, but that's goes par for the course, which is that I would say, if you're not sure, try to derisk as much as you can. So, like, you know, you'll have you wanna try something, have plan a and b and talk about it. Or do 98% something like you always do, but have a skunk work that you're in the back office that maybe people don't know if you're a little bit feeling vulnerable or the context of your work situations I try that. But I think really, really assess your risk. And also, if you if you take a risk and you land, which I feel like I've been really fortunate, you just become bigger risk takers because you're like, I've done it before and then what's the worst that could happen? I just and oftentimes, it's not doing things always successful.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:34:36]:

It's actually sometimes not doing them well and just getting back up and brushing your brushing your knees and just say like, okay, should we try that again? Yeah. And oftentimes it's not something that is out of ordinary that succeeds. It's actually doing something same over in a different way. Mhmm. Trying in a slightly different way that actually succeeds and people call that innovation sometimes. And so I think that that really define what really risk is. Yeah. Almost repositioning it.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:35:03]:

Can conditioning yourself to

Sara Payne [00:35:05]:

you know, it's not really risk and you're conditioned to sort of be comfortable

L. Jasmine Kim [00:35:08]:

with it over time. And then also, it really helps to have a friend or a colleague who who maybe pulls you in a place that, you that you could actually take risk. And I always, like, tell people every day try to do something that makes you a little bit afraid. I don't wanna say afraid, but, like, maybe something that's like, maybe instead of your usual cafe latte, you try something a little different. You know, sometimes that's a little risk. And if you and you're like, oh, that was something different. Like, I've never done Pilate before, but I'm gonna try today. I might go kicking it screaming.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:35:44]:

I might never like it, but since Sara says it, she swears by it, I'm gonna try it today. I think that also helps you in a what I call a constant growth mindset. Also, especially as you go on with your career and and as you get wiser. I mean, people always talk about as you age, as you age. I'm like, you're aging the minute you're born. So I said, get in line. Yes. So I think that, hopefully, we're getting wiser and that and I think that means to have constant thinking of curiosity and growth mindset.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:36:11]:

And that means actually go to some doing something that scares you a little bit or is a little bit scare. However you wanna define that.

Sara Payne [00:36:18]:

Such great leadership advice. Last question, Jasmine. I know you travel a lot. Of all the health care conferences you attend, which is your favorite and why? Very good question.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:36:27]:

I would say I really enjoyed Vy because it's a smaller, more agile version of HIMSS. Mhmm. And I I feel like because it's smaller and it comes in a series of like there's like a 5 of them all in a row that people slow down and actually really listen and talk to each other.

Sara Payne [00:36:49]:

Oh, I love that. So I feel like

L. Jasmine Kim [00:36:51]:

we get more meaningful it might it might be fewer, but I feel like we get more meaningful things done and we walk away with them. Yeah. Close to, like, oh my god. I met 500 people and you're like, how many are qualified leads? Right? Right. And I also think that because it's in us it's it comes, so that's what I really like. And I have to also put in a plug for there's a little smaller conference called, Digital Health, Innovation Summit, And it's it's an incredible melange of this completely orthogonal group of venture people, technology people, provider and payer. And even though a lot of people say, well, who is it Billy for? And it's like too too like, there's too many mashups. I find that conference, even though it's small and they tend to be only a day and a half, 2 days, the most energizing.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:37:44]:

Because I find something that I hear in venture, it's like, oh, I could put that into health care. I'm like, oh, I know this, and we could think about this as a digital health. And I find that really interesting. And probably that's may way my mind works. I think there may be somebody who's a lot more linear that would kind of just like, oh my god, it's still too wacko. But I find those conversations really interesting. And I find that the pattern recognition of innovation that that way can't see, you know, it it happens over and over, at least for me. And I find that really, edifying.

L. Jasmine Kim [00:38:16]:

Yeah. I love that. Well, this was

Sara Payne [00:38:18]:

a real pleasure today, Jasmine. I learned a lot from you. Thank you for being here. How can listeners get in touch with you?

L. Jasmine Kim [00:38:24]:

They could reach me out on LinkedIn. I'm very, very present. And on the LinkedIn, it's got all my contact info, and I'm always happy to support a fellow traveler. I think life is very short, so I like to I like I don't try to tarry and like join arms of people who are going along the journey. So, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure.

Sara Payne [00:38:46]:

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, folks, if you enjoyed the conversation today, do us a favor and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for being part of the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence because the future of health care depends on it. We'll see you next time.