105 Organizing your Marketing Team for Success

Marketing is a huge part of a successful business, but marketing teams look different for every organization. Whether you have a marketing team, one marketing person, or no one solely thinking about marketing on a daily basis, we cover your business needs with resources to be successful. In this episode, Griffin breaks down the role of each marketing title, what targets they should be hitting, and what additional resources they need if any. You’ll be able to refer to this episode as a resource to understand the purpose of each marketing role, and more importantly set outcomes that they are being evaluated against.

Listen in to today’s episode to get the rundown on how to make your marketing department run more efficiently and effectively. 

4 Phases of Fertility Patient Marketing Journey: https://www.fertilitybridge.com/inside-reproductive-health/2017/10/17/fertilitymarketingfundamentals2018?rq=marketing%20journey 

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Transcript

Griffin Jones: So now the next time that you say I've got a marketing team, I've got marketing people, you can use this resource to define what that actually means. And more importantly, you can use it to set outcomes that they're being evaluated against. To see where they're at and also to give them the scope and the skills of resources, the scope of skills and resources needed to achieve them. 

[00:00:24] Narrator: Welcome to Inside Reproductive Health. The shop talk of the fertility field here, you'll hear authentic and unscripted conversations about practice management, patient relations, and business development from the most forward-thinking experts in our field wall street and Silicon Valley both want your patients, but there is a plan.

[00:00:43] If you're willing to take action, visit www.FertilityBridge.com to learn about the first piece of building a fertility marketing system, the goal and competitive diagnostic. Now here's the founder of Fertility Bridge and the host of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin Jones.

[00:01:04] Griffin Jones: Should you fire your fertility marketing director? Whoa, let's find out first. Let's find out what they all do. That's what we're going to talk about on today's episode. So you've got yours truly, because we're going to go in depth on all the marketing roles before we get into the meat of the show.

[00:01:20] Today's shout out, goes to Alex Lagunov a lab director from Toronto and giving a shout out to anyone who worked at Hannam Fertility. At that time, Alex and friends took me out at a CFAs meeting when I didn't know anyone in the field. I think it was maybe my only my second or third meeting ever in the field.

[00:01:39] And that kindness is something I really remember fondly. So hopefully Alex hears this and I get a text or an email about it. Today's show, should I fire my fertility centers, marketing director. We're going to be talking a lot more than just about marketing director. We're going to talk about all of the positions and not just clinics too, because some of these positions are a lot more common in other parts of the fertility field.

[00:02:04] If your team isn't getting the results you want, it might be all of their fault, but it might not be, it might be all your fault. It might be nobody's fault. REI partners, IVF, execs want to step out of marketing responsibilities for good reason. It falls below the top chief executive seat, and you have a lot of number of seeds to occupy, but you can only fully walk away.

[00:02:28] When someone else is completely in charge of the outcomes, if you walk away, but the person that you're delegating to, isn't responsible for those outcomes or doesn't have the authority or resources to do it, then there's a mismatch and you still have that responsibility in your lap, even though you're paying somebody to do it.

[00:02:46] The outcome is what matters. When outcomes go unreached. Even when they are clearly defined, it might be because the staff is incompetent, but it's more likely that. Expectations are set without any real understanding of the experience, authority, skillset, and breadth that goes in to ensure that success.

[00:03:09] So I want to detail it for you across these positions today, before you go firing or hiring anybody, understand these roles, and then I'm going to give you the outcomes for each of them. It's physician liaison, starting on one end marketing coordinator, marketing manager, director of marketing, vice president of sales and marketing.

[00:03:29] And then chief marketing officer, sometimes people go by chief revenue officer, but far more important than the person's title is what they are actually responsible for. Sometimes there's big mismatches in our field. So just because you say, Oh, I've got this title doesn't mean that's the person they might be under titled underpaid or vice versa.

[00:03:55] You may have heard me say this saying before that marketers are North Korean officials and practice owners and executives,

[00:04:08] you may have heard me say this before.

[00:04:14] You may have heard me say this before marketers are North Korean officials, practice owners and execs are Kim Jong-un that can be replaced for any marketer and any business owner and client. But what I mean by that is it's a vicious cycle where one person is saying, I'll tell you whatever you want, just please don't kill me.

[00:04:33] The markers values often because of this ambiguity or the mismatch is so intensely questioned that they'll often say anything to keep you from terminating them. And that's a negative feedback loop because you're so skeptical of the value of marketing. If that's you, that those in your employ again, if that's, you frequently feel compelled to exaggerate the results or make promises that they can't keep, it happens all the time.

[00:05:01] And that's fortified because marketers. Very often feel threatened by one another and for good reason, because in their attempt to justify their livelihoods, they're notorious for throwing each other under the bus. If you hire a marketer, whether it's an agency or an in-house person, and you have them critique here your current marketer they're very often going to throw them under the bus, even sometimes a very authentic experts do that. And you ain't going to get that from me because I don't want to live in Pyongyang. The people that are so eager to put somebody else under the bus and put somebody else's head on the chopping block, don't realize that it's their head that they're rushing to put on the chopping block in replacement.

[00:05:45] They don't take the time to end the vicious cycle, frankly, because it's often not in their interest for doing so. It's the big hefty promises that they make that get them the opportunity. So calibrating expectations doesn't really serve them. They are often punished for doing the right thing. That's why we do it upfront.

[00:06:05] So we're going to talk about defining outcome and equipping for success. Many of you say that you have a marketing person or marketing people, and very often don't know what that means. Say it, in those terms, marketing person, marketing people that could mean any number of different things. That's why we're going to go through this range today.

[00:06:23] This ambiguity is the source of a lot of frustration, because they're are essentially paying someone to increase your top line. I know that's usually what you have in mind. If that's what you're hiring someone for, but that doesn't mean that they're in a position to do if your marketing people don't have hard figures to put in the outcomes, I'm going to give you XYZ fields.

[00:06:46] If you don't have actual numbers to put in those, then you don't have outcomes for them. They need to be the first section of the job description and they need to be the exact metrics for which you're interviewing on and which you're evaluating their performance on. Sometimes marketers don't want practice owners or the execs of fertility companies to do our goal diagnostic.

[00:07:12] Why would they feel threatened by such a small engagement that has no duplication that has no commitment it's just a small evaluation from our firm. The only one that sub specializes in the field.  When that happens, it's often because they're afraid that we're going to come in and tell their bosses everything that they're doing wrong.

[00:07:35] And that's usually not actually the case. If your marketers are totally inept, we promise to tell you that, but more often than not, we're going to show you where they're under resourced and where they're being held accountable for things that they don't control. Frankly, because you are their only source of income.

[00:07:55] If they piss you off, they lose their job. We have many clients and we don't need any particular new ones. So we're in a much better position to challenge you than they are more likely at play is a lack of defined outcomes, a mismatch in position and/or a lack of resources and authority could be any one of the three or a combination of the three pay attention to the responsibilities and outcomes.

[00:08:23] Because again, misalignment is so rampant, we're going to start our overview today with the most junior end of the spectrum, which sometimes even the smallest practices don't even have. And then we're going to work our way up to the largest level. Which only the biggest companies in the field have. Let's start with physician liaison.

[00:08:48] This post often falls at the junior end of the spectrum because a lot of them are just walking billboards. They don't really impact referrals. They drop off donuts and bagels and pamphlets, and they don't really. Impact your business, the best ones, however, are worth their weight in platinum. They're not junior.

[00:09:09] They know the exact things that they need to do. They know the exact things that they need to differentiate your clinic and to actually be the liaison of the relationship. Let's take that word literally. It's your relationship as a provider, as a physician, that they are the custodian of and. The people that are really good at it, disrupt referral patterns from competing practices that maybe sometimes people have been referring to a long time because they give them a reason to change those referral patterns.

[00:09:44] They build new ones, they grow them and then they're handsomely appreciated and compensated because they are so darn good. Their mission statement. I'm gonna give you a mission statement for each of them, increase referrals from OBGYN, PCPs, and other specialists by building and growing and nurturing relationships.

[00:10:05] It is not reasonable to expect from them increases from other referral sources, responsibility for revenue or profit, a creative expertise that digital expertise. These people are just the physician liaisons. Now here's the outcomes grow MD referrals from Y to Z. You have to have a Y you have to have a Z grow referral.

[00:10:28] So from X target accounts, that's both a number and very specific 10 to 20 target accounts that you said, we want more referrals from these people. And so that X needs to be. Identified and the Y to Z need to be enumerated.  They also grow referrals from employers and insurance and benefits providers groups because that's such a big part of our field now. So you want to have Y to Z for that growing part for the companies that use progeny and carrot and others.

[00:11:07] Create X referring provider materials. That's a little bit more of an input than an output, but I, I put it on there established reporting system to account for all referrals by office, physician, and month. The way that your people report to you, that your PLS report to you is critical. The resources they need to be successful in their job.

[00:11:27] Is accurate reporting, accurate. Multi-source not single source, new patient referral sourcing, multimedia referring provider materials, not just pamphlets. They need to have a number of different resources that they can engage people with physician participation, your that's, your participation. They need training on your clinic.

[00:11:47] A CRM or reporting system. And then if they do have a CRM and they need CRM training, we're still on the junior end of the spectrum. And now PL can sometimes be like a thing of its own because it's physician liaison, you have more junior PL's, you have more senior PL's. Now we're really going into marketer, not just physician liaison, starting at the junior end of the spectrum is marketing coordinator.

[00:12:12] This is a very catch all term and probably for a good reason, because even when it goes by one of the other titles, this range of responsibilities is very common for fertility clinics to have in-house it, isn't realistic to expect someone at this level to be responsible for revenue sales. Procedure volumes or even leads.

[00:12:33] That's a problem because very often, if you're thinking I've got a marketing person and you have someone at this level, you are thinking I'm hiring a marketer because I want them to increase the top line. That's not really what this person does. Their marketing coordinator as with most junior positions.

[00:12:52] Outcomes are seldom assigned to junior positions because they're so task oriented, but even the most junior marketers ones that don't have any control over revenue or profit, they should at least have defined outcomes that way, if they're hitting them and if they are hitting them and they're hitting them well, they may be worthy of higher outcomes and a higher position, higher pay, et cetera.

[00:13:16] When you're making their outcomes, resist the temptation to put their inputs as those outcomes, the number of pamphlets designed social media posts, articles, events, those are all inputs. And I may have made one. Exception, but I'm going to give you those outcomes. The mission first is to execute some aspects of the marketing strategy and coordinate the rest with the other parties involved.

[00:13:43] That's what a marketing coordinator is. They coordinate, it's not reasonable to expect responsibility for new patient volumes ownership. The sales & MD referrals, not for them to do, to make the strategy or to have technical and creative expertise in all of the verticals, the outcomes that they should be responsible for.

[00:14:02] Our plan and build X informational events, increase attendance at informational events from Y to Z. That's a good outcome because it's not, micro-managing all the tasks that they need to do. It's Hey, we are doing these egg freezing events. These IVF events increase it, where it would be in 10 people per event increasing in the 20.

[00:14:21] We're doing 30. Increase them to 40 increase attendance at informational events from Y to Z. Increase patient testimonials from Y to Z increase social media engagement from Y to Z. If you have Y to Z for each of those individual outcomes, and even with a really junior position like that, you don't have to micromanage every task that they're doing.

[00:14:42] You delegate that outcome, and if they achieve the outcome then there's opportunity for advancement. And if they don't, you're probably looking somewhere else. The resources that they need to be successful in. This are. Participation from providers and leadership in events and content. If you have them coordinating content, you're the star of the show.

[00:15:06] And so if the provider, the partners aren't involved, the content that they create is not going to have a big. It's not going to have a big result. They need a marketing strategy. They need someone else to give them the plan and say, do this. They need a brand guide. They need technical assistance on some different things.

[00:15:27] Whether it's web development, paid media cinematography, because one person can't do all of those things. They need an events budget, and then they need training on social media. The marketing coordinator is mostly responsible for columns in the first phase of the fertility patient marketing journey.

[00:15:45] And if you want to go back and check what that is, that article, that page is on fertility bridge.com and we'll link to that as well as the episode where we talk about the four phases of the fertility patient marketing journey in the show notes. Marketing manager comes after marketing coordinator and before marketing director.

[00:16:06] So I'm not going to outline the mission or the outcomes here because it's very often just a hedge Sometimes at pharma companies that actually is legitimate position because they do have that marketing hierarchy very often, it's just someone that is under titled as a marketing director over titled as a marketing coordinator.

[00:16:26] So I'm going to talk about. Director of marketing in more detail, because that's enough different from marketing coordinator and marketing manager, the director of marketing or your marketing director. And I don't think there's any difference between those two director of or marketing director. Maybe one gets paid a little bit more.

[00:16:44] Maybe if they look on Glassdoor, one version of spelling gets paid more. So that's why they asked to be titled that way. But it's the same thing. The person oversees the execution of the marketing strategy. So they are the ones that make sure that it gets carried out at this level. They can be responsible for new patient numbers and they should be or if they're on the business side sales qualified leads, they.

[00:17:12] Can contribute to the strategy very often, very meaningfully, but they shouldn't be expected to have all of the experience or skillsets needed to craft the strategy. And the same is true with brand. These people are excellent brand guardians. When you have a good person. But to have the creative design experience to build a brand, shouldn't be expected of this role.

[00:17:36] They should be responsible for bringing people in the door, but if you want them to actually be responsible for revenue, that's not this role. So we're still at the point where you're hiring someone in your thinking I want them to increase the top line. This person can't be expected to do it by themselves.

[00:17:55] Or again, this role you might have someone that's. In this title and more qualified to do that. But again, I'm talking about the role, not the person. So if you're a marketing director and you said, Hey, I do those things. I'm not that junior. It's, this is a mid level position. And I'm talking about the role, not about you.

[00:18:16] You might be better off in a more senior position, but if you are going to have that more senior responsibility over revenue, you need a greater level of authority. And cross-functionality for that. The mission of the marketing director is to increase new patient volumes or sales opportunities by directing the established marketing strategy.

[00:18:39] It's not reasonable to expect them to be responsible for revenue,  complete strategy, technical and creative expertise in every vertical. Their outcomes are to increase new patient inquiries from Y to Z increase qualified sales leads from Y to  Z. Increase new patients from Y to Z, increase X consults from Y to Z? 

[00:19:02] I would be a bad fertility doctor because I only want to take on the cases that I know are going to be successful. I only want people to say these sorts of things about me and my company, like Greg in Chicago, our resources are not endless. And I think that with fertility bridge there's a much deeper dive.

[00:19:23] Well, Dr. Young in Iowa, I've gotten more positive feedback from patients from anything in the last 30 years of practice where Brad in Seattle, you have multiple experts on your team and for, a very small price to get that level of, uh, consulting for just a couple of hours would be really valuable.

[00:19:48] Okay, you get the idea. So this is how we set you up. So you are 100% guaranteed to be successful in your goal over time. It's not a magic wand. Until you do this, do not pass. Go do not collect $200 and definitely do not get in any long-term commitments or launch initiatives. You sign up for the goal and competitive diagnostic at fertilitybridge.com.

[00:20:09] You fill out your business needs profile. We establish your benchmarks and desired outcomes. Then we meet for our 90 minute consult. We provide you with business Intel revenue estimates, and a competitive overview of the field to facilitate the prioritization of your goals between your partners and leadership team.

[00:20:27] Then we have a 30 minute follow up. We tell you exactly what you need to audit and strategize to build your plan. I'll also give you one big marketing idea that will make you say, damn, that's good. If we fail to do any of these things, we give you your money back because it's only five 97. And because I need you to be successful because I need you to say all those really sweet things about me and my company.

[00:20:50] Maybe you've been to a gym like this one from Holly and Dr. Hutchison from Arizona. I have, we didn't have Fertility Bridge. Honestly. I think we would be getting close to retiring. There is no long-term commitment whatsoever and there's a hundred percent money back guarantee. Send your manager to Fertility Bridge.com.

[00:21:09] Have them sign up for the golden competitive diagnostic. And I will see you and your partners on zoom. 

[00:21:16] The resources that a marketing director needs to be successful is positioning from the partners and executive leadership. They can't make the positioning, the marketing and business development strategy.

[00:21:28] Again, they can really contribute to it, but they will need help building up a brand guide. Budget proportional to new patient or sales goal. I have to have a realistic budget, an external agency to do the technical and creative areas. A CRM. If you're a sales organization, most clinics don't really need one access to scheduling system.

[00:21:50] And oversight of call center. That's where you start to get into the cross-functionality. But if you really want them to impact new patients, they have to have a say in how the call center does their jobs. They have to have a say in scheduling.

[00:22:05]We are now on the senior end of the spectrum. This person is sometimes called the president of marketing. Sometimes the vice-president sometimes senior vice president, but often it's vice president or senior vice president of sales and marketing because this title is not very common on the clinic side.

[00:22:25] It's not too common to see a VP of marketing. It's a lot more common to see it on the industry side. And have it be a vice-president of sales and marketing, where they're responsible for both. And this is when someone can be responsible for revenue, cross authority. Is very important here. They need to have control over all four phases of the fertility patient marketing journey, not just the first phase, which you often equate with marketing.

[00:22:55] This type of person can be responsible for outcomes of revenue,  But they do need that authority to contribute to customer service, clinical followup, front desk, call center, delivery training. They need those to be set up for success, their mission to increase the total revenue of the company by increasing the number of clients or patients and to craft and lead the strategy for sales and marketing.

[00:23:24] Don't expect them to set prices. Don't expect them to be responsible for. Profit or at least net profit and don't expect them to have technical and creative expertise in every vertical. Their outcomes are increasing new patients from Y to Z increasing total revenue from Y to Z increasing X revenue streams from Y to Z increase X sales from Y to Z increase X procedures from Y to Z and create, marketing strategy. You have to fill out X.

[00:23:50] You have to fill out why you have to fill out Z. If you don't, you haven't given this person actual outcomes for which they're accountable. And that should be in the job description and it should be what they're evaluated on every quarter however often you evaluate their performance. The resources that a vice president of marketing needs to be successful is a target for revenue, a bonus structure for revenue advice.

[00:24:16] They need advice. They need consulting. They need professionals on components of the strategy because one person can't be responsible for all of it. They need that cross functional authority. They need an external agency for those technical and creative areas like digital dev. Video, et cetera. And then they need either an agency or subordinates in-house to execute the strategy.

[00:24:39] They need a marketing coordinator below them, a marketing director below them, or they need to have, or they need to have an agency to do it.

[00:24:56]Now we're at the senior, most end of the spectrum of marketers in the fertility field. This is chief marketing officer. Sometimes they go by chief revenue officer. I don't know if I've ever seen the CRO position at a fertility company. It's not the superior of a CMO If it's the superior of a CMO, then it doesn't make sense because by virtue having the word.

[00:25:19] C in the title, a chief position, doesn't have more than two bosses at most one, the CEO to maybe the COO. If they have more bosses in that they're not actually a chief and this is a annoying miss titling that happens. Broadly in the fertility field broadly in business broadly in society. It's annoying.

[00:25:43] You're not a Chief if you have more than two bosses. So it's often to maybe elevate somebody that's in a VP or a sales position. But if it really is a chief, it does make sense for some of these companies to have this person. And so it really is a executive position. So I'm defending the position when it's warranted.

[00:26:07] If fertility companies are going to have somebody at the C-suite of this level of chief marketing or chief revenue officer, they have to have executive cross-functional authority. I don't just mean like an impact in scheduling. They need to be able to make decisions about those other parts of the business, because.

[00:26:28] As you move further down the fertility patient marketing journey. And that's just one journey. For example, sales is on the right end and that overlaps with ops a lot more than the earlier phases of marketing do. So where do you really make your money is in the conversion and that overlaps with ops. So your chief marketing officer has to have executive cross-functional authority.

[00:26:56] Because they're responsible for financial planning and profitability. They are peers with the CFO, their mission drive revenue and drive profit, build out positioning, set by the CEO and principles they can contribute to positioning. But remember only the principal of a company can actually set the positioning.

[00:27:14] You can't even delegate for this. I can't delegate for it as the owner of my company, nor can you, if you are the chief executive or the founding partners. Of your group, they commission the sales, marketing, and business development strategies. They are the ones that set all three of those do not expect of them to have technical and creative expertise in every vertical.

[00:27:37] They should be able to call on resources to have strategic counsel, whether it's consultants or anything, any other. Type of advisory that allows them to get that expertise, but you can't expect them to have expertise in every vertical. They've got the breadth. They don't have the depth in all of it.

[00:27:55] exp them to manage the strategy themselves. Don't expect them to execute the strategy themselves.

[00:28:01]The outcomes, the CMO or the CRO are responsible for are increasing revenue from Y to Z, increasing gross profit from Y to Z. They should have a profit goal increase profit on X services from Y to Z. Add X revenue stream. So CMO can actually add revenue streams. They create the BizDev budget. They create the.

[00:28:21] Marketing strategy, the sales strategy, they set those and they can actually set prices as well. The resources required to make them successful. A revenue, target revenue bonus. They need the financial statements. They need to be able to look at the P and L they need to have a profit target. They need to share in profit sharing is key for this position.

[00:28:45] I have cross-functional authority. They have an external agency that helps them with those tactics, like paid media development, cinematography. They have advisory on components of the strategy. They have a marketing director, they've got training for their marketing team, for their sales team. They have a CRM, especially if they are on the industry side, but even if they're on the clinic side, if you're big enough to have a chief marketing officer, you are big enough to have a CRM and should, and they have the authority to set prices.

[00:29:23]As we start to wrap up, I want you to be able to adjust these expectations because even the highest people still need some help. Now you'll notice a paradox, maybe that the more capable someone is of returning the investment, the greater the investment. And you have to be careful because the flip side of that isn't necessarily true.

[00:29:43] A large investment does not guarantee a return. When these expectations, when these outcomes aren't clearly defined in numbers, that person shouldn't be expected to achieve them either because of that or because of a mismatch in position or a lack of authority. And resources to give you an idea of how rare the people at the top end are.

[00:30:05] I looked for our account manager for 10 months. I source the heck out of LinkedIn. I cold emailed you. Probably. I talked to so many people that I knew asking for recommendations. I talked at some level like peripherally or not to 60 people or so, and. I was blown away by how few people knew about the business outcomes that they were going for.

[00:30:29] Not just the marketing activities, but the business outcomes that they're supposed to be driving for very few knew anything about revenue, profitability, or conversion. And that's not necessarily their fault because some of them were definitely incompetent. We'd never be paying them to have them on my payroll, but some of them were very talented and hardworking and could definitely.

[00:30:50] Rise to the occasion, but they didn't have those outcomes and the authority to actually pursue them. So the three or four that I did find that were really exceptional one I hired, but the others were, I couldn't sway them away because they were so well taken care of. So well-regarded because they are so valuable and they are so rare.

[00:31:12] And even when you do find that person, we have to talk about what, understand what it takes for them to do this. And even when you do find the right person you have to understand the scope of what's needed to successfully do their job, especially as things get more competitive as especially as you want them to have higher outcomes or more specific outcomes that the scope of sales, marketing business development is simply too vast for any one person to be expected to be able to do it all. I'll just give you a little example of a digital campaign, cause that's just one sliver of sales and marketing. A digital campaign is one little sliver for that one little sliver you need at least four people.

[00:31:53] You need somebody that can write to convert. You need somebody that can design. You need someone that is a master at analytics, so that they're optimizing it. And you need somebody that can shoot and edit great video. And I'm pushing it by putting that editor and shooter in one person's I'm taking, I'm pushing it.

[00:32:09] I'm trying to get five into four very often. You're trying to get all of it into one person. There are plenty of Jackson Jill's of all trades out there, but very few people are excellent at all of them. And before you tell me, you have a unicorn might want to think of that. Unicorn actually works for 80 grand a year.

[00:32:27] For a non-marketing company. And remember that's only one piece it's not realistic to expect one person. To have the breadth and the depth of all four phases of the patient journey and all of the different patient and customer journeys to put it in perspective for you. We've got 15 specialists on our bench for photo cinematography, conversion, copywriting development, graphic design, editing, animation, social media, marketing automation, SEO paid media, client operations, customer service, and.

[00:33:01] That's our bench. So for some companies, it makes sense to have one or two of those positions in house because their utilization rate is so high and you're using them for so much. Maybe you're using them from other things, but it almost never makes sense to have all of them in house. The cost is simply prohibitive and people often judge their marketers.

[00:33:25] Against us, for example why don't you do what fertility bridge does or why can't you do what Griffin and those guys do? And it's because we have a whole firm for this, you can't expect one person or an in-house team to possess both the breadth and the depth simultaneously just to manage. Those people that I told you about.

[00:33:45] I've got a full-time creative manager, a full-time project manager, full-time director of client success. Full-time ops manager, full-time digital strategist. These are all full-time W2's, but do nothing but their role, their sub-specialized role of marketing in our sub-specialty. And expecting one person or even a team of people on your team to have all of the depth and breadth just isn't realistic.

[00:34:12] It's not fair or reasonable to, to have that expectation of them. And even those that do have in-house agencies, even they need some strategic advice and some help from time to time. So now the next time that you say I've got a marketing team, I've got marketing people, you can use this resource to define what that actually means. And more importantly, you can use it to set outcomes that they're being evaluated against. To see where they're at and also to give them the scope and the skills of resources, the scope of skills and resources needed to achieve them.

[00:34:50] It's okay that your marketing people need help. If they're good, they can still return their value handsomely, even with the additional investment of training or strategy or help that you might be providing for them. You can hire internally for any of these roles or you can outsource any of them. It works both ways.

[00:35:11]Most fertility companies mix and match depending on their size and their goals for growth. You just have to make sure that the resources aligned with the correct outcomes, the correct position. If you have a full marketing team, they need training leadership strategy. If you have a chief marketer.

[00:35:28] They need strategic advice on very specific points of the marketing system. And they need people to implement them. If you have one person at the director level or lower, they need strategy and execution over those parts that they don't have technical or creative expertise.

[00:35:45]Maybe your team isn't capable of achieving the outcomes. Maybe they do need to be dismissed, but don't go firing your marketing personnel until you properly define those outcomes. Give them those necessary resources because if outcomes aren't explicit. Each party has left to fill in the blanks for themselves.

[00:36:02] That leads you to expecting more revenue, more IVF cycles or sales. And someone else thinks that their required outcome is just the task list that they have to do. And that's the source of a lot of frustration and should be borne out. And if you want our help with figuring that out.  You can get Fertility Bridge's help in selecting your marketing personnel, like where, when you're hiring for them, when you're designing their responsibilities and their outcomes, or giving them the support that they need to achieve that. And that starts with the goal and competitive diagnostic.

[00:36:35] There is no long-term commitment for that whatsoever. Four dozen fertility centers and a dozen other companies in the fertility field have done it. And you get that at fertilitybridge.com.

[00:36:48] I hope you enjoyed this episode. And that it gives you a deeper understanding of what's involved in marketing, what you can expect from your people and the breadth of responsibilities that are increasingly needed because we no longer live in a day and age where people spend half a percent of gross revenue on marketing.

[00:37:05] Now you've got. Wall street and private equity and venture capital and alternatives to coming into the clinic and tech companies that are going for leads. And in order to compete with that and actually achieve the business outcomes you want, but there is a spectrum of responsibilities and hopefully you can now identify that, make those outcomes for your people.

[00:37:28] Get them the resources that they need and hold them accountable so that, when they're working well or not. And if you need our help, just let us know. So I hope you enjoyed the episode.

[00:37:39] You've been listening to the inside reproductive health podcast with Griffin Jones. If you're ready to take action, to make sure that your practice thrives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society, visit Fertility Bridge.com to begin the first piece of the fertility marketing system, the goal and competitive.

[00:37:58] diagnostic Thank you for listening to Inside Reproductive Health.

104 Attracting Gay Male Fertility Patients

Connecting with your target demographic is vital to running a successful business. However, in your target audience there are many subsets that each have their unique needs. One of those subsets is the LGBTQ community. The best way to get to know your customer is to talk with them, and to help you better understand the best way to serve this audience I sat down with Ron Poole-Dayan.

Ron is a marketing and business strategy expert. He is the executive director and founder of Men Having Babies. Along with Greg, his husband of 25 years, they are among the first same-sex couples in the nation to father children through gestational surrogacy. Their twins, born in 2001, were conceived with the use of eggs donated by Greg's sister, and carried by a gestational carrier.

Tune into this episode to hear us talk about: 

• How to market to the LGBTQ community

• Men Having Babies Conferences 

• How to make the LGBTQ community feel welcome 

• Why gay couples may consider fertility clinics vs surrogacy agencies

Resources:
GPAP (Gay Parenting Assistance Program): https://menhavingbabies.org/assistance/criteria/

More from Ron Poole-Dayan: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-poole-dayan-9bb76/

Twitter: @MenHavingBabies

Facebook: https://fb.com/MenHavingBabies

Website URL: https://MenHavingBabies.org

To learn more about our Goal and Competitive Diagnostic, visit us at FertilityBridge.com.

Transcript

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:00:00] 

You're not just putting a rainbow flag on you or side, but also. For a lot of us it's it is a, as I said, the act itself, the experience itself is something that they want to be positive, you know, for, I don't think that a lot of infertility patients think of this to be something that they want to put in a picture album later and go over. But we do

Narrator: [00:00:23] Welcome to inside reproductive health. The shop talk of the fertility field here, you'll hear authentic and unscripted conversations about practice management, patient relations, and business development from the most forward-thinking experts in our field wall street and Silicon Valley both want your patients, but there is a plan.

If you're willing to take action, visit fertility bridge.com to learn about the first piece of building a fertility marketing system, the goal and competitive diagnostic. Now here's the founder of fertility bridge and the host of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin Jones .

Griffin Jones: [00:01:02] In today's episode  I talked to Ron Poole-Dayan, he's the founder of Men Having Babies.

You may have heard of that organization. They have events all over the world for prospective same-sex fathers. Many clinics, many agencies, many or groups want to compete for same-sex males in particular, as well as LGBTQ plus patients at large. So we talk about some strategies for that. Ron is a marketing and business strategy professional.

He founded men having babies. Out of a need that after he and his husband, Greg were among the first same-sex couples in the nation to father kids through surrogacy they're twins are more than 20 years old today are almost they conceive them with donated eggs from a relative, and they were carried by gestational carrier.

And Ron saw a need in the marketplace. That's a need that many people are competing for. Nowadays. So we talk about that as well as not just marketing strategies, but the buy-in required at the level of the principle to actually court this patient demographic and not just post a rainbow flag on one's website.

So I hope you enjoy today's episode with Ron Poole-Dayan.  Mr. Poole, Diane, Ron welcomed Inside Reproductive Health. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:02:26] Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. 

Griffin Jones: [00:02:28] So one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on is because the LGBTQ+ patient demographic is really more than just one patient demographic.

It's really an amalgam of different patient demographics. It's also a segment that many want to pursue, but some may not be equipped to. You run an organization called men having babies. And I want to, in, in hearing about what that organization does, what others looking to serve, the LGBTQ plus community can serve particularly gay men can do.

But in getting there, why don't we start with why the organization, even before the, what. Let's start with the why of what need was it that you saw that led you to forming? Men having babies in the first place. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:03:20] And I thank you for this question because really Men Having Babies wasn't didn't evolve or wasn't created out of some sort of brainstorming, what can I do or what can we do?

But rather, to fill a void, it was literally. Me noticing as when my husband and I more than 20 years ago were thinking of creating a family through surrogacy. And our twins from surrogacy are now 20 years old. But when we started our journey, there were very few resources out there.

And that the LGBT center in New York in particular, they were. Support groups to people wanted to pursue adoption co-parenting and even biological parenthood. But the biological parenthood support group was for lesbians who wanted to have a family through IUI. And there was just very few people who were Interested or surrogacy was not really that of course, widely practiced.

So a few years later after I stayed home with the kids for several years, I decided to volunteer at the center and create a group for people who were interested in surrogacy. And here is really the issue. The issue is that. This is about surrogacy more than it's about gay men. So far that it's a self-selection within the LGBT community lesbians are even less likely than the general population to need surrogacy.

Because even if they're suffering from infertility at the same rate as the general population, they have. Tools to start with and gay men can never just do IUI without, at the very least traditional surrogacy. So, so it was a very clear distinction. If you're interested in surrogacy, you're, you know, you're gay.

If you're just an IUI or lesbians, we're interested IUI, so that was the void that we stepped into. In the first place. And then after running this group of which to which people thought there's not going to be any demand, but you know, it grew and grew or started 2005. There wasn't going to be any demand.

Yeah, I would. When I came to the Terry bogus at the time they had of center kids, now it's called center families at the LGBT center in New York. She says, sure, we can. Split the biological parenting group into two, one for a surrogacy, one for IUI, but I don't think you're gonna have enough people.

And of course it was very successful from day one and grew gradually. And then in 2000 leading to 2012, when we incorporated as a not-for-profit we were thinking that we wanted to tackle the issue of the, not just the high costs and of course they were not quite as high as they are even today.

But also the fact that there was no financial assistance. Available for people like us. And that's the second void we moved into. And at that point we needed to incorporate for that purpose as a separate organization. And that is that I literally found a dozen financial assistance our organizations or initiatives out there for people who might among other things need surrogacy, but they were all organized for the purpose of people that were defined as infertile and the medical definition.

Fertility always excluded us. So we didn't create an organization to exclude everybody else. We just created an organization that would fill the void since we were excluded from the other sources for information and for financial assistance. So that's the void we moved into. 

Griffin Jones: [00:06:39] So you moved into this void partly for partly because of the community that was very different from the other half, just going into IUI, for example.

And secondly, for the financial part of it, because other organizations exist to help with financial. Assistance for those that are medically infertile that didn't include gay men. And so you formed this organization and then how did it start to become the event-centric, community centric tribe, almost that it is today.

I don't know if you use that word, but just looking from afar. Kind of how I perceive it. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:07:20] It's definitely a community. And but it, of course didn't start as such. And it's interesting because I always tell people that while our visible part, to many people, of course, he's the silo of the organization that is organizing events.

Although that's, you know, a funny thing happens, you know, the last year, as far as events are concerned. But of course in a normal year until, COVID but people of course know us for is the very large events. And if you're listening to this and you're not familiar , in  normal year we would have towards, you know, until COVID started in the last few years.

Yeah. We'd have about eight conferences a year round and these conferences have been often also described lovingly as a bootcamp because they're not a scientific conference and not a professional conference. There it's a weekend where people literally don't. Ever get to look even at their phones and they're just immersed and taken step-by-step through the process that would allow them to determine whether surrogacies for them are events.

Our organization is not advocating for surrogacy. It's advocating for ethical surrogacy, but it's not saying you should do surrogacy. It's not saying you should become a parent, but if you thinking of becoming a parent and you're It requires surrogacy and our events are not just exclusively for gay men.

Then this is a good opportunity to find out whether the service is for you and whether, and how to pursue it, whether you can afford it and how, and everything you need to know from a, you know, the medical issues to budgeting, you know, and other financial aspects of it. And ethicals psychosocial issues.

Insurance, you name it.  e have sessions for prospective, single parents people HIV issue B plus, et cetera, but those bootcamps, so to speak happen in different parts of the world. We have four. Really large events for usually about 300  plus intended parents in New York, San Francisco, Brussels, and type pay for the, for the Asian region.

And we have also events sometimes the ultimate in Chicago. Televiv Florida. Texas sometimes Canada we've had their various events. So that's, that takes of course a lot of the energy and a lot of the you know, That's a major part. Of course, if our budget, et cetera. However, the other silo GPAP, they gave parenting assistance program is almost the reason for everything else.

Of course, at least, you know, very synergetic, but it also takes a lot of our resources. We have three people working on it and between applications and case management at any point in time, we have several dozen Mostly couples, but also singles who were getting full assistance from us, which means that they're getting not just some cash, but also pro bono services facilitated by now more than a hundred providers, including many of the leading clinics and agencies in the field.

And we basically. Super case managed their journeys. They still have case managers. They deceased and take them all the way until they become parents. Even if they need additional contingency funds as we call them, et cetera. So, so it's a lot of work and to some extent it's as big of a area of activity we have.

And we also do advocacy.

Griffin Jones: [00:10:38] I want to talk about, I want to learn more about that advocacy, but I also want to learn about the strategic partners. You mentioned the providers and agencies that you work with. At what point did that start and what did those strategic partnerships form into? 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:10:54] It has been  an evolution and the nice thing that it's been an evolution, but it's also been a partnership.

So I always. You know, start with a disclaimer, especially at our events to explain to the prospective parents that we're not partnering with agencies and clinics in the sense that we are here to help them do business. We create the platform that allows them to reach out to the community and we created a platform that allows them to even give back to the community, 

Griffin Jones: [00:11:23] Isn't that helping them do business?

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:11:25] So, as I said, we created a platform. That allows them to reach out to the community and that of course allows them to do business with the community. And we also created a platform that allows them to give back to the community which is the GPAP and the membership benefit I'll mention in a minute, but so the evolution of that idea started with the fact that even before we were an organization in order to provide the full spectrum of guidance and information that people needed at the LGBT center still we had of course, people from the professional community who came to speak.

And then we say, you know, why don't we let them have a little table for their clinic or agency, et cetera. And then much later they, after the LBG LGBT center say, why don't we have them pay, you know, for these tables. And when we created the organization, we when we incorporated the business model was supposedly.

A little bit, Robin Hoodish. She said, Oh, we can charge a lot more than $350 for those tables that the LGBT center was charging. Let's charge them more and we'll give this money tto people can't afford it.So it was just, the first idea was just literally, let's just. We didn't even think of salaries or overhead or anything.

I was, of course I've volunteered as the only employee of the organization in the beginning years. We said, okay, let's just charge money and give that to people. But then as much as we would have charged, even if we charge as much as we do today, because of course now it's been established it's much larger and we can charge higher sponsorship fees.

It wouldn't have gone that far. And it was. Somebody from the industry told me, how about you also get pro bono services? And that was, you know, you know, when the light bulb went on and I said, yeah, we need the assistance we need has to be something we do. In partnership with the professor community.

And the first step we did was to create a questionnaire after some research where we sent to all the providers, we already knew and asked them, what do they think the income threshold should be? What do they think that we should give assistance also to people that have kids or just people that don't have kids yet?

Do they think that they should be other countries and what, so we. Got their input about a lot of the building blocks that went into creating our gay parenting assistance program. And God helped me. We got a lot of their comments when he was time to write the contracts. So it was about a year and a half when those, because half of them are lawyers as you know.

And so thankfully, so it started as in that regard, it started as a partnership and because a lot of them told me and I totally believed them. They said, We want to help, you know, we do see those people can't afford it and we feel bad about it. It's just, it wasn't up to any one of them to create an assistance program.

A lot of them said, I'm going to start the program to help people can't afford it. They couldn't do it on their own. So it was our service, so to speak to the professional community, but saying we'll create the platform, we'll create the infrastructure that allows you to do what you are stating as something that you feel, you know, dearly about as well.

Griffin Jones: [00:14:32] They couldn't do it because of the resources and bandwidth required. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:14:36] Yeah. It's just a simple, you know, organizational issue you want. You don't need, you know, 200 assistance programs, you know, we have, you know, you need one. And if somebody had to step up and create it and we did that, as I said, a lot of them see it as a service we provided because they really more than we wanted them to provide support and channel it through us.

They were looking for a way to. To bring that to bear. So, so that's really how th part of the evolution of that a member of that partnership was, and I'm saying another important part and of course, I mean, so we have several concentric circles here. If you may, we have more than a hundred providers.

Now we just passed the threshold a month or so ago that are giving through the gay parenting assistance program and a program that came later. Now we called the membership benefit program, which is a discount program just that is wider. It's for anybody that's a member, a supporting member of  MHB.

But then we have, of course, a providers who come just to our conferences, I would say two thirds of the providers who come to conferences are also part of GPAP a nd the membership benefit program, but not all of them. All of them have to abide by the baseline protocols that are part of our ethical framework.

Something that we also developed first and foremost with input from surrogates, but also from inputs input from the professional community. So that's another layer of partnership here. And I would say not important layer of partnership or formalizing that in a more structured way was I think about five or six years ago when we created our advisory board.

And we now have an advisory board that have several physicians on it. Some agency owners, and also people from related fields. And that is an amazing when created, we weren't even sure how successful it's going to be, but now those are approximately monthly meetings and a lot of input we've received from.

Where to do our next conference to, you know, definitely ethical issues as well as various other initiatives that we needed that kind of additional perspective for. 

Griffin Jones: [00:16:48] Okay. So here's the skinny, just as your fertility group has advantages over other groups, your competitors also possess advantages over your IVF center that you don't have access to yet. Now you can say their consolidation model won't work or their lab sucks, or their doctor's crazy, or that low cost model cuts quality, or who would ever get their fertility testing done from a food truck, but many of them are onto something.

If you're not maximizing your own natural strain and adapting to what the new patient demographic is demanding, then they start to do more cycles where you are, get better rates from an insurance and vendors. Take your patients and even your staff. We work to maximize those competitive advantages because fertility bridge is the only creative and business development firm that exclusively subs specializes in the fertility field.

We have an entire team of people who help fertility centers attract and retain the right patients and nothing else for a living so we can help only your competitors. And then they have an even bigger advantage or we can help you too. Our initial consulting engagement is the golden competitive diagnostic.

It's only $597, and we equip your partners and leadership with the foundation to leverage your competitive strengths, not mimicking someone else and not let your competitors have an unfair advantage. There's no longterm commitment whatsoever, and there's a 100% money back guarantee. Send your manager to www.Fertilitybridge.com.

Have them sign up for the goal and competitive diagnostic. And I will see you and your partners on zoom.

So With regard to those different levels of partnership and involvement, all the way from being a sponsor at an event at a booth to being on the advisory board, I want to talk a little bit about the role of clinics and how you interface with them and what the best among them do to serve not just the LGBT plus community, but specifically gay men.

There's a lot of executives that listened to the show on the industry side there's pharmacy o wners. There's there's definitely agency owners, but most of the people that listen to the show are practice owners or REI's. And so. You'd probably have a range of involvement from those clinics. You mentioned some people sitting on the advisory board, but what do the best do to get involved in the community?

Because it's one thing to sponsor something at an event. And then there's another thing to like actually be a participant. And I wonder if you can talk about that range. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:19:26] If you may, I want to take a little you know, a side trip here to explain, I think what some practice owners and people in the especially in the medical field that are dealing with surrogacy and gay men.

Might not always realize or articulate for many it's what I'm going to say would be would sound trivial, but it's really important to answer your question. And that is a significant, you know, you know, very principle difference between Our community and the infertility medical infertility community, both of which a lot of the medical professionals serve at once.

And that is that we of course get to this very differently. The in fertile, medically infertile committee individuals, you can't even call them a community. They get to it as. Isolated individuals who've been escalating up, you know, the medical treatment you know, a ladder to the point that they also need somebody to help them carry the baby.

And it's already after a lot of treatments, typically, sometimes of course you have women that just know they don't have a womb. They have they'll need to have a surrogate, but one way that they've comes out of a, you know, of a. Medical condition and a sense of, you know, you need the healing, you need, you know, assistance medical assistance.

They don't think. That the first thing they need to go to do is to go to a very large hotel with a few hundred other people and start chatting about it and go to the, you know, welcome reception and do this and do that a happy hour. That's not what comes to mind and that's not also the right way to bring, because we always say our conferences are open also for intersexual in front of people and they don't come to conferences.

Maybe we will have, I don't know. 5-10% of that. And these are going to be it's better by the way, with virtual events, but you know, it's just not the same thing we feel when by the time. Gay men come to our events or become parent become members at our organization or reach, you know, access our online resources.

It's an act of empowerment. It's an act of, I'm going to take my faith in my own hands and I see a solution. I see, you know, a light at the end of this. It's not even a tunnel. It's a life affirming life changing event. And It is a very different mindset for doctors to have an initial consultation with patients that are like that.

It's a bit very different you know, Introduction and a completely different set of needs. So there are some practices who are very focused on this for whom this would obviously sound trivial by the time those practices are focusing and opening up and knowing how to address the needs of this community.

They also need to be opening up to much larger. Basin of patients. It's not going to be just your geographical area, where people are going to be sent by their OB GYN or smaller fertility clinics. It's going to be people from all over. It's going to be people who are gonna come from overseas. It's going to be people who don't always, you know English is not their first language.

Always. It's going to be people who are going to need to think about it in much more careful ways financially. So the financial consultation. There are people that are not eligible for insurance, even in the 13 or whatever States where there is IVF mandate. 

Griffin Jones: [00:22:48] It seems that there's like 20 doctors or so that are getting 80% of the gay male cases. Is that really the case? 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:22:56] If you're talking about practices, not individual doctors, I would say probably closer to 30 or 40 that are getting the 80%, but probably all of them, they're probably even, you know, 20 that are even more active. Our view might be biased just because, you know, people who come to our, you know, events to part of our program tend to come back.

So it means it's working for them. So we tend to see the same ones again and again, then must be probably out there. Some that I would say those are probably Well, I was going to say price much higher, but the price differences in the clinic side, and not as big as the price differences, the spectrum of costs is much broader on the agency side than it is on the clinic side.

Griffin Jones: [00:23:35] That's interesting. That's an interesting point. I want to explore for that a little bit, but with the distribution, the uneven distribution of gay male patients going to see certain clinics, and you mentioned it's a very different journey from those dealing with infertility is a medical diagnosis.

 For that reason, many gay male couples do go the agency route first many clinics would love to disrupt that they would love for them to come to the clinic first. And so they have a bit more control of the funnel of those patients coming through. It seems to be very. Uneven. And so what are those clinics?

You know, if it is 30 or if it is 40 that are getting that 80, 90% of the game outpatients in the nation, what are they doing differently? 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:24:24] First of all, I would say that from the population that comes through our organization, I don't think it is that universal. In fact, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even bet that it's half of them that are first going to the agency.

It used to be that way. The people that are going to the agency first are. Typically the people that are not fully informed that did not get the full training and advice that they get from our resources and our conferences. And in turn, they depend on the agencies to educate them. So, because that would be, you know, perhaps the assumption of a lot of people, but by the way, not European so much, but a lot of Americans probably would say, I need to look for surrogacy agency.

And if they didn't come to an educational event, they would think that's where they should get their information. And that's the first step people come to our events. I know by now that fresh cycles, fresh transfers are. By far not the norm anymore. In fact, that many times they're not even recommended in the case of surrogacy and that they would know that it many times makes a lot of sense to create embryos and bank them while they're shopping around even saving more money.

And can afford also the surrogate and the surrogacy agency. So I would say a lot of people nowadays understand that this there's a decoupling there.  They don't have to first go to the agency, make sure that the surrogates ready and only then start the medical procedure that is, you know, at least 10 years old assumption.

But But yeah, I mean, people if you know, some doctors out there practices out there at wondering, you know, what needs to happen for them to be you know, catering more to this population, as I said, they need to be a lot more. I mean, I hate to use the word, but there's a lot more marketing involved here.

And a lot of doctors don't like marketing. They don't like the concept of marketing. And the marketing here is doesn't have to be like, you know, mechanical commercial type of marketing, but you need to have. People in your practice who are, you know, responsible to reach out to the community and know how to do it.

It's not enough even to just have a booth at a conference, you need to be able to know how to have a good list of your alumni. And. Maybe have a group of your alumni be your spokespeople, or, you know, spread the word that you're coming to Brussels next month. And, you know, Dr. X is going to be the doctor to help me.

He's going to be in town and maybe doing a little alumni event and post on social media about it, things that I think. A lot of the practices are more infertility focused, I'm not even equipped or geared, or they're not, you know, I'm not wavelength, you know what I'm saying? 

Griffin Jones: [00:27:13] The doctor have to do all of that marketing or can they put a rainbow flag on their website and have a physician liaison makeup pamphlet and distributed. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:27:23] The doctor needs to be passionate about it. And that's another thing you can't fake it. You, first of all, a lot of doctors just like it more. I don't know why, but I mean, this is To some extent, as I mentioned you, you're not dealing with infertility loss with, you know, miscarriages and it's you just, you know, you have happy people coming to you.

You provide them, you know, most of the times it's, as you know, it works on the first try. Everybody's happy. So some people just like it better even A lot of doctors describe it as, you know, fertility treatments to do very infertile because you're working with a very fertile egg donor with a, you know, very fertile, a very suitable surrogate.

So it's to some extent, I'm sure that medically it's perhaps more gratifying, but you have to be passionate about third party reproduction. And you have to be passionate about the LGBT community. And people will know that you don't have to be gay. You don't have to be part of the community, but you have to have an understanding too, because I meant I might've colored it too, you know, brightly, you know, it's not as if we don't come from hardships, it's not as if we don't come with further hardships waiting down the road for us. But but you have to be you have to understand this. And as I mentioned, You have to be doing some things that you wouldn't otherwise do because some things that would look tasteless for the infertility crowd would be necessary here.

As I mentioned, events, you know, parties or something or, you know, newsletters, things that might not always work or are necessary when you work with the infertility segment. 

Griffin Jones: [00:28:59] Why is that necessary for courting gay men as patients. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:29:04] First of all, it's not necessary. Of course there's always going to be somebody and we still have some people that say, you know, I live in Iowa. I need to find an Iowa clinic and. That's not true. There are some proximity considerations that we go over them when we do our training, but a lot of it is the geographical considerations are very different here, but the reason to go back to your question, the reason it needs to be done differently is that.

Our community is very sensitive to cues to know whether they will feel comfortable in your clinic. And so the first thing they're looking for is they don't want to be the only gay clients you have. They don't want to be the only gay clients you ever had. They, you know, so that's a very, so, which is why by the way, being part of our gay Parenthood assistance program is a very.

Real way for them to see that you're committed. You're not just putting a rainbow flag on you or side, but also. For a lot of us it's it is a, as I said, the act itself, the experience itself is something that they want to be positive, you know, for, I don't think that a lot of infertility patients think of this to be something that they want to put in a picture album later and go over.

But we do for us you know the first picture of I'm getting goosebumps. The first picture in our kids' album photo album is there as embryos. You know, and it's something we celebrate, it's something, you know, you know, we like chatting with people with the front desk, people at the clinic and it's all done is something that is more communal, more social, more open. We post on social media, you know, some people post on social media too much, you know, but they post every step of the way. It is, I think, I don't think that's the experience of the typical infertility patients. 

Griffin Jones: [00:30:57] I think that's at least in part that's right in terms of the involvement that docs need to have.

Some sort of authentic connection. I sometimes get prospects. I can think of a couple in particular prospects, not clients that reached out and their clinics and they want to increase their same-sex. Patients, and they don't have any desire or inclination to actually invest in the resource. And so essentially in providing the resources to actually make that initiative happen.

And it's essentially saying, I just want more money. I just want more. Of that patient base. I'm not going to do anything to give them a reason to come to me. And it sounds like what you're seeing from those that have been really successful because there's definitely, if not a predo distribution than not an even distribution, that they are doing a really good job of making that authentic connection.

Exactly. How would they do that through an organization like yours? Because I think there are some people that we interact with either clients of ours or. People we've done consulting with and they want to increase same-sex patients. And one of the pieces of advice that we give them strategy is getting involved with organizations like yours.

So how, if they came to you and said, listen, Ron, I'm, I've never really made an effort for this patient demographic before, but I'd like to, how would you get them started? 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:32:35] So, in fact, I don't think there's a better way if I may say so myself to do this than to get involved with Men Having Babies, I would say first come to one of our events, you know, attend one and unless of course it's very urgent, then they want to start yesterday.

But I would say come and attend one and you'll get a good education. I mean, people who I mean, some of our conferences arguably The providers, the exhibitors themselves can sit in the plenary session because. We're limited in space, but if you come, you can come, always is what we call it professional attendees so you can buy a ticket.

It's more expensive, but you can buy a ticket to it's a lot less expensive than sponsorship and just attend one of those. It'd be a great education for you. But  more, you know, practically of course being at our events provide you a lot of exposure, but I would say before you come to our events, have a section on your website for I mean, not just with the rainbow flag, but for LGBT people and more importantly about surrogacy. Of course, if you're not, if you're not doing a lot of third party to begin with, and then of course you're not even a good match regardless of what you do. So you need to know what surrogacy is and you need to have a section on your website of surrogacy with mention of same-sex couples or just about same sex couples separately. Of course people will take a look at that, you know, the very first time they go, if you don't mention surrogacy, why would they even come to you? And if you do, you should specifically make them feel welcome beware that most people use the same. Stock images of gay couples with a kid trying to be, you know, of course us, we never used stock images at all, but you know, really if you have alumni and they willing to use their photos, that's the best thing to do.

Maybe have an event like a pride event or pride party at your clinic and invite some people with their babies. Take some photos. You'd be surprised how much people would love them and would tag them themselves in it. The privacy issue is very different when it comes to gay couples. Of course they might not want their kids social security number posted on social media, but they're going to be very happy to be part of your, to, to really, you know, show how thankful they are by doing that.

So, And then if you have that you don't have to have special pricing. You don't have to have you, you know, I don't know. You might have, you  know, something different in the clinic. I mean, it used to be that you needed to have something else in the sperm donation room, but you know, everybody has a cell phone that is a smartphone now, so that's no longer a problem.

So you don't need to do anything. In the clinic, but you do need to think about the financial intake you know, consultation it is different. You don't want to, you know, throw at them some financial, you know, pamphlets that are not suitable on the one hand. On the other hand, you don't want to, you know, because one of the things I remember.

You know, almost as a trauma is that, you know, the financial person at the Brigham and women hospital where we had our children created, was basically telling me how much you know, disadvantage compared to the people who have insurance pay paying for their IVF. You know, that's not the kind of discussion you want to have with them.

Griffin Jones: [00:35:43] 

Maybe a little training for the, that might be something? 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:35:46] I mean, luckily nowadays, You probably not as likely to have a bigoted people on your staff, but you need to have buy-in from the staff and you don't want anybody to give anybody a cold shoulder, but I would say really just two things giving to the, you know, reaching out to the community's own.

Institutions on the one hand, on the other hand, reaching out to your alumni and those are the two major, you know, ways to get to the to this community. You must have, of course, if you're thinking about you, must've had at least one or two couples, maybe more that you already help reach out to them, you know?

Maybe one of them say I'm going to come with you to the booth, you know, that's usually helpful. 

Griffin Jones: [00:36:35] And featuring them in testimonials  is really important too, to make sure that, you know, when everyone needs to have video testimonials and some can be done, some can be done fairly cheaply. If you want good ones and have more of a story, then you spend more and invest more in video.

But if this patient demographic is important to you, you have to have, you have to include them in the testimonials that you're doing. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:37:01] And you might want to get an Instagram account, or you might, you know, and not all clinics even have that, you know? And and you'd be surprised how many people would check you out through social media and wanna to see who, who likes you and stuff like that.

So some of you who take time, I'm not saying it's a. The other thing I would also advise against is. Well, first of all, I would suggest have a conversation with us. We always have compensation and even training with providers who are participating for the first time. We literally give them a lot of tips, you know, from.

Don't stand behind the table all the time, come in front of the table, engage with people and things like that. A lot of tips, even about virtual events. But and as I mentioned before, try to reach out to the alumni community group, et cetera. But I would say the other word of caution, I would say yes, commas in that 10 D if you want to just learn more, but don't come at a sub optimal participation level.

That's not just not effective. It might be counter productive. What am I saying? We have various levels of, you know, representation at a conference and the clinic can not be a bronze sponsor. They just can't. Those are the lawyers. Those are the escrow services. And you don't get a breakout session.

You don't get counseling. You're not part of the consultation system alot of other  things. We do our. Bootcamps are, you know, weekend long immersion surrogacy events have evolved with a lot of feedback from attendees. From providers. We have a whole system in place that allows people. We have different experience for the research people who are always, you know, five, six, Sometimes 10% of the attendees.

Then we have the people who are one to two years from a journey. We have the people that are six months from the journey. We have the people that are actively in the journey. So we have different experience for them all. And we have, so, you know, the people that are ready, they actually have consultations that signed contracts at the conference, the people who are, you know, just doing research, they're not going to do that, but they're going to benefit from other aspects of it.

If you're coming and you're not. Listening to what would be a good level of engagement here to you? You might be sending the wrong signal, not let alone, not getting the full value of your participation and always consider if you're not willing to give at least discounts to people with financial needs, you might be also sending the wrong message.

Griffin Jones: [00:39:32] So how does this all tie into advocacy and how can providers agencies join in the advocacy that you all are a part of? And to what extent should they? 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:39:46] We very much involve and receive a lot of engagement from the professional community in our advocacy efforts. First and foremost started with what we call the framework for ethical surrogacy practices.

Frankly it started at the days when a lot of people would still going to India, then the piled and Thailand and Mexico and other destinations. And we just needed to codify. What our, what we call now, baseline protocols that were our thresholds conditions for including programs at our conferences.

And And what we did is we partnered, as I mentioned, with a group of surrogates who are until today, not necessarily the same individuals, we have a surrogate advisory committee. And we had got a lot of input, as I mentioned, also from the professional community and. Something, I should've mentioned before.

We're not a local organization anywhere, everywhere we go. We have partnerships with local LGBT family associations. So we have dozens of LGBT family associations that are partnering with us and especially play a role in each one of the locations where we arrive for an annual conference and also liaise with us with regards to the financial assistance program and other things throughout the years throughout, throughout the year.

So, We had input from LGBT associations, from the professional community, from the surrogates. And we created a framework that includes principles, which guide us through legislation initiatives. We have what we call the basic protocols. I mentioned before that those are the. Minimum conditions for providers to be part of our program and they need to sign off on them.

And then we have best practices that go beyond that. So that was the initial round of advocacy. It led us, of course, also to be very involved in the legislation efforts, mostly the one in New York, where we were very closely associated with the effort and. You know, the entire part in our section on compensation of the New York bill has been written without input and reflects a lot of our values and our principles.

More recently, we focusing we created something, we call the advocacy and research forum because we realized that to some extent where the traveling circus. So, first of all, we are also terrific place for the, you know, for the professional community to just socialize. I mean, wherever we go, we have about 150 to sometimes 200 of, you know, people from the clinics, from the agencies, from the law firms, from the complementary services that are coming there.

Some of them come as that. And these, most of them are exhibitors. So we said, we have this amazing group of people there with us that don't have a single other, you know, a forum where they. Join us, such ASRM is not quite this and sees is not quite this ABA, Arthur, none of those are where all the people interested in surrogacy come together.

And then we also have partnership with research researchers and research institutions. So we said there's a lot of things happening with regards to advocacy and research. So first let's have this. Forum where we have in all of our, or at least most of our events such that we can share what's happening in the other locations, such that everybody can hear about the latest research, et cetera.

So that's one aspect of it. But then in every location, that was a little different aspect of of advocacy. They wanted to discuss, you know, San Francisco, they wanted to discuss advocacy, you know, surrogacy in the lens of social justice in Taiwan. It was mostly still from the LGBT acceptance prison.

New York one session was a force just making the case how you can do. Ethical surrogacy legally without really taking advantage of everybody, et cetera. And. Most recently, our focus is on trying to coordinate advocacy in several parallel tracks with the aim of eventually making surrogacy a lot more affordable, because the reality is that surrogacy is still out of reach financially to most people.

So almost as we. Finished the round of legal advances. Now that surrogacy is illegal almost in all the States in the United States. And first and foremost the glaring mission of New York was rectified. Now we have to realize that's not enough, it's still not accessible financially, and we need to do something about it.

So, it's starting with how alongside, with resolve, we're advocating for a redefinition of infertility to include not just disease and conditions, but also a status. And this is actually now being advanced in California is a bill that could open up IVF if they, you know, even Institute that IVF benefits, not just for heterosexual and infertile people, but also for gay people.

But also look at insurance issues. Look at benefits at the workplace. Look at. Possible initiative in now with the more favorable administration, perhaps changing taxation right now heterosexual and gay people cannot write off any surrogacy related expenses. So all these things together alongside with interest free loans, which is an initiative we have, and we can partner with clinics by the way, who want to provide interest free loans.

We can explain to them how we can do that through us. All these things together in a concentrated effort to chip away from the various cost aspects of it. And to go beyond our financial assistance program that still only reaches several hundred couples and singles a year and not more.  

Griffin Jones: [00:45:26] Ron, you've talked a lot about advocacy, about what clinics can do to better court gay male couples, about what they can better do to serve them.

How would you like to conclude and our audience isn't just practice owners. It is also agency owners and other folks from the field, whether it's in advocacy or service, how would you want or getting involved with men, having babies? How would you want to conclude. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:45:50] So first of all, come to our website and sign up to be on our professional mailing list.

We have advocacy events that are, should be probably very interesting to a lot of people listening. One of them is about surrogates, stigma and stereotypes. That's coming up, May 14th as part of our MHB West virtual conference but also in New York where we are resuming our in-person conferences in September.

We're going to have conferences in New York, then Chicago, Brussels, and Tel Aviv. One each month September, October, November, and December the advocacy forum there. And maybe that could be some conclusion to our conversation is going to be about the intensifying commercial. Atmosphere in these field and how we feel that's not that, you know, welcome.

And there are bidding Wars on surrogates. There are mergers and acquisitions and a lot of equity marketplaces bounties referral fees, a lot of things that are happening that I think. A lot of us are being drawn into and maybe we can stop and say, do we really need all of those things? And what can we do to.

Stay connected to what is common to all of us in the nonprofit sector. And I know in this particular field, that what makes it so unique is that the professionals in this field are also feeling that they have a mission. They're very mission driven. How can we all get together and make sure that we're still mission-focused and not, you know, be drawn to thinking about it exclusively as a business.

Griffin Jones: [00:47:29] Ron Poole-Dayan, thank you so much for coming on Inside Reproductive Health. 

Ron Poole-Dayan: [00:47:33] Thank you so much for having me. 

Narrator: [00:47:36] You've been listening to the inside reproductive health podcast with Griffin Jones. If you're ready to take action, to make sure that your practice thrives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society, visit fertility bridge.com to begin the first piece of the fertility marketing system, the goal and competitive diagnostic.

Thank you for Listening to Inside Reproductive Health.