Justin Steinman (00:02)
So corporate marketing kind of sits there and they're like the last voice to the market. They're saying, okay, our creative theme for the next year is AI powered practice, period. You can build your AI powered dermatology practice or your AI powered ophthalmology practice, but you can't be like free your practice. Sorry, it's not there. We're talking about the AI powered practice.
Benjamin Ard (00:47)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Justin. Justin, welcome to the show.
Justin Steinman (00:53)
Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Benjamin Ard (00:55)
Yeah, Justin, I'm excited. This is a very relevant topic to anyone in marketing today. I think it's going to be a ton of fun. But before we dive into the subject, let's let the audience get to know you. Tell us about your background, work history, and all that kind of fun stuff.
Justin Steinman (01:09)
Sure, so I'm currently the chief marketing officer at a company called ModMed. We are the leading provider of electronic medical records, electronic health records, billing, practice management, and revenue cycle software for specialty doctors. You can think dermatologists, orthopedists, pain medicine, ENT, urology, OB-GYN, and also other specialties. I've only been here about 90 days. Before that, I spent a couple years as chief marketing officer of Insora Health, which is a KKR back.
company that does electronic medical records for the mental health industry. And for that, spent about four years at Definitive Health Care, which pioneered the field of health care commercial intelligence. Took that public on NASDAQ. We grew that from about $119 million to $260 something when I left, which is quite a growth thing. Going back fast across all this, before that, I worked at Aetna for about four years running product management. Newsflash Insurance Company is really just one big health care IT shop.
because you can design all the plans you want, but if you can't process all the claims, it doesn't really work. So insurance companies are actually really big IT companies, which was my big learning there. Before that GE Healthcare IT was CFO for, again, that business that did both hospital and ambulatory EMR practice management, rest cycle. There's a theme coming through my resume here, obviously. Before that, actually, I spent six and a half years working at Novell.
right near Utah, in Provo, Utah, where I did a variety of sales and marketing jobs. So your net-net takeaway on me is I have been knocking around B2B marketing for a heck of a long time with a real focus over the past 20 years on healthcare IT, which is just a field I absolutely love.
Benjamin Ard (02:45)
I love it. That's amazing. It's a space that I got a little taste of for about seven years. So I really do appreciate it. There's so much that goes into it. It's a fun and wild ride. I love it. That's so cool. Okay. Justin, for the subject for today, we're going to talk about org design and process, really the thought process about how we can align organizations, how we can staff them, how we can find the right people, especially with artificial intelligence. There's this
pressure from the top down to really only put certain head count in and certain head count might be replaced. A lot of people are going through this and trying to figure out what to do. So when we're looking at it to kind of kick things off, you know, there's a lot of different areas inside of marketing. You've got product marketing, you got the man, Jen, you've got all these different groups that have friction sometimes.
What are those friction points? What are you seeing right now when it comes to that org design and those internal friction points?
Justin Steinman (03:42)
Yeah, so you gotta take almost a step back when you answer that question and think a little bit about your philosophy of organizational design, right? And let me preface this before saying like, you're gonna get Justin's philosophy of organizational design. There is no right or wrong answer. Everybody should do the right work design for them. That being said, I've done this for you also. I'll offer my advice. Your listeners can decide whether to flush it down the toilet or go, hey, that guy's got something interesting to say.
When I think about marketing or design, I start from taking a very client service focus to it, right? I like to say that marketing succeeds when all of our internal and external clients succeed. The external clients are very obvious, right? They're your customers, the people who pay you money. And yes, we have to communicate them. Marketing is the art of one-to-many communication. Sales is the art of one-to-one communication. So, well, let's take that off the table for a second.
When you talk about building a marketing organization, I like to say that a good marketing organization is like Dennis Rodman, right? And that wouldn't necessarily be the first thing you have to say, but for that, probably have listeners of a variety of ages. For those of you who are on the younger side, go back and do a Google search on Dennis Rodman. For those of your certain generation, like myself, you know that Dennis Rodman was the ultimate dirty work guy on the teams. And whether he played on the Pistons or the Bulls,
Benjamin Ard (04:52)
You
Justin Steinman (05:00)
You know, players like Michael Jordan, their numbers were so much better when Dennis Rodman was on the court. And why is that? Because Dennis Rodman did all the work that made everybody else into a superstar. And all he has to show for that is a heck of a lot of championship rings. And I bring that philosophy into marketing. We succeed when our product management team succeeds, when our sales team succeeds, when our HR and finance team succeeds, when our sales engineer team is used.
when our customer experience team succeeds. And so what I try to do when I build organizations is I think a lot about free markets and natural ways of doing it. And so we'll talk about, let's talk about my bed and how I've structured a team here because I literally been here 90 days and I just finished like a reorganization of the team. And we're, what's today, like January 8th, we're like four days in to like the restructure going live. We put it in place at the end of the year. We came back on
January 5th, said, all right, let's go to a new structure. And the way I did this is as follows. So first off, I said, we need to create a product and specialty marketing organization that aligns with both our products and our specialty general managers. And when I say specialty, you can think medical specialty, dermatology, ophthalmology, orthopedic, stuff like that. Our product marketing managers are lined up the same.
work streams that our head of product management has set up. So he's got a product manager for head of product manager for our EHR, a head for our practice management, a head for our AI tools. We've created one product marketing manager that's embedded in each one of those segments. in other words, that product manager knows he's got somebody in marketing who's aligned to their interests, thinking about it. Next, I've got the general managers who are thinking about their specialty business, right?
Yes, that's my product, but there's also going to be partner products. There's also services that we've got to put together. And they've got to figure out how do I bring, as a GM, how do I run the dermatology business? Well, if you're going to run a business, you want a marketing manager. So I then have lined up different marketing managers with the general managers, thinking about the specialties, the whole business perspective. Then I look at our demand generation team and our marketing ops.
So I've kind of got broadly, I've got three teams, right? I've got product marketing, I've got demand generation and marketing ops, and I've got corporate marketing and PR. And you know, I've got events and other stuff kind of floating all in. Those are the three big categories I think about. My demand gen team is lined up the way that our sales team goes to market. At ModMed, we go to market by customer size. Now, particularly revolutionary, a lot of companies do this, right?
So we've got our small accounts, like one to three providers, our medium sized accounts, and then our enterprise accounts. No great shit, no great shock. But I've got demand gen managers lined up with each of those segments sitting with their sales managers. And by the way, I've tied the bonuses of those demand gen managers to the sales managers' quota achievement. So if your sales team has a great year, you as a demand gen manager are going to have a great year and you're going to see a great, awesome bonus.
You don't wake up every morning and wonder what's my priority today. Well, what have I just set up for you here? I've got all these different people in the company with agendas of what they're trying to do, all correct. They all require marketing support. And I've created a free market economy where the head of demand generation for our small business comes and goes, my God, we need a campaign to target orthopedics in the small segment. Great. Let me go talk to the orthopedic specialty marketing manager. What do they have that they can sell?
What's our differentiation? Why should we win there? Right? Meanwhile, I might have the revenue cycle management, product marketing manager going, we've got to go our business and they've got to convince the demand gen people to do campaigns for their products. How are they going to do that? By building the best features that the customer wants and telling the right features that customers want. So suddenly I've got all this free market economy where all these messages and requests are coming in and we have to sort it.
And I oftentimes joke that sometimes a job of marketing is to hide how effed up your company is from the rest of the world. Right? That's true to both you somewhere, right? But it's true, right? Every company is messed up and the best companies have marketing to hide it, right? And that's where the role of corporate marketing comes in. Because what I could have is I could have all these different campaigns and it could be a cacophony of all these different messages to the market.
Benjamin Ard (09:01)
That should be on a poster somewhere. That's so true
Justin Steinman (09:20)
And you'd be like, who's ModMed? What do they stand for? It depends on which website I go to or which landing page I go to.
So corporate marketing kind of sits there and they're like the last voice to the market. They're saying, okay, our creative theme for the next year is AI powered practice, period. You can build your AI powered dermatology practice or your AI powered ophthalmology practice, but you can't be like free your practice. Sorry, it's not there. We're talking about the AI powered practice.
You can build your AI power practice with EMA, which is our EHR. You could build it with revenue cycle management. So there's how your product ties into it. But you can't be like, you know, our product is the best clinical expert. First off, legal definitely say that. But second of all, that's not on line with our messaging. So corporate really puts together everything, gives a consistent look and feel, and is that filter that everything goes through. Corporate also owns the employee brand.
So really works tightly with HR because you want all of your employees to be your best advocates and feel a sense of belonging and a sense of culture. And marketing can really help drive that sense of belonging and culture in partnership with AI. So as you see about that, this whole kind of we're aligned with our customers and then we support and the tension is natural. And at the end of the day, if people can't resolve the tension, that's why I'm here, right? Cause I always can resolve the tension. I always can make the gut call.
because I've got the pipeline to the CEO and I understand what his priorities are. And at the end of the day, when there's conflict inside the marketing work and there should be conflict inside the marketing work, healthy, productive, respectful, but conflict, when that's there, I can come in and play Solomon and go, look, I know what Joe wants and we're gonna go in this direction. And by the way, here's why, because here's what Joe told me about our corporate strategy, which you guys might not have known yet. And that's totally fine.
Benjamin Ard (11:05)
Yep.
Yeah.
Justin Steinman (11:06)
So that's
a little bit about how I design, how I structure and manage to the tension. There's a lot there I know.
Benjamin Ard (11:11)
That was a master course. mean, there's so many questions I have. That's so cool. I want to dive into so many things. We only have so much time, so I'm going to kind of pick one or two routes. So first of all, I love this. I love how you're mirroring the organization, mirroring your customers, the lines roll up, but then there's also that alignment piece on the corporate side to make sure it's a unified brand. So many things. mean, listeners are probably going to have this episode on repeat. This is going to be awesome.
Justin Steinman (11:16)
Yeah!
Benjamin Ard (11:38)
When it comes to content, obviously there's an emphasis on this podcast about content. How does that structure with that? I mean, all of that pure alignment across the org, how does that impact the quality, the quantity, the kinds of content? How does that impact the whole content engine? Especially with like that organization. It's so cool. I'm curious how that, that kind of plays a role in the content process.
Justin Steinman (11:42)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, so content is king. I firmly believe that you're talking to someone who grew up in product marketing, right? And my first job at it beats product marketing. I've done solution marketing. I've done all kinds of other. I loved her and I have an English degree undergrad by the liberal arts majors. I am walking proof you can have a career with an English degree. So read those books, study the drama and have fun in college. You can get employment with an English degree. You know, I start by asking.
Benjamin Ard (12:09)
Yeah.
Justin Steinman (12:29)
the product and specialty marketers to write positioning documents, right? And a positioning document is what I call the stake. And if you're gonna be a product or a product marketing manager, you're gonna have to be technical to a certain point, you just gotta be able to interact with those product managers and those engineers. You've gotta come up with your three business benefits. I don't want six, I don't want 20, I want three. I want three defensible differentiators.
By the way, different, differentiary can only be first, only your best. That's it. First, only best. If you can put your competitor's name in front of your differentiation statement, it still holds true. It is not differentiation. And it has to be defensible because you can't just say we're the best. Everybody says that we're the best. Great. Congratulations. Why? Because we can, the only people who can deliver, you know, better uptime by 60 % or whatever the different thing is. Gotta have some sort of clear differentiation.
Your job as the product marketing is to get that. You've got to give me my problem solved. You've got to give me my 10, 50, 100, 200 word definition. That's all steak. I then have the content writers. The content team actually sits in corporate marketing. Because that's my sizzle team. You might have the best quality steak, but if it's not seasoned, there's no sizzle. You're not going to eat it. So I got my steak and my sizzle and the content team is responsible for driving.
the voice and they're making sure that everything that comes out sounds the same, regardless of which product marketing manager gives them position document, regardless of which specialty gives them the document, they're now trained to take that content in and then write clear, fun. They're writing the web copy. They're writing the blogs. They're writing all this other stuff and it all sounds the same. So, you know, we have five words that are our tone of voice and everybody here sits in them. They are committed to memory.
Right? Bold, energized, human, visionary, accessible. That's the modbed voice. There's a lot of words, the way, that are not in there, obviously. Those are our five. Now, the other piece that is really relevant is where does AI fit into all of this? Because AI has really changed the demands of content. And you've to think about it in two ways, right? So first off, like 15 years ago, I was writing websites just for humans. 10 years ago,
I had to write websites for SEO and search engines and Google crawlers and Bing crawlers and stuff like that. And also people. Now I've got to write for people. I've got to write for Google and the crawlers. And I've got to write for the LLMs, who, by the way, consume information very differently than the Google and the people, right? You know what's interesting about an LLM? It will do anything in its power to you, avoid the words I don't know.
It will make that product in the nation, right? LLMs want to give you an answer more than anything else. And so if your competitor says compare ModMed to XYZ company, and I don't have anything on ModMed versus XYZ, but XYZ does, chat GPT will come back and say, hey, guess what? XYZ company beats ModMed in all 10 categories that matter. Because the only website that I found was that one from XYZ company, right?
Benjamin Ard (15:04)
Very true.
Justin Steinman (15:29)
And so I've got to think about that. And my team's got to think about that. right. How do we generate content? What matters? What are people going to asking the questions for? And how do I get ahead of that content? On the flip side, I now can use AI to generate a lot more content. Ironically, I'm going to be using AI to generate content. The AI engines are going to continue to respond back to people answering, asking the audience questions. And I've got to play that.
And LLMs consume information differently. They like dense information. The other thing that's really interesting is press releases are back in vogue. Really, really back in vogue now because LLMs like press releases. We write a lot of press releases. I don't put any of them on the newswire. I just put them on my website. I'm writing them for the LLMs. So we've enabled our content team with a content and generation tool. And they can use that to accelerate content.
Benjamin Ard (16:13)
Mm-hmm.
Justin Steinman (16:22)
And I haven't reduced the staff there, but I have increased the volume of content I'm expecting them to produce because I believe AI is a tool for accelerate. And the instruction that I gave my team was treat, you know, uh, your L L your content generation as an intern. Would you ever let work that an intern did for you get to my desk without you proofreading it? Of course you wouldn't. So take the same stuff that comes from our.
AI content tool and review it as if that was your personal intern. And that's really where it, because suddenly people feel more comfortable viewing AI as their intern and helping them generate content versus AI is here to take my job. I've really tried hard with our content team to get AI as an accelerant to make them more efficient. And it's worked out really well.
Benjamin Ard (17:11)
I love that. That's amazing. Well, Justin, we have learned about organizational design, how to align with the rest of the business, how to have unified messaging, how AI plays a role in that, how content plays a role. This has been absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, we're out of time. We try to give our listeners time back in their day, give them that daily dose of marketing goodness. But Justin, for anyone listening who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Justin Steinman (17:38)
Easy, I'm on LinkedIn, man. Super simple, right? LinkedIn.com slash in slash Justin Steinman. Reach out to me, hit me up there. As you probably can tell, I love to talk about marketing. I can talk about it all day long and twice on Sundays. So hit me up and let's geek out together.
Benjamin Ard (17:53)
I love it. And for anyone listening, scroll down to the show notes on whatever platform you're on. We will link to Justin's LinkedIn profile. Again, Justin, thank you so much for the time and insights today. Really appreciate it.
Justin Steinman (18:03)
I love it. Have a good one. Thanks for having me.
