Can heart and strategy coexist in business?🌟Lori Werner, co-founder of Medical Marketing Whiz, shares her journey from medical sales to leading a thriving, heart-led business. Discover how she builds trust with niche marketing, values her services, and keeps her remote team connected.
Lori combines humor and professionalism, sharing how niche marketing builds trust and the challenges of leading a remote team. She proves why valuing your services is key to long-term success.
This isn’t just another business podcast. It’s a deep dive into what happens when passion meets strategy, and integrity guides every decision.
🎧 Don’t miss this inspiring episode—hit play now and transform the way you approach your business!
Key Takeaways from this Episode
- The essence of a heart-led business
- Navigating the balance between profit and integrity
- The power of niche marketing in the medical field
- Building authority and trust through educational content
- The importance of setting boundaries and defining the scope of work
- Strategies for remote team engagement and satisfaction
About the Guest
Lori Werner, co-founder of Medical Marketing Whiz, is a dynamic marketing executive known for her results-driven strategies that fuel growth. With 15 years in medical sales and digital marketing, she has helped practices increase revenue through social media, websites, and patient seminars. Lori holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, and an MBA in Marketing, and is a certified health coach with a passion for fitness.
Additional Resources
- Website: www.medicalmarketingwhiz.com
- Email: support@medicalmarketingwhiz.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/medicalmarketingwhiz
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/medicalmarketingwhiz
- YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCgt3IlRE_59IZowTiP_0_aw
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/medicalmarketingwhiz
- Tiktok: www.tiktok.com/@medicalmarketingwhiz?
- Podcast: Top Docs Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/top-docs-podcast/id1651860020 Lady Doc Marketing Show: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6AsXypyTETguDemrQSzBnO
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Explore the Dialogue’s Treasures: Unearth the insights within! Delve into the profound wisdom woven throughout our conversation.
Speaker: 0:01
Welcome to the Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let’s go. Let your heart guide your business journey.
Tom: 0:35
Strap in, folks, for a phenomenal ride of heart filled heft and marketing mastery as we welcome Lori Werner, the medical marketing maven who is a whiz at wrangling web wanders. She sprints through sales, gallivants with growth, and brings zing to every venture. So sit back, brace yourselves, and let’s unravel the rollercoaster ride of Lori’s heart-led business tales on The Heart-Led Business Show. So Lori, welcome to the show!
Lori: 1:01
Wow, that was a very fun introduction, Tom. Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.
Tom: 1:08
I’m super glad that you are here and we are on the show together finally after months and scheduling and all that good stuff. So the first thing that I always like to ask is what’s your definition of a heart-led business?
Lori: 1:21
Yeah, so I was really excited that this was the topic because this is definitely something I feel is very near and dear to my heart is a business that is based on, you know, doing things the right way, doing things with integrity. And I feel like that’s kind of lost a little bit in the business world these days. And it is something that I think we need to bring back. So like for me personally, a heart-led business is just that like making something that’s a win not only for the company, but for the client. And then in our case, since we do marketing for doctors, ultimately it’s the patient. We want it to be a win for everybody. And so sometimes that means not taking everybody as a client. You know, sometimes that means saying no when you need to say no. And I think the biggest thing is just having integrity in everything that you do, you know, owning your mistakes, not making excuses. Those are also things that I think are really important because we are all going to make mistakes. We’re all learning as we go. Every client is unique and different and you know, when those mistakes do happen, or people aren’t a hundred percent satisfied with things, owning that, working through that, letting your customers know that you’re listening and that you really care about their business. And then just also like just making people not feel like a number, you know, even if you have, you know, thousands of clients, you want to make each person feel like you care about their business and truly care about their business. Not just saying that, but actually meaning it. And so taking the time to kind of get to know clients, I think is also just part of like leading with heart.
Tom: 2:53
Yeah. I love that definition definitely of making it sure it’s a win for everybody involved. And I think you know, the initial thought I’m sure most people have is like, a win loss would be win for the owner of the business and a loss for the, whoever’s buying. But a lot of times in, especially for, you know, health, and wellness practitioners, the loss is actually on them because they’re giving away their services. And at the end of the day, if you keep having those losses, you’re not going to be in business anymore and you’re not going to be able to help anybody. Yeah. So I love, that’s why I love that definition of like the win. It’s so very important. And we have three people involved, then through win along with, you know, the, In your case, the end customer as well. So tell us a little bit about your business and what inspired you to start a heart-led business?
Lori: 3:38
Sure. So we’re a medical marketing agency and we’re pretty niche in who we work with. So my background is actually in women’s health. So prior to Medical Marketing Whiz, about eight years ago, I had spent almost 15 years in medical device sales in the women’s health space. So that’s kind of where we started was focusing on gynecologists and doctors that were primarily treating women for various health conditions. We also work with a lot of folks in the functional medicine space. So people that are doing hormone optimization. Again, kind of treating that middle aged woman. And then in some cases her husband or her partner as well. And then also in the aesthetic space. So that’s the lane that we try to stay in. And I think that’s important because as a medical marketing agency, we can’t be knowledgeable in every kind of medical specialty and every kind of health condition. So being niched down allows us to really dive into the exact type of doctors that we are seeking. Cause our whole company, we’re a woman led company. We have a team of, I do have some guys on the team that, put up with all of us women, but we’re a woman, you know, women led company focused on women’s health and ultimately trying to reach more women and help them know about. The best doctors that are out there, doctors that are going to listen, doctors that are going to take time to understand what’s going on with them. And then also offering them advanced solutions, like things that may not necessarily be available in your traditional, just insurance based practice. So yeah, we do everything from websites, email, social SEO. We also do a lot of patient education marketing. So things like webinars, events, and also podcasting. So we have our own podcast that’s patient focused, and then we also have a marketing podcast that’s doctor to doctor focused.
Tom: 5:17
The podcast that you have that’s patient focused, is that a primarily a marketing tool for the doctors then? That you support.
Lori: 5:24
Yeah, so it’s an authority building tactic. So it’s not necessarily marketing in that they’re going to get a lot of patients from the listenership of the podcast. We do webinars with the doctors, so they’re already recording a educational webinar. We strip the audio of that. That goes on our Top Docs podcast. And now their website says, you know, Dr. Jackobs as seen on Apple, Spotify. Listen to my episode on the Top Docs podcast. So it’s authority building and then we use that also to like educate their own social media, educate their email list, and we can use it locally. But a lot of it is really just authority building and another way to kind of reach that like busy woman that’s just popping her earbuds in and taking her dog on a walk or folding laundry or whatever it is that she’s doing because most women were all multitasking. So it’s just another way to kind of reach people that maybe wouldn’t join a webinar, for example.
Tom: 6:17
Oh, nice. That’s really smart and what a great marketing tactic for the docs that work with you. So you mentioned that you were in medical device sales and then transitioned to having your own marketing company. Talk to me about just that transition from. I would imagine, and this is just maybe my own bias, that medical marketing sales is kind of profit driven, maybe a little bit, and, you know, shifting over to an, you know, a heart-led business. Like, what was that transition like for you?
Lori: 6:45
So, medical device sales, I worked for a company called Hologic. So I was in the operating room. So it was a very, it wasn’t like, traditional medical sales where you’re selling a piece of equipment, then they’re never going to see you again. It was very much relationship focused. We were in the operating room, and helping them make sure our equipment was functioning properly and really being there to support the physician. So from the get go I’ve always been very much a relationship person and my even sales. I think I was probably very different than the normal sales person is that I. Really got to know my customers. So how I even got into medical marketing was when I was a sales rep, we had a sales quota that we had to hit. And I had been with the company for a really long time. I had like 95 percent market share. So I had to sit here and think about how am I going to hit this sales quota that they keep raising every single quarter. And so I started partnering with my doctors and I started doing their social media for them because I needed more patients to ask about heavy periods and endometrial ablations instead of hysterectomies. So I just was doing their marketing for free. And one of my gynecologists, we had a day, we had nine cases back to back in a surgery center. And he’s like, why do you work for this company? Like you should just do marketing for gynecologists. You know, We need help. And you know, we’re not going to necessarily hire the in house marketing team, but we need help. And so I thought, you know what, the heck worst case scenario, this marketing thing is a complete failure. I can always go back to being a rep. So I took everything that I knew from that side of, you know, the other side of the coin and then just started helping more doctors reach more patients. And so I don’t really know that I had to transition from like, cause I was, I’ve always been heartland. Like I feel like it was more just taking the, having the courage to cut the corporate purse strings and decide to go off on my own and start a business. And I mean, I will say though, like I had to learn a lot because when you work for a company, everything’s paid for, right. And you know, you want to go on a trip. The company pays for you to go on the trip. You know, you need to buy pencils. The company pays for your pencils. And well, when you own a business, now everything’s coming out of your pocket. And I think that’s the biggest thing that’s been hard for me is to realize that like, yes, I want to do the right thing. I want to give people tons of value. You know, I want to hire the absolute best people that I possibly can to deliver the marketing services. But I still have to make a profit. And I do always, you know, when people have a tight budget, you know, it’s like, oh man, I still want to work for them. I still really want to. And how do I balance that? And I’ll be honest, I haven’t been great about that. It’s something that’s taken me now, eight years to really, you know, figure out and also just like charging what you’re worth to, you know, at my old me was like, oh, it’ll only take five minutes to do that. You know, I don’t hardly need to charge them anything. Well, I’ve learned over time that, you know, it’s not that it’s only going to take you five minutes to do it. It’s. All the years of experience and the knowledge that you have is the reason that it takes you only five minutes to do it. And you need to charge based on the value of what it is that you’re actually doing, not just doing it because it’s only going to take you a minute to do. So I think that’s just been something again, I’m teaching myself that every day because it’s very easy to just go into that like, yes, mode. Yes, I’ll do this. But at the end of the day, like. You know, you do have to make sure that you’re profitable and you are charging what you’re worth.
Tom: 10:03
Yeah. You know, some of the best decisions or the best business decisions are the ones that where you decide not to work with somebody.
Lori: 10:10
Yeah.
Tom: 10:11
Yeah, I had a very similar situation as well. Somebody’s budget was not quite what our fees were. And I was like, okay, great. Well, drop the fees a little bit for a couple of months just to help them out and was completely ghosted after, you know, a month of working. And I think part of that is you have a fee structure for a reason to help that person the best that you can. And if they don’t have the budget to fill, then it’s probably not going to be a good fit because it’s needs to be a mutually beneficial relationship.
Lori: 10:39
Well, and I think to that point too, again, I’ve learned all of this the hard way. At the beginning, you know, somebody wanted us to do something extra and like just defining a scope of work is so important to that as well, because most of the time when we would do something extra as a favor, It comes back to bite you. Those tend to be the people that a lot of times aren’t the most appreciative of the extra thing that you do, or they always think you’re going to do something extra. So then they start taking advantage, like, oh, well, we’ll ask and it’ll just be included in the program. And so I think just making sure that we. Can very respectfully and professionally have a defined scope of work that just kind of takes the head and heart out of it. And it’s just in black and white. Like this is a scope of work for the defined price and anything outside of that. We’re more than happy to do it. We’d love to do it for you, but there is a price associated with that. So I think just being upfront about that stuff is important.
Tom: 11:36
Yeah, absolutely. What other kind of challenges have you seen, either for yourself or for some of the practitioners that you’ve worked with, where there is really struggling with the balance between making a profit and being heart-led or helping people?
Lori: 11:49
Oh man. So struggles that we’ve seen. I mean, I think I kind of have given you some examples more of just. I think with doctors specifically. You know, they’ll come in, they’ll stay late, they’ll come in on a day that they’re not actually open they’ll be working on their vacation time. So I think a lot of it is just that boundary between. Work time and personal time is something that’s very easy especially any of our providers that work from home or do telehealth. I think that’s a big challenge because you never leave your work. Your work is always sitting in front of you. So I would say that would be just something off the top of my head that I would see. And then I also like providers, same thing, like they’ll just undercharge their services. So for example, they’ll say, Well, I’m not, you know, a lot of times this is when they come to us like, okay, finally, I need help because all they’ve done is continue to lower the price thinking price is the problem. really price isn’t the problem, you know, they’re actually charging too small of an amount for the service that they’re offering. Whether it’s, you know, we, again, we do a lot with hormones, intimate wellness, like these sorts of things require expensive equipment sometimes, and a lot of extra training that they pay for. And then it’s like, you need to make sure that you’re, you know, it marketing maybe is the problem. If your whole thing is that you’re thinking you just need to lower the price because then at the end of the day, you’re not going to be profitable and you’ve got an expensive piece of equipment to pay off. So those are things like just talking to them about like, okay, you need to be charging what the value of the services.
Tom: 13:18
Yeah, absolutely. And then on the flip side of that, either personally or some people that you’ve worked with, what have been some of the pleasant surprises that have come up from being a heart-led business?
Lori: 13:28
I think just satisfaction in what you do. I mean, I think that’s the biggest thing. Just relationships that you built with clients, you know, they become friends they become people that call you and ask you for advice on things that have absolutely nothing to do with marketing because they really trust your expertise, they know you’re looking out for them. That’s the biggest thing that’s just. Feel good about what we d just hearing stories from how their patients have, been able to reach, you k in a month that we’re suff that they wouldn’t, you know going from doctor to doctor anybody that’s been able When you’re leading with heart, you get to hear those stories. You’re treated more as part of the team instead of just this like agency that, you know, is doing some social media or some email marketing for them. You’re really more of the, you know, you’re not sitting in their office, but they feel like you are, and you’re really part of the whole culture of their company. I think that’s really the biggest thing. But if you’re just there for the transaction or you’re just there to, you know, we’re going to hide behind email, we’re not really going to get to know these clients, like we do all of our calls on zoom, they see our faces. They know something about us. If you don’t do that, you’re not going to learn some of those things. The other thing too is I think just from a team perspective, our team is all remote and it has been really fun and gratifying to be able to build a remote team who we all feel like we’re friends. We meet as a team. We have like a fun question of the week. We get to know what’s going on in each other’s lives. And I think remote work can be very lonely. And we’ve really, I think, done a great job with attracting the right people, nurturing our remote team, making sure everybody feels like they’re part of something bigger than just this, you know, virtual marketing job. I mean, we do, we have Cinco de Mayo parties on our, team where we’ve got our little margaritas. We do baby showers, virtual baby showers for people on our team that have babies, wedding showers. We have a question of the week, just like a fun fact. So. You know, I think even as a team, that’s also a little bit part of heartled is like caring for your team and nurturing your team, whether you’re in person or remote and making people feel heard and supported, because if your team is heard and supported, they’re our clients are going to feel heard and support.
Tom: 15:44
I’m so glad you brought that up too, because your team is so important to the overall heart-led experience in my own personal experience as well, because they’re the ones that are providing the support to the customers and if the customers aren’t happy. Well, you know, but we have happy employees, happy customers. My company is fully remote as well. And we do very similar things to you. I’m glad that you know, great minds think alike, so to speak. You know, we’ll do the Zoom calls every week. We’ll do a Christmas party and New Year’s party and things like that. It’s cool.
Lori: 16:13
Oh yeah. We do scavenger hunts. We do all kinds of fun.
Tom: 16:15
Oh, that’s hilarious. I’m going to have to do the question of the week. I like that because I always do a like, what are you proud and grateful of for the week? And I like to kind of just kind of change that up. So I think we’ll start to do the
Lori: 16:25
mean, even just fun stuff. Like what’s your favorite Netflix show? Like, you know, fun, funny fact, it just getting to know people outside of work. So they also know, like, we care about them as people. And like for our team in the summer, we did Friday, every other Friday, you got off, you got a three day weekend. You know, just like those sorts of things, I think, help people enjoy what they do. They feel appreciated. And then it all just trickles down. Over to the clients as well.
Tom: 16:51
A hundred percent. Yeah. Cool. So Laurie, how can people learn more about your agency and what you do as a heart-led business agency or marketing agency?
Lori: 17:00
Sure. And you know what you got to check out our website on medicalmarketingwiz. com because after talking to you and we were prepping for this, I actually changed one of our taglines to say medical marketing with heart because I really love the whole topic of your podcast. I think it’s really unique and needed. So yeah, so our website is medicalmarketingwiz. com. We also are on all the social channels. So Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik TOK, X and then our podcasts are the Top Docs Podcast and also the Lady Doc Marketing Show which are on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and those sorts of things. So we’re always looking for doctors that want to be on. We like to interview them on some of the things they’re doing to market their practice and get the word out. So that’s kind of fun to learn what’s working for folks across the US and Canada. And then of course we’re always happy to do strategy calls. We’ve got a couple of books on amazon. com as well. So some different marketing books, you can always just look us up by the me as the author, Lori Werner, you’ll see the ones that we have on there, but yeah, website’s probably the easiest way to get in touch.
Tom: 17:57
Okay. Awesome. No that’s great to know too, that you’re looking for docs. Cause obviously we could probably share some guests as well on, for the doc the top talk show.
Lori: 18:06
Yeah, I’ve sent you a few leads for your medical lead business, too. So I’m excited to talk about that.
Tom: 18:11
Yes, absolutely. I certainly appreciate that. Unfortunately, we haven’t connected with them the ones that you sent over. But yeah it’s, I think it’s a good partnership. Yeah, for sure. Well, cool. Well, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. I know you’re tight on time today. But I certainly appreciate your wisdom and the stories that you shared about being a heart-led business and supporting other heart-led businesses. So thank you for that.
Lori: 18:34
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Tom. Good talking with you.
Tom: 18:36
You too. And thank you listeners for watching the show today or listening to the show today, depending on what platform you’re on. I certainly appreciate it. I know Lori appreciates it as well. So make sure you’re checking out what Lori’s doing. We’ll connect her website and all the social media in the show notes. So make sure you’re checking that out. And we’ll We might even put the book links in there as well. So make sure you’re checking the books also, and if you could do me a solid favor and share the show with a friend or colleague that could use the information shared today and just other people that might need to know that there are heart-led businesses out there that are thriving because we have a balance between making a profit and leading with heart. So until next time, lead with your heart.
Speaker 2: 19:16
You’ve been listening to the Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.
