Avishai Ben-Tovim of MDI Health on setting marketing OKRs

Avishai Ben-Tovim

Hello, Etgar, thank you for inviting me, pleasure being here.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

Sure. So I'm coming from a background of managing [unclear @ 00:44] company, prior to co-founding MDI Health, and before that I did executive VP roles in companies in other industries. I was always passionate about doing something meaningful, and when the opportunity arose, I took it with both hands.

01:01 I know my partner, Dr. [unclear @ 01:01], for many years, and I was impressed and blown away by her impact on patients. I was trying to convince her that, back in the day, this is 2019, we could actually compute what she was doing very manually in her head. We decided to take the journey of trying to create a digital clinical pharmacy. In other words, the ability to analyze patients holistically at scale, in order to provide optimal medication treatments to complex pharmacy patients.

01:31 I'm happy to say it's been quite a journey, but now we have a proven technology that is able to identify what I call missed opportunities that [unclear @ 01:49] systems and processes are not able to identify, simply because of [unclear @ 01:53] resources. We have a technology that is able to analyze large populations, identify [unclear @ 02:00] members, and know up front what are the clinical recommendations that need to be addressed in order to drive down health costs and also improve lives and save lives. So we made quite a journey, but the mission was always there, and we keep on being driven by the mission to really solve medication problems.

Avishai Ben-Tovim 02:49

It won't be a surprise to you that OKRs is a way to set targets for the whole company. So everything derived from what we're trying to achieve as a company, that quarter, that year. When we look at the objectives that we set ourselves, we try to think what would be the most meaningful channel to achieve our targets, and see that it even makes sense. We need to get to a certain amount of leads in order to get to the amount of business that we need, so we need to think what channels we'll be able to get to these numbers, and then see how we can improve the conversion rates. At the end of the day there are two things: one is the conversion rates, how can we improve them, how can we be more efficient, and the other one is making sure that the plan is realistic.

03:34 If I say to ourselves, "Okay, we need to get that amount of leads from conferences," we need to make sure we're going to conferences, and making sure this is based on data that those conferences work. Or if we decide that some of these leads need to come from networking, we need to make sure there's enough, I would say, people in our network that are currently active, and it makes sense, based on previous results, that we can really get to where we need in terms of new leads coming in.

04:05 Back to your question, how do we set the KPI. It starts from the objective. Then we say, okay, this is the amount of leads we need, this is what will be inbound, this is what will be outbound. Then we start saying, okay, now what's the key results we need to achieve, in terms of activities, in order to get to this amount of leads. Separately we're also looking at conversion rates, and seeing how we can improve this conversion rate. For example, we'll try new things in the demo, we'll try new things in the storytelling, maybe we need new pictures.

04:36 Now we're doing a specific focus on, for example, [unclear @ 04:38] savings, which we see is very easy to measure. So we will try to see if there's more interest in, first focusing on, I would say, reducing [unclear @ 04:50] from the prescribing and replacements and doing changes. We will try different things, but at the end of the day it's all based on how many leads we need in order to get the amount of deals that we need, in order to get to the revenues that you want.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

I don't think some KPIs would repeat themselves, some KPIs would be different. I think the most important thing is to make sure that the system, the OKRs that I mentioned before. We did have periods of time when we were too busy with things and it was left a bit untracked, and then we have, again, you as CEO coming back and saying, okay, we lost track over trying to achieve, and we need to go back to the right process.

05:47 So I would say I don't think the KPIs changed that much, but there were changes around the efficiency of the system, of the OKR tracking. Now we are getting back to make sure that we are working based on the OKR system, and we're tracking it. So I think that was the thing that changes, part time.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

That's actually a much easier question, because our job as CEOs and founders is always putting in front of everyone what we're trying to achieve in the long run. For MDI Health, we're really on a mission to solve medication problems, and we believe that the best way to solve it is to prevent it altogether. We believe that our technology can be the technology that will be able to prevent these problems when they are happening, at the point of prescription, in real time.

06:42 Even though we didn't start it as a company with this go-to-market, so that's, I think, from the beginning it's actually, we're looking at long-term and short-term as a startup, or as a company. We know where we want to go to, but we started from a different area that we felt would be more easy for us to sell to. So currently we're operating more as an end-to-end solution to reducing the cost of care coming into the organization, able to identify high-risk members in the population, and then implement recommendations in order to drive, and then track the impact.

07:13 But ideally every patient that goes into the doctor should get the right prescription, at the right time, that is completely personalized for him. So as I said, from the beginning we always remind ourselves where we're going as a company, what we're trying to achieve, but at the same time trying to say what will be the short-term goals in order to get, I would say, maximum revenues and contracts in the short term.

07:44 In terms of marketing, I would say that in the long term you're trying to create brand awareness. At the short term you try to get more performance, I would say, at targets. It's always a balance of how we can invest in PR, but at the same time also focus on short-term lead generation. At the end of the day, at the OKRs you will look at the short term, but you will keep on putting the vision and the mission in front of everyone, and keep on reminding everyone where we're trying to go, what we're adding, and what we're trying to do.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

At the end of the day, maybe we mentioned in the previous question, the difference between brand awareness and performance. Performance is very measurable, it's very easy to measure how effective a campaign is being, or how effective you are in terms of achieving these. In terms of brand awareness, it's harder to measure it.

08:46 But I guess that every mention of our name in a respected publication is just starting to add on top and on top, and this is also part of the reason that we are here now doing this podcast. I think the more people hear about what we do, the more people are getting familiar with the people behind the scenes that do it, and I think they might relate more to our journey. So these are two activities that go hand in hand.

Avishai Ben-Tovim 09:36

It goes back to the OKR system that I mentioned before. Being a joint target makes things easier. Second thing is breaking silos. We're specifically not that big of a team in marketing, so it's very easy to get everyone feeling and acting as one team, because we are one team.

09:56 When we're a small team it's much easier. When you're becoming a bigger team it just means making sure everyone has the same goals. If you're just going to give marketing leads goals, they will focus on leads and not on how they're going to be converted. Or if you're going to give the wrong incentive, they might be saying, "Okay, I can bring a deal," but maybe this deal is not good for the company. So you need to make sure you're setting the right targets, to make sure that it drives the real objectives that the company set.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

I think at the end of the day it's asking the question of data. The more mistakes we make, the more insights we can have for what didn't work, as you all know. Making mistakes, investing money in things that don't work, is part of the learning process. The most important thing is to learn from it.

10:59 There are too many examples to give for things that didn't work. Every day it might be the case that you do something that works and something that doesn't, but the important part is just to say where exactly did it break. If you talk about an online campaign, did it break the messaging, did it not work because of the performance of the page, the loading of the page, or was it the offering that was not good enough, or did we get the wrong audience?

11:21 At the end of the day, it's really about trying to see what doesn't work and doing trial and error in order to fix it.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

I'm sorry for repeating myself, but I would say setting the wrong targets.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

It's all derived from the company objective, and the second part is not about knowing the things that you know better than the people doing the work. So I think one mistake founders make, the company goes and makes a mistake, is that they bring in talented people, but then they're telling them what needs to be done. I think that at the end of the day my goal as a CEO is to set the direction of the ship.

12:55 I'm not saying that I'm captain that I know exactly if we're going to get to an island or not, but my job is to check the weather and check all the rest of the conditions, and say, this is what I believe. Then make it as a group, as a management decision, to say, do we all agree this is the right direction. We might be wrong, but this is a common goal that we set to ourselves. If we believe this is the right approach, now each one needs to go and start to set the right targets to achieve this objective.

13:26 In the marketing, let's say, for example, you want to get to, I don't know, let's say, one million patients to serve. So now you're going to say, okay, how many deals do I need to close, what is the deal size. You start setting targets of, okay, how many leads do I need with a big organization, how many do I need with a small organization, that will be breaking down into, okay, what activities do I need to do, where, who are the personas, what do I need, where do these personas go to, how can we get to them.

13:56 Then start backing up to activities. My goal is not to say what the activities will be. My goal is just to look at the plan and say if it makes sense or not. The second goal, which is more important, is to make sure that adding up all the different activities and the different targets, all the pieces together lead us to achieving the overall arching objective.

14:24 Back to your question, how do we know: the most important thing is to know where you're heading and what are the big goals. Then just checking that the people on the ground, when they're setting their day-to-day goals, when you add it all up, you have an achievable plan to reach the company's goals.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

I believe very much in talent, and the definition of talent is one of my responsibilities. It's not necessarily that I'm going to hire a person with the best resume. It's more about finding the person that I believe can really grow with us. I have a few examples of that, both in marketing and in sales, in MDI, of people who already grew and proved to me that was the right decision to make.

15:12 In marketing, yes, there are some things that need to be there: if you need someone with creativity, you need someone who knows how to look at data, you need someone who is very organized and looks, really looks into details. There are things that belong to marketing people, but at the end of the day I believe personally it has to be someone that I can trust to deliver on things that change.

15:37 If you find someone who is only based on experience, you might be an expert in conferences, but for a startup that needs to do many different things, maybe you will not be able to succeed with other channels. So for me, the most important thing, more than anything, is the person themselves, before talking about [unclear @ 15:57].

Avishai Ben-Tovim

I just talked about it yesterday with another CEO, it was an interesting conversation. I think that the most surprising lesson is that no matter how many books you would read, and how many, you would know the playbook by heart, still, being in the CEO position of a startup, you cannot really do it in theory until you do it.

16:29 You cannot really know the feeling of the roller coaster, or the feeling of making decisions, and then all the responsibilities on your shoulders. I think that was surprising to me, that I thought coming to the role already seeing everything and experiencing things, it's still very different than doing other jobs which doesn't require being the CEO. You just do it as an employee.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

I think people don't understand, I can say it so many different ways, I don't want to demotivate people, but first of all, I think that people say it, but I don't think they get it, that you should not do it just because of the money.

17:29 I can probably prove mathematically that doing a very executive role, and I have some friends who became very rich by working for companies as directors or VPs, it's not mathematically an irrational thing to do. So I think you really need to want to do it for its own sake, and not just because of the money. Another misconception is that you might feel that it's easy, or you hear about the companies that everything goes well and they just do an exit very fast, or things like that.

18:01 At the end of the day, especially in healthcare, this is a journey, taking time, and you need to be patient, and never think that you are the only one that faces challenges. All startups have challenges, and it's part of the journey.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

It's to be very, very specific about what we do. I think it's important, and it's not something that we didn't do, I'm just saying it's advice that is right, and I probably would have wanted someone to tell me it back then. It's very, very important to find a client that is willing to be more innovative and give you the room to be a design partner.

19:05 It's really, really important that you will first prove your technology and have someone who becomes an ambassador of that, and build on top of a satisfied client that has a working workflow. Also making sure that this specific workflow is not a one-time, one-trick pony, you need to make sure that this is something that is relevant to others. It's a kind of a combination, from one hand finding a design partner, but at the same time making sure that what you have as a fit for a current need is not just the need of this specific client, but it's actually something that can go into a meaningful platform or meaningful market size.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

I'm laughing, you have nothing enough to tell to the audience here. I really, there was, many years ago, I was interviewing for a role, and I got to really late stages of the interviews, and that was the question that I was asked, and I didn't know how to answer it, and I failed on this question. I guess I don't have a good answer for that until this day, it's the question that always fails me. I don't know, I'm a very open person, I don't mind being asked any question, so there is no question I can probably think of that you didn't ask.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

I really want to say something about it. He talked about tips for founders. I really want to say something to people who are not founders, and it's exactly what you said: I truly believe everything happens for the best. Even, you know, we have this, Michael Jordan, you know: I missed this shot, I lost this game, this is what made me Michael Jordan. So I really feel, and even now looking back at many things that I've done, I have no doubt, especially in interviews by the way, that whatever happened, happened for the best.

20:44 I just want to say one last story: when I was a student, or something, I was interviewed, and all the other students were getting roles there, and I didn't get the role that I wanted. But it took me time to understand that the one that interviewed me, he knew that that role would be too boring of a job for me. So back then I think it was [unclear @ 21:01] something back then, and I just think that, again, sometimes we are very taken personally with, how come, you know, they didn't want me. But we also need to understand that sometimes there's a bigger picture that we don't see, and we should not take it personally, and we should all say, okay, maybe it's for the best, and move on to the next thing that it will be better.

Avishai Ben-Tovim

Me too, great.