Episode 267 – Jeanne Frazer

Richard Matthews: [00:00:00] So what do you think

your superpower is

as the founder of Vitalink?

Jeanne Frazer: Oh, gosh

well you know, looking back

I think something that has been

a common thread for me

is I’m one of those weird right brain,

left brain people. 

So my best subjects in school 

were art and math. 

Or if you look at it statistics

or you know And usually those 

are completely two different hemispheres

of the brain and they do not connect

but for me

I love being creative

but I don’t want to be just creative

I see the business side of it

and a lot of people 

can either see one or the other

but not both

so for me I think the big piece 

that gives me An advantage

is being able to have that 

understanding of both sides

​ 

Richard Matthews: [00:01:00] Hello and welcome back to the hero show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I have live on the line. Jeanne Frazer Jeanne are you there?

Jeanne Frazer: I’m here. Good to see you.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Glad to have you here. I know we chatted a bit before, but I always like to find out for our audience, where are you calling in from?

Jeanne Frazer: I am calling in from Raleigh, North Carolina, the Research [00:02:00] Triangle Park area.

Richard Matthews: Nice. We were just in, Charlotte, North Carolina, like two weeks ago for a business event that, I was,  Speak like a sponsor of, so we were just up that in that area, which is really pretty.

Jeanne Frazer: It’s a fun city. Yeah

Richard Matthews: Yeah, it’s really nice. And then, Our audience knows we travel around regularly. So we are currently in central Florida. We’ll be here for most of the summer.  So We travel full time. So that’s always fun. So I don’t want to do before we get too far into the episode as I go through, 

Just a quick bio. So my audience knows who you are and then we’ll dive into your story. So Jeanne Frazer launched Vitalink in 1996, after she saw the best interests of clients taking a backseat at her work at Fox and NBC, she wanted to have more of an impact.

She holds a BA from university of Florida and was named a mover and shaker and top catalyst entrepreneur by business leader media. She is safe sports certified and she serves on the following boards. She’s an online learning consortium, diversity, equity, inclusion task force, the K YAO Cancer Warriors, Living Arts College Advisory Board, [00:03:00] Cause for Paws, Board of Directors, North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Life Science External Relations Advisory Committee, and the CEO of Action for Diversity and Inclusion, which is quite a laundry list of Things that you’re on, you boards that you’re on.

So I’m going to start off with, with this first question, which is who you are, what you do, and who do you serve? Like, what’s the, what’s the main offering you have in the marketplace?

Jeanne Frazer: Okay, so, 

I am Jeanne Frazer as you mentioned president and ceo of Vitalink We’re also a founding partner of hbcu grow which that is HBCU stands for historically black colleges and universities and over the years our focus has been health education and equity So HBCU Grow is looking at the historically black colleges and universities out there and what kind of resources and things can we do to help them build their base, to build their student enrollment, to build their giving.

We put on a [00:04:00] conference and do quite a bit of things to help in that industry. So I think that’s one of the things we’re very purpose driven. 

Right now a lot of our focus is helping clients in the healthcare ecosystem. unlock hidden revenue opportunities. So, A lot of that comes from focusing on patient advisory, And education. And we’ve got a great process that helps us do that.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, and so that’s what Vitalink does is you help, And do you, is your main client the patient or is your main client like the hospitals and the doctors? Right 

Jeanne Frazer: client is going to be more, Hospitals, pharma, medical device, that type of thing. And we work at better connecting them with the patients. So right now there’s some still, Mistrust or disconnects between some patient segments. And we really help bridge that gap,

Richard Matthews: And how you guys do that do you guys do that with software or with marketing or what’s the way you manage that 

Jeanne Frazer: outcome through just about every tool you can think of. So [00:05:00] we use a little bit of AI and machine learning, We do a lot of community involvement. We’ve got an internal process that’s been time tested over the years. So we’ve kind of taken the best of a results oriented marketing firm, but we’ve also partnered with a impactful 

mission of a leading health equity org that was recently featured in Forbes. So it’s not just our team helping to kind of, bring these things to life for that healthcare ecosystem. It’s, it’s a group, you know, it’s,  when you talk about superheroes, this is almost like the super friends. So we’ve established a larger team to be able to really take things to the next level.

Richard Matthews: Yeah So the primary goal then is help the undeserved population get better access or more use out of the healthcare to have a way of access too 

Jeanne Frazer: Yeah. it is And it is a lot of people may think, okay, [00:06:00] we’ve already checked that box. We’re doing that. But, I think you can see with COVID and everything that happened there, those things aren’t really handled the way everybody thinks they are. There’s still mistrust. There’s still disconnects. Even though some providers are amazing at Seeing things and prescribing them. Sometimes things are missed. So is there some cultural competency that needs to be worked on between, you know, maybe it’s the farm end and maybe instead of just selling features and benefits, there could be, More education in that cultural competency, which might help them open up that market. Maybe there’s some features that could be done of internal folks, which really helps them better connect with the market and establish a greater trust. There’s lots of different working pieces that can go on to make that happen. Each one of them is going to be a little different for each client, but,  There’s definitely a path that is, Has been tried, true [00:07:00] and trusted. So following that path and figuring out. What are the best ways with each client to basically get that accomplished?

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. 

And I, and I know in the intro, you mentioned, You started Vitalink in 1996, which is quite a long track record for any company. So I always like to, we, On this show, we talk about your origin story, which is, you know, every, every good comic book here has an origin story. And it’s the thing that. Made you into the here you are today. And we want to hear that story where, you know, were you born a hero or did you start, you know were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to start a Vitalink 20 something years ago? Or did you start in a job and eventually moved to become an entrepreneur? Basically, how did, how did this get started? Okay 

Jeanne Frazer: That is a great question And I love the superhero angle Mine kind of two part So as a little girl my parents for me and they made me think that I could do anything And they allowed me to be the very unique individual that I want Here sometimes I wear one red shoe and blue shoe just to show my differences.

But I can remember as a little [00:08:00] girl, My mom even saved this note for me and Put it in a special photo album. I wrote a note to my dad basically saying, That I was running away from home. Because he wouldn’t be happy if someone else did the same job he did and got paid twice the money. And, So if you look at it, back as a little girl who was writing with crayons on a note page, I was fighting a battle of kind of equity and, You know, fairness at that time. And, you know, I think my dad always thought, Oh, it’d be my brother who would start a business. I was the one in the family who started a business. It wasn’t my brother. My brother actually came to work for me for a while as well. But, So the, the superhero part, my origin story started early just as a little girl, really fighting the good fight and seeing things out there that I felt like needed work. But then also when I was working in the [00:09:00] television industry, I really saw that clients sometimes, Weren’t getting the most out of their agencies. You know, I had one agency I work with one time and I will try not to give too much details because I don’t want to, I don’t want to out anybody. But basically we had put together this huge promotion with the NFL and, They would get appearances, tickets, point of purchase on air mentions, like all this great stuff. And we negotiated the deal and it was a done deal. So they were going to get all this. And before. It,

Kind of finished up and we started talking, Started going on with, you know, how to, how do you want me to proceed with setting up, you know, appointments with your client to make sure this all gets done. She said, you know, it just really sounds like too much work. Can you send me a t shirt? So she had this amazing promotion worth hundreds of thousands of dollars with the NFL that was [00:10:00] there for her client. And she would rather have had a t-shirt and that was like that was one of the things that really like stuck for me It’s sometimes harder work to really Do more to make sure your client gets the best value but it’s It’s why I started this That’s why I started Vitalink.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, yeah, I get that. I know, My, I, I resonate with the little girl thing, not because I was a little girl, but because I have three of them,  And My littlest one is the one that wears two different shoes. She’ll wear a sandal and a sneaker and will refuse to wear, Wear them together because they, she needs to have two different shoes and two different socks to go with them. And I’m like,

Jeanne Frazer: Gotta be different.

Richard Matthews: Yeah she’s a fiery one too. I keep telling people she’s either going to cure cancer or blow up the world and there’s no in between. So.

Jeanne Frazer: And I could’ve gone either way, too.

Richard Matthews: The psychic, know, she’s going to do something good or some, she’s going to do something and it’s going to be big.

Jeanne Frazer: Yeah. 

Yeah.

Richard Matthews: I guess whether or not it’s good or [00:11:00] bad depends a lot on how we do it, how we do it raising her.

Jeanne Frazer: That’s true. 

That’s true.

Richard Matthews: So I always like to dive into, you know, from your origin story, I mean, man, you guys have been, yeah, you know, get into the business, been doing it for a long, long time, started off early. What is over the course of time, the superpower that you’ve developed in your business, right? You know, every iconic hero has their superpower, whether that’s like a fancy flying suit made by their genius intellect or the ability to call down thunder from the sky. You know, in the real world heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with, or you developed over the course of your career that really Everything else that you do, right? And the way I like to frame it for my guests, if you look at all the skills that you’ve developed over the course of running this business, there’s probably a common thread that sort of ties all those skills together. That’s where you’d find your superpower. So what do you think your superpower is as the founder of Vitalink?

Jeanne Frazer: Oh, gosh. Well, you know, looking back, I think something that has been a common thread for me is I’m one of those weird right brain, left [00:12:00] brain people. So my best subjects in school were art and math. Or if you look at it, statistics. Or, you know, And usually those are completely two different hemispheres of the brain and they do not connect.

But for me, I love being creative, but I don’t want to be just creative. I see the business side of it. And a lot of people can either see one or the other, but not both. So for me, I think the big piece that gives me An advantage is being able to have that understanding of both sides have an understanding of It’s kind of like people planet and Profits is that yeah, where you know, all three are important and sometimes people can only see one slice of it So as being able to look at kind of that larger picture and get that there needs to be revenue there needs to be, you know, something that is going right in terms of how you’re treating people or what you’re [00:13:00] doing with them. And there needs to be the right approach creatively, visually, you know, verbally to be able to connect with them. But it’s also how do you put people And, Partners together. So there’s, it’s, it’s a complex amount of layers within the organization from messaging to visual, to partnerships, to media channels and, and the rest of that. And I think that that’s the gift is being able to really. Put it all together and make it have meeting and make it come to life and actually get those real results and understanding, That sales are important and you’ve got to be accountable for what you do. I mean, we’re not just here to make pretty pictures and, you know, win awards. I’d rather,  you know, hit sales goals. Any day of the week, then when an award that someone gives you just because it [00:14:00] looks so creative, but it  might might not even mention the name of the client on there because that’s cutting edge. And I’m thinking, how could it work if you don’t mention who the client is? So really, I think that, That’s enabled me to take a different look. And, Within them, this new business direction that we’ve been heading a little bit more towards with the healthcare ecosystem, we realize that there’s this cycle. Like, there’s this healthcare sales cycle. There’s, it costs 2. $2.6 dollars to get a drug to market.

Richard Matthews: That’s a lot.

Jeanne Frazer: A lot of money. 36 of them don’t meet their sales goals.

Richard Matthews: Yeah,

Jeanne Frazer: so you’re talking about spending a lot. So what happens when they don’t make the sales goals? Well, a lot of companies are just gonna like double down on marketing double down on, you know Outreach to providers and they’re going to spend more money to make sure that they hit their sales goals, which weren’t as effective and 

They, [00:15:00] I think that they’re not stepping back to see, is there any part of this process that’s broken so, you know, sales don’t hit expectations.

And so maybe they think, okay, we’re going to reach out to the patient instead of just the doctors, which you see all those ads on TV now for drugs. They all look the same, right? Like it’s all happy people doing fun things and in the background you hear this long list of Side effects and the rest of that, but they all look the same So if you’re trying to do that to brand yourself and differentiate How can you differentiate if they’re all looking the same?

So, you know, it’s one of those things that I think they they follow the leader and they follow a process which has worked I mean, you can’t say that farmer hasn’t made made some money and done good things But it ends up being this cycle that can kind of repeat again and again. Research has shown that most CEOs believe that their revenue growth comes from new products. So You go through that whole cycle [00:16:00] and then you think oh my gosh, we need more revenue So guess what $2.6 billion for a new drug and you’re starting again So we feel like there’s a better way So we’ve been able to kind of look at that break that down and find out How do we address that cycle so that you can? Make more of your product before you lose your exclusivity or your patent. So like how can that, 36 figure of people not meeting their sales goal, how can that be changed? Well, maybe it’s by reaching out differently. Maybe it’s by doing things just slightly differently. We’re not saying that we’re replacing anything that goes on. There’s so much that goes right within that industry. This is like an add on level that can really help. Bring them to different end result.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So your super power is that, that connecting all those things together, right? Connecting all the things that make for getting the actual end result they want, which in this case is, you know, being [00:17:00] profitable.

Jeanne Frazer: Yes,

Richard Matthews: So, That’s interesting. And I know like the connector role is, It’s one of those, I don’t exactly know how to phrase this. It’s a role that you have to be able to speak a bunch of different languages, right? You talked about a little bit with like the different sides of the brain. But like you have to be able to talk to, you know, the different groups of people in each of those categories and speak the language that makes sense to them. And so like that connector role, like you can see And communicate with the artists and you can see and communicate with the accountant just as well. Right? and connect all those together. It makes you a really good facilitator for deals. Probably

Jeanne Frazer: well, and that that is like such a key point, like getting down to sort of the basic element of this is sometimes people aren’t communicating in the way that the other side needs.

And, you know, and they, they’re going so fast and they’re following such a pattern that they may not even realize they’re missing it. Like, just showing someone who’s [00:18:00] Latino or American Indian in an ad is, is not going to check the box and make it completely work. Let’s say you’re using the word stakeholder. In an ad that’s got, 

You know, an American Indian in it. Well, stakeholders, not a happy word for them. You know, stakeholders were the people who came and took the land from them. So there’s some things now that you just, like, understanding those pieces and really getting that language right and getting the approach right means everything.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So if your superpower is that ability to connect to communicate and help get those things working properly in your industry, flip side, of course, is the fatal flaw, right? Just like every Superman has a kryptonite or Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad.

You probably had a flaw that’s held you back. 

For me, yeah. I always struggled with perfectionism still do to this day, right. It’s just, you know, keeping you from shipping something. Cause you want to make it a little bit better before you go. 

But I think more important than like, what is the flaws?

How have you worked to overcome it so that you [00:19:00] can continue to grow your company and continue to have the success that you have now, 

Without being stopped by that and hopefully  our, our listeners will learn a little bit from your experience.

Jeanne Frazer: Yeah, you know, having to pick just one you know, I think the perfectionism definitely there Early on. I would say my fatal flaw was, I like a challenge. So no matter what industry came to us, I thought I could bring results. And basically we did like if you look at our early history as an agency we’ve worked with just about every type of client from sports to education to health care to even like time clocks, you know, so It was this wide range because I like to challenge so much and I thought we could like we could bring those great results and I think As a business person, that’s a fatal flaw and it’s not a great business plan You know, to have to be an expert in so many industries.

So over the years, how we’ve handled it is [00:20:00] we’ve realized what things do we really do best and not just what do we do best, but what do we love doing the most? You And that’s where we’ve had to narrow our focus down and come to that

Richard Matthews: alive.

Jeanne Frazer: Yeah, education, health, and that’s where, like, I just get excited and my team gets thrilled and they all have so much buy in and when you can have that kind of passion about what you do, it’s the difference in everything. And so being able to narrow down and not trying to be everything to everybody has been something that’s really helped us,  Get a better focus.

Richard Matthews: Yeah,  yeah, I had a similar experience, you know, as an agency, we used So I tell people you can, You can niche in two different ways, right? You can niche down to an industry or you can niche down to a specific deliverable, right? And, you know, and if the deliverable is applicable to multiple industries, you can, you can still be wide that direction. [00:21:00] And, A lot of agencies will do what you’ve done and niche down into an industry. And then our agency, we niche down to a very specific thing, right? We do just podcasting for businesses. Right. And so like, so that’s the only thing we do. And we used to do all, all the other things that go into an agency, right? Everything from ads to creative and all the other stuff that goes into there. And I’m like, nope. When we narrowed. And you learn to say no to everything. That’s not that one thing. It really helps you build processes and build expertise and build like the notoriety in the space. And there’s, there’s a lot of benefits that come with narrowing down your business and, It’s hard, especially as a young business, because saying yes means, You know, revenue, but saying yes also means hard revenue. If you say yes to the wrong things.

Jeanne Frazer: You are so right with that and looking at it, especially someone who, who does like a challenge. So, you know, being able to come up with those, Processes and procedures then, and really make, Make the agency work better 

[00:22:00] That’s been helped for me by bringing on people who specialize in the processes in the procedures who think differently than me So on my team, I don’t want everybody around me who thinks just like me, you know because We’re gonna have a lot of ideas, but then someone is gonna have to implement them and it may not be me or anybody else who thinks like me, so putting together that team that had the different strengths in those different areas allowed us to also Make the processes that we’re able to, Make our business run more smoothly and make our results more repeatable and scalable. And, you know, at the end of the day, we’re still excited and have passion about it, but we’re scalable or more profitable. And that allows us to be able to do a better job for our clients without all the worry.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And you know, I’m in the same boat learning for me. It was learning how [00:23:00] to, Learning how to say no was a prerequisite to learning how to say yes aggressively. Right. And so when we learned how to say no to all the things that didn’t fit into our area that allowed us to start saying yes to a lot of things that did make sense. And that’s really what fueled our growth. So it was actually like it was a really big lesson for us to learn, In our business. So

Jeanne Frazer: can I go back and just ask you a question of like, I’m, I’m dying to know why podcast, I mean, I love your concept and I think that you’ve chosen correctly, but I’d love to hear your story.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So podcasting, the reason why we got into the podcast space is ’cause that’s the thing that makes me come alive. And it comes down to, One of the things that I think is universally true about human beings is that we’re a story borne people, right? And what that means is we, define our relationships by how much of someone else’s story we know. And so you see that reflected in our language. And so if you have [00:24:00] someone who is an acquaintance, You know, a sort of stranger, a stranger, someone, you don’t know their name, you don’t know their story. An acquaintance is someone you know their name, but you don’t know their story. A friend is someone you know their name and you know some of their story. And a best friend is someone you know their name and you know so much of their story that like, you, the only way you get new information with them is to go out and create new stories together, right? And so like, you see that reflected in our language. And what’s interesting is that’s the way that That the marketplace interacts with businesses, too, is you hear this all the time in this business spaces. You have to know like and trust someone before, You’ll do business with them. And Google even did a study, Study a couple of years ago that they call the 7114 rule now, which is like a customer is going to spend seven hours. Interacting with your content, In, 11 different touch points, Across four different platforms before they make a buying decision. And so for us, podcasting is a way to sort of hit both of those things for businesses, where we can help them tell their story in such a way that like the marketplace actually knows your stories, [00:25:00] they know your name, they know your story, and they might even consider you a friend, even if you’ve never met them, right? That’s one of the beauties of one to many communication. And then also because of the distribution patterns, the content marketing allows them to sort of hit that, That place in the marketplace where there have a lot of, a lot of touch points with potential customers. So anyways, that’s how, that’s why we narrowed  down down into it.

Jeanne Frazer: Oh, that’s great. I love that. It really does boil down to people. And, I used to say back when I was in television years ago, it’s almost like the Oprah effect. When you see someone on tv, you feel like you’ve developed a relationship with them And you trust their word a little more and you connect with them And you want to follow things they follow and used to be businesses operated differently Like you didn’t give your political views.

You didn’t give any kind of information, but now big people Want to know about businesses more. They want to know what you care about. They want to know why you do what you do. So, 

Being able to share [00:26:00] that and really tell the story is, it’s huge. 

Yeah.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. And I think being able to show up and share your story and share.

Who you are and the values you have as a company, right? And so like even our internal company podcasts, we’re starting to bring on more and more of like our staff members and talk about the different things they do. 

And so it’s not just me, but it’s like actually like our company and our culture and the way that we show up in the marketplace.

We use our podcasts as a way to put that out there. 

And so that’s,  I think that’s, it’s really useful.

Jeanne Frazer: I love that. Yeah, for our clients, we look at featuring not only their clients who have had success stories, but some of their internal team members who have also had success stories because that helps, you know, just create a better atmosphere all the way around.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeanne Frazer: Yeah.

Richard Matthews: So I want to talk then about your common enemy, which I think this can be a fun question for the business you’re in, right? So every superhero has an arch nemesis, right? It’s the thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world and the world of business, we like to put this in the context [00:27:00] of the clients that hire you.

Right. And it’s a mindset or a flaw that they have that you’re constantly have to fight to overcome. So you can actually get them the result that they came to you for. So in the world of Vitalink and what you guys do with 

The health space, what’s the common enemy that you have to regularly deal with?

Jeanne Frazer: Oh, gosh, I think that, The biggest enemy is thinking that like checking the box is enough. Like if they just do a little, they’re going to be able to reach a different audience. That they don’t, you know, they don’t put a little bit more understanding and time in. You look at it with politicians. They show up at the black churches when they want people to vote for them.

If you’re just showing up before you want something from someone, they’re not going to be likely to give it to you. But if you show up in the in between times, That makes a whole difference because you’ve developed a relationship with those people. So for me, it’s understanding that Sometimes it’s hard because it’s not just a [00:28:00] box you have to check but that there is still 

Sort of that  that trust gap and the trust gap can be overcome Like there’s ways to do it through partnerships. There’s ways to do it through You know different types of community outreach and marketing That Don’t cost as much as The typical channels and the typical methods you would do it’s amazing the difference but just knowing that Like so having enough self awareness to think okay I thought I had it covered but maybe maybe I don’t so the common enemy would be maybe someone not understanding

Richard Matthews: Yeah So

Jeanne Frazer: It starts a different way.

Richard Matthews: I think I could draw a, a, an analogous for people that I think everyone would understand because I’ve seen it happen over the last 10 years, which is Hollywood’s, Attempt to be diverse and inclusive by taking a story and then just pulling one character of one color out and putting another character of another color in, and then [00:29:00] destroying the story. In the process. And so then you have a terrible story with the boxes checked. And when people go to watch a movie, they’re going to watch a story. They don’t care particularly about the boxes. And so they’re, they’re not actually doing the thing that needs to be done, which is to build a good story with the characters and with the people that you want to be inclusive with. And so that’s sort of where, where you’re talking about is like, you know, just because you have a drug that is useful for say the black or the American Indian market, just because you take the same ad and just. Swap the characters out doesn’t mean that you’ve talked to that person or talked to that culture or talked to The things you have to actually like show up and try

Jeanne Frazer: yeah you definitely have to open try and It it really does come down to just treating people like people and I mean There there’s so many interesting things like to just take a story and flop out different characters Like you said is is a little lazy, but it is kind of what’s happened.

But there’s so many interesting [00:30:00] stories if you dig deeper and so many pieces of inspiration that you learn that maybe you, you weren’t ever taught before. I mean, there’s, you know, we love going out on our travels and exploring new cultures and, Historic things. And, you know, I have no idea, like, some of the things that went on because we just weren’t taught that. Like we weren’t taught those things in school. So, you know, when we were in school, you know, Native Americans or Latinos may have been, Shown as, you know, less than because they didn’t have the European history or the whatever, That comes from this side. But if you look back at their civilization, they knew astronomy. Well, before we did their engineering on buildings is far superior. Like, there’s so many things that you go back and you look [00:31:00] at, they were, you know, developing and had mercury and the ability to create that before anybody knew that that, you know, how that would happen. And so. Looking behind there’s just so much more behind every story and you know how how do you find that and just become a little more human And talk to someone one on one because your patients and your clients are basically just human beings

Richard Matthews: Yeah, that’s one of the things that goes right back into your question earlier about why we run podcasts, And it goes back to, you know, one of the reasons why the Western culture is so pervasive is because of the printing press and their ability to write their histories and tell them and get them Get them distributed. And yes, and a lot of other cultures didn’t have that for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years.

Jeanne Frazer: if Like the Spaniards came over and burn the, all the, All the writings from the native or the, South American, Latino population. So, you know, you had people who had it and they burned it. you know,

Richard Matthews: Yeah. 

Jeanne Frazer: Difference.

[00:32:00] Yeah. 

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So, so being able to tell your stories. I think is, It’s one of the, Most equalizing things we can do on the planet is make it so everyone can tell their stories 

Jeanne Frazer: and also, like, not just tell your stories, but, Have people hear it in a real way. So, like, I went to the doctor once before about a very serious concern I had. And you know, I’m not the kind of person who runs to the doctor for much I’ve displaced my hip and didn’t want to go get it fixed. I mean I can be tough So for me to actually get to the point to go to the doctor is a big deal 

Richard Matthews: Yeah, 

Jeanne Frazer: and I get into this doctor and I talked to them about what was going on and she treated me like Oh, I was just a silly little girl that like why are you worrying about that? That’s just like anxiety or this or that or you’re imagining things And I’m like, No, this has been going on for this long. Here’s what’s happened. And they just [00:33:00] honestly did not take me. Seriously. It was cancer. I knew something was, you know, so to have someone take the information that you’re giving and not listen to you and then. Like negate it is You know that I guess that’s another like superpower thing going back of something that really impacts you because If they listen differently How different that kind of conversation could have gone or how different my relationship would be with that doctor who I never went to see again obviously but You know those kind of things shouldn’t have to happen like you should be able to convey something You And and have someone truly listen.

Richard Matthews: It reminds me of Something my wife and I have talked about before in the medical industry where like you’ll you’ll see like as we’re kind of nerdy We read medical studies stuff like that. And like you’ll read this read this study Like, you know for one of the things that’s relevant to us is birth control, right? We’re at that point in our lives and we’ve got [00:34:00] three daughters We’re going to talk about a lot more in the future, right? And we look at those things and we’re like, yeah, they studied they they put this drug out And it was only tested on, like, You know, one small subsection of the population, right? It wasn’t tested on black women. It wasn’t tested on, on native American populations or it wasn’t tested at all or young women or old women, or, you know, like, or like, there’s just no, there’s no like inclusion in the testing process. And then, so the conclusions that they come to are incorrect. And I seen the same thing, like that happens a lot with men versus women with studies will be include, it be, there’ll be all men. In the study for the drug, and then they’ll just assume that it affects a woman’s body the same way and put the drug out.

Jeanne Frazer: Now the drug, I will say, you know, I don’t want to, I don’t want to bad mouth drug companies because they’ve come a long way, but drug companies in the past did for heart drugs, heart disease, heart attacks, they would test men and apply it to women, just like what you were saying. And women have far different [00:35:00] symptoms. For a heart attack in men, it’s not the clutching the chest and the pain and it’s not that it’s something completely different and so You know if you’ve got drugs that are out there that you haven’t tested as widely You may get clearance you may get people, you know, fda giving you. Okay, check you’re good Let’s send it on through and then it goes to market And all of a sudden you start having problems with the drug because it doesn’t work as well with certain populations You They had, One drug within the past, oh gosh, probably 10 years, and I love reading the medical stuff, too, that came out. It got approved. And, It was used in a lot of older adults. Well, they hadn’t tested it enough with the diverse brown, black population, and it ended up having some pretty serious side effects. So the FDA basically,  Even though you had approval for it. They came back and said, social security will not pay for this drug until you test it more with [00:36:00] these populations. So they actually had to send it back. So it’s like, and I know getting those is hard because you’re working from a history of people who,  Were sort of abused with medical testing over the years. But having. Having a relationship that’s built earlier on and making sure that those people are included in your testing and finding ways to reach out to them and engage them more in the process just ends up costing the system less. You know, there’s, I think, figures like 320 billion that’s impacted by lack of equity. 

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely,

Jeanne Frazer: crazy.

Richard Matthews: which I think brings me to the a good place for the next question, which is your driving force, right? So, if your common enemy is what you’re fighting against, you’re driving force is what you’re fighting for, right?

So, just like Spiderman fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham. What is it that Vitalink fights for? What’s your mission, so to speak?

Jeanne Frazer: Oh, I think it’s, know, to make, Education, [00:37:00] precision medicine available to all people, no matter where they live, no matter what their gender is, no matter what their sexual orientation is, no matter what their ethnicity is. Everybody should be able to have access to those things, to good education and good healthcare. So for me, that’s, you know, that’s what,  Gets me excited. 

Richard Matthews: Yeah. And it’s, it’s interesting too, because the space you’re in, like it’s, you mentioned liking a challenge and getting the whole of the population to trust the medical system, especially after what’s happened over the last few years. It’s a big uphill battle. And like, you see that in the cases where they didn’t appropriately test a drug. And so it has adverse effects on certain populations, whether it’s men or women or different colored skins or, you know, different body types, whatever that is. And every time they make those mistakes big and publicly, it erodes the trust in the market that has to be rebuilt again.

So it’s like you’re fighting a, you’re fighting a constant sort of [00:38:00] uphill battle that man, if we just, if like, I don’t know, we have made some tremendous strides. With our medical stuff, because like every single one of my children has had some sort of a sickness in their childhood that a hundred years ago was a death sentence.

Jeanne Frazer: Yeah, 

Richard Matthews: right? 

Jeanne Frazer: Me Me too. So mean think about like the example I gave before with 2.6 billion and you know, if the sales aren’t good, then they’re going to double down on reaching out to providers and they’re going to spend more money on marketing, which by the way, A lot of drug companies that are out there spend more money on marketing than they do on R& D. So do the math on that one 2.6 billion to get it to market that marketing is more expensive. But if if you look at that, it just could be such a different conversation that you would have with someone. What if you double down as being the company [00:39:00] out there That’s going to embrace communities like this that are different. What if you double down on engaging them a little bit more so that you are the most trustworthy company out there for this group? There’s ways to do that.  we’ve got a path, we’ve got methods, we’ve got ways to partner. But  what if,  what if that were the difference? What if instead of throwing billions and millions of dollars at this, you could throw a lot less money at. standing up and becoming advocates for this side. Huge difference. It could make huge. Yeah. 

Richard Matthews: Yeah. And it’s like, and it’s not even that, you know, you have to focus on the different populations. Like the populations exist and they need this, they need the solutions you have. So, so build the stories and build the testing and build the stuff that goes into it.

Right. You see that a lot in the, uh, I’m going to forget it. The injections. What are the injections called when, I can’t even remember what they’re called the, uh, When someone gives you an injection. So you, So you’re protected against the [00:40:00] disease, whatever those are called. 

Jeanne Frazer: Vaccinations. Yeah.

Richard Matthews: Vaccinations. That’s the word I was looking for. It escaped me for a whole minute. It was a huge discussion. But you see that where, there’s a lot of eroded trust in that space for the same kind of reasons. We’re like, yeah, your,  your vaccine schedule. For a child now, it’s got a hundred vaccines on it. None of which have ever been tested together. So parents are like, I’m afraid of that because you’ve never done the testing and showed me that it’s safe. 

Jeanne Frazer: A lot of African Americans saying, I want to wait a little longer to see, make sure that like, it goes okay with people in my community who are taking it.

But I think it also helps like in instances like that, the COVID vaccine was in part. Developed by an African American scientist. 

Richard Matthews: Yeah, 

Jeanne Frazer: that  was a huge  trust building, trust building factor in that. So, you know, again, you know,  other,  other ways to connect those pieces, but, Building trust by, you know, being a little more transparent [00:41:00] of  How things are done.

Richard Matthews: Absolutely. So, That’s a good common enemy, a good driving force To run for. I want to talk practically how you manage a company like this. We call this your hero’s tool belt, right? It’s the practical portion of our show. And just like every superhero has their tool belt with their awesome gadgets, like their battle rings, or their web slingers, their laser eyes, or, you know, maybe a big magical hammer you can swing around and fly with, like Thor.

I’m talking about the top one, maybe two tools that you couldn’t live without to do what you do could be anything from your notepads to your calendar, your marketing tools, something you use for your actual delivery, 

Or something you think is essential to getting your job done on a daily basis as Founder of a company like yours.

Jeanne Frazer: Oh gosh. I think there are two things Is the right process and the right people, you know when you have those two things in place that allows you to Take your time to make sure that you’re guiding the ship and you’re working on the direction and that you’re really being able to manage The client expectations and the higher level picture.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. I,  I love that [00:42:00] because my side note, I haven’t announced this yet, but we’re working on a newsletter called a push button nation or push button process. I’m not having just quite decided on a name, but it’s all about how do you build processes that really leverage human talent and resources alongside robotic talent well, 

And cause man, it’s people in processes are what makes is what solves problems in the world.

Right. 

Jeanne Frazer: Yeah. 

Richard Matthews: And man, 

Jeanne Frazer: it can’t just be, So many ad agencies, all they’re about is showing, oh, we deliver this many thousand impressions or  this,  this many clicks, or  it’s, it’s about work product. And I think that process for it to be really meaningful has to be about the results you get out of it. So, we work, our process is more around a results oriented outcome. We want to have figures that we’re held accountable to, not just how many people visit a website, but how much product did you sell? [00:43:00] How many doctors are now prescribing your product? You know, factors that are really going to, Mean a difference versus just oh, oh, you know so many Thousand, you know hundreds of thousand more eyeballs on our website. Well, okay, that’s great. You had them on the website What do they do after that, you know? so for us It is gearing the process and the people to always focus on the results

Richard Matthews: And it’s, it’s an interesting thing in the agency space. And I see why it happens, right? Cause you have, I can’t remember exactly what the term for it is, but you have your, your leading factors and then your, your non leading factors. And it’s like, what are the things that I can control, right? As the agency, you can control the number of people who hit the website from the ad, right? And so that’s what you talk about and report on, but you’re like, But you still have to like, what, why did we drive the traffic in the first place? Right. It was to get a specific result. And it wasn’t just for the fun of sending people to the website. 

Jeanne Frazer: And that’s what people do with it. Once they got to the website, did the client [00:44:00] actually handle those leads? 

Richard Matthews: Yeah. And we. We talked about this in, In sales a lot too. It’s like, Hey, you can’t necessarily control whether or not someone’s going to buy from you on a sales call, but you can control the number of sales calls that you’re on and the process that you’re in. So people will talk about those leading metrics and then not talk about their close rate. Right. So you see that happen in the, sales space too, but you have, like, if you don’t have the close rate, then, you know, you, I don’t know, you have, you have to talk about both sides in order to have a picture of like what you’re actually delivering.

Jeanne Frazer: Yes, you do. 

Richard Matthews: Yeah. 

Jeanne Frazer: Yes, you do. 

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And now back to the Hero show.

Richard Matthews: I want to, uh, talk about one more thing here, and that’s your guiding principles, right? One of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only ever brings them to Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, I want to talk about the top one, maybe two principles that you live your life by and you run your company by.

Maybe something you wish you’d known when you started out Vitalink, you know, 20 plus years ago. 

Jeanne Frazer: Oh

I think partnerships and client relationships only work if everyone gets real value. 

Richard Matthews: That’s good. 

Jeanne Frazer: And when you get real value, you know, we developed, our clients stay with us a long time and they stay with us a long time because we make it work for them. And so I think  that’s probably. A big one. And then the second is just making sure that, my guiding principle is [00:47:00] that I’m operating in an area that I get excited about and I know I can truly make a difference in. 

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So I like The. Everyone gets value in a transaction because it’s, you know, it’s baseline. That’s how, how the capitalist structure works. It’s all volunteer and it only works when 

Jeanne Frazer: we can’t do it for free, but yeah, 

Richard Matthews: you have a mutual exchange of value. 

Jeanne Frazer: They’re happy to pay us. 

Richard Matthews: Yeah, we’re, we’re, we all want to mutually agree that this is a thing we want to do. And we’re going to exchange value with one another. And man, that’s, it’s how we solve the big problems is mutual exchange value. So I agree. So I think that’s a great place to wrap our interview. I do finish every interview with a simple challenge. I call the heroes challenge and do this to help you get access to stories that we might not find on our own. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine. And why do you think they should come share their story with us here on the hero show? First person that comes to mind for you? 

Jeanne Frazer: Oh, gosh, I [00:48:00] would say Dr Alex Carlisle. So he is CEO and chief scientific officer of N.A.D.P.H That’s the National Alliance against disparities in patient health. And he’s the one who’s using A. I. And machine learning to help solve health equity issues in this country. And it. He is brilliant and uses all of his tools and superpowers, and he’s got, oh my gosh, a great story, Behind it that, that really, I think Your listeners and viewers would love.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. Well, we’ll see if we can reach out and maybe get an introduction. Maybe they’ll come on and share his story. They don’t always, but when they do, we get some cool stories out of it. 

So thank you for that. And then, you know, in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for the acts of heroism.

So analogous to that here on this show is where can people find you if they want your help in the future, where can they light up the bat signal, so to speak and say, Hey, Jeanne we’d love to get our, your help, 

Marketing our company. Right. I think more importantly than where is who are the right types of people and companies to reach [00:49:00] out to you.

Jeanne Frazer: So I would ask people they can connect with me on LinkedIn. So it’s Jeanne Frazer on LinkedIn. You can go through vital link as well, or they can email me at the long email. So it’s Jeanne@VitalLinkweb.com I’m happy to have an email, Our. Best potential partners are organizations who serve people with, Issues like diabetes, diabetic competence or complications, maternal child health issues, Who’d like to know that there’s another way to build their business rather than doubling down on providers and just spending more money on marketing, that there’s a better way that they can do it with less money to have better results. So that’s going to be our best potential partner. 

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us today. Jeanne really appreciate just the time and your willingness to share your, your story. Do you have any, Final words of wisdom for our audience to hit this, Stop record button?

Jeanne Frazer: Oh, gosh, do what you love. Go out and [00:50:00] have fun and, Listen to some more of these podcasts. I love the hero theme. 

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Thank you very much, Jeanne

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