The Product Management Leaders Podcast
The Product Management Leaders Podcast
Operational Readiness, Collaboration Between Teams & Creating Value (with David Wolf, AVP of Payor Solutions @ MedeAnalytics, Cotiviti)
The sixteenth episode of The Product Management Leaders Podcast is now live!
Our aim with this podcast is to connect you with some of the top PM leaders and share their real-world strategies and tactics for building world-class products.
In today's episode, Grant Duncan speaks with David Wolf, AVP of Payor Solutions at MedeAnalytics and former VP of Product Management at Cotiviti and other companies. He’s spent much of his career in the healthcare space, so this episode is a nice take on how to apply product management strategies for a specific industry that everyone deals with in their personal lives.
Leave us your thoughts about the episode and subscribe to be notified of the upcoming ones!
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Grant Duncan (00:05):
This is the Product Management Leaders Podcast in which you hear from some of the top PM leaders about their real world strategies and tactics for building world class products. It's sponsored by Voximplant, the leading serverless communications platform and no code drag and drop contact center solution. Voximplant enables product leaders and developers to integrate communications into their products, such as embedding voice, video, SMS, in-out chat and natural language processing. Join over 30,000 businesses trusting Voximplant. Now, let's jump into the show.
Grant Duncan (00:41):
Hey what’s up everybody, it’s Grant Duncan. I spoke with David Wolf, AVP of Payor Solutions at MedeAnalytics and former VP of Product Management at Cotiviti and other companies. He’s spent much of his career in the healthcare space, so this episode is a nice take on how to apply product management strategies for a specific industry that everyone deals with in their personal lives.
Grant Duncan (01:06):
Hey David, thanks so much for coming on the Product Management Leaders Podcast today. To start, can you give us a brief background about yourself and where you work?
David Wolf (01:15):
Yeah, certainly. First off, thanks for having me on, Grant. I've been looking forward to having this conversation with you for a while.
Grant Duncan (01:23):
Yeah.
David Wolf (01:23):
But to answer your question, what my role is is I am a lead on our payer solutions within a company called MedeAnalytics. They basically do healthcare analytics, so if you think about the problems in healthcare, we don't lack for data. We have it everywhere and we have different types and formats and files and sources. And the problem a lot of people find is how do you use that data and make it meaningful? So basically what we do is orchestrate how that data comes together. We contextualize it into the form of healthcare, and then we serve it up in a very meaningful way and allow individuals to then customize how they use that data through our SAS platform.
Grant Duncan (02:04):
Awesome. It sounds like something that the industry really needs.
David Wolf (02:09):
I hope they need a lot more.
Grant Duncan (02:11):
Yeah. And could you give people a brief journey of how you've gotten to where you are today in product management?
David Wolf (02:20):
Yeah, so my background is kind of a wandering journey, in a way. Educationally, I have an undergrad in business and a master's in business, both in focusing on marketing. And how I got into product was just over time, I've realized that was the area that I wanted to be in, from a marketing perspective or from a product perspective. So I've kind of held a lot of different roles from consulting, to sales, to account management and corporate marketing, things like that. And I just always gravitated back towards product. And I eventually had an opportunity to come in as an individual contributor through a large health plan, had a great boss at the time. And that just kind of put me on a journey through the next couple stops in my career where I was able to build out my product background and expertise.
Grant Duncan (03:13):
That's awesome. Yeah, I think it's always cool for people to hear that there can be non-traditional ways to get into product management or grow a career there.
David Wolf (03:24):
Yeah, at least when I went through school, nobody sat down and said, "Hmm, I want to be a product person." I didn't even understand what a product person or a product manager actually did. And just over time, start to gravitate toward different aspects of what a corporation does and I love the fact that product kind of touches every single department, there's an internal and external, there's a balance of the creative and the analytical aspects of what an individual is required to do to be successful. So it just really is something that I enjoy.
Grant Duncan (03:59):
Yeah. So you recently switched roles a few months ago, or switched companies. Can you share any tips or strategies you have for people as they move in their PM leadership career, maybe how to do that or how to onboard and add value quickly?
David Wolf (04:19):
Yes. The first thing that came to my mind when you were asking that question, Grant, is just network. I think it's one of those things that people tend to let slide because they get caught up in the day to day, right? Whereas in reality, while an individual carries their skills and capabilities with them, that network is really what empowers their ability to move within an organization or across to a new organization. And so I could think back through many different examples of my career where I was able to progress to that next level because I had a network of individuals within that organization, or I was able to go to a different organization because of some connection that I had along the way, whether it was a second or a third degree connection. It's always helpful to be able to get somebody's insight to that company and then get your name inside the four walls.
David Wolf (05:16):
As far as recommendations beyond the network, I'm a big proponent of constantly learning, right? I like putting myself into those challenging situations. And so I think one of my things that I try to constantly think about is not necessarily worrying, do I have the skills, the knowledge, the expertise to do it day one, but do I have the ability to learn and grow within that particular role? So the role that I had previous to this was a really good example where I've always worked in healthcare in some form or fashion, but that role got more into analytics and some very niche aspects of the healthcare market that I knew about, but I didn't know the details.
David Wolf (06:00):
And I think just being able to have that positive attitude and open mindedness and going in and learning and coming into an organization and just realizing you don't know a lot about the individual products or the processes, and just having that mindset of being the sponge and putting the ego aside a little bit to say, I'm not the smartest person in here. I rely on my team a fair bit right now because I am a little bit new into this particular role. So it's mindset and constantly growing and educating.
Grant Duncan (06:32):
Yeah. Yeah. Great points. What does your team look like right now?
David Wolf (06:38):
Yeah, so my team's roughly about 10 people and they're split between a product manager function and a product owner function. And so at this point I kind of have them split that way. And then within each of those areas, I have them divided based upon the two primary product suites that I support.
Grant Duncan (07:02):
And can you go into how you view the differences between product management and product owners?
David Wolf (07:10):
Well, that's the hot topic question in the last two months of my life.
Grant Duncan (07:15):
Yeah, totally.
David Wolf (07:16):
Yeah. The easiest way that I can explain it, and I'll just note, different organizations do it differently.
Grant Duncan (07:22):
Sure.
David Wolf (07:23):
So there is no right size, right? The easiest way I explain it, is a product manager is responsible for the strategy, the vision, the more external facing work that you do. Visiting with clients and things of that nature. Whereas a product owner is more focused on the short, immediate tactical pieces of that product and they're more internal facing. So I constantly give that analogy of, think of two people standing back to back. One's a product manager, one's a product owner. One's facing externally and one's facing internally.
Grant Duncan (08:01):
Yeah, that's a nice analogy there. And you mentioned that you obviously have divided them by product. Can you speak to why you did that as well?
David Wolf (08:15):
Just skillset, quite frankly. I wanted them to be able to focus on a specific set of products that have very common, shared core components to what they do and basically understanding that full stack of that solution.
Grant Duncan (08:36):
Yeah. Cool.
David Wolf (08:36):
Whereas I think if I have a PO go and try and learn the entire suite, they're going to get spread too thin. So I specifically want them to be deep into their respective areas of expertise.
Grant Duncan (08:52):
Got it. And I think you've worked at companies of different sizes, small, medium, enterprise.
David Wolf (09:00):
Yeah.
Grant Duncan (09:02):
What do you view as the differences between product management based on company size?
David Wolf (09:12):
That's a good question, Grant. It's actually weird as I'm thinking about it, because I am probably in the smallest company that I've ever worked for now, but it's the largest product team I've ever been a part of. So it's inverse. I think that the main difference that I've seen just across the different roles is just the overall flexibility in what the team does and the individual contributors within that team. In the larger corporations I work for it's very structured and very policy, policy, policy, and things like that.
Grant Duncan (09:54):
Yeah.
David Wolf (09:55):
Whereas in the smaller ones, it's like, all right, we're on a mission, all hands onboard. We know that generally, you're going to work in that direction and I'm going to work in this direction and we're all going to meet in the end. So it's just, I think it's a different mindset in how people come into it.
Grant Duncan (10:14):
What would you see as some of the biggest challenges for PM leaders?
David Wolf (10:22):
They're endless,. I think one of the biggest challenges I see is that a lot of people like to play product that aren't even in product. Like, I don't want to say it's the sexy thing, but that's the first word that comes to my mind is people are like, "Oh yeah, I want to go and create a new product and that's fun and innovation and building things." But they don't realize all the work that goes into how a product goes from ideation to being sunset eventually.
Grant Duncan (10:54):
Yeah.
David Wolf (10:54):
And so a lot of people love to talk about the solution, but people don't like to talk about the problems that you're solving. Right? It's like, oh, we could do this and this and this and this. Well, all right, let's figure out what the problems that we're solving are and how do we make sure that we're solving the right one the right way and that there's going to be product market fit and a willingness to pay within the marketplace.
Grant Duncan (11:18):
Yeah.
David Wolf (11:18):
I think that's a big one. Let me think through some of my other ones that are challenges.
Grant Duncan (11:24):
I think just to riff on that, I think I've heard that sometimes called solution in search of a problem.
David Wolf (11:32):
Yes.
Grant Duncan (11:33):
It's like people come up with some cool idea and then have to figure out, well, could this actually solve anyone's problem? Which obviously is kind of a backwards way to do it.
David Wolf (11:44):
Yeah, definitely. And even, not just at the high product level, but once you get down to the individual features and enhancements that you make, I see a lot of individuals that are like, "Oh, this would be a cool way that we could do this or we could add this to the product." But there is no need that they're solving for on the back end. It's like, I think sometimes product people fall in love with their product, when in reality you should be falling in with the problem. Right?
Grant Duncan (12:15):
Yeah.
David Wolf (12:15):
I think prioritization's probably another one that every product person deals with. Like how do I balance some of these things? New enhancements versus new products versus maintenance and defect fixes and things like that, that's always an interesting one. And one that I've seen in my past is basically not commercializing a product the right way and getting it into the market before it's ready to actually be used by end clients. That's another problem that we tend to fall onto.
Grant Duncan (12:49):
Can you speak to that further? I think that's interesting.
David Wolf (12:52):
Yeah. So I don't want to be too elementary, but you think about the commercialization process where you come up with the idea, you create the business case, get the funding, go and build. Then you go through your typical, ready to market, ready to sell GA and some pilots in there. Right? There is a lot that goes into that quick six or seven segments of a process that I just ran through. And where people tend to fall short is, a great example, I had an interview yesterday because we're hiring for this particular position. And I asked her the question, at what point does marketing get involved in a product launch? And her question was spot on because she said day one, right?
David Wolf (13:41):
Because the marketing team needs to understand what is the problem that you're solving, who's the persona, what are their pain points? All that goes into the external part of that launch that the product marketing team drives and that tends to be missed. And marketing's brought in at the tail end or they haven't thought through the big picture. All right, who am I going to sell this to? Who's my competition? Do I have the right distribution? Is my sales force educated? Am I cannibalizing other pieces of my product? Things like that.
Grant Duncan (14:17):
Yeah.
David Wolf (14:18):
There's a lot that goes into being operational ready and similar to your PO question from before, what's the difference between a PO and a PM in my head? I think the other area from a commercialization process, a lot of people get hung up on is, what's the difference between a product manager and a product marketer? And again, it's that same kind of analogy of two people back to back where that product manager is making sure the organization is ready to deliver that product. Whereas the product marketer is making sure that the external messaging value story, et cetera, is all on point.
Grant Duncan (14:59):
And I think some people are sometimes now shifting product marketing into the product management org.
David Wolf (15:08):
Yeah.
Grant Duncan (15:08):
Do you think it should be, or do you think it fits better in marketing?
David Wolf (15:16):
I've probably played in various different models of that. I don't think there is a single best solution, I think it depends upon the strengths of the respective teams within that said organization.
Grant Duncan (15:31):
Sure.
David Wolf (15:32):
Like as an example, in a past life, we had a really strong product marketing group and the individuals that I worked with really aligned with the product managers very well and thus, it made sense to keep it in the marketing function. But I've also been in organizations where it's an extension of the product team because it's how that product is being represented externally. So again, I don't think there is a right answer to it. It's all situation specific based upon the resources and skills that the company has at their disposal.
Grant Duncan (16:08):
Sure. Yeah, definitely you can see it's situational. You also talked about prioritization there. How do you think about making prioritization decisions? Especially, let's say when there's some big ask from a huge customer in a B2B setting and you have to think about their ask compared to the existing roadmap?
David Wolf (16:34):
Yeah. That is a constant struggle I would say. In the situations where I've had that before where I know I want to deliver whatever that ask is, I try to model or modify it to a point where I know that the work that I'm putting into meeting their request is going to be used in scale across the rest of the business. So that's kind of the first thing that I go through, can that happen? And if it can - great, then that automatically goes into that prioritization kind of a rubric, if you will, of, yes, I can scale this particular feature and I have a client that will want to pay for it right now.
David Wolf (17:18):
On the flip side of that, if it's something that's truly a one off, unfortunately you have to have some difficult conversations from time to time. Does that ask make sense? Does it align with your strategy? Do you have the right skills to put it in place? And quite frankly, I think a lot of the times where we get into a really valuable discussion is understanding what is the problem that you're trying to solve? And I think sometimes people automatically go, "Well, I want that button to be green, not blue." "All right, well why do you want it that way?" "Well, because we have a lot of color blind users that can't see green." Okay, well, let's figure out how we can take the existing button and put more of an icon on it to signal through a visual instead of a color what it's supposed to do. Right?
Grant Duncan (18:05):
Yeah.
David Wolf (18:05):
So what is the problem that you're trying to solve?
Grant Duncan (18:08):
How do you go about presenting to the board or the C-suite? Do you have any tips there?
David Wolf (18:14):
Yeah. Be brief, be specific, and be to the point. And focus on what is the value that you're creating for the customer as well as what's the value that you're providing back to the organization and what's the organization going to gain from that over a period of time. And then probably the last thing that I see a lot of individuals miss is, all right, what do I need to go and execute on that particular thought or that idea or that project? Do I need more resources? Do I need a development team? Do I need time? Do I need someone to clear a barrier out of the way? What do I need from that team to be successful with what I'm asking them?
Grant Duncan (18:58):
Yeah. I think that's a great point because oftentimes they'll listen and then they want to know, do you need my help in some way?
David Wolf (19:07):
Yeah.
Grant Duncan (19:07):
So making it extremely clear, this is just an FYI or we need X, Y, Z. It's super valuable.
David Wolf (19:17):
Yeah. And as best that you can, again, being brief and to the point, but as best you can, helping them understand that you've thought through the larger business case behind whatever you're asking for. Like, have I identified, am I maximizing a strength that we have, or am I taking advantage of someone else's weakness that's in the marketplace? All the little nuances that go into it that you have to be able to demonstrate and be able to communicate. when ready, if somebody asks, what else have you done to get to this point?
Grant Duncan (19:54):
Yeah. Great points.
David Wolf (19:56):
Yeah.
Grant Duncan (19:57):
Do you have some favorite interview questions for PMs?
David Wolf (20:05):
Honestly, no. I kind of just go with the flow from an interview perspective based upon what the role is in the individual. Going back to I just did a set of interviews yesterday and this one individual had something very odd on their resume about the Oxford comma. And my first question was that is something I've never seen somebody dedicate space on a resume for, tell me about that? And to her credit, she had a really good reason as to why, she understood what it was. And to me, that simple question lit up a whole bunch of insights to that individual candidate's skillset and how her personality worked. So I don't like to go question by question by question over time, it all depends upon the situation. And quite frankly, I think there's a lot that goes into it from what is the role and what is the company that I'm at at that point in time?
David Wolf (21:06):
So like right now, one of the things that's really important to me overall in my career in any place that I've worked, but mostly right now, is just the overall culture of the organization. Not just the product team, but the culture as a whole. So I want to make sure that I'm understanding how that person's personality and how do they like to work fits within the culture not only that I'm trying to drive within my team, but then also what is the larger organization needing to be successful? So not necessarily questions, but more so general themes that I'm constantly looking for.
Grant Duncan (21:44):
Do you have a process for going about annual planning and maybe quarterly planning?
David Wolf (21:51):
Yes. And I've seen it again, in different ways in different organizations. So I've seen everything from annual planning where everyone submits projects and they're put in front of a big board and you have an above the line and below the line cut. Right? So yeah, everybody knows who's funded and who's not funded. And so if you want money, you've got to be able to justify why your ask is better than someone else's, all the way down to simply pulling information off of your backlog and what is the direction that we're wanting to go, and making sure that there is enough of a runway that you're communicating that plan so that the rest of the organization can prepare. Which is, I think one of the areas, a lot of places that I've seen with the exception of maybe one or two have really fallen down on.
David Wolf (22:42):
It's, if you think about it, product is looking two or three years out to what kind of revenue they're going to be able to gain through a new product or an enhancement. And the rest of the organization is thinking about today or maybe tomorrow. And so being able to know what you want to do on a long term perspective and pulling in the different pieces into that particular budget cycle or planning cycle that make the most sense, because then it impacts what else does that organization need to do to support you. So I talked before about operational readiness, right? So if I'm going to design and implement a new product, one, do I have the team and the skills in place today to build that and then maintain it? If I don't, I need to make sure that the appropriate departments can staff for it or hire for it in time. So it kind of sets the tone for what an organization is doing.
Grant Duncan (23:37):
What's one of the hardest product decisions you've had to make before?
David Wolf (23:41):
It wasn't necessarily a product decision, but the first one that comes to my mind is just moving from one position to a different position.
Grant Duncan (23:53):
Yeah.
David Wolf (23:54):
And I say that because in the position that I left, I had done a lot of work in getting a handful of projects to a certain point, right? Like even before somebody starts coding that first line of code, there's probably a year's worth of work that's leading up to that point. Blood, sweat, and tears, if you will. And in that role, I literally, I'm thinking through the two projects that I spent over a year getting to that point and then had to make a decision. I finally have the green light, do I really want to walk away from this right now? And where I felt the opportunity was looking at things, not just from those two projects, which were near and dear to my heart, but also what is the larger opportunity I have and can I recreate that magic in this new organization in the same way? Can I do it faster? Can I do it better? Things like that, it's just more so what is the opportunity that I have at that next position?
David Wolf (25:00):
Not necessarily a product decision per se, but probably a big P product decision as to what is my product management career path going to look like?
Grant Duncan (25:09):
Yeah. Right. So did you end up deciding to stay or go?
David Wolf (25:15):
I went.
Grant Duncan (25:17):
Okay. Do you think it was the right decision?
David Wolf (25:21):
Yes, definitely. Definitely.
Grant Duncan (25:23):
Cool.
David Wolf (25:23):
That was how I ended up where I am right now. So it's definitely, but it's hard because you don't know that in the couple weeks that you're going through that process.
Grant Duncan (25:34):
Yeah.
David Wolf (25:34):
You don't have a crystal ball of where things are going to go. Or quite frankly, how things are going to be on the other side. And that's where it's going back to the network thing that I talked about before, one of the main reasons I ended up taking the job that I have right now is because of my boss, and I didn't know him prior to starting here.
Grant Duncan (25:55):
That's cool.
David Wolf (25:56):
And that network effect helped me gain that comfort with him as my boss and I knew what I was getting into from his leadership style, et cetera.
Grant Duncan (26:07):
Cool. How do you work effectively with engineering teams?
David Wolf (26:16):
That's an interesting topic. I'm thinking about just the different examples in the last couple of jobs I've had. I think a couple different things. I am big on having perspective and not just for myself, but for the people that I work with. And I think one of the things that's lacking when a product team or a product manager works with an R and D team is the R and D team doesn't have perspective of what they're doing. Like at the end of the day, that developer is grabbing a user story and they're coding away to create a solution for that user story. They don't see how that feature fits into a larger product, into a larger solution and fits that product or fits that problem that we're solving client and then how the client's using it.
David Wolf (27:04):
So I think being able to help the R and D team or the engineers or whatever you want to call them, understand the bigger picture is helpful. I think the second thing that I've learned a lot is R and D obviously is a key partner with product and having a very tight relationship there is critical. And so in different points in my career, I've worked with my R and D counterpart almost as like we were part of the same physical team. We're all part of the same organization and whatnot, but being part of that same team where it's helping him or her understand here's what I'm trying to solve and here's my hypothesis as to how we can get there. And being open minded with certain developers that have a really good skill set and understanding how to approach that problem and look at different alternatives.
David Wolf (28:05):
I once worked with an R and D lead who literally was like a product person in his mind. Like he thought he was a product person, but he just happened to run our R and D team. So he and I could kick ideas back and forth constantly of how about this and how about that? Well, no, you don't want to do it that way because of this problem. Well why don't we approach it this way? So I think the more, it is a collaborative effort in helping get to whatever that solution is going to be and helping the team understand how the solution fits into the bigger picture. Those are the two key things that I would focus on.
Grant Duncan (28:38):
Yeah. Great advice. So when you are coming into a tricky situation or there's something you're trying to think through, or you want to bounce an idea off of someone, are there communities you go to? Or is it peers or colleagues from past companies? Who is your sounding board?
David Wolf (29:02):
Yes. All the above. I think to different degrees and based upon what I'm trying to figure out, right? So I think one of the things I love about this role that I have right now is, like I said before, we have an extremely large product team and we're very deep on industry expertise. And then from that, we have a couple concentric circles from the product owners to our product consulting group that they all have a very deep, rich understanding of how healthcare works. They've all worked at payers or providers, so we know it. So I have that natural group internally that I can take an idea and throw out a hypothesis of here's a problem, here's how I think we could solve it, let's talk about this. What am I missing? What's a different avenue that we could take, things like that.
David Wolf (29:54):
From time to time, I might tap into one of the mentors that I've had over time and get their perspective on things, here's something I'm struggling with. Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing is just my mentors. And then the immediate team that's around me are the first set of go-to individuals.
Grant Duncan (30:15):
Cool. Are there any sources or communities you recommend PMs to use to continue learning?
David Wolf (30:22):
Anything that's only the internet right now, I'd say. I love just taking a word or a phrase and just putting it into Google and seeing what comes back. While that's very basic an understanding, I think you can find out a lot just by what thought leaders have out there around that particular topic or that particular need. One of the things that we've been exploring is what kind of tool do we want to put in place to do our road mapping? We're trying to move off our existing tool. And so, understanding what are the different needs, what are the different solutions that are out there? And being able to go out to anything you see on the internet where someone has done an analysis is a great, easy way to do it. And then taking it to something, maybe on a LinkedIn channel that you belong to for product and saying, "Has anybody experienced this particular problem before?" "Hey, I have this need, anybody have suggestions?" I like throwing things out there on LinkedIn.
David Wolf (31:22):
And then you probably have all your typical other things like pragmatic is another good one that if you've been into that space and you like that kind of framework, it's a good way to foster through those communities all the way through things such as serious decisions I've used in my past before. Those are another good set of resources.
Grant Duncan (31:45):
Yeah, nice. How do you explain to your family or non tech people what you do for a living?
David Wolf (31:56):
I try to put it in context that they will understand. So if I start talking user experiences and beta testing and JIRA and PI cycles, then that goes over people's head. So try to put in context to what they understand. So take any particular product, whether it's a box of cereal or your cell phone or the car you drive, and helping them understand how that product came to life. Somebody had to come up with the idea of, "Hey, Golden Grahams cereal is really good. Hey, let's put cinnamon on it. And now it's Cinnamon Golden Grahams. And oh, by the way, we could do chocolate." Now they're not going to go and put money into that, they have to go and test it and they have to package it and they have to distribute it and they have to price it. All that goes into how a product comes to be before somebody actually consumes that product. And so helping them understand that with something that they can relate to versus healthcare analytics, it's a little bit of a gray area for people to wrap their brains around sometimes.
Grant Duncan (33:04):
Yeah, that's great. Last question for you here. If you had one wish that can solve any product management problem, what would that be?
David Wolf (33:15):
Wow, I can't have two, Grant? I'd like to have two on that one.
Grant Duncan (33:19):
You could say two if you need to.
David Wolf (33:22):
No, no. I'm just giving you a hard time. If somebody could solve the problem of keeping everyone aligned and on the same page with knowledge and information around your products, that would be great. So just think about an organization, so I'm constantly looking for feedback on what are the problems in the market? How is our client using our tool? All of that stuff. That all sits in various different repositories. It sits in people's heads. It doesn't get communicated other than when there's a problem. So how do I take all that information and compile it down into a centralized repository? A help desk is another great source of information. Like what kind of tickets are we seeing? What's our trend? What kind of questions are people having? All that stuff can be compiled together and then that then drives a lot of information that goes into how a product gets developed. Right?
David Wolf (34:21):
The flip side of that is all right, now I know how I'm going to go to fix to that problem ,and I'm going to put something on the roadmap and it's going to be ABC feature that does this, that, and the other thing. Getting everyone to understand and remember and be able to communicate it out to their stakeholders is a huge opportunity, I think. And so, as a good example in my current role, we have something that's called the Mede Payer Committee. It's an internal thing that we do, but it's basically a group that I run once a month and it has stakeholders from all the core departments. Sales, account management, marketing, yada, yada, yada. And we literally talk through all of the things that are happening within our client base, within the industry. What are we seeing? Everything. And so it's a great way to have everyone in the room contributing and hearing the same information. And then obviously we do record keeping and documentation of that so you have that ongoing history of how has that committee migrated over time with things that we've focused on?
David Wolf (35:30):
It's the best that I can do without some wiz bang technology that somebody hasn't developed yet.
Grant Duncan (35:36):
Yeah. I have a feeling that some new committees are going to be formed after others hear this. That's a great idea.
David Wolf (35:43):
Thanks.
Grant Duncan (35:44):
Yeah. Well, David, thanks so much for coming on. Great insights today and talk to you soon.
David Wolf (35:49):
All right. Thanks Grant, thanks again for having me.
Grant Duncan (35:55):
Thanks for listening to today's podcast, and thanks to our sponsor, Voximplant, as well. If you are looking into how to improve your communication and customer engagement, check them out. Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and tell your friends so that others can find it more easily. Have a great day and feel free to reach out to me, Grant Duncan, if you have any questions you want asked in our next episode.