Zed Williamson | Founder & CEO, TrackableMed | Neuroscience & Mindset, Aligning Goals, & System Optimization

The Leading Difference

Zed Williamson is the founder and CEO of TrackableMed. He explores his transition from the advertising world to the medtech industry, where he applies neuroscience and behavior change principles to optimize medical systems. Zed discusses the importance of bridging the gap between clinical information and human connections in healthcare, and shares insights from his two podcasts aimed at medical sales and private practice growth. This discussion is packed full of practical advice for leaders in all industries.

Guest links: https://www.trackablemed.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/zedwilliamson/

Charity supported: Polaris Project

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at [email protected].

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Host: Lindsey Dinneen
Editing: Marketing Wise
Producer: Velentium

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Episode 055 - Zed Williamson

[00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

[00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

[00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

[00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

[00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

[00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. My name is Lindsey, and I am so excited to introduce you to my guest today, Zed Williamson. Zed is the founder and CEO of TrackableMed, a medical growth platform established in 2011 focused on delivering tangible results for healthcare professionals.

He emphasizes that every system is perfectly designed to achieve its current results, and believes that by identifying and addressing system constraints, meaningful change can be achieved. Through TrackableMed, Zed applies neuroscience and behavior change principles to help private medical practices and medtech companies optimize their systems.

He also shares actionable insights as the host of two podcasts, The Medical Sales Accelerator podcast, providing tips and secrets from the industry's top performers, and The Physician Growth Accelerator podcast, aiming to assist private practice physicians in balancing excellent patient care with successful practice management.

All right. Well, welcome, Zed. It's so nice to speak with you today.

[00:01:50] Zed Williamson: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

[00:01:52] Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely. Well, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself and your background and what led you to MedTech?

[00:01:59] Zed Williamson: Sure. So actually I come from the advertising world, which maybe seems strange. I thought it my life plan was climbing the corporate ladder, and I thought it was a really good idea, and then I realized I despised the industry. I just thought it was totally riddled with a complete lack of accountability to actual results. And it wasn't feeding my soul to, to be working in that space. And so I started a company called TrackableMed back in 2011 with the idea that we all are, we're working with humans have brains and brains are pretty predictable because of the understanding of neuroscience and cognitive behavior, bias and heuristics, and that we could create a company that would help medical practices grow by bringing in very specific patients.

And that's when I was introduced to the medical device industry because the people and the organizations that witnessed the work we did for private medical practices first was that medical device space. And that really opened my eyes to this amazing industry where, unfortunately, patients don't know how much amazing technology there is out there. There's patients making uninformed decisions about treatment plans, and there's something better. In most every case, there's something better. So that really does feed my soul. And this idea that we kind of take ownership of it is our job to help people realize that they don't have to live the way they're living and that's really what fuels the organization.

[00:03:28] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, well, that's incredible and very important, obviously. So I want to go a little bit further back in your personal story first, and then I definitely want to hear all about what you're doing now. But back at the beginning, could you have anticipated that you would end up in this field and doing the work that you're doing now? Or was this just a happy evolution over time?

[00:03:48] Zed Williamson: I had major knee surgery when I was 16 years old and I thought physical therapy was really cool. Like I, that's where I thought I wanted to go. And too much math and science. So, so it was not the direction for me. And I really wrapped my head around human behavior, this idea that everything is so predictable. Our brains were built a long time ago to exist in a world that doesn't exist anymore, and when you understand the bias and heuristics of the brain, you can literally create and predict behavior. So that's why I went into that advertising space, because that felt like a better fit for that.

The way I came back to medical was, I actually heard a commercial for a procedure that sounded really interesting, and it was a horrible commercial. And I just, I did some research and realized that no one who had what this procedure would fix would ever think that procedure would help them. But once I realized what that procedure was doing, it was almost like I had to carry the flag and run this up the hill, because there's people who don't know that this exists, and that's how I kind of dipped my toe in and learned, and then I just got honestly addicted to the curiosity around what else is there out there from a technology standpoint.

[00:05:13] Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely. So you started exploring what else was out there and then you formed your own company, which is a consulting firm and more. Could you speak a little bit about that and how the company has evolved over time too?

[00:05:25] Zed Williamson: Yeah, so started TrackableMed in 2011 really to help those practices. And what we learned is that medical practices generally just kind of-- this may sound strange-- but they generally sit around and wait to see what patients show up. And there are some amazing technology opportunities out there. And even medical device reps will, like when I say this, they'll go, "Yeah, I hear that all the time." And that is that a lot of times physicians are looking for perfect patients to use technology. And it's because maybe they're new to it and they just, they want that perfect patient.

So what we were good at is getting the perfect patient. And what we realized is the services we were providing direct to private practices also worked for medical device companies because if medical device companies took ownership of educating patients about the life they could be living, you really drove massive adoption of these devices.

So if you think about a physician, the training they go through, generally they're not really big to change, right? That's kind of built into them. They spent a long time learning abnormal anatomy, normal anatomy. They see abnormal and they go, "Ooh, we've got to fix that." And that's their mindset.

So when you're a medical device company and you have something that is better, and you know what I find is 99 percent of the people I meet in medical device are really passionate about getting the word out because it's better, right? It's like, we don't have to do it in the old way. You're doing a surgery that was done in 1942. There's something different now that's actually got better outcomes.

So anyway, but physicians are biased against that change. We see a lot of biases that pop up in that behavior. But one of the quickest routes to changing that behavior is have patients ask for it. Because it removes the, kind of that bias that they're not doing something they were trained and they're actually now serving the patient. And so what we started doing with the Medical Sales Accelerator is working with medical device companies on creating programs to make it so patients were saying, "Hey, doc, do you do the blank procedure?" And that would help drive adoption.

[00:07:39] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Okay. That's incredible. So you have this consulting portion, which is huge. And then you also have podcasts. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit about your inspiration for introducing these podcasts to the world and what you hope to accomplish through these as well.

[00:07:54] Zed Williamson: Sure. And the two podcasts are very different. The Medical Sales Accelerator podcast is about putting the spotlight on the best of the best in the medical device industry. We talk to authors that have written books that have really impacted the industry. Jeffrey Moore was one of my favorite episodes. That was awesome. And the challenger sale, like there's a lot of really cool stuff there. And what we really built it for is we wanted people, who had some windshield time, to be able to listen to something that was going to make their next interaction with their customer better.

And so it's an interview style podcast. It's leadership in medical device. Sometimes it's sales leadership, sometimes it's authors, but it's all around this incredible industry and really just a conversation about these little tips and tricks that people are using that help them be more successful. And that's been great. That podcast is four, four and a half years old. So we've been doing it a long time and I've got some really good feedback.

The other podcast is the Physician Growth Accelerator. And this podcast is not interview style. It is designed to give actionable tips to private practice business owning physicians. The episodes tend to be eight to 12 minutes and it's, you can walk away, implement something that you heard. We do share it with the medical device community as well, because a lot of times if you're a medical device rep and you have a piece of technology that's very similar to competitive to competitors, you're always looking to how can I bring more value? You know, what can I do on top of the technology? And so we found a lot of medical device reps will share episodes from The Physician Growth Accelerator to their customers because they witness firsthand what is going on in the practice that can be very frustrating.

[00:09:54] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, well, both of them sound incredible, and I appreciate that you have two separate podcasts that are really impacting the industry. And I'm wondering, getting to speak with all these incredible people and hearing their advice and inspiration and things like that, what are some of the common themes you've picked out from these in terms of challenges within the industry that may be, you know, through these conversations, or even your own consulting work, that you can help solve?

[00:10:17] Zed Williamson: Yeah, so I would say the biggest-- is such a good question-- the biggest challenge is something called curse of knowledge. And curse of knowledge is this idea that when you foundationally understand something, it almost automatically makes you worse at communicating it to someone who doesn't, right? And you see this in sales a lot, where a salesperson goes, "Oh, you know, this one's great because it's got the X942 va ba da ba." and the person buying has no idea what that means and you're not helping.

And the thing that medical device very commonly miss, is they have this passionate route for the existence of their technology, the years, the effort, the expense, and they are thinking big picture, like it's really important that we achieve these things because we are changing lives. And then, they go to their customers, and they show them the X948, you know, vibidabidabada, right? And they're just trying to live in this world of, "Well look, this one has a number on it," or, and that's where we see the biggest challenge, is: physicians, surgeons, they're humans too, they connect with stories. They are actually in it to help patients. And that big disconnect is a challenge that you see almost every company face. Part of it is cause they're so excited about all the work they did that they're not using the foundation that got them through those speed bumps to actually help someone else wrap their head around the concept.

You know, it's just like if you cook an amazing meal, the person who watched you do that appreciates it much more than if they just tasted the exact same meal just served to them. If they see the effort you went through and why you did slice the onion this way or whatever it is-- maybe that's a weird example-- but, it's the biggest myths that we see across medical devices. They get trained to clinical information and they go try to have clinical conversations because they think doctors are going to make a logical clinical decision. But humans are not logical. We don't do that. So that would, that would be number one.

[00:12:24] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that's absolutely core. And then how do you bridge that gap? Or how do you encourage people to think through bridging that gap between, yes, we love that you have all these shiny features that are very important, but they don't necessarily mean a whole lot to your end user just yet. So how can you help bridge that gap between all the shiny features that the engineering team wants to talk about versus how does this benefit that end user or the physician or whoever needs it?

[00:12:52] Zed Williamson: So a lot of it is understanding truly what the bias that this person may have against changing. It could be that they're uncomfortable with change. It could be that they don't want to make a decision that potentially is worse than the current thing that they're offering. And if you understand what is holding this person back, it's going to put you in a better position to understand that perspective.

But your conversation needs to be about aligning goals, asking questions. The medical device so often talks too much. They tell, as opposed to what's important, what's frustrating, what do you wish. "Tell me about a patient that it crushed you because you couldn't help them." So it's about connecting on the human side to see, is there actually a reason why this person should do something different?

If you go to a neurosurgeon and they don't do disc replacements, and you just try to bulldoze in and say, "Hey, a lumbar disc replacement is better for a patient than putting in a cage," you're not getting anywhere with that person. But if you can talk stories of patients and help them understand from a life impact, because physicians only get to experience a blip in time in the health care journey of a patient, and it has to be that way. And if you can help them understand kind of the parentheses around the rest of that person's life, like what led that person to need this, and after they leave, what is their life going to be? And now, if your device influences what that impact is, that's where you have the most leverage.

[00:14:37] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, one thing that struck me as I was reading through what your company does and all the value it brings to the world, something that really stood out to me was you said something along the lines of you are passionate about balancing patient care with the business side. So what do you find in that particular realm are the gaps? Because obviously, like you said, these are very caring individuals, super smart, very capable people, and they're experts in their field. So how do you help them to marry that expertise with the business side?

[00:15:07] Zed Williamson: Yeah. So, this goes back to bias and sometimes people will have a belief about something. Here's what's interesting about our brain. So someone may tell you that we can't control emotions, that emotions happen. And I would slightly agree with that. The reason I say "slightly" is because an emotion happens based on a belief and we can control our beliefs.

And so what can happen is if someone believes that financial success is not good, then they are going to have an emotional response related to anything that goes down that path. But that is a belief that you can change. And, the biggest issue with business and healthcare is, there are organizations, unfortunately, that they're not seeing the patient in, from a standpoint of what we do. They're looking at a bottom line only, and that's why their organization exists, and I'm a believer that when you only focus on that, at some point, it's not going to go well.

If you focus on the patient, but be smart around the structure you have to the organization, you can build something that's very financially successful that's helping more patients. You're building a moat around your business so that you can continue to help those patients and we're helping more lives.

But it gets to belief first. If someone believes it's bad or wants to pretend they believe it's bad, because that's the thing too, then that creates that emotional response that really puts them in a position where they are going to have a hard time succeeding. And if you don't succeed on the business side, you haven't helped any patients.

There are medical device companies who've gone out of business and it's not because their technology was bad, but they didn't go to market in the right way. And how many people did we hurt by allowing that to happen? You know, if we actually felt like there was value, then we need to take ownership of creating something that can really sustain and help as many humans as possible

[00:17:23] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, and that's really great advice and insight, and you have this reoccurring theme, which is you have this psychology background and interest. Where did that element come from in terms of how did you continue to even elevate your own beliefs so that your emotions could also follow suit? But where did this whole thing come from that has allowed you to be so successful personally and then for your clients from that neuroscience and psychology perspective and background?

[00:17:51] Zed Williamson: You know, the origin story of that stuff comes from a long time ago, me wanting to help clients and realizing that the advertising world was broken because they were awarding creativity, and creativity does not equal success. The advertising world actually really hurt themselves back in the late 50s, 60s, where they started giving awards for creativity and it changed the reason people did something.

"So, hey, let me create something so I win an award." "Well, did it help the company that paid you?" "I don't know." That's not good. And so I've always been a believer that we really do exist in a state where we are always witnessing perfect outcomes of our current system. Someone might go, "Well, there's no such thing as perfection."

And I don't mean it's perfect from my perspective, but the system was perfect at creating that outcome. If I go and walk into a room and stub my toe, me stubbing my toe was the perfect outcome of the system I operated: the light not being on, shoes not on, not paying attention. And so the same thing with behavior.

And if we look at, you know, humans are pretty interesting from an organism. We have this fancy brain. We survived in a world we probably shouldn't have. We're not as strong. We don't have claws. We don't have big teeth. Most of us are not as furry. But you know, we still survived and it's because of the brain and the brain has this one thing to do: stay alive.

It does not know a grocery store is around the corner. It does not know that when someone cuts you off, that it wasn't a saber toothed tiger trying to eat your family. So if we just allow this brain that did a really good job of keeping us alive, if we allow it to continue running, then we're limiting the evolution of ourselves from what we can really be aware of and understand.

The idea that someone can make me angry is a really silly idea. It's not true. Anything you do, you can't make me angry. I have to believe something. Now you could do some things where you could maybe get a sense of what I likely believe and you might take some action and I would be angry, but I'm never going to give that power to you from the standpoint of you can actually make it so. You can't make it so.

And, there's an example I like to use to just help people realize how much perspective is in our control. You're driving down a road. It's 45 miles an hour, and you see this stop sign up on the right hand side coming up. And this car pulls up to that stop sign and there's something about the car or the driver, and in your mind you go," They're going to roll this stop sign and I'm going to have to slam on the brakes." It just, it pops into your head. Everyone listening right now, I know it's happened to you.

Sure enough, car pulls in front of you, you slam on the brake so hard everything in your chair or your seat hits the dashboard, your shoulders tense up, you get angry, maybe you say some things about this driver or the car, like, "I knew it." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so people are feeling that right now. You weren't harmed. Okay, there was no accident. You hit the brakes. You might get to your destination three seconds later than you originally were.

But here's the rest of the story. It was a mom driving and her child was in the back seat bleeding to death and she was going to the ER. Everybody's shoulders just went, oh. Wait, so now you're not angry, but nothing changed, right? You still hit the brakes. The stuff still hit the dashboard. You're still gonna be three seconds later than you were.

But our brain is designed to treat things with this fight or flight. And when you can understand that everything you say to people can be more helpful. Every witnessing of other people's behavior can be more helpful. In a work environment, if someone acts defensive, it's probably not because of you, it's they're in a state where their brain is trying to tell them they're in danger even though they're not, and they don't know that the mom was rushing her kid to the ER.

And so it was kind of like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube for me. Once I really wrapped my head around that understanding, I can't get it back in the tube, like it's now it's got to drive everything, right? Because there's so much value in it. There's so, I get really passionate because everybody on the planet can be experiencing more joy than they currently are without anything different in their life because it's purely perspective and understanding and knowing your own beliefs and then choosing, do I want that belief or does that belief actually serve me? Why do I believe that? Maybe I shouldn't believe that. So anyway, long answer. I don't know if I actually answered your question, but I kind of go off on a soapbox in those scenarios.

[00:22:39] Lindsey Dinneen: Love it. And I really appreciate that particular illustration because I think that was the perfect way to capture how much responsibility we are able to take for ourselves and our reactions to things. And it's such a good reminder too, that in the daily we get to choose. We get to choose what affects us, what doesn't, what brings us joy, where we can give grace and patience in a circumstance that we maybe know nothing about. Yeah. I love that.

So, you've gotten to speak with so many incredible people through your podcasts, through your consulting, and of course, you've worked with some pretty spectacular companies. What are a couple moments, or maybe a moment, that really stands out to you as just driving home the idea that, yes, I am in the right industry at the right time?

[00:23:21] Zed Williamson: So I love learning. I am really curious. And I don't think that there is a way for me to learn more faster than being in this space. There's things that we know about just human behavior today that it wasn't known 15 years ago. The technology is incredible. I had the CEO of a company that's building a remote control pill that you swallow and they swim it around your stomach to be able to scan your stomach lining for cancer without an endoscopy. They could ship it to somebody and control it from the other side of the world. That is fricking cool.

So there's so much unending opportunity. I think the exact, like I've always enjoyed history. I like learning, but I couldn't be in a role where that was my job. Like, "Hey, let's learn what already happened." I do like the context. I like thinking about humans, ancient humans doing things and how it affects us today. But I just think this space is, it's infinite from the standpoint of what's possible, what technology there is, the impact of that technology with the people that work in the industry, that work in health care and the patients. So it's just to me. It's just a vast place to play.

[00:24:44] Lindsey Dinneen: It's so true, and you can't get bored. Or if you get bored, that's entirely your fault, I would say, because there's so much innovation. And you know, like we were talking about even before pressing play, there's so much care and dedication and passion in this industry to really make a difference, and that alone is inspiring to even simply bear witness to.

[00:25:06] Zed Williamson: Yeah, absolutely. It's a big part of our entire organization. If anybody calls it up and says, "Hey, why do you guys actually do what you do?" Anybody would tell you it's to help people realize that they don't have to live the way they're living.

And if you know that someone is about to have a procedure that is from 1942 and they have one that's better, we call it, and this might be strange to share publicly, but we call it "pulling kids out of traffic." Like you wouldn't walk down a street and go, Oh, look, there's that kid in traffic. "I should just let him." You would do whatever you could to pull the kid out of traffic. And that's what I think medical device is really positioned, that's what they should be doing. They should be seeing these patients that they're helping and really attacking it from that level of passion.

[00:25:53] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And so, completely pivoting the conversation just for fun. Imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It could be within your industry, but it doesn't have to be. What would you choose to teach?

[00:26:10] Zed Williamson: Self awareness, 100%. The power your mind has and understanding that you are likely not under attack, that joy is not a destination. It's not a finish line. It's a decision. Man, if I could wave a magic wand and just make that where people really got it, it would be, that would be so cool. So I would definitely do that. And for a million dollars, man, I'd make it a pretty serious class. Lots of follow up, maybe even some role play for a couple of years. But the, yeah, that would be amazing.

[00:26:43] Lindsey Dinneen: It would be amazing, yes. And I particularly like your magic wand idea. I think it would change the entire landscape of the world, so I'm all about that. Excellent. And how would you wish to be remembered after you leave this world?

[00:26:58] Zed Williamson: "That he put aside his own discomfort and helping me realize what was possible." We have so many interactions with people and we can say like, "Oh man, you know, this person doesn't realize this." But then a lot of times the brain is saying, "Well, it's going to be uncomfortable if you bring it up." And so I think that cause I know I irritate some people and it's all, it's always out of love. But...

[00:27:24] Lindsey Dinneen: Right.

[00:27:25] Zed Williamson: ...but yeah, I would say that, "whatever he could to help me realize that there was more for me."

[00:27:32] Lindsey Dinneen: That's powerful. I love that answer. Yeah. And then final question. What is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

[00:27:42] Zed Williamson: Mmm. My family. Two boys and my wife, Nico, Elijah, and Chantel. We just have so much fun. Late teenage boys, well, actually my oldest one is 20 now, but it's all about laughter. What's cool is the sense of humor is so powerful because there's literally-- this would really could annoy some people-- there's nothing that can't be funny, right? It's always belief, right? And if you can have that mindset, and my family does, so anytime we spend together laughter is going to be happening soon.

[00:28:16] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Well, it goes back to your whole thing about joy, too. If you choose joy, then there's also a lot more opportunity for laughter, too. Or it just comes a little easier, perhaps.

[00:28:27] Zed Williamson: Yep.

[00:28:28] Lindsey Dinneen: Excellent. Well, this has been an incredible conversation. I personally was not even expecting this deep dive into psychology, but I love it. It's fantastic. And I just really appreciate you sharing your passion and heart for the industry and for helping bridge the gap between the expertise and then reaching the people that they're intending to reach and having sustainable businesses so that people can continue to make a big impact with their work. So thank you for the work you're doing with the world. And thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it.

[00:28:54] Zed Williamson: I know the work it takes to put into a podcast. So I appreciate what you're doing and appreciate you having me on.

[00:29:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. And we are so honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to the Polaris Project, which is a non governmental organization that works to combat and prevent sex and labor trafficking in North America. So thank you for choosing that organization to support, and we wish you continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. And thank you so much to our listeners for tuning in. And if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two and we will catch you next time.

[00:29:36] Ben Trombold: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a full-service CDMO with 100% in-house capability to design, develop, and manufacture medical devices from class two wearables to class three active implantable medical devices. Velentium specializes in active implantables, leads, programmers, and accessories across a wide range of indications, such as neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, cardiac management, and diabetes management. Velentium's core competencies include electrical, firmware, and mechanical design, mobile apps, embedded cybersecurity, human factors and usability, automated test systems, systems engineering, and contract manufacturing. Velentium works with clients worldwide, from startups seeking funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.