I’m Rubin Spann, and I’ve had the pleasure over the past 15 plus years (or, 5,475 plus days) of pursuing my professional passion as a global marketing leader – launching products, platforms, and services for medical device, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare technology companies.
It’s certainly been personally rewarding.
My 5,475 Days
For 15 plus years as a global marketing leader in healthcare, I’ve been on a mission to help companies provide Physicians, Surgeons, Healthcare Providers, and Healthcare Systems with the most cutting-edge medical device and pharmaceutical products and services. Equally, I’ve been on a mission getting these products and services to the market faster through innovative launch strategies saving time and money.
When I started my healthcare marketing career at Alcon Labs, I spearheaded the company’s first integrated educational and awareness targeted program for Physicians, Patients, and Payers. The program was laser-focused on targeting eye care specialists treating patients with glaucoma and consumers who were at risk for the blinding disease.
I remember spending 40% of my time speaking with eye care specialists in their offices and listening to their patients in the waiting rooms to deeply understand their treatment needs. Taking the time to understand the needs of the customers made the program a huge success preventing thousand of patients from losing their eyesight through glaucoma awareness and educations.
This experience is something I’ll never forget.
Living With Your Customers
I’ve made a successful marketing career in healthcare out of “living with my customers.” In other words, spending 30%-40% of my time in the field with my customers where treatment decisions take place to understand their wants and needs. This is critical to building long-lasting relationships between the marketers and customers. These long-standing relationships are vital to successful new product and service launches.
I’ve recently launched Global Marketing Squared (GMS²), a boutique global strategic marketing and product launch firm with one goal – assisting global marketing teams in creating differentiating strategies which allow them to successfully launch new products and services at an accelerated pace. And if there’s anything I’ve learned over the past 5,475 plus days, “living with customers” will be a crucial element of their success.
With this in mind, I’ve recently been thinking about the synergy between marketing and my favorite sport, racquetball. I’ve been an avid racquetball player for much of my life. In fact, it’s my favorite sport to play. Why? Because it directly mirrors my marketing strategy; tight, crisp, clean, and compelling. Racquetball is fast-paced, in your face, and there’s no time to snooze on the game.
Marketing is the same way. There’s no time to drag your feet, and a sloppy play can result in some serious negative consequences, especially when a patient’s health is on the line – and that’s why (GMS²). exists – to tighten up the game of global healthcare marketing.