Born and raised in the Chicago area, Timothy Kelley is an experienced business planner with extensive experience in marketing products in the medical arena. He completed his education at Northwestern University in organizational behavior. Marketing pharmacy benefit management, selling of pharmaceuticals, and veterinary pharmaceutical and medical equipment distribution all led Timothy to forming Sutherland Technologies, a business that markets medical grade media (CDs, DVDs) to hospitals worldwide under an outsourced management agreement with TDK. To further promote the sales of this media, the company developed a recording system to place medical images onto CDs. With the rapid success of this developing market, Sutherland Technologies was absorbed by TDK to better apply internal resources to this burgeoning market. Managing nearly 40 sales and marketing professionals, Timothy expanded marketing throughout North and South America and Europe. The establishment of key OEM partnerships with GE, Siemens and Philips put TDK Medical products at the forefront of this market.
Upon leaving TDK Medical, Timothy founded his own radiological recording and media company C&C Medical, which developed a new market brand, Same Day Labs. After producing $4 million in sales in less than two years, Timothy sold out of this company to form another radiological recording company, Nautilus Medical, for the purpose of developing medical recording software. During this time, he applied his experience with medical information recorded on CDs to develop a new business model of disseminating key information on a platform for expecting mothers that would produce revenue through sponsors without the cost being passed onto the user. As president of The Baby CD, he will continue development of the company vision of becoming the de facto standard of information given to expecting and new mothers.
What are you working on right now?
I am working on The Baby CD right now. This is an interactive educational resource given to new moms by their OB. We customize the CD for the practice with their name, pictures, bios, maps, a survey and additional services provided by the practice. The Baby CD is one of the few business models that completely solves a problem and satisfies all stake holders. The moms win with a great educational resource. The doctors win with knowing their patients are educated along with a great marketing tool, which costs them much less than typical patient education. And finally, the advertisers win with exclusive access to new moms early in the term with the implied support of health care providers. We have now added the emotional tie-in to moms by offering software to record full motion ultrasounds to The Baby CD. This has not been available at most OB offices due to medicolegal issues surrounding the distribution of diagnostic quality ultrasounds, hence the thermal print stills that most moms receive. We developed a patent pending process of rendering the ultrasounds in Flash video format. A Flash video file cannot be rendered for diagnostic interpretation, therefore allowing moms to share full motion ultrasound again. We plan on bringing this technology to other radiology disciplines with content and sponsors. The CDs are completely dynamic and create a controlled Internet experience through connecting to our content management system. Through registration, we offer synchronized e-mail messages to the patients based on their experience.
3 trends that excite you?
We are very excited that there is a movement toward educating patients for better medical outcomes. It has been proven that an educated patient has more confidence, and ultimately, will reduce health care costs with the understanding of their disease and/or physical state. Reducing health care cost begins with education. We also are excited about the pharma mandates that have limited the marketing to doctors and patients with an educational basis. Our education CDs can be used as a sales touchpoint for the pharma companies, while helping educate and reduce costs. As we grow, we will integrate into EMR systems as a content company.
We are very excited about digital advertising moving in the direction of trying to find platforms that actually deliver on their promise. The promise of digital has been to reach the target in a measurable and controlled manner. The Baby CD can claim 99.9 percent accuracy of reaching new moms due to the mastered distribution. Only a new patient at an OB office can receive a Baby CD. No aunt, sister or grandma can sign you up! Once this is understood, we will grow even faster than before. Facebook and other models can’t make that claim.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I write down every idea, even if it’s a bad one. Going back over notes I write about different ideas and thoughts helps hone the idea and process to get it done. I use paper, backs of business cards and the notepad on my iPhone. I like to draw and sketch out ideas to get a visual feel for them. When designing tinterfaces and the flow of how someone may use our product, it is important that they can navigate without effort. It should be intuitive and feel familiar. Our brains formulate logic patterns early on, and we should stick with those patterns.
What is one mistake you’ve made that our readers can learn from?
Just one? Mistakes are an important ingredient of success. During this business development we have made many. Our biggest mistake has been positioning. Early on we positioned ourselves as an education company. This only caused confusion due to the fact that our true customer was advertisers (where your money comes from). Our platform was education, but we are an advertising venue. Since changing our position, we have gained many more contracts. When Steve Jobs asked the music companies who their customer was, they told him it was Tower Records, Best Buy, Target and so on. Steve Jobs helped them realize it was the listener. Ultimately, that is where the money comes from.
What is one book and one tool that helps you bring ideas to life?
There are many great books about business. What typically gets ignored is how to present your ideas in a manner that can be understood. Displaying information that can be absorbed and understood quickly is key. It is more efficient and more productive. I recommend the books of displaying quantitative information by Edward Tufte. These books will open your mind to how and why people interpret symbols, charts, graphs and other methods better than text.
One of the latest tools I have been using to help display information is Camtasia. Camtasia creates a video representation of what you have performed on your computer. You can explain 1,000 words in moments with moving pictures. Practice the flow before you hit record!
What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
A great idea that has not been executed is a true to life personal money management program. An online program that allowed users to put in the money they spend on each bill, entertainment, their car, mortgage or rent, etc. But unlike Quicken, or other money management programs, this program would display true cost of ownership for purchases with a forecast of end of life value/or appreciation. Let’s say someone wants to save $500 a month in a mutual fund, but misses the deposit some months, this program would display the impact of that miss over a 20 year period. Once again, a powerful visual representation of the information will have tremendous impact and begin to affect decisions. Not only could this be an advertising supported website, but banks should offer this as a service to their customers.
Why don’t advertisers seeking the support of heath care providers, trying to target specific medical conditions, ad value to their brand, reduce costs, work at becoming recognized as providers of great content and educate their own customers?
Advertising Age consistently has articles about these points, and yet companies keep running more TV commercials. I believe the CPGs and Pharma companies that have the most to gain in this area just do not know how to deliver valuable content or what mechanism to use. We have been on a mission to educate agencies and companies directly about our delivery process and the long term value it creates. Becoming recognized as not “just another media buy” is hard to do. As long as the doctors approve us and moms use us, the advertisers will come. Our current sponsors will be with us a long time as a strategy to become culturally recognized as a valued provider to doctors and moms.
What do you do in your free time?
In my free time I spend time with my wife and kids. I help coach my daughter’s soccer team and train with my son in mixed martial arts, while still trying to find time to play some basketball!
Connect:
E-mail: [email protected]
Timothy Kelley on LinkedIn: Tim Kelley
Timothy Kelley on Twitter: @thebabycd, @getmoms
Websites: www.TheBabyCD.com
www.GetMoms.com
www.NautilusMedical.com
www.DICOMray.com
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.