Saul Marquez: GEO, Not SEO: How GenAI Is Rewriting the Rules of Healthcare Discovery

Welcome to Go-To-Market, a podcast for RevOps, sales, and marketing leaders to dive deep into industry insights and best practices. Go-To-Market is sponsored by Fulcast and Silicon Slopes. My name is Amy Cook, and I am so excited to introduce Saul Marquez, CEO at OutcomesRocket. Saul, thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate it.

Oh my gosh, Amy, it's my pleasure. So good to be here with you and your audience.

Thank you. Well, you know, we should have done this in person because we just found out that we're neighbors, right? Oh, so you are based in San Diego, right? Yep. But you didn't start here in San Diego.

I did not. I did not.

What's your journey?

Yeah. So, you know what, born and raised in Chicago and, you know, made my way. I went to college at Miami of Ohio, then got my first medical devices role in Florida. Fast forward to now we're here, but we've had a journey, you know, and, and I'll share with you my, my background. So both of my parents are from Mexico. And I will tell you, growing up in this country, what has been such a blessing for me and my family. I will share with you that growing up, not until I went to college, and by the way, I was one of the first in my family to go to college. I remember being in the dorm room, Amy, and I remember for the very first time in my life having great shower or water pressure. I didn't know what a great shower was until I got to college. Look, we, I was blessed with love. My parents were amazing, but hey, you know, the money wasn't there. It created hunger. And to this day, my wife still makes fun of me. I won't buy a house until I check the water pressure. It's very real.

Isn't it amazing how the little things mean so much? I remember living for a semester in Israel and it's a, it's a beautiful country. And it's a, you know, first world country, but there are certain areas in the Middle East that are poorer. And so I came back just feeling so guilty and so appreciative both at the same time. And every country has its own magic, but I also really appreciate being able to live here and, and I really appreciate that sentiment. And I, next time I get in the shower, I'm gonna really appreciate the water pressure.

Let it run, baby. Let it run.

That's right. That's great. Well, so, all right, so you were born and raised in Chicago. And then what brought you out to San Diego?

Yeah, so the reason we came to San Diego before starting our agency— Amy, we chatted about this before. So I run Outcomes Rocket. We're a full-service marketing agency exclusively focused on healthcare, our main segments being medical technology, health technology, and the provider space. We, we enjoy solving commercial problems from top of the funnel all the way down to the work that you and your team does, Amy, on the sales side of things. And, and so before I started the agency 3 years ago, I actually wore many different hats on both the sales and marketing functions at medical device companies like Stryker, Medtronic, NuVasive, to name a few.

Mm-hmm.

The, the 3 that I was with during my 17-year medical device career. And you know what? I was blessed with phenomenal leaders that I reported to that believed in me. That gave me chances, that took chances on me. And through the, through the ranks, I, I ended up leading a division of Medtronic. And, and before that, I became VP. Part of the opportunity was, hey, like, you're gonna run the West Coast, live anywhere you want. And I had been for many years at NuVasive, which was a spine company that Globus Medical purchased recently, actually. Um, and so up here in the hill down the street from me, I would come here all the time, and I just loved San Diego. I loved it here. And we just, when the opportunity came, we jumped on it. And I gotta tell you, we just love being in SoCal. We love San Diego. And that's what brought us here. And by the way, I will share with you a little parenthesis that I'll keep open and close real quick. But we went to Puerto Rico for 2 years. So I started the agency, moved to Puerto Rico just for some tax efficiencies. And let me just tell you, the money's not worth it.

Interesting. You look, you're a SoCal guy through and through.

Man, we came back. I've been back. We like our family so much happier. And you know, the thing that that did is contrast is the mother of appreciation. So like, right, being over there, I, I'm coming here and I'm happily writing my tax check to the government because I know what I'm getting for that money.

That's awesome. Well, Gavin Newsom will be very happy about that information.

Gavin, there you go. April's coming soon, so I'll be writing that check again.

Well, that is wonderful. So I, it's so fun to hear about your journey and your story. Let's shift over to healthcare a little bit. You've obviously been deep into healthcare, and as we kind of talked about before we started this podcast, my background is in health marketing as well. So I was mostly on the post, not as much in med devices, but I, uh, did a lot on the provider side in Specifically in skilled nursing and post-acute care. And then also was the CMO of a company that digitized skin cancer slides. And we were eventually acquired by a company called Sonic Healthcare, which does— it's a very strong lab provider. So I've always really loved healthcare and I've always loved marketing. And so it was a good fit for me. But what made you interested in healthcare? And my next question is gonna kind of turn it on its head. Sure. What is— what are some of the biggest problems in healthcare today?

Oh, wow. Okay.

I know we only have half an hour, but we can start.

All right. That's a— that's definitely a zinger right there. Yeah, for sure. We'll definitely cover that one. That's a meaty one. What brought me to healthcare really takes me back to the playground. We, we were back in the day when playgrounds used to have cement floors. Like now they're made out of rubber. You could fall and you're cool. We were on the monkey bars and I remember being with my older cousins. I always loved hanging out with them and they were so cool and they were going all the way to the top of the jungle gyms and jumping off. Well, I fell backwards when I tried to do it and I, and I ended up in the hospital and I had a mini concussion and I was scared. And, and, and I just, I woke up and my mom wasn't there and I just knew that like I needed something. I cried for her and then a nurse came and then a doctor came and then my mom showed up and I was so relieved. But I remember to this day, Amy, driving away from the hospital as it got smaller and smaller in the back window. I, I felt in awe for the work that they did for making me feel comfortable. For making me better. And I just knew from that, like that early, that I knew in one way, shape, or form I was gonna be in healthcare. I just didn't know how. And, and it just turned into medical devices. That's where I, I kind of got my entry point into it. And now it's with the agency and the work that we do across all of our clients.

Isn't it nice to know that when you are marketing something, you can feel really good about it? You feel like, you know, there's a real use for— sometimes I think about marketing and I think about like, you know, what real benefit am I bringing to the world? But in healthcare marketing, I always feel like, you know what, I'm promoting really good things that are going to help people and could even save their lives. And so I really love that what you said about that. My dad was a cancer survivor. He got a brain tumor, malignant brain tumor at age 42. And he went to Duke University. They did 2 12-hour surgeries on him and gave him— extended his life for another 30 years. And it was amazing. Isn't that amazing? And so I have had so much respect and love and appreciation for healthcare and for all the people who, uh, work in it. And 3 of my 4 siblings are in healthcare as well. And so it's really— yeah, we all appreciate it. We're all glad that— business. That's right. But I mean, even though it's so awesome and we love it and there are so many benefits, there are also some challenges, right? And so what are you seeing as some really significant challenges right now? And what are you doing in Outcomes Rocket to help alleviate those?

Sure, Amy.

Sure.

Look, I'll start with the obvious ones, right? A lot of the regulatory environment, mainly speaking to the the big beautiful bill that has taken a lot of funding away from programs. Health systems are scrambling right now to make sense of things. They have to choose between keeping people in jobs and, and, and, and, and cutting technology. And so there's a scramble right now to find that cost takeout. And health systems are really struggling. I did an interview recently with with a gentleman on my podcast, and he's from Class Research, talking about some of the things that are top of mind. And this is number one. And number two is, how can I use technology to solve these problems? And then the problem that happens, problem number two, Amy, and everybody with us, is that, sure, you're using technology to solve it, but you guys know that cybercrime is, like healthcare is one of the biggest targets for cybercrime. In fact, in 2023, Gartner reported that, that, that 66% of health systems su— suffered a successful cyberattack, meaning it actually halted operations or led to just issues with patient care.

Mm-hmm.

So I would point to those two. And, and look, what happens is when you're in an environment And let's just say, you know, from the lens of a vendor, whether you be a health IT company or a medical device company or a pharma company or a services organization, if you're selling into this environment, you're selling into this reality. So what does that mean and how do we help? One of the things that we always make sure to stress to all of our clients is to really like put your feet into reality and, and talk about the things that are important now. And what I shared with you is important now. So if you have an executive that is really, really has their mind and really like their career resting on cost takeout, and you go talk to them about something different, like innovation, you're not gonna get the time of day.

Mm-hmm.

So it's about making sure that you're keeping your talk tracks, your messaging aligned with the things that are most important. And then doing it in a way that also pulls in data. One of the things that we have recently spent a good amount of time with is a problem that our clients have in this noisy environment with what is happening with SEO.

Mm-hmm.

It's gone away. It's now GEO, right? It's generative engine optimization.

That's right.

So, so all these problems were coming to us, and so we said, well, we don't have the answer, but we, we set off to do our own research.

Mm-hmm.

And, and so what came out of that research was actually a report called AI Sources of Truth: How Chatbots Cite Healthcare Information.

Mm-hmm.

In that report, we basically did research and, and cited, we have over 5,400 citations from chatbots that range from Gemini to ChatGPT to Claude, uh, and Perplexity. And then we broke it down. What is it that we can learn from this and how can we show up in the narrative in a way that's meaningful? And so if you're game, I could share a couple of those insights.

I'd love to. Absolutely.

Okay, cool, cool, cool. So, so recency matters, number one. So, you know, if you take a look at the report and by the way, Amy, I'll share the link with you so you could share with the team. It's ungated. It's ungated. All right. You could access it. We don't need your email for it. We just want to educate the community. And by the way, it's also ungated for another reason, because one of the other things that we found, this number is staggering, 99.3% of LLM citations come from open access sources. So, oh yeah, that's very interesting.

For anyone who did not hear that last statement, 99.3% of sources come from— and which makes sense because how, how, how are they going to access a gated report? I mean, it's so obvious now, right? Yes.

Right.

Interesting.

But you don't think about it, right? And so when we finished this study, and by the way, when I wanna clarify and make sure folks know this includes paywalls and, and this includes email generation content.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

So if you really wanna get this stuff to people and then if you wanna show up in, in GEO, then you have to not gate it, right? It's critical.

Absolutely. That makes so much sense.

Yeah. Anyway, so, so recency, don't keep it behind paywalls or lead gen. And, and then, and then ultimately summaries. So the last thing that I'll say on that, and there's way more, like the report has a bunch of really useful stuff that you could take and apply.

Oh, super interesting.

Yeah. Summaries matter. So like even one hack, if you're really dead set on, man, I really need this to collect emails, then fine. Then, then write a summary that's meaningful enough. That capture some of the keywords and have a summary that then makes it juicy enough to be pulled by chatbots, but then gets you the benefit of the email.

That makes sense too. Wow. That's, that is really helpful information. So what, one of the things in healthcare marketing that's a big challenge obviously is AI. Another thing is budgets, people not investing in innovation because of the big beautiful bill. Is there one other thing that you would suggest besides, you know, investing in innovation and, and learning how to use AI to your advantage, what would you tell healthcare companies who are looking to, uh, go to market more effectively? If you had one last piece of advice, what would you say?

This is what I would do. There's nothing more important than aligning your marketing with your sales team. If, if, if you start from, by the way, the, the other thing I'm gonna share a quote with you, Amy, that we, we share with all of our clients. And that's this, it's, it's actually from The Art of War, Lao Tzu. And this is what he said. He said, tactics are the noise you hear before the war is lost.

Ooh.

And what happens is in marketing, you have a lot of tactics.

Mm-hmm.

In fact, that's all you let the, oftentimes that's all you have.

Mm-hmm.

So if you're gonna run an effective program, you have to start with strategy.

Mm-hmm.

You could do a bunch of tactical execution, but if it's not fully integrated, then you're, you're gonna suffer what a lot of businesses suffer, and is that they miss the mark. So a key part of strategy is to make sure you're clear on your revenue objectives, which is sales, that you're clear on the objectives of the business, which is what is the vision? How do you wanna show up? That's how you message. You're crystal clear on your ICPs, your ideal client personas, that you're messaging directly to these pain points that folks are feeling and integrate the whole thing. And, and one last thing that I'll share with that takeaway is that you gotta make sure, and by the way, we, we have this, this new podcast we're launching called Healthcare Marketing Executive, which by the way, guys, Amy will join us, right, Amy?

I'm so excited. It's going to be so fun.

Awesome. Awesome. I'm looking forward to hosting you. And more recently we had a guest and his name is Brian Bowles and, and he is the VP of marketing at GHX. And, and, and I'm going to share a tip that he shared on the podcast with everyone. I want to give him credit. So Brian, kudos for this tip is make sure that aside from your ICP, your ideal client persona, you are Getting the information from your sales teams on what they need in their marketing materials. Your sales team goes to war, they go get the information, they run into the obstacles. As a great marketer, let's take a note from Brian's book and make sure we're listening to our salespeople and when we go and create our materials and our campaigns.

I love it. That's, that's so, so relevant to what we're doing as well at Fulcast. Our thesis is that sales, marketing, and customer success have to go together in a beautiful flywheel. Otherwise, you know, businesses fail. So thank you so much for emphasizing that. Sally, you're clearly at the top of your game and it's been really fun to chat with you. So what keeps you there? It could be some innovation. It could be innovation, focusing on that. It could be reading a book. It could be going on your boat that's in the picture in your background. What do you do that keeps you at the top?

I do love boating. I will say that, you know, I would say the thing that keeps me at the top is our customers because I see how much time, effort, thoughtfulness that goes into their businesses. And when they trust us to, to be an extension of their team through the work that we do, I don't take it lightly. And, and nobody on my team takes it lightly. We know that they have a lot at stake. So for me, the feeling that I get of, hey, you know what, the way I show up today is gonna make a difference in my customer's business.

Mm-hmm.

That's what keeps me at the top of my game. That's what helps. That's what keeps us investing in the business. You know, that's what helps us be honest with ourselves when we say, hey, you know what, we're not great at that, but we could be. Or, hey, we're not great at that. We're gonna partner so that we work with partners that are great at that. It's our customers, number one. And then number two, I would tell you, like, you know, I share kind of where, where, where I came from. And it is a hunger, right? It is a hunger to, to do great things for my son. And so Amy, the thing that I think about and the challenge that I have is how do I create that hunger for my son?

Yeah.

Our son, you know, and my wife and I talk about it all the time. Like, how do we create the hunger that we have? Cause she grew up in a similar, you know, setup in Japan, cuz she's from Japan. She grew up in a dairy farm in Japan. You know, we ask ourselves, how do we create this hunger? And, and it's through, it's through questions, it's through experiences. That's what we think. So what we're doing with him is we're, we're, so the thing that I teach him, Amy, is like, buddy, there's two ways to make a living. You could go get a job or you could go solve a problem. When you so, but by the way, the cool thing about getting a job is that you could be an intrapreneur and solve problems and very quickly rise to the top.

Yeah.

You do it by solving problems and, and, and, and we don't give him everything that he wants. That's the other thing.

That's good. Well, you and I should have a conversation about good parenting techniques.

How many kiddos do you have?

I have 5. Oh my gosh. Amazing. And, uh, it, what I found is, you know, they, nobody comes with a playbook. And everyone's different.

I know.

But anyway, that's another topic. But thank you so much for joining us all. It was absolutely wonderful to chat with you, and I'm really looking forward to being on your podcast and to talking with you more about healthcare and going to market in that industry.

Thanks, Annie. Looking forward to having you.