Marketing and Event Planning in Healthcare Distribution with Ian Fardy, VP of Marketing at NDC, Inc.

[00:00:02] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. So excited you tuned back in. Look, today I have the privilege of having an awesome guest. I had the pleasure of being on his podcast, the NDC Parcels of Information. We'll link that up in the show notes. Let me tell you, Ian Fardy is outstanding. He's the VP of Marketing at NDC. He's been there since 2016. After over 12 years with the health

[00:00:32] industry distributors association, Haida, where he served as executive vice president, he leads the marketing team at NDC and he oversees strategic marketing partnerships with NDC manufacturers. In addition to really doing the work with the annual meetings, he's just an incredible person, the host of their podcast, and I'm excited to have him here with us. So Ian, thanks for joining.

[00:00:56] Oh my goodness. I'll sit and listen to you read my intro any day. I sound way more important than I am, but thank you. I appreciate the invite.

[00:01:05] Of course, of course. And I meant to ask you earlier, like a lot of times when we sort of communicate via LinkedIn, you have this hashtag. It's hashtag all right. Talk to us about that.

[00:01:17] Well, that was an accident. But yes, hashtag all right. So we decided that we were going to promote. We came back to Nashville with our annual meeting and we were promoting Nashville and what to see and what to do and all of that type of thing.

[00:01:36] So we went downtown one day on Broadway with a camera and a dream. And we just started shooting video.

[00:01:45] We started shooting video and I was trying to get into the stage and the doorman wouldn't let me in. I was interviewing people on the streets. I was just bopping around. We had some deals with some other restaurants.

[00:01:58] And when we were editing the video, what we realized is literally every cut I started with. All right.

[00:02:07] And then I would display where we were. All right. We're standing out in front of the stage. All right. We're here with.

[00:02:13] And I was just like, oh my God, I got to either own this or I got to go back and reshoot like 38 videos.

[00:02:22] So we decided to own it. And that's why it's hashtag all right. Because apparently I am, you know, predisposed to starting every video with all right.

[00:02:32] All right, then.

[00:02:33] There you go. Yeah. So it was by accident.

[00:02:36] But I get people sending me, sending me stuff with all right. We did some T-shirts last year and stuff.

[00:02:43] But it's either all right or simply powerful was our other tagline.

[00:02:48] So cool.

[00:02:48] Overused. Yeah.

[00:02:49] I love the story, man. Super cool. And you've demystified the hashtag for me.

[00:02:55] So I love it. I love it. Look, we've got an opportunity to get to know you better. So talk to us about you.

[00:03:02] What is it that got you into the health care business?

[00:03:05] Wow. So I was at the time I was working for a convention and visitors bureau.

[00:03:11] I had been in event production and event marketing and sales and all that for years.

[00:03:17] It was my part time job in the summer that carried me all the way through school.

[00:03:22] When I got out of school, I went and worked for the same company. I've been there for years.

[00:03:27] One thing led to another and I ended up down in the U.S.

[00:03:30] And then I ended up being approached by a convention and visitors bureau.

[00:03:34] The gentleman hired me. I'll even drop his name because he is such an amazing guy.

[00:03:39] Mark Willissa. And Mark had a very short tenure at this visitors bureau.

[00:03:45] And I was working in D.C.

[00:03:47] I reopened their D.C. office and I was the only one that he had hired.

[00:03:51] And he decided to leave about 30 days later.

[00:03:54] So it was kind of.

[00:03:56] That's always tough.

[00:03:56] It was kind of when I was in D.C.

[00:03:59] So it wasn't so bad.

[00:04:01] And then a year later, I get an email from Mark saying,

[00:04:05] Ian, hey, I feel horrible that we only spent 30 days together and that type of thing.

[00:04:11] And I had to go on about him and I stayed there for a while.

[00:04:14] And about a year later, I get this email.

[00:04:17] He goes, I just saw this job posted.

[00:04:19] And every line I read says your name.

[00:04:23] Wow.

[00:04:24] And it was Haida, which turned out to be 12, 13 years of incredible work we did together and business and got me into the health care industry.

[00:04:34] I had done shows for health care industries, but I never worked in it.

[00:04:41] So I ended up there for 13 years.

[00:04:43] And then a gentleman here at N.D.C., he was on the board of directors, recently inducted into the N.D.C. Hall of Fame or into the Medical Distribution Hall of Fame, Mark Seitz, who, if anyone ever gets a chance to cross paths with Mark Seitz, walk over glass to do it.

[00:05:04] He was really a special person.

[00:05:06] And he approached me and said, look, I have this need here at N.D.C. and would love you to come and fill it.

[00:05:12] And I've been here eight years.

[00:05:15] Mark has since retired.

[00:05:17] And I got lucky again.

[00:05:19] And our new president and CEO is a gentleman by the name of Jack Stevens, who is as awesome and just a great leader that's taking N.D.C. in a much bigger, bolder direction.

[00:05:31] So it's incredibly exciting here right now.

[00:05:33] That's awesome.

[00:05:34] Well, look, success is a habit.

[00:05:37] Hold on, I got to do some product placement.

[00:05:44] What was that?

[00:05:46] That is Watermelon Propel, which is my favorite in-office drink.

[00:05:50] It's awesome.

[00:05:51] You can find it at any local store or on any website online.

[00:05:55] Type in the promo code hashtag all right.

[00:05:58] And they'll know that I sent you that.

[00:06:02] Hilarious.

[00:06:03] I love that, man.

[00:06:04] Look, you've had a great track record and testament to the way that you approach things, right?

[00:06:09] You're very light.

[00:06:10] You like to have fun, but you get business done.

[00:06:13] Let's give N.D.C. a chance, you and N.D.C. a chance to kind of talk about the business you're in and the focus areas and how you guys are making a difference.

[00:06:22] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:23] Well, thank you for saying that.

[00:06:24] We all work extremely hard every day, and probably we've been working harder since the pandemic.

[00:06:31] If you don't enjoy what you do and if you don't have a great team around you, I truly believe that's what kind of fights off burnout.

[00:06:39] You know, great teams, great time, and it doesn't matter how high the mountain is to climb.

[00:06:44] But N.D.C., so we spend our days delivering efficiency to health care.

[00:06:48] We're actually growing out of that.

[00:06:50] A lot of people would consider us a master distributor of medical products.

[00:06:54] So we deliver, we represent about 500 manufacturers.

[00:07:00] We have well over 100,000, 200,000 SKUs.

[00:07:06] We service any point of care in North America, and we can get the product there in any quantity within two days.

[00:07:17] That's huge.

[00:07:18] So what we do, IMC back in 1953 started out as a co-op to access products and pricing that wouldn't be available to independent medical distributors.

[00:07:30] Since then, we've now entered our third private equity event, and we service about 1,500 medical distributors throughout North America, Guam, Puerto Rico.

[00:07:43] And we buy in very large quantities, and we break it down through pallet architecture, and we deliver it on time, proper quantities to our distributors who then take it to the end users.

[00:07:56] In addition to that, we've become sort of some of our problem-solving techniques and proven solutions have alleviated burdens and problems that manufacturers and distributors have up the channel.

[00:08:10] So we've really begun to mold ourselves as a solutions provider for medical manufacturer distribution and independent distribution.

[00:08:21] That's fascinating.

[00:08:22] Well, the scale is impressive.

[00:08:24] You guys are touching so many geographies, and the two-day thing is clear.

[00:08:29] That's awesome.

[00:08:30] Yeah.

[00:08:30] That's fast.

[00:08:31] That's efficient.

[00:08:32] Before we hit record, we were chatting about marketing, and you don't get to that size without great service, obviously, great processes, great systems, but also great marketing.

[00:08:44] I'm really fascinated by your background in event marketing.

[00:08:48] Give us some of your thoughts around maybe some of the biggest opportunities in event marketing, and then maybe some of the biggest misses that people usually don't do.

[00:08:58] So I'll flip it.

[00:09:00] The biggest miss, and it's still to this day one of the hardest things that people have to grasp, is that any event that you produce is not for you.

[00:09:10] It doesn't matter what music I like to listen to.

[00:09:14] It doesn't matter what food I like to eat.

[00:09:16] It doesn't matter what speakers I want.

[00:09:18] You really have to immerse yourself in your attendees' needs, wants, and desires, and that is critical.

[00:09:26] So if I hate the color green, but green is the hot color for that company, we go with green.

[00:09:33] You know, I'm in Nashville, country music.

[00:09:36] I have to mold my show.

[00:09:39] We have to mold our show into the needs of our attendees, and that extends beyond entertainment and look and feel.

[00:09:47] So strategic business meetings, cutting costs, opportunities to network.

[00:09:53] Don't go to a morning breakfast or a closing night party without an objective.

[00:09:59] I did not get to see Saul at this event.

[00:10:02] I didn't get a meeting with him.

[00:10:03] I'm going to find him at this function tonight, and we're going to talk.

[00:10:07] So really utilize the entire event to your benefit.

[00:10:12] It is there.

[00:10:13] It is a tool.

[00:10:14] It is there for you.

[00:10:15] So that's kind of the biggest myth that I've seen for too, too long, where people either get there and stay in their rooms and then complain about the meeting or, you know, people inject their needs on it.

[00:10:28] And then the biggest thing to do is to surround yourself with a diversified group of people who bring thoughts and insights that it might not be the entire event, but the areas that they're able to influence with a diverse look at it.

[00:10:48] And I'm not talking male, female.

[00:10:50] I'm not talking religion.

[00:10:52] It could be parts of the country.

[00:10:54] It could be from different countries.

[00:10:55] It could just be a different perspective that would take you down a road that would really enhance what you do.

[00:11:02] That is critical to our team, and we've been lucky enough.

[00:11:05] It was built.

[00:11:06] Look, I got incredibly lucky.

[00:11:08] This team here is phenomenal.

[00:11:09] I came in and just became the knucklehead who kind of pulls it all together.

[00:11:14] And then you mentioned before, you know, our call sign, our battle cry is we have a great time taking health care seriously.

[00:11:24] And we extend that into our events.

[00:11:26] So people want to come to the event and then they want to get business done.

[00:11:31] And you've just got to find the right mixture of all of that to create, you know, the events that really are memorable.

[00:11:40] That's great.

[00:11:40] Now, great tips there, Ian.

[00:11:42] And so how many events do you guys do a year?

[00:11:45] So this year we do an annual dental event in January.

[00:11:49] We do our medical event, which is the largest of its kind for independent distributors in North America.

[00:11:55] We do that in May.

[00:11:57] We do a president's dinner, which is our group of our top customers and leadership advisory council.

[00:12:04] They go to a special place after a day of meetings.

[00:12:08] And then we do a strategic supplier summit where our vendors will come in and meet with our sales team looking for opportunities in 2025.

[00:12:18] So the following year.

[00:12:20] So they'll go through their roster of distributor customers looking for opportunities to increase their business and our business.

[00:12:27] Super cool.

[00:12:28] So it's these kind of built-in events.

[00:12:31] You do four of them a year.

[00:12:33] And there's something that you mentioned at the beginning.

[00:12:37] We were talking about AI and meetings.

[00:12:41] And the power of meetings today because of AI's inability to authenticate.

[00:12:46] Can you expand on that?

[00:12:47] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:12:48] So hot off the press, just came out of a session on AI.

[00:12:52] And what this gentleman was talking about was how the validation of AI or the authentication of AI is causing a ripple effect in the events industry.

[00:13:05] So what's happening is people are reading and seeing.

[00:13:09] Now it's video.

[00:13:10] And now it's art.

[00:13:12] It's images.

[00:13:13] And they can't differentiate between real and AI to a point where this gentleman generated AI content that was kicked out as a, I think he said it was a Christmas message to all their customers from the present CEO.

[00:13:31] And they were so worried that they actually put it.

[00:13:35] They turned it into a win.

[00:13:37] They put it at the end of it.

[00:13:38] And if you thought this was generated using our AI platform, yes, you're absolutely right.

[00:13:44] It was.

[00:13:45] We didn't want to try to fool anyone.

[00:13:47] But that's what it kind of took for them to authenticate that this wasn't really coming from the present CEO.

[00:13:53] And how would people feel about getting a penned letter, which we probably have all gotten in our lives, but a penned letter generated from AI.

[00:14:03] So what's happening is now live events are seeing this little tick in attendance across multiple industries where people are appreciating and people are requiring more face-to-face authentication, more face-to-face business discussions, more face-to-face product demonstrations and those types of things.

[00:14:23] So it's really interesting to see that being an unrealized consequence of this incredible AI bubble that's inflating throughout the world.

[00:14:35] Yeah, it's really interesting.

[00:14:37] And you've got to embrace it, right?

[00:14:39] It provides efficiencies, but the cost is definitely the authenticity piece and is what I'm getting real.

[00:14:47] There's no doubt when I meet you at a conference, you're real.

[00:14:50] Yeah.

[00:14:51] Yeah.

[00:14:53] So we crave that.

[00:14:54] Big time.

[00:14:55] And also, I think we were also talking about the other side of it.

[00:14:59] I think he said there was 52 pieces of legislation on the dockets right now to try to wrap your heads around AI.

[00:15:11] So my comment was, you know what?

[00:15:13] It reminds me of drones.

[00:15:15] So if you remember when drones first came out, they were flying.

[00:15:18] You know, there was no regulation.

[00:15:20] Fly where you want them.

[00:15:21] And now you need a license.

[00:15:23] There's protected airspace.

[00:15:26] There's privacy.

[00:15:28] There's, you know, your private space extends up to a certain height above your house.

[00:15:32] All these things kind of came in because of the wild, wild west of drone flying.

[00:15:39] And now we're in the wild, wild west of AI where, you know, you can pretty much come up or develop anything.

[00:15:47] So there's quite a bit of legislation on the dockets to try to bring some sort of, you know, rules and regulations to what you can and can't do.

[00:15:55] Imagine a doctor typing in how to do an appendectomy on AI.

[00:16:00] You know, do you want that?

[00:16:01] I don't know if I want that.

[00:16:03] Let me get the steps here.

[00:16:04] Okay, cool.

[00:16:05] Let's start.

[00:16:07] And on the AI front, last question here on this.

[00:16:10] And then, man, time flies when you're having fun.

[00:16:13] How do you think AI is going to help the distribution business?

[00:16:18] Like what's the biggest asset to the distribution business?

[00:16:22] So we're diving deep into it and we're diving.

[00:16:25] So AI is really two things.

[00:16:28] There's, and this was part of what I spoke on stage at Haida about.

[00:16:33] There's content.

[00:16:34] There's content generation.

[00:16:36] That is one type of AI.

[00:16:38] But I think on the other side, the data, the ability to mine data using AI, to forecast logistics,

[00:16:45] to forecast disease states in various areas throughout the country, to understand the implications,

[00:16:54] utilizing the data that you put in for it to start to analyze and forecast and disseminate

[00:17:01] all of that data on the numbers side, on the trucking route.

[00:17:06] You know, think about trucking routes.

[00:17:08] Think about GPS, AI determination of how to get organ transplants to the recipient the fastest way.

[00:17:17] How to get products there.

[00:17:18] How much inventory do you need?

[00:17:20] How much inventory do you need on hand come the next pandemic?

[00:17:24] All of these things are things where I think AI will be able to really benefit and accelerate

[00:17:31] healthcare through distribution.

[00:17:33] Love that.

[00:17:34] Well, listen, Ian, tons of value from AI to event marketing to some product placements.

[00:17:41] Yeah, that's right.

[00:17:43] This has been a blast having you here on the podcast.

[00:17:47] Ladies and gentlemen, Ian Fardy, Vice President of Marketing at NDC with us.

[00:17:53] What closing thought would you leave people with?

[00:17:56] And how's the best place they could get in touch with you?

[00:17:58] Well, certainly you can get in touch with me through any of the social media platforms.

[00:18:02] There's not many Fardys around.

[00:18:05] So you're probably going to hit me at some point in time.

[00:18:08] Or ifarty at NDC-inc.com.

[00:18:11] And I would say, you know what's awesome about what we do?

[00:18:15] And you're in healthcare as well.

[00:18:16] Yeah.

[00:18:17] When you really have a team that understands you're impacting people's lives.

[00:18:21] Now, we're up the channel.

[00:18:23] But last year, NDC, I think, was involved in 1.5 million procedures.

[00:18:30] And if the products aren't there in time, if the products aren't the right products there

[00:18:36] in time, there's a sense of what we're doing matters.

[00:18:40] And I encourage everyone to find that sense in what you're doing.

[00:18:44] And it just helps your day go by.

[00:18:47] And you end up smiling at the end of the day thinking it wasn't that bad.

[00:18:51] Maybe I helped something.

[00:18:52] That's awesome, Ian.

[00:18:53] I love that.

[00:18:53] And I love how you phrased, you guys have a great time being serious in healthcare.

[00:18:59] The seriousness of healthcare.

[00:19:00] That's such a great way to look at it.

[00:19:03] Look, we're grateful for you and your presence here on our podcast.

[00:19:07] So thanks for making the time.

[00:19:08] This has been a pleasure.

[00:19:09] Absolutely appreciate it.

[00:19:10] Thank you for having me.

[00:19:12] Hashtag all right.

[00:19:14] All right, baby.