099_Moving Beyond DEI: What Healthcare Executives Must Do to Drive Lasting Inclusion w/ Dr. Jennifer Sarrett

Hey, welcome back to the Excellence in Healthcare Podcast. And today we're back for a small business spotlight. This is one of our newer segments that we've added over the past few months now. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback and really just a great opportunity to learn about and support the growth of entrepreneurs who are supporting this healthcare and wellness space.

And today our guest is in that space, but from a different angle. So really looking forward to the conversation. So, joining us today is Dr. Jennifer Sarette, founder and CEO of Disruptive Inclusion, and the creator of organizational culture design, a methodology that treats culture as a strategic system and not an afterthought.

Dr. Jen, how are you doing today? I'm doing well. Thank you, Jarvis, for having me.

I'm excited to talk. All right. Well, you know, before we jump in, Dr. Jen, I always love to just learn about our guests.

Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. So, would love to just learn a little bit about you and definitely what led you to start your business. Yeah, good, good question. Um, so, um, you know, I, I got my PhD from Emory University in 2014, where I did interdisciplinary studies, uh, where I focused on medical anthropology and bioethics and disability.

And after that, I stayed on at the Center for the Study of Human Health to design and build their health equity curriculum. curriculum and programming. Loved doing that, continued to do research, and was getting called around campus to do universal design for education workshops, disability and inclusion workshops for faculty, for graduate students, for researchers, and really loved doing that and realized, you know, after I've been doing it for a few years that I was doing DEI.

And I really enjoyed it because it had all of the hallmarks of what I loved about my academic career, but none of the, you know, things that I didn't like. So I got to teach, but I didn't have to grade, for example. And so I left to do DEI full-time. That's when I founded Disruptive Inclusion.

And I was also subcontracting with Jennifer Brown Consulting. And then I paused that because I got an opportunity to join Care International's Health Equity and Rights team. So I did that for about a year and a half, and then the funding for my role ran out. And so I jumped back into consulting, but wanted to revisit what I was actually doing, because when I was doing DEI, I was, you know, I was into it, but I was seeing how limited it was as the field was doing it.

It was not speaking to everybody, right? So there was this sense of guilt and blame that a lot of leaders and a lot of people who didn't identify as people of color, people who are disabled, women, things like that. A lot of it was reactive. So reacting to internal complaints, reacting to large cultural movements like George Floyd, and And it was often these kind of one-off programs that were kind of exterior.

And so I thought a lot about universal design, which is a concept I, I learned about and studied, um, as a disability studies scholar. And that's an architectural framework that helps people build physical spaces and places and products to be accessible to everyone at the outset. So a really great example of this are curb cuts, which are those dips in the curbs, between the curb and the street. And they were originally designed for people who use wheelchairs, but they're helpful for people with strollers and handcarts and bicycles and the elderly and just everyone.

And critically, they don't make it harder for anyone to navigate between the street and the curb. And when I was doing DEI, I was shocked that this wasn't a concept that people were familiar with. So when I returned to consulting, that's when I decided to used a universal design approach to culture. And that's how I came up with organizational culture design.

Very nice. Very nice. If, if you're okay, I, I'd love to maybe stick on the DEI topic just a little bit, because let's face it, we're in 2026 and a whole lot of stuff has been coming out about DEI over the past 1 or 2 years now. I'm just curious, and this is just from my point of view, I Well, obviously, Tech Man, I've risen through the ranks of the healthcare world over the years, um, and I've had a lot of conversations, especially as you mentioned, George Floyd, the era that we went in very heavy and Black Lives Matter, that kind of stuff, to the Trump administration now and their take on DEI or the, the lack of need for DEI.

Um, I've had a lot of conversations with professionals that said there was still a lot of opportunity to maybe move DEI forward in terms of what it really, really starts to look like. And from my own research, I found over 37 topics, I think, at the time that we should have been talking about, like political diversity, gender diversity, religious diversity, not just black and white. I think a lot of times it kind of went into a black and white. So all that to say, Dr.

Jen, I'm just curious, just from Your point of view. You're leading a, a company in this space. You've done, literally, you're a doctor in this space, but what's your take on what were some of the positives and still some of the, the opportunities with DEI? Just, it, it, I know I'm putting you on the spot with that question, but just curious to get an expert's opinion on it.

Yeah. And you're, you're absolutely right. That was another, um, sort of limitation of how DEI was being done. That I found was that it was siloing these identities and people overly emphasized racial marginalization, but coming into it with an expertise in disability and neurodiversity and, you know, cultural diversity, I saw that those weren't getting the attention that women and people of color got.

And everybody deserves, everybody has an inclusion story. Everybody has a diversity story. You know, I see the goals of the field of DEI are still needed. We still want at work to feel good about ourselves.

We still wanna feel connected to our team. We still want our team members to hang out and not leave. You know, we want retention, we want good engagement. And All of that is still needed.

And so, when I think about the work that I do, I definitely emphasize how to design cultures to support everybody, regardless of their background, regardless of their, you know, constellation of identities. And that, you know, in order to improve their situation, in order to reach business goals, in order to do all of the things that DEI did. I don't call it DEI because, again, I'm not doing it in the way that traditional DEI has been done, right? I'm more, the way I do it is proactive.

It's evidence-based. It's embedded throughout an organization. And that's how I see this field moving forward. Really, like I, like, you know, you mentioned earlier, I see culture as strategy, that if you don't embed it into your strategic goals and visioning, then there's going to be breakdowns.

So there's, I still see a lot of opportunities. I see a lot of opportunities in health and science in particular, because there's a huge push for increasing STEM amongst women, girls, people of color, people with disabilities. But then once they get to the professional world, there's a lot of leakage there. But then also, You know, having a good functioning, good collaborative communicative team is good for patient outcomes.

It's good for research innovations. And then we also have on these teams a lot of neurodivergence, which is fantastic, and a lot of cultural diversity, a lot of multicultural teams. And so that might create some communication barriers, some, you collaboration challenges, different ideas of hierarchy and leadership. So, you know, it's a, it's an area that I think is high risk for not having good cultures and has high-risk consequences for not having good cultures.

No, thank you for, for letting me explore that. The, I guess what I'm still seeing, even though It's being stricken from a lot of vocabulary, especially, and we're gonna talk business in a few minutes, but, you know, when I'm out pursuing different contract opportunities and things that I look at, a lot of those, that, that lingo has been taken away from contracting conversations and business conversations. But what I hear you saying is it's needed now more than ever. Absolutely.

Call it what you want. It's not going anywhere. Exactly. You know, that's exactly right.

And, um, You know, I also always argue that diversity, equity, inclusion, which of course there's DEI, there's DEIA, there's DEIJ, you know, there's all these different acronyms, but the one that people are most familiar with is diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I always argue that that's not the right order. You want inclusion, then equity, then diversity, because if you just have diversity and you forget the equity and inclusion, then all your people are going to leave.

You're going to hire people that have diverse identities, but you're not going to have the supports for them to keep them there. And so, if you have equity and inclusion, then the diversity comes. That's a good call-out. Um, I appreciate that, Dr.

Jenn. Um, I'm curious, just from a business model standpoint, uh, what are, uh, the services you offer to your clients? And, and one of my favorite questions, what makes it unique? Yeah.

So, I, um, I offer, like I said, cultural, culture strategy. And that always begins with research, internal research. With my anthropological training, my social science background, I'm a total nerd for this kind of stuff. So I love doing surveys and then interviews and focus groups with team members to really identify where there are cultural strengths and where there are areas to improve.

So I recently worked with a client who had just a ton of turnover. And this is a company that works in electronic health records. And they, my client contact said, I think it's because they work really hard and they don't get paid very well. But when I did the research, I found that everybody was actually really aligned with the mission of the company.

But they were, there was high turnover because the other teams didn't understand what they did. And so, they devalued them. And then, they also felt like it was just super hard to find answers to questions. So, their knowledge management system was broken.

And it was different than what the client identified. And so, that's what we focused our strategies and embedded policies, procedures, changes to be made to improve that situation. So, it's really targeted. It's not one size fits all.

And so, I do the research. I come up with reports with recommendations. The next step I love doing is working with an internal team to develop the strategy. I can tell you recommendations all day long, but unless your team has buy-in, And unless they are telling me that this is going to work, this isn't going to work, then it's just a crapshoot whether or not you're going to have good outcomes.

And then I can help teams with building ongoing analysis and assessment for these initiatives to make sure that they're working and tweak when necessary. The other thing I do is leadership coaching, particularly for these brilliant, brilliant people who get promoted to, for example, being a principal investigator in a lab, or being a medical director, and they've gotten there because of their scientific or practice acumen, but they never had any type of people management training, anything like that.

So, um, helping those types of leaders really figure out what it means to be a team lead and how to support their team and create good work is another service that I do. Awesome. Fantastic. I love, I love all of those.

Just to highlight a little bit of crossover. So I am a certified Gallup CliftonStrengths coach, and I embed that into many of the services that I offer around strategic planning and process improvement work with my healthcare clients. So I'll highlight that a little bit more. I already sense some of the synergies there.

Yeah. I, I had one of the questions, Dr. Jen, that I love asking, um, business leaders, entrepreneurs. Um, when I started my business, you know, they always tell you, go through those, the, the rigmarole.

You gotta have a mission, vision, and values. And when I came up with my values, it was just like the, the light bulb went off. My, my personal values and my business values are essentially the same. So I love asking that.

For, uh, business leaders like yourself, um, when you launch your business, um, what are some of the personal values that you also see shining through with your business practices? Yeah, it's definitely a respect for diversity that we know what we know about this world based on our personal and very unique experiences. And bodies. And we learn different things about the world that can be really useful depending on who we are.

So one of my favorite examples I always give is that, you know, I'll be in talks and I'll say, okay, people who are presenting as women, when you go out to dinner at night and it's dark and you're by yourself and you have to get to your car or the bus or whatever, what do you do? And women are like, I get out my pepper spray, I put my keys between my fingers, you know, this, that, and the other. And the men don't have those answers, and a lot of times aren't aware that women are doing that.

And that's a really important feature about the world that everybody should know. And so, thinking about that kind of thing, what will having a woman on a team working on biotechnology, about, you know, mental health care for chronic mental illness. How will that perspective be changed based on having a woman or a person who comes from the flyover states or a person from the Jain religion or whatever the case? There's so many different aspects that inform our perspectives and it leads to out-of-the-box thinking.

And so I really love working with people who come at me with different perspectives and figuring out how to value those and how to lift them up and then how to collaborate between different perspectives as well. I also am my - I value evidence. So I like to make sure that things I'm doing, there's good research backing it. So that's another value.

And then just kindness. So when I do leadership coaching, or even just thinking about culture or strategy, we want to be kind. You know, I think it's always, it's always a good idea to assume good intent rather than assuming bad intent, because then you can approach problems and communication challenges more Respectfully, and you're less likely to, to burn bridges. Right.

Fantastic. Well, let's, let's shift gears just a little bit. I want to kind of keep going down the, uh, business path and kind of the business opportunity path with you, uh, Dr. Jen.

Um, you know, for you, when you're looking ahead in your business over the next 6 to 12 months, what are 1 or 2 major goals that you've set out in front of yourself? Great question. And I've been thinking about this. So I, I worked with a strategist back in August.

who was amazing, to sort of redesign everything. Um, and so I feel like I'm brand new again. And so over the next couple of years, I'm really - client acquisition is a big, um, focus of mine right now. I have about 2 clients.

I would love to have 3 to 5 more in the next year or 2, potentially enough to where I can bring on other experts to support me. Uh, and the other area I would really like to grow in is speaking opportunities, because I love thought leadership. I love public speaking. Um, I love that type of engagement.

So, publishing, speaking, uh, thought leadership is, is also where I'm excited to, to grow in. Okay, perfect. And, um, especially given you just worked with a strategist a few months ago, you feel Kind of like almost the reset, the brand newness. Um, are there any challenges that, um, are just slowing you down right now?

Any barriers on the way? I think it's, you know, when I, when I reset, it was the end of Q4 and, um, you know, people don't hire consultants then. And so, um, I'm really, now that we're past the holidays and everything, I was hoping for an uptick of interest, but I'm not sure if how to position what I'm doing in a way that makes sense and attractive, because it is a little bit of that, you know, invest now for long-term gain situation, which again, was not what the original way of DEI was.

It was, let's do a training immediately, and then that's it. Whereas what I do, it's like, invest in us working together so that you will have this sustainable system developed. Um, and so, you know, especially working with health and science, we, we know that the funding landscape for those types of industries is a little bit bleak. Um, so yeah, that's, I don't know if that makes sense, but that's where I'm struggling.

Well, let's, let's jump into it then. Um, especially client acquisition. Uh, one of my favorite topics, probably. Um, one of the primary topics that I do get a chance to discuss with other business leaders that come onto the podcast here.

Um, but it just makes sense. It's the lifeblood of all of our businesses. So, um, let me ask, um, what are you currently doing for lead generation in your business? What's working?

What may not be working? So I have a LinkedIn newsletter. Called Science of High Performance that I publish weekly. And it's really about research-based evidence of why this type of work is important, what works, what doesn't work.

So I do that. And LinkedIn is my primary sort of social media presence. I have a website and on my website, I recently just launched a quick Culture Assessment, which is about 10 minutes long. And then at the end of that, you can schedule a free 30-minute consult with me to discuss the results.

And that is based on the 6 core principles of organizational design that I've created. And then really networking, trying to network, which, you know, is some people love networking, some people don't. I'm closer to the don't because I'm a little bit of an introvert, but, um, yeah, so that's where I'm at. All right.

So a couple of things, um, just to, um, share some strategies, things that I use in my business, things that I obviously recommend with a lot of the, uh, small business leaders I support. Um, first is around creating what I like to call a market dominating position. All right. And so this, the concept here is very much similar to a USP, a unique selling proposition.

Um, but I, I would say even more powerful. Um, the example that I usually share is if you think about like Domino's Pizza back in the day when they said, hey, do you want a hot, fresh pizza in 30 minutes or less, or it's free, right? They, they could have said, hey, we make better pizza than Papa John's or whatever, but They came up with a positioning statement that completely, like, everybody memorized it, even if you weren't in the pizza industry. Um, and that literally helped them just create a totally unique lane that if you said the same thing, if you're Papa John's or Pizza Hut, you're copying Domino's, right?

So that would be, um, my recommendation number one. We gotta figure out a unique Uh, market dominating position for you that separates you, one, from other experts in the DEI space. And I do remember, and I'm, I'm gonna say it like this because probably right around the time of George Floyd, I think like the University of South Florida started offering free certifications for DEI. And I remember seeing on LinkedIn, like everybody was all of a sudden a DEI expert.

Right? So the, the, the field got very saturated and it's hard to see those with PhDs and real training versus someone who just went and got a free certification, even if it's from a, a well-established organization. Um, so yeah, so now how are you different from all the other, you know, perceived experts out there? That would be opportunity number one.

Opportunity number 2 would also be getting really, really clear on your target, uh, you know, your ideal, uh, client avatars. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, I guess, let me stop there.

Who's, who's your ideal client for your business? So, again, working with my strategist, I came up with, uh, a few. One are leaders in, um, scientific organizations, biotech, pharma that have teams that are 25 to maybe 250 people that are, you know, having some issues with turnover, engagement, et cetera. Another one is a founder of a tech company, which could be in health and science or not, that's scaling and wants to make sure that they're preserving their culture so that they don't lose their best people.

And then, um, the third was hospital clinic directors who are hoping to improve their, you know, value-add, uh, value-based care, um, and, and patient review scores. Okay, perfect. So, and those are all the organizations essentially. So you're a, you're a business-to-business, a B2B model.

Um, I would dive a little bit deeper into those and, and, uh, you may have already done some of the more detailed work with, um, your previous strategist, but psychographics is what I'm really more interested in at this point. So what are their pain points? What are their goals, desires, the, uh, solutions they want? Why would they work with you?

Like if you've, if you went to a conference today and met Some of the decision makers that could pull you in right there on the spot. Why would they say, you know what, Dr. Jim, we should have a conversation? Why would they not want to work with you?

Right? What, what would kind of turn them off to the idea? Um, those are the extra components. I would just want to make sure you, you have that so crystal clear.

But then that's the information that needs to go on your LinkedIn, that needs to go on your website. It needs to go on your newsletters that you mentioned. Um, so the, the framework that I kind of, I'm gonna simplify it for our conversation, but the framework is basically number one, anything that you post, anything that you're sharing on your websites, your LinkedIns, whatever, the first part of it needs to call out the problem that they have that they don't want. Then number 2 should be calling out the solution that they want.

That they don't have. And then the information that you provide after that is the education. So, hey, here's how to get rid of that problem, right? Here's my 3-step methodology to get rid of that problem, to achieve the goals and the solutions or the results that you want.

And then the 4th part of that component is you have to make them an offer. So, hey, if you like this information, go ahead and book a call with me and I can break it down in even more detail. I can even customize it to your organization, or if you If you like this information, click the button and take the assessment to get, you know, a customized result, right? That's similar to maybe the, um, assessment that you already have on your, your, uh, website.

But that model, let's start with their pain points. Think Domino's Pizza, right? Domino's came up with their proposition because they identified that people just want a good enough pizza pretty quickly for a decent price. That was the pain point.

And so they said, well, hey, look, if you just want a hot, fresh pizza in 30 minutes or less, right? So same concept, but now for diversity, equity, and inclusion, right? Um, so let me, let me stop there. Any thoughts about that or how does that resonate?

No, that's really, um, that's really good because I, I have had 2 kind of positioning statements that I've worked with. Um, one is Making Business More Human, which, um, was more when I wasn't targeting health and science, but, you know, I'd still kind of like it. And the other one is Culture is Strategy. And, but those don't really do what you're saying that they should.

Right. So when, when your clients come to you or when you have conversations with your clients, do they literally say, You know, I'm just really trying to figure out how to make business more human. Is that what they're saying? They, they should.

Us as experts, we know what they should be saying, but you have to kind of turn it to their language. They're trying to figure out, you know, let's be real. I, I need to hire more, a, a more diverse workforce. So, you know, I'm, I'm losing all my diverse team members and I really wanna make sure my, my culture is diver - you know, whatever they're, They're worried about retention.

They're worried about hiring new staff. They're worried about creating a workforce that loves their customers, right? They want that customer or patient engagement and satisfaction. So though, uh, and I'm speculating, but Yeah.

Those are probably the problems they have that they don't want are connected into those categories. So now you say, you know, the second part, give them the solutions they want. That they don't have. Hey, uh, life science executives, do you want 3 tips to show you how to retain a diverse workforce with less issue?

Right? I'm, I'm freestyling, but you wanna go down that path and they're gonna be like, yeah, I kind of do because that's the problem I'm dealing with. Right? Right, right.

Yeah. Okay. That's really helpful. Do I?

Even though I left academia at the end of 2021, my mind is still there a little bit. So it's a little bit of theoretical kind of approach is still hanging out in my brain. And really what I need to do is get more practical and direct. Yeah, no.

And that, again, that's, that's the curse of the expert because we see the world like the way it should be. But again, we, we gotta connect it into the world they're living in, not the one we're in. Um, another strategy, um, just again, because, uh, I am a solopreneur, very similar to yourself. Um, another strategy that works incredibly well outside of paid advertising, um, is exactly what you've already touched on, which is speaking, right?

So now I would say the other part, getting super clear on those, those client avatars that we're talking about. Um, so what are the associations that they plug into? What are the, um, publications they plug into? Where do they hang out online?

Um, I, I'm willing to guess LinkedIn is probably gonna be a big part of that, but Is there anywhere else, right? What content do they like to see? And again, that becomes a lot of the content that you will want to start to generate, or specifically the associations and the publications that they're plugging into. You can reach out to any publication and offer to create content for free.

Like your newsletters are probably ready to print in a magazine or journal that they're already plugging into. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

So you could, you can do that right now today and maybe get a couple of things published, you know, over the next couple of, couple of months. Um, and then reaching out to some of the associations and just find out, hey, do you all need a speaker? Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, I will come and do a free lunch and learn for your, you know, for your members, or I will come to your next conference and speak. I mean, again, just to get the ball started. Doing it at no cost or low cost is that, that's a no-brainer. Um, of course, as, as they start getting used to you, the value you bring when you present, they're gonna be like, hey, Dr.

Jen, you know, we'll pay you or we'll comp you, you know, these expenses, et cetera. Um, I, I will say it's interesting. I'm not a fan of speaking. Like, I, I love teaching.

I hate speaking, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I'm, I think next month I, I'm speaking at 3 conferences, right?

Awesome. And everything's comped and it, it's, it's, mm-hmm, built up over time. But the way that I got plugged in was reaching directly out to the associations that support the types of clients that I like to work with. Hey, and, and like I gave them the plan, if we partnered, this is what I would do to support you all.

Yeah. And they were like, okay, bring it, you know? So, right, right. That's a really good bit of advice.

And I will be doing that today. All right. Um, let me, let me touch on networking really quickly as well. Um, and again, this is my own personal strategy.

Um, so I call it the 5-question strategy where whenever I go, so I am very extroverted. But because I'm, I tend to just be so busy doing things, like the only time I leave my office is if I'm trying to get some clients, right? Yeah. So, and I, I always just put it out there, like, and, and a lot of folks know, like, oh, Jarvis here, he must be working.

Um, so, so one, that just, that, that takes the pressure away from me because I know I'm leaving my office really with intent. And so setting up 5 questions. So when I get to a conference or a networking event or whatever it is I'm doing, one, again, I'm making sure my ideal clients are somewhere in the building. And then when I go up and introduce myself, I'm asking 5 questions.

Hey, you know, the basics, you know, what's your name? But what brought you here today? Or what, you know, what are you hoping to get out of this conference that we're at today? Wow.

That sounds good. Is that something you all are working on in your organization? Have you considered? So, and now this is where I kind of start to slip in my expertise.

Well, hey, have you considered how Lean Six Sigma or process improvement or strategy starts to plug into that? Or for you, hey, have you considered what the, uh, cultural, uh, have you ever considered a cultural assessment to really kind of dive deeper into that area? Yeah. But that's where you start to work in your expertise.

And of course, the, have you considered, chances are they probably haven't really. Right. Right. And if they have, you know, again, you kind of have your, your 5 questions ready, kind of pre-thought out.

So if they haven't considered it, well, hey, if you haven't, I'd love to just jump on a quick call and walk you through what this could look like. Or if they have considered it, hey, you've considered it. Well, how did it work out? Right?

Because again, we know You know, from my world, not a lot of people are doing strategy great, right? There's always areas of opportunities. We know people aren't doing cultural and organizational work great. Mm-hmm.

There's always some areas. So, hey, wow, you considered it? How's it working out? Well, hey, I'd love to, uh, jump on a short call and talk about filling the gaps.

So, if they're, if they're familiar with the things that you're offering, Then great. Where are the gaps? I can help you fill the gaps. If they're not familiar with it, great.

Let's jump on a quick call and I can show you what that looks like. I always kind of keep it to a 3-step model, right? People can wrap their head around 3. Well, hey, I'd love to at least share, share with you, you know, my 3-step model for blah, blah, blah.

And so 5 questions and you're in the game. I like that because then it's like preparing for networking in a way that, um, is less anxiety-producing. Yeah. No, that, that, that's a great way to say it.

Um, so today, today's Thursday that we're talking. Um, on Monday I'll be in Baltimore at a conference. Um, and it's a 2-day conference. So for me, when I kind of set up that framework, yeah, I look to book 5 meetings with that conversation.

So, you know, the, it, the, the conference I'm heading to is Monday, Tuesday. So by the time I leave that conference, I should have 10 meetings between the 2 days. But as soon as I get my 5 meetings, then I just, I turn, you know, I kind of go into relax mode now. Yeah.

Now I'm present, paying attention to, you know, the conference stuff or whatever. But that, again, that's my way to just take the pressure off. Let me go work. Let me get my 5 meetings booked.

Oh, and, and understand for me, 5 meetings booked. I don't want your business card. Hey, sounds great. Let me pull up my calendar.

Like, and we're looking at dates right there on the spot. So I call it, it's BAMFAM, book a meeting from a meeting, if you ever heard that. Um, so yeah, so the goal is meetings booked. The goal is not business cards.

So I just wanted to be clear about that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.

Oh, you're good. Oh, trust me. It, it's a lot of bumping your head. That's all.

I bump my head enough. But, um, again, let me check in with you. What are your thoughts? I mean, so client acquisition strategies, really kind of tweaking your messaging, but it starts with getting really clear on your avatar, their pains, their frustrations, their goals, their motivations.

Using a framework to start with presenting their problems first, solutions, the education on how to address, always have to have an offer. Yeah. And then, um, working into understanding where they hang out at. So conferences, publications, what have you.

So you can start plugging into those strategically, reaching out to those groups, offering your content, offering to speak, whatever it may look like, but Now you can provide them with, cuz they, they need it, right? They are associations. They don't create content. You're the expert.

Yeah. And then, um, yeah. And then when you get to go to their conferences or their meetings, their networking events, you just show up with a game plan, about 5 questions that leads to some on-the-spot meetings. Mm-hmm.

What do you think? I'm, I'm here for it. I'm like already excited. I'm speaking at a conference at the end of the month.

And, uh, so I'm like, all right, Jarvis is saying 5 meetings a day. Can maybe I'll do 3 as my goal just because I'm getting, you know, just to start. We all, you gotta start somewhere. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I will. And then I'll let you know. All right.

The, the very last thing I have for you then is, um, strategic partnerships. Yeah. So, yeah, what are your thoughts? Well, yeah, no, one of the things that I've been talking to other consultants in this area is, um, that, that I can offer that a lot of times they don't have either on staff or it's not part of their toolbox is the assessment part.

Because I love doing it, right? And I'm a PhD-trained social scientist, so. Yeah, that's that anthropology in you. Exactly.

Exactly. Exactly. So I tell a lot of people who are out there doing consulting, if you need somebody to come on board and design your survey or run your focus groups or whatever the case may be, and then do the analysis, I'm here for that. Um, and so I feel like that's a complement, complementary service that I can then add to people that are doing strategy.

That are doing, um, management consulting and all of that kind of stuff. All right. Well, so I'm, I'm excited that you've already identified that because like I said, before we even started recording, I was like, Dr. Jen, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pitch a few ideas to you.

Um, I will say just right out the gate, that's one of the things I hope we can push forward given after this conversation. Um, I'm constantly coming across different, um, contracting opportunities. That are, I would say, more intensive on the leadership development, the cultural, the change management sides of things that I can do, but it's like, it's not my juice, right? So if you're open to a, a, a conversation, would love to invite you since you're here in Atlanta.

Come over to my office. Let's kind of work out a model. Absolutely. But, um, yeah, I, I'm probably gonna be online looking at a few things, you know, between now and the time we can have a follow-up.

But so that, that's my pitch number one is let's figure out how to partner. I agree. Um, but now let me give you kind of the strategic approach to also framing out, um, strategic partnership opportunities. And it all kind of goes right back to that client avatar again.

But when you think about your, your ideal client and the work you do, the problems you solve for them, What are other products and services that they need before they do business with you, while they're doing business with you, and then after they do business with you? So that's kind of the, the strategic brainstorming feedback I wanted to share with you there. So if you, you know, categorize those 3 buckets, hey, you know, when I'm working with a biopharmacy, biotech company, an academic company, a hospital organization, What products and services, because it goes on both sides, what can they use before they work with me, while they're working with me, and after they work with me?

And then you brainstorm, make that list as comprehensive as possible. And then those are other groups that you reach out to. If it's a product-based thing, then you, you know, you become an affiliate so that as your clients go out and purchase that, You generate a little revenue off of that as well. If it's a service-based thing, like the 2 of us partnering up right now, you have potential collaborations, or you can also generate referral fees.

Like if I send you someone or you send me someone, et cetera. So those are just different ways that I collaborate and partner with groups, but you wanna have both the products and the services. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I'm going to have to do some thinking about that, particularly the product side, but, uh, yeah. Cool. Cool.

Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. Um, before I let you go, Jen, um, would love to, again, just reflect on the conversation.

Any questions about it? Oh, I know, I feel like I threw a lot of different ideas at you, but any questions or any, any takeaways, like what's, what's moving forward? after today's conversation? I think I'm going to definitely start reaching out to associations to share my newsletter content because it's there.

You know, it's, and that's really a smart idea. And then also think about sort of like a tagline for my positioning that's better than what I have been doing, that's a little bit more direct. Um, well, and specifically make sure it's addressing the problems you solve. A lot of times as business owners, you know, we, we're quick to share, well, hey, this is the work I do, or these are the services I offer.

Yeah. Well, your, your tagline, like you said, it's the problem you solve. It's a different, similar but different way to think about it. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm gonna, yeah, I'm open to suggestions. From you and from your audience. Great.

Fantastic. Well, with that, what is the best way for our audience to connect with you online, to follow you, to follow your business? Can you share, share any contact info or websites? Yeah, my website is www.

disruptiveinclusion.com. My email is jen@disruptiveinclusion.com.

And LinkedIn, just search for me, Jennifer Sarratt. That's S-A-R-R-E-T-T. Um, or Disruptive Inclusion is also on LinkedIn. So those are the best ways.

Fantastic. Well, Jen, we will, um, include all those links in the, uh, show notes with this episode to make it super easy, uh, for our audience to connect. Um, Dr. Jennifer, I just wanna say, one, I appreciate you so much just for your time, your expertise.

For sharing your journey and your goals with us today and letting me just jump in and offer some thoughts to hopefully keep you moving forward. And I can't wait. We could talk about it as soon as we stop the recording, but we'll find some times to connect further and see what some collaborations could look like. To our listeners, just wanna thank you all for joining us and making the Excellence in Healthcare Podcast a part of your day.

And if you all Or, or thinking about starting your own business or just trying to look for different ideas, uh, please feel free to reach out to Dr. Jennifer to lean on some of her thoughts and expertise, especially from a leadership coaching point of view. And absolutely reach out to me. You can find me on LinkedIn and all of my information is also in the show notes.

So until next time, this is Dr. Jennifer and Jarvis Gray, and we are officially signing off. Thank you.