Todd Merrill:

Hi, welcome to Tales from the Sky Lounge. It’s a podcast about business consulting and venture investing, where we talk to people who are getting out there in the world and making this stuff happen. Today in the Sky Lounge, we have Jay Kleinman. Hi, Jay. Welcome to the Sky Lounge.

Jay Kleinman:

Todd, how are you today?

Todd Merrill:

Hey, doing well.

Jay Kleinman:

Great

Todd Merrill:

Jay, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Jay Kleinman:

Sure, happy to be here. Thanks for including me. Jay Kleinman. I’m a long-time biz dev and sales strategy guy, primarily in the healthcare space. Been doing this for about 30 years. I worked for some large organizations like Tenet Healthcare or WPP companies that are in the communication space. I helped Tenet launch a revenue cycle business about eight years ago, Conifer Health Solutions. That was probably my biggest, most well-funded startup that I ever did. Over the last 10 years, I have really been spending most of my time in early-stage companies, venture-backed companies in the healthcare space, analytics, and SaaS on the services side. So, I’ve been at it a while, mainly again focused on commercializing businesses, go-to-market strategies, and direct sales.

Todd Merrill:

Awesome. Early in your career, did you have any mentors that particularly helped you along the way?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, I mean, it’s funny. Everyone thinks about business mentors that they’ve had. You know, we talked offline about the fact that I was at Auburn and played football at Auburn for a couple of years and had really the fortune to play for Pat Dye, who was the head coach when I was there. What was really interesting about Coach Dye was he was really a massive team person; everybody did this together, and there really was not much individuality, and certainly had individual accomplishments, but it was done as a result of the great execution of a team. And that’s really where I learned a lot about not only depending upon others but making sure others could depend on me and being reliable and trustworthy, and Coach Dye really had a lot around that.

I mean, a funny story about we’re all in it together was we got back from the summer one year and several of our linemen were a little bit heftier than coach Dye wanted them to be. So, when we came in for dinner after practice, he had a table set up with all their names in front of these plates where they got boiled chicken and rice because he wanted them to lose weight. But what’s funny about it is he made all the heavy coaches sit at that table with them as well. And the reason was to send a very clear message that that just was not tolerated anywhere inside the organization. So, if he set an expectation for you, he set it for everybody. And that really built some amazing camaraderie and, again, that trust and that reliance on everybody. So, it was entertaining, but the message was well received, I can assure you.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah. I had asked you before, you know, it’s fascinating to me, particularly in sales. I don’t know what it is. You end up with a lot of pretty competitive people that gravitate towards sales, I think. And then I asked you about the football and the competitive nature, and you said, D1 is kind of another level, right? And everybody’s kind of already naturally competitive, but you know, you had some insights into, like, what’s the difference between just kind of competitive and, like, truly D1 at Auburn in 1984.

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah

Todd Merrill:

You know, championship football.

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. I think that losing was expected. You were in an environment where you were expected to, and you expected to win. So, it wasn’t about worrying about whether or not you’re going to lose; it’s worrying about how you could be better, what you could do better, and how you could support more. So that’s kind of the attitude that I’ve brought into business,  is I expect and know that I can win, but I can’t do it by myself. And how do I embrace my clients or support teams or whatever to help me win? Because when I win, they win. And I like to think that a lot of my practice at TechCXO, where I’m helping these early-stage companies, and TechCXO has the ability to get into these companies early stage and bring some really incredible talent and acceleration in a variety of areas, that’s a big part of it. And when I think we do what I do we’re kind of like this intersection between grit and value where it’s a lot of hard work, but there’s a lot of value that comes out of it. And we’re not afraid to do both of those things to deliver the value and the hard work. I think that’s really what came out of that D1 experience. It was about grit and it was about winning and knowing that you could win.

Todd Merrill:

And so, it’s just a foregone conclusion that yes, we’re going to win, but how can we get better every week and do the work?

Jay Kleinman:

That’s right.

Todd Merrill:

And then it sounds like you’re in a team, and relationships are a big deal.

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. Relationships are massive.

Todd Merrill:

What a great experience to have gone through that. That’s amazing.

Jay Kleinman:

It was.

Todd Merrill:

So, what are you working on today? What interesting problems are you facing out there in the market?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, I mean, look, the healthcare space is ever-changing, and you know, it’s recession-proof. It’s this proof. The fact is, as long as people are alive, there’s going to be healthcare. What I’m really focused on is all these dramatic changes that are going on in healthcare. There’s a lot of push to improve quality. There’s a lot of push on lowering costs. There’s a lot of push around improving access. And there are a lot of really great organizations out there that are addressing these needs that have great ideas and great products but need help in understanding what is a good go-to-market strategy. What is a good product-market fit? How’s my best way to commercialize this business, especially when they, you know, early stage and early capital, their investors expect performance? They have a tendency to take that money and maybe try to boil the ocean, right? They’re going after just too much, and they’re losing focus, or they’re opportunistic, and they think, “Well, this is a deal that I need to just get this deal in.” They do several deals that really aren’t on mission and they end up with four or five clients that aren’t really doing the same thing, and that’s hard on the business as well. So really working with these early-stage companies to give them strong commercial focus, know why they’re going after who they’re going after, what’s the right message, what’s the way to do it, right product-market fit, which really ends up making you work smarter instead of harder, which I think is a big challenge for early stage companies.

Todd Merrill:

So, you know, I started a couple of companies as a technical founder, and I’ve seen lots of other people do the same thing. And then, you know, you can athletically get from zero to one customer, maybe a couple of three customers, and at some point, things change, right? There’s only so many people in your rolodex that you can beg, borrow, and steal. Hopefully, I met a guy like you, and then you come in; what do you say to that founder who has had some initial success? It looks pretty promising on the product market fit. And what systems do you go for? And then what do you look at first? And what’s the critical inflection point there look like from your seat?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, I think that, like you said, a good founder goes out, and they can maybe land a couple of deals. I think you have to look at what are the structure of those deals? What’s the quality of those deals? Are they on the value proposition that you’re trying to get out there? And then, are they referenceable?

Todd Merrill:

No.Yeah. A lot of times, they’re not right. They’re just kind of like, just do a deal to do a deal so I can get revenue, right?

Jay Kleinman:

Right, so you have to look at what’s the value of that deal to help you get other deals, right? And so in talking with a founder, you want to look at those deals, see if they’re referenceable, right? There’s nothing better to grow a business than a referenceable client. And then explaining to that founder, “Well, you’ve got these deals, why were they important?” And I really like to spend more time with my clients talking about the deals that they’ve won, not the deals that they’ve lost, right? You want to do a post-mortem. Let’s talk about the deals you won, why you won them, what was done right, and then how you exploit that moving forward. And that’s where I really work with the founders, is how did you get those deals in? What was the message? And then take that into a segmentation model where you’re really going to stratify your clients to know who you’re going after, why you’re going after them, what the message is, how you leverage nuances of those deals that you’ve already got to drive value to those prospects that you’re chasing. And it helps you have focus, and it helps you accelerate the sales cycle.

Todd Merrill:

So, talk about segmentation. That’s an interesting discipline, right? So, you go in, and you say, “I’ve got a couple of deals. Why did we win this one, this one, and this one?” And then who’s willing to talk about it, I guess, or maybe referenceability is not necessarily just talking about it, but you know, it’s a blue chip customer.

Jay Kleinman:

Right

Todd Merrill:

So what kinds of things do you look for in terms of, you got the whiteboard with a bunch of Post-it notes on it? What is the segment and then how do you coach people to think about that?

Jay Kleinman:

I think you’ve got to go through an exercise of who would be your best customer by segment. In healthcare, is it the insurance company, if it’s the payers? OK, great. Well, which payers? Is it by size? Is it by geography? Is it based on need? And you really go through an exercise where you’re going to literally rank those prospects based on the value you can bring to them, their ability to buy, how well your product fits within, let’s say some of the things that they’ve got in mission. Which requires research, you’ve got to go out and look at those prospects and see if they’re talking about the things that align with what you’re trying to provide. And then once you do that segmentation, then you’re going to look at each of those in your top two tiers and understand, OK, well, who at those organizations are we calling on? And what’s the message that we want to give them? Because the CFO of an organization may not buy it for the same reason that the CMO may buy it, the chief medical officer may buy it. And so, you’ve got to really work on your message, your value prop, and even stratify and segment to some extent who within the organization is your champion, who’s your influencer, who’s your buyer. Otherwise, your famous term in sales, you know, you’re spray and pray, which just didn’t work. We talked about this a few minutes ago, Todd, that volume is not necessarily what wins in sales anymore. The most calls, the most knocks on the door, or the most emails. Your prospects are getting hundreds of touches a day. You’ve got to figure out a way how you’re going to differentiate yourself. How you’re going to do something to make your prospect feel special or that you know something about them. That’s really the key to getting some of this acceleration going.

Todd Merrill:

So, I typically sell software, not necessarily healthcare. So, there’s been a lot of sales automation. You see this AI making content marketing practically free. So, you get an ever-increasing volume of automation heading your way. How do you stand out in a crowd now? How are you thinking about this? And how do you differentiate yourself and your message as you go in and try to open up new accounts for your clients?

Jay Kleinman:

You know, I’m a fan of AI if you use it in the right way. The amount of time that it can reduce in doing research and learning about your prospect or the people who like your prospects. I think the thing that makes a difference is when I reach out to you and I know something about you or about your company, then maybe I was able to extract through AI or through other research, you’re going to probably at least give me a chance to read two more sentences of what I’m doing as opposed to just a blanket, a typical email campaign. So, I like AI, and I use it, but I’m careful with it as well, right? I’m using it for research. I’m using it for understanding. I don’t have it write content for me or anything like that because it’s only as good as the information that’s been put into the environment. And so, you’ve got to fact-check it, and you’ve got to know it. So, you’ve got to be very careful about how you use it. But I think the short answer is you have to know something about your prospect and the person that you’re reaching out to at a personal level that will make a difference, that says this person cares enough to want to reach me directly and engage with me.

Todd Merrill:

So, it comes back to a personal connection and authentic conversations. It seems like it always does. Right?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, no doubt.

Todd Merrill:

At some point you got to sell, you know, to a person from a person.

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, I mean, I would rather spend my time trying to find people I know that are connected to someone I’m trying to get to and reach out to them and try to help them or have them help me make that connection than to sit here and just blast away email after email after email, hoping that someone’s going to click on it.

Todd Merrill:

You know, I had an opportunity to be a mentor a couple of years back and talked to a ton of very smart college kids, and we’re sitting around the table, and I said, “Hey, hit me up on LinkedIn.” And they all kind of went, “What?” So, I said, “You know, it’s not going to matter now. And I know you guys all text each other or Snapchat or whatever the new hot tool is. But in five years, 10 years, you’re going to wish you had maintained contact with people. How important is a tool like LinkedIn for you, and then how do you think about curating your network.”

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. I think LinkedIn is an amazing tool. It’s great, and it’s not only, its adoption but its sustainability actually has been pretty amazing. I mean, the business community has really adapted well to LinkedIn. They see its value, and their loyalty is incredible. And I think part of it’s because most folks that use LinkedIn the way we do are pretty respectful about it. They don’t use it for a bunch of spam or other types of worthless research and worthless outreach. They’re really using it very strategically. And those like us that engage in it are willing to take those types of outreaches because they really are…one thing you have to think about when you’re working with connections or doing all those, what’s my relationship capital? You don’t want to burn through your relationship capital. I think LinkedIn and sites like that allow you, and I’m sure there are people who are, but I think what it allows you to do is get in a very safe environment where you can really leverage your relationship capital, and people are willing to engage with you on that because they know you’ll do it in return.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah. How many times do you think in the last couple of months, somebody’s reached out to you and said, “Hey, I see,” you know, so and so from such and such company, “Do you think you could provide intro for me?”

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. I probably don’t get nearly as many of those as I do from some recruiter asking me to refer them.

Todd Merrill:

You need a hire?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, yeah, that’s kind of that relationship capital piece where it’s like you see it. But I would say probably two or three times a month, someone’s reaching out saying, “Hey, this person’s in my network. Do you know him?” I need to make sure I know that person that’s reaching out to because remember, Todd, the thing that’s critical about that is that when you do that, your name is affiliated with that as well. Name is all you got. And when you look at whether it’s references or product or service or whatever, your name is what you’ve got, you got to make sure that that’s protected as much as possible. So even though I do it, and I ask, and people ask me, I’m still very careful about who or how I’m affiliating my name with or what type of opportunity I’m affiliated with.

Todd Merrill:

Definitely, well, I’m glad you’re on the Tales from the Sky Lounge.

Jay Kleinman:

Yes

Todd Merrill:

That says a lot.

Jay Kleinman:

No, I love it.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah. So, when we talk about your different roles and everybody’s got lots of three-letter acronyms, like CMO could mean medical, or it could mean marketing. Right?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah

Todd Merrill:

So, you’ve been CSO, not security, right? CRO and CGO, you know, so talk about what are those things and then what’s the difference between those, as an example.

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, I mean, I think you’re CSO, your chief sales officer, not chief strategy officer, although it could be chief strategy officer. But your chief sales officer is really, you know, he’s just your head of sales. He’s your VP of sales. He’s your SVP of sales. There’s all those, like you said, those three letter acronyms, but he or she is your head of sales. They’re responsible for leading a sales offer. They may do it with or without a team, right? I mean, their goal is to drive revenue. A chief revenue officer probably is someone who’s got a team, right? They’ve got a team of folks. It’s just kind of one step up in terms of, but still primarily focused on revenue growth. They typically may have a biz dev person that’s working for them that’s looking for strategic partnerships and things like that. And then a chief growth officer is someone that really owns everything that’s revenue contribution. So, they own sales, they own channels, they own biz dev, and they own marketing. And I’ve been in all those roles. And again, here at TechCXO, the beauty of that is that we provide a vehicle where someone that’s got the experience like I do to go into an early-stage company that needs this type of talent sooner in their life cycle than later and really deliver value to help accelerate whether it’s just sales or whether it’s extended sales or it’s the whole growth side which would include marketing and they get, again, it’s that intersection between grit and value. They get hardworking folks that deliver tremendous value. Typically, what might be unaffordable if you’re trying to hire someone outright with a level of talent that I think we bring to the table.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah. When you’re setting up these early systems for people, a lot of times we talk about, OK, our KPIs, what success metrics do you like to look at in terms of, you know, cause early there’s not a whole lot of sales. How do you know when you’re catching fire, and how do you measure that? It’s more about growth than actual topline numbers at some point, right?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. I mean, top-of-funnel growth is key, right? How are we going to put as many deals on the pipeline as we can that are legitimate? I’m big on truth in reporting, by the way. So, I probably am slower to put something in the pipeline than other organizations are, but I don’t like taking things out of the pipeline either. And so, you know, I really want to make sure that … so part of it is looking at, let’s say, marketing qualified leads, right? Who are the folks that engage with you? They’re downloading content. Maybe they saw you in a trade show. Yeah, you’re doing some additional outreach to them. And how do you convert them to a sales-qualified lead? So, I think those are key metrics. How well are you doing marketing? How well can you get people engaged? What do those metrics look like? And how well can you convert them into a sales-qualified lead, which means they’re in the pipeline and now you’re really doing your discovery, you’re trying to solution for them, you’ve identified a common use case and you’re driving towards being able to provide a service or a product to them. So, you look at conversions, you look at meetings, how often can you get new meetings, how well are those meetings going, are you talking to the right people at those meetings? I would rather have a salesperson that’s getting less meetings with the right people than just getting meetings for the sake of getting meetings.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah

Jay Kleinman:

And so quality matters as well. What’s the quality of those meetings? And then proposals, how well can you convert? So, it’s typical stages in the deal pipe. How well are you converting those proposals? And then, when you lose a proposal, why did you lose it? Was it too early? Had you done enough work? One of the things that I’m working on with one of our partners, Kemp Maxwell, Todd, is this discovery-based selling training that we’re working on, which really helps you look at going through the pipe, doing the right things from discovery, from qualification, and all that, so you can bring a prospect through the pipe a little bit better, and you’re not worried about price early on when price is really the fact you need to be dealing with later, let’s say.

Todd Merrill:

So bring them through a consultative type sale of—

Jay Kleinman:

Exactly

Todd Merrill:

—“Hey, let’s just walk together for a little bit, and I think there’s a fit here. And here’s why there’s a fit.”

Jay Kleinman:

And establishing common goals, right? Making sure that you’ve got alignment all the way through the process and that you don’t move to the next stage unless you can or you’ve got that affirmed alignment from your prospect. Yes, this is what I want to do. Yes, this is where I want to go. Yes, I have the ability to buy or I’ll bring the buyer forward or whatever the case may be.

Todd Merrill:

That’s interesting. So, it sounds like you’ve taken all years of experience and then put it into, kind of a methodology, where you can then transfer it. You know, I love saying the definition of a leader; a true leader is somebody who can create other leaders, kind of like Nick Saban, who creates an unending number of great head coaches. So it sounds like kind of what you’re doing is you’re, you’re taking the standard process that you’ve earned, yeah, that knowledge and then put in a package and saying, “Hey, just take this turn the crank and then…” You know, so what does that look like when you come across a new entrepreneur that’s early stage? You know, how do you jump in with them?

Jay Kleinman:

I would start by saying the likelihood that I reference anything Nick Saban does is pretty low.

Todd Merrill:

Wrong part of Alabama, right?

Jay Kleinman:

But it really is about being methodical in the commercial process. I think that’s exactly the point that you’re making is every action has a consequence, let’s say, and it’s good or bad. So why are you doing that action? What’s the anticipated consequence? How’s it going to help you? Could it hurt you? I think that, again, especially founders who are super smart and brought an amazing product to market but haven’t really commercialized something before, just, you know, believe that people are going to take their call. “Why wouldn’t someone take my call? I’ve got a great product. They should know my value.” And it’s really a little bit of edification on and somewhat a little bit of humility, quite frankly, to make them understand, look, you’re one of many. I’m not trying to make you feel like you’re not special, but you’re one of many. And it’s not about how great your product is; it’s how well you can resonate to the value of your prospect. You already know the value of your product. All you do is talk about your features and your features and your features and your features, but you’re not delivering any benefit or value to your prospect. And to that prospect specifically, it’s just, it’s a challenge. So, you put a method in place. Who are we calling on? Why are we calling them? What’s the message? What’s the value? And how do we bring them along? And then you get into, you know, your other stuff. Are we going to negotiate on price? What’s the value of a logo? That’s the other thing you work with these founders. Some logos have a lot of value, and you’re willing to kind of sacrifice some revenue, and your investors get that, by the way. I think a lot of founders are really worried about the investors and what the investor thinks. The investor wants you to be successful. So, getting logos and sacrificing revenue for logos sometimes, I think some investors are OK with that because it turns into a referenceable client, and then you grow from there. You don’t have to cut the same deal for everybody.

Todd Merrill:

So, when you go out to market and you talk to prospects, a lot of people will make a phone call and that’s it. What’s the importance of follow-up? And then what do you think about how many touches you have to touch a customer and then maybe different channels that you have to touch them on, and then maybe you just have to be present when they’re ready to buy. Just because you’re ready to sell doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy, right?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, you know, when I worked for J. Walter Thompson back in the marketing advertising space, we used to always talk to our clients about, you know, someone needs seven to ten impressions before they actually remember you or engage with you. So, I do think that staying in touch with folks is important, but I think you have to have a reason to be in touch. So, I’m writing to check in as an easily dismissible email. But content, or again, “I saw an article that you were referenced in”, or “I saw something your company was referenced in”, or “I saw something that’s within your mission and thought…”— always having ancillary value to try to engage in.

If it’s pure cold, those are the hardest ones, and those are the ones where you need to keep it short, keep it sweet, be specific, be personal, bring something specific to them. If it’s warm, then you need to be a little bit gentler but leverage the relationship that brought you that introduction. But again, it still drives towards value. Just because I referred you isn’t going to be enough for your prospect to buy. You are gracious enough to refer me, but I still need to understand what’s the value I’m bringing to the table. But I think, you just have to, sometimes you got to relent. I mean, look, it gets down to that. So, you know, I think a big mistake in sales is you have 80% of your time, is spent on 20% of your prospects. And so you’ve got to find that balance out there. And I think the challenge is when someone looks like they’re about to say yes, you suddenly neglect your pipeline because you want to focus on that yes, you’ve got to balance that out.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah. And so you’ve sold SaaS and healthcare services. So, are there any differences between the approach to market when you’re selling different kinds of things, or are they kind of the same fundamentals?

Jay Kleinman:

You know, look, I think the fundamentals are the fundamentals, right? I think that’s the key part that if you do those things well and then understand one, your product and understand who your buyer is, that’s key. But with SaaS, what I’ve found interesting is that typically in SaaS, you’re selling to someone who has an internal customer that’s using that. And so where I think a lot of folks may fall down in SaaS is they’re selling to the SaaS guy about, “Oh, it’s this great software. It’s easy. It’s fast. It’s 99% uptime and all that type of stuff,” which delivers no value to who they’re trying to service. Right?

With SaaS going out and saying, OK, I was in clinical analytics doing rising risk, but I had to sell to the data channel, saying to those guys, your care managers don’t know who to call next. My software tells them who’s at the greatest risk of disease, who’s going to be the highest cost, and they can easily walk into their desktop, turn it on, and get a list of people that they need to reach out to today. That provides zero value, operational value to the data guy, except it gets his customer happy. That’s the biggest difference.

Todd Merrill:

Sometimes, your customer is not your customer.

Jay Kleinman:

Right

Todd Merrill:

And those are complicated sales, right? And you have to understand or else you’re not going to make the sale.

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. Well, and as soon as that guy says, “You know, that makes sense. Let me bring that champion into the conversation.” You have a massive win.

Todd Merrill:

So, you mentioned complex care delivery and getting through some of those issues. And I know you’re involved with some elder care. Can you talk through that? So, you know, when you get older, everything starts breaking down. And we’re probably relatively healthy, but some people have a complex series of diseases. What’s special about elder care?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. I mean, I think what’s interesting is there are, and you’ve probably heard too, there are claims out there that the person who’s going to live to be 130, 140 years old is already alive. Has already been born. I mean, I don’t want a 140-year-old liver, right?

Todd Merrill:

Yeah

Jay Kleinman:

I mean, that’s kind of the thing. That may be great, but everything still ages. And so now we have a massive already aged population and an aging population. There are tens of millions of people that are turning Medicare age at over 65. But they are living longer. So that drives the cost and being able to provide complex care management to those that are sick is actually getting easier. I think with digital health and the ability for someone not to have to leave home in order to see a physician, not need to leave home in order to receive durable medical equipment or prescriptions or whatever. I’m not proposing that these folks don’t get outside, but some of the sickest of the sick, it’s very dangerous to take them out, to stand them up, to walk them, to move them in the car is risky because they fall or it’s just they’re frail. Being able to see a physician or a caregiver or work with a care manager in a digital environment, I think, is going to be a game changer. What’s interesting about that is that five years ago, six years ago, if you told me, “Listen, we’re going to treat your folks who were in their 80s at the time digitally,” You’d say, there’s no way. But COVID changed the whole picture.

If you wanted to see your grandkids, if you wanted to talk to your family, if you wanted to conduct business, you had to figure out how to engage. So, the argument that the aged aren’t willing to digitally engage is just wrong as long as you make it easy, right? A simple click, good connection, an easy conversation. They’re willing to do that if they do care about their care. It’s just hard. It’s hard to be old.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah

Jay Kleinman:

And we’ve had aged parents in watching, but I think the advancement of medicine, the advancement of med tech, and digital health are really going to make access easier and potentially, at least at a minimum, improve quality of life and improve the ability for someone to stay home longer.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah

Jay Kleinman:

The eldercare company I’m with, that’s one of my clients, Together Senior Health, has a digital live-streaming, digital solution for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. It’s a clinically evidence-based solution that’s done just in a Zoom environment, a very, very friendly environment for this population. And they can stay home. And the program, which is based on body awareness and mindfulness and it actually— which is interesting to digress a little bit, is in Alzheimer’s and dementia, while it’s horrible in the brain, it does not impact muscle memory as much as it impacts other parts of the brain. If you can activate muscle memory, it actually activates other parts of the brain. It can slow progression; it can improve balance, can reduce behavioral stressors. And so, our program really works on activating muscle memory. So even if, God forbid, you have dementia and can’t remember if you had breakfast or not, if I taught you how to stand up and sit down in a chair, you’ll remember how to do it.

Todd Merrill:

So, we all need to get into chair yoga or pickleball or tennis or something.

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. Physical activity is critical for brain health. There’s no question.

Todd Merrill:

How do you think about things like home health and then, you know, delivery, like, I don’t know, like DoorDash or Uber Eats or things like that, are those helpful for some of these folks that are hard to move and can’t really get out? They can’t take advantage of telemedicine. Can we help them in other ways, you know, bring that care to them in place?

Jay Kleinman:

For sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think you’re going to see more and more, and I think even CMS is getting involved in a little bit more tighter regulations around home health. I think home health probably has had a kind of a bad reputation over the years, probably just from the movies more than anything, you know, home health givers are a godsend. Someone that’s willing to come into your loved one’s home and provide care and support and all that is amazing. I think supported by Amazon and DoorDash and Uber Eats for folks that have limited access or limited ability to access is significant. I mean, Meals on Wheels were geniuses, right? They were the first ones that realized that you’ve got to bring something to the indigent or to the aged or whatever. I think that it’s a smart model. It’s a really cost-effective model, and the impact on clinical outcomes, the impact on quality of life, and the impact on cost is dramatic.

Todd Merrill:

Well, you’re in Dallas. I know you got a really good airport there. You got any great travel stories from the road?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah. It’s funny, my great travel … so I am in Dallas, which means I’m beholden to American Airlines. I think I was looking in preparation for this. I think I have something like 2.7 flown miles on American in my career, which puts me in an interesting stem. Not quite executive platinum but I am platinum. So, normally, when I walk up, I look at the upgrade list. I’m number 42 on the upgrade list with two seats available. You know how that is.

Todd Merrill:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jay Kleinman:

But I would say two things. One is, the Admirals Lounge at LAX, is one of my favorites. It’s spectacular. I don’t know if you’ve been there, but it’s on the second floor. It’s glass all the way around. It’s really amazing. I’ve never seen a movie star in there, but it’s an amazing lounge. But I would say one of my greatest travel stories actually wasn’t on American. I was flying from Dallas to Atlanta on Delta, and the captain of our flight was his last flight.

Todd Merrill:

Oh, wow!

Jay Kleinman:

We landed in Atlanta and diverted onto a taxiway that was lined with fire trucks, who sprayed hoses over the top of the plane.

Todd Merrill:

Wow!

Jay Kleinman:

It was really amazing. And what I thought about this. At the time, it was just spectacular. It was really amazing to see how well that guy was treated. And what I thought about this was, I wonder if Delta still does that. I wonder if their team still matters as much to them now as it did back then. Because I just think, man, it feels like we all grind really hard and we all get beaten a little bit more, but a culture like that, I mean, it’s a reason why Delta is who they are. I hope they still are that way. But it was really an amazing experience.

Todd Merrill:

Wow! Very cool. Well, how can people get in touch with you after this on the internet?

Jay Kleinman:

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. So, I’m on LinkedIn, just Jay Kleinman. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can reach me at my email, which is just jay.kleinman@techcxo.com. And if you email me, I’ll email you back. And that’s probably the best way to find me.

Todd Merrill:

Well, it’s been great having you in the Sky Lounge today and bye for now.

Jay Kleinman:

Thanks, Todd, really enjoyed it and appreciate being with you.