How Private Equity Plays Into The Medical Sales Industry With Carlos Gregory

 

2021 is finally here! Kicking the year off with something a little different, Samuel Gbadebo invites a unique guest whose expertise reaches the medical sales field. Far from the sales leaders, he sits down with someone coming from the private equity space, Carlos Gregory, the president of JAR Bio. Here, they talk about how private equity plays in medical sales, especially when it comes to medical sales startups. Addressing the pressing COVID-19 pandemic of our time, Carlos lets us in on how his company is introducing a product to the world—one that is revolutionizing COVID management. If you are thinking of growing a company in the field this year, then this episode is one to listen to! Join Samuel and Carlos for more.

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How Private Equity Plays Into The Medical Sales Industry With Carlos Gregory

In this episode, we’re going to do something a little different. This is the first episode of 2021, so what better way to kick off the year than doing something a little different? Normally, I bring to you a sales leader, a sales professional or someone in the sales and operations space within medical device sales, pharmaceutical sales, genetic sales, molecular sales and biotech. It’s going to be a little different in this episode because we’re having someone coming from the private equity space. We’re going to get into a conversation around how private equity plays into medical sales, especially with medical sales startups, and how one, a particularly new company, that this individual, Carlos Gregory, our guest, is President of. His private equity firm has backed this company called JAR Bio that is introducing a product to the world that’s literally revolutionizing COVID management.

This is a product that sterilizes any environment that’s been exposed to COVID in a matter of minutes without any liquid or light. It’s pretty fascinating stuff. For those of you that are interested in how private equity works in relation to startups when it comes to medical, especially medical device sales, then this is an episode you want to read. As always, thank you for reading this blog. I’m excited to bring this guest to you and it being the first episode of the year for us. Let’s jump right into it.

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Carlos, how are you?

I am doing great, Samuel. How are you?

I am fantastic. I am just making sense of 2020. I’m glad you could join us. Carlos comes from Florida and he’s the President of a company called JAR Bio. Carlos is in the private equity space. Private equity mergers a lot of different industries, including healthcare. Carlos, tell us who you are and what you do.

Thanks for letting us be on the show. We’re excited about the opportunity. I primarily am a leader. I enjoy being around people, serving and helping other people achieve their goals. I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to have made some good decisions that’s allowed me to invest in different spaces. Having a small private equity group set up, we’re investing in a couple of different opportunities, some in real estate, but we’ve had this tremendous opportunity to get into medical device sales and primarily around whole room disinfection, which is impacting us all right now and it’s very real. We have a great product, probably one of the best products in our class on the market. The only thing is that nobody knows about it, so we’re out here to try to tell our story. We tell everybody about our product and continue to grow the business and help as many people as we can along the way.

We’re going to get into all of that, but first, in general, how does the private equity space relate to healthcare from your vantage point?

I think private equity gives healthcare a big boost in its ability to finance quickly and to help companies that are maybe a little bit smaller grow faster to reach their goals and reach other audiences at a much more rapid pace. We all know about the perpetual growth model of some of the institutional companies like Johnson & Johnson, which is in a customer service-based model. We’re trying to achieve rapid growth through hard work and investing in the right people and the right places.

In this time that we’re all working through in 2020 being the quarantine year, how would you say it’s affected private equity?

Out of the gate, it was very concerning. There were a lot of deals that got sidelined. I would tell you that that’s turned a little bit. We’re seeing more deals close and more deals coming together. A lot of that had to do because of the quarantine, people’s inability to meet face-to-face and valuations of companies were being looked at several different ways. There’s a term being thrown around called EBITDA, which is Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization in COVID. We’ve always talked about, “Are you Amazon-proof? Are you recession-proof?” Now it’s like, “Are you COVID-proof? What’s going to happen to you after that?” It’s affected the industry a couple of different ways, but a lot of deals are getting done. It’s been neat to see how some of the companies that were already in private equity-backed portfolios have adapted and have created new revenue streams that they probably never even imagined possible.

As far as a sales professionals understanding how private equity plays into the company he works for, what is the best thing you think sales professionals can take away from understanding that and this includes leaders too?

The way private equity impacts them is just numbers. The whole ownership organizations like Johnson & Johnson or something like that didn’t have quotas, but they are patient. They have no interest in selling or exiting their companies anytime soon. For them, it’s the long-term appreciation of values and for private equity, it’s the immediate appreciation of value and then exits. When you think about that sales process, private equity is much more inclined to spend more money in commissions and marketing to get deals done faster than your typical institutional enterprise like Johnson & Johnson. I think how it relates to a sales professional is a unique opportunity to work in a private equity-backed organization because the urgency is there. For sales professionals, who are truly sales professionals, that’s an exciting scenario for them. It’s, “How much money can I make and how quickly can I make it?” versus the traditional kind of, “I’m going to make X amount of money and it’s going to be over a period of time.”

The difference with private equity is it’s not patient-focused. It’s business-focused. It’s speaking to people less about the impact they’re making in healthcare on what patients experience and more about the money they want to make in their role.

Private equity is all about the investor return. As operators, we have to filter that expectation and create compelling mission statements around the value of the business and what that means to the team. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re trying to achieve, but we certainly don’t want to build an organizational culture that’s 100% money-focused. It’s important for these individuals to understand that it is private equity-backed and the numbers are important, but we also want individuals that are going to transition into account manager type roles and build out a client of a book business that is significant and keeps going into perpetuity.

I have equity that is getting beat up for destroying certain industries and organizations. It’s catching a bad rep. I think the reason why that’s happening is because there are a lot of private equity companies that don’t care. They saw the numbers, the numbers make sense and they drive the numbers as hard as they possibly can with their intended result at whatever costs. For us, it’s a little bit different. We do believe in what we’re doing. We care about what we’re doing. We care about people’s lives that we’re impacting. At the same time, we’re trying to achieve aggressive goals.

Give me an example of what a bad representation of a private equity firm does and what you guys do.

The numbers should never be the leading factor of operations. It should be customer service. Click To Tweet

You don’t have to look far in the landscaping sector, there were BrightView and Brickman. There was a company called ValleyCrest, which was the gold standard of landscaping at a national level. That landscaping company sold large parts of KKR and it destroyed the company. They went 100% metrics-based. It was no longer about the customer experience. It was no longer about delivering a quality service. They get to a point where they had financial analysts going out to sites and counting how many steps a landscaper took from the time that they got out of their vehicle to the time that they got on their mower and started working. They tried to figure out how to reduce that percentage because that would reduce the amount of time on the job, which would reduce the cost of labor and have a direct impact on their bottom line.

Which private equity firm was involved in this deal?

KKR.

Instead of allowing a better company to buy this landscaping company, they went to the highest bidder. Do they already know that it wouldn’t look good for this other company that does the metrics and tries to manage the landscapers?

What they ended up doing was they took the company public. They retain a significant amount of equity in the company. The stock has been a little all over the place. Eventually, they’ll figure it out but the easiest way to look at it is I have a tremendous amount of respect for finance minded individuals. I think that the numbers are important and it helps us measure what we’re doing and where we should go, but it should never be the leading factor of operations. I believe that customer service should be the leading factor of operations and then ultimately, your ability to serve the customer well is what impacts your financials.

In that example, what would you guys have done differently?

In the example of what KKR did, you had a company that was already running well. They probably should have invested more in technology that would have streamlined operations and then going out and counting how many steps somebody took. Landscaping is an industry that could be disrupted by significant advancements in lawnmower equipment and those types of things. Robotics is one of those examples. They should have invested a little bit more in technology and approached it from that perspective than taking away the service side of it and reducing the time on the job.

As a private equity firm, your main goal is to take companies public or is to get companies sold. What is your main goal?

Our number one goal is to create value for our companies, which creates a return for our investors. We create value for those companies and it depends. If companies are performing well, the amount of profitability that the company has makes sense. It’s meeting what we believe our investors are looking for. Those conversations happen regularly. We’ll hold onto it as long as we possibly can and have that perpetual growth model until it gets to a point where it becomes more valuable for the return on our investors to sell it to go public and then keeping it. I wouldn’t say that every single deal is the same and that our priorities are the same. The one priority that is the same across the board is to build significant value at a rapid pace.

The typical company that you guys acquire, what stage are they when they go to you?

Usually, they’re looking for growth investment. They already have a product or a service that makes sense that we have some familiarity with. They only need an investor to line up with them and an operating team to help support what they’re trying to do which is the scenario here. We have something, we believe it’s good, but we don’t know how to get it out to the market. We need some money to be able to achieve that and scale. That’s where we aligned well with companies that are under $5 million in top-line revenue but that have something unique that’s valuable. We believe that our network can get behind and then help grow.

I thought private equity firms are just there for funding, meaning they take on companies that have a lot of promise and are there to help grow them. From what you’ve shared with the example you gave, the company wasn’t doing very well. It wasn’t doing good things. It seems like they’re involved in management. How does the company continue to grow and make money?

I believe that’s what’s happening. It’s because of those things, stories like the KKR. There are many more where it was just, “Here’s a bunch of money that you asked for. Now, go and achieve the results that you said you were going to achieve. If you don’t, we’re going to constantly beat you up.” As these fewer companies were putting themselves on the market for private equity groups, private equity had to change. We’re competing against the guy at the private equity group who wants to not only give money but offer his experience and then work that he has and their experience. That’s an advisory board and help the founder of the company grow as a professional and as a person.

When these competitive attributes begin to become more normal, then companies have to start making those changes and adjustments. There some have thesis statements around they don’t even look for a company. They look for a professional, an executive. If that executive has a thesis around, one that’s very common now is temporary staffing agencies, they’ll say, “We’ll invest in you. You go find a company that makes sense and then we’ll use that as a starting point as a springboard to acquire other similar companies in your space.”

What kind of profile does someone have to have for a private equity firm to invest in that profession? What type of people are these?

 

It is proof that you’ve been able to operate at a high-level lead team to success and reach a certain revenue number. Those are some at a very basic level, height, strong character, highly ethical, integrity and loyal. There are a lot of things that go into that conversation, but we’re seeing more of that, especially now that you see a lot more of family offices going direct. What do I mean by that? Previously, family offices would invest in other investment groups, a Morgan Stanley or a Merrill Lynch, or they would sponsor a private equity group and invest in that group. Now, family offices are hiring investment bankers and going out and seeking out their own deals to invest in.

Over the years, these are families that have acquired substantial amounts of money. They are private individuals that got some money.

Think of the Bush family, they have acquired a lot of money over the years and they established an office. They hire a management team, investment bankers and the whole thing.

They looked for where to put some of this money and that’s it. Private equity firms are getting involved in finding that growth and helping grow their family wealth.

That’s how it’s been. Traditionally, the family office falls under the private equity group as an investor. Now, family offices are negotiating and competing against private equity groups for the acquisition of certain companies and that seems to be growing and becoming more common.

For you as a private equity firm, what does a potential client have to have for you guys to even consider investing in them and helping them grow?

It’s important that the product or service is proven. The customer base should be pretty well established. They don’t have all of their eggs in one basket and that you either have a founding team or a management team that lives, breathes and dreams about the company and what they think they can do. Also, understand whether or not our network, within our team, and with some of our investors can help the company grow. Once we get past the concept what it is and what they do, and that it’s proven, it’s like, “Can we help them?” With more than dollars, but can we add value to the team? Can we make some changes to the team that’ll add value and then can we leverage our network to grow revenue? If we can answer, “Yes,” to all of those questions then we start looking at the financials and does it make sense what we would be willing to invest versus what they’re looking for.

For you guys, whoever you take on as a customer, their business has to be making many dollars for you to even to start with. Do you guys even consider working with them?

Not necessarily. We’re on the low side of the lower middle market. There’s a lot of institutional dollars and upper-middle market, lower middle market. When I say that, I’m talking about companies that are generating upwards of $20 million a year. My thought is I can add a lot more value at those levels to get them to $5 million, $7 million, $10 million where the valuations to improve and change. Maybe I’d take three companies that are doing $3 million take the best of the three. Now I have a $9 million company that’s going to trade maybe at 7 or 8 times EBITDA, but I acquire each one of those 2 to 3 times EBITDA. It begins to scale.

This is something that I enjoy doing. I enjoy putting deals together. I enjoy helping people and do things that they didn’t believe that they could do. I’ve been doing that my entire career. There was a company years ago, a guy came to me said, “I got this idea and I could do good at it.” He had $50,000. I didn’t take a dime. I own 0% of the company. With his $50,000 in financial investment and years of sweat equity, he’s got a $3 million company eight years later. Those are the things that excite me about what I do and the reason why I do it.

It would be naïve not to recognize that we’re on the right side of the economics and a lot of these deals that we do, but I think we’ve earned that. At the same time, what’s exciting is watching it grow, watching the people grow, watching the businesses grow, dealing with the challenges, how those challenges defined the individual and the company and make it stronger over time. It’s exciting to see that all come together.

In your career, how many startup medical device companies have come to you?

Not very many. Medical devices are something that wasn’t even on my radar, to be honest with you. This was an opportunity that fell in my lap. It must have been 250 hours of due diligence just in the medical device industry and probably another 150 hours of due diligence on this particular project with disinfection. I saw that there was a unique opportunity in the space, particularly in the product. What I’ve seen in medical devices is that manufacturers, by and large, are very proud, very invention-based, and engineer-based. A lot of them, maybe haven’t had the experience or lack the knowledge or just don’t care about having a good investment thesis, a good business plan, or a good marketing plan. That’s been interesting to me at the level that we’re investing at, but the medical device is nothing new. There are lots of companies over the last years. A lot of private equity groups, backing medical device companies and it’s performing.

It’s a sector that’s been growing and not surging, but it’s had steady growth. The companies are attractive because they have high margins, have good growth metrics and they vary. You have people that don’t even manufacture anything, zero widgets. They’re just the distributors of widgets. There are private equity companies backing the distributors of the widget. There are a lot of ways to get into it, but the compelling argument for me and this investment strategy was, it’s not just a medical device that’s made for healthcare, although that is what it was intended to be. What’s happening with COVID and what’s happening in society, what we’ve already been able to prove is that there’s a broader spectrum of industry where it can be helpful.

When it comes to a new startup company and they’re in the medical device space, when do they typically come to you? Have you experienced them coming to you at any stage from idea to full-blown company, that’s an operation they’re trying to get bigger? When would you prefer jumping in?

Your ability to serve the customer well is what impacts your financials. Click To Tweet

It’s been a little bit of a couple of different things. We’ve had the ones that I have an idea on paper and are looking for venture capital. We turn those away pretty quickly. We have other people in the venture capital space that we know of and we try to connect them with the right people that will be able to help them at the stage that there are. For me, that’s a true startup. You got an idea, you think it’s going to work, you’ve maybe had some market research that supports your thesis, but you haven’t built it yet.

The way we operate, we need to be a little bit further down the road than that. We need to have a product that’s already out there and that’s already been registered with the right agencies. We want to make sure that the market is fairly broad and that they’re looking for a partner, not only a financial partner but a partner that’s going to help them put together the plan for success. That’s where we get excited when you already have a device. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a device, it could be a med tech. We’re talking to a company right now in Germany that has a super simple software and an application that is basically reservations for emergency rooms and doctor’s offices.

There’s some software out there that already does that, but this one is user-friendly. They’ve done a good job of tailoring it to the patient, which will be attractive as far the adaptability. We’re working on that with some investors out of Spain to introduce that in Europe, potentially bring it over to the United States. With med-tech, there’s an opportunity there as well and again, the app is already running. They’ve already tested it. It’s been going for a couple of years so they have some traction. They’re trying to figure out, “How do we take on market share? What is our business plan? What should we be focusing on now that we’ve already developed it? What do we need to do to adjust it? How do we figure that out?” That’s where we add value. That’s the type of company that we get excited about.

You guys get involved with the hiring of the sales teams of these companies. Do you get that deeply involved? Do you step back and let them do whatever they feel needs to be done?

It depends. We want the company to be successful. Sometimes, the founders or the people who run the company at the time that we get involved haven’t had the experience or the opportunity in their careers to interview a thousand-plus people. You learn a couple of things when you’ve interviewed a thousand-plus people. You can learn so much from a book and from HR training and all that stuff, but nothing like the good old gut along with some support. For me, what we do and how we invest, we got to focus on the team. The team will create the financial results. The financial results don’t create the team.

When you’re a company and you’re starting out, you’ve got to find great players to play some leadership so that you can establish a great team. Have you guys helped people establish their leadership team? Not just the Salesforce bringing on like interviewing thousands of people, but the CEO maybe, and 1 or 2 other people and they need a leadership team that’s promising what they have. Have you guys helped them put their leadership team together?

It’s all based on what the founders were trying to do. That’s an important part. In some cases, you think of a Mark Zuckerberg. What a success story. It is highly atypical that a founder continues to operate a company once it’s gotten to that size. It is unusual. In the same thing, here, they’re very good. They’re very passionate. Sometimes they can be their own worst enemy because they get boxed into this way of thinking. They’ve never been exposed to other things before or other experiences or larger organizations. We have to balance that carefully helping the founder achieve their full potential and add tremendous value to the organization if they wish to stay in it, which is a whole other conversation.

Once they reached their maximum, recognizing that you’re better suited to serve as an advisory board member, the chairman of the board, vice-chair or something like that, then putting an operator who’s already had success scaling a business that size or greater. Maybe there’s somebody within the organization that isn’t a founding member, but a member of the management team that’s been growing through the company, who has a tremendous amount of potential who is willing to look at things a different way to be able to reach the full value for the organization.

That often happens then when a founder got the idea who’s got everything going. When you guys step in the private equity firm, you ask the founder, “You need to take a seat.”

Sometimes they know they need to.

When they do that, they’re not losing ownership, they’re just losing control of the day-to-day.

We step in and we’re acquiring equity in the company so there’s always a redistribution of ownership that occurs. In many scenarios, it’s one of two things. They’re selling because they want out and the founders had a great idea. They love it. They want to take their money and move to The Bahamas and never think about it ever again. We don’t like investing in that type of situation and we prefer the founder who’s like, “This is what I got. It’s great. This is what I need to do. I need some money and I need some people to help guide me to the next level.”

As we go through the levels, it’s then understanding, “What are your capabilities as a professional, as a CEO to drive the business? Are you better at research and development? Is that your stronghold?” We never let the founder feel like they’ve lost complete control of the company. We always want to make sure that they feel like they continue to add a tremendous amount of value and have those conversations early on. Those expectations are set before the first dollar is delivered. We never want it to be uncomfortable or a surprise so we’re very careful.

Let’s talk about your company and what you guys are doing, what I like and found interesting, and the reason I wanted you guys on. Explain your company and then I’ll get into more questions.

This company JAR Bio is a company that is distributing a Medisystem. Medisystem is a whole room disinfection device, and it was originally designed for operating rooms. We all know that hospital-borne illnesses are a billion-dollar problem. There’s a lot of evidence behind the aerosolization of hydrogen peroxide as the method to disinfect a space. There’s proof that it reduces hospital-borne illnesses by 70%. That’s a big dollar figure when you’re talking about billions of dollars. It was originally designed to solve that problem. The founders and vendor of the company of the device, Medisystem, was focused wholly on that. We looked at it and said, “There’s an opportunity here with what’s going on with COVID. There’s an opportunity here with the inventor, founder, marketing and the business plan.” We know a lot of people in government and the healthcare industry and many other industries that we think could benefit from this product.

 

Why?

What we’re seeing now isn’t going away anytime soon, as far as the disinfection of facilities and spaces. I think it’s something that we’re going to slowly grow into. When you have a product that’s been already proven, we have some of the most important infectious institutions in Italy that support the product. We have the Jackson Memorial Hospital out of Miami, which is one of the top five largest hospitals in the entire country where we’ve had some trials completed and proven to be very successful. When you have something that’s already been proven and have this type of impact on society, it’s a great combination for us. In simple terms, what it does is it aerosolizes and micro nebulizes a hydrogen peroxide, silver sulfate solution, which is proprietary as well into the air like if you’re blowing into a balloon.

Imagine your office needing a disinfection treatment. We would come in, we would measure the space, height with the length to get the volume, and the user interface of the device allows us to plug in that volume. It knows exactly how much of the Evolyse, which is the name of the solution, needs to deploy into the air in order to completely disinfect your space. I plug in the volume, I press start, I walk out and then when I come back, I open the door and there’s no need to do anything else. It’s dry, there’s nothing wet. There’s no residue. I don’t have to wipe anything down. I walk into the space. I take away my Medisystem and you’re ready to walk back into the completely disinfected room.

How long does it take? Think of a school gym or cafeteria.

For school gym or cafeteria, it would take about seven minutes.

You just walk into a relatively large room, you put it down and you plug in the device the size of the area, you walk out and come back seven minutes later and it is 100% good to go.

After it deploys the chemical and the solution into the air, there is some dwell time but it’s fast. Here’s the comparison. The comparison is let’s say that I am the best professional cleaning company in the world. I have trained my people and every single one of my people are robots. They all do it exactly the same way perfectly. This is typically how it works. They get a chemical that has to be diluted in water. They’re mixing it on their own, but they mix it perfectly every single time. When they go into the space, they’re going to wipe down every single surface. Think of your office, you’ve got a microphone in front of you, you’ve got the cables coming out of the back of your computer. You have the blinds on your windows, you got every book, your bookshelf, the ceiling, carpet, the walls, the paintings on the walls, every single surface. They wipe it down perfectly.

They do it in every room in your house or your office the same way, but how do they disinfect the air? They can’t. They’re in there. That’s why this is amazing because that person and that company don’t exist. If they did exist, the time it would take that individual to clean every single surface and do it the exact same way, nobody would pay for that. That’s the difference. It’s taking the person that’s wiping down all the surfaces as we hear a lot about, the high touch areas. They’re doing the best they can, maybe they diluted the chemicals. That day they were having a good day. They’re in and out there as quickly as they possibly can be because their bosses are telling them time is money so you have a partially disinfected room.

You could not have a more appropriate product in this day and age.

It’s unbelievable.

The first things that come to mind are hotels and airlines. I’m assuming you guys are ready to capitalize on that industry.

Heavily. We’re working with a lot of homeowners associations. We’re working with hotel and lodging associations. We’re having some high-level conversations now with a couple of airlines. We’re doing a test. Some of them have asked us to prove it inside of an airplane because that’s the other part of it. Some of the stuff that’s on the market is wetting in order to disinfect. Think about the electronics inside of an airplane, you can’t. If you do it too much, corrosion and these things start to happen. We’ve heard a little bit on the news about airplanes are going to use UV lights because it doesn’t wet anything, but think about it for a minute. How much shade there is in an airplane? The UV light is trying to go down the aisle. That fad will pass too. That’s the unique thing about our device, solution and process is that the Medisystem leaves no residue. All of those electronics are safe. We also have food packing warehouses so it’s food safe.

This can be on the meat, it’s hard to believe. In the pharmaceutical space, it’s all about the white paper. It’s all about what’s been clinically proven. In my space, it’s not much different. How has this been proven? What tests have been done that allow you guys to have this confidence and go in there and say, “Let’s see?”

We have fifteen-plus trial reports on the Medisystem itself since 2015. That has been conducted internationally and locally here in the United States by some of the most prestigious hospitals and infectious pathogen institutions, where the product has been proven to do as it was intended. At the least, the actual solution came first. There are a lot of studies behind the chemical compounds in it and the hydrogen peroxide, silver sulfate mixture and how that’s practical for use and disinfection used in aerosolize or micro nebulize disinfection process. We have tons of information. It’s funny you mentioned that because I want to go back to the comment that you made, “It’s hard to believe.” That is the most common reaction that we get when we’re presenting the product. First like, “Prove it,” followed by, “Why doesn’t everybody know about that?”

How do you prove it when you’re out there in the field and you’re trying to make the case for a potential customer to use this product?

You got to focus on the team because the team will create the financial results. Click To Tweet

The greatest thing that we have is that our device is registered as a class 1 medical device with the FDA. That’s not easy to do. In order to accomplish that, you have to be able to show that you have trial reports that are sufficient to prove that your device is not going to be harmful to humans and the process itself has enough support by the medical community. This is your device and this is how your device works and all of those things. That’s the first thing that we point at. People understand that are in this space, particularly in healthcare or pharmaceuticals. They understand the weight that the FDA carries and those things don’t happen overnight. You don’t submit an application and they register your device.

Once you’re looking at other industries and even in some healthcare at some hospitals for example, you’re talking to a chief officer and they don’t even want to see it until you show them the clinicals, the trial reports. We graciously provide that, which is fun because when they call you back, they’re like, “Why doesn’t anybody know about this?” When you get outside of that healthcare industry and using that terminology in a hospitality industry, I can talk to them about the FDA, trial reports and efficacy all day long. In a couple of scenarios, depending on the size of the opportunity, but I think they have 7 or 8-plus resorts that have a thousand units or more. We conducted lab tests inside of one of their villas after the company that they’re using had disinfected it. We do before treatment and after treatment that gets sent out to a third-party lab and then we present the results to them.

What’s your biggest target now? Are you targeting hospitals, airlines or hotels? Who are you mostly focused on?

As an organization, we’re focused in three sectors. We’re focused in healthcare, government and the restoration space. Think of Servpro and those types of companies. Healthcare is one because they’re being heavily impacted by COVID, all of the first responders, whether it’s helicopter, ambulance or regular ambulance. Your first responders coming out of fire stations that are carrying COVID positive patients inside of those vehicles, and then taking them to the COVID floor of the hospital. Obviously, they have an urgent, immediate need for this type of disinfection. We have a lot of focus there.

When you think of government, we think of the VA and then a lot of the bases that have their own kind of nursing facilities and smaller clinical facilities where COVID is as active. Inside of the government, you have those facilities. In the restoration space, my staff member contracted COVID and three of them have it. I have to shut down my business, while they go and get tested and quarantine and do all these things. If some of them come back that they were negative, what do I do? That space can be disinfected. The Medisystem certifies it’s processed. The actual machine, the device, provides a certificate that you download onto a USB. That gives comfort to the owner of the business, the manager, the supervisor or the director to be able to tell the team, “If you’re testing negative, it’s okay to come back. We just had the space certified.”

That’s for the customers as well to come back in if that’s the type of business that it is. Those are the three areas that we’re spending a lot of energy on. I think the government and healthcare side, those are two very ambitious spacious to be going after. Fortunately, because of the network that we have in the sales professionals that we look for, we already have connectivity into that space. It’s a matter of getting into the right presentations with the right people and then putting those proposals together to get the positions done.

What happens if someone gets stuck in a room where this device starts working? Is it dangerous for someone to breathe in and be around? How is that managed or is it something that’s easy management?

The preference is for nobody to be in there. If somebody is in the space, then you want to make sure that you’re wearing the proper PPE. In the absolute worst-case scenario, you get stuck in there with zero PPE and the device goes off, I’m sure you’re going to get out of there pretty quickly, but you’ll smell it. Usually, when you go in after treatment, the most common is it smells like a hospital room, but it’s completely safe. Hydrogen peroxide is the active ingredient inside of it. It’s at a little bit stronger level and at a quality, that’s we would buy from the pharmacy, but it’s completely safe.

Even if it gets on food, after a certain amount of time, you can touch that food and don’t have to worry about it. If you walk in right after a treatment, you can touch the surfaces and you don’t have to be worried about any danger to you and your skin?

Yes. That’s one of the great things about it. It’s not some Clorox-based or chlorine-based chemical plant pound that is damaging, not only to the environment but also to humans, material things and electronics. It’s hydrogen peroxide. It’s been around forever. We put this stuff on our kids when they have bleeding knees from falling down.

I love what you guys are doing. You guys are now growing. You’re looking for sales reps to continue to make this happen and get to the point where everybody has no problem.

That’s our goal. We want to continue to build out our team with sales professionals. We have identified a couple of the major metros throughout the United States that we’re focusing on now and filling roles to bring the product to market there locally. We want to make sure that we identify with the right people that have some medical device or healthcare-related training, some technical type of sales positions that have a proven record of being successful in sales. That is more than about getting the deal done, that they want to have a relationship with their customer. That’s an important part of a non-negotiable. We’re not looking for the sales professional who’s like, “I sold it and I’ll see you later.” We are looking for sales professionals like, “I sold it. They’re following up and how can I help?” All of those things to make sure that they’re using the product consistently that turns into referrals. We’ve organized the compensation package for sales professionals to align with that mentality.

Relationship development mentality.

Yes.

How did you discover the company or the person that makes this device? What happened?

Another person, an old friend of mine that I helped start a business years ago, his business was severely impacted by COVID. As a result of that, he had made a lot of friends in the hygiene space and remembered that somebody had told them about something like this. We’ve looked into it together and he presented it to me. I said, “This is something we’d like to invest in and get behind. Let’s go.” Thanks to COVID, we’ve had this opportunity and it’s been incredible, so far so good.

 

From that conversation to now, how long has it been?

That conversation was in March or April 2020. In March 2020 jumped into due diligence and in April, May, June, July 1st, 2020 was when everything was formalized.

I think you have been generating quite a bit of revenue. Things have been happening fast.

It’s great and exciting. We have fourteen sales professionals now. Two of our sales professionals are starting to build out teams in their markets. We’re looking at those people that we continue to interview. We want to grow. We want to get the right people. We want to get it out to the market. We want to create problems for some of these big companies and solve problems for a lot of people who need it. I’m having a blast. From a cultural standpoint, we are a very faith-based company. Integrity is important. I would say the other thing is we work hard and smart. We know that in order to reach our goals, we have to pursue them on a daily basis, persevere, have the right mentality, and help and work for each other as another guiding point.

For our audience, what would you share with them? I know that we have people that are in pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, genetic testing companies, anything related to medicine and sales. They’re in there from the sales rep all the way to the directors and to be a piece of CEOs. What would you like to share as far as what you’re looking for in your company?

First and foremost, I like to share that anything that I can do for anyone to help them grow or to connect them with people that are inside of my network, I would be happy and honored to do so. Anybody that’s connected to your show, Samuel, that I can help grow or connect with the right people in whatever way makes sense for them, even to have a conversation about what they’re doing, it would be my pleasure. As far as the company, JAR Bio and the Medisystem, look out and feel free to contact me if you want to learn more about it. We’re very excited. We’re incredibly bullish on the opportunity that we’re dealing with. Everything that’s happening in the market now, not only for ourselves but for some of our competitors and tells us that the runway that we have is very long and we’re at the beginning of it.

The growth potential with our company is significant. If you’re someone who is a go-getter and has a good track record in sales and is maybe looking to make a change into something that’s a little bit different, please feel free to reach out. We’re looking for the right individuals to continue to grow our sales team and have a greater impact nationally. That’s the other thing that’s great about the project. It’s something that has a real impact in people’s lives. We believe it’s one of the key reasons why we’ve been so fortunate and winning business and reaching the level that we have so far. We are here to help and support others in whatever endeavors they have and looking for the right people to get out there and help us grow.

Carlos, this is fascinating. I can’t wait to see where you guys take things. I’m going to be keeping a definite pulse. We would probably have to do a follow-up so you can tell us how much this has exploded in the next few months.

That’s a great idea.

Thanks for being on the show and we’ll be talking to you soon.

—

That was part one of our episode with Carlos Gregory in medical devices in the private equity space. You need to make sure you come back for part two because that’s where we get into the details of what JAR Bio is working on and this amazing product that they’re introducing to the world that is seriously changing the game for COVID-19 management. It’s keeping environments clear and safe for people to enter freely. If you’re someone out there that’s looking to get into a role, it’s the beginning of the year, you’re looking to make a big change and you want to do something big. If you want to make something you’ve been dreaming about or thinking about for a long time finally happen, then don’t spend any more time sitting there thinking and wishing. Visit EvolveYourSuccess.com, select Attain a Medical Sales Role, take the assessment, get some clarity on exactly what you need to do to get the position you want and then schedule a call with us. Let’s make some amazing things happen. It’s a brand new year with brand new opportunities to make some brand new things happen.

If you’re someone out there that’s looking to improve your sales performance and you want to make it a solid year, do something completely different and make the goal that you’ve been wanting to make. Maybe you want to get a promotion or you’ve been thinking about a department in your company that you’ve been eyeing and which you can get into. You’re sitting there and you’re thinking to yourself, “How am I going to make this happen again?” It’s time to take action in 2021, visit EvolveYourSuccess.com, select Improve Sales Performance and have a conversation with us. Let’s show you how we can help you make that happen.

Lastly, this show has allowed many people to find out what’s going on in other fields. It’s connecting different fields and different industries. If you’re a leader out there, maybe you’re a startup yourself, or maybe you’re working on something and you would significantly benefit from connecting to some other leaders or some different companies, then visit EvolveYourSuccess.com. Get into contact with me. You can email me at Samuel@EvolveYourSuccess.com and let’s have a conversation and help you reach these goals that you’ve set for yourself in 2021.

Make sure you tune in next episode, we’re going to get all into JAR Bio and what they’re working on. For those of you that are looking to potentially make a change, maybe you’ve been in pharma or medical device sales for a while and you have an opportunity to get into something different or something’s happened in the company you used to work for, and you’re in a position to choose wherever you want to go, it’s time to explore some things. JAR Bio is a company to explore because they’re looking for significantly talented individuals in the medical sales space. There’s a lot of good to do and compensation to receive. Tune in for part two. Thank you again for reading.

Important Links:

• JAR Bio
• Attain a Medical Sales Role
• Improve Sales Performance
• Samuel@EvolveYourSuccess.com
• Carlos.Gregory@Gmail.com

About Carlos Gregory

I’ve joined LinkedIn to exchange ideas and information to better serve both my company and clients. Perhaps we can collaborate and share informal networking advice, guidance and contacts across all facets of executive leadership, private equity operational partners, real estate investment and development, strategic business planning and organizational development.

Topics of interest include how to: create and execute company vision and strategy; lead high-performing teams to drive revenues and improve market share growth while maximizing operating margin and net income; rapidly identify opportunities and obstacles to business objectives and develop innovative solutions by collaborating with key stakeholders.

Projects we can discuss: developing and building teams that thrive in hardworking, high engagement and customer-focused cultures; inspiring dedication, loyalty and accountability by utilizing adaptive leadership methodologies; achieving aggressive goals by leveraging results-focused priorities.

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