Have you ever been in your customer's shoes and received your service or product? Welcome to The Marketing Accelerator Podcast…featuring three insights in about three minutes. I'm Drew Dinkelacker, and today I'm speaking with Lindsay Brown. She's the VP of Sales and Marketing at Beyond Clean, where they equip healthcare technicians and leaders to hardwire patient safety and sterile processing excellence across the continuum of surgical care. Lindsay, you've just experienced firsthand what your company strives to improve with our healthcare systems. Tell me about that.

Lindsay Brown: I started to develop issues with my vision. All of a sudden, I saw a shadow across my vision with an aura, and I sort of attributed it to an optical migraine or something of that nature. So, I thought, I'll go get it checked out with my eye doctor. And I got there, and he looked at me and he said, "Your prescription is completely different." So, I started telling him about some of my symptoms. And, he ended up connecting me that same day with a retinal specialist. He thought it was a retinal detachment. It turns out it was a giant tumor related to ocular melanoma. Fast forward two weeks, I was scheduled to have an enucleation procedure, which is the removal of my entire eye.

Drew: Wow. That is a really fast turnaround for losing one of your eyes. What was the impact of this short duration from discovery to surgery?

Lindsay: You know, two weeks is not a lot of time to process. And, in retrospect, that short duration was honestly a benefit. I didn't have the time to sit around and think about what life would be like without an eye. I didn't have time to sit around and think about all the things that maybe I couldn't do anymore or do in the same way. I had to move quickly. I had to prepare for surgery in two weeks and prepare for life after. And I had to explain to my three kids, ages 11, 4, and 3, what exactly mama was about to do.

Drew: Yeah. When we were raising our children, my wife and I always explained in detail what was going to happen for a particular event. They may not get the details, but they seem to grasp the general concept.

Lindsay: My husband and I always give more details than are necessary. However, what my kids know is that mama's eye was broken and it needed to be taken out and I will get a new one. And so, after talking with my kids about that, my daughter now wants to be a doctor, and she wants to make eyes for people who need to get their eyes fixed. I think that's such a lovely testament to the thoughtfulness of kids and the imagination of kids. I've also had a professional career connection in that I've experienced the benefit firsthand of clean and sterile instruments. I am the end beneficiary of a process that my company is working so hard to improve and that's that sterile processing excellence across the continuum of patient care. It really puts things in a different light when you actually experience things from your customer's perspective. Not everyone knows what sterile processing is. It's a department that's responsible for cleaning and sterilizing surgical instruments. And our organization is trying to infuse resources into that industry so that when our kids, our grandparents, our partners, or ourselves are those people under the surgical drape, we know that those tools are ready to be used to operate on us.

Lindsay: My surgeon could possibly be, and in my mind is, the best surgeon in the world for eye surgery. But if her tools are not clean and sterile, that can lead to disaster. So, I've had the opportunity to experience why our work matters, why infusing this little-known industry with resources has literal life-saving impacts. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

Drew: A thankful mindset and walking in your customer's shoes. That is a worthwhile perspective to experience. The Marketing Accelerator Podcast is an example of one of our resources to accelerate marketing leaders. More information at MarketingAccelerator.com.