International Healthcare for Travelers with Yuval Zimerman

george grombacher 0:00
Come on one level up. This is George G. And the time is right. Well welcome today’s guest strong, a powerful Yuval Zimmerman you’ve all ready to do this. Let’s do the Doom let’s let’s go you’ve all is an entrepreneur. He’s a marketing guru and the VP of Marketing and global partnerships. With air doctor, they’re an organization connecting travelers to local doctors wherever they happen to fall ill. You’ve all tell us a little about your personal life’s more about your work and why you do what you do.

Yuval Zimerman 0:43
First of all, thank you for having me here on the program, George. Okay, a little bit about myself, I have to say I’m married to an amazing, amazing woman named Tamar. And she deals with me and puts up with me every single day for the last 10 years or so. I don’t know exactly. So I hope she doesn’t listen to this. I have four rascals for little che drive me insane. But together with that, they give me lots of happiness and purpose in life. And on the word side, I would say that, like you said, you presented me thank you for that nice presentation. I see myself as an entrepreneur, a marketing guru, and a warrior poet. And I had the marketing team for air doctor, we’re a company that pretty much connects international travelers in 74 countries, including telehealth, and really, we’re there to help people connect when they’re most in need. And, you know, you went into why you do what you do. I think if I look in my life and the steps that I’ve gone through, up until now, I’m a deep believer in responsibility in family and community. And I do what I do, to try to put my footprint as little as it may be in some kind of way that can change people’s lives. That can I help people out and, and that and that’s why I do things I believe strongly in air doctor and everything I do goes towards helping people out and trying to make some kind of difference.

george grombacher 2:18
Nice, why certainly appreciate that. We’re big fans of those things on the show as well. So what do you mean when you say your warrior poet, you’ve all

Unknown Speaker 2:27
I knew, I should say now I’m coming. So warrior boy, like like I said, with my strong believes in you will take conservative views of family community and so forth. Together with that you can say there’s you know, there’s there’s the the fighting spirit, you have to be a fighter in all senses of the word in your personal life outside. So so just fighting the good fight, you know, you say that at the end of every show, fight the good fight. And I think that’s the the warrior spirit spirit that I’m speaking about, of course, poet, it’s just, I’m trying to get into I like thinking philosophically and writing and thinking. And I think it goes together very well, with with being a warrior. And of course, it always reminds me of Braveheart. So I just go with it.

george grombacher 3:24
I love it. No. Amen. I think that that’s all really well said right there. So we need all these things. We need all of those things. So when when you are fascinated by by by air doctor, and I just can’t imagine if you said put together a program like this, how I would even start, because you need to obviously, cultivate the relationships. And you’ve got something like 17,000 doctors across 61 or 61 different countries. So that had to be really hard, but then getting the word out to the rest of the world that says, hey, if you happen to be traveling, how do you so I mean, now that the thing is up and running, is it what? What are the biggest challenges and opportunities for you today?

Unknown Speaker 4:12
What are the biggest challenges as it was at the beginning and it is now I think it’s creating that network of doctors that you mentioned and, and today, we’re already with over 20,000 doctors in 74 countries across the globe. We do telemedicine with the ability to prescribe medicine, through the through the telemedicine consultations, private doctor visits, home visits and so forth. So one of the main challenges was creating that network. And of course keeping that network alive especially through COVID-19 Because we’re there for the travelers. And there wasn’t much travel going on. But I think maintaining that relationship ship with the doctors and keeping them going and growing that network. So that’s a short challenge. And of course, like you mentioned getting to the end users, how do we get to the end users? Why? You know, because at the end of the day, even if you’re doing something good, it comes out kind of like selling, you have to sell something, even though in our platform, we’re, you know, people on vacation traveling with their families, and someone breaks a bone gets sick, and they need help. And the best way we saw, we said, we need to connect to businesses that are already connected to the end user. And here we have partners, we went on a B to B to C direction, we have insurance partners, and we have travel agencies and OTA partners. And pretty much we get the word out through these channels that people are already using, without knowing us. And as time goes by, we’ve been working since 2018, we’ve have helped 10s of 1000s of people get the right, you know, medical treatment and assistance when they need it. And so like you said, those two main challenges were amazing. They still are. But I think we’re fighting the good fight. Yeah,

george grombacher 6:19
I appreciate that. That certainly does make sense. It’s always interesting how, how companies choose to go about getting getting their service out out out into the world. So because both of those are unique, b2b and then b2c, and you’re essentially sort of linking them together?

Unknown Speaker 6:36
Right? Yeah, we’re trying to do a little bit of both. It’s it’s challenging. We’re seeing what grows, but you know, thank God, they’re, they’re both going up, you know, that people are coming to us directly. People are coming through us through our business partners. And it just shows how much this service is really needed by by everyone.

george grombacher 7:00
Yeah, yeah. There’s, there’s no doubt about it. So from a, from a marketing standpoint, how are you using social media? If if, if I, my guess, would be you’re using social media to attract users to it? But are you also using social media to foster the relationships with the actual providers?

Unknown Speaker 7:23
So So depends what social media you’re speaking about. When when I when we’re talking about partners, and doctors, and insurance companies, travel agencies, so forth, the best social media to use today would be LinkedIn. Right. And of course, we use LinkedIn to foster our, our network and our message getting and branding to those partners. And for the users. Of course, the regular mainstream social media is used every single day, and what we’ve done, and of course, you can tell me if you think it’s a good step or not, but the numbers are always growing. And like, like I said, we don’t we’re not selling, we want to really provide value. And we started writing tons of content and making tons of videos that really speak to the user. And we try to fit the content to what’s going on around the world, and what people are interested in, and really giving valuable content and insights, actionable insights to everyone reading so if it’s from right now we did we did a piece on travel insurance versus health, international health insurance. And if you didn’t even get any, when you’re traveling, is it better just to travel with your credit card policy or not? Or you know, people are going to go soon on spring break some insights about where people are traveling to some good travel destinations, what to do. If you’re traveling with chronic diseases, what should you do? What should you know, I think we’re using a lot of content and placing it on social media to get the value out. It’s nothing to do with their doctor just help people out know what to expect what to do. And of course, if anyone ever needs us, we’re there. But they don’t have to come to us. They don’t have to use us. We’re happy to help just with our content.

george grombacher 9:26
Nice. When when an organization makes a decision to do that, how how, how far do you think about these seeds that that we’re planting all this content these videos? How far have an investment into the future? Is that? Are you expecting people are going to read it today is it is this for 10 years, somewhere in the middle?

Unknown Speaker 9:52
So I expect people to read it today of course. But as we’ve seen We’ve we’ve been doing very strong content for the last year and a half. And we see old articles that suddenly have nowhere a spike up in traffic. And I’m sure you’ve heard of Simon Sinek. And, you know, he wrote the book on the infinite game. And I try to look at the business and the marketing everything in that style. And pretty much in the infinite game, he talks about, you know, looking at a business with short term gains, versus long term gains, and every business needs to have both, you have to be able to concentrate on the short term gains, because you need revenue to exist. If you don’t have anything coming in, right, now, you’re going to die, you’re not going to be able to continue. At the same time, if you’re only looking at those short term gains, the the amount of of, of input of, you know, cost, resources, everything it’s going to multiply to an amount that you can’t really sustain, and you can’t capitalize on and grow, because it’s just too much. So you have to look at the long term, even though it might be costly now, but those seeds, like you mentioned, is something that’s going to help a month from now a year, 10 years from now, that’s what’s going to build the real business and make it sustainable over a long period of time, because you have to think of it not have, there’s no end goal, there’s no, I want to have 100 million users. That is that’s not a goal, right? Your motivation has to be, I want to help people find medical assistance when they need it. That’s our motivation. And as long as that’s there, then our seeds are going to help us because today we’re using telemedicine, we’re helping people through our app, get a doctor’s visit, get prescriptions, it might be that in 10 years, you know, phones might be obsolete, right? There might not be any phones in 10 years. Who knows. And then if we have that same motivation, that same clear message, we’re gonna have a solution for what happens in 10 years, and we’re not looking just at the right now.

george grombacher 12:22
Well, that certainly does make sense that that’s, that’s a good way to frame it. I was thinking this morning about the highest and best as best use of time and and attention. And as y’all are trying to decide how to structure that balance in the short term needs of revenue and everything else with long term desire to to still be relevant. And to be even more relevant, no matter what the platform are, no matter what device people are accessing, and all that stuff. How do you as a marketing executive sort of decide this? Is this is the strategy, here’s what we’re going to be focused on?

Unknown Speaker 12:58
It’s hard. It’s a hard question. The I think the power is in knowing how to say no, when to just cut things off and say, Okay, I built a strategy based on a clear motive, a clear goal. And I know there’s going to be tons of things and ideas are going to come to me in the middle. If they do not fit my goal. I have to say no to them. If they’re not within the goal, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. And it just it’s every single day, looking at what you’re doing. You know, when I’ve managed my team, I do the same thing. It’s like, they show me some idea or they started working on something else them. Okay, our goals? Are these nine have three or four goals. That’s it no more, is what you’re doing helping us reach those goals. If they start telling me um, maybe you know, I don’t know. But in the long term, like, no, so the answer is no, not right now. So that’s not what we need to do. Prioritize. Say, No.

george grombacher 14:14
Yeah, I think that that’s really well said, it’s struck me that if you don’t know what your goals and your priorities are, it’s really, really difficult to prioritize them. So knowing Yeah, you know,

Unknown Speaker 14:25
yeah, it’s all over you. You can go all over the place, you can get lost very, very easily.

george grombacher 14:30
And I think that that’s also a very human thing is that we’re all probably very curious people and inquisitive and we like shiny things. But to be able to say, no, it’s such a powerful and essential thing.

Unknown Speaker 14:42
Yeah.

george grombacher 14:45
Like, what are as you’re looking ahead, sort of reading the tea leaves. Is there something that you’re most excited about something that you think is going to be most disruptive is it just, hopefully the end of the pandemic and that’s going to To allow us to just refocus.

Unknown Speaker 15:04
Well, first I’ve been, I’ve been hoping for the end of the pandemic since it started. For sure. So, hopefully two years in, it’s finally going to happen. You know, I’ve been planning a ski trip with my kids for last two years, or every year has gone canceled. And this year, I’m like, Nope, I don’t care. We’re going, we’re going out. So I’m really looking forward to travel picking up and with the numbers that we’re seeing, we really catch that, you know, it depends on where you’re speaking about. If you’re looking at Asia, Europe, the US different, you know, geographies have have different stats. But in the overall sense, travel is picking up people are going out for business for vacations. And I think that’s an I think that’s amazing. If, in air doctor, the past year, we worked really, really strongly on creating partnerships with businesses, that we’ll be able to offer our services. After the pandemic is over this year, we’re already there, we got the businesses, we got their attention. And now it’s just giving the absolute best service to the people that are using us. And I think that, you know, if you look at the ratings and the comments that we’re getting, I think we’re doing a great job, I think our customer support, we have a 24/7 customer support that’s multilingual and, and something very, very special that our company is, is that is that everyone is so focused, and so dedicated to their job that they give it their all and more. So I’m really excited to be getting more and more users every month. I mean, on one side, I’m, I’m sad that people are getting sick of needles. Right? But that’s, it’s a reality of the world. So without reality, and, and the service that we’re giving, and the change and like people we had, we had someone in Cambodia, right, right us at of all places, and they really needed medical treatment, and we were able to help them, even though our network doesn’t expand to Cambodia at the moment, but we were able to be there and help them out. So I’m very excited about travel picking up and as people are more more aware of their medical elements and needs that they might need. I know we’re there and with our team will be able to to answer, you know, if not all most of the problems and give the best service that we can

george grombacher 18:01
museum appreciate that. Well, you’ve all people ready for that difference making tip, what do you have for them?

Unknown Speaker 18:08
Well, so I’m going to say, don’t be scared to suffer. And don’t be scared to fight. The only way that we can move forward progress, and become better people influence our small or big circles in a positive way is to accept the suffering to accept fighting as part of life. And know that happiness is not a goal. Purpose is a goal. And to reach purpose, you need to be ready to suffer to fight to put in the hours. And if you can do those things. Happiness is one of those things that will come and attach itself to you. And success will grow. And that’s what I’ve seen personally and I hope other people can take that forward and, and succeed as well.

george grombacher 19:07
Well, I think that is great stuff that definitely gets come up. There’s that warrior poet coming out. You’ve all well said. Well said. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you and air Doctor?

Unknown Speaker 19:21
Thank you, George. People can find me on LinkedIn. I think that’s the easiest and best way to find me you vol Zimmerman spelled with one M Zimmerman, or they can find me on LinkedIn on the LinkedIn there’s a link to our business site to air doctor.com. Of course anyone that wants to use it can look it up on the iOS or Android platforms on the web. And I’m there as well. So please come any questions. I’d love to help out in any way I can.

george grombacher 19:49
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did, so you’ve all your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas you could find you’ve all on LinkedIn. You’ve already With one M and then find air doctor at Air Doctor COMM A IR do CTO are calm and then download the apps on iOS and Android. X evil.

Unknown Speaker 20:12
Just a quick twist X doctor is a ir dash dr.com

george grombacher 20:17
Oh, perfect. It’s okay. Ai r dash D r.com. Perfect. Thanks. Good Evil.

Unknown Speaker 20:28
Thank you.

george grombacher 20:29
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai