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Malcolm Lui:
Welcome to the High Value Sales Show of Eversprint.com. I'm Malcolm Lui, the Managing Member of Eversprint, and today we're speaking with David Drap, the President of WellnessIQ, a provider of employee wellness programs. Welcome to the show David.

David Drap:
Thanks for having me on.

Malcolm Lui:
David, you grew your company's revenue from $2.4 million in 2014 to $7 million in 2017, a 188% increase, and in 2018 you hit around $10 million. Before we talk about how you grew your company so fast, can you briefly share what your company does beyond my quick intro, and how your company differs from the competition?

David Drap:
Sure. We have a very specific focus on health and wellness programs in the corporate wellness world. We have a specific clientele. We focus on the small and mid-market which is around 75 employees all the way up to a few thousand. We have many many very diverse clients and customers. We're one of the very few. What we've what you would call a general agency for all things wellness. We have biometric vendors. We have wellness platforms. We have partnerships with device companies. We have health coaching components as well as lunch and learns and some other things. So we're a pretty robust. And we can be flexible across the board really regardless of your customer size an employee needs. We just need to know a starting point.

Malcolm Lui:
So you make it that you're a general agency so how much of what you provide your kinds EDI yourselves and how much of it are done by your partners.

David Drap:
Yeah. Great question. So we are in essence the service provider and that starts with the sale of whatever we're selling to a particular customer. So we offer multiple wellness vendor platforms. And once we know the basics and the framework around what their areas of interest are then we work through the sale. We work through the incentive design and then we work through the launch of that particular product and service. And then it's my account management team that services the customer for the duration of that particular contract

Malcolm Lui:
So the wellness program that the core of it is provided by a partner of yours or a core provided by your team.

David Drap:
Yes. So the core services meaning the portal and the mobile application are provided by our part our partner vendors. So we represent Virgin Pulse. We represent the Vitality Group we represent redbrick health and we represent new health and we've just added a new vendor platform we're pretty excited about too it's called people. Q So those are kind of the core drivers their hubs if you will that aggregate data track your steps provide nutrition content and so on and it's all in kind of the palm of your hands. And then our account managers are the folks that would design the program upfront with the customers help. OK. Do we want to do participation based programs. Do we want to do outcomes based. Do we want to add biometrics. Do we want to add flu shots. What about health coaching. And then we become the kind of the air traffic controller around all of those those things. And then we help out with admin work in reporting and reroute you reviewing reports and so on with our customers on an ongoing basis.

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. Now could your customers go direct to those vendors if they wanted to

David Drap:
That's really tough. Our vendors are our partnerships are pretty specific. We are the small and mid-market category experts. So for the most part our vendor partners are more more interested in working with groups that are a little bit bigger. We've got a lot of category experience in that small and mid-market space. My average customer size is about 350 employees. So for the most part you would have to go directly to us if you fall within that particular smaller mid-market category. You can call Virgin Pulse directly and then there are probably going to tell you to call us

Malcolm Lui:
Write and never did post guys in there and there and other core providers. They essentially don't have the manpower to service all the the large number of small mid-market companies. So they just focus on the Enterprise ones. The really big ones

David Drap:
Yeah I mean it's a different type of a management system right. So larger companies have in essence the same needs as smaller companies. We've just been able to scale with our smaller groups and our formulas in managing those smaller customers has has made our model work out pretty well.

Malcolm Lui:
Right now. Can you share what the biggest drivers were of your sales growth over the past four years when you grew from two point four million in 2014 to 10 million around 10 million in 2018.

David Drap:
Yeah. You know much of it is we've got great vendor platform partners first and foremost. We've been with the Vitality Group for a long time. For example there are very very reliable partner for us Virgin Pulse and redbrick and me you and people who are great to work with too. So if you can start there with quality vendor platforms we truly believe that we have something to sell and you know 80 percent of business is in that small and mid-market space. So we literally have the entire country as our as our playground and we don't have to sell you one specific thing. So you don't have to just buy a Ford from me. You can buy any number of things and we can customize your program accordingly. So we've got flexibility. We're dynamic in our platform offerings and our our consultants feel like they can make one phone call as opposed to five or six to get the information that they need. That's really kind of spurred a lot of our growth

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. So the first driver a great vendor partners that can deliver a quality product that you that you're confident to sell or do you have drivers two or three

David Drap:
Sure so we've we've focused a lot on our distribution networks. Most of our business comes from the Employee Benefit world meaning our consultant partners like NFP or Ann or Gallagher as well as Mark McClellan and so on. So we have to make sure that we're constantly reaching out and developing existing and new relationships making sure that they know all of the newest wellness technologies rules and regulations and so on and that we can kind of be their central go to location for all things wellness across the board. And I would also put in there that one of our other drivers growth wise has been our retention rates were north of 97 percent meaning that our folks stay with us for many many years. So as you probably know it's tough sometimes if you've got you know as much business going out the back door as coming in and the front door. So those have all been very successful tricks for us

Malcolm Lui:
Right now. How much of your business comes from consultants as opposed to your team working directly with the companies

David Drap:
About 90 percent comes from the consultants. Most of our our companies and customers that we work with if they do reach out to us or we reach out to them directly nine times out of 10 they also have a consultant that works with them with their overall benefit plan design and so on. So it's just a really good relationship and marriage with those opportunities. So most of the time we work with the consultant first. We get some basic information about the customer needs and then we generally speaking have a presentation with a recommendation or two. Back to the customer with the consultant on the line as well.

Malcolm Lui:
Right now. Do you have some sort of exclusivity for your core offering or can the consultant go to many other agencies and have something similar

David Drap:
Our biggest differentiator is options. We have multiple vendor platforms so there are many many wellness vendor platforms and solutions that are out there but most of them are individual and their listings and then their offerings. So we have the ability to quote multiple platforms and vendors again with one phone call. So it's rare that we would quote more than two vendors in any one sitting. But our consultants really seem to like the the option in the offering. And at the end of the day we're consultants too and will tell a consultant if we don't feel like we have anything that's a good fit. The Wellness Community is too small to you know in essence force folks into something that they may not like in a year or two

Malcolm Lui:
Right now I take it the pricing is pretty much the same. If they were to go through your agency for a particular platform as opposed to any other agency

David Drap:
Yeah we're just we're just not aware of it really any other agencies that are like us that are truly specifically designed to be just a wellness General Agency. So yeah the pricing is similar. And then the offerings in many cases you can only get through us through our vendor platform relationships because they're not going to go believe below a couple of thousand employees as their minimums bill they'll sell it to you but they're going to charge you for those minimums as well so that's why we can quote for a 400 Life group as opposed to a couple thousand.

Malcolm Lui:
Oh interesting. So some. So some platforms and so the minimums vary with the agencies you work with.

David Drap:
You mean the vendor

Malcolm Lui:
Well yeah you mentioned before about some

David Drap:
Or the

Malcolm Lui:
Have

David Drap:
Agent

Malcolm Lui:
Some some have a two thousand minimum employee count and then you said that you can put 400

David Drap:
Yes so that's how we've built our business where we are these these small and mid-market category experts. So our vendor platform relationships won't go below a specific threshold of people

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
So they won't go below 2000 for example. So that's where we come into play well we'll cope quote off an eligibility file that we receive

Malcolm Lui:
Okay so you can your clients and still pay for 400 employees right they're not subject to that minimum

David Drap:
Correct.

Malcolm Lui:
That the vendor may have. Right.

David Drap:
Yes

Malcolm Lui:
Okay. And you're seeing other agency

David Drap:
That's correct. Yep.

Malcolm Lui:
Might not have that latitude.

David Drap:
Not that we're aware of. I mean there might be somebody else out there that has a specific relationship with another wellness vendor but usually that's one other wellness vendor not four or five like we work with.

Malcolm Lui:
Right yeah. It's a nice advantage to have to quote something that fits your client's needs much better. Okay. So just to recap the three drivers one you have great vendor partners to you develop your distribution network which is primarily the consulting partners and three retention over ninety seven percent. So what do you think is behind that retention rate. How are you guys keeping people onboard. You know over 97 percent each year

David Drap:
Well that's you know there's a there's a lot of reasons for that. First and foremost we try to get our customers in the right platform. Right. The second thing is to develop an incentive design that's within their budgetary framework. We don't want to break anybody's budget. And then we make sure that that incentive is relevant to the employee. So why should I participate in this wellness program. Oh I get X dollars towards my premium or I get an HSA deposit whatever that happens to be. Those are very important initial development designs. And then the AG is really the key our account management team is absolutely fantastic. They all have wellness backgrounds in place. They're very good at being proactive and showing customers what's out there what's next. And then as we approach their renewal for our next year that's a that's an hour conversation that we're going to have with the customer. How are things going. Should we add this should we subtract that. Do we want to add biometrics. Do we want to add health coaching. All of those things come into play to make sure that our customers are getting the proper participation rates that they're expecting within their wellness programs. And then you know last but not least is that connectivity. And then going over the reports that we go with over with our customers that sounds like a boring kind of activity to go through a monthly report. But it truly shows us where we're doing well where we have gaps in a particular program maybe we want to do a steps challenge in the month of June whatever that happens to be. But having a lot of touch points with our customers is really the key.

Malcolm Lui:
Right now. Can you give me a feel for how much these wellness programs typically would cost your average client your median client

David Drap:
Yes sure. So on average per eligible per month fees range from that three dollar to six dollar fifty cent range. So in other words if you've got three hundred employees that you feel are eligible for the program we would bill you for that PPA rates on a monthly basis.

Malcolm Lui:
Okay

David Drap:
And then that depends on your platform design what's on what's off that type

Malcolm Lui:
Any

David Drap:
Of thing. But that's kind of the range.

Malcolm Lui:
Ok. So. So let's just say you have a three hundred eligible employee company and it is to say they have a five dollar per month package. So they're paying one thousand five hundred per month to you. What might they get for that.

David Drap:
Yeah. So again depending on the platform quite a bit. So you get a portal there's quite a bit of customization that can go into the portal design meaning logos and communication pieces. How do we communicate with your customers whether it's push notification or emails or texts or all the above. Mobile apps are also included in the baseline functionality we want to make sure that they always have wellness in their pocket. And then. There's nutrition courses there's challenges there's physical activity there benefit options the portals themselves are very very robust. Hundred and fifty two hundred three hundred different activities that are available to the employees. Once everything is turned not

Malcolm Lui:
Ok so. So they they spend fifteen hundred bucks a month about say eighteen thousand dollars a year. Now when they're evaluating investing eighteen thousand dollars per year. How did they figure out what return they're getting out of that like. Do they view that wellness program as an investment. Or did they view it as an expense.

David Drap:
Yes. You know every customer's case by case. Right. So some of our customers are investing in a in a total well-being platform. Right. And their goal is to have healthier happier employees which I'm sure is many companies goals that then feeds into the possibility of of premium reductions over time that leads into the possibility of reductions and absenteeism and greater workforce productivity. So we can track many data points. It all is dependent on what the customer is willing to give us data wise and then we can layer that over participation rates. So

Malcolm Lui:
Ok

David Drap:
Our wellness platforms are not meant to be bought and to sit on somebody's shelf. They're meant to be used. So all of our platforms promote high levels of participation and engagement 70 percent 80 percent 90 percent participation across large swaths of our particular book of business. That's where the true value of the investment are really measured.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. So a 70 percent petition participation rate seems mind boggling high to me. I guess it depends on what my perception of participation is and what your platform might defiance participation. So what's participation in in your books.

David Drap:
Yeah it's a really good question. So you're not participating if you log into your Web site once a month and check how many points you have. That doesn't count. You have to do something. So you have to fill out your health risk asset Smith take your biometrics. You have to sync your Fitbit device. Those can be daily activities from a steps perspective. Those all count as things or items activities. So we don't count Web site clicks or web hits or anything like that. You have to actually do something within either your mobile app or your portal that we can track and verify. Five case 10 Ks get your flu shot. Go get your dental cleaning. Those are all participation based activities that are measured within our platforms.

Malcolm Lui:
So it's not necessarily a minimum physical activity requirement.

David Drap:
Most of our platforms do have a threshold. They usually start at the 5000 step guide. So you'll get fewer points for that particular day if you do 5000 steps. But that's kind of the initial threshold. So we'd like you to get 5000 steps we'd like you to take the stairs. We'd like you to park. We want you to park farther away with your car in the summertime. We want you to walk around the lake with your dog or your family or your spouse. And those are all things that we can track within our platforms

Malcolm Lui:
Okay now is it 5000 steps per day. Or rather if you do 5000 steps and you get some points

David Drap:
You get five thousand steps per day.

Malcolm Lui:
Per day.

David Drap:
That's our starting point. Yeah. And then we would that's that's a that's a lower level physical activity our standard activity point value is ten thousand steps and then we have a high level which is 15000 steps or more. And then those correspond with your heart rate. So if you have your heart rate and physical activity baselines for specific amounts of time then we can award you for those points instead. So if you're cycling for example you're not gonna have 15000 steps. So we track how far you went and how long your heart rate was in a specific category.

Malcolm Lui:
So you're saying 70 percent of the people in your program are doing at least 5000 steps a day.

David Drap:
Well I'm saying that yes they're participating in their wellness platform. So you have to remember Malcolm that there's a couple of hundred things that are available. I could

Malcolm Lui:
Okay

David Drap:
One day I could do 5000 steps and then tomorrow I could review week two of my nutrition portal for healthy eating

Malcolm Lui:
Okay

David Drap:
For example

Malcolm Lui:
You got it. You have any statistics as to how many people do 5000 steps every day. The reason I ask is because I on average did not do 5000 steps every day I went here. How far behind am

David Drap:
Well you're. You're behind. You know that threshold was kind of a nice game changer for us. About three years ago where it bumped our participation rates up significantly once we created that initial that additional threshold for 5000 because for a long time it was 10000 right. And if you sit in an office all day and and then it's five thirty and then you battle traffic and then you've got to take Johnny to soccer practice that's a that's a tough haul.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah

David Drap:
But when we designed it for 5000 you know you can walk a half an hour at lunch or you can you know walk while Johnny's at soccer practice in it. We've we've seen significant increases in our participation north of about 12 percent

Malcolm Lui:
Yet.

David Drap:
Increases in our physical activity so that helps you at all but

Malcolm Lui:
Well I've

David Drap:
You're

Malcolm Lui:
Done

David Drap:
Not

Malcolm Lui:
The math.

David Drap:
Alone by any

Malcolm Lui:
Well

David Drap:
Means it's just.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah I've

David Drap:
Yeah.

Malcolm Lui:
Done the math.

David Drap:
So

Malcolm Lui:
I'd love to. I say Sam I said OK I'm gonna do 10000 steps every day and I've worked out how long it would take me to get to that 10000 step markets literally an hour of jogging for me to get to 10000 steps. That's a big chunk of time

David Drap:
Yeah yeah but if you break it up and you do so now your goal should be five thousand. Ultimately you'll you'll get hungry upon your success stories and you can set your foot or your watch with whatever initial steps accounts that you want

Malcolm Lui:
Yet.

David Drap:
And then you'll get it done. I mean it's it's it's more like 30 minutes thirty five minutes for that initial investment and then you'll find you're a week and a half into this process and then now you're averaging seventy two hundred steps for whatever reason. It's just. It's a change in your habits. It's

Malcolm Lui:
Yep.

David Drap:
All it comes down to.

Malcolm Lui:
So you guys must have tons of data you to analyze. Have you found the magic number where people continue with the program for X number of weeks and then it becomes a habit

David Drap:
Yeah it's a really good question. So in most cases depending on the habit. So let's take a a more basic one. Let's take let's say it's taking the stairs at work. Let's say you're on the fourth or fifth floor of an office building that takes about 30 days to track verify because you have to bring your subconscious habit of taking the elevator to your consciousness. So you have to walk in every day and literally force yourself up the stairs.

Malcolm Lui:
Yet.

David Drap:
And I I'm referencing this because I went through this process myself about a year ago. So now you're 30 days in and now it's become somewhat subconscious but you're looking at about 60 days before it comes. Part of your subconscious where you don't even look at the people voter block anymore

Malcolm Lui:
Yep.

David Drap:
And you're on the phone and it's just now part of your daily routine. So in a more simplistic view there that's about the right time. If you're looking at more specific physical activities it will take longer. More like 90 days where by you're just kind of noticing that you're not needing a nap on a Saturday afternoon anymore. But that's about a 90 day process in

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
Some of the most robust things that you're trying to change.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. How about sleep. Do you incentivize people to get enough sleep.

David Drap:
We do. So our preference is that you sink your device on some level. Now to be clear sleep tracking is not a perfect or exact science quite yet but we do reward points on a daily weekly monthly basis for tracking your sleep. One of our vendor platforms also offers a specific sleep challenge where you're in essence putting your your phone in sleep mode for eight hours a night you know for a duration of 30 days. But I just had a new study where we're Lee we're sleeping a little less than seven hours now a night as a country. So that's kind of everybody's cranky. So we

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah

David Drap:
Got to we got

Malcolm Lui:
Definitely.

David Drap:
To get back to getting some sleep and

Malcolm Lui:
So are heavy design incentives for some of your clients where you get seven and a half hours rest. Do you get more points. Something like that.

David Drap:
It's more designed within the overall wellness platform. So that's one of the categories that we can incent and give you points for

Malcolm Lui:
Right

David Drap:
Is your sleep tracking

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
And then you know once you sink your device the first time then you're you're kind of off the hook from having to do it yourself.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. But I mean you know I know two bar companies aren't giving points for people getting more rest has other than tracking the sleek

David Drap:
Well we do give you points for getting the recommended amounts of sleep but we don't do any wellness programs that are only designed around getting more sleep. Right.

Malcolm Lui:
Just

David Drap:
So

Malcolm Lui:
Part of it. Part

David Drap:
It's

Malcolm Lui:
Of the

David Drap:
Not like exactly it's part of the overall well-being Bakley

Malcolm Lui:
Right. OK. How about another one that you're doing this tracking activity tracking one of the biggest distractions are just being interrupted by your phone and e-mail and messages and notifications is there. Did your companies your clients actually ask for some ways of being incentivizing people to not be distracted to turn off their phone. You mentioned putting on sleep like sleep for eight hours a night. Or meet me in the office do something like that as well to be more focused and less distracted.

David Drap:
Yeah you know most of it's designed about around our overall mental well-being programs

Malcolm Lui:
Hey

David Drap:
But those all feed into each other right. So

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah

David Drap:
If if you're highly stressed for example you might stress eat or you might not be at the top of your game mentally or physically if you're highly stressed and the core of that in a lot of these cases is getting proper amounts of rest. So we've we've got a couple of white papers that we've gotten from our our wellness venders that actually track that that dark blue light on your phone and

Malcolm Lui:
Maybe

David Drap:
That's an immense distraction where you're not falling into those deeper levels of sleep. I mean you know when you have a deep sleep night overnight and what we've found is if if we can get you to go to sleep to put that phone into sleep mode by about 8 o'clock at night 8 30 then you don't have access to e-mails anymore and

Malcolm Lui:
You

David Drap:
You're not on Twitter and you're not on all these different things when you do lay down for bed you're more present in them maybe you're snuggling with your son or daughter or whatever happens to be or watching a show or whatever that is. But that gets you closer to those deeper levels of sleep much sooner if you don't have that that one major category distraction. And you know we've got the data now that supports that with these different sleep studies where people have significantly improved their sleep habits just by shutting the phone off at 8:00

Malcolm Lui:
Might give that a try. It's not a bad idea to test that out. So how about during the

David Drap:
Yeah

Malcolm Lui:
Day

David Drap:
We've

Malcolm Lui:
Though.

David Drap:
Got steps

Malcolm Lui:
Yes.

David Drap:
Goals now and.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah. This is. This might be the most health inducing interview I've been doing for myself here.

David Drap:
All right. Yeah exactly.

Malcolm Lui:
So yeah

David Drap:
Day to Day wise that's a little bit tougher because a lot of our customers require you know cell phone usage

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah

David Drap:
Right and email usage and so on. So it's really this is really tough for us to track that. It's just significantly easier after the workday to peel away some of those stress relievers and keep them singled out. So we don't have a lot of data that supports or deters from you know cell phone usage during the day.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah. I imagine intuitively though most people have their personal cell phones and they get messages left and right. I'm going to a point now where I've turned off all my notifications because most of the time they get notified of stuff I don't need to take action on it right. It can wait. So I've

David Drap:
Agreed

Malcolm Lui:
Gone to that level of extreme everyday because it kind of sucks at times. Sometimes I do have an important message but I don't see eye to eye. My wife wants something and I don't see her message because

David Drap:
Yeah. And

Malcolm Lui:
It doesn't pop up

David Drap:
You've just described a mental well-being option for example where in 30 to 45 days you can set that for a goal for yourself. Right. And then the challenge within that particular hub or portal it will walk you through what you just described.

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
And then when you complete that particular task or challenge then we'll report award you points after the fact. So

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
We had the information there is just it's tough to track that you know during the workday if you

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah.

David Drap:
Will.

Malcolm Lui:
Now do you find bonus for it to be a tough sell. Because I remember a while you know years years ago at one of my company and it was like a large global investment bank and we were talking about insurance coverage reviewing what we get from our benefits package and so on. And then I suggest well maybe we should have a wellness thing and encourage people to exercise more eat better and be more fit. And that idea got like zero traction whatsoever because no one in the office wanted to change a diet or exercise or do anything to improve their overall health they rather just have the benefit there when they needed it. So it is wellness a tough sell.

David Drap:
West That's a tough question. I mean it can be. I mean we're not for everybody. Right. So if you don't have commitment levels from leadership and you don't have some semblance of a of a vision of what these things can look like then yeah we're probably not for you. Maybe you're just not ready for us you know but for the most part we don't get a lot of just outright no's and a initial phone call. There's interest there. Sometimes it comes down to budget could come down to timing. We're not quite ready for this but you'd probably be surprised with most of our companies are doing some semblance of wellness already whether they're just spreadsheet ing it internally or they're using some carrier wellness for example. It's really scuse me. Hard to come by somebody that's just not doing anything

Malcolm Lui:
E

David Drap:
Because the landscape right now is just too competitive right. So you've got two three companies that all offer the same types of things and you're an employee shopping your talents and you're gonna go to somebody that's got the most robust benefit plan if the compensation is similar between the three you're gonna go to where it's the most robust offering and in a lot of cases that's a differentiator with somebody that's offering wellness as opposed to somebody who's not.

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
As far as premium differentials and claims reductions and so on. We are not a silver bullet. These things do take time.

Malcolm Lui:
Mm hmm.

David Drap:
We don't see real tangible outcomes from a financial perspective until a year and a half in. So we talked to earlier that takes you a while individually to create a new healthy habit. It's same thing for the company. So we're not going to come in and pitch you and sell you and say Hey Malcolm you're gonna get a 5 to 1 return on your on your on your ratio for every dollar you invest. It's not the way it works. What they do is you know this is not you know we like to joke that it's not rocket science. It's really not. If your employer is providing you tools to improve your health and wellness and there's many offerings then you're probably going to try something. And lo and behold you lose eleven pounds in two months.

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
You feel better about yourself but really almost more importantly you're going to feel better about your employer because they gave you the information in the first place.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Yeah definitely. Nice having the option there for sure. So you mentioned weight loss for those companies of yours that did have that incentive in there how successful has weight loss been through the wellness programs.

David Drap:
I don't know what I can quote As far as percentages are concerned. Our platforms are focused on cop out by any means. This is a this is the honest answer. So we want to make you as well-rounded as we possibly can.

Malcolm Lui:
Mm hmm.

David Drap:
Ok so I don't want you to lose eleven pounds because you stopped eating.

Malcolm Lui:
You're right.

David Drap:
Ok I want you to lose eleven pounds because you started this track and sink your Fitbit device and you're getting six thousand steps in a day

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah.

David Drap:
And then you're getting up a little bit earlier in the morning and you're eating healthy oatmeal as opposed to an egg sandwich for McDonald's. No

Malcolm Lui:
All right.

David Drap:
Disrespect McDonald's right but we want you to do these things the right way so then you know that's why these these Biggest Loser types of challenges. If you've noticed they've kind of faded away

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah.

David Drap:
For the most part because 90 percent of those people not only put that weight back on they gained more

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
Because they didn't do it right. Right. So our goal is to provide you with the information and the resources make it fun work with your your co-workers and participate in a team challenge and then you're going to not only lose weight but you're going to so become more mentally well and you're going to be less stressed financially because we showed you some things how to build a better budget on a website or something like that. So we try not to just key in on. Yeah. This company lost 800 pounds. You know that could be good or bad.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah. Through

David Drap:
You know long term for the success of that company

Malcolm Lui:
That. Yes I brought up mentioned one thing during our conversation here about how by offering these programs you can do it with your co-workers. Right. And that's so much easier to accomplish your goals whatever it may be. Light Weight Loss strength conditioning sleeping more right when you have others in your immediate group doing the same thing as opposed to you doing it individually.

David Drap:
Yeah I mean we tap in you know a lot of our cup our customers are competitive in nature right. So you do a team steps challenge now you're tapping into former athletes and folks that are competitive just in nature and then they make great team captains and then the next thing you know you're recruited to be on somebody's team

Malcolm Lui:
Try

David Drap:
And then you can heckle each other on a leaderboard or a blog and it just creates this virtual social network kind of you know how Facebook has been able to master that we can design team challenges that are themed part of the fun is coming up with your own goofy team name and

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
Then you create that bond and that camaraderie with the you know eight or 20 other team members and employees that are on your team and you all have a common goal

Malcolm Lui:
Yep. Now your team helps with creating these sort of team events team contests is already built

David Drap:
Absolutely.

Malcolm Lui:
Into that platform. OK

David Drap:
Yep

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah I can see I just being creative and

David Drap:
Yep

Malcolm Lui:
Thematic

David Drap:
Absolutely

Malcolm Lui:
And timely and really make it much more effective. All right

David Drap:
Yeah.

Malcolm Lui:
Switching.

David Drap:
You know and you can

Malcolm Lui:
Yep

David Drap:
Do some fun things over the summer you know as well

Malcolm Lui:
Yep. Seasonal and you can wrapped around company events as well so I can really see how that can

David Drap:
Exactly

Malcolm Lui:
Make things work a lot better. Switching gears a little bit for 2019. Can you share with us what your plans are. You grew quite rapidly. Two point four to ten million. What kind of sales target are you looking for in 2019.

David Drap:
Well higher.

Malcolm Lui:
I guess

David Drap:
I'm really ready to share specific tangible items and goals. We do have a new platform that we've we've just launched that we're excited about. We're going through some internal automation processes. So we've reinvested some some pretty significant dollars in improving our internal systems and technologies which are allow our account managers to spend even more time

Malcolm Lui:
Like

David Drap:
With our customers. We're always trying to grow our our distribution network. We group last year by a thousand new consultants that we had contact with and we have a similar goal for growth this year as well. And then you know at the end of the day I've got to make sure that we've maintained our retention rates. So those are kind of large buckets goals for our 20 19

Malcolm Lui:
Ok so so too how many. How many benefits consultants are out there and total out there and how many of them are on your platform

David Drap:
Her.

Malcolm Lui:
Or aware of your agency and enable to recommend that they turn to their clients turn to you to do their wellness programs.

David Drap:
I really couldn't guess as far as the number of brokers or consultants I mean I'm sure it's in the hundreds of thousands in totality. I mean you have to think about if if you say there's one hub international office in Chicago they probably have of two dozen consultants brokers that work out of that one office right. So then you multiply that by the ends and the Gallagher's and Anna feeds and everybody else is of the world. I don't know that I could fathom a guess. We do have international relationships with all of the the major consulting houses and then we've got lots and lots of I guess you would call them boutique consulting houses and firms. I've got a nice great friend in Nashville Tennessee the Cawley group. They're great supporters of us but they're a small boutique firm and they use our services and opportunities as kind of differentiations within their market for example. So our goal is to continue to grow in all of the markets where we already currently have business as much as we can. We're in 31 states across the country now with customers. So that's kind of our main goal and to kind of gauge our consultants from low touch all the way up to high touch so we want to have our consultants send us as many opportunities and proposals as we possibly can.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. How do you go about finding new consultants to add to your network.

David Drap:
Yes. Sure. Good question. So some of it is organic within existing relationships. So hypothetically you know there's a Gallagher office we may have talked to three or four consultants but there's five more that we need to get to. So we'll use that as a referral with the producers that have already been working with us. So then we'll reach out to those folks to try to kind of complete that particular office and then there's new hires periodically and then we do. It's not really called cold calling per say. It's a lot of warm calling within those particular organizations. And then we'll go regional and then ultimately local. So we want to make sure that in the state of Ohio for example we've got all forms of coverage in Cleveland Cincinnati Columbus all of the net and major hubs and then that'll bleed into a Pittsburgh market. And so on. So that's kind of how we work from the top down leverage the existing relationship try to expand it and then find the newer consulting houses or folks we haven't talked to in a while to expand that footprint.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. How do you find a newer consulting houses. There's so many out there potentially.

David Drap:
Yeah. There there are a ton out there. Sometimes they find us a Web site so they may have had a difficult call with their their customer and maybe their insurance benefit rates are going up by 22 percent and the customer wants some wellness

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
So we get a lot of those phone calls

Malcolm Lui:
Okay

David Drap:
In reverse of that. I have a couple of inside sales people with a specific focus on outreach and outbound calls that are specific around the major medical carriers and so on.

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Got it. Three last questions for you OK. Before I get to my three last questions I took a look at your paper click presence and your SDL presence using the tools that I have. Mind you they're not always a hundred percent accurate but I'm not seeing any paper presence right now. And you're SDL traffic doesn't do the really high either. Oh my tools both of them are coming in at zero. So what's your take on that. How does paper take an SDL factor into your business

David Drap:
Not much I mean we work almost exclusively with the consultant and or sir from a business model perspective. So we're not a a retail play per say. We are technically be to be but again most of the time it's there's a specific customer in mind that needs some sense of semblance of wellness help and that's when the outreach begins. Sometimes it's from the consultant. Sometimes we're reaching out on a quarterly basis and the timing is just good.

Malcolm Lui:
Right.

David Drap:
So I don't know that I would you know put a lot into into that particular information

Malcolm Lui:
Right. Got it. And three last questions for you now. If you had a billboard advertising wellness IQ and it's on a fast moving freeway where people only have six seconds to check out the billboard for the drive by. What would be your billboard message.

David Drap:
For a while and there's gonna be a test. MALCOLM So I think that our message would be we have the right wellness for you in a fast moving billboard scenario and if you layer that down the reason why we have the right wellness for you is because of the options have the relationships that we have with our consultants and our producers our vendors and our customers. And then you know our account managers. So if you've tried wellness in the past and failed maybe give us a call because we can run you through some different scenarios and options that we would probably start there.

Malcolm Lui:
Yeah yeah. She says on the early on in our conversation and you mention it. I think that's a fantastic answer to the billboard question. And you wrote down a wellness in your pocket.

David Drap:
There you go. Wellness in your pocket. I like it.

Malcolm Lui:
Dan looks pretty good there.

David Drap:
You should copyright that.

Malcolm Lui:
I will. I'm going to I'm going to do that right away right after we get off this call. So at last the questions I have for you. Who are your ideal customers and what's the best way for them to reach your teen

David Drap:
Ok so our ideal customers are our customers that are included are inclusive in their overall employee total well-being. In most cases they've already tried some semblance of wellness. And we're kind of there to guide them through the process and to try to get their participation and engagement rates up a little bit higher. I had mentioned before our average customer size you can be located just about anywhere in the country as you referenced. We put wellness in your pocket really anywhere you are. And then our preference is to offer the other services that help enhance that that user experience things like biometrics and health coaching services or lunch and learns or whatever that happens to be. Those are our highest performing customers and clients that always have high participation rates. So that's probably who I would say as an ideal customer for us

Malcolm Lui:
And what's the best way for them to reach out to you or find a consultant who can engage your company's services.

David Drap:
Absolutely saw website Web site as wellness IQ dot net. And we have an email there where it's info at the site to that met. And I've got a whole boatload of folks waiting outside my door to answer any information and requests we get

Malcolm Lui:
All right awesome. Dave it's been great having you on my show today. Really enjoyed hearing how you grew your company so fast.

David Drap:
Well we're gonna be checking in with you with your with your steps goal now and and we'll go from there.

Malcolm Lui:
Wow I wish I didn't say that I need to edit out those parts now. Nothing I didn't talk about my weight in Moscow is much more challenging. All right.

David Drap:
There you go.

Malcolm Lui:
We've been speaking with David Drap, the President of WellnessIQ, about his company's rapid growth. For interviews with other fast growing, high value sales companies, or to learn how we can accelerate your firm's high value sales through automation, visit Eversprint.com.

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