Andy Greider – Connecting Dots to Create WIN, WIN, WINs (408)

Write a Podcast Review:

Podcast reviews are important to iTunes, and the more reviews we receive, the more likely we’ll be able to get this podcast and message in front of more people (something about iTunes algorithms?).  I’d be extremely grateful if you took less than 30 seconds and 5 clicks to rate the podcast and leave a quick review.  Here’s how to do it in less than 30 seconds:

Click on This Link – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/howd-it-happen-podcast/id1441722417

Click on the “Listen on Apple Podcast” Box

Click on “Open iTunes” – You will go directly to the iTunes page for the Podcast

Click on “Ratings and Reviews”

Click on the 5thStar (or whatever one makes the most sense to you 🙂

Episode transcript below:

0:00:00 – Mike Malatesta

Hi everyone, mike Malatesta here and welcome back to the how it Happened podcast. On this podcast, I dig in deep with every guest to explore the roots of their success, to discover not just how it happened but why it matters. My mission is to find and share stories that inspire, activate and maximize the greatness in you. On today’s episode, I’m talking to an amazing problem-solving entrepreneur who loves connecting people to create win-win-win solutions for clients. 

0:00:29 – Andy Greider 

I think that a lot of people want to actually get to know people, but they weren’t taught to start there. I think human nature is I want to learn about you and who you are and what you do. But networking is often only about what you do. When I talk with somebody, I don’t really care right up front what their job title is. I don’t care up front what they do for a living. What I want to understand is who they are. That’s where you find the connections. That’s where you find the difference between networking and connecting. 

0:01:00 – Mike Malatesta

He’s a managing partner for a healthcare evolution group, an altruistic capitalist, a first-rate connector and a Jerry Garcia Uber fan. In fact, we actually recorded this podcast on what would have been Jerry Garcia’s 81st birthday. He reminded me we also have a very interesting conversation about Taylor Swift that I think you’ll like, and now here’s Andy Greider. Hello, andy, welcome to the podcast. 

0:01:34 – Andy Greider 

Well, Mike, thanks for having me. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here. 

0:01:38 – Mike Malatesta

You know, I normally don’t do pre-calls with people that I’m going to have on the show, but I did a pre-call with Andy. And I did a pre-call with him because I didn’t know that I was going to have him on the show. It was sort of a recommendation. Well, it was a recommendation from Doreen Rivers, who I had on the show, episode 392. And we did a Zoom together and I got on with him and I’m like so it was really cool because the first thing he tried to do was what. I just asked him what would make this a home run for you On that call. He didn’t ask me that question but he immediately went to what can I do to make this time you’re spending with me basically a home run? Do you know this person? What are you looking to accomplish? All of these things that were so non-Andy-centric. They were Mike-centric, even though we never knew each other. It’s just like right out of the gate. So, right away, I was impressed and that’s why I have him on the show today. 

0:02:36 – Andy Greider 

Thank you, Mike. I really appreciate that. 

0:02:39 – Mike Malatesta

Andy, I start every show with the same simple question, and that is how did it happen for you? 

0:02:45 – Andy Greider 

Wow, that’s such a loaded question. Fortunately, it gives us time and energy to go through the rest of the show. From here then it’s been a very unwavering vision and belief that there’s a way to do good for everyone. There’s always a lot of hard work and trial and error and everything that goes into that, but for us, the process of putting together what we’ve put together now and this overall achievement and this round of our problem-solving side of things, it’s been very gratifying because we’re building this out. So it’s a win-win-win for everybody. So it’s a win for, in this case, the doctors, their patients Sometimes it might be a business and their client, but where we can leverage, bringing solutions to the market where they’re going to be beneficial across the board, we can give back. 

That’s where it really happened. It’s when I realized we can do all this and give back. We call it altruistic capitalism. We can talk about that more later, but to me, when you give back in a business-focused manner, that’s really one of the biggest keys to having a successful business and having a really fulfilling day every day. 

0:03:59 – Mike Malatesta

Okay, that’s fair enough Before I get into so you’re talking about the healthcare evolution group right now. I want to. Well, let’s do a couple of things. First of all, you mentioned altruistic capitalism. I feel like that’s a term that a lot of people can pretend they know what it means, but maybe don’t know what it means there. Certainly don’t know what it means specific to how you used it. 

0:04:24 – Andy Greider 

It’s funny because I think you’re onto something there very much, mike is that that term means different things to different people. To explain what it means here for us is we want to do good things for other people. When they make us money, then we use that money to do more good things for other people. In large part, yes, we of course have to take care of ourselves to some degree, but there’s an awful lot of giving back in. All three partners within healthcare evolution group we do as a business and we do personally as well. It’s really important to all of us that we are able to do that. We look for partners, vendor partners, clients and the like that all have the same sort of mindset that all really understand that we try to expand it exponentially from there too. 

0:05:12 – Mike Malatesta

Okay when we get into specifics about just general overview what healthcare evolution group does, and then I want to put it to the side for a second and go back in time for a little bit, if that’s okay with you. 

0:05:24 – Andy Greider 

Oh yeah, I’m down with that. That’s good, mike. So I mean healthcare evolution group just as a. Again, we’re problem solvers. We happen to end up in healthcare this time and with that in mind we work on a lot of different phases of the process, but in the end, what we’re trying to do is help doctors better serve their patients, help patients avoid emergent care situations and help doctors with the morass of new laws, rules, regulations, requirements, mandates, et cetera that are out there. That can range anywhere from their compliance with what’s called a law called MACRA to raising the RAF scores to getting their patient scores improved, their patient population health improved. It can be adding new revenue streams, like in the wound care world, something they normally would have always referred out. Now they can actually capitalize on it and do well by their patients with. We even help them with the onerous parts of their business and then some personal things like increasing their privacy and helping them protect their wealth. So I mean that’s overall, that’s what we’ve done. 

We built a team of a couple hundred high level, mostly former healthcare executive consultants who work with us, because all of this is a relationship type of sale, you know, if you want to call it a sale, but a relationship type of engagement really is where it’s at, because we’re here to help. We’re not here to really sell anything. We actually don’t charge anything for anything we do upfront. All of it is done upfront, gratis, and gets them cashflow rolling before we ever paid or ever paid on any of these. So I mean that’s another part. That’s the win-win-win is we’re not asking people to stick out. You know hundreds of thousands of dollars, like a lot of you know a lot of different things that are out there do. So that’s been a lot of fun, you know, and developing this model has been a cool learning process too, because we’ve done things similar to it in the past, but never anything exactly like this, and healthcare is its own special beast. So it’s been fun that way. So it’s been a ride. 

0:07:30 – Mike Malatesta

Yeah, it’s sort of and I know this word gets used a lot, but it’s sort of very ripe for disruption, right. It’s an industry that well. I just, you know, I went to get a scan two weeks ago and I asked them what it would cost me to do a different type of scan and they didn’t know how much it would cost. You know, and I know that’s not an uncommon thing, but just that, and then all the codes, and then all this stuff. It’s like wow, really kind of living in the past there and we keep shoveling more and more and more and more money towards not health. It shouldn’t really be called healthcare, because it’s not proactive, it’s reactive, right, so it’s health. I forget what the right terminology would be, but it’s health fit or fix you, not prevent you, sort of thing. 

0:08:22 – Andy Greider 

Yeah, and there is a move to value-based medicine which is trying to address some of that. There’s a thing called Contopple Aim that a lot of the hospital systems and even doctors’ offices are starting to move towards. It is, I mean, CMS’s intentions are good, but there are a lot of intentions that are out there too that don’t see the light of execution properly, and what we’re trying to do is bridge that gap in a lot of ways. Mike. 

0:08:47 – Mike Malatesta

How did you come to this? 

0:08:48 – Andy Greider 

Honestly, the role of being a dot connector is kind of where it all popped in. Mike, one of the people we were already doing a lot of work with on a couple other fronts, brought us the initial piece of this back about a year and a half ago and said hey, would love you to take a look at this, see if it makes sense for us to all work on together. And we looked at it and, honestly, at first I really wasn’t seeing it. I wasn’t sure where we could help, how we could help, what role we could play. And then, a couple of meetings later, we ended up talking to the corporate executives in the C-level team of our first branding partner on this and realized where we could help was helping build out the systems and procedures and team and everything else. I mean they have a team of their own, but we were able to expand on that and really take that out a few levels. 

And then again, just not connecting within the world of healthcare. It’s really amazing the amount of technologies that are out there and the amount of people that are trying to do good. So we carefully selected three other vendor partners and we’ll continue to do so. I mean this is not a. We’re not stopping at four. Things that we do will probably be expanding in 2024 and other two or three or four pieces into the puzzle, but as it stands, we have a way to really help doctors that take Medicare and help the most vulnerable population we have, which is our seniors. 

It really does help improve a lot of things that happen even within the healthcare system. So a lot of those things you mentioned about codes and procedures and the not knowing part and people not going to the doctor often enough for the doctor to be able to actually meet the mandates they have and things like that, those are all things we can help address and we do them all soup to nuts type, cradle to grave type of solutions within each piece that we do. So I mean it’s been fun. Some of that’s already been developed, Some of that we’ve helped develop, some of that we developed from the ground up as part of the solution and it’s just been a lot of fun. I mean this is what makes me get out of bed in the morning, mike knowing we’re gonna help other people, and especially when it’s a senior population and the doctors that put it all on the wine during COVID. That matters to me. 

0:11:04 – Mike Malatesta

And you mentioned the most vulnerable as being seniors. Why do you say that? 

0:11:07 – Andy Greider 

A lot of times it’s a lot harder for seniors to get to the doctor than it is for anybody else to get to the doctor. They’re much more prone to having more things that they’re gonna have. That can become emergent care situations. If you’re in your 20s and you’ve got something wrong. It’s not usually I need to get to the hospital now. The older we get, the more likely that is to happen, and we can help prevent that because of the frequency at which we start to help them see patients. So there’s a big, big difference between seeing somebody twice a year and seeing something. Seeing somebody twice a quarter. Right, you now have a much different plus, without getting too far down the rabbit hole, mike, because I know we wanted to go on to other things too. 

But the CMS is requiring that doctors meet a certain amount of mandates within a 46 point system and that means seeing a patient for 40, well, a portion of 46 things, 60% of 46 things, so like 28 things within two visits usually, because the average senior goes in twice a year. Under normal circumstances it’s pretty much impossible. So it’s a stacked deck and a lot of times the doctors are like, yeah, that law is not gonna be enforced. It hasn’t been enforced for the eight years it’s been around. Well, the bad news is they started enforcing it in January of this year, so it becomes a problem. It’s a 9% hit to their penalty, to their Medicare income right off the top, so it matters. Plus, again, like I said, we do the whole kit and caboodle with what we do there. The biggest thing we help with is the compliance and then the patient engagement and then the new revenue. But there’s a lot of special ways we do that. So, like I said, and there’s a lot more we do. 

So I don’t wanna spend all the time on this, but I will say it’s what drives me these days, mike. It is the how did it happen Is how do we get here? Well, a lot of 40 plus years of consulting at this point between my partner and I. He’s got 42, no 48. And I’ve got no sorry, he’s got 52 and I’ve got 38. So, whatever that works out, 60, 90 years worth of consulting between the two of us. We added a third partner, or probably closer to 135, 140 years of consulting, and so it’s fun. But you put three heads together like that and you start to figure out how to solve some really good problems. 

0:13:25 – Mike Malatesta

Yeah, it’s interesting the way you answered the vulnerable question, because I was thinking a totally different way. I was thinking I was thinking well, seniors for the most part have their healthcare covered by Medicare, right? So they really aren’t vulnerable from a healthcare standpoint compared to people who are younger, people who are sort of risking it with no healthcare coverage or you know big out-of-pocket deductibles and all that kind of thing. 

0:13:55 – Andy Greider 

But the way that you I never thought of like the vulnerability of just getting there and stuff I always you know, and Mike though, well, their point of that is if I can jump in, I’m sorry is that when I say vulnerable, I don’t mean fragile, I mean exposed. And they are exposed because, again, a lot of times they’re not and they’re not always being taken as they take some longer to explain something and doctors are on a time schedule oftentimes and that’s not really the doctor’s fault, so they’re compromised. 

Compromised might be the better word too. Okay, but vulnerable in that, yes, they’re. I mean, yes, a lot of what they need is paid for. You’re correct in that Medicare and Medicaid together, you know, cover a lot of things for different folks, but it is still absolutely true that they’re more at risk, more vulnerable, health-wise and otherwise, than any other population and, again, because of the way the system set up, they often don’t get a lot of them. 

The reason those mandated points are there is because they’re all things that are needed to be checked on an annual basis and a lot of those just don’t get checked and that puts them at even further risk because there hasn’t been a benchmark each year to say, hey, we’ve triaged, we’ve done a risk assessment, we know where Mike stands right now. You know this quarter Again, as a doctor, as a practitioner, I probably don’t have time to do that. We make that possible. 

0:15:20 – Mike Malatesta

Okay, fair enough. I appreciate that clarification. And you mentioned CMS a couple of times and for me and others who don’t know what CMS is, what is that? 

0:15:29 – Andy Greider 

Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. So it’s the government agency that sits over top of a lot of the regulations that are over top of Medicaid. Well, all of the regulations that are over top of Medicare and Medicaid both they also have a lot of play in. You know, all these different, the macro law and pieces like that. So I mean, whether it’s legislation, whether it’s steps and processes or whatever else, it’s going to flow usually up through CMS. 

0:15:56 – Mike Malatesta

Okay. 

0:15:58 – Andy Greider 

I’m sorry if you take Medicare as a doctor. 

0:16:00 – Mike Malatesta

Okay, and so if I had to sum up at least one portion of what of what healthcare Evolution Group does, is you? I’m going to try and you can tell me where how I screw it up. But you essentially leverage your understanding of all the Medicare requirements packaged, packaged that up into a value added proposition for the physician, so that, one, they’re not breaking any rules and, two, they’re getting maximum reimbursement, let’s say, for the procedures that they do. 

0:16:32 – Andy Greider 

Am I anywhere close to what you are very close in a lot of ways. I will also add that anything we generate for them is brand new income. It’s not we’re not robbing people to pay, paul. It’s stuff they weren’t doing before. We also give them a lot. 

We’re very malleable and flexible in what we can do to help them, so they get a lot more choice. You know, if maybe they don’t want to do annual wells or they don’t want to do cognitive tests, or they don’t want to do this, that or the other, for whatever reasons and each doctor is different we can work within their realm of what they need to make that happen for them. And then the last part I would say is that you know, I mean, there’s a lot of people this is the way I usually explain it, mike there’s a lot of people that do the data crunching and the compliance side of things. There’s a lot of people that say they do that as well and then charge you. There’s a lot of people that do the engagement piece or the population health improvement piece or the RAF score improvement piece, or they do the revenue enhancement or they do things like getting time back for the physicians and helping the doctor see the patients. They really need to see that need to see them, that kind of thing. 

We do all of it under one roof, under one comprehensive solution. So, and no upfront cost with no real integration needed, no hyper risk, nothing like that. So there’s a lot of benefits, but it takes a long time to explain, as you have heard. So sometimes people get lost in the minutiae. Oh, I already have somebody that does that. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I’d be sitting on an island instead of sitting here talking to you. 

0:17:57 – Mike Malatesta

Yeah, well, that’s a struggle that a lot of us face in our businesses. Right, we have something new, different, but with the audiences commoditized us into something that they’ve already seen or recognized. Well, and it’s human nature. Yeah right. 

0:18:10 – Andy Greider 

Anybody’s fault. That’s just human nature. That’s what we do. We look to find things we’re comfortable or understand and amalgamate what we are seeing with that, make that synchronistic, and that’s just what happens there. So I don’t blame anybody for it, but I will say that we have yet to run the report. We run up front for folks where we couldn’t help somebody not once. Even in some of the larger groups that we’ve worked with in the hospital systems we’ve worked with, they’re like oh, we have this sewn up. We’ve hired 48 different companies to do all these things and we run the reports and it’s like, yeah, they’ve still been leaving tens of millions of dollars a year, or hundreds of millions of dollars a year on the table. 

0:18:51 – Mike Malatesta

Ouch, tens or hundreds of millions. Yeah, that’s a big ouch. 

0:18:55 – Andy Greider 

Yeah, I mean, that’s worth a listen. It’s totally avoidable, mike, and that’s the other key, that’s the other part that I always say to people is this is not a mistake that’s hard to correct. This is not an opportunity that’s hard to capitalize on. 

0:19:10 – Mike Malatesta

Well, let’s switch gears to Andy here before people are kind of like I don’t get what he’s doing because you’re doing something really cool. But I don’t know how many of my listeners would be like, besides the tens and hundreds of millions that you increase their revenue by, you mentioned connecting the dots and win-win-win. Your email signature is what dots can I connect for you, or something. It’s very unique and I’m wondering where did this come from? Where did this? I want to be a connector, I want win-win-wins. Where did it come from? 

0:19:41 – Andy Greider 

Couple different things. Thanks, mike. I mean, that’s it’s. 

I’ve always been a big believer that connecting is far more important than networking. 

So I mean, I learned to network when I was in my early 20s and that went out to business happy hours and, you know, speed networking, speed dating type events that really never brought anything back to me other than a pile of business cards and a bad, fuzzy memory about what happened. 

You know, it didn’t usually lead to business connections. But what I started doing then is I started saying, okay, I need to have conversations with people like you and I had the other day, mike where we learn about each other, where we get to know each other, where I understand who I’m, who I’m talking to and what do they need, so I can say, hey, I know somebody who does X, Y and Z. You know, and that would actually fit your needs of you know, because you’ve expressed X and Z, but you know, and I think probably Y is in there somewhere. This is a person that can help you. The other thing is, by doing that, you learn who they are and you learn whether there’s somebody that you want to be working with ongoingly and you know whether you want to be able to refer them or not. If somebody has a solution, it doesn’t mean they’re a good fit. If they have a solution and they are personality wise and otherwise a good fit, then you have a connection. 

And that’s again the difference between, to me, the networking and the connecting side, in basic terms, and then the other thing, that kind of did it for me was seeing how incredibly far reaching a lot of the introductions that you could make, what effects they would have and the ripples that they would send out from that one pebble you threw out and then it just cascades. You know it’s a ripple and still water, right, it just goes and goes and goes and goes until it hits the shoreline. 

And if you throw it in the right pond of water, it might not ever hit the shoreline, you know, and it’ll just eventually dissipate. But if somebody else throws another pebble because they, you know, it’s a lot of pay it forward mentality, mike, it’s a lot of. That’s where the win-win-win comes from. Do is, I’m a big believer, I’ve had it ingrained in me Thanks mom, thanks dad, since I was a little kid that you do right by others and then right comes back to you, right and you’re kind. First and foremost. Those kind of things you develop, things that are a win for everybody. And I won’t say I’ve always been good at that. I’ve tried to be good at that, you know. But there’s been some changes in the last few years that have caused us to be able to get a lot closer to being very, very good at engendering those results. 

0:22:13 – Mike Malatesta

Let’s get practical about networking versus connecting, if you don’t mind, yeah come on. 

So when I think about networking sort of along the lines of what you said, I think of situations where someone is trying to sum you up and put you in a box in a minute or so and while they’re doing that, they’re looking past you to someone else that they are going to attempt to do the same thing with after they leave you and I sell you something is the what’s going through their filter. That’s the matrix. Does that resonate with you as networking or no? 

0:22:52 – Andy Greider 

Yeah, I mean it’s. I think that a lot of people want to actually get to know people as well, but they weren’t taught to start there. I think human nature is I want to learn about you and who you are and what you do yeah, but networking is often only about what you do. I don’t mean, when I talk with somebody, I don’t really care right up front what their job title is. I don’t care up front what they do for a living. What I want to understand is who they are. I think there’s a lot of that in this show too, mike. I think there’s a lot of getting to know somebody for who they are. That matters, because that’s where the magic is. That’s where you find the connections. That’s where you find the difference between networking and connecting. 

0:23:39 – Mike Malatesta

Right. 

0:23:40 – Andy Greider 

I will say there’s one other piece. So networking. There’s a guy named Bob Liddell out of Atlanta who wrote a book called Net Weaving that I read at one point and it was talking about how to take some of the steps that I’ve outlined here. Part of the way to what I was talking about Then to me the next part became net worth and then connecting. Net worth is your net worth. You’ve got to treat it very carefully. You’ve got to treat it like it is the asset that it is if you work to build it, because it’s not just business relationships, it’s personal ones too. If you build it properly, those are friendships. Those are usually very important friendships, very important relationships, very important history that you have with a lot of those folks. I mean, some of my networking connections go back that I do the connecting with go back 30 plus years. Now at this point these are people I’ve known for 30, 35 years. That’s a fair, fair long time now. 

Then there’s other people that are six months in and they’ve already proven to me that there’s somebody that I want to be working with and I want to be referring and I want to be helping. 

0:25:03 – Mike Malatesta

So you’re an expert on connecting people. I know that from having talked to you previously and it’s obvious from everything you’ve explained today. I’m curious about your viewpoint on how to best make referrals or connections between people. I’m asking that because I see people do it in all sorts of different ways, some of which I feel are very helpful and others I feel are not. Tell me your thoughts on what are the best ways to make a good connection for someone or between two people. 

0:25:44 – Andy Greider 

That’s a really good question, mike. There’s a couple of different answers I would give to it. One is that you want to meet the person where they are, in the medium they’re most comfortable in. If you can figure out which medium is best for the two of them. Some people use LinkedIn every day All the time you make an introduction there, they’re going to see it immediately. Some people it’s text, some people it’s WhatsApp, some people it’s email, some people it’s get them on a mutual phone call. You can conference call them together and make the introduction and sit back and be quiet and let them talk. It really just depends on who you’re connecting, which is why you also have to know who you’re connecting and things about them past what they do. 

I love video, mike, for making an introduction, I will record a Loom video a lot of the times. The one thing is it’s impossible to misconstrue a video. You can misconstrue a text. You can misconstrue an email. You can misread something or hear a tone that isn’t there. Have a fight with your wife and then read an email and have the next day when you’re fine and you read the email, I promise you’re going to read that email differently, even if it says the same thing A lot of times. I find that if you make an introduction that way, or if you accidentally have a typo, that spell check doesn’t catch, because it’s don’t instead of do. 

0:26:59 – Mike Malatesta

It’s a real word. It’s a real word, yeah. 

0:27:02 – Andy Greider 

Catch it because it was 5am in the morning and you’re trying to catch up. On introductions, it’s a lot easier to do them via voice and via video. For me, again, the media I send that video on is going to often be dependent upon who I’m introducing. Sometimes I don’t know, sometimes I’ll just use an email and let them go from there. But the other things that are important in that introduction and really important is it’s not Mike made Andy, andy, mike and I’m out. It’s Mike does these things, andy does these things. Here’s why I’m putting you guys together. And then two very important and you’ve got to tell them why, because if you don’t, you run the risk of them getting together and going hey, I don’t know why we’re getting together, but Andy said it would be a good idea. 

And that’s not a very helpful introduction. You need to tell them why you’re putting them together, and if you can’t come up with a good reason, it’s not a good introduction. 

0:27:49 – Mike Malatesta

So you the why then in the introduction or in the video is your. That’s the way that you’re basically granting yourself the permission to make to make it, because I was going to ask you before you said that do you think asking for permission to connect someone is appropriate or not? 

0:28:09 – Andy Greider 

That’s on the relationship, because if you have one where you can make that interdue. They’ve said free reign, go ahead. But yeah, I’m always going to ask, I mean, and oftentimes what I’ll do. It prolongs the process a little and getting the introductions out which is never a good idea when you’re as busy as people like you and I are but because it just gets pushed further down the line. But if it’s somebody that I’m new to and I’m saying, hey, would it help to know, I try to ask that first of all, in the meeting I’ll send over information like a LinkedIn profile or an interview or article that they’ve written or something like that, and say, hey, if, after you’ve read this or looked at this, you want an introduction, let me know that kind of thing. 

I try not to assume that people that I come up with in my head are going to be the solve for things that that said, I have a reasonably good track record and I don’t mean to sound pompous or overly arrogant by saying that, but I usually do have a pretty good idea of people that are going to be helpful. But you’re right, you should always ask for the permission. It’s amazing, once you make one or two good introductions, you usually are pretty much given carte blanche. Go ahead and make whatever introductions you want the. 

The last two things I wanted to say about the introduction itself, though and their key, because they really matter is at the end of the introduction, whether you’re typing it, writing it, texting it, videoing it, whatever. You want to ask two things First of all, if there’s anything more I can do to help facilitate all this, please let me know. And secondly, once you’ve had your meeting, please let me know how it went, and if you’d like me to sit in, let me know that too, because if you don’t get them to get some skin in the game to reply back for the introduction, it becomes a exterior thing. If you do, it becomes symbiotically interior, and now you’re actually tied into seeing what happened with that introduction, because the other thing you get is feedback. 

Yeah, I mean I was ranging from hey, just didn’t get this guy, you know, really appreciate you put me together, but we spent 30 minutes and it was like oil and water, or more. You know. Hopefully, thankfully, more often. It’s hey, we really saw some cool things. Love what you saw. We also found this, this and this you know, or love that you saw. I think there’s something we can do there. Or, you know, hey liked what you had to say, but I just don’t think there’s a there there right now. Time wise, materials wise, we’re too similar. You know. There’s too many things we do that are the same. We’re actually competitors. Yeah, not a mistake, I make that often anymore, but occasionally, because I still see when, when, when, everywhere, like you know. But you know those are, those are really big keys. Yeah, absolutely. 

0:30:50 – Mike Malatesta

Thanks for thanks for exploring that with me a little bit, because I I go back and forth or I have people who use certain techniques and some of them I think are effective. I like being asked, permission, and certainly you I think you said it best. If you’re going to connect someone with someone, tell them the reason why. Don’t just say, hey, I think you two guys should talk. I think the other thing you said that’s really important is to ask people to follow up with you about it, because the last thing you want to do is make crappy connections or make a connection and the person doesn’t do anything with it. Yeah, right, that makes you look like they’re not helping you when that happens, right. So I really like that. You asked for the feedback or to even participate, and not many people. I haven’t had that experience where many people do that. 

0:31:40 – Andy Greider 

It’s rare that it’s needed, but sometimes people feel more comfortable. You know and again I value the people that I’m putting together on both sides of the equation it’s very rarely a for the benefit of just one of them. 

0:31:53 – Mike Malatesta

Yeah. 

0:31:54 – Andy Greider 

That’s the other part of when you’re looking to put them together. Try to look for something that helps both of them. And if it isn’t going to be that way, like I had one the other day that I said, this is literally a one-sided introduction. One of you needs what the other person does, and I don’t see anything other than that here. Like I was asked directly, do I know someone who does ABC? And this guy does ABC and he does it better than anybody I know. So there you go, and it’s funny, the two of them have had two talks in the last two weeks and they’re now having dinner together two weekends from now at one of the country club. It’s in Atlanta. 

0:32:30 – Mike Malatesta

Okay. 

0:32:30 – Andy Greider 

So I mean, they’ve become friends, they already like each other a lot and it worked really well and I think there will be more there than I ever suspected there would be because of that friendship, because of the fact they connected. You know, and again you look for the small things. Hey, you know, mike happens to be a beer can collector from. You know old beer cans from Pennsylvania and I know you’re a big Pennsylvania craft beer fan and you guys might even have something to talk about there. Throw in something colorful, throw in something that’s interesting. 

That shows that you actually listen to the other people as well. I mean, I’m not saying it as a scorekeeping point, but on an empathetic, human, caring point. Let people know that you’re actually listening to them. Let people know that something they said sunk in with you. You know, and don’t be afraid to make it a three minute introduction or a four minute introduction if it takes that long. It’s nice when you’re out in a minute or 90 seconds, but if you find something where you got something to say and you want to express a story, that happened with Mike and Mike and I were talking and this happened and I thought of you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I thought you two would find some synergies here and it takes you three minutes to tell the story. 

Look, mike, I’ll put it this way If a good introduction isn’t worth five minutes of your time, then you know, then probably the introductions won’t keep coming Right For anybody not just for me, I mean from anyone, because that’s it’s not a lot to ask if you’re taking the time out to make the introduction for somebody, to listen to it and get back to you after they meet with someone. At least I don’t see it as being a big deal. The oh. One other thing Very, very, very important to be transparent. If you are going to be paid on any introduction that happens Like, for instance, if you make an introduction to a company that you have an agreement with, where you get a referral agreement you need to tell people that upfront. 

0:34:15 – Mike Malatesta

Right. 

0:34:16 – Andy Greider 

I tell people that all the time. Somebody asked me one day do you get paid to make introductions? I said it depends. Sometimes, in fact, probably most of the time, I’m making them because it’s an altruistically smart thing to do. I guess the other term is enlightened self-interest. I know by helping other people that it comes back chronically and there are people that I have that are vendor partners that I work with that will send me a referral. Thank you if somebody does work with them. But I’m not ever going to put somebody with somebody because I’m getting the referral payment, and that’s why I said to them I said it really depends on how you look at that. Do I sometimes get paid? Yes, will I always be clear with you? Yes, and it’s very important to me. But am I doing it because I’m getting paid? No, I’m doing it because this person has a service that is valuable for you you wouldn’t have known about otherwise. 

0:35:05 – Mike Malatesta

Thanks for adding that. That’s really important. You can’t have somebody find out later because they will immediately think, oh, I just got sold instead of Catfish. 

0:35:15 – Andy Greider 

Yeah, I got catfished. 

0:35:16 – Mike Malatesta

I got catfished yeah. 

0:35:19 – Andy Greider 

And that’s no fun. So again, I mean, while that’s true for any communication you have with somebody, Mike, it’s full transparency. 

0:35:25 – Mike Malatesta

Right. 

0:35:26 – Andy Greider 

You know more than all. It’s always full transparency. I mean, that’s another thing I do with my intros is there’s a lot of times it’s a caveat, mentor. If I’m making an introduction to somebody and I’m setting it up in a meeting and saying if you’d like to meet this person, here’s why I think it would be a good idea, Let me know if you want the introduction. But oh, by the way, I should also mention that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, if there’s anything there that’s the tractor or a nuance, or an eccentric moment or whatever else it might happen to be, because that’s also important to know. Going in, not everybody sees everybody else the same way that you do, so it’s always important to note the extras. 

0:36:08 – Mike Malatesta

So when I talk to you I’m going to switch gears a little bit here. When I talk to you, the first time, before we got off the call, you asked me what kind of music I liked. And I told you what kind of music I liked, or some of it, and then you offered to search your billion hours worth of music library to find pieces, songs or recordings of these artists that I like. That maybe you know you can’t get anywhere else. So that’s a really intriguing part of you, at least it seemed like it to me. So let’s talk about music. Where did this love of music come from? How have you pursued it? What are you doing with it? 

0:36:55 – Andy Greider 

Well, so I as a kid, as I sing in the shower, the water still goes the other way. I can’t carry a tune to save my life. I can remember every lyric, so it’s an interesting curse. 

But I’ve always loved lyrics. I’ve always loved singing voices. I grew to really love cool instrumentation and combinations and things like that. I’ll give my parents again a lot of credit. They brought me up in a household where we listened to everything from classical to oh well, that was the 70s, so there wasn’t rap and there wasn’t. You know, not too many people were listening to opera at home and things like that, but I mean we listened to just about every genre of music when I was growing up, with a pretty heavy emphasis on the folk realm, and so I fell in love with songwriter, singer songwriters Cat Stevens, joni Mitchell, paul Simon, people like that, bob Dylan, the Beatles I mean that was my parents’ biggest wheelhouse, that in classical music. So I got introduced to a lot of stuff there. 

And then I just I’m somebody that’s a sponge. I like to learn new things, I like to try new things, and so I started listening to all sorts of different genres of things, whether it was heavy metal or hard rock, classic rock or jazz or folk or whatever else. I mean I was all over the place with what I started listening to in probably the middle of high school onwards. And a very interesting break happened in my junior year in high school without naming any names to protect the guilty I had a high school teacher who had a band and I happened to be out with friends and they were getting ready to load in and their sound guy was sick and he said to me he’s like hey, do you? 

happen to have any idea how to run sound, I said no, but I’ll give it a try, and he said Okay, that’s fine. 

You know, we aren’t guys sick. We need somebody to come in and run the sound, and I was. I’ve always liked you, You’ve been a good student. Come on in and you know, see what you can do. And it was my first taste and it was horrible. I mean I did a horrible job. But it told me how much I could improve and it told me what I could do to help a band sound great and I realized I had an ear for it. I just didn’t understand how to do it so I got a lot better at it. I ran sound throughout college. I’ve run sound up until about five years ago. Two reasons One of my hearings, not what it used to be. So I stopped when I realized I couldn’t make the band sound as good as I used to be able to. 

0:39:25 – Mike Malatesta

And is that a byproduct of hearing too much, doing too much sound work, the hearing loss, or does it something else, or do you know? 

0:39:34 – Andy Greider 

I don’t know. 

0:39:35 – Mike Malatesta

Okay. 

0:39:36 – Andy Greider 

I mean, I guess, I guess there’s the possibility of that. I still, you know, I still go to shows. I do wear your plugs now, but you know it’s, it’s possible, but there’s. There’s a magic about live music, mike, and that’s what really drew me in hearing that music from it was just covers from my high school teachers band, but all the way up through running sound for folks that were completely original acts. It was always the magic of the live music that drew me in. And so a lot of my collection isn’t studio stuff, it’s live music that we’ve had permission to record. 

I got into taping somewhere in the mid 80s 86, 87 did that for probably about seven or eight years, really strong. I mean I still will. If a friend has a neighborhood concert or you know something else going on, I’ll still go, pull the show and put it, you know, with the equipment I still have, just because it’s fun, and then you document it and people can listen to it again. And you know, I’ve never sell it. I’ll never, you know, do anything like that. But along the way, like you mentioned earlier, I’ve picked up some really cool stuff, so I love to share it too. I mean, again, it kind of goes in most of where I’m at. I like to give back and I like to share and I like to create oh aha moments and fun stuff for other people that they might not otherwise get. 

0:40:55 – Mike Malatesta

So for someone like me who’s sort of a neophyte when it comes to sound. How Improving sound, what? What do you do that improves the sound of a band? And I’m sorry if that’s like a completely ignorant question, oh, that’s a great. 

0:41:11 – Andy Greider 

No, it’s a great question. There’s so many things that go into it, mike, it’s. I mean it starts with who the musicians are and what they’re playing and playing through and things like that and what sound they want to create. Right, you know, you can say I’m a sound person, that got them to sound perfect. But if it doesn’t sound like they want you, you know the sound they’re going for it’s not actually perfect, it’s nowhere near perfect. 

That’s one big key. The other, and you have to kind of know the band and talk to them. You can’t just run a soundcheck and get levels right. Getting levels right it’s only part of it. I’ll mean, quite frankly, without sounding rude, but a trained monkey could Move the, you know, move the levels and get things close to right. It’s. It’s understanding the nuances, then also understanding how each instrument plays together. When you talk to the band, you know who’s the prominent, who do you want up front? Who do you want where in the mix? You know how do you want monitor, how do you want your monitors run? 

What does the room sound like is another huge key to some clubs that I worked at in Atlanta and some places I worked at like do an outdoor festival. It’s completely different equation than if you’re doing a small boxy little room that’s smoke filled, you know, you know, or, or that has Weird acoustic tiles in the ceilings, or you know, weird, weird, I should say not have acoustic tiles in the ceilings and just has a weird Contour to the ceiling, or things like that, because there’s all sorts of things that can throw the sound. Beyond that, I mean, a lot of it is again listening to the band, knowing the band, knowing what they want. But again, that comes from much like the connecting part of things and the networking part of things that comes from talking to them and Asking the questions, and I guess I mean my, my Recovering journalist in me. That’s from way, way, way, way, way back. That’s probably the biggest skill I took out of that was learning how to ask questions and then apply the answers, you know. 

0:43:03 – Mike Malatesta

So that’s who’s your favorite band, andy? 

0:43:07 – Andy Greider 

The Grateful Dead or actually Jerry Garcia. Really, jerry Garcia band is actually my favorite band because I Love the Grateful Dead to death, but I loved what he did out on his own with his band even more. 

0:43:19 – Mike Malatesta

But what was the difference? I’m sorry. 

0:43:23 – Andy Greider 

Well, the dead were. We always used to say the Grateful Dead were the party and Jerry van was the church. And Jerry was much more soulful, much more Motown funk. The covers he would do were Much deeper cuts a lot of the time, or or much less things that mean they did be covered. Dylan. The dead covered Dylan, you know, but there were if they, if he covered people, it was usually stuff that he wouldn’t have covered with the dead. The songs he chose out of his own Catalog got a different treatment with him than it did with the dead. A lot of the time it was a lighter, funkier. 

And the last part is I mean Jerry was a lot more relaxed when he was with his own band. He didn’t even though it was Jerry Garcia band. He didn’t have to be the leader, he was just one of the members of the band. In the Grateful Dead he was thrust into that role of the facto frontman and he never was comfortable with that and it sometimes came through, I see, you know. But that said, I never had a Jerry there. See, a band show take me as far out into the you know musical spectrum as the Grateful Dead did on a good night. So it just depends. I mean really it depends. It’s just like it. Do I reach for Miles Davis or do I reach for Earl clue? If I’m listening to jazz, you know, do I want somebody that’s you know the bright, you know trumpets, or do I want somebody that’s the clean acoustic guitar? 

Yeah right, you know, it just depends on the mood. But that again, that’s the other beautiful thing about music is it’s got so many places it can go. I mean there’s so many things you can do and appreciate. You know, if you’re not a music person but you’re a lyrics person, You’ve got all sorts of things you can do there. If you’re a lyrics person, I’m sorry. If you’re a music person but not a lyrics person, like my wife and just just got a beat and I can dance to it, she’s happy. But she doesn’t very rarely does she pay attention to lyrics. There are exactly two songs that I can think of that she knows every lyric to and loves them because of the lyrics. You know, there’s just it’s a very different take on music than that. I have right and you know, but everybody has their own take. 

And that’s why I love music because it’s universal. I mean different angles, different perspectives, but universal. 

0:45:36 – Mike Malatesta

Did you ever meet or work with Jerry Garcia? 

0:45:39 – Andy Greider 

Had a very interesting 1993. They drove by, we were at a used car parking lot and we had our heads down in the hood of a 68 Mustang and Jerry stuck his head out of the back of the window and said hey boys, how’s she sound? And we turned her out and went holy and we were all tongue-tied and said stupid things like Was that complete coincidence, or were you going to a show and we were at a show? 

0:46:15 – Mike Malatesta

I mean, it was okay, okay we were there. 

0:46:18 – Andy Greider 

It was a Sunday, we were trying to kill time and they had one of those car shows in a parking lot Used car parking lot. 

0:46:25 – Mike Malatesta

All right. 

0:46:26 – Andy Greider 

We were. Just, our motel was right next door. So we all got up, you know, probably around noon I don’t want to say it was morning, it was noonish and we wandered over and, again, never saw, never saw them coming up. It was a limo, they were in and they were obviously on their way to the stadium, probably to do soundcheck. So, yeah, I mean now, I mean I knew a lot of folks that were on tour. I knew some of the you know, some of the, the folks that you’d see every day that were stage crew and some of the sound guys and stuff like that, because we Tape. So we knew, you know, we knew people there, but I would never be pretentious enough to say that I was a part of, other than I was a part of the scene, of the people that taped and the people that were willing to travel between shows. But that was a lot of us. You know even the tapers. That was a lot of us. 

0:47:12 – Mike Malatesta

So can I ask an off-the-wall question that you? You don’t have to answer it, but we’re in the midst of Taylor Swift having the the highest grossing concert tour ever. What is it about her? 

0:47:29 – Andy Greider 

So if you’d asked me that question five years ago, I would have had a completely different answer. I would have said it’s a phenomenon Because she takes really good care of her fans, and that’s all I would have said. She really acknowledges her fans, she plays to her fans, and that remains true. In fact, it’s gotten true, er, that she is an absolute goddess with her fans, and she understands they’re her, her main piece of everything that she does. As far as whether she can sell out stadium after stadium after stadium, she takes really good care of them. 

The other thing, though, that I’ve become very impressed with ever since the album folklore came out Is actually her songwriting. She is a very good songwriter, and I understand she’s got good hooks, she’s got good nuances within her music, she knows how to write a good song, and and she does a lot of it I mean, she’s got a catalog. That’s huge for somebody her age Huge. The thing that it’s funny because people will compare the grateful dead and her as far as the the fans, and the funny part to me is her fans are way better than the Dead Heads were in some regards, because they’re completely Supportive, no matter what era, no matter what time frame they got into Taylor with. You know, taylor, the Swifties are all in all positive. I Wish I could say the same for the grateful dead of crowd and the Dead Heads, but we are a contentious bunch. The joke always goes how many dead heads to change a light bulb want to actually change the bulb in 98 to argue about which way it should have been done? You know it’s, it’s. We always have something that we were an opinionated bunch, whereas Swifties are a very collectively supportive bunch, and I’m not saying they’ve never critical, but I’m saying they’re far less so, you know. 

You know I look back on some of the things I was critical about and you know the latter years and I Realized I would give anything to see him. That’s his 81st birthday today and I’d give anything to see him play again, even if it was missed lyrics and you know bad song choices. I wouldn’t care because they would. You know, one more shot, okay, but you know it’s. Yeah, I mean, but Taylor’s got. She’s got a special something going on. You know she’s also very she. She, like a few other artists that I really respect and like they don’t back down from their stances, that they make a stance, they stick to it. They don’t wish a wish wash just because they get pushed back. Even if some of their fans get upset with them, they say I’m sorry, but this is where I’m at, and they’re they’re gutsy enough to stand behind it right. 

You know, and I think when you’ve got a platform, like they do, if they’ve got an issue they feel strongly on, I don’t see any problem. I think a lot of people are like shut up and sing, and I don’t agree with that at all. If you’ve got a position you’re at Quite frankly usually comes through in your lyrics A lot of cases. But if people aren’t aware enough yet, then you know, actually saying something out loud is usually not an issue. 

0:50:17 – Mike Malatesta

Okay, so well, thanks for the perspective. I I thought you know maybe someone like you would have a really neat perspective on that and, and it’s a good lesson right, Treat your customers nicely. 

0:50:31 – Andy Greider 

And be honest with them. Let them see the real you yeah, right. 

And and you know I mean she’s done smart things too. She’s put safeguards in place. She will not meet fans after a show. If she does, she will not talk with them because of her voice. She’s doing 40 songs a night on a 60 show tour, right, can’t risk blowing her voice out because she’s. Because the other thing is, from what I understand, she would stand and talk for four hours if she was given the opportunity, because that’s just who she is. Mm-hmm and I do know a childhood friend of mine actually is a DJ for a local station here in Pennsylvania and she’s known him and they’ve been friends since she was 15 and so it’s. He said that’s exactly who she’s been at this time. 

0:51:16 – Mike Malatesta

Well, she was. It’s Scranton that she’s from. No, no, no, she’s not from Scranton. Joe Biden’s from Scranton she’s from. I’m, she’s from near you. 

0:51:23 – Andy Greider 

Yeah she’s. I think it’s Mechanicsburg, but I can’t yeah okay so I’m Speaking about talking for four hours. 

0:51:31 – Mike Malatesta

You are like the OG podcaster your pipe. You first started podcasting, and Before microphones, I think. No, you, I was just blown away when you told me when you first started podcasting. I don’t remember now, but tell me, tell me about your podcasting Journey and what you’re doing now with it. 

0:51:53 – Andy Greider 

So 2002 I went back and checked it wasn’t one, it was two. But 2002 I was approached by a guy named Lee canter out of Atlanta to be a co if he wanted me to be the main host, he was gonna be my co-host on a show for what he called. What was it called back then? It’s Atlanta business radio X. Now it might have just been Atlanta business radio at the time, or a land of business. Yeah, abr, I think, was the acronym for it. 

But we started in a Tiny little room in an office building that we rented out. The room we had, you know, three microphones and a soundboard and, you know, we had a sound engineer and we did it Saturday mornings, every Saturday, and I toasted three shows in a day. I come in and do a music show, then I do unique. This uniqueness is power, which we had crowned as a business growth solution show with a marketing-centric focus. We usually have three guests on there the current. 

We ran that until 2012, 2013, and then a whole series of life events caused me to stop doing it for a while. Probably the worst mistake I ever made was stopping because we had a really good run running and I was having so much fun doing it and it was just. It was a real letdown to let it go. But again, life circumstances got in the way and so a couple of years ago I decided you know what? I’m going to take a look at what else is out there. I’m going to get back into this. I really enjoy it. It’s fun to interview cool new people. 

I’m just not sure if I can get people to jump in, for I don’t know if I have time to recruit three guests for a show. I don’t know if I can get people to listen for a full hour anymore. I just wasn’t sure about attention spans and things like that. But you know, obviously you know there are shows that can do that. You know I wasn’t sure if I could, but I also knew time wise it takes a lot longer to set up a one hour show than it does to set up a 20 minute one time interview. 

So in the interest of time and the interest of my own schedule plus, we had a section of that show called unique this week, which is what the new show is called, and we’ve been at it pretty full bore since the beginning of January. We’ve had about a guest a week since then and the Mojo’s back and use is back, whatever you want to call it. I’m really loving being back in the studio with guests Unique. This week has really been a great way for me to meet new incredible people, new incredible companies, people that are doing something, and the whole point is something that’s unique, something that’s Blue Ocean or, if it isn’t Blue Ocean, they’re marketing in a way that it is. So I’m trying to provide lessons for the business owners, the entrepreneurs out there that want to know about cool new things, want to know about services that are out there, want to know about new takes and opinions and perspectives on how do I phrase something that I can cut through a crowded landscape, how can I pop out and make myself seen? 

0:55:04 – Mike Malatesta

Okay, so well, welcome back. I’m glad that you’ve come back and are doing this unique this week. It’s right now. It’s only on YouTube. Is that what you told me? 

0:55:16 – Andy Greider 

There’s a redirect for it under uniqueness is power, which is the name of the old show. So it’s uniqueness is powercom, and then unique this week. If you just look on, if you go into YouTube and you use UTW as your search, you should be able to find it. Or just unique this week? You should be able to find it as well. All shows are tagged with a UTW at the front of them. So, and then the guest name and whatever we were talking about. 

0:55:38 – Mike Malatesta

So, andy, before we go, is there anything that I haven’t asked you, or I should have asked you, that you would like to leave us with? 

0:55:45 – Andy Greider 

Well, mike, I did want to say, first of all, thank you for having me and, second of all, I’m looking forward to having you on unique this week, because you’re doing some really cool stuff yourself, and it made it very easy to ask the questions. How can I help you? It’s always a pleasure to get to speak with somebody who is a good, a good question asker and, quite frankly, some of your questions were both unique and powerful, which I found to be helpful. I can’t really think of any that are popping to my mind right now. That are the ones that might be missed, yeah, but I appreciate you asking very much. 

0:56:16 – Mike Malatesta

And how do you want people to connect with you? Or do you want people to connect with you? 

0:56:21 – Andy Greider 

Absolutely the easiest ways. I mean my LinkedIn profile is one of the easier ways to get hold of me. I do check LinkedIn pretty much daily. I’m on WhatsApp. I’ll give you the phone number and the email Mike, it’s 404-516-4204. For the phone number, that’s good for WhatsApp, that’s also good to text to. And then my email is very simple. It’s andygrider at gmailcom and that’s my more generic email, but that’s the one to use to get hold of me because it catches everything. 

0:56:52 – Mike Malatesta

And that’s G-R-E-I-D-E-R. 

0:56:55 – Andy Greider 

Yep, exactly All right, cool. 

0:56:57 – Mike Malatesta

Well, andy, thank you so much for making time to be on the show today and taking us through this really interesting path that you’ve been on. And now this new disruption which may or may not be the right word, but I’m using it again with your current company, health Care Evolution Group. I really do appreciate it. I’m looking forward to being on your show as well. 

0:57:20 – Andy Greider 

Thank you, mike. I really appreciate it and, again, pleasure to be here. Thank you. 

0:57:23 – Mike Malatesta

And for everybody listening. Please do what you need to do to maximize the greatness in you today and to make your future your property, something that you are very, very proud to own. Hey, everybody, thanks for listening to this show and before you go, I just have three requests for you. One if you like what I’m doing, please consider subscribing or following the podcast on whatever podcast platform you prefer. If you’re really into it, leave me a review, write something nice about me, give me five stars or whatever you feel is most appropriate. 

Number two I’ve got a book called Owner Shift how Getting Selfish Got Me Unstuck. It’s an Amazon bestseller and I’d love for you to read it or listen to it on Audible or wherever else Barnes, noble, amazon you can get it everywhere If you’re looking for inspiration that will help you unlock your greatness and potential, order or download it today so that you can have your very own copy, and if you get it, please let me know what you think. Number three my newsletter. I do a newsletter every Thursday and I talk about things that are interesting to me and or I give more information about the podcast and the podcast guests that I’ve had and the experiences that I’ve had with them. You can sign up for the podcast today at my website, which is my name mikemalatesta.com. You do that right now. Put in your email address and you’ll get the very next issue. The newsletter is short, thoughtful and designed to inspire, activate and maximize the greatness in you.