WHAT DO YOU CALL THE OPPOSITE OF GOD BLESSING A VENTURE?

Among my other responsibilities as Executive Vice President at Georgia Hospital Association (GHA), I served as the “front door” for vendors seeking the association’s endorsement. I met with hundreds of companies over my 19 years there. Some of them got it right, and others were flaming disasters. Additionally, I had the chance to lead GHA teams in developing our own products to sell to hospitals nationwide. So I thoroughly get what it takes to successfully launch a healthcare product.

When I founded my consulting company post-GHA, I infused it with my deep understanding of what it takes to successfully sell to healthcare instituti0ons. These insights also made it into my book, Thriving in the Healthcare Market:  Strategies from an Industry Insider for Selling Your Product. The book features 84 pitfalls I’ve seen trip up vendors and also offers nearly 200 tips on how to avoid them.

Almost miraculously, the publisher – an affiliate of the 80,000-member international Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) – approved my proposal two days after I submitted it. This never happens! I was also delighted when the book got glowing endorsements and the highest possible rating from an outside organization that reviews business-related books.  

Once my book hit the market, I pulled out all the stops to get it before the right audiences:  joining 31 LinkedIn healthcare technology groups, regularly posting brief articles and crisp videos highlighting the top 10 pitfalls and other significant topics, approaching many health tech incubators and accelerators, doing podcast interviews, and speaking at various meetings and conferences.

Not all my promotional efforts panned out, however. In fact, several of them totally bombed:

  • A division of Emory University considered developing a video curriculum based on my book but ultimately dropped the idea because of budget constraints.

  • An affiliated arm of HIMSS failed to promote the book to HIMSS’ 80,000 members.

  • Every year HIMSS has a huge convention and expo with up to 40,000 participants and hundreds of vendors on the exhibition floor. These vendors are the book’s perfect target. The publisher invited me to the HIMSS 2020 trade show as their guest but, alas, the Covid pandemic shut the whole thing down.

  • For HIMSS 2021, I spent many hours developing a joint talk with HIMSS’ immediate past chairman, a highly sought-after international speaker. Unbelievably, the education committee rejected this proposal, even though it came from HIMSS’ top leader.

  • The HIMSS chair and I tried again for HIMSS 2022. Same result!

  • I contacted six senior leaders and professors at a for-profit educational company whose sole focus is preparing sales executives to succeed in selling to healthcare organizations. They couldn’t have found a more perfect resource than my book! Despite two emails and a phone call to each of them, not one of them ever acknowledged my emails or voice messages.

  • I co-chaired two regional multi-day health tech conferences for an organization that also has a magazine devoted to promoting emerging technology. Since I knew the president, I approached him about seeing how my book might help his readership. After his initial expression of interest, he ghosted me.

Had any one of these initiatives succeeded, the book’s reach would have greatly expanded.

What do I make of all this? If I were cynical, I would accuse God of “teasing” me with so many false starts. Interestingly, I usually find it easiest to trust God when multiple things go wrong. One or two disappointments are frustrating, but so many fizzles can’t be “just coincidence.” (Of course since God absolutely controls everything, nothing is truly coincidental.)

Over the years, I’ve learned accusing God is a bad idea. First of all, he’s God and I’m not. Similar to what God asks Job after Job complains for several chapters, where was I when God created everything and set the world in motion?

Secondly, God doesn’t owe me anything. What I really deserve is condemnation and hell because of my sin. By his grace, God touched my heart years ago and forgave my sins, bringing me into a relationship with Jesus. Anything beyond this is pure blessing.

Furthermore, I’ve stopped “demanding” that God explain his reasons when things go south. Sometimes I can look over my shoulder and see some good that eventually emerges from problems or disasters. Sometimes I can’t. And that’s OK. Like I said, God doesn’t owe me anything. 

So what do you call the opposite of God blessing a venture? I call it part of God’s loving will for me, even if I don’t fully understand it. I hope you can embrace this attitude too.