Interview with Barb VanSomeren, VP of Marketing & John Cariola, Au.D., Director of Product Management, Beltone

Barb VanSomeren



John Cariola

CAROLYN SMAKA: Today, I'm speaking with Barb VanSomeren and John Cariola from Beltone. Welcome!

BARB VANSOMEREN: Thank you, Carolyn.

JOHN CARIOLA: Hello, Carolyn!

SMAKA: Before we get into the topic of our interview today, can you both tell me about your background and what you do for Beltone?



VANSOMEREN: Sure. I'm the VP of Marketing at Beltone. I am responsible for our customer and patient care group, marketing, and our commercial business systems, that is, the patient and practice management systems that our practice owners use for their business.

I've been with Beltone about 12 years. Prior to that, my experiences mainly lie in franchise marketing;I worked for several advertising agencies and various companies in consumer brands.

SMAKA: Barb, you mentioned patient and practice management systems - are those proprietary Beltone systems?

VANSOMEREN: Yes, they are - our Commercial Business Systems group developed them specifically for practice owners.

SMAKA: I didn't know that, that's really interesting. And John - how about you?

CARIOLA: I'm the Director of Product Management at Beltone. I manage our product portfolio in terms of positioning and pricing, and I assist the marketing team from a technical standpoint in the development brochures, spec sheets, and other materials.

I'm also the liaison between Research & Development and Marketing, and I manage our audiology customer support team.

My background is audiology - I'm an audiologist and I just recently earned my Au.D.

SMAKA: Congratulations!

CARIOLA: Thank you.

SMAKA: Beltone had a really great exhibit this year at AudiologyNOW! Would you mind describing it for those who didn't attend the convention?

VANSOMEREN: Sure. At AudiologyNOW! we not only featured our new product portfolio, but we also showcased what it's like to be part of the Beltone network to potential practice owners. This year, we decided to do something really unique. We created a Beltone practice right in our exhibit booth.

We wanted to convey the entire Beltone experience, so we had a reception area, where a patient would come in and wait for service;a fitting room where a person would get tested and fitted;and a learning center or training room that we have in many of our practices as well, where we may conduct community outreach, training, or cover business plans for the next quarter.

CARIOLA: It was a short tour that highlighted the most important aspects of our value proposition- those that benefit our network members and ultimately, patients.

These include marketing and all the support that we provide with direct mail campaigns, national TV advertising, creating newspaper ads or other print advertising, as well as our online systems that handle finance and accounting.

We wanted people to understand more about Beltone because, especially younger audiologists, may not really understand what Beltone is all about. Some may think we're a franchise, but we're not. Beltone is a group of private practice business owners that are part of a network, as opposed to being part of a franchise.

SMAKA: Yes, it was cool - I felt like I was really in someone's office!

VANSOMEREN: Yes, that was the idea. A lot of independent audiologists didn't realize what it was like to be part of a network, and they had misconceptions as to what that means. Our exhibit enabled them to understand the benefits of being part of our network and all the tools that come with that. The comment we heard most often during the show was "Wow! I never knew that about Beltone - that's great!"

CARIOLA: We've been around for nearly seventy years now, and we have a lot of expertise in many areas. I think audiologists are now beginning to understand the importance of having help on the practical aspects of running a small business such as how much money or percentage of your revenue should be spent towards advertising, salaries, or rent;where to place your office in terms of location, and why you would place it there. We have experience in these types of things in order to help professionals start their practice as well as in determining how to best grow practices, how to effectively provide community outreach, how to generate physician referrals, and virtually all aspects of business management.

SMAKA: Practice management is a hot topic in our field right now, as I think it is a challenge for many audiologists.

VANSOMEREN: I think it's not only challenging for audiologists. It's really a challenge for anybody to wear as many hats as a business owner has to wear. Today, practice owners are required to not only be experts on hearing technology and fitting, but also experts in the psychology of the patient in order to understand the emotionally-charged decision that patients are making.

You also have to be an expert in marketing and how to get a good return on your investment today. You have to be on expert on understanding P&Ls in your business. It's hard for anyone to master all those hats.

CARIOLA: That's why we provide the support we do in so many areas. Support isn't needed for performing hearing testing or deciding what piece of equipment to buy - audiologists are already experts in these areas. However, regarding marketing and sales - while a few audiologists may have had a course in these areas in their Au.D. program, they haven't had the hands-on, real-world experience.

Our network does a very good job of best practice sharing and letting everyone know exactly what has worked or hasn't worked in terms of an advertising campaign, a direct mail piece, or a newspaper ad, etc. We're always networking within the network [laughs].

That's the other advantage of the Beltone network and something you may not realize - each private owner has a specific geographic territory to advertise the Beltone brand and to market it. Practice owners are not competing against each other at all and therefore freely share ideas.

Since we have over 1,500 locations from coast to coast, you get a wide span of expertise and a lot of ideas of what might be worth trying out in your market.

SMAKA: That's huge - having 1500 locations and all those colleagues at your disposal to share ideas and collaborate.

VANSOMEREN: Yes, that's a benefit that we don't create but we facilitate, because there's nothing like peer-to-peer sharing, in terms of being a practice owner and all the challenges that go along with that.

Many of our best ideas come from the network. We share these ideas amongst each other as partners.

As John said, we're closely connected. We have a lot of dispensers and audiologists that are connected via the Internet, and they basically share ideas in real time - if something is working in their market, they'll share it with the group immediately so that everyone can benefit.

CARIOLA: We also have a number of councils that provide input to the organization. For example, we have a Marketing Council, a Training Council, and what we call our National Advisory Group, which rotates members.

We meet regularly with these different groups to stay in close contact with our network and ensure we are providing the practices what they need, on an ongoing basis.

VANSOMEREN: You can see a difference even at training sessions. Typically there is little conversation and sharing among attendees of training sessions outside Beltone because many of the professionals may be direct competitors.

At our Beltone training sessions you will hear professionals sharing - perhaps "Hey, what kind of marketing is working in your area?" or "I'm having this particular challenge, how should I address that?" and "Oh, I did it this way." That's just a course of business with us.

CARIOLA: Yes, at our meetings, people will pull out successful advertisements they've used, and then make copies so that they can share it with others. You don't see that very often at other companies- you may be hesitant to share ideas. However, that's not the case with our network.

SMAKA: You mentioned features of the Beltone network that I would think are particularly beneficial during these challenging economic times.

VANSOMEREN: We think so. In this tough economic environment we have several unique strengths. The interaction and sharing that we've discussed is one. We also have an extensive marketing testing program that delivers more proven office traffic materials to our Network - a big issue for practice owners. The strength and longevity of our brand is another.

CARIOLA: Yes, and we're also the most recognized brand among people over 50.
We've been around. Next year will be our 70th anniversary. Especially in these times, consumers want security - they are choosing brands that are familiar and they know will be around in the long term.

It's good to be part of something where you can proudly say, "I'm with a company that's been here for 70 years. You've seen us - we've been a part of this community for many years." A lot of our people have moved from owning a practice themselves to handing it to either a son or daughter to run the practice. Some of these practices have been part of their communities for a very long time.

SMAKA: In my experience, when a patient recognizes the brand of instruments you're recommending, it's one obstacle off the table, and then you can move on to more important counseling.

VANSOMEREN: Right. There is a certain confidence they feel when they know and recognize the brand. The bulk of people purchasing hearing instruments are people over age 50, our primary end user and brands are important to those individuals. We're very proud of our brand recognition. As you know, brands are much more than logos in TV commercials. It's the entire experience one has with Beltone.

The legacy of our brand and the recognition that we have is based on the many years of excellent service that people have had with Beltone. Of course we work to evolve our brand. The Beltone of today has great technology, professional systems to help patients experience the benefits of better hearing and sophisticated tools to help the practice owner deliver a great experience. We have a great deal of passion for the business.

SMAKA: Are Beltone practice owners audiologists or hearing instrument specialists?

VANSOMEREN: A lot of people may not know that we have quite a few audiologists in our network. Much of that's due to our multi-generational practices, because a practice owner may have a son or daughter go to school for audiology, and then take over the practice. We have over 300 audiologists at Beltone. We also have ENTs, Corporate Au.D.s that became practice owners. We are very inclusive as a network.

CARIOLA: Yes, of the people who are taking over a practice from a parent, I don't really know anybody that's not an audiologist. And most of our audiologists, consistent with the rest of the profession, either have their Au.D. or have gone back to school to earn their Au.D.

SMAKA: Does the Beltone network have specific advantages for audiologists at a certain point in their career - for example, for those just coming out of an Au.D. program, or for those close to retirement, etc.?

VANSOMEREN: There are different advantages, depending on the person's point in their career. I'll give you an example. We were sponsors of NAFDA from the beginning, so we came to know a lot of Au.D. students really well, and one of them became a Beltone practice owner.

This person had worked in a clinic affiliated with a university and wanted to get into practice ownership. He became more familiar with Beltone, got to know some of the practitioners and decided that Beltone was a great place to get a good feel for practice ownership and what that means. So he worked with one of our second generation practitioners who is an amazing teacher and a great person.

It's been several years, and the audiologist now owns nine Beltone practices and employs both audiologists and hearing instrument specialists. In his case, Beltone provided a great mentoring opportunity and he then found an area where he could open a practice and grow it. He decided that this was his goal and he went on to achieve it.

So, that's one example. We've also had some practitioners come to us because they felt they wanted something that would have more advantages to them as they advanced in their careers. They believe having a Beltone practice might increase the value of their practice and make them feel more secure over time, so they moved into that situation.

CARIOLA: Or, for those that are near retirement or wanting to get out of the business, they may be interested in selling to one of our Beltone practitioners. There may be an opportunity to look into merging with a Beltone dispenser in that region.

VANSOMEREN: When a Beltone practice owner is ready to retire, they generally like to keep their practice within Beltone. So, what they may connect with some of their other Beltone peers and say tell them that they are looking to exit. Another Beltone practice owner may have a son or a daughter looking to enter the business, or they may have a practitioner in their practice that is ready for ownership. So, there are those opportunities as well to pass along the business.

SMAKA: We've discussed the benefits of the Beltone network for professionals - what about the benefits for patients?

CARIOLA: One thing that we do very well in our network is care for our patients. We're very, very patient-oriented. We are there to help them with their hearing care, especially in terms of amplification. We spend a lot more time than others might be able to in other practices, in many cases.

We're known for making the consumer feel like we care about them as a person, and not just as a pair of ears.

VANSOMEREN: Historically, we have probably done more research with end-users than most manufacturers because we have access to them via the patient database.

So, we have done extensive patient-satisfaction studies with our end-users and that data gives us information to help practice owners deliver better patient care. I don't believe there are many manufacturers doing ongoing end-user satisfaction studies and we've been doing them for years.

CARIOLA: We have over a 95-percent overall satisfaction rating from patients being surveyed, and the percentage is even higher in some categories. Our practice owners understand how hard it is to get patients through the door of a hearing care practice, and they understand the utmost importance of patient care.

What we try to do here in the Beltone corporate office is drive traffic to our practice owners. We know that once the patients get there, they will be treated in the most professional and caring manner and they will be satisfied with their outcome.

VANSOMEREN: Right. We continue to get outstanding numbers on practitioner satisfaction, which makes us very proud, obviously. We do satisfaction research on both products and on service, or how patients are treated.

Our data show that the Beltone network actually has advantages in some particular areas, specifically in empathy and in the way patients are treated. The question is - once a patient leaves your practice, do they feel like a number or a name? We have a lot of history in these areas, and so we do training for our practitioners and work very hard to deliver in this area.

We've all heard for many, many years that a person takes five to seven years from noticing a hearing loss to doing something about it. And we try to focus on the emotions the patient is going through during this decision process, and how to make them comfortable.

CARIOLA: We train our practitioners on the psychology of the hearing impaired.

We have a series of training modules. One is about the emotional aspects of hearing loss. Patients need to be able to feel that someone else understands what they are going through and how they are feeling.

VANSOMEREN: We have a more holistic approach to our trainings - they are not just about product features and benefits but also about getting patients to accept amplification. Trust is critical, as the visit can be emotionally charged. So we train on various techniques to help patients feel more comfortable with the practitioner and the whole process.

It is time well spent during your evaluation or initial contact with the patient, understanding how the hearing loss is affecting the person's life, or marriage, etc.

SMAKA: This doesn't seem to be the kind of training taught elsewhere.

CARIOLA: I think audiologists tend to focus on the scientific side of things sometimes versus what a patient may be thinking or feeling. Sometimes you can look at a patient, see how they are positioning themselves and maybe get some clues as to what they are going through.

VANSOMEREN: Exactly. We also try to help practitioners start thinking about what stage a patient may be at before they even come in to the office. If someone is responding to an ad that's featuring a product, that person may be someone who is ready to take action.

If they are responding to a product ad, they are further along their path than people who aren't even sure if they have a hearing problem yet. So, being able to determine where someone is in along that pathway to treatment is important because as a practitioner you want your counseling to be relevant to them and their needs.

CARIOLA: We refer to the Beltone network as a family, because it virtually is a family. Even in the corporate office, we have people that have been with the company for a long time. Barb has been with Beltone for 12 years, I'm coming up on 18 years, and there are other employees who've been with the company for many, many years. So we've worked together for a long time and we feel like family.

And we mentioned the generational aspect of the network, too, so when we have conferences or a regional training, it's like a family reunion. You pretty much know, "Oh, that person just had a new baby, " or "This person got just finished his Au.D." and that kind of thing.

And the Beltone-family aspect is passed along to the patients as well, so that when they come out of a Beltone office, they feel like they're part of the Beltone family, too. Our patient-centered approach contributes to this feeling, and it's reflected in our satisfaction data.

In regard to patient care, another unique aspect of our network that provides patient benefits is the fact that we're a nationwide network. So if you are part of the network and your patient travels out of state, you can feel confident that they'll get the kind of care you want for them in another network office. The patient can simply go to another Beltone office for service, since our practice owners understand the importance of the Beltone brand name and what that name means.

SMAKA: I didn't realize that a Beltone consumer can get service at any Beltone office.

VANSOMEREN: Yes, and the ability to be able to get service as they travel, anywhere in the country is a huge benefit today for the end user. People today - are more mobile than ever. We know that nationwide service is an important benefit because our end-users tell us all the time when we conduct our satisfaction research.

All Beltone instruments come with our BelCare™ commitment. BelCare is a patient protocol that all Beltone practitioners agree to, in order to provide end-users service and attention at any Beltone center nationwide. It helps people who've purchased instruments get acclimated to them, and also provides them the security in knowing that they can receive service at any Beltone center for the lifetime of their hearing instruments. For practitioners, this means committing to giving the same level of service and attention to all patients, whether you've initially fitted their Beltone instruments, or someone else has. No other company offers the same level of commitment.

SMAKA: Can we switch gears and talk about technology?

CARIOLA: Sure. We have a very complete product line. We need to do that because we have to fit all the needs of Beltone practices that rely on us exclusively for technology. So we have a wide range of products and we are very competitive at all technology levels.



Beltone Touch Custom Power

We're most excited about a brand new custom form factor we introduced called Touch. It's a CIC-size instrument where we've taken the microphone out of the shell and then attached it to a wire that tucks up behind the anti-helix.

It has many advantages. First of all, pulling the microphone out of the body of the instruments enables us to make a CIC-style instrument even smaller. This can serve a few purposes. First, you can use that extra space to accommodate a larger receiver and achieve more usable power. Or, you can use the extra space to open up the venting and make a very nice, open fitting.

Additionally, this unique microphone placement takes advantage of the resonance of the outer ear. It's also a great placement of the microphone for minimizing wind noise. Our R&D studies show that when the microphone is in this location, it just doesn't pick up wind noise. Combined with our wind noise reduction algorithms, this instrument works very well in regard to wind noise.

Touch meets the needs of many different end-users, from people who have worn custom products before and can now wear a smaller one, to people who need more power in a custom product, to people who have good hearing in the lows and can benefit from an open fitting.

We've done very well with thin-tube instruments and receiver-in-the ear instruments in making them cosmetically appealing, and everybody loves them. But there are still people that don't like to wear things over their ears. And there are people, like me, who wear glasses, so it's easy to catch the tube when you put them on and off.

So, for patients that are bothered by brushing their hair and hitting their hearing aids, or who knock off their hearing aids as they're taking their sweater off, you now you have a product that's completely in the ear with many advantages over previous in the ear products.

When we conduct surveys with patients, they tell us that they expect hearing aids to be in the ear, not over the ear. Touch has so much versatility so we are very excited about it. We call it an MIC. That's not followed by K-E-Y as in Mickey Mouse, but MIC, as in "microphone-in-concha".

SMAKA: We need more acronyms in audiology - that's good! [laughs]

VANSOMEREN: [laughs]

CARIOLA: [laughs] The acronym "MIC" speaks to the product, as in microphone.

CARIOLA: In our top-circuit category, we have Reach, a 17-channel, wide-dynamic-range compression circuit, with auto-switching, automatic feedback cancellation, automatic directional microphone beam width adjustment and other premium features. I would direct your readers to our last interview detailing that product, www.audiologyonline.com/interview/interview_detail.asp?interview_id=464. And we have many products in the entry level mid-level ranges as well. So in summary, we have a very comprehensive product line that enables us to meet the diverse audiological and lifestyle needs of today's hearing instrument consumers.



SMAKA: John, Barb - I've learned a lot about Beltone today! Thanks so much for your time and I hope we can touch base later this year for an update.

CARIOLA: That would be great, thank you.

VANSOMEREN: Thanks, Carolyn, it was our pleasure.

About Beltone

Beltone Electronics Corporation is an established leader in the hearing care industry, committed to developing advanced technology, focusing on patient needs, and enhancing the hearing care experience.

Beltone's focus on the patient is a driving force in all its business activities, whether it be developing new products, testing and fitting hearing instruments or providing for a better practice experience. More information about Beltone can be found at www.beltone.com or at the Beltone Web Channel on AudiologyOnline, www.audiologyonline.com/channels/beltone.asp