Noob School - Tech Meets Healthcare: The Story Behind Sentinel Spark with Gray Howle & Charles Kellett

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

In this episode of Noob School, we sit down with Gray Howle and Charles Kellett, two dynamic young entrepreneurs who co-founded Sentinel Spark, a groundbreaking company focused on transforming the way clinical trials connect with participants. Fresh out of college from The Citadel, Gray and Charles have already made a significant impact in the healthcare space with their innovative solutions for streamlining clinical trial participant management. Sentinel Spark leverages automation and cutting-edge technology to solve some of the most pressing challenges faced by clinical trial companies today. By offering 24/7 automated pre-screening, seamless scheduling via text, and comprehensive appointment reminders, Sentinel Spark is helping improve efficiency, reduce no-shows, and save valuable time in the clinical trial process. In this conversation, Gray and Charles share their journey from military academy to tech entrepreneurs, discussing how they identified a critical gap in the clinical trial industry and built a solution that is now driving real change. We talk about the importance of technology in healthcare, the challenges of starting a business fresh out of college, and the vision they have for the future of clinical trial management. If you’re interested in healthcare innovation, tech entrepreneurship, or the stories of young founders making waves in the business world, this episode is for you. Tune in to hear Gray and Charles share their passion, insights, and future plans for Sentinel Spark, and how they’re using technology to revolutionize clinical trials. Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.co I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

All right, welcome back to Noob School. Episode 134. Can you believe it, Gray? That's a wild. 134? I've got a two for today. I've got Charles Kellett and Gray Howell here as young folk. They're a year out of school, almost a year out of school, out of college, that have started

their entrepreneurial journey. I thought this would be a fun thing to talk about because, you know, there's a lot of people in college who want to be entrepreneurs. And, you know, most of them find reasons not to do it. I'll do it later. Let me get my MBA. Wait until I have some money. You know, whatever the thing is.

And many of those people end up, like, getting down the path in life a little bit. And pretty soon you can't do it, right? You got a family and, et cetera. So you guys decided right out of school. that you were going to do it, right? Yeah. Two days after we graduated and sat down as a living room and started. Yeah, we set up the LLC and just didn't stop.

Wasn't it first going to be like some more education? I remember talking to your dad about making an entrepreneurial education. Maybe the business kind of came out of that? Yeah, that's how it initially started. We started late January going into the second semester, And it basically just consisted of Charles and I meeting with dad, like, remotely on, like, Zoom and phone calls. And he would just kind of, like, teach us the ropes. And we kind of, we were antsy.

We wanted to do it. So we found the first thing that we started working on, and the rest was history. My father tricked me once. He said, he said, John, what do you think the definition of having a business is? And I was like, well, well, you need a name. You need a, you know, register with the state. You need insurance. You need a office.

You know, you need blah, blah, blah. And he goes, nope. He goes, you need a customer. So if you get a customer, you got a business. And then you can figure all those other details out. And you guys started with a customer. We did. Yeah.

And it's a clinical trials company, right? The company that gets paid to do trials for some pharmaceutical company. Is that right? Yeah. So if Pfizer has a new drug, they want to test or a new disease, then they'll push it out to all these different clinical trial sites. And they have to get people that actually have that disease or condition to come in and run through the trial.

So we really started out with digital marketing, trying to get these people into the studies. Okay. And so, you know, again, if you use your, your, your, your, your, your, your, scared brain, I would say, well, Pfizer, who, that's a big company, you know, and we're just starting out. We don't, you know, whatever. But really, this is a smaller, much smaller, Greenville-based company that does the trials that rolls up to Pfizer, right?

Yeah. And they just need help. Right. What's the main thing you guys are doing for them? Helping them get the people in there? Yeah. Okay. So we started with just the marketing, you know, meta ads mainly, Facebook.

Instagram, because they had an issue with their marketing. So we started with the marketing, and that was the bottleneck. And once we kind of got that down, then we started kind of moving into more of a consulting role in like, okay, what's the next problem? How do we make this better? Because we're result-driven. We don't get paid unless they make money. Which I love this, because I know this because I've had you guys in training class,

but your business model is we are going to get paid as a percentage of what we make for the company or save for the company. Absolutely. Instead of a fee. And it's more risky for you, but it's kind of easier to get the business too. It is. Yeah, especially with two 222-year-olds. He was an accounting major, and I was a finance major. We took our standard marketing classes, but we were learning on the go.

Yeah, the Internet's a great tool for that. YouTube especially. Right, right, right. And so you found a client and you simply said, what's a problem you're having that we might be able to help you with on a contingency basis? And they said, are people registered and they don't show up for the trial or whatever? There was some kind of issue like that, right?

Yeah. You'll say, okay, we'll do it. You pass this percent if we get them in there. And you figured out how to do that. Yeah, so we first figured out how to get the people in through the ads. And then we started getting the leads. And there were too many leads for the current staff to make the calls. Yeah.

So then we were like, that's her next bottleneck. We need to start making these phone calls and pre-screening the patients before we can schedule them. Yeah. And then after that, we filled up the schedule in a week. And then the next issue was getting more doctors. Yeah. So we had more slots to fill up. Yeah.

So we just recently got a couple doctors. We were only responsible for getting one of them. Yeah, yeah, we only got one. Yeah, we've been trying to just figure out the next obvious thing, the next obvious problem. And then you get paid for whatever value you create along the way for these customers. Okay. When do you think you'll get your next clinical trial company? And that whole process of the nurse calling and pre-screening to see if they qualified to get into the study,

we found that it was an issue because it was a lot of manual work doing it. so we created a automation that does it 24-7. So when they submit the weed form that prescreens them and automatically schedules them, and it sends them reminders leading up to it. So we've kind of redirected from the marketing approach to selling this automation. Okay.

And we're looking to start selling it next week. Yeah, to answer your question, is early as next week. You don't know how to code, right? Charles is on the tech end of things. He's learned that role. Yeah, and we have a software that's basically like an all-on-one marketing and sales software, and it has a whole area where you can do automations.

So if you can find an issue, you just got to learn how to do it in that software, and you can create it on there. So it really simplifies the coding process. Okay. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So the package you use for CRM and all that stuff lets you code something?

It does. And you're allowed to white label it too. So you can sell it as yours. What is it? What do you use for that? It's called Go high level. Go high level. Yeah.

And eventually, once things start picking up more, we'll probably get some developers to come in and restructure what we're doing to make it our own so we can have an intellectual property. So let's back up for a minute. You have gone out on your own. You established a business. They're paying you to do something. You now have a business, right?

And I think you're on your way. I think as hard as you guys work and as clever as you are, and you're keeping your expenses low, you'll get another customer and find something else and just it'll keep building. And one day people will say, golly, I wish I could do with Charles and Gray. And I'll say, well, do you know what they had to do at the beginning?

The first couple months for real. I'm sure. There's nothing there, right? I mean, it's just tough. The phones aren't ringing, you know. Nobody knows you're there. It's hard working that hard for that long without making a dollar. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. It can definitely get in your head. Yeah. Well, you're making that dollar when you're 30. Yeah. Okay, that's what you're, the dollar you think you might should get the day, you're getting like $1,000 from you're 30.

Yeah. Delayed gratification. Yeah. So, inpatient with inputs, patient with outputs. Yes. showing up every day and doing all the work we can do. Yeah, absolutely. What has surprised you so far about sales?

Because I know you guys were both like finance-type majors in selling. What surprised you so far? So we're still new to selling the software, but I've started to realize that if you have a product that provides value or a service, that they can't really turn down because it provides them value and they're paying you west and it's providing, then sales isn't super hard. Right.

If you can easily show that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So how do you show that in your business? How do you prove to them that this software does something that helps them? Yeah, so we've made presentations and demos, basically showing them exactly how it works. And we've proven it. Yeah, we've proven it with Palmetto.

Yeah, it is worked with Palmetto. Okay. So it's been tested. Just to add on to the whole demo thing. So would it be like, would you show people a video or would you have them call a reference or how would you prove to them that it works? Video, we could do a Zoom call with them to walk them through it. The loom. Yeah, have you tried the loom?

We've been looking into it. I'm in the process of getting that set up. But that's going to be, that could be huge. Could be. Could be. I'm telling you, it works like a charm. Yeah. But people still don't do it.

It's easy, too. It is easy. It's really easy. They don't do it because they're used to do an email. Yeah. That's just, well, wait, they're going to do this, you know. And it's like, it's so easy to do the, it's easier to do the loom. Just click the button, talk, click the button, sit.

You can have your presentation on there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we were even thinking about creating a loom that has everything that we want to show with the demo and then just using that for every sale. Yeah. So the sales process is expedited a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's funny you say that because people, they might prefer to watch the demo with Loom than with a live person. Yeah. Because it's just some people don't want to talk to the people and they don't know how long the people are going to talk. Yeah, the time commitment. Yeah, if you have a little Loom is four minutes long, I'll watch it. That kind of goes along with our theme. Like part of the service that we're offering is, you know, the reason that it's hard to get these people scheduled is you have to, you know, call them at a good time.

Yeah. People have work. Right. you know, and people have jobs. So if you can give your sales pitch and it doesn't, you don't have, the calendars don't have to line up. Now, obviously, there's things to where you do. Yeah.

I mean, that's it. That's a edge right there. Yeah. That's cool. So, again, I keep trying to back up and I keep asking you more questions. But you guys both grew up in Greenville and you've been friends since first grade. First grade. Yeah, we went to Sarah Collins, met, went middle school, high school college.

Yeah. And we were neighbors growing up as well. And you play, you play sports together. La C-team. football. Yeah. And then you went to the Citadel together, right? And why on earth did you go there?

I mean, I went there too. I went there too, you know. Looking back at it, I had a lot of family friends that went who I really looked up to. My dad spoke highly about it. And I was big in the fitness. I really wanted to, I didn't want to just party for three or street. Yeah. I wanted to push myself.

Yeah. So that's kind of why I decided to get in there. How about you, Greg? Well, my uncle went there and a grandfather, and it's funny. When I was a kid, my dad was like, I'm never letting you go to the Citadel. Like, I don't want you to go. I was like, all right. Then I started thinking about it, and, you know, I was growing up and, you know, teenager.

By the time I was about to go, my dad was like, I can't wait to send you. But it, I felt like I needed the structure. I needed the discipline. I wanted to be a man. And it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. That's great. That's great. That's kind of why I went.

You know, I felt like I was at two roads diverged in Yellowwood, you know. I didn't know. If I went the other way, I kind of knew what I was going to be doing. I wasn't going to be in good shape, and I was probably going to be hitting that bong pretty good, you know. Breakfast. So I needed some structure. Yeah, I'm right there with you. So it worked out.

There are people who can go anywhere and do great. They kind of have self-structure. but for some of us, it might need a little assist. Yeah. So anyway, you went there and what kind of stuff did you do there, Charles? Did you like do any of the sports or activities? So I was going to do lacrosse, but COVID hit, so they didn't do that in a freshman year. I really just went to the gym, trained to CrossFit, and did some raw guards.

You did guards? Yeah. Okay. So that's about as far as I went in terms of that extra curricul. That's pretty good. about you, Gray. So I also went to the lacrosse meeting. But they basically told us, all right, and we're, we're, we're, we're knobs at the time. So they were like, all right, well, we're going to have a team, but y'all aren't going to play anybody. Y'all are just going

to get conditioned all year. And we were like, well, we're already getting conditioned. So we decided not to do that. I mainly focused it on, on the rank stuff. And then just going to the gym. And yeah, yeah. Well, you had a good experience. I did. I did. I enjoyed it. It taught me a lot. And so did you, how soon did you know or start to think I don't want to go get a regular job? Was it like during your senior year? Yeah. So that's actually how this whole thing started.

I was looking into sales positions. You know, I was thinking, you know, that's the route that I wanted to go down. And out of the blue, my dad was just like, he never alluded this before. He was like, like, do you want to learn how to do what I do? And I was like, sure. So I was telling Charles about it, and he wanted to do it too. I called dad. I was like, can Charles join?

And he was like, it was the quickest yes I've ever heard from them. Because he knows Charles. He's been a little kid and knows what he's about. And he thought the two of us as a team would be way better than just me alone, which it was. So you chose this path. and you have one good customer now. You've also been hired to do some other stuff too. I know because we've talked about it,

but you've decided those things are not going to be your sweet spot, right? You're going to stick to the clinical trials business. Well, I think it's smart. I mean, no matter what, clinical trials aren't going away. People need to test these drugs and different treatments, I suppose, to see how they work, right? Yeah, and I was actually looking at a chart two days ago with Rebel or other partner, and the growth of clinical trials has been exponential in recent years,

and I think it's because people are more unhealthy, so there's more opportunity for big farmer to make money. Yeah, true. And Rebel, I've also met. He's a senior this year, right? That's right. And when did you approach him about joining in and helping you with sales? So I've known Rebel for a couple years now from the Citadel,

and he was looking into digital marketing this whole past year. year. So I was talking with him when we decided we wanted to pursue this. And we're each going to do our anything that maybe converge, but we decided it's probably going to be better at three of us. So that's kind of how he came on with that. What's one of the things that you've done that's worked in terms of getting people interested, whether it's legal trials or any of the real estate stuff you all did? What have you done where people have heard you and said, hey, I want to try something. The fact that we work for free until we're from making our client money. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's good. You say, I want to hear about what issues you might be

having at your business. And if we can help you solve them, we don't get paid anything until you make money. Yeah. Yeah. People go, hmm, I'll do that. Yeah. Nothing to lose. Yeah, you bring me a thousand dollars. I'll give you a hundred. No. It's a pretty good deal. That's good. What other businesses, can you think of another business that works that way? I think one, there was, there used to be a business called I2, supply chain business. And their whole thing was, we're going to come in, study your, you know, your supply chain, find out where the problems are. We're going to fix them for you. And you're going to pay us, you know, whatever the percent was of it. And boy, they grew like, Craig, a huge. Yeah. Yeah. Huge. They had six,

I don't know, it was like thousands and thousands of customers. I mean, all kinds of of money and I think they end up selling to some even bigger company. But it's, it does resonate with people, particularly if they can easily track the savings. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it, I mean, you have to have low overhead costs, which we have because we're using technology. So you have the ability to go in and solve a problem, save them some money and be able to delay

that payment. I think that's a big thing to it also. Yeah. It doesn't work in every situation because obviously you have to have to have. have that level of trust with the person or company you're working with because, I mean, they don't, and you're not, we don't like, we don't have access to Palmetto's books. Right. So we're just kind of going on good faith.

Yeah. But it's, it works on the skill that we're on. And you, I bet you at some point you'll offer people a choice. Yeah. You can say some people just pay us, you know, X amount of month to do the work. Some of them pay us a percentage, whatever you're more comfortable with. Yeah. You know, and let them choose.

because as you get a track record, some people will get greedy. I don't think, I don't want to pay that much, you know. Yeah. So that's okay. You know, just pay a fee. The new service that we're providing is not, we work for free. It is up front. They pay us for the service.

Just because, I mean, it's not result-driven. So this is a SaaS product to help schedule patients. Yeah. So it's pre-screening, scheduling, and then appointing. reminders. The most appealing thing is the pre-screening and scheduling. Right. Because it's 24-7.

So most companies have a nurse calling only during the workday. And it's hard to get in contact with people nowadays. Yeah. So people don't like answering the phone. So you're going to sell that to clinical trials companies. How are you going to sell it? Meaning, is it like per company or per call or how do you charge for it? Per study.

Per study. We've got a monthly rate per study, per clinical trials company. So that can vary, you know, some have two at a time, some have six at a time. And if they want to try it on, say, a company has three, they want to try it on one just to start out before they put it on the other two. They can do that. So if somebody has five studies a month coming through our clinical trials company, you would say you're going to pay me how much per each? Right now we're thinking 400, but a lot of things. of these studies go from three to six months for the enrolling period. And we only charge them

during that enrolling period. And each study is different questions. So it's 400 per study. Okay. Okay. So that way, if it's a small trials company and they only do one or two a month, they're going to pay you $800. But if it's a monster one, they're going to pay you by the use. Yeah. Okay. And that could be low just with the numbers in clinical trials. So some of it might be trial and error. How much would it typically save somebody for one trial? I mean, in theory, it can replace an employee. So an employee's salary. Okay. And if you, yeah, if you break it down, if we get someone on the weekend where they couldn't get in contact with that person, but we did because we got in contact them immediately with automation, if they go in person,

some of these trials, that's $2,000 to $5,000 just if they show up. Yeah. So it's super appealing in terms of the value that we're providing. Yeah. I like the offer to try it by the trial, but you could also do one, say, unlimited by the month. You know, your choice. You can do it by the trial or you can pay us, you know, 10 great months, use all you want. So usually having options is good. Yeah. Because people, instead of saying yes or no, they look at the options, they go, this one, I guess.

You know, they pick, they pick one. Yeah, yeah, it's true. So having an option would be good for that. Yeah, my dad's in software sales, and he said, if we have a client for a long period of time and we kind of see how many studies they usually have, then we can start doing an annual fee, maybe a three-year fee. But that's more of a long-term thing. Yeah.

The great thing about pricing now at this stage is you can always change it. Yeah. You don't have most of your customers yet. So you can just try to do some guinea big work with these people. and then say, well, we're changing it, you know, in next, next April, you know, we're going to change things. And as long as you give customers notice and a little bit of reasoning, you can usually get away with, you know, a price increase or a price change. Yeah. But you just don't want to surprise them with it.

Yeah. Like Netflix did a couple years ago. I know. Why would they do that? They say, here's a new price. It's double. Now, thank you. Yeah.

Everyone's got to do it. And to go off of that, like the pricing and a lot of the logistics will change, you know, especially with this part of the service brand new. It hasn't been pressure tested yet. So we're planning on changes and adapting to making it work better. Yeah, but I like the fact that you're following your company values and you're pricing it per trial, you know, making it valued aligned values. That's good. What about like AI in your business, like ChatGPT and Claude and some of these others?

Are you using it at all for your business? Yeah, so I'm more on the technical end of things, and ChatGPT has helped me a lot. Okay. I come across small problems that are roadblocks, and the ability to just search this issue in ChatGPT, it helps me move a lot faster. Yeah. So it's helped a ton. It's unbelievable. It is.

It's really good. How do I solve this problem? Yeah. Oh, okay, there it is. It's like a super Google search because you can have something super specific and it will give you a step-by-step list of exactly what to do. Are you like me? I'm not even using Google anymore.

I don't either. I mean, it's amazing. It makes Google seem slow. Well, I keep reading these stock picking people. They'll say Google is they're screaming by right now. And I'm like, no, it's not. People aren't using it anymore. They just snap their fingers like Yahoo.

Yahoo used to be the best thing in the world. And one day it was just like over. No more Yahoo. Well, have you seen Google, they have an AI thing at the top of the search thing. Yeah, I know. It's not as good. I know. It's too late.

Yeah. It is. We've already moved on. Yeah. We've moved on. I actually use, I use GROC, which is on X. I haven't. It's Elon's AI.

Okay. Very good. Like 20 bucks a month. There might be a free version, but the paid version is 20 bucks a month. And I think it's going to be the most likely to be just the truth. Yeah. And not like leaning right or leaning left or, you know, any of that stuff. It's just like here's the, like Elon would say, here's the answer.

And so that's why I like it. Plus it's kind of funny. It's kind of humorous the way they answer some of the questions. But, you are okay. It's pretty good. Okay. Okay, well, let's move on to something I know you guys like to read because you're entrepreneurs.

Let's go, we'll go all three for you first, Gray. Okay. And we'll switch. Favorite book? So I haven't been reading as much as I would like to go lately. Yeah. Just a lot going on. Apart from the Bible, I've been, you know, at least try to get 15 minutes a day in.

I'd say business book, my favorite one is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Okay. And then my favorite for fun book is probably The Hobbit. The Hobbit, all right? I've been rewatching those movies. They're incredible. All right. And then favorite band? I'd say it's always changing.

And I also listen to a lot of like individual artists, but I'd have to say favorite band would be Greta Van Fleet right now. Greta Van Fleet. Yeah, Dad and I would. Is that a person? It's a group. I mean, each one of those is a person, Greta Van and Fleet? I don't think.

No, it's a group of people. They're really similar to Led Zeppelin. Yeah. And they just call themselves Greeter Van Fleet. Yeah, they do. Does the name mean anything? I have no idea. No.

They just sound good. All right, well, I haven't heard them yet. I have to listen to them. Yeah, give them a listen. I mean, I like that. All right. Favorite word? Patience.

Patience. Yeah. It's been a big theme for me lately. Surprises me. Well, it's not something I'm necessarily the best at. That's why it's been on the top of my mind lately. It's something I'm trying to work on just with my personal life and on the business side of things. Patience is, it's a powerful, powerful word.

Yeah. There's a lot of weight behind it, and it can do a lot of good. Well, I think you guys, I think it's a wonderful word because, you know, you're not going to be, you know, Steve Jobs tomorrow, right? It's going to take a while. Yeah. And, and if you, but if you think, you know, we are going to get there, maybe, maybe it's going to take 10 years. I mean, my business that we were successful with, I think I started when I, yeah, I started when I was 25 and we sold it when I was 45. It took 20 years.

Yeah. It seemed like a long time. But, you know, it was fun. Just like you guys were having fun. It was like 20 years of fun and travel and closing deals and hiring people. And, you know, it was great fun. But, you know, my dad told me up when I was, you know, in college, he's like, all of my friends that are really successful took them 20 years on average. Yeah.

You know, to get there. And, you know, by that time, you guys will be in your. early 40s and you know you might you might just want to keep on going but you might say well let's let's work on act two now yeah we'll do next but uh it i like the word i'm glad i'm glad you chose it i appreciate it all right charles how about you what is your favorite book favorite book um i would have to say i'm broken there's a movie on it too but the book's a lot better it's about the um olympic athlete who's in the prisoner working up in world war two okay It's phenomenal.

It's a great story. Okay. And favorite band? So I've been listening to a lot of dire straits lately. Nice. Because I've been getting big into electric guitar. I started playing a little over a year ago. Yeah.

And Mark Knopf, he's one of the best to ever do it. Yeah. They're good. Oh, my gosh. That was, that's right. I was about your age, I think, when they were really popular. We used to just wear it out, listen to that. Yeah, it never gets old.

MTV, all that stuff. So good. How about a favorite word? So it's actually on the back of my ring. It's the name of a poem. It's Invictus. Okay. That means unconquerable.

It's just a really good poem that I like to go back to sometimes. Just getting through hard times. Good. Well, that's good. I'm glad to get it on your ring. You remember it. Yeah. This is the last, this is the chance for you guys to promote your business.

So I want you to tell them what it is. And then if anybody knows any clinical trials, people, you know, how to contact. you. Our business name is Sentinel Spark and we deal with the patient recruitment to the person coming in for their first appointment. So that entire process, we have an automation that does a pre-screening and scheduling for us and their appointment reminders. We have a website, SentinelSpark.net. Centinal Spark. Centinal Spark. Okay. Yeah. And then we're both on LinkedIn. Yeah. Charles Kellett and Grayhall. Yeah. And we also do marketing. in addition to the service.

But we're young. Like you mentioned, we are working on some things outside of the clinical control space. So if anybody wants to talk or has an idea, reach out. Yeah, you can hire these guys on an incentive program to do whatever. Yeah, and we'll go out to lunch. Yeah, we will go out to lunch.

You like a freelance, don't you? Well, I'm real proud of you. and you've definitely taken another road not taken, you know, out of school. And we'll keep up with you over the years. We'll have you back. You know, maybe you come back in a year and tell us how things have gone. And maybe you have 10 trial companies by then. I hope so.

Pretty cool. All right. Well, thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having us hard. All right, great job.