E148 | From Medical Device Sales to 7-Figure Healthcare Agency: How Saul Marquez Built Outcomes Rocket

Saul Marquez’s transformation from a 17-year career in medical devices to founding Outcomes Rocket represents one of healthcare’s most compelling entrepreneurial success stories. After conducting over 2,100 healthcare podcast interviews, Marquez identified a critical gap: marketing cracks in the foundation of nearly every healthcare business, from startups to multi-billion-dollar organizations. This discovery, combined with his hunger to build something meaningful, motivated him to take the leap into digital healthcare marketing. Like many entrepreneurs, Marquez faced the paralyzing fear of failure—that voice whispering “you can always go back to your old job.” But through a decisive “burn the boats” moment, he committed fully to healthcare commercialization strategies, eventually building Outcomes Rocket into a transformational partner serving health tech companies, medical device manufacturers, and ambulatory provider organizations seeking 10X business growth.

At the core of Outcomes Rocket’s approach lies a revolutionary principle: “you sell like you buy.” This insight, derived from working with healthcare leaders facing real commercialization challenges, emphasizes that strategic marketing partnerships matter more than cheap, offshore solutions. Marquez stresses that successful healthcare digital marketing requires partnering with professionals who understand “the rules of the game”—much like trusting a CPA with your finances or an attorney with legal matters. His agency specializes in healthcare marketing solutions across three key segments: health tech software, medical devices (from pacemakers to spinal implants), and independent ambulatory practices. By combining data-driven marketing strategies with mentorship and accountability, Outcomes Rocket helps healthcare entrepreneurs overcome self-doubt and scale their businesses. The company’s methodology—focusing on owned, earned, and paid marketing—generates qualified leads while building thought leadership that positions healthcare brands as industry authorities.

Marquez’s journey reveals critical insights for anyone in the healthcare business space. First, embrace failure as an event, not an identity—his early webinar mishap taught him the power of grace, partnerships, and systematic improvement. Second, surround yourself with mentors who have achieved what you want to accomplish; healthcare entrepreneurship requires guidance from those who’ve navigated similar challenges. Third, recognize that 10X growth is often easier than 2X growth because it forces you to focus on essential activities rather than incremental improvements. For healthcare organizations struggling with lead generation, reputation management, or web development, Outcomes Rocket demonstrates that working with healthcare marketing experts accelerates results exponentially.

For information on how to work with Don visit us at https://donwilliamsglobal.com
You can also reach out to Don Williams at https://provenentrepreneurshow.com

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From Medical Device Sales to 7-Figure Healthcare Agency: How Saul Marquez Built Outcomes Rocket

Hey, Don Williams here with today’s episode of the Proven Entrepreneur Show. I’ve got digital marketing expert in healthcare, Marquez, with Outcomes Rocket here today. Saul, welcome to the show.

Don, thanks for having me and good to be with your audience.

Hey man, really appreciate it. So I know you’re a digital agency and I know you focus on healthcare, but tell us what Outcomes Rocket does and who you serve and how you got there. You weren’t born as the founder of Outcomes Rocket. So how’d you get there?

definitely was not born as the founder of Outcomes Rocket. Dan, so we serve healthcare exclusively. The three segments that we serve are health tech, the software companies helping health systems and payers, medical devices from pacemakers to spinal implants, any devices that help support ⁓ care delivery.

And then finally, the third segment that our business serves is the provider side, ambulatory, that’s standalone, not tied to large IDN practices, medium to large that are seeking to make an impact. And the number one thing that we help the leaders and organizations that we serve is, is to really help them with their commercialization challenges and opportunities. We help them get results.

I love that. And I have about 30 years at times working in healthcare. So big hospital provider systems, pharma, et cetera. one of the, I don’t know, incongruities maybe of the whole industry is this. Literally probably more geniuses in healthcare than in any other field. It’s hard to be a doctor.

really? Cool.

It’s really hard to do that. Yet many times they just struggle for how do I make money? How do I drive business? And it’s just a muscle that they don’t get to use very often. And so they need somebody like you to come in.

Absolutely.

Okay, so here, so what about this? At some point you realize you weren’t just building a business, but you were actually transforming how these healthcare clients won business. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, Don, appreciate the question. You know what? It was a wake up moment for me when I was actually first starting my business. remember a year into it, I was in the pits. It was difficult. I was having self-sabotaging conversations. Like literally, I had left a 17-year gig in medical devices as I had shared with you.

And I went into entrepreneurship for the very first time in my life. And I remember being in my office that day thinking to myself, you know what, if this thing fails, I could always go back to that gig. Boy, how many of us have had that sabotaging talk that keeps us in our comfort zone, right? ⁓

You ⁓

Yeah, have food.

Yeah.

And that doesn’t help push us to the greatness that we are all able to achieve. And so being in that situation myself, Don, I had to do a thing. I had to have a really serious burn the boats moment with myself. And having gone through that myself, I realized that, wow, so many of these leaders that our business helps are actually going through the same thing.

How awesome would it be to have a person like Don Williams or like Saul Marquez help them go from where they are to where they could be? And so for me, my personal moment being in that situation really helped me be in the shoes of my clients. They’re taking huge risks. They’re betting the farm. They’re getting investment.

Right? And, and those moments of reality where the only person that you’re with is yourself. You really need a partner, right? To really help you get to the next level, a partner that understands the algorithm. And, and, and so I’ll take a pause here for a second and say, one of the biggest myths that I run into is in the business that we’re in, Don, and everybody listening is that you could get somebody in the back office to just do marketing.

That’s one of the biggest myths that I have run into. What I tell people is, you know how you trust the CPA to do your books? You know how you trust an attorney to represent you in court? If you’re really gonna have the best results in marketing, you need a professional that understands the rules of the game, that could get results like a Rubik’s Cube. If you know the rules, you could always get the same result. That’s sort of like, I realized, holy smokes, we have this thing.

and we know how it works every single time. And if it doesn’t, we tweak, we adjust. And we could be that partner, and we are that partner for many of the clients we serve, to be that transformational coach for them while we execute for them commercially. So it was a personal struggle, that I worked myself out of. And when I’m taking big jumps, to be honest with you, I feel it again.

when I take those huge jumps. So it’s not something that goes away. When you think big and you go for 10X, which is by the way, why we call outcomes rocket, outcomes rocket. We go for the moon. We’re not satisfied with 10%. We want 10X or more. And that’s who gravitates to us because that’s how we think we’re big thinkers and we like to associate with others. And for those that are big thinkers that are listening to this show, obviously you’re a big thinker because you’re listening to Don’s show.

⁓ I know what I’m saying is resonating with you because you’re not alone and you need somebody like Don or I in your corner.

Yeah, I always think, you know, as an entrepreneur, you have a superpower, maybe even two or three, if you’re really lucky, okay? And something that you’re just like almost the best anywhere at. But just by having that expertise, it means that you are not expert in these other areas. And you’re almost always well-advised to just go hire an expert.

You can do the cheap route and say, okay, I’m going to figure it out and I’m going to get the person in the Philippines and all that. I’m not knocking that, but I am saying this. If it’s something that’s strategic to your business and marketing is like the most strategic thing for your business, you do better. Just go get an expert. Just get somebody who can give you the answer to the test and you’re going A to B. Get somebody who can…

tell you how to get from A to B and then maybe even push A and B a little closer together, make it happen a little faster. And so I always believe in that. So.

You know,

and Don, I would love to add to that awesome comment you just made. You will always pay the price, whether it’s upfront or on the backend. And here’s the thing that I always share with people. You will sell like you buy.

Mmm.

So, so like if you are buying like a cheapskate, that’s how you’re also going to sell. If you’re buying like a baller, if you’re buying like an executive, you’re also going to sell that way. So to your point, it’s circular and it affects both sides of the equation.

Okay, I already know that’s going to hit a clip of its own. You sell just like you buy. Let that sink in a minute. You sell just like you buy. Okay. So, you know, when most people outside of healthcare talk about healthcare, you know, they’re almost always focused on what’s broken. Cause there’s stuff that is broken. Okay.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

And I don’t know if it’s as much broken as they think, but, but, know, it’s people’s health involved. And so it’s, you know, it’s magnified, you know, the importance of it. You came from med tech, saw something that was broken. Okay. Said I’m going to fix it. And that was certainly out of your comfort zone. What motivated you to make that big leap from

17 years and established in med tech. I’m going to go open a digital agency just like about 10 million people in the US and I want to make it work. Tell us about that.

Yeah, Don, I appreciate the question. And I will say this. It was a combination of a dream and data. OK? The two D’s, dreams and data. And you’ve got to have both. Those are the essential ingredients to make anything work. And so what I would share with you on that front is I actually had started a podcast. This is where the data comes in. And that podcast.

I took to date, I’ve published over 2000 interviews on my podcast. By the way, Don, I would love to have you on knowing knowing that you have that healthcare. So we’re exclusively a healthcare podcast, right? I want to have you on my show. Would you be on my show?

I’d love to. I’m honored and I can spell healthcare.

No, and by the way, like I had a chance to kind of do a little work on you and I’m intrigued to share with our listeners about your concepts on other people’s experience and other people’s money, because I think those concepts can take you very far. So hopefully I’m opening up a loop there for when I share this to have you on my show. But but literally, of course, of course, and the services you provide, which are amazing.

Thank you.

⁓ I would share this is after having, I quit at about 1700 episodes. Like I quit my job after 1700 interviews. And the one, the data point that was consistent across all of these data points, whether I was talking to a small startup, to a multi-billion dollar organization, I always saw cracks in the basement of marketing. There was always, always cracks. I’m like, okay.

The data is there, the people are showing me this, the conversations, right? Primary research. And then follow that with unfinished business. I had been too much of a coward beforehand to do it. You know, I grew up, you we didn’t have much growing up, Don, like, you know, my parents immigrated to this country from Mexico. I didn’t have much growing up. I grew up…

You know, at one point we were doing food stamps, You know, and so it was certainly challenging, but what it gave me was hunger and what it gave me was grit and what it gave me was an appreciation for what this country stands for, a glimmer of hope. And that’s why so many people come here still. And for those of you that have lost hope in this country, think again, look around.

because this is probably one of the best places in the world to be a capitalist and to live, like 1,000%. But my dream was to start a business and nobody in my family had ever done that. It was always go to school, get a job, right? Go to school, get a job, go to school. And Don, I finally decided to take the jump.

Yes sir, go to school, get a job.

to the unknown. And by the way, all these people, you are the average of your five closest peers that I was interviewing were successful entrepreneurs, many of them. So they became my friends over time. And then I got the courage to take the leap. And so I combined what I saw the gaps in the market be with finally having the courage to make the leap for myself and finally did it. And I haven’t looked back since.

No regrets whatsoever. We’ve built the agency to where it is today and we’re continuing to grow a pretty meaningful organization.

Love that. you know, we talked earlier about, I love, I love your brutal honesty. I mean, you used a pretty tough word. You said coward. Okay. That’s a pretty tough word. Okay. And we talked about comfort zones and, um, you know, exiting our comfort zone. And the cool thing about comfort zones is when you leave your comfort zone, your comfort zone grows. You leave it again, it grows and you leave it again and it grows. And at a certain point in time, and you’re obviously already there.

You’re racing out of your comfort zone every day because that’s where the good stuff is. The good stuff is not in your recliner. The good stuff is not in your pillow. The good stuff is out there where it’s scary. Okay. And you don’t know what’s going to happen. so, huge trait of entrepreneurs. Let me ask you this salt. If you could go back and whisper a single sentence to yourself on day one.

That’s where the good stuff is.

of outcomes rocket. So just one sentence on day one, something that would have helped you go faster, farther, smarter. What would that sentence be?

Trust yourself.

love that. I’m a big believer in you ought to, ⁓ know, a wise man has many counselors. You ought to ask a lot of people, okay, for what they think, but you should only listen to a couple. Ask a lot. Only listen to a couple of them. And that’s maybe where the magic is, is figuring out which ones to listen to. But, you know, number one is to listen to yourself.

Ha

your, we think that we’re intellectual creatures and we are, okay. But most of the magic happens emotionally. And so you got to listen to your heart. Okay. And, and your head will, veto anything that’s illogical. That’s like, ⁓ no, that’s not, that’s absolutely stupid. Okay. But other than that, listen to your heart. That’s where the magic happens. Okay.

And you

know, Don, what I would add to that too, in a nutshell, I double down on mentorship, the data as well. So whoever you take advice from, make sure you understand and be very, very clear. If you’re going to get somebody’s advice, hey, what’s your annual revenue? What was your largest exit? Right? Tell me about where you’ve been and tell me about where you’re going.

Hmm.

And then that will tell me should I listen to you or not because everybody has a freaking opinion

everybody. Yeah.

Right.

But there’s a few people out there that will actually resonate with you. Those are the people that are where you want to be and get the data. Right. It goes back to that. Trust your heart. That’s important. The trust. Trust myself. Right. But also surround yourself with mentors like Don that that have been places that you want to go that that have worked with businesses like yours that want to go where you want to go. And like us right on the marketing side that have

that can take you where you wanna go. So that’s the one thing that I’d add to.

Oh, I love that. you know, it’s where they’ve been is very important, where they’re going to me, probably more important. Past performance is somewhat of an indicator of future, not always a direct link. But one thing I’ve noticed in like 1700 interviews, I’m blown, I mean, we’re at about 150 and that’s a lot of work.

That’s respect,

man, dude, that’s awesome. Congratulations on that. That’s huge.

Well, it’s better than like

90 % of all podcasts, but 1700 is like, dude, what an overachiever. But the one thing I can tell you from interviewing, know, proven entrepreneurs all around the world, billions of dollar businesses and down is this, that if they have a huge failing in their past,

Probably 99 % of all podcasts.

intense.

they almost always have a huge success that followed it. And if they have little failings in their past, they pretty much have little successes that follow it. And so there’s a link to, are you really playing? Are you playing as big as you ought to be playing? Because truthfully, 10Xing is probably less difficult than 2Xing.

once you get your mind around it. And so that’s just the way it is. Okay. 17.

Amen to that. And by

the way, Don, on that point, I want to give a shout out to Dan Sullivan and the strategic coach. I’m actually actively doing that program. His book is 10x as great as easier than 2x. Him and Benjamin Hardy, Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Phenomenal, couldn’t agree with you more. It is about separating the signal from the noise. When you go that big,

Little things won’t get you there. So you’re left with one or two things that could potentially get you there. And when you go all in on those things, that’s when you strike gold.

Yeah, to me, the three M’s of leadership are mindset. And that almost always comes down to one question. Are you playing big enough? Are you thinking big enough? Is your goal big enough? Are you terrified by it? Because if you are, it’s probably where it should be. And if it’s not, you’re probably not where it should be. And then the second is mission. And it’s just so simple. Are you going to do the best?

Yeah

Not better than, not a little better, but are you going to do the best ever? And not just your best ever, are you going to do the best? I mean, it’s real clear, best ever. There’s no ambiguity in that. And then the third is, know, methodology. And so, you you kind of fail to the level of your systems. You don’t necessarily rise to the level of your goals. And so you have to have methods.

There has to be a concrete process for the important things in your business. Okay. I’m stuck on 1700 interviews. My mind is blown. Okay.

Hahaha!

Well that’s when I quit,

you know, we’re at about 2100 now. That’s when I quit. To blow your mind a little more there. ⁓

Okay. I’m not even listening to the numbers anymore. Here’s

my question. Okay.

if there was one pattern you noticed in 1700 interviews.

What would that pattern be?

You know, I would tell you that the pattern you actually we’ve talked about a lot of those patterns. You know, the the courage that you need to have in order to grow as an entrepreneur. The fact that that marketing is is underestimated as a powerhouse to grow your business. And if you work with the right people, it’ll get you there. And by the way, I always leave people with this is like, it’s not complicated.

It’s just working with people and businesses that know how to get you there. so in marketing, I’ll reiterate this. It starts with strategy. You got your owned marketing, you got your earned marketing, you got your paid marketing. And if all those things are working on all cylinders, you’re going to be developing more leads than you know what to do with. At that point, you’re more focused on the value of your brand, your brand as thought leader, because you’re going to, you’re going to be in a really great spot if you’re doing it right.

I’m open to inviting anybody for a discussion on marketing if you’re in healthcare. You could find me at outcomesrocket.com. Always available for a chat for anybody that you know, Don, or that’s listening to us. And by the way, Saul at outcomesrocket.com is where you’d go for that as well if you want to reach me.

That’s amazing.

Thank you for sharing. you’re ahead of me, but like about five minutes. But, but that’s good. You’re an overachiever. Okay. So last question.

Hahaha!

Entrepreneurship can be really risky. Health care, to people outside of health care, they may not see that as risky, but the investment is so huge and there is real risk in health care. And many providers, they think, there’s all this money in health care. And you’re like, well, yeah, there kind of is.

But the other side of it is you don’t know if you’re actually going to get paid and you don’t know what you’re going to get paid on. like most, most independent Leon physicians that I know, they’re like, you know, I can’t tell you if I made money six months ago, but am I making money now? I have no idea. You know, it kind of depends on, you know, reimbursements. So entrepreneurship really risky. Okay.

Those of us who are successful, I think, I think we’re risk blind. I don’t even think we see it anymore. Healthcare can be really risky as a business. It’s not for the faint of heart. Tell me about a hard moment, a failing. I don’t really believe in failure. I think it’s an event, not a definition, but tell me about a failing of yours that hurt and what pulled you through.

Yeah, there’s a lot of them. where can I work? Like, let me think of any one of them. mean, like, and I love what you said, Don. It’s like it’s it’s a thing that happens. It’s not an identity. I remember first starting the business. We started actually as a production agency for podcasts, because naturally you do as many podcasts as I have.

Yeah, yeah I get it.

people are like, this guy knows what he’s doing. Help me out. So we started as a, as a podcast production agency. And we, you know, since then we’ve grown to be a full service marketing agency that does public relations, reputation management, web development across everything. Right. But it didn’t come without pain points. And I remember one of our first clients trusted us to run a very important webinar and

I was so excited. It was going to be a phenomenal opportunity to show them what we were made of. And we get there, and I somehow hit the start button too fast. And people start coming in, and we were talking shop about how to make the webinar happen. And we were literally already live. And that did not go over well.

I was so embarrassed. We ended up saying, ⁓ hey, guys, we’re going to reschedule this webinar and pushed it to another date. I had a heart to heart with that client. By the way, know, great friend of mine now, he basically says, Saul, partnerships are made through being able to weather storms like these. I know that’s

I know where you are at that point, right? Where we were at the stage as a company. To this day, we’ve got that process on lock. I mean, we got SOPs. I’ve got multiple people like trained up and we run beautiful webinars. By the way, Don, I don’t know if you know this or not, but according to eMarketer, which is one of the sources we love to use for marketing, apart from conferences,

webinars are the number two most popular way to get leads in today’s B2B business environment. Webinars are a critical part of what we do across the board and account-based marketing, et cetera. But I divert to tell you that it’s a very important tool. And if you’re not using it, you’re leaving leads on the table, conferences, and then it’s webinars. So anyway, I digress and tell you that

I literally was like, I’m done. This is like, we just lost. And by the way, at that point, there are number one account. And I’m like, we freaking lost it. I’m fried. But what he taught me in that scenario was the importance of partnerships and reciprocating that chance that he gave me with some of my partners and giving them grace because

I grace.

Everybody’s first. Everybody has their first time at some point. And I’ll tell you what, Don, here at Outcomes Rocket, we hire for talent and attitude over like, do you have the skills of a certain thing? Because we could train that, you know? And so we can teach that. So anyway, that’s what that sort of fast forward to now taught me. Man, I’m so glad he didn’t dump us.

Yeah, you can teach them.

So so Ed if you’re listening dude kudos and thanks for your belief in us brother

Well, I love that.

And let me just coach the audience a second. If you make that big mistake and you’re going to make that, I don’t know what day, but you’re going to make the big mistake. It’s going to happen. You’re going to be on stage, talk to 500 people and your fly is going to be unzipped. Your wig is going to fall off. Whatever. Something’s going to happen. And here’s exactly what you do. Look them dead in the eye and say, I’m so sorry.

Okay, because we love to forgive people. We love to help people who have a problem. Just own up to it. Take the bullets in the chest. I’m so sorry. I will make it right. You tell me how I have to do that. And clients that you have gotten over a hump like that will be the best clients you ever have. Okay, because they’re not used to people solving problems for them. Even in their own company, they’re really not used to people solving problems.

And so if you solve a problem, they will love you for, they may leave you one day, but they will love you forever. Okay. And so just look them dead in the eye, say, I’m so sorry. How can I fix it? And go on down the road. One of my really good friends was a huge cabinet maker and his number one client grew to be Barnes and Noble. Well, if you were going to sell.

Cabinets, custom shelving, that’d be the person to sell them to. And he tells a story about the first job they got. They got a test order for two stores, store A and store B. Short timelines, it’s retail. You know, they’re always starting, trying to get open before Thanksgiving, get that big Christmas bump the first six weeks, you know, that they’re open.

and they ship store B’s product to store A and store A’s product to store B and they’re in different cities. so the project manager at Barnes and Noble calls, they’re out of their mind and my friend said, look, our fault. I’m sending 10 people to each location. We’ll get the product shipped, use the 10 people.

for whatever you need, for however long you need them, my nickel, do we make it right? And grew to be his biggest client and probably the number one buyer of what he sold there for 10 or 15 years or something like that. So just say, I’m sorry, and how can I fix it? And ⁓ then put some processes in place where you double check things, where things like that don’t happen. So, okay.

Great story. That’s it. That’s it.

Amen.

Tell us again, easiest way to reach you. Tell us again, the website address, because I know people are going to want to call and reach out.

Yeah, you, think it was, I forget, Cheryl Sandberg, she was the CCO of Facebook at one time. She said, if somebody offers you a seat in the Rocket, don’t ask what seat, just take it and buckle up. So I’d say, hey, if you wanna get on a marketing Rocket, we wanna invite you to explore conversations with us. It’s Saul, S-A-U-L, at outcomesrocket.com.

Outcomesrocket.com is where you can reach us. And I also, I would tell you, ⁓ shoot me a LinkedIn message. That’s actually where I’m probably most going to be able to respond to you with less noise. So shoot me a LinkedIn message. I’m sure Don will include it in the show notes here. I invite that. I invite the opportunity to meet you and to learn about your story. But Don, thank you so much for hosting me. This was a true pleasure. You’re a true coach.

Thank you so much. was my pleasure. 1700 podcasts interviews. My mind is blown. Okay. My mind is blown. I’m very grateful. Thanks for coming on the show and folks that’s today’s episode of the proven entrepreneur show. We’ll see you next time. Thanks. Bye.

Hahaha!

You’re too funny.