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Sarah Richardson: I'm Sarah Richardson, a principal here at this week Health where our mission is healthcare transformation, powered by community. This is Flourish Soundbites, unfiltered Conversations with healthcare leaders. Let's get real,

Welcome back to Flourish. I am Sarah Richardson and today's soundbite. Features someone who is truly fearless in both business and life. Rebekah Panepinto Rebekah has built a powerhouse career in healthcare IT sales.

She hosts her own podcast through Rebekah Panepinto Project, and now brings her expertise to retail customers working with brands like Shutterfly and Chick-fil-A. Which may be hungry is after you said that the first time. For sure. She's a huge believer in Amazon's leadership principles as a guiding ethos, and she's not afraid to challenge convention by coloring outside the lines.

And if that's not enough, Rebekah has competed in over 55 Spartan races proving that grit and fearlessness aren't just buzzwords. That's how she lives. Rebekah, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to be [00:01:00] here. I love having you here and I always have to say like, how did we meet Andrew Carr from 40 AU introduced us a few years ago and it's just been this really great friendship ever since, and so I'm grateful we get to tell a bit about your story today.

Rebekah Panepinto: Likewise. Yeah. He was like, you guys will totally get along. I can't believe I hadn't made this introduction before.

Sarah Richardson: And he was right. He was right. We just had to find a place to go scuba diving before too long. We will get there, I promise. But you are known as a huge advocate for Amazon's leadership principles.

How have they shaped your approach to sales, to leadership, and even your life?

Rebekah Panepinto: I

view principles in general. As kind of like a worldview. I'm a huge fan also of Ray Dalio principles, and so as I've gotten further involved in the Amazon ecosystem, I've really clung to these different principles as they that they've outlined to get everybody on the same page and understand.

the Culture of their business. And so when you have a common ground, a common principle, a common worldview, it changes the way people interact, the way people serve customers, and the [00:02:00] overall just culture and environment of doing business with a company. So I'm a huge fan of it, and Amazon has really perfected their ecosystem of their principles

Sarah Richardson: of all of the principles that they

have.

Which one do you believe is most overlooked but also most powerful when it's applied consistently?

Rebekah Panepinto: I would say probably earn trust, because sometimes we just forget in especially a digital world. that You've gotta kind of earn it before you can just jump in and tell people what to do or tell 'em, you know, maybe something that they've built isn't as beautiful as they thought it was.

You have to first build that credibility and earn trust, which is different when we live in this digital world. So I actually have a good friend who just wrote a book called Swift Trust, and it's about how you now develop these muscles. Develop these relationships with people virtually to make sure you're at that same trust basis.

You need to be to actually be able to transact quality [00:03:00] business together.

Sarah Richardson: What are some of the tactics you're using that work minus the book, which I'm sure is an amazing read. What are some of the things that you have done digitally to create that bond with your clients?

Rebekah Panepinto: Well, I would say nowadays you've gotta hit people by more than one channel.

So I sometimes get stuck just in email, just in text, just in LinkedIn dms. And the reality is, with people having a hundred different things coming at them, you have to be reoccurring on more than one platform. So now if I email someone, I'm usually also doing a DM or a text so that a. At one point, you know, they're gonna see or hear what I have to say.

And I used to hesitate about thinking it was annoying, but it was like, no, people appreciate that. They're like, wow, like this is important. We need to get this done and I need to respond to Rebekah. So now it's multiple channels and then it's consistency over time. And I've always been a fan of playing the long game.

Sarah Richardson: That's one of our principles in the training that we do is playing the long game, and that you have to realize how long it takes to establish some of these, but you've adapted principles. As you've moved [00:04:00] into new industries and customer groups, what do you find works all the time and what are you also finding that may be specific to retail now as an example?

Rebekah Panepinto: Well, the one that fits 'em all is customer obsession and. It's not gonna matter if you're in healthcare, if you're in retail, if you're in manufacturing, if you don't think the customer first and make them the hero, you're gonna be kind of dead in the water. So customer recession is up here, kind of trumps them all, making sure that.

No matter what the problem is, you're gonna solve that you're there to make the customer's life easier, not your own. And then when it comes to retail specifically, I think earned trust is high up there too. They really wanna know that, especially in my company, that we have experience at quick service restaurants with folks, with the e-commerce presence.

They wanna know you've been there, done that. That you've kind of just like skirted around the edges or done a project like theirs, like, no. How did you actually solve X, Y, Z for Chick-fil-A and how can that be applicable to my restaurant?

Sarah Richardson: [00:05:00] You've moved to a degree I say, beyond healthcare and lessons that you've been learning from retail, and yet, healthcare is one of the hardest places to get that stickiness from a patient to provide the customer slash patient experience 'cause people typically don't feel well, what have you brought with you from healthcare that does help working for these new iconic brands?

Rebekah Panepinto: I think it's seeing a customer as a human being and as a person who has their own world and maybe their own pain, even if like, you know, getting a chicken sandwich isn't gonna solve, you know, w.

End of world hunger, it still is solving a problem from somebody, a stressed mom, in between soccer games. And you have to think about the human element that a lot of times in retail, there can be forgetfulness around, especially if it comes to like vanity things. But when you think about in healthcare that you know, grandfathers are passing away, children are being born, like the continuum of life is happening in the hospital.

It's also happening in a restaurant. It's [00:06:00] just a lot faster and different. And thankfully there isn't blood and it's not as high stress, but still it's about the human element and about giving people good experiences.

Sarah Richardson: What should healthcare learn from retail? And I've had this sort of debate with myself.

I came from hospitality originally. I'm always trying to marry my two universes. But what should healthcare be picking up from what's making retail such a cutting edge space in these types of environments?

Rebekah Panepinto: So I don't wanna be mean. You can move way faster. I mean, retail code freezes from Black Friday, cyber Monday to like January five, and they still get all this stuff done in this small amount of time they have of actual, you know, productive working months.

Well, healthcare doesn't really close for a solid two and a half months, so let's keep it moving. Let's keep innovation going, like there's no need to wait till the next quarter or the next year when customers have problems to solve today.

Sarah Richardson: Yeah. And where do you see some of the, agent capabilities or the generated capabilities [00:07:00] from AI transforming the overall customer experience?

Rebekah Panepinto: Well, we just had a really cool experience with, you mentioned Shutterfly, where we completely transformed an e-commerce user experience for them by allowing them to use prompt communication to build basically a photo book. So instead of it taking three to four hours of you going to get all your pictures from the last six months and you know, all kinds of different children and different moves, et cetera, et cetera, we now have built a solution where within literally 30 minutes you can write a prompt and say, I want every picture from Disneyland, July 2025, where everybody is smiling and looking at the camera, blo.

All those pictures are put together in a photo book. So it's allowing customers to literally just, they could even voice the text, it, Hey, give me a photo, but looks like X, Y, Z. And now you've gone from just in this use case four hours to, you know, 20, 30 minutes. But imagine the, [00:08:00] you know, opportunity beyond that and how much more usage shutterfly's gonna get, because now there's an LLM type relationship with building a photo book of your own pictures.

Sarah Richardson: Of your own pictures and I'm already thinking about, okay, so if I wanted to find a doctor that way, being able to just say, I need, these are my symptoms. This is the kind of doctor I want, here's what I'm seeking, et cetera. And then being able to collate all that information back to you even on your phone as you're thinking about the overall user slash patient experience.

I love that. 55 Spartan races. And you probably have now like 56, you said you were just in doing another one, in Indiana 58, but thank you. Eight. Okay. 58. And those are the, I do three at a time. Three at a time. No small feat. What have those experiences taught you about grit, fearlessness, pushing limits, and just why you keep going back for more.

Rebekah Panepinto: First of all, it's just a swift change from the day to day sitting by my computer all day. Running from meeting to my phone is in my bag. I don't know where in bag check. I'm just here in the moment to be in my body and accomplish what needs to be done on [00:09:00] this course. So it puts me in a state of mind and just a freedom of I'm just here to be in my body and be human.

So first off, that's great. Then you add the culture and the people that are there that are saying things like, you know. Don't be weak and you can do this. I had a guy, you know, this weekend tell me to grab the bigger bucket carry that you do. He's like, you can do the man's weight. I can tell.

Pick it up and go. And I was like, thanks. I just needed the push. So you're with these people who are like, let's do better, do hard things like. This is what we're here to do, is to leave it all out on the course. And when you have that around you, you can't help but respond to it. And like literally as I came back, I said, thanks for pushing me.

I knew I could also do the, you know, 15 pound heavier bucket, carry I just needed somebody to call out and somebody to cheer me on. And when I came back they were like, hell yeah. Like you have great biceps. That was awesome. And it just, it gives you encouragement to be like, yeah, I can make this happen.

And you leave feeling like a million bucks

Sarah Richardson: how often has the adrenaline factor from a [00:10:00] Spartan race brought you back to the office and you said, yeah, I can carry that 15 pound heavier bucket on this project as well. When do you find those things being complimentary?

Rebekah Panepinto: I think even just, you know, you and I live in a man's world a lot of days.

Just I can do what the guys do. I was looking around, you know, US women were outnumbered probably four to one all day on that course yesterday, and it's like, I belong here. I can own this, I can participate and I can understand how to work within this ecosystem and be successful.

Sarah Richardson: Yeah, sometimes being the minority is actually the advantage.

Whatever front that can bring to you. And you've said that coloring outside the lines is often better. What does that look like in your career, and how do leaders embrace that without losing either side of their goals or having to cross a barrier that maybe they shouldn't?

Rebekah Panepinto: blessing and a curse.

I'm a creative, it's just who I am. Played drums for 23 years. Everything I see is gonna have a creative spin to it. So for me. Bringing [00:11:00] creativity into my work is my podcasting. And it's again, stopping and thinking of like who is the hero of this situation and how do we get the successful outcome that everybody wants?

And everybody has fun along the way. So for me, how I've mirrored it, just personal experience. Is being able to bring creativity to something that helps me build my business, which is podcasting and building relationships with folks like yourself and other CIOs, and allowing this creative element and creativeness of who we are to flow.

And it still all points right back to us accomplishing the goals we want for our business.

Sarah Richardson: your company, I should say, your industry per se, loves playbooks, has to have timelines, has to have project plans, et cetera. How do you know when it's time to rewrite those expectations?

Rebekah Panepinto: honestly, you've gotta keep up with how fast things are changing or else.

If the industry's gonna tell you that it's too late to have changed your game. So it's staying on top of. I still remember the day my boss said, Hey, hop on Google Meet. I wanna show you something. And he showed me chat GPT for [00:12:00] the first time, and I was like, whoa, I didn't even know this was coming. And he gave me this nice little snippet of like, here's what's coming.

You need to go figure this out. And I was like, cool, I got it. And then he started to call me out on it weeks later, have you used chat GPT to write emails? Have you asked Chat GPT? And so he was like, I'm gonna make sure my sales team is at the forefront of innovation and what's coming because we can't get stuck in the old ways or we're gonna get beat by our competitors.

So it's definitely having people around you that are making sure to keep you accountable on like, this is what's happening, and make sure you stay agile and ready to respond to it, or things can pass you by really fast.

Sarah Richardson: Yeah. Find the people who are constantly helping you be a little bit uncomfortable so that you want to always add that learning element to your personal plan.

For sure. All right. I gotta ask you some speed rounds stuff. Are you ready? Ready. Amazon Leadership principle you would take with you to a desert island. Ownership leaders are owners. Have some skin in the game. You ran a race [00:13:00] yesterday. How do you like to recharge after you do

Rebekah Panepinto: that? Good old lifetime hot tub, steam room combination.

Sarah Richardson: If you weren't doing sales or podcasting, what job do you believe that you would chase? What's your dream role?

Rebekah Panepinto: I would've been Carrie Underwood's drummer, but it's okay. You know that I still play for fun.

Sarah Richardson: I have to throw another one in there too. Is uh, 80 podcast shows. Who's your dream guest?

Like, who do, who have you not had on that? You're like, that's my target. 'cause then we can just send 'em this clip and they'll be like, amazing. I'd love to be on Rebekah's show.

Rebekah Panepinto: I'd still have some earning it, I think to do. But man, Tom Billeiu, that would be, that'd be a fun conversation.

Sarah Richardson: We'll make sure he gets a snippet of this soundbite for sure.

For our listeners, be sure to check out Rebekah's podcast, the Rebekah Panepinto Project for more bold conversations on leadership and innovation. And if today's episode sparked something for you, share it with a colleague or a friend who's ready to rethink [00:14:00] their own playbook.

Rebekah, thank you for being on the show.

Rebekah Panepinto: you're awesome. Can't wait to see you again soon.

Sarah Richardson: that's flourish soundbites, find your community at this week, health.com/subscribe. Every healthcare leader needs a community to learn from and lean on. Share the wisdom.

That's all for now.