Zach McGill, Perk Health – InnovaBuzz 255

Zach McGill, Perk Health

In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, Zach McGill, who is the founder and CEO of Perk Health. Perk Health is a corporate health and wellness platform that provides highly personalised experiences and habit-building coaching using technology combined with psychology and an understanding of human behaviour.

Employers who use Perk Health can lower healthcare costs, increase productivity and decrease absenteeism. Perk health delivers its products through a virtual system, and its app retains over ten times the engagement of traditional wellness programs. Perk Health tailors the program to each individual, making it easy and fun to participate.

In our discussion, Zach and I talked about:

• The trigger – action – reward cycle and the Big 5 Personality Model
• The importance of fun and enjoyment in the journey of building new habits and changed behaviour
• The importance of frequent and immediate rewards along the entire journey

Sunny Han in episode 232 introduced us to Zach.

Listen to the podcast to find out more.

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Show Notes from this episode with Zach McGill of Perk Health

Key points and takeaways from this episode include:

• Trigger, action, and reward are the core ideas of behavioural science.
• The core building block of human behaviour is around seeking reward.
• Think of reward in an abstract way. Make sure that anything you are trying to help somebody with comes with a reward and that you are doing it in the most immediate and concrete way possible.
• Rewards should be based on an individual’s personality. 
• Make sure that everybody has something that motivates them. Focus on habits and small rewards.
• Habits are developed through rapid repetition of the trigger, action, and reward cycle. 
• Conscientiousness measures how planful a person is. Conscientious people are people who like making lists and checking things off the list. They like having a structure and something to look forward to. On the other hand, people who are less conscientious need a lot more variety and spontaneity. 
• The ethics of how you use technology is really important. Make sure that you are helping people with the goals that they have chosen for themselves and not with the goals that you have for them.
• Alignment and transparency are important.
• Behaviour is driven by instant gratification. Humans are driven by rewards that are immediately attached to the action.
• Build frequent and immediate rewards. Make each experience intrinsically rewarding so that it doesn’t feel like you are postponing the payoff.
• We all learn differently. We all have different ways to consume information. Think about how you can make the process a little more fun for every individual. Sometimes, you need to forget the goal a little and think more of the process.
• An experience that is so rewarding but is difficult is not something that somebody would be willing to do.
• Oftentimes great intentions do not turn into a sale if you can’t provide a promise or a more immediate reward.
• You can’t always look at your target market in terms of a single persona. 

The Buzz – Our Innovation Round

Here are Zach’s answers to the questions of our Innovation round. Listen to the interview to get the full scoop.

1. #1 thing to be more innovative – Travel. Immerse yourself in something that is foreign to you.
2. Best thing for new ideas – Dig as far down to the core of it as possible.
3. Favourite tool for innovation – Audible, Notion
4. Keep project / client on track – Get all possible ideas on the table. Define the deliverables and scope of work.
5. Differentiate – Go deep in a way that helps you really understand what you are working on. You can’t find a non-obvious and differentiated solution by looking at what everybody else is doing. You need to figure out why things work the way that they do.

To Be a Leader

Figure out a way to build a little reward for the people you are trying to serve in whatever it is that you are doing. When you can take your solution from a point where it’s delivering value and it imparts a bit of joy on a regular basis, that’s the point where your thing might just become “the thing” in a good way.

Reach Out

You can reach out and thank Zach through their website and on LinkedIn. 

Suggested Guest

Zach suggested I interview Katrina Anderson of Clinician Nexus. So Katrina, keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation from us to the InnovaBuzz podcast, courtesy of Zach McGill.

Links

• Website – Perk Health
• Website – Perk Motivation
• Twitter – @Zacharyzam
• LinkedIn

Cool things about Zach

• He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering and Entrepreneurship from the University of Minnesota.
• He was a Minnesota Cup Finalist, the Nation’s largest statewide business plan competition for an innovative corporate health and wellness product and business model.
• He was a Division Winner and Social Impact Award Winner of Biz Pitch.

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