When Your Company Outgrows Its Reputation

Welcome to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. On today’s episode, Brian Chee, Senior Director of Content Strategy and Communications at Net Health, joins Sara Payne to dive into the high-stakes challenge of transforming a brand faster than its reputation can keep up. With decades of growth and acquisitions, Net Health evolved into a multifaceted healthcare technology company, yet was still largely seen as a legacy EHR vendor. Brian Chee discusses how shifting this perception took far more than a new logo or message it required uncovering a unifying brand story, aligning a “house of brands” internally, and ensuring their new narrative resonated both with people and the increasingly important AI-driven market landscape. Our discussion explores the intricacies of brand repositioning in healthcare, why NetHealth prioritized brand narrative ahead of product innovation, and the complexities and rewards of driving internal alignment. Brian also shares how Net Health measures real-world impact tracking not just what customers think, but what AI models “say” about the brand. Thank you for being part of the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. The future of healthcare depends on it. Key Takeaways: 1. Brand Evolution Must Outpace Market Perceptions: Net Health’s transformation from a legacy EHR provider to an AI-native specialty intelligence company was hindered by outdated external perceptions. Brian Chee emphasizes that true repositioning means finding a story that unites disparate brands and communicates both legacy strengths and new ambitions well before the technology is fully visible to the market (02:09, 06:17). 2. Internal Alignment Is the Hardest and Most Vital Step: Achieving consensus among business units with deep attachment to their own brands was a “six-to-seven month” effort, marked by tension and debate up to the final hour. The turning point: investing significant time in listening tours and honest, sometimes challenging, dialogue to evangelize the bigger vision (12:07, 13:00). 3. Letting Brand Lead Business Innovation: Brian explains why Net Health deliberately moved branding ahead of complete product transformation, using a forward-looking narrative to set market expectations and begin changing conversations with both buyers and the press. An authentic commitment not just finished products was enough to credibly lead the repositioning (06:35, 09:04). 4. Marketing Now Means Changing Human and Machine Narratives: Success isn’t just about shifting market perceptions; it also includes influencing how AI and search engines represent your company. Brian describes how prioritizing earned media and PR has improved share of voice and domain authority, and even begun shifting AI-generated answers about Net Health’s expertise (25:38, 26:04). 5. Storytelling Is the Emotional Engine of Healthcare Marketing: With marketing becoming formulaic, Brian champions a return to authentic, human-centered stories, especially those told by real clients. These narratives become the backbone of brand-building, reinforcing emotional connections both internally and externally. The brand’s new mission, “helping clinicians stay present in moments that matter,” was shaped by stories from the field, not just frameworks or AI output (22:13, 40:01). Learn more about Net Health here. (https://www.nethealth.com/) Mentioned in this episode: Ready to earn your Authority? Does this episode have your wheels turning about how to take your healthcare marketing to the next level? Inprela is the communications firm helping health and health IT leaders turn expertise into influence people actually trust. Because authority can't be manufactured. It can only be earned, one idea, one story, one proof point at a time. Ready to earn yours? Visit us at inprela.com. Let's capture the authority your expertise deserves. Authority (https://health-marketing.captivate.fm...) Join us at HLTH 2026 in Las Vegas! We're headed to HLTH 2026 in Las Vegas, November 15 through 18, to hear from some of the industry’s top thought leaders about the ideas and innovations shaping what comes next. Health Marketing Collective listeners have access to a special $250 discount on a General Attendee pass with code H26HMC. We hope to see you there! Learn more and register at HLTH.com (https://health-marketing.captivate.fm...)