MedZone Interview with CEO Joe Freeman and ChiroEco.com
MedZone CEO, Joe Freeman, had the opportunity to sit down with Dan Sosnoski from ChiroEco.com.
Chiropractic Economics Magazine is amongst the leaders in supplying chiropractors with resources, guidelines, industry news, and more - they even have the ultimate chiropractic college guide for people who may be considering entering the field.
Joe sat down with Dan to talk about MedZone's history and the implementation of MedZone's product line across different chiropractic and health subcategories like Olympic-level sports medicine and even everyday foot care. Thank you to Dan and everyone at ChiroEco for hosting such an amazing event, check out the interview or read the transcript below!
Dan Sosnoski: I'm Dan Sosnoski, Editor-in-Chief of Chiropractic Economics magazine. We're here at the Florida Chiropractic Association 2018 annual convention for our National. I'm joined here with Joe Freeman, he's the CEO of Medzone, makers of Painzone. It's a relatively new topical entrant in the market, but I'd like to talk with him a little about it because he's got an exceptional professional grade product that's only available through professional practices. Joe, thanks for joining me.
Joe Freeman: Thanks Dan, for having us very much.
Dan Sosnoski: All right, we've been following, your story as you've been entering into the highly competitive market. What are some reasons just in general, that chiropractors should keep a topical pain reliever in their practice?
Joe Freeman: We found as we talked to docs, we got into the space about December of '17. The doctors want a professional product that complements their care. We don't substitute anything, this is a compliment. They want something that's going to help with pain relief in between visits. They want something. There's obviously a revenue component to that, But the doctor's primary focus is having something that's professional grade, professional only, and that's going to help their patients. We've been lucky enough to offer some articles in your magazine, we've done some things that we've had a lot of conversations here. This is the company's first SCA and the reception's been really good.
Dan Sosnoski: Welcome to the National.
Joe Freeman: Yeah hey, it's a long day. I told my staff we only work half days and then I tell them 12 hours and they understand what it is.
Dan Sosnoski: We certainly know the feeling of that. If we weren't all wearing orthotics by the end of the day, I think we'd be wobbling on our feet.
Joe Freeman: You know what's funny about that? We have made so many new customers because at the end of the day people are taking our Painzone product and putting it on their feet. The pain reliever, the anti-inflammatory, takes the soreness out of the feet. We've had so many docs and vendors come up, and they're using it at night.
Dan Sosnoski: We know that topicals, if they follow that FDA monograph, and hue towards those specific ingredients, they are allowed to make specific claims regarding pain relief. What are some of the active ingredients that make Painzone so effective?
Joe Freeman: First of all, our product is three active ingredients - most others have one, some have two, but we have three. We have camphor, menthol and methyl salicylate, which is a wintergreen oil. By combining those three in a little bit higher potency, we're a more potent formula, more professional grade. You've got the mixture of some pain relief, you've got the mixture of anti-inflammatory, you've got the soothing piece that comes out of it, but we are FDA compliant. We're made in an FDA registered lab, everything's made in the USA, and so that gives people comfort too, that it's something that so we know where it's made, we know you're FDA compliant, because we are under strict rules by the FDA, because our product line has to be compliant with that monograph and so everything we do goes through regulatory review.
At the end of the day, it gives people a little bit more comfort in the fact that we're a quality ingredient, because actually, we've been around since 2001. Primarily with athletic trainers, so professional and collegiate teams, but now that we've gotten into the chiropractic space, they want to hear that same validation. They want to hear that same comfort level of what they're going to offer their patients.
Dan Sosnoski: Products that seem to do well in the sports arena if you will, are basically products that are proven on the field. The numbers on the scoreboard don't lie. The amount of time it takes an athlete return to active play, those numbers don't lie. Players and coaches aren't going to spend time with products that don't work, so that's why we normally track items that are doing well in the Olympics, at the professional sports level, the collegiate sports level. That's a form of testing in practice.
Joe Freeman: That's exactly right, and over the years our products have been in the Olympics, we are with pro teams, we are with collegiate teams. That's one of those things we're very blessed that our foundation's in athletic training and that's a great group of professionals who know, I know how to take care of athletes and we've been very lucky to have that as an option, and now migrating over to chiropractors. It lends a lot of credibility to that. So we do have professionals who are using our product. We do have results because they're reordering their product. And you've got long-standing relationships.
Dan Sosnoski: Are there any new products at your booth, or anything we haven't seen before that you're releasing here at the show?
Joe Freeman: Since this is our first show, there's a lot of our product line that's new period, because people are coming to get it. But what we have on the drawing board right now is we have some new sampling opportunities, some sampling tubes that we're giving to doctors, so we encourage people to come by, see that. See how they can give it to their patients. In the next few months, we're working on a gel to give as our pain reliever and were toying with a CBD version. We don't know if there's a way to fit into that, but whatever it is, it's got to live up to our standards of quality, our formulation with a hint of CBD to make it better. We're willing to open, but we're not willing to sacrifice our quality just because that's something that everybody is knowing right now and seeing, but we're going to continue. Since 2001 we've had great products, we're going to continue doing that and so the newness for us is just being at SCA. Next year, by the time we come back we'll have probably two, maybe three other things.
Dan Sosnoski: Well man, I was just over at your booth just a little while ago. You were mobbed.
Joe Freeman: We're tired, it's great. It's great and we encourage more people to come out, we got a lot of people, a lot of excitement. It's so fun. I was telling you earlier, it's so fun when people come by yesterday and they've got a sore neck, sore back, sore shoulder. They come back today, they're like "Okay, that stuff really works. We want some." And so we sign them up. We've signed up a lot of offices in the last day, just for people who used it on themselves, and that's very flattering. When we're sitting down late at night, figuring out, trying to get organized for the next day, it's very flattering when we hear stories like that.
Dan Sosnoski: If people want to visit you at your booth, what's your booth number here at the show?
Joe Freeman: Booth number 609. We're right Leander tables. We give a plug out to Leander. He draws a big crowd and we're right behind there. Dennis is a great guy. Come by and see us, we've got samples, we're playing games, we're making it fun. We've got some great giveaways, we've got socks, we have custom panes on socks. We tell people we're just trying to get our foot in the door of your practice.
Dan Sosnoski: All right, and if people want to visit you online to learn more about Painzone, where do they go?
Joe Freeman: You bet. You can go to our corporate website, it's medzonecorp.com. If you want to learn about our professional practices and our samples you can go to ipainzone.com. ipainzone.com.
Dan Sosnoski: All right Joe Freeman, thanks for coming by and talking with us.
Joe Freeman: Thanks Dan, we appreciate it very much.
Dan Sosnoski: All right.