Latest / Clinician to CEO : Export Your Medical Device With Confidence By Overcoming Go To Market Roadblocks For Medtech Growth / #223 | 5 Things You Need to Know Before Exporting Your MedTech Product to the GCC (for Cinicians)

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#223 | 5 Things You Need to Know Before Exporting Your MedTech Product to the GCC (for Cinicians) · Clinician to CEO : Export Your Medical Device With Confidence By Overcoming Go To Market Roadblocks For Medtech Growth

• 0:00
  So in today's episode, you're gonna learn the five things that you need to consider before appointing a distributor in the Gulf Cooperation Council, otherwise known as the GCC, but only if you actually want your medical device to get
• 0:12
  adopted and start generating sales.
• 0:15
  Welcome to Clinician to CEO, the podcast helping clinicians simplify your go-to-market strategy so that you can stop guessing and turn your working prototypes into international MedTech businesses.
• 0:27
  I'm your host, Hakeem Aade.
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  Let's get started.
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  The three things that you're gonna discover in today's episode are, number one, what makes a medical device commercially attractive to a GCC distributor beyond simply having a good product.
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  Number two, what your distributor should actually be doing in the first few months to build demand for your product.
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  And number three, what manufacturers need to do alongside their distributor to actually drive adoption and sales.
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  So in episode 221, I spoke to Sameh Salama, who has more than 20 years' experience distributing medical devices across the GCC.
• 1:02
  And from that conversation, here are five key takeaways that I think every medical device manufacturer should do before trying to build a market in the GCC.
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  So takeaway number one, clinical value has to come first.
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  Before worrying about distributors or market size, what you want to do is be clear about the clinical value that your product delivers and whether or not you have enough evidence to support it.
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  So the action I want you to take here is write down the specific clinical problem that you solve, what's the value that you add, and what evidence do you have to prove that value.
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  Mark those out of ten, and if you have anything that's less than a seven out of ten, then go and build that particular area up before you start contacting distributors.
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  Takeaway number two, distribution doesn't create demand.
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  So lots of people will think that you just appoint a distributor and then all of a sudden you've created a market.
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  Unfortunately, if it was that easy, everybody would be doing it.
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  You'll still need KOLs, clinical education.
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  You're gonna need demonstrations.
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  You're gonna need lots of workshops and training.
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  And Sameh described how one of their successful products reached more than eighty percent market share after they invested heavily in key opinion leaders, awareness, clinical education, and ongoing support.
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  so quite clearly, the product didn't create the market.
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  It was the activity around that product that created the market.
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  So the action here is go and identify three clinicians in your target market who could evaluate, use, and ultimately advocate for your product, 'cause that's the key thing, you want them to advocate for it.
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  and then decide what you need to do to get your product into their hands.
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  Then takeaway number three, choose your distributor based on fit, not size.
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  This is one of my biggest bugbears, to be honest.
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  Everyone always looks at the biggest distributor and says, "Look at the reach," and thinks that they are gonna be the best.
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  But the biggest distributor isn't necessarily the best.
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  The portfolio fit, the customer relationships, and the ability to execute are a hundred times more important than the size of that distributor.
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  So the action that I want you to take here is ask every potential distributor for a ninety-day activity plan Before you appoint them.
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  If they don't have one, or if they're reticent and they don't really want to give you one, that's a massive red flag, and think again about that distributor.
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  Takeaway number four, measure activity before you measure sales.
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  This is one of the biggest takeaways I had from the conversation actually.
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  And it's one that I'm always pushing people to try and understand.
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  In the first few months of any distributor relationship or any relationship in a new market, particularly with a product requiring behavioral change or clinical education, sales may well be a lagging indicator, i.e., you're not gonna get sales immediately.
• 3:32
  So it's perfectly possible for a distributor to have low initial sales, even though they're doing exactly the right things to build that market, and over the long term, you get much better and stronger sales.
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  The key thing that you want to look at is activity, which would describe as leading at, indicators, as opposed to lagging indicators.
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  Because if you put the right activity and the right inputs in, the right outputs will come.
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  And you don't want to be, you know, really harassing your distributor early doors because sales aren't coming immediately if they're putting the right activity in.
• 4:00
  So the action I want you to take is to agree to three to five leading indicators that you think will drive that business forward, and agree these with your distributor before you launch with that distributor.
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  And when I'm talking about leading indicators, I'm talking things like how many key opinion leaders have you got engaged and, and are going to advocate for your product.
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  Have you got the number of clinical evaluations that have started, the number of hospitals targeted, number of workshops completed, number of clinical clinicians trained.
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  So what you wanna look at is what are the indicators that if you do these things will inevitably, eventually lead to sales.
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  Then you want to review all these things alongside sales every month and not just looking at sales.
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  Takeaway number five, your distributor can't build the market on their own.
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  The manufacturer, i.e.
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  you, still need to support clinical education, training, regulatory activity, and market development.
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  Because if you just want to give it to the distributor, I can guarantee you, you're not gonna support them, That distributor is gonna struggle in the market.
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  Not only are they going to struggle, but they are likely to then actually deprioritize your product for a product whose manufacturer is actively engaged.
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  So the action I want you to take here is before signing any agreement, any distribution agreement, put the first six months, of your support, the support that you're gonna give, into a plan, whether that's training, key opinion leader
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  engagement, clinical education, marketing, regulatory support, all the things that, that you're gonna give them that ensures that they will be successful.
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  Remember, they're your partner.
• 5:27
  They are an extension of you in that market because as I said earlier, if you're expecting the distributor to do all of that training, KOL engagement, et cetera, themselves, you're really not ready to appoint, a distributor.
• 5:38
  You need to be ready to actually support and work with them in the market So in summary, before entering any GCC country, create a one-page market entry plan and make sure that covers what the market is and the
• 5:52
  size of the market, the clinical value that you are offering to that market, what's the adoption pathway, and then obviously, what is your distributor profile that you require in then and appointing that distributor, and what manufacturing support are
• 6:05
  you gonna give?
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  Now, if you can't clearly explain each one of these five things on one page, then I would suggest that you're not ready to appoint a distributor yet.
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  So go back and wait until you've got all those things mapped out clearly and in detail before you start approaching distributors.
• 6:19
  So because getting your product into the GCC isn't or shouldn't be your key objective, getting it adopted in the GCC is what the objective should actually be.
• 6:30
  Hakeem: And if you're building a MedTech business and you're not sure whether your next move should be around evidence, market access, commercialization, distributor strategy.
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  Hakeem: Or adoption.
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  Hakeem: Do not guess.
• 6:41
  Hakeem: Book a healthcare export accelerator diagnostic Call with me.
• 6:45
  Hakeem: Use my link in the show notes.
• 6:47
  Hakeem: And in that session I'll help you identify the specific constraints blocking your momentum and the commercial move most likely to unlock your progress.
• 6:56
  Hakeem: Thanks for tuning in.
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  Hakeem: Until next time, thanks for listening.
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  Hakeem: Keep challenging your assumptions and keep growing.