Latest / Zero Friction / Mastering LinkedIn for MedTech Growth
Transcript
- Ahmed Shahzad: Hey there, I'm Terry Kucholuches, founder of RevRX AI. We remove friction and architect revenue for medtech and consumer health practices. Hey there, this is Terry Kucholuches. You are on Zero Friction Podcast, and we have a wonderful guest today, Priya Shah, who is the founder of Shaw Squared Consulting, and she is a social media expert that helps grow state companies. become more prominent in their space that elevates them and creates and removes friction from them, whether it's bringing things to market or also if they're in their fundraising stages, she helps them find a track of investors to get them moving as well. So in order to get started, the first thing we do is sort of invite our guests to give a little personal background. And then Priya, why don't you tell us what you do and how you do it? Sure. And I'm really excited to be here too, Terry. So my background is that I actually started in journalism. ⁓ I have a journalism degree that quickly shifted into public relations. ⁓ and I started in more of the consumer space and represented a lot of kind of hospitality and food and beverage and That was fulfilling when I was really young in my career, but I was looking for something more and made a a soft pivot, I would say, into nutrition and obesity medicine that then eventually led me further into the space of really health tech, med tech, ⁓ everything in the healthcare and life sciences space. Definitely a social media strategist would be the way that I approach things, but really I look at these channels, especially for B2B LinkedIn, as being a business system. And so I always love being able to show that thorough line between where they see maybe it as a content engine and instead seeing how it then becomes a connection point between pretty much every department within their organization. Well that's amazing little background. And I think You know, having a little diversification early in your career is always a great beneficial foundation for other things that you can do as well. But let's talk about like the people that you work with. So you're dealing with probably founders, executives, inventors and these growth stage companies. Tell us little bit, you know, about what you're doing today and and how you're helping people sort of get to that next step. Sure. So oftentimes I'm coming in, like we said, ⁓ the growth stage when they've really kind of realized who they are and what they want to do. So they're not in that early stage, but they're maybe getting ready for a big product launch or they're waiting on that clearance and they're wanting to hit the go button. So I come in and really help them with building not only the foundation for the company as saying who are we and how can we have this as a thorough line or what specific topics are kind of connected to our brand, but also helping them enable their people. So that's the founders, the executives understanding the power of their own voice. Because I think at the end of the day, we continuously look at it. People buy from people, even in the most in B2B companies. That's how it is. So when we can articulate the why through people, I think it really just helps these companies accelerate a lot faster. You know, that's the why part is probably a big part. And then, you know, I would wonder. How much does trust come into play and how do you help, especially on the investment side, right? Like there's whether it's a B2B selling play or whether it's a B2B investment play, I'm sure trust at a very high level is an important component. How do you and what you do every day is how do you help leaders and founders build that trust and that authority that gets them to that next step? Yes. And I think trust is tricky, right? Because It's something that is nuanced and it's not like we have ⁓ an easy plan of do this and then you build trust. I think it really comes down to a few components. One being really clear in who you are and why you're doing what you're doing. And that can also be incorporating, like we were saying with the why, the the proof points, you know, the data, the hard evidence of what is going on and why this is currently top of mind. For a pain point and then the solution that you're providing. So I think having that really clear message is key, but also doing it consistently is also very key because we have seen people be wishy washy where they're saying one thing over here and saying something else over there. Well, that's a great way to just take all the trust that you've built and throw it out the window because no one's gonna trust someone that's talking out of both sides of their mouth. Right. Well, and that's and how do you help, you know, another thing I probably really important too is like in today's healthcare environment, creating value is a really important component, right? So especially with early stage companies, how do you get owners, founders, inventors to really focus on the value piece? Because a lot of times these projects are science projects and then somebody has to come in and figure out like what's the real true value in the marketplace. So What does your role play and that evolution from the science project into a real true product and then the value creation that that product is designed to build? Sure. And that can be different for different audiences, of course. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, what's interesting is that especially working with B2B companies, oftentimes they're focused on the cost savings or they're focused on, you know, some of those components that are those hard figures. And that's great for a certain audience. But if you're trying to connect, let's say, to a surgeon who is just slammed and really the value point instead is reducing friction and maybe simplifying workflow, then you need to also keep in mind that the same message isn't going to work for every single person. So identifying the different value points, but also saying things like, okay, I know I'm a B2B company. And my end buyer is another company. But to strengthen that message, you actually need to get consumers sometimes on board, even if it's something that is only happening in a hospital system. So a great example is oftentimes it's the storytelling. It's who is the end user? Okay, we're doing this all in a hospital setting. Well, that means it's eventually getting to a patient or two people. So we need to tell the patient story of How did said product then improve the lives of the patient so that that patient story can ring through for different reasons? One being just that proof point, but also I've seen interestingly an a really big increase in direct to consumer being an almost intermediary marketing strategy so that if someone is hearing about a product that's really innovative and exciting and they hear that value point. From both the, I would say, maybe a surgeon partner and a patient. A patient is hearing about that story, sharing that within their community. And it's then leading them to want to work with that surgeon and say, Hey, I came here because I saw that story about that patient. It really just kind of made me realize I want to have that innovative product as part of my story or part of my family's story. And here I am requesting it. I maybe I traveled really far to get here. So I think there's power in that as well of hearing from the other side the value of, ⁓ patients are asking for this product. I probably should look into it. Especially if it's a hospital system where they come to you and say, Hey, I want to use this, and you don't have it. So I think there's so many different things that we can do to articulate that value and sometimes it's not linear. Sometimes it's really thinking outside the box of how can I show this value point in a way that's going to get to my end user, but in a really creative way. What do you find that ⁓ the clients that you're working with today, if there was one or two friction points that were the big ones, what are they like let's just talk about the friction points first and then I'd love to dive into how you are supporting and removing that friction. But let's just talk about like, you know, one or two of the top friction points that you see your clients face every single day? I would say number one is budget and number two is time. Okay. So let's talk about budget a little bit. What's the budget problem? What's the budget friction? Not having the budget or, you know I think there's there's two sides of it. One is the allocation of the budget, why this should be allocated towards these specific solutions or tools or whatever it might be, but also using that almost as an excuse. So saying that since we can't have this big robust fancy tool, well, we can't do this at all. And I'm a firm believer that there are different ways that we can shape things that don't necessarily mean you need to have the, you know, amazing premium tool to still be able to get your point across and doesn't mean that you should be invisible. So oftentimes I see budget being used as an excuse, but I also think it might be a way for them to say, okay, well, since we can't have that really fancy tool, then we can't do this at all. Right. And instead being able to meet them where they are and identify the tools that they do have. That might have an opportunity to create a temporary solution so that they can at least get the wheels started rather than being in a holding pattern. So I'd say that's a that's a big one. So what's the the simplest thing for them to actually fix today? Like if they were as a founder of a small startup company, what are the like three or four basic things that they should be doing to remove friction from people who want to get to know who they are? I would say first and foremost, just make sure everything's updated. A lot of the times it I think they focus just on that company page of saying, okay, well, my company page is updated. But what about all the leaders? Are their company or are their profiles updated? Have you created anything internally that can be used to kind of share the messaging that maybe goes out in if you're using, let's say, sales navigator through LinkedIn in the messaging that your sales team is sharing through there, making sure it all has that consistency. I think consistency is key because we want to make sure that we're saying the same thing in a repeated way and not causing friction by having one person say one thing and and another person say another thing on the same team. So I would say just making sure that all of your messaging and all of your key points are updated, especially if you're you have a team of people that are going out on your behalf. And then I would also say once you've identified what that is, stick to it. Don't try to kind of flip-flop into different areas that maybe seem really interesting or are you know, hot topics, I always say just stick with two to three things that you really know well and consistently show up with those messaging points and reiterating the why. So for founders, especially they don't have time, especially on those earlier stages. They know that they don't have time. What can I do? I always say, I would rather you show up and engage and comment and just be active for even 10 minutes, a couple of times a week, than to try to put all of your energy into posting something. And I call it the posting ghost. Don't do the posting and then just all of a sudden just, okay, I did it and I'm gonna now exit stage left. It really takes that nurturing. And so I would rather you not post and instead just engage in that time frame. if that's all the time that you can dedicate. So I'm guessing the company pages are not a lot of value creation, at least on the LinkedIn side of things. So not from an organic standpoint. And I've been kind of touting this to a lot of companies of saying, you know, if you're putting all of your all of your energy into organic content on your company page, you're really missing out because we're at a about one of the follower feed. So that is, you know, that is very, very small versus I would say, it's more likely that you would see somebody going actually from a a founder page to the company page. They might click on, ⁓ they're, you know, the founder of XYZ company. And so I've I've made it a really big point to highlight the importance of making sure that is the right information. And you're presenting your best work there. You know, you're using that featured section to really highlight the posts that articulate who you are. or a milestone or something that is a really, really strong value because that first impression is everything. And it's just really important for that to really highlight and show what your company is and why it matters. Yeah, probably make sure that that webpage is really easy to find on that about section too. It's probably a good, you know don't bury it, you know, don't bury the lead. Exactly, you know, don't don't make it hard for people to find you, right? Exactly. I'd like to pivot a little bit, you know. Sure. And I want to set up the the framework of the discussion a little bit because I know you deal with a lot of early stage companies and you know, your social media and your PR and your branding work all line up with helping these early stage companies engage in a really challenging market today for money. Right. So from a healthcare and a med tech perspective, and I see this every day with the people that I work with is that the venture money, the private equity money is sort of I'm not gonna say leaving the healthcare space, but they are there's a lot of alternatives out there, especially with AI and AI and healthcare. They still might be in healthcare, but they're kind of leaving the device and the tech space, which has for historical years always been sort of the the prints of you know, getting the money for the device side, right? Exactly. And now with AI, there's a lot of healthcare technologies that can go to market within weeks and not have regulatory pathway. And, you know, from an investor perspective, that's really can be interesting, right? Mm-hmm. And so a lot of these early stage companies are now turning to family office and angel investors. Sure. And so I know that you've Built like this really nice sort of, you know, practice around that connecting these two communities of the investor and the investee. Tell us a little bit about the friction and what you're doing to support both sides of the fence there. Yes. I think oftentimes from the investor side is that they're getting either bombarded by the wrong companies or they're just kind of dealing with a lot of. clutter. So they're either doing some deal flow sharing with other either family offices or partners that they have in the space. So they're kind of coming in as a consensus. And so they want to be able to invest in the right things. But I also think family office is very interesting because they're not beholden to the same things that other investors are, same with angels. So it's a lot of kind of connecting into what matters to them. And I think that's where those really compelling stories that kind of touch their heartstrings. Oftentimes the reason that family offices invest in specific places is that it's a it's a personal connection to something they care about. And so if you're wanting to go into that kind of direction, then it's really important for you to think about it from that perspective, that it's not the same type of investor as what you're seeing on the side of wanting to see just numbers on it. Out of pay, they want to see a change, especially if that's what they want to invest their own money in. So I would say for those companies that are focused in those spaces, if you are trying to get that sort of money, then you really have to do your homework and you really have to hear their stories of the people that are working at these family offices to understand how you should position what you're doing and why in that medtech space. And I think if you can kind of crack that code of hearing why they're investing in a specific area of healthcare, and often it's connected to a family member or personal experience, then bring that up, incorporate that into why you're reaching out to them. You know, make it so that it it is personal. It is a person to person interaction. So from that side, yes. And then on the on the flip side, I think. when I go in and I help the family offices is really helping them with their portfolios, is helping them really see it as often more than just the company. So they are, ⁓ there's a really big investing style called impact investing. And so they want to also leave a legacy. So it's beyond just, okay, we're investing in this company. Okay. See you later. They want to actually see a change and an improvement. And so they're nurturing these companies. So I often come in from that side too to help them and offer some guidance and support for their portfolio companies so that they are successful. Because I think regardless of if it's family office or private equity or venture capital, everyone wants to see these companies succeed if they've given any sort of money. And so anything that we can do to just guide them on the right path as they are getting bigger and they're maybe looking at you know, another round of funding, but they are at a bigger state, I would say, you know, helping guide them on when it is appropriate to go forward with more of the number side than the personal connection side. And how do you help them think bigger? What's some of the things that you do to help these companies think bigger in that just trying to think through a couple of situations that I've actually just recently engaged in just Getting them the budget problem is always the big thing and they don't again weighing spending one dollar here versus one dollar there, like how do you convince people to spend money on how they look to the outside versus getting to the next step in because again, one dollar spent here is another dollar not being spent there, typically, right? So let's say it's developing the next ergonomic handle versus what they have. Or let's say that it's developing some marketing or branding materials or like how do you help them sort of balance their image versus what they do and how they do it? And I think it really is dependent on where they are and what they're trying to achieve. Cause sometimes it's kind of a we always have to look at it as an ebb and flow. There's oftentimes that we need to put more energy and time into one component of marketing, depending on what you're trying to do for the outcome or what you're preparing for and then You can kind of pull back a little bit and then move into a different space. And I think, you know, for me it's it's seeing that big picture. Oftentimes I'm going in and there's no strategy. There's no strategy of kind of this roadmap of saying, well, we're doing everything, we're doing nothing. And it's it's all baby steps. We have to slowly climb the mountain, as as we've shared before and ⁓ other conversations, but it's a slow and steady pace. And so I think sometimes it's seeing If you have limited budget, what's going to get you the most paying for your buck? And that can mean putting some other things on hold for right now. But I would always say having a clear understanding of your business and that branding component and messaging component, that is a critical piece, no matter what place you're in. And so yeah, you might not want to do paid advertising right now, and that's okay. But if you don't have that kind of honed in, it's gonna be really hard to get anything else done in any other space. And I will say this there is a huge value in companies that appear bigger than they are. And I say that as there are some some like tricks of the trade kind of with there's there's nothing wrong with templatizing things, creating kind of some simple templates that you use because you know who else does that really big. Fortune 100 companies. Right. So do that. Make it so that not every single social image is unique. Like you're not in that space. You want to appear bigger, then pick five different templates, stick to them and rotate them. And that will actually make you appear bigger than doing these custom things every single time. What's the one biggest piece of advice you would give to any founder that has a new idea today and Let's say they had a, you know, a five hundred thousand dollar investment to get things started. How how much of that would you allocate towards, you know, your branding foundation and what were the things that you would like help them sort of build and develop to s help them get jump started, give them an image that's bigger than life? Because everybody's looking, right? Everybody and before anybody buys anything in the world, they've done 80% of their investigation has been done without the person that they're gonna talk to. Right. So, you know, your digital profile on LinkedIn, your website, you know, I'm sure there's other, you know, whether it's LinkedIn or other social media, depending on your market space. Like I don't know how important Meta is to a medical device company, like in terms of, you know, how would you have them sort of allocate their time and their investment and where they would spend for PR perspective? Sure. And I also would say, you know, it's kind of dependent on you couldn't you could spend that whole chunk of change, of course, on on it. But I think also understanding that there is going to be an evolution of your company. And if you're in a startup stage, it really just comes down to having some really critical pieces. Of course, having a really solid logo. I mean, that's like basic. But also I think sometimes It's more so in picture and then identifying what happens. So sometimes I work with a lot of fractional CMOs. So I would say if I'm doing, let's say, an audit and then trying to put together a social strategy, that's the first stage of what I do. And I'm identifying, actually there's a bigger problem here because we don't have a full picture. Yeah, I'm a chunk of the the marketing story, but we're missing a big piece. I would probably lead them to one of my fractional CMOs to really build that. Or in this case, sometimes I come in and they think, ⁓ we need social. And instead, they actually need someone like you to build out, you know, sales or an operations expert. And I need to bring in a fractional COO. So oftentimes I say to them, if you're gonna invest, invest in the in the bigger kind of components of your plan and then identify. within it where you want to start. So I might not be the first one you start with, but I might also, I might be, I might be. But after you've built out kind of that big picture vision for what you want to be for marketing. Yes. Yeah. Building the story, right? I'm sure building creating the value proposition, the pitch book or various different pitch books depending on your audience, whether it's a technical, clinical investor you know, business return pitch book. Website I'm sure is like foundationally critical. I gotta have that. And the good ni the good thing about websites is is you can I can actually build a website in 30 minutes if I have the right materials these days. It's websites are not really that challenging anymore, at least to get off the ground. It might not be built for commerce or it might be not built for SEO, but if people are clicking on a profile and want to go click on your website, it it's there for you. LinkedIn would be yeah. And I would also say with that website piece, oftentimes we put too much energy and time in into those websites. And sometimes when you're in those earlier stages, if you have a rolling landing page kind of home page structure, that's all you need. Because most people, if you go and look into Google Analytic Data, look how often they're staying on your homepage and maybe one other page, but instead they're building these like very big multi page, very much so something I would associate with like a a big brand for these tiny startups. Just get your point across and get it, you know, really concise in a way that makes it simple to understand who you are, what you do, and why it matters. That's it. One, two, three, right? Who you are, what you do and why it's important, right? And so that's there's a great piece of advice. Well let's do this. I Think that's a great point. Anything else you want to kind of cover? I just first want to say thank you so much. I think what you do is so undervalued and I think more companies need to actually spend time on their image and what people think and how they do it. And I've read through and worked with you on sort of your LinkedIn imaging components and they're simple, they're easy to execute, and you bring a a tremendous amount of value. Thank you. But Here's my last question. Okay. So, and it's a question that I I try to ask every guest. Sometimes I forget, but and one day it's my hope to have an episode of all these answers. But what would today's Priya offer advice to, and I'll go back and I'll just say a pivotal time in your life at twenty-two, like graduating, commencing from college, and then going into an adult world, right? Mm-hmm. What would be the one piece of advice you would give 22-year-old Priya today? Yes. And I actually love this question. But I always reflect back on this one kind of piece of advice is like a recurring for me. It's trust the process. Really trust the process. Because I think oftentimes we forget that in order for us to get from point A to point B, there's a lot of other things that happen along the way. And all of them contribute to who we are today. And if you feel like you want to try to fast track that, you're gonna miss out on some really crucial experiences and opportunities that are gonna fuel who you are later down the road. Because when we are in those early twenties, we have no idea what we wanna do. We don't know really anything about life yet. And I mean, we have no responsibility. We have nothing. Really, except for ourselves. And I think oftentimes it's those little bumps along the way that really help us find our purpose and who we want to be in where we are today. And so trust that process. Trust the ups, trust the downs, trust it all. That's amazing. Great advice. And for you control freaks out there, you gotta let go and trust the process, right? Mm-hmm. A hundred percent. Well, good. Well, Priya, it has been so much fun and Very learning and I just I would just want to thank you for being on here and looking forward to seeing you grow your business and help others grow theirs as well. Thank you, Terry. So let's connect. Let's find where your revenue's getting stuck. Book a call at RevRXAI and build your revenue engine.