Latest / Clinician to CEO : Export Your Medical Device With Confidence By Overcoming Go To Market Roadblocks For Medtech Growth / #238 | How to Know If Your Next MedTech Export Exhibition Is Worth the Investment

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#238 | How to Know If Your Next MedTech Export Exhibition Is Worth the Investment · Clinician to CEO : Export Your Medical Device With Confidence By Overcoming Go To Market Roadblocks For Medtech Growth

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  The one thing that you're gonna learn in today's episode is why attending an exhibition should be a deliberate part of your commercial strategy rather than something you do simply because you've always done it or because everyone else does
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  it.
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  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.
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  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 learn on today's episode are, number one, why attending the same exhibitions year after year doesn't necessarily mean that they are the right exhibitions for your business.
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  Number two, how to decide whether an exhibition actually supports your commercial objectives whatever those objectives are.
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  It may be finding distributors, it may be entering new markets or growing existing business.
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  And then finally, number three, why measuring the return on your exhibition investment should start before you book the stand, not after the event.
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  Now the reason that I'm talking about this topic today is because we're right in the middle of exhibition and conference season.
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  There's lots of big med tech and healthcare exhibitions ongoing and upcoming.
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  And for many of you and many other med tech companies, exhibitions are a major part of your international growth activities.
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  Now, whether you're exporting for the first time, or you're looking for distributors, or you're exploring new markets, or even just trying to grow your existing business, then done right, exhibitions can be amazingly valuable, and I definitely attended my
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  fair share over the past twenty-five, thirty years.
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  But here's something that I've always noticed, even when I was a novice.
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  I used to always wonder that why when you ask the company why they're attending a particular exhibition, quite often I found that the answer was we always go there," or we have to be there 'cause all our competitors
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  are there."
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  I've heard that loads of times.
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  "Oh, if we don't go, then it's like we're no longer in the market and that people have to see us at the exhibition."
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  And to be fair, I've always had a problem with that because I was always told, when you're managing a business, spend the money like it's your own money.
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  And if I'm gonna spend ten, twenty, thirty thousand pounds or even considerably more i- is that answer really a good enough reason to go to an exhibition?
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  I've never thought it was.
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  I've always thought that attending an exhibition should be part of a cohesive commercial strategy.
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  And going to the exhibition shouldn't be an end in itself, i.e., the exhibition isn't the commercial strategy.
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  It's an activity that should be part of that commercial strategy.
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  And that reminds me of an experience I had when I went into a business and it was an, an export business, and it was actually when I first started, in export, actually, I remember sitting there, and we were
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  going through our marketing plans And I was told yeah, so Hakeem, we need to sign off this exhibition which comes up in six months.
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  So I innocently asked, as I always ask, "Okay, so what are we expecting to get out of it?"
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  And the answer We went last year and it was really good."
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  So I said, "Okay, so last year, how much did it cost?"
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  And they said, "Oh yeah, it cost thirty grand."
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  Okay, no problem.
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  And then what, what business did we get out of it?
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  'I don't really think we got any business out of it.'
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  I go, 'Okay.
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  So the year before, did we go?'
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  'Yes, we did.'
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  'Okay, and then how much did that cost?'
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  'Oh, that's fifty grand because we had a lot more people going.'
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  'And then what did we deliver from it?'
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  And the answer again was we don't know.
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  We didn't really measure it.
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  We didn't really get anything out of it.'
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  So obviously I just said, 'Okay, so we're not going to that conference this year, and we're not gonna go to that conference again until we have a very clear plan of what we're gonna be measuring and how we're
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  gonna track it.'
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  And from that point forward, I always made sure that when we went to exhibition that we had a tracker and we could then measure, all the leads we got.
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  We would then specifically start tracking all those leads and all the activity that we were doing against them, and then what if anything, we were delivering.
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  So then the next time we went, we would be able to have a very clear idea of how much we spent and then how much we got back that situation, really was the one that made me start analyzing
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  exhibitions and how we manage them as part of an export strategy and as part of a commercial strategy because everybody spends a lot of time planning exhibitions.
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  We look at the stand, we look at the location, we look at the marketing materials.
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  We then start focusing on who's going, who's the best person to be there, where are we gonna stay all that sort of good stuff.
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  But my question always is and to my mind, the most important question is: how much time do we actually spend defining what we're trying to achieve commercially from that meeting?
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  Because surely that's got to be the starting point of any activity.
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  You've got to be surely thinking about what's the end game, what we're trying to achieve, and then how are we gonna achieve it.
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  And that's what I'm talking about in terms of commercial strategy.
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  The exhibition should be part of that commercial strategy.
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  So don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say you shouldn't go to exhibitions 'cause I'm a big believer in exhibitions when they're done right.
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  I've met lots of great customers at exhibitions.
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  I've developed really good relationships with existing distributors.
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  I've discovered opportunities that I probably wouldn't have found had I not attended those exhibitions.
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  But the key is knowing why you're going and then defining success criteria based on that.
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  And obviously, the success cri-criteria depends on the reason why you're going, doesn't it?
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  So if your objective is to enter a new market, then maybe the success is around identifying three genuinely suitable distribution partners.
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  Whereas if you're already established on that market, perhaps your success criteria is you're going over there to generate new sales opportunities with those existing customers or, find a way to strengthen those relationships.
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  But again, you wanna make sure that you know what it is and that you can track it.
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  So if it is strengthening relationships how are you gonna track that?
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  C-'cause if that is your objective, it may be more cost-effective to just go out of exhibition season when things aren't as expensive.
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  And then lastly Again, these are just examples.
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  You may simply be trying to understand the market or the competition in that market and whether there's actually an opportunity for your product.
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  Now, if that is your objective, you have to then define what the success measures are gonna be and how you're gonna measure those over a period of time.
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  And on all of these, the- these three examples that I've given, all perfectly legitimate reasons, but obviously they're different objectives, and therefore they need different measures of success.
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  So let's imagine that you spent twenty-five grand attending an exhibition and you come back with two hundred leads.
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  Now, in the old way of thinking, you've had a fantastic exhibition everyone's really delighted with that two hundred leads.
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  Oh, it's unbelievable.
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  But then six months later, you've generated no meaningful business from those leads.
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  Now, if you compare that with another exhibition where you only have ten conversations, when you come back, people are gonna say, "We've only got ten leads."
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  Automatically, people are thinking that wasn't a very effective exhibition."
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  But what happens if one of those conversations leads to a distributor appointment that then generates two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in sales over the next two years?
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  Which exhibition is more successful?
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  Because if you're measuring it in terms of sales, you've then been able to measure that first one didn't deliver any.
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  The second one has delivered two hundred and fifty thousand pounds worth of sales.
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  So it's obvious which one was more successful.
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  But it depends on what you were trying to achieve.
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  But in my mind, to be fair, You should al- always be trying to achieve a way that you're driving sales.
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  So even if you are trying to strengthen relationships or you're looking for new distributors, the, the end game is that you want to be doing more sales.
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  So that's the point that you're trying to get to all the time.
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  But the key thing is you can't meaningfully measure success if you haven't defined what success looks like in the first place, and that's the point, isn't it?
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  You need to know what success is gonna look like.
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  And remember, the cost of an exhibition isn't just the exhibition stand.
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  You all know this.
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  It's travel, it's hotels, it's the staff time, 'cause if the, the staff are at an exhibition, they're not somewhere else, so they can't be doing something else that may well lead to sales and an advance of your business,
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  and it's also the preparation all the preparation that you should be doing before, and then all of the follow-up activity once you get back.
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  And that's a significant investment in cash, but it's also a significant investment in time.
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  So surely, with all that said, We should be applying the same commercial discipline to exhibitions that you would in any other major investment.
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  It shouldn't just be, "Oh we always go there, so we're gonna spend loads of money on it."
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  So here's a little Hypothetical scenario today.
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  to finish off the episode for you to think about Yeah, You're CEO of a med tech company.
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  You've attended the same international exhibition for the last five years, and it costs you £30,000 annually.
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  You generate plenty of leads, but you've never properly measured how much business those leads produce, and your team wants to book it again next year.
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  Sound familiar?
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  What do you do?
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  Do you A, do you book it?
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  It's an important industry event, and you need to maintain your presence.
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  Do you B, stop attending until you can demonstrate a financial return?
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  Or do you C, review your commercial objectives, establish what the exhibition needs to deliver, and establish what you want the exhibition to deliver and what it needs to deliver, and then decide whether it's the best use of your
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  budget.
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  Or do you D, reduce your stand size and spend the savings on other marketing activities?
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  So What is your answer?
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  Because for me, it's C.
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  And the reason it's C is because I-- it's my budget, and I've gotta spend it, and I've only got a certain amount of s-budget, haven't I?
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  So I need to make sure that I'm using that budget in the right areas.
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  So what I don't want you to take away from this episode is that I'm that I'm suggesting that exhibitions are a waste of money.
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  They're only a waste of money if you don't have a clear view after why you're doing them and what you're trying to achieve from them 'cause once you know what you try to achieve from them, you can then
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  measure the r- return on investment of that activity.
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  I've put in 30 grand, and over the last six months, 12 months, we've earned 100 grand.
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  That's an effective commercial tool within your commercial strategy.
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  However, the converse is even if you spent five grand, I've spent five grand but we've delivered absolutely nothing.
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  That's probably a conference you're gonna think twice about going again because once you start to understand that with your strategy, sometimes an exhibition might mean exhibiting, but sometimes it might mean attending without a stand, and sometimes it may
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  actually mean not going at all.
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  So my final thought really on exhibitions is before you book your next exhibition, ask yourself three simple questions.
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  One, why are you going?
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  Number two, what does success actually look like?
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  Number three, how are you going to measure if it has been successful?
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  Because if your answer, to why are we going is we've always gone there," it's not a commercial strategy, and neither is everyone else is going, and our competitors are going."
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  In fact, this exhibition as part of your strategy it's something that I'm gonna be exploring with Liali at Lab Innovations in November, where we'll be looking at how exhibitions fit into a wider commercial and international growth strategy.
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  And perhaps the most important question, isn't whether you can afford to attend your next exhibition, it's whether you can justify the investment.
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  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.
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  Hakeem: Book a healthcare export accelerator diagnostic Call with me.
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  Hakeem: Use my link in the show notes.
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  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.
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  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.