Michael Colling-Tuck

Most healthcare companies create one clinical pitch and leave their sales reps to translate it for finance, operations, procurement, and the C-suite. It's guesswork. And the variance between what one rep says versus another is killing deals.I've watched this pattern for 20 years: a rep wins the clinical champion and thinks they've done the hard work. Wrong. That's just the starting gate. The real challenge is stakeholder management—adapting your message so finance understands ROI.

Your distribution partner has "strong market relationships" and promised results. Twelve months later, you've spent €150K supporting them and generated €40K in revenue. The problem isn't the partner—it's handing them responsibility for strategic demand creation they were never equipped to do. Strategic market entry requires identifying key opinion leaders yourself, building direct relationships through VIP engagement, then handing qualified opportunities to partners.

Marketing in healthcare is often criticised for being hard to measure. The truth is its value is not in finding customers, but in advancing them along the journey. With customer journey mapping, CRM tracking, and targeted outreach, marketing can prove its role as a growth engine.