Five Critical Customer Motives You Need to Unravel
In this episode Pat Kothe recaps five critical customer motives that emerged from the first 10 episodes of the podcast and discusses why it is important for people within medical device companies to unravel them. He also discusses some of the issues we will begin to explore in future episodes, broadening out to include interviews with industry people, and why it is important to share the podcast with others you feel could benefit from the content, and how to best do so.
Mastering Medical Device:
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated using an automated transcription service and is minimally edited. Please forgive the mistakes contained within it.
Patrick Kothe 00:32
Welcome. Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. It's a solo episode. Past episodes we've had a guest that we've had a conversation with. Today's is just going to be me, there's a few things that I thought would be good to go over together. So that's, that's what we're going to do. So first of all, I'd like to say that the podcast has really gotten off to a great start. And it's grown a lot faster than now than what I predicted. So thanks to each of you. I've heard from many of you who've enjoyed the guests enjoyed learn about other specialties, and have told me that they picked up on on tips, different things that that you can do better, quite honestly, that's why this podcast exists. And I'm really looking forward to getting deeper into some of the issues our customers have raised in coming episodes, we're going to start blending in interviews with people from industry, and future episodes, I will continue to hear from our customers too. But I think it's important to hear from our peers, regarding hard how they're dealing with some of the topics that were raised by our customers. And also, in addition to things that are more tactical within a medical device company, I'm really looking forward to these discussions, because I always learn new things from people in other functional areas, from people in different companies or different market segments. And I know you will, too. But I think it's more important than ever, given what we've been through in the past year, all of us have had to be extremely adaptable to the circumstances that we've had to go through. And believe that we've done things differently, or we've adapted to doing things in a different way. And discovering that, and learning from each other about what has been done will be a very interesting exercise for us. The other thing is, it'll be interesting to see with these new ways of doing things, what's a permanent change? And what's a transitional change? And what's something that we're going to go back to. So are there things that have had such great benefits to us? And we realize, geez, I don't know why we didn't do this before. This is the new way of doing it. We're gonna find some things like that. And there's gonna be other things that we're going to go back to the way it was because it was more efficient that way. Many companies had to have reductions in force, in different areas of the company and company has been have been affected by that. And certainly the people have been affected by it, as well. So how are companies dealing with that? And how are individuals dealing with that, from an individual standpoint? Are you looking for new positions within the industry? Are you retooling your skills? Or have you decided that either I want to go do something by myself or I want to change industry, I think we're going to have a loss of knowledge moving out of the industry. Because a lot of these people are valuable employees, they just got caught up in in a bad situation. So our overall knowledge base within the industry is probably going to be taking a hit. Let's hope it's short term. And then, as I said, we found new ways of doing things that have made us more efficient in some in some areas. So some things like working from home. Everyone worldwide has had to do a lot of things from home. And some of it has been really well received, well received by the company well received by the individuals, some of it not so much. So what is the new reality going to look like? Is it going to affect where people work? How much office space is going to be needed by a company, whether you need flex space versus individual offices, whether people are going to have to rearrange their homes, are people going to be able to move to different locations because they don't have to be tied to one particular spot. Another thing that I found interesting is we've seen more marketing and less sales, I think some of the resources have been shifted, because we can't get our sales people into a hospital or into a facility. So we've had to use marketing to be able to do that. And one of the things I think within the industry is we have not leveraged marketing, marketing as well as we should have in the past. So this newfound knowledge and newfound resources being pushed into marketing, I think is going to be something that's going to be looked at to see is this the new way of doing things? Or do we want to go back to more a sales centric model. So that's one that I think is is going to be very interesting, because it affects the dollars the investment we've got in people, and the new technologies that we're bringing in and marketing that kind of leads into trade shows. So trade shows have gone virtual, and I haven't heard much many good things about virtual trade shows people were excited about trying it out. But it really hasn't panned out as being a real good way of interfacing with our customers, possibly with the large companies, but certainly not with the small companies that don't have as much to invest in a virtual tradeshow environment. So that whole value of a trade show has always been an interesting thing for people with an industry to say, am I really getting the payback for how much time effort and dollars and people that I have to throw into a trade show? Am I seeing the payoff. And now that we haven't had that for a year, are we going to go back to the trade show strategies that we had in the past are we gonna move to a different model? Same thing with clinical trials, clinical trials have been impacted by this this past year as well. So I have companies come up with new ways or new modifications, or new tactics that can use to make clinical trials more efficient. We've had to delay a lot of those things. A lot of patients were not involved in there, but have the people in clinical come up with ways of doing things more effectively. These are just a few of the things that I think are going to be interesting to delve into, in in the coming episodes with some of the people within industry to see how they've adapted what they think is permanent, what they think is is not permanent. And are there ways that we can actually come out of this pandemic with more efficient companies as well. Before we get into the five critical customer motives that you need to unravel, I'd like to spend a couple minutes talking about the podcast and I've got a request for you can use your help. First of all, thank you for listening. I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate you taking some time out of your busy lives to devote towards learning more about the industry. I think we all need to do that me included. And I really appreciate you tuning in and listening to some of the guests that we've we've had on there. I know that I've learned quite a bit through the the process right now. And I hope that you are as well. So thanks so much. Secondly, Apple is changing their app. And there's one change that I think is pretty interesting. For those of us who have been listening to podcast for quite a while you know that on Apple when you hit the subscribe button, that means you're automatically getting episodes downloaded into your into your player. And you also know that subscribe does not mean a paid subscription. You know, new people may may think that subscribe means Okay, now I've got to pay for it. So Apple is changing it instead of subscribe, it's now going to be like, and that'll be coming in a couple of weeks. And I'll let you know what when it occurs. I believe that everyone who's already subscribed, they're going to continue to be subscribed and they'll have episodes downloaded. But for new people, you've probably noticed that I'll change the way I'm talking about it. And that's going to be like, like it in Apple podcasts. To get that get those automatic downloads. I also want to discuss spreading the word about a new podcast. So I'm really proud to be part of this industry. And I started this podcast because I had quite a few people that were asking me a lot of questions about different aspects of the of the industry. It was really interesting to me that people were searching out different pieces of information, and there really wasn't a central repository where you could go get get all the information on medic device. So I started this as a way to give back to the industry. And really to help people grow in their knowledge. Again, me included, the thing that I also know is if you're listening, you're probably part of the industry, and you share in the passion for the industry. And that's why I'm going to be asking you for your help. Because what we're all trying to do is we're all trying to raise the level of everyone within the industry. And I'm sure that you share that passion as well, and are interested in getting people the best information, most timely information that can help them round out their career, the way that podcasts actually grow, is they grow organically, you don't go on an advertising campaign and start to really see a podcast grow it's word of mouth. And it's sharing information on on the platforms that people see. There's something interesting out there, and then they'll tune in and find out whether it's for them or not. So what I'm asking you for is I'm asking for your help to help that I'm asking for is if if you can help me share the Word that this podcast, if it's been beneficial to you, would be helpful to others within the industry. So here's specifically what I what I'd like you to do, I post a lot on on LinkedIn, I find that to be the primary place where people in our industry are routinely gathering. So if you see one of my posts on LinkedIn, if you could please like it, and comment or share that post, or all three, and it doesn't have to be every episode. But as you start to see these, I'd really appreciate if you could do that, because I've got a wide group of people that I deal with, but you also have wide groups of people that that are following you, and getting the word out. And having somebody that has gotten value out of it, I think it really helps to spread the word. And really ask you if you could do that if you're finding value in what we're bringing here. Please help to spread the word a little bit. Additionally, if there's an episode that you think is particularly interesting to someone in your network, all you need to do is on your phone, hit the share button and texted over to that person and put a couple of words in there saying, Hey, I found this interesting thought I thought it could benefit you, you might want to give it give it a listen. Those are the things that can really help to spread the word and build a good group of people that are sharing in this mastering medical device community. So I'd really ask if you could, if you could do that, I'd really appreciate it. Now, on to the five critical customer motives you need to unravel. from past episodes, several themes have emerged. And I want to talk about five of them today. Because I think that they're really important that we understand, it really helped to unravel why a customer is thinking, what they're thinking, and how we can best interact with them, and provide value to them. The first one, and we heard it quite often from most of the people, it's the value of the medical device, what is the value of a medical device, very often we you know, we think of our device and your people are buying our devices and the features and benefits of those devices. That's not true. They're not buying our device, what they're really buying is they're really buying patient outcomes. They're buying our devices to provide value to their patients. What they're really interested in is how can I fix this patient's problem. And they're going to use different techniques, different devices, different medications in order to make their patients better. So that's really from their standpoint, what they're doing. They're not buying your widget, they're not buying your your orthopedic device or cardiovascular device, they're buying a solution to a patient's problem. And I think it's it's a subtle difference. But it's really an important difference that we understand. People are buying our features and benefits if we get into their world, how can we help them with their patients. And if we start to have those discussions differently, as opposed to the features and benefits of your device, we may end up with a greater understanding between us and our customers, and a greater relationship being built between between you and your customers as well. The other thing that we heard very loud and clear and regarding the value of devices, your device is about your clinical data and how it affects the outcomes. So even though your people you know like to have people that they deal with the importance of sales reps the importance of real estate You know, long standing relationships with with the with the company and things, clinical data is always King. So we can't lose sight of that. And even though that, you know, we're providing something, we better bring the data to support it. And data better show it again from not a subgroup, but what is the value to their patients what you know, how is our product going to make the patient's experience, short and long term better, in addition to what it can do for the for the clinician who's who may be using it. along that same lines, I asked several of them about, you know, what would motivate you to fight for a device. And I think that that's going to be different for every product that we bring to them. But I think it's really important for you to understand each product is different. And you need to know what is what it is about your market segment and your product that would make the the clinician fight for the device. I've heard, you know, so often that okay, everything is being commoditized. And it's no longer in the hands of the clinician, it's in the you know, the committee or the the group purchasing organizations hands. But we know that there are certain certain products, certain devices that people will fight for, you need to understand it for your product segment, and why they would fight for that. And that goes back to what is the value of your device, how does it deliver value to to their patients. The second main theme that we really heard a lot of was customer discovery. And we're going to go deep into customer discovery, because it it is a critical, critical aspect of how we develop devices. And this is this is the work that goes on before you pick up the pencil the CAD drawing, to start to design your product, this is understanding why somebody needs what they need, and understanding how we can develop something that can help them get better patient outcomes and serve their serve their patients better. What I found really interesting is they view it as a collaborative effort. It's a team effort between industry and them to bring a new technology. And yes, we know that, you know, they're not going to be involved in engineering of it, or the clinical studies of it. But they're looking at it, hey, we're bringing needs in here. And we're bringing ideas in here. This is a collaborative environment, that we're bringing new technology in this together, I think it's really important for us to understand that that's the way that they're viewing it. And that it's not just you know, us as being industry that we're delivering new products, we can't lose sight of the fact that brought up who the people are that brought this technology to us, and that it really has been collaborative between the clinicians and ourselves. We also heard quite extensively that they have ideas, absolutely they there are some great ideas out there. There's also some ideas that are not so great, or maybe just for a small group of patients, that industry, you know, we're not going to, we're not going to pick up, but they have ideas and it's up to us to cultivate the relationships to be able to get to those ideas, and then talk talk with them about what that idea means better understand what they have in mind, what patients it serves, whether it's a large market, a small market, to kind of assess those ideas. And to put those ideas down and say this is this is something that we'd like to pursue, this is probably not good, good fit for us. So to communicate with them about what's going on with their idea. We also heard that they may not know what to do with their, their ideas, so they may not know how to approach industry. So being receptive to to people and training our representatives to understand when somebody is giving them an idea, or representatives need to know as frontline people who to refer that conversation to. And the last thing within that customer discovery that we heard is we need to treat people fairly. And you would think that this would be something that would be you know, a no brainer. But it isn't. There are some people that don't operate with the same level of integrity as the rest of us. If people are burned, well that is something that our customers are going to be cognizant of, and they're going to have their guard up. So making sure that we treat them fairly communicate with them if we're not interested. Tell them that we're not interested tell them the reason why be up front Be fair, those are the most important things. And as I said, we're going to get deep into customer discovery and what it means from a from a company standpoint, and what types of procedures and policies and tactics that are used to get to customer discovery, because it's so important for everyone in the industry to really get this one, right. The third theme has to do with business model. And I asked most of the people about their business model. That means, you know, who do they work for? And how do they get compensated? What's their payer mix? Those types of questions, because their business model affects their decision process. It's how they're viewing the world. For example, we heard from one clinician who said, Well, I work for a hospital system, the payer mix doesn't make any difference to me, because I'm compensated based on my relative value units. And unfunded patient doesn't affect my pay. Well, you can imagine another customer who owns the facility, and is now has profitability on their mind, well, their decision is going to be a little bit different. When the payer mix is different, and they're dealing with unfunded patient than you want them to buy a more expensive product. And it's an unfunded situation, or they're compensated in a different way, that the price of your device is factored in, into their compensation model in some way, whether they own their facility they own their practice, or, or what that is, I think it's it's so important for us to dig down and understand what the business model is, and how they're compensated for doing their jobs. Because it will help us to understand how our device fits in and will motivate them or D motivate them to accept your product based on whether it's more expensive, where it takes cost out of their system where there adds cost into their system. And whether pricing is really something that we should even be talking to them about. Or it's for a different customer, if it's if it's not the clinician, if it's the buyers, that that pricing discussion is more apropos for so the business model of thinking is something that we will also dig deeper into, because it's really critical for understanding why people are buying. The fourth main theme is sales rep. relationship. This is one that can really either make you or break you. Some products are critical to have a sales representative being involved, some of them are less critical, some of them are more more generic in nature. But some we heard from people in orthopedic side. And orthopedic surgery reps are much more critical to be part of the team than someone who's selling a less, less critical type type of product. The thing about the sales rep relationship is you have to understand what your product is, and how your rep and product interact, how they bring value to your clinician, again, coming back to the value thing with patient experience patient outcomes for that if your rep is involved in the outcomes, they become much more valuable than if they're not, if the reps knowledge is directly helpful to that patient care team that really affects the value of the device and the value of the company. So that's where the sales rep relationship is much more leveraged. We also talked about what they like and don't like. And a lot of this is common sense. But some of it is things that we continue to do here. So on the positive side, you know, they want to see great product knowledge and also knowledge of the customers business, and the procedures or surgeries that are that are being done. Just being mindful of someone else's time. Extremely important to them. Having a pleasant demeanor. Just you know, again, common sense stuff. Don't be distracted. If you're in the O R and they're not doing something that's directly related to your procedure at that point in time. Well, don't be distracted and be on your phone. Common sense, but we see it so often. And the other thing is not only paying attention to the doctor, but paying attention to their team. Anyone that works in the doctor's team or in a clinicians team. We heard it's it's just as important to treat them well, or better than the doctor, because that's who they're trying to serve as well. It's their whole team, it's not just the doctor. And by ignoring somebody on their team or not treating someone on their team with respect, that news gets back to the physician very quickly. And that's a way to ruin a reputation. The The last thing there is, in many instances, what they said is the rep is part of their team, and he or she is an extension of their team. If you can get to that point, where you are part of their team, it is really critical for, for you as a company to make sure that your sales representatives are top notch. And that's where the importance of training and education of your rep is so important. In some market segments, some, some parts of our business rep training, and education is absolutely critical to your product, they're part of the product. So make sure that that is something that is really nailed within your company. And then the last thing in that sales relationship is your sales rep is one of the most important factors in your company brand. So if you're in marketing, and you think, okay, my company brand is this, and I'm going to have great ads, and I'm going to go to go to meetings, and we've got great packaging, and all of our communications with with the clinician are really top notch. But if you've got a rep who's not or inconsistent with your brand, that's going to do more more to establish the brand in your mind of your customer, than all those other things that you're trying to put in place. So the reps really factor heavily into your company brand. The last theme is providing feedback to companies, we heard that, you know, a lot of people will provide feedback to companies, but also time that feedback comes back to the rep. And that's great, you know, if you can have that relationship at the rep level that that clinician is providing that, that's fantastic. But if it stops there, that's not a good thing. Because what we really want to do is we want to get to get feedback throughout the organization. So why is feedback important? Well, it's important because it's the way that we get ideas for new products, to fix issues that we've got with our existing product, to improve our product, but also to deepen relationships with the with the customer. And that's where I think that there's a lot of lost opportunity. And I'm going to give you a kind of an anecdote here. It's, it's from from the podcast. So we talked to a number of different customers, right. And in those conversations, they said, you know, several products that they use different companies that that they were involved with, and giving feedback to those, those customers? Well, I reached out to several of those customers. And I wanted them to know that one of their customers was on a podcast, that they had had things to say about their company, or they had feedback that they wanted to provide to that to that company. Or in the case that you know, there was a sales rep involved just to let them know that hey, one of your sales reps was mentioned on the podcast. And you might want to give kudos to to that sales representative. Let's say that about half of the companies that I reached out to said, Hey, great, thanks, we'll be reaching out to them really appreciate the feedback. This is this was great. The other half of the companies that I reached out to I didn't hear anything back from and I got I've got nothing to gain by by reaching out to these customers. But what I wanted to do is provide them an opportunity to reach out to a customer and deepen the relationships by saying, Hey, I heard you on a podcast I heard you've got some feedback about our product. I'd like to hear more. Or I heard that our sales representative was was mentioned on this podcast. Let me reach out to the sales rep and tell him great job. Really proud of what you're doing Keep it up. Those the other half of those companies that didn't do anything that didn't reach back out, after I tried to reach out at different levels of the organization anywhere from VP of sales, VP of Marketing, district sales managers, and I didn't hear anything back. I don't understand that. I just don't understand how you can have something that's right there that you could take action on to deepen a relationship with a customer That you're not going to take action with, I'm not going to bang on this any longer. But other than to say, every customer is providing some feedback to your reps, please, if you're inside a company, find out what this feedback is, and get involved. It will help you it will help you with new products that will help you with that deepening that customer relationship. It's one of the biggest lost opportunities that I see here. It really goes back to an earlier point. And that's customer discovery. So this is part of the customer discovery that we're gonna talk about further. So those are the five things that are really heavy themes that came out during the initial customer interviews that we've had. And I think they're really great for us to really get a better understanding of our customers. And there's a lot of stuff in there that we can implement to make ourselves better medical device professionals. Thank you for listening. Please spread the word until a friend or two to listen to the mastering medical device podcast. As interviews like today's can help you become a more effective medical device leader. Work hard. Be kind
