If you think that doctors are the only people that you need to convince to get your med tech product adopted, this episode could save you a lot of time, money, and frustration, because what you'll learn today is who really drives adoption in med tech, how to spot hidden decision makers and how to turn interest into actual revenue. 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. I'm your host, Hakeem Aade. Let's get started. So in this episode, we're tackling one of the biggest misconceptions in MedTech that doctors are the key and only customer, because here's the reality, you can have clinical enthusiasm, you can have great feedback, even strong early trials. And still get absolutely zero adoption. So the question I'm posing today is who's actually making the decisions? And to help us break that down. I'm joined by Robin m Bolton, who's spent years helping companies uncover the real decision makers behind adoption. The people who control the budgets influence procurement, and ultimately decide whether your product lives or died. In the marketplace. So today we're gonna get into how to find those people, how to ask the right questions, and how to turn those insights into actual revenue, not just interest. So welcome to the show, Robin. Really pleased you could join us today. Thank you so much. So excited to be here. Thank you. Yeah, really looking forward to this. So I wanna jump straight in. Obviously doctors and clinicians are critical in getting Med Tech adopted, when did you realize that they may not be the only. Or the main ones that get it, get the actual products used in the clinical setting. So it really was probably around the early two thousands, when we started seeing a shift kind of as I was working with med tech companies, med device companies, seeing a shift in the power. The purchasing power from clinicians to hospital administrators and seeing that happen, not just in the US where I'm based, but also happening in Europe and even, south America, Southeast Asia. As cost started going up, inflation, but also just all of the technology being put into medical devices, the cost went up, and as that happened. Hospitals, economic kind of owners started exercising a lot more control over, what got purchased and what didn't. So this is something that's been building for 20, 30 years, and I think it will only continue. Yeah, so, so it wouldn't be wrong for someone to make that assumption based on historical fact, but it would be wrong in the modern days. Basically what you're saying, cause you're saying there's, there's been a massive shift. 'cause I think, yeah, when I, when I started many, many years ago, when I started as a sales rep, then the, the doctor would say, I want this product. Oh yeah. And the product was actually generally. Be brought in if the doctor said it. But that's, that's significantly shifted, as you said, over the last 20, 30 years. So can you, give us some insight as to what sort of questions that you could ask to help to start to uncover who these stakeholders are? 'cause they're not always immediately apparent, are they? No, they're, they're not. And so, I mean, clinicians, doctors are still so important. It's one of those things where they're. It's necessary to get them on board. It's just not sufficient to build a business around. And so absolutely start with the clinicians and then ask a question of, okay, who decides what gets used in your practice? Everything from disposable gloves, things like that to the bigger, equipment, medical devices, things like that. And ask the doctors. Hey, how does this process work? And a lot of times they can, they can at least give you a starting point. They can't give you all the details and machinations of how decisions are made, but they can say, oh, usually it's, oh, I have to go talk to this person. And you're like, great. That's the next person you go talk to. And you gotta keep asking this question of who else is involved. Who else has to either approve this or who else weighs in on it? Because what you're looking for is certainly the decision makers, but all of the other influencers who kind of have a say or give an opinion in that purchase decision. It's interesting actually, 'cause, and I, I, I'll be interested on your take on this, because I have what I call the ultimate decision maker, and people always say, oh, no, no, it's a committee, it's a C, I said, yeah, it is a committee. But there's always one person that if they say it's not happening, it doesn't happen. And if they say it is happening, it happens. And I call that the ultimate decision maker. And similar to what you're saying is you need all those people and then you need to find that ultimate decision maker to make sure that you're not. To your terminology, just got the influence. He's just got the clinician, but you haven't got the decision makers and or the decision maker. And it doesn't mean that you have to get every single one of those people on board, but you need to know who they are and then need to know how to influence. Those individuals. So I it Do you see that as well? Because I, I've been saying this for years, I'm hoping you're gonna agree. Yes, absolutely. There's always one person who can make or break a decision, and yes, it's usually a committee that's weighing in and discussing, but there's always one person whose opinion matters more than others, and that person. At least, we've seen in the US and in in Europe tends to be, the CFO. Yeah. Kind that person in finance. And I'll be honest, I, I do a lot of work, most of my work in the innovation and new products, and so we kind of vilify the CFO, like the CFO is the downer. The one who only cares about, the dollars and cents or the, the pounds and the pence. But sometimes the CFO can actually be. In Incre, like an incredible champion. There's one, one project I worked on, it was on surgical robotics. And I mean we're talking multimillion dollar robots you can think of like intuitive surgicals da Vinci, and we were interviewing A CFO and this is a CFO of a small regional hospital here in the US and we said, okay, you have one da Vinci. Which he did. What's the break even? And he's like, oh, we have to do 400 surgeries a year on it. And we're like, great. How many are you doing? He said, we're doing 200. Like, okay. He's like, and we're buying a second Da Vinci. And like, math has never been my strong suit, but I could figure that math out. I'm like, you're doing half of what you need to break even yet you're buying another one. And this was the CFO. Mm. And he rather sheepishly admitted. He's like, you know what? When we bought the first one, he's like, I was so popular. All the surgeons loved me. He's like, I went from being the person everyone hated and avoided to like people saying hi to me in the hall and being nice to me. And he's like, I loved it. So when they asked for another one, I said, yes. And so, they're not, the finance people aren't always, the reign on your parade. But you have to, as you said, you have to understand what matters to them, both kind of logically and in that case emotionally and I, and then you can work with it. And, and that's such a critical point I find, because I think people. They put people, they put individuals in boxes. Do the CFOs said they're gonna be like this? Yes, of course they're gonna make decisions on financial lines and they want to look at costing use, et cetera. But they are human beings. And I think people forget that actually they're human beings. And what I often say to people is, well, what keeps them up at night? Because if you can understand what keeps him up at night, and actually in this case, finances keeps him up at night. But also the fact that no one speaks to him and doesn't like him keeps him up at night. If you can actually feed into those two things, you're gonna get, to a positive conclusion much quicker than if you just thinking, oh, it's all about finances. 'cause as you said there in that, in that instance, you'd be scratching your head thinking, well. It doesn't make sense. So he is, is this guy not really interested in finances? He is, but he is obviously more interested in actually going to work and being as, as the old cheer of you to say, going somewhere where everybody knows your name, and actually being popular, et cetera. So, so that's, that's an interesting thing because obviously you're interviewing and identifying, stakeholders at the time. So we just spoke about, what are the things that you do to actually uncover those? Hidden stakeholders. So what's, have you got framework or specific things you do that when you found them, to actually get the right information out of that stakeholder when you're speaking to them? Yeah, so everything I do with stakeholders is grounded in the theory of jobs to be done, which, created or kind of introduced to the world by Clayton Christensen and basically, a job to be done is a problem someone's trying to solve or progress they're trying to make. And so they are essentially hiring your product to solve that problem or make progress. And jobs are functional. So logical, like you just said around, finance. I gotta balance the books have to have good ROI, but they're also emotional and they're social and. It's really the emotional and social that actually drive decisions. It gets justified by the functional jobs to be done. So, with that kind of grounding, in theory, we often take kind of the opposite approach to what most, most product developers take when. When they're going to talk to someone. A lot of times, if you have a new product, you kind of take your prototype in and you're like, what do you think of this? What do you like, what you don't? And everything is about the product. We go the opposite way, and we don't even get to the product until the end, if at all. We start with kind of, Hey, tell me about your day. Kind of what do you like about it? What don't you like about it? What's frustrating? And we really try to understand the person and their frustrations and kind of where they have pain points. And then think about, okay, how can we address that through our solution? So the case of, the CFO that I just talked about. There's kind of two budgets that he deals with. There's, capital expenditures, and then there's the operating budget. And we found that, both of them are a problem, but if he can put something in the CapEx budget and it doesn't hit his operating budget, he's much more likely to say yes. So then it became like, how do we position a surgical robot so that it can hit a different budget? Instead of the one that he's the most worried about and manages the most closely. So understanding kind of the holistic person and their role before you ever get to the, your solution is, is really, really critical to finding those hidden opportunities that don't often come up. Yeah, an interesting point, isn't it? Because it, I think lots of people, I'm not gonna say all, but lots of people go in and they start with the solution. Yeah. And. Yeah. I, I always think to myself, how can you start with a solution when you don't know what the problem of is? That's like a, that's like someone comes to church selling me a holiday in the, I don't know, in the north of France when all I like doing is lying on a beach. Yeah, if I, they've told me about, oh, the rolling Hills, this, that, and I'm thinking, well, I want to go on land a beach, but you've not, you've not spoken to me, you've not seen me as a, as an, an individual. You've just seen me as, oh, he's a person that I can sell a holiday to and this is the holiday I've got. Whereas if you actually start ask, and this is what this is, this is pretty much what I was always taught when, when I first started telling it. Yeah. Have a conversation with people and actually try and see them. Through their own eyes so that you can see what, you just said, the emotional and the social. So you know, what, what, what affects them emotionally, what affects them socially, because you, you're in a workplace, nobody, the robot. That's right. So understanding those. Things can get you, I think, a lot better empathy with the person that you're working with, and therefore you can then start developing solutions that fit what their problem is rather than, every, what's the, what's the term they, they use? If you've only got a nail every now, if you've got every. Yep. Everything, yeah, every problem is a, is a nail or whatever. So something of that nature. But yeah, and it's the same thing if, if you, and I always say this to people, if you've got that product, you can't just go and shoehorn it in to every mm-hmm. Facility. Some facilities won't, won't need it. Go and find the people who've got the problem, and actually then go and provide a solution that's actually going to, if you put it, deal with those pain points. And then, so just in that, because. What I find when I speak to lots of of people, and you're talking about, looking at decision makers and looking at the influencers, I, I have a distinction between a positive person and then a champion. Because the champion is gonna get stuff done, the positive person's gonna speak nicely about the product, but not necessarily give you commercial traction. How would, how do you, when you look at, and you're in those situations, do you. Tell the difference or and advise companies to tell the difference between clinical enthusiasm and an actual activity and action that's gonna lead to commercial traction? Yeah, it's, it comes up through the conversation where, you kinda ask, what their role is. In the decision making process, and you don't actually come out and be like, do you get to make decisions or do you just influence things? You, you ask them to tell you stories of like, oh, tell me, tell me a story of the last time. Say a clinician came in and asked to adopt this new device, and you kinda keep probing in that story. I often say that the first question is the least important. It's the follow up ones. And so you kind of keep asking, tell me more, tell me more about this, tell me more about that moment. And it helps you kind of suss out, one who has kind of what type of power within that stakeholder group. Figuring out who that ultimate decision maker is. But also kind of their, their tendencies. Do they tend to be negative? Do they tend to be enthusiastic? Because that also factors into, how people in the committee see things. If someone who's always enthusiastic is enthusiastic, once again, it doesn't really count as much 'cause you're always enthusiastic. Whereas if somebody who is normally a skeptic is very enthusiastic about an idea, that counts a lot more kind of in that ultimate decision maker's weighing of the options. Yeah, I, I think that's a really good point actually in terms of, it's not just about how enthusiastic they may be, but how has their enthusia changed and, and, and is it out? And if that enthusiasm out of character for that individual, 'cause that gives you a much better find than, as you said, if you've got someone who's just always enthusiastic. Well, are they really enthused by it or is that just their nature of the way they behave? And, and, and that's not necessarily gonna lead. To actually, a commercial outcome. So, so just on that, because I've been, we've been speaking a bit hypothetically, you've been given examples. Yeah. But can you, can you think of, or provide an example of a client Who actually then transformed their strategy based on stakeholder insights? Just to bring it to, to, to light for, for the audience, listening. Yeah. So I was working with a, a big med device company in their, cardiovascular division. And they primarily serve. Heart cath lab, so catheterization labs. And so we did research in the US in Brazil, in the Philippines. It was global research and we were looking at all the various stakeholders taking into account, like private insurance, public insurance, private hospital, all the different machinations. And what we found was that really all of the existing. Tools and devices used in cath labs were good enough. Could they be improved? Things could always be improved, but everybody felt that they had kind of hit the right performance versus cost balance, and so something had to be just light. Years better to change. But what we did find is that there were huge gaps in. Kind of the service, the experience, how the labs are managed, how things are scheduled. And so the big change was actually saying, Hey, can we create services that go with these medical devices that we already have and use that as a way to increase revenue? And so that is a huge. Huge shift for a company that makes medical devices to kind of think about going into the service industry. And so there was a lot of discussion of like, who do, who can we partner with? What services does it make sense to go into? What creates kind of competitive advantage? Because if we can wrap a service with this, catheter or with this device and actually. Truly distinguishes us from competition and kind of locks people in. So it, it completely shifted really the r and d and the development focus from, from how do we improve what we have to, how do we start wrapping services around what we make? And that, that's a brilliant example actually. 'cause I think that especially, founders and, and newer businesses. The business you're talking about is obviously a bigger business, so they've got, they've got the finances to do those sorts of things, but I think that the learning is still exactly the same, that you can't go in. And just focus on what you've got and think, well, I've got this, so I've just gotta find a way to sell it without really understanding. 'cause in that situation, if they didn't understand from that stakeholder, the mapping what people are motivated by, what the real challenge is. And the challenge wasn't the product. 'cause as you said, the pro, the service area was serviced, to a satisfactory level. So you could have been banging it, which, which is what lots of people have done that they thought, oh well. I've gotta add this onto it, I've gotta spend a bit more money on that. And then you might get an incremental improvement, but no one's gonna buy it. 'cause it's like, well, we're fine with what we've got and what you've done is basic. And the companies that basically said, actually no, this is the pain point. So let's solve the pain point. And yes, it might take a bit more money. Yes, it might change a bit of direction, but it's gonna lead to an outcome. So on that, what was the outcome of, of that change and that shift? So they, it was interesting. One of the, the things we found was just inventory management, especially in kinda standalone heart cath labs. And so we're like, oh, this is something completely different, but it touches. The products that this company made. And so we actually started looking into, and, and building out and prototyping, how can you create a closet or shelves or, even slots that actually will do the automatic sort of inventory tracking. So when something gets pulled out that gets registered and then things are automatically reordered to eliminate the need for inventory tracking reordering by people in the office. And it's just taken care of. And so that still leveraged their product development, all of their kind of IT capabilities. and, certainly cost money. But again, it was able to shift like what budget it came from and yeah, it's, it's in prototype, it's in pilot in, in several places, kind of around the world to really get that ROI sort of proven out. Yeah, that's excellent because yeah, it had, had that not been done, the chances are either. People who said, oh, well this isn't a market for us or to be e either one of two. Extreme either. This isn't a market for us. 'cause no one ever wants to accept that the product isn't right for that isn't a right fit. Oh it's not a, it's not a market for us. Or it be banging the head against the brick wall just going in and do more and more activity thinking, oh, if we, if we just throw more money at sooner or later somebody's gonna accept it. 'cause that's, those are the two things that tend to happen. So, so. In terms of, we've talked about, that's a really good example, of understanding the stakeholders and then changing based on what those stakeholders are. So that's based on you getting insights and you get and you getting information. Is there any specific steps or key steps, that you go through to take, okay, I've got these insights. How do you turn those insights? Into something that generates opportunities. And obviously the example you gave is one of those. I'm just trying to think if there's any specifics that you say, right. When we go in, we look for these things and then this is how we turn those, this is how we, we collect those insights. Sorry to start off first and then this is how we then, turn them into something that can actually generate revenue. Yeah. So first thing is with planning the interview, I always go in with, here are three things I need to learn. Before the interview ends. 'cause typically you go in with kind of your long list of questions and you can get lost in that. And so I just try to hold in my head, here are three things because I want the interview to be as much of a conversation, not an interrogation, because that's when human talking to human, you're more likely to hear some of those emotional and social jobs from that. After the interview it's going through and kind of trying to pull out, all right, what are the pain points we heard? What are, what are the problems they're trying to solve, the progress they're trying to make, and really looking at them to say, okay, is this something that, kind of the analogy, is it a painkiller or is it a vitamin? Because you know anyone who's ever been injured because you are diligent about taking your pain killer. Vitamins, not so much. Yeah. So it's kinda saying, Hey, have we found a painkiller, an a pain here where we could develop a pain killer? And then it's just, it's, it's brainstorming. It's kind of old fashioned, Hey, how, how could this problem be solved? Kind of agnostic of who we are, of our expertise. Let's get all of the ideas out there and then we can start filtering. Into like, okay, well which ones does it make sense for us to pursue? And then pretty quickly after that, going back out to the stakeholders and saying, Hey, remember we talked, learned a lot from you. We have some of these ideas. What do you think? And intentionally going in with something that is very, very rough, like text on a piece of paper. Maybe a hand drawn sketch because the more refined something looks. The more people know you've really worked on it and poured your heart into it, and at our core. Humans are nice and we want to be liked, and so very few people are gonna look at something that's beautiful and refine and tell you it sucks. Whereas if you go in with something that's really, really rough and early, people are more likely to give you honest feedback. And so that's why you want to, as quickly as you can kinda start iterating and getting feedback, even though something you're like, oh gosh, I, I would never wanna show anyone this. That's exactly when you need to start showing it to people. I like that. That's a really good process. So lemme just, so what you said were three things. That you wanna achieve by the end of that? Mm-hmm. Of that interview? Look at the pain points. I really like that thing, the painkiller or vitamins. 'cause I mean, I, I would always say, oh yeah, is it, is it a, is it a must have or a need to have? But I think painkiller or vitamins just really gets to the rub of it. Then you brainstorm, then you obviously narrow it down. Then you go back with feedback to the stakeholders. But the really important thing that I take away from this is, and I've never even thought about that before, because most people want to go in with a polished, oh, would a company? Oh, we have to, we can't go in and show them that. Whereas actually, you are right. If, if, if I'm showing you a protocol and it's on nice headed paper and it's been drawn. People are going, well, thought about that. I don't really wanna change that word. If you just took a rough piece of paper, this is what, this is kind of what I'm thinking about. They're much more light to sit down and bash it, around, and then actually you come out with a much better, answer. That's, that's a really. Key points. So, so for people listening to this, what would be your advice to them if they're, if they're going in, to a call or an interview tomorrow to try and identify the stakeholders? What would be the, maybe just the two pieces of advice you'd give them and say, right. Make sure you do this tomorrow when you're going in. So, first question, ask about them. Ask about kinda what their nor their traditional day looks like. And second question is tell the, ask them to tell you a story about the last time, they wanted a new device to get purchased or brought into the practice. And, those two things will give you, you, you could honestly have an hour long conversation asking just those two questions and then following up, kind of asking, tell, tell me more about this. Yeah, I, I, I think simpler is often better. The more complex you get. And, and this is again, I think a challenge people get into my audience is often clinicians who are moving into that space. So they haven't got a lot of commercial experience and it's very easy to start just getting into, oh, this is why I developed it. These are all the things that you need to know about it. And actually the most powerful conversations are the ones have you said, when you actually say, tell me. What your challenges are. Tell me what, how you carry on, carry out this procedure and then just keep going down. Because once you understand the challenges, and the longer you speak to them, the more challenges that they don't even know that they had will start coming out. And you, there'll be light bulbs going off all over the place. The challenges when the light bulbs are going off, you don't jump in and, Right. You can buy this, you'll do everything. It's about, as, as you said, continuing that conversation and being contemplative about it, I think. So that's that. So, so just in terms of, because you've worked with some really big con contracts companies, Medtronic, j and j, et cetera. Would you say, or what would you say are the principles that you've learned from those large companies? That my audience, and some of the smaller companies and startups can apply, which aren't gonna cost loads and loads of money. 'cause they generally don't have loads and loads of money. But we'll still get them to the same place. I think it's, one is to be humble, which is really, really, really hard. Whether you're a big company, whether you're a clinician, you're an expert in what you do. So being humble is hard, but be humble. I often say when you're interviewing someone, talking to someone, that person is the most interesting person in the world for that period of time. And because they're the most interesting person in the world, they don't care about you, they care about themselves. And so that's why you wanna be focused on what they have to say and asking them stories. And so it's being kind of focused on the other person. And that's something, a solo entrepreneur all the way up to, huge companies like Medtronic and j and j can do. Second thing is to be focused on solving your customer's pain points and thinking as we've been talking about all of your stakeholders as customers. And really focusing in on the ones that either the ultimate decision maker, kind of next year down, the people who have the most sway, the most influence. And you have to think holistically about all of them and solving all of their pain points. And then, kind of the third thing is really just knowing that, especially at the beginning, you're more wrong than right. And this bit goes back to the humility, but really being focused on, Hey, I wanna solve this problem for these people. And that's the most important thing. It's fall, fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Oh, I like that. Fall in love with a problem. Not for, yeah, it's interesting actually. I, I used to have a boss and I, I, I've stolen this, I always steal people's phrase it so fall in love with a problem, not, not the solution. Um, was he used to say, I'm agnostic about the, I I'm am agnostic about where the idea comes from. I just want to get the right idea. And I think that's similar to what you're saying. It's, it's not about going, oh, I've got this solution. I'm gonna be the hero and be able to tell you what I can do. But actually, if you try to. Brainstorm and understand what the real problem is. You inevitably and invariably come up with a better solution than you thought you had on your own. I think. And just, just linking on to that, because you were talking about, focusing on the stakeholders. And we started off the conversation talking about, well, clinicians aren't the right people anymore. Obviously clinicians are a stakeholder and they're still important in. So if you've got someone going in, especially clinician founders who like to speak to clinicians 'cause they're clinicians Yep. And they feel more comfortable speaking to clinicians, what sort of balance would you say? That they need to strike. 'cause if you've still got clinicians and the clinicians are still gonna influence the decision, but you've got CFOs, you've got a whole raft of different people, users, influencers. How, how do you balance that up? Because it, it could become like you're doing nothing else but speaking to people and you're never getting anywhere. Yeah. So I have a rule of thumb that if you talk to 10 people, you're gonna learn 80, 90% of what you need to know. And so, talk to 10 cini clinicians, talk to 10 people on the business side, and then talk to 10 people, kind of all others. So we're talking like nurses, medical assistants, other healthcare providers who are users or who interact with the product in some way. And, if you can't talk to all 30 people, talk to five of each. Yeah. Because what that'll do is that'll help make sure that you're not overweighting the opinion of one person. You're kind of gonna get, after five people, you're gonna get a smoothing. You're gonna hear new stuff from the first three, and then you're gonna start hearing common themes by four and five. Yeah, I think, I think that's very good advice actually. The rule of thirds, I'm gonna call that, Because you, you're basically 30%, well, 33%, 33%, 33%, 33%, yeah. Of that group of people, which I think is, it makes sense. 'cause then you get a broad understanding of the problem from different groups rather than. Yeah, historically people just go see clinicians. The clinicians say one thing and you think, oh, this product, it's gonna be fantastic. And then you, when you actually start trying to get it adopted, you're thinking, what, why is it not working? Because you're not spoken and taken into account, the, basically thoughts of all the other stakeholders in that, in that system. So, so what would you say. Are the top three common mistakes that you see MedTech founders making when they're trying to go to market and trying to get adoption, around stakeholder management? And what would be the solutions for my audience who are sitting there thinking, oh yeah, well, it's all well and good to know the mistakes, but how am I gonna get overcome them? Yeah. So we've actually talked about a lot of them. One is focusing only on clinicians. Yeah. And so the solution is go talk to people on the business side. Go talk to other. People who are involved in the clinical setting. Nurses are incredibly, incredibly powerful as influencers. So definitely go talk to the nurses or the medical assistants or the people who are assisting the, the clinician. So that's one. Second is going in kind of vice versa of like, look at this beautiful thing I made. Don't you love it now, tell me what you like about it. And instead, kind of take the opposite approach and be like, tell me about you. Tell me about your day. Tell me about the challenges that you face and being focused on the person and not the product. And the, the last thing is, being really being open to all the feedback and especially the harder it is to hear, the more important it is that you listen to it because. It, it's true, it's honest. It is reflective of the lived experience of the person you're talking to, and even if it's different than yours, maybe especially because it's different than yours, it's telling you something. And that's also why you wanna talk to, kind of five to 10 people because you'll be able to figure out that, is that one you know, just that person's problem or is it five other people's problem? And so just because you don't agree with something, don't ignore it. Yeah, no, I, I think that's, that is the, that agnostic thing, isn't it? I think it's very easy for, especially when you've invented something that you don't agree with it. And even though 10 people have told you it's a great product, however it's not gonna work here because of X, Y, and Z, and you said, no, it will. 'cause I've used it and I've spoken to people before and you're like. Well, yeah, but you're in this facility and you try to get them to use it and they're saying you need to do this. And if everyone's saying it, it's probably true. And, ignoring it and, and I think it is, come back to what you said about humility. And I'm not saying that doctors are arrogant. No. You have arrogant doctors. You have humble doctors. They just human beings. Yes. But I think it is very difficult when you have spent money on developing something. And you have tested it with a few people, that it's very hard to say, oh, actually maybe I do need to adapt it. And actually this comes back to what you're saying, because I, it just, it just clicked in my mind. 'cause I always tell people, and one of the last podcasts we were talking about is. Rather than perfecting it, go and test it. Which is exactly what you're saying effectively because what, in terms of when you're saying go, go and show it to somebody rough. Because if I go and show someone a piece of plastic, for example, and it's got rough veggies on it, people are much more comfortable to say, oh, that'll never work or chain this. If I go and they can see I've had it mold, injection molded, and they can see that I've spent a lot of money in it and I've put my heart and soul into it. Even if they think it's not very good, they're much less likely to say it's not. They'll, they'll try and find a positive spin and then that will happen numerous times. And as an inventor, I go away thinking everyone loves it. And then when you get, when the, when the rubber hits the road and then you actually try to get someone to pay for it, they're like, ah, yeah, I do like it. However, it is a vitamin rather than a pain killer. So I'm, I'm gonna pass on this, this occasion. So, so I think, I think that's it, it, it just triggered in my mind, all the way through that actually that rough edges really doesn't make a difference because it, it's very hard to be humble. I think once, one person once said to me, when we were trying to promote a product and they said, the problem is. And that's your baby, isn't it? And I'm telling you, your baby is ugly and you don't really want mm-hmm. You don't really want to hear that. And I thought, yeah, it's a, it's a good way of putting it. 'cause it's true. Even, even if your baby was ugly, that you're never gonna accept it's ugly. 'cause to you. It's beautiful and it's always beautiful and you don't appreciate someone saying Mm, not gonna win any modeling, competitions. So yeah. So it's, I think it's very, very good advice. Yeah, and you can always tell it's coming. So, when people are, are pulling their punches, they'll often be like, oh, I can see how some people would really enjoy this. Like, they start kind of projecting. Yeah. And doing, they're not talking about themselves. They're talking about like, oh, I could see how this could be really useful for some folks. And as soon as that happens, you have to redirect it. Be like, but what do you think? Yes, I'm talking to a load of people. What do you think? Because. They don't wanna tell you what they think and you need to hear what they think. Yeah. In fact, so it's interesting because I've had a conversation with people. 'cause I, I, I like, 'cause I, I'm, I'm quite a direct person and I like to find what people think and I, and I, I like to be honest, but one technique, someone said, if someone's not really giving the answer, they said ask them. Well, what would, what do you think, what do you think your colleagues would, what problem do you think your colleagues would have with if, do you know, if you've got someone who's not really giving you the answer, you say, oh, so when I go to other people, what do you think they might, have a problem with? Because sometimes people feel a bit more comfortable. Say, oh, it's not asking for a friend, not me. It's, but, but doctor such and such would hate this because of this, this, this, and this. But I love it. But so it's an interest, it's like two ways of trying to get to the same point, isn't it? To get to the actual real nub, of the problem and the pain point. 'cause sometimes, especially when you don't know them that well, they're not necessarily gonna open up. So, so just based on that, how do you make people feel comfortable enough? To give you that information. 'cause sometimes you go in, you might, probably have longer, but sometimes you have 10, 15 minutes and you try to elicit, the emotional, the social response. And people have like got the shutters up thinking, well, I don't know you, I'm not telling you all that. How, how do you break that down quickly? I'll go in right away. Especially if kind of we have that rough concept and be like, Hey, we just threw this down on a piece of paper. It is more wrong than right. I know that. It would be so helpful to me if you would give me your honest opinion. I, I need to know how this is wrong. And people love, telling you how you're wrong and they're right and like, just kind of being the smartest person in the room. They'd love to be the smartest person in the room. And I have asked them to do that. And very quickly they just kind of open up. And start, start telling you what they think, which is great. It's, again, sometimes it's hard to hear, but it's what you need to hear. Especially at that point, I think. Yeah, I think so because I think if, if you are, if you don't hear the brutal honest truth at very early stage, you can spend a lot of time and money developing something that actually isn't fit for purpose and but you're convinced it is. And then you spend even more time and even more money and you keep doing it and you keep doing it. Whereas if somebody early on was brutally honest, before you've spent all that time and money, just like in your example, you could pivot to something else. So you're spending your time and money on something that you know is gonna add value. Or you could actually, God forbid, just say actually this, this is not the right products and it's not the products I thought it was. So let me stop. Doing it and I'll go and see if I can invent something else that would, would actually solve the pain that they're asking for. But either way, you don't want to bring a product to market that is just not gonna get adopted because there's so many products that are out there that everyone thought was a brilliant idea. They get, bring it out. And if it's too expensive to make it so that when you try to sell it, it's too expensive or it doesn't fit the workflow, or it adds complexity, to the environment, there's so many things and people aren't thinking about those things 'cause they're not having the conversations that you're, that we're discussing here where they're speaking to the stakeholders, understanding what the real pain points are, and then delivering a solution. So I, I really, for me. There's so many takeaways, really, but the, the, the, falling in love with the problem and not the solution, I think is, is one of my biggest takeaways and being humble. When you're going to speak to people so that you're actually inviting feedback, you're not getting defensive. And you're making sure that actually you're, you're looking at what the solution to their actual pay point is not what you have assumed their pain point is. So on that note, what would be, if, if some, someone's listening to this and there's lots of people listening and they've dropped off, I dunno how you could drop off, but if you dropped off, and then you've just come back at the end. What would be, say the one or two key things you'd say that people need to take into account when they're looking at stakeholder mapping and, and going from getting the right stakeholders and then moving that through to adoption of a product. So find the, the clinician, the business decision maker, usually someone in finance, and then the users and the influencers. Find all of those people and then understand what their pain points are and their pain points. Broadly, not just associated with what you're designing for or what your product is. Understand them as people understand, the pain of the roles that they're in and the challenges they face. Thank you very much. I think that's three key things that I'm gonna take away, along with all the others I've written down and I, I'm sure that others will. So thank you very much, Robin. But before you go, I have to do my decision scenario question, which Robin is gonna answer, and I'm gonna pick up in the next episode, we'll go through the answer and then I'll have my own unique spin on it. So. The question is, you are a Med Tech founder launching a new medical device and after initial testing feedback indicates that while doctors are enthusiastic, adoption rates are still low and you need to make a decision on your next steps for market entry. So do you a prioritize further development based on clinical feedback from doctors only? I'm hoping that you'll start to get a sense of where you should be going. I've been listened to Robin for the last 40 odd minutes. Or do you B conduct a comprehensive stakeholder map and expand your interviews to include nonclinical influencers? Do you see increased marketing efforts targeting doctors to boost awareness and and excitement? Or do you d pivot the product based on the least favorable feedback from doctors to mitigate? Tune in to the next episode to hear Robin's answer. And then my detailed breakdown. And remember. if you're speaking to the wrong stakeholders, none of those decisions will land and book a healthcare export. And if we, and if you're building a MedTech business and you're not sure what your next move should be, whether that's evidence, market access, commercialization, distributor strategy, or adoption, don't guess because if you're speaking to the wrong stakeholders, none of those decisions will land and book a healthcare export. So Booker Healthcare Export Accelerator diagnostic call with me using the link in the show notes, and I'll help you identify who actually makes the decisions in your market, what's blocking progress, and the next commercial move that you need to take to unlock momentum. So until next time, thanks for living it. So until next time, thanks for listening. Keep challenging your assumptions and keep growing.