#201 | Why Most MedTech Companies Stay Busy But Never Grow (For Clinicians Trying to Export)

So today, you'll learn the difference between strategy, planning, and execution, and why confusing the three is one of the biggest reasons why med tech companies struggle to grow. 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.

Three things that you're gonna discover in this episode is, number one, why being busy isn't the same as making progress. Number two, the difference between strategy, planning, and execution. And number three, a practical framework that you can use to turn a business challenge into meaningful action so Have you ever reached the end of the week and thought to yourself, "I haven't stopped all week, but I'm not sure that I've actually moved forward"? 'Cause I know I definitely have, and I know I've seen lots of other companies in that same position.

Because you may have answered lots of emails, you may have spoken with the customers, had calls with distributors, worked on the website, reviewed marketing, chased investors, attended events, put out all the fires. Maybe you've even worked through the weekend. That's not unusual, is it? I think you all recognize that.

Yet if somebody asked you, what's the biggest single thing holding your business back right now? Would you have an answer? And if you did, would you have a clear answer or would you have five because you're juggling so many things? Now, if that sounds familiar, 'cause I know it definitely does to me, today's episode is for you.

Because in my experience, the reason many businesses feel stuck isn't because they're not working hard, it's because they've confused activity, planning, and execution with strategy. And when that happens, people get busy. Very busy. But they don't necessarily move forward.

So today, I wanna show you a simple four-step framework that will help you separate strategy from planning and planning from execution So step one is understanding the problem. before you can have any kind of strategy, you need to understand the problem you're trying to solve. And I know it sounds very obvious, but it's amazing how often the obvious isn't implemented and how many businesses skip this step because instead they identify what they think is a problem, and they just jump straight into solutions.

We need more distributors, salespeople, marketing, more awareness, and they may or may not be correct. So before we go any further, I have a challenge for you. What I want you to do is write down the three biggest obstacles stopping your business from growing. So maybe it's slow adoption, poor distributor performance, or lack of clinical evidence, or, I'm just throwing out some things here.

It may be funding, it may be limited sales, it may be difficulty accessing decision makers., So once you've written down what you think are the three biggest obstacles stopping your business from growing, then I want you to circle the one you believe is having the biggest impact on the business right now. So here's the important point. The challenge you've circled, is often not the full story.

Doesn't mean it's wrong, but it may well be incomplete because what you're usually describing, and I can't see your piece of paper, but what you're usually describing is a symptom and not the cause. So for example, when a company tells me, "Oh, our distributors aren't performing," that sounds like that is the problem. But is it? Might be.

Or maybe the distributor hasn't been trained, or maybe the customers don't understand the value proposition, or maybe there isn't enough evidence, or maybe reimbursement is unclear, or maybe the wrong distributor was actually selected, so the distributor is the problem. The distributor may simply be where the problem shows up, not where it starts. So that may not actually be the real problem. And that's why we need to understand the difference between symptoms and causes because if we solve the symptom, the problem can come back, and it often does.

But if we solve the cause, several problems can often disappear at the same time. So now what I want you to do is take the challenge you've circled, and then underneath it write, "Why is this happening?" And then answer why it's happening. And then take that answer and then ask, "Why is this happening?"

again. And then take that answer and ask, "Why is this happening?" again. I think you're getting the idea.

And do this five times so that you get to the nub of the issue. And don't rush, 'cause the objective isn't speed., The objective is clarity. For example the challenge is our distributors aren't performing, then why is this happening?

They're not generating enough opportunities. Why is this happening? They're not actively promoting the product in the way that we want it. Why is this happening?

They don't fully understand the product. Why is this happening? Because training was limited. Why is that happening, or why did that happen?

Because we don't have a structured onboarding process. By the fifth answer, and this is just an example, you'll often discover that you're dealing with a very different issue than the one you originally identified. 'Cause in this example, your first view was that it, th-there was something wrong with distributors, but by the time you get to the end, it's actually something that you're not doing. And the objective here is only to get closer to the real cause of the challenge.

Because by the fifth answer, you'd often discover you're dealing with a very different issue than the one that you originally identified. And the reason why that's important is because strategy starts with understanding the real problem, not the visible symptom. So that's step one. You've identified the proper problem.

Now you move on to step two, creating a strategy And this is where a lot of businesses get confused because they think that having a business plan is a strategy, and it's not. A strategy isn't a forecast, a strategy isn't a list of activity. The strategy, in my humble opinion, is a set of choices. It's a decision about where you're going focus and how you're going to win.

So in simple terms, 'cause I'm a simple guy, strategy answers the following question: Given the challenges that we face, where are we going to focus and how are we gonna solve it? So let's go back to our distributor example that just came in step one. And as we said, your five why is this happening questions reveal that the real issue isn't distributor performance, it's weak distributor onboarding. So ask yourself, how are you gonna solve that?

And you might decide that you believe the fastest way to improve distributor performance is to focus our resources on developing three strategic distributors and building a world-class onboarding program rather than recruiting 10 more distributors. Now that's a strategy, and you might ask yourself, "Okay, so why is that a strategy?" Because you made the choice. You've decided where you're gonna focus, i.

e., on, building three world-class distributors. But just as importantly, you've decided what you're not gonna focus on, i.e.

, you're not gonna focus on recruiting more distributors and having lots and lots of distributors. Now, most businesses don't lack opportunities. What they do lack is focus, and that's why so many businesses, as we said right at the outset, feel busy but don't feel they're making progress because they're not making the choices that give them the focus to deliver that progress And what strategy does is it helps you decide what matters most. So now over to you, a bit of work.

Complete these two sentences. Number one, to solve this challenge, we will focus on Dot, dot, dot. And obviously fill in the blanks. And then number two, to make that happen, we will stop focusing on Dot, dot, dot.

And you fill in the blanks 'cause I'm hoping that you're coming along with me, and you're doing this as you go along. Now keep it simple. One clear choice, one clear direction. And if you can't explain that strategy that comes out of that in one or two sentences, then it's not a strategy yet.

So you need to go back to it. Until you can explain it clearly in one or two sentences like I did when I was talking about the focusing on developing three strategic distributors. So that's step two, define a strategy which gives you focus and forces you to make decisions on what to do and more importantly, what not to do So now onto step three. We wanna turn the strategy into a plan And this is a really interesting one because I see lots of businesses getting strategy and plan mixed up the strategy is the choice that we've just discussed, and the plan is how you deliver it.

So let's continue on with the example we've been using about poor distributor performance. The root cause, as we identified in step one, was weak onboarding, and the strategy was to focus on developing three strategic distributors rather than recruiting ten more. Now we need a plan, and the plan may well include building an onboarding program, creating distributor scorecards, conducting quarterly reviews, developing training materials, implementing performance metrics. That's the plan.

And hopefully the difference is quite clear there because the strategy tells us where we're going to focus and our direction and the plan then tells us what are the activities that need to happen to achieve that strategy. So the strategy is the choice and the plan is the actions. And confusing those two is one of the biggest reasons businesses struggle to execute effectively. Now Back over to you.

Take that strategy statement that you just wrote down. And list the three to five actions required to make that happen. Not twenty, not fifty, but the critical few. And then ask yourself, if those actions were completed successfully, would your strategy move forward?

If the answer is yes, then you've got the beginnings of a plan. If the answer is no, then remove those and rewrite it until you've got three to five actions which will make that strategy move forward So now moving on to step four, the execution. And This is where everything becomes real because a brilliant strategy that isn't executed is worthless and a plan that sits in a drawer is also worthless. And I've definitely seen that hundreds of times.

Execution is where value is created A friend of mine once said that a subpar strategy executed is better than an optimal strategy that isn't executed Ideally you want both, but you definitely want execution. That's where the value is created. And this is where accountability matters, ownership of the task and the activities matter, measurement definitely matters, deadlines also matter. So let's go back to our example.

You now have a strategy, you have a plan. So the four questions that you now need to ask are number one, who owns each action? Number two, what needs to happen in the next 90 days for that strategy to be implemented? Number three, how will we measure success?

And number four, how often will we review progress? That's execution, and this is where lots of businesses fall down because they may have all of the strategy, they may have a plan, but they haven't got those key elements to make sure that you execute that plan. And it's not because they lack intelligence or ambition it's because they lack a consistency. Because success generally comes from doing small, consistent actions rather than one massive big action.

So your last little exercise I want you to do here is complete this following sentence. Over the next 90 days, the single most important thing that we will achieve is Dot, dot, dot.. So Make sure it's measurable, make sure it's specific, and definitely assign ownership so that you make sure who's held accountable if it's not done. Now, whether that's you a co-founder or a member of your team, it doesn't matter, but you need to have ownership because what gets measured, as they say, gets managed, and what gets managed usually gets done.

So those are the four simple steps which take you from strategy through planning to the most important thing, execution. So hopefully that's been helpful, and let's go back to where we started. It's a Friday afternoon, you've had a busy work week, a really busy week. The question isn't have you been busy, the question is, have you made progress?

Because being busy and making progress, as I said, are not the same thing. And often the reason businesses feel stuck isn't because they're working too little, it's because they've confused strategy, planning, and execution. So remember, the challenge tells you what needs fixing. The strategy tells you where you'll focus and how you'll win.

The plan tells you what needs to happen. Execution is doing that consistently if you get those four things aligned, then progress becomes much easier. So before you finish listening, look at the notes you've made, and if you haven't taken notes, wait till you get home and then go through it again and make those notes. You've identified a challenge, you've uncovered the root cause, you've created a strategy, you've built a plan, and you've identified what execution looks like over the next 90 days.

That's progress, and that's how businesses move forward with purpose rather than simply staying busy. And If you wanna get access to my 90-day strategy planning execution template, then just drop me a line using the LinkedIn link in the show notes and just put in the message 90-day template, please Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, thanks for listening. Keep challenging your assumptions and keep growing.