How to Move Stakeholders from Awareness to Sustained Adoption Without Friction | Ep. 60

In this episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast, hosts Trevor Slattery and Christian Espinosa are joined by Claudia Holy, the Founder and CEO of Podymos, a marketing agency dedicated exclusively to the medical device industry. Claudia shares insights from her extensive career, which began at major corporations like Johnson & Johnson and Bard before she transitioned to the startup world and eventually founded her own specialized agency. She established Podymos after recognizing that most general marketing agencies, while skilled in their craft, lacked the deep understanding of the unique regulatory landscape, sales cycles, and stakeholder complexities inherent to the MedTech space. The central theme of the discussion is the foundational importance of clear and effective messaging. Claudia argues that messaging is one of the biggest, yet most frequently overlooked, challenges for companies. She powerfully compares spending money on marketing activities without a solid message to “sailing a ship with the anchor down.” The conversation emphasizes that if potential customers cannot quickly and easily understand the specific problem a product solves, any investment in advertising, social media, or other promotional efforts will be fundamentally inefficient. The hosts and guest explore the "curse of knowledge," a common pitfall where innovators and engineers are too close to their product to articulate its value in simple terms that resonate with an outside audience. The episode delves into actionable strategies for overcoming these challenges. A key point is the necessity of deeply understanding and mapping out the needs of every stakeholder. Since a single medical device can have multiple end-users—from surgeons and hospital administrators to IT departments and patients—a one-size-fits-all message is doomed to fail. The discussion advocates for creating tailored messages that address the specific pain points and questions of each group. Furthermore, the speakers highlight that a significant portion of the buyer's journey now happens online before any contact with a sales representative is made. Therefore, companies must proactively create content (videos, articles, FAQs) that answers the most common questions, thereby educating prospects, building trust, and shortening the sales cycle. This approach prioritizes quality and specificity over broad, generic outreach, leading to more qualified leads and greater marketing ROI.

I think messaging is actually one of the biggest challenges people have because if you're not really clear in the problem you solve and people don't understand your message really really quickly, all the money you put into the rest of your marketing activities is like sailing a ship with the anchor down. If I get a marketing email that is longer than a couple sentences, I'm not even going to open it. So again when we're talking about messaging, you need to understand exactly who your end user is. What problem are we solving for that person? You're going to have a lot better success going for 100 great prospects instead of 10,000 potential maybe prospects. What's a good way of messaging without spreading FUD? Always think about the end of what you want to say in your marketing. What's going to really differentiate you and give you the edge. And I think that needs to start early on. Trevor: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Med Device Cyber podcast. Today we're going to be talking about how you can make sure that you're getting your medical device out there and how we're making sure that it's going to be safe and secure. Trevor: I'm your co-host Trevor Slattery, joined by Christian Espinosa and we have a very special guest today, Claudia. I'll let you go ahead and introduce yourself. Claudia: Hi, my name's Claudia. I'm the founder and CEO of Podymos. We're a dedicated medical device marketing agency. Claudia: I've been in the industry for over, oh, too many years now. Um I started at Johnson and Johnson, then went through to Bard, through, uh then to a startup called Spinal Modulation. I then, yeah, I was then working with agencies and realized actually most agencies we work with are great at what they do, but they just don't understand medical device. Claudia: So there had to be a different way. And that's where Podymos comes from. So we're dedicated to medical device, it's all we do. Um yeah, and we just work with this industry. Trevor: Sounds like uh the marketing equivalent to what we do. We do cyber security just for medical devices. We don't try to touch anywhere else because we see that there are too many generalists that don't fully understand what's going on there. It's a, it's a unique space. You can't try to take a general approach to something like medicine. Claudia: So true. And actually we've been asked to move into pharma, and each time we're like, 'No, we just understand MedTech. MedTech is totally different. We love MedTech.' Christian: And where are you coming from? You're like right outside of London, is that right? Claudia: Yes, so uh we're in, we're in Brentford. Our offices are in Brentford in London, and we're also in Boston, but I'm obviously in Brentford at the moment. So just outside of London just by Heathrow. Christian: Cool. And I was just in London until a couple of days ago. So I'm still a little bit jet-lagged. I'm permanently jet-lagged because before that I was in Dubai. Trevor doesn't travel that much anymore, so he used to be the one always jet-lagged, but now he's uh pretty stationary in California. Trevor: Yeah. It feels uh, especially this time of year, it feels really good not to leave California. Claudia: I bet, because the weather is so much better in California as well. Trevor: Yeah, and it seems, you know, I've been talking to everyone on our team today and, 'Oh, how's it going?' 'Oh, I'm under two feet of snow,' and I just go, 'Oof.' Claudia: That's a bummer. Trevor: Boston, yeah. Christian: So where does the name Podymos... Is that how you say it right? Podymos? Claudia: Yeah, Podymos. Podymos. Christian: Podymos, yeah, Podymos. Where does the name come from? It's a very unique name. Claudia: Yes, everybody asks this question. So, it actually, when I started Podymos, I was sitting with my dad and we were trying to think about names, and he was reading a paper and he came up with the word 'Podemos'. And the reason he liked it, and I liked it, was because it means 'we can'. So, 'Podemos' with an E in the middle means 'we can', and that's very much the ethos that I have at Podymos. So we changed the E for a Y, and um, yeah, because then we could trademark it and everything else, but that's where it comes from. So it means 'we can'. Christian: I like it. People always ask about our name as well. Ours is a little bit different. Claudia: Yours is a really cool name though, because I know the background of your name as well. Christian: Trevor, what is the background of our name, do you know? Trevor: I do. So I know that the source of it is due to your... I should know... yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think if I've been around for as long as I have and I don't know why we're named what we are, that's a bad look. Claudia: I was going to say this could be a job-limiting moment. Trevor: Exactly, yeah. This is uh, I found the glass ceiling, it's right here. Um, it's part of from, you know, of course, obviously, Christian, your passion for the outdoors, mountaineering and rock climbing, and then seeing all the goats up at the top of the mountain and how the goats are striving for the peak, they're climbing higher than any of us. And then of course, you know, blue representing the integrity and the safety and the trust that we try to push forward so much in the industry. And of course, there is the striking comparison of the white goat against the blue sky in the mountains, which is hard to not bring up when talking about the origin. Claudia: Oh, good. That's actually, that's really cool. I've just learned more stuff about why Blue Goat is called Blue Goat. So I didn't, I knew much of that, but I didn't realize why the 'blue' was 'blue'. I thought it was more around the purple cow, in the sense of, from a marketing perspective, you want a purple cow. I thought Blue Goat came more from that. I didn't realize because you're also into marketing as well, Christian. Christian: You're talking about like the Seth Godin book. Purple Cow? Is that what it is? Claudia: Purple Cow. Christian: Yeah, you've read that? I've read the book. Yeah, but it was not, it's not named at anything to do with the purple cow, actually. Claudia: No, no, well I didn't know if that was like, actually, 'cause why blue? 'Cause there's no blue goats. So obviously now I understand why that is. Cool. Christian: What are some of the biggest challenges, Claudia, that MedTech innovators have with marketing? 'Cause I know you're like that's what you focus on, and I think people in general have challenges with marketing, but I'm sure it's even more challenging with medical devices. Claudia: So, I think there's, there's many things. So I think one, one of the biggest challenges we see, and I think this is a broad thing across many things, not just medical device. I think messaging is actually one of the biggest challenges people have. Because, if you're not really clear in what you do, or if you're not really clear in the problem you solve and people don't understand your message really, really quickly, all the money you put into the rest of your marketing activities is like sailing a ship with the anchor down. You know, because people aren't remembering in any event. So, I think that's a really big challenge. But also, you know, the marketing ecosystem is actually really large. You know, like, so what do I do to drive awareness? What are the best channels? How do I measure it? What CRM should I use? How do I report? You know, things like this. And then what content should I create? What's included? Like, there's so many things to think about. And I think actually that's a real challenge. So not only the messaging at the front, but actually how do I really get my message across to the right audience at the right time? You know, I mean, you know, when we've spoken before, what we're trying to do in marketing, is we're trying to get people to go from awareness all the way to sustained adoption. I say sustained adoption because you want somebody to be using your device and continuously using your device with no friction. And so in order to do that, you need to make sure there's no issues, fears, and concerns all the way along that pathway for each stakeholder. And I think it's really challenging to map all that out. You know, companies who are launching have so much to do with. And then to have to map all of your stakeholders out and understand all the points where you can, you know, move them through the buyer's journey. I think that's a bit, that's a huge challenge. I think it's that the ecosystem and understanding how to break that down. But the number one thing is the messaging at the front, because you can be as pretty as you want, but if your messaging is wrong, it will pull all your marketing down. Christian: I agree. Trevor's probably heard me talk about messaging 10,000 times. We have three meetings about messaging every week basically. Trevor: Yeah, I was going to say, it sounds like this morning. Claudia: Yeah, but it--you know, it's the hardest thing to do as well, because especially when people are in a company and you're working, you know, you know the ins and outs of this device like nobody else does. And then you have to come out and, and get a really simple story for your end user. You know, there's a huge problem, which is the curse of knowledge. You know, and so, you, you think you're explaining things simply, but actually, it's nowhere near as simple as it needs to be. And actually, there's a really good, and Christian, you'll probably know this. The curse of knowledge is a term that basically looks at, you know, if your knowledge is at a level 10, what level do you think you need to explain something at for people to buy? Trevor: That's a tricky one. I'd have to say it's got to be two or three somewhere in there. Claudia: You know, that's exactly right, but most people say six or seven. So, it is. So you're taking all your knowledge and you're taking it down to a level two or three, and that's where people make buying decisions, and that's how simple your messaging needs to be. At different stages, people need different information at different stages. But it needs to be so easy, people look at it and just go, 'Oh, yeah, I've got that problem. Yeah, I'm going to get in contact with them,' or 'I'm going to learn more'. You know, it needs to be that simple and it's really hard, really hard to do that. Trevor: I think it's especially a difficult thing in the healthcare space because of how complicated some of these solutions are. And so trying to distill it down, because even still if you're trying to make it as simple as possible, but your messaging is six paragraphs long. If I get, you know, a marketing email that is longer than a couple of sentences, I'm not even going to open it. I just go, 'Ooh, that's too much.' And so trying to distill such complicated, difficult tasks and processes into something concise enough to catch the attention of, you know, someone who's super busy, just trying to go through their day like a hospital IT admin, or, you know, a hospital executive, trying to make a big purchasing decision. Capturing that much attention with that distilled information, I'm sure is a really difficult challenge to solve there. Claudia: And you know, I think you mentioned something really important there, which was, these people are really busy. And so, you know, there is so much noise out there these days. Like, I mean, you know, you probably get, my inbox is flooded every day with people emailing me. My LinkedIn is flooded, social media is flooded, you know, everything is flooded. So how do you cut through the noise? And, you know, because, and it has to be really, really quick in order to do that. I told, but that's where it's also important, you know, the other thing that I think is often really easy to do, but isn't the right thing to do, is have general messages. You know, so again, when we're talking about messaging, you need to understand exactly who your end user is, and actually say, 'What problem are we solving for that person?' Because that's how you're going to grab their attention. So, you know, one company, if they've got one product and they have five stakeholders, they'll have five different messages for that product, and then they'll have one that sits on top and pulls the whole product together. So it's a lot more complicated. And then that goes through all of your materials, all your social media, etc, etc. So it's, yeah, it's it's a lot more involved, probably, than people think. Christian: I guess that's the challenge. If I send a message to a thousand people I can do in five minutes or I send a message to 10 people that I take maybe an hour each to research, which one am I going to get better results on? Claudia: Well, that's why you have a CRM. And the thing is, you don't know, do you? I mean, you can guess. And actually, it is ROI. It's not always ROI, is it though? Because it's also brand reputation. So it could be ROI. You could be absolutely right on that, but it could also be actually, am I going to damage my brand by doing this? Should I therefore take the time to research everybody? But then it's how much time you have as well. You know, it's a quandary. It's certainly takes time. Okay. So I think it's one thing, you know, that when it comes to mess, with marketing, the other thing that I know we've spoken about, Christian, before is, you know, when companies are developing their technology, I think it's really important that they think about what marketing claims they want to make at the end. And I think that's one thing that often, frustratingly, we don't see, or we see hasn't been done the way it should be. So when they come to us, it's we want to say this, this, this, this, this. Now, we're purely medical device. So, we're going to say, 'Right, where's your claims matrix? Where's your CER? What's your intended purpose?' etc, etc. And if it's not sitting in those, we're going to say, 'You can't say that.' So then, if things aren't developed right, and I think this comes down to cybersecurity as well, because cybersecurity is becoming such a big thing now, is actually, what claims can you make around cybersecurity? Then we can use in our marketing materials, because that could be a problem that you're, or somebody has around, you know, the question being, 'Is this device secure enough? Can it come into the hospital? Can we roll it out across the trust?' You know, and if you don't have the right credentials or claims to be able to support that, then you can run into trouble, and also we can't say it. So, I think this isn't just around cybersecurity, this is around your clinical development plan, this is around everything. Like, you know, always think about the end of what you want to say in your marketing, you know, what's going to really differentiate you and give you the edge. And I think that needs to start really, early, early on. And I think that's a unique thing to medical device. Christian: I'm not so sure it's unique to medical devices, but it is a a good point because I think we always suggest people engage us early on, because it's hard to retroactively add cybersecurity, just like it's hard, like you said Claudia, to basically make up these marketing claims where you didn't actually create the product to substantiate these claims you're trying to make. Claudia: Yeah. Well you can't do it, and you end up not being able to make the claims, because you can't reference them. Christian: At what point do most prospects come to you for for marketing? Do they come early on or like later? Claudia: So there's three times really when people come and work with us. There's very early stage, but we don't tend to work too much with the very early stage because actually they need a really, really light touch and, you know, spending money in other places could be the best thing. Like on cyber security at that stage. So, we work very heavily with companies when they're 12 to 18 months out from launch, because this is when they really need to get their launch plan in place, we need to get their messaging right, we need to get their branding right. We need to look at all the strategy for how we're going to do that outreach, which channels are their target audience is on. And then we also need to create all the content that we know is going to remove those issues, fears, and concerns that are going to stop people from moving forward. And all that content also goes on to the website. So, that's a really big area where we work, and that tends to take about nine months. So, 12 to nine months to put that all together, which is why we work with companies at about far out. And then the other side, or the other companies that we work with are the larger commercial companies who are really looking for fast growth. So we do, you know, we really look at how we can use content in a different way to drive rapid growth. Christian: I know we were in London together last week. Something I've been trying to get implemented in my company for a long time, and I've had some success, but you're talking about, like, really shortening that sales cycle, right? By doing some of the pre-sales, emails, and things like that. Maybe you could explain that to the audience a little bit better, because I think this is a concept a lot of people don't really think about or don't understand. Claudia: Sure. So, the main concept around this is, and I've said this a couple of times already, the reason people don't buy, well if I push it over to you Trevor, the last thing you bought, what would have made you not buy that thing? Trevor: The last thing that I bought was we had some consultants working on a bunch of design stuff in our uh knowledge base and if they had not proved to me that they have designed similar things for regulated spaces before, I was out the door. But the second they say, 'Oh, look at all these medical companies we've worked with,' when I told them we're in the medical space, they went, 'Okay, so you guys know the problems that we face, you're able to kind of empathize with what I'm going through right now.' Claudia: Okay, so you basically had concerns, which were, actually, can you even deliver this? Do you really know what I need you to know? Trevor: Exactly. Claudia: Sure. And were there any other things that you thought about when you were working with them? Or before you worked with them? Trevor: Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously figuring out things like pricing, timeline, quality, getting, you know, feedback from any of their previous customers, and even from our team. Claudia: Yeah, price, reviews, things like that, yeah. Trevor: There are a thousand things that will kind of factor into that and, you know, trying to start with a list of how many people can develop a knowledge base is a pretty big list and then refining it down to who's the person who, you know, were willing to pay for this task is a little bit of a journey to get to. Claudia: So, if you, if they couldn't have proven that information, as you said before, you would have been out the door. Trevor: Yeah. 100%. Claudia: So this is what we do in a nutshell. We identify what all those challenges are that Trevor just spoke about and we say, 'Right, how do we create the content that's going to alleviate all those problems before Trevor even meets us?' So we're going to create all this content, we're going to put it online, or we're going to send it out at the beginning of sales cycles, so that actually Trevor comes to any meeting fully educated. And it could be in video. Video is super engaging these days, people watch videos all the time. It could be in PDFs, you could be in all different things. But when Trevor arrives, he'll be like, 'Right, I know that you guys can do this. I know the price is right. I know you've worked in various areas and I've also seen your reviews. So, okay, how do we move forward?' Like, that's what we help companies to do. So actually when Trevor gets into the sales meeting, it's already a fait accompli. We know already that when somebody comes into a sales meeting or when somebody contacts a company, they're already 85% certain they want to work with that company. So how can we ensure that when they go out of three companies, you're the 85%? And that's because we've educated everybody up front. So that's online education but also education through the sales process. Trevor: So how do you strike the balance of having the appropriate amount of information? Because I feel there could be a risk of, you know, if I get an email back with 80 pages of documentation, I'm probably going to be pretty scared by that. Claudia: Absolutely. Which you know, is a funny thing. So, you say that, but actually the more detail we give, the more we find people tend to read it. because people really want to self-educate these days. But, you know, how do we ensure that we don't send out too much information? It's about mapping out yourself process really well and saying, 'Right, so this stakeholder, say it's a surgeon, and we have these number of meetings before we get to purchase. So we have initial meeting, we have an evaluation, etc. etc.' And then we look at, 'Okay, what questions are we getting at every, each of these stages?' And then we rank them. Um because then we know, 'Okay, we're just going to deal with the top seven questions because they're the ones that crop up all the time.' And when we speak with sales teams, this is consistently across the board, we find they say that between 60 and 80%, in fact, it's often as high as 95% of the questions they get asked in initial sales meetings are the same every single time. So those are the questions we take. So we're like, 'Right, let's take all that 95% of questions and let's answer them upfront.' And then you'll find you'll get some other questions maybe in the sales process and you could answer them with a PDF, or you could answer them with something else. We only answer what they ask. That's the key to this. We never give them information that we think they want because that's not what's blocking their sales journey. What's blocking their sales journey is the issues, fears, and concerns that they have. And so it's really easy for, if companies want to work this out, you know, speak to your sales team, get them together, get them to map out your sales process, get them to tell tell you all the challenges or the questions that they're getting because that will map out exactly what your content needs to look like for that stakeholder. It's, it's crazily simple. It works really, really well. Christian: And we have all this. It's harder to do. We do it all the time. Maybe we need some help with this. No, we've done this. We know the top questions, and it's just a matter of recording Trevor and I are supposed to get together and record some content to send out before the meeting to answer those top questions. I think you referred to it as the 'Big 5 + 2'. Claudia: Yeah, big five plus two. Yeah. Christian: And then they'll ask, "Why don't just call the Big 7?" I was like, because it's the Big 5 + 2, Christian. Claudia: Well, whatever works. So yeah, but it's, uh, it's that. So that's from 'They Ask, You Answer' from Marcus Sheridan, which is also 'Endless Customers'. They've done a new version now called 'Endless Customers'. So we work with companies to implement that, so we're certified coaches for 'Endless Customers' and which is where all of this side, but it's obviously targeted to medical device. So medical device is a very regulated space, which means we need to be really careful how we do things. So that's how we we sort of applied 'Endless Customers' into medical device. Trevor: I have a feeling uh right about as soon as this recording ends up, I'm going to get a call from Christian saying, "When are we recording those FAQ videos?" Claudia: And I'll come on, you know what though? The impact they have, it's epic. And if they're used at the right stage in your sales cycle, and online, the only word for it is transformational. And you guys have loads of traffic coming to your website. So, you know, all the, all that information should be on your website, totally. And then you just need to see how your sales process changes once you've done that, because I guarantee it will. Christian: Well, we wanted to, we want our conversions to go up and we want more sales. We're in business, right? Claudia: Exactly. It's true. True, true, true. Christian: And like, you're talking about earlier, by the time somebody shows up to a meeting, they should already know, in today's age, they should know enough about our price, our timeline, our frequently asked questions, where it's just a matter of like answering whatever they have left, and then they're pretty much going to sign the proposal. Claudia: They totally should be that. And, you know, recent data, if you— it was um, I think dated by Forrester, but other market analyst firms as well, showed that 80% of a buyer's decision has occurred before somebody even gets in contact with the company. So if you don't have the information on your website, it means they can't make that decision, which means if a competitor does, they will make the decision with that competitor. So, you know, people are really trying to self-educate. There was another stat that said that 44% of millennials want a salesperson-free sales process, and that's 2.2 times higher than the generation before. So that shows we're going into self-education. So which comes back to the point, Christian, you know, when you say that we want somebody to come on to an initial call and they have all the information, absolutely. That's exactly what we want, and we want the only questions to be, "How do I move forward?" You know, so everything needs to be on the website or in your sales process before they meet you in order to deliver that. Christian: So how do you balance giving out the information versus letting your competitors, or people that might be a competitor, know too much about your pricing, your timeline, all that stuff? Claudia: So we, I can talk personally about us. And there's different things here. So, when we talk about pricing, we're not saying exactly what we're charging for things. We're saying things like, "You know, this is the average cost of this type of project." "This is a range." "This is what will make the project go up, this is what will make the project go down." So we're never necessarily giving the exact price. I mean, you can if you want, but that's not necessarily what we're doing. Another question could be, "Why are you more expensive than other agencies?" Great, let's talk about that. There's always reasons behind things, we're a business. You know, so I'm never worried about, you know, competitors finding out information, because I've got to be strong enough in what we deliver and the quality and service that what we deliver. You know, I want Podymos to become the most trusted voice when it comes to medical device marketing. So I think, you know, we have to put ourselves out there, and we have to, you know, give people the information they want in order to make the right decision for them. Because ultimately, they're the most important thing in this equation. That, you know, them getting the right service and working with the right agency, that's the most important thing. So, and I think when it comes to competitors as well, you know, when we think about medical device companies, it's like, "Oh yes, but I don't want my competitor to know that." They probably know that anyway. And likely, they're the ones who are saying it to your doctors. So if we don't bring the conversation forward, somebody else is going to be, and it's probably going to be your competitors. So I really don't see that when it comes to, you know, "Should should we be worried about the competitors?" I don't think the competitors pay our bills. So I think it's more about, you know, really giving customers what they want and so that we're the obvious choice. Christian: What do you think, Trevor? You've been doing pretty highly involved with sales. What do you think about this? Trevor: I think it makes sense. If you are going to say, "You know, hey, this is the service that you need," you need to be confident in your offering. And so when someone comes to us and they say, because they'll bring it up, they'll say, "Hey, we've talked to these other different companies or we've talked to some of your competitors," and they'll ask, "Your price is a little bit differently, your price is over here, their price is a little bit lower. Can you explain?" And what we lean into isn't like, "Oh, we do X, Y, and Z, and it costs more money to do this." Like, obviously, you know, we're a business. Everything is— there are costs to delivering the services, and we need to make sure that we're still having a profit on top of that. But ultimately what I say is, "Hey, we are— this is what we do. We are going to get you to your goal. You're looking for this outcome, and this is what that outcome is going to cost." That is a guarantee. You can look for the outcome elsewhere, but, you know, I don't know if it's going to be a guaranteed solution like what you have right here. And that's usually the deciding factor is confidence and a guarantee that we're going to get it done. And historically, we've been, done a pretty good job of getting it done, so we're able to, able to back that guarantee. Claudia: No, makes sense. Makes total sense. Christian: And if we had the ability, and we can do this through our FAQs, we record them, to remove a lot of the people that show up to our discovery calls with such a variance in the expected— expected price versus what we tell them it's going to cost, then that would really, as Claudia said, free up our salespeople a lot of time and we can focus on more ideal prospects versus uh those kind of people that have such a variance. Claudia: If they saw the price up front and actually it wasn't right for them at the moment, then they go, "You know what, I love what you guys are doing, but actually this is just outside of my bracket." And you can't deliver it for any less anyway because that's what it costs to deliver it. So this is outside of my bracket, but actually then when it's inside their bracket later on, they'll come back to you. Hopefully. Christian: Hopefully. Claudia: Hopefully. Christian: Well, they, they usually do, but it's not under ideal circumstances. So, like you said, we're very niche in MedTech, it's a highly regulated... a mistake a lot of our prospects make is they, they'll choose a generalist, like a general cybersecurity company, which is going to be cheaper because they don't know exactly what needs to be done, they're not a specialist. And then they end up getting deficiencies or additional information requests from the regulatory authority, and they come back to us asking us to fix it. So then they've basically paid twice. Claudia: What's the average cost of that sort of a thing when that happens? Trevor: It can be all over the place. It's going to depend on your product. It's going to depend on what it takes to develop that and what you were planning to, of course, have it for on the market. So, if the FDA comes back, their cycles are 90 days to respond to an initial submission. Usually they try to keep it a little bit faster, but up to 90 days. And the second they don't like something, they're going to kick you into a hold for up to 180 days. So, the worst-case scenario and what you need to plan for is effectively 270 days of delays based on you not getting this right. Think about what that's going to cost to keep your engineering staff on team if whether that's outsourced, whether that's in-house, they're going to have to fix a bunch of problems that the FDA points out, and think about what you could have been generating if you had gotten this onto the market 270 days earlier. So these are the types of things that need to be factored in when having this conversation. And what very often ends up happening and we see this all the time is people get through that 90-day cycle, they get the response from the FDA, and they get kicked into a hold. The FDA sends back a list of, you know, 40 different items that they need to cover for them to be happy, and they have six months to do it. And that's when it's less of a seamless process. It's more of a panicked response, it's, "You know, hey, we're on a timer now, we don't know how to get this done exactly. We really need to rush to get this figured out." And every second that we're not working on this is another second that we can't respond to the FDA and we are not on the market. So, it's going to be all over the place. It depends on how severe the deficiencies are, it depends on what you're hoping to get out of your device, but basically take it, you can sidetrack yourself by a year pretty quickly. Christian: "All over the place" is not quantifiable enough for a case study, though, or for a marketing campaign. Trevor: It is not. We can talk about specific case studies from, you know, what we have seen on a specific instance. This is what happens when a surgical robot gets kicked back by the FDA. And if you're spending, you know, development costs for a surgical robot or for any medical device can get into the seven-figure range really fast. And so picture adding on another year of non-recurring engineering and if it comes quickly apparent what can go wrong. Claudia: So from a messaging point of view, that's a heavy failure. Trevor: Exactly. Claudia: In the sense of it's, what failure looks like if you don't engage cybersecurity or the right cybersecurity only on. Trevor: Exactly. And it's especially prevalent, because cybersecurity is one of, if not, I believe it's the number one reason that the FDA kicks back medical devices is lack of sufficient cybersecurity controls. A dozen reasons why that can happen. They're moving the goalpost, it seems like every other week, and people just don't understand what goes into this, but it can be a total deal killer. Christian: Like, one of my concerns, and this is the challenge with cybersecurity in general, cybersecurity is sold typically through what we call FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. And I'm not a big fan of like messaging or marketing or selling around FUD. And what we're talking about is just that. So, how, how do you craft that message when this is like the worst-case scenario and it can actually cause... we've had companies come to us and basically throw up their hands and just decide to abandon their product because it costs too much to for that one year of delays. What's a good way of messaging that without spreading that FUD, I guess? Claudia: So I think whenever you do messaging, failure, you tend not to put too much failure into what you're talking about because it is very negative. People only need a certain amount of failure to actually take action. So normally it's a lot more success that goes into a story and there's only a little bit of failure that sits in that. Christian: So like on the on the StoryBrand script, we just, basically just barely touch upon the failure but hit the success. Claudia: Well they say, so so the analogy of it, and you probably heard the heard this, if they're making a cake, it's like, it's sugar versus salt. So sugar should be your success and salt should be your failure. And but ultimately, it's, you know, that can be a really strong hook at the end, you know, in the sense, don't allow this to happen to you. Um, you know, don't allow a year's delay on the FDA, don't allow, you know, a million pounds in unused staff costs or whatever that looks like. It's very powerful as the final call to action, because that's, you know, people don't want that and you don't want to instill fear in people, but that is the reality. You know, Trevor, you're saying, from the examples you've given, this is what happens if you get kicks back from the FDA. So I think it's really valid to mention that and put it as, "you know, don't allow this to happen to you," and have those things list in there. And but then all the positives beforehand about what trying to achieve, you know, why they should work with Blue Goat Cyber, what your validation points, things like that, and really what the problem you're solving for them is right at the top. So failure is always a really small part, but it's a really powerful part, really powerful. Trevor: I think it's a little hard with cybersecurity sometimes since the, the best case result, the golden example of cybersecurity is nothing happens. Yeah, success is nothing happens and failure is people, you know, get hurt, your private information is stolen, your device gets recalled. Like, the bad scenarios are so, so bad. It's not the same as saying, like if we were an engineering firm, success is we are creating a product that is doing some innovative treatment, we're executing on your vision to create a new form of medicine. How exciting. Cyber security is we're probably making it harder to use, and that's about it. Christian: It's got to be a better way of explaining that, Trevor. That doesn't sound very good. Trevor: It doesn't. And I think it's a hard thing about cybersecurity is trying to convey, "We're doing this to give you a safer product," and I guess that's more the outcome that you're looking for is how is the product used? Claudia: But it's always really powerful. Like Christian, when we first met and I didn't really understand that much what a cyber device was, but then when you hear about the examples of actually what could happen if a cyber device goes wrong, it's really compelling, and it's very visual. So, you know, all the examples that Christian you give about what could happen, I mean you can really picture it. You know, like if a robot gets hacked and it's inside a patient at the time, I mean there's no doubt, there's no sort of end of issues that could happen. Um you know, or if it gets into, I don't know, you know, diaphragm machine, anything, all different things. So I mean, I think you do have a very visual image of what will happen if things do go wrong. But you're right, if everything goes right, then actually it just passes through and all's good. Trevor: Yeah. And honestly, you know, maybe saying like nothing happens, it's not necessarily a bad way to put it. A lack of disruption is a great thing. The worst things that possibly -- It's a smooth pathway, I mean it is a smooth pathway to your FDA approval. Yeah. The most stressful things that come up are these unexpected, last-minute fires, when something didn't go the way you wanted it to. And, you know, come to think of it, when you see things go the way you expected to, you go, "Great, my satisfaction, or like my expectations are met, I'm satisfied." And you're super disappointed when it doesn't go the way you want. So, nothing happening is really not a bad outcome. Claudia: It's true. If, you know, someone, somebody comes to you guys and says, "Right, can you try and hack into this device?" and you guys manage and you say, "Right, okay, here's 7,000 faults you need to fix." You're just like... You know, and you're like three weeks out from submission or something. I mean, that would be horrific. Trevor: Totally. I don't think we ever found nothing, but when we find minimal stuff, people go, "Oh, I was thinking maybe more would come back." I go, "Don't say that. This is a good thing and you want this to happen. This is good." Claudia: It doesn't happen all the time, be pleased. Christian: I guess it's like, you've had some problems with your vehicle, Trevor. I guess it's if you buy a really good vehicle, if it doesn't break down, like nothing happens, that's good, right? But if it breaks down all the time, then that's a problem. Trevor: Exactly. Yeah. That's why, you know, a Toyota Corolla is not gonna be a glamorous car, but it's never going to break down. You're never going to say, "Oh, this is the greatest car ever," but you're always going to go, "It never broke down." And then my car seems to find itself in the shop every other week, so maybe I should have bought a Corolla. Christian: They say it's just a Jeep thing. Isn't it just not the saying? Trevor: They do sort of look cool, except I've got like the mom SUV Cherokee, so it's not as cool. Christian: Bright orange, too, isn't it? Trevor: Bright orange, yeah. Christian: It's probably cooler than my vehicle. I have a 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan minivan. Trevor: Well, minivan, the floor is over here when we start talking about minivans. So even a Cherokee's like up here. We're good. Claudia: See, see I don't even know these cars, because in the UK we don't have, like whenever I come over to the US and I'm driving on your motorway, it's scary because your cars are really big and your motorways are really wide. So we're just not used to that over here. Christian: That's true. And we drive on the other side of the road, also. Claudia: Yeah, we we drive on the right side of the road. Christian: Yeah, I was schooled by Mike in London about we drive on the wrong side of the road, that you drive on the correct side because back in the days with horses and jousting, you drove on the, you're on the left side because most people are right-handed, but then Napoleon apparently Napoleon screwed it all up because he was left-handed. Claudia: Okay. Do you know what? I'm not surprised that Mike Brannigan-Harris knows that story. Christian: Well, he was... 'cause if you're, if you're jousting, it's on the, you're on the left side, right? You're driving on, you're your horse on the left side, you're jousting your right hand. So that's the rationale he gave. Trevor: What was the last time you were jousting in a car though? Christian: I mean, that's it, isn't it? I was lucky to, I was trying to emulate this here, and I was like, "Hang on, I don't even know how I'd hold a joust." So I don't even think that would have worked for me. So I was like, "This is failing right at the beginning." Christian: Well, you hold it with the on the right side of the horse and you hold the horse with your left hand. So that's the rationale. I've always, like those, a-I know a lot of people go to those um, what are those things called, the Renaissance Fairs, and they pretend, but if I went, I'd actually want to do the jousting with someone and jousting against somebody. I think it would might as well make it worthwhile versus just dress up and pretend you're back in the day. So we'll have to have a jousting competition at some point, Trevor. Trevor: You got a deal. Let's do it. My horse riding skills need some improvement, to begin with, probably. Trevor: Also, probably both of our jousting skills. It's not something you do every day. Christian: No. There's a good movie, I think it's called 'A Knight's Tale', it's about jousting. That's pretty good. Claudia: Maybe watch it again to perfect your skills. Christian: Yeah. Our next team-building episode will be jousting. Claudia: Can I come to your meeting? Christian: Yes, you can. We try to do something different. The last one wasn't too exciting. I, I had the team go somewhere in the middle of nowhere so nobody could do anything exciting, but we could focus on the event and on our leadership meetings. Claudia: I'm going somewhere in the middle of nowhere so no one can do anything. Trevor: There were no distractions. It was just focus, work. And then we'd go, "Ah, we want to go goof off," and there was nothing to do so we just work instead. It worked really well. Christian: The only goofing off we did, which Trevor didn't participate in, was, uh, a guy in our team is into the Ivermectin, that stuff you take to kill the parasites in our bodies. So we went to a feedlot and bought some Ivermectin and uh took that for four days to kill all the parasites on our bodies. Trevor: I'm kind of glad my flight got in late. Christian: It's like, it's for horses. Um, so it's apple-flavored, but, he swears by it. I think I think the parasites are gone from me now. Christian: Cool. We're running up here on time, so I I like to go around the virtual table here and ask for departing thoughts, last-minute words of wisdom. So we'll start with you, Trevor. You've been pretty good about saying something different on the recent episodes here. So what did you get, what do you have to say today? Trevor: I'm going to just go back to what I said earlier, and the greatest sin is mass, general marketing. Look at the companies you're trying to reach out to. Don't try to call me about pharmaceutical sales. Don't try to, you know, look at drug development and stuff like that. Really understand who is your ideal client profile and refine things down to them. You're going to have a lot better success going for a hundred great prospects instead of 10,000 potential maybe prospects. So, refine your ICP. Christian: Okay. What do you what do you think, Claudia? Claudia: So I think, I'm not going to go for messaging. Like, that is the most important thing, but I think we've spoken about that a lot in this call. I'm going to go for, if you want to make the biggest impact on your marketing in 2026, map out your stakeholders. So map out your whole sales journey and understand what questions you're getting at each stage and then that will give you a content map for probably the next six months, maybe a year. Christian: I love it. So something I would say is to understand the problems and the pain points of your ideal client. Uh, like one of the things I always think about is when I sold my first company, I got lots of messages about people wanting to be my wealth advisor, to do this, to do this, to do this. The one that resonated the most is this guy sent me a message on LinkedIn and said, "Hey, I noticed you sold your company. You're probably worried or thinking about these three things." And I was exactly thinking about those three things. Claudia: And so he was solving the three problems that you had in your mind. Christian: He said, "If those are something you're, you're thinking about, here's my meeting link." I scheduled a meeting with him and he became my wealth advisor and helped me like navigate a bunch of scenarios. Claudia: So he's really interesting, isn't it? Just to sort of come back at a second. Like, out of all the messages I get, I respond to so few. I mean like so few, I will respond to one message probably every three months. That's how many I respond to. And it will be somebody who does, as you say, just hits the problem I have at that moment, straight away, and does it in a really short way, and does it in a human way, and an empathetic way, or an emotive way. That's the one I'll end up responding to. But it's true, that really works. Christian: That's what this guy did and it worked, and I always think, 'How can we do this to our prospects?' Well, thanks so much everyone for tuning in to the Med Device Cyber podcast. We hope you found value in this episode and we hope to see you on the next one.