The four seats that decide
Each seat asks a different first question. Answer the wrong one and the conversation ends politely.
- Clinical champion: will my team use it, and does it make care better?
- Department chair or service line leader: does it fit our plan and our budget this year?
- Supply chain: what does it cost all in, and what does it replace?
- Value analysis committee: is the evidence strong enough to justify the spend?
The seats behind them
Depending on the product, others can stop a deal late. Find them early, because a late objection costs a quarter.
- Chief medical officer and chief nursing officer: clinical standards and staff workload
- CIO, CMIO and IT security: integration, data and security review for anything with software
- CFO and finance: capital versus operating budget, and the payback period
- Biomedical engineering: service, maintenance and device management
- Nurse managers and practice administrators: training, scheduling and day-to-day use
Every specialty speaks its own language
The same product is a different story in emergency medicine, critical care, cardiology, anesthesia or primary care. A message that names the work of that specialty, and the problem it has this year, gets read. A message written for everyone gets filtered.
We build a short value-points sheet per specialty with the client's clinical team before anything is sent, so every message starts from how that specialty works.
Do not skip department leaders
Teams often target only end users, or only the C-suite, and skip the people in between. Department and service line leaders control budget lines and are reachable. They need a message about budget and team, not features.
Map one health system in an hour
- Pick one target health system and the departments your product touches.
- Name the clinical champion candidates: who publishes, teaches or speaks on the problem you solve.
- Name the department and service line leaders above them.
- Find supply chain and value analysis: committee pages, procurement contacts and recent vendor announcements.
- Add the behind-the-scenes seats your product will need: IT, finance or biomedical engineering.
- Write one opening line for each seat that answers its first question. If you cannot, you are not ready to send.