Why Your MedTech Company Stays Invisible on LinkedIn

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0:00 Hey there. I'm Terry Coutsolioutsos, founder of RevRx AI. We remove friction and architect revenue for MedTech and consumer health practices. Hey there, this is Terry Coutsolioutsos. You are on Zero Friction podcast and we have a wonderful guest today. Priya Shah, who is the founder of ShahSquared Consulting. And she is a social media expert. That helps growth stage companies become more prominent in their space that elevates them and creates and removes friction from them, whether it's bringing things to market or also if they're in their fundraising stages, she helps them find a track of investors to get them moving as well. So, in order to get started, the first thing we do is sort of invite our guest to give a little personal background and then Priya, why don't you tell us what you do and how you do it?

Sure, and I'm really excited to be here, too, Terry. So, my background is that I actually started in journalism. Um, I have a journalism degree that quickly shifted into public relations. Um, and I started in more of the consumer space. And represented a lot of kind of hospitality and food and beverage. And that was fulfilling when I was really young in my career, but I was looking for something more and made a a soft pivot, I would say, into nutrition and obesity medicine that then eventually led me further into the space of really health tech, MedTech, um, everything in the health care and life sciences space.

Definitely a social media strategist would be the way that I approach things, but really I look at these channels, especially for B2B, LinkedIn, as being a business system. And so, I always love being able to show that thorough line between where they see maybe it as a content engine and instead seeing how it then becomes a connection point between pretty much every department within their organization. Well, that's an amazing little background and I I think you know, having a little diversification early in your career is always a great beneficial foundation for other things that you can do as well.

But let's talk about like the people that you work with. So, you're dealing with probably founders, executives, inventors in these growth stage companies. Tell us a little bit, you know, about what you're doing today and and how you're helping people sort of get to that next step. Sure. So, oftentimes I'm coming in, like we said, at the growth stage when they've really kind of realized who they are and what they want to do. So, they're not in that early stage, but they're maybe getting ready for a big product launch or they're waiting on that clearance and they're wanting to hit the go button. So, I come in and really help them with building not only the foundation of the company, as saying, "Who are we and how can we have this as a thorough line or what specific topics are kind of connected to our brand?" But also helping them enable their people. So, that's the founders, the executives, understanding the power of their own

3:07 Voice because I think, at the end of the day, we continuously look at it. People buy from people. Even in the in B2B companies, that's how it is. So, when we can articulate the why through people, I think it really just helps these companies accelerate a lot faster. You know, and that's the the why part is probably a big part and then, you know, I would wonder how much does trust come into play and how do you help, especially on the investment side, right? Like there's whether it's a B2B selling play or whether it's a B2B investment play, I'm sure trust at a very high level is an important component. How do you, in what you do every day, how do you help leaders and founders build that trust and that authority that gets them to that next step?

Yes. I think trust is tricky, right? Because it's something that is nuanced and it's not like we have a an easy plan of do this and then you build trust. I think it really comes down to a few components. One being really clear in who you are and why you're doing what you're doing and that can also be incorporating, like we were saying with the why, that the proof points, you know, the data, the hard evidence of what is going on and why this is currently top then the solution that you're providing. So I think having that really clear message is key, but also doing it consistently is also very key because we'd have seen people be wishy-washy where they're saying one thing over here and saying something else over there. Well, that's a great way to just take all the trust that you've built and throw it out the window because no one's going to trust someone that's talking out of both sides of their mouth. Right. Well, and that's So, yeah.

And how do you help, you know, another thing I probably really important too is like in today's healthcare environment creating values are really important component, right? So, especially with early stage companies, how do you get owners, founders, inventors to really focus on the value piece because a lot of times these projects are science projects and then somebody has to come in and figure out like what's the real true value in the marketplace. So, what does your role play in that evolution from the science project into a real true product and then the value creation that that product is designed to build?

5:41 Sure, and that can be different for different audiences, of course. Sure. Yeah, yeah. And you know, what's interesting is that especially working with B2B companies, often times they're focused on the cost savings or they're focused on, you know, some of those components that are those hard figures and that's great for a certain audience. But if you're trying to connect, let's say, to a surgeon who is just slammed and really the the value point instead is reducing friction and maybe simplifying workflow. Then, you need to also keep in mind that the same message isn't going to work for every single person. So, identifying the different value points, but also saying things like, "Okay, I know I'm a B2B company and my end buyer is another company, but to strengthen that message, you actually need to get consumers, sometimes, on board, even if it's something that is only happening in a hospital system. So, a great example is often times it's the storytelling. It's who is the end user? Okay, we're doing this all in a hospital setting. Well,

That means it's eventually getting to a patient or to people. So, we need to tell the patient story of how did said product then improve the lives of the patient, so that that patient story can ring through for different reasons. One being just that proof point, but also I've seen, interestingly, an a really big increase in direct-to-consumer being a almost intermediary marketing strategy, so that if someone is hearing about a product that's really innovative and exciting and they hear that value point from both the, I would say, maybe a surgeon partner and a patient.

A patient is hearing about that story, sharing that within their community, and it's then leading them to want to work with that surgeon and say, "Hey, I came here because I saw that story about that patient. It really just kind of made me realize I want to have that innovative product as part of my story or part of my family story, and here I am requesting it. Maybe I traveled really far to get here." So, I think there's power in that as well of hearing from the other side, the value of well, patients are asking for this product, I probably should look into it.

8:15 Especially if it's a hospital system where they come to you and say, "Hey, I want to use this." and you don't have it. So, I think there's so many different things that we can do to articulate that value and sometimes it's not linear. Sometimes it's really thinking outside the box of how can I show this value point in a way that's going to get to my end user, but in a really creative way. What do you find that um the clients that you're working with today, if there is one or two friction points that were the big ones, what are they?

Like let's just talk about the friction points first and then I'd love to dive into how you are supporting and removing that friction, but let's just talk about like, you know, one or two of the top friction points that you see your clients face every single day. I would say number one is budget and number two is time. Okay. So, let's talk about budget a little bit. What's the budget problem? What's the budget friction? Not having the budget or, you know, I think there's there's two sides of it.

One is the allocation of the budget. Why this should be allocated towards these specific solutions or tools or whatever it might be, but also using that almost as an excuse. So, saying that since we can't have this big robust fancy tool, well, we can't do this at all. And I'm a firm believer that there are different ways that we can shape things that don't necessarily mean you need to have the, you know, amazing premium tool to still be able to get your point across and doesn't mean that you should be invisible.

So, often times I see budget being used as an excuse, but I also think it might be a way for them to say, "Okay, well, since we can't have that really fancy tool, then we can't do this at all." Right. And instead being able to meet them where they are and identify the tools that they do have that might have an opportunity to create a temporary solution so that they can at least get the wheels started rather than being in a holding pattern. So, I'd say that's a that's a big one.

So, what's the the simplest thing for them to actually fix today? Like, if they were as a founder of a small startup company what are the like three or four basic things that they should be doing to remove friction from people who want to get to know who they are? I would say first and foremost, just make sure everything's updated. A lot of the times it I think they focus just on that company page of saying, "Okay, well, my company page is updated." But, what about all the leaders? Are their company are their profiles updated? Have you created anything internally that can be used to kind of share the messaging that maybe goes out in if you're using, let's say, Sales Navigator through LinkedIn and the messaging that your sales team is sharing through there.

11:20 Making sure it all has that consistency. I think consistency is key because we want to make sure that we're saying the same thing in a repeated way and not causing friction by having one person say one thing and another person say another thing on the same team. Right. So, I would say just making sure that all of your messaging and all of your key points are updated, especially if you are you have a team of people that are going out on your behalf. And then I would also say, once you've identified what that is, stick to it. Don't try to kind of flip-flop into different areas and maybe seem really interesting or or, you know, hot topics. I always say just stick with two to three things that you really know well and consistently show up with those messaging points and reiterating the why.

So, for founders especially, they don't have time, especially on those earlier stages. They know that. They don't have time. What can I do? I always say I would rather you show up and engage and comment and just be active for even 10 minutes a couple times a week than to try to put all of your energy into posting something, and I call it the posting ghost. Don't do the posting and then just all of a sudden just, okay, I did it and I'm going to now exit stage left.

It really takes that nurturing, and so I would rather you not post and instead just engage in that time frame if that's all the time that you can dedicate. I'm guessing the company pages are not a lot of value creation at least on the LinkedIn side of things. So, not from an organic standpoint, and I've been kind of touting this to a lot of companies of saying, you know, if you're putting all of your all of your energy into organic content on your company page, you're really missing out because we're out of about 1% of the follower feed. So, that is, you know, that is a very, very small versus I would say it's more likely that you would see somebody going actually from a founder page to the company page. They might click on, oh, they're, you know, the founder of XYZ company. And so, I've I've made it a really big point to highlight the importance of making sure that is the right information and you're presenting your best work there. You know, you're

Using that featured section to really highlight the posts that articulate who you are or a milestone or something that is a really, really strong value because that first impression is everything, and it's just really important for that to really highlight and show what your company is and why it matters. And probably make sure that that webpage is really easy to find on that about section, too, is probably a good, you know, Don't bury it. You know, don't bury it away. You you don't don't make it hard for people to find you, right?

14:16 Exactly. I like to pivot a little bit, you know? Sure. And I want to set up the the framework of the discussion a little bit cuz I know you deal with a lot of early-stage companies and, you know, your social media and your PR and your branding work all line up with helping these early-stage companies engage in a really challenging market today for money, right? So from a healthcare and a medtech perspective, but I see this every day with the people that I work with, is that the venture money, the private equity money, is sort of I'm not going to say leaving the healthcare space, but they are there's a lot of alternatives out there, especially with AI and AI in healthcare.

They still might be in healthcare, but they're kind of leaving the device and the tech space, which is for historical years always been sort of the the prince of, you know, getting the money for the device side, right? Exactly. And now with AI, there's a lot of healthcare technologies that can go to market within weeks and not have regulatory pathway and, you know, from an investor perspective, that's really can be interesting, right? Mhm. And so a lot of these early-stage companies are now turning to family office and angel investors.

Sure. I know that you've built like this really nice sort of, you know, practice around that, connecting these two communities of Sure. the investor and the investee. Tell us a little bit about the friction and what you're doing to support both sides of the fence there. Yes, I think oftentimes from the investor side is that they're getting either bombarded by the wrong company and so they're just kind of dealing with a lot of clutter. So they're either doing some deal flow sharing with other either family offices or partners that they have in the space. So, they're kind of coming in as a consensus. And so, they want to be able to invest in the right things. But, I also think family office is very interesting because they're not beholden to the same things that other investors are. Same with angels. So, it's a lot of kind of connecting into what matters to them.

And I think that's where those really compelling stories that kind of touch the heartstrings. Often times, the reason that family offices invest in specific places is that it's a it's a personal connection to something they care about. And so, if you're wanting to go into that kind of direction, then it's really important for you to think about it from that perspective that it's not the same type of investor as what you're seeing on the side of wanting to see just numbers on a on a page. They want to see a change. Especially if that's what they want to invest their own money in. So, I would say for those companies that are focused in those spaces, if you are trying to get that sort of money, then you really have to do your homework. And you really have to hear their stories of the people that are working at these family offices to understand how you should position what you're doing and why in that MedTech space. And I think if you can kind of

17:44 Crack that code of hearing why they're investing in a specific area of health care, and often it's connected to a family member or personal experience, then bring that up. Incorporate that into why you're reaching out to them. You know, make it so that it is personal. It is a person-to-person interaction. So, from that side, yes. And then on the on the flip side, I think when I go in and I help the family offices is really helping them with their portfolios is helping them really see it as often more than just the company, so they are there's a really big investing style called impact investing. And so they want to also leave a legacy. So it's beyond just okay, we're investing in this company.

Okay, see you later. They want to actually see a change and improvement. And so they're nurturing these companies. So I often come in from that side, too, to help them and offer some guidance and support for their portfolio companies so that they are successful because I think regardless of if it's family office or private equity or venture capital, everyone wants to see these companies succeed if they've given any sort of money. And so anything that we can do to just guide them on the right path as they are getting bigger and they're maybe looking at you know, another round of funding, but they are at a bigger stage. I would say, you know, helping guide them on when it is appropriate to go forward with more of the number side than the personal connection side. And how do you help them think bigger?

What's some of the things that you do to help these companies think bigger in that is trying to think through a couple situations that I've actually just recently engaged in this getting them the budget problem is always the big thing and they don't again weighing spending $1 here versus $1 there. Like how do you convince people to spend money on how they look to the outside versus getting to the next step in because again $1 spent here is another dollar not being spent there typically, right? So Of course. Let's say it's developing the next ergonomic handle versus what they have or let's say that it's developing some marketing or branding materials or like how do you help them sort of balance their image versus what they do and how they do it. And I think it really is dependent on where they are and what they're trying to achieve cuz sometimes it's kind of a we always have to look at it as an ebb

20:21 And flow. There's often times that we need to put more energy and time into one component of marketing depending on what you're trying to do for the outcome or what you're preparing for and then you can kind of pull back a little bit and then move into a different space and I think, you know, for me it's it's seeing that big picture. Often times I'm going in and there's no strategy. There's no strategy of kind of this road map of saying we're doing everything or doing nothing and it's it's all baby steps. We have to slowly climb the mountain as a as we've shared before in other conversations but it's a slow and steady pace and so I think sometimes it's seeing if you have limited budget, what's going to get you the most bang for your buck and that can mean putting some other things on hold for right now but I would always say having a clear understanding of your business and that branding component and messaging component, that is a critical piece no matter what place

You're in and so yeah, you might not want to do paid advertising right now and that's okay but if you don't have that kind of honed in, it's going to be really hard to get anything else done in any other space and I will say this, there is a huge value in companies that appear bigger than they are and I say that as there are some some like tricks of the trade kind of with there's there's nothing wrong with templatizing things, creating kind of some simple templates that you use because you know who else does that? Really big Fortune 100 companies Right. They do that.

Make it so that not every single social image is unique. Like you're not in that space. You want to appear bigger than pick a five different templates, stick to them and rotate them and that will actually make you appear bigger than doing these custom things every single time. What's the one biggest piece of advice you would give to any founder that has a new idea today and let's say they had a, you know, a $500,000 investment to get things started. How much of that would you allocate towards, you know, your branding foundation? And what were the things that you would like help them sort of build and develop this help them get jump-started, give them an image that's bigger than life? Cuz everybody's looking, right?

Everybody and before anybody buys anything in the world, they've done 80% of their investigation has been done without the person that they're going to talk to. Right? So, you know, your digital profile on LinkedIn, your website, you know, I'm sure there's other, you know, whether it's LinkedIn or other social media, depending on your market space. Like, I don't know how important meta is to medical device company like in terms of, you know, how would you have them sort of allocate their time and their investment and where they would spend for PR perspective? For branding.

23:23 Right. And I also would say, you know, it's kind of dependent on you can you can spend that whole chunk of change, of course, on on it, but I think also understanding that there is going to be an evolution of your company. And if you're in a startup stage, it really just comes down to having some really critical pieces. Of course, having a real piece solid logo. I mean, that's like basic. But also, I think sometimes it's more so in the picture and then identifying what happens. So, sometimes I work with a lot of fractional CMOs. So, I would say if I'm doing, let's say, an audit and then trying to put together a social strategy, that's the first stage of what I do, and I'm identifying actually there's a bigger problem here because we don't have a full picture. Yeah, I'm a chunk of the the marketing story, but we're missing a big piece. I would probably lead them to one of my fractional CMOs to really build that. Or in this case, sometimes I come in and

They think, "Oh, we need social." And instead, they actually need someone like you to build out, you know, sales or an operations expert and they need to bring in a fractional COO. So, oftentimes I say to them, "If you're going to invest, invest in the in the bigger kind of components of your plan and then identify within it where you want to start." So, I might not be the first one you start with, but I might also I might be. I might be but after you've built out kind of that big picture vision for what you want to be for marketing. Yes, and building the story, right?

Mhm. I'm sure building creating the value proposition, the pitch book or various different pitch books depending on your audience, whether it's a technical, clinical, investor you know, business return pitch book. Website, I'm sure is like foundationally critical. They got to have that. And the good The good thing about websites is is you can I can actually build a website in 30 minutes if I have the right materials these days. It's websites are not really that challenging anymore. At least to get off the ground. It might not be built for commerce or might be not be for SEO, but if people are clicking on a profile and want to go click on your website, it's there for you.

LinkedIn would be yeah. And I would also say with that website piece, oftentimes we put too much energy and time into those websites and sometimes when you're in those earlier stages, if you have a rolling landing page kind of homepage structure, that's all you need because most people, if you go and look into Google analytic data, look how often they're staying on your homepage and maybe one other page, but instead they're building these like very big multi-page, very much so something I would associate with like a a big brand for these tiny startups.

26:25 Just get your point across and get it, you know, really concise in a way that makes it simple to understand who you are, what you do, and why it matters. That's it. Yeah. 1 2 3, right? Who you are, what you do, and why it's important, right? And so, that's is a great piece of advice. Well, let's do this. I think that's a great point. Anything else you want to kind of cover? I just first want to say thank you so much. I think what you do is so undervalued, and I think more companies need to actually spend time on their image and what people think and how they do it, and I've read through and worked with you on sort of your LinkedIn imaging components, and they're simple, they're easy to execute, and you bring a tremendous amount of value. Thank you. But, here's my last question.

Okay. So, and it's a question that I try to ask every guest. Sometimes I forget, but and one day it's my hope to have an episode of all these answers, but what would today's Priya offer advice to and I'll go back and I'll just say a pivotal time in your life at 22, like graduating, commencing from college, and then going into an adult world, right? Mhm. What would be the one piece of advice you would give 22-year-old Priya today? Yes, and I actually love this question.

But, I always reflect back on this one kind of piece of advice is like a recurring for me. It's trust the process. Really trust the process, because I think oftentimes we forget that in order for us to get from point A to point B, there's a lot of other things that happen along the way, and all of them contribute to who we are today. And if you feel like you want to try to fast-track that, you're going to miss out on some really crucial experiences and opportunities that are going to fuel who you are later down the road. Because when we are in those early 20s, we have no idea what we want to do.

We don't know really anything about life yet and I mean we have no responsibility. We have nothing really except for ourselves and I think often times it's those little bumps along the way that really help us find our purpose and who we want to be and where we are today. And so trust that process. Trust the ups, trust the downs, trust it all. That's amazing. Great advice and for you control freaks out there, you got to let go and trust the process, right? Mhm, 100%. Well good. Well Priya, it has been so much fun and very learning and I just I would just want to thank you for being on here and looking forward to seeing you grow your business and help others grow theirs as well.

29:16 Thank you, Terry. So let's connect. Let's find where your revenue's getting stuck, book a call at revrx.ai and build your revenue engine.