Does your customer know how to buy you?

M Win
May 21
4 min read

Most teams I speak to can tell you who their buyer is.

Far fewer can tell you whether the buyer knows how to get a project through the system.

That gap is where a lot of good HealthTech and Diagnostics die.

Your buyer is not "the buyer"

After more than 25 years in diagnostics, digital health and scientific instrumentation, across multinationals and start‑ups, I keep seeing the same pattern: strong science, great products, promising pilots, … and then very limited commercial traction.

Often the person who loves your product doesn’t know how to move it through their own organisation. They’ve may not have ever taken a digital tool or diagnostic from “interesting” to “approved, funded and live”.

If you don’t understand that, and don’t help them with it, your pipeline fills up with opportunities that never turn into contracts.

Step 1 – Work out who can really say “yes”

We talk about “the buyer”, but in healthcare it’s rarely one person. For a typical digital health or diagnostics project, you’ll usually have:

A clinical champion who wants the change
A budget holder who controls the money
IT and information governance who worry about data, integration and risk
Procurement who care about process and compliance
Finance who care about affordability and value for money

They don’t sit in one neat box on the org chart. And your champion may not know, on day one, who all these people are.

With prospects, I’ll often ask:

“If this went ahead, who would need to be in the room to say yes?”
“Is there an identified budget for this and who holds it?”
“Who can say no even if everyone else likes it?”

If they can’t answer those questions, you don’t have a buying process. You have enthusiasm.

Step 2 – Help them find the money

Even motivated champions get stuck when the talk moves from “this is a good idea” to “who pays for this, and from which line on the spreadsheet?”.

In UK healthcare, funding can come from departments, local budgets, transformation or digital funds, ICB pots, and national or regional innovation money, as well as time‑limited grants. Your buyer is not paid to know all of this.

Instead of asking “Do you have budget?”, try:

“When you’ve bought similar things before, which budget did they come from?”
“Is there a transformation, innovation or digital fund this could fit under?”
“Who would need to sign off spend at this level?”

You’re helping them think like a buyer inside their own system.

Step 3 – Build the business case with them

At some point, someone has to write a business case. In the NHS, that usually means covering five basics: case for change, value for money, commercial viability, affordability and deliverability.

Your champion is unlikely to volunteer to write a 20‑page business case on their own. So you need to make it easier:

Translate your benefits into their language: pathways, waiting times, safety, workforce, costs, and risks of doing nothing.
Offer a simple pack: a one‑pager, a slide or two, and a draft benefits model they can adapt.
Show the “do nothing” scenario alongside the “implement this” scenario, because that is often what committees expect to see.

You are not bypassing their process. You are giving them something that fits into it.

Step 4 – Map the route to “yes”

Even with a clear problem, evidence and a funding idea, projects stall in governance and committees.

Routes vary, but you’ll usually see some mix of: a local project group, a clinical or divisional board, digital or IT oversight, and then trust or ICB‑level sign‑off depending on the size of the ask.

To get specific, ask:

“If this were approved, what meetings would it have to go through?”
“How often do those groups meet?”
“What usually slows projects down at each stage?”

Once you understand that, you can suggest something practical:

A short, plain‑English summary for the clinical team with required clinical evidence
A tighter, risk‑focused version for IT and governance including any required DPIA, DTAC, DSPT documentation
A value and affordability view for finance and executives

Same project, different lenses.

Step 5 – Make it easier to move from “this is interesting” to “let’s roll this out”

Founders often ask how to shorten sales cycles. One unglamorous answer: stop assuming your buyer knows how to buy you.

In early‑stage conversations, you can build this into how you qualify and support opportunities:

Treat every pilot as a sales process in progress, not a science experiment
Agree up front what happens if the pilot works: who decides, when, on what evidence, and from which budget
Share simple templates: a stakeholder map, funding options checklist, business case skeleton and a sketch of implementation

You are not just demoing features. You are giving your champion a path they can actually walk inside their organisation.

Step 6 - Separate interest from real opportunity

Know when to walk away!

Not every interested buyer is a real opportunity. If the buyer can’t answer the internal questions — funding, business case, stakeholders and approval path — it may be better to step back than keep chasing the opportunity.

Why this matters for early‑stage teams

If you are an early‑stage HealthTech, Diagnostics or Life Sciences company, you probably do not have a big commercial team. You might have founder‑led sales or one person juggling everything from ICP definition to pilots and early customers.

You cannot afford to treat how your buyer buys as a black box. Every stalled project is time, headspace and runway you do not get back.

Teams see a real shift when they stop asking only “Do they like us?” and start asking “Do they know how to get this through their system – and how can we help them do that?”.

That change does not require a 50‑slide playbook. It starts with a handful of better questions, a clearer map of the buying group, and a willingness to roll your sleeves up and co‑create the path to “yes”.

If your pipeline is full of warm conversations that never quite reach a decision, it might not be your product. It might be that your buyer has never been taught how to buy you or you are chasing opportunities that have no chance of ever converting.

That’s the gap I help early‑stage HealthTech, Diagnostics and Life Sciences teams close.

If you recognise these problems in your company, get in touch and lets have a conversation on how I can help.