At Wise, we’re bullish on the healthcare market, and yet we acknowledge that healthcare is one of the toughest markets in print to break into – entrenched suppliers, group purchasing contracts, procurement committees that move slowly and compliance officers who move slower. Many distributors take one look at that wall and decide it isn’t worth the climb.
In my years in this business, I’ve learned that’s the wrong way to think about it. You don’t break into healthcare through the front door. You get in through the back door, through a conversation you’re already having.
When the Opportunity Presents
Say you already serve a mid-sized medical practice. Nothing exotic – just their business cards, appointment reminders and letterhead. You’ve had the account for years. One afternoon, you’re dropping off an order, and the practice manager is clearly having a rough day. A vendor shipped the wrong specimen labels, and the replacements are two weeks out. Worse, the lab keeps flagging tubes whose labels curled in the freezer and smeared during processing. A few specimens couldn’t be reliably identified and had to be recollected. Patients had to come back in.
You didn’t come to talk about specimen labels. But you just heard a real, expensive, recurring problem that their current supplier isn’t solving. That’s the door.
Here’s why that one conversation is worth more than it looks. That practice doesn’t just need specimen labels. Somewhere in the same building, there are prescription pads running low, patient wristbands, chart and medication labels, and a stack of forms (intake, patient history, insurance and billing), most of it bought from suppliers nobody there is particularly loyal to. Solve one painful problem, and you’ve earned the standing to ask about the rest.
It’s Higher Margin Work
None of it is commodity work. Healthcare labels are engineered to survive conditions that would destroy an ordinary label: cryogenic labels that stay adhered to vials at -80°C, autoclave labels that stay legible through steam sterilization. The forms are just as specialized – carbonless multi-part charting forms, HIPAA-sensitive intake and consent documents, and prescription pads that have to meet the federal tamper-resistant standard for controlled substances. Because they solve hard problems, none of it gets shopped on price, and it reorders on a schedule tied to patient volume, not the economy.
Does this feel like market that demands a specialist? It is. But that specialist doesn’t have to be you. The right trade manufacturing partner engineers the label or form to meet the application and the regulation. You bring the relationship and the conversation. They handle the rest, and you keep the customer and the margin.
Start Listening Differently
Want to break into the healthcare market? Don’t launch a healthcare prospecting campaign. Just start listening differently in the accounts you already serve. You may already be standing on the cusp of a deal.
Bob Saunders is VP Sales of Wise, Alpharetta, GA. Wise manufacturers industrial/prime labels and tags, traditional forms and digitally printed products and services for resale only. To learn more about prescription pads, visit our prescription pads FAQ or email Bob at [email protected].
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