The situation
SwalTech had built genuinely good clinical technology and had customers who valued it. What they did not have was a way to sell it, and no experience at all selling beyond New Zealand.
Selling was something the team actively feared rather than something they did. That is more common in technical teams than most people admit, and it is a real barrier - not a confidence problem to be talked away.
What we did
- Embedded as their first dedicated sales resource, rather than advising from outside
- Built a commercialisation approach they could actually run
- Set up a CRM so the pipeline lived in a system, not in someone’s head
- Built a segmentation strategy so effort went to the right buyers
- Flew to Australia with them and sat in the first meetings
The result
They closed their first international sale during the engagement. Just as importantly, the team stopped seeing sales as something to be afraid of.
That second outcome is the one that lasts. A first offshore deal is a milestone. A team that is no longer frightened of selling is a capability.
At a glance
SwalTech
Sector
Clinical technology
Stage
Both - Grow, then Go Global
Market
New Zealand, then Australia
Headline result
First international sale, closed during the engagement
“He was like a colleague and a partner rather than a contractor.”
Emma Hayes, CEO, SwalTechWhy this story is on the homepage
SwalTech is both stages in one company. The home engine got built, and then the same engine went offshore. That sequence is the whole argument for doing Grow before Go Global - you are exporting something that already works, rather than hoping it will.