Our target customer is hospital systems for our remote monitoring software, with many interested in pipeline, how do we close short term paid pilots?

I would create an account with Manageflitter and/or Followerwonk - both integrate with Twitter. I know that many people feel negatively about Twitter but here's why it's great, especially for your quesiton: There are no privacy settings. Facebook and LinkedIn have tons of walls you run into while cruising around looking for potential buyers. And the other social networks are not conducive to time-effective/cost-effective networking for other reasons. With these tools (Manageflitter and Followerwonk), you can search the bios of Twitter accounts for DPC, TPA, and any other relevant keyword. You can search within your location, or throughout Twitter as a whole. From there, the tools allow you to classify (List) or interact (Follow) them. After that, I'd encourage you to engage them subtly, by favoriting and retweeting a few of their Tweets over several days. Then begin a conversation with them, ideally about a mutual interest or some random thing they specify in their bio. After a back-and-forth tweet or two, bring up your services tactfully. Ask them honestly if they need what you are offering. If they don't, maybe they know someone who is. At the very least, you'll have a relevant networking partner/friend! Another very valuable use of your time would be to post in LinkedIn groups. They are more professional than Facebook groups, and it's common for people to post jobs and other networking opportunities there, as well as pitch their own services. (See the lengthy URL at the bottom of this answer for an example). Hope that helps - I'd love to talk more; there are several other ways you could go about connecting with DPC's and TPA's online. Thanks, Evan http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1783783&trk=vsrp_groups_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A1618903721380231777057%2CVSRPtargetId%3A1783783%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary

I would disagree with Laura's advice about allowing your communication system to operate in-tandem to what you're trying to displace. Hospital staff have very little appetite to learn or adopt new systems, especially for mission-critical work. I also disagree with the idea that your competitors are an ideal partner. They will force you to adopt their processes and live by their rules, severely limiting your upside and will often waste your time with misleading signals of interest. Has this objection cost you any sales yet? If not, don't over-think this. Is it an objection that you've just been given and you're about to close or lose a sale over? If that's the case, call me or someone and talk through this right now. Otherwise, focus on ensuring that the client is totally bought-in to using your software (trial or otherwise). If this issue comes up, you have a number of ways to address this: Generally speaking, even with mission-critical software, the due diligence doesn't include financial analysis of the vendor. So just project the confidence that you *will* be around and you should be fine. If not, there are actual contract-specific language that you could use to address this but you really should avoid that at this stage.

Hi, I specialize in healthcare startups and have helped start and grow numerous healthcare organizations from IT to Clinical. It sounds like much of the work you are asking about can be done without an attorney or with less help from an attorney if you do much of the work up front. It has been my experience that healthcare attorneys which work in really large groups are very expensive. Of course expensive is a relative word. One of my clients paid $750/hour for attorneys with a minimum of $20,000 per month. In that particular case, the company was a very large healthcare startup that was later sold to a major healthcare conglomerate. The cost was justified by the profit the company earned. That being said, it also depends on where you are located. If you are a nationwide company you need an attorney who has a broad view of healthcare nationally. If you specifically work with Medicare, you need an attorney who knows about Medicare. The same goes for Medicaid except each Medicaid program and the amount Medicaid pays for services varies greatly from state to state. So, to use a line that all attorneys are taught, "it depends." I would need more information. Meanwhile, I would suggest that you do a search on LinkedIn. My clients have used various attorney groups over the past few years. Some of my clients have used Mark Kaufman (New York). I hope this helps. All upvotes are welcome. Best of luck, Michael Michael Von Irvin Author, Consultant, Serial Entrepreneur

great questions - we see this situation with our clients pretty frequently at my firm. based on my own years of SaaS/tech sales, marketing and project management experience, I would say the path most likely to get adoption is actually discovered before the demo is delivered, rather than after. that is to say, your way into the client should start with you thinking back on your initial conversations about their goals and their challenges. just as you likely did during the initial conversations, now is the time to connect what your product can do during the demo with how it addresses or responds to those challenges and goals. Curtail your demo to speak specifically to the things they have (directly or indirectly) expressed. If you're unsure, there are several good leading questions you can ask that will give you indicators as to which problems your product might he able to help them solve. Beyond helping connect the dots, the value proposition you're offering here relates to what exactly you mean by a "beta" product. Beta can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Are you Beta in phase only (i.e. is your product debugged and more or less v1.0 full launch ready? Or, are you are just testing with a small group? Or, is Beta really a means of you finalizing your testing/debugging on the system prior to a larger launch?) so, how you get them to adopt (and how much or if you charge for this access) is driven by what it is your beta product is capable of doing at that point in time. There is a pretty simple selling strategy that can be developed here - you need to make sure to create the appropriate checklist and evaluate your in-roads to a potential deal based on their stated or passively observed needs, curtail the demo to meet those needs, and then evaluate your own product so that you can build a plan for getting the "close" in from that potential client once you have completed the demo. If you would like some help writing out your 3-phased plan for converting demos into deals I'd be happy to help. Schedule some time to connect and we can talk through the details then.

Would you hand over 100% of your paycheck to your investment advisor? In this scenario, you're being asked to invest your time instead of money but really, it's the same question. I've done several of these types of 'time investments.' Most have not worked out, one might. I'm not too worried though because most of my time that was invested was 'extra time.' I basically traded some of my leisure for an opportunity to be part of something that might hit pay dirt. These deals can be fun, but I don't think it makes sense for most people to work full time on them. It would be like putting 100% of your paycheck into your retirement account and finding money for groceries elsewhere but with a lot lower chance of paying out one day. Dave