The Book
It’s Not a Sales Problem.
Why Healthcare Innovations Fail to Reach the People Who Need Them.
Somewhere today, a clinician is telling a patient there’s nothing more they can do. Not because the clinician is negligent. Because the innovation that could help that patient exists — and the clinician doesn’t know about it. The chain between the people who created it and the people who needed to know about it is broken. This book is about fixing that chain.
“This distinction between sales and demand is the most important insight in this book.”
You don’t have a sales problem. You have a demand problem wearing a sales costume.
Only 24% of UK healthcare professionals are accessible to suppliers. Access has declined from 80% to 44%. HCPs have 24 minutes per week for all supplier interactions. 83% prefer digital channels for initial product information.
The industry’s response? More reps. More training. Better CRM. The activity metrics improve. The results don’t. Because the constraint isn’t sales execution — it’s that nobody knows who you are or why they should care.
73% of healthcare launches miss forecast. Not because the products are bad. Because go-to-market hasn’t adapted to a world where your reps can’t get through the door.
This book explains why — and what to do instead.
The playbook changed. Nobody sent a memo. This book is the memo.
Three parts.
Eighteen chapters.
Twenty years of evidence.
Part One
The Diagnosis
Why your innovation isn't getting recognition.
Why access collapsed. Why the sales-led model stopped working. Why the 73% who miss forecast keep doing the same things harder. Five chapters that reframe healthcare commercialisation from a sales problem to a demand problem — with the data to prove it. If you've ever suspected the problem isn't your team, Part One will confirm it.
Part Two
The Methodology
The 3 E's framework: Empower. Evolve. Equip.
A demand generation system that works when your reps aren't in the room. Empower your sales team with messaging that's been tested, not guessed. Evolve your digital presence so content works while your reps are asleep. Equip your advocates — clinicians who already use your product — with the tools to have conversations in rooms you'll never be invited to. Plus: patient marketing (legally), compliant creativity, and the evidence frameworks that make it all defensible.
Part Three
Making It Real
What good looks like at your stage.
The practical application. What the methodology looks like for a 5-person startup versus a global MedTech subsidiary. The launch playbook. The event playbook. Measurement that speaks finance language. And the first 90 days — exactly where to start, in what order, with what resource.
Written for three people
You’ll know which one you are by page three.
The Sales Leader
Your team is working harder than ever. More calls. More territory coverage. More CRM hygiene. The numbers aren't moving. You've started to suspect the problem isn't effort — it's structural. Something changed underneath you and nobody named it. You're right. Chapter 1 will tell you what.
The Marketing Leader
You know digital matters. You can see what competitors are doing. But you can't get the budget, the buy-in, or the organisational permission to do it properly. You produce content that sales doesn't use. You're measured on activities, not outcomes. Chapters 6 to 12 give you the framework and the language to change that conversation with your board.
The Business Leader
You've invested in sales and marketing without seeing proportional returns. Everyone's busy. Pipeline's thin. The CFO is asking questions nobody can answer with numbers. You've been optimising the wrong thing. Part One diagnoses it. Part Three gives you the 90-day plan.
What you’ll find inside
Eighteen chapters. Here’s what they’ll change.
Why 73% of healthcare launches miss forecast — and the five stages that separate the 27% who hit it
The access collapse: how HCP availability went from 80% to 24% and what it means for every company still running a sales-led model
The 3 E's framework — Empower, Evolve, Equip — a demand generation system built for healthcare, not borrowed from B2B SaaS
Why your best salespeople aren't the ones you pay (and how to equip the ones you don't)
How to win tenders before they're announced — by being the company the committee already knows
Patient marketing: the fourth revenue lever most companies think is off-limits (it isn't)
The first 90 days: exactly where to start, what to do first, and what to ignore
The measurement frameworks that make marketing speak the CFO's language
About the author
Michael Colling-Tuck
Michael’s first job in healthcare came with a Volkswagen Golf and a five-pound daily lunch allowance. He spent the next twenty years working his way through every role in the commercial chain — clinical support, frontline sales, product management, marketing leadership — across five continents and forty-seven product launches. Along the way he picked up a law degree, won Salesperson of the Year and Marketeer of the Year, and started three businesses in healthcare.
That strange career path turns out to be the point. Most people in healthcare see one part of the chain. Michael’s done every job in it. He’s stood in the operating theatre at 6am with the rep. He’s sat in the procurement meeting where the real decision gets made. He’s presented to boards who wanted numbers, not narratives. When he tells you what works, it’s because he’s been the person it needed to work for.
He wrote this book because the same conversation kept happening: good people, good products, declining results — and nobody naming why. This is everything he’d tell you if you had twenty hours and a whiteboard.
He lives in Bristol with his family and Archie, who is a dog.
The complete methodology. Three parts. Eighteen chapters. Twenty years of evidence.
Every framework in this book has been tested in real healthcare companies — from 5-person startups to global MedTech subsidiaries. It’s the system behind every programme we run at AGENCY. Now it’s yours.
Not ready for the book? Start somewhere else. We’ll still be here.
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The Podcast
Depth on specific chapters and the thinking behind them. Healthcare commercial strategy, unfiltered.
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YouTube
Searchable, shareable education on healthcare demand generation. The book's ideas in shorter form.
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