Regional Business Manager – North

Overview

You're selling RDi's diagnostic self-sampling kits and +Cura digital platform to NHS trusts, healthcare providers, laboratories, and insurers across Northern UK. You own the full sales cycle from prospecting through close, which means building pipeline, running clinical discovery, navigating NHS procurement, and hitting territory revenue targets.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Established (no recent funding data, but 93 employees and working with NHS at scale)

Size: 93 employees

Growth: Hiring 3 commercial roles simultaneously - building out GTM infrastructure

Market Position: Niche player in diagnostic solutions with NHS credibility (Bowel Cancer Screening program). Competing in a market with established lab services and newer digital health entrants.

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 70% Outbound - You're identifying trusts/providers with diagnostic needs, cold outreach to clinical directors, procurement leads, lab managers
• 20% Referrals - NHS programs talk, word-of-mouth from existing deployments
• 10% Inbound - Website inquiries (minimal marketing engine currently)

SDR/AE Structure: Self-sourcing until the Commercial Engagement Executive ramps. You'll eventually get meeting support but initially you're hunting and closing.

SE Support: No dedicated SE mentioned - you'll likely demo +Cura platform yourself or pull in product/ops people for technical validation.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Traditional pathology labs offering in-house kitting, digital health platforms trying to add diagnostics, established medical device distributors with NHS relationships

How They Differentiate: End-to-end solution (physical kits + digital platform + compliance), camera verification for accuracy, existing NHS deployment credibility

Common Objections:

• "We already have a lab partner"
• NHS procurement timelines and budget cycles
• Clinical validation requirements for new diagnostic pathways
• Integration complexity with existing EHR systems
• "We need to see more NHS trust adoption first"

Win Themes: Compliance rigor, digital tracking/visibility, proven at NHS scale, accuracy through verification tech

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting/Outreach (30%) | Active Deal Management (35%) | NHS Procurement/Admin (20%) | Internal (15%)

Key Activities

• Territory Planning & Prospecting: Research which NHS trusts, clinical commissioning groups, and private providers have diagnostic screening programs. Map stakeholders (clinical directors, procurement, lab managers). Cold outreach via email/LinkedIn, phone calls to get initial meetings. Expect low response rates - NHS people are buried.

• Clinical Discovery: Meeting with clinicians, lab directors, quality managers to understand current diagnostic pathways, pain points (turnaround time, compliance gaps, patient experience). You need to learn their workflow, sample volumes, integration requirements. These are consultative conversations - they're not waiting for your product.

• Navigating NHS Procurement: Once there's interest, you're dealing with tender processes, framework agreements, clinical governance approvals, information governance, procurement committees. Lots of paperwork. Deals slip because budget got reallocated or they need another committee approval. You'll chase stakeholders for weeks to schedule the next meeting.

• Pipeline Management & Forecasting: Keeping HubSpot updated (CSO emphasized data cleanliness). Weekly forecast calls. Most of your pipeline will push quarters because NHS timelines are unpredictable. You need to build 3-4x coverage to hit number.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• NHS sales cycles are brutal - 6-12 months is realistic, and deals stall waiting for budget approval or committee meetings. You'll have quarters where nothing closes despite strong pipeline.
• You're often educating buyers on why they need a new diagnostic pathway rather than just displacing a competitor. That's a longer, harder conversation.
• Multi-stakeholder sales: Clinical wants accuracy, procurement wants cost savings, IT wants easy integration, quality wants compliance. Getting them all aligned takes months.
• You're self-sourcing initially, so it's grunt work - cold calls, LinkedIn outreach, database building - on top of managing active deals.
• Small company means you're the expert on everything in your territory. No air cover, no enterprise support team, no one to hand things off to.

What Success Looks Like

• Hitting £500K-1M annual territory number (likely 3-6 deals depending on size)
• Building a qualified pipeline of £2M+ to account for NHS slippage
• Closing at least one NHS trust deployment in your first year
• Establishing repeatable outreach/qualification playbook that the new Commercial Engagement Exec can execute

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Clinical Directors / Pathology Directors (clinical validation)
• Procurement Managers (commercial terms, frameworks)
• Lab Managers / Operations (implementation, workflow)
• Quality/Compliance Leads (regulatory requirements)
• IT Directors (platform integration)

What They Care About:

• Clinical accuracy and patient safety (non-negotiable)
• Compliance with NHS standards and ISO certifications
• Integration with existing EHR systems and national architecture
• Total cost of ownership vs current lab contracts
• Implementation complexity and staff training requirements
• Sample tracking and audit trails for governance

Requirements

• 3-5+ years healthcare/medtech sales experience, ideally selling into NHS
• Track record of navigating complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise sales
• Understanding of clinical/diagnostic workflows (or ability to learn fast)
• Comfortable with long sales cycles and procurement processes
• Self-starter who can build pipeline from scratch without SDR support initially
• Based in or willing to travel extensively across Northern UK
• Organized enough to manage 10-15 active opportunities across different stages simultaneously