Your Engineers Are Killing Your Sales (And They Don't Even Know It)

Here's a harsh truth nobody wants to admit: The best technology with zero adoption gets you exactly nowhere.

I sat down with Rachel Allard—VP of Marketing at Resonant Link Medical who's contributed 83% of new revenue from marketing and turned an unknown company into a leader in wireless power for medical devices—and she absolutely demolished the myth that "if you build it, they will come."

Spoiler alert: They won't.

Your PhDs can invent the most groundbreaking, life-changing medical device in the world. Your engineers can create technology that would make Tony Stark weep with envy. Your R&D team can crack problems that have stumped the industry for decades.

And it won't matter. At all. If you can't explain what the farck it does in a way that makes people actually care.

Rachel put it perfectly: "Every technology is only as good as its customers' experience with it. You can have a group of the brightest people in the world with the most cutting edge invention. And if people don't think they can use it, can't actually use it, and don't want to talk about how they're using it—you're not going to have adoption."

The Graveyard Is Full of "Groundbreaking" Tech Nobody Understood

Let's be honest about what's happening in your company right now:

Your engineering team is jerking off to specs. They're obsessed with the technical beauty of what they've created. They can explain in excruciating detail how the electromagnetic properties work, the power efficiency ratios, and every single patent-worthy innovation packed into your device.

And when they present to potential customers? Eyes glaze over. Questions go unanswered. Deals go nowhere.

Because nobody gives a shaet about your specs until they understand what those specs actually enable them to do.

Rachel nailed this problem: Engineers get excited about the science. They're brilliant at the technical side. But when they try to market it or explain its value to someone who doesn't have three degrees in electromagnetics?

Blank stares. Crickets. Lost opportunities.

This is the tragedy of health tech and med tech right now: Potentially groundbreaking, life-changing solutions to challenges that are literally killing people don't succeed simply because nobody can explain their value clearly enough.

Your genius is dying in a PowerPoint deck full of jargon.

Dial-Up vs. Broadband: How to Actually Explain Technical Value

Here's what Rachel's team does that most of you aren't:

They don't lead with "we build wireless power for medical devices inside and on the body."

They lead with what that wireless power enables that wasn't possible before.

Rachel's analogy is perfect: It's like comparing dial-up to broadband.

You didn't buy broadband because you cared about the megabits per second. You bought it because dial-up was slow as hell, you couldn't use the phone while online, and you were tired of waiting 45 minutes to download a single song.

Broadband enabled you to do things that were impossible with dial-up. That's what mattered.

Same with medical devices. Rachel's team isn't selling power systems. They're selling:

• Personalized, accessible care from the comfort of your home

• Devices that work for different body types (not just average-sized men)

• Treatment options that don't require sitting in a chair like a statue while your device recharges

• Real-time data that enables better patient outcomes

That's the conversation that moves deals forward. Not your white paper on electromagnetic coupling efficiency.

The Two-Document Strategy That Actually Works

Rachel dropped this framework that every health tech and med tech company needs to steal immediately:

For every product, they create TWO pieces of content:

1. The One-Pager Data Sheet Three bullets. Why would anyone want this? What does it enable? What problem does it solve?

2. The Technical Data Sheet 15-20 pages. All the specs. All the proof. All the "here's how it actually works and why it's not bullshaet."

Same product. Two completely different conversations.

Why? Because you're selling to an entire buying committee with different needs and different questions.

The CTO wants the technical deep-dive. They want to see the charts, understand the safety data, validate the science.

The CMO wants to know how this improves patient outcomes. They want to understand the human impact.

The CFO wants to know if this is going to differentiate their product in a crowded market.

If you only have one message—especially if that message is technical-heavy—you're losing 80% of the buying committee before the conversation even starts.

This is stakeholder engagement 101, and somehow most of you are still failing at it.

"Expert and Approachable" Beats "Expert and Incomprehensible" Every Single Time

Rachel shared their brand architecture principle that should be written in 72-point font on every whiteboard in your office:

Expert AND approachable.

Not expert OR approachable. Both. At the same time.

Here's how they do it:

Expert: Send customers hardware they can play with. Create detailed technical data sheets. Prove your shaet works.

Approachable: Strip the jargon. Talk to people like humans. Make sure someone who isn't an electromagnetics engineer can understand what you're saying.

Rachel literally uses herself as the litmus test: "If somebody who is not an electromagnetics engineer doesn't understand this, we're not saying it the right way."

This is the opposite of what most technical teams do. Most technical teams think expertise means complexity. They think if the customer doesn't understand, the customer needs to get smarter.

Wrong.

If the customer doesn't understand, you need to communicate better.

As Rachel put it: "I've heard it actually shows more mastery on the topic if you can explain it clearly to someone who doesn't already know all the details versus just spouting a bunch of jargon."

Boom. That's it. That's the entire lesson.

Your Marketing Problem Is an Emotional Problem

Here's what Rachel understands that most health tech marketers miss:

The CTO might care about technical specs. But the buying decision happens on an emotional level.

Even in B2B. Even in med tech. Even when you're selling to PhDs.

Rachel's job isn't just to say what problems they solve. It's to "communicate the vision of what this enabling technology creates."

Personalized care. Accessible treatment. Devices that work for your unique body, not just the "average" body that medical devices have been designed around for decades.

That vision creates emotion. That emotion creates urgency. That urgency closes deals.

But if you're stuck explaining electromagnetic coupling coefficients in your first sales call, you never get to the emotion. You never get to the vision. You never get to the part where the prospect actually wants what you're selling.

This is why your authentic client connections feel forced and your relationship-driven revenue growth looks more like "transactional sales we barely closed after six months of technical discussions."

The Buying Committee Doesn't Care About Your Genius (Yet)

Let me paint you a picture:

You've got breakthrough technology. You've spent years developing it. You've solved problems that experts said were impossible.

You get a meeting with a major hospital system. You're so excited to show them everything you've built.

You launch into your presentation. Technical details. Patent applications. Scientific validation.

And the Head of Patient Experience is checking their phone. The CMO is looking confused. The CFO is wondering when you're going to get to the ROI.

You just blew the deal. And you don't even know it yet.

Because you forgot that you're not selling to one person. You're selling to an entire committee:

• Technical people who need proof

• Business people who need outcomes

• Financial people who need numbers

• Patient advocates who need human impact

If your entire pitch speaks to only ONE of those groups, you're dead in the water.

Rachel's team gets this. That's why they have multiple pieces of content for the same product. That's why they start approachable and layer in expertise. That's why they focus on what the technology enables before diving into how it works.

The Three-Year Head Start You're Wasting

Here's the part of Rachel's story that made me want to throw something:

Resonant Link Medical worked for THREE YEARS proving their product-market fit and value before they even hired someone for the commercial team.

Three years. Dozens of customers. Proven demand.

And they still needed someone to come in and say "hey, we need to explain this differently."

Think about that. If a company that successful, that established, with that much validation still needed help communicating their value—what the hell makes you think your three-month-old startup with zero customers can wing it?

You can't.

Your engineers are brilliant. Your technology is revolutionary. Your potential impact is massive.

And none of it matters if you can't build trusted advisor relationships with the people who actually make buying decisions.

The Question Nobody's Asking (But Should Be)

Rachel came from CPG, SaaS, and PropTech before joining a medical device company.

Zero healthcare background. Zero medical device experience.

Her friend told her: "You've always marketed technical products. Health tech and med tech—that IS a technical product."

That advice changed everything.

Because the common thread across every industry Rachel worked in was this: Technology is only as good as the customer's experience with it.

So here's my question for you: Do you have anyone on your team who can translate your genius into language that humans understand?

Do you have someone who asks the "dumb" questions that aren't actually dumb—they're the questions your prospects are too embarrassed to ask?

Do you have someone who can say "explain to me what that term actually means" when your engineers use jargon like it's normal?

If the answer is no, you're leaving millions on the table.

The Vision vs. The Features

Most health tech marketing sounds like this: "Our device uses proprietary electromagnetic resonance to deliver 40 watts of wireless power with 95% efficiency."

Rachel's team markets like this: "Imagine personalized, accessible care from the comfort of your own home. Devices that work for your unique body. Treatment that doesn't require you to sit still for hours while your device recharges."

One of those creates a vision. The other creates a headache.

Guess which one actually drives sustainable business expansion in competitive markets?

Your job as a marketer (or CEO, or founder, or anyone trying to sell your technology) isn't to recite specs. It's to paint the picture of what becomes possible when someone adopts your technology.

What can they do that they couldn't do before? What problems go away? What new possibilities open up? How does this change lives?

Answer those questions first. Then back it up with the technical proof.

Watch the Damn Episode

This conversation with Rachel went deep into the art of humanizing business relationships in a technical industry, building high-retention client relationships by actually understanding what your customers care about, and why being the smartest person in the room means nothing if you can't communicate clearly.

If you're in health tech, med tech, or any B2B space where technical expertise is assumed but communication skills are rare—this episode will change how you think about selling your brilliance.

Watch the full episode here because I'm barely scratching the surface of Rachel's frameworks and you're missing the tactical gold.

P.S. I already know what some of your engineers are thinking: "But our customers ARE technical! They NEED to understand the specs! We can't 'dumb it down'!"

Cool. Then why are you losing deals to companies with inferior technology but better marketing?

Rachel's team creates BOTH the one-pager AND the technical deep-dive. They're not dumbing anything down. They're meeting different stakeholders where they are and giving each person in the buying committee what they need to say yes.

You can be expert AND approachable. You can prove your technical brilliance AND communicate clear value. You can have rigorous scientific validation AND emotional resonance.

Stop treating these things like they're mutually exclusive. They're not. Your insistence that "technical people only care about specs" is the exact reason you're struggling to close deals.

P.P.S. That CTO you think only cares about specs? They also care about whether your device is going to make their patients' lives better. They care about whether their team can actually implement it. They care about whether this is going to differentiate their product in the market.

Those aren't "soft" concerns. Those are business-critical questions that your 60-page white paper isn't answering.

Go watch the episode. Learn from Rachel. And for the love of god, hire someone who can translate your genius into language that closes deals instead of creating confusion.

Karl Pontau hosts The Human Connection Podcast, where we talk about the stuff that actually matters in business: the humans running it. Because whether you're B2B or B2C, it's really H2H—human to human. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we probably say something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable.