Every interaction—internal or external—impacts the trajectory of a company. Yet, many startup and early-stage companies underestimate the importance of effective verbal communication.
When communication breaks down, the company suffers. Misaligned teams, lost knowledge, and redundant efforts slow progress, introduce costly mistakes, and weaken a company’s competitive edge. On the flip side, structured, intentional communication enhances collaboration, supports strategic decision-making, and strengthens customer relationships.
In this blog, we explore best practices for improving verbal communication. Doing so enables more effective product commercialization efforts within healthcare IT companies.
The Cost of Ineffective Communication Is Higher in Smaller Companies
Larger organizations can better absorb inefficiencies caused by poor communication than smaller companies. Why? Because larger companies routinely struggle with inefficiency. When small teams waste time searching for information or working with incomplete data, the consequences are significant.
- Lost Productivity. Impacts the ability to move swiftly, which is a strategic advantage of smaller companies.
- Frustration and Disengagement. A lack of accessible knowledge erodes trust. This creates friction between teams.
- Strategic Misalignment. If product, sales, and marketing aren’t in sync, messaging becomes inconsistent, confusing customers.
In startups and early-stage companies, effective and efficient communication is critical. With a handful of people working together, and most people performing many functions, a single individual operating in isolation can create major inefficiencies and barriers towards learning. This happens for a few key reasons.
- Underestimating the Value of Information. Company leaders may not realize that insights from customer conversations, sales calls, or internal problem-solving could benefit others. A small workflow detail from a prospect could refine product development, shape marketing messaging, or improve sales positioning.
- Time Constraints. In fast-moving environments where people wear many hats, knowledge-sharing is often an afterthought versus “doing.” This leads to missed opportunities for knowledge sharing and learning by the broader organization.
- Lack of Structured Communication. Ad-hoc discussions happen. But, without a deliberate process for capturing and disseminating insights, teams don’t share valuable information.
Verbal Communication Is the Foundation for High-Functioning Teams
While written communication has its place, it’s not always an adequate replacement for verbal communication. Over-reliance on emails, messaging platforms like Slack, texting, or documentation can result in lost context, superficial information, and delayed decision-making.
Intentional verbal communication is proactive, structured, and purposeful. It ensures teams share critical insights and learnings rather than relying on scattered, inconsistent conversations. Here’s how to achieve it.
- Regular Cross-Functional Syncs. Short, structured meetings that enable sales, marketing, and product teams to share customer feedback, competitive intelligence, market insights, and product updates help keep everyone aligned.
- Pre-Sales and Post-Sales Feedback Loops. Sales teams should relay customer pain points, objections, and feature requests to product marketing and management teams. Then, these teams provide sales enablement materials to keep messaging up to date.
- Customer Story and Use Case Sharing. When a customer uses a product successfully (even if in an unexpected way), teams should share that insight across functional groups. Marketing can turn it into a case study. Sales can highlight it in pitches. And, product leaders can explore enhancements based on the use case.
- Sales and Product Collaboration on Roadmap Priorities. Sales and product management provides real-world insights into customer needs. Product teams define the roadmap. A structured feedback process such as a shared tracker or monthly review session helps align development with market demand.
Great Communication Creates Opportunity
Verbal communication isn’t only crucial for internal teams. It’s also important for staying connected with healthcare IT customers and prospects. Surveys and analytics do provide valuable data. But, meaningful conversations offer deeper insights that help shape product strategy, messaging, and competitive positioning.
Keeping an open dialogue with customers and prospects enables the following.
- Staying Ahead of Market Trends. Conversations reveal emerging challenges, regulatory shifts, and evolving customer priorities. This allows companies to adapt ahead of problems.
- Understanding the Competitive Landscape. Prospects often share insights on competing solutions, helping refine positioning and highlight differentiators.
- Refining Product Roadmaps. Direct feedback on pain points and feature needs ensures development priorities align with real-world use cases.
- Strengthening Sales and Marketing. Customer conversations provide the language, context, and decision-making factors that shape more effective messaging and sales strategies.
By treating customer conversations as opportunities to listen and learn, you can better refine your healthcare IT products, sharpen your positioning, and build stronger customer relationships.
Finding the Right Balance
We’ve emphasized the importance of stronger, more intentional communication amongst the commercialization team. Yet, increasing the volume of conversations isn’t enough. In some cases, teams might be “talking” but aren’t sharing important information. This can be the case when making decisions and seeking input. But this is not the scenario we are discussing herein.
Meetings can become routine without yielding new insights. Messages get lost in translation and cross-functional collaboration stalls when people aren’t aligned. To ensure communication drives real impact, it must be clear, relevant, and actionable.
Effective communication isn’t about having more conversations. It’s about ensuring the right information reaches the right people in the right way. When teams focus on clarity and intentional knowledge-sharing, they unlock efficiencies, speed decision-making, and improve customer outcomes.
Verbal Communication as a Strategic Imperative
For startups and early-stage healthcare IT companies, communication isn’t only a soft skill—it’s a strategic advantage. The most successful companies aren’t the ones with the best technology. They’re the ones that foster collaboration, share knowledge, and build alignment across their development and commercialization teams.
Is your startup leveraging communication as a competitive differentiator? Our product marketing experts can help you optimize internal and external communication strategies. We can help you get the most out of your team and customer engagements. Contact us to learn more.
