The most successful medical tourism facilitator businesses are based on being unique in the marketplace somehow.
I’ve owned a medical tourism facilitator business, so I know exactly how difficult that is to offer something that nobody else does. But by doing that, you make your competition irrelevant.
In 2009, I began the documentation process to register a trademark for our medical tourism facilitator business structure because it was the ONLY one of its kind in the world. I had to make four applications and appeals to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) because they kept telling me that our business was “just like” an insurance company or a PPO or a third-party administrator (TPA). It was necessary for me to continue to appeal and highlight the differentiation from each “just like” accusation each time. Finally, on the fourth attempt, I was able to register the definition and infrastructure description to claim a unique, new term of art for a Globally Integrated Health Delivery System®. Earning the privilege to use that little “R” in a circle was a very proud moment. It felt so different than using “TM” after the term. It meant that not only I called my business model unique, but the United States Patent and Trademark Office validated it.
The USP is a unique selling proposition. Without a USP, you’re really just another web-based, commodity-based medical tourism business that must compete on price. If your price is the same as the prices that everyone else selling surgery at the hospitals in India or Thailand or Mexico also sell, your business is as undifferentiated as two restaurants on the same street that sell Coca-Cola. The only thing that can attract customers from the other store is to offer a lower price. All this does is set you up to attract price shoppers instead of value shoppers. To make money as a medical tourism facilitator, you need to be attracting the value shoppers.
So if you’re thinking of starting up a new business… a great way to start is to identify problems that don’t have solutions yet. What unmet need is there for a medical tourism facilitator to solve?
One way that I help our medical tourism facilitator clients to brainstorm for their business startup is to describe what makes their business unique. What do they offer that no one else does? The fact that you’re targeting only patients that are seeking stem cell treatments or assisted reproduction services might be part of your USP, but you need to take it further than just that. You might be targeting stem cell patients from the United Kingdom or Romania. You must still differentiate further.
Consider this: What sentence can you write about your business that starts with “The ONLY (fill in the blank)…”?
This single sentence is the holy grail of every business startup. Sometimes my clients book an appointment to brainstorm this for only one or two hours. The value I bring to them is a fast answer in helping them do the global analytical research on a medical tourism facilitator business model. Investors ask me what trends I’ve seen and where. They want to know how different the USP is from other medical tourism businesses. They want to know if the model really solves a problem that is unsolved elsewhere. They also ask for my professional opinion and interpretation of what is trending and if I believe that there is reason to expect trends to continue before they invest cash in a medical tourism business opportunity.
If you need this kind of information, schedule a problem-focused mini consultation for an hour or two and let’s discuss your medical tourism USP.
