March 6, 2025 • 20 mins
Dive into another episode coming to you from MTPConnect’s Development Workshop Series held recently in Sydney for 52 start-up organisations from around Australia. The 2-day program was a terrific opportunity for companies participating in our Accelerator programs to get ‘investor ready’.
Exportia Australia’s Christelle Damiens, an entrepreneur and award-winning author, shared her insights in the workshop “Accessing Global Markets”. Christelle is described as the go-to person for Australian companies looking to expand into the European market and she shared her methodologies, winning strategies and key learnings from more than 20 years of business development in Europe.
Christelle joined host Caroline Duell at the event to discuss the complexities of the European regulatory landscape, some advice on export readiness, and the value of outsourcing sales and marketing to European experts and finding the right distribution partners to help you scale.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
podcast intro (00:01):
This is the MTP Connect podcast, connecting you
with the people behind thelife-saving innovations driving
Australia's growing lifesciences sector from bench to
bedside for better health andwellbeing.
Mtp Connect acknowledges thetraditional owners of country
that this podcast is recorded onand recognises that Aboriginal
(00:23):
and Torres Strait Islanderpeoples are Australia's first
storytellers and the holders offirst science knowledge.
Caroline Duell (00:33):
Hello and welcome to the MTP Connect
podcast.
I'm Caroline Duell.
We're coming to you from Sydneyfor MTP Connect's Development
Workshop Series.
Joining me is Christelle Damien, Managing Director of Exportia,
who has today been running acapability workshop on accessing
global markets.
As an entrepreneur andaward-winning author, Christelle
(00:54):
is the go-to person forAustralian companies looking to
expand into the European market.
Christelle works with CEOsaround the world to develop a
winning business strategy inEurope and she has a track
record in scaling smallbusinesses to their first
million and beyond.
Welcome, Christelle, hi,Caroline, nice to meet you.
Christelle, you've justpublished your third book for
(01:16):
small businesses who want toscale their business
internationally and it's calledIs it Time to Start Exporting to
Europe, Lessons Learned fromExporters Globally.
It was published this year inMarch Is now a good time for
Australian medical start-ups andSMEs to be moving into the
European market.
Christelle Damiens (01:35):
I think it's a good time for many different
reasons.
So there are a lot ofinitiatives at the European
Union level to improvehealthcare, increase
digitization.
There's a lot of chronicdisease rise, but also with the
(01:56):
aging population, there are alot of increased needs for
better healthcare, and so thereare a lot of initiatives out
there to improve patient care.
And also what the EuropeanUnion has been doing is
following COVID.
There has been a lot of failure, I would say, at the European
(02:18):
level that have been identified,and so the European Union is
also trying to fix those.
So there are initiatives interms of communication between
countries and alert systems, sothat you know more digitization
of the health care, morecommunication intra-country.
(02:38):
So there's a lot of initiativesaround that that are very
interesting.
And, of course, like anycountry, there are strong
incentives to build the pharmaindustry and the autonomy of the
European Union in terms ofproduction of pharmaceuticals.
So there's a lot of initiativesat the European level to do
(03:02):
that.
Caroline Duell (03:03):
How important is it for startups to start
considering Europe as a marketto enter?
I mean everyone sort of thinkslet's go to the that.
How important is it forstartups to start considering
Europe as a market to enter?
I mean everyone sort of thinkslet's go to the US.
Why should they be thinkinglet's go to Europe?
Christelle Damiens (03:13):
So I'm going to put a caveat to what I just
said before.
There's one impediment at themoment for the European market
and we all have to be realisticabout it.
The new regulatory approvalprocess is still over, so the
MDR has been implemented, hascome to force.
It's created a lot of backlogin terms of processing time of
(03:38):
the MDR and the IVDR.
So that means that companiesthat are wanting to go into the
European market they're going tohave to take into account that
timeline.
It's quite a long processingtime.
So that's the only caveat Ihave to say about that.
Otherwise, why should theyconsider the European market?
First of all, australia hasquite good success stories
(04:03):
overall and has a goodreputation in terms of medical
devices.
I mean, it's not the case ofmany industry sectors, but it's
one sector where Australiareally has a good reputation in
Europe.
So that's one of the key assetsI think that we have.
(04:25):
And also, it is a fairly easymarket to enter.
There's not many barriers to itand you can really start by.
Once you've chosen your market.
You can really start little bylittle with just a distribution
partner.
You don't have to invest in anentity to make it happen for a
(04:47):
small business in the Europeanmarket and I think for a startup
or a small business, not havingthose first investments, which
are quite heavy, to setting upan entity and hiring people at
the start is also a good thing,and that's a great thing about
Europe.
Caroline Duell (05:06):
If you're a budding exporter and you have a
medical device or a therapeutic,where do you start and, more
importantly, how do you knowwhen your business is ready?
Christelle Damiens (05:17):
So we have a export readiness diagnostic
tool that is available for freeon our website, so I can point
people to that.
But in that diagnostic toolwhat we check is is your
technology proven?
So do you have customers thatare paying for it, liking it and
paying for it at the rightprice and that can be your
(05:42):
referrals?
Are you uniquely positioned?
Do you know your positioning incomparison to your competitors
and have you done a bit ofresearch at the global level?
I mean, you don't need to knowstraight away all the European
competitors.
If you come from Australia,that's okay.
Is your intellectual propertyprotected, or do you have an IP
(06:06):
strategy to make sure thatcompetitors are not already
there exactly in the same field?
And then, do you comply withthe European regulation?
Because without compliance youcannot sell.
So that's some of the thingsthat we check first before, and
that's when you know you'reready.
(06:26):
We also like companies to havesome revenue to be able to
sustain their effort into theEuropean market.
So we don't like the startupsthat come and go because they're
going to lose credibility andwe're trying to make them look
like they're a credible player.
(06:47):
And so, with Europeans alwaysthinking long term, you have to
show you're here for the longgame and if you go into the
market, oh, we're running out ofmoney, withdrawing and then
coming back again.
You're losing the whole.
You're losing your investment,you're losing your credibility
and it's really a waste of time.
(07:08):
So really having some revenueto be able to sustain that
effort in the long term is key.
Caroline Duell (07:16):
So you work with CEOs and clients all around the
world who are looking at thischallenge of getting into Europe
.
Are there any common mistakesthat companies make when they're
trying to expandinternationally?
Christelle Damiens (07:29):
Yes.
So some of the common mistakesis to start by setting up an
entity and hiring peoplestraight away without knowing
where is their market and havingtested it.
And that means that verycommonly for Australian
companies, even for US companiesthat we work with, they would
(07:51):
set up an entity.
I mean a bit less so in thelast few years since Brexit, but
the normal tendency was we'regoing to Europe, we're setting
up an entity in the UK, we'rehiring in the UK and then five
years down the track, they'relike oh, actually our best
market was not the UK and it wasreally hard for us to build
(08:12):
growth in Germany, whereas thatwas our best market.
So in that book actually that'smy third book one of the
questions I asked the casestudies is when you enter the
European market, what do youwish you had done differently?
And a lot of them said I wish Iactually had started where our
(08:36):
time, our total addressablemarket, the largest total
addressable market, was.
We should have started byGermany.
We would have been in such amuch better position today.
So it's about choosing, reallyprioritizing and choosing your
top countries, starting there,testing the appetite, being very
(08:57):
focused, making them work,setting up the team to support
those early customers andsetting up the distribution
partners in those countries andthen scaling to additional
countries, so not the other wayaround.
Caroline Duell (09:14):
You're not doing a total European takeover per
se, it's just country by country.
Christelle Damiens (09:18):
Yes, actually, you think that going
worldwide would go faster.
It won't.
It's really about proving yourmodel and testing ground in one
or two markets, making it workand then replicating it in other
markets, and that will gofaster after.
Caroline Duell (09:38):
How complex is it to navigate the different
European regulatory frameworksfor registering and approving
medical products?
Christelle Damiens (09:46):
So the European Union has the MDR, so
that's the CMR approval processthat is the same for every
single european country.
The uk now has its own system,which is mainly based on the
previous what's called mdd someof the listeners would know what
I'm talking about which is aprevious regulatory medical
(10:09):
device regulatory framework andum on top of that.
So that's basically the top two, and then you're going to have
to work at country level tocheck what are the additional
guidelines from the medical, thehealth authority locally.
(10:29):
So unfortunately, you're goingto have to navigate that country
by country, being guided by,you know, the, the main medical
society in your specialty oryour key opinion leaders can
also guide you through thatwhat's your top tip for budding
european exporters sort of rightnow?
(10:50):
so the top tip is really tobecause I constantly see that,
so I'm going to have to say itit's about distributors.
So it's always you know,startups and SMEs they get
approached by a distributor,they get really excited because
that means they think that it'sall happening and so they sign
(11:11):
them up with very wrong termsand then it doesn't work.
So, really, coming back to thefocus, it all has to start and
all the effort and focus of thesmall team has to be on those
top two markets, top twocountries, even just one country
(11:31):
, and then you go into thatmarket, mapping out the
distributor landscape, and thenyou assess them and you are
actually conducting some duediligence and engaging with them
.
So it's not waiting and beingpassive and waiting for
something to happen and hopingyou, hoping you can sign that
(11:53):
agreement.
It's really about beingproactive in choosing that
partner.
And then the other mistake is toexpect that once you sign an
agreement, you can sit down andrelax because it's all going to
happen.
It won't happen.
So you really have to drivethat distribution relationship
(12:13):
really hard, set some objectivetogether, but also work together
with the distributor, find thesales champion within that
distribution partner.
Who's going to be your earlyrunner who's going to go around
and sell your technology andwork with them to create the
initial sales.
That's what's going to drivethe success with that
(12:35):
distributor to get sales.
So that's your focus really.
Caroline Duell (12:40):
Christelle, what's your background in the
MedTech and pharma space?
Christelle Damiens (12:43):
I'm a pure salesperson, so I sold
technology originally in IBMbefore I.
So that's not MedTech, that'stechnology.
And then when I came toAustralia and I started my
business in 2006, becauseAustralia has quite a good
industry I started to work withclients in the medtech space and
(13:06):
so we've conducted over 26projects in the last 18 years in
the medtech space 26 projectsin the last 18 years in the med
tech space.
So we had patient riskmanagement software, we've had
tarification software, we've hadimplant dermal substitute,
(13:28):
we've had a whole range ofdifferent types of products,
treatment tables that we'veworked with over the years.
So that's how we kind of builtour expertise.
But it's really for us and Ican see because we work across
different sectors it's all abouta technology sale and user
adoption, and that's the sameprocess.
Caroline Duell (13:52):
So your business Exportia it's like an export
consulting firm and, as you said, it's been running for nearly
18 years and you provide anoutsourced European sales and
marketing team.
Is that correct to clients whoare looking for that?
Yes, so that's what we provide.
Christelle Damiens (14:10):
So we package it step by step.
It's not like we are going togo, you know, on a multi-year
agreement with a small businessstraight away.
We kind of go step by step, byfirst, you know, finding out
what is the key market for themin Europe and then building the
(14:30):
strategy and identifying the keyplayers.
So we've built over time in thelast 18 years some packages
that help those companies, takeyou every step of the way in
Europe, and we've built that onpackages.
So one step at a time, and then, once we're successful, we move
(14:52):
to the next level and then wemove to the next level.
So that's how we've done it andit works quite well for
start-up and small businessesbecause it's quite flexible for
them.
It's not so such a long-termengagement and board members
like that too.
Caroline Duell (15:11):
so it's a clever way really of having it sort of
almost like your own in-houseteam, but but they're not
in-house.
Christelle Damiens (15:18):
We report back as if we were a sales team
within the small business.
The benefit to the smallbusiness is they look like they
have a European team and they'vegot local support that speaks
German, French, Italian, Spanish.
So that's really one of ouradded value and we can navigate
(15:39):
across market very smoothly andas we make one market successful
, we can move to the next andthen help our clients set up
their team, work with them, handover and then go to the next
and then go again to the next.
So that's how we work.
Caroline Duell (15:56):
Yo u know language is one of those
barriers for many um Australiancompanies, but you know you have
taken dozens of Australianbusinesses into Europe using
this successful model.
Is there a bit of a cultureclash that we need to be aware
of when doing business in Europe, and are Australian companies
welcome there?
Christelle Damiens (16:17):
Yes, so they definitely are welcome because
Europeans are very open toforeign players.
They used to have a lot ofdifferent nationalities and a
lot of you know players comingfrom overseas.
That's the diverse nature ofEurope, so there's no problem
(16:39):
with that, no barrier to entrythere.
In terms of things thatAustralians have to watch out is
sometimes the way they presenttheir material and the side of
the translation.
And having that type ofdocument ready for customers is
(17:00):
quite.
It's easy to fix, it's easy toorganize and it's a nice added
value and having.
What I find also is when wework with those small businesses
, sometimes they don't havetheir value articulated properly
, so it's hard to communicate itto the market and it's hard to
(17:21):
convince because of that.
So that's one of the key thingsfor them to watch out.
Caroline Duell (17:25):
So be respectful of the language of the country
where you're looking to developrelationships.
Christelle Damiens (17:32):
Yes, so being mindful of that, and it's
also an asset because so manynon-European companies coming to
the market do that very badly.
So with some of our customerswe've done that really well that
the Europeans reallyappreciated it and really found
(17:53):
that.
That's amazing that anAustralian company had, you know
, everything ready, from thedata sheet to the user manual,
which you have to as well.
But having that you knowalready prepared in the
countries and in the languageswhere they were needed is really
(18:14):
a good asset to have.
Caroline Duell (18:16):
Can you tell us of any small companies in the
medtech sector that have crackedit in Europe recently, that you
know some examples?
Christelle Damiens (18:25):
I have one that is quite close to my heart
because we've worked for themfor about 10 years, and so we
did introduce the healthcareproduct.
It's a safety product forrespiratory protection and
they're called Clean Space, andI think over the years they've
done an excellent job atbuilding their success in the
(18:46):
European market.
So that's one I can name, and Ithink they're very commendable.
Caroline Duell (18:53):
What did you think of the workshops today?
Christelle Damiens (18:55):
I think they were so interesting to see
those different perspectives.
I was so pleased to hear thejourney of Michael with
nanosonics.
There were such interestinglearnings and I kind of was
happy to see that some of ourlearnings for us at Exportia
(19:19):
over the last 18 years were kindof the same as nanosonics.
You know, Signing largedistribution agreements with
large companies doesn't meanthat it's all going to happen.
You still have to work reallyhard with those distributors and
make it happen.
So some of the lessons werecommon so I particularly enjoyed
(19:40):
that session.
Caroline Duell (19:41):
Well, I know that all the start-ups and SMEs
here at this development serieshave found your session really
valuable and thanks for sharingsome of those tips with us and
the aspects of looking atexporting to Europe.
Christelle Damiens (19:54):
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Caroline Duell (19:58):
You've been listening to the MTP Connect
podcast.
This podcast is produced on thelands of the Wurundjeri people
here in Narm, Melbourne.
Thanks for listening to theshow.
If you love what you heard,share our podcast and follow us
for more.
Until next time.
This is the MTP Connect podcast, connecting you
with the people behind thelife-saving innovations driving
Australia's growing lifesciences sector from bench to
bedside for better health andwellbeing.
Mtp Connect acknowledges thetraditional owners of country
that this podcast is recorded onand recognises that Aboriginal
(00:23):
and Torres Strait Islanderpeoples are Australia's first
storytellers and the holders offirst science knowledge.
Caroline Duell (00:33):
Hello and welcome to the MTP Connect
podcast.
I'm Caroline Duell.
We're coming to you from Sydneyfor MTP Connect's Development
Workshop Series.
Joining me is Christelle Damien, Managing Director of Exportia,
who has today been running acapability workshop on accessing
global markets.
As an entrepreneur andaward-winning author, Christelle
(00:54):
is the go-to person forAustralian companies looking to
expand into the European market.
Christelle works with CEOsaround the world to develop a
winning business strategy inEurope and she has a track
record in scaling smallbusinesses to their first
million and beyond.
Welcome, Christelle, hi,Caroline, nice to meet you.
Christelle, you've justpublished your third book for
(01:16):
small businesses who want toscale their business
internationally and it's calledIs it Time to Start Exporting to
Europe, Lessons Learned fromExporters Globally.
It was published this year inMarch Is now a good time for
Australian medical start-ups andSMEs to be moving into the
European market.
Christelle Damiens (01:35):
I think it's a good time for many different
reasons.
So there are a lot ofinitiatives at the European
Union level to improvehealthcare, increase
digitization.
There's a lot of chronicdisease rise, but also with the
(01:56):
aging population, there are alot of increased needs for
better healthcare, and so thereare a lot of initiatives out
there to improve patient care.
And also what the EuropeanUnion has been doing is
following COVID.
There has been a lot of failure, I would say, at the European
(02:18):
level that have been identified,and so the European Union is
also trying to fix those.
So there are initiatives interms of communication between
countries and alert systems, sothat you know more digitization
of the health care, morecommunication intra-country.
(02:38):
So there's a lot of initiativesaround that that are very
interesting.
And, of course, like anycountry, there are strong
incentives to build the pharmaindustry and the autonomy of the
European Union in terms ofproduction of pharmaceuticals.
So there's a lot of initiativesat the European level to do
(03:02):
that.
Caroline Duell (03:03):
How important is it for startups to start
considering Europe as a marketto enter?
I mean everyone sort of thinkslet's go to the that.
How important is it forstartups to start considering
Europe as a market to enter?
I mean everyone sort of thinkslet's go to the US.
Why should they be thinkinglet's go to Europe?
Christelle Damiens (03:13):
So I'm going to put a caveat to what I just
said before.
There's one impediment at themoment for the European market
and we all have to be realisticabout it.
The new regulatory approvalprocess is still over, so the
MDR has been implemented, hascome to force.
It's created a lot of backlogin terms of processing time of
(03:38):
the MDR and the IVDR.
So that means that companiesthat are wanting to go into the
European market they're going tohave to take into account that
timeline.
It's quite a long processingtime.
So that's the only caveat Ihave to say about that.
Otherwise, why should theyconsider the European market?
First of all, australia hasquite good success stories
(04:03):
overall and has a goodreputation in terms of medical
devices.
I mean, it's not the case ofmany industry sectors, but it's
one sector where Australiareally has a good reputation in
Europe.
So that's one of the key assetsI think that we have.
(04:25):
And also, it is a fairly easymarket to enter.
There's not many barriers to itand you can really start by.
Once you've chosen your market.
You can really start little bylittle with just a distribution
partner.
You don't have to invest in anentity to make it happen for a
(04:47):
small business in the Europeanmarket and I think for a startup
or a small business, not havingthose first investments, which
are quite heavy, to setting upan entity and hiring people at
the start is also a good thing,and that's a great thing about
Europe.
Caroline Duell (05:06):
If you're a budding exporter and you have a
medical device or a therapeutic,where do you start and, more
importantly, how do you knowwhen your business is ready?
Christelle Damiens (05:17):
So we have a export readiness diagnostic
tool that is available for freeon our website, so I can point
people to that.
But in that diagnostic toolwhat we check is is your
technology proven?
So do you have customers thatare paying for it, liking it and
paying for it at the rightprice and that can be your
(05:42):
referrals?
Are you uniquely positioned?
Do you know your positioning incomparison to your competitors
and have you done a bit ofresearch at the global level?
I mean, you don't need to knowstraight away all the European
competitors.
If you come from Australia,that's okay.
Is your intellectual propertyprotected, or do you have an IP
(06:06):
strategy to make sure thatcompetitors are not already
there exactly in the same field?
And then, do you comply withthe European regulation?
Because without compliance youcannot sell.
So that's some of the thingsthat we check first before, and
that's when you know you'reready.
(06:26):
We also like companies to havesome revenue to be able to
sustain their effort into theEuropean market.
So we don't like the startupsthat come and go because they're
going to lose credibility andwe're trying to make them look
like they're a credible player.
(06:47):
And so, with Europeans alwaysthinking long term, you have to
show you're here for the longgame and if you go into the
market, oh, we're running out ofmoney, withdrawing and then
coming back again.
You're losing the whole.
You're losing your investment,you're losing your credibility
and it's really a waste of time.
(07:08):
So really having some revenueto be able to sustain that
effort in the long term is key.
Caroline Duell (07:16):
So you work with CEOs and clients all around the
world who are looking at thischallenge of getting into Europe
.
Are there any common mistakesthat companies make when they're
trying to expandinternationally?
Christelle Damiens (07:29):
Yes.
So some of the common mistakesis to start by setting up an
entity and hiring peoplestraight away without knowing
where is their market and havingtested it.
And that means that verycommonly for Australian
companies, even for US companiesthat we work with, they would
(07:51):
set up an entity.
I mean a bit less so in thelast few years since Brexit, but
the normal tendency was we'regoing to Europe, we're setting
up an entity in the UK, we'rehiring in the UK and then five
years down the track, they'relike oh, actually our best
market was not the UK and it wasreally hard for us to build
(08:12):
growth in Germany, whereas thatwas our best market.
So in that book actually that'smy third book one of the
questions I asked the casestudies is when you enter the
European market, what do youwish you had done differently?
And a lot of them said I wish Iactually had started where our
(08:36):
time, our total addressablemarket, the largest total
addressable market, was.
We should have started byGermany.
We would have been in such amuch better position today.
So it's about choosing, reallyprioritizing and choosing your
top countries, starting there,testing the appetite, being very
(08:57):
focused, making them work,setting up the team to support
those early customers andsetting up the distribution
partners in those countries andthen scaling to additional
countries, so not the other wayaround.
Caroline Duell (09:14):
You're not doing a total European takeover per
se, it's just country by country.
Christelle Damiens (09:18):
Yes, actually, you think that going
worldwide would go faster.
It won't.
It's really about proving yourmodel and testing ground in one
or two markets, making it workand then replicating it in other
markets, and that will gofaster after.
Caroline Duell (09:38):
How complex is it to navigate the different
European regulatory frameworksfor registering and approving
medical products?
Christelle Damiens (09:46):
So the European Union has the MDR, so
that's the CMR approval processthat is the same for every
single european country.
The uk now has its own system,which is mainly based on the
previous what's called mdd someof the listeners would know what
I'm talking about which is aprevious regulatory medical
(10:09):
device regulatory framework andum on top of that.
So that's basically the top two, and then you're going to have
to work at country level tocheck what are the additional
guidelines from the medical, thehealth authority locally.
(10:29):
So unfortunately, you're goingto have to navigate that country
by country, being guided by,you know, the, the main medical
society in your specialty oryour key opinion leaders can
also guide you through thatwhat's your top tip for budding
european exporters sort of rightnow?
(10:50):
so the top tip is really tobecause I constantly see that,
so I'm going to have to say itit's about distributors.
So it's always you know,startups and SMEs they get
approached by a distributor,they get really excited because
that means they think that it'sall happening and so they sign
(11:11):
them up with very wrong termsand then it doesn't work.
So, really, coming back to thefocus, it all has to start and
all the effort and focus of thesmall team has to be on those
top two markets, top twocountries, even just one country
(11:31):
, and then you go into thatmarket, mapping out the
distributor landscape, and thenyou assess them and you are
actually conducting some duediligence and engaging with them
.
So it's not waiting and beingpassive and waiting for
something to happen and hopingyou, hoping you can sign that
(11:53):
agreement.
It's really about beingproactive in choosing that
partner.
And then the other mistake is toexpect that once you sign an
agreement, you can sit down andrelax because it's all going to
happen.
It won't happen.
So you really have to drivethat distribution relationship
(12:13):
really hard, set some objectivetogether, but also work together
with the distributor, find thesales champion within that
distribution partner.
Who's going to be your earlyrunner who's going to go around
and sell your technology andwork with them to create the
initial sales.
That's what's going to drivethe success with that
(12:35):
distributor to get sales.
So that's your focus really.
Caroline Duell (12:40):
Christelle, what's your background in the
MedTech and pharma space?
Christelle Damiens (12:43):
I'm a pure salesperson, so I sold
technology originally in IBMbefore I.
So that's not MedTech, that'stechnology.
And then when I came toAustralia and I started my
business in 2006, becauseAustralia has quite a good
industry I started to work withclients in the medtech space and
(13:06):
so we've conducted over 26projects in the last 18 years in
the medtech space 26 projectsin the last 18 years in the med
tech space.
So we had patient riskmanagement software, we've had
tarification software, we've hadimplant dermal substitute,
(13:28):
we've had a whole range ofdifferent types of products,
treatment tables that we'veworked with over the years.
So that's how we kind of builtour expertise.
But it's really for us and Ican see because we work across
different sectors it's all abouta technology sale and user
adoption, and that's the sameprocess.
Caroline Duell (13:52):
So your business Exportia it's like an export
consulting firm and, as you said, it's been running for nearly
18 years and you provide anoutsourced European sales and
marketing team.
Is that correct to clients whoare looking for that?
Yes, so that's what we provide.
Christelle Damiens (14:10):
So we package it step by step.
It's not like we are going togo, you know, on a multi-year
agreement with a small businessstraight away.
We kind of go step by step, byfirst, you know, finding out
what is the key market for themin Europe and then building the
(14:30):
strategy and identifying the keyplayers.
So we've built over time in thelast 18 years some packages
that help those companies, takeyou every step of the way in
Europe, and we've built that onpackages.
So one step at a time, and then, once we're successful, we move
(14:52):
to the next level and then wemove to the next level.
So that's how we've done it andit works quite well for
start-up and small businessesbecause it's quite flexible for
them.
It's not so such a long-termengagement and board members
like that too.
Caroline Duell (15:11):
so it's a clever way really of having it sort of
almost like your own in-houseteam, but but they're not
in-house.
Christelle Damiens (15:18):
We report back as if we were a sales team
within the small business.
The benefit to the smallbusiness is they look like they
have a European team and they'vegot local support that speaks
German, French, Italian, Spanish.
So that's really one of ouradded value and we can navigate
(15:39):
across market very smoothly andas we make one market successful
, we can move to the next andthen help our clients set up
their team, work with them, handover and then go to the next
and then go again to the next.
So that's how we work.
Caroline Duell (15:56):
Yo u know language is one of those
barriers for many um Australiancompanies, but you know you have
taken dozens of Australianbusinesses into Europe using
this successful model.
Is there a bit of a cultureclash that we need to be aware
of when doing business in Europe, and are Australian companies
welcome there?
Christelle Damiens (16:17):
Yes, so they definitely are welcome because
Europeans are very open toforeign players.
They used to have a lot ofdifferent nationalities and a
lot of you know players comingfrom overseas.
That's the diverse nature ofEurope, so there's no problem
(16:39):
with that, no barrier to entrythere.
In terms of things thatAustralians have to watch out is
sometimes the way they presenttheir material and the side of
the translation.
And having that type ofdocument ready for customers is
(17:00):
quite.
It's easy to fix, it's easy toorganize and it's a nice added
value and having.
What I find also is when wework with those small businesses
, sometimes they don't havetheir value articulated properly
, so it's hard to communicate itto the market and it's hard to
(17:21):
convince because of that.
So that's one of the key thingsfor them to watch out.
Caroline Duell (17:25):
So be respectful of the language of the country
where you're looking to developrelationships.
Christelle Damiens (17:32):
Yes, so being mindful of that, and it's
also an asset because so manynon-European companies coming to
the market do that very badly.
So with some of our customerswe've done that really well that
the Europeans reallyappreciated it and really found
(17:53):
that.
That's amazing that anAustralian company had, you know
, everything ready, from thedata sheet to the user manual,
which you have to as well.
But having that you knowalready prepared in the
countries and in the languageswhere they were needed is really
(18:14):
a good asset to have.
Caroline Duell (18:16):
Can you tell us of any small companies in the
medtech sector that have crackedit in Europe recently, that you
know some examples?
Christelle Damiens (18:25):
I have one that is quite close to my heart
because we've worked for themfor about 10 years, and so we
did introduce the healthcareproduct.
It's a safety product forrespiratory protection and
they're called Clean Space, andI think over the years they've
done an excellent job atbuilding their success in the
(18:46):
European market.
So that's one I can name, and Ithink they're very commendable.
Caroline Duell (18:53):
What did you think of the workshops today?
Christelle Damiens (18:55):
I think they were so interesting to see
those different perspectives.
I was so pleased to hear thejourney of Michael with
nanosonics.
There were such interestinglearnings and I kind of was
happy to see that some of ourlearnings for us at Exportia
(19:19):
over the last 18 years were kindof the same as nanosonics.
You know, Signing largedistribution agreements with
large companies doesn't meanthat it's all going to happen.
You still have to work reallyhard with those distributors and
make it happen.
So some of the lessons werecommon so I particularly enjoyed
(19:40):
that session.
Caroline Duell (19:41):
Well, I know that all the start-ups and SMEs
here at this development serieshave found your session really
valuable and thanks for sharingsome of those tips with us and
the aspects of looking atexporting to Europe.
Christelle Damiens (19:54):
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Caroline Duell (19:58):
You've been listening to the MTP Connect
podcast.
This podcast is produced on thelands of the Wurundjeri people
here in Narm, Melbourne.
Thanks for listening to theshow.
If you love what you heard,share our podcast and follow us
for more.
Until next time.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.