Notes for owners · Industry playbooks
How a speciality lab gets its first sample from a new doctor
A clinician sends a trial sample when ordering is easy, transport is understood and someone will explain the result. Here is how a genetic or speciality lab earns that first one.
The GullySales team · Updated 3 Oct 2026 · 8 min read
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A clinician sends a first sample when three things are true: she can tell exactly which test to order and when, her staff know how to get the sample to you intact, and she believes somebody competent will pick up the phone when the report puzzles her. Nothing else moves a doctor off the lab she has used for eight years. The first sample is a trial, and most speciality labs lose it after the trial because nobody asked how it went.
The buyer list is short, which changes everything
A neighbourhood pathology lab has thousands of possible patients. A molecular or genetic lab has a few hundred ordering doctors in a city, and they know each other. That makes the work closer to key account selling than to marketing.
Write the list down. Oncologists, fertility specialists, foetal medicine consultants, neurologists, paediatricians and the pathologists who send out what they do not run themselves. Name the hospital, the department and the person. A list of two hundred and forty names, held properly, is a more valuable asset than any campaign, and it fits in one spreadsheet.
What the clinician is weighing up
| The doctor's question | What answers it | What a lab usually sends instead |
|---|---|---|
| Which of your forty tests fits this patient? | A one-page guide per speciality, written clinically | A menu listing all forty with prices |
| What will the result change for me? | A line on how the report alters management | A paragraph on the platform and the technology |
| How does the sample get there intact? | Tube type, volume, labelling, cold chain, cut-off times, courier contact | Nothing, until the first sample is rejected |
| Who do I ring when the report confuses me? | A named scientist and a working number | A general enquiry line |
| What does the report look like? | A real, de-identified sample report | A brochure cover |
| What do I tell the family about the cost? | A clear figure and what the family gets for it | An evasive answer |
The third row is the one that ends relationships. A sample haemolysed in transit, or rejected on arrival with no call to the clinic, costs a patient money and the doctor credibility. She will not risk it twice.
Make the first order easy, then make the second one happen
Pick one speciality and do it properly rather than touching six. If oncology is your strength, write the oncology guide, visit the oncology clinics, get a scientist in front of a tumour board, and leave the fertility market for later.
Then build the part almost nobody builds: the follow-up on a first sample. When a new doctor sends one, somebody should find out afterwards whether the pick-up was smooth, whether the report format worked with her records, and what she wanted that she did not get. That conversation converts a trial into an account, and it is a ten-minute call.
Keep a record of who is sending and who has stopped. A doctor who sent four samples and then nothing has usually had a bad experience nobody heard about. The counting of that, and the outreach behind it, is set out on our page for genetic and speciality testing labs.
Where the rules bite
Inducements to doctors are restricted, and the position differs between states and changes. So does what may be said publicly about certain prenatal, genetic and screening tests, and what consent and counselling must sit around them. Enforcement in this area is serious and it reaches the clinician as well as the laboratory.
Do not treat anything in this article, or anything an agency tells you, as settled. Write down what you intend to publish and what you intend to offer a referring doctor, take both to your own legal counsel, and keep the answer on file. Our part is to build the route nobody disputes: clear clinical education, honest reports, reliable logistics and a follow-up.
The order to work in, by what it costs
- The ordering guide, one speciality at a time. Written by your scientist, edited so a busy clinician reads it in two minutes.
- The logistics sheet for the clinic's staff. Tube, volume, labelling, storage, who to call.
- A de-identified sample report you are proud of, ready to hand over.
- A named person for report queries, with a number that is answered during clinic hours.
- The first-sample follow-up, as a routine rather than a good intention.
- Case discussions with a scientist present, invited to one speciality at a time.
- Conferences, last, and only with a follow-up plan written before the booth is booked.
For example, take a molecular lab in Hyderabad with a strong solid-tumour panel and no field team. The figures are illustrative. It identifies sixty oncologists in the city, writes one eight-page ordering guide for them, and gets its senior scientist into four tumour board meetings. One conversation at the fourth meeting produces a trial sample. Whether that becomes an account depends entirely on the phone call after the report goes out.
What does not work
A glossy brochure about your sequencers. Doctors buy answers to clinical questions, not instrument specifications.
Mass emails to a bought list of medical addresses. They do not get read, and in a market of two hundred people a careless mailing is remembered.
A representative who cannot discuss the science. In this trade the conversation turns technical in the second minute, and a person who cannot follow it loses the account for everyone behind them.
What to do next
Count the doctors who sent you a sample in the last quarter and mark the ones who sent exactly one. That short list is the most valuable thing in your business, because each name on it already tried you and nobody asked why they stopped. Ring three of them this week. If you would like the account list built and scored with you, book the free audit.
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