What Zach Selch Gets Right About Latin America Market Entry

International expansion often sounds simple until a company has to choose markets, find distributors, register products, and get shipments through customs. In this episode, Zach Selch, who was VP of Global Sales for a high-tech medical company when the episode was recorded, argues that Latin America is usually one of the most practical places for a small or midsize U.S. medtech company to begin.

What makes the conversation useful is that Selch does not describe the region as easy. He describes it as varied, attractive, and unforgiving of sloppy execution. His message is straightforward: Latin America can be a strong growth market, but only if a company treats market entry as a managed sales system rather than a string of opportunistic deals.

Latin America is approachable, but not uniform

Selch's first point is strategic. For many U.S. manufacturers, Latin America is a logical early step because geography, language concentration, and product fit can make the region easier to approach than more fragmented global markets. As he puts it, "Latin America is in your backyard, right?"

That does not mean one plan fits the whole region. Selch describes Latin America as a wide spectrum of markets. Some hospitals in places such as Colombia, Brazil, and Panama want top-tier equipment. Other markets are more focused on lower-cost products and basic infrastructure needs. In other words, the region can support both premium and value-oriented positioning, depending on what a company sells and where it aims.

That view matters because it pushes founders away from broad generalizations. A company should not ask whether Latin America is good or bad. It should ask where its product belongs inside Latin America: private or public sector, high-end or mid-range facilities, large capitals or smaller markets. Selch's own experience across much of the region reinforces that point. He talks about selling in markets ranging from Argentina and Chile to Peru, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Channel selection should start with the end user

One of Selch's clearest warnings is against reactive distributor selection. Too many companies accept the first inbound inquiry from a would-be distributor and call that international strategy. His preference is the opposite: "I'd never want to work with somebody who contacts me randomly."

Instead, he recommends building a distributor profile from the ground up. Start with the end user. If the target is a certain type of ICU, hospital tier, or purchasing environment, then the distributor should already know how to sell into that same setting. The best fit may be a company selling adjacent, noncompeting products at similar price points to the same buyers.

That sounds basic, but it changes behavior. Rather than waiting for emails or trade show walk-ups, the manufacturer goes looking for a short list of candidates, meets them, interviews them, and evaluates whether they can execute. Selch also separates channel selection from regulatory support. He says he prefers paying for regulatory work so the manufacturer can keep control of registrations when possible, instead of letting a third party hold those rights for years.

The larger lesson is that distributor choice is not an administrative task. It is one of the most important commercial decisions a company makes in the region.

Distributors only work when they are managed

Selch is especially direct on this point: "I'm looking at my distributors as part of my sales organization and it's my job to manage them." That idea runs through the whole interview.

He rejects the hands-off model in which a manufacturer ships product, attends one trade show, and waits for purchase orders. In his view, distributors need onboarding, training, coaching, messaging, and pressure. He describes traveling with distributors, helping localize marketing materials, and building tools that make the sales message easier to deliver in Spanish and Portuguese.

He also makes a practical contract point that many companies miss. Annual purchase targets by themselves are weak. If a distributor underperforms, it is hard to recover much through the courts. Selch prefers agreements with operational milestones: who the distributor will hire, what profile that person should have, when training will happen, and what activities must be completed early. Those milestones create visibility and, if necessary, grounds for termination before a full year is wasted.

His results claim is notable. He says he has grown Latin American territories by well over 1,000% more than once, and at one company increased sales by about 400% in three years with existing distributors by improving methodology, training, messaging, and sales tools.

Execution details matter more than slide decks

The conversation is strongest when Selch gets into the mechanics that can quietly derail growth. Pricing is one example. He does not treat Latin America as uniformly price-driven. In some markets he says he has held pricing in line with other parts of the world. The tougher issue, in his experience, can be cash flow, credit terms, and currency fluctuations.

Shipping is another. Selch says small orders, samples, demos, and trial units are often the hardest shipments from a documentation standpoint. Companies try to save money on paperwork, then lose time when customs flags the shipment. His advice is simple: use shipping partners that understand international documentation, and do not assume domestic shipping habits will transfer smoothly to Latin America.

He makes the same point about compliance and regulatory planning. He says companies cannot afford to be casual about anti-bribery expectations, and they need to structure distributor relationships accordingly. On regulatory approvals, he notes that Latin America is not a one-clearance region like Europe, but products with FDA support are generally in a stronger position. The challenge is usually time, money, and organization, not impossibility.

Listen to the full episode

Selch closes with a CEO-level argument: "The single best way to grow the value of a company is to expand your international footprint." Whether a listener agrees with every part of his approach or not, the episode offers a practical framework for doing that with more discipline in Latin America. You can hear the full conversation on the episode page.

About Global Trial Accelerators™

Global Trial Accelerators™ is the podcast for MedTech, Biopharma and Radiopharma founders navigating first-in-human clinical trials. It is hosted by Jesús E. Moreno and produced by bioaccess®, a CRO purpose-built for first-in-human trials across the Americas.