Medical Sales Success in 2017: Do More. Be Competent. Change the Conversation.

Almost every medical sales representative I talk to in my consulting business talks about landing new customers and expanding business with existing customers in the New Year. 

So, let me ask you. “What is your plan for doing that?”

Many sales reps talk about working harder, getting more organized, and one of the most touted reasons for expecting a better year: having one or more new products.

I’ll get to each of those in a moment, but notice that none addresses the most important factor in the having-a-better-year-equation: The Customer.

Assuming your customers are healthcare professionals, they don’t lay awake nights praying to see more sales reps. And truthfully, unless you’re an existing, favored, and valued service provider, who can make their lives easier without subjecting them to a sales pitch, they wish you would just stay away. They have much more important things to do than spend time with self-centered, product-focused sales reps who neither understand nor care about the customer’s true situation. They feel like far too many sales reps waste their time and it really just pisses them off. 

HCPs today have to do more with less. More documentation is required. They must comply with new mandates from the federal government and insurance carriers, and their profit margins and personal income are threatened. If you can solve any of these problems, they’re happy to talk to you, but most could care less about looking at another widget that does exactly the same thing as the one you’re trying to replace.

Here’s how the aforementioned plan for having a better year plays out in the real world:

• Working harder - For most, that means making more sales calls, starting earlier, working later, etc. If you’re making more sales calls and having the same conversations that piss off customers, you’re just going to piss off more customers. Let that one sink in . . .
• Getting more organized: What does that mean? Organizing the brochures in your trunk and your pencil drawer? Most medical reps know how to do that; what they don’t know how to do is organize their territories for calling on customers with efficiency and regularity.
• New products: Are these products that sell themselves? For example, will a newly launched product solve a well-known problem that customers desperately want solved and there are no competing products? If so, your product might sell itself . . . except for one problem . . . your biggest competitor. And your biggest competitor is not the man or woman whose business card is similar to yours and sells similar products. Your biggest competitor is The Status Quo, i.e. the fact that healthcare professionals cling to proven products and methodologies like survivors cling to palm trees in a tsunami. Hopefully you get the picture. 

So then, what can you control that will impact business in your territory in 2017? 

Sales competency. Period.

Sales competency encompasses the necessary skills, habits, and deliberate behaviors to engage and persuade healthcare buyers while maintaining trust and customer satisfaction.

Sales competency includes: 

• Expert product knowledge 
• Competent working knowledge of the specialties and verticals where your products are used
• Selling skills that provide access, create engagement, and drive commitment to action
• Time and territory management skills
• Building interpersonal business relationships and the ability to resolve unavoidable conflicts
• Understanding healthcare economics, specifically, how your customers get paid 

If your goal is to have a better year in 2017 than you did in 2016, don’t just think about doing more — think about being more and knowing more. Change the conversations you have with customers from talking about products to talking about things that inspire and motivate them to take action.

Medical sales isn’t just highly competitive, it’s a blood sport, a zero sum game. Having a good product is table stakes, but the sale ultimately goes to the sales rep with a strategy who knows more, works harder, and recognizes that sales competency requires effort.

Have an awesome 2017 in your territory. Do more. Be competent. Change the conversation.

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Mace Horoff is the creator of Medical Sales Academy to provide online training & support for medical sales professionals 24/7/356.