What Your Boss and Customers Won't Tell You

When getting advice on succeeding in medical sales, you'll always hear, "Work hard. Start early and work late. Outwork your competition. Always be available to your accounts and customers.

I'm here to share a critical success factor you're unlikely to hear from your manager, distributor, or colleagues: 

Learn how to detach from work. 

It's easy to say but hard to do.

Medical sales can be all-consuming. If you succeed as a medical rep, it's because you're doing the work. The work is endless—staying connected with accounts, making sales calls, following up, and ensuring your accounts and customers are satisfied with your product or service. Maybe you have your competition to thank for staying on your toes because it's hard to slack off when you see competitors calling on your accounts.

But slack off, you must. I'm not suggesting you do this haphazardly or just whenever you feel like it. It must be strategic. Detach from work regularly, or I promise you, you will experience burnout. Burnout is insidious. It can happen without you being aware.

What Causes Burnout For Medical Sales Representatives?

1. High Pressure and Stress: Medical sales representatives often face immense pressure to meet sales quotas and sustain professional relationships. Challenges like difficult-to-access doctors, sales rep credentialing, and fluctuating buying contracts don't help. Add tight deadlines, unrealistic sales quotas, and fierce competition, and you have a scenario for chronic stress, increasing the risk of burnout.
2. Constant Availability and Workload: With the rise of technology, medical sales reps are expected to be available around the clock, responding to emails, attending virtual meetings, and keeping up with industry developments. It seems like there are endless proverbial fires to put out. The blurred boundaries between work and personal life can disrupt the work-life balance, leaving little time for relaxation and self-care.
3. Emotional Toll: Sales representatives encounter rejection, skepticism, and resistance daily. This emotional strain and the need to consistently project enthusiasm and positivity can drain their emotional resources, making them susceptible to burnout.
4. Travel Demands: Frequent traveling is integral to a medical sales representative's role. While it offers the opportunity to build relationships and expand business networks, the constant time away from home and disrupted routines while rushing all over the territory can lead to exhaustion and feelings of isolation.

How Medical Sales Representatives Can Detach From Work Regularly

• Establish Clear Boundaries: Medical sales representatives need to set clear boundaries between work and personal life. This means defining specific working hours and consciously disconnecting from work-related tasks outside those designated times. Of course, it won't always be possible, but you have to make the effort. Communicate these boundaries effectively with colleagues and clients to manage expectations.
• Engage in Mindful Activities: Engaging in activities that promote mindfulness can help sales reps decompress and detach from work. Meditation, yoga, deep breathing exercises, and journaling can help reduce stress and improve overall well-being. If you're telling yourself right now after reading this that "you don't have time for these things," then you need them more than you realize and must prioritize them.
• Pursue Hobbies and Interests: Encouraging sales representatives to pursue hobbies and interests outside of work allows them to engage in activities they enjoy and find meaning. Engaging in creative pursuits, sports, or socializing with friends and family can provide a much-needed respite from work-related pressures. I pursued flying and scuba diving during my medical sales career. Why? Because these activities almost guarantee you won't be thinking about work while doing them (unless you want to die!).
• Prioritize Self-Care: Medical sales reps must prioritize self-care. This includes getting enough sleep, maintaining a healthy diet, and exercising regularly. Self-care enhances physical and mental resilience, enabling sales reps to navigate work challenges more effectively. Don't forget annual wellness exams. I skipped these for over ten years because I was too busy. Fortunately, I made it through relatively unscathed. Still, when I did get a checkup, I discovered a minor issue that would have made my rep days a bit easier had I known about it and addressed it.

Take Vacations! Yes, You Can.

Flash Alert! If you're working during vacation, it's not really a vacation!

I know from experience. I've written proposals, dealt with angry customers, and even talked surgeons through complicated surgeries while trying to relax on vacation. Not fun.

I won't lie—it's difficult to detach entirely from work. Customers and colleagues will email and text, and even phone you. I bet you're rationalizing your need to respond to them by saying that business is on the line and you must protect your business. I get it. I've been there. But here's the truth...once you reach the point where you're willing to advise your accounts and colleagues that you'll be on vacation and not responding to messages, you'll discover something amazing: Rarely does anything bad happen (that can't be fixed once you get back). I never lost an iota of business from going on vacation because I advised my accounts in advance and arranged for competent coverage in my absence. You can do the same, even if you don't think it's possible.

Your Job Is NOT Your Life. It's Fuel For Your Life.

Medical reps often act as if their job is the single most important thing in their life. If this is you, you need to get over this. I cringe when reps say that medical sales is a lifestyle business. This is only true if you allow it to be. If you have no other source of pleasure than selling your products and services, then maybe this is true. This is a sure sign that you need to get a life.

1. Your job is not more important than your health. I worked my ass off as a rep but learned to get away from work when I needed downtime. Two colleagues in the same company didn't; they just kept grinding. Both had heart attacks.
2. Your job is not more important than your loved ones. You want good relationships with the people you care about. Spending quality time with loved ones, whether family or friends, during work-free vacations, strengthens personal relationships. These meaningful connections provide emotional support and serve as a buffer against work-related stress.
3. One day you're going to die. When you're lying on your deathbed, I'm willing to bet you won't be thinking, "I wish I spent more time at work."

If the reasons above don't compel you to detach regularly, maybe this last one will. Disconnecting from work regularly and taking a few vacations or long weekends during the year will make you more productive and improve your work performance.

Let's be clear: I'm not suggesting you goof off or lollygag during prime work hours. I'm trying to convey that you need a clear delineation between work time and you-time. While it might feel good to say that you work 18 hours a day and haven't had a vacation in seven years (I know because this used to be me), you'll be happier, more productive, and healthier if you dedicate time to yourself.

Don't spend much time thinking about it. Just do it. It will allow you to remain in this awesome career for the long run and serve your healthcare customers at a higher level.