- Things are never as bad as they seem. (Nor as perfect) Keep grinding, smiling and prospecting!
- Don’t spend so much time trying to be liked by everyone in the (OR) and offices. It is important to be liked but it is as important to be respected by your customers too. Are you adding value? Keep asking yourself that question. Paying for lunch is not adding value.
- Listen to clinicians with the purpose of understanding rather than waiting to draft a response.
- Keep your Sales Manager up to date (in the loop). Don’t be the one sales rep on the team who never checks in. Hide and seek is not a viable strategy for long term success.
- Write Thank you notes- A minimum of one per day. With the lion share of communication these days being text and email, it will be a pleasant surprise for your prospects and customers to actually receive a letter. Keep the notes in your bag and write them in between calls or cases.
- Sell the “big picture,” not every feature known to man about your product. It is not necessary to venture into the weeds during every single conversation. You are a sales person, not a landscaper. And make sure you’re talking to prospects who value that big picture…not the physician who talks a big game but is actually not really that busy.
- Persistence pays the bills. Never give up on anyone.
- The two hardest things for a sales person to say out loud; “ I do not know” and “I made a mistake”. Say this out loud to yourself a few hundred times. Being infallible is over rated and it does not wear well over time.
- Don’t be scared to speak up if you see a surgeon or staff member about to make a mistake with your product. There is a reason why they let you in the case, office, room etc… A patient is counting on you.
- Make one more call each day before you shut it down. There are approximately 260 working days per year. Do the math. Success is an acquired taste.
Check out Medical Device Sales 101 and Medical Device Sales 102.
Devin Hughes is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at CONNECT, an independent non-profit organization servicing the San Diego region that links high technology and life sciences entrepreneurs with the resources that they need for success: Technology, money, markets, management, partners and support services. Springboard, CONNECT’s flagship program, is a business creation and development program. Innovators at all stages receive hands-on mentoring by successful business leaders in the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence Program. He mentors for start-up pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostics and medical device companies.
