Top Tips for Medical Device Sales Teams

Medical device sales and pharmaceutical sales jobs can be an incredibly tough and competitive field. Sales reps have to compete with other companies in the field for a relatively limited list of clients. Additionally, they are often under pressure to meet aggressive sales quotas to help keep their company “in the black.”

It’s a tough profession that demands results. To help out aspiring sales managers for medical device and pharmaceutical sales companies, here are a few tips for improving your sales team as a whole:

5 Tips for Creating Successful Medical Device Sales Reps

Generating results and improving the company’s bottom line are the major goals for medical device and pharmaceutical sales reps. However, achieving aggressive sales goals can be a challenge at the best of times. To help sales reps meet their sales goals, here are a few sales techniques and tips to keep skills sharp and meet long-term quotas:

1. Don’t Neglect Sales Training

There are a lot of times where it may be really tempting to just keep your team’s collective noses to the grindstone and focus just on selling stuff. However, while training might sometimes feel like a chore or a waste of time, it can be really important!

A couple of reasons to keep up with medical sales training include:

• Staying Updated on Industry Regulations. Regulators (and even industry groups) frequently change the rules that govern interactions between medical sales reps and various entities in the industry. Staying up-to-date on these rules is vital for avoiding potential issues such as fines for violating some little-known regulation on accident.
• Learning New Sales Techniques. Even the best salespeople always have something new they can learn. There are many different sales techniques that your sales reps can apply during videoconferences or face-to-face meetings. Additionally, there may be some new tools for managing customer relationships that team members need to learn to use. In both cases, sales training can help sharpen sales rep skills.

The best sales reps in the medical device and pharma industry are the ones who are constantly learning and refining their techniques.

2. Focus on Building Long-Term Relationships

Do your sales prospects trust you and respect your sales reps’ opinions? Or, do they see your reps as the person from “Blah Blah Medical Devices, Inc.” (the one who always talks their ears off about some random product that they don’t really need?)

One of the biggest secrets to long-term success in medical sales is to focus less on pushing the latest products and services and more on building lasting relationships with prospects that drive long-term results. Sales reps often fall into the trap of trying to promote new products simply because they’re new instead of because of the value they bring to their prospects.

As noted by Cardiovascular Business, “the best device representatives are defined by what they won’t do: push a physician to use their product when it’s inappropriate.” Constantly pushing products when they aren’t a good fit for the client’s situation does nothing to build trust—and clients aren’t going to be impressed with things they don’t want or need. It’s also really hard to create a sense of urgency for unnecessary products and services in general.

So, instead of pushing whatever is new, it’s often more valuable (and viable in the long term) to build a relationship with sales prospects, have sales reps get to know what their exact pain points and challenges are, and then provide advice and resources that solve those challenges. This helps your team generate more consistent results over time and turns prospects into promoters who are more likely to recommend your company to their other connections in the industry.

3. Hold Sales Technique Practice Sessions Between Sales Reps

Want to test out a new sales technique, but your sales reps aren’t really comfortable with it just yet? Consider holding a role-play session where sales team members can practice it until they’re all comfortable with it!

Role-play has been recognized as an effective sales training tool for decades. For example, Harvard Business Review articles dating back to the '80s state that role-playing is “a valuable tool for showing salespeople the most effective ways to meet customers, handle them, and make the sale. Unlike other training tools, such as manuals or classroom lectures, role playing is active.” The chance to practice new skills or techniques in a safe environment can make them much easier to learn quickly (and remember later).

4. Learn What Your Prospects’ Main Challenges Are

If a man is dying of thirst, is he going to want to buy a pound of salt? Probably not (though salt is important for maintaining healthy body function and to replace what’s lost when people sweat). Instead, they’re going to want some water.

When your sales reps try too hard to sell one product or service, even when it doesn’t fit your prospect’s needs, it becomes significantly harder to close a deal. So, it’s important to learn what it is that your sales prospects most need or want—what do you have that would be water to a thirsty prospect?

Figuring out how you can answer their most important needs is a must. Once that need is met, then you can upsell them some salt to go with their water.

5. Ask for Help and Advice from Other Sales Reps

Is there a sales rep on the team who is a high performer? Consider asking them to share sales tips and advice to the rest of the team when they have the chance. There’s a lot your team can learn by studying the techniques and attitudes of your top-performing sales team members.

It’s important that everyone is able to contribute to the company’s success. When everyone has better skills, the whole team wins. It can help to incentivize mentorship in the sales team—like awarding the mentor who drives the biggest jump in a sales rep’s performance or who holds the most mentoring sessions with the team.

About Recruiting for Medical Device and Pharmaceutical Sales Jobs

Not every medical device or pharmaceutical sales job is created equally. There are different types of sales jobs. Jobs can vary depending on the type of business being represented (medical device manufacturers, healthcare providers/facilities, pharmaceutical companies, etc.), individual company standards for sales teams, and even corporate or team culture in the sales department.

All of these factors can make it more or less difficult to perform as a medical sales rep. So, when you want to recruit top-tier talent for medical sales positions, there are a few things you need to do:

• Clearly Define Job Expectations. There is a world of difference between a sales rep position that involves meeting clients face-to-face and one that is for a call center position. When creating job descriptions, it’s important to create clear expectations for job duties—simply saying “sales position” isn’t enough. Some things to highlight include whether employees are responsible for marketing activities, what customer relationship management (CRM) tools they need to know, and if the job is field sales or indoor sales.
• Prepare a Variety of Interview Questions. Interviewing a potential sales rep is as much art as science. With sales reps often taking a lot of time Googling “how to pass an interview” or even taking dedicated classes on interviewing well, it can be hard to get a complete feel for an applicant’s skills. So, it’s important to assemble a battery of questions that can help you better understand the applicant’s ability to be personable and follow best practices in a less predictable situation.
• Pay Attention to the Interviewee’s Questions. The questions that the interviewee asks can be every bit as important as the answers they provide to your own questions. For example, is an interviewee most curious about promotion and advancement, training opportunities, or how to maximize their paycheck? These can give you important clues about to best to motivate them and whether they’ll be a good fit culturally speaking for your organization.
• Be Prompt with Post Interview Communications. Job hunters aren’t going to wait forever to find out if they secured the position. When hiring for medical sales jobs, it’s important to provide prompt feedback to applicants—whether the answer is “you’re hired” or “we don’t think this is the best fit right now.” For the former, you want to get in before the applicant takes a position elsewhere. For the latter, it’s a good way to maintain a positive relationship and avoid getting badmouthed on social media.

Need to Build a Reliable Team Fast? Consider Contract Sales!

Finding the best medical sales talent to fill your team can be an enormous challenge. Aside from being stressful and time-consuming, setting up campaigns to attract qualified sales talent can be costly.

How costly? Studies cited by Peoplekeep state that replacing a salaried employee “costs 6 to 9 months’ salary on average.” As a medical industry job that can have extremely high turnover, sales can be an expensive department to keep staffed. However, it’s a necessary expense. Or is it?

Instead of having to personally go through the whole process of attracting, interviewing, training, and retaining talent on your own, you can use a contract sales organization (CSO) to streamline the hiring process by providing you with top-notch sales talent right away. By leveraging the CSO’s deep pool of talent, you can save time in your hunt for the perfect medical device or pharmaceutical sales rep.

And, with Axxelus, every sales rep is backed by our “Hire-Right Guarantee.” If you aren’t satisfied with your sales rep or they leave before a full year has passed, then you don’t have to pay for the replacement’s hiring fee.

Why wait? Build your medical sales team with Axxelus now!