In any organization, the sales department is crucial for long-term success. Without sales reps closing deals and generating new business, companies in any industry would be hard-pressed to keep their doors open.
In medical and pharmaceutical sales, medical sales reps are crucial for building and maintaining relationships with clients. What is medical sales? What does a medical sales rep do? What should you look for in medical/pharmaceutical sales reps?
What Is a Medical Sales Rep?
A medical sales representative is someone who helps drive sales for a company in the medical or pharmaceutical industry. These sales reps often have distinct restrictions and responsibilities from sales reps in other industries because of the regulations that govern pharmaceutical and medical sales.
Because of these extra requirements, medical sales reps may have a higher education level than salespeople in other industries (or spend some time in specialized medical sales training programs).
What Does a Medical Sales Rep Do?
A medical sales rep’s primary job responsibility is to drive sales for a medical or pharmaceutical company. While this may sound simple, there is a variety of activities that a sales rep for a medical company has to engage in to meet their goals, including (but not necessarily limited to):
- Prospecting and Researching Customers. From making phone calls to performing industry research, medical sales reps need to know as much as possible about their company’s prospective customers and their pain points.
- Keeping Updated on Industry Regulations. Lawmakers periodically change the rules and regulations governing medical and pharmaceutical sales. Unwary sales reps who fall behind on these changes may open up their company to fines if they engage in prohibited activities. So, checking for changes in existing regulations (or the implementation of new ones) is a must for successful medical/pharmaceutical sales reps.
- Building Relationships with Customers. Top-notch medical sales processes don’t end at the closing of a deal. Sales representatives in the medical and pharmaceutical fields often practice relational sales—a process where reps keep in contact with sales leads and customers to build a long-term relationship that generates a continuous sales cycle. This helps medical and pharmaceutical sales reps earn repeat business so they get more lifetime value out of their prospects in an industry with high competition for a limited market.
- Undergoing Training. Part of keeping up with the latest industry regulations and sales tactics is undergoing frequent training. Sales reps may spend a significant amount of their downtime between sales taking online sales training courses or looking up new information on the industry.
- Writing Reports about Sales Goals and Activities. Sales reps need to keep the business apprised of their activities and any potential new deals in the pipeline. Medical sales reps may need to write detailed reports about pending deals so that the product and service teams can be prepared to deliver on items in the sales agreement.
- Provide Consultations to Existing Customers. When sales reps meet with medical or pharmaceutical customers, they may need to provide consultative services above and beyond simply upselling their company’s latest products and services. Medical sales reps can build a rapport with customers by listening to their major challenges/problems and providing advice that helps overcome them. This is part of the relational sales process used by many organizations in the medical and pharmaceutical industry.
This is just a sampling of some of the activities involved in a medical sales job. Specific companies in the industry might have extra requirements for their sales reps compared to others.
How Much Does a Medical Sales Rep Make?
Many people interested in starting a career in medical sales might wonder about how much medical sales reps make. Employers need to know the average salary in the industry so they can provide a competitive compensation package to their reps (which helps keep competitors from poaching their top sales talent).
According to data from Glassdoor, the average base pay of a medical sales rep is about $61,021/yr (this does not include bonuses or other forms of compensation and benefits). This is higher than the average for sales and related occupations, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates to pay an average of $43,060/yr.
Why is a medical sales rep’s base salary higher than the industry average for other sales occupations? The BLS average is brought down by the average compensation for retail sales workers and cashiers, who make up the majority of the sales workforce and make less than $30k/yr.
However, it’s important to note that medical sales reps can, depending on bonuses, commissions, and other forms of compensation, potentially earn much more than the $61k a year average. Also, companies looking for medical sales reps often have much stricter requirements than front-line sales in other industries—helping to explain the need to pay more for a highly-skilled and motivated salesperson.
What to Look for in a Medical Sales Rep
Considering that medical and pharmaceutical companies will likely need to pay a premium to top-tier talent, it’s important for them to reliably identify the best candidates. A poor-fit medical sales rep can be an expensive proposition when companies tally the cost of recruitment, onboarding, training, lost sales opportunities, and severance packages.
What should companies in the pharmaceutical and medical industry look for in a sales rep? Some things to look for include:
- Education Level. Has the applicant completed at least 4-year secondary education program? While a Master’s of Business Administration isn’t necessary, completing some form of 4-year program (especially in a field related to medical devices, pharmacology, or the like) is often a requirement for medical sales.
- Relational Sales Training or Experience. Does the candidate have experience with or training in relational sales techniques? Having knowledge of how to build a rapport with customers and earn their trust can be an enormous boon for a sales rep’s success in medical sales.
- Communication Skills. Does the job candidate have the necessary skills to easily communicate with customers? This means more than just having a “friendly, upbeat, and outgoing” personality (though this can help). It means that the sales rep has the necessary skills to listen to customers, understand their challenges and pain points, and then educate customers about their options. It also means knowing how to use different communication channels (phone calls, emails, text messages, etc.) to match a prospect’s preferences and build a positive relationship.
- Adaptability in Changing Situations. Simply reciting a sales script isn’t going to cut it in medical sales. Sales prospects have varying needs and their needs or priorities may shift over time. So, pushing the same sales pitch over and over won’t work. Recruiters need to assess the adaptability of their sales candidates to see how well they can alter their approach based on a prospect’s needs or priorities.
- Willingness to Learn. Not all companies in the medical or pharmaceutical industry are the same. There may be unique quirks, benefits, or processes involved in their products or services (or their sales strategy) that salespeople will need to know about—and they need to know enough to differentiate their products/services from the competition. Additionally, as industry regulations change, sales reps will need to keep up with those changes. So, a sales rep’s willingness to learn new things about the company’s products and processes, the industry in general, and regulatory changes can be immensely important.
These are just a few of the things to look for in a medical sales rep. Naturally, companies will also want to run a full background check on their medical sales job candidates to help identify high-risk candidates who may misuse their access to the company’s resources.
Medical Sales Rep Resume Example
A good sales rep resume should be short and to the point—communicating a candidate’s contact information as well as their important skills, experience, and education without wasting the recruiter’s time.
In many cases, the person in charge of recruiting new personnel at a medical sales company is going to have a limited amount of time to comb through a lot of resumes. So, an overly long resume with a cover page, autobiography, and detailed history of every non-relevant job the applicant has ever worked at will likely be skipped over in a few seconds. And, it likely won’t make a positive impression.
A basic resume format should look something like:
- Name and Contact Info. A header section with the candidate’s name in large, easy-to-read font, accompanied by their contact info and the job title/role they’re applying for (most likely Medical Sales Representative).
- A SHORT List of Relevant Sales Experience. Highlight 2-3 important jobs related to sales (preferably medical sales, though other sales positions can still be useful) and showcase some major milestones or quantifiable achievements from each prior workplace (hitting “X” amount of closed deals, dollar value of some big deals closed, industry awards earned, etc.). Ensuring each job has a start and end date can help recruiters know how recent an applicant’s job experience is.
- Relevant Skills. List some of the specialized skills that have proven useful in past sales roles. This can include types of selling skills (relational, field sales, etc.), knowledge of specific software (like a customer relationship management system or office software), and general customer service skills like dispute resolution or customer satisfaction.
- Education and Awards. What is the highest level of education completed? What diplomas or special awards have been earned? A person with an MBA in business management with multiple Dean’s List awards is generally more impressive than someone with the bare minimum 4-year Bachelor's Degree and no awards.
Ideally, all of the above should fit easily into one side of one page. The job skills, experience, and accolades/achievements listed should all also be as relevant to medical sales as possible. Customized resumes help recruiters spot candidates who go the extra mile to seal the deal—which helps identify sales reps who are likely to put in the extra time and effort to generate results.
Need Help Finding Great Medical Sales Reps?
The process of promoting an open sales position, recruiting for that opening, vetting and training new hires, and providing ongoing sales training can be complicated, difficult, and time-consuming. If you need to fill medical sales positions with highly qualified and motivated individuals, Axxelus is here to help.
Axxelus uses a proven process to pair the best medical sales representatives with companies who need driven and talented individuals to make their sales goals a reality. Are you ready to transform your medical sales? Reach out to Axxelus to get started!
