Once you understand the job of a medical sales representative, you then need to pay attention to the tactics needed in order to be successful in a medical sales career.
1. Knowledge
Even though you may possibly be the best salesperson in an area or room, do note that this doesn’t necessarily mean you can actually sell. You will need to have an excellent understanding and knowledge of:
– The actual service or product
– The industry that you’re trying to sell the product or service to
– The parts of the body that would be positively impacted by the product or service
– The inner workings of the system
– The advantages and disadvantages
So, once you understand all of these things, you’ll be in a much better position to easily sell your products or services.
2. Listening is extremely important
Even though you’ll need to talk a lot in order to sell, you also need to listen to your customer so that you can gain their trust and actually realize their particular needs. Once you build good relationships with your potential customers, you’ll be more likely to get more sales as well as referrals.
3. Nurture those relationships
Throughout life, you’ll come across many different people with lots of different personalities. This is the same for medical sales.
In order to be successful as a medical sales representative, you’ll need to figure out different personalities and how to best approach each different type.
So, for example, one type of potential customer may not be interested in small talk and would simply want to get straight to the point. Even though this may appear to be aloof behavior to some people, you shouldn’t look at this in a negative light. Instead, look at the particular strategies that you can use on these type of persons so that you can fit into their world and achieve your sales goals.
Then, there would be other customers who are more interested in developing a deeper relationship first and you’ll need to spend more time with them.
Whatever the relationship may be, you should always treat every potential customer well. This includes finding out their likes, dislikes, hobbies, particular interests etc. When you have a good understanding of your customer, this will help you to build a good relationship with them which will be quite fruitful.
4. Don’t take no for a final answer
Great sales reps are very persistent in their efforts. This means that they don’t take “no” from potential customers. With that said, they do understand that the hospital budget may not currently allow for their products or services at that moment, but they may become needed in the future.
So, make sure that you keep communication open between your potential customers. Even though you may get rejected quite frequently, you shouldn’t give up.
There was a recent article on Forbes which covered some of the strategies for dealing with objections to sales. So, be sure to check it out since it has many helpful tips.
5. Always keep on learning
There will always be new developments in this industry, like any other. So, make sure that you always keep updated with the newest trends and developments and keep on learning.
There are many online courses, podcasts, training materials that you can access to improve your skills and overall knowledge.
Some of the resources that can help include:
– Courses and training by Jem Med
– Podcasts by Medtech
– Psychometric evaluations. In particular, Jem Med has a recent post on medical sales where they talk about the key competencies for sales. This includes the most important skills in order to be successful.
– Check out the main medical sales influencers. These influencers frequently post information about this career, advice etc. Some popular influencers are Legacy Coaching, KJ Wong etc. In particular, Legacy Coaching offers many tips that can assist you in increasing your sales numbers and KJ Wong helps you to provide differentiating value.
