Constantly and effectively bringing value can be a tricky business, but that’s part of the fun of being a medical device sales rep, am I right? Well, even seasoned veterans struggle with this integral part of the job from time to time. In the ever-changing world of healthcare it seems whatever is valuable today may not be valuable tomorrow. Furthermore, establishing value can seem like an impossible task in the world of big data, tons of competitors and the need for instant gratification. Pro-tip: nothing is impossible, especially when you’ve got the Sales Growth Engineers from ProSellus with 4 foolproof tips sure to establish value for current and potential clients.

Open With Empathy & Follow Up With Logic

Empathy

Big buzzwords outside of generic ones like “synergy”, “bizmeth”, or even “mindshare” are a big deal these days in every industry. One that comes up more often nowadays is the word “empathy”. Basically, this means putting yourself in the shoes of someone else, understanding their perspective, and developing a relationship based on this mutual understanding of that person’s situation. How does this relate to establishing value? So glad you asked! The better a relationship you have with a client, the more likely they are to trust your advice and believe in your services.

Extend empathy beyond the client/rep relationship and put yourself in the shoes of people using the device or service you’re offering. How can you appeal to them through your client?

Revenue

Your next step, once you’ve established an empathetic connection, is to remind your client of the logical reasoning behind the new device/service. What’s the bottom line for any business owner? PROFITS. That means you have a few questions you need to ask your client. Of course, if you’re worth your salt as a sales rep, you should be able to answer these questions FOR your client.

1. How happy are you with the current revenue numbers of your business?
2. What have you done to increase those numbers in the past?
3. What if I could show you a way how to increase those numbers?

Now, you might already see the next logical step in this process coming, but it’s not the cost of the new service/device. You just covered a “logical” reason for establishing value, so it’s time to switch back to empathy.

Notice, nobody has said anything about what you sell yet…

Quality of Life Determines Value

Time

That’s right – time. The biggest commodity on the market that everyone always needs more of (including you!). The obvious question is: “How much time do I have to establish the kind of value needed to win over this new customer?”. You can lead with that, but you never want to finish on that question alone.

How much time do I have and how much time does my customer have to really make an impact and potentially change the way we do things?  After all, if you want to increase revenue, and you want to create value; do you REALLY expect to be able to do that by doing the same things you’ve always done? Nope. My friend, that would be the definition of insanity. Keep this part short and sweet. Time is money, after all!

Again… no one has mentioned your product yet…

Cost

Closing with this as your final step in your value proposition is like the cherry on top of your favorite ice cream sundae. You can present hard numbers as to what the value you bring will be to the customer, but if you stop there…you’re probably not going to close the deal.

The second half of this step (and more important part) is to establish the cost of NOT using you/your product/your service.. Throw in some callbacks to your points about revenue, time, and make new points about potential ROIs. Close with a subtle reminder about “doing things the same ways will never get you beyond where you are today…”.

Again… what have we not even spoke about yet?  Our product…

You all may think I’ve fallen out of the clouds about not talking about my product at this point.  Here’s the last point I want to make about “Bringing Value,”  – when trying to work with new physician customers:  what do you think they (physician customers) hear all day long from reps just like you?  Here it is:  “Let me tell you all about our new product,” or, “Let me tell you why our product is better than our competitor’s product,” or, “Let me tell you about a new study with our product.” 

Newsflash: Let’s talk about something that your customer REALLY cares about.  I’m not saying all of those other things aren’t important, but, what is MOST important?  Wouldn’t you want to be the person who brings THAT value?  If you are the person bringing the most important value, you’ve just become irreplaceable.  Not a bad place to be for a rep if I do say so myself.

Are You Closing Often Enough?

Of course, even if you employ all the best advice from top sales reps, you still might not get the deal. If this becomes the norm, then that affects your bottom line which means it’s time to try something new. Email me at Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s explore strategies to improve your bottom line and maybe even – hear me out – your own quality of life.

Just How Does Big Data Work For You and Against You as a Medical Device Sales Rep?

We’ve talked a few times about how Big Data can be harnessed for your benefit and transformed into “Actionable Intelligence”. In fact, that’s one of the main tenets of the ProSellus philosophy in utilizing sales acceleration: Work Smarter, not Harder.  That means making all those numbers from all those social media platforms and sales spreadsheets work FOR YOU. But, we aren’t talking about your Facebook digital footprint here. We’re talking about ROI’s from your favorite clients vs. potential ROI’s from your most well-known clients. We are talking about tracking the popularity vs. the effectiveness of one device over another in your territory. We’re talking about your job.

You Have Data…But So Do Your Clients

While social media platforms like Facebook would have you believe that data always comes in pretty graphs and easy to digest percentages, that just isn’t the case. Especially when it comes to the life and work of a medical device sales rep. Your data involves so much more than “Likes” and “Re-tweets”.

“Data is at the center of it all—and unfortunately, that data is dynamic.  More than ever before, companies have loads of it—marketing technologies gather data from many sources, not only on the leads and accounts themselves, but also on how those leads interact with your brand, campaigns, and sales teams.”
– Heinz Marketing

This means you must constantly play catch-up with all kinds of analytics. Whether you have everything expertly organized across various Google Docs, spreadsheets, and digital files or you have a desperately jam-packed file cabinet, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with all the metrics at your disposal. (I remember this all too well. In my past companies we had data all over the place.  One set was sent in a Microsoft Excel document, one was a monthly spreadsheet some analyst sent, one set came from my manager and then we had marketing folks always sending us something new. Enough already!!!! How are we, the salespeople in the field, supposed to look at and analyze all of this different data from all these different sources?  To make matters worse, it’s not the sales person’s job to have to slice and dice data in Excel or CSV files. Seriously? Excel to me was a Microsoft Word document with box’s.  Sooner or later the reps say to themselves, “Forget it.  I’m just going to do my job the best way I know how. I can’t spend hours upon hours trying to open, analyze and then make a decision on this!”  It becomes paralysis by analysis. More data isn’t always better….)  So, in the time it takes to locate and organize and then understand all of these numbers, is it worth it? Isn’t that time you could spend instead tracking leads, researching new devices, or using sales acceleration techniques?

“The impact of “big data” analytics is often manifested by thousands—or more—of incrementally small improvements. If an organization can atomize a single process into its smallest parts and implement advances where possible, the payoffs can be profound. And if an organization can systematically combine small improvements across bigger, multiple processes, the payoff can be exponential.”
– McKinsey Quarterly October 2016

Well….when you put it THAT way….

Asking Yourself “What’s Actionable Intelligence”? You’re Late to the Party…

If the phrases “Actionable Intelligence” or “Sales Acceleration” stumped you, don’t worry. You’re late to the party, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time. Two of the biggest ways data influences the business of a medical device sales rep are simple: work and time.

Any medical sales rep – 1099 or W-2 – can answer the following question: what do you spend the MOST time doing? If you’re anything like me, and you may not be, the things I spent the majority of my time doing was simply trying to make my number, and if the stars aligned, trying to KILL my number.  I didn’t want to spend time trying to analyze all the data we mentioned before, it took too much time and, in the end, didn’t give me actionable intelligence.  It didn’t tell me, “Hey, go here, talk to this person, they have the patients you’re looking for to help make your business grow or to continue killing your number.” It also didn’t say “Hey look at your existing customers’ relationships, those docs (who are already referring to my customer) who, most likely, have a ton more patients that fit the profile of the patient that could benefit from our product, device, therapy, etc. Go talk to them!” IF I would’ve had that, that is EXACTLY what I would’ve been doing.

Like we said, work smarter because, no matter what, you WILL be working very, very hard. This is where Actionable Intelligence (also known as Actionable Insight) comes into play.

“Actionable insight is a term in data analytics and big data for information that can be acted upon or information that gives enough insight into the future that the actions that should be taken become clear for decision makers. It is often the result of extensive data analytics and other data processing; in short it is an analytical result that provides enough data for managers and organizations to make an informed decision.”
– Techopedia.com

Awesome – you can spend hours and hours and hours tracking data in order to improve efficacy and revenue! But there’s only one of you and you have to sleep some time, right? What if there was a way to combine that dated file cabinet, those highly organized spreadsheets, LinkedIn, Salesforce, and all those hours spent interpreting data?

Get With the Times

The world is increasingly interconnected, so why shouldn’t your business be the same? Fuse all the features of social media with the utility of customer management using ProSellus.You might have heard of the term “Growth Hacking”, well we are the Sales Growth Engineers here to see YOU succeed. Why continue going to the same customers HOPING for more business? Engineer your growth! Take hold of all the data at your fingertips in a fraction of the time others do. Literally, doesn’t it make more sense to spend 5 seconds while walking to your car and figure out where the best places are to grow??? When you’re a medical device sales rep, the name of the game is innovation and ambition. Are you hungry for more? If not, I can guarantee there are THOUSANDS of people lined up waiting for you to miss your number so they can get a shot in the medical device industry. Email me at Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s grab a bite, there’s much more to tell…