Scott Walle, Author at ProSellus

Sales & Marketing 3.0: The Basics + A Few Tricks

In earlier blogs, we detailed Sales and Marketing 101 — the basic stuff. The stuff that everyone already knows (or at least they should…). We also covered several concepts called: Sales Intelligence 3.0. In our next installment of our Sales & Marketing Blog Series, we cover Sales & Marketing 3.0 – what most people think they know about these subjects and a few tricks they probably don’t know.

How do you think you’ll stack up to the competition?

Keep reading to find out.

Do You Remember Sales & Marketing 101?

Reviewing the basics never hurts anyone. Practice makes permanent, after all, and that goes double when it comes to things you do every single day in your career. As we have covered in previous blogs, marketing does matter in sales and vice versa. Increasingly, transparency and relationship building are becoming equally important for both sales and marketing. ProSellus focuses on ways to streamline these basic processes to maximize your effort and minimize your work. Well….as minimal of work as you can do as a medical device sales rep.

Actionable Intelligence Meets a Smile

No one likes to feel like they’re being sold something. No one likes it when they’re just a series of check marks on a target audience checklist. People want to feel listened to and appreciated, as well as intelligent because, let’s face it, your average person is significantly more clued-in these days than you might think.

Consider a buzz-phrase we throw around a reasonable amount at ProSellus: Actionable Intelligence. What is this? It’s the point where data and metrics meet application and results. Essentially, it’s the culmination of sales training and target marketing too. The prep work that the marketing team does in regards to audiences, ads, and brand development crash together with data, statistics, as well as that tried and true “Can Do” attitude from a sales rep. These merge to form the perfect opportunity to close a deal. The tricky part is sifting through data, finding the right market, and honing your message.

Skip the expensive CRM’s or complicated software. The ProSellus Tool puts the power of data in the palm of your hand with ease of use only rivaled by the “easy” button. We’ll be covering more about Sales & Marketing 3.0 in the coming months because we have only scratched the surface for now. Hungry for more? You can always email me, Scottwalle@prosellus.com, if you want to get ahead and empower your hunters with actionable data.

Sales - 09/19/2017

Houston Heavy Hitters in Business Development

ProSellus is a toddler now in the startup world, but is still very much finding its niche. We have expanded our focus to be ProSellus Growth Engineers who offer insight, data management, relationship management, territory management, and advanced sales & marketing techniques. Those advanced techniques encompass sales acceleration guidance and oh yea, a tool for your current Tech Stack. Beyond that, we have a few more tricks up our sleeve. So you can imagine why the Redhouse Associates and ProSellus partnership still feels like yesterday.

Pioneers Together

As you know, ProSellus is one of the fastest growing healthcare technology startups in Houston. As such, we consider ourselves pioneers in our field for the medical device industry. The ProSellus Tool combines the networking aspect of a social media platform with the customer and data management features of a CRM. Oh, and all of it is available in the palm of your hand.

Redhouse Associates works on business development, providing solutions for business plans, product strategies, growth, investor interaction and more. This is one partnership fit that might be better than your favorite pair of sneakers. With their acumen and our tool, we founded our partnership in March of 2017 and looked forward to the heights we would reach together.

As we move from the last part of Q3 and into Q4 of 2017, many are asking, “What’s next for the fastest growing healthcare startup in Houston?” For that answer, you’ll have to check our blog in October! We have some big things coming down the pipeline — you won’t want to miss them! As always, you can email me, Scottwalle@prosellus.com, for more information or to swap sales battles stories any time.

ProSellus - 09/12/2017

Come Hell or High Water We are #HoustonStrong

HOW YOU CAN HELP HARVEY VICTIMS

We at ProSellus have been hit very hard this past week and ½ with Hurricane Harvey. Most of you might not realize we are headquartered smack dab in the middle of Houston, TX. All of our employees are here, families and friends here, and each of us was affected by the hurricane in one way or the other. Most of our days lately have been filled with clean-up efforts, ripping out drywall, floors, grabbing personal items and trying to salvage clothes and anything else not destroyed. We have been volunteering in neighborhoods, at our places of worship, comforting one another, friends and strangers alike. Mostly though, it’s been about coming together as human beings and as Texans. It’s been about spreading love, support and encouragement. It’s been about rolling our sleeves up and jumping in to do whatever needs to be done. It’s also about being kind to one another and feeling a sense of brotherhood around us similar to what folks in New Orleans for Katrina or NYC for 9/11 must have experienced. For us around here, it renews hope and promise that we as human beings in the worst possible scenarios tend to work together more than apart. The walls come down and we become one. It’s quite remarkable really.

Over the past few days, our team has personally seen some pretty remarkable things done by regular folks. To share just a few – this was a video of complete strangers making human chain to rescue an elderly man from a drowning SUV on the flooded highway. Pretty chilling and amazing to see. If you are one of those that worries about the animals – this video of rescuers picking up those pets left behind in homes and tied to trees is pretty heartwarming. All of this is in our backyard of Houston. These are only TWO of hundreds upon hundreds of similar stories – all of which we will see coming out more and more in the upcoming months.

PHOTOS OF HARVEY

TEXAS BASED BUSINESSES LEAD THE EFFORTS

Just as we are proud of our local Texan citizens, we couldn’t be prouder at the Texas-born businesses that are going far and wide to help support the victims. We in Houston and the surrounding areas affected need help and we will need help for a good long while. The Texas burger-chain Whataburger is giving $150,000 to the Red Cross and $500,000 to Houston-area food banks. Dell has been around for decades and has become a global brand of choice in the computer industry. Recognizing the need to help its local community, Michael Dell pledged a whopping $36 million to assist his fellow Texans. Bass Pro Shops is focused on supply resources as their primary contribution to the hurricane relief. This includes nearly 100 boats for government agencies and rescue organizations to use throughout the devastated areas. Sometimes, even a single individual can make the biggest impact. Jim McIngvale, a Houston native and owner of several Gallery Furniture locations in the area, has opened up his stores as shelters for impacted Families. Our own JJ Watt has opened up a fund and already raised over $20M. Our Texas-based Grocery Chain HEB had local stores devastated by the flood – check out what they did to keep the chain up and running and for their employees. Here are a few other companies you may have heard of that are donating to Harvey victims.

TIPS FOR HOW YOU CAN HELP:

We have made a LOT of progress over these 4-5 days of recovery, however we have a LONG way to go. We at ProSellus want to spread the word on how to help victims of Hurricane Harvey.

GIVE LOCALLY AND MAXIMIZE IMPACT FASTER:

Even better? Donate your time/materials/proceeds to Houston area local charities:

Houston Animal Rescue Efforts Fund
Texas Wildlife Rehab Center Fund
Star of Hope (for Homeless Shelters in Houston)
Houston Food Bank
Other Local Charities
Or to make it easy you can just buy this cool t-shirt

As always beware of charity scams – here is a good article on how to know who is legit.

AFTER THE STORM, WE SHALL RISE

Remember, our recovery efforts are a marathon, not a sprint. If you cannot donate now, donate later – we will need all and for a long time. At ProSellus, we plan to donate to several organizations listed above to help ensure that we are all on the same page: that as long as we are here on earth, we must help each other in order to survive. No one should be alone, especially in times of need.

We are #Houstonstrong and come #hellorhighwater – we will survive through this.

ProSellus - 09/05/2017

What to do if You get Hacked on LinkedIn

As of August 30, 2017, our LinkedIn page was hacked. Luckily, after 24 hours, we got it back. As you can imagine, most of us here in Houston, TX, were not too happy. On top of this, there’s the obvious disaster at hand: Hurricane Harvey.

Considering the tremendous losses others have incurred from belongings to homes and even lives, losing access for 24 hours to a social media platform seems like a walk in the park. But it got me thinking….whether you’re an individual sales rep or an enterprise level med-tech company, you need ways to protect yourself, your data, and your intellectual property. Specifically, with LinkedIn, there isn’t much recourse for users to take if a data breach such as this occurs.

Start With LinkedIn Customer Service Recommendations

Though this seems obvious, it’s a necessary step — especially reviewing your currently active sessions. If you see anything unfamiliar or suspicious, investigate it right away! The follow up check of your personal and work emails is also a must. You can avoid further compromises in one simple check.

TIP: I run a company and as CEO I can be a bit impatient – like I want results now – so when I have to fill out a bunch of online forms and wait…and wait…well – that doesn’t quite sit well with me. So after much digging I found this email: linkedin_support@cs.linkedin.com – and they responded rather quickly. You just have to be proactive! Also make sure that you have back up emails loaded on your account in case someone does try to change your primary email – they will notify your secondary email that there was a change.

But WHY Did I get Hacked In the First Place?

Great question! No idea. Apparently, hackers like to target LinkedIn accounts for the greater access to network information. Think about it: you can get to know A LOT about a person by looking at their LinkedIn profile. You can even identify more targets by looking at people’s connections. Gaining access to login credentials enables hackers to potentially crack greater codes than just a few LinkedIn profiles.

They target people in many ways, but an old favorite is the classically threatening security themed farce. You can see in the image below that this is a fairly well reasoned email, but it doesn’t look as official as one from LinkedIn should look. It is a phishing email aimed to capture all your details.

By falling for this email scam and filling out the attached HTML file, you unwittingly hand the hackers your login information on a silver platter. While you might not fall for this, a coworker might. Your parents or your kids might. Who knows? Two-factor authentication is a great way to thwart these kinds of schemes if you have been compromised.

Simple Steps to Security

As we’ve mentioned, getting hacked is no picnic. But there are ways to mitigate the effects of being hacked. The following list is a great way to start:

Anti-virus software like Avast, Malware Bytes, and Webroot
Changing passwords every 3 – 6 months
Encryption or scrambling software
Proxies or VPNs
Keeping up with data breaches by following Twitter accounts such as haveibeenpwned as operated by Troy Hunt
Request a data archive of your profile
Add a second backup email to your profile
Download all of your contacts in case you lose your account

Why Do Some People Not Know That They’ve Been Hacked?

Though LinkedIn is great for many things like networking and thought leadership, the communication about security breaches leaves something to be desired. Though there was a ton of coverage on the 2012 LinkedIn data breach that affected nearly 6.5 million users, other breaches were swept under the rug. The reason why: its data from the initial 2012 breach either being released or used years later. That explains why the 2012 data breach gets listed among the worst data breaches of all time regularly.

What Else Can I Do to Protect Myself?

TIP: Go to a website called haveibeenpwned.com. I know — it looks like a spam website, but it’s actually one of your greatest tools in protecting your login information and email security. It automatically checks any email you put in for security breaches or compromises. The person who operates it, Troy Hunt, is a known specialist in this area and regularly writes about data breaches.

Avoid our mistakes: get a data archive, download your connections, and enable that two-factor authentication. Data matters more and more every day. The ProSellus Growth Engineers still have a little growing to do in some departments, but then again, shouldn’t you always be growing?

We’ll let you think on it a bit.

ProSellus - 08/31/2017

5 Ways to Succeed as a Medical Device Sales Rep

Medical device sales is the Wild West and Game of Thrones combined. The competition is fierce even for the most well-equipped and savvy of reps. The best of the best are always on the lookout for tips, tricks and new strategies to help them up their game and stay on top. ProSellus is dedicated to providing accessible resources for medical device sales reps and improving their sales business. If you are one, let’s see if one of your go-to techniques makes our list of 5 ways to succeed as a medical device sales rep.

Time Management & Value Propositions

The first key to succeeding as a sales rep is crucial: time management. You cannot bounce from meeting to meeting, keep up with emails, read news about medical technology and thought leadership, and look like a boss without it. Pro-tip: watches are great. Setting them to be fast is better. Bonus — remember that old proverb about what “being on time” actually means? Time to redefine your understanding of what “being early” is.

Our second tip is to be completely versed in what a value proposition is and how to implement one. Establishing value for a client is a main part of being a sales rep. If you flounder at this step, you’ll probably (definitely) struggle to become a successful sales rep regardless of industry. For more info on establishing value, check out some of our other blog posts.

Measured Expectations & Balance

You always want to close the deal and convert that competitive customer when you make even the shortest of pitches, but…sometimes even the best sales reps fail. In an industry so heavily focused on profits and numbers, it can be disheartening sometimes to see yourself as just a percentage. Prepare yourself mentally for the negatives or the “no’s”. Another old adage about “missing all the shots you never take” applies here, but you probably already knew that.

Another thing many sales reps forget about is establishing work/life balance. In order to be at your utmost successful level, you need to recharge. You’re no good in a business meeting if you’re running on two hours of sleep in a wrinkled suit (or scrubs) and a far-off look on your face. Whether you miss out on those critical 6 – 8 hours of sleep because of work or “recreation”, you’re setting yourself up for lackluster performance in your chosen career. Be flexible with regards to your clients and schedule, but also with yourself. (Folks, I was guilty of this 100% of the time. I remember burning the candle at both ends with a blowtorch! I would literally end a Friday forgetting that it was Friday. When you’re young in this business you’re expected to hustle in order to make an impact. And don’t kid yourself, you’ll always hustle, but you need to have some sort of balance. I know, I know, sometimes it seems impossible, but no surgeon or physician wants a rep who makes errors because they’ve only slept 10 hours all week! That would be the quickest way to lose business!!!!!)

The Final Way to Succeed in Sales (With or Without Really Trying)

Make good on your word. That’s it. No, really — it is that simple. As a sales representative, your reputation is an integral part of your brand and your business. The minute someone drags your good name through the mud, you could be toast (and not avocado or butter; just burnt). Tired of the crispiness in your life?

Email me at Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s see if ProSellus can transform your fire hazard into the ability to control fire.

Sales - 08/21/2017

Sales Acceleration is Your Turnkey Sales & Marketing Strategy…But What Is It?

Turnkey solutions are fantastic for enterprise and small sales businesses. They’re lean, often affordable, and — ideally — extremely effective. ProSellus offers such an all-in-one-tool in the form of a service that combines the capabilities of LinkedIn (hunting) and Salesforce (contact and revenue management). It also utilizes a little known sales strategy that could be the one thing you need to boost your sales numbers and improve your medical device sales business.

Customer Management Meets Inter-connectivity

As a medical device sales rep, if you could do more with leads, you would jump at the opportunity right? As a medical device marketing person what if you could find the hottest opportunities to feed to your reps in a matter of seconds? Sales acceleration offers the unique fusion of customer management with the inter-connectivity of the 21st century. You can house and access client information, manage relationships, find new opportunities in your territory, and more all from the palm of your hand with ProSellus. The trick to sales acceleration: you.

One of the best weapons a sales rep has in their arsenal is their ability to establish value of a product/service based on personal interactions. Establishing a rapport with a client or prospect is just as important as understanding the product/service you are selling. Sales acceleration is a combination of tactics and approaches that utilize your best tool and extrapolate sales skills into actionable intelligence.

One of the best weapons a marketing person has in their arsenal is data intelligence. Having access to valuable healthcare data within an easy-to-acquire solution is a medical device marketing person’s dream. Finally, something that marketing can DO to effectively help sales – find quality leads and fast. No more wide-net fishing.

Don’t Get Bamboozled

Many companies offer sales acceleration tool packages, but at a cost or with confusing and difficult-to-understand interfaces. (Trust me, I’ve been where you guys and girls are. My former companies would provide “great” software platforms that quite frankly my sales counterparts and myself would give up on rather quickly. They were simply un-intuitive and impossible to use.) It’s understandable as the business of sales acceleration has reached more than $12-billion. It’s hard to ignore the numbers — especially when they indicate that you could be doing something better, but you don’t have to spend beau coup bucks to do it. ProSellus offers this turnkey solution right from your mobile device. Imagine it: having all the information you need on-the-go and more organized than any cabinet could ever be.

Optimize or Fall Behind

If you want to learn more about how sales acceleration can improve your sales & marketing business (and I know you do), email me. Scottwalle@prosellus.com. I want to personally help your business grow using my expertise and knowledge of medical sales gained over more than a decade of experience in the industry. So what’s it going to be — are you going to adapt to the modern age or stick with the dinosaurs?

Sales / Sales Acceleration Tools / Strategy - 08/14/2017

Can Google & Big Data Teach You Something About Sales?

The importance of metrics and insights is no longer a well-kept secret; it’s a business necessity. “Big Data” provides the kind of information that can transform lackluster profit numbers into skyrocketing stock prices. Of course, this isn’t a magic trick or an easy button — it’s months and sometimes years of hard work and management. Don’t believe us, ya know the team from ProSellus who are the Sales Growth Engineers? Then take it from the biggest of “Big Data” companies: Google.

Online Tracking Meets Brick & Mortar

The internet giant began tracking online users to outward facing stores — both stand alone and those in malls utilizing the data received from online sales. As a result, many users developed valid concerns about the privacy and safety of their information. Just take a look at the very first statement on the “Google Ads” page. Despite protestations, cookies and other tracking mechanisms are commonplace in today’s online environment.

By harvesting data on millions of users, Google can offer a variety of useful conclusions and services such as:

● Informing advertisers of the effects of their ad campaigns
● Utilizing data to make ads more relevant to users
● Offering security tools to developers
● Sharing information to develop a safer internet surfing experience

And more! As a sales rep, you probably have an active social media platform or website of some kind. Google Analytics is a free service you can utilize to garner such data. Of course, that’s old news and it offers a myopic data set that doesn’t really service a sales business — enterprise, small, or individual. What is missing? Meaning and intelligence. Data is one thing – what is MEANINGFUL about it is another.

The Key to Understanding Data Management & Use

If you’re a sales rep transferring files from paper to digital, you might have encountered some frustrating roadblocks. If you are a sales (or marketing!) rep who is also trying to interpret data from analytics or metrics, you might be one PPC campaign away from giving up altogether. Trust me, I was there. As a sales rep, many companies think they’re doing the reps a big favor by sending them huge Excel or .CSV files and saying, “Just create a pivot table or two and filter through the attached 50,000 row document, it will give you everything you need!” Excuse me… you want me to create what? And do what with it? I didn’t even know where to begin! Don’t feel shame in that: there are several planets worth of data you’re navigating. Pro-tip: you don’t have to do that alone anymore.

ProSellus Growth Engineers focuses on aggressive and effective data interpretation and data management strategies for medical device sales reps. We provide that meaning in a useful and simple way. Unlike any tool or program before it, ProSellus offers several avenues to increase efficiency, revenue, and quality of life for your sales business. Don’t believe me? Email Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s discuss any reservations or questions you have.

Business - 08/07/2017

Does Marketing Matter In Sales?

For Sales Reps…Does Marketing REALLY Matter?

Many people, including ProSellus Growth Engineers, place importance on the differences between marketing and sales. We have also talked about the relationship between the two. But…does marketing really matter for medical device sales reps? The short answer: you bet it does.

Enterprise Sales Teams and Mavericks…Listen Up

Regardless of the size of your sales business, marketing means more than pamphlets or social media ads. It means your entire brand identity and even how you interact with clients. In today’s modern age of 140 character interactions and algorithms that track mouse movements on websites, not only do you have to monitor your tone and diction, you have to be transparent, too. Whether you have a marketing team to support you or you’re flying solo and clocking in extra hours wearing a dozen hats, you’ve got to adapt and adapt fast.

Increasingly, sales and marketing tricks of the past like fear of loss, the “Jones effect”, or the impulse factor aren’t trade secrets anymore. To top it off, many consumers are more proactive than even five years ago. The immediacy of “Googling” something on their phones means that your clients could be 12 steps ahead of you in 30 seconds or less.

This also works in the reverse fashion: not only are consumers being proactive, but so should the salesperson. What does that mean exactly? How can you be more proactive as a salesperson? How about by being smarter? How about utilizing technology available to help understand who your customers really are (or should be!) and what THEY are searching for before they even know it. Its called “behavior analytics” and there are many types (listed below) which is created from data all around you! It is collected every time you do ANYTHING as a consumer, professional or business.

Wait…So How does Marketing Affect Sales?

You’re a discerning sales rep, so quick quips and industry jargon aren’t going to distract you from your objective. How does marketing affect your sales business? For individual sales reps operating their own LLCs or businesses, it can be the difference between a deal and a flop. Your personality is your brand and your brand is your business. Consider consulting several of our blog posts about developing a brand identity and voice. You can parlay this identity into your social media platforms, your web copy, and every other facet of your sales business.

For enterprise sales team that have marketing support teams beside them, the process is a bit different, but the variables are the same. You need the tools of brand development in order to implement them in your sales approach and process. Something as simple as a company logo can impact your ability to close a deal with prospective clients no matter how clever or charismatic you may be. Hey — the truth isn’t always pretty in the world of sales.

While branding, voice, personality and technique are all vital to help seal the deal, I cannot emphasize enough the crucial impact that data and analytics have to the success of both types of sales teams (Small LLC’s and Enterprise). Where does the data come from? Well, most marketing professionals should know where to access it. In fact, there are stacks and stacks of technology tools that offer data analytics (diagnostic, descriptive, predictive and prescriptive) available to both the marketing and sales professional. It’s all the rage and guess what, your competitor, you know the one that just poached your customer? They are taking advantage of these tools. This is indeed where the rubber meets the road with regards to marketing helping sales achieve quota. Marketing obtains the analytics and supplies the sales team with the data intelligence to help point them to the warmer leads and low hanging fruit. It’s a cyclical relationship. Boom – the family has finally found a way to work together.

Still feeling stumped?

ProSellus Growth Engineers is a company dedicated to growing your sales business using these revolutionary techniques – in a simplified way built for the sales rep in the field and the marketing professional in desperate need of some REAL leads. The future is already here, so you might already be old news. Email me at Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s get to the bottom of your sales and marketing questions

ProSellus / Thought Leadership - 08/01/2017

Image of human hand pointing at touchscreen with business document

A New Look & Tool for a New Age: How Can ProSellus Help You?

You might remember some older blogs where we talk about the array of services that ProSellus Growth Engineers offers for medical device sales reps. But you have also probably noticed the website face lift we just implemented recently. As we preach, so must we practice. In addition, we have launched the first Sales Enablement Tool that combines both lead generation AND customer management in one. It not only will help the sales person, but the marketing person in the medical device organization. Technology is always changing and, based on user data and metrics, we can determine better ways to deliver the ProSellus experience & product to our current and potential clients. Let’s take a walk down the newly renovated memory lane, shall we?

So What’s New With Our Website?

New Look, Increased Growth

The first thing you’re bound to notice is the improved navigation toolbar at the top of the web page. Instead of the old navigatory buttons, we now feature the usual “Home” and “About” links, but we feature new ones, too. “Product” illuminates the plethora of ways that ProSellus Growth Engineers can increase lean efficiency, metric and data interpretation, user experience improvements, and profits while decreasing costs in money, stress, and time. “Pricing” lays out the available features and packaging while “Resources” links to our blog with numerous posts about all things medical device sales, thought leadership, marketing, and more. “Support” is pretty self-explanatory: We offer a toll free number with support services for any question you might have about your ProSellus services and business development. Following that, you can “Request A Demo”. All you have to do is fill out a quick contact form with information about your particular needs for a personalized demonstration of just how much ProSellus Growth Engineers can augment your business. There is also an insightful video featuring ProSellus client Dr. Michael Sprintz for those who would like first hand testimonies about the ProSellus solution.

While you might be saying – okay so the nice nav features and web pages – so what? Well I am here to tell you – it’s not only about that – it’s about the impact we are making on the market. If you notice on that website – we are growing – we have customer testimonials, and are gaining momentum. Folks, we are only getting started. For being on the market for LESS THAN A YEAR – we are proving to customers that their business can take off when they leverage our software – and you will see on our site that “Our Customers LOVE us”!

Now to the good stuff….

So, What’s New with our Tool?

Sales Enablement, Sales Acceleration, & Actionable Intelligence COMBINED

The ingredients of our “Secret Sauce” are top secret….but we’ll give you insight into the top 3 concepts ProSellus Growth Engineers leverages to adapt your medical sales business into the modern age and beyond. Two of them you may know about and the other one you MUST know about if you want to be a successful businessperson in the 21st century.

Strategies to “hack” sales are integral to any growth plan for a sales business (this means you, too, sales mavericks). ProSellus offers tools to enhance sales acceleration, transform data into actionable intelligence, and other sales enablement tools for every level. You might not use all of the tools we offer….oh wait, yes you will:

Robust search options and filters based on critical healthcare data
Forecasting, tracking and reporting of pipeline opportunities
Physician resource monitoring and organization
Physician and facility finder
Sales call and activity tracker
Territory and network linking
Mobile customer management

And so much more…

Remember when we asked “What if Salesforce and LinkedIn had a baby”

Grab your cigar…Here is THAT KID:

This kid will be the most successful person in the room. The services ProSellus Growth Engineers offers can be your all-in-one-tool to managing, growing, and understanding your clients and territory. We are a lead generator AND a customer management tool all packaged up and simplified for the on-the-go sales person. After all, when it comes to medical device sales, you can’t afford to fall behind. Email me Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s talk tools to enhance your business in ways you never thought possible.

Uncategorized - 07/24/2017

How to Make a Sale 2.0 (for the new age)

For medical device sales reps, the process might get a little stale. Establish contact, build rapport, make your pitch and close the deal. Rinse. Repeat. Pro-tip: if you aren’t closing every time, don’t sweat it (but you should be able to close 95% of the time – this is where proper targeting is key). ProSellus Growth Engineers are always searching for ways to improve and streamline the sales process, so what is the latest news? As it turns out, one of the biggest changes to the sales process has been the shift from selling a product or service based solely on its value in the operating room or patient room. Want to know more? Keep reading.

Bye Bye Broseph…Hello Data

About prosellus A long time ago, you used to be able to “schmooze” your way to victory. Of course, you still have to schmooze, but today, it’s known as “networking” and “resource management.” Despite the fact that establishing value means establishing a relationship, you cannot close a deal on pure charisma and physician wooing anymore. You have to incorporate something else into the sales process: everyone else.

Extending the sales process and your mentality beyond the operating room requires a stamina not many sales reps can develop. You have to engage beyond the physician and establish a connection with administration of the hospital or ASC, or Operating Room Coordinator. So while you may only give your elevator pitch to a physician or small group of physicians, those unfamiliar with general medical processes or devices may require a more thorough education….which means that you may have to educate yourself a bit more. Either way, it’s your product or service. You SHOULD know that thing inside and out.

Also – if you haven’t caught up with the latest and greatest on sales & marketing tools and tactics today – it would be helpful for you to understand how DATA can help drive you towards better decisions that you can THEN turn into deeper networking relationships. Folks, data is power and it’s all around us now. If you don’t know how to harness it – then you might as well go get a job at Starbucks.

Build Trust to Build Your Business

One of the biggest mistakes sales reps make is focusing too narrowly on one aspect of a product or service instead of the broader meaning of the product or service in the context of the market. If you are selling a new piece of equipment for the OR, how does it affect the patient? The nurses? The Chief of Medicine? The EMTs or the administrative staff? By showcasing the fact that you have taken the time to consider the perspectives of people other than YOURSELF and the PHYSICIAN, you will not only establish value for the product or service you are selling, you will establish yourself as an effective and trustworthy sales rep, thus increasing your potential sales market.

Data can also help you achieve this trust. I am not just talking “statistics” – I am talking using raw data to UNDERSTAND your customer BEFORE heading into the practice to make that pitch. Data would help you understand what the customer’s perspective actually IS. What if you knew who your top 5 pain physicians to call on in a day were? Think of how much more effective and efficient you would be if you knew and could plan it out. Think of how much less time would be wasted schmoozing the wrong prospects for your device. Making sense? Read on…

The One Thing You Need Most

If you follow the steps in some of our previous blogs about the sales process, you will achieve success (we practically guarantee it). Of course, increasingly, you may encounter THAT client: the one who asks for extreme discounts, preferential treatment or things you simply can’t provide – even if that just means your time…which is arguably more valuable than your knowledge of all things medical device related. Rather than 100% blowing them off, consider that word we mentioned earlier…you know….”perspective”. Educate yourself with the data then try a different approach first.

“The key here is to understand the reasons behind the request. Is the materials manager asking for a discount because they are concerned about the impact of reduced reimbursement for the procedure? Or, is the materials manager primarily concerned about meeting their cost reduction goals? How would you know what their motivation is? The simple solution to this problem is to ask.” – PM 360

Remember all those blogs about establishing value through establishing relationships? Guess what: the biggest part of any relationship is communication. If you try to understand why this person feels entitled to or is asking for what you think is preferential treatment, don’t try to guess. Don’t try to “fill in the blanks.” ASK (relationship) and LEARN (data). You can improve your trustworthiness and potentially sell them on another product or service in one fell swoop. Boom.

Another big mistake many sales reps make? Not knowing what the heck ProSellus Growth Engineers does for their sales & marketing business. If you don’t know what actionable intelligence or sales acceleration are, you are in the weeds and behind the times. Email me at Scottwalle@prosellus.com . Let’s talk shop, sales, and growth hacking. Show me your perspective.

Sales Acceleration Tools / Thought Leadership - 07/18/2017