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Key Skills for Medical Sales

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The life-fate of the modern individual depends not only upon the family into which he was born or which he enters by marriage, but increasingly upon the corporation in which he spends the most alert hours of his best years.

C. Wright Mills, U.S. sociologist

Even though employees do not spend their entire careers with one company the way they did when Mills wrote The Power Elite in 1956, selecting an industry or type of business to specialize in has the same "life-fate" effect. After making the decision that 'Medical Sales' is a career worthy of such commitment, the next step is to develop an understanding of what skills are necessary to compete in the medical sales job market.



A career in medical sales is a Renaissance career. Selling in this field requires broad intellectual interests and individual accomplishments in both the arts and the sciences. The job requires calling on surgeons and janitors, CEOs and housekeepers, nurse managers and office secretaries. It requires the ability to speak to groups of one hundred or solve conflicts with just one. Successful medical sales professionals are of necessity paragons of well-roundedness.

The skills required by medical companies for job candidates are numerous, and the candidate must be able to show expertise in each of them. While reviewing the following criteria, make a list of activities that would demonstrate your proficiency in each area. Here is the list:
  • NECESSARY SKILLS

What Do Employers Want?
  • Problem Solving

  • Priority Setting

  • Listening

  • Public Speaking

  • Conflict Resolution

  • Achievement

  • Organizational

  • Persuasion

  • Interpersonal
PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS

Employers want to see "grace under fire." The medical product area is unique in that having a product available and using it correctly can literally mean the difference in life or death for a patient. How a rep reacts to a back-ordered product or one that is used incorrectly can also have legal implications for the company represented. Problem solving can range from simply figuring out how to get an appointment with a key decision maker to managing the complex implementation of a new product at several institutions simultaneously. To be successful, reps must view problems as opportunities to demonstrate their personal worth to both customer and employer!

PRIORITY-SETTING SKILLS

Most medical reps have several products to represent and many different people or departments on which to call. This requires a great deal of priority setting. Priorities must be set based upon product availability, customer interest, dollar volume potential, profit margins, territory geography, competitive activity, and so forth. Although it may be easier to sell one specific product, a company's sales objectives may require reps to push other products that are actually more difficult to sell. The temptation to spend all of one's time on the easy-to-sell product may be great, but companies want reps who understand their priorities and who set their individual choices accordingly.

LISTENING SKILLS

When asked why he wanted to go into sales, one young candidate replied, "Because I love talking to people." Wrong answer! If he had said, "Because I love listening to people," he may have had a shot at the job. Dean Rusk, a U.S. politician once wrote, "One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears-by listening to them." How true.

In a field where technical information is critical, active listening skills are a must. Reps are obviously required to understand a customer's general needs, such as reducing costs or improving the quality of care, but good listening skills are also essential in this field in order to make sure the right product is being used and the right procedures are being followed. There is a great deal of detail work involved in this field, and managing those details begins with effective listening.

PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS

Many sales presentations in today's market are given to product standardization committees, purchasing groups, or hospital alliances that are comprised of department heads from several hospitals. Public speaking skills are an essential tool in the art of selling. As Emerson said, "Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel." Formal presentations must be precisely orchestrated in order to use each allotted minute for the purpose of closing the sale. With more and more product decisions being made by group consensus, strong public speaking ability is becoming increasingly more important in medical sales.

CONFLICT-RESOLUTION SKILLS

Most products in the health care field will have multiple users at one site. Inevitably, one user will want to use the old product and another user will want the new product. Much of the representative's time and effort will be spent in managing through the conflicts that arise through this preference war. There is always old school vs. new school argumentation going on within every medical discipline, and although it may not even be related to product use, the end result is that one faction will not like a product simply because the other faction does. As is normally the case, solving these conflicts demands taking on a "parental" role. Pettiness, avarice, greed, and jealousy are alive and well in the health care profession, and the resulting conflicts must be managed by salespeople if they begin to jeopardize the sale.

ACHIEVEMENT/GOAL-SETTING SKILLS

This may be the most important quality that companies look for in a medical representative. Many companies will hire only individuals who can document that they have been at the top of their fields. Companies want reps that have experienced success in achieving specific objectives, both in their personal and professional lives. In addition to documented achievements, companies look for what thought processes and what activities were used in order to bring the alleged success about. Meeting objectives that have been set by an employer or educator are impressive, but managers always seem to be most impressed by difficult goals that were both set and achieved by the achiever.

ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS

Managing a sales territory is much like having your own business in that the rep is responsible for everything that takes place in the territory. Strong organizational skills are needed to manage product samples, distributor relations, product literature, activity reports, sales forecasting, daily sales calls, and so forth. Companies look for individuals who can demonstrate their ability to handle many tasks simultaneously. Considering the proprietary nature of sales, representatives must wear many different hats and organizational skills are necessary in fulfilling various roles.

PERSUASION SKILLS

Individuals who have no previous sales experience always seem to have difficulty breaking into medical sales. However, those who can demonstrate an ability to persuade others into a course of action will get an opportunity regardless of whether they have prior sales experience. Persuasion is what the sales industry is all about. One of the great pleasures of life is to observe an individual or group pursuing a course of action that you have suggested, and your success in medical sales is proportional to this skill area more than any other.

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

Most of the skills listed in this chapter are rooted in this last area of interpersonal skills. Problem solving, listening, conflict resolution, and persuading all take place one-on-one with the customer. Interestingly, however, the largest percentage of a rep's time is spent alone, while driving, planning, practicing, calculating, and so forth. The quality of time spent face-to-face with customers represents the effort and preparation put in by the sales rep while alone, and in order to maximize face time with a customer, interpersonal communication must be both precise and motivational.

The sales process can be broken down into the two basic areas of planning and persuading. Reps are always either planning to sell or attempting to close the sale. Planning is the mediation phase and persuading is the motivation phase. Interpersonal skills lay the foundation for the sale, but strong hue /personal skills are required in order to make sure that action is actually taken after the exchange of ideas occurs with a customer.

An assertive approach works best in this field, assertive being defined as "aggressiveness with finesse." Many of the customers called on by medical sales reps are more educated and higher paid than are the reps. Therefore, the customer's mindset is one that cannot be sold by intimidation or heavy-handed sales tactics. Realizing the role ego plays in the health care profession and responding to it with respect and professionalism are the key interpersonal skills employers look for. Companies want individuals whose interpersonal skills are strong enough to deliver results.
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