Many medical sales people are good at delivering the details about their products, and without question, the ability to do that is important. But this alone does not make you a “sales person.” In fact, if this is all you do in your medical sales presentations, you are really more of a “detail person.” Yes, you can earn a good living as a detail person (many people in the pharmaceutical industry do this), but you will miss out on the higher incomes that are paid to truly effective medical sales professionals. In this Medical Sales Guru podcast, Mace Horoff explains the difference between sales people and detail people, and what you need to do to make sure you are “selling” and not just “dumping” product data.
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Mace,
You are dead on,we use to break down feature and benefit selling as to what ever someone could answer “So What” they had only hit on a feature. Example “this antibiotic is given twice a day “so What” only a feature, the benefit would be over 90% of patients will miss at least 1/4 doses as opposed to Twice daily thus increasing their compliance and get better quicker.
As you say when you tailor the presentation to the Dr. and patients needs,they will pay attention and see a benefit for they and their patients thus making you part of the team and your next visit much easier.
i was listening to this blog and wanted to know how you teach medical sales people to get doctors to identify that they have a problem because alot of them in my experience don’t want to admit they have a problem because they know where you are going with that type of conversation?
The medical sales person’s job is to uncover any issues or shortcomings if possible through the sales conversation before offering solutions. Sometimes the physician may reveal a challenge, but often he or she won’t either because of not being aware of one, or not wanting to admit that one exists. This is why a sales person should never ask a general question such as, “Tell me about your challenges with…” Doctors often don’t perceive challenges with products, services, or procedures, and if so, won’t discuss because they want to keep their egos intact or for the reason you mentioned…they know where you are going with it. The best way to handle this situation (and one that I always spend much time in my training programs) is being able to share with the doctor some of the challenges faced by “his colleagues” and what the implications of the challenges are. Doctors don’t mind hearing about other doctor’s challenges, in fact when properly presented they become quite interested. In other words, if the doctor isn’t feeling any pain, then you need to subtly deliver it! Presenting this information is a bit more intricate than it sounds and far too detailed to go into here. There are ways to present a “story” that make it compelling and believable so it doesn’t just sound like a sales pitch. This technique can open up even the most closed-minded healthcare providers when properly applied.
Thanks for your question. I will consider talking about it in a future podcast.
Thanks for your input, Jim. You’re obviously a pro!