3 KEYS TO INCREASED PERFORMANCE FOR MEDICAL DEVICE … · 2018-07-31 · 4 | 3 KEYS TO INCREASED...

3 KEYS TOINCREASED PERFORMANCEFOR MEDICAL DEVICESALES TEAMS

| 3 KEYS TO INCREASED PERFORMANCE FOR MEDICAL DEVICE SALES TEAMS2

Selling is complicated…

And perhaps this is no truer than in today’s medical device industry. The products are

complex, the regulations are cumbersome, the expectations are high, and the buyers

are sophisticated - note the “s” in buyers.

The good news?

There is a lot of opportunity for the savvy sales team. In 2017 the global medical

device industry was estimated to be worth $521.1 billion and that number is expected

to swell to $674.5 billion by 2022¹.

To be successful, medical device sales teams must be equipped to navigate this

marketplace in the face of:

• Increasing competition, making it difficult to standout and maintain market share

• Product commoditization, putting downward pressure on margins and profits

• Increasing complexity of medical equipment, requiring a talented team of

professionals with sales skills

• Healthcare consolidation, increasing the complexity of the buying process,

including gaining access to buying centers and creating value for a wide number

of stakeholders

• The rise of value-based care, shifting the focus from device to patient outcomes

While these challenges may seem daunting and beyond influence, there is much that

organizations, and in particular sales and people leaders can do to overcome them.

This guide explores the 3 keys to increased sales performance for medical device

sales teams.

Let’s get started.


Key #1: Sales Strategy

All organizations have some sort of strategy, but not all sales organizations have a

formalized, published sales strategy. And even if they do, the real trick is getting

alignment and executing the strategy with momentum, so it isn’t gathering dust on a

shelf.

“However hard it is to devise a smart strategy, it’s ten times harder to get people

to execute on that strategy. And a poorly executed strategy, no matter how

clever, is worthless.” – Peter Bregman

For medical device companies, a well-defined and executed sales strategy is of the

utmost importance as the landscape is evolving quickly and the sales team cannot

afford to be caught off-guard.

What does an effective sales strategy encompass? It’s more than a revenue goal or

list of to-dos. Rather, it is a document that simply and honestly articulates your goals

and works backwards to define key actions to achieve it.

For sales leaders, once you have a well devised sales strategy it is essential that you

help your people – from direct reports to the front lines – truly understand your

strategy. Research by Kotter suggests that 70% of employees are misaligned with

strategic direction because they do not understand it.3 Alignment is a powerful sales

force multiplier, and when employees at all levels understand your vision and strategic

goals they can execute faster, more proactively, and with better results.

Checklist: Is Your Sales Strategy Doing Enough?

❑ Our sales organization has a process to achieve strategic alignment.

❑ Our sales organization has a formalized, published sales strategy.

❑ Our strategy is honest and clear – focus, goals, tactics, owners and timelines.

❑ Our strategy has buy-in from stakeholders.

❑ Our strategy has been effectively communicated to the team.

❑ Each member of the sales team can link their personal objectives to the sales

strategy.

❑ Each member of the sales team uses the strategy to guide their decisions.

Review this list and decide if your sales strategy is great, needs

small improvements or is ready for a “wreck and rebuild”.


Key #2: Sales Team

Sales, Service, Clinician, Advocate and Specialist teams are a critical part of your

organization’s value. They are the front line who interact with customers, determining

how to best work with them and make them more loyal to your company.

To successfully navigate the complex buying process of medical devices and create

long-term customers, your professionals need to be equipped with three things:

1. Mindset

Effective medical device sales professionals have a great attitude towards sales. They

see themselves as critical to their customers' success. They do not “sell” their

products; they solve customer problems and they create value. They have a

consultative mindset that puts the customers’ needs and experience ahead of their

own.

A McKinsey study4 found that companies that create great customer experiences,

encompassing the entire customer journey, on average have:

• higher margins than their competitors

• higher client-satisfaction scores

• reductions of 10 to 20 percent in cost to serve

• revenue growth of 10 to 15 percent, and

• an increase in employee satisfaction.

A consultative mindset focuses on 3 things: Building relationships, creating value and

helping customers choose you/your company.

Checklist: Does your team have the consultative mindset they need to be

successful?

❑ Our team is focused on adding value, not selling.

❑ Our team uses every customer interaction to add value.

❑ Our team knows how build trust with customers.

❑ Our team is focused on building long-term relationships with customers vs.

transactional relationships


2. Skills

We all know sales skills are critical to sales performance. According to CSO Insights,

we invest between $500 and $2,500 annually per salesperson on sales development5

and this investment rises in industries with complex sales, such as medical devices.

But are we spending our training dollars wisely? Training on compliance, technology

and products is useful – but they are also job requirements and learned with

experience. People skills are arguably even more important. And this couldn’t be more

true than in the medical device industry, where healthcare consolidation has led to the

rise of purchasing groups. According to CEB, 6.8 people are involved in today’s B2B

purchase decisions on average6.

People buy from people. Depending on the hospital’s market segment, and who’s

involved in the purchasing group, sales teams need to be able to skillfully assess who

they are selling to and what they care about. Having these skills, along with an ability

to give clear recommendations backed with rationale, presented in a concise offering

with a stable view of capabilities can improve the ease of purchase by 86% according

to HBR7. Further…

“Suppliers that make buying easy are 62% likelier to win a high-quality sale.

In fact, purchase ease is by far the biggest driver of deal quality we’ve found

across three large studies. What’s more, customers who complete a

prescriptive, easy sales process are dramatically less likely to regret their

purchase or to speak negatively of the supplier, and are more likely to

repurchase.”– HBR

Checklist: Does your team have the skills they need to be successful in today’s

medical device industry?

❑ Our team is able to identify hospital segments and accurately position value based

on those segments.

❑ Our team is able to identify purchasing groups and who within those groups are

the decision makers and who are the influencers.

❑ Our team is able to identify various stakeholders’ roles and effectively

communicate to what they value (patient outcomes, cost, features, ROI, etc.)

❑ Our team is skilled in team selling, involving advocates and specialists when and

where necessary.

❑ Our team has excellent listening and questioning skills to uncover needs, handle

objections and gain commitment.


3. Processes

Sometimes overlooked, sales processes are key to improving the efficiency and

performance of your sales team and ultimately create happier customers. A set of

well-defined processes allows your team to spend more time with customers and on

core selling activities, decreases the chances of mistakes and missed opportunities,

sets a base-line of expectation and accountability, creates a library of best practices,

a platform for continuous improvement and a standard for coaching.

Checklist: Does your team have the right processes in place to be successful?

❑ Our team has a process to quickly and accurately identify purchasing group

decision makers and influencers.

❑ Our team has a process to reliably create value and insight for various

stakeholders.

❑ Our team has a process for effectively preparing for meetings with stakeholders.

❑ Our team has a structured process for meetings with stakeholders to improve

consistency and quality of encounters with customers.

❑ Our team is excellent at RFI/RFP response and has a high win rate

❑ Our team gives excellent presentations that influence through the use of stories

❑ Our team has a process for strategically managing accounts

Your sales team may need improvement in one, two or all three of

these areas. What are you investing this year, in them, to ensure you

are the best in your business?


Key #3: Sales Managers

Of the 3 keys to better sales performance, sales managers are your skeleton key.

They are often overlooked, yet they are your highest point of leverage. They hire the

team that sells, develop and coach, hold the team accountable to activities and

results, cultivate a common language and approach, enforce and improve the sales

methodology, manage to the strategy and set the sales culture. Need we say more

about how important your sales managers are to your sales team’s success?

According to the CEB, the cost of a single bad sales manager can be upwards of $4

million a year.6 This number is not too difficult to imagine when you consider the cost

of poor hiring decisions and onboarding, ineffective or lack of coaching, talent loss,

lost productivity, poor strategy execution, etc. And yet, studies by CSO Insights show

that 55% of companies spend less than $1,500 a year on training sales managers,

80% spend less than $2,500.5

The bottom line – your biggest opportunity for improved sales performance may lie

with your sales managers. What do your managers need to be successful?

It Starts with Their Mindset

Great sales managers view the sales team as a learning organization that can always

improve. Exceptional sales managers convey this attitude by looking for opportunities

to groom sales people in the company’s values. Sales managers are the heart and

soul of consistent improvement, and coaching should be a chief activity. They should

constantly look to:

• Develop Sales Team Capabilities – Every sales professional can improve, and the

manager must constantly be looking for ways to take their game to the next level

to stay ahead of the competition.

• Build Relationships with Salespeople – Each sales professional is unique and

needs tailored management for help, support, guidance and motivation.

• Create Value in all Coaching – Each coaching moment (a One-on-One, a funnel

review, field coaching and fly-bys) must add value to the sales professional.

Managers must learn to provide valuable feedback, and salespeople must end the

encounter thinking, “That was a good use of my time. I am better off for spending

time with my manager.”

Do your sales managers have a mindset geared towards continuous

improvement?


Fundamental Feedback and Coaching Skills

Coaching and feedback, when done correctly and frequently, will elicit engagement. If

your salespeople are constantly improving, they will be engaged. One professional

services firm used to publicize to new hires that they were not the highest paying firm,

but they were the best at coaching. Those who joined them would learn faster and

climb the ranks quicker, ultimately leading them to make more money than if they

worked for a higher-paying competitor.

You should not assume that your sales managers have the skills or the will to coach.

Instead, observe how they interact with their people during formal and informal

coaching sessions. Additionally, hold up a mirror to your own skills, and make sure

you have what it takes to be excellent at coaching and giving feedback to your direct

reports. How are you using the skills to ensure you are effective so that you create a

great sales culture that delivers strong business results with an engaged sales team?

Do your sales managers have the skills they need to achieve better

sales performance?

Essential Sales Management Disciplines

Sales management processes are defined and scheduled activities that help your

managers achieve their goals with more certainty, including:

A formalized structure for each sales management discipline sets your sales

managers free, because if you have a process, the discipline is in consistently

following it. In the absence of structure, each time your managers go to coach or

manage they will spend time thinking about the “how” instead of the “what.” With the

structure in place, the “how” is set and ready for the “what” to be inserted.

Direct reports begin to expect consistency and value from each coaching interaction

and follow-up on their behaviors. Sales management disciplines are about quality and

quantity. By quality we mean they add value to your salespeople and they create

productivity in your organization. By quantity we mean often and consistently, but not

overwhelming your salespeople with too many changes at once.

Do your sales managers have the disciplines necessary for

sustainable performance?

One-on-Ones Sales Meetings Pipeline Management

Field Coaching Team Prospecting Onboarding


1 Corbin Bridge, “Medical Device Manufacturing Executive Summary” Investment Bank, June 2018,

https://investmentbank.com/med-device-manufacturing/

2 Peter Bregman, “Execution Is a People Problem, Not a Strategy Problem”, Harvard Business Review, January 2017,

https://hbr.org/2017/01/execution-is-a-people-problem-not-a-strategy-problem

3 John Kotter, “When CEOs Talk Strategy, 70% of the Company Doesn’t Get It”, Forbes July 2013,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2013/07/09/heres-why-ceo-strategies-fall-on-deaf-ears/#5a92c6383663

4 Nicolas Maechler, Sanjeev Sahni, and Martine van Oostrum, “Improving the Business-to-Business Customer Experience”,

McKinsey & Company, March 2016, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/improving-

the-business-to-business-customer-experience

5 CSO Insights, “Sales Enablement Optimization Study”, CSO Insights, 2016, https://www.csoinsights.com/wp-

content/uploads/sites/5/2016/08/2016-Sales-Enablement-Optimization-Study.pdf

6 Jessica Cash, “Infographic: The Hidden Cost of a Failed Sales Manager”, CEB Blogs, June 2014

https://www.cebglobal.com/blogs/infographic-the-hidden-cost-of-a-failed-sales-manager/

7 Nicholas Toman, Brent Adamson and Cristina Gomez, “The New Sales Imperative,” Harvard Business Review, April 2017,

https://hbr.org/2017/03/the-new-sales-imperative

2. Aim for progress, not perfection. Take time to identify and prioritize the activities

that will have the most impact on results. Focus on doing the most important

things well before moving on to the next round of improvement activities.

3. Focus on simplicity and practicality. Create strategic clarity that enables the right

skills and right support to build a high performing sales team.

4. Take a systemic approach to learning versus a one-off approach to achieve

sustainable sales results.

The Output: A Highly Engaged Sales Culture Optimized for Results

As you go about improving your

sales performance, we encourage

you to keep these four points in

mind:

1. In today’s world, your people

are often your only real

differentiator – so equip them

with skills to differentiate and

bring value to your customers.

Sources:


We offer some great resources to help you create strategic clarity and build a highly

engaged sales force. These include:

Sales Culture Survey

Identify and prioritize opportunities to

build a high-performing sales culture by

benchmarking your current organization

against the best in class.

However, as a first step, we suggest simply contacting us to schedule a brief

discussion about how we can best help you.

Strategic Alignment Facilitation

We help you conduct an off-site working

session with your top team to create

clarity and commitment for your strategy.

The output will be a one-page strategic

plan that becomes a simple but powerful

roadmap to keep everyone on course.

“Engage Me” Book

Based on over 20 years of experience

helping clients build high-performing

sales cultures, Double Digit Sales CEO

Kevin Higgins offers deeper insight and

guidance into many of the topics covered

in this guide.

Next Steps

| 3 KEYS TO INCREASED PERFORMANCE FOR MEDICAL DEVICE SALES TEAMS

Partner with an experienced team of experts to propel your organization to new heights.

About DoubleDigit Sales

DoubleDigit Sales is a top 20 sales training firm with a client roster ranging from

Fortune 500 companies to local credit unions.

We specialize in helping salespeople, sales managers and executives perform

significantly better to achieve double digit growth. Drawing on our extensive library of

proven content and tools, we leverage our streamlined design process to deliver

customized and exceptional learning experiences that change behaviors and drive

improved sales results.

Over time, we have refined our core teachings, always with the aim of making them

as simple, practical and useable as possible. Doing our job right means our clients

must be able to apply their learning the very next day.

272 Richmond Street East, Suite 200

Toronto, ON M5A 1P4

Contact Us

1.855.656.2999

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www.doubledigit-sales.com

3 KEYS TO INCREASED PERFORMANCE FOR MEDICAL DEVICE … · 2018-07-31 · 4 | 3 KEYS TO INCREASED...

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