Medical sales, 5 great access ideas to get you a pay rise
Where things tend to go wrong is the search for short cuts, the search for the one killer idea that no-one else has thought of that will propel them to the top. Unfortunately, my experience is that this is usually and downfall, not a winning solution. The people at the top of the league tables tend to be people who simply follow a set of rules in a methodical fashion, without deviation. Here's my best tips.
Book every appointment you can get your hands on, all of the time. Appointments are calls you make without having to invest extra time chasing around trying to gain access, the more of these you have. the less time you chase are speculatively trying to pick up calls. Once you are in appointment cycles, never drop out of them. Typically, Medical sales reps fly out of an appointment in a whirlwind rushing off to make the next call. In practise, booking your next call before you leave takes seconds and doesn't really delay. If your worried, get your diary out before the call. Do this all the time and you see more and sell more.
When you hold meetings, always try to get callbacks on every attendee. If you're paying for lunch, it's the least they can do to give you an opportunity to call back and see them on their own! If you're not comfortable simply asking for this, take a register and add a column to your sheet with 'a time when I can call'. Given that your buying there lunch it's difficult and rude to leave it blank. Do this regularly and you will be generating extra sequential calls, and in medical sales, it's sequential calling that sells.
Change your lunch hour. It's almost comical at lunch time to visit the local supermarket and see how many medical reps are their drinking coffee and buying their lunch. The shame of it is, your customers are no longer locked away in their surgeries, their wandering around reception collecting messages and reading post in a relaxed mood after the end of surgery. The rep who happens to drop in then (with a reason) can pick up extra calls, often unhurried and high quality calls.
There's no such thing as 'do no see' surgeries. There maybe 'not at the moments'! You need to keep in touch with all of your surgeries all of the time. There are always surgeries who say they don't see medical sales reps, but so often this will be down to just one individual, and it won't last. As result, things can change the other way way just as quickly with a turnover of staff. Unless your in touch, you won't know that there's a new opportunity to broaden your customer base. Meanwhile, other places close their doors and you customer base is shrinking.
Pinch other medical reps appointments. This is not as daft as you may at first think. Most reps count their appointments as 'guaranteed' calls. As a result, you would be surprised how many actually turn up late for an appointment as they push for extra calls elsewhere to get their numbers up. If you have a record of appointment times in each area and happen to drop in at these times, you may be surprised how many you can pinch from under the nose of the rep running late!
No one of these techniques are bullet proof, but in my experience as a medical sales manager, it's the people who are able to follow these simple ideas in a disciplined way all of the time who succeed, rather than the serial short cutters, of which there are many.
About the Author: John Bult runs internet job sites for people in medical sales in the UK
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