Reignite the Connection: Bringing Dormant Customers Back to Life
What if your next big sale is with a customer you’ve overlooked?
In this Secrets in Medical Device Sales episode, The Girls of Grit explores the untapped potential in dormant customer relationships and shares insightful strategies for re-engaging clients who may have fallen off your radar.
Through the analogy of repolishing old stones, they provide actionable tips to identify overlooked opportunities, rebuild trust, and reignite interest with authenticity and creativity.
Whether it's leveraging new product launches, revisiting past challenges, or creating fresh value, this episode equips you with the tools to transform dormant accounts into shining success stories.
Tune in and learn how to turn overlooked relationships into your next big win!
Episode Chapter Markers
00:00 Introduction
00:29 The Challenge of Plateaued Sales
02:38 Identifying Dormant Customers
05:50 Reconnecting with Dormant Customers
14:46 Creating Value and Incentives
19:55 Personalized Communication and Follow-Up
24:24 Summary
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
The Stone Analogy: Dormant customers are compared to unpolished stones, with the potential to become valuable and impactful relationships when revisited and nurtured.
Identifying Dormant Customers: How to locate clients who may have been overlooked due to past challenges, contract constraints, or insufficient follow-up.
Reconnecting with Simplicity: They emphasize the value of personal outreach, such as in-person meetings or tailored updates, to rebuild trust and rekindle interest.
Creating Value: Practical ways to add value are discussed, including sharing new product research, highlighting upgrades, or revisiting previous offerings with fresh insights.
Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Acknowledging past mistakes with honesty and clarity is presented as a key step to restoring credibility and strengthening relationships.
The Importance of Follow-Up: They conclude with actionable advice on maintaining momentum, ensuring that re-engaged clients remain active and valued through consistent and thoughtful follow-ups.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
“Sometimes the best things are literally right underneath your nose. It's so obvious you just don't see it.” — Cynthia Ficara
“The secret to making your dormant customer active or repolishing an old stone is reconnecting.“ — Cynthia Ficara
"It’s baby steps to just reconnect, figuring out where they are, what their needs are, and maybe meeting them in the middle." — Cynthia Ficara
“It's your job as their sales rep to reignite those flames with them, they're probably waiting for you to come.” — Anneliese Rhodes
“One of the most important things is to always be authentic.” — Anneliese Rhodes
“If you've got the momentum starting again with this customer that you are now bringing out of dormancy, don't let them fall back into that again, keep them active and keep them front of mind.” — Anneliese Rhodes
“Maybe the person became dormant because you forgot to follow up with the customer.“ — Anneliese Rhodes
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A Team Dklutr production
Blog Transcript:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Anneliese Rhodes: Welcome everyone to another episode of Secrets and Medical Device Sales brought to you by the Girls of Grit. We are so happy you guys continue to join us, and today we have another really exciting and, I think, a very thoughtful episode. Cindy, what do you think?
Cynthia Ficara: I do, I do. Hi everybody, all you high performers out there joining in with us today. We have a little different conversation. It’s one of those things where sometimes we’ll have a busy week, and Lisa and I talk about something that we’ve discovered. So, the whole focus of this episode is when we talk about the times when things get a little more challenging and a little tougher, or for no reason, you’re just kind of plateaued.
I remember Lisa and I talking a couple of years ago when we had worked with somebody. And I remember this one person used to say, “Why have nowhere to go?” I remember that feeling of looking at your customers and looking at all these targets, and you’re like, “So you’ve tapped out everybody?”
That conversation kind of sparked Lisa and me into thinking, is that really the truth for everybody? I’m not saying that someone who has truly been doing this for 20-plus years, and everybody knows the market, might not find this to be true. But you can’t tell me new doctors don’t move in, or that something doesn’t change in your area, or that there aren’t relationships you’ve previously had to revisit.
There’s so much more to it. We thought this would be a really, really good discussion.
Repolishing the Stone – Finding Hidden Value in Your Territory
Anneliese Rhodes: I agree with you. Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, it's very rare to have tapped out every single customer that you have in your territory and you have them all. I mean, some reps do, but that's in really only certain markets and certain areas.
So, this kind of hit home for me too, because, for a long time, I've had a really large territory and tons of customers that I'm able to potentially call on, right? But we only have so much time in our days, and we can only reach so many customers. Obviously, we want to work with everybody, but sometimes we just can't reach them.
Or maybe we've had a situation where we were working with a customer, and then we had a sour case. Things didn't go exactly as planned. And instead of really making sure and honing back in with that customer, we let them fall off the face of the earth, you know, just because we don’t want to talk about the ugly stuff.
Nobody wants to talk about the ugly stuff. It's not uncommon for us reps to be out there and say, “Well, you know, I’ve got so-and-so and so-and-so, and I guess he's not really going to work with me anyhow, so I'm just not going to call on him anymore. Or her anymore.” And that, we believe, is a true mistake.
So today, we’re going to talk about what we are coining as a dormant customer or repolishing of the stone.
Cynthia Ficara: I love that. I know. I've actually heard that analogy before, like repolishing an old stone. So actually, you said it better. Why don't you explain to everybody out there listening when you talk about coal?
Anneliese Rhodes: Yes. Obviously, diamonds come from coal, right? And it's the pressure of the machine pushing out that coal, and then all of a sudden, a beautiful diamond comes out. And so, I kind of liken this to, you've got all these stones in your pocket.
Right. And you pull them out, or you go to one of those stores that have tons of stones in a big bin, you know, it’s all—they’re all over the mountains. My kids love going there, and they’ll push their hand in there, and they pull them all out, and they look at all these different stones. And you’ve got yellows and blues and greens and purples and all these pretty things.
And then sometimes you just have an ugly stone, and you’re like, “Oh, I don’t want that one.” You toss it out, right? You’re like, “I’m not going to buy that one.” But the truth is, you don’t know what’s inside of that stone. There’s a high chance that that stone might actually be worth the most—it might be the most beautiful on the inside. It just needs a little bit of re-polishing.
And so today, that is what we're going to talk about with regards to our customers because I guarantee you, Cindy, everybody out there, all of you high performers out there, have a dormant or unpolished stone.
Cynthia Ficara: Love it. And it’s so true. And we never even kind of thought of it this way till we started discussing it and just kind of thinking along.
Sometimes the best things that you have aren’t the things that you’re shooting so far for or that are so hard to get to. Sometimes the best things are literally right underneath your nose. It’s so obvious you just don’t see it.
And so there are so many times that you see customers that maybe, in your mind, you’ve said, “Oh, they don’t believe in our technology,” or, “They already said no to me.” Or, you know, I could sit here and list lengthy reasons to give you excuses to not go after customers.
We had an episode on this in the past—excuses, excuses, excuses, probably maybe two months ago. And you’re in sales, you have control over what you decide is or isn’t. And I can make excuses for anything I want to.
Or if I dig a little bit deeper, maybe I find a stone. Maybe I can just find a way to polish the stone, make it shine, and be the best.
So we’re going to take a little bit of time today. We’re going to reveal our secret to polishing an old stone, and then we’re going to give you action steps on how to actually shine your stone because I think this is truly finding a treasure.
All of us are so lucky that we actually have the treasure box in front of us. And we just have to figure out which one’s shiny.
The Simplicity of Reconnecting and Targeting Opportunities
Anneliese Rhodes: Oh, I love that. That was really good. I love that. So, do you want to reveal the secret, or do you want me to?
Cynthia Ficara: Oh, I do. Oh, okay. So, I’m gonna let you reveal the secret. Cindy never wants to reveal the secrets early. I’m the one that’s like—
Anneliese Rhodes: Tell me the secret! Tell me now.
Cynthia Ficara: Oh my gosh. That’s awesome. Okay. So, the secret to making your dormant customer active or repolishing an old stone is reconnecting.
Anneliese Rhodes: Reconnecting and simplicity, right? The simplicity of it.
Cynthia Ficara: Yep. It’s the simplicity of reconnecting. Now we say that, and you’re thinking, “Oh my God, you’re right. That’s so simple. Just go reconnect with the customer.”
Anneliese Rhodes: Like, I’m just going to call that person that I had these really bad cases with. I’m just going to go walk back in there and be like, “Hi, it’s me, Lisa or Cindy. Great to see you again. I haven’t seen you in like a year. How are you? Want to give me some cases?”
I mean, that’s what we know. We know that’s not the way it rolls in sales. It never usually is. But we’re going to outline it for you guys today and really show you that, I think when you think through things—and that’s really what Cindy and I are trying to do for y’all—is really just give you the basics to make you excellent every day. And we try to do that in the easiest and most understandable way ever. So today we’re going to teach you how to polish up that stone again.
It’s not as hard as you think it is. It just takes a little bit of gumph.
Cynthia Ficara: And simplify this. Let’s just make this very, very simple because the secret is simplicity.
And so, the first thing we’re going to do is to identify the customer or the stone that you’re ready to polish. How do you do that? We’ll start by going back into the history of some of your accounts. First of all, look at an account where you are already in this account. Or, you know, is it a partner you’re working with? Or is it where you have an actual opportunity?
Because this is not about complete cold calling with no ROI in the end. Again, basic sales. Let’s just kind of go back to making everything simple. We’re going to do everything in sales 101. And the first thing we’re going to do is target appropriately.
Think, like Lisa just said, maybe it’s a customer that you had an engagement with previously that didn’t go so well—that could be something to revisit. It could be that maybe you talked to somebody, and they said no at the time. Well, what has changed since then?
For instance, let me give a good example of where time has a big role in really re-engaging customers. Every two years, hospitals will re-up their contracts, and some of them have what we call IDNs, which are independent networks within those IDNs. They may be grouped with multiple hospitals, all of which have buying—what’s the word I’m looking for—group purchasing privileges.
Anneliese Rhodes: Yeah.
Cynthia Ficara: Yes. And they are not—what I said—well, no, no, no, you’re right. They’ve buying privileges because then they’re run by what’s called a GPO, which is a group purchasing organization.
Now, every couple of years, they re-up if they’re going to be a part of that. So sometimes, for instance, there used to be one called Novation and Premier. So maybe one of your hospitals used to be with Premier, and they could only go with, say, two vendors for something.
How much time has passed since they said no? It’s very possible that now they’re with a completely different group purchasing organization or a different IDN, or maybe their inside value analysis committee process has changed. So, revisiting what was a no in the past may just be that the situation has changed because we’ve told you all before: no just means not now.
Okay, so how much time has passed? And now we’re going to look at where we’re going to target, and then we’re just going to kind of figure out the landscape.
Anneliese Rhodes: So, you just gave a lot of information. That was all amazing. I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m taking it all in.”
The very first thing you said, though, is you’re like, identify the customer. Do you know where my head went? It didn’t go to my current customers. It went to somebody that I hadn’t worked with in two years in a totally different hospital. So what you just did was you brought it back even easier for our listeners because you’re right.
Why not start where you’re already at? You’re already at these accounts; you’re already in them, working with their partners or colleagues. Why not start with them? Those partners that you’re not working with yet—could be the unpolished stones.
And so, I thought that was a really great point, Cindy. You know, number two was to think about the purchasing organizations and whether their contracts changed. I mean, there’s a high chance that maybe you were locked out of a contract for two years because they were 90 percent your competitor.
And now all of a sudden, well, that contract ended. And you slid in, your company slid in, and it was a corporate decision. So those are two really great things, Cindy, that honestly, I didn’t even think about. My head went straight—went straight to the extreme, right?
So, if any of you did what I just did, know that there are other ways. I love the identification of a customer. And you know, there are so many different ways to identify the customer, but I really like that.
Reconnecting After Challenges – The Power of Personal Engagement
Cynthia Ficara: Well, you know, you mentioned the extreme. Let’s go to the extreme while we’re on that topic. And what do I mean by that? Like, let’s say you had a bad case, and that was extreme for you.
If everybody hears the old saying, time heals all wounds, and who’s to say that maybe you had a bad case? We also had an episode on this—like how you come back from a mistake, how you re-engage—but what you don’t know is how many bad mistakes just happen with your customers.
And so, what you think maybe so big and bad, maybe isn’t so big and bad anymore. That’s a great point. Or it may be, you know, so I think that, again, it’s pulling up your big girl pants, okay? And just knowing that if this is an extreme case, or maybe something didn’t go well, and you have not engaged with this person in a while, it’s baby steps to just reconnecting, figuring out where they are, what their needs are, and maybe meeting them in the middle.
Anneliese Rhodes: So what you’re talking about is really number two and kind of bringing it back to the basics for you guys. Number one was the identification of the customer, but number two was the reason for the dormancy.
Why are they still unpolished? Could it be that you just haven’t worked with them yet? Or maybe it is that you had a sour case or two. Or that you were blocked out of a contract. I mean, that’s really important. You need to understand the reason why this customer right now is dormant for you.
So, you know, you guys figure that out. You know exactly what’s going on in your territory. If you’re a high performer, you could figure that out in a matter of minutes.
And you’re right, Cindy, time will heal all wounds. So, I think along with that, the next step is figuring out how you’re going to connect with them.
And truthfully, I think it needs to be personal. I think it needs to be direct. And what I mean by that is a direct meeting—not just an email.
“Hey, how are you doing, Dr. Smith? Haven’t talked to you in two years. What’s up?”
No, it means an in-office or in-hospital meeting with your customers. Asking them, “Are they good to re-engage? Would they sit down for a cup of coffee with you? Can you come back and reinservice them on a new product you have or the existing products you have?”
But you need to do that personally because, at this point, that customer is not your best buddy, right? So, sending them a text message or an email probably isn’t going to get anywhere.
You’ve got to go in and personally reconnect. And again, what does that take? It’s a little bit of pulling up those big girl pants and saying, “Okay, I hung my head. I’m now coming back in again.” And you’ve got to be able to do that.
The Importance of Personalized Communication and Strategic Engagement
Cynthia Ficara: I think that was so well said because we could do an entire episode just on personalized communication—how you engage with them, whether it is coffee, whether it is dinner, or whether it is wherever. I think that is so important.
But think about it, okay? When you go in to speak to them, what are you going to say? Again, sales 101—you’ve got to pre-plan.
And sometimes, in sales, some of us work with a lot of buckets. Maybe you can leverage another product that can incentivize you to be in front of them. So, you have to be creative. You know, what are your incentives?
Could it be something like, “Wow, we are launching this brand-new product, so you can do so many of these for a discount?” Or, if you get in front of them for that reason, you can also look into maybe another incentive that your company has or something that you can do.
Many companies have rebate programs, and maybe it’s not expensive. I’m kind of on this cost thing today—I don’t know why—but it could be other things too. It’s just looking at any way that you can get back in front of your customer.
Anneliese Rhodes: Well, the easiest way is if you have a new product, right? I mean, that’s like the easiest way because now you have an excuse to really go back and reengage with that customer.
Because they probably—since they’re not using—you don’t know about all the things that you have to offer them. So, I think that’s really key.
And even if they do, maybe you don’t know, but maybe they’re just waiting for you to call them. You know? I mean, these docs, they go to all these meetings, they hear the talks, they see the new products, they know what’s coming out.
It’s your job as their sales rep to reignite those flames with them. If you haven’t done it yet, they’re probably waiting for you to come.
And I think, again, it’s about that personal outreach. You find the time that works for them—sit down with them, have lunch or coffee or dinner, or whatever it is. Maybe you bring in a VP.
Right? Maybe you need somebody other than yourself to re-engage with this customer because it makes them feel important—because they are.
But you’re also bringing a different set of skills into that meeting. You know, you have a certain set of skills, and your VP or your manager has a certain set of skills.
And everybody working together makes that customer feel important.
Reinvigorating Relationships and Creating Value
Cynthia Ficara: You said something that I totally forgot about until just now—it totally triggered a memory. This is probably going back 10 years, and the company I worked for had different buckets. I worked with someone where this doctor wouldn’t work with her for certain things.
And literally, we had launched this new product. We were at a meeting, and the doctor walked up to us at a booth and said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come show me this other product.”
I was just like, “Oh my gosh, seriously?” But then later, I thought about it—she was probably thinking, “Well, he doesn’t want to work with me with whatever product,” but by golly, he was waiting for her to come.
That’s crazy! This happens. So, we can’t assume there’s no reason to engage with new products. You’ve got to let everything start new.
That is one of the best things, but if you don’t have that, it’s just about going back. I think if you don’t have a new product, it’s now up to you to create value.
Maybe you don’t have a new product, but maybe you have new education on your current product. Maybe you have a new research article. Maybe there’s something new that came out, or the current device that you sell got an upgrade.
What value can you bring that’s different from something you already have?
Anneliese Rhodes: Yeah. Creating value is all about what we’re talking about. And you’re right—it could be as simple as just a new iteration of your device, or it could be a totally new product or an article with new data on your product. Or maybe the fact that it saves time in the O.R.
There are so many different things you can do to create value. You’re a high performer—be creative. You know exactly how to make this work.
And along with that is another great tip: reinvigorate that relationship by following up. So after you’ve done your initial re-engagement with the customer, follow up with them, and this time really do it. Don’t let it fall off. Maybe the person became dormant because you forgot to follow up with the customer.
Cynthia Ficara: Exactly.
Anneliese Rhodes: Don’t forget—follow-up is so important. We just talked about it in a recent episode. It’s so important because it makes the customer feel important. Not only did you promise them something, but you’re following up with them.
And always try to keep a positive attitude. I know it’s hard. Sometimes it’s just tough out there, guys. But you’ve really got to be positive.
“Dr. Smith, thank you so much for meeting with me today. I’m so excited that you’re interested again in this new product or one of the products that we’ve used before. I’m so pumped to be working with you again. I cannot wait to hear about the next case.”
All the things that you want to do to make that relationship feel better—reinvigorating it is really key to unpolishing or repolishing the stones.
Cynthia Ficara: Every single one of you out there has one of these customers. It’s not that you’re ignoring them or you didn’t want to follow up—it’s the ones where, for whatever reason, maybe you’re busy and pulled in five directions.
But just jump back into where you are and then make a commitment to keep following up. You can jump right back in because I bet there are half-polished stones out there that you probably didn’t even realize.
Yeah. Reinvigorating a relationship is so important, and that’s huge.
And I think the next thing I want to add is interesting but really important—asking for feedback.
When you’re with this customer and you’re coming back in to reengage, ask them:
“Hey, what can I do to help you with this? Is there anything else that you need? Has anything changed since I was last here? What works best for us to meet again? Or just, what has changed in your practice?”
That’s one of the best questions—“Has anything changed?”
Authenticity, Feedback, and the Power of Follow-Up
Anneliese Rhodes: Absolutely. Because normally it has, right? I mean, nothing ever stays the same.
And I was also thinking about this, Cindy. So, I’m thinking about the customer that maybe you had a sour case with. So, I think one of the most important things is to always be authentic. We talk about this a lot in our podcast.
I think, at least for me, this is what I would do if I were engaging with a customer that I had a bad case, or if something didn’t go as well as it should have, and I kind of let it go and hung my head. I think one of the first things you do is walk in there and be open and honest:
"Listen, Dr. Smith, I realize that a couple of years ago we had that case, and it did not go as planned. I will tell you, I have learned A, B, C, and D. I have changed 1, 2, 3, 4. We are now doing X, Y, Z, or whatever it is."
I think it’s so important to talk about the big, fat elephant in the room of why you’ve not reengaged with them because they’re going to be like, "Why are you here?" Right? I mean, they very well could be like that. They may be happy to see you, but they’re also going to want to talk about what went wrong.
So, I think you being open and honest, and then asking them for their feedback is key. They may say, "Yeah, Cindy, that was a bad case. I’m really glad you’ve fixed X, Y, Z," or "I’m really glad that you’re coming back and talking to me about it." Finally, they might even say, "I really think your product has a lot of positives to it. I just needed to get over this hump."
It could be as simple as that. But I do think you need to be authentic when you’re asking them for feedback because you want to hear what they have to say. That feedback might not be what you want to hear, but at least you’re trying to do everything you can to re-polish that stone.
Cynthia Ficara: And I would take it a step further. When you’re dealing with a bad case, it’s really about pinpointing exactly what went wrong and then saying, "Okay, should this happen in the future, I would change this or do that. How do you want us to do this better?"
Let’s meet first and discuss it. Ask them what they need to make it better because that’s the simple thing underneath all of this. All of this is reconnecting and are-engaging
I know this sounds like things we’ve mentioned before. I’m sure all of you would agree with me when I ask this question: "Isn’t this simple?"
These are all steps for reconnecting in a very simplistic way. Sometimes, what you need is just right in front of you, and you can’t see it.
Anneliese Rhodes: Yeah, I agree with you. And probably last, but not least—and we’ve already mentioned this—is follow-up.
Continue doing the things you should be doing. Make sure you have a checklist when you leave that doctor’s office.
"Okay, I’ve got these action items. I’m going to do these things. I’m going to send my follow-up email in a day or two days. I’m going to have another lunch and follow up with this physician like I promised them I would in another week, two weeks, or a month."
Don’t let them fall back off. If you’ve got the momentum starting again with this customer that you’re now bringing out of dormancy and making them active again, don’t let them fall back into that dormancy again.
Keep them active. Keep them front of mind. Look, we all have a ton of things going on in our territories at any given day or hour, but you need to keep them at the top of your list at all times. That’s how you keep them from falling back into that dormancy again.
Cynthia Ficara: Oh, I think that’s exactly right. Because, you know, so many times, we overlook things or overthink things.
I want to take a minute to kind of summarize all we said because while it is simple, it’s so huge. Everybody listening can come up with a target today and make a difference.
You can take a plateaued sales number or even just get a little more business, which can be a long-term advantage for you.
"You don’t need to get a whole new territory or feel completely spent. Sometimes, you just need to open your eyes to see it."
