The One Secret That Top Sales Professionals Do
Have you ever wondered what sets top-performing sales reps apart in the competitive world of medical device sales? Curious about their secrets?
In this episode, the Girls of Grit unveil the ultimate secret to success in medical device sales: mastering the sequence of asking the right questions. As summer sets in, they remind us why now is the perfect time to plant seeds for future business and refine our sales strategies.
They guide listeners on how to uncover customer needs with precision and delve into a proven framework of five essential questions, plus a bonus tip, designed to deepen client relationships and boost sales effectiveness.
These questions help sales reps transcend surface-level assumptions, allowing them to connect authentically and offer solutions that truly resonate with their customers' needs, whether it's about dollars, patient care, or personal impact.
Join us as we break down each question's importance, share compelling examples, and encourage you to approach every conversation with genuine curiosity and empathy.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to elevate their sales game and build lasting partnerships in the medical device industry.
5 Key Questions to Deepen Client Relationships and Boost Sales (In Sequence)
Asking about the Challenges/Issue: Tell me more about the challenge or issue we discussed earlier and why we are meeting today.
Clarifying the Problem: Can you provide an example of this problem or need? This helps clarify the issue and provides context.
Assessing Value and Impact: If you could solve this, what would it mean to you in dollars or patient care? Assessing the impact and value of the solution is crucial.
Understanding Urgency and Relevance: Why is this issue important to you right now? Understanding the urgency or relevance helps us prioritize solutions.
Personal Impact Exploration: How does this issue affect you personally? Exploring the personal impact deepens our understanding.
Bonus Tip:
Seeking Comprehensive Insight: Help me understand your situation better. Can you unpack that for me? This encourages a deeper dive into needs and impacts."
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Blog Transcript:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Anneliese Rhodes: What is the one thing that top medical device reps do to not only earn their customer's business but also maintain it? What does it look like to get to the heart of the matter about your customer's needs?
Cynthia Ficara: In today's episode, we are going to unlock the one secret to not only uncovering your customer's needs but in particular, how this looks in medical device sales.
Anneliese Rhodes: Good morning, Cindy. Good morning to all of our listeners out there. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Secrets in Medical Device Sales brought to you by the Girls of Grit.
Cynthia Ficara: Well, good morning, Lisa, my other girl of grit. I hope you are well today and hello to all of our listeners out there.
We're doing a little shift today. Here we are in medical device sales and we figured today was a perfect day. It's kind of summertime, so why is that important? Sometimes people get a little bit slack in their summertime needs. They think I'll just wait till after vacation.
But you know what? This is the time to be planning for your business, kind of planting some seeds for future business.
So one of the things that Lisa and I talked about is let's just bring all this back to simple sales that make things move with your customers.
So this could be applied in many different ways. You could be just beginning a sale. You could be stuck like I just can't get this person to move past where I am. What am I doing? You know, a lot of these questions come up and ironically, I just feel like summertime is when people just get complacent.
So we decided to kind of take this in a different spin and dive into one secret that we think matters no matter what stage of business you are in sales.
Anneliese Rhodes: Lisa, do you want to reveal our one secret? The one secret today is the sequence of asking the right questions to your customers.
And what we mean by that is, when I think about top reps and I think about those guys and gals that just stand out year after year, day after day, month after month, what are they doing to continually rise above everybody else? And it truly is asking the right questions of their customers in a certain sequence and uncovering their needs, uncovering them, not assuming them, not asking one question and saying, Oh, sure, I know that problem. I can solve it with X, Y, and Z. This product is going to solve all your problems.
No, that is not what they do. They do it in a very specific way in a sequential way that not only uncovers the needs but also builds that level of trust with the customer without them even realizing that's what they're doing because they're giving you more information than they probably realized.
And it's all very helpful when you finally talk back with them about how you're going to help solve them, solve the issues with your problems.
So today we're going to look at what these questions are and the sequence of how they fall. We're going to give specific details or specific examples of what this looks like. Whether I'm just going to pretend Cindy's my doctor, or we're going to talk about certain situations.
It reminds me of when I first started in Peripheral vascular and this is going back a long time, 2005. One of my vascular surgeons was just beginning to discuss with me the ability to open up his OBL and for all of you who don't know what that means, it's an outpatient-based lab. In Florida, we have a ton of them now, but back in the day, there weren't many.
So, we were sitting down discussing my product, but somehow I must have asked without really realizing that I did this. Cindy, I asked him a question and it led to him saying, you know, Lisa, I want to build this lab. This is what I want to do, and I want to have a partnership with all of my peripheral vascular reps.
It dawned on me today when I was thinking about these questions. I somehow uncovered that without realizing it, but what it did was it opened up an opportunity for me to bring my products to his lab and partner with him early on. He stayed loyal to me the entire time, and even with other competitors coming in, I was able to beat them out.
And it wasn't just on price. It was on the partnership that we had started from the beginning. Sometimes you think you know what their problem is and it could be a surface-level problem, but there may be something really deep in there, like wanting to open an outpatient lab and that's really how you win them over and retain that business.
Cynthia Ficara: I think that is such an excellent example because questions aren't just one-and-done. They're not just, I'm just going to ask, this is what they need and then you just, I think things happen afterward, but what you said is a perfect example of when you accidentally maybe uncovered his need, was then able to walk you down his pathway. What's important to him, what will make this work for him?
Then as the salesperson, you get to plug that in. You know, it reminds me of when I worked years ago for a peripheral company as well, and we sold peak lines. So that's just the peripherally inserted central catheters for those who don't know what that is, where you can get IV antibiotics.
So it doesn't burn your veins but long story short, one different thing is instead of just going to a lab or an office to have this implanted, they were building in different hospitals, what they called pick teams.
So then they would have a whole team that would go around and do this bedside for all the patients that took in a lot of different types of teamwork, whether it was admin and hospital being on board, doctors, nurses, procedures, and whatnot. That's another example of the sequence.
Lisa and I thought about this because in sales if anybody Google anything, you're going to find a million things out there, everything from spin selling to this will be 25 books that say it's the best.
So all Lisa and I did was say, we want to make this simple for all of you listeners today and we Googled about the sequence. We just wanted to say who out there has any type of proven simple pathway. So we came across an article called Five Powerful Sales Questions to Ask a Potential Client to Determine Their Needs and it was written by Sales Insight Lab. That's what I was looking for.
Anneliese Rhodes: It was written by a guy named Marc Wayshak, this was back in 2019. So when we found it, what Cindy and I discussed was, boy, these are some great questions. These are questions we ask every day, right? But there's a certain way you do it, and we want to personalize this for you guys with medical devices because, as everybody knows, it's so different in medical devices than in any other selling world. After all, there are so many levels of what you have to understand.
Cynthia Ficara: So without further ado, we're going to dive in. It's just five questions.
The very first question is this. ‘Tell me more about the challenge that you and I discussed earlier and why we are meeting today.’ If you think about that question, you are, whether you're following up, the word challenge can also be problem or issue, something big, and then it's your job in sales to kind of listen because you'll go deeper into this, but it's focusing your conversation with your customer about let's bring it back to the surface.
What is this challenge? What are we trying to discover? I think that makes a big difference. So I'll just use an example, let's say you have a customer that's trying to build a program and so maybe it's a matter of, I could assume all the issues but maybe I can just go right back to my physician.
Maybe this is a physician customer who just says, okay, I know you're trying to build your specialty center, where are we? What is going on with this? Rather than me assuming maybe he already has roadblocks in certain areas, maybe it's an admin budget thing, or maybe it's a certain leader against it because they have their agenda.
But you never know until you ask and I have to ask because I don't want to take a path that's not the path that he's on.
Anneliese Rhodes: That could be as simple as maybe you have a relationship with one of the ladies or the men that he's having issues with getting a product approved, or maybe they need more information on something.
And you happen to know that information and all you have to do is find out what it is and say, well, you know what? I can help with that and it may not even have anything to do with your product, but the whole goal of this is not only just to uncover your customer's needs and to fill that obviously with your product, but to build that relationship while you're doing it.
So the key is to really ask those questions and then fill the holes. Don't just, oh, that stinks, so sorry to hear that. Oh, let me tell you about my product. I mean, that's not going to go very far. One thing that I will say though, before we go on to the next one is. Listen, I know sometimes doctors will say there's nothing wrong.
I love the products I use. I don't need to use your product and that's a tough one, that's a big, tough hurdle to get over. So, I think in that situation, it's really important to talk to them and maybe help them see sometimes some issues because let's face it. No product is perfect, right? Every product has a little pitfall and they just deal with it.
So maybe instead you can say something like, you know, Dr. Smith, thank you so much for meeting with me today. And he tells you, well, I love everything I use, I don't want to use your product ever, Lisa, but thanks for dropping off lunch today.
Tell me more about your practice, tell me more about your patients. Just tell me more so that you can hear for those little times when he says, well, I treat a lot of octogenarians. If you've done your research and you know about octogenarians, you know about the specifics of their disease states, and then from there, you can build.
So I think it's really important that we do talk about, or at least, not brush over the fact that it's not always a given that your doctor is already telling you, hey, I have a problem and I want to meet with you about this problem, sometimes they don't.
Cynthia Ficara: I want to say one more thing. Did you notice it starts with telling me more? Open-ended questions can lead to way more of a discussion than a closed-ended question so you don't want to ask the yes or no questions. You want the tell me more and I think that makes a huge difference
Anneliese Rhodes: Number two, we've already asked them to tell us more about the challenges that you're facing.
Now you're going to ask for a recent example of the problem. So this could look like when you and I ran into each other in the OR, you seemed frazzled and you said, you know, the case had not gone well. Tell me more about what happened there, what were maybe some of the challenges that you faced?
And here you need to start getting emotionally attached to it. I don't mean to start crying but what I mean by that is you need to be able to relate to them. Oh man, that is tough, that is not either. It's not a good case outcome or it's a boy that added an hour to your time.
And you already have such a busy schedule, things like that, where you start to feel that empathy a little bit with them, I think that also helps build that relationship because they're like, you get it. You're not just sitting there going, okay, I got the solution for that. It's no, I'm going to sit back and I'm going to listen to you. Tell me because sometimes they just want to tell you their pain points. I think it's important to feel that.
Cynthia Ficara: What I love about this question. It is such a simple, non-intrusive question that does what a lot of sales programs do, like find the pain point, you know, a very businesslike, but this way that he phrases was an example of this problem, Marnie, because it's not like you don't sound so rehearsed.
I just love this because it brings real joy to them. Learning their pain point, but then also understanding how they feel about this because this is going to take them further down the path. Again, this is about your customer, there's going to be something that maybe they're very passionate about in this situation and then it's how can you help in this situation when you just listen and identify what it is that's driving this.
And how they perceive the example, that's going to make it so much easier for you. I just think this is such a great way to build on the first question of what is your challenge and now give me an example because you're like with them along the way. I just think that's important because you're partnering with them, empathizing, and again, we are talking about all these questions.
We're putting these into a medical device sales situation again and at the end of the day, what are we trying to accomplish? It's something for a patient. There's a patient on the table at the end of the day, and many times when it's brought back to the patient and filling their needs. That's one of the best-driven questions they can get you anywhere.
So let's move on to number three. Number three says, if you could solve this, what would it mean to you in dollars or patient care? So the fun part about this one is that you're really talking about the value of the situation and don't automatically assume, again, move all your assumptions away that maybe the dollars aren't their problem, the dollars aren't what they look at. I wouldn't assume any of that. There are many doctors on committees involved, we have a certain budget. Here's what we're going to do, to value the solution, not to mention if the doctor has a problem, which we identified, he gave you an example.
He is somebody who can go to the committees and present this in a way that the dollars can help fix this problem.
Anneliese Rhodes: I agree with you that it's becoming more and more prevalent in all of our situations where physicians are being brought in, whether they work for the hospital now or they're on the committees for saving money.
I mean, everyone wants to be more profitable and COVID I think hurts a lot of our institutions. So now the hospitals are getting smart, they're realizing that if they bring in the physicians to help them save money and make good sound medical decisions based on patient care, but also in profitability physicians respond to that.
And if they're working for the hospital, sometimes their bonuses are tied to what they are saving the hospital. So even though your product may be one of a kind, you still need to hear that pain point. If that's what it is, maybe the physician is getting pushed back by the nurse manager.
And she's saying, look, you can't bring this product in, it's way too expensive, you've got to work with the company. If you show them that you're willing to work with them, not only will the physicians respect you and be happy that you're helping them, but the hospital will as well.
We're talking about physicians a lot in this call, but there are a lot of customers that we call on that are not physicians, and they have different pain points, but saving money can be a big deal and health care. So I think, it doesn't mean you need to sell it for pennies on the dollar, but it does mean let's not be egregious with our pricing.
Let's not get crazy and charge them for things that are just out worldly. On the flip side, patient care could look like this, Dr. Smith, what does it mean for you and your patients, if you could not only help treat their issues, but maybe even prevent further injury, further disease states, or even a quicker recovery?
So those are things that certain products can do. Those are the questions that you need to ask them. You know, what would this look like if you were able to help that patient recover? This is now an outpatient procedure versus an inpatient procedure, those are things that speak in many terms.
It's a dollars and cents thing, but it's also a patient recovery time thing. It's a referral thing. There are so many layers to this question, but I think it's really important that you uncover this because then you're going to find out what is driving that physician to use the products that they're using.
Cynthia Ficara: So we're going to move on to question number four. Why is this an issue for you right now? Because it's all about the relevance, it's all about the presence, it's the time when you do not always have a great solution for everything at the moment, but here's again, our whole point of this conversation is the sequence.
It's the whole point of understanding the flow and where we're going with these different challenges, but also, sometimes, it might be a sense of urgency. So why is this an issue right now? Let's just say that you happened to discuss in our first 3 questions that maybe they have a certain specialty area and they were building it and they just got word.
Maybe it was an email, maybe it was a meeting at 9 o'clock the night before. Admin needs to cut budgets in certain departments. There's a meeting today, So, this might be on the forefront. Now, granted that may be kind of extreme but it's true. Like there are doctors all day long fighting for patients' lives, doing the best they can do.
And at the same time, they still have admin things coming at them as well. Like, I need these products to help me achieve these goals for this patient. This might be an issue that I'm facing right here and right now, and I need help but you don't know unless you ask.
Anneliese Rhodes: The last question is, how does this affect you personally? I mentioned this a little bit before, but patient referrals are a big deal because that's your physician's business. They want to continue the referral pattern they built, they may be building their referral pattern, or they may be managing the referral pattern. Maybe they're losing patients because other physicians are doing more advanced procedures than they are. Maybe the patients are going to a different area just due to insurance reasons. I mean, we don't know but that could be as simple as fine.
Just figure it out for them. How does it affect them personally? What is important to you? Are you working in a small hospital and you want to bring in something new, a new technology and you want to be the first guy to do it or she wants to be the first woman to do it that may be relevant to them?
So it's really important again to think about how it's going to affect them personally and what brings happiness to them. I think that's a really important last question to ask them.
Cynthia Ficara: I agree, and you know, when you talk about referrals, I mean, you have to think about again, a domino effect in medicine.
It's not just in the hospital, it's not just in the OR, they have a practice, they have an office and it's how are these patients coming in, you know, more volume, more practice. It may be something as simple as my goodness, I'm on call rotation every three weekends and maybe they have young kids and if they could just get, they need a certain number of volume.
So if we could just a little more volume, we can bring in another partner, and that headcount will alleviate another weekend of calls. So then maybe they just do call once a month. I mean, I know that sounds simple, but how does it affect you personally?
If you're on call way more than you need to be, what happens? You get tired, you want to be focused. There are a lot of benefits for something as simple as how this affects you personally because there are so many avenues we can help our customers in medical device sales.
It's such a great world because there are 90 million doors you can open and help them with. We were just so excited to find these five simple and generic questions. This author that we found, it's a very generic way, but thought it was genius in the simplicity of it.
So what I want to just say is I'm going to reread these five questions and then Lisa, I'll let you give a bonus because Mark gave a little bonus. So why not share that as well? So number one, the questions that we talked about were, one, tell me more about the challenge that you and I discussed earlier and why we are meeting today.
Number two, what is an example of this problem or need? Number three, if you could solve this, what would it mean to you in dollars, patient care, et cetera? Number four, why is this an issue for you right now? And number five, how does this affect you personally?
Anneliese Rhodes: I love these questions. These are so great. So the little bonus, he gave two of them. I'm going to do one of them because I like this one, it is to help me understand your situation. Can you unpack that for me? I mean, we hear that a lot in maybe therapy sessions or like in books or something like that. But the truth is, when you say help me understand, or can you unpack that a little bit for me?
What you're asking them to do is go deeper into their needs, into their pain points, into them, and how it's affecting them. I mean, truthfully, it could uncover a lot of what we just ran through in these five simple questions and help you dive deeper into what your customer needs are so that you can attack them on a personal level and build that relationship with the physician because as Cindy mentioned earlier, there are so many things that our physicians are facing today and what we think may be their need may not be their need at all.
It may not have anything at all to do with the actual practicality of the device. It may have something to do with their practice, their late nights, and the fact that they're fighting the hospital for dollars and cents. We don't know until we ask those questions and uncover them and then we can begin to solve their problems.
Cynthia Ficara: So Lisa, we've read these questions, but I'm telling you, you just read the bonus question and I heard so much more. You said, help me understand and unpack that for me instantly. There's no defensiveness, I felt almost like you asking me in an empathetic, supportive way to help them. And you know, you said at the very beginning of this podcast about the doctor that you helped open the OR, you worked with him on opening his OBL.
And that question to help me understand and unpack for me, I hope anybody listening writes this down and you said it so genuinely that I completely just was like, I would have answered anything you said with that. We've spent time talking before about your tone and how you approach, but you know, when you're genuine, you're authentically you, you just are honestly, empathetic.
So I hope that our little sales 5 questions help you stop in these beautiful hot summer months, and take your vacation, but don't take a vacation from your work. And I think it's so important that the way to do that is to focus, get focused, and take the time to apply our one secret today.
So our one secret is all about the sequence of asking the right questions because not only will you attract and gain customers, but you're going to keep them loyal in the long run and you're going to help them.
I'm very excited and I hope all of you will apply these questions this summer and get ready and excited to go out there and partner with your customers.
