Medical Device Sales Excellence: Key Skills, Competencies & Training

STUDY OVERVIEW

To meet the challenges posed by a changing marketplace, medical device sales groups are shifting to a sales approach that centers around demonstrating value to different customer types.

Best Practices, LLC undertook benchmarking research to help medical device companies improve field sales performance through the use of a “value selling” approach. In particular, this study benchmarks the training approaches and key skill sets needed for field sales representatives to succeed in selling valuable solutions across complex medical device product portfolios.

Sales leaders can use this study to understand how leading medical device and diagnostic companies hire, educate and train their sales representatives to maximize field call effectiveness and meet customer needs.

This study contains two segments: Large companies and small to mid-sized companies; single-product sales forces vs. value-selling sales forces

KEY TOPICS

• Key Skills & Competencies
• Effective Cross-Portfolio Messaging
• Stumbling Blocks

• Training Areas & Tactics
• Training Timelines & Vendors

KEY METRICS

• What are the top 3 success factors for medical device sales success in today's healthcare market?
• Please rate which skills and competencies are most conducive to success for sales reps promoting multiple product lines or engaged in solutions selling to key accounts
• What are the best practices for training employees to move from a single-product mindset to solution/multi-product selling?
• Please estimate the percentage of total training time dedicated to the listed key competencies on an annual basis for both new hires and existing hires
• How many days of home office training and development do staff receive on average per year from training department?
• Approximately how long do you typically give a field sales representative to show improvement in solution/multi-product selling skills before they are brought in for re-training or outplaced?
• What is your average annual turnover rate within the field sales organization?
• How effective are listed KPIs in measuring the success of individual field sales representatives?

SAMPLE KEY FINDINGS

• New rep training should be heavily focused on product knowledge, and be reinforced by ongoing mentorships: Surveyed companies devote nearly half of all training time (48%) for new hires to technical product knowledge and education. The topic mix for ongoing training of existing staff already well-versed in the product line flattens out somewhat: product knowledge still comprises 28% of training, but greater attention is paid to competitor offerings, clinical knowledge, and customer information.

METHODOLOGY

Best Practices, LLC engaged 24 leaders from 20 medical device companies through a benchmarking survey. Almost half of participants work at the director level or above. Qualitative insights were also captured from 6 field interviews with sales executives.

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