If you watched part 1, you know how to acknowledge the objection, and question the objection to see if its real or the whole objection. Your next steps will answer the objection and verify that your prospect is satisfied with your response.
Objections make some medical sales professionals uncomfortable. Why? Because they view their healthcare customers as experts (which they are, at least in their field — hopefully!) and don’t feel comfortable challenging the opinions of experts. My advice — DON’T. Instead, learn how to explore your prospect or customer’s feelings and use that information to steer your sales approach.
This video is part one of handling objections. If you have any questions or comments — please submit a comment in the box below, or click on the comment link to see the box.
If you have never worked full-time as a medical sales rep, I guarantee you there is much you don’t know. It’s hard trying to communicate that to some medical sales candidates, however. Every now and then, I get an email or a phone call from some hopeful, telling me that he or she just wants to get hired — don’t try to motivate me or teach me how to sell. Gosh, it’s one of the most challenging sales jobs in the world — why would you want to be motivated or better at selling (if you’re even any good at it to start with!).
I understand that there are many “cocky” types that are attracted to this vocation and some of them seem to think that they know it all. These poor souls don’t know what they don’t know. Their competition will be waiting for them to enter the territory and will take great pleasure when these know-it-alls screw-up…and they will screw-up. The medical sales environment is a very unforgiving one. Medical professionals guard their time jealously and have little regard or patience for sales people who present anything less than real value for the professional and their patients. While this seems like a simple concept, I assure you it’s not at all intuitive as demonstrated by the throngs of poor-performing sales people in the industry.
What could make a difference? Taking advantage of any and all of the resources that are available to you. If you shy away from solutions such as training courses to advance your career because they are too expensive — you won’t make it. Medical sales requires that you continually invest in yourself and your business. Trust me, the successful competitors you will be facing are doing this and you are not going to unseat the loyal relationships they have developed with just your cocky confidence. Knowledge is power, and if you are new to this game, you have very little of either.
The learning requirements for the medical sales professional are in many ways as demanding as the learning requirements for physicians and other medical professionals. Even if you have not been hired, you need to start learning now. Learn how to sell like a true medical professional. And if you think you won’t need motivation when you are rejected by the tenth customer that day because he or she needs to stick with the product that is on contract (and yours is not!), we’ll see how long you last without motivation!
Look at it this way — it’s good that there are people getting into medical sales that don’t have good selling skills or knowledge — as long as they are your competition and you’re not one of them. But if you’re new to medical selling, odds are that you’ve got much to learn. You can do it the hard way, or the easier way (it’s never easy — get used to it).
Take a real assessment of your skills before your customers and managers do. Believe me, they won’t be as kind!
